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.”
###

SING FOR ME

by TERESA ANN FRAZEE


Late, when shadowy figures fill the black entangled city streets, Jason staggered up the subway steps and started walking. After a long gig as the lead rock singer in a bar band, that went nowhere, Jason, a man in his late twenties, donned in distinctive teen heartthrob attire, was left frustrated and exhausted. Jason arrived home. He moved his guitar, that was slung across his back from side to side and whispered to himself,

“I’m too old for this nonsense,”then flicked a cigarette to the sidewalk and crushed it under his boot. He could still hear his band-mate, Arnie’s pounding drum beat, echo in his ears, while he slipped the key in, to unlock his studio apartment door. Nearly in the entrance, he heard humming and, like a mirage in heat, could vaguely see a young woman from the back, sitting on the sofa, combing her long blonde hair. Her majestic hum pleased his wounded ears.

“Hey, who the hell are you?” Jason nervously asked, as he stood frozen. He reluctantly moved closer. Her aroma devoured his senses. She had a scent synchronous with the ocean. The woman wore a gauzy flowing dress that hardly covered her lithe body. Her bare feet were wading in a puddle of water.

“You know Jason, there is an addictive usefulness to coddling illusion and pretending contentment for centuries.” she said.

“What?”Jason interrupted, as he thought how heart achingly beautiful she was. There was utterly no turning away. How unrealistic it was to believe he was even capable. Seeing her was like looking directly into the burning sun until the all consuming heat, stripped his flesh to flakes, reducing his bones to smoldering ash. It felt as if all that mercilessly remained of him, was a heart engulfed in a wild flame. Pure lust consumed his thoughts. His raw instinct was to to ravish her right there. Despite his own slated code of morals, he reminded himself to be cool.

He barley recovered from the sight of her, when she began to speak again,“The distraction offers a soothing numbness.” She continued, her hair laced with euphoric moonlight, “It was an unintelligible, almost asleep sensation of dismissing time.” “I don’t understand. Do I know you?”

The woman heaved a slow sigh, momentarily closed her emerald green eyes, that were rimmed with long glossy black lashes. As her recollections came alive, she said, “I was ensnared in a web of neglect. Grinding out the years, forgotten, I faded in the odyssey of a ghostly mist. Diminished, to a mere chirp, my enticing song was hushed in compromise. I thought perhaps tomorrow I would drag my vengeance to the foot of fruition.”

“I’m not getting any of this,” Jason said. He leaned his guitar against the wall and folded his do-it yourself tattooed arms across his chest. As she stopped combing her hair, she did not blink, never averting her eyes from Jason’s. Her thoughts were presently elsewhere. “How I ruffled my feathers, day after countless days. It was the constant practice of postponement. Improvising a haunting version of myself, my ancient tongue spewed aspirations in randomness. All those possibilities spinning into a sphere of symphony. With euphonic powers, I claimed the winds and the waves of the sea. The salty air still clings to my skin.”

Jason lowered his head and laughed nervously, as if she had said something funny. He swung back a stray wavy black lock from his chiseled features,

“Who are you?” His voice raising a little. “I answer to the name Parthenope. I am the last of my kind.”

“What does that mean?” Jason asked, “How did you get in here anyway?” “The question is how do you get out? There is no escaping me. It is like watching a basically already dead fly, hanging on to hope, battering against the inside window pane,” she muttered under her breath.

“Wait, what’s this now?”

His brow furrowed. A thin film of sweat gleamed over throbbing veins protruding from Jason’s skin, even though the apartment had the crisp coolness of late Autumn. Parthenope intended to dominate the conversation and glared bitterly at Jason from the corner of her eye. “I was caught in a metamorphosis. I have awoken from my drowsy solitude. In this monstrous role I am cast. A so called mythical creature, no longer in useless rest. My insulted sisters and I were disposed refugees waiting for the humiliation to end.”

“What are you a groupie or something? I know Arnie, my drummer put you up to this. This is so Arnie. Damn him, he let you in. That’s it, isn’t it? I’m calling him now.” Jason reached for his cell phone in his pocket. Parthenope snapped back, “Do what you must. I can not pretend to know your ways but you will listen!” She picked up a bar of beeswax that was on the coffee table near where she sat and hurled it directly at Jason’s head, missing him as he ducked.

“Hey lady, that’s my guitar polish, you almost clobbered me!”

“Now sit down! I have waited in exile long enough!” Eerily, there was an echo to her voice when she commanded Jason to sit down. He obeyed, as if spellbound, put his cell phone back in his pocket and sat down in a chair directly across from Parthenope.

“We were timeless wanders pooling near an ocean ridge, stir-less in our degraded forms, left to whirl into sea breezes that pass.”

“I don’t know what I have to do with all this. Listen Party or however you pronounce your name. You’re in the wrong house I tell you,” Jason insisted, while he put a thumb in the front belt loop of his tight faded jeans.

“Oh no Jason, I am most definitely not,” Parthenope said through clenched teeth. ”You believe you are thrust into the gods care. How pathetic. Do you dare deny the pang in me? With one ghastly embrace and a frothy aqueous kiss, it will be your demise. Your innocent breath will be smothered by my powerful charm. Go on dismiss my needs. Do not undermine my potency!”

“Are you threatening me?” Jason cleared his throat, his heart pounding in his chest.

“Yes!” Parthenope, reminded once again of what was, began to speak slowly, her voice veiled in resentment. “We were tricked. Only one mortal has made a clever escape from our bewitching song. On that faithful day, defeated, we paid a dear price. You are a direct descendant of Odysseus, the cunning one, who got away. So you see Jason, I am in the right house. I came to get what is due for myself and my sisters.” “Hey come on, you’re kidding me right? I mean, for crying-out loud, are you, saying you’re a Siren?”

“It must taste of madness, but yes believe what you have heard Jason, you have much to comprehend. Oh how I want to feel anything other than resentment.” Parthenope exhaled heavily, which made her sheer dress flutter a little, as if there was a breeze, even though there were no open windows in the apartment. Jason was enslaved by an uncontrollable slow motion pace. Logic was nowhere in sight. Reason was the sacrifice of the possessed.

“If that is true and I’m not saying it is, according to the ancient story didn’t you drown yourself?”

“Clearly, I did not perish as prophesied.”

There was a long pause, then Parthenope continued.

”So at what cost should I be satisfied by the illusion, where disharmony permeates in the bone? Jason, we are not so different with our repressed desires.” “Hum, you know about my repressed desires, do you?” Nothing now was remotely business as usual for Jason. If he was forced to grapple with his newfound problem, who sat directly across from him in his own apartment, it wouldn’t be then. He was worn out. “OK, we can’t figure all this out tonight. You want something to eat?”

Parthenope nodded, yes. Jason went to the kitchen to see what he had to offer Parthenope. Not much at all was available. It was the standard bachelor cupboard, filled with half eaten, late night saltysnacks instead of nutritious foods. He handed her hard crackers and some debatable fresh cheese. Parthenope wolfed every last morsel down. Emotionally and physically drained, finally, their bodies gave way to sleep. “I don’t want you to sleep on the couch and I don’t want to give up my bed, just so you know, I sleep in the nude, no strings attached Party, you’ll stay with me in my bed. I think that’s best. That is, if you don’t murder me in my sleep. May God help me.” They slept the sweet sleep of tranquility, of gladness of the heart, for they would know love. Morning came. Jason was still alive. He breathed a sigh of relief, while he opened his arms to stretch. It was strange, how Jason had a feeling, his entire life, about someone different he would meet, something he could never explain how or when. Jason was sure Parthenope knew his thoughts, nevertheless, wanted to tell her of how not even in a span of twenty four hours, he already had instantly fallen in love with her.

​“Where did she go?” he asked himself, when Parthenope was not still in his bed. Perhaps it was all a weird dream. Yet, he could smell the ocean on her pillow. The shower was running and there was singing. The sound, a merge between human and the cry of a sea bird, instantly intoxicated him, like a drink of warm wine on an empty stomach. Jason was too weak to withstand the magnetic pull. It seemed that a divine intrusion had inherited the steamy room. Jason, with no willpower left, was drawn to the summoning sound with a hypnotic melody. He opened the shower door and walked in. Jason’s warm body came up against Parthenope’s back and he spun her around. Like an old habit she tensed her body for flight. She looked up at him with those piercing emerald green eyes and hissed. Jason wasn’t afraid. The impulse to caress her was too irresistible to deny. He would risk dying for it. Jason rapped his tatooed arms around her waist and pulled her wet body against his. She shivered at his touch. Jason cupped Parthenope’s face in his hands and their lips met. Their first kiss was moist and salty but thankfully not deadly, as Parthenope previously threatened. Jason’s hands adoringly traced along the contours of her sultry frame, starting with her hips. Her smooth skin tingled. His hands craved more. Parthenope was starved for human touch. Her hiss quickly turned into a moan. Her untamed hands held Jason tight. She licked his eyelids, then his lips and worked her way down Jason’s stomach. Parthenope’s erotic energy seemed not of this world. She reacquainted herself with promises of love and romance. She started to feel something other than resentment. They braced their bodies up against the slick tile. And in the sublime passion of their communion, Jason and Parthenope solidified their love. Jason, forgetting life before her, whispered in her ear, “Your ways Party, are beautifully strange.” There was a readiness to believe in the possibilities of the unknown. Jason felt, enough reminiscing about the negativeness of the past. Now is the time to create new memories. From that day forward, they shared their life together. As time passed, Jason and Parthenope’s intensely passionate love for each other never wavered. Blurring the lines, with a complicated mixture, weaving myth and stark reality, a solid bond blossomed. Seeing them together now, it is difficult to believe their initial encounter was filled with such hostility. Since then their relationship has been shrouded with harmonium. Forgiveness and love transcended disdain. They found a common ground, singing. Parthenope was now the new lead singer in Jason’s revamped band, named Party Girl. Jason gladly said goodbye to the life he had known and like an overnight success, signed a record deal. The band showcasing Pathenope’s voice, listed as the greatest voice ever heard, was so popular, their concerts drew audiences that filled sold out stadiums. The band had the highest grossing tours in history. Jason had always thought time was running out. If time is the luxury of youth, then like a teenager, Jason and Parthenope had all the time in the world. Jason and Parthenope gained fame and fortune. They moved out of Jason’s one room apartment. They had to because of neighbors and fans loitering outside their front door. They moved into a secluded lavish mansion, they had custom built, with an aviary and a fully operational recording studio, overlooking the ocean. It is there, in their bedroom, alone together, during the quiet hours of the night, after the concert, Jason sits on the edge of their bed and says, “Party please, one more song before I sleep, sing for me."

Firstling
By
Gerald Arthur Winter


May was three years older than her sister June. Their mother, April, had just turned
eighty with an elaborate celebration hosted by May at her National Historic Landmark home.
Forty years ago when his two daughters were teenagers, the sisters’ father, Nigel, had called
the distaff side of his family his “Calendar Girls.” Coming home from his Wall Street brokerage
firm he often greeted his family by singing Neil Sedaka’s popular hit: “I love, I love, I love my
calendar girls!”
Though their father had died of a heart attack twenty years ago, Helen Mirren had
come out in the British comedy, Calendar Girls, a year later. Knowing how Nigel would
have had a howl over the film, the three women had quite a titter in their British fashion
over that risqué film. Their mom, April, was born in London, as were her girls. However,
Mum and firstling, May, became naturalized American citizens, while June held on to her
resident alien status, maintaining her British citizenship.
“Why so stubborn?” May scolded her younger sister. “Sometimes Mum and I don’t
know what to think of you, Junie.”
“Don’t call me, Junie! It’s belittling. Though you don’t know what to think of me,
Mum is fine with anything I choose to do. You’ve done this all our lives. For bloody sake,
stop it!”
“Baby sis is having a hissy fit. No wonder Clive divorced you. You always insist on
having your own way, even when it makes no sense, like remaining loyal to the crown.”
“Calderon calling the kettle black as usual,” June huffed. “Open another handle
of Chablis. That’s your fourth glass of wine since dinner. You won’t even remember this
conversation tomorrow.”
“I’ll remember everything, clear-minded enough to remember your disrespect for
your elder.”
“I’ll respect you when you earn it, Maisy.”
“Don’t call me that! Such insolence merely shows your insecurity.”
“My insecurity?” June laughed, lighting a cigarette. “Your best defense has always
been your offensive, with your high and mighty attitude. You truly believe you’re better
than anyone else. That’s why your marriage went kaput.”
“No smoking in my home! Outside with you! Ugh! Your disgusting habit reveals
your utter ignorance.”
“It wreaked in here already, Queen May. Bub-bye.”
“Passive aggression. That’s your MO, Junie. It drove Henry to another woman.”
“He drove himself to a chippie at the local bar. His Vietnam PTSD. Not my problem.”
June shrugged, wrapping a sweater around her slumped shoulders and slamming
the door to the front porch. It was in the 30s on Thanksgiving weekend, always a time to
air family grievances since their father died.
April came out of the bathroom off the kitchen where she’d listened to her
daughters quarrel as they had for the past two decades, ever since her dear Nigel died.
How she missed his stabilizing influence over the girls, both divorced and childless in
their sixties. She was thankful their wombs had carried no offspring. Left with such a
bleak legacy of family displeasure with one another would be a horrid environment for
a child.
April feared her dreadful daughters were bound for a lonely future accompanied
by felines purring in their laps. Each night, they’d both snore in cadence to the eleven
o’clock news, having nodded off with a white wine buzz that would distort the alternative
truths of their last argument.
Since losing their beloved head of household, the three women lived together in
May’s landmark home. It was quite the score against the life insurance company for May,
Nigel’s firstling who’d been left all of her father’s money to care for little sis and dear
Mum.
Nigel had been so wise to see who was the strongest of their lot. May was the
smartest. Or so she had convinced her father by the time she’d learned to drive his
Jaguar at seventeen. June had little interest in fancy cars or money, a thorn in Daddy’s
side as a financial mogul. And thus, his ten-million-dollar life insurance benefit went
entirely tax-free to May. His firstling was expected to look after Mum’s and June’s
best interests after his untimely passing.
May had bought the all-but-condemned mansion for five million dollars and
used her expertise as an estate liquidator to manipulate a variety of faithful contacts to
reconstruct the vermin-infested, crumbling colonial mansion. Twenty years since her
purchase, and long after her early divorce, May’s home was currently appraised at
twelve million. Having continued to earn a handsome living in her profession and
leaving her another five-million-dollar life insurance benefit invested with her
father’s financial brokerage, her principal had conservatively doubled over the past
twenty years.
“You shouldn’t be bossing June around the way you do. She’s your sister,”
Mum advised.
“Why shouldn’t I, Mummy,” May grumbled after June had left the dinner table
in a huff to have a cigarette on the porch.
“Dear May,” Mum sighed. “You just can’t help yourself, can you? Without
Daddy to harness your ambition, what am I to do with you?”
“What do you mean? Junie has no clue how to behave in life. Why can’t
she learn to take care of herself as I have? What a burden for me.”
“Of course you’re wonderful and caring, but you don’t truly want June to be
independent like you.”
“Of course I do, Mummy. I’m tired of cleaning up her mess.”
“For the moment, perhaps, but you thrive on being her keeper. You’d be lost
without a stray cat to bring in from the cold. That’s all your sister has become to you.”
“I won’t be blamed for her slovenly behavior and poor choice in men.”
“Your father spoiled you both in that regard. You’ll never find a man like
Daddy. My Nigel was special, but I fear he’s done what he’s always advised his
clients never to do.”
“Pray tell. What’s that, Mum?”
“He’s passed on his wealth rather than his wisdom—or his kindness.”
“I was smart enough to use half of what he left me to buy this house, turn it
into a fortune and keep a roof over all our heads with our coffers filled to the brim.”
“And how grateful we are that you have, dear, but . . .”
“But what, Mum?”
“You’re not grateful, not even for your success with money.”
“I have no one to thank but myself for that. Really, Mum, this discussion is
over.”
May began to clear the table.
“Why don’t you put on a sweater and go out and talk to June. Meet her
halfway for once.”
“Haven’t I already extended myself to her beyond reason?”
“If you won’t do it for me, please do it for Daddy’s sake.”
April was no slouch at pushing people’s buttons, as she had to be to keep
the peace between her daughters by leveraging one against the other if tempers
became too hot for her own good taste and breeding.
May looked as if an arrow had pierced her heart, a rare occurrence.
“OK. For Daddy . . . and for you, Mummy.”
She grabbed a sweater off a hook by the porch doors and swung it around her
shoulders as if she were suiting up for battle. She closed the door behind her and
approached June at the far end of the porch.
Like a schoolgirl caught smoking in the girls’ room June quickly ditched her
cigarette.
“I need to talk to you about something very serious,” June asserted, making
May step back.
“You? Serious?”
“If Mummy were dying, and the doctors told us she had as little as a month
to live, do you think we should tell her, or let her go on thinking she’s fine till we
have no other choice?”
“What?” May folded her arms and stepped closer.
“I’ve always been one for the truth, no matter how it hurts,” June said with a
shrug, and like a dragon’s challenge, her warm breath was a cloud of vapor tainted
with nicotine.
“My God, June! What are you saying? Is it true?” May grabbed June’s shoulders
ready to shake her. “You took her to the doctor last week for her annual checkup because
I was too busy with a six-figure liquidation in Tenafly.”
“Tenafly, Ridgewood, Alpine—name dropper of the rich and famous. This is
about death, May. Not goddamn money!”
“Jesus, Junie! Is Mummy dying?”
“We all are, eventually.”
“Is she going to die in a month?”
“Not likely, but shouldn’t we think ahead? What if Mum had a brain tumor and
the doctor’s said there was nothing they could do. Should we tell her?”
May paced in a circle, shoulders bent, arms folded, her heels tapping across the
wooden porch.
“No! We mustn’t tell her. Absolutely not! We’d need to keep her looking forward
and happy.”
“Why?”
“They say a happy outlook can sometimes put cancer patients in remission, give
them more time. Promise me you agree, Junie.”
June shrugged.
“If Mum has little time to live, we must never let on,” May asserted. “We must
pretend she has all the time in the world to do anything she wishes. I have enough
money to take Mummy anywhere she wants to go, do anything she wants to do. I’ll
take her to places she’s only dreamed about.”
“Can I come, too?” June challenged.
“Agh! Always thinking of yourself, Junie. I guess you could come along.
The three of us off to parts unknown. Mummy would like that.”
“So would Daddy.”
“Finally, we can all agree on something, Junie.”
“No. My vote is to tell the truth. Lying always comes back to bite you.”
“But Mum is OK, June. Right? Just a hypothetical for when and if it happens.”
“Mum’s fine. Might outlive us both. Good chance to reach one hundred. That’s
what Dr. Thorne said last week.”
“Ah! I’m so relieved.”
“But May, why should we wait till something goes wrong with Mummy. She’s
well enough to travel by air or sea. Why not plan a vacation for the three of us. You
pick the place and I’ll make all the reservations.”
May gave June a curious glance, knowing her younger sister was a conniver.
That’s why Daddy had made her sole Executrix and Trustee of his estate. He knew June
and Mum would be in the best hands with May to take care of them properly. But the
twinkle in June’s eye made May give in to her better angels. She hugged June, then
they returned to Mum inside.
“I really wish you’d quit your godawful smoking, Junie,” May said. “Promise me
you’ll try.”
June shrugged and gave Mum a look of resignation.
May grabbed her coat and car keys.
“I nearly forgot. I’ve got an appointment in Park Ridge to discuss a liquidation in
two weeks. June’s got some good news for you, Mum. We’ll talk more about it tonight.”
June and Mum waved to May through the bay window as she backed her SUV
down the driveway. They waited until her car was out of sight because, recently, May
had been forgetful and might have left something behind needed for her sales pitch to
a new client. At first, Mum and June had blamed it on May’s excessive wine intake.
“She’s in such good spirits, June. Did you tell her?” Mum asked.
“No, Mum. She doesn’t want to know, but maybe she’s right about her choice.
A trip to Italy for the three of us might buy her more time, and we’ll do our best to make
her happy until we have absolutely no other choice but to tell her she’s dying."

**

Celine Rose Mariotti

has a new ghost story out, one that will really make you believe in ghosts and the hereafter. George Bowman, a country singer and banjo player, had passed away after being very sick. His wife Melinda was left alone. But only a couple of months after George’s passing, Melinda heard the banjo playing and there in the loft was George playing his banjo. This was the beginning of many appearances by George and each time he appeared he asked Melinda for a favor. She was sent on a quest to look through his papers for insurance policies, contracts with his record company, lyrics to his songs, and many other things he asked her to look for. Melinda together with her best friend Rose are on a journey to discover secrets about George’s life. The story has a very surprising ending!

Price of book_________ $12.95

CT Residents only-sales tax-6.35%=.82cents. Total with tax=$13.7

US Postage-$4.00. UK-$26.00; Australia and New Zealand-$37.10; Canada-$22.00
​
If you wish to order, contact Celine at [email protected].***

***

The Silhouette

There was a painting of Lucille in the living room. Lucille, Maxine’s Great-Great Aunt. Lucille’s hair was in a coiffed bun, a cameo brooch on the neck of her light pink dress, deep blue eyes that seemed as though they were watching you. She overlooked the living room and cast a spell even from the other world.

Maxine stared at the painting of her Great-Great-Aunt Lucille. She had heard many stories about her Great-Great Aunt Lucille. Some said she was a mysterious lady. Some said Lucille was just totally insane. Maxine decided she would find out for herself what the truth really was. How she would do this she wasn’t yet sure, but she believed in the power of being able to get in touch with those who have passed before us.

Maxine knew there was some way she could go back into time and discover the truth about her Great-Great Aunt Lucille. The painting of Lucille stared back at Maxine. It was as though Lucille wanted to come out of the painting and reach out to Maxine. Maxine sat at the piano and played one of Beethoven’s Symphonies. The sad notes helped her to let her thoughts drift to other worlds where she might soon be able to travel to. Some might say that Maxine too was quite out of her mind.

Maxine possessed a gift of being able to see beyond the realm of the present world and deep into the past where no one else could go to. Once when she was only thirteen, Maxine found herself living back in the 1930’s and no one believed her except for her cousin, Simone, who also had the same gift. Some say that their Great-Great Aunt Lucille possessed this very same gift.

Maxine’s slender fingers played the next symphony. She was drifting into another world, one where there were no televisions, no radios, no VCR’s, no computers, no fax machines. She felt her mind contacting a wavelength from some other time and place.

Something in her mind told her to go to the mirror and she got up as though in a daze and headed straight for the mirror in the hallway where she saw the reflection of a face, not her face though, this was her Great-Great Aunt Lucille, and she was beckoning for Maxine to follow her. Before Maxine realized it, she had passed into another century, she was now in 1884, in the parlor of her Great-Great Aunt Lucille’s home in the quaint town of Alden, Massachusetts.

She saw a beautiful room, with an oak table in the center, a sofa draped with a laced doily, and a piano in the corner of the room. Maxine sat at the piano and began to play “Strangers in the Night”, when she saw her Great-Great Aunt Lucille enter the room. Maxine was frozen. How did one talk to someone in the 1880’s? What was their vernacular? But she didn’t need to worry, as it seemed her Aunt Lucille was expecting her from the other world.

“Do not tell me your name, child, for I know it. You are Maxine, and you are a descendant of mine, long into the future. Am I not right my child?”

‘Yeah, you are. And you’re Aunt Lucille?”

“Aye, I am the one who everyone says is a little bit on the crazy side. They know not why I am the way I am. But I have a special gift and you have it too, I see. You can see into another world, a time that has passed before you, just like I can. We are kindred spirits. Come sit here, and Lily will bring us some tea.”

“Thank you, Aunt Lucille.”

“My friend Agnes will be here to join us for tea.”

“You’re expecting her?”

“Yes, you see Agnes and I communicate with our minds, and she instinctively knows when to come as I know when to go see her. We use our minds to convey our thoughts to one another.”

“Aunt Lucille! How dynamic! You live in the 1880’s and you speak of the psychic phenomenon that we speak of in 2022. People are into learning how to use their minds. Some people are into ESP, Extra Sensory Perception, where you can see the future, some people study dreams and their meanings, and other people try to move objects with the power of their mind. There is a man named Uri Geller, an Israeli-British magician who has telekinetic powers and can bend spoons with his mind and make the clock on the wall move with his mind. He was on television shows in the 1970’s-shows like Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin. He became very well-known. He was claimed to have paranormal powers,” said Maxine.

“I saw this Uri Geller in a vision of mine. I tend to go in and out of the past and the future,” said Lucille.

“Some thought him to be a fraud. But he became a performer of magic, bending spoons with his mind, making a watch stop telling time and a host of other abilities he claimed to have,” explained Maxine.

“There was a psychic in the 1800’s named Marie-Ann Lenomand and she was a famous card reader. Even Napoleon consulted her. She wrote her own memoir,” said Aunt Lucille.

“There was a science fiction, techno-thriller author named Michael Crichton who held spoon bending parties and spoke to the dead and believed in extraterrestrials. So, you are in good company, Aunt Lucille.”

“Yes, I am in good company, as you say so emphatically,” stated Aunt Lucille.
“Your powers I have inherited,” said Maxine.”

“People around here think I am off my head. They told my family I should be in a hospital! I think they should be the ones to be sent off to some mental hospital. They do not understand what I speak of. They are totally ignorant. But I am impressed to hear about this Uri Geller and this Michael Crichton.”

“In my world, man has gone to the Moon, he has traveled in space. And will travel to Mars in a few years,” said Maxine.

“Space travel! How magnificent the future world is. I would have loved to live in your world. Ah, here is Agnes. Sit down Agnes. Tea is being served. Ah, yes here is Lily with our tea.”

“We were just discussing how we convey our thoughts with our minds and Maxine told me that in her modern times, people move objects with their minds much like you and I have mastered Agnes.”

“You are Lucille’s great-great niece, yes?” asked Agnes as she sipped her tea.

“Terrific! You knew that through your mind! This is so unbelievable. Sometimes I know exactly what my cousin Simone is thinking without her telling me anything. I know right now that Lucille dislikes my father,” stated Maxine.

“This is true. He like most of the family consider me a crazy person. You knew what I was going to say because you have the gift, Maxine. Not many in the family have the gift. Those that don’t think you and I are insane.”

“Precisely Lucille,” said Agnes contemplating which object she was going to move with her mind. She settled on her teaspoon and slowly as she concentrated on it, it began to rise in the air. Maxine was in awe, and she decided to give it a try. Maxine concentrated hard on her own teaspoon and let all other thoughts be set aside. At first it felt like she might strain herself, but then she saw the teaspoon begin to slowly rise.

Lucille now displayed her talent for making objects move with her mind. She concentrated on the sugar bowl, and she seemed almost hypnotic, but the sugar bowl began to rise in the air, and it came directly towards her, and she grabbed it with her two hands. Maxine was in awe again of her Great-Great Aunt.

There was so much she would have to share with her cousin Simone. Suddenly Maxine felt an energy pulling her towards the hallway where she looked into the mirror and saw Simone calling to her. Maxine evaporated inside the mirror and returned to the year of 2022 and her cousin Simone sitting in the parlor playing one of Chopin’s Preludes when she called out to Maxine, “How was our Great-Great Aunt Lucille?”

“You knew where I was Simone! Yes of course you have the gift just like our Great-Great Aunt Lucille. There I was playing the piano just like you are now, and something beckoned to me, and I went to the mirror in the hallway, and I saw the reflection of Lucille in the mirror and before I knew it, I was back in 1884 visiting with our Great-Great Aunt Lucille. She was an amazing woman.

Truly ahead of her time so no wonder they thought she was crazy, but she wasn’t at all. She knew how to communicate with her mind, how to move objects with her mind. I learned to do it too. Here, see the picture frame on the piano. Now I just have to look at
it and really concentrate very hard with my mind, and ah, see it is moving across the piano.”

“Truly amazing Maxine. I think she is going to summon you back one more time to see her. And when she does, I want to come along to meet her.”

“Certainly Simone.” Simone continued to play yet another Chopin Prelude, while Maxine went upstairs to search for information on the paranormal on the Internet. That night when she fell asleep, she had the most unusual dream. In the dream, she was spinning round and round, and when she stopped, she was in the parlor of her Great- Great Aunt Lucille and there was a party going on. Maxine saw the face of a man who seemed to look familiar to her, but when she came close to him, she realized he had no face! That was when the dream ended, and Maxine woke up, her nightgown wet with perspiration, and her heart pounding hard in her chest.

She got dressed and went downstairs to play her piano. As she played the notes to “Some Enchanted Evening”, she felt the same energy pulling her towards the mirror in the hallway. Simone had heard her playing the piano and appeared in the living room, her long brown hair cascading all around her, her big eyes wide with fear. Simone had had an unusual dream. Simone had dreamed she too was back in time with her Great-Great Aunt Lucille and in her dream, there was also a party going on, and she was playing the piano, till suddenly there was fire everywhere and she couldn’t find Maxine. She woke up, frightened, her heart pounding fast and hard in her chest.

She did what she knew would make her feel better-come down and play the piano, but she found Maxine already downstairs and at the piano playing. They were truly kindred spirits in almost every way.

“Did you have a dream of Aunt Lucille and a party going on?” asked Maxine.

“Yes, I did and there was a fire in mine,” replied Simone.

“There was a man with no face in mine,” said Maxine almost eerily. Then she once again looked towards the mirror in the hallway. The energy was pulling her once again and Simone followed her. They both saw the reflection of Aunt Lucille in the mirror as the force pulled them in and took them back to the 1880’s and their Great-Great Aunt Lucille.

They heard the sounds of music and laughter coming from the parlor in Aunt Lucille’s home. Their nightgowns had been transformed into long dresses and they had saddle shoes on their feet and jewelry on their neck and wrists. A trio was playing-one person on the piano; one fingering the guitar, and one fiddling the violin-the melody was unknown to both Maxine and Simone as they walked around and tried to talk with the other guests at the party. Their Aunt Lucille and her friend Agnes were expecting them. Lucille hurried over to them both, and she handed Maxine a letter, with a wax seal on it.

“This is for you to take back to your century and to let the rest of the family know that I was clearly not insane,” said Lucille softly but emphatically.

“May I read the note?” asked Maxine.

“No, not now. Give it to your father to read. He will know when he sees my handwriting and my seal, that it is I who wrote it,” said Lucille.

“You truly are amazing, Aunt Lucille,” observed Simone, admiring her Great-Great Aunt Lucille. Aunt Lucille also observed her and stared at the pendant around Simone’s neck.

“This is a most unusual pendant, Simone. Where did you get it?”

“In a shop in New Orleans. It is supposed to bring me luck. But it’s truly unbelievable how I ended up with this around my neck. We had our nightgowns on and we were pulled to the mirror to come see you. And now here we are dressed in 19th century clothing and yet I have my pendant on,” said Simone.
“It’s your gift Simone. It makes the most unusual things happen. I too was once in New Orleans. A very exotic city, strange too, but quite lovely.”
“You play the piano Aunt Lucille?” asked Simone.
“Yes, I do especially when my mind is cluttered with the future, the present and the past.”
“Hmm, my mind is often cluttered with the same thing,” said Simone.
“We both dreamed we were at a party in your house and here we are,” said Maxine in awe.
“I summoned you through your dreams,” said Lucille.
“How amazing!” exclaimed Maxine.
“I was once summoned by my dying friend through a dream,” said Simone.
“And what happened?” asked Aunt Lucille.
“I dreamed of her, and she was already dead in the dream and telling me what the other world was like, and when I woke up, I realized I had to go see her and so I did. And I drove all the way to Boston to the hospital where she was as she was expecting me. It was the last time I saw her before she died,” said Simone sadly.

“I summoned you both in your dreams as I needed to have you travel back in time so I could deliver this letter and so I could also pass on my talents and knowledge to you. I want you to be able to know how to communicate with your minds as this will be a powerful tool in the century you live in,” said Aunt Lucille in an instructive voice. And so, Maxine and her cousin Simone followed their Great-Great Aunt Lucille to the sitting room on the other side of the house.

A painting on the wall caught their attention. It was a fellow in a powdered wig who looked so much like their grandfather-his face that is,
not the clothing or the powdered wig.
“Who is that man?” questioned Simone.
Aunt Lucille smiled an impish grin on her face.
“My grandfather and your grandfather, dears. One in the same. Come, time is wasting. We must hurry.”

They sat and watched their Aunt Lucille as she lit some candles. Then she sat calmly and peacefully and seemed to just stare into space and not even see them in the room with her. Then she took Maxine’s hand and said, “You are wondering why I am staring into space, aren’t you?” asked their Great-Great Aunt Lucille.
“Yes, I am,” replied Maxine.
“And you are thinking about your boyfriend Robert,” Aunt Lucille said to Simone.
“Yes, that is right.”
“See how easily I read your minds.”
“How did you do that?”
“It takes concentration, a little intuition, and a lot of practice. But if you learn to use your mind, you will be able to learn how to communicate with it as well.”
“You’re a genius, Aunt Lucille!” exclaimed Maxine.
“Thank you dear. But now it is time for you to return to your century,” said Aunt Lucille.
And with that Aunt Lucille disappeared from the room, and Maxine and Simone were pulled by some magnetic force to the mirror in the hallway by which they returned to the present time. Maxine’s father was standing in the hallway when both she and Simone reappeared right in front of him. He looked at them with great puzzlement.
“My God, where did you come from? You just magically appeared in front of me!” said Maxine’s father in a state of shock.
“We were time traveling Dad,” said Maxine with trepidation for she knew her father found anything to do with the mystical world something evil to behold.
“What on earth are you speaking of young lady? Time travel? You expect me to believe such a thing. And you Simone? You’re older and you should know better.”
“But we did go back in time! We went to see Aunt Lucille!” exclaimed Simone.
“What a pack of nonsense. Went to see Aunt Lucille! She’s been dead for many years. The two of you need medical help.”
“Dad, Aunt Lucille gave me this letter to give to you. She said it explains why people thought she was crazy.”
“She was crazy Maxine. Now I am worried that you and Simone might be just as crazy as she was. One of the craziest of our ancestors and my Grandma always told me the stories of Lucille passed down all these years. I never thought my daughter and my niece would follow in her footsteps!”
“Please read the letter Dad.”
“You expect me to believe that Aunt Lucille wrote this letter and gave it to you?”
“Dad, we did travel back in time. We were pulled by a magnetic force in that mirror, and we traveled back to the 1880’s, to Aunt Lucille’s house.”
“Alright, let me read this.”
Maxine’s father took the letter and began to read, a look of disbelief on his face. He read the perfect penmanship of his Aunt Lucille whom everyone always told him was quite insane.

My dearest Gerard,
Though you may not believe that I am writing this note to you, it is all very real and true. Your beautiful daughter Maxine has the same gift that I have and your niece Simone as well. For all these years, the family thought me quite insane. But Maxine and Simone can vouch for me to you, that I am not nor ever was out of my mind. I merely had the ability to foresee the future, move objects with my mind, communicate with my mind, and travel through time. Maxine and Simone have been blessed or maybe cursed with the same gifts. I hope you will believe that I wrote this letter, and that Maxine and Simone really did visit with me.

Your Great-Great Aunt Lucille

Gerard looked at both his daughter and his niece. He shook his head and walked away. Maxine played the piano once again and Simone sat beside her. Suddenly the magnetic force pulled them towards the mirror once again,and back they went to be with their Great-Great Aunt Lucille. 



Bio-Celine Rose Mariotti


Celine Rose Mariotti is an accomplished writer whose work has appeared in magazines all over the USA, Canada, England, Scotland, Australia and India. Some of those magazines include: Night Roses,Green’s Magazine, Poet’s Review, Poet’s Art, Tombigbee, Offerings, Poets at Work, Hindu Young World, Magnolia Quarterly, Lone Stars Magazine, , Poetsespresso, Artifacts, Quantum Leap, Frost Fire Worlds, Children’s Magazine of India, Tigershark Publishing, Atlantean Publishing, Pink Chameleon, FreeXpression, Northern Stars Magazine, Creative Inspirations, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Poesis, Rainy Day Poems, and many more. Bewildering Stories has published some of her poems and excerpts from some of her books. Shemom has published some of her poems. Altered Reality Magazine has published several of her poems as well as an ongoing serial “Snow Monster From Uranus”. She has had several books published. The books are: “Olivia MacAllister, Who Are You?”. Another book is “I’m Too Young to be President” published by Clayborn Press of AZ. “Leapy the Frog” was published by Magbooks of HongKong. WriteWords.com published “I Have a Friend on Jupiter”; “Minister’s Shoes” and “Minister’s Corporate Escapades.” And some other books she self-published: “Through Celine’s Eyes”, “Words of Inspiration” “Red, White and Blue”, all poetry books and a nonfiction book, “What Corporate America is Really All About”. She has also self-published “I Hear The Banjo Playing”, a ghost story. Her newest book is “The Return of George Bowman”, sequel to “I Hear the Banjo Playing”. Hierath Publishing has published her book “Atomic Soldiers”. She has two new books she has self-published entitled: “Razzle Dazzle” and “We Have Liftoff!” Her poetry has appeared in Goose River Press Anthology and now is also published in “For Many, Not the Few”- Volume 32. She also has poems published in “For Many, Not the Few”, Volumes 35, 36,37,38,39, and 40. Celine has a B.S. degree in Business Administration with a minor in English from Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, CT. She plays the guitar and banjo; has her own home business, CRM Enterprises and her own online newsletter she publishes. She lives with her family in Shelton, CT. She loves Las Vegas and she loves to watch the soap operas.

The Timely Death of Peter Usher


by


James Nelli






The inside of the church on Manhattan’s Lower East Side was damp and smelled like scented candles and old leather. David stood in the back of the church; his gaze fixed on the mahogany casket at the top of the center aisle. Ribbons of incense floated above the flower draped casket as a group of about 40 mourners individually offered their final goodbyes. A hushed silence enveloped the space, broken only by occasional sobs and muffled whispers. The somber atmosphere encircled David as he struggled to feel sorry for the loss of his ex-friend, Peter Usher. Memories flooded his mind, reminding him of the times they had spent together and the unbreakable trust they had put in each other. However, rather than a heavy ache in his heart, David felt relieved, almost happy, that Peter was finally gone.
As the funeral service progressed, people began to gather in groups offering their personal condolences to Peter’s family. David hesitated for a moment, considering whether to approach the casket. That's when he noticed Peter’s wife, Rachel, across the room with a small group of mourners. She looked good in black.
Rachel was David’s former lover and the person who had once occupied his heart. They had shared a passionate love that had burned brightly, but eventually the flames had flickered out, leaving them both scarred. It had been years since they last saw each other, and now, here they were reunited under the most unlikely circumstances.
Rachel spotted David and walked over to where he stood as murmurs grew among some of the other mourners in the church who knew David. Without hesitation, she said in an irritated tone, “What are you doing here, David?”
“Hello Rachel. Sorry for your loss. I’m here to pay my respects to Peter.”
“What are you talking about? You didn’t respect Peter. You haven’t spoken to him in years,” she said in a louder more defiant voice. More murmurs.
A mix of embarrassment and surprise flashed across his face before he answered. “You’re right. I really came here to see you.” His voice was filled with a bittersweet tone.
They stood there for a moment, surrounded by the echoes of their past. The air crackled with unspoken words and unresolved emotions. David searched for something meaningful to say, a bridge to reconnect the fragments of their shattered relationship.
"I heard about Peter’s sudden death from your friend Colleen McGuire. That’s when I knew I had to come.”
Rachel nodded, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. She and David fell into an uncomfortable silence, with the weight of the situation bringing them closer together. Memories of their time together flooded their minds, both the beautiful and the painful. It was as if time had stood still, the present moment blurring the lines between past and present. Peter’s uninvited invasion into the emotional and physical space left open by David and Rachel’s breakup was viewed by David as a betrayal by a close friend. Rachel had viewed Peter’s actions differently.
Rachel took a deep breath, gathering her courage once more. "David, I... I'm sorry for how things ended between us," she said, her voice quivering with vulnerability. "I often think about what could have been."
David’s eyes softened, a hint of understanding in his gaze. "I think about it too," he admitted, his voice barely a whisper as he took a moment to gather his thoughts, searching for the right words. "I think we got lost somewhere along the way," he confessed. "We stopped communicating openly, and the distance between us grew. We let small disagreements turn into big issues, and it became harder to find common ground. But we can't change the past."
"No, we can't." Rachel said, her voice tinged with sadness. "I have my share of regrets too. I wish we had fought for what we had. Maybe we could have worked things out. But perhaps we can find some closure, some healing today."
They stood there, two broken souls sharing their regrets, their hearts laid bare. The funeral proceedings continued in the background, a stark reminder of the fragility and brevity of life. In that moment, they tried to find solace in each other's presence.
As they watched the others pay their final respects to Peter, a sense of closure washed over them. Their eyes met, conveying an unspoken understanding. Life had led them down different paths, but their love had left an indelible mark on their souls.
As the funeral ended, Rachel and David exchanged bittersweet smiles, acknowledging the shared journey they had been on. They also knew that although their love story had ended, their lives would forever be entwined by the memories they had created together. Rachel and David carried a newfound sense of peace within their hearts, knowing that sometimes, even in the face of loss, there could be a glimmer of healing and closure.
As Rachel turned and began to walk back to the front of the church, David asked her in a quiet voice, “Can I see you tomorrow for dinner?”
Rachel stopped, turned around, walked back to David and whispered in his ear, “Pick me up at 7. Colleen has my address.”


###

THE COMFORTER
                                
a novel excerpt
                                          
by
                           
Gerald Arthur Winter

 
The morning before New Year's Eve, I stared at Bill when I woke. He had to see what I felt. My eyes were glassy, and my pupils were dilated. Our expressions to each other reflected the same question: Can this be happening so soon?
"I'll get the prescription filled that your oncologist said you'd need," Bill said. "Should I call hospice?"
I shook my head. "Not yet. Just don't be long," I said with shallow breath. "Please hurry." 
Bill waved to me over his shoulder as he left.
 
 
                                                              Sleeping Beauty

It took me no longer than twenty minutes to come back to the apartment with the pain-killing drug. The drapes were drawn above our bed, so it was too dark for me to see when I first opened the door. As light poured in from the hall, I turned to the closet door where her black chemise was missing from the hanger, but the purse and the shoes remained.
"Para," I called softly to her, but got no response from the bed. I pulled open the drapes just enough to see. I panted, short of breath as I lifted Para's head and shoulders to lean her against my chest. She was wearing her black chemise, but the satin sheets were soiled and there was a streak of dried blood from her nose to her chin.
"Para!" I shouted. "Julie! Keum Seuk!" Any of her names to make her respond.
I put my lips to hers thinking of Para more as Sleeping Beauty than Cinderella, hoping my kiss would wake her . . . just this once . . . please, God.
Then I noticed that Para's dresser drawer was open, and she'd taken a bound notebook from it and left it spread open on top of the dresser. I kissed her forehead, still warm, and eased her head back onto the satin pillow. I went to the dresser and read the notebook. She'd printed very concisely, obviously some time ago. There was Joe's address in Buffalo, and his phone number. She'd written that Joe had her Last Will and Testament and all her instructions and funds to pay for her Catholic funeral, cremation, and celebration dinner.
She'd written to me:
 
 
MY DARLING BILL,
JOE WILL KNOW WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU CALL HIM.
HE KNOWS I LOVE YOU AND ALWAYS WILL. PLEASE
BE KIND TO HIM. HE WILL GRIEVE FOR ME AS MUCH
AS YOU. JOE HAS CHOSEN A GREATER LOVE THAN
ONE WOMAN. DON'T MOURN FOR ME TOO LONG.
SPREAD YOUR LOVE. OTHERS WILL NEED IT. I WILL
BE WAITING FOR YOU AT THE LAKEHOUSE OF MY
FONDEST DREAMS. UNTIL THEN, YOU KNOW WHAT
TO DO.
SARANG HAYO YANG HAN WEE,
I LOVE YOU FOREVER.
PARA XOX

I hung my head and wept. I took a deep breath and slammed the heel of my fist on the top of the dresser. The impact shook the dresser, and the floppy-eared rabbit sitting on top of it began to gyrate. I gasped for breath as the maudlin melody of "Auld Lang Syne" on a saxophone poured into the basement apartment, like smoke from smoldering cinders of a burnt offering.
My feet felt like lead with each belabored step towards the bed. I lifted Para up into my arms as if she'd come back to life in my embrace. Her tiny bare feet dangled in the air as we swayed to the syrupy flow of the saxophone as if it were New Year's Eve and the ball had dropped, declaring Happy New Year to the tune of Auld Lang Syne.
I'd put off calling Joe until the next morning on New Year's Day, meantime Para and I would continue to dance till dawn, me in black tie, she in her black chemise with her tiny feet dangling off the floor, and her soul, her han, rising above us.

                                                                 Father Joe

The doorbell rang in Para's basement apartment. I went to the door and faced Joe for the first time. Dressed in black, "Father Joe" was wearing a white Roman clerical collar and clutched a rosary tight in one fist. Joe looked pale and shaken and his eyes were red. He was a couple of inches taller than I, and weighed thirty pounds less, a thin, wiry man close to fifty with a broad moustache that turned down at the corners of his thin lips. 
Besides wearing the black frock of a Roman Catholic Priest, Joe looked nothing like I'd imagined. I tried to picture Para in Joe's embrace, but the image just didn't fit. Any jealousy I might still have harbored quickly dissipated, like the morning mist with the rising sun, just as Para had often described the fertile valley of her childhood in Korea, when she and her Omma began their long day's labor in the fields of her Appa's farm.
Joe said, "I'd know you anywhere from Para's description. She was right. Though you're ten years older than me, you look five years younger, even with the beard and moustache. No one would take you for sixty. What's your secret?"
I forced a smile and said, "I owe my youthful appearance to Para. She made me feel as young as she looked. The nurses at Holy Name thought she was no more than thirty, even after she was recovering from surgery."
That image of Para, still with so much hope for her continued long life, struck us both like a hammer to the back of our heads. Neither could believe she was gone, and all the joy of Christmas taken with her.
I felt a bit invaded by Joe's openness, until he said, "I can't believe how much Para loved you." Then seeing my wariness, Joe clarified, "I don't mean that I don't believe it, Bill. Of course, I believed anything she told me. It's just that she was so emphatically crazy about you beyond reason that it would be hard for most people to fathom. I couldn't, but she'd always tell me how much she loved you and had to be with you."
I took a deep breath. "I felt it and knew it, but I'm sorry now that I might've taken her devotion for granted."
"Me, too. But she told me that whenever she was with you among her friends or together with you and your friends, you were always the best person in the room."
I felt my throat tighten, remembering how she'd said I'd "disappointed" her with my jealousy and possessiveness. I swore I'd never feel jealous again, if only I could have her back. I'd give up my life for just one more hour to tell her all she meant to me.
Joe glanced around the small apartment. 
"I still feel her presence in this room we both shared with her. There's much she wants me to share with you, but not now while they're still preparing her at the mortuary for her wake. We can do that whenever you want, and at whatever pace suits you. I don't need to tell you that this is as difficult for me as it is for you. I was so fortunate to have over twenty years with her, and you had so little time. How long was it?"
"Two years and a few weeks," I said. "It slipped by so fast."
"So did more than twenty years with her. Let's both take time to mourn properly," Joe said. "I know that my Roman collar has thrown you a curve. They'll be plenty of time to talk about that later, as Para asked me to do when we made all the arrangements a couple of weeks ago."
"You mean she knew she'd die this soon?"
"No. She hoped for at least another year, but she wanted to make some important decisions while she felt well enough."
"She seemed normal just before New Year's Eve. We were going to The Rainbow Room again to celebrate."
"I know. She told me what a wonderful time she had with you there on Christmas Eve, and how you'd made the reservation that night to go back. She told me you're a great dancer and swept her off her feet. We never had the chance to dance. Besides, I'm not very good at it."
"What plans did she make?" I asked.
"The wake will be day after tomorrow in the evening at the Blackley Funeral Home on Broad Avenue in Ridgefield."
"I know where it is," I said. "We chose her urn there."
"She showed it to me. It's beautiful."
I nodded but was choked up. Joe put his hand on my shoulder.
"I know," Joe said. "These next few days will be very difficult. Try to rest. The morning after the final viewing, there will be Mass at St. Joseph's in Demarest where she'd joined that Korean Roman Catholic Church with her friend she met during her chemotherapy."
"Yes. We attended a Korean folk festival there with her friend Beatrice and her family," I said. "Para felt at home there. Unlike Para, Beatrice was lucky and survived her cancer."
"Para had a lot of Korean friends in America, most you haven't met. She wouldn't let me meet any of them, because of this." He stuck a finger inside his collar and shook it. Sometimes this feels like a yoke. We'll talk about that a few days from now."
I nodded. "Okay."
"She gave me a long list, like a Korean phone book with all her friends' contact information to let them know about the arrangements. There's also 'Radio Seoul" as she called it, word of mouth among Korean eonnis, the spa network's sisterhood. It's not RSVP, of course, so it's not possible to know how many will attend. Koreans make this a social obligation to turn out for a funeral of one of their own, even if they weren't close. Traditionally, even enemies might show up out of respect, so their ancestors' spirits won't curse them with shame. I wanted you to know that now, so you're not overwhelmed these next few days. I doubt it will be a small crowd."
"I doubt Para has any enemies," I said.
"I know. She was such a sweetheart to people, even when she found them annoying, Like the girl Yoyo with her incessant religious theories. Then her boss, Jasmine, fired Coco because Para thought she might be stealing cash from the spa."
"Yeah. She told me she didn't like it when Jasmine made her manager. Para didn't like telling others what to do. Except for me," I said with a forced grin. "No problem with that."
"Include me there, too. I almost didn't do this," Joe said, shaking his collar. "She insisted that I devote my life to the church."
"Is that it on the arrangements?" I asked.
"After her Mass there's a celebration dinner. After that, they'll be time for us to talk alone. We have much to tell each other, things that should comfort us with our mutual loss."
Unable to express myself, I just nodded, then asked, "Celebration?"
"Yes, that will be a smaller group to celebrate her life and share stories about how we all loved her and some funny and sad things about Para and her wonderful, but shortened time with us."
"Yes. Of course," I nodded. "How do we pay for all this?"
"Para took care of everything with much to spare. She'd been saving most of her cash tips from her work at the spas for twenty years. We don't need to worry about any of the cost.
                                                                    Afterglow

For Para's viewing at Blackley's Funeral Home, it was the coldest night of the winter at five degrees with snow mounds ten feet high and frozen as hard as diamonds, but in the rough, blackened with soot from New Jersey's pollution. My nose throbbed from the cold. Walking from the parking lot in the dark, my eyes teared, and the tears immediately froze. I shivered.
Even though I arrived an hour early, many Koreans were already lined up outside the funeral home in the frigid weather. I recognized Para's spa boss, Jasmine, from Ocean Spa.
"Jasmine. Please, come in out of the cold," I said as she embraced me with tears that brought on my own.
"Oh, I just had to see you," she said. "But I can't go in there."
I figured my grief upon seeing Para in her coffin would be felt by Jasmine as well, but then she explained. "We're all Methodists."
"I don't understand?" I said.
"It's a Roman Catholic funeral. We can't go in."
"You mean they won't let you in, just because you're Methodists?"
"Oh, I'm sure that priest in there would want us to come in, and he'd try to convert us. We can't expose ourselves to that temptation."
I was flabbergasted.
"We just wanted you to know how much we loved her," Jasmine said. "And we love you too for taking such good care of her. Julie was one of us, even if she wasn't Christian."
"She was Christian," I started to say, but saw the look of horror on the Korean women's faces.
"Oh, no. We're all Christians. Julie was Roman Catholic," Jasmine said, revealing a conflict of the Korean soul I hadn't known. Para hadn't said anything against her Protestant friends, but she was a devout Roman Catholic since her conversion from Buddhism at age twenty-one.
Once inside and my fingertips and nose thawed out, I took off my scarf and overcoat and saw Joe in full frock standing before Para's open coffin. My slow steps towards the coffin felt like the mine fields I'd crossed in Vietnam. In the cold weather, the shrapnel, still in my calf, reminded me of Para when I called her "Julie" at the clinic, and she gave me a massage with such tender loving care. Her full name, Keum Suk Lee, I hadn't seen written before as it was with her final photo taken in her black chemise with me and displayed on an easel.
I wondered how different our lives might have been, had I brought her Stateside back then, we'd have married, and have had many kids together. She never would have met Joe.
Looking at his kind face now, I sensed that Para was whispering to me that God's plan was always better than our own, and the most important things weren't about our brief lives, but about eternity.
When Joe stepped aside so I could see her, Para's beauty, even in death, overcame me. I fell to my knees on the prayer pedestal in front of her coffin. Her rosary was clutched in her folded hands, and she was wearing her black chemise as she'd requested, as if she somehow knew this would be her last appearance. The haggling with the dress shop owner came to mind, how her thrill over my buying the dress for her made her glow with joy.
Her face still seems to glow even now, I thought.
That glow would carry me through the next few days of mourning, remembering bits and pieces of conversations with hundreds of Korean women I'd never seen before who told me how much they'd loved and admired "Julie," and that they were all so thankful, that I, an American man who wasn't even her husband by law, was her yeobo, if not in flesh, in spirit.

                                                                      Entourage

I recalled how Para had cautioned me about Korean women: "We're all greedy and jealous of each other. I try not to be, but we can't help ourselves. My friends may tell me how happy they are for me that I have you, but they really want you for themselves. Most would do whatever they think is necessary to take you from me. As long as I'm alive, I'll never let them, no matter how hard they try. They can have you physically. That's just sex. But never your spirit. I want that from you forever. We are of one han." one spirit that binds us for eternity.
Para's words were still echoing in my mind as one Korean woman a little younger than Para came up to me with a hug and brushed her full lips against my ear and whispered, "Thank you for taking care of our eonni. You must be a saint with all I've heard you've done for her."
She slipped me a card from an Asian spa. "If you're lonely and want to talk," she said. "Come see me. I'm Sony. I just bought a spa in Lodi. My customers call me 'Big Sony'." She opened her fur coat to show me her huge breasts. "I'll help you forget your pain." 
Her body exuded warmth and wafted a subtle scent that must have come from a bottle labeled Beckoning.
Another startled me from behind, more so when I turned to see her scary face. "I have lots of Korean girls who'll help you forget your pain—all ages, all sizes." 
The older woman was unattractive, ugly, with a smile that didn't help, so I was glad she wasn't coming on to me herself. Her card from her spa said: "Soon Mi Kim." I recognized her as the original spa owner where Julie worked in Franklin Lakes. Para said the women called her "Yuji" meaning ugly.
Then two women approached me together, one older than the other. The older one said, "Hi. So sorry for your loss. We drove up here all the way from Toms River to show our respect for Julie. You're such a wonderful man to have looked after our eonni with her illness. I'm Lana and this is Ginny. I understand you live near Toms River. Come to my spa any time to relax and forget your sorrow. First time is on me, I'm the owner. Hope to see you again soon."
Ginny was very shy and just backed away with the traditional Korean bow of respect. I assumed Ginny couldn't speak English.
Another pair of Korean women followed. I was double-teamed again. Both were good looking and shapely, barely more than five feet tall, and each had a certain gleam in her eye.
"So sorry for your loss," the older, thinner one said. "I didn't really know her, but everyone knows about her, and how you took care of her. Lucky girl. I'm Semmi. I own a spa in Tampa. If you ever find yourself in Florida, stop by. Here's my card. I'll remember you for sure. I heard you look like Sean Connor, so handsome, with a sexy beard."
She brushed her hand under my chin then squeezed my hand, stepping aside for the other woman with a wild, spiked coif, and what seemed a surly attitude until she hugged me as if she would never let go. The feeling of her body against mind made me cringe bemoaning my loss of Para.
Semmi grimaced at me as I stared at her over her clinging companion's shoulder. Finally, she let go of me, and gave me a bright smile, saying, "I met Julie briefly. She was a good friend of my cousin, Nana, but I didn’t have time to tell her about Julie's passing. I read about it in the Korean paper yesterday. I'll mail her the clipping. Nana and Julie were close until Nana got married. She lives in Delaware now and has a daughter. She'll be so sorry to hear about Julie’s passing."
She gave me another hug with her breasts rubbing against me and her scent was very subtle with just a hint of cucumbers. "I'm Minji."

                                                                        Atticus

When the viewing was over, Joe came to me and said, "Take a little time to be alone with Para before we close the casket. I've had so much more time with Para than you. She wanted you to be the last one to see her. Para said she hoped you'd be the first one to see her when your time came. She said she'll be waiting for you when you come to her lake house paddling your canoe."
I nodded; my tears no longer controlled.
"It was a dream she had when she was young, before she knew either of us," Joe said. "She knew it wasn't me in the canoe she'd dreamt about. She felt sure it was you. But you'd gone back to the States, and she lost hope of ever seeing you again. She let herself love me then, but you've always remained a shadow between us."
"Why didn't she marry you?" I asked.
"I wanted to . . . because there was a child."
"A child?"
"She lost our baby prematurely with a tubular pregnancy. I wanted to marry her even after she lost our child, but she wouldn't let me give up the priesthood, or even become an Episcopalian to marry her. She couldn't have any more children and we swore an oath to each other that no one else would ever know about us, or about the baby we'd lost. She gave me permission to tell you, but only now that she's passed."
"That explains much of her attitude towards you," I said. "This helps me understand her more.
"I urged her to marry you," Joe said. "But when you got angry with her that time, she feared if she ever told you about us, you might betray our secret."
"I'm sorry. I disappointed her then," I said. "If she hadn't forgiven me for being so possessive and jealous, I don't know what I'd have done."
"Take your time with her now, Bill," Joe said giving me a hug.
"You've been so honest and truthful with me, I have a confession to tell you, too, Joe."
"Oh? What's that, Bill?"
I reached into the back pocket of my pants and took out my wallet and handed Joe my driver's license.
Joe squinted then reached for his reading glasses as he said. "Are you going to tell me you're not really sixty?"
"No. I'm really sixty," I said. "But I lied to Para the first time we met at the clinic. I didn't feel guilty about it because she told me her name was Julie when her name tag said Keum Suk Lee. I would've told her when we met again at the chiropractor's office, but she was so excited and happy to see me again. When she called ‘Bill!” I just couldn't tell her the truth."
Joe looked up from looking closely at my driver's license.
"Yeah, that's right, my name was never Bill. My name is John."
"That won't matter when you see her in heaven, where she won't know you by your name, but by your heart. Besides, she always held you in her heart by another name."
"What was that?"
"See here," he brought me to the open casket where Para held a tattered book in one hand and her rosary in the other. It was To Kill a Mockingbird. "She read the novel when she was thirteen and vowed that the only man who'd ever capture her heart would be a man with the empathy of Atticus."
"I'm a writer, Joe, not a lawyer."
"Then write as Para would expect you to, with both passion and compassion for those whose stories you tell."
"Perhaps . . . when all the pain is gone from losing her . . . then maybe I could try."

                                                                            Ssuk

Father Joe's words gave me comfort, but as I was about to leave the funeral parlor, the frigid wind blew in from the parking lot and with it came an old Korean woman with a young, Eurasian girl with striking opalescent eyes. 
At first, I thought the old woman was the seamstress from the dress shop who'd tailored Para's black chemise, but she had shown up to pay her respects earlier, weeping and howling when she saw Para wearing the same black dress she made for her.
This old woman had an almost ferocious glare as she entered. Her English was perfect with no taint of a Korean accent, same as the young woman, eighteen at most, beside her. Both the old woman and the young girl, with a striking, innocent face like an adolescent, emitted strong scents. I didn't recognize the scent emitting from the old woman, though it reminded me of rotting wood in the dense jungles from my thirteen months in Vietnam. The young Eurasian smelled like vanilla cookies fresh out of the oven.
"Ah!" the old woman said. "You must be the guy. So sorry to hear about it. Cancer is such a terrible thing. To live a long life, you've got to be tough like me. I'd heard about Julie these past few years and wanted her to work for me. I've got the best spa in Manhattan. Hyng! It's the best in America. She could've made a fortune there." 
She nudged me with her elbow. 
"Could've taken good care of you in retirement. You could've lived like a king."
I was so taken aback by her whole persona that I was speechless, but she must have noticed my nostrils flaring at her scent.
"Ssuk," she said with crooked-toothed grin and one gold incisor.
"I beg your pardon?" I said, unsure of what she meant, or if it was even a word rather than a Korean exclamation or expletive.
"You call it mugwort in English," she said, reaching into her overcoat and taking out several shoots of a plant with long stems and thin leaves. "It keeps the evil ghosts away. I always have it growing in my spas for good luck. You never know what hungry ghosts might enter your spa attached to a customer. They could ruin you if you don't scare them off with the scent of ssuk. They can capture your soul in a jar, like a firefly, and never set you free."
She waved the leaves in front of me, and the strong scent made me blink and cough.
"I brought them to protect Julie—too late for me. My soul was lost long ago," she said, going to the open coffin and spreading the leaves around Para's body, some dry seeds fell onto the black chemise like salt.
I started to object, but the old woman waved me closer, and the young girl stood quietly as if waiting for a command from the old woman.
My heart tightened. On Para's taut lips, though sewn shut, I perceived a smile.
"See. Julie approves," the old woman cackled. "This will give her safe passage to bliss without retribution from the ghosts of her bloodline for the life she's led. The good ghosts will protect her now."
I thought about Para's guilt about having a child with Father Joe.
"We spoke a week ago when I tried again to hire Julie," the old woman said. "But when she told me she was dying and had no access to ssuk with the ground frozen solid in the New Jersey winter, I told her I would bring some ssuk from Florida to her funeral. For better or worse, I always keep my word, whether with blessings or revenge. This is Tina."
The young Eurasian bowed to me.
"I've brought her with me for her education about how Korean women must honor one another in this foreign land, America. That's why many of us have traveled far to send Julie off properly to the Afterlife."
"Tina is my newest Number One Girl, but despite her outstanding beauty, she must be educated to stay attuned to our Korean ways to avoid the Western culture that corrupts our souls. We are all eonni's forever in the Korean sisterhood of Asian spa life in America. Our bond keeps us united and strong. Heaven help any eonni who breaks our bond."
"Thank you," I said with a bow of respect for the old woman, which she returned in kind.
"Anyway. At least we got here to tell you I'm so sorry for your loss. Mine, too, because I talked to Julie about coming to Shangri-La last year to be my number one girl, but then she got sick. I was fortunate to find Tina instead."
"Thank you for coming," I said. "I'm sorry, but what's your name?"
She looked from side to side as if she worried someone might hear her as she took out her gold-plated business card from Shangri-La Spa on 57th Street in New York City. "This is a special VIP card, only for my very best customers. It's for you."
With reluctance, I took her card, which had no name on it.
She smiled, though her haggard face was a nightmarish specter.
"Only my best customers know my name. For Julie's sake, I welcome you with my gold card, an honor I've bestowed only to kings and high-ranking American politicians. It's a free pass for your first visit with a reservation to be with my Number One—Tina. Only with that honor, may you call me Ochima . . ."
 
"If you make those who are close happy, many will come from afar."                                             - Ancient Chinese Proverb

                                                                  Keum Suk Lee
​
Five years later, during the 15-hour flight to Seoul, John kept close watch on his carry-on luggage, which contained a delicate item of great importance to him. It had already been wrapped in a protective package before his wife, Jeong Soo, had seen it, so she didn't know              what was inside.
In Seoul, though John spent dinnertimes with Jeong Soo's family, which included her son,              Jin, her oldest sister Geum, who was John's age, her three other sisters and their husbands,                  and of course, their matriarch, Jang, now ninety-five, whom they all called Halmuni, just                             as Jin respectfully called his "Grandma."
John was the only one to tap into Jang's dormant sense of humor by showing off his Korean research by calling her Seolmundae, the mythical grandmother on Jejudo represented on the island by its highest point, Mount Halla.
Translated later for John by Jeong Soo, Jang told her youngest daughter, "John is a good man. Please keep him happy." Then she said with a nod and a whisper," He looks like Sean Connor."
Now John knew how Jeong Soo misread Sean Connery’s name. As he hugged Jang for her obvious compliment, she ran her gnarled arthritic fingers through his geying beard and cackled as Jeong Soo and her four sisters bobbed their heads and hummed the James Bondt theme song: "Dah-dada-dah! Dah-dada!"
To keep the joviality going, John said, "I thought I married Miss Korea, so tall and slender, but now I see she's really my Bond Girl."
They all looked forward to their next shared meal and the joy it would bring their united family, but John had more somber business to attend to, which Jeong Soo understood and gave him her support.
That following morning, he took the train from Seoul to a rustic village in a fertile valley surrounded by sharp mountain peaks. With help along the way from young Koreans who spoke some English, John found what he was searching for.
The farmhouse was much smaller than he'd envisioned. The barn looked freshly painted and all the farming used state-of-the art technology. The farm was just as his deceased lover, Keum Suk Lee, had described it years ago: a chessboard of various shades of green and yellow on the rolling hills between Seoul and the distant eastern mountains in the center of the Korean peninsula. The yellow squares were fallow to prepare for next year's planting. The green squares were ready for harvest to take to Namdaemun Market at Seoul's Great South Gate.
Carrying a bucket in each arm, an old man came out of the barn. He wore a straw hat. As he came closer, he looked ancient, ninety or older. He cocked his head to one side, sizing up John and the carry-on luggage he pulled on wheels behind him.
Hopeful, John addressed him in English, "Is this the farm of Kim Lee?"
He nodded as if he understood.
"Are you a member of the Lee family?"
He nodded again, then asked, "Do you want to buy my farm?"
John grinned and said, "No, sir, I'm not a farmer."
"Then what do you want?"
"Do you know Keum Suk Lee?"
The old man staggered for a moment then looked for a large stone to sit on. He waved his straw hat in front of his wrinkled face, burnished over many decades by the harsh Korean elements.
"Where is she? Has she returned home?" he asked John.
"Are you Kim, her father? Appa eeayo?"
The old man nodded.
"I loved your daughter dearly, but she died five years ago of breast cancer."
Her father sighed and wept.
"In a sense, she has come home. I have her ashes in an urn here. Her last request was that her ashes be scattered at the same place in the mountains where her mother Bong's ashes had been dispersed. Please, sir, will you help me find the right spot, so I can fulfill Keum Suk's dying wish?"
He wept and groaned, but let John help him to his feet.
"First, a drink of makgeolli," he said, waving John into the house and out of the hot sun.
John tried to imagine Keum Suk living in this little farmhouse with her two nasty little brothers and her stepmother, Cho, whom Kim took as his mistress and then married when Keum Suk's mother, Bong, died of a broken heart. 
John assessed Kim as a stubborn man but saw that he was a broken man as well. He spoke of his late wife, Cho, who'd died a few years ago, and his eldest son, who'd become a police officer and had recently retired. The two younger brothers. Kim and Hwang, had met with bad ends, belonging to gangs in Seoul and getting murdered in drug deals.
They faced each other across a low table in the farmhouse with makgeolli and toasted geonbae to Keum Suk's return home, John unwrapped the package he'd brought and revealed the blue and white Wedgewood-like urn with Korean folk-art designs and symbols that reflected her Korean ancestry. 
John was sure her father had no idea that Keum Suk had converted to Roman Catholicism at age twenty-one. That part of her faith had already been fulfilled. Now it was time to honor her Korean ancestors, starting with her mother, Bong, with whom she'd already joined in spirit five years ago, but her ashes scattered with her mother's would bind them now eternally.
It was a three-mile uphill trek with stops along the way to catch their breath. They came to a glacier lake high above sea-level. They each sat on a boulder to regain their strength.
"Was my daughter smart?" Kim asked. "Her mother said she was a smart girl, but I saw no value in that—not for a girl."
"She was very smart, and I loved her dearly. Ojini eeayo. She was gentle hearted."
"Are you her husband?"
"We might've married, but she died before we had a chance. My wife is Korean. She knows I have Keum Suk's ashes and respects my need to do this alone. I'm blessed with a wonderful wife. In spirit, we both believe that Keum Suk brought us together."
Having mellowed in his old age from the callous patriarch he'd been, Kim smiled and nodded, telling John, "I haven't long to live . . . cancer . . . weeks, maybe only days left. I didn't know that Keum Suk had died, but my oldest son, Yung, knows to scatter my ashes here, too, but with his mother, Cho's. How sad that we can't do right by one another in life, only in death."
John rubbed Kim's shoulder as the old man wept.
"May I have this moment to be alone with her?" John asked.
Kim nodded and headed toward the downhill trail then sat on a log, waiting out of John's sight.
"My darling," John said. "I've brought you home. Wait for me here until my time comes. We won't be alone because my yeobo, Jeong Soo, will also share this space in time, which we both know is neither the past nor the future, but always the present. I have work to do before I join you. I must share our lives with others so they can fully appreciate the depths of the Korean soul and all its great ancestry. When my work is done, I'll join you here forever at our lake house from your dreams."
As he scattered Keum Suk's ashes into the wind and they carried down to the lake, he envisioned her waving to him from the dock at the lake house below. He felt assured that his life, going forward with Jeong Soo, would be truly blessed by Para, The Comforter.
                                                                      

Painting by Charles E.J. Moulton

***

Finding Refuge


by
James Nelli


An ambulance rushed through the ice-covered streets of Lincoln Park in Chicago. Its sirens blaring and lights flashing as it pierced the heavy late evening snowfall and cast ghostly shadows on the snowbanks lining the roadways. In the back of the ambulance, Philip Taramino lay on a stretcher, his face ashen, beads of sweat glistened on his forehead, and the oxygen mask covering his face pulsated violently as he struggled to breathe. Philip, an otherwise healthy 57-year-old, had suffered a heart attack. His wife of 26 years, Scarlett, sat next to him, concerned, but strangely unemotional. She was numb to the reality going on around her. The harsh glare of the lights inside the ambulance illuminated the actions of the two paramedics who worked frantically to stabilize the nearly lifeless body of Philip Taramino. They had only limited success, but their Priority 1 call to the staging nurse at the hospital had put the emergency room staff on alert.
When the frantic ride ended at the entrance of the emergency room at St. Joseph’s hospital, the rear doors of the ambulance swung open, and the paramedics swiftly transferred the gurney carrying Philip into the hands of waiting hospital staff. An incoming heart attack victim was a hectic, high-stakes environment where time was of the essence. The staff was ready. Scarlett was not.
After Scarlett watched helplessly as her husband disappeared behind the double doors leading into the resuscitation area of the emergency room, the paramedics helped her register with the triage nurse and then led her into the emergency room waiting area.
“Where are they taking Philip?” Scarlett demanded. Her numbness had disappeared.
“He is being taken to the resuscitation care unit,” said the paramedic.
“I must see him!” Her comments gained attention as her voice rose above the murmurs in the crowded waiting room.
“You’ll have to wait for the attending ER physician. Please have a seat. He’ll be out to see you shortly.”
The emergency room waiting area tested all of Scarlett’s senses. The room was a discord of unique yet related sounds—a chorus of murmurs, stifled cries, and the occasional wail of pain. The waiting area also had a distinct aroma. It was a disparate combination of antiseptic cleaners, lingering odors from medications, and the comforting scent of coffee brewing nearby. The area was bathed in a sterile fluorescent glow. This light was cool and clinical, devoid of any warmth or comfort. The unforgiving light illuminated the other faces in the waiting room with stark clarity, their emotions exposed as they grappled with hope, fear, and the unknown. Scarlett sat in
this light on the edge of an uncomfortable chair. Her hands trembled and ringlets of her red hair fell across her face as she clutched a tissue and wiped away the remnants of tears staining her cheeks. She had arrived at the emergency room in a panicked rush, her heart pounded with regret and fear. Her mind replayed the events that led to this moment. An intense argument with her husband at their home had escalated quickly, their emotions spiraled out of control. Harsh words were exchanged, doors slammed, and then, the unimaginable happened — Philip clutched his chest in pain, gasped for breath, and collapsed lifeless onto the floor. Scarlett’s 911 call was a reflective blur.
In the waiting room, Scarlett found herself surrounded by the echoes of others' pain. Tension filled the air and caused a collective unease that was impossible to ignore. It was something she had never experienced before. Each person’s face shared a story of their own, their eyes filled with a mix of anguish and resilience. Strangers exchanged short glances, a silent camaraderie in the face of the unknown. A camaraderie Scarlett was unable and unwilling to take part in. It felt suffocating.
It was 2am in the heart of Chicago, and the activity in the ER pulsated around Scarlett with a unique energy—a delicate balance between chaos and order. Gurneys wheeled by as their rubber wheels squeaked in protest against the polished linoleum floors. Patients, some conscious and others barely clinging to consciousness, were whisked away to examination rooms, their bodies a mosaic of injuries and ailments. The backdrop of the emergency waiting room was a canvas of diversity—a tapestry of lives entwined by fate. A homeless man, shivering and malnourished, sought refuge from the biting cold. An elderly couple held hands tightly, their years of love and devotion etched upon their weathered faces. A young child, tears streaming
down her cheeks, clung to her mother's embrace, seeking solace and reassurance. This was not Scarlett’s world. It was her nightmare.
A doctor entered the waiting room from the resuscitation care unit and approached Scarlett. “Mrs. Taramino, I’m Dr. Jason Victory. I’ll be leading the team taking care of your husband tonight. I'm so sorry to tell you this, but your husband's condition is critical. He suffered a severe heart attack, and despite our efforts, his chances of survival are difficult to predict."
Scarlett’s breath caught in her throat as she struggled to process the devastating news. "No... Please, you must save him. We had an argument, but I never meant for this to happen. We have these kinds of arguments all the time."
Dr. Victory nodded; his voice filled with compassion. "I understand how difficult this must be for you. We're doing everything we can to stabilize him, but I want you to prepare yourself for the worst. We’ll do our best, Mrs. Taramino. I’ll keep you updated on his condition." Dr. Victory turned and disappeared through the double doors.
As Scarlett waited, the weight of her guilt settled heavily on her shoulders. She closed her eyes, desperately grasping for any flicker of hope amidst the darkness. Memories flooded her mind—the laughter, the shared dreams, their collaboration on the Magnificent Mile art gallery they owned together, and their struggle with a marriage that was headed toward a destructive transactional relationship. Little by little this struggle had squeezed out the emotion in their marriage and replaced it with power plays and confrontations. Like a contract, one person only got as much as they were willing to give to the other. Scarlett and Philip seemed headed in that direction.
Silence hung heavy in the room as Scarlett grappled with the impending loss. She could feel the weight of uncertainty pressing upon her, threatening to shatter her resolve. Her mind wandered to the memories she and Philip had shared. But as she reflected on their tumultuous life together, her mood suddenly changed to regret, and her whispers got loud enough for others to hear. “How could this happen? This is my fault.” More murmurs.
The next few hours turned into an agonizing eternity, but Dr. Victory finally appeared from behind the double doors. His eyes met Scarlett’s, conveying a mix of sorrow and compassion. Her heart raced as she stood up, her voice shaky. "Doctor, how is he? He can’t die, not now, I need him."
Dr. Victory sighed, his voice gentle. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Taramino. Despite our best efforts, your husband's body couldn't withstand all the damage caused by the severe heart attack, but he is alive and responding to medication. He is also under sedation, and we’ve moved him to a private room in the coronary intensive care unit on the fourth floor. The next few hours will be critical to his recovery.”
Scarlett’s world shattered in an instant. The weight of her regret bore down on her, consuming her soul. She collapsed back into the chair, her body wracked with grief. Scarlett struggled to process the devastating news. "Please, you must save him. We had an argument, but I never wanted this to happen."
Dr. Victory continued to describe Philip’s condition to Scarlett, but she heard nothing. All she could do was drop her head into her trembling hands, lean forward, and mumble in exasperated breaths, “Why did this happen?” Scarlett then forcefully interrupted Dr. Victory’s prognosis, “I want to see Philip. Now!”
“Of course. That’s why I’m here. Please follow me. I understand your son is already with him.”
“My son? Philip and I don’t have any children! What is going on?” Scarlett said in disbelief.
Realizing something wasn’t right, their pace quickened as they hurried down the hallway and entered the elevator up to the fourth floor. They exited the elevator and Dr. Victory led Scarlett into the coronary intensive care unit to the entrance of Philip’s room. Inside the room was a young man, no older than 35, dark hair with an athletic build standing at the foot of Philip’s bed.
“Who are you, and what are you doing here?” asked Scarlett in both an irritated and accusatory tone.
“I’m Connor Byrne, Mrs. Taramino”
“Are you a friend of Philip’s?
“Yes.”
There was a pause before Scarlett spoke. “How did you hear about Philip’s condition so quickly?”
“You sent a text this evening to our mutual friend Colleen O’Day about Philip, and she let me know what hospital Philip was at and what had happened.”
“Well, it’s good to see Philip’s friends supporting him. He will need all the support he can get.”
“Philip does need all our support, but I don’t think you understand Mrs. Taramino. I’m Philip’s friend, but I’m also his refuge.”
“What do you mean, his refuge? Philip never mentioned you to me,” declared Scarlett in an exasperated tone.
“I met Philip last year at an art exhibit you had at your gallery covering Irish history. That was the exhibit where you criticized Philip in front of me and a group of other patrons for some silly error in the program that he had nothing to do with. The only one who thought it was important was you. I met with Philip later during the exhibit to boost his spirits and to get to know him better. That is where our friendship began. Ever since then, Philip has come to me when he needed help and support.”
“So, you’re my replacement?”
“Not a replacement, Mrs. Taramino. A mental refuge. A non-judgmental space where Philip could share concerns, express feelings, seek advice, and help him navigate the challenges of your marriage. He was trying very hard to understand your point of view and bridge the growing emotional gap in your relationship. Philip was doing this because he believed you and the marriage were worth saving. He was always a determined man, but he lacked the self-confidence to repair the marriage himself. That’s why he needed an understanding friend like me, a refuge, that he could rely on to get it done. Colleen helped too. Philip and I vowed to keep our friendship private, but Colleen found out about it and has supported my friendship with
Philip for the last few months. She agreed with its goal and promised to keep the relationship private at Philip’s request. I hope you understand.”
Scarlett glanced toward Connor, nodded her head in agreement, and signaled her acceptance of what she had just been told was true. Scarlett moved closer to Philip’s bedside and placed her hand on Philip’s cheek. “I now understand what I have to do,” she said. “Philip has shown how much he needs me, and today’s events have made me realize just how much I need him.” She then looked to Dr. Victory for help, and he responded.
“It would be better to move this conversation to my office," said Dr. Victory. “The nurses have a lot to do to help Philip recover. We should let them do their work.” Everyone agreed.
As they all left Philip’s bedside and moved into the hallway, no one noticed the shallow sigh of relief or the faint smile that washed across Philip’s face just before he drifted back to sleep satisfied that things had finally changed for the better.

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 was what had made it come true.
​

RIPPLE - THE LITTLE WATER SPIRIT


By Louisa May Alcott 


Louisa May Alcott (1832 - 1888) was an American novelist, best known for the novel 'Little Women'. 

RIPPLE - THE LITTLE WATER SPIRIT
By Louisa May Alcott

DOWN in the deep blue sea lived Ripple, a happy little Water-Spirit; all day long she danced beneath the coral arches, made garlands of bright ocean flowers, or floated on the great waves that sparkled in the sunlight; but the pastime that she loved best was lying in the many-colored shells upon the shore, listening to the low, murmuring music the waves had taught them long ago; and here for hours the little Spirit lay watching the sea and sky, while singing gaily to herself.

But when tempests rose, she hastened down below the stormy billows, to where all was calm and still, and with her sister Spirits waited till it should be fair again, listening sadly, meanwhile, to the cries of those whom the wild waves wrecked and cast into the angry sea, and who soon came floating down, pale and cold, to the Spirits' pleasant home; then they wept pitying tears above the lifeless forms, and laid them in quiet graves, where flowers bloomed, and jewels sparkled in the sand.

This was Ripple's only grief, and she often thought of those who sorrowed for the friends they loved, who now slept far down in the dim and silent coral caves, and gladly would she have saved the lives of those who lay around her; but the great ocean was far mightier than all the tender-hearted Spirits dwelling in its bosom. Thus she could only weep for them, and lay them down to sleep where no cruel waves could harm them more.

One day, when a fearful storm raged far and wide, and the Spirits saw great billows rolling like heavy clouds above their heads, and heard the wild winds sounding far away, down through the foaming waves a little child came floating to their home; its eyes were closed as if in sleep, the long hair fell like sea-weed round its pale, cold face, and the little hands still clasped the shells they had been gathering on the beach, when the great waves swept it into the troubled sea.

With tender tears the Spirits laid the little form to rest upon its bed of flowers, and, singing mournful songs, as if to make its sleep more calm and deep, watched long and lovingly above it, till the storm had died away, and all was still again.

While Ripple sang above the little child, through the distant roar of winds and waves she heard a wild, sorrowing voice, that seemed to call for help. Long she listened, thinking it was but the echo of their own plaintive song, but high above the music still sounded the sad, wailing cry. Then, stealing silently away, she glided up through foam and spray, till, through the parting clouds, the sunlight shone upon her from the tranquil sky; and, guided by the mournful sound, she floated on, till, close before her on the beach, she saw a woman stretching forth her arms, and with a sad, imploring voice praying the restless sea to give her back the little child it had so cruelly borne away. But the waves dashed foaming up among the bare rocks at her feet, mingling their cold spray with her tears, and gave no answer to her prayer.

When Ripple saw the mother's grief, she longed to comfort her; so, bending tenderly beside her, where she knelt upon the shore, the little Spirit told her how her child lay softly sleeping, far down in a lovely place, where sorrowing tears were shed, and gentle hands laid garlands over him. But all in vain she whispered kindly words; the weeping mother only cried,--

"Dear Spirit, can you use no charm or spell to make the waves bring back my child, as full of life and strength as when they swept him from my side? O give me back my little child, or let me lie beside him in the bosom of the cruel sea."

"Most gladly will I help you if I can, though I have little power to use; then grieve no more, for I will search both earth and sea, to find some friend who can bring back all you have lost. Watch daily on the shore, and if I do not come again, then you will know my search has been in vain. Farewell, poor mother, you shall see your little child again, if Fairy power can win him back." And with these cheering words Ripple sprang into the sea; while, smiling through her tears, the woman watched the gentle Spirit, till her bright crown vanished in the waves.

When Ripple reached her home, she hastened to the palace of the Queen, and told her of the little child, the sorrowing mother, and the promise she had made.

"Good little Ripple," said the Queen, when she had told her all, "your promise never can be kept; there is no power below the sea to work this charm, and you can never reach the Fire-Spirits' home, to win from them a flame to warm the little body into life. I pity the poor mother, and would most gladly help her; but alas! I am a Spirit like yourself, and cannot serve you as I long to do."

"Ah, dear Queen! if you had seen her sorrow, you too would seek to keep the promise I have made. I cannot let her watch for ME in vain, till I have done my best: then tell me where the Fire-Spirits dwell, and I will ask of them the flame that shall give life to the little child and such great happiness to the sad, lonely mother: tell me the path, and let me go."

"It is far, far away, high up above the sun, where no Spirit ever dared to venture yet," replied the Queen. "I cannot show the path, for it is through the air. Dear Ripple, do not go, for you can never reach that distant place: some harm most surely will befall; and then how shall we live, without our dearest, gentlest Spirit? Stay here with us in your own pleasant home, and think more of this, for I can never let you go."

But Ripple would not break the promise she had made, and besought so earnestly, and with such pleading words, that the Queen at last with sorrow gave consent, and Ripple joyfully prepared to go. She, with her sister Spirits, built up a tomb of delicate, bright-colour shells, wherein the child might lie, till she should come to wake him into life; then, praying them to watch most faithfully above it, she said farewell, and floated bravely forth, on her long, unknown journey, far away.

"I will search the broad earth till I find a path up to the sun, or some kind friend who will carry me; for, alas! I have no wings, and cannot glide through the blue air as through the sea," said Ripple to herself, as she went dancing over the waves, which bore her swiftly onward towards a distant shore.

Long she journeyed through the pathless ocean, with no friends to cheer her, save the white sea-birds who went sweeping by, and only stayed to dip their wide wings at her side, and then flew silently away. Sometimes great ships sailed by, and then with longing eyes did the little Spirit gaze up at the faces that looked down upon the sea; for often they were kind and pleasant ones, and she gladly would have called to them and asked them to be friends. But they would never understand the strange, sweet language that she spoke, or even see the lovely face that smiled at them above the waves; her blue, transparent garments were but water to their eyes, and the pearl chains in her hair but foam and sparkling spray; so, hoping that the sea would be most gentle with them, silently she floated on her way, and left them far behind.

At length green hills were seen, and the waves gladly bore the little Spirit on, till, rippling gently over soft white sand, they left her on the pleasant shore.

"Ah, what a lovely place it is!" said Ripple, as she passed through sunny valleys, where flowers began to bloom, and young leaves rustled on the trees.

"Why are you all so gay, dear birds?" she asked, as their cheerful voices sounded far and near; "is there a festival over the earth, that all is so beautiful and bright?"

"Do you not know that Spring is coming? The warm winds whispered it days ago, and we are learning the sweetest songs, to welcome her when she shall come," sang the lark, soaring away as the music gushed from his little throat.

"And shall I see her, Violet, as she journeys over the earth?" asked Ripple again.

"Yes, you will meet her soon, for the sunlight told me she was near; tell her we long to see her again, and are waiting to welcome her back," said the blue flower, dancing for joy on her stem, as she nodded and smiled on the Spirit.

"I will ask Spring where the Fire-Spirits dwell; she travels over the earth each year, and surely can show me the way," thought Ripple, as she went journeying on.

Soon she saw Spring come smiling over the earth; sunbeams and breezes floated before, and then, with her white garments covered with flowers, with wreaths in her hair, and dew-drops and seeds falling fast from her hands the beautiful season came singing by.

"Dear Spring, will you listen, and help a poor little Spirit, who seeks far and wide for the Fire-Spirits' home?" cried Ripple; and then told why she was there, and begged her to tell what she sought.

"The Fire-Spirits' home is far, far away, and I cannot guide you there; but Summer is coming behind me," said Spring, "and she may know better than I. But I will give you a breeze to help you on your way; it will never tire nor fail, but bear you easily over land and sea. Farewell, little Spirit! I would gladly do more, but voices are calling me far and wide, and I cannot stay."

"Many thanks, kind Spring!" cried Ripple, as she floated away on the breeze; "give a kindly word to the mother who waits on the shore, and tell her I have not forgotten my vow, but hope soon to see her again."

Then Spring flew on with her sunshine and flowers, and Ripple went swiftly over hill and vale, till she came to the land where Summer was dwelling. Here the sun shone warmly down on the early fruit, the winds blew freshly over fields of fragrant hay, and rustled with a pleasant sound among the green leaves in the forests; heavy dews fell softly down at night, and long, bright days brought strength and beauty to the blossoming earth.

"Now I must seek for Summer," said Ripple, as she sailed slowly through the sunny sky.

"I am here, what would you with me, little Spirit?" said a musical voice in her ear; and, floating by her side, she saw a graceful form, with green robes fluttering in the air, whose pleasant face looked kindly on her, from beneath a crown of golden sunbeams that cast a warm, bright glow on all beneath.

Then Ripple told her tale, and asked where she should go; but Summer answered,--

"I can tell no more than my young sister Spring where you may find the Spirits that you seek; but I too, like her, will give a gift to aid you. Take this sunbeam from my crown; it will cheer and brighten the most gloomy path through which you pass. Farewell! I shall carry tidings of you to the watcher by the sea, if in my journey round the world I find her there."

And Summer, giving her the sunbeam, passed away over the distant hills, leaving all green and bright behind her.

So Ripple journeyed on again, till the earth below her shone with yellow harvests waving in the sun, and the air was filled with cheerful voices, as the reapers sang among the fields or in the pleasant vineyards, where purple fruit hung gleaming through the leaves; while the sky above was cloudless, and the changing forest-trees shone like a many-colored garland, over hill and plain; and here, along the ripening corn-fields, with bright wreaths of crimson leaves and golden wheat-ears in her hair and on her purple mantle, stately Autumn passed, with a happy smile on her calm face, as she went scattering generous gifts from her full arms.

But when the wandering Spirit came to her, and asked for what she sought, this season, like the others, could not tell her where to go; so, giving her a yellow leaf, Autumn said, as she passed on,--

"Ask Winter, little Ripple, when you come to his cold home; he knows the Fire-Spirits well, for when he comes they fly to the earth, to warm and comfort those dwelling there; and perhaps he can tell you where they are. So take this gift of mine, and when you meet his chilly winds, fold it about you, and sit warm beneath its shelter, till you come to sunlight again. I will carry comfort to the patient woman, as my sisters have already done, and tell her you are faithful still."

Then on went the never-tiring Breeze, over forest, hill, and field, till the sky grew dark, and bleak winds whistled by. Then Ripple, folded in the soft, warm leaf, looked sadly down on the earth, that seemed to lie so desolate and still beneath its shroud of snow, and thought how bitter cold the leaves and flowers must be; for the little Water-Spirit did not know that Winter spread a soft white covering above their beds, that they might safely sleep below till Spring should waken them again. So she went sorrowfully on, till Winter, riding on the strong North-Wind, came rushing by, with a sparkling ice-crown in his streaming hair, while from beneath his crimson cloak, where glittering frost-work shone like silver threads, he scattered snow-flakes far and wide.

"What do you seek with me, fair little Spirit, that you come so bravely here amid my ice and snow? Do not fear me; I am warm at heart, though rude and cold without," said Winter, looking kindly on her, while a bright smile shone like sunlight on his pleasant face, as it glowed and glistened in the frosty air.

When Ripple told him why she had come, he pointed upward, where the sunlight dimly shone through the heavy clouds, saying,--

"Far off there, beside the sun, is the Fire-Spirits' home; and the only path is up, through cloud and mist. It is a long, strange path, for a lonely little Spirit to be going; the Fairies are wild, wilful things, and in their play may harm and trouble you. Come back with me, and do not go this dangerous journey to the sky. I'll gladly bear you home again, if you will come."

But Ripple said, "I cannot turn back now, when I am nearly there. The Spirits surely will not harm me, when I tell them why I am come; and if I win the flame, I shall be the happiest Spirit in the sea, for my promise will be kept, and the poor mother happy once again. So farewell, Winter! Speak to her gently, and tell her to hope still, for I shall surely come."

"Adieu, little Ripple! May good angels watch above you! Journey bravely on, and take this snow-flake that will never melt, as MY gift," Winter cried, as the North-Wind bore him on, leaving a cloud of falling snow behind.

"Now, dear Breeze," said Ripple, "fly straight upward through the air, until we reach the place we have so long been seeking; Sunbeam shall go before to light the way, Yellow-leaf shall shelter me from heat and rain, while Snow-flake shall lie here beside me till it comes of use. So farewell to the pleasant earth, until we come again. And now away, up to the sun!"

When Ripple first began her airy journey, all was dark and dreary; heavy clouds lay piled like hills around her, and a cold mist filled the air but the Sunbeam, like a star, lit up the way, the leaf lay warmly round her, and the tireless wind went swiftly on. Higher and higher they floated up, still darker and darker grew the air, closer the damp mist gathered, while the black clouds rolled and tossed, like great waves, to and fro.

"Ah!" sighed the weary little Spirit, "shall I never see the light again, or feel the warm winds on my cheek? It is a dreary way indeed, and but for the Seasons' gifts I should have perished long ago; but the heavy clouds MUST pass away at last, and all be fair again. So hasten on, good Breeze, and bring me quickly to my journey's end."

Soon the cold vapors vanished from her path, and sunshine shone upon her pleasantly; so she went gayly on, till she came up among the stars, where many new, strange sights were to be seen. With wondering eyes she looked upon the bright worlds that once seemed dim and distant, when she gazed upon them from the sea; but now they moved around her, some shining with a softly radiant light, some circled with bright, many-colored rings, while others burned with a red, angry glare. Ripple would have gladly stayed to watch them longer, for she fancied low, sweet voices called her, and lovely faces seemed to look upon her as she passed; but higher up still, nearer to the sun, she saw a far-off light, that glittered like a brilliant crimson star, and seemed to cast a rosy glow along the sky.

"The Fire-Spirits surely must be there, and I must stay no longer here," said Ripple. So steadily she floated on, till straight before her lay a broad, bright path, that led up to a golden arch, beyond which she could see shapes flitting to and fro. As she drew near, brighter glowed the sky, hotter and hotter grew the air, till Ripple's leaf-cloak shrivelled up, and could no longer shield her from the heat; then she unfolded the white snow-flake, and, gladly wrapping the soft, cool mantle round her, entered through the shining arch.

Through the red mist that floated all around her, she could see high walls of changing light, where orange, blue, and violet flames went flickering to and fro, making graceful figures as they danced and glowed; and underneath these rainbow arches, little Spirits glided, far and near, wearing crowns of fire, beneath which flashed their wild, bright eyes; and as they spoke, sparks dropped quickly from their lips, and Ripple saw with wonder, through their garments of transparent light, that in each Fairy's breast there burned a steady flame, that never wavered or went out.

As thus she stood, the Spirits gathered round her, and their hot breath would have scorched her, but she drew the snow-cloak closer round her, saying,--

"Take me to your Queen, that I may tell her why I am here, and ask for what I seek."

So, through long halls of many-colored fire, they led her to a Spirit fairer than the rest, whose crown of flames waved to and fro like golden plumes, while, underneath her violet robe, the light within her breast glowed bright and strong.

"This is our Queen," the Spirits said, bending low before her, as she turned her gleaming eyes upon the stranger they had brought.

Then Ripple told how she had wandered round the world in search of them, how the Seasons had most kindly helped her on, by giving Sun-beam, Breeze, Leaf, and Flake; and how, through many dangers, she had come at last to ask of them the magic flame that could give life to the little child again.

When she had told her tale, the spirits whispered earnestly among themselves, while sparks fell thick and fast with every word; at length the Fire-Queen said aloud,--

"We cannot give the flame you ask, for each of us must take a part of it from our own breasts; and this we will not do, for the brighter our bosom-fire burns, the lovelier we are. So do not ask us for this thing; but any other gift we will most gladly give, for we feel kindly towards you, and will serve you if we may."

But Ripple asked no other boon, and, weeping sadly, begged them not to send her back without the gift she had come so far to gain.

"O dear, warm-hearted Spirits! give me each a little light from your own breasts, and surely they will glow the brighter for this kindly deed; and I will thankfully repay it if I can." As thus she spoke, the Queen, who had spied out a chain of jewels Ripple wore upon her neck, replied,--

"If you will give me those bright, sparkling stones, I will bestow on you a part of my own flame; for we have no such lovely things to wear about our necks, and I desire much to have them. Will you give it me for what I offer, little Spirit?"

Joyfully Ripple gave her the chain; but, as soon as it touched her hand, the jewels melted like snow, and fell in bright drops to the ground; at this the Queen's eyes flashed, and the Spirits gathered angrily about poor Ripple, who looked sadly at the broken chain, and thought in vain what she could give, to win the thing she longed so earnestly for.

"I have many fairer gems than these, in my home below the sea; and I will bring all I can gather far and wide, if you will grant my prayer, and give me what I seek," she said, turning gently to the fiery Spirits, who were hovering fiercely round her.

"You must bring us each a jewel that will never vanish from our hands as these have done," they said, "and we will each give of our fire; and when the child is brought to life, you must bring hither all the jewels you can gather from the depths of the sea, that we may try them here among the flames; but if they melt away like these, then we shall keep you prisoner, till you give us back the light we lend. If you consent to this, then take our gift, and journey home again; but fail not to return, or we shall seek you out."

And Ripple said she would consent, though she knew not if the jewels could be found; still, thinking of the promise she had made, she forgot all else, and told the Spirits what they asked most surely should be done. So each one gave a little of the fire from their breasts, and placed the flame in a crystal vase, through which it shone and glittered like a star.

Then, bidding her remember all she had promised them, they led her to the golden arch, and said farewell.

So, down along the shining path, through mist and cloud, she travelled back; till, far below, she saw the broad blue sea she left so long ago.

Gladly she plunged into the clear, cool waves, and floated back to her pleasant home; where the Spirits gathered joyfully about her, listening with tears and smiles, as she told all her many wanderings, and showed the crystal vase that she had brought.

"Now come," said they, "and finish the good work you have so bravely carried on." So to the quiet tomb they went, where, like a marble image, cold and still, the little child was lying. Then Ripple placed the flame upon his breast, and watched it gleam and sparkle there, while light came slowly back into the once dim eyes, a rosy glow shone over the pale face, and breath stole through the parted lips; still brighter and warmer burned the magic fire, until the child awoke from his long sleep, and looked in smiling wonder at the faces bending over him.

Then Ripple sang for joy, and, with her sister Spirits, robed the child in graceful garments, woven of bright sea-weed, while in his shining hair they wreathed long garlands of their fairest flowers, and on his little arms hung chains of brilliant shells.



"Now come with us, dear child," said Ripple; "we will bear you safely up into the sunlight and the pleasant air; for this is not your home, and yonder, on the shore, there waits a loving friend for you."

So up they went, through foam and spray, till on the beach, where the fresh winds played among her falling hair, and the waves broke sparkling at her feet, the lonely mother still stood, gazing wistfully across the sea. Suddenly, upon a great blue billow that came rolling in, she saw the Water-Spirits smiling on her; and high aloft, in their white gleaming arms, her child stretched forth his hands to welcome her; while the little voice she so longed to hear again cried gaily,--

"See, dear mother, I am come; and look what lovely things the gentle Spirits gave, that I might seem more beautiful to you."

Then gently the great wave broke, and rolled back to the sea, leaving Ripple on the shore, and the child clasped in his mother's arms.

"O faithful little Spirit! I would gladly give some precious gift to show my gratitude for this kind deed; but I have nothing save this chain of little pearls: they are the tears I shed, and the sea has changed them thus, that I might offer them to you," the happy mother said, when her first joy was passed, and Ripple turned to go.

"Yes, I will gladly wear your gift, and look upon it as my fairest ornament," the Water-Spirit said; and with the pearls upon her breast, she left the shore, where the child was playing gaily to and fro, and the mother's glad smile shone upon her, till she sank beneath the waves.

And now another task was to be done; her promise to the Fire-Spirits must be kept. So far and wide she searched among the caverns of the sea, and gathered all the brightest jewels shining there; and then upon her faithful Breeze once more went journeying through the sky.

The Spirits gladly welcomed her, and led her to the Queen, before whom she poured out the sparkling gems she had gathered with such toil and care; but when the Spirits tried to form them into crowns, they trickled from their hands like colour drops of dew, and Ripple saw with fear and sorrow how they melted one by one away, till none of all the many she had brought remained. Then the Fire-Spirits looked upon her angrily, and when she begged them to be merciful, and let her try once more, saying,--

"Do not keep me prisoner here. I cannot breathe the flames that give you life, and but for this snow-mantle I too should melt away, and vanish like the jewels in your hands. O dear Spirits, give me some other task, but let me go from this warm place, where all is strange and fearful to a Spirit of the sea."

They would not listen; and drew nearer, saying, while bright sparks showered from their lips, "We will not let you go, for you have promised to be ours if the gems you brought proved worthless; so fling away this cold white cloak, and bathe with us in the fire fountains, and help us bring back to our bosom flames the light we gave you for the child."

Then Ripple sank down on the burning floor, and felt that her life was nearly done; for she well knew the hot air of the fire-palace would be death to her. The Spirits gathered round, and began to lift her mantle off; but underneath they saw the pearl chain, shining with a clear, soft light, that only glowed more brightly when they laid their hands upon it.

"O give us this!" cried they; "it is far lovelier than all the rest, and does not melt away like them; and see how brilliantly it glitters in our hands. If we may but have this, all will be well, and you are once more free."

And Ripple, safe again beneath her snow flake, gladly gave the chain to them; and told them how the pearls they now placed proudly on their breasts were formed of tears, which but for them might still be flowing. Then the Spirits smiled most kindly on her, and would have put their arms about her, and have kissed her cheek, but she drew back, telling them that every touch of theirs was like a wound to her.

"Then, if we may not tell our pleasure so, we will show it in a different way, and give you a pleasant journey home. Come out with us," the Spirits said, "and see the bright path we have made for you." So they led her to the lofty gate, and here, from sky to earth, a lovely rainbow arched its radiant colours in the sun.

"This is indeed a pleasant road," said Ripple. "Thank you, friendly Spirits, for your care; and now farewell. I would gladly stay yet longer, but we cannot dwell together, and I am longing sadly for my own cool home. Now Sunbeam, Breeze, Leaf, and Flake, fly back to the Seasons whence you came, and tell them that, thanks to their kind gifts, Ripple's work at last is done."

Then down along the shining pathway spread before her, the happy little Spirit glided to the sea.

"Thanks, dear Summer-Wind," said the Queen; "we will remember the lessons you have each taught us, and when next we meet in Fern Dale, you shall tell us more. And now, dear Trip, call them from the lake, for the moon is sinking fast, and we must hasten home."

BACK TO THE PRESENT
by Joshua C. Frank


Time travel messes with your head, thought Marcus, yawning. You never get used to the jet lag. The dried, brown leaves flew like feathers in the wind, scratching against each other and the trees they once called home. Marcus normally enjoyed the sight, but not today. He and his girlfriend Jessica sat on the park bench where they always kissed, but instead, she stared blankly toward the yellow-brown hills on the other side of the lake the bench faced, not leaning against him or even talking.
​

“Marcus,” Jessica finally said, “we need to talk.”


“Oh?”


“When we first met in eighth grade, you were fun and full of get-up-and-go,” she said, gesticulating with professionally manicured hands. “Now you’re tired all the time. You’re only twenty, but you’ve got wrinkles on your face and a deeper voice. You’ll disappear for hours without warning and then act like you haven’t seen me in weeks. You don’t even remember half the things we’ve done together. I think it’s drugs, and your professor friend is involved somehow.”


“It’s not drugs,” Marcus said. “I’ve been wanting to tell you for a long time, but I was afraid you wouldn’t believe me.” He took a deep breath. “The Professor invented a time machine three years ago. He’s been taking me on time-travel missions ever since. I’ve spent so much time on these, I’m probably in my thirties. I don’t remember all those things because we keep changing the timeline in little ways trying to fix our mistakes. Most of the life I remember never happened.”


Jessica stared at him, stone-faced, impervious to the leaves hitting the back of her perfectly permed, sprayed, dark hair. “If you expect me to believe that, you must be high.”


“You never had a problem these past three years.”


Jessica stiffened, arms crossed. “I guess I just didn’t want to see it. But you’re getting worse. You don’t even show up to your gigs anymore, and when you do, you’re always so tired, you can barely play guitar or sing.” She stood up. “You’re going nowhere with your life, Marcus. I’m done.” She walked off along the park trail into the distance, away from the lapping lake, looking smaller and smaller until she finally turned around a tree and disappeared.


“She’ll take me back,” Marcus said aloud.  “I’ve seen the future.”


#


On his next trip to the future, Marcus ran out of the steel-gray time car, across his future front lawn, and looked in the living room window. Weeks had gone by for him on other time trips, but only days for Jessica. She needed time to think, she said, but every part of him still kept tensing up over it. Once he saw his white-haired older self, he had his answer.


The Professor exited the gray car and called for him. Marcus ran back and stopped in front of the Professor outside the driver’s door. “Who’s the blonde I’m kissing?” Marcus demanded.


“Your future wife,” the Professor said, his craggy face unmoved. “Don’t you remember?”


“That used to be Jessica with my future self!”


The professor stared at him quizzically.  “Aren’t you used to changing the timeline by now?”


“Jessica just broke up with me,” Marcus said, throat tight. “She thinks I’m on drugs because of all the time travel. Clearly she’s never coming back.”


The Professor shrugged. “Your genes will still be passed on. Evolutionarily, it should make no difference.”


Anger rose in Marcus like a thermometer on a hot day. “Professor, I love Jessica. I’ve spent more time on these stupid time trips with you in that stupid car than living my own life! I look like I’m in my thirties now--”


“Thirty-seven, if my calculations are correct.”


“Enough with the science already!” Marcus screamed with the all the rage of what he now knew to be twenty years.  “I’m supposed to be a twenty-year-old rock star, living with Jessica! You whisk me away and change my entire life history every two seconds and take away years I can never get back--” Marcus stopped himself. Or maybe I can, he thought.


Marcus yanked the driver’s door open.


“What are you doing?” the Professor shouted, struggling to close the door while Marcus kept pushing it open.


Marcus jumped into the car. He grabbed the door out of the Professor’s hands, slammed it shut, and locked all the doors right away. His eyes still clouded by rage, he flew the time machine away and input the destination time as his much older self walked out of his future home. Seconds later, the familiar sonic booms, flash of light all around the car, and changing time display showed him that he was six years before his own time.


As Marcus landed in his old driveway, he saw the Professor and the same future self waiting for him. He unbuckled his seat belt, opened the door, and stood. “What’s going on?” he demanded.  “How’d you get another time machine?”


“I still have it,” said his older self. “I remember why you’re here: to tell your younger self to avoid the Professor. Without him, you’ll still be with Jessica, and there go my wife and children.”


Marcus started to bolt, but tripped on his older self’s foot. His older self clapped a gnarled hand on his younger mouth--of course he would remember any surprise moves he had made! The two men, surprisingly strong for eighty, held him still as he struggled and made muffled screams. The trunk opened at the Professor’s glance, and they threw him in and slammed it shut.


“Marcus!” screamed Marcus, banging on the inside of the trunk. “Stay away from the Professor! He’ll ruin your life!”


The only reply he heard was the usual sonic booms.


#


Face drenched with sweat, heart still pounding, fourteen-year-old Marcus, unbeknownst to his older selves or the Professor, had seen the fight from his window. The Professor he knew had been laboring away on the very time machine of which he had just seen two fly off. Clearly, their friendship would end with Marcus tossed in the trunk and screaming to his younger self.


While trying to recover from what just happened, he kept hearing his principal’s words ringing in his ears: “Your professor friend is crazy. Keep hanging around with him, and you’ll live to regret it.” Who would have thought the principal would be right about something?


In any case, now that he’d be staying away from the Professor, that future, the future where they were probably returning, would never be.


Marcus tuned his guitar, played, and started singing: “Jessica, you’re the finest...”

The Original Hollywood Legend

By Laramie Rogers

It was one of those historical moments. Like Romulus being raised by a wolf, Tut-Anch-Amun's grave being opened in Egypt, Columbus landing in the West Indies or Bonanza airing for the first time on September 12th, 1959 on American television.

Only this time it was D.W. Griffith who travelled from the film centre of New York on March 10th, 1910 to produce "In Old California". The favorable weather, the perfect lighting capabilities, the excellent conditions of wind and lighting, that all contributed to the fact that this little movie, "In Old California", made other producers think of making their movies there instead of in New York.

After all, the whole deal of pioneer exploration to the west was to settle in the whole U.S. of A. The Old West was a dream. Cowboys riding toward wealth and fortune to become the first ones to build a house in the new land.

Okay, we know that the Native Americans had been there for 10,000 years, probably wandering over from Siberia, explaining their relation to Innuit, Tatars and other nature peoples. But we are talking about legends here. The fact that Griffith found a place that was cool to make a movie in that carried the name "Holly" in it, which in an original meaning stands for flowers and rhymes with jolly, well that really did coincide with the American Dream. Hey, this WAS the American Dream. A Holly Wood. A floral tree. Strong, sturdy with deep roots. That had to be good. 

The film centre of New York was just developing Broadway at the time. Its name "Tin Pan Alley" really had the meaning of all those untuned pianos clinking and clanking in the rehearsal rooms of the theatres. So, man, all those actors knew in the back of their minds that if they made it there, they could make it anywhere, meaning in Hollywood. 

The original settlement of Hollywood literally had one shack and grassballs flying by it back in 1853. By 1870, a very prosperous community had developed and made its way around the country. If a prosperous land grew out of nowhere so quickly, how fast could then more happen? So that real estate guy bought land there and turned it into a nice little place to be with a midsized population. 

So, once Griffith found the place to make a movie, more guys and gals started making their movies there. The stuff that legends are made of happened. The original film was a fine flick and people said: hey, we might make something out of this. 

The Nestor Film Company open in 1911. By 1920, four major studios had opened in Hollywood and the place where the Hollywood Hotel opened in 1902 now became Hollywood Boulevard. By the 1930s, 600 films were shot per year and became Tinseltown. No one knows if there was a connection between Tin Pan Alley becoming Broadway and Hollywood becoming Tinseltown. Tin is an affordable metal and light. Many people working in Hollywood call it the place of illusions. Light and feathery. 

Fact is that what started as a blooming countryside turned into a legend that the world dreamt of. The stuff that dreams are made of. Just like the Europeans that wanted to sail over to America to tutn their poverty into riches. The idea of people living on pop-corn and becoming Marty McFly is a catching thought. The chances are incredibly thin, but everyone hopes to become the next best star. 

The original Hollywood legend. 

Above: The baroque ship "The Unicorn" from "Rackham's Treasure" drawn by Hergé

The following story connects many forms of art:
the art of love, the art of life, the art of history and the art of communication.


Inamorato

By Bill Tope

 
David Rendle was an enigma. At six feet, two inches tall and a lanky 210 pounds, he cut a handsome figure. Some admiring ladies described his features as "chiseled" or "sculpted," like a statue or something. He shook the thought away impatiently. Appearances meant little to nothing to him. David had just turned twenty-five and had never had a lover. He had never been in a relationship. He had never even been on a date. Throughout high school and college, he had eschewed date nights, football games and fraternity soires and the like. Nor had he hungered for companionship; he felt balanced and self-assured all by himself.
His reluctance to socialize did not go unnoticed in high school. "David," said Clay, a fellow runner on the cross country team, during practice one day. "Maddie is dying to go out with you." Maddie was a well-traveled cheerleader.
"Thanks," he said, glancing at his companion. "I'm not really interested."
"Huh!" said the other young man. "She puts out, man. Get some of that, go for it." He laughed raucously. When David said nothing, Clay sneered. "What are you, a faggot?"
Abruptly, David stopped running, and turned to his friend, who flinched before David, who was six inches taller and twice as strong. "No," he said slowly and deliberately, staring down the other boy. "I'm not." Then he turned suddenly and continued on his way.
David also had to live with comparisons between himself and his brother Gary, who was four years older. Gary never tired  of telling his younger brother when he "scored" and "made out" and "went all the way." David was only just embarking upon the age when boys dated, so Gary was out of the house and in the Army before the contrast between the brothers could become an issue.
The only one to come to David's defense was his mother. At 17, he overheard her one day confronting her husband. She declared that she was "happy he's not out fooling around. Boy that smart is going to college. Last thing he needs if to make some young girl pregnant. He can play after he gets his education," she said.
"I don't know," David's father said gravely. "He might be a sissy. And I couldn't live with that."
"You leave my boy alone," she warned, "or I'll take you out!"
"Rendle's a loner," some of David's classmates remarked among themselves. Others muttered peevishly, "He's queer...or something." But the something was never really defined by anyone. He had been hit on his entire life by dint of his affability and good looks, by heterosexuals and homosexuals alike, but to no avail. David always politely declined and, seeing as how he was a large young man, no one made an issue of it. David was an excellent student and became valedictorian of his high school, class of '61.
He had a few acquaintances, people of either sex with whom he sometimes discussed the novels he'd read or the films he'd seen or current events. But no one had ever broken through the concrete-like carapace that shielded and isolated David Rendle, sexually, from the rest of the universe.
. . . . .
Today David sat for an interview in the Personnel Office of Dwight Ellis School District in Baltimore. David was being considered for a position as a junior high school history teacher. His interrogator was Mr. Everett Henson, the Superintendant of Schools. He was an elderly man with a fading hairline and spectacles with thick, Coke-bottle-like lenses.
"Mr. Rendle -- David, if I may?" -- David nodded.  Henson smiled. "It shows here that you earned your Masters Degree in Education, with a focus on world History."
David nodded again. "Yes, that's right."
"The position we have open is for an American history teacher," said Henson.
"I've 20 semester hours credit in American History, Mr. Henson," said David. "American history was one of my three minors," he explained.
The interview continued for twenty minutes, until Henson, duly impressed with David's grade point average and other academic achievements, smiled, said "I'll let you talk to Miss House next."
Julie House, the Chairman of the History Department, was petite, cute and unmarried. And aggressive. She saw David Rendle from afar and set her sights on him. At 33, she told herself, if she were to have a family, she'd need to latch onto an eligible man. And in David she saw just the probable procreator she was looking for. Miss House conducted David's second interview for the position of jr. high teacher of American history. She was the only female departmental chair other than for home economics. She was a go-getter and had two Master's Degrees.
"Cal State is a good school," she sat flatly, staring brazenly at David, undressing him with her eyes. "I bet he's got a big dick," she thought smugly, her eyes growing a little wider with anticipation. She blushed a bright red and David wondered what that was all about. He was seated in a chair that was purposefully six inches shorter than that of Miss House. David's head bobbled up and down in agreement.
"You didn't particpate in many outside, non-academic activities," she murmured with a little pout.
"I was....pretty involved with my studies," he explained.
"What did you do for fun?" she asked, arching meticulously plucked brows.
"I did run cross country, during my junior year of high school," admitted David, wondering where this was going.
Good, thought Julie. That meant he had endurance. Sometimes, she reflected, she could go all night. Hopefully, he would be able to keep up. That or she'd get rid of his ass, she thought. She reached a decision.
"Welcome aboard," she declared, reaching out and shaking David's hand to excess.
. . . . .
Things went well from the very first. With his keen intelligence, exquisite manners and good looks, David was popular with students, his fellow teachers and the administratiion. No one even began to expect that David, apparent stud that he was, had never even been kissed. Hadn't even held anyone's hand.
Being asexual, as his shrink had said, was not a death sentence, it was just another way of life. He had to do something about Miss House, though, thought David. She was on a never-ending campaign to do...whatever. After endless entreaties and almost blatant threats, David had consented to a date with Miss House -- his first ever. Did she ask him to have a cup of coffee at the diner across from the school? A slice at the local pizzeria? She did not. She made him promise to show up at her house for a home-cooked meal. Yikes! he thought. Could she possibly be more obvious? Rumor at school had it that Miss House's biological clock was ticking down to eternity and she sorely wanted to have a child. David shook his head dazedly as he stood at her door and knocked.
"Come in, David," invited Miss House, flashing an attractive smile. Miss House was nice-looking, thought David blankly, following her over the threshold. He just couldn't account for her untoward interest in him. "Lemme take your coat," she said, grabbing his jacket and shoving it into a closet. "What are you drinking, David?" she asked too brightly.
"Grape fizzy," he replied wistfully.
"Huh?"
"Uh...beer," he said, smiling.
A moment later, David was holding a large, out-sized bottle of malt liquor, 8% alcohol, he noted on the container. "Thanks, Miss House," he said.
"Julie," she insisted, smiling that bright, persistent smile again.
David smiled weakly.
"David," she said in a concerned voice. He looked up. "Don't you like me?"
He was at a loss for words. Everyone, to him, was pretty much the same. Such terms as "lust after" were frankly alien to him. He shrugged helplessly, murmured, "Sure, I like you, Miss House."
Julie scowled, then twisted her lips wryly. "May I ask you a question?" she asked. David looked into her clear blue eyes. "Does your dick work?" she asked, cutting to the chase. He blinked in bewilderment. "I mean," she went on, cursing herself for her clumsiness, "it's no secret that I want to get pregnant. With a husband if possible, but if not, then that's okay too. I inveigled you to come here tonight, David, because I wanted your pecker, inside of me, fertilizing my ovum. Get the picture, David? I mean," she continued, "if you have zero interest, then I can feed the pot roast to the cat and you can scram."
At last, David found his voice. "I...Miss House...Julie,  I've never been intimate with a woman before." There, he'd said it.
"Then you're homosexual?" she conjectured dismally.
"No. I mean, I don't know, I've never done anything, with anyone."
"Huh!" she said. "I'll be goddamned."
"Mr. Drudge propositioned me in the teacher's lounge last week and I was just not into that, either."
"That sonofabitch," she hissed. "Everyone knew I had dibs."
She looked into his eyes. "What do you want, David. Do you want to pour the meat to me, or do you want to be a sissy with Melvin? What do you want?" She repeated. They stared at each other for a moment, then broke out laughing. After that, with the tension broken, they enjoyed dinner and then talked far into the night, about all sorts of things, with no pressure.
Mr. Dungie,  the music teacher, approached David in the teacher's lounge the next morning and said, "Hey, David, that Julie House has a nice little ass, huh?" David didn't know what to say. "Hey, c'mon, kid, she wants it. Might as well come from you, 'eh?"  and he elbowed David in the ribs.
"I don't understand," protested David uncomfortably.
"Julie wants to get pregnant," said Dungie patiently, as if speaking to a slow child. "She wants to have a baby. She wants to be a mommy!"  and he cackled uproariously. David excused himself to get more coffee, then sat down in another spot. Dungie turned to another teacher and growled, "Rendle is queer-bait for Melvin, I guess."
David had never considered himself father material before and really didn't know what to think. Others had made insinuations, as if David and Miss House should naturally gravitate towards one another, like two magnets. In an assembly one time, he overheard some eighth graders chanting, "Julie and David, sitting in a tree; K-I-S-S-I-N-G!"
Miss House was certainly attractive, at least on the surface, thought David, but he had frankly never been sexually attracted to another person. For the thousandth time he wondered, what's the matter with me? However, in answer to the indelicate question posed by Miss House, he was functional, a testament to the handful of times he'd experimented with autoerotica.
. . . . .
Because he was bored, and because his previous date with Miss House had deflated the "faggot" deprecations cast his way by that worm Dungie, David agreed to another home-cooked meal with Miss House. "Listen, David," she said over fried chicken, all business now. "I inherited some money from my grandfather and I'll give you all of it; I'll pay you $50,000 to get me pregnant. What do you say?" David thought pragmatically back to the onerous repayment schedule on his student loans. On a beginning teacher's salary, he couldn't even afford to own a car. "Do  we have a deal?"
David nodded curtly. "Deal," he declared, and they shook on it. He felt like he was buying a used car.
. . . . .
Miss House's Presumptive Fertilization Schedule (PFS) was a demanding one. She explained to David that she would be most likely to get pregnant on the date of her ovulation, but that she could, "with luck, get knocked up anytime." The lady had a way with words, he thought.
Therefore, except on those days when she was menstruating, she insisted that David drop by her home each evening in order to "service her." And although he wasn't romantically turned on by Julie, he was able to function sexually, with a little manual ministration by Julie herself, who seemed to feel no compunction about it, one way or the other. She was used to it, she said.
David actually began to look forward to their sessions together. Although still, he had no romantic attraction to Julie, he found he genuinely liked her. She had a dry, self-effacing wit, and was able to reduce doubtful situations to their essence.
"David," remarked Julie one night as she mounted him, "I think you're actually beginning to enjoy having sex with me." She angled her face pixieishly at him.
"Well," he admitted, "the sexual climax is satisfying,"
"It's okay to say you like to come," she said with a grin, sliding her hips up and down. "And you're getting off a lot later, too -- not that I'm complaining," she added with a sudden little gasp.
. . . . .
One day, Julie asked David if she could accompany him to visit his psychiatrist some time. He was hesitant at first, but when she explained that she only wanted to understand asexuality better, he relented and got his doctor's approval.
David's psychiatrist, Dr. Tryst, had been reluctant to indulge David at first, but then felt that if his patient trusted this woman, then perhaps it would be good for him to have a meaningful relationship, whatever its nature. He had been concerned with David's lack of social contacts. Besides, Tryst figured, it was young Rendle's $26 an hour; he could spend it as he saw fit.
Julie was gracious as always and very polite to the doctor. As he and David discussed David and Julie's relationship, such as it was, Tryst's brows shot toward his diminishing hairline, but he made no comment. And Julie, the doctor noted, seemed embarrassed not at all by the financial basis of her and David's understanding.
At last Julie spoke. "Doctor, may I ask a question?" He nodded. "How prevalent is asexuality in the American population?"
"According to Dr. Kinsey," replied Tryst, "asexuality, which he designated as "X," was, among men, representative of about 1.5% of the adult population."
"Does Kinsey indicate a cure?" she asked next.
Tryst folded his arms across his chest. "Dr. Kinsey only did a rather primative survey," he answered. "He didn't pontificate remedies, nostrums, or cures. Besides, asexuality, in my own opinion, is not a dysfunctional condition that merits a remedy. It is a sexual orientation, just as are heterosexuality, homosexuality, and so forth. A great deal more study needs to be done on asexuality," he asserted. "Asexuals can live perfectly normal lives today."
"I see," answered Julie, nodding thoughtfully.
. . . . .
Seven months later, having so far met with no success, as defined by Julie as impregnation, David let himself into her home -- he now had his own key -- and met Julie coming out of the shower. Wait a minute, he thought, there was something different about her. The tiniest bulge at her belly, He stared. For only the second time since he'd known her, Julie blushed.
"Surprise," she cried with a grin, "we're pregnant!" She excitedly rushed into his arms and they embraced.
"Then this means," he began.
"The project," she said, "has reached a successful conclusion. I'll give you a check when I transfer funds tomorrow. Is that okay?" She looked carefully at her erstwhile lover. He only nodded. "I guess you're relieved now, huh?" she asked. He looked down into her clear blue eyes. "You won't have to come over here every night now. You're free again, to do whatever it is you do."
David forgot for the moment what it was that he used to do. He had grown accustomed to the routine. Prior to the project with Julie -- he had finally convinced himself to call her by her given name, rather than the cumbersome "Miss House" -- he had occupied his time with lesson plans and grading papers, and prior to being hired, with reading and studying and attending classes. He still ran five miles per day. But, he recalled ruefully, he had been almost profoundly, painfully lonely. Did he really want to go back to that? he wondered.
The first night following the conclusion of the project, David sat at the table in the kitchen of his tiny apartment, wondering what to do next. Probably should eat, he thought. Julie usually fixed supper for them, to "fuel up" for the main event, she'd jokingly say. Tomorrow he would receive his money; he could buy a car. Somehow, it didn't seem important anymore. His mind raced. He thought about the child.
"No strings," she told him. "I'll house, clothe, feed, raise, and love the baby  and your responsibility ends at the point where I become pregnant." She stared boldy at him, as if waiting for him to object. But, he didn't. About that he felt vaguely guilty. He'd taken up the issue with Dr. Tryst and he'd told David that such a "contract," written or not, was probably not binding, except perhaps on David's own conscience.
How did he really feel about deleting himself permanently from the life of his own flesh and blood? He could probably never prove the child was his, if it came to that. All that they could match were blood types, and that was usually inconclusive, his doctor had told him. Would he, could he, come to love the little boy or girl birthed by Julie? He yet had no feelings of romantic attachment to Julie, but he genuinely liked her. She was good company, and he adored her outrageous sense of humor. Moreover, he was used to her and to their life together, such as it was. How did she feel? he wondered.
12 Months Later
David jogged along down the street which fronted Julie's house, the same way that he did every morning. He was hoping to catch another glimpse of his daughter, whom Julie had named Mary. Most days, when he didn't spy them, he'd then retrace his steps around the block several times, hoping to see them. It was winter, too cold to have a baby out in the chill winds. In front of Julie's place, he paused and stared at the house, past the plumes of his frozen breath. Through the curtains he could discern some activity, some life.
Julie had taken an extended break from teaching, beginning during her last month of pregnancy. She was set to return after the holidays. Prior to Julie taking her leave, she and David, in their rare encounters at school, had remained cordial, but pretended that nothing was amiss. She seemed to take particular care not to run into him. He clandestinely observed her gradually expanding middle. There were rumors as to the father of her child, but no one knew for sure -- almost no one. David approached the house. She hadn't told him that he could never visit. Nor had she invited him to come by. Drawing a great breath, he let it out and rapped sharply on the door. He heard a bustle of activity from within and then the door swept open with a little whoosh of  warm air. Julie stood there, a little heavier, a little more tired-looking, but seemingly radiant. She blinked in surprise. And then a smile played upon her lips.
"David," she said, opening the screen door. "Come in." He padded across the threshold and stood there with his stocking cap clutched in his hands. "What can I do for you?" she asked, a little cooly.
Thoughts rampaged through his mind, but in the end, he decided to just be honest. "I wanted to see my...your...our little girl," he managed at last.
Julie seemed to thaw at once. "Okay," she said softly, and led him into a spare bedroom, which had been converted into a nursery. He stood before Mary's crib and peered down into her clear blue eyes.
"She's got your eyes," he marveled.
"Your nose," she replied, generously.
"Can I..." he asked, "touch her?"
Julie smiled. "Of course, you can hold her." And she picked Mary up from the crib, wrapped her in the baby blanket and carefully handed her to her father.
David couldn't help himself; he wept. He had wondered if he could ever feel love and here it was, in his arms. Julie too began crying. Suddenly the baby wept as well. "Well, we're a weepy lot," David said, and they both laughed. After a moment, Mary calmed down and David stood there, wrapped around the child he had helped create. Finally, Julie took the baby from David and gently slipped her back into her crib.
"I'm glad you came by, David," she said kindly.
"Me, too. So, you're coming back to Ellis after Christmas break, huh?" he asked, working up the courage to put the question of marriage to her. This was a discussion that he frankly never thought he would have. Julie was speaking; he listened.
"No, I've decided to retire from teaching," she was saying.
"Retire?" he asked, surprised. "For good?"
"No, only until Mary starts school," she explained. "I want to devote all my time to her; you understand?"
David's mind raced. "But, what will you live on?" Julie had spent all her inheritance on David's fee, he recalled ruefully.
"Everett has asked me to marry him, David." Everett Henson was Superintendant of Schools, the man who had given David his first teaching job. David was about to blurt out that he wanted to marry Julie, and raise a family, but Julie went on, "And I told him yes."
The look on David's face was ghastly and almost as if reading his mind, Julie said, "I'm sorry, David, if you had plans too, but I didn't think there was a future between you and me. I mean, you didn't come by or show an interest in Mary or me, and you never asked me to spend a life with you. Everett did," she said simply.
David stood there, forlorn. "I waited a long time to get pregnant, David," Julie said.
"I waited a long time to have any kind of a relationship," he replied sadly.
"Maybe you can wait for me," said Julie totally out of the blue.
"But I thought you and Everett were..."
"Everett is nearly 75 years old and has a bad heart, and has been married four times before. Nothing lasts forever," she murmured, then permitted herself a tiny smile. And David suddenly felt like smiling too.

Peril in Three- Quarter Time

By Angela Camack
​ 

   Once she could talk about it, when people asked how she'd coped with being shut up with him, she replied, "The music. It kept me sane."
      Emily DeCarlo was a librarian at the New England Conservatory. library Trained in voice and piano, she was good enough to recognize that she would never be a professional musician. So, she moved into a career that involved her other love, working with people. She was good at her job. No, book, no article, no sheet of music remained unfound, no question unanswered when the library was Emily's dominion. Emily ruptured all the stereotypes about librarians. Kind, welcoming, very smart, her curvy little body, chestnut curls and huge green eyes didn't hurt.
The campus was a wonder for music lovers. It existed on a wave of music. Voices, violins, horns and guitars were heard on the grounds and inside the public spaces of the university, as if the making of music was inseparable from the rest of the  musicians' lives. Emily was very happy with her job and her life, her little Boston apartment, her friends, and now her engagement to Charles, a psychologist who worked with children at Boston Medical Center.
But life likes to keep us unbalanced. Emily began losing her balance when she came across Grady, a maintenance worker at the Conservatory. Everything was innocent at first. Grady came  to her one afternoon when she was at the reference desk. He had a question about a minor medical problem. Emily was glad to help, as the library encouraged employees to use the library. After that, he  would stop by and chat if he was in the building, usually talking about what was happening at the Conservatory. He  was a very tall man, broad but solid. His work gave him a lot of muscle. He was balding, with almost colorless hair, and a face weathered from outdoor work. He moved like he was unsure how his body would behave in small spaces.
He continued to drop by her desk. Once, when she was doing an evening shift, during the dinner lull, he shared that he loved music, but his family didn't have  the money or motivation to pay for serious lessons. Working at the Conservatory was as close as he could get to what he loved. Why did his visits make her uncomfortable? He wasn’t the only person on campus she chatted with. If  things became too close for comfort, she could tell him she was engaged. There was no problem there. But something about him tweaked Emily’s radar.
Then Grady's visits happened several times a week, often to discuss the same problem they'd solved before If she was taking a break or eating lunch alone around campus, he'd "happen" to find her. She had a hard time steering their conversation from personal issues. All events that made her uncomfortable, but nothing that she could complain about.
That is, until he found her by her car as she was leaving one day.
He was nervous and tense. “I know this great little bar in Allston that has live music. How would you like to come with me Friday night?" he asked. "If you're not sick of music after being around it all week."
"Grady, that sounds really good. Thanks, but I'm with my fiancé  on weekend evenings."
His face tightened. "You’re engaged. When did this happen?"
"Two weeks ago."
"You didn't tell me." He glanced at her hands." I don't see a diamond."
"We don't like them. They cost so much, and so many of the people who mine them are treated so badly." She pointed to the pearl ring on her ring finger." This is what he gave me."
     "I can't stand liars, Emily."
     "I' m not lying! Why would I lie to you?"
    "To blow me off. Because you won't date me!"
    "Wouldn't saying 'no'  be easier?"
   Grady's face was a furious red and he was sweating." No! Because you bitches can't give up a chance to jerk a man around!"
Emily didn't bother answering, just got into her car. It took two tries to get her keys in the ignition. She pulled away. Looking in the rear-view mirror, she saw Grady was still there, still red faced and glowering. "This is not going to be easy," she thought. "The only question is how far he'll go."
Grady ignored her  if work brought him to the library, but she felt his stare. He began asking her co-workers if she was really engaged. Emily went to security when notes saying 'Liar' or 'Slut' were tucked under het windshield wiper. Security  said nothing could be proved but to keep track of the notes. Grady finally tipped  his hand when a long, rambling letter accusing her of "thinking she was too good  to date a man who works with his hands." appeared in her mailbox at home. Really frightened now, Emily went to the Dean of the library. Grady's handwriting was identified. The incident was documented, and he was told not to approach Emily again.
Emily knew it wasn't over. It happened one bitterly cold night as she was going to her car after an evening shift. She had trouble unlocking her car door; it was hard using her tube of lock defroster with gloved hands. This gave her assailant more time, She felt a rough cloth with a  sickly-sweetish odor cover her face, held by a rough hand. Blackness surrounded her before she could react. She woke, not sure how much later, with a blinding headache, in her underwear on a strange bed.
She pulled  a thin blanket around her and walked unsteadily to the door, not really surprised that it was locked. Knowing it was probably useless, she began to shout for help.
The door rattled and Grady entered "I thought you'd be awake by now." He  tossed a hospital gown on the bed. "Here."
"Where are my clothes? My purse? My phone?" Emily croaked.
"You won't need them while you're my guest."
"I'm not your guest." Emily pulled the blanket more closely round herself and staggered to the bed. “What did you give me?" Grady smiled. "Just a little ether."
Emily shook her head. "You could have set us afire. No wonder I feel sick."
"I know, ether can do that. Do you want some ginger ale?"
"I want to go home!" Emily tried to make her voice sound rational. "Look, let me go now and it'll be all over. I won't tell anyone. We'll go on like it never happened."
Grady snorted. "Back to you treating me like crap? Like garbage? Like getting me in deep shit with my boss?"
"You got yourself in trouble!"
"No, you did!" Grady came close, shaking a finger in Emily's face. "With your fake smiles, and fake attention, you led me on! And how do you expect men to react to you, built like you are?"
"Well excuse me all to hell for forgetting to wear my work tits to the library!"
Grady stepped a few paces toward her, then stopped. Emily had forgotten how big he was, how used to using his hands and muscles, how much damage he could do.
She lowered her voice. "Look we can be reasonable. People expect me to be in certain places at certain times. The library knows I never just not come in. My car's still in the lot. Charles -"
Grady snorted. “Charles. You afraid to leave your big-time psychologist on the loose?”
“How did you know he’s a psychologist? Oh, from the snooping around you did.” Emily sighed and pulled the blanket even closer. The room was chilly. Freezing air seeped around the windows. “If you think Charlie makes a lot of money, think again. He works with traumatized children at Boston Childrens’ Hospital.”
“So, your Chad’s a do-gooder.”
“His name is Charles.”
“Aw, they’re all Chads. The ones with the fancy degrees, the titles. Why bother with a working stiff when you can have Charlie?”
“Because he’s the one I love, and he loves me.” She sat on the bed. “Look, this isn’t doing any good. Just let me go. I won’t tell anyone.”
“Like you kept my letter a big secret?”
“Why are you keeping me here?”
“:Somebody needs to teach you a lesson about what it’s like to  be alone.” I’ll bring something to eat and then you’d better go to sleep” He locked the door and left.
Emily started to cry, tired, despairing tears. Then she took control of herself. Where was she? A small bedroom with a small dresser and a wardrobe. There was a bathroom with a shower stall. The room was shabby, with peeling paint and smelled close, moldy. There were no pictures, no ornaments on the dresser. The bathroom had chipped tiles and stains around the shower pan. The room felt like human habitation was an afterthought to whoever owned it. She went to the window. The window was frosted, and it was full dark, so she had no idea where she was. She tried to open the window, but it was stuck tight, probably painted shut. She tugged on the window to try and stop the cold from blowing in. The window rattled against the unstable frame and the soft wood of the sill.
She began to hear music from another part of the house. Chopin’s Nocturn, opus nine, number two in e-flat Major. She couldn’t tell who was playing.
Grady unlocked the door and entered, bearing a sandwich and a glass of water. “Does the music surprise you?”
“Why would it?”
“A roughneck like me digging classical music?”
“Oh, please stop. You told me you wanted to study music, remember?”
“Which composers do you dislike?
Emily thought a moment. She could guess where this was going. “Vivaldi and Bach.”
“Vivaldi and Bach? That’s weird.”
“Vivaldi is too wishy-washy, and Bach is too somber. They’re opposites.”
Grady smirked. “I guess you know what you’ll be hearing a lot of.”
He left and locked the door. Emily curled up on the bed. If nothing else, she would hear two of her favorites. A tiny victory, but maybe she could do better.
Emily was too nervous to eat the sandwich Grady left for her. She wrapped it in the napkin he brought with it and went into the little bathroom. She found soap, 2 in 1 shampoo, toothpaste and a toothbrush. How long had Grady been planning this? She brushed her teeth, waited until the water was warm enough to wash her face and went back to the bed.
She curled up in the thin blanket. What was going to happen to her? How long would it take before people noticed? Charles was expecting her at his apartment. She’d taken him up on his invitation to move in with him when Grady’s behavior began to scare her. He must have called.
She could see nothing out of the frosted window. It was full dark. Where was she, was she still in Boston? Despair iced the bottom of her stomach. She gave herself up to the Chopin, riding the rhythms like a wave. Somewhere in the world there was still beauty.
After a fitful sleep, she saw that morning had greyed the window. She looked out, hoping to orient herself. Without her watch or cell phone she had no idea of the time, but it looked past dawn. Puffs of white dotted the streets; people had already started warming up their cars. She saw well-kept two-family houses and clean sidewalks. Did this house share a wall with a neighbor? Could she make enough noise when Grady left to alert someone?
She could at least keep track of the days (dear Lord, do I have to think of staying days in this house?). Yesterday was Monday, today was Tuesday. She was scheduled to be at work at 9 a.m. At least she wasn’t scheduled to work an evening. She’d be missed as soon as the library opened.
Leaving the window, her hand brushed against a splinter. “Ooh, that hurts! That’s my job for today, digging out a splinter.” Suddenly she drew her hand against the windowsill. It was soft, unpainted, probably rotten, as was the wood around the window. The glass rattled when the wind blew. “No, that’s my job for today. I’m going to open this window and get out of Dodge.”
She searched the dresser for something she could use to pry the window open. She found dust, handkerchiefs wedged in the  back of the top drawer. Forgotten cufflinks. The second drawer held extra towels.
She moved to the wardrobe. There were a handful of hangers on the rod and more dust on the floor. Would a hanger work? She was about to shut the door when she saw, in the corner, a rag and a putty knife. At one time somebody was going to fix the window. She grabbed the knife and slipped it into the pillowcase just as Grady knocked on the door.
“You decent?”
“Just a second.” Emily wrapped the blanket around herself. “OK.”
Grady entered with a tray holding buttered toast and coffee. “I see you didn’t eat last night. You better eat now.”
“Can I have my clothes, please? This room’s cold.”
“No. And don’t try anything while I’m at work. I’ll know.”
“How long are you going to keep me here?”
Grady didn’t answer, just locked the door. He returned with a sandwich in a Baggie, an apple and a water bottle. “Stay out of trouble.”
He locked the door again. Somewhere she heard a toilet flushing and water running. Then the front door closed, and she heard a car starting, then driving off.
Emily drank the coffee and ate the edges of the toast. So much butter glopped on it! Maybe she could use it to grease the window frame.
What to do? Keep as normal a life as possible. She took a shower while the hot water lasted and brushed her teeth. Remake the bed. Remove the putty knife from the pillowcase. How to attack the problem? She started prying the bottom of the window. The wood must be loose if it rattled and let in frigid air. She worked away at the softness of the windowsill, then ran the knife around the edges of the window frame. Sill, right frame, left frame, sill right frame, left frame, was this working at all? Yes, small splinters and dust were falling at her feet.
Sill, right frame, left frame. She worked until her arms and shoulders ached, then stopped for lunch. Baloney and mayonnaise. Ugh. At least the apple wasn’t greasy. She drank some water.
She fell asleep for an hour. She hadn’t slept well last night. She worked away at the window until she heard a car pull up. Grady. Would he see what she was trying to do? She grabbed a towel from the dresser and threw it over the window. It hung precariously over the window frame.
Grady knocked at the door, then let himself in. “So, you survived.”
“Just barely. Please let me go.”
“Maybe. Maybe when you learn what it’s like to be alone.”
Emily’s throat felt thick, her eyes hot. Would tears help? Probably not, he’d be happy to see her break.
Soon Grady came up again, to collect the lunch tray and leave dinner. A grinder with cold cuts, cheese and more mayonnaise, and a small stack of oatmeal cookies. Did he ever make the acquaintance of a green vegetable?
He noticed the towel over the window. “What’s that for?”
“The window lets the cold in.”
“Sorry the accommodations don’t suit you, Lady Di.”
He left and locked the door. “If-when, not if, I get out of here I will try to hurt you. Somehow,” she thought furiously. Good. The anger was better than despair. It gave her more energy.
She heard water running in what she thought was the kitchen. Then music played. Vivaldi. The Four Seasons. “That didn’t take long.” She returned to the bed, wrapped herself in the blanket and let herself find the music. She pictured the seasons, each so different, so clearly drawn by the music. When the Vivaldi stopped, she heard Jim Morrison, then Robbie Robertson. Well, that’s a change. She imagined them in their prime, such beautiful, sensuous boys. Again the music found her, this time as slender spinners of song, seducing the crowd with their voices and guitars, played into the night.
The next grey dawn came, as did Grady, more toast, more coffee. He dropped the tray as he left, it  clattered against the dresser. Under the cover of the noise, Emily slipped toward the door on bare feet. Not quietly enough. She was  pulled back by her hair. Grady pushed her on the bed.
“I told you, don’t try anything. Now sit there and eat,”
Emily tried to eat. At least the toast had jelly today, not globs of butter. Grady came back as she was finishing. He dropped another hospital gown on the bed.
“This one’s a little thicker. Maybe you’ll stop whining about the cold.”
“Where did you get these?”
“I took my mother here the last week before she died. The hospital gave them to us before we left.”
“I’m sorry. That must have been hard.”
“Yeah.” Grady left, locking the door behind him,
The gown was thicker, more like a scrub gown that would be worn in the operating room. So, his mother died in his care. That was one piece of Grady’s alone-ness. That and being held apart from the music he loved,  only to serve its practitioners, often without thanks or notice. She’d seen how often people didn’t notice  the ones who made the Conservatory go, maintenance people, kitchen workers, cleaners. These were the people who supported the talent, the aura of music that surrounded the campus. Professors, students, their eyes slipped over the others like water. Could she use this understanding, create rapport?
She couldn’t stop to think. She had a schedule to keep, such as it was. Shower, shampoo, tooth brushing. Livid bruises were starting to show where Grady had grabbed her arms. She washed her underthings, squeezed them in a towel and draped them over the heater vent. She could do violence for a little lip gloss and body lotion.
Dressed in her new attire for the day, she made her bed and resumed her position at the window, working away at the soft wood. It was softer now; more dust was falling. She must be sure to get rid of it before Grady got back.
The evening passed like the one before. A burger and fries tonight, with lettuce and tomato, woo-hoo! Grady had forgotten to leave lunch, so she was hungry. He came up to collect the tray, curt and uncomfortable after the morning’s upset.
Water running in the kitchen, then the music. Bach, tonight, D-Minor Partita, He thought he was paying her back for her behavior today. But she was lost in the music, held by its powerful perfection. How could anyone despair when surrounded by such structured beauty?
She found she could sleep tonight, holding on to the spell of the music and after working at the window most of the day. Her arms ached, from scraping all day and from the darkening bruises on her arms. Sleep would keep her from thinking.
Dawn was brighter the next morning. She was at the window again after Grady left for work, but two hours later she heard the front door open again. Heavy footsteps stopped, then pounded to the door. “
Grady unlocked the door. His face was red. “The police came to see me today, about you. They want to search the house.” He showed her a pistol. “Not a word from you. Do you hear me? I have enough bullets to take care of us all.” He thrust the pistol into her hand. “It’s real, all right. Not one word. Not one sound.”
He grabbed her and pushed her into the wardrobe. The door closed on her, just. There was a knock at the front door. Grady left the room.
She heard voices and movement in the house. Was Grady telling the truth? Was his rage enough to drive him to shooting? She began to cry, then stuffed a fist in her mouth. No, she couldn’t risk it.
He hadn’t locked the door to the room. Of course not, it would look suspicious. Could she try to sneak out? She had seen nothing of the rest of the house, didn’t know where an exit could be.
The voices moved to the door, and it opened. “Just like everything else.” Grady said. “She’s not here.”
“Where do you think she might be?” Another voice. “You sure were keeping track of her for a while.”
“I don’t know. Did you ask the boyfriend? I heard she had one.”
“We’ve had plenty of chances to do that, he calls the station at least twice a day.” The voice paused. “If you know anything, it’s best for you to let us know.”
“I tell you, I don’t know. I’m done with her,”
The voices moved away. The front door closed. Her hope of escape with the police was gone. Should she have risked calling out? She began to cry.
Footsteps came back, one set. Grady opened the wardrobe door. “You did good. You can have some Mozart tonight. What’s wrong?”
“I want to go home. Please, “ she stammered.
“I’ll bring back some pasta tonight. The Italian place around the corner is really good.”
“I want to go home. Please.”
He waited a moment, then turned and locked the door. Emily lay down on the bed, too spent to work at the window any more today, too despairing. But Grady had promised her Mozart. That evening she heard  Piano Sonata 16. Lively and graceful, the music kept her spirits high enough to help her hold together.
But Thursday came, a brighter dawn. She had to be done by Friday. Grady had been at work all week, he would be off on Saturday, She couldn’t risk doing anything if he was going to be at the house.
Breakfast, lunch left for her, Grady gone. She flew through her morning routines, then was back at the window. She didn’t stop for lunch. She kept at it, kept at the softening wood of the sill and the frame. And then it happened. The frame came away from the window. There was a small space between the sill and the glass.
Could she lift it? After all this work, was she still a prisoner? She pressed at the window. God it was tight! She pressed harder, and harder. Her muscles began to scream. She needed to stop to wipe the sweat from her hands. She pressed until there was enough space to let her out. Cold, fresh air blew in. She grabbed the blanket and prepared to make the leap. went out of the window, the blanket tangling in a bush under the window. She quickly worked it loose and then wrapped it around her. She walked quickly to the house next door, the cold ground like iron under her bare feet.
                Emily rang the bell at the back door. Two cars were in the driveway, certainly somebody was home. She tightened the blanket around her. She must look insane, barefoot, blanket-clad, hair blown.
            An aging man came to the door. “I’m Emily. Please, can you help me? I’ve been in danger. Can you call the police for me? The man stared blankly. “Please, just call the police and I won’t bother you. I can’t stay long in this cold.”
            Recognition dawned in the man’s eyes. “You’re the librarian they’ve been looking for.”
            “Yes!” Emily cried.
            “I must be crazy, keeping you out in the cold. Come in.”
            The warm house felt wonderful. The man was a retired machinist, Peter Prentice, and his wife was Mary Prentice. Mary went into action as Peter called the police, warming up coffee and, seeing Emily’s discomfort in her blanket, leant her a pair of sweats and sneakers. Emily was enveloped in a kindness even warmer than the room.
            A police cruiser pulled in the driveway. Leaving with the police, Emily watched as Grady’s house disappeared from view.
            Soon they were at the police station, Police District 5-West. She had been in Roslindale all the time. She was shown into an interrogation room, where she began the process of unwinding all that had happened. She told it all, even as the memories sickened her, Grady’s seeming friendliness, his anger at being turned down and finally his taking her to his house. Roslindale. Just six miles, a little more than 30 minutes from the Conservatory.
            She told the officers about the police coming to question him, about the gun. She told them about her work at the window, scraping away at the rotted wood, and about the charitable couple who had helped her.
            Suddenly she heard a familiar voice. “Try Room 2, to the left.” Steps coming down the hall. Charles bursting into the room, despite the protests from the officers.
            But she was in his arms, Charlie, so real, tousled brown hair, blue eyes, the scent of soap and clean wool. “I thought I would never see you again,” she sobbed.
            But she had. In the following weeks she got her life in balance again. The library offered her time off, but she needed to get back what she had lost. She was anxious on campus, but there was little reason. Grady had given up and confessed. Out on bail, even if he tried to come on campus security would keep him away. The District Attorney told her he would likely receive considerable prison time. She clung to Charles at first, then let go, happy to just be with him. She began to see friends, to laugh again.
            When she had a moment, she felt a tiny spark of compassion for Grady, who had been kept from music, overlooked at work, who had been alone. He’d turned his misery toward her, but at least she could acknowledge that misery. Sometimes, despite our best efforts, life kept us unbalanced. All she could do was work to keep her balance and try to have some empathy for those who could not.
 

The Sphinx

By Edgar Allan Poe
​
During the dread reign of the Cholera in New York, I had accepted the invitation of a relative to spend a fortnight with him in the retirement of his cottage orné on the banks of the Hudson. We had here around us all the ordinary means of summer amusement; and what with rambling in the woods, sketching, boating, fishing, bathing, music and books, we should have passed the time pleasantly enough, but for the fearful intelligence which reached us every morning from the populous city. Not a day elapsed which did not bring us news of the decease of some acquaintance. Then, as the fatality increased, we learned to expect daily the loss of some friend. At length we trembled at the approach of every messenger. The very air from the South seemed to us redolent with death. That palsying thought, indeed, took entire possession of my soul. I could neither speak, think, nor dream of any thing else. My host was of a less excitable temperament, and, although greatly depressed in spirits, exerted himself to sustain my own. His richly philosophical intellect was not at any time affected by unrealities. To the substances of terror he was sufficiently alive, but of its shadows he had no apprehension.
His endeavors to arouse me from the condition of abnormal gloom into which I had fallen, were frustrated in great measure, by certain volumes which I had found in his library. These were of a character to force into germination whatever seeds of hereditary superstition lay latent in my bosom. I had been reading these books without his knowledge, and thus he was often at a loss to account for the forcible impressions which had been made upon my fancy.
A favorite topic with me was the popular belief in omens — a belief which, at this one epoch of my life, I was almost seriously disposed to defend. On this subject we had long and animated discussions — he maintaining the utter groundlessness of faith in such matters. — I contending that a popular sentiment arising with absolute spontaneity — that is to say without apparent traces of suggestion — had in itself the unmistakable elements of truth, and was entitled to as much respect as that intuition which is the idiosyncracy of the individual man of genius.
The fact is, that soon after my arrival at the cottage, there had occurred to myself an incident so entirely inexplicable, and which had in it so much of the portentious character, that I might well have been excused for regarding it as an omen. It appalled, and at the same time so confounded and bewildered me, that many days elapsed before I could make up my mind to communicate the circumstances to my friend.
Near the close of an exceedingly warm day, I was sitting, book in hand, at an open window, commanding, through a long vista of the river banks, a view of a distant hill, the face of which nearest my position, had been denuded, by what is termed a land-slide, of the principal portion of its trees. My thoughts had been long wandering from the volume before me to the gloom and desolation of the neighboring city. Uplifting my eyes from the page, they fell upon the naked face of the hill, and upon an object — upon some living monster of hideous conformation, which very rapidly made its way from the summit to the bottom, disappearing finally in the dense forest below. As this creature first came in sight, I doubted my own sanity — or at least the evidence of my own eyes; and many minutes passed before I succeeded in convincing myself that I was neither mad nor in a dream. Yet when I describe the monster, (which I distinctly saw, and calmly surveyed through the whole period of its progress,) my readers, I fear, will feel more difficulty in being convinced of these points than even I did, myself.
Estimating the size of the creature by comparison with the diameter of the large trees near which it passed — the few giants of the forest which had escaped the fury of the land-slide — I concluded it to be far larger than any ship of the line in existence. I say ship of the line, because the shape of the monster suggested the idea — the hull of one of our seventy-fours might convey a very tolerable conception of the general outline. The mouth of the animal was situated at the extremity of a proboscis some sixty or seventy feet in length, and about as thick as the body of an ordinary elephant. Near the root of this trunk was an immense quantity of black shaggy hair — more than could have been supplied by the coats of a score of buffalos; and projecting from this hair downwardly and laterally, sprang two gleaming tusks not unlike those of the wild boar, but of infinitely greater dimension. Extending forward, parrallel with the proboscis, and on each side of it was a gigantic staff, thirty or forty feet in length, formed seemingly of pure crystal, and in shape a perfect prism: — it reflected in the most gorgeous manner the rays of the declining sun. The trunk was fashioned like a wedge with the apex to the earth. From it there were outspread two pairs of wings — each wing nearly one hundred yards in length — one pair being placed above the other, and all thickly covered with metal scales; each scale apparently some ten or twelve feet in diameter. I observed that the upper and lower tiers of wings were connected by a strong chain. But the chief peculiarity of this horrible thing, was the representation of a Death’s Head, which covered nearly the whole surface of its breast, and which was as accurately traced in glaring white, upon the dark ground of the body, as if it had been there carefully designed by an artist. While I regarded this terrific animal, and more especially the appearance on its breast, with a feeling of horror and awe — with a sentiment of forthcoming evil, which I found it impossible to quell by any effort of the reason, I perceived the huge jaws at the extremity of the proboscis, suddenly expand themselves, and from them there proceeded a sound so loud and so expressive of wo, that it struck upon my nerves like a knell, and as the monster disappeared at the foot of the hill, I fell at once, fainting, to the floor.
Upon recovering, my first impulse of course was to inform my friend of what I had seen and heard — and I can scarcely explain what feeling of repugnance it was, which, in the end, operated to prevent me.
At length, one evening, some three or four days after the occurrence, we were sitting together in the room in which I had seen the apparition — I occupying the same seat at the same window, and he lounging on a sofa near at hand. The association of the place and time impelled me to give him an account of the phenomenon. He heard me to the end — at first laughed heartily — and then lapsed into an excessively grave demeanor, as if my insanity was a thing beyond suspicion. At this instant I again had a distinct view of the monster — to which, with a shout of absolute terror, I now directed his attention. He looked eagerly — but maintained that he saw nothing — although I designated minutely the course of the creature, as it made its way down the naked face of the hill.
I was now immeasurably alarmed, for I considered the vision either as an omen of my death, or, worse, as the fore-runner of an attack of mania. I threw myself passionately back in my chair, and for some moments buried my face in my hands. When I uncovered my eyes, the apparition was no longer apparent.
My host, however, had in some degree resumed the calmness of his demeanor, and questioned me very vigorously in respect to the conformation of the visionary creature. When I had fully satisfied him on this head, he sighed deeply, as if relieved of some intolerable burden, and went on to talk, with what I thought a cruel calmness of various points of speculative philosophy, which had heretofore formed subject of discussion between us. I remember his insisting very especially (among other things) upon the idea that a principle source of error in all human investigations, lay in the liability of the understanding to under-rate or to over-value the importance of an object, through mere mis-admeasurement of its propinquity. “To estimate properly, for example,” he said, “the influence to be exercised on mankind at large by the thorough diffusion of Democracy, the distance of the epoch at which such diffusion may possibly be accomplished, should not fail to form an item in the estimate. Yet can you tell me one writer on the subject of government, who has ever thought this particular branch of the subject worthy of discussion at all?”
He here paused for a moment, stepped to a book-case, and brought forth one of the ordinary synopses of Natural History. Requesting me then to exchange seats with him, that he might the better distinguish the fine print of the volume, he took my arm chair at the window, and, opening the book, resumed his discourse very much in the same tone as before.
“But for your exceeding minuteness,” he said, “in describing the monster, I might never have had it in my power to demonstrate to you what it was. In the first place, let me read to you a school boy account of the genus Sphinx, of the family Crepuscularia, of the order Lepidoptera, of the class of Insecta — or insects. The account runs thus:
“ ‘Four membranous wings covered with little colored scales of a metallic appearance; mouth forming a rolled proboscis, produced by an elongation of the jaws, upon the sides of which are found the rudiments of mandibles and downy palpi; the inferior wings retained to the superior by a stiff hair; antennæ in the form of an elongated club, prismatic; abdomen pointed. The Death’s-headed Sphinx has occasioned much terror among the vulgar, at times, by the melancholy kind of cry which it utters, and the insignia of death which it wears upon its corslet.’ ”
He here closed the book and leaned forward in the chair, placing himself accurately in the position which I had occupied at the moment of beholding “the monster.”
“Ah, here it is!” he presently exclaimed — “it is reascending the face of the hill, and a very remarkable looking creature, I admit it to be. Still, it is by no means so large or so distant as you imagined it; for the fact is that, as it wriggles its way up this hair, which some spider has wrought along the window-sash, I find it to be about the sixteenth of an inch in its extreme length, and also about the sixteenth of an inch distant from the pupil of my eye!”

War 

By Sherwood Anderson

The story came to me from a woman met on a train. The car was crowded and I took the seat beside her. There was a man in the offing who belonged with her–a slender girlish figure of a man in a heavy brown canvas coat such as teamsters wear in the winter. He moved up and down in the aisle of the car, wanting my place by the woman’s side, but I did not know that at the time.
The woman had a heavy face and a thick nose. Something had happened to her. She had been struck a blow or had a fall. Nature could never have made a nose so broad and thick and ugly. She had talked to me in very good English. I suspect now that she was temporarily weary of the man in the brown canvas coat, that she had travelled with him for days, perhaps weeks, and was glad of the chance to spend a few hours in the company of some one else.
Everyone knows the feeling of a crowded train in the middle of the night. We ran along through western Iowa and eastern Nebraska. It had rained for days and the fields were flooded. In the clear night the moon came out and the scene outside the car-window was strange and in an odd way very beautiful.
You get the feeling: the black bare trees standing up in clusters as they do out in that country, the pools of water with the moon reflected and running quickly as it does when the train hurries along, the rattle of the car-trucks, the lights in isolated farm-houses, and occasionally the clustered lights of a town as the train rushed through it into the west.
The woman had just come out of war-ridden Poland, had got out of that stricken land with her lover by God knows what miracles of effort. She made me feel the war, that woman did, and she told me the tale that I want to tell you.
I do not remember the beginning of our talk, nor can I tell you of how the strangeness of my mood grew to match her mood until the story she told became a part of the mystery of the still night outside the car- window and very pregnant with meaning to me.
There was a company of Polish refugees moving along a road in Poland in charge of a German. The German was a man of perhaps fifty, with a beard. As I got him, he was much such a man as might be professor of foreign languages in a college in our country, say at Des Moines, Iowa, or Springfield, Ohio. He would be sturdy and strong of body and given to the eating of rather rank foods, as such men are. Also he would be a fellow of books and in his thinking inclined toward the ranker philosophies. He was dragged into the war because he was a German, and he had steeped his soul in the German philosophy of might. Faintly, I fancy, there was another notion in his head that kept bothering him, and so to serve his government with a whole heart he read books that would re-establish his feeling for the strong, terrible thing for which he fought. Because he was past fifty he was not on the battle line, but was in charge of the refugees, taking them out of their destroyed village to a camp near a railroad where they could be fed.
The refugees were peasants, all except the woman in the American train with me, her lover and her mother, an old woman of sixty-five. They had been small landowners and the others in their party had worked on their estate.
Along a country road in Poland went this party in charge of the German who tramped heavily along, urging them forward. He was brutal in his insistence, and the old woman of sixty-five, who was a kind of leader of the refugees, was almost equally brutal in her constant refusal to go forward. In the rainy night she stopped in the muddy road and her party gathered about her. Like a stubborn horse she shook her head and muttered Polish words. “I want to be let alone, that’s what I want. All I want in the world is to be let alone,” she said, over and over; and then the German came up and putting his hand on her back pushed her along, so that their progress through the dismal night was a constant repetition of the stopping, her muttered words, and his pushing. They hated each other with whole-hearted hatred, that old Polish woman and the German.
The party came to a clump of trees on the bank of a shallow stream and the German took hold of the old woman’s arm and dragged her through the stream while the others followed. Over and over she said the words: “I want to be let alone. All I want in the world is to be let alone.”
In the clump of trees the German started a fire. With incredible efficiency he had it blazing high in a few minutes, taking the matches and even some bits of dry wood from a little rubber-lined pouch carried in his inside coat pocket. Then he got out tobacco and, sitting down on the protruding root of a tree, smoked and stared at the refugees, clustered about the old woman on the opposite side of the fire.
The German went to sleep. That was what started his trouble. He slept for an hour and when he awoke the refugees were gone. You can imagine him jumping up and tramping heavily back through the shallow stream and along the muddy road to gather his party together again. He would be angry through and through, but he would not be alarmed. It was only a matter, he knew, of going far enough back along the road as one goes back along a road for strayed cattle.
And then, when the German came up to the party, he and the old woman began to fight. She stopped muttering the words about being let alone and sprang at him. One of her old hands gripped his beard and the other buried itself in the thick skin of his neck.
The struggle in the road lasted a long time. The German was tired and not as strong as he looked, and there was that faint thing in him that kept him from hitting the old woman with his fist. He took hold of her thin shoulders and pushed, and she pulled. The struggle was like a man trying to lift himself by his boot straps. The two fought and were full of the determination that will not stop fighting, but they were not very strong physically.
And so their two souls began to struggle. The woman in the train made me understand that quite clearly, although it may be difficult to get the sense of it over to you. I had the night and the mystery of the moving train to help me. It was a physical thing, the fight of the two souls in the dim light of the rainy night on that deserted muddy road. The air was full of the struggle and the refugees gathered about and stood shivering. They shivered with cold and weariness, of course, but also with something else. In the air everywhere about them they could feel the vague something going on. The woman said that she would gladly have given her life to have it stopped, or to have someone strike a light, and that her man felt the same way. It was like two winds struggling, she said, like a soft yielding cloud become hard and trying vainly to push another cloud out of the sky.
Then the struggle ended and the old woman and the German fell down exhausted in the road. The refugees gathered about and waited. They thought something more was going to happen, knew in fact something more would happen. The feeling they had persisted, you see, and they huddled together and perhaps whimpered a little.
What happened is the whole point of the story. The woman in the train explained it very clearly. She said that the two souls, after struggling, went back into the two bodies, but that the soul of the old woman went into the body of the German and the soul of the German into the body of the old woman.
After that, of course, everything was quite simple. The German sat down by the road and began shaking his head and saying he wanted to be let alone, declared that all he wanted in the world was to be let alone, and the Polish woman took papers out of his pocket and began driving her companions back along the road, driving them harshly and brutally along, and when they grew weary pushing them with her hands.
There was more of the story after that. The woman’s lover, who had been a school-teacher, took the papers and got out of the country, taking his sweetheart with him. But my mind has forgotten the details. I only remember the German sitting by the road and muttering that he wanted to be let alone, and the old tired mother-in-Poland saying the harsh words and forcing her weary companions to march through the night back into their own country.

Benjamin’s Lure

by

James Nelli


The only thing breaking the mirrored surface of the water in Teller’s Cove on Lake Moultrie in South Carolina was the V-shaped wake of Benjamin Adler’s slow moving bass boat. The cool onshore breeze, bald cypress trees, and low-lying clouds illuminated by a fiery orange setting sun created another perfect late afternoon fishing adventure for Benjamin. After 47 years working on Wall Street as a successful executive at a venture capital company, Benjamin was happily retired. All he needed now to fill his days trolling the coves of Lake Moultrie in his bass boat were two cheese sandwiches, a bag of turkey jerky, a few cold bottles of Heineken, an ice filled cooler, and an ever-expanding variety of fishing lures and lines designed to help him catch fish. But not just any fish. He was searching for the king of freshwater fish, the largemouth bass. These bass are not big, maybe 12 pounds, but they are intelligent, strike a lure with explosive force, and they would fight and fight and fight. These were all the characteristics Benjamin wanted in a fishing adventure on Lake Moultrie.
Benjamin’s late afternoon fishing adventure had yielded very little tangible results. Other than a couple of weak nibbles and having a leader-line break after getting snagged on a stump that sent his favorite blue and gray spinnerbait lure to the bottom of Lake Moultrie, the afternoon
had been uneventful. That must be why people say it’s called fishing, not catching. Sometimes despite all your preparation, all your knowledge, you still don’t catch anything. It happens. As Benjamin was getting packed up to head back home, he noticed a young boy watching him from the other side of the cove. Benjamin started to raise his hand to wave at the boy, but the boy had already disappeared back into the woods beyond the cove. He thought it was odd that anyone was out this far near the lake without a boat, because there weren’t any homes in that part of the cove. But that thought passed quickly. Time to get back to his wife, Beth, at their lakeside home for dinner.
Benjamin moored the bass boat to the dock and walked toward the house with the empty ice chest. Beth saw him coming and could tell by the expression on his face that they were having frozen fish for dinner tonight. It wasn’t a new experience, but she was hoping for a better outcome.
“No problem, we’ve still got a few bass filets from your catch of last week,” Beth said before Benjamin even made it to the front door.
“I thought I had it figured out Beth,” replied Benjamin as he sat down on the couch opposite an already robust fire in the fireplace.
Beth brought two generously filled wine glasses to the couch and handed one to Benjamin and kept one for herself. “Did you enjoy your time on the lake?”
“Other than coming home empty-handed, the lake and the evening sky were especially beautiful today. I think I’m getting used to this retirement thing. You should come out on the boat with me.”
“I might Ben, but that’s your thing. You know I like driving into town and volunteering at the clinic. There are a lot of people in this area that need help. It’s my way of giving back.”
Before she and Benjamin retired and moved to South Carolina, Beth had been a maternity nurse at Bethany General Hospital in Greenwich, Connecticut. For a variety of medical reasons, Benjamin and Beth could not have children. Working at the hospital helping new mothers had filled a need for Beth that only she could describe.
“I did have something interesting happen just before I headed back home today,” said Ben.
“What was that?”
“As I was packing up, I saw a young boy maybe fourteen or fifteen years old watching me from the bank of the lake.”
“What’s so strange about that?”
“Well, I don’t know of any homes in that area. I’m not sure where he came from. When I tried to get his attention, he disappeared into the woods.”
“That is strange. Maybe you’ll see him tomorrow?”
“Maybe.”
The timer on the oven signaled dinner was ready. Benjamin picked up the two wine glasses and brought them to the dining room table along with the half-full bottle of wine. He was already thinking about tomorrow’s adventure.
The next afternoon, Benjamin boarded his bass boat and headed out an hour earlier than normal. He was anxious to try out another line and lure combination, and possibly see the mysterious young boy again. The low hum of his trolling motor was the only sound that
accompanied Benjamin to his favorite Teller’s Cove fishing site. He dropped his fluke anchor offshore and settled in for what he hoped would be a successful fishing adventure. After an hour of fishing, Benjamin hadn’t seen a substantial change from the results of the day before. He was getting frustrated, but he still couldn’t imagine anywhere else he’d rather be. As he pulled his line in and prepared for another cast, he saw the young boy appear on the shore. Benjamin waved, and the boy smiled and waved Benjamin toward the shore. Benjamin raised his anchor and trolled to the boy onshore. The boy was slender and looked about 15 years old. He was barefoot, had shaggy black hair, and was wearing brown shorts and a plain tan tee shirt. Benjamin also noticed a large light skin patch on the boy’s otherwise tan face. It was some sort of skin discoloration, possibly a birth mark. The irregular shaped patch ran from the boy’s left ear down his left cheek to the base of his jaw.
“How are you young man,” asked Benjamin.
“I’m fine sir.”
“My name is Mr. Adler. What’s your name?”
“Good to meet you sir. My name is Noah. Any luck fishing today?”
“I’ve had better days, but I keep trying. I saw you here yesterday. Are you from around here?”
“Oh yes. I’m from over there,” said the boy pointing back into the wooded area behind him.
“Do you fish out here?” asked Benjamin.
“Sometimes I do. Do you want to see what lure I use?”
“Of course. As you can see, I can use all the help I can get. I lost my favorite blue and gray spinnerbait lure here at the lake yesterday. I got it caught in the weeds and broke the leader line trying to pull it loose. It’s now at the bottom of the lake.”
“Sorry to hear that sir.”
The young boy reached into a zippered pouch he had on his waistband and pulled out a raggedy looking fuzzy jig lure, walked into the water toward the boat, and handed it to Benjamin.
“You catch fish with this lure?” asked a smiling but skeptical Benjamin as he examined the tattered lure in his hand.
“I do, and it’s great for the big fish like the largemouth bass,” Noah proudly proclaimed.
That comment got the attention of Benjamin.
“Why don’t you try it, sir? See for yourself.”
Benjamin smiled, leaned forward, and began to pass the tattered jig lure back to the young boy, but quickly pulled his hand back. “Thanks, I think I will try it.”
With the help of the young boy, Benjamin pushed the small boat away from the shore and trolled back out to the center of Teller’s Cove. He dropped anchor and then attached the tattered lure to his leader line. As he examined his new setup, he could see that this was a main line/leader line and lure combination he would never put together himself. It seemed all wrong, but he was determined to try anything at this time.
Benjamin’s first cast went only a few yards into the center of the cove. He slowly reeled it in but got no bites. When he got the lure back to the boat, he looked over at the young boy. The
boy smiled back and signaled to Benjamin to try it again. This time Benjamin’s cast went further into the cove, broke the surface of the water, and was immediately struck by a big fish. Benjamin reeled down his pole to get the slack out of the line, aggressively set the hook, and began reeling in what Benjamin could see was a largemouth bass. This was all being done under the watchful eye and cheers of the young boy. As soon as the bass was near enough to the boat, Benjamin used a landing net to get the large fish into the boat and secured it in the ice filled cooler. Working quickly, he again cast his line into the lake. Bam! Another powerful strike and more cheers from the young boy on the shore. This happened six times in a row, and the only reason Benjamin stopped fishing was that he ran out of room for any more fish in his cooler. He had never done that before. Benjamin secured his equipment in the boat and looked back toward shore to return the lure to his young friend; however, the young boy had surprisingly already left the cove.
Benjamin returned home to Beth with an ice chest full of largemouth bass and told her the story of Noah and the lure. They talked all through dinner. Sometimes shaking their heads on how unbelievable the entire day was.
“You know Beth, we will never be able to eat all these fish ourselves. Why don’t we try to find the boy and his family and bring some of the fish to them? Without his lure, none of this would have happened.”
“I like that idea, Ben. Why don’t you come with me to the clinic tomorrow morning, and we’ll talk to Dr. Cunningham. He’s been in this area for over 20 years, and he knows everybody. I’m sure he’ll be able to help us.”
“That’s a great idea. Let’s take some time tonight to clean, filet, and freeze a few of the fish so we can give them to Noah’s family tomorrow. Let’s get started.”
Early the next morning, Beth and Benjamin drove to the clinic with an ice chest full of bass filets for Noah and his family. Dr. Cunningham was just beginning his shift and greeted Beth and Benjamin at the clinic entrance.
“Good morning, Beth. What’s got you here so early?”
“Dr. Cunningham, this is my husband Benjamin, and we have a favor to ask.”
Benjamin spoke first. “Yesterday, I was out on Lake Moultrie in Teller’s Cove fishing for largemouth bass.”
“Great spot. I’ve fished there a few times myself,” said a smiling Dr. Cunningham.
“Good, so you’re familiar with the spot. Anyway, I came across a young boy in the cove who loaned me a lure that helped me catch more bass than I had ever caught before. Well, now we’ve got more fish than we could ever eat ourselves, and I’d like to share the catch with the boy and his family and return the lure. Think you can help?”
“I’ll try. Did you get the boy’s name?”
“He said his name was Noah.”
“That’s a very common name in this area. Did he tell you his last name?” said a smiling Dr. Cunningham.
“No, but he did have a distinguishing discoloration on his face. It was a light irregular skin patch that ran from below his left ear to the base of his jaw.”
Dr. Cunningham’s smile disappeared, and his face turned serious. “How old do you think this boy was?”
“I’d say he was about 14 or 15 years old. No older than that. Can you help us find him?”
“I can. Let me drive you there but leave the frozen fish here. We’ll pick it up later.”
Benjamin and Beth rode in Dr. Cunningham’s car to a spot about ten minutes outside of town. There was no conversation during the ride, and the atmosphere within the car could only be described as tense. Except for a few glances between Benjamin and Beth there was no eye contact with Dr. Cunningham. Dr. Cunningham pulled the car up to a low wrought iron fence with no houses anywhere in the area and shut off the engine.
“We’re here,” proclaimed Dr. Cunningham as he exited the car and walked toward an opening in the wrought iron fence. Benjamin and Beth followed Dr. Cunningham through a small gate in the fence into what first appeared to be a playground. However, as Benjamin and Beth continued walking behind Dr. Cunningham, they noticed a series of grave markers set flush to the ground. They weren’t in a playground. They were in a cemetery. Dr. Cunningham stopped walking.
“There’s Noah Ellis,” as Dr. Cunningham pointed to a grave marker just off the main path.
“What do you mean, there’s Noah?” asked Benjamin in a confused voice.
“The young boy that you described you saw on the lake is buried in that grave. He drowned in Teller’s Cove three years ago trying to save his younger sister. I know because I was there to help pull his body out of the water. He saved his sister, but we couldn’t save him.”
“How can that be? It’s impossible. Benjamin talked to Noah and Noah gave him a fishing lure,” said Beth.
“I don’t know Beth. I don’t have an answer for you. Maybe it was just a boy that looked like Noah. I just don’t have an answer for you,” said Dr. Cunningham.
“Where is Noah’s family?” asked Beth.
“The family moved out of the area about two years ago. Too many bad memories. I don’t know where they moved to.”
As Benjamin listened to their conversation, he walked closer to the grave site and noticed there was a porcelain picture embedded in the gravestone. He bent down on one knee to see the picture in detail. The picture was of a smiling young boy with shaggy black hair and a facial discoloration from his left ear to the bottom of his jaw. It was definitely the young boy Benjamin saw at the lake. It was Noah. Something had happened that no one could explain.
“Can we go now, Dr. Cunningham. I need to go home and try to figure out how to pull all of this together,” asked Benjamin.
“Of course. I’m sure there is a reasonable explanation to all of this.”
They rode the ten minutes back to town talking back and forth offering ideas on how all of this could have happened. Nothing sounded possible or plausible, but it was good to at least talk it out. Once back at the clinic, Benjamin and Beth thanked Dr. Cunningham for his help and took their car and the frozen fish back home.
“I’m going to unpack the boat and put all the fishing gear into the boathouse. I won’t be needing it for a while. I’m going to take a fishing break. I’ll only be a few minutes,” said Benjamin.
“That’s fine. I’ll get lunch going and by the time you get done we’ll be able to relax and try to solve our mystery.”
As a warm breeze brushed across his back, Benjamin unloaded the boat and brought everything into the boathouse including the tacklebox where he stored all his lures. Benjamin put the tacklebox on the workbench just below the window in the boathouse. He lifted his head and looked through the window where he could see Lake Moultrie glistening under a rising mid-morning sun showing off its beauty and reminding Benjamin of all the good times he had had on Lake Moultrie fishing. It also reminded him of the happy young boy on the lake that no one could explain. Benjamin knew the memory of Noah would stay with him forever. As he turned and began to walk back to the house, he remembered he still had the tattered jig lure Noah had given him. It belonged in his tacklebox. He pulled the lure from his pocket and walked back to the tacklebox and opened the lid. It was there in the tacklebox that he saw something else he could not explain. Lying on top and in the middle of his other lures was his favorite blue and gray spinnerbait lure with the broken leader line still attached. This was the same lure he thought he had lost forever at the bottom of Lake Moultrie on the first day he saw Noah in Teller’s Cove. How did the lost lure get back into his tacklebox? Benjamin picked up the still damp lure. Under it was a small piece of paper. Only one letter was written on the paper. It was a capital “N.” It was from Noah. Benjamin could feel him nearby. He could only smile and stare at the blue and gray lure in disbelief, as tears welled up in his eyes and ran down his cheeks.
​
THE END

The Mystery of

the Dead-as-a-Doornail Author


By John RC Potter


Cornelia Vanstone took great pride in herself in general, but particularly for the following three reasons: her prize-winning gingersnap cookies, a trim waistline despite being in her mid-seventies, and her success as the author of several romance novels, known for their titillating titles and historical settings. Although she had never married, it was not for the lack of interest; Cornelia had many suitors and a few marriage proposals over the years. However, Cornelia had decided early on that her professional life as an author was more important than the personal, and she was grateful her parents had left their only child an admirable inheritance. Cornelia’s success as an author had been the icing on the cake, and she now had sufficient funds to travel often and live opulently. Her most recent novel-in-progress (she liked to think of them as novels, not as mere books) lay on the expansive antique desk in front of her. Cornelia pursed her mouth in a faint smile as she read the title on the cover of the manuscript: The Ripped Bodice! All of Cornelia’s titles ended with an exclamation mark (to the dismay of her publishers, but the author had insisted after the success of her first novel and thus the exclamation mark was present on each title ever since). Cornelia was brought out of her reverie by the imposing grandfather clock striking the hour in the hallway outside the living room: with the two bongs the anticipatory realization came to Cornelia that it was almost time for her first martini break of the afternoon. As she liked to say to friends, it was never too early for a martini! It was approximately 15 minutes before the hour, but the grandfather clock invariably lost time and Cornelia had given up on having it repaired again. As she carefully arranged her writing implements in front of her, Cornelia happened to look up at the gilded, ornate mirror that hung above her desk. It was just then in the reflection of the mirror that Cornelia saw the closed curtain on the French door move slightly, and with a sudden and inexplicable fear, she knew there was someone behind it.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Alain Desvilles gave a heavy sigh as he manoeuvred his burgundy-coloured 1948 Buick Roadmaster along the winding road that led from Bayfield on Lake Huron to the town of Cornersville, to the northeast. He liked to think the car still had a very faint new-car odour about it despite being almost two years old. Alain had been the object of envy by many when he had purchased his Buick, which came with Dynaflow and its hydraulic transmission with torque converter. He was one of the few people in the area who owned a car that had an automatic manual transmission. For the most part, only well-heeled people could afford such cars. Alain did not
belong to that group of monied people, although after his parents had passed away during the war, he had been left with the family home and funds in the bank. No, Alain’s reason for purchasing an automatic transmission car was not a want, it was a need. Alain had been born with a condition medically known as ‘Amelia;’ he had no arms and could not have operated a standard transmission vehicle on the open roads. Thus, his Buick had been modified to allow Alain to drive with his feet; the controls to move the car into gear, and to accelerate and stop had been adapted to be operated from the steering wheel and not from the floor of the car. Truth be told, Alain rather prided himself on being a better driver with his two feet than most people were with their two hands. Due to his father’s attentive assistance, Alain learned to drive when young on the tractor and in his father’s pickup truck. Although those had been with standard transmission, the father and son had operated the vehicles in tandem and Alain had gained invaluable driving experience. It had been more than adequate and in fact, sufficient experience for him to later get his driving licence.
Again, he signed heavily, thinking there had to be a better way to make a living than taking photos of the odd crime scene and the occasional suspicious corpse. Alain then reminded himself how fortunate he was to have a job, considering he had no arms. He had been an only child born to a couple who were already nearing middle age when their son was born. Esther and Herbert Desvilles had been told they would never have children. It had seemed a miracle, then, when Esther discovered in her 40th year that she was pregnant. Her doctor had told Esther it was a risk for a woman of her age to have a child. Nonetheless, she and her husband vowed that it was worth taking the chance despite any possible negative outcome. As it turned out, Esther sailed through her pregnancy without issues arising and gave birth as if she had been doing it for years, with an ease reminiscent of their old and prodigious mother cat, Tinkerbell. Unfortunately, the baby was born deformed, without any arms. The nurse was crying when she placed the baby in Esther’s arms, and the doctor had a tear in his eye. Esther and Herbert decided then and there they had never seen a more perfect baby, and that the world would be his oyster. They knew their son would have to be a fighter and his journey through life would not be an easy one. However, the resolute couple vowed that their love, faith, and positivism would enable their son to have a decent, and hopefully fulfilling life.
Esther and Herbert never let Alain feel sorry for himself. When he was young sometimes other children made fun of Alain or stared at him and pointed. Occasionally it would make him cry or despondent but his parents always told him to believe in himself and reminded him about sticks and stones. Alain was brought out of his reverie, thinking back to his parents and the fact that he was now almost the same age as his mother when she gave birth to him when he steered his car around a gentle bend in the road and glanced at a diminutive, white-haired elderly woman who was tending her garden in a farmyard. It was Annie Withers, who had been a close friend of his mother all her life and up until her death. Alain took his left foot off the steering wheel and gave a gentle tap-tap on the horn, then gave his foot a brief wave out the window. The old woman waved back, then raised her hand to her forehead to shield her eyes from the direct, harsh June sunshine. In the rearview mirror, Alain could see Annie disappear from view as his car went over the crest of a hill. Seeing Annie brought back memories of Alain’s childhood. She had been his teacher in the one-room school on the concession road near his home, walking distance outside Bayfield. Like Alain’s mother, Annie had been one of his champions, who had always believed in him and made him believe in himself.
Out of what many would have thought was an insurmountable obstacle – born without arms – Alain had overcome the odds. He had gone to public school, then high school, and graduated with academic success. However, Alain had decided against attending university because he already knew that he wanted to work and earn money. Alain had two passions: one was taking photos and
the other was reading mysteries. He was so talented at picture-taking that when in his teens Alain had won awards in several competitions. His parents had installed a dark room in their home for their son. During high school due to taking photos for a variety of occasions, Alain was able to earn the funds he required to purchase mystery books for his steadily growing collection in the library he had created in the storeroom of his parent’s home. At times when he was low on funds, Alain would borrow mystery books from local libraries. When Alain finished high school, his parents assisted him in creating his photography office by converting the largely unused front parlour and having a door installed to the dark room that was beside it, a space that had previously been an oversized cloak closet.
When he was a child and began reading mysteries (at that time, Sherlock Holmes was a favourite, but he later became enamoured of Rex Stout, Ellery Queen, Raymond Chandler, Dorothy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, and his all-time favourite, Agatha Christie), Alain imagined himself as a sleuth and later fancied himself becoming a detective. However, being realistic he knew that it would be nearly impossible to achieve that goal. It was more practical to follow his love of photography as a profession and to enjoy his mystery books and amateur sleuthing as a pastime. Nonetheless, Alain had gained the reputation for being a bit of a sleuth when he was young: for several years, the popular tri-county newspaper, The Huron Howler ran a mystery-solving competition in a special monthly issue and Alain had won a record 10 times. His photo had appeared in the paper for that distinction, and many of the newspaper’s readers were amazed that the winner had no arms. It later came to Alain’s ears that Bart Baxter, the curmudgeonly old foreman at the piano factory in Cornersville had quipped to his co-workers that Alain was “the armless armchair detective” and this joke had made its rounds for months in the community. Nonetheless, because he had a reputation for being adept at solving these newspaper mystery stories, Alain was considered a good problem solver with admirable deductive skills, and a top-notch photographer. That is how he ended up being hired to take pictures of crime scenes and the reason he was driving into Cornersville, now having reached the outskirts of the picturesque farming town.
Alain did not only take photos of crime scenes because otherwise, he would also not have much of an income; there were not that many crime scenes and murders in the tri-county area where his time and talent were occasionally required. Alain briefly took one foot off the steering wheel to scratch his nose and signed again. Why was he signing so much, Alain wondered. He should be excited at the prospect of taking photos of a crime scene, apparently a murder. Then it came to him: whenever he was in such a situation there were always people who may have heard of him but had never seen the armless photographer at work. They were always amazed and incredulous at how he was able to take such important photos. Moreover, and what further irked Alain, all too often strangers and new acquaintances mispronounced his name, and assumed he was from the province of Quebec or even France (which he was not) and that he spoke fluent French (which he did). One may as well be from Mars as from either Quebec or France, as far as many of the locals were concerned. Alain was considered a foreigner due to his French-sounding name and was viewed as askance due to his unique physical appearance as a result of being what many considered an armless wonder. Over the years he had been called Allen (for those who at least tried to pronounce his name correctly) or Al (for those who did not want to bother), or even Elaine (for those with a sense of warped and misplaced humour). As well, to add insult to injury, a few times he had been asked by thick-headed dumbbell if he was a Frog (a pejorative reference to anyone of French descent).
Bart at the piano factory had said that under his breath one day when Alain had been drinking his coffee at The Koffee Klatsch, the most popular bakery and coffee shop in Cornersville; it was run by the stolid and solid Helga Hartlieb (an emigre from Germany to the town in the late 30s, but
no one dared to make fun of her name or genealogy). Alain grinned at a memory of Helga and what she had said one day about him as he was leaving her establishment, as he had slipped off his loafer and adeptly turned the door handle with his upraised foot. Normally rather taciturn, the robust and busty Helga had stated in her still-heavily accented Germanic voice to a waitress who was lounging against the front counter, “Just think vat else he can do with them feets!” Alain was unsure whether or not Helga had intended for him to hear her rather ribald comment. He wondered if the woman was interested in him. It had happened before, as regards women who were curious about being with a man without arms. Alain had occasionally dated over the years but did not want to marry because of concern he would begat children born with his condition. His parents had said it was not, but in any case, Alain’s interest in women was minimal. Glancing in the rearview mirror, Alain had to admit that the face that looked back at him was no slouch in the looks department: a full head of wavy black hair, a pencil-thin moustache, sea-blue eyes set far apart, quite large ears, and what he liked to think was a Grecian nose. Other than the fact that he had no arms, Alain thought the only other drawback was his large head seemed rather out of proportion with his short stature.
It occurred to Alain as he slowed down near the first stop sign from that direction into the town of Cornersville that after his photo-taking at the crime scene, he could drop by the library on the main street and see if there were any new mystery novels on the shelves. He preferred the library in Cornersville over the one in Bayfield because it was such a beautiful old brick building and with an extensive range of books on all subjects, whilst the library in the village was smaller and with more limited offerings. Alain was brought out of his mystery book reverie when he came to the stoplights at the main intersection of the town, and then headed first east for a few blocks and then made a left turn that would take him to his destination: he was to take photographs at a crime scene on Mansfield Mews, otherwise referred to by locals as ‘Rich Man’s Row’ because it was where the most affluent Cornersvillians lived: the young white-collared professionals and old-monied families of the town. Alain’s Buick crept up the street until it arrived at the address he had been given: it was at 100 Mansfield Mews that he stopped his car completely and gave a low whistle when he saw the nameplate on one of the stone pillars at the edge of the drive. It proclaimed ‘Mansfield Manor’ and was the property of one of the town’s best-known residents, Cornelia Vanstone, a celebrated author of romance books.
Alain turned in the driveway and slowly drove to a parking place near the double garage. A police car was already there as well as a car he thought looked to be the coroner’s. Alain stopped the car, turning off the key with one bare foot and putting the car in the brake position with his other. Afterward, he flipped open the car door inside handle with his left foot and pushed the door open. He then plopped his bare feet down on the floor of the car and snuggled first one foot and then the other into his slip-on loafers. Alain quickly and adeptly hopped out of the car and then went to the rear door on the driver’s side; he again took his left foot out of the loafer and lifting it opened the back door, balancing on his right leg. From years of practice, he grabbed his leather camera bag with his foot and then bowing over slightly, he slipped the bag over his head. Standing upright again, Alain turned toward the impressive and stately house, admiring it. Like most people in small towns and the countryside, Alain had left the keys in the car and the door unlocked from habit and the knowledge that there was no need for concern. There may well be the occasional murder in the tri-county area, but thefts were few and far between!
Walking up the winding flagstone path that led to the front door, the camera bag jostling against his side, Alain’s ever active and always inquiring mind was thinking ahead to what had happened at the author’s gracious home. As he came to the front door it opened and there stood one of the men from the Cornersville Police Force, Homer Thuddly. He sometimes saw Homer at The
Koffee Klatsch and they had known each other from a few other cases in the past. “Hello Al,” Homer said in his deadpan and monotone voice. “The Chief Constable is waiting for you in the living room.” He stood aside and allowed Alain to come inside the wide and charming hallway, and then Homer opened the door and went into another room along the hall.
Alain made his way down the hall and then walked quietly and slowly into the elegant living room. Aside from the Chief Constable, Orville Hatsfield, there was another police officer in the room whom Alain did not recognise, and another man he knew to be the coroner from Exeter, who had responsibilities in the tri-county area and Alain had met previously. The Chief Constable turned toward Alain and nodded briefly, stating “Allen, this is a murder scene. In a few minutes, we will need you to take crime scene photos of the deceased. The Coroner, Roy Denton, is just finishing his examination of the body. Not sure if you know Jake Perkins, he is a new officer on our force here in Cornersville.”
From where he was standing just inside the arched doorway into the expansive living room, Alain could see the Coroner crouching down on the far side of an expensive floral chintz sofa. Although Alain could not see the body he knew the Coroner was examining it; he had not turned from his squatting position to acknowledge the photographer’s presence. Police Officer Perkins, however, turned from where he was standing near the Coroner and gave Alain a slight nod, with a wide-eyed look on his face. Alain assumed the Chief Constable had informed his new officer that the crime scene photographer had no arms, but his incredulous stare spoke volumes. Alain looked over at the Chief Constable. “I assume the deceased is the author, Cornelia Vanstone,” he stated.
“Yep,” Hatsfield replied.
“What was the manner of death,” Alain asked.
“Apparently strangulation,” the other man responded in a low voice. “But there is an odd touch to this murder, which you will see soon when you take the crime scene photos.”
“Any witnesses?” Alain asked. “Any clues?”
“Three witnesses,” the Chief Constable responded flatly. “They are waiting in the dining room with Homer. I know you are an armchair detective, Allen, but as for clues, I am not at liberty to say.”
“Three witnesses!” Alain blurted out, “That is very interesting. Talk about an embarrassment of riches...er, witnesses.” The Chief Constable smirked at Alain’s unexpected attempt at humour, then rolled his eyes.
It was at that point the Coroner stood up and turned towards the other men. He nodded toward Alain, whom he knew from a few previous crime scenes, including the most recent being the year before when Widow Wiggins in Brucefield had died rather suspiciously: she had been found amongst the tomato plants in her large and well-tended garden with a bloody wound at her temple. It was later determined that the widow had a heart attack whilst gardening and her head had struck a large rock as she fell. Ever since that work assignment, Alain had an aversion to eating tomatoes. “Well, I have finished my examination,” the Coroner said. “Mr. Desvilles can now take the crime scene photos.”
Alain moved with a steady stride toward the sofa, anticipating what the deceased author would look like in death. Police Officer Perkins continued to stare at Alain as if he had sprouted a second head, obviously wondering how an armless photographer could take any pictures, let alone those required for a crime scene. When Alain walked around the sofa he could not help but be
mesmerized by the panorama – what almost seemed to be a staged theatrical scene - before him. Cornelia Vanstone was dead-as-a-doornail, lying on her back, dressed in one of her signature flowing and colourful caftan gowns. In the act of being strangled, her ornate necklace had burst its strand and the heavy pearls were around her head and upper body, rather like a pearly but imperfect halo. Her neck was pinched and contused from the strangulation, and her eyes were open wide and staring vacantly upwards: as if she were examining the ostentatious chandelier that hung from the ceiling above, to discern if any dust had collected on the crystal pendeloques that hung from it.
“Can I ask if she was strangled with her necklace?” Alain asked, turning toward the Chief Constable.
“Yes you can but no, it was by something else” came the answer. “Can you just get on with taking the crime scene photos?”
“Sure,” Alain said, his voice then becoming somewhat portentous. “But I now know what you meant, Chief Constable, about the odd touch.” Alain stared down at the body in general and at her face in particular: in the deceased author’s mouth, the murderer had inserted a large gingersnap cookie! ...........................................................................................................................................................................
Alain had taken the crime scene photos of the deceased author; not only Police Officer Perkins but all the others in the room had watched with either interest or amazement. Over many years Alain had perfected the art of taking pictures with his feet, on a specially adapted Kodak Duaflex camera that had a mirror fastened to above the flash bulb. After stepping out of his loafers, Alain - who never wore socks because otherwise, he could not use his feet like his hands – then laid on his back and jostled his Kodak camera into position above him and adeptly and expertly had taken the photos, sometimes using his knees to steady or shift the camera. He sometimes needed to roll into a sit-up position to change the angle of the shot or to insert new bulbs. After finishing, Alain had sat on the floor and put all items back into his bulky leather camera bag, then stood up and announced he would develop the photos in his darkroom at home and bring them to the Chief Constable that evening.
Alain had then asked to speak to the Chief Constable for a moment in private. The two men walked out into the hall. “Orville, I have a favour to ask,” Alain stated with an intent look on his face.
“I think I know what you are going to ask,” the Chief Constable murmured. “What is it?”
“Can I be present when you interview the three witnesses,” Alain enquired earnestly. “As the crime scene photographer, I am connected with the case.” The Chief Constable raised his eyebrow as if to say, “I knew it” but instead intoned, “Listen, Allen, I know you are an armchair amateur detective but your presence is not needed nor wanted.”
“I will not say a word,” Alain promised. “I just want to hear what the witnesses have to say and then later if you want my input I will share it with you in your office.”
“But I need those photos as soon as possible,” the other man sighed.
“You will have them on or before this evening,” Alain stated.
The Chief Constable seemed to mull over the proposition and then gave a brief nod. “Okay, but you only listen, no talking.” Alain nodded his head in agreement.
“I have to speak briefly with the Coroner before he leaves. He will be accompanying the body to the hospital for further work by the medical examiner and an autopsy,” the Chief Constable informed the other man. “The library is at the front of the house, just inside the front door…that is where I will be questioning the three witnesses, one by one. Jake will be with me and bring them in individually. Homer will continue to stay in the dining room with them to ensure they do not talk to each other. You can sit in the corner and observe, got it?”
Alain gave the other man a solemn wink and then proceeded to the front of the house. The library door was ajar, so it was easy for Alain to use his shoulder to open the door fully. He slipped off a loafer and as he leaned over, with the other foot he grasped his camera bag and placed it in an inconspicuous place behind the door. Alain then did a brief tour of the well-appointed library, admiring the fine furniture, expensive lamps, beautiful paintings, and eye-catching array of objects on tables and in display cabinets. Standing in front of the most prominent bookcase he saw a range of books bearing the author’s name and various scintillating titles. Alain could then hear voices and knew the Chief Constable was making his way to the library. He wondered who the three witnesses were and how they had ended up being in the wrong place at the wrong time – unless one was the murderer!
Alain decided that the Chief Constable would no doubt sit at a large table in the center of the room, near a fireplace that was almost identical to the one in the living room. The armchair detective then spotted a plush and comfortable-looking wing chair in a far corner that was behind the doorway and went and sat down with a sigh of relief because his feet were killing him – figuratively if not literally, he thought with a chuckle.
A moment later the Chief Constable walked into the library, followed by Officer Perkins who was beside a man that Alain instantly recognised as Bart Baxter, the wisecracking old foreman at the piano factory in the town. The Tri-Country Organ Emporium (often referred to as TOE) was a well-known and long-established business in the town, that had celebrated its centenary the year before; it was one of the town’s largest employers and cranked out organs and pianos of various types that were shipped across Canada and even into the United States.
As Alain expected, the Chief Constable made a beeline for the large writing table in the middle of the spacious library and sat down in the padded antique chair that was drawn up to it. Officer Perkins pulled a straight-back chair from near the fireplace and then placed it in front of the table and motioned for Bart to sit down. He then pulled another chair over to the table and just before sitting down at the end, he pulled a notebook and pen out of his back pocket. Alain observed from his corner that the officer would be taking the notes for the interviews. To this point in time, no one had seemed to notice Alain’s presence in the somewhat darkened corner of the room.
It was just then that Bart Baxter started to glance around the room and of a sudden spotted Alain in the wing chair in the far corner. He blurted out, “Jeez Louise, what is that little feller doing here?”
The Chief Constable cleared his throat. “Mr. Desvilles is the crime scene photographer,” he explained. “He is here for the interviews at my invitation but will not be part of the formal investigation.”
Bart stared across the room at Alain, a smirk on his weathered and oily face. “Well now, Elaine, you have come up in the world…from armchair detective to crime scene nosey parker!”
Alain decided to let the snarky comment pass. The Chief Constable said, “Mr. Baxter, I will have you know that Mr. Desvilles – Alain – has been involved previously in crime scenes for our police
force and in the tri-county area.” Alain appreciated the Chief Constable’s supportive comment and had been impressed that he had been able to pronounce his name almost perfectly. “Now we will get on with the questioning.” He nodded at Officer Perkins, who raised his pen in expectation.
“Fine with me,” Bart muttered, “I ain’t got nothing to do with that woman getting herself done in.”
The Chief Constable cleared his throat again, then proceeded. “How did you happen to be at Miss Vanstone’s house today?”
Bart folded his arms over one another, shrugged, and then said, “She called up the factory and made an appointment to be tuned – her pianer, I mean.” He gave a pause while he took out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. “Mind if I smoke?” The Chief Constable motioned for the man to go ahead and have a cigarette and pushed an ornate glass ashtray across the table. Bart lit a cigarette, breathing the smoke deep into his lungs with an air of satisfaction. Continuing, he said, “That there author, she has a real nice pianer in the sunroom at the back of her house, that she bought from our factory.” He took another deep drag on his cigarette, then turning and blowing smoke in Alain’s direction, he again faced the Chief Constable. “She has it checked and tuned every year round about this time.” Having finished his cigarette, Bart stubbed it out forcefully with one stubby finger of his right hand. From his corner, Alain noticed how strong the man’s hands appeared to be.
“How well did you know Miss Vanstone?” the Chief Coroner asked, glancing across at Officer Perkins to ensure he was taking notes.
Bart raised his eyebrows, looking rather startled as he realized the implication of the question. “Well, we weren’t dance partners,” he retorted huffily, “if that be what you’re thinking!”
The Chief Constable stared impassively across the table at the other man. “According to what you said, Miss Vanstone had arranged for you to come to tune her piano today. Is it always you who tunes her piano?”
The other man grimaced slightly. “Sometimes it’s me and sometimes it’s Jim Tapper from the piano factory,” he explained. “Luck of the draw that I ended up coming today when that there author decided to end up dead.”
“What time did you arrive and what did Miss Vanstone say to you?”
The other man lay his heavy hands on the table in front of him, then started to drum his fingers lightly. When the Chief Constable stared at Bart’s active fingers, the piano factory foreman stopped his tapping but kept his hands on the table. “I arrived around 2 this afternoon but I didn’t see her,” he explained. “I usually go to the side door because the first time I done come here way back I rang the front doorbell and that snooty woman told me to use the servant’s entrance,” he snarled, his wet lips curled up at the corners. “But there weren’t no answer, so I done walked clear around the house and tapped on the sunroom door.”
“Did you see anyone else? Where there any cars in the driveway when you arrived?”
Bart pursed his mouth, then licked his thin lips. “Nope, didn’t see nobody and the only car in the driveway was hers, that there fancy black Cadillac she drives.”
“So, what did you do then?”
The other man appeared to reflect. “I thought maybe the author lady had fallen asleep or gone to a neighbour’s and would be back, so decided since I was at the back of the house that I’d go have a sit and a smoke in that gazebo she has there. Anyway, I was in no hurry to get back to work.” The man then rubbed his lower lip thoughtfully, continuing, “But I guess that I done fell asleep in that chaise lounge in the gazebo.” Bart then looked warily across at Officer Perkins as he was taking his notes in a cramped handwriting style.
The Chief Constable seemed to give some thought to what he had just heard, then stated, “Officer Perkins, please take Mr. Baxter back to the dining room. We will talk again with him later. Bring in the second witness,” he said, “You know which one.”
Officer Perkins and Bart Baxter started to leave the room but at the door, the latter man darted a dark look at Alain where he sat in the corner. “If looks could kill,” Alain thought to himself. The Chief Constable turned toward Alain and stated, “He doesn’t seem to like you much.” Alain shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyebrows as if saying he did not give a damn anyway. At that moment Officer Perkins returned with a man that Alain did not recognise.
The Chief Constable motioned for the man to sit down across from him at the table. Officer Perkins took his place at the table again and made ready to continue with his notes. The Chief Constable cleared his throat and proceeded. “Please state your name and the reason you were at Miss Vanstone’s home today.”
The other man was quite dapper and well-dressed in a double-breasted pinstripe suit, blood-red tie, and white shirt. Alain thought the middle-aged man quite looked like the actor William Powell who played Nick Charles in movies based on Dashiell Hammett’s mystery stories.
With trembling fingers, the man pulled a silver cigarette case out of his breast pocket. “I hope you don’t mind if I smoke,” he said, his voice quivering. The Chief Constable indicated with a shake of his head that it was fine. The other man pulled what looked to Alain to be a cigarillo out of the case, and then from a side pocket of his suit produced an expensive silver lighter. He proceeded to light the cigarillo and breathed in deeply. With a cough, he continued, “You have to understand this is quite a shock to me.” His voice faltered and died away.
“You did not answer my question,” the Chief Constable stated firmly.
“I already told you before who I am, when you first arrived,” the man exclaimed huffily.
“This is for the record. Please state your name and the reason you were at Miss Vanstone’s home today.”
The man took another puff of his cigarillo. “Of course, Chief Constable, I understand.” He leaned back in his chair, crossed his leg over the other, and placed his cigarillo in the ashtray, the tantalizing odour of it rising in the air along with the smoke, traveling across the room and teasing Alain’s nostrils where he was sitting.
The man then sat up straight, nervously adjusting his suit jacket and straightening his tie. “My name is Adrian Castle,” he stated. “I have been Cornelia Vanstone’s literary agent at Canadiana Publishing House in Toronto for many years.” The man took the still-lit cigarillo from the ashtray and began to smoke again. He then butted it out and continued. “I came up from Toronto late yesterday to see Miss Vanstone to discuss plans for her newest novel, which she said was in the last stage of writing.” He paused and then again nervously rearranged the knot in his tie although it was already perfectly knotted and pinned.
The Chief Constable folded his hands together and set them on the table in front of him. “Have you been staying with Miss Vanstone at her home?”
“Oh, no!” the man blurted out. “I am staying at The Toddle Inn Motel just south of town.”
“Where’s your car?” the Chief Constable queried. “I did not see it in the driveway.”
The man again fiddled with his tie, then responded, “This afternoon on my way here, I left my car at the Imperial service station near the main intersection of Cornersville, for them to check the engine. It was giving me some trouble when I drove up from Toronto yesterday.” The man pulled out his cigarette case again but did not open it. “I walked here from the service station; it is not far.”
“Did Miss Vanstone know you were coming then?” the Chief Constable enquired.
“Of course! I already told you that she and I had plans to discuss her newest novel.”
“What time did you arrive and what did you see?”
The other man paused and then looked reflectively at the ceiling. “It was shortly after 2 PM as I recall.” He then set his cigarette case on the table in front of him but did not take out a cigarillo. Continuing, the man said, “I walked up the driveway and along the walkway, then rang the front doorbell, but no one came.”
“So, what did you do or see then?”
“I walked around the house to the living room because I thought perhaps the French doors would be open,” the man replied. “They were open, but the drapes were closed. I walked in through the open doors, pushing aside the drapes to do so. That is when I found Cornelia lying dead on the floor near the fireplace, next to the sofa.”
At that moment, the man put his head in his hands and leaned against the table. The Chief Constable then asked, “Were you having an intimate relationship with the author?”
The other man quickly drew his hands away from his face and shouted, “Of course not, we were only professionally acquainted!” The man stood up suddenly and clutching his stomach, spluttered, “I think I am going to be sick; I need to go to the bathroom!”
“Take Mr. Castle to the bathroom,” the Chief Constable instructed Officer Perkins, “and then bring in the third and last witness. We will have a second chat with Mr. Castle later too. He can have a glass of water in the dining room and compose himself after he is finished in the bathroom.”
Officer Perkins motioned for Castle to follow him and the two men quickly exited the library. The Chief Constable took a pipe out of an inside pocket of his uniform. He began to suck on it but did not light the pipe. Glancing over at Alain who was sitting quietly in the corner the man said, “This is one for Ripley, and I don’t mean the village,” he muttered, referring to a pleasant little hamlet to the north of the town. Alain shook his head in agreement. He was just about to say something to the other man but did not due to the entrance of Officer Perkins and an older woman whom Alain thought looked familiar but did not immediately recognise.
The grey-haired woman looked to be in her 60s, rather plump and quite tall, wringing her large hands. She was dressed in a floral dress that was belted at the waist with a leather belt. Where have I seen her before, Alain wondered. He waited for the Chief Constable to question this final witness. Officer Perkins motioned to the woman to sit down in the chair that had recently been vacated by Mr. Castle. He too then sat down and waited with his pen posed for the Chief Constable to begin 
his questioning. “We of course know each other,” Orville Hatsfield, stated to the woman. “However, for the record, I will ask you to tell us your name and how you came to be at Miss Vanstone’s home today.”
“Of course, Orville,” the woman responded, then quickly continued, “I mean, Chief Constable.” The woman dabbed at her eyes with a lace handkerchief. “My name is Mildred MacInnes, and I am a widow. My home is next door. Cornelia is – er, was - my neighbour.” The woman gave a rather dramatic gesture with her sinewy hands, then patted her tightly curled permanent and daintily raised the hanky to her nose. “I am just distraught by all this terrible business and what happened to dear Cornelia!” She gave a little sob and then proceeded. “I was in my garden doing some weeding when I noticed a man enter Cornelia’s gazebo.”
“Did you recognise him?” the Chief Constable asked.
“Not at first and not from that distance,” the woman responded, sniffing gently. “But later I found out it was Bart Baxter from the piano factory. I of course know Bart to see him. He is often at The Koffee Klatsch when I am in there with friends having lunch or a coffee.”
“What time did you come over to Miss Vanstone’s house?”
The woman pursed her lips and looked off into space, noticing Alain for the first time. Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open slightly. At that moment Alain remembered the woman. She was one of the finalists each year in the Cornersville Cookie Competition (better known by its acronym, the CCC) which was held and judged in the town library. He had done the picture-taking for the event for the past few several years, when the winners would be announced, and their photos presented in the town newspaper. He recalled that Mrs. MacInnes had been one of the annual competitors. As always, she had placed 2nd or 3rd as he recalled, and Cornelia Vanstone had once again been the 1st place winner in the annual event, held each May.
Realizing her mouth was gaping open like the proverbial fish out of the water, the woman proceeded to sit up straighter and again began to dab her dry eyes with the hanky in her hand. “It was around 2 this afternoon when I came over,” she responded. From the vantage point of his armchair, Alain slightly shook his head, thinking what a coincidence all had arrived at the murder scene at approximately the same time! The Chief Constable did his best to get the questioning back on track. “What did you do when you saw Mr. Baxter enter the gazebo?”
“I thought it might be a thief or a hobo,” the woman replied, “so I came over to find out.” She again dabbed at her eyes and sniffed once or twice, then with a heavy sigh she resumed her story. “As I came through the hedge that separates my property from Cornelia’s, I was about to walk to the gazebo when I noticed the French door was wide open. I assumed that Cornelia must be at home, so wanted to tell her about the man in her gazebo.”
“Yes,” the Chief Constable prompted, “please proceed.”
“Well, I went through the French doors and into Cornelia’s living room and saw a man kneeling beside her body.” She gave a few sobs before continuing. “It was clear that Cornelia was dead, obviously strangled by that man. Not only that, but to add insult to injury that fiend from the city had put a gingersnap cookie in dear Cornelia’s mouth after strangling her!” The woman’s face then took on a firm appearance. “I know that you will solve this case quickly, Orville, by avenging dear Cornelia’s death and putting that man behind bars!”
The Chief Constable ignored the reference to his first name. “Is there anything else you would like to add, Mrs. MacInnes?”
“No, dear,” the woman simpered, “Can I go home now?”
“No, not yet” the Chief Constable replied. “We are going to have a second interview with all three of the witnesses shortly, but right now Officer Perkins will take you back to the dining room where you can have a glass of water and a bit of a rest.”
“Thank you, Orville,” the woman responded. “By the way, please give my regards to your dear mother and tell her that I am still making my prune preserves from the recipe she gave to me years ago.” The woman then followed Officer Perkins out of the room, but not before taking a hasty glance in Alain’s direction.
The Chief Constable stood up and stretched, then walked over to where Alain was sitting in the wing chair. “Well, my armchair detective, do you think one of the witnesses murdered Miss Vanstone?” he asked with a slight smile.
“Yes, I do,” answered Alain.
“Why?” the Chief Constable asked.
The other man responded, “Because the murder left a clue, and that was a fateful mistake.” Alain sat back further in his chair, letting one of his loafers drop to the floor. He then proceeded to scratch his chin thoughtfully with his foot. A moment later he continued, “I will be going home now to develop the crime scene photos,” he informed the Chief Constable. What he did not tell the other man was that he fully intended to proceed with his plan to drop by the Cornersville library to see if the librarian had the newest Agatha Christie novel, ‘A Murder Is Announced.’ He was dying to read it!
The Chief Constable seemed to think twice before making a response to Alain’s statement, but finally, curiosity got the better of him. He asked, “What clue and which witness?” Alain, who was still scratching the stubble on his chin with his foot then reached into his jacket pocket with that trained footsie and extracted a piece of paper. He informed the other man, “Near the end of your questioning of the three witnesses I wrote down a few things. For what it’s worth, you can read and consider what this armchair detective surmises about this murder, but don’t read it until I am gone.”
The Chief Constable nodded thoughtfully, the folded bit of paper in his hand, watching Alain as he walked barefoot to his nearby camera bag. The armless man then bent over slightly and with one foot raised the bag over his head until it was firmly in place. Alain then walked the short distance back to his slip-ons and nestled his feet into them. With a parting nod, Alain walked out the library door and could be heard leaving from the front door a moment later. Soon after that, a car could be heard starting up and leaving the driveway of Mansfield Manor. It was only then that the Chief Constable opened the note and read what Alain had written.
The Clue: Gingersnap Cookie The Murderer: Mildred MacInnes
The Weapon: Leather Belt The Motive: Competitor’s Envy!
The Rationale: Miss Vanstone had won the competition over Mrs. MacInnes for the past 12 years…Mildred could not bear the thought of it becoming the Baker’s Dozen next year!
…………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Alain Desvilles was a contented man as his big Buick departed the Cornersville town limits that afternoon and headed in a south-westerly direction toward his home outside Bayfield. With his
bare feet on the steering wheel, Alain glanced at the intriguing cover jacket of the book that lay on the passenger’s seat beside him. The librarian at the town library, Miss Merriman, had squirreled away the new Christie mystery in her desk rather than put it on the shelf because she knew that Alain, the armchair detective, would want to be the first to read it. Miss Merriman had blushed when Alain had blown her a kiss with a muscular foot raised, as he exited the library. The librarian knew she might be what some people would call an old maid, but the woman in her could not help speculating with a bit of a shiver down her spine all about Alain, and those truly talented feet of his!

John RC Potter is an international educator from Canada, living in Istanbul. He has experienced a revolution (Indonesia), air strikes (Israel), earthquakes (Turkey), boredom (UAE), and blinding snow blizzards (Canada), the last being the subject of his story, “Snowbound in the House of God” (Memoirist, May 2023). His poems, stories, essays, and reviews have been published in a range of magazines and journals, most recently in Blank Spaces, (“In Search of Alice Munro”, June 2023), Literary Yard (“She Got What She Deserved”, June 2023), Freedom Fiction (“The Mystery of the Dead-as-a-Doornail Author”, July 2023), The Serulian (“The Memory Box”, September 2023) & The Montreal Review (“Letter from Istanbul”, November 2023). His story, “Ruth’s World” (Fiction on the Web, March 2023) was nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Prize. His first full-length publication will be the gay-themed children’s picture book, The First Adventures of Walli and Magoo (Pegasus Publishers, UK, summer 2024). Website: John RC Potter (johnrcpotterauthor.com) Twitter: https://twitter.com/JohnRCPotter
Instagram: John RC Potter (@jp_ist)

205
by Nicola Vallera


It’s the craziest day of my life, and I’m heading into the department stores for Christmas shopping. I wasn’t planning on buying anything for anyone. I’m thirty-one, my folks are gone, and my relatives are memories. Thank goodness for that!
I’m trying to get myself a laptop—the 205. I’m not even sure what to call it. The ad was confusing. It’s a quantum supercomputer that becomes a robot? Sounds strange.
Anyway, it’s supposed to be a-m-a-z-i-n-g. It can sense your mood and help you with all sorts of computer-related tasks. But it’s pricey—like ten grand pricey. That’s not exactly chump change. But I wannit badly. The 205 will be an excellent investment. It’ll help me find a better job or even work from home.
After twenty years, I got fired from my call-center job. I told a Chinese customer I couldn’t give her back the three thousand dollars stolen from her purse in New York. She wanted her money back from me because I’m American. She said I represent my country, and yada-yada.... for fuck’s sake, what am I? An ambassador? Anyway, my boss agreed with her, so I got the boot.
I enter a department store and see a shop called “The Happy Geek—Computers, Robots, and Electronics.”
There is a young clerk who puts boxes up on the shelves. I try to get his attention by clearing my throat, but he doesn’t turn.
“Hey there,” I say, waving.
He kinda gives a “yes,” but his eyes roll a great deal.
“Do you happen to have the 205?”
When he’s about to reply, a lady in uniform walks in.
“Jimmy, please check if we have any printers in the storeroom,” she tells him.
The guy bounces outta here, shuffling along in his purple kicks.
The woman scans me. She gives me a once-over with a suspicious look. I can smell a funky odor that reminds me of mothballs mixed with sweat. The lady’s forehead is oozing weird whitish stuff coming off her makeup. It’s kinda gross!
“May I help you?” she says.
Her snob attitude is getting on my nerves.
“Do you have the 205?” I ask.
“The 205?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Why don’t you try to communicate more positively?”
“What?”
“We should respect such impressive technology.”
I make a face but then quickly put on a grin.
“Are you interested in purchasing the item?” she asks.
“Totally.”
“It is worth noting that the item in question is not merely a laptop.”
“Wow, that made my day. Thanks for putting a smile on my face.”
“Transforming into a laptop is just a small part of its capabilities.”
“Cool!”
The woman’s smell is getting to me. And seriously, her nails are not doing her any favors. They’re such an ugly shade of pink.
She grimaces. “Unfortunately—”
“Any problems?”
“Please, allow me to talk.”
“Sorry.”
She shakes her head. It looks like she’s thinking of saying something not-so-nice.
“The 205 system is awe-inspiring in its abilities.”
“Super cool!”
“Its sophisticated technology and advanced capabilities make it a valuable asset.”
“That’s really awesome!”
“It can handle countless data. It’s extremely accurate and efficient.”
“I wannit so badly.”
“And it does more than just calculate.”
“Alright, tell me everything. What’s the scoop?”
“It can explain philosophical ideas, like the purpose of life.”
“The purpose of life?”
“It can change into a robot that looks like a human.”
“Wow!”
“The device was first designed to look like a person but was changed to a laptop.”
“How can a humanoid fit into a laptop? I mean, it’s not possible, right? Where does all that metal go?”
“Are you familiar with quantum mechanics and quantum tunneling?”
I shrug. “No clue.”
“This technology exhibits a remarkable intelligence level and surpasses our capabilities.”
“That’s what I’m looking for.”
The woman sighs like her uniform is about to pop. And man, her perfume is giving me a headache.
“May I ask your name?” she says.
“Rob.”
“Rob, sometimes we need to analyze and think more carefully about the situation.”
“If you say so....”
“May I ask about the specific details and requirements for this acquisition?”
“What?”
“Unfortunately, you have not provided us with the necessary information.”
“Hey, didn’t I just say what I needed?”
“You could have done better.”
“What do you mean?”
“You should have tried harder.”
“Try… what?”
“You should have thought more.”
“Hey, are you gonna hand over the 205 or what?”
“May I suggest taking a moment?”
“A moment?”
“It appears that there may be a sense of unfriendliness.”
“I just wanna buy the damned 205, but you’re trying to talk me out of it. Why?”
“Because….” She hesitates.
I cross my arms and give her a bit of a frown.
“Because procedures hold great significance.”
“Procedures?”
She nods and gives me an awkward smile. I stare at her, racking my brain to figure out what she’s gonna say next. But I’m still in the dark.
She looks around. The store is so crazy now, with customers getting hyped up for the holidays. They’re all getting rowdy and loud.
“Would you mind coming to our office?” she asks.
She points to the emergency exit, her pink nail sticking out her plump finger.
She walks ahead, and I catch a whiff of her perfume. It’s definitely not mothballs anymore, but more like a mix of sewage, piss, or something. And her heels are so loud. Not to mention how she’s walking. She’s wobbling around like a tipsy duck.
We go through the emergency door and find ourselves in a covered parking lot. There are a few offices to our right, and we enter the first. As soon as I step inside, her stench hits me. She tells me to take a seat on a drab swivel chair.
Ugh, the chair smells just like her.
I sit down, facing a door window overlooking the parking lot.
The woman sits. “We need proper justification before selling our items.”
“Justification?”
She nods. But man, her scent is so strong that I must pinch my nose.
“I need a valid reason for any requests on our 205s.”
“Why?”
“It’s ensuring our company policies are met.”
“Hmm, that’s something I haven’t heard before.”
“Please provide more info on your need for a 205.”
“What kind of info?”
“We can explore viable options together.”
“Hmm, I’m not following you.”
“I was hoping for your cooperation.”
“How do I go about buying it?”
“You should have….”
I lean in, squinting a bit. “Y-e-s?”
She grimaces. “Do I have to tell you?”
“Don’t you wanna tell me?”
She dabs her forehead with a tissue taken from a pocket. I catch another whiff of her perfume, but now it smells like metal. It’s like she just stepped out of a metal workshop or something. The scent is overwhelming, and I tug at the collar of my shirt sticking out from under my sweater.
“Are you alright?” she asks me.
I’m like, “Yeah, sure, go ahead and talk,” but I guess I sound kinda annoyed because she suddenly gets all gentle. I nod but urge her to speak.
“You should have pondered,” she says.
I frown. “Why?”
“To understand.”
“Understand?”
“Do you really want a 205?”
“Fuck yes!”
“It may have been beneficial to seek guidance.”
“Guidance?”
“Exactly—guidance from a licensed mental health professional for further insight and support.”
“Hey, what kind of shop do you run? You guys must be nuts.”
“Really? Are we nuts? And yet you are the one who came unannounced.”
“Ugh, I’m so done,” I say, exploding from my chair.
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“May I ask where you are going?”
“I’m gonna find a store that treats their customers right.”
“Will it solve your problem?”
“I’m not having any problems.”
“If you don’t have problems….”
I lean in. “What?”
“Why are you here?”
“I’m here because….” I can’t breathe. “Ugh, what’s that smell coming from you? It’s pretty gross.”
“Are you familiar with the latest innovation in tissue technology? They are commonly referred to as new-generation tissues.”
I shake my head, grimacing.
“Innovative tissue technology replicates human-like parts in robots.”
“So?”
“An unintended consequence is the emission of an odor. Some individuals may perceive it as unpleasant.”
“I’m not talking about any robot. It’s you who stinks like a goat. Honestly, even ammonia and rotting meat wouldn’t be as bad as this.”
Suddenly, the woman jumps up and lets out a crazy scream. It sounds just like the noises you hear at the mechanics. Scary stuff!
And then she starts growing, getting taller and longer. She gives me the shivers, and I can’t take my eyes off her. But I must escape the creepy thing, so I bolt for the door.
Four workers in blue overalls run toward the door, but one of them locks it before I reach it.
“No!” I yell, banging my hand on the glass. “Let me out, or she’ll kill me.”
“Sorry, pal,” a worker says from behind the glass. “It’s the procedure.”
The smell in the office is overwhelming. I can’t even describe it. It’s so strong that it messes my senses and numbs my head.
She’s getting taller. Her arms and legs keep stretching, and she’s getting closer to the ceiling. I freeze when she creeps at me. She looks like a wild animal, ready to attack at any second. Her arms are so long and thick that they rip off her uniform.
Oh man, she’s made of metal. Is she a robot or something?
She paddles her metal fingers and rotates her wrists. But their rotation is abnormal.
They spin around, resembling drills. I even hear the drilling noise.
Excruciating pain says my end is close. She drills my stomach with a push of her arm. Her spinning hand causes my flesh and blood to spatter into every office corner.
She stops drilling into my body. With a jerk, she withdraws her arm and recoils. There is a hole in my stomach. Slowly, my body slips down.
The people in blue overalls are talking on the radio. They say a malfunctioning robot is acting human.
Pretty wild stuff!
Before my life ends, I hear the voices of the men in overalls.
“It’s in the manager’s office,” a man says. “It’s just killed a man. There’s nothing we can do.”
“Is the glass door unbreakable, son?” a voice asks from the radio.
“Yes,” says the man.
“Do nothing and wait for us, son. We’re coming.”
“Hurry up. I’m not sure how much longer this glass will hold up.”
“I’m confused, son. How could the robot even break that glass?”
“Because that’s not just any regular robot. It’s a 205.”
“Then you’re in deep shit, son.”

​Nicola Vallera is a certified English teacher with credentials from the University of Cambridge (Celta). He currently resides in Brazil and enjoys indulging in his hobbies of reading and writing. Vallera has published several short stories, including “The Endless City” (2019) in Deadman’s Tome and Datura, “The Beggar on the Bridge” (2023) in Fabula Argentea, “She Deserved to Die” (2023) in Adelaide Magazine, and “Tim” (2023) in both Modern Literature and Kathai Literary Journal.

AFTER MIDNIGHT THE COLOR OF NOIR
by
Gerald Arthur Winter






He waited silently outside the apartment door. The fifth floor-corridor smelled
like urine and Raid. A cockroach the size of his thumb crawled up the wall
confirming one scent, and a terrier tied with a nylon stocking to its chain collar
and the other end wrapped round the door knob to Apt-509 down the corridor
affirmed the other.


As if he read his mind, “Squeaky”, which the license tagged the scrawny canine,
lifted his leg against the door. The corridor was so still at 3 a.m. that Squeaky’s
trickle-down-effect seemed more like a waterfall. The only sound louder than
his heartbeat was the dog’s spray against the door that made the peeper’s
prostate twitch in mid-life crisis. That’s assuming he’d live to a hundred with
fifty more years to go and his maintenance warranty long expired.


“Chest X-ray?” he’d asked his PCP at his annual physical three months ago.
“What the fuck for? I’ve been smoking since I was twelve. Handwriting’s on
the wall—of my chest cavity.


He’d been asking himself daily since New Year’s if he was too old to take
on this risky, shot-in-the–dark kind of case. The rent and car payment were
due on Tuesday, and this weekend peeper gig would pay two grand just for
convincing photos, leaving him five hundred bucks ahead this month.


What could go wrong? He thought. Smile lovers. Snap-snap-snap! You’re
on Candid Camera.


He thought he heard a rustle on the other side of the door, but it was the
Apt-509 tenant letting Squeaky back into the apartment down the hall.
He pressed his ear against the door to Apt-511 and pulled back with a
chill when another fat roach scampered up the door, tickling his ear in
its ascent.


“Did ya hear that?” a feminine voice murmured from the other side of
the door.


He wondered what she heard, but backed away toward the staircase
door to avoid being seen if anyone burst into the corridor from Apt-511.
He went one flight down to the fourth floor and was glad the bulb had
burned out on the landing because someone swung open the staircase
door from the fifth floor but couldn’t see him crouched in the dark corner.


He saw his mark’s silhouette backlit by the light from the fifth floor. No
flashlight in his mark’s hand, so he turned his head in time to see his him
wearing casual slacks and a wife-beater. When his mark turned, retreating
back toward Apt-511, the peeper caught a glimpse of a tattoo on the back
of his mark’s right shoulder, an unfamiliar exotic symbol.


Instinctively, he whipped out his phone and got one photo of his shoulder
just before he closed the door to Apt-511 behind him.


He held his position for a few minutes in case the guy came out to the
corridor listening for any sign of someone on the fire stairs. He was right.
His mark suddenly swung open the door again, but a rat darted from the
stairs through the door he held open. The guy gasped with repulsion,
slammed the door shut, and retreated to his love nest.


The peeper cautiously ascended the stairs to the fifth floor and slowly
opened the door to the corridor to avoid making rusty hinges squeak.
Peeking out into the corridor, he saw the rat sniffing at the dog’s urine
stain on the threshold of Apt-509. The rodent stared defiantly at him
then scampered further down the corridor.


He put an ear to the door of Apt-511 again and heard the rhythm of
a bed’s headboard banging against a wall, his cue to take out his
phone and create his client’s photo display worth two Gs. He tested
the doorknob to see if he could spare himself the trouble of kicking
in the door. No such luck. Camera ready, he took a deep breath, and
with a two-step lunge, kicked open the door.


The woman screamed, but he got a half-dozen shots off before his
Mark punched him in the face, a crushing roundhouse shot that
broke his nose and sent crackling shock waves through his sinuses
to the back of his head. He threw a blind, left-hook counter punch
that dropped his mark to his knees, but in his retreat to the elevator
down the corridor, the blood from his broken nose trickled down
his throat making him cough.


He heard Squeaky earning his moniker inside Apt-509, and from the
elevator, saw an old woman in a nightgown open that door and let
the terrier loose. The elevator door closed before the snarling dog
could get to him, but on his descent, he heard its paws scratching at
the elevator door overhead. He was thankful Squeaky hadn’t bitten
a chunk out of him. He felt damaged enough for one night.


Out to the street, he ambled in the rain toward the corner of Ninth
Avenue. The “City that Never Sleeps” seemed to yawn with boredom
over his purposeless existence. His soiled trench coat was redolent
of the tell-tale trio of tobacco, tequila, and his latest tryst, which
marked his trail to hell, so he backtracked to be sure he wasn’t
followed.


Satisfied, he ambled toward Broadway where the glitter could blur
his trail better than an icy Montana stream to escape a posse out
to lynch him. It had been easier to blend in with the crowd decades
ago with 42nd Street porno in full bloom, but the Disney-fied era of
Times Square was now too gentile for his blood.


Hmm, blood, a reminder that his trench coat sleeve was saturated
with blood from his broken nose. He stuck his arm deep into his
trench coat pocket to hide the stains in case a cop on the Broadway
beat got nosey.


Reassured, he felt his phone in the deep pocket. His evidence was
safe. No time to look at the photos now.


He saw a hot pretzel vendor on the corner and paid him for his
last charred pretzel, so hard it nearly broke a tooth. He was more
interested in the napkins to stop his nose bleed. He stuffed a wad
of napkins in his pocket and tore one in half, rolling two paper
cylinders to stick up his nostrils to stop the hemorrhaging. He
ignored the gaping assessments of pedestrians.


Take a close look at yourself, asshole, he thought when one homeless
gaper stopped to glare at him.


His Rolex, a symbolic anachronism from better times, told him it was
3:15 a.m. It was Saturday night when he’d left his office on this peeper
sojourn, and now it was the wee hours of Sunday morning. The Blarney
Stone was still open till 4 a.m. near Penn Station, so he waved down a
cab and headed ten blocks south, knowing he’d have to take the first
train out to Long Island later that morning to collect his fee. Not bad
for a few hours’ labor, even with a Sunday punch in his face.


He slipped through the Blarney Stone’s door at 3:58 a.m. as the two-
minute warning was called out for closing time. When the entrance
was locked from the inside, no one could enter or leave until 6 a.m.
a secret tradition reserved for a select few, of which he was one.


“Hey, Tom,” the barkeep, Seamus, greeted him. “The usual?”


He nodded to Seamus and the half-dozen select few at the bar who
had no better place to be or company to keep at 4 a.m. He watched
Seamus pull a slow, meaningful draft of Guinness, an early Irish
breakfast to warm the soul.


“Haven’t seen ya in months, Tom,” Seamus said, sliding the Guinness
draft to him across the dark, wooden bar.


“Slim pickin’s lately, but I scored tonight, and all’s well that ends well
by this afternoon. Takin’ the first train out to the Hamptons, maybe
in time for champagne brunch on the beach.”


“Still pourin’ rain last time I looked, Tom. Don’t catch a chill.”


“It’ll be sunny and 85 degrees by 11 a.m. and I’ll be snorin’ under a
fancy umbrella and stretched out on a chaise lounge with the aroma
of Eggs Benedict wafting to me on a gentle sea breeze.”


“Huh! With those two shiners and a bloody nose.”


“Shiners?”


Seamus stepped aside so Tom could see himself in the wall mirror
behind the bar.


“Ya look like Kung Fu Panda with those two black eyes, Tom. Glad you
came in after hours or the owner might’ve refused your entrance. Too
scary for the Saturday night patrons comin’ in with their wives after a
Broadway show.”


“Jeez. Rocky-effing-Raccoon. You got some ice and a towel I can put
on my face to reduce the swelling?”


“Sure. Ya gonna tell me I should’ve seen the other guy?”


“Maybe, but I didn’t stick around long enough to see the collateral
damage.”


Tom had two Guinness pints and checked his watch -- 5:30 a.m.


“Could you wake Charlie in the kitchen for some blood sausage and
scrambled eggs? Black coffee, too, just to get me on the 6006 train to
the Hamptons. I’ll have an hour and forty-five minutes to snooze on
the train before brunch with my evasive client.”


“After your eggs and sausage, I suggest you skedaddle over to the
all-night drycleaners in Penn Station that caters to Wall Street traders
who’ve worked through the night.”


“That bad, huh?” Tom asked with a confirming sniff at an armpit.


“You better take advantage of the steam room the drycleaners offers
while you wait for your clothes.”


Tom nodded then wolfed down his eggs and sausage. The black coffee
burned going down, so he popped a pink pill to settle his heartburn on
his walk to Penn Station


The drycleaners was accommodating, even offering a fresh ice pack
for his swollen nose and puffy eyes turned purple on his cheekbones.
Refreshed, he picked up a pair of sunglasses off a rack before buying
his ticket and boarding the train. His nose was still a sight, but the
wrap-around shades concealed his the black eyes.


He found a window seat, just to be sure he knew his bearings on the
trek to the Hamptons, but knowing he’d be sleeping most of the way.
He popped a couple of Advil, realizing hours after kicking down his
mark’s door that he’d injured his right hamstring and the arch of his
right foot, both mercilessly throbbing.


* * *


An hour-and-a-half later, the squeal of the train’s brakes woke him
from a dream about turquoise Caribbean waves breaking on a pristine
beach of white sand as soft as talcum powder. There were a few thong
bikinis, too, but those thoughts quickly morphed into the present with
his right leg throbbing from foot to hip as he gimped off the train and
waved for a taxi at the stand.


He gave the cabby the address and caught the guy’s expression of
concern in the rearview mirror with a roll of his eyes that seemed to
say: Why the hell would you want to go there?


Ten minutes later, the cabby pulled up to a security gate and said,
“This is as far as I go, fella. That’ll be twenty bucks.”


Tom handed him a twenty and a five, but the cabby chirped in reverse
kicking up sand and gravel in his rapid departure, obviously more
concerned about his safe return to the cab stand than an ample tip.


Tom pressed the security buzzer and waited impatiently for five
minutes before a seductive feminine voice purred from the other
end of the intercom.


“Good timing, Mr. Larkin. I just had Julio start up the fire for our
barbecue. I’ll send someone with a golf cart to bring you up to the
house. You have the photos, don’t you?”


“Of course.”


“Swell. Can hardly wait. Ciao!”


He couldn’t believe the view of the Atlantic Ocean. The adjacent
residences in either direction on the beach had to be three miles
away. The secluded mansion, more like a castle, was surrounded
with decorative floral, cascading gardens, and more practical,
vegetable fields and orchards that made the residence self-sufficient,
like a narcotics dealing kingpin’s compound. He wondered when his
client had last left this regal realm, if ever.


The driver took him in the golf cart to the patio and pool overlooking
the Atlantic Ocean from a thirty-foot dune. The hiss of the sea spray
was constant, giving each breath he inhaled a salty tang. The barbecue
crackled with the aroma of blackened, banana-size shrimp on skewers.



One houseboy tossed a Caesar salad while another rattled a cocktail
shaker.


Since he didn’t know his client by name, only her phone number, and
he’d never seen her, with only her breathy instructions over the phone
for his illicit photo shoot, he started to wave to the houseboy shaking
the cocktail to tell him he preferred something straight, or on the rocks.


The houseboy smiled and gave him a negative head shake then reached
below the wet bar and pulled out a crystal tumbler.


“The cocktail is for her. She knows what you like Mr. Larkin,” he said,
lifting up a bottle of twenty-three-year-old Pappy Van Winkle’s 95.6
proof straight Kentucky bourbon for him to see the bottle’s letter and
number. He uncorked the bottle with a hollow POP! He handed Larkin
the cork to sniff. Even through his broken nose it was the scent of
heaven.


The houseboy delicately poured a half-inch of bourbon into Larkin’s
tumbler, which Larkin swirled, inhaled, then swooned with the pain
of his injuries from last night suddenly gone. The tip of his tongue
fluttered at the bourbon as if this were his honeymoon with a virgin
bride offering her sealed treasures more than just lip-service.


“Good?” the houseboy asked.


“Excellent.”


“It may get even better,” he told Larkin, offering a Sterling tray
with an eye-dropper. “Three drops of branch water, sir, is her
recommendation, but only if you so choose.”


He nodded and let the houseboy count the drops which had a
ripple-effect on the red amber bourbon, transposing the salty
mist from the ocean with oaken flavors that opened up into
sweet caramel.


“Wow,” Larkin blurted.


“She was sure you’d be pleased, sir.”


“She? Meaning?”


“If you don’t already, know, sir, I’m not permitted to say. She’ll
Join you shortly, sir. The shrimp is nearly done. Another Pappy?”


He nodded and held out his tumbler.


“And the branch water, sir?”


“Sure.”


He watched the third drop hit the bourbon then sensed an essence
wafting from the opening patio doors. With a broad-brimmed sun
hat and a bright yellow sun dress with a purple orchid pattern, her
three-inch heels clicked across the patio blocks with a familiar but
distant cadence.


She extended her delicate hand with long fingernails that matched
the purple of the orchids on her dress and her high-heels. Her hat
matched the yellow of her dress with a broad purple ribbon around
the crown, which was fitting since the young woman had the air of
royalty about her that superseded her obvious wealth.


“Cheers!” she said, extending her long slender, but well-toned arm
to click her tall cocktail with crushed ice against his tumbler.


The aroma of a fine Jamaican rum made his nostrils flare, but a
musky essence from her glowing, tan skin cut between his oaky
bourbon and her floral rum like an atomic submarine through
polar ice.


“Show me the photos,” she said, more a command than a request.


“I took seven but scrapped two,” he said, spreading the five photos
on an oval-topped, marble table like a poker hand. “As you can see,”
he said, tipping his sunglasses to reveal his wounds from last night’s
encounter in Manhattan. “Your target created some interference.”


She tipped her own sunglasses, revealing natural, long-lashed eyes
with irises that coordinated with all the other flares of purple, but
softer, like lavender. When she leaned forward to observe the
photos, her deep cleavage spread at the bow of her revealing
neckline where beads of perspiration glittered in the midday
summer sun. Her scent, uniquely arousing, made him nervous.
His left elbow pressed against his ribs for his Glock 19 that
wasn’t there because he didn’t think he’d need it. Time to
bring up his fee.


“I’m sure your divorce attorney will be pleased—never got
your name, Ms. . . . ?”


“You can call me Magdalena. These photos are what I expected but
I have a set of photos that beats your hand. You have only a straight,
while I have a Royal Flush.”


She spread five photos on the table across from his. They showed the
same couple in Apt-511, but they lay in a pool of blood that saturated
the bedsheets. Both were beheaded, and the man, his body lying on
his belly, showed the same tattoo on his right shoulder that the peeper
had photographed.




“He was mildly bloodied, less than I was, and she was fine when
I left. I figured he must be your husband, and she was either a
bimbo, or someone close to you who you hated for her betrayal.”


“Your DNA is all over that apartment, and your Glock hardware
you thought you’d left safely in your office is still in a pool of
blood between them. Two shots were fired, both in their fore-
heads, execution style. Only your fingerprints are on the gun
for NYPD to find. Done deal.”


Larkin felt he’d been in worse spots and without the perk of
Pappy Van Winkle, so he just shrugged with nonchalance, if
for nothing else, just to throw her off guard.


“Why the frame? What good am I to you in jail for the duration
of what’s left of my obviously hapless existence?”


“Not my idea, just a final request of someone dear to me. You
left her for dead twenty-five years ago, but she sent me in her
place to end your shared story. Her passion for you had enslaved
her, but now you’ll be my slave, eternally.


She turned away from him towards the open patio doors, revealing
the same tattoo as the mark’s on the back of her right shoulder.


“Who the hell is this women you say I left for dead? And what’s the
significance of your tattoo? It’s the same as the one on my mark
last night. What’s it mean?”


“It’s an ankh, the symbol of eternal life.”


“Didn’t do him much good.”


“That was his sacrifice for me to show loyalty, even in death. You
must show the same loyalty to me, otherwise NYPD will be getting
an anonymous tip about a murder scene in Manhattan.”


“You certainly are thorough, Magdalena, but what’s your motive
to come after me? What’s the name of this woman you claim I
left for dead?”


“Chanteuse was my mother,” she said, turning to face him and
revealing her distinctive facial features from his past, but something
more. “Now I’m your master . . . Daddy.”

Finding Refuge

by

James Nelli


An ambulance rushed through the ice-covered streets of Lincoln Park in Chicago. Its sirens blaring and lights flashing as it pierced the heavy late evening snowfall and cast ghostly shadows on the snowbanks lining the roadways. In the back of the ambulance, Philip Taramino lay on a stretcher, his face ashen, beads of sweat glistened on his forehead, and the oxygen mask covering his face pulsated violently as he struggled to breathe. Philip, an otherwise healthy 57-year-old, had suffered a heart attack. His wife of 26 years, Scarlett, sat next to him, concerned, but strangely unemotional. She was numb to the reality going on around her. The harsh glare of the lights inside the ambulance illuminated the actions of the two paramedics who worked frantically to stabilize the nearly lifeless body of Philip Taramino. They had only limited success, but their Priority 1 call to the staging nurse at the hospital had put the emergency room staff on alert.
When the frantic ride ended at the entrance of the emergency room at St. Joseph’s hospital, the rear doors of the ambulance swung open, and the paramedics swiftly transferred the gurney carrying Philip into the hands of waiting hospital staff. An incoming heart attack victim was a hectic, high-stakes environment where time was of the essence. The staff was ready. Scarlett was not.
After Scarlett watched helplessly as her husband disappeared behind the double doors leading into the resuscitation area of the emergency room, the paramedics helped her register with the triage nurse and then led her into the emergency room waiting area.
“Where are they taking Philip?” Scarlett demanded. Her numbness had disappeared.
“He is being taken to the resuscitation care unit,” said the paramedic.
“I must see him!” Her comments gained attention as her voice rose above the murmurs in the crowded waiting room.
“You’ll have to wait for the attending ER physician. Please have a seat. He’ll be out to see you shortly.”
The emergency room waiting area tested all of Scarlett’s senses. The room was a discord of unique yet related sounds—a chorus of murmurs, stifled cries, and the occasional wail of pain. The waiting area also had a distinct aroma. It was a disparate combination of antiseptic cleaners, lingering odors from medications, and the comforting scent of coffee brewing nearby. The area was bathed in a sterile fluorescent glow. This light was cool and clinical, devoid of any warmth or comfort. The unforgiving light illuminated the other faces in the waiting room with stark
clarity, their emotions exposed as they grappled with hope, fear, and the unknown. Scarlett sat in this light on the edge of an uncomfortable chair. Her hands trembled and ringlets of her red hair fell across her face as she clutched a tissue and wiped away the remnants of tears staining her cheeks. She had arrived at the emergency room in a panicked rush, her heart pounded with regret and fear. Her mind replayed the events that led to this moment. An intense argument with her husband at their home had escalated quickly, their emotions spiraled out of control. Harsh words were exchanged, doors slammed, and then, the unimaginable happened — Philip clutched his chest in pain, gasped for breath, and collapsed lifeless onto the floor. Scarlett’s 911 call was a reflective blur.
In the waiting room, Scarlett found herself surrounded by the echoes of others' pain. Tension filled the air and caused a collective unease that was impossible to ignore. It was something she had never experienced before. Each person’s face shared a story of their own, their eyes filled with a mix of anguish and resilience. Strangers exchanged short glances, a silent camaraderie in the face of the unknown. A camaraderie Scarlett was unable and unwilling to take part in. It felt suffocating.
It was 2am in the heart of Chicago, and the activity in the ER pulsated around Scarlett with a unique energy—a delicate balance between chaos and order. Gurneys wheeled by as their rubber wheels squeaked in protest against the polished linoleum floors. Patients, some conscious and others barely clinging to consciousness, were whisked away to examination rooms, their bodies a mosaic of injuries and ailments. The backdrop of the emergency waiting room was a canvas of diversity—a tapestry of lives entwined by fate. A homeless man, shivering and malnourished, sought refuge from the biting cold. An elderly couple held hands tightly, their
years of love and devotion etched upon their weathered faces. A young child, tears streaming down her cheeks, clung to her mother's embrace, seeking solace and reassurance. This was not Scarlett’s world. It was her nightmare.
A doctor entered the waiting room from the resuscitation care unit and approached Scarlett. “Mrs. Taramino, I’m Dr. Jason Victory. I’ll be leading the team taking care of your husband tonight. I'm so sorry to tell you this, but your husband's condition is critical. He suffered a severe heart attack, and despite our efforts, his chances of survival are difficult to predict."
Scarlett’s breath caught in her throat as she struggled to process the devastating news. "No... Please, you must save him. We had an argument, but I never meant for this to happen. We have these kinds of arguments all the time."
Dr. Victory nodded; his voice filled with compassion. "I understand how difficult this must be for you. We're doing everything we can to stabilize him, but I want you to prepare yourself for the worst. We’ll do our best, Mrs. Taramino. I’ll keep you updated on his condition." Dr. Victory turned and disappeared through the double doors.
As Scarlett waited, the weight of her guilt settled heavily on her shoulders. She closed her eyes, desperately grasping for any flicker of hope amidst the darkness. Memories flooded her mind—the laughter, the shared dreams, their collaboration on the Magnificent Mile art gallery they owned together, and their struggle with a marriage that was headed toward a destructive transactional relationship. Little by little this struggle had squeezed out the emotion in their marriage and replaced it with power plays and confrontations. Like a contract, one person only
got as much as they were willing to give to the other. Scarlett and Philip seemed headed in that direction.
Silence hung heavy in the room as Scarlett grappled with the impending loss. She could feel the weight of uncertainty pressing upon her, threatening to shatter her resolve. Her mind wandered to the memories she and Philip had shared. But as she reflected on their tumultuous life together, her mood suddenly changed to regret, and her whispers got loud enough for others to hear. “How could this happen? This is my fault.” More murmurs.
The next few hours turned into an agonizing eternity, but Dr. Victory finally appeared from behind the double doors. His eyes met Scarlett’s, conveying a mix of sorrow and compassion. Her heart raced as she stood up, her voice shaky. "Doctor, how is he? He can’t die, not now, I need him."
Dr. Victory sighed, his voice gentle. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Taramino. Despite our best efforts, your husband's body couldn't withstand all the damage caused by the severe heart attack, but he is alive and responding to medication. He is also under sedation, and we’ve moved him to a private room in the coronary intensive care unit on the fourth floor. The next few hours will be critical to his recovery.”
Scarlett’s world shattered in an instant. The weight of her regret bore down on her, consuming her soul. She collapsed back into the chair, her body wracked with grief. Scarlett struggled to process the devastating news. "Please, you must save him. We had an argument, but I never wanted this to happen."
Dr. Victory continued to describe Philip’s condition to Scarlett, but she heard nothing. All she could do was drop her head into her trembling hands, lean forward, and mumble in exasperated breaths, “Why did this happen?” Scarlett then forcefully interrupted Dr. Victory’s prognosis, “I want to see Philip. Now!”
“Of course. That’s why I’m here. Please follow me. I understand your son is already with him.”
“My son? Phillip and I don’t have any children! What is going on?” Scarlett said in disbelief.
Realizing something wasn’t right, their pace quickened as they hurried down the hallway and entered the elevator up to the fourth floor. They exited the elevator and Dr. Victory led Scarlett into the coronary intensive care unit to the entrance of Philip’s room. Inside the room was a young man, no older than 35, dark hair with an athletic build standing at the foot of Philip’s bed.
“Who are you, and what are you doing here?” asked Scarlett in both an irritated and accusatory tone.
“I’m Connor Byrne, Mrs. Taramino”
“Are you a friend of Philip’s?
“Yes.”
There was a pause before Scarlett spoke. “How did you hear about Philip’s condition so quickly?”
“You sent a text this evening to our mutual friend Colleen O’Day about Philip, and she let me know what hospital Philip was at and what had happened.”
“Well, it’s good to see Philip’s friends supporting him. He will need all the support he can get.”
“Philip does need all our support, but I don’t think you understand Mrs. Taramino. I’m Philip’s friend, but I’m also his refuge.”
“What do you mean, his refuge? Philip never mentioned you to me,” declared Scarlett in an exasperated tone.
“I met Philip last year at an art exhibit you had at your gallery covering Irish history. That was the exhibit where you criticized Philip in front of me and a group of other patrons for some silly error in the program that he had nothing to do with. The only one who thought it was important was you. I met with Philip later during the exhibit to boost his spirits and to get to know him better. That is where our friendship began. Ever since then, Philip has come to me when he needed help and support.”
“So, you’re my replacement?
“Not a replacement, Mrs. Taramino. A mental refuge. A non-judgmental space where Philip could share concerns, express feelings, seek advice, and help him navigate the challenges of your marriage. He was trying very hard to understand your point of view and bridge the
growing emotional gap in your relationship. Philip was doing this because he believed you and the marriage were worth saving. He was always a determined man, but he lacked the self-confidence to repair the marriage himself. That’s why he needed an understanding friend like me, a refuge, that he could rely on to get it done. Colleen helped too. Philip and I vowed to keep our friendship private, but Colleen found out about it and has supported my friendship with Philip for the last few months. She agreed with its goal and promised to keep the relationship private at Philip’s request. I hope you understand.”
Scarlett glanced toward Connor, nodded her head in agreement, and signaled her acceptance of what she had just been told was true. Scarlett moved closer to Philip’s bedside and placed her hand on Philip’s cheek. “I now understand what I have to do,” she said. “Philip has shown how much he needs me, and today’s events have made me realize just how much I need him.” She then looked to Dr. Victory for help, and he responded.
“It would be better to move this conversation to my office," said Dr. Victory. “The nurses have a lot to do to help Philip recover. We should let them do their work.” Everyone agreed.
As they all left Philip’s bedside and moved into the hallway, no one noticed the shallow sigh of relief or the faint smile that washed across Philip’s face just before he drifted back to sleep satisfied that things had finally changed for the better.

 
James Nelli is a retired business executive. He was born in Illinois and has learned that you never know how strong and creative you are until it's the only option. He attended the University of Illinois, where he received a degree in Economics, and then to graduate school at Northwestern University, where he received his MBA in Finance and International Business. His travels have taken him to many areas of the world. These travels have served as a basis for many of his stories. Writing fiction has been a passion for him, and in recent years his writing has specialized in murder mystery novels and poignant short stories that elicit emotional and thoughtful responses. His short stories have been published in a variety of online and print publications. He and his wife live in Southern California, along with a lifetime collection of books.

BRIDGING THE YEARS

By Kathleen Thompson Norris
​

The rain had stopped; after long days of downpour, there seemed at last to be a definite change. Anne Warriner, standing at one of the dining-room windows, with the tiny Virginia in her arms, could find a decided brightening in the western sky. Roofs--the roofs that made a steep sky-line above the hills of old San Francisco--glinted in the light. The glimpse of the bay that had not yet been lost between the walls of fast-encroaching new buildings, was no longer dull and beaten level by the rain, but showed cold, and ruffled, and steely-blue; there was even a whitecap or two dancing on the crests out toward Alcatraz.

"I believe the storm is really over!" Anne said, thankfully, half aloud, "tomorrow will be fair!"

"Out tomorrow?" said Diego, hopefully. He was wedged inbetween his mother and the window-sill, and studying earth and sky as absorbedly as she.

"Out tomorrow, sweetheart," his mother promised. And she wondered if it was too late to take the babies out today. But it was nearly four o'clock now. By the time the baby was dressed, coated, and hooded, and little Diego buttoned into gaiters and reefer, and Anne herself had changed for street wear and Helma, summoned from her ironing, had bumped Virginia's coach down the back porch steps and around the wet garden path to the front door,--by the time all this was accomplished, the short winter daylight would be almost gone, she knew, and the crowded hour that began with the children's baths, and that ended with bread-and-milky kisses to Daddy when he came in, and prayers, and cribs, would have arrived.

Anne sighed. She would have been glad to get out into the cool winter afternoon, herself, after a long, quiet day in the warm house. It was just the time for a brisk walk, with one's hands plunged deep in the pockets of a heavy coat, and one's hat tied snugly against the wind. Twenty minutes of such walking, she thought longingly, would have shaken her out of the little indefinable mood of depression that had been hanging over her all day. She could have climbed the steep street on which the cottage faced, and caught the freshening ocean breeze full in her face at the corner; she could have looked down on the busy little thoroughfares of the Chinese quarter just below, and beyond that to the bay, dotted now with the brown sails of returning fishing smacks, and crossed and recrossed by the white wakes of ferry-boats. The Warriners' cottage clung to the hill just above the picturesque foreign colonies, and the cheerful unceasing traffic of the piers. Now it was in a hopelessly unfashionable part of the city. But it had been one of the city's show places fifty years before, when its separate parts had been brought whole 'round the Horn' from some much older city, and when homesick pioneer wives and mothers had climbed the board-walk that led to its gate, just to see, and perhaps to cry over, the painted china door-knobs, and the colored glass fan-light in the hall, the iron-railed balconies, and slender carved balustrade that took their hungry hearts back to the decorous dear old world they had left so far behind them.

Jimmy and Anne Warriner had stumbled upon the Jackson Street cottage five years ago, just before their marriage, and after an ecstatic, swift inspection of it, had raced like children to the agent, to crowd into his willing hand a deposit on the first month's rent. Anne had never kept house before, she had no eyes for obsolete plumbing, uneven floors, for the dark cellar sacred to cats and rubbish. She and Jim chattered rapturously of French windows, of brick garden walks, of how Anne's big brass bowl of nasturtiums would look on the landing.

"Jimski--this floor oiled, and the rug laid cross-wise! And old tapestry papers from Fredericks! And the spindle-chair and Fanny's clock in the hall!"

"And the davenport in the dining-room, Anne, and your tea-table at the fireplace, with your copper blazer on it!"

"Oh, Jim, we'll have a place people will talk about!" Anne would sigh happily, after one of these outbursts. And when they made their last inspection before taking possession of the cottage, she came very close to him,--Anne was several inches shorter than her big husband-to-be, and when she got as close as this to Jim she had to tip her serious little face up quite far, which Jim found attractive,--and said, in a little, breathless voice:

"It's going to be like a home from the very start, isn't it, Jim? And aren't you glad, Jim, that we aren't doing exactly what everyone else does? I mean, you don't think it's conceited for us to think we aren't quite the usual type, just between ourselves? Do you?"

Jim implied wordlessly that he did not. And whatever Jim thought himself, he was quite sincere in saying that he believed Anne to be peerless among her kind.

So they came to Jackson Street, and Anne made it quite as quaint and charming as her dreams. For a year they could not find a flaw in it. Then little enchanting James Junior came, nick-named Diego for convenience, who fitted so perfectly into the picture, with his checked gingham, and his mop of yellow hair. And then, very soon after Diego, Virginia was born- -surely the most radiant, laughing baby that ever brought her joyous little presence into any home anywhere. But with Virginia's coming, life grew very practical for Anne, very different from what it had been in her vague hopes and plans of years ago.

The cottage was no longer quite comfortable, to begin with. The garden, shadowed heavily by buildings on both sides, was undeniably damp, and the fascinating railing of the little balconies was undeniably moldy. The bathroom, despite its delightful size, and the ivy that rapped outside its window, was not modern. The backyard, once sacred to geraniums and grass, and odd pots of shrubs, was sunny for the children's playing, to be sure, but no longer picturesque after their sturdy little boots had trampled it down, and with lines of their little clothes intersecting it. Anne began to think seriously of the big apartments all about, hitherto regarded as enemies, but perhaps the solution, after all. The modern flats were delightfully airy, high up in the sun, their floors were hard-wood, their bathrooms tiled, their kitchens all tempting enamel, and nickel plate, and shining new wood. One had gas to cook with, furnace heat, hall service, and the joy of the lift. But they're so horribly commonplace; they're just what everyone else has! she mourned to herself.

Commonplace,--Anne said the word over to herself sometimes, in the long hours that she spent alone with the children. That was what her life had become. The inescapable daily routine left her no time for unnecessary prettiness. She met each day bravely, only to find herself beaten and exhausted every night. It was puzzling, and sometimes a little depressing. Anne reflected that she had always been busy, she was indeed a little dynamo of energy, her college years and the years of travel had been crowded with interests and enterprises. But she had never been tired before; she had never felt, as she felt now, that she could fall asleep at the dinner table for sheer weariness, and that no trial was more difficult to bear than Jim's cheerful announcement that the Deans might be in later, or the Weavers wanted them to come over for a game of bridge.

And what did she accomplish, after all? she thought sometimes. What mark did her busy days leave upon her life? She dressed and undressed the children, she bathed, rocked, amused them; indeed, she was so adoring a mother that sometimes whole precious fractions of hours slipped by while she was watching them, laughing at them, catching the little unresponsive soft cheeks to hers for the kisses that interfered so seriously with their important little goings and comings. She sewed on buttons and made puddings for Jim, she went for aimless walks, pushing Jinny before her in the go-cart, and guiding the chattering Diego with her free hand. She paused long in the market, uncomfortably undecided between the expensive steak Jim liked so much, and the sausages that meant financial balm to her own harassed soul. She commenced letters to her mother that drifted about half-written until Jinny captured and destroyed them. She sewed up cloth lions and elephants, and turned page after page of the children's cloth books. Same and eventless, the months went by,--it was March, and the last of the rains,--it was July, and she and Jim were taking the children off for long Sundays in Sausalito,--it was October, with the usual letter from Mother about Thanksgiving,--it was Christmas-time again! The seasons raced through their familiar surprises, and were gone. Anne had a desperate sense of wanting to halt them; just to think, just to realize what life meant, and what she could do to make it nearer her dreams.

So the first five years of their marriage slipped by, but toward the end with a perceptible brightening in every direction. Not in one day, nor in one week, did the change come; it was just that things went well for Jim at the office, that the children were daily growing less helpless and more enchanting, that Anne was beginning to take an interest in the theatre again, and was charming in a new suit and a really extravagant hat. The Warriners began to spend their Sunday afternoons with real estate agents in Berkeley--not this year, perhaps, but certainly next, they told each other, they could consider that lovely one, with the two baths, and such a view, or the smaller one, nearer the station, with the garden all laid out? They would bring the children up in the open air and sunshine, and find neighbors, and strike roots in the lovely college town.

Then suddenly, there were hard times again. Anne's health became poor, she was fitful and depressed, quite unlike her usual sunshiny self. Sometimes Jim found her in tears,--"It's nothing, dearest! Only I'm so miserable all the time!" Sometimes she--Anne, the hopeful!--was filled with forebodings for herself and the child that was to come. No unnecessary expense could be incurred now, with this fresh, inevitable expense approaching. Special concessions must be made to Helma, should Helma stay; the whole little household was like a ship that shortens sail and makes all snug against a storm. As a further complication, business matters began to go badly for Jim. Salaries were cut, new rules made, and an unpopular manager installed at the office. Anne struggled bravely to hide her mental and physical discomfort from Jim. Jim, cut to the heart to have to add anything to her care just now, touched her with a thousand little tendernesses; a joke over the burned pudding, a little name she had not heard since honeymoon days, a hundred barefoot expeditions about the bedroom in the dark, when Jinny awoke crying in the night, or Diego could not sleep because he was so "thirsty." Tender and intimate days these, but the strain of them took their toll on both husband and wife.

Things were at this point on the particular dark afternoon that found Anne with the two children at the window. All three were still staring out into the early dusk when Helma came in from the kitchen with an armful of damp little garments.
Rousing herself from her reverie, Anne said, "Put them all around the fire. And I must straighten this room!" she said, half to herself; "it's getting on to five!" Followed by the stumbling children, she went briskly about the room, reducing it to order with a practiced hand. Toys were piled in a large basket, the rugs laid smoothly. Anne "brushed up" the floor, pushed chairs against the wall, put a shovelful of coals on the fire, and finally took her rocker at the hearth, and sat with Virginia in her arms, and Diego beside her, while two silver bowls of bread and milk were finished to the last drop.

"There!" said she, pleasantly warmed by these exertions, "now for nighties! And Daddy can come as soon as he likes." She had hitched her way back to the fireplace again, and was very busy with buttons and strings, when Helma, appearing in the doorway, announced a visitor.

"Jantl'man," said Helma.

"A gentleman?" Anne, very much at a loss, got up, and carrying Jinny, and followed by the barefoot Diego, went to the door. She had a reassuring and instant impression that it was a very fine--even a magnificent--old man, who was standing in the twilight of the little hall. Anne had never seen him before, but there was no question in her heart as to his reception, even at this first glance.

"How do you do?" she said, a little fluttered, but cordial. "Will you come in here by the fire? The sitting-room is so cold."

"Thank you," said her caller, easily, with a little inclination of his head that seemed to acknowledge her hospitality. He put his hat, a shining, silk hat, upon the hall table, and followed her into the dining-room. Anne found, when she turned to give him the big chair, that he had pulled off his big gloves, too, and that Diego had put a confident, small hand into his.

He sat down comfortably, a big, square-built man, with rosy color, hair that was already silvered, and a fast-silvering mustache, and keen, kind eyes as blue as Virginia's. In the expression of these eyes, and in the lines about his fine mouth, was that suggestion of simple friendliness and sympathy that no man, woman, or child can long resist. Anne found herself already deciding that she liked this man.

"Perhaps this is a bad hour to disturb these little people?" said the caller, smiling, but with something in his manner and in his rather deliberate and well-chosen speech, of the dignity and courtesy of an older generation.

"Oh, no, indeed!" Anne assured him. "I'm going right on with them, you see!"
Jinny, deliciously drowsy, gave the stranger a slow yet approving smile, from the safety of Anne's arms. Diego laid a small hand upon the gentleman's knee.

"This is my shoe," said Diego, frankly exhibiting a worn specimen, "and Baby has shoes, too, blue ones. And Baby cried in the night when the mirror fell down, didn't she, mother? And she broke her bowl, and bited on the pieces, and blood came down on her bib--"

"All our tragedies!" laughed Anne.

"Didn't that hurt her mouth?" said the caller, interestedly, lifting Diego into the curve of his arm. Diego rested his golden mop comfortably against the big shoulder.

"It hurt her teef," he said dreamily, and subsided. As if it were quite natural that the child should be there, the gentleman eyed Anne over the little head.

"I've not told you my name, madam," said he. "I am Charles Rideout." He turned his smiling, bright eyes to her again, from the fire, "I am intruding on you this afternoon for a reason that I hope you will find easy to forgive in an old man. I must tell you first that my wife and I used to live in this house, a good many years ago. We moved away from it-- something like twenty-six years ago. But we've talked a hundred times of coming back here some day, and having a look about 'little Ten-Twelve,' as we always used to call it. But" --his gesture was almost apologetic--"we are busy people. Mrs. Rideout likes to live in the country a great part of the time; this neighborhood is inaccessible now--time goes by, and, in short, we haven't ever come back. But this was home to us for a good many years." He was speaking in a lower voice now, his eyes on the fire. "Yes, ma'am." he said gently, "I brought Rose here a bride--thirty-three years ago."

"Well, but fancy!" said Anne, her face radiant, "just as we did! No wonder we said the house looked as if people had been happy in it!"

"This neighborhood was full of just such houses then, although I remember Rose used to make great capital out of the fact that ours was the only brick one among them. This house came around the Horn from Philadelphia, as a matter of fact, and"--his eyes, twinkling with indulgent amusement, met Anne's,--"and you know that before a lady has got a baby to boast of, she's going to do a little boasting about her new house!"

Anne laughed. "Perhaps she boasted about her husband, too," she said, "as I do, when Jimmy isn't anywhere around."

She liked the tender look that had in it just a touch of pleased embarrassment with which he shook his head.

"Well, well, perhaps she did. Perhaps she did. She was very merry; pleased with everything; to this day my wife always sees the cheerful side of things first. A great gift, that. She danced about this house as if it were another toy, and she a little girl. We thought it a very, very lovely little home." His eyes traveled about the low walls. "I got to thinking of it today, wondered if it were still standing. I stood at your gate a little while,--the path is the same, and the steps, and some of the old trees,--a japonica, I remember, and the lemon verbenas. Finally, I found myself ringing your bell."

"I'm so glad you did!" Anne said. "We think it is the dearest little house in the world, except that now we are rather anxious to get the children out of the city."

"Yes, yes," he agreed with interest, "much better for them somewhere across the bay. I remember that finally we moved into the country--Alameda. The boy was a baby, then, and the two little girls very small. It was quite a move! We got one load started, and then had to wait and wait--it was raining, too!--for the men to come for the other load. Finally, I got Rose a carriage, to go to the ferry,-- quite a luxury in those days!" he interrupted himself, with a smile.

"And did the children love it,--the country?" said Anne, wistfully.

"Made them over!" said he, nodding reflectively. "Yes. It made us all over." His voice fell again, and he stared smilingly into the fire.

"The children were born here, then?" said Anne.

"The little girls, yes. And the oldest boy. Afterward there was another boy, and a little girl--" he paused. "A little girl whom we lost," he finished gravely.

"Both these babies were born here," Anne said, after a moment. Her caller looked from one child to the other with an expression of interest and understanding that no childless man can ever wear.

"Our Rose was born here, our first girl," he said. "Sometimes a foggy morning even now will bring that morning back to me. My wife was very ill, and I remember creeping out of her room, when she had gone to sleep, and hearing the fog-horns outside,--it was early morning. We had an old woman taking care of her,--no trained nurses in those days!--and she was sitting here by this fireplace, with the tiny girl in her lap. Do you know--" his smile met Anne's--"I was so tired, and we had been so frightened for Rose, and it seemed to me that I had been up and moving about through unfamiliar things for so many hours that I had almost forgotten the baby! I remember that it came to me with a shock that Rose was safe, and asleep, and that morning had come, and breakfast was ready, and here was the baby, the same baby we had been so placidly expecting and planning for, and that, in short, it was all right, and all over!"

"Oh, I know!" Anne laid an impulsive hand for a second on his, and the eyes of the young wife, and of the man who had been a young father thirty years before, met in wonderful understanding. "That's- -that's the way it is," said Anne, a little lamely, with a swift thought for another foggy morning, when the familiar horn, the waking noises of the city, had fallen strangely on her own senses, after the terror and triumph of the night. Neither spoke for a moment. Diego's voice broke cheerily into the pause.

"I can undress myself," he announced, with modest complacence.

"Can you?" said Charles Rideout. "How about buttons?"

"I can't do buttons," Diego qualified firmly.

All four were laughing and absorbed, when James Senior came in a few minutes later and found them. "Jim," said his wife, eagerly, rising to greet him and to bring him, cold and ruddy, to the fireplace, "this is Mr. Rideout, dear!"

"How do you do, sir?" said Jim, stretching out his hand, and with a smile on his tired, keen, young face. "Don't get up. I see that my boy is making himself at home."

"Yes, sir; we've been having a great time," said the visitor.

"Jim," Anne went on radiantly, "Mr. Rideout and his wife lived here years ago, when they were just married, and their children were born here too!"

"No--is that so!" Jim was as much pleased and surprised as Anne, as he settled himself with Virginia's web of silky hair against his shoulder. "Built it, perhaps, Mr. Rideout?"

"No. No, it was eight or ten years old, then. I used to pass it, walking to the office. We had a little office down on Meig's pier then. As a matter of fact, my wife never saw it until I brought her home to it. She was the only child of a very formal Southern widow, and we weren't engaged very long. So my brother and I furnished the house; used--" his eyes twinkled--"used to buy our pictures in a lump. We'd go to a dealer's, and pick out a dozen of 'em, and ask him to make us a price!"

"Just like men!" said the woman.

"I suppose so. I know that some of those pictures disappeared after Rose had been here a while! And we had linen curtains--"

"Not linen!" protested Anne.

"Very--pretty--little--ruffled--curtains they were," he affirmed seriously. "I remember that on our wedding day, when I brought Rose home, we had a little maid here, and dinner was all ready, but Rose must run up and down stairs looking at everything in her little wedding dress--". Suddenly came another pause. The room was dark now, but for the firelight. Little Jinny was asleep in her father's arms, Diego blinking manfully. Neither husband nor wife, whose hands had found each other, cared to break the silence. But after a while he said: "We were young," he said thoughtfully; "I was but twenty-five; we had our hard times. The babies came pretty fast. Rose wasn't very strong. I worked too hard, got broken down a little, and expenses went right on, you know--"

"You bet I know!" Jim said, with his pleasant laugh, and a glance for Anne.

"Well," said Charles Rideout, looking keenly from one to the other, "thank God for it, you young people! It never comes back! The days when you shoulder your troubles cheerfully together,--they come to their end! And they are"--he shook his head--"they are very wonderful to look back to! I remember a certain day," he went on reminiscently, "when we had paid the last of the doctor's bills, and Rose met me down town for a little celebration. We had had five or six years of pretty hard sailing then. We bought her new gloves that day, I remember, and--shoes, I think it was, and I got a hat, and a book I'd been wanting. We went to a little French restaurant to dinner, with all our bundles. And that, that, my dear,--" he said, smiling at Anne,--"seemed to be the turning point. We got into the country next year, picked out a little house. And then, the rest of it all followed; we had two maids, a surrey, I was put into the superintendent's place--" a sweep of the fine hand dismissed the details. "No man and wife, who do what we did," said he, gravely, "who live modestly, and work hard, and love each other and their children, can fail. That's one of the blessed things of life."

Jim cleared his throat, but did not speak. Anne was frankly unable to speak.

"And now I mustn't keep these children out of bed any longer," said the older man. "This has been a--a lovely afternoon for me. I wish Mrs. Rideout had been with me." He stood up. "Shall I give you this little fellow, Mrs. Warriner?"

"We'll put the babies down," said Jim, rising, too, "and then, perhaps, you'd like to look about the house, Mr. Rideout?"

"But I know how a lady feels about having her house inspected--" hesitated the caller, with his bright, fatherly look for Anne.

"Oh, please do!" she urged them.

So the gas was lighted, and they all went into the bedroom, where Anne tucked the children into their cribs. She stayed there while the others went on their tour of inspection, patting her son's small, warm body in the darkness, and listening with a smile to the visitor's cheerful comments in kitchen and hallway, and Jim's answering laugh.

When she came blinking out into the lighted dining-room, the men were upstairs, and Helma, to Anne's astonishment, was showing in another caller,--another Charles Rideout, as Anne's puzzled glance at the card in her hand, assured her. This was a tall young man, a little dishevelled, in a big storm coat, with dark rings about his eyes.

"I beg your pardon, madam," said he, abruptly, "but was my father, Mr. Charles Rideout, here this afternoon?"

"Why, he's upstairs with my husband now!" Anne said, strangely disquieted by the young man's manner.

"Thank God!" said the newcomer, briefly. And he wiped his forehead with his handkerchief, and drew a deep short breath.

"He--I must apologize to you for breaking in upon you this way," said young Rideout, "but he went out in the car this afternoon, and we didn't know where he had gone. He made the chauffeur wait at the corner at the bottom of the hill, and the fool waited an hour before it occurred to him to telephone me. I came at once."

"He's been here all that time," Anne said. "He's all right. Your mother and father used to live here, you know, years ago. In this same house."

"Yes, I know we did. I think I was born here," said Charles Rideout, Junior. "I had a sort of feeling that he had come here, as soon as Bates telephoned. Dear old dad! He and mother have told us about this place a hundred times! They were talking about it for a couple of hours a few nights ago." He looked about the room as his father had done. "They were very happy here. There--" he smiled a little bashfully at Anne--"there never was a pair of lovers like mother and dad!" he said. Then he cleared his throat. "Did my father tell you--?" he began, and stopped.

"No," Anne said, troubled. He had told them a great deal, but not-- she felt sure--not this, whatever it was.

"That's why we worried about him," said his son, his honest, distressed eyes meeting hers. "You see--you see--my mother--my mother left us, last night--"

"Dead?" whispered Anne.

"She's been ill a good while," said the young man, "but we thought-- She's been ill before! A day or two ago the rest of us knew it, and we wired for my sister, but we couldn't get dad to realize it. He never left her, and he's not been eating, and he'd tell all the doctors what serious sicknesses she'd gotten over before--" And with a suddenly shaking lip and filling eyes, he turned his back on Anne, and went to the window.

"Ah!" said Anne, pitifully. And for a full moment there was silence.

Then Charles Rideout, the younger, came back to her, pushing his handkerchief into his coat pocket; and with a restored self-control.

"Too bad to bother you with our troubles," he said, with a little smile like his father's. "To us, of course, it seems like the end of the world, but I am sorry to distress you! Dad just doesn't seem to grasp it, he doesn't seem to understand. I don't know that any of us do!" he finished simply.

"Here they are!" Anne said warningly, as the two other men came down the stairs.

"Hello, Dad!" said young Rideout, easily and cheerfully, "I came to bring you home!"

"This is my boy, Mrs. Warriner," said his father; "you see he's turned the tables, and is looking after me! I'm glad you came, Charley. I've been telling your good husband," he said, in a lower tone, "that we--that I--"

"Yes, I know!" Anne said, with her ready tenderness.

"So you will realize what impulse brought me here to-day," the older man went on; "I was talking to my wife of this house only a day or two ago." His voice had become almost inaudible, and the three young people knew he had forgotten them. "Only a day or two ago," he repeated musingly. And then, to his son, he added wistfully, "I don't seem to get it through my head, my boy. For a while to-day, I forgot--I forgot. The heart--" he said, with his little old-world touch of dignity--"the heart does not learn things as quickly as the mind."

Anne had found something wistful and appealing in his smile before, now it seemed to her heartbreaking. She nodded, without speaking.

"Dear old Dad," said Charles Rideout, affectionately. "You are tired out. You've been doing too much, sir, you want sleep and rest."

"Surely--surely," said his father, a little heavily. Father and son shook hands with Jim and Anne, and the older man said gravely, "God bless you both!" as he and his son went down the wet path, in the shaft of light from the hall door. At the gate the boy put his arm tenderly about his father's shoulders.

"Oh, Anne, Anne," said her husband as she clung to him when the door was shut, "I couldn't live one day without you, my dearest! But don't--don't cry. Don't let it make you blue,--he had his happiness, you know,--he has his children left!"

Anne tightened her arms about his neck. "I am crying a little for sorrow, Jim, dearest!" she sobbed, burying her face in his shoulder. "But I believe it is mostly--mostly for joy and gratitude!"

The Declaration of Independence

By Washington Irving

While danger was gathering round New York, and its inhabitants were in mute suspense and fearful anticipations, the General Congress at Philadelphia was discussing, with closed doors, what John Adams pronounced, "The greatest question ever debated in America, and as great as ever was or will be debated among men." The result was, a resolution passed unanimously on the 2nd of July - "that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States."

"The 2nd of July," adds the same patriot statesman, "will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to Almighty God. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forth forevermore."

The glorious event has, indeed, given rise to an annual jubilee - but not on the day designated by Adams. The FOURTH of July is the day of national rejoicing, for on that day the "Declaration of Independence," that solemn and sublime document, was adopted.

Tradition gives a dramatic effect to its announcement. It was known to be under discussion, but the closed doors of Congress excluded the populace. They awaited, in throngs, an appointed signal. In the steeple of the State House was a bell, imported twenty-three years previously from London by the Provincial Assembly of Pennsylvania. It bore the portentous text from Scripture: "Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof." A joyous peal from that bell gave notice that the bill had been passed. It was the knell of British domination.

 
Off the Shelf and Into the World

By Angela Camack



    New York City, April 2023 
 
     Once upon a time, on a warm spring day, heads turned to watch six beautiful  
women stride with absolute confidence and regal grace into Downing's at the  
Carlyle at 1 p.m.. Cinderella, Ella, Anna Belle, Rapunzel and Mulan. The  
princesses were used to the attention, neither wanting or resenting it, but  
accustomed now to prompt and courteous service. The young woman  
assigned to their usual table seated them and quickly got menus. 
     A princess' life was less complicated once.

Although some Princesses came from the old tales, the Princesses from the House of Mouse were how most people expected them to be. Princesses were supposed to be beautiful and charming while they overcame the obstacles in their way as they reached for their ultimate goal, finding their prince and living happily ever after. Their stories sold books, movies and TV shows. Dolls that  looked like them lined toy shop shelves, stiff and grinning, at their most valuable when the boxes stayed sealed, the dolls never handled by any child. Little girls dressed like them and wanted to be like them.          But as time moved on, peoples' attitudes changed. There were endless parodies of their stories.  Sleazy people made porn versions of their tales. Some feminists disapproved of them. They were accused of being bad role models for young girls. 
     The problem was that it wasn't much fun to be a figure in a box on a shelf. Maybe that's why, behind the gowns and palaces, behind the fixed smiles, the Princesses stuck together. They understood each other. The new Princesses, Ariel, Tiana, Pocahontas and Meridia, had a head start in claiming a more interesting life. It helped, because even Princesses have to grow up. 
     Even Princesses had to work at making a royal marriage a good one, raising children and running a castle, even as people expected them to be eternally perfect, eternally gracious. Eventually, the Princesses wanted to be more than perpetually smiling and charming dolls. So they brushed off the fairy dust, looked at the world and decided to join it, choosing what was good from the past and taking it to the future. 
     Once the white wine, water still and sparkling, salads with dressing on the side, and no bacon or croutons were ordered, the Princesses got down to catching up, getting down to business, the business of being a princess in the 21st century. Catching-up chatter began, voices ringing and hands drawing graceful calligraphy as they spoke. 
     "Where's our Snow today?" asked Rapunzel? 
     "She and her Prince are wrapped up in harvesting their apple orchard," said Belle. "Plus they have a new plan to encourage local businesses to use the crop to offer locally made baked goods. It's already putting people to work." 
     How's the library funding going, Belle?" asked Mulan. 
     "We did better this year than ever." Belle smiled."Although it helps if you have a castle to hold the annual Fundraising  Gala. People always want a look at the castle. Sometimes I think they expect ghosts or haunted mirrors and furniture. And Jasmine?" 
      "Making money too," said Rapunzel. "She and Aladdin are holding magic shows for the Make a Wish Foundation."  
      "Are you still working to get wigs for women in chemotherapy, Rapunzel?  ?" asked Belle. 
     "Yes." said Rapunzel. "It's tough if women can't afford good wigs. It really helps women's morale to be able to look in the mirror and see hair again, to feel like women again. And they're great people. Really brave. Their responsibilities aren't put on hold because of their illness. I will say I see more dads pitching in to help now." 
     "That's good," added Mulan.   Shang       is an old-fashioned guy in so many was, but he's loosened up. He's great with the twins. And with the kids at the  Metropolitan  Museum. " 
   "Oh?" asked. Elsa. 
   "We're helping with publicity for the Asian Art Collection. We have kids come in one Saturday  a month to do Chinese crafts. You have to rope kids in early to grow museum fans. 
     " I have to say that Eric is that way, said Belle. He's good with the kids and has them doing projects around the castle with him." 
     Elsa sighed. "Marriages should work that way.  Is it so hard to be partners in a relationship? It's 2023 and we still hear about overworked mothers who have jobs and a home to run and about domestic violence. 
"Some of us had to deal with such hard mothers, or stepmothers." said Rapunzel. "Maybe dealing with the difficulties of being a woman made them bitter." 
     "But we all choose," said Anna."No matter what, we're responsible for what we do. If we don't take responsibility, we're as weak as some people say we are." 
     Cinderella sighed. "After all this time, so many cruel mothers-cruel parents." 
     "Are you still volunteering with Children's Services?" asked Elsa. yes. "Yes, I am. It's hard, but there's never enough people to work with kids. What I do frees up the people working in Children's Services to be out in the field." 
     Cinderella smiled at Elsa and Anna. "Hey, we're forgetting our sisters. You're volunteering for enviromental causes, right? 
" Oh,yes, said Elsa. ''I really enjoy the work, It's still challenging to get people interested in the enviroment and climate change." 
     "Challenging my royal ass," snorted Anna. 'If one more jerk asks if global warming would cut his heating bill I'll scream. I read an article about men who won't recycle   because it makes them look gay, as if that's such a traged. Why is gender still the most important thing that defines who we are?" 
     "Says the girl who buys out Victoria's Secret every season," laughed Elsa. 
     "OK, I'm a girly-girl sometimes. That doesn't keep me from having a functioning brain, or working with men who care about climate change." 
"We have to focus on the good guys, the ones who don't buy into that nonsense. Look at the things open to women now - law, medicine, politics," said Rapunzel. " It's easier now that more men are welcoming us." 
     Cinderella gazed into her wine glass as if the inch of Chardonnay left held answers. "I just don't know, women get treated like bumper cars, pushed in different directions. If you say no to a man you're a prude, if you say yes you're loose. First women were expected to stay home with families, then expected to work and do everything at home. In the meantime, women on both sides of the working woman argument snipe at each other instead of supporting each others' choices. I don't know what the answers are." 
     "I think we're closer to the answers than we used to be," added Belle. 
"True, I think women have a much better chance of reaching their dreams," said Mulan. 
     Elsa began humming a familiar tune. "Oh, don't you dare!" laughed Anna. 
     Elsa began singing, softly. " A dream is  a wish your heart makes/when you're fast asleep..." 
     The others picked up the song. "No matter how your heart is grieving, if you keep on believing, the dream that you wish will come true!" 
     The meal ended with laughter, coffee, tea and two slices of cheesecake for all six. With plans to meet again, the Princesses walked off into the New York afternoon. 

THE HEART OF SPRING

By William Butler Yeats

A very old man, whose face was almost as fleshless as the foot of a bird, sat meditating upon the rocky shore of the flat and hazel-covered isle which fills the widest part of the Lough Gill. A russet-faced boy of seventeen years sat by his side, watching the swallows dipping for flies in the still water. The old man was dressed in threadbare blue velvet, and the boy wore a frieze coat and a blue cap, and had about his neck a rosary of blue beads. Behind the two, and half hidden by trees, was a little monastery. It had been burned down a long while before by sacrilegious men of the Queen's party, but had been roofed anew with rushes by the boy, that the old man might find shelter in his last days. He had not set his spade, however, into the garden about it, and the lilies and the roses of the monks had spread out until their confused luxuriancy met and mingled with the narrowing circle of the fern. Beyond the lilies and the roses the ferns were so deep that a child walking among them would be hidden from sight, even though he stood upon his toes; and beyond the fern rose many hazels and small oak trees.

'Master,' said the boy, 'this long fasting, and the labour of beckoning after nightfall with your rod of quicken wood to the beings who dwell in the waters and among the hazels and oak-trees, is too much for your strength. Rest from all this labour for a little, for your hand seemed more heavy upon my shoulder and your feet less steady under you today than I have known them. Men say that you are older than the eagles, and yet you will not seek the rest that belongs to age.' He spoke in an eager, impulsive way, as though his heart were in the words and thoughts of the moment; and the old man answered slowly and deliberately, as though his heart were in distant days and distant deeds.

'I will tell you why I have not been able to rest,' he said. 'It is right that you should know, for you have served me faithfully these five years and more, and even with affection, taking away thereby a little of the doom of loneliness which always falls upon the wise. Now, too, that the end of my labour and the triumph of my hopes is at hand, it is the more needful for you to have this knowledge.'

'Master, do not think that I would question you. It is for me to keep the fire alight, and the thatch close against the rain, and strong, lest the wind blow it among the trees; and it is for me to take the heavy books from the shelves, and to lift from its corner the great painted roll with the names of the Sidhe, and to possess the while an incurious and reverent heart, for right well I know that God has made out of His abundance a separate wisdom for everything which lives, and to do these things is my wisdom.'

'You are afraid,' said the old man, and his eyes shone with a momentary anger.

'Sometimes at night,' said the boy, 'when you are reading, with the rod of quicken wood in your hand, I look out of the door and see, now a great grey man driving swine among the hazels, and now many little people in red caps who come out of the lake driving little white cows before them. I do not fear these little people so much as the grey man; for, when they come near the house, they milk the cows, and they drink the frothing milk, and begin to dance; and I know there is good in the heart that loves dancing; but I fear them for all that. And I fear the tall white-armed ladies who come out of the air, and move slowly hither and thither, crowning themselves with the roses or with the lilies, and shaking about their living hair, which moves, for so I have heard them tell each other, with the motion of their thoughts, now spreading out and now gathering close to their heads. They have mild, beautiful faces, but, Aengus, son of Forbis, I fear all these beings, I fear the people of Sidhe, and I fear the art which draws them about us.'

'Why,' said the old man, 'do you fear the ancient gods who made the spears of your father's fathers to be stout in battle, and the little people who came at night from the depth of the lakes and sang among the crickets upon their hearths? And in our evil day they still watch over the loveliness of the earth. But I must tell you why I have fasted and laboured when others would sink into the sleep of age, for without your help once more I shall have fasted and laboured to no good end. When you have done for me this last thing, you may go and build your cottage and till your fields, and take some girl to wife, and forget the ancient gods. I have saved all the gold and silver pieces that were given to me by earls and knights and squires for keeping them from the evil eye and from the love-weaving enchantments of witches, and by earls' and knights' and squires' ladies for keeping the people of the Sidhe from making the udders of their cattle fall dry, and taking the butter from their churns. I have saved it all for the day when my work should be at an end, and now that the end is at hand you shall not lack for gold and silver pieces enough to make strong the roof-tree of your cottage and to keep cellar and larder full. I have sought through all my life to find the secret of life. I was not happy in my youth, for I knew that it would pass; and I was not happy in my manhood, for I knew that age was coming; and so I gave myself, in youth and manhood and age, to the search for the Great Secret. I longed for a life whose abundance would fill centuries, I scorned the life of fourscore winters. I would be--nay, I will be!--like the Ancient Gods of the land. I read in my youth, in a Hebrew manuscript I found in a Spanish monastery, that there is a moment after the Sun has entered the Ram and before he has passed the Lion, which trembles with the Song of the Immortal Powers, and that whosoever finds this moment and listens to the Song shall become like the Immortal Powers themselves; I came back to Ireland and asked the fairy men, and the cow-doctors, if they knew when this moment was; but though all had heard of it, there was none could find the moment upon the hour-glass. So I gave myself to magic, and spent my life in fasting and in labour that I might bring the Gods and the Fairies to my side; and now at last one of the Fairies has told me that the moment is at hand. One, who wore a red cap and whose lips were white with the froth of the new milk, whispered it into my ear. Tomorrow, a little before the close of the first hour after dawn, I shall find the moment, and then I will go away to a southern land and build myself a palace of white marble amid orange trees, and gather the brave and the beautiful about me, and enter into the eternal kingdom of my youth. But, that I may hear the whole Song, I was told by the little fellow with the froth of the new milk on his lips, that you must bring great masses of green boughs and pile them about the door and the window of my room; and you must put fresh green rushes upon the floor, and cover the table and the rushes with the roses and the lilies of the monks. You must do this tonight, and in the morning at the end of the first hour after dawn, you must come and find me.'

'Will you be quite young then?' said the boy.

'I will be as young then as you are, but now I am still old and tired, and you must help me to my chair and to my books.'

When the boy had left Aengus son of Forbis in his room, and had lighted the lamp which, by some contrivance of the wizard's, gave forth a sweet odour as of strange flowers, he went into the wood and began cutting green boughs from the hazels, and great bundles of rushes from the western border of the isle, where the small rocks gave place to gently sloping sand and clay. It was nightfall before he had cut enough for his purpose, and well-nigh midnight before he had carried the last bundle to its place, and gone back for the roses and the lilies. It was one of those warm, beautiful nights when everything seems carved of precious stones. Sleuth Wood away to the south looked as though cut out of green beryl, and the waters that mirrored them shone like pale opal. The roses he was gathering were like glowing rubies, and the lilies had the dull lustre of pearl. Everything had taken upon itself the look of something imperishable, except a glow-worm, whose faint flame burnt on steadily among the shadows, moving slowly hither and thither, the only thing that seemed alive, the only thing that seemed perishable as mortal hope. The boy gathered a great armful of roses and lilies, and thrusting the glow-worm among their pearl and ruby, carried them into the room, where the old man sat in a half-slumber. He laid armful after armful upon the floor and above the table, and then, gently closing the door, threw himself upon his bed of rushes, to dream of a peaceful manhood with his chosen wife at his side, and the laughter of children in his ears. At dawn he rose, and went down to the edge of the lake, taking the hour-glass with him. He put some bread and a flask of wine in the boat, that his master might not lack food at the outset of his journey, and then sat down to wait until the hour from dawn had gone by. Gradually the birds began to sing, and when the last grains of sand were falling, everything suddenly seemed to overflow with their music. It was the most beautiful and living moment of the year; one could listen to the spring's heart beating in it. He got up and went to find his master. The green boughs filled the door, and he had to make a way through them. When he entered the room the sunlight was falling in flickering circles on floor and walls and table, and everything was full of soft green shadows. But the old man sat clasping a mass of roses and lilies in his arms, and with his head sunk upon his breast. On the table, at his left hand, was a leather wallet full of gold and silver pieces, as for a journey, and at his right hand was a long staff. The boy touched him and he did not move. He lifted the hands but they were quite cold, and they fell heavily.

'It were better for him,' said the lad, 'to have told his beads and said his prayers like another, and not to have spent his days in seeking amongst the Immortal Powers what he could have found in his own deeds and days had he willed. Ah, yes, it were better to have said his prayers and kissed his beads!' He looked at the threadbare blue velvet, and he saw it was covered with the pollen of the flowers, and while he was looking at it a thrush, who had alighted among the boughs that were piled against the window, began to sing.

 


















​‘Tis the Season for Remembering

By Angela Camack


New York City, December 27, 2020

Emma looked over the apartment to be sure everything was ready for the Christmas party tonight. Napkins were folded into perfect triangles and stood at attention beside gleaming glasses and flatware. Bowls of nuts and chips were tightly covered until needed. Hot hors d'Oeuvres were ready and waiting to be cooked. Sliced veggies waited in the refrigerator for those who were getting an early start on resolutions. The bar was stocked. The Christmas tree, with ornaments collected lovingly from around the world, glowed softly.

(Cousin Brian was coming tonight.)

In the kitchen, she checked the cheeses and meats to be put out for snacking, sandwich makings, the coffee urn and sweets for later. Nobody would go hungry. Their crowd loved the Willis’ parties, stocked with good food and lively conversation. And of course, good music , Jeff being a violinist with the Philharmonic.
She checked the bathrooms for supplies, and laid out the velvet pants suit she would wear tonight.

(But Cousin Brian is coming tonight.)
​
Why, you may ask, why a mature, intelligent (Masters in Library Services, a published poet,) a mother of two great teens (now spending time with their grandparents in Palm Beach) would be so unsettled at the prospect of a family visit? There was unhappy history between the three of them.
Jeffrey and Brian were born the same year, so perhaps it was inevitable that their parents would compare them, and that their large, close extended family would watch – and judge – their development. But no matter the comparison, Jeffrey always came up short in the families’ eyes. In school, Brian shone on the football and baseball teams. Even if he’d been interested, Jeffrey preferred to be team manager. He had to protect his hands. As far back as he could remember, music was the focus of his life. He startef with the piano. but became a serious student of the violin. Learning the guitar and mandolin followed.
His family attended recitals and paid for lessons, but assumed he’d grow out of this ‘phase’ of his life and concentrate on something more secure in college. They never understood his passion.
Brian became a campus athletic hero. Jeffrey made the honor roll each semester. Brian had a B or C average, but that was good enough. He and his family considered it more important that he was named a rising athletic star by the local paper. By his senior year Jeffrey was earning serious money as a
musician, playing for weddings and parties and as guitarist for the “Flaming Aces.” He would need the money, as he was accepted by Julliard.
Would earning money with music and admission to Julliard finally catch his family’s eye? Not really. Cousin Brian got a football scholarship, a full ride to Notre Dame. Jeffrey was hired by the Philharmonic shortly after graduating from Julliard. But Brian – Brian provided enough accomplishments for his family to gloat about for years. He was scouted by several professional football teams and decided on the Raiders. Then came a different kind of scouting. During his third year playing professional football, the head of a modeling agent saw him being interviewed on TV and hired him to pose for a men’s wear ad campaign, which lead to more modeling, which lead to a few small movie roles. His looks, charisma and that hard to define ability to capture an audience’s attention led to larger roles in action movies. He was truly the star his family always knew he was.
The worst competition, the one that would shatter the cousins’ relationship, came during the summer before their senior year in college. And I was the catalyst,” Emma thought. “I wish I could go back and keep everything from going wrong.”
Emma met Brian first, at a weekend party given by a friend while her parents were out of town. The flow of beer and Purple Jesus, barely kept in check by the consumption of junk food, kept the party goers in a seductive haze. Drinking was followed by pleasant stupors and hangovers, which required the sufferer to remain horizontal, interrupted by aspirin and orange juice. Emma was no less foggy than the others. But such was Brian’s charm and charisma that even with a clear head she would have fallen for him quite completely.
They met over a pan of scrambled eggs that Brian was attempting to make. Emma stopped him before he burned them, teaching him how butter, salt and a low fire could result in something edible. He asked her to a movie, and by the end of their date she was Brian-struck.
And where was Jeffrey? Jeffrey was often the third wheel, coming along on any activity he was asked, spending time with them on trips to the beach or hiking. Soon he was as hypnotized by Emma as Emma was by Brian.
He trailed after them without embarrassment, even as watching their relationship pained him. It was the perfect summer romance, intense, passionate – and short.
By fall, Brian started dating other girls. He never explained why. Why should he? He’d made no promises. They were both free. Emma had resisted invitations to his bed. He was spending most of the first semester of his senior year in England, technically to study sports medicine techniques. But Emma felt shattered, like she’d turned to broken glass inside. She never let Brian know how she felt. But Jeffrey knew. Quietly, he was there for her. They moved from long walks and the occasional lunch to dating. Emma realized she’d been like a child, distracted by something shiny and noisy. Jeffrey was the real jewel.
In London Brian slipped his lectures in between pub crawls, making new friends and dating London girls, with their musical accents and cosmopolitan ways.
But after a few weeks the frenzied activity began to tire him. He was missing something. He was missing Emma, with her effervescent laugh, sharp wit and her grace, both physical and as part of her
personality. He missed her kindness and generosity. He would see parts of her in the London crowds, glossy brown hair, big green eyes and soft curves. He thought of calling her, but decided to wait until he could be with her.
He called her the morning after he got home from London. She sounded unnerved when she took his call. They chatted about his trip, about her classes at Rutgers. Then he came to the point of the call. Now he was unnerved. He would be more open to Emma than he had ever been with a girl. Never before had he needed to plead his case to get what he wanted.
“Look, Em, I know we left some loose ends when I left. I did some thinking when I was in London. Let’s tie up those loose ends. I don’t want to see anyone but you.”
There was silence between them. Emma said, “Brian, you’re serious?”
“Absolutely.”
“Brian, I can’t. I’m in a relationship.”
The silence returned. “Seeing someone. Anyone I know?”
“Yes. I’m seeing Jeffrey.”
Brian burst into laughter. “Good one, Emma. It’s OK, you can give me a hard time. I deserve it.”
“I’m serious, Brian.”
Brian was stunned and angry. He plead his case twice more, once dropping in at her apartment when Jeffrey was there. Jeffrey knew what was going on; Emma didn’t want to hide things from him.
Jeffrey was angry and Brian was resentful. From then on, things were tense between them. The tension increased when Brian came to see Emma just before her marriage, making his case once more. Things got worse when he came to her when her second child, Melissa, was born. Her son Edward was a high-spirited three and Melissa was troubled with colic. Emma was tired and stressed and still felt swollen and graceless from pregnancy. She still turned down Brian’s offer to “take her away from all this.”
So the tension remained between the cousins. Gatherings were tense. The families tap-danced around the uneasiness and pretended all was fine.
The years sped by. Emma moved into Jeffrey’s apartment and got her library degree at Columbia. Jeffrey took his place at the Philharmonic. Emma got a job at the Baruch College’s library. An inheritance from Jeffrey’s grandfather enabled them to buy a lovely apartment in Chelsea. They occupied themselves with work and family, nurturing their kids through every phase of childhood. They experienced the happiness of family life, traveling, seeing their kids make the honor roll, going to their plays and recitals. Also the mundane; orthodontia, taxes, furnace checks, budgeting, sitting beside bedsides when the children were ill.
Brian had no time or interest in family life. He busied himself with his house in California and studio here in New York. He rented suites in upscale resorts for vacations. He collected expensive cars. There was always a women on his arm, always beautiful, always young, never lasting long. But as the years passed, cracks appeared in the idyllic picture of Brian’s life. There were the DUIs that
were getting hard for his public relations team to cover. He crashed a Ferrari during the first week he had it. He had the mess towed away without making an attempt to repair it. There was always cocaine to exhilarate him and alcohol to relax him. He had always been in motion, but now it seemed that he was speeding away from himself.
So why had Jeffrey asked Brian to their party? Did he still need to feel accepted by his careless family?
The party was rolling, with happy, comfortable people eating, drinking and talking, when the bell rang and Emma found Brian and a very tall, very thin woman in a skirt so tiny it pained Emma to think of wearing it in December, even with the sable stole casually wrapped around her.
“Emma,” sighed Brian, “it’s been too long.”
“Hello Brian. Merry Christmas. Come on in.” Please let this go well, come in, eat, drink, take the whole damn bar, just don’t retell old stories or cover old ground
“This is Cindy. Cindy, Emma.” (Cindy spelled “Cyndyee” on her promotional material.)
“ Merry Christmas, Cindy, it’s good to meet you. Can I take your wrap?”
“No, this place is cold.”
Emma took Brian’s coat and led the couple into the living room, Cindy leading. Immediately, every woman sucked in her stomach and every man squared his shoulders.
Jeffery turned from the bar, having refreshed drinks for party guests. A muscle bunched in his jaw, a sign of tension.
“Brian, Merry Christmas. How are you?”
Brian offered a fist bump.” Jeff, old man, how’s it hanging? I’m doing OK. This is Cindy.” There was a moment of tension, then Jeffrey busied himself offering seats, drinks, something to eat.
Emma perched on a chair by Cindy. “Tell me about yourself, Cindy.”
Cindy selected one stalk of celery from the plate of vegetables and nibbled on it without appetite.
“I model. The Ford agency.”
“I thought you look familiar. I must have seen your pictures.”
Cindy’s hand drifted over to the vegetables and almost took a carrot. “Probably.”
“Emma is a librarian and writes poetry. She’s been published,” added Brian.
Cindy looked confused. “You want to do stuff like that?”
Emma gave up and turned to Brian. “What’s your new movie about?” They talked for a few minutes about Brian’s role in the next movie from the Marvelverse. She noticed Jeffrey watching from across the room. Emma felt exposed. Not only did Jeffrey watch them, but many of the party goers recognized Brian and watched Cindy. Thank heavens nobody was asking for autographs. Emma rose. “I’d better circulate. Do you two need any thing to drink? Please, help yourself to the food. Can I get you anything?”
Both declined a drink refill. Emma heard Cindy wail “ Briaynn! There’s nothing here I can eat. Let’s go!”
“In a minute, Baby Cakes.”
Emma moved on, and Jeffrey took her place, joined by guests brave enough to approach the star. A muscle jumped in his jaw again. She again wondered why Brian kept reaching out.
The party kept Emma too busy to concentrate on Brian. She was carrying a pile of dishes to the kitchen when he came up to her. “Need a hand, Em?”
“Thanks, Brian.”
They carried the dishes to the kitchen. Brian grasped her hand as she walked past him. In the bright light she saw that Brian the football hero and movie star was getting older. Wrinkles appeared in the corners of his eyes and his once sharp jawline was looser. He was still handsome; no passage of time could change that. But how long would it be before his aging progressed and women were less eager to be with him? Before he couldn’t bounce back from cocaine-filled nights?
“Em – “ he started.
“Brian, no. Please don’t ask. After all this time, you have to know how I’ll answer.”
“You never gave us a chance.”
“Oh, Brian, there was never an ‘us.’ We were meant for different lives. You never would’ve been happy with the life I wanted.”
“No, you wouldn’t have been happy,” Brian said sulkily, like a pouting child. His childlike moodiness was the dark side to his boyish charm.
“No, I wouldn’t. I’m sorry, Brian.”
From the hall they heard Cindy calling. “Briyaan!”
Brian smiled ruefully. “I guess my flight’s being paged.”
What was there to say? It’s not too late, Brian, you can find a woman as smart and mature as she is beautiful. You can settle down, just enough to get some peace.
Would her words matter to him? All she could say was, “Have a merry and blessed Christmas.”
Jeffrey saw them out. “I guess you’ll tell me later?” he asked, as they returned to their guests.
“I will. Jeffrey, why did you ask him tonight?”
“Maybe because it’s Christmas,” he said. “Maybe because family is family, after all. Why else would we spend Christmas day with the rest of my insane folks? Maybe after all this time we could be friends again. Without competition.”
Jeffrey shook his head. “And would it sound completely crazy to say I feel sorry for him?”
“No. I hope he finally finds someone to make him happy,” Emma replied.
Jeffrey sighed. “He has, I’m afraid. And that is behind all the choices he’s made.” Emma slipped her hand into his and they went back to the party.

---

UNEXPECTED MEETING AT BOMBAY CHAAT

By Paddy Raghunathan



Mr. Seshadri wasn’t quite enjoying the weather. They were driving back from the India Cultural Garden to Parma, and his friend had suggested taking a detour to Cleveland downtown. He wasn’t used to such cold weather, and snow, caused by the “lake effect,” was coming down heavily.
Mr. Seshadri, as he sat on the passenger side of the comfortable Lexus sedan, fidgeted while his friend, Naveen Rao, maneuvered the car onto Euclid over slippery snow and black ice.
“How much longer?” he asked, looking for some encouragement.
“A few more minutes—almost there.”
“Where exactly are we going?”
“Bombay Chaat.”
Naveen pulled into a vacant parking lot, and Mr. Seshadri could make out a brick building —the restaurant itself was neighbored by other little shops and small businesses. It had large glass windows, and a couple were lit with OPEN signs. All windows had BC—the initials for Bombay Chaat—quaintly imprinted on them.
“Mostly looks like a takeout,” he remarked.
“Good place to eat,” his friend replied.
“If I might make a suggestion,” said Mr. Seshadri. “Let’s order something light but filling, so we are done eating quickly and can hit the road again ASAP…” He paused, for his friend was accustomed to enjoying his meals, and Naveen strongly believed in eating in as relaxed a manner as possible.
“We shan’t be able to hit the road for at least forty-five minutes. And it’s already past eight. Once we’re seated, let me ring up my better half and acquaint her with the cause of our delay.”
“You really seem to think you can explain everything,” snapped Mr. Seshadri.
Naveen, to Mr. Seshadri’s chagrin, remained silent.
Mr. Seshadri, despite his earnest wish to smack his friend, walked into the restaurant with a mild expectation. The aromatic odor of Indian spices and ingredients was indeed enticing, and the stronger it got the hungrier he became. “Let’s hope the food tastes good.”
“Tastes as good as it smells,” Naveen said.
“Anything you’d recommend?”
“Everything I’ve tried here has tasted good.”
Mr. Seshadri sighed. The statement “everything has tasted good” meant he’d have to make his own choices. But his curiosity was piqued. Somehow or other, he had to endure forty-five minutes. The Bombay Chaat food would have to do.
With his usual small, mincing steps, he walked into the restaurant. From outside there came a sound of howling wind. Shutting the door quickly, Naveen said, “The snow’s coming down fast. I can feel the weather worsen every minute.”
“And we need to get to Parma tonight…I’m looking forward to the comforts of your home.”
“We’ll get there in due course,” said his friend. “We don’t want to be driving out in blizzard like conditions. We’re better off here.”
Images of a good many items were on display on the wall behind the counter. There was no line ahead of them.
“We can prepare a nice chaat, gentlemen—and fine dosas, in various varieties,” said the person behind the counter. “We also recommend our samosas and bhelpuri. We don’t have too many guests tonight because of the crazy weather, and we should be able to bring out the food rather quickly.”
“Hope the food takes my mind off this crazy snowstorm,” muttered Mr. Seshadri. “I’m going to order onion rava dosa.”
“Good choice. You won’t regret it at all.”
Naveen ordered chaat and samosas. Having ordered his choice of dosa, Mr. Seshadri looked towards the dining area and noticed only one person there.
“I think I know that person,” he said.
“Friend of yours?” asked Naveen.
“Yes, indeed.” Twittering with excitement, Mr. Seshadri turned and strained his head in the direction of the gentleman eating quietly. He had no doubts whatsoever. It was someone he knew from India. “One of my ex-students, actually. A very intriguing fellow…always stirred up controversies whenever he opened his mouth. What an odd coincidence,” said Mr. Seshadri, heading over. “That we should meet like this! Sunny Murthy, isn’t it?”
Tall, bespectacled, smirking, the familiar figure of Sunny Murthy rose from the table at which he was sitting.
“Mr. Seshadri, I’m amazed you remember me so well. I was but one of your students. An unexpected meeting!”
Mr. Seshadri shook Sunny Murthy’s hand warmly. “Indeed. This is my friend, Naveen. We’re heading to Parma…that’s where he lives. And you’re based in Cleveland also?”
“Detroit, actually. Heading back there.”
“I see.”
Mr. Seshadri sat down and regarded the bespectacled, smirking face opposite him with a pleasurable expectancy.
His ex-student shook his head. “I assure you,” he said, “that I haven’t done anything extraordinary since I left college.”
“You will, one of these days,” said Mr. Seshadri. “I did rather have high hopes of you. A lad who’d do very well in his life and career.”
“It’s you who have a wonderful reputation as a professor,” said Sunny Murthy.
“But I can’t be a good professor without bright students. You give me inspiration.”
“Professors like you have trained us well.”
The chaat and samosas were brought to the table. As the food was being set on the table, there was another gust of howling wind outside, the snow intensifying even more.
“A wild and crazy night, gentlemen,” said Naveen. “It was just such a night as this when Mukesh Deshmukh, the famous Gandhian, was found dead at India Cultural Garden.”
“So unfortunate!” cried Mr. Seshadri.
A year ago, he’d read about the tragic death of the famous Gandhian, Mukesh Deshmukh. The strange death of such a prominent Indian had saddened him. He and Mukesh’s nephew were good friends, and Mr. Seshadri had promised to get more information when he visited Cleveland.
“I remember now,” said Sunny. “It all happened in the Cleveland area!”
“He stayed at Naveen’s house for the conference last winter,” said Mr. Seshadri. “Naveen knew him well. A senior gentleman, greatly respected for adhering to Gandhian principles. Very simple, good-natured. He’d visited Cleveland several years before—the statue of Mahatma Gandhi was being unveiled then. It was a big event for the Cleveland Indian community—and he
wanted to see the statue again. A young lady, a member of the Gandhi Foundation of USA, was to meet Shri Deshmukh at the India Cultural Garden. But sadly, and unexpectedly, Shri Deshmukh was found dead later that day. This young lady claimed he’d tried to molest her, and she’d had to defend herself. Cleveland Police ended up accepting her story. She then left the Gandhi Foundation, and of late she’s been making headlines across the internet painting Gandhi and his apostles as deliberate voyeurs.”
Mr. Seshadri paused, for his onion rava dosa had just arrived.
“A sad conundrum,” said Sunny.
His remark was provocative in Mr. Seshadri’s ears. “And we can solve the conundrum? You realize the case is closed?”
“Why not? Time has passed. A year makes a difference.”
“That’s an interesting notion,” said Mr. Seshadri slowly. “That one perceives things better afterward than one does at the time.”
“The longer the time that has elapsed, the more things fall into perspective. One perceives them clearly, with a sense of cool detachment.”
“I’m not sure,” said Mr. Seshadri, “that I remember the facts clearly by now.”
“I’m sure you do,” said Sunny quietly.
It was just the encouragement Mr. Seshadri needed.
“Just a year ago a conference commemorating the life and work of Mahatma Gandhi was held in Cleveland. It was a much-awaited conference—the study of Gandhi had been long neglected in the US. It couldn’t have found better supporters and champions. Gandhi scholars from around the world, and former Gandhians, some who’d even been Indian freedom fighters, agreed to attend. Preeti Mukherji, a young, highly motivated lady and a member of the US Gandhi
Foundation, was the driving force in setting up and organizing the conference. Mr. Ramakanth Parekh, an Indian American millionaire, donated a large sum of money to help finance the conference, and to pay for travel and lodging without which several key speakers wouldn’t have been able to attend.”
Mr. Seshadri paused.
“All this information,” he said, “is to give you a background for why Mukesh Deshmukh, a well-known and respected Senior Gandhian, was visiting Cleveland.”
Sunny nodded. “Background information is always valuable.”
“Preeti was very driven and self-motivated,” continued the other. “Just twenty-seven, dark, beautiful, accomplished, both well-educated and well-connected. She had excellent family support as well. Her great-grandfather was a rich businessman and had donated large sums to the Indian freedom movement led by Gandhiji. But Preeti wanted to make a mark for herself. She refused to join the well-established family business in India.”
“Interesting,” said Sunny.
“Yes, very. She made it to one of the Ivy League schools to pursue an MBA. After she graduated, she could have joined any leading company in the US, but she joined the Gandhi Foundation of USA. Given her family connections and her own remarkable abilities, she rose very, very fast in the organization.
“Mukesh Deshmukh, also an invitee, chose to stay at Naveen’s place. He was an authority on the Gandhian approach to peace and conflict resolution. The three lectures he gave at the conference held his audience spellbound. Even though the weeklong conference featured several prominent speakers, he stole the show.
“Preeti sought him out afterward. She was so impressed, she wanted to be his protégé going forward. There were other seniors, but none as impressive as Shri Deshmukh. Naveen has just told us that it was on an evening of snowstorm such as this that they met at the India Cultural Garden. Who could have guessed what followed? That snowy evening—about half past five—Shri Deshmukh and Preeti were seen walking together to the Gandhi statue. They both appeared single-minded in purpose. Two fine minds—one representing today’s generation and the other yesteryear’s generation—coming together for a larger cause. And yet, only fifteen minutes later, Shri Deshmukh was found dead behind the statue.”
Mr. Seshadri paused, conscious of a dramatic moment. Sunny’s admiring glance gave him sufficient encouragement, and he went on.
“The death was remarkable. The police were called in. Preeti claimed Shri Deshmukh had made amorous advances towards her and she’d inadvertently strangled him in self-defense.”
“What did the medical examiner conclude?” asked Sunny.
“Nothing that could overturn Preeti’s claims. The police were initially tightlipped, but the Gandhi Foundation did get an explanation. It was extremely damning to Shri Deshmukh. Very sad, because he’d never done anything with such malicious intent before.” He paused abruptly, as though uncertain.
Sunny leaned forward. “You’re thinking,” he said softly, “of Gandhiji’s ‘celibacy’ experiments.”
“Yes,” admitted Mr. Seshadri. “In the mid 1940s, Gandhiji is said to have invited naked young women to share his bed, paradoxically, to avoid having sex with them. They were there as a temptation: if he wasn’t aroused by their presence, he could be reassured he’d achieved brahmacharya, a Hindu concept of celibate self-control. His behavior in the winter of 1946-47
shocked many of his followers. At least two of his helpers, his stenographer, and his Bengali translator, quit his service in protest. It’s true that Gandhiji liked to play with sexual boundaries. In this, as in his environmentalism, his diet, and his techniques of protest, he foreshadowed our age. As far as was known, the women themselves never made any allegations against Gandhiji.”
“As far as was known,” Sunny said reflectively.
Mr. Seshadri nodded.
“Correct. As to any unconscious motivation for bed-sharing, who knows? As one of the world’s most famous men, a magnetic celebrity, Gandhiji rarely hesitated in exploiting his attraction to women and benefited from the help and care they offered. In his ashram, the competition among women for his attention was as fierce as it is in any guru’s establishment today. I often speculate how our present moral temperament would have reacted to Gandhiji’s experiments. He would surely have been widely reviled, and his faults distorted and oversimplified in our rush to judge him. A powerful old man, subordinate young women, nudity!
“But analyzing another age in terms of the present is usually pointless. In his time, Gandhiji had the subtle genius for courting controversies without tarnishing his image. Even honest men need controversies to remain in the limelight, I guess. His close advisors, including Patel, his righthand man, worried that Gandhiji’s experiments would derail India’s independence movement. But the events of 1947-48 further embellished his status, for Gandhiji went on his most grueling fast and singlehandedly willed Bengal into peace and stability.
“Gandhiji was no ordinary man; but were his ‘celibacy’ experiments a case of voyeurism? And did such behavior secretly rub off on his apostles and proteges? Did they indulge in similar voyeuristic behavior when they became prominent figures later? I’ll admit I’ve had my doubts—but now...”
“But now?” Sunny prompted him.
“Now—I’m not so sure. Why did Shri Deshmukh so suddenly—at that evening hour, try molesting a woman young enough to be his own granddaughter? Right in the open, too.”
“And there’s no doubt about that latter point—were there any witnesses?”
“Yes—an old Jewish lady. Was there anything there, I wonder?”
“The police couldn’t overlook her, could they?”
“They questioned her closely. She never wavered in her statement. Her husband bore her out. They’d taken a few pictures of Gandhiji’s statue and were walking away. It had just begun snowing, and all they wanted was to get back to their car and go home. But they’d only walked twenty yards when they heard a skirmish. Ah! I know what you are thinking.”
“Do you?”
“I fancy so. Time enough for one of them to have taken a picture or video of the crime itself. Then, we’d have no doubts.”
The waiter came with additional chutney. “Care for more?”
The spicy odor from the chutney was very pleasant to Mr. Seshadri’s nostrils. He felt gracious. “This looks excellent,” he said, thanking the waiter.
As soon as the waiter was gone, he asked, “Where were we?”
“We were wondering if the old Jewish couple had caught the crime on camera.”
“Unfortunately, they hadn’t. But they were believable witnesses, and it was very hard for the police to dispute their words.”
Mr. Seshadri helped himself to some more dosa and chutney. Sunny, meanwhile, had a question. “This old Jewish couple. What kind of people were they?”
“An elderly couple, admirers of Mahatma Gandhi, decided they’d come see his statue. They hadn’t checked on the weather though. I think it was sheer madness on their part to be outdoors when it was going to snow so heavily. He’d turned his back on the statue—they were heading back to their car. But she was still admiring the statue when she heard a commotion, which looked like a physical altercation between two people.”
“What sort of a woman was she, specifically?” asked Sunny.
“A simple, kind lady. In her seventies and thought well of Indians in general. They were from Beachwood, which, I’m told, has a predominantly large Jewish community. The police said that she had good eyesight for her age, though.”
“What exactly did she see?” asked Sunny softly.
“She’d turned around to pay her respects one last time when a young Indian woman appeared from behind Gandhiji’s statue. But she was stepping backward, as if to get away from someone trying to grope her. The Jewish lady was startled. The person trying to grope the young woman fell forward—he made a choking noise as he did. It became apparent that the person falling forward was an elderly gentleman, and to the Jewish lady, he appeared to have a look of malicious intent as he fell forward.”
“And her husband had his back to the incident all the time?” Sunny asked. Something didn’t seem to gel—the evidence wasn’t conclusive—but it helped corroborate Preeti Mukherji’s claims of molestation.
Mr. Seshadri nodded. “That’s right. So, we really have only one eyewitness.”
“What do you make of it all?” Sunny persisted.
“What do I think?”
“Yes.”

“Does it matter? Shri Deshmukh falls forward as he’s groping a younger woman and dies from the fall.”
He gulped down a whole glass of water. The snow, which had been quieting down, broke out with redoubled vigor. A gritter drove by, spreading rock salt in its wake. Some salt landed on the restaurant windowpanes, making Mr. Seshadri jump. Before the last echoes of the gritter had died away, Mr. Seshadri had gulped down two more glasses of water.
Naveen, who had been a silent observer up until now, offered to buy them all hot masala chai. The best antidote to all the cold weather.
“Much appreciated, Naveen,” said Sunny. “What a snowy night.”
“I hate this weather,” Mr. Seshadri muttered.
“Not used to such snow?”
“You’re right, and you know that I’m not from here. No, mostly going out in such snowy weather. My fault really—I made Naveen drive us to India Cultural Garden. Shri Deshmukh’s nephew—he’s a friend of mine—couldn’t believe his uncle was guilty of molesting a young woman. I’d offered to get as much information as I could regarding his uncle’s death. Even if it meant digging up some of the past.”
“A thing is only past when it’s done with,” said Sunny.
“You’re right. Could we get him exonerated somehow? It could just be a simple misunderstanding.”
“You think Preeti was simply mistaken?”
“Why not? It would make better sense than to suppose a kindhearted creature like Shri Deshmukh was a molester. Why should he molest her? Maybe he was just feeling dizzy, and the
cold weather was affecting him a bit. Or maybe he just tripped and fell, and it looked like he was groping her as he fell forward. Could there be some such explanation?”
“But surely,” said Sunny, “the police were quite satisfied with the evidence?”
“The police? Yes, they were,” said Mr. Seshadri. “Apparently, they found a note in Shri Deshmukh’s coat pocket. The note was very damning to Shri Deshmukh—it contained sexual innuendo.”
“The exact words were ‘FINGER IN THE DICKY,’ ” said Naveen, interjecting himself into the conversation. “And without a doubt, it was in Shri Deshmukh’s handwriting. The police contacted me since he’d been staying at our place in Parma. I would drive him over to the conference each morning and pick him back up every evening. Why did he prefer our place to hotel accommodation? He enjoyed the homelike atmosphere and home-cooked meals—he even accompanied us when we went grocery shopping.”
Mr. Seshadri felt livid with rage and resentment. “It’s cruel,” he burst out. “Shri Deshmukh wouldn’t hurt a fly! And everywhere there’ll be people who’ll think he did it. Then there are these internet blogs insinuating dirty innuendo. The more the proliferation of innuendoes, the more people construe Shri Deshmukh as a sinister villain.”
Mr. Seshadri stopped. His eyes were fixed on Sunny’s face, as though something in it was drawing this violent outburst from him.
“Can nothing be done at all?”
He was genuinely distressed. The thing was, he saw, inevitable. The pointed—vulgar even—nature of the evidence stacked against Shri Deshmukh made it the more difficult for him to disprove the police’s conclusion.
Naveen turned towards him. “Only the truth can help him.”
“If Shri Deshmukh were alive, we could get to know his version of what happened. If the truth of it were only known—” Mr. Seshadri broke off abruptly.
“Rest in peace, Shri Deshmukh,” said Naveen. “A sad case. I very much wish something could be done about it.”
“We’re doing what we can,” said Sunny. “There’s still nearly half an hour before the heavy snow will subside.”
Mr. Seshadri stared at him. “You think we can figure out the truth by—talking it over like this?”
“Talking comes easily to you,” said Sunny mischievously. “Easily indeed.”
“Talking is part of my profession—I teach,” said Mr. Seshadri.
“But your profession has sharpened your vision. Where others are confounded, you can analyze.”
“It’s true,” said Mr. Seshadri, perking up. “I’ve got an analytical mind.” The moment of bitterness and resentment was past. “I look at it like this,” he continued. “To understand the reason for the incident, we must analyze what has occurred since then.”
“Very good,” said Sunny approvingly.
“Preeti Mukherji has left the Gandhi Foundation and has gotten enough publicity accusing Gandhi and his apostles as voyeurs. It was recently announced that a major publishing house will help publish her story. Her upcoming book is expected to be a huge blockbuster.”
“So, there you are,” said Sunny. “In this ‘Me Too’ age, almost everyone sympathizes with Preeti Mukherji.”
Mr. Seshadri looked at him doubtfully. The words seemed somehow to suggest a faintly different picture to his mind. “Let’s call what has occurred since the consequence,” he said. “Now—”
“We have just touched on the material consequence,” said Sunny.
“You’re right,” said Mr. Seshadri after a moment of consideration. “Let’s say then that the consequence of the tragedy is that Preeti Mukherji leaves the Gandhi Foundation in a spate of publicity and begins painting Mahatma Gandhi and his followers as deliberate voyeurs—who can blame her? A note found in Shri Deshmukh’s coat pocket refers to the male sexual organ—what can be more damning? Since it’s in his handwriting, we don’t suspect Preeti to have made a false accusation against a very respectable Senior Gandhian.”
“You’re right,” said Sunny. “We don’t. What next?”
“Let’s imagine ourselves back on the fatal day. The death has taken place, let’s say, this very evening.”
“No,” said Sunny, smiling. “In our imagination at least, we have power over time: let’s turn it the other way. Let’s say the death of Shri Deshmukh took place some fifty years ago. That we, from somewhere in the future, are looking back.”
“You’re a strange fellow,” said Mr. Seshadri slowly. “You believe in the past, not the present. Why?”
“You just said you had an analytical mind. You can’t really analyze the present.”
“That’s true,” said Mr. Seshadri. “The present must become the past before we can analyze it.”
“Well said.”
“You’re too kind.”
“Let’s take—the tragic occurrence, even if it’s very difficult, but let’s say—none of us knew Shri Deshmukh,” continued the other. “Sum it up for me.”
Mr. Seshadri thought for a minute.
“If none of us were ever acquainted with Shri Deshmukh?” he said. “Shall we say that today we’d all be trolling him like everyone else?”
“Very good,” said Sunny. “On the internet and social media, I presume?”
“As to social media, I must confess I don’t know,” said Mr. Seshadri. “But even academic information is nowadays posted on the worldwide web. While searching for information related to my courses, I came across blogs damning the memory of Mahatma Gandhi. How Gandhiji used his power to proposition women into sleeping naked with him. One such person trying to unearth information insisted that Gandhiji’s apostles had destroyed all evidence of sexual misbehavior following his assassination. Fortunately, books by Ved Mehta have surfaced—he’d specifically interviewed women who had lived in Gandhiji’s ashram—that debunked such theories.”
“Accusing Gandhiji,” said Sunny, “doesn’t get you far.”
“No. People who research him inevitably end up admiring him,” said Mr. Seshadri, laughing.
There was a significant pause.
“Why did Shri Deshmukh have to die?” Mr. Seshadri asked, his chest tightening at the emotion filling it. “Why? It’s a million-dollar question.”
“Yes,” said Sunny. “A million-dollar question. That describes it exactly. Answer that question, and we have the answer to our puzzle—let’s treat it as a challenge.”
“A puzzle is not a dead end,” said Mr. Seshadri glibly.
“Attaboy! That’s the spirit! We can’t feel defeated because we’ve hit an impasse. We’ll solve the puzzle by reasoning, but we must maintain faith in our ability to reason correctly. Even reason couldn’t exist without faith. Without faith in reason, we’re diverted from the truth—we’re sucked instead into a tangled web of slanderous untruths.”
Mr. Seshadri leaned forward, his eyes shining. “There’s an idea. The death—take that away, and the story becomes zilch.”
“Zilch? Suppose things took the same course without that unfortunate death.”
“You mean—suppose Preeti Mukherji were still to leave the Gandhi Foundation and accuse them of misbehavior—for no reason whatsoever?”
“Well.”
“It wouldn’t have aroused publicity, I suppose; there absolutely would have been no interest in her claims of sexual misconduct, no—Ah! Wait!”
He was silent a minute, then burst out. “You’re right, there’s too much limelight, the limelight on Shri Deshmukh. And because of that, the story gets huge publicity. Everyone saying ‘The respected Senior Gandhian! How could he molest her?’ Preeti Mukherji! Because she is the injured party, no one questions her true motive. Was she really the injured party? Did he really grope her on that fateful evening? You were right when you said just now that we answer the million-dollar question—and everything will fall into place. Shri Deshmukh’s death wasn’t self-defense, it was a carefully planned murder committed by an ambitious woman looking for fame at any cost. She accompanies Shri Deshmukh to the India Cultural Garden—supposedly to pay her respects to the memory of Mahatma Gandhi. Then he dies. The plot was laid beforehand. The death, the slander, and the intense negative publicity! What more natural than that a persecuted woman would want to get away from the organization she has given so much to? The organization
is a sham, Gandhiji and his followers are sexual molesters. She leaves the Gandhi Foundation, sad and disillusioned. A publishing company makes an offer, she accepts. The great coup has come off. The eye of the public has been deceived into believing the worst about Mahatma Gandhi and his followers. Quod erat demonstrandum!”
Mr. Seshadri paused, flushed with triumph.
“But for you, I should never have seen it,” he said with sudden humility. “But it’s still not clear to me. It had to have been impossible for Shri Deshmukh to write something sexually suggestive. After all, the police did find the note.”
“They were probably looking,” said Sunny, “at only one part of a note.”
“It would have been simplest to have manufactured such a note,” mused Mr. Seshadri. “If it could be managed.”
“He was, perhaps, writing something very different,” said Sunny.
His look of significance wasn’t lost on Mr. Seshadri. “FINGER IN THE DICKY?” he exclaimed. “Could it mean something different?”
“DICKY means something entirely different in Indian English,” mused Sunny.
Mr. Seshadri stared at him. “If DICKY really meant a vehicle’s trunk, which is what it means in Indian English,” he exclaimed, “FINGER should also refer to something else. But…”
“Didn’t Shri Deshmukh accompany Naveen to the grocery stores?”
“He did,” said Naveen. “I remember now. I did request Shri Deshmukh to leave a note for my wife that the vegetables were in the car trunk—we were heading for an evening walk. But he’d just finished writing the note when my wife arrived. He must simply have filed the note away with the rest of his conference materials.”
“Oh!” cried Mr. Seshadri. “I have it. Could FINGER mean something else? Of course. In Indian English we refer to okra as LADY FINGER. He must have shared his materials with Preeti sometime during the conference. She must have come across this harmless note meant originally for Naveen’s wife. When she came to the note’s last line, a malicious idea formed in her mind—it could be planted in his pocket. She must have placed it there before she—strangled him.”
Naveen had a thought. “I still have Shri Deshmukh’s conference materials, and they’re in the trunk.”
Mr. Seshadri looked outside. So did Sunny. The snow had stopped, and the skies had cleared. A sea of white snow had formed, but it looked serene under the streetlights.
“The snowstorm is over,” Naveen said.
Mr. Seshadri was finishing up his chai. “I’ll be talking to Shri Deshmukh’s nephew next week,” he said. “I’ll have some good news for him.”
“It still needs to be proved,” said Sunny. “Without the other piece of the note we may have nothing to—!”
“Let me retrieve the materials from the car,” said Naveen.
He headed out to the car.
“Let’s hope he finds something,” said Sunny.
They didn’t have long to wait. “Here we are,” Naveen said, handing over a file to Mr. Seshadri.
Mr. Seshadri leafed through several papers, but he wasn’t interested in any that praised the memory of Mahatma Gandhi. At last, he saw the rest of the note.
Written in a large font—clearly in Shri Deshmukh’s handwriting—and addressed to Naveen’s wife were the following words:


“NAVEEN AND I ARE GOING OUT FOR A WALK. TOMATO, CABBAGE, CAULIFLOWER, BRINJAL AND LADY…”
“…FINGER IN THE DICKY,” said Sunny, completing the sentence. “Makes absolute sense now, doesn’t it?”
Mr. Seshadri felt relieved, content, and happy at the same time. Naveen and Sunny were also smiling.
Mr. Seshadri got up and went to the counter. He asked something of the person there, who answered in the affirmative.
“They little know what I’m doing here!” said Mr. Seshadri to himself. He headed back to the table.
He’d ordered three plates of gulab jamoon. They needed something sweet to celebrate.

​
A Planet

Called

Verona
 
M. S. Lynn
 
 
Act I, Scene I 

Chorus:           

Two kingdoms, both alike in ev’ry way: the planet Verona, a world far off.
Her children wrought with famines, plagues, and hate, with war and poverty to claim the lot.
But from those rulers, strong and pitiless, two children unleash hidden horrors wild: release a witch as old as time’s first breath.
Nightmares’ deepest dread—this queen’s acts so vile. A knight to stop her death-mark’d rampage nigh,
But death for those who chose to set her loose. And though our knight was also doomed to die, Who knows if his sacrifice was of use?
We’ll tell the tale we bring to you with glee, And grant your ears this wondrous tragedy.

 
Act I, Scene II 

Many years ago there was a planet called Verona. This world, encircled by a ring of asteroids and her moon Prospero, floated out in the midst of a quiet, unknown system—far from any other planet teeming with life. Whether it still harbors this life, however, is unknown.
In her final days, Verona was consumed with tense relations between her two leading kingdoms, Montague and Capulet, while those upon her moon officiated peace talks and counsels. A severe drought had fallen across the planet thanks to unsustainable energy demands and rampant corruption among the aged kings and queens’ courts, and as their greed grew, so too did their desire to reignite their most ancient conflict: a sibling rivalry long passed down through the descendants of two sisters.
But not all was doom and gloom, and not all of the royals were interested in the affairs of their foremothers. In fact, within the house of Montague, there lived a strapping young lad called Romeo, who sought only after an elusive true love. Amidst the courtyards of his palace, Romeo could often be found trudging about, lamenting yet another failed relationship. It was in this place, in those final, final days, where Romeo’s cousin and closest friend, Benvolio, found him.
“Romeo! Who's spurned thy love this time?” Benvolio called as he climbed over the walls of the courtyard.
 
“‘Twas Rosaline,” Romeo sighed, forlorn. “I love her, yet she loves me not.”
 
“Bah!” Benvolio exclaimed, clapping his cousin on the shoulder. “She’s not worth the time! Surely thou know’st this?”
This troubled Romeo. “Beauty is as rare as she!” he declared. “‘Tis mine own façade that displeases me!”
“Thy face is the sun,” Benvolio responded. “Thy company shines upon our world like a midsummer’s day. Think not of Rosaline. Think not of any who hail from Capulet.”
“Oh, that the Capulets could know my love as I do!” Romeo cried. “Perhaps then could our eternal conflict end!”
This earned Romeo a smack upon his head. “Thou mean'st that not!” Benvolio said. “Capulet is but inferior stock. I’m sure thy love can be fulfilled with pure Montague blood.”
Romeo sighed and turned away. “Alas, even love from Prospero, our foremother’s sister’s domain, would do! But nay, leave me. I am gray and wish to be alone.”
Benvolio nodded, knowing his friend’s dour moods well. “Very well. Retreat to a more secretive place; I will ‘wait thy return. Worry thy family not, dear cousin.”
With that, Romeo quit from his courtyard and, taking a riding skiff, headed out toward a land far from home.

 
Act I, Scene III 

Romeo was not the only one to venture away to find peace. Elsewhere, another young man sequestered himself away, far from his country and his people: Julius Capulet, heir to his father's throne and sorely in need of a spouse.
Earlier that morning, Julius had been interrupted from his daily rituals alongside his friend Brutus and cousin Tybalt at the behest of his parents. Taking him to an inner room of the family castle, they had introduced him to a man much older than him by the name of Paris. Paris belonged to one of the leading families in Capulet, rich from their mining operations on the planet’s rings. By the machinations of his parents, Julius was to wed Paris and cement their family's alliance.
But Paris was twenty years Julius’s senior, and in no way pleased the younger. Instead, Julius fled his family home in a rush of shame and anger, taking a skiff of his own to Oberon—the only place on the planet not held by one of the two kingdoms.
Legends spoke of an ancient curse upon the land of Oberon—an evil so great that few dared set foot upon its soil and even fewer ever returned. But, seeking peace and solitude, both Romeo and Julius fled to this forbidden haven so far from their worries.
Though the land was large, and its forests dark, the two boys came across one another.

Romeo, spotting the bright flash of Julius’s royal vestments, called out. "Hark! Who goes there?"
"'Tis no one!" Julius replied, attempting to flee further into the underbrush lest Romeo be an enemy.
But Romeo was not deterred. "Hath No One a name?"
"Nay,” Julius said, “for in giving No One a name dost No One become Someone." “Aye, but what is in a name save for an empty title? This here is a tree, but that name makes it not Someone.”
 
Intrigued, Julius chose to reveal himself. "Who are you, who is so wise in these matters?"
For a moment, Romeo was speechless. After all, it isn't often that one comes across a man as fine as Julius in a place so desolate. A hot, fierce love for this strange man enveloped Romeo’s mind, and he all but forgot why he’d come to Oberon in the first place. “A beau such as yourself should not wander this place alone,” he said, approaching cautiously. “May I ask from where you hail, that I may return you home?”
“Nay, fellow. I hail from this wood; already have I come home.” “But know ye not of the curse that haunts this place?”
 
At this, Julius laughs. “Why think you that this is where I have chosen to be? Are the famines, the diseases, or the tensions of Capulets and Montagues not reason enough to live far from so-called society? You also have come here, thus you must comprehend the solitude of the wood. The legends keep folk far from me, and I from them.”
“Aside from myself.”
 
“Aye, it would seem this way.”
 
They continued conversing in this manner for many hours, until the great moon Prospero rose above the treetops—a watchful eye over the scenes to follow. Neither boy noticed the figure creeping among the shadows watching then even closer.

 
Act II, Scene I 

The people who lived in the land of Oberon were known as the Fae. For centuries they had inhabited those forbidden lands, waiting with insurmountable patience for the day of their rise.
Once, Almost two millennia before our dear Romeo and Julius's foray into the forest, this people had ruled over Verona by the iron fist of Queen Titania Macbeth—their creator and sustainer. Macbeth had ruled for centuries, using her and her Faes’ genetic modifications to live supposedly forever. That, alongside a  prophecy  given  by  a  holy man, she was thought to be invincible.
 
To accentuate her power, she kept her mortal subjects on the brink of death, plagued and half-starved. It wasn’t until the rise of one of these people—known as Lear—denounced his queen and roused an army of his own from the moon of Prospero, that Macbeth was finally opposed.
Upon the moon, where they were intended to starve or suffocate in the thinner atmosphere, Lear and his daughters, Montague, Capulet,  and  Cordelia,  discovered  the city of Miranda housing countless other exiles from Verona. Chief among them was Ariel, who brought the four before his people. Before long, Lear, his daughters, and all of Prospero came together to finally end the reign of Macbeth.
It was a short, bitter war, but in the end the exiled overcame their foes. Yet they could not kill the queen, and the ancient prophecy still lurked in their minds. They settled on sealing her away in a secret place with a curse only possible to lift by Lear’s descendants.
After all was said and done, Lear was crowned king of Verona, and peace fell upon the planet. But, as mortals often do, Lear died, and his daughters split the kingdom; Montague and Capulet ruled the lands eventually named  after  them,  and  Cordelia claimed a newly terraformed Prospero for herself.
So generations rose and fell while Macbeth slumbered, chained away in her tomb.
 
Soon she was forgotten by all but her loyal Fae, who settled in the nearby forest of Oberon to await their queen’s revival.
 
One of these loyal Fae was named Puck. They were short, stocky, and swift among the treetops. If they’d wanted, they could’ve cut down the two royals who walked among the dusty brush without trouble. Instead, they chose a different path.
Selecting an arrow from their quiver laced with the blood of a flower, they lined up their shot in silence.
Snap! The arrow twanged across the sky and sank into Julius’s side with a wet shlip. He dropped to the ground. Frightened, Romeo swiftly took up the fallen man and darted deeper into the woods, just as their foe had intended.
A furious sprint through the forest followed, only pausing when Romeo came beside a brook. Julius laid limply in his arms, blood seeping from his side. Gently, Romeo dressed and wrapped the wound after carefully removing the arrow. So when Julius came to, he found Romeo busy concocting a poultice of herbs meant to soothe the pain. And Julius, entranced by the arrow’s poison, fell in love with the sight of him.
“Grant me the honor of knowing thy name,” he asked, “that I may thank thee proper, as my blood demands.”
“Willst thou grant me the same honor in turn?” Romeo questioned. At Julius’s nod, Romeo declared, “I am called Romeo, of the House of Montague.”
 
“Romeo, Romeo!” Julius cried. “Why must thou be ‘Romeo’? A Montague, sworn enemy of my family! For I am Julius of House Capulet, and now my love burns for thee as aged wood burns for the warmth of the home. Forsake thy name and be but mine!”
Romeo, filled with insatiable lust for the wounded prince, grinned widely. “Thine I shall be! I throw off the burden of my name and take thou, Julius, my truest love!” he shouted. Then, quieter, he whispered: “But once I apply this salve, let us quit deeper into the wood, that we may not be found. Canst thou walk?”
“I believe not, but limping will do well for a time.” “Of course, fair Julius.”
The pair of them moved onward, with Romeo holding his newest love and gently pushing him along. Soon they came upon a ruin. It was empty and abandoned, though a fire’s smoldering remains betrayed its recent inhabitants to Julius’s careful eyes.
“Hark,” he said. “This fire was not abandoned but an hour ago. I fear watchful eyes shadow our path.”
“‘Tis true, ‘tis true,” Romeo remarked. “Perhaps whichever angered soul shot thee makes their home here? ‘Tis not far from whence we came.”
“‘Tis possible. Keep careful watch for danger, my darling Romeo.”
 
From the trees, the remnants of the Fae watched with eager eyes and frothing mouths.
“I must say, ‘tis fascinating to find ruins in this locale,” said Romeo.
 
Julius's eyes fell tenderly upon his lover. “I wonder what secrets this place holds?” “Shall we search them out?”
Julius laughed. “Even with a torn side, my adventure-lust draws me onwards. Yes, let us seek what treasures may lie within.”
It didn’t take them long to find out exactly what was there. It didn’t take them long to wake her up, either.
Creeping into the graveyard tomb, they came upon a magnificent sarcophagus. It was hewn from a single tree, carved with images of Macbeth, the Fae, and the fate of all those who opposed her engraved upon its lid. Romeo grazed the text with his hand, wonder in his eyes.
Bioscanners embedded within the lid whirred to life and took note of Romeo’s DNA. Recognizing him as Lear’s descendant, the ancient mechanisms unlocked the
rust-dotted seals. With a cry of hysterical joy, Macbeth lept from her grave, scattering the fractured pieces of her coffin across the room with a thunderous crash! The two young men scrambled back in terror.
 
“Freedom!" she cried. "Freedom at last! Oh, how sweet freedom tastes when slumber, so long unsettled, finally ceases and raises one back to glory!” Macbeth grinned and raised her hands to the sky in vindication. “To arms, my loyal Fae, for today we take back what belongs rightfully to us!”
The two boys cowered before her countenance, clutching one another and silently begging the queen’s mercy. Though much history had been lost to them, they still knew of the tyrannical queen and her terrible servants. However, perhaps only by dumb luck, she did not see them as she descended from her tomb.
Puck knelt down before her. “My lady,” they exalted, “we have awaited your return, and we now await your orders.”
“Vengeance,” she replied, “is all I have dreamt for these many years of sleep. Fall in line, and let us take back what was stolen by that so-called king.”
And, with her loyal troops falling into step at her heels, she marched to the shorelines of Oberon. They mounted the ships that had been maintained for centuries and headed off toward the domain of Montague to exact Macbeth’s revenge.

 
Act III, Scene I 

Meanwhile, on the moon of Prospero, someone else observed the blooming chaos on the planet below. At the moment, her name was Viola Macduff, though she was more
recognized by another name: Cesario. The name of Cesario Macduff enacted fear into even the most seasoned of veterans, for his wrath was dangerous and his power was great. But for now, she was Viola.
“My lady,” someone called to her, “We have just received word from below: Macbeth hath returned, and already hath she slain Duncan Montague!”
Viola closed her eyes and drew in a long breath. “Ready my ship, Orsino.
 
Montague will fall, but Capulet may yet be saved.” “As you wish.”
Mere hours after Macbeth’s return, Viola Macduff touched down in Dunsinane, the capital of Capulet, and rallied the troops.
 


Act IV, Scene I 

Back in the wood of Oberon, Julius and Romeo lamented their misfortune.
 
“I have ruined us, my love!” Romeo cried, sobbing upon Julius’s breast. “My folly hath slain us all!”
“Fear not, dearest Romeo,” Julius replied, “Thou couldst not have known what evils belaid this place. But see, the monster's armies make off to Montague. Let us fly
back to our transports and return thus to Capulet. Surely they, though I took my leave of them, will protect us from the wrath we have wrought.”
Their trek took them 'til dawn, but they arrived in Dunsinane with little difficulty, slowed only by Julius's wound. Upon reaching the castle, Tybalt stepped out to confront them.
“Dear cousin and dearest friend!” Julius called in a weak voice . “What unholy day this is! Macbeth hath returned, and I fear that Montague hath already fallen! Know’st thou of the things that have passed?”
“A blight has returned upon our world,” Tybalt snarled, “and thou bring’st a Montague among us.”
“He is my lover, the light of my wretched soul. Montague hath reached her end, and he hath nowhere for which to return.”
Romeo knelt before Tybalt’s sour countenance. “I ask but to remain with Julius, as my heart is broken by the things that I have caused. Only by his love do I yet remain.”
Tybalt’s eyes narrowed. “‘Twas thou who unleashed this curse?”
 
Julius stood before his cousin, clutching the wound of Puck’s arrow. “Nay, dear Tybalt. ‘Twas I who brought about this destruction. Romeo played no part.”
 
“But ‘twas I who brought us to that accursed place,” wept Romeo. “Had it not been for me, none of this would have come to pass.”
Another man stepped from the castle main—Brutus. Sheathed on his hip laid his sword. “What's this I hear of Macbeth and Montague?” he asked, his voice low and deep.
Tybalt looked back at him. “Give me thine arm, Brutus, for ‘twas this Montague who brought Macbeth from the depths.”
Brutus regarded Romeo, then Julius. “Is this true, my old friend?”
 
“‘Twas us both, Brutus,” Julius admitted. “We knew not what we had done until it had been done already.”
Romeo wept and clung to Julius. “‘Tis all my fault! If ‘twere not for my touch, the witch would never have waked!”
Brutus, with a solemn face, slowly drew his sword and passed it to Tybalt. And Tybalt, with a flick of his arm, plunged the blade deep into Romeo, piercing his heart with cold iron. Without a cry, Romeo dropped dead to the ground. Julius, filled with grief, fell upon his lover’s chest and wept. “Give me thy sword, Brutus,” he pleaded, “that I may also die.”
Brutus retrieved his sword from Tybalt, and held the tip to Julius’s throat. “Thou hast brought death and destruction upon us all. I shall not give you the satisfaction of a death by thine own hand.”
 
And following Tybalt’s example, Brutus’s blade stabbed into Julius.
 
Julius looked up, tears on his face and blood on his chest. “Even thee, Brutus?” he whispered.
Neither said a word as he slumped over, dead.
 
 
Act IV, Scene II 

Some would end the story there, with the two lovers tragically fallen for their innocent crimes, but the battle was not yet won. Across the city, just outside the walls of Dunsinane, Viola and her officers prepared for war.
“Macbeth holds a fortified position in nearby Navarre,” Captain Othello warned. “Only by a stroke of luck would we penetrate her defenses and engage her.”
Viola nodded. “Then she will come to us.” “‘Tis dangerous.”
“‘Tis our best option.”
 
A knock sounded upon the door, and in entered Brutus, Tybalt, and another man—a friar called Lawrence, who was widely known for his studies of ancient history. “The bringers of this blight have been brought to their demise,” Tybalt announced. “Much as it pains my heart to find my cousin to blame.”

“And yet,” said Viola, “a necessary evil to combat one much greater.” She turned to the friar. “Have you any wisdom to share?”
He nodded. “It was prophesied long ago: ‘none born of woman can defeat Macbeth’.”
Viola laughed. “This is of no issue, as I have two fathers and no mother.”
 
“Then victory you may achieve. Yet do not let strength o'er the Fae corrupt your
spirit.”
 
“No prophecy marks a true victory, Friar. I shall not fall to dark outlooks, though fall I may to glorious battle.”
The friar smiled kindly. “You are wise beyond your years, dear child, though I fear that hubris will end this campaign.”
“It will be believed when it is seen, but Macbeth’s hubris will end tonight.”
 
And with that, Cesario (for he now felt as Cesario) rallied his armies and prepared them for combat.
 

Act V, Scene I
 
Fire rained down upon decimated towns as Macbeth approached upon a throne of platinum and blood carried by her most loyal servants. In her hand she held a bladed 
rifle, though much of the fighting came from the bloodstained soldiers marching before her, leaving carnage and broken shells in their wake. Civilians fled at their approach, only to be mowed down by wave after wave of gunfire.
Outside the walls stood Cesario. His golden helm glinted in the dying sunlight of dusk. He turned his gaze skyward one last time, staring longingly toward his home of Prospero high above, and swore that he would not fail.
Warships blazed over the fields, raining bombs down upon the competing armies. Artillery fired nonstop, their shells blistering apart across shield surfaces and dotting the landscape with their explosive force. Amidst the chaos, Cesario found his way to the foot of Macbeth’s throne. She stared down at him, eyes winking in amusement.
“Villain,” Cesario snarled, “you shall soon taste the defeat of my blade!”
 
Macbeth cackled. “Thou cannot destroy me, boy! Or hast thou forgotten the prophetic teachings of thine ancestors? That none may defeat me?”
“Aye, none born of woman, fiend. Now face me with whatever honor you may yet possess!”
Beside their queen, Puck drew their bow, but held their fire at the wave of their mistress’s hand. Macbeth descended her throne to face Cesario, rifle in her hand and bloodlust in her eyes.

Blades clashed and sparks flew. Around them, the battle raged, with both Fae and man falling amidst pools of their own blood and viscera. Soldiers crisscrossed the landscape, using their doomed comrades as cover from the encroaching gunfire. Grass glistened red in the pale light of Prospero, and the stench of death wreathed the entire planet.
Cesario and Macbeth faced each other. The queen hefted her rifle and fired upon Cesario. He dodged to the left and came at her, his own blade thrusting at his foe. But the blade glanced off a forcefield surrounding her, knocking him off balance. Macbeth returned his attack and plunged her sword deep into his chest.
He stumbled back, clutching his wound and gasping for air. His balance faltered, and he fell amongst his fallen comrades and foes. But as he collapsed backwards, he gave a mighty thrust of his sword. His blade slid through a crack in Macbeth’s shielding and plunged through her rifle, releasing the inner mechanics in an almighty blast of glowing plasma that vaporized all that it touched.
The battle paused. The fields fell quiet as all looked upon that smoking crater where once their leaders had stood. Then a Fae soldier fired upon the Capulets and Prosperians, killing a wounded Tybalt, and the fighting began afresh.
The Fae had pushed too far into the city of Dunsinane to be stopped, and the death of their queen was of no consequence. They seized the king, the father of Julius, and they slaughtered him before his people. Then they enacted their revenge upon the
traumatized peasants. None could escape, and Verona, once a populous planet teeming with life, fell to its own creation.
  
To this day, no one really knows what became of the Fae, nor the people of Verona’s moon. Perhaps they are still at war. Perhaps they found some semblance of peace. Or perhaps they obliterated each other, and now the planet and her moon circle their sun, pointless and entirely devoid of life.

---

A Blue Fairytale 

By Gerald Arthur Winter

Azura was the younger sister of the noble fairy who brought Pinnochio to life
and saved him from a nautical calamity within the belly of a monstrous whale.
Had The Blue Fairy, Chiara, not intervened, that thankless splinter of a boy might
have been turned into an ass. Twas a heart-warming tale about an old Italian
clockmaker’s loneliness, assuaged by the kind heart of that same distinguished
Blue Fairy, Chiara.


Unlike her celebrated elder sister, Azura was a Blue Fairy of salacious repute.
The “horny, little tramp”, as Chiara often referred to her wayward sibling, was
said to have a heart of gold, mostly transmitted by whispers of inebriated trolls,
dwarfs, and orcs who frequented her boudoir to indulge in orgies twixt sunset
and sunrise.


“The unquenchable trollop has no limits!” Chiara complained to their mother,
Queen Glissa of the Blue Realm. “Satiated by her drunken lot, Azura was seen
clinging to a unicorn galloping towards the setting sun.”


“Was that wrong of her to do, Chiara?” Queen Glissa said in defense of her
younger daughter.


“Azura did not ride atop the equine beast in the gentile, sideways fashion
befitting the stature of a Blue Fairy, but beneath the stallion with her bare
legs wrapped round its powerful loins and keeping rapid cadence with its
thunderous hooves, like a wench possessed.”


“Oh, dear,” the Queen Mum gasped, falling faint. “Whatever shall we do about
Azura’s unquenchable passions?”


“We must consult The Great Wizard to find a potion that will negate her lust.”


“Do so at once, Chiara. I’ll pay The Great Wizard with Azura’s weight in gold to
have our sweet Azura back among our flock of gracious Blue Fairies.


Chiara sought The Great Wizard in the hazardous swamp of Mugwort, where
beasts of voracious appetites slithered and clawed their way with snapping,
razor-toothed jaws to devour warm-blooded trolls, dwarfs, orcs, pixies, and
even tender Blue Fairies of delicious, mouth-watering delight.


With fear for her life and limb, Chiara brought protection against predatory
swamp creatures. She was accompanied by the brute strength of her trusted
friend, Gothado, a giant to most, but loyal and true from the heart despite,
what most considered, his dimwittedness.


As Gothado clomped awkwardly through the mire with Chiara straddling the
furry hump between his broad, hulking shoulders, the sedate Blue Fairy sang
like a nightingale to calm her fears of bog beasts concealed beneath lily pads
the size of stingrays.


An occasional gurgle and splash ahead of them made Chiara’s fare skin prickle,
but the doltish Gothado continued his sluggish pace with the squishing and
sucking sounds of his ten-cubit feet through the mucky miasma of Mugwort
swamp. The brute was fearless without reserve, and drunken hobbits passed
rumors about Gothado smashing a T-rex with his fists and eating it in one
sitting, from its skull to its spiny tail.


Chiara was comforted by rumors of Gothado’s brute strength, but more so
by her own observations of his loyalty and devotion to the fare sex, specifically
to her, the most revered Blue Fairy of the realm. Without Gothado, Chiara
might never have ventured into Mugwort to seek The Great Wizard for a
potion that could quell her strumpet sibling’s nefarious ways.


When least expected, The Great Wizard appeared, like a crimson flame out
of the green mist. Chiara shuddered, but Gothado just burped and farted. With
a snort, the giant puffed up his hairy chest and wiggled his droopy ears at The
Great Wizard in defense of the fare Chiara.


“How dare you trespass!” The Great Wizard howled. “I could vaporize you both
with a mere twitch of my nose! Before I lose my patience, be gone with you, and
take that ton of rotten trash with you. Gads, how the giant stinks to high heaven!”


“I come to you in earnest, Great Wizard. My wayward sister, Azura, has become
sexually addicted to any creature that walks, slithers, crawls or gallops across our
realm. Please, greatest of all Wizards, save my family’s pride and give me a potion
that will make her true to only one and forsake all others. Gothado carries my
sister’s weight in gold in his pocket as my mother’s payment for your service.”


“Your request cuts across the grain, fare Chiara. It is for Azura to make such a
request on her own behalf. How can I be sure your request hasn’t a selfish end?”


“For what selfish motive, Great One? I’ve come to you in hope of saving Azura
from herself. Surely, her continued whoring will drag her into the gutter with no
possible return, which will destroy our Queen mum’s soul.”


“Hmph! Fairies have no souls. You and your sister of the Blue Clan were born
of moonlight and will sparkle for all Eternity as the glimmer of hope for all
humankind. You plead a moot case on Azura’s behalf. You’re both spoiled
children, ungrateful for your perfect existence.”


“What is perfect about a slovenly tramp who’s lost all her dignity?”


“That’s not even for one as powerful as I to judge!”


“Then you deny my plead for a potion to save Azura?”


“Potions are for witches to brew! I make miracles happen that can change the
direction of the galaxies.”


“Whether a potion or a wistful wave of your wand, no matter, Great One, if
it will seal my sister’s fate to be true and devoted to only one suiter.”


“Your request is like asking Alexander the Great to give you one acre of corn.
Can’t you expand your wish to something of greater importance.”


“Is there anything more important than family.”


“I wouldn’t know. My mother seemed to love my siblings more than me, so I
turned them, along with mum, into salt and scattered them across the great
seas.”


“That’s horrid!”


“Wizards do as wizards will. And so, I will grant your silly wish. Here! Take this
vessel with you. But take great caution, Chiara. Spill nary a drop, and don’t inhale
the potion’s fumes. Its strength contains enough power to make all the realm
devoted to only one lover. That would be a bore, life with no conflict, especially
for a fairy such as you, Chiara. You and your kind will remain steadfast forever
without the cold kiss of Death.


Chiara took The Great Wizard’s vessel and climbed onto Gothado’s hump. She
waved farewell to The Great Wizard of Mugwort and directed Gothado back
to her mother’s castle. She comforted Gothado with her cheerful songs and
rubbed her gentle hands around his floppy ears with thanks for taking her
safely on her treacherous journey to seek The Great Wizard’s solution to Azura’s
unsavory behavior throughout the realm.


Nearly out of the vast Mugwort swamp, Chiara was awakened from her nap
by the shriek of a ferocious raptor with a wingspread of sixty cubits. She
clutched Gothado’s hairy hump in fear for her safety, then shading her eyes
from the midday sun, she saw that it was Azura riding the feathered creature
that was swooping down to attack Gothado.


Slow but deliberate, the giant grabbed the raptor by one of its talons
and pulled it down, crushing its wings with clenched fists the size of two
hippopotami. Delicately, for such a giant, with two fingers, Gothado lifted
Azura from the rapture’s back and placed her gently bedside Chiari on
his furry hump.


With such a fright, both sisters lay head-to-head, each having fallen into
a fainting spell.


Grunting and snorting, the loyal giant blew as gentle a breath as a hulk
could, with hope of reviving the beautiful sisters. Despite his dimwittedness,
Gothado knew that the murky miasma of the swamp water was too foul
to either splash on their faces or put to their lips. As he pondered the
situation, famished after his arduous journey, he began devouring the
raptor, which took only minutes. He feared the Blue Fairy siblings might
be dead, and without souls, their existence would be just a memory
long forgotten, perhaps only told to children at bedtime.


At a loss, Gothado fumbled through his pockets. The gold had been given
to The Great Wizard but the corked vessel of blue liquid remained. He shook
the bottle and heard its liquid contents gurgle. He hadn’t paid much attention
to the conversation between Chiara and The Great Wizard, but he hoped
the vessel’s contents might revive the sleeping sisters. To be sure the blue
liquid wasn’t poison, he removed the cork, and sniffed at the vapor emitting
from the vessel.


Gothado felt a thump in his heart as he gazed upon the sisters now cradled in
each huge hand. He weighed one sister against the other, both exquisitely delicate
beauties with diaphanous blue wings. A cloud seemed to lift from his dull mind,
making him suddenly aware.


Such a quandary, he thought. I dare not choose one sister over another in a
this matter so dire, perhaps, over life or death. With caution, he put one drop
of the blue potion on the tip of each pinky and simultaneously touched both
sisters sweet lips.


Both sisters shuddered, yawned, then opened their eyes. In each Blue Fairy’s
mind, they saw Gothado, not as a gluttonous brute with the stench of Mugwort
swamp emitting from every pore, but as the royal prince of their most intimate
passions.


Gothado, in turn, saw Chiara and Azura as his two-headed true love, and
forevermore, was unable to separate his passion for one over the other.
Though giants have souls, and fairies do not, Gothado’s soul still walks the
earth, trying to decide which sister he loves most. His frustration over this
conflict of souls results in volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and tidal waves,
destroying all in their path.


As you may surmise, stories without conflict are not worth telling, not even
fairytales.


END

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

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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 air back into his lungs, he shouted to Eric’s mother, “Eric pooped in his pants!”
As he dizzily staggered back home and into the house, Tommy heard the sound of Eric crying and getting a smack from his mom, not on his behind because she saw he’d pooped his pants.

* * * 
 
Billy was still away at camp, so Tommy had to take matters into his own hands.
The next afternoon Eric was playing in his sandbox again. This time Tommy wore some of Billy’s clothes so he had room under his clothes to attach his red cape to his neck and tuck its drapes under Billy’s shirt and pants. He had to role up his cuffs and wore loafers so he could slip them off quickly. He’d left red boots on the sundeck above the garage with access to the sundeck from his parents’ bedroom across the hall from his and Billy’s. 
As he ambled across his yard toward Eric, Tommy noticed Eric’s mom peering out of their kitchen window where she was washing breakfast dishes. Her expression was suspicious with one eye squinting at him. 
“Don’t tell me you’re Superboy anymore,” Eric said. “My mom says you’re just teasing me. People can’t fly.”
“That’s because you don’t believe in fairies and Santa Claus, neat stuff that all kids are supposed to believe in. When they don’t, there not kids anymore. My brother Billy is fourteen, so he’s not a little kid. I’m three years older than you, but I want to believe in all that fun stuff for as long as I can until I’m too old. You’re only seven years old and missing out on a lot a fun. That’s why I’ve got to prove to you that I’m Superboy.” 
I noticed Eric’s mom was smirking at me through the window. 
“I’ll be back in a couple of minutes, but first I’ve got to save a kid caught in a tree, stop a bank robbery, then help a plane make a safe landing because it has an engine out on one of its propellers and will crash if I don’t show up. I’ll be right back.” 
As Tommy ran around the side of my house, he let Eric see him shedding Billy’s clothes until his red cape fluttered behind him for take-off and he shouted, “Up, up and away!”
Tommy ran into his house through the front door before Eric could follow him and see where he went, then he ran up the stairs to the second floor. He kicked off his loafers in the hallway then ran through his parents’ bedroom and onto the sundeck where he slipped on his red boots. 
He grabbed the edge of the slanted roof and pulled himself up on the railing around the sundeck and stood on the top so he could pull himself onto the roof. Holding the side of the full dormer, he worked his way up the slanted roof to the top of the dormer above the bedrooms where the roof was level. He ran across the flat roof toward the other side of the house next to Eric’s house. He visualized himself looking just like Superman in the comics. He came to the slanted roof on the other side of the dormer and eased down the slanted roof until the heels of his red boots in the rain gutter kept him from falling fifteen feet to the ground. He spotted Eric below. Eric had wondered around Tommy’s house in pursuit to see him take off in flight. Sure it was a lie, Eric was heading back toward his sandbox. When Eric was directly below, Tommy imitated the whooshing sound from George Reeves flying as Superman on black and white TV. But in full color, Tommy leaped from the roof and over Eric’s head. Thinking back on it, Tommy was glad his Olympic gymnastic, ten-point landing hadn’t gone to his head. Though he felt his thigh bones jam up into his hips, Tommy had broken no bones. He turned on his heels with exhilaration as his red cape swirled with the grace of a matador avoiding a bull’s charge. Eric’s mom came running across the yard and shouted, “Oh my God! Are you all right?”
Of course, she meant Tommy, but he folded his arms and pumped up his chest then said with a wink, “Yes, Eric’s fine. But he must promise to keep my true identity a secret.”
With her mouth dropped open, she said, “Of course, Superboy. We both promise to keep your secret. You’ll never have to prove it to us again. Absolutely, never. We even promise never to tell Daddy. Right, Eric?”
Eric’s face was still in awe after seeing Superboy come flying out of the sky from nowhere and land in front of him. Tommy remained standing in the yard like a statue of strength for truth, justice, and the American way until Eric and his mom went back into their house. When it was safe, Tommy broke his statuesque pose and limped painfully back into his house and upstairs to his bedroom. He cried in pain for an hour. 
Tommy never grew quite as tall as Billy and often wondered if his Superboy landing had stunted his growth. Billy told him that he was shorter than him because he’d been adopted. Even if he was physically damaged or genetically different, in his mind, Tommy always felt taller since that sunshiny day with Eric, just for taking a leap of faith that all kids needed—to dream of feats of strength and wish they’d come to pass.

Her Spirit Within Me

By Gerald Arthur Winter


Jeong Soo and John reunited at Clearwater/St. Pete Airport, both running with hands
raised above their heads in their reunion ritual. He lifted her off the ground and swung her in
his arms, so relieved to know she was unharmed and anxious to hear the full account of her
story about Hurricane Kim. When she told him of the harrows of the storm, his mouth was
agape with wonder over his fabulous wife’s survival instincts in a Cat-5 hurricane.
Jeong Soo had survived childhood asthma, her father’s untimely death when she was
twelve. She was the youngest of five sisters brought up by a single mother in Seoul with little
to eat. She had a bitter divorce from a wealthy, but verbally abusive Korean husband who’d
left her with their only son as her sole demand in their property settlement. Though she
became a successful business woman owning a day spa for women, a fire destroyed her
business without insurance. She had no money and a son to support. She wondered if her
ex-husband had hired an arsonist to destroy her will to live.
Bankrupt and depressed, while she and her son lived in a small crowded space with
her mother and eldest sister, the other shoe dropped. She had a head-on auto collision that
destroyed her only asset, her natural good looks. The impact split her face in two. Though the
Jaws of Life cut her out of the car, she’d lost all her teeth from the accident and spent eight
months hospitalized in traction after multiple surgeries on her right arm and left leg with
metal rod insertions that gave her agonizing pain for several years.
Her mother’s life insurance savings as the widow of a civil servant paid for several years
of Jeong Soo’s plastic surgery, but her bankruptcy left her with no options in Seoul to pay for
her son’s advanced education for an A student in his teens. Urging from her childhood friend,
Minji, convinced Jeong Soo to go to America, obtain a Green Card, and send money back to
Seoul to her oldest sister to care for her son, Jin, a bright boy ready for college.
Within two years she became a certified massage therapist and obtained her
permanent Green Card and was able to pay for Jin’s high school and college. She’d met
John coincidently stopping for gas in New Jersey with her best friend, Minji, and Minji’s
cousin, Nana, who recognized John as the boyfriend of one of her Korean friends.
“How is Keum Suk?” Nana asked John.
His expression became pained then he said,” She died five years ago. “Breast
cancer.”
Though Minji and Nana became glum at the sad news, Jeong Soo kept poking
Minji in the back to make her introduce her to John.
Minji invited John to join them next weekend at her rented apartment in Palisades
Park a hundred miles north.
“A long drive, I know, but we have room for you to sleep. We like to drink, so
no one will be driving all weekend,” Minji, the Alpha she-wolf of the pack said to John.
Despite his grieving, John was taken by Jeong Soo, so tall and lanky, with an
infectious laugh. He agreed, and after that weekend, he and Jeong Soo were never
apart again. Fifteen years younger than John, Jeong Soo still tells him many years after
for her it was love at first sight.
As they became more intimate and committed with his marriage proposal, he
felt obligated to tell Jeong Soo everything about himself, as she did so with her past.
John was a writer and was committed daily to long solitary hours at his craft.
“I’ve been taking notes and drafting chapters for years about people I’ve known,
mostly Koreans over the past twenty years. As you know, I have a sordid past. I was
intimate with many women to forget the fiancée I’d lost, Keum Suk Lee. She died never
knowing my real name. I lied to her about that, so she’ll always think of me as Bill.”
“I don’t care about anything that happened before we met. Do you feel the same
way about my past?” Jeong Soo asked. “I was filled with so much hate for my ex-husband,
and all my hardships made want to die.”
“Of course,” John said.
“Before we decide where we want to live in America, I want us to go to Korea
together. You need to meet my son, Jin. He’s finished college and has a job, but not a
family yet.”
“Does he want to come here to be with us?” John asked.
She huffed, “Why do Americans think all Koreans want to come here? Life is more
difficult there, and we’ve suffered historically, but Jin loves Korea and has no desire to come
here. He’ll make his own way now. He’ll be stronger if we leave him on his own. I want him
to be strong and independent like me. Like you, too.”
“When would we go?”
Jeong Soo grinned sheepishly then waved Korean Airline tickets in his face.
“We leave on Friday for thirty days!” she shouted with glee.
They hugged and jumped in a circle like chimpanzees, Jeong Soo screeching like a
hyena, which is what her older sisters had called her as a child whenever she shrieked out
of control with either joy or anger.
* * *
During the 15-hour flight to Seoul, John kept close watch on his carry-on luggage,
which contained a delicate item of great importance to him. It had already been wrapped in
a protective package before Jeong Soo had seen it, so she didn’t know what was inside.
Though John spent dinnertimes with Jeong Soo’s family, which included her son, Jin,
her oldest sister Geum, who was John’s age, her three other older sisters and their husbands,
and of course, their matriarch, Jang, now ninety-five, whom they all called Halmuni, just as
Jin respectfully called her “Grandma.”
John was the only one to tap into Jang’s dormant sense of humor by showing off his
Korean research and calling her Seolmundae, the mythical grandmother on Jejudo represented
on the island by its highest point, Mount Halla.
Translated later for John by Jeong Soo, Jang told her youngest daughter, “John is a good
man. Please keep him happy.” Then she said with a nod and her whisper of a voice, “Looks like
Sean Connor.”
Now John knew how Jeong Soo had gotten the misread on Sean Connery. As he hugged
Jang for her obvious compliment, she ran her gnarled arthritic fingers threw his white beard
and cackled as Jeong Soo and her four sisters bobbed their heads and mimicked the James
Bond theme song. Dah-da-da-dah . . . dat-dat-dah.
To keep the joviality going, John said, “I thought I married Miss Korea, so tall and
slender, but now I see she’s really my own Bond Girl.”
They all looked forward to the next family meal and the joy it would bring their united
family, but John had more somber business to attend to, which Jeong Soo understood and gave
him her support to do.
* * *
That following morning he took the train from Seoul to a rustic village in a fertile valley
surrounded by sharp mountain peaks. With help along the way from young Koreans who spoke
some English, John found what he was looking for.
The farmhouse was much smaller than he’d envisioned. The barn looked freshly painted
and all of the farming used state-of-the art technology. The farm was just as she’d described it,
a chessboard of various shades of green and yellow on the rolling hills between Seoul and the

distant eastern mountains in the center of the Korean peninsula. The yellow squares were

fallow to prepare for next year’s planting. The green squares were ready for harvest to take

to Namdaemun Market at Seoul’s Great South Gate.

Carrying a bucket in each arm, an old man came out of the barn. He wore a straw hat
and as he came closer, looked ancient, ninety or older. He cocked his head to one side sizing
up John and the carry-on luggage he pulled on wheels.
Hopeful, John addressed him in English, “Is this the farm of Kim Lee?”
He nodded as if he understood.
“Are you a member of the Lee family?”
He nodded again, then asked, “Do you want to buy my farm?”
John grinned and said, “No, sir, I’m not a farmer.”
“Then what do you want?”
“Do you know Keum Suk Lee?”
The old man staggered for a moment then looked for a large stone to sit on. He waved
his straw hat in front of his wrinkled face burnished many decades by the harsh Korean
elements.
“Where is she? Has she returned home?” he asked John.
“Are you her father, Kim,”
The old man nodded.
“I loved your daughter dearly, but she died many years ago of breast cancer. In a sense,
she has come home. I have her ashes in an urn here. Her last request was that her ashes be
scattered at the same place in the mountains, where her mother, Bong’s ashes has been
scattered. Please, sir, will you help me find the right spot so I can fulfill Keum Suk’s dying
wish?”
He wept and groaned, but let John help him to his feet.
“First a drink of makgeolli,” he said, waving John into the house and out of the hot sun.
John tried to imagine Keum Sek, called “Para” when she converted from Buddhist to
Roman Catholic, living in this rustic farmhouse. She’d been tormented by her two nasty little
stepbrothers and her cruel stepmother, Cho. Kim had brought his mistress into his home
then married Cho when Keum Suk’s mother, Bong, died of a broken heart.
John assessed Kim as a stubborn man, but saw that he was now a broken man as well.
He spoke of his late wife, Cho, who’d died a few years ago, and his eldest son, who’d became a
police officer and had recently retired. The two younger brothers had met with bad ends. They
belonged to gangs in Seoul, both alcoholics and gamblers. They were murdered in a drug deal.
As they faced each other across a low table in the farmhouse and toasted with
Makgeolli to Keum Suk’s return home, John unwrapped the package he’d brought and
revealed a blue-and-white, Wedgewood-like urn with Korean folk art designs and symbols
that reflected her Korean ancestry.
John felt sure her father had no idea that Para had converted to Roman Catholicism at
age twenty-one. That part of her faith had already been fulfilled. Now it was time to honor her
Korean ancestors starting with her mother, Bong, with whom she’d joined in spirit many years
ago, but her ashes scattered with her mother’s would bind them eternally.
It was a three-mile, uphill trek with stops along the way to catch their breath. They
came to a glacier lake high above sea-level. They each sat on a boulder to regain their strength.
“Was my daughter smart?” Kim asked. “Her mother said she was a smart girl, but I
saw no value in that—not for a girl.”
“She was very smart, and I loved her dearly. Ojini eeayo. She was gentle-hearted.”
“Are you her husband?”
“We might’ve married, but she died before we had a chance. My wife is Korean. She
knows I have Keum Suk’s ashes and respected my need to do this alone. I’m blessed with
a wonderful wife. In spirit, we both believe that Keum Suk brought us together.”
Having mellowed in his old age, Kim smiled and nodded.
“I haven’t long to live,” he told John. “Cancer . . . weeks, maybe only days left.
I didn’t know that Keum Suk had died, but my oldest son, Yung, knows to scatter my ashes
here, too, but with his mother, Cho’s. How sad that we can’t do right by one another in life,
only in death.”
John rubbed Kim’s shoulder as the old man wept, as he knew Para would with her
forgiveness.
“May I have this moment alone with her?” John asked Kim.
Kim nodded and headed towards the downhill trail then sat out of John’s sight.
“My darling, Para,” John said. “I’ve brought you home. Wait for me here until my time
comes. We won’t be alone because your omma and my yabo, Jeong Soo, will also share this
space in time, which we both know is neither the past nor the future, but only the present. I
have work to do before I join you. I must share our life and those in it with others so they can
fully appreciate the depths of the Korean soul and all its great ancestry. When my work is done,
I’ll join you here at our lake house forever.”
As he scattered Keum Suk’s ashes into the wind and they carried down to the lake, he
envision her waving to him from the dock at the lake house below.
She had embodied three souls in one. Julie was the Korean immigrant who sought
true love with great passion. Para was the angel within her who could fly above the mundane,
finding peace with her accepted Lord, Jesus Christ. Keum Suk was the child, the daughter,
and the lover blessed with two compassionate men in her life who’d loved her as much as
she loved them. Through it all, and with an early passing to join her Korean ancestors, she
had embraced her mother’s sage advice:
“There is no alternative for a Korean woman,” Bong taught Keum Suk, caressing

her only daughter’s soft cheek with the back of her rough hand. “As Korean women we must

trust in the rigid fiber of our Hangukan heritage, yet bend in the harsh wind, simply to survive

for the sake of our ancestors’ eternal peace.”

Although Meg Smith's following story "Christmas with Erbie" is not about my father Herbert Eyre Moulton, it reminds me of my father. Affectionally, he was called "Airbear" (a nickname from French-class), or also, indeed, like the gentleman below: Erbie.
Herbert Eyre Moulton (1927 - 2005) had a distinguished artistic career in the fields of literature, opera, musical and drama coahing and worked with such movie greats as Clint Eastwood, David Warner, Zsa-Zsa Gabor and Alan Rickman. 
Now, enjoy Meg's delightful story.



Christmas with Erbie
By Meg Smith



Christmas is the best time of year. I love summer, of course, and fall in New England is always great, even here, in a city like ours.
But Christmas is special because that’s the only time of year
we get to spend with Erbie.
Uncle Herbert. But as far back as I could remember, we’ve called him, Erbie.
Erbie is incredible. Erbie is smart, and funny --
the truth is, he’s my favorite member of the family.
Every Christmas, someone says something like, “We should do this more often.
You should come more than just at Christmas, Erbie.”
And he’ll chuckle and say, “That’s a fine idea.”
But somehow, we get so busy with our lives, and it doesn’t happen.
But Christmas does, and we get ready.
For me, this year was shaping up to be a really special Christmas. I got myself a date.
I go to Hawthorne State College. Being a state college, most of the students are in-state, and a lot of us are commuters.
But, it has a well-known engineering program, and that does bring in some students from out of state.
One of those was Craig. We met in a physics class. I liked him right away. He was thoughtful, and sort of shy. We got to talking, and meeting up in the cafeteria.
I think maybe he was a little lonely, with his family all on the other side of the country.
So, as the semester was winding down, I asked him:
“Are you flying back home during the winter break?”
“Actually, no,” he said. He looked down at his books, which, honestly, I found really cute. “I’m gonna stay here. Pick up some winter credits.”
“Ah, winter session,” I said. He nodded. I felt slightly under ambitious. I was planning four weeks to just work my part-time job at a videogame store, and otherwise, just relax, spend time with my friends, and  let my brain deteriorate.
“Well,” I ventured, “You could do with a home-cooked meal in the middle of all that studying. Why don’t you come to my family’s house for Christmas dinner?”
There was a moment of terrible silence.
Did I overstep some magical line I couldn’t see?
“Know what, that sounds great,” Craig said, in this matter-of-fact way, like, it was natural and logical. That just charmed me even more.
“Awesome!” my voice sounded girlishly shrill. “I’ve got your number, I’ll text you!”
I said.
The days got closer, and I felt this tingly anticipation as if I was a little kid. Everyone noticed it. My mom smiled, and of course, I got some teasing from my brothers.
“Sis is growing up,” said Jax, nudging Scott.
Scott sputtered with disdain -- not at me, but at Jax.
I’m generally regarded as the “baby” of the family, and maybe that’s just because I’m a girl. Scott is two years younger than I am.
Jax is older by a couple years, a widower, and staying at home “to help mom with everything,” although I think mom does just fine.
Also, he’s saving for school, so he says.
It’s like any family, I guess -- everyone knows something is true about someone, but no one says anything.
It gets to me, sometimes. But it didn’t get to me this year.
I was working hard on my degree. I had a little money saved, from my video game store job, and from doing some tutoring at the college. I was musing about internships, although I was also thinking about switching my major.
And, I met this guy, Craig, who made me feel kind of giggly and foolish, but with all my responsibilities in life, I decided I was allowed.
After all, how much longer could I get away with indulging the giddiness of an adolescent?
It was definitely compensating for last year’s Christmas disaster.
Right before school was off for the holiday, I found out my so-called friend, Edith, had somehow amazingly woke up in a sleeping bag with my so-called boyfriend, Dirk, at a party at the house of my other so-called friend, Regina. Who never even invited me.
It all became clear, after the fact, and too late. That Christmas, I was up in my room, sobbing, trying to get all the crying out so I wouldn’t look like an hysterical fool.
And who came to my side, but Erbie.
He caught me in the hallway, going from the bathroom, and I turned my face away.
“Hey,” he said. “I know a heartbreak when I see one.”
He didn’t say, “You’ll get over it.” He said, “Sometimes, people do these things. It’s not your fault. And I know someone’s gonna feel very lucky to meet you someday.”
And he patted me gently on the shoulder. “Thanks, Erbie,” I said, softly.
“Thanks for understanding.”
That Christmas felt like a million years ago, and that seemed like someone I knew, instead of someone I was.
Finally, the day came. A new Christmas Day. Everything was going to go just right.
It was beautiful -- clear skies, a light dusting of snow, just a hint of frost in the air.
Under the Christmas tree was a wreckage of paper and boxes, and our two cats, Phoebe and Fibber, crashed out asleep in the middle of it all.
“That could be the picture for next year’s Christmas card,” Jax said, dryly.
“That’s true!” I said. I thought it was a brainless idea, but I didn’t care. I was in the best mood. Not even my dumb, underachieving brothers could wreck it.
Don’t get me wrong, I love them, but I’m sure most sisters with brothers think of them as first-class pains.
Getting Christmas dinner ready was quite engrossing, and I was glad. I made the stuffing, and my special whipped potatoes with cheese that is my own speciality,
thank you.
It helped to keep away the Christmas-date nervousness.
My mom smiled knowingly. She’s the best.
I went upstairs to get ready. I put on a new, green dress, and makeup.
I felt more like a famous actress than just someone going downstairs for dinner.
Craig arrived, punctually, at 1:45 p.m., just like I asked him to, so we could get settled and have dinner by 2 p.m.
Honestly, it’s not like we’re all sticklers for time, but I knew if I put it to him like that, he would observe it fastidiously.
I could have shown everyone a picture of him on my phone -- if I’d taken one.
 I’d never thought to do that, and I felt weird saying something like, “Hey let’s take a selfie,” when I couldn’t think of a good reason to do one.
We’ll do it at Christmas, I told myself. Before dinner. Or after, maybe.
That giddy feeling, again.
My mom and I went to the door.
 I could see from my mom’s gleaming expression she was already approving. Accomplished, and handsome! You could see it in her eyes.
“Hey, man, welcome,” my brothers said, offering brotherly handshakes.
We got settled around the dining room table with an efficiency that my family seldom musters on any Christmas day. Table set precisely, and elegantly.
My brothers were actually wearing dress shirts and ties, without being prompted.
Mom wore her most beautiful dress -- well, I expected that from my mom.
And me, with my date, Craig, sitting beside me.
“I hope you won’t mind,” mom said to Craig.
“But it takes Erbie a little time to get downstairs.”
“That’s my uncle,” I said -- realizing that I hadn’t even told him.
“Of course not,” Craig smiled. “I’ll just feast my eyes,” he said, looking over the spread.
I have to admit, it did look pretty spectacular this year. Almost like a magazine.
In the midst of my exaltation, for the first time in my 19 years, I felt this weird ache. Each Christmas means another year passing.
Things seem the same, year after year -- the tree, the gifts, the dinner, waiting for Erbie -- but they’re not.
A Christmas will come when maybe I’m arriving from across town, or even someplace else in the world, with my own husband, and maybe my own kids.
And one day, some of the people around the table won’t be there. One day, mom won’t be there, or my brothers, or even Erbie.
There had been a Christmas when my dad was there, but that was when I was only two years old, so I barely remember.
“Everything okay, dear,” whispered my mom, who was sitting on my other side.
“Um, yeah, I’m great.” I squeezed her hand under the table,
and flashed a smile to Craig.
Then Jax started telling a story from work. He works at a convenience store, so, whenever an awkward silence threatens to move in, he always comes up with a funny story about something that happened.
This one was about a customer with a tinfoil hat. We all laughed, even Craig, with a surprisingly hearty, delectable laugh.
Then, I said, “Maybe I should see if Erbie needs a hand.” He was getting older, and maybe, the stairs harder for him to manage.
Just then, we heard the measured creaking, and a slightly labored breath.
“Sorry, all!” a wheezy voice called. A voice we all knew and loved. “I’ll be late for my own damn wedding!” I swear, he says the same line every year, and we all laugh.
Even Craig laughed. “Your family’s cool,” he said closely, in my ear, and I shivered the most delightful shiver.
We all looked up, and we all stood up. That’s another tradition we do -- standing up with Erbie enters the dining room.
“Merry Christmas, Erbie!” we all sang out. I looked around the table -- even my brothers looked perfect, and beautiful to me -- everything looked perfect, and beautiful.
When I looked at Erbie, in the golden light of the dining room, even I was taken a little aback.
I guess when you don’t really see someone for a year, they change.
He doesn’t even live that far away -- just upstairs, in his very own room, in the finished attic, and he only makes this trip down this special day, once a year.
He supported himself for a moment against the doorway of the dining room, and looked us all over. He has a -- I don’t know what you’d call it -- I think of it as an auxiliary eye.
We’ve always argued about whether that eye actually works, but Erbie and mom always swore up and down that it does, and that if we didn’t behave as kids, Erbie’s auxiliary eye would scout us out, and he’d report to Santa, and that’s that.
Of course, we laugh. That’s a tradition, too.
His weight surged forward, on what I guess you’d call an auxiliary pod. As in, pseudopod, except it’s not a false foot at all. It gets him around, and the rhythm of his shifting gait is one of the dear rhythms of our lives.
I touched Craig’s arm. He had stood up, too, just a beat behind us all, because, hey, this was a new thing to him.
His arm shook, though. “It’s okay,” I said. “You’re family.”
But his face had run a pasty green color, that faintly reminded me of The Grinch, which made me sputter a laugh.

Our gaze was all shifting to Craig. “You okay?” I said.
Truthfully, I was getting a little disappointed. Okay -- if you’re not used to someone’s appearance, fine -- but don’t stare.
Which he did.
The air suddenly stung with an acrid smell.
I looked down, and caught sight of his slacks, and the puddle pearling on the wooden chair.
“For real?” I said aloud, before I could stop myself.
Now Erbie focused all of his vision on Craig.
We all exhaled, and pushed our chairs back.
My brothers came over to my side of the table, Jax in between me and my mom, and Scott alongside Craig.
We all latched onto Craig, stumbling a little over the dining room chairs.
He let out a fading scream, but it died midair.
All year Scott had been working on this so-called choke hold, which I thought was stupid, but now I could see its perfection.
Erbie had now ambled up to our side of the table, and there was no struggle, as such.
The glow in his eyes was warm, and kind, and full of gratitude, as it always was.
Craig vanished into Erbie’s arms, his auxiliary arms, and legs, and eyes, and heart.
This was not just appetite.
It was pure love.
And it was because of me. I’d done it.
I felt so proud.
It made up for that failed year, when, in my teenage rage, I told my boyfriend and two fake, ex-friends to forget about coming to my family for Christmas -- that they could starve, for all I cared.
I got a boatload of hell, the one and only time I think my mom ever yelled at me and even Jax and Scott had to calm her. But Erbie -- he totally understood.
Besides, my brothers had gone out, found a kid sitting in a car. He was throwing a temper tantrum and refused to go in the store with parents.
He was, screaming and cursing all the words he wasn’t allowed to say in his parents’ presence.
He yelled and swore at all of us, and Erbie, too; the TV was left on, and he saw his own “missing child” photo, and flailed an arm at the TV, shouting, “ That’s me, you ffff --”
Still, since last year, it bothered me. I had let Erbie down, even with his consoling words and assurances. “Hey, the kid was worth the wait,” he said. “Comedy, too. Goes great with a good meal.”
But this year, I didn’t need any assuring words, I didn’t need anyone telling me they understood, or not to worry.
After dinner, we always liked lounging around in the parlor, feeling lazy and fat and happy, and watching a Christmas movie on TV. “A Christmas Story.”  A movie where you know all the scenes and all the lines, and laugh just as hard every year, every time.
The later part of Christmas day is always when that poignant feeling sets in, of another year done.
This year was a little different. Mom, Jax and Scott all decided to head upstairs a little early.
The dark was coming. The Christmas tree lights glowed hazily. I liked the idea of people passing by, seeing our pretty tree in the window.
The papers and boxes were still crumpled up with the two cats sleeping in them.
Erbie was reclining, resplendent, in the recliner chair only he ever sits in.
It waits, untouched, the whole year, until he is ready to relax after dinner and watch a favorite movie.
Some years, it’s “A Christmas Story,” and some years, “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
He breathed deeply, with his own rhythm, that somehow reminds me of an old boat, creaking against the docks. It always comforted me.
I was half-sitting, half-laying on the couch, next to his chair.
When a commercial came on, he drew a rumbling, slurry sigh and said, “Kid, I gotta...I gotta tell you something.”
“Was it -- okay?” I twinged with a bit of anxiety.
“Nah, nah. That was all good. All good. This is something else.”
Before he said, I almost  knew it. My eyes began to burn, as if ready to cry at the right moment.
“Now, listen. I don’t want any crying stuff. I’ve had a good run. Hell, I think I’ve even outlived my doctors.” He chuckled, a wheezy, sloppy chuckle, like I remembered from Christmas past, but this time, the sound was almost unbearable.
My tears flowed, and I couldn’t stop them. “I thought -- I thought you never went to a doctor!” I said through my snuffling. “Mom said you were just born -- where you were, right upstairs in your room!”
“That’s true. Hey, I made a bad joke. I’m allowed. Kid, I can feel it. I got lumps, all over. It’s cancer. That’s what I get for smoking, maybe.”
I lunged from my chair, and almost fell on top of him. “We can get you to a doctor!” I demanded.
He smiled. He has the biggest, most broken, most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen, and it just made me cry harder.
“Kid, this is how it is. I love Christmas, but this is the best damn one I’ve ever had.”
By now, I was just a pathetic waterfall.
“C’mere,” he said, clearing his throat with a gurgle.
Don’t worry. It wasn’t a perverted thing. He just wanted me to sit in his lap, the way I had as a kid. And that was how I remembered it -- his bulk, like a big, wonderful, warm blanket, to hold me and protect me forever.
I settled in -- a little more clumsily, I admit, as a young adult -- and I was afraid I’d hurt him.
But he just chuckled, and held me, deeply.
I had a plang, a kind of regret, that we only ever had Erbie with us at Christmas. But, I realized, that’s the way he wanted it.
Not a lot of talk about jumbled chromosomes. And, definitely not how grandma planned to put him out in the trash the day he was born, on a lonely December day, when the wind had stripped the last leaves from the trees.
How mom, his older sister, saved him, squirreling him into a closet before she could wake up, and act.
And how my grandmother became the first Christmas offering.
Or all those who followed...my dad, my brother’s dads, my brother’s assorted wives and girlfriends, even that bratty kid in the parking lot. And now, Craig, mine.
Pride glowed again within me.
At that moment, they appeared before me in a shining, starry chain, as I gazed through blurry tears at the Christmas tree lights.
I closed my eyes.
Erbie started singing a lullaby, like he would on those long-ago Christmas nights, when I was little. His voice was like a trilling, a mysterious song bird you hear in the woods but can’t see.
“Children, children, run to the moon, and throw her a kiss for me.”
He coughed, and had to regroup himself before going to the next line.
I don’t know if it’s an actual song, or if he just made it up.
It was okay to feel like two or three years old again, in a warm and safe place, running to the moon, and blowing her a kiss as she smiled a kind, forgiving smile at the Earth.
 
THE END
 

The Honesty of Meat
 
​By Jeff Blechle


Cheery bells and snowy gusts, peppermint sticks and mushroom sauce guided Bobby through hungry dreams until he woke up with a mouthful of last night's round steak and jabbered something up at his hungover, mean-eyed stepmother who then spanked the season out of him acting like this round-headed result of her husband’s first marriage had just smacked her cooking right in the face.
“You little sneak.” Deedee looked like a frosted flake in winter window light. “Just let that be your breakfast!”
Bobby gave her thanks and praise and gagged on his meat.
Deedee smacked his ear. “You can pull that crap at your mom’s house but not around here!” She stomped out of the bedroom and slammed the door and yelled down the hallway.
Bobby spit the mouthful into his nightstand drawer, then called one of the bullies at school that took his lunch money. “Chomper, I want my stepmom to have a really, really bad Christmas.”
“So do I. Wait—who is this?"
“Bobby Dubas.” He heard How the Grinch Stole Christmas! during Chomper’s silence, then scary laughter, breaking glass, the f word.
“Dubas the Doofus?” Chomper belched. “Nuts! What do you want, Doofus? And how'd you get my phone number anyhow? I oughta—”
“Can you come to my house tonight and steal all Deedee’s presents?”
“On Christmas Eve?” Bobby listened to Chomper roll something hard around in his mouth. “What’s in it for me?”
“Deedee’s presents.”
“Just lady presents? Heck no. I want your presents too. And your dad’s. And your sister Shawn’s since she’s a tomboy.”
Frosty pause. “Ok. Come late tonight. Down the chimney.”
“Nuts, Doofus! I ain’t coming down no chimney! Leave the front door unlocked. Geez.”
“Merry Christmas, Chomper.” But Chomper had already hung up.
 
Sometime after midnight Chomper arrived at the only house on the block with pink flashing Christmas lights crowning in a shrub under a window. He shoved his bicycle into a snowy evergreen and spit purple. “The Doofus better not be playing a trick on me. Nuts. I should have brought snacks.” He shrugged, adjusted his snug Santa suit, his white beard, swung his empty sack over his shoulder, trudged onto the front porch, went inside, and loaded his sack.
Winded after his crime, Chomper found the bowl of leftover round steak and potatoes that the dog had refused. Bobby had placed it on a window box above the pink lights about four feet off the porch. “Nuts. How’d I miss that? Oh well. Hulk hungry!”
Chomper learned over the railing, slipped on a pile of screws, the railing collapsed, and he flipped headfirst and crotch deep into a snowdrift. His sack of stolen gifts and their sharp corners landed between his pedaling legs.
 
Bobby trembled down the stairs with his sister, he in boots and winter coat, Shawn in summer pajamas. Christmas morning smelled like the tail end of another old-man poker game in their sticky orange kitchen. The siblings wiped grimy tears from each other’s cheeks and crept up to the half-lit Christmas tree. Santa Claus's Party played in the kitchen and Dad was curled up by a buzzing space heater and Deedee towered over everything like an icy suit of armor. She pointed at a present under the tree about the size of a crock pot.
            “Bobby, where are the other presents? What have you done, you little sneak? Ooo, I am going to tenderize your ass!”
            Bobby put all his ten years into his expression, his swallow, and his voice, “Why would Santa forget us?” He zipped up his coat.
            Shawn ran bawling to Deedee, who bumped her into the Christmas tree box. Shawn sprang up like the devil and threatened everyone’s lives.
             “Shawn! Bobby!”
“Leave em alone, Carrie,” Dad grunted from the floor.
            “Carrie? Who the hell is Carrie? Ooo, I’ll deal with you later, Jim.”
“Jim?”
            Then Deedee went after Bobby. He ducked her weapon, dove under the tree, and lifted the big wrapped box against her boobies. “I don’t know what happened to the other presents,” he cried. “But look! This one’s for you . . . mom.”
            Deedee lowered Dad’s nightstick into the bowl of an old toilet that never made it to the curb, then took the gift from her kneeling stepson. “To Mom from Bobby and Santa.” She swallowed loudly and sniffed. He pulled on his mittens. Something must have got in her eye. He cinched his furry hood. She sniffed again and knelt and removed the wrapping paper and opened the box. Inside, in a stained corner, stood the glob of Bobby’s chewed up round steak. She looked up at Bobby’s sparkling eyes and giggles.
            “Merry Christmas, Deedee!”
            He almost made it to the door.

The House Party

by Anita G. Gorman


Big cities were just too big, Jeremy had decided, so he moved to Ashleyville, Ohio in hopes of finding a community where he would feel at home. Ashleyville needed a pharmacist, and that's what Jeremy was. Single, self-reliant, hardworking: that's how he would describe himself.
He had already accepted his new job when he began to have doubts. What if the citizens of Ashleyville were narrow-minded and provincial? What if they were unfriendly? It was too late to have regrets, so Jeremy made his move and found a house to rent on Elm Street, within walking distance of the drugstore off the village green where he was to work. He was going to share responsibilities with another pharmacist, he had learned. A very good thing, since the pharmacy was open for more hours per week than he cared to work.
He moved in over the last weekend in June and was scheduled to start work on Monday. No one came to his door to welcome him. He sat in the backyard on Sunday afternoon reading the local newspaper and some magazines he had brought from the big city. Then he started reading a book, a mystery he had picked up before he left his old home.
No one seemed to be home on either side of him; at least, no one came to the backyard. He was beginning to feel lonely.
On Monday Jeremy began work. Everything at the pharmacy seemed normal, organized, and just fine. At the end of his shift, he went home to his rented house. He sat in the backyard. Two children were playing next door. He waved to them, and they waved back.
By Friday he was wondering what he had gotten himself into. Is this an unfriendly town? Did I make a mistake? What to do, if anything?
He thought about his plight and called his sister Janice.
"So, how's it going in the little town?"
"I've been here for a week and I don't really know anyone, except for the people at work. No neighbors have come over. I thought people in small towns were supposed to be friendly."
"Remember what Mom used to say when things weren't going right?"
"Yeah, what are we going to do to remedy the situation?"
"Right. I don't think you should wait around for the neighbors to show up. Lots of people are really unaggressive. They wait for other people to invite them, or they stay at home, or they just exist in their little comfort zone."
"So, what do you think I should do, invite them over?"
"Absolutely. Why don't you have an open house this Sunday? I know there isn't much time, but you could put flyers in the neighbors' doors tomorrow and invite them over on Sunday afternoon."
"What'll I serve? I'm not much of a cook."
"Look, Ashleyville isn't the big city, but I bet they have supermarkets and Chinese take-outs and pizza parlors. You have the money, so I don't think we have a problem here. Of course, you won't know how much to buy if they don't RSVP, but I don't think you have time for that. Heck, what you don't use you can freeze, and you'll have dinners for a while."
Jeremy pondered her remarks.
"Jeremy, are you there?"
"I'm here. I'm thinking, I'm thinking, like Jack Benny used to say."
"So?"
"OK, I'll do it. I'll say lunch on Sunday beginning at 12:30. I'll put my cell number on the flyer and my email address, but I'll say they don't have to RSVP; they should just come on down!"
"Remember what Dad used to say when we were in tough spots?"
"Yeah, we're having another adventure!"
Saturday came, and Jeremy wandered up and down the street putting flyers under doormats or in screen doors. Then he returned to the house and his mystery novel and tried not to care if anyone showed up at this party.
By 12:30 p.m. on Sunday he was ready, with numerous tasty dishes from the Chinese takeout, the pizzeria, and the local supermarket. He made up his mind that whatever happened, he was not going to be disappointed. People could have lots of reasons not to show up on a summer Sunday afternoon in Ashleyville, Ohio. What if he were a neighbor? Would he show up at a stranger's house? He wasn't sure.
He left the front door open and the screen door unlocked. At 12:30 he heard a knock. The two children from next door and their parents were there, and the mother was carrying what looked like a cake.
Before long there was a parade of neighbors, old and young, single people and families, all carrying something to eat.
"Hi, I'm Mary Cataline. I live at the end of the street. I'm sorry to say that I don't know my neighbors. Thank you for this."
"Jeff Longsbury. Glad to meet you. Thanks. I appreciate this."
Soon they were eating and talking and laughing together.
"Why didn't we do this before?" That was a woman who called herself Grandma Weatherly.
Jeff Longsbury looked up from his pizza. "Someone new had to tell us what's wrong with this street."
Grandma Weatherly smiled. "Let's do this kind of thing once a month. My house next."
It seemed like a good idea. Now all Jeremy needed was someone to mow his lawn and someone to date. If not on this street, maybe around the corner.

THE SWITCHEROO  ©

a novel excerpt
by
Gerald Arthur Winter
 
 
“Junior”
 
 
Seen by tens of millions on national TV and the internet, my third strikeout in ten pitches against MLB Batting Champ, Cesar Montego, had resounded globally. “Pitching prodigy, Bonnie Swift,” as they referred to me, had been on news anchors’ and talk show hosts’ lips all month long. My name had been broadcast from coast to coast on the media circuit 24/7. Then, after forty days of stardom, my bright candle suddenly flickered out. I became old news and still had no team, no offers, and no future interest in my pitchingtalent by anyone who mattered.  I was too young to be considered in the future. As a girl, even with my unique talent, I was more of a joke to scouts than a prospect. 
 
Pop said I’d become like a circus sideshow with him as the organ-grinder and me as his monkey doing tricks to entertain curious gawkers with my unhittable pitch. Once he realized we’d lost our direction in the media whirlwind, Pop stopped taking calls to book my appearances. He’d turned down the past dozen offers from the
media to appear on the air or in public, and for thousands of dollars. For my sake, Pop decided we’d had enough. His gifted daughter would never become a reality-show freak on his watch.
 
“You’ve become like a sailboat stuck in the doldrums without a breeze to carry you to your proper destination,” Pop told me. He’s an English teacher always expressive like a poet. He would’ve become a Major League pitcher himself if he hadn’t injured his arm in an auto accident. He was counting on me to succeed where he’d failed. Not
really a failure—just rotten luck.
 
It seemed all we had left were unrealistic hopes and aspirations.
 
I’d overheard Gram arguing with Pop: “Instead of fifteen minutes of fame, Bonnie got more than a month of public attention and enough money to pay forfour years of college. Be grateful and leave it at that.”
 
I adore my grandmother, but she’s very set in her ways.
 
“I am grateful,” Pop said.
 
“Then why so sullen?”
 
He just stared at her.
 
She stared right back, the way she did when I told a fib. She and Gramps raised me after my mom died. I hadn’t seen much of Pop till I turned seven. He was too broken hearted over losing Mom. I never knew her, I’ve just seen photos, because she died when she gave birth to me and my twin brother, “Junior.” He died that day, too.
 
“Face reality, Jack. It was wonderful, but that’s all there is, all there ever will be.
Concentrate on making Bonnie keep up with her studies so she doesn’t waste all that money she’s earned. I can’t fathom it. Can you?” she asked Gramps, but he’d already dozed off in his recliner.
 
“I’ll see that she gets a good college education,” Pop said. “But Bonnie wouldn’t stop pitching now, even if I told her to. She’s put in too much time to ever let it go.”
 
She’d given her opinion, as usual, but Gram knew not to push it with Pop.
 
* * *
 
Over the next three years, Pop had stopped coaching Little League. He was concentrating all of his free time after school and on weekends teaching me everything he knew about baseball and pitching. Hard times had passed, and Pop had regained tenure in our local middle school teaching fifth graders. He would read “Casey at the Bat” to his classes every April on Opening Day and would show the video of me striking out Cesar Montego, the best hitter in the majors for the past three years, though he still got the brunt of ridicule every season because an eleven-year-old—a girl no less—had struck him out on TV and was seen by millions on YouTube.
 
Pop used my achievement as an example to his students, conveying that nothing was impossible for them to achieve if they believed in themselves.
 
Students often quoted him as saying: “Truly talented people must rid themselves of all self-imposed limitations. To achieve your greatest desire, always believe in your dream.” Wind of Pop’s quotes eventually reached my ears. At fourteen, changes in me had occurred day by day, but my teen years had come much too soon for Pop, even though my maturity was bringing me closer to an opportunity for a Major League try-out.
 
I’d come a long way from my adolescent awkwardness. For Pop, the day I’d won a pitching contest for kids at Yankee Stadium must have seemed like ions ago. His longing to regain that feeling drove him to build an addition onto our old house in the empty lot he’d purchased. My customized bullpen with Major League dimensions allowed me to practice pitching at home every day regardless of wet, cold, or windy weather.
 
All the practical advice from friends, especially from Gram and Gramps, had opposed its construction, but only Pop could imagine building that space for me, hoping, as I did--my day would come.
 
“The empty lot is big enough for an entire baseball field,” Gram argued.
 
“It’s too cold outside for five months out of the year,” Pop countered.
 
“If you ever want to sell your home, that monstrosity will bring down its value,” she argued.
 
Even Gramps, with a sad nod, had to agree with her practical logic.
 
Pop persisted, filling that space with training equipment to keep me in top condition for if or when that opportunity would ever come. He mirrored all four walls and the ceiling, so when I touched the rubber on my regulation mound, I’d see myself from every angle. Pop would spend an hour every morning before school, and two hours every evening after dinner, as well as a few extra hours each weekend training me and critically observing my pitching. I would practice twice as much on my own, for an hour before Pop woke in the morning and again two hours before dinner.
 
I’d go into a meditating trance when I was alone, getting so deep into my subconscious that I’d experience that sensation scuba divers have with rapture of the deep, no longer able tell if they were swimming to the surface or heading deeper to the ocean’s bottom and certain to run out of air. It felt euphoric, that my reflection and I were one. Sometimes I couldn’t distinguish between the two, as if I were having an out-of-body experience that often made me feel giddy imagining some magical experiences, like talking to my twin brother in my head, but seeing him at my same age as me, as if he’d never died.
 
In my mind, the reverse image of myself and I had become one, but each with a complementary purpose of making us whole. As an eighth-grader, I looked at my reflection, then at my hands in front of me in the bullpen to separate the pitcherfrom myself—Jack Swift’s daughter, his blood. Or was it “Junior” I saw? In my mind,
 
I’d hear him say: Someday we’ll be the closing pitcher in Yankee Stadium.
 
* * *
 
Gram intruded on the pursuit of my dream that year at our Thanksgiving dinner.
 
When I excused myself from the table, complaining of stomach cramps, Pop started to get up to follow me. He was always attentive to my needs, being as much my physical trainer as my pitching coach. He was always over the top on both counts.
 
Gram clutched Pop’s arm before he could leave the table to follow me. From the bathroom down the hall, I could hear them talking about me.
 
“Leave her be,” Gram said. “It’s nothing you can stop, and for once in Bonnie’s life, something you can’t control.”
 
“I resent that!” he snapped back, looking to Gramps for support, but this time Pop got none.
 
“You used to tell your teams that it’s just a game,” Gramps said with a shrug.
 
“What happened to that sound advice, Jack? You’re out of control with Bonnie’s training.”
 
“Everything I do is always in Bonnie’s best interest,” Pop said.
 
“Keeping her well-fed, warm, and safe,” Gram said, then threw up her hands.
 
“You’ve gone too far! Bonnie’s at the age when she needs a woman’s touch—someone who can teach her more than pitching a baseball—someone who can go in there and explain to her that she’s not dying, but just having her first period.”
 
Jack hung his head in his hands.
 
Gram got up from the table. “I’m not going to be around forever, so I’m going in there to talk Bonnie through it. But if you think you can do a better job—be my guest.”
 
Pop shook his head, cradled in his hands.
 
“That’s what I thought,” she said. “What good will pitching a baseball do Bonnie in years to come when she’ll have a family of her own to care for.”
 
Gram knocked on the bathroom door off her kitchen and closed the door behind her, leaving Pop to wonder if my great moment had already come and gone.
 
* * *
 
On the drive home that Thanksgiving night, Pop turned off the car radio playing Christmas carols and touched my hand.
 
“We need to take a break this winter,” he said. “I want to be fresh with new ideas next spring about how to get you seen by minor league teams. You deserve a breather till then.”
 
“Me? Nah. I’m fine. Don’t worry,” I said. “I won’t overdo it and hurt my arm.”
 
“Maybe we should tone down the intensity of your practice sessions,” he said.
 
“From what Gram tells me, you practice in the bullpen even when I’m not around. Maybe we both need to cut back on baseball. You need to broaden your perspective, especially regarding stuff I feel awkward talking to you about.”
 
“Gram thought I was starting my first menstrual cycle,” I said. “I let Gram tell me all about it. Old people are so weird about that stuff. I wasn’t crying because I was scared.
 
I was hoping that’s what it was, so they were tears of joy.  I’m the last one in my class. The mean girls at school say I’m not really a girl because I can pitch better than all the boys and I hadn’t had my period yet. They say nasty things about me. You’re worried that my TV appearances could turn me into a circus freak, but to the kids at school I already am.”
 
Pop sighed. “I’ve been out of touch with you about everything but pitching.”
 
I gave him a hug. He was all I had to cling to.  “Don’t sweat it. You’ll figure out something to get me a crack at the Majors. I’m still in it to win it,” I said, sure that my pitching would keep Pop from drifting away from me. But lately I felt I was drifting away from myself, floating away from Bonnie, the girl I’d come to know so well, and could depend on.
 
Sometimes I imagined I wasn’t me at all, that I was Junior and looking at me through his eyes instead of my own. It could be frightening when we were alone with no one else to talk to. It used to be a conversation between us, but with puberty coming to the fore, Junior seemed to be doing most of the talking and I was doing all the listening,
as if he resented me. Ugh! Boys can be so immature.
 
* * *
 
The next morning, as I came out of my room ready to warm up in the bullpen, I heard Pop’s phone ring through his closed door. I heard him stretch then grumble before answering. “Gram, it’s only five a.m.”
 
I laughed about the way Gram always nagged Pop. I went downstairs without hearing more. Gram’s usual pedantic banter didn’t come through Pop’s speaker phone.
 
Instead, it was a muffled whimper.
Even after a big Thanksgiving dinner yesterday, I was up early and set the timer for Pop’s coffee. Its aroma soon filled the kitchen. In the morning stillness, my pitches in my custom-made bullpen made thudding sounds against my target.
 
“Mornin’, Pop!” my voice echoed across the bullpen. “I’ve been working on a new pitch I want to show you. It’s really cool. Maybe unhittable.”
 
I continued rambling as Pop approached me, but he put two fingers to my lips to silence me.
 
“What’s the matter, Pop?”
 
“It’s Gramps . . . I’m sorry . . . we’ve lost him. He passed away in his sleep. Gram needs us.”
 
Tears welled in my eyes as I shuddered and dropped my mitt onto the floor. The baseball fell out of its pocket and rolled across the bullpen. We embraced then Pop led me to his pickup and he drove us to my grandparents’ home a few miles away in Toms River.
 
Pop put his right arm around me as he drove. I trembled, feeling the pain, for the first time in my young life, that Pop must have suffered when Lydia and Junior died. That feeling was unbearable, making me question my dream of making it to the big leagues.
 
How empty and frivolous it seemed without Gramps to see it happen.
The only words of comfort came to me with Pop’s voice in my head:
 
“Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright.
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and little children shout.”

I felt like one of those little children wanting to shout with grief. Gramps had been my only positive male authority figure. Pop had been no use to me in his grief over losing my mother and twin brother in childbirth. Gramps had been wise and kind and loving, a dedicated family man who’d kept food on the table and a roof over the heads of Gram and my mother, Lydia, through good times and bad. He’d done the same for me, too, until Pop had begun to
make amends when I turned seven.
 
Not only had Gramps been a rock for his own family, he’d treated Pop like a son, even at Pop’s worst when his grief had turned him into a bitter drunk and a neglectful dad. Until yesterday at our Thanksgiving gathering, Gramps had remained a man of sound reason and quiet judgment to offset Gram’s often didactic personality.
 
I realized it was for my sake that Pop was holding up through Gramps’ wake and memorial service at the same church where Lydia and Junior had been laid out in caskets fourteen years ago. I could see from Pop’s expression that he was struggling with his recollection of that day. Junior must have been in a small, closed casket that was no
bigger than a picnic basket. Lydia would have been lying in her casket, like Sleeping Beauty, as if Pop’s kiss might have brought her back to life.
 
Now Gramps was gone too, along with others Pop had treasured, including his own parents—dead and buried—mere shadows now, whom I sensed he longed to see and touch.
 
He carried that need in his slumped posture as if he were carrying a heavy burden up a steep hill.
 
Of Pop’s own choosing, his brother Davey was dead to him, even though my uncle still worked only forty miles away in Atlantic City, or so I’d gathered from brief exchanges between Pop and Gram, which would quickly stop whenever I’d enter the room.
 
I confronted him about Davey at my eighth-grade graduation, another special occasion without my estranged uncle’s presence. Pop hadn’t spoken to his older brother since their chance meeting on the boardwalk six years ago. I recalled how Pop seemed to
 
regret that brief encounter and hadn’t spoken to me about Uncle Davey since.
 
After my graduation ceremony, I said to Pop, “I’m starting high school. I’m not a little kid anymore, so I have a question.”
 
He seemed leery about what I might ask.
 
“You never talk about my Uncle Davey . . . What’s with that?”
 
“You have no grandparents on my side of the family because my parents, mine and Davey’s, were killed in a car crash when I was nine and Davey was twelve. We had no relatives to take us in, so we were sent to separate foster homes.”
 
“Why to different homes? You’re brothers. I wouldn’t want to be sent away from my brother. My brother died, so I have no choice, but you still do.”
 
“Even at age twelve, Davey had been in trouble—shoplifting, vandalism, and always getting into fights at school. Child Services decided to keep us apart so he couldn’t become a bad influence on me.”
 
“That’s mean. Maybe if he’d had a little brother to look after, he might’ve stopped getting into trouble.”
 
“He protected me from fights in school before that. Sometimes the fights were my fault. I used to get picked on by older boys for using big words they didn’t understand. Davey would step in when I was outnumbered. He was a tough kid, a scrapper, but never had good sense to avoid getting caught. I was upset about our separation. I was allowed to write to him, so I did, but he’d never written back. I didn’t hear about him again until he joined the Marines at eighteen. He was wounded in Iraq, but the injury was as much mental as physical. I went to see him in the VA hospital, but he wasn’t glad to see me.”
 
“Why?”
 
“After his injuries, he became addicted to pain killers then other drugs. When your mom was pregnant, I’d told him not to contact me until he’d gone through rehab. I hadn’t heard from him or seen him until that day we saw him on the boardwalk. Do you remember?”
 
“Sure, Pop, but he didn’t seem so bad. It makes me sad that we don’t see him once in a while.”
 
“I’ve assumed the worst about him, but some of my boardwalk friends have told me Davey still works at one of the casinos in Atlantic City, just as he’d said he would when we’d seen him that day. I hope he’s okay, but I prefer not to bring his dark element into your life. We have enough to deal with. If he contacts me and can show me he’s been sober and drug free, I’ll consider seeing him, but not before.”
 
“I guess you know best, Pop.”
 
* * *
 
The rest of that Thanksgiving weekend Pop and I pampered Gram. She was a strong woman with many friends in her church, and she tried to quell the pain of her loss by playing cards and shuffleboard, baking cakes for bazaars, and attending cover-dish suppers for seniors.
 
I saw in Gram, a woman who could survive the loss of a spouse better than a man, better than Pop had when my mother died, leaving him alone to raise me. Without help from Gram and Gramps until I turned seven, I realized that Pop wouldn’t have made the cut as a single parent.
 
After languishing most of the day after Gramps’ funeral, and Gram finding comfort with some of her close friends from church, Pop kept me close at home and tried to snap me out my gloom. Putting me back on track with my baseball training seemed the best diversion from our grief.
 
As we reclined on the living room sofa, watching, A League of Their Own, a movie we’d seen a dozen times, Pop clapped his hands to rouse me.
 
“How about showing me that new pitch?” he said. “I can’t imagine how it could be any better than your sinker. C’mon. Show me.”
 
“It’s not better, Pop, just different, but not how you’d think.”
 
“C’mon. Let me see it.”
 
I took my time and stretched. As we started to enter the bullpen, the doorbell rang.
Disappointed by the interruption, I slumped my shoulders.
 
“Must be UPS with the new baseballs I ordered,” he said. “It’ll only take a minute, then I’ll be back to see your different pitch.”
 
I leaned against the bullpen’s entrance and watched him go to the front door. He was surprised to see who was standing on the front steps.
 
“Jimmy?” Pop said, making my ears perk.
 
“Happy Thanksgiving, Coach,” Jimmy Stattler said with a nod as his eyes darted back and forth.
 
“Same to you,” Pop said, looking up and down the block to see what the young
 
man, now standing six-feet-four, was looking for at the end of the block in both directions. “You’re old enough to drive, but I don’t see a car. Did you walk five miles from
 
your house just to wish me Happy Thanksgiving . . . two days later?”
 
“Sure, Coach.  I mean, you did teach me a lot about baseball, and I’m thankful for that, but . . . well . . . I heard Bonnie’s grandfather died. I’m really sorry. He came to all our games, but I . . .” Jimmy paused trying to see past Pop.
 
“Did you want to say something to Bonnie about her grandfather?” Pop asked, always the teacher anticipating what questions were on students’ minds.
 
“Bonnie?  Oh . . . Is she home?” Jimmy asked, trying to be nonchalant.
 
“Sure,” Pop said, seeing that he was still looking back and forth down the street.
 
“Would you like some hot apple cider? Pretty cold out today.”
 
“Uh, sure, Coach.” Jimmy darted past him and into our house.
 
Pop looked up and down the street then closed the door. “Does your dad know you’re here?” Like a study hall monitor, Pop eyed us. “What’s going on here?”
 
Jimmy blushed, but I became his willing spokesperson: “Jimmy’s car is hidden on the next block so his dad won’t see it parked in our driveway. If his dad knew Jimmy was here, he’d ground him. Mr. Stattler doesn’t approve of you, Pop—or me.”
 
“You’re seventeen and Bonnie’s almost fifteen. She not getting into your car.”
 
I huffed, “We just want to practice pitching together, but his dad would never allow it. We hoped you would.”
 
“Pitching--just pitching?”
 
“Just pitching, Pop. Don’t you trust me?”
 
“Sure. What about you, Jimmy? Can I trust you?”
 
“Yes, Coach—I swear,” Jimmy stammered.
 
“The door to the bullpen stays open at all times,” Pop said.
 
So it did, but Pop was clueless about what was going on. Jimmy and I vowed to keep it that way.
 
Pop must have smiled when he heard my infectious laughter in the bullpen. A bond had formed between me and Jimmy that I could share only with Junior, though
 
I still wasn’t prepared yet to tell Jimmy about my twin brother’s spiritual connection to me, how I’d never known Junior in life, only since his passing. Friends were too hard to come by for someone like me, the freak of nature that I felt I was becoming. Jimmy and I shared the love of baseball and that’s where it would remain for fear of losing the only person close to my age I could talk to without giving away my secret.
 
Now, in retrospect at twenty-one, I understand that the saddest day of my young life was also the happiest. On that Thanksgiving weekend seven years ago, I’d lost Gramps and longed for his wisdom, but I’d found Jimmy Stattler, the same bratty boy who’d tormented me before I’d bloomed into the image of my mother, Lydia, that
 
I am now. I’m still thankful that Jimmy came to our door that dark day to give me his condolences, because from that day forward we’d love each other forever.
 
I thought, if life is made of such miracles, perhaps I could still pitch for a Major League Baseball team. Why not as the closer in the World Series? As Pop often said:
 
“Dream and believe, but always remember, when your dream comes true, be thankful.”
 
___________
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 

Fangs
By Jeff Blechle


I placed my tool bag in my other hand and turned the bell knob. Lightning struck the midnight, then, “Come in!” Inside, a long flight of stairs reached up into darkness. I climbed, and after passing two landings with doors of their own, stood on a Busch rug eye-level with the blackened joist of an exposed floor. Above that, lamp-lit horror movie posters cornered the ruddy vaulted ceiling. The same voice said, “The furnace is in the basement.”
“Where’s your thermostat?”
“In the narthex!”
 I climbed more steps, found it, set it. A toilet flushed, then a tall, pale, black-haired man appeared in a beige t-shirt near a wooden post. He smiled. “You’re the new guy. Cool. Come on. To the bat cave.”
His shoulder blades worked like bellows under his shirt as I followed him down to the first landing. He opened a door and offered me a flashlight. I took mine out of my bag. “After you,” he said. We descended.
“Scared?”
“Born,” I said. “How long have you rented here?”
“About two-hundred years.”
I stumble-scuffed onto an octagon landing and dust rose in my stirring beam. “Which one?”
“That one.”
We passed through an eight-panel door to more stairs, first concrete, then, turning a sharp corner, stone. How did they run the ducts?
“Are you afraid of vampires?”
A rush of tingles grazed my flank. “Real ones, yes.”
“How real?”
I turned around to curl my lip and he blinded me. The property manager told me to watch out for this guy.
Descending again, his footsteps sounded closer, scratchier.
The steps led us to a small round room with three doors embedded in its walls. I trembled my tool bag and flashlight into my left hand and, fresh out of wooden stakes, pulled out a screwdriver. His white hand reached over my shoulder and pointed at the middle door.
“That one.” Sewer breath.
I clumsily opened it onto a narrow, brick-lined hallway with a dirt floor. I couldn’t turn around so I eased forward. “Damn. I hope I won’t have to go back to the truck for anything.”
“You won’t.”
In the close dampness, sweat ran over my fist and onto the screwdriver handle. The hallway ended in a T.
A deeper voice, “Left.”
Determined not to go another step, I led the tenant to a door-less diamond-shaped dead end. Again, a hand reached over my shoulder, but this time it pulled a string and illuminated the diamond. Laughter darkened it. I whirled around to a mouthful of sharp shiny teeth in a reared-back head. I dropped my tool bag and the flashlight and, gaining leverage from the wall behind me, plunged the screwdriver into his heart.
His eyelids flew away. I let go of the heavy wet handle. Crinkled string swinging between us, I watched plastic fangs dislodge and relax crookedly in his mouth before he crumpled onto the dirt floor.
 Apparently, no one ever found his body.
​

Tricky Treats

By Ed Ahern



The stand went up the afternoon of Halloween. It perched next to the street in front of an old house.
There were two painted signs on the front of the stand.
The one higher up read:


There’s a Trick to Our Treats


The one lower down read:


Take one and begone in fun
Take more and troubles begun


The Gobeline couple that had rented the house were really old, and their neighbors, much younger and still breeding children, wondered why they’d moved in. Still, they kept their yard very neat and made no noise.
At dusk, when daylight had all but disappeared, Mr. Gobeline pulled out a big cart filled with sweet things. There were Marzipan animals, and Berliners, and Schneebȁllen and
Bienenstick and Bremer Klabe. They were sealed in what looked like factory plastic wraps and were wonderfully delicious looking.
Old Mr. Gobeline, pinch cheeked, pointy nosed and stooped, pulled the empty cart back into the house and left the stand all to itself. Toddlers and tots, whose parents brought them Trick or Treating in late daylight, stopped in front of the stand. The young mothers formed a defensive cordon.
“I don’t recognize these candies.”
“Why isn’t one of them here?”
“No, Sally, don’t touch that.”
But one of the fathers, after pretending to read and understand the German labeling, ripped open the wrap on a Bremer Klabe and gulped it down in four bites. “Absolutely delicious. Tastes like it’s just from the bakery.”
The mothers, realizing this was a perfect excuse to violate their diets, each took a different confection and tried it. “Marvelous.” “No preservatives.” “Not too sweet.” They wanted to take a second one, but there were too many witnesses.
“Okay, Jimmy, take just one.”
“Linda, try this one.”
As the evening darkened and latened, the age of the children increased. As did their greed. Older kids sometimes took two sweets rather than one, and several teenagers took three. At nine pm Mr. Gobeline emerged from his house without the cart and walked out to inspect the
stand. There was not a single sweet left, just empty wrappers strewn around. He picked up the wrappers, took down the signs, and carried everything back into the house.
Mrs. Gobeline was waiting for him.
“Did we do well?”
“Ja, wunderbar. At least three hundred. The effects will be starting soon. Are you ready?”
“Natürlich. I’ll be so glad to get out of this costume and back to our cave. Let’s go.”
And the Gobelines drove away. An hour and a half later, those who had eaten only one sweet felt only full. Those who had cheated with bienensticks were seized with rank flatulence.
Those who gorged on Bremer Klabe vomited a multi-colored gruel. Overdoing Marzipan lead to violent convulsions. Berliners were time bombs that exploded with diarrhea in the middle of the night. Schneebȁllen produced snot loaded nasal gushes. Five mothers who stole and ate their child’s confection had it worst, suffering from insatiable thirst and incontinent urination.
Texts and phone calls provided supporting music for the ambulance sirens. It was morning before the neighbors decided that the Gobelines’d got them, and broke down their front door. But the only thing of note that they found was just that, a note. It read:


Hope you enjoyed the true spirit of the holiday.


end

​
Ed Ahern

resumed writing after forty odd years in foreign intelligence and international sales. He’s had over two hundred fifty stories and poems published so far, and six books. Ed works the other side of writing at Bewildering Stories, where he sits on the review board and manages a posse of six review editors.
https://twitter.com/bottomstripper 
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https://www.instagram.com/edwardahern1860/

The Tale of Jack Finnigan


by Dawn DeBraal




Samhain, the end of the summer, the beginning of the dark winter months. Cald sat near the bonfire watching the costumed villagers dance around the flames. This was the night the dead walked the earth. So that the dead would not be recognized, the villagers put on costumes that allowed the returned spirits to roam, free from discovery. It had been like this for as long has Cald could remember. The stories told by his grandfather and father and now the very ones he told, kept the children interested on long winter nights, when they were cold and hungry, but kept entertained by his stories. The scariest story was that of the pumpkin headed man, a tale with true origins.
Jack Finnigan a villager in Newgrange, Ireland carved out a pumpkin for the Samhain Festival and wore it upon his head. The story was told long before Cald’s grandfather’s time.
Jack wore dark clothing using the pumpkin as his mask. Everyone laughed seeing the funny man walk about the village. The eyes of the carved pumpkin did not quite line up with his own eyes, so Jack fell down several times. It didn’t help that he drank copious amounts of mead.
Jack had always been the laughingstock of the village, having taken to drink like a duck to water. Known as a happy drunk, always dancing, singing making a joke here and there. But this night, he was at his funniest with the large pumpkin he had pushed his head through.
Jack walked through the village scaring children by jumping out from doorways, and rain barrels. At first it was funny, but when the children started to cry, the villagers grew angry and chased Jack out into the woods with pitchforks and torches. Jack disappeared into the forest but later it was discovered that several children were also missing.
The next morning a group of the villagers formed a posse just before dawn to search for the missing children. The angry villagers carried torches while they searched the woods for Jack who they suspected of taking them.
Sticks were used to beat the bushes, every shack was searched, but nothing turned up. A farmer went out to his field where he discovered a pumpkin on the
ground. The discarded pumpkin had been carved with a hole cut at the bottom large enough to allow a man’s head to slide into, and a pair of eyes and a mouth had been cut out making this into a mask. This was the path Jack Finnigan had taken, the villagers were sure, and they ran in the direction of the found mask. As the morning drew long, there was no sight of the children or the person they suspected of taking them. Days turned into months, months into a year. Neither the children nor Jack were ever seen again.
Each Samhain, a pumpkin is carved with a face and set out on the doorsteps of those in the villages wanting to protect their children. A candle is lit and placed inside of the pumpkin illuminating its face to ward off the dead. “Stay away from the children of this house,” the pumpkins proclaim. The villagers call these shining pumpkins, Jack O’Lanterns.


THE END

Halloween Costumes
​
By Anita G. Gorman

Here it is, my 90th Halloween. And once again I am planning my costume. The neighborhood children love to see what I have on when I open the door. Sometimes I think they laugh at me, but when I’m dead, they’ll miss me. Some old coot will probably buy my house and put a No Trespassing sign on the front fence and a padlock on the gate, maybe even some barbed wire on top. As for me, I’m the friendly sort. I’m also a little odd.
I remember my first Halloween costume. I was a gypsy with a long skirt, frilly blouse, big, bangly earrings, three long necklaces, and a bandana on my head. I knew what would happen when I wore the costume. The gypsies would find me and take me away to their camp in the woods. There I would dance around the bonfire and eat strange gypsy food and be adopted by gypsy parents who would not make me go to school. I was afraid they would spank me, as my parents sometimes did, though not very often. If I didn’t have to go to school or clean my room—no one has a room at a campsite—what was there to spank me about?
The next year I wanted to be a cowgirl. In those days you could buy cap guns with holsters and caps that would make a loud noise and leave a smell of burned paper. I wanted a set of guns and a belt with two holsters for my birthday that year, and somehow I got it. And a cowgirl hat. No boots. Cowgirl boots would have been
hard to find in our town, and they would have been expensive. So on Halloween that year I wore a blouse and a skirt, ordinary shoes, and my gun belt with the two holsters and the two cap guns. And my cowgirl hat. I knew what would happen when I donned that costume. I would shoot my way out of my house and out of town. At the edge of town, a horse would be waiting for me. A little horse, since I wasn’t very big. I’d gallop to a ranch where they would take me in. I would be hired to be in charge of the herd. I’d make lots of money, no one would punish me for anything, and I’d never have to do the dishes or clean my room. Other people at the ranch would do that sort of thing.
The next year I decided to dress as a princess. I had a crown on my head and a magic wand in my hand. Somehow I managed to buy some netting at the five and ten cent store, and I just wound it around my growing body, over my pink dress. This time I knew that once I reached the end of my street, a handsome prince would come along and invite me to his castle. At the castle there would be no homework, and no one had to eat liver and onions.
The next year I decided to dress as an old woman. I borrowed a cane from my great-grandfather. My mother had an old polka-dot housedress—does anyone wear a housedress these days?—and I put on the housedress and hitched it up with a belt from one of my little-girl dresses so I wouldn’t trip. I found a plaid shawl and wrapped it around my neck. I took baby powder and sprinkled it on my hair so it
would look white, just like an old woman. And then I made my hair into a bun, with big hairpins sticking out all over. This time there was no gypsy band, no ranch in the mountains, no handsome prince. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be old. It was easier to believe in a magic wand than it was to believe that I would ever be old.
So, here I am, now 90 years old. No point in dressing up like an old woman, since no one would think I was wearing a costume. I think I will be a gypsy this year, with a bandana on my head, and three necklaces around my neck, and a long skirt that will conceal my sensible shoes. I hope the neighborhood children admire my costume.

The Lost King

by

Mehreen Ahmed


Based on a plot told orally

by

​Vahid Husen Sayyad


Daisy was held under a dark, mystifying spell. Nestled by the cozy fires of her drawing room, she sat this evening on a rugged floor in her palace. She moped about an incident which occurred in her laboratory last night. She looked lazily out of the tall French windows and viewed a full moon, a flying saucer of gold. The enigma touched her. She became distracted. Her five year old daughter Chevon, ran around the large drawing-room, braiding in and out of aged furniture. Chevon stopped short and looked at her mother. She stepped forward. A doll lay on the rugged floor by a varnished wooden table. She picked it up and looked at her mother again.
Daisy wore a white tee shirt and black shorts. She lived in this palace with her daughter, and their Nanny. The Nanny raised them both over two generations. She raised Daisy, now twenty-six, the Nanny was fifty-five. But the Nanny never got a respite. As soon as Daisy grew up, Chevon was born. Her duties as Nanny resumed.
This morning, at an unearthly hour, Daisy woke up in a gilded bed. She heard a beak knocking on the window pane. A black crow sat on its ledge. Heavy curtains separated the two earthly creatures. She asked, what was up? In coarse words, which only she understood crowed, ‘messed up‘ ’messed up’.
A knock on her bedroom door, her soft voice coated thinly in drowsiness.
“Who is it?”
“It’s me,” a female said. “I brought you breakfast, Miss Daisy. May I enter?”
“Come in?”
The ornate palace door was made of solid old oak. It hinges creaked, when it opened. The door tunnelled. A dark tunnel. Daisy squinted her eyes. Nanny came flying through. She flew in and landed gently on her two feet at the footrest.
‘How’re you this morning, Your Royal Highness?”
“Hmm. Tired. Say, what’s for breakfast?”
“The usual, porridge and orange juice,” the Nanny replied.
Daisy, looked at her and then at the food.
She blurted out.”Who prepared breakfast?”
“I did. Why?”
“No, just asking,” Daisy replied.
“Now, eat up, dear. Slow and easy. Relish it.”
“I still feel faint, Nanny,” Daisy said.
“Are you tired from last night’s experiments?”
“Maybe, I’m not sure,” Daisy said.
She took the first scoop of porridge from the bowl. The spoon melted into the porridge. She saw it; she felt nauseous. She pulled her bed clothes over in a heap, climbed down the bed and ran into the toilet. Nanny looked concerned and she ran after her. Daisy bent over a gaping hole and threw up. She looked down to see what exactly she vomited. She saw green phlegm floating down in a dark pit.
“Are you okay?” Nanny asked, hovering over her head.
“I’m good,” she answered.
“What’s wrong?” Nanny asked. “I don’t know. But, I’m going to find out soon,” she answered. “Say, is Rupert at home?”
“Yes, he is. He was asleep, when I woke up to prepare your porridge.”
“Hmm, has Chevon eaten yet?”
“No, I am about to take a bowl of porridge to her too.”
“Look, never mind her porridge. I’ll prepare it myself. Can you ask Rupert to see me in the lab, please?”
“Okay, if you say, so. I have been raising the two of you over two generations, you know.”
“I know, Nanny,” she smiled. I love you, too.”
The Nanny left. She grumbled and wondered, what was Miss Daisy up to. Daisy, however, walked up and down the room in her tee and shorts trying to find the cause of her nausea. She had fallen asleep by the fire with Chevon last night. She had no idea who brought them upstairs. It must have been Nanny and Rupert. She drew the curtains apart. Spring blooms in her garden. An ocean of pomegranate stretched across the rolling, lush lawn. She stood on its edge. She saw pomegranate seeds dribble out of a broken shell; fallen through; the lawn turned red.
She was engrossed in thoughts. What had happened in the palace laboratory last night? She was trying out one of her inventions. The metal war suit in red. She was playing around with its settings, trying to get its speed right. It must work. She must be able to fly in it, go places, time travel, at the touch of a button on the inbuilt supercomputer suit. She must be able to land back safely in her laboratory too. It was a giant suit. She began to feel faint in it. She came out and fell down. She was out for a few hours, until she came around by herself. How could that have happened? She thought she was invincible, a superhero in that suit. That she stood now at her garden’s edge after she threw up again this morning. The seedy red lawn at her feet lay to the far end.
Oh! That porridge! That porridge must have caused all this. She must not forget Chevon’s porridge. She must make it herself. She didn’t know anymore what was going on in the palace kitchen. She must also let Nanny and Rupert take an early retirement. They must be relieved from their duties. No matter, there was much love between them, Nanny and Daisy. After all Nanny raised Daisy. Without her, Daisy wouldn’t be King today.
Back in the day. 1788. The battle of Northumberland, a decisive battle took place which had mapped her Kingdom of Northumberland. Rashtra had annexed it, this neighbouring state. Now the proud rebellious nation was in the grips of its much hated King __ King Corrom. Daisy seized the opportunity. She had her red war suit ready. She and her brother, the King of this annexed state decided to fight back.
They garnered strength by gathering a large army. They approached another vassal state, Cobra. The King of Cobra agreed to assist. King Cobra was in possession of a large and a mighty army. Two states combined forces. They rose against the common ruling lord. A brutal battle ensued. It was a rain drenched day, on the outskirts of the state of Rashtra. The field was camped with royal tents over by the horizon. Daisy appeared in her metal red suit to fight yet another war. Her brother, the King by her side, except he was not in any suit. The war was bloody. The field couldn’t soak up enough blood that day. Her brother fought valiantly. However, a sudden sword thrust cut through his heart. The King fell. Daisy, in all her efficient armour tried to get him off the battlefield as fast as she could. But she realised, she too was hurt.
No. Wait. She recovered in fifteen minutes. In fifteen minutes her near fatal wound cleared. She made an attempt to rescue her brother, but when it came to pass, he had gone. The thrust, too deep, he had lost far too much blood by the time, Daisy brought him back to the camp.
The battle was a win. Long live the King. She crowned herself King.
The battle! Ah! It was all but terrific and terrifying at once. There was a banquet to celebrate the win. The spoils of war were many. The loot was deposited into the royal coffers, the plunder, the torched villages. She saw them. Daisy saw how it had all burnt. She had overheard the brutal rape cries; the slaughter of children on long spikes. But she turned a blind eye. Grave war crimes were committed. Murders took place. They were committed in the name of the state, but were pardoned. Because, the war was a necessary evil.
Daisy shed tears. Today, she cried for her noble brother, which no King should do. Show tears. But her sorrow took a dive into the abysmal pool of depression. It was beyond reprieve. She saw the moral demise of all the King’s men. Most deplorable, murders, cuckoldry, and coquetry filled up the shady palace halls. She dared not to find out about the martyred King, who had too succumbed to it once when he was King. God Knew and legend had it. God knew, the dead King had illegitimate children littered across her Kingdom which she now ruled.
After all these years, at twenty-six, Daisy stood in her palace kitchen making porridge for her daughter Chevon. The King, long gone many centuries, too short. The battle was well-documented in the preserved pages of history. She mourned. Did she mourn for the corruption in the palace? Perhaps, not, she was too used to it. Her own uncle and cousin tried to dethrone her.
Yes, they did. They planted Rupert as a spy as Nanny’s husband. They thought, no Kingdom was large or small enough for them. They felt that only they had the anointed rights over the kingdom. Back in the laboratory. 2020. Daisy, at twenty-six, sat in front of the computer, trying to tweak her red super suit. Make it perfect.
In it, she reached for the cosmos. She viewed the stars and floated through the galaxy's space-time at a speed of light. She travelled the skies. She fainted. Someone called her mummy, mummy. She heard a distant call. ‘Wake up, I’m hungry’. She struggled to open her eyelids in a dark room. She lay on a farm bed in tee and shorts. She looked at her. It was Chevon. Chevon clutched her little doll and stood by her bedside. There was a door in this room too. But they were plain white, not ornate, nor old oak. Her windows were not heavily curtained and no crow beaked at the pane. Bunches of rhododendrons spread over the white picket fence of her hilltop cottage, not strewn with pomegranate red seeds. This day; another moment; yet, another time loop would soon lap her up.

Burial At Sea

By Roger D. Hicks


Robert Jordan, which had not been his name for the first fifty years, stood on the stygian deck of the anonymous US destroyer as it plowed its way at three quarters speed through a moonless night surrounded at excessive distances by the other members of its battle group cruising toward a ceremony which Jordan’s life and life’s work had brought him to by special invitation of President Harris herself. As he waited for the captain, in whose quarters he had eaten a late dinner after his helicopter landed, Jordan quietly considered how thirty years of working devotedly for the greatest enemy of his new and dearly beloved country had brought about this ceremony and his attendance. The ship was carrying the small group of principles to this ceremony along with its regular crew. As the captain, soon to become an admiral, had explained to him during dinner no one on board even knew that a ceremony was set to take place except that small group of principals, Jordan, the captain, the chaplain, and six anonymous sailors all chosen for their top secret security ratings and all brought in with Jordan from other ships scattered over the world. Those six sailors, despite their collective trustworthiness, did not even know the exact nature of their job that night. It was 2035, more than fifty years after this long, despicable saga had begun and Jordan remembered that time, when as a young agent in Russia’s FSB or national spy agency, he had been chosen for what seemed a fairly simple assignment which, at the time, constituted only a small portion of his entire work load in New York City where he had been posted after a few years work post training in Moscow.
His superiors, including the man who would eventually oversee the entire agency before moving on to bigger and better things, had considered him a natural for assignment to America based on a carefully built shadow life as a minor anti-government dissident and mildly successful business man. He had grown up traveling the world with his father, a career KGB officer. Jordan attended the best private schools where he learned a multitude of skills necessary to an aspiring spy. He spoke Russian in addition to English, German, and Spanish, all nearly without discernable accents. He knew the law applicable to the United Nations and a dozen consortiums of colluding nations on both sides of the perpetual war of worldwide influence. He was an expert in the use of nearly every lethal weapon known to mankind although he rarely found the need to use one. His work was much more subtle, subversive, silent, and yet equally important to his birth country and her security forces.
In New York, he was provided a steady flow of rubles laundered through several ever changing agencies and individuals which was intended to make his source of wealth appear impressive and simultaneously indiscernible. He came and went, a young, intelligent, handsome, and intriguing immigrant who could often pass for a native of his locale. He remembered now that initial meeting nearly fifty years ago, in a failing casino in New Jersey, which had ultimately led to his standing on the blackened deck of a US destroyer, by invitation of the President, awaiting the final ceremony for the other attendee at their long past meeting. He had received orders from Moscow to become an unsuccessful high roller in that slipshod operation in New Jersey and to make contact with its putative owner. That man was to be characterized by his many weaknesses, dishonesty, unjustified ambition, amorality, and pathological lack of veracity. Robert Jordan, in his old persona and with his original name, had gambled often and poorly until finally that casino owner, also characterized by his lack of business skills and deep in unredeemable debt, approached him at the roulette table one night, patted Jordan effusively and falsely on the back, introduced himself with the words, “I
see you’re losing a little tonight, not like your usual big wins. You’re a wonderful gambler, lucky, very lucky, my kind of gambler.” If he had actually been a successful high roller, Robert Jordan knew he would have likely been spurned by this pathological liar and braggart because his wins would have further endangered the failing operation. But the braggart was the object of his work. His superiors, when they gave him the assignment, had provided some basic information about the man and ordered him to discern the rest. The object of his attentions, as Jordan well knew, had applied to Alfa Bank, in Moscow, for loans which no American bank would give him, millions, many millions, approaching a billion dollars American had been his audacious and unjustifiable request. But Jordan’s ultimate superior also controlled much of the commerce at Alfa Bank and was always seeking weak, manipulable individuals who could be controlled by fueling the sources of their greatest weaknesses, especially if they also had contacts which led to others who might someday be able to serve the FSB willingly or unwillingly.
Robert Jordan’s assignment had been to lead this gullible bankrupt to believe he had powerful contacts in Russia and to fuel his weaknesses with gifts, bribes, and enticements intended to draw him in ever deeper much like a fly landing in the net of a hungry spider. But Jordan also knew that the target’s gullibility, ignorance, and excesses did not preclude him from being the kind of person who would walk happily into that web if it were baited with rubles, women, and praise. As a man of some established level of honor, Jordan had not particularly enjoyed some aspects of his work, finding beautiful women willing to go to bed with any man, no matter how reprehensible, for money. But Jordan found such women, had them brought to New York from Russia and took two to the casino one night. The bankrupt owner, never one to ignore what appeared to be a willing woman, approached the table as the two harlots hung on each of Jordan’s elbows. Both were low level agents in the FSB and knew their work well. With prompting from Jordan, they catered to this failing ignoramus and Jordan allowed them to leave him at the roulette wheel which he immediately abandoned as the three entered the elevator to the penthouse. His work for that night was done and he had a positive report to write for Moscow. The women and the video obtained too easily via cameras in their jewelry and purses told Jordan the next day that he had been successful. That video was the first such which Jordan placed in an ever growing stockpile to be used by his superiors at some future time.
Within a few weeks, Alfa Bank approved the loans which they never expected to collect on in monetary terms. They knew the payback would not come in American dollars or rubles. They were hoping for some other, yet unseen remunerations. They were playing a long term game. They would wait. Jordan followed orders from his superiors explicitly and developed a reputation within the agency for quiet but important successes and a great deal of skill in handling an asset who did not even know yet that he was an asset. Jordan traveled the world, played roulette poorly on a few occasions until the casino changed hands, sought further contacts with this braggart, fed him the lies which Moscow required, and led the asset to believe that he was a very important man to Jordan. Yet, at the same time, Jordan smoothly rebuffed the man’s persistent requests to meet someone who could introduce him to Jordan’s superior who, at that time, was not even recognized as being in that position by the braggart.
Jordan moved steadily up the ranks of the FSB, came to know several of his upper level superiors quite well, developed a growing reputation as a skilled agent, and traveled the world on various
brief assignments which also served to reinforce the asset’s mistaken belief that Jordan was a successful Russian business man who simply loved New York.
Finally, with some minor, overrated and overt support along with even more clandestine assistance, not all of which was known even by Jordan, the asset came to be mistakenly seen as a success by many people on both sides of the Atlantic. He managed to manipulate his way into management of a second rate beauty pageant and a terrible television show which painted him as a masterful business man. He persistently requested Jordan to gain him access to the key players in Moscow which Jordan failed to perform but very successfully managed to present as failures of other contacts rather than himself. Their relationship grew and the agency head advised Jordan to both nurture and create unreachable dreams for the asset. Eventually, the man came to believe he was capable of becoming the leader of the entire free world after he had been given copies of the biographies and literary works of Hitler, Milosz, and Machiavelli although Jordan always doubted his ability to read and comprehend such pithy writing. The braggart hired a second rate ghost writer to pen what he was certain would be an autobiographical masterpiece, dictated numerous grandiose lies which converted his multitudinous failures into unrivaled successes, and finally needed the ghost writer to invent a minimally flowery and false title. He even invited Jordan to attend his announcement to the world that he aspired to be its most important citizen. Jordan arrived at the announcement as late as possible, elbowed in as far as possible from the press corps and watched as his intelligence asset, if that were not too magnanimous a descriptor, rode grandly down a gold escalator, spoke in a rambling fashion to the press about his ambition, and induced them to graze over a buffet of his poorly made, over priced, and failing commercial assets. A few days later when he and Jordan met, he regaled the FSB agent with a grand description of his plan to become the most important man alive.
Meanwhile in Moscow, the man in charge assigned a small team of computer experts to assist the braggart by hacking and placing grand stories about him in a large group of media services which catered to the most marginal and least intelligent groups of citizens of America. The agency director had no belief, perhaps not even hope, that this work could be successful until one night while drinking his nightly single shot of Russo-Baltique Vodka he decided to have his computer experts hack into the state election systems of several key American states. He rolled the alcohol around his teeth and tongue, smiled his chilling smile, and realized that he was a genius, probably the greatest and most devious genius in the history of Russian intelligence. That very hour, he awoke his chief computer expert, gave him his marching orders along with a list of the key American states he wished to steal an election from, and slept like a baby for the first time in years.
On the morning after the 2016 election, the most important man in Russia awoke to news that his computer hackers had all earned promotions, smiled his nefarious smile, and finally deigned to make a brief call to this braggart who had gone to bed the night before, for the first time in his life, with the full realization that he was unfit to handle the chore he had usurped. Jordan read his marching orders from the secretive communication channel with Moscow and learned that he had been recalled to Moscow for a “much needed and well earned vacation”. After that, he found himself receiving no meaningful assignments other than sometimes giving boiler plate lectures at the FSB training academy and transporting unimportant people to their unknown assignments around Eastern Europe. The few agents he considered to be his friends never invited him to their dinner parties and he realized that, despite his role in the installment of a Russian agent in the
White House, he was now persona non grata. Based on his years of experience, he realized that he was considered to be dangerous to the agency because he knew too much. Although he slept little, guarded his safety at a level which he had never been required to do before, and wondered when he would be eliminated as had a dozen others who had also known part of the story. He considered his options, death by an agent assassin, banishment to the gulag, suicide, or defection. In memory of his father and his illustrious career, Jordan did not act rashly, made no immediate decision about his fate which he considered to be the one decision which he was still capable of making, carried out his low level assignments just as diligently as he had at twenty-five, and hoped that somehow he would be allowed to escape the usual fate of an agent with excessive knowledge of any major operation.
As he stood on the deck feeling the throb of the massive American engines, Jordan listened to the sound of hundreds of tons of steel cutting the ocean to foam, and marveled that for twenty years he had been able to live, escape elimination, and actually defect to this country which he had come to love and which now considered him a hero worthy to attend this event. In late 2020, shortly after the election which unseated his former asset, Jordan during a minor assignment to Ukraine, happened to encounter a man he knew to be a CIA agent who masqueraded as a millionaire dilletante. This was not their first encounter but Jordan realized he did not wish it to be their last. He took a step only a half dozen or so FSB and KGB agents had ever done and approached the US agent in the restroom of an opera house, slipped him a message on edible rice paper, and went to his hotel to wait. Within six hours, a bellhop opened his door without knocking, spoke to him in perfect English, and offered him a life once more provided he made up his mind within three minutes. Jordan used two of those priceless minutes, left the room as instructed, climbed into the taxi which miraculously appeared as he stepped out the hotel doors, and left Ukraine, Russia, his homeland, his identity, and his dilemma forever. The taxi dropped him at a nondescript warehouse which was held under a non-existent corporation but used by American intelligence and two hours later found himself in a wooden shipping container complete with sound proof walls, food, water, bedding, and a chemical toilet being transported to an airport. After a long, jarring flight, the container was opened in Seattle and Robert Jordan learned that he was considered a very important asset to the American Director of National Intelligence and to the Attorney General.
His Russian life was dead forever. But Robert Jordan, as he was now known, was alive, had an identity constructed over the next six months as he was searched for by the FSB all across Ukraine, Russia, and anywhere else they had an agent. His Russian identity no longer existed and eventually with plastic surgery, intense reading and testing on this fictional life of Robert Jordan, he came to understand just who he was and would be until the day of his death, by whatever means it came. He told American agents everything he knew about their former putative leader, how he had become a traitor, who handled his treason, how his assets were diverted and concealed as they left Russia for his use, and just how much he had given the FSB over the last several decades. The worst part of the entire ordeal was the time he spent, concealed in a series of remote locations, testifying over closed circuit television to the grand juries and trial juries which indicted, convicted, and sentenced the braggart and nearly a hundred of his co-conspirators. The remote location was changed daily, sometimes his testimony was cancelled when suspicion of his discovery made his American handlers jittery. But after months of testimony, the braggart was convicted of treason, and Robert Jordan was handed a new life as a retired plumber from another state who decided to live his remaining years on a small farm growing excellent tomatoes from
heritage seeds along with beans of similar history. He never went to movies or a store. He had no wife, no children, no amusements other than his garden. But he had self-respect and he had his new country which he came to love and which had offered him this last opportunity to be in the same location as the braggart who had died in a prison cell in Colorado after spending thirteen years in solitary confinement.
As Jordan heard the footsteps of the captain and a chaplain on the deck behind him, he smiled and remembered the voice of President Harris as she had asked, “Would you like to attend his burial, Mr. Jordan? If so, myself and our country would be very pleased to give you that opportunity.” Jordan accepted without hesitation, found himself whisked off his little anonymous farm in a blacked out Chevy Suburban by four well armed agents, driven to a small military base where he was put on a plane to another plane at another darkened airport, and thence to the Chinook helicopter which took him at nearly 200 miles per hour to the deck of the destroyer along with the plain canvas bag which contained the remains of the old braggart and traitor, and the six anonymous sailors who would be key players in this last ceremony.
The captain approached silently from the darkness and stopped beside Jordan. The chaplain strode to the rail over the water and turned toward the soft sounds of six men carrying a burden across the deck toward the rail. When they stopped beside the chaplain, the captain uttered his only words on deck, “Proceed chaplain.”
The chaplain quoted from memory in a soft voice which barely made it to Jordan and the captain, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven, A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance. Amen.”
The six anonymous sailors lifted their burden over the rail, released it, turned to salute the captain, and disappeared into the darkness with the chaplain. Jordan followed the captain back to the companion way leading to the officers’ quarters in silence. As the door closed behind them, Jordan heard the captain say quietly, “Beside Osama, as it should be.”
Copyright August 18, 2020


Author’s Note: While this story is copyrighted, the copyright is intended only to protect my authorship. Anyone, any time, anywhere has my unrestricted permission to disseminate this story on any medium whether now known or created in the distant future. You may share it on social media, e-mail, websites, books, magazines, literary journals, or other forms of mass communication. I do not seek or require any form of remuneration for this work other than dissemination of the work. This permission is granted in tribute to my mentor, Don West, who published his life’s work without a copyright. The only thing I ask is that you give appropriate author credit and my brief bio is below.




Biographical Statement:
Roger D. Hicks is an Appalachian writer, blogger, and auctioneer living in West Liberty, KY. His work has appeared in “Northwest Indiana Literary Journal”, “Freshwater”, “Bryant Literary Review”, “True Christmas Stories From The Heart Of Appalachia”, “Wingspan”, “Across The Margin” and numerous other venues. He is currently working on a second short story collection and a biography of an Appalachian coal camp town.

---

Prison Planet 7

by K. A. Williams


Topaz awoke in the top bunk bed, in a barracks full of other women, dressed in a gray uniform of soft breathable fabric and sturdy work boots.

Topaz was confused at first then her memory became clear. She was a robotics engineer that had been tried for embezzlement and sentenced to work on a prison planet. Her lawyer had been an idiot and her trial a joke, she could have defended herself better.

Silver androids came in and started waking up those that were still asleep. Everyone else seemed afraid at the sight of them; Topaz thought they looked like antiques.

The woman in the bottom bunk bed said, "Do you know who I am and what I'm doing here?"

Before Topaz could think of how to answer the woman, one of the androids went to the center of the room and started speaking.

"You are all criminals and have been given a memory wipe. Your sentence is to work on this farm. You will start after your first meal and work until dark with a few rest breaks and lunch in the field. There are separate communal bathrooms and showers for the men and women. Only the necessities such as food and clean clothes will be provided."

Topaz had been classified as a sociopath so she assumed her brain was different than most people's and that was why the memory wipe hadn't worked on her. It had changed her though. Now she cared about other people, and she hadn't before. 

Breakfast in the cafeteria was a tasteless fare with substandard food. When it was over everyone, except the older prisoners who worked in the kitchen, was driven out into the field on solar powered vehicles, given farming tools, and supervised by androids. 

After a day of working in the field, everyone was listless and quiet in the cafeteria at supper. Topaz was unused to manual labor and was completely exhausted. She almost fell asleep and had to catch herself from falling face first into her meal of half rotten produce. 

She looked out the glass windows at the fields of vegetation illuminated by outdoor lighting. All that fresh produce and the workers were eating this slop. Topaz grew angry. 

***

The days passed by with agonizing slowness. The ones whose memories were gone selected new names for themselves. The past didn't matter much here anyway.

One day it poured the rain and the workers were able to come in from the fields earlier. Most changed clothes and took a nap before supper, including Topaz. Since she had rested she was able to stay awake and when the others fell asleep that night, she snuck outside.

She had noticed that the androids were taking the harvested food to a large building near the barracks after the people returned from the fields. One android was standing guard outside.

Topaz pretended to be sleepwalking. The android grabbed at her arm and she feigned a stumbling fall. "Ouch," she said. "I've sprained my ankle."

"I will carry you back inside," the android said. "If you are unable to work in the fields tomorrow, you will work in the kitchen."

Topaz threw her arms around the android's back when it picked her up and felt for a concealed button that she knew was there. She pressed it three times in succession. The android stopped, frozen.

Topaz climbed down and moved behind the android. She pressed the button two more times and a concealed panel opened. Topaz was grateful for the outdoor lighting as she searched and quickly found the override switch and the communication link that connected all the androids.

"You and all of the other androids will obey me," Topaz commanded. "Any previous orders will be ignored."

"Yes," said the android.

"Tell me what's in that building."

"A time portal."

"A what?"

"A time portal," the android repeated.

"Show me."

The android led the way into the building where other androids were standing there awaiting her orders. Baskets of food sat on the floor in front of a large circular opening that was a swirling midnight black.

"What is that?"

"The time portal," said the android.

"Explain," ordered Topaz.

The android told Topaz that there was a food shortage in the future because industrialization had polluted many planets. 

Scientists had discovered wormholes that led to the past and they traveled on spaceships through these wormholes. They searched for and discovered unpopulated regions on preindustrialized planets with suitable warm climates. 

Androids were brought to those planets where they constructed buildings and water towers, installed irrigation and plumbing pipes, put up solar generators, plowed fields, and planted crops. Scientists built a time portal and when all was ready, prisoners were transported there to harvest the crops and send them back to the future. The planet they were now on was called Prison Planet 7.

"Why were these particular model androids sent here and why aren't you helping to harvest crops?"

"We are older models designated to be scrapped before this experiment began. Our fingers are not dexterous enough for picking delicate produce. It would be crushed."

"I can fix that," Topaz said. "Do you have any tools? And I need a bright place to work."

The android showed her a large room in the time portal building that had equipment in it. "All androids come to me now," Topaz ordered and they obeyed.

There were fifty of them in all. She fixed the dexterity of the fingers on ten of the androids. She didn't have time to fix anymore, she was getting sleepy.

"Don't wake us up early, we will not be going out in the field today. Only obey the humans that are on this farm now and no other humans. Is that understood?"

"Yes," they answered in unison.

"You," she said to the android that she had been talking with. "I will call you first android. How often is the food delivered?"

"Every night after humans go to bed," said the first android.

"Has any been delivered tonight?"

"Only thirty percent."

"Then someone will come here through that portal soon. When that happens, you will bring that person or persons directly to me. Do not answer any questions or obey any commands from that person or persons. Is that understood?"

"Yes," said the first android.

"The ten androids I fixed the fingers on are to be called androids two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, and eleven. The rest of you count off consecutively left to right starting with number twelve and that will be your number."

They did that.

"I want androids two through eight to pick delicate produce in the field this morning and bring it to the cafeteria when it's picked. Nine through eleven will fix the humans a delicious breakfast. The rest of you can go into the fields at daybreak and work till noon picking non-delicate produce. Is that understood?"

"Yes," fifty voices said in unison.

Then Topaz went back to the barracks and caught a few hours of sleep. 

***

No one was woken up the next morning and everyone was confused as they entered the cafeteria and got a pleasant surprise.

Topaz's bunk bedmate in the barracks had given herself the name of Eve. She shook Topaz awake that morning. "They're not taking us into the field today and we have a delicious breakfast. Come on."

Topaz slipped on her uniform and boots and allowed Eve to drag her to the cafeteria even though she wanted more sleep.

Everyone was enjoying breakfast and talking excitedly. Topaz interrupted them by speaking loudly and explaining their situation. "My name is Topaz, and luckily I have my memory because I was a robotics engineer. Last night I managed to put the androids under our control. The androids were under the control of people from the future but I have reprogrammed the androids so that they will respond to our orders now."
 
"The people in the future have sent us back to the past to a time when the worlds were not polluted so that we would harvest food for them. The androids will now help and obey us."

"I have posted an android guard in the time portal room. Someone will come here soon to find out about the food supply that I stopped from being delivered. The android will bring them to us and we can negotiate a trade."

Topaz got her some food and sat down next to Eve who started bombarding her with questions, as did others at her table. She only half answered them because she was busy eating.

Before she and others had finished breakfast, many having gone back in line for second helpings, the android guarding the time portal brought in a struggling man.

Everyone in the cafeteria stopped eating and looked at him. 

The man glared at them all in return. "I am Conrad, your warden. What happened to the food shipment? It's almost midday. Why aren't all of you in the field? And what's wrong with this android? Why won't it obey me?" 

Topaz got up and faced the man. "If you want your food shipment, we'll trade. We only have the bare necessities. We'd like an android doctor, medical supplies, and entertainment for our leisure time among other things."

"Trade?! Doctor?! Leisure time?!" exclaimed Conrad. "You're all prisoners and harvesting food is your punishment. You'll do as I say."

Topaz said in a calm voice. "Oh, I don't think so. If you're unwilling to trade, I'll command this android to smash the time portal, after it throws you back through."

Conrad was silent while everyone watched him.

"I know what you're thinking. You plan to use the wormhole to time travel and return here with other androids to force us back to this gruelling work schedule. But at the first sign of invasion, our androids will set fire to the crop fields," Topaz said.

"You're bluffing," Conrad said.

"Am I?" Topaz countered. "This is a planet we're on. We'll simply go somewhere else and hide. And survive. We'd rather stay here where our androids will now help us harvest the food, but we will not work all day long, seven days a week. Also we will no longer tolerate being served food that should have been thrown out but we will trade."

"Even if I agreed," Conrad said, "these androids can't help you harvest all of the crops. Their fingers were poorly designed and lack dexterity. Any delicate produce they pick would be smashed."

At that moment an android returned from the field with a basket of strawberries, perfectly intact. Conrad stared open mouthed.

Topaz smiled. "You were saying?"

"H - How did you? How did they?"

"About that trade," Topaz continued. "We will get a list together for you after we finish breakfast. You can just wait there a few minutes. It's the first decent meal we've had since we got here as I'm sure you know."

“Hey Jealousy”

By E.M. Woods
​


When Scotty Johnson of the Gin Blossoms asked me back to his hotel room after a 90’s tribute concert, I couldn’t believe what was happening. My head was buzzing from the gin and tonic he bought me not twenty minutes earlier. His hand was resting on my knee in the darkly lit bar of Xfinity Live. Was tonight the night that I would get to party with the rock star?
Only a few hours before, I was pulling into the parking lot of the concert venue with my brothers, Stan and Mark, and Stan’s fiancé, Amber. We were looking for a decent throwback concert to our childhoods since we were all raised in the 90’s and some popular bands from the era were playing. Stan and Amber were pumped for Nine Days to play “(Absolutely) Story of A Girl,” Mark was still licking his wounds over Fastball cancelling at the last minute, and I was most excited to see the headliner: The Gin Blossoms.
I had been a fan of the AZ band for ages. In 12th grade, I played the song, “Hey Jealousy” on a dusty cd player in my debate teacher’s classroom, hoping to persuade the class as to why it should be considered one of the greatest songs of all time. My classmate, Alan Schoenbach beat me out with Bruce Springsteen’s “Rosalita,” but only because he brought in his guitar and played along with his cd. Theatrics always sway a crowd.
Eager to prove myself right about “Hey Jealousy’s” classic potential after all these years, I waited all night for the song to play. I patiently endured a band member from Nine Days explain his new career as a teacher. I channeled my annoyance at Mark’s insistence that “The Way” would’ve been the best song of the night into my beer. I didn’t even complain when some drunk 30-year-old accidentally stepped on my feet when they lost their balance. And you know what? It paid off.
From the moment The Gin Blossoms vaulted onto the stage and got everyone going with “Follow You Down,” I knew I was right. The band was everything I’d hope they’d be: energetic, talented and bonus—funny. The lead singer, Jesse Valenzuela made a nice quip about the scantily clad waitstaff before breaking into “Allison Road.” Stan and Amber were tapping their feet along to the music and Mark had stopped complaining. From “Found Out About You” to “Til I Hear It From You,” I was belting out the lyrics and sporting my nerdy, spontaneous dance moves whenever the band decided to rock out with some sick guitar solos. The only time I stopped singing and swaying like some deranged muppet come to life was during the final song, “Hey Jealousy.” They had saved the best for last. The beat and the lyrics captured the quintessential cool of what I thought life should be in high school thru late 20’s (mind you, I was around ten when I thought this, but it all came rushing back): fast-paced, semi-irresponsible, figuring things out the simultaneously hard and fantastically grunge way. This is what life and The Gin Blossoms were all about. Listening to them playing this song felt like a profoundly reverential moment. I almost cried when they stopped playing. I didn’t want it to end. Stan must have sensed my heartbreak because when the band left the stage, he suggested we all head inside the bar for some more drinks.
It wasn’t two minutes before Scotty Johnson spotted me in the bar and bought me a gin and tonic. Our flirting was textbook. I teased him that his last name wasn’t really Johnson; he took my phone and saved his number into it. When the bar announced last calls, Scotty’s hand was on my knee. He leaned in. Then he whispered: “I have a suite at the Holiday Inn. Come back with me.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Amber winking.
I was awestruck. After all, if the universe brought me together with a Gin Blossom tonight, who was I to say no?
As I scrambled my brain for a clever response, my cell went off. “Boyfriend” flashed across as the caller, so I couldn’t play it cool in front of the rock star. Scotty knew I wasn’t going back with him the second I answered my phone. The 90’s were over and so was my time with this Gin Blossom.
It wasn’t until the car ride home that the perfect response to Scotty jumped into my head. They were lyrics from Hey Jealousy: “If you don’t expect too much from me, you might not be let down.”

On the Covers of The Rolling Stones
​

By Gary Wosk


The BANG, BANG, BANG on the front door of their San Fernando Valley bedroom community house abruptly awakened John Meyer, his wife Louise, and their two teenaged children, Bobby and Jane.


John and Louise sat up in bed startled by the commotion downstairs.


This cannot be good, thought John. It’s probably the Los Angeles Police Department.


“Bobby and Jane, I hope they’re okay,” said a suddenly hysterical Louise.


John and Louise slowly emerged from their slumber, slipped on matching bathrobes and to their quick relief, met their children waiting at the staircase. The four slowly walked downstairs together.


Peeking through the shutters, they eyed two young men with long hair wearing psychedelic shirts and bright bell bottom pants. The strangers, one with reddish lips and the other haggard with bags underneath his eyes, seemed unsteady on their feet and each leaned onto the other for support.


Yes, concluded, John, they were high on something. He would have been happier if greasers had been causing the disturbance.


“Leave or I’ll call the police,” warned the hard-nosed John through the screen. A life-time, right wing Republican, he held a baseball bat in his right hand in case the strangers somehow burst in.


“You’re acting like wild horses. Calm it down,” John admonished them.


They banged on the front door again.


“Blimey, give us shelter, please. It’s late, sir,” said the man with reddish lips. He spoke in a British accent. “No need to call the bloody bobby.”


“Give us shelter,” he repeated. “We need to sleep. Fluffy pillows and covers, too, please. You have a spare bedroom, right?”


“Who the hell are you?” groused John.


“Are you barmy? You really don’t know who we are? We’re not rabble rousers, sir,” said the red lipped man who seemed somewhat more sober than his companion. “We didn’t come to your home to cause any problems.”


It’s a lovely place gov’nor. We’re not trouble makers, I assure you,” said the companion, who also spoke in a British accent. John thought he would be surprised if a doctor even found a pulse in this lifeless looking, pockmarked hippie.


“Love, peace and good old fashioned family values,” said the red lipped one.


The two strangers laughed.


“Are you two on drugs?” John asked sternly.


“Drugs, not us, not in the least,” said the man with red lips. “Just two blokes with jet lag.”


Bobby and Jane asked their parents to stand aside so they could peer through the shutters. Each turned to the other with a startled look on their faces.


“It’s Mick!” the freckled Bobby said excitedly. “And Keith!”


“Are you sure?” asked Jane, a blonde with a Marilyn Monroe mole above the right side of her mouth.


“Well, look again,” said her brother, responding to her doubt.


“We won the contest,” Bobby exclaimed to his parents.


“Mom and Dad, we won, we won!” confirmed an equally ebullient Jane.


“Surprise!” said the man with red lips. “Sorry we didn’t notify you. We didn’t want any press.”


“What contest?” said John, now quite irritated.


“Jane and I entered a contest sponsored by Teen Beat magazine. It was called
“Let’s Spend the Night Together with the Rolling Stones.” It’s a sleep-over.”


“Why couldn’t you have won a night with the Beatles?” said the flustered John. “They seem like nicer even though I can’t stand their music. She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah. Who cares?”


“PLEEZ let us in,” pleaded Mick. “If we don’t get satisfaction soon, the deal is off and we’ll go home crying and all. I’m really getting hacked off.”


John opened the door a crack, and then the rest of the way, realizing that the two men were not threatening.


“Okay guys, you can come in. But don’t try anything.”


Mick immediately began flapping its wings in the foyer, his signature dance. He jutted his head back and forth and pointed here and there with his index finger.


“I wanted to prove to you who I am. PLEEZ to meet you. What’s my name?” he asked.


“Pray tell,” said John, who still held the bat in his hand.


“I’m Mick Jagger” He extended his to hand for John to shake.


This is my mate, Keith Richards. Say, do you have a cold Guinness or something to start us up, baby? We just arrived from London, you know. Need to kick back. We leave for New York in two days for an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. Have you heard of him?”


“We watch the show every Sunday night after Lassie and Bonanza,” assured Louise.


She suggested ice tea instead of alcohol, perhaps a soft drink. She and John did not want to see the “start me up” side of Mick or Keith.


Mick and Keith shook their heads at the suggestion.


“We would prefer two jars of beer. said Keith. “We won’t get too mullered. We promise. Have some grub, too?”


“We don’t have Guinness, only Schlitz, honey,” said the worried looking Louise to John, who thought Mick and Keith were extremely rude. She was still wearing curlers which amused the guests. “I can also make some sandwiches.”


“How about a bottle of Jack Daniels instead,” said Keith. Opening up a suitcase and pulling out a plastic bag appearing to contain lawn trimmings. “We would be more than happy to share some of this with you,” he said.


“Mind if we light up?” asked Mick.


“Outside, in the backyard,” reluctantly blurted John. Better than having the smell of marijuana lingering in the house, he thought.


While the house guests waited for their food and drink to arrive, Jane began making goo goo eyes at Mick. He gathered that Jane had fallen head over heels for him. He realized he couldn’t cop a feel because the old man was there.


Let’s spend the night together, now I need you more than ever, he teasingly sang to her knowing that was not possible


“I will say that you do look sweet. You look like my girl back home,” said Mick. “Her name is Angie. Angie, Angie. Sorry to repeat myself.”


Louise arrived with Coca Cola and chicken salad sandwiches.


“Oh, Mother,” said Jane. “Isn’t Mick sweet?”


John expressed outrage at Mick’s suggestion of spending the night together with his daughter. Louise looked like a deer in headlights, not knowing what he was referring to.


“Say, what do you mean by that, sleeping with Jane,” said John, the veins in his temple and neck about to burst. “This is outrageous. Who do you think you are, punk?


“Mick Jagger,” he answered with a grin. “I’ve told you so, weren’t you listening?”


“Oh, he didn’t mean he really wanted to sleep with her,” said peacemaker Keith, his words slurred. “Well, what I mean to say, chap, is that he might a been thinkin’ it, sleepin’ with her and all that, but you don’t always get what you want, if you try real hard, you might find what you need. Don’t you think that Mr. Meyer when you see a young chick, meaning no respect to you Mrs. Meyer.”


You know, Mrs. Meyer, you’ve got a real fighting man there,” said Mick. “He should enlist in the army.”


“He already served in Korea,” said Louise. “Do you want to see his medals?”


“Decorated are you?” said Mick.


John was having second thoughts about allowing the long haireds stay over. His wife could tell he was about to kick them out. He had enough of their flippant remarks.


“Oh, John,” Louise said, “they’re harmless. It’s only rock ‘n roll talk. They all talk that way. Don’t worry, Ronald Reagan won’t find out you let hippies sleep over.”


“We’re not hippies,” said Mick. “In fact, we sometimes hang out with the Hell’s Angels.” He was impressed by Louise’s intervention.


“That’s swell of you, to stand up for me and Keith,” said Mick. “Kids? Did you see your mother standing in the shadows? She was great. If he would have turned us out into the street at this time of night, we would have been shattered…shattered, and it would have been all over now.”


“That’s right,” said Keith. “John, you’ve got a real honky tonk woman for a wife. It’s good to see that wives can stand up in your country and that the husbands don’t have the wives under their thumbs.”


Only the teen-agers knew what they were talking about because they recognized the lyrics.


The Rolling Stones and Meyers moved into the living room and were joined by the family dog, a Jack Russell terrier, quite energetic, a performer of pet tricks even at this hour.


“Nice dog, he is,” said Mick. “A regular Jumpin’ Jack Flash, I do say.”


“His name is Paul,” said Louise.


“Ugh. What a name. Just keep his slobber away from me,” said Mick. “I don’t want forty licks.”


“It’s time to call it a day,” said Keith. “Do you have that room for us? Pillows, sheets and covers?”


“Yes,” said John. “Don’t worry about it.”


“I have a question,” said Bobby.


“Shoot,” said Mick, with kindness in his voice.


“Well, I know this is last minute and all. Would you be interested in giving a community concert tomorrow afternoon at Petit Park. It’s just down the street. I know the park director.”


Mick and Keith mulled the suggestion over. They liked being spontaneous and suddenly showing up in a park they never heard of would be groovy, they figured.


“Yeah, we’ll do it if you get the nod from the park director. Couldn’t do many sets, if that’s okay with you Bobby,” said Mick. “We’d have to get a hold of the other members of the band, have them meet us there. They’re staying in a pad in
Laurel Canyon. We’re meeting with some record company executive tomorrow evening. Is there an auditorium at the park?”


“I was thinking of having the concert on the soccer field. That way many more people could attend. There’s no time to get the word out, but the community would hear the music blaring from the speakers and would pack the place.”


“We won’t play for less than ten thousand people,” laughed Keith. “Hey, If you can pull it off, lad, I say yes.’ I like your spunk.”


“Okay,” said Mick to Keith. “We’ll call our agent and tell him to contact the park and get everything ready.”


After a good night’s sleep, everyone enjoyed a hearty typical English breakfast of cereal, eggs, bacon, sliced tomatoes, sausage, bean, toast and jam and marmalade.


The Rolling Stones, the greatest rock ‘n roll group of all time, gave a thunderous 30-minute concert on the soccer field on June 15, 1965. The first song was their hit Satisfaction followed by Time Is On My Side and It’s All Over Now.


The music could be heard for miles. Thousands of local residents attended. No Hell’s Angels were there and so no one was knifed or killed. No media covered the event because they did not know a concert would take place. This was the largest concert in the history of the San Fernando Valley until the Newport 69 Pop Festival at California State University, Northridge. That concert was headlined by the Jimi Hendrix Experience and featured the Creedence Clearwater Revival, Joe Cocker and Eric Burdon.


People, however, still talk about The Rolling Stones’ lost concert.


###

Dry
​
by Ryan Priest
​

Amelia looked out into the vast, empty expanse. She could see a man coming, crossing the dunes on the Eastern horizon. He hadn't seen her yet but she knew he was coming. Her shack was the only standing structure for over twenty miles in any direction in this especially harsh section of the wasteland.
She left her lookout spot and went inside. It'd take him more than half the day to make his way to her front door and there was much to do before then.
With her heavy metal gloves, she pulled a thin line, lifting into the air, over the door frame, a large iron anchor. She tied the string off, stretching invisible and taut across the bottom of the doorway.
Next, she took the screws out of either side of the trick plank on the floor. She flipped the plank over so that the side with the nails was up. The side that was meant to swing up into the face of an intruder if he stepped foot inside.
She then pulled out her extra-special bottle and the one clear glass. She poured in the liquid. It looked like water. She did not drink. She left the glass and bottle on her wooden table.
"If the anchor and plank don't get him," Grandfather had taught her, "Offer him the cup of acid to drink."
It hurt to admit it but every year that went by after his passing, memories of Grandfather faded a little more. His mustache, white as bone. Stern face, loving eyes. Dusty hours spent learning how to hunt, training to fight. So many days now beginning to blend together in her
mind’s eye. Soon, she feared, Grandfather would be reduced to a fuzzy picture and a few tones of voice, like her parents had, so many years before.
Amelia went into the shack’s one bedroom, formerly her grandfather's and now hers. She lifted her dusty cloak off of her slender body. She next took off her pants, her shirt, until she was stark naked.
She looked at herself in the mirror. Grandfather had been right about her. She'd grown up to be beautiful. He'd always told her she would. Not out of any sense of pride but as a warning. "You're going to be a very attractive woman and that means that men will come for you."
The lines her shadow cast on the wall looked like a rolling landscape of dunes; the first hill of her calf sloping coolly to her smooth thigh, culminating in the round mound of her butt before the low valley of her lower back, the curves rising again along the flawless contour of her spine leading into the trestles of dark hair which, in the shadow play, looked like a dark storm preparing to streak across the serene peaks and valleys.
She liked the way she looked but she didn't have much to compare herself to other than faded photographs in magazines and the few scattered memories of her mother and other women who would come by when she was just a girl. Women didn't come around anymore. Only men, like the one outside, with nothing but ill intent and appetite fueling them.
The thought of sex-hungry men made her flush. She kept her focus and poured her oil down her bare chest coating her skin. She rubbed it all over, down each arm and each leg. She was glistening like polished metal. "If anyone of those bastards ever gets lucky enough to lay a hand on you, you'll slip out of his grasp like a fish."
"Yes, Grandfather."
"Don't ever let one get that close in the first place."
"No, sir."
But she did. She wondered if her grandfather was watching over her and if he was angry or proud that more often than not, she chose to meet the men on the open field, before they even got to the traps. She'd meet them with honor and fight them toe to toe. Not one had ever made it out alive. Men were easier to kill than sand tigers.
She always imaged that her grandfather was proud. She could fight as well as any man.
She took out her outfit, her special outfit, the decoy outfit. A black string top and a matching thong. "This is only for decoy purposes. You get a man thinking about sex and all his other senses turn off."
Grandfather knew everything. He'd told her about how, many years before, when his grandfather was still only a boy, the entire wasteland had been underwater. There were no five-hundred-pound sand tigers, no cats at all. Just water as far as the eyes could see, with enough fish to feed the world over and never run out. Grandfather's grandfather had told him that people had made an awful mistake and it had destroyed the whole planet and disfigured all of the animals. He called it the sin against nature. The old lands had been overrun by the birds. Sky blackening swarms of carrion birds, each as big as a man, with talons that could take an arm off and sharp beaks that could penetrate a steel breastplate. Survivors had been forced to flee into the dry, salty wastelands.
She checked under the bed for Hilda. If she followed the rules, she was supposed to stay right here and wait for one of the traps to do its job. If they all failed then she was to flash a smile and beckon the man closer. When he got within five feet, she'd pull Hilda out from under the bed and chop his head off with her sharp blade.
"Even if you don't take the head off, any wound dealt will still be fatal."
"Yes grandfather." But it was just redundant planning, no one had ever made it passed the anchor.
If she wanted to be a bad girl then she'd take Hilda out now and walk outside to wait for the man.
Could her grandfather's spirit read her mind? She wondered if he knew that she secretly wished a man would make it to the bedroom. It was all she could think about some of the time. Men. How they smelled, how they sounded, how she smiled when they smiled at her. She was tired of fighting and killing, she wanted to see what a kiss felt like.
Sure, some men were vile and feral but others were nice. Some men simply begged for their lives without defending themselves. She didn't want to kill them but she had no choice. At night though, she'd think about those men. She'd imagine herself allowing them to live, letting them touch her, touching them back. She was beginning to get as silly around men as they got around her.
She ran to bedroom's peephole to check this new stranger's progress. He was almost to the house. She tried to see his face but he was still too far away and the dust was kicking up too much to get a good look at him. She didn't know why she liked looking at some faces more than others but she did.
As the man got closer, she decided she liked his face. He was young, his dark cheeks full of life. She liked the clothes he wore, wind tattered and sun baked. She wondered what he looked like without them.
She chided herself for losing focus. Grandfather would be disappointed. She pushed thoughts of her grandfather far out of her mind. She didn't understand it but she hated even thinking of him when she got like this.
What did her grandfather know anyway? Something about men being dangerous and untrustworthy but all of that seemed so unimportant at the moment. The only thing she could
concentrate on was the deep brown of his eyes. He had high cheek bones and she was filled with an overwhelming desire to just bite them. Even looking made her toes curl involuntarily.
She let out a sigh and the volume and depth of its tone surprised even her. That settled it, this one got to live.
Amelia took Hilda out and headed for the front door. Her heart was beating so loud in her chest that she could hear it. It was like she'd felt when hunting or during her those first fights, back when anything could happen, before she'd gotten so good.
Walking out on her porch, the sight of her own bright, glistening body filled her with a wicked confidence. She was doing this, there was no way she wasn't doing this.
The man stopped in his tracks. His eyes, beautiful and brown, grew wide as he saw her. She held Hilda out and he watched startled, as she dropped the sword blade down into the dirt and walked forward, unarmed with a determined leer. The man, still shocked, clumsily threw all his weapons down too before stumbling towards her with a happy smile on his face.
As they strode towards one another his eyes made her very aware of her own body and the way it jiggled and swayed as she moved. She didn't care if he stared at her, she wanted to be stared at by him. She didn't have to worry about him ravishing her, she was going to ravish him.
Out from behind a smaller dune came first the hiss and then, too quick to prepare for, a sand tiger. It vaulted forward using its thick hind legs like springs and chomped down with gnashing fangs onto the head and beautiful face of Amelia's would be suitor. A few vicious whips of its neck and the man was in pieces.
"Damnit!" Amelia screamed. Of all the times for a stupid sand tiger. She grabbed Hilda out of the ground and threw her at the dining tiger, too blood drunk and frenzied to see it coming.
She turned back inside, she didn't even bother to get the meat. She already had enough tiger meat to last half a season. She had her own frenzy to take care of. She stepped over the tripwire, danced over the floorboard and headed straight into her bedroom. Her body felt like it was on fire. She threw herself down onto the bed, closed her eyes and allowed her imagination to take her away, to places where there were no tigers, disapproving grandfathers and no elaborate plans, just men. Hard bodied, gorgeous, smiling, men.

1970


By DC Diamondopolous


Drunk and stoned, Scott staggered out the door of the Whiskey a Go Go and into the night. A blurred neon sign from the Sunset Strip flickered and shuddered through the ebb-and-flow haze that hovered from his high. The notice to appear before the local draft board was crumpled deep in the pocket of his bellbottoms like a wet snot rag.
He lit a Camel. “Happy birthday to me, but who gives a shit,” he shouted at a group of foxes in hot pants. “I’m gonna go to Canada, wanna come?”
Jelly brained, Scott closed his eyes and leaned his bushy blond head against the building until his knees buckled, and he landed on his ass. He blew a stream of smoke up at a three-story-high billboard of Linda Ronstadt, then flicked the cigarette across the pavement.
“Fuck-off. Go on. Get outta here,” said the bouncer, standing outside the entrance to the club.
Scott crawled to his knees as a wave of barf started to peak. He ran up the sidewalk
to the back of the Whiskey and threw up on the steps of the fire escape. With the bottom of his tie-dyed T-shirt, he wiped his mouth, felt better, took out another smoke, and lit it.
He didn’t have rich parents who could get him out of the war, he wasn’t a psycho, and no way was he queer. He didn’t have the grades or want to go to college. His passions in life were drawing and surfing. The only thing left was to run away to Canada. But Scott hated the cold, and there were no decent beaches. When his father saw him sketching he’d say, “You’ll never make a living at that sissy artsy-fartsy stuff. Cut your damn hair. Join the military. Be a man.”
If he did go to Nam, he’d kill people he had no beef with. When he told his old man this, he exploded, “Communism must be stopped. Or we’ll all be talking Russian.” His mom stood in the background nodding and silently crying.
When the National Guard killed four students at Kent State, his father told him they deserved to be shot for protesting the war. Scott was dumbfounded. “What about My Lai? Did innocent Vietnamese deserve to be raped and murdered by U.S. soldiers?” “That’s war,” his dad snapped. “It happened in WWII. Korea. It’s no surprise it happened again.” His dad’s answer blew his mind.
Scott asked him if he’d been born German would he have sent Jews to the ovens. His father said, “I would have followed orders, that’s what soldiers do.” “Then you’d be a murderer,” Scott yelled. His dad slapped him. Shocked, Scott held back his rage from wanting to wallop his old man and beat the callousness out of him, but that smack turned the shine on his father’s pedestal to rust.
It was hell living with his family in Hawthorne. Scott moved out, got an apartment, a
job at Mattel. He hated the nine-to-five monotony of assembling Barbie Dolls for a paycheck and the tired empty feeling of coming home, getting drunk, smoking pot. He missed the old days when he and his dad fished off the Redondo Beach Pier. He missed having a father.
Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” boomed then faded from a car as it cruised the Strip.
His childhood friend, Robbie, had come home in a body bag. For what? Their generation was screwed. He had no say about the war because he couldn’t even vote. If attacked, Scott would gladly take a bullet for his country. But this war? He slid down the wall of the Whiskey, dragging his angst with him.
His mother called that morning, wishing him a happy birthday. She told him his father loved him. Then why didn’t he call? Scott knew why. His father was stuck in a time warp when going to war was heroic. His dad thought him a coward for not wanting to fight. His parents would freak if he’d run away to Canada.
He stubbed out the Camel and brushed vomit off his sandals.
Through the mist of his high, a mellow warmth broke through. He took out the crumpled draft notice, smoothed and folded it, and stuck it in his pocket.
He needed to draw. He imagined his hand flying across the page, creating a world of his own. It calmed him, made him feel in control. Not even sex could do that.
Scott turned away from the glitz of Sunset, the shimmering lights of the city beyond, and headed up Clark.
His mom’s ‘58 Ford Fairlane — last year’s 18th birthday present — with the remaining scraps from the peeled off bumper sticker, America Love It Or leave It, was parked up the hill.
A group of hippies walked toward him.
“Peace man,” one of the guys said, holding up the V sign of his right hand as he passed.
“Yeah, man. Peace,” Scott said without hope, his strong young body to be used as a killing machine.
He unlocked the Ford, took out his drawing pad and pencil, and sat on a low concrete wall facing Sunset and downtown L.A.
Street lanterns and outdoor apartment building lights cast ominous shadows from manzanita plants.
Scott could have drawn in total darkness, so clear was the picture in his mind, the certainty of his decision.
With the pad on his knees, he sketched the sun setting on a beach in South East Asia with a sandy coastline, palm trees, bamboo boats.
He heard the rat-a-tat-tat of machine guns in the jungle, hissing insects, the smell of death in the rice paddies.
The sprinklers came on and he jumped up, shielding his paper. But Scott liked the river of tears running down his drawing, leaving their trace on his dying body as he took his last breath on the shore of the South China Sea.


dcdiamondopolous.com
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B07455RZ6W

The Swan Daughter

By Meg Smith
 
Jane likes stamp-collecting.
Justin takes her to conventions -- maybe because he relishes his big brotherly role, and probably because he loves showing off his car and driver’s license.
They’re just back from the first of a two-day philately extravaganza, at the Holiday Inn in Hillsborough. Not far from here.
Justin tells me, “Ma. She was like one of three girls there.”
I see the placid indifference in Jane’s faintly-freckled face, in her eyes -- green, reminding me of a cat lazing in a patch of sunlight.
Soundlessly, wordlessly, she moves in a graceful path, album under her arm, toward her room.
“Hold on there, Daisy May,” I call out, and she stops, not abruptly, like a kid, but kind of fluid -- like a barn swallow landing on a limb. “First, thank your brother for taking you.”
“Uh huh. Thanks, Justin.” There’s beauty in her voice, too, even if her words are pure preteen.
“Second, please show me what you got.”
She turns; her gliding gait makes me proud and uneasy.
She opens her album and presents it to me, like we’re in some secret, sacred ceremony.  It’s a page of stamps, of different kinds of bats. The “Night Friends” series.
I feel strangely at a loss. “Very good.”
We’re such an awesome family of communicators. I suppose that’s my fault.
She nods, and turns again, almost ballet-like, and seems to vanish like a silky cloud.
“So graceful,” a friend once said. “She should take ballet lessons.”
Like I could afford that. She’s never asked for them, but she seems always to be moving in her own dance.
I should be glad for this stamp-collecting hobby. It doesn’t cost as much.
In her brother’s face, something of bemused, and unsettled. Maybe it mirrors what’s in my eyes.
That might just come from being 16, and the older brother to a 12-year-old sister.
Yes, a distant memory though it may be, I, too, was once 12, bordering on 13.
It was  -- well, maybe we’ll get back to that number later.
My point: I really was that age once. And I remember a strange female tribe, with their stamp collections, model airplanes and rock albums.
I regarded those girls with a mix of awe, and pity.
I was headed for nursing school, just as my mom had, and the voke.
I was going to make my own money and chart my own course. No one debated that in our house. My mom always worked. The rent didn’t pay itself.
It’s clear that even at the dawn of her adolescence, Jane isn’t apprehensive.
The philately. The lack of concern. I’d call it a preteen thing if I didn’t know better.
But I know both my children very well.
Justin, tall, with dusty hair, masking his empathy and compassion with feigned disdain.
His friends do it, too. They always seem to be at our house. Because you see, I’m the cool mom.
Their loud rock music is a shield. I know it. But I never embarrass them by saying so. I just ask them to keep it down. I listened to most of those same songs, a fact that always  makes me sigh.
 
***
 
 
It’s night.
I know Justin is asleep in his room, the music still on, a muffled sound of angry drums and guitar.
 
Jane -- honestly, I think that child never sleeps. But she is quiet. The quiet of a child who rules her own language. “What is it like -- to have a daughter as calm and well-behaved,” I’ve heard, more than once.
 
Sometimes with admiration or envy, and sometimes -- with a hint of judgemental disbelief. I’ve even said out loud: “Really. I know what you’re getting at.”
 
Over and over, I have made a little mantra, in my mind. She gets it from me. All her good qualities. Her beauty. Her smarts. Her calm. Her beauty. She gets all of it from me. Sometimes, when I am alone, I say that out loud, too. Show me a mom who never talks to herself.
 
***
 
I would like just one night without feeling an unnatural shiver.
 
I’m sitting up, on my bed, still in a top, and jeans.
 
The air through the screened window is warm, and slightly fragrant. Lilacs in late bloom.
 
I have a radio talk show on. I’ve lost track of the topic, but the voices are comforting.
 
I’m working an iced coffee Justin got me, unbidden, and unceremoniously, because he’s proud of driving and getting things.
 
I get up, without turning on a light, and look in the mirror. I look at the once-young woman staring back.
 
My cheekbones cut an outline now. I had a round face when I met my husband.
 
All in all, I feel I have kept pretty well. I feel both pride in that, and resentment for feeling like I have to appraise myself.
 
My mother appraised herself, every day --  even when coming home from working a shift.
 
I think of Jane.
 
She will not do this. For Jane, no checking in with the critic on the other side of the mirror.
 
She might, but, even if she does, she will not see much change.
 
I think fleetingly of putting on a dress. A light, cotton, flowery one.
 
And then in my absurd, inner, mom-talking-to-herself voice: “The hell.” I leave my room.
 
The house is dark, silent except for the dim light over the stove.
 
At this hour, some voices intrude upon my mind. Like Gretta reminding me: “You’ve had a lot of breaks. I mean, not every single mom has a nice house on a cul-de-sac.”
 
“Go to hell,” I mutter. Is that for Gretta, or the apparition at the back door.
 
Maybe I’m saying it to both.
 
Over time, forces can gather inside a person.
 
The thing is, I really don’t want the kids to know. Or, in Jane’s case, I don’t want a reason for her to get up and come out with her curious inquiries.
 
 
I’m outside. Moths are flailing helplessly around the porch light.
 
I turn it off, and they disperse, in a frantic, winged mist.
 
In my periphery, I see a light on the in picture window of the Carron’s ranch house across the way. As if they don’t have enough to gossip about.
 
It always makes me feel perversely amused.
 
With the porch light off, I am standing in the moonlight, pasty through clouds and warm-weather haze.
 
A shadow grows around me, and there is no greeting.
 
Just this: “You didn’t answer my call.”
 
“And I’m not going to.” I pull a cigarette from my jeans pocket, and a lighter.
 
 I don’t offer one, I just smoke casually, and the smoky haze floats around me.
 
I hear the exasperated sigh, and that comforts me. “You think you’re being brave. But it’s selfish.”
 
I draw a long drag, and my cigarette glows, like the glaring eye of a feral creature.
 
“Don’t talk to me about being selfish.” I blow a stream of smoke. I know it’s like a shield -- and I feel entitled to one. “I always wonder if you’re all like that. Selfish.”
 
Another sigh comes in response. “This is an old conversation, Krista. I was selfish. It’s all in the past.”
 
I resent hearing my name, and I say so.
 
I want to lean against the porch railing, but instead I stand up straight, and step forward. I can feel my face flushing. I flick some ash.
 
“Yeah, well she is not the past. She’s here now. Only you are in the past.”
 
In the half-dark of the moon, I see discomfort, anger. Some men delight in saying, “that’s in the past,” like snipping a cord with pliers.
 
But they hate hearing it.
 
“What happens when she starts to ask you -- about herself.”
 
I take another languid drag. “I really doubt it. She doesn’t ask anyone anything.” I’m feeling a grim satisfaction.
 
I step forward. “You’re not much for consequences, are you?”
 
I blow more smoke, and don’t wait for an answer.
 
“She’s mine,” I pronounce. “She’s none of you. And, every day, that’s more true. You’re just some nonsense in her DNA. She’s growing up, in my world.”
 
He’s come here, over the years, at night. He has always said he has no choice. I know that’s rubbish.
 
 I know it’s rubbish because Jane is the proof. She gets up every morning.
 
Sometimes I catch her on this same porch, looking at the rising sun, just staring at its copper blaze, like they are having a conversation.
 
I’m not going to tell you that my heart is not torn when he leaves. We once had a place, to call ours.
 
No longer.
 
He is looking for something to cling to. Someone. I’ve determined that he won’t find that here.
 
“All these things you say, about her being only yours. That’s going to end.” I will not deny, his voice carries some kind of music. And the struggle in his voice to claim dominance -- and failing -- I like hearing that, too. That’s probably why I’ve tolerated all this, for so long.
 
 In the movies, it’s so different. They sweep into a room, maybe a bedroom -- dark cape, dark eyes like daggers. They own everything around them.
 
“I raised her. She has my values.” My cigarette is nearly out.
 
“She’s becoming an adult. I fell. I fled from my duties. But now --”
 
My neighbor’s light winks out.
 
“You need to go,” I say.
 
“Do you really care what they think?”
 
“I care about my daughter.”
 
I can feel tears in wet islands, on my face.
 
I am alone again.
 
I go inside.
 
Before closing the screen door, I say, out loud, in the direction of the Carrons’ house: “I think you need to watch your own wife.”
 
The morning comes. Music is coming from Justin’s room, louder, and with purpose.
 
He’s not even in there, he’s in the shower.
 
I go to Jane’s room. There are illuminated unicorn stickers on the door.
 
It’s day two of the stamp convention. Presentation day.
 
She knows that of course, but it’s mom’s job to remind kids of that which they already know.
 
“Honey, you up?”
 
After a moment I push open the door.
 
There is a shadow, dancing, like a swan.
 
My heart begins to hammer and my ears ring.
 
The shadow turns in that effortless turn, softens, and disappears.
 
***
 
“You really need a better outlook,” a former friend said at coffee one day. This was after Justin came home from first grade with a gash in the side of his head.
 
A kid at school teased him about his errant father. My former husband. My prehistoric life.
 
Justin ran at him; the kid threw a rock. Justin got sent home with a suspension.
 
This former friend was of the opinion that her fellow women would do better in this world if only they stopped doing dumb things.
 
“Perspective,” she said. “You’ve been given a lot of breaks. Not every single mom gets to live in a nice ranch house in a cul-de-sac.”
 
It was one of those famous times my mouth got me into trouble. “Well, you know, I have a plan,” I said. “I’m going to stop  paying rent, and get us thrown out of that ranch house, and onto the sidewalk.”
 
Her mouth began to move but I interjected. “Then we’re going to move into a trail tent in the woods. I’m sure that will make life better for all those worse off than we are.”
 
“I didn’t mean -- “
 
“You never do.”
 
Nausea gripped me. Not because of what she said. I reached around in my pocket book for some saltines. I chewed them up with gusto.
 
“Hey --”
 
“Hey what,” I said through the crackers. All righteous indignation was muffled by the crackers. “Stop judging other people’s lives.”
 
She sighed. “You went to that dance.”
 
“Yes I did,” I said. Another friend had dragged me along and then abandoned me to argue with her ex in the parking lot of the Elks.
 
And my soon-to-be husband wasn’t even at that dance. He was at a poker tournament in the adjoining function room.
 
His partner was my friend’s ex.
 
We began to talk, he and I.
 
Such beginnings are really just that simple.
 
It was five years later, thereabouts. I had been newly-single for three of them.
 
I was working in a residential home, Palm Manor. There were no palms, just some scrub pines.
 
It was a little after 11 p.m. I was ending my shift. Another beginning was about to unfold.
 
The air outside was cool, invigorating. I lit a cigarette. I didn’t like smoking in my car.
 
Moths dithered around a parking lot light. Moths acting crazy around lights -- they’re almost like sybiline prophets.
 
Justin was with his Dad that weekend. I both wanted him to spend more time with his father, and dreaded it when he did. Would he come home changed, transformed, some undesirable part of his father’s nature within his being.
 
I drove, my torn thoughts my only companion, as so often was the case.
 
Our town does have some scenic places, even if ugly milk-carton developments have cut into them over the years. And yes, my rented house in the cul-de-sac is one of them.
 
I suppose that’s why it’s affordable. A salad ranch, a coworker called it.
 
I’ve seen her husband at the VFW. He provides her a better house, but I don’t think she knows the real price.
 
There’s a park, near a lake. The park has trucked-in sand, and some picnic tables.
 
I pulled over. I wanted another cigarette.
 
The park was never a woodland preserve. I remember there was a big fight over it at Town Meeting, but in the end, the voters agreed to buy the land to keep the woods.
 
No one ever said the reasons out loud but everyone knew.
 
Yes we need places for houses. We also need woods. For birds and deer and all those Disney things.
 
I pulled in the lot. I got out of my car.
 
There he was.
 
I recognized at once who -- what -- he is. I laughed out loud. Here’s someone who will never clutter up my life the way Justin’s father had, I thought. Because it simply isn’t possible.
 
He has his own universe, defined by the boundaries of a forest and a lake. And, a quarry, filled with ancient rain water. That’s where they come from, and that’s where they stay. Mostly.
 
It was hard to believe some carved-up picnic tables and fake beach sand could form a portal between two worlds, but there it was. There we were. I went. The taste of wet leaves, and their tangy scent -- yes, I can still invoke it, minus the pain.
 
Jane to me was neither a burden or a gift, nor a dilemma. She was simply mine.
 
He had failed her. He had failed her by not showing her that world beyond the lake.
 
The lake in the daytime was a pretty place, as municipal beaches go. Distantly, white swans and ducks gleamed, unafraid.
 
***
Justin is at Jane’s bedroom door with me, with the obvious discomfort of a teen boy approaching a younger sister’s room.
 
“What’s this shit,” he demands, but there is fear in his eyes.
 
I feel my mom-authority evaporating, and my heart races. “She’s gone.”
 
“Ma, I can see that!” Then, “Sorry. Maybe she went in the yard to talk to the sun.”
 
I turn to him, startled momentarily, but his tall presence, his face splashed by tears. “She’s not in the yard. She’s gone.”
 
“Ma, hell!” He storms past me, to the door.
 
“Justin --” he’s gone, in his car, his beloved, rust-and-bolt Camaro. A chick-pickup turned kid sister rescue vehicle.
 
Anger churns in me. Did he come for her, when we were all asleep? I can’t even call him.
 
I make up my mind. I’m going. Tear open that pathetic earth hovel or whatever it is -- I’ve never seen the place. I’m getting my daughter back, and I am going to finish this.
 
I should call the police. But, I don’t.
 
I get in my car, and head for the lake.
 
***
 
It’s early, yet. No cars are there. But I’m a mom on a mission, and nosy spectators will not deter me in any case. I slam the door, and take quick, angry strides. Or try to.
 
The sand catches at my feet, in my nurse’s Stride Rites which are great for tiled floors, but not here.
 
Before I know it, I’m perspiring. The air is chill. Flies graze my head. Black flies.
 
I swat at them. “Fuck off,” I say, loudly, ridiculously.
 
I stare at the lake. It’s broad, placid, green-black, and mesmerizing.
 
Tears course down my face, and my eyes sting.
 
I find myself sinking, sitting on the gritty, sandy shore; Canada geese are clustered near the foam and reeds along the edge.
 
It catches up to me all at once. If what I think happened, happened -- no police are going beyond this place.
 
They won’t. They can’t.
 
I need to gather myself. I look, straining, for a glimpse, a gray glimpse of the quarry, beyond the trees.
 
The sun is rising.
 
I’m weeping.
 
I’m not alone.
 
I don’t think I ever saw my daughter cry before, until now. She is standing before me, impossibly tall, almost like her brother, like what every mother fears -- a daughter becoming a woman, literally, overnight.
 
But she is in fact still a little girl. Tomorrow is her 13th birthday.
 
The morning breeze tousles her soft, long, black hair. She didn’t get that from me.
 
Or her delicate skin, or long-lashed eyes.
 
Or her terrible grace.
 
Relief sends shocks through my body. I leap up, reach out, to grab her, and she stands back.
 
I feel a stab in my heart. “Are -- you --” it’s like being in a dream, when you try to scream, and no words come.
 
“Oh, mom,” she trembles.
 
She reaches out to me now, and touches my hand. Her touch is warm, but that, too, chills me.
 
Her face. Her hands. Streaks of scarlet.
 
I shrink back, and feel hot with shame for doing it.
 
“Mom.” There is firmness in her voice now, and it takes me aback, a little.
 
I put out my arms to her.
 
“I’m okay.” Anger is building in me now. My child, endangered, safe, but still -- “You’re coming with me and we’re getting help.” I glance in the direction of the hidden quarry. “He is bad. You need to understand that. We’re going to the police -- “
 
She steps back again, her gaze steady.
 
She swipes at the tears on her face with a savage fury. “Mom!”
 
She holds out her hands, palms-up, showing me the blood, scarlet rivulets.
 
“You’re hurt!” I insist. “Jane, you scared the hell out of us!”
 
“I’m not hurt,” she says, her voice starting to quake now.. “But” --
 
She looks swiftly over one shoulder, gesturing toward the water.
 
“The swans.” I barely hear her. “What did he do to get you here? Did he bribe you? Just take you?”
 
She repeated it. “Mom! The swans!”
 
My resolve is fading, my mom-patience drained.
 
 Never have I felt a need to discipline her, my perfect but mysterious child, but now I’m about to pick her up, swan-babble and all, and pitch her into the back seat and tear off to the police station.
 
No time to worry about what they might think of my cracked-sounding story.
 
“Mom!” She erupts in tears again. “Wait! Just, wait!”
 
“You are coming with -- “
 
“Mom, I just felt it -- like I was all cut-up inside, and dying, like in the desert. So I took the swans -- “
 
She puts her hands, stained red as if from henna, to her beautiful, tear-stained face.
Everything courses through me. Pity, horror, rage.
 
I put my arms around her, and I pull her head to my collar bone. “My baby.”
 
She convulses with sobs.
 
We head home. She is looking down, into her hands. I reach over, pull the seat belt across her.
 
I notice for the first time, she is clasping something she has taken out of her jeans pocket.
 
It is a small, white feather.
 
She says, softly, “I think. Maybe. I think they’ll be okay.”
 
I pull out a cigarette.
 
***
 
I don’t go to the police.
 
I have decided I am past that.
 
I put Jane to bed, pull up her girly-pink comforter, and she does not resist any of my maternal ministrations. She goes to sleep, as if merely worn out from a strenuous soccer game.
 
When she awakens, I will talk with her about all that has happened.
 
I close the door, and run my hands over the unicorn decals on the door.
 
***
 
Justin’s friends arrive, a hellbent posse. He told them, damn him.
“If the police don’t take care of this, we will,” says one friend, Brennar. Long, stringy black hair.
 
He has had more than one scrape of his own with police.
 
“Guys,” I raise my arms, like a conductor. “Please. She’s okay. Let me handle this.”
 
I have never seen a group of teens look so disappointed. They were really ready to deal a fearful lesson in slaughter.
 
I call in sick to work.
 
And I wait for the sun to set.
 
***

As the sky fades to blue, to purple, to black, and insects begin to chatter, I feel my resolve grow.
And with it, questions.
 
Jane is still safe, asleep, in her room.
 
Justin and his friends have gone out. I insisted. Go for a drive, I told them. Let them hunt for some invisible enemy.
 
I know it will come to nothing.
 
And I don’t want them involved.
 
The fact is, I really don’t know what I’m doing. Anything I know, I have come to realize, is from movies.
 
Crosses. A wooden stake. I don’t have these things.
 
Illogically, I laugh.
 
I will know when the time comes. It’s that simple. I’ll just have to.
 
I’m standing on the porch. Smoking a cigarette. There’s nothing about me that suggests I’m a great hunter of evil, supernatural, unnatural things.
 
I’m a slight woman, in capris, a T-shirt, and a sweater over my shoulders. Wearing clogs, and smoking.
 
The stars appear, faint light through a nighttime haze.
 
The Carrons’ light is out. Maybe they’ve gone on some vacation of reconciliation. Such are the things nurses come to learn.
 
I am not alone.
 
The apparition before me is none of the sultry arrogance of nights past, years past.
 
“Any last words,” I ask.
 
“I...didn’t take her.”
 
“I’m her mother. Don’t shit with me. I found her by the lake! Blood all over her hands!!” Despite myself, my voice is climbing.
 
There’s shaking in his voice. “She’s reached the age. She’s waking up. Her time. It’s beginning.”
 
“Your time is ending!”
 
“Mom!”
 
We both turn.
 
She moves to my side, while my brain is trying to process how she came out, with the screen door still closed. She moves between us.
 
Eyes. Their eyes, so much alike, staring deeply into the dark.
 
I have never, ever once, seen the two of them, together, like this.
Even in the patchy moonlight, I can see. Eyes, so much alike. Something, in her, that is definitely not from me.
 
I force back tears, and breathe deeply.
 
“The swans go from one side of the lake to the other,” she tells us.
 
I put my hand to my head.
 
All this time, I’m thinking, braces, fighting over makeup, teaching her the unpleasant truths of womanhood, like preparing in advance for unwelcome advances.
 
These things, I’ve rehearsed in my mind, seeing my own preteen self in some afterimage, trying to defeat battles not yet fought.
 
Not once, not ever, did I consider this battle among them.
 
I reach out and grab her, and pull her back toward me.
 
Even she is shocked. “Mom -- “
 
With my free hand, I make a slashing gesture. He steps back.
 
“This -- this creature -- has no part of you!”
 
“Jane.” Not my voice this time. I can’t ever remember his saying her name aloud, until this moment.
 
She strains against my grip, and she looks away. “You’re not taking her!”
 
But, it’s as if my hands turn to water.
 
She does not go to him. She does not go anywhere.
 
She’s simply gone.
 
And I realize, he was telling the truth. He didn’t take her.
 
She went. To find her whole self.
 
For the first time, since that one night, we go, together, to the lake.
 
And, she’s there.
 
A swan is moving toward her in a sure stream, a silhouette of white wings opening.
 
She’s removed her shoes, and is leaping in a made--up dance.
 
She tiptoes to the edge of the water, her arms open.
 

 

The Gallery
by
Gerald Arthur Winter




A laser of light flashed across Sally’s wet windshield. Before she could
count—one-Mississippi, two Mississippi—lightning struck a magnolia tree just
ahead of her high beams. Thunder exploded as the magnolia in full bloom fell
across Sally’s 2011 red Coyote convertible. The airbag whooshed in her face,
stunning her for several minutes. Then the pounding windshield wipers made
her realize where she was, not at home in her comfy jammies.
She wasn’t sitting by the hearth of a crackling fire and sipping cabernet
to soothe her tired mind after a long day at the office. No. After dealing with
a shit storm of unhappy customers whose orders hadn’t been delivered on time,
she was stuck on the road alone in a thunderstorm with a goddamn tree trunk
straddle across her dented hood.
She was about to call Triple A for road assistance, but her iPhone showed
no bars. There were no streetlights, and the wind and rain were kicking up. She
tried to restart her stalled car. The engine turned over, so maybe she could drive
out from under the fallen tree. It was just a magnolia with no more than two
feet to its trunk’s circumference. She opened her car door and got out to see if
she could back up without any further damage.
She walked around to the trunk of her car to be sure she wouldn’t be
backing off a cliff or into a ditch. There was enough level ground behind her to
try, but then she saw that the felled magnolia hadn’t been completely uprooted.
The ball of its thick tangled roots were still embedded firmly in the ground.
Regardless, she had to at least give it try. If it continued to damage her
car as she backed up, she’d just stop and hope someone would pass by willing
to give her a lift to a gas station to get a tow.
Home, she thought. Crap! Where the hell am I?
Her roommate, Tricia, would be wondering what had kept her, but with
her iPhone unusable, there was no way to call her. Her stomach growled. It was
7 p.m. and she hadn’t eaten since 1 p.m. She felt a little dizzy, too, not just from
hunger either. At her last checkup, her doctor said she was anemic, needed to
eat more red meat and drink red wine to bolster her immunity against next
autumn’s flu. She’d had only a salad at lunch because it was Friday and Tricia’s
turn to provide them with dinner, a weekly ritual they’d enjoyed as roommates
since graduating from college and entering the work force. Both were department
managers for different companies, Tricia for an online food service, and Sally for
a line of women’s clothing and accessories.
Last night Sally had gotten off early with plenty of time to prepare their
dinner, complete with candlelight, cloth napkins, and the Sterling place settings
from her hope chest, which seemed to have little chance of hope after she’d
turned thirty-nine last spring. She’d tried the online dating services, but that
hadn’t worked out well—men, argh!
With hunger pangs and a burning sensation in her gut, Sally recalled that
there was a chocolate bar in her glove compartment from weeks ago. Hopefully
Tricia hadn’t found it when she’d borrowed her car while hers was in the shop.
Just as she bent into her car to check the glove compartment, high beams made
a bright halo on the horizon. The headlights’ rays glistened on the wet macadam
on the country road in the boonies of rural Florida.
Sally began to wave both arms high so the oncoming vehicle would see
her, not just to give her aid, but also to avoid running her over or crashing into
her car disabled by the fallen magnolia.
Seeing the white van slowing down as it approached, she waved her arms
more vigorously. The van’s brakes squealed and the tires screeched on the wet
pavement. The van fishtailed before sliding to a sideways stop just a few feet
from Sally’s trembling knees. There was just the driver in the front seat. The man
opened his window and shouted, “Anyone hurt?”
“No! It’s just me. The tree was struck by lightning and wrecked my car.
I have no phone service out here. Would you give me a lift to a service station?”
“Here! Take this red towel and roll up your car window tight with the
towel hanging out. That’s to let the sheriff’s deputies know you’re safe and
you’ll come back for your car without them having to tow it.”
She did as the man advised then got out of the rain and into his unmarked
van, as she noticed, wondering what trade he might be in.
“Where to. Honey?” he asked, not in an offensive manner so much as
kindly. She’d had enough close encounters to tell a man’s intensions by his
tone better than by the words he expressed. He was no more than forty, a big
guy with his knees tight under the steering wheel.
Despite her confidence in her judgment, Sally rambled nervously.
“The storm took me off course from Route 275 about ten miles back with
a detour that led me onto this unfamiliar road. I hadn’t seen any service
stations between there and here. I assumed I needed to continue in this
direction before I saw another detour sign. Never got the chance to find
one.”
There was an awkward silence between them as the rain pounded
against his windshield. Only their eyes flickered with light from his headlights
with neither of their facial features apparent to the other. He smelled of hard
labor while she wafted a hint of herbal hair conditioner and a deodorant
that had begun to fail with her rattled nerves and physical distress.
Sally thought of the two of them stuck in the van’s close cabin were
like two rabbits she’d kept as pets as a child. That mammal smell of a rabbit
in heat reminded her of those long-eared rodents and how her father had
to separate them so they wouldn’t multiple.
Multiply, she thought. What a funny word out of the context of a
math class. Go multiple yourself.
When her father was at work, she’d let her bunnies scamper free in
yard. When the rabbits mated despite her father’s attempts to separate
them, he began to breed them for food. At age five, that was her first taste
of wild game. She never bought meat from a store again.
Her thinking about the rabbits became a titter that brought her
out of her private thoughts.
“Something funny?” he asked.
“Oh, no. I’m sorry—my name is Sally, and I was thinking how my
roommate would be laughing at my circumstance. Tricia thinks I’m a
feather brain.”
“Sorry for your circumstances, Sally. I’m Jake. My GPS in this van
seems to be working, so give me your address and I’ll take you home. You
can call for a tow from there.”
“Drive me home? Would you really?”
“Of course. I’ve got no place to be in a hurry. I’m not married.”
“Thank you so much, Jake. Wow! Lucky me.”
She gave Jake her address. Although the GPS said it would take forty
minutes, with the rain and detours, it took an hour.
“Are you sure I can’t pay you for your help, Jake?” Sally said with his
van parked in her driveway.
“Oh, no. Always glad to help a lady in distress.”
“Have you eaten?”
“No. I’ll just grab a burger on the way home.”
“Listen, Jake. Friday’s are special to me and Tricia. We’re both gourmet
cooks—all natural. Come in and join us.”
“I hate to impose. Are you sure Tricia won’t mind me intruding for dinner?”
“No bother, really. Tricia’s even more easy-going than me. She’ll enjoy
having you supper as much as I will.”
“OK, if you’re sure.
When they went to the front door of the rented home Sally and Tricia
shared, Sally used her key then called out to Tricia. “Come and see whom I’ve
brought home for dinner!”
Tricia came from the kitchen wiping her hands with a dishtowel.
Jake stood more than a head taller than the two women.
“Wow!” Tricia said extending her hand. “He looks like he could have us
both for breakfast.”
“Oh no, I’m just here for dinner,” he said, making the women laugh.
“We’re having red wine,” Tricia said, but if you’re a beer guy we have
several choices.”
“Cab or Merlot?” he asked.
“We’re having red meat for dinner,” Tricia said. “Will a full-bodied
cabernet suit you?”
“Great.”
“Dinner will take a half-hour. How about cheese to go with your wine?”
“Sure. Whatever,” Jake said as Sally led him into the den where he took a
seat in a leather recliner. “Nice house,” he said, observing the welcoming décor.
“Been here three years. We like it. Let me bring you wine and cheese.”
When Sally returned with two wine goblets and a platter of assorted
cheeses, she found Jake looking at a gallery of framed portraits in the corridor
that led to their bedrooms.
“Who’s the artist?” he asked.
“Oh, that’s Trish’s handiwork. I can’t draw a straight line.
“Relatives?
“Oh, no. Just people we’ve come to know since moving into this house.”
“Hmm. Quite a few.”
“Always room for more friends. Ask Trish if she’ll do yours.”
“Maybe I will.”
“Come sit down, Jake. Just lean back in that recliner and I’ll set up a
tray so you can reach your wine glass and enjoy some cheese before dinner.
Do you like sports. If there’s a game on tonight that you’d like to watch,
here’s the remote.”
“The Bucks are playing the Giants,” Jake said. “Sure you don’t mind?”
“Not at all. Cheers!”
“Cheers!” Tricia called out from the kitchen.
“Cheers!” Jake said clicking his glass with Sally’s.
“Relax, Jake. I’ll be right back,” she said, joining Tricia in the kitchen.
When Sally and Tricia came back to the den with their drinks in hand,
they saw that Jake’s eyes were closed as he lay back in the recliner with his
feet up. The women winked at each and clicked their wine glasses together.
“Do you want to sketch Jake’s portrait before dinner?” Sally asked.
“No, that’s OK. I’ve already got his face imbedded in my mind. I’ll
work on it tomorrow.”
No response came from Jake.
Sally took the TV remote from Jake’s stiff grasp then turned off the
football game.
“God, I hate football,” Tricia said with a shrug.
With the interior silence of their home, they could hear the wind and
rain still pounding against the windows as the house creaked and moaned.
“Don’t these kind of stormy nights give you the creeps?” Sally asked,
but Tricia just shrugged.
“What part do you want tonight?” Tricia asked as she began to undress
Jake.
“We have corn-on-the-cob and string beans from the garden, I think
a half-pound of liver would go nice with that.”
“OK, me, too. I’ll get the saw and we’ll gut him here then take the limbs
to the freezer. Never know when we’ll get another pandemic or hurricane.
Better to stock up with more than we’ll need than to get caught short.”
After Sally spread plastic drop clothes all around the recliner, Tricia
put on goggles then pulled on the chain saw with a roar.
Jake’s eyes suddenly opened and he let out a gasp. Outweighing the
two women combined, he sprung from the recliner and dashed buck naked
from the den and out the front door into the stormy night.
Jake had left his keys in his trousers, so Sally and Tricia watched
calmly from the front door as Jake jump-started his van then squealed out
of the driveway.
“Aaaaah!” his shouts could be heard above the wind until the van
vanished into the night.
“Nice try, Sally,” Tricia said with nonchalance. “You win some and you
lose some. I defrosted Jimmy’s thigh just in case you’d come home in this
storm empty handed.
“Oh, yeah . . . Jimmy, the home inspection guy. He was sweet . . . and
very tender, no more than twenty-five.”
“And single . . . we don’t like to leave kids without a dad.”
“Is Jake married?” Tricia asked.
“Jake? No. Unless he was lying. I wonder what he thought we’d be doing
after dinner?”
“Even if he only has a girlfriend, I’d enjoy hearing his explanation about
the way I used a laundry marker to indicate the cuts I planned to make with the
chainsaw. I had my mind all set for his liver. I bet it would’ve been delicious.”
Later that night, with Jimmy the home inspector’s leg in their satisfied
tummies, Sally and Tricia toasted with a night cap as they stared sadly at the
empty frame meant for Jake’s portrait to join their gallery.
“Here’s to Jake,” Tricia said. “The only one to get away.”
“To Jake,” Sally said as she dialed Triple A for a tow.

Mary Catherine's Confession
by Anita G. Gorman
​

Mary Catherine O'Flanagan wearily pushed open the door of the parish office and began her usual chores. She made coffee, emptied the wastebaskets (where was Jonah, the janitor?), and put her desk in order. Why she put her desk in order when it was about to be disordered, that she could not say. It was just one of her morning rituals, as was her gruff and brief encounter with the pastor
The door flew open, and there he was, Rev. Barnabas Philemon O'Flaugherty, a tall, bald man of 70 with a sour expression on his face.
"Good morning, Father." Mary Catherine tried to be friendly, though she knew it was futile.
Fr. O'Flaugherty grunted and pointed a finger in the direction of the staff kitchen. "Coffee."
"Yes, Father, right away." Mary Catherine moved fast, since she knew he would want the coffee immediately, if not sooner.
Soon she was down the hall, a mug of steaming coffee in her hands. "Here you go, Father. Black, just the way you like it."
He grunted again. "Close the door on your way out."
Slowly Mary Catherine made her way back to the desk. She turned on the computer. Soon she was busily organizing parish records, in between phone calls. "What is your Mass schedule?" "How do I register at the parish?" And the most difficult question for the secretary: "May I talk to the priest?" Fr. O'Flaugherty never wanted to talk to anyone except for his close friends. So
every time some stranger would ask to speak to the pastor Mary Catherine would say, "I'm sorry but he's at a meeting. I'll connect you to his voice mail."
And so she did. And he rarely checked his voice mail, or if he did stop to listen, he would listen quickly and delete, delete, delete.
It had not always been this way. Twenty years earlier when she first started to work in the office after her children were all in school, things had been different. Fr. O'Flaugherty had been rather charming, as she recalled. Not as charming as Bing Crosby in that great movie Going My Way, but that was a movie, not real life. Yet Father Barnabas Philemon O'Flaugherty had been affable and funny and patient. What had happened? Was it old age? Was the bishop annoyed with him for some reason? Who knew? All Mary Catherine knew was that she was getting extremely tired of hearing curt remarks and seeing scowls and fielding questions from parishioners who wanted to talk to the priest. Sometimes they even walked into his office without an appointment and demanded a few minutes of his time. Or Mary Catherine would call him on the phone and he would say, "OK, send her in, but don't forget to call me in ten minutes to remind me that I have an appointment with the bishop."
Some parishioners became suspicious and wondered why the bishop wanted to see the pastor so often. On the other hand, the only people in the parish the pastor wanted to see often were the men--doctors for the most part--who played golf with Father Flaugherty. Mary Catherine wanted to call him Father Barnabas; so many priests these days were Father John or Father Bill, or whatever, but she didn't have the nerve. Nor did anyone else, except perhaps for his golf partners.
So there she sat, thinking about the pastor, wondering what to do, and staring at the computer screen which had gone into sleep mode. Suddenly she heard a familiar voice.
"Mary Catherine, are you being paid to watch a blank computer screen? Let's get some work done around here. I need you to check on the choir director's expenses. He seems to be spending far too much money on music."
Back to work, and back to rising resentment. She wanted to tell him off. She wanted to give him a lecture, but she had not been raised to do such a thing. She wanted to quit, but she needed the money. By noon she was steaming with anger, and by 1 p.m. guilt had set in.
"I need to go to confession," she thought. "Not that I think I've committed a mortal sin, really, by being angry. After all, there is such a thing as righteous anger. Still, I don't feel good about my anger, and he is, after all, a priest. The bishop laid his hands on Father and that gesture, the laying on of hands, goes all the way back the apostles."
"Mary Catherine, you're muttering to yourself." There he was again. She hoped he hadn't heard her. Had she really been muttering? She did carry on conversations with herself from time to time. Maybe it was time she stopped.
"Oh, sorry, Father, I'll get that information for you right away."
And so the day progressed, and by the time she was done, she was convinced that she definitely had to go to confession. And that was a problem. There was only one priest at the parish. How could she go into the confessional and say, "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been three months since my last confession. I swore a few times, but the main thing is that I am very angry with you."
The confessional had two parts, the old style box where you positioned yourself on a kneeler and the priest listened from the other side. Or you could go into the other side where there were two chairs and say your confession face to face. Either way was not going to work. Father Flaugherty knew her voice, and she didn't think she could disguise it. What to do?
By that evening--it was Friday--she had a plan. She needed to go to the parish on the other side of town, to a priest she didn't know. Of course, he might know Father Flaugherty, but all priests were bound by the seal of the confessional, so they were not allowed to ever tell what a parishioner told about her sins, whether petty or huge. She fell asleep that night feeling better.
On Saturday morning, she checked the times for confessions at St. Aloysius Parish. They were in the morning, at 11 a.m. That was unusual, but not unheard of. At her own parish, St. Brigid's, confessions were at 3 p.m. Mary Catherine decided that the morning time was just fine. She'd be able to go shopping afterwards. She had all the time in the world, now that she lived alone. Her husband Geoffrey had died three years earlier, and the children were grown.
When Mary Catherine arrived at St. Aloysius, she saw that there were only two people waiting to go to confession. Slipping into a pew, she gathered her thoughts and waited. A young man went in; a few minutes later he was done. Then it was an old woman's turn. Mary Catherine got out of the pew and stood a few feet from the confessional, just in case someone else came in. The old woman came back out very quickly--not too many sins to report, Mary Catherine concluded.
Now it was her turn. She had done this many times. She decided to open the door on the right so that she could talk face-to-face with the priest. She was getting too old to kneel in a dark chamber. The door was a bit hard to open. She gave it a big push and almost fell into the little space. And there, in all his glory, with a purple confessional stole around his neck and a breviary
on his lap was her boss and pastor, Father Barnabas Philemon O'Flaugherty. Mary Catherine gasped. "O my God!"
Fr. O'Flaugherty looked shocked. "What are you doing here, Mary Catherine?"
They looked at each other in silence for the better part of a minute.
"Well?" he asked.
There was nothing to be done. Wearily, Mary Catherine sat in the chair opposite the priest. Making the sign of the cross she began: "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned."
Mary Catherine dreaded showing up for work on Monday morning. She had gone to the early Mass on Sunday and slipped out a side door to avoid shaking hands with the pastor. After wondering whether her headache warranted a day off, she decided to follow the words her husband used to say: "Be strong!" So there she was, shortly before 9 a.m. on Monday morning arranging her desk and turning on her computer after making coffee in the staff kitchen.
The door opened. There he was, Fr. Barnabas Philemon O'Flaugherty. She closed her eyes.
"Good morning, Mary Catherine!" He sounded unusually cheerful.
She opened her eyes and stared at him. "Good morning, Father."
"Coffee?" He was smiling at her.
"Oh, yes, I'll get it." She sprang up from her chair.
"No, no, sit down. I'll get it for you. How do you like it?"
He waited for her response.
"A little cream, please. No sugar. Thank you. Thank you."
She sank back into her chair, smiled, and waited for the phone to ring. It did.

Afterglow

by

Gerald Arthur Winter




He was startled by the knock at the front door. Then the doorknob jiggled for a moment
before he heard the key inserted and the deadbolt click open. The metal door creaked on its
hinges as it swung open. The bright, rectangular light from the open door hurt his eyes from
twenty feet across the hardwood floor to the sofa where he’d been anticipating . . . anticipating
. . . anticipating . . . something—anything to help him regain what he’d lost.
A backlit figure, obviously of a woman with her graceful, dance-like strides, came
toward him. With the setting sun at her back, her lithe figure cast a long shadow, a narrow black
path that cut straight to his doubts. She turned to close the door behind her, but he objected.
“No! Leave it open . . . I need fresh air.”
“Fresh air?” she questioned with a thin taint of mockery in her tone. “I think you may
have had too much of that already,”
“How so?”
“I’ve been calling you for the past—” She looked at her pink smart phone’s screen.
“Jesus, Jared. It’s been eighteen hours.”
He frowned then gave her a blank stare. The time hadn’t registered.
She sat beside him and put her cool palm to his fevered forehead.
“Are you ill?” she asked. “Should I take you to your doctor?”
“It’s Sunday, Bethany.”
“Then to the ER.”
“No . . . I just need rest . . . to gather my thoughts.”
“Thoughts about what? About us?”
“Everything doesn’t have to be about us.”
“Maybe not, Jared, but lately it seems everything has nothing to do with us.”
He grimaced and shook his head. “I just needed time to complete my novel. I’d promised
delivery of my final draft by . . . shit! By tomorrow.”
“That’s why I’ve been calling. This three month separation has been hard on me . . .
I’ve missed you, Jared.”
Without response, he just stared blankly at her.
“Damn you! Kiss me,” she implored with a puckered close-eyed lean toward him.
“Mmh,” he responded in her embrace, as her lips searched for his tongue, like an
anaconda unhinging its jaws to swallow a capybara along the Amazon, but he resisted.
“Jared! What’s with you? Is there someone else? You slept with her last night and
now you’re done with me?”
“You’re being ridiculous, Bethany. I’ll never be done with you, but . . . I may be done
with me.”
“What are you talking about, Baby?” she asked nuzzling his neck, but before he could
answer, she pulled back with a start. “Jared! What happened to your shoulder? My God!”
She pulled his bathrobe off his shoulder bruised deep purple. As she kept pulling
the bathrobe lower, she saw that his entire arm was the same lavender hematoma hue.
“I’d better get you to the ER right now,” she said.
“No ER . . . I’ll be fine. It doesn’t hurt. I saw it when I took a shower. It goes down
my back on the left side and—” he pulled open his bathrobe to reveal his total nakedness, no
surprises there after three years as lovers. “My left hip and down my thigh past my knee to my
lower calf.” He raised his left leg and rotated his foot. “The ankle’s fine.”
“How can it not hurt?” she asked. “It looks dreadfully painful. It hurts just to look at it.”
“Because compared to my inner hurt, these exterior bruises are insignificant.”
“Don’t go literary on me at this crucial moment. This looks fucking serious! Do you think
anything’s broken?”
He grinned at the corner of his mouth, creasing a dimple that had first attracted her to
him. “Not any bones,” he sighed. “Just my spirit.”
“Okay. Let’s start from the beginning,” she said as if she were prepared to take dictation.
She occasionally had when the only way he could create a short story was verbally because his
fingers couldn’t keep pace with his mental narrative.
Jared struck a pose in Lord Olivier, Shakespearian fashion, “It was a dark and stormy
night as Jared emerged from his mother’s womb.”
She punched his right shoulder. “Damn you, Jared! I’m serious!”
He pulled the robe off his right shoulder. “I’ll give it an hour, but you may have hit me
hard enough to have matching purple shoulders. Jeez. Where’d you learn to punch like that?”
“I grew up in Philly. My best defense against the mean girls.”
“Well just control yourself. I had a pampered childhood.”
“Yeah, right. Ozone Park, Queens? That couldn’t have been a church social either.”
“Guilty as charged,” he huffed, but slipped back into the dregs of his morose.
“What have you been doing these past eighteen hours to have ended up such a fucking
mess?”
“Blank . . .”
“What do you mean?”
“A total blank.”
“You mean you don’t remember?”
“Not a damn thing—zero.”
“Wow! Okay. Go back in your mind to the last thing you can remember.”
“I’d been working eight or more hours a day since the end of June till—what day is it?”
He’d already had his wall calendar out on the coffee table before Bethany arrived, so
he leaned forward from the sofa and pointed to the day Bethany had said it was.
“It’s Sunday. We just talked about that. Remember, your doctor’s office is closed today.”
He nodded and pointed. “Hmm, today is Sunday, June twenty-fourth. Yesterday, I had
the last scene in my novel to write, only a couple of pages left to go. I used Hemingway’s advice
by not writing the last scene, even though I’d already worked it out in my mind. Papa said it was
best to stop writing near the peak of a climax and sleep on it so all the creative juices could
percolate overnight. It’s supposed to give a writer greater insight to write what had been con-
cluded in the subconscious, a much purer environment for creating effective fiction.”
“You mean that Dr. Butler Dreamscape shit?”
“Precisely. Intending to sleep on it, I’d been living like a monk these past ninety days to
meet my publisher’s deadline tomorrow, so I’d gone to a clean well-lighted place for cocktails
and dinner before coming home to sleep on it. The plan was to wake early this morning to
complete the novel and submit it tomorrow for my agent to deliver.”
“And so?”
“So I don’t remember leaving Adaggio’s where I had two glasses of Merlot with my
veal chops marinara.”
“How could you not remember leaving?”
“That’s the million-dollar question.”
“We should go to Adaggio’s and inquire.”
“I called an hour ago. Spoke directly to Anton, the owner. He said I seemed fine when
I left with the woman?”
“Woman? What woman?”
“I went alone. I ate alone. I don’t remember leaving, with or without a woman.”
“Anton couldn’t tell you anything about her? How about a description?”
“He’d never seen her before, but she was blond, wore sunglasses as I did, because I was
seated on the exterior balcony facing the sunset, much like tonight’s. It was about twenty-four
hours ago when I was finishing my dinner.”
“Did you finish, then have dessert or coffee?”
“I don’t think so . . . I remember looking down at my empty plate expecting the waiter to
clear the table, but then—”
“Then what?”
“There was a crashing sound, I felt jolted, then I . . . then I . . .jeez, I can’t remember,
not a thing till less than an hour ago. It’s all a blank.”
“Jesus.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph—a fucking blank. I’ve been trying to write those last few pages
of my novel and none of it makes any sense. Each time I think I’m done, I realize the last three
pages are the same—the same! Over and over, the same goddamn pages, paragraphs, sentences,
and words. It’s as if I’m not writing them, but they’re writing themselves . . . They have a life
of their own.”
“Show me,” she said.
As she read the pages, Jared stared at the widescreen TV left on mute. It was the local
news. A boy had been run over and left for dead in a hit-and-run incident with no witnesses. It
happened in an rural section of town where there were no security cameras to view a video of
the apparent vehicular homicide.
Bethany read aloud: “He felt like an angel, his feet not touching the ground as he
descended the balcony stairs to the parking lot. In his mind, he seemed to float across the
parking lot to his car. It looked like a good chance of rain with dark clouds hovering on
the horizon above the sun setting atop the distant trees. He opened the hatchback of his
SUV and took out a cheap umbrella, the kind sold for three bucks on city street corners
in a sudden downpour, but not meant to survive more than a single squall. Much as he felt
about himself regarding his longevity in the nameless shit storm that his writing career had
recently become—”
He interrupted her narrative from the manuscript on his laptop. “Stop. Please, quick
run downstairs to the garage and bring me my umbrella.”
“What the hell for?” she balked.
“Uh, I want to see if it’s wet from using it in the rain last night. It might help my
memory.”
“You’ve been lying around till almost dinner time, Jared. Can’t you get it yourself?”
He lowered the shoulder of his robe to reveal the purple bruise and fawned for sympathy.
“Christ, you’re such a baby.”
He opened his robe like a flasher. “That’s no baby—Baby.”
She huffed, “I liked you better when you had no memory of what an asshole you can be.”
“Sorry. You’ve been so kind in my hour—make that eighteen hours—of need.”
“You sound like John Barrymore in an old Thirties flick that I wish had remained silent.
Okay. I’ll get the umbrella, but I think I should take you to the ER for a look at those wounds
—and to check for a concussion, too. Which may explain your memory loss.”
When she closed the door where she’d entered minutes ago, he waited until he heard
her footsteps descending on the exterior wooden stairs from the balcony to the garage. Then
he turned up the TV’s volume and heard: “The police have been going door to door in the
neighborhood surrounding the alleged scene of the hit-and-run. The boy was pronounced
dead at the scene when found at eight o’clock this morning by another boy on a bicycle. The
coroner put the time of death no later than nine o’clock last night. Apparently the body had
been left alongside the light-trafficked country road for about twelve hours before discovered.
If you know anything, anything at all, please call the hotline shown on your TV screen. The
boy’s parents have been distraught since he hadn’t return home last night from his job at
McDonald’s. He was expected by 10 p.m. but never showed.”
Jared heard Bethany shriek from the garage. He turned off the TV and heard her
rapid ascent on the stairs. The door swung open just as before, still startling him even though
this time he was anticipating her entry.
“What?” he asked her as she approached him.
“When did you have an accident with your car?” she asked.
“Accident?”
“Your left front fender is totally crunched.”
“Oh . . . when you said ‘accident’ I thought you meant with another car. I hit a deer a
week ago. Poor thing never had a chance. I was going to report it, but with my novel’s deadline,
you know how it is.”
“Where did this happen?” she asked.
“Hmm, let’s see. It was when I took a short cut off Ulmerton Rd. That country road that
winds around the horse farms and saves you fifteen minutes with no traffic lights. You know
how bad the traffic can be on a weekend.”
“Weekend?” she asked. “Which weekend? Not last night?”
“Last night?” he hesitated staring into space for a moment. “Oh, no. It happened the
weekend before.” He began repeating himself in Trumpian fashion, hammering details into the
solid metal of the listener’s brain until his truth became hers by amalgamation. “I’d just bought
a book I’d wanted to read for a long time. I went to Barnes and Noble in town, got the book
on discount with my membership then drove home.”
He reached for his wallet lying on the coffee table beside the calendar. From between
the loose bills, mostly twenties, he pulled out a receipt from the book purchase. He unfolded it
and squinted at it closely then handed it to her as if it were a Special Delivery of fact: Exhibit A.
She squinted at the receipt as well and said, “Mmh. September sixteenth. Then the car is
drivable, right? Since you hit the deer?”
“Well . . . I drove it home that night but . . . I guess I haven’t tried to drive it since.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“I figured I’d just call and have it towed by the body shop when I was ready to make the
insurance claim.”
“Don’t you have to make a claim within limited time, like twenty-four hours, maybe
forty-eight at most?
“The novel . . . the deadline . . . it’s consumed me,” he rationalized. “The dent isn’t
important compared to that . . . it’s my living. The dent is nothing but an unfortunate reminder
of an animal that didn’t have the good sense to look before it leaped.”
She said, “You’re forgetting one important fact, Jared.”
His mind raced. Fact? Fact? Forgot a fact. Forgot a fucking fact?
She took a deep breath then spoke in high C, like air slowly released from a balloon.
“You must have driven your car to and from Adaggio’s last night when you had dinner . . .
with that damn mystery woman.”
“The blonde?”
“The same . . . with the sunglasses . . . who Anton never saw before.”
“It’s coming back to me now . . .” he said as if visualizing a scene.
“Oh, really?”
“Yes.”
“Who is she, Jared?”
“My Uber driver.”
“You can’t expect me to—”
“No. Really, Bethany. Her name was Lilly.”
“Like short for Lillian?
“No . . . no. She was very unusual. She introduced herself to me, as Lilly when she
picked me up here to go to Adaggio’s last night at six. But her name on her posted ID said
“Lilith.”
“Oh, boy! That’s a good one, Jared. So some psycho Uber driver with satanic genes
beat the crap out of you and gave you all these bruises. Maybe you didn’t tip her enough
after she drove you home, so she threw your ass down that twenty-foot flight of stairs from
your balcony to your garage?”
“It’s a thought,” he said with a shrug, but she wasn’t buying it.
Obviously pissed, she waved an arm at him with dismissal and said, “Have it your way,
Jared. But I’m going to call Uber and find out who this psycho bitch is who threw you down
the stairs. Not like I haven’t wanted to do the same to you often enough.”
As he heard her footsteps in decent on the exterior stairs, each clunk on the wooden steps
reminded him of his drunken tumble down the stairs last night. Was it 9:45 p.m. or 10:15 p.m?
The numbers had been blurred on his SUV’s digital clock right after the impact, enough from
the side along the dark road’s shoulder to collapse his fender, but not enough to inflate the
airbag. He swore he’d seen a deer, an eight-point buck writhing with muscles in his rearview
mirror. Nothing else, so he’d kept driving with only a mile left to get to his home.
He’d fumbled with the remote garage opener but entered without a scratch. He’d gotten
out of his car, beeped the car lock with his keys, then closed the door and headed up the stairs to
have that last night’s sleep for the closing scene of his novel to congeal the action in his grey
matter.
He undressed and put on his robe and sat on the sofa, gathering his thoughts as he flipped
on the eleven o’clock news. As he’d drifted off in slumber, he felt at peace with himself, a
smooth transcendence from what is and what might be.
He felt like an angel, his feet not touching the ground as he descended the balcony stairs
to the parking lot. In his mind, he seemed to float across the parking lot to his car. It looked like
a good chance of rain with dark clouds hovering on the horizon above the sun setting atop the
distant trees. He opened the hatchback of his SUV and took out a cheap umbrella, the kind sold
for three bucks on city street corners in a sudden downpour, and not meant to survive more than
a single squall. Much as he felt about himself regarding his longevity in the nameless shit storm
that his writing career had recently become. He was feeling lightheaded from his two glasses of
wine at dinner. Anton knew his car, so it wouldn’t be towed if he left it overnight and took a cab
home. He dialed Uber.
Within two minutes, the Uber driver showed up, lowered her window and said, “Hi,
Mr. Smythe, I’m your ride.”
When he sat in the passenger seat beside her, he read her ID card on the dash and made a
muffled hmm sound.
“Problem?” the driver asked.
“Oh, no,” he said with a shrug.
“What then?” she asked.
“I used to date a woman with the same name.”
“No shit.”
“Yes, shit,” he said, grinning. That dimple crease in his cheek held her attention.
“You’re my last fare tonight,” she said. “I started at 6 a.m.”
“Whew! Sixteen hours? Is that legal?”
“No . . . but I am.”
There was a minute of silence. Ten minutes from Adaggio’s she was already pulling into
his driveway.
Nice to meet you, Mr. Smythe,” she said. “Here’s my card. I’m local so you can always
call me direct when you’re in a hurry.”
“You want to come up?” he nodded to the stairs leading to his second-floor balcony.
“You mean for a drink?” she asked, totally blasé and not offended by such an open, male
predatory gesture.
“Or for the night . . . but only if you want to,” he said, showing all his cards.
“Didn’t I see you with a woman in the parking lot just before I arrived to pick you up?”
she asked.
“The blonde?”
“The blonde.”
“Business associate,” he said.
“What’s your business?”
“I’m a writer?”
“What do you write?” she asked.
“The jury’s still out on that.”
“Can I be your jury-of-one tonight?”
“Why not? Come on in, Bethany.”
She followed him up the stairs and they entered his condo. She went to the bathroom
to freshen up and he did the same. In his robe he came to the living room and poured two glasses
of Merlot then waited for her to join him. He was startled by the knock at the front door. Then
the doorknob jiggled for a moment before he heard the key inserted and the deadbolt click open.
The metal door creaked on its hinges as it swung open. The bright, rectangular light from the
open door hurt his eyes from twenty feet across the hardwood floor to the sofa where he’d been
anticipating . . . anticipating . . . anticipating . . . something—anything to help him regain what
he’d lost.
A backlit figure, obviously of a woman with her graceful, dance-like strides, came
toward him. With the setting sun at her back, her lithe figure cast a long shadow, a narrow black
path that cut straight to his doubts. She turned to the open door behind her, where two other
figures followed her.
“Jared Smythe?” one of the men asked.

“Yes,” he said with resigned calm as the blonde took off her sunglasses.
“Sorry, Jared,” she said. “They’ve seen your car in the garage. The dented fender.
There’s blood. It’s a match.”
“Bethany!” He called to the bathroom. “Come out and tell these people where I’ve been
these past eighteen hours.”
He thought he still heard the shower running, but it turned out like most of the past
eighteen hours, that it was all just the afterglow of his imagination . . . music of the night that
spun a tune to suit its composer, but echoed untruths, perhaps lies, even to himself.

Menny Aviv and me, we have a cool story to tell.
We both know the same healing practitioner ... and just by coincidence, or what seemed like one (whispered: because it wasn't, but shhh, don't tell anyone), we found out we were both authors with similar book titles. His is called "The Curse of Eros" and mine is called "Aphrodite's Curse". We are both married men with children living in the same area in Germany, both multi-cultural and both multi-lingual. How's that for a dance of energies?

Here's what Menny says about himself: 

I was born in 1971 in a little town in the north of Israel to parents who have migrated from Morocco. As a young man i traveled for long periods of time in different parts of the world. I studied theatre and drama, had a short experience as an actor and gave it up for a short career as a real estae appraiser. 
I migrated to Germany in 2008 to marry my wife Marion with whom I have two boys. 
I've written manny short stories and have published them on different online platforms.
In 2017 my first novel, "The Curse Of Eros", was published in Israel.
I've written several stage plays in Hebrew, English and German.
My greatest lterary influences are Shakespeare, Proust and Nabokov.

And here is the opening of his story in Hebrew: 

אני הייתי בנה היחיד, והיא הייתה לי אימא בלעדית. אהבתי את יחידותי, ויחידותי השפיעה עליי טוב ויקר. ילדותי חשוכת האב הייתה שאננה ומוגנת, אף על פי שחלק ניכר ממנה עבר עליי בהמתנה לשובה הביתה מהעבודה. לעת ערב, משהיה נשמע סיבוב המנעול, הייתי רץ לאורך המסדרון ומתנפל עליה, גומע עד שיכרון מנשיקותיה הרכות שהיו מפצות כדבעי על שעות הבדידות. אני זוכר ערב אחד שבו שבה מאוחר מן הרגיל. כבר הייתי בן עשר ולא נזקקתי עוד לשמרטפותה המעיקה של מרים השכנה. שערה של אימא היה רטוב ועור פניה נשא את צינת ליל החורף שרחש מעבר לכתלים. עיניה הקרינו תשישות נוראית. כשהגשתי לה את התה נטלה אותו לסלון והשתרעה אפקרדן על הספה.
"אלברט עזב אותנו," אמרה.
"תאכלי משהו," אמרתי, מצביע על הסיר המתחמם.
"לא. אני רוצה שתניח לי עכשיו," השיבה ברפיון אונים, עצמה את ריסיה מצובעי השחור וצללה למצולתיה נטולי החלומות שמהם גם רעידת אדמה לא תעירה.
כיסיתי אותה בשמיכה וניגשתי לערוך סדר במטבח. את התבשיל המיותם הכנסתי למקרר, שטפתי את הכלים והלכתי להתבצר במיטתי ולקרוא באחד מספרי הסיינס-פיקשן שהייתה מספקת לי בנאמנות. בטרם נרדמתי הספקתי לקלוט את צלילי צעדיה נגררים בסמוך לדלתי, את זרם המקלחת בחדר הרחצה ואת איוושות ההתייפחות שהתאמצה להחניק בכריתה. 
צר היה לי על אלברט. הוא היה המעודן שבמאהביה, והיחיד שאת נוכחתו הייתי מסוגל לסבול בבוקרי השבת שלנו. על נמיכותו וקירחותו פיצו פני אפולו מחודדי סנטר וחוש הומור נדיר, שהיה מפעיל קסם על אימא וסוחט ממנה את מיטב צחוקיה. היא הייתה נוסעת איתו במרצדס המוכספת שלו לסופי שבוע במלונות שונים, ולשם כך הייתה נאלצת להפקיד אותי אצל ריטה, אמה מולידתה, אשר מילאה בחוסר רצון את תפקיד הסבתא ורק פיללה שבתה "תתחתן כבר עם האיש העשיר הזה ותמצא סופסוף שקט בחיים המחורבנים שלה."

And now: enjoy his story in English!


*
​
Only child

by Menny Aviv


 I was her only child and she was my exclusive mother. I loved my uniqueness, which had given me a lot of innocent joy. My fatherless childhood was mostly carefree and secured, although I’d spent a large part of it waiting for her to come home from work. In the evenings, as I heard her open the door, I would run towards her along the corridor and intoxicate myself with her kisses that abundantly made up for the hours of loneliness. I remember one evening when she came home later than usual. I was already ten years old and didn’t need anymore the tiresome babysitting of Miriam the neighbour. Mum’s hair was wet and her skin had absorbed the chill of the winter night that sizzled beyond the walls. Her eyes projected terrible exhaustion. She rejected her usual cup of tea, walked to the living room and sprawled on the sofa.
“Albert left us,” she whispered with a blunt expression on her face.
“Eat something,” I said, pointing to the pot on the stove.
“No, let me be alone now,” she answered feebly, closed her blackened eyelashes and sank into her dreamless depths from which even an earthquake could not wake.
I covered her with a blanket, put the stranded pot into the fridge, went to my room and entrenched myself in my bed with one of the science fiction books she used to buy me. Before I fell asleep I could hear the sound of her dragging feet in front of my door, then the shower stream from the bathroom and finally the resonance of her sobbing which she struggled to stifle with her pillow.
I was sorry to lose Albert. He was her most delicate lover and the only one whose presence I could endure on our Saturday mornings. To make up for his shortness and baldness he was endowed with a pointy-chinned Apollo face and a rare sense of humour that cast a spell on mum and squeezed her best laughs out of her little body. He would take her in his silver Mercedes to luxurious hotels on weekends, during which I was forced to stay with Rita, her own mother, who reluctantly played the role of the grandma and whose sole wish was that her daughter would “finally marry that rich man and find some peace in her shitty life.”  
Albert dissipated like smoke, and like all the men that preceded him he also left a dent of grief on her soul. She was just thirty then. Her bright hair was still abundant and brilliant, but her face was already notably scarred by the chisel of despair. She used to wake up at dawn, adorn herself diligently in front of the mirror, make my breakfast and take me to school. When I’d come back to the empty apartment there were usually boxes of food waiting for me on the threshold, however, I gradually taught myself to cook and did not need the generous services of Miriam, whose tears of pity obscured the sky of my merry orphanhood.
The pleasure cooking had given me was intensified by the anticipation of her arrival home, and her gratification had filled my heart with delight.
“I have a little chef at home,” she said once and kissed my forehead before closing herself in the bathroom for her long bathing ritual which she religiously performed.
Mum accepted my gastronomic authority with humility, although on Fridays she would still expropriate the kitchen in order to bake her wonderful cakes, whose unique quality I’ll never be able to recreate. On Saturday mornings, which were to us like small islands of shiny intimacy in the gloomy ocean of life, she would sometimes take me for a picnic by the river, and occasionally even borrow Miriam’s car to take me far away from our stifling apartment block – and on these days our life of poverty was richer than anything the world had to offer.
However, mum had slowly confined herself in the shell of her sorrow and her nights had tortured her with nameless yearnings. I would hear her wander within the walls like a captive ghost, and a few times, as dawn broke, I had found her lying on the sofa in front of the muted TV, her thin legs extending out from her nightdress and her hair covering her face like a veil of shame.
“You’re already a big boy,” she told me in one of those mornings, just after she hastily got dressed and put on a corny layer of makeup, “you don’t need your mummy anymore.”
She was right. The task of housekeeping was anyway simple, and since she’d stopped bringing her lovers to her own bed and had been absent more frequently I learned to enjoy the blessed peace of the nights and the sense of exclusive ownership of my little, shabby manor.
When I was fifteen I found a job at a steakhouse that had just opened on the riverbank, and although I was initially designated to be a busboy it didn’t take long until I became a proud and enthusiastic member of the kitchen crew. My humble salary delighted mum, so much so that she didn’t even utter a word of protest when I stopped attending school. She would just take her share and disappear into the night, and return the next day drained and unattainable, declining food and affection, rushing into the bathroom and scrubbing her flesh with the soapy sponge which could not remove the stains of her misery.   
“You don’t want to know what she does with your money,” Rita told me on one of her rare visits while nibbling the rim of a cookie she’d just dunked into her tea, “and besides, she’s losing her wits. You’ve got a loony mother and I’m too old to take care of her.”  
Though Rita’s prophecy wasn‘t quick to materialize, mum’s functioning did gradually erode as time went by. The demon of depression took over her entire being until it ultimately subdued her. She started secluding herself in the apartment for whole days, curled up in her bed or on the sofa like a forsaken kitten – staring silently at the screen, eating scarcely and drinking loads of black coffee. Even the expected dismissal from her workplace did not cause her to react beyond a lazy gesture of indifference and a sickly sigh. When I once dared to shake her out of her numbness and say a few words of reproach, she ground her teeth and growled at me while her eyes were burning with hatred:
“Leave me in peace, you annoying boy!” her dragon mouth spat towards me, “who are you to preach to me! I didn’t even want you! A fucking accident, that’s what you are! A miserable accident that happened to a stupid girl!”
I left her alone, and from then on I spent as little time as I could in the apartment, although I would still buy the necessary groceries and cook the dishes which she barely tasted. Most of my time and energy were devoted to my work, at which I continued to excel, and when I was seventeen Naomi’s house became my safe haven in the stormy sea of my young life. 
Naomi was dwarfish, short tempered and charmingly frivolous. Her hair was crudely dreadlocked and her body possessed a kind of sweet and erotic chubbiness that had delighted my grateful fingers. She was seven years older than me. She saw me one day from the opposite bank while I was soaking my tired feet in the icy river. She came to sit by me and talked to me in such warm frankness that I couldn’t help falling directly into her sinister trap. She fell in love with me at the speed of light and declared that I wouldn’t have any choice but to submit to her tireless wooing. She slept with me the first night she took me to her humble home. She was my first one.                 
Under her guidance I got to know the secrets of the sense of touch and learned passion’s elusive language. Most of the time she’d ask me to be delicate and patient but once in a while she’d demand me to treat her in a domineering roughness, “like an unbridled whore on a dark street corner.” She used to mock my adolescence and my shyness but at the same time her love had become jealous and twisted to such an extent that she regarded any female presence around me as a genuine threat.
“One of them will steal you from me,” she told me one night when she came to pick me up after my shift, scanning distrustfully the cheerful cluster of waitresses that assembled in the kitchen.
“What will you do when it happens?” I asked.
“I’ll kill us both,” she answered with fabricated humour that could barely camouflage the burning pain in the bottom of her throat.
I had no intention of deserting her. Her friendship was to me like a blessing from heaven. She supported me all along in the tiresome care of my domestic nutcase and even drove us to the hospital the day mum, slender and fragile as a dried leaf, was finally admitted to the very pastoral psychiatric unit.
Time had hobbled slowly. Mum barricaded herself behind her walls and didn’t even bother to answer my phone calls, but had merely sent a few short text messages that hadn’t revealed anything. Naomi insisted that I move in with her for the three month of hospitalization and used that time to weave our weird relationship with rigid ropes of morbid addiction. Her feelings of alienation from the community in which she was born and the animosity she imagined seeing all around her locked us in a blurry bubble of solitude. Her mating habits lost completely their original tenderness. She dictated a fierce choreography of domination and subordination, and sometimes she would beg me to pull her hair harshly while she was barking her sensual delight at the wall of her narrow bedroom. As the storm would cease her body would become a wreck of sweaty organs and she’d lay her sweaty wild head on my chest and shed onto it thousands of tears of horror.
“I know you’re gonna leave me,” she wailed franticly, “in the end they all do.”   
And she was right. The urge to flee the cuckoo’s nest appeared shortly after I moved into it and ripened fully when mum was released from the hospital. She returned to the apartment in a scorching August afternoon, not before she’d had her hair dyed and bought herself some new sets of clothes. Her spongy cheeks were stretched by an unwanted smile as a reaction to my visible astonishment.
“Yes, I put on some weight,” she said, kissed my chin, and started laying out her new skirts on the sofa. 
“I’m hungry,” she added after a moment of awkward silent, “can you make something to eat?”
I went to the kitchen willing and eager and took the required groceries out, and while I was washing the vegetables and heating up the olive oil in the pan she came behind me, opened the cabinet under the sink and threw away a bundle of prescription drugs.
“I don’t need this shit anymore,” she grunted, then collected her folded clothes and locked herself in her room.
 
Darkness had descended over us and mum was still holed up in her shelter. A sterilized silence prevailed in the apartment, through whose open windows the dense summer evening was slowly invading. The cooked food was impatiently waiting on the stove. My smartphone was frequently vibrating from Naomi’s desperate suicide threats, which didn’t concern me at all. I was already well acquainted with her melodramatic tendencies, and I knew that she would soon capture another young and clueless prey along the river, bind it with her silk threads and intoxicate it with her sweet potions. 
It was almost midnight when I woke up to the clattering noise of cutlery. I was lying on the sofa, my legs were heavy and my head was humming with inane thoughts. She was sitting at the table, stuffing her mouth like a refugee on the run. My nervous roaming didn’t distract her, and when she was done she brought her plate to the sink and went instantly into the bathroom.
After more than half an hour she opened her bedroom door and recoiled as she saw me sitting on her bed, among the carefully arranged stacks of her closet’s content.
“Are you leaving?”
“Yes.”
She gazed at me with an alienated dread.
“For good?” I asked with a trembling voice.
“Yes.”
“Where will you live?”
“You don’t need to know that.” 
I stood up and caught her between the closet door and the wall. She bowed her head and put her palm between her closed eyes, gripping her nose bridge and shaking her body as if she was ardently praying.
“I’m starting all over again. You have no part in my new life. Don’t take it too hard. Anyway I’m not a real mother, and I’ve never been. I want out, as far away as possible. Another land, another language, another weather. I don’t belong here, in this middle eastern hell.”
She walked past me and sat down on the bed, pulling gently strands of her wet hair. Her eyes looked far beyond the boundaries of the room. Her lips trembled as she spoke.
It would be different this time, she said. She’d known him already for a few years. She met him during one of his frequent vacations in his homeland, and from the beginning he wooed her persistently. He was not young or particularly handsome, but he loved her and was willing to take her under his wings. When she was at the hospital she contacted him. He flew especially for her, and during his visits he excited her imagination with stories about the little American town in which he lived.
“The taxi is coming at five in the morning. Now get lost please, I have lots to do.”
She pulled a suitcase out of the closet and started packing her belongings, humming a melancholic melody, inaccessible and distant as her new country.
The night went by like a sleeping battleground before the inevitable clashes of dawn. The alarm clock woke me up from a restless sleep. The sound of her merry feet stabbed my soul like blunt arrows. She came out of the bathroom and started pulling her suitcase towards the door. I got up and ran along the corridor, as determined and excited as that child who greeted her when she arrived home from work. I grabbed her arm and started wailing uncontrollably.
“Please, mum. Don’t go. Please…”
My words blended with an enormous cascade of bitter tears.
She struggled with me as if she was fighting off an attacker at a dark street corner.
“Let go, you lunatic! Let go!”
“Mummy!.. Mummy!..” I recited again and again the expired magic spell.
She slipped away from my grasp, opened the door and vanished with her suitcase before I could regain my strength. I withdrew humbled, sat down on the sofa and let the weeping do with me as it pleased, until its wells ran completely dry.
The rising sun painted the air with shades of glistening crimson. The awakening street gradually added a background music of desolate routine. No force on earth could make me stay in that apartment, which from the moment of her departure was no longer my home. I got dressed swiftly and went down the stairs onto the summer-stricken streets. My steps were wobbly but my sense of direction was sober and steady. The lucid flow of water penetrated my hollow heart while I was walking along the river, and when I arrived at the opposite bank the village welcomed me with a familiar inhospitality. I walked shortly along its crumbling paths, and when I stood on the threshold of the little house and opened its door I inhaled gratefully its musty odours. Naomi rolled in her bed and scanned the uninvited guest in a sweet and wicked satisfaction.
“Hi,” she said and raised her blanket, “come and join me.”I took my shoes off, plunged myself beside her and curled up with her warm, seductive flesh as if I was holding on to the last bits of life. Her caresses filled my body with a blind tranquillity and the whispers of her love accompanied me into the dark tunnel of sleep, from which I prayed I would never wake up.                              

Ballerinas are Steadiest When Spinning

By Angela Camack



Tonight’s performance would accelerate Clarissa’s career or hold it in place, perhaps for the rest of her performing life. A soloist with an important New York City ballet company, she was making her debut in Swan Lake. All the classes, the pain, the hours taken from childhood and adolescence experiences for practice had finally led her here, to this stage, to this spotlight. There were so many dancers, so many talented people in the company, all of them waiting for one chance. This season, thanks to retirements and a ballerina with a baby bump, it could be her time. Success would mean promotion to principal dancer.
She made her entrance, leading her swans like a queen. Every step was graceful and eloquent, and applause was generous. The performance flowed on. ‘Clarissa’ stepped aside as her body told the story, starting as the White Swan and becoming the Black Swan, moving from innocence and despair to manipulation and sensuality. She and her partner Rob, her Prince for the evening, moved together in an almost instinctive unison. Together they worked the Swan Lake equation; two dancers equal three characters and make two romances.
Now came the Black Swan’s solo, and the pinnacle of the performance. Thirty-two powerful turns on one toe. The Black Swan spun, spinning a trap to catch the Prince, hypnotizing him away from the White Swan. Audiences loved it.
Now is the time. Take a deep breath into your already depleted lungs. Move to center stage and begin. Draw the Prince and the audience in with each turn. Fifteen, sixteen, … at the seventeenth turn she felt it. The tip of her pointe shoe drifted an inch to the left. It may as well
have been a canyon. She felt her knee tremble. Time expanded, stretching out like taffy. Not a fall, please no. The spell would be broken, the illusion shattered. There would be a literal fall from grace.
Deep breath, control. She met Rob’s eyes. Did he know what had happened? If they were dancing together, he would know immediately that she was losing her balance and he could help her correct her position. Now she was on her own.
She remembered other mishaps. The performance of the Nutcracker when she had to deal with a broken shoulder strap; there could be no wardrobe malfunctions when the audience is filled with children. Her dance in Tarantella, when she hit her tambourine and half of the metal discs went flying. But she had always managed, hadn’t she?
Another deep breath, for control. Control: dancing was the juxtaposition of control and abandon. She could do this. Her body was a perfectly tuned instrument, under her command. She straightened her knee and her back, held her arms closer in to compensate for the change in position. She swung her leg around in time for the eighteenth turn. Yes. She was rock-steady again. Time contracted to its normal length. Nineteen, twenty turns, scalpel-sharp and clean again. Now she was doing double turns. Single turns were all well and good for little White Swans, but the Black Swan grasped for everything with both hands.
Done. Now come to a perfect, steady stop, arms raised in triumph and head high. Take deep breaths without gasping. There was silence. Time expanded again. Had she failed after all? No, from the theater came the thunder of applause and cheers. She had hypnotized the audience along with the Prince, and they were coming out of their spell. Rob gave her the tiniest of winks.
Clarissa could have stopped to take a bow, but right now there was no Clarissa. She was the Black Swan, and she was getting her wings.

The Award for Best Botkin

By Yash Seyedbagheri 




Nick calls his older sister Nancy after she wins a Best Actress award for Drunk Mothers. Nick is thirty-two, Nancy thirty-seven.
He congratulates Nancy, uses words like “tour-de-force,” and “well-deserved,” words that seem detached and cold. He doesn’t know how to make it more personal, sounds like one of those critics who jerk off to their fifty-dollar vocabulary words.
He needs to congratulate her, as a loving brother. She’s won so many awards and he’s congratulated her, but through cold, formal statements and what-have-you. She’s his sister, but for the past five years, they’ve inhabited a different sphere entirely. Actor vs actor. Thanks to his idiocy and a sitcom role that he valued above all else.
Nick wants his sister back, the old Nancy.
Nancy thanks him for his support, her tone friendly. Cautious. It is as if she is expecting him to dig up dirt, gain advantage. As if he is another competitor and not the little brother she encouraged to become an actor. The little brother she once called nicknames like “old sport,” and teased with good-natured mercilessness, about his perpetually long hair, his bad jokes. His sensitivity.
Nick wants to tell her he doesn’t want to one-up her. Acting is crap. There’s a part of him who wants out of rehearsed smiles. The competition, alliances and rivalries, worse than turn-of-the century Europe. He doesn’t want Nancy pursuing roles and awards, wondering if he’s going to outdo her.

I’m happy for you, Nick says. It sounds fake, but he means it. Even if he feels a pang of bitterness, thinking of his last award that tore them asunder. Two Botkins divided by a common language.
And Nick telling her to go fuck herself. Among other choice phrases.
Nancy says she fought hard for her award.
You deserve it, Nick says, over and over, like a chorus.
I’m sure you’ll get a role, Nancy says. Which is the worst thing she can say, but Nick understands it too well. It’s the way they’ve lived for too long.
Nick hates having felt envy, watching his sister get award after award. He hates that sense of being a loser, needing to diminish others. Especially his own sister. And now here he is.
It’s not important, Nick says. He’s acted too long, wouldn’t mind something new to take on.
She sounds surprised. Is he all right? For a moment, he hears the old Nancy, big sister, back in action. It’s fleeting, but he tries to capture that moment in his mind. The lilting voice rising, the expectation in her voice, overwhelming. Almost motherly, even, something unlike their own mother, perpetually inebriated.
They may talk platitudes, but she is his sister. They have a connection, even if it has been frayed, even if they have both distanced themselves from their shared origins. The weight of their last name, Botkin. A name that held the weight of rugged Scots ancestors and country-club Episcopalian socialite grandparents and lost parents.
They once played together. Played spies. Detectives. They won, capturing all the world’s enemies with ease. Good always triumphed, brother and sister brought together by victory, arms raised in triumph as they vanquished these feigned foes. She also promised to protect him from their parents’ constant fights, beer mugs and knickknacks hurled in fusillades. He remembers her mischievous smirk, crooked, her laugh. The way they made up new identities while their parents fought. Nancy was even then a glamorous actress. Nick wanted to be a king or an emperor. They conjured fantasy while words and beer bottles shattered outside.
She was the one who encouraged him to take up acting in high school, attended every play he was in, while their parents were out entwined in liaisons and booze. She was so proud when he got his first role, even if he was playing a fucked-up writer in a meta picture.
She was so many things. And then they were torn apart by an award for a lousy sitcom.

I’m fine, Nick says now. And truth be told, Nick would be fine giving it up. Acting transforms people into entirely different characters. He never imagined he’d be a thirty-two year old with a short temper. A propensity for being offended by the smallest of slights.
I can’t play anything but lovable losers, he adds, laughing.
Hollywood loves losers, she says. Laughs. Nick cannot help but laugh too. He’s played a multitude of losers. Depressed bartenders, a lecherous, lovable Episcopal priest, a screenwriter with a tumor.
It’s no way to live, fighting. Being unable to simply abide, take losses, to laugh at things. Telling loved ones to fuck themselves, that they didn’t know a thing about the world. About acting. That they were selfish. Especially his sister. How those words swirl like sickly alphabet soup. How Nick wishes he could erase them all or reshape them into something teasing and funny.
Nick’s been living like this too long, unable to really let go. And it feels like being on the brink of things. The brink of some explosion, unimaginable.
Nick’s been doing small indie pictures for the past couple years, even though he’s auditioned for some major roles. He auditioned for a young Lenin but wasn’t charismatic enough. He couldn’t capture Hitler’s madness. He wasn’t hyper enough for Teddy Roosevelt. On his defects went.
Of course, he did play Czar Nicholas. But it was a sitcom. That cursed sitcom. If he’d never done that role, perhaps he wouldn’t be making this call now. If he hadn’t overreacted to Nancy’s joke about it being third-rate, they wouldn’t be here.
Truth be told, that sitcom was third-rate. It was a Romanov-centric sitcom called, Everybody Hates Nicholas, with an inappropriate laugh track and British actors playing half the population of the Russian Empire. Nick took the role because he thought playing another Nick was propitious, an omen.
Perhaps he and Nancy would still be as close as ever. Perhaps he wouldn’t live with the weight of invectives hurled at Nancy, sweet Nancy. Fuck yourself. You don’t fucking know shit.
Perhaps she wouldn’t have withdrawn into her own movie roles. So many ifs. Perhaps they would be celebrating their victories, their small roles together, still calling each other their own nicknames. Nan. Nicky. Old sport. Dumbass. Saint Nick. Nancy Drew, which Nick had used to tease his sister because she loved mystery. Perhaps they would be spending time at each other’s domiciles, like the old days when Nick and Nancy gathered in her room, when they were scared.
His past roles should be history. Things to put behind. But then again, Nancy could play Hitler in drag easily. Nick tries to banish this ember of jealousy. Still, it darts about his consciousness.
Be gone, he growls silently.
Nick describe how he was captivated by Nancy’s role, words incoherent, excited. Childish. He loved the way she played a drunk mother so well. And he was. Nick was captivated by the way she vacillated between love and manic rages, despair, and somnolence. She switched moods with the grace of an acrobat, of someone fighting in life. Nick, on the other hand, is someone accustomed to drifting, waiting for opportunities.
Nothing beats drunk mothers, Nick says.
There is silence, deep and dark. Nick fears he has offended her.
I love what I do, she says. Inhabiting characters. It’s power, you know? It’s something indescribable to inhabit another person’s head. Learn about their flaws. Learn why we fuck up.
Fucking A, Nick says. The universal trait.
Nick loves that Nancy utters the word love. But he wishes he could say it with ease, say what he wants to tell her. He loves her. He’s an asshole. A motherfucker.
Nancy asks Nick about his career. You’re not really giving it up? He laughs it off with another joke about playing losers.
Love. It’s a word he hasn’t pronounced in years, not since that damned sitcom blowup. You could do better, Nicky, she’d said. And thinking about it now, there was a tenderness, concern in that statement. Nick disregarded entirely. A concern for Nick, a desire to see him become a new man. He wonders what she wanted to see in him. Someone more confident? A facsimile of her?
The thoughts confound him. He feels sorrow, bewilderment. Rage.
Like an asshole, he’d withdrawn into shibboleths of self-pity. Nancy tried calling, texting, emailing. Nick withdrew into silence. For too long, he strove for the highest-ranking roles possible. Strove to prove something indescribable. Perhaps to prove that he could do better than a comedic Czar Nicholas, to prove he could keep up with the world, with his sister. Beloved, sweet Nancy. This makes him want to weep.
Soon enough, Nancy gave up, overwhelmed by projects. Nick wishes she’d held on. Maybe that’s why he hasn’t apologized. Maybe he wanted her to keep trying, to not give up on him, like their parents.
They’ve talked, about the weather, politics. About music, such as the Tchaikovsky waltzes Nancy loves to play and Nick’s love of Afroman. Nick hates having to be polite and distant, walking around landmines.
Maybe that’s why it hurt so much when nothing followed, his sister rising up the ladder and Nick being stuck with indie directors who wore berets and fake names like Rufus Dupree. Maybe that’s why he lashed out, a feral being, told Nancy she wouldn’t know a good sitcom if it
stalked her. That she should stick to her dramas. Kiss his ass. Maybe it was all the rawness he absorbed, spilled out.
Maybe that’s why Nancy became absorbed in the whirl of movies, a world apart from Nick.
Nick tells Nancy now people overthink things. Hold onto little things for far too long, whether glories or losses. He says it with shame, shame that he cannot reference the guilty party: Nicholas Alexander Botkin.
Nancy switches to politics. The old standby again. Nick could care less, but he ends up talking about how he likes Elizabeth Warren’s policy wonkiness. If these perfunctory conversations are all he can have, he’ll take them.
I’ve overthought so much, he says, words slipping from him like a tide. He has labeled himself for once and for all.
Another long silence. Nancy makes a joke about overthinking being a Botkin trait. Better than our parents, who didn’t think at all.
This is the first time she has mentioned their parents. Nick can imagine the hurt she must be enduring, that continues to collect within. She invested so much time encouraging him, to act, to become someone. And he has never really thanked her.
He tells Nancy now they should get together. Celebrate her victory. This is her moment and he must put aside his own envy. What’s going to happen is going to happen. He will tell her things left unsaid when they meet.
I’ll check my schedule, she says, taken aback. But he cannot help but think there’s something there, some small hint of pleasure.
I’m open, Nick says. Anytime.
Perhaps it’s the way they lived. Perhaps she’s afraid of the things she’s built up being taken.
Nick feels that way, but he’s never thought his sister was in any danger. She’s always had the better roles. Drunk mothers, female lawyers battling lecherous fedora-clad men in the 1950s. Revolutionaries. Nick doesn’t want to imagine this conflict reaching an apotheosis, the tabloids dissecting this family feud.
He doesn’t want it to transform into something dark and vast. Something like their parents’ own marriage, event. He’s frightened, watching constant fragmentation, people drifting into ego and foolishness. Like that little boy who played with Nancy years ago, except he has no one to protect him now.
Now he’s one of them.
Nancy says she has to go, not with the brusqueness of the past, but unease. A sadness.
Nick wishes her all the success in the world, hoping it will convey the truth of the matter. He wants to help. Erase their history. Rewrite things. He draws the words out, slowly. Nick hopes that he is conveying things he’s lost the ability to communicate.
Thank you, Nicky, she says, and for a moment, he thinks she knows. She knows and is grateful. He hopes that she feels some sense of ease, however small. How he hopes she thinks of them as tethered together. He needs so badly, he feels tears rise, still wishing her success, words dissolving into desperation.

Penance

By Edward Ahern


Walter Mueller waved a thick arm toward the stained-glass windows. “We’re not going to knock those out, Imre, even with what the heat loss will cost me. We’re going to back-light and strobe them so they’ll pop out at our drinkers. Sanctified eavesdroppers. Should give the clubbers guilty pleasure staring at them while they’re hooking up.”
Father Imre Herceg winced at the man standing next to him in St. Emeric church. The Connecticut parish, once full of Hungarian-Americans, was almost without members, and unable to pay its bills. But its sale to a man creating a singles bar seemed close to sacrilege.
The two men made an odd pairing. Father Herceg was gaunt and tall, with white hair, and in his black cassock looked like a lit funerary candle. Walter Mueller’s well-tailored gray suit struggled but failed to mask his portly frame. They looked like the personification of starvation dieting and binge eating.
“I’m glad the Bishop let you handle matters, Imre, you’ve been a lot easier to deal with than some of the Bishop’s gofers.”
“Thanks, I guess. You paid a large amount for a hundred-forty-year-old church in need of serious repairs. And disregarded the false rumors about the church being haunted. So long as what you do with the desanctified building is legal, we will have no objections.”
The concern in Father Herceg’s eyes was apparent. “Don’t worry, Imre, no sinning will be done here. Well, at least not consummated here. And the ghosts just add to the clubbing experience. I’m going to have the wait staff in pale makeup, like vampires.
Imre Herceg shifted topics. “The religious items—altar, tabernacle, statues will be out by the end of next week. You do still want the pews and organ?”
“Hell yes. We’re going to step the pews two high along the side and front walls. Pad the seats with suggestive cushioning, bolt down some little bitty cocktail tables and let ‘er rip. Figure to use the organ as background music for the wet tee shirt contests.”
The priest kept silent. He’d been given the failing parish as the last gasp of a forty-year career. Imre had wondered at his ordination if he might become a prince of the church, bishop perhaps, or archbishop. But between a weakness for the bottle and an unwillingness to be unctuous, he’d remained a journeyman priest.
After showing Mueller out through the sacristy door, Father Herceg left the church lights on and slowly paced down the central aisle to the rear of the church. The winter dark made the empty church seem dim, as if the season were fighting against the lights. As he walked, the priest once again thought he felt the brush contact of others, like commuters ignoring him in their passage. Just drafts, he reminded himself, or the misfiring senses of old age.
The Diocese had ruled that confessions must be scheduled weekly, so St. Emeric held them every Saturday evening from five to six, whether or not anyone showed up to repent. As he
reached the confessional, Father Herceg extracted his breviary from a pocket in his cassock and opened the middle door. His flock strongly disliked sitting face to face with their confessor, so the carved oak confessional with kneelers and screens was still in use.
Imre picked up his silk stole from the shelf and placed it over his head so the ends draped down to his waist. Then he sat on the cushion he’d left on the chair and opened the breviary. He’d already read the daily selection, but had the strong feeling that God liked repetition in prayer and started over.
“Páter Herceg.”
Imre started and dropped his prayer book. He hadn’t heard anyone enter, and the confessional doors always creaked.
The man spoke in Hungarian, his voice wavering as if it were windblown. “Páter, I need to confess to you before I can leave.”
Imre said his pre-confession prayer to himself. “Of course, my son, please begin.”
“Bless me Páter, for I have sinned. It has been a hundred twenty years since my last confession— “
“Wait, a hundred twenty years?”
“Yes, Páter.”
“I don’t recognize your voice, but you sound much too old to be playing a prank like this. If you’re not here for confession, please leave.”
“Páter, this is very hard for me to accomplish, so please listen closely. My name was Halasz István, and I was a parishioner here at St. Emeric.”
Father Herceg had leaned closer to the latticework separating the two men, but the penitent’s side of the confessional was very dimly lit, and all he could see was a vague, gray shape.
“Mr. Halasz, you’re not making any sense, and if you don’t leave, I’ll be forced to call 911.”
Halasz’ sigh sounded like a slow leak from an air mattress. “The police could never find me. Please, Páter, I’d rather not demonstrate. Many of us were left here without choice after our funerals. But with the church closing we must find a way to leave. We hope if you confess us we can go.”
Father Herceg found his voice and took out his flip phone. “I warned you. Not get out, before the police come.”
He pushed the three numbers, but before he could hit send, his hands went numb with bitter cold, the fingers frozen in claw shapes.
“Please, Páter, we are desperate for your help. We live here with you, and know you to be a good man, despite your watching those cable television shows and drinking too much vodka.
Father Herceg began shaking his hands to try and get back feeling. The phone popped out and bounced off the side wall of the confessional. He jumped up and grabbed the handle of the confessional door and tried to turn it. But the handle, like his right hand, was frozen.
“Holy Mary, protect me,” he yelled. Imre slammed into the confessional door twice before it splintered off its hinges and hung sideways. As Imre ran out, the hissing voice resumed. “You should have more faith, Father. Now we must demonstrate.”
The priest ran awkwardly toward the front of the church, out of breath by the time he reached the altar. As he did so, he watched the flower-filled vases around the altar tip over one by one, spilling water onto the floor. The ciboriums inside the tabernacle began rattling together, and the water in the baptismal font began slopping over. A stray thought broke through his panic—that the vases and the flower stems weren’t being broken, nor was the font. It was careful mayhem.
The telephone land line was already disconnected, and his cell phone, if it still worked, was in the confessional. I am, however fallibly, a minister of God, he thought, and will stand within my faith. If this is demonic, I must face it. I will not abandon this church while I tend to it.
Father Herceg’s hands had thawed, and he took out his rosary and walked back down the main aisle to the confessional. He grabbed the penitent’s door and threw it open. The air inside seemed hazy, but there was nothing else in it. He stepped into the center cabin to retrieve his breviary and phone. The abused phone was dead. As he sat in his chair, punching phone buttons, the voice resumed.
“Páter. We are asking for a sacrament you are ordained to give. What evil can there be?”
Imre shuddered. “Mr. Halasz, was it? If you are a Catholic, you will know that the church’s sacraments are for the living and not the dead.”
Am I in an alcoholic delirium? Some aftershock from a stroke? “What you ask is impossible.”
“Our baptisms are listed in the church records. And our other sacraments and funerals. We’re part of your flock, Páter. I can give you our names and birthdates.”
This delirium will pass. Find a witness who will prove this apparition false.
“Look, whoever you are, it’s a cruel, clever trick. I’m going to the Vilmos house next door and call the police. You’d be wise to run away before they come.”
“Vilmos is my great grandson. Please give him my blessing.”
The priest jumped up, stepped out of the confessional, turned around, and flung open Halasz’s confessional door. And again, nothing was there but a faint shimmer. He walked unsteadily out the rear door of the church and over to the Vilmos house.
Father Herceg watched Vilmos’ shocked expression as the priest telephoned the police and described the incident. “It was a, an attempted shakedown I guess, from a man hiding in the confessional.”
“There’s a patrol car on the way, Father. Please stay at the Vilmos house until it arrives.”
As the policeman was speaking, Imre could hear a siren getting louder. After the police arrived, they searched the entire church and the rectory, found nothing, and took Imre’s statement.
“The man wasn’t a thief,” Imre said, “but he’s seriously disturbed.”
“And you didn’t see him when he knocked all that stuff over?”
“No, officer. I know it sounds crazy, but I couldn’t see anyone.
“Yeah, crazy. Well father, do you want to move out of the rectory tonight?”
“Thank you, officer, no. You’ve searched the church, and I’m sure he’s long gone.”
Once the patrol car had left, Vilmos insisted on walking back into the church with Imre, and helping him clean up the spills. As he was removing the splintered door from the confessional, Vilmos jumped backward.
“What is it?”
“I thought I felt something tousling my hair. Just nerves I guess.” Vilmos’ smile was forced. “Or maybe our famous ghosts.”
“Nincsenek kisértetek itt! There are no ghosts here.”
“As you say, father, but some of us are superstitious.”
Imre thanked Vilmos, locked up the church, and walked across the driveway to the rectory. Let it go, old man. You’re not leaving this church, this church is leaving you. You’ll probably go to a nice inner-city parish where everyone speaks Spanish.
He poured himself three fingers of vodka, added ice, and dropped into his recliner, the only piece of furniture in the house that wasn’t convent-Spartan. Imre launched a recorded episode of a mature-rated cable show and let the vodka work its magic. He paused the show twenty minutes later, got up and dropped fresh ice into his glass.
How did Halasz know how much I drank? He started to pour, glanced around, and stopped at two finger depth. I could get an exorcist. But no, they’d never agree to an exorcist for a church that will be profane in a few weeks.


***

The next morning, before mass, Imre reentered the church and searched through all three confessional cubicles for microphones or wires, but found nothing. He stood outside the oak doors and spoke aloud, his voice echoing in the empty church.
“Infernal or ghostly, if you’re here, show yourself, and I’ll show you what an ordained priest can do with the Roman ritual!”
It’d sounded stupid as soon as he said it, and his bravado died away unanswered. Yeah, sure.
After mass, Imre walked back over to the rectory. The death of a church involved about as much paperwork as its birth. Imre got busy officially notifying present and former parishioners of the closure, and suggesting alternate parishes that could minister to spiritual needs and would be grateful for donations, however small. The work extended, with a break for a sandwich lunch, until five that evening. It was again dark, and Imre paced slowly back over to the church. After letting himself in he walked to the front of the altar and looked up at the massive Crucifix.
How many marriages, and baptisms, and holy communions, and funerals. And this wonderful, old, dilapidated house of God is being discarded like yesterday’s vegetables.
“Páter,” the voice wheezed. “Páter, I’m afraid I must insist.”
Imre jumped and spun around, looking for its source. But the church was empty. “So, you don’t need a confessional to speak.”
“No, but dark spaces make it easier. You need to confess us, Páter.”
“Why don’t you all show up at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. I’ll invite the bishop.” Imre realized that he was being sarcastic because he was afraid.
“The light disrupts us, Páter, in a painful way I can’t describe to you. You will need to confess us in the evening, after dark. We were not sophisticated, and you will find our sins commonplace.”
“How many of you do you claim there are?”
“Twenty-seven, counting myself. If you use our years alive, there’s one boy of ten, and the rest of us range from our twenties through our eighties. Sixteen women, ten men. We’re not evil, Páter, it would be like confessing the Holy Name Society.”
Imre sat down in a front pew for almost ten minutes thinking. Then, without standing, he began to speak toward the altar.
“This is a moment when I wish I were trained in logic like a Jesuit. I am probably delusional, in which case what I do will be without moral consequence. And if I, in good faith, administer the Sacrament of Reconciliation, there should be no evil, perhaps only impropriety. But if you, my mental aberration, do not truly repent, the sacrament is null and your sins will remain with you. Do you understand this?”
“Yes, Páter.” The voice seemed a chorus of softly whistling words.
Imre was silent again for a few minutes. “And these confessions would involve penances.”
“Of course, Páter.”
“Are all these ’parishioners’ here?”
“Yes, Páter.”
“Then let’s begin. With you. It will probably take a few hours.”
As Imre walked back to the confessional, his thoughts churned. Is what I’m about to do a sin of itself? If they’re not released, will they haunt me instead of my church? Just walk out the back door, priest, and don’t come back.
But Imre knew he couldn’t desert. At the rear of the church he entered the confessional, donned his stole, said the usual prayer, and slid open the panel that allowed him to hear a penitent.
“Yes, my son.”
“Forgive me, Páter, for I have sinned, it has been a hundred and twenty years since my last confession.”
“Go on……”
Their sins, as Halasz had said, were mundane. Carnality of course, and theft, greed and gluttony, all the seven deadly sins were well represented. But no murder, no acts so vile that Imre shuddered. All had died before the advent of porn sites or shaming on Twitter, which was refreshing. The boy, Gáspár, made Imre heartsick. He’d died at ten of pneumonia, before he’d had a chance to become good or evil. His confession could have been Imre’s at the same age. The boy did not deserve to serve penance, and Imre absolved him with an extra blessing.
By the third confession, Imre found himself asking their names, and where they had lived, and who among their descendants might still live near the church. He felt he was attending 
a parish reunion spanning more than a century, and was sorry to end the last confession a little before eleven that night.
Cretin, you’re just pandering to a delusion in hopes it’ll dissipate. May God forgive me for what I’ve just done.
As Imre stepped out of the confessional he thought he felt hands gently patting his back
“Thank God for you, Páter!”
“Halasz?”
“Yes, and everyone else. Gáspár has left us. When he came out of confession he had a smile that would melt gold, and then, no words, he just left. You’ve given us hope, Páter.”
“There’s more for you to do, Halasz.”
“Yes, Páter.”
***
Father Herceg handed over the church keys and moved out of the rectory two-and-a-half weeks later, at eight in the morning. Mueller had crews waiting to rip out the pews and rearrange them. As he left, Imre could hear the rusty screams of bolts yanked from concrete.
Priests never really retire, just work part time. Imre found himself housed in the rectory of a placid suburban parish, Assumption, where ethnicity had lost relevance. His new parishioners thought his being Hungarian exactly as significant as his being a Capricorn.
He read two months later that his old church, newly christened as The Sacred Sinners, had opened with a capacity crowd. Curious, Imre drove by the next Saturday night. The large
church parking lot, nearly empty for Sunday masses, was full, and a long line of young men and women stood outside the rear doors waiting admittance. The emblem of the club, a heavily made-up angel wearing a low-cut celestial robe, hung above the doors.
Thousand one…, thousand two…, Imre thought. Patience. Let’s wait and see.
The wait took three more weeks. As he was celebrating a 10:30 Sunday mass, he noticed a large florid blob in the congregation. It was Mueller, who trapped him after mass was over.
“Father, you gotta perform an exorcism.”
“Mr. Mueller, nice to see you too. What’s this about an exorcism?”
Mueller waved his arms, and Imre noticed sweat rings that had seeped through the suiting. “The club, ah, church. It’s possessed. People are afraid of it.”
“Please, Mr. Mueller, let’s just sit in this pew.” Imre hitched up his vestments so he could sit more comfortably and turned to listen.
“My club is ruined. People come in, they don’t even finish their second drink, they turn all pale or flushed and almost run out. They claim something’s whispering in their ears, threatening them with damnation if they sin. Word spread, nobody even comes anymore. That damned church is costing me a fortune. I gotta have an exorcism.”
“That’s something you should talk to the diocese about. I’m sure the bishop would listen closely to your complaint.”
“That son of a bitch! He told me there was no such thing as ghosts, and that I’d bought the church as is, problems and all. But you could do it for me. You know the church is haunted.”
Imre nodded in apparent sympathy, but inwardly asked God to forgive him for the almost lie he was about to utter.
“I’m afraid I’ve never seen a ghost, inside or outside of Saint Emeric. Maybe there’s something in the ventilation?”
“No, no, Goddamit! I know fear, and these wanna-be players are scared shitless.”
“Language, please, Mr. Mueller. I’m not authorized to perform an exorcism, but I could visit your club, could even bless it if you like.”
“When, Father? I’m hurting bad.”
“Well, I’m tied up this week with masses and visits to hospitals, but I could stop by… perhaps a week from tomorrow?
“You’re killing me, Father. Look, I’ll pay you to come by later today. We’ll call it a donation.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, but no, thank you. A week from tomorrow?” Which should be enough time for you to slow cook properly.
“Oh, hell, all right.”


***

Father Imre arrived at four in the afternoon. Even in daylight the interior of the ex-church was garish, with nightmarish pink and purple lighting strips festooning the walls. A long bar with
perhaps twenty stools had replaced the altar, and shelves of liquor bottles took the place of the tabernacle.
“It’s quite a change, Mr. Mueller, but I don’t see anything supernatural.”
Mueller frowned. “Nah, nothing’s happened during the day, but then there’s nobody here but the cleaning crew. And it didn’t attack the staff. Can I get you something? A drink?”
“A healthy Gray Goose would be nice.”
After a sip Imre continued.
“I’ve had a chance to talk to some of my parishioners about your place, Mr. Mueller. It seems that its reputation is terrible. I don’t know how you’ll recover. You have my sympathies.”
“That’s not what I need, Father. If you bless this place, will the demons go away and leave me alone?”
“I’ve never seen real proof of any ghosts, Mr. Mueller. Any blessing is spiritually valuable, but I’m afraid it wouldn’t be much use against something imaginary.”
“So, what the hell am I going to do?”
“I wonder. You have several other businesses I believe, all profitable?”
“Yeah, they’re good money makers.”
“How would it be if you were to take a tax loss on the club by selling it off cheaply and offset the loss against the profits from your other businesses?”
“You sons-a-bitches! You think you’re going to hustle me? I’ll burn this place down first and claim the insurance.”
“No, no, Mr. Mueller, you misunderstand. We don’t want the church back. Just think for a second. Depending on how you declare the value of the church and the costs of improvements, you might actually make money selling the building. I can think of several congregations that might be interested.”
Mueller remained silent during an internal calculation. “I don’t know how, but you’ve screwed me Father. I’ll think about it.”


***
​
At Mueller’s invitation, Father Imre returned to the church about a month later, shortly after dark, and walked up to the bar.
“You know what I’ve done, Father?”
“Yes, Mr. Mueller, it’s been on the news.”
“I still think you and the bishop diddled me, but I sold it like you said. I’m a little ahead of the game. And I could move the appliances and lighting to another church that hasn’t got any spooks. Would you consider acting as a consultant for me, help me get through all your holy red tape?”
Imre smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Mueller, but I can’t. Good luck though, maybe the next church will be your conversion.”
“Yeah. No hard feelings. I left you a little something on the bar. Goodbye, Father.”
Mueller let himself out the sacristy door while Imre looked out over the dance floor, trying to visualize people kneeling in pews. When he was sure that Mueller had left, he called out. “Mr. Halasz?”
“Yes, Páter.”
“Is everybody here?”
“Yes, Páter.”
“You’ve succeeded. The club has been shut down, and a Pentecostal group, Joseph’s Many Colored Coat, will be moving in. You have performed your penances well. When you whispered in the ears of those clubbers, you acted as their consciences. I believe your penance is fulfilled, and pray that you can move on. The lord be with you.”
They answered with a sibilant group “And also with you.” Halasz spoke a last time. “We’re leaving, Father, the oldest ones first. Köszönöm!”
“You’re welcome. Goodbye, my little flock.”
Imre reflexively turned to face the absent crucifix and noticed a bottle of Gray Goose vodka and a glass on the bar. Just one, he thought, for missing members.

Lady-in-Waiting
by
Gerald Arthur Winter


Gail was a fetching brunette with sad, mahogany eyes and long black lashes fluttering
like a spider’s legs when she was excited, both positively and negatively. I first noticed this
when she was denied her winning run, scored during a recess softball game in third grade.
There were twenty kids in Miss Malatesta’s class. This was the early ’50s when no one
had yet conceived of using “Ms.” and you were either married or not. There were twelve girls
and eight boys in our class of which I was one. In the interest of balance and a presumption
of fairness, our teacher made up two teams of six girls and four boys on each. With her vast
knowledge of human anatomy and the natural order of the universe, Miss Malatesta put the
tallest boy on each team in center field to provide leadership to the left fielder, right fielder,
and short fielder, who made the tenth player on each team on the field. She must have figured
the tallest boy on each team would probably be able to outrun and catch a fly ball better than
any of the three girls in the outfield, awkwardly ambling around him. If a line drive got past
the boy in center, only his strong arm could prevent the hit from turning into a home run.
She put one boy at shortstop, and on the mound to pitch for each team. She must
have figured the pitcher had to be a boy with a faster underarm toss to home plate than
any of the nine-year-old girls could muster. She put the tallest girl from each team at first
base, because girls are graceful and can leap high enough or stretch doing the split to catch
any poorly thrown ball from one of the infield girls for the out. A boy at shortstop would
handle anything hit between second and third base. With a skilled boy in that key position,
any ground ball to short would be an out.
She certainly wouldn’t have one of her young ladies squatting behind home plate
where the boy pitcher could see her panties from the pitcher’s mound, so the fourth boy
was catcher. She’d arranged the two teams with such precision that during the first thirty
minutes the score was tied at 5-5 with almost all of the runs by both teams scored and
batted in by boys. The exception was a line-drive double between the short fielder and
left fielder. The ball got past Tommy, the fleet-footed center fielder with a strong arm to
keep Gail from getting farther than second base. Leading off second base, her eye lashes
fluttered visibly, even from where I played first base on her opposing team.
With just five minutes to go at recess, Miss Malatesta said there would be time
for only one more batter before we would have to leave the warm April outdoors buzzing
with bees in the clover-clustered outfield and return to our stuffy classroom. Miss Malatesta
was especially fond of Pete, the pitcher on my team. When Gail dared to steal third base in
the middle of Pete’s whirling wind-up, I heard Miss Malatesta gasp. Even farther away now
at third base, Gail’s eyelashes fluttering with pride were visible to me at first base.
“This is a friendly sport,” Miss Malatesta proclaimed. “No stealing allowed. Go back
to second base.” When Gail shrugged in protest and her eyelashes fluttered more erratically
in anger, with a red face, Miss Malatesta shouted, “This instant!”
From the mound, Pete smirked at Gail cursing under her breath as she returned to
second base muttering and kicking dirt all the way.
“What was that, young lady!” our teacher demanded.
“I said, ‘stealing in softball is allowed!’”
“Not in this game. I make the rules,” Miss Malatesta said with authority. “No stealing!”
I liked Gail’s spunk. I’d kissed her playing spin-the-bottle at my birthday party when I
turned nine. She’d kept those big brown eyes wide open when I kissed her and she tasted like
Juicy Fruit gum. When she blinked her eyes, her eyelashes fluttered against mine like butterflies
trapped in a jar.
Gail wasn’t popular like some of the other girls in my class, mostly because the other
kids thought she was a tomboy. She had a horse that she kept in a barn, and liked to ride her
horse and play sports just as hard as the boys. That may have been the first time I felt some-
thing different about a girl as someone I didn’t just talk about but wanted to talk to. I found
Gail interesting.
When Nicky, the center fielder on her team hit the ball way over Tommy’s head in
center field, Gail rounded third and scrambled home for the winning run. If my team had to
lose, I was glad it was because of Gail’s running home to score. She was great to watch in
full sprint with her skirt swishing around her muscular thighs and her long black hair like
the trail of a jet behind her lithe gallop. But Miss Malatesta had blown her whistle at the
same time Gail crossed home plate.
“Tie game!” she shouted to the class. “My whistle ends the game five to five. Back
to class everyone. Come on, line-up single file.”
I wanted to tell Gail how great she’d played, that she was a winner, but she was
fuming too much for me to approach her. Our pitcher, Pete, grinned at Miss Malatesta
with cocky assuredness. Like, Gail, I felt the game had been fixed.
My girlfriend in third grade was Leslie. I was neither the best looking nor most
athletic boy in my class. At four-foot-five, I was three inches shorter than Leslie. What
had attracted me to Leslie more than her gazelle-like qualities and shimmering blue eyes
was her mother, whom she took after. Mrs. Chase reminded me of Phyllis, the lead singer
of The McGuire Sisters on the Arthur Godfrey Show. Mrs. Chase was only twenty-seven
years old and married to a balding, entrepreneur, a pioneer in the field of plastics. She
was his trophy wife before her husband even got his first patent.
Perhaps his greatest plastic production came in the form of Leslie, a Stepford
adolescent who liked to touch and be touched, but her kisses were like a trip to the
dentist, tough on the jaw. Even when she showed me the lace frills on her new panties
with the days of the week embroidered on them, I thought more about the taste of Juicy
Fruit gum and long, fluttering black eyelashes that probably would never need mascara.
I kissed Leslie often, but liked Gail better for her yearning to be skilled at something
—anything she could be the best at.
A kind of rivalry developed between Leslie and Gail in third grade, with Leslie
lining up her clique to mock Gail at every opportunity. Gail ignored the taunts, even when
Miss Malatesta organized “Bring Mom to Breakfast” whereby the class prepared breakfast
from scratch in the classroom. We churned butter, baked biscuits, and fried eggs after
squeezing oranges for fresh juice. Coffee and tea pots steamed on the counter as well.
Gail’s mother had to work and couldn’t attend, but Gail brought a note of apology
to Miss Malatesta. Leslie’s Mom showed up in tight pink peddle-pushers, called “toreador
pants” in Sears & Roebuck catalogues. Her bright red top showed freckled cleavage as she
batted her shimmering blue eyes. I served Mrs. Chase a cup of coffee with cream and sugar,
but her Lily of the Valley scent permeated the Colombian bean aroma.
The first half-dozen biscuits came out of the toaster oven and Mrs. Chase began
to spread the soft, sweet butter on the biscuit she’d cut in half. The steamy center quickly
melted the butter and Mrs. Chase rolled her baby blues with delight and a clockwise
motion of the tip of her pink tongue around her full red lips.
“Scrumptious,” she proclaimed.
“Leslie made them for you,” Miss Malatesta said with a smile and nod to Leslie.
But Gail turned from the toaster oven with a pout. “Leslie just stirred the batter.
It’s my mom’s recipe.”
Miss Malatesta shook her head with a frown. “I watched Leslie add the ingredients.
Your mother isn’t even here, so at least she won’t be embarrassed by such a false claim.”
“Her recipe is on the back of the note I gave you this morning,” Gail said.
“I threw that note away, obviously a forgery . . . Won’t you have some eggs?” Miss
Malatesta asked Mrs. Chase, escorting her toward the frying pan and mumbling something
under her breath, surely about Gail’s claim.
Gail saw me watching her and said aside to me, “She makes me want to scream and
throw things.”
“You’ll only get in trouble,” I cautioned her.
“I’m already in trouble without even doing anything, so what does it matter?”
I thought about her logic, but hesitated to agree, because I didn’t want to be a catalyst
to greater trouble for Gail.


* * *


Fire Prevention Week was a big deal in grammar school in the ’50s. A volunteer fireman
in town dressed up like Smokey Bear. In a poster contests one poster from each grade level was
chosen with a prize for the winner. In order to prevent favoritism and have the Crayola posters
fairly judged, each teacher from grades K through 8 assigned a number to be put on the back
of each poster rather than the student’s name. The teacher kept the list of what number went
with which name for when the winners were chosen.
I was among the top artists in my class and was chosen with Joe Minarick, the smartest
boy in school, to paint a mural of dinosaurs. Our artwork was rendered with a volcano erupting
in the background and was displayed in the school lobby outside Principal Risser’s office. Many
girls in my class had a delicate, artistic touch to render realistic, colorful images with crayons.
I decided to put Smokey Bear in my poster, not just because I was good at drawing
figures and animals, but I hoped for an edge from Smokey himself if he judged my poster.
From where I sat at my desk sketching the outline for Smokey with a pencil, I could see over
Gail’s left shoulder where she was drawing a deer family fleeing gracefully from flames
raging through a forest. I was impressed, but Gail’s images made me try even harder to
make Smokey as realistic as a talking bear dressed like a forest ranger could be.
All of the completed posters were brought to Miss Malatesta and placed face-down
on her desk. She noted each artist, told the students what number to write on the back of
their posters, then she recorded the names in a log next to that number for when the winning
number was chosen.
On the big day when the presentation of the winning posters from each grade were
displayed on stage in the assembly hall, I was happy to see Gail’s poster on an easel with a
blue ribbon for first place. I saw that Gail was in the row in front of me with a broad smile
waiting for Principal Risser’s announcement of the winning students. He started with
kindergarten and used a yard-long pointer with a sharp rubber tip to draw attention to
each winning poster.
When he came to third grade, the principal said: “The blue ribbon for third-grade
goes to . . . Leslie Chase!”
When the students applauded, the noise was too loud for anyone to hear Gail’s
expletive reaction, but even in profile, I could read her lips: “What the hell! That’s my
poster!”
When Leslie came on stage to shake the principal’s hand, Gail stood up and
shouted: “That’s my poster, not hers!”
The teachers, students, and parents who’d been invited to see the winners presented
in assembly were collectively aghast, but I felt like standing up in support of Gail’s claim,
which was the truth seen with my own eyes.
According to the third-grade log of students, Leslie’s name was listed as number “18.”
Since Gail’s mother hadn’t been called to attend, she wasn’t present to comfort Gail
in her outrage, and since the posters were drawn in school rather than at home, her mother
could not attest to Gail’s being the artist of the winning poster. It seemed that I was the only
classmate who’d paid much attention to what Gail had rendered on her poster, the graceful
deer running in panic from the flames of a forest fire. The competition for the blue ribbon
was staunch, and most nine-year-olds were too self-absorbed to care about anyone else’s
creation but their own. I proved to be the exception to the rule.
Principal Risser nodded to Miss Malatesta to escort Gail from assembly hall to end
any further disturbance of the ceremony.
I heard Miss Malatesta say softly to Principal Risser, “Children often lie for attention,
but records don’t lie.”
Gail was crying as she left and her eyelashes were droopy as she rubbed her red eyes.
The last time I saw Gail was after school going home on the bus, and I sat beside
her and put my hand on top of hers. She flinched at first then turned to see my empathetic
expression of sadness. I was taken aback when I saw that the left side of her face was red.
Upon closer look, the rosy blotches seemed to form the pattern of a hand. When she blinked,
tears dripped down her cheeks.
I rubbed the top of her hand and said softly: “I believe you . . . you can draw deer
as beautifully as you draw horses. I never saw Leslie’s poster, only yours. You won.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said with a shrug. “We’re moving next week. My dad
got a job in Connecticut.”


* * *


Later that year Leslie’s dad moved his small plastics company from Paterson,
New Jersey to Philadelphia, and I never saw Leslie again. I didn’t see Gail again until
my 50th High School Reunion. With everyone reaching age seventy and many having
passed away, the attendance was expected to be sparse. The Reunion Committee asked
the alumni to make an effort to search for missing students from our town going back
to primary school. The internet helped find people from our class who’d moved away
before ever making it to high school.
Although I’d have never recognized Gail Morris in a crowd after so many years,
she came up to me with a broad smile, took my hand in hers, and patted the top of my
liver-spotted hand.
“You probably have no idea who I am,” she said. “But I’d know you anywhere,
even with your white beard.”
I was about to admit that I was stumped until she turned her head to say hello
to another alumnus among several elderly ladies waiting to be greeted by the Reunion
Committee. In the harsh overhead light of the high school gym where we held our
reunion, despite her wrinkles, Gail’s eyelashes still fluttered as no others I’d ever seen.
She appeared very confident and sure of herself as she handed me her card with an
invitation to attend her art gallery in Manhattan’s SoHo district.
I was glad that early negativity in her life had probably made her even more
determined to succeed. She’d been a lady-in-waiting to find happiness in who she is.
“Horses?” I asked.
“Mostly,” she said, “but one with some deer painted from memory.”
We laughed, wondering what had ever become of the other third graders
on our teams that day she’d stolen third base and scored the winning run just as
the bell clanged to end our recess.
I went to the gallery to see Gail’s art exhibit and saw that the one painting
among all the horse paintings was a watercolor, but it seemed to match every stroke
of the winning Crayola poster rendered so long ago.
When Gail came up behind me as I observed the deer fleeing in the forest
fire, I said, “I believed you back then.”
“I know, “she said, taking my hand in hers with a squeeze. “You can only
steal someone’s ideas, but never their vision.”
Though I regretted not knowing the details of her life from the day Gail moved
away from my hometown till today, as a writer I imagined a novel about that transition
of her life. But like so many of our lives, the best author is the one who lived it, felt the
pain and joy along the way.

ALL FOR NAUGHT


by Madeline McEwen


Brenda Brimstone, the fire-eater’s assistant, almost swooned when she first saw the new magician, and I thought to myself, right then and there, well this won’t end well, but nobody listened to me.
I was the cleaner, and sometimes helped out checking coats when they were short staffed. Had done for over fifty years. Should have retired, but I couldn’t get enough of the place. They’re like family, those theater people, more than that because I never knew what a real family was all about until I ended up at the Crescent Theater. But I’m not going to talk about me. I wanted to tell you about him, that Brian Naught, the new magician, who put Brenda in a spin.
I could see why. Everybody could. He looked like a movie star standing on those boards that I’d spent the whole morning scrubbing. He had presence, and you don’t see that too often. Who knew where Mrs. Moon, the theater director, found him, but she was never wrong. This one was a star and destined to shine. Wouldn’t mind giving him a polish myself.
That said, he needed a new name, a stage name. Who ever heard of a magician called
Brian? Doesn’t inspire. Doesn’t conjure up the right image. Doesn’t hit the mark on the billboard posters.
Can’t remember when we last had a great sorcerer unless you count that illusionist, and personally, I didn’t. Too arty for me. I preferred something meaty, and you don’t get much more meaty than slicing a body in half. Now that’s my kind of magic. I’d volunteer to be the sacrificial victim if Brian twanged his saw blade at me. But, they’d want someone younger, prettier and most of all, vulnerable. Gone were the days when I’d caught a man’s eye, but there were other compensations to old age.
Since nobody noticed me anymore, I had the chance to spy them, to observe all those tiny clues when they thought nobody was watching. I don’t mean a quick snort of snuff or a sniff of something stronger, but their tells—that’s poker player speak—the secrets that betrayed them. Like a flash of a smile that faded too fast, or a smile on the lips which didn’t reach the eyes, or matching their promotional headshot photos in a fraction of a second if a camera happened to flash in their direction.
And when I looked at Brian, I saw it straight away—damaged goods. However, I wasn’t one to judge. From where I stood we all had that same hallmark. Even Brenda, moving past the middle-aged years hadn’t wrestled her demons into submission. Was that what Mrs. Moon saw too? Was that how she singled out each of us? But I never saw it coming, although the clues were there to see.
Brenda wasn’t the only one in a tizzy over Brian, even when he emerged from Madame Morte’s private office with his new name.
“What’s it going to be?” I asked as he swept past me in the wide corridor with a bevy of tall chattering girls around him. He stopped dead in his tracks searching for the owner of the craggy voice—me. I hadn’t spoken to him before directly. I’m short too. We met eye-to-eye.
He leaned back, chin high, arms out in a theatrical gesture, “Mungo the Magnificent.”
The girls effervesced with enthusiasm. I kept my own counsel. Why burst his bubble? Then again, what did I know about the business? If it had Madame Morte’s approval, who was I to say otherwise?
Brian, or rather, Mungo, had more props than any of the other performers. A huge collection of who-knows-what arrived at the back entrance on numerous old wooden pallets. Harry had the unhappy task of hauling everything inside. Harry’s been here a while. He used to be a performer—Soltan the Strong Man—but shelved his weights and hung up his dumbbells. These days he puts those muscles to more practical tasks, mostly working on the sets, scenery, and wires, but he turned his hands to anything that needing human-sourced horsepower.
A couple of weeks later, I was busy down in the orchestra pit—more pit, less orchestral—mopping the floor during the early shift rehearsals—if early is mid-afternoon—when I caught a glimpse of the first act in what turned out to be a three-part tragedy.

#
​
This was opening night for Mungo now he had perfected his new act. The majority of the performers, apart from a few stragglers, sprawled in the stalls awaiting their cues. Some played cards, others gossiped, but they had a perfect view of the stage, nothing they’d not seen before. They bided their time waiting for the chance to see Mungo. Nobody was interested in the fire-eaters performance and certainly not Brenda, who if truth be told, had seen better days.
Brenda, in full sequined regalia and feathered head-dress, glided across the stage with a long lit taper in each hand toward Bernie Flame, the fire-eater. Brenda had messed up her timings on each of the prior tricks, so Bernie was not in the best humor. Brenda, I’m sure, had many talents. However, I wouldn’t trust her to light a cigarette let alone ignite a three-foot torch balanced on someone’s head, somebody else’s head, not her own.
To be fair to Brenda, I couldn’t account for the water spill on the stage but it was nothing to do with me. Me, my mop, and my bucket were all five-foot lower than the stage. I wasn’t packing a water pistol, and even if I had, my aim wasn’t so good. The water wasn’t there during the previous tricks, so how did it get there? Yes, Harry was up on the ropes fixing the crankshaft, but he didn’t have water up there with him. Besides, Harry was a neat-nick—a place for everything and everything in its place. But those were questions, and accusations, for later. Besides, Harry took the blame for most mishaps. I’d never known him to defend himself,
no matter how great or minor the misdemeanor.
Didn’t make any difference when Brenda fell flat on her face. The tapers to skittered and scattered across the wooden boards. Now if I’d skidded on a puddle, I’d have made darned sure those tapers hit the puddle too, but Brenda, she wasn’t lucky like that.
Bernie glowered at Brenda, his new assistant. Up until that week, she had been the knife thrower-cum-chainsaw juggler’s assistant. Texas Ted had taken early retirement on account of carpel tunnel syndrome. With him, Brenda only had to look beautiful and stay as still as an icicle tied to a tree trunk while Texas whirled those chainsaws and gouged off chunks of wood the size of house bricks. One way or another, you had to give to woman credit. Few people had the nerve to cope with that kind of threat.
Tear stained, snotty nosed, and dress torn, Brenda didn’t seem a good match for Bernie. They had a few more hours to practice until we opened the doors to the public. I figured they’d work it out. A few stitches here and there from, Sari, the seamstress, and all would be well and good.
I felt a little sorry for Brenda since it was her birthday. I’d chipped in to buy her that lavender—supposed to be calming—bath pampering set. Maybe that contributed to her slippery end sliding across the stage, poor thing.
However, I never guessed that when the curtains rose that night, the audience would be greeted with a sight far more gruesome than that little mishap.

#
​
Before the next act took to the stage to practice, yours truly was summoned from the pit to clean up the spill. A wet stage is akin to a death-trap, so I was up there quicker than ninepence, despite my arthritis. I got to my knees, head down to the task while vicious barbs of spite flew back and forth between the players. No pushing or shoving, nothing physical, but all the same, the atmosphere was toxic.
What? Did you think everything was fluffy and friendly around here? Hell no, this was family and that meant fights. And talking of toxic, so was that spill. I immediately recognized it as 3-in-one, the viscous oil with that unmistakable smell. I glanced up hoping to catch a glimpse of Harry, but no one was up there with the pivot mechanism for the revolving scenery. Still, an oil spill was an easy enough mistake to make. How was Harry to know they’d be using the stage, and even if he did know, one little squirt wasn’t fatal? The show must go on, and the screens won’t spin if the system’s rusted up.

#

Later that day, I happened to be in the green room freshening up the refreshments and freshening my own parched throat with a quick sip of that new seltzer that’s all the rage, when I came across Harry. Now let’s be clear about one thing first. Although I shouldn’t have been in the green room except as my duties commanded, neither should Harry. That room was strictly for the performers.
“Hey Harry,” I said, cheerily enough because we were both in the wrong place at the wrong time. He sat on the velvet couch twiddling one of the gold colored tassels. I’ve done that myself. There’s nothing like twiddling something tactile to calm me down. Next to him, an open
packet of salmon sandwiches—boy, did they stink—lay abandoned. Obviously, Brenda’s fish-only diet wasn’t panning out. Don’t know why? She ate less than any of the dancers, and they lived off fresh air and a hint of lemon spritzer. I hadn’t noticed Brenda packing on the pounds, but the woman was determined to transform herself into little more than a sprat. I told her not to stand in the way of the inevitable middle-aged spread, but she mowed me down as a defeatist.
Harry wore a hang-dog expression, mighty shoulders slumped, chin on his massive chest, tree-trunk arms as limp as spaghetti. The smell of Brut cologne permeated the room. Harry needed an update. Although, I noticed he’s smartened his appearance; gone were the ratty T-shirts. Instead, he wore a striped red and white shirt reminiscent of his stage costume from yesteryear. If I weren’t mistaken, he’d spruced up his mustachios too, blackened and smoothed to a waxen gleam.
I was going to ask about the oil, but something about him made me stop. Harry could be remote, often remaining silent for days like a taciturn mute. Mrs. Moon never referred to whatever it was that caused his trauma. Our secrets were safe with her.
“You’re a woman, Mildred,” Harry said, looking at me questioningly.
“That’s true.” What else was I supposed to say?
“When a girl says she loves you, what does that really mean?”
I stuck out my bottom lip to indicate that I was giving this question serious thought. His watery eyes told me he set great store on what I was about to say. I didn’t want to get it wrong.
“Usually,” I said with as much authority as I could muster, “it means a girl wants to spend time with you, that is, you over and above other people, men.”
He looked at me expectantly, so I bumbled on. “If things aren’t working out right now, then remember Mahatma.”
“Who?”
“Gandhi. ‘The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.’”
Harry sighed, a huge sigh with enough air to make the little tassels spin. “Thanks, Mildred. You’re the best. I’ll go and finish breaking down Mungo’s pallets now. You can take some home as firewood if you like?”
Honestly, I was just glad he got up and left. I had no intention of taking a sack of kindling home on the bus. I was already behind on my cleaning rota, and all that fresh sawdust under the stage wasn’t going to brush itself away. I wished they wouldn’t do their messy jobs down there. Yes, it’s about the only large unoccupied space, but it makes more work for me: abandoned shoes and other items of unmentionable clothing, sandwich wrappers, empty bottles, you name it, I find it. That’s the less glamorous side of the business.
At the time, as I nibbled a chocolate wafer catching the crumbs in my apron, I wondered about the girl Harry spoke of. What kind of girl played with an old man’s affections? How would the romance play out and how would it end?

#

I heard on the grapevine that Madame Morte discovered Brian’s act after a tip-off from one of the girls. That wasn’t uncommon. Goes with the territory; a performer falls on hard times or suffers some personal tragedy, and the artistic community unites. There’s nothing like a sympathetic ear to the ground to open all kinds of unexpected tunnels of communication. When you’ve been treading the boards for years, everybody ends up rubbing shoulders with their competitors every once in a while. In fact, many of the greatest partnerships occurred by pure happenstance, like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. However, Brian was a solo artiste.
Speaking for myself, if I’d seen Brian’s act and heard he was looking for new work, I’d have happily given him any leads I came across. Who wouldn’t want to help someone like him: personable, talented, and full of potential? Turns out, I wasn’t alone in my sentiments.
“All I’m saying …” Brenda’s voice pleaded as I held an ice-cube to a lump of chewing gum to the bottom of a seat out of sight, both me and the seat. I could smell her perfume. She must have bathed herself in the stuff.
“I think your act could move into the stratosphere with the right partner,” she said, “or assistant, someone like me.”
As my fingers froze, I wondered how many other offers Brian had parried during his first weeks. By the sound so things, quite a few.
“Thanks, Brenda, but as I said to the others, I’m a one-man band if you know what I mean?”
Something about the way he spoke to her made me think there was more to it, that maybe, they knew each other before. I lifted my head above the tops of the seats and saw the two of them standing together, two silhouettes with not a lot of white space between them. Although Madame Morte didn’t have probationary periods, everyone understood the unspoken rule—play nice.
I watched Mungo snag Brenda’s elasticated waistband, more like a twelve-inch corset. He tucked one finger beneath the lace edging at her sternum, pulling her closer, and said, “you might want to try some mints to mask your fish-breath.” He kissed her on the cheek and let the elastic snap back saying, “and be a good girl, Brenda.”
Then he left her alone on the stage. She stood there for a few moments, and it made me wonder. In one way, he had given her a gentle rebuff, but in another way you could see it as a slap. Whatever it was, I didn’t have time to hang about and watch. Besides, I saw Harry stride across the stage hauling Mungo’s coffin into position, so I hurried off to the box office to polish the window half an hour before opening. I’m sure there are more germs on that glass than there are in the rest of the theatre put combined. I blamed the heavy breathers myself.

#

Usually, new acts are scheduled to play last as a way of drawing in the audience to keep them on the edge of their seats. But, tonight was different. Mungo had top billing, and we’d sold every ticket. With standing room only, I planned to watch from the wings if I could persuade Harry to leave a heavy unmoveable trunk into position. Usually, he obliged but tonight he was busier than usual. It’s no fun being five-foot-two when everyone else is a regular height. You get to rely on other people helping out, and I was pretty pissed with Harry for giving me the cold shoulder. I’d hardly seen him since he’d put the props in position, and since then the whole area had been cordoned off so that nobody had a clue about how Mungo would pull off his great feat. Security was tight, and Harry was in charge of keeping the curious at bay, including me.
Rumor had it that Madame Morte had taken one of the private boxes for herself and an exclusive party of hob-nobbers, but I thought that was unlikely.
The band had been playing outside on the street to entertain the long snake of theater goers. Every one of us was there gawking. This was an unprecedented move but had drummed up even more fervor. The press were champing at the bit. We were going to be headline news in the morning. I was thrilled. There’s nothing like some positive press coverage to help boost profits, but the noise was unbelievable. Cars honked their horns and people in the neighborhood hung out of their windows watching the comings and goings.
Inside by then, I’d taken up my position. I smelled something familiar—lavender—something strange—who knew?—something fishy,
probably fear and nerves and sweat.
As it was, I couldn’t see a thing. The wings were off limits. We were all herded back behind swathes of drapery, the blackout kind where the weave is so dense you couldn’t sneak a peek. From where I stood, I could hear the hub-bub from the audience, the shufflings, the chatter
of excitement, and the occasional pop of champagne.
I caught a glimpse of Brenda hanging something on the back of the dressing room door and by the time she muscled into the group with us, she was almost too late. I couldn’t help notice a light dusting of sawdust on her pale, fair hair.
The bar staff must have been run off their feet, and the temperature in the house rose degree by degree. I unbuttoned the neck of my blouse. Brenda’s bare arms shone with a sheen of that smelly lavender bath oil, but nothing was going to stop those wrinkles from settling in—I should know.
The band played their opening refrain. The audience nestled like chickens rustling feathers and taffeta, and finding their roosts. Hush descended. I heard the ratchet system crank, creak, and groan into action. So much for the 3-in-one. The houselights dimmed as the spotlights came into view and the curtains rose in unison.
For a second, silence reigned. Then gasps, followed by a squeak of terror and a roar of horror. There was a scuffling noise from the audience as if they had stood up. I heard a long strangulated scream. The people in front of me stepped back. Then all hell broke loose. I wriggled my way through the escapees and moved forward with more strength than I knew I had. I wish I hadn’t.
There, center stage for everyone to witness stood Mungo’s coffin sawn into two halves and the body within similarly severed. Underneath a pool of dark red blood soaked into the floorboards sprinkled with flecks of sawdust.
I turned away. I knew what I’d seen, but I couldn’t bear to think about it. Was that all that remained of Mungo, those two parts?

#

I don’t know how we all got through the rest of that evening. One moment it was chaos, and several hours later, they were all quaking together in the green room. I joined them, walking in last, except for Mungo who had a prior engagement at the morgue.
The police, Britain’s finest, in the personage of Inspector Blot, had questioned each and every one of us separately. Now we were all corralled for a finale of grave import.
The investigation had ensued, but in the meantime, we were under strict orders not to talk among ourselves and add fuel to the frenetic media frenzy.
“Understand,” Inspector Blot commanded. “The theater will remain closed until further notice. Under no circumstances are you to speak to any member of the press. Do I make myself clear?”
We nodded dejectedly. I examined the performers’ faces. Was everyone as stunned as me? So much for opening night. At this rate, I’d be lucky to find the money for my bus fare let alone this week’s rent. If the theater didn’t re-open soon, we’d all be down the soup kitchen. And what about all the other members of staff, the servers, the hat-check girl, the doorman? They didn’t survive on wages; they needed their tips to make ends meet.
The trombone player chewed his bitten nails. Brenda picked at her perfect cuticles, and Bernie, the fire-eater, sucked his thumb.
How long was this all going to take? When would everything return to normal? How was Madame Morte going to find a replacement for Mungo? What kind of an act could follow in his bloody footsteps? A cute kitten conjuring trick?
“Can I come in to clean tomorrow?” I asked. “Got to keep the theater ready to open.”
Everyone turned toward me, and I suddenly realized what I had said. Surely they didn’t expect me to clean up after that? Wouldn’t the police do that kind of mop job? Then again, I couldn’t visualize Inspector Blot wearing a pair of marigolds.
The inspector inclined his head. “Kind of you to offer. If you ever need extra work, here’s my card. We’re always looking for post-trauma hygienists.”
A communal shudder riffled through the green room, and it wasn’t just me.
“When do you think we’ll be able to open?” I asked.
“A few weeks, maybe, after the hearing.”
“What hearing?”
“The sentencing hearing.”
“Sentencing? Don’t you have to have a trial first?
Come to think of it, don’t you need a defendant?”
“We already have one.”
“Who?”
A collective sigh filled the room. The performers were restless.
Inspector Blot explained.
“Seeings as how you were late, we arrested Harry after his confession.”
“Harry? My Harry?” Brenda shot me a look. I corrected myself quickly to avoid any misunderstandings. “Our Harry? He confessed? Confessed to what?”
“He confessed to having sawn Mr. Mungo in two in a fit of jealous rage over a girl.”
“Never. Not Harry. He’s as mellow as a lukewarm cup of tea.”
The inspector raised his eyes skyward. “He confessed, I tell you.”
“He said those words, ‘jealous rage’?”
“I put the theory to him, and he nodded agreement. That’s a confession in my book.”
“I don’t know what fantasy manual you’re reading, but in the chapter of the Crescent Theater, we expect a lot more from our cast than mute acquiescence. What makes you think it was him?”
“He cannot account for his movements. He has no alibi.
The chainsaw, his, was hidden
under the stage, and, of course, the blood evidennce on his overcoat.”
“Where did you find the overcoat?”
“Hanging on the back of the stage door.”
“Anyone could have planted it. Everyone passes through there every minute. You couldn’t find a more busy thoroughfare if you tried. Any one of us could be guilty in that scenario.”
“But no one else had motive? Who else had fallen in love with Brenda Brimstone?”
“She’s ‘the girl’?” As I mentioned, the days of Brenda’s girlhood were long past.
“Yes, the girl, Brenda Brimstone, the object of desire.”
“Nevermind.” I had to think fast. Harry, my fellow colleague, if not friend, stood accused of a heinous crime. Why on earth had he confessed? Then again, he hadn’t, he hadn’t uttered a single word.

#

My mind was racing, heart pounding and armpits sweltering as I tried to figure out what had happened. I thought of Harry—why hadn’t I noticed he wasn’t in the green room until that moment?
“It’s hard to quarrel with the blood evidence,” I said, thinking aloud, “but someone else could have worn Harry’s coat. It would have acted like a coverall or an apron, protecting the perpetrator. Anyone could have worn it. Someone small like me. It would have covered me from head to toe.”
I glanced at Brenda’s red, patent-leather toed shoes as she tucked them back behind a collection of bags and take-out boxes at her feet--
a hasty order to feed the starving artistes.
“What you don’t seem to understand,” the inspector said,
“is that Mungo was killed with
a chainsaw, Harry’s chainsaw. That’s a mighty heavy piece of equipment to wield around. Who else would have used that?”
“More or less anyone, I’d have thought. The whole point of a chainsaw is to take the effort out of the work. Those things cut like butter for anyone knowing what they’re doing.”
“I don’t think many of us share that competency,” the inspector said. “Personally, I feel unsafe holding a stapler and I’m fully qualified to handle stationery.”
“Where was the chainsaw found?”
“Hanging in the usual place in the tool department, blood had dripped all over the shelf beneath.”
“Ah! Well, Harry would never have returned the chainsaw to its rightful place without cleaning it first. He’d rather die than mistreat his tools.”
“Unfortunately, we don’t hold with the death penalty any more, but he’ll certainly rot in jail for the rest of his lifetime. And, he deserves every minute for the wickedness of his crime. To kill another man, a small, weak, defenseless man, is beyond my comprehension.”
“Mine too. What if someone else killed this weak, defenseless man? Someone who would never be suspected.”
“Who do you have in mind? Maybe one of these fine feathered ladies who grace the green room at this moment.” He laughed. “Perhaps one of these pretty, slender-armed, narrow-wristed, semi-clad girls.”
“I agree, to a point.” I gave her a look so she’d know I was about to point the finger. “What about Brenda?”
“Who me?” Brenda feigned both surprise and innocence. However, she wasn’t an actor but an accomplice. Although, in this case she was the perpetrator.
“Ladies, ladies,” cooed the inspector. “Don’t brush your fur the wrong way. I draw the
line at cat fights. You older ladies need to keep your hormones in check. What could Brenda possibly have to do with such a bloodthirsty, not so say, strenuous crime?”
“Everything,” I explained. “She spent many a long year learning all about chainsaws with Texas Ted.”
“There’s a difference between observing and acting,” the inspector said.
“Too true,” I agreed, “but she was responsible for maintaining the chainsaws, cleaning them, storing them, repairing them. Texas Ted had carpel tunnel syndrome. Towards the end, he still had his strength but any finer movements were impossible for him. He left all that for Brenda to do.”
“But I wasn’t there,” Brenda whimpered.
“When was Mungo murdered?” I asked.
“Approximately,” the inspector said, “thirty minutes before the curtain rose.”
I thought back to the excitement before the performance, the band on the street, the noise. That’s when it must have happened. I remembered the smell of lavender when we waited behind the drapes and the sheen on her skin when she finally joined the rest of us.
“Good,” I said turning to Brenda. “So you must have been in here eating the sandwiches I brought through to help the short-staffeded kitchen. I wondered why all the salmon ones had gone by the time I returned for a quick snack myself.”
“That’s right,” Brenda said her face flushing scarlet. “I ducked behind the dresser when you came in because I knew you’d be mad at me.”
“There you have it, inspector, from her own lips.” I couldn’t help feel smug. Why not grab my moment of triumph? “Take her away and release poor Harry,” I said with more drama than a B-rated movie star.
“You wizened, old, hag,” Brenda spat. She dashed for the door and was out of the room
before anyone moved a muscle to stop her.
“Wait a minute,” the inspector said though it was unclear whether he spoke to me or the disappearing Brenda. “What have sandwiches got to do with the price of fish?”
“Nothing,” I explained. “There were no sandwiches, not here in the green room. I made that up to catch her out. She grabbed the opportunity to give herself a false alibi because she was out on the stage wearing Harry’s overcoat and holding the chainsaw over Mungo encased in his coffin.”
“But why did Mungo get inside the coffin?” The inspector rubbed his chin. “He was due to perform in half an hour.”
“Perhaps Brenda offered to help him out, have a dry run, check all was good inside of the box. Who knows? Why don’t you ask Brenda?”
“What was her motivation?”
“Again,” I said with patience. “Ask her, but my guess, he hurt her feelings.” I knew I wasn’t wrong.
“But why did Harry confess and take the blame?”
“Harry? Now there’s a man who can always be relied upon to shoulder every burden. That’s the kind of man he is. Tender hearted and in love. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”

The Best Word

By Maliha Iqbal
​


A solemn boy of seven was busily writing away without a thought about the world. He was perspiring and his clothes were damp. There were beads of sweat on his forehead as he knitted his brows in concentration.
Suddenly a woman in her thirties came into the room and looking at him said “Samad! Take a break! You ought to be tired by working like that since morning and that too with a power cut! It’s so hot!” “Mother! Please don’t worry about me, the heat doesn’t bother me” replied the boy with an earnest look on his face. His mother merely stared at him, mumbled “what a child!” and left.
She rushed to a quiet corner of the house with tears welling up in her eyes. Once she was out of earshot, she began weeping and muttering over and over again “Oh! How the child loves to study! If only I could give him a better future! His books are his only solace from the grief and miseries of his life!” She soon stopped herself as she recalled her husband’s last words before he left the world. “You should be a source of inspiration, courage and love to Samad, never show your sorrow, face your troubles with a smile.” Yes! That’s what he said and that’s what I’ll do! She thought and smiled suddenly which lit up her face.
Samad lived in a war-torn country. Many had rebelled against the government and the country was at civil war. There was an epidemic of poverty and all had fallen prey to this.
It was nearly 9’o’ clock in the evening when Samad silently slipped out of the back door of his house and hurried through the lonely streets to a tiny, dilapidated building tucked away in a corner. A contended look came over his face as he entered the building and greeted his educator. Ah! That was his school! How he loved going there! Samad went to school in the silence and aloofness of night- most children in the country did because of the fear of rebel attacks. Samad had few children in his school, only seven and he was the brightest among them.
They had recently started learning English and today their teacher had an interesting idea. “All of you have to write your favourite word of English language on your slates and then one by one you will come out and tell the whole class why it’s your favourite. You have ten minutes” announced Mr. Blake, their teacher. He wanted to test the children’s vocabulary and spellings. Soon the room became silent as each child began to write.
Samad finished his work much earlier than the given time and stared idly at the light bulb in the room which was flickering occasionally. It gave a dull glow and swarms of insects had gathered around it. Out of nowhere a loud explosion was heard
followed by shouts of terror. The rebels! The teacher shouted “keep calm! Don’t be frightened! Hold my hand and don’t let go of one another.” Everyone slowly began walking out of the building in a single file but suddenly the lonely streets seemed to have come alive and people bustled all about. In the chaos and confusion, Samad was separated from everyone.
He did what any wise person would have done and began running towards his home which was nearby, the slate still grasped in his hands. He was out of breath but he wouldn’t stop at any cost. Finally, the front door of his house came into sight and he ran faster still.
Suddenly there was a loud explosion and Samad saw large flames before he fell to the ground. Bruised and bleeding, he got up, limped a few steps and collapsed. An agonized mother found her son the same night with a slate gripped in his lifeless hands. On the slate was the word “HOPE” written in a shaky handwriting. Isn’t it the best word? Doesn’t it provide you with the courage to strive towards your goal? Hopelessness itself is the end of life. Even insects are attracted towards a source of light for navigation and warmth or should we say a source of hope?

A Constant Source of Light

By Angela Camack


New York City, late winter, 1987

Jessica kicked at a pile of dirty snow. “I hate the 1980’s,” she muttered. New York City was grimier and the crime worse; people were greedier. New York was turning into a city for the rich and the poor, as middle-income families were priced out. Brooklyn was growing, however, as artists, dancers and musicians were squeezed out of studio and rehearsal spaces in Manhattan. Homeless people gathered on the street, huddled with their miserable collections of possessions, causing fear and pity in passersby. For the first time she and Charlie were talking about moving the children out of New York. Music had moved from rock songs with political and social lyrics and soulful folk music to heavy metal, which was all clang-bash to her. Musicals were still on Broadway, but they were gaudy, special effect-ridden spectacles that lost singers and dancers amid the glitz. Theater no longer had room for experimentation, for intimacy with audiences.
Jessica came of age in the early ‘70’s, which kept some of the spirt, freedom and hope of the ‘60’s. But going back to the early 70’s would not bring her to paradise, she knew. Those times had problems too. “I’m getting old, I guess. But dammit, things were different.” She kicked a snow drift again, not realizing there was a brick behind it. Stupid! She couldn’t risk a broken foot.
Jessica had been a dancer, which you knew by looking at her; slender frame, perfect posture, honey-colored hair in a bun, expressive blue eyes. Her feet were slightly turned out, making it seem like she could glide in any direction, and she had a grace that did not desert her when she was on the john clipping her toenails. She was in her next chapter now, with a husband, two children and a job teaching for the company where she had danced for most of her career.
By the time she got to the theater she realized the cause of her distress. It was two years to the day, almost to the hour, when she got the call that Wyatt had died. Wyatt, her first husband, breaker of her heart and her best friend, gone from this world but released from it too. Wyatt, the constant link to more innocent times. She waited until her classes were done, the children picked up and dinner started before she let herself remember.
They met in the cast of Street Dreamers, a musical that opened to condescending reviews in the smallest theater on Broadway. But the folk-like score, energetic young cast and hopeful message gained a following through word of mouth. The play had a long run and was still loved by community and college theaters.
She fell in love with Wyatt early in the run. Everybody loved Wyatt. He had that spark that drew your eye to him, that undefinable quality that was impossible to teach in any drama or music school. Everyone who succeeds on the stage has it, but Wyatt had it by the bucketful. He could enchant the most jaded or apathetic audiences. They loved him no matter what he did.
Not only audiences loved him. The cast circled him when they went out after the show. Waiters gave him extra sides, bartenders, free drinks. Landlords waited for the rent and cabs stopped for him on rainy days. He enchanted the world, this skinny, dark-haired, blue-eyed, shaggy-headed, sexy Peter Pan.
She watched during his solo one night, the hard to please New York audience clapping along as he sang. The stage manager joined her. “In the palm of his hand, as usual,” he said. “He sheds his own light, that one.”
It seemed Wyatt loved Jessica back. Within two months of Street Dreamer’s opening, they were together, seriously together. Although the times saw couples tumbling in and out of bed as easily and playfully as puppies, neither Jessica nor Wyatt could be casual about closeness. They came together and stuck. Their minds clicked together perfectly, sharing everything easily, finding fun in the most mundane things. The city turned into their playground. They held emotional conversations on the subway in fake languages. They mimed carrying huge panes of glass on crowded streets and played statues on the Lincoln Center fountain. They were the first to find new bars and musicians and cheap restaurants.
They moved in together, sharing dreams. They spent time on their bed, gazing at the cracked ceiling holding hands and talking. He always held her hand. They married during Street Dreamers’ run, a small ceremony at the director’s home followed by a raucous reception at their favorite restaurant. Wyatt and Jessica, their lives braided together. She had never been happier, and it showed in her dancing. Wyatt the magical, who found poems, perfect roses and flea market treasures, who made her laugh.
She noticed that for all his warmth and playfulness, their lovemaking was muted. He was always loving and considerate, but it seemed like he was rehearsing for something that was coming later. She said not a word; why, when what they had was so good?
Eventually they found jobs in other shows. Life went on. She began to ask, “Should we get a bigger apartment?” “Do you think we can take a vacation next year?” “When can we think about
a baby?” “Do you want a baby?” Wyatt was – muted, becoming less willing to share as her questions grew more serious.
She found out why one Monday afternoon, when both of their shows were dark. Wyatt sat her down in their kitchen and poured each a glass of wine. He told her that no matter his feelings for her, he could never be the husband she deserved. Although he had hidden the truth from himself, he was gay. He had been gay all his life, but never acknowledged it. He poured his energy onto the stage to compensate. When you come from a small town and a strict family you hid the truth, even from yourself. You played along with what was expected of you. And when you found a beautiful, talented girl whose personality meshed with yours, you told yourself that the love you felt for her could be channeled into marriage.
“Why did you marry me, Wyatt?”
“Because I love you.”
“Then why are you leaving me?”
“I have to admit what I really am. How can I be a husband, torn, like this? You deserve someone who doesn’t have this kind of fight going on inside.”
“So, have I been a smokescreen all this time?”
“No, I love you, I wanted so much for this to work.”
“How could you do this? Why didn’t you tell me before I fell in love with you?”
He was crying too. “Because it was the way I thought things should be and because I loved you. I still love you.”
“But you’re leaving.”
“I think it’s for the best.”
Before she realized it, glass was shattering, and Bordeaux sheeted the wall behind him. ”You bastard, I hate, hate , hate you!”
“Jess, I’m so sorry. I’ll move out as soon-“
“I’m leaving now. I’ll find somewhere. Go find your real soulmate.”
“Jess-“ There was nothing to say. The divorce was uncomplicated. Their families did not understand. His mother called her constantly at first. “What happened, Jessica? Why did this happen? Who did this to him?” She suspected his family thought she drove him to it.
Jessica’s life was leveled, most of what she counted on swept away in one Monday afternoon, leaving a barren landscape. But despite a week of not going to classes and trying to heal her wounds with liberal applications of brandy, takeout food and peach ice cream, she was still dancing remarkably well. The deep pain she felt helped her connect with the emotions she danced, both happy and unhappy.
But the theater scene soon became impossible. Wyatt called and left messages she didn’t return. The theater community being what it was, they saw each other at parties, show openings, restaurants. She felt people were watching her, expecting her to scream, cry, scratch at him.
She got a job with a modern dance company. At least she would be spared the rounds of auditions, the parties, the connections she had to keep up, all still part of Wyatt’s world. The company toured part of the year. She wouldn’t running into Wyatt or looking for his face in the crowds.
She loved her work, that was a consolation, even after she heard that Wyatt was in a relationship with another actor. She turned to her dancing, learning her roles and finding her place in the company. When she finally looked up, she realized it was time to find people again.
Charles Kendell was there. A tall, blond Viking in sweatpants and T-shirt, he had been with the company for fifteen years. He still danced some signature roles, but taught company classes and managed the tours.
“You can smile,” he said one day as she darted offstage after the last dance.
“I was so preoccupied getting used to things.”
“You looked so unhappy sometimes.”
She laughed. “That’s a long, messy story.”
Charlie learned her story. She learned that he had been engaged to a woman whose family convinced her to find a man who had a more secure job. He helped Jessica fall in love again. If her love for him wasn’t as reckless as what she had felt for Wyatt, it was as true. Charlie felt the same. They came together on equal ground.
So they married, and now came the larger apartment, the vacation, the talk about children. Wyatt was pushed away, put away with other childish things. She read about him in the newspapers but made no move to see him.
She met Wyatt again late in her second year with the company, coming home from rehearsal. Wyatt was standing in front of her apartment.
“How are you, Jess?”
“Fine. What are you doing here?”
“I heard you’re with the Carron company. I followed you home one day.”
“Wyatt Weston, boy detective.”
“Don’t be hard, Jess, it’s not like you.”
“How would you know?”
“I guess I wouldn’t, but I wondered about you after we broke up. I still wonder about you.”
“I’m married again, Wyatt.”
“I know. I’m glad. I have someone, too.”
“What do you want?”
“Just talk to me. Please. I don’t want to leave things being your enemy.”
She talked to Charlie, of course. “He has a point, Jessica. The breakup was so bad, and you were so hurt. It sounds like he was, too. Put it to rest. Even if you just see him once, it’ll close things up between you”
They met for breakfast one Monday morning. His face was a little thinner, his hair shorter and neater, his smile the same.
“You look beautiful, Jess. Marriage is good for you,” He smiled ruefully. “It always was.”
Amazing how they fell back into their old routine so quickly. By the time the waiter had cleared their plates and poured more coffee, they were laughing and trading anecdotes about her tours and some songs he was composing.
After that they didn’t stay away from each other, meeting for lunch or coffee. Minds clicking perfectly, sharing everything, finding fun in the most mundane things. And life went on.
Charlie and Jessica started trying to have a baby when she was 28. She was still dancing well, but dancing and motherhood both demanded youth, and in due time two children came, a boy and a girl. Charlie taught dance, and eventually she did too. Wyatt worked steadily in the theater. He broke up with the actor and fell in love with Dixon, a lawyer.
But by the ‘80’s it was hard for him. Dixon began to worry. Wyatt quit a long-running play to take a vacation but spent most of it sleeping or reading, carrying an exhaustion that never lifted. He had a chronic cough and trouble breathing. Weight washed away from his already slender frame. His skin looked bad. For the first time he had difficulty finding new roles.
By the time he was diagnosed it made no difference. He had something called AIDS, a disease that was terrifying gay men. There was nothing that could stop it, and soon some people in the medical world were too frightened to care.
He did voice-over work for a while, but even that became impossible. Dixon went on working, waiting for an axe to fall. Would his test results shatter his life? What would happen if his law firm found out about Wyatt’s illness? How long would he have Wyatt?
Wyatt’s friends gathered around him. At first, he kept up with the talk and the laughter, surrounded by the people who loved him, who were still drawn by his light. But he kept getting weaker, kept moving farther away. Finally, all he could do when Jessica came was to hold her hand. His mother came to care for him as he got sicker, maintaining a tense truce with Dixon. At least the end, when it came, was peaceful,
Wyatt’s family buried him near their home in Delaware. Dixon had no legal claim to him. His casket was closed, a framed headshot placed on top. The mourners gathered at his family’s house after the service, moving in two circles, Dixon and Wyatt’s friends and Wyatt’s family and
their friends. A curtain of uneasiness hung between the two groups. There was palpable distrust of Dixon, even though he and Wyatt had been together longer than some conventional couples.
Jessica crossed the room to get coffee. A friend of the family caught her eye .”You were the wife, right?” she asked. “He should never have gone to the city. It ruined him. Show people ruined him.”
“My husband and I are dancers, “ Jessica said stiffly.
“But it looks like you turned out normal.” Jessica held her breath and walked away, not wanting to cause a scene.
The gathering wound down. Jessica moved toward the bathroom, running into the woman who had spoken of Wyatt’s “ruin.” In the dark hall, the glow from a wall sconce caught the woman’s eyes, making her look hectic. She grasped Jessica’s arm, talking like they were resuming the most ordinary of conversations.
“It nearly killed his parents, you know, what he turned into. That’s why he got sick. That’s why they’re all getting sick. It’s a judgment, you know.” Jessica could no longer hold back. “Don’t you understand? Wyatt was good. He was better than you could be on your best day. He had his own light! Everybody loved him-“
Charlie was beside her, “Turn loose of her arm right now. Come on, Jessica, we’re going home.”
Charlie led her past the now-silent groups. They drove quietly through the dusk, then the night, to his parents’ house in Montclair, NJ, where the children were staying.
The house was quiet when they entered. Charlie insisted she take half of one of the muscle relaxants he took for chronic back pain (dancers never stopped aching). She fell asleep quickly.
She woke the next morning to distant sounds in the kitchen. Charlie and the children. She felt too heavy to join them. What had it all been for, loving Wyatt, and losing him, and losing him again? Was it worth being leveled like that?
She hauled herself out of bed, showered and dressed. It was worth it. She was able to start over, to build something permanent on the ground left behind. When she married Wyatt, she was still a girl, a girl whose dance teachers had to remind her not to be hypnotized by her reflection in studio mirrors. But she learned to look outside of herself; to understand and forgive Wyatt. To support Charlie when he retired from dancing and wandered the apartment like an elegant ghost. To leave dancing behind and happily embrace motherhood. The first risk had made all other risks possible. Not risking would lock you in a prison, alone.
Charlie was cooking eggs, the children chattering. “Hush guys. Your Mom needs to sleep.”
“Here I am,” she said, moving toward her family.

Shenanigans before Christmas
by
Gerald Arthur Winter


In the late 1940s, Coca Cola ® was a rarity in our home, available only
as a special treat during the week between Christmas and New Year’s. Mom
said it had to do with “Mr. Touch Decay” and the cost of dentist bills for fillings.
The war had ended, money was tight, and jobs were scarce. Dad’s salary was
$100 a month, considered middle-class at the time. We weren’t poor, but we
We ate a lot of Campbell’s tomato soup with water, not milk. Too often, meals
were just bone marrow from soup bones spread on white bread. Chicken livers
were prevalent on our dinner menu, with beef liver and onions, or kidney stew
weekly for dinner.
Dad had been a draftsman for the Defense Department during the war
so he had never left the states. After the war, he commuted to New York City,
Monday through Saturday, to work as a commercial artist for advertising
agencies. No five-day work week back then, which seemed to Mom like some
crazy idealist scheme a union Communist had dreamt up rather than anything
practical that could ever happen for the American worker. A 48-hourwork week
without over-time pay seemed fair to my folks. They were Republicans.
We lived in a quad apartment close enough to the Long Island Railroad
to make the dishes rattle in our kitchen cupboards when the LIRR Express from
Manhattan to Queens thundered by. Though the noise was a nuisance to Mom,
it was convenient for Dad to walk to and from the train station in less than a
minute.
The four families in our quad consisted of us, the Winter family of four,
the Goldfield family of four, the Shulmann family of three, and the McGorey
family of four. All told, half the tenants were Jewish, and the other two quarters
were Irish, and us of German-Austrian decent.
The Goldfield sons were in their early twenties, one fat and slovenly,
the other confined to a wheelchair with rheumatoid arthritis. According to
Mom, the Goldfields were “nice people,” but they kept to themselves. The
McGorey daughters were Kathy, a freckle-faced, buck-toothed tomboy in
eighth grade who beat up boys, and her seventeen-year-old sister, Patricia,
who was sometimes my sitter when Mom had to take my older brother,
Bobby, to the doctor. “Patty,” as I called her, was my Dream Girl, though I
was too young to have any desires beyond a peck on the cheek before she
tucked me in for a nap. Her breath smelled like Juicy Fruit gum. Kenny
Shulmann was an only child, between my age and Bobby’s. The three of us,
Bobby, Kenny, and I, often played together—more plotting than playing.
There were no pre-schools back then, so a boy like me approaching
age five had to entertain himself. Having a brother three years older paved
the way toward more extravagant mischief. The snowy, black-and-white
reception on a rare TV available to watch at a friend’s house made life
beyond our limited realm in Queens seem dull and grey. But I owed a
colorful kaleidoscopic view of the world to my brother Bobby’s artistic
perception of life. Color us, along with Kenny, a rainbow of trouble and
shenanigans.
Kenny Shulmann and I are gonna raid ole lady Schmidt’s house
when school’s closed for the holidays. Since you’re such a tattle-tale,
you’re comin’ with us. I figure you can’t tell Mom and Dad on us if
you’re in on it, too.”
“Sheesh, Bobby. I wouldn’t tell, but I don’t wanna go. I’m scared of
that ole lady. She reminds me of the witch in Snow White, especially with
that wart on her big nose.”
“Kenny and I will protect you, Gem. We’ve got a plan.”
Bobby always called me “Gem” when he wanted something from me.
It was Dad’s nickname for me since Mom said I was “a diamond in the rough,”
a real gem. Any other time, Bobby just called me, “Squirt,” because, up to
age three, I’d been a bed-wetter.
“What kind a plan, Bobby? Whaddaya wanna go in that scary ole lady’s
house for? She threw a bucket of ice water on us when we went trick-or-treating
last Halloween. Sheesh. It’s freezin’ now in December. I don’t wanna get all wet
again. I could catch P-neumonia.”
That’s what Mom called it, because she wanted her boys to know how
to spell, even if I wasn’t in kindergarten yet and Bobby was in second grade at
P.S. 61, an old wooden schoolhouse on Higby Avenue. He had to walk two miles
to school every day from Laurelton. I had to respected an older brother with that
kind of courage.
“Ole Lady Schmidt’s got fancy things . . . crystal goblets, clocks, and jewels.
Maybe we can find some cool stuff to give Mom and Dad for Christmas tomorrow.”
“What if the ole lady catches us?” I warned.
“Ya kiddin’? She limps with a cane. She won’t catch me and Kenny, but I
dunno about you, slow poke. You run like you’ve got a load in your pants.”
“Aw shut up! I can run as fast as you and Kenny.”
“You may have to if you don’t wanna get left behind.”
“Jeez, Bobby. It’s Christmas Eve/ Shouldn’t we wait till the middle of
Christmas week to raid that old lady’s house after Santa’s delivered our toys.
Maybe he’ll bring Mom and Dad some cool presents, then we won’t need to
get any stuff for them from Mrs. Schmidt’s place.”
Bobby and Kenny smirked.
“I already got my Hanukkah gift,” Kenny said. He was taller than us and
skinny with curly black hair. Kenny was almost six. Compared to me, Bobby and
Kenny seemed like men of the world, so I had to follow their lead.
“Don’t you know that George Washington attacked the British on Christmas
Eve. Don’t you want to be brave like the Father of Our Country, Gem?”
“He did? Really? Doesn’t sound like a nice thing to do,” I said.
“Nice for us, but not for the Red Coats.”
“I’m too young to know about all that stuff you’ve learned in school, Bobby.”
“I’m teachin’ ya, so you’ll be ahead of the other kids when ya start kindergarten.”
“How we gonna sneak out without Mom and Dad knowin’?”
“You know how Dad comes home bleary-eyed from the office Christmas party
and he and Mom fight then go to bed so they can wake early to decorate the tree, wrap
our presents, and fill our stockings before we get up to see what Santa’s left us. That’s
when we’ll sneak out with Kenny, cross the railroad tracks, and walk a block to ole Mrs.
Schmidt’s big house on the corner.”
“That big house is as scary as she is,” I said.
“Ah, she’s just an ole lady with a bunch of neat stuff we can snatch while she’s
sleepin’,” Bobby said. “Everyone in the neighborhood will be sleeping, except us.”
Kenny nodded and said, “Maybe I can find a necklace for my mom.”
“Sure, there must be lots of cool stuff she’s been hoarding in that house for years.”
“I heard her husband had been a banker in Germany before the war, but unlike my
grandparents, the Schmidt’s came to America with lots of money, so the Nazis couldn’t
get it.”
“What are Nazis?” I asked, but Kenny and Bobby rolled their eyes at me.
“My grandparents didn’t escape,” Kenny said, his mood suddenly solemn.
“Maybe some of my grandparents’ things were stolen by that German banker, Mr.
Schmidt. Maybe his old widow has my grandfather’s watch.”
Bobby and I stared at Kenny for a long silent moment, until Bobby said, “We’ll
meet in the cellar coal bin at midnight then climb up the coal shoot to leave without
using the doors, so our folks won’t hear us.
We put our hands together like Gene Kelly in The Three Musketeers.
“One for all and all for one,” Bobby said, just like in the movie.


* * *


The coal bin in the cellar stunk, and Kenny was already there when Bobby and
I arrived. We nodded in unison and climbed up the coal shoot, me in the middle, behind
Bobby and in front of Kenny. When we got into the yard and crawled along the barbed-
wire fence that separated our building from the railroad tracks, it was colder than I’d
ever felt before. Maybe because I was scared and shivering, but the night air was surely
freezing and damp, as if it would snow. I loved the thought of snow on Christmas, but
hoped it would hold off until we had our fun and got back home safe in our beds.
We knew about the deadly third-rail that could electrocute us if we stepped
on it. That was common knowledge for all kids who lived close to the tracks.
Bobby gave me a glare over his shoulder and said, “Don’t get fried, Squirt.”
We huddled in the bushes in the empty lot across from Mrs. Schmidt’s house.
“She must still be awake,” Kenny said, noting a light flickering at the first-floor’s
bay window.
“Maybe not,” Bobby said calmly. “Remember when she opened her door,
holding a bucket on Halloween, then dumped cold water on us? I’d seen a fireplace
in her living room. She must’ve lit the fireplace for Christmas. See how it’s flickering
at the window. She must’ve left the fire going till morning. C’mon. We’ll slide down
her coal shoot and come up through her cellar stairs.”
We did as Bobby said, and within ten minutes we were on the first
floor. We found the living room where the hearth still glowed with smoldering
cinders. The house smelled like Christmas. Her tree had the fresh scent of blue
spruce. Candles scented with apple, cinnamon, and pumpkin flickered all around
the room. Christmas cookies must have been baked in the oven earlier with the
air still sweetly redolent of vanilla and sugar.
Rather than Christmas lights strung on her tree, each branch had a
candle in a holder at its tip, a German tradition I was familiar with from my
grandmother. I wondered why Mrs. Schmidt would go to all this trouble
just for herself when no one had ever seen anybody come to her home
other than the postman and the milkman.
The candles were charred, so they’d been lit earlier, but you couldn’t
leave them burning for long without the danger of setting the house on fire.
My grandma said that’s what made a candlelit tree more precious with its
beauty only for just a brief moment. She said it was like the fleeting gift of
the Christ child, a symbol of how we had to concentrate on that blessing
from God, so we wouldn’t lose its glow when the candles burned out.
As I was staring at the tree, Bobby and Kenny went to the dining
room where a long table was set with ornate china, sterling silverware,
and crystal goblets. Along every wall were china closets containing a
variety of crystal figurines, goblets, chalices, vases, and delicate toys as
I’ve never seen, which included dolls of every kind from all parts of the
world. Bobby was right about what Mrs. Schmidt had in her home, a
fortune. including gold watches, diamond rings, and necklaces displayed
like a jewelry store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.
Bobby and Kenny started eating from a decorative plate stacked
with cookies shaped like Santa, reindeer, angels, and Christmas trees. The
cookies sparkled with decorative colors. I tasted one, too. My mouth
drooled with the sweet flavor of the cookie still warm from the oven.
Warm, I thought, but before I could warn Bobby and Kenny,
there was Mrs. Schmidt’s frowning face glaring at me from her reflection
in the mirror above the sideboard beside the dining room table.
“Ya-a-a-ah!” I shouted running for the cellar door.
Bobby and Kenny echoed my screams, but each grabbed handfuls of
jewelry as the old woman shrieked and swatted her cane at them. Bobby was
right, we were all too fast for her, but we kept bumping into one another in
the cellar and scrambled awkwardly up the coal shoot. To our surprise, when
we came out of the cellar through the coal hole into the yard it was snowing
like crazy with strong wind.
“Aw, shit!” Bobby shouted, giving me a look of warning not to tell Mom
that he’d said the forbidden S-word.
We had to scramble back down Mrs. Schmidt’s coal shoot and huddle
together in a corner by the coal bin. We shivered for several hours in the dark,
but thankfully, Mrs. Schmidt never came down the cellar stairs to find us. The
three of us whimpered and cried. I felt my tears freezing on my cheeks. I’d
never imagined spending Christmas Eve like that.


* * *


The snow didn’t stop till sunrise when we had to burrow our way
out of the coal hole. The snow was up to my chin and even above Kenny’s
waist. It was hard to trudge our way through the deep, heavy snow in the
yard. Though some trucks had begun plowing the streets, we had to go
home the way we’d come along the railroad tracks. The tracks had been
plowed clear by a locomotive , but the third-rail was buried, so we couldn’t
see it. Bobby made a stuttering sound by sucking cold air through his lips
like an electric shock to make me and Kenny jump.
“Cut it out, Bobby!” Kenny complained, but I just wet my pants.
The warm flow quickly froze against my thigh. Under the streetlights,
the blowing snow sparkled like glitter, and the wind made five-foot
snow drifts at the street corners.
It was almost 9 a.m. when we returned to our own coal bin and
divvied up the goods among us. Kenny wanted the gold watch because
he believed it might be his grandfather’s. He kept that for himself, but
took a diamond tie clip for his dad and a pearl necklace for his mom.
Bobby snatched a silver hairclip with diamonds for Mom and a golden
cigarette case for Dad. Bobby grabbed a silver cigarette holder for
himself, figuring he’d use it when he was a grownup. Bobby never
seemed to like being a kid, always wanting to be in control like a
parent. That’s what made him so bossy with other kids.
I took what was left, a gold wristband for Dad and a diamond
encrusted rose pin with silver petals for Mom. Only one item remained
for me, a German coin dated 1933.

The profile of a man called Paul von Hindenburg was on one side, Reichsmark on the other.

It didn’t seem like much compared to what Bobby and Kenny got, but I liked the feel
of it in my soft little hand, and the coin seemed to glow with warmth
in my snow suit’s pocket. I’d lost my mittens in the snow, so the coin
warmed my cold hands when I put a hand in my pocket.
Kenny made it upstairs to his folks apartment, and Bobby and
I came up the cellar stairs into our apartment to find a Christmas tree
decorated and a Lionel train set with tracks around the base of the
tree. There was a train station beside the tracks that had a sign on
its roof: PLASTICVILLE
“Look, Bobby. The tracks have a third rail just like the LIRR.”
He was staring at my face with a grin. He nodded to the mirror
hung above our living room sofa. We both stood on the sofa and laughed
at each other with our faces blackened with coal dust from climbing up
and down the coal shoot at home and in Mrs. Schmidt’s coal bin. Mom
and Dad were still asleep after thinking we were safe in bed and staying
up late to set up the tree and the electric trains before Santa delivered
our presents.
Mom and Dad left an ashtray full of cigarette butts and the
dregs of what looked like Coca Cola ® in cocktail glasses. Bobby took
one glass and handed me the other.
“I dare ya, Gem,” he said, both of us aware of Mom’s strict
rule about drinking Coke only on Christmas and New Year’s.
“It’s Christmas,” Bobby said, giving me permission. “Cheers!”
I nodded, and Bobby counted to three. We both gasped because
there was rum in the Coke. We ran to the bathroom and rinsed out our
mouths, then Bobby washed the coal dust off his face and mine. The
bath towels were soiled, but Bobby just shrugged, probably figuring
he’d think of some explanation for Mom that would incriminate me
more than him.
“I know where Mom hides the wrapping paper. C’mon, Gem.
Let’s wrap Mom and Dad’s gifts and our own, too, as if Santa brought
them for us. Hurry, before Mom and Dad wake up.”


* * *


Mission accomplished, we were busy playing with our new train
set when Mom and Dad came out to the living room in their bathrobes
and pajamas to wish us Merry Christmas.
“Looks like Santa’s been good to you boys,” Mom said.
“And to you, too,” Bobby said, nudging me to help present them
with the gifts we’d wrapped, his neat with bows, and mine with tape in
all directions and the wristband and rose pin protruding from the gaps in
the reindeer-patterned wrapping paper.
“What’s all this?” Mom said with surprise. “How did you—?”
“Not us, Mom.” Bobby said.
“It’s from Santa,” I said.
She turned to Dad, but he just shrugged.
“Well, I never—“Mom said, but the doorbell rang, startling all of us.
Then Dad peeked out the bay window and said, “Wow! I can’t believe
all that snow. Must be more than two feet. Look at those drifts.”
“There’s a lot more than that snow that I can’t believe,” Mom said,
glaring at Bobby. Then she knew to turn to me, the weakest link in last night’s
chain of events.
Bobby wrinkled his nose at me, his signal to keep my mouth shut, but
then Dad said, “There’s some old woman at the door and she’s got a German
shepherd with her. Could she be blind and wandering out in the snow on her
own with her seeing-eye dog? She must have lost her way in the snow.”
“I don’t think so. Somehow, I think I can guess what she wants,” Mom
said with a squint, more at me than at Bobby, probably figuring I’d cave.
As Mom and Dad went to open the door, Bobby pinched my arm.



“Mouth shut, Squirt. She’s got nothin’ on us—” he started to say, but
ole lady Schmidt spoke first.
“Merry Christmas,” she said with a subtle German accent like my
grandma’s. “I just wanted to be sure the boys, the other taller one, too,
will come to shovel my walks today, even though it’s Christmas. I can’t
afford to slip on the ice and break another hip. Took me an hour to get
here walking in all this snow with my bum leg. Thanks to my dog, Strider,
I got here in one piece. Wires are down—no telephone service to call you.”
Then she hesitated, seeing Mom’s new rose pin pinned on her
bathrobe and the diamond clip in her hair. Dad had his gold cigarette
case in his hand. The way she glared at me, obviously Mrs. Schmidt
wasn’t blind as Dad had thought. Grownups seemed to have some
telepathic line of communication to report to one another about kids’
bad behavior.
“I’m glad to see your new rose clip suits you,” she said to Mom.
Mom stammered, surely wondering what this was all about.
“You see, I made a deal with the boy upstairs and your sons,” Mrs.
Schmidt said. “I let them each pick out Christmas gifts for their parents
and for themselves from my vast collection in return for their shoveling
my walks each time it snows this winter.”
I could see from Bobby’s expression that he was as dumbfounded
as I was. What was the old woman talking about?
“It was your older son’s idea, because the boys are too young to
have money to buy family gifts.”
“When did all this wheeling and dealing go on?” Mom asked with
a frown at Bobby.
Whew! I was out of this one.
Mrs. Schmidt gave Mom her answer. “Last Halloween, the three boys
stopped at my house and saw my collection. I could tell they admired my
wonderful things, so I gave them what they each wanted, and they agreed
to shovel my snow-covered walks all winter.” She turned with a smile at
Bobby and patted him on the cheek. “Bet you never thought it would snow
on Christmas, huh?”
Bobby shook his head and stared at his feet with shame.
“I don’t want to spoil your family’s Christmas morning, so how about
if the boys come by at two o’clock this afternoon. Three hours work before
dark will make us even. Farmers Almanac predicts no more snow this winter.
Maybe we can strike another deal next Christmas, too.”
“I had no idea my boys were so industrious,” Mom said.
“Sure fooled me,” Dad agreed.
“It is ‘Mrs. Schmidt,’ right?” Mom asked, and the old woman nodded.
“You must be chilled to the bone. Come sit and have some hot chocolate
with us. Can I offer your dog something to eat? We have some giblets set
aside because the boys don’t like it in their turkey stuffing. You’re welcome
to join us for dinner. We have plenty.”
Mrs. Schmidt stayed for an hour while Bobby and I played with her
German shepherd as the grownups shared stories. She had to leave hoping
to get a phone call from her son from the Veteran’s Hospital. Kurt had been
wounded in the war and had lost an arm fighting in France. He hadn’t been
able to visit his mother since his discharge. He’d hoped to come that Christmas,
but his travel had been delayed by the unexpected storm.
“Kurt was afraid he’d be more of a burden than a help to me, but
If he arrives tomorrow, I’ll convince him that, with your sons’ help around
my house, in exchange for gifts, of course, he’ll be no burden to me. You’ll
get your friend, the Shulmann boy, to help me, too. Won’t you?”
We nodded.


* * *


At two o’clock, the Shulmann’s came down from their apartment to
have holiday cocktails with Mom and Dad, while Kenny joined me and Bobby
over at Mrs. Schmidt’s house where three new snow shovels were leaning
against her porch railing for us to begin our work. Enthused by the holiday
spirit and inspired by the outcome of what had begun as an assault on the
property of a defenseless old woman, we cleared and salted Mrs. Schmidt’s
walks in just two hours rather than three.
“Great job, you schtinkers,” she said, jokingly. “Come in for some
hot apple cider before you go home.”
As we sat in our stocking feet with our goulashes drying by her
crackling fireplace, the old lady told us the stories behind the things we’d
stolen from her.
“Like your family, Kenny, I’m Jewish. But to escape from Germany
when Hitler began to take over, we changed our family name to Schmidt,
which was more Arian, if you’re foolish enough to believe such a super race
exists. We are Steinbergs by birth, which would have put us into the boxcars
to the death camps a year later. We were lucky to get out and come to
America without loss of life or fortune. But the guilt over those less
Fortunate still hangs around my neck like a noose. I’m thankful that you
boys did what you did.”
“Thankful?” Bobby said with puzzlement.
“Yes. These trinkets may have value, but not to me. They remind me
of my fear with no solution to appease my guilt, unless I give them away.”
“Wow, so you’re Jewish, too,” Kenny said. “I’m sorry I thought you
were a Nazi.”
“Hey! I’m not even five yet!” I blurted. “What’s a Nazi?”
“Hopefully, you’ll never need to know,” she said, but you’ll have to
before you become a man. If you don’t, there’s always a chance they’ll
come back.”


* * *


On our walk back home, it was turning dark and stars twinkled in
the mauve sky. When a shooting star crossed the horizon above the newly
completed Idlewild Airport, I shouted, “Look! Santa’s sleigh is heading back
to The North Pole!”
Even Kenny and Bobby couldn’t be sure if I was right. It seemed as
if Santa had somehow transformed three naughty boys into future young
men who’d learned an important lesson about giving rather than taking.
“Can you hear them?” I asked Bobby and Kenny.
“Hear what?” they chorused
“The bells jingling on Santa’s sleigh.”
They cocked their heads then grinned, unable to deny what they
also felt sure they’d heard. Over seventy years later, I still imagine hearing
them at Christmas.


* * *


It didn’t snow again that winter, but there was still a foot left on the
ground and higher drifts that were like grey boulders from air pollution by
New Year’s Eve. The Shulmann’s decided to join Mom and Dad by going to
Times Square to see the dropping of a ball from a tall building. Mrs. Schmidt
told Kenny, Bobby and me that the ball was invented by Adolph Ochs, a Jew
of German heritage who had owned The New York Times. The old lady had
a wealth of information to share.
I interrupted her to ask, “We didn’t know you had a dog. How did
you keep your German shepherd so quiet when we came into your house
through the cellar. I’d never have come if I’d known Strider was here.”
She laughed and said, “I’m not blind, but Strider’s deaf. He served
like my son Kurt in the war, but the shellshock destroyed his hearing. He’s
a bomb sniffer, not an attack dog, not even a good watchdog, but I love
him and he keeps me from getting too lonely.”


* * *


So that our parents could go out, Mrs. Schmidt volunteered to
have us three young boys spend the night. The old lady had great tales
to tell us that kept us awake till 1 a.m. She even let us use noise makers
on her front porch at midnight. Just don’t ever tell Mom and Dad that
she let us all drink a toast with her homemade cranberry champagne
to bring in the New Year. The Singing Cowboy, Gene Autry, sang
“Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer,” on our Philco radio all week. It
was a wonderful time to be a kid. Everyone else from that Christmas is gone, but me, but I still have my Reichsmark to remind me of all I’ve
learned since.
That next spring, I turned five under the private tutelage ole
Mrs. Schmidt, who saw to it that I’d know more about everything
than all the other kids before I started kindergarten. Of course, my
big brother, bossy Bobby, would always know even more than me.
Happy New Year!
Cheers!

Hot Shower

by Gregory Von Dare



For months we knew it would hit us. We were told that the American government had a foolproof plan and we could all relax. Yeah, right.
We were the losers in a giant celestial game of billiards. A roaming deep space object clipped a chunk of ice in the Oort Cloud at the far edge of our solar system and veered in toward the sun. So far, no big deal. But then it glanced off a big rock in the asteroid belt near Mars, which sent it barreling down among the inner planets. After several supercomputers crunched the numbers, they came up with the same conclusion—Earth impact.
Anyone who owned a telescope directed it skywards to catch a glimpse of the incoming deep space object which, due to its elongated shape, dark gray
color and booming speed, was called “The Night Train”. The object was about a kilometer long and weighed several million tons. It was a planet killer.
The U. S. government’s big idea, as it turned out, was to let the Asians handle it. We and the Europeans would put up a ton of money, the Japanese would do the engineering, and then the Chinese would quickly construct a swarm of rockets to reduce the Night Train to dust, harmless dust. Or chunks so small they would vaporize in the atmosphere, making a great show, but doing little if any damage.
Time was running out as Night Train rushed toward us. The Japanese worked with manic energy and the Chinese recruited a vast army of workers; which was not entirely a volunteer effort. Almost overnight, a fleet of gleaming, silver rockets took shape in Mongolia, where they could be launched without hurting anything, since there was nothing there to damage.
It made for quite the spectacle, seeing all those rockets lift off in tranches of six or eight, flashing skyward to save our asses. It wasn’t until they were on their way and the smoke cleared, that the networks started airing an interview with a Japanese engineer. The man claimed big egos and bureaucratic feuding within the rocket design project had allowed a fatal flaw in the guidance systems of the missiles. And that the Chinese rocket builders had used inferior materials in order to squeeze a few yuan of profit out of the project.
However, since the man had been fired about halfway through the venture, his testimony was down-played by congress and finally rejected. The engineer was arrested for conspiracy to cause panic and suffered a near fatal beating in prison.
In the end though, he was right. Somehow the rockets were flying too close together and many of them bumped into each other, blowing up whole groups of the missiles. Finally, there were only ten remaining out of the dozens that had been sent racing to our rescue. When they finally struck Night Train, at about twice the radius of the moon’s orbit, they had what seemed to be an astonishing success.
The object was gone in a cloud of smoke. However, the cheering was short-lived. What happened was that one huge rock had been transformed into hundreds of big rocks, most of the about the size of a school bus. Some nearly as big as a mountain. Too big to simply vaporize in the atmosphere. Instead of being shot with a howitzer, we were going to be peppered by a cosmic shotgun. The bookmakers in Vegas began taking bets on how many billions would die. You have to admire the persistence of greed.
Right now, I feel the ground shaking like the footsteps of a giant on the prowl. It is, as predicted, a hell of a show. Smoky streaks flash across the sky; in the distance there is a flash of light and a deep boom. Any glass that’s not covered by plywood or corrugated metal will burst into sharp little pebbles. You don’t want to be standing in front of that window.
Many people near the oceans have already been submerged by tsunami waves from offshore impacts. I don’t think drowning is fun, but they are the lucky ones. Every day it gets worse. Here in Denver, we haven’t suffered a major hit yet, but it’s just a matter of time. As Earth turns on it’s axis, it brings fresh territory into the path of the meteor shower.
Dublin was the first major city to be vaporized—so much for the luck of the Irish. Moments later, Seville went, then Lyon, all of Monaco, then Vienna, then Baikonur, the Russian spaceport.
And on and on it went. Here in the USA, the government was desperate to place blame on someone. The Japanese engineer was a prime figure, until the media spoke with a single voice extoling him as a whistle blower and hero, then the onus shifted to the Chinese. If only they weren’t so corrupt, if only they hadn’t cheated.
We watched the inexorable march of destruction across the Pacific. Hawaii was spared but a hard hit in the Aleutians generated a tsunami that caused major damage along the northern shores of the Islands. Honolulu was deserted but basically untouched. Hour after hour there were bulletins of hits, misses, and amazing stories of rescues or fatalities as the hand of fate touched so many.
With the dawn, it was our turn. San Francisco was not harmed but sprawling Los Angeles took three major hits and several minor ones. Most of Hollywood vanished in a single strike. Las Vegas received no less than four hits, completely destroying it. What were the odds of that? Phoenix was rendered into ashes and didn’t seem inclined to rise up from them. Here in Denver, we held our breath.
About 3:00 pm, the sirens went off. Everyone looked up at the same moment. There it was, a bright pin-point in the big sky. A daytime star. It didn’t remain a pin-point for long. In just a few minutes, it grew to the size of a Harvest Moon, then bigger.
The air began to warm up. It crackled in an eerie and foreboding way. That ball of fire was coming right down on us. Families, lovers, friends and co-workers made their tearful, hugging good-byes. Only seconds remained now. At the end, it got much hotter. The thing gave off a brilliant blue-white light that washed the color out of everything. It roared like a hurricane. We all thought the fireball would slam into the ground and that would be our finish. But we were wrong.
When the fragment of Night Train was still a mile up, it exploded. Our own personal H-Bomb. Too bad we were so stupid and greedy; that we had elected vain and incompetent leaders; that we had lost the will to work together for the survival of humanity.
The shock wave came rushing at us like a ghost of vengeance. It touched my building and…


End

“The Dead of Venice” (1914)

A short story by Dan Klefstad


She promised to do it quickly. I promised to stay out of sight. All bodies float, which is why I brought two anchors – one for me, one for her victim. All she need do is throw us in, then the chains, followed by the weights. This far out the lagoon is forty feet deep, maybe fifty. From down there our lifeless ears might still enjoy the sounds of Vivaldi performed in St. Stephen’s Cathedral. Just as likely, we’ll hear the rattle of Europe’s emperors as they prepare – once again — to exterminate a generation of working class blokes like me. As I row, I point to Italy’s newest battleship which dares to keep its lights on; perfect target for a night raid. I ignore that bit as I play the tour guide for Fiona and tonight’s meal. “The Regina Elena. Faster than the HMS Dreadnought wot I helped build. Yup, this next war looks to be a doozie.”
In the lamplight, Fiona toys with the gold dragonfly I pinned to her ball gown. I can see her eyes well up and her mouth tremble. Lorenzo, heir to the Duke of Parma, raises his fist at the glowing gunboat. “Viva l’Italia!”
Toff. What does he know of war? I served in the Tibetan campaign, so I know it’s a nasty business for those who actually fight. I want to hit him now but we’re still within sight of ship and shore. Looking back, I see a city of free spirits being hemmed in by sandbags and barbed wire. Bloody hell, when did the Four Horses of the Quadriga flee the Basilica? Someone said the statue might go to Rome for safe keeping. From what — So the Turks can’t take it back?
I suppose I owe you an explanation as to why three people are in a boat, after dark, and two of them will soon head to the bottom. Hang on: The young swell is giving Fiona his kerchief. Blimey, he even recites a Shakespeare sonnet – in English. She tries to smile but struggles to contain her thirsty teeth and, guessing here, a broken heart? Concern for her future? Both hands cover her mouth as she leans forward, shoulders quaking. This exposes her breasts which prove such a distraction that Lorenzo misses the oars resting and the blackjack falling toward his scalp. I wanted to wait ‘til a hundred yards off the Main Island, our usual point, but the fog rolled in so … Boom. Done. Colazione is ready.
I uncork my wine and try not to stare as she sinks her canines into his neck. It always amazes me how efficient she is. No wasted drops. Her lips move gently as she slowly sucks him dry. I’ve never timed her, but bottle and body usually empty together. Then I chain him to the anchor and over he goes. The rest – hundreds of them – are a little further out in what I call “the cheap seats.” This will be my final resting place. I can barely stop my tears now, but they’re not for me. Creatures like her are vulnerable these days. She’ll need someone to look after her, but my pain is almost debilitating now; I couldn’t arrange a replacement.
I take another sip and remember how our partnership began with an ad in the Daily Mail:
“Seeking Personal Assistant. Must be physically strong, and willing to work all hours. Compensation: copious. Benefits: worthy of a parliamentarian. Nota bene — People with the following characteristics should not apply: squeamish, weak-willed, illiterate, semi-literate, religious, superstitious, melancholic, alcoholic, xenophobic, agoraphobic, unimaginative, uninventive, uninspired, and with rigid moral standards.”
I had to look up Nota Bene and, if pressed, would cop to some grumpiness without a few pints each night. But I posted a reply. Benefits worthy of a parliamentarian. What did that mean?
***
We met soon after sundown in Hampstead Heath, at the gazebo. I wore a suit that no longer fit and she wore a dress that barely contained her bosom. Her coal black hair waved gently across the palest shoulders I’ve ever seen. I thought she was a courtesan looking for some muscle, and she did nothing to dispel that notion. She gave me money to hire a carriage which took us to Charing Cross. We stopped outside a row of fancy homes and that’s when she turned and handed me the dragonfly. All that gold with emerald eyes; I couldn’t guess the value of this “down payment” as she called it. Then she lowered her voice and — without blinking — said, “A gentleman lives there. I am going to drink his blood and he will die. Your job is to wait in this carriage until I return. If you tell anyone what I just said I will know, and I’ll come after you to reclaim my dragonfly. And you. If, on the other hand, you wait as instructed, I will pay a handsome sum. But first you’ll need to get rid of the body. Think of a place to bury him. And start thinking of places for tomorrow night, and every night. Welcome to your new career.”
***
She didn’t tell me for a week that I was her first. Guardian, I mean. Or caretaker or whatever you call someone that works for a … Whoops, not supposed to say that word. Anyways, from backbreaking work in a shipyard I started breaking my back for Fiona, digging graves and such. That first week I made more than all the previous year and a half. I quit that job — Hello new job — and soon graduated to being the murderer. Things were getting hot for Fiona, what with Scotland Yard improving their detection and all. She needed someone to do the dirty work, which I didn’t mind. I killed before, but it always bothered me that the people you shoot, stab, or blow up often go to waste. You seal them in a coffin or burn them and that’s it; they serve no further purpose. These days, when a body goes limp in my hands, I know it’s about to give life.
She looks ravishing afterwards. Her hair gets full and wavy. Her skin glows like the moon. And her eyes – you could drown in them, they’re like a clear lake with a bottom so deep, so full of secrets that you’d need to swim forever to discover them. It’s the opposite, though, when she doesn’t get her ten pints. That’s the nightly quota. The first night without a victim is bad, but her hair starts to fall out on the second. Then her skin wrinkles and begins to smell, and her eyes harden to the point where I think she’d eat an entire schoolyard of children. I work very hard to make sure I never see that look again.
***
“We have to move,” she announced one night. “Detectives, newspapers – I feel like we’re surrounded. Did you know Venice has lots of people and very few policemen? It’s also easier to get rid of bodies there.”
“Where will I dig? It’s a city built on water,” I said before realizing her point. “Fairly deep water actually, between the islands.”
“Yes.” She frowned. “The only problem is getting there.”
Before the night is over, I’m nailing her into a trunk with an unconscious bloke beside her. The journey would take two weeks by ship so she warned me: Some passengers would have to die. When I asked how many, she wouldn’t answer. I think she didn’t know the minimum needed to sustain her. In the end, I tossed three bodies over the rail; we couldn’t risk any more. To this day, I pity that poor bastard that crossed our path after we landed. I did a rum job of subduing him, and Fiona ripped him so terrible that half his blood painted the alley. Absolute horror show. We didn’t have a boat yet, no weights. Just my blackjack smashing his nose, a knock-down drag-out into the alley, and Fiona attacking his throat like a rabid dog. The musical accompaniment, though, was amazing. A lively melody emanated from a church across the street. I’d never heard a string ensemble perform, so I was unprepared for the effect it had. The bowing and plucking lifted my spirits, opened my heart, and stimulated an awareness I’d never felt before.
A spark of inspiration – Let’s make this disaster look like a Mafia hit. I took my knife, severed his head, and tossed it into the nearest canal. Wouldn’t you know, that did the trick. The next morning, I scoured the papers and saw nothing. No mention of a blood-sprayed alley, headless body, or bobbing face screaming in silent agony – Niente. There was, however, an article about another event on that same street: a review of a concert featuring music by the baroque master Antonio Vivaldi. It said they did five shows a week at St. Stephen’s Cathedral, and they always sold out when performing The Four Seasons.
***
St. Stephen’s became our main hunting ground. Fiona and I surveyed the crowd and she picked the swain who’d leave with her as the musicians stood to rapturous applause. That’s how we claimed the cream of European society. Too bad I won’t see the job through to its finish. Here, off the Piazza San Marco, this dying East-Ender is preparing for his curtain call. I am not even good enough for an emergency snack because the cancer makes my blood smell bad. When she said that, when I realized could serve no further purpose, I replied “Enough. Let’s end it.”
“Well,” I stand chained to my anchor, “you found me. You’ll find someone else.” I wipe my nose and eyes and lower my head toward her. “I’m ready.”
Her hands caress my face as her lips melt against mine; I taste a little of bit of Lorenzo. Now our foreheads rest against each other. “You’ll feel a brief shock but no pain. I promise you.”
“Will I hear the music from St. Stephen’s?”
“Vivaldi? Yes. And Bach …”
I nod, tears mingling with hers in a puddle at our feet. She drapes her right hand around the back of my head, stroking my hair, while her left tightens around my chin. “And Corelli … Scarlatti…”
I close my eyes.
“… Handel … Monteverdi…”
I feel the shock but the flash behind my eyelids is a surprise. From inside the boat I hear a series of sobs. Then a splash, followed by a slight wailing sound, which gets wobbly as I sink beneath the waves. Her voice grows fainter and fainter as I take my place among our Venetians.
Her timing was perfect. The concertmaster is tuning up the ensemble. I hear a pause. Then, glory of glories, they launch into the first movement, La Primavera. Four violins, one viola, a cello and bass fill my ears. Even the bells of the Regina Elena keep time with the bowing. I’ve seen this show dozens of times and never got tired of it. But the water bends the music in ways I couldn’t imagine. Antonio, if you’re in the ground somewhere, find a way to get yourself down here. Your Four Seasons never sounded better.
Best seats in the house, eh boys? You can thank Fiona for that. Better yet, keep her in your prayers. It’s the least we can do for her. God, what an amazing place to spend eternity.
###


‘The Dead of Venice’ is a chapter-excerpt from Dan Klefstad’s upcoming novel, Fiona’s Guardians.

To be an Adventurer
​
By Marc A. Hernandez


Graham drew the string back on his bow knocking the arrow and sighted the target. Though it was only fifty meters away, the target itself was no larger than a playing card made of a thin shiny paper. In the dark of the training grounds though it was nearly impossible to see even with perfect vision, and one would argue that he had better than perfect vision. With bow drawn and arrow ready, Graham gave a the light post a gentle nudge with his foot, causing the lantern to rock slightly splaying it’s light all through the grounds. He didn’t need much even an edge of the card was all he needed to pick up light. He waited, biding his time, muscles set against the pull of the bow, gray eyes focused on the silhouette of straw man. There, the arrow left the string like lightening and whistled through the air before striking the target a split second later. Graham lowered the bow and unstrung it, gathered his empty quiver and took the lantern off the post before making his way down to the target. As he arrived he lifted the lantern revealing the straw man riddled with thirty arrows. Each placed at the center of the small playing cards on different parts of the body ranging from joints to lethal points such as the heart and spleen. He studied each one noting how far from center each was before removing the arrow and placing it in his quiver. The first rays of light were finally casting themselves on the high clouds as he finished. He sighed as the grounds began to fill with milling students, instructors and other personnel, a new day had begun.
Graham sat on a stump in a heavily wooded area about six miles from the academy reading a book, The Twilight years of the Common Blue Dragon. He sat with a mildly amused expression as he read through the pages before a faint step caught his hearing. Finally, he thought, took them long enough. Graham had spent the morning after his morning archery practice to set up several trails for his students to track. All led to nothing but one led to where he waited. However, he made them all cross and wind with each other so if his students were not careful, they could be wandering in circles. He had made it difficult but not overly so that a good ranger couldn’t see the tricks and track the correct path. He had also given them until the sun was highest before he deemed that they had taken to long and lost their target.
Another faint step in the silent woods near the same area told Graham that they had finally arrived. He closed the book and stood up looking in the direction of the noise catching the glimpse of sandy blonde hair. She’s there so that means…. Graham over his left shoulder as the flash of a cloak disappeared behind a tree. One in front, one behind… and the third? A faint smile cracked his stoney face as he flipped the book in his hand before hurling it into the tree on his right. A thud followed by a pained surprised yelp then a crashing through branches broke the silence. A young man with short brown hair landed on the ground groaning holding his head, the book landed next to him.
“I have your friend,” Graham stated, “reveal yourselves or he dies.”
Nothing not even a breath broke the silence.
“Fair enough”, Graham shrugged as he walked over to the dazed man.
“So how should we do this”, he asked rhetorically as he removed a long knife from his belt.
“We could do this quick or maybe I should do this slowly. I am a little out of practice with the slow removal of flesh.” Graham twirled the knife dangerously close to the brown haired man’s face. Daze evolved to nervousness and concern as the young man realized what was happening.
“Go! Leave me!” the young man called out.
“So brave of you, thinking of your fellow comrades,” Graham shook his head. “Do you think they well tell of how you wanted to die for their behalf or how much of a moron you were inviting death upon yourself?”
The young man did his best to put on a defiant face, but his eyes gave away his thoughts. Graham stood himself up and put the knife away and reached out his hand to help the young man up.
“Enough! Come out Lilya, Korvin!” Graham called out.
“Gods above, Korvin!” The sandy haired Lilya groaned as she stepped out from the woodline. “Did you really think sending poor Ben into the trees would be a good idea?”
“At the time, it seemed like a good idea” a tall thin man with a smooth bald head approached from behind where Graham stood with a still disheveled Ben.
“After all it is like Master says,” Korven continued. “‘the enemy on the run that knows it is being hunted will be alert for all threats from all directions. To counter this, one must be prepared to approach from where they think they are most secure as this will be what they expect and want least.’” As he said this, Korven had taken a stance almost like a school teacher scolding his students.
“And still you tried to apply this tactic to the person who taught it to you,” Graham turned to him. “You may have had the first part correct but failed to realize that I would always be ready for confrontation. Not all enemies, beings or animals you may find yourself leading a party towards will be afraid. Some may be using the same tactic on you and will strike out and kill you all when you think yourselves invulnerable.” Graham paused and pointed to Ben you had recovered and was massaging his neck trying to avoid stiffness from the fall. “Much like Ben here found out with this attempt.”
“Thanks for that…” Ben grunted out as he let his hands fall to his side before finally noticing what had struck him out of the tree.
“Master, you were reading this?” He indicated to the book as Lilya snatched it out of Ben’s hand to inspect it.
“A little something to pass the time,” Graham replied.
“Oh I’ve heard of this one!” Lilya said enthusiastically. “Up until this book was written we didn’t really know what happened to the blue dragons and the end of their life. Where they went, how they died information like that until this Lockees person set out to document it.”
“A researcher went out looking for dragons?” Korven laughed, “He must have been in deep debt to risk either large reward or burning, agonizing death.”
“He wasn’t just a researcher,” Lilya shot back, “He was a scholar with mastery in nearly every subject. He not only understood the way the world as we know it works, but was also looking at the supernatural world, why only certain people are able to become mages and shamans. And he was definitely smart enough not to go alone.”
“You seem to know a good amount of this Lockees,” Ben spoke up, “I never figured you for a bookworm.”
Lilya smiled, “Some of us grew up in civilization, Ben. Not all of us had the luxury of chasing wolves away from our goats out on the Eastern Plains.” Then her face turned serious as she faced Graham who had stayed silent as they discussed the book.
“Master, there is one other thing that I had heard…” her voice trailed off.
“And what is that?” Graham asked partly curiously, mostly dryly.
“I had heard that you were in the party.”
Korven and Ben’s eyes widened slightly as they looked from Lilya to their Master then to each other.
“I was,” Graham replied.
“That means this is a recent book!” Ben said to Lilya “No way you read it when you were….” He stopped when he realized Lilya was tense and not paying attention.
“Yes you are correct,” Graham said to Lilya.
“Many think they are prepared but they are not, often the first time new adventurers leaves statistically most of that party will not return. They have in their heads glory and riches and take a quest that is better suited for ones with more experience. Unfortunately they learn, they suffer and if they can not endure, they return home or to the temples they came from. But the ones that can carry on, they can learn, how not make the same mistakes. Perhaps they eventually find a group of companions or maybe they find others who have lost just as much as they have. Perhaps with this group they go on adventures and quests, wiser and more wary, succeeding this time. They get a taste of victory, a heartfelt thank you from a from a poor mayor who was at wits end with a problem or they rescue a maiden taken by bandits before they could defile her. A small taste, but like a drug it is all that is needed. All the thoughts of glory and riches while in some far off land begin to become a reality again. Though you are all are just
beginning, never forget that even after a hundred quests you can find yourself staring into the face of defeat and for us, especially as rangers, defeat wears the same countenance of death.”
Graham stopped and smiled at his students who stood silently looking pale, they were unaccustomed to hearing this type of talk from their teacher who was usually much more reserved.
“Come, gather ‘round,” he motioned to the soft loamy soil and the three moved robitcally. Graham looked up at the sky and guessed there were still a few hours before the sun would begin to set.
“I won’t bore you all with the tiniest of details, but I will tell you the story of so that you better understand if this is what you want to do.”
Before we delve into the heart of the story, perhaps it is best if you knew who my companions were. I think of them often and will carry them in a special place of my memory as they were among the best I’ve ever worked with. First there was Asmir, our dwarven mage, nearly as round as he was tall with a great, thick, white beard with bushy eyebrows to match. He was just passed his bicentennial and though we never knew his his exact age we had a rough estimation of two hundred eleven years. Next was our tiefling paladin, Isaiah, with his glowing red eyes and horns. Despite his appearance he was the kindest being I have ever, and likely to ever, meet. He as our group thermometer, always knowing when it was time to rest as he seemed to have a sense of when we had pushed to far. Finally there was our high elf, yes the same who are rumored to have descended from the Fae. Kallen towered over us as our sword maiden. Unusual for an elf to not be a scout or ranger, she had seen a sword master performing various feats at a carnival nearly a thousand years ago and resolved to learn the art, much to her family’s chagrin. Elegant, precise and deadly in battle, absolutely stunning. Lockees, as one of you knows was the scholar and quest giver, choosing to accompany us. Though what you do not know, Liliya, is that Lockees is a
woman. Cynthia Lockees, she often kept her first name out of print as she enjoys her privacy. Also she fears that her reputation will precede her and will affect some of her fieldwork. An older woman at the time of our quest but still spry and youthful, she was not the figure of the typical aged, balding scholar with spectacles. She prefers to be out and active in the pursuit of knowledge, testing theories and coming up with new ideas that challenge the normal thinking. I’m sure right now she is halfway across the continent looking for some new mythical flower or mysterious creature, but I digress.
We had arrived to purported beast’s home, a cave that ran into a one of the mountains. It was early in the day and we expected the beast to be inside so we had set up a base of sorts a ways from the entrance. Everyone was to remain outside and I would venture in to scout the cave to see if it was occupied. It was dark but the large opening allowed ample light to come through for much of way. Eventually that light began to grow dim but found another light source coming from in front. I carefully made my way towards it, making notes of any hazards and looking for any traps that hadn’t been destroyed by the dragon as it entered. The fact that there were traps means that some intelligent creatures had occupied the cave at some point, possibly being consumed by the beast. I did my best not to dwell on that thought as I stepped out into a large domed area. The roof had collapsed allowing light to some in from a large hole that rose overhead some 80 meters. Due to the mountain it was at an angle as most of the light was cast against the back of the room. Scanning the room there was no beast to be found but many damaged man made objects. Silently examining the items I found weapons, some armor and crates of rotten food. Humans, I judged while examining the style of a helmet. A unique pungent smell caught my attention as I moved further into the natural room. I followed it and found a several barrels in various states of damage. Further examination revealed that they were used to store valturian tar, a highly addictive drug that causes the user to gain huge amounts of energy, strength and to depending on the amount an uncontrollable emotional state. It appeared that this was a drug runners hideout when the dragon decided that it wanted the cave for itself. After it took care of the previous occupants it got into the drug and began rampaging through the mountainside and nearing the city.

FACTOTUM

by

Steve Carr


My first memory of being inside that house was me awaking to the sounds of two voices.
“I think he's waking up.”
“Yes, he looks to be coming around.”
“Give him a few minutes.”
Before I fully opened my eyes I was lost in the sensorial assault on my body. I was bathed in the coolness of crisp clean linens, feeling the delicacy of sheets covering me, their scent of cleanliness a mixture of laundry detergent and fresh air as if they had been hung out on a clothes line to dry. I could barely distinguish my skin from those sheets, feeling scrubbed and aired out also. Also were the scents of apples blowing in an open window, and other aromas, fresh baled hay and cow manure from a grassy pasture and the sweetness of moisture from a recent downpour.
Beneath the lightness of the sheets my body felt weighted down, not by any mechanical means,
but by the muscles that defined it. They were foreign, those muscles; a change, no matter how subtle, in my physical structure. My fingertips were pressed against the sheet on which I lay, and they too felt foreign. As I opened my eyes completely they were massaged into focusing by a soft hazy white glow. Staring into my face were three other faces; young men of similar age and appearance.
“How do you feel?” the one with baby blue eyes asked, looking into mine.
“Where am I?” I asked, my throat raspy but not sore. My words sounded different, not unfamiliar, just different, as if I hadn't spoke them for some time and was on the verge of forgetting their simple meanings. The men around me each smiled differently giving me the impression they had each interpreted the question a different way and were trying to compose in their heads a friendly response.
“You're in a safe place,” the one with the gray-blue eyes said. “Are you in any pain?”
I didn't know why I would be. Although other than the opening of my eyelids and my fingers feeling the sheet, I hadn't voluntarily moved any part of my body. I didn't ache or have the sense that I had been injured in any way. I wriggled my toes slightly beneath the sheet and felt relief that my stillness was not paralysis. In thinking about my body, the entirety of it, I was aware that I was naked and that my skin felt like new clothing; its surface was courser and the hairs on it more numerous. I looked down the length of my body and while it was the same length that I recalled, the terrain was different. I had become mostly a flat plateau from my neck down.
“I'm not in pain, but I'm thirsty,” I said.
“Of course,” said the one with the gray-blue eyes as he raised a glass straw extending out of a glass of water to my lips. I sipped on the cold water watching the condensation on the outside of the glass turn to drops that slid down over his fingers. The two men stood silently watching as I drank. When satiated I pushed the straw away from my lips with my tongue.
“Where am I?” I asked again
“An outpost,” the one with the bright baby-blue eyes said.
“Then it's done?” I said.
They both nodded their heads. The one with gray-blue eyes put his hand on my arm compassionately then quickly pulled it off as if he had overstepped his bounds. “You can stay here and rest for a while or you can get up and get dressed,” he said. We put some clothes on the chair that we were told ahead of time would be the right size for you.”
I glanced over at the chair, at the pants, shirt, underclothes on it and a pair of work boots placed on the floor in front of it. “Give me a few minutes,” I said.
“Certainly,” they said in unison and started to leave the room. “If you need anything we'll be downstairs,” the one with gray-blue eyes said. Then they went out the door closing it behind them.
Staring up at the ceiling for several minutes I was immersed in the thoughts of how smooth it was, without a bubble, crack or imperfection. It was like a field of painted silk that stretched from wall to wall, corner to corner. I pulled one arm out from under the sheet and reached toward the ceiling, stretching and wiggling my extended fingers noting the stark contrasts between the tan of my arm and the perfect white of the ceiling. Then there on my forearm I saw the small blue tattoo. I pulled it closer to my eyes and read: David.
I sat up and swung my legs around to the side of the hospital bed I had been lying in. For just a moment I felt dizzy and briefly closed my eyes and allowed what felt like sand in my brain to shift into a level plane. When I opened my eyes the room seemed barren, with nothing on the bright white walls except recessed lighting that beamed out diffused light. There were no marks on the wall; clearly nothing had ever been hung on them. The open window was the only thing other than the closed door that broke up the monotony of the room. I pushed aside the sheet that had been covering me and stood up. Looking down the length of my body I saw the changes: no breasts, the addition of male genitals, hair on my legs, subtle changes in my musculature. Naked, I walked to the window and looked out.
Sunlight bathed a bright green lawn that stretched to a two lane road. The lawn, this house I was in, was bordered by a white rail fence. A huge tree heavy with foliage was on the left side of the lawn. On the right side where the fence was open, a gravel road branched off from the road and led up to the house. On the other side of the gravel driveway was a horse paddock where a large palomino stood at the rail around the paddock, its head hanging over it and nibbling on blades of grass longer than the rest of the lawn. A large black crow and several robins were on the lawn hopping about from spot to spot. On the other side of the road there was a forest, thick and dark. There were no other structures in sight.
I turned and put on the clothes left for me, and other than being aware of the heaviness of the boots, the clothing made me feel no different either. I had gone to sleep on my home planet a woman and awoke a man on this one. They had prepared me well for the change, but I worried that I should feel different at least about who I was, but I didn't. I was now David, the same person with a different name and different body on a different planet. There were no Davids on my planet. There were no men.
I opened the door and went out into the hallway. It was a world apart from the room I had just left or the world I came from. Along both walls heads of wild animals affixed to smooth and shiny wooden plaques were mounted along the walls. Some I was familiar with, like the lion, tiger, deer, moose and buffalo, but others I wasn't, but all stared from their taxidermied heads with black marble eyes. In between the heads were photographs in 8 x 10 mats and frames of hunters on safaris holding an assortment of weapons, most posing with broad smiles with their foot on a dead animal. The photographs ranged from early twentieth century to present day.
The shift from the sterility of the room to the environment of glorifying ritual slaughter of animals couldn't have been more profound. My heart beat hard against my chest and I became conscious of the thudding sound of my boots on the wood floor as I went to the top of the stairs. As I descended the chairs a cloud of noxious odors hung in the air; stale smoke, sweat and alcohol. At the bottom of the stairs I entered yet another world.
The room off to the left of the bottom of the stairs was a combination living room and junkyard. Along the walls in stacks as tall as I was stood everything from empty beer bottles to used auto parts. Paintings in cheap frames on black velvet of nude women were hung above the junk piles. In the center of the room five battered, worn overstuffed chairs faced the only wall not covered by a painting. The two men who had been with me when I awoke were each seated in a chair looking at a large flat screen television. Image after image of war scenes with dead bodies, ruined cities and blasting armaments of all kinds flashed into view then out. There was no sound, just the images. The two men turned to me as I entered the room.
“Did you find your name?” the one with gray-blue eyes asked me.
“Yes. I'm David,” I said.
“I'm Nick,” he said holding out his arm for me to see his tattoo.
“I'm Jake,” the other one said.
“What is this place?” I said sweeping my hand about the room and up the stairs.
“It's a place of men,” Nick said.
“Not of all men,” I said. “It can't be.”
“That's true, but it is representative of the men they want us to be,” Jake said. “It's part of our training.”
#
In late evening as the sun began to set behind the forest on the other side of the road the shadows behind the house grew longer and darker. I walked among fallen apples from trees whose branches were thick and weighed down with them. The aroma of apples, rotting and fresh, perfumed the air. Nick and I had placed the palomino in the stable for the night and gave it fresh hay and water before locking the stable and walking out into the cow pasture. There were no cows in sight but the fresh piles of manure that spotted the grass we were walking through was clear indication they had
been there recently. A flock of wild turkeys noisily made their way along the edge of the pasture bordered by another forest. Nick carried a rifle, its long barrel resting on his shoulder, the butt in the palm of his hand. He looked like one of the pictures of the soldiers in the photos in the upstairs hallway, only with jeans and a flannel shirt instead of a uniform.
“This isn't what I was expecting,” I said.
He put his finger to his lips and looked about nervously. “Not so loud, they have listening devices everywhere, even in the ground.”
“So what if they do?” I said just a little quieter. “It's not as if they're going to send me back home. Men, especially the version of it that they want us to be, wouldn't fit in on our planet.”
“You saw the same videos before you volunteered that we all did,” Nick said.
“Those were about how they wanted to change our bodies so that we would fit into this world's image of men, not that they wanted to change our personalities.”
“You can't change one without changing the other,” he said taking the rifle from his shoulder and aiming it at the turkeys but not shooting.
“Maybe, maybe not,” I said. “But how do we affect any change on this planet if we're engineered to be the same as everyone already here? We were all told we were to be pioneers in the mental evolution of man as a species, not become caricatures extolling the worst traits of the human male species,” I said, my voice rising.
“Don't you get it?” he said. “Our planet intends to see to it that the society of mankind doesn't advance beyond where it is at present.”
“You know that and you don't fight against it?” I said.
“Hush,” he said looking around nervously again. “I only have two days more here at this outpost before I go out among them and I don't want any trouble.”
“Nick,” I said, “there are thousands of outposts just like this one all over this planet and have
been for many generations. Each outpost has those like us who became men to unknowingly perpetrate a lie about what it means to be a male. Doesn't that disturb you at all?”
“Not as much as being vaporized for treason,” he said, turning and walking back to the house.
#
In the middle of the night I was wide awake trying not to look at the walls of my bedroom covered in pornographic photographs. Staring up at the ceiling I was feeling hopeless about my future and despondent about having made the choice to commit to an irreversible mission to come to this planet. Through the open window of my bedroom a steady breeze carried in the scent of farmland. It was being awake that saved me most likely.
As the ship from my planet landed on the lawn in front of the house I jumped up from the bed and hurriedly slipped on my clothes and shoes and went to the window and watched as several females walked down the ramp from the ship toward the front door of the house. As they weren't bringing a new male to transition with us here at this outpost I surmised that only one thing would require such a visit, me. We had been overheard after all. I opened my bedroom door and ran down the hall, down the stairs, and out the back door into the forest beyond the pasture and hid among the trees, watching.
Even from that distance I could hear voices within the house, but not what was being said. When two flashes of light went off like quickly exploding light bulbs I knew Nick and Jake had been vaporized. I had been overheard after all. My home planet couldn't risk the threat of contagion spreading from me to them. I wanted to weep, not just for what had happened to the two men, but in realizing that while we had been given new bodies, we weren't acceptable as men unless we adhered to preconceived ideas of what men were on the inside as well as outside. We had been brought to this planet to maintain a status quo not to change it. From the forest I watched as the machines flew out of the ship and burnt or vaporized everything growing on or standing around the house, then scraped the earth clean, removing any sign that other than the house, no one had ever been there. Then the ships
flew off into the night sky.
I haven't traveled far from the house which they left standing for reasons that I can't completely fathom. The sheen from the window glass hasn't dulled. The scars left behind by the machines that scraped away the lawns and gardens that once surrounded the house are dug deep in the earth like bloodless cat scratches. Dead leaves and other flora debris are piled on the porch, carried there by the wind. Now, in its second summer of isolation, it is neither landmark or signpost. But as I drive by it and see it there never aging, its white paint not altered by the seasons, I worry that it has been abandoned only for a short while.


Steve Carr, who lives in Richmond, Virginia, has had over 300 short stories published internationally in print and online magazines, literary journals and anthologies since June, 2016. Four collections of his short stories, Sand, Rain, Heat, and The Tales of Talker Knock, have been published. His plays have been produced in several states in the U.S. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize twice. His Twitter is @carrsteven960. His website is https://www.stevecarr960.com/ He is on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/steven.carr.35977.

 
A DREAM WALKING
By Bernie Silver

I'm a semiretired reporter and editor who in my dotage has turned to part-time caregiving and fiction-writing, not necessarily in that order.
 
Randall Setler sat in the cloistered darkness of the Rialto movie theater fantasizing what it would be like with her, "with" being a euphemism for you-know-what, "her" being Irene Wyler, the beautiful—make that stunningly beautiful—star of the film he was watching.
Heaven-Sent had garnered no accolades and surely would win no awards, for like most of Ms. Wyler's two-dozen films, all of which Randall had seen at least twice, the movie was singularly unremarkable except for her.
But she was enough.
Enough to raise the hopes of many, if not most, women that they too might someday become strong and independent, yet remain kind, sensitive and understanding, and, as a bonus, mate with a good and honorable man.
As for men, Ms. Wyler triggered their fantasies of someday bedding a drop-dead, out-of-this-world, pulchritudinous woman.
Which might explain (note the modal auxiliary) the train of events that began midway through that night's Rialto screening of Heaven-Sent. One minute Ms. Wyler was
enjoying a glass of wine with one of her many lovers, and the next she appeared to be scanning the audience. Then, stretching plausibility even further, she popped out of the screen, descended the stage on which it resided and strolled down the center aisle, all the while looking directly at Randall Stetler. Upon reaching his row she took the seat next to him.
This can't be happening, he thought. Things like this don't happen in real life. Things like this can't happen in real life. Things like this don't, and can't, happen to me. I must be dreaming. Or fantasizing, as usual.
Just to be sure, Randall pinched his forearm, which hurt, so he must be awake. He almost pinched Ms. Wyler's but managed to refrain. Instead he turned back to the screen.
She was still there.
He glanced to his right, and found her still there too.
He could draw only one conclusion: he must be losing it.
Randall vowed, not for the first time, to stop all this nonsense, this daydreaming and fantasizing. But then the Irene Wyler next to him smiled the smile that had so enchanted him on screen, and that, along with her incomparable beauty, had earned her the lead in countless other men's reveries.
Irene Wyler leaned toward him and whispered, "Don't worry, you're not hallucinating—I'm real." She offered her hand. "Feel."
Randall hesitated. When the actress repeated her request, he gave in and took the proffered hand.
It seemed real enough. He squeezed it just to be sure.
"Ouch," Irene Wyler said. "Not so hard."
"Sorry."
"Well, at least you're convinced now, right?"
Randall remained mute.
"No? Okay, touch me again, only this time anywhere you want." Now the smile turned mischievous.
Still hesitant, Randall laid a hand on her shoulder—bare except for the spaghetti straps of her summery cotton dress.
"I suppose that'll have to do," Irene Wyler said. "Let's call it a start."
Randall removed his hand but said nothing.
"Oh, I get it," Irene Wyler said. "You're the courteous type . . . considerate of other patrons. I like that in a man."
Randall managed a half-smile but continued his silence.
"Okay, let's go someplace where we can talk," Ms. Wyler said. "Or do whatever."
She stood, grabbed his hand and tugged him to his feet. He followed her into the lobby, where she looked as exquisite as ever, even under harsh lighting.
"Where would you like to take me?" Irene Wyler asked.
Randall knew where he'd like to take her, but said, "You hungry?"
"Actresses are always hungry. The price of starvation diets.”
"What kind of food do you like, when you do eat?"
"I like anything and everything. You pick."
"Thai okay?"
This was Randall's favorite, so if nothing else he'd enjoy a good meal during this fantasy.
“It's more than okay," Irene Wyler said.
He chose the Thai House, a cozy eatery within walking distance of the theater.
#
Upon their arrival the actress kissed Randall's cheek, a gesture that felt real enough, then took his arm as they entered the restaurant.
Apparently both hostess and waiter could see her. The former led them to a table for two and the latter gawked a moment before taking her order of tofu and bean sprouts. Reluctantly he turned to Randall, who ordered Pad Thai and, with Irene Wyler's consent, two iced coffees.
The waiter departed and Randall gazed openly at his companion.
"'What're you staring at?" She sounded more curious than annoyed.
"You."
"I know that, but why? Do I look that much different in person than on screen?"
"No, you're breathtaking either way. It's just, I've never seen you in reality, if that's what this is. Which I doubt."
"Thanks for the flattery but what do you mean, 'Which I doubt?'"
"C'mon, this isn't real. It can't be."
"You mean us being here together?"
"Yes."
"Why can't it be real? You felt my hand, my shoulder, my kiss . . . what more do you want?"
"Look, actresses don't just step out of a movie screen and into my life," Randall said. "Now don't get me wrong, this is great. In fact, it's the best dream I ever had. But it's just that, a dream, and I'm pretty sure I'll wake up soon. I just hope it's not too soon."
"Okay, I'll play along," the actress said. "This is a dream, and I too hope you don't wake up prematurely. Because we have something to do."
“What do you mean, "some thing to do? What thing?”
"Please don't play dumb, Randall. It's unworthy of you."
He decided not to question her further. Whatever would come, would come. Admittedly, though, if her idea of something to do coincided with his, he'd finally reached nirvana.
"So what do you do with your time?" Irene Wyler asked. "That is, when you're not picking up women in movie theaters."
"I didn't . . . I . . ."
"Do you know how cute you are when you blush?"
"I . . . no . . . well, I'm a writer."
"A writer? How exciting. What do you write?"
"Fiction. Short stories mainly."
"That's wonderful!"
"Only one of them's been published, in some obscure magazine whose name I can't even remember. And I got paid next to nothing for it."
"But you're doing what you love, right?"
"Yes, there's that. I worked nine-to-five for years, in the PR department of a major tech company. I hated the job but it paid well, and I saved enough to support my writing
habit. At least for a while."
"Good for you. I admire risk-takers."
"Yes, but all those years—"
“Doesn't matter. You're doing what you love, and risking your security to do it. That's admirable . . . and in a way romantic.”
"I never looked at it that way, but I'm glad you do."
"Would you take a risk for me?"
"If you were real I would."
She laughed full out just as the waiter arrived with their coffees. Irene Wyler sipped hers, then surveyed her surroundings. "I like this place . . . it's homey and comfortable." She turned back. "I also like my escort. A lot."
"Who . . . me?"
"Did someone else squire me here?"
"But you don't even know . . . I mean—"
"I know a little about you, and what I know I like. Now it's time to find out more." She cleared her throat in exaggerated fashion. "First off, how old are you?"
"Um . . . does it matter? "
"Coy on the subject, are we? So are most people. And no it doesn't matter. Next question: have you ever been married?"
“Twice. Two flops are standard for someone my age.”
"Now you sound cynical."
"Disappointed would be more like it. I'm not bitter, though. I'm sure my exes were disenchanted with me."
"Well, I'm sorry about your failures. If it's any consolation, I'm not disappointed in you."
"Yet."
"Yes, but I could have been disillusioned by now. I might have found you boring or boorish or self-absorbed or any number of other unlikable things. But I haven't."
"That's nice, but the way it goes with men and women is that, after they've been together awhile, the other shoe falls. Because then they lower their guard and let it all hang out, including their defects. So they split up or get divorced, then go through the process all over again with someone else."
"What a dismal picture. Why don't we take it one step at a time and agree not to get married today."
Randall had to smile.
Just then the waiter delivered their food, gazed longingly at Irene Wyler and left.
She dug in and cleaned her plate before Randall was halfway through his Pad Thai. "As you can see," she said, "I've decided not to starve tonight."
Rather than comment on her meager dinner, Randall switched subjects. "I've been meaning to tell you, I love your work . . . all of it. In addition to . . ."
“In addition to what?” Irene Wyler asked, grinning.
“Well, you know, in addition to your looks.”
“Oh, they're not that much.”
“C'mon, false modesty's not allowed here. You must be aware of how gorgeous you are.”
"Thanks to the makeup and camera people. Amazing what they can achieve."
"Some actresses may need Revlon and fancy camerawork, but I'm sitting right across from you and they have nothing to do with what I see."
"You sure about that? You don't even think I'm real."
"Well, you're not, but within this dream . . . you know what I mean. Right here, right now, you look amazing."
“That good, huh?”
"That good. In fact, as long as I can say anything I want . . ."
Randall hesitated.
"What?" Irene Wyler smiled encouragement.
"Well, I'd give my right arm to sleep with you. No, let me amend that. I'd give my right arm and left leg to sleep with you.”
"Rest assured, you won't have to sacrifice any limbs to do that."
"So you're saying you want to have sex too? With me?"
"Obviously."
"See, that proves this is another one of my fantasies. In real life, it doesn't work that way."
"And just how does it work in real life?"
"Well, usually a guy's gotta date a woman awhile before she'll go to bed with him. And even today, with feminism and all that, she probably won't tell him she wants to have sex. He's gotta read the signals and make sure the timing and room temperature are right, then he has to take the initiative."
"Is that so?"
"It's so. For most of us, anyway."
Irene Wyler sipped her iced coffee while Randall picked at the remainder of his meal. He wondered if anyone could overhear them. No matter; everyone else was a figment too.
"I'm sorry carnal knowledge of a woman has been such an ordeal for you," Irene Wyler said. "But tonight you can relax. I want you and you want me, so we'll both get what we want without a lot of effort."
"I don't understand. Why would you—"
"Do you want understanding or me?"
"No contest."
The waiter appeared and asked if they wanted anything else. Randall shook his head and requested the check.
"Sorry . . . I'm being rude,” he said after the waiter had gone. “You want dessert?"
"Yes, but not here." That smile again.
Eager to depart, Randall left more than enough cash without waiting for change.
#
Their moderately priced hotel room came with the usual trappings: queen-sized bed, chest of drawers, glass-topped table and thirty-inch television. Also a stuffed chair and five-foot floor lamp.
The room had one drawback: its only window overlooked the hotel parking lot.
"Sorry," Randall said, peering out at rows of cars basking in the moonlight.
"What're you apologizing for?" Irene Wyler sat on the bed, bouncing several
times as if to test its strength.
"The view. It's not very scenic."
"I didn't come here for the scenery."
"No, but it would've been nice if—"
"You're nervous," she said.
"It shows, huh?"
"Yes, definitely."
"I get nervous around beautiful women. Always do, probably always will. And now you and I . . . you being the most beautiful woman I ever met . . you and I are about to . . . you know. That makes my jitters doubly embarrassing. You'd think at my age—"
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why're you so nervous around beautiful women? They're just flesh and blood."
"That's what they are to other women and some men, I guess. But to guys like me they're the impossible dream. And believe me, the only reason I'm in this room with you is because I'm dreaming."
"You still think this isn't real."
"I know it isn't."
She stood, walked over to him and kissed him lightly on the lips.
"Was that real?"
"Yes . . . no . . . I mean, dreams always feel real when you're having them."
She put her arms around him and kissed him harder.
"Was that real?"
"It felt genuine, but—"
She placed a hand over his mouth. "Hush. What say we go to bed and see what's real and what isn't."
They went, and by dawn's early light Randall believed.
Almost.
#
Irene Wyler exited the shower, dried herself off and wafted back to bed, where Randall Stetler lay staring at the ceiling. She got under the sheets and snuggled next to him. He turned to her, then tried to hide his dismay. He'd seen women without makeup before, of course, but the sight of Irene Wyler's pale, unexceptional face was a shock to his system.
"You can't say I didn't warn you," she said. Then, "Well, now that you've seen this much, you may as well see the rest."
"But I've already—"
"Not with the sun streaming in."
She pulled her portion of the sheet aside, revealing her unclad body, then pointed at the stretch marks.
Seeing them clearly for the first time, Randall said, "You've got kids?"
"One. A son, Daniel."
"Um . . . how old's—"
"Eleven."
"You're not . . . I mean . . ."
"No, I'm not married. Not anymore."
She bent her left knee, the one nearest him, and traced a path along her entire leg, smooth, firm and flawless except for the spider veins decorating it from thigh to ankle.
"Other leg's the same." She displayed it in the same manner. "Courtesy family genes," Irene Wyler said. "My mother and grandmother had even worse cases, if you can imagine it."
Randall remained silent.
"Do my legs bother you?"
"No, of course not. What kind of man would—"
"Oh, you'd be surprised how many men lose their enthusiasm once they see me in the buff."
"The thing I don't understand is how . . . in the movies . . . when, you know, you're in shorts or something . . ."
"The miracle of digital airbrushing. I keep begging them to show all my warts but they just laugh, as if I've said something funny."
"I--
"But thank God you don't mind them, my lovely veined legs."
"I . . . uh . . ."
"Oh good, but there's something else you should see." She turned on her stomach. reached behind her and patted her buttocks.
"They look like prunes, no? Even working out doesn't get rid of the cellulite. You should hear the comments. One guy said . . . well, let's just say men can sometimes be
cruel." She played with Randall's chest hairs. "I'll admit, though, in the light of day I'm a mess."
"No you're not."
Irene Wyler scooched over and brought her face close to his. "You lie." She sounded puckish and solemn at the same time.
Randall turned on his side, facing away from her.
"See, I was right," she said.
He thought he heard a sniffle and turned back. "Are you crying?"
"No, just acting." She looked at him with watery eyes.
"I mean it," he said. "What's the matter?"
"I'm sorry. It's just that I thought you'd be the one."
"The one what?"
"Don't worry. You'll be fine . . . for someone."
"But not for you."
"I'm afraid not."
"What'd I do wrong?"
"Nothing, really. You did what men do."
“I don't understand.”
“You will someday. Maybe.”
For some reason, Randall felt incredibly sad. Gathering his courage, he told her so.
“Me too," Irene Wyler said. "I always am.”
“You don't strike me as always being sad.”
“That's not what I mean.”
Randall felt confused.
Dry-eyed, Irene Wyler kissed him on the nose.
"Did you have a good time last night, meaning all night?" She grinned impishly.
"You know the answer to that."
"Good. Now I have to go."
"Where?”
"Back."
Randall sighed in exasperation. "Back where?"
“You know." She got up and started to dress.
"No, I don't know."
"You'll figure it out."
Irene Wyler finished dressing and Randall started to get out of bed.
"Stay here, my love," Irene Wyler said. "I'll catch a cab.”
She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead.
Then disappeared.
#
Irene Wyler looked out at the audience sitting in the cloistered darkness of the movie theater. She could tell this new one, like all those before him, was fantasizing what it would be like with her.
She popped out of the screen, descended the stage, strolled down the center aisle and took the seat next to him.
"Don't worry," she whispered. "You're not hallucinating—I'm real."
She offered him her hand.
"Feel."

Fools (?) for Love

By Angela Camack

It was a blinding-hot day in Ellinia Kingdom, the Eastern and Western suns blazing. Harvest was in progress despite the heat. The threshers, large wheels with blades between them pulled by huge tusked oxen, gathered graingrass to be sent to be milled for bread. Workers pulled fruit and vegetables from trees. People on tiny steeds buzzed swiftly around the fields, bringing water to the workers.
The hardest work was reserved for prisoners and those out of favor with the kingdom, removing the rock trees from the perimeter of the fields. The rock trees were almost impossible to cut, and the wood was useless, but the hard roots of the trees grew into the fields, choking new growth and sapping the ground of water. Around the fields, overseers watched the workers’ progress. A percentage of all crops and goods were sent to the palace and council “for the good of the kingdom.” Should anyone spend too long mopping a brow, or enjoying a fine spring day, they would be noticed, and their productivity watched.
The kingdom had always been there, watching. All that ever changed was the balance between benevolence and harshness shown by the king. The family in power now, the Hevers, tended toward harshness and capriciousness. What was accepted and who was favored could change without notice or reasons given.
Attempts to rebel were small and easily extinguished. Ellinia was large and sparsely populated; groups eager for change could not easily communicate. Working the land and trying to establish trade left people too tired to plan rebellion.
Lenae and Madolyn met at the large tree at the forest’s entrance, as they had done since childhood. They had been committed to each other since then.
They both had the pristine beauty of the Ellinians; slender, small-boned, with large, almond shaped eyes tilted at the corners, mirrored by tilted ears. Both were dark-haired and dark-eyed. Lenae straightened the collar of his tunic and leaned against a tree, his lap harp slung along his shoulder. His left leg, injured in a childhood game (but in Ellinia no games were games), was troublesome today.
Madolyn knew without asking. “It’s bad now.”
“No, I’m just lazy,’
“Still want to get away for a while?”
“More than ever.” Madolyn was looking particularly lovely. She was simply dressed for a royal, in a white dress, a blue band holding back her hair. Her only jewels were blue earrings and the birth-sign necklace that Lenae gave her, and that she always wore. Only the sadness in her eyes seemed out of place.
“Glide?” she asked.
“Glide.” In Ellinia, on hot, windy days, the air was so thick that the light-boned Ellinians could be airborne. It was common to see men gliding home from the fields, or women sailing from the market, parcels in hand. Poles with metal handles were scattered
around the kingdom, to allow gliders to settle back on earth. Madolyn and Lenae ran a few steps and let the wind take them further into the woods. grabbing branches to let themselves down as they came to a bench in a small clearing.
Madolyn was a princess; Lenae the son of the ambassador to Felaria. They had always been together, but everything was upended now. Ellinia and its neighbor, Franks, had been at war over boarders for over 100 years. Fifty of those years ago, to stop the fighting, the kingdoms’ lands had been divided in equal proportions. However, different resources were in different areas, and the countries now fought over sharing them.
Now much of each country lay in ruins. Countless young men had died, or came home missing parts, or too quiet, with shattered pieces loose inside them. It was said that some of the land was so blood-soaked that nothing would grow anymore. Women took over some of the farms and trades, but who would be there to father sons to come after the missing men? The King of Franks came to Madolyn’s father with a proposal. One of his sons had died in the last siege. His wife had died two years ago, leaving him with only one son. If King Lesto would give him Madolyn, they would be families, Madolyn was young, heathy and certainly fertile. She would produce more sons, insuring his lineage. Once the rulers had grandchildren in common, surely, they could work toward peace.
This would solve many of King Lesto’s problems. Madolyn was a princess of the blood, but as bright as the Western sun and as stubborn and unyielding as the wood of the rock tree. She might not be as strong as a man, but she could argue you to death. He bitterly regretted allowing her an education. The gods had blessed him with one son, now visiting Ellinia’s allies. Why could he not have another with Madolyn’s intelligence and passion, all wasted on a woman?
Lesto could make several excellent matches for her, but he knew who she wanted; the ambassador’s son. Lenae was a teacher, a poet and troubadour, skills of lesser value in Ellinia. Madolyn should have known better. Fools, both, wasting time instead of negotiating the best matches possible.
But she had talked herself into the marriage with King Hugo. She had begun to argue with her father about the war between the two countries, and against jousts, mock battles and demonstrations of strength, which she saw as symbols of war. She even dared to suggest diplomatic proposals to him.
Having argued for peace at such length, she could hardly refuse to be part of a plan to bring it about. She agreed to marry King Hugo. He was a hard man who treated the people who tended his lands and castle miserably. He was given to drunkenness and adultery, but Madolyn would marry him. As luck would have it, Lenae had been offered a post at a university in Felaria. By the end of harvest, it would be over. Madolyn would be married and Lenae in Felaria. They were taking every moment possible in the time they had left.
Once they reached the clearing, they clung together, but could go no further. Madolyn’s purity and fertility were currency; her virginity was proof that any sons would be of her husband’s lineage. Even a princess of the blood would be severely punished otherwise.
“How many days now?” she asked.
“Don’t think about it. Let’s just use the time we have.”
“I have to do this. It’s a chance to stop the fighting. If it can save lives, save land – “
“I know, Madolyn.” Lenae paused. “Look, I don’t need to leave. I can stay if you need me. I’ll be closer to you here than in Felaria. I can go on teaching here.”
“It’s such a chance for you. You know that poets are loved in Felaria. And it could be dangerous for if you were suspected of interfering in my marriage.
“I don’t care.”
“It hurts enough to let you go. I’d rather see you safe in Felaria, teaching and writing.” She smiled. “I’ve heard about those Felarian women. They’re a charming lot. You’ll have plenty of reasons to write poems ….”
“Oh, Madolyn.” He took her in his arms again. She pressed her face into his tunic. She made no sound, but he could feel her shoulders trembling and his tunic was soon soaked. In Ellinia, even royals learned in childhood that you did not sob. You did not display tears. You let nothing show.
Madolyn calmed and they talked. Lenae played his lap harp. Madolyn made up poems, terrible poems, but sharply descriptive of the people they knew. She could always make him laugh.
Finally, it was time to leave. They walked, feeling too heavy to glide.
Madolyn’s parents watched her plod back to the castle. “Out with the little lame genius again,” grumbled her father.
“Should we do something?’, asked her mother, Queen Jinna.
“No, the time to act was years ago. Let her see him. We need to keep her steady until the wedding.”
“She’d better go through with this.”
“She will. She sees herself as the peacemaker. That’s too much for her to resist.” He paused, looking out over his land. “Peace will be a relief.”
“We need the bride price Hugo will pay even more.”
Madolyn entered the castle. Her mother met her as she headed for her room. “Go and change, Madolyn. We’re having guests.”
“What’s wrong with what I have on?”
“Why you persist in dressing like a schoolgirl confounds me. You forget who you are.”
“How can I forget? I’m the prize cow at the marriage fair.”
Her mother sighed. She was counting the days until the marriage too. “Just, for once, do as I say! It can’t be too much of an ordeal to put on a silk gown and some jewels. And take off that stupid birth-sign, it’s juvenile.”
“Not likely,” muttered Madolyn.
“What did you say?”
“I said, I’ll tread lightly.”
Things were miserable between Madolyn and her mother and had been so even before the wedding was arranged. People whispered that her mother’s hostility arose from jealousy. She was a famous beauty, but Madolyn was young, and showed every sign of becoming more beautiful than her mother.
Lenae met with his Master of Swords after seeing Madolyn. All men in Ellinia who had any funds at all trained in the fighting arts. Lenae’s Master was one of the oldest and most respected. He was named judge, to oversee disputes and crimes dealing with battle. But he no longer took new pupils. He was tired to death of fighting with no cause, of soldiers who hurt those who were not soldiers, of those who took resources and women after battle.
Lenae worked with another former student, using swords, maces and lances. Master taught them how to compensate for shortcomings, to watch their opponents for clues and missteps and to work against their opponent’s strengths. “Sometimes it’s the muscle between the ears that helps you win,” he often said. He asked Lenae to stay after the session.
Lenae slowed his breathing and drank water, as Master’s assistant put away equipment. “You’re coming to me more often, son,” said Master.
“I feel I’m going to need it. I don’t know why.”
“And these are hard times for you. Lady Madolyn is very brave.” He laughed. “Do you remember when she kept asking why girls couldn’t go to fighting class?”
“Oh, I remember. She’s not so keen on fighting now. I just hope something comes from this marriage.”
“So do we all.”
There was feasting the next night, the first celebration of the match between Madolyn and Hugo. Madolyn was pale but composed, deftly dodging the paws of her betrothed and his proprietary embraces. Lenae was there, of course, representing his parents, who were in Felaria. His absence would have been noticed. But he could no longer watch the charade. Having made his
appearance, he left the hall and stepped into an alcove, almost stepping on a small, bedraggled bundle.
“Tippa?” A girl with tangled bronze hair, swollen eyes and a tears-and-paint smeared face pulled out a knife so swiftly it seemed to come from the folds of her dress. Tippa was a childhood friend who had family in Franks. They worked in Hugo’s castle; while staying with them she had become his mistress. She was mistress still even though his wife was dead.
“You.” She put away her knife. “What are you doing here?” Her words were slurred, and an empty wine bottle was beside her.
“I’m sorry, Tippa,” Moon above, she loves the brute, he thought.
“Save it. He’ll be atop your honey before you know it.” She paused. “I’m sorry, Lenae.”
“You can ….” He almost said that she could go on with Hugo but knew that would not console her.
“Yes, I know. He can still bed me, but not marry me. Still the whore. What do I have to give him?”
“Yourself, Tippa. In a fair world, that would be enough.”
Tippa howled, then crammed her fists to her mouth, stopping her sobs. Lenae took her in his arms. For the second time in as many days, a woman silently soaked him with tears.
“I’m going home now.” Tippa stood up unsteadily.
“I’m taking you.”
“Don’t want anybody to take me home!”
“Plenty of rudies leaving the party drunk. You don’t need them bothering you.” He wrapped her cape around her. His arm firmly around her waist, they plodded out, two people in love left behind by scheming and carelessness.
A Games was held the next day to honor the couple. Madolyn and her parents sat in their box with King Hugo and reviewed the parade of steeds and contenders. The sun caught the banners and the steeds’ reins and burnished the sand in the arena. The crowd roared, and ladies gave tokens to the contenders. Lenae was there, part of the ceremony, wearing his sword as required for the show.
The fights began. Some contenders played by the rules of such combat, meant to demonstrate skill and power but not to intentionally inflict damage. This being Ellinia, some did not heed the rules. As the games wore on, the sand turned red as some contenders hacked at opponents, thrust swords at men already down and aimed at hearts or livers. The game could be beautiful if played as a game; it could be a graceful dance that showed the power and intelligence of the fighters. Played for brute force, it was simply carnage. Some of the crowd roared anyway.
The games that were not games wore on. The air grew hotter and dustier, the crowd noisier and discontented as the wait for the last battle grew unusually long. Finally trumpets sounded and the Games Master came to the parapet. One of the final contenders had fallen in the preparation area and broken an arm.
The news spread through the crowd as the Games Master conferred with the King and Queen. They agreed to allow the Queen to choose a replacement. She stepped to the parapet.
“Let’s have a new champion,” her voice rang out. “Let’s see how far poems and songs can take us in battle today. I call on Lenae Bouldon to fight the final battle.”
The crowd buzzed. Lenae’s Master questioned a point of rule. The Queen overrode him. Madolyn’s face and lips went white. She started to rise from her chair, but Lenae caught her eye and shook his head. He could be punished for refusing to fight. He picked up his sword and walked to the royal box.
“Will you give me a token, my lady?’
Madolyn’s face was taut with the effort to keep control. She handed Lenae a gold ribbon. He put it though a buttonhole of his tunic and walked to the center of the arena.
His opponent was Earle Vestrin, a fighter for a long time. He was known to be brutal and his tactics even in the arena skirted the rules of battle. Some of the contenders, those who still looked for honor and fairness in the games, left in protest of the match; for Vestrin to face an unseasoned, lamed young man carried no honor.
The contestants bowed to the royal box and to each other. Almost as soon as they arose, Vestrin struck a blow that swiped the side of Lenae’s arm, tearing a fold of skin and leaving a patch of blood. Lenae wavered but recovered in time to block Vestrin’s next blow. And the next. And the next.
Lenae remembered Master’s teaching. His chance to come out of this alive was to avoid a mortal blow and tire his opponent. He saw that Vestrin turned his face slightly in the direction his next blow would go. Lenae parried each thrust. He then sidestepped the sword and thrust his own. Vestrin sidestepped it but almost slipped. Lenae thrust again and Vestrin parried. And again. Again.
Vestrin was getting angry. He didn’t expect any fight at all. He stopped thrusting and swung his sword in a circle. Lenae guessed that when Vestrin looked straight ahead he was changing tactics. He dropped to the ground and eluded the sword. The crowd roared its approval.
Lenae thrust his sword but Vestrin blocked it, pushing with his greater strength against Lenae. He pushed back as hard as he could but began to falter. “Impossible,” he thought. He dropped to the ground, rolled away and bobbed up again, thrusting his sword. The move so surprised Vestrin that he could barely parry Lenae’s sword. They continued. Lenae’s lame leg cramped and his muscles stung. Blood was seeping down his arm, but he kept on. The crowd was with him now.
They continued alternating thrusts. Vestrin’s sword nicked Lenae’s arms and hands but did no major damage. Vestrin’s frustration caused mistakes. His thrusts fell wide of his target and his footing slipped. Lenae parried another thrust and moved suddenly to his right and backwards. Vestrin lunged but overbalanced. Lenae thrust again and Vestrin fell trying to parry.
It was the luckiest of strokes. Lenae stood astride Vestrin’s body and held his sword to his throat. It was a signal of strength and a call for a decision of victory. Queen Jinna had the right to decide, as she had named the contender. She looked as if she could plunge the sword into Vestrin’s throat herself but named Lenae as victor.
The crowd roared again. The contenders bowed. Lenae almost felt sorry at seeing the shame in Vestrin’s face, but any pity was swept away by the power he felt. The Games Master gave Lenae his prize purse. “I’m alive,” he thought. “I’m going on from here.” Exhausted and bleeding, Lenae limped to the resting room on the side of the arena so that he could be bathed and treated. An attendant gave him a glass of brandy, red and warm, which he
drank gratefully as his wounds were cleaned and dressed. Soon he heard noise at the door; Madolyn’s voice and the voices of attendants.
“Please my lady, the men are not dressed, my lady. Your friend is fine, he will be out soon.”
Lenae smiled and sipped brandy. His brave Madolyn. Then he suddenly felt cold.
What was Madolyn’s bravery going to do? Would it change anything? He thought of the bloodlust of the crowd. He remembered the Queen’s look of triumph as she sent him into the ring to possible death and smiled as she witnessed her daughter’s agony. He thought of the game that was not a game in the arena today, where his opponent would have gladly killed him just because he could. Time after time, the violence won out. Madolyn would sacrifice herself for nothing. The violence was etched deep in the bones here. Would it surface in him? He remembered the exhilaration he felt after the battle with Vestrin. Would he ever want to fight simply for the power of fighting? They had to get out and go to Felaria.
He met Madolyn in the forest clearing the next day and told her of his plan. She paced in a circle as she considered her responsibilities, to the kingdom, to herself, to Lenae. Finally, she stopped pacing.
“You’re right. Change will need more than one marriage to come.”
“So, you’ll come to Felaria with me.”
“Yes. Of course, yes.”
Once decided, they moved quickly. They packed as lightly as possible. Lenae gathered his winnings from the arena, his travel fund and savings. Madolyn took jewels that were not part of the royal treasure, good ones that would not be traced to the kingdom that they could sell if needed.
That night, they went to the Master’s home. As judge, he could marry them. He did so, not without reservations; he was thinking of the plan for Madolyn to marry Hugo.
“I know it will take much strength to marry King Hugo, and to leave Lenae, but have you thought what your leaving will mean?”
“If I thought my marriage would change anything I would do it, no matter what I had to give up. But it won’t.”
“Point well taken, my lady.”
“Master, why should peace depend on one marriage between two people? Aren’t the kingdoms tired of the fighting?”
“Many are. There have been rebellions, after all, always small, always quickly put down. Perhaps the drive for change will get stronger.”
His assistant took them, not to the nearest port but one farther from the city, where it would be less likely that Madolyn would be recognized. Without jewels, simply dressed and keeping quietly to herself, she was seen only as the poet’s lovely bride. They bought passage on the next ship to Felaria.
The early morning ship took them on their way, the poet and his new wife. They spent much of the voyage keeping quietly in their cabin, which caused only amusement among the other passengers (and where they spent most of the time doing what the passengers thought they were up to). Lenae and Madolyn sat on the deck each evening if they could, watching the sea and sky turn dark and stars move across the sky, counting the days as the ship moved from Ellinian waters
though open waters and to Felarian waters. Best of all was the night they moved into Felarian space. They talked quietly, glasses of brandy shining redly by their chairs.
Madolyn pulled the collar of Lenae’s cape more closely around his throat. “Don’t get chilled. And I worry about those wounds. Please have the ship’s doctor have a look.”
“You know they’re healing, you dress them so capably every day.” Madolyn looked at him sternly. “All right, all right, tomorrow.”
Madolyn sat back in her chair. “We are safe, aren’t we?”
“Yes, we are. We made it to Felarian waters, didn’t we?”
“Would they send me back?”
“No. Felaria wouldn’t return anyone who was facing an unjust treatment.” Madolyn was not the first refugee from Ellinian harshness. And knowing the Felarians, they would probably be charmed by the idea of escaping for love.
“The Master and his helper? And your parents?”
“I watched. We weren’t followed. Master is too old and renowned to be punished. And my parents are safe in Felaria”
“I think my brother will come to see us.” Madolyn sighed with relief. “Then we’re fine.”
“Princess no more,” he said. “Is this too much to ask?
Madolyn shook her head. “No. Ellinia is not the kingdom for us, or for our children. No, I want a real home and to make a garden, and weave tapestries and read. I want to talk with your students and the teachers at the University.”
Lenae smiled. “That’s our kingdom.” He pulled her into an embrace. The sailors on watch noticed and burst into rowdy applause. Madolyn laughed. “Let’s go below, we are not here to entertain.” They went below to their cabin.

The Lost Journals of Edgar Parry

​By Mason Yates


I do not expect these journals ever to be seen or read by the public eye- not only because the government would prevent citizens to acknowledge a failed manned mission to the planet Zorgen, but also because Edgar Parry’s discovered journals clearly depict many infractions against the rules of the United Territories of Earth. Free Speech is a conception of the past, and Captain Parry’s journals harshly criticize our so-called “democracy,” which even I admit is more of a totalitarian state. It is expected that Edgar Parry came to a state of contumacy after Eagle Bird IV- a spaceship designed for interstellar space travel- began to malfunction, creating the need for Captain Perry to disembark using an escape pod.
These written records were discovered on Zorgen fifty years after Edgar Parry landed. Although the public is unaware of the existence of these journals, I, James Conley, the head of the United Territories of Earth’s space program- and a secretive rebel myself, if I have the guts to admit- have the knowledge of Captain Parry’s journals. Perhaps in my old age when I have nothing left to lose, I will release these journals to the public, but as of right now, I must stay quiet and secretively abhor the rules and regulations set by the world government.
If these journals are ever released, I say to you, the reader, that these are completely real. When you gaze up at the empyreal night sky, please remember Captain Edgar Parry, and please, please refuse to be stifled by the system of government you have been born into. You, reader, are not a slave, but if you continue to be suppressed of knowledge, a slave is what you will become. If these journals ever come to the public eye, use them as an inspiration to break away the chains that the United Territories of Earth have wrapped around you.
***
Day 1.
There is no other way to describe the situation I have found myself in. There is nothing adventurous or audacious about what I am going to say. Instead, what I have done is necessary for survival. Eagle Bird IV began to experience malfunctions two days ago, and Eric Whim, our mechanic, tried to fix it, but he was unable to. At first, it was small malfunctions, but over the course of forty-eight hours, the malfunctions grew more and more worrisome. By the time Eagle Bird’s engines exploded, I had already prepared the escape pod. I am not a hero. In fact, I consider myself a coward for leaving Eric behind. As the pod shot away from the spacecraft, I stared out my window and watched as Eagle Bird blew to smithereens. I did not see Eric in the explosion, but I can imagine what happened to him. Jesus Christ, it was awful.
Hours later, after the wreckage of Eagle Bird became only a speck in the distance, I took care of acknowledging what I had to sustain myself until rescue. I found over four hundred nutrition pills, twenty gallons of water, and many toiletries. Thank God for the invention of nutrition pills; a pill the size of a dime is the same as eating a buffet, and best of all, it actually gives you the feeling of being full. I took one right then and there, following up with a sip of water. Then, I recapped the water and told myself it was time to conserve. I had no idea how long it would be until rescue.
The rest of the day was meaningless. I gazed out the window, daydreamed of getting back to Earth, and thought about Eric’s family. As I sit here now, I realize that someday I might grow insane by being in this tiny pod. Give it a few days or a few weeks, and I bet I’ll crack. I hope not.
For now, I need to sleep. The first day has come to an end, and I wonder how many more there is to go.


Day 2.
Nothing happened today that is very much different than yesterday. I took a pill in the morning and followed it with a gulp of water. Around lunch, I skipped a pill. However, I did take another gulp of water. I need to conserve, so I only take as much as a mouthful of water at a time. In the middle of the afternoon, I took another mouthful. By dinner, I took a pill and another gulp to swallow it.
Now, I sleep. Due to the lack of gravity, I find myself floating when I wake up. Sometimes it’s hard to sleep, but for the most part I grow used to it.


Day 4.
I had always hated arduous tasks, but now, as I sit in the pod and gaze out the window at the infinite darkness that is speckled with stars that reside trillions of miles away, I wish I could do some heavy lifting. I feel weak. All I do is sit around, and if you hadn’t noticed, I skipped day three. This is because there is nothing to do. I sit, I take a pill twice a day, and I drink three or four mouthfuls of water.
The only way I keep track of the day is by my watch. Luckily, it wasn’t damaged when I escaped Eagle Bird. With my luck, I thought I would have knocked it against a wall and broken it. However, I was proved wrong; it’s fully intact and working. As I write this passage, I stare at it, thinking of the day I received it. I vividly remember my wife- my beloved, beautiful wife- come home from work with a little blue box in her hand. I had been in the kitchen working tirelessly on a math problem for the very mission that I had been on just four days ago. As I sat focused on the half-finished equation, my wife placed the box in front of me and told me to open it. I secretly cursed the distraction, but I couldn’t upset her. I put my pen down and opened the box. Inside, the watch I have on my wrist.
Oh, how I desire to return to Aberdeen, my wife. I pause as I write and think about her. I see her long blond hair, her gentle lips, her skinny waist, and slender, perfect legs. She does have a few imperfections despite her glorious body, but every imperfection is just another reason for me to love her. As I write, I wonder what she is doing. Does she know about the Eagle Bird malfunction? I shake my head. Of course, she doesn’t know. The United Territories would never disclose such a failure. To speak of Eagle Bird’s destruction would be horrific. Eagle Bird IV was the epoch of history thus far. If it failed, the citizens would question its leaders, its government. Those bastards!
I need to put the pen down. I should rest.


Day 8.
I think the pod is starting to manipulate my mind. Sometimes, as I sit and stare into open space, I feel fine. Other times, I slip into a fugue that envelops around me. For a split second, I become unaware of where I am. My mind projects images that depict moments from the past. One moment I’m inside the pod, gazing out at the infinite black, then the next I find myself sitting in a garden beside my wife, staring at the red, white, blue, and yellow flowers. Another moment I find myself about to swallow water, then the next, I’m standing beside a lake with a fishing pole in my hand.
Although these moments are beautiful, they are also terrifying. Terrifying not only because I don’t know what’s happening, but terrifying because they bring a painful nostalgia along with it. I yearn to go home. I look around me and ponder why I’m even here. What led to this?
Isolation is starting to get to me. Imagine sitting inside a blank room with no one to talk to. Imagine doing that for a week. This is how I am. I’m alone. Nobody deserves this. Nobody. Not even prisoners who are held in solitary confinement. Not even them.


Day 14.
As I said before, there are days where I don’t write, because if I do, it would only be rambling on. There is nothing to do in the pod other than stare out the window, think, and cry. Yes, I’ve done a lot of crying the past couple of days. I started to cry when I first saw my wife in the pod with me. I know she’s only a phantasm, but she looks so real. She sits beside me
sometimes. She strokes my hair. She stares into my eyes. However, she never speaks. Maybe she does, though, for I never attempt to talk to her. I just sit in comfort whenever she comes. I love her so much, but I need to get away from her. She’s only making my heart break even more. I need to land somewhere. Eagle Bird IV had been on its way to Zorgen, but that is so far away.


Day 23.
In my last journal entry, I had spoken too soon. Travelling through an endless void of black, I had become unaware of my surroundings. Instead of knowing my course, I was a floating object with no destination. I had no idea where I was. Now, I do. Ahead, in the distance, I see Zorgen. I know it is the planet I am looking for; it looks the same as the photos I had seen.
Luckily, the pod has an engine capable of landing. As I write, I am guiding the pod to the planet. By tomorrow, I hope I shall land. Eventually, I suspect there should be another version of Eagle Bird- maybe Eagle Bird V or VI- that is going to land on Zorgen. Until then, I need to survive. Maybe in thirty or forty years I will be reunited with mankind. Just the thought excites me.


Day 24.
I have landed. I find myself in the middle of a grassy field, which looks very similar to Earth. Someday, I anticipate that mankind will find a home here. I imagine the same field that I currently reside filled with homes. I can already hear children’s laughter as they play outside. For now, though, it is only I. Alone, I look around me as I sit in the grass. In the distance, there
are large trees, similar to jungle trees, and in the opposite direction, there are many hills, which I can’t help but notice share a resemblance to the rolling hills of the Midwest United States, the place I once called home. Tomorrow, for I can already tell it is getting late, I will explore. As for now, I need to set my journal down and get some sleep; I have a big day ahead of me.


Day 25.
I have just returned to the pod from a day of exploring. I must admit that halfway through the day, I managed to get lost, and it is to a great relief that I am back to where my base is. Imagine being lost in a foreign place with no one to guide you. Seeing the pod after so many hours of stumbling around was amazing. It looked like a trophy in the distance. I ran to it and almost hugged the damn thing.
As for the day, it was filled with many sights. Early in the morning, I woke up and took a pill and followed it with seven or eight wonderful gulps of water. I allowed myself to drink more because I felt that I would need the hydration for the day to come. Also, I had no doubts that I would come across a lake or a stream in my travels, and indeed, I did. However, I am jumping too far ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning.
I emerged from the pod to see that the sun was just over the horizon line. I wondered to myself if Zorgen was a twenty-four-hour day or not, but I had no way of knowing until nighttime. From sleeping, I came to the realization that night lasted about eight hours, which is similar to Earth’s night. As for the day, I assumed it was similar to Earth’s day as well, so I stepped out of the pod, thinking that I should be out for no longer than ten hours. With that in my mind, I walked towards the jungle. With me, I carried nothing more than the shirt on my back. I had no clue if that was a smart thing to do, but from my overnight visit, I came to the
conclusion that there probably wasn’t anything dangerous on Zorgen. If there was, I assumed it would have heard my pod land and would have come forth to see what it was. However, there was nothing outside last night except for the landscape, and for that, I was glad.
The outskirt of the jungle was a twenty-five-minute walk away, and when I reached it, I became aware of how vast the ecosystem was. I was hesitant if I should enter the new biome, but after a few minutes of gazing into the jungle and staring at the massive trees, I stepped in, immediately immersed into a new landscape. I walked on without looking back.
As I continued through the jungle, I noticed that there were ferns that had dew on their leaves. It turned out that I was correct about Zorgen harboring water. I brushed my hand over the ferns, feeling the wetness. I couldn’t help but smile despite my predicament of being so far from home. It was no doubt a great feeling being the first person to walk on a planet not already home to humans. And it was no doubt a great feeling discovering water on a planet that I knew that humans would eventually make a home. I was the first! My name would be sketched into history, but then again, maybe it wouldn’t. I thought about Earth’s corrupt government and fell into a state of sadness. No one would know my name, and my wife would forget who I was. Me? I was just an illusion. The United Territories of Earth would make sure to erase my name, for they could never allow to admit a failure on their part. To the people on Earth, they probably assumed Eagle Bird IV landed. Well, I guess it was partly true. One person- me- on Eagle Bird IV landed.
I thought about this for a second and was greatly appreciative when I suddenly heard the susurration of water. At first, something whispered my name, dragging me out of my depression. Then, I heard what it really was. I dropped my hand from the fern and bounded through the jungle. As I grew closer to the water, it sounded as if it was all around me, but I
knew it was only an illusion because of how loud the water was. I guessed it must have been a fast current, and I was correct. I bolted through the underbrush and came to a steady, fast river. The water was brown, and it was surging violently. I stayed back, thinking that if I stepped into it, I would be grasped and tossed like a ragdoll, probably pulled under the current to drown. Boy, that would not be a good way to die. That way, I was for sure going to be forgotten in history. The three trillion humans- occupying Earth, Earth’s Moon, and Mars- would never know my name. Then again, they weren’t going to know my name in the first place.
I watched the water for a time, hypnotized by it. It was the first river ever found by mankind on Zorgen. As I stood there, I thought about how nice it would be if it were named after me. Parry River. Then, I thought about how dumb I was thinking and walked off, staying close to the river so I wouldn’t lose it.
I walked on for an hour or two. I saw nothing more than the usual ferns, trees, and water. At first sight of these things, I marveled at them, but as I walked on, I grew bored of them. I decided it was best to break away from the water and travel through the jungle again. I could hear the water for a long while after leaving the river, but after a half an hour or so, the susurration dissolved into the distance. Again, I was thrown back into the quiet. I continued navigating my way through the jungle. Every once in a while, I had to pause and go around a patch of thick underbrush, but other than that, it was easy going.
I believe it is crucial to write about the weather as well. As I walked through the jungle, I began to sweat and notice that the weather was hot. By hot, I do not mean a ridiculous, extreme heat, but it was very warm, most likely in the low hundreds- Fahrenheit, of course. It was bearable but uncomfortable. It was a good thing that my adventurous mind was taking me away
from the heat; I could barely feel the weather. There were a few times I wished it would rain, but the day was all sun. I continued forward, pushing against the heat.
After an hour or two of walking aimlessly, I noticed a piquant smell. The more I walked, the more potent it became. It reminded me of my youth when my father would take me hunting. During a quick flashbulb memory of my younger self walking through a forest towards a dead deer, I understood why the smell was familiar. It was the smell of a dead body. Although it was ripe, I hurried my pace, hoping to see what kind of animal it was. Then, it struck me that it could be a human. However, I knew that was unlikely. If there were humans on Zorgen, they would have investigated the pod. But what if they couldn’t find where the pod landed?
I shoved the thoughts out of my mind and stumbled forward, knowing the smell was close. I waded through a dense of patch of underbrush, and when I came out of the patch, I saw what it was: a cluster of many dead, distorted animals. They were so mauled to death that I could not understand what species of animals they were, but due to the brown fur that I saw, I think they were squirrels of some sort. That is my best guess.
I took one last look at the destruction and walked off, hoping to find what sort of savage beast had mangled those animals. If someone is reading this, they may find that I was stupid to try to hunt the suspect of the murders, and I would have to agree with you. However, I was possessed with so much curiosity that I had to see what had done the damage.
Another hour or so later, I came across a clearing in the jungle. In this clearing, there were multiple unique things: a shimmering pond that beheld the freshest-looking water I had ever gazed at, numerous large boulders, and a plentiful amount of grass that stretched at least the size of a few football fields in length. That wasn’t what attracted my attention, though, for I was much more amazed by a strikingly familiar creature that was in the middle of the field: a horse- 
or something that appeared very similar to a horse. It was brown, large, and had a mane that shined in the sun.
Is that what killed those animals? I asked myself that question as I stared at the creature. I thought I was going to step forward into the clearing and announce my presence, but instead, I stayed back and watched. The horse stayed still, not moving an inch. He was gazing upward and away from where I now crouched at the outskirt of the clearing. For some reason, I think the horse knew- or felt- that I was there. He knew someone was watching him, but I had no idea how, because I had not made a sound or an appearance. I was hidden behind a large fern, barely peeking my head out to see. How could the horse know I was there?
I sat there for over an hour watching the creature, then I moved off. It became evident that the horse was not going to move a muscle until it was certain that I had left. So, feeling defeated that I had not seen movement, I quietly crept back into the jungle, unsure if I would see the creature again.
It was after seeing the horse that I became lost. I wandered through the forest aimlessly. I came across nothing worth mentioning. Finally, after hours, I found the pod with a sigh of relief.
I should get some rest. Tomorrow, I plan to explore again. This time, I’m going towards the hills.


Day 26.
The hills were fascinating to say the least. The day started out with the usual pill and drink of water, but as the day went by, it grew more and more unusual. I started out by walking towards the hills, not really going in any direction, just meandering along, hoping to find
something of interest. The hills were grassy, but as the pod grew more distant, I noticed there were an abundance of flower patches. Red, blue, white, yellow, and orange flowers blossomed and caught my eye. A few times I went over to a patch and sniffed the wonderful objects. It reminded me of the garden that my wife and I had at home. After a few sniffs, I couldn’t bear to be dragged back to the past by the nostalgic smell, so I carried on with my journey.
I wonder what I would have looked like to native of Zorgen. What would I call them? Zorgians? I’m not sure. However, I wonder what they would have thought of me. Standing in the distance, watching me as I traversed the landscape, they probably would have thought I was on some pleasurable drug, for I was walking around with my eyes wide open, gazing at everything as if it was some extraordinary piece of art; while, in fact, the hills and the rest of the landscape around me was just one of the many features of Zorgen. Somewhere on the planet, I assume, there are many landscapes that would make me fall to my knees in tears. The beauty of Zorgen has yet to be discovered.
Now, mankind has created habitats on two other homes other than Earth- Mars and the Moon. I have seen the cities of Mars and the bases on the moon, but let me tell you, the reader- I assume that perhaps one day someone will read this- that Zorgen is beyond anything I have ever seen. Mars and the Moon have no comparison. Zorgen is like Earth 2.0, but I suspect Zorgen may be much more beautiful.
I kept traveling in my dream-like state, still gazing in wonder at the landscape. At the peak of a hill, I looked out and saw a sea of small rolling mountains. The hills were ample, never-ending. How far could they go? I don’t know, but I did travel a little further.
An hour later, I reached what I thought of as a valley, and in this valley, I was shocked to find the horse. I asked myself if it was the same horse that I had seen earlier, and I was almost
certain of it. I could not ascertain that it was, but I was close to positive that the animal was the same. Immediately, directly upon seeing it, I fell to the grass and tried to get to cover. When I felt hidden, I watched, but once again, the horse remained still. When I first crested the hill, I vividly remember the horse bowing his head to sniff or eat the grass below it, but now, it was a statue. I’m sure that it felt my presence again. He knew I was there. Nevertheless, I watched.
Minutes later, something happened. A phenomenon took place, something that I doubt anyone that reads this will ever believe. The horse started to shake as if an earthquake was rumbling it- back and forth, back and forth, then, up and down, up and down, something undulating it in a quick motion. I remained still and concluded that it was not an earthquake causing the motion. Something- I don’t know what- was forcing it to move furiously. Then, the horse began to morph. The creature was no longer a horse, but instead, it became a black shape floating a few feet above the grass where it had stood just seconds before. The black shape, which I thought more of as a cloud, began twisting in the air, forming a new creature. Red eyes peered out of the cloud and stared directly at me. Then, I saw my wife in the black mist. The next thing I saw was Eric. Then, it was the Eagle Bird blowing to pieces. A succession of random objects followed. What was once the Eagle Bird, shortly became the planet Mars, then the pod. I saw my wife walking through our garden. I saw the eyes again; they glared at me.
At that point, I got up and ran. I knew I had been spotted due to the red eyes looking in my exact position, so I felt there was no need to conceal myself anymore. Staying there and watching that morphing black cloud was a death warrant. I had no other option but to run back to the pod, but then, halfway through running, I remembered seeing the pod in the black cloud. Did it know where the pod was? Also, did it know about Eagle Bird blowing up? It couldn’t have; it was just a horse. But was it?
There is nothing more to say. I made it back to the pod, and I waited to see if the horse would follow. I sat outside the pod for an hour, staring at the hills, but it never came. Eventually I went back inside the pod, and now, I am writing this. As I write, I wonder what the hell the beast is. It’s still out there. I can feel it.
I now put down the notebook so I can watch for the dreaded beast. I don’t know if it will come or not. Wait. I hear a noise. I’m going to investigate.
***
I am sure that what Captain Edgar Parry heard was the horse. Although I do imagine that the horse was outside the pod that fateful night, I’m unsure if the horse was real. Perhaps Edgar Parry, frightened and hysterical from landing on Zorgen alone, hallucinated the horse and the black cloud that he described. Edgar Parry seemed like a smart and acute individual, but it is not unheard of that smart, wise individuals can crack under pressure. Pressure was exactly what Captain Parry was dealing with. Perhaps the horse was only a figment of his imagination. But then again, I’m not sure. I do know that the horse was definitely outside in his mind. Therefore, I believe the horse was there.
The United Territories of Earth eventually landed on Zorgen with something other than a pod. Otherwise, how could I be in possession of this journal? The space program launched another Eagle Bird- Eagle Bird V- that was completely destroyed for unknown reasons. The third time was when we got it right, launching Eagle Bird VI. Upon landing, the crew did not know that Edgar Parry had survived the Eagle Bird IV explosion, but after five years on the planet, the crew came across his pod. I can only imagine what they thought when they came across a manmade object.
The crew read the journals and tried to hunt for the horse Edgar Parry described, but they came up empty handed. For several years, I commanded the crew to search for this beast, but every time, there was nothing to be found. All that is left of Captain Parry is the pod; his body was also never found. Nonetheless, I still tell the crews to keep a watchful eye just in case the beast returns. I am still skeptical, but I believe Captain Parry was still a somewhat sane man even though he was under an immense amount of pressure.
It’s just too bad his legacy will not be able to live on, for I cannot release this journal to the public. I hope that someday I will be able to, but for now, his journey to Zorgen is a secret that is yet to be known.

Hand to Hand

by Gerald Arthur Winter

An excerpt from
The Artisan
a novel in progress

​
With three mouths to feed and another on the way, Chet got a draft exemption
in 1942 by working for the Department of Defense using his draftsman skills rather than
bearing arms against the Axis powers of Italy, Germany, and Japan. Though Chet never
gave much thought to his drawing skills, something that just came naturally, when World
War II ended, the late ’40s provided a window of opportunity. Though photography was
the media of the future as demonstrated by the black-and-white photo covers of Life
Magazine, illustrated renderings would remain the mainstream medium of advertising
through the mid ’50s.
Chet had taken his father’s advice after college—“If you want to get ahead in this
world, start by marrying a redhead. She’ll light your fire to success.”
Chet’s wife, Lilly, may not have been the Lucille Ball, flaring redhead that Chet’s dad
had in mind, but Lilly’s auburn coif ignited a passion for Chet that made her proud of him.
Work was hard to find with so many veterans returning from war, so Lilly checked the
Want Ads for Chet while she kept their three-year-old son out of mischief and nursed their
newborn daughter.
At his drawing table in their small apartment in Queens, Chet worked on his portfolio
of illustrations from appliances to food, drink, clothing, and cigarettes. His rendering of a pack of Lucky Strikes was his pièce de résistance featuring his understanding of perspective,
color, and lettering. But it wasn’t until an art director at Grey Advertising looked at his port-
folio presentation and posed a question that sparked Chet’s brilliant future.
“Where have you been working?” the art director asked Chet. “Your work is as close
to photographic as I’ve ever seen. How come I’ve never heard of you?”
“I’ve been doing catalog work from home the past year,” Chet said.
“Catalogue work?”
“You know, in Sears Roebuck, refrigerators, dishwashers, and the like. But I prefer
the bras and panties section,” Chet said with a wink that made the art director grin.
“Do you prefer to freelance or are you looking for a salaried position?” he asked.
“If I were single, freelance would suit me better, but I’m married with two kids, so a
salary would appeal to my wife to remove the uncertainty from our future. Lilly saw your ad
in the paper for an illustrator and got me this interview with you.”
“I need someone in our art department as soon as possible. Can you start now?”
“Well, I—” he started to stall, but Lilly’s face hovered in his mind. “I haven’t had lunch
yet.”
“We’ll order out . . . on me. Does pastrami on rye with mustard sound good?”
“That would be swell. Thanks—?”
“I’m Hal. What’re drinking?”
“Coffee’s good. Black—keeps me sharp.”
Hal escorted Chet through the “Creative Department” and introduced him to the
guys in the bullpen who made mechanicals for engraving guidelines and used a photostat
machine the size of a Chevy coup to make quick cheap copies of illustrations or photographs
for art directors’ visuals for print ads. TV hadn’t made its mark for advertising yet with less
than ten percent of homes having a television. There were no women in the bullpen. The
only women Chet had seen were receptionists on each floor as you came off the elevator
and as personal secretaries for the main department heads of Sales, Copy writing, and Art.
“We have a Pall Mall ad coming up this week and the copywriter wants to show a
man’s hand lighting a woman’s cigarette with a Zippo lighter. Time to show America that
the war’s over and it’s safe to have kids—lots of kids—ya know, like a Baby Boom.”
Chet gave Hal a no sweat shrug of confidence.
“Problem is I need finished art by tomorrow noon for client approval and the
deadline to get to the engraver without paying overtime is five o’clock tomorrow night.”
Chet gave Hal a look of confusion.
“Can do. But I was just wondering why you’ve got so many other men reading the funny
papers at their drawing boards? Why do you need me if you’ve got a deep bullpen with guys
lounging around with their thumbs up their butts.”
Hal laughed, giving Chet a pat on the back. “I knew I was gonna like you when you made
that crack about preferring to draw panties and bras. No BS, just straight to the point, which is
how I promise to be with you. These guys all lack one talent that only you’ve demonstrated in
your portfolio. You can draw hands, men’s and women’s, which have expression.”
“Can’t any of these other artists draw hands?”
“None like you can, Chet, so get to work and ask me for anything you need.”
Chet went to his cubby hole and arranged his palette. Within the next hour he had
a rough pencil sketch of a woman’s hand holding the cigarette between her index and
middle finger. There was a subtle profile of the woman’s pursed lips at one end of the
cigarette and the Zippo lighter’s flame at the other end. The man’s hand holding the lighter
with the expertise of a WW II vet showed a rugged masculine assuredness compared to the
slender grace of the woman’s smooth hand with long, but unobtrusive fingernails.
“I want to imply that she’s a doll,” Hal had instructed, “but not whore.”
Within two hours Chet was knocking on Hal’s open door that said “CREATIVE DIRECTOR.”
“I’d like you to approve the direction I’ve taken in my preliminary sketch,” Chet said.
Hal was on the phone and waved him closer and nodded for Chet to angle his sketch
towards the afternoon light from the window facing Madison Avenue from the 7th Floor.
“Hold on a minute,” Hal told his caller then his mouth dropped open. “Jesus, Chet!
That’s fantastic. I wouldn’t change a goddamn thing, but now I need the finish in color for
tomorrow.”
Chet nodded then as he went out the door he heard Hal say to the party on the
phone, “You’re gonna love this fuckin’ ad. I just hired an illustrator who nailed it.”



From 1948 to 1952, Chet’s commercial illustrations for top advertising print ads made
him a fortune with his special talent to render expressive hands. He didn’t stay on salary more
than a year before a demand for his expertise made freelance work more profitable than ad
agency bullpen assignments, even for clients paying $100,000 for a full-page color ad in top
magazines from The Saturday Evening Post to Playboy.
In the summer of ’48, Lilly told Chet, “You could eliminate the middleman, Honey.
Sure, this has been a great year for us, fifty thousand dollars and two weeks paid vacation,
but if you worked as a freelancer for hire, you could name your price, maybe earn as much as
the Yankees pay Joe DiMaggio.”
Chet said with a shrug. “But DiMaggo makes as much as President Truman.”
“With your talent, you could draw Harry Truman’s hand giving the middle finger to
Governor Dewey and everyone would know it was your creation. You have style, Baby.”
“I doubt that,” Chet said humbly.
“I made a call this morning, Chet. The Democrats are willing to come up with five
thousand dollars if you give them finished art for mass production by Friday—five grand!
Lilly flashed her green eyes and fluffed her shoulder-length coif recently died as
orange as Lucille Ball’s. She could afford a weekly manicure as well with Chet’s current
salary, but she wanted more. Chet realized his father was right about marrying a redhead.
What did ole Pop say? “Your gal Lillie’s got pizzazz! Marry her before someone steals her.”
Lilly followed through with her political advice and Chet quit his salaried job and
made the deadline for the Democratic Party, but better judgement blocked releasing the
artwork into circulation. Even though it was a perfect expression of the Truman legacy
that followed, censorship demanded that the illustration be destroyed along with any
rough sketches Chet had made in preparation for the finished art. Thanks to Lilly’s
negotiations with the DNC, Chet was still paid five grand for his effort.
Then Lilly told Chet to demand another $5,000 if his work was destroyed. He got
anothert $7,000 from the DNC to remain silent when the GOP started sniffing around
over rumors of Chet’s artwork’s existence. It was Chet’s first freelance contract, but to
protect the paper trail from scrutiny, Lilly did the billing simply referring to the artwork
on Chet’s invoice as the “Hand Job.”
When President Truman went to sleep on Election Day in 1948, Thomas E. Dewey had
been declared the victor. When he woke the next morning Truman learned, as the rest of the
nation had, that he had four more years as President. A Centennial celebration for the DNC
ensued.


Chet was later approached by GOP ancillaries. They asked Chet to reproduce duplicate
art so they could say it was the original illustration to discredit President Truman during his next
term for his vulgarity. Despite their offer of $10,000, Lilly declined in Chet’s behalf because,
now as his agent, she said he’d be too busy for the next four years working out of their home
in Connecticut to meet the illustration demands of five Madison Avenue advertising agencies
paying a combined total of a million dollars. Chet, Jr. and his sister Carol would be going to Ivy
League colleges.
With Lilly arranging Chet’s schedule and handling his billing, they rode on the gravy train
between New Canaan and Grand Central Terminal for the next ten years, but by the late 1950s
photography had become more cost effective with advanced means of reproduction. Eastman
Kodak took advantage of leadership in photo technology reproduction that challenged
commercial illustrators to lower their charges to ad agencies who were employing staffs of
a new breed of what Chet called pseudo artists—photo retouchers.
Chet was among a few fortunate artists who’d had a wife like Lilly to discipline him by
putting aside ten percent of his earnings into savings and investments. When demand for his
talent declined and was replaced by photographers and retouchers, Chet and Lilly could still
continue their lifestyle after their children had families of their own.
The unexpected often catches us short in life as was the case for Chet when Lilly died
in her sixties. Widowed at age seventy, Chet had no one to come home to from Manhattan
to Connecticut at night, so he sold their home for twenty times what they’d paid for it in 1950,
and rented a one-bedroom apartment on the eastside of mid-town Manhattan where most
of his working adult life had been spent in great demand for his artistic talent.
I ran into Chet in Manhattan on my way to The Studio Bar on Second Ave near the
adjoining corner of 44th Street near McCarthy’s Steakhouse and The Palm, which were too
rich for my blood as photo retoucher in a sweatshop studio typical of the ’60s. I was taking
a sandwich my wife had made for me that morning to have my lunch at the United Nations
Plaza where I could watch the East River water traffic in the park filled with flowers and
a bright patch of green grass to offset all the concrete and steel of New York City.
I’d just come through Grand Central Terminal toward Lexington Avenue but took
the short cut through the lobby of The Graybar Building so that, as instructed by my elderly
friend Chet’s wife to him a decade ago, “People will assume you’re working for J. Walter
Thompson in that building, which will raise the price of your artwork.”
So far that hadn’t worked for me, but I was only in my twenties that day when I saw
Chet coming out of Schrafft’s restaurant. He’d had his two martinis up and the fish platter.
He’d stopped eating red meat on doctor’s orders the year before, but had said to me at the
time, “Without Lilly, life is still worth living, but only if I can still have my two martini’s at lunch.”
Chet provided a wealth of wisdom for me in my early years working in Manhattan with
a commute from north Jersey. I was just an apprentice photo retoucher at Rialto Studio at the
time I met Chet with his bowties and suspenders and metal clips on his forearms to keep the
watercolors from getting on his starch-crisp, white dress shirts. He also wore a full denim apron
to protect his chest and lap from paint spatters so he’d always look his best in Schrafft’s. I’d
kidded him once, asking, “Do you think you might meet another redhead at Shrafft’s?”
I’d felt bad about the question when Chet got teary-eyed and said, “Lilly was my one
and only everything, not just a redhead. You know the cliché about there always being a strong
woman behind a great man. She was my tigress in animal kingdom of Manhattan. I called her
Tiger Lilly.”


I’d never kidded him about anything personal again, but he did have a sense of humor
about the profession that had made him rich and independent.
Chet said, “If I was asked by my relatives or highbrow Connecticut friends in the bar
car heading home about what I did for a living, I gave them the honest answer—I play the
piano in a whore house.”
He taught me to never sell my talent short, saying, “The best way to get a raise is
quitting to work for the competition. Your former employer will pay twice your salary if
you come back. If you stay in the same studio where you began, you’ll always be considered
just a beginner. Good fortune loves a moving target.”
Chet learned a lot from Lilly over the years. As an artist for detail he was a keen
observer. He didn’t just have his nose to the drawing board all day. He negotiated his
own deal with Rialto Studio for a four-day work week, unheard of at the time. Although
he couldn’t earn the kind of income he had in his prime, nothing close that, on an hourly
basis, he was the highest paid artist on staff because his work looked as realistic as a
photograph, which was in great demand at the time approaching the ‘70s on Madison
Avenue.
“The world has a way of stealing from you over time,” he’d told me. “What’s the
in-thing today is tomorrow’s garbage.”
Chet was right because the photography technology brought with it the demand
to work with chemicals rather than with watercolors on photographs. The Kodak dye-
transfer era of the ’80s required “bleach-and-dye” application on photos. Chet called it the
“bleach or dye” movement in photographic illustration. The need for his painterly talents
rapidly diminished.
“I’m like a silent film star after 1927,” Chet said. “Obsolete.”
The last time I saw Chet was 1988. In his nineties, he was just a shadow of the man
I’d known. I was in my professional prime as a bleach-and-dye photo retoucher with a
full-page ad in THE CREATIVE BLACK BOOK and a penthouse apartment to work from off First
Avenue. My studio was a nine-iron chip shot from the United Nations Plaza where I used have
a sandwich from home for lunch in the park. Now I could entertain my own ad agency clients
at The Palm for lunch or The Billy Munk Pub around the corner for my lesser clientele. The
food was great there, too, but the ambiance included Irish waifs with bedroom eyes that
beckoned for more than a tip. There were always a few choice redheads in the mix, but I
had my own at home.
I called Chet just to chat during a slow spell and he came up to my studio to meet
the seven other photo retouchers who worked for me. He brought a package under his arm
in a large, flat envelope the size of a 20” x 24” dye transfer photo.
I showed him some of our recent work and he just nodded silently with his chin
resting on his fist. He said nothing about the package he was carrying so I finally asked,
“Whatcha got there, Chet? You back to freelancing? If we get busy again soon I’ll give you
a call. I can always find a job for someone with your gift.”
“Thanks, but I’m done with working,” he said. “Before I show you what’s in the
package, you ought to read this article in The New York Times from yesterday.” He took
a crumpled page of newsprint from his suit jacket, handed me the article, then straighten
his bowtie.
The article was about a computer called the Sci-tech machine, which could retouch
photos by the use of pixels, computer units that can create image details and color variations.
The claim of the article was that this technology would replace both photographers and
retouchers who didn’t adapt and learn the new digital process.
I just shrugged then handed it off to be shared by my staff. “You don’t really think
we can ever be replaced by computers . . . do you?” I asked Chet.
“You might be in the same position I was thirty years ago—a silent movie star,” Chet
warned. “You have to put all things in perspective.” He motioned for me to open the large
envelope he’d brought with him.


As I unwrapped the package and set the artwork on our presentation table where art
directors viewed finished photos ready for engraving, Chet took me aside and told 
e aside and told me the story behind  the artwork.



“I want you to have this as a reminder to you years from now that nothing lasts forever.
The world is in a constant flow of change, sometimes for the better, sometimes not, but change
just the same. Though human, hand to hand we must pull each other up the food chain of the
animal kingdom. Only at the top can we look back to see how far we’ve come to survive. My
rendering is yours to do with as you wish, but I’ve kept it hidden for over seventy years and
now I’m ninety-five. The most I was ever paid for my talent was not to produce this illustration.
I trust you’ll keep it hidden as I have, but will remember the story I’ve told you about it. Think
of my gift to you as my hand to your hand.”
“So you didn’t destroy the original illustration in 1948 after all?”
“I had to give them the destroyed art to get paid, but Lilly thought it would be wise
for me to paint another one from scratch for insurance—redheads—go figure.”
I nodded in agreement as he departed. I never saw Chet again other than reading
his obituary at age one hundred in The New York Times. He’d survived his wife and both
children and his commercial illustrations had been compared to Norman Rockwell’s work.
What I think of most when I remember Chet, aside from his lifetime marriage to “Tiger Lilly,”
is that my bigger than life-size portrait of Harry Truman’s hand flipping the bird to Thomas E.
Dewey will be imbedded in my mind forever. Welcome to the jungle.

Lips Sealed

By Melodie Corrigall


Although they were sitting side by side she was as distant from him as she was from the animals at the zoo. Some scientists argued that other animal species could communicate with one another but Bimble doubted that was the case. As it was, she couldn’t even converse with this other type of human.

But there was no time for idle speculation. She had better act smart. Soon the hole in the fence, through which she had slipped, would be fixed. The menders were vigilant. They would already have reported the break in the barrier. At any moment, sirens loud enough to alert the forces on both sides would blare that a creature had broken through.

Naturally, they would not look as attentively on this side. The wild people often wanted to escape to her side but to date it was unheard of for an advanced person to come over here.

She had often wondered why the wild people wanted to come over to her side. Once there, they were unable to communicate with anyone and, when discovered, they were roughly returned to their proper place.

It was said that some did make it across, hid in back alleys and stole food to survive. Bimble had never seen one. Never, that was, until today. And that was not on the ordered side but on their side.

Curiosity had done her in or at least encouraged her daring decision to slip through the break in the fence. Curiosity compounded by grief at losing her uncle to the permanent third side. The side through which there was only one-way access—death.

The week, which now looked like ending in humiliation or imprisonment, had begun like any other. Every seven days, for as long as Bimble could remember, she had taken the SuperSpeed to visit her uncle.

Sadly, as she got older and stronger, her uncle got older and weaker. But until the last few seasons it had been a joy to visit him. Although his body was frail, his mind buzzed. He was the only one she could discuss taboo subjects with. The only one from whom she could find out about what it had been like before and how the future might unfold. He was the only one who never said bad things about the people who still talked with their mouths.

But today had not been like any other day. Today she had left the institute where her uncle had lived swimming in sadness, made worse by the grey rain-heavy sky.

It was unfortunate but no matter how advanced their technology, they could not control the sun and rain. The leaders insisted they were working on it and that and it was only a matter of time, but to date, the weather gods just did whatever they pleased and sometimes the result was unpleasant.

Perhaps sensing the future, that morning when she boarded the SuperSpeed, she had been so sad a man sitting next to her had messaged, “Perk up girl, today is good, and tomorrow is better.” The old folks, except for her Uncle, always said that but sometimes she wondered if that were true.

When she got to the door of her Uncle’s complex, the man at the door sent out a grey message, ‘He is not his old self today.’ That was an under-testimony she soon realized when she found her Uncle, prone on the bed, his arm hanging by his side.

“Bimble,” he communicated. “I was waiting for you.”

“I’m here,” she replied. “I’m always here on the seventh day.”

“But I won’t be,” he said and he sounded so small and miserable, she touched his hand.

“Be strong, be curious, do not be afraid,” he continued and then went silent. Immediately the alarms exploded and uniformed people burst into the room.

Before she could catch her breath, she was whisked into the hall and instructed to wait. She saw through the open door they were covering her uncle head to toe with a silver sheet and she knew that meant he was gone.

But she instead of waiting as they had instructed, she ran down the hall, and out the door. Dodging the people at the front entrance, she slunk around to the back of the property and scuttled towards the fence separating her uncle’s building from the wild county behind it. Then abandoned, she drifted along the barrier, her slender body shrunk in grief.

As she trudged along, her arm was roughly brushed but not with the excruciating zap she’d have experienced if she had tried to climb the fence. Like a drone her thoughts kept circling to the same place where suddenly she was alone. Her parents, who she seldom saw, were somewhere in another continent or maybe another planet. She couldn’t remember their agenda. The only one she had loved and felt tied to, her uncle, had left her.

She stared across the fence at the wild country beyond. In the distance she could see aliens doing something with the vegetation. She knew that this was where the products they ate, in a powdered state, came from but she was not sure about the process. On the ordered side, there was nothing living or green, such things were far too dangerous. As far as the eye could see, the vegetation moved in the breeze. It was almost beautiful but, of course, unkempt.

Suddenly the thin tingle in her hand stopped. Looking down she discovered a hole ripped open in the fence. Not a big gap, only large enough to let one of them come through. Or, she surprised herself to consider, to allow her to cross over.

What if she did slip through? Her uncle had always instructed her to be brave. He was criticized for having the vision: knowing what was to be. Had he known she would find the hole and did he mean she should be curious and go through?

She looked around, there was no one within sight on either side, and there were no drones in the sky.

What was the worst that could happen? She could slip back in a minute if there was danger and if she was found they would say it was just an adventure or she hadn’t known what she was doing.

Glancing furtively in all directions, she crouched and slipped through the hole, careful to avoid touching the metal. And there she was.

She stood and looked around. It was like that old story about the little girl Alice on drugs but she was quite clear-headed. She moved forward slowly. The field was not as wild as it had looked from the other side. There seemed to be some order. There was a pathway between the green stalks; the tall poles swayed high above her head. In a few minutes, she came to a path that veered off. A creature—an alien—jumped out at her. She was caught. They stood frozen and frightened, inspecting one another.

She sent a message “I am only visiting. I will not hurt you.”

He opened his huge mouth and a sound came out but, of course, she had no idea what it was messaging. The noise was much different than that of the little alien she had been shown at the learning center.

They stood for a long time and then started to circle around one another. Bimble moved backwards searching for the path to the fence, anxious to get back to her side and quickly. In her struggle to escape, she stumbled against a large green stalk.

The creature, bobbed up and down, and jutted out a hand. What did he want? Would he try to burn her?

He turned and signaled for her to follow. Too confused and lost to do otherwise she did so. When they turned the corner there was a bench in front of which was a mass of flowers, like in the market but not tied together, just flowing like an ocean of color. So many, hundreds all stuck in the ground.

He, for he seemed to be a he, bobbed a few times and sat down. His large red mouth, so soft looking, made a strange movement, and he touched the bench. Was she to be seated?

A strong intoxicating perfume drifted from the field; the flowers moved as if dancing. The smell made her dizzy. Why did they not tell her that flowers could be in the ground like this? Somehow, they appeared more beautiful than in a glass container.

The two of them sat there for some time. Bimble looked at her reminder and saw that her uncle had only been dead for three units but she felt she had lived much longer since his demise. She was having such an adventure.

But if it were three units then the menders would be coming along soon to check the fence and then there would be the sirens and they would immediately seal the gap.

She had better find her way back. Maybe the alien would help her but how could she ask for help? They didn’t understand brain messages only their loud noisy language.

He was sitting there quietly, the sun reflecting on his face, his head nodding. Maybe that meant something. She felt a sort of peace, a stillness, as if she had moved to another kingdom where even flowers communicated.

What if she stayed? Would he help her? Would he make her powdered food to sip through her mouth straw?

The sun was warm on her face as she sank into a gentle comfort. She would just settle beside the alien for a short while and then decide.
​

A Sight To See

By Leah Moynihan

​
The sun pelted down, like an oven heating the carcass, baking it. The odour climbed into my nostrils and made my stomach churn. I recoiled from the giant in the sand but the crabs did quite the opposite. Their red armour glistened as they devoured their prize. They climbed up the mountain of rotten flesh, battling one another. The winner scuttled to the top, his large claws raised in victory. The losers had to be satisfied with the scraps. It was a deadly battle but the trophy didn't seem to mind. He just slumped there, decaying and half buried in sand. His glassy lifeless eye stared at me, the other one missing and leaving a hole in the side of his fearsome head. His rough grey skin was caked in dried blood, deep cuts drawing patterns from where the nets clawed their way into him, trapping him and leading him to his sorry state. 
I knew everything there was to know about the local wildlife, but I had never once imagined a shark washing up on our shore. I had only ever seen the predators on television and narrated by David Attenborough's calm voice. Yet, even drained of life, the shark looked terrifying with his knife like teeth protruding from his pointed snout. Beneath the scavengers that were already enjoying their free meal, I could just make out his gills. They were like lines carved into his neck. Fascinated, I asked my father about the fish’s anatomy and he explained that gills help the sharks to get their oxygen. They have to keep moving to breath. I was only eight but I was smart enough to know that the net tangled around his fins and body wouldn’t have allowed him to do this. Salty tears welled in my eyes, either from the rancid smell of decaying flesh or the fact that such a beautifully fierce creature died so savagely. 
That evening, my father went down to the villages little pub to have a drink with friends. He enjoyed talking to the old fishermen, they were always the best storytellers. This particular evening, the topic of conversation was ,of coarse, the shark that washed up over night. One of the fishermen at the bar, probably after having had a few too many drinks, jokingly admitted to my father that the shark died because of him. I was retold the tale the next morning and it felt like a whole ocean was churning inside my stomach. He explained to me that the fisherman got the shark caught in his net and he was unable to cut him loose. The shark was too tangled so the fisherman had to let the net go with the shark still in it. As a little girl, my heart broke. To me, the fisherman didn’t even care. He seemed proud in fact, swirling his pint glass around, glad to be the centre of attention. In my mind, he sounded exactly like every villain and tyrant in my story books. He was just upset that he lost a good net.
The shark’s body had to be buried under the sand because the sea wouldn’t take it back. A digger came tumbling down onto the beach to do the job and all of the other children were excited to see such an impressive piece of machinery. I didn’t want to watch. Nobody seemed to care that an innocent animal was just killed. The shark suffered and nothing was being done to bring anyone to justice. Nothing was even uttered to the fisherman, who made no attempt at hidding his achievement. He got away with a crime and I couldn’t comprehend why. 
That was the first time I had experienced humans carelessness towards the lives of animals. But it wasn’t the last. Over the years, I’ve seen too many seals appear washed up on the rocks, my favourite animal. I will never forget the one that stole my heart. The waves rolled up like carpets, reaching up to touch the sky, until gravity took hold and sent them tumbling back down to earth. The sea whispered my name, calling for me to enter the wild cold water and never let my feet touch land again. The sun was beating down and I decided to go surfing, like I did every morning. I paddled back out, after catching a few good waves when I spotted something unusual. At first, I thought I was hallucinating. It looked like a person but then it would duck down into the depths and pop back up to the surface a few minutes later. I had always loved mermaids and it sure did look like one from afar. Intrigued, I paddled closer and spotted the little head bobbing just beyond the breakers. She stared at me curiously, not letting her big brown eyes lose site of me. The seal tilted its little head sideways as if to survey me. My heart pounded rapidly in my chest. Time stood still. We stayed like that, staring at one another, somehow understanding. Two souls met, I never saw anything so magical.
One month later, I was diving with my friends in our usual spot, when I smelt it. As black as tar, wedged between two rocks where it must have dragged itself, a seal. A weak later we found a malnourished seal pup that had no way to survive without its mother. 
The year after that there was a dolphin covered in fatal lacerations from a boats propeller and then, an otter drowned in a crab net with the cold look of fear never leaving it’s glassy eyes.
Ever since that shark on the beach, my view of the world has been turned upside down. That was the moment eight year old me realised that the world isn’t as perfect as I thought it was. I still don’t understand how the fisherman could laugh at his act, how someone could steal a seal pups mother, how someone could kill a dolphin and walk away. 
Animals remind us of how cruel humans can sometimes be. A wolf attacks only to protect itself while humans can just be cruel. I have learned that animals somehow have a complex simplicity to them. They live to survive and survive to live, no pointless drama. They have a kind of warmth that the human race seems to have lost. Animals don’t have time for bitterness or hate. They know what they have to do, they know their purpose. They have no ambitions, only to care for their loved ones and that’s where their beauty lies. They don’t destroy, only create. They aren’t selfish, malicious or enjoy watching others suffer. Some would say that’s due to their low intelligence but I believe it’s quite the opposite. They have a kind of loyalty that is unbreakable. We sit back and watch while we cause destruction, just like the fisherman with the shark. We just sit and watch our house burn. But I have not given up on the human race yet. Animals also remind us of the good in us as well. I’ve seen people fight their whole lives to set up animal reserves, to stop overfishing, to change the way people see nature and save lives. We should be proud of what we will do instead of ashamed of what we were too afraid to do. If that one fisherman saved that one shark, if one fishing company hadn’t caught above it’s quota and left some fish for the seal, if one country made its waters protected, then, perhaps we can still make a difference. Perhaps a little girl in the future won’t have to see animals washed ashore because of people’s mistakes, perhaps she will see an ocean that has never been more alive and thriving beside humans. Perhaps she will spot little brown eyes staring at her in the waves and think it’s mermaid too.

Exoskeletally

By Meg Smith


Meg Smith's new poetry books, Dear Deepest Ghost 
and This Scarlet Dancing, are available on Amazon!


I awoke and my room was a gray mass.
A thought of John, like some angry, sparking flame, erupted and died.
I remembered clearly: it's Tuesday.
My throat ached with a queer sort of pain, almost as if I had swallowed a thousand thistles.
John. I did not see him in my mind this time, but instead breathed in a hot slash, anger of my own.
My narrow dresser is across from the footboard, and above it a mirror, with some photos of friends tucked into the corners.
A gaudy lei of plastic yellow flowers. Not from John. Not even from anyone whose name I could place.
The gray began to clear. I arched forward with a start, and that odd pain crackled in my midriff.
I froze. I could see the top of my head, my face, in that dust-smeared mirror.
It was the face of a giant cockroach.
Or, some other insect. I don't know.
I'm not an expert on insects.
But maybe I should be.
Large, round eyes, like polished globes.
Imagine, your mouth opens from both sides, not up and down, and somehow, it's not weird.
Unless you're looking in the mirror, tasting the fetid air with timid, probing antennae.
Antennae.
Any moment now I would wake up, my groggy, human self --
the moment did not come.
I was not stiff and stocky, like those superbugs in atomic age science fiction movies.
Oddly, I looked sort of graceful.
Perhaps it was because now I was wholly insect, and thus, felt perfectly okay with my insectitude.
There was a sharp tap on the door.
"Your Uber is here." My brother.
Yes, Uber. A year without a license, thanks to driving more-drunk John home one night.
He was gone, and so my was license, along with court costs, and Uber costs.
I can't go into work like this, I thought. I wanted to laugh.
But I no longer could.
I could get my phone, and facetime my boss, Arben, who was on an Uber streak, too.
Arb, I have a good excuse. I'm a giant freaking cockroach.
Assuming a tap from a segmented limb covered in dark, comb-like hairs, could get the phone to work.
The tap erupted in a bang.
"Hey genius, get going!"
"Piss off," I yelled, but no sound came out. Just a wretched creak from mandibles.
What good is being a giant cockroach if you can't insult people.
With some effort, I heaved myself up, and over. Please don't let me fall on my back, and lie there like a simp with my giant insect legs kicking in the air.
But I managed to land correctly, though my feet skidded a bit on the hardwood floor.
Now, what.
There's no use hiding this, I thought.
Insect logic.
That's why there are billions, and billions, all over the Earth.
I made a labored, ungainly lurching toward the door, before realizing I had no way of turning the knob. I hooked the end of one foot under, and pulled it toward me. It was uncomfortable, but it worked.
There stood my brother.
There stood my brother, white and gray with shock, almost delirium, his mouth contorted as if fighting between a shriek and a laugh.
Even if I could talk, I had nothing to say to him.
With another, segmented, hair-spike leg, I thumped him aside, and plodded down the hallway.
I remembered the story. Metamorphosis. We read it in English class.
A guy wakes up and he's a giant insect, like me. His family laughs at him, ridicules him, and when he dies, all alone, a dry, sad husk.
Well, not me, I thought. Or, it seemed that I thought.
If I was going to be spending the rest of my life like this, I would do it in style.
I know it sounds odd, but, they day before, I was a person, immobile, and deservedly so, because I made a stupid decision on behalf of an even stupider cause -- a dead-beat boyfriend.
I was living at home, with my brother, older than me and also living at home, quietly nursing a painkiller habit courtesy of our mom and her myriad, phantom ailments.
Today, none of that mattered. I had a whole new life to live.
Yeah, I was starting to dig it.
I have to learn to be an insect, I thought.
Then: I don't have to learn anything. I'm a gigantic, hungry insect, and people will piss themselves when they see me, and either faint, or get the hell out of my way.
I can ransack grocery stores, thunder in the streets, and --
I wondered, can I fly?.
Most insects have wings, right?
I shambled toward the front hall door, which was not quite as easy to open. Ungracefully, I bashed against it, which I instantly regretted, as a slight, wincing tear erupted in my otherwise unflawed, dark brown armor.
I vaguely heard something, and then no longer heard it.
I'm sure it was my brother, screaming, a scream caught between fright and absurdity.
If mom's out of Oxy, he'll really be screwed, I thought.
The door was open. The air outside was sharp, and cold.
Shit, that's right, another revelation blared in my insect brain. Most insects don't like cold.
For a moment, I mused whether I should turn back around and use my trusty, hooked feet to grab a blanket off the couch.
Then I thought how stupid I'd look, an enormous insect in a fuzzy blanket with bright orange daisies printed on it.
More than that, I wanted nothing, not one shred of my life in this sad, narrow space with those two sad, narrow people and my father's ashes in a bronze urn on the mantelpiece.
A blessed insect logic took over: Just go. We'll figure this out.
I had a hundred sensing places -- eyes, legs, antennae, and something wonderful, nameless and alive inside of me, all directing me where to go.
I had to squeeze through the door opening. It was pinchy-feeling, and I had to stop and start several times.
I'm insect and still overfed in the middle, my mind sighed.
One last, subtle push forward, and I was out.
A sound behind me. I sharp, shocking sound.
If I swiveled my insect eyes a bit, perhaps I could see what happened.
But I didn't have to. I knew.
My brother had shot himself.
I plodded unevenly down the steps, the cold from snow patches in the withered grass stinging my feet.
The door shut behind me.


I could fly.
I gimped around a bit; the snow and grass clung together in uneven lumps.
This sucks, I thought. It felt a hundred thousand times colder. It felt, sounded, tasted, so much colder.
Insects are alive with every sense, whether they like it or not.
They. Me.
I stood for a few moments, my limbs a little achy from holding up my weight. I did not want my belly touching the cold snow and grass.
My eyes scanned, from left to right, and slightly upward to bare trees against incongruously cheerful blue sky.
Our house was situated in the town common. The town common is pretty and historic.
A memory came of sitting there for the Fourth of July parade, but quickly evaporated.
I understood. My newly-minted insect brain was making short work of memories that no longer meant anything, had no real context for, well, an insect.
Now was the only certain reality.
Strangely, traffic moved smoothly, stopping at the lights where a knot of quaint New England roads tangled in a traffic engineer's worst dream.
No one was looking at me, at all, and if they did, they seemed not to register much.
Then, I saw one person raise a phone. He wants to photograph me, and share it with his stupid social media friends.
The ironically-named, Hive Mind.
His brakes screeched, just a miniscule space between him and sand truck in front of him.
Picturesque New England winters bring big, grouchy sand trucks.
This is getting me nowhere, my insect mind told me.
Looking at the traffic, I realized a new problem. People might get distracted and crash, but that was their problem.
My issue was getting from one place to another without getting crushed.
My glorious, arthropodic debut should not end in a glob of smeared goo on the road, under the wheels of a speeding minivan.
My brain ushered some thoughts -- snaps of electricity, really -- to the large, weighty, bifurcated shell I knew was covering my back.
They lifted, slightly at first. With each try, I grew a bit stronger, and they lifted higher.
Cold air flooded what I knew was beneath -- more dedicated, translucent wings.
Could I do this, a human doubt pondered. Could I get this big, chubby body off the ground?
A flick of memory. Someone, really toked up in John's house but not John, musing through a cough: "Man, bumblebees are too fat to fly."
The retort: also not John, who was passed out: "Dude, bees don't read physics."
Some coughing and laughter.
Why was I even thinking of this, why wasn't this banished with all other nonessential human thoughts?
Then, just as clear, bright and wonderful as the winter sky: "Shove your human physics. I'm going to fly."
My hooked feet dug into the unyielding, frozen grass.
I push back, and then forward.
Icy air filled my wings, and brushed my back.
I stumbled at first, but on the second push, I thrust out, and up.
Shove your physics, humans, my triumphant insect mind churled.
A great buzzing sound startled me at first. Then, of course. Air in my wings. That's why flies and bees make that noise, high and urgent, while bloodthirsty, corpulent horse flies utter a lower, sinister drone.
My insect family, I thought. I don't know if mandibles can grin, but if they can, that's what I was doing.
And, something else. I was flying.
The trees brushed me rudely as I ascended, but soon they were beneath me. A stray twig broke from the end of one branch, caught beneath my shielding upper wings and the more fragile lower ones.
It was annoying as hell, but after a moment, as I gained speed, the same cold, thinner air, pushed it out.
Back to gravity, fuckhead, I thought. To a twig.
To my brother, slumped in a bloody mass on the floor.
To my house, the door opened, but no one going near it.
Maybe they'll see, don't freaking go in there. A guy blew his head to mush, and a girl turned into a giant bug and flew away.
If insect mandibles could laugh, that's what I was doing now.
Below, perhaps, people were finally looking, pointing, wondering, calling police.
Who would laugh at first, and advise them to put on tinfoil hats.
A stranger at the door might be danger.
A magnificent, soaring girl-insect, was not.
She's up there, and she can't hurt you, the dispatcher would say.
Then, the dispatchers, to each other: Must be some party. All these people calling.
I bet it's a kite, a dispatcher would say. People did fly kites on the common, all the time. Dragons, butterflies, so, hey, a cockroach kite is weird, but not out of the question.
After all, smiling dollops of pooh were a thing. I had even looked out to see a smiling pooh kite.
So a cockroach -- or scarab beetle -- or whatever -- at least it's not flying pooh.


I was getting tired. The weight of my body, though in some ways porous and light, was taxing my wings, and even my tucked-in legs.
I was going to have to land.
I scanned the rooftops -- now turning a strange, but not unwelcome, gray-green, registering to my new, insect eyes.
All the same, I could see it, know it, perhaps by rote.
If only I could have flown to work like this all these years.
Work.
It was not a whole thought in my mind, but something imprinted by pattern, repetition. You go to the same place five days a week for seven years, and that happens.
I had no introspection. I don't really think most insects sit around on flowers, or garbage heaps, pondering the meaning of anything except perhaps that it's great to be an insect.
Fly, eat, bite people, or sting them, send them running at the slightest angry wing-hum. Just don't get eaten by birds, or stepped on.
And neither was a risk to me.
I'm an insect. With benefits.
It was the last, whole thought I could feel as a human, and it tasted unpleasant, because it was a human thought.
The place that harbored the remnants of human thought was dying.
But I was alive.
There was an atrium on the roof of the building -- a sorry, delipidated corporate park.
Whatever, my insect brain pronounced.
I landed -- honestly, with much less grace then my takeoff. The roof was covered with pebbles, and I slipped, got one lodged between leg segments that refused to budge.
I kicked -- and finally, it broke free and fell on the rooftop, lost among its fellow pebbles.
The atrium would be warm. The winter sun would glide through the glass panels, shedding its love on the odd mix of real and artificial plants.
Only, there was no door.
Being an insect of well beyond normal size, this in itself was not an obstacle.
I jumped, stronger now, a bit, and pushed at the glass panes.
I felt a sliver of human surprise at how easily they caved.
I was inside.
Cold air was coming in, and glass was broken all over the poor real-fake plants, but I was in.
I floundered a bit, feeling like an escaped, bulbous balloon, bouncing against the intact glass pains, and along the waxy, foliage.
I'm here.
At work.
The window was broken.
I didn't care about the window.
I only cared about staying warm.
I folded myself neatly, compartmentally, and with perfect insect sensibility, into the warm spot, far on the other side.
The plants covered my underside nicely.
I glanced out, around and a bit downward, down at the reception area.
The building was half empty. They had trouble leasing the spaces.
Anyone who was there was probably inside their offices.
Someone would eventually discover the awful draft, the shards on the carpeted floor, and the outsized arthropod making itself at home in the office park greenery.
Someone. But insects are pretty much focused on now.
I went to sleep. Or, something like sleep. No dreams, though. Just an inert, perfect state of stillness.
I welcomed it.
If anyone had discovered me right away, really, they wouldn't be a threat.
My last conscious thought: I could snap their freaking head off in my mandibles.
The world turned into dusk, and overwhelming with calm.


Arbus Callen didn't like his name.
He didn't like his job.
He didn't like the sad atrium that looked like one in yet another dying shopping mall.
He felt like the last man on earth.
His one truly faithful employee,Sharon, hadn't come in.
He got worried. He called the police. He didn't understand why the dispatchers were laughing.
Things got pretty terrible after that.
Sharon was gone. Just, gone.
He called again. This time, he was told, we have a big situation going on. Please call back.
Something, about an incident, at a house.
Sharon's mother was at the ER, with nurses fitfully issuing naloxone, with no success.
The brother was drowning in his own scarlet pond.
And Sharon was gone.
Just, gone.
He sensed it, rather than knowing it.
He sat down on a chair in the lobby, and looked up.
I knew that would happen one day, he mused. Stupid cheap glass fitters.
He sat in the lobby, the chilly air trickling in, a stray scrap of cloud floating by.
Tragedy had hit a family he barely knew, apart from Sharon, peripherally.
And somehow, his world was turned over.
Arbus looked up again, and looked away.
And looked up again.
The leaves were rustling.
Great. With broken glass, sparrows and pigeons and squirrels will get in, fly in, fall in.
His head felt ready to burst. Blood thundered.
Why was he even sitting here.
Because home sucks, his mind answered him.
Home is empty. Home is always empty.
A strangely loud buzz, followed by some scratching, made him look up.
At first his mind told him: that's a blimp or some damn thing that fell through the whole. Or one of those stupid kites always getting away.
Except kites don't crawl on their own volition, up and over the staircase.
Stumbling, scratching, this absurd vision made its way down the stairs, to the lobby floor.
Arbus, still sitting in the chair, stared at it.
A terrible, knowing clarity flooded his brain.
"Sharon," he gasped.
He stood up, marvelling at the antennae, swinging to and fro, the intricate, hair-covered legs, the awesome shell. The armor.
Exo-something, the back of his mind said.
The eyes, the great, commanding, ever-seeing eyes.
He nodded, and a small smirk escaped his mouth.
He shook his head. Laughter was coming now, uncontrollable laughter.
"Damn, girl," he said aloud now. "Damn!"
The creature before him leaned just slightly forward, and its antennae danced with a new, frantic purpose.
"Damn!" More laughter, heard only by Arbus.
Another sound, unheard, filled the great open, sun-filled, foliage space.
It was a concise, muscular snap, as the sideways mouth, the robust mandibles, closed around his neck.
The snap lingered caustically in the air, without laughter.
A woman came out of the ladies' room and screamed.
Another came out behind her, and said, "What the actual --"
The rug was flooded with blackish blood, and a few fabric remnants.
One dandled just so, caught on a hairy, segmented leg.
A gathering was forming, but retreated, hugging the walls in terror.
Shaking hands reached for cell phones.
But not everyone's.
One man collapsed in fatal cardiac arrest into the artificial leaves.
A few people stood frozen, chilly urine on their pants leg or stockings the only thing signalling feeling.
A small band grasped at their composure, and burst through the door, outside into the frozen courtyard.
One of them finally managed to punch at a phone, to call for something -- anything.
Help.
Police.
The words did not come right away because they were so asinine.
"Get the hell over here!" someone finally yelled into the phone.
While all this happened, the insect, once known as Sharon, trundled over dead and fainted bodies, which registered no desire.
The antennae now leaned forward with purpose.
Parsing the wall. It was time to climb up it.
But this proved more of a task than anything had, so far.
The wall slid from beneath in a way that would have caused frustration to a human, just the day before.
Today, there was only movement and strain, until, finally, it proved too much.
It was followed by a weary lurch over the edge of the upper ledges of the atrium, now so much like a huge terrarium home to some exotic, displaced denizen.
Below was a mass of panic, shouting, swearing, running to and fro.
"Where did it go?" some bellowed in disbelief.
Yellow tape was going up. Someone was retching. More than one person.
But all this blurred into intangible noise, vibrations of disturbance.
These began to fall away.
A transformation was taking place, that no one below could see.
There was an opening, a yawn, even, from beneath legs, well worn by weight and so much epic exertion in so short a time.
In the shelter of the leaves, perfect, white, translucent lives were spilling out, out of the dark shelter that had ferried them from ground to sky to this green, hidden space.
Even if they could have projected anything like thought, they wouldn't have, and wouldn't have meant anything to their over-tired bearer.
Stillness covered stillness, and even the rhapsodic antennae began to curl downward.
In a white blur, they waited. They had nothing to do really, except wait, and grow, and change, as their genetic instructions had already bid them.
They didn't need to know what time it was. Their time would come.

Star-Crossed Lovers

by

Gerald Arthur Winter


Pulling up to the train station in the pouring rain, Sharon saw her husband Al running to
her Honda CRV. Al opened the door and his black umbrella blew inside-out—a dead bat with
limp wings. Sharon felt rain spray her right cheek as Al plopped into the passenger seat beside
her. The remnant smell of cigar smoke from the train’s bar car made Al’s soaked trench coat
smell like a wet dog. The wipers pumped blindly as he leaned towards Sharon for a kiss, but
his gin-tainted breath gagged her. She offered her cheek.
“How many martinis?” she asked.
“Three for lunch after the closing—big-ass client—then two more on the train home.
I was celebrating, so who’s counting, Babe? ”
She thought. When the hell have you ever called me Babe? You cheating bastard
—and now of all times and--
“What’s for dinner, Hon?”
Hon? She thought. Jesus, next you’ll be calling me--
Listen, Darlin’, I’m playing golf this weekend—an overnighter till late Sunday afternoon,
but I’ll be home in time for dinner . . . Giants are playing The Cowboys . . . can’t miss that.”
Her mind raced thinking, Listen, Darlin’ Honey Babe, you goddamn son of a bitch—but
she said, “Sure. You have yourself a good ole time, Sweetie.”
“Ya sure, Babe?”
“I know how much you need to unwind on the weekends, especially after you’ve been
stressed all week leading up to closing that big deal. Enjoy yourself,” she said, thinking . . . You
selfish prick.
“Thanks, Sharry,” he said, using a nickname he hadn’t uttered since they’d met in
college. He leaned close. “Baby, you’re the greatest.”
She blocked him with her right arm. “Shall I send you a postcard from the moon?”
“From the wha—?”
“Ralph Kramden—The Honeymooners.”
“Oh, yeah, but I’d never hit you, Sharry.”
Not that you’d recall, she thought. You’ve always been too drunk to remember.
* * *
Across town, Bill didn’t work in Manhattan like Al. They weren’t so much friends
as sports dads who’d had kids on the same teams, a brotherhood that a decade later still
warranted mutual exchanges at the bagel shop: “How ’bout those Giants.” Aside from
occasional nods of recognition, they each knew little about the other.
On week nights Bill always pulled into the driveway by 5 p.m. His son was twenty
and his daughter nineteen, but his wife, Abby, had her social obligations from aerobics to
tennis. Her great love was coaching cheerleading for middle-school girls on Friday nights
under the lights and on weekend mornings. This allowed little chance for Bill and Abby to
have much face-to-face time.
Twenty years ago in the ’90s Bill and Abby had met as teachers in the same high
school system, but when their daughter was born, Abby had become a stay-at-home-mom,
because Bill was promoted to English Department Head with a huge pay hike. Athletic, and
a health nut, Abby was always on the go, and never home when Bill arrived at 5 P.M. Unlike
Abby, Bill had a nagging cough, a remnant of his former smoking days and suburban pollen
became progressively immune to his annually prescribed anti-allergens.
Abby’s nickname for Bill was “Wheezer.” Though deeply offended by that negative
moniker, he never complained, though Abby often had used it in front of the kids. He was
made to accept that he was a troll wed to a princess with no right to feel anything but lucky,
As his colleagues as well as Abby often reminded him—a non sequitur.
One evening, Abby told Bill, “I’ve got to be up by six tomorrow morning to make sure
the girls’ new cheerleading outfits fit.”
Reclined in bed, he shrugged.
“The game’s at eight o’clock across town,” she said, taking Bill in hand. She seemed
oblivious to her practiced ritual. There was so little time in her busy schedule. Her vigorous
hand motion looked as if she were playing craps rather than manually peaking his arousal.
“Seven come eleven,” he said, but Bill’s reference went over Abby’s head. She was
raised a strict Catholic and the closest thing in the house that resembled condoms were the
party balloons at the kids’ birthday parties when they were younger. Unless Abby was certain
her time was right, only giving him manual gratification was on Abby’s menu for Bill.
Bill had a good sense of humor, which often came to the surface in his senior English
classes, with asides to his hormone-driven students, who by law were men and women, but
only physically. Mentally they were starved for instant gratification and couldn’t wait for the
notch up from high school to college. Bill often wondered, if Abby hadn’t taken time to do her
manual rituals to please him, would he have succumbed to one of those nasty tabloid taboos
of teacher-students crossing over the line of decency?
Never happen, he thought, feeling confident with his litmus test, their neighbor, Mary,
a drop-dead-gorgeous seventeen-year-old from his school who often waved to him from her
adjacent backyard before her parents or Abby came home for dinner—a two-hour gap of
opportunity from 5 to 7 pm Monday through Friday. Though Mary had an obvious crush on
Bill since taking his English class, and often asked for extra help, he envisioned himself as
Pope William and she as the Holy Virgin. He vowed that never the twain shall meet, certainly
not in any conjugal sense.
Bill thought it was a question of balance, and about the town’s kids growing up in a safe
environment with a good education that could send them to college, resulting in respectable
careers and happy marriages of their own—the American dream.
Abby was an industrious woman, smart, great looking, and fit, though she was even
more mentally tight-assed than physically. On top of that, Bill loved his job educating teenagers
for college and life, an honorable profession with great bennies. With Abby so involved in town
sports activities, Bill still had time after grading papers to pursue his dream above and beyond
all that other stuff called life. As trite as it may have seemed, Bill had been working on a novel
that no one knew about, not even Abby. It was those words from his inner consciousness that
had become his private stash of literary narrative—fulfilling, reassuring, and often foreboding.
It was those unshared words, some quite dark, which spoke Bill’s truth from within. Rebellious
in college , Bill was ow in his 40s, he was merely a closet rebel against conformity. His steadfast
exterior made his students consider him conformity’s poster-boy.
* * *
Sharon offered her cheek to Al at the front door before he headed to his BMW
convertible with the trunk open and his golf clubs lying inside. His small carry-on was well
suited for a weekend of golf. A few changes of clothes on hangers in plastic bags from the
cleaners were laid flat across the backseat. Al was already dressed to tee-off. He told Sharon
the name of the upstate New York golf course where his foursome would be playing, but his
words were like a foreign language with no subtitles.
As she waved good-bye to Al, she wept, not because she’d miss him, but because she
wouldn’t. She couldn’t remember what it had felt like to miss him. Maybe before the boys
were born, a past life she longed to visit, but she had no GPS yet to show her the way.
* * *
Abby was asleep, so Bill crept to his den and pushed his stack of students’ homework
aside and took his manuscript draft from a secret desk drawer. He shuffled the pages back
to the beginning of the last chapter and began to read forward to get himself back into the
rhythm of his narrative. His novel was about a woman in a bad marriage based loosely on a
woman he’d often seen in various situations in different parts of town. Bill knew nothing
about her real life, whether she was happily married, a widow, or even divorced.
He never tried to pair her with any real man in town because, in his mind, she was his
devout lover. This nameless woman served only as a physical manifestation of his fictional
character. Bill was the stand-in for a man she secretly loved. He’d reached the point in his
novel where he felt compelled to speak to this woman the next time he saw her in the
checkout line at Shoprite or the drive-thru at the bank.
Though Bill feared that the sound of the woman’s voice might shatter his fantasized
image, breaking the spell that he’d conjured of their passionate affair, he’d begun to long for
her intensely. Abby’s metronomic hand releases had become tiresome. Bill needed fulfillment,
but beyond just sexual gratification. He wanted someone with whom he could share his inti-
mate thoughts. With a Pygmalion fixation, he needed his mystery woman to come to life in
his embrace.
In his mundane life, Bill was ashamed of himself for wanting this newfound passion
outside his daily routine, which for years he had felt lucky to have with such a good wife and
mother as Abby. For some time, just writing about the mystery woman had been satisfying
enough, and his anticipation of possibly seeing this woman in town worked better to arouse
him than promised by Viagra TV commercials. He began to plot a way to find this woman.
For starters, maybe he could attach a name to her by sidling up to her at the bank to watch
her write a deposit slip. He might see her name on the deposit slip or on a check she was
depositing. Maybe he’d see her address on the slip and follow her home. Just the thought
of having her address at hand aroused him.
With his own busy schedule, he wasn’t able to sit idly by waiting for her to show up
on his radar. He drove slowly through the strip malls and around the Shoprite parking lot. He
nearly had a couple of fender benders from the distraction of looking around and checking
all his mirrors. He hadn’t seen her in at least a month, so his mind raced, wondering if she’d
moved out of town or had gone away on vacation with her family. Even if she had, Bill knew
there could be no substitute for this woman. She’d begun as the woman in his novel, but
now she was the woman of his dreams, and no one else could ever do.
Even if Abby could somehow, through metamorphosis, transform into the woman in
his novel, that would no longer satisfy him. Abby wouldn’t be that “she” of his secret novel.
Then it happened. In his side-view mirror, he saw the woman getting out of her car
and walking towards the entrance to the bank. She held a paper slip. Bill hit the brakes and
quickly tried to park, but almost hit another car vying for the same space.
“What are you doing here?” the woman driving the other car asked, rolling down her
window. “I thought you had to go to the library this morning.” It was Abby with a carful
of eleven-year-old cheerleaders. He felt like a twelve-year-old caught masturbating by
his mother. His face flushed with shame.
Abby looked like a stranger to Bill. His mind was fixed on the other woman. He
needed to see what she’d written on her deposit slip. He’d have to find a way to speak to
her, to learn something about her—anything.”
“Bill?” Abby called to him. “Are you OK?”
“Forgot to pay the electric bill,” he said. “Got to go to the bank before it closes.
See you tonight for supper!” he called to her and pulled into the space. He waved to her
and trotted towards the bank, but felt resentment towards Abby for interfering.
Abby shook her head with a frown and drove away.
Bill puffed from the short jog as he approached bank’s door, thinking, Wheezer.
* * *
Sharon felt a sense of urgency about cashing the check Al had given her to buy
groceries. She could’ve written her own check from the same account, or even from the
account Al was unaware of. It was her “just-in-case” stash, but she’d never had the courage
to ask herself—“Just in case what?” Al was such a control freak that she needed to create
her own space and accumulate the funds to build that wall of safety.
Her mind raced as she approach the entrance to the bank, then wondered if all her
daydreaming had made her forget to lock her car. She whipped around to go back and check
her Honda, but in that split second, a man coming towards her from behind slammed head
-on into her. The impact of her forehead against his face shattered his glasses and broke his
nose. Though Sharon’s head throbbed and her vision was blurry for a moment, she shook it
off and knelt beside the man to see if he was breathing.
Sharon’s CPR knowledge came to mind, so she began to push on his chest, which
seemed to have no effect, so she gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. She hadn’t
kissed Al on the lips in over a year, but now something kindled inside her. The taste of
this stranger’s lips and the scent of his aftershave stirred feelings she’d thought might
be lost forever. When his lips reacted to hers, she pulled back and saw his eyes were
wide open. Both stared at each other with curiosity, each seeming somehow familiar
to the other, yet they were total strangers, who’d never spoken to each other before.
“Are you, okay?” he asked her.
She laughed. “Am I, okay? You might need an ambulance.”
He touched his fingers to his nose and winced. He looked at his bloody fingertips
and passed out. She shouted for someone in the bank to call 911 for an ambulance. As
she waited five minutes before an ambulance arrived, the growing crowd gathered around
them. She studied the man’s face. Though battered, his face seemed kind. She felt concern
for him in a way she didn’t understand. When she put her hand on his chest to be sure he
was still breathing, she heard a wheezing sound emit from his open mouth.
She closed his lips with two fingers. The sound stopped though his chest continued
to rise and fall. She wondered what his name was. She ran several common names through
her mind, including “Bill.” The one name that never came to mind, or ever would, was
“Wheezer.”
* * *
When Bill’s clouded vision focused, he was about to ask the woman her name, but
then he saw it was Abby and he was on a gurney in the ER. He wondered, had he dreamt his
encounter with the woman? Had he had a car accident trying to follow her in his car mirrors?
“Did I have a car accident?”
Abby furrowed her brow the same way she had when he’d asked her to marry him right
after college. “You were running,” she said, “trying to get to the bank before it closed.”
“Running? Yes, I suppose I was.”
“That’s good. So you remember. Maybe you don’t have a concussion,” she said.
“What day is it?”
“What day?”
She nodded.
“Saturday.”
“Good,” she said. “Maybe you’re okay.”
“How did it happen? Did I walk into a glass door at the bank?”
“You don’t remember?”
“Vaguely . . .”
“You slammed into this poor woman on the sidewalk outside the bank.”
“Oh . . . is she okay?”
“Yes . . . they released her hours ago.”
“Who was she?” he asked.
“She’s the wife of one of your sports dad friends in town,” Abby said with a shrug.
“Never saw her before . . . said she never goes to the games . . . only her husband does . . .
like you . . . coaching soccer and Little League.”
“Who’s her husband?”
“She didn’t say. Let me ring the nurse to see if a doctor can check you out of here.”
“I should apologize to her.”
“She had a bump on her forehead . . . no blood, not even a bruise. Good-looking but
a little spacey.”
“How do you mean?”
Abby shrugged. “Preoccupied, you know, like her mind was somewhere else when she
spoke. At first I thought she might have a concussion too, but they checked her out. She’s fine.”
“I’d still like to apologize to her.”
“She gave me her name and phone number in case we needed her to pay for your ER
bill. I told her your coverage would pay for it. She asked me to call her anyway to let her know
you were okay. Spacey, but a nice woman.”
“What’s her name?”
“She didn’t say, but she wrote her phone number on the back of her bank slip.”
“Let me see it.”
“I stuck it in sun visor in my car on the way here.”
“Save it for me,” Bill said. “I want to send her a note of apology.”
“She only wrote her phone number,” Abby said. “I wouldn’t call her. She might think
you want to sue her.”
“No need for that,” he said, but as he closed his eyes as if that would be the end of it,
he could think of nothing but the deposit slip in Abby’s car. The woman may have written her
phone number on the back of the deposit slip, but the printed side could show her name and
address.
* * *
When Sharon got home from the ER, she tossed her shoulder bag on the sofa and
exhaled a deep breath that blew a loose curl from the lump growing on her forehead. She
poured a glass of chilled chardonnay and took it to the master bathroom and drew a bath.
She lit several scented candles in the bathroom, turned on the speakers from the Dreamscape
cassette on the eight-track stereo, then lowered herself into the soothing hot water scented
with white tea. With her eyes shut, she thought about the man’s lips that had touched hers.
She ran the tip of her tongue across her upper lip and felt an ache deep within her to be kissed
by him again. She wasn’t sure if it was just her need for affection or some greater need for this
man in particular.
What an absurd notion, she thought. Who the hell is he anyway—just some school
teacher?”
Though Sharon had thought her brief conversation with the man’s wife would have
ended any further thought about the man the woman had called “Bill,” she couldn’t let go of
her attraction to him, though without any reason she could fathom. Her husband was more
universally attractive with that GQ-cover look. Al was successful and charismatic, but he drank
too much, and couldn’t stop his carousing at work, even after the boys were born.
In recent years, with a Friday night buzz, Al had said nonchalantly, “We can’t help
help it, Shar. We prowl . . . it’s what men do. Our boys will do the same.”
But not this man, she thought, not this guy Bill. If he ever cheated on his beautiful wife,
Abby—quite stunning and smart—it wouldn’t be just a casual affair. He’d be all in.
* * *
“Tell you what,” Bill said to Abby next morning. “Your car needs an oil change. Let
me drive you down to the mall where I left my car yesterday, then you can take my car to pick
up the cheerleaders. I’ll take your car for an oil change and a wash.”
Abby shrugged. “Sounds like a plan. Sure. Let’s go.”
The sun glared in his eyes through the windshield as he was driving with Abby beside
him, but his sunglasses had been left in his own car overnight. Bill didn’t wipe his watering
eyes for fear Abby might tell him to pull down the visor where she’d kept the mystery woman’s
bank deposit slip.
Abby gave Bill a peck on the cheek before getting out of the car. “See you for dinner,”
she said over her shoulder as she headed to Bill’s car.
Bill watched the gyrating of Abby’s hips in her tight white slacks through which the
morning sun exposed her thong panties. Abby was what his fraternity brothers in college
would have called a fine piece of ass, even now at forty-three she still was. Bill knew that all
of their friends and acquaintances in town saw him as the lucky one in their match-up.
“What is it that you like about me best?” he’d asked Abby, questioning his own worth
in their marriage.
“Comfort,” she’d said without thought. “You’re like a broken-in, comfy pair of slippers.”
She’d even given him a long kiss after saying that with a flutter of the tip of her probing tongue
as reassurance or just a tease. That had been several years ago, but he’d clung to her gesture

until yesterday before his mystery woman had given him mouth-to-mouth.
That’s all it was, right? He asked himself. I’m just imagining something more . . . some-
thing worth holding onto.
He put his hand between the sun visor and the car’s roof then anxiously slipped his hand
back and forth. He felt nothing. He pulled down the visor—nothing. His pulse pounded and he
began to cough and wheeze.
Fall pollen, he thought, knowing how the change of seasons brought his allergies out
of hibernation, often giving him anxiety attacks. His chest felt tight and he became somewhat
dizzy, which his allergist had said was pressure on his inner ears from the pollen buildup in his
Eustachian tubes. His hearing would be like swimming underwater for hours until his meds
kicked in. He kept a supply of his prescription in his glove compartment for such emergencies
. . . his glove compartment.
He’d worked Abby perfectly to set up this opportunity to meet his mystery woman with
all of Saturday afternoon free to find her and speak to her, and now he was instantly converted
into Wheezer, as if Abby had sabotaged his plan. She said she’d put the woman’s bank slip in
the sun visor, but she must have lied.
Lied? That’s crazy. Abby would never lie intentionally. She must have thought she’d
put it there, but had put it someplace else. Maybe she’d even thrown it away—unintentionally.
Bill pulled over on the shoulder on a quiet local street and got out of Abby’s car. He
moved the driver’s seat all the way back then squatted to look under the seat. He found some
loose change, a hair clip, a crumpled shopping list, and a comb with missing teeth. He took a
deep, painful breath that made his chest rattle. He unfastened the floor matt to look under it
. . . more loose change, a paper clip, and a candy wrapper—no deposit slip. Damn it!
Resigned to defeat, Bill got in Abby’s car and headed home where he still had some
of his meds in the bathroom medicine chest and a prescription for autumn renewal. It was
a cloudless day in the high 70s so he took the scenic route home across a high local bridge
between two mountains separated by a river below. Maple trees were beginning to show
some autumn colors with a few flashes of red and yellow among the green on the
mountainsides. He opened both front windows of Abby’s car, then the sun roof,
which made a whooshing sound crossing the bridge.
Despite the beauty of the day, Bill felt a sick feeling in his gut, but his peripheral
vision on his right side caught a fluttering motion above the passenger seat.
The sun visor, he thought. Not the driver’s, but the passenger’s sun visor.
Traveling at 60 mph over the bridge with a crosswind, the windows open, and his
sunroof sucking wind out the top of the car like the eyewall of a hurricane, the bank deposit
slip had been sucked out from behind the sun visor and was stuck to the car’s ceiling. The
fragile paper fluttered out of his reach as if it were mocking him. He took his eyes off the
road for a second, but that brief distraction nearly made him crash into the median
separating him from oncoming high-speed traffic across the bridge.
He moved to the right lane and slowed down to 50 mph. With both eyes staring
forward at the road, he leaned to the right and felt the fluttering deposit slip with his
extended fingertips, but too far to grab it. He straightened up in the driver’s seat and
hit the buttons to close the front car windows. He slowed down to 40 mph and steered
onto the shoulder in the middle of the bridge. He brought the car to a gradual stop and
tried to take a deep breath, but it was painful. He turned slowly toward the deposit slip
still attached to the textured ceiling of the car. The fingers of his right hand trembled as
if he was trying to catch a frog before it sprang from his grasp.
A split second before he could lunge, a stiff breeze sucked the deposit slip out
through the sunroof. He gasped and jumped out of the car into oncoming traffic.
* * *
Sharon felt a sudden chill despite the soothing warmth of her scented bath. It
was that same instinctive feeling she’d had as an adolescent when she knew her dad
had died before anyone had given her the bad news. Though intense now, it wasn’t
a feeling that someone had died, but was rather in mortal danger, and with time left
to be saved.
Was Al going to have a heart attack on the golf course? She wondered, then felt
her sardonic sarcasm rise to the moment. Or was Al going to croak in a motel with the
new millennial Assistant Account Manager he’d hired last month riding him like a cowgirl?
But no, she felt for sure, thinking, It’s not Al—it must be Bill. Why can’t I stop thinking
about Bill? I must be losing it.
She pulled the drain latch and the bath water gurgled down the drain. She
watched with hope as the tub emptied, but then she saw what she’d prayed she
wouldn’t see again, blood staining the tub, not bright red, but almost purple.
Her oncologist had warned her this could be a first sign, that it could be the
beginning of what most likely would be the end. She’d kept it from Al because she
felt there was no point in telling him. She didn’t want his sympathy or pity. What
she’d wanted from him at the start, she’d never gotten. She wanted to be cherished
for who she was, nothing more. No lavish life of luxury, just a shared appreciation
of each other. But Al was always too busy with self-appreciation, needing accolades
for his achievements in business, realized by his wealth and social status.
She dressed quickly and dashed out to her car in the driveway. She backed out
into the street and took off with a chirp of the tires, but with no sense of direction, only
of urgency. Something in her subconscious led her back towards the mall. To what end,
she had no idea, but she licked her lips, redolent, if only in her mind, of another woman’s
husband, of a man in danger, like herself, of dying—Bill.
* * *
Bill dodged oncoming traffic on the bridge, but only peripherally, because his focus was
on the bank deposit slip fluttering like a butterfly with each passing vehicle.
“Get off the road, ya idiot!” a truck driver shouted at him.
With man and physics in a split second of perfect harmony, Bill dove at the elusive
slip of paper. With the object of his desire clutched firmly in his grasp, he somersaulted on
the highway and came up to a proud stance of victory. Holding the deposit slip firmly with
both hands to read the name and address on it, he thought he saw a vision of his mystery
woman. In that millisecond, he realized it was not a dream at all. It was “Sharon” as the
name said on the slip. She was behind the wheel of the vehicle that hit him. Even with its
screeching brakes, her car lifted Bill off his feet. He landed on the hood. Semiconscious,
through the windshield, he stared at his mystery woman’s face, dissolving and aghast at
the sight of him.
* * *
In the waiting room outside the same ER as yesterday, Sharon saw Abby coming toward
her. Sharon stood to greet her, but Abby, much taller and physically fit, shoved her back down
into the chair.
“This can’t be a coincidence, bitch!” Abby shouted, drawing the attention of a security
guard as others in the waiting room moved away from the two women.
“Whoa! Bill was in the middle of the highway, jumping up and down as if he had no
idea where he was. An eight-wheeler was in front of me and suddenly swerved to avoid him.
All I could do was hit my brakes to avoid hitting him. Is he OK?”
“He’s conscious, but having a complete MRI,” Abby huffed. “He could have internal
injuries, but fortunately he seems to have no broken bones.
“Please . . . tell him I’m so sorry,” Sharon said. “This time we really should exchange our
insurance information.”
“If Bill has extended injuries we’ll sue your ass,” Abby said.
Sharon shirked. “We have excellent insurance that will cover it . . . but truly, I am sorry.”
“Please, just go away,” Abby huffed.
Heading down the long hospital corridor toward the parking lot, Sharon still sensed
Abby glaring at her, like a chill wind at her back.
* * *
Bill’s choice of music while having an MRI was classic rock, though he didn’t dare nod
his head or tap his foot to the beat of The Stones’ “Get Off of My Cloud.” No one told him
what had happened, but the last thing he recalled was chasing after the bank deposit slip on
the bridge. He thought he had a recollection of his mystery woman’s face, but her expression
had puzzled him. She’d been aghast with her mouth agape, so he thought it was just what he
remembered from slamming head-on into her outside the bank. It had all become a jumble
from which he could make no sense.
He tried not to feel claustrophobic within the MRI tube, but if it weren’t for The Stones,
he’d have thought he was dead inside a casket. Every inch of his body ached to the bone, so he
wondered if he might be better off dead than to endure a lengthy recovery from whatever the
hell had happened. Though he still couldn’t block out the face of his mystery woman, as he
opened his eyes in his hospital room after the MRI, her face morphed into Abby’s, but her voice
sounded as if it came from a deep well.
“What’s with you in that woman?” Abby asked, but he didn’t know what to say.
He felt as if Abby could hear his inner thoughts of betrayal with the nameless woman
he’d tried to find. He closed his eyes to avoid any further questioning. Minutes later, he
squinted to see if Abby had left. With relief, he took a deep breath, but he began to cough
uncontrollably. A nurse came in to give him a snort of oxygen for relief.
“Take these,” the nurse said, handing him two pills. “Let me raise your head,” she said
controlling the bed remotely. “They’ll help stop your coughing.”
She handed him a paper cup of water. He swallowed the pills and sighed with relief.
“Thanks, Sharon,” he said, but the nurse gave him a queer look and tapped her name
tag with her finger to show him that her name was Jenny. “Sorry. I mean, thank you, Jenny.”
“Your wife, Sharon, can see you later,” Jenny said as she left the room.
My wife . . . Sharon? He thought. Where did that come from? Then he remembered
the name he’d seen on the deposit slip and thought, My mystery woman, my Sharon . . . .
* * *
It was Sunday morning and Al hadn’t come home yet from his golfing weekend. Sharon
was certain he was cheating on her. Even their boys seemed to have a sense of it, but like her,
they’d conditioned themselves to ignore their father’s strained absences and the negative
effect on their mother. But rather than unifying with Sharon’s contempt, they had each found
separate ways to deal with their father’s infidelity. Their sons were eighteen and twenty with
romantic interests of their own. They worshipped their father, not just for his success, but
Al was a guys’ guy, speaking a language to his sons that was as foreign to Sharon as Klingon.
Sharon often felt as if she’d been no more to Al than a receptacle to breed clones of himself,
which they may well have done.
She was, in some ways, relieved about the news she’d heard weeks ago from her
gynecologist. She’d had some brief hope that the news would be that at age forty she was
pregnant, hopefully with a daughter with whom she might bond, like the only child Sharon
herself had been. She’d be a kid sister to her two older brothers, but even though Al would
spoil a daughter terribly with lavish gifts and affection, she would be her daughter, her
confident, the sibling she’d never had.
But Sharon wasn’t pregnant, could never be pregnant again, and was dying from a rare
cancer. She had little time, perhaps months, but maybe only weeks left to live. She refused to
waste what little time she had on being pitied by Al or their sons. She’d been a dutiful wife and
mother since she married Al right after college, but the little time remaining would have to be
hers—all hers.
She was barred from the one recent joy she’d found, literally by accident. It was this
sort-of-goofy guy named Bill who’d lived in the same town for twenty years, but she’d never
noticed him before, not until he’d slammed head-on into her at the bank. Then she’d nearly
run him over with her car.
She thought. What the hell’s with that?
* * *
The next time he opened his eyes, Bill saw his ER physician holding his chart and
squinting at him.
“How do you feel, Bill?” the doctor asked.
“Like the operation was a success, but the patient died,” Bill said with a forced grin.
The doctor seemed to grab at that straw of Bill’s good humor by saying, “Well, Bill,
I’m afraid you’re not far off . . . I do have good news . . . and bad news.”
Bill raised his bed and sat up. “Shoot, Doc.”
“Your injuries from being hit by a car are miraculously minor . . . but in order to
detect any internal ruptures or even hairline fractures, we gave you a complete MRI and
we’ve found something far worse . . . a brain tumor . . . it’s inoperable, and there is evidence
that it’s cancer and may have already metastasize throughout your lymph system.”
“How much time do I have?” Bill asked.
“Impossible to pinpoint, Bill. We have some new wonder drugs that might prolong
the inevitable. We can recommend treatment for your symptoms, but with no assurance of
a cure.”
“Have you told, my wife?”
“Not yet, Bill. I just found out myself.”
“Then don’t . . . leave that to me.”
* * *
Sharon lied to her family about her illness. “I just need time alone,” she told Al. “It’s
probably premature menopause, but I can’t stand another day in that house with the boys at
school and you at work.”
“Where would you go?” Al asked, as if the idea of Sharon doing anything on her own
without him was implausible.
“Anywhere. Any place I want to go!”
Al and their two sons watched her throw her luggage into her car. They gave her no
help as if they were watching a film about a crazy woman and would have no part of it. She
didn’t bother to wave as she backed out of the driveway for parts unknown. The boys waved
with blank expressions.
Al just shook his head. “How about pizza, guys? The Knicks are playing Philly at home.”
* * *
Bill didn’t tell Abby about the doctor’s prognosis, so she believed him when he told
her that he’d need eight to ten weeks of physical therapy, but he’d be able to drive to the
therapist for his treatments. He assured Abby she needn’t be dissuaded from her busy
schedule with her flock of adolescent cheerleaders, her yoga sessions, and indoor tennis with
the colder weather coming. He’d taken a sabbatical from school till January. He convinced
Abby that he’d be fine in a few months . . . just fine.
Abby took Bill at his word and resumed her busy schedule. Bill went to his first
consultation with an oncologist. He was reading The New Yorker in the waiting room when
a nurse called his name, “Bill!” Before he looked up from the magazine, he heard another
“Bill!” but it was a different voice. Then he saw her standing in the doorway coming from
the examination rooms. It was his mystery woman staring at him oddly. Her expression was
unexpected, as if she were glad to see him, though in fact, they’d uttered only a few words
to each other before, he on the sidewalk with a broken nose and she with a bump on her
forehead.
“Bill . . . are you OK?” she asked.
“Sharon?” he said with uncertainty, wondering if with all the stress of his prognosis,
she might morph into someone else.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m so sorry. It really was an accident.”
“Bill, the doctor is waiting,” the nurse said.
“I know,” he said to Sharon. “I don’t blame you. It was my fault . . . both times.”
“No one’s fault,” Sharon said.
“I have to go,” he said.
“See you,” she said with sad eyes and a weak wave of her hand.
“Not if I see you first,” he kidded her with a wink, which made her smile. After Bill
waved back as he entered the examination corridor, Sharon went to her car and wept.
Nature seemed to cry with her in a sudden, blinding downpour. She watched for an hour,
hoping to see Bill when he left the medical complex, but it was a huge lot with many
sections. The rain kept her from seeing more than ten feet in front of her windshield.
After two hours, she went to the motel off the freeway where she’d rented a room for
the week after leaving Al and the boys.
She watched TCM’s old black-and-white movies on TV in her motel room and sipped
Chardonnay. As invigorating as seeing Bill for that brief moment had been, the emptiness
of the motel room made her feel even more lonely than with Al and the boys.
It was almost autumn and the leaves would be changing color, but she might be
dead by Thanksgiving. Taking the experimental drug to help others in the future who’d
be dying from her disease would commence tomorrow morning. It was the least she
could do, helping others after knowing her time soon would be up. No reason to be
selfish now, after she’d always put her husband and sons first. She’d enjoy this final
taste of wine before her chemotherapy would begin in the morning. No more wine
after that, maybe no more anything.
* * *
When Bill came out of the oncologist’s examination room and returned to the waiting
room, he hoped Sharon would still be there, but that would be too good to be true. He ached
to see her again, but what was the point? Once he’d begun his treatments, at best, they’d only
prolong his inevitable fate. With his time away from school there was the longshot that he
might at least finish his novel before Christmas when presumably, before the New Year, he’d
be dead.
* * *
“What’s in the briefcase?” Abby asked Bill, dressed in his sweats as if he were going to
physical therapy.
“I agreed to mark some term papers before the end of the year,” he lied. “Don’t want
the work to pile up around the holidays.”
The briefcase contained the first draft of his novel, which he planned to edit while he
still had the physical strength and mental faculties to do so.
He checked in at the oncology center and had his prep by drinking some godawful
solution which, ironically, was meant to deter his nausea, but it gagged him. The stress before
beginning his first chemo treatment stimulated his sinus allergies and he began to wheeze.
“I thought you marked down on your rap sheet that you didn’t have asthma?” the nurse
said.
“I don’t,” he said. “It’s the fall pollen. Nothing helps.”
“Just want you to know that with this chemo, your immune system is at risk and your
breathing will most likely become worse. A side-effect of this drastic treatment has been viral
pneumonia.”
“You call it breathing. My wife calls it wheezing,” Bill said with good humor, making the
nurse crack a smile. “Any other good news?”
“It’s all uphill from here, Bill. Are you ready?”
He nodded, noting seven soft reclining chairs just like his with IV poles next to each.
“Having a slow day?” he asked.
“The next patient starts in an hour,” she said. “We stagger them an hour apart so if
we’re short-staffed for any reason, we still can have everyone done by five o’clock.”
“I wish my high school could be that efficient with its scheduling.”
She smiled. “You’ll feel a burning sensation at first, but if it becomes too intense, just
pull that cord and I’ll come running. How is it so far?”
“Burning,” he said with a grimace. “Doesn’t matter . . . I’m probably going to hell in a
hand basket anyway. Might as well get used to the heat.”

* * *
When Bill came out of his initial doze, there was a curtain drawn around him for privacy.
The curtain opened just as he looked at his watch and saw he’d slept for three hours.
Nurse Lillian smiled and asked, “How’re you feeling?”
“Like I just got hit by a speeding car, but I’m getting used to that feeling.”
He hung his head with his chin to his chest, but lifted it when he heard, “Bill?” He
cocked his head and heard it again, but Lillian’s lips were closed.
“Are you a ventriloquist, Lillian?” he asked.
She jerked her head toward the curtain separating him from another patient. He
waved his hand for her to pull back the curtain and said, “Sharon?”
As the curtain slowly revealed Sharon hooked up to an IV, Bill recalled watching
Spartacus when the Roman guards opened the bars separating Kirk Douglas from Jean
Simmons so the guards could watch them fornicate from the open hatch above their cell.
In his mind a ceremonial horn trumpeted the preamble to their observed fornication. Though
his first reaction to seeing her was immediate arousal, her vulnerability with the IV dripping
poison into her veins made his heart sink.
Doomed, he thought. Together at last, but we’re both doomed.
Seeing Bill glaring at her, she asked him, “Are you feeling what I’m feeling?”
It was a loaded question, because even though she must be referring to the fire
pulsing through her veins from the chemo, his inner perception was about something more
than physical stress. He answered accordingly.
“I’m feeling that I never want to let you out of my sight again,” he said.
Sharon’s mouth dropped open and her eyelashes fluttered. “Wh-why?” she asked.
“If you don’t already know, there’s no point in telling you,” he said, feeling more
courage than he’d ever experienced.
“Do you love me?” she asked, feeling foolish the moment she said it.
“I feel as though I’d loved you before I’d ever seen you.”
“But now that you’ve seen me?”
“You’re someone I’d lost so long ago that, not only had I forgotten when, but also who
we were at the time. This week was the first time I’d ever seen you in this life, except in my
dreams.”
“You mean like reincarnation?”
“Maybe, but I’m not much of a philosopher,” Bill said with a shrug. “How about you?”
“I feel it, but fear it’s just desperation,” she said. “My life sucks . . . and now it’ll be over
very soon. What if it’s just wishful thinking . . . for you, too? Are you happy? You must be--
Abby’s beautiful.”
Bill felt a pang of regret like a hot coal in the pit of his gut. How could he leave Abby?
Men envied him for having Abby, but was that a logical reason to stay with her? Who could
marry such an attractive, smart woman, then leave her for someone else? But it wasn’t just
someone else, it was Sharon, the woman he would love forever in his mind.
“I love her as the mother of my children,” Bill said. “But I have little time left and want
to make every second that remains count, maybe to prepare me for what comes afterwards.”
“You believe in that—the hereafter?” she asked.
“I don’t know what comes afterwards any more than anyone else, but I feel there’s got
to be more than just this. Something much greater.”
“I feel the same way, Bill. Are you going home from here?”
“Not if I can be with you.”
“What will you tell Abby? Please, anything except that you’re on an overnight golf
outing?”
“I don’t play golf, too much pollen on the courses.”
“I’ve left my family,” she said. “They have no idea that I’m ill and dying. I have a room
at the Hampton Inn off I-95 five miles from here.”
“I’ll wait for you to finish your treatment and follow you there.”
Lillian came back to detach Bill’s IV from his port. “Is your driver here to take you
home?” Lillian asked Bill.
“I used Dial-a-Ride,” he lied. “I’ll buzz them from the lobby with my phone.” Then he
turned to Sharon. “We have to stop meeting like this.”
Nurse Lillian raised her eyebrows then shook her head, knowing from thirty years in the
cancer ward that The Big C often made strange bedfellows.
Jack waited for an hour in the lobby then he saw Sharon coming off the elevator. A
nurse was pushing her in a wheelchair. Jack got to his feet, and though he still felt a little dizzy
from the chemo, he recalled how he’d once faked sobriety at a DUI stop coming home from
a Little League victory celebration with his son. It had to start with the breathing, controlling
the oxygen intake to maintain balance in your stride. But he sensed that his words might still
become garbled and was relieved when Sharon spoke up in his behalf.
“There’s my husband,” she told the nurse, fortunately not Lillian. “Hi, Darling. Did you
pull your car up to the curb?”
Bill just nodded with Cheshire grin. It was pouring rain and almost dark. He gave his
hand to Sharon outside the entrance. They hooked elbows.
“My car’s just ahead,” he told the nurse, having told more lies in one day than he had
in a lifetime. He led her to his car and opened the door for her. Sitting side-by-side, they each
remained silent as he drove through the parking lot. Bill reached over and took Sharon’s hand
in his, both cold to each other’s touch. Bill’s car interior was heady with each of them inhaling
each other’s scent counterpointed by Bill’s rhythmic wheezing.
“I’ve made my peace about my sons,” Sharon said. “They won’t miss me. They’ll get
over my absence in a hurry. Al, too. Won’t your children need you? Of course they will.”
“That’s true,” Bill said with a shrug. “And I’ll miss them very much. Abby, too. But I’ll
be dead soon and they’ll have to move on anyway.”
“Maybe we don’t deserve this,” Sharon said.
“Are you afraid what we’re doing will send us to hell?”
“I feel like I’ve already been there.”
“It hasn’t been hell with Abby,” he said. “She’s been a good wife and mother, but . . .”
“But what?”
“She just isn’t you,” he said, squeezing her hand.
* * *
They pulled into the lot at the Hampton Inn. She led the way to her room.
“You first,” he said nodding to the bathroom. “I’ll shower after you.”
Though his gesture was gallant, he had to burst into the bathroom and kneel in front of
the toilet and puke his guts out. She got out of the shower without bothering to cover herself
with a towel and rubbed his neck and back to comfort him as he choked and vomited and
wheezed. No sooner had he finished retching than they switched places and it was her turn to
puke and groan.
The sheets were cold against their naked bodies in the king-size bed, and for the first
half hour they both shivered uncontrollably. But after an hour, with Sharon’s head tucked in
the crook of Bill’s neck, their bodies seemed to morph into one with a single heartbeat.
It was 2 a.m. when Bill sensed that Sharon was awake, too.
“Teri Garr,” he said.
“What?”
“Abby is like Teri Garr in the movies,” he said. “Remember her in The Black Stallion?
She wasn’t a bad mom, but she kept nagging the poor kid about the damn horse. She was
always disapproving.”
“Oh, yeah,” Sharon said. “I remember.”
“For decades I’ve felt like Richard Dreyfus in Close Encounters . . .”
“You mean you’re going to make a mountain out of our breakfast in the morning?”
“No, but Abby is like Teri Garr in that movie, too,” Bill said. “She just didn’t understand
her husband. Worse yet, she didn’t want to understand him or his inner needs. Tonight, being
here with you, makes me feel like Dreyfus, ready to leave everything behind to walk that ramp
into a flying saucer and seek new adventures with a new life in another world—with you.”
“Do you think of me as an alien?” she asked, but he could see in the dim light that she
was smiling with sparkling white teeth.
“I think of you as everything that’s been missing from my life, Sharon.”
She hugged him tighter beneath the sheets now warm from their naked bodies.
“But I’m just like Teri Garr, too,” she said.
“How so?”
“How ’bout a r-r-roll in da hay?”
“Young Frankenstein?”
“That’s Frankenshteen.”
He pulled her close as their noses touched and he ran his hands across her body. Then
he whispered, “Vot knockers.”
“No, I’m Frau Blücher.”
Bill whinnied like a horse and they both laughed so hard they had to catch their breath.
“Who wouldn’t believe John Denver can talk to God?” she asked.
“He does now,” Bill said. “So does George Burns.
“That’s dark.”
“Too dark?
“No, Bill . . . I like your darkness.”
“Show me how much.”
Each wondered how they could have been so close for so many years in their little town
yet never have met till this week. They exchanged deep searches into the other’s eyes realizing
they could never go back. They made love till sunrise with whatever strength still remained in
their minds and limbs as if it would be their last time.
* * *
Sharon’s chemo was scheduled to begin shortly before Bill’s and the third patient
wasn’t due for another hour. He asked Nurse Lillian if he could be seated beside Sharon so
they could talk during their treatments.
“Just remember that you’ll both need to rest,” Lillian said. “I don’t want you to disturb
any of the other patients with your jabbering. Keep your laughter and wheezing down to a dull
roar. After I hook you up, Bill, how about if I pull the curtains around you both to cut back on
the sound of your voices?”
Bill kidded, “I’ll have what she’s having.”
Lillian smirked. “The hell you will. You have very different cancers. What’s good for the
goose here,” she nodded to Sharon, “will not be good for the gander. And vice versa.”
Bill gave Sharon a knowing glance and she faintly grinned with understanding as Lillian
began Bill’s IV drip. He watched Lillian make the connections and insert the IV into his port
below his collarbone still bruised purple from the surgical insertion days before, as was
Sharon’s as well. All was going to their plan.
“I hope you two lovebirds have a nice trip,” Lillian said with a wink as she drew the
curtains around them.
Bill and Sharon gave each other knowing looks. He stood from his chair and squeezed
both of their IV tubes to stop the flow. He handed Sharon his tube to squeeze tightly and he
continued to do the same for hers. He did just what Nurse Lillian had warned against. He
switched their IVs. The effect of their decision took less time than either had imagined.
Holding hands, they leaned towards each other and kissed with mutual tastes of satisfaction.
In their minds, First Class flight attendant, Lillian, had brought them cocktails to begin
their journey. Not just a vacation, their shared trip had been their lifelong dream, so they
intended to make it special in every way, from their soft reclining chairs to every subtle detail,
as if this trek would be their final journey together.
From their smiling faces observed with shock by Nurse Lillian an hour later when she
found them, both Bill and Sharon were content to know it was their last shared experience,
but only in this material world. Both anticipated landing in another together and forever . . .
​

The Black Spot
by
Gerald Arthur Winter


Camp NO-BE-BO-SCO in the 1950s was the Blairstown, New Jersey
campsite for Boy Scout troops of North Bergen County. Bobby was a tenderfoot
scout in the Rattlesnake Patrol of Troop 52 in the Borough of Oakland on his first
autumn campout. In retrospect, it was surely colder than it is now in mountainous
northwest Jersey with Sand Pond already frozen on a late October weekend at
the base of the Kittatinny Ridge.
At age eleven, Bobby had already been through the summer hazing by
older scouts age twelve to fourteen. He knew that being sent to a neighboring
troop at a campsite for a smoke sifter or a left-handed axe was a trick the older
boys played on a tenderfoot scout to make him a fool to laugh at and mock.
On his summer campout he had learned to dig a latrine, pitch a tent, and
make a fire. But in the cold weather, a dozen Boy Scouts, three Explorer
Scouts in high school wearing their dark green uniforms, and Scout Master,
Mr. Katell would sleep in a log cabin with ten bunkbeds.
In the summer he’d encountered insects, spiders, amphibians, and
reptiles, including a six-foot black racer he saw swallow a squirrel. Now the
ground was already frozen and as hard as macadam at the end of October
with just deer, coyotes, foxes, opossums raccoons, skunks, bobcats, and
bears with which to contend. Sheltered by the warmth of the cabin with
a wood stove to cook their meals, the only time the scouts had to face
the elements and wild animals was on their short jaunts to the outhouse.
Or so the five tenderfoot scouts had been lead to believe.
The Cable Trail was always the first challenge to a tenderfoot at “NO-BE”
as scouts affectionately called the year-round campsite. The three-day weekend
included a Saturday hike up The Cable Trail, so named because a thick metal
cable had been implanted from the base of the ridge to the Appalachian Trail
high above. The cable had been installed in the 1930s so hikers could climb the
huge boulders of the escarpment by holding onto the cable to avoid a disastrous
plunge that could cause severe injuries or death. A fall from top to bottom was
what the older scouts called “ a three screamer” because of how many times
you had to scream before you would hit bottom.
The five tenderfoot scouts with no merit badges or sashes to display
them were the most talkative on the trail, unaware that two of the Explorers
as their only supervision on the adventure, were there to verify the tenderfoot
scouts’ fulfillment for their Hiking merit badges. This included a 10-mile roundtrip
trek among the autumn elements on The Appalachian Trail. The new scouts’
parents had not been told that this exposure to the wild was included in the
weekend’s activities because it was meant to toughen up their preteen sons.
“No mama’s boys allowed in this troop,” the two explorers said as
they departed on their hike up The Cable Trail.
The older scouts, one Explorer, and the Scout Master stayed behind
in the cabin because the older scouts had already had the 10-mile hike
initiation on previous autumn campouts. The older scouts would be passing
their Firs Aid and Cooking merit badges this trip. Though the five younger
tenderfoot scouts were told they would be back at the cabin to join the
others for dinner, in the hiking party of seven, each carried provisions for
an overnight stay in the forest.
“Why do we have to carry these heavy knapsacks?” one tenderfoot
complained. “It’s hard enough holding onto this cold metal cable without
gloves.
Another argued, “If we’re not gonna use these mess kits, shovels,
and axes, why carry them?”
“Stop complaining and pay attention to your footing, scout!”
Explorer Randy shouted to the others below him as he led the way over
the boulders. “Dave and I are carrying pup tent plus our other supplies.”
“What for?” another young scout shouted. “We’ll be back tonight
for dinner and sleep in the warm cabin! We don’t need our sleeping bags!”
Explorer Dave shouted from where he took up the rear, “What’s
the Boy Scout motto?”
Bobby shouted, “Be prepared!”
The other four tenderfoot scouts glared at him as if he’d farted
in a movie theater.
“Lemme hear a ‘That’s right!’ ” Explorer Dave shouted from the rear.
“That’s right!” Bobby shouted, but his solo response died in the cold
wind with glares from the other four tenderfoot scouts.
Randy shouted, “The Black Spot’s gonna sense your lack of enthusiasm
and keep us from getting back to the cabin tonight!”
“The what?” Billy, the chubby, least athletic of the tenderfoot scouts asked.
“How could you guys come to NO-BE without being prepared to deal with
The Black Spot?”
“What the heck is that?” Jimmy, another tenderfoot shouted.
“Dave!” Randy shouted. “I can’t believe how lame these tenderfeet are.”
“Piss poor!” Dave agreed.
Bobby figured these two Explorers were pulling the same crap on the
younger kids that he’d experienced last summer, thinking . . . Left handed axe,
jeez. Here we go again.
They reached the top of the ridge and counted heads.
“O.K. scouts!” Randy said. “We’re all accounted for, so now we’re gonna
hike four miles north along the Appalachian Trail. We’ll stop at the base of the
radio tower at the peak of the ridge and cook lunch. It’s a good chance for Dave
and me to qualify you all for your Camping merit badges. I’m a Life Scout and
Dave is a Star Scout. We both plan to qualify for Eagle Scout next year, so you’d
best listen to all we teach you.
When they reached the radio tower they made camp with a clearing
and used large stones to make a safe fire pit. The five younger scouts gathered
kindling and the two Explorers chopped firewood from fallen trees. Once the
fire was glowing coals they cooked hotdogs on sticks and the Explorers doled
out a large spoonful of baked beans from a pot they’d used to heat them.
The younger boys were busy cutting up and seeing who could fart the loudest
and longest after the bean fest complete with canned sauerkraut to step up
the game with their cajoling.
“Hey! It’s getting dark already with the time change.” Bobby asked,
“When are we heading back to the cabin?”
“Yeah, Randy. I’m getting’ cold with the sun going down,” Johnny, the
runt in the troop complained.
“Listen up, scouts,” Randy said. “We’re up here on a mission. Scout
Master Katell gave me strict orders to bring back you five scouts qualified
for your Hiking and Camping merit badges. Nothing short of that will do
because, as your leader, I’ll closer to becoming an Eagle Scout.
“You mean were not going back to the cabin?” Billy said with a shiver,
his jowls shaking.
“Got that right, scout,” Explorer Randy said. So while Dave stays back
here to tend the fire for safety, I’m taking you to learn about the legend of
The Black Spot.”
“Everyone up!” Dave said. “Single file with Randy in the lead and
Bobby taking up the rear. It’ll be dark when you get back here to camp,
so just take your flashlights.
“This is gonna suck,” Evan, the wise guy in the group of first-timers,
grumbled.
“Actually, it’ll be really cool,” Dave said with his voice fading away
behind them as he remained at the campsite.
The line of five scouts were led by one Explorer headed west off the
ridge toward another peak that jutted from the western horizon with the sun
setting behind it and the sky turning crimson . . . orange . . . then mauve.
“How far are we going?” Bobby asked from the rear.
“Less than a mile, but the terrain is rough,” Randy said. “Flashlights on!
Getting dark fast. Good thing it’s cold. In the summer we’d have to worry
about timber rattlers and copperheads. I’ve seen a few up here last summer.
Big suckers. Four feet long and thick as a fire hose in the middle.”
“What’s this Black Spot BS anyway?” Evan asked.
“You’ll see,” Randy said. “Let’s step up the pace.
Panting at nearly a jog, the boys in single file followed Randy. No
one could see more than the heels of the scout ahead of him within his
flashlight beam. Only Randy could warn the others what was coming ahead.
“Deep ditch! Sharp stump! Bramble bush!” Then, “Just ahead is the
wreck.”
“Wreck? What wreck?” Bobby asked, sorry to be last in line.
“Hey! Wow!” one scout shouted.
“Yo neat!” said another.
They gathered around Randy and flashed their lights at what
remained of a plane wreck.
“Jeez. This is cool,” Bobby added, last to see the crimped fuselage
of a Cessna 172 Skyhawk hanging with its wings broken from several oak
trees.
“Go ahead, scouts,” Randy gave the five boys the nod. “Check it
out before it’s too dark to see anything. You can climb right up in there,
pretend you’re pilots like the poor guy who crashed the plane.

The boys took turns in the cockpit with its two front seats. They
toyed with the instruments, but the gauges were rusted and the glass
was shattered.
“Gee, Randy, how’d it happen?” Bobby asked.
“I guy was flying his wife and teenage son from the Lincoln Park
Airport to Philly. Happened in ’55 almost four years ago.”
“Were they saved?” chubby Billy asked.
“Saved? Whaddaya kiddin’, fatso!” wise guy Evan scoffed.
“Look at how the wings are broken and the instrument panel is all
fucked up!”
“Yo! Scout!” Randy stood between them with his hands on his
hips. “Watch your mouth.”
“Come on. Ain’t no girls or grownups around,” Evan shrugged.
“It’s not that,” Randy cautioned, looking past the boys circled
around him. “This is solemn ground.”
“Ya mean like Indian burial grounds?” Jimmy asked.
“Even more serious than that,” Randy said. “Evan’s right--
no survivors, or so the papers said.”
“Whaddaya mean?” Bobby asked.
Randy took a deep breath then exhaled slowly.
“The mom and dad died on impact and their remains were
retrieved by the local Fire Rescue Squad. See how the fuselage is all
charred. Almost started a forest fire, but helicopters put it out before
the plane blew up or the fire spread. It was a miracle that it didn’t.”
“You said there was a teenage son,” Bobby said, intent on
Randy’s every word. “What happened to him?
“That’s why we need to be very respectful here.”
“Why?”
“The boy was never found.”
“Never?
“Never.”
“He must’ve burned up in the fire.”
“No remains were found, no bones, no teeth, no clothes,
no nothing.”
“Holy shit!” Evan blurted.
“Hey! I’m not gonna tell ya again,” Randy said. “A little
respect, huh?”
“You mean the cops didn’t have an investigation?” Bobby
asked, always the skeptic. “They had to find something.”
“Nothing at the crash scene,” Randy said.
“Then wh-where?” Billy asked with a blubbering breathless
squeal.
“The first sighting was at a farm a mile west from here,” Randy
pointed.
“Sighting? What kind of sighting,” Evan asked.
“Not really a sighting because all of the accounts have varied,
and all were at night.
“Was he dead?” Billy asked.
“Yes and no,” Randy said. “It was sort of a human form, but
not exactly.”
“What was it? Some kind of zombie?” Evan asked with a chortle.
“Nah. Zombies are made-up shit,” Randy said. “You see the boy
must’ve been burnt really bad from the fire and his body was all broken
from the crash, so the only thing left of him was this mass of amorphous
burnt flesh. That’s why the locals around here call him The Black Spot.”
“What’s a morphous?” Billy asked, his voice quivering.
“Amorphous, dummy,” Bobby cut in. “Shapeless. You know like
an amoeba in science class.”
“Jeez! That’s freakin’ crazy.” Evan said. “I don’t believe that crap.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to warn you guys about,” Randy said.
“It’s become a local legend these past few years that the kid who died is a
lost soul unable to join his parents. He shows up every full moon wreaking
havoc on the local farmers, even on their livestock.”
“Havoc? Like what?” Bobby asked.
“Sheep, cows, even a horse killed and gutted.”
“Your shittin’ us,” Evan laughed. “Sounds more like a bear or a cougar.”
“Yeah,” Bobby agreed. “What made anyone think it was The Black Spot?”
“No bear tracks or wolf tracks, only human tracks—barefoot, too, cause
the boy’s shoes were blown off in the crash or melted by the fire. Each animal
that was killed was gutted for food and half eaten. That was until last year when
a couple of kids had the same thing done to them when they were playing in
the their yard during a full moon and didn’t come in for dinner. Their parents
found them half eaten in these woods the next morning. ”
“Why would they think it was The Black Spot?” Bobby challenged.
“Because of what he left behind that the cops found.”
“What—fingerprints?” Bobby asked.
“A black gelatin-like substance, burnt flesh from the plane crash.”
“Jeez!” all five boys chorused.
“They’ve found that black guck at every death scene after a full moon
and also at the crash site here where he comes at night during a full moon to
search for his parents. Let’s see if he’s already been here tonight.”
“No way!” Billy shivered.
“Come on, scouts,” Randy pushed them towards the plane. “Be brave.
If The Black Spot knows you’re scared, he’ll shriek and grab you.”
“I ain’t going back in that plane,” Evan said.
“O.K. chicken-shits. I’ll go first,” Randy said then fumbled around in the
backseat for a minute before shouting, “Oh my God!” He turned to the boys
and beamed his flashlight at the palm of the other hand dripping with black
gelatinous guck.
The younger boys were dumbfounded till a loud shriek came from the
woods and echoed across the ridge.
“It’s The Black Spot!” Randy shouted. “Run like hell back to camp before
he grabs ya!”
Bobby stood frozen in his tracks as the others fled. Doubtful, he
turned back towards the lamenting howl coming towards him from the
woods. Then, silhouetted again the bluish-white full moon, a hunched
black glob moved across the horizon like a tumbleweed rolling in the
wind across the plains. Bobby gasped, which turned the figure in his
direction coming closer and closer as it shrieked and howled. Entranced,
Bobby couldn’t move.
The black figure came within ten feet from Bobby. He could
smell something like burnt wood . . . charcoal . . . maybe burnt flesh.
There was no face just the amorphous glob Randy had described,
which let out a shriek with a billow of smoke from its hood-like head
then thrust both arms at him.
Bobby felt his face getting splashed and, with a hand to his
cheek, felt a gelatinous gook dripping down his face. He screamed
and ran but, even though he heard the shrieking fading at a distance
far behind him, when he stumbled to the ground, a hand gripped his
ankle. Scrambling to his feet, Bobby lost a sneaker, but that allowed
him to get away. Hobbling with one stocking foot, he escaped The
Black Spot, but the shrieks and howls ceased as he found the campsite
where the four other younger boys and Randy were shivering around
a campfire kept burning by Dave until they returned.
“Thought we lost you, scout,” Randy said, standing and waving
for Bobby to join the others.
“He almost got me,” Bobby said. “I lost a sneaker getting away.”
“What’s that crap all over your face?” Evan asked.
The others chorused, “Yeah, jeez, look at that.”

“I don’t know,” Bobby said. “The Black Spot flung it at me.”
“Hold still, scout,” Randy said. “It’s that stuff I told you about. The
black guck left behind after a kill. You’re lucky The Black Spot didn’t gut
and eat you.”
Randy wiped the guck off Bobby’s face with a paper towel then
brought the towel to the fire to show the others.
“Jeez! Wow!” the others said.
“Get that crap away from me!” Evan said.
Randy tossed the towel into the fire and it flared. “Good thing Dave
kept our fire going while we were at the plane wreck. We’ll have to take
turns keeping it going through the night to keep The Back Spot away. He
hates fire.”
Their tents were pitched facing the fire pit. Although they took
turns tending the campfire, they all were sleepless through the night
with one eye open in case The Black Spot returned.
* * *
It was a crisp autumn morning when they closed down camp,
making sure the fire was out and nothing was left behind other than
memories of a frightful night. The boys cut up on the way down The
Cable Trail and back to the cabin to join the older scouts for breakfast.
The sausage and pancakes were a treat after a cold night in the woods.
The five tenderfoot scouts had qualified for their Hiking and
Camping merit badges, which they’d all receive at next month’s
ceremony with a sash for their moms to sew them on. Those
not riding home in the Scout Master’s car were picked up by their
parents. Bobby tossed his knapsack and sleeping bag into the trunk
of his dad’s 1956 Chevy Belair. Explorers Randy and Dave came up
to Bobby before he got in the car.
“You were the bravest scout on the overnight campout, Bobby.”
“Nah. I was just as scared as the others.”
“But you didn’t flinch facing danger on your own.”
“I ran too.”
“But you were the last to run.”
Another scout came up to Bobby and the Explorers. His name was
Eric and he was twelve, a year ahead of Bobby in school.
“Hey, Bobby,” Eric said. “Got something for you.” He reached into
his knapsack and handed him a black Keds sneaker, the one he’d lost in
the woods.
Bobby was dumbfounded, but glad his mom wouldn’t give him hell
for losing a sneaker.
“You’ve earned the right to be The Black Spot next year.” He reached
into his knapsack again and showed Bobby two fingers dripping with black
guck. He put the two fingers in his mouth with a slurp and said. “Blackberry
jam.”Though the modern legend of The Black Spot may just have been a prank
played on tenderfoot scouts, that eerie night in the woods evoked nightmares that
could stay with a boy his entire life.


​

What Goes Around, Comes Around
​
by Charles E.J. Moulton
 
Dear Mr. President,
Here is a copy of the mail Chao Guangxi sent to Mrs. Li.
Maybe it can shed some light upon how we deal with this newer situation.
 
Official regards,
B.H.
 
 
Yang-Tze Environmental Clinic Research Centre
March 11th, 2019
 
Dear Mrs. Li,
 
         How serious the situation actually was must’ve become obvious to Xiang only at the very end. Why he reacted the way he did is hard to say. He had been guiltier of more brutality than his colleagues. By now, the Pacific Ocean overflowed with dead sharks, dying slowly because he had cut off their fins for profit. After all, the wealthy Chinese landowners needed their shark fin soup to get the potency of the bridegrooms to soar sky high.
There was no sight of anything unusual at all at first. Neither Xiang nor the colleagues had thought it might be wrong until they saw the wounded and dying man floating up toward the ship, mutilated just like one of his sharks.
         At first, the UFO was nowhere in sight. What caught Xiang’s attention was only the body itself. It lacked arms, floating like debree on a lonesome wave. I think he realized he knew the man, a short and rough sea captain north of Shanghai. Strange thing, though. Xiang mumbled in my presence that he had met him a week before at the airport on his way to Singapore. He could impossibly be floating without arms somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. And yet, here he was, thrown away like garbage - just like a shark.
         An unbearable silence hit the deck, the crewmen all dropping their knives with loud metallic clangs, the sharks slipping back into the ocean and disappearing happily into the deep.
From where we stood, Xiang and I both heard the mumblings and cries of the colleagues as they helped the armless man up upon the boat, shaking him, trying to find out how he could be found alive floating in the Pacific without arms.
         When the spaceship landed on the water – I shall repeat that: on the water – the silence on the deck turned into a painful gasping awe. We all felt the atmosphere change from shock to terror, I think. Illegal types, trained fishermen, mafia mediators, unemployed guys, all of them now trained animal killers, all of them afraid and desperate, fearing they would be punished, not by the law. By alien visitors.
         I grabbed Xiang by his shirt, pulling him away, almost ripping the cloth in the process, telling him we should run to safety on the lower deck. He pushed me away, calling me a coward, insisting on facing the situation. Immediately after that, he ran over to the other sailors and started screaming at them that they were criminals and bloody murderers. “Give up, you morons,” he yelled. “Admit everything.”
The aliens would’ve found him regardless of where he went.
Instinctively, he knew that.
This time, there was no escape to speak of.
It might’ve been getting caught, as it were, punished by having one of his own kind mutilated like an animal by creatures higher than him, that transformed him. It was something he couldn’t escape. So far, he had always escaped the law. I know how much you suffered through the years through his behavior, Mrs. Li.
         When the spaceship doors opened, I pulled Xiang back, embraced him, pleaded for us to hide, wait it out, admit everything, change, whatever, for us to move with me back to Beijing and open a bookshop like we had originally planned. Xiang didn’t listen. He clutched that knife so hard, pointing it at his own stomach.
         The spaceship started vomiting out all these dead sharks without fins. It really looked like vomit, Mrs. Li. All of these dead sharks appearing out of nowhere, falling out of that thing. No one knew how so many sharks could fit into such a small UFO. In fact, there were so many that I feared that we would never be able to leave the region at all. The waves alone threatened to capsize us.
         Xiang started screaming that judgment day had arrived and when I tried to hold him back, he just shouted at me to fuck off, that he should have listened to you. For the first time in his life, he realized that his actions had had serious and lasting side-effects.
It’s hard for me to tell you this, Miss Li, but your son’s last words were to tell you that he tried to be a good person after all, just like you wanted him to be. He regretted killing so many sharks, so he killed himself, shoving his bowie-knife into his own belly.
         The aliens, big amphibian beasts with oversized foreheads and big fish-like eyes, told us to stop our shark- and whale-hunting or more people would suffer.
         Of course we stopped. We have told other hunters to give it up, as well, but they won’t listen. The Chinese mafia won’t, either.
Please forward my greetings to our friend, the sea captain. Maybe he can help us convince other poachers to stop. The aliens mean business, I think. Is the captain still in hospital? If he reveals the secrets of what really happened to him that day, please tell me about it. I believe you told me he has refused to speak, only uttering one word again and again: “Payback!”
         We will see each other at the cemetery tomorrow to lay flowers on your son’s grave. I look foward to speaking with you about my developments. I have no contact with my former criminal companions. The police have insured my safety under the “Witness Protection Programme”. It seems my former criminal companions are not a threat, not anymore.
I have been interrogated numerously by the law at the Yang-Tze Environmental Clinic Research Centre. They will not tell me why they brought me here and not to a prison and are very tight lipped about what they call “the alien problem”. I have heard the words “our aquatic origin” being mentioned.
         Obviously, the earthly-alien negotiations aren’t going that well.
They’re punishing the whale poachers now. I have heard stories of floating sea captains without eyes.
To the aliens, it does not seem to matter if you were or are a poacher. Former criminals have been punished just as severely as active whale- and shark-killers. I have not asked my interrogators, but from what I understand the aliens returned after a long absence and were shocked to find what they found.
I will be arriving at the cemetary tomorrow with three bodyguards. Please have the package ready. I will foreward it to the chief interrogator, who seems to be the one who communicates with the aliens from time to time. We need to show the aliens a poacher with a big heart, his childhood love for the sea, his early stories about marine life and his diaries about being lured into becoming a poacher.
Maybe we can convince the visitors there’s hope for humanity after all. I will sign off for tonight. Until tomorrow, Mrs. Li.
 
Chao Guangxi
Former Poacher
[email protected]
 
Administrator’s note:
Mr. Chao Guangxi was responsible for a serious negotiation with the alien visitors the following week, on March 19th, 2019, which caused the aliens to stop their murderings of humans.
These first alien visitors have not been seen again, for a while at least, although other sightings over slaughter factories worry the population anew.  Two slaughter factory CEOs were found hanging on spikes in their fridges yesterday. Are these new deeds committed by the same creatures or new ones?
156 billion animals are slaughtered yearly on our planet for mass consumption.
The aliens seem to be serious about protecting the animals.
How do we react?
.
Boqin Hui
Speaker of the Houses of Parliament
Beijing, China

When the Carnival Left Town

by
​
GERALD ARTHUR WINTER


Christmas had passed quickly for Tim at age thirteen. There had been no long list of toys
or board games for his parents to buy. He hadn’t believed in Santa Claus since age seven. This
was his last year before high school and he hoped to make the best of it before he’d have to
relinquish his top dog position in eighth grade to become a lowly high school freshman.
All the good looking girls from his class would be dating upperclassmen next September.
The older boys drove hotrods and had summer jobs that made enough to take a girl to the
drive-in theater to make out. The best Tim had to offer a girl was a half-mile ride on his
handlebars coasting at 50 mph down Long Hill Road. With her hair blowing in his face, she
smelled like Dentine gum, the precursor to a wet kiss at the bottom of the steep hill. A lime
Ricky in a tall, frosted glass would quench their thirst for something more than each other on
that long trek back up the hill to repeat the downhill thrill.
Tim was walking down that same hill on New Year’s Eve 1957 to bring his dad a six-pack
of Rheingold. Tim had tried a swig from his dad’s beer can once, but it tasted bitter. His dad
preferred Schmidt’s, but then Tim wouldn’t get to check out all the Miss Rheingold contestants.
In the 50s Miss Rheingold was a cross between Miss American and Playmate of the Year. No
nudity, but it was that “girl next door” draw to a horny teenager casting his ballot in a liquor
store.
He’d have to sneak the Sears catalogue into the attic to look at the panty ads by
flashlight, but he could just gloat at Miss Rheingold in the light of day using his prurient
imagination. Who’d know?
Tim’s mission that night took him to Hunklees’ delicatessen to buy a six-pack for
his dad. No proof of age was required. In a small rural town, if you told Mr. Hunklee your
dad sent you to buy him beer, but it was for actually for yourself, there was nothing local
authorities could do to you compared to the damage at home when your dad kicked your
ass. Back then, there was no such concept of “grounding” a teenage miscreant for crossing
a boundary. Up close and personal, corporal punishment ruled the day.
After Tim’s graduation from grammar school, the older high school boys were too
impatient to wait till September. The fresh flock of freshman girls scantily clad in bathing
suits were baking in the summer sun. The nubile teens smelled like fresh muffins out of the
oven buttered with Coppertone on their colorful beach towels at Crystal Lake. Upperclassmen
were ready to line up their dates for the Sock Hop with three months of summer foreplay. If
there was any air of frigidity in that equation, it could be broken by the time the first bell rang
to start the school year at Ramapo High.
Tim was doing his best to maintain his hold on Donna, his on-again-off-again girlfriend
since third grade, but like her girlfriends, the beep of a hot rod’s horn at the entrance gate to
the lake was like a duck call from a hunting blind. The girls left the boys from their graduating
class behind to ride home alone on their English racer bikes. This travesty to a fourteen-year-old
boy’s ego was devastating. Tim felt like Clark Kent competing with super-heroes flying above
and swooping down to steal all he’d accomplished with Donna, which was somewhere between
second and third base. He’d been short-stopped more often than he cared to count.
The last week in August always brought a wind shift when the carnival came to town.
Usually a black-topped parking lot overflow for the local church, the annual carnival took
up every inch of that reserved space. The local paper always warned with flyer announcements
stuffed in mailboxes: The Carnival comes to town next week.
Be sure to lock your homes and cars.
Don’t let your children go out alone
at night. Be wary of pickpockets.
Your local Police Dept.
Within walking distance, for old time’s sake, Donna agreed to go with Tim to the
carnival the first night it opened. He’d won some prizes for Donna at the games of chance
from the Wheel of Fortune to Whack-a-Toad. Among Tim’s bounty were a pair of lovebirds
in a cage, which he’d hoped would serve as a symbol of his long-time affection for Donna
from age eight to fourteen. She found it more of a nuisance having to ask the carnies
operating the rides to keep an eye on the love birds when she and Tim went on the Ferris
wheel, Scrambler, Tilt-a-whirl, or their favorite, The Octopus.
They’d had their share of cotton candy, popcorn, and falafel and had made the
rounds of all the rides three times as it neared 10 p.m., Donna’s curfew, and for anyone
under eighteen in the little borough of Oakdale.
“How about same time tomorrow night, Donna?” Tim asked at her front porch.
“Sorry, Tim . . . I’m busy tomorrow night.”
“Oh . . . how about the next night?
“Busy then, too.”
“Oh . . . any other night free to go with me to the carnival?”
“No, Tim. I’m going to be busy from now on.”
“How do you mean?”
“When you took that last ride on The Octopus alone, Danny Clifford, you know, the
quarterback on the Ramapo football team, he asked me to go to the Sock Hop first Saturday
night after the game with Fair Lawn. He asked me to be his steady girl . . . so I can’t see you
again after tonight. I promised Danny.”
Echoing in my head from dawn to dusk was—I promised Danny.
The only way I could get those words out of my mind was to spend all my time at the
carnival. I’d thought about becoming a carnie and running away as a high school dropout. I’d
gotten to know the operator of The Octopus after fifty rides that week. Sometimes I didn’t
even get off. I just nodded to “Red,” as he was called, and made a spinning motion with my
index finger.
Red nodded and took my quarter for my next spin. But if there was a group of girls
waiting their turn to ride The Octopus, Red would grab one by the wrist and put her in
the cab with me.
“Have fun with this one, Timmy-boy,” he’d say aside to me with a wink as he snapped
down the safety bar to keep us from falling out on the high swooping spins of the cab. Me and
the girl he’d put in the cab with me were locked in close with our faces pressed against each
other’s, especially on the spins.
Red had a freckled face, red hair like Howdy Dowdy, and on his neck, beneath a green-
and-yellow-checkered kerchief, I’d seen a tattoo of a five-pointed star the size of a quarter.
He had light-blue eyes that seemed to shimmer under the bright carnival lights at night. He
had a creepy grin like a Leprechaun with a pot of gold hidden where no one else could find it.
After so many rides on The Octopus with lots of different girls supplied by Red, I
noticed how he touched the girls very subtly, but intentionally as they got into and out of the
cab. After the first few times he gave me a nod as if to tell me—Hey, I’ve set you up, Timmy-
boy. Go ahead. She’s all yours.
Then on the last night of the carnival in the line waiting to get on The Octopus below,
I saw from the cab I was staying on that a group of older boys with their dates were next in
the queue to board. It was almost 9:45 p.m. so this was the last spin before curfew, my last
chance to soar before school started. To my amazement, Red grabbed the last girl in line and
left her date standing there dumbfounded.
“Hey! Whaddaya think yer doin’?” the older boy complained.
“Stuff it, kid!” Red said to him. “Stand back! Safety rules!” He pushed the boy, making
him fall to the ground. He lifted the boy’s date into the cab and slammed down the safety bar.
With that motion, Red’s knuckles brushed against the girl’s breasts. He grinned and winked at
me, then said, “Cream of the crop and she’s all yours, Timmy-boy.” It was Donna.
On the first swoop upward then on the downward spin, Donna’s face pressed against
mine. We turned to face each other, first with a peck of tight lips, then like candle wax melting
from the heat of a flame our lips oozed together with mutual pleasure. Though it cost me a
black eye from the varsity quarterback, I wore it proudly for many weeks until just a hint of
purple shown at the corner of my eye when it was too cold to ride my bike down Long Hill
Road with Donna on my handlebars.
Soon it would be winter and Long Hill Road would ice over after the first big
snowstorm. Then Donna and I would go sledding, she on my back or seated in my lap
as I steered my Flexible Flyer downhill. Just like on my bike, the sled would reach 50
mph and sometimes we’d end up in a soft pile of deep snow at the bottom of the hill.
Our noses, frozen red, would touch, then Donna and I would kiss, knowing our time
would come when I’d pick her up in my car to go to the drive-in theater. Only months
rather than years away, the on-again-off-again times together since we were eight years
old had become always on, now and forever.
When the carnival left town that summer, it returned each year and still does, but
someone else operates The Octopus, and we never saw Red again. I’ve often thought of
his tattoo concealed beneath his neckerchief and thought of him that summer as my bright
shining star. I wondered what my life might’ve been like had I left town with the carnival
never to return, just like Red.

Fangio’s  Pipe
 
By R.M.Clausen
 
 
The car was incredibly fast. The attached airflow vanes and diffuser devices made the seven-speed prototype aerodynamic in its purest form. One engineer called it a rocket ship without rockets. If it weren’t for the wheels, some believe the car might actually soar around the track without touching the ground. With its immense power and torque package, the racing machine seemed more air-worthy than anything constrained by stingy gravity.

The vehicle, of course, was not designed for the feint of heart. The engineers conceived this pulsating griffin for a gladiator. A crankcase-toreador who not only possesses the skill-factor and the unfaltering panache for competition, but  can unlock the mystique of speed. Once in the pilot’s seat, these contemporary charioteers then transport themselves to a natural euphoric realm where everything that was before, is forgotten. The common denominator is concentration and anything preceding, was just waiting. For them, the ultimate high is the launching hour, the immediate moment, because life begins when the green flag drops.  
                                
Josh Crandle is one of those throttle-jockeys who met the requirements.  A synchromeshed persona grata who had earned the recognition within the proprietary membership of the motorsports plunderbund. Ever since he could remember, Josh wanted to race cars. There wasn’t anything more important to him. Racing was his nirvana, his nourishment, and he lived for that moment, for there was nothing else on the planet that he would rather be doing.   
When Josh scrunched his wiry frame into the compact driver’s seat of this modified sports car, he was in the now, a stratum zone. A place like no other, where reality competes with the nonexistent. He is an elitist of that narrow partnership that believe excellence is expected. Once secure in the cockpit, the man and his vehicle are one.

Josh steered the racer away from the pit area and onto the race track. He then stabbed the accelerator to the floor, and as the engine roared to life, the vehicle’s burst of speed pressed him firmly back against the seat. He allowed the vibration and motion of the racing coupe to have the subtle control in the steering. Everything was in balance, and even though hurling down a straightaway at 200 miles an hour was exhilarating, he knew it was the deceleration and the braking at the sweeps and curves that would decide the outcome at the finish line.

As Josh approached the sharp right-hand curve at Arnage, the rear of the car wanted to go straight, but he corrected with a quick flick of his wrists. The machine answered and slid back to form, he was in control again. Smooth and proficient, he was like a leopard in the hunt. 
Although he navigated the apex safely, Josh knew the race car’s behavior was abnormal. He could feel the handling ebb away with each passing lap. The suspension was out of line, too loose, and it needed adjustment. Disappointed by the performance, he eased the machine into the pits and turned off the engine.    
As Josh climbed out of his car, the first thing that caught his attention was a pretty young blonde draping herself over the pit barrier wall. This was practice day and as always, it attracted many various spectators to the paddock area. Besides the eager crew members, there were the concerned sponsors, the perennial VIPs, assorted sexy women, hangers-on, and anyone who wanted to see a
race car and its driver up close.
With an autograph book in one hand, the young vixen waved furiously, revealing a deep cleavage as her breasts bulged against her T-shirt. Josh smiled, her intention was obvious, but he didn’t need the distraction. Something was not right in the handling of his race car. It was not in tune and he was determined to find out why. He began looking for Giff.
Entering the garage area, Josh’s eyes darted above the intrinsic commotion as he searched for his head engineer. Weaving his way past the mechanics who had now surrounded the car, Josh removed his helmet, and stuffed his earplugs and gloves inside. A bespectacled gent in dirty trousers with an adversely clean shirt quickly approached him. Before the man could speak, Josh churned in, “What the hell, Giff! The rear wishbones are out of whack. The car wants to drift in every corner. I thought we had fixed that problem!”
“We had,” said the engineer, with a  perplexity in his voice.  
“Well the problem’s back!” retorted Josh.     
Patience was not one of Josh’s virtues. To him, distractions seem to emerge from everywhere. The race was only a week away and the car won’t work. The 24 heures du Mans is an elitist motor race and draws top-calibre drivers and racing teams from all over the globe. It troubled him that he could trust an ubiquitous and saucy minx that haunts the paddock area, but not a technically superb and skillfully trained crew-member in the garage. He wished it was the other way around. Frustration was creeping into his bones.
With the practice session over, Josh left the track circuit and hailed a taxi back to the host town of Le Mans. The dilemma with his car bothered him. He would have dinner later with Martin and sort it all out.
Late that afternoon, Josh greeted his mister-fixer in the hotel lobby. Martin, a short, corpulent gentleman, was a mender-of-problems, a redeemer, and the executive of the race team’s largest sponsorship. He smiled a lot and laughed easily, and it was reassuring to the team that he thoroughly enjoyed being around the racing fraternity. Josh’s relationship with Martin had always been smooth, and he knew that if there was a problem, this hombre would take care of it.   

The weather in France was warm with very little wind at this time of year, and although it was overcast with a threat of summer rain, the two men decided all the same to take in a fresh air stroll together down the Rue Chanzy.
It was hard to ignore the charm of the little city, with the old Roman walls and the Gothic cathedrals, but Josh was not concerned with the old-world allurement. His mind was on his race car, and as they walked, the conversation became a conjecture of the up-coming race. 
“I’m down ten points, Martin,” exclaimed Josh. “I need a full complement of team members.”
“The team has three drivers for the race, and every member of the pit crew is top-notch,” answered his troubleshooter. “ You don’t hear Luigi or Jean-Paul complaining do you?”
“They’re not behind in points!” countered Josh. He was sore that the team was going to be missing one crew member at race time.
“His commitment is covered, besides the car will be ready in time,” explained Martin.
The discussion continued and Josh was still on edge as they wended their way back to the hotel.  “If I don’t have a complete team, the opportunity is lost,” said Josh. “What if. . .,” but his words trailed off abruptly. He had noticed a small gathering at the front of the hotel.  
As they were approaching the hotel’s porte-cochère, a sleek car pulled up. Josh’s curiosity turned to the intriguing vehicle.  To drive a beautifully designed car was almost as exciting as racing one. His love and fascination for the sexy contours of an automobile’s body, the intricate framework of the chassis, the potency of the power plant, the delicious colors of the paint, all gave purpose to his life and caressed his soul. To Josh, each marque in the auto world was art’s creation, a fundamental element, where indeed, form follows function. 
Josh’s vigilance was now piqued and it drew him away from his conversation with Martin. He didn’t recognize the vehicle’s manufacturer from where he stood, and as a cluster of people pulsated toward the new arrival, he knew he had to see this unfamiliar car that was meticulously drawing attention.
Josh left Martin behind and pushed his way through the gallery of milling torsos like a panicked lemming. Just as he gained access to the curb for a vantage point, the driver’s door opened and a woman’s shapely leg fell out.
Taken by surprise, his attention immediately went to the orphaned limb and the black high heel shoe that was strapped to it. The owner of the eurythmic appendage then slowly spilled from the motor carriage. Clinging to a sensual and supple, whisper-soft female form was a chic, dark green dress so tight that the slit up the side made everyone in attendance take immediate notice. Her naked thigh was revealed, but large round sunglasses concealed the vamp’s eyes. Her long dark, ebony-black hair glistened in the cloudy sky and gave accent to her refined satin-like face. Her lips were red and full, but they did not smile. Elegant and pretentious, the language of the voluptuous  woman’s body was all under the watchful eyes of the small crowd.  She didn’t speak a word as she surveyed the eager gathering, lingering for a few seconds in the direction of Josh, and then, graceful in her movement, seem to glide across the pavement to the hotel’s entrance. Josh’s eyes were transfixed as he followed her every move.  Someone then opened the front door and the lady vanished inside.
Josh suddenly felt euphoric, for he could not feel anything solid beneath his feet. He had no thoughts, no emotions, as his
consciousness was arrested by her spell. She had succeeded in completely mesmerizing him.
Josh felt the tug on his sport coat before he felt the wet drops on his face. He turned his head and noticed Martin pulling at his sleeve. A light rain had begun to fall and the crowd had dispersed. It was as if he were waking up from a dream.
“Are you alright?” asked Martin.
Josh shook his head not only to answer, but to question. He felt like he was standing in a fog, completely encapsulated. Snared by the woman’s magnetism, it was like a narcotic and he craved for more. He did not know her, yet he couldn’t understand this unsurmountable feeling that was enveloping him. 
“Who is she?” asked Josh, hoping he wasn’t stammering.
“Who is who?” replied Martin. “You mean that woman? I haven’t a clue.”
“Find out,” pressed Josh. “Please, I must know.”
Perplexed, Martin shook his head, and together the two men trudged out of the rain and entered the hotel restaurant. The unidentified automobile that was weathering the elements, now seemed inconsequential.
After dinner, Josh thanked his host, bade him good evening,
and left the restaurant. It was still a mite early for him and he
had the craving for a nightcap so he ambled toward the hotel saloon
just around the corner.
Dimly-lit, with pockets of amber lighting, it was an alluring lounge. He made his way over to the bar and sat down. Except for the bartender, he was alone in the room. There was soft music coming from somewhere as it bounced off the old stone walls and soaked into the lush carpet.  
He ordered a Scotch and then reflected back to the woman he saw that afternoon. It was haunting him. He couldn’t push her out of his head. Who was that ravishing vamp with the enchanted charisma that percolated lust?  Where did she come from, and why is she here?  How could this temptress lure him like she did?  He now had a thirst, a hunger even, that captivated him. He felt trapped, yet wondered if somehow he had been baited.
Josh took a long swig from his glass, and while drowning in thought, failed to notice a wistful, attractive, and curvaceous woman quietly enter the room. She moved effortlessly to the bar and took her seat not far from him. So deep in concentration, he was surprised by her entrance.
The woman did not speak as she drew out a colored cigarette within a flat jeweled case from her small purse. She slowly crossed her leg as the barkeep quickly moved over the bar counter to light her cigarette.
She was incomparably beautiful, with thick dark hair that fell gently past her shoulders. A sylphlike, faintly-colored methyl green dress that she almost wore, poured over her lithesome frame
and cascaded down her bosom, like a waterfall of dripping sex. Her crimson lips pouted, surrendering a smooth, silken face.
His heart almost skipped a beat. It was her, the women he saw earlier that day! Even without sunglasses, he knew it was the same woman. Curiosity seeped from his pores, as he meticulously watched her. More than excited, he scrutinized, eyeing all her smooth lines as if he were going to buy a new car.
There was a certain poise in her carriage. Observing her demeanor carefully, he noticed how purposely she moved, deliberately, deftly, like a violin’s bow. 
She took a long drag from her cigarette, blew the smoke out and then turned to look at Josh. Her gaze left him unsettled and spellbound. Beneath her thick nymph-like eyelashes, were piercing, green eyes. For a moment, Josh thought she was looking right through him. It was evident to him this lovely creature was a maelstrom with skin.
“Hello,” she said. The greeting was soft and concise. Her voice was velvety, somewhat husky, but had reassuring essence.
Josh smiled. Her tone was feminine and had the song of seduction. He knew he was smitten.
“Hello yourself,” answered Josh. “May I buy you a drink?”
“That would be nice, thank you,” she replied. She motioned to the barkeep, “Champagne cocktail, please.” She then took a drag of her cigarette and flicked a lock of hair away from her face. Her eyes were sparkling, as a deep smile formed on her mouth.
“My name is Josh,” said the man who now felt bewitched. “May I know the name of the lovely woman I just bought a drink for?” He was no stranger to flirting, yet the subject in front of him left him with apprehension.
“My name is Circe,” she said still smiling. “Would you like a cigarette?”
“Thank you no, I don’t smoke,” replied Josh. “That is a very pretty name.”
“Thank you, I like it,” she said.
“Do you live in the area?” asked Josh. He felt he might as well cut to the chase.
“No,” she answered quietly.
“Are you here for the race?” he queried.
“Oh yes, I’m a big fan of racing,” she enthusiastically replied.
Tantalized, Josh thought now we’re getting somewhere. A woman of charm and grace who loves racing.
“That’s good to know. I’m a driver myself,” he offered.
“Are you now?” she cajoled.
The barkeep then came over and placed her drink on the bar, nodding at Josh. 
“Yes, I drive the number six Mercedes,” Josh boasted. Then, with his drink in his hand, he rose and subtly slid over to the bar stool next to her, asking, “Do you know any drivers?”
“I do now,” she answered politely, a grin of perfect white teeth now displayed across her mouth. She took a sip of her drink and then asked, “Do you own any racing trophies?”
“Oh, I have a few,” he said. “They’re good mementos, I guess.”
“Umm,” she noted. “I have a very worthy racing memento,” the woman volunteered.
“Really?” said Josh. His interest was now at full hilt. “And what might that be?”
She continued to smile, and with a pause, took a drag on her cigarette. She shifted on her bar stool as she uncrossed her leg and then crossed the other.
“Do you remember a driver named, ‘Fangio’?” she questioned.
“El Maestro?” exclaimed Josh. He was thinking of the famous Argentine race driver who won so many races and championships many decades ago.
“Si,” Circe snickered. It seemed she also knew the moniker of the Latin racer. 
 “Juan-Manuel Fangio,” Josh reiterated. “Who doesn’t remember him? Why do you ask?”
“Do you recall when he raced in Cuba?” the woman queried.  
“Yes, somewhat, I think,” he pondered. “He raced there in
Havana, before Castro in 1957, I believe.”  Josh now began to burn with inquisitiveness.
“He was also there in 1958,” she added modestly. “Only he didn’t race then.”
“Yeah, now I remember,” Josh mused. His history was not top drawer, but he knew racing and its heroes.  Josh went on, “He was kidnapped by Castro’s goons for political reasons. He missed the entire race that year.”
“That’s very good, Josh,” she quipped. “You do know your racing.”
Josh took a deep breath. He suddenly felt fuzzy all over. My god, this woman is incredible, he reasoned. He could feel the goose-bumps crawling up his back. But where are we going with this, he wondered?
Fascinated, Josh gently demanded, “What has that to do with your racing memento?”
Circe grinned, taking a last drag on her cigarette before putting it out. She wet her lips and, tilting her head, looked deep into his eyes as she uttered, “I have his pipe.”
 Josh’s mind went vacant. He did not comprehend. While he was gazing into her eyes, he almost grabbed the bar as he had the sensation of vertigo. He could feel those large, deep, imperial emerald orbs pulling him into her. 
Circe faced back to the bar, took a sip of her drink and then put the glass down before she went on. “Many people don’t know that when they finally released Fangio,” she paused, looked down at her drink and dipped her finger into the glass to briefly stir it before continuing, “they apologized and offered him a box of choice Havana cigars for his trouble.”  Circe withdrew her finger from the glass and brought it to her lips. “Only Fangio didn’t smoke cigars,” she continued methodically, “he didn’t even like them. Instead, he asked for and received a hand-crafted meerschaum pipe.”
She paused again for emphasis, and turning to Josh once again, she leaned forward with her intense, penetrating eyes, lustily breathed, “I have that pipe.”
Her words hung in the air. To Josh it seemed like somebody pulled the pin on a hand grenade and he was waiting for the room to explode.  Fangio’s pipe!  Strange, he had never heard of it before. How did this woman get such a trophy, he wondered? He could not pull away from her ethereal web. He felt she was slowly devouring him.
Circe sat back quietly and sipped her drink. A smirk formed on her face as she reached for her cigarette case and drew out another cigarette. She tossed her head up, as the barkeep rushed over to light it for her.
Josh was in a stupor. He felt a mysterious fire growing within himself.
A passionate flame that was kindling his heart and engulfing him.
It was a distinctive flavor he had never experienced.
He knew it was now imperative that he know more about this enigmatic and inexplicable daughter of Eve packaged before him.  He wondered if love is indeed the true dream of immortality.   
Josh started to speak but found his voice had failed him. He hesitated to avoid embarrassment, and took a sip of his drink, letting the amber liquid slowly trickle down his throat.
“Yes?” she said, anticipatively.
“Do you have the pipe with you?” he asked. 
“Of course,” she answered proudly. “Would you like to see it?”
“Yeah,” Josh burst out. “I mean if it’s not too impolite of me.”
“Why don’t you finish your drink then, and I’ll show it to you,” she enticed.
Josh slugged the rest of his drink down, feeling a twinge of bewilderment, yet with a flare of anticipation. With a glowing smile, Circe put out her cigarette, gathered her purse and rose fluidly from the bar stool.
“I have it in my room,” she said. “Come up with me, I’m staying here.”
Josh slid off his bar stool and immediately went to her side.
They strolled out of the saloon together and around the corner to the hotel elevators. Circe pushed the elevator button and as they stood silently waiting for the doors to open, Josh unexpectedly
felt warm and flushed. He hoped it didn’t show as they entered the lift.
He was impressed when they arrived at the very top floor. Circe motioned to the left as they stepped out of the elevator and then sauntered down the corridor. When they stopped in front of the door to her room, she fumbled for her key.
“May I help?” he asked.
“No,” she replied. “I have it.”
She slid the key into the lock and after a quick turn of the wrist, pushed the door open. The room was inky-black, but it smelled of her. The intoxicating fragrance entranced him as he stood there before the dark.
“Come in,” said Circe seductively, as she slinked into the room.     
She flipped on the light switch and Josh stepped forward. The chamber took on a warm glow from a light sconce on the wall across the extraordinary large room. A spacious Persian rug covered most of the polished wooden floor. He spied a small dresser pressed against an adjacent wall near a closed door. An enormous four-poster bed was the most imposing fixture in the room.
Circe turned and quietly closed the door behind them. This must be the Emperor’s Suite, Josh thought. His room was nowhere near the size of this one.
As he turned around to face her, she suddenly reached out and wrapped her arms around his neck and passionately kissed him.
Unsuspecting, he responded vigorously, holding her tight against
him. She slowly released her arms from his neck, took his hand and led him over to the huge bed.
She then bent her arms behind her and unclasped her dress, letting it drift off her breasts and fall to the floor. Undaunted and naked, she pulled the covers of the bed back and slipped beneath the sheets. Her eyes were glazed as she smiled and beckoned him.
Somewhat astonished but eager, Josh knew the pipe was now an afterthought. He immediately followed her lead, shedding his clothes, and joining her under the covers. He heard her sigh as his arm searched for her waist.
She then gently exclaimed, “Oh my dear, we have left the light on!”
“I’ll get it,” he said comfortingly. 
“No,” she said softly in his ear. “Let me.”
She released her arm from around his shoulder and slipped it out from under the sheets. Her arm dangled loosely as her hand groped for the floor. Upon reaching the varnished boards, her arm then silently slithered across the room, stretching over the ornate rug toward the opposite wall. Reaching the baseboard, her arm slowly creeped up the wall and stopped just before the light switch.
Her hand located the toggle, and with a quick flick of her finger, the room went dark once again.    

Jetsam


by
Gerald Arthur Winter


“I didn’t know she was missing,” the estranged younger sister told him as he
flashed his TPD badge, clipped it to his belt then quickly re-buttoned his blazer. With
a casual shrug she continued. “Our parents died five years ago in an accident on I-4
coming back from Epcot while Jane and I were on Spring Break in Costa Rico. She was
a senior and I was a freshman at USF. Jane went on to grad school in North Carolina--
Duke—but I got a job here in Tampa the week after I got my Bachelor’s degree. Snow
sucks. I’m—like—a Palm-erania.”
He raised his head from his notepad as if his gesture were a question.
The strong silent type, she thought, evaluating his trim build and strong jawline.
“Ya know—like—palm trees . . . my degree was in hotel management . . . at
least that’s what it came down to by the time I was a senior. I haven’t seen or spoken
to Jane since my parents’ funeral. They were cremated and Jane and I scattered their
ashes in the Gulf off Indian Rocks Beach. That final hug was my last contact with Jane.
I’d sent her Christmas cards at the hospital where she was an intern in the North
Carolina Triangle, but she never replied. I’d called a half dozen times only to get
her voice-mail, but she never returned my calls. I gave up trying and moved on
with my life. So be it. Jane has always been The Ice Goddess, no close friends.”
“Sounds cold,” he said, pushing up his sunglasses on the bridge of his sharp nose.
They were at poolside on her day off at the new Plant Hotel where she was the
Assistant Manager. She remained reclined in a chaise lounge and was wearing a tangerine
bikini with beads of perspiration on her tanned skin. She shaded her eyes with her hand,
wondering if her wax job made her Venus mound more enticing. She sensed his stare
through his dark shades, his eyes probably rolling with her exposed abdomen rising
and falling as if her navel were winking at him, maybe teasing him with her intended
lure of sexual provocation.
“Truth be told, Jane is a royal bitch, even to me, her little sister. But I envied
her with that ice princess determination to make it in a man’s world. I’m sure Jane
took no hostages on her way to the top at that hospital in Cary. I understand she’s
become a top surgeon there.”
“She was reported missing forty-eight hours ago by her boyfriend—Hank
Perozzi. Do you know him?”
“Hank? Jeez, I can’t believe she got back together with him. They broke up in
college. He did show up to pay his respects at our parents’ funeral, but I never thought
they’d get back together . . . never.”
“What can you tell me about him? He’s not a suspect, but a person of interest.
Was Jane seeing someone else after their break-up in college? Could there have been
a love triangle? ”
She cocked her head with a swish of her shoulder-length blond hair. “As I said,
I haven’t spoken to her, but I figured she was too intent on her career to have time
for romance.”
“Romantic or not, your sister was sharing an apartment in Cary with Perozzi . . .”
He paused with his index finger to his lips.
“Whatever,” she said with a shrug then sat up and swung both feet to the
opposite side of the chaise and faced away from him. She unfastened her top and
held a tube of sunblock in one hand and cradled her breasts with the other. “Could
you?” she asked turning to look at him over one shoulder.
His shades allowed no clue to his feelings, but he tucked his notepad and
pen in his jacket and took the tube from her hand. There was a long pause as she
waited in silence until his hands touched her back, as warm from the sun as biscuits
fresh out of an oven. His hands felt huge as he made circular motions on her back
with both. Though warm and perspiring, her skin prickled with a chill as he kneaded
her back and shoulders. His thumbs were as skilled as her masseuse at the hotel
clubhouse. She wondered how skilled they’d be if she were facing him, a thought
which made her nipples taut in her own embrace.
“That’s enough,” she said. “Thanks.”
He closed the cap and handed her the tube.
“May I trouble you again?” she said. “Just a simple bow will do. I’m done
for the day.”
Tying her top between her shoulder blades, he said, “I have more questions.”
“I live at the hotel, but I bet you already knew that, Sherlock. An entire suite
of my own overlooking Tampa Bay,” she said, standing and putting on a white fluffy
robe that said “Plant Regency” with orange letters on the hip pocket. She took her
room key and a wristwatch from that pocket. She put on the watch and jiggled her
wrist in front of his face, sunrays bursting from the watch reflected in his shades.
“A gift to myself on my twenty-fifth birthday—Rolex—twelve grand.”
She noticed one of his eyebrows twitch above his sunglasses.
“I’m a loner, no boyfriends, so I like to treat myself right. You coming up to
ask me more questions about Jane?”
“Sure. That’s what I came for,” he said, following her across the pool patio to
the elevators.
In the elevator, instinctively, she sensed his inhaling her hairspray and body
wash scent, maybe something even deeper at her core. He was a cop, a bloodhound
at heart. That excited her. She hadn’t been that aroused for some time. She felt a little
dizzy as he followed her off the elevator on the 21st floor. In the corridor a housemaid
nodded to her with recognition.
“Good morning, Ms. Travers,” the housemaid said with a slight bow. “Fresh
towels in the bathroom as you requested.”
“Thanks, Hillary,” she said. Then opening her suite with the key, she motioned
for him to enter.
“Great view,” he said, walking toward the balcony overlooking the bay.
“Drink?” she asked.
“Coffee,” he said. “On duty.”
“Whatever. It’s almost noon so I’m having wine.” She prepared a coffee
drip, flicked on the switch, then poured herself a glass of chardonnay. “Help
yourself, while I shower and change.”
“Don’t change too much,” he said with a hint of flirtation.
She looked back over her shoulder as she let her robe drop to the bathroom
floor and said with an echo to her voice before closing the door, “Creamer’s in the
fridge, sugar on the kitchen counter! Help yourself! Won’t be long!”
She knew the hiss of her shower was muffled by the closed bathroom door
as he drank the coffee. He’d see only photos of her framed on the walls or standing
on side tables. No photos of her sister Jane or her parents. “Loner” called out from
every corner of her luxury suite. Great management perks would buzz in the mind
of anyone who entered. She wondered what this cop thought of her accommodations.
He turned to her as she returned with her wine glass in hand. “You said you’re
the Assistant Manager, could the hotel ‘Manager’s’ suite possibly be better?” He
asked, sipping his coffee black.
She was dressed for Tampa’s August swelter, a white cotton shift with
silver-dollar-size lavender polka dots, white sandals. Around her thin neck she
wore a white gold chain with a cross, a necklace purchased at the Gold and
Diamond Source to match her Rolex that seemed to shout Happy Birthday to me!
“Last week our manager was transferred by corporate to our new Miami
hotel,” she said, liking his baby blues as he removed his sunglasses and took in her
image head to toe with obvious mutual attraction. “I expect to receive my promotion
to manager by week’s end. This is the manager’s suite.”
“So it’s a given . . . you’ll be the manager. Congrats!” he said, clicking his coffee
mug against her wine glass.
“Nothing’s a given,” she said with a shrug. “Life has no guarantees.”
“That’s a grim outlook for a young woman,” he said.
“When your parents celebrate their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary at
Disney World and come back in an urn, it doesn’t turn you into Pollyanna. I’m not
a pessimist, just a realist.”
“So let’s get real,” he said. “You don’t seem upset that your sister’s missing.
That makes you a person of interest . . . possibly a suspect.”
“Suspected of doing what?”
“That depends on how you answer some more questions.”
“Is Jane—like—dead?”
“For now, just missing. Today’s your day off. Would you mind giving me a ride?”
“Where to?”
“A place mentioned by Hank Perozzi in my interview.”
“The winter rental?”
“Yes. Where your parents came down for the winter with you and your sister
until they died.”
“It’s across the bay in St. Pete. Jane wasn’t interested and asked if I wanted it.
But even with all its benefits, the house reminded me too much of Mom and Dad. I
own it, but rent it out during tourist season. I rarely go there, only when I have to.”
“I’m sorry if it will be painful, but I need you to show me somethings there.
Clues to Jane’s whereabouts . . . or demise.”
“Demise? That seems an old-fashioned word for a young man. What? Thirty?”
“Thirty-three.”
“Three’s a charm,” she said with a shrug, grabbing her bag and keys.
“Okay, Marlowe. Let’s go.
* * *
She drove her white BMW convertible. He seemed uncomfortable in the
passenger seat as they crossed the Gandy Bridge to St. Pete. Her long blond hair
fluttered in the wind and she felt exhilarated to be in control of an Alpha male of
the law-and-order persuasion. So far the weather held up at 93 degrees with a
breeze off the Gulf. When they arrived with the crunching sound of her tires
across the circular, gravel driveway, she pointed to the rental sign.
“That’s my number on the sign,” she said, watching him take note on his
pad. She expected after they’d put this yada-da-yada-da meeting behind them,
that he’d call her for a date. She’d decline of course. Much too busy managing
the hotel after her promotion. But once Jane reared her ugly head from the
shadows and his case was closed, maybe a brief fling with a stone-cold cop with
a hard-body would be amusing if not satisfying.
“It’s late August, so not much interest in Florida until October,” she said,
getting out of the car. “Ya know—too fucking hot.”
His expression seemed to echo that same assessment, but of her—too
fucking hot to handle. “Isn’t being the agent for your parents’ rental property a
conflict with your day job at the hotel?”
“I’m a multi-tasker. I’ve been the rental agent almost five years. Jane had
no interest or the time, so it fell to me. My parents’ life insurance paid off the
mortgage, so after taxes, insurance and maintenance, it’s all profit. Beachfront
brings me ten grand a month October through April. Jane got the rest of the
estate—for now, anyway.”
“Do you mind telling me how much you and Jane got from your parents’
estate?”
“You already know that, and you just want to see if I’m a liar,” she said with
a smug curl to her full lips.
“You’ve been watching too much TV,” he said. “I’m just a flat foot, not Robert
Mueller.”
“Still, you must know that my parents put my inheritance in a trust with Jane
as the secondary trustee if both of my parents were deceased before I turn twenty-six,
which is a week from today.”
“And if Jane is deceased before you turn twenty-six?” he asked as if leading
her toward a confession.
“That’s only a week from now, but the bank would serve as temporary trustee
until my birthday . . . then it’s all mine . . . no biggie—I was told it’s only three million.”
”Nice pay lode,” he said, lifting his sunglasses to prop them on top his head.
His blue-eyed stare felt like a laser. “A clear motive for murder.”
“My time is recorded at work. Until today, I haven’t left the hotel in the past
month. You said Jane’s been missing only forty-eight hours. On the hotel grounds I’m
pretty much on camera 24/7 and I haven’t been to North Carolina since I was a kid
traveling from New Jersey to Florida on I-95.”
“Then I guess that lets you off the hook,” he said. “But I just need you to clarify
something for me on this rental property that could help in my effort to find your sister.”
Relieved to be in the clear, she said, “I have the keys. Whadaya need to know?”
“I want to see the backyard.”
“Sure,” she agreed with a shrug and led him through the front entrance.
“It’s a bit musty, but I keep the A/C at 79 degrees to prevent mold in the off-season
because it’s furnished. The heat and humidity in the summer months are killer.”
He raised that distinctive eyebrow again when she said—killer. His reactive
reflex gave her pause, thinking—I am a suspect.
The furniture was covered with plastic and the air was much cooler than
outdoors in the sweltering driveway. She bent down to remove the bar on the
sliding patio doors’ bottom runner and unlocked the doors to lead him onto a
paver patio. A round table with a granite top and a center hole for an umbrella
had six chairs around it. The umbrella was down and rolled in a plastic sheath.
There was a large Green Egg ® to barbecue on the deck. Across thirty feet of
lawn was a dock with a pram to go fishing on the Intra-coastal Waterway
between Tampa Bay and the Gulf. It was very quiet except for an occasional
shrill of a heron, an egret, or a pelican. The surface of the lagoon was like glass
except when a fish jumped away from a cormorant. Spanish moss hung from
the trees along the banks on both sides of the lagoon.
He kept walking towards the boat slip as she said, “What—exactly--
are you looking for?”
Without turning back to face her, his voice was like listening to a newscast
from a distant room, and the light breeze off the lagoon was like a hairdryer set on
low and blowing in her face.
“This lagoon is brackish water,” he said, squatting on the dock. He skimmed
his hand in the water then touched his fingers to his tongue.
His tone puzzled her. “What’s brackish?” she asked.
“Not as salty as the Gulf, but not exactly fresh water like a lake or pond on
the mainland across the bay.”
She shrugged, wondering, where this line of inquiry could be going. “I guess
. . . but I’m a hotel manager—not an oceanographer. Why does that matter?”
“Like most new Floridians who weren’t born and raised here like I was, and just
got tired of ice and snow up in Yankee territory, you assume like most biologists would
tell you in general, that gators make fresh water their only habitat.”
“Gators? I’ve never seen any gators here,” she said.
“That’s because you’re here only in the summer when there are no tenants,
like now. This is when gators spend all day under water to avoid the heat, then they
hunt at night when it’s cooler.”
“So?”
“Unless you’re on a night vigil, you’ll never see their beady red eyes glowing
in the dark waiting for some stupid tourist to walk her lap dog along the banks.”
From the dock he looked up and down the serene lagoon. There were no
neighbors’ boat slips within view in either direction, north or south, or west across
the lagoon. That’s what her parents had always wanted in their eventual retirement
retreat, solitude surrounded by protected marsh that could only be sold off after
their passing. But hopefully one of their daughters would want to keep it.
“My tenants have never called me about seeing any gators in our lagoon.”
“Either they were oblivious and made too much noise that kept them out of
sight or they were curious enough to view them safely from a distance, maybe with
the binoculars I saw hanging on a hook in the kitchen.”
“Those were Jane’s from when we were kids and used to look for dolphins
and manatees,” she said.
“I know,” he said, still facing away from her where he stood on the dock.
“She told me.”
She felt a chill, even in the tropical heat, but asked the question she didn’t
want answered, “She told you? Jane told you?”
The serenity was shattered by the curt answer coming not from him, but
from behind her, saying, “I told Jeff all he had to do was get you to drive him out
here, so he could leave his car for me at the hotel.”
“Jeff? That’s your name? You know each other?” she asked, backing away
from them, but she stood precariously between him on the dock and Jane coming
toward her from the patio. Startled by Jane’s quick advance, she stumbled back,
falling onto the grass where Jeff held her down. She felt a sudden sting in her neck
then watched Jane remove the hypodermic needle from her jugular. She gasped for
air but felt as if she were having an out-of-body experience. She felt no pain and
everything she saw seemed sharper, the colors all around her more vibrant, the
words said to her so precise and curt like a spoon striking a crystal tumbler--
ting-tong-ting!
“Why-are–you-doing-this-to me?” she asked, her own words seemed to be
coming from her abdomen as if she were a cello. She was confused, wondering if
it was the injection that made Jane look like her, even wearing the same polka-dot
dress. She thought. What’s happening?
“It always has to be about you,” Jane said. “Now it’s about me for a change.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked with a tremor.
“You can scream all you like,” Jane said with that same icy glare she’d had
to face every day growing up.
“Scream? What do you want from me—my trust fund? It’s only three million.
I’ll be manager next week. I won’t really need it. Take it! I don’t want it.”
“You must have been eaves dropping on Mom and Dad talking about your trust
fund years ago, but you misheard . . . it was thirty million fifteen years ago now ninety
million—too much to slip through my fingers next week. I still have heavy student loans
from med school. I need that money more than I need a sister.”
“I always knew you were a monster, Jane. What are you going to do to me?”
“Me? Nothing but watch. That’s why I needed Jeff.” She nodded to the police
detective.
“He’s a cop! He wouldn’t—” she stammered.
“You mean this?” he said opening his blazer and unclipping the badge he’d
shown her earlier at the hotel pool, but now held directly in front of her face. She
saw it was just a dime store toy that said: “Sheriff of Dodge.”
She wondered. How could I
th a whir and a staccato rumble.
“No need to flinch,” Jane said. “You won’t feel a thing. But you’ll see it all. First
your hands and feet to draw the gators.”
She watched the saw sever each hand and foot with a spray of blood in her
face. How could she not feel it? What was in that injection Jane had put in her neck?
Jeff threw her hands and feet into the lagoon with four light splashes then
a loud heavy splash, then another, and another . . . gators coming for their appetizers.
Then the saw cut off her forearms at the elbows and her calves at the knees. There
was no one to hear or see the sanguine spectacle in the lagoon.
“We’ll leave her forearms and thighs attached so she can watch the gators
rip them off,” Jane said. “The drug will keep her conscious and we’ll keep her head
above water with a lifejacket from the boat. She’ll bleed out, but her mind won’t
know she’s dead. It’s a drug used on the Iraq battlefields to get information from
our soldiers fatally wounded who could still provide field intelligence even after
they were declared dead.”
She could smell Jeff’s nervous sweat as he dragged her to the pram and
put the orange lifejacket around her remaining torso. Less than two hours ago
she’d been leisurely sunning herself in a tangerine bikini. Now she couldn’t wait
to die.
Jeff’s pants were soaked with her blood. He tied a rope to the lifejacket
and tossed her like jetsam off the dock into the lagoon. He got into the pram and
started the motor. The pram dragged her torso across the lagoon then he tied the
rope to a palm tree on the opposite shore. She bobbed like a bottom-fisherman’s
float on the surface of the lagoon. She was beyond screaming, but totally conscious
as she watched four gators, none less than nine feet long, cutting across the lagoon
like battleships on the Pacific in a World War II documentary.
She called out to Jane and Jeff with her final words, “They’ll be evidence!
DNA! You won’t get away with this! You’ll pay with your lives!”
“You must have been too busy at the hotel today to watch the weather
report!” Jane called back to her sister. “Category 4 Hurricane Jennifer will wipe
out this coast in twelve hours with the next high tide and full moon. You’ll just
be a minor statistic of the disaster.”
Jennifer? She thought as she watched them get in Jeff’s car and leave
her BMW behind as evidence that she’d been there. How ironic—the hurricane
is named after me.
The alligators unhinged their sharp jaws and fought over her remains.
The sky darkened in a prelude to the approaching tempest.
There really are monsters in this world. Please, God, she thought, let
there be none in the next.

Bringing in the New Year


Six 6-Word Stories for 2019


By Gerald Arthur Winter





Mom’s legacy, faithfulness, breeds my tolerance.


My withheld embrace stores wondrous fulfillment. 


Loves me—pregnant—loves us not.


Honoring my committal he chooses another.  


My belly swells sapping freedom twofold.


Tears, a touch then kisses much.

Fireworks and Holiday Cookies

By Roy Dorman



“I think I’ll make some homemade cookies for the Trick-or-Treaters this year,” said Martha Evans to her husband Wilbur.
“Is it Halloween already?” asked Wilbur. “I thought it was just the Fourth of July. Time flies, don’t it? Seems like you just took me to the fireworks.”
Actually, it’s been three years since Martha has taken Wilbur to the fireworks. His dementia has spoiled all the fun in that type of outing, and except for grocery shopping, Martha and Wilbur mostly stay at home.
“I thought kids didn’t accept treats that weren’t store-bought anymore. Ya know, because of all the incidents with razor blades and poison.”
Martha sighed. Wilbur still had a good day now and then and it looked like this was going to be one of them. It only made what she had decided to do more difficult.
“Do we even get any Trick-or-Treaters anymore?” Wilbur continued. “It’s been a while since I remember any comin’ to the door.”
Wilbur was right. It had been a while since Martha had put on the welcoming porch light for the neighborhood kids. She had stopped doing it after the Halloween Wilbur had screamed obscenities at the Marston kids from down the street. He had insisted they were robbers dressed up like children so they could get into the house. Martha still apologized every time she ran onto Mrs. Marston.
***
Martha had seen the belladonna plants off the roadway earlier this fall when she had gone for a walk after sedating Wilbur for his nap. She admitted to herself that the sedation was more for her benefit than Wilbur’s; she had to have a little alone time now and then.
At first she thought she should call the county’s roadway people and report the plants; they were poisonous and very close to the shoulder of the road. Some kid could pick the berries and get sick or even die.
Martha didn’t call anybody. Instead, she pulled a couple of the plants out by their roots and took them home. She never really liked kids all that much anyway.
***
“That house on Maple Street is ripe for the pickin’,” said Bobby Woods. “It’s just two old people livin’ there who probably have some cash stashed away for emergencies.”
“What about all the kids on the streets?” asked his side-kick, Lenny Dawson. “We’d stand out like sore thumbs on Trick-or-Treat night.”
“So we wait until about ten o’clock; all the kids are back home before then, right?”
“Yeah, I suppose so,” said Lenny. “And we sure could use some easy money.”
***
Martha didn’t make dinner that night. If Wilbur asked she could just pretend they had already eaten and offer him the cookies if he was hungry.
She put a half-dozen cookies on a plate from the basket by the front door and led Wilbur upstairs.
“Time for bed, dear,” said Martha. “Have a couple of cookies with some milk; it’ll help you get to sleep.”
“Did we have any Trick-or-Treaters?” Wilbur asked.
“Not a one this year; must be that Halloween is losing its popularity as a holiday.”
“We’ve got a lot of cookies here,” said Wilbur, looking at the plate on the nightstand. “Are you going to have any?”
“Oh, I will,” said Martha. “I’ve still got a couple of things to do. You have some now and get into bed.”
Having missed dinner, Wilbur tore into the cookies with gusto. Martha watched him with tears forming in her eyes. She would have some cookies, but she would wait until after she was sure Wilbur was dead.
***
Martha heard glass breaking downstairs. It sounded like it came from the kitchen.
She cautiously went down the stairs with her cell phone in her hand, ready to call 911.
When she got to the bottom of the stairs, Lenny and Bobby jumped into the hallway from the kitchen and Bobby knocked the phone from Martha’s hand before she could finish punching in the number.
“Give us all your money and any valuables and you won’t get hurt,” said Bobby.
“I’ve got less than a hundred dollars in my purse for groceries; that’s all we have in the house.”
“You’re lyin’,” said Bobby, slapping Martha hard in the face. “You must have some cash here somewhere in case somethin’ unexpected comes up.”
“Geez, Bobby,” said Lenny. “Don’t be so rough; she’s an ol’ lady.”
“A lyin’ ol’ lady, “said Bobby, cuffing Martha again. “Where’s the money, honey!”
Martha was frightened, but she also was angry. “There is no money other than what’s in my purse, you stupid man.”
This time Bobby hit her in the jaw with a closed fist and knocked her onto an umbrella stand in the hallway. The circular stand had sharp ornamental spikes on it and Martha fell onto the stand face first, dying instantly.
“Are you nuts!” yelled Lenny. “Ya mighta killed her.”
Bobby spit on the back of Martha’s head. “So what if I did? Now let’s get her purse and get the hell outta here.”
“Ain’t we gonna look for the money they’ve got stashed away?” asked Lenny.
“Lookit this dump,” said Bobby. “She wasn’t lyin’; they probably live on the Social Security checks they get each month. There’s the purse over their on the table by the front door; let’s blow this pop stand.”
“We killed somebody for a hundred bucks?” said Lenny. “If we get caught I’m singin’ like a canary.”
“A hundred bucks and some cookies,” said Bobby, grabbing a handful of the cookies from the basket next to Martha’s purse. “Trick-or-Treat, right?”
“I want half the money, Bobby; you can have all the lousy cookies,” said Lenny. “Eatin’ something that was made by a dead person seems creepy.”
***
“Your labs guys did real good on this one, Harry,” said Detective Michael Storm. “There was a lot goin’ on with this one, more guilty parties than innocent ones, and finding that saliva in the victim’s hair put Bobby Woods at the scene. That was enough to get Lenny Dawson talkin’.”
“Yeah, Lenny sure lucked out when he didn’t eat any of those cookies. Martha Evans put enough belladonna berries in those cookies to kill a goddamn horse.”
“It’s a good thing no kids stopped at the Evans’ house tonight,” said Detective Storm. “That would have been a real tragedy.”
“You’re right as rain there, Michael. Some houses just don’t deserve to be on the Trick-or-Treat route and that house should have been taken off the list long ago.”

BROTHER FIDELITAS AND SISTER PRUDENCIA
A Fable Of Two People In Two Places

By Roger D. Hicks

Once upon a time, in a tiny river valley in Western Europe, there lived a man and a woman. They were known as Brother Fidelitas and Sister Prudencia. Each belonged to a small, strict, and very private religious order. Brother Fidelitas was a monk. Sister Prudencia was a nun. Their orders were located in two small branches of the river valley that were separated by a mountain. The members of each order had no contact with the outside world except as dictated by the necessities of obtaining the supplies they could not produce on their own. On some days, in winter-if the weather was right, members of one order could see the frail, dissipating smoke of the wood fires of the other order rising over the mountain that separated them.
In this way, the nuns and monks were aware that the others existed in a similar solitude just over the mountain. Their self-imposed isolation made these devotees seek to ignore the fact that others, in many ways like themselves, lived just across the ridge. The nuns and monks lived, worked, and sought enlightenment within a few short miles of each other and ignored the fact that it was so. Brother Fidelitas and Sister Prudencia were positive examples of their respective orders. Each worked to be accepted and admired by their comrades. Each did the work assigned to them and sought more to prove their commitment to the order. Their days were filled with work and neither thought of anything except being a part of the community in which they lived.
Sister Prudencia tended the gardens of her order and raised many of the vegetables they ate. Her work took her outside the walls of the convent on many days into the surrounding grounds as she dug in the good, warm earth to produce food for her sisters. She did this common work with a glad heart and smiled at her successes. A large crop of potatoes, abundant cucumbers, plentiful beans all could make Sister Prudencia smile. They were her achievements. They were the way she measured her success. Along the edges of her vegetable garden, Sister Prudencia also raised a few flowers. They were the only concession her order ever made to beauty or frivolity. A few of the flowers had a purpose in helping keep away bugs from the garden. A few others could be used to produce simple medicines for the nuns. But quietly, Sister Prudencia also raised her beloved pansies simply because she loved pansies. They rose up and bloomed at the edges of the garden and Sister Prudencia smiled.
Brother Fidelitas also worked outside the walls of his order to produce much of the food they ate. He was the caretaker of their chickens, rabbits, and ducks. Brother Fidelitas worked to protect the animals from the weather, the foxes, and disease. His good work also provided sustenance for the members of his order. In a small corner of the poultry house, Brother Fidelitas also kept a few pigeons. Like the pansies of Sister Prudencia, the pigeons had no real purpose. But, in their flights high over the monastery, the pigeons made Brother Fidelitas smile. As he worked among the animals, Brother Fidelitas would occasionally glance toward the sky to watch the circling, peaceful flight of the birds. It did not occur to the monk to think that the pigeons, in their flight, could see the pansies of Sister Prudencia.
As the nun and the monk continued to live and work in their cloisters, each gained more and more respect from their peers. Their faithful, simple work earned each of them accolades of the type that simple people give. An older nun might smile as she ate potatoes from Prudencia’s garden and say, “This is a fine potato, sister.” A monk might make a similar comment as he dined on one of the products of Fidelitas’ coop. The nun and the monk received these compliments in the only manner that was acceptable in their orders: silence. For them to have shown too much appreciation of even simple praise would have seemed unchaste and ungodly. Above all, the members of each order sought to be chaste and godly. Their lives, their very souls were dedicated to godlike chastity. The manner in which Brother Fidelitas and Sister Prudencia received these simple compliments was duly registered and approved by the members of their orders. Each was found to be worthy of the respect of their peers.
Each of the orders found it necessary to send a member to the small town near the mouth of the river once a week to purchase the supplies they could not grow. At nearly the same time, after years of dedicated toil, both Sister Prudencia and Brother Fidelitas were chosen to serve as the auxiliary supply purchaser. The orders viewed these as very serious responsibilities and the person chosen to fill the job was required to be an exemplary member of the order. By going to town on market day, these people both exposed their neighbors to the people of the orders and were exposed themselves to the temptations the town had to offer. These supply purchasers were carefully chosen by their peers and then trained in the position by the regular purchaser. No member of either order was ever sent to town alone for many months in order to make sure that they were not tempted by the allure of the community and its people. Sister Prudencia and Brother Fidelitas each made a few trips to town with these older teachers when the work of the orders was light and their presence not needed at home. In this way they learned what should be bought-salt, medicine, simple tools- the necessities of a simple life. They learned from whom they should purchase these things and whom they should avoid. The nun and the monk were gradually prepared for the time when they might be needed to do this job alone.
Finally, the time came when each of them was sent to purchase supplies alone for the first time. The winter had begun and the garden of Sister Prudencia was empty of work. The animals of Brother Fidelitas were safe in their cages. The valley was swept by a sudden influenza and many of the people were sick in their beds. Such was the case with the nun and the monk who had trained Prudencia and Fidelitas for just such a day. They left at nearly the same time on market morning and trudged toward the town with the meager products that each of the orders produced for sale-a few hand sewn garments, some baskets, some products of the fields. Each also carried a small amount of the money of their order to purchase the supplies for which they could not trade.
The nun and the monk arrived in the town and began to shop for the things they needed. Each moved through the stalls of the vendors silently, softly, speaking only to conclude a purchase. Each was striving and succeeding in being a positive example of their order. They both arrived at the stand of a dealer in medicinal supplies and began to search the shelves for the few simple remedies that might heal their brothers and sisters. Suddenly, Brother Fidelitas was stopped in his
search by the sound of a voice that asked the seller the price of a particular medicine. Brother Fidelitas had heard women in the town before. But this voice was different, softer, and compelling in a way that Fidelitas had not experienced since before he took his vows at the monastery.
The monk looked up and saw a beautiful, young nun dressed much like himself in the simple frock of the order. The clothes concealed her body. Only her face was visible. But the face was so special that Fidelitas could not explain to himself what he felt. He was somehow breathless, frozen, and could not have spoken if the occasion required. The nun looked only at the shopkeeper, listened to his answer, chose a small amount of the medicine, and left the shop. Brother Fidelitas wrestled with a sudden desire to follow her to the next shop. But he remembered the teaching of the old monk who had brought him to town before. Brother Fidelitas had been told that such a thing might occur, or that a town woman might even attempt to draw him into trivial conversation, or even worse. The young monk had been well prepared by his teacher. He controlled the urge to follow the nun, bought the few things he needed and left on the return trip to the monastery.
Brother Fidelitas did not see the nun again and concluded his business in the customary efficient and timely manner. He bundled the purchases and unsold products of the order in his hand sewn backpack and began the journey back up the valley toward home. As the monk walked, he watched the sky and realized that a storm was moving in over the ridge ahead. He prayed for safety on the way and realized that a similar storm was also moving in his heart and head. He remembered the face of the nun, the soft questioning voice, the chaste way she had shopped and left the town without his having seen her again.
Fidelitas struggled with his thoughts and walked on into the face of the building snow storm. He suddenly remembered a time when he was in the home of his parents in another valley more than a hundred miles away. He had been sixteen and his father had sent him to town on market day to sell a few rabbits and return home. Fidelitas had followed his father’s orders that day just as he had followed the orders of his abbot today. He had gone to the shop of the butcher and sold his rabbits quickly and quietly in preparation for leaving the town. But that day, so many years ago, another young woman had come into his senses.
The daughter of the butcher had followed the young Fidelitas out of the shop and spoken to him in the way he only now remembered. The soft insistence and offering of her voice had led him away from his plan and he had followed her to a shed in an alley behind her father’s shop. She had told him of things he had never heard explained. She had showed him emotions, sensations, smells, tastes, and touches a young farm boy soon to be a monk had never experienced. He had exulted in the rolling tide of sensations she brought him and left the shed with a collection of emotions he had never felt before.
But the memories of the butcher’s daughter did not bring pure pleasure to the monk as they had on that first day so many years ago. Now Fidelitas examined the memories both in the light of the teachings of his order and in the additional memory of having returned home to find the
pockets of his poor farmer’s pants empty. The butcher’s daughter had exacted a price for her teachings. She had stolen the coins from the sale of the rabbits to her father. Fidelitas remembered the beating when he told his father the truth. He remembered being brought to the abbot as a novice a few weeks later. He remembered the years in the monastery since that wonderful day in the butcher’s shed and the guilt rolled over the monk much as the snowstorm rolled over the mountains into his face.
The clouds had built rapidly, pushed by a steadily increasing wind. The temperature dropped quickly and the snow came in a driven fury as the monk pushed on against the building drifts and distressing memories. Fidelitas struggled against the storms in his world and his soul. He felt the sting of the snow and ice on his face where his hood did not reach. He felt the sting of his father’s words and lash. As he struggled to walk on, the monk smelled the coldness of the valley in his nostrils. He remembered the frigid goodbye at the door of the monastery so many years before. And yet, somewhere deep inside he also remembered the honest, soapy, work induced aroma of the young nun and realized that in the shop he had not even been aware that she had an aroma.
A quarter mile in front of Fidelitas, Sister Prudencia was also struggling in the storm. She pushed determinedly against the rising snow and also found turbulent thoughts and feelings pushing into her mind. Sister Prudencia remembered the face and voice of the monk in the druggist’s shop. As the shopkeeper had weighed the meager medicine for her, for a single moment the nun had glanced across the room and under the cowl which covered the head of Brother Fidelitas. Sister Prudencia had been warned by her mentor about the men of the town. She had never been warned about the men in the monastery across the mountain. She too pushed against the snow and wind while simultaneously pushing to force the unexpected thoughts of the monk from her mind. The storm was coming on more forcefully. The snow deepened quickly over the knees of the nun. The wind cut unceasingly through her hand-woven garments. She began to believe that she could go no further. Suddenly in front of the nun a row of three trees appeared and Sister Prudencia remembered an abandoned farm house and knew that she must seek shelter from the storm.
Sister Prudencia struggled between the trees and up the snow laden path to the open door. She pushed her way into the dusty room and continued to struggle with her thoughts as she sought objects in the room which could be used to save her life. There was no furniture but the door was secure and the windows were shuttered. Only a small amount of snow and ice had blown in the open door and between the cracks in the board walls. There was a fireplace in the rear wall and the nun instantly remembered that she had no matches or other means of creating fire. Sister Prudencia searched the room and her heart simultaneously.
Her encounter with the young monk had shaken her. She had not expected to see a man in the town who would arouse these feelings. She had not even believed that such feelings existed in her. Prudencia had come to the convent when she was sixteen after her parents had died in an earlier epidemic which swept the valley. She had been brought there by the farmer whose family
owned the labor of her parents. She remembered him and how she had hoped on that day that he would not leave her with the nuns. The face of the farmer crept into her thoughts just as the face of the butcher’s daughter had overcome the monk who struggled in the snow a quarter mile away.
The farmer had allowed the young girl to live in the meager home allotted to her parents for several weeks after their deaths while he considered his options. He had come to Prudencia each day and talked to the orphaned girl of her life, his farm and dreams, and the problems they both faced. Prudencia had come to believe in those days with the farmer that her life would progress in a different manner. And then, after the farmer quietly decided that a better marriage to the daughter of a neighboring farmer was possible, he had brought her to the convent and gone quietly away. Just as surely as the butcher’s daughter had robbed Brother Fidelitas, the farmer had robbed Sister Prudencia.
The nun searched the house for any object she could use to save her life and in the blinding storm the monk struggled on up the valley step by step until he managed to stumble into the line of trees and remember the abandoned farm house. As Brother Fidelitas pushed his way to the door, the nun was gathering a few small pieces of wood from the floor and found an aged cup which had survived the abandonment of the farm. She was searching her backpack for a few bites of food and an unsold blanket when the monk pushed open the door.
Sister Prudencia gasped but cut off the rising scream when she realized that the snow covered robe could only be worn by the monk from the shop in town. At the sound of her surprise, the monk stopped and said, “I am only a monk of the brotherhood nearby and I cannot go on in the storm. May I stay for the night in your home. I did not know this farm was occupied.”
Sister Prudencia overcame her shock and said, “I am a nun of the convent. I, too, am seeking shelter from the storm. Do you have fire?”
The monk did not reply verbally but dropped his backpack and shook the snow from his robe. Then the two worked quietly together to find the objects which might save their lives. They added a few more small pieces of wood to the meager pile near the fireplace. Fidelitas began to search his backpack and withdrew an unsold candle and a container of matches, one of few concessions his order allowed to modern convenience. Prudencia dug in her burden to produce an unsold blanket and a small chunk of crude goats’ cheese from her lunch. Fidelitas found half a loaf of bread saved from his noonday meal and the paper in which his purchases had been wrapped. Together the monk and nun worked to build a small fire and, as it kindled to life, both realized that they had been spared by the storm.
As the darkness of the continuing storm enveloped the house, the monk filled the cup with packed snow for water and set it near the tiny fire. The nun cleared a spot as near the hearth as possible and spread the blanket with the food nearby. The monk lit the candle and placed it on the mantelpiece. The warmth and light spread over the two, yet seemed to fill only a small portion of the room. A circle of light, soft, enveloping, pristine seemed to surround the couple on the blanket. In the eye of the continuing storm, Fidelitas and Prudencia were warm, safe, isolated, and alone
together. If either of the two ever realized the unnatural aspect of their sharing a room, a meal, and a blanket neither expressed it.
They shared the fire, the bare sustenance of bread and goats cheese, the chalice of water, the blanket. And as the night progressed, they shared their souls. The conversation, at first halting and unsure, seemed to swell and grow until it encompassed everything each of them had been or known before that night. It seemed that before the blanket covered them and the fire protected them they knew each other completely, unequivocally, and in a manner that was sacrosanct and sacred.
When the morning light awoke them, Prudencia and Fidelitas moved rapidly to leave the fire. The blanket was returned to the backpack from whence it had come. The candle was placed in the pack of the nun and became an unspoken memorial in a tiny collection of personal possessions. The cup moved to the pack of the monk and then to an exalted spot on a shelf near his beloved pigeons. They left the house in single file walking slowly under the snow laden nave into which the trees had been transfigured. The monk broke a trail up the valley and across the pristine land it had become. The nun followed silently and gradually fell behind to a chaste and acceptable distance before Fidelitas turned up his own little road to the monastery. Prudencia moved on the short distance to the convent.
Both would remember the storm and the night as having been natural, comfortable, and perhaps ecstatic. Neither ever spoke of that room, that storm, that night, that experience again. In the minds and hearts of the nun and monk, the room, the fireplace, the meal, and the blanket became a sacred moment. The ancient cup became a chalice used only once in a sacramental act. The candle on the mantle may just as well have been placed on an altar. The storm became the hand of the God they strove to please. The night became their most sacred memory. The house became a shrine.

​San Sebastian’s Ghosts

by

Gerald Arthur Winter


At age twelve I had a crush on Sally Baker, but realize now as an adult just how deep my
affection had been for her thirty years ago. Even from my preteen perspective, I’d been well
aware that Sally was the best looking cheerleader who all the senior boys at Apachalaca High
School wanted to take to the prom. But that one night long ago, Sally needed my protection
from the horrors we’d have to face together at the deserted O’Grady mansion and haunted
Fort San Sebastian on Gator Island just a mile off the Nature Coast of north western Florida.
With her good looks and straight A’s, Sally had been pre-pledged by a local sorority at
Apachalaca Community College where she intended to enroll as a freshman next September.
However, the key to her pre-acceptance for next fall’s sorority entry was to spend Halloween
overnight in the O’Gradys’ master bedroom with a clear view of the gallows in the courtyard
of the 16th century Spanish fortress.
The creepy antebellum mansion had been charred by fire a few years ago. Though arson
was suspected and investigated, no evidence came forth with the cause of that conflagration
attributed to lightning. The suspicion of arson had been based on the controversy over the
preservation of the historical site as a Civil War landmark in addition to the fort’s attribution
to the Spanish galleons who’d built the fort as protection from the French and British fleets
attacking from the Gulf of Mexico. The fort had been completed only five years after the
Spanish established St. Augustine on the east coast of Florida. There had been protests in
town against the restoration of the site, especially by the local African American community
because of the history of slave abuse by the mansion’s occupants’ who’d built the mansion
in 1850 beside the remains of the Spanish fort predating the mansion by 280 years according
to its cornerstone marked “1570.”
Spanish moss hung from the gnarled weeping willows surrounding the mansion’s
warped structure like head-dressed witch doctors prepared to raise the dead on All Hallows
Eve. On that the full moon October night three decades ago, locals still expected 16th century
zombies to rise from the adjacent slave cemetery. The graveyard’s moss-covered head stones
leaned at odd angles with the names of the dead worn away by hurricane winds and tropical
torrents over the past centuries.
The oldest date on a headstone in the cemetery was 1555 with the name of Jamuaja, a
fifteen-year-old girl enslaved by the Spanish who died in childbirth with her unnamed daughter.
The most recent date was 1865, a Negro boy of nine, as the headstone indicated, who’d bled to
death when his arms had been amputated for tapping the master, Seamus O’Grady’s daughter
on the shoulder to warn her about an alligator swimming toward the shore where she’d stood.
The controversy over the site as a Civil War monument sparked heated debate because,
toward the end of the Civil War, many slaves had been brought to Fort San Sebastian to be
hanged, as was often the case, but also to be mutilated first for any attempts to escape. When
word of the Confederacy’s surrender came to Seamus O’Grady, he sped up the process of his
personal genocide. It was this horror that gave the fort and the mansion the curse of wandering
spirits unable to resolve, even in modern times, any sustaining retribution for the atrocities
thrown on them.
The sorority to which Sally Baker wished to pledge her allegiance were all descendants
of the O’Grady clan and had to do their DNA due diligence for any consideration even before
GPA, talent, or good looks were considered. Though I had no clue at the time, they’d also
become an inbred lot with all marriages showing O’Grady DNA without any trace of what
they referred to in private as “NB.”
Sally was my next door neighbor and had agreed to watch me overnight while my
parents were still on a road trip for my ill grandmother being moved to an assisted living
facility in Atlanta, Georgia over 200 miles north of our sleepy Florida burg. After I’d gone
out trick-or-treating for the last time in my adolescent life, Sally and I watched some
horror movies from 5:00 to 11:00 p.m., which included the classic black-and-white flicks:
Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Wolfman. Then we capped it off with Burnt Offerings
in color, which was enough to make a grown man shrink in fear with Betty Davis eyes
popping out of the aged actor’s head.
“I can hear Mrs. Allardyce on the third floor,” Sally said, trying to scare me. “I’ll
have to bring her tea and crumpets so it’s bedtime for you, little man.”
Sally liked to call me that, but I felt a tingling sensation from somewhere at my core
that had become active only recently, but seemed to reverberate that night like a Buddhist
gong with the scent of Sally’s hairspray wafting every time she came within reach. But the
thought of a creepy old woman in our house, like Karen Black in Burnt Offerings, gave me
an icy chill like a cold steel blade through my spine.
When Sally noticed me staring at her she said, “Go upstairs to your bedroom now.
But don’t expect me to tuck you in. My how you’ve grown over the summer. How old are
you now?”
I lied, telling her, “Thirteen.”
“Oh, yeah. You’re too old to be afraid of vampires and werewolves, so you just go
and tuck your little-man self into bed.”
“How about a kiss goodnight?” I asked with disbelief at my courage, but she seemed
unfazed by my outrageous proposal.
“Have you kissed any girls in your class?” she asked, standing from the sofa and folding
her arms tightly across her bosom. “I bet you haven’t kissed anyone but your mommy.”
I blushed and stammered, “Well, I—that is, there was this one—”
“No one! Absolutely no one,” she challenged.
I just shrugged and hung my head until I felt her index finger under my chin, which
she used to tilt my head upward to face her. Wow! She smelled great and her eyes were
hypnotic, turquoise like the Caribbean.
“Wh-what are ya gonna do?” I asked, afraid she’d tell my parents of my bold
inappropriate behavior, which would surely prohibit Sally from ever coming over to our
house again.
“If you promise never to tell anyone—not ever—that this happened, I’m going to
show you how to kiss a girl the way she’ll never admit she wants you to.”
“But I thought you were gonna—”
“Shut up, little man, because this is the only time you’re ever gonna kiss me, so don’t
slobber and just do to me what I do to you. Got it?”
I thought surely I’d pee in my pants or fart, but the first taste of Sally’s lips and the
sweet warmth of her breath made me feel like I’d been drowning forever and she was
breathing life into me like a paramedic on an emergency rescue mission.
Once I got the hang of it, she pushed me away and said, “Whoa-whoa-whoa, little man!
That’s it. You’re on your own now. But you’re ready to thrill some high school girl before you
ecven finish eighth grade.”
Of course I was only in seventh grade, but what did that matter when that night would
already stay in my memory forever? But that was before I was watching from our second-floor
landing as she talked on the phone to one of her girlfriends. The conversation was about her
Halloween sorority initiation on Gator Island at the O’Grady mansion. Then I heard Sally sneak
out the backdoor. At the time, the only thing I knew about the O’Gradys or Fort San Sebastian
were rumors at school and overheard conversations between my parents about the Civil War
landmark controversy.
I couldn’t believe that Sally was going to leave me home alone on Halloween night
and take off for Gator Island. She was eighteen and I was twelve, so I figured there must be
some kind of rule or even a law against her leaving me on my own with my parents out of
town. Jeez. There was probably even some kind of regulation about getting kissed by a girl
her age—girl? She was a woman and I wasn’t even a teenager yet. Maybe they’d go easy on
her since I’d lied to her about being thirteen.
I quickly dressed in jeans and a polo shirt and slipped on my sneakers without socks
or tying the laces. Then I pursued her across the empty lot behind my house toward the
marina. No thoughts about the scary rumors of Gator Island, the O’Grady mansion, or Fort
San Sebastian even entered my mind—only Sally’s safety—with her kiss lingering in my mind.
I figured a guy should never let a girl who kissed him like that ever get away. Besides,
everyone knew Gator Island was just a joke on tourists. There hadn’t been a gator sighted
there in over a hundred years, or so I’d heard at school. Kids often dared others to swim the
half-mile to Gator Island, but I’d never heard of any takers. If there were, they’d probably
drowned rather than being attacked by an alligator.
I could hear Sally rustling through the scrub foliage in the empty lot just thirty yards
ahead, but I was gaining on her. When she got to the Marina on the Intracoastal Waterway
between Gator Island and Florida’s Gulf shore, she was met by two other girls, maybe a
couple of years older than her. I couldn’t hear what they were saying to one another from
where I hid behind a boat in dry dock. They helped her into an old 20-foot garvey, flat with
a covered area at the center as protection from, sun, wind, and rain.
The two girls waved to Sally and she waved back. The other two got into a car and drove
away. I thought they’d be going with her, but Sally started the engine with a cloud of exhaust
and a roar.
She’s going alone, I thought. Then, like Scooby-do, I barked, “Yoiks!”
I waited only a moment as Sally unfastened the lines from the moorings and pointed the
rickety craft toward the full moon on the horizon backlighting Fort San Sebastian and O’Grady’s
mansion silhouetted against the moonglow.
I ran toward the boat with Sally facing in the opposite direction and the engine’s
banging blocking out any other sounds. I leaped ten feet from the dock to the boat just as
Sally accelerated the engine, which masked the jolt of my weight in the garvey. The center
shelter concealed my presence on the boat, and there was a canvas tarp at the stern which
I used to cover myself and conceal my presence from her as she steered.
It was only a ten-minute ride to Gator Island where Sally had been instructed to
moor the craft till morning or to use for her escape if the O’Gradys’ or tormented slaves’
ghosts scared her off the island before daybreak.
Never mind Sally, I thought. What about me? Too late to turn back now and I can’t
let Sally face this scary stuff alone. I had to protect her tonight to prove that I deserved to be
called more than just a “little man.”
The other girls had given Sally a list of places on the island where she had to go and also
of certain things to bring back to show them that she’d followed their instructions. It was more
than just an initiation; it was a scavenger hunt as well. Now I knew I could be more than just
Sally’s protector. I could help her gather all she needed to join her sisterhood at college.
Maybe I’d earn another kiss. The warmth of that slim possibility kept me from shivering loud
enough to be heard by Sally steering the boat to the dilapidated dock between the mansion
and the fort.
I watched her tie the boat to the dock then squint at her written list by the shimmering
moonlight casting its silvery glow across the rippling tide.
“I can help,” I said, tossing the tarp aside.
“You little creep!” she shrieked. “How did you get here?”
“I followed you and jumped from the dock into your boat as you were heading here.
Let me help you, Sally.”
“You, help me? You must be kidding, little man.”
Ugh! There it goes again. I had to prove to her that I was worthy, that I could be her
hero that night.
“Don’t act so stuck-up,” I said, which made her cock her head and glare at me. “I’ll tell
all the guys on the high school football team that you French-kissed me.”
“You little creep,” she hissed. “They’ll kick your butt.”
“Come on, Sally. Let’s find the stuff you need on that list,” I said as if taking command.
“Okay, I guess,” she said. “But don’t think this will get you another kiss.”
“Don’t be too sure, Sally.”
“Ugh! I’ve created a little monster,” she said. “Come on. We have to go to the master
bedroom in the O’Grady mansion until midnight.”
I looked at my watch. “We’ve got only ten minutes. We better hurry.”
Sally’s list told her to enter the mansion through the wine cellar which was creepy
with spider webs tickling our faces in the dark and vermin scattering from our path to the
creaky wooden steps to the first floor kitchen where rats were on every counter and
scampered between our feet as Sally shrieked.
When we found the stairs to the second floor it felt with each step as if we’d fall
through the rotted wood into the basement. An oil portrait of Master Seamus O’Grady
hung on the wall beside a canopied bed. His shimmering turquoise eyes glared at us from
1865 when the Union Army hanged him from the gallows of Fort San Sebastian in the
courtyard below.
“I have to watch from here at the stroke of midnight,” Sally said, going to the
balcony with me right behind her.
Whether our imagination or not, we turned to each other as we heard the chimes
from the fort’s watchtower beginning the count to midnight—1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . .
When the chime came to 8 . . . 9 . . . 10, Sally grabbed my hand and squeezed it tight.
She was ready . . . so was I.
Below we saw a dozen men and women ready to be hanged. At the stroke of
midnight came the loud snap of the trap doors beneath the feet of the condemned and
their amputated corpses hung from nooses in the sea breeze. I shivered when I heard
what sounded like alligator grunts and hisses coming from the mote surrounding the fort.
I turned to Sally as the full moon cast its glow across my face showing her my
turquoise eyes. She leaned toward me as if she were going to offer me a tender kiss,
but she drew her fangs and sunk her teeth deep into my neck making me one with her,
and one with the O’Grady clan forever. My parents must have been in on it with Sally
from the get-go, all of us cursed with no rest for our weary souls condemned forever
to relive our infamous past.

---

When cats go missing
​
By Meg Smith


Wet leaves were plastered to the brick sidewalk.
It had rained for three days.
At a bus shelter, amidst an archipelago of graffiti, was a poster: LOST CAT.
The cat, named Sammy, was a plumpish tabby.
In a photo, Sammy was plopped on a cushion, his eyes closed, not appearing at all like the errant, adventure-going type.
The poster, rippled from the humidity, said Sammy was microchipped, had been missing since the beginning of May. The poster included a phone number.

It was one of several posters of Sammy appearing around town, in store windows, in a coffee shop, on the bulletin board of the library.

Many who saw the poster would snap a photo on their cell phones, and distribute to their friends on social media or email group.

This was not the first time many of them had done this for a lost cat or dog poster.
Sammy looked truly majestic and serene in his picture setting. The thought of such a content, easy-going cat out in a downpour such as this, away from a loving family, caused pain in more than one heart.

In a modest duplex home, Sammy’s owners, Carl and Beth, were rising, going to their respective jobs, and returning at night, greeting each other with spare words, the silence of their grief between them.

Sammy had been gone for two weeks now.

Sammy’s very being in their household was a significant milestone.

He arrived about two years earlier, then not much more than a kitten. He was one of a fluffy group of orphaned kittens, found abandoned in a box near the Collingsville commuter train station, and taken to a Caring Paws, a shelter.

Sammy and his littermates were bottle-fed by volunteers, and their availability for adoption announced in the local newspaper as well as on social media.

Carl and Beth had had a quarrel, a serious one, and not the only one in those fragile first months of their relationship.

It was hard now for either of them to remember much about the fight, except that Carl’s ex-girlfriend, Cindy, kept interjecting comments in their social media exchanges, usually when it concerned a restaurant.

Beth insisted Carl rid himself of her -- as a social media contact,
as a presence in his life.
Cindy and Carl, hadn’t seen each other in person since high school.

She was a remnant of the past, Beth argued. It mattered not that Cindy had been there when Carl’s mother had died of esophagus cancer.

That had been kind of Cindy, but that was in a different lifetime.

Let -- her -- go, Beth said.

With a sharp sigh, Carl did.

Then, at an office cookout, Carl’s coworker
Ben mentioned that Cindy had emailed Carl at work.

Beth told Carl to leave. He did for three nights, staying at his father’s house -- two men now without partners, in a dark, chilly ranch house across town.

Carl did not know how to make amends.
He could have asked his father, but his father was caught up in his own struggles, with solitude, with diabetes.
Cindy had remained a friend to his family. His ties to her were mostly of gratitude.
They went to the junior semi-formal, and that was when things ended between them.
Now, they were both in their mid 20s, both with adequately-paying but marginally satisfying jobs.
Their paths had diverged.

Carl’s life revolved around his work at Motor Dynamics, and around Beth, who worked in customer service in a department store.

He didn’t fully understand Beth’s discomfort about Cindy.
But he did remember his father’s one bit of advice about keeping a harmonious household: Choose your battles, otherwise you will lose the war.
He wanted the repair whatever harm he’d done. And, he wanted to win the war.
He knew Beth liked cats. He liked them, or could at least tolerate them. Seeing the Caring Paws’ post on social media, he went there, applied for adoption, and was accepted.

He went home with Sammy, now fully weaned and ready for solid food, in a cardboard, portable cat carrier, with a blanket and some toys.

To Beth, Sammy signified a milestone that made her heart overflow. Sammy spoke of permanence, of a commitment to the present. He brought the two dissonant parties together.

They could officially call themselves a family.

Two years passed, uneventfully but with stability and logic. Sammy grew affectionate, and, given more to naps than running around, he grew generous in girth.

Then, one night, Carl left his phone on the coffee table; it lit up, and Beth picked it up to answer it.

It was Cindy. Her name flashed on the phone screen. Beth grabbed it, answered it, and heart a shocked breath followed by silence.

Beth sat on the couch, feeling light-headed. She remembered how a coworker had grimaced, then forced a smile, when she said Carl had come back to her
and got her a cat.

She felt flushed, absurd, and amazed at her own short-sightedness, at her heart given over so quickly because of a cat.

Carl came into the living room, eating from a bag of pretzels. He then saw her face.

He turned, and went to the door. That’s when the rage exploded inside Beth.

Carl opened the door, and before either of them could stop him, Sammy, who never showed the slightest interest in the world beyond his warm abode, departed in a pudgy, gray blur.

The next day, Carl created the ‘lost cat’ poster at work, and put it on social media. Without alluding to the phone call fiasco, the post simply said he and Beth were heart-broken and wanted Sammy back.

Carl also posted the notice to a ‘lost cat’ group, and ‘help find my pet,’ among others.

It was only then he realized the scope of the problem. So many posts about missing pets, especially cats. Dogs could be leashed of course; cats seldom were.

So many posts said, “he/or she is an indoor-only cat, not used to the outdoors.”

Two weeks passed.

From time to time, someone would send one of them a photo, in a text message, asking, “Is this him?”

It never was.

Sammy knew all about missing. He knew all about missing time.

He knew all about grief, life and death, because he’d been through it all before.

He carried within him generations of names, and generations with no name.

He carried within him, dingy alleys, sunny meadows, a cold, bitter December with the clatter of horse hooves rushing by.

He carried time.

Sita, the missing gray-blue cat, also carried time.

As did Rina, the spunky calico.

And there were others.

As the rain fell, they sought shelter inside derelict buildings, under boxes, anywhere that held out the promise of a dry space.

As the rain ceased, they came out.

Some were very attached to their human companions; others were possessed of a preternatural indifference.

Sammy was not eager to leave Carl and Beth. They were, apart from the dimmest memory of his fellow orphan siblings, the only true family he’d known.

It was clear that they loved him.

But it was also clear that they were constantly rebuilding a house that kept disintegrating.

All the cats knew one thing: Every house would soon disintegrate.

They came to their gathering place. It was in a clearing, behind the former chair factory for which the town had once been known. There were shallow rainwater pools in the uneven, warped lot.
Cars splashed by on the road.

The cats gathered around a fire.

They had summoned the fire.

From the fire, they summoned their ancestor.

It was a truly primitive creature, more like a cat’s skeleton in the thinnest veneer of skin and fur. To a human, it may have looked like a proto-being, stepping out of a zoological display case to survey a world from which it was removed by about 33 million years.

The cats gathered around were all vessels of time, but not caught up in quibbling about the passing of years.

Houses were disintegrating, and rivers would start to stumble backwards.

Everything would start running backwards.

The clouded air above Collingsville, above what had once been a mid-state industrial hub, grew dense with the certainty.

A yellowed moon above glowed dispassionately.

Following their ancestor, the cats tred a narrow, sure path,
in the falling, yellowed light.

Cape Perpetua

By Levi Gardner Bilderback



Perpetual churning
Begs to be fed.
Crash after crash
Wishing you were dead.


She could only stay up for a quick breathe,
Struggling madly against a quicker death.


-Verses from a Sailor’s diary




Yachats, Oregon
12:23 AM Wednesday, October 3rd


Dusty Miller was a biker through and through. He had been part of the Gypsy Jokers until very recently, when his older brother Chip was gunned down
by the Portland P.D. Dusty currently resided in a town called Yachats (pronounced Ya-hats) where he had been getting loaded up on crank, going on drinking binges, and biking up and down Highway 101. This night had been no different, and Dusty barely stumbled out the front entrance of his favorite establishment in Yachats, the Blue Whale Diner.
He shouldn’t have been sneaking drinks, but his judgement was already fully impaired, so it didn’t matter to him at the time. What mattered was that he needed to calm his nerves. He ordered orange juice after OJ, and poured shot after shot from his vest pocket flask. He was pretty casual at first, for someone on meth, but eventually the waitress caught on and told him to leave for good. Dusty complied and took a few steps out of the entrance, put a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, and brought the flame of his Zippo closer.
But before he could light his cig, he heard a rustling in the bushes near where his chopper was parked. The lighter, mere centimeters from the fag, paused in its ascent. Its flame flickered casually as Dusty scanned the bushes, the cigarette twitching as he muttered to himself. It’s the goddamned meth, he thought and lit his last cigarette. He climbed onto his chopper, strapped his Nazi-esque helmet on, and cranked his metallic beast to life. The headlights on the bike illuminated the bushes nearby, and for an instant, Dusty swore he saw a shadow dip behind a tree.
Goddamned homeless, he thought, though ironically he was also technically homeless.
Ignoring the shadow, he rolled his chopper to the edge of 101. South and to his left lay Cape Perpetua; north and right was the direction of the beach he had been staying at. However, as Dusty swiveled his head north, all feeling left his face and limbs. Fog had descended like a wall and it crept silently south, toward ol’ Dusty. The line of clarity on his path was slowly disappearing into the fog, and as he stared in shock at this seemingly natural phenomenon, he could see dark shapes like a crowd of cloaked humans clustered and creeping along with the mist.
Having earned a one-way ticket South, Dusty gunned it, his chopper cutting the silence that seemed to be swallowing everything up. He checked his mirrors once he was up to speed, and much to the dread of Dusty, the mist and dark figures seemed to be keeping up, even appearing to gain on him. Dusty had been through many terrifying moments with the Gypsy Jokers, but this was different. For one thing, he was absolutely alone. For another, he had never believed in the supernatural, and since this mist and the shadows appeared, his entire world of what he knew went kaboom and left a crater the size of his pituitary gland in his brain. It wouldn’t be long until this damnable fog surrounded him and then what? Dusty didn’t want to think of the conclusion, so instead he twisted the throttle until he was up to 75 before he checked his mirrors again. Any minute, he would be
hitting some serious corners along 101, and at the speed he was going, it would mean almost certain death for ol’ Dusty “Eat Dust” Miller. He snuck a glance at his mirrors and saw nothing. Fucking nothing! He eased off the throttle, to take the threatening corners coming up, cig still in the corner of his mouth, tip red and puffing. He let out a chuckle. This kind of paranoia happened when he was on meth, and he should have expected something like this to happen.
As he drew closer to the corner of the Devil’s Churn, Dusty felt something sting his left ear. Automatically his left hand shot to his ear and swatted at whatever it was that had stung him. Suddenly his right ear lit up in pain, followed by three stings in a row under his helmet. Then he saw whatever it was that was stinging him. What appeared to be large, black hornets were swarming all around his head, dive-bombing in and biting chunks out of his face. He could feel them crawling around in his hair, biting and stinging as they made their way further under his helmet. His right hand shot up and he struggled madly with both hands to get his helmet off. His speed had started creeping back up after the first barrage of stings, and now, with both hands off the handlebar, his speed was pushing 80. Having that cruise control throttle had saved his hands from going numb on many long trips, but this time it bit him hard as his speed went up and up, and his path took him careening straight toward the corner overlooking the Devil’s Churn.
He screamed while he struggled at his helmet, finding little success in removing it. Panic had taken hold and all good sense had disappeared. The helmet shifted over his eyes as he approached the corner, his trajectory aimed cleanly between two trees overlooking the Churn. His tires left the ground just as his helmet came off. Dusty’s body came off the bike, his helmet over his head by a foot, and as if in slow motion, all three flew in a beautiful arc toward the opening of the Devil’s Churn. The ground grew larger, his demise nearer. He saw the shadow creatures all around him again, and he could sense their excitement. They were hungry for him. His bike, now 6 feet in front of him, hit the edge of the ancient lava flow and bounced into the opposite wall of the devilishly narrow inlet, and was swept away into the greedy ocean. Dusty fell just short of the edge with a devastating crunch, not bouncing an inch. His helmet hit the rocks, cracking in two and spun off to join the chopper to be pulverized into oblivion.
Amazingly, Dusty didn’t die immediately upon impact. Blood poured from his orifices, bubbling up out of his mouth. He gasped for breath. Meth had caused a lot of problems for him, but this time it seemed to be extending the life of his mutilated body. As Dusty reeled from the ruin, a dark figure moved into his view and his panicky feeling returned full force. If Dusty could have looked around, he would have seen a crowd of well over 50 of these shadow demons all closing in around his body. This sudden shock of panic sent him into cardiac arrest, his heart
finally calling the quits, and the shadows took this as their signal. With a gust, the phantoms flew into Dusty’s body.
For a moment, nothing happened. Dusty’s face still had a concerned look on it. All was quiet, save the continuous pounding of the waves. Then, breaking the silence, crunching sounds came from Dusty’s body as it rumbled in the spot he had landed. Minutes went by before the sound and motion stopped. Sluggishly, the body of Dusty stood up. Its shoulders moved up and down as a rattling breath wheezed in and out. Shambling, Dead Dusty’s commandeered body walked further South along the beach where it found a big, concrete culvert. Piled up like bleached bones outside the drain, nobody would find a body here with all the driftwood. Into the dark opening the body crawled, the creatures inhabiting the body plotting their next move in this ripe and new dimension.

Our 100th Issue Winners 

The Autumn Melodies Short Story Contest


1st Prize


WELL WISHES

By Kent Rosenberger



Most people would have some sort of grand reaction if an amazing array of sapphire sparkles just appeared in the middle of the room and produced a full-sized human being, much less one with multihued butterfly wings, aquamarine hair and an all-too-cliché magic wand topped with a shiny silver star.
But for Evenly, such outlandish occurrences were pretty much an everyday practice lately. “Hello, dearie,” the ninety-two year old white-haired, wrinkled bag of bones stated with grandmotherly kindness as the pastel, life-sized fairy took full form. “Have you finally come to take me away?” Perplexed, the fugitive from a girl’s bedroom bookshelf wondered for a second why she was not being greeted with the standard amount of disbelief, but rather placid
acceptance, almost as though she was expected. It took a moment for her to understand her confusion. Judging from the woman’s age and condition, her anticipation of a supernatural being was not entirely unfounded. She was simply not the one the woman was looking for. “No, no, not at all. I am not the Grim Reaper.”
The senior citizen was unable to snap her bony fingers, but she tried anyway, failing to produce any kind of sound whatsoever. “Oh, drat. This must be another one of those delusions.”
“Excuse me,” the fairy asked. “Delusions?”
“Oh yes. I know you’re not real. My daughter says I suffer from…now let me get this straight…” she paused, breathing heavily as though talking this much was winding her, “‘dementia, amnesia, and bouts of vivid hallucinations.’” She grinned, the dentures she forgot to clean for the last few days providing a dingy, artificial smile. “Yesterday I played ping-pong with the mailman and a brontosaurus.”
“Oh, how fun,” the fairy exclaimed, twirling around in a shower of glitter, not completely understanding the disturbing complexity of what the woman was telling her. “Well, I assure you, I’m quite real, and I’ve come to bring you something even better.”
“You have?” Evenly asked, her round eyes amplified in her inch-thick eyeglass lenses. “Cotton candy?” she speculated hopefully.
“No,” lilted the fairy. “Hold out your hand.”
She complied without question. “Is it a button? I do so love buttons.”
“No. Better.” She pulled Evelyn’s hand out palm up and placed the shiny star wand tip in the middle of it. When she lifted it away, a small brown metal disc that looked like it was older than the woman was left behind.
“What’s this?” She held it up to her face until the tiny object came into focus. Her confused mind searched for the word associated with the item. “It’s a piggy. No, that’s not right. A princess. Oh, I get so confused.”
“It’s a penny.”
That word made sense. “Yes, it is. A penny.” Her excitement faded. “Why are you giving me a penny?”
“This is not just any penny,” the fairy exclaimed as excitedly as a child receiving an ice cream cone, “it’s your penny.”
Evelyn inspected the thing resting in her palm. If she did not know it was there it would have blended in nicely with her liver spots. “I appreciate the sentiment, honey, but a penny isn’t worth anything.”
The fairly gigged so much, a blast of sparkles shot out of her nose. “No, silly. I’m not giving you just a penny. I’m giving you what goes with the penny.”
Somewhere in depths of the codger’s muddled mind a golden moment of clarity shone through in association with her newly acquired treasure. There was nothing with it as far as she could tell. “I don’t understand, dearie.”
“Don’t you remember,” the fairy half-sang, “you and Calvin Roberts and the wish you made at the wishing well that summer evening before the first day of school?”
Suddenly, Evelyn did remember. The ancient, forgotten event unlocked from a dusty corner of her addled memory and was brought to the forefront with amazing crystal clarity. “Yes. Yes, of course. It was the day before seventh grade. We had just spent a beautiful summer together, full of picnics and fireflies and days by the pool. We wanted it to last forever. We never wanted summer to end. We each threw a coin in the wishing
well and made a wish.” She stared at the coin in her hand with renewed wonder. “My penny!”
“And your wish,” the fairy added. “I’m so sorry, I’m so far behind in my schedule, but better late than never, right?”
Evelyn scrunched her already deeply creased forehead. “My wish?”
“Yes, of course. Now as I recall, Calvin wished for summer to never end and you wished for the two of you to live forever.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Well, I’m sorry to tell you this, but Calvin died years ago, so his wish cannot be granted, but yours is certainly still available.” She waved her wand three times in a circle, producing a series of pink swirls in the air. When she finished, she thrust the colored cloud at her target. It exploded across Evelyn’s gaunt body soundlessly.
The woman dropped the penny and stared at her midsection, then up to the fairy. “What happened?”
“Why, you’re immortal of course. Now you can live forever and have all of your dreams come true.”
“Immortal? Who wants to be immortal when they’re ninety-two? I’m just ready for it all to end now. Don’t I get anything else with it? Youth? Strength? A new body? Do I get to go back to being twelve again?” “Of course not silly. Well, I’ve got to run. More long-overdue wishes to catch up on. Ta-ta.” The fairy began to fade the same way she entered, a shower of sparkles engulfing her frail form.
“But why not?” Evelyn cried out after her, the fragment of her common sense that remained unable to fathom a thousand lifetimes of enduring the constant aches, relentless tiredness, numerous medications and mounting financial problems she had. “For God’s sake, why not?”
“Because it wasn’t part of the wish,” the fairy answered.
With a spotted, wrinkled finger she pushed her coin back in the direction of the fading supernatural creature. “What if I wish for it now? Please?” She flashed her stained dentures as innocently as possible.
“Sure.” The starry tip of her glittering wand touched upon the coin, passing it back into her possession. “I’ll add it to the list. See you again in, oh, eighty-four years or so,” she chimed before vanishing completely.




2nd Prize

OFF THE GRID
by
 Teresa Ann Frazee




      In a chamber that resonated muffled rock music from the room adjunct to hers, a woman sat at her Victorian desk, awaking her imagination, just as she had 167 years ago.  Lace banded her wrists. Her alabaster fingers, jeweled with stones, held a writing instrument, a quill . It seemed an extension of her slim hand as she guided the quill across a sheet of  paper, while she created worlds where creatures are far more interesting than their masters. As she wrote, she rearranged her thoughts. Coiffure hair crowned her head, her face had an expression of sensibility, her eyes, of a woman with an intriguing past. She stopped writing, utterly satisfied that she had been sequestered by compulsion and her creative mind had succumbed to the diversity of her talent and she was unable or unwilling to give an account of her imaginations whereabouts.
     The drawn back drapery of the finest burgundy velvet, revealed the only window in her chamber, an ivy edged, large window, overlooking the east. Her gaze lingered as she peered out, as if to reward herself for just a moment. She seemed to look upon her view as if it had caught her attention for the first time.
      It was neither day nor night. Dismantled time had found it's place. Scatted summer yellow light, reflected the verdure of a spectacular English garden, along a canal with aisles of trees, where rootless branches grew cascading orange blossoms, bearing tiny topaz leaves that held their alignment with perfection. Like a pearl, a full moon illuminated winding cobblestone pathways, where granulated amber light was strewn.  In a boundless veil of fire ablaze in the realm of gold and sapphire, a starry blue sky radiated with synchronicity. Amid the aerial blue, a flock of doves cooed with chant of paradise. Bathe in the haunting back lit sky, like white smoke, they rose past phantasmal space into flight. Under an ineffable light that bore an ancient heat, their stray shadows flew in ghostly rhythm , stalking with  primitive certainty, before descending into thickets of wind swept grass where sparks from the  trampling hooves of white horses flickered.
     Far off, were scarcely visible mountains where summits with Sabbath white textures and the valley beneath, had eternally moving clouds curling into mysterious shapes  where thick ocherous mists rose from a distant river. Ebony silhouettes echoed the coast, reflecting on the water like crystal.  In the haze of the sun, the horizon vanished toward distant spheres of space where wisps of light had spun. A warm breeze dismissed the past, establishing the authenticity of the here and now.

     As if in slow motion, time ceased to meddle, here it never rained. Outside her window, it was always the height of summer. A vista  to fall upon your knees in awe. All like some fantastic scene, illuminated with the veil of elegance,  resonant of Romantic Painters.
     A sunny web of openwork from the draperies trim formed a shimmering, filigree pattern where reflective light  poured over a plush carpet. Like a mirage in heat, energy circled around blending into soft colors in the kaleidoscopic air.  The atmosphere in her chamber was filled with an ambrosial scent. Every now and then she would inhale and savor the aroma with a faint smile of pleasure. A quiet satisfaction radiated from her as if it was that of an infants first breath.
     The rock music had stopped. She picked up her quill and continued to write. As she wrote, her eyes skimmed over the written page to seek new translating words which best conveyed her ideas. She heard rustling outside her door but didn't bother herself to look up as she continued to write, using her imagination to form things unknown. Someone timidly knocked on her door. She stopped writing and glanced toward the door.
     "Yes, who is at my door?" she asked.
      Leather creaked when she rose from her seat . The accumulation of fabric that formed her dress fell about her. The pinched gathering which composed  the train of the heavy hem of her refined embroidered gown swept up a cloud of gold dust in the air as she walked to the door. You could see from her elegant manner, she was not lacking in culture. And the floating smoothness of her gait was as if the very lightness of the air was somehow relieved of gravity, making it difficult for her feet to move upon the ground.
     "I could us some help!" a young man, said aggressively from behind the door.
     The woman opened the door and said:
     "Ah! I presume the new arrival". She smiled and shook her head., "Not again"  With a deep breath she continued, "Did they not greet you at the gate?  You cannot make bohemians, especially those two beat poets, remain at their post.  We are such an unruly lot."
     A confused young man ,wearing a skimpy T-shirt with a blue bandana around his neck, balanced himself on his boot heels, stood in the doorway with an acoustic guitar slung across his back. He looked back outside.
   "Who,  at the gate?" he asked.
    He had a rock star's physique. His hair dangled around his face. In his gestures, there was a desperation that interrupted his thoughts as he hung on to his guitar, like a security blanket.. He had a intimate connection with his guitar that blurred the distinction between man and instrument, seemingly, there was no gap between the player's body and the wood. The woman looked up at him, pointed out the door and  tried to help him understand.
      "There on the road. Oh, the way those two renegades have relentlessly carved into the gate with their words. "
      The young man eyed her suspiciously and asked, "Who are you? What am I doing here?  What's going on?  I don't belong here !"

     "Please do come in and compose yourself!   For sir, you do deserve to be here. Let me assure you, you are in the right place. Do not let fear and confusion compromise your thoughts", declared the woman.
      The young man entered the room but he stayed near the door, left it open and looked around. He nervously shifted his guitar from side to side and replied:
     "Easy for you to say lady."
      The woman sat back in her chair, and said:
     "I can see your eyes express anxiousness and that you expect to be informed by me immediately of where you are and how you have arrived here. Most certainly, this cannot be done so quickly but listen patiently and you will easily perceive why you are here. I will not attempt to convey everything, that is not my role but will simply relate the circumstances. By no reason of  order do I occupy the first room.  It is merely by chance. I am by no means the Director of this community and can scarcely appoint myself as leader.  Here, we are all equals, aged, adult and youth, only those who have had the opportunity to develop their uniqueness, including all who are or not recorded in the book of fame.  Nevertheless, I will continue since you are now in my room. The explanation is not really difficult. It is simply this. In the order they have been asked, I will try to answer your questions. I am  a woman of the 19th century, the daughter of two prominent literary celebrities. Raised in the circle of my fathers advanced intellectual companions, I was supplied with the ability to transcribe the ideas of a cultivated mind. When I reached the age of potential I believed I must prove worthy of my heritage. Waned from waking dreams, quill at the ready for a spine tingling tale, I daily exhume from my imagination wretches and ghosts, the fulfillment of which I eagerly seek. Now, you know who I am, I'm------"
     She was interrupted by a knock on the door frame.  Both the woman and the young man  looked to see who was there. An older woman dressed in a black kimono and scarf around her head, saw the woman with a young man and shouted in the room:
     "Hello, Mary. Oh excuse me, didn't know you were entertaining guests."
     "That is quite alright Georgia,  please do come in.", said Mary.
      Georgia stood by the door as she spoke. "No, no, just wanted to remind you of my artist reception tonight. You remember the opening?"
 "Most certainly, I will be there. So where is Stieglitz this fine afternoon?" Mary asked.
 "Oh you know him, he's in the dark room with Man Ray.  I'll see you later Mary." Georgia said as she walked away from the door.
 "Farewell!". Mary said.
 The young man gestured to the door, "Wait a minute, wait just a minute. Was she---  
  Man, this can't be", he said as if asking a question, "your Mary Shelley."
 "My dear boy you have deduced correctly," Mary said.
 The young man asked, "And the music I heard before coming from the next room, suppose that wasn't a recording but the real thing."
    "Ah, the music that pulsated through my chamber wall, in a sphere of symphony, those echoing songs chase the shadow of the end of time. I dare say my boy, again you have guessed  right," Mary said.
    The young man slowly walked over and sat in a chair next to Mary who was still sitting at her desk. He  carefully set his guitar against her desk, covered his face with his hands and placed his head in his lap.
    "Do have a seat." Mary sarcastically said.  She looked over to the door and said a little annoyed now:
   "I wish those two would man their post." Mary composed herself and spoke more calmly. The young man raised his head as she continues to speak, "Forgive me, we do not gain all virtues when we pass through the gate. I know it feels much like a strewn puzzle with missing pieces as the ghostly ruins of memory are drawn into the quicksand of time. The sympathy of a stranger, such as I am can be but little comfort to one with such anxiety. But I also know the suspense is a thousand times worse than the actual events. The truth triumphs over all the curiosities one can invent.  It is with   considerable difficulty that I remember the origin of my own arrival.  Upon reflection, I do recall,  on examining my dwelling, I found that I had everything I could ever need.  A short period elapsed before I settled in to my surroundings. As you are now, I was extremely baffled at first but by degrees, the forgotten importance of how I arrived here, receded into a woven nest of midnights past."
      The young man started to pace the room and burst out angrily," OK OK, but damn it, just tell me where in God's name I am? What is this place?"
      Mary said angrily, " Please do not abuse the King's English in my room.  With my usual candor, I must express that I have no tolerance for the omission of manners. I will not have it.  I dare say, you will learn to respect our differences." 
      "What are you my mother?" the young man said sarcastically.
      "Thankfully not. I would indeed have to chastise myself for doing such a horrid job of child rearing. Now, as I have stated before I am doing you a courtesy my boy. I will remind you, it was I who was imposed upon by you, an unannounced guest in my room. Do sit down ! I will again,  try to widen the mental scope for you," Mary sternly said.
      The young man consented to listen and sat back down, "I need a glass of water."
     "You think you do out of force of habit. That will fade. Here, you don't need food, drink, sleep nor any of those human traits that interfere with creativity. I know it is customary to offer a glass of water to someone distressed but believe me when I say that water is the last thing you need." Mary said.
     "What's that supposed to mean, water's the last thing I need?", the young man asked.
     "You are not mentally deficient.  I will not spare you,  for eventually you will remember these events  yourself. Like confetti, memory will stream through, littering the haze of space. You met your demise wrestling for a  breath . Your air neglected lungs hoarded more water than a body could sustain." Mary replied.
     The young man tightly closed his eyelids as if to shut out a horrid memory and calmly interrupted Mary, "Stop. Yeah, yeah,  I remember now. Weird, my shoes are still wet. But how did you know?"
     "Alas!  I did not know but surmised the particulars after I saw the tracks of water you left upon my floor as you walked across to have a seat.  My beloved husband met his fate in much the same way.  He arrived at this community many years prior to my own and his hair is still damp. Hm! Quite the conundrum. I promise, you will hardly notice those little annoyances here above the skylight of floating dreams and think of it as once ago existing among the dregs of scattered thought," Mary replied.
     "I get it now. So is this heaven or hell?," the young man asked.
     "Neither, my dear fellow", Mary said, "you are home, rooted in a perpetual place among your peers, where the creative spirit is remembered always and never laid to rest, reborn above a hurling flame across the sky. We dwell in a resurrected  Bohemia where our immortal bones are no longer obsolete. You have entered a nameless world, radiated with synchronicity as disassembled time forms its own space."
     The young man resumed pacing, "But why me?" he asked, "I'm not famous like a star with one name. I don't deserve to be here. I'm just a singer/songwriter that plays guitar. Granted I was on that boat to sign a music contract but still."
      "Your attitude is immature but evidently your gift sufficiently impresses. As I have previously stated, famous or not, to creativity we are bound. You will soon understand that with precision we weave threads of infinity wound from a master spool vast and measureless. So  my young friend, you underestimate yourself, you are not finished.  Can't you see, you have a fire in the soul? Your best work is still ahead of you. There is nothing to distress you now in our aerial habitation, suspended in the spotlight of spontaneity.  Certainly, you would be misplaced cradled in eternities contrived rest.  For the true artist, lack of passion becomes a bore and ultimately fatal to the imagination." Mary said.
     As the young man sat back down he asked, "If this place is so great, why is there a gate to keep us in?'
    "You are mistaken. The gate is not there to keep us in. We are not held against our will and can choose to leave anytime.  But no one ever does. The gate is to keep spectators, for those whom it hurts to think, those contrived followers with sensibilities inferior as those apparent in  dullards, out. Basically those good people of heaven with the sentiments of greeting cards whose diversities are sound asleep. Without a doubt happiness is over-rated in a place where the unconditionally content call home. From the standpoint of art, the records prove their pedestrian lives have been absolutely without interest. Their legacy reduced to a sod covered box of dust and faded words on granite. But we sit upon the intellectual throne where actors live a thousand different lives and musicians such as yourself, bring enchanted music to our ears.  This resource for insight with an interconnection with the vastness of the universe, encourages the poet's wit and the painter to wet his brush. We renegades arise from our cold beds of corroded stone, once again move our cold feet, spared from monotonous rest. From secret entrances to a waking world, we the creators of our time leave our print, here in the place we reside. We slide homeward across a hundred years, while the idle with stiffened, sleep-worn postures lie in oblivion, we roam about with unaging grace, as our prophetic words fall from our tongues. So you see, the power of art can remake any world.", Mary said.
     "You  know a lot about this. Did you start the community?" the young man asked.
       "Oh, certainly not. The event on which this place was founded has been suppose by the earliest member, as a most intriguing occurrence. You must have serious faith in your imagination to fully grasp the paradoxical way in which it is told.  An artist had passed away and the circumstances on which the story rests was that there was not a place in heaven for someone so individualistic. So the person in question, understanding the nature of his own artistry, founded his own Utopia, therefore perusing ideals, for the continued development of  talent, offering a counter-voice that is spoken against anti-individuality. Rather than disrupt heaven and challenge its terms, values and practices, he thus founded a terrain to be inhabited by a new breed of denizens. In doing so,  embarked on a courageous course of action to redefine heaven, outside the realm of mortal view where myriads of swirling suns dance with systematic grace and all tomorrows bleed into the edge of perception. Serendipity realizes its moment", Mary replied.
    "Really? Is that true? "asked the young man.
     Mary rose from her chair, strolled around the room and said:.
    "Please do not interrupt me in the middle of a sentence young man "                  
     "You're right, I'm sorry."
      "Ah! I see we are getting somewhere. Apology accepted. In any case, I do not wish to dwell any further now on this truth or perhaps absolute myth."
      "Please tell me more about where I am," said the young man, urging Mary to comply with his demands.
     Mary sat down, took a deep breath and glared at him.
     "Please Mary."
     "Very well, as you wish."  sighed Mary, " In an infinite space not specified by the monitors of time, is where we live. Far away, off the grid, in an unrealized world. We are hidden in a membranous labyrinth of space, adrift in suspended choreography lingering on a passage held secret above the reach of weightless dreams in foolish men's heads. We are in our own Bohemia beneath the twisted inky shadows where Muses keep vigil. Encouragingly, they guide us from our restlessness and bring idle wits to their senses.  Stimulating our imaginative spirit, weaving the passions of creation with artistic concepts we had almost forgotten and lost to a waning memory. Through boundless stars of unexplored galaxies we found a direction in a corner of our own Eden.  If you listen very closely you can hear the whoosh of us colonizing collectively, transforming our expressions into perfect harmony. Down where the hollows overgrown by the sands of time the restless unleash a thunderous cry loose in which only the Bohemian born can relate. Eternally we thrive between the collaboration of madness and the divine. Such is the history of this community. "
  The young man rose from seat and rummaged through his jean pockets:
  "Thank you Mary. I don't seem to have my wallet or any money. I want to give you something for your time and trouble."
    Mary answered quickly, "Remember my young friend.  No money is needed here. You say you owe me something?"
    "Yeah. "
    "Then pay your debt by being brave, believe absolutely in yourself.  You have been deliberately chosen to be here. Remember, a true artist is bathe in undiluted light of the divine and is one who always finds his way in the dark, while those with little drama stumble aimlessly in the spotlight. That is the only way in which I can be paid in full," Mary said.
    "For someone who is so capable of creating monsters in literature you have a way of bringing out the best in someone. I walked in your room as a brute and have been transformed into a gentleman. I  will not fail you. " The young man paused and tilted his head:
     "You know Mary, if I didn't know better I'd think you enjoy having the first room and it's not by chance. That those two beat poets, they never man the gate. It is you who greets new arrivals."
   "Mary smiled and roes from chair, looked into the young mans eyes as she spoke:
    "You have a keen mind my boy. You are correct once again.  I do love it so.  Besides, it is impossible to have anyone here, especially those two beat poets, do anything they are told."
 The young man picked up his guitar and he and Mary both walked towards the door.
    Mary said, "My young friend, you have an advantage over me. I do not have the pleasure of knowing your name."
    "Oh yeah, sorry about that. My friends call me Johnny B," replied the young man.
     "Well, Johnny B.,  perhaps together, we can attend Georgia's opening tonight. I will introduce you to the other residence and we will continue to partake in stimulating conversation.
     "That's cool. I'd love that. What time should I come by?' replied young Johnny B.
                   Mary laughed and said, "I must say, sometimes your words are a bit bewildering.   
            But come now, you should know better than to look back to the old ways .
           There is no need  for time here, for we exist in the pace of dreams. Your instincts will inform you when to knock on my door."
       "Wow, there's a lot to take in and get used to. Oh yeah Mary, where's my room?"
He had been so deep in thought that Johnny B noticed for the first time the incredible view from Mary's window. He pointed and stared.
       " Out your window, that's unbelievable. I hope my room has the same view.  Hum, it's strange I don't remember outside looking like that when I arrived.
         " My dear Johnny B, you will not have my view from the window in your room. This view is formed from my concocted memory , therefore, it is  my view, only in my room. You will have your own version of perfection to gaze upon, for each guest renders their own paradise.
         Johnny B just shook his head in amazement.
         Mary opened the door. They both looked out  as Mary pointed in a direction and said:
        "There, past the gallery and amphitheater. Your room is next to Vincent's. His is the one with all the easels piled in front of his door. I might add, you will do well to embrace his impulsive episodes. Over there, see where Dante and Virgil are walking amongst  the young sunflowers that kiss their feet. That is your room.  Alright Johnny B., farewell my young friend, until we meet again."
          Mary and Johnny B hugged each other.
          " See you later Mary," Johnny B said as he walked out  the door with his guitar. He gently closed the door behind him.
            Mary walked back to her chair at her desk and sat down to resume writing. After a few seconds Mary heard another knock at door. Mary shook her head smiling.
            "Yes, who is it at my door?"
             A nervous voice of a young woman replied, "I think I must be lost, please, I could use some help"
             Mary stopped writing, she smiled, got up from her seat and opened the door.

Above: Charles E. J. Moulton as Elvis Presley

***
​

Excerpt from

"Remembrance of Things Past"

by Marcel Proust
​

I feel that there is much to be said for the Celtic belief that the souls of those whom we have lost are held captive in some inferior being, in an animal, in a plant, in some inanimate object, and so effectively lost to us until the day (which to many never comes) when we happen to pass by the tree or to obtain possession of the object which forms their prison. Then they start and tremble, they call us by our name, and as soon as we have recognised their voice the spell is broken. We have delivered them: they have overcome death and return to share our life. 

And so it is with our own past. It is a labour in vain to attempt to recapture it: all the efforts of our intellect must prove futile. The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in some material object (in the sensation which that material object will give us) which we do not suspect. And as for that object, it depends on chance whether we come upon it or not before we ourselves must die. 

Many years had elapsed during which nothing of Combray, save what was comprised in the theatre and the drama of my going to bed there, had any existence for me, when one day in winter, as I came home, my mother, seeing that I was cold, offered me some tea, a thing I did not ordinarily take. I declined at first, and then, for no particular reason, changed my mind. She sent out for one of those short, plump little cakes called 'petites madeleines,' which look as though they had been moulded in the fluted scallop of a pilgrim's shell. And soon, mechanically, weary after a dull day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate, a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, but individual, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory--this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me, it was myself. I had ceased now to feel mediocre, accidental, mortal. Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? I was conscious that it was connected with the taste of tea and cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savours, could not, indeed, be of the same nature as theirs. Whence did it come? What did it signify? How could I seize upon and define it? 

I drink a second mouthful, in which I find nothing more than in the first, a third, which gives me rather less than the second. It is time to stop; the potion is losing its magic. It is plain that the object of my quest, the truth, lies not in the cup but in myself. The tea has called up in me, but does not itself understand, and can only repeat indefinitely with a gradual loss of strength, the same testimony; which I, too, cannot interpret, though I hope at least to be able to call upon the tea for it again and to find it there presently, intact and at my disposal, for my final enlightenment. I put down my cup and examine my own mind. It is for it to discover the truth. But how? What an abyss of uncertainty whenever the mind feels that some part of it has strayed beyond its own borders; when it, the seeker, is at once the dark region through which it must go seeking, where all its equipment will avail it nothing. Seek? More than that: create. It is face to face with something which does not so far exist, to which it alone can give reality and substance, which it alone can bring into the light of day. 

And I begin again to ask myself what it could have been, this unremembered state which brought with it no logical proof of its existence, but only the sense that it was a happy, that it was a real state in whose presence other states of consciousness melted and vanished. I decide to attempt to make it reappear. I retrace my thoughts to the moment at which I drank the first spoonful of tea. I find again the same state, illumined by no fresh light. I compel my mind to make one further effort, to follow and recapture once again the fleeting sensation. And that nothing may interrupt it in its course I shut out every obstacle, every extraneous idea, I stop my ears and inhibit all attention to the sounds which come from the next room. And then, feeling that my mind is growing fatigued without having any success to report, I compel it for a change to enjoy that distraction which I have just denied it, to think of other things, to rest and refresh itself before the supreme attempt. And then for the second time I clear an empty space in front of it. I place in position before my mind's eye the still recent taste of that first mouthful, and I feel something start within me, something that leaves its resting-place and attempts to rise, something that has been embedded like an anchor at a great depth; I do not know yet what it is, but I can feel it mounting slowly; I can measure the resistance, I can hear the echo of great spaces traversed. 

Undoubtedly what is thus palpitating in the depths of my being must be the image, the visual memory which, being linked to that taste, has tried to follow it into my conscious mind. But its struggles are too far off, too much confused; scarcely can I perceive the colourless reflection in which are blended the uncapturable whirling medley of radiant hues, and I cannot distinguish its form, cannot invite it, as the one possible interpreter, to translate to me the evidence of its contemporary, its inseparable paramour, the taste of cake soaked in tea; cannot ask it to inform me what special circumstance is in question, of what period in my past life. 

Will it ultimately reach the clear surface of my consciousness, this memory, this old, dead moment which the magnetism of an identical moment has travelled so far to importune, to disturb, to raise up out of the very depths of my being? I cannot tell. Now that I feel nothing, it has stopped, has perhaps gone down again into its darkness, from which who can say whether it will ever rise? Ten times over I must essay the task, must lean down over the abyss. And each time the natural laziness which deters us from every difficult enterprise, every work of importance, has urged me to leave the thing alone, to drink my tea and to think merely of the worries of to-day and of my hopes for to-morrow, which let themselves be pondered over without effort or distress of mind. 

And suddenly the memory returns. The taste was that of the little crumb of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before church-time), when I went to say good day to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of real or of lime-flower tea. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it; perhaps because I had so often seen such things in the interval, without tasting them, on the trays in pastry-cooks' windows, that their image had dissociated itself from those Combray days to take its place among others more recent; perhaps because of those memories, so long abandoned and put out of mind, nothing now survived, everything was scattered; the forms of things, including that of the little scallop-shell of pastry, so richly sensual under its severe, religious folds, were either obliterated or had been so long dormant as to have lost the power of expansion which would have allowed them to resume their place in my consciousness. But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, still, alone, more fragile, but with more vitality, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us, waiting and hoping for their moment, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unfaltering, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection. 

And once I had recognized the taste of the crumb of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-flowers which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy) immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like the scenery of a theatre to attach itself to the little pavilion, opening on to the garden, which had been built out behind it for my parents (the isolated panel which until that moment had been all that I could see); and with the house the town, from morning to night and in all weathers, the Square where I was sent before luncheon, the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took when it was fine. And just as the Japanese amuse themselves by filling a porcelain bowl with water and steeping in it little crumbs of paper which until then are without character or form, but, the moment they become wet, stretch themselves and bend, take on colour and distinctive shape, become flowers or houses or people, permanent and recognisable, so in that moment all the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann's park, and the water-lilies on the Vivonne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and of its surroundings, taking their proper shapes and growing solid, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, all from my cup of tea.

Afterglow
by
Gerald Arthur Winter




He was startled by the knock at the front door. Then the doorknob jiggled for a moment
before he heard the key inserted and the deadbolt click open. The metal door creaked on its
hinges as it swung open. The bright, rectangular light from the open door hurt his eyes from
twenty feet across the hardwood floor to the sofa where he’d been anticipating . . . anticipating
. . . anticipating . . . something—anything to help him regain what he’d lost.
A backlit figure, obviously of a woman with her graceful, dance-like strides, came
toward him. With the setting sun at her back, her lithe figure cast a long shadow, a narrow black
path that cut straight to his doubts. She turned to close the door behind her, but he objected.
“No! Leave it open . . . I need fresh air.”
“Fresh air?” she questioned with a thin taint of mockery in her tone. “I think you may
have had too much of that already,”
“How so?”
“I’ve been calling you for the past—” She looked at her pink smart phone’s screen.
“Jesus, Jared. It’s been eighteen hours.”
He frowned then gave her a blank stare. The time hadn’t registered.
She sat beside him and put her cool palm to his fevered forehead.
“Are you ill?” she asked. “Should I take you to your doctor?”
“It’s Sunday, Bethany.”
“Then to the ER.”
“No . . . I just need rest . . . to gather my thoughts.”
“Thoughts about what? About us?”
“Everything doesn’t have to be about us.”
“Maybe not, Jared, but lately it seems everything has nothing to do with us.”
He grimaced and shook his head. “I just needed time to complete my novel. I’d promised
delivery of my final draft by . . . shit! By tomorrow.”
“That’s why I’ve been calling. This three month separation has been hard on me . . .
I’ve missed you, Jared.”
Without response, he just stared blankly at her.
“Damn you! Kiss me,” she implored with a puckered close-eyed lean toward him.
“Mmh,” he responded in her embrace, as her lips searched for his tongue, like an
anaconda unhinging its jaws to swallow a capybara along the Amazon, but he resisted.
“Jared! What’s with you? Is there someone else? You slept with her last night and
now you’re done with me?”
“You’re being ridiculous, Bethany. I’ll never be done with you, but . . . I may be done
with me.”
“What are you talking about, Baby?” she asked nuzzling his neck, but before he could
answer, she pulled back with a start. “Jared! What happened to your shoulder? My God!”
She pulled his bathrobe off his shoulder bruised deep purple. As she kept pulling
the bathrobe lower, she saw that his entire arm was the same lavender hematoma hue.
“I’d better get you to the ER right now,” she said.
“No ER . . . I’ll be fine. It doesn’t hurt. I saw it when I took a shower. It goes down
my back on the left side and—” he pulled open his bathrobe to reveal his total nakedness, no
surprises there after three years as lovers. “My left hip and down my thigh past my knee to my
lower calf.” He raised his left leg and rotated his foot. “The ankle’s fine.”
“How can it not hurt?” she asked. “It looks dreadfully painful. It hurts just to look at it.”
“Because compared to my inner hurt, these exterior bruises are insignificant.”
“Don’t go literary on me at this crucial moment. This looks fucking serious! Do you think
anything’s broken?”
He grinned at the corner of his mouth, creasing a dimple that had first attracted her to
him. “Not any bones,” he sighed. “Just my spirit.”
“Okay. Let’s start from the beginning,” she said as if she were prepared to take dictation.
She occasionally had when the only way he could create a short story was verbally because his
fingers couldn’t keep pace with his mental narrative.
Jared struck a pose in Lord Olivier, Shakespearian fashion, “It was a dark and stormy
night as Jared emerged from his mother’s womb.”
She punched his right shoulder. “Damn you, Jared! I’m serious!”
He pulled the robe off his right shoulder. “I’ll give it an hour, but you may have hit me
hard enough to have matching purple shoulders. Jeez. Where’d you learn to punch like that?”
“I grew up in Philly. My best defense against the mean girls.”
“Well just control yourself. I had a pampered childhood.”
“Yeah, right. Ozone Park, Queens? That couldn’t have been a church social either.”
“Guilty as charged,” he huffed, but slipped back into the dregs of his morose.
“What have you been doing these past eighteen hours to have ended up such a fucking
mess?”
“Blank . . .”
“What do you mean?”
“A total blank.”
“You mean you don’t remember?”
“Not a damn thing—zero.”
“Wow! Okay. Go back in your mind to the last thing you can remember.”
“I’d been working eight or more hours a day since the end of June till—what day is it?”
He’d already had his wall calendar out on the coffee table before Bethany arrived, so
he leaned forward from the sofa and pointed to the day Bethany had said it was.
“It’s Sunday. We just talked about that. Remember, your doctor’s office is closed today.”
He nodded and pointed. “Hmm, today is Sunday, June twenty-fourth. Yesterday, I had
the last scene in my novel to write, only a couple of pages left to go. I used Hemingway’s advice
by not writing the last scene, even though I’d already worked it out in my mind. Papa said it was
best to stop writing near the peak of a climax and sleep on it so all the creative juices could
percolate overnight. It’s supposed to give a writer greater insight to write what had been con-
cluded in the subconscious, a much purer environment for creating effective fiction.”
“You mean that Dr. Butler Dreamscape shit?”
“Precisely. Intending to sleep on it, I’d been living like a monk these past ninety days to
meet my publisher’s deadline tomorrow, so I’d gone to a clean well-lighted place for cocktails
and dinner before coming home to sleep on it. The plan was to wake early this morning to
complete the novel and submit it tomorrow for my agent to deliver.”
“And so?”
“So I don’t remember leaving Adaggio’s where I had two glasses of Merlot with my
veal chops marinara.”
“How could you not remember leaving?”
“That’s the million-dollar question.”
“We should go to Adaggio’s and inquire.”
“I called an hour ago. Spoke directly to Anton, the owner. He said I seemed fine when
I left with the woman?”
“Woman? What woman?”
“I went alone. I ate alone. I don’t remember leaving, with or without a woman.”
“Anton couldn’t tell you anything about her? How about a description?”
“He’d never seen her before, but she was blond, wore sunglasses as I did, because I was
seated on the exterior balcony facing the sunset, much like tonight’s. It was about twenty-four
hours ago when I was finishing my dinner.”
“Did you finish, then have dessert or coffee?”
“I don’t think so . . . I remember looking down at my empty plate expecting the waiter to
clear the table, but then—”
“Then what?”
“There was a crashing sound, I felt jolted, then I . . . then I . . .jeez, I can’t remember,
not a thing till less than an hour ago. It’s all a blank.”
“Jesus.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph—a fucking blank. I’ve been trying to write those last few pages
of my novel and none of it makes any sense. Each time I think I’m done, I realize the last three
pages are the same—the same! Over and over, the same goddamn pages, paragraphs, sentences,
and words. It’s as if I’m not writing them, but they’re writing themselves . . . They have a life
of their own.”
“Show me,” she said.
As she read the pages, Jared stared at the widescreen TV left on mute. It was the local
news. A boy had been run over and left for dead in a hit-and-run incident with no witnesses. It
happened in an rural section of town where there were no security cameras to view a video of
the apparent vehicular homicide.
Bethany read aloud: “He felt like an angel, his feet not touching the ground as he
descended the balcony stairs to the parking lot. In his mind, he seemed to float across the
parking lot to his car. It looked like a good chance of rain with dark clouds hovering on
the horizon above the sun setting atop the distant trees. He opened the hatchback of his
SUV and took out a cheap umbrella, the kind sold for three bucks on city street corners
in a sudden downpour, but not meant to survive more than a single squall. Much as he felt
about himself regarding his longevity in the nameless shit storm that his writing career had
recently become—”
He interrupted her narrative from the manuscript on his laptop. “Stop. Please, quick
run downstairs to the garage and bring me my umbrella.”
“What the hell for?” she balked.
“Uh, I want to see if it’s wet from using it in the rain last night. It might help my
memory.”
“You’ve been lying around till almost dinner time, Jared. Can’t you get it yourself?”
He lowered the shoulder of his robe to reveal the purple bruise and fawned for sympathy.
“Christ, you’re such a baby.”
He opened his robe like a flasher. “That’s no baby—Baby.”
She huffed, “I liked you better when you had no memory of what an asshole you can be.”
“Sorry. You’ve been so kind in my hour—make that eighteen hours—of need.”
“You sound like John Barrymore in an old Thirties flick that I wish had remained silent.
Okay. I’ll get the umbrella, but I think I should take you to the ER for a look at those wounds
—and to check for a concussion, too. Which may explain your memory loss.”
When she closed the door where she’d entered minutes ago, he waited until he heard
her footsteps descending on the exterior wooden stairs from the balcony to the garage. Then
he turned up the TV’s volume and heard: “The police have been going door to door in the
neighborhood surrounding the alleged scene of the hit-and-run. The boy was pronounced
dead at the scene when found at eight o’clock this morning by another boy on a bicycle. The
coroner put the time of death no later than nine o’clock last night. Apparently the body had
been left alongside the light-trafficked country road for about twelve hours before discovered.
If you know anything, anything at all, please call the hotline shown on your TV screen. The
boy’s parents have been distraught since he hadn’t return home last night from his job at
McDonald’s. He was expected by 10 p.m. but never showed.”
Jared heard Bethany shriek from the garage. He turned off the TV and heard her
rapid ascent on the stairs. The door swung open just as before, still startling him even though
this time he was anticipating her entry.
“What?” he asked her as she approached him.
“When did you have an accident with your car?” she asked.
“Accident?”
“Your left front fender is totally crunched.”
“Oh . . . when you said ‘accident’ I thought you meant with another car. I hit a deer a
week ago. Poor thing never had a chance. I was going to report it, but with my novel’s deadline,
you know how it is.”
“Where did this happen?” she asked.
“Hmm, let’s see. It was when I took a short cut off Ulmerton Rd. That country road that
winds around the horse farms and saves you fifteen minutes with no traffic lights. You know
how bad the traffic can be on a weekend.”
“Weekend?” she asked. “Which weekend? Not last night?”
“Last night?” he hesitated staring into space for a moment. “Oh, no. It happened the
weekend before.” He began repeating himself in Trumpian fashion, hammering details into the
solid metal of the listener’s brain until his truth became hers by amalgamation. “I’d just bought
a book I’d wanted to read for a long time. I went to Barnes and Noble in town, got the book
on discount with my membership then drove home.”
He reached for his wallet lying on the coffee table beside the calendar. From between
the loose bills, mostly twenties, he pulled out a receipt from the book purchase. He unfolded it
and squinted at it closely then handed it to her as if it were a Special Delivery of fact: Exhibit A.
She squinted at the receipt as well and said, “Mmh. September sixteenth. Then the car is
drivable, right? Since you hit the deer?”
“Well . . . I drove it home that night but . . . I guess I haven’t tried to drive it since.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“I figured I’d just call and have it towed by the body shop when I was ready to make the
insurance claim.”
“Don’t you have to make a claim within limited time, like twenty-four hours, maybe
forty-eight at most?
“The novel . . . the deadline . . . it’s consumed me,” he rationalized. “The dent isn’t
important compared to that . . . it’s my living. The dent is nothing but an unfortunate reminder
of an animal that didn’t have the good sense to look before it leaped.”
She said, “You’re forgetting one important fact, Jared.”
His mind raced. Fact? Fact? Forgot a fact. Forgot a fucking fact?
She took a deep breath then spoke in high C, like air slowly released from a balloon.
“You must have driven your car to and from Adaggio’s last night when you had dinner . . .
with that damn mystery woman.”
“The blonde?”
“The same . . . with the sunglasses . . . who Anton never saw before.”
“It’s coming back to me now . . .” he said as if visualizing a scene.
“Oh, really?”
“Yes.”
“Who is she, Jared?”
“My Uber driver.”
“You can’t expect me to—”
“No. Really, Bethany. Her name was Lilly.”
“Like short for Lillian?
“No . . . no. She was very unusual. She introduced herself to me, as Lilly when she
picked me up here to go to Adaggio’s last night at six. But her name on her posted ID said
“Lilith.”
“Oh, boy! That’s a good one, Jared. So some psycho Uber driver with satanic genes
beat the crap out of you and gave you all these bruises. Maybe you didn’t tip her enough
after she drove you home, so she threw your ass down that twenty-foot flight of stairs from
your balcony to your garage?”
“It’s a thought,” he said with a shrug, but she wasn’t buying it.
Obviously pissed, she waved an arm at him with dismissal and said, “Have it your way,
Jared. But I’m going to call Uber and find out who this psycho bitch is who threw you down
the stairs. Not like I haven’t wanted to do the same to you often enough.”
As he heard her footsteps in decent on the exterior stairs, each clunk on the wooden steps
reminded him of his drunken tumble down the stairs last night. Was it 9:45 p.m. or 10:15 p.m?
The numbers had been blurred on his SUV’s digital clock right after the impact, enough from
the side along the dark road’s shoulder to collapse his fender, but not enough to inflate the
airbag. He swore he’d seen a deer, an eight-point buck writhing with muscles in his rearview
mirror. Nothing else, so he’d kept driving with only a mile left to get to his home.
He’d fumbled with the remote garage opener but entered without a scratch. He’d gotten
out of his car, beeped the car lock with his keys, then closed the door and headed up the stairs to
have that last night’s sleep for the closing scene of his novel to congeal the action in his grey
matter.
He undressed and put on his robe and sat on the sofa, gathering his thoughts as he flipped
on the eleven o’clock news. As he’d drifted off in slumber, he felt at peace with himself, a
smooth transcendence from what is and what might be.
He felt like an angel, his feet not touching the ground as he descended the balcony stairs
to the parking lot. In his mind, he seemed to float across the parking lot to his car. It looked like
a good chance of rain with dark clouds hovering on the horizon above the sun setting atop the
distant trees. He opened the hatchback of his SUV and took out a cheap umbrella, the kind sold
for three bucks on city street corners in a sudden downpour, and not meant to survive more than
a single squall. Much as he felt about himself regarding his longevity in the nameless shit storm
that his writing career had recently become. He was feeling lightheaded from his two glasses of
wine at dinner. Anton knew his car, so it wouldn’t be towed if he left it overnight and took a cab
home. He dialed Uber.
Within two minutes, the Uber driver showed up, lowered her window and said, “Hi,
Mr. Smythe, I’m your ride.”
When he sat in the passenger seat beside her, he read her ID card on the dash and made a
muffled hmm sound.
“Problem?” the driver asked.
“Oh, no,” he said with a shrug.
“What then?” she asked.
“I used to date a woman with the same name.”
“No shit.”
“Yes, shit,” he said, grinning. That dimple crease in his cheek held her attention.
“You’re my last fare tonight,” she said. “I started at 6 a.m.”
“Whew! Sixteen hours? Is that legal?”
“No . . . but I am.”
There was a minute of silence. Ten minutes from Adaggio’s she was already pulling into
his driveway.
Nice to meet you, Mr. Smythe,” she said. “Here’s my card. I’m local so you can always
call me direct when you’re in a hurry.”
“You want to come up?” he nodded to the stairs leading to his second-floor balcony.
“You mean for a drink?” she asked, totally blasé and not offended by such an open, male
predatory gesture.
“Or for the night . . . but only if you want to,” he said, showing all his cards.
“Didn’t I see you with a woman in the parking lot just before I arrived to pick you up?”
she asked.
“The blonde?”
“The blonde.”
“Business associate,” he said.
“What’s your business?”
“I’m a writer?”
“What do you write?” she asked.
“The jury’s still out on that.”
“Can I be your jury-of-one tonight?”
“Why not? Come on in, Bethany.”
She followed him up the stairs and they entered his condo. She went to the bathroom
to freshen up and he did the same. In his robe he came to the living room and poured two glasses
of Merlot then waited for her to join him. He was startled by the knock at the front door. Then
the doorknob jiggled for a moment before he heard the key inserted and the deadbolt click open.
The metal door creaked on its hinges as it swung open. The bright, rectangular light from the
open door hurt his eyes from twenty feet across the hardwood floor to the sofa where he’d been
anticipating . . . anticipating . . . anticipating . . . something—anything to help him regain what
he’d lost.
A backlit figure, obviously of a woman with her graceful, dance-like strides, came
toward him. With the setting sun at her back, her lithe figure cast a long shadow, a narrow black
path that cut straight to his doubts. She turned to the open door behind her, where two other
figures followed her.
“Jared Smythe?” one of the men asked.

“Yes,” he said with resigned calm as the blonde took off her sunglasses.
“Sorry, Jared,” she said. “They’ve seen your car in the garage. The dented fender.
There’s blood. It’s a match.”
“Bethany!” He called to the bathroom. “Come out and tell these people where I’ve been
these past eighteen hours.”
He thought he still heard the shower running, but it turned out like most of the past
eighteen hours, that it was all just the afterglow of his imagination . . . music of the night that
spun a tune to suit its composer, but echoed untruths, perhaps lies, even to himself.

Give me your teeth!

By Amirah Al Wassif



Once upon a time, in a very far land called Orshalim,
 three innocent boys sat at the under an immense fig tree.

The three cheerful boys, Ali, Peter, and Abraham, played with their poor toys non stop, their playthings very old and dirty,
trying all the time to imagine their toys clean and new. 
This way, they felt better and continued playing with joy.

One night, the three boys gathered around a mysterious massive thing.

The strange thing started moving from side to side, surrounded from alley to alley.

Ali, Peter, and Abraham looked at the moving thing deeply, watching how this weird thing danced and jumped without rest.

When this big moving thing shook all the trees around them, the friendly boys approached it a bit too close this time, all of them saw the real thing: 
it was a flying plate, full of the most splendid and delicious kinds of desserts.

The boys were taken by the extraordinary behavior of this flying plate, they watched it closely, then the marvelous desserts which were found in the plate rolled and performed a crazy dance, each piece of this wonderful candy went out from the plate, landed suddenly and jumped on the three boy's toes.

Ali, Peter, and Abraham became very frightened and astonished, so, they stopped for a long time, looked and looked again,
they waited all night, and did not go home.

Now this long night spent, and the boys still sitting down next to the magnificent plate, but when the sun arrived at its position in the sky,
the flying plate which full of desserts had been disappeared.

"Oh! Where is the plate?" Ali cried in fear.

"I cannot believe my eyes," Peter whispered to himself, and Abraham said in a loud tone, "it's like a dream."

The three boys were talking and talking, not sure if they saw a true flying plate with wonderful candy which could dance and jump to all sides.

Ali, Peter, and Abraham went back to their home, the three kind boys all neighbors.

They reached to their country Orshalim and gathered together in the common yard, then they kissed and hugged each other,
and all of them said "goodbye" in peaceful manner.

But the kind boys did not know the harsh manner that awaited them in their houses.

When the boys knocked their doors simultaneously, their mothers opened quickly, and each boy entered his house, and each door closed.

After that, the three mothers asked their boys the reason for their delay on this night.
Their mothers would punish them if they would not respond, so the boys told them about the wonderful flying plate, and they talked for a long hour describing its desserts, its crazy dance, but their mothers did not believe them, and all of them decided to punish the three boys.

The punishment was very, very hard for the boys, because it prevented them from playing, and going to any place together again.

Ali, Peter, and Abraham were very angry and felt bad.
They used to go to the wide garden every night where the wonder flying plate was,
Their mothers did not believe what they said and discarded this story as a lie.

So, the three boys were punished for many days, and they did not go anywhere.

Peter pondered those long days about a magical solution to their problem.
He asked himself, each day more and more how could they prove the flying plate as a truth for their mothers?

Finally, Peter's good idea popped into his soul like a light, a light, a candle that might help them.
Peter decided to go to Ali and Abraham homes, as he wanted to tell them about his new plan.

Peter went to Abrahams house, knocked softly on the glass window, hoping Abraham's mother would not see him.

Now, Abraham sensed the new plan, decided to go to Ali's house and tell him, as well. 
Only minutes later, the boys were on their way to the garden where the flying plate sat at the center of the massive fig tree.

The boys arrived at the tree, watching the splendid plate, delighted because of its charm, but suddenly Peter remembered their new
plan. The flying plate! The truth! Their mothers! 
Peter  said to Ali and Abraham, quickly in vast agitation:

"Carry me, carry me, we shall get this plate, we shall hold it and show it wonder ability for our mothers to believe us, and would not punish us again."

Ali and Abraham were very excited, and did so.

Peter had been carried by his fellows, he tried to touch the plate which found in the center of the fig tree, but when he closed to it the plate disappeared.

Peter repeated, trying many times to catch the plate, but every time, the plate seemed to be hidden from the boy's eyes.

They did not know the logical reason of what happened, however, but could not stop trying.

This night spent, the boys had failed in catching the wonder plate. They were tired.

Suddenly, all of them down, Peter's leg broken, Ali's trouser torn.
Only Abraham was well.
For that reason, he helped his friends go home rapidly.

As the first time, mothers of the boys punished them, but this time the matter was worse because all the people in Orshalim repeated that Ali, Peter, and Abraham are liars, and because of their lies God punished them by breaking Peter's leg and tearing Ali trousers.

"God punished Abraham too, cause he made him a foolish boy, a boy who believes his friends lies,
and as a result of his foolish behavior, everybody in Orshalim made fun of him."

Many days spent, and everyone in Orshalim repeated these words daily:
Ali, Peter, and Abraham are fools and liars.

Peter and Ali were locked in their houses, their mothers treated them hardly, and all people laugh at them.

One day, Abraham woke early, thought of his friends,
he wanted to prove the truth of the flying plate to all, and the only question which surrounded in his mind

"How?"
​

After hours of thinking, Abraham decided to go to the wide and amazing garden, all alone,
because of the hard conditions of his friends, and so, he went straight to the place of the wonder plate.

When the dusk covered the sky, Abraham approached to the center of the fig tree.
At that time, the flying plate danced up and down. 
Abraham watches the plate's performance. Suddenly, he tried to catch it, but as with Peter, the plate disappeared.

Abraham never gave up, he tried and tried and tried, by the way, he fell down many times, his leg broken, his clothes torn,
but he decided to never go home without the evidence for innocent of his friends.

Abraham spent three nights trying to catch the flying plate with no stop or rest,
and finally, he cried, his tears, covered his awesome face, but he did not give up.

Now, something very strange happened. 

When Abraham caught the plate, a piece of paper fell down from the fig tree!

Abraham was thirsting to read the paper, he closed to it, and had read the paper with wide eyes and mouth,
something was written in it, something very weird, a single sentence:

"Give me your teeth!"

Abraham's arms shook with fear, he did not understand what the strange paper meant, so he wrote on the back of the same paper: how?

The flying plate sent another piece of paper to Abraham, then he picked it up and read these words:

"When you give me your teeth, I will reveal myself to you, and everybody."

Abraham feared this more and more, but decided to never go home without this evidence for his best friends Ali and Peter,
so he wrote on the back of the paper:

"How many teeth"?

Then, the plate replied:

"One tooth equals one piece."

Now, Abraham understood the game, so he started giving the plate as many teeth which he owned,
 wanting to catch all the wonderful pieces of desserts, and made it shown to all his people.

After a week spent, Abraham went back to his home Orshalim, all the people gathered around him, even the mothers and his friends Ali and Peter,
All these folks were waiting for the wondrous flying plate.
Abraham had shown it to everyone, all the people watching with stare eyes.

Everyone believed the three boys, after that.
The people in this country wrote a proverb on the wall honoring Abraham courage in wonderful friendship between him and Ali and Peter:

"Courage is as rare as the flying plate of desserts, as singular as the numbers of teeth that Abraham could keep!"

The Candle in the Wind


a novel excerpt from


THE BLIND SPOT


by


Gerald Arthur Winter






“Each day of our lives we make deposits
in the memory banks of our children.”
— Charles R. Swindol


​



My grandparents adorned their patio with a bright yellow table cloth on the


picnic table with pink paper napkins and helium balloons. It all read, “Happy Birthday,


Bonnie,” but I was impatient for Jack to arrive, worried whether he even would.


Gram baked a seven-layer cake with pink icing and stuck a turquoise number


seven on top. A stack of gift-wrapped presents on the picnic table were all marked: “Our


Birthday Girl, Bonnie.” Gram and Gramps had bought my first bicycle, hoping Jack


would make time to teach me how to ride it without its training wheels. Draped with


ribbons and bows, the bike was surrounded by a pyramid of wrapped gifts.


I listened for Jack’s pickup truck in the driveway as guests arrived. A dozen of


my third-grade classmates were already seated, five girls and seven boys. The girls had


come because their parents knew Gram and Gramps from church and they knew me


from Sunday school. The boys had come begrudgingly, only because I’d beaten them


all at arm wrestling left-handed and right-handed. The boys’ attendance was the cost


of their lost wagers that even one of them could beat me.


Dressed in a crinkly pink party dress that scratched my legs and made me feel


silly in front of the boys, I stood on my tippy-toes on the picnic table’s bench to peek


over the hedges each time I heard a car coming up the street. The knot tied with a pink


ribbon on top of my head felt tight and uncomfortable. Though I heard the boys’


murmurings about pulling the knot loose to make my long blond hair fall in my face,


one squint from me warned them they’d get punched in the eye.


Our guests were getting impatient for a piece of cake, but I insisted they’d have


to wait until my pop, Jack, arrived. Reluctantly, Gram complied, but with a shake of her


head as if to say—good luck with that. Jack’s a no-show for your party.


A pair of hands suddenly wrapped around my waist from behind, but it was only


Gramps, not my pop.


“Don’t want you falling down on your birthday,” he said with a whisper in my


ear. “Jack will be here soon. I’m sure of it.”


Gram, who’d come out to set the table for the children, scowled and mumbled


something under her breath. She’d never had a son. The misbehaving boys poking at one


another and making faces at the girls was an element of the party Gram obviously hadn’t


counted on. Jack’s tardiness was business as usual, but Gram’s spirits perked when some


friends of hers and Gramps’ began to fill the yard. The moms wore pastel summer outfits


and wide-brimmed sun bonnets.


I was about to give up on Pop when his old pickup wheeled into the driveway.


I saw him behind the wheel, raking his fingers through his unkempt hair. He turned the


rearview mirror to check his face then rubbed his eyes. He paused a while before getting


out of the truck, probably already regretting his attendance. I took a deep breath of relief


when he got out of his truck. I felt stirred by his presence, knowing I somehow belonged


to him.


Jack came empty-handed, but his presence was gift enough for me. He pecked


Gram’s cheek, fumbled in his pocket, then I saw him tuck a crisp hundred dollar bill into


Gram’s apron pouch. Gram frowned when she saw what it was. Jack shrugged it off and


shook Gramps’ hand. I could tell it was a strong grip from both, as if they were wrestling


each other over some issue—probably me—I was always an issue for Jack. I wasn’t sure


why. Grownups and their issues were a mystery back then, sometimes even now at eighteen.


Jack could sniff out a cold beer from across the yard. I’m sure I’d heard Gramps


say that, more than once, but when Jack wasn’t around. Jack grabbed a beer from a cooler


beside the picnic table and popped the top off a bottle of Bud. He raised it to Gramps


with cheers and met Gram’s frown with his subtly spiteful smirk.


Finally, he turned to me. “Happy Birthday, squirt,” he said, staring blankly as if


at nothing. I didn’t care if he called me squirt, as long as he spoke to me. He closed his


bloodshot eyes and downed the beer in a few seconds then turned back to the cooler.


I noticed that Jack was even more sullen than usual. Regardless, I preferred less


coddling from my grandparents and more time with Pop. I was drawn to him, though he


practically ignored me. I’d heard Gram tell Gramps that Jack’s weekend “binges” at the


Seaside boardwalk had to stop if they ever hoped to leave me at his home more than once


or twice a month. I’d have been grateful even for that little time with Jack.


Though I didn’t know what a “binge” was, I was pretty sure it had to do with all


the empty beer cans overflowing the kitchen waste can at Jack’s house. I’d seen them


the few times I’d visited. That was an agreement to which Jack had first adamantly


refused. He’d finally reconsidered, but with reluctance and obvious regret as revealed


by his surly expressions.


I’d overheard Jack saying to Gramps, “I’m feeling buyer’s remorse with this


arrangement.”


I’d sensed from his tone that “buyer’s remorse” was Jack’s fancy way of saying


he didn’t want me living with him.


In my mind, I’d thought of Jack affectionately as Pop, though I hadn’t mustered


the courage to call him that to his face. I hoped my birthday party might give me that


opportunity. I kept my lips taut, but was waiting for the right moment to call him Pop,


just to get his reaction.


“Come on, Jack,” Gramps said, nudging him. “Let’s take a photo of you with


Bonnie blowing out the candles. It’s a big day for our little girl.”


The hungry children at the picnic table gave a cheer, knowing a slice of cake


would soon be on their plates. A deep gash creased between Jack’s eyes. I studied his


flushed face. Gramps lit the seven candles and all the guests gathered around. Jack


clenched his jaw. I touched Jack’s bulging forearm, making him flinch, pulling away


from me. A wave of grief passed through me like a ghost.


I turned toward Jack’s glassy-eyed stare and conceded with a shrug that he


would be no help to me blowing out the candles.


“Let’s go, Jack!” Gramps said. “I bet she can’t blow out all those candles by


herself.”


“Can, too!” I said.


“We’ll all help you blow out the candles,” Gram said. “Won’t we, Jack?”


“I can blow them out myself,” I said. “I don’t need anyone’s help! Not yours or


Pop’s!”


It was out of my mouth, but the word hovered with anger rather than affection.


Jack paid no attention to what I’d said, but rather the harsh tone I’d used to say it.


“Speak respectfully to your grandparents!” Jack said. “Don’t give me reason to


spank you!”


The boys at the table grinned at the prospect of my getting my due, but the girls


and other parents frowned.


Gramps stepped between us and said, “She meant no disrespect, Jack. She’s just


very sure of herself.”


Gram glared at Jack. “If you spent more time with her, you’d know that.”


“How come you’re so angry on my birthday?” I asked him.


My grandparents eyed each. The guests exchanged wary glances.


Jack stalled with a long breath. “I don’t want to talk about it.” He walked away


from the table.


Gramps followed after him. “You can tell us,” he said, but Gram shook her head


with dismissal. I remember their exchange as if it were yesterday.


“Forget about it,” Jack said, realizing the guest were staring across the yard at him


from the table.


“Maybe I can help,” Gramps said.


Jack looked at his hands. “Got fired,” he said aside so none of the guests would


hear.but I did. “No teaching or coaching. They’ve banned me from all of it.”


“But you have tenure.”


Jack shrugged and sipped his beer. “Budget cuts . . . they hired a new baseball


coach out of college at half my salary.”


Gram went over to them and said in a whisper, “It’s your drinking.”


A cloud came across Jack’s face. But before he could snap at Gram, Gramps said,


“Some Board members are my friends from the Elks. Maybe I could pull some strings.”


Jack shook his head and sneered.


Gramps said, “Enough bad news for today. Come on, Jack, I’ll take a photo of


you and Bonnie blowing out her candles together.”


Jack shrugged with slumped shoulders, but followed Gramps back to the table.


“How come, Uncle Davey didn’t come to my party?” I asked Jack.


“Did you even tell her Uncle Davey that she was having a birthday party?” Gram


asked, though she seemed to already know the answer.


With his red eyes, Jack shot daggers at Gram. “Too far to travel,” he said.


“Too bad,” Gram said. “If Lydia hadn’t told me she’d met him—I’d think your


brother didn’t exist. But at least we’re all here for Bonnie’s special day.”


Jack winced. I knew it was because my mother had died on this day. She’d died


giving birth to me and everything had been a mess since. Her death had broken Jack’s


heart. There had been no way to comfort him. I’d heard Gram tell her church friends that


Jack, without my mother, had become a lost soul, and that was his excuse for drinking.


Gramps put an arm around Jack’s shoulder and whispered in his ear. Jack nodded.


Gramps always knew the right thing to say to keep the peace.


Finally, Jack agreed to pose for the photo, but with a forced smile, asking me,


“You don’t really believe you can blow out all seven candles by yourself, do you, squirt?


I bet you can’t.”


The girls at the picnic table encouraged me to try, but the boys frowned and shook


their heads, knowing from their own experience that betting against me would always be


a mistake. Their forced attendance at my party was proof enough.


Jack challenged his students in class and varsity players on the baseball field,


but he’d never challenged me at anything. He’d always acted as if giving me that much


attention would be a waste of his time. I figured with the selfish, naïve logic of a child


that his job loss would give him plenty of extra time to spend with me.


My anger welled. “Can too!” I shouted. “But no cheating. Cover your mouth with


your hand so I’m sure you’re not helping.” I felt compelled to bargain. “What will you


give me if I blow out all seven candles with one breath?”


“Give you?” He shrugged with a smirk. “It’s your wish . . . whatever you want.”


Then he said so no one else would hear, “Only if I can afford it on unemployment.”


“I just want to play catch with you, Pop,”


Looking as if the air had been sucked out of him, Jack said, “I don’t have a


baseball mitt, not at home—they’re too expensive and—”


“Sure you do,” I said, “It’s in the attic.”


Jack’s expression looked as if he’d been struck a blow, no doubt wondering how


I could know about the baseball mitt he’d kept hidden for years.


I enjoyed seeing the shock on Jack’s face, recalling how I’d first learned about his


dark secret . . .




Jack was stumbling up the staircase with heavy steps across the warped landing


outside my bedroom. The century-old house was a fixer-upper Jack had never fixed. It


was my house, too, but before that first night, I’d lived with my grandparents ever since


I could remember. Jack’s elbows bumped along the walls in the hallway when he came


to my door. His footsteps paused for a moment then continued up to the third floor.


I’d wandered up to the third floor only once before on a daytime visit months


ago, but Jack had scolded me, warning: “Don’t ever go up there again!”


Wondering what Jack was up to, I peeked up the staircase from my open door.


Jack was swaying on the third-floor landing and made several failed attempts before he


grabbed the cord to open the folding attic stairs. The ceiling was water-stained above


Jack’s head, and paint chips fluttered down like snowflakes to the landing. Jack ascended


the attic stairs, each step with a squeak from its rusted springs. Though I’d heard him


complain about the leaky roof, the dripping had continued with every rain storm soaking


the carpet on the third-floor landing with a mildew stench.


I went halfway up the staircase just in time to see Jack’s feet disappearing from


the unfolded ladder into the attic. I climbed slowly to the third-floor landing, then put one


bare foot on the first rough, wooden wrung. I grabbed the narrow ladder with both hands,


but got a splinter in my thumb. I held my breath so I wouldn’t cry out and squinted to


hold back my tears. I already knew that Jack didn’t like “cry-babies.”


Over the past two years since I’d started school, I’d been able to watch Jack


coaching his high school team. Gramps would lift me onto his shoulders so I could see


the infield. I’d heard Jack shout from the dugout steps: “No cry-babies! Suck it up!”


A pitch had hit a boy’s ankle during batting practice and he’d slump to his knees


in the batter’s box. The pain had brought tears to the boy’s eyes. Jack hadn’t known I


was watching. I’d observed his gestures and the inflection of his voice. At my grand-


parents’ home, I’d often mimic Jack’s gait and body language. I’d tilt my New York


Yankees baseball cap at the same angle as his.


“Don’t let Jack catch her doing that,” Gram had warned, but Gramps had


laughed into tears at the accuracy of my mimicry. I enjoyed being a clown.


“He’d have a fit,” Gramps had agreed.


I’d noticed how the teenage boys on Jack’s team had done whatever he’d told


them to do and they’d run to him whenever he’d shout their names.


“You’re fine. Quit crying!” Jack had told the boy hit by the pitch. He’d made


the boy run laps, limping back and forth in the outfield. Jack always seemed angry. I


wondered why, because his team usually won their games. According to Gramps,


Jack’s varsity baseball teams had won three Ocean County Championships and two


New Jersey State Championships. That sounded important. Watching him coach, I


felt a growing certainty that Jack was special to others as well as to me.


“But why is he always angry, Gramps?” I’d asked.


Gramps took a deep breath, telling her, “Jack is a perfectionist, a big word for


you, but he wants his team to be the best. See how he’s rubbing that boy’s ankle after


running laps. Jack cares about the boys, but still wants them to be tough. He’s a great


baseball coach.”


“If I’m tough, will he care about me, too?”


Gramps grinned. “Jack cares about you, Bonnie. He’s hurting inside. Your Gram


is impatient with him, but Jack needs us to give him time.”


“Time for what?” I asked.


“He needs more time to heal. Even when he behaves badly, love him. He needs


you very much, but hasn’t figured that out yet.”


Watching Jack rub the boy’s ankle, I wished it had been my ankle. I envied the


boys on Jack’s team and longed for that same attention from him.


I gradually understood that I was connected to Jack, but since he’d rarely been


around, I wasn’t sure how. I hadn’t seen much of him since starting kindergarten, but the


past two years changed that on Gram’s insistence. She would occasionally drop me off at


Jack’s house unannounced, waiting till a Friday afternoon when he’d come home from


coaching baseball. He’d be tired at the end of the week and hopefully less resistant to my


unexpected presence.


“He loves surprises,” Gram told me on the drive over to Jack’s house.


Never seemed so to me by Jack’s red face and the sharp crease between his eye-


brows. I’d seen that expression when Jack had kicked dirt onto an umpire’s shoes over a


close play. Sometimes Jack’s hot temper would get him thrown out of a game, but the


only umpire to successfully stand between Jack and Gram was Gramps.


Jack would always bring me back to my grandparents’ home sooner than expected.


Disappointed, I’d run into Gram’s house, so they’d think I couldn’t hear them talking


about me. I’d open a window upstairs and listen.


Gram said to Jack, “Bonnie needs you.”


“We’ve been through this,” Jack argued. “I’ll be no good to her. I’m a successful


teacher and coach, but that’s all I’m fit to do.”


“There’s very little difference,” Gramps had said in his calm, quiet tone that


always helped me go peacefully to sleep. “The only difference is the deeper love family


provides. The boys you coach will come and go, so will your students, but Bonnie will




always be with you. She’s your blood.”


“Blood,” that’s how we were connected. Nothing should ever come between us.


Jack and Gram were often at odds, with extended silences, sometimes for weeks.


Only Gramps with his reasonable affirmations could get them talking to each other again


—until the next incident.


Recalling his gruff manner on the baseball field, I’d continued following Jack up


to the attic that night I’d spied on him.




“The glove is not an object in the usual sense . . . to divide it from
yourself, even in thought, is one of the roots of error.”


Chad Harbach – The Art of Fielding




I held my breath, slowly exhaling so Jack wouldn’t hear me. With the wind


whistling against the roof and rain dripping down the open stairwell, I climbed up the


ladder behind him. My heart pounded, weighing my curiosity against my punishment if


Jack were to catch me spying on him hours past my bedtime.


I peeked from the top attic step. Jack was kneeling with his back to me. He


lifted a blue cardboard box from the shadows of the eaves. He took a baseball mitt from


the box. The mitt wasn’t beat-up like those I’d seen on Jack’s team, but looked brand


new, giving off a fresh aroma of linseed oil in the stuffy attic. Jack put the mitt on his


right hand and pounded his left fist into its pocket, so hard it seemed as if he were


punching someone. I hoped he’d never turn his anger on me, even if he caught me


snooping on him.


Before he could catch me, I backed down the stairs. Even if he heard me, I was


too quick to be seen, scrambling, almost tripping in my escape. With my pulse pounding


in my ears, I darted into Jack’s bedroom across the hall from mine and slid under his


king-size bed. From under Jack’s bed, I heard him folding the attic stairs closed, but he


didn’t come down to the second floor where I was hiding.


With no escape, I came out from under the bed, expecting to take my punishment.


Then I saw him up the staircase, still in the hallway on the third floor. He didn’t have the


baseball mitt, but took a key from his pocket to open the door to a room that had been


locked for as long I could remember.


When Jack entered that room, I wanted to run back to my bedroom unseen, but


my curiosity had gotten the best of me, drawing me back upstairs. On the landing, I


pushed the door open, just enough to see Jack facing away from me.


The room’s walls had been painted sky blue, the same as a crib and dresser. Jack


was sitting with his legs crossed on the hardwood floor. I slumped against the wall out-


side the door and fell asleep . . .






The next morning, I woke with a start. Jack’s iPhone was vibrating and skimming


along the hardwood floor of the blue room. I peeked through the narrow crack of the


open door and watched him. He looked groggy and seemed confused. He picked up the


phone and looked at the caller ID. He answered, “Hello . . . I need the rest of the week to


myself . . . you’ll have to take Bonnie back today. . . Next Saturday? Her birthday? I’d


rather not . . . OK—OK, I’ll think about it . . . no promises.”


Jack stuck the phone in his shirt pocket and huffed. Sitting on the floor and facing


the ceiling, he acted as if the room were spinning, making him dizzy. He stretched an arm


touching the slanted ceiling of the eaves. He grumbled and cursed. Except for the empty


blue crib and dresser, the room was barren. Attached to the crib was a mobile of plastic


baseball equipment: bat, ball, cap, a pair of cleats, catcher’s mask, chest protector,


and a mitt. Like icicles, they hung motionless, frozen in time.


A photo calendar of the New York Yankees hung on the wall, top players in


pinstripes from a decade ago when they’d been World Champs in 2009. Sunrise gleamed


through a dormered window backlighting faded curtains entwined with cobwebs. A few


dead wasps lay crumpled on the window sill.


He turned to the dresser, but tripped over a gallon can left open with a broad


brush standing upright in the hardened blue paint.


“Jesus!” he grumbled.


Off the dresser, Jack picked up a framed photo of a young boy swinging a


baseball bat. Another frame showed a young man in a baseball uniform with “Rutgers”


in red across a white jersey. Jack blew dust off the glass of the frame and coughed.


Next to that frame was a larger empty one, still sealed in opaque plastic.


Jack pulled out the key to lock the room behind him, but might have heard me


scrambling down the stairs. He didn’t see me when he looked down the staircase, because


I was already in my bed, shivering. I heard Jack shout, “Goddamn haunted house!”


I understood what “haunted” meant from Halloween trick-or-treating. I started to


shake under the pink comforter Gram had given me to bring to Jack’s house, but it gave


me little comfort.


Jack closed the door behind him and locked it with the dead-bolt’s click then


came downstairs to his bedroom.


I got out of bed and scampered across the room to peer from the crack of my


door. Jack tossed the key into a jewelry box atop his dresser. He took a gilded, framed


photo from his dresser and clutched it close to his chest. The photo was the same as one


at Gram and Gram’s house on their fireplace mantel. No one had spoken to me about


the young woman in the photo. I hadn’t asked. Once, when I’d remarked how pretty


the woman was, Gram had left the room in tears and Gramps had to leave for his


meeting at the Elks Club. It had been as if they hadn’t heard me, or just refused to.


My ears perked when Jack kissed the photo and said—“Lydia.”


No one had said it outright before, but I was sure Lydia was my mother.




“What lies behind us and what lies ahead
of us are tiny matters compared to what
lives within us.”― Henry David Thoreau


My recollection of spying on Jack faded, but the baseball mitt remained vivid in


my mind as Gram lit the candles on my birthday cake.


“Bet I can throw a baseball as good as any boy—even better,” I boasted.


I thought I’d finally worn down Jack’s resistance. “Okay, but only if you blow out


all seven candles—with one breath. If you do, I’ll get the mitt and we’ll have a catch. ”


His expression looked regretful, again—buyer’s remorse.


Gram and Gramps gave him disdainful looks. Their friends muttered asides to one


another. My girlfriends rooted for me, but the boys shook their heads as if Jack had made


a careless misjudgment of my competitive spirit.


Jack grinned, probably sure I’d lose the bet. How could my scrawny stature


muster enough breath to blow out more than one or two candles. I was barely 40 pounds


and under 40 inches tall, a runt—a squirt. Just on my appearance, Jack looked sure that I


couldn’t throw a baseball very far or with any speed or accuracy—case closed.


How could he know what I was capable of when he’d rarely seen me? I’d heard


Jack discuss baseball games with Gramps watching Yankee games on TV. I knew


baseball was something Jack was confident he knew more about than most. Sensing


Jack’s confidence that he’d win the wager, I was determined to prove him wrong.


“Promise?” I asked.


He nodded with a shake of my little hand. “Deal.”


I reared back with a deep breath then pursed my lips. Jack must have seen


determination in my eyes that reminded him of a pitcher in a jam on the mound facing a


batter for the final out. He measured all things in terms of baseball. With cheeks swollen,


I blew so hard that the topknot quivered on top of my head. The pink ribbon unraveled,


and my long, sandy-blond hair came unleashed, covering my face like a mop. I nearly fell


into the cake but balanced with both hands flat on the table. My eyes opened wide to see


the result of my effort. One candle still flickered, but a sudden breeze made the wick flare


for a moment before white smoke, like a burnt offering, trailed across the yard. The


seventh candle fizzled out, permeating the yard with the scent of melted wax.


My grandparents hugged me, my girlfriends cheered, and the boys looked at one


another knowingly with shakes of their heads. Jack frowned at me when I folded my


arms and beamed with victory. I was trying to show the kind of spunk Jack seemed to


encourage in his baseball team. I may have won the wager, but Jack looked unconvinced,


as if it was just good luck for me and bad luck—as usual—for him.


Staring with resentment at me, he flinched as if he suddenly recognized some-


thing in me, but was trying to fight against that feeling because it made him uncomfortable.


He’d become accustomed to his hardened disassociation from family. He seemed to work


at that daily as much as he devoted himself to baseball.


I watched his reaction, wondering if Jack had seen some of himself in me, some-


thing he hadn’t noticed before. My eyes were brilliant green. I often wondered why they


weren’t dark brown like Jack’s. I wished they were, just to feel a closer connection to


him, so close I’d see the world through his eyes, knowing everything he knew.


Excited, my eyes sparkled like precious emeralds from a hidden treasure suddenly


unearthed. It was my forthright, in-your-face attitude that had to remind Jack of himself,


especially his style as a teacher and baseball coach. He’d raised his voice to me for the


first time, but I was glad to have his attention, even for just a moment.


The party guests gradually dispersed then I turned to Jack. “Let’s go home, Pop. I


want to play catch with you before it gets too dark.”


“Your father needs some coffee before you head home,” Gram said.


Gramps poured Jack a cup and handed it to him.


Though Jack agreed, he looked as if he regretted losing the bet to me. He seemed


relieved when a thunderstorm kicked up as we left for his home, hopefully delaying our


catch for another day. He must have thought I’d forget about his promise, but my willful


expression told him—no way.


* * *


Jack drove me home in his beat-up, red Ram pickup. I remained quiet the whole


way, which made Jack turn to me in a rare moment.


“Too much cake and ice cream?” he asked. “Your tummy hurting?”


“I’m OK,” I said, just glad he was looking at me for a change.


At his home, I waited on the third-floor landing while Jack pulled down the


folding stairs and climbed to the attic. In the stuffy air and dim light, I heard him scuff-


ling for the blue box I knew contained the baseball mitt in the shadows of the eaves. I


heard the wind from outside blow open the shutters on a dormered attic window, which


must have startled him.


“You OK, Pop?”


He grunted then dropped the mitt down the folding stairs at my feet. Lightning


flashed outside and thunder boomed close by.


“We can’t go outside if there’s lighting,” he said.


“It’s clearing up!” I yelled, grabbing the mitt and scurrying downstairs. “It’ll


be fine in a few minutes.”


During a brief downpour, Jack kept looking at his watch, knowing it was close to


my bedtime. I inspected the mitt, flexing the fingers, rubbing the webbing and punching


my small fist into its pocket. It was a Mariano Rivera model, but I noticed another name


burnt into the heel near the thumb. It read “Junior.”


I was about to ask Jack about it, but the rain had stopped. “It’s clearing up,”


I said. “Come on, Pop. Let’s go.”


Jack stuck his head out the backdoor that led to the driveway. The storm had


cleared. He followed me to the driveway, still hoping for an out. I stood in front of


the white garage door beneath the overhead spotlight. In the pink glow of twilight after


the storm, the air at dusk smelled sweet. Fitting all my small fingers into just two fingers


of the mitt, I pounded it with my left fist the same way I’d seen Jack do it in the attic and


how his players smacked the pockets of their mitts on the field. The well-oiled leather felt


smooth and its aroma filled my nostrils.


“We don’t have any baseballs,” he said. “I have some at school in my locker, but I


can’t get back in there without the principal’s permission and—”


“Get a stone from under that oak tree!” I shouted.


“Too dangerous.”


“I won’t hurt ya, Pop.” I turned to the apple tree beside the driveway. “How


about an apple?”


Jack gathered a few apples from under the tree. He lobbed one underhand, just to


my left so he wouldn’t hit me. It rolled between my legs. I frowned and huffed.


“C’mon, gimme another one!” I shouted.


He looped another apple over my head, but I leaped and caught it. To his sur-


prise, I threw it back to him, waist high and hard enough to sting his bare hands. The


apple splattered sticky, brown juice, leaving a stain across his white polo shirt.


“Take it easy!” he shouted, shaking the sting from his fingertips and rubbing the


apple’s nectar from his hands onto his jeans. “Do you like throwing with your left hand?


Maybe you’re a righty.”


“I throw fine with my left,” I said with confidence, having thrown an old, moldy


tennis ball I’d found in Gramps’ garage. I’d mimicked the infielders I’d watched on


Jack’s team by throwing the tennis ball against the garage door and repeatedly catching it


on a bounce, then throwing it back against the door. I had no glove to wear then, so I’d


tried throwing and catching with both hands and felt no obvious difference.


Jack lobbed another apple underhand, but I folded my arms in protest, letting it


smash into the garage door. A stain dripped down the white surface.


I yelled, “Throw overhand—like the boys!”


Jack grumbled then threw another apple overhand, but easy. I caught the apple


before it hit the ground then whipped it back at him even harder than the last one,


catching him off guard. The apple hit him in the chest, making him stumble and fall


backwards gasping for breath.


I ran up to him. Disoriented, he stared glassy-eyed at me from the ground.


“Come on! That was an easy one!” From the foggy look in Jack’s eyes I figured


he must be seeing double like I’d seen in cartoons. “I bet I can throw a baseball even


harder than I throw an apple.”


“Maybe,” he agreed, regaining focus, “but no more bets. I’ll get a few baseballs


tomorrow. Then I’ll see if you can throw like the boys—or not.”


“I’m sorry you lost your teaching job,” I said. “Hey! Instead of coaching high


school—you could be my Little League coach.”


Jack laughed aloud for the first time in years. I couldn’t be sure if he was amused


at his come down from varsity high school coach to Little League or the prospect that I


could ever throw a baseball like anything other than his concept of “throwing like a girl.”


Underhand with a softball was one thing—hardball, in Jack’s rigid rule book was quite


another.


Toms River where Gram and Gramps lived was the County Seat where a few


exceptional girls had played on boys’ teams, and had even gone to the Little League


World Series playoffs in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. If anyone could teach me how


to pitch a baseball, Jack knew he was well-qualified. As compelling as that idea may


have felt to him, Jack was a baseball purist, old-fashioned to the core. Baseball for


boys—softball for girls.


If he’d told me right then that he was dead set against my playing Little League


with boys, I most likely would have forgotten about it just to please him. Then maybe


he’d let me come live with him. The thought of my interest in playing baseball surely


gave Jack fitful nights that even his alcohol consumption could not abate.




Later that same night, Jack tucked me into bed and stared at me with curiosity.


I didn’t care why he looked at me, only that he did. I held his big rough hand in my grasp


never wanting to let go.


“Pop, this mitt is the best. Can I keep it?”


He shrugged. “I suppose . . . why not?”


“It’s a Mariano Rivera model, but Gramps told me he was a righty.”


“He was . . . and the greatest closing pitcher in the majors. He saved more


games in his career with the Yankees than any pitcher in the majors ever has.”


“Why does my mitt say Junior?”


Jack took a deep breath. “It was meant . . . for your brother,” he said with a twitch.


“I have a brother?”


“Had . . . he died.”


“What happened?”


“He died with your mom . . . he was your twin.”


“Why did he die and not me?” I asked.


“Your mom always had to do things her way. She didn’t want to give birth in a


hospital. She wanted to do it naturally at home with a midwife to help her. I tried to talk


her out of it when we learned there would be twins, but she insisted on having her own


way. She’d studied lots of information on the internet and found a mid-wife that suited


her. She stopped going to her obstetrician for sonograms. If she had, we would have


known what was happening. You and your brother were attached by the same cord inside


your mom, but the cord had strangled your brother, cutting off his oxygen and blood


flow. That caused toChic shock to your mom, which the doctors hadn’t discovered until


she was rushed to the ER at County General. It was too late. When your brother was


still-born, withered on the vine, they removed you safely by caesarian.”


“That’s so sad,” I said, stroking his arm. “Please, tell me about my mom.”


He turned away and sighed. “You’re too young. Maybe when you’re more


grown up. I can’t now. You’d better get some sleep”


“Are you still angry at my mom?”


My question seemed to jolt him with an expression of confusion as if to ask, How


could I ever be angry with Lydia, my life mate, my true love? Yet somehow he was.


“I was mad at everyone and everything!” he said elevating his tone. Then that


release of pent-up anger seemed to calm him. “I’ll get a few baseballs and you can


practice throwing them to me.”


“You mean it?”


“Sure. I can teach you a lot about pitching. I pitched varsity at Rutgers.”


I recalled seeing the name printed in scarlet across his white uniform in the


framed photo in the blue room.


“Can I really keep this mitt? Even if it was meant for my brother.”


“Who else would use it?”


I got up on my knees in bed to give Jack a hug. I kissed his rough cheek then


nestled down under the quilt. I waved to him as he went to the door and left it open a


crack. He waved back. I clutched the mitt to my chest and inhaled the scent of the leather.


I brushed my little fingers across the letters where Jack had burned in the name—Junior.


I closed my eyes with a peaceful smile then stared at the ceiling. I tried to imagine my


twin brother.


As if he might answer me, I whispered, “I promise I’ll try to be the best baseball


player for Pop.”


I remember that birthday as if it were yesterday, not just because Jack had paid


attention to me for the first time and I got to play catch with him, but a new awareness


had come over me. I wasn’t just this scrawny little wisp of a girl with the big green eyes


like my mom’s. Gram and Gramps may have seen their lost daughter in me, but inside


my head was another me, a boy everyone thought had died. From that day on, I vowed


to keep Junior alive within me.




“Love is the ability and willingness to allow those that
you care for to be what they choose for themselves
without any insistence that they satisfy you.”― Wayne Dyer

Indian Summer

by
Gerald Arthur Winter




There’s no better time of the year to hike a mountain trail than mid-October in the
northeast when New York State’s autumn foliage is peaking with bursts of color—marigold
yellow, reds from raspberry to plum, and carrot orange flickering in between like flames.
Warnings of a severe winter ahead were forecast months ago after a drought last May and
June followed by a hurricane in September that caused more flooding than wind damage.
As a result, the foliage had soaked up the rain, providing an exceptional depth of lasting
fall hues not seen in decades.
The first hint of the preamble to a cold winter came the week before, right after
Columbus Day with the first freeze. I awoke the past three mornings with the lawn frosted
like coconut icing on a cake. After the hurricane’s heavy downpours last month, puddles
froze solid in the morning chill. I watch from my kitchen window as schoolchildren jump
on the frozen puddles to break the ice just as I had as a kid so long ago.
I sip my first cup of morning coffee as I watch the children on my day off. I work
only four days a week now, part-time as a crossing guard for the middle-school up the
street. The work, if you want to call it such, has a double purpose: it helps me remember
. . . but also forget.
The kids help me remember my own childhood, which often feels like yesterday.
But yesterday, Tuesday, is often just a blank. That’s why I chose Wednesday for my one
weekday off. Hump Day gives me focus so my Monday-Tuesday and Thursday-Friday
shifts at the corner of Elm and Mayfair holding up a red stop-sign don’t all blend
together. Last Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday was that stretch of morning frost.
The kids at the crosswalks with their wonderful questions and bright outlooks
help me forget I’m alone, that Alice died, and my days are filled with more memories
now than plans for the future. My future is waking up and hoping I’ll wake again
tomorrow.
I try to hold onto small things now, like seeing Mrs. Baxter across the street
planting her tulip bulbs along her driveway last Saturday. She must’ve heard about
the frost coming. But it caught me off guard, freezing my butt at the corner because
I hadn’t brought my winter coats, gloves, and caps down from the attic yet. I used
to depend on Alice for that, but she’s been gone five years now.
I got prepared last night to take my mountain hike on the same trail I used
to take with my older brother Mike when we were kids . . . he’s gone, too. I haven’t
told anyone about my plan to hike this morning because I know I’ll get all that jabber
about a man my age hiking alone in the woods.
My daughter got me one of those smartphones with a GPS for my seventy-fifth
birthday in May, so I figure I’ll be fine. Best part about the fancy phone is the photos I
can take. I even got one of those selfie-sticks in case I want to take my picture with my
arm around a black bear. Just kidding. That’s my light-hearted nature. My daughter
wouldn’t appreciate my humor about that.
I’ve packed myself a lunch in my backpack and I’m heading to my car to drive
to the trail right now. I’ll be home before sunset and no one will be the wiser so keep
it to yourself. Won’t my daughter be surprised when I show her all my pretty pictures
of the autumn leaves. That’s when I’ll tell her about my solo venture, not before.
I’ve got my winter jacket, scarf, gloves, and a leather hat with earflaps, so
even if it’s freezing up in those mountains this morning, I’ll be just fine.
I’ve parked my car at the base of the mountain and I’m heading up the
trail, which the county just opened a month ago after being closed to the public
after a college student taking this hike was mauled and killed by a 500 pound
black bear just out of hibernation. They says that bear might’ve been 600 pounds
after feeding for a month or two. Local papers called him “Bearzilla.”
Shame about the young man who died, but I’ve hiked this trail a hundred
times over the years from the 50’s till now, so I’m not concerned. I know enough
to stand clear of a mama bear with cubs.
It’s pretty brisk when I got out of the car, so I’m glad that I’ve dressed for
the morning freeze. But soon the exertion of the climb with my walking stick and
my backpack with my lunch and bottles of water weighing me down, has made me
sweat. I’ll still keep my scarf and gloves on, but I can stop to take a breather along
the way and remove my cap to dry my head with the old dish towel I keep in my
backpack. Used to use the towel to keep a fish from slipping out of my grasp when
I was removing the hook. Alice would complain if I came home with my hands
smelling like trout. Alice . . . she’d be on my case about hiking alone at my age.
Being Wednesday, there are no weekend hikers crowding the trail so there
were no other cars with mine where I parked, and after an hour trek toward the top
of the ridge, I haven’t seen another person yet. I enjoy the quiet and I’ve stopped a
few times to catch my breath, loosen my scarf, and just listen. With the sun up, the
autumn colors seem to burst all around me like a fireworks on Fourth of July.
I’ve reached the top of the ridge where there’s a glacier lake that’s two miles
long east to west and a mile wide north to south. I sit on a stone wall at the east end
of the lake to gather my thoughts before I take the two-hour walk around the lake.
It takes that long because of the rocky trail around the lake with boulders you have
to either climb over or squeeze between. The stone wall looks out over a dam that
control the overflow from the lake as it had during the September hurricane.
As I get up to begin my walk, I feel dizzy and sit back down again. I unravel
my scarf and put it into my backpack along with my gloves and hat. I unzip my
fleece jacket and flap it like a hawk’s wings to cool off. My forehead feels hot to
the touch so I take out my smartphone to see my position on the lake with my
GPS, then check the weather to be sure no squalls are heading toward the lake.
“Seventy-five?” I say aloud and with question. “That can’t be. It was 27
degrees on my back porch when I went to the car this morning only a couple of
hours ago. It’s almost eleven o’clock.”
I tap the screen of my phone as if it would make a difference. Old habits are
hard to break. I take a few sips of water and just one bite of my ham sandwich for
energy and some salt to keep me from dehydrating because my head is soaking wet
from the heat. I stand and stretch, wishing I saw a fellow hiker to say, “Nice weather.”
Just to get a response. I guess I have to believe my eyes because my body, like my
phone, is telling me it’s getting close to 80 degrees before noon in late October after
we had three nights in a row that dipped into the upper 20’s.
I roll up my jacket and put it into my backpack, because it’s become too hot to
wear even without hiking around the lake. That’s what I came up here to do, so I take
a deep breath and set my pace. Without any snags, I’ll be back to the damn by 1:30 p.m.
then I’ll eat the rest of my sandwich. It will be all downhill from there to my car. I’ll be
home before 4 p.m.
The first half-hour is easy, mostly level ground, though rough with roots and
jagged stones that could make me trip. The thought of falling down slows my pace. I
still haven’t seen any other hikers. For the first time I’m glad my daughter got me the
smartphone, not for the photos but for calling for help in case I fall down. The GPS
will get someone to me a lot quicker, even a helicopter if needed.
What am I saying? I know this trail like the back of my hand. I’ve known every
turn and hazard for most of my life. I’ll just enjoy the hike in this warm weather with
all these fantastic colors reflected on the lake.
I come to the bend in the path that takes me right up to the lake’s northern
shore. In the shade from the trees along the northern bank, the lake still has some
black ice that hasn’t melted. It’s a glacier lake so the water’s always cold and the
past three nights may have created a layer of ice over the lake thick enough to walk
on at this altitude.
My phone, even in the shade, says 78 degrees before noon, so that thin ice
won’t last long. In this heat it will all be melted before I return to the dam.
As I reach the halfway mark at the eastern shore I see a dozen dear drinking
at from the lake. Their coats have already turned that greyer tone and thicker for the
coming winter. Like me, they must have been caught off guard by this odd flash of
warm weather. As I pass the gutted remains of an early 20th century mansion once
owned by a millionaire on this lake, I see a flash of unexpected colors along the
natural stone foundation of the ruin.
“It can’t be,” I say aloud, seeing crocuses, blue, white, and yellow, growing in
the moss between the stones. Then I see daffodils, some all yellow, others with white
petals and orange pistols. These are spring flowers. The unseasonal warm weather has
confused them.
By the time I’ve made the turn and I’m ten minutes from the dam, I’m shocked
to see a cascade of bright yellow along the southern ridge to my right and the lakeshore
to my left. It’s forsythia in full bloom. Without seeing another person to discuss the logic
of this phenomena of nature, I question my own mind.
“Is it really spring? Have I lost my sense of time? Was the three-day freeze
really the end of March rather than the end of October as I thought it was this
morning? If only someone else would come by so I could ask them.
I hear my stomach growl and quicken my pace so I can rest by sitting on the
stone wall at the dam where I’ll eat the rest of my sandwich. It feels good to get off
my feet. The sandwich tastes wonderful with the dill pickle I included in the zip-lock
plastic bag. The walk around the lake was invigorating. I feel better than I have in
some time. Maybe I should plan to do this hike more often, but if winter is as cold
as predicted, the trails will have deep snow and become hazardous with ice from
the daily melting and refreezing.
Though I’ve come to enjoy my part-time work as a crossing guard, and I look
forward to seeing the kids at the crosswalk tomorrow morning, a part of me would
rather stay right here with all this autumn color yet summer warmth. I could stay
in this day forever if it wasn’t for . . . well, there’s no one to share it with.
As I stand to head back down the trail to my car I see another odd sight for
late October, but at least it’s at a distance, maybe five yards away on the path. I take
a couple of short steps forward and it coils to strike—a copperhead.
It knows I’m here but it must be as confused as the rest of nature today. I
speak to it to let it know I want to pass by, but without doing it any harm.
“I bet the freeze these past few nights slowed you down before you had a
chance to find your hibernation burrow. Go ahead. Find it now, but leave me be.
I can’t get past to the downward trail to my car unless you move. Even with a
smartphone, a snake bite could kill me before I get help, so it’s you or me. I don’t
want to kill you, but neither do I want to be killed. Just leave and we’ll both be
fine. Deal?”
“Let him leave!” a voice comes from behind me. A gentle hand touches my
shoulder and her voice whispers in my ear, “I’ve been waiting for you to come up
to the lake.”
I turn but don’t recognize her at first. For a moment, I think it’s my daughter,
that somehow she got wind of my plan to take a hike in the mountains alone. But it’s
the first time I realize how much my daughter looks more like Alice than she looks
like me.
She grabs my walking stick from where I’ve left it on the stone wall. She
uses it like a spear thrusting it through the serpent’s triangular head. Then she
shakes the dead snake off the end of my walking stick into the lake. She hands
the stick back to me.
“Am I dreaming?” I ask her. “I want to stay here with you on this perfect day.”
“No. You must go back.” She nods toward the lake where she thrown the
dead snake. “He’d have kept you here, but you’ve got to back home. There’s news
—good news for you at home.”
“I don’t want to leave you,” I tell her.
“I’ll be here waiting when you come back, but it’s not your time. Be careful
on the trail going back down.”
“What good news could there be greater than finding my Alice looking how
she did the day we met?”
“There was an error on the screening. You’re fine for now and . . . you’re
going to have a grandson. He has a single mom, so he’ll need you. Please go back.
Do it for me.”
“Is that why everything is out of sync?”
“Yes.”
“How will I know when it’s the right time to come back to you?”
“I’ll be with you again and forever next Indian Summer.”

Children of The Dawn

​By Meg Smith




It was a rare find -- berries, and glistening green leaves.


There seemed to be no one else around, apart from some squabbling birds, distant in the piercing blue sky.


Even if they flew in, they probably weren't a threat. They might even be a catch, if she could snatch them by the wing or claw.


Her mother had always said, go for what you can gather. Right now, what she could gather were the berries and leaves.


She would have kept some for later, but later seemed a vague idea. Her hunger was right now.


When enough time had passed, it could be easy to forget what eating food even felt like.


She could remember things, but mainly, her life -- as long as she knew it -- was about the present.


In the present, she was all alone. For the first time since she could remember. She’d been walking, through cycles of day and night, alone.


The one thing she was certain of -- many of her people, people who looked, acted and hunted as she did -- were not part of the present.


They were in the past.


Their bodies had lain, like uneven dunes, covered by the wind with loose sand. But not for long.


She knew the prey-eating birds would come, as they always did. She could feel sadness, sadness about not talking to her mother, or sisters, or her mother’s sister.


Even one of the few males she knew and thought of as father.


Right now all the world was contained in a small space of hot, dry air, and berries and leaves too precious to waste.


When the berries and leaves had filled her, there was no point in staying. And staying still was dangerous, anyway. Barking echoed in the yellowing hills.


It was time to walk again. Walking upright had been a great leap for her kind, but she did not know it.


Walking got someone from one place to another. Running could move a person away from danger. Lying down and sleeping were dangerous, but somehow, necessary.


She was good at finding places to sleep. Between rocks, under crevices, and her sleep was light. In her sleep she could hear the footsteps of animals passing by.


She had no course to plot, across a landscape bleary and unchanging. Dreams and waking sometimes difficult to distinguish. Dreams were what she saw and heard while sleeping. Sometimes she heard her mother’s voice, and her eyes flew open, but no one was there.


When she awoke, she didn’t stay long. She got up, and kept walking.


It had rained in the night. Water splashed in puddles. She knelt and drank furtively, and left. Lingering was an easy way to end up hunted.


The water restored her. She felt herself walking tall, although, in reality, she was not.


And she didn't care. She liked her short forehead, her short hair, the shape of her hands and feet, her belly. The compact trunk of her belly. The fur apron tied at her waist.


When she saw someone looking back at her from the water, as a child, her mother informed her she was looking at herself. It seemed absurd that she could be standing at the edge of the water and also looking up from it, but her mother assured her it was so.


She would never pause to think that her memories were keeping her alive. Every time she thought of her mother or something her mother said to do, it was like her mother was there, even though her mother wasn’t.


Still, with each step, sometimes, memories would come. Like her mother saying: "One day, you will be a mother, and pass all these things to your child."


She took that at face value. She knew she was a female, as were most of the people in her world. Males were vague, dreamlike, often away, usually hunting, sometimes laughing, sometimes fighting. Not that females didn't fight, sometimes, but someone always intervened.


People came from inside a female's belly. They came out as if fighting, as if mother and child were fighting each other. Sometimes one of them lost. Sometimes, they both did. They became part of the quiet, drifting landscape, not dreaming or fighting anymore.


Now, some distance behind her, they were all like that. They had all crumbled, their eyes clouded, their faces masks of nothing. They coughed and shook, and then, they as if sleeping but staring at the endless sky.


She left because there was no reason to stay, no one to talk to, and animals would come, and that was never safe.


The sun, bright and sad, was shifting into the wedge of earth, and shadows grew from the hills, the ledges.


Her feet were hot, as if complaining. She knew that feeling. It said, time to stop.


There was a rock, and she sat down. The rock felt cold, but it was good. Her fur apron was getting matted and frayed. But she didn't know what to do about it.


For the first time, in a long time of being alone, she realized she was not alone.


Someone was walking toward her. She started a bit, stood up, but first, gathering a stone in one hand.


She was especially startled when the stranger came into view and she could make out the features of the stranger's face. It was like no face she had seen, ever, on anyone.


This face had a high brow, a small nose, wide lips, and a blockish chin. It was impossible to tell anything except that the stranger was in no way part of her group, or any group she'd seen.


The stranger may as well have fallen from the sky. For all she knew, the stranger did.


The stranger stopped. And was looking at her.Her fingers played on the rock in her hand, cradling it close in her palm.


The stranger was a male; rare though it was to see a male, his squared shape marked him as such. He was wearing a garment about the waist, as she was, but she could not tell what it was made of. It was unique. It had colors. It did not appear to be made from animal hide.


The stranger opened his mouth, and started talking. She had not the slightest idea what he was saying. As he stepped closer, she gripped the rock tighter.


And then, he held a hand forward. But, to her amazement, it was open, and in it was something that looked like food. And he was holding it out to her.


Here was food, food that looked and smelled good, and an odd-looking person offering it. But her stomach gnawed at her.


The stranger did not do anything that otherwise signified a threat. His eyebrows raised, and an expression formed on his face that looked pleased.


She was thinking just to snatch the food, hurl the stone at him, and run.
But she only took the food, and stood there devouring it, as he watched.


They walked along together for a while. He continued to talk his strange sounds. At least, it seemed like talking. She answered back in the short, no-nonsense syllables that comprised the words of her small world.


The walked, side by side, as the air darkened around them.


He was taller. His walk was strange. It was not the walk of someone always aware of everything around, friends and foe, poised for flight. This walk was the walk of someone who didn't much worry about those things, or was unaware of them, or perhaps commanded them.


Which seemed strange, yet logical. She still held the rock.


Before long, they came to a hilly place, with rocks and small openings, and the unmistakable smoke of a fire. The fire was spitting up sparks, getting ready to die.


There were several figures sitting or hunched around it, and a murmur came from them, similar sounds to what this strange person made. The light was very dim now, but she realized, they were the same as he. This was a whole new people she had discovered.


What she really wanted to know was whether they were friendly, or not. Because there were a lot of them. She realized that she had to hope they were friends. Otherwise, she had just one rock, and her swift feet to carry her away.


The male she had been walking with started making gestures to get their attention, and his voice grew loud. He pointed to her. They looked up. Some of them looked deeply surprised. She had seen that look. One of them looked angry.


She set her mind to making out the sounds they made, and what they might mean. After a while, some of what they said began to make some sense. It was not happy news.


Her friend, if that's what he was, he had done something terrible and stupid.


But not everyone felt that way, that was clear. Because some of them laughed.


She was getting tired, and thinking about running. And then, glancing back slightly, she saw more figures, with similar shapes to their shadows.


She had spent the past several days and nights working to stay alive. She was going to have to keep doing that, but running didn't seem to be an option. But, she noticed, there were lots of stones around. That was comforting, a little.


There was that dying fire. She could throw ashes into their eyes. She saw someone do that, once, to scare off a big animal.


Her confidence came back.


The male was now gesturing to her, and touched her shoulder. He was saying something directly to her. The sounds in themselves didn't make much sense, but the tone was clear. You can stay here.


The group was moving into the shelter of the small crevice. The air was chilly. The male motioned for her to come with them. She began to grasp that she was not just entering a shelter for the night, but some kind of new world. There were tools, and items for covering the body that she had never before seen.


Her mind riveted, as never before. She had a mad urge to touch everything, use everything, blurt out questions that maybe they did or didn't understand. As tired as she was, she didn't want to sleep.


But that's what everyone was preparing to do. Before long, her heavy eyelids betrayed her. Others were already asleep, except for a few other males, who seemed to be standing outside, on guard.


Understanding all these new things would have to wait.


It seemed only moments later, she was waking again. She caught the scent, of the male, before she could open her eyes. All was dark, apart from his shadow. He was moving toward her. Distantly, her mother's voice was reprimanding her. She pushed it from her mind. Everything he had to touch, smell, taste...it was within her grasp. Even as fear lurched in her stomach, her arms, her mouth, were reaching.


From the rustles here and there around them, they were not alone.


By morning, light was bright and harsh. A fire was snapping, and smoke made its way to the entrance.


She sat up, feeling hollow, slightly ashamed. And yet, feeling that she would do what they had done all over again. She looked about.


Eyes were touching her, regarding her.


She stood up. She heard a voice that sounded angry. She heard the low protest, of her friend, the male What they had done together, she guessed, had made someone unhappy. Maybe, someone important.


Then, just as quickly, it seemed to be forgotten. A female, who looked to be almost the age of her mother, passed by her. She started to wave to her, then stopped. This female was not pleased. After a moment she surmised, this is the mother. She's angry. But it doesn't count.


Which was strange. Where she came from, making a mother, or aunt, unhappy was not a worthy goal. Here, their anger seemed to matter no more than a passing cloud.


A gathering seemed to be taking place, a discussion.


More gestures. It didn't take long to realize this was about looking for food. Which made total sense. She moved with them. There were those angry looks, here and there, but she still moved with them. Watched what they did. There was a place to gather more berries, twigs. She did as they did.


Everyone's anger seemed to be subsiding. There was even laughter. Her belly bothered her, again. Someone was laughing at her.


But throwing a rock at that person, didn't seem prudent. She recalled times when her mother rose to act, and sometimes, simply waited. Maybe this was one of those waiting times.


Morning and night, came and rose in its cycles. Some nights they held each other, closely, feverishly. Other times, they simply slept.


He talked and talked. They all talked a lot. They laughed a lot, and she could sense when that laughter was directed at her. It was not often, but it happened.


She learned, about the tools. He showed them to her. A long spear. A knife for cutting branches.


Most of the time, however, they were not together. He went off with other males, and she was motioned over to the females. She kept up, doing her share of gathering and even hunting small animals.


She and the male would be together again at night. But sometimes, not even then.
And it was less and less often.


One night, while the others slept, she realized slowly, terribly, that she could hear his voice, and someone else's. A voice not unlike hers, but not hers.


Something else happened for the first time. Tears coursed down her face. She tried to hide it. Somehow she felt it was not good to let anyone know.


Their words began to make sense, too. She imitated them, but her sounds came out very different from theirs. This sometimes sparked laughter, but not always. And, it became clear, what some of them were saying about her.


Even the lions and deer do things you can understand.
She looks like one from the group we saw, one time.
Why did he bring her here.
They're both young. Young and stupid.
Well, he's learning.
What's to become of her.
She helps gather food. She can make fire. She has some use.
She had use to him, but not anymore.
Then, a smirk.


Her stomach ached, and certain leaves seemed to help.
It wasn't long before she realized what was happening. The same thing that happened to her mother, and other females she knew. Even some of the females here.


There was movement within, as if a whole world was growing inside her.


That angry older female was yelling again. The older male who always seemed to be around was shouting over her. Their voices wrestled, like two antelopes, locking and clacking horns.


She ran her hands over her belly. A protective feeling rose ferociously within her.


She glanced around. At him. Their eyes met, only for a moment, and then he looked away.


This sparked sadness and fear. She wrapped her arms around her belly. Then, she began to make sounds, soft sounds. She did not fully understand them herself. But she knew something.
She had something, of her own.


The day came. She cried out in pain. the fight was beginning within her. She knew it, had seen it before.


When this happened, in the past, others would gather around, shouting in encouragement, sometimes holding the female’s hands, making soft, encouraging sounds.


None of that happened this time. In fact, they all seemed to pull away from her.


Then, grudgingly, one or two of the females came forward. They made sounds, terse and impatient.


She did not look back on the pain. She heard crying. The crying of a new life.
It was a girl, like her. She held her close. She felt a thunder in her chest. She wanted to run to the top of the hill in joy, but she was too tired, too weak. Instead, she cooed to her new baby.


Her baby grew, and was strong. Other babies grew, and were strong. They played and slept together. But her baby was not among them.


Each day, as she watched the other babies, growing, learning, but never with her baby in their circle, she grew afraid.


The fear would not leave.


One night, as they slept, she got up. Her baby whimpered, but she put a finger to her lips and made a shooshing sound.


She gathered her up in her arms, and slowly stood up.


The males standing guard turned to look at her. For a moment, she thought they would try to stop her. But instead, they looked away.


She did not look back.


Once again, it was time to walk.


She nursed her baby. The days were warm now, but the oppressive heat was a ways away.


She came to a place with a river. The water ran low, but cool. She drank, and cupped her hand with water for her baby to drink. Her baby was able to walk a bit on her own now, her tiny hand firmly grasping her mother’s.


What they did not know, and could not know, at that time, is that they weren’t really alone.


There were others, like herself, who had survived, through strength or insight or just plain luck.


Some of them, like herself, had encountered people. People like themselves and yet not -- people who had new tools, new and sometimes better ways of doing things.


But people who also looked down on them, saw them as having uses, and perhaps even formed bonds of affection with them. But these people did not see them as fully their own.


Some of them, like her, came away with a child.


Those children were vessels of the worlds of their parents. Resilience, cunning, and even cruelty but also cooperation and kindness, were entwined within them, in the spiral of their DNA.


Those children grew, and walked toward each other.


None of them knew it, but they would soon build their own world, together, in a strange new dawn.

A Stitch in Time
by
Gerald Arthur Winter


The sofa is delivered on a rainy afternoon on April 1, 1949. The
three-pillowed furniture is wrapped in plastic and cushioned from impact
by newspapers rolled into balls and taped at its blunt corners. Wearing
canary-yellow, hooded raincoats, two hulking deliverymen carry the sofa
from the Gimbel’s truck down a plank and up our front steps. They turn
the sofa sideways to fit through the foyer entrance to our home in Queens,
New York. The front door has been taken off its hinges so the sofa will fit
through the doorway, but on the sofa’s entry, the molding around the
door gets scraped by a sharp corner to bare wood.
My mother shrieks over the damaged molding, then clears the way
for our family’s major purchase. The two grunting bearers place the sofa
beneath a three-by-four foot mirror that was a wedding gift to my parents
from Grandma Hecker in 1940. I’m in kindergarten and my brother Bobby
is in third grade. We watch from the kitchen where we’ve been instructed
to remain silent until the sofa’s delivery is complete.
Mom tips the men a quarter each for their efforts then waves
goodbye to the men from our front door, which they’ve put back in
place. But now the door creaks at its hinges when opening or closing.
Mom is glad the men took the sofa’s packaging with them, but they’ve
left behind the newspapers covering the floor and carpeting to protect
them from the mud they’ve tramped in. Large muddy footprints from
the men’s galoshes have been stamped onto last Sunday’s NY
Journal-American newspaper. The Katzenjammer Kids, The Little
King, and Gasoline Alley lay soaked in the funny papers’ section.
“Your dad will have to touch up the molding with paint and
oil the hinges,” Mom says, waving us into the living room to show
us the sofa upholstered with a pattern of autumn leaves—red,
orange, and yellow. “I’ll make light blue slipcovers for the summer,”
Mom announces. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
Bobby and I look at each other wondering why she asked,
since our opinions have never counted before.
Always inquisitive, Bobby asks, “How do you make slipcovers?”
Mom nods toward her Singer sewing machine with the foot
pedal and says, “I’ll take measurements, buy the material, then sew
them together and add zippers. It will be like having two sofa’s for
the price of one. ”
I look at the Singer then back at Mom with doubt, but she
proves me wrong by the time school lets out for summer vacation.
I’m nervous about the change from kindergarten to first grade, but
figure my summer adventures will provide an escape from my worries.
Bobby and I begin the first day of summer by playing hide ‘n’ seek.
He’s in the kitchen seated at the table with his eyes closed and his head
buried in his folded arms. He counts, “Five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five,
thirty . . .”
I run around our house through our bedrooms until I come into the
living room and see my reflection in the big mirror centered above the new
sofa with its light-blue slipcovers. In stocking feet, I have to stand on the
soft sofa to see my face in the mirror. I wish I could pass through this
looking glass just like Alice.
Feeling trapped, I dive onto the sofa, but its slipcovers smell like
they’ve just rolled off a factory’s loom.
Bobby’s voice hits a high pitch, shouting, “Ninety! Ninety-five! One
hundred! Here I come, ready or not!”
Head first, like a snake, I wriggle my three-foot-four-inch body under
the sofa’s seat cushions, but I’m surprised how much room there is for me
concealed in that cavernous darkness. The factory smell of the slipcovers is
as intoxicating as gasoline when Dad lets me watch him fill the tank of his
1941 Lincoln Zephyr. I love its running boards and the oval-shaped rear
window that makes it feel like Flash Gordon’s strato-sled. It’s painted a
color I’ve never heard of, which make it even more special—maroon--
which seems to echo the sound its powerful engine. Maroon-roon!
As I think about Dad’s automobile, and how he complained that
the price of gas going to nineteen cents a gallon was too expensive for
his sixteen-cylinder engine, Bobby’s voice comes closer to the sofa
wear I’m hiding.
“I’m gonna find you soon,” he warns me. “You better not go in
the cellar and hide in the coal bin. You’ll get so dirty from the soot.
Mom will have a hissy fit.”
I peek from between the cushions, but Bobby can’t see me.
When he comes closer and sits on the sofa, I hold my breath.
“I’m gonna getcha!” he shouts, but I’m not sure if it’s the smell
of the slipcovers or the lack of air beneath the cushions that makes his
voice sound muffled even though he’s right beside me.
Then I hear Mom calling to us from the kitchen, but her voice
sounds so far away. I feel as if I’m losing my hearing, and then I hear
only my pulse in my head and my shallow breathing beneath the
cushions. I think I’ve fallen asleep, because it becomes so quiet until
I hear our front doorbell ring. It rings several times, but neither Mom
nor Bobby go to the front door. Figuring Bobby has given up trying to
find me, I follow the sliver of light between the cushions and come out
from the sofa. I go to the front door where the chips in the molding
are gone. Instead, there’s horizontal pencil marks and scribblings:
___________ Bobby 5’ 2” June 1954
___________ Gerry 4’ 7” “ “
___________ Bobby 4’ 9” June 1953
___________ Gerry 4’ 5” “ “
___________ Bobby 4’ 6” June 1952
___________ Gerry 4’ 2 “ “
___________ Bobby 4’ 4” June 1951
___________ Gerry 3” 8 “ “
What does it mean? I open the front door and see a forest across
the street and a taller, skinnier version of Bobby staring at me.
I ask, “Where are we, Bobby?”
“Don’t be stupid,” he says, shoving my shoulder as he brushes by
me into the house.
“I don’t get it,” I say, mostly to myself with Bobby already behind
a closed door to what must be his bedroom.
What happened to our room with the bunkbeds? I love the top
bunk so I can jump down to the floor like Buck Rogers wearing his anti-
gravity belt and floating to earth. Only I don’t float and just hit the floor
with a thud.
Confused, I stare across the street at the forest again.
“What happened to our neighborhood in Springfield Gardens
near the Long Island Railroad?” I say aloud, though no one is there to
answer. “Is this the house in New Jersey Mom and Dad were having
built for our future?”
Bobby swings open his bedroom door and stomps toward me.
“Hey, dopey!” he says, pushing me till I fall back on the living
room sofa. “You’re gonna get a lickin’ from Dad tonight. Mom’s gonna
tell him you stole his matches and set the empty lot on fire on Valley
Road across from Busch’s Insurance Agency.”
“I-I didn’t do it,” I stammer. “I-I don’t know what you’re talkin’
about, Bobby.”
“Yes you do,” he says. “That smart girl from your class, Joanie
Berkowitz, she told the Oakland librarian, and she told Mom. Boy, are
you gonna get it when Dad comes home.”
Laughing, Bobby returns to his room and shuts the door. I want
to run to my room, but I don’t know where it is. Nothing is the same as
it was five minutes ago, but . . . I go to the front door and see that I’m
the same height that the line indicates on the molding:
___________ 4’ 7” Gerry June 1954.
I’ve lost five years of my future in five minutes.
I look up the street and see Mom driving a new car, a two-tone
Chevy, forest green on the body and cream colored on the roof. Wow!
When she pulls into the driveway, I see on the fender that it’s a “Bel Air”
model. Never heard of it. Hey! When did Mom get her driver’s license?
Uh-oh, who’s that getting out of the passenger seat? Oh, no.
She must be the librarian. Who’s the girl getting out of the backseat?
She’s wearing glasses and she looks so prim and proper. Probably smart,
too. She must be the tattle-tail. I gotta hide, but where can I go?
I run into the living room and watch them from the window
as they come up the walk toward the front door. I lock the latch and
look left and right. Nowhere to hide . . . except—the sofa. I figure my
growth over the past five years could keep me from squeezing behind
the seat cushions, but the sofa swallows me like the giant anaconda
we saw in that Frank Buck movie about the Amazon, Bring ’em Back Alive.
I peek out where a thin streak of daylight lets me see Mom, the
librarian, and Miss Goodie Two Shoes coming through the front door.
“Gerald!” Mom calls out. “Come here this instant!”
When she calls me “Gerald” I know I’m in trouble. I hear Bobby
open his bedroom door and say, “He’s here, Mom. I told him you knew
about the fire. He’s probably hiding somewhere—maybe in the tree
house we built in the woods across the street.”
“Go get him, Bobby,” Mom said. “Bring him home to face the music.”
Face the music? That sounds like something a priest would say to
James Cagney in a gangster movie. I don’t even know how to strike a match.
I’m be afraid I’ll burn my fingers.
I hear Bobby go out the front door to find me. From between the
cushions, I see Mom, the librarian, and the young girl all pacing.
“Please, have a seat,” Mom says. “I hope you’re wrong, Joanie
Because, if Gerry is the boy you saw light the fire, his father will spank
him with his belt tonight.”
“And rightly so,” the librarian said, as her rump plunks down
on my leg beneath the cushions.
“I’m pretty sure it was him,” Joanie says.
“You’d better be certain,” Mom warned her.
I think, Beyond a reasonable doubt.
The front door opens. Bobby enters and says, “I dunno, Mom.
I thought sure he’d be in the tree house. Maybe he’s hiding at Joey
Amidon’s house.”
“Please, Bobby, go look for him there.”
“Jeez, Mom, I—”
“Now!”
Bobby leaves, and Mom turns to the librarian.
“Would you care for coffee, Miss Henderson?” Mom asks.
“Yes. Thank you,” she says.
“How about a cookie for you, Joanie?”
“I’m not permitted to eat any sweets before dinner,” Joanie responds.
Figures. No sweets for the prune-faced toady. Nya-ya! Nya-ya-ya.
With Mom in the kitchen, Miss Henderson turns to Joanie and says,
“Don’t worry. I’m sure Gerald is the one you saw light the fire.”
“I didn’t actually see him light it. I just saw him holding the matches.”
“That’s enough for me,” Miss Henderson says.
Ugh! I feel like grabbing the two of them by their necks. I want to pull
them both down into my dark cave. But it’s getting late and Dad will be coming
off the train and walking home. Instead of bringing me and Bobby hot, soft
pretzels from New York City, I’ll get my fanny whipped with his belt and sent
to bed without any supper. It won’t matter to anyone that I’m innocent. They
just want to blame someone for the fire.
Who’d ever believe my story about the sofa? I’m ten years old and
forget how I got here. I’m still thinking like a kindergarten baby—stick your
head in gravy. I try not to cry, but fear gets the best of me. As my tears flow,
the light between the cushions goes out, and Mom’s voice as she brings the
coffee into the living room begins to muffle until there’s nothing but silence.
From all the excitement, I’m so tired and doze off. I hope I won’t snore and
give away my hiding place where Bobby can’t find me . . .


A dog’s barking wakes me. I peek out from my comfy hiding place
in the sofa, and find myself nose to nose with a dog’s wet snout. We both
pull our heads back and sneeze. Then the dog barks and growls until I
emerge. He seems to recognize me, but I don’t recognize myself in the
mirror behind the sofa. I rub the dog behind its ears and see a tin license
on its choke-chain collar that says:
My name is IMPY. Please call my owner at Oakland 8-7436.
“You seem to know me, Impy,” I say to the dog. “But what the
heck is happening to me?”
Impy cocks his head back and forth then jumps into my arms. I
turn to the mirror and think I’m looking at someone else. I hold Impy in
one arm and brushed back my hair with my free hand.
“Jeez, Impy, is it already Halloween?” I ask, because my weird
haircut is flat on top like a crewcut, but long on the sides and combed
back to the base of my neck like a vortex. I tell Impy. “Hmm. Looks like
a duck’s ass.”
From his panting, tongue-slurping expression, Impy seems to agree.
I hear a car pull up in the driveway and figure it’s Mom, but it’s Bobby.
I figure Dad will have a fit if his thirteen-year-old son drives his car, but
when Bobby gets out of the rusty Chevy Bel Air, he looks like a senior in
high school with his varsity sweater. Jeez—who’s that good looking--
more than a girl—she’s practically a woman with that figure.
I’m so shocked I can’t move and stand like a statue in the living
room as Bobby and his girlfriend come through the front door.
“Hey, fart breath!” Bobby says to me. “Mom won’t be home from
work till six o’clock. Meantime, Joyce and I have some studying to do for
an exam tomorrow.”
I stammer, “S-studying? Exam?”
“That’s what you’re gonna tell Mom if she finds out Joyce came
over after school.”
“I am?”
“Hey dip-shit! That’s what you’re gonna say if she asks. If she
doesn’t ask, she doesn’t know. Then you don’t say diddly.”
I stare blankly at Bobby but my eyes keep wandering toward
Joyce with the big--
“Hey dork!” Bobby shouts. “Are you gonna be a problem?”
“Oh, come on, Bobby,” Joyce says. “Leave him alone. I think
he’s kinda cute. You want me to give you French kiss, too, little brother?”
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Come here and I’ll show you,” she says, swiping her tongue
across her upper lip.
“No she won’t,” Bobby says, pushing her into his bedroom. “Go
take Impy for a long walk. Really long. What you don’t see, you can’t tell
Mom about. Go on. Get lost with your dog.”
Bobby closes his bedroom door behind him and I hear Joyce laugh.
Jeez, she smells good, like Christmas cookies and Easter candy all wrapped
into one package. Happy Holidays!
“Come on, Impy. Let’s take a walk,” I say, seeing a leash hanging on
a hook near the front door.
Impy seems to know what “walk” means, because he chases his tail
in circles and jumps around like he’s an act on The Ed Sullivan Show. Just
as we’re ready to go out the front door, another car pulls in the driveway
behind the Bel Air. I pull Impy back from the door by his leash and look
out the front bay window. Uh-oh. It’s Mom, looking a bit grey around her
ears where her short hairdo makes her look so much older than the last
time I saw her.
Wanting his walk, Impy barks.
Bobby shouts through his closed bedroom door, “Get going,
dumb ass!”
Joyce laughs and shouts, “Come and get your French kiss!”
Mom’s footsteps clunk up the wooden porch steps.
“Come on, Impy,” I say, shoving my squirming dog between the
cushions of the sofa and following right behind him.
Impy barks only once with the sound of the front door closing
behind Mom.
I hear her shout, “Gerry! Bobby! I’m home early.”
I know I won’t hear any response from Bobby, but I laugh to
myself, imagining the expressions on Bobby’s and Joyce’s faces with
the sound of Mom’s voice.
“Impy?” I whisper. When I pull on the leash, it gives me no
resistance. The choke-chain is empty. I anticipate no response as
I repeat, “Impy . . .” then with exhaustion, I doze off . . .


I stir from the sound of laughter. I don’t see anyone in the
living room, though the narrow space between the sofa’s cushion
isn’t much of a panorama. Cautiously, I slip out from the sofa. I’m still
holding the dog leash and empty collar. I set them aside and go to



the kitchen from where the laughter is coming. At the center island
two tall guys look vaguely familiar.
“Come on, Gerry. Have another beer to bring in the New
Year!” the tallest one says.
The other guy says, “Tommy and I were recalling the time
we’d set the field on fire. There was poison sumac in that empty lot
and the smoke drifted over to the Amidon’s house. Joey’s mom
inhaled the smoke and got poison sumac in her lungs.”
“Yeah, Nick, but we had no idea. We were just screwin’
around with matches and it got out of control.”
Nick says, “I can’t believe Joanie Berkowitz squealed on us.”
Recognizing my two best friends from grammar school and
high school, I add, “Yeah, but she told Miss Henderson the librarian
that I did it. I got a lickin’ from my dad that night for setting the fire
and I knew nothing about it. That was you guys?”
“Not just us. Gary Meredith was there. He brought the matches.”
“Crazy Gary?” I ask. “Jeez, our football coach used to get the
two of us mixed up. He thought we were twins.”
Tommy says. “The next year he got expelled for taking a dump
on Mrs. Prosky’s desk before she arrived for class.”
“Where was Joanie Baloney for that one?” Nick says. “I wasn’t
allowed to have any ice cream all summer because of that snitch. Ice
cream was more important to me than girls when I was that age.”
“Now that we’re twenty-one, you can keep the ice cream and
pass the beer,” Tommy says raising a can of Bud, which Nick and I click
with ours.
I remember when Dad gave me a taste of his beer when I
was fifteen. I thought it was bitter, but now . . . hmm, it’s good.
The three of us go into the living room and plunk down on the
sofa with its autumnal leaf pattern now faded with age. We watch as
the ball comes down bringing in the New Year. We toast our shared
age of twenty-one. Nick and I are juniors in college and Tom is on
leave from the U.S. Navy. Tommy feels lucky to be stationed in
Hawaii, thousands of miles from home, but also thousands of miles
from Southeast Asia where the war in Vietnam is percolating daily.
Nick is a sole-surviving son and can’t be drafted, and I’m in ROTC at
college with Basic Training a year away before my commission as a
2nd Louie.
“Hey, guys! Lemme show you what I learned in college,” Nick
says. “Tommy, you’re the only one who smokes. Gimme a match.”
Tommy reaches into his breast pocket and tosses him a book
of matches. Nick shifts his butt to the edge of the sofa’s seat cushion
and lets out a long, loud fart as he strikes a match and puts it to his
butt. A two-foot flame shoots out from between his legs as he shrieks.
“Holy crap!” Tommy shouts. “Is that for real?”
“Gotta be a trick,” I challenge.
“Gosh, I’m sorry, Gerry,” Nick says. “I singed your folks’ sofa.”
“Then it’s not a trick?” Tommy says, taking the matches from
Nick and putting them back in his pocket. “You really had flames
shooting out your ass?”
Nick says, “A guy in my dorm did it naked and had to go to
the infirmary to get his anus treated for burns.”
“Jeez, Nick,” I say. “My mom’s gonna have a fit when she
sees that burnt cushion.”
Nick stands, flips the cushion over, and says, “Good as new.”
“Only until next June when she puts the slipcovers over it.”
I say.
“That’s six months from now,” Tom says.
“Not long enough to fool my mom,” I say. “That’s why my
brother and I call her ‘The General.’”
“I know what you mean,” Tom agrees. “My mom’s ‘The Admiral.’”
Nick shrugs. “My mom would say, ‘It’s just furniture. As long as
my Nicky isn’t burnt, doesn’t matter.”
Tom and I exchange glances and shake our heads over Mama’s
Boy shooting flames from his ass. Then through the bay window we see
headlights flash from the driveway.
“My folks are back from their New Year’s party,” I say.
“I gotta use the bathroom,” Tom says.
“I better go home,” Nick says. “My mom will be worried if I’m not
home by one o’clock.”
Tom closes the bathroom door behind him, and Nick goes out the
back door.
I turn over the edge of the sofa’s center cushion and see the burnt
fabric. On the side table there’s a framed photo of Bobby in a tuxedo with
a pretty girl in a white wedding dress. It isn’t Joyce, so I wonder if there
could still be a French kiss out there somewhere waiting just for me. I hear
my parents coming up the porch steps. Mom is nagging Dad about something
he did at the party. I hope he didn’t light a fart. Fads like that can get out of
control. Someone might even try it in church.
As they open the front door, I hear Mom say, “What’s that? I smell
something burning. Becoming instinctive to my survival, I dive beneath the
burnt sofa cushion, losing a shoe in the process. In the darkness, I limp
with only one shoe on until I stumble and fall. My limbs feel weighted
by the rapid passage of time until I lose consciousness . . .


I’m awakened by the pounding on the cushions above me and the
shrieks of children’s high pitched laughter. It sounds like they’re playing a
game, a little boy and his older sister. They can’t be more than five and ten.
I see I’m right. From between the cushions I see a girl a foot-and-a-half taller
than the boy. Both have familiar facial features similar to mine.
“Calm down, Jeremy, or I’m telling Dad,” the girl says.
“Up your nose with a rubber hose, Kim,” the boy says.
Something he’d heard on TV, I imagine. Hopefully not in kindergarten.
“Don’t be such a little monster,” Kim says.
“You’re the monster,” Jeremy retorts, his body contorting and his words
in rapid fire. “Monster! Monster! Cookie Monster!”
I figure they must be my monsters.
“Hey, Daddy!” Jeremy shouts, staring right at me. “Watcha doin’ under
the pillows?”
I didn’t think they can see me, but I suppose Jeremy can because he
hasn’t been in school all that long and his imagination is unencumbered by
the laws of physics and nature. At ten, Kim is borderline. She’s just stopped
believing in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, but her teen hormones are
still on the distant horizon so her imagination isn’t totally void. Maybe she’ll
keep some of her imagination, enough to use as an adult. There’s no doubt
about Jeremy; artistically he’s already off the charts, a whirling dervish of
creativity ready to explode with lyrics and music born in his head.
They take a step back from me as I emerge from between the
sofa’s cushions.
“Mom’s at church rehearsing for choir,” Kim says.
“She won’t be home for hours, Daddy,” Jeremy says with a gremlin’s grin.
They each have their hands behind their backs concealing something.
“We wanna play, Dad,” Kim says with hazel eyes the size of saucers.
“Yeah, Daddy.” Jeremy says. “We wanna play!”
With my mind still at age five like Jeremy, I feel my body trembling like
a young colt ready to burst from the barn into an open field for my first gallop.
“Okay, kids,” I ask them. “What do you want to play?”
They turn to give each other a nod. Behind them, they hold a throw
pillow from the sofa in each hand. They shout in harmony, “Let’s play pies!”
They bombard me with pillows, knocking me back onto the sofa. They
pound me in the head with the pillows, shouting, “Pie fight!”
Quixotic rapture engulfs me as their arms, like windmills, pummel my
face with the soft pillows. At first, all my efforts are just to protect my face by
blocking their relentless blows. We groveled on the sofa, but their joined scents
of sweat soap and baby oil after their showers overcomes me like a narcotic.
My arms hug them around their waists and pull them close until I’m
kissing them both and I feel like I’m falling from a great height.
“Love you, Dad,” Kim says, her soft cheek next to mine, rough from
not shaving since morning.
“I love you ten bucks a million, Daddy,” Jeremy says, kissing my ear
with a loud smack.
A single stitch joining the delicate fabric of time makes me feel as if
we’re of one spirit. I hold them both so tight, never wanting to surrender
this precious moment. There were loves left behind in the void, but none
so intense as the bloodline of children. Once experiencing the love of your
children, you can never assess the value of your parents the same way
ever again.
“Take me with you, Dad,” Kim says as if she instinctively knows I’m
leaving.
“Me, too, Daddy,” Jeremy says. “Don’t go.”
I want so much to take them with me, but I don’t have that right.
They have their own timelines to follow. Falling back beneath the cushions,
I refrain at the last second, but then release them. I drift back into the
temporary black void of transcendence . . .


It’s the heat and brightness of the sun that disturbs my contemplation.
A putrid stench flares in my nostrils as I open my eyes to see I’m on a screen
porch and lying on the old sofa that had been my parents’, was a hand-me-
down for my first house when I got married, and made the long trip from New
Jersey to Florida where I retired almost twenty years ago. There must have
been some magic in those slipcovers my mom made to have lasted seventy
years.
There’s a framed photo of my wife on a side table. An old woman
with white hair, but with a sparkle in her eyes. I wish I hadn’t outlived her.
The last of my medicinal marijuana lies on the glass coffee table beside the
hospice morphine dose in case the weed doesn’t make me forget I’m on
my final farewell tour.
Spanish moss sways like grey Havishamian locks from the trees along
the pond’s banks where “Wally” gator basks in the Florida sun as if he’s waiting
for me to make my move.
“Yes, it’s time,” I tell Wally. “I’m done.”
I recline, stretching the length of the old three-cushioned sofa and roll
toward the gap between the back and seat cushions. The old sofa swallows me.
I hear my breathing and my pulse and wait until I become so bored I try to find
my way back out. Groping for anything to hold onto, I feel something in the
palm of my hand. Is it what it feels like?
“Yes,” I say, taking the matchbook in both hands then striking a match
to light the void. I find my direction and follow the thin line of horizontal light
between the cushions.
I hear my brother Bobby’s voice calling me back.
“Okay. I give up! You win,” Bobby says with resolve. “Come out! Come out!
Wherever you are!”
I’m so glad to hear his voice again, so I peek out to see him. He looks no
more than eight years old, so I must be only five.
“Boo!” I shout, lunging at him from between the cushions. I grab him and
we wrestle onto the floor.
“Hey! That’s a cool hiding place,” Bobby says, pushing his arm between
the cushions. “It’s like a cave, a secret lair where goblins hide.”
I do the same with one arm still holding the matchbook in that hand. I let
go of it and withdraw my empty hand. I figure my life might be different if I make
better choices. I try to stop him, but before I can, Bobby’s feet disappear between
the cushions . . .
Perhaps we will cross paths again—all of us . . .

Pablo’s Discoteca
by
Geraldo Arturo Invierno


Instinctively, Dykstra took one last look over his shoulder before entering
Pablo’s Discoteca on the southern-most block of Spanish Harlem off Manhattan’s
96th Street. The thumping beat of the jukebox and the tacky glitter of year-round
Christmas decorations flashing around the long bar were familiar to the under
cover DEA agent, but as he gazed about the large single room to find his long-time
friend and crucial contact, he sensed that things had changed, subtly perhaps, but
irreparably. It was the early 80’s when no one who was living the dream at the time
ever realized until the millennium, that these had been “the good ole days.”
Much like the varicolored tropical fish in many tanks behind the bar, Dykstra
felt as if he were also on display. Not just because of his six-six 250 pound stature
standing more than a head above everyone else in the noisy club, he was a misfit,
an intruder from the past into the flashy world of a new generation of desperados.
Pablo’s clientele had always been a mixed bag and tonight was no different.
There were tuxedoed gentlemen and sleek, high cheek-boned models wearing
diamonds at the larger tables. All their eyes seemed to follow him as he ambled
to the bar. There were the slumming VIPs often insecure about their own relevance
who’d be muttering amongst themselves, “He must be somebody . . . do you know
who he is?”
“Modelo,” Dykstra told the bartender. He chugged the first bottle then ordered
another cerveza.
“Is Pablo in back?” he asked the veteran bartender. Dykstra had watched him
turn grey over the years.
A man in his thirties with dirty-blond, shoulder-length hair and a beard and
moustache to match turned on his stool at the far end of the bar. He wore a burgundy
velvet blazer with a custom-fit, sky-blue, silk shirt open at the neck, revealing a heavy
gold chain nestled in his thick chest hair. His light-grey slacks bulged at his muscular
thighs and calves as he swiveled on the barstool and came toward Dykstra with an
extended hand.
“Great to see you Dykes,” the younger man said, his smaller hand still giving
Dykstra’s enormous mitt equally crushing strength.
“Glad you could make it, Stark,” Dykstra said, scanning the crowd with more
filtering in from the street since he’d entered Pablo’s. “Place isn’t the same.”
“What is these days?” Stark said with a shrug.
“We used to be able to talk right here at the bar. Doesn’t feel safe now.”
“Tell me about it,” Stark said with a smirk. “C’mon. Pablo set up a private table
for us in back. It’ll be OK back there. But before we head back, I need a minute to empty
this wise guy’s bankroll with his baseball trivia challenge.”
“You still doin’ that shit?”
Stark shrugged. “What the hell. He wants to part with his wad.”
“Wise guy, huh? So the mob still hangs out here with the cops?”
“A lot of deals go down at Pablo’s, traded information that’s valuable to both
sides. The mayor has a slush fund just to cover all our tips.”
“Jeez. New York.”
“Gotta love it, Dykes.” Stark turned to the man seated behind him. “OK, it’s
double or nothing, right?”
The mobster said, “OK, Mistah cumputah head, what was Ted Williams’s
battin’ average and how many homahs did he hit in his final season, and what was
the yea’?”
“How can I be sure you know the right answers, Rocco?” Stark challenged.
“Quitcha bluffin’, Stark. I came from Boston and was at that game.”
Stark rattled off, “It was 1960 and “The Splendid Splinter” hit 29 homers and
batted .316. It was homer number 521.”
“Jeez! Why do I bother?” Rocco said. “Tell ya what. I’ll bet ya a grand you can’t
tell me what I was wearing at the game.”
Dykstra cut in. “What kind a bet is that?”
“He’s already taken me for fifteen hundred. Gimme a break, Stark.”
“I’m giving you a break by not taking your bet,” Stark said with confidence.
“C’mon, let’s make it two grand,” Rocco said.
“You wore a vertically-striped shirt with a button-down collar and tan chinos with
pointy-toed, paten-leather shoes, and a Bosox cap.”
“Madone! You’ve wiped me clean,” Rocco groaned.” How could you know?”
“A lucky guess, but that’s what everyone wore then, only you guys wore the
pointy shoes. The Bosox cap was a gimme. Until you told me, I never knew you came
from Boston.”
Dykstra had a rare laugh. “Are you for real, Stark?”
Stark said aside, “Rocco forgot he showed me a photo three years ago of him
and Williams. It was autographed to him, so I figured it was from that same day we
were betting on. No guess work at all. Right there in black and white.”
“Even so, you still had to remember all that from three years ago,” Dykstra said.
Stark just grinned with a shrug, for that was his gift and just one of the many
reasons they needed to talk.
As they stood from their barstools, a small, boney man in his sixties came
through the swinging kitchen doors beyond the bar. He was drying his hands with
a red-and-white-checkered towel. His white apron was stained red with salsa. He’d
wiped the sauce off his hands in preparing his signature recipe, so spicy the salsa
could blow a hole through the back of your head like a mob hit.
For Pablo’s regulars who thrived on his unique preparation, he’d sometimes
prepare it days ahead to let it marinate to perfection. Stark had called a week ago to let
him know that he and an old friend would be coming tonight.
Pablo squinted as he approached them then threw the towel over his shoulder
and scratched his scrubby chin.
“Mon Dios! Dykes is it you? Pablo said. “I thought you retired.”
“Hey, Pablo. Long time no see,” Dykstra gave him a bear hug.
“C’mon guys. I got that quiet corner for you all set up.” He winked at Stark.
“I thought Stark was gonna bring some nueva amante tonight and waste my efforts
with the salsa on some delicate creature with a sensitive stomach. Tonight’s salsa
may require a new colon by sunrise, but I’m sure you two can handle it.”
As Pablo led them to the rear of the club, their images were reflected in the
varnished metallic ceiling ten feet above.
“Sorry about the place, Dykes,” Pablo said as they were seated. “Ever since this
TV chica gave us a three-star rating, it’s been a boom. But the ambiance has changed
with a high-end crowd.”
“As long as the salsa and the music hold up, no problem,” Stark said. “I was here
last week and it was great.”
“Two more Modelos,” Dykstra said.
“Comin’ up,” Pablo said, leaving them to discuss their private business.
They waited till their beers came with the salsa and nachos so their conversation
wouldn’t be interrupted. They each dipped into the salsa, exchanged challenging stares,
and crunched into their nachos laced with molten red salsa. Their eyes flared, they
swallowed, then each took a long swig from his bottle of beer. Dykstra broke into a
sweat first, but Stark’s long hair became quickly matted by the internal heat. They
exchanged nods and repeated the ritual with the assurance that Pablo’s salsa was
still the best.
“You know I’m eligible for retirement,” Dykstra said. “So I sure as hell didn’t go
looking for this case. It was dumped on my doorstep, but I need your expertise.”
“You’ve got plenty of good people at the agency. Why me, Dykes.”
“You’ve met Thaddeus Horne and know a lot about him that the public doesn’t.
He’s under our surveillance, but as former CIA, he has top security clearance and could
get wind of our presence through all his wealth and connections.”
“Where’s this heading?” Stark asked.
“He’s heavily vested in cangrejos grandes, genetically enhanced jumbo shrimp,
in Ecuador. We think it’s a front, laundering money to finance a coup to take over the
Ecuadorian government.”
“Who’s we?”
Dykstra hedged, embarrassed to admit, “Just me and my informant.”
“Who’s he?”
“She, Malicia Fajardo. We both saw Horne’s people in Ecuador murder her
father.”
“Sounds too personal for her.”
“That’s why I’m here, Stark. I want you to work with her.”
“I work alone.”
“You need to make an exception. She has too much information and inside
connections in Ecuador to ignore their value, some are already deeply entrenched
in Horne’s full-blown operation.
“OK. We’ve got our team—you, me and this Fajardo woman. We follow the
money, and the bodies if any more than her father’s accumulate, but to what end?”
“There‘s an abundance of an untapped natural resource in Ecuador that could
change energy production for the foreseeable future. Horne wants a monopoly on that
resource. If you own the country, you own the world’s future energy supply.”
“Sounds like a down shift in the world order, Dykes. Can’t let that happen.”
“I knew you’d see it my way.”
“When do I meet Malicia?” Stark asked.
“She prefers to be called ‘Mali’ because when we were in the field together
it took too long to say, ‘Malicia, duck!’ She’ll contact you, probably when you least
expect. I gotta go, but I’ll be in touch after you and Mali connect. It’ll be sooner rather
than later.”
“I’m leaving too,” Stark said, but Pablo came to the table excitedly before
Stark even stood to leave.
“Before you go, Stark, would you mind? I got a wager going with one of those
high-rollers at the big tables.”
“Baseball again?”
“No-no, Stark, it’s the other thing.”
“OK, Pablo, for ole time’s sake, since Dykes showed up. But you don’t want to
turn your place into a circus. You’ll scare away all the informants.”
Dykstra had seen this display of strength and balance more than a dozen times,
so he just shook his head and left the club.
Stark proceeded to lie face down in the middle of the club’s hardwood dance
floor. Pablo’s Discoteca was at full capacity with the late night crowd of over two
hundred patrons. The regulars shushed first-timers, bringing the club to a sudden
hush.
With a jerk, Stark raised his mid-section so that only his extended fingertips
and bent toes touched the floor. His back remained straight with no arch.
Pablo had one of his waiters lend him a hand for support as he stood up on
Stark’s back like a surfer on his board. The crowd counted loudly and got to thirty
before Pablo lost his balance and tumbled to the floor.
“OK, who’s next?” Pablo shouted over the applause and whistles from the
crowd. “If you fall off his back before his stomach touches the floor, you owe the
house a hundred bucks! If he touches his stomach to the floor first, you get a crisp
new Franklin from the register.” He shrugged. “Hey it’s a business tax right-off for
me”.
Stark lowered himself to the floor waiting for challengers.
“Who’ll try it?” Pablo shouted like a circus barker. “Spectators may place their
bets of one hundred dollars either for or against Mr. Stark. You could double your
money, folks!”
Pablo’s eager patrons gathered around closer as Stark went back into his
rigid out-stretched position on the floor. Amazed that Stark could hold that pose
for even a moment without anyone on his back, the cash quickly flowed into Pablo’s
stained apron’s pouch.
“We’re still fifty-fifty on this, right Pablo?” Stark asked.
“Of course,” Pablo confirmed. “Why bother without that incentive? Then again,
you’re just crazy enough to do it for fun.”
“I’m seeing forty on the horizon, so it’s not as much fun as it used to be,”
Stark admitted. “Longer recovery time.”
Stark heard a deep, throaty voice above him. but couldn’t turn to see who it was.
“I would like to try it,” the woman said with a subtle accent.
From his position on the floor, Stark turned his head to see long, slender legs
which seemed to rise endlessly to the hem of her ruffled, black tunic, sheer and three-
quarters up her firm thighs. She glared down at him with wide eyes, ink-black with
a thermal glow of unspoken passion. Her skin was very dark, with sculptured facial
features, which Stark recognized as Serrano from his times in Quito.
She removed a wooden comb from her straight, black, glossy hair and shook
its shoulder-length folds loose. Her teeth were straight and flashed when she smiled
like sharp cutlery against her dark face. Her lip gloss drew attention to her most
attractive feature, full lips with a natural earth-tone hue that seemed to whisper a
promised seduction.
“Winner take all!” she shouted with her bright teeth flashing like a piranha’s.
Two thousand dollars was bet against Stark.
“What’s your bet?” Pablo asked her.
“I have no cash, but I expect to win. Will he accept me as collateral?”
Pablo looked down at Stark for his approval.
“What the hell,” Stark said, but had a shot of Stoli set on the floor which he
took in his teeth and drank as a show of confidence to demoralize his opponent.
When Pablo offered her his hand to help her balance as she got onto
Stark’s back, she declined.
“Thank you, but I’ll manage,” she said.
“But those heels,” Pablo said. “You’ll never balance with those shoes on.”
“Is that a rule?” she asked.
Pablo stammered, “Well, no, but—”
“Let ’er where them,” Stark said. “They’ll be her problem, not mine.”
With that, the woman stepped right onto Starks’ back. She held out her arms
gracefully, moving from Stark’s buttocks to his shoulders. She spun completely around
several times with the precision of an Olympic balance beam champion. Her audience
cheered and sighed with each turn.
“Now, I’ve made my show of it and had my fun,” she said to Stark as she dug
her stiletto heels sharply into his spine.”
The salsa beat from the jukebox keyed her cadence with each step.
“Like a great matador, I’ll bring down this bull quickly and cleanly,” she
proclaimed, working the pressure points between his shoulder blades then the lumbar
region where there was the greatest stress of bearing her weight as well as his own.
“Jeez!” Stark groaned, teeth clenched in a grimace and his furrowed brow
glistening with sweat.
“Come on, Stark-baby!” Pablo shouted. “Lots a bread on this one.”
It became a battle of the sexes with most women cheering for the woman and
the men rooting for Stark.
“Are those heels made of steel?” Stark growled in pain.
“Only wood,” she said casually, “but the hardest wood there is, Guayacan,
my fine bull.” She balanced on one foot, dangling the other flamboyantly, the sharp
stiletto heel readied like a sword to bring him down. “Are you prepared to fall and
become my trophy?”
Stark looked to the side where he saw her reflection in the mirror behind the bar.
Feeling near defeat, he watch in the mirror for her strike. He concentrated on her single
heel cutting between his two vertebrae.
With a sudden shift of her weight, he put all of his strength in his right arm to
balance his weight and maintain his position, but slashed out with his left arm behind
him to grab her ankle. With a jerk, he toppled her like a rag doll to the floor but returned
his arm to its former position without his stomach touching the floor.
The crowd went wild and threw more cash at Stark for his grand show of
strength. He lowered himself to the floor then stood with a raised fist to acknowledge his
victory. With applause, the patrons backed away toward their tables around the dance
floor and revealed the woman on her knees and stlll hanging her head in defeat.
Pablo jumped up and down to the salsa beat from the jukebox and shouted to
Stark, “Don’t talk to me about Pablo’s turning into a circus, amigo. You’re my star
clown in the center ring!”
Stark extended a hand to the raven-haired beauty on the floor then began to
tap his foot to the salsa beat. Then he bobbed his head to the beat and she did the
same as he pulled her off the floor and into his embrace. She leaned into him with
one leg pointed behind her and her back arched with her breasts thrust forward. He
spun her and stepped behind her then reached for her hand behind him as if he’d
always known where it would be. He spun her back in front of him and felt her warmth
and her hot breath at his neck moist with sweat. For the next two minutes they moved
across the dance floor as if they owned it, with no false steps or missed beats. They
seemed weightless to the crowd observing them as well as to themselves. Each time
he spun her away from him, he had to have her again, and pulled her effortlessly back
into his embrace. When the music stopped, both stood facing each other panting like
dogs on an sweltering August afternoon.
Stark broke the silence. “You play rough,” he said.
“I can also place nice . . . very nice. You want to play with me, toro?”
He hesitated in silence.
She shrugged. “I Guess I don’t play rough enough for a man such as you.
I didn’t believe I could lose the bet. Perhaps I’m not an ample prize for such a
clever hombre.”
“Someone who looks like you in a place like this can’t be alone. Where’s

your date?”
“Oh, he left a while ago. So if you want to collect your collateral, I’m all
yours tonight.”
He nodded and led her to the private table in back that had been reserved for
him and Dykstra. He ordered a Campari on the rocks with a lime twist for her and a
Stoli on the rocks for himself. Off the dancefloor and under an overhead light at the
table he saw not just her beauty but a sinuous strength that held her together like a
steel trap. Her dark eyes seemed to be sizing him up as well, and from her dimpled
smile, favorably. They clicked their glasses with cheers. Hers, “salud!” His, astrovia!
“To us,” she added, and he liked the sound of it . . . us . . . there hadn’t been an
us for Stark for some time.
“Tell me then,” she said. “How do you manage to remain rigid for so long?”
Of course she meant the contest, but his boyishness made him return her
quip with one of his own. “I’ve had many hours of rigid training.”
She rolled her dark eyes and said, “Hmm, I see . . . we’ve danced, groveled
on the floor, and splashed each other with our sweat in the process tonight, but we
haven’t even been introduced.”
“Sorry. I’m Jeremy Stark. Pablo and my longtime associates just call me Stark.”
“What do your closest friends and family call you?” she asked.
“Jem.”
“That sounds too cute and cuddly for a tough guy like you.”
“It’s a homonym that’s stuck. My mom said I was a diamond in the rough as
an adolescent. My sisters said, ‘Yeah, he’s a real gem already. Thus Jem for Jeremy.”
Her laugh was disarming and made him feel like the cuddly misnomer he’d
been dubbed prematurely. There was something odd about how he felt toward her,
but he couldn’t place it yet. He knew he would eventually. It was his business to
evaluate people. Sometimes that could make the difference between life and death.
His or theirs. Not much difference in the mix.
He felt she was studying his face the same way, so he extended his hand
to hers across the table and felt its smooth warmth in contrast to his own, rough
and cold.
“And you are?” he asked.
“Ah, and here I thought you surely had the drop me, Jem. It’s a pleasure to
meet you. Just call me Mali.”
The candle’s flame on their table flickered in her eyes like two belly-dancers
gyrating to the salsa beat reverberating from the distant dancefloor. He stood and
pulled from her chair to her feet until the top of her head rested beneath his beard.
“Dance, Mali?” he asked and felt her head nod against his chin.
So their dance began, neither certain for how long, but both wondering if
there would be an end to the music even if their feet remained in motion.


______________

​The Happy Prince


From The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888)



By Oscar Wilde 


High above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy Prince. He was gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold, for eyes he had two bright sapphires, and a large red ruby glowed on his sword-hilt.
He was very much admired indeed. "He is as beautiful as a weathercock," remarked one of the Town Councillors who wished to gain a reputation for having artistic tastes; "only not quite so useful," he added, fearing lest people should think him unpractical, which he really was not.
"Why can't you be like the Happy Prince?" asked a sensible mother of her little boy who was crying for the moon. "The Happy Prince never dreams of crying for anything."
"I am glad there is some one in the world who is quite happy," muttered a disappointed man as he gazed at the wonderful statue.
"He looks just like an angel," said the Charity Children as they came out of the cathedral in their bright scarlet cloaks and their clean white pinafores.
"How do you know?" said the Mathematical Master, "you have never seen one."
"Ah! but we have, in our dreams," answered the children; and the Mathematical Master frowned and looked very severe, for he did not approve of children dreaming.
One night there flew over the city a little Swallow. His friends had gone away to Egypt six weeks before, but he had stayed behind, for he was in love with the most beautiful Reed. He had met her early in the spring as he was flying down the river after a big yellow moth, and had been so attracted by her slender waist that he had stopped to talk to her.
"Shall I love you?" said the Swallow, who liked to come to the point at once, and the Reed made him a low bow. So he flew round and round her, touching the water with his wings, and making silver ripples. This was his courtship, and it lasted all through the summer.
"It is a ridiculous attachment," twittered the other Swallows; "she has no money, and far too many relations"; and indeed the river was quite full of Reeds. Then, when the autumn came they all flew away.
After they had gone he felt lonely, and began to tire of his lady- love. "She has no conversation," he said, "and I am afraid that she is a coquette, for she is always flirting with the wind." And certainly, whenever the wind blew, the Reed made the most graceful curtseys. "I admit that she is domestic," he continued, "but I love travelling, and my wife, consequently, should love travelling also."
"Will you come away with me?" he said finally to her; but the Reed shook her head, she was so attached to her home.
"You have been trifling with me," he cried. "I am off to the Pyramids. Good-bye!" and he flew away.
All day long he flew, and at night-time he arrived at the city. "Where shall I put up?" he said; "I hope the town has made preparations."
Then he saw the statue on the tall column.
"I will put up there," he cried; "it is a fine position, with plenty of fresh air." So he alighted just between the feet of the Happy Prince.
"I have a golden bedroom," he said softly to himself as he looked round, and he prepared to go to sleep; but just as he was putting his head under his wing a large drop of water fell on him. "What a curious thing!" he cried; "there is not a single cloud in the sky, the stars are quite clear and bright, and yet it is raining. The climate in the north of Europe is really dreadful. The Reed used to like the rain, but that was merely her selfishness."
Then another drop fell.
"What is the use of a statue if it cannot keep the rain off?" he said; "I must look for a good chimney-pot," and he determined to fly away.
But before he had opened his wings, a third drop fell, and he looked up, and saw - Ah! what did he see?
The eyes of the Happy Prince were filled with tears, and tears were running down his golden cheeks. His face was so beautiful in the moonlight that the little Swallow was filled with pity.
"Who are you?" he said.
"I am the Happy Prince."
"Why are you weeping then?" asked the Swallow; "you have quite drenched me."
"When I was alive and had a human heart," answered the statue, "I did not know what tears were, for I lived in the Palace of Sans- Souci, where sorrow is not allowed to enter. In the daytime I played with my companions in the garden, and in the evening I led the dance in the Great Hall. Round the garden ran a very lofty wall, but I never cared to ask what lay beyond it, everything about me was so beautiful. My courtiers called me the Happy Prince, and happy indeed I was, if pleasure be happiness. So I lived, and so I died. And now that I am dead they have set me up here so high that I can see all the ugliness and all the misery of my city, and though my heart is made of lead yet I cannot chose but weep."
"What! is he not solid gold?" said the Swallow to himself. He was too polite to make any personal remarks out loud.
"Far away," continued the statue in a low musical voice, "far away in a little street there is a poor house. One of the windows is open, and through it I can see a woman seated at a table. Her face is thin and worn, and she has coarse, red hands, all pricked by the needle, for she is a seamstress. She is embroidering passion- flowers on a satin gown for the loveliest of the Queen's maids-of- honour to wear at the next Court-ball. In a bed in the corner of the room her little boy is lying ill. He has a fever, and is asking for oranges. His mother has nothing to give him but river water, so he is crying. Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow, will you not bring her the ruby out of my sword-hilt? My feet are fastened to this pedestal and I cannot move."
"I am waited for in Egypt," said the Swallow. "My friends are flying up and down the Nile, and talking to the large lotus- flowers. Soon they will go to sleep in the tomb of the great King. The King is there himself in his painted coffin. He is wrapped in yellow linen, and embalmed with spices. Round his neck is a chain of pale green jade, and his hands are like withered leaves."
"Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow," said the Prince, "will you not stay with me for one night, and be my messenger? The boy is so thirsty, and the mother so sad."
"I don't think I like boys," answered the Swallow. "Last summer, when I was staying on the river, there were two rude boys, the miller's sons, who were always throwing stones at me. They never hit me, of course; we swallows fly far too well for that, and besides, I come of a family famous for its agility; but still, it was a mark of disrespect."
But the Happy Prince looked so sad that the little Swallow was sorry. "It is very cold here," he said; "but I will stay with you for one night, and be your messenger."
"Thank you, little Swallow," said the Prince.
So the Swallow picked out the great ruby from the Prince's sword, and flew away with it in his beak over the roofs of the town.
He passed by the cathedral tower, where the white marble angels were sculptured. He passed by the palace and heard the sound of dancing. A beautiful girl came out on the balcony with her lover. "How wonderful the stars are," he said to her, "and how wonderful is the power of love!"
"I hope my dress will be ready in time for the State-ball," she answered; "I have ordered passion-flowers to be embroidered on it; but the seamstresses are so lazy."
He passed over the river, and saw the lanterns hanging to the masts of the ships. He passed over the Ghetto, and saw the old Jews bargaining with each other, and weighing out money in copper scales. At last he came to the poor house and looked in. The boy was tossing feverishly on his bed, and the mother had fallen asleep, she was so tired. In he hopped, and laid the great ruby on the table beside the woman's thimble. Then he flew gently round the bed, fanning the boy's forehead with his wings. "How cool I feel," said the boy, "I must be getting better"; and he sank into a delicious slumber.
Then the Swallow flew back to the Happy Prince, and told him what he had done. "It is curious," he remarked, "but I feel quite warm now, although it is so cold."
"That is because you have done a good action," said the Prince. And the little Swallow began to think, and then he fell asleep. Thinking always made him sleepy.
When day broke he flew down to the river and had a bath. "What a remarkable phenomenon," said the Professor of Ornithology as he was passing over the bridge. "A swallow in winter!" And he wrote a long letter about it to the local newspaper. Every one quoted it, it was full of so many words that they could not understand.
"To-night I go to Egypt," said the Swallow, and he was in high spirits at the prospect. He visited all the public monuments, and sat a long time on top of the church steeple. Wherever he went the Sparrows chirruped, and said to each other, "What a distinguished stranger!" so he enjoyed himself very much.
When the moon rose he flew back to the Happy Prince. "Have you any commissions for Egypt?" he cried; "I am just starting."
"Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow," said the Prince, "will you not stay with me one night longer?"
"I am waited for in Egypt," answered the Swallow. "To-morrow my friends will fly up to the Second Cataract. The river-horse couches there among the bulrushes, and on a great granite throne sits the God Memnon. All night long he watches the stars, and when the morning star shines he utters one cry of joy, and then he is silent. At noon the yellow lions come down to the water's edge to drink. They have eyes like green beryls, and their roar is louder than the roar of the cataract.
"Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow," said the Prince, "far away across the city I see a young man in a garret. He is leaning over a desk covered with papers, and in a tumbler by his side there is a bunch of withered violets. His hair is brown and crisp, and his lips are red as a pomegranate, and he has large and dreamy eyes. He is trying to finish a play for the Director of the Theatre, but he is too cold to write any more. There is no fire in the grate, and hunger has made him faint."
"I will wait with you one night longer," said the Swallow, who really had a good heart. "Shall I take him another ruby?"
"Alas! I have no ruby now," said the Prince; "my eyes are all that I have left. They are made of rare sapphires, which were brought out of India a thousand years ago. Pluck out one of them and take it to him. He will sell it to the jeweller, and buy food and firewood, and finish his play."
"Dear Prince," said the Swallow, "I cannot do that"; and he began to weep.
"Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow," said the Prince, "do as I command you."
So the Swallow plucked out the Prince's eye, and flew away to the student's garret. It was easy enough to get in, as there was a hole in the roof. Through this he darted, and came into the room. The young man had his head buried in his hands, so he did not hear the flutter of the bird's wings, and when he looked up he found the beautiful sapphire lying on the withered violets.
"I am beginning to be appreciated," he cried; "this is from some great admirer. Now I can finish my play," and he looked quite happy.
The next day the Swallow flew down to the harbour. He sat on the mast of a large vessel and watched the sailors hauling big chests out of the hold with ropes. "Heave a-hoy!" they shouted as each chest came up. "I am going to Egypt"! cried the Swallow, but nobody minded, and when the moon rose he flew back to the Happy Prince.
"I am come to bid you good-bye," he cried.
"Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow," said the Prince, "will you not stay with me one night longer?"
"It is winter," answered the Swallow, "and the chill snow will soon be here. In Egypt the sun is warm on the green palm-trees, and the crocodiles lie in the mud and look lazily about them. My companions are building a nest in the Temple of Baalbec, and the pink and white doves are watching them, and cooing to each other. Dear Prince, I must leave you, but I will never forget you, and next spring I will bring you back two beautiful jewels in place of those you have given away. The ruby shall be redder than a red rose, and the sapphire shall be as blue as the great sea."
"In the square below," said the Happy Prince, "there stands a little match-girl. She has let her matches fall in the gutter, and they are all spoiled. Her father will beat her if she does not bring home some money, and she is crying. She has no shoes or stockings, and her little head is bare. Pluck out my other eye, and give it to her, and her father will not beat her."
"I will stay with you one night longer," said the Swallow, "but I cannot pluck out your eye. You would be quite blind then."
"Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow," said the Prince, "do as I command you."
So he plucked out the Prince's other eye, and darted down with it. He swooped past the match-girl, and slipped the jewel into the palm of her hand. "What a lovely bit of glass," cried the little girl; and she ran home, laughing.
Then the Swallow came back to the Prince. "You are blind now," he said, "so I will stay with you always."
"No, little Swallow," said the poor Prince, "you must go away to Egypt."
"I will stay with you always," said the Swallow, and he slept at the Prince's feet.
All the next day he sat on the Prince's shoulder, and told him stories of what he had seen in strange lands. He told him of the red ibises, who stand in long rows on the banks of the Nile, and catch gold-fish in their beaks; of the Sphinx, who is as old as the world itself, and lives in the desert, and knows everything; of the merchants, who walk slowly by the side of their camels, and carry amber beads in their hands; of the King of the Mountains of the Moon, who is as black as ebony, and worships a large crystal; of the great green snake that sleeps in a palm-tree, and has twenty priests to feed it with honey-cakes; and of the pygmies who sail over a big lake on large flat leaves, and are always at war with the butterflies.
"Dear little Swallow," said the Prince, "you tell me of marvellous things, but more marvellous than anything is the suffering of men and of women. There is no Mystery so great as Misery. Fly over my city, little Swallow, and tell me what you see there."
So the Swallow flew over the great city, and saw the rich making merry in their beautiful houses, while the beggars were sitting at the gates. He flew into dark lanes, and saw the white faces of starving children looking out listlessly at the black streets. Under the archway of a bridge two little boys were lying in one another's arms to try and keep themselves warm. "How hungry we are!" they said. "You must not lie here," shouted the Watchman, and they wandered out into the rain.
Then he flew back and told the Prince what he had seen.
"I am covered with fine gold," said the Prince, "you must take it off, leaf by leaf, and give it to my poor; the living always think that gold can make them happy."
Leaf after leaf of the fine gold the Swallow picked off, till the Happy Prince looked quite dull and grey. Leaf after leaf of the fine gold he brought to the poor, and the children's faces grew rosier, and they laughed and played games in the street. "We have bread now!" they cried.
Then the snow came, and after the snow came the frost. The streets looked as if they were made of silver, they were so bright and glistening; long icicles like crystal daggers hung down from the eaves of the houses, everybody went about in furs, and the little boys wore scarlet caps and skated on the ice.
The poor little Swallow grew colder and colder, but he would not leave the Prince, he loved him too well. He picked up crumbs outside the baker's door when the baker was not looking and tried to keep himself warm by flapping his wings.
But at last he knew that he was going to die. He had just strength to fly up to the Prince's shoulder once more. "Good-bye, dear Prince!" he murmured, "will you let me kiss your hand?"
"I am glad that you are going to Egypt at last, little Swallow," said the Prince, "you have stayed too long here; but you must kiss me on the lips, for I love you."
"It is not to Egypt that I am going," said the Swallow. "I am going to the House of Death. Death is the brother of Sleep, is he not?"
And he kissed the Happy Prince on the lips, and fell down dead at his feet.
At that moment a curious crack sounded inside the statue, as if something had broken. The fact is that the leaden heart had snapped right in two. It certainly was a dreadfully hard frost.
Early the next morning the Mayor was walking in the square below in company with the Town Councillors. As they passed the column he looked up at the statue: "Dear me! how shabby the Happy Prince looks!" he said.
"How shabby indeed!" cried the Town Councillors, who always agreed with the Mayor; and they went up to look at it.
"The ruby has fallen out of his sword, his eyes are gone, and he is golden no longer," said the Mayor in fact, "he is litttle beter than a beggar!"
"Little better than a beggar," said the Town Councillors.
"And here is actually a dead bird at his feet!" continued the Mayor. "We must really issue a proclamation that birds are not to be allowed to die here." And the Town Clerk made a note of the suggestion.
So they pulled down the statue of the Happy Prince. "As he is no longer beautiful he is no longer useful," said the Art Professor at the University.
Then they melted the statue in a furnace, and the Mayor held a meeting of the Corporation to decide what was to be done with the metal. "We must have another statue, of course," he said, "and it shall be a statue of myself."
"Of myself," said each of the Town Councillors, and they quarrelled. When I last heard of them they were quarrelling still.
"What a strange thing!" said the overseer of the workmen at the foundry. "This broken lead heart will not melt in the furnace. We must throw it away." So they threw it on a dust-heap where the dead Swallow was also lying.
"Bring me the two most precious things in the city," said God to one of His Angels; and the Angel brought Him the leaden heart and the dead bird.
"You have rightly chosen," said God, "for in my garden of Paradise this little bird shall sing for evermore, and in my city of gold the Happy Prince shall praise me."

The Elf of the Rose

by

Hans Christian Andersen(1839)

​
IN the midst of a garden grew a rose-tree, in full blossom, and in the prettiest of all the roses lived an elf. He was such a little wee thing, that no human eye could see him. Behind each leaf of the rose he had a sleeping chamber. He was as well formed and as beautiful as a little child could be, and had wings that reached from his shoulders to his feet. Oh, what sweet fragrance there was in his chambers! and how clean and beautiful were the walls! for they were the blushing leaves of the rose.
During the whole day he enjoyed himself in the warm sunshine, flew from flower to flower, and danced on the wings of the flying butterflies. Then he took it into his head to measure how many steps he would have to go through the roads and cross-roads that are on the leaf of a linden-tree. What we call the veins on a leaf, he took for roads; ay, and very long roads they were for him; for before he had half finished his task, the sun went down: he had commenced his work too late. It became very cold, the dew fell, and the wind blew; so he thought the best thing he could do would be to return home. He hurried himself as much as he could; but he found the roses all closed up, and he could not get in; not a single rose stood open. The poor little elf was very much frightened. He had never before been out at night, but had always slumbered secretly behind the warm rose-leaves. Oh, this would certainly be his death. At the other end of the garden, he knew there was an arbor, overgrown with beautiful honey-suckles. The blossoms looked like large painted horns; and he thought to himself, he would go and sleep in one of these till the morning. He flew thither; but “hush!” two people were in the arbor,—a handsome young man and a beautiful lady. They sat side by side, and wished that they might never be obliged to part. They loved each other much more than the best child can love its father and mother.
“But we must part,” said the young man; “your brother does not like our engagement, and therefore he sends me so far away on business, over mountains and seas. Farewell, my sweet bride; for so you are to me.”
And then they kissed each other, and the girl wept, and gave him a rose; but before she did so, she pressed a kiss upon it so fervently that the flower opened. Then the little elf flew in, and leaned his head on the delicate, fragrant walls. Here he could plainly hear them say, “Farewell, farewell;” and he felt that the rose had been placed on the young man’s breast. Oh, how his heart did beat! The little elf could not go to sleep, it thumped so loudly. The young man took it out as he walked through the dark wood alone, and kissed the flower so often and so violently, that the little elf was almost crushed. He could feel through the leaf how hot the lips of the young man were, and the rose had opened, as if from the heat of the noonday sun.
There came another man, who looked gloomy and wicked. He was the wicked brother of the beautiful maiden. He drew out a sharp knife, and while the other was kissing the rose, the wicked man stabbed him to death; then he cut off his head, and buried it with the body in the soft earth under the linden-tree.
“Now he is gone, and will soon be forgotten,” thought the wicked brother; “he will never come back again. He was going on a long journey over mountains and seas; it is easy for a man to lose his life in such a journey. My sister will suppose he is dead; for he cannot come back, and she will not dare to question me about him.”
Then he scattered the dry leaves over the light earth with his foot, and went home through the darkness; but he went not alone, as he thought,—the little elf accompanied him. He sat in a dry rolled-up linden-leaf, which had fallen from the tree on to the wicked man’s head, as he was digging the grave. The hat was on the head now, which made it very dark, and the little elf shuddered with fright and indignation at the wicked deed.
It was the dawn of morning before the wicked man reached home; he took off his hat, and went into his sister’s room. There lay the beautiful, blooming girl, dreaming of him whom she loved so, and who was now, she supposed, travelling far away over mountain and sea. Her wicked brother stopped over her, and laughed hideously, as fiends only can laugh. The dry leaf fell out of his hair upon the counterpane; but he did not notice it, and went to get a little sleep during the early morning hours. But the elf slipped out of the withered leaf, placed himself by the ear of the sleeping girl, and told her, as in a dream, of the horrid murder; described the place where her brother had slain her lover, and buried his body; and told her of the linden-tree, in full blossom, that stood close by.
“That you may not think this is only a dream that I have told you,” he said, “you will find on your bed a withered leaf.”
Then she awoke, and found it there. Oh, what bitter tears she shed! and she could not open her heart to any one for relief.
The window stood open the whole day, and the little elf could easily have reached the roses, or any of the flowers; but he could not find it in his heart to leave one so afflicted. In the window stood a bush bearing monthly roses. He seated himself in one of the flowers, and gazed on the poor girl. Her brother often came into the room, and would be quite cheerful, in spite of his base conduct; so she dare not say a word to him of her heart’s grief.
As soon as night came on, she slipped out of the house, and went into the wood, to the spot where the linden-tree stood; and after removing the leaves from the earth, she turned it up, and there found him who had been murdered. Oh, how she wept and prayed that she also might die! Gladly would she have taken the body home with her; but that was impossible; so she took up the poor head with the closed eyes, kissed the cold lips, and shook the mould out of the beautiful hair.
“I will keep this,” said she; and as soon as she had covered the body again with the earth and leaves, she took the head and a little sprig of jasmine that bloomed in the wood, near the spot where he was buried, and carried them home with her. As soon as she was in her room, she took the largest flower-pot she could find, and in this she placed the head of the dead man, covered it up with earth, and planted the twig of jasmine in it.
“Farewell, farewell,” whispered the little elf. He could not any longer endure to witness all this agony of grief, he therefore flew away to his own rose in the garden. But the rose was faded; only a few dry leaves still clung to the green hedge behind it.
“Alas! how soon all that is good and beautiful passes away,” sighed the elf.
After a while he found another rose, which became his home, for among its delicate fragrant leaves he could dwell in safety. Every morning he flew to the window of the poor girl, and always found her weeping by the flower pot. The bitter tears fell upon the jasmine twig, and each day, as she became paler and paler, the sprig appeared to grow greener and fresher. One shoot after another sprouted forth, and little white buds blossomed, which the poor girl fondly kissed. But her wicked brother scolded her, and asked her if she was going mad. He could not imagine why she was weeping over that flower-pot, and it annoyed him. He did not know whose closed eyes were there, nor what red lips were fading beneath the earth. And one day she sat and leaned her head against the flower-pot, and the little elf of the rose found her asleep. Then he seated himself by her ear, talked to her of that evening in the arbor, of the sweet perfume of the rose, and the loves of the elves. Sweetly she dreamed, and while she dreamt, her life passed away calmly and gently, and her spirit was with him whom she loved, in heaven. And the jasmine opened its large white bells, and spread forth its sweet fragrance; it had no other way of showing its grief for the dead. But the wicked brother considered the beautiful blooming plant as his own property, left to him by his sister, and he placed it in his sleeping room, close by his bed, for it was very lovely in appearance, and the fragrance sweet and delightful. The little elf of the rose followed it, and flew from flower to flower, telling each little spirit that dwelt in them the story of the murdered young man, whose head now formed part of the earth beneath them, and of the wicked brother and the poor sister. “We know it,” said each little spirit in the flowers, “we know it, for have we not sprung from the eyes and lips of the murdered one. We know it, we know it,” and the flowers nodded with their heads in a peculiar manner. The elf of the rose could not understand how they could rest so quietly in the matter, so he flew to the bees, who were gathering honey, and told them of the wicked brother. And the bees told it to their queen, who commanded that the next morning they should go and kill the murderer. But during the night, the first after the sister’s death, while the brother was sleeping in his bed, close to where he had placed the fragrant jasmine, every flower cup opened, and invisibly the little spirits stole out, armed with poisonous spears. They placed themselves by the ear of the sleeper, told him dreadful dreams and then flew across his lips, and pricked his tongue with their poisoned spears. “Now have we revenged the dead,” said they, and flew back into the white bells of the jasmine flowers. When the morning came, and as soon as the window was opened, the rose elf, with the queen bee, and the whole swarm of bees, rushed in to kill him. But he was already dead. People were standing round the bed, and saying that the scent of the jasmine had killed him. Then the elf of the rose understood the revenge of the flowers, and explained it to the queen bee, and she, with the whole swarm, buzzed about the flower-pot. The bees could not be driven away. Then a man took it up to remove it, and one of the bees stung him in the hand, so that he let the flower-pot fall, and it was broken to pieces. Then every one saw the whitened skull, and they knew the dead man in the bed was a murderer. And the queen bee hummed in the air, and sang of the revenge of the flowers, and of the elf of the rose and said that behind the smallest leaf dwells One, who can discover evil deeds, and punish them also.

RUDYARD KIPLING
THE CAT THAT WALKED BY HIMSELF

Hear and attend and listen; for this befell and behappened and became and was, O my Best Beloved, when the Tame animals were wild. The Dog was wild, and the Horse was wild, and the Cow was wild, and the Sheep was wild, and the Pig was wild—as wild as wild could be—and they walked in the Wet Wild Woods by their wild lones. But the wildest of all the wild animals was the Cat. He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him.
Of course the Man was wild too. He was dreadfully wild. He didn’t even begin to be tame till he met the Woman, and she told him that she did not like living in his wild ways. She picked out a nice dry Cave, instead of a heap of wet leaves, to lie down in; and she strewed clean sand on the floor; and she lit a nice fire of wood at the back of the Cave; and she hung a dried wild-horse skin, tail-down, across the opening of the Cave; and she said, ‘Wipe you feet, dear, when you come in, and now we’ll keep house.’
That night, Best Beloved, they ate wild sheep roasted on the hot stones, and flavoured with wild garlic and wild pepper; and wild duck stuffed with wild rice and wild fenugreek and wild coriander; and marrow-bones of wild oxen; and wild cherries, and wild grenadillas. Then the Man went to sleep in front of the fire ever so happy; but the Woman sat up, combing her hair. She took the bone of the shoulder of mutton—the big fat blade-bone—and she looked at the wonderful marks on it, and she threw more wood on the fire, and she made a Magic. She made the First Singing Magic in the world.
Out in the Wet Wild Woods all the wild animals gathered together where they could see the light of the fire a long way off, and they wondered what it meant.
Then Wild Horse stamped with his wild foot and said, ‘O my Friends and O my Enemies, why have the Man and the Woman made that great light in that great Cave, and what harm will it do us?’
Wild Dog lifted up his wild nose and smelled the smell of roast mutton, and said, ‘I will go up and see and look, and say; for I think it is good. Cat, come with me.’
‘Nenni!’ said the Cat. ‘I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me. I will not come.’
‘Then we can never be friends again,’ said Wild Dog, and he trotted off to the Cave. But when he had gone a little way the Cat said to himself, ‘All places are alike to me. Why should I not go too and see and look and come away at my own liking.’ So he slipped after Wild Dog softly, very softly, and hid himself where he could hear everything.
When Wild Dog reached the mouth of the Cave he lifted up the dried horse-skin with his nose and sniffed the beautiful smell of the roast mutton, and the Woman, looking at the blade-bone, heard him, and laughed, and said, ‘Here comes the first. Wild Thing out of the Wild Woods, what do you want?’
Wild Dog said, ‘O my Enemy and Wife of my Enemy, what is this that smells so good in the Wild Woods?’
Then the Woman picked up a roasted mutton-bone and threw it to Wild Dog, and said, ‘Wild Thing out of the Wild Woods, taste and try.’ Wild Dog gnawed the bone, and it was more delicious than anything he had ever tasted, and he said, ‘O my Enemy and Wife of my Enemy, give me another.’
The Woman said, ‘Wild Thing out of the Wild Woods, help my Man to hunt through the day and guard this Cave at night, and I will give you as many roast bones as you need.’
‘Ah!’ said the Cat, listening. ‘This is a very wise Woman, but she is not so wise as I am.’
Wild Dog crawled into the Cave and laid his head on the Woman’s lap, and said, ‘O my Friend and Wife of my Friend, I will help Your Man to hunt through the day, and at night I will guard your Cave.’
‘Ah!’ said the Cat, listening. ‘That is a very foolish Dog.’ And he went back through the Wet Wild Woods waving his wild tail, and walking by his wild lone. But he never told anybody.
When the Man waked up he said, ‘What is Wild Dog doing here?’ And the Woman said, ‘His name is not Wild Dog any more, but the First Friend, because he will be our friend for always and always and always. Take him with you when you go hunting.’
Next night the Woman cut great green armfuls of fresh grass from the water-meadows, and dried it before the fire, so that it smelt like new-mown hay, and she sat at the mouth of the Cave and plaited a halter out of horse-hide, and she looked at the shoulder of mutton-bone—at the big broad blade-bone—and she made a Magic. She made the Second Singing Magic in the world.
Out in the Wild Woods all the wild animals wondered what had happened to Wild Dog, and at last Wild Horse stamped with his foot and said, ‘I will go and see and say why Wild Dog has not returned. Cat, come with me.’
‘Nenni!’ said the Cat. ‘I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me. I will not come.’ But all the same he followed Wild Horse softly, very softly, and hid himself where he could hear everything.
When the Woman heard Wild Horse tripping and stumbling on his long mane, she laughed and said, ‘Here comes the second. Wild Thing out of the Wild Woods what do you want?’
Wild Horse said, ‘O my Enemy and Wife of my Enemy, where is Wild Dog?’
The Woman laughed, and picked up the blade-bone and looked at it, and said, ‘Wild Thing out of the Wild Woods, you did not come here for Wild Dog, but for the sake of this good grass.’
And Wild Horse, tripping and stumbling on his long mane, said, ‘That is true; give it me to eat.’


The Woman said, ‘Wild Thing out of the Wild Woods, bend your wild head and wear what I give you, and you shall eat the wonderful grass three times a day.’


‘Ah,’ said the Cat, listening, ‘this is a clever Woman, but she is not so clever as I am.’ Wild Horse bent his wild head, and the Woman slipped the plaited hide halter over it, and Wild Horse breathed on the Woman’s feet and said, ‘O my Mistress, and Wife of my Master, I will be your servant for the sake of the wonderful grass.’


‘Ah,’ said the Cat, listening, ‘that is a very foolish Horse.’ And he went back through the Wet Wild Woods, waving his wild tail and walking by his wild lone. But he never told anybody.


When the Man and the Dog came back from hunting, the Man said, ‘What is Wild Horse doing here?’ And the Woman said, ‘His name is not Wild Horse any more, but the First Servant, because he will carry us from place to place for always and always and always. Ride on his back when you go hunting.
Next day, holding her wild head high that her wild horns should not catch in the wild trees, Wild Cow came up to the Cave, and the Cat followed, and hid himself just the same as before; and everything happened just the same as before; and the Cat said the same things as before, and when Wild Cow had promised to give her milk to the Woman every day in exchange for the wonderful grass, the Cat went back through the Wet Wild Woods waving his wild tail and walking by his wild lone, just the same as before. But he never told anybody. And when the Man and the Horse and the Dog came home from hunting and asked the same questions same as before, the Woman said, ‘Her name is not Wild Cow any more, but the Giver of Good Food. She will give us the warm white milk for always and always and always, and I will take care of her while you and the First Friend and the First Servant go hunting.
Next day the Cat waited to see if any other Wild thing would go up to the Cave, but no one moved in the Wet Wild Woods, so the Cat walked there by himself; and he saw the Woman milking the Cow, and he saw the light of the fire in the Cave, and he smelt the smell of the warm white milk.
Cat said, ‘O my Enemy and Wife of my Enemy, where did Wild Cow go?’
The Woman laughed and said, ‘Wild Thing out of the Wild Woods, go back to the Woods again, for I have braided up my hair, and I have put away the magic blade-bone, and we have no more need of either friends or servants in our Cave.
Cat said, ‘I am not a friend, and I am not a servant. I am the Cat who walks by himself, and I wish to come into your cave.’
Woman said, ‘Then why did you not come with First Friend on the first night?’
Cat grew very angry and said, ‘Has Wild Dog told tales of me?’
Then the Woman laughed and said, ‘You are the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to you. Your are neither a friend nor a servant. You have said it yourself. Go away and walk by yourself in all places alike.’
Then Cat pretended to be sorry and said, ‘Must I never come into the Cave? Must I never sit by the warm fire? Must I never drink the warm white milk? You are very wise and very beautiful. You should not be cruel even to a Cat.’
Woman said, ‘I knew I was wise, but I did not know I was beautiful. So I will make a bargain with you. If ever I say one word in your praise you may come into the Cave.’
‘And if you say two words in my praise?’ said the Cat.
‘I never shall,’ said the Woman, ‘but if I say two words in your praise, you may sit by the fire in the Cave.’
‘And if you say three words?’ said the Cat.
‘I never shall,’ said the Woman, ‘but if I say three words in your praise, you may drink the warm white milk three times a day for always and always and always.’
Then the Cat arched his back and said, ‘Now let the Curtain at the mouth of the Cave, and the Fire at the back of the Cave, and the Milk-pots that stand beside the Fire, remember what my Enemy and the Wife of my Enemy has said.’ And he went away through the Wet Wild Woods waving his wild tail and walking by his wild lone.
That night when the Man and the Horse and the Dog came home from hunting, the Woman did not tell them of the bargain that she had made with the Cat, because she was afraid that they might not like it.
Cat went far and far away and hid himself in the Wet Wild Woods by his wild lone for a long time till the Woman forgot all about him. Only the Bat—the little upside-down Bat—that hung inside the Cave, knew where Cat hid; and every evening Bat would fly to Cat with news of what was happening.
One evening Bat said, ‘There is a Baby in the Cave. He is new and pink and fat and small, and the Woman is very fond of him.’
‘Ah,’ said the Cat, listening, ‘but what is the Baby fond of?’
‘He is fond of things that are soft and tickle,’ said the Bat. ‘He is fond of warm things to hold in his arms when he goes to sleep. He is fond of being played with. He is fond of all those things.’
‘Ah,’ said the Cat, listening, ‘then my time has come.’
Next night Cat walked through the Wet Wild Woods and hid very near the Cave till morning-time, and Man and Dog and Horse went hunting. The Woman was busy cooking that morning, and the Baby cried and interrupted. So she carried him outside the Cave and gave him a handful of pebbles to play with. But still the Baby cried.
Then the Cat put out his paddy paw and patted the Baby on the cheek, and it cooed; and the Cat rubbed against its fat knees and tickled it under its fat chin with his tail. And the Baby laughed; and the Woman heard him and smiled.
Then the Bat—the little upside-down bat—that hung in the mouth of the Cave said, ‘O my Hostess and Wife of my Host and Mother of my Host’s Son, a Wild Thing from the Wild Woods is most beautifully playing with your Baby.’
‘A blessing on that Wild Thing whoever he may be,’ said the Woman, straightening her back, ‘for I was a busy woman this morning and he has done me a service.’
That very minute and second, Best Beloved, the dried horse-skin Curtain that was stretched tail-down at the mouth of the Cave fell down—whoosh!—because it remembered the bargain she had made with the Cat, and when the Woman went to pick it up—lo and behold!—the Cat was sitting quite comfy inside the Cave.
‘O my Enemy and Wife of my Enemy and Mother of my Enemy,’ said the Cat, ‘it is I: for you have spoken a word in my praise, and now I can sit within the Cave for always and always and always. But still I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.’
The Woman was very angry, and shut her lips tight and took up her spinning-wheel and began to spin. But the Baby cried because the Cat had gone away, and the Woman could not hush it, for it struggled and kicked and grew black in the face.
‘O my Enemy and Wife of my Enemy and Mother of my Enemy,’ said the Cat, ‘take a strand of the wire that you are spinning and tie it to your spinning-whorl and drag it along the floor, and I will show you a magic that shall make your Baby laugh as loudly as he is now crying.’
‘I will do so,’ said the Woman, ‘because I am at my wits’ end; but I will not thank you for it.’
She tied the thread to the little clay spindle whorl and drew it across the floor, and the Cat ran after it and patted it with his paws and rolled head over heels, and tossed it backward over his shoulder and chased it between his hind-legs and pretended to lose it, and pounced down upon it again, till the Baby laughed as loudly as it had been crying, and scrambled after the Cat and frolicked all over the Cave till it grew tired and settled down to sleep with the Cat in its arms.
‘Now,’ said the Cat, ‘I will sing the Baby a song that shall keep him asleep for an hour. And he began to purr, loud and low, low and loud, till the Baby fell fast asleep. The Woman smiled as she looked down upon the two of them and said, ‘That was wonderfully done. No question but you are very clever, O Cat.’
That very minute and second, Best Beloved, the smoke of the fire at the back of the Cave came down in clouds from the roof—puff!—because it remembered the bargain she had made with the Cat, and when it had cleared away—lo and behold!—the Cat was sitting quite comfy close to the fire.
‘O my Enemy and Wife of my Enemy and Mother of My Enemy,’ said the Cat, ‘it is I, for you have spoken a second word in my praise, and now I can sit by the warm fire at the back of the Cave for always and always and always. But still I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.’
Then the Woman was very very angry, and let down her hair and put more wood on the fire and brought out the broad blade-bone of the shoulder of mutton and began to make a Magic that should prevent her from saying a third word in praise of the Cat. It was not a Singing Magic, Best Beloved, it was a Still Magic; and by and by the Cave grew so still that a little wee-wee mouse crept out of a corner and ran across the floor.
‘O my Enemy and Wife of my Enemy and Mother of my Enemy,’ said the Cat, ‘is that little mouse part of your magic?’
‘Ouh! Chee! No indeed!’ said the Woman, and she dropped the blade-bone and jumped upon the footstool in front of the fire and braided up her hair very quick for fear that the mouse should run up it.
‘Ah,’ said the Cat, watching, ‘then the mouse will do me no harm if I eat it?’
‘No,’ said the Woman, braiding up her hair, ‘eat it quickly and I will ever be grateful to you.’
Cat made one jump and caught the little mouse, and the Woman said, ‘A hundred thanks. Even the First Friend is not quick enough to catch little mice as you have done. You must be very wise.’
That very moment and second, O Best Beloved, the Milk-pot that stood by the fire cracked in two pieces—ffft—because it remembered the bargain she had made with the Cat, and when the Woman jumped down from the footstool—lo and behold!—the Cat was lapping up the warm white milk that lay in one of the broken pieces.
‘O my Enemy and Wife of my Enemy and Mother of my Enemy, said the Cat, ‘it is I; for you have spoken three words in my praise, and now I can drink the warm white milk three times a day for always and always and always. But still I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.’
Then the Woman laughed and set the Cat a bowl of the warm white milk and said, ‘O Cat, you are as clever as a man, but remember that your bargain was not made with the Man or the Dog, and I do not know what they will do when they come home.’
‘What is that to me?’ said the Cat. ‘If I have my place in the Cave by the fire and my warm white milk three times a day I do not care what the Man or the Dog can do.’
That evening when the Man and the Dog came into the Cave, the Woman told them all the story of the bargain while the Cat sat by the fire and smiled. Then the Man said, ‘Yes, but he has not made a bargain with me or with all proper Men after me.’ Then he took off his two leather boots and he took up his little stone axe (that makes three) and he fetched a piece of wood and a hatchet (that is five altogether), and he set them out in a row and he said, ‘Now we will make our bargain. If you do not catch mice when you are in the Cave for always and always and always, I will throw these five things at you whenever I see you, and so shall all proper Men do after me.’
‘Ah,’ said the Woman, listening, ‘this is a very clever Cat, but he is not so clever as my Man.’
The Cat counted the five things (and they looked very knobby) and he said, ‘I will catch mice when I am in the Cave for always and always and always; but still I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.’
‘Not when I am near,’ said the Man. ‘If you had not said that last I would have put all these things away for always and always and always; but I am now going to throw my two boots and my little stone axe (that makes three) at you whenever I meet you. And so shall all proper Men do after me!’
Then the Dog said, ‘Wait a minute. He has not made a bargain with me or with all proper Dogs after me.’ And he showed his teeth and said, ‘If you are not kind to the Baby while I am in the Cave for always and always and always, I will hunt you till I catch you, and when I catch you I will bite you. And so shall all proper Dogs do after me.’
‘Ah,’ said the Woman, listening, ‘this is a very clever Cat, but he is not so clever as the Dog.’
Cat counted the Dog’s teeth (and they looked very pointed) and he said, ‘I will be kind to the Baby while I am in the Cave, as long as he does not pull my tail too hard, for always and always and always. But still I am the Cat that walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.’
‘Not when I am near,’ said the Dog. ‘If you had not said that last I would have shut my mouth for always and always and always; but now I am going to hunt you up a tree whenever I meet you. And so shall all proper Dogs do after me.’
Then the Man threw his two boots and his little stone axe (that makes three) at the Cat, and the Cat ran out of the Cave and the Dog chased him up a tree; and from that day to this, Best Beloved, three proper Men out of five will always throw things at a Cat whenever they meet him, and all proper Dogs will chase him up a tree. But the Cat keeps his side of the bargain too. He will kill mice and he will be kind to Babies when he is in the house, just as long as they do not pull his tail too hard. But when he has done that, and between times, and when the moon gets up and night comes, he is the Cat that walks by himself, and all places are alike to him. Then he goes out to the Wet Wild Woods or up the Wet Wild Trees or on the Wet Wild Roofs, waving his wild tail and walking by his wild lone.

The Catch
by
Gerald Arthur Winter


The young boy had been casting his kudzu net into the shallows for several hours with
no luck. The minnows were too small for the hook on his make-do bamboo pole. He hoped for
a catch that day to match his appetite with a burn in his gut for several days after ingesting only
onion grass, dandelion greens, and one Tiger Lily blossom he’d snatched from an iguana’s sharp
teeth. Without a larger bait fish on his hook cast beyond the shallows before sunset, he’d go to
sleep hungry for the fifth day in a row. Uncle Tuatoo had warned him last week that five days
would be the limit for a forty pound boy under four feet tall before he’d begin to imagine
people and things that aren’t real, but which nevertheless could still physically harm him.
“You will meet your spirits before your time is right,” Tuatoo told his nephew, Zumbata.
“We all will meet our spirits sooner or later, but the later the better, hopefully when we are so
old that endless sleep is more comforting than a life of aches and pains and deep sorrows from
missing those we’d loved.”
“I would like to introduce myself to my spirits now, when I’m alert and agile,” Zumbata
told Tuatoo , the most respected elder of their village. “Then, after I’ve lived a full life, I’ll have
wisdom to share with my ancestors to make their afterlife a blessing of endless delights.”
“You have an upside down view of the universe,” Tuatoo cautioned him. “Time goes
clockwise while your mind spins counterclockwise. You’d best take care that your unbridled
thoughts don’t make the world spin off its axis and take us all with you into a fiery pit of hell
for angering the gods.”
“Kind uncle, I’m thankful for your concern for my wellbeing, but I can’t live this life
without challenging these rules governing our thoughts. They’re laws imposed by man, not
by Nature. And even if some should turn out to be true, they have no hope of real truth unless
they are tested. All laws must be pulled and stretched like my mother’s dough in preparation
for baking bread. How else can we affirm their justification? How can yeast make dough rise,
like my father from the dead, without my tugging at these hard-fast conclusions written in
stone? Bread is life, but stone is death.”
“Stubborn nephew, you will be the death of your mother, my beloved sister, if you don’t
quell these rebellious feelings. Since your father was lost at sea, she depends on you to fill the
void left by your father’s absence. He had the same unruly spirit that now draws you away from
our sad village.”
“What if my father, Chakotah, is merely lost? Perhaps he still lives waiting for his brave
son to bring him home to his waiting family. Shouldn’t I, his only son, attempt to find him?
Wouldn’t my effort to do so make my mother, Saluz, rejoice over my bravery? If I found my
father and brought him back to her, wouldn’t my parents tell the world they have the best
son ever born?”
“Not if you are their dead son, Zumbata. That would break my sister’s heart long before
her scheduled time to leave us. Her mourning wails for her only son would make her moans
for her husband fade into a solemn grief, so hardened that it could never be penetrated or
soothed, even by the infinite expanse of time. Even the gods would whimper for Saluz’s losses.”
“True, wise uncle, but just the same, I must try to find him. I have my whittled scrimshaw
hook, a bamboo pole, and fishing line tough and resilient that I’ve fashioned from my mother’s
coarse black hair. I shall live by my daily catch until I find my father. But don’t look so sad, Uncle
Tuatoo. If I remained in our village just to comfort my mother in her grief, there would be no
hope for my father’s return. If I’m lost, too, and never return, at least the village will carve my
likeness for the Shaman’s alter to honor my memory for my mother. Even in my failure to bring
back my father, I shall be hailed by our village just for trying, and my mother will be glorified
among us for all time.”
Zumbata’s own words from three days prior echoed in his head and curdled in his
stomach pained by his hunger as he continued to cast his net when the sun descended with
half its orange glow behind the sea’s distant horizon. The orange turned crimson dissipating on
the sea into vermillion sparkles that turned violet then were gone. Gentle waves lapped against
the shore, then the warm surf around his ankles made his bare, calloused feet sink into the wet
sand.
He thought he heard a water bird’s trill. but it was different from any he’d ever heard.
There was the whoosh of the surf followed by the trill, then a sudden tug on his kudzu fish net.
Perhaps a school of larger bait fish, he thought, or even a huge fish to stifle his starvation
for several days.
Just when he thought he’d lost his catch, a jolt from the net almost pulled him over
face-first into the surf, but his feet had sunk so deep into the sand that, even in his weakened
state of hunger, he could brace himself against the force threatening to drag him out to sea.
In total darkness of a moonless night, he couldn’t see what was in his net, but its strength
alarmed him as he resisted against it with all his might.
“I’ve got you!” he shouted, but only a trill responded.
He reached deep in his heart for his greatest strength to land the bulk trapped in his net,
but the exertion made him faint from hunger . . .


“Zumbata . . . wake up, Zumbata. It’s your father, Chakotah.”
Zumbata’s eyelids fluttered, but the sun was rising behind the backlit head of the figure
leaning over him so he couldn’t distinguish the face. The voice, however, was surely his father’s.
“Are you speaking to me from the dead, or are you among the living?” Zumbata asked,
but he was answered only by the trill. “I need to know the truth!” he demanded.
He heard heavy swishing beside him and turned to see a long scaly tail thrashing about
trying to get free from the net. He took a deep breath filling his head with an intoxicating scent
of jasmine. He turned back to speak to his father, but the figure was gone. The trill drew him
back to the tail now swirling around his thin bony limbs. Attached to the tail was the naked
torso of a young woman with a concave navel where a ruby the size of a Brazil nut was pinned.
Above were two pert, pink-nippled breasts, and long thin arms and neck upon which rested a
sweet, rosy-cheeked face. Her thin eyebrows were raised above her long-lashed, green eyes
that shimmered at sunrise. Her pink lips were pursed and from them came the same trill.
“Where is my father?” Zumbata asked her. “Do you speak Mandobaba?”
“I speak any language that is spoken to me,” she said. “I thought you were a blue heron,
the way you were standing with your feet so deep in the sand.” She trilled. “See. I was speaking
Squeesquakas, the international language of waterfowl.”
“I don’t know it,” he said.
“Of course not,” she tittered. “You’re not a mermaid.”
“Oh? I see . . . That’s what you are?”
“Well, I’m not a shark or a dolphin, but perhaps a combination of both. I’m a predator
like sharks and crocodiles, but I have a warm heart and breast-feed my young for a year until
they are strong enough to survive on their own.”
“That’s very interesting, but where is my father? He was here just a moment ago.”
“He joined me some time ago beneath the sea and we have a new family together.
Chakotah is a survivor, adaptable to any new environment. You have three half-brothers and
only one sister now. The other was caught in a kudzu net much like yours.”
“She’s dead?”
“Mermaids don’t die, like your father, we adapt. But she’s only half-mermaid, so she’s
mortal, but resourceful. If she takes after me, she’ll be around for the next millennium.”
“My mother loves my father. He must return with me. I owe it to her to bring him home
safely.”
“I’m sorry for her loss, but it’s been my gain. I can’t let him go. He belongs to me now.
The only way to free him, would be to kill me, but I’m the predator, you see, and you a starving
child are my pray. And you’re not much of a meal either. I’ll be hungry again soon. Have you no
brothers or sisters who’ve tagged along behind you, upon whom I might snack later?”
Zumbata grinned sweetly at her, which touched her tender heart as if he were one of
her litter.
“Perhaps I should fatten you up and make a better meal of you another day,” she said,
pulling him close and offering her breast milk.
But as her hardened nipple touched his lips, he reached into his pocket for his scrim-
shaw fishhook and forced it between her ribs into her heart. He was glad she seemed to
suffer no pain. There was no outcry, just a single tear down her rosy cheek quickly turning
pale. Lifeless, her eyes instantly dilated with a thin ooze of blood from her pursed lips.
“Good job, my son, “ Chakotah’s deep voice came from behind with a pat of his hand
on Zumbata’s bony shoulder before all faded into a deep abyss of muted darkness . . .


The morning sun hurt Zumbata’s eyes and made his head ache as he sat up to see his
father Chakotah, his mother Saluz, and his uncle Tuatoo seated on the ground around a fire
roasting a great fish on a spit.
“Once you’ve had a good filling of this tender fish you’ve caught,” Saluz said to him.
“Uncle Tuatoo says your wild imaginations from lack of nourishment for five days will bring you
back to normal.”
“Your mother is right, Zumbata,” Tuatoo said. “I can tell from the glare in your hollow
eyes that you’ve experienced things of which I’d warned you. But don’t be afraid, even if you
still have occasional nightmares about it when you’ve become a young man with children of
your own. None of it was real, or at least not of this world, the world we respect for its rules
and order.”
His father Chakotah said nothing but gave him a wink, which he found comforting until
he bit into a piece of the huge fish he’d caught in the net when he’d found his father washed up
on shore. He chewed around the hard bit of grit concealed under his tongue then waited till he
was alone in bed at night before spitting it into the palm of his hand.
The moon shown bright that night as Zumbata held his palm close to his face. He saw
his own wide-eyed expression reflected in the mermaid’s ruby, red like her blood and the
crystallized remnant of his father Chakotah’s unfaithfulness to his future children’s
grandmother, Saluz, the most honored sister of their village Elder, Tuatoo, whose
empathy for his wronged sibling was greater than her husband’s passion to stray.

Ally Can’t Move

By Amanda Phoenix



The last of the sage stick was crackling. It had burned down and nearly singed Ally’s fingertips. She never believed in the homeopathic way of treating ailments until Gary’s chest X-Ray revealed the spots. Large specks engulfed his lungs, and she would try anything. She called treatment centers as far away as Texas. That was a long ways away for someone who’d only left Florida once, and just barely crossed the Georgia state line at that. She would drive him there if his body held up long enough. She was terrified of airplanes. It wasn’t the crashing to her death part that bothered her. It was being trapped in a confined area with other people, especially kids and babies. She couldn’t get past the baby and kid part.
She laid the burnt sage in the ashtray on her nightstand and cracked the window next to her bed to sneak a cigarette. She felt guilty smoking after her husband’s lung cancer. Gary never said anything to her. He used to ask her to blow a puff in his direction. He had only quit because he literally couldn’t inhale anymore. His chest and lungs were so tight. He didn’t quit because of cancer. He already had it. She put the cigarette to her lips and drew in deeply. The dirt mound where she and Gary buried Senator, the pit bull they rescued as a pup caught her eye through the back window. Senator was laid to rest there when Gary was healthy, the day before his diagnosis. Of course he wasn’t healthy, but until you know that the cancer exists, you think you’re good.

Everything changed that day. He felt fine, but Ally had pressured him to have a full physical including the X-Rays. “Why don’t you do it too?” he questioned. She answered that she hadn’t smoked for twenty years like he had. She started later while he was being treated. That was the shittiest time to start. She’d never been a smoker and his habit repulsed her before she started her own. She had always resisted cigarettes even while growing up in a smoke-filled
home. Her mother too fell victim to lung cancer when Ally was fourteen. That’s the worst time in a girl’s life to lose her mom, she thought.
The day after Gary’s diagnosis, Ally bought six cases of alkaline water from Trader Joes. She called the store to request the bulk order, and a nice teenager brought it outside on a pallet jack. The manager she talked to on the phone told her to pull around to the back of the store. The teenager helped her load it into the trunk of her car. She had cleared all the shit out before she left the house—shoes, an old suitcase, two beach chairs, towels. He smiled at her when their hands met the same case and their fingers brushed each other’s. He was cute. She felt like a cold bitch for even thinking it. She thanked him and pulled away from the store.
Gary spit the first sip of water out onto the kitchen counter. “This tastes like shit.”
Ally took a sip from his cup. “It tastes no different than any other water. You’re just being a skeptic. I’ve heard this works.”
“You really think water is going to cure cancer, Ally? Well, fuck. I think I’m fine now.” He smirked at her.
“Don’t be a smart ass. They say cancer can’t live and breed in an alkaline environment.”
“Who says that?”
“I read it somewhere. I forget where.”
“Wouldn’t cancer be history if that was true?
You know I don’t believe half that shit
you read. I just don’t buy it.”
“Just drink the fucking water.” Ally slid the cup back in front of him on the edge of the counter. Some of it splashed over the side and onto the floor.
“Wait, you’re wasting precious miracle water,” he yelled after she left the room.
Ally had done her research. She spent four hours googling cancer treatments after they came home from the doctor’s office on diagnosis day. She couldn’t stand spending that much time on the computer. Why waste your life in front of a screen? Go out and fucking live it. Now, she couldn’t pull herself away. She had no choice. Chemo was too harsh and Ally never believed in it. She watched her mother deteriorate from the inside out during her battle ten years earlier. Why put Gary through that same hell? She knew she could find another way to save him.
She had to.
On day three, Ally spent the first hour of her workday on the phone with an alternative treatment center. The pleasant woman on the other end gave her a list of unconventional remedies. The woman explained to Ally that they were not cures because there was no cure. But by trying some of the options available, Gary could be kept comfortable. “I’m not looking for comfortable,” Ally said with haste in her voice. She felt like she was choking on dust particles. “There’s got to be something we can do.” The nice woman assured Ally that while there wasn’t a way to cure the cancer, chemo wasn’t the only option for improving Gary’s condition. “Chemo isn’t an option. It doesn’t improve anything. Believe me, I watched my mother come apart on that shit.” The nice woman gently asked her not to swear. Ally apologized. She explained that she was just frustrated and wanted—no needed—to find another way.
Ally spent the last hour of her workday googling acupuncture. It was number one on the list of remedies that had been discussed with her. She knew Gary wouldn’t think much of lying on a folding table while some hack loaded tiny needles into his body—all over his body. She thought about getting him high before telling him that she’d called his primary doctor from her work phone for acupuncture specialist recommendations, and made an appointment with the third one on the list. That he’d be going in for treatment in a week. She didn’t give him his
favorite drink or pack a bowl from his not so secret stash. She just told him. She knew what his argument would be before he said it. “Shouldn’t we just try the chemo?” It was nice that he thought about it as “we.” He could have told her that it’s his fucking body, and he’d take what he thought was the best route. But no, he included her. He tried her suggestions. “Fine. I’ll try a few of your hokey solutions. Then, we’re going chemo.” She nodded to appease him.


Gary didn’t say much when Ally asked him about the session. When he got home, he didn’t seem more relaxed. She’d begged to go with him, but he said no. He included her in the decisions, but not so much the results of the decisions they made together. She knew she couldn’t be in the room with him, and she honestly didn’t want to because the thought of the needles creeped her out. She wanted to drive him there and be in the waiting area when he was done. Even though losing him wasn’t an option in her mind, she wanted to spend every second that she could with him.
“Don’t treat me like I’m dying unless you’re ready to admit that I’m dying,” Gary said in response to Ally’s nagging about him not letting her drive him.
“You’re not dying, goddamn it.” Ally looked up. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that.” She focused her attention back to Gary. “I just want you to let me
be part of this.”
“You’re not missing anything. I promise.”
Ally walked into the kitchen to pour a big glass of alkaline water. She brought the cup back into the living room and handed it to Gary. He rolled his eyes, but gulped it down. “How many of these remedies are you going to push on me?”
“I booked you a massage. It’s Tuesday.”
“Okay.” Gary’s forehead wrinkled.
“It’ll relax you. Maybe all this stuff I’m pushing on you will relax the cancer, too.”
Again, he rolled his eyes.


In bed that night, Ally plugged her phone charger into the wall outlet. Soothing sounds started to ooze out of the speaker. Gary popped his head up off the pillow. A female speaking in a monotone voice chimed in and told him to take a deep breath and relax. “What now?” he said.
Ally rolled over to face Gary. “It’s a meditation app.
I downloaded it today on work’s wifi.”
“Yeah, cause I’m worried about you draining our data plan.”
It was Ally’s turn to roll her eyes, but Gary couldn’t see her in their dark bedroom.


Over the span of three months, Ally and Gary did yoga in their living room in front of a beginners DVD playing on the TV. Gary gave up the idea of arguing with Ally for a while. He just went with it. He didn’t have the energy to argue with her. When Ally suggested something, he tried it out. None of it hurt him. Why should he have given her a hard time? She was only suggesting all of this to help him. She wanted to make him better. She had to make him better. But she couldn’t make him better.


Ally tried to move on quickly from Gary. After he died, her best friend Charity flew in from Michigan for two months. Charity was in between jobs. She’d been fired from the insurance agency where she worked for three years after she failed a drug test for the third time. They offered her treatment each time, but she refused. Ally was surprised they didn’t can her after the first cup full of positive piss. Ally thought that Charity wanted to get fired so that she
could be with Ally during her so-called worst days of grief. Also, Ally living in Florida didn’t hurt. Ally sometimes thought that Charity lived her life like she was always on vacation. Charity had been through more jobs than the years she’d been alive.
The two started going to bars the day after the funeral. Ally guessed her family, especially Gary’s side, wouldn’t approve. “Fuck em,” Charity always said when Ally talked to her about it.
“You’re a horrible influence on me. So thank you,” Ally said


A stranger Ally took to a motel room from the dive bar wrapped his arms around her waist and held her from behind. They had swayed back and forth to the country version of I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing in the area between the bathrooms and the unoccupied dart board machines. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered in her ear back at the motel. She didn’t want to hear that. She twisted him around and bounced him onto the bed. She ripped his jean zipper down so hard that she scratched his stomach just above his confederate flag belt buckle. She scrunched her nose at the sight of it. Fuck it, she thought. Just one night.
That redneck lasted just over two minutes. Either she was much prettier than he was used to or it’d been a while since he’d been laid. Ally didn’t care. She was used to being dissatisfied. He rolled onto his side, facing her. She sat up, and grabbed her shirt and bra from the night stand. He touched her hand softly and patted the spot on the bed right next to his chest for her to lie down next to him. She didn’t do cuddling. Especially not with him. She rarely snuggled up to Gary in bed. Why do we need to be touching? She whipped her shirt over her head and stood up to pull her skirt down (which never left her body) and stepped into her shoes. “Where ya goin?”
he asked. She slung her purse strap over her shoulder without answering. “Can I call you?” She said no and left the room.
On the way home, she called Charity.
“I can barely hear you, Al. Where are you?” The reception broke in and out and there was a lot of feedback from Ally’s end.
“275. I went to Brooksville.”
“What the fuck did you go there for?”
“I met a guy online. I met him at a bar up there.”
“You drove all the way up there just to get dick?”
“That’s not why I went.”
“So, no dick? You didn’t get any?”
“Well. Maybe two minutes’ worth if that’s what you want to call it.” Ally dropped the phone from where she had held it against the steering wheel while they shared a cackle that resembled the sounds of birds trying to kill each other. They talked and laughed until Ally made it back to her house.


Ally talked to Charity over the phone three times a week since Charity had been back in Michigan. “How the fuck did you do that?” Charity asked.
She never beat around the bush.
Ally had just bought roller blades. She knew she needed the exercise. Eighteen extra pounds had found their way onto her figure since Gary died, and she thought she should find a fun way to exert some of her energy, even though she never felt like she had any to spare. The city had recently added twenty new miles to the fitness trail, and it now passed right through her neighborhood. New flowers and palm trees were planted along the edges, tax payer money not
wasted on frivolous bullshit. Finally. She bought the skates at Brook Stone. She figured the more she paid for them, the safer she would feel.
Maybe they would be fall proof.
An ambulance pulled up alongside the trail to take her away. There went some of the tax payer funded sod Ally was so happy about. When the doctor came into her small slice of the emergency room blocked off by an almost sheer white curtain, she learned that she broke her leg in two places. How was that possible? She was on the skates for less than five minutes. She would be out of work for up to six months. Minimum of three. All she could think about was that she didn’t want to end up back in that fucking trailer park where she started her Florida life. Gary got her out of there, and now he was the reason she may have to go back. She saw everything slip away from her during the slow motion fall. Her job, the house she and Gary had built. The life she finally had.


Now that Ally was laid up in bed, she wondered if she should’ve handled anything differently than she had. Did she do enough for Gary’s cancer? Did she do enough for Gary? Did she give up too easily? Should they have been more aggressive with his treatment? Should she have been more aggressive with the doctors? So many questions. Absolutely no fucking answers. Ally could’ve really used Charity here now. She could have run her errands for her and helped her with her physical therapy exercises. But mostly Charity could’ve just been there.
In her bed, all Ally could do was think. About Gary. About the dozen or so men she used to fill the time so that she didn’t think about Gary every second. But she still did. Even when she was on top of another man or a man was on top of her or behind her, she thought of Gary. She remembered how soft and tender he was. He always took it slow until he was almost ready to finish.
She demanded her randoms to fuck her rough.
She didn’t want them to remind her of Gary.
She wanted to let go of him. At least while she was having sex with someone else. She wanted to let go of their sex. Their perfect soft gentle sex.
Ally tried to hang on to the house she and Gary had built. It was two thousand square feet—much more than the two of them needed. They had it built when they thought children were in their future. They had already moved in and furnished their new place when Ally learned that she could not provide a suitable womb for a fetus. Not only that. She would need to have some procedures done and go back on birth control in order to regulate her hormone levels. When she asked the doctor if it would be possible to try again in a few years, he told her that it wouldn’t be impossible to try anything. He left it at that. Two days later, Gary surprised her with Senator. Four years later, Gary and Senator were dead.
Ally wondered if she could have saved Senator with sage burning and chants and homemade natural lotions. She couldn’t save Gary with it. Sometimes she thought maybe the combination of remedies killed Gary faster. Maybe she should have started fucking strangers from bars before Gary died. Maybe that would have helped her. How in the fuck could that have helped her? Maybe fucking someone else could have detached her from him. Disconnected them completely. Maybe she wouldn’t miss their love. Maybe if she found the right random bar guy or frat boy or successful business man. Maybe the best way to get over one is to get atop another. Or under, but Ally was more of a top rider. Except with Gary. She didn’t mind being under Gary.
She had spent months going out with co-workers, taking guys to hotels—she never took them home—drinking much more than ever, all trying to drown out missing Gary. Before the rollerblades, she thought it might be working. She really only cried at night when she was falling asleep alone. No Senator. No Gary. “Get another dog,” Charity urged almost every time they talked. It wasn’t that simple. Just like getting another man wasn’t that simple. She married Gary
when she was twenty two. She lost him when she was forty three. Twenty one years. Twenty one years wasn’t something you could erase with a new dog
or a new man to fuck. She tried.

The temporary home nurse, Olivia walked into the room with a tray. There was a grilled cheese sandwich with tomato slices and a lump of cottage cheese on the side. Ally stubbed the sage stick the rest of the way out in the ashtray. Olivia moved in right after Ally’s surgery. Ally wished she could stay forever. She never needed to get up out of her bed while Olivia was around. She hated staying in bed. But it was nice not having to lift a finger for herself. There was no right answer. If she was stuck in bed, she wished she could get up. If she needed to get up,
​she wished she could stay in bed.
Olivia didn’t know much about Ally’s life before her broken leg. Framed pictures of Gary hung in almost every room in the house, but she didn’t ask about him. Ally never mentioned him either. Boxes were stacked up in every room. Almost every loose item had been packed, but Ally saved the picture frames for last. She wanted the reminder every time she passed the fire place mantle. She wanted to be an observer of her old life whenever she glanced up at the wall. That life didn’t exist anymore, and the photos were the only proof that it had.
Ally couldn’t walk, but she had to be out of her house in six weeks. The new couple would move in. They would make their own memories in Ally and Gary’s house. They would fill the home with pictures of themselves and their family. This new woman stuffing cake into her husband’s mouth on their wedding day. A new dog would sniff every corner of the house that his nose would fit, wondering who and where Senator is. Ally imagined the new couple’s dog would be named Rover or Bozo—something uncreative. She and Gary came up with Senator because he reminded them of a politician when he was a puppy. No one understood that answer, and Ally 
nor Gary could explain it. The new woman would want kids like Ally did. The dog would play second fiddle to a new baby. Senator probably would have too.
Ally wondered how this new woman would handle a cancer diagnosis. Would she take the same steps as Ally? Would she skip all of the hokey shit and send her husband right to chemotherapy or radiation? Would this new woman be willing to part with her long, glossy blonde hair as a symbol that “we’re in this together” when her husband started to lose his curly red top? People did that to show support to their loved ones. Ally didn’t know what she would have done if Gary’s hair had started coming out. She loved her hair. It was her thing. Besides her boobs, her long curly hair was her accessory of envy according to her friends.
Would the new woman sympathize with Ally’s situation? If Ally couldn’t move in six weeks, would this woman give her more time?

An excerpt from a novel


COMFORT GIRLS


by


Gerald Arthur Winter






Yoko was Chinese-Korean, a term that refers to Koreans whose parents or grandparents
had fled from the Korean conflict in 1949. According to their relatives who had remained in
South Korea during World War II and the Korean War, their ancestors had fled in the wrong
direction to China. Those immigrants had settled in the southeast province of China called
Manchuria. This area was regained from the Japanese by Red China after WWII. Although the Koreans who had settled in Manchuria continued to speak Korean and maintained their culture and customs, many married Chinese and the two cultures became entwined. Though ethnically Korean in the 1950’s, these people, out of necessity to survive, became bilingual and adapted many aspects of the Chinese culture. That included food and social practices which have stemmed from the mix of Asian ideologies and 20th Century Communism under Chairman Mao.

Though not as harsh as the North Korean austerity had been during the Korean War to
the present, China was undergoing a transition from the 80’s to the 90’s. These changes created emotional turmoil based on the slim hope of civil rights in the future for Communist Chinese society. Yoko longed for what America promised, so much that she found a way with several others on a cargo ship to escape China. She had no idea where the ship was headed, but among a dozen Chinese, she paid ten thousand yuan to wherever the ship would take her outside China.

The ship faced several storms on the open sea, and two of the dozen Chinese stowaways
died from dehydration after suffering seasickness and vomiting the little bit of food they had
to eat. Hypothermia took three more lives after getting drenched during storms. Locked in the
hull, there was no chance to dry their clothes. It was always dark below deck and Yoko began
to think her fleeing China had been a bad choice.

Cramped from dehydration and little space to stand or stretch made Yoko want to die.
She vowed to inhale the saltwater deeply if the raging sea flooded the hull. But she prayed to
Buddha to make her death painless. She preferred to die quickly. When she fell asleep on her
tenth day at sea, she expected to wake in Buddha’s Garden, or with waning faith, to never wake again and become just a minute particle of the vast universe.

With little hope or strength left, Yoko was stirred by a clamor at the hatch cover. She and
the remaining seven Chinese survivors squinted their eyes. A bright sunbeam from the blue sky above the deck gave her a sharp headache. Despite the piercing sunlight, the smell of fresh salt air brightened her spirit.

Shading her eyes with both hands to peer at the land, she shouted, “Thank you, Buddha!
I feel no pain. Though I’m dead, your garden is lush and beautiful.”

With asides in Chinese, the first mate and captain laughed at her foolishness and ignorance.

“Buddha’s Garden has a name,” the captain told her.

“I didn’t know,” she said with apology. “What is it called?”

The first mate doubled over with laughter then spat his answer, “Mexico!”

Two of the prettier, younger women were led away by a Mexican who strapped chains around their wrists and bound them together. When another Mexican came toward Yoko, she pulled a note from her threadbare shirt. The Mexican looked at it with a squint then grumbled to the captain, “Esta mujer es nuestra cocinera.”

“Okay, then take her to your kitchen,” the Chinese captain said in broken Spanish with his word rhythm curt and jerky like his native tongue. Yoko felt her Korean had an even flow
while her Chinese sounded like silverware falling onto a ceramic tiled floor—clinkitty-clank ... clickitty-clunk.

As the Mexican led Yoko along the dock, the Chinese captain shouted in a collage of English and Spanish, “Good thing she can cook. Her ass is too flat.”

The Mexican nodded his head then grinned at Yoko. He was her main contact in Mexico
to get her across the border into the States. Pablo patted her shoulder and smiled wide, toothy
and beaming white against his deep-tanned face. A friendly façade from a stranger, but Pablo’s wife was Chinese-Korean, so he knew some expressions that Yoko would understand to put her at ease. “Chosupso eeayo,” he said, making her smile and even laugh.

“They’re assholes,” he said, referring to the captain and crew.

Yoko spent two weeks with Pablo and his wife, Hwan Song, in her fifties and ten years
younger than Pablo. Yoko remained on a waiting list to join a party to sneak across the border
into Texas where another contact would provide fake IDs so she could find work in America.

The greatest impediment to Yoko’s finding work would be learning English, but that was her
least concern. Now she was a displaced person without a country.


When her call came to join a party to cross the border, Yoko was saddened to leave Hwan
Song and her kind husband, Pablo. Even life in Mexico for her was much better than in China.
She felt insecure about leaving the comforts of staying with a family she could converse with in her own language, but Pablo made it clear to her, saying,” Time to move it. America waits for you.”

Yoko was among a party of three women and seventeen men, all Mexicans. She was nervous with no one to talk to in either Chinese or Korean. She’d heard that many women had been


raped in these tunnel passages, but she’d been spared by the Mexican illegals and wasn’t threatened. Not until the Border Patrol officer, who’d been paid to look the other way, demanded that the group give up one of the women for his pleasure or he’d arrest them all.

That’s when the Mexicans stuck together to protect their own. The guard took his pleasure
with a gun to Yoko’s head, but she feared he’d kill her afterwards anyway.

The Mexicans looked the other way with shame in their hearts. Though over in less than
a minute, they were seconds that would seem a millennium in Yoko’s mind. She had come this far and was not about to weaken. Her Chinese-Korean contact in Texas was a welcome sight, and Yoko remained in that safe-house close to the border for a month before she was told it was time to move again.


* * *


Travel by bus or train was the least dangerous for illegals at the time. Prior to 9/11/01,
Immigration became lax once an illegal found a place to live and work. Being Chinese gave
Yoko better status and Immigration protection than South Koreans, because she was fleeing
China, a Communist enemy. That gave her refugee status. With help from bilingual Chinese-
American attorneys, she got a 30-day tourist visa. In the months to come, she’d obtain a temporary Social Security card, then she’d meet with a Korean woman named Lana who had become an American citizen and owned an Asian Spa in New Jersey.

“I will teach you acupressure and Swedish massage,” Lana said over bowls of kimchi
and rice in a Korean restaurant. Yoko was amazed to peer out the restaurant window and see
on Boulevard in Palisades Park, Hangul Korean characters spelled out on store fronts and traffic signs. The Bergen County town was second only to Korea Town in LA and Flushing in Queens with the most Koreans concentrated in America outside of Seoul.

Yoko agreed and learned quickly from Lana about how superior the art of Asian massage
was to all other forms of physical therapy by considering not just the body, but the mind and soul with every application. Lana gave Yoko her spa name, “Ginny.”

“Dress modestly with tight garments that are difficult to penetrate or remove,” Lana
instructed. “Let no customer touch you, never ask for a tip, but men will expect manual release.

We charge sixty dollars an hour and forty for a half-hour. I will teach you how to make them
cum fast—party over—Next!”

“Why, unni?” Ginny asked, her expression still naïve despite the tunnel nightmare.

“Until a man has that release, he could be all over you. Once he goes limp, he’ll be in a hurry to get home to his wife and kids. Help him get there, but never go along for the ride--
that’s big trouble.”

“Of course not, unni.”

“None of my girls are permitted to give out their phone numbers to customers or to everybody to see a customer outside my spa. If you do, you’re gone. Got it?”

“Yes, unni, I will do everything you say. Thank you for this chance to make money. I
have no place to stay. Will I sleep at the spa?”

“Never! That’s against the law. The town will shut me down,” Lana warned. “My boyfriend will pick us up every night and take us to our home. I want ten dollars a day from each
girl’s earnings to provide food, which I will prepare three times a day.”

“You are generous, unni.”

“For an hour customer you get twenty dollars of the sixty, on the half-hour you get ten
dollars of the forty. If you are good, they will tip well, from forty dollars to one hundred dollars. If you have a problem customer, you call for me. I will handle it. If your English isn’t good enough to understand that a customer might be asking for a blow job or sex, act dumb and say you are sorry, but we only give acupressure and Swedish massage, no boom-boom.”

“Of course, unni, I’d never do that,” Yoko said, recalling the horror of the tunnel and the border guard’s hot sweaty hands tugging at her garments, and forcing her legs apart.

“Spread your legs!!” he’d rasped.

She felt queasy now, just as she had then when he trusted himself inside her.

“If you ever endanger my business by offering sex to a customer, you’d be better off getting arrested and deported compared to what I’ll do to you. Do you understand me?”

Ginny nodded, trying to shut out the way the border guard’s eyes had consumed her.

Her body jerked recalling his rapid painful penetrations and the burning. She tried to hold back now with Lana’s sharp instructions, unlike in the tunnel, but those dark memories welled
inside her and her body jerked spastically until she vomited on Lana’s immaculate ceramic-tiled floor.

“Igo!” Lana gasped, but her attention was to Ginny, not her spotless floor. She took Ginny to the shower room and stripped off her clothes. Lana gently sponged Ginny’s quivering naked body. Their eyes met with knowing unity. “Poor baby. Was it the tunnel where this happened to you?”

Ginny nodded then shook and wept.

“It’s okay now, unni. You’ll always be safe here with me. I will take care of you.”


* * *


Yoko worked only three months before one customer began to request her twice a week.
George was a bachelor in his fifties. He would never ask for anything from Yoko, but he would kiss her hands before and after his massage.

“You’ve been sent to me from heaven,” he’d tell her.

Yoko learned English quickly because she spent so much time in Lana’s home where her boyfriend, Bobby, insisted that Lana speak English at home to all her girls.

“How the hell are they ever gonna pass their citizenship tests if you keep talking to them in Korean,” Bobby often complained. With a fast turnover of girls, none other than Ginny had
stayed long enough to speak English fluently.

“Thank you, Bobby,” Ginny told him. “My English is getting much better.”

“Great. So what does it mean if I say I want a blow job?”

Ginny’s eyes widened with understanding, but Lana stepped in from the kitchen with a
butcher knife waving in her hand as she said, “It means I’m gonna cut off your balls.”

“Jesus, Lana,” Bobby groaned. “I was just testing to keep her out of trouble.”

The comforts of Lana’s home and the respect she felt in the spa had begun to put Yoko’s memory of the tunnel behind her. George was the only man she’d ever felt completely comforttable with. He spoke slowly and softly, often in a whisper, telling her everything about him.

He’d dated a few American women over the years, but had never married. His parents had died some time ago, but he had one sister and they were close. He wanted to introduce her to his sister, so someone he trusted could see how wonderful they could be together outside the
spa. She could only tell him about her illegal immigration from China and the tunnel, but not
what had happened in the tunnel. She hoped she’d never have to tell him about that.

After he kissed her hands, she began to lift up her face for a kiss. They’d been doing that
for almost a year when he whispered in her ear, “I love you, Ginny.”

“I love you, too,” she admitted. “I feel at home with you. That I’ve known you forever.

“I feel the same. I’m so happy the moment I see you, but it pains my heart each time we
part. We must do something about it soon, or I’ll burst from sadness, Ginny.”

“My real name is Yoko. Call me Ginny in front of others, but when we’re alone, please
call me Yoko. Then I’ll know you love me for who I really am, and not just for what I do.”

“I love you, Yoko,” he said, making her sigh, and for the first time, their kiss lingered and
their tongues entwined with a flutter like a butterfly’s wings.

* * *

Though she made several friends with many girls who came to work for Lana, Ginny had
become Lana’s number one girl, the worker Lana could always trust and depend on in any situation. Lana and her life mate, Bobby, soon thought of Ginny as family. After more than a year of loyalty to Lana, unlike several other girls who used Lana’s spa as a springboard to become spa owner’s themselves, Ginny asked a favor, though her hands shook with fear over how Lana would respond.
“Unni, I must speak with you about a problem,” Ginny said.

Lana frowned. “Problem? Some customer bothered you?”

“No-no, Unni. I am the problem.”

“You are never a problem to me. What do you mean?”

“There is a man, a customer, who is very kind and gentle.”

Lana grimaced and huffed.

“Unni, forgive me, but I love him,” Ginny said.

“I could ban him from my spa! You’d never see him again!”

“That’s the problem, unni. If you do that, I will have to leave and go with him. We are in love.”

Lana had come to know Ginny’s heart as well as her own. She embraced her and felt her shudder in her arms. “Is it George?”

“How did you know?”

“Buddha tells me everything,” Lana said, wiping tears from Ginny’s cheeks. “You cannot
tell any of my other girls. We will tell them that Bobby is driving you to the bus to visit a friend in Flushing. George will meet you at the bus station on Saturday at 6 p.m. and Bobby will pick you up at the bus station on Monday at 8:30 a.m. George must never come to my spa again. After one month, we will see if you still feel the same. If not, you are welcome back and I will never mention it again, but George can never come here again. If you still want to see him in this way, you must find out all about him, his profession, his past marriages, his children, then you’ll tell me everything you’ve learned about him. I say this for your protection, because I love you like a little sister. If he’s no good, and you think he just wants to fuck you then leave you, you must tell me and be rid of him. If he loves you, he must marry you.”

“How can I thank you enough, Unni?”

“You can’t,” Lana said. “But I expect you to try.”


* * *


“I will never find such a wonderful woman as you, Yoko. Will you marry me?”

“Lana is my family in America,” she said. “I want to show her our respect by having you
ask her for my hand in marriage. The karma from this goodwill will give us Buddha’s blessing for all our life together.”

With Bobby at her side and Yoko and George across the table at Gregory’s Seafood,” Lana said, “You have my blessing, unni, but if Georgie is ever bad to you, I will put a curse on him forever.”

George blinked nervously as he took the engagement ring from his pocket and looked to Lana’s boyfriend, his fellow American, Bobby, for support.

“No idle threat, George. Lana means every word,” Bobby said. “And if Buddha’s curse
doesn’t scare you into taking the best care of our unni, my Glock 19 will, in case you’d like a
9mm enema.”

Hands shaking, George slipped the ring on Ginny’s finger with a sigh of relief, then asked, “What now?”

Bobby shook his hand and said, “We’re gonna take a limo to Atlantic City and get shitfaced at the casinos.”

George gave Yoko a look of concern, and justifiably so, because after five hours in Atlantic City, Lana had to be carried over Bobby’s shoulder away from the high-rollers’ blackjack table at 4 a.m. Casino security officers gave Bobby no choice. It was either him or them, who described Lana as, “Crazy as a shithouse rat.”

Though continuing to drink shots of soju until sunrise at home, the Koreans’ women’s hangovers would last another 48 hours. Buddha, it seemed in Yoko’s mind, had hung his head in disgust over two of his favorites, her and her unni, Lana. Yoko, thought that perhaps Buddha had stretched his blessings to the limit for Lana that night.

“I want more dancing! Come on! Let’s move it!” Lana shouted near 6 a.m. “I want more
soju!” Then she passed out cold with no recollection of anything she’d said or done at the casino the night before.

THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO

by Edgar Allan Poe

(1846)

​
THE thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitely, settled --but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.
It must be understood that neither by word nor deed had I given Fortunato cause to doubt my good will. I continued, as was my in to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my to smile now was at the thought of his immolation.
He had a weak point --this Fortunato --although in other regards he was a man to be respected and even feared. He prided himself on his connoisseurship in wine. Few Italians have the true virtuoso spirit. For the most part their enthusiasm is adopted to suit the time and opportunity, to practise imposture upon the British and Austrian millionaires. In painting and gemmary, Fortunato, like his countrymen, was a quack, but in the matter of old wines he was sincere. In this respect I did not differ from him materially; --I was skilful in the Italian vintages myself, and bought largely whenever I could.
It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season, that I encountered my friend. He accosted me with excessive warmth, for he had been drinking much. The man wore motley. He had on a tight-fitting parti-striped dress, and his head was surmounted by the conical cap and bells. I was so pleased to see him that I thought I should never have done wringing his hand.
I said to him --"My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met. How remarkably well you are looking to-day. But I have received a pipe of what passes for Amontillado, and I have my doubts."
"How?" said he. "Amontillado, A pipe? Impossible! And in the middle of the carnival!"
"I have my doubts," I replied; "and I was silly enough to pay the full Amontillado price without consulting you in the matter. You were not to be found, and I was fearful of losing a bargain."
"Amontillado!"
"I have my doubts."
"Amontillado!"
"And I must satisfy them."
"Amontillado!"
"As you are engaged, I am on my way to Luchresi. If any one has a critical turn it is he. He will tell me --"
"Luchresi cannot tell Amontillado from Sherry."
"And yet some fools will have it that his taste is a match for your own.
"Come, let us go."
"Whither?"
"To your vaults."
"My friend, no; I will not impose upon your good nature. I perceive you have an engagement. Luchresi--"
"I have no engagement; --come."
"My friend, no. It is not the engagement, but the severe cold with which I perceive you are afflicted. The vaults are insufferably damp. They are encrusted with nitre."
"Let us go, nevertheless. The cold is merely nothing. Amontillado! You have been imposed upon. And as for Luchresi, he cannot distinguish Sherry from Amontillado."
Thus speaking, Fortunato possessed himself of my arm; and putting on a mask of black silk and drawing a roquelaire closely about my person, I suffered him to hurry me to my palazzo.
There were no attendants at home; they had absconded to make merry in honour of the time. I had told them that I should not return until the morning, and had given them explicit orders not to stir from the house. These orders were sufficient, I well knew, to insure their immediate disappearance, one and all, as soon as my back was turned.
I took from their sconces two flambeaux, and giving one to Fortunato, bowed him through several suites of rooms to the archway that led into the vaults. I passed down a long and winding staircase, requesting him to be cautious as he followed. We came at length to the foot of the descent, and stood together upon the damp ground of the catacombs of the Montresors.
The gait of my friend was unsteady, and the bells upon his cap jingled as he strode.
"The pipe," he said.
"It is farther on," said I; "but observe the white web-work which gleams from these cavern walls."
He turned towards me, and looked into my eves with two filmy orbs that distilled the rheum of intoxication.
"Nitre?" he asked, at length.
"Nitre," I replied. "How long have you had that cough?"
"Ugh! ugh! ugh! --ugh! ugh! ugh! --ugh! ugh! ugh! --ugh! ugh! ugh! --ugh! ugh! ugh!"
My poor friend found it impossible to reply for many minutes.
"It is nothing," he said, at last.
"Come," I said, with decision, "we will go back; your health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me it is no matter. We will go back; you will be ill, and I cannot be responsible. Besides, there is Luchresi --"
"Enough," he said; "the cough's a mere nothing; it will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough."
"True --true," I replied; "and, indeed, I had no intention of alarming you unnecessarily --but you should use all proper caution. A draught of this Medoc will defend us from the damps.
Here I knocked off the neck of a bottle which I drew from a long row of its fellows that lay upon the mould.
"Drink," I said, presenting him the wine.
He raised it to his lips with a leer. He paused and nodded to me familiarly, while his bells jingled.
"I drink," he said, "to the buried that repose around us."
"And I to your long life."
He again took my arm, and we proceeded.
"These vaults," he said, "are extensive."
"The Montresors," I replied, "were a great and numerous family."
"I forget your arms."
"A huge human foot d'or, in a field azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel."
"And the motto?"
"Nemo me impune lacessit."
"Good!" he said.
The wine sparkled in his eyes and the bells jingled. My own fancy grew warm with the Medoc. We had passed through long walls of piled skeletons, with casks and puncheons intermingling, into the inmost recesses of the catacombs. I paused again, and this time I made bold to seize Fortunato by an arm above the elbow.
"The nitre!" I said; "see, it increases. It hangs like moss upon the vaults. We are below the river's bed. The drops of moisture trickle among the bones. Come, we will go back ere it is too late. Your cough --"
"It is nothing," he said; "let us go on. But first, another draught of the Medoc."
I broke and reached him a flagon of De Grave. He emptied it at a breath. His eyes flashed with a fierce light. He laughed and threw the bottle upwards with a gesticulation I did not understand.
I looked at him in surprise. He repeated the movement --a grotesque one.
"You do not comprehend?" he said.
"Not I," I replied.
"Then you are not of the brotherhood."
"How?"
"You are not of the masons."
"Yes, yes," I said; "yes, yes."
"You? Impossible! A mason?"
"A mason," I replied.
"A sign," he said, "a sign."
"It is this," I answered, producing from beneath the folds of my roquelaire a trowel.
"You jest," he exclaimed, recoiling a few paces. "But let us proceed to the Amontillado."
"Be it so," I said, replacing the tool beneath the cloak and again offering him my arm. He leaned upon it heavily. We continued our route in search of the Amontillado. We passed through a range of low arches, descended, passed on, and descending again, arrived at a deep crypt, in which the foulness of the air caused our flambeaux rather to glow than flame.
At the most remote end of the crypt there appeared another less spacious. Its walls had been lined with human remains, piled to the vault overhead, in the fashion of the great catacombs of Paris. Three sides of this interior crypt were still ornamented in this manner. From the fourth side the bones had been thrown down, and lay promiscuously upon the earth, forming at one point a mound of some size. Within the wall thus exposed by the displacing of the bones, we perceived a still interior crypt or recess, in depth about four feet, in width three, in height six or seven. It seemed to have been constructed for no especial use within itself, but formed merely the interval between two of the colossal supports of the roof of the catacombs, and was backed by one of their circumscribing walls of solid granite.
It was in vain that Fortunato, uplifting his dull torch, endeavoured to pry into the depth of the recess. Its termination the feeble light did not enable us to see.
"Proceed," I said; "herein is the Amontillado. As for Luchresi --"
"He is an ignoramus," interrupted my friend, as he stepped unsteadily forward, while I followed immediately at his heels. In niche, and finding an instant he had reached the extremity of the niche, and finding his progress arrested by the rock, stood stupidly bewildered. A moment more and I had fettered him to the granite. In its surface were two iron staples, distant from each other about two feet, horizontally. From one of these depended a short chain, from the other a padlock. Throwing the links about his waist, it was but the work of a few seconds to secure it. He was too much astounded to resist. Withdrawing the key I stepped back from the recess.
"Pass your hand," I said, "over the wall; you cannot help feeling the nitre. Indeed, it is very damp. Once more let me implore you to return. No? Then I must positively leave you. But I must first render you all the little attentions in my power."
"The Amontillado!" ejaculated my friend, not yet recovered from his astonishment.
"True," I replied; "the Amontillado."
As I said these words I busied myself among the pile of bones of which I have before spoken. Throwing them aside, I soon uncovered a quantity of building stone and mortar. With these materials and with the aid of my trowel, I began vigorously to wall up the entrance of the niche.
I had scarcely laid the first tier of the masonry when I discovered that the intoxication of Fortunato had in a great measure worn off. The earliest indication I had of this was a low moaning cry from the depth of the recess. It was not the cry of a drunken man. There was then a long and obstinate silence. I laid the second tier, and the third, and the fourth; and then I heard the furious vibrations of the chain. The noise lasted for several minutes, during which, that I might hearken to it with the more satisfaction, I ceased my labours and sat down upon the bones. When at last the clanking subsided, I resumed the trowel, and finished without interruption the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh tier. The wall was now nearly upon a level with my breast. I again paused, and holding the flambeaux over the mason-work, threw a few feeble rays upon the figure within.
A succession of loud and shrill screams, bursting suddenly from the throat of the chained form, seemed to thrust me violently back. For a brief moment I hesitated, I trembled. Unsheathing my rapier, I began to grope with it about the recess; but the thought of an instant reassured me. I placed my hand upon the solid fabric of the catacombs, and felt satisfied. I reapproached the wall; I replied to the yells of him who clamoured. I re-echoed, I aided, I surpassed them in volume and in strength. I did this, and the clamourer grew still.
It was now midnight, and my task was drawing to a close. I had completed the eighth, the ninth and the tenth tier. I had finished a portion of the last and the eleventh; there remained but a single stone to be fitted and plastered in. I struggled with its weight; I placed it partially in its destined position. But now there came from out the niche a low laugh that erected the hairs upon my head. It was succeeded by a sad voice, which I had difficulty in recognizing as that of the noble Fortunato. The voice said--
"Ha! ha! ha! --he! he! he! --a very good joke, indeed --an excellent jest. We will have many a rich laugh about it at the palazzo --he! he! he! --over our wine --he! he! he!"
"The Amontillado!" I said.
"He! he! he! --he! he! he! --yes, the Amontillado. But is it not getting late? Will not they be awaiting us at the palazzo, the Lady Fortunato and the rest? Let us be gone."
"Yes," I said, "let us be gone."
"For the love of God, Montresor!"
"Yes," I said, "for the love of God!"
But to these words I hearkened in vain for a reply. I grew impatient. I called aloud --
"Fortunato!"
No answer. I called again --
"Fortunato!"
No answer still. I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture and let it fall within. There came forth in return only a jingling of the bells. My heart grew sick; it was the dampness of the catacombs that made it so. I hastened to make an end of my labour. I forced the last stone into its position; I plastered it up. Against the new masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones. For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them. In pace requiescat! 

DEAD ON ARRIVAL


A novel excerpt
From a Tom Larkin Mystery


by


Gerald Arthur Winter






The missing girl in the Caribbean was an old story, much like a girlfriend from


my past, and one I preferred to forget; but Kay Farr’s soapy scent preceded her as I sat


in my oxblood, leather recliner with my feet up at the Manhattan condo where I worked


from home.


Kay was one of the colorful threads from my past that made up the intricate


pattern of my life’s design. On our final parting, I thought that thread was all that held


me together. We were high school sweethearts, each of us the other’s first love at


sixteen—and in the Biblical sense, but never in the backseat of a car. I can’t speak for


her, but for me, the passionate entanglement had unfolded slowly, deliberately, and with


a life-long purpose.


When Kay broke up with me in college, my head stayed unscrewed for a long


time, but losing her kept me alive during my hitch in the Gulf War. I already felt dead


. . . buried in anger and chin-deep in sand. Now, even after twenty years, her essence


seemed to creep under the door from the hallway outside my office. Her scent slithered


like a serpent smothering me in its coils and ready to swallow me whole. I got up from


the recliner, went to the door, and waited for her to ring the doorbell.


I sensed that Kay was hesitant, probably ready to change her mind and leave.


Reaching for my suit jacket hanging on the doorknob of the adjacent closet, I quickly


put it on and straightened my tie, still rumpled from my afternoon nap.


I startled Kay when I jerked the door open as if I were on my way out and


unaware of her presence. She put her hand to her quivering lips, just as I remembered


with a supple bottom lip that I used to clench gently in my teeth, like an equestrian’s


light grasp of the reins subtly guiding her.


I stared blankly at her in silence, giving her the chance to speak first. She looked


like she might faint as her eyelids fluttered, so I broke the awkward silence.


“I was just leaving to meet a client,” I said, acting as if I didn’t recognize her.


An absurd idea, since she looked as great as ever with her sleek, athletic figure filled out


only in all the right places. “My secretary is on vacation, so you’ll have to call next week


for an appointment.”


“Tom, it’s me—Kay,” she said, pausing cautiously for my reaction.


With the vision of calendar years rolling back to a time before we’d broke up, I


wanted to take her in my arms and kiss her. I didn’t want to be twenty years old again.


Hell, I didn’t even want to be forty again, but a part of me wanted her back, wanted us


back, to a time where nothing else mattered except being together.


“Of course it’s you,” I said with a smirk to put her at ease, but also to scare


her a little, just for her own good. I was poison—so she’d told me when she gave me


back the engagement ring. “I knew it was you the moment you stepped off the elevator


down the hall.”


Thrown by my remark, her eyes darted nervously back and forth.


“Do you have a surveillance camera in the hall? Is that how you knew?


Did you see me on a monitor from here?”


“No. You’re wearing the same perfume you wore the night of the prom,” I


said, grinning when her expression showed she was guilty as charged.


“Do you expect me to believe that you could smell my perfume through some


high-tech security device?”


Tapping my nose with my index finger, I confessed, “Call it what you like. It


was animal magnetism back then . . . still is. So, are you going to stand in the hallway


or come in?”


“You said you were leaving for an appointment.”


“Just playing hard to get. I tried everything else in the past, with no luck. Please,


come in.” I motioned toward the sofa. “Coffee?”


“OK. If you are.”


Entering my apartment, she clutched the collar of her spring coat as if she read


my mind, but when I furrowed my brow in protest, she unbuttoned the collar, revealing


the creased neck of a middle-aged woman.


“Still two sugars and heavy on the milk?” I asked as I put on the coffee pot.


“No. Black, but not too strong,” she said, removing her bright orange coat,


probably the latest fashion, but I wasn’t one to know or care. Revealing her trim figure,


she draped the coat over her arm and stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. “If


you prefer yours strong, just add water to mine.”


“You don’t look like a watered-down version of the girl I used to know.” She


appeared uncomfortable with my comment, her arms folded in defense. “Just drape your


coat over the sofa,” I said, rummaging through the fridge. I sniffed the milk and stifled a


gag, relieved she didn’t want any.


With my secretary on vacation, I had no one to tend to life’s details beyond the


basics of my private investigator’s existence, essentially, seek and find—lock and load.


Mona, had been away too long already. In just three days of Mona’s absence decay had


begun to settle in wherever I tread.


I called to Kay from behind the fridge door, “Sorry, I have nothing to go with the


coffee! I could order up some doughnuts or Danish if you’re hungry!”


“I’m fine, Tom,” she said as I brought the coffee on a tray and set it down in front


of her on the coffee table, chipped and stained with rings ranging from coffee to bourbon.


Running her delicate fingers around the floral patterns on the arm of the sofa, she took a


sip of coffee then hesitated to put the cup down on the table.


I grinned. “Please, Kay, by all means leave your mark.” With the old poison


coming to the surface, I said over the rim of my cup, “Your stain may be the only


memento I’ll have of our past . . . especially since they’ve torn down The Old Milk Barn


in Jersey where I’d carved Tom & Kay in one of the beams.”


Probably thinking her decision to contact me was a bad one, she froze with the


cup raised to her lips, then tears welled in her eyes. Part of me was glad—payback for all


the pain I’d felt over losing her—even though so long ago when I was still a stranger to


the marred spirit who now possessed me. You might see me in the bright Caribbean sun


at noon, but the darkness of my past would still chill you to the core. Some women may


have mistaken me for a Renaissance man, but the contrasts of lights and shadows of my


checkered past were not the artistic chiaroscuro of a Rembrandt.


“I’m not here for the reason you probably think,” she said. “This isn’t about us


. . . there is no us. This is business . . . important painful business . . . something crucial


to a dear friend who needs your professional help.”


I put down my cup and took a deep breath to regain the wind she knocked out of


me. My imagination of any rekindled flame between us momentarily flickered then died.


I snapped angrily, “You could’ve just called me for that without putting me


through this agonizing exercise in futility. I’m in the book and have a Website, so your


boyfriend didn’t need your intercession to reach me.”


“Girlfriend, Tom. My roommate from college has a desperate situation,” she


scolded me with a glare that asked—Can you still be jealous after all these years?


“Sally?” I asked, remembering her roommate from Douglass College, but what


stuck in my mind most was Sally’s disapproval of me. “No wonder she sent you as her


emissary; she’d rather die than come to me for help.”


“It must be obvious why you’re her last resort,” Kay said with puppy eyes, but


nothing registered. “Her tragedy’s been dragged through the news for so long.”


“Sorry, Kay. You’ve lost me. I’ve seen nothing in the news about Sally Heidt,”


I said, but realized that was her maiden name. Still, I came up empty. “I guess Sally


must be married . . . poor bastard, whoever her husband is.”


“And you’re a detective?” she said, seeming to enjoy watching me squirm in my


misery of self-pity over lost opportunities. Then she atoned with reassurance. “Yes, she


married then divorced. Her married name is Simon, but her daughter’s last name is from


Sally’s first husband, Sandler . . . her daughter is Joy Sandler.”


I felt foolish and flattered at the same time—foolish because Joy Sandler had


been missing for years and everyone had their opinion about who might have killed her


—flattered because someone believed I could help when everyone else had given up.


“I’m sorry for her loss,” I said with a shrug. “I never made that connection . . .


didn’t even recognize her from all those news interviews. She hasn’t held up as well as


you over time.”


“Her physical deterioration started about five years ago after the first anniversary


of Joy’s disappearance,” Kay said, slumping her shoulders. “We were like sisters before


that, but her loss took the life out of her.”


“What can I possibly do at this point except give Sally false hope? The FBI, the


Colombian National Police, and Isla Rameras locals exhausted all their suspects, and


if she’d been dumped at sea, if anything was going to wash up, it would’ve long ago.”


“I just need you to try. That’s all.” Kay put her hand on my arm. “This could give


her closure, knowing you ran through it all just one more time on her behalf.”


“I sympathize, but if I do anything at all, it won’t be for Sally and it won’t be for


you,” I assured her. “Is the half-million still in the pot?”


“What?” she stood up from the sofa and scolded. “Of course! That money has


been in escrow for years, but I need to know you’ll take this case for a better reason than


the reward. This is personal!”


“It’s personal for me too,” I assured her. “This is for Joy. If Sally expects me to


move mountains to find her daughter, I’ll need that pot to do what’s necessary. If I find


Joy alive, or bring her murderer to justice, it’ll cost a half mil.”


“What makes you think Sally has that kind of money?”


“I seem to recall her first husband was a retired cop,” I said with a smirk. “Ray


Sandler was shot in the line of duty, but while on disability, he won the New York Mega


Millions lottery worth about fifty million after taxes. I seem to recall that a Sally Sandler


appealed for a fifty per cent settlement on that fortune in divorce court.”


Kay’s nose wrinkled with repugnance. She’d learned from experience that the


havoc of the poison I wreaked, though odorless and colorless, was still deadly when


the fumes caught anyone off guard.


“I have no authority,” Kay said with obvious disappointment in her expression.


“I’ll have to tell Sally what you want.”


“What I want . . . is to find her daughter alive. That’s all she needs to know,”


When the money is in my account, I’m hers till I find Joy or whoever killed her.”


“With so much money, Tom, where would you start?” Kay asked as I helped her


on with her coat.


Leading her to the door then opening it for her exit, I said, “When it comes to


murder, I always follow the blood.”


“Will you fly to Isla Rameras?”


“The blood starts here in the U.S.A.”


“Where?”


“In New Jersey.”


“I don’t get it, Tom.”


“Joy’s blood father is a high roller in Atlantic City.”


“I don’t think Sally knows that. They’ve had no contact for years. How do you


know?”


“We ex-cops have our own network.”


“You suspect Joy’s father?”


“Not particularly, but no one ever followed that trail. Time to look in other


directions where somebody might not have covered his or her tracks. I don’t know what


the motive could be yet, but maybe in someone’s mind, when Joy Sandler arrived in Isla


Rameras, she was already dead on arrival.






______________________




Ray Sandler wasn’t the type to lay low. He’d publicly put up the half-million


dollar reward to find his daughter, so I felt no guilt about asking his ex-wife to cough up


the same amount to give me a jump-start. I had no personal connection to Ray, but when


I was being processed in Hackensack for back vacation and sick pay due to me from my


switchover from New Jersey law enforcement to DEA, Ray was in the news about his


disability from a shoot-out at a bank heist in Teaneck that ended on the New Jersey


Turnpike.


Ray shot both bank robbers after a high-speed chase that resulted in his killing


both culprits in the cattail swamps of the Meadowlands. Ray had state troopers for back-


up when his partner was killed in the shootout. All of this was public knowledge when it


happened, but then resurfaced in the media when his daughter disappeared almost seven


years ago. I’d never made the connection to his ex-wife, my high school sweetheart’s best


friend, Sally Heidt when I knew her.


Since the only abduction case I ever worked on was my niece’s, I was relieved


that Joy Sandler wasn’t kin. Still, the tie to Kay Farr was enough to make it worse. My


first resolution was to assume Joy was alive. Not easy, considering the history, so I


convinced myself that she’d vanished yesterday, and that I was bringing the news to


her father for the first time. With the five hundred grand wired to my bank account that


morning, I could convince myself of many things.


As Neptune was to Asbury Park, seeking a new identity on the outskirts, Margate,


was to Atlantic City, and hadn’t caught up to the casino boom as it remained in transition


as a place where much of the ethnic minority, casino hired-help humbly resided.


Not a gambler, my only connection to Atlantic City was the Steel Pier. When I


was kid, the Miss America Pageant every September was my only other link to AC that I


could still look back on with a smile. Perhaps Ray Sandler was always a gambler, but I


couldn’t fathom the thinking of a man who, after hitting the long shot of the Mega


Millions jackpot, would spend the next decade throwing away even a dime of it back to


the casinos.


Though the concept of a high roller’s lifestyle escaped me, I was told by friends


who enjoyed recreational gambling that high rollers combined a rare combination of


natural luck and perks—freebies on the house. Many a wannabe high roller bit the dust


and ransomed their souls in the process, so the real McCoy was a curiosity I looked


forward to meeting.


As I headed south at 8 a.m. Ventnor Avenue displayed shops on the east side


with a few boarded-up windows with For Rent signs displayed. Pastel-colored high-rise


condos lined the west side facing the bay. I turned left off Ventnor onto Benson where


Mexican day laborers lined up at a Spanish mission. At the end of the short block, I


turned right, heading south on Atlantic Avenue, the main drag along the beach front


where I caught a glimpse of a National Historic Site, the statue of Lucy the Elephant.



Sizing up the neighborhood, I figured Ray must’ve done well for himself by


buying his home when the area was worth half its current value. With the price of gas, it


was probably cheaper for him to hail a cab to the casino, and also to drink as many free


cocktails as he wished without worry about a DUI heading home.


I parked on the opposite side of the street of Sandler’s home as my GPS let me


know I’d arrived at my destination.


“Will there be anything else, Mr. Larkin?” the female version of Hal inquired, like


in 2001 Space Odyssey.


“No, thanks but I look forward to the future when you can just beam me up to my


destination. Have a great day.”


“You, too, Mr. Larkin.”


Ray Sandler’s address disappeared from my radio screen. I got out of my car and


ambled slowly across the street, which was quiet with little traffic just before the beach


season started. The locals needed less than ten minutes to get to work at the casinos. It


appeared that Sandler recently added a second floor to the original structure of his home,


so I assumed he still prospered from his gambling.


The house was probably worth three million a few years ago, but even with the


addition, worth less than two million since the recent real estate debacle. I wondered if


that bothered a high roller, or if the mentality of a gambler even considered the nuances


of risk leveraging. When I leaned on the doorbell, after a few seconds, I had half my


answer standing in the open doorway.


She was about thirty-five with a perfect, though freckled, tan that accented the


long blond hair, natural and flowing—a rarity. Her big hazel eyes seemed to take me in


with a severity that was a bit unnerving. There was a long silence between our mutual


assessments before she cocked her head in a gesture for me to state my business.


“Tom Larkin. I’m a private investigator and need to speak to Ray in regard to his


missing daughter . . . Joy.”


“You vant to shpeak vit Raymont?” she asked with a whistling accent that seemed


to drip with sauerkraut.


I kept my heels from clicking together as I said, “Ya.”


“Vat iz your namp again?”


“Tom Larkin. Tell him I’m a former cop, like him.”


“Vait here, Mr. Larkin. I vill ask if he vill see you.”


When she turned to get Ray, she left the door open, so I stepped in and watched


from the foyer as she climbed an open staircase to the second floor. She wore a lime


green thong bikini, which gave me a vision of ping pong balls tumbling for a lottery


drawing as her butt cheeks, bisected by a thin green line, rotated with her ascent. I


wondered if Ray kept her around as a good luck charm just to remind him of the Mega


Millions bonanza he’d won.


From the foyer, I heard Ray ranting, “What the hell, Astrid! I don’t wanna see


anybody before I go to the casino. Bad—fucking--karma!” Then there was a long silence


and I saw Ray on the second floor landing tying his paisley silk bathrobe as he tried to


identify me from a distance without his glasses, which he put on as he lumbered in his


awkward descent toward me.


“I’m sorry to disturb you so early in the day, Mr. Sandler,” I said in formal mode.


“But your ex-wife has hired me to assist in the case of your missing daughter, Joy.”


“Ya gotta be—fucking—kiddin’ me?” he said, pulling a crumpled pack of


cigarettes from his bathrobe pocket and lighting one with a lighter that looked like 24


karat gold. “It’s been what—six, almost seven years? We all need to move on. What


does Sally think anyone can do at this point. This is nuts!”


“Then why do you continue to keep the half-million-dollar reward posted on the


internet?”


“Because I can afford to—that’s why!” Ray said proudly, as his pock-marked


cheeks turned red. “It’s a long shot, but worth the gamble to get Joy back . . . or at least


to see that her killers burn in hell.”


“So you think she’s dead?”


“I’m a gambler . . . so let’s just say, at this point, I wouldn’t bet on her being


alive.”


He took a long drag on his bent cigarette then peered over the top of his cheapo


magnifying specs to assess me from two ranges. When he came closer, the stench of


stale cologne and sweat closed my throat with a defensive gag.


“Where the fuck do I know you from?” he grimaced. “You we’re a cop too,


right?” I nodded. “Yeah, I caught your drift from the second floor. I suppose if I


hadn’t made my big score, I’d be a shamus just like you.”


“I don’t think just like me. I’m one of kind. That’s why your ex hired me.”


He motioned toward the staircase behind him. “A year ago I thought Astrid was


one of a kind, but I’m already tired of screwin’ her. I had a bald chick before her. I used


to rub her head before each draw at the table, my good luck charm. When I start to break


even, the charm’s over. I’m feelin’ the need for a redhead soon to sway the tide back in


my favor.”


“Personally, I’m 0 for 2 with redheads,” I said. “and not looking for strike three.”


Ray nodded in appreciation.


“Will you answer a few questions?”


“What the hell. I’m not due at the tables till noon. I got in at four o’clock this


morning, so I’m not focussed. Have a seat. Coffee?”


I nodded.


“Astrid, bring us some java!” he shouted, as I sat at the end of a sofa and he in


a tan, suede recliner. He cranked the chair open, making me feel like a proctologist with


a view of his stained tighty-whities and varicose veins on his hairy thighs.


From the landing above us, Astrid snapped, “Iv you tink you cant replace me vit a


redhet, you are mistakent, Raymont!”


“Ya! Ya!” Ray smirked. “Just bring the damn coffee, weiner schnitzel!” Aside to


me, he said, “Sometimes these Heinies forget we won the fuckin’ war . . . both of ’em.”


“Where’d you find her?” I asked. “I must say, she’s stunning.”


“Believe me, her looks ain’t the half of it. She could suck a cherrystone out of its


shell without opening it.”


That image wavered briefly in my mind as I thought about my client, Ray’s


ex-wife, Sally. Whatever attracted that stuck-up cheerleader to this bum? His ship


hadn’t come in until after it was all over between them. Sally must’ve been bitter about


Ray’s bonanza since she’d tried to increase her alimony when his winning the lottery hit


the news. But after she remarried, money wasn’t an issue between them because her


current husband had even bigger bucks than Ray, from mining diamonds.


Except for the loss of her daughter, I couldn’t feel sorry for Sally. Then again, I


never liked her in the first place. In college, I thought of Sally as a greyhound; though a


sleek pedigree at a glance, she was basically a fast bitch right out of the gate. Could this


mismatch have spawned the fate of a tragic end for their daughter Joy?


“You’ve got a great life for a retired cop with a bum leg, Ray,” I said, seeing no


reason to keep up the formalities since he felt comfortable enough with me to reveal his


current companion’s intimate skills.


“It’s a livin’ . . . a damn good livin’!” he said with a phlegmatic laugh and a


cough as he lit another cigarette. “So whaddaya want from me?”


“I want to know your gut feeling about Joy’s disappearance . . . not as her


father, but as a cop.”


“I wasn’t much a cop when it came to investigations,” he shrugged with a


slap of his beer gut gradually emerging from his bathrobe, which loosened at the ties


with every gesture of his hands. The hairy globe looked like the top of a baby’s head


emerging from the womb. “I was good at the chase when I knew I had my perp dead


to rites. Knowing I could shoot to kill was a perk.”


“Like when you tracked down the bank robbers in the Meadowlands and took


a shot in the leg,” I offered, watching his round face morph to a friendly, sallow-toothed


grin. I assumed that I touched on Ray’s personal evaluation of that incident, which had


been less positively assessed by the department. There had been a rumor that, after the


culprits were bogged down in the swamp grass, Ray had disarmed one then shot himself


in the leg with the perpetrator’s weapon just to get the early retirement disability and a


commendation with a pay boost to the next grade. That was the buzz inside the department,


but the blue wall never let it reach the public.


“You heard about that in the papers, huh?” he said, rubbing the mound of his


belly.” I got an interview on TV with Geraldo, too.”


“I saw it,” I said. “The disability has put thirty pounds on you since then.”


“And the good life from the Mega Millions,” he coughed as he lit, yet another


cigarette. “You’re the shamus. What should I have done as a cop that I couldn’t do as a


father?”


“Did you try to be objective . . . for Joy’s sake?” I asked, baiting him to get a feel


for what his emotional attachment was for Joy other than the genetic connection.


His smile turned into a pensive sneer. I wasn’t certain if his reflective pause


was the predecessor to the relief of a fart, or if something other than a roulette wheel


was actually spinning to some conclusion inside his head. When he answered, I was


caught off guard.


“Objective?” he blurted. “What kind of sick fuck are you? I take it you have no


kids, or you’re just one truly cold bastard! But I’m thinking—both.”


“Take it easy, Ray.” I held up a hand, wondering if he might get up and throw a


punch at me. “Just testing. You pass . . . you love Joy . . . and all this schmaltz is your


way of creating a shell around your hurt . . .”


He put out his cigarette with a violent gesture that sent the crystal ashtray


sliding across the coffee table and clanking on the hardwood floor with an echo that


brought the Valkyrie to the second flood landing.


“Is everythink, okay, Raymont?” she called, her voice echoing from above and her


slender hand waving a 9mm pistol over the banister.


“Ya-ya!” he shouted. “She’s also my bodyguard.”


“Nice multitasking,” I said, waving Asrid off, but when I turned back to Ray, he


covered his face with one hand and wept. Slowly, he raised his head, showed me his


tearful eyes, and said, “You’ve got no respect for the dead. Get the fuck out of my house!”


I departed with mixed emotions, hating what it took to get my answer, but glad


for the feeling that Ray wasn’t capable of collusion to knowingly harm his daughter.


Yet, a final glance toward the second-floor landing made me wonder about the complici-


ties of Joy’s disappearance, and how third parties might take advantage of the stressed


emotions of a gambler, especially if his luck turned sour. The cold stare from Astrid on


the landing made me think her relationship with Ray had an ulterior motive that trans-


cended the flesh.


As I returned to my car and started the engine, I took my mini-binoculars


from the glove compartment and scanned the second-story windows of Ray Sandler’s


beach house. I paused at the largest window that led to a balcony, probably used for


viewing sunsets on the bay. The bright sun betrayed a shadow behind the laced curtains,


where I saw Astrid staring back at me with a pair of binoculars of her own.


I put down my binoculars for a moment, cocked my head and opened my mouth


with a swirl of my tongue. When I raised my binoculars to see her response, I saw her


put the 9 mm pistol with an extended silencer into her mouth and fellate the inside of her


right cheek.


Yes. There was more to Miss Germany than met the eye. I was certain I’d need


to encounter Astrid again. I wondered how I’d go about disarming her and replacing


that pistol with a weapon of my own, and if it would have enough impact to stop her


cold.


Meantime, I needed to head north to Bergen County to talk to Tracy Hoffman,


Joy Sandler’s best friend, who’d last seen her alive before Joy vanished. From Tracy’s


news photos six years ago, I saw that she was a looker, but still under the age limit, even


for my prurient interests. I figured the prospects of encountering two beautiful women in


one day was my only perk on the long drive north.


Later near the end of the three-hour drive back north to Bergen County, what


stunned me, suddenly distracting me from Tracy Hoffman’s sallow newspaper photo,


was a CBS radio newscast, announcing that a former Mega Millions winner, depressed


from his gambling losses in Atlantic City the night before, had just plunged to his death


from the balcony of his high roller’s suite at the Taj Mahal casino.


I felt bad for Ray Sandler, mostly because he’d been a cop, bad or otherwise.


Cops mourn for their own regardless of the circumstances. He was at his peak when I


saw him a few hours ago, so I had to wonder—with his only daughter still missing and


presumed dead, and he remaining divorced and single—who were Ray’s beneficiaries?


Regardless, my entry into this cold case had apparently struck a nerve with someone,


at least giving me a glimmer of hope that Joy Sandler might still be alive.




____________

​

An excerpt from


THE BLINDSPOT


A novel

by


Gerald Arthur Winter




“The ball flew at him and he was conscious of
its bird-form and white flapping wings, until
it suddenly disappeared from view.”


Bernard Malamud – The Natural © 1952



***


Somewhere Children Shout



Two months had slipped by since we met with the attorney, Wally Zimmerman.


Wally’s discouragement about my chances of ever playing in the majors had been a


mental setback for Pop. Though he’d slipped back into drinking Friday and Saturday


nights, I continued practicing my pitching without him.


Gramps had dropped me off at home after church. Coming out of my room, I


walked past Pop’s open bedroom door. With a Sunday hangover, Pop woke, but still


half asleep and squinting at his alarm clock to see it was noon. When his iPhone buzzed,


he stretched from his bed and stumbled to answer it across the room on the dresser.


Thinking I’d continued to go downstairs, he grabbed his phone, but I paused in


the hallway outside his door to listen. He put his iPhone on speaker so he could set it on


the dresser and get dressed as he spoke.


“Am I speaking to Mr. Swift?” a woman’s voice asked.


“Yeah,” Pop said, pulling on his jeans then sitting on the bed to put on his socks.


I showed my face in the doorway. He started to wave me away to go practice my pitching,


but I remained listening, knowing from Pop’s clueless expression that it wasn’t Gram


calling.


“Hello, Mr. Swift. I’m calling about your daughter, Bonnie—” the voice said.


“Who’s this?”


“I’m sorry to call you unexpectedly, but I’m on Pacific Time, and I needed to


contact you right away.”


“What for?”


“I saw a video of Bonnie’s pitching performance at a New York Yankees fund-


raiser. I want you and Bonnie to fly to LA tomorrow, all expenses paid.”


“Is this one of you jokers from The Beachcomber?” he asked, “I don’t need you


drunken bozos making it any tougher for Bonnie than it already is.”


He hung up and lay back on his bed, but saw me staring at him from the doorway.


I lifted a tray that I’d set down in the hallway to serve him breakfast in bed, hoping to


soothe his hangover, a Sunday ritual I’d become accustomed to. Though I’d shrugged


off my disappointment over my Yankee Stadium performance, I knew Pop hadn’t, far


from it. I set the tray on the night table and gave him a sympathetic grin with a tilt of


my head.


“Everything okay, Pop?”


His phone rang again.


He grabbed it and said, “Knock it off, will ya! I suppose you’re gonna tell me


the Dodgers want to sign Bonnie?”


My mouth dropped open.


“I don’t care,” she said. “The Dodgers would be fine—any team.”


The woman on the phone said, “I wish my invitation were that exciting. I want


you both to appear on my show on Monday . . . this is Avida Ropas. . . from the TV talk


show, Avida Live.”


Dumbfounded, Pop stood from his bed.


“Mr. Swift . . . are you still there?” her voice crackled with static.


“Yes,” he said. “Why would we want to go on your show?”


“Bonnie struck out Julio Baquero at Yankee Stadium. That’s a big deal.”


“How’d you know that?” Pop huffed.


“I told you, someone put it on YouTube. She’s had over ten million hits on the


site, more and more every day. I want people to know Bonnie’s inside story . . . your


being a single parent and her coach.”


“Who told you that?”


“Wally Zimmerman is my agent. He suggested I book you on my show.”


“I told him we weren’t interested in that kind of exposure. Bonnie’s barely twelve


years old.”


“I know, Mr. Swift—but I’ll give her the chance to show her talent to my twenty


million viewers—live. Maybe someone from Major League Baseball will take notice of


her unusual skill.”


“Let’s go, Pop! I want to do it!” I shouted across the room.


“OK, just this once. We’ll give it a shot. But I’m not letting Bonnie out of my


sight. I trust you only because we’ve met Wally and I think he’s honest—for a lawyer.


But I don’t know the people around you. Bonnie’s a minor and the only family I’ve got.”


“I understand, Mr. Swift. A limousine will pick you up at home tomorrow morn-


ing at nine o’clock. Pack light. You’ll be home Monday night so you can go back to


work and Bonnie can go back to school on Tuesday. Can you get the time off on such


short notice?”


“We’ll call in sick,” Pop said with a wink at me.


“Are you ill?” Avida asked


He waved me over for a hug and said, “Not now, but we will be tomorrow.”


When he hung up, I hovered waiting to hear the details. “You’re going to pitch on TV,”


he said. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt this once . . . twenty million viewers.”


My green eyes widened the way my mom’s must have the first time Pop had


kissed her when they were only eleven years old. Gram had told me about that fifth-grade


incident. “I won’t disappoint you this time, Pop.”


“You never have,” he said as we hugged. “Thanks for making breakfast, but I’m


up for the day. Let’s eat in the kitchen. ”


“Wow, Pop! California!”


“At Yankee Stadium, I’d made a bad pitch call.”


“I won’t give major leaguers a break at bat like I gave Jimmy Stattler.”


Pop nodded. “OK. Let’s show ’em no mercy.”


I gave him a high-five that sent a static shock through our hands with a loud


snap. Pop seemed surprised that I could hit back so hard. I made a fist and felt Junior’s


strength pulsing through my veins. My twin brother who died at birth had become


part of my daily fiber.




* * *


In the limousine on the way to Newark Airport, I stared out the window in


Elizabeth, New Jersey and saw the depressing site that all out-of-state and foreign


travelers see: Oil storage tanks and high-voltage generators flanked the Jersey Turnpike


for miles. Cranes and pulleys had flashing lights through the gray, smoggy meadow-


lands. It seemed like a foreign country, nothing like the Pine Barrens near the ocean


where the air was fresh with salty breezes.


The pollution gagged me, already nervous before my first flight and the TV


exposure in LA. I grabbed Pop’s arm, and he turned to see my tearing, bloodshot


eyes. He grabbed the bag tucked in the pocket in back of the seat in front of me.


Choking and retching, I threw up into the bag. Pop held my head down. My long


blond hair in damp ringlets hung limply around his grasp, tight at first, like trying


to hold onto something he feared he’d lose. Then, with his thumbs around the back


of my ears, he caressed my neck, slowly bringing me back to him.


“Sorry, Pop.” I blew my nose in a tissue and wiped away the tears running


down my cheeks with the back of my hand.


“That’s, okay,” Pop said, rubbing my back. “Do you want to forget about


this and go home?” He raised his arm to knock on the protective glass to get the


driver’s attention.


I grabbed his wrist. “No way!,” I said. “The air stinks here. That’s all.”


“It could be worse in LA.”


“No worse than your stinky old catcher’s mitt,” I kidded.


He tickled my stomach the same way he had since I was seven years old,


which made me laugh that high-shrilled shriek that Gramps called infectious.


The driver turned on his intercom with a crackle. “We’re almost at the terminal.”


“Could you turn on the recycled air so we don’t get any of that pollution from


outside?” Jack asked.


“No problem.”


Pop gave me a stick of mint gum.


I leaned back, gave him a nod, and said, “I’m over it.”


My expression, which he’d learned to read as well as he’d read my mother’s,


confirmed my claim. He realized I had woven within my fiber what it would take—I


had heart.


As we left Newark for LA, we couldn’t be sure if this unique opportunity could


help my chances of playing in the majors or not. Pop feared some major league front


offices might even frown upon it, solidifying their adamant attitude toward a woman


breaking the invisible, unspoken gender-line at the major-league level.


At the window seat beside him, I clutched my baseball mitt in my lap. My


Yankee baseball cap tipped askew as I slumped with my cheek pressed against the


window. I thought about becoming a major league pitcher someday, even for the


Dodgers. I knew only what Gramps had told me about their leaving Brooklyn when


he was a kid—traitors, he’d called them.


I felt Pop’s hands covering me with a blanket. I turned to him with a smile then


nestled down and drifted off in slumber with my ear against his chest. His heartbeat’s


cadence was in counterpoint to the hum of the jet engines. I heard my brother Junior’s


voice with a repetitive cadence, Dodger blue or Yankee pinstripes. Junior and I were


always on the same page.


* * *


From our four-star accommodations and the stretch-limo ride to the TV studio,


I remained in silent awe. Though impressed, Pop seemed anxious about my pitching in


front of millions of television viewers.


“You okay?” he kept asking me.


“I’m fine. Don’t worry,” I said, but that didn’t seem to comfort him.


My make-up session highlighted my day. I puckered my lips for a light touch of


lipstick and the soft brush against my cheeks gave them some blush.


“Knock ’em dead,” the make-up artist told me, removing the sheet from my neck


and brushing aside one dangling, blond lock from my forehead.


“You bet,” I said, rising from the soft chair. “I like it this way,” I said, swiping


that lock of hair back just above my eye. “It could distract some heavy hitters.”


The make-up artist shook her head with,“Mmh-mmh-mmh, a girl’s gotta do what


a girl’s gotta do.”


Her comment made me grin, but behind my smile I felt discomfort. I felt silly


wearing makeup, but wasn’t sure if it was because I was so young or if it had to do with


how Junior felt about it. Sometimes his utter silence told me he was embarrassed by


whatever I was doing.


My smile and interaction with the hairstylist drew Pop’s attention. I figured


I reminded him of my mom, Lydia, when they were kids. That made him smile, but


just briefly. When I turned to face him directly, Pop’s smile faded into his serious


pitching coach mode that said—show time.


* * *


Avida introduced me and Pop to her live studio audience with applause, hoots


and whistles. Arms pumping, they stood up from their seats as if it were a cafeteria


food fight. They were mostly people of color, Blacks, Chicanos, and Asians with gruff,


inner-city accents. Attire was less than casual with bare mid-drifts, short-shorts, and


top-and-bottom cleavage. As usual, Avida’s audience was raucous.


Pop watched me closely for any ill-effects, but I’d have to get used to this kind of


exposure. Fans would get in my face in a major league stadium where tempers flared and


loyalties were worn on spectators’ sleeves. It was like tossing me into the ocean to see if


I’d swim or drown. I sat between Pop and Avida.


Avida asked him, “Should I call you Coach?”


“I assume you’re over twenty-one, so you can call me Jack.”


“Just barely, Jack.”


The studio audience responded with intermittent laughter, enjoying our banter.


With occasional shout-outs from the audience, the interview covered the tragedy of our


losses, my mom and twin brother at birth, Pop’s single parenting, and our high hopes to


have a major league team show interest in my unique pitching style.


“Why don’t you want her to play Little League as many other girls have? Mo’neˊ


Davis got much attention in Little League with a Sports Illustrated cover shot.”


“Mo’neˊ got much attention because she could pitch as well as the boys whom she


was competing against,” Pop said. “Bonnie isn’t as good as boys her own age—she’s


much better—even better than high school boys I’ve coached. ”


The audience booed. Others grumbled with a dull roar of heckling.


Pop shrugged. “She’s a natural.”


“We have a lot of doubters in the audience,” Avida said.


“We’ll bide our time until Bonnie’s ready for college—and Major League Base-


ball is ready for her.” Pop said.


“Sounds like you’ve got the American dream and her pursuit of happiness on


hold,” Avida said. “But while you’re waiting, maybe I can give Bonnie’s future career


a boost with a live demonstration. How about it, audience? Shall we make Jack put


Bonnie’s talent where his mouth is?”


Many stood and pumped their fists as they hooted.


“We’re gonna give Bonnie a chance to strut her stuff !” Avida shrilled, then she


hushed the crowd and said to me. “I’m sure you know who Cesar Montego is.”


I shook my head as the audience chanted, “Mon-te-go! Mon-te-go!”


“No? Oh, I forgot. Bonnie’s never been to California. I’ll bet Jack knows who


Montego is.”


“He’s the National League Batting Champion from the LA Dodgers,” he said.


When Avida turned to me, I said, “I don’t know any Dodgers. We’re Yankee


fans.”


The audience booed, but I shrugged it off.


“Let’s introduce Bonnie to Cesar Mon-te-e-e-e-ego!”


The audience chanted louder, “Mon-te-go! Mon-te-go! Mon-te-go!”


Wearing his Dodger uniform, Cesar waved his blue cap to the audience, then


exchanged hugs with Avida and shook our hands.


“We’re thrilled to have you with us today, Cesar,” Avida said. “We come from


the same block in the barrio, so—Tenemos la misma sangre—we be blood, bro.” More


cheers and hoots came, but she waved to hush the audience. “Tell us why you’re here


today, Cesar.”


“You sent me a video of this young girl pitching at Yankee Stadium. Maybe


because she struck out Julio Baquero, Bonnie and her papi think she can strike me out,


too. I say—not a chance!”


The audience reacted with mixed cheers and boos.


“What do you think, Bonnie?” Avida asked.


“Is he as good as Jimmy Stattler?”


“Who’s that, honey?”


“A boy from my school.”


The audience became hysterical and Avida’s mascara ran from tears of laughter.


Pop understood my naïve comparison, but I read concern from his expression,


wondering if exposing me to this harangue was a mistake.


“Cesar Montego is no boy from your school, Bonnie. He led the majors in hits


with 221 and a .363 batting average this past season. What do you think of that?”


I shrugged, smirked at Pop, and said, “If he bunts, he might get lucky.”


The audience exploded with my response as Avida announced, “Come back after


the break to see if Bonnie Swift can back up her claim when she throws ten pitches to


Cesar Montego—a boy from my school—the streets of East LA.”

​

* * *



On her nationally syndicated television show, Avida arranged for an outdoor


batting cage and had a National League umpire calling balls and strikes for Cesar


Montego’s challenge. The news media showed up, but only because Avida had alerted


them that she was featuring Cesar Montego batting against a child prodigy. Most thought


it was just a prank or a publicity stunt, so they sent only freelance crews, treating the


broadcast as a sideshow just to boost Avida’s ratings during Sweeps Week. The media


showed more interest in the batting champ than in me.


My grandparents watched from home as did Pop’s cronies at his bar hang-outs


on the boardwalk at the Jersey shore. Pop had told our school principal why we’d be absent,


so many viewed the show from classrooms back in our hometown, Surf Ville.


As usual, Pop called my pitches. On a bright sunny day with little smog-effect, I


prepared to pitch to Montego in the studio’s parking lot. The audience remained in the


studio watching on a wide-screen, but Montego’s appearance drew passersby for a closer


view, hoping to get his autograph.


I threw five warm-up lobs then two moderate fastballs before Montego finished


stretching and came to the plate. A volunteer minor league catcher squatted behind


Montego. Pop set up pitching signs with the catcher so no pitches would injure him.


The catcher laughed off Pop’s concern that my pitches could harm him.


“Like playing catch with my nine-year-old son,” he said aside, assessing my


warm-up pitches.


Pop warned me that Montego wasn’t a slugger like the Yankees’ Julio Baquero,


but rather a spray hitter with great vision and a quick bat. He told me that my glib


response to Montego’s challenge was accurate—he just might get a hit with a bunt he


could beat out, especially squared off at the plate with a better view of my pitch.


A smart hitter, Montego never took pitchers for granted. He would take many


pitches just for a look, which helped him lead the majors in walks. Pop told me that


when Montego retired, he’d surely enter the Hall of Fame on the first round. That


didn’t faze me.


Commentating, Avida stood off-camera: “There’s Bonnie’s wind-up I’d heard


about, so graceful and—the pitch! Montego takes it for strike one. He doesn’t seem


impressed by what he saw. He’s shaking his head with a smile and digging in again.


“Bonnie checks Jack for the sign. She winds up and—whoa! Montego fouls it


back. The speed monitor said Bonnie’s first pitch was 70 mph, but this one was 77 mph.


He probably regrets taking that first pitch for a strike. The second pitch must’ve fooled


him with a speed he wasn’t expecting. Jack looks like he wasn’t expecting it either.


Montego’s in a hole with two strikes, but he still looks confident, as if he’s just toying


with Bonnie.”


Pop came to the mound to talk to me. “This is a ten-pitch contest, not three


pitches. It’s a fifty-fifty chance whether you’re throwing heat or a change-up. That


last one was the fastest pitch you’ve throw. Don’t burn yourself out. He plays the


percentages and wins more times than not.”


I nodded, listening to every word as I glared at Montego.


Pop said, “He must have heard rumors about your tricky pitch, so he’ll be antici-


pating it. He hasn’t seen your curve, so he figures there’s a good chance your next pitch,


no matter how it moves, will be slow enough for him to hold back for a look. So what’ll


you throw?”


“Heat on the inside corner.”


“Do it.”


Avida resumed: “After a talk with Jack, Bonnie looks ready. She seems calm


and—wow! She threw it right by him before he could blink and at . . . 79 mph! She


struck him out! Montego claims the pitch was high and he’s giving the ump some heat.


If this were for real, an ump would be tossing him out of the game.”


Hovering in my mind was the image of Babe Ruth complaining to the umpire


about his call-strike three on Jackie Mitchell’s curve when a girl had struck out the


Babe in an exhibition game. I tightened my jaw to keep from laughing at Montego


who’d been caught flat-footed on my pitch.


Avida said, “OK. He’s back in the batter’s box, lefty against lefty, which should


give the pitcher an edge, but Montego’s average is over three hundred against lefties


and righties. We could be witnessing today’s best hitter against a future best pitcher.


“I’m getting mixed opinions about her last pitch from the studio audience, and a


crowd is beginning to gather in the parking lot. Some claim the last pitch was high while


others say it was a strike. Regardless, that’s one out. No do-overs in this match-up.”


Pop came to the mound again. “We need to use reverse psychology,” he said, just


loud enough for Montego to hear, then he whispered, “Double-reverse.”


“You mean like the double-negative you taught me not to say in English?” He


nodded as my mind turned. I whispered, “Two negatives make a positive—you want the


the same pitch?”


He winked.


Avida reported, “Jack’s coming off the mound and Bonnie’s ready, but Montego’s


bearing down. Let’s see who gets outsmarted this time.


“Here she goes and—yoiks! She slipped it by him again! He swung late! A whiff


across the letters at 80 mph—too fast if you’re not expecting it—especially from a sixth-


grader.”


Montego looked distraught, but he genuflected and dug in.


Pop didn’t come to the mound this time and just gave me his signal. I nodded,


and went into my wind-up. Though I’d rarely used it, I was going to throw a slider Pop


had added to my repertoire. I gripped the ball with three fingers: my pointer just off the


top laces, my abnormally-long middle finger dug into the top laces, and the ball of my


thumb on the bottom laces. My ring finger and pinkie were off the ball, but together gave


balance to the other three gripping fingers to give the ball a snapping movement, slower


than a fastball—quicker than a curve.


My adjustments on speed and movement of the ball were not at the major league


ratios, because my fastball was still averaging under 80 mph The ball came fast enough,


and letter high, but quickly dropped knee-high just inside the strike zone. The pitch


caught Montego off guard, obviously expecting another high fastball. It was, but only


for ninety percent of the distance to the plate. He swung over the slider for strike two.


Slumping his shoulders, Montego’s pride was waning.


Avida continued her commentary: “No telling what Bonnie will throw next. I


sure don’t know. Montego doesn’t know, and maybe Bonnie doesn’t know yet either,


because Jack is going out to the mound for a chat.”


Pop bent close to me as I shielded our faces with my cap.


“This would be a great time for the switcheroo, but it’s not the final out,” Jack


said. “Even if we get this strike, we have another out to go. We need to save your best


pitch for when it’s going to be most effective. That’s a rule I want you to stick to. You’re


a great pitcher even without it. You’ve been practicing that outside-in curve for more


than a year. Give it your best shot.”


Pop’s words sounded tried and true, but having become keenly observant, I


detected a tightness around his neck and shoulders as he walked back toward the side-


lines. I wondered if his call at Yankee Stadium that had set up a homer for Jimmy Statler


was still haunting him. I shrugged at Junior’s words in my head—Pop’s not over it yet,


but we are. Let’s show him our stuff.


“Conference over, folks,” Avida said. “Let’s see what she’ll throw next. She’s


taking a moment to think, so Montego calls time-out and steps out of the box . . . Okay.


She’s ready, and so is he. The wind-up is quick and—”


The ball came letter high, but outside before Montego could adjust. My curveball


veered left and knee high, but over the plate where Montego’s swat at it was late and wild.


“He struck out again!” Avida shouted then called Montego over for his comment-


ary before the contest would resume.


“What the heck’s goin’ on out there, amigo?” she asked.


He shrugged. “Maybe I’m tired after the long season—the playoffs and a seven-


game World Series. Even so, I’ll admit, she’s pretty good.”


“Pretty good? She struck you out twice on six pitches. That’s her calling card. She


did that at Yankee Stadium.”


“She’d do well—in Little League—but she’d never make it in the majors—that’s


machismo’s sacred ground.”


Avida poked at his pride. “Even if she strikes you out three times?”


“That’s not gonna happen. No way, Joseˊ.”


Avida addressed the viewers: “OK, folks. Come back after our station break and


see for yourselves.”


During the break, Montego came over to us and said, “Hey, man. She’s makin’


me look bad. My agent called me and told me to stop the contest. He says it’s better if I


concede. Everybody will feel great about Bonnie, and the media will have no more


footage of me getting struck out by a little girl. I got a big barrio following and don’t


need to take any crap from those guys about being struck out by a six-grader.”


“That’s their problem, not yours,” Pop said. “It will be worse if you concede.


Do you want your fans to remember you like boxer, Roberto Duran—no mas? You’ve


got four more pitches to try to hit. Bonnie will do her best to strike you out, but you owe


it to yourself to try your best. You owe it to your fans and competitors, too. Anything


else would be a sham and bad for baseball.”


I grinned at Pop, knowing he couldn’t help coaching, even Montego, the best in


the game.


“Okay.” Montego shrugged. “No kidding around. I intend to get a solid hit off her


this time.”


“I thought so before I’d seen you bat,” I said. “But you have a hitch in your swing


when you stride forward. With that off-balance swing, you’ll never get a hit off me, Mr.


Montego.”


“Bonnie! Don’t be rude,” Pop scolded. “Humility. Always humility.”


Montego laughed going to the batter’s box and called to me, “We’ll see, bebe!”


Pop followed me to the mound. Trusting my keen observations, he said, “I didn’t


detect any hitch in his swing?”


“Me neither. He’s really great,” I confessed. “But now he’ll be thinking about


that hitch instead of focusing on the ball. He’s the best, so I figured I could use an edge,


especially if you want me to save my best pitch for last.”


Pop stared at me with disbelief, but loving this incredible baseball monster he


believed he’d created. Or had he? Maybe my keen senses had been there from the start


just waiting to come to life. Sometimes Junior tells me, Pop’s standing in your way.


I resumed my stance on the mound. Montego acted casual at the plate as if the


end result wouldn’t count for much. But Pop had taught me—always play to win--


give it your best—never give up until the final out. He often quoted Yogi Berra: “It


ain’t over till it’s over.”


Pop watched me closely, as if in slow motion, taking every millisecond to revel


in his daughter’s remarkable gracefulness, style, and rare talent. He had to wonder if,


beyond my desire to be the best, did I have an inkling of how great I could become?


In some ways, I’m sure he hoped I didn’t know, just so I’d remain humble. Yet, it was


my talent—only mine—so he knew I’d need some sense of pride. Without pride for my


gift, I’d be vulnerable to a harsh world that could wring my life dry and toss me onto


the heap with every other major league wannabe, man or woman.


I went into my next wind-up and threw a 79 mph slider that came right at


Montego, making him fall down backwards before it nicked the inside corner knee-high.


Avida reported: “Another strike for Bonnie. I’d need a pro to tell me what that


pitch was.”


Someone among the spectators shouted from the crowd, “It was the best yakker


I’ve ever seen!”


“Whatever you want to call it,” Avida said. “Strike one!”


Montego grumbled at the ump and kicked dust until the lefty’s batter’s box was


no longer visible. He hoped to have the advantage of stepping out of the box to lunge at


anything outside, strike or not, just to get a piece of it.


“OK, folks,” Avida continued. “She winds-up and throws.” The eye-level fastball


came right to Montego’s blind spot at 78 mph. Montego took a wicked cut. “Swung on


and—missed again! It’s show time. Bonnie’s looking at Jack, and he’s throwing her


many signs, but her expression remains calm. Jack and Bonnie seem to agree. Here


comes her wind-up, and—wow! He foul tipped an outside pitch with an awkward lunge.”


Avida interrupted the contest and came into the batting cage with the umpire and


catcher then waved for me and Pop to come to home plate. I was afraid they were going


to stop the contest, but we were joined by Baseball Commissioner Helms, who was


greeted with applause.


“Commissioner Helms, we’ve invited you here on the off-season to examine the


final baseball thrown in this competition,” Avida explained. “There have been some


rumors that when Bonnie pitched at Yankee Stadium, she’d used a trick ball, somehow


altered. What have you got in your pocket, Commish?”


Helms took a baseball from his suit pocket and flipped it in his hands a few times.


“It’s a pleasure to be here, Avida, to promote our National Pastime with its long and great


history of integrity. So to quiet any doubters, I’ve brought a certified major league base-


ball directly from the factory to assure everyone that the ball thrown on Bonnie’s last


pitch has not been altered. Here it is, and may the best man win—or best girl in Bonnie’s


case.”


After a great round of applause and a commercial break, Avida came back on the


air for the final minute of her show.


“During the break, Coach Jack Swift and his daughter, Bonnie, have had no con-


versation about her final pitch. Afterwards, whatever the result, please text into our poll:


Should Major League Baseball welcome women to play against men? Yes or No.


“Here goes Bonnie’s wind-up and . . .”


“Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;


The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,


And somewhere men are laughing, and little children shout . . .” ***


There was great joy in Surf Ville—mighty Cesar had struck out.




*** Ernest Thayer - “Casey at the Bat” © 1888

Power of Child


By Alexandra H. Rodrigues

​

Irene was pleasantly surprised when Angela asked her, “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
It had been a long time since Angela had addressed her directly. She watched the slender girl plunge into the black leather chair. That chair had been Ralph’s favorite place. It never failed to amaze Irene how many of Ralph’s features were evident in the young girl’s movements. Ralph had always given a little sigh when he had dropped into that chair and so had Angela just now. Angela had Ralph’s aristocratic, well-molded facial features with the high brows and prominent cheekbones. Having Angela around, now that Ralph had passed on, was a double-edged sword: painful and yet soothing at the same time.
Irene was 32 when she had married Ralph. He was a widower whose wife had died giving birth to Angela. Ralph was Irene’s boss in the Chemical Corporation where she had been working as secretary. It had not been earthshaking love that had brought them together but a mutual understanding, a deep liking and earnest consideration of both their futures. Up to the time when Ralph had asked her to marry him, Irene had given marriage many a wishful thought but resolutely rejected to pursue any courtship. A medical examination, when she was 23, had concluded that she would never bear children. A marriage without children held no promise for her; she had made up her mind to concentrate on her career instead. Ralph and his 14-year-old daughter Angela had entered her life. He offered her marriage and with it, family. She had accepted.
Irene picked a licorice candy out of the Venetian dish and also offered some to Angela. The girl shook her head and pushed some of the blond streaks of her hair behind her ears. Irene’s thoughts went back to the day when she had met Angela for the first time. It was apparent that the young girl had been briefed about her extensively. When Irene had stretched out her arms to the pretty girl with the big blue eyes, all her desire to give love and experience the closeness of a family, had been in that gesture. Angela, on the contrary, had politely allowed to be hugged but made no attempt to return any affection. I will work on it and make her love me in time, Irene had thought, and it seemed that she would be correct. Three wonderful years and Angela did warm up to her. She had accepted her, not as a mother, but at least as a companion. They often went shopping together, played tennis, went on picnics and resembled a family. Irene had been careful not to overpower the sensitive teenager with too much emotion. In the evening they would both compete to make Ralph comfortable. There was no tension; Ralph had a wonderful talent to make them both feel important.
Then, on that lovely spring day last May, a day that ironically breathed sunshine and promise, the tragedy had hit. The office had called – Ralph had had a heart attack! When, after a maddening rush through the buzzing city streets, Irene had reached the hospital, he had already died without ever speaking to her again and before she could even have called Angela to his bedside.
She recalled how she had braced herself for the moment when she would have to tell Angela. They both had lost their closest friend, their dearest comrade. Irene was not sure what had hurt most, Ralph’s death or Angela’s bitter reaction toward her.
When she had gotten out of the taxi that had brought her back from the hospital, Angela was just coming back from school. The girl had been all bubbling with joy about a good grade in math. Irene remembered her saying, “Oh, daddy will make eyes. He will never believe I could get such a good grade in math.” At that Irene had not been able to control herself but began to sob.
“What’s wrong?” Angela wanted to know. Irene hadn’t answered till they had reached the living room. The place was so sunny and comfortable but so meaningless without Ralph. She had wanted to prepare Angela for the cruel news but had blurted out, “Angela, your father is dead. Ralph is dead.” The amiable look on Angela’s face had changed first into disbelief and then – pure horror. Angela had clenched her fists, “You did that to him, you killed him. You spoiled our life!” Forcefully she had pulled herself out of the hug with which Irene had meant to console her. Irene was not sure but she nearly thought she had sensed Angela spitting at her.
Terrible weeks had followed: the funeral, appointments with lawyers, condolences. It was a devastating rush in a dreadfully silent house. The two women, who lived side by side, hardly spoke to each other. The Angela that had emerged out of the tragedy was a person alien to Irene. Despite her own grief, Irene had tried to help Angela, willing to forgive the outbreak on the day of Ralph’s death. In vain! Angela very clearly gave her to understand, “I do not care for you at all. I hate you.”
Now Irene took another candy. She did not have to worry about her figure. She was haggard, slowly breaking under the burden of emotional stress. Angela on the contrary had regained her healthy color. She was now a young lady, quite classy and often out on dates. Two years had passed since that dreadful day, and the conduct between them had remained painfully unpleasant. Irene felt many times that she had arrived at a crossroad. Maybe she should leave. Angela was old enough to live by herself now. Irene knew that a change of scenery would do them both good. Yet she had lately discarded that idea as cowardice. Her place was still with Angela; she owed Ralph that much.
“Are you listening to me?” Angela interrupted Irene’s reminiscing. When Irene did not answer immediately, Angela announced, with a trace of malice in her voice, “I am pregnant. Dr. Blink confirmed it today.” From the way Angela lifted her head in a proud gesture, it was apparent that she was not in the least worried what Irene might think or have to say.
Irene sat up straight and closed her eyes. Had she failed? Had she allowed Angela too much freedom? She wanted to ask: “Who is the father? How? Where?” But, borne out of her forever illusory wish to have a child of her own, the words “Oh that is wonderful!” escaped her mouth.
Of all the answers Angela had expected to hear, this was not one of them. Ronny Crim, the father of the child was, just like her, 19 years old. She had been his prom date. She liked him. Did she love him? She did not really know. More than anything else it seemed such a wonderful way to be able to hurt Irene. She had been so sure that Irene would have suggested an abortion and such a great opportunity to answer to such a suggestion, “You see, you are a killer! You killed my father and now you want me to kill my child.”
Irene noticed that her response had taken Angela by surprise. She continued, “To become a mother is the most blessed thing that can happen to a woman. You see, I never told you but I can’t have children.” Once again her love for Angela welled to the surface, exposing itself to hurt. “You see, Angela, this is why it is so important to me that you should not hate me. But love cannot be forced, I know that now. Still, I will always love you.”
Suddenly, was it because she was bearing a child or merely because for the very first time since meeting Irene she was able to understand the other woman? Whatever it was, Angela felt guilty. She stood up and very slowly, very deliberately, she bent down and kissed Irene on the cheek.

The Narf

A Short Story by Charles E.J. Moulton
 
I took one or two steps back toward the curve and tried to catch a glimpse of what lay beyond it. There were no growls. No galloping paws. No stamping of feet. Just silence. As I tiptoed carefully in the direction of my supposed killer, hoping for relief, I expected the worst. Calumny, demise, terror, whatever. Hopeless death.
I felt like a meerkat expecting a tiger to come galloping across the savanna and devour it alive, merely biting off bits of it and letting it die slowly inside its tummy.
I think I jumped five feet into the open air when I heard the noise. It sounded like a fist being slammed against a wall. That pounding noise travelled the whole length of the steel surface, sounding like a magnetic train travelling on post-warp speeds. The bang returned, again and again, came from the gateway to the room with the cage in the unseen area.
Terrified that my time now had come to an end, I backed up a few steps, tumbled and lost my balance. Before I knew it, I skidded down one of the tunnel's long slopes, the slippery silver floor causing me to flounder. The slide down the hill seemed long and winding, although I knew that the tunnel toward the ocean went in a straight line into the dark oblivion of nightly water. I caught myself thinking that I might die of a fall against a wall and not in the hands of a strange animal.
Bumping into one of the sharper spiked edges of the wall as a result, my head banged into the pointy triangular corner and caused me to wail. Instinctively, I raised my hand and rubbed the wounded spot of the back of my head, snapping my eyes shut in pain. 
For one moment I listened to the silence, heard nothing but the rotor blades and the constant hum of the motors. I literally froze to death in here, watching the visible cold air eject out of my mouth. If I spent another few minutes in here, I knew I might not be able to move anymore. What scared me even more, I still had a bit left to run. What would I do when I reached the ocean, though? Swim back to Japan? No, I would die in that water.
           Supporting myself up with my one still intact arm, I managed to hold on to the wall. The upper, smoother surface of one of the spikes helped me up. When I looked back into the light, I heard the snarl again. The creature had not yet arrived in my part of the tunnel. That seemed good, didn't it? At least for the time being. Who knows how long I could on like this, though? Now my head and my arm hurt. One more hurt limb and the beast would definitely be having me for supper and probably digesting me slowly at that.
Now, I heard steps. Okay, this was it. Holy shit. Fast steps accelerating into a quick run. The echoes of the beast galloping down after me sent shivers down my spine, especially since it had been my wife that had sent the beast after me this time and not my brother like last time. I shot up and started running, screaming at the beast while I ran.
"If you wanna kill me, you better work a little harder," I yelled into the obscure light, then looking back at the long stretch that lay ahead of me. Jesus, I thought to myself. How am I ever going to make this alive. "Darling?" I yelled. "Did you feed the animal yet? I think he's getting hungry."
Run, run, run. Pant, pant, pant. Yell, scream, sigh. Nervous, terrified, neurotic.
That was me in frigging nutshell.
Silly. How silly of me. My wife was in a completely different part of the ship, probably making love to my bastard brother. She didn’t care.
I laughed once as I ran. It was a short quick laugh, desperate, frantic, almost, a bit angry, even. The blister that slowly formed itself on my head started throbbing. My hand formed a fist, shaking at the sky and then, with it, I banged at my head. Again and again, I banged at my head with one fist and then screaming, pulling at my hair, realizing there was no way out of this but dying or killing the beast with my one surviving arm.
I don't know, but I think think that gesture of frustration aimed to inflict myself with more scars. Either I would grow stronger through it, kill myself or send a sign to whatever culprit was out there that I was willing to hurt myself first. Maybe then the creature would stop hurting me. That was a dream, though. A silly dream. Hurting myself wouldn't really help, would it? It would just kill me quicker. That way, my brother and my wife would be able to have sex in peace and the beast could have a quick snack of human flesh.
I stopped, for a heard steps and yet I didn’t see the animal. Was it merely walking on one spot just to scare me or running down the stretch from its cage? There it was again, the snarl. Deep, throaty, harsh. I backed a few steps down the second slope. I didn’t want to fall down again.
Okay. Now I saw the beast, appearing beyond the curve from where the light came. Jesus, it was big. Had it grown since last time? Holy shit, it would crush me with one swift stroke. I wouldn’t have to worry about dying in his tummy. One punch and I would be gone forever. My wife, the Princess Wih-Me’h-Weh, had found a way to make things even scarier. The beast did not only have its large heelspikes on. It also wore that infamous helmet with the electric shock prods. Hadn't she warned me about that?
I started running again, first backwards and then turning around to face the end of the long tunnel I was in. Now, another five minutes awaited me before I reached the sea at the end of that stretch. God only knew what I would do then.
“Can’t run backward,” I mumbled to myself as I scooted off to my certain doom. “Run or die.”
Actually, I sort of cursed my fate that I had been chosen to come on this huge ship exclusively cruising the Pacific. So I ran like crazy, all the time hearing this hairy beast coming closer and closer. The snarl also seemed to reverberate louder the closer it came to me. Last time, I had survived this. I had lured the beast into jumping into the sea, heelspikes and all. The following kangaroo trial, complete with my brother as a judge and my wife as the prosecutor, had been ridiculous. No defending judge? Me silenced, a ball in my mouth and a scarf around my head? Come on. I really regretted falling in love with this damn alien princess, especially since she took on my brother as a lover. That might be normal on her planet, but it sure as hell was unusual over here.
Damn it, I thought to myself, I should have listened to my father. He told me that the woman would come to haunt me. My brother? Well, obviously he didn't care. He had always been the rebel, the recluse. He had always hated the rest of us. Now I paid for the fact that I had asked my dad to disown him.
"Let the beast try to chase him into the ocean again," she had shouted to the jury. "If he survives, I will divorce him. In any case, I will be rid of him."
I repeated her words in my head over and over as I ran toward what I thought was my certain death. I got angrier and angrier while escaping the beast, at first at myself for falling in lust with this four breasted vixen and then at her for pulling me away to court because ... what had it been? I hadn't performed to her liking? How could I have with her sitting on me and grinding all the time? Not even in my wildest dreams had I imagined myself hating having married an alien.
I saw the end of the tunnel now and the ocean that lay beyond it. This is when true panic hit me. I could feel the stinky breath of the beast on my back, his furry paws tickling my neck. It was drowning in the Pacific, salty water filling up my lungs, or providing an ogre piece of my head. What would you do? How would you want to die? In the belly of a beast or at the bottom of the ocean?
“God,” I yelled, my head and one injured arm hurting, “help me.”
Closer and closer it came, I could feel it approaching me, breathing on me, it even sounded like it cackled at me behind my back, waiting to seize me and crush my skull. Oh, God, I didn’t want to die just yet. The ocean was just a few paces away. Man, could I climb up to deck to one of the lifeboats? With what? Shit, now I felt the beast breathing on me.
“Go away,” I screamed. “Go away ...”
When the beast reached me, its paws grabbed me and turned me around, shook me and hit me, causing me to run a few paces in mid air, so to speak. I gasped at the idea of now becoming the evening meal of a brute. I tried to escape the hard grip by hitting him on his furry arms. All that did was give him a jolly little chuckle.
Now I hung there in his arms, drooling, my heart beating fast and my lungs on overdrive, my shoulders hurting like crazy, looking into the multicolored three eyes of this Narf, one of the hideous beasts in Princess Wih-Me’h-Weh’s possession. Too late had I found out that it was her favorite killer. A killer with a foul breath worse than rotted herring. A killer so huge that my pointed feet only reached its hips when it held me a few feet above ground.
Growl, spit, drool, cackle, crunch.
"Now what?" I spat at the beast, weeping. "Aren't you going to do something? Eat me or at least sprinkle me with some salt? I might taste good with ketchup, you creep. God damn it, stupid. Do something."
I have no idea why I became cynical at that point. I mean, my head now produced little shy drops of blood that trickled down my forehead. My arm? Well, the fact that I had sprained it turned the entire experience of being crushed to pieces into a slowly worsening nightmare.
The pain actually created the cataclysmic sadness in my heart. I would never see my father again, who probably hated me anyway for marrying one of the alien invaders. What can I say? I wanted to survive. The only reason why my dad still was alive was that he was a politician. My mom had been a housewife. She had been executed right before my fake kangaroo trial. The reason? Infiltrating common people with anti-galactic ideas.
Talking with her lady friends over coffee, was that anti-galactic?
Man, I thought to myself, how had managed to lure the beast into the ocean last time? By jumping to the side and causing it to stumble. That wouldn't work now, would it?
So I cried bitter hot tears that burned my skin as they fell down my cheeks, my nose producing gallons of snot to release the pain of an ending life. But as I closed my eyes again, waiting for the beast to open one of its black mouths and begin chewing on my shoulder, I suddenly heard a whimper too feeble to come out of the mouth of a monster from way off the planet of Whiulhaga. It was the beast, though.
As I opened my eyes again, I saw it froth at the mouth, roll its eyes, open its mouths wider than anything I'd seen before, shaking its headfur in a way that reminded me of that ancient English pop group that had been active back in the 20th century. What were they called? Oh, yeah. The Beatles. I almost expected John, Paul, George and Ringo to pop out of the Narf’s mouth, singing: “She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeaaaaaaaaah!”
Instead, the Narf’s damn helmet with the electric prods short circuited, sending sparks not out into the tunnel, but into the Narf’s brain.
We were relatively close to the booming and splashing Pacific, so the waves must’ve done their part in creating a veritable electrocution of the beast.
In one swift swoosh, the Narf dropped me, having me land on my right knee. The pain skyrocketed into my brain and caused me to growl a bass note that would have a male opera singer spit glue and utter jealous venom. The arm, the head, the knee, they all caused me to scream in utter suffering. I didn’t scream for long, though. The helmet on the Narf’s head exploded, sending his stinky ooze right out into the Pacific and literally sprinkling me with the scent of a thousand unwashed nights in rusty cages.
Gha-Blooof!
The creature went down like a redwood tree, sending echoes up and down this organized tunnel of torture within the royal cruise ship.
The beast lay there, immobile, seemingly dead. Me? I winced, wrinkled my nose, carefully wiping the slime off my face and trying to survive a stink that might have been normal on the planet of Whiulhaga, but reminded my human nose of flatulent zombies.
Carefully, I got up on my throbbing knees and shouted myself into a bent position. Slowly, I limped over to the panting and puffing giant, oozing spit. Three long, furry, ten feet ex- and inhaled breaths later, the Narf blubbered and belched its last grunt and disappeared into Narf Heaven or Narf Hell, whatever the case might have been.
For a long while, I really don’t know how long, I stood bending over the Narf, the Pacific Ocean nearly washing me into its depth. I hurt like a thousand nightmares, but it didn’t matter. Somehow, I didn’t care. The slow blubber that grumbled in my tummy felt like an oncoming burp at first, but I hadn’t eaten for two days, so that would be impossible. Then I realized that it was happiness. The blubber shot up my windpipes and landed in my mouth, exhaled a frantic laugh.
Despite my extreme pain, I began limping in very excited leap.
“Princess Wih-Me’h-Weh,” I screamed, my laughter sounding like the scream of a insane schizophrenic. “Wifey-Pifey, I killed your Narfy-Wharphy. Kiss my ...”
Excited by this development that I might survive after all, I kicked the remains of the monster and began humping and sliding back the way I came. All the way, I sang “For he’s a jolly good fellow, which nobody can deny” full throttle and with such atonality that it probably would have killed the Narf without any electricution.
“Killed by bad singing,” I laughed all the way to the curve, kicking the place on the wall where I had hurt my head.
I was on a fool’s errand.
Once I passed the curve and reached the room with the cage, the room where I had spent the last two days gazing at the Narf, my eyes met an army. The hall with the cage was filled to the brim with soldiers. No, they were not soldiers. Pirates, criminals, recruits from the lower bowels of Hades. I have no idea how they silently had snook into the dungeon of this luxurious ship, but here they were. Tall handsome four armed Zooks from the ghetto continent Hundsaih, four nosed brutes from Theouali and three headed Osajags from the swimming fields of northern Whiulhaga. They all grunted in unison, stamping their feet, waving their arms in a strange choreographed way. With every stomp, I took another step back, my flesh trembling, my legs shaking by the force of the aggressive thumping of this surprising army.
Why does one run upon facing a threat?
It was wrong to run, but I did it anyway. I ran, but I didn’t run back toward the Pacific Ocean. I ran into the crowd, fighting myself through soldiers, beating me senseless, kicking me, screaming at me all the way back to the staircase that I knew would take me to my current wife, the royal Princess Wih-Me’h-Weh of the planet Whiulhaga.
I reached the door, but had only grabbed the handle when three of the four armed Zooks took me by my bruised and injured arms. They kicked down the door and ran up the staircase with me, finally throwing me into a room completely covered in gold and silver, our former bedroom where we had spent our honeymoon exactly one year ago.
“Happy anniversary,” I mumbled, the pain in my head grinding and thumping between my earlobes. And pounding and banging on the insides of my brain. I added a foul yell, hearing the high heels of my spouse click against the ivory floor: “Too much pain actually turns the tables on the suffering. I am now immune to your torture.”
Her clicking heels halted, those black and gold colored shoes giving me the kick I knew would catapult me to success. Again and again, I had looked up those latex pants and felt what I felt right now. I knew that the game we played could be repeated endlessly.
Slowly and surely, I stood up, supporting myself on my one intact arm.
Inch by inch, I followed her frame up to her steel shoulderpads, the flowers in her purple hair, her four seductive eyes and knowing halfsmile.
“You have done well,” she told me. “Surprisingly.”
I shrugged, looking at her with disgust. “What now?”
“Computer,” she commanded. “End program!”
The entire backdrop of this virtual world we had created for each other disintergrated, sounding like a landing rocket. The golden and silvery hall vanished, the Pacific Ocean turned into proverbial dust and we ended up looking at each other for a while as we were. Just two people in ordinary clothes playing hide and seek. No alien princess, no doomed warrior. Just two people that liked playing with each other. 
“You shutting this down?” I cackled, trying to sound cheerful.
“You won,” she shrugged. “I told you that if you vanquished the Narf I would let you go. You have it your way. Good bye!”
I shook my head. “Nalia, you know I don’t want to end this!”
Nalia took a short stroll over to her locker and opened it, taking out her sport bag and slowly unclothing, putting socks and panties in the bag, taking out her jeans.
“So?”
I trembled, more intensely than I had when the Narf attacked me. I was losing my partner.
“So, I want to keep playing this game with you,” I answered.
She looked down at the bra she held in her hand and pursed her lips.
“Martin, you know I love you,” she said. “But ...”
The long pause almost drove me crazy.
“Continue,”  I demanded.
She shrugged. “Whatever.”
Nalia put on her bra, her T-shirt, her pants, and finally stood there holding on to her baseball cap.
“Nalia, God damn it, talk to me,” I screamed.
“All the time,” she said, pointing at me, “you demand that I go in here into this virtual world, playing the evil alien princess. I’m sick of it.”
“I created this virtual world for us, because we love adventure stories,” I responded.
“Yes,” she answered me “but you never take me out on any real adventures any more.”
“What are you saying?”
Nalia threw down her bag on the bench next to the locker. The sound reverberated several times between the steel walls that had transformed into an alien ship on the Pacific Ocean a moment ago.
“Martin,” she said, “I fell in love with you because you took me out on trips with your rocket and told me things. You knew stuff about planets I never knew existed.”
She giggled, panting and moaning at the same time.
“We went to that music club in Alpha Centauri, remember?”
“The Waylo?”
“Yes!” Nalia said, happily chanting. “Exactly, if you shut down this program, lay it on ice for a bit, and take me back to the Waylo for a month, I will stay with you. I’m damn tired of being this dumb Princess Wih-Me’h-Weh and I bet you’re getting sick of being this ... warrior dude. Let’s go dancing, okay? Take me out on a real adventure, okay?”
I nodded. “Okay.”
Nalia cheered. I had actually never seen her cheer so enthusiastically.
Her embrace grew more and more tender, sweeter and more fragile the longer it lasted. It made me happy, sure. Very happy. There was just one huge problem.
“Nalia, love,” I began, my hands shaking. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but ...”
Nalia bent over toward me, kissing me on the mouth. I returned her kiss, of course, smelled her perfume, touched her hair, all of that. I almost chose not to say what I was about to say. But I knew I had to say it. She had to know.
“Yes?”
God, I feared losing her. I know that I had gotten her back by telling her to shut down our program, but would I lose her if I told her the truth?
“The Narf exists,” I said, finally.
She took a step back. “What?”
She winced, giving me a cynical chuckle.
“You’re kidding me, right?”
I shook my head. “No, I met one on an away mission in the western Milky Way. I was about twenty, a young cadet. It was before I knew you. The Narf almost killed me. That’s where I got the scar on my buttock.”
Nalia started laughing. “An alien monster bit your butt?”
I laughed, quite sadly, actually, because the worst was yet to come.
“Yes, Nalia, but there’s more.”
“Come on, Martin,” she jibed, slapping my arm. “So you created the Narf out of a real creature on some cockameme planet you visited ten years ago. What of it? Let’s go. This place costs us more money every minute.”
She took her bag, walked toward the holographic machine, almost sticking out her hand to eject the Virtual Stick from the Holo-World machine.
“Take me to Alpha Centauri,” she sing-songed. “Let’s eat Olhagsian Zsfas with donuts and make love under the suns of Da-Yxaa.”
“The Narf is back,” I spat.
Nalia turned around again, her long blonde hair swaying in the breeze of her own turn.
“Excuse me?”
I sighed, expecting the worst.
“Ten years ago, we were over there in the Narf-Planet, as we tended to call it, to stop a mission that these guys had to conquer humanity.”
“Hold on,” she said, throwing down her bag again. “These guys can talk and think?”
I nodded. “I just made them more stupid than they really are in my program. In fact, they are intellectuals, academics and strong, admant clerics. That makes them dangerous. They are smart monsters.”
Nalia looked down, trying to decide if I was nuts, stupid, silly or just a damned liar.
“Naahhh,” she said. “Don’t believe a word of it.”
She walked over to the black Holo-World machine again and almost pressed the button to take out the Virtual Stick of my fake world, where she was an alien princess and I was a warrior. It was then that I told her the truth.
“I’ve been chosen to lead an army that will go back to the planet to kill these bastards. They want to kill us,” I said. “I spent the last months training for what is waiting for me over there. That is why I have been so obsessed about this. I have been training for a mission.”
Nalia raised her eyebrows. “When were you going to tell me this?”
“Admiral Isaacs told me it was top secret, up until yesterday. I wasn’t allowed to tell you before. I got into a huge fight with him a few months ago, because I said you and I were getting married and I didn’t want to keep these kinds of things from you. He said that I had to train for this mission, come what may, and I figured that the only way that I could spend time with you was take you along for this ride. Pluck out my old Narf-program with the love affair thingie. We could be together and I could still train for my mission.”
Nalia slooped down to the floor, dropping her bag, landing on her tush and put her head in her hands. “I hate your job,” she wept. “Man, I hate it.”
I came up to her, sat down and put my hand on her lap. “I hate it, too.”
I had to break this to her gently.
“But I have to do this. We have to beat the Narfs.”
Nalia sighed, taking my hand. “Just when I thought we were doing so well and the government wasn’t going to send you on one of those wild secret missions.”
I caressed Nalia’s face, leaning over to kiss her. She looked away.
“How am I going to survive without you, Martin?”
I shook my head. “You won’t have to.”
She looked up. “Huh?”
I tilted my head. “Admiral Isaacs gave me the approval of taking you along.”
“Me?” she giggled. “What am I supposed to do? Bake muffins for the army?”
“Don’t be so modest, babe,” I chuckled. “You’re a trained martial artist and a computer specialist. You also have an incredible asset.”
“I’m a good kisser?”
I laughed. “That, too. No, I’m talking about your electric education. Electricity, Nalia.”
“They’re into heavy metal?”
I laughed again. “No, they all wear electric helmets. We’re planning on electrocuting them. That’s why I designed that scene in our story.”
Nalia’s jaw dropped. “You mean ...”
I nodded. “If we beat these guys, I will not only take you to The Waylo to dance and eat Olhagsian Zsfas with donuts and make love under the suns of Da-Yxaa. We will also get married inside The Waylo under the suns of Da-Yxaa.”
“Holy shit, Martin,” she said. “When are we leaving?” Nalia stood up, running to the locker and changing into her holographic sportwear again. She turned around again. “When are we fucking leaving?”
“Next month, why?” I answered, still sitting on the floor.
“Get up,” she said. “We still have time for another round of kicking the Narf’s ass.”
I laughed and jumped for joy, running up to kiss my bride to be.
I knew we were going to make it, because no one could kick ass as well as my girl Nalia. We did kick ass in my Holo-Story and we did electrocute the Narfs, and – Hot Damn! – we were good at it.
The wedding at The Waylo a year later turned into a gigantic success.
And as we made love under the suns of Da-Yxaa on the first night of our honeymoon, we sang to the moons and kissed the stars. The hotel we were in was a boat, you see, and our floating dreamship was made of the finest and most shiny, glowing, alien material. Before we laughed ourselves to sleep, we kissed, made up and swore to love each other forever more.
A few hours later, however, something woke us up.
In the distance, we heard what almost sounded like a fist being slammed against a wall. That pounding noise travelled the whole length of a steel surface, sounding like a magnetic train travelling on post-warp speeds.
The Narf was back.

---

The Guardian

By Damien Dantes



The Guardian moved.

Slowly the point of his black sword crept upwards, pointed skywards, and tilted back, to finally rest in its scabbard on the black armoured back.  The heavy, full visored helmet looked up, and his weary stance shifted. A first, halting step nearly brought him to his knees, but he recovered, and took a second step. With each step his strength and sure-footedness seemed to return, and his strides grew longer and stronger, until they radiated a sense of inevitability.  Without one look back, he strode off the grassy knoll, away from the Plains of Sorrow.

The Guardian moved.

For centuries, and some said eons, the Guardian had stood on that hillock in the precise centre of the Plains.  Sword in hand, the tip resting on the ground, as if the sword had grown too heavy. His posture, legs spread and slightly buckled, bent forwards, on the verge of keeling over.  For as long as the peoples of the plains could remember, and their singers remembered songs from before the peoples came to the plains, the Guardian had stood his ground and never moved.

Ancient tales, gleaned from tribes that were no longer, regaled the stories of the Guardian and his Companions.  They were the Guardian, the Archer, the Red Man, the Gray Man, the Fool and the Foreigner.  The band of six one day rode onto the Plains at the fore of a vast army, to do battle upon the Hordes of Evil, that were ravaging the world.  How the six Companions had found each other is not told in the tales of old, but as they appeared on the ancient battlefield, the multitude cheered.  The Guardian stood over seven feet tall, and his companions were all no less than tall than him, save for the fool, who was five foot four, lithe and nimble. And it was said that wherever the Companions went, all  stood aside and cheered and paid homage.  Yet these men were no kings.  

The Guardian rode a tall dark horse, covered in plate armour, just as its rider, and the armour was burnished until it shone like silver.  His tall helmet bore  of the whitest swans, his surcoat was of the finest and bluest silk, and his cape as white as the snow on virgin mountaintops.  

The Archer rode a brown, steady horse.  His light armour was chosen in forest colours, and when he stood still, he blended into the forest like none.  He toted a longbow of the finest hazel, with bowstrings that sang like the strings of a harp when released, and two quivers with steel tipped, yard long arrows.  

The Red Man was clad all in red, as was his horse, and his weapons of choice were dual scimitars, which he wielded with deadly precision.  His red robes hinted of deserts, red and hot and dry places, but his skin was fair as a Northerners. 

The Gray Man wore simple clothes of unobtrusive colours, and his features were the commonest of common.  It was said that a spell was cast on him that made others forget him as soon as he left their company.

The Fool was small and nimble. In fact, everything about him was small, except for his nose.  He was clad in bright colours and resembled nothing as much as a jester.  But the wide sleeves of his brocade vest held deadly knives that flashed through the air with the speed of lightning. 

The Foreigner rode a small white horse, a horse so small that when he let his legs dangle from the stirrups, he could put his feet on the ground and let the horse walk away from under him.  Yet from upon this horse he wielded a mighty war hammer.  He was fully clad in chain mail, but wore a green surcoat with a blank coat of arms over it.  Ancient tales say that in battle the horse grew under him to be a mighty steed, and none could stand before the two.

And so these Six Companions rode out on the dawn of the Longest Battle, at the head of an army so vast, that it took weeks for the last ones to reach the Plains.

And so it came to pass that this vast legion was met upon the plains by the Hordes of Evil, fierce creatures from beyond the world, hell bent on destruction and mayhem.  And there were Orcs, and Goblins, and Dark Elves, and Ogres, and Vampires, and Trolls, and Swamp Things, Ghouls, and Ghosts, Unseen Things, and Unnamed Things, and Sorcerers, and Warlocks, Harpies, and Sirens.  All had gathered to meet the Army of the World.

And the two forces did great battle upon each other.  The ancients tell of numerous heroic deeds by many of the combatants of the army of good, but of none were deeds so great as of the Six Companions.  Wherever the resolve lagged, lines were pushed back, regiments threatened to crumble, the Guardian and his band were seen reviving the men and shoring up the resolve. The battle lasted for days.  

Alas, the Hordes of Evil outnumbered the Army of the World.  For it is much easier to spawn evil and let it fester on its own, than give birth to good and nurture it to wisdom.  And although the numbers of this army were vast, the hordes were almost innumerable. For every slain Orc, two took his place.  For every Ogre put down, two arose.

And it came to pass that at a small grassy hillock at the precise centre of the Plains, the pitiful remains of that great army made their final stand.  And they were led by the Guardian and his companions.  Though formidable heroes of ancient times they were, they were also mere mortals.  As the fighting grew more and more frenzied, and the men around them fell, desperation crept into the hearts of each of them.  Finally, at noon of the seventh day, they stood alone against an enemy that seemed undepleted.

As the Hordes charged for yet another assault, despair gripped the soul of the Foreigner.  He lowered his war hammer, tears streaming from his face, and let himself be slaughtered.  It was at that moment that the blackest of deeds occurred on these plains, for as the five survivors made to close ranks, the Fool laid off his mask, and was revealed the Traitor.  Standing nearest to the Gray Man, for he had always professed his friendship for his companion, he stabbed his friend in the back, straight through the Heart.  It is said that it was at that time that the armour of the Guardian turned the blackest of black, and the feathers upon his helmet turned to horns.  Such was his wrath that the revenge he took upon the body of the Traitor so gruesome that even the Gods turned their heads away, and the Hordes of Evil who had jeered at the betrayal retreated. (Run-on-sentence. Break it up. I.e.: So great was his wrath and so gruesome was his revenge that even the Gods turned their heads away. The Hordes of Evil, who had jeered at the betrayal, retreated.)

Some say, that the Guardian sent his two remaining companions away at that time. Others say, they left him for fear he had gone insane. Again others say, he sent them away, but they returned in his hour of need. But all repeat the words he spoke to them: 

“My friends, we have fought our battle, but we have fought and lost.  It is time for me to gather all that is good and kind in this world, all that is just and righteous, all that is beautiful in sight and sound, all that cares and loves, and guard it for times to come, until I may release all of it back into a gentler world.  Go from here, for the fight that now comes upon us (cut the comma) is a fight to the end. (New sentence) I would have you away from that fight, to continue spreading goodness in the lands for as long as you can.” (Sounds poetic, but I am not sure it is perfectly correct English. Alternatively, try: I would protect you from joining that battle, so that you can fulfil your destiny in spreading goodness through the land indefinitely.)   

But whether or not the Archer and the Red Man went their ways or not, when the charge of the Hordes of Evil came, they stood at the ready at the Guardian’s side. And it was as if the blackening of his armour had given the Guardian new strength.  He slew fiends by the scores, even though they kept coming at him.  And as the sun set in a black and blood red sky, he found himself alone on the grassy knoll.  Sometime, during battle, both the Archer and the Red Man had been slain.  There was no trace of either, but to his left lay the bent scimitars of the Red Man, and to his right the broken longbow and empty quivers of the Archer.

Overcome by sorrow, the Guardian sank on one knee, his sword point down into the earth.  Great waves of despair, loneliness and grief washed over him, and his mighty shoulders shook.  His tears, streaming from under his great helmet, drew fiery red lines on the breast plate of his harness.  Blood red tears welled out of the eye sockets of the helmet and made a terrible pattern on the helmet’s cheeks.  So great was his sorrow, that even the Hordes, for a moment, kept a respectful distance from their formidable foe.  

Then he rose, and in a terrible voice swore he a great oath.  Never to move from his post, for as long as there was a breath in him; to guard all that was good against those who would destroy and annihilate; to deny any and all of the Hordes entrance to the Plains beyond this point; and to never rest until all were slain.

It was with a most horrible howling that the Hordes of Evil charged his position, only to find that a magical line had spread to the Guardian’s left and right sides.  No Orc, no Goblin, not even the most powerful Warlock could cross that line.  The only path to the Lands beyond lay over the hillock, occupied by the Guardian.  The Ancient stories tell of days of slaughter, when the evil spawn had to clear away their dead, because they couldn’t reach the Guardian anymore.  But the Guardian stood his ground, weary and hurt.

It became increasingly difficult for the leaders of the Hordes to find men to send against the Guardian, and it took them longer and longer.  Inbetween fights, the Guardian stood watch, until the fights became fewer and fewer, and then ceased altogether.  

It was not until centuries after the last of these battles that our peoples came to the Plains.  For a brief time the ancient tribes and the new lived together, and our forefathers learned of the Guardian and his companions.  But the story of the Guardian remained just that, a story, and a story that was not of our people.

And then the Guardian moved.

It is said by the same old stories that the Guardian not only guards all that is good, all that is beautiful, and all that is love, but that he did all he did FOR love.  As he guards love, so does love guard him.

And there is a prophecy in the old songs.  It is sung that there will come a time when the Guardian will walk away from his hillock, and leave his post.  And on this day, the last of the minions of Evil will lay down and die, and the Guardian, freed from his oath, will restore goodness, and kindness, justice and righteousness, beauty, care and love to the world, and return to his love to die at her bosom.

But it is also sung that on the day the Guardian moves, it will be the Guardian’s decision to restore goodness to the world or not, and that the blackness in the heart of the Guardian, caused by the betrayal of the Fool and Traitor, will have him forego the restoration of the world, and in this hour the universe will die with him.

Today the Guardian moved.

Book Excerpt


Villette


By Charlotte Bronte


CHAPTER I

BRETTON

My godmother lived in a handsome house in the clean and ancient town of Bretton. Her husband's family had been residents there for generations, and bore, indeed, the name of their birthplace—Bretton of Bretton: whether by coincidence, or because some remote ancestor had been a personage of sufficient importance to leave his name to his neighbourhood, I know not.
When I was a girl I went to Bretton about twice a year, and well I liked the visit. The house and its inmates specially suited me. The large peaceful rooms, the well-arranged furniture, the clear wide windows, the balcony outside, looking down on a fine antique street, where Sundays and holidays seemed always to abide—so quiet was its atmosphere, so clean its pavement—these things pleased me well.
One child in a household of grown people is usually made very much of, and in a quiet way I was a good deal taken notice of by Mrs. Bretton, who had been left a widow, with one son, before I knew her; her husband, a physician, having died while she was yet a young and handsome woman.
She was not young, as I remember her, but she was still handsome, tall, well-made, and though dark for an Englishwoman, yet wearing always the clearness of health in her brunette cheek, and its vivacity in a pair of fine, cheerful black eyes. People esteemed it a grievous pity that she had not conferred her complexion on her son, whose eyes were blue—though, even in boyhood, very piercing—and the colour of his long hair such as friends did not venture to specify, except as the sun shone on it, when they called it golden. He inherited the lines of his mother's features, however; also her good teeth, her stature (or the promise of her stature, for he was not yet full-grown), and, what was better, her health without flaw, and her spirits of that tone and equality which are better than a fortune to the possessor.
In the autumn of the year —— I was staying at Bretton; my godmother having come in person to claim me of the kinsfolk with whom was at that time fixed my permanent residence. I believe she then plainly saw events coming, whose very shadow I scarce guessed; yet of which the faint suspicion sufficed to impart unsettled sadness, and made me glad to change scene and society.
Time always flowed smoothly for me at my godmother's side; not with tumultuous swiftness, but blandly, like the gliding of a full river through a plain. My visits to her resembled the sojourn of Christian and Hopeful beside a certain pleasant stream, with "green trees on each bank, and meadows beautified with lilies all the year round." The charm of variety there was not, nor the excitement of incident; but I liked peace so well, and sought stimulus so little, that when the latter came I almost felt it a disturbance, and wished rather it had still held aloof.
One day a letter was received of which the contents evidently caused Mrs. Bretton surprise and some concern. I thought at first it was from home, and trembled, expecting I know not what disastrous communication: to me, however, no reference was made, and the cloud seemed to pass.
The next day, on my return from a long walk, I found, as I entered my bedroom, an unexpected change. In, addition to my own French bed in its shady recess, appeared in a corner a small crib, draped with white; and in addition to my mahogany chest of drawers, I saw a tiny rosewood chest. I stood still, gazed, and considered.
"Of what are these things the signs and tokens?" I asked. The answer was obvious. "A second guest is coming: Mrs. Bretton expects other visitors."
On descending to dinner, explanations ensued. A little girl, I was told, would shortly be my companion: the daughter of a friend and distant relation of the late Dr. Bretton's. This little girl, it was added, had recently lost her mother; though, indeed, Mrs. Bretton ere long subjoined, the loss was not so great as might at first appear. Mrs. Home (Home it seems was the name) had been a very pretty, but a giddy, careless woman, who had neglected her child, and disappointed and disheartened her husband. So far from congenial had the union proved, that separation at last ensued—separation by mutual consent, not after any legal process. Soon after this event, the lady having over-exerted herself at a ball, caught cold, took a fever, and died after a very brief illness. Her husband, naturally a man of very sensitive feelings, and shocked inexpressibly by too sudden communication of the news, could hardly, it seems, now be persuaded but that some over-severity on his part—some deficiency in patience and indulgence—had contributed to hasten her end. He had brooded over this idea till his spirits were seriously affected; the medical men insisted on travelling being tried as a remedy, and meanwhile Mrs. Bretton had offered to take charge of his little girl. "And I hope," added my godmother in conclusion, "the child will not be like her mamma; as silly and frivolous a little flirt as ever sensible man was weak enough to marry. For," said she, "Mr. Home is a sensible man in his way, though not very practical: he is fond of science, and lives half his life in a laboratory trying experiments—a thing his butterfly wife could neither comprehend nor endure; and indeed" confessed my godmother, "I should not have liked it myself."
In answer to a question of mine, she further informed me that her late husband used to say, Mr. Home had derived this scientific turn from a maternal uncle, a French savant; for he came, it seems; of mixed French and Scottish origin, and had connections now living in France, of whom more than one wrote de before his name, and called himself noble.
That same evening at nine o'clock, a servant was despatched to meet the coach by which our little visitor was expected. Mrs. Bretton and I sat alone in the drawing-room waiting her coming; John Graham Bretton being absent on a visit to one of his schoolfellows who lived in the country. My godmother read the evening paper while she waited; I sewed. It was a wet night; the rain lashed the panes, and the wind sounded angry and restless.
"Poor child!" said Mrs. Bretton from time to time. "What weather for her journey! I wish she were safe here."
A little before ten the door-bell announced Warren's return. No sooner was the door opened than I ran down into the hall; there lay a trunk and some band-boxes, beside them stood a person like a nurse-girl, and at the foot of the staircase was Warren with a shawled bundle in his arms.
"Is that the child?" I asked.
"Yes, miss."
I would have opened the shawl, and tried to get a peep at the face, but it was hastily turned from me to Warren's shoulder.
"Put me down, please," said a small voice when Warren opened the drawing-room door, "and take off this shawl," continued the speaker, extracting with its minute hand the pin, and with a sort of fastidious haste doffing the clumsy wrapping. The creature which now appeared made a deft attempt to fold the shawl; but the drapery was much too heavy and large to be sustained or wielded by those hands and arms. "Give it to Harriet, please," was then the direction, "and she can put it away." This said, it turned and fixed its eyes on Mrs. Bretton.
"Come here, little dear," said that lady. "Come and let me see if you are cold and damp: come and let me warm you at the fire."
The child advanced promptly. Relieved of her wrapping, she appeared exceedingly tiny; but was a neat, completely-fashioned little figure, light, slight, and straight. Seated on my godmother's ample lap, she looked a mere doll; her neck, delicate as wax, her head of silky curls, increased, I thought, the resemblance.
Mrs. Bretton talked in little fond phrases as she chafed the child's hands, arms, and feet; first she was considered with a wistful gaze, but soon a smile answered her. Mrs. Bretton was not generally a caressing woman: even with her deeply-cherished son, her manner was rarely sentimental, often the reverse; but when the small stranger smiled at her, she kissed it, asking, "What is my little one's name?"
"Missy."
"But besides Missy?"
"Polly, papa calls her."
"Will Polly be content to live with me?"
"Not always; but till papa comes home. Papa is gone away." She shook her head expressively.
"He will return to Polly, or send for her."
"Will he, ma'am? Do you know he will?"
"I think so."
"But Harriet thinks not: at least not for a long while. He is ill."
Her eyes filled. She drew her hand from Mrs. Bretton's and made a movement to leave her lap; it was at first resisted, but she said—"Please, I wish to go: I can sit on a stool."
She was allowed to slip down from the knee, and taking a footstool, she carried it to a corner where the shade was deep, and there seated herself. Mrs. Bretton, though a commanding, and in grave matters even a peremptory woman, was often passive in trifles: she allowed the child her way. She said to me, "Take no notice at present." But I did take notice: I watched Polly rest her small elbow on her small knee, her head on her hand; I observed her draw a square inch or two of pocket-handkerchief from the doll-pocket of her doll-skirt, and then I heard her weep. Other children in grief or pain cry aloud, without shame or restraint; but this being wept: the tiniest occasional sniff testified to her emotion. Mrs. Bretton did not hear it: which was quite as well. Ere long, a voice, issuing from the corner, demanded—"May the bell be rung for Harriet!"
I rang; the nurse was summoned and came.
"Harriet, I must be put to bed," said her little mistress. "You must ask where my bed is."
Harriet signified that she had already made that inquiry.
"Ask if you sleep with me, Harriet."
"No, Missy," said the nurse: "you are to share this young lady's room," designating me.
Missy did not leave her seat, but I saw her eyes seek me. After some minutes' silent scrutiny, she emerged from her corner.
"I wish you, ma'am, good night," said she to Mrs. Bretton; but she passed me mute.
"Good-night, Polly," I said.
"No need to say good-night, since we sleep in the same chamber," was the reply, with which she vanished from the drawing-room. We heard Harriet propose to carry her up-stairs. "No need," was again her answer—"no need, no need:" and her small step toiled wearily up the staircase.
On going to bed an hour afterwards, I found her still wide awake. She had arranged her pillows so as to support her little person in a sitting posture: her hands, placed one within the other, rested quietly on the sheet, with an old-fashioned calm most unchildlike. I abstained from speaking to her for some time, but just before extinguishing the light, I recommended her to lie down.
"By and by," was the answer.
"But you will take cold, Missy."
She took some tiny article of raiment from the chair at her crib side, and with it covered her shoulders. I suffered her to do as she pleased. Listening awhile in the darkness, I was aware that she still wept,—wept under restraint, quietly and cautiously.
On awaking with daylight, a trickling of water caught my ear. Behold! there she was risen and mounted on a stool near the washstand, with pains and difficulty inclining the ewer (which she could not lift) so as to pour its contents into the basin. It was curious to watch her as she washed and dressed, so small, busy, and noiseless. Evidently she was little accustomed to perform her own toilet; and the buttons, strings, hooks and eyes, offered difficulties which she encountered with a perseverance good to witness. She folded her night-dress, she smoothed the drapery of her couch quite neatly; withdrawing into a corner, where the sweep of the white curtain concealed her, she became still. I half rose, and advanced my head to see how she was occupied. On her knees, with her forehead bent on her hands, I perceived that she was praying.
Her nurse tapped at the door. She started up.
"I am dressed, Harriet," said she; "I have dressed myself, but I do not feel neat. Make me neat!"
"Why did you dress yourself, Missy?"
"Hush! speak low, Harriet, for fear of waking the girl" (meaning me, who now lay with my eyes shut). "I dressed myself to learn, against the time you leave me."
"Do you want me to go?"
"When you are cross, I have many a time wanted you to go, but not now.
Tie my sash straight; make my hair smooth, please."
"Your sash is straight enough. What a particular little body you are!"
"It must be tied again. Please to tie it."
"There, then. When I am gone you must get that young lady to dress you."
"On no account."
"Why? She is a very nice young lady. I hope you mean to behave prettily to her, Missy, and not show your airs."
"She shall dress me on no account."
"Comical little thing!"
"You are not passing the comb straight through my hair, Harriet; the line will be crooked."
"Ay, you are ill to please. Does that suit?"
"Pretty well. Where should I go now that I am dressed?"
"I will take you into the breakfast-room."
"Come, then."
They proceeded to the door. She stopped.
"Oh! Harriet, I wish this was papa's house! I don't know these people."
"Be a good child, Missy."
"I am good, but I ache here;" putting her hand to her heart, and moaning while she reiterated, "Papa! papa!"
I roused myself and started up, to check this scene while it was yet within bounds.
"Say good-morning to the young lady," dictated Harriet. She said, "Good-morning," and then followed her nurse from the room. Harriet temporarily left that same day, to go to her own friends, who lived in the neighbourhood.
On descending, I found Paulina (the child called herself Polly, but her full name was Paulina Mary) seated at the breakfast-table, by Mrs. Bretton's side; a mug of milk stood before her, a morsel of bread filled her hand, which lay passive on the table-cloth: she was not eating.
"How we shall conciliate this little creature," said Mrs. Bretton to me, "I don't know: she tastes nothing, and by her looks, she has not slept."
I expressed my confidence in the effects of time and kindness.
"If she were to take a fancy to anybody in the house, she would soon settle; but not till then," replied Mrs. Bretton.
CHAPTER II.PAULINA.Some days elapsed, and it appeared she was not likely to take much of a fancy to anybody in the house. She was not exactly naughty or wilful: she was far from disobedient; but an object less conducive to comfort—to tranquillity even—than she presented, it was scarcely possible to have before one's eyes. She moped: no grown person could have performed that uncheering business better; no furrowed face of adult exile, longing for Europe at Europe's antipodes, ever bore more legibly the signs of home sickness than did her infant visage. She seemed growing old and unearthly. I, Lucy Snowe, plead guiltless of that curse, an overheated and discursive imagination; but whenever, opening a room-door, I found her seated in a corner alone, her head in her pigmy hand, that room seemed to me not inhabited, but haunted.
And again, when of moonlight nights, on waking, I beheld her figure, white and conspicuous in its night-dress, kneeling upright in bed, and praying like some Catholic or Methodist enthusiast—some precocious fanatic or untimely saint—I scarcely know what thoughts I had; but they ran risk of being hardly more rational and healthy than that child's mind must have been.
I seldom caught a word of her prayers, for they were whispered low: sometimes, indeed, they were not whispered at all, but put up unuttered; such rare sentences as reached my ear still bore the burden, "Papa; my dear papa!" This, I perceived, was a one-idea'd nature; betraying that monomaniac tendency I have ever thought the most unfortunate with which man or woman can be cursed.
What might have been the end of this fretting, had it continued unchecked, can only be conjectured: it received, however, a sudden turn.
One afternoon, Mrs. Bretton, coaxing her from her usual station in a corner, had lifted her into the window-seat, and, by way of occupying her attention, told her to watch the passengers and count how many ladies should go down the street in a given time. She had sat listlessly, hardly looking, and not counting, when—my eye being fixed on hers—I witnessed in its iris and pupil a startling transfiguration. These sudden, dangerous natures--sensitive as they are called—offer many a curious spectacle to those whom a cooler temperament has secured from participation in their angular vagaries. The fixed and heavy gaze swum, trembled, then glittered in fire; the small, overcast brow cleared; the trivial and dejected features lit up; the sad countenance vanished, and in its place appeared a sudden eagerness, an intense expectancy. "It is!" were her words.
Like a bird or a shaft, or any other swift thing, she was gone from the room. How she got the house-door open I cannot tell; probably it might be ajar; perhaps Warren was in the way and obeyed her behest, which would be impetuous enough. I—watching calmly from the window—saw her, in her black frock and tiny braided apron (to pinafores she had an antipathy), dart half the length of the street; and, as I was on the point of turning, and quietly announcing to Mrs. Bretton that the child was run out mad, and ought instantly to be pursued, I saw her caught up, and rapt at once from my cool observation, and from the wondering stare of the passengers. A gentleman had done this good turn, and now, covering her with his cloak, advanced to restore her to the house whence he had seen her issue.
I concluded he would leave her in a servant's charge and withdraw; but he entered: having tarried a little while below, he came up-stairs.
His reception immediately explained that he was known to Mrs. Bretton. She recognised him; she greeted him, and yet she was fluttered, surprised, taken unawares. Her look and manner were even expostulatory; and in reply to these, rather than her words, he said,—"I could not help it, madam: I found it impossible to leave the country without seeing with my own eyes how she settled."
"But you will unsettle her."
"I hope not. And how is papa's little Polly?"
This question he addressed to Paulina, as he sat down and placed her gently on the ground before him.
"How is Polly's papa?" was the reply, as she leaned on his knee, and gazed up into his face.
It was not a noisy, not a wordy scene: for that I was thankful; but it was a scene of feeling too brimful, and which, because the cup did not foam up high or furiously overflow, only oppressed one the more. On all occasions of vehement, unrestrained expansion, a sense of disdain or ridicule comes to the weary spectator's relief; whereas I have ever felt most burdensome that sort of sensibility which bends of its own will, a giant slave under the sway of good sense.
Mr. Home was a stern-featured—perhaps I should rather say, a hard-featured man: his forehead was knotty, and his cheekbones were marked and prominent. The character of his face was quite Scotch; but there was feeling in his eye, and emotion in his now agitated countenance. His northern accent in speaking harmonised with his physiognomy. He was at once proud-looking and homely-looking. He laid his hand on the child's uplifted head. She said—"Kiss Polly."
He kissed her. I wished she would utter some hysterical cry, so that I might get relief and be at ease. She made wonderfully little noise: she seemed to have got what she wanted--all she wanted, and to be in a trance of content. Neither in mien nor in features was this creature like her sire, and yet she was of his strain: her mind had been filled from his, as the cup from the flagon.
Indisputably, Mr. Home owned manly self-control, however he might secretly feel on some matters. "Polly," he said, looking down on his little girl, "go into the hall; you will see papa's great-coat lying on a chair; put your hand into the pockets, you will find a pocket-handkerchief there; bring it to me."
She obeyed; went and returned deftly and nimbly. He was talking to Mrs. Bretton when she came back, and she waited with the handkerchief in her hand. It was a picture, in its way, to see her, with her tiny stature, and trim, neat shape, standing at his knee. Seeing that he continued to talk, apparently unconscious of her return, she took his hand, opened the unresisting fingers, insinuated into them the handkerchief, and closed them upon it one by one. He still seemed not to see or to feel her; but by-and-by, he lifted her to his knee; she nestled against him, and though neither looked at nor spoke to the other for an hour following, I suppose both were satisfied.
During tea, the minute thing's movements and behaviour gave, as usual, full occupation to the eye. First she directed Warren, as he placed the chairs.
"Put papa's chair here, and mine near it, between papa and Mrs.
Bretton: I must hand his tea."
She took her own seat, and beckoned with her hand to her father.
"Be near me, as if we were at home, papa."
And again, as she intercepted his cup in passing, and would stir the sugar, and put in the cream herself, "I always did it for you at home; papa: nobody could do it as well, not even your own self."
Throughout the meal she continued her attentions: rather absurd they were. The sugar-tongs were too wide for one of her hands, and she had to use both in wielding them; the weight of the silver cream-ewer, the bread-and-butter plates, the very cup and saucer, tasked her insufficient strength and dexterity; but she would lift this, hand that, and luckily contrived through it all to break nothing. Candidly speaking, I thought her a little busy-body; but her father, blind like other parents, seemed perfectly content to let her wait on him, and even wonderfully soothed by her offices.
"She is my comfort!" he could not help saying to Mrs. Bretton. That lady had her own "comfort" and nonpareil on a much larger scale, and, for the moment, absent; so she sympathised with his foible.
This second "comfort" came on the stage in the course of the evening. I knew this day had been fixed for his return, and was aware that Mrs. Bretton had been expecting him through all its hours. We were seated round the fire, after tea, when Graham joined our circle: I should rather say, broke it up—for, of course, his arrival made a bustle; and then, as Mr. Graham was fasting, there was refreshment to be provided. He and Mr. Home met as old acquaintance; of the little girl he took
no notice for a time.
His meal over, and numerous questions from his mother answered, he turned from the table to the hearth. Opposite where he had placed himself was seated Mr. Home, and at his elbow, the child. When I say child I use an inappropriate and undescriptive term—a term suggesting any picture rather than that of the demure little person in a mourning frock and white chemisette, that might just have fitted a good-sized doll—perched now on a high chair beside a stand, whereon was her toy work-box of white varnished wood, and holding in her hands a shred of a handkerchief, which she was professing to hem, and at which she bored perseveringly with a needle, that in her fingers seemed almost a skewer, pricking herself ever and anon, marking the cambric with a track of minute red dots; occasionally starting when the perverse weapon—swerving from her control—inflicted a deeper stab than usual; but still silent, diligent, absorbed, womanly.
Graham was at that time a handsome, faithless-looking youth of sixteen. I say faithless-looking, not because he was really of a very perfidious disposition, but because the epithet strikes me as proper to describe the fair, Celtic (not Saxon) character of his good looks; his waved light auburn hair, his supple symmetry, his smile frequent, and destitute neither of fascination nor of subtlety (in no bad sense). A spoiled, whimsical boy he was in those days.
"Mother," he said, after eyeing the little figure before him in silence for some time, and when the temporary absence of Mr. Home from the room relieved him from the half-laughing bashfulness, which was all he knew of timidity—-"Mother, I see a young lady in the present society to whom I have not been introduced."
"Mr. Home's little girl, I suppose you mean," said his mother.
"Indeed, ma'am," replied her son, "I consider your expression of the least ceremonious: Miss Home I should certainly have said, in venturing to speak of the gentlewoman to whom I allude."
"Now, Graham, I will not have that child teased. Don't flatter yourself that I shall suffer you to make her your butt."
"Miss Home," pursued Graham, undeterred by his mother's remonstrance, "might I have the honour to introduce myself, since no one else seems willing to render you and me that service? Your slave, John Graham Bretton."
She looked at him; he rose and bowed quite gravely. She deliberately put down thimble, scissors, work; descended with precaution from her perch, and curtsying with unspeakable seriousness, said, "How do you do?"
"I have the honour to be in fair health, only in some measure fatigued with a hurried journey. I hope, ma'am, I see you well?"
"Tor-rer-ably well," was the ambitious reply of the little woman and she now essayed to regain her former elevation, but finding this could not be done without some climbing and straining—a sacrifice of decorum not to be thought of—and being utterly disdainful of aid in the presence of a strange young gentleman, she relinquished the high chair for a low stool: towards that low stool
​Graham drew in his chair.
"I hope, ma'am, the present residence, my mother's house, appears to you a convenient place of abode?"
"Not par-tic-er-er-ly; I want to go home."
"A natural and laudable desire, ma'am; but one which, notwithstanding,
I shall do my best to oppose. I reckon on being able to get out of you
a little of that precious commodity called amusement, which mamma and
Mistress Snowe there fail to yield me."
"I shall have to go with papa soon: I shall not stay long at your mother's."
"Yes, yes; you will stay with me, I am sure. I have a pony on which you shall ride, and no end of books with pictures to show you."
"Are you going to live here now?"
"I am. Does that please you? Do you like me?"
"No."
"Why?"
"I think you queer."
"My face, ma'am?"
"Your face and all about you: You have long red hair."
"Auburn hair, if you please: mamma, calls it auburn, or golden, and so do all her friends. But even with my 'long red hair'" (and he waved his mane with a sort of triumph—tawny he himself well knew that it was, and he was proud of the leonine hue), "I cannot possibly be queerer than is your ladyship."
"You call me queer?"
"Certainly."
(After a pause), "I think I shall go to bed."
"A little thing like you ought to have been in bed many hours since; but you probably sat up in the expectation of seeing me?"
"No, indeed."
"You certainly wished to enjoy the pleasure of my society. You knew I was coming home, and would wait to have a look at me."
"I sat up for papa, and not for you."
"Very good, Miss Home. I am going to be a favourite: preferred before papa soon, I daresay."
She wished Mrs. Bretton and myself good-night; she seemed hesitating whether Graham's deserts entitled him to the same attention, when he caught her up with one hand, and with that one hand held her poised aloft above his head. She saw herself thus lifted up on high, in the glass over the fireplace. The suddenness, the freedom, the disrespect of the action were too much.
"For shame, Mr. Graham!" was her indignant cry, "put me down!"—and when again on her feet, "I wonder what you would think of me if I were to treat you in that way, lifting you with my hand" (raising that mighty member) "as Warren lifts the little cat."
So saying, she departed.

Strange


By Alexandra H. Rodrigues and Jenny Mc Cain

​

Rodrigo adjusted his faux leather and cotton doublet. It came together in such a way that it actually made the fit and the wearer look and feel like a real noble. “Dressed for success,” he crowed to himself while gleefully laughing in fits of delight over the evening’s coming attractions. Rodrigo and his lady friend, Esmeralda, were headed to the Red Dragon’s Annual LARP Festival which was being held in the county’s old fairgrounds. The LARP, also known as a Live Action Role Play Fest, had become his one true passion. Where else could a lawyer become a king’s jester and a secretary becomes the queen’s lady in waiting. The LARP was a great equalizer. A place where dreamers, unemployed actors and gamer dorks could spend their days traipsing around in medieval dress and weaponry, shooting imaginary lightning bolts at each other.
It was more than that for Rodrigo. For the first time ever, he fit in. He was no longer labeled the geek. Most attendees were way beyond geek, traversing all the way to extreme dweeb and nerd. Geeks were considered a bit odd and peculiar, and usually known to be of above average intelligence. Being a dweeb took one to a whole new level of lameness in the High School hierarchy. Usually ridiculed, dweebs and nerds were almost always boringly studious individuals with thick black wire-rimmed glasses and a penchant for being a single-minded expert in some technical or scientific field.
Previous social status mattered little at LARP. Rodrigo was looking forward to a night of merriment with Esmeralda and his new role-playing buddies. His friend Rubin had forewarned him of a surprise that the King’s Court planned to unveil at the end of the night’s festivities.
“Jennita, is that you?” Rodrigo’s date heard a voice behind her say. It was a voice she knew too well. The person connected to that voice was the last she wanted to face today or any day for that matter. She did not turn around and was grateful that they were just passing a lady’s room at that same moment. She tore herself out of the possessive grip Rodrigo had placed around her shoulder.
“I’ll be right back,” she shouted and disappeared behind the door.
“I hope Esmeralda does not have a weak bladder; that could become annoying,” he thought. Only a few minutes earlier she had gone to the bathroom at the diner, where they had shared a coffee.
He saw a guy, dressed like Hercules, with a figure which made the hero pride, shaking his head, hurry and get lost in the crowd. I wonder where that Jennita is, that this guy had called, Rodrigo pondered. He suddenly had become curious as there was no other woman in close vicinity.
Esmeralda, alias Jennita, was standing inside the bathroom She was trembling. Robert, the man who had called her had been her lover. He had made her pregnant. He had also made her to agree to an abortion and given her ample money to find somebody to do the procedure. She however had not even looked for an abortionist but had decided that she would carry the child and possibly give it up for adoption in the end. Quickly she had left town, forwarding address unknown.
Four months down the road she had a miscarriage. Now Robert would never find out but still she could not go back to him as she had no explanation why she was avoiding him. She had disappeared without telling him. The first day back in her old hunting grounds she had met Rodrigo. Okay, there she had her story. She was working for Rodrigo as a call girl and he kept a sharp eye on her.
She powdered her nose and resolutely changed her path of thought. She had come here to have fun and fun she wanted to have. Let things take their turn, she would hold her fort.
Esmeralda made her way through the throngs of urban knights and yuppie peasants hawking pickles to the now toe-tapping Rodrigo.
“Sorry sugar, she said, patting her tightly laced bodice. “Had to re-lace my corset before a mishap occurred. Wouldn’t want these puppies flying free and starting a riot at the good old fairgrounds, now would you?”
The thought of Esmeralda’s creamy bosoms had the effect she had intended. Rodrigo’s impatience quickly melted and a glazed look of wonder crept into his gaze.
“Uh um, no, uh, of course not,” Rodrigo stammered, clearly uncomfortable with the intensity of Esmeralda’s sexuality. Rodrigo was not used to such attention. His whole life had been spent on the outside looking in. He would always be picked last in gym. At childhood school lunches his seat had always been with the nerds, the dorky kids, the outcasts. He envied the jocks, the cheerleaders -- the popular kids who laughed and flirted their way through life. Mostly he was sitting behind a computer screen studying, always studying. Often, he got lost in his science fiction stories, in his role playing computer games.
He lived his life always wanting to be able to participate, so he was completely powerless under the seductive gaze of this woman who knew how to use her beauty. He did not think that she was anything other than what she appeared to be. Esmeralda, fully aware of her power, trailed her finger down Rodrigo’s cheek and lightly kissed his lips.
“I must make my way to King’s Court right now to start my duties as Queen Basheba’s lady in waiting.” She flung her long golden braid over one shoulder and turned her back to him. Then she purposely swayed her hips as she walked into the crowd.
It only took a moment for the spell of Esmeralda to lift. Shaking his head as if to clear the haze from his now frazzled brain, Rodrigo knew he was way out of his league. Inexperienced he may be, but he was not stupid. He began to sense there was more to Esmeralda then met the eye.
Every day he would visit the coffee shop where she worked and watch the men in the place puff and bluster away at her register. She was stunning and had a glow that seemed to burn from within. It drew everyone to her, men, women and children. Her laugh tinkled like bells. Her smile could light a dozen candles. She had golden hair that shone like the sun and cornflower blue eyes. She was always smiling but it never reached her eyes. Her eyes held some deep dark secrets that he yearned to discover.
She sidled up to him one day as he was sipping his brew, hard at work on a new novel, sitting at the far back table. She pulled up a chair and sat down next to him. She had asked him what he was so intent upon. As he met her gaze, he knew he was lost.
By now they had been together two months. Although he knew of no reason in the world for her to be with him and that any moment he could lose her to a better man, he counted his lucky stars and enjoyed the moment. Lost in thoughts of Esmeralda and her bouncing hips, he didn’t see the stocky man until he was nearly upon him. The guy lay dazed on the floor. A thick burly hairy arm came down and jerked him back onto his feet. He was looking into the black helm of the Dark Knight.
The Dark Knight was infamous around these parts. Every year he showed up, and every year he won every joust or contest he entered. Over six feet tall with arms the size of tree trunks, he was massive. Dark eyes and dark hair made him appear devilishly handsome. The ladies of the LARP all swooned and threw themselves at him, but he was a cold tower of quiet apathy. He never engaged anyone and continued about his business as if the world was there just for him.
“You. Come with me immediately. I have need for your services,” said the deep voice of the Dark Knight. With that, Rodrigo was pulled into something that would change his life forevermore.
When Esmeralda got a glimpse of the two men together, her breath stopped for a second. It was her first time at this festival. Rodrigo had explained it to her and invited her to attend. Due to her beauty, she was immediately noticed by the King’s Court and given an appropriate costume, which fit her exquisitely. She had never heard of the Dark Knight, but she certainly knew this man who was ordering Rodrigo around. It was Robert, the guy who had gotten her pregnant, the man she wanted to evade at all cost.
“Use your assets wisely,” Aunt Samantha had warned her when she sent her to experience the worldly challenges suitable for an 18-year-old woman. “Do not disclose where you are from, and do not use any of the tricks we have taught you.”
Had those two men found out about each other? Had one or the other challenged the opponent to a duel? Certainly, it had not been Rodrigo; he was much too shy and hardly brave.
Robert? She could not yet figure him out. They had had fantastic sex, like well-edged figures melting together. Yet a feeling of personal interest in each other was totally absent. When he had found out that she was pregnant there was no doubt that she would feel the same way he did: Neither of them wanted the child.
It did not seem to have been the first time that he had gotten a girl pregnant. He did not give much importance to it or to her for that matter.
Rodrigo obviously enjoyed the attention of a woman of her beauty. She would not be surprised if he had an erection every time she came near him, but he did not dare to take her into his arms for the fear that the spell she cast on him would be broken. Neither Esmeralda nor Jennita was really her true name. She played her role the way it pleased her at any given moment. She was given two years to experiment before she would be asked to return to Samantha and report.
Rodrigo was in no mood for an adventure that involved the Dark Knight. There had been rumors in the past of people having disappeared when last seen with the Knight, but nothing could ever be pinned on him.
Where were they heading to now? Would Esmeralda look for him?
They did not leave the building. The Dark Knight indicated to Rodrigo to go up a set of the stairs leading to a second floor. At the top of those steps, the Knight opened a door to second set of stairs. Rodrigo counted not 13 steps as is customary but 21. They led to a dusty attic full of weapons, spider webs and a nauseating smell of rotting fish.
“Here, clean those weapons,” he instructed Rodrigo. “Pick the one you like best and will be able to handle in combat.”
With that he turned and locked the door to the attic behind him.
“No rush, I won’t be back for a while,” he shouted up.
Rodrigo couldn’t believe his crappy luck. He was sure the Dark Knight had purposely found the dirtiest weapons for him to clean. Taking a sword out of its scabbard, he carefully cleaned the weapon with a soft rag he found lying around on one of the work tables.
Suddenly there was a loud thumping sound which seemed to come from the other side of the attic. There it was again! Carefully, so as not to alarm whatever was on the other side, he crept quietly side-stepping boxes and weapons that had been carelessly strewn about the floor.
“Boo!” he shouted finally clearing the overly large beam that separated the two sides of the attic. No one was there. Lying on the floor before him was a letter. Bending down, he picked it up and almost missed the signet ring underneath it.
“Now what do we have here?” he muttered to himself. The signet ring was old. That much he could tell right away. It shined like burnished gold and felt very heavy in his hand. Simple, with no adornment except for a green jeweled dragon, it was mesmerizing nevertheless. The dragon’s green jeweled eyes appeared to be winking at him. Blinking his eyes, he once again looked carefully at the ring. There it was again! It wasn’t just a simple trick of light. The dragon was looking right at him!
Before he had a chance to examine the ring and open the letter that lay beside it, he heard the clomping of armor on wood making its way up the staircase. Shoving the letter and ring into his pocket, he scurried back over to the dusty weapons and pretended he was hard at work finishing up that task.
The Dark Knight walked in, face scowling with displeasure. “What fools you men are, with your pretentious need for re-enactments of a history long gone. If you men had any idea of the hardship and struggles that life was like back then, I doubt you’d wish so fervently to be there.”
Having no idea as to what the Dark Knight was referring to Rodrigo just nodded and shook his head. “It’s as if he’s not one of us, yet there he is in costume playing right along with us,” he thought.
The Black Knight sat his large frame down on a milk crate and stared intently into Rodrigo’s eyes. His eyes seemed to pierce his very soul and he felt as if the Dark Knight knew his every hope and dream. Scared at the power in those eyes, Rodrigo broke eye contact.
RINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG! There’s the noon bell signaling an end to the morning’s activities. The High Court would now be in session and the King and Queen would be making their way there. Esmeralda would be with them! Rodrigo, ashamed at his weak knees, met the Dark Knight’s gaze once more.
“Go if you must,” the Knight declared, “But heed my words: We will meet again Rodrigo and the next time you will not be allowed to leave so quickly. There is a dark cloud hanging over this LARP and your services have been deemed necessary in the final battle.”
For some reason Rodrigo felt he was not referring to the final joust of the evening but something far more sinister. Without a second thought, he ran out of the attic and made his way to his lady.
Rodrigo was still dazed and confused, not sure what to make out of the weird encounter with the Dark Knight. While he was standing in the large hall with the dimmed magnificent chandeliers, the court procession was passing him. There was Esmeralda. She surely did stand out in the crowd. Her luscious red hair reflected the crystals. Her wasp-like waist seemed in danger of breaking at any second. She must have seen him as she gave him a warm smile and sent an air kiss in his direction. Rodrigo was still astonished at himself that he had dared to invite her to this event and even more so that she had agreed to go with him. In his mind he pictured himself putting a wedding ring on her dainty finger and at that same moment he remembered the letter and the ring he had put into his pocket up in the attic.
He went to the bar and got himself a Virgin Mary, spiced up tomato juice without Vodka. Rodrigo despised alcohol ever since he had seen his father’s health go downhill from overuse. He then walked outside and found an empty park bench where he sat down. It was a little chilly, but his blood was boiling with all that was going on. He did not want anybody to see when he pulled the two items into the shade of the setting sun. The moon would be out soon, a full moon nevertheless.
The ring felt hot as if it had captured his body temperature or his mind’s heated uproar. He put it on his right ring finger and it fit like it had been made for him. The dragon was quite primitively constructed and yet it evoked a sense of protection in Rodrigo. Next he unfolded the letter. It was only one page and … it was addressed to him.
What the heck? How could that be? He had seen nobody in the attic. The mystery was thickening. He began to read:
Dear Rodrigo,
I am Samantha. I am the aunt of the lady you call Esmeralda. I noticed that you have an eye on her and that is not surprising as I have spared no effort in making her appearance as stunning and her traits as humanly possible. So much so that I even surprised myself because by mistake I have even fitted her with the human talent of reproduction. Where I live and where my niece is from, reproduction usually is handled by implant of the most advanced stem cells from the most brilliant creatures. But enough of that. I do not mean to scare or upset you. I need your help. Esmeralda is in danger. She is in danger from a source you have not yet come in touch with.
For that very reason I am enclosing the dragon ring with this letter. Wear it always from now on. When you turn it, so that the mouth of the dragon faces the palm of your right hand, you will be able to read people’s minds as you look into their eyes. It does not work on Esmeralda. You are not to disclose the contents of this letter to her, nor tell her that you know about me. The power of the ring will fade if you ever use it for a satanic purpose.
May the spirit of the Unseen bless you. Samantha
Rodrigo smelled his drink. Had they spiced it with drugs? Was he hallucinating? The letter was in his hand and the ring on his finger. There was nobody near him right now on whom he could test the power it was said to have.
Confused and delirious, or so he thought, Rodrigo continued on pretending what had just happened, hadn’t and that he wasn’t losing his mind. Hard to do when from the moment he got up this morning his life became nothing but a comedy of errors. Is this all just a dream he thought wildly? Insecurity, his old enemy, once again reared its ugly head. Was it taking over and controlling his thoughts which raced thru out his mind?
“One…two…three…,” he counted slowly to himself concentrating on nothing but the rise and fall of his chest as air slowly went in and then slowly came out. His pounding heart slowed down along with his breathing. Feeling a bit better but still not sure what was going on, he wished the drink in his hand was a true cocktail. Shaking that thought, he steeled his nerves and figured out his next move.
While Rodrigo thought through the events of the day, Esmeralda stood with the King’s. Staring at the festivities, she felt like an outsider peering in. She never felt she truly belonged anywhere. She was different from everyone else, never truly fitting in. Did others see it too? Or was the face she showed the world successful in masking the real Esmeralda?
Shaken out of her inner monologue by shouts of “Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt!” while points were scored as the afternoon’s competitors battled each other in their bid to win the day’s quests. Those with the most points at the end would go to the finals and compete for the final prize of $5,000. The King and Queen judged and meted out points while the court just sat on the sidelines watching.
Bored out of her mind, Esmeralda’s gaze fell upon a tall dark figure that was making its way slowly toward her. With determined grace and quiet eloquence, the Dark Knight passed thru the crowds until he towered over her slight form.
The phone rang. What now? What was he hearing? He did not have his cell phone with him. It did not belong in these medieval make-believe surroundings. Rodrigo felt a shock going thru his entire body that rendered him shaky and nervous. He sat up with a snap from his hip to his head. Eyes wide open now he found himself in his own bed. The outfit of the evening lay neatly folded on the chair.
The phone rang again. It was the phone on the night table. How had he gotten back home from the party, he wondered. He looked at the clock: 10:30 – 10:30 what? When? The shrill sound of the third ring caused him to finally reach out for the receiver and pick the phone up.
“Yes, hello?” His voice was raspy and sleep heavy.
“Rodrigo, what the hell are you doing still at home? You were to pick me up an hour ago!”
“What?” he mumbled in disbelief. “Pick you up?”
“This is Esmeralda,” the voice on the other end said cynically.
It was then that Rodrigo saw the half empty bottle of Whisky behind the phone. Oh no. He had imbibed in so much alcohol that he must have passed out and had fallen asleep. He knew the bottle had been full before he attacked it. All that weird excitement of the last hours had been a dream, or would you call it a nightmare, he thought. Damn it! The worst was that he had forgotten to pick up Esmeralda.
The dream had been like an open book: The Dark Knight, all the versions and visions of Esmeralda, her pregnancy, her being strange, that odd letter from her Aunt Samantha. Still confused, he looked at his hand. No ring. Well of course not. All those visions had been figments of his imagination.
“Are you there?” he heard her voice on the other end.
He had to snap out of his delirium. He knew he would forget the happenings of the dream as soon as he forced himself to think truly clear again. He slapped himself fully awake by hitting his forehead with his left hand. That dream had had so many exciting twists. It sure was boring to return to reality.
Well first of all, he had to make it up to Esmeralda now. Then maybe she would be able to give him some actual thrill later on.

​

FOR HUME THE BELLS TOLL

a novel excerpt from
HEMINGWAY’S TRUNK ©

by

Gerald Arthur Winter
 
www.geraldarthurwinter.com

 
Needing a departure from the school-of-hard-knocks, I began with a more scholarly approach by contacting Hume Baskin, Sr., a retired editor from Scribners who’d known Ernest Hemingway. Baskin’s home had a white picket fence and stood two hundred feet back from the quiet road toward the Hudson’s shore. The road narrowed to a state park with a walking path along the water and up to the top of the Palisades cliffs. I made a U-turn in the park and pulled over to assess the surroundings and run through my mind the approach I’d take to attempt having a conversation with the retired Scribners editor. Nothing eased my mind about what approach to take, so I defaulted to the path of last resort as a private eye—the truth.
I rang the doorbell at the screen door to the porch, which extended around the Edwardian vintage home on the south and eastern sides with a view of the Tappan Zee Bridge and legendary Sleepy Hollow across the Hudson. A dog barked from inside the house beyond the porch.
“Shut up, Zelda!” a croaky masculine voice shouted.
Zelda, appeared older than Mr. Baskin by two dog years, perhaps a-hundred-and-one to his eighty-seven.
“Don’t mind her,” Baskin said, appearing in a motorized wheelchair from the darkness of the open inner door. “She might gum you to death, but I knew some gals in Korea back in the day who’d do the same for a buck. My shrapnel wound from that so-called police action didn’t start to raise hell with my right hip till I hit seventy. All downhill from there. I should’ve gone for the Teflon hip when I had the chance. Hell, should’ve screwed my secretary while I had the chance, too.”
He used a cane from his seated position to unlatch the hook on the screen door and looked me up and down where I stood wearing my light gray suit, yellow silk shirt, and navy-and-yellow striped tie. I wore my father’s old gray fedora for affect.
Baskin squinted. The German shepherd gave a low growl that sounded more like flatulence from the old man, then she chased her tail in a circle three times and plunked down onto a worn throw rug. That’s when I noticed the ticking sounds all around me and saw with a quick scan of the room, an assortment of clocks from Grandfathers to Cukoos.
Baskin cocked his head back and forth with a gnarly smirk.
“My passion, clocks collected around the world. Publishing gave me the opportunity to travel, to go where angels feared to tread.”
“How many are there?”
“More than a hundred in this room, more than three hundred throughout the house. I used to play the VHS tape of Disney’s Pinocchio and synchronized the clocks to chime with the opening scene when all of Geppetto’s clocks chime together. Drove Zelda nuts, but now she’s deaf and doesn’t even blink.”
Zelda seemed half-blind as well.
“You served in Korea during the war?” I asked.
“Of course I did, ya idiot,” he said. “How many times have I told ya. You’ve seen my medals, for crap sake.”
He paused and lowered his head, looking back up at me with his watery eyes. “I thought you were my son. Sonny’s going to have a shit fit when he comes home and finds me dead.” He wiped tears from his ruddy, weathered cheeks and pushed his thin, white, mussed-up hair into place, but the stiff breeze off the Hudson River blew it askew again. “He’ll be more upset that you robbed me, and I was fool enough to unlock the door. It won’t matter to him if I’m dead. At eighty-seven, I’m about ready for a dirt nap anyway. At least the pain will stop.”
“No one’s here to rob you, Mr. Baskin,” I said, removing my fedora—a prop I decided to use to put the old fella in a more comfortable time frame when he still had his strength and youth with a bright future. “I came here to ask your opinion on some important matters.”
He stared at me blankly. “My opinion?” he asked, turning aside to ponder the logic of my proposal. “Of course . . . my opinion. It’s been some time—but I still have some opinions. Most opinions are like Zelda’s butt, we’ve all got one, and they all stink.” He chuckled and wheezed.
“Did you name your dog after Zelda Fitzgerald, Mr. Baskin?”
I asked, appealing to his appreciation for the past. “Did you admire her?”
“You kiddin, sonny?” he smirked, picked his nose, and encouraged the dog to lap the strand of mucous off his finger.
“Empowerment, my boy. This is Zelda Fitzgerald . . . eating out of my hand. I know a bitch when I see one.”
Since I had him going, I fed the spew. “So you knew them all . . .The Lost Generation?”
“I keep Zelda on a leash for Scotty,” he said, nodding toward the shepherd. “At the party when everyone thought he was on the wagon, the water we thought he had in his glass was really gin. Sat back in a chair and stared into space. They thought he was doing a Bela Lugosi impression, but he was dead. Sure the booze killed him, but that nut Zelda drove ’m to drink. They all thought she had been committed to an asylum, but I got ’er right here.”
He tugged at the dog’s collar making her whelp. I put out a sympathetic hand for her to lick, then I scratched her behind the ear. Baskin grimaced.
“Now’s she’s gotcha,” he said, twisting his mouth and shaking his head. “She has that power over men.”
“Even over Hemingway?” I asked, finding my chance.
“Nah,” he smiled. “He had nothing to do with her. He stayed clear of both of them. Thought Scotty was a poof.”
“Did you know him in the early days?”
“No,” he shook his head. “Wish I did. I didn’t meet Papa till 1952, when most critics figured he had nothing else to say — bottomed out from booze, women, and pain from injuries. The master of the simple sentence as the perfect means of expression. I loved it . . . loved him, too.”
“So did you work closely with him as an editor?” .
“No-no.” He sighed. “Don’t I wish? I was thirty in 1952, just an assistant of little consequence in the world of literary giants, and just back from Korea. Some of them were already dead . . . Scotty and Wolfe. Max Perkins was the master who handled the big boys.”
“But you were there for Hemingway’s triumph, when he won The Pulitzer and Nobel for The Old Man and the Sea when everyone thought he was washed up. That must have been great to witness from the inside?”
The old man’s face glowed as a beam of midday sun came through the screen porch and seemed to bring him to life.
“That was a triumph for us all,” he said, “the staff, Scribners, and twentieth century American literature. I thought of him like the Post-Impressionist painter, Cezanne, with no wasted, unneeded brush strokes . . . simple sentences, quick broad strokes at their best.”
“So, were you on close speaking terms?”
“No. He only confided in his fishing and hunting cronies, and only his last wife, Mary,” he sighed. “To Hemingway, we were just eggheads.”
“Did he ever talk to anyone on the staff about his early writing . . . before he made it big?”
“We all heard the story about how he lost a volume of his short stories written before he went to Paris after World War I,” he said. “Also his first attempt at a novel.”
“How did he lose the manuscripts?”
“He kept them in a steamer trunk and was going to meet Gertrude Stein at the train station in Paris,” he said. “His first wife, Hadley, was supposed to bring them by train. For whatever reason, she was distracted, and the steamer trunk with all of his work inside vanished from the station platform.”
“How did he feel about that?”
“He was devastated at first,” he said. “Then very angry for some time, but he used the anger to fuel his new writing.”
“He told you this?”
“Yes. You see, he did have more respect for me than some of the others who used their graduate student status in Ivy League schools to avoid going to Korea,” he said proudly. “We were both wounded in war, so he’ d pat me on the back when we spoke, which was rare, because he spent most of his time in Cuba and Africa back then. That was before his decline that led to his depression and . . . you know the rest.”
“Do you have any theories about the lost steamer trunk?”
“Not a theory, but from Papa’s lips,” he said. “Though he was a braggart and known for his bar fights and the like, he once said that they had been stolen for a reason.”
“Not just a paranoid delusion of a bitter man in decline?”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “Back from receiving his awards, he was quite focused. “It was a bitter joke to him. He thought Gertrude Stein had them stolen from him and destroyed them for his own good because they were immature and lacked what he was capable of writing.”
“If he believed that was true, was he angry at her?”
“He said he was mad for some time.” Baskins grinned. “He said that, in retrospect, if true, “Gertie” had done him a great favor. She never commented on his hypothesis and she died before he’d won the Pulitzer and Nobel. They hadn’t spoken in twenty-five years.”
“If someone did steal the trunk and his writings, did he ever make any effort to retrieve them? Inquiries? Detectives?”
“He’d joked that it was probably General Franco’s spies, hoping he’d give up writing and never be able to create For Whom the Bell Tolls,” he said. “He liked to joke that many Spaniards, though admiring him as an aficionado of the bullfight, resented some of his direct criticisms of individuals actually named in Death in the Afternoon.”
“He was being facetious, of course.” I nodded. “The missing manuscripts would’ve been written between 1917 and about 1920, before the Spanish Civil War and before his interest in bullfighting, though that was the background for The Sun Also Rises in 1926.”
“Yes.” Baskin nodded and took a deep breath. “Yet, there was the rumor that someone found the steamer trunk and offered them back to him for a ransom.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I believe a note came to him at La Coupole Café, one of those clean, well-lighted places in Paris he frequented in the 1920’s.” Baskin laughed. “Story goes that, with the publication of his first novel, Hemingway didn’t want to spoil his reputation with anyone’s knowledge of the drivel he’d written before he felt he’d
become a man.”
“He didn’t pay any ransom?”
“Certainly not. He joked that he might pay someone to destroy them.”
“Did he?”
Baskins rubbed his chin thoughtfully then cocked his head.
“You know . . . I wouldn’t have put it past him.”
“What if the person who stole the stories didn’t destroy them? Wouldn’t they be worth a lot today?”
My question put the old man into a trance for a few moments before he replied. “I’d be curious just to look at them . . . but yes, imagine Scribners, or any publisher would want those stories. My God! They’d be worth millions.”
“What if I told you an old steamer trunk was found with Hemingway’s initials on it, and it contained a manuscript of short stories?” Dumbfounded, he looked at me with amazement.
“I must see them!” he barked, frightening the dog, which broke from his grasp and cowered behind me.
“How about your son?” I asked. “Wouldn’t Junior want to acquire them? He works in Acquisitions at Scribners.”
“Sonny?” he said with a frown. “He doesn’t know shit from shinola. Publishing isn’t what it used to be. Little chance to find new talent in this century. Even the movie business is just remakes of the old stuff. They made great movies from all of Hemingway’s novels because they were original and showed the conflicts in the human condition, none of this digitally computerized nonsense when you know no one can really get hurt or die, not even a stunt man.”
“Can you arrange a meeting for me with your son?”
“Will you bring the manuscripts?” he asked, his eyes aglow.
“Arrange the meeting and I’ll do my best.”
“Sonny will come here tonight to check up on me and put out the garbage. “Kid down the street brings the cans back up to the house. “Comes at seven o’clock, just after my supper. At my age, the strongest thing I can drink is green tea, so you can join us for dessert.”
“Tea’s about my limit these days, too, Mr. Baskin.”
“Whom shall I tell Sonny is coming to show us Hemingway’s stories? Didn’t catch your name.”
“Tom Larkin,” I said, handing him the same fake dealer in Antiquities card I’d used earlier that day to speak to the woman who’d put the steamer trunk in her high-end Tag Sale. He strained to read my card, but nodded. “See you tonight,” I said, putting my fedora on again and tilting it for affect.
“Make it eight o’clock. Oops! I’m afraid Zelda just lifted her leg on your trousers, Tom.”
I saw that he was right, and remarked, “Unusual for a female.”
“Zelda’s really a male shepherd,” he laughed as I turned to leave. “Papa had joked that that Zelda liked to pee standing up . . . like a kid squirting other kids at the water fountain.”
I tried to erase that image from my mind, but wondered what I could bring to the table later that night to get Junior’s take on the value of genuine Hemingway manuscripts to a publisher.
I decided to ask my client, Sophia Trask, if I could borrow the steamer trunk as my token of credibility when I meet with sonny-boy tonight. I called her on my cell as I came south to Manhattan down the Henry Hudson Parkway.
“If you think it will help, you can take the trunk tonight. David won’t be here. Why don’t you stay for a late lunch,” Sophia suggested. “You can bring me up to date on our case.”
“Something of sustenance, I hope,” I said, recalling the watercress sandwiches on my last official visit. “I hope you have a non-smoking section.”
“I promise to be good while you’re here this time,” she said. “Don’t do anything to throw off your rhythm on my account. I should be there by four o’clock.”
“Should I pour your scotch on the rocks now, so it’s watered down by the time you arrive?” she asked with a twitter of laughter under her breath.
“I’m sure if you wait till I get there, you’ll have melt the ice with your radiance.” I said, without waiting for a reply as I hung up.
* * *
When I went through the security routine in the Trask Tower lobby to get to the penthouse, the guard gave me a look of disdain as he watched me heading for the express elevator. He stopped me at the metal detector, which I passed, but he saw the bulge that the jade dragon in my suit hip pocket revealed.
Taking it out and waving it in his face, I lied, “Mrs. Trask hired me to retrieve it from a suspected thief—mission accomplished.”
“She posted a ten-thousand-dollar reward in the paper,” he said. “Must be your lucky day.”
As the doors closed I said, “Gettin’ lucky with Mrs. Trask would be a bonus.”
When I got off at the penthouse foyer, a security guard greeted me, “Welcome back, Mr. Larkin. Mrs. Trask left the door open for you.”
“Thanks,” I said, waving the jade dragon in hand for him to see. “I’vecome for my reward.”
“Nice work, sir,” he said, as I placed the dragon on the same table I’d snatched it from. The streamer trunk was locked and standing on end ready for me to take it with me.
I nodded and pushed open the door, calling out, “Honey, I’m home!”
I saw the scotch in the tumbler still frosted with ice on the coffee table. Sophia came from the kitchen and carried a tray of jumbo shrimp and cocktail sauce. Her expression was scolding, as she nodded for me to follow her to the balcony patio where she poured herself a chilled glass of Chardonnay. She sat on a loveseat with her wine and the platter of shrimp on the glass coffee table in front of her. She patted the cushion beside her and nodded for me to sit beside her.
“Bring your scotch and take off your jacket.” I joined her with the cold glass in hand and my jacket over my shoulder. With a smirk, she asked, “And how was your day?” which made me wonder if she’s had a hand in my beating last night, even from a distance.
I took off my fedora and dropped it between us for protection — from what, I wasn’t sure. I loosened my tie, unbuttoned my shirt cuffs, and rolled them up twice on my forearms, which she seemed to admire.
“What’s with that goofy hat, Tom?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.
“I’m just going with the flow, hon,” I said, wafting the scotch before my nose. “The old-fashioned garb got me what I wanted.”
“What exactly do you want, Tom?” she asked with the tip of her tongue poised between her teeth.”
“Not a billionaire after my ass for screwing around with his wife while I’m on his payroll.”
“My payroll, too,” she said, moving closer.
“Hey! I’d like to oblige by giving you the heir you need to claim your Trask billion-dollar inheritance, but I’m sure hubby will require a match with his DNA to claim your prize,” I said, not backing away. “Besides, my blood is red, and his is blue by association—though it’s most likely billionaire green.”
“I was just playing, Tom,” she said, sipping her wine. “I’m bored.”
“I presume it’s Hey-boy’s day off,” I said, referring to her missing Asian houseboy. “So at least you got to boil some shrimp.”
“I ordered out from the Ritz Carlton,” she said without shame.
“Speaking of being on your payroll,” I said. “Not only have I seen no moola from you for my services, but I saw your add and retrieved your jade dragon for the reward. It’s on the table in the foyer.”
“My-my, you must have connections.” She sneered. “And with a variety of seamy characters, I imagine.” Again a reference to the two thugs who’d beat me up last night and left me in Great Bay to drown.
“My repertoire has expanded recently.” I said, thinking I should’ve worn my pee-soaked trousers instead of having them cleaned. I wondered if El David’s olfactory senses would’ve pick up the scent through all the filtered tar and nicotine from Sophia’s sneaked cigarettes usually sucked up by her houseboy.
“I’ll give you that ten thousand—cash,” she said, “but I don’t want to be exchanging money for your other assignment until you can verify the authenticity of the Hemingway manuscripts.”
I cocked my head like a kid asking if he could stay out late, so she went to the bedroom and returned with the cash.
“Sorry to make you part with today’s shoe allowance,” I said, but she just shrugged at my reference to the obvious.
Hanging out with the Trasks made me feel like I was playing a summer-long game of Monopoly, but I figured it was just a matter of time before I’d land on Trask’s Boardwalk or Park Place and end up broke—if not broken.
I tucked Sophia’s cash inside my jacket and bid farewell to the glass of scotch without so much as a snort.
“Shall I send some security guards up to help you with the trunk?” she asked as I paused at the door with hat in hand.
“Do I look that fragile?”
“Hardly,” she said, putting a hand on my forearm. I started to open the door. “Tom, I want to give you a thank you kiss for bringing back the jade dragon.”
Her lips were inviting, and my ribs ached from last night’s beating when I tried to take a deep breath.
“I’ll take a rain-check,” I said. “But only if you’re between hubbies.”
“Staying married to El David and bearing his son to run his business is my life’s ambition. That success is my objective.”
“I’ve always thought of marriage as subjective,” I said with a grin, plopping my fedora on my head with a tilt.
“You’re from a lost era,” she said, as I lifted the steamer trunk by one side handle and put it on the express elevator. It felt heavier than I expected but I figured my strength was sapped by a couple of broken ribs.
“Ain’t it the truth, doll,” I said, happy to leave Sophia, like the scotch, untouched.
I thought it would be wise to go to Upper Nyack early to get a peek at Junior on his arrival at his father’s home for dinner. To my surprise, I wasn’t early enough. Intending to pass the house and park the car in the parking lot at the park down the road and walk up, I saw a patrol car and an ambulance in the driveway. I turned around and parked on the street in front of the house.
There was a teenage boy with his mother talking to a police officer next to the flashing ambulance.
I walked up to the cop and flashed my array of law enforcement brotherhood IDs and said, “I was here earlier today and was invited back this evening to meet with Mr. Baskin’s son. What happened?”
“Mr. Baskin had a fatal stroke,” the officer said. “The kid mows the lawn and brings up the garbage pails. He went to collect his pay and found the old man dead in his wheelchair.”
“Has Mr. Baskin’s son been notified?”
“The boy’s mother spoke to the son on the phone.” He nodded to the woman with the boy.
“Will he be coming soon?” I asked.
“Not sure. The funeral director is coming for the body now on the son’s request,” the officer said.
“Do you mind if I have a look inside?”
“What was your business here?”
“Mr. Baskin wanted to see an old manuscript I have,” I said, seeing no harm in the truth. “It came from an era when he worked for the same publisher the son now works for, so it was just a matter of interest and a courtesy to the father.”
The officer nodded. “Make it quick. Baskin’s son told the neighbor to lock up the house.”
I went through the porch where I’d been earlier and entered the musty home. I saw the empty wheelchair beside a pole lamp. When I went closer, I noticed a damp footprint behind the wheelchair.
I assumed it was probably one of the EMT people crossing the front lawn before coming in to attempt to revive old Baskin. Then I noticed another footprint . . . and yet another coming from the kitchen at the rear of the home facing the river.
I followed the trail to the backdoor and saw the same tracks on the five wooden stairs, so I walked across the back lawn to taller grass between the lawn and the river. I found a path through the tall weeds made by one, possibly two people coming from the river.
I followed the path to the river that had rocks along the shore.
There was no dock for a boat, but the tide had receded recently, so at a higher tide a landing with a small boat was possible. Then I saw a scrape mark on one of the large rocks protruding from the river, which may have been used as a stepping stone onto the rocky shore. The scrape mark was fresh with white paint flecks from a fiberglass craft.
As I wondered why someone would bother to make such a landing, a stench from the nearby weeds made me gag. With my face covered with a handkerchief, I moved the tall grass aside and saw the body—Zelda, covered with green-headed flies and baking in the sun.
Despite the dog’s mistreatment and its age, it had attempted to stop an intruder and paid the price. I saw that the dog’s face was free of any flies, so I took my handkerchief and swabbed her nose. The flies buzzed in my face and swarmed like confetti. I waved the handkerchief in front of my nose and pulled my head back with the smell of chloroform. At least the intruder had the decency to euthanize Zelda. Someone knew about the dog and the home’s access from the Hudson River. I figured Junior wasn’t directly involved, but he may have sent someone to the house for something of value. Whether the old man died of natural causes or not wasn’t as much an issue to me as the motive to speed up the process.
I took out my penknife and scraped some of the paint flecks from the rock into my palm. I took a pinch of the white slivers and wrapped them in my handkerchief. I figured if I gave my information to the police, the house would be cordoned off as a crime scene and prevent my access later, so I kept quiet.
As I turned to head back to the house I saw something embedded in the dirt by a footprint. I noted the size and form of the footprint, different from those left inside the house. I dug the object out of the dirt with my index finger and blew the dirt off it. I put the object in my pocket outside the crumpled handkerchief con-
taining the paint chips and headed back to the front of the house.
“What happened to Zelda?” the boy asked when I came back to the cop.
“Who’s Zelda?” the cop asked. “Is there a wife?”
“The dog,” I said. “Must’ve gotten out after the old fella croaked. Out in the hot sun all day with no way to get back in, the dog died, too. With its master gone, the old shepherd’s better off.”
“I think it was his son’s dog,” the boy’s mother said. “He left the dog for his dad just to keep him company.”
I reasoned that that might leave Junior out as a suspect, but I preferred to meet him before making final judgment. I wondered if Junior would be back that night to meet me or send someone else with a stronger message.
* * *
Waiting in the park down the road, I wondered if Baskin, Jr. had spoken to his father by phone after I left the first time, and if he told him my name and business. If the old man said nothing before he died, Junior would have no reason to expect my visit or to send someone else as his second. From the park, I watched the water for any repeat approach by boat. I waited till the sun was going down before I made my way toward the house, hopefully, undetected. I worked my way back to the house in the shadows along the hedges of neighboring homes until I found a basement window to force open. The old cellar was dank and musty. Critters scampered along the walls with a wave of rattling among boxes in my wake toward the creaky open staircase to the first-floor kitchen. I’d seen no one approach the house from the water or the street, but probably no one had seen me enter.
I listened from the dark kitchen but heard only an occasional car in the distance. I pushed through the swinging kitchen door to the parlor where Baskin, Sr.’s wheel chair remained beside the pole lamp as before. I walked over to the wheelchair and sat in it. It was a comforting relief to I thought about the father and his past with Hemingway and wondered if anything could be gained by a trip to Paris to track down any leads on the rumors that Senior had mentioned about a ransom.
Without even a page of the manuscript to determine if it was a scam,
I had to rely on reasonably credible sources to determine the truth. I sat so long in the wheelchair listening to the hundreds of clocks ticking throughout the house as my oxycodone kicked in that I must have dozed off. My head hung with my chin to my heaving chest. Soon a swirl of images engulfed me till I saw myself as a young Hemingway so many years ago. Though I saw through his eyes, I heard my voice narrating the scene:
Winter’s chill cut through his tattered overcoat, and the vapor from his wine-scented breath crystallized in his dark, bushy mustache, something the fat, Jewish, lesbian advised him would provide more prowess as a man than anything he could ever put to paper. He half-believed her critique of his writing, though she was an obese, butch, Jew, which in his mind, obscured any intelligence she may have possessed to assess his burgeoning talent. His belief that a woman…is a woman… is a woman helped him dismiss her negative opinions as obvious penis envy.
At twenty-one, he believed his writing was true to himself and to the world. His crisp prose, simple and concise, hit his readers like a left-hook followed by a right-cross, which he told the fat hag, would knock his readers on their asses.
His self-assured posture did not impress her, so they parted with mutual contempt.
Weeks later at the Paris train station, he ground his teeth and chewed on his pipe, another prop for his asserted masculine image. He wanted to show her his latest work, a short story taken from his own experience as a teen, when a band local hillbillies had taken him on his first deer hunt. He felt it was the truest prose he had ever written, because his heart was in it.
He didn’t care if she would hate the subject matter of young boys with peach fuzz in their groins haplessly finding their way in the real world. Her criticism of his relentless machismo infuriated him then, and would haunt him long after her death, right to the final pulse in his head forty years later with 12-O buckshot in his brain.
His anger distracted him till the train whistle blew as it came into the station. He walked down the platform away from his meager possessions, two sets of clothes and a Webster’s dictionary stuffed in a satchel plopped atop his steamer trunk, too heavy for the wind from an incoming train to whisk off the platform.
He flinched, seeing, not Gertie, but her scrawny companion with a floppy hat. He nodded, and said her name, “Alice.”
She glanced at his worn shoes, an army issue from his ambulance driving days, but his best. She took full inventory of his presence and tich-tiched at his pipe and mustache, then informed him with the warmth an ice sickle, “Gertrude had better things to do today than to read your scribblings. Good day.”
Dismissed, he watched her disappear into the crowd on the platform. When he turned with disgust toward his luggage, only the satchel remained. Not just his latest short story, but also his life’s work so far, the only copies of a thousand pages of manuscripts he’d written over the past three years packed inside the steamer trunk all gone . . . every painful word . . . vanished . . . forever.
Well, he thought, nothing is forever . . .
When I awoke, it hurt just to blink my eyes. It was the buzz of my phone on silent mode moving along the hard wood floor that woke me. I flinched with pain when I leaned forward in the wheelchair to reach my phone on the floor. The pain in my ribs seemed like nothing compared to the contusion pulsing at the base of my skull. Still bound with tape around my ribs after being repeatedly kicked the day before, it was hard to reach back to touch the swelling where my fragile head sat on my stiff neck. No doubt I had a concussion from a heavy blow, with the metallic taste of blood dripping from my sinuses to my throat and making me vomit.
A crackling sound came to my ears as I tried to breath. It felt like sand in my nose, but more likely, it was minute bone fragments from the blow, this time meant to kill me.
I wondered what could motivate someone to attempt to get rid of me for good. Did they have something of value in their hands that they didn’t have before, and now made me worthless to them?
All I had was an empty old steamer trunk, maybe worth six figures to the right buyer, but nothing worth killing anyone over . . . unless the alleged Hemingway manuscripts were genuine.
If authentic, their intrinsic value would be priceless. But as fakes that mimicked Hemingway’s narrative, they could still be worth millions to a greedy billionaire like David Trask willing to boast about their authenticity. Rich men like Trask with political power could create their own reality and make public opinion accept it as fact. The biggest lies can become the new truth if repeated often enough.
Until I learned the real truth, someone could die over those manuscripts. When another body turned up, it could be mine.
I reached into my pocket for the plastic bag containing what I’d found in the tall grass beside Zelda’s dead body that afternoon, a half smoked cigarette, long and thin, like the brand Sophia Trask smoked secretly without her husband’s knowledge. Why would anyone want to kill the old man and his dog? What was in it for the Trasks? It was just a matter of time before someone else was murdered over the manuscripts, authentic or not, as I was reminded by old Baskin’s clocks, all still ticking and now chiming on the hour at 8 p.m. as Baskin, Jr’s car pulled into the driveway. Was I instore for answers or just more hurt? Time would tell . . . tick—tick—tick.

 
TRUTH... From the heights of a crumbling Manhattan skyscraper to a real estate magnate's tropical retreat, PI, Tom Larkin, seeks the truth about rare manuscripts found in a streamer trunk from the 1920's Lost Generation. Some believe the old manuscripts are worth more as fakes than as the genuine article, and will kill anyone who gets in the way. OR CONSEQUENCES From the high-end bidding of estate liquidators and antiques appraisers into
the jaws of death, Larkin believes the truth is to die for, but the man-eaters he encounters run the gamut from hot-blooded vixens to cold-blooded reptiles.
​
ISBN: 978-1-4363-3636-9
 

Time on His Hands
 by
John Frazee


The lines of light could have been drawn with a ruler, they were bright and razor sharp. Only the ageless dust which clouded the air could take the edge off those five o’clock swords of sunlight as they cut across the second row of bottles, the finer row of poison, but not quite the best. Shards of light were flashing on and off more frequently then earlier in the afternoon. Each blink meant one more body passing by outside, in the world of the suits. The rapid fire flashes could mean only one thing, it was rush hour for them and time for Georgie to get up and leave. You could always tell what time it was outside, if you sat on the same damn stool in the same damn place for the better part of your adult life, as Georgie had. You could tell by the sparse light infiltrating the blinds which hadn’t been adjusted or cleaned during his tenure there. You could also tell the time by the deliveries taking place, each delivery was announced by an explosion of sunlight through the front door like an enemy hand grenade, the mailman, the kid selling newspapers, and of course the beertenders changing shifts. The time of day therefore was never much of a mystery. Nighttime however was quite a bit harder to pin down, but if you wasted enough hours there the subtle changes were more easily interpreted. Except four AM, closing time always came as a complete shock. Even the time of the month was easy to keep track of. There was the vendor on the fifteenth, stocking the smokes and the so called toiletries machine in the crapper, then the guy who changed the forty fives in the old juke box and Tommy doing the books at the back table with his number twos and lots of erasers. On the first of each month they delivered the cocktail napkins and peanuts and then there was Wendy the waitress’s heightened edginess arriving on the same day each and every month. Whatever the day, time or year for that matter was, Georgie felt that getting up and leaving at that precise moment was the right thing to do. He would act out his pantomime of brushing himself off, straightening out his clothes, then stopping off in the toilet before departing for the day.
      Georgie first spotted the watch on the sink where a bar of soap would ordinarily be if he were in the home of a human being, or in an establishment frequented by human beings, but this was a public restroom in a bar, devoid of soap. He could not believe his luck. This was certainly a positive sign that things were finely turning around for him. Wanting desperately not to be yanked from his new found path to luck and prosperity he stealthily slipped the watch into his front pocket and hit the door running, his hands still dripping. Avoiding all eyes, his exit was simply punctuated by the tipping of his imaginary hat to the remaining crowd and Tommy, his host for the afternoon. It seemed as if hours had passed before Georgie worked up enough nerve to take the watch out of his pocket, which had become its temporary tweed vault, making sure he had not been tailed, for to hear those words he most dreaded, “Hey that looks like my watch,” shook him to the very marrow. He slowly but surely worked his way across town, which was easy to do if you were on foot, Georgie was always on foot. He tried to convince himself how fortunate he was not to own a car or to be stuck in a cab with the meter running, it was a good thing it was only himself he was trying to convince for his argument wouldn’t have carried much weight with anyone else. You can get clear across town without even stopping or missing a beat, the traffic was always so bad you could simply walk in between cars, even if one hit you, it would never be going fast enough to receive much more then a smudge and a dirty look Georgie could not recall ever finding anything before; he grilled his memory like a cheap detective over and over, questioning his knowledge of past events again and again  yet came up with nothing. He was preparing to play good cop, bad cop with himself when suddenly his interrogation jarred an old memory from the deep recesses of his mind. Cleaning off the cobwebs he recalled once at the ripe old age of twelve or so, while waiting for a light to change at the corner of Thirty Seventh Street and Lexington Avenue along with the usual business crowd of suits and skirts, suddenly a very well dressed man about three bodies down from him bent down to pick up something small and very shiny and slipped it into his pocket (exactly in the same smooth movement Georgie’s new found watch had experienced a short time ago). Now this gentleman of the smooth pocket move looked as if he had never bent down before, much less in the street. Twelve years of growing up on the streets of Manhattan were about to kick in and start paying dividends. Before the flap of the pocket had slammed shut on the mans suit Georgie started franticly screaming, “My ring, my ring! I’ve lost my ring!”  Now it is difficult to get the attention of a crowd o Thirty Seventh Street and Lexington Avenue but this was ridiculous, no interest in the plight of this tyke was shown at all, the drama classes from his street smart degree kicked in “My mother is going to kill me! I can’t find my ring!”

                         he screamed even louder  as his eyes scanned the curbs and gutters. Still no reaction, even by New York standards this was a hard hearted, rough crowd. The don’t walk sign on the opposite corner was starting to turn green, Georgie knew he had precious seconds left before his audience would depart, taking the suit with the jewelry with them. All the screaming, crying and pathos had failed to bring even a sliver of recognition. A lesser man would have given up, but not Georgie, in a last ditch effort, he ran up to and stood face to face with the man this entire escapade had been orchestrated for in the first place and in a scene worthy of  Oliver Twist, begged the man directly. “Mister, have you found my ring?” Seeming to have noticed Georgie for the very first time, the man replied “No, I just found this old cufflink.” That was as close to finding anything Georgie ever got.
The watch had really started burning a hole in his pocket by now. He ran into two of his old friends, feeling he could probably trust them and considering his desperate need to tell someone about this sudden dramatic swing in his once rotten luck, he related the watch story to both of them.
”Let’s see it”, said the taller of the two, “I have to be sure no one has followed me,” Georgie said. “Which toilet did you say you found it in?” the shorter friend asked. “At Tommy’s bar and grill over on Forty Second, across from the hotel.”  “A. goddamn tribe of Apaches couldn’t have followed you that far”, Shorty said. Shorty was practically the same height as Georgie, but he had made the mistake of hanging out with the wrong guy, his constant companion was a several inches taller and very thin. His friend wasn’t quite tall enough to be called “Stretch” so the monogram of  Shorty became mandatory for him. “Go ahead and laugh if you losers want to but at least my luck has turned around and things are finally looking up on my side of the street,” Georgie said with an attitude and confidence he had never before felt much less projected. Despite the risk of further mockery Georgie still looked up and down the street and quickly glanced behind his back insuring privacy before slowly, methodically removing the watch from its warm tweed vault. “Look at that beauty,” he said as if revealing photos of his first born. Slowly, carefully, almost regally, he slid the genuine leather strap to the hole which had already been broken in, it fit Georgie like an old glove. Trying to smell the leather, he glanced at the face for the fist time, the brilliant gold numbers sparkled in the sun, as the large letters TIMEX, glowed as if they were neon. This truly was the first day of the rest of his life. Shorty, apparently in awe, sensing the overwhelming magnitude of the moment said,
“Allow me to be the first to ask you, pardon me Sir, do you have the correct time?” With an air and arrogance Georgie snapped his wrist into position and curtly replied “It is a quarter after, my good man.”
​“A quarter after what?” his taller friend asked.
He could still hear them laughing from three blocks away. There was no hour hand on the turning point of Georgie's miserable life.

Death Calls Doctor Whitaker

By Sharon R. Hill


Death lingers in the bedroom where old Doctor Whitaker sleeps. It infuses the air with dread in a way that only the presence of death can. I think about opening the only window in the room that faces west with a view of the sunset. Like a child, I imagine that this will expel the threat.
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock sounds the generations-old grandfather clock, the metered sound is reminiscent of tiny heartbeats. The chimes repeat six times to announce the hour, reminding the living of a bygone day.
Doctor Whitaker is held hostage in a difficult slumber and his eyelids quiver in some erratic timpani, yet they remain shut. I sit by his bed in a stubby, wing-back chair of pale-blue velvet fabric with faded wood armrests. The stiffness of the chair aids me in my duty to stay alert, as I watch for the moment
that will complete the outline of a life.
With his wife long dead and the marriage childless, the responsibility of this days’ vigil has fallen to me though I barely know Dr. Whitaker. I accepted this burden because of my fondness for his housekeeper Sally who is expected at her family home today for her parent’s anniversary celebration.
In the silence of all but the ticking clock, verses from a poem lift in my memory to my consciousness “Can you say tonight in parting with the day that's slipping fast, that you helped a single person of the many that you passed?”
I notice a worn-out leather medical bag tucked in the open square of a simple, dark-oak nightstand. A wall calendar from a Memphis mercantile with a worldwide timetable hangs above to announce the month of May in 1935. In a daydream, I envision Dr. Whitaker as a younger man jogging along an old roadway of dust in his shay offering comfort to the sick. Yet he spends
what may be his final hours with a mere acquaintance, even a stranger. I wonder at the absence of visitors, including the children he helped birth and who will now be middle-aged with their own families.
I feel anxious when a pair of whippoorwills’ land on the garden fence as instinct compels their predictive chant.
A trembling left-hand begins an echo in each limb and Dr. Whitaker’s mouth begins to twitch. The thin blanket that covers him from below his neck and is tucked over his feet has shaken loose.
Dr. Whitaker’s face has an anguished expression as though he is in the throes of a struggle with an unseen foe. I understand that the foe he struggles with is time, as his strength of spirit continues the fight for life.

Three Short Prose Pieces

By Roy Dorman


THANKS FOR THE HELP


He had stayed over as he sometimes did when they were out late.


It was Saturday morning; she stripped the beds, changed all the towels, and gathered up the dirty clothes. With a basket each, they walked the three blocks to the laundromat, talking carefully and quietly about the argument they had gone to sleep with. The argument that had made it so painfully clear to her there were just too many differences.


When they returned, laundry done, she took his clothes, consisting of a pair of jeans, a couple of t-shirts, some socks and underwear, and folded them neatly into a small pile. She told him that, as with the bedding and the towels, she was starting fresh and it would be best if they didn’t see each other anymore.


Thanks for the help doing the laundry, she mouthed silently to his retreating back. To her chagrin, she saw the small pile of clean laundry he was leaving with as a symbol of how little he had brought to the relationship.










WE’LL ALWAYS HAVE THE GROCERY


He supposed it was fitting that since they first met in the grocery, they would break-up in the grocery.


After one coffee and then a week of not returning his calls, three of them, they met once more on Saturday morning in the produce aisle. He was deciding between broccoli and cauliflower, she was sizing the acorn squash.


Smiling, she asked how he was doing. Her eye contact, so direct, yet still gentle, told him their future together would consist only of chance meetings in produce on Saturday mornings.


He didn’t see how he could ever look at broccoli, cauliflower, or acorn squash again without a little stab of anguish. He decided maybe he’d move on to the frozen vegetable aisle; he might meet someone there.


But he hesitated. Somehow using the frozen food aisle as a meeting place seemed…., seemed so cold.








THE OTHER MAN


She kept back in the shadows and watched as his widow laid a single red rose on his gravestone. The rose in her own hand suddenly felt superfluous and she wondered whether it was a reflection of her status. Was she still the other woman?


Waiting her turn, she absently gazed at the surrounding area until her eyes came to rest on another woman standing alone in a group of trees.


The rose in this woman’s hand told her story -- another other woman.


When she looked back to where her lover’s widow stood, she saw the widow had noticed her. The widow beckoned to her, and she in turn gestured to the third woman standing by the trees.


The widow picked up her rose from his gravestone and the three of them left -- with their roses. At the cemetery’s exit, they unceremoniously dropped them to the sidewalk and moved on.

Boys’ Night Out

by

Gerald Arthur Winter


On the way to the racetrack, Uncle Carl told Jem, “You can’t make any money workin’. Jobs are for losers. Your Aunt Millie would kill me if I came to the racetrack every day. We could be rich, but that makes no difference to her. If you’re workin’ at some dumb job, women love ya. If you’re bein’ smart, they don’t trust ya. Go figure. You gotta look dumb just to keep the peace. That’s why I gotta sneak out to Yonkers Raceway to bet on the trotters, just to get ahead. Tonight will be our secret, boys’ night out.”
They arrived at the parking lot separated from the grandstand and clubhouse by the track. Only the horses’ heads were visible over the fence as they bobbed around the track in a warm-up heat. Jem could smell them even from that distance.
Mounted atop the grandstand, powerful lights simulated daylight on the trackand infield. Sparkling yellow lights spelled the names of the horses and their first morning-line odds on a huge electronic tote board.
Jem saw fat men with stubby cigars and skinny guys with squinty eyes all intent as bettors stared at their racing forms crumpled in their tight grips. They chomped their cigars and jotted notes, their attention jumping from TV monitors to tote boards to racing forms, as the odds changed on each horse before post time.
Jem thought that a trotting horse pulling a sulky with driver in tow was less graceful than a horse running free with a jockey on his back. Thoroughbreds raced when rich men of leisure strolled in the sunlight, betting and socializing with beautiful, classy women on their arms. Working-class men had to bet on the horses at night after the factories closed. That’s why trotters ran under lights.
“Too many bums in the grandstand,” Carl said. “Wise guys touting horses and tapping you for some bucks for the tip of the day. So-and-so is lame, a driver has been drinking, or he’ll throw the third race because he owes money to the mob. It’s just bull they’ve heard in the paddock, Jem, annoying when you need to concentrate. The clubhouse is where professional betters hang out where the action is. It ain’t perfect, but guys like us can win thousands right here every night big moola.”
Just a bare, concrete floor the size of two basketball courts, the clubhouse décor was no more than an open space with wire trash baskets. A few dozen men lounged against steel posts, studying their racing programs. Betting windows lined one wall facing the track. The opposite side opened to the outside clubhouse seats stretching down, like bleachers, to a railing hanging two stories over the
track. Beer and hot dog concessions lined both ends. The first race started in an hour, so the clubhouse was empty except for the hard-core gamblers who liked to arrive early. Decked in fedoras, those cigar smokers researched every horse and driver. They checked the track conditions and followed the sucker betting to weigh the final odds against the true probabilities. They listened to rumors and scuttlebutt while inspecting the horses’ gaits just before post time. They twitched, shuffled, shrugged, and scratched until their intuition gave them an answer. Then they bet a pre-calculated percent of their total kick on a confusing combination of possibilities only they could understand.
“Ya got to meet ‘Stubs,’ one of the most respected men at Yonkers Raceway,” Carl said, pointing to an old man wearing a Yankee baseball cap and Hawaiian shirt. Holding a cigar butt between his teeth, Stubs nodded to Carl and gave Jem a quick once-over as they approached him. Stubs was less than five-feet tall, a few inches shorter than Jem.
Stubs had a dwarf-like appearance and a high, nasally voice. “Who’sthe kid?” Stubs asked.
“My nephew, Jeremy, but we call him Jem, like a diamond in the rough,” Carl laughed, messing Jem’s hair.
“Ya like horses, Jem?” Stubs asked.
“Sure. Uncle Carl’s teaching me the fundamentals.”
“There ain’t no fundamentals. Either ya get it or ya don’t. Guys been here ten years think there’s good horses and bad ones. The suckers think they know the difference.” Stubs shook Jem’s hand.
Jem was shocked when he felt only a pinkie and ring finger on the little man’s hand.
“I whacked ‘em off with a meat cleaver when I used to be a butcher,”
Stubs said. “Good thing I don’t need ’em in this profession.”
Uncle Carl had already told Jem about the rumor that the mob had cut off Stubbs’s fingers for shorting them on a bet.
Carl winked at Jem and asked, “Who do you like tonight, Stubs?”
“Depends on who the moms and pops like.”
“You’re already learning, Jem,” Carl said. “The crowd changes the oddsby betting on one horse or another. That’ll change how Stubs bets at post time.”
“Maybe,” Stubs said. “Maybe not.”
“See, Jem,” Carl cautioned, “you’ve gotta know what you’re doin’,” Jem learned quickly. If Stubs knew a trick about playing the horses, he wasn’t telling them. Carl steered Jem toward the betting windows. The clubhouse filled with what Carl called, “Suckers from the suburbs and their hunch-betting wives clutching stolen grocery money.”
Like bank tellers with eye shades, the bookies sat behind barred windows, took money, and passed tickets to bettors, except when the milk-glass windows were down, which meant a race was in progress. Customers placed bets only between races. The suckers bet their hunches as soon as the windows opened after a race. The pros waited until just before post time to make sure they knew the final odds.
The array of possible bets was dizzying win, place, show, across the board, daily-double, exacta, and quinella. A bettor could bet a horse would come in first, second, third, or all three. He could bet the winning horses in the first two races, or the first and second horses in any race. What the odds paid varied for each bet. Combination bets of two horses or more paid more than betting on a single horse to win. Winning was more valuable than placing second or showing third. A long shot to win seemed like the most profitable bet to Jem.
“Long shots never win,” Carl said with a grimace. “That’s a sucker bet. Favorites usually win. The question is, what favorite will win which race? They’ll often make a horse look like a favorite by keeping the morning-line odds down on a horse that doesn’t stand a chance. Each race will look like it has two or three favorites running, when only one horse really has a chance to win.”
“Sounds easy to figure out,” Jem said.
“That’s why they mix up the field, dropping horses into a lower class or moving them up to a higher class. They’ll run a dry horse on a muddy track or mismatch a driver with a horse.”
“Is that legal?”
Carl smirked with a nod. “Sure it is. It’s gamblin’. They might talk up a horse in the news when it’s already dying of some disease. The tricks, the mix, and the variety of possibilities are endless. A handicapper considers all variables.
A sucker plays a long shot, maybe because the horse has the same name as his mother’s cousin’s neighbor. Suckers distort the true odds by being stupid. The handicappers wait to see what they’ll do then take advantage of the odds.”
Carl picked up two programs and studied the racing card. Jem couldn’t take his eyes off the well-groomed track. The horses running warm-up heats trotted gracefully in front of the clubhouse. The crowd in the grandstand below milled about expectantly before the first race. Jem thought the scene was like a state fair. As Uncle Carl had said, it certainly beat working in a factory.
Suddenly, an ominous shadow cast over Jem and blocked the light on his program. A big, fat guy loomed over Carl. The man was huge, paunchy not muscular, and easily weighed 350 pounds. The greasy-looking guy with him was big, too, but he looked small next to the fat man blocking Jem’s view of the woman behind him.
Jem stepped aside to look at her. Filing her nails, she chewed gum. Starbursts sparkled from her lips under the bright lights. Her dark sunglasses made her seem mysterious, like the Spider Woman from a Sherlock Holmes flick with Basil Rathbone. She wore a short, tight skirt with a revealing neckline. Jem knew she was what Uncle Carl would call “some piece,”
but Jem was still clueless, wondering a piece of what?
“Coney Island Carl,” the fat man said, addressing Carl with a moniker
Jem had never heard before. “Where ya been, pal?” Chubby asked.
“Chubby! What do ya say?” Carl returned, but seemed unnerved.
Chubby grinned, but maliciously, Jem thought. “Missed ya, Carl. Ya know what I mean? Missed seein’ ya.”
“Sure, Chub. How you doin’?” Carl stammered.
“Me? I feel light these days. A guy like me don’t like that light feelin’.
Ask Myra. She’ll tell ya. She knows when I feel light, it ain’t a pretty picture.”
“Yeah, I know, Chub. A couple more weeks should do it. Missed a few sure ones here and there, but I’m makin’ a comeback. You can count on me,
Chub. Honest, there’s no problem. You’ll get your scratch.”
Chubby leaned down until his sweaty face was close to Carl’s. “I ain’t havin’ no problem, Carl. It ain’t me that’s got the problem.” He saw Jem’s wide eyes staring at him and asked, “Is this kid with you?” He stared at Jem as if he were a delicacy on a menu.
Carl looked glad to have Chubby’s attention drawn away from him.
“He’s my nephew. Name’s Jem.”
Chubby’s face broke into a wide smile of yellow teeth like rows of
corn. “You a horseplayer, Jem?”
“This is my first time,” Jem admitted.
Straightening, Chubby placed his left arm against the back of the seats ahead of them. “It’s the sport of kings, kid. Horses are rich man’s game, just like Myra here, if you wanna ride the train, ya got a pay the fare. It takes dough to have the best. Ya gonna get rich playin’ the horses like your uncle, kid?”
Jem turned to Carl who was looking more nervous and turning pale.
“Say, kid. Here’s what I want ya to do. Take this thousand bucks.” He pulled out the thickest wad of money Jem had ever seen. “I want you to go to the betting area and find a guy named Stubs. Ya can’t miss ’em. He’s a skinny runt wearin’ a Yankee cap and a Hawaiian shirt.”
“I know what he looks like,” Jem said with false confidence.
“Good. Tell’m to bet this dough on the nose of Foolish Folly in the first race.” He peeled off nine crisp hundred-dollar bills from the wad and two fifties then stuffed them into the breast pocket of Jem’s shirt. “Hurry. And kid, just bet nine hundred and grab yourself a C-note, OK?” He smiled and ruffled Jem’s hair. Jem glanced at Carl, who nodded with a dazed look on his face.
“Go ahead, kid,” Chubby said. “Hustle. Ya don’t want to miss the first race. Put nine on that foolish nag. I gotta talk business with your uncle.”
Jem, taking the steps two at a time up to the clubhouse, looked frantically through the thickening crowd for Stubs. He found him exchanging money and slips of paper with tough looking guys in front of the bar. Despite his small stature, Stubs’ presence was commanding and his voice pierced through the clamor all around him.
“That’s twenty across on the six in the first, and three twenties on the five, the seven, and the nine in the third spot.” He turned and saw Jem.
“Whatcha starin’ at, kid?”
“I wasn’t staring. I was waiting my turn,” Jem said politely. “Chubby sent me.”
Stubs squinted at him. “Chubby? Where’s your unc?”
“Sitting over there.” He pointed. “Chubby says to put this money on the nose of Foolish Folly in the first,” he said, trying to act nonchalant as he pulled the cash from his pocket.
Stubs took the money, looked at it, then handed it back. “Tell that fat fuck that’s a window bet. Track’s odds only. No action here.”
Jem took the money back. “What’s a window bet?”
“The betting window.” He pointed behind him. “Ya got to bet that with the track. There ain’t no action on that horse with me. Tell Chubby to fuck himself.”
Jem thought these guys at the track were training him too fast. He didn't know why Stubs was angry or why people were betting with him when they could bet at the window. Jem didn’t want to tell Chubby ‘to fuck himself.’ If his mom ever heard him use the foul language he’d get his mouth washed out with Lifebouy soap. He didn’t like carrying a thousand dollars of someone else’s money either. He felt nervous about the situation. Uncle Carl seemed scared of Chubby, probably with good reason.
He thanked Stubs and returned to the seats where he’d left Carl. He considered telling Chubby he couldn’t find Stubs and giving him back the entire thousand dollars, but when he returned to the seats, Uncle Carl, Chubby, and that tough guy were gone.
“The horses are on the track for the third race,” the commentator announced. “Number one is Sunny’s Day out of the Hillshyer Stables, Juan Vega driving. Number two is Go for It, from the Rothman Farms, Willy Kates driving.”
Watching the horses come onto the track and trot past the clubhouse, Jem sat in his seat, wondering what to do. He figured he’d better stay put, or Carl might not find him. Still, he worried. Uncle Carl had never disappeared like that before. Since Jem was little, he spent a lot of time with Carl at ball games, camping, and fishing. Carl always stayed close to Jem. It wasn’t like him to walk off like that.
Jem wondered if Carl might be sick in the men’s room, but he didn’t want to leave their seats and maybe miss him. He sat there, watching the races and getting more nervous by the minute. Every few seconds, he checked his shirt pocket for Chubby’s cash, fearing the big man would smack him if he lost it. Remaining watchful, he kept expecting his uncle to return any minute.
Jem tried to distract himself by choosing a horse called All the Way and rooted it into a fifth-place finish in the third race. No one else expected that horse to win. When Jem shouted, “Go, All the Way!” two guys in front of him gave him the same kind of look they’d give someone who’d farted in a movie theater.
When the race ended, people threw down losing tickets and stood to stretch. They pulled out programs and prepared to bet the next race. Jem tried to calm down, hoping he was letting his imagination get the best of him. Maybe
he’d seen too many gangster movies, Bogey and Cagney. No one would hurt him, not my Uncle Carl, he told himself. Not having been to a racetrack before, he felt scared. All these tough guys were too colorful, but Jem knew he was acting like a little kid. Watch the races, he told himself. Be cool. Concentrate on the races. Get a grip! Read the fucking program. Shit! He was starting to sound like them in his mind. As he read the explanation page at the back of the program, a hand touched his shoulder. He jumped and spun around.
“Hey, kid. Where’s your unc?”
He was relieved to see Stubs. “I don’t know. He was gone when I got back. I’m getting worried.”
“He’s probably just in the toilet,” Stubs tried to reassure him.
“For over an hour? I left him here with Chubby and some other big guy with a black trench coat and messy gray hair all greased down.”
“That’s Lenny, Chubby’s muscle. Where’d they go?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come with me, kid,” Stubs motioned to the food stands. “They’ll turn up. Ya still got Chubby’s dough?”
Jem, nodding, patted his shirt pocket.
“Good. Come on. We’ll get somethin’ to eat. They’ll show up.”
“Don’t you think I should wait here? My uncle’ll come looking for me.”
“Nah. He’ll find us. They’re just havin’ a business meetin’. Ain’t none of our bees’ wax. Come on.”
Stubs turned, heading up toward the clubhouse. After the man took two steps, Jem knew he didn’t want to sit there alone any longer. He jumped over the back of his seat and caught up to Stubs in three strides. His short stature made Jem feel older and more confident as he walked beside him to the concession stand.
When they reached the hot dog stand, Jem noticed Chubby’s babe, Myra, standing conspicuously between two signs that read Mares and Stallions.
Jem tugged Stubs’ shirt. “That’s the lady who was with Chubby when he And that tough guy went off with my Uncle Carl.”
“Myra Lannigan ain’t no lady. She’s a workin’ gal. I’ll ask her if she’s seen your unc. Excuse me, Miss Lannigan,” Stubs said with sarcasm. “May I trouble ya with an inquiry?”
“Don’t waste my time unless yer serious.” She raised her eyebrows and peered over her sunglasses. “I’m workin’, and the meter’s runnin’, so if ya ain’t buyin’, blow.”
“Where’d Chubby take the kid’s uncle?”
“I ain’t seen Chubby or Coney Island Carl since Chub sent me here and told the kid to place a bet with you. Besides,” she leaned aside so Jem couldn’t hear, “Chub doesn’t tell me diddly. What ya know could hurt ya.” She moved her sunglasses slightly to reveal a puffy, purple eye. Despite her whispers, Jem heard every word. “This is what Chubby did to me for holdin’ back a sawbuck.
I forgot I’d tucked in in my bra. I’d’ve remembered later, but the blob groped me.”
“Let me know if ya see’m. The kid’s gettin’ spooked. I don’t want him runnin’ to the cops.”
“I’ll bet ya don’t, ya little weasel. I seen the wad Chubby gave the kid."
“Ya don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.” He took Jem’s hand and led him to the hot dog stand. “I knew there was nothin’ to worry about,” he lied. “She’s seen’m, but we musta missed’m. They might’ve seen ya with me and figured you were in safe company. After all, didn’t your unc bring ya to the track to learn? Jeez, kid, you’re lookin’ at the best teacher in the joint.”
“What do you do here?” Jem asked
“I never bet on horses. I bet on the bettors. They bet on the horses.”
Puzzled, Jem asked, “Why do they bet with you?”
“I beat the track odds. If a horse looks like he’s goin’ off at two-to-one, I might pay four-to-one. The big bettors make more money with me if they win. If they win big, they don’t have to visit the Uncle Sam window. That’s the tax collector. He’s got his own window. Ya win big, and he takes his cut right then and there. It’s a crime if ya ask me. If ya see me for your bet, ya get better odds, and ya never see Uncle Sam. Keep that to yourself, kid.”
“What if too many win and you lose?”
“I can’t lose. It’s ’rithmetic. There are always more losers than winners, more suckers than smart guys. When the smart guys try to hit me, I run ‘em off, like Chubby, sending that bet with you to distract me, figuring I’d take his bet with my guard down. Fat chance. He knew Foolish Folly in the first would blow away the field. If he wants to bet a sawbuck, I’ll give’m a ride, but he ain’t whackin’ me for no grand on a sure thing.”
As Stubs wiped mustard off his face with a paper napkin, a slick older man in a navy blue, pinstriped suit with a yellow tie approached them.
“How’s the beat, Danny?” Stubs asked. “You’re lookin’ good. What are ya doin’ in Yonkers? I ain’t seen ya at the track lately. Heard ya were bustin’ hookers for Manhattan Vice.”
“At sixty, I’m still fit as a fiddle.” He patted his stomach. “I’m looking for a guy who smacked around some workin’ girls on our beat. I’m not interested in gaming these days. I used to arrest businessmen like you, sane guys looking for an edge, or stick-up men who’d never actually hurt anybody. Now it’s all nut jobs, screwballs killing their own mothers just for spending money.”
“Ya oughta retire, Dan. Go to Florida.”
“Nah. I’m staying a cop until they toss me.”
“Say hello to my new friend, Jem, the nephew of Coney Island Carl Cestaro.” Stubs put his arm around Jem’s shoulder and moved him closer to the cop. “Jem, meet Lt. Dan Ryan, the best of New York’s finest.”
The big cop looked down at Jem with a great smile. He looked like a movie star certainly better than any TV cop on Dragnet or Racket Squad.
“Please to meet you, Lieutenant.”
“Don’t let me catch ya betting around here,” he warned Jem with the same winning smile. “How old are ya?”
“Almost fifteen.”
“Don’t let these bums take any money from ya. No betting till you’re twenty-one. If you’re smart, you’ll never bet. The only ones who make money are guys like Stubs. If I were in a bad mood, I’d stick him in jail. I’m tellin’ ya straight.”
“OK, officer,” Jem agreed shyly.
“Good boy.” He held out his hand.
As they shook hands, Jem heard the track announcer calling the horses for the sixth race. Stubs, becoming antsy, kept looking behind him past Ryan at some men making hand signals to him.
“Time to open the office, Stubs?” Ryan asked. “Go ahead, but if you see a mug around here called Chubby, a big, fat slob who beats up women, let me know.”
“I saw him,” Jem said. “He was with my uncle.”
“What was your uncle doing with Chubby?”
“Chubby came up to us and started talking to my uncle when we got here.”
“Where’d they go?”
“I don’t know. I can’t find them anywhere. I’m worried,” Jem admitted.
Stubs, slithering around Ryan, took bets quickly behind his back. Without looking, Ryan reached behind himself, grabbed Stubs’ shirt, and hauled him back in front of him. “What’s going on? What’s Chubby doing here? Why’s the kid’s uncle hangin’ out with scum like that?”
“Chubby tried to run a bet up with the kid. I went back to see what Chubby was up to ’cause I liked the kid and couldn’t figure out what he was doin’ with a crumb like Chubby. When I got there, Chubby was gone, and the kid was sittin’ alone and scared. I figured I’d keep an eye on him till his uncle came back.”
“What’s the uncle doing with Chubby?” Ryan asked again.
“He owes Chubby money, probably from bettin’ on other sports.”
“Great. Is there still trouble there?” Ryan asked.
Stubs turned his face away and whispered from the corner of his mouth, “I think Carl stiffed’m.”
“I see.” Ryan turned to Jem and smiled. “Don’t worry, Jem. Chubby only beats up women.”
“Gee, Mr. Ryan. The lady with Chubby sure had some shiner.”
“Myra Lannigan?”
“That was her name. Chubby sent her to find a couple guys named John outside the men’s room.”
Ryan grinned. “I’m sure I’ll find her there. Listen, son. Chubby picks on weaklings and women. He won’t hurt your uncle. I’ll look around for him and find him. You stay here with Stubs until I come back.”
“OK, Lieutenant. Thanks.”
“Keep an eye on him, Stubs. Show him why he shouldn’t bet. I’ll be back.”
“Sure, Dan.”
Ryan disappeared into the crowd. Stubs and Jem stared at each other for a moment. The little man looked worried. Jem saw it in his eyes. Stubs was nervous about something and trying to hide it.
“Let’s get another hot dog and let Dan worry about Chubby. He’ll find your unc. Let’s go.”
Stubs tugged Jem’s sleeve, leading him through the crowd. They bought soft drinks at the stand, then Stubs returned to business. Jem watched him take bets and money from rough-looking characters.
Jem thought about Uncle Carl. What a great guy. He never makes me feel like he’s the grown-up and I’m the kid. He never tells me what to do. He
shares personal stuff, like Aunt Millie nagging him about going to the racetrack.
He’s humble, too. If I ask him a question, he sometimes says, “I dunno. We’d
better look that up.”
Uncle Carl tells me how he screws up, then he asks my advice as if I’m the grown-up. His enthusiasm for planning fishing trips goes on for weeks.
If something’s more than I can understand, he’ll learn something about a new car, a new motor or power window, and save the article in his wallet for months, then he shows it to me with such detailed information as if he invented it himself.
Best of all, he’s a great listener. I tell him a story about a kid at school and ramble on. Sometimes, I forget he’s still there. I look at him, and he’s staring at me wide-eyed, hanging on my every word. “Wow, Jem!” he’ll say with much enthusiasm. “What happened next?”
But the moment Chubby had given Carl the evil eye, Jem knew his uncle was in trouble. But Jem was a just kid and didn’t know how serious a jam Carl was in. Still, he felt responsible for his uncle.
After Stubs finished taking bets, he took Jem to the clubhouse to watch the eighth race. The seats felt like the right place to wait, because that was where Jem last saw Carl. The horses already ran the first lap by the time Jem and Stubs got to the rail hanging over the track. They watched the trotters come into the clubhouse turn for the first time. They could see the entire track from there, as well as the crowd below standing at the rail in front of the grandstand.
Then an unusual movement caught Jem’s eye. Two men were running through the crowd, one after the other. Chubby pushed and banged into people as he plowed through the crowd, bowling people over with his massive weight.
Twenty yards behind, Dan Ryan bobbed and wove, trying to avoid trampling people. He held his pistol overhead aimed at the sky so he wouldn’t accidentally shoot someone.
Chubby, obviously desperate, reached the rail, rolled over it, and cut across the track toward the infield just as the pack of horses came by. Ryan stopped at the rail to watch Chubby trying to sidestep and weave around the horses and sulkies as drivers yanked on the reins in a frantic attempt to miss him.
Chubby dropped to his knees and curled into a ball with his arms over his head. The fifth horse, with sulky and driver in tow, couldn’t avoid Chubby and tried to jump over him. The front legs landed safely, but the hind legs caught Chubby’s head and shoulders. The sulky’s wheels cut into Chubby’s back and flipped the driver onto the track. Chubby tumbled wildly into the hooves of a horse that had already thrown its driver and galloped out of control with the pack.
The horse that tried to jump over Chubby lay on its side ten yards down the track with its head and legs convulsing. Chubby’s hulk lay motionless as the dust settled.
The other drivers slowed their horses into the next turn. The crowd ran frantically back and forth. Ryan slid under the rail and walked slowly toward Chubby as security guards jumped the rail and ran toward Ryan holding up his badge.
No one else violated the track, though spectators bunched along the rail and tried to see the carnage. Stubs and Jem stood stunned at the clubhouse rail high above the crowd.
“Jeez, kid,” Stubs groaned. “I never seen nothin’ like this.”
An ambulance siren howled in the background. With flashing lights, it cut through an opening in the backstretch fence. Two police cars followed with their sirens screaming at a higher pitch. All three vehicles raced around the track.
The commentator tried to calm the crowd: “Please hold your places, Folks, while the emergency crews do their job. There will be no more races this evening. Hold your places for a few minutes, so we can organize an orderly movement toward the exits. Thank you for your cooperation.”
Speechless, Stubs and Jem watched Ryan standing over Chubby’s obese corpse. Ryan spoke with several uniformed officers. Emergency crews surrounded the dead driver’s body while handlers, exercise boys, and veterinarians squatted alongside the badly injured horse.
Startling the crowd, a gunshot echoed throughout the track. Stubs and Jem flinched, and people at the rail below scrambled back.
The vet shot the horse in the head. Smoke from the gun billowed above the group assembled around the horse. When the spectators realized what happened, they turned back to look, and a wave of solemn groans passed through the crowd.
“Please move quietly toward the exits,” the track commentator said. “Racing is over for this evening.”
“Damn mess, kid. Unbelievable. Let’s get out of here.” Stubs turned away from the rail, following the crowd toward the clubhouse.
“How will I find my uncle?” Jem croaked.
“Dan Ryan caught Chubby. He’ll know.”
Stubs guided Jem down a rear staircase to ground level and out to the rail alongside the track with his arm on Jem’s shoulder the entire way. Jem felt the gruff little man’s kindness from his touch.
“Dan!” Stubs shouted from the rail. “I got the kid here. What’s goin’ on?”
Ryan looked up, waved, and walked slowly across the track toward them.
He looked tired but, when he saw Jem, he gave him his winning smile. “Has Stubs been looking after you?” he asked Jem.
“What a mess,” Stubs said. “Never seen nothin’ like it. Is Chubby a goner?”
“I found your uncle, Jem.” Ryan ignored Stubs. “I’ll take you to him.” He slid under the rail, stood, and put his arm on Jem’s shoulder.
“Where is he?” Jem asked.
Without looking, Ryan said, “Your uncle’s dead.”
Jem’s throat tightened, but he stifled his tears. His stomach felt empty, his legs weak. Without a word, Ryan’s grip tightened and he led Jem toward the paddock. Stubs groaned behind them, “Jesus.”
Jem didn’t want to cry. He stared at the ground with his eyes open wide. His head slumped against Ryan’s thick arm. Jem lifted his head with a jerk. Then tears flowed.
Ryan turned to face Jem and put both hands on Jem’s shoulders. Jem’s neck felt weak, and his head hung until his chin touched his chest. He watched his tears falling to the ground as Ryan gently rubbed Jem’s back.
When Jem’s sobs slowed to a sniffle, Ryan squatted in front of him and looked into his eyes. “Let’s go see your uncle,” he said in a deep voice. “You came here tonight just a boy, but now, you need to be a man.”
Straightening, Ryan put his hands in his pockets. “Are you ready?”
Jem, nodding, wiped his eyes with the backs of his hand. “OK, Lt. Ryan. Let’s go.”
Later, as they rode back to Long Island in a patrol car, Dan sat in front beside the uniformed driver. Jem sat in the back with Myra Lannigan. No one spoke.
To Jem, Miss Lannigan’s scent seem edlike Christmas and Easter candy wrapped in a colorful package. Lt. Ryan lit a cigarette and cracked a vent window while Myra powdered her nose and checked her swollen eye in her compact mirror. Ryan turned to offer her a cigarette, knowing that her hands, cuffed in front, confined her movement.
Jem stared out the window at the outlines of familiar landmarks. Something left him, as if he were watching a movie of his life, but the film was spinning off the reel in a tangled clump, leaving him with nothing but that ugly, vinyl-seated, cigarette-scented patrol car. His shirt and jeans no longer seemed to fit. He wasn’t just a kid anymore.
“I reached your parents, Jem,” Ryan said, breaking the long silence.
“They told your Aunt Millie what happened to her husband. I’m sure she’ll want to hear your account of tonight’s tragic events.” He glanced over his shoulder at Myra. “Just like I want to hear more about how Lenny managed to get away, doll. You lead me to him, and there’s something in it for you, maybe no jail time.”
“I told ya before, Danny. I was workin’ the clubhouse,” Myra said. “I didn’t see nothin’. Ask the kid. I wish you’d shown up sooner. Ya might’ve stopped Chubby before he slapped me around and gave me this damn shiner.”
“By the way, Jem,” Ryan said, “Stubs told me you got a wad of cash from Chubby to bet on the first race . . . Still got it?”
Myra inhaled cigarette smoke and held it, then she turned to Jem with eager anticipation. Jem stared out the window and didn’t flinch.
“Nah,” he said. “I gave it to my uncle right before he disappeared. Like you told me, Lieutenant, I’m too young to bet.”
He sensed Dan frowning at him though he wouldn’t face him. Myra exhaled smoke with pursed lips that slowly turned up with a smirking grin. She turned toward Jem, tipped her sunglasses, and winked with her good eye.
When they arrived at the precinct station, Dan and the driver got out, leaving Jem and Myra alone in the car. She wouldn’t be able to get far wearing handcuffs. She offered Jem a Chiclet.
Jem’s Uncle Carl came home from a night at the track with more money for Aunt Millie than Carl ever had in his pocket when he was living. If Jem could do anything about it, his Aunt Millie would receive that consolation for her loss.
Millie was ecstatic at getting the nine hundred dollars. Jem figured Chubby had given him one hundred bucks to keep for himself, so he split it with Myra, giving her a fifty.
“You know, Jemmy,” Myra said, with a sweet, breathy whisper in Jem’s ear and a gentle stroke of her hand on his knee. “Whenever I get this much dough, it ain’t ever to keep my mouth shut.”
Jem put his hand on top of Myra’s still on his knee. Her hand felt as smooth as stones he’s scaled across the brook last week, but as warm as the sunrays breaking over the horizon on a July morning with a glow of promise of new things to come . . . things for which he’d surely get a wink and a nod from Uncle Carl. Jem figured he owed him at least that.

​Author of the Month

Natasha D. Lane

The Pariah and the Ever-Giving Stone

Available through Amazon, Kobo and ibooks on March 22nd, 2018

***

Natasha D. Lane is a friend of most things caffeinated, a lover of books, and a writing warrior to her core. As a big believer in the idea that “the pen is mightier than the sword,” she graduated from Juniata College in 2015 with hopes of becoming a journalist. While she still holds on to that dream, after spending some time in the corporate world and then completing a year of service, she decided it was time to return to publishing. Her first fantasy novel “The Pariah Child & the Ever-Giving Stone” is one of several works she plans on completing. If there were a single piece of advice Natasha could give to young writers, it’d be this: Write your way through life.

***

When Sarah was four, she promised her mother she would be a good girl -- a proper young lady in their small country town -- and that she would ignore the creatures who appeared to her and whispered in her ear of things unknown. But like all creatures of myth and legend, they won’t be ignored forever.
Now thirteen, Sarah is attacked by a wolf with poisonous black fur and strange, human-looking eyes. With the help of a few unexpected friends, she manages to survive the attack but soon discovers the creatures have returned. They want Sarah to find a powerful gemstone and bring it to them in Lyrica, their magical homeworld.
Her new friends urge caution, however. There may be more monsters like the black wolf. And the creatures themselves are frightening. Can Sarah trust them? Stuck between reality and imagination, her mother’s wishes and her own desires, Sarah faces an impossible choice – break her promise or do nothing to save a world in peril.

***

To learn more about Natasha, visit http://www.natashalanewrites.com/
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Book Excerpt: “The Pariah Child & the Ever-Giving Stone”


Sarah opened her eyes. The land moved beneath her. The sound of crumbling rocks made the girl realize she was being carried. She looked to the right, expecting pain to pierce through her as she moved but none came. She turned her face upwards to see that Alexander was the one carrying her. His arms were wrapped tightly around her, and he held her close to his chest.
The vampire’s face was hard and steady, emotionless, looking straight ahead. Blood and dirt stained him head to toe. There were a few harmless bruises and scratches here and there. The only serious wound was a slightly gaping and bleeding gash on his side. Sarah placed her hand over the cut in a failed attempt to stop the bleeding.
The vampire looked down, his dark burgundy eyes lit up at the sight of Sarah’s own dark blue eyes staring back at him. A smile spread across his face.
“Sarah!” he cried with excitement and stopped his tread.
She smiled, glad to hear his voice. “Alex!” She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed herself to him, rejoicing in his strong arms that had become so familiar. However, Sarah’s joy was cut short when she saw who was walking beside Alexander. The child stared at Serwa, whose wrists and ankles were wrapped in chains. The witch wore a scowl on her face and her eyes blazed with an indistinguishable anger.
On either side of the trio stood a line of men, weapons in their blood stained hands. Four men at the back of the line held the ends of the chains that imprisoned Serwa. Sarah gasped and opened her mouth to offer words of comfort and question, but Serwa shook her head in mute communication.
“Keep walking, traitor!” commanded a vampire at the front. Everyone picked up their tread again, not paying any attention to the awakened Sarah. The child held onto Alexander even tighter.
She whispered to him, “Who are they?”
Alexander brought his mouth down beside her ear. “The Vampires.” Those were the only words he said. Fear gripped the girl’s heart. They had been captured. The very thing she had been trying to prevent.
Sarah watched as the group continued to walk toward a tall monstrous piece of mountain. From where she was, she couldn’t be quite sure, but near the very tip top of that rock there appeared to be a cave. Without even having to ask, Sarah knew that was to be their destination, their prison.
She looked past the men to her left. What she saw nearly made her want to pass out again. They were walking on the edge of the mountain. Below them were thousands of feet of nothingness. Just one false step and gone! As if they had never even existed. Sarah took a deep breath and turned away from the bottomless abyss. Her eyes scanned the men surrounding them. Four to the back, two on each side, and one in the front. That made a total of nine enemies.
Daddy always said jumping was the wussy’s way to fight, Sarah thought, despite knowing her father’s rules did not apply in Lyrica.
The group continued their march until the cave came into clear view. Immediately Sarah had a sinking feeling in her gut. The cave was dark and moist with water dripping from the ceiling accompanied by a foul smell that Sarah couldn’t point out. It was a strong odor that went beyond the simple stink of trash. She knew her nostrils would not forget it any time soon.
As they entered the cave, Sarah felt Alexander’s muscles tense; she patted his shoulder, attempting to reassure him even though she couldn’t reassure herself.
After several minutes of darkness, there was light from an opening ahead. As they approached the light, Sarah could feel Alexander’s heart begin to race. The closer they came to the light, the faster his heartbeat. Soon strings of laughter could be heard. It sounded like a party. Curiosity nagging at her, Sarah looked up and stretched her neck out in an attempt to see around the corner. With just the right amount of force so not to hurt her, Alex pressed her head back against his chest.
“Shhhh,” he said hoarsely.
Finally, they stepped into a large lighted room decorated with tattered banners and full of people. People, Sarah knew, who were not people in the same way she was a person. As the group entered the room, the laughter died. The vampire leading them bowed while his followers crossed their left fist over their chest. Then he stepped aside, revealing Alexander to the crowd. A hush fell over them.
Staring ominously down at her and her friends from a pair of thrones were two vampires: one female, one male. They rested smugly atop their stone thrones with smirks on their faces. The woman was tall and so thin that her cheekbones protruded through her skin like the jagged rocks on the side of the mountains. She was very pale with big dark eyes that seemed to hold little to no white in them. She had thin pulled lips and long skinny skeleton fingers, and she wore a floor-length black robe with red trim. Her hair was pulled back into some intricate type of bun, held in place by long pins. Oddly beautiful and very intimidating.
Beside her was who Sarah thought to be her husband. He was as tall as the woman but had more muscle and long, brown hair pulled back into an elegant ponytail. The man was pale as well, but his eyes were a lighter brown. He was clean-shaven with a strong angular face, wide shoulders and a curious smile. He wore the same colors as his wife, but with pants and a shirt underneath his robe.
Alexander’s heart was really going now. Sarah’s hold on him hardened. They both needed the physical contact.
Around the room, which Sarah could now clearly see was built like a tower, were vampires resting in small balconies which traveled all the way to the very top. Everyone was silent.
Finally, the woman on the throne stood, her smile bright as the sun and sinister as a snake. She swooped gracefully down the set of stone steps leading from her throne to the ground. She steadily walked toward Alexander, her smile never fading.
The same foul smell that filled the room poured off the woman in waves. She reached a hand out and stroked Alexander’s face. When he didn’t respond, she consumed him in her arms, crushing Sarah between them.
“Oh, Alexander, my son, it has been too long.” Her voice was light and smooth.
“Mother,” Alexander replied.
Sarah gaped. She looked between Alexander and his parents, searching for some resemblance, for an answer. Alexander only responded by holding Sarah closer to him and positioning his arm to create a barrier between her and his mother.
The woman grinned. “Always the wise warrior. Never trust your enemy. We taught you well.”
Alexander was silent. The King crossed his legs on his throne.
“You are in a strange situation, aren’t you, my son?” His mother held his chin in hand, before circling him. Her eyes scanned him from head to toe. “A traitor to your people, you swore to never return here, yet look where you are. Now, Alexander, you know as well as anybody that right now you should be decapitated and fed to the dogs.” She stopped in front of him and clasped her hands together. “But you still stand here, breathing and alive. Aren’t you curious as to why that is?”
He said nothing. She shrugged. “Well, I’ll tell you why, Alexander. It is because through much persuasion we have won you another chance. You have been excused of your crimes.”
Still no response, not even a mumble. His mother continued with a smile and grabbed his face in her hands again. “Are you not happy, my son? We’re not going to kill you.”
“I don’t care,” he said coldly. “Dead or alive, neither matters to me.”
The smile faded. The Queen’s face twisted into a grimace, and she swung her left hand out in a command. Four guards pulled Serwa forward. The witch growled in pain as the translucent dark metal chains dug into her flesh. Alexander glanced at her, and Sarah could feel his muscles flex.
Serwa glared at the woman and the man on the throne. The Queen smirked and walked over to the witch. “What about her? Does it matter if she lives or dies?”
“Leave her alone,” he said his face stoic.
“I know how much you love witch’s blood, Alex. So sweet and full of magic.” The Queen took one long ghastly fingernail and pushed it ever so slightly into Serwa’s throat. A drop of blood pooled on the Queen’s nail. She licked it away with a snake-like flick of her tongue. Then, she grabbed the witch by her hair and shoved her to the ground.
“Serwa!” Sarah pushed from Alexander’s hold and ran over to the witch.
“Sarah,” he hissed as she left his arms.
“Are you okay?” Sarah asked.
The witch turned and looked at her. There was a bruise on her forehead with trickles of blood dripping from it.
“Stupid girl. You should have stayed with Alexander.”
“But I –” The words struggled to come out of her mouth as she realized she had placed herself at the Queen’s feet.
The woman stared down at Sarah. “Oh, I almost forgot about you,” she said, turning her sights toward the redhead.
Sarah’s heart stopped.
She turned and watched Alex’s mother, whose smile was now gone. The woman gestured for Sarah to stand. She looked at Alexander. He nodded slowly, his face full of strain. Sarah stood and faced the woman who turned to the guards. They immediately pulled Serwa and Alexander to the sides of the room so Sarah stood alone. Alexander thrust himself toward Sarah, but the men held him down as he struggled.
His mother walked around the child with a curious eye.
“Tell me, child, who are you?”
“My name is Sarafina,” Sarah said and out of habit added on, “ma’am.”
The Queen raised a brow. “So after I have captured you and your companions, brought you to my home by force, chained and hurt your friends, you still show me respect with title?”
Sarah gulped and nodded. “Yes. My parents raised me right.”
“Mmm,” the woman said and tapped her chin. “Raised right or raised weak?”
“Right, ma’am,” Sarah replied, the words clear and steady.
The woman nodded, a sly grin creeping back to her face. “Tell me, Sarafina, do you know who I am?”
She shook her head.
“I am Queen Isabella, and my husband is King William of the Alclian Clan. Now tell me why you, my son and the witch have come to my land?”
“I think you have my other friends, and I need them back,” Sarah said as she puffed out her chest.
A melodious cackle broke from the woman’s lips. The crowd of her followers took suit and laughed along with her. Finally, she said, “And who says I have whoever you are looking for?”
“People.”
“Like who, child?”
“I don’t think that matters much, ma’am. I know you’ve got some of my friends, and I want them back.” Sarah was trying her hardest not to be afraid, but the woman looked down at her like a monstrous giant that could gobble her up at any moment. She had become Gretel and Queen Isabella the forest witch.
Sarah tore her gaze away away and balled her fists. She thought of Skuntz and Gan. The old elf had given Sarah the bow because she believed in her. She couldn’t let Gan down now.
The tall thin woman continued to circle Sarah, playfully twirling her fingers through the girl’s red hair. “And what if I said no? What then?”
Sarah’s heart was beating fast now, still her voice did not falter. “I’m going to get my friends.”
The Queen grinned. “So determined aren’t we? Strong willed. How adorable.” Giggles spread through the crowd, mocking Sarah. She felt like she was on the third grade playground all over again.
“Now, before we get to the friends you think I have, let me take a guess,” the queen spoke, interrupting the child’s thoughts. “Alexander probably told you a tragic story of how his brother died, their last words to one another and went on to explain how he became a wanderer? Am I correct?”
Sarah sucked in her lips and sealed her mouth. The Queen shrugged. “Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Alexander didn’t tell you all of it. He left out a few details. The very details that would make you realize how his father and myself are the real victims.” She took a breath.
“You are probably under the impression that the witch and my son are lovers, correct?”
Sarah remained mute, though a bright blush crept into her cheeks.
“Now that’s just cute.” The Queen smirked. “Well, before she had Alexander, she was the lover of his younger brother, my second son, Abel.”
Abel. Alexander had barely mentioned him, and Sarah made it a point to never bring the topic up. The vampire’s eyes always became a little glassy when he talked about his brother.
“Abel,”-- Queen Isabella began to stroke the girl’s hair,-- “was a good warrior. Agile, fast, strong, merciless. And then all of sudden he became...weak, sympathetic, feeling and connected to his prey. The change was subtle though obvious after time. My little boy. He would lock himself in his room for hours, go out on lone hunts. He was another person completely. So, one day, like any loving mother would do, I ordered his older brother, Alexander, to follow him.”
“Stop,” Alexander whispered, still in the clutches of the vampire guards. “Don’t tell her.”
“But why not, my son?” said King William speaking for the first time, his voice deep and thick. “Isn’t honesty one of your new beliefs? If you value your flame haired friend here so much, tell her the truth.”
“Father,” Alexander breathed heavily, “Do not mock me.”
In one moment the King was by Alexander with his hand around his neck. “No, do not mock me, boy!” The words came from his lips like acid. The king tossed him back and Alexander’s head hit the stonewall. His eyes became unfocused and unsteady. They glazed over, and he stared at his father with nothing in his gaze.
Sarah cried out and ran toward Alexander, her arms outstretched. Before she could reach him, a guard had snatched her up. He held her arms pinned behind her back.
Sarah gasped in pain as his grip tightened, stretching her muscles too far. The guard smirked.
“Now, my child,” the Queen grinned at the redhead, “Let me finish my story. You are a good little girl, aren’t you? If not, I may have to teach you some manners.” She waved her finger at Sarah.
“No,” Sarah snapped. “Alex is hurt. He’s going to die.”
Queen Isabella rolled her eyes. “So dramatic. Listen, or you’ll end just like him.” Again her voice had become stern and harsh.
“He’s your son!” the girl screamed. “How can you –”
“Sarah,” Serwa’s voice cut through her tantrum. She pronounced each word while widening her eyes at the girl. “Listen to her. Alexander will be fine.”
“B–” Sarah began.
“I said,” the witch’s eyes flamed their golden brown, “listen.”
Sarah gulped.
The Queen cleared her throat. “As I was saying, Alexander followed his brother only to discover that our little Abel had a love! A love named Serwa, who had not one single drop of vampire in her. He had fallen in love with his meal. Apparently, he found her on one of our family hunts, and for whatever reason, he did not kill her. When Alexander saw them together, he immediately came back and reported to me. My son was planning to elope with the witch. I couldn’t believe it, so I arranged for her to be captured as the
prey for one of Abel’s classes. He did exactly the opposite of what I thought he would do. When it came his time to kill, and she was presented to him, he couldn’t do it. Do you know what he did instead?”
Sarah didn’t answer. She watched Alexander from her peripheral vision. His eyes were still vacant.
“He saved her. He saved her like she was one of our own. So, of course, he was punished then he died in our last clan war. I would say he died like a true vampire, but no true vampire would fall in love with his dinner. Soon after, Alexander fell into a depression over his brother’s death. He began to show the same symptoms as Abel. Lone hunts, isolation, very quiet, you know. And then he just left, gone without a word, only a single-page letter for his mother to cry over. Now do you see?”
Sarah still watched Alex. She wiggled her fingers and rocked on her toes, anxious to be by his side.
“I said do you see, child?” The Queen moved in front of her.
Sarah snapped her eyes away from Alex and gazed up. “See what?”
The Queen frowned. “How I am the victim. Because of this vile wench, I lost two sons. My clan, lost two princes and two future kings. My husband and I grieved for years. And now the only son I have is back, yet he won’t even greet me with one sliver of love. I am the true victim here, don’t you see?” She moved down close by Sarah’s face waiting for a reply, nodding slightly to herself and eyes wide in expectation.
“Actually, if you think about it Alexander is the reason Abel is dead,” the King spoke to Sarah, though he did not look at her. “If he had never told on his brother, Abel would have run off with the witch and avoided both the punishment that weakened him and the war that killed him. Turns out it was the same day he planned to run away with her. However, we all, especially Alex, forced him to fight.”
“Yes,” the Queen nodded. “Do you see? Do you understand, child?”
Sarah forced down the ball in her throat. She hated lying; her parents hadn’t raised her to make it a habit. Still, beyond all that, her parents had raised her to be loyal. She wouldn’t betray Alex.
She took what she thought would be her last breath.
“No.”
All signs of playfulness fell from the Queen’s face. She placed a hand on Sarah’s shoulder and squeezed. Her eyes grew very dark, and her skin seemed to crawl.
“Well, then, I guess there’s no point in keeping you alive.” The Queen released the girl’s shoulder and raised her other hand, revealing nails that had grown several inches long. Her hand came down fast.
Sarah closed her eyes and felt a chill travel up her spine followed by a strange feeling of relief.
“Look at her Sarah. Do not be afraid to look,” the mist creature’s voice came to her again. Sarah opened her eyes. And just like that the Queen’s attack came to an abrupt halt.
“Your eyes have changed.” She stared at the child for a moment and then pulled her hand to her side.
“I thought without the stone you held no power. How does it live within you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sarah said.
“Perhaps, the story is true… You may be of some use to us.” The Queen turned to her guards and nodded at Alexander and Serwa. “Take them away.”
“No,” Sarah shouted and moved toward Alexander. He remained limp with his eyes clouded over. The guards pointed their weapons at Sarah. She ignored them and moved Alexander’s head onto her lap. Blood ran and stained her skirt. She pushed the hair from the back of his skull, but there was no wound for the blood to flow from. As she reached down, she saw that her hands, too, were covered in lines of blood. So were her arms and legs. She looked up at the guards, hoping maybe one of them could explain where the blood came from.
They only smiled at her cynically. She turned to the Queen who was already walking over to Sarah with a mirror in hand.
The woman bent down beside Sarah and frowned. “Oh, my, dear what did you think was falling from the tunnel ceiling?”
“W-what?” Sarah managed to say.
Queen Isabella shook her head. “Sometimes we like to use our meals as decorations.” She showed Sarah her own reflection.
In the mirror was a girl painted from head to toe with blood that was not her own or Alexander’s. Sarah reached one hand out to feel the glass, to make sure it was real and not some sort of illusion. The glass was solid; the girl’s eyes grew wide in the realization. An evil cackle broke from the Queen’s lips in unison with Sarah’s scream.
​

The Woman

By June Ti 

The homesteader did not understand what she’d done wrong. Whatever it was, her husband was angry. He’d become the feared actor in a horror flick, a lover whose vulgar contempt chills his subordinate to the bone. He viewed the woman as vile, a rat to be expelled, especially after losing her job. She was as afraid of him as of the strange men who had watched her all summer sawing, and splitting, and piling next winter’s fuel, who took pictures of her swinging an ax, who masturbated in plain sight.
On this August morning, hiding from the husband behind a tool shed, between rolls of barbed wire, she waited to hear him leave for work. He knew she was there, for the horses poked their noses over the fence at her.
The woman had her own work, beginning with rebuilding the firewood lean-to. Prowlers had sledgehammered it just hours before, by moonlight. There’d been a thwack and another and the rumble of her neat stacks tumbling.
Although the husband had dashed outside one night with a two-by-four, he left it up to the woman to defend the property. It was, after all, her fault. With police making up stories, unwilling to help, the woman had tried, and failed, to stop the gang by herself.
She also failed at something else—to get the tall lean-to back up that afternoon, a two-person job, and worried excessively about the husband’s wrath upon his return. She hoped his roving eye would keep him away until late, but he came home early and ripped into her.
When his conniption was over, while she was washing the dinner dishes, he said, “The kids and I will be at a hotel this weekend. There’s a concert. You’ll be fine.”
The woman knew, in truth, what her husband’s stoic expression meant. She knew he’d smile as soon as he looked away, for he always smiled after delivering upsetting words. The fact was, he hadn’t been to a big city or a concert in over twenty years, and wanting to go now, with the farm under attack, was no coincidence. And for him to take Friday off when he worked through celebrations, even their wedding day, was no coincidence either. So it wasn’t paranoia that told her he hoped she’d be killed on the weekend, alone in the firs. He wanted her gone for bringing chaos to their home. He’d been plenty clear about that.
Kissing the children goodbye that warm Friday morning, wishing them fun in the city, the woman got busy with chores. The soil, and shovels, and gardens were prized; the woman was proud, living honestly in the bush. But this day felt different, like waiting to be executed. She thought about how a husband should not give his wife to brutes.
When the prowlers came early, double the number, along padded-down footpaths, the woman presumed she would not live much longer. Yet, she wouldn’t have left if there’d been a thousand, at least not at first. The livestock had been solace and sanity when it seemed the whole world hated her. To each animal she owed a debt of gratitude.
From her window seat atop a washing machine, the woman watched the horses trotting nervously up and down the gate in anticipation of being cornered and clubbed. She had not got the dogs inside in time, for the men always came after dark, except for this evening, and now the dogs were frantic, unwilling to come in, unable to protect their home from a swarm of predators.
She watched a man on the sundeck jump on a picnic table she’d built for the kids, and from there jump to the sundeck rail, and from there to the roof, pulling a wisteria vine down as he clambered. She wondered if he could fit in the chimney and what he was doing up there, if others would throw gas cans to him.
Crawling under the windows, from room to room, a magical spot eluded her—the one not to get shot in, the one to disappear in, the one with an uncut phone line. She realized the hunters were playing: thumping the walls, and rapping the windows, and jiggling the doorknobs when they could smash a glass door and step in.
Hearing the hosepipe running, the woman screamed at the thought of another hen being drowned, of cats being drowned, and the man on the roof whistled and stomped. She screamed as loud and long as she could, hoping someone would save her. But she’d bought the place because of the forest. The silence had been a religion to her. No one would notice.
Cursing herself for leaving the truck in the orchard, they’d caught her off-guard, collecting windfalls; so she crept inside a cupboard to see if a claw hammer could rip the floor up and drop her into the crawlspace. Then she heard the men in there too.
With a farm mutt now yelping, thoughts of retreat evaporated. The woman, who was going to die anyways, crawled to the nearest door, put her mouth to the crack she bared, and pleaded for the dog to come. When a black snout appeared, she grabbed it and hauled him in, fastened the deadbolt, and dragged her friend into the bathroom. Wrapped in towels, he looked at her and stopped breathing, only to begin again.
They sat together on the bathroom floor while lines of men slapped the frosted pane with their palms. Examining the blade on her pocketknife, the woman imagined tearing to the truck with King on her shoulder. She imagined piercing the face of whoever grabbed her, and tried to find the courage.
Hesitating, and despising herself for it, the moment of reckoning came and went. There’d be no getting away. The men, proving themselves to be lock pickers, were telling jokes in the house. They were on the roof, in the crawlspace, at every wall, at every window, and in the kitchen.
Placing one hand on King’s lovely head, the woman stared at the knife again, relieved that it was long enough to slice far into a heart. She poked her chest hard, and again, and again, making a blood map through her pink cotton blouse. She practiced all night and through the first glimmer of dawn, prepared to fatally stab herself when the time came. She thought about her bareback rides along the lake at sunrise, until she’d done something wrong to make the countryside unsafe, and prayed her old horse was okay.
In the brightness, the men were quickly leaving. The game was ending, and she waited to be taken, waited for the moment to stab her heart. She watched a man-shape descend a tangle of wisteria vines by the window, for the plant engulfed the house, and wondered if he would be the one to open the bathroom door, wondered if more men were on the vines. She listened to cars crunching on gravel, retrieving the men, readying to whisk her to the butcher they’d promised. But the car doors banged, and the crunching faded. The gang was gone, but not really. Some would be in the firs, and some would be driving by, as always.
The woman with a bashed-in dog sat on the bathroom floor until the silence she loved revived her enough to consider the horror of what her husband would do if anything was broken.
Confused to be untouched, and surprised to find the kitchen as neat as she’d left it, the woman was forced to replay the night in her mind, trying to—hoping to—make it a dream. But her shirt was ripped and she was wounded.
Still clutching the knife, the woman dared to go outside, where she stood among the hazelnut trees, unable to think straight—unable to think at all—as she gazed at the aftermath.
Pulled-off siding from the tool shed lay in jagged pieces in the grass, and paint was spilled on the porch. The old horse looked dead on his feet and the other dogs were missing. She wished the men had taken her.
Cleaning up and fixing up as best she could, the woman wept as she’d never wept before. Burning her bloodstained clothes in the woodstove, and the dog’s bloody towels, she tried to make it all look fine. She considered life without her kids, leaving them with a miserable father. So she stayed.
As soon as the husband got home, he tore into her for letting the men take over while he was having fun at the concert.
“I couldn’t help it,” she said. “There were so many.”
The husband stopped speaking to the woman. He did not want to hear what happened, and he did not want her to eat, or talk, or be seen, expecting that his loathing would make her bolt. But she couldn’t. Not even for an hour. Not yet. Not empty like that.
Her spirit left when the men came in the kitchen. Or maybe it was her soul that cast off. It was a sensation from the heart, of essence flying, vacating its shell, a surreal feeling of being hollow but alive. She could only speak in a whisper. Every noise made her panic, and she stopped sleeping.
After one full moon, sick from something, the woman did go. Opening the vegetable garden gate, she stumbled her way to the red plastic tub that held her peach-tree seedlings, dumped it, and keeled over. Grieving for all she was about to lose, she wondered if the seedlings would die and wondered if all her hard work had meant anything. Rolling the tub to her big truck, she stood on it, slowly pulled herself up to the steering wheel, and drove off, unwilling to put the children through her final decay, tired of being despised for whatever she’d done wrong.

A Letter to Santa
 
By Mark Twain
 

Palace of Saint Nicholas in the Moon
Christmas Morning

 

My Dear Susy Clemens,
 

I have received and read all the letters which you and your little
sister have written me . . . . I can read your and your baby
sister's jagged and fantastic marks without any trouble at all. But
I had trouble with those letters which you dictated through your
mother and the nurses, for I am a foreigner and cannot read English
writing well. You will find that I made no mistakes about the things
which you and the baby ordered in your own letters--I went down your
chimney at midnight when you were asleep and delivered them all
myself--and kissed both of you, too . . . . But . . . there
were . . . one or two small orders which I could not fill because we
ran out of stock . . . .
 

There was a word or two in your mama's letter which . . . I took to
be "a trunk full of doll's clothes." Is that it? I will call at your
kitchen door about nine o'clock this morning to inquire. But I must
not see anybody and I must not speak to anybody but you. When the
kitchen doorbell rings, George must be blindfolded and sent to the
door. You must tell George he must walk on tiptoe and not speak--
otherwise he will die someday. Then you must go up to the nursery
and stand on a chair or the nurse's bed and put your ear to the
speaking tube that leads down to the kitchen and when I whistle
through it you must speak in the tube and say, "Welcome, Santa
Claus!" Then I will ask whether it was a trunk you ordered or not.
If you say it was, I shall ask you what color you want the trunk to
be . . . and then you must tell me every single thing in detail
which you want the trunk to contain. Then when I say "Good-by and a
merry Christmas to my little Susy Clemens," you must say "Good-by,
good old Santa Claus, I thank you very much." Then you must go down
into the library and make George close all the doors that open into
the main hall, and everybody must keep still for a little while. I
will go to the moon and get those things and in a few minutes I will
come down the chimney that belongs to the fireplace that is in the
hall--if it is a trunk you want--because I couldn't get such a thing
as a trunk down the nursery chimney, you know . . . .If I should
leave any snow in the hall, you must tell George to sweep it into
the fireplace, for I haven't time to do such things. George must not
use a broom, but a rag--else he will die someday . . . . If my boot
should leave a stain on the marble, George must not holystone it
away. Leave it there always in memory of my visit; and whenever you
look at it or show it to anybody you must let it remind you to be a
good little girl. Whenever you are naughty and someone points to
that mark which your good old Santa Claus's boot made on the marble,
what will you say, little sweetheart?
 

Good-by for a few minutes, till I come down to the world and ring the kitchen doorbell.
Your loving Santa Claus
Whom people sometimes call
"The Man in the Moon"

Christmas 1954

by

Gerald Arthur Winter

From a ten-year-old’s point of view, my most memorable and magical Christmas
goes back in my mind more than sixty years ago to 1954. Ten-year-olds growing up in a small town in New Jersey still believed in Santa Claus, not just in the image of a chubby old elf with a nose like a cherry and a kind twinkle in his eye,
but the real St. Nick.
Christmas was a special, brief pause in the year when only good things could happen.
Celebration never began before Thanksgiving, the most important holiday for the adults, which had to be fully reveled by my parents, grandparents, and aunts and uncles before there could be even a hint of evergreen scent in the air
or a sparkle of tinsel in town.
There were TVs in many, but not all homes that year, though nothing in color.
That would take another decade. The contrast between what was on the tube and real life was markedly distinct, because the real world of home and family was in color, and the world on TV was merely a black-and-white specter of what was real. Reality began at home among family members.
We had moved from Queens to northern New Jersey for fresh air and unspoiled
forests. Dad had promised us that our living in the Ramapo Mountains would be colder than Long Island and the chance for a white Christmas would be much better at that higher elevation northwest of New York City.
Always hopeful for a big snowfall at Christmas, my older brother Bobby and
I kept our fingers crossed during the four weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
But since 1947, when we had lived in Springfield Gardens, there hadn’t been more than a flurry, and that was on George Washington’s Birthday celebrated on February 22nd in the middle of the week. I remember that childhood trivia because Arthur Godfrey had made a joke on the radio that morning that the banks and Post Office would be closed for “George Birthington’s Washday.”
We hadn’t seen any significant snow accumulation in seven years. It was as
if the blizzard of ’47 had drained the world of all its snow, and there would be no
snowfalls in our future, not even for Christmas when at ten years old,
I had wanted it most.
It had been a mild autumn in 1954, no frozen puddles after a nor’easter, or
even any thin black ice on any of the lakes or ponds in town. Bobby and I had made
our Christmas lists for Santa with the same item at the top of both our lists, a Flexible
Flyer sled. Wishful thinking. Second on both our lists was American Flyer S-gauge
electric trains to replace our Lionel train set from the 40’s that had become worn
with age. What “S gauge” translated to me and Bobby were two rails instead of
three, which made the tracks and trains scaled to size with greater realistic detail.
Parents helped to create the Santa fantasy for younger kids by making
their children’s older siblings go along with the Christmas myth. Being of German-
American decent, my family took the Kris Kringle and Tanenbaum traditions very
seriously. But what made the Christmas spirit of giving even greater, was a small
town that held a Yuletide party inviting every kid in town into our Community
Building. Now the town’s Public Library, but back in 1954, entering the Community
Building revealed a twenty-foot Christmas tree decorated with ornaments, lights,
and spun glass we called “angel hair,” which looked like a great spider web
cascading from the angel on top to the stacks of gifts around its base.
The grammar school custodian served as Santa, though only kids over
ten knew that truth. For me and the kids my age and younger, the portly janitor
was the real deal. Every kid in town was welcomed to come up to the tree and
have Santa present them with a gift covered by the town budget when property
taxes weren’t a major issue to owning a home in the rustic suburbs of a small
town with a population under 3,000 and now over 16,000. Just describing this
quaint little town where I grew up seems like a fairy tale.
The true magic occurred on Christmas that year. With just the glow of a
few scented candles, there was no sign of Christmas in our home except the
cards from friends and relatives taped to the kitchen pantry door.
“You’d better get to sleep early,” Mom had told us after supper as Bobby
and I, in our winter pajamas with the snuggly feet watched the evening news on
our black-and-white Admiral TV. We saw WCBS Channel 2’s weather girl, Carol
Reed signing off, "Good night and have a happy!"
There was no storm warning on her weather map of the New York metropolitan
area, so Bobby and I went to bed early with as little hope for a white Christmas as there was for getting new sleds or electric trains from Santa. Though in sixth grade and already more interested in a pretty girl in his class at school, Bobby went along with my parents, and it seemed the entire town, to not spoil the magic of Santa Claus in my little boy dreams.
“I think I hear Santa’s sleigh and the reindeer on the roof,” Bobby said to me in
the dark. “Can you hear them?”
I stopped breathing and lifted my head off my pillow to listen. “Uh-huh,” I said,
thinking Bobby was just teasing me.
Bobby and I woke up that Christmas morning to see the magic of Christmas.
Two flexible flyer sleds were beneath a beautifully decorated tree that our dad hadn’t
even bought yet when we went to sleep. He and Mom spent till midnight decorating
the tree, and she baked Christmas cookies, and he put our new American Flyer train
set together around the base of the tree with a complete Plastic Ville town of homes
and shops, with an iced over pond and skaters. Not just a locomotive, coal car,
boxcar, oil car, and caboose, we got a streamliner, and a hand-pump car, too.
Dad had designed the tracks with one large oval and a smaller oval within it.
The ovals were connected at a tangent by a single switch. The challenge was to have
both trains and the hand-pump car running at the same time, but taking turns through the switch without a crash. It was so exciting that when we invited the seven-year-old boy next door to play with us, he wet his pants when the locomotive and streamliner nearly had a head-on collision. We could turn the lights out at night, and each house and store in Plastic Ville would light up with a bulb Dad had wired in the village like a real little town.
“Have you looked outside?” Mom asked to break us away
from our new electric trains.
Bobby just shrugged still glued to the trains, but I got up from the floor
and in my new reindeer slippers scuried to open the front door.
“Bobby! Bobby! Come see!”
We both stood at the open front door with our mouths agape. The two pine
trees in our front yard were weighted down with two feet of heavy snow. The roads
weren’t even plowed, and the air was still and silent.
“Our sleds!” Bobby shouted. “Let’s try our new sleds!”
We lived at the peak of one of the highest points in town. Since the streets
hadn’t been plowed, the snow was too deep to go sleigh riding. We still had ten days
left of Christmas vacation before we’d have to go back to school, but after a brief
thaw that melted most of the snow in the streets, a deep chill came over the town
with temperatures below zero. This caused several fire hydrants at the higher
elevations to burst and flood the mile-long roads from the top of our street to the
town in the valley below.
Our hill was like a glass mountain with six inches of ice for a mile down the
steep hill, so slick that even with chains on their wheels, sand trucks couldn’t go up
or down the hill to spread sand or salt to melt the ice. The deep freeze lasted over a
week giving us an extra week of vacation before school would start. Our sleds on
the ice hit 40 mph for the first quarter mile then, if we made the left bend down the
steepest downward plunge without going off into a snow bank, we’d hit 50 mph
and stop just before the main street in town.
The plowed snow piles at school at the end of the parking lot were
dumped at the top of a gully. With the rest of the winter so cold. Kids at school
could slide down the twenty-foot piles of snow well into April
before it melted away in May.
Like my brother Bobby, when I started fifth grade, I suddenly became
aware of a pretty girl in my class, but it would be more than another year before
I realized I’d rather hold her hand than hit her with a snowball. Though that magic
Christmas holiday was extended by a deep, unpredicted snowfall into the late
thaw in spring, by the next summer I heard the deafening noise of growing up.
Yet, even now in my old age, if I can shut out the cacophony and buzz
of the hectic world around me, even just for a moment, I can still hear the bells
jingling on Santa’s sleigh, and reindeer hooves on the roof. I did my best to
recreate that magic for my own kids before the buzz of their teens could drown
it out. The reason I can still feel that magic, is the memory of my last Christmas
as a child in 1954 when I was innocent, much like the child that was born on
the first Christmas so very long ago, but never forgotten.
 

The Miracle Blizzard

by

Gerald Arthur Winter

 
The tin mailbox had been nailed to a wooden post on the rural, single-lane dirt road in the summer of 1945. It stood erect at the end of a winding driveway that snaked five hundred feet to the two-story home at the top of a knoll. Five stone steps flanked by two sculptured lions led to an open front porch. There were four natural stone columns to support the roof that overhung the porch, one at each end of the porch and two flanking the porch’s landing above the two lions. The shingled house was painted white with red shutters at each bay window flanking the red front door. The gray slate roof had a red brick chimney in the center where smoke emitted from October through April. From May through September the climate was too warm to make a fire in the hearth, but the family that lived there knew nothing about air-conditioning until the 1960’s, The New Frontier.
The couple that lived there had sent two sons to serve in World War II. Bobby, the older son, served in the Army Infantry in Germany. Artie, the younger son by two years, served in the Navy in the Pacific. The first mail received by their parents, Bill and Vera, had come from President Truman. Both sons had died in combat. Their boys never had the chance to see the house that Bill and Vera had built to welcome them home from the war.
There were no neighbors within five miles of their home, and their extended families lived a thousand miles away in various directions. Bill and Vera had only each other with whom to commiserate and console. A retired fireman, Bill had only their new home in which to putter about as a distraction from his sorrow while Vera sewed quilts for the children of disabled war veterans. Their boys, Bobby and Artie, had gone to war in January 1942, a month after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Neither son had married before they’d left home and they would have been twenty-four and twenty-two had they survived to begin families of their own. The pain of knowing that loss weaved through Bill and Vera’s minds daily with weeks on end of silence and grim expressions across the table at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
As months went by, they began to communicate with just nods and grunts. The seasons passed, but a few years felt like a millennium. The mailbox that Bill had hammered to the post at the end of their long driveway had begun to rust. For lack anything else to do, and feeling hollow from grief, Bill headed out the front door to the porch. His brisk, determined strut caught Vera’s attention.
“Where on earth are you going in such a hurry?” she shouted, surprised at the volume of her own voice that shattered so many months of silence like a hammer through glass.
Bill turned back to respond, cringing from the painful shards of her piercing voice. “I’m going to paint the %@$*# mailbox if you don’t mind,” he said.
“What the hell for?” she asked, never having been prone to swearing before.
He shrugged with a paintbrush in one hand and a bucket in the other. “I dunno. Just a notion I got this morning.”
“What color are ya painting it?”
“White.”
“White’s not a color.”
“I know, but that’s what I’m painting it.”
She shrugged as she sewed a patch to a quilt and tottered back and forth in her rocker. “Okay, Bill. Suits me, but what for?”
He huffed. “I was reading my Bible this morning looking for reasons to go on. I read a lot about miracles. It just kind of jumped out at me that sometimes miracles need a little boost. I figure that damn mailbox brought us the worse news of our lives, so maybe if I dressed it up some with a little paint, some good news might come to us the same way as the bad had.”
“Whew! Never thought I married a dreamer,” she said. “What the hell, Bill. Go paint the damn thing.”
Bill didn’t bother to drive his pickup to the end of the driveway. He figured the long, meandering walk might do him some good. He and Vera had exchanged more words that morning than they had over the past six months. It was late September in ’47 with Indian summer coming after an early frost a couple of weeks ago. He didn’t need a jacket and wore just a T-shirt and his denim overalls to mosey down the driveway.
Crickets were still chirping in the tall yellow grass on the sloped fields on either side of the gravel driveway. They’d heard that their single-lane dirt road would be paved and widened before winter. The past few winters had been mild with no more than a dusting of snow last February. A long spring came before a scorching summer. Plenty of rain though. Bill figured that was probably why the mailbox had rusted. A spider web stretched from the tall yellow goldenrods surrounding the mailbox to the post it rested upon.
“Ya got another month,” he told the spider, its body the size of a quarter, black with a yellow starburst and its fuzzy legs as long as Bill’s pinky. “If another mild winter is coming, ya might have two months to lay your eggs.” He told the spider. He took a square of rough sandpaper from his back pocket and sanded the rust, blowing away the red dust. He took a square of finer sandpaper and burnished off the rust until the mailbox was smooth. He sprayed the mailbox with a rust inhibiter, waited for it to dry, then applied the white lacquer paint. He sat on a boulder near the mailbox and watched some birds migrating south for the winter.
“If it’s anything like last winter,” he said to the birds, “you’ll be sorry ya left. Haven’t had a decent snow these parts since ’88. My granddaddy told me all about that one, drifts up to the second floor. Wish I’d have seen it. Must’ve been beautiful a real Winter Wonderland I bet.”
He applied the second coat of white paint as the mailbox gleamed in the midday sun. He admired his work and said to the mailbox, “Well, I’ve done my part. Now It’s up to you.”
Naturally, the mailbox remained silent, but the spider fluttered its long fuzzy legs as if to acknowledge Bill’s comment.
“At least I got out of the house for a few hours,” Bill said and headed back up the driveway to see what Vera had prepared for supper. For the rest of autumn, Bill took every opportunity to go out onto the front porch and peer down the driveway toward the mailbox. No mail ever came through October or November, and in December only a Christmas card from their insurance agent. There was no junk mail in those days and the Sears Roebuck catalogs were delivered to their front porch. Bill had put the red flag up on the mailbox back in September to indicate to the postman that there was mail to be picked up, but the postman had checked a few times and found nothing to be mailed, so he just left it up since he never had anything to deliver to Bill and Vera except that one impersonal Christmas card.
Without Bill and Artie home for Christmas since they’d first left home for the war five years ago, the holiday was hard to bear. Vera was able to busy her mind by baking cookies and preparing their traditional goose for Christmas dinner. They ate their dinner in silence then later it was only 8 p.m. when Bill sat in the rocker and waved Vera over to sit on his lap.
“I don’t think I can continue doing this any longer,” Bill told Vera.
“I know, but let’s just sleep on that tonight,” she said. “When we wake in the morning, we’ll talk about. Okay?”
He nodded as they rocked together and both, after the heavy meal, soon dozed off. They’d made it through five Christmases without the boys. The first three were hard, but they had still had the hope of the war ending and their boys coming home. The last two were without hope of their boys returning, and neither Bill nor Vera felt they had any faith to go on with their lives.
That morning after Christmas both awoke with a start, realizing they’d slept in their embrace through the night in the rocking chair.
“Oh my goodness!” Vera shouted. “We’ve slept in the rocker till morning.”
Startled as if he’d been sleeping soundly for decades, Bill lifted Vera off his lap. “Why’s it so quiet?” he asked, getting to his feet and going to the bay window. He pulled the curtain’s aside, looked out, stared, then jerked his head back and forth. “What the blazes?” he shouted. “It can be!”
“What can’t be?” she asked.
“See for yourself.” He opened the front door, but snow had drifted above the door and all they could see was a white frozen wall.
“What has happened, Bill?”
“A miracle,” he said wanting to believe it. “It’s a dang right blizzard and no one predicted it. Damn good thing I had the coal delivered last week. Who’d have ever thought it possible?”
“There’s still some burning cinders in the fireplace,” she said. “Better put on a log or two. No telling how long we’ll be stranded before they plow the road and our driveway.”
“There’s something about snow,” he said, thinking about how depressed they both had been the night before, even though it was Christmas. “So pure and crystal perfect as it floats down from heaven so quietly, then it gathers in clusters on every branch and twig making the world so pristine, even if it’s only for a short time.”
The Great Blizzard of 1947 was a phenomenon, literally a Category 3 hurricane with freezing temperatures that took the Northeastern states by surprise as millions slept on Christmas night. There were no howling winds to wake anyone with alarm.
The snow was thick and heavy and just came down and down all night into the next day. With freezing temperatures that winter, the Christmas blizzard, as it was also called, remained on the ground well into March of 1948.
Bill and Vera couldn’t be certain that such an unpredicted storm was a miracle, something magic and wonderful to wipe the slate clean with a new beginning, not until their driveway was plowed and Bill was so upset peering toward the road from his porch and not seeing their mailbox.
“Damn snowplows!” he shouted. “Look, Vera. Our mailbox is gone. I guess they didn’t even see the red flag sticking up.”
“We’ll get a new one soon,” she offered her calm solution.
“No way,” he huffed. “We never get any mail as is. I’m gonna go find it in the drifts.”
“Oh, Bill. Must you? Since they’ve plowed, it’s iced up and you could slip and fall, maybe break an ankle.”
“Such a worrier,” he said. “I’ll take my time and go slow.”
He headed out the door with a thick scarf wrapped twice around his neck and a red-and-black, checkered wool coat and a red ski cap pulled over his balding head. He walked with caution like he was crossing thin ice and used a snow shovel for balance like a tightrope walker in the circus. When he got to where he guessed the mailbox had been, he noticed the tip of the red flag and climbed to the top of the snowdrift which was hard as rock. When he tried to dig out the mailbox, the snow shovel bent.
Exhausted from his pointless effort, he sat on the snowdrift to catch his breath. He realized he was going about his task all wrong and took a moment to rethink his approach. He had a pen in his pocket so he began to use it like a chisel to break chunks of ice away from the red flag.
With great patience he whittled the snow away from the mailbox lid and opened it. He couldn’t believe his eyes. In the mailbox were two postcards, one from England and one from Hawaii. The one from England showed a photo of Bobby in his Army uniform with the rank of sergeant on his shoulder. He had his arm around a pretty blond girl in a white wedding dress. The card from Hawaii showed Artie in his Navy whites with his arm around a Hawaiian girl with long black hair. She was dressed in a floral muumuu with a ring of white flowers on her head. She and Artie wore ceremonial leis around their necks.
For a moment Bill felt as if his two sons were alive, but he knew they weren’t.
Then he saw there were two envelopes in the mailbox as well, one from London and the other from Honolulu. He cast the snow shovel into the drift and began to walk back up the driveway to the house, which from the distance looked like a gingerbread cake with three feet of snow for icing on its roof. As he opened the envelopes he saw a handwritten letter and a photo of a toddler in each. He found himself running up the driveway losing his breath.
Through his blurry vision with flowing tears, he saw Vera standing on the porch.
Though he hadn’t told her that she was a grandmother yet, he saw from her gleaming expression that she already knew. Besides the mailbox miracle from the snowstorm, there was the miracle of the telephone. They’d survived the last Christmas they’d ever have to spend alone again. Their daughter in-laws with their two grandsons would arrive for Easter that March. Bill and Vera’s grandsons, named after their dads, Bobby and Artie, would make tiny footprints in the last remains of the miracle blizzard of 1947.

Vermilion

by

Gerald Arthur Winter


“Whatever I see, I can reproduce,” the swarthy young man said to a prospective buyer at the Manhattan street fair. It was Saturday in autumn with leaves floating down from trees along the metal fence enclosing Byrant Park behind the New York Public Library.
“If you don’t like anything I’ve already finished, tell me what you like. I’ll paint it for you.”
Skeptical, the elderly, well-dressed gentleman with a young woman half his age locked arm-in-arm at his elbow said, “She want’s something to match our new penthouse drapes.”
Penthouse, rang in the young artist’s ears, thinking, wealthy and stingy with a taste for younger women. I’ve got you pegged. No mystery here. Flippant, the artist asked, “What color are your daughter’s drapes?”
The older gentleman blustered, “She’s not my daugh--”
“Vermilion,” the young woman intervened. “But I see no brilliance in any of your paintings.” She fluffed her long blonde coif from her shoulders and turned up her nose.
“By brilliance you must mean bright color,” the artist said, thinking, you hussy, all of my artistry is brilliant.
“Whatever,” she said with a shrug, tugging at the older man’s arm to leave.
“If I paint precisely what you have in mind within the hour, what will you pay for my brilliant work?”
“Nothing if it’s not perfect,” she said.
“But if it is?” he asked, turning to the older man as his potential patron.
“I’d have to see it first,” he said.
“I already see it in my mind, dear sir,” the artist grinned. “So if she says it’s perfect, how much will you pay me?”
“I think a thousand dollars for an hour’s work is as much as I pay my attorneys, so that’s what I’d pay. But anything short of perfect is on you, and you’ll have wasted your time for nothing.”
“I’ve come from less than nothing, dear sir, so even nothing would be a fortune to me.”
“Let’s have lunch at The Oyster Bar below Grand Central,” she said. “We’ll come back in an hour to see your folly just for our amusement.”
“Are you sure, darling?” the older man asked.
She sneered at the artist. “Positive.”
“I must caution you,” the artist said. “You are aware that the substance that yields vermilion is toxic from the mercurial cinnabar.”
“It’s you who need be cautious,” she said. “You’ll be rendering our painting, but we’ll be observing it from a distance where it will hang above our hearth.”
“May we shake on it, dear sir, that we agree that you’ll pay me one thousand dollars if you return in an hour and she says that my painting is vermilion-perfect.”
“Indeed,” he agreed, taking the artists hand. “Otherwise, no payment at all.”
“Yes, no payment at all,” the artist nodded and took out a blank canvas as he watch the couple turn east on 42nd Street toward Grand Central Terminal.
When they returned an hour later, the artist stood proudly beside a 60 x 48 inch canvas with a white linen sheet draped over it on an easel for its unveiling. The older man seemed bored, and his young female companion aloof.
“Are you ready to see my masterpiece?” the artist asked them.
The older man waved with the back of his hand, impatient to get on with it and certain the artist would fail in his postured claim that his companion would say it was perfect.
As the artist pulled the sheet off his painting the young woman gasped. Passersby ogled the canvas with consensus for its brilliance.
“I love it!” the young woman squealed with delight. “It’s perfect!”
The older man reached for his wallet and doled out ten crisp Franklins from his gold money clip.
The artist waved off the older man. “Keep your money, dear sir. I was thrilled to accept your challenge just to satisfy your better half, but I’ve decided it’s so exquisitely perfect in its vermilion brilliance that I’ll keep it for myself. I just wanted her confirmation of its perfection.”
Enraged, the young woman turned to the older man. “You shook on it. Pay him whatever he wants. I must have this work of art.”
“To match your drapes,” the artist qualified. “I paint to match my own brilliance, which is priceless.”
The older man huffed, “Honey, it’s just a fucking sunset. Let’s go.”
“I want it!” she shouted.
“Jeezuz. Okay. How much?”
“It’s priceless, but for a hundred thousand, it’s yours.”
“What?” the old man balked.
“Pay the man,” she insisted. “Write him a check.”
He grumbled, pulling a checkbook from his jacket. “You’ll have to accept my personal check. I’ll make it out to cash.”
The artist frowned, but looked to the blonde nodding confirmation that the old man was good for it.
“Okay,” the artist agreed. “Sold to the gentleman for his beautiful wife.”
“This bargaining has made me weary,” the old man said. “We’ll unveil the painting tonight at our cocktail party.” He squinted at the artist and said aside, “The Governor and Mayor will be present to see your work tonight. You should give me a discount for displaying your art among dignitaries with great influence.”
“A deal’s a deal,” the artist said, holding his ground. “Your guests will know that whatever I see, I can reproduce.” He wrapped the framed painting and helped them put it into the trunk of a taxi. He waved farewell with a smirk as the taxi headed to the Upper Eastside of Manhattan.
That evening on Sutton Place overlooking the East River at the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge on 59th Street, the dignitaries gathered with their glasses of champagne to cheer the unveiling of the painting mounted over the hearth above a crackling fire beneath a marble mantel.
The old man motioned for the guests to hush for his toast then declared, “We want our honored guests to share this special occasion of my dear wife Penny’s thirtieth birthday, which I might add has cost me a pretty penny.”
The guests chortled with a murmur.
“Though my dear wife commissioned this art to match these drapes,” he nodded to the bright red drapes at the panoramic windows flanking the fireplace. “One of my experts at my beck and call has researched the history of this bright color called vermilion derived from the ore cinnabar, which has toxic mercurial qualities and was widely used by artist during the Roman Empire and notably by the artist Titian of the Venetian School in the Fifteen Hundreds.”
He paused for the notables present to acknowledge his newfound knowledge of classic art.
“With no further delay, behold our modern masterpiece,” he said as the painting was unveiled with a collective gasp.
“My god!” the old man shouted as the mercurial qualities of the vermilion sunset ran and dripped like blood. The painting transformed, morphing from a brilliant setting sun to a classic painting by Titian, Bacchus and Ariadne, but the vermilion garments of the drunken orgy highlighting all the dignitaries present at this gathering having their intimate way with a naked blonde with his young wife Penny’s face.
The old man began to shake and stammer without control, typical of mercury poisoning from exposure to cinnabar. Then his young wife Penny began to shake with convulsions, but her final thoughts were of what the young street artist had said, “Whatever I see, I can reproduce.”
That next Monday, the New York media publicized the shocking story of the wealthy couple’s strange end, but the NYPD made no report of any guests who’d been present to witness the fateful end of the couple or any mention of a painting.
The young street artist had never cashed the old man’s check, so its purpose remained a mystery as did the remarkable talent of a young street artist who could paint realistic portraits ofany passerby though the coffee can for donations placed beside his easel read:
​
PLEASE BUY MY ART, I AM BLIND

Solstice

By

Dan Klefstad
​

“Is it finally gone?” Her voice sounds annoyed behind the barely-opened bedroom door.
“Let me check.” I walk into the kitchen where President Clinton is saying he “did not have sexual relations with that woman...” I turn off the TV and check behind the curtain. The last rays of light retreat over the horizon. I wait a few seconds more. “Yes.”
“You have no idea how lucky you are – surviving under the moon and sun.” Fiona enters the kitchen, silk clinging to her skin, anxiously tying her kimono. “At least the nights will get longer now.”
“The sun can kill me too if I spend too much time in it.” I fill a crystal glass with Ruby – her name for it -- and set it on the table. “Ultraviolet rays cause skin cancer. Which reminds me: I’ll need a few hours off tomorrow to see my doctor. I have a mole I’m worried about.”
“Where?”
“On my back.”
“Let me see.” Fiona seems genuinely concerned.
“It’s nothing. You must be starving.”
“If you’re worried, I need to be worried. Take off your shirt.”
“I’m not worried.” I set the decanter on the table, unbutton, and expose my upper body. She moves behind me and places a long, curved nail on the bumpy blemish; the rest of my skin gets goose flesh.
“How long have you had this?”
“As long as I can remember, but it changed recently.”
She leans closer and sniffs. I also inhale, detecting yesterday’s perfume in her hair – plus a whiff of flesh in the early stages of decay; she needs to drink now. The odor hangs in the air after she walks to the table and picks up her glass. “It’s nothing to worry about, but I can cut it out for you.”
“Thanks, but I’ll have my doctor do it.”
“Suit yourself.” She sips the O Negative I bought yesterday. “Does he have hospital rights? We could use another source.”
“She.”
“Oh.” She takes another sip. “What does she look like?”
“Brown skin, black hair. She’s Indian.”
“Is she Mohican?”
Fiona once told me The Last of the Mohicans was her favorite book. She still keeps the first edition next to her bed – plus a pen in case the author is around to sign it. For a while, a rumor circulated that James Fenimore Cooper was turned into an “immortal” but that story died a century ago.
“No, she’s from India.”
“Oh. I’ve never been.” Her brow wrinkles. “Maybe before but I can’t remember. Is she pretty?”
“I guess. Why do you ask?”
“Well,” she takes another sip and I can see her skin regain its luminescence. “A man needs a woman now and then. Right?”
“She’s married.”
“And?” Her lips curl into a smile, briefly exposing her long canines. Out of habit, she covers her mouth. “When’s the last time you were…carnal with someone?” Her eyes sparkle as she says this.
“I don’t know.”
“Really? That’s terrible. I can give you a night off, if you need it. Just remember: If your doctor takes you to bed, be especially pleasing. We need people who know people.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
She looks at the clock and hands me the empty glass. “I’d better get dressed.”
“That’s right. The Solstice Ball.”
“YES.” Fiona twirls around the kitchen, dancing with an imaginary partner. “The return of the darkness.”
“Will Soren be there?”
“Count Fillenius is on the guest list. Why do you ask?”
“No reason.”
Her face fills my vision -- our noses almost touch as her eyes search mine. “He’ll only stay for the day, if that’s what you’re concerned about.”
“I’m more concerned about the way he treats you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I…” The words stall inside. I want to tell her she doesn’t have to share the O Neg and a room with a guest who acts like he owns the place. Every time he’s here I struggle to conceal my hatred for the way he lords over her – and me. I turn on the faucet and rinse the glass.
“You know I can hear your thoughts.”
“Then you know it upsets me when he drinks half our supply and doesn’t pay for it. You’d think a count could afford to reciprocate.”
“Whose supply?” I half-turn and see breasts bulging over crossed arms, eyes burning holes through me. It’s the silence that hurts the most though; her words are the only clue I have as to what’s in her head. She remains in the kitchen just long enough to rub it in before leaving. Finally, before entering her room: “Just make sure there’s enough Ruby for both of us.”

* * *

My alarm goes off at 5:00. Fiona never asks me to check that she’s home by dawn but I do it anyway. Her door is right across from mine; hers bolts from the inside and I never test it to respect her privacy. To be honest, I’m afraid to discover if she sleeps with her eyes open; I saw that in a movie once. So before I go to bed, I leave a small stemmed glass on the kitchen table for a night cap. When I rise, all I need to do is check for dregs on the bottom or lipstick on the rim. Sometimes she takes the glass to her room. But this morning the glass is there and it’s clean. The calendar says sunrise is at 5:15 and full daylight is at 5:34. I grab my keys and prepare for a search I only imagined, but then I hear a giggle from her bedroom, followed by another voice that sounds like Soren’s. My sudden relief is spoiled by a feeling that goes beyond anger. Only after I return to my room and lay flat do I realize how disappointed I am. She could do better – why doesn’t she?

* * *

“I’ll bring it to her.” Soren stands in the kitchen, bejeweled hand open, waiting for the O Neg. Ben Franklin once joked that guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days. Soren’s been here for nearly a week. I gaze in his general direction, trying not to look at the window shade. At 5:21 the sun might be high enough to set him ablaze instantly. The only thing keeping me from tugging the cord and letting it fly is Fiona; she’d never forgive me. I don’t care that Soren can hear this.
He straightens as I hand him the glass. “She’d have to turn you in, you know. The trial would be swift and you’d suffer the worst pain imaginable. Then, just before you die, they’d make Fiona cut off your genitals and stuff them in your mouth. You and I both know she’s too sensitive for that.” He stares without blinking as he sips from her glass.
I fill the sink with soapy water, resigned to washing extra glassware when I should be out scoring more O Neg.
“I’d have you drawn and quartered if you left with anyone else. You know that, don’t you?”
I shrug. “At the time I really didn’t care.”
Soren seems hurt. “Why? Was I such a bad master?”
“I’m still trying to find out what you’re good at.”
“Here’s one.” His icy fingers turn my face toward his. “Fiona considers me an ideal companion – something you could never be.” I attempt to look away but he squeezes harder. “You should also know this: Fiona wants you to return to me when she dies, so show a little more respect.”
Fiona never spoke with me about anything like this. She’s only 250. I assumed she’d be fine as long as I set my alarm each night before dawn. My voice cracks: “Fiona expects to die before you do?”
“Anything can happen.” The 49 YO lets me go. “We immortals are less likely to be so when the Sun is in Cancer.”
“Cancer.”
“The Crab. Its claws remain open for twenty-eight days – waiting for so-called ‘immortals’ to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Fiona is more likely to die now than in any four-week period throughout the year, combined.”
I ignore the fact that Soren is just as vulnerable. “Why not move to Australia during the summer?”
Soren is briefly rattled. “You see, remarks like that make me fear for Fiona under your care. Do you know what it would take to move her, and me, across the globe?”
“I said nothing about you.”
Soren’s gaze is as cold as outer space. “She will hear about this.”

* * *

“You really need to be nicer to him.” Fiona sits at the kitchen table, leaning her head on one hand. “He has feelings, you know.” She glares at me but then giggles, covering her fangs. “God, he bruises so easily – like a hemophiliac.”
“Soren says I am to return to him as part of your … estate plan. Is that true?”
“Well, I did steal you from him. There’s a law against that.”
“He wouldn’t press charges.”
“True. He needs me -- or rather, this home as an occasional place to land.”
“Where is he?”
“Oh, you didn’t know? He’s on his way to Australia.” She laughs suddenly. “The other day he said, ‘Did you know it’s Winter down there?’ Can you believe it? He didn’t know!”
I look down at the table for a few seconds. “But I’m to return to him in the event …”
She shrugs. “I promised, apparently, and…”
“Guardians are second-class citizens.”
“Look at you, reading my mind.”
My mouth twists as I taste a truth that’s only been implied. “So I can never retire?”
“Oh I wouldn’t say that.” Her head straightens. “But I’ll need you for as long as possible.”

# # #

Fusion

by

Gerald Arthur Winter

​

Thunder and lightning in the city roll and flicker in strobe effect. The
Early Bird cutoff is 6 p.m. but tonight it’s early fish. He stares at the rainbow
trout’s reflective scales from head to tail. On its side the steaming fish
shimmers on his plate and reflects the lightning bolts through the window.
One fish eye seems to stare at him, perhaps judging his temperament with
cold indifference. He rejects that notion as folly and checks his watch. She’s
late as usual, this time more than an hour past their reservation.
From his favorite window seat, he catches a glimpse of her coming
through the fog. It must be Lauren because she’s wearing a familiar yellow
slicker with a hood. He can’t see her face to be certain, but nods to himself
as rain spouts from her hood that envelopes her shoulder-length, black hair.
Raindrops spew in all directions off her bent shoulders, splashing in
cadence with her determined gait through curbside puddles. She’s always
in a hurry to get somewhere, anywhere in the opposite direction from him.
Any excuse, it seems, to keep her from greeting him warmly after his
12-hour workday in Manhattan.
He envisions her pausing beneath the Park Avenue overpass for
relief from the wind and pelting rain. She shakes her red umbrella, one
spindle bent, protruding like a bird’s broken wing. She tries to cover her
head without success.
She cuts through halted traffic on 45th Street at Vanderbilt. Her
precarious footwork is a risky safety breech though pardonable in such
a downpour. Back in the day, a brown-shirted traffic cop would have
given her a jaywalking ticket. She darts toward the entrance then
comes through the revolving door clunking repeatedly as it continues
to spin after her entrance.
Wanting a face-to-face, with his foot, he pushes out the empty
chair across from him. He wonders if she will stay long enough to
soothe his latest anxiety?
She pulls back her hood and shakes her hair loose. He closes
his eyes, imagining an earthy scent from the rain’s spray in his face.
He squints and inhales, recognizing nostalgic aromas of years gone by.
He longs for those encounters from their past, but tonight her tardiness
feels intentional. It’s their precious dinner date, but she’s failed to arrive
on time.
With digital precision, his gold Rolex says 7:15, but with the
darkness on the street outside, he wonders if it’s morning or night. Of
late, time seems to blur as if his life has been all one day. The cold
stone high-risers block sunlight at both ends of that spectrum. He
stands and calls to her, but too distracted by her broken umbrella
to notice, she pouts.
Red-and-yellow is the old orange—orange the new black. Fashions
seem to spin all too quickly. He imagines her coming through the revolving
door repeatedly with different outfits from past to present. Their history
together transcends all popular fashions.
He calls louder to her. Strangers dining at other tables take note
with glares and shakes of their stooped heads. Their expressions seem
grotesque, like van Gogh’s The Potato Eaters.
He mutters, “Don’t give me your poor-fellow pity. She’s the late one,
not me.”
He thinks he recognizes some of them as they turn their heads toward
his commotion with disapproval.
The hell with them. Too late to sit down and shrug off her inattentiveness,
as if he didn’t care.
He turns to the trout for consolation, but gets only a blank, myopic stare,
that same look his CEO had when presenting him with an early-retirement
package. It was a manila envelope stuffed with the mana that was expected
to feed him while wandering through the wilderness of retirement with Social
Security still out of reach.
Even twenty years later, he still feels the weight of that package. It
dangles from a red string, but rather than as a ripcord to assure his soft
landing, it’s the bloodline of his ill fate. With bitterness, he remembers the
tightness in his chest when he had unfurled those goodies with no cost-of-
living adjustments. Twenty years of inflation had withered away his
purchasing power—in-the-red is the new green.
He had to switch from his private club to the public golf course and
settle for a sedentary life, setting up an easel to paint in the throes of nature.
He had hoped for a black bear encounter so he could go out with a flourish,
something more than just the stroke of a brush. He smiles imagining a
headline rather than just a back-page obituary:


BANK EXECUTIVE DEVOURED BY BEAR WHILE PAINTING NATURE AT HIS EASIL.


Now he needs blood thinners for his heart valve, and often thinks
he’ll take either too many pills or none at all to speed his exit to who knows
where? He had joked about that with his cronies, but knew he would never
take such a desperate step. That would run against the grain of his fiber.
Get over it, his mother used to say to him, no matter what it was--
even a sharp stick in the eye. There were no spineless cowards in his
family tree, though some of his in-laws have tottered in their assumed
upright positions after millenniums of evolution to leap from those trees.
He sits back down and pokes at the fish with his fork. “That crap
was about money and pride,” he tells the dead-pan trout, “never heart
and soul.”
He had loved his job and had taken it seriously for decades. His
Bergen County commute across the Hudson from Jersey had been a
drudge, sun in his eyes coming and going. Driving on Route 3 toward
the Lincoln Tunnel helix, he’d sing that Fiddler on the Roof song:
“Sunrise, Sunset.”
For a moment he thinks the fish blinked. “Highly improbable,”
he scoffs.
The soul-destroying commute had not mattered to him though,
because he’d been convinced at age twenty-five that, if he didn’t work
in Manhattan, he’d be outside the matrix, not part of the grand scheme
of things. He had never bothered to ask myself what those things were,
grand or otherwise, but they all eventually became schemes against him.
He had worked and played hard in New York City, but it seemed
as though the city had tired of him. He had been put out to the curb like
a dried-out Christmas tree for garbage pick-up. Since his departure from
that daily Manhattan routine, his moods had become as flammable as
a dead evergreen.
He takes a deep breath then stands as she approaches. He
extends a hand to touch her elbow, but she keeps walking. His insides
quiver as she seems to walk right through him. His stomach gurgles.
He says aside, “I’ve let her upset me again and haven’t even
cut into this damn fish. Am I losing it?”
Seated, he takes his knife and fork, but before he can slice
the fish, the young woman returns then comes behind him and rubs
his shoulders. His tension releases, nearly making him fall face-first
into the catch-of-the-day.
“Is that better?” she asks, but her touch makes him light-headed.
“Uh-huh.”
“You haven’t touched your food,” she says in a tone that sounds
far away. “Eat your dinner. You need to keep up your strength.”
Though her voice is unfamiliar at first, it feels good to have
discourse with anyone, but his appetite is gone.
“It’s not the fish’s fault,” he mutters to himself. “It’s been artfully
prepared by the fusion chef and would have given me strength, but
what good is strength within a vacuum?”
A waitress comes to the table and asks, “Had enough? Want me
to clear your setting for dessert?”
He shakes his head and waves her away. If only he could be sure
she would stay, not just give him a brief high before rejection again. He’s
afraid to ask. The last time he’d tried, she was gone before the question
had even come out of his mouth.
He’ll try another question, speaking so deliberately that his words
will hang in the air in front of her like a dialogue bubble in the funny papers.
His words dash from his lips toward her ear before she can see them
coming, then they enter her mind before she has a chance to decline.
His words bounce around inside her head with no way for her to
escape them. “Do you love me, Lauren?”
Her head turns slowly toward him, but her hands continue kneading
his shoulders.
His hands shake as he watches her pursed lips holding back her
response. She looks like a bird dog with a quail held softly in its jaws, a
scene he has rendered on canvas. He anticipates a simple “yes” or “no,”
but the formation of her lips in response is unexpected. Her words don’t
register at first.
“Lorraine,” she says.
His lips feel numb as he tries to speak, but she puts her index
finger to his lips to hush him and says, “It’s OK, Henry. You can call me
Lauren if you like.”
“Aren’t you Lauren?” he whispers as the other diners glare at him.
“Of course,” she says with a shrug and plunks down in the chair
across from him. “What do you recommend here? I don’t like fish if it’s
staring at me. Are their steaks any good?”
“It’s one of those Asian fusion places. The Kobe beef is best.”
Reaching across the table he touches her damp lock of hair resting on
her shoulder. “You’ve been dying your hair.”
She fluffs and rustles her hair on her shoulders and says, “Brown
makes my skin look sallow. Black brings out the green in my hazel eyes.”
“It suits you,” he tells her with a squint of judgment.
“Thanks,” she says, taking a piece of bread from the basket on
the table and spreading butter on it. “How was your day, Henry?”
“No different from any other . . . but I’m Ted.”
“Mine was swell,” she says. “Mimosa brunch with the girls at the
club. Caught the Wednesday matinee. The acting was par, but the
costumes were elegant. Glad we could meet up for dinner. Thanks
for thinking of me.”
“I think only of you, Lauren.”
“You’re making Lorraine jealous, Teddy”
“I want you to stay.”
“Stay?” she says out of the side of her mouth as she chews a
piece of bread. “That would be awkward.”
“You must try to stay this time.”
“Try as I might,” she says, “not happening.” She turns to a hovering
waiter dressed in white. “I want the Kobe beef, bloody. I’ll have the string
beans and garlic mashed potatoes. We’ll have a bottle of Cab, your best
Napa vintage.”
Though perplexed, the waiter nods and leaves.
He cringes. “I don’t mind your ordering an expensive wine if we’re
celebrating. Is that what we’re doing?”
“I am, so why don’t you join me?”
“Give me a reason to celebrate.”
“We each have our private celebrations now,” she says. “Mine’s a secret.”
She stares off toward the window where it is still drizzling, but the fog
is starting to lift. He turns his head to follow her gaze. Then he catches a
glimpse of her through the thinning mist. She’s wearing a lemon-yellow
slicker with a hood. He can’t see her face. Lumbering toward the entrance,
she dodges through traffic on Madison at 45th, an excusable offense in
such a downpour.
“She should get a jaywalking summons,” he grumbles to the empty
chair across the table. From his window seat he watches her approach
until she comes through the revolving door.
“Don’t leave me this time,” he grumbles, “not in this dreadful place
where people are not who they claim to be.”
They all had told him, “How good it will be since Lauren departed.”
He wouldn’t have to be lonely, but surrounded instead by those his age
with similar interests.
He said under his breath as he observed those around him, “How
the hell could these strangers know? My only interests are loving Lauren
and working hard in Manhattan to put the kids through college. There
had never been time for anything else. But now, time is my enemy, with
too much of it left, and no one to share it with.”
The trout isn’t cold after all, but is still steaming from its mouth,
perhaps agape in reaction to his bad behavior.
She is standing with her umbrella in hand. The raindrops seem
to fall to the floor in slow motion from her yellow slicker as she catches
his glance.
He clenches his fists tighter beneath the table and anticipates
what she will say. He stands, waves, and calls to her, “Lauren!”
She comes to him with a smile and pushes the chair back under
the table where he had pushed it out with his foot.
“You’ll have to finish your meal if you expect me to take you for a
stroll,” she says. “The storm is over now, so by the time you finish your
food, it should be sunny before it gets dark. Did you find the photos that
you were going to show me?”
“They’re in my jacket.” He shuffles through his pockets. “That’s
Lauren with the yellow slicker when we went to Niagara Falls on our
honeymoon the summer before Kennedy was shot. Screwed up our
Thanksgiving with all that depressing grief. And this is my son Jeff
and my daughter Evelyn when we went to Disney World. They have
families of their own now.”
“Lovely family,” she says, turning away.
He grabs her wrist. “Don’t leave.”
“Of course not,” she says, patting his shoulder and pulling her
wrist free from his tight grasp. “I’m on the midnight shift.”
He feels himself smile, but inside he knows she will eventually
leave him again, like Lauren had, like all the others had. They are
occasionally tangible now, but how he longs to hold them close again,
even for just a moment.

Blood, Wildlife, and Gunfire


by


Gerald Arthur Winter






In late autumn, I couldn’t resist inching onto a pond’s first freeze to see how far I


could get before the ice would begin to break beneath me. My adrenaline pumped with


the first crack as I watched the white lines cutting through the dark ice, just a couple of


inches thick, all that kept me from falling into 40-degree water. I thought the challenge


and thrill of making it back to shore across the pond would be worth the risk of falling


through the ice. To me at fifteen, the McAvoys were as unpredictable and dangerous


as thin ice in autumn.


The McAvoys’ ancestors had lived in the Ramapo Mountains in northern New


Jersey for hundreds of years. A junk dealer at best, Mr. McAvoy displayed his goods


in front of their home, a log cabin where local newspapers had reported UFO sightings.


Deemed unreliable witnesses, those news sources had kept a moonshine still.


My parents warned never to cross to the other side of the Susquehanna Railroad


tracks because that’s where McAvoys lived. Outcasts to our town folk, the McAvoys had


squatted on those mountains a century before anyone decided to develop the land after


World War II.


There were a dozen McAvoy kids, eight boys and four girls. I admired my


classmate, Toby McAvoy, because he could hold his breath underwater for four


minutes, a Ramapo River record. I’d seen Toby knock a squirrel out of a tree with


a slingshot, then skin it clean with a pen knife and roast it on a stick over an open


fire he’d made from rubbing two sticks together. Offered a taste, I declined. Toby


told me the McAvoy’s had pioneer blood from before the American Revolution.


When I told my mom that, she said the McAvoys were an unreliable source of the


truth. She’d never stoop to saying they were “liars.”


Regardless of their heritage, the McAvoys showed no interest in book learnin’.


But they knew everything about buildin’, fixin’, swappin’, growin’, trappin’, gettin’ along,


and doin’ without. They ate deer, squirrels, rabbits, eels, and game birds in thick stews


with “nips ‘n’ taters.”


The McAvoys piqued my interest, mostly because they were deemed pariahs


by our middleclass community. My mom had told me not to associate with them, just


as she’d told me to stay away from the pond until it was frozen a foot thick in January.


The temptation to get to know the McAvoys, like thin ice in October, became irresistible.


One fall day when school let out, Toby invited me to his home. Despite my


parents’ warnings, I was drawn to the mystique of that forbidden forest on the other


side of the tracks. Walking toward the McAvoy spread, we turned down a dirt road that


wound into the mountains until it narrowed to a rocky path. People had been dumping


junk in those woods for years, but that was a plus to the McAvoys, as Toby told me,


because the McAvoys would spit-and-shine any old discarded stuff to trade.


“Say, Jem, ya hungry?” Toby asked me that late afternoon.


Always hungry after school, and trying to sound like a McAvoy, I said, “Yup.”


“Maw will feed ya good, and ya can meet the family.” Toby suddenly froze,


cocked his head, and sauntered to the Susquehanna Railroad tracks that cut through


town along the mountain ridge. He kneeled and put an ear to the rail.


“Freight’s comin’. Must be over a hun’erd cars,” he said. We’ll hop on it so we’ll


be sure to get home in time for grub. If yer late for dinner at my house, ya don’t get to


eat at all.”


Jumping onto a moving freight train was forbidden in my family, but Toby’s raw


enthusiasm was too much to resist. My dry throat tightened and my palms were slicked


with sweat when I heard the rumble of squealing metal on the tracks. As the train


passed, we ran beside it to hop on. I was surprised how much faster a train seemed to


move as I got closer to it. I puffed and wheezed with awkward footing next to the chest-


high wheels, which threatened to draw me under the rumbling train.


Toby caught hold first, grabbed my hand and dragged me ten yards before I


could take hold of the train, lift my legs, and feel the thrill of the train’s force.


“That was the easy part.” Toby winked. “Jumping off can be a pisser with only


one place to jump safely, ’cause there’s too many rocks and boulders anywhere else¾


the open field with tall grass that will cushion our fall.”


I shrugged. “Sounds good to me.”


“Good on ya bee-hind, but this time of day that field’s full of copperheads catchin’


the last sunlight.”


“Jeez.” I said. “We ought to stay on till the freight makes a stop.”


“Only stop is the station. Get off there and the cops ’ll grab us. Ya ain’t scared a


no snake are ya? We eat ’em.”


Jumping from the moving train into the tall, yellow grass, and rolling over and


over, I heard scrambling more like slithering in several directions from where I rolled


to a stop. Heart racing, I jumped up and kept running to the forest’s edge.


The McAvoys’ home was set under two huge oak trees, growing there since the


colonial days. Their home was a one-story structure made of gray cinder blocks with a


corrugated, tin roof. A worn-out clearing surrounded the house near a patch of skunk


cabbage swamps. Old cars, trucks, tractors, and farm implements littered the clearing.


Two German shepherds and a mongrel that looked like a coyote scrambled


toward us and jumped around, biting at my heels. Laughing, Toby bear-hugged


the big male shepherd and wrestled him to the ground. The other two settled down


and flanked me as if they were standing guard in case I interfered with Toby’s play.


“They won’t hurt ya,” Toby said from under the dog he wrestled, “unless I


command ’em to.” He untangled himself from the dog and gave a demonstration.


Walking over to a pile of litter in the clearing, he picked up an old knapsack,


bent down next to the male shepherd, and whispered in his ear before he threw the


knapsack into the air.


“Strider, attack!” he shouted. Strider leaped into the air, bit into the knapsack


before it hit the ground, and shook it clenched in his jaws.


“Heel, Strider!” Toby commanded. Strider dropped the sack and returned to


Toby’s side. “Trained to hunt,” Toby said with pride leading me through the front door,


which opened directly into the kitchen where nine McAvoy kids ages two to thirteen


ran out to play in the yard.


Filled with a long wooden table that could seat twenty people, the main room


smelled musty. Mr. McAvoy sat at the head of the table and faced the door. He wore


a ragged, flat-brimmed, gray Stetson, even while seated at the table, something my


mom would have forbidden. Mrs. McAvoy stood at the stove. She was short and thin,


wearing a floor-length, print dress with a stained and tattered blue apron. Her big,


ochre eyes stared with a dilated lack of discernment. Her short, matted black hair


with a a lightning bolt white streak reminded me of The Bride of Frankenstein. She


rarely spoke, except for short, high-pitched chirps: “Yup¾Nope¾Git!”


She yawned and sputtered as she watched the pots on the stove and


occasionally turned around to whack one of the younger boys with a big wooden


spoon for messing with one of his sisters.


Toby’s two older brothers, Lem and Cole, came in the backdoor and sat


at the table. They bent forward over plates of mysterious stew, giving a foreboding


meaning to¾potluck. They ate with gusto as Mr. McAvoy drank from a metal


tankard. Lem and Cole kept eating without looking up.


“This is Jem,” Toby said to his father. “Come to share some food with us.”


Mr. McAvoy stared at me. “Welcome.” He gestured toward the end of the


table nearest the door. Toby and I quickly sat. Without saying a word, Mrs.


McAvoy set before us two plates of steaming stew garnished with two thick


slabs of homemade bread. Following Toby’s lead, I grabbed a fork from a


basket of mixed utensils in the middle of the table and began eating.


After a few minutes of silence, Mr. McAvoy jerked his head sideways at


Lem and Cole. The two older brothers stood up, squeezed past Toby and went


outside without a word. I felt uncomfortable with the silence from the stern father


and mute mother. I wondered what was in the stew. I’d never tasted anything


like it. Something about Mr. McAvoy gave me the willies with his ruddy face,


glaring black eyes, and the hat that made him seem even taller than he was.


He appeared physically strong with weathered, hardworking hands. With a nod,


Mr. McAvoy stood up and left the room.


Toby jerked his head and said, “Let’s go.”


When Toby and I went into the yard, it looked like an army camp preparing


for maneuvers. Three rifles and four shotguns stood on end against the front of the


house beside the door. Sleeping bags, tents, lanterns, boxes of ammunition, and


camouflage clothing littered the ground near the back of a red pickup with fenders


half eaten away by rust.


“What’s going on?” I asked as Mr. McAvoy, with his Stetson set squarely


on his head, came around the back of the house with Strider prancing beside him.


“Huntin’ season opens Saturday,” Toby said. “We’re gettin’ ready.”


“Where do you hunt?”


“Adirondacks where my pappy was born,” Mr. McAvoy answered.


I tried to imagine this hoard crossing the state line without rousing state


troopers on both sides of the New Jersey-New York borders.


“North of here a piece in the Hudson Valley,” Toby said. “Best white-tail


huntin’ in the state.”


“White-tail?” I shrugged, not up on their lingo.


“Deer.” Toby glared, curious why I didn’t know what white-tail were.


“Been huntin’, boy?” Mr. McAvoy asked.


“No, sir.”


“Does yer pa hunt?”


“No, sir.”


Squinting, Mr. McAvoy looked at me. “How old are ya?”


“Almost sixteen.”


“And never been huntin’?” He shook his head and went to the back of


the panel truck. He tossed the bundle he was carrying into the open backdoor


of the house. “Not good for a man not to know how to care for himself,” he


muttered. “Ever fire a gun?”


“No, sir.”


“Time ya did. Toby, take him out back. Let ’m try the twelve-gauge over


yonder.”


Toby motioned to follow and grabbed the shotgun and a box of shells then


led me to the back of the house. The clearing behind the main shack extended


fifty yards to the edge of the thick pine forest. Toby grabbed a log from a stack of


firewood and set it on end in the dirt at the edge of the clearing. He came back to


me, plugged two shells into the double-barreled shotgun, and handed the firearm


to me.


“Just aim at that log and squeeze the trigger,” Toby pointed. “Nothin’ to it.”


The weight of the shotgun surprised me. I strained to lift it to eye-level.


Unsteady, I closed one eye and aimed down the barrel.


“Not like that,” Toby warned. “It’ll rear back and knock your eye out. Hold


it against your hip, stare at the log, then squeeze the trigger.”


I held the shotgun at hip-level, aimed at the log, closed my eyes, then


squeezed. Boom! The recoil knocked me to the ground.


“Good shot.” Toby laughed, pointing to the log peppered with pellet holes


and knocked three yards back into the woods.


“Fire it again!” Mr. McAvoy shouted from the doorway where he stood with


his arms folded in front of his puffed-out chest.


I nodded, looked down at the gun held limply at my side, and hefted it to


my right hip. Toby stood beside me and looked at the log with an expectant grin.


I felt Mr. McAvoy’s eyes burning a hole in my back, so I spread my feet wider


to brace for the recoil. Boom! The shotgun jerked up in my hand, but I stayed


on my feet.


My head ached and my arm and ribs throbbed from the recoil. Mr. McAvoy


called Toby over and said something I couldn’t hear. Mr. McAvoy disappeared


behind the house.


Relieved to set down the heavy shotgun, I made excuses to get home


before dark, but Toby said, “Paw says it’s time ya went huntin’. There’s important


lessons to learn in the woods. Time ya learned some.”


I shrugged. “I don’t know anything about hunting.”


“Paw never took anybody but McAvoys huntin’ with him before. He must


like ya. He don’t like much of anybody ‘cept Maw and us chil’ren. We’ll teach ya


what ya need to know.”


“What should I bring?”


“Just warm clothes. We got the rest. We’ll leave Saturday at four in the mornin’.”


I was glad to be away from that clan and back on my way to civilization


across the tracks. The autumn sun set maple trees ablaze with bright reds and


yellows on the mountain ridge. I felt that same rush that comes after I’d shuffled


onto thin ice during an autumn freeze and barely made it back to shore without


falling through.


* * *


Saturday morning, Mr. McAvoy drove the old pickup truck with Strider


between him and Cole, who sat on a milk crate where the passenger seat used


to be. They added removable panels and a canvas tarp to the pickup’s bed to


protect the McAvoy boys and me from the frigid air. Even with the tarp cover,


it I still felt cold. Toby and I sat in back on top of the hunting gear with the two


other dogs.


The McAvoys were silent the whole trip. Lem cradled his rifle in his lap


and oiled it during the entire drive. He caressed it gently with a dirty rag that


filled the back of the truck with the smell of gun oil. The female shepherd


slept in Toby’s lap while the mongrel held his drooling, panting snout a few


inches from my face. Toby said the hunt excited the mutt, and he wouldn’t


settle down till they’d release him in the forest. The dogs knew where they


were going and seemed itching to scrabble out of the truck.


The McAvoy boys wore woolen, plaid jackets and peaked caps with


ear-flaps, but Mr. McAvoy wore his inseparable, crumpled Stetson. Slung


across their chests, Lem and Cole had leather bandoliers filled with enough


ammunition to wage war. I wore a ski cap, fuzzy earmuffs, and heavy mittens.


“Them fuzzy paws will never do when it comes time to shoot, boy,


“Mr. McAvoy said as he drove.


“I’ll lend ya a pair of my leather gloves with the trigger finger cut out,”


Toby offered. “If ya grab the shotgun with those woolies, it’ll slip out of your


grip and shoot your leg off. We McAvoys don’t hunt for sport¾just for meat.”


All three dogs tugged with great anticipation against their restraints,


jumping, snapping, and raring to go. With Mr. McAvoy leading, they hiked


up the mountainside and deeper into the woods. On frozen ground, the fallen


leaves and branches crunched under every step. The trail meandered up


the mountain along a stream that rushed with great force. Even with the


leaves off the trees in the colder environment, the underbrush was so


dense that the hunters could see only a few yards ahead. Stark and grey,


the bare trees yielded to an occasional evergreen, which gave a hint of life


to the otherwise stark landscape.


I zipped my ski jacket tighter around my neck. Toby replaced my


earmuffs with a flapped cap. I yanked it tight over my head and tied the


strings under my chin, but still felt chilled after fifteen minutes.


After steady uphill climbing, we reached the railroad tracks that cut


across the mountain. We saw clearly a hundred yards in both directions


until the tracks curved around the mountain.


“This is where they’ll jump,” Mr. McAvoy said. “You’ll be on the low


side, Jem, in that clump of bushes. When ya hear ’em hit the gravel, stand


and fire.”


He motioned Lem and Cole to follow him. They restrained the female



shepherd and the mongrel with leashes as they crossed the tracks and


disappeared into the woods beyond the gravel bed. Strider ran freely at Mr.


McAvoy’s side, though he had to shout, “Heel!” when the big male shepherd


Was distracted by a squirrel.


Toby and I remained halfway down the mountain, hidden in the bushes


along the railroad tracks. Mr. McAvoy, Lem, and Cole took the dogs to the crest


to drive the deer down the mountainside. The three dogs would herd them, like


sheep, into our gunsights.


Toby said, “Deer are cagey and quick. Ya got to get ’em when they jump the


tracks. Otherwise, you’ll lose ’em in the woods and we’ll never catch ’em. Paw and


the dogs will get’em nervous, so they’ll jump over those tracks even though they’d


smelled us a mile back. When they jump, we got ’em.”


The McAvoys were depending on me at my post. Mr. McAvoy, Lem, and


Cole carried pots, big spoons, and a cowbell to spook the deer. They carried


scoped rifles, ammo, and knapsacks with food and drink. Toby and I carried


twelve-gauge shotguns loaded with double-o-buck. We each had a thermos


of hot coffee and fresh-baked bread to keep us warm during our vigil.


Toby nodded, gave me a thumbs up, and headed down the tracks to his assigned post. I took the opposite direction and slid down the gravel bed into
the woods. I heard only my own breathing, so loud I feared I’d scare off the deer.
I held my breath, but that just made my pulse even louder, which might keep
me from hearing the deer coming. The ground chill enveloped me. For several
hours I remained still, afraid to scratch an itch or wipe my runny red nose.

* * *


In the dimming light of late afternoon, I jerked my head back, realizing I’d


dozed off. I pulled the shotgun snug against my chest. With a shiver, I stretched


both arms, but froze with the shotgun still in my lap. I heard a snort above me. On


my side of the tracks, a twelve-point buck stood twenty feet away. Except for the


vapor coming from its wet nostrils, it could have been a statue. Then I heard what


the buck must have heard, but still from a distance¾the McAvoys were coming


with their three barking dogs and a clamor of pots and pans driving the rest of the


deer down the mountain toward me.


The majestic buck jerked its head toward the clanking sounds and its muscles


tensed. With ears flared out, the buck faced me, still with the shotgun across my lap.


The buck bolted toward me. I felt the buck’s wind as it sprang over me, its hooves


nearly grazing my outstretched fists. I stood, turned, and aimed. The buck was gone.


The distant sound of clanking pots and barking dogs came closer. Anticipating


the sound of deer hooves on the gravel, I gripped the shotgun tighter. The sound was


not what I’d expected. It was just a flutter. When Toby’s shotgun boomed, I couldn’t


hear anything else as twenty deer sailed by me before I could think straight. I heard


Toby reload twice and fire repeatedly.


“Come on, Jem!” Toby shouted. “I hear a few more comin’! They’re all yours!”


I heard them even before they hit the gravel. I stood to fire before I could see


them, but my unintended targets were two burly black bear cubs scampering onto


the gravel and crossing the tracks between me and Toby. I lowered the gun to my


side and watched the cubs disappear into the woods behind me. When I turned


back to face the tracks, the mother bear stopped on the rails, then turned


toward the oncoming clamor. She stood seven feet tall facing two snarling


German shepherds.


The shotgun shook in my hands as I watched the bear swat the female


shepherd, then the big male, Strider. Both dogs crumpled like rag dolls, their


skulls cracked from the impact of the bear’s huge paws.


Through the turmoil, I heard Mr. McAvoy shouting from up the mountain,


“Toby! Jem! Get out of the way! That bear will kill ya to protect her cubs!”


I saw the McAvoys’ mongrel come out of the brush, not headstrong like the


shepherds, but cagey. That unknown gene in its blood kicked in as it crouched low


to the ground between the two dead shepherds and slinked toward the towering


bear. The scent of fear emitted from both the bear and the dog. I could smell my


own fear in the crisp mountain air.


“Don’t move, Jem!” Toby called. “He’s defending us just like the bear is


defending her cubs. Stay clear till Paw can shoot the bear!”


I wasn’t cold anymore and felt sweat trickling down my face from under my


wool cap. I realized the mongrel was not going to jump up at the bear and meet the


same fate as the shepherds. It was ready to avoid the bear’s swatting claws by


coaxing her down to its own level and waiting for her to tire from her erect stance.


Looking for her cubs to see if she could safely escape from her unpredictable


opponent, the bear made a half-turn toward me and sensed my presence. When the


bear dropped to all fours to charge me, the mongrel ripped its fangs deep into the


bear’s buttocks and shook its head back and forth with a growl. The bear roared,


but the mongrel bit the bear’s paw, holding it to the ground. She couldn’t stand up


again with enough leverage to swat the mongrel. The dog slipped under the bear


and sunk its teeth deep above the bear’s short tail. The bear seemed stunned,


slumping off balance. The dog took advantage by coming under the bear’s chest


and locking onto its throat.


The bear roared and spun onto its hind legs, sending the dog flying into


the far brush. Then turning toward me, the bear fled. My nostrils filled with the


stench of blood, wildlife, and gunfire. When the bear passed me, I took a deep


breath of relief, but turned to be sure she was gone. I raised the shotgun, but


saw nothing and turned back toward the railroad tracks.


Without warning, the wounded mongrel came out of the brush and jumped at


me, its sharp teeth gashing across my forehead. We rolled in the gravel until I shook


the weakened dog loose with jerk of the gunstock. The glazed look in the dog’s eyes


terrified me as I eased to my feet. The dog leaped at me, but all I remembered was


the boom of the shotgun and the impact of the dog slamming its full weight into my


chest before all went black.


* * *


Regaining consciousness, I felt as if I were waking from a bad dream. My eyes


gradually focused and I turned to see the silhouette of Mr. McAvoy wearing his Stetson,


which made him look like a giant standing in the doorway. He came to my bedside and


removed his hat for the first time since I’d met him. He was bald with a few long strands


of hair around his jug ears.


“I’m sorry I shot your dog, Mr. McAvoy,” I said.


In his silence, Mr. McAvoy weighed my apology, then he walked to the


window. Pensive, he spun his Stetson in his hands.


“Nope,” he said. “I should be apologizing to you, son. We were greedy,


only thinkin’ about the deer and forgettin’ ’bout the other dangers of the wild. It


cost us our dogs. I raised those two shepherds from pups.Them dogs was like


family. I’d endangered them just like I’d endangered you. I had the know-how,


but didn’t use it. If I’d scouted first¾looking for signs of bears¾I’d have left the


shepherds in the truck, maybe you, too. The shepherds didn’t stand a chance.


Their instincts made ’em attack to protect you and Toby¾even knowing they


couldn’t win. Folks know better—wait to fight another day when the odds are in


their favor. Dogs are loyal, so they’ll stand their ground.”


“I didn’t mean to shoot your dog?” I said with a sorrowful, croaky voice.


“Son, if you learned anything yesterday from the McAvoys, remember this:


If ya train a dog to kill, one day you’ll have to shoot ’m¾I shot ’m, son, not you.”


He plopped his hat onto his head.


“I hope them scars won’t let you forget what ya learnt.” He headed for the


door without turning back, but said over his shoulder, “Yer always welcome at


the McAvoys, son.”


Though Toby invited me over, I never returned to the McAvoys’ homestead.


Over many years, the sounds from the deer hunt faded to silence in my memory,


as did the smells in forest of blood, wildlife, and gunfire. I’ve lost clear vision of the


dogs, the bears, and the deer. Since then, though often tempted, I never ventured


onto thin ice again. But I still long for the thrill of it.

The Transformation

By Tushar Jain



Aruni: You there, WhatsApper?
Aruni: Waiting...
Arun: Here.
Aruni: Finally! Humph.
Arun: Sorry. Dozed off. This guy just goes on and on and on... One would think that after two nonstop hours, a person would run out of things to say about non-linear narratives.
Aruni: You are a cranky one, Mr. Arun Patehkar.
Arun: You would be too. My backbone's gone non-linear sitting in these horrible folding chairs. Can't believe I have to tolerate two more hours of this.
Aruni: Who is it?
Arun: Who else? The Crypt Keeper. Sixty-seven year old Prof. Chopra returned from the dead to tell us tales about Jeannette Winterson. So far, all he's done is find three different ways of saying 'Faulkner'. Dr. Chaturvedi of the Linguistics Department bent down to pick a pen ten minutes ago. He hasn't come up yet. I think he's either asleep under the table or has crawled his way out and escaped.
Aruni: You sure no one will catch you WhatsApping with your girlfriend?
Arun: Ha! Fat chance. People need to be awake for that. Mrs. Bedi next to me is snoring so powerfully, her chair's shifted seven inches in the last five minutes.
Aruni: Um... Arun, I have something to tell you.
Arun: Uh oh. Alarm bells have commenced ringing ominously.
Aruni: Yeah... Hm.
Arun: Spill the beans, o mysterious one.
Aruni: My lower back's started to itch.
Arun: Oh shit.
Aruni: Exactly.
Arun: No, no, no! Shit! Shit! Shit! But wait. Is it the same kind of itch?
Aruni: Yup.
Arun: Shhhhhhhiiiiiiiitttt!
Aruni: It's similar to the one I felt on the sole of my left foot two months ago. I think it's speeding up. The process, I mean.
Arun: So – so, this – this would be the...
Aruni: Yes.
Arun: The tail! Jesus.
Aruni: I was sitting in bed, working on the anthology as usual, and suddenly, bang. That same evil, recognisable itch.
Aruni: Arun?
Arun: Here. Mrs. Bedi's snore-fuelled chair changed course and was about to charge into mine. I did her a favour and shifted it a little to the right. In another ten minutes, she'll be out of the room.
Aruni: You're distracted. I'll talk later.
Arun: No! Stay. I'm here. I want to talk.
Aruni: Do you? Do you really? Because this is more important than tail-less Mrs. Bedi.
Arun: Oh, I wouldn't call Mrs. Bedi tail-less. If anything, I think she has quite the tail.
Aruni: What the FUCK did you say?
Arun: Nothing. Listen, Aru. I've wanted to talk for a long time. Seriously. About us. I think... No. I *know* I can't handle 'it' anymore.
Aruni: You're being vague.
Arun: I think we should break up.
Arun: Aru?
Aruni: Here. And by 'it' you obviously mean –
Arun: What else?
Aruni: Okay. Thanks for clarifying. Here's something though. You're not breaking up with me.
Arun: Excuse me?
Aruni: A. You. Cannot. Break. Up. With. Me. On. WhatsApp. You. Miserable. Shit!
B. You. Are. Not. Breaking. Up. With. Me. Without. Giving. Me. A. Good. Reason. You. Spineless. Pig!
Arun: Reason? You need a reason? How about you've been slowly and steadily, day by day, hour by hour, turning into a horse for the last two months!
Aruni: That's not a good enough reason.
Arun: It isn't???
Aruni: People grow and change in serious relationships all the time. We just need counselling and patience. Maybe a little support from friends and family too.
Arun: Support from friends and family?! Are you crazy? Aru, you're going to grow a tail in a couple of days! What am I supposed to tell my parents? 'Hi mom, hey dad, meet my girlfriend, the centaur'?
Aruni: You're just using this as an excuse. This isn't a legitimate reason to break up.
Arun: Aruni, there's never been a more legitimate reason to break up!
Aruni: You couldn't be more shallow, could you? Arun Patehkar, you're not breaking up with me.
Arun: I am breaking up with you!
Aruni: You're not!
Arun: I am!
Aruni: You know what this sort of prejudiced thinking makes you? A filthy misogynist!
Arun: I cannot be a misogynist. You're half-horse.
Aruni: If you had to leave, why did you stick around for two months? Why didn't you scram when it started?
Arun: Um...
Aruni: Cat got your tongue?!
Arun: Well, I wanted to leave immediately but... How should I put this delicately... Um. Aruni, frankly, after the rent and everything, there isn't a lot of my salary left at the end of the month.
Aruni: What does that have to do with anything?
Arun: Well, I thought if I could cut down on expenses on things like... fuel...
Aruni: Wait a minute... You BASTARD! You were waiting for me to turn into a horse to ride me to your college!
Arun: Initially, yes. But other considerations have surfaced. The recent cut in fuel rates is quite refreshing and honestly, it has helped me a lot in making up my mind about the break up.
Aruni: You money-minded churl!
Arun: Hey, that's unfair! Let me tell you that that wasn't the only reason I stuck around.
Aruni: Oh yeah? Then, tell me, you very soul of romance, what else was there? Were you planning on entering me in a derby?
Arun: Nothing of the sort! It's just... Aruni... I really, really like absurdist literature.
Aruni: Rot in Hell!
Arun: Aruni, let's acknowledge the fact that things simply haven't been going our way for a while.
Aruni: I agree. They haven't been. Especially since you read about the latest subsidy on fuel prices.
Arun: Aruni, come on, don't be an ass!... Oh, I'm so, so sorry.
Aruni: This is ridiculous. I'm calling.
Arun: No! There are sleeping academics all around me. I can't pick up.
Aruni: Okay. Then hear me out. I didn't want to play this card but you haven't left me much of a choice. If you break up with me, my girls will hunt you down and make your life a living, burning hell.
Arun: Aruni, your gang of feminist poets doesn't scare me.
Aruni: Oh, it will... It definitely will.
Arun: She said cryptically. Though she knew that it was nothing more than a hollow threat.
Aruni: He believed it was a hollow threat and nothing more. But she knew better. And in that knowledge of his certain doom, felt secure.
Arun: Aruni, have a heart!
Aruni: I had a heart. I gave it to you. Look what you've done with it.
Arun: See reason, Aru! Think about it. Let's say we stay together now. What happens after another two months? I cannot date a horse! They'll throw me behind bars without giving it a second thought! The only thing that'll give them pause is when they stop to decide between a prison and an asylum. And that's still nothing compared to what animal rights activists will do to me if they got to me first!
Aruni: That's the problem right there. Your pessimism, your screwed-up negativity! In two months time, it'll also be our one year anniversary. But oh, you won't think about that! Arun, you promised me a lavish candle-lit dinner for our one year anniversary.
Arun: Sigh... That's not going to happen for a lot of reasons and you know it. For one, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be a good idea to place a candle that close to a bale of hay.
Aruni: There it surfaces again. The drone of that negative mind. I hope you understand that my transformation is merely an excuse for breaking apart an otherwise healthy relationship. You think it's mere coincidence that you're trying to break up just when we were starting to get serious? Do you even realize how childish and easy to manipulate your psychology is?
Arun: Counter argument. Didn't it cross your mind that your simple refusal to let this relationship end is an indication of something deeply wrong with it?
Aruni: Arun, we're not breaking up.
Arun: Dammit, woman!
Aruni: Language.
Arun: Okay, what about 'If you love someone, set them free'. What about that?
Aruni: Love?
Arun: Yes! Love!
Aruni: Nobody said anything about love.
Arun: What?
Aruni: I never said I loved you. You just assumed?
Arun: But.
Aruni: But what?
Arun: You don't love me?
Aruni: Of course not.
Arun: But... why not?
Aruni: I'm amazed you even have to ask the question. I could never love someone like you. I think that is pretty obvious.
Arun: Not to me it isn't! What's wrong with me!
Aruni: Arun, you're making me uncomfortable.
Arun: Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to, baby.
Aruni: Never mind.
Arun: Um, maybe we can talk about this when I get home?
Aruni: Probably not today.
Arun: Um. Why not, Aru?
Aruni: Because my idiot boyfriend has been behaving like an errant pain in the ass all morning.
Arun: Oh! Hahahahahahahahahaha. Baby, you can be so funny sometimes!
Aruni: Is the conference winding up? How much longer will this last? It's a shame they called you on a weekend. For a conference on fractured narratives, why does he have to finish all of it today?
Arun: I know, heart! You want me to come home right now, Aru? I think I'll take a cue from Dr. Chaturvedi, drop a pen and scuttle homewards!
Aruni: No. Sit it out. It's only an hour more anyway. Get it over with. On the way back, see if you can get me half a bucket of good grain. I feel a sudden, strange hankering coming on. See you at noon.

Hunted

A Short Story by Charles E.J. Moulton


Blood splattered everywhere, bones thrown against stems of trees, a heart half eaten, a liver left to rot on a stone, intestines and a brain ripped out with such force that I now understood what Howard had told me. I found only carnage.
There was nothing left of the slaughtered animal.
How people from miles around had heard wails that ... what was the phrase he had used? "Sounded like a deer being ripped apart."
I bit on my tongue, just to prevent myself from crying. I would've held back my tears if not for the stench and the sight of the slaughter. So I cried.
I took a deep breath, threw the rifle back over my shoulder and walked up a few steps to the remains. Holding my thick scarf against my face, probably looking like a dried prune with all the wrinkles I was making, I carefully examined the paw marks still intact in the fur.
 These rips in the flesh were different than the ones I yet had seen. Larger.
The tracks? Broken branches covered by light rain. By the looks of the animal's remains, I guessed that whatever had been here had left at least two or three hours ago.
Maybe even in the late morning.
The blood had partially dried up and leaves had fallen on the carcass.
I stood up, looked around, doing my best to detect anything out of the ordinary. I looked for a stray bear, although to be honest, I couldn't see a bear doing this.
My gaze automatically turned inwards toward the forest at the trail of broken branches leading away from the carcass. There was no movement in there, save that occasional flutter of a leaf or a dead bird falling from a branch. I knew I had to find out what beast had done this. I owed that much to the deer.
I pressed the button on my cellular telephone. It lay immobile and dead in my hand, just as dead as the deer was now. A sudden wrath at the beast rose up from the depths of my soul. Whatever roamed beyond those bushes had slaughtered, not just killed it. This act of deliberate murder had not been hunger. The creature had been pissed off. But what animal was capable of this?
I wandered about the hillside, waiting for Howard to pick up his phone. My hand, the free hand not holding the phone, turned into a claw, a chilly claw that felt like ripping the killer apart. Then I tried to imagine how large the hands of the beast had been. Twice the size of mine was my conclusion. I would be ripped apart myself if I tried. Bad idea.
"Howard, where are you?" I muttered to myself.
In the distance, way off in the distance, somewhere deep between the thickest of Colorado forests, a sound emanated into the open country. My head involuntarily snapped to the side, the old hunter in me trying to deciphre the origin of the sound. Several tones and timbres were in there. Growls, wails, even a tone that sounded human.
"Yes?"
The fear that had exploded from my guts into my head subsided for one moment as the calm twang of Howard's outdrawn vowel greeted me.
"Hey, it's me."
The wind whistled an odd song on the instrument they called the trees.
"Hi, Jim," Howard sing-songed, that fear ever so present in his voice. "Sorry I took so long to answer the phone. I thought I heard a noise in the garden. Sounded like a burglar. Did you find something?"
I nodded,  my breathing turning infrequent and nervous.
"Yeah."
"Don't tell me," Howard jibed in. "Deer, right?"
"I believe that's what it was."
"Slaughtered?" Howard spat, skeptically.
"There's not much left of it," I whispered. "This beast was angry. I have never seen a bear do this. In fact, I am kind of doubting a bear has the strength to rip a deer apart like this."
"Sounds like the Sasquatch," Howard mumbled under his breath.
"Maybe the boogeyman," I spat, denying my own doubts that this butchered animal had been killed by a normal beast.
"Stop kidding yourself, Jim," he told me, his voice turning soft, as if he waited for something to happen. Maybe that burglar and his ugly metal stick - or the boogeyman. Howard paused. "We're dealing with a demon here."
"Howard, let's be reasonable here."
"This is beyond reason," Howard interrupted. "This is the fifth deer this autumn."
"Sixth."
"Whatever," Howard scoffed. "The point is that we haven't found a bear anywhere near any of the crime scenes. You said yourself no bear really has that much strength. A Sasquatch does."
"I have never seen one," I cackled.
"I have," Howard provoked.
"Are you sure that's what it was?" I inquired.
"Jim," Howard sighed. "Are you sure that your preconceived conceptions of the Sasquatch are not making you rule out possibilities?"
"I don't believe in Bigfoot," I croaked, allowing that old familiar feeling of inadequacy spread across my skull down to my groin. "Too far fetched. I mean, come on. Big hairy fellah that scares old ladies and eats deer liver for breakfast?"
"What if it's true?"
I looked back at the dead animal.
"I haven't seen a grizzly bear in ages," I wondered, almost speaking to myself.
"I'm just saying that if a ridiculed animal like Sasquatch is sighted more often than a grizzly bear we might want to change our minds about what that creature is."
"What is it?"
"An undiscovered animal. No more. No less. A very dangerous undiscovered animal. One we have to take seriously. Especially when it slaughters other animals. An animal was recently discovered in Asia that no one had ever heard of."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that things are not always what they seem."
"Sasquatch," I muttered.
"Maybe, maybe not," Howard whispered. "Just check for tracks. Please."
"Okay."
So I hung up, called the municipal authorities about the animal and went into the forest to search for tracks. The branches felt like whips, the moss felt like quicksand and the holes in the ground that turned into hills a second later felt like a rollercoaster. In the thickest of forest greenery, as well, I felt like someone destined to fail. The wails in the distance died out just as I stopped to listen from where they came and arose just as I moved onwards, only to dwindled down again when I stopped again. I grabbed my rifle tight, of course, doing my best not to make a move.
The beastly cries in the distance caused me to shudder. It read my mind. At least I thought it did.
I didn't want to be the laughing stock of the community of hunters. Still, I couldn't just ignore these signs. They were evident.
One swift noise that echoed through the forest had me jump, the hairs of my neck standing up like rifles rising up against brutal beasts on an African safari. Immediately, I swung around to see what had broken the branch, if that's what it was that had broken.
It appeared out of nowhere, maybe even breaking the branch on purpose in order to attract my attention. What immediately stung me, stung my nose, really, was the smell. It was the scent of dissected and slowly decomposing sewer rats on a bed of moldy bread. Tranquil and immobile, a giant met my gaze.
To be really honest, and this came as a revelation of sorts, the intense stink that travelled up my nostrils rang a bell inside me. The beast that now stood in front of me had produced, infiltrated and soaked the smell of the dead deer in order to swim in a beastly pool of dead odor.
Breathing, heavy breathing, was now all I could hear. In fact, the cracking of the branch really had been the last noise I had heard. From a distance of eight feet I could feel the breeze of the animal's breath on my face.
Its mouth wide open, it looked like an odd version of a monster from a B-movie. I would also have taken it for a puppet if it hadn't been for the slow trembling of the jaw and the fur that trembled with it.
That was another thing. The fur. It was greyish brown, dark hair contaminated by drying mud, dirty and extremely long. The beast reminded me of the character of Chewbacca in Star Wars. I certainly would have asked the actor to take off his funny suit if I hadn't been able to look into the mouth of the beast. The inside of that fleshy grotto that was his snout resembled that of a dog's hole with its darkred flesh and hard bones, its curves and pointed cleft and dungeon of intestine abyss. The caved eyes, sunken in and almost vanishing into the skull, gazed at me solemnly like a hungry titan waiting for its meal. When my eyes slowly drifted down to its paws, I saw the bobbing head of a dead squirrel, only loosely hanging by a half eaten throat.
I think I panicked. I began shivering and shaking all over, fearing that my trepidation would cause the creature to feel wrath. I knew, however, that I had to keep still if I were to survive this. At least I imagined this beast to react like a bear, but what did I know? I knew about bears and coyotes and eagles and racoons. Eight feet tall, furry looking beasts likely to rip a deer apart? No fucking clue.
I tried to recall how far away I was from the deer at the edge of the forest. Right now, I really didn't have many options. Dying was no option, me being divorced or not, happy or not. My pickup truck was fast enough to escape a furry beast, if I could make it to the truck, that is. The other option? Pulling up my rifle and aiming at its heart. But what if I missed his heart? Then I probably would be lost forever.
My finger gently played with the trigger, hoping for the impossible, hoping that I could be fast enough to aim right at its most sensitive part and have it over with. But what was his most sensitive part? Could I distract the animal, throw something and cause it to look away while I escaped.
I did none of that. Instead I did something stupid, something hunters usually don't do. Without any prior warning, I ran. I turned on one heel and scooted into the unknown greenery, hitting bushes and tripping over branches, all while hearing big thumping steps jumping up behind me. I could feel the animal's stinky breath on my neck. In my fear and panic, I started screaming. I must've lost my balance on my way a half length from the edge of the forest, with my eyes fixing on the body of the deer, when I tripped and tumbled into a bush, my rifle dropping into a nearby ditch.
My face rubbing the grass, I now felt the tickle of what I thought was Sasquatch fur. Expecting to die, I turned around and fell onto my back. What I didn't expect, though, was that the Sasquatch fur belonged to a human arm.
"Jim?"
Howard's worried twang sent me a small puff of peppermint flavored tic-tacs on my way from a friendly mouth.
I took his arm, heaving myself up and trying to hold and keep my balance.
"I saw it, Howard," I whispered, realizing that my life had just been saved by extraordinary circumstances.
"What?" Howard responded.
"It," I answered.
"Sasquatch?"
I nodded, suddenly realizing that I had no proof of my encounter. But what was I supposed to do? Pick up my phone, click on camera and say: "Cheese"?
"We're invading on his territory," Howard continued. "Sasquatch has become a trademark and yet we still treat deers and bears better than we treat him. So he kills what we love."
I did end up telling Howard about my encounter in nauseating detail. As I walked   out toward my pickup truck next to Howard, now with my rifle on my back, both of us heard that wail in the distance. Funnily enough, when the patrol officers and municipal authorities came to jot down the details, they laughed when I told them about the furry giant that almost killed me.
Howard and I went home to his place, drank a couple of beers and threw a couple of pizzas in the oven.
We had almost forgotten my encounter with the furry beast when Howard sat up in his chair, turning down the baseball game, his facial expression turning morose and frightened. He claimed he had heard the same strange noise in the forest patch in the back of his garden, a noise he had heard before when I had called him earlier that day. Howard excused himself, smiled and loafed away in his typically slow and comfortable way, leaving me to wait around for signs of ill doing. I turned down the shouts and murmurs of the game just to hear the effects of his search.
A minute went by. Then two minutes. Then five. After ten minutes, I looked up from my beer into the distance of the dark forest and saw nothing but the fog and the rising of the moon. I called out, hoping that Howard would answer me and tell me it was just a rat. After all, we had a few more slices of pizza to eat and a couple of more beers to kill. But there were other creatures out there who needed to kill us for whatever reason. Hunger, hatred, bestial frustration, animal lust. I don't know what made them kill.
I pretended that everything was still okay, but the silence worried me. Even the hunter in me shivered. I knew the ominous atmosphere that suddenly overpowered me had its origin in something not us, something dark, something ill willed. I reached out with my mind, listening to the peace and quiet and almost hoping it was a burglar that had entered Howard's house. I wondered if Howard had heard the same being in his house while speaking to me on the phone earlier. Then I wondered if its feet were swift enough to dash across great distances just to squeeze in another murder in its busy schedule. The thud I heard next caused to sit up, wait, listen, prick up my ears, smell the rotten whiff of decay. Something round rolled across the kitchen floor and hit the wall.
"Howard?" I yelled out. "You okay?"
When one of the fuses blew, leaving me in total darkness, I left my chair, felt myself through the house, my eyes staring into the dark void. Finally, I stumbled and fell onto something with grey hair on top, something that had spoken with a twang, something that had been severed, something that bled.
The loneliness of the Colorado forests became obvious to me first when I heard my own screams reverberating into dead Howard's empty hallway. For next to Howard's headless body was the swift and quiet, quick and agile creature we knew as Sasquatch. As I raised my head for that last time, I saw the creature lifting his claw, growling at me in the dark night and aiming at my skull.

Misunderstanding

​By Alexandra H. Rodrigues


Helga frowned at her image in the bedroom mirror. Then she dabbed on a little powder to mellow the puffiness under her eyes. Churned by the tears just shed, her aging skin looked like the unfinished sidewalk across the street, on which the rain of this gray, wet November day had been falling steadily for hours.
The entrance door closed noisily, and Helga jumped up to face her husband.
“Evening Mausi. Sorry I’m late but I have to tell you –"
With an icy look, she brushed past him into the spotless, cozy living room and cut him off.
“Don’t bother. I know. I saw!”
He hung up his lined weathercoat in the hall.
“What’s the matter Mausi? You look as though somebody stole your bicycle.”
“Walter, how could you? I can’t believe it’s happening to us. After nearly 30 years! You are retiring next year. I never thought you would give me cause to doubt your faithfulness. Not since the incident with Lilly. But then we were both young and immature. You know and I know, I’m not the jealous type, but when I saw you just now—" She choked back a sob.
“I forgave you about Lilly then and I had hoped to forget – I wanted to believe you. So why now? You’re getting old, too – not only me. Is this really happening to us?”
She pressed her matronly body into the corner of the green corduroy couch away from Walter who had settled in his high back leather chair.
“Mausi, I don’t understand – “
“For heaven’s sakes, don’t call me Mausi. I saw you picking up that bitch across the street two hours ago. She can’t even be twenty.”
At that, Walter sat up straight, the wobbling pouches of his pot belly struggling unwillingly.
“You got it all wrong. Let me explain.”
“I got it all wrong, eh? I saw how you took her arm and held her real close. How come you know her? They only moved in a few days ago. The sidewalk isn’t even finished.”
Walter pretended a yawn to hide the smile around his narrow lips. He was prepared to let Helga stew a while.
“I don’t know her. She asked me to help her mother. The poor old lady had fainted.”
“How charming! She asked you to help her mother when she doesn’t even know you! Come off it Walter!”
The fresh flush of anger painted Helga’s cheeks a youthful pink.
“After all those years! Our daughter Rosie must be older than – “
“Helga, darling, if you would only listen. Her mother is the only one who can take care of Susan.”
“Oh! So it’s Susan. Why may I ask does Susan pick on you? Why doesn’t she pick on a young man?”
“Now, now, I’m still quite handsome. You tell me so all the time. Still got all my hair.”
Walter ran his fingers through his hair.
“It’s getting gray but – don’t pick on my age.”
“Well, you’re certainly no young Adonis. I still don’t see why she is after you.”
Walter slid over to the couch and took Helga’s hand, but she pulled away quickly, hiding it in the pleats of her black skirt.
“Well. Now, we don’t really want to quarrel, do we?”
Then, after a theatrical pause, he added, “Listen Helga, Susan doesn’t see anything in me. She can’t because she is b l i n d.”
Helga’s jaw dropped. She looked at her husband and blushed while his eyes held hers lovingly, slightly mocking.
“I’m so happy -- no I mean – I’m sorry. Walter, I’m confused, ashamed. You should have told me.”
Walter pressed her tear-smeared face to his shoulder.
“You didn’t give me a chance. Susan was desperate. It didn’t matter who she picked to help her mother. She was standing outside and heard me walk by, so she asked me.”
“And I thought – Walter. Blind. How terrible.”
“You know Mausi, you were beautiful when you got mad just now.”
Helga sniffled. Walter put his arm around her shoulders and said, “The old lady, well she’s not that old, was coming to when we walked in. Boy, what a mess they have there. All the furniture is still piled up. I called Dr. Fergus and waited till he got there. They moved from Connecticut, didn’t want to stay in the house up there after Susan’s father had passed away.”
Walter glanced at the Louis XIV clock on the television.
“Nine o’ clock already. Say, what happened to dinner?”
“Helga wiped the last tears away using the sleeves of her white blouse and hurried into the kitchen.
“It’s ready. Just have to heat it up. There’s plenty. Say, should we take some pot roast and string beans over to them? I mean since the old lady is sick.”
Walter, who had followed her into the kitchen, lifted the lid off the simmering pot and sniffed approvingly.
“Great idea. That’s my Mausi.”
He put his arm around her shoulder.
“Look, the moon is coming out. It has stopped raining.”

Flash Fiction in Spanish and English 

By Daniel de Culla


TINTO DE VERANO


“Días de mayo, días de desventura; aún no es mañana, y ya es noche oscura”
Esto tarareaba Diego Velázquez, haciendo algunos desafueros y ruidos, y espantando a la gente, pues venia más borracho que una cuba.
No obstante, se le veía con postura de galas con plumajes, como asomando en él una vaga fantasía.
Apoyado en una farola, y mordisqueando una rosa roja, comenzó a cantar, bastante mal, ¡vaya¡ la canción “Summer Wine” de Natalia Avelon y Ville Vallo.
Cuando terminó su canción, se puso a orinar sobre un charco, sin darse cuenta que se le acercaba un villano vestido de policía, quien le preguntó con malos humores:
-¿Qué está usted haciendo? ¿No sabe que le voy a multar?
El, sin inmutarse, y con su lengua de trapo, le respondió:
-Señor juez, donde un asno mea, todos mean.



SUMMER WINE


"Days of May, days of misfortune;
it's not morning yet, but it is dark night "
Diego Velázquez hummed, making outrageous noises,
 Frightening people, striding about more drunk than a vat.
Nonetheless, he could be seen in gait with plumes,
Dressed up as if in a vague fantasy.
Leaning on a lamppost, nibbling a red rose, singing, quite badly, actually,
The Natalia Avelon and Ville Valo song "Summer Wine."
When he finished this song, he relieved his bladder into a puddle,
Without noticing that a villain, dressed as a policeman,
came near him, asking him angrily:
"What are you doing? Don’t you know that this is going to cost you money?"
He replied in a drunken lisp without wavering an inch:
"Noble Justice, where a donkey conducts his business, so do I."

​

Future Memories
 
A short story by Charles E.J. Moulton
 
The scent reminded him of magnolia. Ludicrous, wasn’t it? After all this time, one little smell brought back memories he had thought long gone. He ached not to remember the whiff and how it had aroused every sense in his body, his very soul. But the memory was there again. Inside him. And all it took was the scent of a strange woman with the same perfume. It popped out from his subconscious now and then without warning. Magnolia and lilacs, kisses in the rain. The scent travelled from that strange woman standing just a few feet away up to his nose and made him ache, made his heart beat faster.
            Magnolia. The smell of happiness, the smell of that blouse she had left him before he stepped on that boat. Now, some woman he didn’t know stood next to him in the subway station and he again turned into a lost puppy. One puppy that hoped that a miracle would save what had been destroyed.
            He closed his eyes.
            It couldn’t be, could it?
            After all this time, it just couldn’t be.
            Even now, after a long day, one small hint sufficed to turn him into a ball of sensitivity. Andrew sighed, succumbing to that smell, letting the whiff enter his nostrils. Once again, he raised his eyebrows and closed his eyes and remembered favorite songs, favorite places, favorite TV-programmes.
            Angry, he stepped away from that woman, grabbed into his bag and took out his book. Sitting down, he closed his eyes and tried to remember his own past. Carefree. Had he been carefree back then? Not really. Then why did he remember it so fondly how she caressed him? Opening his eyes, Andrew saw who had been producing the smell.
            Blonde, yes, blue eyed, yes. Old, yes. Well, sixty-something.
            He looked down on the book.
            Memories are private, he thought to himself.
​Irreplacable.
            A thought shivered in his mind. It hung there like an empty sheet of paper dancing in the wind. Who was he to judge his own memories? Blame a strange woman for wearing his ex-girlfriend’s perfume? Was this pain? No. Not really. Memories long gone? Yes. Bad? No, just lost. Lost in action, real in spirit.
            For a moment, Andrew glanced over at the woman as he stepped into his oncoming train.
            The woman looked up, nodding at him, as if she knew what he was going through. But that was not possible, was it? The stinky subway stench rotting with old hamburger leftovers and littered with rats, drenched with numb boredom, for one moment shone in a strange light. The train doors not yet closed, the woman smiled at him. One wink. Small, to say the least.
“I am your memory,” her wink seemed to say. I am not her, I just wear your girlfriend’s perfume. I am the madeleine cake Marcel Proust spoke of.

One whiff of a smell that awakes a very old memory.

I happen to be the bringer of the news. Old news long gone. Gone? No, not gone. Around the corner a mile away.
The book still in Andrew’s hand, he looked over and saw his bag still on the chair where he had been sitting. Panic struck him, his heart skyrocketing into his head. Something seemed to rip away from his heart and bang against his eyelids. He saw money, telephones, keys, personal belongings, all gone, some burglar taking it all away and Andrew having to run into the night and call the police. The memories of thing yet to come brought on the dreaded feeling of having to call fifty people to avoid being completely fathomed with misery. The feeling of emptiness seemed to come from one bag left on a white metal bench in a silly subway alleyway. The memory of the woman’s perfume disintergrated.
            Andrew jumped back onto the platform before the doors closed, grabbed the briefcase and picked it up. The familiar leather greeted him again and that feeling of emptiness filled up again and seemed to tell him that his soul clung to things. Just things. What were they? Things, no more than things. That other voice told him about reality, about keys to apartments and a smartphone filled with professional contacts.
            Andrew grabbed the briefcase and ran back into the train, still there, patiently waiting for him to calm down and sit down. Sit down. Sit down.
            As he sat down in the only free seat in the wagon, he closed his eyes again and remembered that ex-girlfriend and how she had smelled. Calmly, he succumbed to the lure of trying to imagine himself back in her arms. But he couldn’t. This time, the smell gone and the briefcase in his hand, the new smell took over. The smell of his own briefcase, his work in it, his life a new one, his goals different, his hope renewed, he went back to smell the memory of magnolia. The flower faded, he clung to a dream. The dream of a past that had changed into a present. A present that was different. Different. Better. Yes, my God, much better.
            The train left the tunnel and shot out into a new world.
            Street corners slowly filled up with angry salesmen and kissing lovers, impatient parents and barking dogs, honking cars and laughing bartenders, parked cars and nosepicking teenagers, yawning grandfathers and coughing cats, important businessmen and attractive brunettes, discussing twenty-somethings and disgusting thirty-somethings, persuasive forty-somethings and evasive fifty-somethings, admired sixty-somethings and tired seventy-somethings, wheelchaired eighty-somethings and deceased ninety-somethings.
            The sun rose above the plains as the train left the city.
            As he left the train, green grass met his eye. Blue sky seduced his spirit. The music of the wind caressing his cheek felt like a promise to renew his own strength.
            There, on the platform, a little toddler came bouncing toward him.
            “Papa,” the toddler chanted.
            Dropping his briefcase onto the ground, into his arms he welcomed love.
            A blonde woman slanted her head to the side, smiling, holding her arms out to her sides. The man smiled as the blonde woman affectionately morphed into his heart, producing a sigh. She wore that other perfume that he loved. One perfume that had nothing to do with magnolia. This one smelled of roses, discreet roses whose beauty rested truthfully within the palm of reality. One whose strength would outlast the eons.
            The woman kissed his lips and smiled at him, lovingly:
            “How was Paris?”
            “Business meetings full of boring people,” Andrew shrugged. “Empty hotels, tasteless food, sterile airports.”
            He looked at his briefcase, as it rested on the ground below.
            “Paperwork, paper,” he sneered, “full of little words so meaningless that I yawned myself through the night.”
            Andrea smiled at him. “Meet anyone you knew?”
            “Nah,” he said, truthfully. “I sat there in the hotelroom ordering room service and looking at some old movie, wishing I was home with you two.”
            Andrea closed her eyes, giving her head a seductive twitch that spoke of homemade cooking.
            “You know, Andrew,” she said, sighing. “You could have that success you are so hungry for, if you take time to finish that book of yours.”
            “Did you cook something special for us?”
            “What do you mean? Of course I did.”
            “Then let’s go home and eat.”
            The toddler called out a loud: “Da-dah!” as the family left the train station and heading for a car. In the oven, a vegeterian dish waited for a warm oven. On the wall, a familiar picture of a ship waited for a careful analysis. On the bookshelf, children’s books were waiting to be read. In the attic, paintings were waiting to be painted. In the computer, a book waited to be written. In the house, a wife waited to be kissed. In the garden, a lawn waited to be mowed. In the music room, a song waited to be composed. In his heart, a courageous heart waited to be leapt out of its hole and rediscovered.
            And so, the family sat there, smiling, the toddler banging its blue plastic cup against a high-chair. The couple held hands and ate in silence.
            Andrew realized, then and there, that he, after all, was the luckiest man in the world.
            That had nothing at all to do with magnolia.

Over and over

By Tomas Sanchez Hidalgo


I had recently graduated from college, where, as a matter of fact, I received an outstanding dissertation award. I met Lucila in an introductory stock market class in New York at Columbia University. It included an internship at Lehman Brothers.

This was June of 1994.

“I’m going to show you a failsafe remedy for asthma,” she said to me one afternoon as we were leaving the first day of class.
She noticed I used an inhaler after signing up for polo club as an extracurricular activity with some of her fellow countrywomen. Interestingly, I also coincided with fellow countrymen when they were signing up for a Monopoly tournament. As a matter of fact, they were practically the majority of this pseudoclub with fictitious roots hereinafter.

“There’s no question it's better than that Ventolin you use. Much healthier than eucalyptus leaf steam. And than Vick's Vaporub,” Lucila continued in her Korean accent. “Four brief plunges and one long one, deep calm attack,”
was her first medical prescription.
It was that very night, in her bedroom, while she manually sounded me in the dark.
“Stop and breath deeply, Spaniard. Just concentrate and start the message again in a kind of Morse code. It's the second round now: four short, fifth in its due time, and precursor to the next cycle of four plus one on your way to infinity. Try to arrive today in your baptism with me at the fifty lunges before finishing the full text. Before you register a patent for the sea, or for the south: before you come,
Tomás. Don't finish before,” she said that first night we were together, a ride in which I didn’t, as a matter of fact, get to the third round.

“We’ll resort to Eric Satie’s Gymnopédies from here on in, pibe,” Kim said. She tried to hide her deception when we said goodbye five minutes later in the doorway to her loft, in Spanish Harlem. A loft is a loft is a loft. She let me borrow the above mentioned Satie CD for a few days. She then explained the beautiful and nostalgic flat rhythm of that musical piece, broken rhythm, no leitmotif, it would help me like a metronome. Clever controller. Ideal in these affairs of prevailing unspokenness - explicit catenaccio, will power, bull, status, trade -
when trying to hold out on the final score.
“Practice, Spaniard,” she insisted.

The next weekend, we ran into each other leaving a movie theater near campus. A multiplex. Actually it was a classic sci-fi film fest. Kim had gone to see 2001: Space Odyssey with her polo mates. I was out with some acquaintances, from the Monopoly tournament - which we had to add two extra playoffs to because of unexpectedly high turnout. We had seen the sequel to Kubrick's classic in the next theater over, 2010: Odyssey 2.
The two groups met in the multiplex’s huge entryway on our way out outside in front of the theater’s showtimes inside. Good manners and a certain spirit. I started to talk to her about film and with her fellow countrymen.

“Nevermore,” they answered as one when I suggested going to see "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" at the next film festival, this time on westerns. When I loved her that same night, making my debut in the dozen rounds, the fifty lunges, hits - in a previous lack of flow, it was like slalom. They predicted crack'd mirrors in August olive groves then, electricity in the marrow: the end of the world is coming. Replacement then for shock between my legs: pleasure in bulk. Afterward, with glasses of wine - and dreams-, we gave each other cement kisses, revolver kisses.
Welcome to the Spanish “bared” cinema.

So, my internships at Lehman consisted mainly of participating in an international stock market tournament. I was chosen to be captain of my team. First prize in the finals. That same night, for the first time, and not without effort, I reached 90 lunges in just one union or matrimony. I appeared after the climax, and as an involuntary astral trip, in Harrod’s - sales in the Earth’s center of gravity, not necessarily Baltic staging of the Te Deum.

“You can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of men,” she assured me when I told her about the vision I had just had: the first of a long list. That sentence was actually a quote by Isaac Newton, ruined on the stock market after the South Sea bubble popped in the 18th century: greed and fear are considered the cyclical and unflagging driving forces of the aforementioned madness of men in the financial world, sheltered both in the oblivion of our existential backgrounds, of collective memory: an ongoing resetting: an unteach us how to forget how things are unlearned.

At this point, everything else was a piece of cake. All the finales with Kim in her loft brought me for a few seconds - ten?, twenty?, thirty?, a minute perhaps? - to an abrupt new ride in the form of star trip. Yes, indeed: star trip. And that was
how I celebrated my particular centennial with Lucila that same week flying over Marrakesh. I walked through the city amongst its bazaars and shady and somewhat sinuous alleyways. Its music and its writers passed before my eyes. And snake charmers, water carriers, fortune tellers, and acrobats until I arrived at the exotic and frenetic Jemaa el-Fnaa market place.

In the following days I visited San Francisco after enduring 110 pelvis thrusts at one time, Mount Fuji emerging from the fog after getting to 120, a station in Antarctica from doing it till 130, another time Mount Fuji at 140, the Parisian cemetery of Montparnasse at 150 (What is the soul, man? - I found written on a post-it on Sartre's grave-), Boise, Idaho, when I came for the first time at 160, Lake Rudolf - between Ethiopia and Kenya-, cradle of Humanity, at 170, an island in the South Pacific when I debuted at 180, and an unknown desert or remote landscape to exploit at exactly 190.

After the date I reached the second hundred, things took another turn: time travel made its appearance as well. I witnessed the Yalta Conference when I reached the sky at 200 and a G-8 conference at 210 - the Spanish language was notably, on both occasions, absent: I was thankful for the advanced English class before the stock market class -, and, although 220 came and went without leaving a trace, I got to know the intimacies of 23-F when I exploded in hip movement number 230, and the arrival of Peronism when I did it at 240.

Then diamonds and people with wooden horses appeared - eating marshmallow cakes - in the tens from 250 to 330. Only four times: I skipped, given my present skill level, several of those tens. During this advanced piece of the summer, she still continued with her polo practice and I with Monopoly. More and more of my fellow countrymen joined the games so another tournament had to be opened at the same time.

As for us, at some of the culminating points of passion images from my own life appeared to me. It sounds strange, right? A special mention for the visions that I had of a future then far off: the exact moment of my stepping down: in the middle of the elections for company chair and in front of the TV cameras. After having operated, of course, the entire previous six months on the stock market with high risk derivatives, ideal for multiplying - actually increasing exponentially - your wealth in dragging markets. I lived in that future tenths of a second afterwards like a punk, like the Sex Pistols: a toxic and fast-paced life.

Driving my serpent, I left my huge footprint from the platform to the auditorium in singular parabola of penduluming axis of departure, aspersion irrigation: golden rain. I wanted to reach all of you drop by drop.
Some of the visionary conclusions weren't by tens but by fives. Closing ceremonies then: never-ending odyssey with the work on my first loft, unbelievable payouts to the Tax Office in 2010 and 2011 - and the next years -, … and construction on the M-30 highway: the world as it was explained to the pharaohs. In yet another turn of events, and on one of the first occasions that I went over 70 rounds, I saw myself again.
It was one of the most clear and long-lasting visions of the whole summer: the biggest stock market crashes in History. In the past - the tulips in Holland in the 17th century, the aforementioned South Sea bubble, and the one in ‘29 on Wall Street - and in the future: human vulgarization and ineptitude have the astonishing ability to reinvent themselves, to repeat, to reappear transformed: to, paraphrasing the main character of The Leopard, change absolutely everything to leave things exactly as they are: to be, to exist.

Given the proximity of goodbye we decided one day to spend all of our time on our activity. She decided to stop going to polo practice. I missed the Monopoly finals. The aforementioned B Tournament couldn't take all the applications once it was set up and started - swamped by the entrance of students from other nationalities -: a C Tournament was opened.
A few days later, and after 80 full rounds - the 400 blows - Richard Nixon appeared to me from above:
“Annihilation,” was his first message.
More times same appearance and count from that date. The second time he abruptly changed his message. The appeared ex-American president - a bit lit - came about in a from then on in constant:
“Turn off the music. Then, turn off Lucila.”
I got a gun and kept it ready under the mattress.
My second to last night in New York. Complete silence in Kim’s loft. Halfway through our journey accomplices in the ephemeral death I shot Kim: in the fascia, in the trapezius muscle. Lastly in the occipital, although my shot the third time was poor. I ran out still hooded. I got to the bathroom and I looked at myself in the mirror, panting. I still wielded the weapon.
My heart beat at a low heat.
Lucila appeared unexpectedly a few seconds later and in the struggle ended up on the floor after grabbing me forcefully from behind. In that struggle, the weapon fell into the toilet. I bent over to pick it up.
I took a step forward and filled the gun with soap and water again.

​

​

---

The Storm

By

Gerald Arthur Winter


“I’ve been calling for two hours . . . Hello . . . Are you there?”
“Hmm . . . I had to charge my phone . . . I forgot.”
“You had me worried sick . . .”
“Hmm . . . sorry.”
“. . .”
“No, really . . . I am sorry . . . it’s the storm. It’s had everyone on edge.”
“It’s not the first time you’ve done this.”
“Done this? You think I have control over the goddamn weather? For Chrisake,
gimme a break.”
“Whoa! What’s with the temper? I’m the one who should be pissed. I’ve been calling
you for three effing hours!”
“You said two hours. You always have to exaggerate. I said I was sorry.”
“That’s all you have to say lately.”
“Get off it, will you . . . please.”
“Are you okay?”
“Hmm . . . I took a sleeping pill at ten o’clock last night hoping to sleep through
the storm. It was supposed to hit the coast at 2 a.m. and come inland with hundred-mile-an-
hour winds and twelve inches of rain. What time is it?”
“8 a.m. The eyewall hit the shore at 1 a.m. I fell asleep but woke at 6 a.m. and I’ve been
calling you ever since to make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m fine, just groggy from the sleeping pill . . . so it was only two hours—not three--
that you’ve been calling.”
“I guess.”
“Exaggerator.”
“It makes me crazy when I don’t know if you’re okay or not.”
“I’m fine.”
“Have you looked outside to see if there’s much damage?”
“Not yet.”
“You should check your car . . . the winds could’ve brought a tree down on it.”
“The car’s ten years old—almost 200,000 miles on it—who cares?”
“How would you get home?”
“Home?”
“Here with me. It’s too short to fly and too far to take a bus.”
“I’m looking out the window . . . the car’s fine. You’re such an exaggerator and a
worry wort. It’s your mother . . .”
“What’s she got to do with anything?”
“Everything.”
“I called because I was concerned for your safety. It was a Category 4 for Chrisakes.
You could’ve been hurt.”
“But I’m not . . . and I’m still so tired from that sleeping pill.”
“I hope you didn’t drink wine last night, too?”
“What if I did?”
“Jesus! That could be a lethal combination . . . you could end up like Marilyn Monroe.”
“That would be cool . . . I’d be rich and famous with handsome guys wanting to screw
me. Powerful men, too, like the Kennedys.”
“Are you still drunk from the wine?”
“Every time I say what I think, you accuse me of being drunk.”
“Not drunk . . . but, ya know . . . under the influence.”
“I’m under the influence of my intelligence and independence and that just bugs the
hell out of you, doesn’t it?”
“There goes that temper again.”
“So what! It’s my temper and I’ll do what the hell I want with it!”
“Maybe I should call back after you’ve had something to eat and the sleeping pill has
worn off. Have you checked the label for side-effects? That and the wine together seem to make
you nasty.”
“Nasty? You’ve no idea how nasty I can be when pushed to the edge!”
“I’ll call you back at noon . . . okay?”
“No. I’ll call you.”
“Keep your phone charged.”
“Up yours!”
BLIP!
* * *


“What the hell! I’ve called three times since noon . . .”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Busy? Busy doing what?”
“It doesn’t really matter.
“Of course it matters. I was worried sick over you in the storm last night and you
didn’t answer. Okay-okay, so your phone went dead . . . but now you’re too busy to call me?
You said you would . . . or had you forgotten?
“. . .”
“Are you there? Don’t hang up on me!”
BLIP!
* * *
“Okay . . . I got your effing voice-mail . . . and I’m tempted to explode . . . but I’m not
. . . please, just call me back as soon as possible . . . I know you’re busy . . . whatever that’s
supposed to mean . . . you haven’t worked since your company down-sized . . . I know—I know.
You’re probably setting up a job interview for Monday. What could I be thinking? Of course you
are . . . Good luck!”
BLIP!
* * *
“Have you been watching the weather reports?”
“I told you, I’d call you.”
“Then you haven’t been watching The Weather Channel. The storm was just stalling
on the coast, but now it’s moving again and it’s having a nor’easter effect bringing tide surges
with the full-moon tide where you are. You need to evacuate.”
“I know.”
“Then load up, get in your car, and head inland over the Intracoastal.”
“I’m staying.”
“You can’t! The warnings!”
“I’ve known the warning signs . . . for some time now.”
“Then get out while you can!”
“I am.”
“But you said you were staying.”
“I am . . . we are.”
“We? Like you and me? But I can’t. It’s too far and too dangerous.”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t get it?”
“You never will.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Us.”
“What about us?
“There is no us, maybe there never was.”
“What are you saying?
“Good-bye.”
“You’re joking.”
“I’d never joke about something as serious as wasting five years of my life.”
“That makes no sense.”
“To you, I’m sure. It makes perfect sense to me . . . to us.”
“Us?”
“You didn’t think I’d stay in the path of a Category 4 hurricane alone, did you?”
“What the hell?”
“I’d seen it coming for some time, just like the storm. I regret the destruction it’s caused,
but it’s time to rebuild, start fresh.”
“Then?”
“We’re done.”
“We’re getting married next year. You can’t do this!”
“It’s been next year for the past five years—that’s it. I took the sleeping pill and drank the
wine so I’d sleep soundly on it. When I awoke with your call this morning I knew—it was over.”
“But—”
“No buts.”
“Who is he?”
“No one you know.”
“How long has this been going on behind my back?”
“Nothing’s been going on behind your back. I just met him last night.”
“You were with him while I was calling you, worried sick, hoping that you were safe in
the storm?”
“He didn’t have to worry—he was right here with me through the storm.”
“In your bed?”
“In my heart.”
“Bitch!”
“Go home to your mother.”
“But—”
BLIP!
END

Charles Dickens


Bleak House


Novel Excerpt


Chapter 1 — In Chancery

LONDON. Michaelmas Term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln’s Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snow-flakes — gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another’s umbrellas in a general infection of ill-temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if the day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest.
Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards, and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering little ’prentice boy on deck. Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon, and hanging in the misty clouds.
Gas looming through the fog in divers places in the streets, much as the sun may, from the spongey fields, be seen to loom by husbandman and ploughboy. Most of the shops lighted two hours before their time — as the gas seems to know, for it has a haggard and unwilling look.
The raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the muddy streets are muddiest near that leaden-headed old obstruction, appropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed old corporation, Temple Bar. And hard by Temple Bar, in Lincoln’s Inn Hall, at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery.
Never can there come fog too thick, never can there come mud and mire too deep, to assort with the groping and floundering condition which this High Court of Chancery, most pestilent of hoary sinners, holds this day in the sight of heaven and earth.
On such an afternoon, if ever, the Lord High Chancellor ought to be sitting her — as here he is — with a foggy glory round his head, softly fenced in with crimson cloth and curtains, addressed by a large advocate with great whiskers, a little voice, and an interminable brief, and outwardly directing his contemplation to the lantern in the roof, where he can see nothing but fog. On such an afternoon some score of members of the High Court of Chancery bar ought to be — as here they are — mistily engaged in one of the ten thousand stages of an endless cause, tripping one another up on slippery precedents, groping knee-deep in technicalities, running their goat-hair and horse-hair warded heads against walls of words and making a pretence of equity with serious faces, as players might. On such an afternoon the various solicitors in the cause, some two or three of whom have inherited it from their fathers, who made a fortune by it, ought to be — as are they not? — ranged in a line, in a long matted well (but you might look in vain for truth at the bottom of it) between the registrar’s red table and the silk gowns, with bills, cross-bills, answers, rejoinders, injunctions, affidavits, issues, references to masters, masters’ reports, mountains of costly nonsense, piled before them. Well may the court be dim, with wasting candles here and there; well may the fog hang heavy in it, as if it would never get out; well may the stained-glass windows lose their colour and admit no light of day into the place; well may the uninitiated from the streets, who peep in through the glass panes in the door, be deterred from entrance by its owlish aspect and by the drawl, languidly echoing to the roof from the padded dais where the Lord High Chancellor looks into the lantern that has no light in it and where the attendant wigs are all stuck in a fog-bank! This is the Court of Chancery, which has its decaying houses and its blighted lands in every shire, which has its worn-out lunatic in every madhouse and its dead in every churchyard, which has its ruined suitor with his slipshod heels and threadbare dress borrowing and begging through the round of every man’s acquaintance, which gives to monied might the means abundantly of wearying out the right, which so exhausts finances, patience, courage, hope, so overthrows the brain and breaks the heart, that there is not an honourable man among its practitioners who would not give — who does not often give — the warning, “Suffer any wrong that can be done you rather than come here!”
Who happen to be in the Lord Chancellor’s court this murky afternoon besides the Lord Chancellor, the counsel in the cause, two or three counsel who are never in any cause, and the well of solicitors before mentioned? There is the registrar below the judge, in wig and gown; and there are two or three maces, or petty-bags, or privy-purses, or whatever they may be, in legal court suits. These are all yawning, for no crumb of amusement ever falls from JARNDYCE AND JARNDYCE (the cause in hand), which was squeezed dry years upon years ago. The short-hand writers, the reporters of the court, and the reporters of the newspapers invariably decamp with the rest of the regulars when Jarndyce and Jarndyce comes on. Their places are a blank. Standing on a seat at the side of the hall, the better to peer into the curtained sanctuary, is a little mad old woman in a squeezed bonnet, who is always in court, from its sitting to its rising, and always expecting some incomprehensible judgment to be given in her favour. Some say she really is, or was, a party to a suit, but no one knows for certain because no one cares. She carries some small litter in a reticule which she calls her documents, principally consisting of paper matches and dry lavender. A sallow prisoner has come up, in custody, for the half-dozenth time to make a personal application “to purge himself of his contempt,” which, being a solitary surviving executor who has fallen into a state of conglomeration about accounts of which it is not pretended that he had ever any knowledge, he is not at all likely ever to do. In the meantime his prospects in life are ended. Another ruined suitor, who periodically appears from Shropshire, and breaks out into efforts to address the Chancellor at the close of the day’s business and who can by no means be made to understand that the Chancellor is legally ignorant of his existence after making it desolate for a quarter of a century, plants himself in a good place and keeps an eye on the judge, ready to call out “My Lord!” in a voice of sonorous complaint on the instant of his rising. A few lawyers’ clerks and others who know this suitor by sight linger on the chance of his furnishing some fun and enlivening the dismal weather a little.
Jarndyce and Jarndyce drones on. This scarecrow of a suit has, in course of time, become so complicated that no man alive knows what it means. The parties to it understand it least, but it has been observed that no two Chancery lawyers can talk about it for five minutes without coming to a total disagreement as to all the premises. Innumerable children have been born into the cause; innumerable young people have married into it; innumerable old people have died out of it. Scores of persons have deliriously found themselves made parties in Jarndyce and Jarndyce without knowing how or why; whole families have inherited legendary hatreds with the suit. The little plaintiff or defendant who was promised a new rocking-horse when Jarndyce and Jarndyce should be settled has grown up, possessed himself of a real horse, and trotted away into the other world. Fair wards of court have faded into mothers and grandmothers; a long procession of Chancellors has come in and gone out; the legion of bills in the suit have been transformed into mere bills of mortality; there are not three Jarndyces left upon the earth perhaps since old Tom Jarndyce in despair blew his brains out at a coffee-house in Chancery Lane; but Jarndyce and Jarndyce still drags its dreary length before the court, perennially hopeless.
Jarndyce and Jarndyce has passed into a joke. That is the only good that has ever come of it. It has been death to many, but it is a joke in the profession. Every master in Chancery has had a reference out of it. Every Chancellor was “in it,” for somebody or other, when he was counsel at the bar. Good things have been said about it by blue-nosed, bulbous-shoed old benchers in select port-wine committee after dinner in hall. Articled clerks have been in the habit of fleshing their legal wit upon it. The last Lord Chancellor handled it neatly, when, correcting Mr Blowers, the eminent silk gown who said that such a thing might happen when the sky rained potatoes, he observed, “or when we get through Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Mr Blowers” — a pleasantry that particularly tickled the maces, bags, and purses.
How many people out of the suit Jarndyce and Jarndyce has stretched forth its unwholesome hand to spoil and corrupt would be a very wide question. From the master upon whose impaling files reams of dusty warrants in Jarndyce and Jarndyce have grimly writhed into many shapes, down to the copying clerk in the Six Clerks’ Office who has copied his tens of thousands of Chancery folio-pages under that eternal heading, no man’s nature has been made better by it. In trickery, evasion, procrastination, spoliation, botheration, under false pretences of all sorts, there are influences that can never come to good. The very solicitors’ boys who have kept the wretched suitors at bay, by protesting time out of mind that Mr Chizzle, Mizzle, or otherwise was particularly engaged and had appointments until dinner, may have got an extra moral twist and shuffle into themselves out of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. The receiver in the cause has acquired a goodly sum of money by it but has acquired too a distrust of his own mother and a contempt for his own kind. Chizzle, Mizzle, and otherwise have lapsed into a habit of vaguely promising themselves that they will look into that outstanding little matter and see what can be done for Drizzle — who was not well used — when Jarndyce and Jarndyce shall be got out of the office. Shirking and sharking, in all their many varieties have been sown broadcast by the ill-fated cause; and even those who have contemplated its history from the outer-most circle of such evil have been insensibly tempted into a loose way of letting bad things alone to take their own bad course, and a loose belief that if the world go wrong it was in some off-hand manner never meant to go right.
Thus, in the midst of the mud and at the heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery.
“Mr Tangle,” says the Lord High Chancellor, latterly something restless under the eloquence of that learned gentleman.
“Mlud,” says Mr Tangle. Mr Tangle knows more of Jarndyce and Jarndyce than anybody. He is famous for it — supposed never to have read anything else since he left school.
“Have you nearly concluded your argument?”
“Mlud, no — variety of points — feel it my duty tsubmit — ludship,” is the reply that slides out of Mr Tangle.
“Several members of the bar are still to be heard, I believe?” says the Chancellor with a slight smile.
Eighteen of Mr Tangle’s learned friends, each armed with a little summary of eighteen hundred sheets, bob up like eighteen hammers in a piano-forte, make eighteen bows, and drop into their eighteen places of obscurity.
“We will proceed with the hearing on Wednesday fortnight,” says the Chancellor. For the question at issue is only a question of costs, a mere bud on the forest tree of the parent suit, and really will come to a settlement one of these days.
The Chancellor rises; the bar rises; the prisoner is brought forward in a hurry; the man from Shropshire cries, “My lord!” Maces, bags, and purses indignantly proclaim silence and frown at the man from Shropshire.
“In reference,” proceeds the Chancellor, still on Jarndyce and Jarndyce, “to the young girl—”
“Begludship’s pardon — boy,” says Mr Tangle prematurely.
“In reference,” proceeds the Chancellor with extra distinctness, “to the young girl and boy, the two young people,”
(Mr Tangle crushed.)
“whom I directed to be in attendance to-day and who are now in my private room, I will see them and satisfy myself as to the expediency of making the order for their residing with their uncle.”
Mr Tangle on his legs again.
“Begludship’s pardon — dead.”
“With their,” — Chancellor looking through his double eye-glass at the papers on his desk, “grandfather.”
“Begludship’s pardon — victim of rash action — brains.”
Suddenly a very little counsel with a terrific bass voice arises, fully inflated, in the back settlements of the fog, and says, “Will your lordship allow me? I appear for him. He is a cousin, several times removed. I am not at the moment prepared to inform the court in what exact remove he is a cousin, but he is a cousin.”
Leaving this address (delivered like a sepulchral message) ringing in the rafters of the roof, the very little counsel drops, and the fog knows him no more. Everybody looks for him. Nobody can see him.
“I will speak with both the young people,” says the Chancellor anew, “and satisfy myself on the subject of their residing with their cousin. I will mention the matter to-morrow morning when I take my seat.”
The Chancellor is about to bow to the bar when the prisoner is presented. Nothing can possibly come of the prisoner’s conglomeration but his being sent back to prison, which is soon done. The man from Shropshire ventures another remonstrative “My lord!” but the Chancellor, being aware of him, has dexterously vanished. Everybody else quickly vanishes too. A battery of blue bags is loaded with heavy charges of papers and carried off by clerks; the little mad old woman marches off with her documents; the empty court is locked up. If all the injustice it has committed and all the misery it has caused could only be locked up with it, and the whole burnt away in a great funeral pyre — why, so much the better for other parties than the parties in Jarndyce and Jarndyce!

"Mangia!"

By Jerry Vilhotti


The night of the supper for the two most prosperous people in the neighborhood - and two good potential prospects of becoming godparents - the children fought even more vigorously knowing that since company was present no beating was going to fall all over their bodies. It was the mother who did the spanking not the father. The boys six and seven years old,

Tom and Lenny, wrestled by the table - almost knocking it over twice - as sixteen year old Tina was constantly trying to kick their heads in when they were on 
the floor or attempting to rip their arms off while they were standing.  Ten year old Alice kept busy by setting the table but every once in a while would join her brothers in warding off an especially savage attack by their big sister Tina who was doing her best to maintain discipline; believing the two visitors were going to take the baby home with them - if they had a good time. Through all this the baby Gianni slept. After a delicious supper beginning with ante pasta: salami, pepperoni, Asiago cheese, 
black olives, red bell pepper, green bell pepper and tomatoes; followed by two home made pastas with real red gravy made from the juices of several meats of sausages, beef ribs and steak that would join the food as steak pizzaiola on the side - and not a sauce - with meatballs almost the size of tennis balls, a salad drenched in olive oil joined with a bit of vinegar and thick slices of Arthur Avenue well done Italian bread and as they were having coffee with Italian sweet biscuits and a neighbor's home made cream puffs with a bottle of anisette and little glasses and another big bottle of home made wine with large glasses, the boy's father resumed his goal of placing their last born, who would become his favorite with blond curly hair and smile, into the safety zone.

"So André!  André!  André, my good friend!"

André tensed visibly; feeling something bad was coming on - for why had they been invited by these very poor people?  He did believe like the New York politician that these kinds of people were essential for if it weren't for the wretched among them - how would they really know they were well off? He was a "What's in for me guy" which encompassed ninety percent of politicians.

"We have no mon"-  André began to say.
"André!  André, my little man child has hair the color of the sun and his smile makes dark days become bright and his cry is like a tune that brings to mind the song 
''Serenade in the Night". Eat! Eat!"
Francie his brand new world wife - replacing the white widow he left behind with their two daughters in the old country - shouted: "Yes! Yes! Yes!"
They were going to be Gianni's godparents but Andre would dislike the boy forever yet remember the meal.

Pot Luck

By Gerald Arthur Winter
​

“Are you gonna make that friggin chickasee again, Mary?” he asked.
“Chicken frickasee!” Mary shouted from the kitchen. Watch your
language. It’s Sunday, and Pastor Tom will be shocked enough just to see
you in church. No cussin’ from you at the Annual Pot Luck Picnic. Okay.”
“Screw him and the wave of righteousness he rode in on. I liked that
lady pastor who was in the running to replace Reverend Michaels. Too bad
that old buzzard died of hypothermia that winter. He was okay at the pulpit,
but if you go ice fishing, Jesus, you should know how to swim.”
“Don’t remind me about her,” Mary said. “The ladies in my quilt-sewing
group decided she was a lesbian, so we blocked her out of the running for
senior pastor.”
“She was no lesbian, darlin’, not the way she grinned at me when I
complimented her on that outfit she wore so snug around her butt.”
“Are you going to behave today or not? Because that’s what got you
in trouble the last time you showed up in church.”
“That was many moons ago, sweetheart.”
“Don’t you dare mention moons!” Mary shouted above the stove fan
fan set on HIGH. “I can’t believe you mooned Pastor Tom on his first Sunday.
I hope he’s forgotten about it.”
“Not likely, precious. Some people have faces you can’t forget, but in
my case it’s—”
“Never mind!”
“I’m just sayin’—”
“Another word and you’re staying home!”
He shrugged. “That’s fine by me.”
She stuck her head out from the kitchen with her hair in curlers and
glared at him. “You’re going, and that’s final!”
Al put his thumb and forefinger to one side of his lips and dragged them
across his mouth beneath his bushy, black moustache and full beard as if he
were zipping it shut. He loved her chicken frickasee, and the Pot Luck Picnic
seemed his only way to get a taste.
“That’s better. Now go shower, then put on your blue suit I laid out for
you on the bed.”
“Suit? We’re goin’ to a picnic. “I ain’t wearin’ no suit. It’s September and
it will be eighty degrees by the time church lets out. Then I’m goin’ fishin’.”
“I want everyone to see you at your best. Is that too much to ask, Al?”
“Well, I—“
“Well, you better wear it. Everyone will remember your bare butt flashing
Pastor Tom, but I want them to remember you at your best . . . in your blue
suit of course. It almost helps you pass as a gentleman—until you open your
foul mouth. So you’d better behave. You know . . . people will act the way they
dress.”
“You sound like your mom. Anyway, you can’t go by that from our
president at a press conference. Even with thousand-dollar necktie, he still
talks shit.”
“And don’t you start talking politics at church either, Al.”
“Can’t a person say what’s on his mind anymore?”
“If his mind isn’t full of . . . of—”
“Go on, honey, say shit on a Sunday and go to hell for all eternity.
Believe that garbage, and I’ll tell ya a good one.”
“If you’re not ready to shower, I’m going ahead of you.”
“You go right ahead,” he said, then waited to hear the shower running
upstairs and popped open a beer. He opened the oven and eyed Mary’s
casserole. His mouth watered as he inhaled the familiar aroma of her
chicken frickasee, the same dish she’d brought to the Pot-luck Picnic
every year since her mother, on her death bed, had given Mary her recipe.
Al noted the handwritten recipe in his mother-in-law’s familiar scrawl.
Mary had taped the yellowed note to the stove-stop’s hood where it fluttered
from the exhaust fan’s breeze. Though he’d always loved the taste of that
dish, it reminded him of Mary’s mother who’d never approved of him and was
ashamed of him that day he’d come to church with a buzz on.
Al thought, Nothing makes me want to drink more than when someone
tells me to stop.
“You need to go to AA,” her mother had said that morning, which had
really put him on a binge.
He didn’t even remember mooning the new pastor that morning. It had
been one of his blackouts. He remembered that he had to take a leak so bad,
that he couldn’t make it across the church cemetery, and his damn zipper had
jammed. He could only remember the pain from his swollen bladder and that
prostate thingy his doctor had warned him about. There had been no choice
with the men’s room three hundred feet away, so he dropped his trousers
to his ankles and let ’er rip. How was he to know that Pastor Tom would be
taking a tour of the old cemetery? Everyone said he’d mooned him, but
that was their misperception.
“Misperception!” Mary had shrieked at him the next day.
“Would you have preferred I’d have given him the full-Monty? I was
turning away! Covering up, for god’s sake!”
Mary had been told by the church consistory not to bring Al to church
again. But apparently the statute of limitations was five years for a mooning
episode, and time alone had exorcized the Mooning Devil from his soul. So
Al was purified this morning, just in time for another Pot Luck Picnic at the
“Dutch Deformed” Church, as Al had tagged Mary’s church where she’d
attended Sunday School and where they’d been married ten years ago.
Al had told Mary’s parents that he considered himself a reformed
Roman Catholic, which they let ride for a month or two before her mom
cornered Al at the beer cooler for a backyard picnic to celebrate his and
Mary’s engagement.
“What exactly is a reformed Roman Catholic?” Mary’s mom had asked.
“That means I no longer go to church. I’m what you’d call a free thinker.”
Her mouth had dropped open, but Al had heard her say under her
breath, “A free drinker is more like it.”
Al shrugged off that recollection and popped open another beer. Ten
minutes later, he heard Mary coming out of the shower so he got undressed
and squeezed past her as she came wrapped in a large towel out of the
bathroom.
“Got time for a quickie, m’ love?”
“Gargle, Al,” she huffed. “Damn it you smell like a brewery.”
“Of course, sweetie. Anything for you.”
* * *
The drive to church was silent, but Al sensed Mary was sniffing for
the redolent scent of beer on him.
Al broke the ice by teasing Mary about her conservative Dutch
Reformed upbringing. “I promise to bring my mooning down to an absolute
minimum, darlin’.”
“You’re incorrigible,” she scolded then couldn’t hold back her giggling.
Al was that boy in grammar school and high school, who always got
in trouble, never anything serious, but always enough to get detention and
mostly C’s with an occasional D except for Phys. Ed., where he would have
gotten an A if he hadn’t been caught smoking in the boys’ room every week.
Mary wasn’t the best looking girl in school, but she’d been a cheerleader,
and was President of Student Council.
Mary had gone away to college where she excelled scholastically, and
she became realtor in town. Al did a four-year hitch in the Navy after high
school, but now he had his own lawn mowing and snow removal business.
But every summer recess, when Mary had come home from college, she’d
find Al sitting on his Harley in her driveway ready to take her for a windy ride
down the Garden State Parkway to the Jersey shore.
For all his mischief and bad habits, quite simply, and as she’d told her
mom, she loved the guy, though she doubted she could ever change him.
She’d given up trying until this Sunday morning celebrating Pastor Tom’s
fifth-year anniversary as their senior pastor. She was hoping for a change
in Al, because she’d learned that she was pregnant last Friday and hadn’t
told him yet, because she wasn’t sure how that would fly with Al.
They pulled into the church parking lot between the cemetery and
Fellowship Hall. There were over two hundred attending church and staying
afterwards for the Pot Luck Picnic. The casserole dishes and aluminum pans
of steaming home–made dishes were lined up on a stretch of folding tables
twenty feet long on the lawn outside Fellowship Hall. The appetizing aromas
of everything from salads, casseroles, fried chicken, Swedish meatballs, and
pot roasts permeated the humid air, especially Mary’s chicken frickasee.
Al wished he could just skip the church service and eat. He wanted to
go fishing later and was impatient to get to the lake.
Why do they call it a service? He thought. I’m not getting any service in
this joint. Where’s the keg of Bud?
Seated in church, Al had to lip sync the Gloria Patri from his memory
as an altar boy, but that had been in Latin. He’d had little exposure to church
ceremonies. His father had died of a heart attack in his late forties leaving a
bitter taste of unpalatable religion in Al’s craw.
Pastor Tom announced from the pulpit, “We’re happy to see some new
faces here today along with the regulars.” He paused seeing Al next to Mary
in the third row. “And even some irregulars.”
Al squirmed when all heads turned in his direction and a few clusters of
old biddies grumbled under their Poli-grip-scented breaths. Al imagined he’d
heard that dreaded four-letter word—moon.
Pastor Tom went on, “I think we owe a debt of thanks to Mildred, our
church secretary, for posting the announcement about our Pot Luck Picnic
in the Bergen Record. Regardless of how you heard about our picnic after
the service this morning, we’re all glad you’ve come to break bread with us.
Please don’t feel uncomfortable if you haven’t brought any food to share. We
have more than enough for everyone, a veritable feast.
A few loaves of bread and a couple of fishes, Al thought with a grumble,
recalling how Jesus had fed the crowd. “More likely myth than miracle.”
Al gave Mary dagger eyes as he removed his suit jacket in the picnic
area and draped it over the back of his chair. He was the only man wearing a
jacket in the late summer heat and felt ridiculous.
Mary said, “I just thought that—”
“Fugetabowdit,” he said under his breath. Just give me a double portion
of your mom’s friggin—you know—the chicken, then we’ll be even and I can
go fishin’.”
The church ladies uncovered their dishes and nodded for the
congregation to begin filling their paper plates. When all had taken their
seats, Pastor Tom said the blessing before they began to eat.
After his blessing, Pastor Tom asked for a minute of silence in memory
of the 9-11 victims sixteen years ago. During the silence, a breeze rustled
in the tall oaks and maple trees with their canopies high above the picnic
tables. Al could hear several stomachs growling and a fart or two from some
of the elderly. A few of the young kids giggled, but Al fought to hold back his
own laughter, but crossed his eyes at Mary. She kicked under the table.
It felt more like five minutes than one to Al, impatient to eat and leave.
His bait and tackle with two fishing poles were in his car trunk ready to go.
As he dreamed of pulling in a trout for dinner that night, three vans flashing
yellow lights pulled into the church parking lot. The screech of their brakes
turned all heads as six in uniforms, four men and two women, carrying
equipment came briskly toward the picnickers.
Al thought they looked like some sort of cops, so he grumbled, “I paid
that damn speeding ticket, so what the hell do they want?”
“Don’t anyone eat this food!” one of the uniformed men shouted at the
crowd. “Who prepared those dishes for all these people?”
Pastor Tom waved for the murmuring crowd to stay quiet and said,
“We all did. This is our annual Pot Luck Picnic.”
“Not anymore it isn’t. Only a licensed chef or catering service can
serve food to the public, that’s a statute passed in the state legislature early
this year.
The other uniforms went around the table sticking thermometers into
all the covered-dish entrees.
“All these casseroles are beneath the state temperature standard and
subject to confiscation.” The other five uniforms rolled up carts and began to
take all casseroles and salad trays to their vans. One grabbed Al’s plate of
chicken frickasee as he was about to savor his first bite.
“What the—?” Al stood from his chair. “This is bull shit!”
Some of the men of the church also stood to complain.
“Sorry, pastor,” the uniformed leader said. “From now on, you’ll have to
hire a licensed catering service for events like this. It’s the law.”
“We’ll pray for those in the state legislature to be forgiven for passing
such an unreasonable law,” Pastor Tom said.
“Whatever. But if one of your congregation got sick from any of this
home-made food, the state could fine you enough to own your church—what
is it two hundred years old? Obey the law then you’ll have no problems.”
“Are you cops?” Al shouted to the leader.
“No, sir. We’re State’s Food and Drug enforcers. We just collect
evidence to support rendering a fine. The county will give the church a
hundred–dollar fine for this first offense.”
“In that case, I think you forgot to test the pork butt I brought today.”
With that, Al stood up on a picnic table and dropped his pants and mooned
the uniforms in their departure. On the right cheek of his butt was a tattoo of
a cross entwined with roses, an addition since his last time in church.
Despite the shrieks of shock, and a couple of old biddies whispering
I-told-you-so’s about Al, Mary gave him a hug. Pastor Tom came toward him
with an undecided look of mixed emotions. He extended his hand to Al.
“I’m glad to see you back in church today, Al. I hope you’ll join us next
Sunday, and many Sundays after that. We have an opening for a deacon with
elections next Sunday, I’m personally inviting you to toss your hat in the ring.”
Though some of the old standard bearers grumbled, many of the
younger members of congregation applauded, and so did Mary.
Al said, “Some of these little kids and those old folks over there are very
hungry. I always keep a couple of loaves of bread and a few cans of tuna fish
in my trunk when I go fishing. So tell everyone who’s hungry to come over to
my car and I’ll spread some tuna on the bread for them.”
The congregation lined up and half an hour later all the congregation
had sampled Al’s humble offering. On the ride home, Mary put her cheek
against Al’s shoulder.
“I was so proud of you today,” she said.
“Was nothing,” he shrugged. “Maybe if it had been four or five thousand
lined up to eat from my car trunk, and all got fed . . . well, that would really be
something . . . maybe a miracle . . . but even if I did that, sooner or later it
would just become a myth.”
“Al . . . I have something to tell you before you go fishing.”
“What? You think I don’t know? I know my darlin’ better than any
doctor. You’ve had a glow about you these past couple of days.”
“If it’s a boy, shall we name after you?”
“Nah. I really liked that old pastor we had when we got married.”
“Reverend Michaels?”
“Michael is a good name, you know, angelic. But our Michael will learn
how to fish and swim.”
“What if it’s a girl?”
He shrugged. “What’s the difference? We’ll name her Michelle.”
“Will you take me fishing with you today?”
He pouted with furrowed brow then blurted, “Hell, yeah!”
With his kiss, she tasted her chicken frickasee on his mustache. He’d
snuck a taste before the goons had snatched his plate. She’d have to bake
another batch tonight if they didn’t catch any fish that afternoon.


END

Mystery

By Alexandra H. Rodrigues

Had aliens inhabited the earth? Nothing had changed with one exception. All over the world, people were tattooed with a 6-digit number on the left forearm.
Nobody had felt the branding.
The thin numerals, etched into the skin, were impossible to erase. Was that a way aliens wanted to let us know that they consider us their prisoners?
George’s number was 061652, his wife Erika showed 011267 and their little son, only 3 years old proudly displayed the number 090999. Had aliens wanted to make it easy for the kids to remember the number? Hardly. So what did all that mean? There was no clue.
The phones lines, e-mails, Facebook and Twitter buzzed with people comparing the numbers they had gotten. No answer was to be found.
Life went on, no better nor worse than before. The year 2016 was knocking on the door when George’s family was informed that a good friend of theirs, Herbert Stein had succumbed to stroke. The viewing was scheduled for Wednesday December 23. George and Erika were very sad. They organized a baby sitter for their son and went to the viewing.
The last rays of the afternoon sun kissed the stiff body of the dead. Playfully it circled around the arm with what by now had come to be called the tattoo. His number had been 122115. In a flash a disclosure surfaced in George’s mind. That number matched the date on the death certificate. No coincidence for sure!
Suddenly it had become clear to everybody. That it was the date of their death. No more guesswork. Commotion ripped the world.
A flash of awareness, never having been known to mankind, planted itself into each and every human mind, worldwide. Every child, every adult, male or female, suddenly knew their time of death. In the beginning, everybody thought it to be an illusion. Could it be the stress of time that played tricks on the human psyche? However, the knowledge spread and everybody was able to report their own date when to expect death.
With this realization, mayhem resulted. People, whose date of death was in the distant future, became daringly cocky; while people with close impending death dates fell into depression. Life Insurance companies, hospitals and the entire medical society were suddenly forced to look for other income sources. Why would one want to go to a doctor, when all was pre-programmed? Any disbelievers were soon convinced by the facts of occurring deaths, foretold by the tattoos.
One of the persons to whom death was foretold to be in the very near future, was Mr. Robert Richi, a young philosopher, born and brought up in New York. It had been June 16 when everybody had been enlightened and the D-Day for Robert Richi was to be May 12 of the following year.
Like many other people he did not tell anybody what was in store for him. Maybe if one did not make the date public, there was still hope. Unfortunately, it became quickly known that there was no such thing as avoiding the truth. Already a few days after that ominous June 16, some people were dying, having known that for only
a couple of days. On the other hand there were those who had been diagnosed with incurable illnesses, prior to June 16 who could now look forward to a long life ahead. Those gave praise and thanks to the new situation at hand.
Scientists searched in vain for an explanation to what was happening. Religious men read and reread the Bible word by word but could not find a clue.
Robert studied the old philosophers to find some peace of mind in their wisdom -- but in vain.
Factually nothing much had changed. The date of your death, which you now knew, was most likely the date that had been assigned to you by destiny. Now one could be scrupulous, face perils without fear, engage in dangerous endeavors and take chances, which really were no longer chances because one knew one would survive.
Just like before June 16, death could come by natural causes or as the result of a crime, accident or even suicide. If you tried to commit suicide, while your destiny date was in the far future, you would not be successful.
Then, in September, on a rainy, murky day, a newsflash came over the air. A man in a steel suit, wearing a radar helmet, had been picked up in New York’s Central Park. That afternoon, Robert Richi had been walking down to the Tavern for a cocktail, when he saw a creature sitting on the grass. It was not so much the steel outfit that caught his attention; it was the shape of those square eyes and the thousands of miniscule fireballs that seemed to explode in them when the creature looked at Robert. He had walked over to the man or creature or whatever the being represented. No need to be afraid as he knew he had till May 16 to live and he had greeted the being with, “Hi, what are you doing here?” And he was amazed when he got an answer in a well-modulated, mellow voice, “I am taking a rest, can’t you see!”
“Where do you come from?” he ventured. “From a faraway other world. None of your business.”
With that, the being turned his head away from Robert. Robert’s curiosity spiked; this was so weird.
“When did you get here?” he asked. The creature was apparently getting annoyed at being questioned and his answer was short and unfriendly, “June! Who cares?”
Robert’s mind made a quick calculation. Could it be possible that this creature had something to do with the weird new situation on earth?
“Where do you live?” Robert asked, and to his amazement the being pointed to the sky.
“Join me for a cocktail,” Robert coaxed in an effort to be friendly and get more information. The creature shook his head.
“Don’t drink and don’t eat.” Right then Robert noticed a police car driving by, and he motioned to the officer to stop. He was lucky; the officer had noticed Robert and the car had stopped.
The creature readily told the policeman that his name was Jack and did not resist getting in the police car.
At the station Jack explained that he had come from far away. He supposedly had just taken a walk: no spaceship, no mission. He sounded rather like a guy who had had too much wine and was now giving an account of things that happened a while ago.
Robert had been watching the interrogation carefully and he could tell from the way things were going that Jack purposely, but very politely, avoided giving any explanation at all.
“Officer, would you leave me alone with Jack for a bit?” Robert asked. The constable agreed hesitantly.
“Now Jack,” Robert opened the conversation again. “I instinctively know that you are involved in the new concept about death on earth. You can trust me,” he added and tried to touch Jack’s hand with a friendly gesture but Jack pulled his hand back immediately and angry little fireballs shot out of his eyes.
Robert acted unperturbed. “Tell me some more about your involvement with our death schedules.”
Jack’s mannerism became fidgety and he asked in return, “How much do you know?”
Robert did not let on what satisfaction he just had gotten but answered cordially, “Well, for one thing, I know that I will have to die early next year and I can assure you, I do not like that one bit. Also I do not believe that these dates of death which everybody has in their mind now and occurring on schedule are the dates the divine God had had in mind before that ominous date of June 16.
More fireballs sped out of Jack’s eyes. “You are a philosopher or such?” he asked. Robert had no intention to deny that.
“You are absolutely correct and my theory is, that you Jack, whoever or whatever you are, you seem involved in some kind of mind-over-matter set-up.” Jack did not comment. Robert silently tried to figure out the next step to take. “Come home with me, learn about our ways. My children will be excited to play with somebody from another world. It will fit perfectly into their imagination of Star Trek and such.
To Robert’s surprise, Jack agreed. He was now sitting a little awkwardly in an easy chair, while little Bobby and Willy sat a safe distance from him -- just staring. Robert was on the phone with a friend, “Hey Joe. Can you rush over your new gadget? The one that can detect dreams. It is truly and matter of life and death. I will tell you later.”
Just as Robert had hoped, about 10 p.m. Jack’s fingers went to his eyes and with delicate movement he extracted one of the light bugs, put it into his mouth and swallowed. He yawned. “This will put me to sleep immediately, hope you do not mind.” Jack mumbled and seconds later his figure slumped further down into the chair.
Joe arrived with the detector under his arm. He looked questioningly at Robert and the strange figure in the chair. Joe connected the apparatus to Jack’s brain while Robert explained the situation. They both sat next to the alien all night, never closing an eye.
At 5 a.m. Jack stirred and they quickly disconnected the gadget and hid it. Jack fell asleep again and the two friends connected the detector to the translator and began to study the entries the needle had made.
It read: The rays in my helmet hold the unique powers of the Master of hell. They execute his will about life and death. They are indestructible unless separated from me. I must go back into hiding. Luckily my helmet is invisible so I avoided being questioned about it. Robert is a smart guy and I have to be careful. He is on to it, that the new dates are not God’s will. He might get on to it that it is now Satan’s power that influences the earth.
Robert and Joe turned pale upon reading the transcript. “This is so unbelievable but it is happening,” Robert whispered. We must get a crucifix. Run over to St. Mary’s church, hurry. I’ll keep an eye on Jack, the devil’s advocate.”
Joe had not yet returned when Jack awoke. “I need to leave,” Jack said motioning toward the door.
Willy, still in his pajamas, had come into the room and Robert quickly put him into Jack’s lap. Willy began to cry and struggled to get away. Jack was annoyed, too. “What is this all about?”
“Do you have children?” Robert asked, trying to stall Jack’s impending departure.
“No,” came the monosyllable answer. “Take this brat away from me.” By now Jack sensed that something was going on. He got up, walked to the door, stepping over Willy who was now sobbing on the floor, and walked out the door.
Just then Joe returned with a crucifix. “Hit him with it!” Robert shouted. Thanks to his quick reactions, Joe swung the crucifix hitting the invisible helmet, pressing down on it like a maniac. Jack fought to get away but his body began to disintegrate and moments later nothing was left. Only a few light bugs went up into the air.
When Robert went back to the police station, nobody believed him at first. Nothing had changed. Everybody still knew the day of their death. But slowly the tattoos began to fade and reports trickled in of people who had believed they would die but found themselves quite alive, while others were dying ahead of “schedule.” A big news report went out. People crowded the churches. The Bible again became the most read book on earth and life returned to its old ways.
​

The Summoning

By Tushar Jain



"Where... Why is it so dark here?"
"It worked! This is unbelievable! It actually worked!"
"Hey, who said that?! Who's there!"
"It's me, sir! You can't see me but it's supposed to be that way according to the instruction manual that came with the planchette."
"Damn it, annoying voice, identify yourself! And where in God's name are you?"
"I'm Masu, sir. I've summoned you after a very long and tedious séance. I'm talking to the William Shakespeare?"
"What – Shakes... So, you were trying to get old Shakespeare, were you? Hm. Well... yes, yes. Why not! This is him."
"Oh wow! Incredible! You can hear me, right?"
"Loud and clear."
"Yes, they did say the planchette has great audio. I still can't believe it's you. Even though you're just a disembodied voice, this is uncanny."
"You can't see me?"
"No. They had a planchette with an attached LCD. But it was way beyond my price range."
"That's a relief."
"Relief?"
"Oh. Er. Nothing. It's just that you woke me up after some four hundred years of sleep. I'm not exactly having the best hair day."
"Mr. Shakespeare–"
"Call me Billy."
"Mr. Shakespeare, I don't have words to express what your work means to me. And I'm just one of your millions of fans around the world!"
"Yeah, yeah, Shakespeare's got his public and – Wait... Did you say millions?"
"Yes! You don't know, do you? Your work's got a lot more recognition since your day. You're probably the most famous literary personality of all time!"
"What! Damn rotten lucky sonofa–! Uh, I mean, that is... very good to hear. But, um, I'm sure some of my contemporaries and their work must also be relevant still. Especially the plays of one –"
"Haw haw haw! Let me stop you right there, you modest man. You're very kind, Mr. Shakespeare, but time isn't. Today, none of your contemporaries come even close to your genius and greatness."
"Well, aren't we a regular Mister Know-It-All! Ahem. I mean, why have you disturbed my peace, boy?"
"Yes. Coming to the point. Um, Mr. Shakespeare–"
"Feel free to call me Billy anytime now."
"Mr. Shakespeare, I was wondering if you could help me out with... a girl."
"A girl?"
"Yes. She's really something. I was wondering that you being the great bard and all, having written all those neat pick-up lines like 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?', could you give me some truly solid tips?"
"Hm. How old is this girl?"
"Thirteen."
"Thirteen?! I hope to God you're close to the age yourself!"
"She's in my class. I'm thirteen too."
"And thank God for that. Also, what in the world gives you the idea that I'm some kind of expert on thirteen year old girls?"
"Er, wasn't Juliet thirteen?"
"Oh, leave me alone!"
"What is light, if Anahita be not seen? What is joy if Anahita be not by?"
"Shut up."
"Mr. Shakespeare, she's beautiful!"
"Beautiful, sure. But maybe – hear me out here – you aren't seeing things in the right light. You love and yearn for her but has she noticed you? Has she so much as tried talking to you? No. All she's done is injure your self-confidence."
"Actually, she did try to talk to–"
"Sh! Don't be deluded. Nobody wants to talk to you. I've been talking to you for five minutes and I can't wait for this to stop. No... Listen. What you really want to do, deep down, is to exact an unforgettable revenge!"
"No, I don't!"
"It's pretty deep down but it's there. The scene is set. You invite this girl into your home the first chance you get. You trick her into coming up the staircase–"
"I live in a one room apartment on the ground floor of a single storey building."
"And once she's upstairs and distracted, you push her, straight down into a hot, sizzling vat of acid!"
"Acid!"
"Yes! Acid! Oooh. She screams deliciously and you cackle like a maniac and the flesh melts off her bones–"
"Mr. Shakespeare, stop it!"
"Shakespeare...? Oh, yes, yes! Sorry. I tend to get carried away. Yeah, as I said, so that's the plan."
"It's horrible!"
"Well, duh. It's rough at the moment. I'll need an hour or two to–"
"I don't mean that! I'm not tossing Anahita into a vat of acid!"
"Oh... So that's how it is. You're one of those."
"And I'm beginning to think that you, sir, are not Mister Shakespeare."
"Of course, I'm Shakespeare, the Beard himself!"
"The 'Bard'! Okay. If you really are him, tell me how did you, Mr. W. Shakespeare, die?"
"Ooooh! It's a tale of utmost gore and sadism."
"No, it's not."
"I was climbing up a staircase–"
"No, you weren't."
"But my villainous sister pushed me–"
"Oh God."
"Into a sizzling vat of acid! It licked at my bones and the liquid engulfed my–"
"Eew! Cut it out! That confirms it. Who the hell are you?!"
"Too invested in the truth, are we? You're one of those as well, I see. Okay, then. Get ready to be dazzled, boy. Are you ready? You've been talking to none other than the one and only John Webster."
Brief Pause.
"Who?"
"Insolent child! John Webster! The great revenge tragedian!"
"I don't know who that is."
"Dammit, you little–"
"Wait a minute. Aren't you the guy who wrote all those disgusting murder plays?"
"Aha! You got it! I'm him and he's me!"
"That's it. I'm done here. This was the most pointless idea ever. Before I go, will you at least tell me why the hell did you pretend to be Shakespeare?"
"Mainly? It sort of passes the time. Half the people here won't talk to me. They say I creep them out. And what's so 'special' about your bloody Shakespeare! Let me tell you something!"
"Please don't!"
"Michael Drayton told me, and Marlowe told Drayton, and Jonson told Marlowe that, unbeknownst to poor lady Hathaway, he saw your Shakespeare walk into a brothel."
"I make it a point not to pry into the personal lives of Elizabethan playwrights."
"With a chicken!"
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me. Old Billy was committing adultery with poultry!"
"So says you!"
"So says half the staff at the Globe!"
"That's it! Goodbye, Mr. Webster."
"Bak-bak-bakak!"
"Goodbye!"
Sounds of candles being blown out, a planchette being gathered up.
"Not 'goodbye', young rascal! Say it like they do in a play! Exit ghos–"
Silence.

                                                               
                                                               
​                                                                SIMIAN                                                  
 
                                                                          by
 
                                          Gerald Arthur Winter
 
 
            “I want you to find my father. I don’t know who he was or is—or if he’s still alive.”
 
            Matt Pershing took the young woman’s statement as she sat facing him stiffly
 
in a hard wooden chair. He sat slumped back casually at his desk.
 
            Through the blinds, sunlight made a harsh, cage-like grid of shadows across
 
the her plain, expressionless face. She fidgeted in her ill-fitted, grey pants suit, leaning
 
forward to sip from a plastic bottle of water.
 
            Her broad shoulders made Matt feel like an NFL quarterback facing a defensive
 
center ready to blitz. She was neither mannish nor butch, but taking notes on a legal pad,
 
the best euphemism Matt could doodle was big-boned. She looked like a kid masque-
 
rading on Halloween with her satchel--trick or treat.
 
             “The New York Post said: ‘Matt Pershing will go where angels fear to tread.’”
 
             Matt grinned and said with a shrug, “A blind search could be costly.”
 
            “I’m a millionaire, but I don’t feel rich without a family.”
 
            “I require a five-thousand-dollar retainer and a grand a week plus expenses.”
 
            She didn’t even blink.
 
            “My secretary will send you a monthly itemized statement. I accept money orders,
 
certified checks, and cash—no credit.”
 
            “Frankly, I thought it would cost more, Mr. Pershing.”
 
            He didn’t blink either, feeling no regret that he hadn’t asked for more.
 
            Shuffling through her bag, “I don’t expect you to find my father quickly. Consider
 
this an advance.” She handed him a crumpled, certified check from her trust account.
 
            “I’ll take your case, but do you have anything other than names to get started?”
 
            “I was born April 7, 1987,” she said. “My mother’s name was Beatrice Cart-
 
wright, but I have no documentation that she ever married. My birth certificate says I
 
was born at this address in Florida, but it doesn’t say if it’s a hospital—perhaps it was a
 
clinic. I don’t know if it still exists.”
 
            “Where did you get this information?”
 
            “I wasn’t supposed to know anything about my mother, but the trustee of her
 
estate was an attorney in Florida. When he died last month, a carton arrived at my condo
 
with information about my mother—nothing about my father.”
 
            “Tell me about your trustee?”
 
            “The only contact I ever had with him was by phone and from the checks he’d
 
sent.” She scratched her left shoulder then the back of her head. “The return address on
 
the checks was a Miami P.O. Box.”
 
            She handed him an envelope postmarked a week ago from Miami with the
 
 address she described and its contents inside.
             
            The check from the trust was signed, “Guenther Wolf, Esq. Trustee.”
 
            “Will this be your last check?” Matt asked.
 
            “The benefit from the trust will outlive me,” she said, raising her round chin,
 
pouting with a roll of her bottom lip, and emphasizing her under bite.
 
            Leaning closer, Matt detected a musky scent, nothing from a bottle. He noticed
 
fine wisps of facial hair running along her jaw to her full bottom lip.
 
“May I hold onto your birth certificate?” he asked.
           
            “Certainly.”
 
            Her physical appearance posed a conundrum. Who was Denise Cartwright--
 
as her birth certificate read—and why didn’t her mother want her to know her father?
 
            She handed him a photo of a young woman. “That’s my mother— dated on the
 
back—August 21, 1986.”
 
            Beatrice Cartwright looked about twenty with a pretty face and an upturned nose,
 
unlike her daughter’s—wide, almost bridgeless. From the thinness of her mother’s arms,
 
legs, and neck, he assumed she was normally slender. From her abdominal swell, she was
 
surely pregnant with big-boned Denise.
 
            “I don’t look like her. Do I?” she said.
 
             His expression agreed. 
 
            “Maybe someone will recognize her from that photo and link her with some man
 
to give you a lead,” Denise said.
 
            “Where have you been living for the past thirty years?” he asked.
 
            “Foster homes,” she said with a shrug. “There were three different families before
 
I turned eighteen.”
 
            “Do you have a job?”
 
            “Ocean County Library—Exit 81. Breaks up the boredom. I have no social life.”
 
            He gave her a receipt then examined the birth certificate. From the Bureau of
 
Records, Department of Health, Miami-Dade County, the document said “Denise B.
 
Cartwright.” SEX marked “F.” DOB was “2 A.M. April 7, 1987.”
 
            The box marked RACE was blank. The PLACE OF BIRTH said “Miami-Dade
 
County.” Name of Hospital or Institution, was just an address—“595 West Rte. 41.”     
 
            All of the boxes had been left blank regarding the name and information about
 
the father. The same boxes indicating the mother’s information gave her name as
 
“Beatrice Anne Cartwright.” The Usual Residence of Mother said “132 Weeping Willow
 
Lane, Sweetwater, Florida” Occupation—“STUDENT.”
 
            A statement for witness had two choices: M.D. and MIDWIFE. Respectively, the
 
signatures read:  Heinrich Schmidt ,M.D. and Angela Buenavitas..
 
Matt noticed two boxes at the bottom of the document. “I’m surprised you haven’t
 
mentioned this,” he said turning the document around and pointing to the information.
 
            “What does it mean?” she asked.
 
            “Total number of children BORN ALIVE PREVIOUS to this pregnancy . . . the
 
answer is ONE. The last box asks for Number of children born PREVIOUS to this
 
pregnancy and NOW LIVING—the answer—ONE.”
 
            She gave Matt a vacant expression, like a prim evil mask.
 
            “You have an older sibling . . . please, drink some water,” he cautioned, thinking
 
she might faint.
 
            She finished the bottle and crushed it with a toss into a waste can. “I had no idea,
 
but if you can find my sibling, I’ll double your fee. Where will you begin?”
 
         “I’ll follow the money. I’ll fly to Miami first thing in the morning, Ms. Cartwright.”
 
         “Please, call me Dee?”
 
         “If you recall anything else, Dee, you have my number.”
 
            He led her to the door and watched her walk toward the elevator down the hall.
 
Something wasn’t right about her, but her check crinkled in his grasp.
 
                                                                  * * *
 
            Matt studied the photo of Beatrice looking pretty and serene, but her expression
 
was like the Mona Lisa’s, putting a wall between him and the truth. He wondered if her
 
serene expression concealed the story of her untimely passing in Florida thirty years ago.
           
Along Rte. 41 West, he stopped for lunch at an eatery with the weathered façade
 
of a popular truck stop called ERNIE’S EATS. Battered pick-ups in the dirt lot surrounded
 
by the Everglades told him locals might know about the occupants at the address he
 
sought.
 
          “Where’s my effin’ club on whole wheat, Ernie?” shouted the sultry counter
 
waitress, a Cuban-Seminole mix with a mouth that snapped like a gator.
 
            Ernie popped his head out from the kitchen’s swinging doors. A deep scar
 
traversed his craggy face, from his left temple across the bridge of his sharp nose, and
 
down to his right jaw line.   
 
            Ernie rasped, “That club’s past history. I put it out myself. Stop your damn
 
flirtin’, Chika, or take a hike!”
 
            Ernie caught Matt staring at him with a grin. “Somethin’ funny?” he snapped,
 
coming toward Matt.
 
            “Hard to get good help these days, Ernie.”
 
            Ernie looked him over, taking measure of his chances to toss Matt’s wise ass out
 
the door without adding another major highway across his well-traveled face. Since
 
Matt’s shoulders were broad and angled straight to his earlobes with an eighteen-inch
 
neck, Ernie decided to talk first and fight later, maybe with a little help from the gruff
 
looking yokels chowing down before their night fishing excursions into the Glades.
 
            “What’s it to ya, stranger?” Ernie snapped.
 
            “My mom used to work as a nurse at this address down the road.” As Matt handed
 
him the address from Dee’s birth certificate, he recognized a tattoo from Vietnam on
 
Ernie’s forearm. “I was a just a kid fighting in Nam when my Mom died, but she saved
 
enough money to put me through college when I returned Stateside. I’m headed west to
 
see where she used to work. Do you know the place down the road at 595 West?”
 
            “That place closed a while back—some kind of clinic. I figured they were doing
 
abortions for illegal Cubans, but I heard it was more of an experimental lab testing cancer
 
drugs. Didn’t your mom tell you?”
 
            “I never got the chance to ask her before she died.” Matt took the photo from his
 
jacket. “Does she look familiar?”
 
            Ernie squinted. “You liar, that’s not your mom. It’s Bea-bee!” Ernie reached for a
 
long carving knife.
 
           “Whoa, before anyone gets hurt for no reason.” Matt waved his pistol. “I represent
 
Bea Cartwright’s daughter. Her mother died during childbirth thirty years ago. She hired
 
me to find her father. I could use your help.”
 
            “Were you in Nam or was that bullshit, too?”
 
            “101st Airborne Rangers. After my first nine months, I was picked to go Stateside
 
for Recondo School, but I shattered my knee on my last patrol. Never made it to Frisco
 
for LRRP training. By the time I could walk, I was fluent in Korean after a year’s
 
physical therapy in Seoul.” He gestured to Ernie’s tattoo. “You?”
 
            “25th Infantry, Air Cavalry, Cu Chi.”
 
            “Centaur?”
 
            “Gunner on a Huey, but trained to fly choppers.”
 
            “Still fly?”
 
            “Got a Glades custom job out back. My amphibious dragonfly takes me to my
 
secret fishing holes. I assist fire rangers in the Glades.”
 
            “You called the woman in this photo Bea-bee.”
 
            “You ought to take that photo to Chief Dillon in Sweetwater. Bea went missing
 
over thirty years ago . . . never found. They closed the case in ’93. Dillon’s first year as
 
Police Chief was the year she vanished in ‘86. He’s retired.”
 
            “This photo was taken in 1986, just before she gave birth. What was the name of
 
the clinic down the road?”
 
            “Odd name. . . Scientific Institute of  . . . Mind Illumination and—Nature.”
 
 “How did you know Bea?” 
 
            “Bea-bee was my first waitress . . . spoiled me.” He frowned at Chika glaring
 
at him from the end of the counter. “She was a smart college girl, no Miss Universe,
 
but cute. You know—the-girl-next-door.”
 
            “Was she pregnant when she was working here?”
 
            “If she was, it didn’t show. She never said nothin’.”
 
            “I guess she needed the job to pay for college.”
 
            “Nah. Her family was well-off, but she wanted her independence. She was a nice
 
girl—respectful.” He glared at Chika. “No foul language from Bea-bee.”
 
            “Was she still working here when she went missing?”
 
            “No. She said she got a job—some kind of intern for the next school year.”
 
            “Doing what?”
 
            “Mm . . . anthropology?  Animal science? Something like that. ”
 
            “Do you think she might’ve taken a job at that clinic down the road?”
 
            “I never thought of that. But if she did, I would’ve thought she’d stop by.”
 
            “Did Chief Dillon follow that lead?”
 
            “Couldn’t say.”
 
            “When did Bea-bee stop working here?”
 
            “Hmm . . . July 1985.”
 
            “I’ll pay Chief Dillon a visit on my way back to Miami, but first I’ll check out
 
595 up the road. They might have information about the former occupants.” Matt put a
 
fifty on the counter. “Do you have Dillon’s home address?”
 
            “Sorry, no. Check at the station.”
 
                                                                  * * *
 
           The former clinic displayed a yellow sign with red lettering—MIKE’S USED AUTOS.
 
Matt spotted a burly man coming toward him through the maze of auto inventory. The
 
aroma from the man’s illegal Cuban cigar stopped Matt in his tracks as he braced for a
 
bargaining assault.
 
            “Not a lemon on the lot!” he called out to Matt. His white dress shirt was still
 
crisp in 95 degrees. “Mike Flynn, at your service. I’ll pay seventy-five percent of Blue
 
Book Value, cash for your trade—as is.”
 
“I’m a private investigator willing to pay for information. How much is an hour’s
 
worth of your time to walk with me around the premises?”
 
            The armpits of Flynn’s white shirt dampened under the heat of Matt’s questions.
 
            “Here’s two hundred for now. I’d like to look inside.” He nodded for Flynn to

head to the air-conditioned showroom from the car lot with its inventory baking on the
 
gravel lot like muffins fresh out of the oven, but not so appetizing with the pungent
 
smell of burnt rubber and oil. “Tell me about the previous occupants?”
 
         “Nature nuts from what the realtor said. Sold through a testamentary trust
 
represented by a shyster named Guenther Wolf—weird bastard.”
      
       “The trustee. He died,” Matt said.
 
      “He was anxious to unload the property so its sale could pay out to the beneficiaries.”
 
      “Beneficiaries?”
 
      “Two minors, Wolf said.”
 
       “Names?”
 
       “Adam and Denise Cartwright.”
 
        “Did you level the old building and start from scratch?” Matt asked.
 
        “I kept the original superstructure to get a tax break. I’d wanted to use the basement
 
to store my records, but it’s too creepy down there.”
 
            “Show me.”
 
“I couldn’t take out the bars without the building collapsing.”
 
            “Bars?”
 
            “Floor-to-ceiling to cage animals,” Flynn said.
 
Flynn led Matt down dim stairs to a musty basement. Mice scattered.  It felt cool
 
with overhead fluorescent lighting from the high ceiling. There were four cages along one
 
wall and sinks with water spigots beside four gurneys and two operating tables that might
 
have been used for surgery or to deliver a baby--or two.
 
            Matt’s nose twitched from the pungent stench of the cages.
 
            “Gives me the creeps,” Flynn said. “Like a mid-evil dungeon for torture.”
 
            “Did Chief Dillon ever come here during your reconstruction?”
 
            “Patty Dillon?” Mike squinted. “I ain’t done nothin’ illegal, so why would he?”
 
            “Curiosity?”
 
            “He’s retired now, but if anyone tried to push a stolen vehicle on me, he’d have
 
been the first to know.”
 
            “I need to talk to Dillon about the clinic,” Matt said. “Mind if I take forensics?”
 
            Flynn shrugged. “No problem. That lawyer was creepy, maybe a white slaver.”
 
            “Whatever they were doing, it’s connected to my client.”
 
            Matt entered the first cage where he found dried stool. He took out a forensic
 
toolkit and with a flat spoon, put the small dung sample into a Ziploc baggie he marked
 
“1-A.”  In the opposite corner he spooned loose sand into another baggie marking it
 
“1-B,” hoping for a urine sample. He followed the same procedure in the other three
 
cages . . . or maybe cells, depending on what they contained.
 
            He figured if he found enough forensic evidence linked to Dee’s mother, CSI
 
could be more thorough later. He’d done reciprocal favors with Miami-Dade CSI in the
 
past. He’d cash in his marker to run the samples through their lab.
 
            Matt shut the dungeon behind him and the bright afternoon sun made his head
 
ache until he put on his sunglasses and walked across the lot to his rental. Flynn waved.
 
            “Dillon bought a boat and lives on it at the Sea Horse Marina in Coral Gables.
 
His skiff’s called the Sea Bea. When Dillon retired earlier this year he bought a used car
 
from me, an old bug to save on gas since he only drives to the food store and goes
 
everywhere else by boat.”
 
                                                                        * * *
 
            Matt dropped off the forensic samples at CSI. He had assisted Lt. Rush a few
 
years ago pursuing a drug dealer suspected of kidnapping and hiding out in Key Largo.
 
            “We’re overloaded, could take a couple of days, Matt,” Lt. Rush said.
           
 “No problem. If I have to go back to New York beforehand, we can talk about
 
the results by phone.”
           
            With that kettle of soup simmering, Matt drove to Coral Gables. At the Sea Horse
 
Marina he found a maze of yachts docked along a long bulkhead.
 
            Matt stopped a few slips short of Dillon’s mooring and parked. He opened the car
 
window and heard a dog barking. He took off his sports jacket and carried it over his left
 
shoulder as he approached the Sea Bea’s slip. A spotted pit bull barked from the deck.
 
            A gruff voice shouted from the cabin, “Shut up, Corky!”
 
            The dog wouldn’t stop. Dillon emerged, wearing a Rays’ baseball cap, a grease-
 
stained, grey wife-beater, and khaki shorts riddled with holes. He squinted then grabbed
 
the dog by the collar and pulled him back to the cabin. The dog yelped once, before
 
Dillon latched the cabin doors.
 
            “Hi, Chief. I’m Matt Pershing, PI from New York. I’d like to ask you some
 
questions about the missing person’s case from thirty years ago—Bea Cartwright.”
 
            No response.
 
            Matt took out Dee’s birth certificate and the photo of her mother. He held out
 
each with hands spread in surrender and slowly approached.
 
“Bea wasn’t murdered. She died giving birth. Her daughter hired me to find her
 
father. Will you answer a few questions about your 1986 investigation?”
 
              Matt stepped onto the boat.
 
“Did you search the basement at the Scientific Institute of Mind Illumination and
 
Nature? Her daughter’s birth certificate gives that address as her place of birth. Someone
 
held her captive there while you were searching elsewhere.”
 
            “I’m reti-i-ired,” Dillon drawled.
 
            “I have Bea’s photo taken days before she gave birth. You could help me reopen
 
the cold case to find more answers about her disappearance.”
 
            “Ya deaf? I said I’m reti-i-ired.”
 
            “You named your boat Sweet Bea. Were you the father of her child?”         
 
            “No. Her name’s just a reminder to keep me from getting’ lazy, force me to
 
remember how I’d screwed up in my prime. Sweet Jesus. Now you show up with this
 
crap.”
 
            “Are her parents still living at the same address in Sweetwater?”
 
            “Her dad died,” Dillon said. “Her mom, Amy, wasn’t the same after Bea wasn’t
 
found. She still lives there but rarely leaves the house. Her husband’s insurance and
 
pension left her comfortable, but she’s still tormented by her loss. I’d pay my respects,
 
but I’m afraid I might drag up bad memories of that time when we had to give up the
 
search. You leave her the hell alone”
 
            Dillon’s advice was more of a threat, but Matt knew that once the pieces to the
 
puzzle of her daughter’s disappearance led him to the identity of Dee’s father, he’d
 
have to reunite Denise with her grandmother to provide closure.
 
            “You haven’t answered my question about the clinic,” Matt said. “The birth
 
certificate connects Bea to that location for her delivery of her daughter at the same time
 
you were still searching for her.”
 
            “Sure, but we had no evidence for a warrant. No one had ever witnessed Bea near
 
that location, so all I did was ask the director for a walk-through and showed Bea’s photo
 
to the staff. They were accommodating, so I had no reason to go back.”
 
            “Ernie out at Ernie’s Eats told me Bea had left her job at his place to work as an
 
intern in her professional field. Did you think she went to work at the clinic?”
 
            “Ernie was on my short list of prime suspects. From what folks told me, Ernie
 
was sweet on her, so I wondered more about something he’d done to her after work one
 
night. I figured he might’ve killed her when she turned him down, then used her for chum
 
at one of his secret fishing spots in the Glades.”
 
            “There were four cages in the basement. Bea might have been held captive there.”
 
            “They were monkey cages,” Dillon said. “They had a chimpanzee, a smaller
 
monkey, and a young gorilla. Their permits and licenses were in order.”
 
            “There were four cages.”
 
            “They were expecting a delivery, so I figured I was wasting my time and
 
concentrated on other suspects. I came up empty.” He slapped the back of his hand at
 
 her photo. “Now you show me this.”
 
            “The lab is gone, but the cages are still intact in the basement. I’ve got forensics
 
to find any leads to who my client’s father was.”
 
            “You put on quite a road show, Pershing.”
 
            “The delivering physician was Heinrich Schmidt, and his assistant was Angela
 
Buenavitas. Ring a bell?”
 
            Dillon seemed exhausted by the burden he’d been carrying for thirty years.
 
“I interviewed them both. She called him Dr. Schmidt. I asked if he was a PhD.
 
and what was his field. He was a medical doctor, his specialty was research. I asked what
 
he was researching. He said he had a grant to study genetics searching for a cancer cure.
 
He showed me the grants and offered me the tour. I found nothing suspicious.”
 
            “What did he say about the primates in the cages?”
 
            “He showed me licenses to house the animals.”
 
            “Who was the director?”
 
            “Another squirrely German with an accent out of Hogan’s Heroes.”
             
            “Guenther Wolf?”
 
            “That’s it,” Dillon said. “He was an attorney and handled all the legalities so the
 
doctor could concentrate on his research. He was accommodating and seemed relaxed
 
about my questions, so I didn’t push it.”
 
            “He was the trustee of Bea’s estate,” Matt said. “Her daughter, Denise, got a
 
bundle of money to make the rest of her life comfortable. What about Angela Buena-
 
vitas?”
 
            “A Cuban illegal, but that wasn’t my purpose. I had no reason to return. They’ve
 
closed down and sold the property to Mike Flynn’s used car dealership.”
 
            “Mike gave me the tour of the basement. I have friends at Miami CSI running
 
forensics. Take my card in case anything else pops into your head.”
 
            He took Matt’s card and signaled that their meeting was over by heading to the
 
cabin to let Corky out. Matt quickly debarked from the Sweet Bea and walked briskly to
 
his car. He thought a drive-by in Sweetwater might quell his curiosity. On his way, he
 
called his secretary.
 
            “Last night my client drank from a water bottle at the office. It’s in my waste can.
 
Pack it for forensics and overnight it to Lt. Rush at Miami-Dade CSI.”
 
             Matt called Rush. “Got any results on the other forensics?”
 
            “Three different male DNA confirmations, all simian primates.” Matt pictured the
 
monkey, chimpanzee, and gorilla described by Dillon.
 
            “That’s three.”
 
            “The fourth’s a puzzle.”
 
            “How so?”
 
            “The sample in D is an 80% match to C, which means they’re related by blood.
 
The sample is male, but . . . that other 20% is a mystery.”
 
            “I need answers, not mysteries.”
 
            “Some kind of hybrid or mutation, nothing seen before.
 
            “Can you determine age from those samples?”
 
            “The Rhesus monkey was about seven years old, the chimp ten, and the gorilla
 
five. The age on the hybrid is about thirty.”
 
“Does that mean the hybrid was around long before the others?”
 
            “No. The samples you gave us from the first three are decades old. Given their
 
life expectancies, those simians are dead. The hybrid is from a few months ago.”
 
            “I have one more sample on a water bottle coming to you overnight from New
 
York. I need it cross-referenced with all four. One small favor, I’m going to 132 Weeping
 
Willow Lane in Sweetwater. If you don’t get a call from me tonight by 10 P.M., call me
 
at this number. If I don’t call you back in five minutes, send your boys—I’ll be in trouble.”
 
            “I’ve covered you marker. But I’m not you’re backup, shamus.” Rush hung up.
 
                                                                      * * *
 
            She stared at her granddaughter’s birth certificate. “My daughter didn’t want us to

know she was pregnant—found a doctor to deliver her baby for adoption. Bea died giving

birth—baby died, too. This person Denise must be a con artist after my money?”

            “She doesn’t need your money,” Matt told Dee’s grandmother. “Bea’s estate

made her rich. She just wants to find her father. Do you know who and where he is?”
           
             Coming through the backdoor, Sheriff Dillon pointed a .38 revolver at Matt.
             
             “I warned you to leave her alone, Pershing. Don’t worry, Amy. The Glades will
 
make him disappear.”

        “What did they do to your daughter?” Matt asked.

       “Studying evolution at college was sinful,” Grandma said. “But she kept pursuing it.”

       “We’re taking a boat ride, Pershing.”

         Dillon cuffed Matt’s wrists in front—no blindfold—a one-way trip.

                                                                 * * *

             Dillon lowered Matt into a dinghy with an outboard and they headed toward

Alligator Alley down a narrow tributary with tall swamp grass scraping both sides of

the boat. Ahead, red lights darted—gator eyes, jaws snapping as they passed.
           
            Matt challenged. “You’re Denise Cartwright’s father.”
 
            Dillon grinned. “You’re not half as smart as you think.”
 
          “Why get rid of me? I just need to prove you’re Denise’s father and my job is done.
 
As long as Bea died of natural causes during the delivery, I have no reason to contact the
 
police—case closed.”
 
            “Bea was my daughter, but I could never see her. I promised I wouldn’t. Amy
 
Cartwright is a good woman, but we had an affair. I had to keep our secret to protect
 
her reputation. Her husband thought Bea were theirs, not ours.”
 
            “So when Bea went missing, it was personal. You had to find Bea for Amy.”
 
            “Amy confided in me that Bea was volunteering in a scientific experiment. I’m a
 
God-fearing man. When Amy told me what Bea had agreed to do, I had to stop her.”
 
            “From what?”
 
            “Last thing you’ll ever see, Pershing. For Amy’s sake, no one must ever know.”
 
            Dillon headed toward the light through tall swamp grass and slowed down to pull
 
up to a rickety dock in front of a log cabin. Something in the backroom screeched and
 
panted, thumping wildly about. Matt used the distraction to head-butt Dillon, knocking
 
him off balance and the gun from his grasp. Though handcuffed, Matt got the gun.
 
            “Hands high!” Matt shouted. “Back up . . . slowly.”
 
            Dillon’s eyes darted as he backed into the cabin dimly lit with kerosene lanterns.
 
            Someone has lived a minimal existence here, Matt thought, then asked, “Where’s
 
Dr. Schmidt? Is he hiding out here?”
 
              Dillon grinned. “He over extended his doctor-patient privileges. Nature got the
 
best of him.”
 
            Matt nodded toward the darkness behind Dillon. “What’s in that cage?”
 
            “See for yourself.”
 
            “Put your hands on top of your head and back up slowly.”
 
             Dillon complied. The screeching subsided and whimpering grunts came from
 
the dark cage behind Dillon.
 
            Matt took a lantern from the counter and motioned with the gun for Dillon to
 
continue backing up.
 
            “No further!” Dillon shouted, but two huge, hairy hands reached out between
 
the bars with brute force.
 
Dillon’s legs kicked straight out, knocking Matt to the floor and shattering the
 
lantern. The kerosene splashed across the wooden floor igniting the room. A wall of
 
flames blocked Matt from Dillon with his head twisted 180 degrees and his eyes bulging.
 
The unseen creature in the cage shrieked and snorted.
 
            Unable to penetrate the flames, and the smoke making him choke, Matt retreated
 
to the dinghy and started the motor with his hands still cuffed.
 
            He looked back at the cabin ablaze against the black sky. Through the crackling
 
flames, he heard a crashing sound then saw a hulking figure silhouetted against the bright
 
orange inferno. With a loud shriek, the simian specter stood erect and pounded its chest
 
before lumbering on all fours and vanishing into the Glades.
 
When Matt reached the canal the sound of a helicopter hovered above him. When
 
it landed on the water, Matt was glad to see Ernie peering at him from his amphibious
 
dragonfly.
 
            “You know how to find trouble!” Ernie shouted over the flutter of his chopper as
 
he helped Matt aboard. “Your friend at CSI had me looking for you since ten o’clock. I
 
had no idea where to look until I saw the fire. Feels like I’m back in Nam. Love the smell
 
of gators cookin’ in the morning.”
 
            Matt was glad he’d paid for the damage at Ernie’s Eats. Seemed like a week ago,
 
not at lunch that same day.
 
                                                                      * * *
 
            Matt stalled his meeting with Denise Cartwright for a week, telling her that he
 
was no longer on the clock.
 
        Since Amy Cartwright knew only half the truth about her daughter’s fate, Matt kept
 
it that way, appealing to her softer side from that glint of hopefulness in her expression
 
when he’d told her that Dee was truly her granddaughter.
 
When he returned to New York, he told Dee that her mother had been pregnant
 
by someone no one knew. He’d say her mother, Beatrice, had died during delivery and
 
had willed her body to cancer research at a medical clinic called the Scientific Institute
 
of Mind Illumination and Nature. He didn’t point out that the clinic’s acronym was
 
—SIMIAN—which had provided the funds for her trust. But when Matt met Dee face-
 
to-face, he couldn’t help but see her in a different light with close circumspection.
 
            “I have good news and bad news,” Matt told her as she sat across from him in
 
in his office, and in the same awkward, ill-fitted fashion of their first meeting.
 
            “Please, the bad news first,” she said, trying to grasp what Matt was telling her.
 
            “Your father was a sperm donor for cancer research. If there were any records of
 
his identity, they were lost in a fire.” Matt admired his own choice of alternate facts.
 
            She took a deep breath, seemingly relieved. “I suppose getting to meet my father
 
was too much to hope for.”
 
            “What we do know about your father is clinical,” Matt said. “Your father had a
 
genetic defect which, I’m sorry to tell you, would be deadly to any child you have. If you
 
marry, it’s essential that you bear no children.”
 
            He watched the wave of desperation cross her face, the resolve of loneliness.
 
            “What good news can there be?” she asked, slouching with defeat. Suddenly, she
 
perked up. “My sibling! You’ve found my sibling!”
 
            “No. You had a twin brother, born just before you, but he died shortly after your
 
mother. You were the only one saved.”
 
            “But you said there was good news.”
 
            “Your grandmother in Florida wants to be your family now.”
 
            “Thank goodness! I can’t wait to meet her.”
 
             Elated, Dee left Matt’s office with a bit less awkwardness in her gait. Despite his
 
lies, Matt was convinced that he’d done his best under the circumstances with the hope
 
that Dee would take after her mother in the nurturing home of Amy Cartwright.
 
Matt lost many hours of sleep over the missing link in this chain of events. Dee’s
 
twin brother from the same simian father haunted Matt endlessly with visions of Adam’s
 
hulking figure lumbering into the Glades against a hellish background of black smoke
 
and orange flames in a fetid fury. To what end, he dared not imagine.
 
 
 
 

The Submission

By Tushar Jain

​

Phone rings.
"Hello?"
"I'm speaking to Tushar? Tushar Jain?"
"Yup. That's me. Who's this?"
"This is Stuart Gill."
"Sorry. Don't know any Stuart Gill."
"I –"
Phone is disconnected. After a moment, it rings again.
"Hello?"
"Why did you disconnect the phone?"
"May I know who's speaking?"
"I just told you! It's Stuart Gill."
"And I just told you that I don't know any Stuart Gill."
"Wait! I –"
The phone is disconnected. A beat later, it rings again.
"Tum ta-tum tum. Hello?"
"Don't you dare hang up this time!"
"Oh. Why all the temper? And don't shout like that. I have sensitive ears."
"Just listen! You submitted a poem for The Brat Review, didn't you?"
"How did you...?"
"I'm Stuart Gill, the co-editor of The Brat Review."
"Wow! You people do personal calls? Most magazines just stick with emails. So... you're publishing the poem?"
"No. But thanks for sending us 'Sense and Suggestibility'. We appreciate the chance to read your work but we'll be passing on this poem. This is not a reflection on your writing. We pick perhaps one out of a hundred submissions. So, it's not you, it's us. We hope you'll find a good home for it soon. Sincerely, Stuart Gill, The Brat Review."
"What the... Are you reading this out?!"
"No. I had the template memorized long back."
"And you called me to tell me my work's been rejected? Heartless piece of–"
Phone is disconnected. Rings again.
"Didn't I tell you not to hang up!"
"What do you want now? I got the message, okay? Leave me alone. I need to sulk. I mean, sleep."
"Not so fast. I have to discuss this poem you submitted."
"I don't want your critical evaluation."
"And I'm not giving you one. This poem 'Sense and Suggestibility'..."
"What about it?"
"I have reason to believe it's about me."
Pause.
"Stuart, I don't know where you're calling from but it's pretty late here. I really want to go back to sleep. Why don't you go pester some other poet?"
"'Some other poet' didn't write a poem attacking me. You did."
"That's ridiculous! I've not attacked anyone!"
"Can you categorically say that you didn't write this poem attacking me? I'll leave you alone and let the whole matter go."
"Of course I can't say that!"
"Aha!"
"Aha nothing! Didn't you read the poem? It's Cubist! Its whole aim is to reject the singleness, the oneness of meaning. Haven't you ever seen a Picasso? A Braque? Read Cummings? Faulkner? Cubist works are meant to throw off the reign of meaning. They mean nothing and everything at the same time. If I say the poem doesn't specifically attack you, I might as well say the poem doesn't exist."
"Bullshit. Cubism's a bloody excuse! This poem is a targeted attack on me, my wife, my daughter and my dog!"
"Jesus!"
"In the fourth stanza –"
"Wait a minute! Even if the poem offends you, you cannot blame me for it. It's already written. It exists independently of me. If you have a problem, blame the poem! Take its meter into a dark alley
and break its legs. An artist is not always his art, Gill. Sometimes he's just the brush or the pen or the paper."
"An artist is always his art! And nothing but."
"Oh really? By that logic, Jackson Pollock must've been a spaghetti fetishist."
"In the fourth stanza of the poem, this wide, almost four inch gap between the letters 'S' and 'M' quite obviously is meant to poisonously mock the growing distance between me and my wife! 'S' is Stuart. 'M' is Meredith."
"Your wife's name is Meredith?"
"How the hell do you know my wife's name?"
"Stuart, in 'Sense and Suggestibility', language is scattered, fractured and tossed around. That doesn't mean–"
"In the third stanza, in the word 'expels', the 'S' is italicized. Oh, I know what this is, you foul, cruel pig! The 'S' clearly references my seven-year-old daughter Sadie's expulsion from school for the possession of a hand grenade, a Bushmaster QRC Tactical Semi-Auto Rifle and an expanded edition of Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer."
"Your daughter's name is Sadie?"
"You know my daughter's name too! Who's feeding you this information about my family? I've had enough of you, I tell you. Here. Talk to my wife."
"Your wife?!"
"Her name's Meredith. But I guess you already knew that!"
The phone changes hands at one end.
"Hello?"
"Fils de pute! T'es un salaud! T'es rien qu'un petit connard!"
"Meredith, please calm down. I'm innocent! I –"
"Je vais te casser la gueule si fort que tu vas cracher toutes les dents!"
Stuart takes back the phone.
"Okay, Meredith, dear. Have a sip of water, love. You heard all of that? She meant every word!"
"Why did you hand the phone to your wife?"
"The poem's about her too, isn't it?"
"The joke's on you. I haven't the slightest idea what she said."
"You don't understand French? Wait. Here. Talk to the interpreter."
"You have an interpreter!"
"I always have an interpreter with me. I don't understand French either. And I've been married for fifteen years."
The phone changes hands again at one end.
"Hello, sir. I am Ingrid. Ingrid the interpreter. I'm so sorry for all this. You sound like a very nice man. Madame gets a temper at times. I hope you will not take this personally. So, first she called you a 'son of a bitch'. Then, a 'bastard'. Then, how do you say it in English? An 'asshole'? I believe that is the correct expression. Finally, she said she was going to hit you so hard that you'll end up spitting out all your teeth. I think that's all. Wait, did I mention 'asshole'?"
"Oh, you certainly did, Ingrid."
"Merci. Have a good day, sir! Please talk to my employeur."
The phone is returned to Stuart.
"Hello, this is Stuart here again."
"Enough is enough!"
"You're absolutely right. Enough is enough. I completely agree. But wait. Here. Talk to my daughter."
"What?!"
Phone changes hands. A child squeals.
"You're a very bad man!"
Phone changes hands again.
"Hello, it's Stuart again. That was Sadie."
"That's it! No more of this! I'll confess! Just stop handing the damn phone over to people. I'm dog-tired and I really need to get back to sleep. You want the truth? Here's the truth. The poem is targeted at you."
"I knew it!"
"The Brat Review has rejected three of my submissions. You think a writer will never hit back?"
"So – so, in the poem, the word 'limp' in the third line–"
"It's a taunt about your flagging sex life. I did my research."
"You evil shit! And in the fourth stanza, the three-legged footstool is–"
"A metaphor for your limping, three-legged dog, Trudy."
"I'm going to kill you! But first, here. Talk to Trudy."
"No! Don't hand the phone–"
The phone changes hands. A series of angry barks and furious growling is heard over the line for a time. Eventually, it is returned to Stuart.
"It's Stuart again. Trudy isn't happy with what you wrote about her."
"Yeah, I got that feeling. Now, I'm going back to bed. I'm done with this."
"I'm not! You know what? I think I'm going to kick your ass. Yeah, I feel like kicking your ass for this poem!"
"Good luck with that. I'm all the way in Mumbai, India! Haw haw haw!"
"I know that, poet. So am I."
Brief Pause.
"What did you say?"
"I'm staying in the hotel right opposite your building. It'll take me all of five minutes to come over to your place."
"How did you even get here? You can't afford to travel by air! You're the editor of a literary magazine! More importantly, how the hell did you find me?"
"You submitted your address along with the poem for contributor copies, you greedy imbecile. I'm headed your way as we speak."
"Wait, okay, tell me this much! You said you are the co-editor, right? I vaguely remember this but in the picture on the magazine's webpage, both of you editors are standing close together. It's difficult to make out who's who. Are you the squat four foot nothing or the beefy, muscle-bound, six foot seven man covered in tattoos?"
"You'll find out in exactly one minute."
"No! Wait! Listen! It was all a joke! Come on! I didn't actually mean–"
The phone is disconnected. A doorbell rings.

Summer 


Excerpt from a novel

By Edith Wharton 



A girl came out of lawyer Royall’s house, at the end of the one street of North Dormer, and stood on the doorstep.
It was the beginning of a June afternoon. The springlike transparent sky shed a rain of silver sunshine on the roofs of the village, and on the pastures and larchwoods surrounding it. A little wind moved among the round white clouds on the shoulders of the hills, driving their shadows across the fields and down the grassy road that takes the name of street when it passes through North Dormer. The place lies high and in the open, and lacks the lavish shade of the more protected New England villages. The clump of weeping-willows about the duck pond, and the Norway spruces in front of the Hatchard gate, cast almost the only roadside shadow between lawyer Royall’s house and the point where, at the other end of the village, the road rises above the church and skirts the black hemlock wall enclosing the cemetery.
The little June wind, frisking down the street, shook the doleful fringes of the Hatchard spruces, caught the straw hat of a young man just passing under them, and spun it clean across the road into the duck-pond.
As he ran to fish it out the girl on lawyer Royall’s doorstep noticed that he was a stranger, that he wore city clothes, and that he was laughing with all his teeth, as the young and careless laugh at such mishaps.
Her heart contracted a little, and the shrinking that sometimes came over her when she saw people with holiday faces made her draw back into the house and pretend to look for the key that she knew she had already put into her pocket. A narrow greenish mirror with a gilt eagle over it hung on the passage wall, and she looked critically at her reflection, wished for the thousandth time that she had blue eyes like Annabel Balch, the girl who sometimes came from Springfield to spend a week with old Miss Hatchard, straightened the sunburnt hat over her small swarthy face, and turned out again into the sunshine.
“How I hate everything!” she murmured.
The young man had passed through the Hatchard gate, and she had the street to herself. North Dormer is at all times an empty place, and at three o’clock on a June afternoon its few able-bodied men are off in the fields or woods, and the women indoors, engaged in languid household drudgery.
The girl walked along, swinging her key on a finger, and looking about her with the heightened attention produced by the presence of a stranger in a familiar place. What, she wondered, did North Dormer look like to people from other parts of the world? She herself had lived there since the age of five, and had long supposed it to be a place of some importance. But about a year before, Mr. Miles, the new Episcopal clergyman at Hepburn, who drove over every other Sunday—when the roads were not ploughed up by hauling—to hold a service in the North Dormer church, had proposed, in a fit of missionary zeal, to take the young people down to Nettleton to hear an illustrated lecture on the Holy Land; and the dozen girls and boys who represented the future of North Dormer had been piled into a farm-waggon, driven over the hills to Hepburn, put into a way-train and carried to Nettleton.
In the course of that incredible day Charity Royall had, for the first and only time, experienced railway-travel, looked into shops with plate-glass fronts, tasted cocoanut pie, sat in a theatre, and listened to a gentleman saying unintelligible things before pictures that she would have enjoyed looking at if his explanations had not prevented her from understanding them. This initiation had shown her that North Dormer was a small place, and developed in her a thirst for information that her position as custodian of the village library had previously failed to excite. For a month or two she dipped feverishly and disconnectedly into the dusty volumes of the Hatchard Memorial Library; then the impression of Nettleton began to fade, and she found it easier to take North Dormer as the norm of the universe than to go on reading.
The sight of the stranger once more revived memories of Nettleton, and North Dormer shrank to its real size. As she looked up and down it, from lawyer Royall’s faded red house at one end to the white church at the other, she pitilessly took its measure. There it lay, a weather-beaten sunburnt village of the hills, abandoned of men, left apart by railway, trolley, telegraph, and all the forces that link life to life in modern communities. It had no shops, no theatres, no lectures, no “business block”; only a church that was opened every other Sunday if the state of the roads permitted, and a library for which no new books had been bought for twenty years, and where the old ones mouldered undisturbed on the damp shelves. Yet Charity Royall had always been told that she ought to consider it a privilege that her lot had been cast in North Dormer. She knew that, compared to the place she had come from, North Dormer represented all the blessings of the most refined civilization. Everyone in the village had told her so ever since she had been brought there as a child. Even old Miss Hatchard had said to her, on a terrible occasion in her life: “My child, you must never cease to remember that it was Mr. Royall who brought you down from the Mountain.”
She had been “brought down from the Mountain”; from the scarred cliff that lifted its sullen wall above the lesser slopes of Eagle Range, making a perpetual background of gloom to the lonely valley. The Mountain was a good fifteen miles away, but it rose so abruptly from the lower hills that it seemed almost to cast its shadow over North Dormer. And it was like a great magnet drawing the clouds and scattering them in storm across the valley. If ever, in the purest summer sky, there trailed a thread of vapour over North Dormer, it drifted to the Mountain as a ship drifts to a whirlpool, and was caught among the rocks, torn up and multiplied, to sweep back over the village in rain and darkness.
Charity was not very clear about the Mountain; but she knew it was a bad place, and a shame to have come from, and that, whatever befell her in North Dormer, she ought, as Miss Hatchard had once reminded her, to remember that she had been brought down from there, and hold her tongue and be thankful. She looked up at the Mountain, thinking of these things, and tried as usual to be thankful. But the sight of the young man turning in at Miss Hatchard’s gate had brought back the vision of the glittering streets of Nettleton, and she felt ashamed of her old sun-hat, and sick of North Dormer, and jealously aware of Annabel Balch of Springfield, opening her blue eyes somewhere far off on glories greater than the glories of Nettleton.
“How I hate everything!” she said again.
Half way down the street she stopped at a weak-hinged gate. Passing through it, she walked down a brick path to a queer little brick temple with white wooden columns supporting a pediment on which was inscribed in tarnished gold letters: “The Honorius Hatchard Memorial Library, 1832.”
Honorius Hatchard had been old Miss Hatchard’s great-uncle; though she would undoubtedly have reversed the phrase, and put forward, as her only claim to distinction, the fact that she was his great-niece. For Honorius Hatchard, in the early years of the nineteenth century, had enjoyed a modest celebrity. As the marble tablet in the interior of the library informed its infrequent visitors, he had possessed marked literary gifts, written a series of papers called “The Recluse of Eagle Range,” enjoyed the acquaintance of Washington Irving and Fitz-Greene Halleck, and been cut off in his flower by a fever contracted in Italy. Such had been the sole link between North Dormer and literature, a link piously commemorated by the erection of the monument where Charity Royall, every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, sat at her desk under a freckled steel engraving of the deceased author, and wondered if he felt any deader in his grave than she did in his library.
Entering her prison-house with a listless step she took off her hat, hung it on a plaster bust of Minerva, opened the shutters, leaned out to see if there were any eggs in the swallow’s nest above one of the windows, and finally, seating herself behind the desk, drew out a roll of cotton lace and a steel crochet hook. She was not an expert workwoman, and it had taken her many weeks to make the half-yard of narrow lace which she kept wound about the buckram back of a disintegrated copy of “The Lamplighter.” But there was no other way of getting any lace to trim her summer blouse, and since Ally Hawes, the poorest girl in the village, had shown herself in church with enviable transparencies about the shoulders, Charity’s hook had travelled faster. She unrolled the lace, dug the hook into a loop, and bent to the task with furrowed brows.
Suddenly the door opened, and before she had raised her eyes she knew that the young man she had seen going in at the Hatchard gate had entered the library.
Without taking any notice of her he began to move slowly about the long vault-like room, his hands behind his back, his short-sighted eyes peering up and down the rows of rusty bindings. At length he reached the desk and stood before her.
“Have you a card-catalogue?” he asked in a pleasant abrupt voice; and the oddness of the question caused her to drop her work.
“A WHAT?”
“Why, you know——” He broke off, and she became conscious that he was looking at her for the first time, having apparently, on his entrance, included her in his general short-sighted survey as part of the furniture of the library.
The fact that, in discovering her, he lost the thread of his remark, did not escape her attention, and she looked down and smiled. He smiled also.
“No, I don’t suppose you do know,” he corrected himself. “In fact, it would be almost a pity——”
She thought she detected a slight condescension in his tone, and asked sharply: “Why?”
“Because it’s so much pleasanter, in a small library like this, to poke about by one’s self—with the help of the librarian.”
He added the last phrase so respectfully that she was mollified, and rejoined with a sigh: “I’m afraid I can’t help you much.”
“Why?” he questioned in his turn; and she replied that there weren’t many books anyhow, and that she’d hardly read any of them. “The worms are getting at them,” she added gloomily.
“Are they? That’s a pity, for I see there are some good ones.” He seemed to have lost interest in their conversation, and strolled away again, apparently forgetting her. His indifference nettled her, and she picked up her work, resolved not to offer him the least assistance. Apparently he did not need it, for he spent a long time with his back to her, lifting down, one after another, the tall cob-webby volumes from a distant shelf.
“Oh, I say!” he exclaimed; and looking up she saw that he had drawn out his handkerchief and was carefully wiping the edges of the book in his hand. The action struck her as an unwarranted criticism on her care of the books, and she said irritably: “It’s not my fault if they’re dirty.”
He turned around and looked at her with reviving interest. “Ah—then you’re not the librarian?”
“Of course I am; but I can’t dust all these books. Besides, nobody ever looks at them, now Miss Hatchard’s too lame to come round.”
“No, I suppose not.” He laid down the book he had been wiping, and stood considering her in silence. She wondered if Miss Hatchard had sent him round to pry into the way the library was looked after, and the suspicion increased her resentment. “I saw you going into her house just now, didn’t I?” she asked, with the New England avoidance of the proper name. She was determined to find out why he was poking about among her books.
“Miss Hatchard’s house? Yes—she’s my cousin and I’m staying there,” the young man answered; adding, as if to disarm a visible distrust: “My name is Harney—Lucius Harney. She may have spoken of me.”
“No, she hasn’t,” said Charity, wishing she could have said: “Yes, she has.”
“Oh, well——” said Miss Hatchard’s cousin with a laugh; and after another pause, during which it occurred to Charity that her answer had not been encouraging, he remarked: “You don’t seem strong on architecture.”
Her bewilderment was complete: the more she wished to appear to understand him the more unintelligible his remarks became. He reminded her of the gentleman who had “explained” the pictures at Nettleton, and the weight of her ignorance settled down on her again like a pall.
“I mean, I can’t see that you have any books on the old houses about here. I suppose, for that matter, this part of the country hasn’t been much explored. They all go on doing Plymouth and Salem. So stupid. My cousin’s house, now, is remarkable. This place must have had a past—it must have been more of a place once.” He stopped short, with the blush of a shy man who overhears himself, and fears he has been voluble. “I’m an architect, you see, and I’m hunting up old houses in these parts.”
She stared. “Old houses? Everything’s old in North Dormer, isn’t it? The folks are, anyhow.”
He laughed, and wandered away again.
“Haven’t you any kind of a history of the place? I think there was one written about 1840: a book or pamphlet about its first settlement,” he presently said from the farther end of the room.
She pressed her crochet hook against her lip and pondered. There was such a work, she knew: “North Dormer and the Early Townships of Eagle County.” She had a special grudge against it because it was a limp weakly book that was always either falling off the shelf or slipping back and disappearing if one squeezed it in between sustaining volumes. She remembered, the last time she had picked it up, wondering how anyone could have taken the trouble to write a book about North Dormer and its neighbours: Dormer, Hamblin, Creston and Creston River. She knew them all, mere lost clusters of houses in the folds of the desolate ridges: Dormer, where North Dormer went for its apples; Creston River, where there used to be a paper-mill, and its grey walls stood decaying by the stream; and Hamblin, where the first snow always fell. Such were their titles to fame.
She got up and began to move about vaguely before the shelves. But she had no idea where she had last put the book, and something told her that it was going to play her its usual trick and remain invisible. It was not one of her lucky days.
“I guess it’s somewhere,” she said, to prove her zeal; but she spoke without conviction, and felt that her words conveyed none.
“Oh, well——” he said again. She knew he was going, and wished more than ever to find the book.
“It will be for next time,” he added; and picking up the volume he had laid on the desk he handed it to her. “By the way, a little air and sun would do this good; it’s rather valuable.”
He gave her a nod and smile, and passed out.

​DROP DEAD GORGEOUS


by


Gerald Arthur Winter




The scent of her auburn hair intoxicated me that summer from morning

till night. Her glistening cleavage on dog day afternoons and muggy August

evenings had become as familiar to me as the cleft of my chin reflected in the

mirror as I shaved. I hadn’t tried to put a name to her face, feeling that would

spoil the mystique of my fantasy. The thirtyish woman, who shared the elevator

at my East Side Manhattan apartment, was surely by any statistical beauty

evaluation—a “10.”


Whenever my secretary Mona caught me daydreaming at my desk in a

lull between cases, she would ask, “What’s this distraction?” When I turned with a

blank stare as if caught with my pants down, she rolled her dark Jamaican eyes and

pursed her full lips. “When are you going to introduce yourself to Gorgeous?”


For the past year, Monday through Friday, Gorgeous got on the elevator at

the 32nd floor and descended to the lobby at 8 a.m. A taxi was always waiting to

pick her up and would bring her home each night at 6 p.m. In the summer she’d

often take the stairs one flight up to the roof to sunbathe till dusk. On sunny

summer weekends it was a crap shoot, never predicable when or for how long
she might ascend to the roof to bask in her thong bikini.


Not that I paid attention to these details with any prurient interest—as

a private eye, I was naturally observant. I’m not shy or reticent by nature, but

I didn’t want to shatter my illusion of this perfectly gorgeous woman by hearing

her voice reject my advances. I avoided speaking to her in any casual manner and

buried my face in my newspaper whenever we rode the elevator together, in case

she might catch my eye and murmur a neighborly greeting.


“Neighbors” were for The Village or Upper East Side, not Midtown near

United Nations Plaza, so I was off the hook. When we got off the elevator

together I held back to check my mailbox so I wouldn’t overhear her verbal

exchange with the doorman or cabby. God forbid I should have Singing in the

Rain traumatic shock and hear a squeaky, nasally shrill come from her gorgeous

lips. That would have destroyed her image, like a westerly witch with a splash of

water in her face. So long, my pretty—my Gorgeous…going…going…gone.


I would often set my alarm just to make the 8 a.m. descent with Gorgeous

and carry the scent of her hair with me like a hallo all day.

Since my last romantic entanglement ended over a year ago, my Gorgeous

fantasy helped bridge the gap during that passion drought. By the time summer

came around again, and I was longing for a hot, sunny weekend to curl up in a

chaise lounge on the roof. I would read a good book and sneak a peek at Gorgeous.

She’d be lying on her flat tummy with her bikini top unfastened to avoid strap

marks. I was starting to feel like a perverted 900-caller, so I decided it was time

to talk to Gorgeous and deflate the pressure from this infatuation bubble.


Realizing the honeymoon would soon be over, I rehearsed a variety of

clever approaches of imagined repartee with Gorgeous that might end with a

deep freeze, repulsion, a slap in the face, or perhaps the best sex ever. Nothing

ventured, nothing gained. I’d go for the night ride ascent so she wouldn’t have

all day to think about what a creep I seemed to be. If our encounter went well,

my ceiling and her floor were all that separated us with either of our apartments

as a safe strip for the inevitable love landing.


What I didn’t expect from Gorgeous after a year of her perfect consistency,

was a no-show on the morning before I planned to approach her. I’d hoped to see

her when she came home that night. I felt queasy when the elevator door opened

and she wasn’t there. I checked my watch to be sure it hadn’t stopped and cross-

checked the time with my phone.

I took the descent to the lobby and asked the doorman if a cab had

stopped for a pick up in the last few minutes.


“No, Mr. Larkin. No pick-ups this morning,” Wilson the doorman

said with a wink. “I wouldn’t have missed Gorgeous.”


See. I’m not alone. Even the hired help refers to her as “Gorgeous.”


A hollow feeling in my gut told me she might be in trouble, so I took the

elevator back up to her apartment on the 32nd floor and pressed my ear to her

door. It was raining, so I knew she wasn’t on the roof sunbathing. I heard a TV

news commentator from inside her apartment saying it would rain heavily for

the next two days. I rang her bell and thought I heard shuffling inside. I felt that

she could be watching me through the peephole so I straightened my tie.


When the door swung open I was shocked to see a burly man in his

fifties wearing a white wife-beater and dress slacks held up by suspenders

with green shamrocks the size of quarters. Since it wasn’t March, I assumed

he was Irish and not just a St. Patrick’s Day leftover. He glared at me and

wrinkled his red, whiskey-weathered nose as the whites of his sky-blue eyes

turned pink.


“What the hell do you want?” he rasped.


We looked each other over like two heavy weights listening to the

referee’s rules before the bell.


“I must have the the wrong apartment,” I said, but over his right shoulder

I saw a framed photo of Gorgeous on an end table.


“Oh. Who you lookin’ for, fella?”


“Someone with your blue eyes, but a lot prettier.”


He must have caught my glance over his shoulder at the photo

because, before I knew what hit me, I was taking a standing-eight-count

with shamrock suspenders between me and the exit as he chained the

door behind him and stood firm to take another swing.


“Whoa, pops! No mas!” I held up both hands. “Like I said, I got the

wrong apartment.”


“How much has she been charging you?” he asked.


“Yo! I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I cleared my vision

and tried diplomacy since the United Nations was across the street. “I live in

this building and had a dinner date with a friend. I rang your bell by mistake.”


“Don’t bull shit me or I’ll pop ya again,” he said, making a fist.


I could see he meant it, so I decided to stymie him with some half-truths

and suck some wind out of him for a KO. “I’m the private investigator she hired.”

I lied, nodding toward her photo and handed him my card with the same address.


“I live in this building, and she hired me because she thought some creep was

stalking her. I know her routine. She came in last night as usual at six o’clock,

but hasn’t left the building yet as she usually does each morning at eight.”


Though he was quick with his fists, I was quicker with my Glock 33 pistol

pulled from my ankle holster before he could take a forward step.


“So now it’s my turn—who the hell are you?”


“Private dick or not, you’re saying you’re not her John?” he asked.


“No, but what are you saying, she’s a call girl?”


“You’re the shamus. You tell me.” His posture slumped as he explained.


“I’m her uncle looking out for her for my dead sister’s sake. I took care of her

for a few years after my sister died in a car crash. Her husband had deserted her

and my niece ten years ago, a fanatic prick. Rumors say he went back home to

hook up with the IRA.


“She was a teenager when her mom died, a real looker—as you know.”


We both nodded. “Once she turned twenty-one, I couldn’t keep track of her. She

came to New York from Boston a year ago. She called me to say she was a model,

but I had my doubts.” He shook his head. “She stopped returning my phone calls

and hadn’t written to me in months. I had her address, so I decided to pay her a

surprise visit—for her own good, of course.”


“Of course.” I smirked, unsure where he could be going with this.


“Look. I didn’t just barge in on her,” he explained. “I called from Penn

Station with a little warning.”


“And?”


“She said she had a modeling job last night and would be staying with a

friend. She left the key with the doorman. She told me to make myself at home.

She didn’t give me the name of the person she would be with. You don’t think

something happened to her, do you?”


“I think we need to have a chat with the doorman.”


“I’ll get my shirt.”


“No need,” I said. “I can talk to him over the intercom.”


“In that case, would you mind taking that rod out of my face?” He shrugged.


“I could use a drink. How about a Tullamore Dew?”


“It’s not even 9 a.m.,” I said, holstering my pistol “But don’t let me stop

you from brightening your day.”


He poured himself an Irish whisky as I buzzed the doorman. “Wilson, this

is Mr. Larkin.”


“Congratulations. I see you’re in 3201—lucky man.”


“Not really. I’m here with her uncle. You gave the key to him, but did she

leave the building after she left the key with you?”


“If she did, it was on the late shift,” he said. “She never left while I

was here.”


“No distractions—you couldn’t possibly have missed her?”


“I’m positive, Mr. Larkin.”


“Who was on the door last night?”


“Silvio.”


“Do you have a number where I can reach him?”


“I suppose,” Wilson hesitated.


“There’s a sawbuck in it for each of you, if you can fill in the gaps between

six o’clock last night and when her uncle picked up the key.”


“She left the key with me at six when the cab brought her home,” he

explained. “She was blasé about it, saying her uncle was coming from out of

town and to give him the key so he could go up whenever he arrived. She didn’t

say she didn’t expect to be in. It was still evening, so she might’ve had plans to

go back out, but she never left.”


“What time did you give her uncle the key?” I asked.


“I didn’t, Mr. Larkin. He must have come for the key when Silvio was on

the door. Silvio never said anything to me about it, but the key was gone, so I just

assumed he gave them to her uncle.”


“It’s an emergency. I need Silvio’s number.”


I called, but the uncle couldn’t hear Silvio’s side of our conversation.


“The uncle picked up the key about 8 p.m., but he didn’t go up,” Silvio

explained. “I watched him head up the block to Billy Munk’s Pub. She never came

down, but he came back about ten o’clock, a little tipsy but cordial. I didn’t buzz

her to let her know he was coming, because my instructions were to just let him

up with the key. Ya know, maybe she just calls him ‘uncle.’ I had no idea if she

was still in her apartment when I came on at 7 p.m. but I know she never came d

own while I was on till 7 a.m.”


“Why are you and Wilson working twelve hours?” I asked.


“We’re short-handed with guys on summer vacation and one out sick,”

he said. “It’s only for a couple of weeks and the union pays us overtime. She

must still be in the building. Did you check the laundry room in the basement?

How about the garage? She wouldn’t be on the roof in this weather.”


Her uncle eyed me as if aiming through the sights of a gun. “What did

he tell you?”


“They’re sure she hasn’t left the building since she left the key in the

lobby last night. You didn’t go up at seven o’clock when you picked up the key

from Silvio. She was still in her apartment, but you went up the street to Billy

Munk’s. Were you there the whole three hours before you returned at ten o’clock,

or did you go elsewhere?”


“Only to buy a paper and a Lotto ticket at the corner newsstand.”


I saw the newspaper and the lottery ticket on the coffee table, but wondered

as the uncle sipped his drink, “Where did you buy that whiskey?”


“The Emerald Isle flows through my niece’s veins as well, so Uncle

Sean didn’t need to go shopping.” He nodded to the full liquor cabinet above

the wet bar.


“Well, Uncle Sean, your niece must be a successful model because

this building is high rent. The living room furniture’s worth a small fortune,

and I haven’t even seen the bedroom, but, no one else has either,” I said with

confidence. “Believe me, if your niece was an expensive call-girl, I’d know it.

But that’s the good news—if she never left this building, she’s in some kind of

trouble.”


“Should we call the cops?” he asked, cocking his head like a canine.


“Before forty-eight hours we’d need a body. We’ve got the door

covered, so we just need to check the laundry room and the garage,” I

said. “I’m not too hopeful, because by nine o’clock, someone would have

seen her if she hadn’t run into foul play.”


“What about that creep she said was following her—the reason she

hired you?”


I gave him the respect of my father confessor. “Uncle Sean, truth be

told, a shamus needs to lie to get at the truth sometimes. If she reported

any creep following her, it probably was me. She never hired me, but I’ve

been smitten by her and reluctant to even talk to a young woman that

gorgeous, and now probably a supermodel. I wouldn’t know,” I admitted,

“because I never read magazines, only the paper. I don’t even own a TV,

but I am a detective and I know her routine. This morning was the first

break in her schedule, which could be nothing, but I think you’ll agree it’s

worth some examination to be sure she’s OK.”



“I don’t have her cell phone number,” he said with disappointment,

“only her land line in this apartment, so I can’t track her down that way.”


“Has she called you on your cell?” I suggested. “Her cell number will

be stored in yours.”


I took his cell and ran down the list of calls. “What’s her home phone

number?” He told me. “OK, I see that from your call yesterday. You’re from

Boston. Did you call any other 212 numbers in the last few weeks?”


“No. I’m sure.”


“This one called you last month. Try it.”


He dialed the number, but he got a message. “It’s her voice mail.”


I grabbed the phone from him and caught her last words, “Leave your

name and number and the time that you called, and I’ll get back to you as

soon as possible.”


Now I knew that Gorgeous had a voice to match her looks. I left her

a message: “Your Uncle Sean is concerned about you. Please call him.”


After ten minutes of receiving no response from his niece, Uncle Sean

went with me to the basement. I asked some of the maids doing laundry if

they’d seen the woman in the framed photo that I brought along. No one had

seen her.


In the parking garage there was only one exit and no one to be seen.

The building’s super, not wanting any bad publicity, let us watch the security

tape of cars leaving the building. Her black Mercedes SL-500 convertible was

where she’d left it.


“Definitely a supermodel—not the wheels—your niece. That’s a

fine vehicle.” He was impressed as well. “It’s getting close to noon. Let me buy

you lunch while we wait for her call.”


On our way out through the lobby, I asked Wilson, “Does she have any

friends in the building, maybe a guy she’s been dating?”


“No. She’s a loner as far as I can see,” he said. “Until her uncle showed

up yesterday, she had no callers, always left alone and returned solo.”

I checked my watch and was shocked to see we’d spent most of day

hypothesizing various scenarios, all but the worst case, because no one that

gorgeous should ever die. We’d skipped lunch, and it was after 5 p.m. At

least the first 48 hours was getting closer for me to call my friends at the

precinct about a missing person. My stomach growled for dinner.


“If she shows up,” I said to Wilson. “We’ll be at Billy Munk’s.”


We stopped at the newsstand first. Glancing at the headlines, I saw there

were more U.S. casualties in the Mid-east conflict. Isis was running rampant,

the DOW didn’t know which way was down, but with a rise in the prime rate

was still a caution and crude oil was on the rise again. The Yanks and Red Sox

were vying for 1st place. The biggest tourist attraction of the week was a visit to

Manhattan by Great Britain’s Duke and Dutchess of Cambridge. Prince

William and Kate were taking a limo tour from The Waldorf down Broadway

to 23rd Street then would cut eastward across to pass the United Nations on

First Avenue before sunset and a dinner reception at Trump Tower. The rain

had finally let up and the sun was low in the west starting to descend behind

a Hoboken horizon.


Lucky, I thought. Good timing to put the top down on the Royal limo for

the crowd anxious for a glimpse of Will and Kate.


We sat at the dark wooden bar with a cedar-and-brew scent permeating

the joint. Beside the antique cash register, my sallow bar tabs were stacked three

inches high—two inches higher than the other regulars’ unpaid tabs. It was August

in Manhattan, vacation time and no cases. With any luck I’d start to make ends

meet again after Labor Day.


I asked Patty the bartender to turn on the news. He glared at me, looked

at my stack of unpaid bills, and slid the TV remote down the bar to me. Sean

had the Billy’s bacon-cheeseburger with fries, and I had two inches of rare roast

beef sliced thin on pumpernickel. I held off on the fries visualizing myself in a

sleeveless undershirt with a beer gut flanked by suspenders with shamrocks

like Uncle Sean’s. The ole boy could put ’em down.

Surfing the channels, I stopped at CNN and saw a live broadcast showing

Prince William and Kate in a motorcade coming eastward down 42nd Street and

passing Bryant Park near the New York Public Library. Apparently their tour had

been delayed by the earlier rain and their path to Trump Tower had been detoured

to adjust to their schedule.


Uncle Sean scowled. “Put on the game, shamus. I don’t want to spoil my

appetite watching those bloody royals making a grand display.”


I took one bite of my sandwich and was about take a swill of Guinness

when it hit me in the chest like a sledge hammer. I nearly choked on my sandwich

as I darted for the door.


“Hey, you two-bit shamus!” I heard Patty shout at me as I hit the street.


“You’d better pay up next time!”


I dodged cars and bicycle messengers crossing 45th Street to the north

side. Wilson was talking to another tenant as I burst into the lobby. I got into

the elevator and hit 32. On the ascent I dialed Lt. Paul Dicker at homicide.


“What’s up, Larkin?” he answered.


“I’ve got a potential homicide at 333 East 45th Street on the roof. I need

back-up.”


“Back-up, my ass! You leave this to the NYPD or I’ll—”


“No time, Paul. Just get here.”


I hung up on Lt. Dicker still sputtering, but I knew I could depend on

him to have a car there in two minutes. Catching up to me on the roof was

another story.


I took my Glock from my ankle holster when I reached the top of the

stairs to the roof. I knew the metal door to the roof would make a squeaky noise

when I opened it. It always did.

I put together everything I’d learned over the past year and the last

few hours to give me a visual. I could be dead wrong, but there was no time

for any Plan B.


I rolled as I pushed open the door with a creak and saw my worst fear

as I came up on one knee and fired a single shot, taking down the shooter

with a shattered right knee.

When the shooter staggered on one lame leg to take aim again, I had no

choice but to shoot to kill. I shouted, “Drop it! It’s over!”


Before I fired, the door creaked behind me. I thought it was Lt. Dicker’s

back-up, but it was Uncle Sean with a pistol.


“Finish it, Darlin’!” he shouted to the shooter. “I got the shamus.”


“You’re really her father, right?” I glared, but the door creaked again.


When he turned to fire, a round from Dicker’s detectives killed Sean.

“Drop the rifle!” one detective shouted to her, but determined to hit

her target for Daddy’s approval, her hands shook from the blood loss as she

tried to steady her aim.


Not knowing her intent, the detectives were startled when I pulled

another pistol from inside my shoulder holster and shot her through the right

temple before she could get off a shot.


One officer held his weapon on me as I dropped my pistol, and the

other checked to see she if she was dead. When he looked over the balcony

ledge and saw the Prince’s motorcade passing below, he realized what I must

have prevented.


“Tom Larkin, Private Eye,” I said. “I put in the call to Lt. Dicker.”


When I showed them my ID, they took my weapons. “I think you’ll find the

ole guy on the FBI’s wanted list as an IRA terrorist,” I said, as they called

Lt. Dicker for conformation. Looking at the grin on “Uncle Sean’s face, I

realized he’d been one up on me in the half-truth game from the start.


“What about the shooter?” the detective asked.


“Mind if I have a closer look?” I asked, and got the courtesy nod.


As they pulled off her mask, her long red hair blew and matted in

the blood streaming from the hole beside her right eye. Except for her static

voice-mail, I never got to put a live voice with her face. Now I never would.

It was only mid-August, but summer was done for me. My heart wasn’t

in it. Walking alone in the city later that same night, I recalled what one of

the cop had said when I’d removed her mask. It was the only thing I knew

about her for sure: “Damn! This shooter was drop dead gorgeous.”


END

Shadow Lives


By Henrietta Ross


I opened my eyes onto red brick. Long since I had opened them onto anything more. I pulled myself upright, which was somewhat difficult and stared across the road at galvanised steel. Nothing. A spider with a body like a tiny black pin prick whispered across the grey, concrete step and disappeared into a hole. The bricks were full of them: holes and indents, broken corners and worn edges. I'd loved the coarse, uneven surface of bricks as a kid. The rugged exterior of the outside juxtaposed with the more streamlined interior within. My head throbbed and my thin legs hummed with cramp. No surprise, shut-eye for even a couple of hours, disturbed at that, involved making yourself as small as possible, trying to hide, to be unseen, to be invisible. I'd slept with my knees dragged up to my chest in a red sodden canvas bag for three hours, an old peach towel, damp too, for a pillow. The bag was sodden because nothing dries out, not out here, damp a tapestry seared into your skin. Rain was always the worst to contend with, worse than long cold spells or snow blizzards. Even when streets were puffed up with snow, you could find a doorway, a small, square patch, clear in which to get some shelter. Snow as a kid always seemed a treat. We waited for the temperature to drop then warm up ever so slightly, staring up into white, compacted clouds, waiting for the first dusting of magic. Perfectly crisp snow without dirtied footprints seemed virginal and innocent and mysteriously silent like the streets of a Christmas morning. Now everything was different, my life had moved on like a snow drift, just not to a better place. Rain, unlike snow, was different. Tenacious, persistent. It ran down walls, trickled between bricks, seeped into cracks and slopped at doorways. It soaked sleeping bags and rucksacks, stiff thin blankets, old sheets and spare dirty clothes. It made a mockery of cardboard.

Needing a moment to rub the cramp from my knees, I twisted this way and that, pushed a leg against the glass facade of W.H Smith's. My worn and battered Reeboks, no laces, seemed an affront to their crisp, bright window display. Shiny new books showing off their jazzy front covers and decorated spines: a biography of Prince William, an A-Z of the Kings and Queens of England, a book comprising a selection of aerial photo's of the Monarchy's royal estates, another, a sort of pop-up book of the inside of Buckingham palace. Expensive teddy bears with tiny white t-shirts covered with red St Georges Crosses, packets of bunting, playing cards, tacky mugs with the soon to be king and Queen on. Can't remember the last time I bought anything from a shop; the odd packet of cigarettes and matches from a newsagents, a can of cheap, sweet cider from Tesco, hoping for a few seconds of respite. Consumption is a luxury and so is time, so I stopped working out the cramp, legs and feet still twisted like an arthritic old woman's swollen limbs. Pushing everything into my torn blue rucksack, I hobbled across the road, and round the back of the fast food joint. At this time of a morning, they usually throw out stuff. Stale bread and round buns, thin soggy chips, sugary cakes hard round the edges, sometimes greasy burgers. We all rush around and grab what we can. It can be a bit of a free-for-all. I have been whacked in the face numerous times. Fought on the floor, all arms and legs trying to hold on to my breakfast. Ripping apart a burger with metallic tasting blood running from your nostrils and smearing your lips is a exquisite sort of agony.

“Adu, aar kid.” This is Bob. He pulled open the bin. I looked inside. It smelt bad. Really bad. Bob was six foot with peppery grey hair and a pink fleshy scar on his forehead. He wore faded black trousers, scuffed brown boots, and an old green parka with a dull orange lining. The bin was mostly filled with boxes, wrappers and reams of cellophane, though I did find a half box of soggy looking chips which we shared together sitting on a low brick wall as rain pricked at our faces. They were wet and soggy but would have to do.
“Yow werkin'?”
“Yeah, going up. Made quite a bit yesterday at the back of House of Frazer.”
Bob shuffled his feet. “Geaus nowt. “
“A lot will stay in today I reckon, watch it on television.” I hadn't watched a television in years, wouldn't even know what I was watching now. Mum used to like soaps: Corrie and a hot cup of tea, a couple of ginger nut biscuits on a white saucer. Dad pretended to like everything but really he would be asleep behind his perfectly straight newspaper.
“Wernit Balham?”
“London originally. But yeah, Balham.”
“Daynt ave accent.”
“Been on the streets, it washes it away.” I laughed to myself and hitched my rucksack up onto my shoulder.

People always assumed streets were quiet during the night and in the early morning. Believed because they put their own little lights out, crawled into warm beds with dry sheets and plump pillows, everyone else was on lock-down, too. It wasn't true. Streets in a city: places of reinforced concrete and glass fronted exteriors, multi-storey car parks, sprawling department stores, hotels and pubs, shops and sloppy fast food were never quiet. People fell out of pubs, often drunk, wanting to fight someone, anyone, couples clip-clopped to hotels for the night, taxis left and returned on a constant loop, there were ever-growing rowdy queues for chips and burgers. Girls screamed after too much to drink, boys fought over the same hysterical girls, as if intoxicated belligerence was a win. There were fights and screams, whoops and loud banter, jagged threats and shuffling feet and often running feet and by the time it all stopped and you hoped for a moments lull, a moments sleep, the sun unfurled itself from behind doughy, white clouds and birds, those little Avian Dinosaurs that I adored as a kid, would break out into high-pitched song, fill the air with repetitive melodies that felt like fire to the senses.

It's even noisier today. All night the bunting had whipped and crackled on the wind and road sweepers were out earlier than usual unclogging gutters. We might not be in London, but we were still making the most of it. A enormous silver screen stood outside The Bullring attached to a giant steel scaffold and parts of the pedestrianized area had been cordoned off. Soon, it was obviously thought, hundreds would arrive, directed by police and security in high-vis to appropriate areas. It made me feel mildly optimistic. I might make some more money; the quiet calm of perhaps ordering a milky coffee in a Cafe or buying some chips or even making enough to get a night in a hostel.

“Wat time you goin up, Dom?” Michelle bounded across from behind a cookie shop. She wore a white shell suit with pink stripes, holes in both legs and a grey baseball cap on her head. Her hair beneath it was brown and curled with grease.
“On my way, I'm early but have nothing else to do.”
Michelle jumped in front of me and poked me with a bitten yellow finger nail.”Got any?”
“I've stopped doing it, six weeks.” I had. Weed was starting to make me feel paranoid, off kilter. It was better to try and quit, although being homeless and 'with it' was harsh emotionally.
“I need sum, though.”
I laughed. “Honestly, I've stopped.”
“What ya laughin at?”
“Nothing, don't believe me, but I'm not lying.”
“Yow always doin' it, I see ya at the back of that shop, lightin' up one the other day.”
“That was a roll-up a passer by gave me, just tobacco.”
“Nah, Dom, ya lyin to me. To me?” Michelle clicked her teeth and stalked about in a circle. I wasn't bothered by Michelle but the others she hung out with could get tricky, especially if she told them I had weed.
“Look I have to go. I haven't got any, I will try and find some for you though, deal?” She stared at me intently, came right up in my face so I could smell her breath. The smell of beer coupled with the fusty stink of tobacco. Time seemed to stop, would she accept or scoot off to get the others. My heart strummed with anxiety.
“Well, okay then.” Her voice had softened and she hugged me, patted me on the back. It didn't make me feel better.

We would pick the magazine up from behind the Catholic church, an old factory converted into offices. You would buy what you could afford then make so much on each copy you sold to the public. I got to the church at 8am. The offices predictably stood in darkness, except the top windows, silver beneath the sun's cool gaze. I crossed the road to the park. It looked empty. Yellow grass stubbed with crisp packets and pop cans. A water feature no longer a feature. There were swings, slides, a sew-saw and a climbing frame encircled by a cracked painted blue fence. It all looked tired and depressed, as if childlike joy had lost its footing. Maybe too many teenagers sat on the slide smoking weed, one two many drunks had licked the wood chippings on a hot summers day.

Waiting is hard, so I sat on the swing, focused on the doors opening whilst I tried to forget. When I first landed on the streets in the Summer of 2006, I had no idea what it would be like. All kids struggle with their parents. They want the best for you long term, you want the best for you in any given moment. My father was an accountant. If you think they are dull, you're right. He walked around with a frown all day, in a cheap grey suit and wore his black hair in a side parting which made his scalp look alabaster white and only ever conversed about numbers. My mother worked part-time as a receptionist at the local doctors surgery. She became so proud of her phone voice, she took to speaking like it all the time, a sort of shrill accentuation of every word that gave everyone a headache. Mum was nice though, until she kicked me out.

I scored fifteen, a mammoth victory, compared to the eight I usually picked up. They came in a transparent button-down folder which I shoved under my arm as the others jostled in the queue behind me. A sort of low-level sense of threat that made your head buzz. The magazine had been going for years, started out as just a pamphlet, black and white, two sides. Never thought about everything having a trajectory before the streets, everything changing from thing to another, but not always in a linear fashion.

Trudging back the way I came, in my worn trainers, feeling the cold sensation of sweat under my armpits, the greasy sliver across my ribs, I chose a spot, right outside Primark. If it rained, - an elbow of leaden cloud was on the move in a white-washed sky, the sun all but gone - I could get some shelter. No point, anyway, selling a left-wing magazine outside high-end shops and boutiques, they think you're a cockroach, hardy and common, creeping into flawless homes and sterile lives. No, stay with the working class, try and crack through their cheap, faux leather. I had imagined crowds, masses, thought I might make a killin' but people were too interested in Prince William. His head bald like the souls of my shoes, but he had a crown to hide his threadbare scalp.

“Please don't stand here.” A women wearing a black raincoat skewered me with her stare. She had silver Dior glasses and a mardy looking face.
“Just tryin' to make a living”.
“You are not here to celebrate the coronation though, are you?”
“Look. I'm selling these.” I pointed at them, gave her a twirl of my transparent folder. Her eyes bounced off the corners of the magazine as if she might catch something.
“I will have you removed.”
'Love, it's all legit. Give me a break.” This happens all the time. I feel like saying “You dirty Slag” in a loud cockney accent but I don't or at least I didn't think I did.
“Excuse me, what did you call me?”
“Nowt, Bint.”

I did get a small, milky coffee and a carton of chips that day but didn't make enough for a bed. Wound up in the doorway of W.H Smith again. Cramp in my limbs and wet through the skin. Weird what you get attached when living like this. When the coronation was over, screens taken away, bunting removed, I missed the energy, the people; the palatable sense of excitement and expectation that thrummed the air. I had nothing to look forward to, every day the same as the one before, a perfect replica of monotony and pig-headed survival.

“Dom, a man, he came, looking he was, for you.” This is Paul, has some sort of mental illness, talks to himself a lot. I don't know whether someone is looking for me or it's all occurring inside his head.
“Who's that then?” He stumbles around as if the voices are so chaotic they prevent him from having any physical coordination.
“A man, a man.” Paul seems excited. He can be often upset, sometimes agitated, nice to see him lit up with a grin. He attempts a sort of skip and trips over his too long, corduroy trousers, ends up tangled up on the floor. Let's out a groan.
“C'mon mate.” Pulling him to his feet, he gives me a wide grin and his cheeks glow a sort of washed-out pink.
“Daddy, he's coming.”
Making sure Paul is okay, I head off. My head has started hurting again, and I have to go and get my days copies.

Time slows down on the street, passes by in the slowest of increments, takes on a monster like guise, grows bigger and bigger in your head as you wait for it to pass. You don't realise how important routine is when you have it, how it manages all your hours and minutes and seconds, spooning out just the right amount of activity from one moment to the next. When I was younger, when I had homework to do after school and had started going out with mates to play football, I found my parents too strict, felt hemmed in and manipulated by the time restraints and demands they imposed. I wish I had them now, would give anything to write an essay in one of those little exercise books whose back cover I would graffiti or go for a kick about over the field.

It could have been a Tuesday, I think it might have been. I had been up to get my magazines in the pouring rain, had wrapped myself in a black bin liner I found stuffed in a bin. Only managed seven, so knew I would be struggling, but I wasn't too bothered. Maybe once I'd have been vexed but you become hardened out here, like the weather I suppose. I met Gareth, another homeless guy, he'd been out here
longer than me, fifteen years. Years that had ruined him, the exuberant optimism of youth crushed like rose petals beneath a time-worn, heavy foot. We shared a smoke sitting on his crumpled makeshift bed and he gave me a bottle of sticky orange pop which I wrapped in the bag and stuffed in my rucksack. Six years ago, the arches were my dumping ground too, but I'd got beaten up one night, new face I guess, and even though they welcome me back now, I prefer to stay away, the jagged scar under my chin a stark reminder. Better on my own.

“Dom?” I heard the voice. The sort memories are made of, the sort that carve you up inside if you let them. I turned, slowly, really, really slowly and looked at him. Six years had blended his face, made it less distinct. Rounder now and redder except for the jowls that hung like a flat tyre. His moustache had turned on him, grey flecked with white and his side parting had no side to take care of any more, just a smooth egg with a few grey wisps that waved in the wind.
“What can I do for you, old man?'
He came towards me with a smile. I never knew he could smile. I didn't even know him any more, just another face in a crowd and this saddened me and released me at the same time. Maybe it would be easier now.
'It's your mum.”
“Yeah?” Always the Achilles heel.
“Look, I've been searching for weeks, Dom, asking around, you know.'
“Yeah, someone said.”
“It's cancer.”
“What is?”
“Your mum, Dom..”
“Mum?”
“Yes, look I know it's hard, but when she became sick she asked, begged me in fact, to find you. Bring you home.”
“Why?”
“She wants to say goodbye and --”
“I've been waiting six years for a simple hello.”
 

THE ROAD FROM LETTUCE AND BACK

By Roy Dorman



“So, where we goin’, Robert?”
“I’m taking you for a ride.”
“But why am I locked up in this cage?”
“You’re my prisoner,” said Robert. “You’ve been eating more of the vegetables in my garden than I have. That cage is more than just an animal carrying case; it’s a trap. I put it in the middle of my garden, right between two rows of lettuce. You walked into it to eat the lettuce and shaved carrots -- the little “salad” I placed in there as bait.”
“Rabbits call that a salad too, Robert. Except we don’t gather the ingredients together and put them on a plate, we just browse from one section of the garden….”
“And that’s why you’re in the trap and that’s why you’re going for a ride. I’m taking you far enough out into the country that you’ll no longer be able to pillage my garden.”
“But I’m a town rabbit, Robert; I could get killed out in the country. Foxes, feral dogs and cats, hunters… Maybe you could just let me out at the next town. How about that? I’m not even asking you to take me back home; we both know I’d just be back in your garden again.”
“So honesty comes from getting in locked a cage,” said Robert. “No remorse, but honesty.”
“If you drop me off in the next town, I won’t even try to make my way back to your garden. Even if there aren’t any gardens as good as yours.”
“Are you saying if I drop you off in the country instead of the next town you’ll come back to eat in my garden again?”
“That’s it, Robert. You got it exactly. We rabbits aren’t usually known for having a mean streak, but let me tell ya, if somebody messes with us, we can get ugly.”
Robert looked over his shoulder at the cage in the back seat and snorted. He didn’t see how that little fur ball could get ugly. “Forget it; I’m not driving all the way to the next town.”
“I just pissed on your car seat, Robert. Now I think I’ll take a shit and moosh the pellets through the mesh floor of this damn cage. How do you like…. Robert! Look at the road, would ya? You’ve drifted into that semi’s lane….”
***
“Eddie, you call the EMTs and tell them not to rush; the semi driver’s okay, but this guy’s dead.”
“Hey, look, he had a rabbit in a cage. I wonder what’s the story there. Should I let it loose?”
“Nah, I’ll take it back into town and let it loose in the park. It probably wouldn’t live very long out here; foxes, feral dogs and cats, hunters…”
​

Opera Lions
​
By Joseph Addison


Dic mihi, si fias tu leo, qualis eris?
Mart., xii. 93.
Were you a lion, how would you behave?

​

There is nothing that of late years has afforded matter of greater amusement to the town than Signior Nicolini’s combat with a lion in the Haymarket, which has been very often exhibited to the general satisfaction of most of the nobility and gentry in the kingdom of Great Britain.  Upon the first rumour of this intended combat, it was confidently affirmed, and is still believed, by many in both galleries, that there would be a tame lion sent from the tower every opera night in order to be killed by Hydaspes.  This report, though altogether groundless, so universally prevailed in the upper regions of the playhouse, that some of the most refined politicians in those parts of the audience gave it out in whisper that the lion was a cousin-german of the tiger who made his appearance in King William’s days, and that the stage would be supplied with lions at the public expense during the whole session.  Many likewise were the conjectures of the treatment which this lion was to meet with from the hands of Signior Nicolini: some supposed that he was to subdue him in recitativo, as Orpheus used to serve the wild beasts in his time, and afterwards to knock him on the head; some fancied that the lion would not pretend to lay his paws upon the hero, by reason of the received opinion that a lion will not hurt a virgin: several who pretended to have seen the opera in Italy, had informed their friends that the lion was to act a part in High Dutch, and roar twice or thrice to a thorough bass before he fell at the feet of Hydaspes.  To clear up a matter that was so variously reported, I have made it my business to examine whether this pretended lion is really the savage he appears to be, or only a counterfeit.
But before I communicate my discoveries, I must acquaint the reader that upon my walking behind the scenes last winter, as I was thinking on something else, I accidentally jostled against a monstrous animal that extremely startled me, and, upon my nearer survey of it, appeared to be a lion rampant.  The lion, seeing me very much surprised, told me, in a gentle voice, that I might come by him if I pleased; “for,” says he, “I do not intend to hurt anybody.”  I thanked him very kindly and passed by him, and in a little time after saw him leap upon the stage and act his part with very great applause.  It has been observed by several that the lion has changed his manner of acting twice or thrice since his first appearance, which will not seem strange when I acquaint my reader that the lion has been changed upon the audience three several times.  The first lion was a candle-snuffer, who, being a fellow of a testy, choleric temper, overdid his part, and would not suffer himself to be killed so easily as he ought to have done: besides, it was observed of him, that he grew more surly every time he came out of the lion, and having dropped some words in ordinary conversation, as if he had not fought his best, and that he suffered himself to be thrown upon his back in the scuffle, and that he would wrestle with Mr. Nicolini for what he pleased, out of his lion’s skin, it was thought proper to discard him: and it is verily believed to this day, that, had he been brought upon the stage another time, he would certainly have done mischief.  Besides, it was objected against the first lion, that he reared himself so high upon his hinder paws, and walked in so erect a posture, that he looked more like an old man than a lion.
The second lion was a tailor by trade, who belonged to the playhouse, and had the character of a mild and peaceable man in his profession.  If the former was too furious, this was too sheepish for his part; inasmuch that, after a short modest walk upon the stage, he would fall at the first touch of Hydaspes, without grappling with him, and giving him an opportunity of showing his variety of Italian trips.  It is said, indeed, that he once gave him a rip in his flesh-colour doublet: but this was only to make work for himself in his private character of a tailor.  I must not omit that it was this second lion who treated me with so much humanity behind the scenes.
The acting lion at present is, as I am informed, a country gentleman, who does it for his diversion, but desires his name may be concealed.  He says very handsomely, in his own excuse, that he does not act for gain; that he indulges an innocent pleasure in it, and that it is better to pass away an evening in this manner than in gaming and drinking: but at the same time says, with a very agreeable raillery upon himself, that if his name should be known, the ill-natured world might call him “the ass in the lion’s skin.”  This gentleman’s temper is made out of such a happy mixture of the mild and the choleric, that he outdoes both his predecessors, and has drawn together greater audiences than have been known in the memory of man.
I must not conclude my narrative without taking notice of a groundless report that has been raised to a gentleman’s disadvantage, of whom I must declare myself an admirer; namely, that Signior Nicolini and the lion have been seen sitting peaceably by one another, and smoking a pipe together behind the scenes; by which their common enemies would insinuate that it is but a sham combat which they represent upon the stage: but upon inquiry I find, that if any such correspondence has passed between them, it was not till the combat was over, when the lion was to be looked upon as dead according to the received rules of the drama.  Besides, this is what is practised every day in Westminster Hall, where nothing is more usual than to see a couple of lawyers, who have been tearing each other to pieces in the court, embracing one another as soon as they are out of it.
I would not be thought in any part of this relation to reflect upon Signior Nicolini, who, in acting this part, only complies with the wretched taste of his audience: he knows very well that the lion has many more admirers than himself; as they say of the famous equestrian statue on the Pont-Neuf at Paris, that more people go to see the horse than the king who sits upon it.  On the contrary, it gives me a just indignation to see a person whose action gives new majesty to kings, resolution to heroes, and softness to lovers, thus sinking from the greatness of his behaviour, and degraded into the character of the London Prentice.  I have often wished that our tragedians would copy after this great master in action.  Could they make the same use of their arms and legs, and inform their faces with as significant looks and passions, how glorious would an English tragedy appear with that action which is capable of giving a dignity to the forced thoughts, cold conceits, and unnatural expressions of an Italian opera!  In the meantime, I have related this combat of the lion to show what are at present the reigning entertainments of the politer part of Great Britain.
Audiences have often been reproached by writers for the coarseness of their taste; but our present grievance does not seem to be the want of a good taste, but of common sense.

Life on the Other Side of Anything
 
A Short Story by Charles E.J. Moulton
 
 
I don’t know if it was the background music by Johann Strauss or the meal that rested in his belly. I don’t know if it was the mellow Manhattan warmth of an April evening or the performance of La Gioconda that we had just seen at the Metropolitan Opera. I just knew that he was happy. For the first time in a long while, my dad was happy.
He had heard God sing.
What a good reason to become philosophical.
“Chilean Wine is like the abstract art of Frantisek Kupka,” he mused in the low rumble of the bass I had come to adore ever since my childhood. “The taste is in the pallet of the beholder,” he continued. “Colorful.”
“Who’s Frantisek Kupka?” I responded.
“An abstract artist. A work of his is at the National Gallery in Washington D.C. There is a painting there from 1912 called Localization of Graphic Motifs II,” he said and then pointed at the wine. “This wine has an equal amount of flavors.”
“Your voice has just as many colors, dad,” I mused. “I’ve always said that.”
He laughed. “No. My voice is old, dear. Old and shot like a running monkey.”
“You’re still the best bass baritone around, dad. Even when you speak. You know that.”
Memories of the old Broadway tunes he sang to me at my bedside now emerged up from the depths of my soul. Embrace Me, I Got Rhythm, If Ever I Would Leave You, Speak Low, Camelot, I’ve Grown Accustomed To Her Face. Whenever he sang or spoke, whether it was day or night, many a time memories of goodnight stories came flooding back, bringing a smile to my face.
“No, you,” he boomed back at me. “You are the best.”
Lifting the glass to his lips and letting the grape-juice trickle down his throat, I pictured his favorite wine from the Chilean Andes actually making his old rumbling Broadway voice go even deeper. What an amusing thought. What a faithful daughter I was. How I loved him. I would love him even if his voice rumbled lower into the subcontra-octave. How happy I was to see him smile. How happy I was ...
If only I could hope for something good to happen.
I had to think of something else. It was too much to hope for.
“You and ... her, you are the two best singers I know,” he sighed. “La Gioconda.”
“That’s so sweet, dad,” I crooned. “Thanks.”
            I carefully listened to the sound of the wine gurgling in his mouth, his sighs and chuckles, the soft chatter of the couples nearby, the waiter walking so softly across the red carpet that it sounded like the seductive stroke of the bow on the violins way in the distance of the hidded stereo. The wine, the food, the laughter, the love, the memories of the opera we had just seen, the pain behind all of this, it mingled. God, how painfully it blended together.
            “This chocolate mousse feels like heaven on a Sunday,” I answered, quietly.
            “It is Sunday, dear,” my father said, happily. I realized he was only half at leisure, a portion of his savings giving him a daily dose of luxury, a part of him beating around the bush. I am sure he would go back to singing Off-Broadway or take a summer gig at some Shakespeare festival, if he only could. Right now, my father Chuck Rule glanced, inside himself, at a smiling Christ in the form of the operatic memory we had just created.
“As much as I want to stay here, I can’t put off my appointment tomorrow. It is too much of a good chance to pass. And you should go to bed, dad.”
“I know.”
            I nodded, knowing that we had been trying to keep the conversation going for a bit now, avoiding the fact that he was sick.
            “Where is it? What are you auditioning for, I mean?”
            “Well, third time’s a charm,” I answered, elusively, trying to read his reaction. “You know where. Same old place.”
            He waited for a moment, trying to decipher what I meant.
            That proverbial lightbulb lit above his head. He raised his eyebrows, his cheeks turned red, he laughed a few times, cocked his head in that annoyed way.
            “He keeps on wanting to hear you, doesn’t he?”
            “He’s been insisting on making high notes flow better,” I added. “I hit them and hold them and make them soar, but Velucci wants me to make love to the high notes.”
            “To him or the notes?”
            “Oh, dad, stop it,” I spat. “Velucci is gay.”
            “Velucci? Gay?”
            “Mmm-hmm,” I nodded.
            “Then go make love to your notes,” he rumbled. “But no wet dreams, okay?”
            I giggled, actually feeling awkward having my dad speak to me in that way.
            I lift my head and waved toward the blackhaired man that now had arrived back in his corner, waiting for someone to give him a slow wink. He looked up, twitched and blinked, for a second looking like an elegant weasel. My red dress swayed as I shifted in my seat. I took out my lipstick and let the Revlon kiss my lips. When I looked up again, my dad seemed to be dreaming, still closing his eyes and smiling.
            “Your mind still in the Met?” I asked, trying to pull him out of his vision.
            He opened his eyes and giggled at me. I saw that his soul no longer lingered among physical beings. His experience in the opera had been one that transcended eternity. He had called Lucilla Tracciatella a ... what was it again?
            “She is a gift of God,” he mused. “Her voice must have been created by Jesus.”
            I smiled, letting my make-up frame my ivories, giving that supersoft L’Oréal skin an extra run for its money.
            “Well, I’m happy I could give you that experience,” I said, actually waiting for him to join me in my exit, worried daughter that I was. “Happy birthday!” Something else kept me here, though. I didn’t know what it was. “Are you going home soon, too?”
            My indecisive father nodded, shook his head and shrugged simultaneously. I have no idea how he did it, only that he was able to wave away the waiter, that now had arrived at our table, at the same time. The waiter nodded siedways, cocking his head in the process, and left.
            Men are capable of multitasking, after all, I thought to myself, for one moment forgetting about how sad my dad’s situation was right now.
            “I’ll have another glass of my strange abstract Chilean wine.”
“You don’t have to pay for this meal,” I told him. “Really.”
            “You paid for the tickets,” he rumbled. “I’ll pay for the food.”
            I shrugged, standing up and giving his cheek a kiss.
“If you say so,” I agreed apprehensively. “It was fun.”
            “Fun?” my dad inquired, his voice now rising to an amazing low C, which was high for him. “Disney World is fun. This was ... I don’t know what to call it. Divine. Yes, that’s it. Divine.”
            “God must have a voice like that,” I said, lifting my napkin off the table and giving it an elegant French fold, “which proves that God is a woman. That’s why she made me a woman. I am heavenly.”
“So you are,” my dad laughed. “I’ve always loved your voice.”
“It will have to be lovely tomorrow or Madame Lisonka will not be as lovely to me.”
            “Neither will Signor Velucci,” my father responded, giving me that odd tongue-in-cheek-like gaze that I had learned to fear. “That’s who you want to impress. Lisonka knows you since you were a baby. She knows me. She always wanted to turn me into a soprano. Didn’t quite work, though. So, I got stuck with playing King Arthur in Camelot. Damn it. I always wanted to sing Queen of the Night.”
            He made a long pause and I looked at him, waited, smiled, nodded, finished the last drops of my Chilean wine. I realized that my father had been right about the taste of that grape juice. It really felt like drinking a painting, maybe a Holden Caulfield cubistic experiment, sold for a fortune and a half at some big auction. Cuisine and art had something in common.
            “I would be a fabulous coloratura soprano, don’t you think?”
            I nodded, gazing at the door and what lay beyond it.
Fifth Avenue lured me to enter its luxurious reality.
            Then, my Park Avenue penthouse wanted me to slip inside its walls.
“Your Arthur was a cult phenomenon,” I said, disappearing into my thoughts for a bit.”
            My dad chuckled and let that bubbly mirth trickle down his spine for a bit, making me believe he had actually managed to get drunk for the first time since mom’s death.
            “That wine is the cult,” he said as I gazed back at him. “That wine will make forget my name. What’s my name? Joe, Jim, Johnny?”
            “Stop it, dad,” I chuckled. “One could almost think you weren’t ...”
            The sentence I had begun speaking actually got physically stuck in the middle of my throat. Now, I closed my eyes, not being able to believe that I had been so tactless. My face turned red. As it did, I felt my heart beating faster, thumping like crazy.
            “God, I am sorry, dad,” I said, sighing. “Gee wiz, I am so stupid.”
            “No, no, no,” my dad said, bravely and very quietly. “Say it.”
            I bent over, caressed his head and kissed it.
            “I meant to say that one almost ... couldn’t think you were so sick.”
            “I don’t feel sick, Becky,” he said. “But my doctors say I am.”
            He sighed, his expression turning confused.
            “I am so sorry. We will find a ...”
            “Stop it, Becky,” my dad spat, his voice now turning gritty. “That is not my strong daughter talking. Be brave. I taught you that, didn’t I?”
            I nodded.
            “Then go home and sleep,” he added. “And be fucking brilliant tomorrow,” he said, pointing his finger at me. “Or else!”
            I smiled, nodding like the good girl I was, standing where I was, lifting the glass, pretending there was a drop of wine left, realizing there wasn’t, feeling silly, stalling, as if my soul waited for something. Waiting. Waiting. For what? God, for what? I feared leaving him. A parent’s death will do that to you. Two parents? Well, that was another matter entirely.
            He leaned against my chest and I embraced his head, closed my eyes and tried to calm down. We had spent a good evening together. Why did this evening suddenly turn so painful? Because the evening was over and we now had to face being alone. Alone, letting that horror of demise creep into our hearts.
            “I don’t want to die, Becky,” my dad said.
            “You won’t,” I answered, caressing his cheek. “Just keep breathing, that’s all, and we will find a solution. Somewhere, there is an answer to our problem. Somewhere.”
            As I bent over to kiss his left cheek again, his eyes seemed to shift in a way that I had rarely seen in my life. I had seen it when he tasted a really delicious birthday cake, preferably baked by his wife, or when he woke up one morning without the excruciating pain in his back. Now, the wonder in his eyes displayed nothing less than a miracle.
            I saw him gazing at the opening doorway. When I, myself, let my eyes drift over there I only saw a blackhaired woman my age in a very expensive coat.
            I gazed back at my father, laughed and shrugged.
            “What?”
            My father giggled.
            “Jesus just decided to grant me a peek at how life looks on the other side,” he said.
            I winced, waited again and then looked back at the doorway.
            The door of the restaurant had closed from the inside now and the woman in question was heading our way.
            She spoke briefly to the waiter that my dad had waved away just a minute ago.
            That man bowed in an exact 45 degree angle and waved his hand in a gesture that looked like the half movement profile of a champion swimmer. The woman followed him and glanced at us in a very fleeting way. Half way across toward the next table, however, the woman stopped. And then, in one extraordinary moment of realization, I realized who she was. Those high Italian cheekbones, those red pouting lips, those blossoming cheeks, those sparkling brown eyes, those black curls, that half-smile and a complexion that was vanilla mixed with nougat, a bosom that leaned on the size of decently small watermelons. That kind of a buxom look would definately make any woman, including me, hate her. It would also make any man love her. My dad was in love with Tracciatella’s voice. Her looks were just a nice bonus. Her voice. That chocolate-rich soprano with its brilliant timbre, warm like a Rioja-grape. If her soprano-voice were a dessert, hers would be a Tiramisu, richly rum-flavored.
            The woman took a moment to look at us, while the waiter behind her gestured eagerly for her to sit down by her chosen table. She shook her head, fervently, now deciding to actually take her instincts seriously.
            My father stood up out of his seat, erect like a tin soldier.
            “Miss Tracciatella,” he said, laughing. “May I say that you were glorious tonight? My daughter and I heard you sing. I was,” my father laughed, “... in heaven.”
            The soprano smiled. “Thank you, Mr. ...?”
            “Rule,” my father said. “Charles Edwin Rule, Singora. Your greatest admirer.”
            The soprano lift her hand and caressed my father’s cheek. It was a small gesture, just a young hand caressing an old man’s cheek. So gentle, so fleeting, so kind.
            “May I tell you a story, signora?” my dad inquired.
            The woman took a few decisive steps toward us and smiled. “Of course. Go ahead.”
            My father cleared his throat and began.
            “I feel like I am invading your privacy, but you have a right to know this.”
            “Well, I was just on my way to a table for a solitary glass of wine. I like some privacy after all that hullabaloo. But I am on my own, Mr. Rule, and you seem to be nice people. There is no reason why I cannot spend some time with you, no?”
            The charming Italian accent sing-songed for a bit, but the moment of silence that followed told both me and Tracciatella that my father was about to say something serious. I feared the worst.
            “I don’t know how to say this, Miss Tracciatella, so I will just say it. My son tried to kill himself a couple of months ago,” my father said. When my father uttered these words, it felt as if I was going to sink through the floor. “What stopped him from doing that was a recording he heard, by coincidence.It was you singing an aria from the opera we heard tonight. La Gioconda.”
I don’t know why, but I had the feeling that this would embarrass one of the greatest opera divas of our century. The pain inside me, brought on by these words, flung me slowly back towards the recollection of my brother standing on that ledge.
            I looked away, my lip trembling, my teeth sinking into my tongue in order to control the sobs bubbling inside me.
            “Miss Tracciatella,” I said. “My father rambles on ... forgive him.”
            “I don’t ramble,” my dad spat, angrily. “Miss Tracciatella saved my son’s life. She has a right to know this.”
            At that moment, I realized why I had stalled and why I had waited.
            This was fate at work.
Miss Tracciatella lift her hand and looked at me. “You are ...?”
            “Rebecca Rule, a colleague,” I said, closing my eyes humbly, actually feeling silly for calling myself a colleague. “I am a soprano, like you, but struggling to get somewhere.”
            I waited, stalled again, felt those sobs now jittering in my throat, threatening to explode onto my tongue.
“Miss Rule,” she responded, batting her long eyelashes, her lucious Italian voice meandering into a soft Puccini-like tranquillity. “I am very interested in your father’s story. Let me listen to it.”
            I smiled at the woman, realizing that it didn’t matter anymore that I maybe could profit from this situation in my career. She looked at me and I saw a woman who felt sympathetic toward us, who cared. Famous or not, she cared. Miss Tracciatella, whose voice had filled the Metropolitan Opera just now, sat down at our table, gesturing for me to sit down again and join my father as he shared the anecdote.
My father fiddled with his hands a bit, played with his napkin. His eyes danced back and forth for a few seconds, he held his breath and there was a moment when I am sure both Miss Tracciatella and I wondered what would happen next.
            Then, my father exhaled, speaking in that low Lee Marvin-like rumble that I had learned to love. There was a serenity to his words, a restfulness that obviously affected Miss Tracciatella as well as me. And I wondered why I had been embarrassed by my father’s story at all. It was natural for him to want to share the tale with her.
            And I listened just as intently as the diva obviously did.
            My embarrassment had disappeared with Miss Tracciatella’s reprimand.
            “It began a few months ago, when I was diagnosed with cancer,” my father began. “That was enough to make my son devastated, of course, knowing that my tumor was the size of a tennisball. It was located in a very bad place, which made matters worse. But my son’s grief became even deeper when he fought with his girlfriend over his lack of care for me. My son’s girlfriend left him in the middle of the night, claiming that she had made a serious mistake in starting the relationship with him at all. If that were not enough, he was also fired from his job. To make matters worse, a shopkeeper screamed at him during a very busy shopping day. My son was at the way back from a social service institution. Soon enough, he found himself on the edge outside on the ledge of the third floor of my daughter’s apartment building. But then, out of nowhere he heard music. Strangely beautiful music coming from a stereo somewhere in the distance.”
            My father looked at me. I knew what was coming and my father now cried silent tears full of pride. I began crying, too, and Miss Tracciatella now lift her eyebrows, knowing in her heart that her admirer actually longed to embrace her and tell her how wonderful life was.
            “He recognized that voice as yours, Miss Tracciatella,” my father said. “He had always been a fan of yours, but this situation was so fateful and so uncanny that it had to be God’s finger showing him the way. It was a voice from heaven and you were singing that famous aria Suicidio from Act 4, where La Gioconda stabs herself to death. Mark my words, Miss Tracciatella, La Gioconda has lost a parent and she was singing ‘it is a beautiful day to die’. You would think that would make him want to jump?”
            The Italian diva nodded.
“It didn’t.”
            I saw my father’s eyes move like they had when Miss Tracciatella came into the restaurant, when he tasted a delicious cake or when the pain in his back disappeared.
            “He realized that if someone could write such beautiful music about committing suicide, then life was worth living. That’s strange, isn’t it?”
            Tracciatella shook her head. “No, it’s beautiful. I saved someone’s life.”
            My father cried, sobs now exploding through his throat and over into his face. The grimace of his facial features turned his mouth into a tremolo of desperation. Seeing how he cried, I cried along with him. The whole scenario became clear as a bell. I had taken my dad to La Gioconda to hear his favorite singer, on his birthday, only to distract the attention from the horrible memory of his son wanting to jump. Now, he chose to face it.
            “Miss Rule?”
            I looked over at Lucilla Tracciatella and saw that she cried, too.
            “Yes?”
            “Did the music come from your flat? Did you know your brother was about to kill himself?”
            That bubbling sadness now exploded even further into my eyes. Not being able to control my tears, I buried my eyes in the napkin and sobbed. Signora Tracciatella reached out her hand and took mine, caressing it.
            I shook my head. “No. I had no idea.”
            “My dear,” she said. “Your brother chose life. You should be happy.”
            I looked up at my colleague and nodded.
            “The fact that my brother had chosen my apartment building to kill himself was difficult enough,” I began. “But I could have been away or I could’ve chosen another aria to listen to or could’ve sung myself. I don’t know. Whatever it was, it saved him.”
            “Then be happy,” the Signora said. “Your brother is alive.”
“He stepped off the ledge, went to his girl and patched the whole thing up,” my father continued. “Now, they have decided to marry. He is still looking for work, but he is alive, engaged and happy. Which proves that there is always hope.”
            The woman sitting opposite me now was no longer a famous opera star. No matter where she came from or what she had done to get there, the woman was simply a soul whose art had made someone choose life. And so, her runny mascara covered half of her face and her lip trembled. The smile that appeared on her face turned into a sad cry, one that twitched and became a laugh again.
            “The difficult thing is,” I continued, “that my father’s tumor now has turned malignant. His doctors are unsure how long a time he has left.”
            The Italian woman, that happened to be a famous opera star, lift her hand and caressed my father’s cheek again. She smiled at him. My God, this famous star really cared.
            My father looked at me, insecure about his own demise.
            Lucilla Tracciatella sat back in her chair, ignoring the looks of the other guests. To come to think of it, the other people weren’t only looking. They were staring. Somehow, it mattered little to us crazy artists. We were crying our eyes out, this famous star sitting at our table, the waiter now back at his position in the corner, the Signora obviously thinking very hard about something rather important. The slight similarity to the look in my father’s face sent shivers down my spine. What was this? Fate? Yes. It was.
            “May I say that you are wearing the same expression my father always sports when he is thinking very hard about something?”
            The star’s absent minded gaze met our eyes, but didn’t really penetrate our souls. The look lingered there, a half-smile bringing it sweet company.
            “Uhm,” she said. “I don’t know if it will work.”
            “What?” my father rumbled.
“I mean, I don’t know you that well.”
            “Just tell us what is on your mind, Signora,” my father resounded.
            Now, the diva made a decision. One that felt good. I had no idea at the time what that decision was, only that my soul told me it would change my life. She sat up in her chair, positioning her elbows on the table.
            “I am a survivor, as well,” she said, closing her eyes, apparently stabbed by painful recollection.
            “What do you mean?” my dad mused. “Survivor of ...”
            “Cancer,” she said. “Malignant cancer.”
            My eyes drifted back and forth between my dad and Miss Tracciatella. The clear insecurity that came shooting out of the star at that moment made me insecure and I think it had the same effect on my dad.
            “You? When?” I said.
            “My agent is probably going to kill me for telling you this,” her voice danced, consonants overpronounced in a clear Milano way. “But this has to be fate. I would not be here, hearing you say these things without a reason.”
            She leaned even further over toward us, probably in order to avoid any other guests overhearing our conversation.
            “The press called it Lucilla’s Sabbatical Year,” she said.
            “That was it?” my dad said. “You left the opera world to cure cancer?”
            The diva now opened her eyes wide, waving her hands around. “I am entrusting with secrets here, so please don’t tell anyone. Okay?”
            We both nodded and I think that she knew we could be trusted.
            She now laughed, a look of hope spreading across her entire countenance.
            “Why do you think my hair was so short when I returned to the Met?”
            “You mean, you were cured of a brain tumor?”
            Sighing and leaning back in her chair, she knew her risk could cost her jobs, if her agent disagreed with her about her honesty or the press somehow found out about it.
            “My doctor has his practice in San Diego,” she began. “He is famous for curing cancer patients. If you want, I can introduce you to him.”
            My father looked at me and I looked at him.
            When we looked back at the Signora, she had already ordered to replace the empty bottle of Chilean red wine with a full one.
            When our three gazes met, no tears flooded our sweet faces.
            We all knew what we wanted to do.
            Call my brother and tell him that we might have found a good doctor for his father.
            Maybe, just maybe, I could convince the Signora to join Velucci and Lisonka.
            Maybe, just maybe, I would be able to audition not only for them, but also for Tracciatella. Not that it mattered anymore, but it felt damn good.
 
            A year later, at the moment of writing, I am sitting back in my Park Avenue apartment in New York City after my initial premiere as La Gioconda at the Metropolitan Opera. I think it quite unprecendented that two sopranos have worked so well together in sharing one role with each other. The oppurtunities are endless. No more Callas and Tibaldi-like rivalry. Just two gals singing the same role in the same opera house and going shopping in the teabreaks.
Killing myself on stage, while singing that aria, has become extremely difficult, though. At the curtain call, however, I got my reward. I didn’t have to walk out a hundred times and bow before the crowd like Pavarotti did once or twice. I counted twenty-two curtain calls. Someone else counted twenty-five. That’s okay for an emerging star.
            Oh, yes. I have to add that my dad is San Diego now. I sort of paid his hospital expenses with my money from this gig here at the opera. But that’s also okay. My brother says that once these performances become routine, I could pay for five more operations. I hope I don’t have to. My dad should remain healthy.
            I keep asking them when they are both returning to New York.
            They say that the climate is so good over in San Diego, they might just stay there.
            So they should. After all, my brother’s girlfriend went along for the ride. Although I think, personally, she only did it because she loves going to the beach so much. But my brother is happy with his Jennifer. Jennifer and John. Sounds cool, doesn’t it?
            It also sounds cool that my family is alive.
            If only mom was alive, too.
            Well, she is looking down at us from heaven.
            Now all I need is a boyfriend.
            But that is another story.
            Anyway, I got to go to bed now. Lucilla is coming over tomorrow. She is here in Manhattan, singing Elisabeth in Tannhäuser. I am not quite ready for that yet. Regardless, we both have our first free days in three months tomorrow. She has spent hers mostly in Milano, I have spent most of my time here, but now we have decided to spend a day together. Cooking? Talking shop? Talking men? Talking about agents? Taking my Porsche on a spin around the country? We don’t know yet. Maybe we will just be avoiding the press.
Whatever we decide, it will be fun.
            I still have to pinch myself, though. I really can’t believe I am living this dream of a lifestyle. Especially since I was just a struggling artist last year. Okay, a rich struggling artist living on Park Avenue. Still, nobody knew who I was this time last year. Now, it seems that the expectancy the press has had in hearing the new Gioconda, meaning me, has created a hype that I wonder if I am capable of facing. In any case, I am happy that my father is alive.
            And I know now what life is like on the other side.
            Of what, you ask?
            On the other side of anything. Life, death, obscurity, fame, happiness, desperation.
            I am on the other side of pain. I can now appreciate joy, because I have know what pain is like. I can now appreciate fame, because I know what obscurity is like. For where there is a light in the darkness, there is hope. And so I will tell Lucilla when she comes over tomorrow to keep breathing and never give up, even if her cancer does return.
            My father is alive. That is the main thing.
            Thank God. Thank Lucilla Tracciatella.
            If she ever needs me, I will be there for her, to hold her hand, to sing with her, on the same stages, for the same crowds. And to show the world and the press that it is possible to cooperate, even if you happen to be two bitchy sopranos aiming for world stardom.
            What is fame anyway?
            Fame is fickle.
            Creativity rules.
            If fame arrives as a result of that creativity, that’s fine.
            Ah, wait. There’s a text message on my phone.
            Lucilla’s plane just landed.
            She’s looking forward to seeing me tomorrow.
            That’s what I always say when I get up in the morning, before I look at myself in the mirror, that is. Just kidding. If there’s one thing that helps, it’s self-irony. Good friends come in special packages. Lucilla’s package is a special one.
            I will go to bed now.
            What will I dream about?
            I will dream about life on the other side – of anything. 

A ROSE OF THE GHETTO

By Israel Zangwill
 
 
One day it occurred to Leibel that he ought to get married. He went to
Sugarman the Shadchan forthwith.
 
"I have the very thing for you," said the great marriage broker.
 
"Is she pretty?" asked Leibel.
 
"Her father has a boot and shoe warehouse," replied Sugarman,
enthusiastically.
 
"Then there ought to be a dowry with her," said Leibel, eagerly.
 
"Certainly a dowry! A fine man like you!"
 
"How much do you think it would be?"
 
"Of course it is not a large warehouse; but then you could get your
boots at trade price, and your wife's, perhaps, for the cost of the
leather."
 
"When could I see her?"
 
"I will arrange for you to call next Sabbath afternoon."
 
"You won't charge me more than a sovereign?"
 
"Not a groschen more! Such a pious maiden! I'm sure you will be happy.
She has so much way-of-the-country [breeding]. And of course five per
cent on the dowry?"
 
"H'm! Well, I don't mind!" "Perhaps they won't give a dowry," he thought
with a consolatory sense of outwitting the Shadchan.
 
On the Saturday Leibel went to see the damsel, and on the Sunday he went
to see Sugarman the Shadchan.
 
"But your maiden squints!" he cried, resentfully.
 
"An excellent thing!" said Sugarman. "A wife who squints can never look
her husband straight in the face and overwhelm him. Who would quail
before a woman with a squint?"
 
"I could endure the squint," went on Leibel, dubiously, "but she also
stammers."
 
"Well, what is better, in the event of a quarrel? The difficulty she has
in talking will keep her far more silent than most wives. You had best
secure her while you have the chance."
 
"But she halts on the left leg," cried Leibel, exasperated.
 
"_Gott in Himmel!_ Do you mean to say you do not see what an advantage
it is to have a wife unable to accompany you in all your goings?"
 
Leibel lost patience.
 
"Why, the girl is a hunchback!" he protested, furiously.
 
"My dear Leibel," said the marriage broker, deprecatingly shrugging his
shoulders and spreading out his palms, "you can't expect perfection!"
 
Nevertheless Leibel persisted in his unreasonable attitude. He accused
Sugarman of wasting his time, of making a fool of him.
 
"A fool of you!" echoed the Shadchan, indignantly, "when I give you a
chance of a boot and shoe manufacturer's daughter? You will make a fool
of yourself if you refuse. I dare say her dowry would be enough to set
you up as a master tailor. At present you are compelled to slave away as
a cutter for thirty shillings a week. It is most unjust. If you only had
a few machines you would be able to employ your own cutters. And they
can be got so cheap nowadays."
 
This gave Leibel pause, and he departed without having definitely broken
the negotiations. His whole week was befogged by doubt, his work became
uncertain, his chalk marks lacked their usual decision, and he did not
always cut his coat according to his cloth. His aberrations became
so marked that pretty Rose Green, the sweater's eldest daughter,
who managed a machine in the same room, divined, with all a woman's
intuition, that he was in love.
 
"What is the matter?" she said, in rallying Yiddish, when they were
taking their lunch of bread and cheese and ginger-beer amid the clatter
of machines, whose serfs had not yet knocked off work.
 
"They are proposing me a match," he answered, sullenly.
 
"A match!" ejaculated Rose. "Thou!" She had worked by his side for
years, and familiarity bred the second person singular. Leibel nodded
his head, and put a mouthful of Dutch cheese into it.
 
"With whom?" asked Rose. Somehow he felt ashamed. He gurgled the answer
into the stone ginger-beer bottle, which he put to his thirsty lips.
 
"With Leah Volcovitch!"
 
"Leah Volcovitch!" gasped Rose. "Leah, the boot and shoe manufacturer's
daughter?"
 
Leibel hung his head--he scarce knew why. He did not dare meet her gaze.
His droop said "Yes." There was a long pause.
 
"And why dost thou not have her?" said Rose. It was more than an
inquiry; there was contempt in it, and perhaps even pique.
 
Leibel did not reply. The embarrassing silence reigned again, and
reigned long. Rose broke it at last.
 
"Is it that thou likest me better?" she asked.
 
Leibel seemed to see a ball of lightning in the air; it burst, and he
felt the electric current strike right through his heart. The shock
threw his head up with a jerk, so that his eyes gazed into a face whose
beauty and tenderness were revealed to him for the first time. The face
of his old acquaintance had vanished; this was a cajoling, coquettish,
smiling face, suggesting undreamed-of things.
 
"_Nu_, yes," he replied, without perceptible pause.
 
"_Nu_, good!" she rejoined as quickly.
 
And in the ecstasy of that moment of mutual understanding Leibel
forgot to wonder why he had never thought of Rose before. Afterward he
remembered that she had always been his social superior.
 
The situation seemed too dream-like for explanation to the room just
yet. Leibel lovingly passed a bottle of ginger-beer, and Rose took a
sip, with a beautiful air of plighting troth, understood only of those
two. When Leibel quaffed the remnant it intoxicated him. The relics of
the bread and cheese were the ambrosia to this nectar. They did not dare
kiss; the suddenness of it all left them bashful, and the smack of lips
would have been like a cannon-peal announcing their engagement. There
was a subtler sweetness in this sense of a secret, apart from the fact
that neither cared to break the news to the master tailor, a stern
little old man. Leibel's chalk marks continued indecisive that
afternoon, which shows how correctly Rose had connected them with love.
 
Before he left that night Rose said to him, "Art thou sure thou wouldst
not rather have Leah Volcovitch?"
 
"Not for all the boots and shoes in the world," replied Leibel,
vehemently.
 
"And I," protested Rose, "would rather go without my own than without
thee."
 
The landing outside the workshop was so badly lighted that their lips
came together in the darkness.
 
"Nay, nay; thou must not yet," said Rose. "Thou art still courting
Leah Volcovitch. For aught thou knowest, Sugarman the Shadchan may have
entangled thee beyond redemption."
 
"Not so," asserted Leibel. "I have only seen the maiden once."
 
"Yes. But Sugarman has seen her father several times," persisted Rose.
"For so misshapen a maiden his commission would be large. Thou must go
to Sugarman to-night, and tell him that thou canst not find it in thy
heart to go on with the match."
 
"Kiss me, and I will go," pleaded Leibel.
 
"Go, and I will kiss thee," said Rose, resolutely.
 
"And when shall we tell thy father?" he asked, pressing her hand, as the
next best thing to her lips.
 
"As soon as thou art free from Leah."
 
"But will he consent?"
 
"He will not be glad," said Rose, frankly. "But after mother's
death--peace be upon her--the rule passed from her hands into mine."
 
"Ah, that is well," said Leibel. He was a superficial thinker.
 
Leibel found Sugarman at supper. The great Shadchan offered him a chair,
but nothing else. Hospitality was associated in his mind with special
occasions only, and involved lemonade and "stuffed monkeys."
 
He was very put out--almost to the point of indigestion--to hear of
Leibel's final determination, and plied him with reproachful inquiries.
 
"You don't mean to say that you give up a boot and shoe manufacturer
merely because his daughter has round shoulders!" he exclaimed,
incredulously.
 
"It is more than round shoulders--it is a hump!" cried Leibel.
 
"And suppose? See how much better off you will be when you get your own
machines! We do not refuse to let camels carry our burdens because they
have humps."
 
"Ah, but a wife is not a camel," said Leibel, with a sage air.
 
"And a cutter is not a master tailor," retorted Sugarman.
 
"Enough, enough!" cried Leibel. "I tell you, I would not have her if she
were a machine warehouse."
 
"There sticks something behind," persisted Sugarman, unconvinced.
 
Leibel shook his head. "Only her hump" he said with a flash of humour.
 
"Moses Mendelssohn had a hump," expostulated Sugarman, reproachfully.
 
"Yes, but he was a heretic," rejoined Leibel, who was not without
reading. "And then he was a man! A man with two humps could find a wife
for each. But a woman with a hump cannot expect a husband in addition."
 
"Guard your tongue from evil," quoth the Shadchan, angrily. "If
everybody were to talk like you Leah Volcovitch would never be married
at all."
 
Leibel shrugged his shoulders, and reminded him that hunchbacked girls
who stammered and squinted and halted on left legs were not usually led
under the canopy.
 
"Nonsense! Stuff!" cried Sugarman, angrily. "That is because they do not
come to me."
 
"Leah Volcovitch _has_ come to you," said Leibel, "but she shall not
come to me." And he rose, anxious to escape.
 
Instantly Sugarman gave a sigh of resignation. "Be it so! Then I shall
have to look out for another, that's all."
 
"No, I don't want any," replied Leibel, quickly.
 
Sugarman stopped eating. "You don't want any?" he cried. "But you came
to me for one?"
 
"I--I--know," stammered Leibel. "But I've--I've altered my mind."
 
"One needs Hillel's patience to deal with you!" cried Sugarman. "But
I shall charge you, all the same, for my trouble. You cannot cancel an
order like this in the middle! No, no! You can play fast and loose with
Leah Volcovitch, but you shall not make a fool of me."
 
"But if I don't want one?" said Leibel, sullenly.
 
Sugarman gazed at him with a cunning look of suspicion. "Didn't I say
there was something sticking behind?"
 
Leibel felt guilty. "But whom have you got in your eye?" he inquired,
desperately.
 
"Perhaps you may have some one in yours!" naively answered Sugarman.
 
Leibel gave a hypocritic long-drawn "U-m-m-m! I wonder if Rose
Green--where I work--" he said, and stopped.
 
"I fear not," said Sugarman. "She is on my list. Her father gave her to
me some months ago, but he is hard to please. Even the maiden herself is
not easy, being pretty."
 
"Perhaps she has waited for some one," suggested Leibel.
 
Sugarman's keen ear caught the note of complacent triumph.
 
"You have been asking her yourself!" he exclaimed, in horror-stricken
accents.
 
"And if I have?" said Leibel, defiantly.
 
"You have cheated me! And so has Eliphaz Green--I always knew he was
tricky! You have both defrauded me!"
 
"I did not mean to," said Leibel, mildly.
 
"You _did_ mean to. You had no business to take the matter out of my
hands. What right had you to propose to Rose Green?"
 
"I did not," cried Leibel, excitedly.
 
"Then you asked her father!"
 
"No; I have not asked her father yet."
 
"Then how do you know she will have you?"
 
"I--I know," stammered Leibel, feeling himself somehow a liar as well as
a thief. His brain was in a whirl; he could not remember how the thing
had come about. Certainly he had not proposed; nor could he say that she
had.
 
"You know she will have you," repeated Sugarman, reflectively. "And does
_she_ know?"
 
"Yes. In fact," he blurted out, "we arranged it together."
 
"Ah, you both know. And does her father know?"
 
"Not yet."
 
"Ah, then I must get his consent," said Sugarman, decisively.
 
"I--I thought of speaking to him myself."
 
"Yourself!" echoed Sugarman, in horror. "Are you unsound in the head?
Why, that would be worse than the mistake you have already made!"
 
"What mistake?" asked Leibel, firing up.
 
"The mistake of asking the maiden herself. When you quarrel with her
after your marriage she will always throw it in your teeth that you
wished to marry her. Moreover, if you tell a maiden you love her, her
father will think you ought to marry her as she stands. Still, what is
done is done." And he sighed regretfully.
 
"And what more do I want? I love her."
 
"You piece of clay!" cried Sugarman, contemptuously. "Love will not turn
machines, much less buy them. You must have a dowry. Her father has a
big stocking; he can well afford it."
 
Leibel's eyes lit up. There was really no reason why he should not have
bread and cheese with his kisses.
 
"Now, if _you_ went to her father," pursued the Shadchan, "the odds
are that he would not even give you his daughter--to say nothing of the
dowry. After all, it is a cheek of you to aspire so high. As you told me
from the first, you haven't saved a penny. Even my commission you won't
be able to pay till you get the dowry. But if _I_ go I do not despair of
getting a substantial sum--to say nothing of the daughter."
 
"Yes, I think you had better go," said Leibel, eagerly.
 
"But if I do this thing for you I shall want a pound more," rejoined
Sugarman.
 
"A pound more!" echoed Leibel, in dismay. "Why?"
 
"Because Rose Green's hump is of gold," replied Sugarman, oracularly.
"Also, she is fair to see, and many men desire her."
 
"But you have always your five per cent, on the dowry."
 
"It will be less than Volcovitch's," explained Sugarman. "You see, Green
has other and less beautiful daughters."
 
"Yes, but then it settles itself more easily. Say five shillings."
 
"Eliphaz Green is a hard man," said the Shadchan instead.
 
"Ten shillings is the most I will give!"
 
"Twelve and sixpence is the least I will take. Eliphaz Green haggles so
terribly."
 
They split the difference, and so eleven and threepence represented the
predominance of Eliphaz Green's stinginess over Volcovitch's.
 
The very next day Sugarman invaded the Green workroom. Rose bent over
her seams, her heart fluttering. Leibel had duly apprised her of
the roundabout manner in which she would have to be won, and she had
acquiesced in the comedy. At the least it would save her the trouble of
father-taming.
 
Sugarman's entry was brusque and breathless. He was overwhelmed with
joyous emotion. His blue bandana trailed agitatedly from his coat-tail.
 
"At last!" he cried, addressing the little white-haired master tailor;
"I have the very man for you."
 
"Yes?" grunted Eliphaz, unimpressed. The monosyllable was packed with
emotion. It said, "Have you really the face to come to me again with an
ideal man?"
 
"He has all the qualities that you desire," began the Shadchan, in a
tone that repudiated the implications of the monosyllable. "He is young,
strong, God-fearing--"
 
"Has he any money?" grumpily interrupted Eliphaz.
 
"He _will_ have money," replied Sugarman, unhesitatingly, "when he
marries."
 
"Ah!" The father's voice relaxed, and his foot lay limp on the treadle.
He worked one of his machines himself, and paid himself the wages so as
to enjoy the profit. "How much will he have?"
 
"I think he will have fifty pounds; and the least you can do is to let
him have fifty pounds," replied Sugarman, with the same happy ambiguity.
 
Eliphaz shook his head on principle.
 
"Yes, you will," said Sugarman, "when you learn how fine a man he is."
 
The flush of confusion and trepidation already on Leibel's countenance
became a rosy glow of modesty, for he could not help overhearing what
was being said, owing to the lull of the master tailor's machine.
 
"Tell me, then," rejoined Eliphaz.
 
"Tell me, first, if you will give fifty to a young, healthy,
hard-working, God-fearing man, whose idea it is to start as a master
tailor on his own account? And you know how profitable that is!"
 
"To a man like that," said Eliphaz, in a burst of enthusiasm, "I would
give as much as twenty-seven pounds ten!"
 
Sugarman groaned inwardly, but Leibel's heart leaped with joy. To get
four months' wages at a stroke! With twenty-seven pounds ten he could
certainly procure several machines, especially on the instalment system.
Out of the corners of his eyes he shot a glance at Rose, who was beyond
earshot.
 
"Unless you can promise thirty it is waste of time mentioning his name,"
said Sugarman.
 
"Well, well--who is he?"
 
Sugarman bent down, lowering his voice into the father's ear.
 
"What! Leibel!" cried Eliphaz, outraged.
 
"Sh!" said Sugarman, "or he will overhear your delight, and ask more. He
has his nose high enough, as it is."
 
"B--b--b--ut," sputtered the bewildered parent, "I know Leibel myself.
I see him every day. I don't want a Shadchan to find me a man I know--a
mere hand in my own workshop!"
 
"Your talk has neither face nor figure," answered Sugarman, sternly. "It
is just the people one sees every day that one knows least. I warrant
that if I had not put it into your head you would never have dreamt of
Leibel as a son-in-law. Come now, confess."
 
Eliphaz grunted vaguely, and the Shadchan went on triumphantly: "I
thought as much. And yet where could you find a better man to keep your
daughter?"
 
"He ought to be content with her alone," grumbled her father.
 
Sugarman saw the signs of weakening, and dashed in, full strength: "It's
a question whether he will have her at all. I have not been to him about
her yet. I awaited your approval of the idea." Leibel admired the verbal
accuracy of these statements, which he had just caught.
 
"But I didn't know he would be having money," murmured Eliphaz.
 
"Of course you didn't know. That's what the Shadchan is for--to point
out the things that are under your nose."
 
"But where will he be getting this money from?"
 
"From you," said Sugarman, frankly.
 
"From me?"
 
"From whom else? Are you not his employer? It has been put by for his
marriage day."
 
"He has saved it?"
 
"He has not spent it," said Sugarman, impatiently.
 
"But do you mean to say he has saved fifty pounds?"
 
"If he could manage to save fifty pounds out of your wages he would be
indeed a treasure," said Sugarman. "Perhaps it might be thirty."
 
"But you said fifty."
 
"Well, you came down to thirty," retorted the Shadchan. "You cannot
expect him to have more than your daughter brings."
 
"I never said thirty," Eliphaz reminded him. "Twenty-seven ten was my
last bid."
 
"Very well; that will do as a basis of negotiations," said Sugarman,
resignedly. "I will call upon him this evening. If I were to go over
and speak to him now, he would perceive you were anxious, and raise his
terms, and that will never do. Of course you will not mind allowing me a
pound more for finding you so economical a son-in-law?"
 
"Not a penny more."
 
"You need not fear," said Sugarman, resentfully. "It is not likely I
shall be able to persuade him to take so economical a father-in-law. So
you will be none the worse for promising."
 
"Be it so," said Eliphaz, with a gesture of weariness, and he started
his machine again.
 
"Twenty-seven pounds ten, remember," said Sugarman, above the whir.
 
Eliphaz nodded his head, whirring his wheel-work louder.
 
"And paid before the wedding, mind."
 
The machine took no notice.
 
"Before the wedding, mind," repeated Sugarman. "Before we go under the
canopy."
 
"Go now, go now!" grunted Eliphaz, with a gesture of impatience. "It
shall all be well." And the white-haired head bowed immovably over its
work.
 
In the evening Rose extracted from her father the motive of Sugarman's
visit, and confessed that the idea was to her liking.
 
"But dost thou think he will have me, little father?" she asked, with
cajoling eyes.
 
"Any one would have my Rose."
 
"Ah, but Leibel is different. So many years he has sat at my side and
said nothing."
 
"He had his work to think of. He is a good, saving youth."
 
"At this very moment Sugarman is trying to persuade him--not so? I
suppose he will want much money."
 
"Be easy, my child." And he passed his discoloured hand over her hair.
 
Sugarman turned up the next day, and reported that Leibel was
unobtainable under thirty pounds, and Eliphaz, weary of the contest,
called over Leibel, till that moment carefully absorbed in his
scientific chalk marks, and mentioned the thing to him for the first
time. "I am not a man to bargain," Eliphaz said, and so he gave the
young man his tawny hand, and a bottle of rum sprang from somewhere,
and work was suspended for five minutes, and the "hands" all drank
amid surprised excitement. Sugarman's visits had prepared them to
congratulate Rose; but Leibel was a shock.
 
The formal engagement was marked by even greater junketing, and at last
the marriage day came. Leibel was resplendent in a diagonal frockcoat,
cut by his own hand; and Rose stepped from the cab a medley of flowers,
fairness, and white silk, and behind her came two bridesmaids,--her
sisters,--a trio that glorified the spectator-strewn pavement outside
the synagogue. Eliphaz looked almost tall in his shiny high hat and
frilled shirt-front. Sugarman arrived on foot, carrying red-socked
little Ebenezer tucked under his arm.
 
Leibel and Rose were not the only couple to be disposed of, for it was
the thirty-third day of the Omer--a day fruitful in marriages.
 
But at last their turn came. They did not, however, come in their turn,
and their special friends among the audience wondered why they had
lost their precedence. After several later marriages had taken place
a whisper began to circulate. The rumour of a hitch gained ground
steadily, and the sensation was proportionate. And, indeed, the rose was
not to be picked without a touch of the thorn.
 
Gradually the facts leaked out, and a buzz of talk and comment ran
through the waiting synagogue. Eliphaz had not paid up!
 
At first he declared he would put down the money immediately after the
ceremony. But the wary Sugarman, schooled by experience, demanded its
instant delivery on behalf of his other client. Hard pressed, Eliphaz
produced ten sovereigns from his trousers-pocket, and tendered them on
account. These Sugarman disdainfully refused, and the negotiations were
suspended. The bridegroom's party was encamped in one room, the bride's
in another, and after a painful delay Eliphaz sent an emissary to say
that half the amount should be forthcoming, the extra five pounds in a
bright new Bank of England note. Leibel, instructed and encouraged by
Sugarman, stood firm.
 
And then arose a hubbub of voices, a chaos of suggestions; friends
rushed to and fro between the camps, some emerging from their seats in
the synagogue to add to the confusion. But Eliphaz had taken his stand
upon a rock--he had no more ready money. To-morrow, the next day, he
would have some. And Leibel, pale and dogged, clutched tighter at those
machines that were slipping away momently from him. He had not yet seen
his bride that morning, and so her face was shadowy compared with the
tangibility of those machines. Most of the other maidens were married
women by now, and the situation was growing desperate. From the female
camp came terrible rumours of bridesmaids in hysterics, and a bride that
tore her wreath in a passion of shame and humiliation. Eliphaz sent word
that he would give an I O U for the balance, but that he really could
not muster any more current coin. Sugarman instructed the ambassador to
suggest that Eliphaz should raise the money among his friends.
 
And the short spring day slipped away. In vain the minister, apprised of
the block, lengthened out the formulae for the other pairs, and blessed
them with more reposeful unction. It was impossible to stave off the
Leibel-Green item indefinitely, and at last Rose remained the only
orange-wreathed spinster in the synagogue. And then there was a hush of
solemn suspense, that swelled gradually into a steady rumble of babbling
tongues, as minute succeeded minute and the final bridal party still
failed to appear. The latest bulletin pictured the bride in a dead
faint. The afternoon was waning fast. The minister left his post near
the canopy, under which so many lives had been united, and came to add
his white tie to the forces for compromise. But he fared no better than
the others. Incensed at the obstinacy of the antagonists, he declared he
would close the synagogue. He gave the couple ten minutes to marry in
or quit. Then chaos came, and pandemonium--a frantic babel of suggestion
and exhortation from the crowd. When five minutes had passed a legate
from Eliphaz announced that his side had scraped together twenty pounds,
and that this was their final bid.
 
Leibel wavered; the long day's combat had told upon him; the reports
of the bride's distress had weakened him. Even Sugarman had lost his
cocksureness of victory. A few minutes more and both commissions might
slip through his fingers. Once the parties left the synagogue, it would
not be easy to drive them there another day. But he cheered on his man
still: one could always surrender at the tenth minute.
 
At the eighth the buzz of tongues faltered suddenly, to be transposed
into a new key, so to speak. Through the gesticulating assembly swept
that murmur of expectation which crowds know when the procession is
coming at last. By some mysterious magnetism all were aware that the
BRIDE herself--the poor hysteric bride--had left the paternal camp, was
coming in person to plead with her mercenary lover.
 
And as the glory of her and the flowers and the white draperies loomed
upon Leibel's vision his heart melted in worship, and he knew his
citadel would crumble in ruins at her first glance, at her first touch.
Was it fair fighting? As his troubled vision cleared, and as she came
nigh unto him, he saw to his amazement that she was speckless and
composed--no trace of tears dimmed the fairness of her face, there was
no disarray in her bridal wreath.
 
The clock showed the ninth minute.
 
She put her hand appeallingly on his arm, while a heavenly light came
into her face--the expression of a Joan of Arc animating her country.
 
"Do not give in, Leibel!" she said. "Do not have me! Do not let them
persuade thee! By my life, thou must not! Go home!"
  
So at the eleventh minute the vanquished Eliphaz produced the balance,
and they all lived happily ever afterward.

“Ice Cream Man”

by J. Eddie Edwards


I’m shaking my head, peeking out my wife’s new and expensive horizontal blinds in our Ikea-made living room. Charlene closes her eyes so I can’t see them roll at me. Her lips purse like she is sucking on sour candy. I know she agrees with me but her mom’s stubbornness and her dad’s fake positivity prevails over reality. That reality is Chad, that son of a bitch.
One year, four months, two weeks, and three days we’ve been neighbors with a good fence and solid, simultaneous waves from our porches. But that’s it.
His ’71 Camaro sits on his front lawn. He parks it there instead of the driveway like normal suburban folk because it is closer to his front door in case someone tries to steal or repossess the hunk of shit. I imagine if he still owed the bank money for it, they wouldn’t repossess it. They would just set it on fire as a warning to other white trash deadbeats. The lime paint mixes well with the rust to give it an almost-planned camouflaged motif. I have yet to see it run farther than the end of our cul de sac, but it has kept me from sleeping most Saturday mornings past eight o’clock for one year, four months, two weeks, and three days. Saturday is when Chad likes to “hear his baby purr.” It rumbles the way I imagine an industrialized fart machine or alien garbage disposal would.
Charlene mocks me, asking how I know what those things sound like. I don’t have the time to entertain stupid questions. She knows damn well the sound I am complaining about. How our Nazi Homeowner’s Association can complain about a small brown spot on my lawn and not go after the massive turd on his in the shape of a rusted piece of shit ’71 Camaro is incomprehensible.
It has been quiet the last three weekends. Chad bragged that he was traveling between Miami and some place in Africa for gigs as a caterer. He says he also promotes his local ice cream parlor on Baker Street. I never heard of such a thing. I can’t imagine African dignitaries outsourcing for American caterers or particular flavors of ice cream. I doubt he is that good. I can’t imagine him in a chef’s uniform or any uniform as I watch him stand outside, shirtless as always, showing off his bony
frame and tribal tattoos. He looks like Iggy Pop’s stunt double. His emaciated composure also brings to question his chef-ness. I only trust fat chefs who obviously enjoy food as a general rule of thumb.
I am almost certain this whole catering gig is a front for smuggling blood diamonds or something in exchange for heroin, marijuana, pills, stolen artwork, cocaine, meth, drugs I’ve never even heard of, sex workers, laundered money, dirty money, small arms, big arms or whatever else one uses blood diamonds for. I’m not even sure what a blood diamond is or looks like, but I’m sure he’s doing something with them, the son of a bitch.
Charlene flips from channel to channel, loudly scrambling my head, preventing further planning in my response to Chad’s proposal. “Well are you or not?” she asks. I stare at the Evil Eddie’s poster sitting in my pathetic closet-sized man cave down the hall. Eddie is staring me down, stretchy black leather pants, long frizzy gold hair, bright white guitar and all, seeing if I will do it.
Chad really is a son of a bitch. He somehow knew the Evil Eddie’s were my favorite band since high school. I cried the day they broke up and I rejoiced to the metal gods each of the five times they announced their triumphant one-time-only reunion. Chad somehow knew it was physically, spiritually, and mentally impossible for me to turn down a ticket to witness their final tour, billed to be better than their last final tour. Some say this really is the final tour but it is upsetting and I can’t think about that right now. It is possible unless the singer divorces again and the guitarist reengages in his usual, expensive death-defying habits. The band probably knows all about blood diamonds, the drug triangle or rectangle, and how bullshit my neighbor’s catering business sounds.
“I’m going.” Her eyes are fixed, trying to unlock a code, calculating my calculations thus far. “Are you?” she laughs, walking off to the kitchen to finish overcooking the spaghetti into mush.
After a final pause and a loving glance at my wife’s attempt at cooking, I return in my black Evil Eddie’s 1999 Farewell Tour t-shirt. It fits like the burnt casing to the sausage Charlene is serving with the stringy mush. It is a little snug, but the shirt tells everyone I’m not one of those posers that came late in the game. It says I have been a fan since their first farewell, their second singer, and fifth
album. That kind of street cred you just can’t get out of one of these non-faded t-shirt reprints you see the losers wearing. Can they name a song not on their three greatest hits albums? Doubt it.
I say goodnight, slowly kissing her on the cheek not painted with spaghetti sauce. I tell her I love her and I have my cell phone on me. It’s important for her to know this in case they need to triangulate my position or whatever it is they do with cell phones after someone’s gone missing. “Have great time,” she says oblivious to the danger awaiting me. I stop at the door and say to her, “Whatever it is about him, I’m going to find out tonight. Remember, I love you.” She flips the channel. “Okay.”
I tell her I can’t predict how tonight is going to go down. She says it is probably going to be similar to the last farewell tour, just more pyro. I take a deep breath and hold my tongue as I see Chad through the blinds waving at me.
Tonight I will see first hand what a son of a bitch he is, endangering my own well-being, to finally get to the bottom of who he is. She laughs. I don’t know if it is at something I said or something on the television. I leave without further argument. It is best she doesn’t worry about me.
As I head to his friend’s decrepit black minivan, I see his two buddies inside it. The company you keep says a lot about you, so the more, the merrier. The van is covered in thick layers of dust and bird shit, like it just finished a cannonball run across the Mexican desert with bails of marijuana trying to evade the border patrol and circled the local elementary schools to sell everything off before a night out transporting bodies to dump in a ravine for the cartel. I don’t know where a ravine is and I don’t know if the cartels work out this way, but Chad likely does, the son of a bitch.
“Hey, brother,” Chad says welcoming me into the van with one of those cool handshakes tattooed bikers and the sort give each other. It’s like a manly half-hug. The thick flowery perfume of a car scent sticker is desperately doing battle against the car’s rich history of smoke and farts. Chad introduces me to Tony, sitting behind the wheel with the braided goatee and the Blues Brother sunglasses. He nods his head in the rearview mirror as I jump though the sliding doorway into a busted bucket seat with rips in the tan upholstery. The guy in the seat next to me is Guy. Unlike Tony, Guy is
super-excited to meet me and ready to begin a prepared barrage of funny stories. Maybe as the night goes on, Guy will say too much. At that point, I hope they already accepted me into their confidence or we’re heading to a ravine.
The van pulls through it’s own thick cloud of gray exhaust and onto the highway. The twenty-two minute ride is consumed by three stories, courtesy of Guy. I keep my lips sealed tight and nod, listening to every word for that inadvertent revelation, confession, or explanation. I wait for punchlines that will make me a witness to some horrific, or at least moderately-illegal, activity. “That’s when I took the drugs out of my ass because I had a feeling that would be the first place they’d check, so I placed them in the kid’s diaper bag next to me in line. I felt bad for the mother when she got busted and taken away,” I was waiting for him to say or, “that’s when Chad killed the fat general with the AJAX he mistook for the stolen cocaine, we took the blood diamonds, and ran for the border on those fucked up llamas that couldn’t stop shitting.”
Instead, I heard three stories about how Chad once made an ice cream with Fireballs and sour candy that made a little girl cry, how Guy once got his penis caught in the pool suction line, and another about Chad and Tony backing the ice cream van into a State Trooper’s vehicle. All stories were disappointing except for the one about Guy in the pool. It was moderately interesting to hear about how the Fire Department used syringes of lubricant to free him from the pipe while his embarrassed wife looked on and got shitfaced.
They are clearly warm up stories to test me, to see if I can enter their confidence. Once I do, I fully expect better stories about Chad and whatever he’s got going down with the blood diamonds, hookers, cocaine, and money laundering through his supposed ice cream business.
For your average conservative, white male, tonight is like going into the jungle in one of those war movies. I’m not saying I’ve been in war, but this is not the average night in the Butterfield’s household. It’s exciting, dangerous, and I am proud I said yes to tonight. I have an okay career, a wife that loves me when she’s not glued to her smart phone, a nine-year old son that shares my hatred for
pop music, an intimidating, but controllable, mortgage, and just three payments to go on a gray SUV with a really cool third row that flips up, though I never use it. But tonight, I’ve got my warpaint on and I’m gonna go down that rabbit hole. I’m gonna finally figure out what kind of a son of a bitch my neighbor is.
As we roll into the parking lot, Chad turns around and nods his head. “Gentlemen, it’s time,” he says with a smirk. I expect him to suddenly roll out an oversized doobie that would make Bob Marley blush. I would of course refuse, but risk my next piss test just from seeing it. Any secondhand smoke would certainly do me in… I think. Instead, they all hop out of the vehicle. We grab our chairs and head for the cheap lawn seats. We proceed through the security checkpoint surprisingly without incident. They checked us thoroughly, so whatever contraband we have must be up someone’s ass.
“I’m buying,” I say to the fellas in front of the beer stand. “I’m good, brother,” Chad says holding up a bottle of water. Tony and Guy also pass on the beer. I grab one for myself to break the imaginary seal in my head.
Shortly after marking our territory with our fold up chairs, the lights go out and the Evil Eddie’s start on time. In their older years, they are either realizing their fans are too old to tolerate their usual bullshit or have a greater appreciation for their bedtime. Like every concert I’ve been to since ZZTop in 1987, the smell of a burning controlled substance magically drifts in with the first strummed chord of the guitar. I immediately look to Chad, then Guy, then Tony still sporting the sunglasses. They smile back. It is coming from somewhere else.
Throughout the night, I keep checking. I keep waiting for Chad to start a moshpit, grab some old lady’s tit, do a line of coke off the arm of his plastic chair, or hurl acid from his bony structure. But no. He dances a little. He stares from time to time at the stocky forty-something lady in front of us. Her skintight white roll-up shorts creep up with every shake of her thick apple bottom. He’s staring, but no more than the rest of us guys behind her throughout section 18.
The concert ends. There are zero casualties, zero arrests, zero fights, and zero illegal activities. There wasn’t even a shout from someone behind us to tell the dancing lady in the white shorts to “sit the hell down.” It was as if all spectators in lawn section 18 of the amphitheater telepathically agreed to be courteous, stay seated, and just enjoy the show. Other sections stood most of the show on account of two jackasses up front insisting they stand. No one ever likes those types. Every section has them.
It was a great show. It was so good, I doubt it is really their last tour. The singer is sober, the guitarist appears less insane, and they sounded the best they have in decades. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have another album and final reunion tour in them. As always, I’ll be ready to show my support in my ever-tightening black 1999 tour shirt/ sausage casing. I got at least four full nods of respect tonight for that shirt and it felt good. I saw one naturally faded shirt from the 1987 tour, back when no one really listened to them and they were a still just a terrible opening act. That is hardcore. Much respect.
An hour into the half-mile per hour roll out of the crowded parking lot, we are finally on the highway and on our way home. Everyone is still on a drug-free Rocky Mountain high from a great show. Guy is telling me about the concert, every song, and every time the singer pretended he was happy to be with the guitarist putting his arm around him smiling. Guy reenacts the finger dabbling solos that he enjoyed the most. It is possible Guy forgot I was at the concert with him, but I don’t want to stop him. He is harmless and on a roll.
Chad turns and looks back at Guy. He smiles at me and then to Tony driving in his sunglasses. “You boys aren’t in a hurry to get home are ya?” Chad asks. Tony nods. Guy says he’s game. This is it. I waited all fucking night and here we are, eighty miles per hour down the Highway to Hell, ten seconds to midnight.
“Let’s do it,” I say. I could have said “no” or “I can hang a little later” or ask “whatcha got in mind.” But I think “Let’s do it” makes it clear that I’m cool, that I can be trusted, and I’m down for whatever the night has in store. Tell my family I love them.
I made the circle of trust to even be asked. Tonight I am going to finally figure out what this son of a bitch is up to, what he does in his off time, what he is like when the gloves are off, and maybe he will even ask me to join him in whatever criminal venture he’s got going on. I would obviously say no, but it would be nice to be asked.
After that, I’d go home, tell the wife victoriously, “I told you!” We would then have to sell the house and try this neighbor thing again somewhere else. I would be better informed and hopefully able to avoid moving in next to a blood diamond smuggling, cocaine-selling, money laundering kingpin moving product back and forth between Miami and Africa disguised as a caterer. I missed that episode of Miami Vice, but now I am educated, or about to be, in the mysteries of the underworld.
Flipping his eighties bad guy blonde hair, Chad smiles at my cool, measured, response. He nods to Tony. The vehicle veers onto the exit ramp at forty-five miles per hour even though the sign clearly says to do thirty-five. We pass through the green light, taking a right, moving swiftly through the dark back roads. Silhouetted rows of warehouses fly by draped in pale yellow streetlights. These men have not asked me to don a blindfold. I am in the circle. But just in case, I am looking for ravines.
Another turn and we continue past the wharf, which looks shady in the day, nonetheless at night. Beyond the wharf, past the church, across from the endless row of car dealerships, we see the line of competing strip clubs; Goldfingers, Xcalibers, the MegaOdyssey, and the shadiest of them all, Tim’s. I wait for us to pull into a dimly lit parking lot and walk through one of the brass and neon lit doors like hailed kings. We would get free non-stop lap dancing because Chad is everyone’s pimp or dealer. Lap dance after lap dance I would patiently watch Chad go in and out through a secret door or disappear behind some massive curtain of beads. A different woman would enter the room every twenty minutes. Eventually he would come out and invite me to go in there. Numb from hours of lap dancing by a naked woman named Jasmine, Jade, or Diamond, I would politely decline as a married man, but thank him for the offer of hospitality. I would later explain to my wife that he’s not loyal to his wife, is a sex-addicted, drug-dealing pimp, and we need to move.
But the vehicle is still going, past the strip bars. Is there an establishment even deeper down the avenue? I imagine anything beyond this leads to the woods where a tribal orgy is being hosted by a mad colonel named Kurtz. Soon, we will know. “Where are you going?” Chad laughs at Tony lifting his sunglasses onto his shaved head. He squints and takes a sudden turn back onto a main road. He pulls off and turns off the lights as we roll to a stop behind a run down strip mall. Everyone jumps out and heads to the darkened backdoor entrance by the dumpsters. This is it.
The door will open and there will be no going back. I will be a lookout or keep the van running as I assume that is what the greenhorn of a criminal gang does. I will do it, despite having a family and a mildly satisfying career, to finally know the truth. It will then be my duty to turn him in for smuggling blood diamonds and weapons, take the reward, and move. It will be harder now I know Chad a little better.
Chad turns the lock. He stops, looks back and smiles at the three of us. Guy nods his head, anxious like a kid to bust inside the joint. Tony’s eyebrows lift slightly above his sunglasses. I grin back to let him know I’m ready.
“Any flavor, fellas,” he says opening the door. Guy and Tony barge past me into the shop while Chad turns off the alarm. I stand at the door staring past the empty white buckets, the two large mixers, a large freezer, and the boxes of ingredients to the front of the store. My eyes are fixed onto the long, lighted, lineup of flavors of ice cream. I patiently interrogate each of them, searching for the right one. “No need to settle for just one, brother!” Chad says handing me a plastic sample spoon of his newest creation, the “Mama’s Cherry.” I settle on “Funky Chocolate Donkey” with an extra scoop of “Manila Vanilla Amaretto Coffee” and a scoop of “Red Chile Pistachio Toffee Swirl.” Chad explains to me “Mama’s Cherry,” as simple as it is, is really one of his tastiest recipes. The secret, he says, is more lard. It is to die for.
Like bandits in the night, we leave his shop and head back onto the highway. We’re going eighty, windows down, taking in the dry desert summer night, singing to the Evil Eddies and enjoying
our little take home cups of assorted ice creams. Chad even threw in a chocolate covered waffle cone made by Tony and it is nothing short of awesome. Tony is a madman on the chocolate sprinkles to Chad’s annoyance but knows it’s why kids keep getting them.
As the van rolls quietly by my house, I leave Guy my trash, thank them all for a great night, and pop out. I run up my driveway and stealthily enter my house. The light on the stove says it’s almost three in the morning. I successfully tip toe past my son’s room without disturbing his annoying Chihuahua, Sparky, sleeping comfortably beside him.
Charlene sleeps gently on her side of the bed. She obviously did not stay up for me. I quietly pull off my car-perfumed and smoky sausage casing and slide into my side of the bed. I pull up the cover with a bright Red Chile Pistachio stained smile across my face.
She turns on the lights. “And just where the hell have you been all night?” she says sitting up staring at me. “What’s that smell? And what’s that on your lips?”
She will never believe me. Son of a bitch.

The Garden of Yellow Butterflies


By Karen King



She walked into a garden in her daily exploration. So much so see and do, but she had time. She watched yellow butterflies fluttering past and later landing on a multitude of flowers. The green leaves tickled her nose as she sauntered past. The bird song was torture to her ears. She loved their various melodies and it brought back good memories, but she was not as quick as she once was and the birds always escaped her, later laughing at her ineptitude.

It was a warm day and her legs were tiring little, so she found a bush and sat in the shade a while as the sound of the birds drifted into the distance… She was awoken with the sound of her name being called and was surprised to see an old, wrinkled face in front of her and a bowl of water. Mona was surprised, but gratefully accepted the offering. The old lady with the orange hair spoke to her in soothing tones. She purred in response and staggered out of the bush to visit her new friend. Mona realised she was quite hungry, but the old lady offered nothing, so she stayed awhile and then, reluctantly, sauntered home.

She entered her empty house. There was never anyone there. It was a lonely life. Cats were supposed to be independent, but this was just too much. Mona had had enough of being “independent” and would have given anything to have a friend. Her human family were out all day and virtually ignored her when they returned. She could only assume that it was because she wasn’t as cute as she used to be. Her fur was matted and dull and she was thin.

The children had left home and the adults had lost interest as she was old and slow. Mona went to her bed, sad and rejected. She started dreaming about the old lady she met, cuddles and treats… Her brown ears twitched and she snored as her pleasant dream continued.

Mona awoke to the sound of a door slamming and shoes being thrown across the floor. Nervously, she staggered out of bed and went to see her owner. Her owner gave a cursory look, threw a bowl of food down and turned on the TV. Mona took a few bites, her tail between her legs and wondered away. Her owner noticed and, angrily, snatched the food away, throwing it in the bin. “I’m sick of all the food you waste. Day after day. So much washing up and so much money wasted. I suppose it must be because you’re old now and you’ve lost your appetite!” With that, the owner got a beer, put his feet up on the settee and fell asleep. Mona couldn’t eat. Unloved and forgotten, she went back to her bed and her dreams in order to escape the ongoing nightmare.

The next morning, Mona awoke to the sounds of the fledglings as the glorious sunshine shone through the window onto her fur, warming her up. She yawned, stretched and walked towards her food bowl. It was empty! It was clean, but it was empty. Her tail swayed back and forth; she was really angry. She scratched her ears and washed, but still it did not appear.

Irritated, she scratched her ears again. Eventually, she left the house and found her way to the garden of yellow butterflies and the house with the old lady.

The butterflied danced in jubilation and the fountain spurted in celebration. There seemed to be magic in the garden. The wind chimes played their melody and the windmills turned. The bluebells’ perfume became stronger and Mona felt love all around her.

Suddenly, she saw the old lady. The old lady smiled in pleasure and then vanished for a moment, only to return again with a small bag. Treats were sprinkled on the floor in front of her, which she ate greedily. The old lady’s face was a strange mixture of relief and concern. Mona was surprised to see the old lady disappear again and thought she was going to be forgotten. Once more, the lady reappeared, but this time with a tin of cat food and a bowl. Mona couldn’t believe her luck and bolted the food down. Next, she was called in and encouraged to jump on the settee. Blankets had been placed there but, try as she might, her back legs wouldn’t work and she couldn’t jump up. Hesitatingly, the old lady bent down and picked her up and put her on the blankets. Mona purred in delight and closed her eyes and gently drifted off to the land of dreams, this time to a place where dreams meet reality. She found herself in a warm place with warm people, beautiful birds and yellow butterflies. She thought she was in Heaven and wondered if she were dead.

Shocked, she felt cold wetness of the back of her neck. Reluctantly, she opened her eyes and saw her new friend’s hand behind her head. She knew this feeling and hated it, but at least it would treat the dreaded fleas, which were driving her mad! She shut her eyes once more so she could visit the other world.

Later, she awoke to find all was silent and dark. Panicking, she managed to get down, then returned to her “home”. Her owner saw her, scolded her and then proceeded to put some flea treatment on her. Mona tried to back off, put her claws out to scratch her owner to try and tell her and hissed, all to no avail. The flea treatment was put on her, then she hid in the darkness of the room. It was good not to feel the beastly things moving around on her, nipping her, but she felt decidedly strange, in shock even. She closed her eyes to escape the feeling.

This time she found a place where there were many beautiful, young cats, agile and playful. This cat world brought back memories of younger days. She felt a sense of loss at what once was, but was told she could be young and playful again. Mona found this unbelievable, but was both surprised and delighted to discover she had fur like satin, the pain had gone and she could be playful again. She enjoyed this cat world, where her problems no longer existed. All she knew in this world was happiness and peace. Mona was told it was her time and she could stay. She found this a strange comment, but decided to stay anyway.

Her owner returned home from work, to see a bowl of food that hadn’t been touched, a cat sitting still in her bed and a cold body. Mona’s soul had long departed. The owner only felt relief that this costly, inconvenience had died…

Meanwhile, the old lady waited in vain for the return of the cat. She waited day after day, but her friend did not return. One day, there was a knock on the door. The owner said he knew that Mona had been visiting her, but she had died in her sleep of old age. The old lady was distraught, but reluctantly accepted this. It could well be true. Or, I wonder was it the extra dose of flea treatment that was a terrible shock to her old, tired body? Was Mona loved too late?

​
Karen King Copyright 17 May 2017

 
​Johnny B. Goode
 
By

Gerald Arthur Winter


I saw the headlights at a distance where the dual exhausts from his Caddy Eldorado were just black wisps backlit at dawn as the sunrise peeked its fiery arc at the purple horizon of rolling hills. As the sun rose and his Caddy wound on the dirt road’s “S” turns toward me, I saw his convertible top rise then fold back. Only the whites of his eyes and brilliant smile identified the man I’d come  to idolized as much as his fans. His pomped-up black hair was slicked back and  the gold chains around his long neck sparkled from the sunlight reflecting off puddles along the road from last night’s rainstorm. It was December, almost Christmas, and unseasonably warm for winter in Missouri. 
He raised one arm and waved to me, but as he did, another figure rose from the passenger seat, probably waking after the all-night drive from the last gig.      
I figured it might be his drummer, but with two hands, she fluffed her long hair   and stretched.
“Hey, Frankie!” he called to me as he turned off his headlights.
“Chuck!” I called back, seeing the young girl seated beside him. 
Crap, I thought, what can he be thinking?
“Meet Janice,” Chuck said. “Janice, meet Frankie.”
I waved him toward me in confidence as the girl remained in the car brushing her long black hair, too straight to be a “sista,” no matter what hair product they were selling that year.
I voiced my thoughts: “What the hell are you thinking, Chuck? She’s just a kid. A goddamn white girl.”
“She ain’t white, Frankie,” he assured me with a hand on my shoulder. “Janice     is an Injun princess of the Apache persuasion. She’s a rebel with a cause, just like me.”
“She might as well be a Daughter of the Revolution because she’s Snow White compared to your sorry black ass if a trooper pulls you over.”
“Whacha talkin’ about? I’m a rich man now, got my own club in St. Louie. The man can’t touch me now.”
“Wanna bet?” I warned him. “You could blow your chance of a lifetime with this little queeny.”
“Not a queen, just a princess,” Chuck said. “But I like that tag, Frankie. Maybe I’ll write a song with that title. I got the beat goin’ in my head already.”
“You’re gonna get your head beat by the fuzz if you don’t drop Janice off and walk away.”
“That wouldn’t be gentlemanly, Frankie. You know I’m always a gentleman, even when I’m wailin’ and rockin’ and rollin’ my ding-a-ling.”
“You’ve been in jail before, Chuck. Are you asking to go back in?”
“Look, Frankie. Janice had a drunk dad who beat ‘er everyday just for the hell of it. I’m gonna give her a job as a hatcheck girl at my club.”
“How old is she?” I asked.
He rolled his eyes. “Almost fifteen but goin’ on forty.”
“Your ass is grass if you don’t walk away from her now,” I advised. “You’re in a golden situation with Elvis in the army. He and the Colonel don’t know diddly  about live performances—only studio recordings. But the Colonel’s wise and he’ll catch on and have The King ready the day he’s discharged.”
“Maybe, Frankie, maybe. I hear through the grape vine that the Colonel wants Elvis to stick with the movies. More money to be had in Hollywood than Nashville or Memphis. Speakin’ of which, I want my upfront pay for tonight’s gig.”
“I got it in my trunk,” I said, then backed my ’58 Chevy up to his Caddy’s trunk.
Chuck opened his trunk first and took out a sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun. With a broad grin of pearly whites, he pointed the weapon at my gut. 
“Slowly, Frankie. Count it out in thousand-dollar bundles of twenties as we discussed.”
“Sure, sure, Chuck. Just point that away from me so I don’t miscount.”
“You miscount and you’ll be the headless horseman.”
The five grand I stacked in his trunk was only a fifth of the combined total from his other gigs driving coast to coast. 
“See you tonight, Frankie, eight-sharp.”
“Your concert starts at eight.”
“No sweat,” he assured me. “I’ll be groomed and tuned for my walk-on. Duck-walk that is.”
Chuck was always a man of his word. He began with “Maybelline” as usual, peaked with “Roll Over Beethoven,” then finished with the crowd’s favorite for his encore. The song still echoes in my mind as I recall watching his Caddy vanish over the horizon toward St. Louis with Janice beside him.
I remember thinking . . . Please, Chuck . . . “Johnny B. Goode” tonight. 

Chubby

by

Gerald Arthur Winter

 
His longtime friends in the biz affectionately called William Goodrich “Chubby.” There was nothing diminutive about him from head to toe, thus his screen name, “Chubby Chase.” He had been discovered by producer-director Mack Sennett in 1913 to costar with Maude Netherly in Sennett’s “Maude” series, which included twenty-three films over fifteen years. Chubby had missed the first “Maude” film the year before, but Sennett quickly measured the onscreen chemistry between Maude and Chubby as box-office gold. Thus came their crowd-pleasing pairing in silent films.
Though their visual onscreen rapport was often reported in Variety as romance, Chubby and Maude were no more than good friends. Off-set she was a home body, more drawn to her horses and dogs than her first and only husband, an investment banker who provided a lavish life which she could retire to whenever she wanted.
Initially married and faithful to Mrs. Goodrich, they had no children, so when Chubby got his beg break with Sennett on “The Keystone Cops” bandwagon, he became a playboy and was soon divorced. Not a Valentino or a Fairbanks, Chubby’s choice was comedy because his size was a threatening attribute at six-feet-five and three hundred pounds buck naked. He confided with Sennett that he feared playing villains, because movie theater audiences tended to believe that film personas were no act, but rather revelations of a performer’s true nature.
“Really, Mack,” he told Sennett. “On the other side of the coin, Americans have no idea that William S. Hart is a royal prick who’d stiff his mom given the chance.”
“OK—OK, Chub,” Sennett laughed. “You’ll be my funny guy. But I hope the hell they bring in that sound stuff they keep talking about because no one has any idea what a beautiful singing voice you’ve got.”
“Thanks, Mack, but how would you know? I’ve never sang for you.”
“Enrico told me you were second only to him if given the chance.”
“The Great Caruso is known to brag about his Italian sausage, too.”
“Now you sound like those New York Vaudeville comedians that are just a four-letter word short of burlesque,” Sennett warned with a frown. “No smut in our subtitles, now or ever. “Make it funny, Chubby, but keep it clean.”
“Look who you’re talking to, Mack,” Chubby shrugged. “What do I know from schmutz? I’m a clean-cut American boy—Mom and apple pie.”
“I know that better than anyone, Chub, but some of the stockholders are concerned about what they read in Variety. Nothing good ever happens after midnight, and you’ve been drinking and carousing a lot more than a year ago. Just saying. How about giving it a rest this weekend?”
Chubby took a deep breath, his means of controlling his temper, which, though congenial ninety-nine percent of the time, had a trigger point few had ever seen, least of all his fellow cast members over the past dozen years. Though essentially a happy-go-lucky guy, Chubby had a dark side that was occasionally augmented by his alcohol consumption as a catalyst to brutish reaction to little more than a slight.
Though speakeasies were his usual haunts in the wee hours, Chubby had been hanging out with one of his actor cronies since they had both been in Chubby’s first “Maude” flick a decade ago. There had been so much undercurrent about what those in the biz called “talkies,” that some actors had become paranoid about the idea that an audience might actually hear their voices in a movie theater.
Edgar “Slow Burn” Kennedy more than often played a cop in the silent movies. He’d be one of several who’d make a smooth transition to talkies and be better for it. His steaming attitude with his hand against his red face and a double-take of disbelief was his trademark that became perfected by the time he got to the talkies with a verbal exasperated expression of: “Doh!”
Kennedy introduced Chubby to another acting friend who had adapted a nickname from the newest New York Yankees sensation, “Babe” Ruth. Like Ruth and Chubby, “Babe” Hardy was a man of considerable girth. Like Chubby, Hardy wanted to act in silent comedies, but had been miscast as villains in his first appearances. He hoped to change that screen image. Hardy had a fine tenor voice and a cheerful personality. The party girls that the threesome had met at speakeasies jokingly referred to them as the “Three Tons of Fun.”
Kennedy resented the tag, went on a crash diet, and stopped hanging out off-set with the other two. However, Kennedy did make many films with Hardy, even after “Babe” became the comic heavy in the classic Laurel and Hardy duo.
Losing the late-night companionship of Kennedy and Hardy, Chubby became a big box office draw on his own, and got to write and direct as well, but he continued his wee-hour drinking habit and some of the more aggressive and salacious women of the night began rumors about his manly prowess as much more than his nickname — Wee Willie portended.
Champagne had become Chubby’s consumptive weakness, which often led to promiscuous encounters, sometimes as many as five women between midnight and dawn. Whether one-on-one, or as one rumor had it, literally a sextet, complete with brass, woodwinds, and percussions, but for all concerned—no strings attached.
News of the inevitability of talking pictures coming to the screen within a year, put Chubby on edge. Despite the compliments he’d often received from co-workers and his female companions about his voice, he just didn’t believe that anyone could be interested in such a novelty on screen. Live theater gave that to audiences, not only sound, but a living experience as if they were on the stage. How could two dimensional movies, even with sound, ever duplicate that experience? Why would anyone waste their money trying to do that? Why would anyone pay to see or hear it?
“You probably think the world is flat,” his date told him.
He sneered at her over his champagne glass. “Let’s get out of here,” he said,  motioning toward the speakeasy’s cloakroom. “I’ve got a private party at 2 a.m.”
“Who’s coming?” she asked.
“Everyone,” he said with a wink, but she didn’t catch his double entendre.
She seemed bored with him, which bothered him more than anyone poking fun at his weight. Chubby was intelligent, well-read, and might have become a doctor had the draw of Hollywood fame not captured his imagination. For him, it was like a schoolboy running away from home to join the circus. He hadn’t realized those many years ago, that besides a circus having trapeze artists, lion tamers, and clowns, the Big Top also had a freak show. He’d recently begun to wonder if his stand against talkies was turning him into the freak show’s main attraction.
Chubby felt a sense of dread about his hook-up that night. Alice Grimley had a sordid reputation of entrapping men for money. She’d have sex freely then say she was pregnant, get an out-of-court settlement and get an abortion. Rumor had it that this had been done no less than half a dozen times. Her uterus was worn as thin as her dignity. Assuming she once had some pride, Chubby found their conversation depressing, especially when she so outwardly mocked his steadfast belief in the fine art of silent films and his inner satisfaction that he’d become one of that medium’s all-time greats.
Chubby often thought of his costar, Maude, who’d since retired from the biz. He entertained ideas of their romance portrayed on screen becoming a reality, but any hope for that had long past.
At 4 a.m. the private party was still in full swing but several cases of bootlegged rum had been delivered to the hotel concealed in a junk wagon pulled by a mule.
Chubby and several of the other male party goers met the wagon behind the hotel where they planned to bring the cases on the service elevator up to Chubby’s room. Chubby flashed his wad, tipping hotel personnel as if it were Christmas, so he was provided with a wheelbarrow to transport the rum to the elevator. While they offloaded the rum from the wagon, one of the men took the fedora off the mule’s head and tried to pull his own ears through the holes in its brim like the mule. When the driver complained, Chubby slipped him a sawbuck and all was well.
Another man asked, “How much for the mule?”
“What do you want his damn mule for?” Chubby asked.
“I noticed who you were with tonight, so I figured Alice would rather make love to the mule than a fat-ass like you.”
Three bottles of champagne down the hatch, Chubby felt that switch go off in his head, that one percent of total darkness that separates man from beast. He lifted the man off his feet with one hand and hit him so hard with his huge fist that his head snapped around. The man fell to the ground like a ragdoll.
The other men tried to make Chubby calm down, but he waved them off and took that long deep breath. One didn’t work so he took another and finally the pounding in his head subsided.
“Better get an ambulance,” one man said. “I think you broke his jaw, Chub.”
“I did,” Chubby said. “I heard it crack . . . no talkies for that sucker.”
The other men just tried to humor him but decided to forego the rum and go home. Left alone with the buggy driver he gave him one hundred dollars for his mule and his silence. Not about to leave any evidence for the cops, Chubby with his great strength, pushed the wheelbarrow to the elevator himself and led the mule into the elevator as well. He brought the mule with the cases of rum to his hotel room. The heated incident with Jimmy seemed to sober him up. The hotel room was a wreck, which he’d been too drunk to realize before. Word must have gotten to the women at the party about the violent incident behind the hotel because they all had left.
The room was dead quiet as Chubby plunked down on the sofa and popped open a bottle of rum. He poured some rum into a silver bowl and put it on the floor for the mule to drink. The mule took one slurp of the rum and snorted his disapproval. Chubby took three long snorts of rum then a deep breath for good measure.
The rum was glowing sweetly in his big belly when he heard it . . . a woman sniffling and gasping intermittently from the bedroom. He found Alice Grimley half-naked on the king-size bed. Her eyes were rolled back in her head like a zombie. At first, it looked like her lipstick was smeared across her pale face, but when he came closer, Chubby saw it was blood.
“Sweet Jesus!” he said, his melodious voice echoing across the hardwood floors of the hotel room. “Alice! Alice! Wake up! You’ve got to get the hell out of here. Party’s over.”
She groaned incoherently.
“I’ll get you some water.” He couldn’t find a single glass that hadn’t been broken, so he emptied the rum from the dregs in his bottle then filled it with water from the tap. He tried to help her sip it, but she couldn’t hold up her head, so he awkwardly straddled her half-naked body. Then he saw the blood on the sheet and streaks of blood across her naked thighs.
“Oh my God!” he shouted.
Apparently his party cronies had tipped off the police about Chubby breaking Jimmy’s jaw. Just as Chubby was putting the rum bottle to Alice Grimley’s lips, police rushed into the bedroom along with reporters whose photos would make the front page of every Hearst publication coast to coast.
There was Chubby Chase with naked Alice Grimley bleeding from her mouth and uterus caused, as the news articles would suggest, from brutal insertions by Chubby, the rum bottle, and—God save us—the mule.
Had Alice recovered, perhaps Chubby’s reputation would have been spared by her testimony of his innocence. Alas, she was DOA at County General. Rumors, backed by the news photo declared Chubby Chase—guilty as charged. Prosecutors charged him with first-degree murder easily seeking the death penalty to be hanged in the state of California as the order of the day.
Mack Sennett’s words echoed in Chubby’s mind as he sat in his cell awaiting trial: “Nothing good ever happens after midnight.”
Over the course of the next year, Chubby endured two mistrials. The first was due to a hung jury. In keeping with his sense of humor, Chubby said aside to his attorney: “I prefer the jury’s hanging to mine.”
Despite his façade of levity, Chubby suffered from depression in his cell. He was kept in solitary confinement because of internal death threats from both inmates and prison guards. Newspaper columnists’ articles ran the gamut pro and con regarding his innocence or guilt. One Hearst headline said: “Chubby Chase wants to pin his tale on the donkey.”
After another six months of imprisonment, Chubby was told by his attorney that he would request another mistrial based on published interviews with one female juror who admitted she felt that the heinous acts committed by the defendant were uncontestable and that hanging was the only means of proper justice for “such a grotesque beast of a man.”
His attorney used a list Chubby had given him of both men and women in the movie industry, which included actors, directors, producers, and screenwriters who would vouch for his good character. When Maude Netherly came out of retirement, even against her banker husband’s best advice, the press took notice. Many were hoping Maude would seal a guilty verdict with stories of Chubby’s off-screen sexual eccentricities, including the use of narcotics to take advantage of naïve starlets fresh off the Greyhound bus from the Mid-West. Maude emphatically came to Chubby’s defense.
In essence there was no basis to any accusations against Chubby Chase other than his bad temper triggered by alcohol indulgence. As far as anyone could prove, Chubby’s violence had only been directed against men rather than women. His victims had publically insulted him as a catalyst to his outrage. Though there could be no excuse for such vindictive public behavior, a death or life sentence would be undue punishment for such an offense, which would be limited to a monetary fine and short-term incarceration of no more than thirty days with good behavior.
The next retrial took less than one week. The verdict was “not guilty.”
Many of those who testified in Chubby’s behalf were his friends for two decades in the silent movie industry. The twelve jurors, including one woman, approached Chubby after the trial with handshakes, hugs, and regrets over his ordeal in court and the newspapers. Regardless, Chubby’s reputation would remain soiled for all time.
He was questioned by reporters before he got into his attorney’s car in front of the courthouse. His statement was broadcast on radio stations throughout America.
With the resonant tone of a great orator, Chubby said: “Justice won out today. I never did any of the horrible acts I’d been accused of. I thank the state of California for its just verdict and will spend the rest of my life as God sees fit to repair the damage that has been done to my character and credibility. That’s all I have to say, gentlemen. God speed.”
One reporter shouted, “Will Chubby Chase make talkies in the future?”
Chubby turned back to face the reporters surrounding the car. He opened his mouth as if to comment then thought better of it. He put his hand to the corner of his open mouth and, like a zipper, dragged his fingers across his closing lips.
William Goodrich, aka Chubby Chase would use only his birth name as a film producer and director in Hollywood of the 30’s. Some of his films were of critical
acclaim, though no public credit was sought other than the required on-screen credits. No one knew who “William Goodrich” was anyway.
Chubby Chase never appeared in film again, though ironically, many of his female companions wondered why William Goodrich didn’t seek film parts with such a “beautiful” voice and big, shimmering blue eyes”.
“Blue eyes?” he said laughingly to Oliver Hardy and Edgar Kennedy after Prohibition was repealed. “As if color could ever be transmitted to the silver screen.”
Hardy and Kennedy clicked their glasses with Chubby’s in harmonic agreement:
“Never happen.”
On the other side of town, a teenage singer name Frances Gumm was having a screen test that would prove them wrong, that Hollywood was nothing like Kansas.

Life Can Trip You Up …


By Karen King


Once upon a time, there was a boy who was dissatisfied with the uninspiring house in which  he lived with his Mum.  The house was small and badly designed.  All his Father had done  was to buy big units, gigantic shelves and have a bubbling, green, gaseous aquarium in the  corner of the room.  The paving stones and shed had been laid and built by workmen and paid  for by his Dad’s Mother.  The shed, like everything else in their three-bedroomed-semi, was too large, making their miniature garden even smaller.  They boy was left to pick up the pieces of their ruined relationship, the remains of which could be seen in their house.


His Mother had been left the house upon his Mum and Dad’s divorce.  Unfortunately, the lack of interest from his Dad meant that a lot of money needed to be spent on the house replacing and repairing items that had been left for ten years.  The cracks of their relationship had developed into big chasms in their house.


The boy had had enough. He repainted the walls, put on new door handles, built shelves and a unit for the garage and insisted on new carpets and flooring.  A tiny fridge for the dining room to allow more space in their cramped kitchen, along with a new washing machine to replace their fifteen-year-old model, which hadn’t been spinning the clothes properly for years was also purchased – and not before time!

He had several projects on the go – a new cat shed and a unit, along with ideas on how to improve the kitchen – LED lights to eliminate the shadows and a corner unit to hold items for the dining room table for starters …

The decorating needed to be finished as the house was too small to hold all his tools.  Every room was a mess.  Saws were left on the dining room table, screwdrivers on the floor and tool boxes were left abandoned in doorways.  His Mother wondered if she would eat saws for dinner, or maybe a nail?


The boy had his reasons.  While his Mother saved some money to buy a bigger house which they could redesign and have enough space to work, he would improve their current house, so he could keep himself busy whilst improving his skills.  He was almost entirely self-taught and hoped he could help his Mum get more money for their house.  His Mother appreciated the thought and admired his ambition, but was fed up with the mess.  


She wasn’t as slim or as nimble as she once was and, one day, tripped over a hammer left at the top of the stairs.  She tried to catch herself, but her arthritic knee let her down and she went tumbling down…


She saw bright lights amidst the darkness and wondered where she was.  The shapes with loving eyes and generous smiles held out their hands to her and told her she was plugged into a respirator in hospital and they were monitoring her, for she had taken a nasty fall.  Whilst her breathing was plugged in on her ward, she was also plugged into the light on the other side.  


The doctors told her she had bumped her head hard and dislocated her hips.  They told her that her Son was at her bedside, feeling guilty and wretched.  She needed to get back as soon as she could, but things would not be the same.  Her life would change irrevocably.  The beautiful beings hugged her and disappeared into the light, whilst waving goodbye…


Worriedly and reluctantly, she opened her eyes, but was glad to see her Son holding her hand.  He told her he had made extra shelving to accommodate his tools and he had tidied up the house as best he could.  She tried to move, but couldn’t.  The nurse rushed in, telling her off.  She should lie still to allow her hips to mend.  She would be bed-bound for a bit.  She  had had a nasty fall and was lucky to be alive.  With that, the nurse smiled sadly and left the room.  Her Son told her he had almost finished the work as he had put his energies into the house to keep his worries at bay.  His Mother squeezed his hand in delight and told him he had learnt a hard lesson, but she was sorry she was in such a state.


Week after week went by and the ceiling was becoming more and more boring to examine.  She had memorised the cobwebs in the corners and was fed up with the same old faces, the squeaking of the trollies on the floor and the cries of the agonised ladies in the nearby maternity ward.  She felt weak and numb, both physically and mentally.  Life was depressingly lost to her and she was pushed into the geriatric ward as they needed the space in her ward.  There had been a lot of deaths in the geriatric ward recently as many of the patients had lost patience with life and decided to move onto to a better life.


She read, she wrote, she listened to music and she counted time, watching the second hand slowly move, as if it were an hour hand.  She slowly managed to move and got herself to the toilet in a wheelchair, then with support and, finally, on her own.  She asked to go home and they agreed.  It had been a slow journey, but she had finished the chapter and she was allowed to go home to start the next chapter of her life.


A taxi took her home and her Son was pleased to see her.  The house looked clean, smart, well-designed and seemed infinitely bigger.  The Mother smiled and, day after day, did the housework and, eventually, managed to drive to the shops.  After several months, she was jogging and enjoying the peace of solitude of the countryside.  She started slowly, thinking she was unfit and just needed time.  Time was all she had had for months – too much time.  It had been so slow for so long and it seemed she would have to wait yet again while time dictated her life.  She persevered, but her hips and knee ached too much and just wouldn’t co-operate for her.  She realised her life had changed, but not for the better…


She stuck to basic chores and a humdrum life.  No more dreams of a better house.  It seemed they would be stuck in their tiny house forever, all because they had hoped for better and  been careless.  Her Son was depressed and disillusioned.  


They both realised they were fortunate to have each other, but their plans would have to be changed.  Instead of his workshop and acres of grounds in which to build his own house, he  built his Mum a chair lift and an electric wheelchair, whilst working in their tiny garden.  


After all, her progress had taken many steps backwards and she could hardly move, let alone  walk fast or jog.  The woman’s Son modernised their kitchen and bathroom to make it  disabled friendly and built a summerhouse for himself in the corner of their garden.


Life doesn’t always work out in the way you plan and things can unexpectedly change, then your path turns to rubble and changes forever.  Sometimes we have to be adaptable,  resilient and work with our qualities and imagination.  Make the most of what you have in  life and try and be strong and accept life’s detours, for life is a miracle and the earth a  classroom in which we are all learning. 

Foreword: 

It is a fact that Rodrigo de Triana saw land first that night between the 11th and 12th of October that year of 1492. At around two A.M., as the lookout on the ship Pinta and a part of Columbus' crew, he was the first official European to see the Caribbean and call out the famous words: "Tierra!" ("Land!")

The following short story resembles one of Liszt's improvised pieces on a theme by Rossini (most of these were on the spot improvs). There's truth here and fiction.

So I am inviting you to a quiz. What is fact and what is fiction here? Are you sure what you think is fiction is not fact? After all, none of us were actually there. Well, maybe in a previous life we experienced it. But that, as they say, is another story.

Now, enjoy the ride. You are back on the Pinta.
You are a sailor and about to rediscover the universe.




TRIANA'S SALVATION


A Short Story by Charles E.J. Moulton


Rodrigo de Triana watched the foam of the waves crash against the Pinta. His thoughts were elsewhere, at home, with the people he knew, the inquisition and the fact that Columbus had saved him from certain death.

The waves in comparison seemed so tranquil right now. So calm. It was almost as if they were approaching land. But that couldn't be, could it? Land. What a word. He almost couldn't remember what land looked like.

Rodrigo took a deep breath and tasted the salty air. It felt like a sickness by now. Yes, there was a tranquility to everything here at the moment, but too many sailors had fallen ill. Martin Alonso Pinzon, who was the Captain of the Pinta under Columbus, really was a capable man. But Rodrigo already ached. If and when they reached India he would search for fruit. Fresh fruit.

What if they did not make it? What if all those stories about sea monsters were true?

Rodrigo heard the voices of two of the sailors, probably talking of their women at home. And so, Rodrigo found himself looking at the water again trying to find that strange light he had seen yesterday. Had that been an angel? Perhaps even a monster? The surface had glittered, he could recall that.

The glitter of the moonlight on the water looked like a painting. The ship seemed to plough through the tranquil sea like a shark towards a moon so white it looked like the gateways to heaven.

The splash Rodrigo heard made him think a whale or some big fish rose from the deep. His instinctive twitch toward the noise had him think of sea monsters. But the thing that rose from the deep was no fish. It glittered. It looked like a round jewel shooting up from the deep, a diamond, almost. God's diamond.

Rodrigo looked around, desperately trying to find someone else who saw what he saw. No one. Not a soul.

He glanced back at the thing that soared before him.
"Signor Commendatore?"
No answer.
When the angelic presence lifted out of the hovering diamond ball, Rodrigo felt himself shiver. Had he gone to heaven? No. This was life on Earth, all right. But fear came bouncing up from beyond the deep. It felt like a black hole revealing itself to him. Was the creature a killer or an angel?

"Rodrigo," the creature whispered. "You will soon see land. You will discover a new continent."
"Who are you? What do you mean, new? I thought we were sailing towards India."
"Keep it to yourself, Rodrigo, promise me you will tell no one you saw me. Just try to be nice to the natives. There are people who won't be."
"Hello?"
The mysterious ball and the creature within it vanished, only to leave Rodrigo baffled.

Rodrigo kept his experience a secret. After he discovered land that night, he changed history. He also kept his promise. He eventually became a sea captain and treated everyone with respect.

He always believed he saw an angel the night he discovered America. Columbus kept saying he had been the first, but Rodrigo knew the truth and that was enough for him.

In any case, Rodrigo did what he intended to do once he arrived on land. The fruit gave him the same sensation the angel had given him: it brought him salvation.

Priceless

by


Gerald Arthur Winter



The American couple would usually be recognized and pursued for their autographs,
but in the jungles of the Yucatán where they’d escaped from the paparazzi for several
weeks, no one knew any more about them than what they  observed firsthand.  They
were beautiful people. She had cosmetically-enhanced full lips, a sculptured nose,
and a face-lift, though she was barely forty.  She was tall and lithe with
dancers’ legs and natural breasts of ample sway. Though her continued attractiveness
would require further extensive work toward her fifties and sixties, for her, character
parts would not suit her acting skills, which solely depended on her drop-dead-gorgeous façade for as long as it would last.
She envied her husband, who, at forty-two had not reached his prime. Tan and
ruggedly athletic, he did most of his own stunts in the series of thriller flicks that had
made them financially invincible against anything but ill-health, which even if
catastrophic, would not render either spouse financially inept. Her jealousy came from the attention from younger women drawn to him. The slight graying of his sideburns and the strategic character creases of his aging face made him even more attractive. In his fifties and sixties his acting would improve and his film parts would become more meaningful, enough to compete for an Oscar if properly cast.
The waning of her allure and the increase of his had begun to drive them apart.
Though they had no children of their own, they’d adopted several from Third World
nations. They’d been in their early twenties back then, and those children had grown
and were attending Ivy League colleges back in the States. This jaunt to the Yucatán
had been a peace offering from him, a way to take time apart from Hollywood and
consider no film roles, to be just the couple they thought they had been two decades
ago when they were still hungry for stardom and all of its perks.
“Our guide is going to take us to a place that has been virtually unchanged
for over two thousand years,” he told her, knowing she loved the spirit of adventure,
which was what had first drawn them together when she’d co-starred in one of his
thrillers set in the Australian Outback.
“Pre-Columbian,” she said piqued by the notion. “I’ll bring my digital camera.
Won’t be any cell towers to connect with my smartphone.
“Good idea,” he said. “We’ll leave in an hour by mule. No vehicles can penetrate
the jungles we’ll be going through to get there.”
She grinned unabashedly as they stared at each other silently sharing the same
thought—Maybe this can revitalize our marriage. This kind of journey together won’t be enhanced by our good looks, but rather our physical fitness.
Their trek over the mountains was difficult despite their fitness and the heat in the
lowland jungle was suffocating, but they endured by encouraging each other along the way. Their guide, Pablo, told them he’d never brought tourists to this area before.
They’d paid him the equivalent of five times his annual Mexican income. For them it was a lark, but to Pablo it meant the possibility of college for his oldest son in Mexico City. Along their three-day inland trek, they’d seen a few caimans, a jaguar, and an
assortment of monkeys and colorful tropical birds. The wife took numerous photos, but it was nearly dark by the time they’d arrived at a small village along a narrow tributary of a distant river. As the sun vanished behind a dense canopy, it was the darkest evening either the husband or wife had ever experienced, as if they were blinded by black ink.

As they made love in the hut provided by the village elder, the sound of insects
and predators became a cacophonous symphony that seemed to swallow them like a
giant anaconda. As they shuddered in mutual climax, the sounds of the jungle suddenly hushed. The last utterance was the wife’s quivering sigh, which seemed to ripple through the humid night air like the wake from a stone dropped into a thick porridge. A serenade of birds awakened them stuck together like glue in the fetid morning mist. They looked at each other in silence as if to tell the other just that one night had made their whole trip worthwhile. But as they kissed, a new sound, as if floating on the mist, entered their hut.

They withdrew from their embrace and cocked their heads as if
wishing to fill their minds with the melodious chords from the distant guitar.
“What the hell is that?” she asked.
“I’ve no idea, babe”
“Jesus, it sounds magical.”
“Like nothing I’ve ever heard,” he said, jumping to his feet. “Come on. Let’s see
where it’s coming from.”
She seemed reluctant, so he extended his hand to help her to her feet.
“I hope we don’t get our heads shrunk.”
“I’ll protect you, babe.”
They quickly dressed and emerged from the hut.
Pablo greeted them. “We will have a light breakfast and go to the Mayan
ruins. Only Mayans have ever seen this pyramid. It’s sacred ground. Be respectful.”
“But that music, the guitar strumming, where does it come from?” he demanded.
Pablo stared at him as if he hadn’t heard it. “Oh. That’s coming from the supreme
elder’s hut.” He pointed toward the river.
“We must see this instrument.”
His wife nodded, clung to his arm, then smiled at Pablo. “We simply must.”
Pablo appeared conflicted, knowing his clients’ foibles of assumption based on
their willingness to pay whatever was required. He knew these isolated villagers and
how the norms of civilization never applied here.
“These are pure Mayans, uncorrupted by the Spanish invasion which never
reached this place. There had been so much gold and other spoils of the Aztecs
and Mayan culture near the sea that there was no need for the Europeans to subject
themselves to this harsh environment. I don’t fully comprehend their language. It’s
Yucatecan, linked to other ancient languages of the Yucatán by trade.”
“Try your best,” the husband insisted. “I must see this guitar.”
“There will be a bonus,” the wife said, caressing her husband’s waist where her
slender arm wrapped around him like a constricting serpent. “Comprendes?”
“Si, señora,” Pablo said with a humble bow as he backed away toward the sound
of the guitar. “Please, wait here while I make your request.”
Pablo disappeared for longer than the couple expected, so when he returned a
half-hour later their anxiety was piqued with hope.
Pablo said, “We’ll spend today exploring the ancient ruins of which I’ve spoken.
The elder will give you his answer in the morning.”
His explanation didn’t sit well with the husband, but the wife stroked the back of
his broad neck as if to soothe a savage beast. He’d always gotten his way, at least
since his notoriety as a box office attraction. The postponement of his request soured
their exploration of the ruins.
“I just want to see his goddamn instrument,” he grumbled to the wife. ”What’s
the big effing deal?”
“Easy . . . easy, baby,” his wife put a long finger to his lips. “We’ll see it tomorrow.
Patience, love. You need to be more patient and respectful. These people have no idea
who we are. Treat them kindly . . . like children.”
He huffed and tried to shake off the bad mood he’d been in all day, but it
lingered, hovering over him like a black thunderhead before a storm.
“What’s this?” the wife asked after they’d climbed to the top of the Mayan
pyramid, and Pablo had given his insight to the meanings of the relief sculptors
predating Columbus and the Conquistadors by five hundred years, perhaps a thousand.
She was pointing to a deep hole, a hundred feet across and overgrown with thick
jungle flora.
“I’ve seen this before at other Mayan ruins,” Pablo said.
“It looks like a sinkhole,” the husband said with a shrug.
“Whether by nature or design, this great pit was where a virgin was sacrificed
annually to begin the spring season of fertility, growth and prosperity.”
“Sacrificed how?” the wife asked with displeasure.
“According to studies, a young virgin, usually considered the most beautiful of her
litter, was thrust alive into the deep pit. She would be blindfolded, but unbound. Some experts question if this society was that brutal, and posed the idea that she may have been drugged with no idea what was happening to her.”
“Is that supposed to make me sleep at night?” the wife said with sarcasm.
The husband seemed more intrigued by the concept, perhaps thinking how the
movie hero he portrayed might save the innocent girl before her violent fate.
“It seems bottomless,” he said to Pablo. “How deep is it?”
“Estimates have been anywhere from five hundred to a thousand feet,” Pablo
said, peering over the edge. “We can see the tops of trees growing from the bottom,
but those types of trees can be as tall as a skyscraper. Without seeing the bottom
from here, those tall trees might be rooted from the walls of the cavern, rather than
from the bottom . . . if there even is a bottom. Ancient storms have eroded underground caverns that connect
to the Caribbean to the east and the Pacific to the west.
Earthquakes have altered these pockets over thousands of years. It is also the natural
burial place for the aged, ill, and unfortunate due to accidents and diseases.”
“A natural compost heap,” the wife offered with a smirk. “Perhaps you’ll push me
over the edge when I become too wrinkled and dry to suit your needs, babe.”
“Never happen, darlin’,” he said with a shrug. “Even if I were tempted, you’d
find a way to take me over the edge with you.”
“Togetherness,” she said with a smirk. “I’m in for that.”
Their trek back to the village was silent and uneventful. After a light supper and
a couple of ounces of tequila, the couple retired when their fire dwindled. Exhausted,
neither was inclined to make love. She lay her cheek against his abdomen as they tried to sleep beneath the mosquito netting, but the haunting, almost hypnotic tones of the village elder’s guitar floated to their hut like puffs of smoke from a bong altering their states of mind till dawn.
Awakened by chirping birds, they felt refreshed after being lulled to sleep by
the mellow strings of the elder’s guitar. The morning mist lifted, and the jungle came
alive with varied creatures’ shrills and roars.
“I wonder if Adam and Eve would’ve felt this way when they awoke each morning
in the Garden of Eden?” she posed a quandary.
He grunted with amusement and nodded toward the clearing where Pablo was
approaching them.
“The elder has invited you to listen to him play his guitar, but you must remain
respectfully silent.
His son is more versed in communication outside this remote village,
but even with that, it is an effort to understand
even his exact meaning when we confer.”
“We’ll do as you advise,” the wife said. “Won’t we, baby?”
He nodded and motioned Pablo to lead the way.
They sat in a circle on the ground inside the elder’s hut. His wife, with bare,
wrinkled breasts that hung nearly to her waist, served them a bitter porridge. They
nodded and smiled, but couldn’t bear more than one mouthful, which caught in the
wife’s throat. The liquid from a gourd that the elder’s wife offered seemed to do the
American more harm than good as she coughed for several minutes.
The elder remained silent, staring at nothing until her coughing subsided. He
reached behind him and placed the guitar across his folded legs. He paused until even
the birds outside the hut seemed suddenly to hush.
With tan hands weathered by time and the harsh jungle life, the elder struck a
melodious chord that the couple couldn’t recognize,
though it continued to hum in their
minds even after the elder put his hand across the strings to stop their vibration. He
handed the guitar to the husband with a nod for him to play the instrument.
His wife was thrilled and nodded for him to try. He struck a familiar chord, but the
sound was different from anything he’d ever heard. The tone was fuller and more
resonant with a texture beyond his scope of understanding.
He tried another chord with
the same result. His wife seemed transfixed by its sound. They stared at each other.
“Tell him we want it,” the husband told Pablo.
Pablo shook his head, but the husband insisted.
After some guttural exchanges, the elder snatched the guitar from the husband’s
grasp and stood. “N-wits-a!” the elder said emphatically.
The husband looked to Pablo for his meaning.
“He says the guitar is his.”
“Tell him I’ll pay him whatever he wants for it,” the husband said with
dismissiveness.”
Pablo sighed then tried, but the elder folded his arms and shook his head,
and said, “No t-wits !”
“He says it’s not yours,” Pablo said.
“Of course it isn’t, but I’ll pay him well for it.” The husband nudged Pablo.
His wife stroked his neck with empathy, knowing how much his obtaining the
guitar would mean to him.
When Pablo tried again, the elder shouted a word Pablo didn’t know. The
Elder’s son whispered to Pablo, “It’s priceless to my father. It can’t be bought.”
“That’s ridiculous,” the husband said. “How can anything in the godforsaken
jungle be priceless? He can make another guitar when we buy this one.”
The Elder’s son explained that it took ten years to make this guitar and it will
be a gift to his grandson when he dies.
“As you know yourself, Pablo,” the husband said. “My price for his guitar could
put his grandson through four years of college and a doctorate in Ivy League schools in the States.”
Pablo shook his head and said, “No monetary price will be considered. That
issue had been closed yesterday.”
The negative result of his bargaining left a bitter taste
in the husband’s craw. He grumbled throughout the day spoiling the adventure for his
wife. When they returned to the village
at dusk after exploring another Mayan ruin, the
elder and his son stood in front of their hut
with their arms folded in front of their puffed
out chests. After a brief exchange between Pablo and the son,
Pablo returned to the American couple.
“We must leave in the morning,” Pablo told them. “We are no longer welcome.”
Frustrated and angry, the husband grabbed his wife by the wrist to return to their
hut for the evening, but as he did, his wife caught
an expression in the elder’s eyes and
a twist of his mouth that detected a weakness she was familiar with. She’d come to
learn the darkness of men’s souls
in her journey toward getting her name on a marquis.
Unable to sleep with his pent-up anger, the husband took four shots of tequila,
but his wife took only one. Within an hour, he was asleep and loudly snoring with
occasional mumblings about the guitar in an imaginary debate with the elder over his
so-called priceless guitar.
“Priceless?” The wife whispered.
In their world there was no such thing. There would always be a price that could
test anyone’s resistance.
Their marriage had been strained before this trip, but now her
husband revealed his greatest desire, to possess this guitar. The magical instrument
could be what she’d use to fulfill him and seal their commitment
to each other forever.
She poked her husband to be sure he was soundly sleeping. She took a deep
breath and left their hut. She listened outside the elder’s hut, but did not hear any
snoring. There was a full moon just above the jungle canopy, so when she opened
the door to the elder’s hut, the moonlight cast across the elder’s glaring face. His
eyes were wide open and he clutched his guitar firmly to his chest as if he knew
someone might try to steal it from him.
The elder’s wife slept soundly in the far corner of the hut, so the American
woman put her index finger to her full lips to urge him to remain silent as not to wake
her. She crossed the hut like a
predatory cat until she knelt before him. She opened her
blouse and pressed his face against her breasts.
He pulled back from her for a moment,
but she nodded to the guitar and
caressed its strings with her long slender fingers. She
took the elder’s chin in her hand
and looked deep into his eyes to make him understand
her proposition.
He nodded repeatedly.
She took the guitar by its neck and leaned it against the wall of the hut and fell
backwards pulling the elder on top of her.
She hadn’t expected the elder to be so ardent
or his testosterone to be so fluently aggressive at his age, but she was determined to
fulfill her husband’s need for the guitar.
The morning birds were starting to chirp before
the elder separated himself from her.
She nodded to the guitar and he nodded back
in agreement.
“Later,” she said, though he wouldn’t understand her language. She pointed to
the sky, made a circle with both hands
and motioned upward with her hand
to indicate sunrise.
He nodded in agreement understanding that her husband couldn’t know why
he’d changed his mind about the selling the guitar.
She indicated with a counting gesture of her hands that the elder must accept
some payment from her husband to avoid any suspicion.
He nodded, made a prayerful gesture with his hands, then she left his hut before
his wife awoke. Her husband was still sleeping so she let him rest, nuzzling beside him
and listening to his snoring and knowing she had done her best to make him happy,
that this trip would accomplish what they had set out to do. Their possession of the
guitar, she felt, would become more binding than their wedding vows.
They could play
it often as a reminder of their mutual dedication to each other.
When the husband awoke, he found his wife sleeping soundly beside him.
Pablo called to him from outside their hut, “The elder has changed his mind!
Come and he will make an exchange for the guitar!”
Excitedly the American couple quickly dressed and came to the center of the
village where they were greeted by an assembly of fifty villagers of various genders
and ages. All had turned out for the exchange.
“What does this mean?” the husband asked.
“His son tells me this is an important pact between you and the elder which
requires the witnessing by his entire village,” Pablo said. “Come, we must follow them
to their scared place.”
The American couple shrugged at each other and followed. Only a ten-minute
walk from the center of the village, but in the opposite direction of their recent
expeditions to Mayan ruins, they came to a wide crevasse much like the one they’d
seen several days ago. In full headdress and with a chorus of woodwind instruments
made from hollow jungle flora, the elder, holding the guitar with outstretched arms,
came to the edge of the crevasse.
With his wife at his side, the husband stood face-to-face with the elder, who
uttered a chant in his ancient Mayan tongue that was echoed by the villagers
surrounding them. The elder nodded to the husband, then to the wife, and bowed his
head. The elder’s son nodded to the husband’s Rolex watch.
“He wants your watch,” his wife nudged him.
The husband removed the watch and placed it in the Elder’s son’s outstretched
hand. Then his son pointed to the husband’s gold wedding band.
The husband grumbled under his breath, but his wife put a hand on his shoulder
and nodded with her approval.
Then she pulled off her diamond ring and placed it in the
son’s open hand with a gesture of personal sacrifice.
“We must have this guitar at any cost,” she said under her breath.
The son nodded to the wife’s digital camera, which made her hesitate, wanting
her photos of this memorable trip of a lifetime. The son glared at her, so she removed
the SIM card and handed the camera to him.
He slung the camera over
his shoulder by
its strap.
“What more could he want?” the husband stammered.
The elder smiled broadly with a sallow grin of crooked teeth that gave the
wife a chill, recalling last night. Before the Americans knew what hit them, the elder
threw his guitar into the crevasse. The instrument made several discordant sounds 
as it bounced off treetops below then lay atop one tree’s canopy in clear sight from
above.
The villagers let out a prime-evil shrill as Pablo and the son exchanged a heated
discourse.
“What the hell!” the husband gasped.
His wife glared at the elder.
Pablo took the Americans aside. “He says if you can get the guitar, it’s yours
for the taking, and he’ll return your trinkets as well.”
Through the husband mind ran all the stunts he’d accomplished in his movies.
The enchanting sound of the guitar echoed in his head.
“You can’t!” his wife pleaded. “It’s too dangerous. It’s not worth it.”
“It’s priceless,” he retorted. “I can do this. I must have it.”
Over the next hour, she watched along with the villagers as her husband
courageously climbed down the side of the crevasse. More than just a movie star,
he was resourceful and took the chance that the tree’s canopy would support him
from a short height when he jumped off the side of the crevasse just ten feet above
the broad leaves.
Oohs and aahs came from the villagers over his remarkable determination. When
he took the guitar in hand they cheered him. He stroked a chord that rang as true as the
night before, but with that strum, the branch he sat on broke. He let out a scream that gagged his wife.
She peered over the edge with hope that her heroic mate would make a
remarkable escape as he always had in every film. She trembled with her back to the
villagers, wondering if she had the courage to jump, joining her husband before she’d
be forced over the edge.
She had to have her last say and turned toward the elder. “We had a deal!” she
shouted, but he just nodded for his son to toss her husband’s watch,
their rings, and the camera over the side of the crevasse.
Last tangible reminders of her husband.
When Pablo pleaded with the son, three villagers grabbed him, lifted him off
his feet, then swung him by his hands and feet and threw him far over the edge with
a scream that reverberated from the depth of the crevasse.
Horrified, the wife backed away from the edge of the bottomless pit. She felt
certain of her fate, but prepared herself not to go without a fight.
Having concentrated
solely on her husband’s efforts, she hadn’t paid much attention to the other villagers
gathered around her. She was sure she would be quickly grabbed and tossed over
the side just like Pablo.
Then a promenade of female villagers was led by the elder’s wife toward
where she stood. The old woman bowed her head to the American, then the other
women surrounded the elder’s wife.
The movie star assumed this Mayan culture thought less of women and the
elder’s wife would have the lesser honor of shoving her over the side to complete
the ritual . But the village women led the old woman to the edge of the crevasse where
she gracefully took a long swan dive on her own. There was no scream of terror, only
the sound of braking branches from her impact below.
The long silence that followed was suddenly broken with a musical chord of
great volume that reverberated through the jungle. The American woman turned to
the villagers and saw that each had a guitar like the elder’s. All had the same
unmistakable sound that she’d hoped would be the unique sound she’d share for the
rest of her blissful life with her husband recalling this wonderful adventure.
My husband, she thought, surely he isn’t dead. Either I’m having a bad dream
or he’ll soon be back to rescue me from this nightmare.
For the next month, she was awakened with wishful thoughts that her husband
would emerge unscathed from that pit of hell and come to her rescue. But the vultures
that circled the crevasse and swooped down and returned to flight with strands of
carrion from their sharp beaks told her otherwise. A rancid smell of decay wafted daily
from the crevasse and would until the rainy season came to wash the crevasse clean.
She thought about how this trip of a lifetime had not turned out like any of her
husband’s thriller flicks.
Sometimes the elder would mistake her laughter as joy clutched
as she would be nightly in his embrace,
but she was laughing maniacally about how this
wonderful vacation had turned into a bad joke
that none of her
Hollywood friends would get.
She laughed and blubbered simultaneous, disappointed in herself that she’d
never have the courage of the old woman to jump on her own into the crevasse.
The elder cocked his head and just stared at her with curiosity when she had
these daily hysterical mood swings.
She said the same thing every night,
but in a language the elder couldn’t understand:
“It’s a bad joke on us, babe . . . truly priceless.”
 

THE LITTLE BLUE FROG,

THE AZTEC LEGEND OF CHOCOLATE

An Aztec Folktale Retold by Dianne de Las Casas

© Copyright 2008 The Story Connection

The Sun God, Nanahuazin, smiled as he looked at
his precious treasure on the banks of the Great Pond.

It was the cacao tree, from which the cacao pods grew.

Hidden inside the pod was the secret food of the Gods, the cacao bean.
Every day, Nanahuazin enjoyed his cacao.
Rich and dark, Sun God savored the flavor of his cacao. “This is delicious,” he said as he ate. Nearby, Quetzacoatl, the God of Delight, watched as Sun God devoured the cacao. “So that is where he keeps his cacao,” Quetzacoatl said. Quetzacoatl approached Sun God. “You should share your cacao treasure with the people of the earth.” Nanahuazin laughed, “Ha! Never! This is food meant for the Gods only. I will never share.” Quetzacoatl said, “Earth’s people deserve to taste the divine.” Sun God became angry. “Go, Quetzacoatl! The cacao is not meant for humans!” Quetzacoatl left and transformed himself into a little blue frog. He hid near the banks of Great Pond and watched as Sun God scraped the cacao from inside the pod.

The little blue frog said, “If Nanahuazin will not share his treasure, I will tell Earth’s people about it.”
The little blue frog sat by the edge of the pond near some children and sang,
“Rrrrrreeeeep. Rrrrreeeeeep. Sun God hides his treasure deep. By the pond, inside large pods He hides the secret food of Gods.”
The children heard the song of the little blue frog. They ran to their village. The children returned with their mothers and pointed to the little blue frog. He sang again, “Rrrrrreeeeep. Rrrrreeeeeep. Sun God hides his treasure deep. By the pond, inside large pods He hides the secret food of Gods.”

The children and their mothers heard the song of the little blue frog. They ran to their village. The children returned with their mothers and fathers and pointed to the little blue frog. He sang again, “Rrrrrreeeeep. Rrrrreeeeeep. Sun God hides his treasure deep. By the pond, inside large pods He hides the secret food of Gods.” Listening to the song of the little blue frog, Earth’s people began searching for the treasure. They found a large tree next to the Great Pond. Near the trunk of the tree lay several large pods. Upon opening the pods, they discovered the delicious, secret food of the Gods, the cacao bean. Nanahuazin, the Sun God, was furious but there was nothing he could do. His secret was now known to all of Earth’s people. The Aztec people delighted in the rich, delicious taste of the cacao bean. They cultivated the seeds and grew more trees. They learned to make a delicious hot drink using the cacao bean, which we now call hot cocoa. The Aztec people named the tasty dark substance from the cacao bean Xocoatl.

Today, we know this divine food as Chocolate. 

The Healing Shock


By Alexandra H. Rodrigues


“Please give me three yellow roses, extra long,” Heinz told the shy girl with the blue apron and bare, red arms. For a second she just stood there looking at him, then she hurried into the back room to get the flowers. She marveled what girl it takes to have a man, so handsome, tall, dark-haired and hazel-eyed and quite young, buy her roses. Girls were instantly attracted to Heinz Gormann. He however was not a playboy and knew how to keep his distance while they thought that he admired them. Sure, he liked pretty girls but also the less stunning ones, if they were reasonably intelligent. As plastic surgeon he had helped many an ugly duckling to become attractive. His delicate, sensuous hands were able to produce beauty and therefore he was well aware how superficial it was. He valued character in people far more than outer appearance.
He had always steered away from going steady. Self established for several years, he had no financial problems. His luxurious bachelor apartment was located in Vienna, on the Ring, near the Stephansturm. An exquisite neighborhood. It was kept polished like a mirror, by a maid who came in daily while he was working at the hospital. He dined out alone most of the time as he valued solitude.
Recently a friend had taken him to the Press Ball, while he was on a short visit to Berlin. He had gone to do Kurt, an old friend from the years at the university, a favor. Truthfully he got quickly tired of making meaningless conversation. Waltzing around with exquisitely dressed ladies, the wives of lawyers, editors or journalists, bored him. Many of them were letting him feel that he was welcome to put his shoes under their bed. The ways of modern society did not please him. He had been raised in Innsbruck, a charming village in Austria, surrounded by mountains. His profession frequently exposed him to the liberal trend from which the society today got its kicks but he’d been always careful not to fall for it.
Ruth Weide was different and maybe this was what awoke his interest that day at the ball. She had been sitting at the same long table he and Kurt had joined. She did not take part in the flirtatious competition that was going on. She sat there sipping her coffee, her back quite erect. Obviously she did not want to be bothered. Her light brown, pulled up hair. complimented the pale green of her dress. A small gold pin was the only jewelry she wore, Heinz noticed. Her eyes took in everything, in what seemed an ironic manner. If a man came her way and she sensed that he might ask her to dance, she’d bend her face deep over the coffee cup or started digging for a hanky, pretending to be in thought and thus discouraging the beau.
Heinz had moved down the empty row of chairs, everybody else was up and twisting on the dance floor. He held out his cigarette case to her.
“May I offer you a cigarette?” She’d looked up but her eyes went straight past him, her body kind of motionless.
Her voice was clear and well modulated, “No thank you, I do not smoke.” He’d shrugged, gotten up and asked a red headed beauty to dance. When he returned, Ruth was still at the table, a fresh cup of coffee in front of her. He asked Kurt, who had also returned to the table
“Do you know that girl?” He did not.
“Sorry buddy, never saw her before, seems not much to look at anyhow. I heard her being called Ruth. She seems to be a sour puss. The redhead however, the one you just danced with. Wow. She is the daughter of Mr. Kabiak, the editor of The Star. She is devouring you alive with her looks, better stick to her.”
Then Heinz watched Ruth getting up and with her little evening purse clutched to her body, leave the table. There is rhythm in her walk, he remembered thinking, she has an immaculate figure, slim and well proportioned. She did come back, as he had hoped she would. In the meantime he had become engrossed in a conversation with Mr. Brocker, a well know publisher. Mr. Brocker was inquiring if Heinz had ever written a book on his expertise in the field of Plastic surgery.
“Oh, there comes Ruth” Mr. Brocker had said, “I don’t know what is the matter with that girl; I understand she is a wizard at the office but it seems she does not know how to have a good time.” Mrs. Brocker had come to take her husband over to the bar while Heinz had taken a rain check when the invitation had been extended to him. When the band began to play “Yellow Bird” one of his favorite tunes, Heinz tried again and asked if Ruth wanted to dance. Like in a trance Ruth had gotten up and had let him lead her to the dance floor. He had held her tight and she had not resisted. Her little figure seemed weightless, her movements mechanical but in perfect rhythm with the music.
Heinz had said, ”You don’t have much fun, do you? Do you wish you hadn’t come?” Again he had noticed those ironic lines around her full lips. “It is always the same, I really do not belong here and truthfully I really want no part of it anyhow. I only came, so I won’t lose my job. One has to pretend to be sociable ever now and then.” For the first time she had lifted up her head and looked fully at him, and at the same time a change occurred in her. She’d kept looking at him fascinated. The astonishment and admiration in her look made him feel nearly embarrassed, he hurried to introduce himself. “I am Dr. Gormann. I am here on a short visit. My friend Kurt brought me along.”


“Oh you are a doctor, what kind of a doctor?”
“A plastic surgeon, something you would hardly have any need of.”
She had blushed and it had made her look very sweet. Then back came the irony and the mask. “I am glad you are no an internist. I have lost faith in those. My father passed away two months ago. He was just having what was called a simple operation, but he died under the knife. My mother passed away last year. The doctor was not willing to make a house call and she had a hemorrhage.
”I am sorry to hear that.”
Heinz was surprised how matter of fact she had informed him. The band had played its last tune. He had felt sorry for Ruth. Those unpleasant memories most likely caused her solemn demeanor. “You are alone here, so may I take you home?” he had asked. She had not answered for a while, just continued looking at him and suddenly tears had started running down her cheeks.
“Yes please take me home” she had agreed. He had put his arm around her shoulder and without making any conversation they had made it to Ruth’s building, not too far away from where they had met. She had not asked him to come in when they got there but had given him her phone number.
He had called her the next evening, only to see if she was all right and when she had invited him over then he had not wanted to hurt her and had gone. Then it had happened. Ruth had confided in him that she had been engaged but her fiancé had found a better life in America and married abroad. She had held back on nothing and while she was talking she changed from the wise girl he had met to a woman in despair, short of begging for love. Again afraid to hurt her, he had made love to her but he certainly had not ever mentioned that he loved her, after all he hardly knew her. He did not love her; actually he hardly was any longer interested in her. It had been hard to convince her to stay in Berlin under the pretext that she would feel lonely in Vienna as he always had a very busy work schedule. She was willing to give up her job having suddenly snapped out of her numbness. He was not be so blunt as to tell her that he had absolutely no feeling for her. That the fling they had had was just a gesture to calm her. Twice since then had he been back to Berlin to see her and now what?
He took the yellow roses which the girl had arranged nicely with fresh, green sprigs and hailed a taxi. “Hotel Sacher, please.”
Vera will like those roses he thought; probably she will comment on the color. It had been quite on purpose that he had chosen yellow and not red roses. Vera was the girl who stimulated his erotic senses. He had met her a couple of months ago at the farewell party for Ellen, one of his patients. It had all been so uncomplicated, so natural. Vera had come with him after the party to his place and they had made love, two grown-ups, knowing exactly what they wanted from each other. Vera was absolutely undemanding. Never did she ask him if he loved her. She worked as a model for Herzmanski on Maria Hilfer Street. She didn’t seem to put any value on sentiments and that suited him fine. Whenever they were together, they had a good time and laughed a lot. He had not much time but Vera made herself available as often as possible. Her black hair would fall in gay little curls over her shoulders and jumped dancingly along her back when he told a joke or story from his day at the hospital. She would understand when he had no time, and she too had an erratic schedule. She knew about Ruth but did not ask any questions.
As usual Vera had picked the hidden nook at the back of the café. Again she looked like a picture in the forest green suit with matching beige shoes and handbag.
“How sweet of you to bring me flowers,” she greeted him when she saw him coming. “Yellow?” she smirked. “Not sure if you are courting me?”
He kissed her lightly on the cheek. Her exotic perfume tickled his nostrils and was promising more of the excitement that was always prevailing when they were together. They both had Campari with soda and a twist of lemon. Vera was bubbling as usual. Full of stories about buyers, photographers and her boss, who was an old geezer, like she described him. As a rule Heinz enjoyed to listen to those rather amusing anecdotes but today his heart was not in it when he laughed. He waited for a pause in one of her tales and then decided to better get it over with.
“Darling.” he began, “I have to make a confession. Funny, you actually never ask me to confess, he tried to joke. You know Ruth, that lonely girl in Berlin I had mentioned to you, she is clinging to me although I never gave her a reason to believe that she meant anything to me. We had a fling and as far as I am concerned, that was it. Nothing serious at all. Well this morning I got a letter from her that she has vacation and is coming here, to Vienna, tomorrow to be with me.”
Heinz was relieved that Vera had not interrupted him. She was sipping her Campari, looking into the glass, fishing for the lemon wedge, not looking at him. So he continued.
” She cannot compare to you. She leaves me totally cold erotically. To be honest, we did sleep together a few times. She so much seems to need the feeling of being loved but I am not the one to give that to her. I am just waiting for the right time to tell her that it is over, that it actually never was.” He stopped. Vera looked hurt Was she jealous after all?
“Why do you tell me all that? You know you are free. I never ask you.” She pushed away the now empty Campari glass and shook her head, when he asked, “Want another one?” There was no emotion in her voice, it sounded crisp and harsh when very quietly she said:”You probably tell your Berlin chick a sentimental story about me too. Don’t bother to explain further, I will get out of your life right now.” She got up. Threw over her leather coat, while pushing his hand away, as he tried to help her and while already leaving called out to him: ”I know you don’t mind to pay for the cocktails, although it is a waste today.”
He did not rush to follow her, instead he picked on some of the leaves of the roses that had remained laying on the table. This was not the reaction he had expected from her. So she was jealous. She too had wanted to hold him. Maybe it was better like this. He’d loved her body and her spontaneity but besides that … He had no desire to spend his time figuring out female emotions. They always choose him. He liked it, but he never was the first to make an advance.
His career was his love. He was on his way to become a top authority in his field. It satisfied him to be borderline brilliant in his work. Creating beautiful specimens of noses, breasts and chins for the female race satisfied his emotions.
It was Vera’s fault that she had taken it so seriously. He would have liked to stay with her. Possibly one day it might have gotten to be a deeper relationship. For Ruth, well that was truly nothing but pity. He did not want her to fall back into that stereotype lingering she had displayed when he met her at the party. So she would be here tomorrow. What a nerve to come so out of the blue. He would not be able to pick her up from the airport. When her plane landed he would
be busy performing a face lift on the rich Mrs. Bozena. He could send some flowers to the hotel to greet her. But no, better not. No use making believe he was delighted to see her. She would have to face the facts soon enough.
Ruth was holding on tight to the armrest of the economy seat in the 737 aircraft that brought her from Berlin to Vienna. Flying was not her cup of soup. She could not understand how so many pretty girls, like that stewardess who was serving the cocktails right now, enjoyed to make a living in such a dangerous job. Heights scared her. At home she did not even dare to climb on a ladder for fear of falling. She took a little rhinestone-covered mirror out of her purse. The face that looked at her did please her. Methodically she had picked a navy blue dress with white buttons. A quite youthful, playful style. She was always conscious of her age when with Heinz. She was a year younger than he, but he was so vigorous that she always felt too set in her ways. It must have been his influence that had made her do what she had done. To just pack and go was so not at all like her. By now he must have gotten her letter. She had not phoned, afraid he might have an excuse to make her change her decision. She was proud of him, he always worked so hard. Whenever she had mentioned that she would come to Vienna to stay with him, he had been so evasive; always it was his work he wanted nothing to interfere with. She would not be a burden to him. On the contrary, she would keep his apartment clean; he could get rid of the maid. She would cook for him and spoil him when he comes home from work. No question she was looking forward to make herself useful. She could even type his reports. She wanted to move in with him. He had not proposed yet but he would come around. She had not mentioned anything to him other than that she was having vacation. No, he did not know that she had quit her job to be with him for good. He would be so surprised. She wasn’t really the career girl he thought her to be. They would get married soon and she would be there for him only and – maybe for their child, if they were meant to have one soon. Ruth was so old-fashioned in her mind that it never occurred to her that Heinz might have completely different ideas. Her upbringing had been that of a sheltered only child. The facts of real life had only recently come into play for her.
Heinz was not at the airport but she picked up a message at the Hotel desk informing her that he would come over as soon as he finished at the hospital. She ordered a snack and then sat in the somewhat stuffy room waiting for him. The three hours since she had gotten here had passed very slowly. It was five o’clock now. Couldn’t he have called her? Shouldn’t he have called her? She stared thoughtfully at the telephone. Now, now calm down she told herself. If he is performing an operation he could not just run out and call her, he was a doctor, not an office worker. Nevertheless, she was getting nervous. Her body felt shaky. She had gone thru that quite often lately. Maybe it was because she missed him so much when he was not with her. She took a little blue pill out of her purse and went into the bathroom to get a glass of water. That would help. A doctor had given that medication to her after her father’s death, when she had been close to a nervous breakdown. She opened the window and the fresh air felt good. She inhaled deeply the scented autumn air. It was a nice day, mild and sunny. The clock from the Church Maria across the street chimed six. She got some more water, and when she glance into the mirror over the double sink, what she saw did not flatter her. She looked pale; the waiting was wearing her out. She dabbed on fresh lipstick and passed the brush thru her soft hair.
There was a knock on the door. “Come in,” she called and her heart started singing – It must be him, it must be him.
At about the same time Vera was sitting in her quite elegant apartment. Dressed in a long, flowing Chinese robe, loose gold slippers on her manicured feet. A cocktail in her hand, she looked extremely comfortable. To tell the truth it only looked like it. Ever since yesterday, since the breakup with Heinz, her pride, her usually always evident self-confidence, had suffered. Still convinced that she had done the right thing to walk out on Heinz, it hurt more than she would admit even to herself. He was such a good looking man, so intriguing, his touch so gentle yet his love making so powerful. He had – masculinity – written all over him. Why had he told her about Ruth? He could have used any old excuse, business, an out-of-town meeting where his presence was requested or something in that line. She really did not care about the other girl. Only yesterday, after the break up had she given their relationship a serious thought. He had all the qualifications she had always looked for in a man. Together they were a stunning couple. They were competitive on most levels. He would have been quite a catch, but she too was the dream for many an eligible man. She mixed herself another Martini. So since she thought he was worth fighting for, why didn’t she? Suddenly she no longer wanted him just on a casual – sex maybe today, maybe tomorrow level -- now she wanted him for a husband. Was it that second Martini? Anyhow she was going to find a way she told herself. It wouldn’t hurt to apologize to him, for a start. Men liked that. Then she would work at proving to him that he could not find a better match but her.
When Ruth woke up the next morning it took her a while to recognize the surroundings. Oh yes, she was in Vienna, at the Hotel Gerber. Why Hotel Gerber, why not in Heinz’s apartment? Slowly the night’s sluggishness left her and she remembered. He had been happy to see her. He had been very tired. Most important she had gotten the feeling that something was missing when he had kissed her lightly on the lips. There was no passion, none of the excitement she had pictured. Then they had gone out for dinner, just in the restaurant downstairs of the hotel. A nice but hardly cozy place. He had told her about his latest successes. He’d been attentive, chivalrous, had even ordered a bottle of champagne but he had not asked her to come with him but shortly after desert excused himself with being extremely tired. He had left. Not even took her up to her room again. She had come up to this room herself, alone, had taken three more of the blue pills and must have fallen asleep instantly.
Well today was another day and they had agreed to meet at eleven. What time was it now? Oh, only seven thirty. Heinz was taking the day off for her. So everything was good after all. They would go mountain climbing. – Mountain climbing?! The realization went thru her like an electric shock. It turned her stomach. She had agreed, had not wanted to appear chicken. She had come to Vienna to share his interests -- but mountain climbing of all things. It was his favorite sport he had told her. Of course, he had been brought up with the mountains at his fingertips, used to go up those monstrous hills with ropes and spikes. One could rent the equipment at the foot of the mountain one planned to conquer. Maybe she could make an excuse and tell him she didn’t feel good. But no, she better learn to like what he liked, even if she only pretended. A maid brought the breakfast she had ordered but she could not make herself eat anything, all she did was sip on the coffee absentmindedly.
Later that morning Ruth went to the store. which Heinz had told her to go to and rented the boots she would need. Even on the polished floor of the shop they felt like clumsy alien weights, and Ruth was wondering how she would ever be able to even take a single step in those monsters when on the mountain. Back in her room she threw the package with the boots on a chair and sat down quickly on the bed. She felt shaky, her hands and legs were trembling and the more she thought about the pending excursion, the worse it got. Heinz must not catch on about that fear was her biggest worry, and to calm down, she took a blue pill.
It was a lovely, clear day with just the slightest breath of fog hanging over the Semmering Valley. Heinz put down the backpack with all the equipment. Aware that Ruth was unusually quiet, he put his arms around her and pointed her face upwards, “I know you have never done that before. You will see it is a big thrill once we get up high, you’ll enjoy it. All you have to do is follow into my footsteps and hold on tightly to the rope. I’ll be ahead and do all the securing. There is nothing to worry about. Just make sure you get good footing with each step. Don’t shift your weight till you are sure the spikes have caught in the ground. It’s child play right now, the grounds are not slippery. I have gone up there several times in real bad conditions and then it was quite a challenge.
It took them about an hour to get through the fog layer. Ruth felt paralyzed and was moving as if in a trance. But she advanced, mechanically, step by step, her gaze fixed on Heinz’s athletic figure ahead of her. He was the only reality in that evil dream. She was so afraid. Too afraid to open her mouth and ask Heinz to stop for a minute because her ankles hurt from the uncommon foot wear. She was afraid to look back, afraid to stop, afraid, afraid -.
Then the fog lifted and glaring sunlight caused Ruth to turn her head. She stared down to the valley, far away, deep beneath them. A queasy sensation filled her stomach and her head began to spin. She did not hear Heinz call out for her to look ahead and not down. Her left foot slipped. She grabbed the rope that was tightening around her waist, with both hands. The knot loosened. The rope slipped up her chest toward her neck. She tried for a hold on the stones, digging her hands into them, but missed. The rope stopped at her neck, tightened and she choked, her body going limp.
It could not have taken more than a split second when Heinz felt the pull.
“RUTH!”
No answer. Slowly, as there was no other way, he crawled back down to where Ruth’s body was hanging, lopsided along the mountain wall. Quickly he untied the rope.
“Ruth, Ruth, oh no Ruth!” All the while his hands were patting her face that was tinged pale and green. It hammered in his head. She is dead, dead, I have killed her.
Like in a mental fog he started his climb down. Why, why had it happened, how had it happened? There had been nothing complicated about this climb. He had been up those mountains as guide for friends on many much more complicated tracks. It always had been fun, never the slightest mishap had occurred. Carelessly, like drunk, he continued his way down. His goal to get help as he could not help Ruth anymore. It’s your fault, his brain hammered. No, not
that she slipped, or had she even slipped. He should not have taken her along. He should not have asked her to dance with him at the ball. She should not have come to Vienna. The stress of the situation overwhelmed him. His hands went numb, his feet gave way. He tumbled and lost consciousness.
“Dr. Weinstein, please tell me how he is! Can I see him?” Vera was standing in Dr. Weinstein’s office. She was wearing no makeup but her brown eyes were intense and begging him for a cheerful answer. Dr. Weinstein looked approvingly at the young woman. She was very attractive. Then his face clouded.
“Ms. Karann, I understand you are a close friend of Dr. Gormann and maybe you can help me. We do not know what caused Dr. Gormann to black out. He is known to be a good and cautious climber. As a matter of fact I have gone with him myself. He also has written an article in a sports magazine about a very complicated excursion he had been on just recently. Where he was found was very close to the plateau and truly not that steep.”
He shook his head and Vera felt that she would hear no good. It seems that we have to do with a preliminary shock or stroke before the fall. Vera thought her heart was skipping some beats.
“Please God, let him get well,” she prayed silently. Then she told Dr. Weinstein, “I have not seen Heinz for the last few days. He had some company from Berlin, a girlfriend. I wonder where she is now. I found out about the accident when I called his office.” Dr. Weinstein asked:”Do you know the name of the girl?” “The first name is Ruth, I do not know more but I recall that Heinz mentioned she would stay at the Hotel Gerber. The thought of Heinz behind one of those closed doors to the right and left where they were standing in the hallway made her terribly uneasy. “Doctor, may I see him?” she pleaded.
Ruth’s body had slipped downward and come to rest on a tree stump, the left-over of one of the small mountain pines that can be found sparingly at the lower levels. She opened her eyes, using all her willpower to do so. With a deep breath she filled her lungs with the fresh mountain air, then, noticing her surroundings, she nearly fainted again. What had happened? How had she gotten into this spot? Where was Heinz? She gave out a little cry, “Heinz.” Then she saw the rope that had been thrown carelessly about two arm lengths away from her and again she cried, in panic, “Heinz, Heinz!” No answer. There was absolute stillness around her, nothing but mountains with the sun sinking in anemic light and hiding behind some peaks. It seemed quite far up. She could make out some of the houses in the valley and to her the distance stretched into endlessness. Everything hurt; she was shivering with fear and cold. Heinz must have climbed down for help, she thought trying to calm herself. If I just stay here and don’t move, I’ll be safe till he comes back. It was getting dark fast, and Ruth wept and shivered.
The wooden chair in the white hospital room on which Vera had been sitting for, she didn’t know how long, was hard and uncomfortable but she did not care. Her eyes never left Heinz’s face for a second. He was lying motionless under white, unwrinkled sheets. His usually so telling face, expressionless. There was some dried blood near his forehead and a scar was beginning to form.
“Heinz,” Vera whispered and went over to his bed. He gave no sign that he heard her. A nurse came in to give him an injection.
“Are you his wife?” she asked. “No, a friend, he is not married,” Vera answered. She felt no reaction to the question. She was his friend. The nurse pulled the sheet up to his chin and left the room. “Heinz?” again no answer.
Dr. Weinstein came in after a little while and told her:”We called the hotel. Miss Weide, that’s the ladies name, had only reservations till this afternoon. It seems she left this morning but all her belongings are still in the room, she had not come back by the time I called and there was no message from her.”
Vera’s mind worked feverishly. “Was it possible that Ruth had gone with Heinz?”
She suggested to Dr Weinstein. He shook his head. Then she would have been around to help him, right? But it had been a tourist, a Mr. Rhein, who had found Heinz and alerted the ambulance. One of the few, who care about other people. Dr. Weinstein went over to Heinz to feel his pulse and remained standing at the bedside thinking about what Vera had mentioned.
“On the other hand something must have caused the accident,” Vera suggested. “Could it be that something had also happened to her?” No, Dr. Weinstein did not think so but he agreed “Well, it’s a very small possibility indeed but since you brought it up…” We better send some mountain police to search the area. I would not want to have missed something. With that he left the room and went to make arrangements.
When Vera came back into the hospital room, after grabbing a small bite of food for dinner in the cafeteria, she thought to detect a slight twitching of the right eyelid. “Heinz?” He did not open his eyes but Vera seemed to have heard “Ruth, Ruth, oh please help. Too late.” The coma closed in on him again.
Dr. Weinstein came back. “I’ve made arrangements and a search group is going to the mountain right now. I’m afraid though that they will be out of luck one way or another, it is getting dark.” Vera interrupted. “Heinz came to for a second and she repeated what she believed to have heard. Dr. Weinstein smiled. He was obviously satisfied that there had been a sign from his patient. “That brings us closer to your theory. Usually when people awake from a shock, unless they are in amnesia, they remember the last thing that happened before they blacked out.”
Ruth could not stop shivering. As pleasant as the weather during the day had been, the sweater she was wearing did not give enough coverage from the cold night that was starting to roll in. She must have dozed off from fatigue because now the lights in the little houses in the valley were on and the mountaintops had disappeared in the darkness. Where was Heinz? Why hadn’t he come back? She coiled together to absorb some warmth from her own body. If only anybody would come and help her out of this nightmare, anybody. What did she really know about Heinz? Nothing, and yet for the last couple of months he alone had been all she’d cared for. He had pulled her out of her agony. Weird that in the situation she was in, life suddenly became so
desirable. With or without Heinz. She did not want to die. To be alive, alive was all that mattered.
Vera was still sitting across the bed, when darkness sat in. How selfish she had been. She had wanted Heinz to be there for her and for her alone and now he could not even take care of himself. “Please God,” she prayed again, “let him come out of his unconscious abyss. Let him get well. Let me see him walk and talk and laugh. I’ll be his friend. He is free to decide what direction his life should take. Just let him live!”
Heinz’s eyelids twitched again. This time he fully opened his eyes but his look was blank. He said: “Where is Ruth? Ruth? God no she is dead.” Then his eyes closed and so did his lips. Vera was shocked by what she had just heard and she rushed to find Dr. Weinstein.
It was about noontime the day when Dr. Weinstein entered Vera’s room at the hospital, where she had retired late last night to take a short nap which had resulted in a solid eight hours sleep. “Good morning to our girl with the seventh sense,” he greeted her. Still drowsy Vera looked at him questioningly and she could sense from the cheerful manner that the news he had, was good news. “The lady, Ruth, was stranded up on the hill, she was brought in late last night, close to fatigue but well otherwise, just a few scrapes.” Vera was glad to hear that but how was Heinz. “And Heinz?” she asked. “Well, the medicine we gave him let him sleep some more, his pulse and other vital signs are quite normal again and the nurse just told me that he is awake now. So let’s go and surprise him, shall we? Get yourself pretty.” Dr. Weinstein had a plan and Vera agreed.
Heinz was lying on his back apathetically staring at the ceiling, when Dr. Weinstein came in.
“Well Heinz, I think you are well enough for a surprise,” Heinz turned his face just enough to be able to focus on Dr. Weinstein. He had no use for surprises but how could the doctor know that? The recollection of yesterday made him wish he could fall back into that black nothingness. No, he had no use for surprises.
The door opened a tiny crack and Heinz could see Vera. Dear Vera, so that was the surprise. How had she found out? It was nice of her to come and visit him. He put his hand to his cheek. It hurt where the scar had begun to form. He wished it would hurt harder, hard enough to block out even an iota of the mental pain he was suffering. Seeing Vera made the guilt feel even more real. She knew he had wanted to get rid of Ruth but, God in heaven, not getting rid of her in such traumatic way. My fault, my fault it kept hammering in his mind while visions of a lifeless body of Ruth made his brain blurry. What did Vera know or not know? Heinz was praying to lose consciousness but that of course did not happen.
Now the door was flung all the way open and – wow I am slipping back into the coma Heinz imagined, because behind Vera he saw Ruth’s face, pale but smiling at him. Smiling, breathing, alive – oh merciful illusions stay, please stay it spun thru Heinz’s mind. Then he heard Dr. Weinstein’s voice, clear, loud. “So, you like surprises after all, right?” A never before gratefulness swept over him, the voice of the doctor sounded like precious crystal. All Heinz could do, was nod.
Was it Ruth who had taken Vera’s hand or Vera who had taken Ruth’s? Hand in hand they came over to the bed and simultaneously they bent down and placed a kiss on his healthy cheek. I don’t deserve either one of them, Heinz thought. If I could marry them both, I would do so on the spot. The future is not ours to see, that lesson he had now learned in a very short period of time. He looked at the two women and he meant it when he said: “You both are the Best, thank you.” and quietly he promised himself to never hurt the feelings of either one of them. It may not become easy but he would find a way.

A Novel Excerpt


The Lost Book of Annabella ©


by


Gerald Arthur Winter


​

The sound, like distant thunder, shook the cave.
“Did you hear that?” Ted asked Ellen.
She stopped interpreting the text of the papyrus script to look in the direction of the
sound echoing down the cave’s entrance shaft. Both jumped to their feet.
“Khalil!” Ellen called in the direction of the explosion.
There was no reply, only the trickling sound of spring water down the cave’s walls and
the heaving of their breath.
“Khalil!” Ted shouted louder, but with no reply from their Jordanian guide.
“Maybe a rock slide?” Ellen offered, but she and Ted knew that a cave-in at their
excavation would be more dangerous than uninvited intruders.
“Hope not,” Ted said, taking his lantern. “Better have a look.”
Ellen sensed Ted’s anxiety. Though she wanted to go with him to check out the source
of the explosion, she stayed back clinging to the papyrus scroll they had unearthed from the
cave. Intuitively, she sensed the value of the ancient script and what it might unveil.
Ted disappeared up the shaft to the next level which meandered for almost a quarter
mile to the surface overlooking The Dead Sea from a high cliff. Ellen’s mind was more on the
preservation of the scrolls and what they contained than any physical dangers she might face.
In her interpretation of the Aramaic, she empathized with the young girl, Annabella, half 
Hebrew and half Roman, in her flight from Jerusalem pursued by the Roman guards into the
desert wilderness.
Like Annabella, Ellen had avoided the attentions of men. Ellen’s intimacy was with her
search for knowledge and truth.
Ted had not returned from the shaft after fifteen minutes, so rather than panicking,
she let her mind drift back into the ancient world she had been reading about from the
scroll. Ellen could not see herself standing up to her accusers from the Roman court as
Annabella’s Hebrew mother, Amanda, had. She could not imagine making the sacrifice
of marrying a terrible man like Jozabad just to save her daughter.
Ellen read, wondering what Amanda would do if the stallion, Zoar, was not reclaimed
From the Roman before Jozabad returned from horse trading in Arabia? Jozabad would soon
return after months in the desert with his mind set on Amanda giving him a son. If he found
his prize stallion was missing, what would he do to Amanda?
Ellen brushed her fingertips across the delicate papyrus and tried to visualize Jozabad,
a burly man with a jet black beard and spiraling moustache. His large-lobed ears would be
pendulous from the weight of gold earrings. His eyes would be black, deep-set, with dark circles
around them. His voice would be gruff and phlegmatic when he spoke Aramaic. It would be a
charming voice when whispering into a potential customer’s ear, but harsh and curt when
forcing his will upon Amanda. Despite the oriental fragrances he donned, Jozabad would
remain redolent of hay, horse sweat, and manure.
Ellen heard scuffling from the shaft, expecting Ted’s return, but her mind remained on
Amanda, and what she could be thinking when Jozabad returned. The threatening image of the
horse trader would fill the doorway when he entered. The sordid glare in his dark eyes would
make Amanda quiver, Ellen thought, but approaching steps and lantern light came from the
cave’s shaft as Ellen nestled guardedly over the scroll.
“Did Khalil bring fresh water?” Ellen asked, then she saw the fierce scowl of a Palestinian
with a colorfully-patterned burnoose cocked on his head. “Who are you?” she asked. “This cave
has been protected by the Israeli Antiquities Authority.”
Ted came from the shadows into the lantern’s beam with his hands raised. An automatic
rifle was pressed to Ted’s ribs.
“Israel will be no more,” the Palestinian said. “America is at war with the Muslim nations.”
Ellen stood, cradling the scroll in her arms. The Palestinian pushed Ted against Ellen and
motioned for them to sit.
“What are you doing in this cave?” he asked them. “Spying on us?”
“This is an authorized dig. I have the documents to prove it,” Ted said, reaching for a
handkerchief in his breast pocket to wipe the grime from his glasses.
“Don’t!” he warned Ted, pointing the rifle at his head.
“I just want to clean my glasses. We have no weapons,” Ted said. “We’re archaeologists.
We’ve been on this project for months.”
“Where’s the rest of your patrol?” the intruder asked.
“Patrol?” Ellen said. “We’re scientists not military.”
“Undercover CIA,” the Palestinian challenged.
“We have a right to be here,” Ellen protested. “Who are you?”
With a twisted grin that reminded Ellen of her conjured image of the horse trader,
Jozabad, he said. “I am your worst nightmare, blessed by Allah to take infidel hostages to trade
for our own.”
“You’re just a just a terrorist,” Ellen said, surprised by her courage. “Where do you
intend to take us?”
“He can’t take us anywhere,” Ted said. “There was an explosion of some kind at the
entrance to the site with a cave-in that’s trapped us here.”
“Where is your patrol?” Ellen asked.
“Not far, I assure you.”
“The cave-in has completely shut us off from the surface,” Ted said.
“Even if you had a hundred soldiers on the other side of this cave-in,” Ellen said,
“no one can get to us for days, maybe weeks.”
She saw the look of panic in Ted’s expression, having confided in her from the start
of their expedition that he was claustrophobic. His anxiety shortened his breath.
“Even if we had enough oxygen to last us a week, we’d die of thirst or starvation
before anyone could dig us out,” Ted said.
“You might as well put that rifle away,” Ellen said. “We wouldn’t know what do
with a gun anyway.”
“You are my hostages!” their captor shouted firing a shot over their heads, but the
bullet ricocheted off the cave’s wall and struck him in the thigh. The gunfire echoed through
the cavern followed by another tremor from another cave-in close by.
Ellen moved toward him but their would-be captor pointed the rifle at her with one
shaking arm and the other clutched his wound.
“Smart move with the gun,” she said. Another shot like that and we’ll be buried alive.”
“She’s right,” Ted said, “If you don’t let us stop your bleeding, you’ll die.”
Lifting his bloody hand to his face, the Palestinian’s eyes dilated and he fell to the
ground in a faint.
“Get me the first aid kit, Ted,” Ellen said.
“First, I’ll take his rifle.”
“Just toss it over there,” she said. “We’ve got to stop his bleeding.”
As she applied a tourniquet, Ted rummaged through the man’s backpack.
“He’s got plenty of rations,” Ted said, taking a swig of water from the man’s canteen.
“Hey! Take it easy with that water,” Ellen said. “We’ve got to start rationing supplies
if we hope to last till someone digs us out.”
“There’s no more than ten days’ worth of food here,” he said. “I never thought this
canned crap could ever look good to me and . . . I don’t believe it. This is U.S. government
issue. Must have stolen it off one of ours, unless . . . I hope we’re not feeding the enemy.”
“Yes, that’s just what we’re doing, Ted.”
“What are you saying?”
“We have to ration food and water for three.”
“You’ve got to be kidding! He’s a terrorist.”
“You don’t know that. He just tried to intimidate us with a warning shot. It’s pointless
to bind his would if we intend to let him starve.”
“Good for your sense of decency, but yes—pointless. We’d be fools to share the food
with him.”
They glared at each other.
“Let’s get back to work, Ted.”
“Work? You must be kidding.”
“It’s what we came here to do. It will help pass the time until someone finds us. Reading
the scroll takes less energy than arguing. I’ll read my translation aloud to you. Just hand me the
canteen so I can wet my lips first.”
Her lips barely touched the canteen then she licked them. Ted nodded for her to drink
more, but she shook her head. Her determination shamed Ted. He swallowed hard, eyeing the
open mouth of the canteen, but tightened the cap without drinking. Proud of his gesture he
looked to Ellen for praise, but she wouldn’t applaud him just for doing the right thing.
Ellen recapped where she had stopped reading: “Jozabad had left Amanda to tend to his
horse trading business in Jerusalem while he went to Arabia to bring back more horses to sell
for Roman chariots. Amanda had made a deal with Justin, a Roman from the court, allowing
him to borrow Jozabad’s prize stud, Zoar, in exchange for her freedom from prosecution in
Rome where she had killed her father-in-law, Senator Antonius Valens, in self-defense. Being
a Jew, her guilty verdict in trial was certain. Her teenage daughter, Annabella, had witnessed
her mother’s transaction with Justin, realizing the worthlessness of a woman in Roman society.
Fathered by a Roman, Annabella was a Roman citizen, though she’d never left Jerusalem where
she was born. Even as a Roman citizen, she could lose her reputation by slander and be stripped
of her virtue by word of mouth as easily as her physical violation.”
“Aren’t you taking poetic license with your interpretation?” Ted charged.
“It’s a paraphrased summary. The text is in Aramaic,” Ellen said, continuing her
reading and transporting her back to 18 A.D. . .


Amanda’s repulsion of Jozabad’s grotesquely distorted face was masked with a purpose.
She approached him with open arms then faced Annabella with confidence.
“Come daughter, embrace your step-father after his hard ordeal and abuse at the hands
of thankless Romans. We’ve much to celebrate with his return and our new fortune.”
Annabella shuttered at the touch of Jozabad embracing his new wife and his step-
daughter in each arm.
“I’ll celebrate when I’ve seen Zoar,” Jozabad said, squinting his one good eye at Amanda.
“And so you shall, first thing in the morning,” Amanda said. “But now you must bathe,
eat heartily, and seal our partnership in the flesh as well as with silver.”
Annabella was horrified at her mother’s offer to this repulsive man, but Amanda gave
her a wink to assure her she had something cunning up her sleeve. Jozabad eyed Amanda with
question, measuring the sincerity of her offer.
“I will believe you when you bear me a son, not a moment sooner,” he said. “But be
quick with soap and water and prepare yourself for me. Your Roman courtier will return from
Samaria tomorrow by midday. Pray he doesn’t realize your treachery and deceit. As you can see
from my scars, his violence in behalf of his sponsor, the emperor-to-be, he will show you no
mercy if you are found out.”
“So be it, wise Jozabad,” Amanda flattered, playing into his hand, but merely stalling for
time. “We will conceive your heir this evening then make our run with a fortune of Roman silver
into the Arabian desert led by you astride the fleetest stallion in the land, your precious Zoar.”
“Then Zoar is near?” he asked.
“As close as your feet are to the ground,” Amanda said with a grin. “But he is closer to
our exit from the city, so to move him here tonight when we must journey there tomorrow
would be impractical.”
Jozabad conceded to her reasoning, but as Amanda prepared his bath, she whispered
her true intentions to Annabella.
“While I distract him, you must make your escape with our hidden sack of silver and
your proper Roman papers. I will seek you in Jerusalem one week hence at the entrance to
the temple. If I don’t come, sail to Rome and seek a new life there as a citizen. Forget your
connection to my Jewish blood. It has not served you well.”
“Mother, I can’t bear your making this crude sacrifice to Jozabad just to prolong the
truth about Zoar’s death.”
They embraced and Annabella fought off tears as she ran to the stable to retrieve their
fortune. She knelt in the straw, tossing bails aside to find the sack of silver. As she dug, her
heart fluttered realizing the sack was gone.
“Looking for this?” Jozabad’s gruff voice startled her.
She swirled around to see him dripping with lather from his bath and holding the sack
of silver. Before she could scream, he covered her mouth with his huge hand and clutched her
jaw painfully shut. She fainted.
When she awoke, she found herself gagged and tied to a hitching post. Jozabad
whispered his pungent breath in her ear. “I want you to listen as you mother makes her
fruitless sacrifice to me. She foolishly believes that you have already escaped from me.”
Annabella’s screams to Amanda were muted by her gag, and her twisting to free herself
was for naught.
Jozabad’s phlegmatic laugh wheezed in the darkness as he went to Amanda’s room
where she had a surprise for him. Amanda watched his silhouette at the window and
anticipated her mother’s fate and waiting for her screams across the livery yard.
Amanda watched for Jozabad to come through the bedroom door as she displayed
herself enticingly on their bed. The scented oil lamps flickered as Jozabads’s hulking shadow
cast against the wall.
“I did not see Annabella as I left my bath,” he lied to bait her.
“I’ve sent her ahead to join us with Zoar outside the city wall upon our early departure,”
Amanda responded. “Come, take your pleasure with me before the Roman returns to punish
me and completes his unfinished business with you.”
He took her without ceremony with less tenderness than a beast in the field. He
slumped off of her and fell asleep. She slithered out of his grasp and went to the kitchen to
fetch a sharp knife. She paused to bathe her soiled loins with repulsion of Jozabad’s seed in
her. The she went to the stable to see that Annabella had done as she had been told.
Annabella remained tethered where she could see her mother going to the hiding place
for her sack of silver in the stable, but she couldn’t call out to her or attract her attention since
Amanda’s mind was hard-set on her next task.
Seeing the sack of silver was gone, she was relieved, assuming Annabella had escape
with it. Amanda returned to the bedroom with the long knife clutched in her grasp. She
approached the mound of Jozabad’s slumbering hulk silhouetted beneath the blanket against
the moonlight cast from the window.
From across the yard Annabella watched Amanda raise the knife, but her hope for her
mother’s escape with her was lost when she saw Jozabad standing behind her mother. With all
her effort, Annabella chewed her gag off and shouted just as Amanda thrust the knife into
the mound in the bed.
“Mother!” she shouted as the knife struck the mound, once, twice, thrice before
Amanda stopped and recognized her daughter’s shrill.
Amanda pulled the blanket away to see a bound sheep, its white fleece crimson with
pulsing blood. Before she could scream with surprise, Jozabad grabbed her by the throat with
one hand and took the knife with the other. He dropped the bloody knife on the floor.
“Is there no end to your double dealings, woman?” Jozabad grumbled. “Where is my
pride, my Zoar?”
Amanda spat the truth hoping her barbs would cut deep into Jozabad’s black heart.
“Dead and buried. By God’s hand, and not by my design.”
“Cursed woman!” He struck her with the back of his hand. “Don’t twist the truth to save
your own. It’s her fault. Your thankless wench of a daughter who thinks she is better than me,
just because of some piece of paper she carries, a document of chance.
He picked up the knife from the floor and pointed it at Amanda.
“I now bear your seed,” she defied him. “Kill me and kill your heir.”
“Kill you? Better your eternal silence,” he said. “Your words of Zoar’s death have broken
my spirit worse than the Roman’s blows have broken my flesh. Now in silence, henceforth, you
will nurture my offspring from your breasts but never from your loathsome lips.
Annabella cried out with a whimper witnessing Jozabad’s cruel justice upon her mother.
With a twist of the knife, he cut out her tongue then stuck the knife into a wooden beam.
“Now your worthless babble will fall on deaf ears,” he said, taking from the sack of silver
Annabella’s proclamation of Roman citizenship. He laughed as he burned it in the flame of an
oil lamp and stomped it out into fluttering ashes.
With Amanda’s shawl stuffed in her mouth to stop her bleeding, her eyes went wild.
Jozabad’s sharp attention to the burning document allowed Amanda to pull the knife from the
beam. She was no match for Jozabad’s strength, so she struck back with the greatest damage to
his spirit. With both hands she fell upon the knife, then went limp as Jozabad turned her over.
With contempt, he spat into her glazed eyes for taking his unborn child with her.
“You haven’t won, wretched woman!” he cursed her. “Now your daughter is my chattel.
Hear me, daughter of Rome!” his voice echoed across the livery yard, making the horses kick
and whinny and the camels sway and bray with agitation.
“Your flesh is mine now, precious Annabella! Mine to trade for a dozen of the swiftest
Arabian stallions, mine to do with whatever I choose.”
X
Ellen collapsed with exhaustion when Annabella’s plight seemed more than she could
endure. Their would-be captor remained unconscious. His shallow breathing was counter-
pointed by Ted’s erratic snoring.
Ellen reached over to wake him.
“Wake up,” she said, her throat dry and her voice hoarse from lack of water.
It hurt to swallow before Ted could speak. “It’s starting to get to me, the close space.
I feel trapped, short of breath.”
“Pull yourself together,” she said.
“I helped you with him, and against my better judgment.” Ted pulled his forearms into
his chest then clenched his fists under his sinking chin. He pulled his knees up to his chest and
slumped against the cave’s wall. “I’m losing it, Ellen. Really, I can’t breathe.”
“Breathe through your nose, not your mouth or you’ll lose the moisture of your saliva,”
she cautioned. “We need to conserve water.”
“I can’t,” he said, panting like a dog in a summer scorcher. “I need more water!”
He lunged at the canteen on the ground between them. She tried to stop him, but he
slapped her face with the back of his hand. She fell back long enough for him to take several
long gulps before handing it to her. His posture slumped in shameful repose.
Ellen shook the canteen with about six ounces left. She just wet her lips then dampened
a handkerchief to pat the Palestinian’s lips with it. She did not judge Ted, because his penitence
could not refill the canteen. Ellen would not look back, only ahead. She put it behind her,
cleared her throat, and began to read the scroll aloud, so that Annabella’s ill fate might make
their predicament seems less than hopeless . . .


Hurriedly, Jozabad put his five talents of silver into sacks then onto five of his best
camel’s backs. He freed Annabella from her bindings so that she could embraced her mother’s
corpse. A woman of many words, Amanda had chosen her self-inflicted end rather than writhe
painfully with the shame of having her tongue cut out by the likes of Jozabad.
The next day, Annabella cowered behind one of Jozabad’s horses as the great sheik,
Sadaq, wound his caravan around the rocky cliffs and dunes toward the oasis where Jozabad
had encamped for the night.



“Don’t hide, girl!” Jozabad grabbed her by her long hair and pushed her in front of him.
“Show your wares to the great Sadaq. His lust for your beauty will rattle his silver coffers. But
when he learns of your purity, his generosity will flow into my waiting arms.”
“My Jewish blood curdles at the thought of ever tainting my life with swine like you.”
“Whinny all you like,” Jozabad said. “You’ll replaced my lost stallion, the prize of my
stable with your mongrel blood. I swear by tomorrow, step-daughter, I’ll be free of you and
become rich. You will learn to adapt to the role of women and no longer assume the rights
of men. Then, your dead mother’s sharp tongue will be silenced in you as well.
Tears welled in Annabella’s eyes at the thought of Amanda.
Sadaq’s musicians’ flutes and tambourines subsided their trill and clamor as the caravan
prepared to water their livestock at the oasis and refresh his company on their westward
journey. Jozabad held his arms above his head with open hands in gesture of surrender to
Sadaq nobly mounted on his black Arabian stallion. Sadaq’s steed snorted, waiting for his
subtle gesture with his knees to command his direction. Sadaq raised his right hand to halt
his two Ethiopian eunuchs armed with spears and leather shields.
“Hail the great Sadaq, ruler of the wind and sand!” Jozabad called out, then fell to
his knees and bowed his face to the sand. He motioned for Annabella to do the same and
whispered. “Do as I do or we’re dead.”
Silent, Sadaq looked down at them from his stallion.
From his prone position, Jozabad called out, “Oh, greatest of Arabian sheiks! You
blessed me three years ago with your purchase of an exquisite black colt from the seed of
my beloved stud Zoar! Please honor this humble horse trader with your permission to spend
the night at this oasis in the protective company of your caravan. I have a trade to propose
to you, sire. A trade that will surpass the bargain I made with you for the stallion you
ride today.”
“Jozabad, you worthless scoundrel!” Sadaq shouted back. “I would prefer to stand
downwind from your mangy horses than sit beside you when I dine tonight. The eastward
wind has whispered tales of your death, yet now you call to me like the foul stench from a
polluted well. Are you a mirage, Jozabad? Or do you have an even better horse for me than
the one I ride today?”
Jozabad rose to his feet and tugged Annabella to hers.
“I am alive and well, great Sadaq,” he said approaching him, though intimidated by
his seven-foot guards in long feathered headdress and with shiny black skin like ebony by
moonlight. “But alas, the Romans have disfigured me and taken my precious stud Zoar as
well.”
Sadaq squinted to focus on Jozabad approaching with Annabella behind him. Sadaq
was a man of extreme sensitivities, repulsed by the maimed horse trader, but curious about
the nubile girl shying behind him.
Peeking from behind Jozabad’s girth, she saw that Sadaq was handsome, his face
bronzed by the desert sun. His white raiment distinguished him as the leader of the caravan
mounted on his shiny black steed. He looked no more than thirty, a middle-age man in this
time, but attractive by his stature and command. His insults to Jozabad amused Annabella.
When Jozabad stood aside, Sadaq had a better look at her. She felt the sheik’s dark
eyes caressing her with a penetrating gaze, a sensation that was foreign to her, because
Amanda had shelter her to her current age of eighteen.
“If Zoar is gone from you, Jozabad, what use could I have of you?” he reared back on
his horse. “Perhaps you have a deal for goods more precious than livestock?”
“Surely precious, but she is my chattel just the same,” Jozabad tugged Annabella by
the wrist to present her to Sadaq. “This is my daughter, Annabella, bequeathed to a Roman
patrician in Samaria, the very same who did this evil deed to my formerly stunning counten-
ance. But now my myopic perception tells me the Roman is undeserving of this fair prize. I
would prefer to honor a nobleman of my own kind with her maidenhood as a gift to a fellow
son of Ishmael.”
“Your daughter?” Sadaq grinned and shook his head with disbelief, and his stallion
seemed to agree with a shuddering whinny punctuated with a snort. “If she is your daughter,
I think you must have raped a goddess while she slept.”
Never short of words, Jozabad said, “Annabella, as you can see, takes after her mother
who has left this cruel world before her natural time.”
“Does this swine speak the truth, Annabella?” Sadaq asked. “Speak up, girl! I know this
horse trader’s ways. He must have lied to the gods just for permission to be born. Jozabad has
passed himself off as a pig, spending every day living up to that image, lest the Fates realize
their mistake and smite him dead.”
“Jozabad knows but one truth,” Annabella spoke boldly. “The value of his livery. My
mother proudly served him as his wife and business partner. But if you are as wise as you
appear, great Sadaq, you can see that none of Jozabad’s blood runs through my veins. I am
his step-daughter. My father was of the house of Valens in Rome, my mother his father’s
Hebrew slave. But with my grandfather’s influence in the Senate, their marriage was
accepted, but my father was banished from Rome to serve Emperor Tiberius in Jerusalem.
But my father did not survive the voyage from Rome to Palestine and died at sea leaving
my mother without means to care for me. My mother, Amanda, took her own life rather
than subject herself to this pig. My Roman citizenship cast by my Valens blood gives me
privileges no man of flesh and blood can deny me regardless of his faulty stature among
his own.”
Even the breeze through the palms at the oasis were dead silent. Neither horse nor
camel stirred anticipated Sadaq’s rebuke of Annabella’s brash words. Sadaq dismounted his
horse and approached her. Jozabad lay prostrate but Annabella stood proudly erect. Her
eyes followed Sadaq as he walked around her, eyeing her up and down. He stood face to face
with her but the tip of his black beard came down to her eye level. She kept her eyes staring
down so that he could not see her terror.
“Do you always dare to say what is on your mind, girl?” he asked.
“I am a Roman citizen with that right.”
He smirked, flipping the end of her shoulder-length curls. “Am I to accept such an
absurd proclamation from . . . not even a woman, but a girl? Or do you carry some written
documentation, perhaps a letter from Caesar with his imperial stamp?”
“You mock me at your peril, sire,” she said with a quiver. “I was raised to speak only the
truth, the way of my mother’s god, the only God, Yahweh.”
“My peril?”
“To publically humiliate or put a Roman citizen to death without a trial is punishable by
death, or even to trade me as a slave when I am born free.”
“Look about you, girl. Do you see any Roman centurions on the horizon coming to your
rescue? As far as we can see, there are no Romans in sight. Perhaps the one eye left in
Jozabad’s ugly face is the only justice you deserve. What do you say horse trader? Is your
chattel for sale?”
“If it pleases you, great Sadaq,” Jozabad said crawling to Sadaq to kiss his sandal.
Sadaq kicked him away and tilted Annabella’s chin to look into his eyes. “I will add
you to my harem tonight, girl, and train you to follow my command just like my horse.”
“I’ll follow no lead, sire. I would be so damaged by your whip that my appeal will
forsake you. Pray, take me to Jerusalem where I might seek refuge with my father’s kin.
Set me loose. Though I have no papers, thanks to Jozabad’s thievery, it is my birthright to
be free.”
“Assuming I spare your life, Jozabad, even after you’ve allowed your chattel to
speak to me with disrespect, what price must I bid for this amusing girl. I must admit her
spirit makes me laugh.”
Jozabad rose to his feet. “With my stud Zoar lost, I need your best horses to rejuvenate
my breed, sire. But I can offer you something greater in the bargain, something that will avenge
me for my disfigurement. The chance to win great wealth at the races in Samaria. You see,
these Romans believe that they have the fastest horse in the land, Zoar, but that great stallion
is dead. We, knowing better, already have the odds in our favor.”
“Nothing could please me more than to best a Roman. What do you propose?”
“In exchange for Annabella, I ask you to come to Samaria with me and enter your
horse against the Romans’. I ask for only a tithe of your winnings and the horse you now ride
to begin my breed anew. What say you, sire?”
“I will sleep on it. You are welcome at my camp tonight. I will entertain you with my
latest find, a remarkable boy with powers of sorcery not found in men four times his age.
Come to my fireside as the sun descends and we shall enjoy the boy’s magic.
The word magic echoed in Annabella’s ears, something she may need for her escape.


X


“Water . . . I need water,” the Palestinian whispered, regaining consciousness.
Ellen soaked her handkerchief at the mouth of the canteen and squeezed most of the
water back into it. She put her handkerchief to his cracked lips. He sucked at the cloth like a
nursing animal. It made Ted thirsty to watch.
“That’s all we can spare now,” Ellen said, dabbing his forehead with the cool cloth. The
spring water was channeled away from this area after the cave-in. The canteen is all the water
we have for the three of us to share.”
He shifted his eyes searching for an answer to a question Ellen read in his expression.
“Your stray bullet wounded your leg. You’ve been unconscious. We have your rifle. We
told you the truth about our purpose here. We are archaeologists. Ted, take the bullets out of
his rifle and give them to me. Reluctantly he ejected the magazine from the rifle and handed it
to her. She tucked it under her blouse.
“I have some knowledge of these caves,” the Palestinian said. “You have made a foolish
error.” He pulled a concealed double-edged knife from his boot.
“I told you not to trust him,” Ted said, grabbing Ellen by the wrist and pulling her out
of the wounded man’s reach.
“You misunderstand me,” he said weakly, turning the knife around with the handle
toward them. “You must have given me an antibiotic or I’d already be dead, but you can’t
leave the bullet in me, or I’ll die by tomorrow.”
“We’re not doctors,” Ellen said. “We don’t know what to do.”
“I faint when I have to remove a splinter,” Ted said.
“Then you hold the light and I’ll show her what to do.”
“I could hit an artery,” Ellen said. “Our bandage supply is limited. You could bleed to
death.”
“Better to bleed to death than face the slow agony of infection and the loss of my leg.
As Allah wills it, I shall live or die at your hands.”
Ellen took the knife and unwrapped the dressings on his thigh. She turned her head
away from the rancid smell mixed with the musty confines of the cave.
“Bring all the lanterns close so I can see better, then the peroxide. Bring the torch so I
can cauterize the wound with the knife after I take out the bullet.”
“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” Ted said. “If you have trouble don’t ask me to help. I
can’t even watch.”
“Fine, Ted. If that’s all you can do then just do it and shut up.” She started, then
faltered. “Oh, God. I can’t do this.”
“You must, woman!”
“Don’t call me woman!” she said, thinking of Annabella in the scrolls. “My name is
Ellen.”
“I am Eli. I pray for Allah to give you courage. Do it now, Ellen.”
Ellen told herself that she was just cutting into an eggplant, but then with the first cut
white matter sprayed against her cheek and she felt faint. Eli gasped with the release of
pressure from the purple swelling. She shook her head and took a breath then poured peroxide
into the reopened wound. Sand fleas surfed on white foamy rivulets from the volcanic center
where the slug had lodged. She used gauze pads to clear the wound of debris. She felt Eli
trembling, maybe going into shock.
“Hold his hand, Ted.”
“What?”
“He needs to grasp your hand. Do it!”
Neither Ted nor Eli dared to look at the wound where Ellen was groping to the remove
the slug with as few cuts as possible, but it was like an excavation rather than surgery. It took
her an hour to remove the bullet and cauterize the gaping hole in Eli’s leg. He was unconscious
so she had no idea if she had succeeded, only that she had done her feeble best. She fell asleep
dreaming of long ago when Annabella lived during the early years of Christ, but of all of her
wildest imaginations, none could match what she read aloud to Ted as they kept their vigil over
Eli.
Ellen prayed that the penicillin would now do its wonders in God’s hands. Though the
three had been briefly united, Ellen knew that Eli was committed to be their mortal enemy.
They kept just a dim light burning for Ellen to read from the ancient scroll. She knew they were
just trying to make the time pass by losing themselves in Annabella’s story. As the past came
to life through her lips, Ellen wondered—to what end . . .




Jozabad made certain Annabella wore her finest garments to please Sadaq. The sheik
invited them to supper on the west bank of the Jordan River where the night air would be cool.
“Keep your wagging tongue still tonight,” Jozabad told her as they approached the
glowing fire centered in the encampment. “Be thankful Sadaq has been so lenient with your
defiance. Think of what will be best for both of us. I will have riches and you will have the
attention of a powerful man who will not bow to the Romans. He is a fine looking man and a
powerful sheik who will ride circles around Rome’s best equestrians. It will be a good union if
you bear him many children. Your mother would approve.”
“You dare speak for my mother? You boast of returning to Samaria, but the Roman
courtier who justly flicked your evil eye from your beastly face will kill you on sight.”
“He thinks I’m dead,” he wheezed with laughter. “Unless this Roman swine, like your
mother’s Jewish Pharisees, believes in an afterlife. What fool would ever believe that I, Jozabad,
would earn another life, even after leading such a noble existence in this one? I doubt that
Roman, Justin, would recognize me now, even if he stared directly at arms’ length into my
good eye.”
“How can he not know you on sight?” she asked.
“Do you think a Roman dandy would soil his toga over the likes of me? He hired a band
of Samaritans to do this evil deed.” He pointed to the red cavity on one side of his sharp nose.
How I will love winning this race and taking his silver. I’d gladly repay that Roman, eye-for-an-
eye.”
She shuddered. “Talk of vengeance has no appeal to me.”
“Hah! Given the chance, Annabella, would you not ask Sadaq for my tongue on a silver
platter?”
“Given the chance? Yes. But what chance have I of such a wish to be granted?”
“That spirit will appeal to Sadaq. Let your anger at me influence him to that end.
Win the sheik’s heart in any manner, then he’ll pay me well. Even without a tongue, I can
gladly count my silver in silence.”
They sat around the campfire and Sadaq clapped his hands to bring out a feast of lamb
and herbs with hearts of palm and figs. He clapped his hands again and a pinkish cloud
exploded from the campfire.
Sadaq shouted, “I present for your entertainment, the incomparable Sebastian!”
The pink vapor swirled from the fire and spiraled into the form of a young man, perhaps
eighteen, Annabella’s age. He wore a turban, a sleeveless vest and puffy, long pants with
pointed shoes that curled upward at the toes. He had dangling gold earrings, a nose ring, and
thick golden bracelets around his biceps. A triangular amulet dangled from a gold chain around
his neck.
As Sebastian approached Annabella, his intense glare made her uneasy. He suddenly
breathed fire in an arcing flame above her head. She shrieked and covered her face but felt the
heat on the back of her hands. He spat another flame at Jozabad who fell to his knees and lay
prone trembling with his face in the sand.
Sadaq laughed heartily. “Open your good eye or you’ll miss the sorcery. He’s merely a
boy with a bag of tricks. If he were dangerous, wouldn’t I keep him bound in chains?”
Jozabad rolled over and squinted his eye at the boy. Annabella glared at Sebastian, but
he returned her warning with a mischievous wink.
Jozabad huffed, getting to his feet. “Would that I had an extra eye to waste on winking.”
“So be it, horse trader,” Sebastian said with a bow. He slapped one hand over Jozabad’s
empty eye socket and mumbled some mysterious babble. He pulled his hand away with a
closed fist and covered it with his other hand. “See for yourself,” he told Jozabad. “Your wish
has been granted, but only for a fleeting moment.”
Jozabad leaned forward with caution as Sebastian uncovered his clenched fist. Between
Sebastian’s thumb and forefinger he saw an eye staring back at him. The eye winked, sending
Jozabad falling backwards with a gasp. Sadaq bellowed over the trick and Annabella covered
her mouth to keep from laughing aloud.
Annoyed, Jozabad regained his feet and challenged the magician. “Amusing, but can
you restore something severed from man or beast to its full capacity?”
“Be more specific,” Sebastian said.
“Do you need the whole to restore the part, young sorcerer? The tongue of my
wretched wife.”
Annabella squirmed at such a notion, perhaps more evil than her mother’s fate.
Sebastian looked at Annabella with sympathy, but Sadaq resented his familiarity,
declaring, “If Sebastian could truly restore anatomy, he would make himself a man again.
Do you think I would keep such a handsome boy in my camp if his manhood could violate
my harem? With such power, he could surely make himself whole again.”
To everyone’s surprise, Sebastian said, “Even if I’d have such power, I would never
dishonor my master by undoing his will. I can accept your guest’s challenge, sire.”
An explosive green cloud engulfed Sebastian then he emerged with both hands cupped
together. The muffled voice of Amanda emitted from his hands.
“Curse you forever, husband, for cutting out my tongue! Now you offer my daughter
for silver in my absence! Give Annabella to the great Sadaq and make yourself his slave to repay
for your wicked deed!”
“Enough, Sebastian!” Sadaq had to catch his breath from laughing so hard. “Your
entertainment never disappoints me. If you were whole, you would surely be a danger to me
and to all you confront with your sorcery.”
Sadaq dismissed Sebastian to his tent. The sheik exchanged glances with Annabella. She
pitied a boy with such talent fated as the slave of an Arab nomad. Sebastian in turn felt sorrow
for such a beautiful girl with obvious intelligence and will, who would become no more than
one of his master’s playthings to bear him sons for his defense and daughters to trade as
chattel.
“Come Jozabad. We shall strike an agreement in regard to your daughter, but I think
she’s too skinny. Can she dance?”
Annabella jumped to her feet in protest. “I cannot be sold!”
“Control her Jozabad, or I will!”
Jozabad shrugged with a shake of his head. Sadaq clapped his hands and one of his
seven-foot eunuchs forced her to the ground and held her down with his huge foot on the
nape of her slender neck.
“Now, horse trader, how will these Romans wager in Samaria?”
X


Ellen sighed as she put down the scroll. Ted was exhausted from his turn digging at the
cave’s wall. Eli, the Palestinian, took the pickaxe from Ted and crawled to the place where Ted 
had barely made a dent in the wall. With his wounded leg stiff and difficult to maneuver, Eli put
his weight on the knee of his good leg and examined the cave wall.
“There is moisture on the floor here,” he said.
“Is that good,” Ellen asked.
“Maybe.” Eli shrugged. “I think it will be safer to dig at the floor. The wall is porous, so
any water nearby could filter toward us. But if it comes in too fast, it would be best for us to
give it some place to flow. I think it wisest to dig downward first.”
“Then there’s hope for us?” Ellen asked.
Eli smiled. “If Allah wills it.”
“All this talk of water is making me thirsty,” Ted grumbled. “There’s definitely dampness
in that corner where the wall meets the floor. Let’s put some cloths there to absorb the
moisture. When we’re thirsty we can suck on the cloths to save water.”
Ellen smiled. Ted was thinking rationally for a change.
“Good idea,” she said.
Eli looked over his shoulder with a nod then started hacking at the floor. From Eli’s
rations, Ellen divided small portions of bean paste and saltines among them. They wet their
lips from the remaining water in the canteen. Ellen swallowed hard then dozed off for an hour
before resuming her reading to Ted and Eli . . .


Annabella listened to Jozabad bargaining with Sadaq for the sale of her flesh. Her wrists
were bound behind her as she sat on a pillow beside Sadaq. A eunuch towered over her with
his huge feet straddling her pillow. Sadaq had warned her that if she continued to babble about
her Roman citizenship, a burr from a desert bush would be put under her wagging tongue to
keep her silent. She kept hush but attentive to the unfortunate resolve of her fate.
“Then we have an agreement,” Jozabad said.
“Not until we have a contract,” Sadaq cautioned.
“But, sire, my hand is my contract as it has always been in our past trading.”
“That was for horses, not human trade. I live my life like the wind across the desert, so I
must have some firm foundation for my decisions regarding people, slaves or not. That’s why
I paid so highly to obtain Sebastian.”
“What has the young sorcerer to do with our agreement?” Jozabad asked.
“The boy is a Greek, learned in writing as well as magic. At the age of twelve, Sebastian
was the scribe to a Persian Caliph I killed in battle. He was born a Roman slave before that. It
was when his Roman master’s wife took more than just a fancy to the precocious lad, that he
had Sebastian castrated and sold at auction in Tyre. From there he was brought east to
interpret oriental languages for Roman troops. A Persian band raided that Roman encampment
and gave him to a Persian priest. It was there that he learned his sorcery from an old sage, and
I bought him in exchange for three of the youngest girls in my harem, all virgins and of remark-
able beauty. I hated to part with them, but Sebastian has served me well as more than enter-
tainment. He has made up for what I’d lost one hundredfold. Sebastian will write our contract
for Annabella.”
With a clap of his hands Sadaq summoned Sebastian to sit at his feet and write the
contract which would give Annabella to Sadaq upon the winning of the horse race in Samaria in
exchange for one tenth of the winnings for Jozabad and ownership of Sadaq’s stallion, the last
descendant of Jozabad’s stud, Zoar.
Upon the journey west to Samaria, it was agreed that Annabella, along with Sebastian,
would be the couriers of Sadaq’s challenge to the Roman stables. Though Sadaq put his trust in
Sebastian, Jozabad was leery of Annabella’s cunning ways inherited from her mother.
“They might run off!”
“Sebastian will never flee from me. Even when that Roman objected to his wife’s
attraction to him, Sebastian never betrayed his master. It was the Roman’s wife who wanted
Sebastian castrated so no other woman could have him in the future.
Annabella searched Sebastian’s dark eyes for a clue to his thoughts. She wondered if
there could some spirit left in him to help her escape on his steed. With all his sorcery, could he
ever imagine himself free, as anything other than a slave to his master? She wondered if her
only hope remained with Sebastian as they departed from Sadaq’s encampment.
Later that day, they entered Samaria to challenge the Roman courtier, the same who
had dealt with her mother for the stud services of Zoar, and had disfigured the abominable
Jozabad so brutally. Her confrontation again with the Roman made her tremble. She wanted to
challenge Sebastian’s acceptance of his slavery to Sadaq, but held her tongue, thinking her
mother had told the Roman courtier about her Roman citizenship through her Valens family
bloodline. She would wait for a chance for that advantage.
“Halt! Who goes there?” a Roman stable guard stopped them at the gate.
“I am Annabella, daughter of Jozabad the horse trader. You must recognize me. I’ve
been here before. I’m here to speak with Justin.”
“Yes. But who is this boy with you?”
“He is my slave.”
She held up her wrist to show that though they rode separate horses, they were
manacled by the same chain. The guard nodded and left them at the gate to summon Justin.
Sebastian turned to her. “You’ve treachery in mind, Annabella. Don’t do it. Your plan
is ill-timed. If with nothing else, trust me with this. If you seek your freedom now from this man
Justin, you will fail. When the time is right, we will know. I don’t want to remain a slave, but I
do not wish to die so young. Set up the terms of this horse race as instructed, and when the
time to flee is at hand, we shall do so together.
“Why would I listen to you?” she said. “Justin has influence with the heir to the Roman
throne. I have dealt favorably with him before. If it’s your freedom you want, perhaps I shall
request it. I have established you as my slave. If I return to Rome, as I should as a citizen and
heir to the Valens family fortune, you may serve me there.”
“Ah! So you think less of me without recognized parenthood and because I am a eunuch
who must survive by my wits and sorcery to please any master who possesses me,” Sebastian
challenged. “I am Greek and remember my proud parents, though Roman society does not.
They were forced to surrender me to Roman schooling though my Hellenistic heritage made me
trilingual by age ten in Greek, Latin, and Aramaic. I too seek my freedom, but have spent the
past eight years in captivity. Heed my warning. The right time will soon come.”
Justin entered the yard where Annabella and Sebastian remained on their mounts. His
attention was focused more on Sebastian than Annabella. I trust my five talents of silver has
served your mother well. Your slave boy is beautiful.”
“Thank you, sire,” Sebastian bowed from his mount.
“And well-mannered, too. How is your mother?”
Annabella paused as Sebastian eyed her reaction to the question.
“She is well, sire,” she lied. “And how is Zoar, the fastest horse in the empire?”
“Great. Young Caligula has taken a fancy to him, so I dare not interfere with Ceasar’s
heir. Your mother may regret parting with Zoar for fifty talents of silver, but a deal is a deal.
Did Amanda have a problem with her husband . . . what is his name?”
“Not yet. Jozabad hasn’t returned, and we fear he may have run into foul play in Arabia.”
“Once outside the perimeter of the empire, anything can happen. But why have you
come? Does your mother fear I won’t keep my word by not silencing rumors of her father-in-
law’s untimely death at her hands in Rome?”
“She trusts you, but I am here for another reason. Her success has allow her to breed
another strain that can challenge even Zoar. She wishes to prove that to you by presenting the
finest stallion from that blood to challenge your imperial stable in Samaria.”
Justin broke his dumbfounded silence with a burst of laughter. “Your mother sells me
the fastest horse in the world then challenges me to a race with another. How could there
be any contest?”
Annabella drew a blank, but Sebastian interjected, “If I may remind my mistress,
her mother offers a handicap against the presumed unbeatable Zoar.”
“Leave it to Amanda to find some devious means in her attempt to defeat the
undefeatable. Out with it!”
“Each owner will choose the other’s rider for the race,” Sebastian said. “The choice of
riders will be made the moment before tomorrow’s start an hour before dusk outside the track
where Samaritans may gather to enjoy the spectacle.”
“Why such a request?” Justin asked Sebastian, testing the boy.
“It is known that the Emperor’s great-nephew has been riding Zoar in Samaria and he
enjoys such fanfare for his amusement,” Sebastian said. “What better way for you to gain favor
with your sponsor than by giving him a taste of public adoration that he will know when he
rules the empire after Emperor Tiberius. Samaritans, you must know, will give their loyalty and
even lie in bed with their enemies to avoid conflict. Ask any Jew and he will confirm what I say
about these people. Caligula will have their full attention and support without danger to
himself among that crowd. When Zoar wins this race, these Samarians will hail him as Caesar
with no chance of Tiberius getting wind of it until after he is dead and buried.”
You speak with wisdom beyond your years, boy,” Justin said. “But what have I to gain
from this wager?”
“When Zoar crosses the finish line by ten lengths,” Sebastian said, “you will have
Sadaq’s horse and me, the great sorcerer Sebastian, as your loyal servant.”
Though obviously excited by his attraction to the boy, he bargained. “Surely there must
be more to gain for me than such folly.”
“Certainly, sire. Annabella will relinquish her claim to Roman citizenship and do your
bidding as well.”
Though she withheld her gasp, Annabella’s expression of repulsion was obvious.
“Words pour from this boy’s mouth like warm honey, yet you cringe, Annabella,”
Justin challenged. “Neither of these two horses are worthy, so where is this horse that dares
to challenge Zoar?”
“The stallion is with my mother,” Annabella lied.
“Intriguing. I shall speak with Caligula and have his answer by morning.”
“But, sire,” Sebastian said. “You haven’t asked what we want if Zoar should lose?”
“I shall not give up Zoar, even if he loses.”
“Of course, not, sire. We want fifty talents of silver and our choice of your five best
horses, but not Zoar. That bargain was sealed.”
“You must add six talents to our winnings from Amanda,” Justin said. “She knows I’m
tough to bargain with and will understand. It would be an ultimate victory for me over her by
keeping Zoar and winning back the five talents I’d paid for him plus one talent. That extra talent
is for you, Sebastian, for guaranteeing my win and not embarrassing the Emperor’s nephew
with a loss. That would be an unforgivable offense to young Caligula, which I could not contain.
Upon our victory, you shall become my slave, but I will treat you with utter kindness and
affection. I shall grant free use of your talent to do with as you wish.”
“Is there any way you can assure me now that Caligula will accept our challenge?”
Sebastian asked. “My mistress is a hard woman and will consider this mission a failure if I
return without a firm agreement. If I’m to rouse the Samaritans before a morning race, I’ll
need to announce it tonight. But if I announce the race and it doesn’t happen as claimed, they
will stone me in the square. But perhaps you don’t have as much influence over the Emperor’s
nephew as you claim.”
Justin sensed he had found an equal in Sebastian to challenge his mind. He reached
down and handed Sebastian his sandal. “Amanda will know that this confirms that we shall
race tomorrow.”
Sebastian nodded and pressed the sandal to his chest. Then Annabella and Sebastian
rode back to where Sadaq and Jozabad waited, but Annabella argued with Sebastian about his
dangerous liaison with Justin.
This treachery will cost our lives,” she said. “You foolish boy. “Do you imagine Sadaq
would part with you so easily. Sadaq’s stallion will surely beat the horse Justin still believes is
Zoar. I know both horses, and with Zoar dead, your master’s horse cannot be beaten.”
“Unless his rider is inferior to that of the lesser horse,” he reminded her with a wink.
“Last minute ingredients added to a boiling kettle can change the outcome of the flavor when
served. Who knows what aroma this broth will emit once the Fates dish out the final portion of
this stew we are in together?”
“You leave a bitter taste on my palate already, you conjurer of paths I dare not travel.
Why am I your accomplice in this folly?”
“You’ve had the free will to stop me at any time,” he said. “So I must assume I have
your trust in some degree. Or is that possibility beyond the scope of a stable girl with dreams
of Rome clouding her shrewder choice of our immediate escape?”
“It’s as if you know my thoughts,” she said. “Some voice inside my head forces me to
comply with your plan, though my better judgment tells me this idea of yours is foolhardy.
You must have hypnotized me or have cast a spell on me.”
“Annabella, the voice of which you speak has hold of me as well. I have no will to resist.
I am compelled to convince you to follow me, whichever way it leads us.”
X


When Ellen stopped reading, she offered to take the pickaxe from Eli. Ted had fallen
asleep while she’d read the scroll. Eli offered her the handle of the pickaxe, but when she
took it in hand he yanked it toward him. She fell forward into his arms. His musky beard
prickled against her neck as she raised her head and peered into his dark, sullen eyes.
Not to wake Ted, he whispered softly, “Careful, woman. There may be one eunuch
trapped in this cave, but he is not me. Death is at my door . . . and perhaps Allah has offered
you to me as a gift for my dedication before I die.”
“How easily you abandon the precepts of your faith when your own mortality is at
stake,” she said. “Mohammed was a holy man, a great prophet to your people, but you forsake
the memory of his prophecy with adulterous threats. If Allah sent me to you as a gift, use me as
intended—to bring the story of this scroll to the modern world.”
“You are a fanatic about these scrolls,” Eli said. “Even your friend sees it. These ancient
stories have no basis, no authority.”
“They precede Mohammed by fifteen hundred years,” she said. “Ted proved that with
a carbon test on the papyrus last week. My ability is to interpret the Aramaic script.”
“You emasculate me and your friend with your strong will,” Eli said.
“That’s not my intention,” she said, taking the pickaxe in hand and going to the wall.
She prayed as she dug, but her thoughts were of the ancient past, wondering how the scroll
about Annabella had been left in this cave. That question pervaded her mind like an underlying
stream when, from the base of the cave wall a steady trickle of water dripped into the three-
foot pit they had dug.
“Wake up, Ted! Eli, we have water!” she shouted.
Knowing there was no industry in this protected area and any water would be naturally
filtered by the sand and porous shale, they all scrambled on their knees and cupped their hands
to drink the cool water. So refreshing was the taste of life. Ellen drank moderately while both
men’s thirst seemed unquenchable. She dampened her cloth and cleaned her face and neck.
She pressed the cloth to her lips. To her, the water was holy, God’s answer to her prayer,
and served as a baptism of her soul, a rebirth of hope and faith.
Then, as quickly as the water had come, it stopped.
“It can be!” Ted shouted. “There must be more water!”
“It may have been just a small pocket created by the cave-in.” Eli said.
“Then we must keep digging if we hope to survive,” Ellen said.
“There could be other pockets,” Eli said. “They may contain even more water than this
one.”
“Slim chance,” Ted huffed.
“Be thankful it was not enough water to fill this cave,” Eli said. “We’d have drowned.”
“There’s still some water left in the pit,” Ellen said. “Quick, fill our vessels before it filters
through the floor. It could give us a few more days to find more water.”
Reasonably quenched and bathed, Ellen turned back to the scroll and read aloud to the
men as they dug . . .


“What do you mean by—the rider of the other’s choice?” Sadaq asked Sebastian.
Jozabad rushed at Sebastian, his good eye flushed red with rage, but Sadaq tripped
him and put his saif to the horse trader’s throat. The Arab’s scimitar’s blade shimmered in the
moonlight.
“Speak!” Sadaq told Sebastian.
“The Romans have accepted your challenge, master. They will pay you the fifty talents
upon your victory, but insist on ten talents if you lose.”
Annabella raised an eyebrow with Sebastian’s shift in the stakes to suit himself. How
could she let herself be influenced by such a habitual liar? Perhaps because she had been raised
by such a liar as Amanda. Then Sebastian told him that not only would he lose his horse in a
defeat, but also him and Annabella to the victor.
“If I were to ride Raven there would be no question of my victory, but these Romans
thrive on deceit.” He looked to Sebastian for reassurance.
“Your victory, may then depend on your choice of a rider for the Roman’s horse.”
Jozabad said, “We must consider this with care to seal the fate which we have designed
for our purses and our honor.”
Annabella spoke out, “It might be best to withdraw your foolish challenge to the
Romans and return to the desert where your Ishmaelite pride can blow across the sand without
resistance from the civilized Roman world of structure in the West.”
“You’ll lose your tongue like your mother, yet,” Jozabad warned.
“I turn my back to no opponent,” Sadaq said with a swirl of his cape. “I shall have it all
tomorrow—victory, wealth, vengeance, and pleasure.”
Jozabad eyed Sebastian then looked to Annabella for some hint of conspiracy.
Sadaq told Sebastian, “Take one of my horses and announce the race to the Samaritans
as a great spectacle for their odds makers. Tell them my horse, Raven, merely hopes to make a
good showing against the invincible Zoar of the Imperial Roman Stables.”
Sebastian rode off without looking back. He had to trust his influence over Annabella
that could keep her true to their mutual cause, though she found no practical rationale for
this trust in the sorcerer.
“Let us confer over tomorrow’s choice for our rider for the Roman’s horse,” Sadaq told
Jozabad. He nodded for his eunuchs to take Annabella to his harem.
She quelled her inner rage just to bide time until Sebastian returned. The other women
in the harem were exotic with features and pallor unfamiliar to her. None spoke the same
language but had adapted hand signs to converse with one another. They tried to teach her
how to sign, but she was too intent to overhear Sadaq and Jozabad’s conversation. Slighted by
an interloper, the other women tugged at her hair and garments, and like a pack of jackals, bit
her arms and legs. Her screams alerted Sadaq to return her to his side.
“What am I to do with you, girl?” he said. “I hoped to make you my number one
concubine, yet you make havoc among my chattel. Perhaps losing you to the Romans will be
a blessing.”
“Pray no, sire,” Jozabad groaned. “When you win tomorrow I shall gladly take her off
your hands since you find her such a nuisance and keep her for my own amusement.”
With penetrating assessment of Annabella’s beauty, Sadaq’s words made her tremble.
“If I trade this one off, it will be as damaged goods. After my victory tomorrow I shall have her.”
X


Ellen stopped reading to see how Ted was progressing with the digging.
Ted complained, “It would be nice to have a sorcerer like Sebastian with us to conjure a
way out of this hell hole.”
Eli took his turn at digging as Ted slumped to his corner of the cave.
“I’m not doing my fair share of the heavy labor,” Ellen said.
“When you stop, I feel trapped,” Ted said. “Keep reading. If Eli and I drop dead from
exhaustion and starvation, you’ll get your chance to dig.”
“Allah put me here,” Eli said. “If He wills it, I will get out.”
“You? What about me and Ellen?”
“If Allah wills it. Her reading helps to see the sky in our minds, the sand, and the horses
racing with the wind in their manes at this race the young sorcerer has arranged.”
They stared for a moment at one another in silence before Eli’s pickaxe shattered the
rocks. When Ellen read aloud, the smell the horses and Sadaq’s campfire flared in their nostrils
as they considered the fate of Annabella and wondered about their own . . .


“Assemble your wares, Samaritans!” Sebastian shouted, galloping through the narrow
streets of Samaria. “Tomorrow we shall challenge the Roman stables in a race!”
By late afternoon the next day, Samaritans gathered outside the city’s walls in
preparation for the festivities. Sadaq’s caravan wound in single file from the surrounding
countryside of rolling hills toward the starting point of the race. Annabella watched in awe
from the back of Jozabad’s swaying camel. The city was backlit by the sun beginning its descent
and inflaming the sky with splashes of mauve and crimson.
The first time Annabella had come to Samaria had been to retrieve Zoar on lend to the
Roman courtier, Justin. She had stumbled on the rough terrain at the cost of the precious
stallion’s life. It had been that same night when she had encountered a strange boy her own
age. He’d called himself Yosh, and was on his way to Qumran Kirbet, where a sect of Jewish
priests hid from the Roman legions. Then last night, she and Sebastian had come to proclaim
Sadaq’s challenge to Justin. Near dusk, she now could appreciate the natural acropolis of
Samaria with Herod the Great’s basilica at the highest point on the hill within sight five miles
from any direction.
Justin greeted Sadaq at the head of his caravan flanked by his two Ethiopian eunuchs,
“Welcome to our Arabian friends of the Empire in behalf of Caesar. Where is Amanda, the girl’s
mother? I can’t imagine she would forgo this chance to make us victims of your challenge.”
Jozabad nudged Annabella to speak up.
“My mother is not well, but expects me to return with her prizes.”
“We come with one purpose,” Sadaq said to Justin. “To defeat your horse with ours.”
“Well said, Arab. First we shall draw straws to see which of us will have first choice of
our opponent’s rider.”
“Agreed.”
With that, Justin presented young Caligula riding the horse presumed to be Zoar, the
fastest Arabian horse known throughout the empire. Only Annabella knew better. Sebastian
prompted the Samaritan crowd to chant, “Hail, Caligula!”
With the crowd’s chants growing louder, Caligula picked up the pace of his horse’s
stride. A boy of pride and short temper, but shrewd awareness, he flaunted his equestrian
skills by making his horse go up on its hind legs and pivot into a sprint. The crowd applauded as
Caligula brought his horse to Justin and Sadaq. They drew straws.
Caligula badgered Sadaq,” Come, Arab! Show us your stallion that dares to challenge
Zoar!”
Sebastian appeared mounted on Raven, Sadaq’s stallion. Several Romans surrounded
Raven feeling his flanks with judgment. One Roman said to Justin, “A fine stallion, but no match
against us. Looks are not enough. We ride on Zoar’s reputation.”
Justin chose the longest straw and announced to Sadaq’s shock,” I choose our opponent’s
rider to be Annabella Valens. Her loss today would put her in jeopardy of becoming Caligula’s
slave as would your courier, Sebastian, who brought your challenge to me.”
Annabella gasped as did Sadaq, but Jozabad scratched his beard. He knew Annabella
was a capable rider, but he distrusted her motives.
Sadaq looked to Sebastian for wisdom. The sorcerer whispered in his ear, “Choose
Caligula.”
Sadaq turned to Caligula. “You need not dismount. I choose Caligula to ride Zoar.”
Caligula was amused by the announcement but Justin protested. Then Sebastian gave
a signal to those he had planted in the crowd with bribes who chanted, “Hail, Caligula! Hail,
Caesar!”
The chants drowned out Justin’s protests and Caligula answered the challenge by
rearing his horse up into a spin.
Annabella felt as if she were swept away in an absurd dream. Even as she was lifted
onto Raven, she could hardly believe what was happening until she was flanked by Sadaq and
Jozabad with warning jeers.
“You must win this race girl, or I’ll cut out your heart,” Sadaq said.
Jozabad told her. “You know the feel of a stallion’s speed against your loins. You must
win, or we’ll leave your corpse as desert carrion for the birds.”
She turned to Sebastian for reassurance. Their eyes met in silence, but before she
could consider her options, Caligula with the horse he thought was Zoar bumped against
her mounted on Raven. The crowd hummed with anxious chatter waiting for the flag to drop
and start the race.
X


Ellen had fallen asleep.
Weary, Eli collapsed with exhaustion from his dig then handed the pickaxe to Ted and
asked him, “Do you believe there is any truth in this scroll she reads to us?”
“She’s a Christian,” Ted said. “They make up fairytales instead of accepting hard facts.
If we don’t find water soon, I’ll give you back your gun so you can shoot me. I don’t want to
know what’s happening as I’m dying.”
Ellen stirred and shouted, “Enough of that!” Her voice echoed off the cave’s walls.
“We will survive! I can feel it.”
“Shout again,” Eli said. “It’s the high pitch of your voice.”
Ted shook his head and frowned at Ellen to indicate Eli must be losing his sanity.
Ellen ignored Ted and screamed as loud as she could, which was deafening within the
confines of the cave. The high pitch of her scream sounded as if it were winding through a
tunnel.
“What does it mean?” she asked.
“Two things,” Eli said. “Another open space that could be accessible through these
walls or . . .”
“Water,” Ted said. “Like clicking two stones together underwater so your friends
can hear it from the other side of a lake.”
“What equipment do you have in your medical kit?” Eli asked.
“Only enough to dress your wound, maybe three more times,” she said.
“Do you have one of those things to check your heartbeat?”
“A stethoscope? Yes, from when Dr. Rheinholt first accompanied us on this dig. He had
a heart condition.” She shuffled though her duffle bag. “Here it is!”
Ted listened against the wall as Ellen shouted. He took turns with Eli until they agreed
where to concentrate their digging. They continued digging at the wall until some water seeped
through again. It took several hours before they could do any more than wet their lips, but
they were able to fill one canteen by the next day. They gathered enough water to superficially
wash themselves before the water ceased to flow again.
“It’s like manna,” Ted said. “When the Jews escaped from Egypt, Jehovah gave them
manna, a food source that was good for only one day. Searching, they would find just enough
to keep them alive until the next day. They wandered in the wildness searching for the
Promised Land for forty years.”
“I thought you were an atheist, Ted.”
“I guess my roots are still kosher.”
Eli said, “We must keep digging in this direction. There could be a lengthy tunnel on
the other side of this wall that could lead us to the surface. Meantime, keep reading the scroll,
Ellen. It gives us hope to imagine others living on the surface and not buried alive.”
Fact or fiction, the story of Annabella seemed to hold them together with hope in
their tomb-like confine, while the world above seemed oblivious to their fate . . .




The marked course traversed the city in a winding path which began at a platform
erected for the ceremony and ended outside the city at the southeast gate. A Roman soldier
was chosen by Justin to drop the flag to start the race. Sadaq chose Sebastian to hold the finish
flag to wave and declare the winning horse.
Sadaq’s plan in the event that Raven would lose was to mount Raven at the finish and
grab Sebastian to flee the Romans without making his payment. Annabella would be of no con-
sequence to him in defeat. She would be all the Romans could collect. As for Jozabad, let the
Roman take out his remaining eye for conjuring such a race. Still, the proud sheik believed his
own Raven would beat the stallion believed to be Zoar decisively.
Jozabad also wanted Sebastian in clear view at the finish in the event of some treachery
and collusion with Annabella. Even if he lost the wager, someone would pay dearly for that
calamity.
Justin agreed with putting Sebastian in clear view at the finish. With Amanda curiously
absent from this wager, he chose Annabella to ride Raven where she would be a clear target if
there were any attempt to alter the obvious outcome of the race.
As the flag was raised, the crowd went still. The flag fell to the thunderous uproar of the
crowd echoing throughout the city. Both horses bolted with fury. Annabella nearly lost her grip
on Raven’s reins, but quickly recovered out of fear of falling beneath thundering hooves.
The principals, Justin with his Roman soldiers, and Sadaq with his spear-wielding
Eunuchs, went quickly toward the finish line where Sebastian stood on a platform with flag in
hand, awaiting the first horse to cross.
The horses ran neck-and-neck around the first turn. They headed toward the descending
sun rapidly meeting the western horizon. The sky was aflame at sunset as were young Caligula’s
eyes glaring at Annabella galloping within his reach as he guided his horse even closer to her.
He raised his crop and struck Annabella’s thigh with a sharp sting that took her breath away. His
next blow drew blood. She felt woozy with her vision of the hateful boy blurring as she lost con-
trol of Raven.
Caligula shrieked with glee as he took the lead, but dissatisfied with a half-length lead,
he raised his crop again. Moving back on the inside, he viciously struck Annabella, tearing
through her tunic and cutting a deep gash in her other thigh. She let out a whimper as she
struggled to hold on to Raven’s mane. The stallion, confused by Annabella’s lack of control, fell
another length behind.
Annabella’s pulse pounded in her head to the rhythm of the tumultuous chant, “Hail,
Caesar! Hail, Caligula!” Through watery eyes she saw Sebastian four furlongs ahead waving the
red flag from the platform to guide them to the finish. She kicked Raven with her heels and
snapped the reins with determination to avoid her slavery to the winner. In the last furlong
she gained on Caligula, inching ahead and seeing Sebastian in clear view. He turned to strike
her again, but she blocked his next blow and yanked the crop from his grasp.
She turned the crop around and struck Caligula on the knee. As he whelped in pain,
she shouted, “God spare the Empire from this cursed boy!”
Raven burst two lengths ahead. Nearing the finish, the Arabian challenger seemed
certain to beat the Imperial champion in the last hundred cubits, but Annabella turned him
toward the stand and brought him to a controlled prance. Sebastian leaped from the stand
and mounted Raven behind Annabella at the reins.
Caligula crossed the finish line ahead of them, but that was of no concern to Annabella
and Sebastian realizing the fulfillment of their reluctant collusion by escaping on the fastest
steed in the land. Raven bolted southeast toward the rolling hills leading to the Jordan River
and the desert wilderness near the Dead Sea.
It was nearly dark, just as Sebastian had planned. Raven was faster than any other horse
that pursued them. They had a head start of several furlongs before anyone realized they had
been tricked. The Samaritans crowded around Caligula in his victory, so the Roman guards had
to shield him rather than chase after two runaway slaves.
Sadaq jumped on one of his other stallions and motioned one of his eunuchs to mount
behind him in pursuit of Sebastian and the troublesome girl. Hoping to take revenge another
day, Jozabad shrank quietly into the crowd.
When Caligula gained his composure long enough to confront Justin, he commanded
his obedient courtier, “I want that black stallion! I won, so he’s mine! I want that girl back, too.
She’ll face me one last time before I cut her throat. She dared to strike me, the heir to Caesar!
The boy is yours to do with as you will.”
“The Arab has run off, too,” Justin said.
“He’s left behind his other slaves and treasures. I can’t be bothered with him. He’ll not
dare show his face in Samaria again. Take no more than a dozen mounted soldiers. You must
lead them, Justin, but do not dare return without my stallion and that horrible girl. Did you
hear them though? It seems the Samaritans are a wiser race than you give them credit. They
saw my greatness. Today was a good omen. I felt the power. I am destined . . . born to rule the
Empire . . . to become Caesar . . . to be their god.
X


Ellen woke to the touch of a damp cloth to her cracked lips. She was unsure if the story
she was reading to Ted and Eli was from the scroll or just a dream. Then she sat up with a start.
“It’s here!” she shouted as Ted and Eli waved their hands to quiet her with the cave’s
walls shaking from the echoes of her voice. “This is where they had come to escape from Sadaq
and Justin and his Roman soldiers. This scroll is the chronicle of their escape.”
“Or their bitter end like ours,” Ted said.
“Perhaps the path to our escape might be found more quickly from the scroll than from
our digging, Eli said.
They looked at one another, nodding in agreement.
Ellen said, “Sometimes reading can be more fruitful than just digging . . .”

 

Dinnertime Orchids


a novel excerpt
from
The Knight and the Unicorn ©
by
Gerald Arthur Winter



El Oriente, Ecuador


The jungle stank and the miasmic river banks gurgled with unquenchable thirst at the peak of the dry season on the Rio Napo at the headwaters of the Amazon River east of the Andes. A helicopter fluttered in the distance from where they hid camouflaged high in the trees. The huge chopper landed on a grassy knoll beside the receded river. Its propeller blades came to a gradual halt bringing the palm trees’ fan-like leaves back to their previous still-life baking in the scorching sun.
An Ecuadorian commando was first out of the chopper then seven others followed. Armed with AK-47s and machetes, the soldiers surveyed the area with the same security ritual as if they were landing in highly populated Quito. In the past five hundred years, few human beings had ever seen this isolated jungle. The commando lieutenant waved to the chopper that it was safe for the passengers to disembark.
General Quijada came out of the door with his emaciated, manacled prisoner. Quijada was under six-feet tall, dark, and barrel-chested with sharp features, typically Serrano, an ethnicity which dominated the military and high government officials of the capital. Even Quijada’s best posed smile was a scowl as he squinted scanning the area. His gaunt prisoner fell to his knees and sobbed at Quijada’s boot tips.
Taking a deep breath, Quijada glared at his prisoner. “It has the smell of death.”
His commando chief nodded with a sniff.
“The scent of death,” Quijada said, “like the scent of a woman, foreshadows an ultimate gratification.”
His prisoner groaned with pangs of hunger and pain from daily beatings.
“Can you smell her, Fajardo? Can you taste her on your lips,” Quijada tormented
his political prisoner who had receded gums and ribs visible through his pale, translucent skin.
A hundred yards across the river, two camouflaged figures observed from the treetops with a video camera. A speaker was remotely connected to their target where a microphone had been hidden in the thick undergrowth the day before. Despite their loose camouflage fatigues, the shorter figure could not hide the curves and swells that betrayed her gender. But those who knew Malicia Fajardo best feared her deadly skills taught to her from age three by the man scheduled to die in a matter of minutes within her telescopic sights.
Mali, as her comrades called her because she was such a bad-ass killer, had tucked her long black hair beneath her cap to avoid entanglement in the jungle’s flora. There were no fauna, from caimans to jaguars, that she feared. With her face blackened to make her identity indiscernible, her dark, almond-shaped eyes glared. Her hatred for General Quijada turned the whites of her eyes red with fury.
“That’s Generalisimo Quijada,” she told the hulking figure beside her. “My father was our last hope for the rebellion. Look at him now. His starvation has made him a mere shadow of what he had been.”
“We could save him,” the man said gruffly. “They’re no match for the two of us, even with all their weaponry.”
“If only they’d just leave him here to die,” she said. “We could save him without Quijada knowing we’ve found his stash of victims to report back to your CIA.”
“True,” the man said. “We can’t let Quijada know we’re onto his plan to make Martino Yepez his puppet president with American financial support. We’ll need more than circumstantial evidence.”
“Recording my father’s death is all we’ll need to get support from the States.”
She shocked even her hardened partner with her cold-hearted assessment.
“That’s you final decision?” he asked.
“Siˊ, Eduardo. We must stop this butcher by learning what interest an American billionaire has in my country’s politics. Why is he backing these pigs?”
“Yepez is the weakest link in their financial pipeline,” Eduardo said. “If I can lure him to come to the States, we can trap him and make his connection to the funding. It will take time and patience, because there are necessary federal channels and I—“
“Do what you must, but soon,” she said.
Both spies continued their surveillance from their distant perch.
Across the river, Quijada asked his lieutenant, “Where is this special place you’ve spoken of?”
“Beyond this knoll, sir, where the jetty formed by the receded river has left shallow ponds of murky depths.”
The general and his patrol followed the lieutenant dragging Fajardo towards their desired place of secrecy.
Back in the trees, Mali said, “If we are to record this political execution, we must get closer with a clear view, or our effort will be wasted.”
She and Eduardo took their equipment and cautiously waded across the shallow river. The jungle foliage became so intense that Quijada’s patrol used searchlights to see the ground for safe footing. Disturbed by the searchlights, butterflies with fluorescent wings fluttered all around them.
The lieutenant said, “There, sir! See their glow.” He pointed toward a cluster of rare orchids which were growing at the base of a fallen tree into a shallow pond. The tree’s rotted roots in the middle of the pond provided decayed bark as fertilizer on which the orchids thrived. The mossy, black log of the fallen tree trunk extended to the bank of the pond where Quijada and his patrol stood with amazement at the gleaming light emitted from the orchids.
Quijada took his prisoner by the neck and pointed to the orchids. “Do they draw
you to them, Fajardo? They will be your last source of food before you die here alone and forgotten by your family and allies.”
“They must be poisonous, “Fajardo said with faint breath.
The lieutenant reached into his shirt for a sealed container from which he removed a huge orchid bloom with glowing pedals. He handed it to Quijada. The general wheezed with pleasure as he inhaled its fragrance.
“Poisonous?” Quijada laughed. “On the contrary, these special orchids nourish testosterone, which you obviously lack.” Quijada thrust the orchid into his mouth, chewed for a moment, then swallowed with the sound of a draining tub of water. “See, Fajardo, delicious and nourishing. The Auca natives of this region call them ‘dinnertime orchids. Perhaps they will keep you alive for some time, but where you can no longer do harm to our new regime. Go!”
Fajardo crawled precariously onto the log’s slick, mossy trunk toward the glow
of the distant orchids in the middle of the pond. Weak from the arduous trek on bony knees, he grabbed a fistful of orchids and stuffed them into his mouth with gusto. General Quijada’s wheezing laughter startled Fajardo as he reluctantly swallowed with a painful gulp, thinking he’d been tricked into believing the orchids weren’t lethal.
“The orchids aren’t poisonous, Fajardo!” Quijada shouted across the pond as the lieutenant pounded the buttstock of his weapon against the tree stump at the shoreline.
“They are called dinnertime orchids, not for you, but for the great one at the bottom of this pond!”
Quijada’s patrol backed away from the edge of the pond.
Trembling, Fajardo tried to crawl back across the log to the pond’s shore. Weak from starvation he slipped off the log into the pond. Hidden in the mud, a giant anaconda looped its thick coils around his neck and pulled him under without a struggle or cry of terror.
Quijada waited for the last bubbles of Fajardo’s dying breath to break the stagnant surface of the putrid pond. Documenting the bizarre execution of her father, Mali turned to Eduardo. She was about to express her personal remorse that her father had to die without dignity to verify their claims against Quijada and Yepez, who were a threat to Ecuador and the United States.
Then one of Quijada’s commandos guarding the perimeter jumped Eduardo from behind. Eduardo outweighed his assailant by a hundred pounds, but the commando got off one stray shot before Eduardo broke his neck. He exchanged knowing glances with Mali as Quijada’s patrol came toward them. She ejected the thumb-drive from her camera and tossed it to Eduardo. He nodded for her to follow him, but she shook her head. He understood the need to sacrifice for the cause so he could escape with the evidence.
Mali threw the camera and her weapon into the quicksand bog sucking both into oblivion. She removed her cap and shook her long black hair loose to her waist and unbuttoned her shirt to reveal more of her full-bosomed cleavage. She nodded to Eduardo with a thumbs up and he vanished unseen toward the far side of the river.
“It’s a woman!” one soldier shouted. “She’s unarmed.”
“Careful!” the lieutenant shouted. “It could be a trick to surround us.”
Quijada emerged from the thick brush. He gleamed at the sight of her and said,
“Hmm, what have we here?”
“She wears the uniform of Peruvian guerillas,” the lieutenant said.
“I am alone,” Mali said. “I was separated from my patrol last year during our border conflict. I’ve been trying to survive in the jungle with only my knife to find my way back. Crossing Auca territory, I feared the headhunters. Much of this part of the jungle is impenetrable without landing a helicopter along a receded embankment. Your man surprised me so I killed him to get his weapon.”
“She lies, General,” the lieutenant warned. “This soldier’s neck is snapped clean through. How could she—?”
“I am well-skilled,” she said with a sneer.
“Your man was incompetent,” Quijada said with a grin at Mali. “But still, you don’t appear to be starved after a year of surviving in the jungle with just a knife.”
“I was more robust before I lost my way.” She lifted her shirt to show her ribs.
“Are you hungry now?” Quijada taunted ogling her ample figure. “You must be tired of eating grubs and lizards.”
She whipped out her knife putting it to her own throat. “Before you can make me eat the orchids like that man, I’ll slit my throat to deprive you of the pleasure.”
Quijada barked with laughter. “You have become as fierce as a jaguar. I could have great use for a woman like you. But you would have to become attuned to my ways.”
“And what are your ways?” she asked.
“Whatever I desire, whenever I want, including yourself.”
“Hmm. I see . . .”
“And?”
“I’m not a child and have no wish to eat another snake.”
“Then you shall join us in our flight back to Quito where I will enjoy watching your daily return to your more enticing, robust stature of a woman.”
As they departed in the chopper, down river Eduardo waited till dark before making his connection with a helicopter to Iquitos, Peru then on to Miami, Florida. He thought about Mali’s stone façade of determination for several months before he made his connection in New York City. Mali was a woman of character and daring, a true patriot to Ecuador willing to make any sacrifice for the good of her country. Ed Dykstra knew that even with all of that going for her, and with his willingness to use all of his resources to support the effort, one key element to assure their success was still missing. He’d have to pull every string and call in every marker from his past, if he hoped to win against the odds of treachery and infinite wealth. Only one name came to mind, Jeremy Stark, a lone wolf, who could toss all the government red tape into the trash. Dykstra’s only concern was Stark’s one weakness, but he’d attempt to use that to his advantage by providing a chance meeting for Stark with Mali Fajardo.
Ed had gotten word from Mali that she had escaped from Quijada and would arrive in Manhattan tomorrow to continue their joint effort to reveal the source funding Quijada’s cruel regime. The scent of dinnertime orchids remained a reminder that with beauty and a sweet scent comes a greater need for caution, the one thing Jeremy Stark often lacked when it came to beautiful women.

ONCE MORE FROM THE TOP


By Roy Dorman
​

The blast of the explosion dragged him from a deep sleep. The sound that followed was of people screaming and the shrieking of an impossibly cold wind.
The wind made it hard to catch his breath and he noticed the screaming around him was starting to gradually become muffled.
Then there was silence except for the wind.
Through slitted eyes, he saw the oxygen mask waving above him just out of reach.
Eyes closed tightly now because of the intense cold, he pictured the flight attendant giving the spiel regarding the masks and flotation devices.
Just as blackness overcame him, he struggled to remember what her face had looked like….
“It’s almost like he’s trying to get a look at his surroundings.”
“He’s two months old now; he can probably make out certain images.”
“When his little brow furrows up like that, it looks like he’s thinking. Oh, now he’s smiling about something. But that’s probably just gas, right?”
“Well, maybe not. Scientists studying reincarnation think we may remember bits and pieces of our previous life for the first few months. After that, the memories fade and we only know the life we now live.”
“Well I guess that puts a little perspective into déjà vu. You know, those strange little hints.”
“He’s smiling again. I hope he’ll be as happy in this life as he was in the previous one.”

What’s On Your Plate

by

Gerald Arthur Winter


The old man let the nurse prop up his pillows so he could have his dinner in bed. He hadn’t been able to walk, one foot in front of the other, for more years than he cared to count. She placed the bed tray across his thighs and put the plate on the tray before him. He inhaled the enticing aroma of kidney stew, one of his favorites as a child. The thick gravy steamed to his nostrils with the sweetness of carrots and the bulk of potatoes with the kidneys and onions interspersed throughout.
The nurse turned her head away with her hand over her nose and asked, “How can you eat that?”
“It’s not a matter of choice, young lady,” he said. “It’s what’s on my plate.”
She handed him her cerebrum receptor and scrolled down the screen for him to see.
“You have an infinite number of choices with meat, fish, or fowl,” she pointed out. “You can choose from the spectrum any vegetable or fruit from three planets or from our lunar greenhouse. Potatoes, rice, tofu, or any shape of pasta from a dozen space farms. So why would you want to ingest such a prehistoric combination of what is no longer considered food which is sure to shorten your life by decades?”
“It’s all of those choices which have shutdown many of our brain functions over the past half-century,” he said putting a spoonful of stew to his lips and blowing on it so he wouldn’t burn his tongue.
“That’s a matter of constant argument from the minority,” she said with a huff. “But the general consensus of the Bureau negates such backward thinking.”
“The Bureau has disregarded the natural Law of Diminishing Returns,” he said with confidence taking his first mouthful of kidney stew. He swallowed with a gulp and grinned at the nurse.
“You’re allowed to make these indiscriminate food choices, only because it’s your final days,” she said. “The minority narrowly passed that amendment because some majority members still had sentimental feelings for their grandparents, but of course knowing that within a decade you’d all be gone and any future protest by the minority would, by attrition, become a mute argument.”
“How old are you?” he asked her.
“It’s still not proper to ask a woman her age,” she said. “That may be the only ancient tradition to which we still abide.”
He squinted at her and huffed.
“OK. Out of respect for our elders,” she said. “I’m two furloons-seven, so you probably think I’m young and foolish. It’s that kind of disrespect for youth that put your generation in disposal mode.”
“I’m of that minority of my generation who still respects all ages, classes, races, and religions,” the old man said.
“There are only two classes,” she said. “The Bureau and the rest of us. Generations are separated by furloons of which only seven remain, and yours is soon to terminate. There are only two races now, the pale Bureau and the mongrels like us. There is only one religion—loyalty to the Bureau. All else is heresy.”
“I’ve heard from informants that I’m the last of the seventh furloon,” he said.
“That makes no sense,” she said. “If you are the last, you have no living allies. The sixth furloon is a bitter lot. Perhaps they want to keep you alive so their turn as the last furloon will not begin their termination process. They call themselves ‘The Boomers’ in mock tribute to a generation of an ancient millennium, a self-important group of entitled citizens in pre-Bureau history when in their tenth decade of life they tried to end the reproductive process of youth that would compete with them for food and water on primitive earth.”
“I knew many of them in my past existence,” the old man said. “They weren’t evil, not in the Satanic sense, just greedy by nature. The generation before them, my parents’ lot, had made many sacrifices to provide them with world peace and prosperity, but they took it all for granted, just as they would take for granted this delicious kidney stew from a natural breed of fauna that no longer exists, but can be conjured through your cerebrum receptor if the Bureau regulator switch is turned off.”
“You have little time left,” she warned. “My Bureau regulator light is flashing, so they will know that I’ve bypassed their acceptable menu for your last meal.”
“I’ll tell them that I took the regulator from you by force,” he said. “That might spare you.”
“They won’t believe that in your frail condition,” she said with a smirk. “But thanks for thinking of my safety—an admirable characteristic of your furloon—selflessness.”
“You flatter me, child.”
“Since there will be no hope for either of us when they come,” she said. “Let my last meal be what you’ve long for but have been denied by the Bureau.”
“It was my mother who prepared kidney stew for me in my youth, but I never knew when it would be for dinner. Neither that nor fried liver and onions, corned beef and cabbage, fried chicken, or marrow sandwiches, all reminders of my youth when parents controlled children’s desires for gratification without providing choices. That forced children to use their minds for more meaningful
aspects of human existence. When I’d ask my mother what was for dinner, she’d say: “What’s on your plate.”
“My furloon would take a sharp knife and cut her throat for such cruel denial of a youth’s rightful desirable choices.”
“It wasn’t cruel or meant to be,” he said. “But to toughen a child to accept the harshness of life by starting the first lesson within the home.”
“The home,” she sighed. “I’ve only read of such a concept in smuggled journals that had been found in a lunar time capsule near Jupiter.”
“Ask me what’s for dinner,” he said.
“What’s for dinner, Grandpa?” she asked.
“What’s on your plate,” he said, placing a bowl in front of her. Its contents were completely unfamiliar to her, so he presented her with the can it had come from, which read: SpaghettiOs®.

Knock Knock

Flash Fiction by Jerry Vilhotti
​

My old father and I sat down for lunch and by its end, I was wondering 
who I was. Who I really was. Was this old gentle man in his 
early eighties my real father - though he had nurtured me like a good 
father would - or was it that former middleweight champion, who before 
he went to reform school in New York State had gone out with my sixteen 
year old sister, who was considered the knockout of The Bronx, for a 
whole six months and rumor had it shrouded in whispers and double 
meaning words that she had become pregnant with a baby that had gone 
away just before I was born; according to many whispers that were just 
beyond my full understanding for most of my life but I was told by my 
older brothers when I was three years old and called by them "the little 
bastard" that before I was born the man we called father had gone with 
gun in hand to retrieve my oldest sister who was holed up with the 
future champion and his brother by Mount Carmel Church where I was 
baptized and carried like a baby all the back to our Arthur 
Avenue tenement and not allowed to go out with guys like Jules Garfinkel 
who would become the philosopher actor who would say "everyone dies" in 
the movie where a body was searching for a soul and a Tammi guy who 
would fight the great Joe Louis only to lose hearing the word ten 
shouted into his ear at the end of the first round and many other guys 
who always made sure our father was not home when they came knocking and 
when I asked this sad old man why I was the only one among all my older 
siblings born in an apartment and not at the Fordham Hospital, he said: 
"Johnny when I was fourteen years old, I killed a sixteen foot snake 
with my long knife in a rain forest the likes you have never seen."
Like I said: we sat down for lunch and by its end, I felt like an old born baby​

A Wonder of Nature

by

Gerald Arthur Winter
​

The last time Jack Stark had seen Soonja Wu Han was across the DMZ through 10-power binoculars. She had grinned at him over her shoulder in dramatic escape from his covert security team. That was in ’88 when she was seventeen.
When they had their one-night-stand, Soonja, by Western standards had been jailbait, and he had been old enough to know better at twenty-three. All is fair in love and war, but this was both, or so he had rationalized his lack of emotional discipline at the time.
Jack’s emotions were mixed. He was curious about how Soonja might have endured physically since then. Had she sustained her beauty and grace? But his need to even the score had compelled him to keep looking for her. Jack’s assumption of her naiveté as a teenager had allowed him to fall victim to her charm.
Now she would be forty-five—a matured man-eater—unless her failed mission had cost her life. If not, she would have been in prison and left to starve in P’yongyang. There she would surely have been raped daily by North Korean guards. That would have been the mere preamble of her punishment of inefficiency as her Dear Leader’s perfectly honed weapon of death and destruction.
If so, just a bullet between her alluring almond-shaped eyes might have seemed a blessing to her. She had been a precocious teen who had gained access to the Summer Olympics as a North Korean gymnast with five other young girls.
The others had served merely as decoys, so Soonja could not easily be picked out by American security operatives assigned to the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul.
Could it possibly be true, as Colonel Yoon’s sources had claimed, that she hadsurvived? Jack wondered if Soonja had weathered well over time, especially after she had done her lethal dirty work before escaping back into North Korea.
Rather than a just failed effort, Jack’s mission had been aborted. He was supposed to capture the North Korean operative assigned to kidnap the only son of a high-ranking South Korean general. The purpose of the capture would be a warning to show General Oh his vulnerability. Then he could be manipulated to let down South Korea’s military guard and pave the way for a coordinated offensive across the DMZ during the international celebration of the Olympic Games.
Colonel Yoon’s text echoed through Jack’s mind on his flight: “Rumors say Soonja lives in Chejudo, at a small fishing village known for its haenyo.”
Jack knew that Korean word for women deep-sea divers who can hold their breath for six minutes and dive sixty feet below the surface then ascend quickly without suffering from convulsions, which Americans call the bends.
Jack and the colonel had worked closely together for the South Korean chaebol, so Colonel Yoon had known about Jack’s obsession to find Soonja. Though he knew about Jack’s motive for revenge, he knew nothing of Jack’s need to feel Soonja in his arms again, to brush her soft cheek with the back of his hand and to look deep into her dark eyes for an answer to the question: Why had she chosen to return to North Korea when he could have paved the way for her asylum in the States. She held valuable intelligence to both his Korean employer and the United States’ CIA. Now, the slightest chance that he might see Soonja face-to-face drew Jack to Chejudo like an unwary bug to a Venus fly trap.
In 1988, Jack’s six-man special security team had been a one-on-one, man-to-girl defense against the North Korean’s six-girl gymnastic team—an even match. Jack’s intelligence data had told him to concentrate on the female gymnasts because the men’s team from North Korea seemed too obvious. A South Korean military detail would be watching the North Korean men’s team while Jack’s special ops would concentrate on the seemingly innocent teenage girls who had been afforded a rare opportunity to smile in public. Jack knew the girls’ cold, militaristic grimaces lay beneath their masks of mirth to the crowd, the press, and the international judges. Jack knew only one of the girls would be the well-honed tool of terror, a ruthless killer.
Jack remembered the moment his eyes first met hers. Soonja had been on the balance beam and had just done a smooth back flip on her way to a perfect score of three 10s across the board when she had caught Jack’s glare and faltered in her landing. The crowd sighed in support of her excellent performance prior to her dismount, which had drawn 8.5s from the judges, one from South Korea with a smirk that would one day cost his life when he least expected.
That is when Jack saw Soonja’s child-like demeanor as a dark cloud that seemed to pass between them. With instant recognition, Jack had his killer and Soonja had met her most formidable adversary. Only then were the true games about to begin, but without the ceremony of passing torches and colorful pageantry. The invincible force in Jack was determined to break through the immovable fortress, Soonja, like the Great Wall of China prepared to stand up to both his passion and rage.
* * *
Once in Chejudo, the salt air and cool sea breezes of Sogwipo awakened feelings about the past that Jack had not surrendered to for decades. On the waves of the turquoise East China Sea, he recalled the throng of the opening ceremonies in Seoul in 1988. With the flashes of bright colors and the sound of a distant gong, he saw the dark eyes of the teenage girl who had tried to kill him in her escape back to North Korea. If she were now hiding out in a fishing village, he would soon flush her out. She would have been programmed to kill, so it would be just a matter of time—even now, decades later—before she would strike her assigned target from her new, baby-faced leader, Kim Jung Un.
Thanks to Colonel Yoon’s friendship since they had been young men working cooperatively with U.S. and South Korean securities forces at the Summer Olympics, Jack had learned about Soonja’s current location on Chejudo, but off the record. Only Jack and the colonel shared that information so Jack would have first crack at her without the usual red tape and approvals to take her out. Though Colonel Yoon had never indicated any awareness of Jack’s personal feelings for Soonja, Jack knew the colonel was sharp with instincts beyond the norm of even the most experienced agents in the field.
“She is hidden among us, Jacko,” he said, calling Jack by his special ops nickname. “I regret that she had slipped by us long ago and has found the perfect niche for her treachery where we’d least suspect. Not in the cities of Seoul or Inchon, but day laboring among the local fisherman in Chejudo.
The colonel had a gold incisor that flashed like a starburst when he grinned, accompanied by a high-pitched chortle that sounded like a turkey gobbling. He was rarely amused since the tragedy in 1988, but the idea of killing Soonja at last appealed to Yoon’s dark side, a place few would care to visit. He was a short, wiry man with deep crevices in his face and a harsh attitude carved in granite. Jack was glad to be Colonel Yoon’s friend rather than his enemy. His loyalty to the colonel’s agendas, military and personal, had paid off on this lucky day with Soonja at long last within his reach.
During his taxi ride along the one-lane gravel road with twists and turns high above the crashing sea below, Jack wondered who Soonja’s next victim would be. With South Korean politics shifting several times since 1988, he doubted her target was military, but rather corporate—a preferable target for Kim Jung Un’s new Communist regime where the inexperienced, dictator might be taking a Twenty-first Century approach in line with 9/11 by striking where capitalist’s power lay—in their wallets.
Jack knew this better than most. His past American military security experience had placed him in the employ of a phantom cartel, known on the street as “Kun Adilil,” simply translated—“The Big Boys”—who controlled the flow of domestic crime and wealth as well as between South Korea and other international crime syndicates. They were openly for hire by the highest bidding chaebols.
With no family ties and twenty-five-years security ops experience, Jack brought his Western thought to the burgeoning South Korean market place at a time when most Stateside pundits thought the South Korean economy was sliding rapidly downward. But from the inside, Jack knew better. Sure, the peasants in the fishing villages, like the one he was now approaching, and the average farmer and civil service worker were far worse off than any lower middle-class Americans, but the wealth of top Korean cor porate executives far exceeded the typical Wall Street hedge fund manager—by a decimal point and was continuing to rise exponentially.
As ruthless as corporate America has been portrayed, to South Koreans, the company and God were one, regardless of their spiritual preference. Ultimately, any professed allegiance, other than to Kun Adilil, was doomed to fail. Loyalty to “The Big Boys” guaranteed success with wealth and power. They were protected by Korean gangs that would provide the Asian art of not-so-subtle persuasion. Colonel Yoon had risen from those street gangs to the military, an unusual career fast track. Though he could never rise above the rank of colonel because of his humble roots, among his peers he was the most feared officer who had learned the art of street persuasion as a pimp and narcotics dealer when he was fourteen.
Getting out of the taxi and scanning the quaint fishing village with his professsional eye for danger, Jack thought Soonja’s target must be corporate. He figured she could hang out here with nonchalance and just wait for some top executive on a golfing tour to kidnap or kill.
He wondered if she would be alone this time or if she would use decoys to distract attention as she had in the past. He thought maybe the haenyos she dove with might serve that purpose.
He headed down the dirt road towards the sea where he would act like an American executive looking to score points and make some deals with Koreans of high corporate stature. After all, that had been his cover in Seoul for the past ten years. Soonja must have known that, because she had chosen the soft belly of the Korean peninsula at Chejudo to inflict her unsuspected blow. Colonel Yoon had prepared a special abode for Jack converted from a Buddhist temple. The stark structure overlooked the sea a hundred feet below where the Korean diving girls brought up seaweed, shellfish, and sponges every morning. They never dived after sunset, as Jack had been warned, because that’s when sharks would feed along the shore. He would have to explore at the time of least probable detection, when most villagers were sleeping and ready to rise refreshed for their daily diving routine at dawn.
* * *
At nine o’clock that night, dressed in black, Jack turned out the light and quietly slipped out to the screen porch. The hinge to the exterior door creaked, but he paused for only a moment to see if anyone had stirred from the sound. He continued with skillful stealth towards the edge of the cliff overlooking the surf crashing against the rocky coast below. The high-pitched chirping of toads in the underbrush faded as he repelled the rocky escarpment by rope. The hiss and pounding of the waves nearly drowned out his thoughts.
Colonel Yoon’s street informant had told him that a new haenyo diver had come to this village about ten years ago, but although local tradition and superstitions usually forbade newcomers, this young woman had shown remarkable skill and could not be denied when local seafood merchants were awed by her productivity. Women diverse ranged in age from fifteen to fifty, so that would put Soonja on the higher end, making up for her lack of experience with inborn skill and her remarkable ability to adapt, the key to effective espionage and treachery.
Even before North Korea had utilized her competitive gymnastic talent, Soonja had performed in China as a ballerina on tour when she was only ten. Her mission there had been to assassinate a Triad boss hogging proceeds in the flesh trade from North Korean operatives in Shanghai. Her silent skills with a knife and her lithe speed in a crowded theater had put Soonja on stage in a pirouette moments before her target was found dead in the third row with a knife threw his throat.
Jack figured Soonja must have adapted her gymnastic strength from the vaulting mount and uneven parallel bars to the depths of the East China Sea—a Darwinian evolution on fast-forward.
Some of the other women divers had been jealous and resentful at first, but their complaints had been abruptly silenced. Perhaps the wealthy corporate merchants from the Korean peninsula had put pressure on them to concede to the newcomer’s copious intake from the sea. But Jack knew how intimidating Soonja could be when she pulled back her gentle, subservient veil and showed her true Medusa-like face that could turn well-trained men to stone—dead in their tracks.
Though Soonja may have quietly made a new lair for herself, Jack was determined to stifle her progress the only way possible. Once he had satisfied his curiosity, and perhaps seduced her one last time, as a matter of professional honor and to save face among his peers, he would kill her.
* * *
A mile east of Sogwipo, Jack heard the churning of Chonjiyon Falls cascading from the cliffs above him into a gorge of lush orchards that would provide concealment for his trek towards the humble thatched hut that Colonel Yoon’s source had tagged as Soonja’s dwelling. If she had become a haenyo, she would be sleeping, rejuvenating her lungs and tired muscles after her deep descent and rapid ascent after holding her breath more than twice as long as most divers. It would take extraordinarily powerful kicks to repeatedly carry a net sack heavy with her catch from the sea’s depths.
There was still a dim light glowing from her open, glassless window, and the light danced erratically from twenty yards away. Jack assumed it was from flickering candle-light, probably scented with jasmine to soothe Soonja’s mind in restful sleep as she had done in Jack’s arms so long ago. He still associated jasmine with the scent of her silky black hair that had hung below her thin waist when it was not tied in a bun as she performed in international gymnastic competition.
As he moved closer, always checking peripherally for any sign that his approach had been detected, he heard the hypnotic woodwind trill from an iPod playing near her bed, traditionally hard and less than three inches thick on the stone floor. Knowing she had the keen predatory instincts of a reptile, he wondered if her dark eyes were now wide open and staring at the ceiling as she sensed his approach.
He needed to get closer to see if she was in the bed. At most, he might have three seconds to come through the window and cut her throat with one swift motion. If there was so much as a glimpse of her face before she choked on her own gurgling blood, she could stop him cold with one blink of her eyes.
He had loved her, even as a teen, but now she was a mature woman and a seasoned killer. He would have to strike first. Only then could he hold her head in both hands and admire her blossomed beauty. He would respect what she had become— more than just his equal for the past twenty years—until tonight if he could get the drop on her.
On tip-toes he stretched to see over the sill into the dimly lit room. She lay in bed on her right side facing away from him. A strong scent of jasmine stopped him cold. He noted the direction of the breeze then listened intently for her breathing, but the flute’s trill was too piercing. The breeze came from the sea at his back, so he wondered why Soonja’s scent wafted so strongly towards him. Fortunately, he could attack her from behind without seeing her face. Too many years had passed to repeat the same mistake of being hypnotized by her kaleidoscopic stare, which had dizzied and confused him in the past. As he coiled to spring in attack, she stirred. Her movement alerted his tightly wound spring as he leaped through the window and came at her with the knife’s double-serrated blade flashing the candle’s flickering light.
Instantly, she faced him. He froze, unable to follow through. Her shimmering eyes stunned him, but her face was unchanged after so many years, perhaps wizened, but as youthful looking now as she had been as a teen.
He grabbed her by her slender throat and came down with the knife into the hard matt that was her bed. He could not kill her, not yet.
She whispered hoarsely, unable to breathe with his tight grip around her long, slender throat, “I am not the one you seek,” she said in Korean, but with a Chinese accent typical of the northern regions, which he could still understand.
He stared into her eyes, which were somehow changed. He was mesmerized by her youthfulness. He could not help but wonder if the North Koreans had found some new wonder drug, maybe a Fountain of Youth from the region called Manchuria. Could his mind be playing tricks on him? Was it his subconscious wish that he would find Soonja just as she had been before? Or had she taken such good care of her health that now she appeared surely younger than thirty?
He grinned at her and tugged her beautiful, smooth face closer to his rough chin. A tear glisten in the candlelight as it ran down her cheek.
“Americans can never figure out the age of an Asian woman,” he said with heated breath in her pained face. “Have you been waiting for this face-to-face moment to weaken me? Are you trying to convince me that you’re the same innocent teen who’d been programmed to kill? Had you just been following orders from your
Supreme Leader by no choice of your own?
Grunting, she shook her head, but couldn’t speak as his grip tightened on her twisting neck and her lithe body quivered spastically.
“Any last words, Soonja, before I send you back to the pit of hell you’ve come from?”
It felt as if ice flowed through his veins as a woman’s voice in Korean came from the shadows behind him: “Would you kill your own daughter?”
His fist clenched tighter on the young woman’s neck as he slowly turned and squinted to discern a figure in the shadows of the room alongside the open window that he had come through—the source of the jasmine scent.
A decoy, he thought, another damn decoy.
He could not see her face concealed by shadows, but the candlelight showed her small feet and her legs to her waist where she sat in a wheelchair and pointed a pistol at him. He heard the safety click off with a downward motion of her thumb as the red laser danced around the side of his face in her quivering grasp.
He turned his head back towards her to see a Berdysh Ots-27 pistol equipped with a silencer. Like the woman who held it, the Russian weapon was made entirely of cold steel, a double action semi-automatic pistol with an 18-round capacity. At close range, she could put a hole in his chest that a Pekinese could jump through, or just blow his head clean off.
Fortunately, he thought, such a mess would draw too much attention to her clever cover—now a disabled, middle-aged women of little threat?
Her voice was still the same, high and child-like with a rhythm and Korean inflection that played with his mind, drawing him in for the kill like a hunter’s duck call in a serene meadow to distant, unsuspecting fowl.
“Release her, Jack,” Soonja said with a creak of the wheelchair as she used her free left hand to move closer to the bed and reveal her face. “See, Jack . . . her eyes are blue, like yours, but otherwise, she’s my exterior clone. In her heart, she’s as innocent as you’d hoped I had been when we met. She’s the best haenyo on Chejudo, able to hold her breath for ten minutes—a wonder of nature.”
He eased his grasp on the young woman’s neck, but remained cautious as Soonja pressed the muzzle of the pistol to the base of his spine.
“This is Jung Hye, our daughter,” she said. “You seduced me as a teenager and
foiled my mission, which cost me my legs when I returned across the northern border.
For my failure, the prison guards broke my legs irreparably. I’d thought I’d kidnapped my intended target, but you’d led me to the wrong boy, Colonel Yoon’s son rather than General Oh’s son, a perfect decoy with my mind still clouded by my first and last passion for any man . . . for you, Jack.”
“When you saw you had the wrong target, you didn’t need to kill the boy,” Jack said, wearily recalling the funeral for his best friend’s adolescent son, an innocent volunteer to protect the intended target, General Oh’s son, whose kidnapping with the threat of murder might have moved the DMZ a hundred miles south by coercion from the north.
“Haven’t you ever wondered, Jack, how that must sit with Colonel Yoon today?”
she said with a grin. “He’s known where I’ve been for years. So ask yourself, why would he suddenly share that information with you now?”
Jack’s mind spun. “I’ll be missed if you kill me,” Jack said. “Colonel Yoon has my back.”
“He led you to me, Jack . . . at long last.” Soonja chortled like a pigeon. Yes, the colonel has since become one of us,” she said with a nod. “You had tricked me into killing the wrong target, for which I had to pay dearly.” She gestured towards her twisted legs. “But they let me keep our daughter . . . on one condition, that I return to kill the one person who could keep us from succeeding again—the only one who might prevent Jung Hye from completing her mission here.”
Jack pushed Jung Hye aside and lunged at Soonja. Before he could reach Soonja’s throat with his knife, Jung Hye’s concealed knife passed through his back and protruded from his chest for a split second. Jack looked down in shock.
Not realizing they would be his last words, Jack glared at Soonja and said, “Now you’re just a bitch on wheels, but I’ll pay you back—”
Soonja’s face faded from his vision as she responded. “Don’t hold your breath.”
* * *
Before the break of dawn as the village still slept, Soonja watched from the cliff a hundred feet above as her blue-eyed daughter sliced bait on the rocks and fed the sharks before her morning dive. She was the only haenyo who could stretch the depth of her dive to over a hundred feet where she would weigh down Jack’s body where no one would find him, and still have enough breath to return to the surface.
Jung Hye had held her breath for more than five minutes taking Jack to the bottom, and now had both arms and legs free to reach the surface and look up to see the proud smile of Soonja, her oma on the high cliff above the East China Sea.
What Jung Hye had not expected to see was her mother with her arms and crippled legs strapped to her wheelchair. Soonja had been gagged, so it was a silent plunge until the wheelchair hit the water from its one-hundred-foot descent. Jung Hye saw Colonel Yoon standing where her mother had just been at the edge of the cliff. He was staring down at her with a gnarled grin that flashed his golden incisor with a starburst at sunrise.
Though there were still a few sharks cutting the surface, Jung Hye took a deep breath and dove back into the water. Her mother was descending rapidly to the depths of the sea, but a trail of bubbles gave Jung Hye hope that she could still save her. She followed the bubbles down to seventy-five feet where the wheelchair settled on a sharp coral ledge.
She found her mother’s limp body tied to the wheelchair, and unfastened her shackles. She removed her gag and didn’t think twice about exhaling into her mother’s mouth, even if it would be a futile attempt to save her.
With no air left in her lungs, Jung Hye knew her chance of returning to the surface alive would be one in a million, even swimming alone. With Jack’s weighted bones below and her mother’s corpse in her embrace, she looked up at the distant surface where the morning sunrise cast shimmers of golden light from a world she had been brought into without a choice, but to which she seemed destined now never to return. Regardless, she pushed off the sharp coral surface with her calloused feet.
Colonel Yoon’s grin remained fixed in her mind. But she was hallucinating, and unsure if she were swimming to the surface or surging downward into the rapture of the deep. Her lungs felt as if they would collapse after slowly exhaling for three minutes. She was trapped in that limbo with the horizon separating life from death.
Her only hope was to keep kicking her legs, but an echoing voice in her mind gave her strength and will. She heard her mother’s voice assuring her, as she often had--
“You can make it, dearest daughter.”
When Jung Hye gasped at the surface, she looked up to see that Colonel Yoon was gone from the cliff above. Her mother’s voice was part of her now, revenge incarnate, assuring her, “You will find him. You will kill him.”
If there were some place where Jack’s and Soon-ja’s best intended souls might ever join in harmony, Jung Hye was certain it could be only in that purgatory between the ocean and the sky where all else was void and her parents could treasure what they had begotten, a wonder of nature.

Strangers


By Alexandra H. Rodrigues
​


Ellen parked her red Buick sports car in the yawningly empty parking lot of Robert Moses Beach, one of the numerous sandy beaches along the south shore of Long Island. On a summer afternoon it was a great challenge to find an empty spot. Today, on this clear, breezy November afternoon, not a soul disturbed nature’s peace.
For protection against the wind Ellen pulled the fur-lined hood of her coat deep over her bouncy, auburn hair and tightened the belt on her coat. She was joyfully aware of the smell of iodine and salt infused in the ocean spray. The fine, damp beach sand glistened like coral. The surf wetted her knee-high rubber boots. White- caps rhythmically gurgled and splattered against the beach.
Bending her head backwards Ellen admired the sky. An anemic sun competed lazily with an upcoming silvery moon. A few fringed clouds had appeared on the horizon and were sailing the sky. A look at her wristwatch showed Ellen that it was already past three o’clock.
It had been a madhouse at home. Ingrid, her 11-year-old daughter, had lingered excessively over lunch. She was picking the peas one by one and stabbing each one dead center; a tactic which allowed her to delayed her next task -- namely homework. Seven-year-old Johnny had t o be put into fresh clothes. He had come from playing with George, the boy next door. His pants and sneakers spoke clearly of a mud-throwing contest.
There was rarely a quiet moment at home. Even late at night when Ralph, her husband, was relaxing after a tiring day as insurance salesmen, Ellen had to still prepare chores for the next day.
Caring and tending for her loved ones fulfilled her. She was an exemplary housewife and would have made her German ancestors proud.
Coming to the beach quite regularly every Tuesday from the start of fall to early spring, was one of the few luxuries she allowed herself. It was a time to herself that she needed. Ralph called her outings “romantic escapades,” and Ingrid said, “Mommy goes hiking.” After a few hours spent at the beach, Ellen always felt rejuvenated. No matter if it was cold, rainy or windy, it elated her to face the elements. Slowly she loafed along the beach. Playfully she kicked up sand into the air with her boot tips. Her warm breath condensed into a grayish smog when mixing with the Ocean air.
The wind was picking up now. With her head bent down, using the hood as a windshield, Ellen measured her steps carefully to stay just a few inches from the incoming tide. Too late did she notice a young man who was standing motionless, statue like, staring past the high-rising waves. Ellen bumped into him, tripped and lost her balance while her right knee was digging into the dunes. Stunned she looked up at the man. He was tall and skinny, possibly about her age, around 30. He was a well-tailored suit, fashionable tie and a Mackintosh raincoat. Not an outfit for a beach walk, Ellen’s mind registered. More like Wall Street attire. His clean-shaven face was flushed.
Ellen waited for him to say something. Had he seen her come? Then again, how could she have missed seeing him? Miles of empty beach and she would bump into the only other human in sight. She must have been absorbed in deep thought. Right now, however, she could not even recall what it was that had occupied her thoughts. With what seemed a big effort,, the man bent down to her and offered her a cold, ring less hand to help her up. Her lips started to form a question or rather a “thank you” but as if hypnotized by a strange although kind expression in his brown deep-set eyes, she remained silent. Although his hand grabbed her hand, he didn’t really seem to notice what was taking place. His mind appeared far, far away. Even more unreal was that Ellen felt awkwardly drawn to this stranger. She was much too realistic to believe that this encounter was anything but a coincidence but it held a thrill she was not used being exposed to. Danger – not at all, her mind assured her. Meeting of two entities searching for a confirmation? Could they be soul mates? What does that actually mean, why did this expression come to her mind just now, Ellen wondered.
As if they had agreed upon it without any words they began to walk and in hand, their steps burying any sound in the sand. Not for a moment did she think about pulling her hand away. His grip was firm. The skin of his hand was smooth. He has beautiful hands, she thought. For a split second, she wondered how those hands would feel on her naked body. Nothing but the splashing of the water, distant cries of hungry seagulls, and the dim howling of the wind accompanied their footsteps. He bent down and picked up an exquisitely shaped seashell. He held it in his open palm of his right hand, never letting go of Ellen’s hand. Was he going to show it to her? His face had the expression as if he saw a seashell for the first time. Ellen made no comment when he put the seashell in his coat pocket without a comment.
They had walked for about 20 minutes when they reached the old moldy hull of a turned over fishing dinghy. It was here where Ellen usually decided to turn back. Again it was odd – he seemed to know. Momentarily he released her hand. She sensed gratefulness in his gaze as his eyes met hers for one fleeing moment. Then again without a word, he continued ahead – alone.
On her way back, Ellen tried to step into each of his foot prints . She did not turn her head once but knew intuitively that he was not looking either.
Only when the cozy warmth in her car enclosed her, she felt like slipping out of a cocoon,. The seats had been warmed by the sun shining through the T-roof. Her thinking cleared but no explanation would come. . Who was that man? Where did he come from? What had made her act so submissive? So out of character for her! Measured by normal standards, it all seemed ridiculous. Still while it had lasted, it had seemed totally normal. The only way. Then she noticed a beat up Chevy parked just a few feet away. It was probably his car. Should she get out and write down his license plate? What for, she chided herself. She shook her head. It was not like her to act like a teenager. Resolutely she started the engine and drove off. Maybe I will meet him again another time, she hoped.
Ellen did not mention anything about this encounter at home. How could she have explained it and what was there to tell? However she allowed herself to think about those questioning eyes and those elegant hands often.! She nourished the hope of maybe meeting this stranger again. And yes, she fantasized how it would be to know him better and that thought aroused her usual cool blood.
She was back at the beach the following Tuesday. She wished to meet her stranger. At the time she feared that the uniqueness of their first encounter might be spoiled if she did. . Again she walked all the way up to the old moldy boat. The day was gray and the smell of snow hung in the air. Up on the boardwalk two boys were playing ball. No sign of the stranger. Ellen shivered by the time she reached her car. She started the engine and turned on the heater. What’s the matter with me? Why am I so disappointed? I’m a married woman. A mother. It’s not that I am waiting for a prince on a white horse. About ready to drive off, her eyes fell on a folded piece of paper stuck under the windshield wiper. She got out of the car and fetched it. The small piece of paper, evidently torn out of a little note book, read In big generous letters “thank you.” No signature. Only two words. Thank you. There was no doubt in her mind that the stranger had left this note for her. Thank you For what she wondered.
Ellen kept this little note among other treasures she collected. For many weeks she carried the hope of meeting the stranger again. Then life’s daily events made her forget about him. Only 23 years later and through one of the twists of destiny was the episode to be recalled in her mind. It was then, when it was to play a decisive role in her life.
For hours Robert had walked aimlessly through the busy City streets. How could people be so gay he thought Irritated by the giggling of some passing teenagers. Death was so final, so irreversible. He expected everybody to point fingers at him, but nobody in the buzzing lunch crowd even gave him more than a casual look. Suddenly he knew what was left for him to do after the events of this morning.
As a child Robert had lived near Robert Moses Beach. An only child, he was slow in making friends because of a sensitive personality and over protective parents. He had found pleasure in conversing with imaginary friends and watching the elements. He gained strength from nature . On this Tuesday he felt that he could no longer face
people. He did not want to live anymore. For a last time he would let the rolling waters befriend him till they would close over him. Only this way, could he make sure to never, ever kill anybody again. With his parents dead, nobody would miss him and if God would forgive him, he might soon see them again. He hardly remembered how he had gotten out of the city. His beat up Chevy took him along the Parkway until he reached the parking lot at Robert Moses Beach and parked alongside a little red car. While he walked down to the beach he shivered but his face was flushed and covered with sweat of anxiety. This very morning a life had depended on him, the newly graduated doctor. It had been the life of old Jim Butler who suffered from a ruptured tumor in the lower intestines. Robert had been glowing with pride when he pulled on the sterilized rubber gloves, handed to him by a young nurse with open admiration in her cute face. The operating room smelt of ether. He, Robert, would be in charge of the operation. For the very first time, he could call himself a surgeon. He would soon prove his ability using all the knowledge gained during years of hard study and internship.
Everything had gone quite well. He removed the tumor with a swift incision. Then, when he was scraping some of the existing tissue to avoid spreading of malignancy the nurse had made signs indicating emergency status. Salt, syringe, oxygen, heart massage. Robert had shouted out all the commands for such an occasion, as he heard learned in med school. In vain – Jim butler had died. Robert was called into the chief-surgeon’s office and was told, “You performed a good operation. I’m sorry you had back luck the first time around. But don’t blame yourself. It probably was old Butler’s time to bite the grass.” Those words had fallen like rain on polished glass. They did not sink in, did not console. Robert had lit a cigarette, the first one in many years, and walked out of the hospital.
Thoughts like, you killed him, you failed, you’re not a doctor let alone a surgeon, haunted him. With logic, he too could e3xplain that he done all possible but that did not matter to him now. Jim Butler had died under the very knife that was to make him, Robert a full-fledged surgeon. He had taken up medicine with a true conviction to help and through years of hard study and hurdles that often upset his sometimes tender psyche he had kept on studying and maintaining a healthy enthusiasm. What just had happened in the operating room meant total defeat.
While he was standing at the beach, gathering courage for that final step, that would silence his conscience, Ellen had caught him off guard. After she had fallen down, her startled look had penetrated his gloom. He had held out his hand to her and she had not retrieved hers after he had pulled her off her knees and out of the sand. He did not want to talk. There was nothing left he wanted to say to anybody. Oddly enough that strange woman seemed to sense it and she did not say anything or ask anything. With her hand trustingly in his, he felt as if positive messages were being transmitted to him. With an interest which a few minutes before he had thought to be no longer capable of, he had picked up a seashell. Its shape and beauty made him think of life not death. Of life complicated, unpredictable yet beautiful.
The woman had turned back after he had let go of her hand, when they had reached the old fishing boat. She had not spoken at all. It seemed they had both agreed mutually to part at that very moment in time. He had continued walking in the direction they had come. Without looking back he thought to know instinctively that she – he did not even know her name – had not looked back either. That day he walked for a long time, engulfed by an increasing wind. Amidst the rising tide and the onset of darkness he made up his mind. He was going to give life another try. Unconsciously he fingered the sea shell.
The next day and every day till the following Tuesday, he came back to the beach. A fascination had built up in his mind with the woman he had met. Then finally on the Tuesday following their encounter, he saw the little red car again, in the same parking spot it had been last time. He had meant to go and look for her or wait for her but suddenly that seemed too banal, it might break the ominous spell their meeting had had. Resolutely he pulled out a little note book, ripped out a page and wrote “Thank you” on it. Nothing else. Then he got out of his car and put the note under the windshield wipers of the red car. Having done that, he went back into his car and drove away to another parking lot, several miles away.
Fast forward 23 years. Ellen was now a widow. Ralph had died from a massive heart attack 2 years ago, only a year after their son John had been killed in a car accident. Five youngsters had been on the way home from a party.
There was a crash, John had been the only one killed. He was not the driver and not drunk. His friend, the driver however had had a few drinks and John should not have gone into the car with him. Ifs and buts do not help. John was dead. Her daughter, Ingrid was married and had moved to Australia. Although the advanced Technology of Internet, Skype and the like helped somewhat to keep them close, a physical meeting between mother and daughter seemed destined for the very far future. The t6wo trips to the two funerals had eaten up much of any reserves available.
Depression had gotten hold of Ellen. The day her little Sea Ray hit the sandbank in the Great South Bay and the malady happened to her, her mental state was at Zero. No, she had not actually planned suicide but when the impact happened she had no energy nor desire to hold herself up. When she went overboard, her head apparently hit the railing and she ended up with a concussion. Later she was told that a Dr. Gehring had noticed her boat being in trouble and had informed the coast guard. They had saved her and he had had her admitted as his patient, to St. Vincent, where he was practicing as Chief Surgeon. For a moment, before she had blacked out, the picture of an exquisite sea shell had swept thru her inner vision. She did not connect the image with the day, over twenty years back, when she had had the strange encounter with a man she never saw again but the picture of the sea shell was of the one from that day.
The next Ellen knew was that she was lying in clean, white sheets. Where am I? She thought. Why could she not hold on to that blissful blackness she just had come out off. So she had not been allowed to die, it had only been a temporary reprisal from her present unhappy being. She fell back into a restless sleep. Next time she woke, she saw that her arm was tied down on a board and a needle was stuck in one of her veins. She had the urge to pull the needle out. She felt sweat on her forehead. She was crying and nearly choked with the effort to not make a noise. She did not want anybody to know that she was awake.
There was another woman in a bed next to her. About 50 or so, just like her, she would be 53 next month. A nurse came into the room. Ellen did not want to talk, so she closed her eyes and made believe to be asleep. “The doctor is on his way” the nurse said. Oh well, Ellen opened her eyes in dismay. She could not fake it any longer. A good looking man, middle aged with piercing but friendly brown eyes had come in. Obviously the Doctor. He came over to her bed and took her hand, the one without the needle in the arm. “You are doing fine, Mrs. Decker, he said.
“If you keep progressing like this you’ll be home in less than a week.” Ellen held back more tears. There was no home for her. Sure, there was a three bedroom ranch with teak floors and Persian carpets but it meant nothing to her but a roof over her head. A place to vegetate and mourn her loss. She saw her chart across from the bed - Mrs. Ellen Decker. Age 53. Admitted to St. Vincent Hospital following rescue by the coast guard. Diagnosis – concussion.
Ellen acknowledged the doctor. “Thank you doctor for going thru all that trouble. It isn’t your fault that you are not really doing me a favor by bringing me back into reality.” Dr. Gehring looked at her quizzically. “ Now, now Mrs. Decker, you mustn’t talk like this. Do you mean to say that it was not an accident that your boat capsized?”
How perceptive he was and yet she had not really planned it or intended suicide. “No, no it was an accident only – being in a blackout zone afterwards – well it was peaceful.” “You do your job doctor and I promise to cooperate for the time being. Ellen forced a little smile trying to be polite. Dr. Gehring let go of her hand and Ellen suddenly realized how comfortable she had felt while he had held it. Dr. Gehrig left with a cheerful “I’ll see you to-morrow”.
She was looking forward to Dr. Gehring’s visit the next day.
She was sitting up in bed when he came in. With a friendly greeting he took her hand again to check her pulse. There was something so familiar about him, about his hands. Ellen could not figure out what it was but it calmed her.
Then, quite matter of fact he pulled something out of the pocket of the white gown. A sea shell. The sea shell.
Had he recognized her? Unlikely. “Look at all the beauty nature produces for us in abundance. We owe it to be around to admire its treasures.” He said. It was obvious that he wanted to help her with her depression.
A cycle was closing. Ellen knew nothing of what had been on Roberts mind that day in the past but he had never forgotten. The sea shell and Ellen were both accountable for him being alive. He did not recognize Ellen now but he felt her desperation and he hoped the sea shell would do for her what it had done for him.
Ellen had recognized him when he showed her the sea shell. Not to break the spell she had not mentioned it to Dr. Gehrig.
Back in her house a week later, she searched for the note from the stranger, she had kept all those years. It now was yellow and a little brittle. She completed in her normal handwriting: You are welcome! And “Thank You”
No name.
The following day she drove back to the hospital and gave the note to the receptionist for Dr. Gehring.
Forward another 20 years. An elderly couple was walking hand in hand along the dunes of Jones Beach.
Their names?

​Treadmill


By


Gerald Arthur Winter





It was Tuesday morning after Thanksgiving. Heavy traffic crept


through the Holland Tunnel at a snail’s pace. Chuck Spingler realized


he’d be late for the CEO’s conference meeting. He’d forgotten the


Rockefeller Plaza Christmas tree lighting ceremony would be


televised that evening. Christmas shoppers would be heading into


Manhattan for the full-Monty of commercial holiday exposure.


In the middle of the tunnel a delivery truck hit the car in front of


it. In chain reaction Chuck jammed on his BMW’s brakes. Though he


avoided rear-ending the car ahead of him, his Starsbuck’s mocha


grande splashed across his crisp white shirt and bright orange power


necktie. He kept a box of fresh dress shirts in his trunk, and an


assortment of silk ties in the backseat, never knowing when a crisis at


the bank might necessitate an overnight stay in Manhattan.


Arriving a half-hour late, Chuck got a glare from the CEO’s


secretary, Connie, as he emerged from the men’s room with a fresh


shirt and tie.


“Have they started?” he asked, Connie.


Her response was a dismissive huff as a warning that Chuck’s


tardiness could cost him dearly.


She would know, because the CEO had cancelled her year-


end bonus for not arriving at the office last Friday until 10:00 a.m. Her


husband had been in a near fatal collision on the FDR Drive. For


Connie’s tardiness, CEO Woodburn had cancelled her five-grand


bonus and sent a two-hundred-dollar bouquet of roses to her


husband’s hospital beside instead. For Connie, that floral fragrance


lingered to remind her against future tardiness. That bitter-sweet


scent was counterpointed by the cadence of her husband’s IV drip


in the ER.


When Chuck opened the Conference Room door, seven VPs


didn’t acknowledge his tardy entry, but sat frozen like trained bird


dogs waiting for their master’s signal to retrieve the kill.


CEO Woodburn gave him an icy stare then nodded for Chuck


to take the only empty seat at the long mahogany table. Its sheened


surface reflected Woodburn’s and the VPs images where Chuck


imagined a Bizarro Financial World existed. On the worst of days,


Chuck wondered if he would prefer that adverse universe, that


those reflections in the table might be a world of empathy and equity


to which he could escape.


The only empty seat directly to Woodburn’s left, was often


referred to as “the ejector seat,” and with good reason.


“The vote has been cast,” Woodburn said without turning


towards Chuck. Closing the folder in front of him, he added,


“Unanimously, in favor of Treadmill.”


Chuck raised his hand for acknowledgement.


Woodburn huffed, giving Chuck a perturbed nod with


permission to speak.


Chuck asked, “So we’re not taking the bail-out?”


Woodburn frowned. “Of course we’re taking it.”


Chuck said, “But I pointed out last week, sir, that we won’t need


the bail-out if we adopt my proposed plan, Treadmill.”


“We’ve just adopted Treadmill,” Woodburn said with a sneer


like a feral cat about to disembowel a helpless rabbit.


Thinking aloud, Chuck blurted: “Then why would we take the


bail-out?”


Woodburn grinned.


“Oh, I get it,” Chuck reasoned. “We’ll get the jump on our


competition and expand our Human Resources here and abroad


with the government’s money, then we can balance our books at the


same time we’re expanding our global operations.”


Chuck’s voice faded as the other seven VPs rose from their


seats. With respectful nods to Woodburn, they departed leaving


Chuck in the ejector-seat.


Woodburn cleared his throat and leaned back in his high-back


leather chair at the head of the table, then turned to Chuck and said,


“Treadmill was brilliant . . . but what else can offer that could justify


your missing this morning’s executive vote?”


“I got stuck in the Holland Tunnel and—”


“You mean your mother didn’t die, Spingler . . . or one of your


kids?”


“I’m not married—no kids. I just—”


“You just have no excuse. If a meeting is set for nine o’clock,


then sleep over in the city if you have to, but be here on time. Only


Treadmill has saved your butt, but what have you done for me lately?


You came up with that plan six months ago when our home loans


tumbled into an abyss of bad debt. We hadn’t activated Treadmill


because we were waiting to see if we, too, would fit the bill: too big


fail. We have, so now we’ll have a billion dollars to play with and


we’re going to activate Treadmill the moment the government puts


that money into our reserves.”


Chuck said, “Wouldn’t it be better for our public image to use


Treadmill, then stand tall without taking the federal bail-out? We won’t


need it—that was Treadmill’s intent.”


“Treadmill’s conception was yours, Spingler, and you’ll be


immediately gratified with a six-figure bonus—but Treadmill’s


intent is my call.”


“I get it,” Chuck said. “We’ll use that billion to hire more people


to staff our global operations and stay ahead of the competition--


we’ll lead the way for others to follow our example. We’ll be hailed for


boosting the lagging economy and putting the Great Recession


behind us.”


“There will be no hiring in the foreseeable future,” Woodburn


said. “On the contrary, we’ll be closing five hundred domestic


branches and half of our overseas operations, reducing our entire


labor force by two hundred thousand. We’ll pay back the feds’ billion


dollars, but after we’ve doubled it in the Chinese market as they buy


off our bad debt.”


“But then you won’t need Treadmill. It was just a failsafe plan


to keep the bank from going belly-up. The depositors will be outraged


if we raise their banking fees and deposit limits.”


Woodburn grumbled, “De-pos-i-tors? I don’t ever want to hear


the D word in my presence. Go soft on me, Spingler, and you won’t


make our next cut. I’m downsizing our executive staff from nine to


seven. Don’t become one of the two VPs I’ll fire before Christmas.”


“Isn’t that cruel, sir, firing someone just before Christmas?”


Woodburn shrugged. “Crueler yet to let an employee charge his


expected bonus on gifts he can’t afford on unemployment.”


Chuck let that logic sink in, knowing the bills for those gifts


wouldn’t come in January. His plan would generate the late fees from


the frozen credit piling up for thirty days. Treadmill was designed to


save the bank from default, but the executive staff had voted to


release Spingler’s plan with a shot of speed and greed.


Woodburn said, “VPs are only two employees among the two


hundred thousand we’ll fire, but we’ll make sure our executive staff’s


reduction gets the most publicity, just to quiet the outcry against us


for taking tax-payers’ money to invest. As if they’d ever know what to


do with that much money.”


Wooburn rose from his chair as a move of dismissal, but added,


“We won’t have to wait until January to begin your clever idea within


Treadmill. You called it: ‘Return to Sender.’ With the holidays slowing


down the mail, it will be less obvious, but the late fees for non-pay-


ments in January will make us another billion dollars just by failing to


mail those credit card bills this month—we’ll even save on postage.


The fine print on the back of their bills will cover our butt with the few


who’ll lawyer up for any class-action suits. Whatever little crap slips


through the grating can be easily paid for from our profits.”


Woodburn led Chuck to the door then watched the doors close


on his youngest, up-and-coming Vice President.


Chuck descended to the next floor where he envisioned his


new corner office with a view of Battery Park—another perk in the


offing for conceiving Treadmill.


Woodburn turned with a nod to his secretary, “Send a dozen


roses to Spingler’s mother.”


Connie’s back stiffened at the mention of roses, thinking of


those Woodburn had sent to her husband. But she’d still cling to


Woodburn’s whipping post just for her health insurance to cover her


husband’s mounting medical expenses.


She’d take whatever crap Woodburn would throw at her, but at


least her skills had preserved her job into her fifties, despite her faded


good looks since she’d been hired thirty years ago as Woodburn’s


convenient grab n go.


Connie shook herself from that memory with disgust, but asked,


“What’s the occasion?” Thinking: God, Spingler—what did you say in


that meeting to piss off Woodburn?


“No occasion. Make it anonymous,” Woodburn said.


“Anonymous?” she blurted, realizing she’d posed a question--


an unacceptable punctuation when addressing Woodburn. The last


time she’d posed a question was back in the 80s, asking: “You and


me . . . and Ingrid?”


At least Connie wasn’t married then, and neither was he, so the


price she’d paid was a threesome in the Hamptons with Woodburn’s


most recently hired MBA of choice—Ingrid, a Valkyrie who’d ravished


her more than Woodburn.


Connie realized Woodburn was still staring at her. She blinked


and repeated with double-jeopardy defiance, “Anonymous . . . why is


that, sir?”


Woodburn grinned. “Just a reminder to Mrs. Spingler’s son, not


to be late again—not unless she croaks.”


For a moment, Connie imagined she saw a Valkyrie flying past


the office windows and wished she had wings. After thirty years of


service, she still hadn’t evolved that far and remained a creature of


the mire.


She wondered if there was still hope for Chuck Spingler with


his defiance of authority. Maybe . . . hmm—maybe not. There was


always too much money at hand to ever say “no.”

​

Witless Protection

By Gerald Arthur Winter

 
If I’ve learned anything in my travels, there’s one thing that holds true— you’re on one side or the other. You can’t walk the fence and expect to survive. Maybe if I’d seen the direction Susan was taking, I might have set her straight. With 20/20 hindsight, I imagine she would have told you her story like this: I never had a chance to reverse the momentum, to pause for a moment to consider the consequences. There were mutual glances across the table when we dined at an eastside haunt after work in Manhattan, but when he touched my hand and caressed my wrist with his thumb, I could think only about how happy we’d be. I do love him. I suppose that’s my excuse.
I can’t recall the precise moment it began. It wasn’t a thunderbolt, and certainly not love at first sight. I’d known Jack for as long as I could remember, a given when a guy is that much your senior. Perspective is a funny bird that makes you laugh or cry. One moment he’s bouncing you on his knee as you’re weightless—“Susie, Susie, Susie Q!” he’d sing out as I laughed and squealed with delight at age four.
Twenty years later, I’m still bouncing and squealing with Jack deep inside me. He’s nearly out of breath, but his song still rings clear in my head:
Susie, Susie, Susie Q!
I suppose you’re thinking—dirty old man. It wasn’t that way. I blame myself. Yes, he was older and probably should have known better, but we both weighed the ripple-effect of pain our love affair would cause all who cared. In retrospect, we might easily have given in to our feelings ten years ago. I knew he was the one when I was fourteen. Jack knew it, too, but his moral strength kept anything from happening. He said nothing, but his light, hazel eyes told me our love could hurt me more than anyone else if I fell in love with a man over forty when I was just a first-year high school student.
“I’ll wait as long as it takes,” I’d whispered in his ear when he carried me up to my bedroom after driving me home from my senior prom. “No one will ever touch me, but you,” I’d promised him.
My prom date was the varsity quarterback, but I pretended I was drunk when he made advances, and I said I was ill. My mom called Jack to pick me up and bring me home safely. I wanted so much for Jack to make love to me that night, but when I tried to say more, he put his index finger to my lips, shook his head, and left. I cried for hours before falling asleep. Jack traveled abroad for his job when I was in college. As an exchange student in my junior year at Syracuse University, I spent six months in Paris.
Mom asked him to visit me there in April to make sure I was OK that I was eating enough and no Frenchmen had seduced me. Jack had taken the Orient Express for his most recent business trip. It was that air of mystery about Jack that had drawn me to him. Now that I was no longer jailbait, that mysterious nature of his business abroad drew me to him from my core.
Expecting Jack’s arrival from the train, I sat chilled for an hour in the drizzle at an outdoor café watching the station platform. I hadn’t seen him in almost a year, so my heart fluttered with vignettes of subtitled, black-and-white French art films going through my mind. Jack got off the train with a newsboy cap pulled down and his trench coat collar pulled up as he avoided puddles on the cobblestone street to join me. I saw myself as Jean Seberg in Bonjour Tristesse, by not taking responsibility for my actions to achieve the passionate result I so desperately desired. Jack stopped dead in his tracks when he saw me. He removed his dripping cap revealing his frizzed silver locks with Superman-like curl on his forehead. He grinned with one dimpled cheek.
“How’s it going, Susie Q?” he asked, and my heart melted.
“Take me to your hotel and make love to me all afternoon,” I said. “No one will ever know.”
Jack sighed, took my hand, and caressed my wrist with his thumb. Looking me straight in the eye, he said: “But we’ll know, Susie. That’s two people too many. Let’s go inside and have some wine and bouillabaisse. I want to hear all about your Paris adventures, especially the young men whose hearts you’ve broken.”
I rambled on for several hours, but it was all an echo in my head. I couldn’t stop staring at Jack and wondering if my perfume, or the bumps in my sweater from my taut nipples were arousing him. I paused several times as I spoke with my mouth open and the tip of my tongue inverted to see if he could resist kissing me, putting his hand beneath my sweater, and giving in to my wish to go back to his hotel room.
“I’ll tell your mom you’re doing just great,” he said after our dessert.
He stood, paid the check, and put on his hat and coat. “It was great to see you,” he said, and turned to hail a cab.
“Please, don’t go,” I said, and hated myself for the pitiful tone in my trill.
He grinned and winked, then said: “There’s one hell of a lucky young man waiting for you out there, Susie Q. With your looks and smarts, don’t do anything to ruin that chance.”
I was so dumbstruck when I came out of my fog that his cab was gone before I realized I hadn’t even kissed him good-bye. I spent the afternoon crying, realizing Jack was the only for me. Though I cried all night till late the next dismal morning, I realized Jack and I had to be together, no matter what. Patience, that would be the key to my happiness, so I concentrated on my studies.
Graduating summa cum laude the following year, I entered Harvard Law School, where I excelled again. I saw Jack only at holiday breaks, when I’d decided to keep him off guard. When the ritualistic hug and kiss came among friends and family, I turned my cheek to Jack. He must have become used to my stifled swoons and seemed surprised, though not apparently disappointed, that I might be losing interest.
“Everything OK, Susie Q?”
He cocked his head with a boyish, don’t-you-love-me-anymore look.
“Great, Jack.” I shrugged. “How about you?”
“Never better, kid.”
He winked, but seemed pensive as he greeted others at the holiday party.
There was never a doubt in my mind that I loved Jack with all my soul, but I finally felt his responsive vibe, and not just a midlife crisis so typical of the male species. Jack loved me, but if we decided to make it work, there were so many issues, so much we’d have to give up. After all, Uncle Jack had been married to my mom’s sister, my Aunt Sally, for fifteen years. We weren’t blood relations, and he was Sally’s second husband. They had no kids, and there were no cousins to condemn us to hell for our outrageous affair. He wouldn’t have to marry me. I decided to become an attorney with a career that wouldn’t include kids of my own. I needed a lover, but not just any lover. Only Uncle Jack could do it for me. In conversations with Aunt Sally, I found out Jack was staying in Manhattan on business, so I decided to surprise him and lure him to my apartment on East 45th Street. When he came to my table at La Manganette, I recalled when we met briefly in Paris and I was still an undergraduate. His manner was different now, more relaxed. He looked at me, not as his niece, but as a woman. He used no “Susie Q” quips this time, but sat, took my hand, and kissed it.
“You look great, Susan,” he said. Then that dimple creased his cheek.
“You make me sorry I didn’t take you up on your offer in Paris. When was that? Seven years ago?”
“Another time . . . another place,” I said.
“And now?” he asked.
“No, Jack, only the right time and the right place,” I assured him. “I’ve waited this long for you. It has to be perfect and everlasting. It could take a year, maybe two, but we’ll be free of the stigma of families’ and friends’ contempt.
It’ll be just us . . . forever.”
“How are we going to pull that off, Susan?” he asked raising an eyebrow.
“Trust me, Jack. Are you in?” I challenged keen to any pause in his response.
Then his lovable dimple and a wink said it all. “You’re the boss, Susan.”
He grinned. “Will I have to kill anyone?”
“You have my permission to kill me if I blow this for us,” I promised.
“OK, Babe. It’s your call,” he conceded.
We left it at that and didn’t speak again for months while I worked my plan. I hung out at the right clubs in Manhattan till I made the contacts I needed. Within six months I was Tony Piano’s main squeeze and right up close in the clubs when he ordered hits on his enemies. I passed their body-cavity searches whenever I entered their inner sanctum because I didn’t need a wire. It was all up here in my pretty little head: victims’ names, locations, and times of their hits. What I couldn’t provide were the hit men’s names. That didn’t matter because the DA and the Feds often caught the guilty
parties in the act because my information was so accurate. One of the nameless killers seemed always to be a step ahead of the cops, so they tried to pressure me to continue my undercover charade to weed out his name. Though Tony Piano spoiled me, everything was a means to an end. The loss of my virginity and not seeing Jack for a year would be worth it. As long as Jack and I would be together in the end, it didn’t matter what I had to do to get there. It was time.
I told them I had to stop and was ready to join the Witness Protection program they’d promised me. But I told them my husband had endured hell while I was their informant, and their program had to include new identities for both of us as a married couple, or I wouldn’t give my final deposition that would put Tony Piano away for life.
I told Jack to close the cover on his past and be ready to begin his future as my husband, where no one would know us or find us. He told my Aunt Alice that he was going on a business trip to France again. Dumb bitch, I thought. She even packed his bags for him. We didn’t hook up till several days later in Paris with our new IDs, including passports. We’d take the Orient Express west, where no one would find us.
Jack surprised me, having booked a private car where we were served champagne as the train left the Paris station towards Prague, where we planned to begin our new life together. We made love all night to the soothing sway of the train. When I awoke I saw Jack at the window silhouetted against the glow of sunrise.
“Last night was great, Jack.” I sighed. “We’ll have a lifetime of nights like that. The Feds will provide our Czech IDs in Prague.”
As Jack turned from the balcony, I saw he was wearing a jacket and tie, but he showed me that dimple as he came over and sat on the bed.
“What’s with the digs, Jack?” I asked, but the touch of his hand and his thumb caressing my wrist mesmerized me for the moment. Then Jack suddenly pushed the silken pillow over my head.
As we pulled into the station in Prague, the last words I heard him say were: “Sorry, Susie Q. There was no other choice than you—or me. With all due respect, Tony Piano sends his best . . .”
 

​
​Who by Fire

By Andrew Lee-Hart


1900

I looked at the pornographic picture in front of me and shuddered. What kind of mind could have produced such a tumescent, disturbing painting? Who would have thought that a still life could be so lustful and passionate?
Miriam looked at me, and smiled. In front of us was her startlingly grotesque painting; the apples and pears were overripe so you could almost see the juices seeping through the skin, whilst the bananas were unashamedly phallic. Everything dripped with fecundity and passion. She certainly had talent, but she intruded herself onto everything that she created, rather than keeping herself at a distance. She was only a housewife after all, attending my basic art course, for something to do in the evenings whilst she waited for her children to come along, which assuredly they would.
I coughed, feeling myself going red. “It is good” I told her, “you paint very well and have a great feel for colour. But you need to keep somethings hidden; your paintings are indecent, almost obscene. Sometimes I don’t know where to look”.
Her appearance hid her passionate personality; she always looked demure, smartly dressed in a dark blouse with her long brown hair held back with pins. She had dressed thus from the first day she turned up at my art class one Monday afternoon at Leeds Art School and the subsequent Mondays and Thursdays that she attended.
There was something about her I found unsettling; a cynic would say it was because she had far more talent than I could dream of, and perhaps that was the case. But then my paintings sell and I get invited to exhibit my work, and I doubted hers would. She was just so emotional; every time I stood close to her, examining what she was painting (still lifes mostly, and occasionally people, although fully-dressed of course), I could feel that passion, as if she poured out everything in her heart onto the canvas.
We bumped into each other one afternoon at the Leeds city art gallery. I was exhausted having walked along The Headrow; carriages and horses splashing me in the Autumn rain. It was only two o’clock but I could feel the dark coming on. I only had come in to get some shelter from the rain and dry off, but whilst I was there I had a look around. It was sometime since I had been in there, although I spent much of my rather alienated childhood in the gallery.
She was sat on one of the benches, looking at some Dutch master or other.
“Don’t you think this is a great work, Mr Smythe,” she called over. I wanted to avoid her, finding her so overwhelming, but I could not be that rude. And she interested me. Well more than that. I had often found myself thinking of her, and it was perhaps fate seeing her there. I smiled and sat down beside her, and we talked of art.
“I have never seen your paintings” she said, “I know you paint. Are there any here, in this gallery?”
I explained that this gallery regarded me as too modern, but in some of the smaller galleries there was some of my work. We talked some more, and then she left as her husband was due home from work; he taught Classics at the university.
“I come here a lot” she told me before she departed; “early afternoons. I look at the art and copy pictures. I know I am not very good but I want to improve, and that is the way apparently.”
And then she was gone, with a faint smell of perfume still hanging where she had sat close to me.
And so we became friends. I saw her in the art class, but there we had to be formal, whereas outside the class we could talk more freely. Any afternoon that I was free I would come into the gallery and invariably there would be Miriam. We would sit together as she sketched the paintings she liked and we would chat about art, Leeds and her home life. And afterwards we had a cup of tea in a tiny café hidden away behind the gallery.
I did worry about our being recognised, after all it is not done for a married woman to be seen munching on scones with an artist, however she did not seem bothered. But then she never gave the appearance of being unduly bothered about what people thought of her, unlike me, who worries about it all the time.
I discovered she was in her early twenties, only slightly younger than me, and as we came from the same part of Leeds, it was a wonder that we had not come across each other before. She was Jewish; her mother and father had come over from Odessa to escape the pogroms
in the late 1870s, and she was born shortly after they arrived in Leeds becoming part of the city’s Jewish community. But there had been a rift after she married a gentile.
“I met my husband at a concert; nobody approved of us, I was marrying out so my family were extremely angry, whilst his family do not like me, presumably because I am a Jewish although I go to their church and act the part of a good Christian wife.”
“Do you want more than that?” I asked her. She shrugged, and started talking about Rembrandt van Rijn. I could sense discontent in her. But perhaps it came out more in her paintings than in her appearance and in what she said. Was it her husband? Was she missing her family and her community? I felt that she must miss her people and her traditions. Certainly, when I was close to her I could sense her longing so strongly that it almost overwhelmed me.
The last Thursday that she attended the art class she was remote and seemed tense. Her painting was nothing like the still life she was supposed to be painting; there was no skull or guttering candle on the table in front of her, and everything in her picture looked sinister with a sense of foreboding. I looked at her working; her concentration was palpable. She said no word, and then as soon as the class had finished she was gone; she had not spoken to me once.
That evening I had just gone to bed, my thoughts of her as they so often were. And then there was a loud rapping on my door, and I froze, for a moment scared, wondering who had come to drag me away, but then I remembered where I was and put on a robe and went down to see who was at my door. Miriam stood there in the dark, a reticule over her shoulder, a
Gladstone bag by her feet. It was cold and raining. As soon as I opened the door she pushed her way passed me and into my house.
“What are you doing here?”
“I am leaving. Off to France to become an artist.”
“Are you mad, woman?” I asked her.
But no, she was not mad; she wanted to get away from her husband, the Leeds Bourgeois society. She was frustrated and bored.
“I thought I would say goodbye” she said, “there is a train due in a couple of hours, to London, and thence to Dover. You can come with me if you like” she laughed as she gazed into my eyes. I said nothing, just stood there, and then she was gone, soundlessly and without complaint.


1910

For a while I often thought of Miriam; imagined her living in a garret in Paris; chatting in restaurants on the left bank and sitting in the Louvre. I wondered if she would become a famous painter. Or perhaps she had given up and gone home, back to her academic husband. Most of all I wondered if I should have gone with her. But after ten years she had started to drift to the back of my mind; new lovers and friends had come into my life, and someone I had known only for a short while inevitably became less important.
I had soon stopped teaching art; most of my students’ paintings were execrable, and those who had talent soon learn to despise me and then quit. And none of them had the talent of Miriam. My paintings did okay, and I was featured in a couple of exhibitions in Leeds, but I could not rely upon them for money. After some indecision, I turned to book illustrating to make my living.
I was recommended to the publisher Chatto and Windus and they used me as one of their illustrators. It was not a great job, but the money was okay and at least it was art. And through them I started to illustrate some French works that they had commissioned, mostly editions of medieval French poetry which were very popular at the time. There was a new edition of poetry coming out and I went to Paris to meet the editor, Jean Boucher and to discuss how I would illustrate it.
We sat in a small room, part of the offices of Hachette publishers, in a rather obscure part of Paris. Boucher, was an older man who knew exactly what he wanted from his illustrator. I made notes as he spoke and gazed out of the window at the fog bound city below. I felt rather Bohemian being here and briefly imagined staying here to live. Could I survive? I had few ties in England and perhaps I would be inspired to get on with my painting.
“Oh” said Jean after we had finished talking about the volume of poetry, “a friend of yours works here, Madame Ullman. When I mentioned you were coming she asked me to send you to her. She does religious work.”
I had no idea who he meant, but walked into a large office at the end of yet another corridor, to see two men and a woman sat round a table with paper scattered about them.
“Welcome to the Roman Catholic press of France” said one of the men as I walked in, then the woman looked up and it was Miriam.
“Roman Catholic press? I thought you were Jewish.”
“I can be who I like; anyway it isn’t my only job. I only go in twice a week and illustrate various magazines and propaganda sheets they put out. Mostly I do my own painting.”
We were sat drinking wine in a homely café nearby. She had hardly changed in the last ten years; still smartly dressed, her skin still flawless and those eyes, ready to submerge you without warning.
“Don’t they know you are Jewish?” I asked curiously.
“Oh no. Well they don’t ask. I wear this crucifix, so it probably doesn’t occur to them.”
“Have you been back to England?”
“I visit my mother on occasion. She is a bit disapproving, but at least she does not talk to my husband so I do not need to worry about that.”
She took me back to the office where she worked, it smelt of polish and French tobacco. I looked through some of her illustrations. Garish I thought; lots of blood dripping from martyred saints, eyeless sockets and austere men and women being roasted alive. All rather macabre. She looked at me with an amused smile as I gazed at her work.
“What do you think?”
“Not what I expected, but you always could draw. Too much emotion though. You need to be distant. I have always told you that. You are too involved with what you paint.”
We arranged to meet that evening at a rather fancy restaurant near the Notre Dame. She walked in looking beautiful in a red dress and her hair up and pinned. We chatted between courses and she told me of her life.
“I lived with someone for a while, an American but then he went off. He was a writer, mentioned me in one his novels. I think he was married, but it did not matter. I am on my own now and have a small apartment.”
I loved being with her, and was in wonder that we were sitting together after all this time; eating a meal together and chatting like old friends.
She took me back to her apartment and we sat together on the sofa, drinking wine; her perfume was more sophisticated now, and her make-up subtler than when she was a Leeds housewife. The front room where we sat was austere with a few books on shelves and a large painting above a fireplace. The smell of paint was everywhere.
Miriam then led me through a door and into her studio where paintings hung in various states of completion. Some still lifes, I was glad to see, but also nudes. There was one in front of me; large, almost life size. The model looked at me directly with blue eyes; her skin pale, and her breasts surprisingly large.
“Do you like it?”
“Oh it’s you.” It was Miriam, beautiful and sexual. I was overwhelmed with it and with her; I wanted to look at it, but could not bear to do so.
We went back into her sitting room.
“Take the pins out of my hair” she commanded and I sat down next to her on the sofa. Ever so softly I touched her hair as my fingers gently searched. I came across a metal pin and slowly pulled it out with my right hand, holding her head steady with my left. I was very conscious of her body next to mine, and I gazed down at her pale neck, with a slight greyness close to her ear.
There must have been thirty or forty pins, and cautiously I drew each one out, not wishing to hurt her or to spoil the moment, I then put each pin on a small table beside me. I was careful and she never once winced although I must have caught her hair once or twice. There was a faint scent of lemon coming from her hair; maybe her shampoo or some kind of pomade or scent. I felt as intimate with her as I had ever felt with anybody. I loved feeling her head, slowly touching it as if I was her mother or her lover.
“I have finished” I told her, and she ran her fingers through her hair and found a pin I had missed and our fingers touched as I helped her to pull it out and put it with the others. I felt close to her but also self-conscious.
“I had better go?” I told her, “it is getting late”.
“Yes” she said getting up, “I am expecting a guest.”
The following morning I was on the train to Dieppe.


1922

The third time I did not see her; well not in the flesh. Her body, however was all over the walls of the very modern Galerie Bugada in Paris. In many of the paintings she was naked and unprotected; twisted on a cross, with a crown of thorns upon her head. In one a German soldier stuck a rifle with a bayonet on it into her side, in another a couple sat weeping below her feet.
Other paintings showed her being beaten by men with sticks, as she crouched down trying to protect herself, and one showed her carrying her cross whilst bystanders jeered at her and threw things. The largest painting; the focus of the exhibition, was another crucifixion; a stream of blood pouring down her legs, the sky a dark blue above her. On either side was another woman on the cross, both nude. I realised that they were also Miriam. Hung around Miriam’s neck was the star of David.
Crowds of middle-aged men looked at Miriam in her nakedness; some peered close pretending to be examining the brush strokes, whilst others leered and laughed. I heard the words “disgraceful” and “pornography” from a couple of young men, which surprised me. I was not sure what I thought. I found it very unsettling, and felt protective towards her.
There was no catalogue, and I wished there was, as I wanted to know what had happened to Miriam. I asked Monsieur Vachoux, the owner of the gallery, if he knew if Miriam lived in Paris, but apparently she did not. She had been into the gallery when the display was being put up and at the opening, but he had not seen her since.
“No doubt she will be here when the exhibition ends, in a month’s time. I believe it is going to Berlin where she lives.
Her lover is a German writer I understand, nobody famous.”
I spoke to my friend Adele about the exhibition. Whenever I came to Paris to get away from my wife and children I would meet up with Adele and spend my time, when not meeting book publishers, naked in her bed. She had been to the exhibition two days earlier and did not like it.
“So how do you know her?” she asked me. It was towards the end of my stay, and I was beginning to remember why I would never leave my wife for her.
“I taught her, believe it or not. Feels like another lifetime.”,
“All very Jewish” Adele said, biting into some kind of pastry, with a slightly disdainful look. Suddenly her perfume smelt too heady and her lips looked too red. I could not think of a sharp rejoinder, so finished my coffee with a gulp and walked off, leaving Adele to follow me if she could.
I thought about the paintings a lot when I was back in Leeds. And I had a longing to see Miriam, to be with her and to talk to her. It was as if she possessed something that I needed, only she had a key to my secret self.


The Present

Her second husband was the German writer Franz Kurzweg, not read much nowadays or perhaps during any days. He was revolutionary and liked experimentation. Underneath it all there was probably a good writer trying to get out, but he never quite managed it, certainly not judging by the few books by him that I have found, but then my German is poor, so what do I know, and I cannot imagine anybody wanting to translate them into English.
I was a teacher by the 1930s in a grammar school in Leeds; teaching art and occasionally French when the French department needed a hand. My opportunities for going abroad were fewer, and I did not particularly want to travel as that part of my life was over. I was late middle-aged and respectable and if my married life was not brilliant, it could have been worse.
I enquired about Miriam from anyone I thought could know anything about her. I heard about a couple of exhibitions she held in Berlin and Cologne in the early 1930s. And then a friend told me that her paintings had been denounced as “degenerate” and “foreign” (code for Jewish) by a man whose name I cannot bear to speak or to write. And then I started to fear for her safety and hoped that she had got out. But she didn’t escape, she was one of the six million.
After the war ended I watched the documentaries and saw the pictures showing what the Russians found when they liberated Auschwitz and other death camps. Each skeletal figure could have been Miriam, or the bodies piled up like trash, ready to be disposed of. Presumably she was gassed or starved, or made to dig her own grave and then shot in the back of her head, all because of who she was. All because of who we both were.
When I left my parents’ house as a young man I had realised that nobody need know who I was; nobody need know that I was Jewish, who my parents were, anything about my past. I deliberately lost touch with friends from my youth and immersed myself in Leeds and the art world. I wanted to be free of my heritage.
I changed my name from Goldberg to Smythe and with a bohemian beard and relatively light coloured hair nobody ever guessed my origins, I managed to develop a posh Yorkshire accent and completely hid my Polish tones. On the few occasions that I bumped into someone I knew from my childhood I avoided them and was never recognised. I felt guilty about my parents, but they seemed immersed in the past; still speaking Yiddish and following their silly superstitions as if they were still in Poland rather than in a modern city in England; I wanted away from all that, and to an extent I was successful.
I was ashamed of having been born a small village in Poland and a member of an old-fashioned religion; of having been a poor immigrant, coming to Leeds in rags. After I left home I became respectable and a churchgoer, and later I married a gentile wife who gave me gentile children. All very well and at least I was safe, but it was not me, I had ripped out an important part of who I was.
I am not sure if Miriam guessed. When we spoke it was as if she knew, but she never asked me directly. It certainly did not occur to my wife, despite my being circumcised, and by the time I had met her my parents were dead so I did not have to lie about them.
One Friday night, the time was right, and I told my wife who I really was, and the following morning, and for the first time since I was a teenager I attended the synagogue. I wept as the ancient tongue was spoken, so familiar and yet mysterious. Some of the ceremonies might seem silly, and I certainly could not believe in a kind God, who loved his people, not now and not ever. But I was Jewish and these were my kin; I had rejected them for long enough.

SCENTED FLUFF


By Charles E.J. Moulton


 
      This story from 2010 is an excursion into the changes that occurred with the instigation of the first world war. The old world tumbled and a new one rose. Kingdoms tumbled and with them a lot of the dignity the old world possessed disappeared.
   I examine these changes by comparing two different times and places through the eyes of one lady who represents everything that the old world was: grand, lovable, decent and articulate. This story is dedicated to my fantastic grandmother Anna Julia Sofia Kronzell, the grandest Grande Dame of them all.
 
***

         Lucienne Arcienne–Mayfield sat in her mansion with assorted members of her family. There were twelve of them all in all still gathered around her within the large dining room. As they were all listening to grandmother speak of old times, a few of them were also recollecting how their own time was in a turbulent change and how that would affect them later in life.
         It was Lucienne’s eightieth birthday, so naturally she was the centre of attraction. There had been superb meals, garden parties, musical entertainment in the form of a chamber quintet playing waltzes and polkas and a range of speeches held by assorted members of the press. Tennis and golf had been played and there had been spectacular presents on display.
         Fifty family members had arrived, not counting the wives and the husbands. Her five children, twelve grandchildren and twenty-five great-grandchildren had been there. Three cousins, two brothers and three nieces. Some of them had already left, some of them were sleeping in one of the mansion’s twelve bedrooms. Some of them were reading in the library and a couple of youngsters were playing chess. One young couple were making drunk love under a tree, but Lucienne didn’t know that and neither did anyone else. If Lucienne had known, she would’ve reprimanded them in the strictest of manners. Premarital sex was a thing too taboo to think of.
         The mansion’s lot had been smack full of Rolls Royce cars, Bentleys, Jaguars and Benz vehicles. There was even a Fafner among them, owned by Lucienne’s third youngest grandchild Benjamin, a twenty five year old bon vivant and also the boy under the tree mentioned before. He had bought the car although German cars were not so popular right now. He didn’t want to keep the car, not with that man in Germany having become leader of the country that had made the car. Many British people were afraid that the man might become more powerful than he should be.
         The year was 1933 and Lucienne’s family had been spared losing all too much money. The crisis had been very bad, but the depression had been even worse in the U.S. and so Lucienne had been smart about her money and luckily no one could take away her house, anyway. Her husband Gordon Baxter Mayfield had been dead now for ten years and his smarts and his textile empire had brought them fame and fortune.
         Her grandson Theo Gordon Mayfield had just signed a contract for a film with Chaplin and he hoped that he could transcend into talkies. No one knew who would make it after the silent movies became obsolete. Chaplin was one of the few who still made them, the old silent films. The business was a different one now and the key selling factor was a good film voice. Musicals was en vogue and a man named Busby Berkley was very popular, choreographing thousands of girls in luminous violin costumes. Theo hoped to land one of the Broadway Melody films.
         Behind Lucienne was a large portrait of King George V. It had been a gift from the royal court as a thank you for her financial assistance in the international conference for economic aid in the crisis on June 2nd this year. That painting had just been hung up there today by one of the court’s personal assistants. He happened to be Lucienne’s fifty-five year old son and had brought the painting from Windsor Castle himself yesterday morning in order to present it now.
         It was the year of films like Duck Soup, The Invisible Man, King Kong and 42nd Street. In the charts were songs like Night & Day, Stormy Weather and Easter Parade. Sweden was ruled by Gustav V and America had Roosevelt. It was the best of times and the worst of times. It was the year of The Marx Brothers and Adolf Hitler.
         Lucienne was speaking about her life two years before Paris was occupied by Germans and when everybody listened to Johann Strauss instead of Harry Warren and Chopin instead Dick Powell. Her new record of Mozart music played by the London Symphony, a present from her grand daughter Ethel, was spinning at the old turntable gramophone a meter away and somebody had to go and wind it up now and then in order for the music to keep playing.
         The room as such was quite lovely and the large doors lead to a terrace that had an overview over the landscape that eventually could admire Stonehenge. It was beautiful to see the sun rise over the English countryside.
         Here were instruments, a grand piano and a cello and two guitars, as well as countless original paintings by English masters. The chandelier hanging from the middle of the room was a sparkling and beautiful sight in this approaching dusk.
         The company of relatives were sitting in the corner next to the game room that lead to the library. They were facing the dining room, gathered upon the range of red velvet sofas whilst grandmother sat with two of her great-grandchildren in her lap and told everyone about what life had been like back then.
         “In those days,” she claimed in her melodic mezzo, “there were no talkies or automobiles, no telephones or Marconi machines. We didn’t have any radio receivers or phonographs. We had newspapers and books. That was good enough for us. Gordon always loved to read and so we spent many evenings reading books aloud to each other.”
         Twenty-three year old Ethel, who was influenced by modern women’s liberation in society as well as in romance, had been chewing on a question for a bit. She had no idea how her grandmother would react this time. It was a bit of a teasing factor. Apparently, Lucienne had met her husband during the German occupation of Paris 1870 – 71. This German-French war had been devastating for the city. In the middle of an attack by a general named Moltke on the 15th of September that year, Gordon Baxter Mayfield, one of the England’s wealthiest textile tycoons, courted the daughter of the steel magnate Remy Arcienne. The two men had become friends during a visit to Madrid five years ago and it wasn’t until last year that love had actually blossomed between the hearts of the 21 year old girl and her thirty five year old gentleman caller. This man had inherited his fortune and position from his father Mortimer Mayfield. This man had built his textile empire up from scratch the year of Queen Victoria’s coronation 1837 and now his son Gordon was madly in love with a French steel tycoon’s daughter.
         The question that Ethel had was: had grandma been courted by anyone else previous to grandfather? She had always dismissed the question with the answer: yes, of course, dozens of men had courted her. That was the proper and dignified answer to a tricky question. Case closed.
         Young people being what they were and are, they wanted to hear the story of how she met and lost one particular gentlemen caller in 1869, two years before Gordon took Lucienne to England and married her in Westminster Abbey.
         “Tell us about the gentleman caller,” Ethel demanded.
         Lucienne pretended not to understand.
         “Gentleman caller?” she asked, raising one eyebrow.
         The entire ensemble joined in a chorus of wails and laughter.
         Lucienne waved her arms about, her elegant, lace decorated gown tingling with light from the setting sun.
         “I do not know why you want to hear this story over and over again,” she said in her high British English coloured by the French idiom. “It is just fickle. It is … uh, how shall I put it … scented fluff.”
         “Nooo,” her thirty five year old granddaughter Laura protested, “it’s romantic and so very lovely.”
         “All right,” Lucienne nodded, “I shall tell you the story again.”
         “With all the naughty details,” her forty five year old daughter  Victoria demanded.
         Lucienne smiled, although she disliked having to accept the fact that it was seen as having been naughty, whatever that was. We must remember that being naughty in those days was a kiss on the cheek.
         “This was 1869, the year of the Suez canal. Ulysses S. Grant was president of the United States and Napoleon III ruled France,” she began. “A song named Little Brown Jug was popular that year and at every possible occasion there was a vernissage with romantic paintings or a soirée with Johann Strauss music. I went waltzing with so many diplomats that I have forgotten their names. Gandhi and Neville Chamberlain were born that year and Queen Victoria had locked herself up in Windsor Castle for eight years now. That was because of the death of her beloved Albert and a certain Mr. John Brown.
         Anyway, Paris was a haven of parties and dinners for me in 1869. I was young and pretty and rich. Many young men took long walks with me, hoping to win my love. Now-a-days, you youngsters go to the talkies. We danced, went to the theatre or walked about in the fresh air. I used to have my parasol in my hand and my white spring hat on and I would take the man’s arm and we would walk and talk and pretend to be in love. Either I met the man again or I didn’t.
         England wasn’t all that popular with Parisians, but we had lots of friends there and so my future husband kept on courting me as well. I fell in love with him first in 1870, so now I was just into Parisians.”
         Ethel interrupted: “What made you fall in love with grandfather?”
         “His eyes, his smile and his flowers,” Lucienne said and suddenly she was a young girl again. There was a look of dreamy love in her eye that transported her family back to when she had been young. She waved it away suddenly just like she would a silly bee buzzing around her. “That was real, my fling before that is just … what did I say … scented fluff? Yes.”
         “We like scented fluff, don’t we, Laura?” Lucienne’s 14 year old great-grandson Peter said.
         Laura smiled and patted her son on the knee and shook her head, then leaned against her husband Robert’s shoulder.
         “That particular day, it was a day in July just like today, there was no gentleman caller to walk with me. So, my brother André had to serve as my date. We walked and walked and my brother taught me about art and theatre and checked my skills on reading and writing. He always kept a note pad and a small writing tool with him and so our walks would be lessons. That day we passed a house I had never seen before. It was very well kept and had a large iron gate leading up to a gorgeous English garden.”
         “Grandmother always loved the English,” young Penelope said and her sister Emma laughed.
         Ethel asked them to be quiet.
         “The amazing thing was the man kneeling down next to the rose bushes. He tended to them with such care that I had to convince my brother to stop and wait before we went on. He spoke to them. He even sang to them.
         Well, eventually we walked on and spoke about other things. But that man never left my mind. I was thinking about that man all the time. That was enough reason for me to go there again. I convinced my brother to take another walk again with me and lead him to the house. Sure enough, there he was again singing to his roses.
         I stood there a long while just looking at him. He didn’t turn around toward me, although he must’ve noticed me. Maybe he thought I was just a very nosey little brat.
         Anyway, this little girl, namely me, had been standing there a long while when the man turned about in my direction anyway and asked me if I liked the roses. My brother said nothing, but knew that I was happy to be offered a rose.
         Of course, we all thought that this strange man was a simple gardener. We had only seen him in his garden and people are stupid, even rich people like us were judging only by what we saw and not by what lay beneath the surface.
         So to us, he was a gardener.
         We spoke of the weather and of the political situation in Paris, of our King and of current French artists like Corbet, Manet and Rodin. We even mentioned the slaves in America and how they had been freed by Mr. Lincoln and that Mr. Grant was doing a nice job, considering that he was actually leading a country torn apart by a civil war. The gardener was very well read and I really wondered who he was. Well, soon my brother lead the conversation to another topic, namely our house and eventually we said that we needed to go home.
         We did so, but I kept on blabbering on about this gardener who never ever mentioned that he was anything else but a gardener. All our questions about the house never referred to himself. He spoke of the rooms and of the garden and of little chores, never that he might be a wealthy man. We were stupid, as I said. I was in love, but in love with someone just like you might be in love with an animal, someone of a lower class, someone that you might want to cuddle and caress.
         Anyway, I could not ever stop talking to this man. I went there every day. One day my father joined me and as we returned he was sure he had seen him somewhere. The hard part was that I really couldn’t ask him what his name was after three months of idle conversation.
         The horrid thing was that I became more and more in love as time passed. My family really were going crazy.
         I tried my best to occupy my time with other things like inviting other prospects of marriage and writing my diary, practicing piano and arranging dinner parties.
         No matter what I did, I couldn’t get my thoughts away from this man, whose name I did not even know.
         Then finally, one day, I told my father that our garden actually needed a brush-up and that we might want to hire a professional gardener. My dear father, a very busy man, smiled knowingly and was aware of my love.
         He was also aware of the fact that he knew that he wanted someone of social stature as a prospect for marriage and that this man may not be the right choice. I disagreed. He might be rich and famous.
         The next day, we agreed to invite the man to tend our garden, We would come to his house the same time of day and ask him if he was interested in working on our bushes, so to speak.
         When we arrived, the man was not in his garden and I was devastated. We looked for him in other parts of the mansion, but we didn’t find him. Finally, we rung the bell and a very handsome older man opened the door. We told him that we had seen a gardener take care of the roses for the last months and that we had been speaking to him. We would like to hire him to take care of our grounds.
         The butler, who called himself Gilbert Aznavour, claimed that this man was Yves Polenc and that he, most certainly, was not the gardener. He was the master of the house. Being an heir to an immense fortune, he had actually founded a publishing house on his own and spent his evenings reading and courting possible new writers.
         His other big interest was gardening.
         My father, who felt that it was his duty to defend my future, asked the butler if M. Polenc was married. He wasn’t, but he was seeing many young ladies.
         He loved dancing and eating out and was doing so today.
         Well, first it was very interesting to hear this and I immediately saw myself as his wife.
         We both went home and I think for days we said nothing about this man and his celebrity.
         I felt completely silly, not because I had been impolite. I had been very nice. The problem was that I had tried to convince myself that I had the right to love this gardener, because he was a simple man.
         What had I thought? That a person was only valuable if he was rich? That was preposterous. Anyway, we met and the courting began. We went dancing and eating out and he told me about gardening and I told him about my summer hats and about travelling to the Provence in the springtime. We had a great deal of fun and it was a wonderful experience to know him.
         However, the secrecy was more intriguing than knowing everything about him. It was exciting to wonder where he was from and who he was. He finally married another rich girl and I married Gordon, but we kept contact for a decade or so. It was fabulous to have danced with him and called him my fiancée for a while, but when I realized that he wasn’t a mystery for me to discover it became tiresome.
         Two things were vital here: people were valuable no matter their social stature. Still, keeping the mystery within a relationship would keep it alive. It could remain exciting if you surprised your partner once in a while. Remaining mysterious was excellent. I tried to remember that even when Gordon and I were older and a bit bored with one another.
         What I found interesting is that Gordon later told me that Queen Victoria had been seeing one of her servants five years before my relationship with Yves. The difference was that John Brown really was Victoria’s servant. Polenc wasn’t. Me and Victoria have something in common, after all.”
         With that, Lucienne patted her grandchildren on the knee and walked up to pour herself a brandy.
         Theo Gordon Mayfield, the talkie star, came into the room as the family were blabbering on about grandma’s romance. There were questions posed as to where Yves was now and Lucienne responded that he probably was still married to his woman and lived in Paris.
         “Are you telling them your story about the scented fluff again?” Theo asked provocatively.
         Lucienne laughed. “A bit of perfume and spunned sugar is necessary in life … once in a while,” grandmother added with the lifting of one eyebrow.
         Theo laughed. “Well, grandma, I’m off to bed. Will you come with us to Ascot tomorrow?”
         Lucienne nodded. “If you join me for tea in the morning. Who won the chess match?”
         “Kenneth,” Theo answered.
         “See, movie stars are not good at everything,” Laura chirped.
         “My brother has a little more chess experience than me,” Theo giggled. “My Freudian vanity only extends on screen.”
         And so, Chaplin’s new colleague was off to Mrs. White’s party.
         Ethel sat and mused over how Lucienne had been so in love with this gardener and that it had a little bit of Jane Austen to it.
         Lucienne knew that these range of jokes would be coming up now for an hour, but it was nice to be laughed at by young people.
         She drank brandy and ate some cheese and listened to some Mozart. It reminded her of Gordon.
         Finally, to top off a nice day, they all stood there on the terrace watching the moon rise over England getting tipsy. Good old Ethel was humming the current hit Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? Lucienne was contemplating her choice of hat and dress for the races at Ascot tomorrow and Laura was probably wondering how long Ethel would be tapping her feet to the rhythm of the song.
         The conversation again meandered onto the topic of grandmother’s romance and somebody joked: “Who knows what other skeletons are buried in grandmother’s closet?”
         Lucienne drank down her brandy in one swift gulp and smiled:
         “Mmm-mm,” she protested. “No skeletons. Just scented fluff.”
         Then, she announced that she was going to bed and she was leaving them with trying to solve this strange mystery. They now had a puzzle to solve and that was good enough for her.

A Good Bedtime Story


Column by Charles E.J. Moulton

​ 
My mother's effort to calm me down at the end of another day included weaving in the dramatic events of that day into a good-night-story, giving the hero of the fairytale the possiblity to turn the event into a success. I learned how to internalize my pain, not being afraid of it, but turning the pain into a funny eccentric friend. A kindergarten bully reappeared as a clumsy forest-creature that had to be reasoned with in order to be vanquished. A stern and unfair first grade teacher turned into an evil magician that had to be negotiated with fairly in order to be convinced.  The greatest thing about these innovative tales was that there were no pointing of fingers and no lectures. It was a free and honest, fair enterprise, deeply spiritual and loving. It was all about inspiring fantasy, care, sympathy, family, imagination and it was about telling a good story.
At the same time, I bonded with my mother, we turned that evening event into a creative extravaganza. This tradition all started with the daily adventures of the Scandinavian trolls Uggel-Guggel and Klampe-Lampe. These funny and furry friends travelled to China on the back of a whale in order to meet Ching Chang-Chao, welcomed the space bear Bakimbe, flying in on camels. The trolls also journeyed back in time to see the baby Jesus being born in a crib.
These stories transformed into my first acting experience back in 1980. Under my mother's direction, my parents' play "Long Live the Trolls" turned into a massive success with lots of kids cheering to see more of my interpretation as the funny young troll Klampe-Lampe. Now, 35 years later, this play is seeing the new light of day as a current puppet theatre for children that will premiere in 2016.
All of these things are happening only because my mom took the time to tell me a story before I went to sleep. Stories that included my stuffed dog Ludde, his friend Linus, rediscovering their visits to London and a few actionpacked trips, joining their magic lunar girlfriends New and Full. Snoopy and the Snoopies came along quite soon, coming to play along with the travelling magician Macadabus and his friend, the talking dog. This good-night-story turned into short piece of mine, published by Pill Hill Press back in 2011.
My artistic opera-singer mother Gun Kronzell's imagination inspired me to invent stories myself. My father Herbert Eyre Moulton's professional work as a published author triggered the need in me to make this a vocation myself.
I am now a father myself, a hard working actor, a singer, an author and a proud husband. Needless to say, when I bring my daughter to bed, my mother's tradition continues in my daughter Mara's sweet, inventive heart. We have many different teams in our good-night-story-repertoire. There is the brave hedgehog Rajiv, who turns himself into a beautiful unicorn, and his friend, the wise Snake. The seal Robbie joins the smart little girl Lisa on courageous missions in order to help the Sea King Neptune with problems he can't solve, but Lisa can.
Mara knows my now deceased mother as "the Viennese Grandma" and we honor her by continuing her fairytale tradition. In fact, Mara is taking my mother's concept to a new level. Every time we tell a mutual good night story, and it really is a joint effort every time, a new fantastic team is invented. We have the bunny and the squirrel, the butterfly and the moth, the fox and the cat. Just recently, a new brave team joined our great gang: the mermaid and the dolphin. These teams meet because of a mutual interest and move in together, mostly into a comfy and cozy cave.
This story-concept was Mara's own creation, born during a five hour car ride back from my parents-in-law's house. Mara made sure that Snake and Rajiv moved in together. Probably because she knew that we, our family, had met before in a previous life.
​I am sure that "the Viennese Grandma" influenced my daughter to find the new transformed version of her concept.
What I basically am saying is this: inspire your children. Teach them to be creative. Teach them to form and transform their own opinions, inventing new and fantastic ways to improve their world. Future generations will thank them for it.
All it takes is a good bedtime story.

Christmas Testimony


By


Gerald Arthur Winter


Eight years old, Sara O’Neil sat alone in her bedroom with her favorite doll she called “Maureen.” The décor of her bedroom was ruffled and pink, but the plain dressers and home-sewn curtains and spreads reflected her family’s humble economy. Through a single-dormered window, treetops were visible outside her room. The second story of the O’Neils’ home had a pitched ceiling and Sara’s closet space was the eaves of the attic and a standing wardrobe. From her open bedroom door, she could see the banister of the stairs leading to the first floor.

Still in her pajamas, Sara played with her doll. Maureen was her most intimate companion. She folded Maureen’s arms across her chest and laid her gently in a shoebox in a mock funeral.

“Now I lay me down to sleep,” Sara said to her doll. “I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”

She paused. “What’s a soul, anyway, Maureen? Sister Katherine at school says you don’t have a soul, but I’m supposed to have one, and I’m not even sure what it is. What am I going to do, Maureen? I can’t stop thinking about dead bodies. What will it be like to see one? I figured maybe in twenty years somebody I know might die, like Granny O’Neil. She’s nearly seventy.

“I never figured Mom would want to drag me along to see Mr. O’Toole’s dead body, especially three days before Christmas. You see, Maude O’Toole, Seamus O’Toole’s widow, she’s Mom’s best friend¾just like you’re my best friend. Mom says it’s time I learned about my Christian duty to mourn with her and Maude at Mr. O’Toole’s wake. I can’t even figure why they call it a wake. Mr. O’Toole won’t be awake. I’m closing my eyes if anybody makes me get close enough to the coffin to see his dead body.”

Her mother called from downstairs, “Sara! Sara Jane O’Neil! I won’t take no for an answer, young lady. Your dad’s working the Saturday-morning shift at the plant, so his absence can’t be helped. You’re going with me to Mr. O’Toole’s wake. That’s final!”

Slumping her shoulders, Sara fell back on her bed and clutched Maureen for support.

“I heard you, Mom! I’m just trying to convince Maureen she’s got to go, too!”

“Stop that nonsense and put your mourning dress on!” Mrs. O’Neil called up the stairs.

“There’s still time to have some oatmeal before we leave. Hurry up!”

“I’m coming!” she called back then turned to Maureen. “Mom knew I was faking a tummy ache, so I’ll have to go and see Mr. O’Toole after all. Dad said even though he’s dead as a doornail, Seamus O’Toole will never look better than when he’s lying in his coffin at Flynn’s Funeral Home.”

She sighed and picked up her black mourning dress laid out at the end of her bed and her black, veiled hat hanging over the end of the bed stand. Reluctantly, she put them on as she spoke to Maureen.

“You know how much I appreciate your support in this. I’d do the same for you. I just want you there with me if I have to look into that coffin. It makes me all jittery thinking about it.” She sat on the bed with her black dress on and took Maureen’s dress off as she held her in her lap and put a black dress on her doll, too. “You’re lucky you don’t have a soul to worry about.”

Mrs. O’Neil called up the stairs, “Sara! Your oatmeal’s getting cold and lumpy. Get down here this instant!”

“I’m coming!” She hopped up from the bed and straightened Maureen’s hem as she confided, “Mom’s seen dead folks before. Grandpa O’Neil and her own parents died before I was born. I guess she’s scared, too. I suppose she needs to have us along. Gosh. Mr. O’Toole was only a few years older than Dad.” She tucked Maureen under her arm and headed downstairs and heard Christmas carols on the radio. She smelled an apple pie baking and the scent of cinnamon made it feel more like Christmas season, but only for a moment with death at the door bringing on a deep gloom.

* * *

Though the entrance way and foyer to Flynn’s Funeral Parlor were decorated with white lights and poinsettias, red and white flanked the halls, only two tall candles on pedestals gave a dim aura to Seamus O’Toole’s casket. Scarlet wallpaper, a rose carpet, and rows of empty folding chairs faced the casket, and with all the flowers, drew a stark contrast with Seamus O’Toole’s stark, humble life. Flanked by the two candles, the casket was open for viewing, but was empty in Sara’s mind for utter fear of seeing the corpse of the deceased. Maude O’Toole, the grieving widow in her early forties, stood to the right of the coffin facing the empty folding chairs. Sara’s mother, Margaret O’Neil, also in her late thirties, stood beside her best friend with an arm around her. Both wore black mourning dresses and veiled black hats concealing their tears.

Sara sat in the last row of folding chairs. She faced the entrance keeping her back to the coffin as she held her doll. Sara saw that her mother and best friend often spoke to each other as if no one else was present throughout their intimate play-by-play of the mourning ritual.

Maude said, “Thanks be to God that Aiden Flynn was the undertaker of my Seamus’s choice, Margaret. They were close friends,” she whispered aside, “drinking cronies . . .
Seamus wasn’t of an industrious lot, but he possessed a kind heart and was always ready to
help a friend in need . . . unless he’d been drinking, which may’ve been too often, but not
nearly as often as some other men in the neighborhood.
Margaret assured her, “But as a father, your Seamus was second to none. He was there


every Sunday. We’d see Seamus and you in the second pew with all six of your children? That’s more than I can say for many others we know.”

“My Seamus was the most we could expect from a decent man nowadays. Doesn’t he look peaceful in his navy blue suit?”

“Oh, yes,” Margaret agreed. “Most dignified . . . just as it should be.”

Maude sighed. “He was a dear and faithful husband.” She leaned over the coffin and flicked a piece of lint off the lapel of his suit.

Margaret nodded. “You can be thankful for that, dear. We’ve known of those who weren’t. Isn’t that suit the same he wore to the Murphy wedding? Leaning down to inspect the fabric closely, she confirmed, “He looks so good in that suit. I remember Seamus at the Murphy wedding, looking so dignified.”

“I thought it fitting. He rarely wore it other than at weddings and funerals. Looks almost new.”

“You aren’t alone, Maude. Is there a dignitary among our lot? Not much call for dressing up.”

“Well, it’s put to good use now. Seamus looks fine lying there in it. Don’t you think?”

“Never better. Grand’s the word for such a fine figure of a man . . . even now.”

Sara turned cautiously to see the two strong women as they stood shoulder to shoulder inspecting Seamus from head to toe.

Maude sighed and patted her heart. “He’s with God now.”

“That he is, dear.”

Maude wiped a tear aside. “How happy he looks.”

“Indeed, he does. He’s in the hands of God, Maude.”

Sara held her breath when she saw Maude lean over and gently smooth Mr. O’Toole’s carrot-colored hair.

“His hair looks thin,” Maude said. “I’d never realized how thin it had gotten. Do you think Flynn . . . you know . . . did something to it?”

Margaret assured her, “He looks just fine, like he’s still with us.”

“Yes. Thin hair or not, he looks elegant lying there. God bless him.” Satisfied with her inspection of the coffin, Maude took one step back and slowly scanned the setting. “Do you like the flowers, Margaret?”

Joining Maude, Margaret looked over the flower arrangements placed on both sides of the coffin. The larger groupings stood on their own metal frames. Below them, smaller, but equally elaborate arrangements hid the metal frames from view, creating a bank of flowers. The rose carpet and red flocked wallpaper combined with the flowers to dazzle the eye. Silk sashes slashed diagonally across each floral piece, with words like Deepest Sympathy, Peace, and Dearly Departed in gold block letters. Some identified the donors, such as Holy Name Society, Springfield Volunteer Fire Department, Plumbers Local 749, or just His Friends. Maude took great pride in the large floral display, but the Christmas decorations drew less attention the bleakness of the O’Toole family’s means.

“Such a wonderful outpouring . . . a great tribute to my Seamus.”

“As well it should be,” Maude said. “If they don’t remember him now, when would they ever? Such sorrow at a time of joy and celebration in town for the holidays.”

Maude took Margaret’s arm and moved her one step to the side. “I bought some of them myself used. I was afraid there wouldn’t be enough. They’re left-overs from yesterday’s funeral. Flynn gave me a good deal. Can you tell which ones are used?”

“They’re beautiful blended together like that. No one will ever know.”

“I didn’t want Seamus to be without. His friends aren’t exactly generous, if truth be told. Dignity is important in death. Poor Seamus. I was worried.”

“You did the right thing. Don’t breathe a word. No one will know. Bless you, Maude.”

Margaret sighed as she leaned to hug the widow. They turned and smiled at Sara as she smiled half-heartedly back and waved. Sara folded her arms around her doll and drooped her head. The two women walked to Sara then, standing on either side of her, squeezed her between them with sighs. Sara sighed, too, feeling it must be required.

They released Sara and returned to the front of the room to pick up their purses from the front row seats. They blew their noses into tissues as the first guests arrived to pay their respects.

Maude and Margaret took their proper positions in the front two seats on the center aisle facing the coffin. Sara remained in the back row. First to arrive was Seamus’s brother Billy in his forties, and with his wife Clara, five years younger.
Maude and Margaret exchanged whispers.

Maude nodded. “Seamus’s brother, Billy . . . he’s been drinking.”

Margaret huffed, “Wouldn’t you know it?”

“It’s not sorrow drinking, mind you, nor Christmas party drinking either. Billy never liked Seamus. They didn’t get along at all.”

Margaret raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

Whispering behind the back of her hand, Maude rolled her eyes. “Clara’s got her hands full with that one--
always with a snoot full. ”

“I can see that.” Margaret nodded, staring at the O’Tooles’ backs while they kneeled praying in front of the coffin.

After a respectful interval, Billy and Clara stood and turned to pay their respects to the widow.

Maude pulled her head back from Billy’s whiskey breath.

“Hello, Maude. Terrible thing. So damn sudden. How are you holding up?”

Clara shook her head while reaching for Maude’s hand. “So sudden.”

Maude remained composed. “I’m fine. Thank you both. You know my dear friend, Margaret O’Neil.”

Billy made a sickly smile. “For a hundred years.”

After a belabored exchange of forced cordialities, there was a strained pause as they glared at one another.

Billy broke the silence. “We’ll sit . . . for just a while, Maude.”

The O’Tooles turned, walked several rows down the center aisle, sat in the middle of the row then stared in silence.

Aside, Margaret remarked, “Clara looks old.”

Maude elaborated, “Not well. Doctors daily. One thing and another. Just in her head, if you ask me.”

She nudged her to turn and see Willie Brogan, volunteer Fire Chief. He came towards them with three of his finest, all in full uniform. They removed their hats and marched down the center aisle, nodding to Maude as they passed. The four firemen formed a standing line in front of their fellow firefighter’s coffin. They stood in silence awhile with their hats tucked under their left arms. Their ill-fitting uniforms spoiled any dignity of an honor guard. They couldn’t hide the bulges and paunches from their shared lifetimes of drinking.

“A motley lot,” Maude said aside. “Probably spent all afternoon at O’Lunny’s saloon across the street from the firehouse full of Christmas cheer. ”

Margaret huffed, “Why should this afternoon be any different?”

On Brogan’s signal, the blue-collar workers posing as firemen turned in unison and formed a single line in front of Maude to pay their respects.

Maude extended her hand. “Thank you for coming, Chief Brogan.”

In his late forties, Brogan gave her a crusty smile, took her hand, and said, “Seamus was one of the best, Mrs. O’Toole. Me and the boys will never forget ’m. We’re makin’ a plaque to hang in the firehouse to his memory. I'll be notifying you to come down for the ceremony.”

“That’s lovely, Chief Brogan. Thank you. I’m sure Seamus would have appreciated it.”

Brogan grimaced as he brushed flakes off his red, bulbous nose. “Sorry we have nothin’ for ya, Mrs. O’Toole, because Seamus didn’t die in the line of duty. Otherwise, the Firemen’s Fund would’ve taken care of ya. We take care of all our men’s families if they’d died in the line of duty. Seamus didn’t though, so . . . we have nothin’ for ya.”

Steely, Maude responded, “I’m aware of how Seamus died. Nothing was expected from the firehouse. Thanks for coming.”

“Think nothing of it. Our pleasure, Mrs. O’Toole. Well, not our pleasure exactly. Do ya know Tommy Shannahan here?”

Tommy took one military step forward, bowed, and shook the widow’s hand.

Maude nodded and said, “Thank you for coming.”

Shannahan kept pumping her hand. “Hello, Maude. Sorry, Mrs. O’Toole, about Seamus and all. Hope you’ll be OK.”

“I’ll do fine. I’m strong,” Maude said.

“That you are,” Tommy said. “Seamus always said what a tough old bird ya were to put up with the likes of him that is.”

Maude couldn’t contain a smile as Shannahan bowed and backed away to let the next fire-fighter step forward. Brogan introduced O’Leary, a rosy cheeked fellow in his twenties.

“This is the O’Leary lad, Maude, Seamus’s favorite drinking buddy, like the son he’d never had.” Brogan smiled broadly and patted O’Leary’s back.

O’Leary had tears in his eyes as he said sniffling, “I’ll miss him, Missus. He was my pal. Very close we were. He was always good for a laugh or an ear, just when ya needed it. Good old Seamus. I miss him already. Without Seamus, it just won’t be the same. You must miss him as much as me and the boys here.”

Maude grimaced. “It’s comforting to meet Seamus’s friends and to know how much Seamus will be missed.”

O’Leary took out his handkerchief and was about to blow his nose. As Brogan gave him a slight shove, O’Leary’s nose honked, and he moved away without saying good-bye.

Brogan moved to the next fireman, Buster Whelan, in his fifties, five-feet tall, and wearing a uniform two sizes too big. His face had a perpetually sad expression etched in stone.

Brogan blurted hurriedly, “Do you know Buster Whelan, here, Maude?”

“For over thirty years, Chief. How are you, Buster?”

Whelan shrugged. “Gettin’ old, Maude. I ought to be in there instead of Seamus. Guess I’ll have to wait till the good Lord calls. He’ll call any day now, I expect. Any day for sure.”

Maude touched his arm. “You look fit to me.”

“It doesn’t go by how ya look,” Buster said. “Look at Seamus lyin’ there. Never looked better. Fit as a fiddle, but dead as a mackerel. Can’t go by how ya look. Ya just never know. When the Lord says it’s time, that’s it. Yer outta here in a blink.”

“Well, it was good of you to come,” Maude said. “I appreciate it. Thank you.”

“You’ll be visiting me here one day soon. Hope they’ll have something decent to say about me. God bless ya, Maude.”

She nodded as Whelan shuffled away but she said aside to Margaret, “Thanks for that good cheer.”

Holding his cap with both hands in front of his beer belly, Chief Brogan bent close to Maude. “All the boys down at the firehouse wanted to come. Some had to tend shop, ya know.

Otherwise, all of us would’ve been here. Seamus was one of us. As ya can see, we’re gonna miss him. He was a fine lad. None finer. God bless ya, Maude.”

He straightened, snapped on his fire hat, and marched down the center aisle, his duty done. Seamus O’Toole’s insurance agent, McCassian, in his fifties, approached Maude with his head bowed.

Maude grabbed Margaret’s arm. “It’s Mr. McCassian, the insurance agent. He must have a check for me.”

Sara looked up when she heard the Holy Name Society in the next room saying the rosary softly in chorus, but gradually becoming louder as McCassian came towards Maude.

McCassian nodded to Margaret and bowed to Maude with a toothy smile. “I assure you, my poor, grieving lady, even as we speak, your check is in the mail.”

“I expected so, Mr. McCassian. Thanks for coming to give me some assurance.”

He leaned in closer to whisper. “You know it won’t be the face amount. Seamus had taken out a loan to buy that used Oldsmobile with the running boards a couple of years ago.”

Maude seemed to stop breathing as Margaret felt her hand clench hers.

“That Olds didn’t last us a year,” Maude said with a shudder. “Couldn’t afford the engine repairs when the carburetor blew. How much is left for my family?”

McCassian grimaced and mumbled the amount, which no one else had heard, but the expression on Maude’s face, even from the back row where Sara watched in silent dismay, said that the amount would scarcely cover the funeral, used flowers and all. As McCassian put both hands around Maude’s the rosary chorus reached a high pitch. She withdrew her empty hands from his and held them open for Margaret to see as the chorus faded to silence.

* * *

After two hours of fidgeting uncomfortably on her wooden chair in the last row, Sara whispered to her doll, “Mom and Maude must’ve greeted three hundred people today. Could you believe Mr. O’Toole’s mother? She’s eighty-five, but still has enough energy to compete with Maude for the grief award. I guess they figure it’s the saddest one who must’ve loved him the most.

“Most of the O’Tooles’ other friends forgot their rosary beads. How embarrassing. Did  you see those other kids bowing and curtsying to Maude? Some stared right into the coffin to see the dead body. Did they expect him to blink or scratch his nose? Even I know better than that, but I’m still too scared to look in the coffin.

“This could’ve been my big chance to stare directly into the face of death with my mother at my side and surrounded by a crowd in daylight. I just can’t do it. One of those nasty O’Toole cousins dared me, but I was too chicken to look, even with one eye closed.”

She watched Maude and Margaret sit before the open coffin as other guests took their seats. Seamus’s sister, Eleanor Lynch, in her forties, rose from her seat.

Maude whispered to Margaret, “Here comes Seamus’s sister, Eleanor. God, she’s been here only ten minutes, and she’s coming to say good-bye.”

Eleanor shook her head and postured apologetically, “It’s such a long drive back to Philadelphia, Maude, and it was hard for Stanley to take the day off from the bank just before Christmas.”

Maude forced a smile. “Surely. Happy you could come at all.” Then as Eleanor and Stanley departed, she said to Margaret, “Couldn’t tolerate the old neighborhood for long. Look at them scooting out, escaping the riffraff to get back to high society in their Mercedes Benz.”

Margaret remarked, “Eleanor looks lovely, though.”


Maude nodded with a grimace. “Yes . . . always every hair in place.”

“Swell of her to come all this way,” Margaret said.

Maude smirked. “An imposition, I’m sure.”

Margaret conceded, “Nonetheless, quite a journey. Nice of her.”

“Too bad she couldn’t stay though . . . for her only brother.”

Margaret reminded her, “Long trip back.”

Maude frowned. “Probably on their way to one of their highbrow cocktail parties.”

“Good to see Stanley come as well.”

“Who?”

“Stanley, Eleanor’s husband, isn’t that his name?”

Maude huffed, “Oh, yes—him. Don’t know him very well. They’re married twenty-five years, but we’d rarely seen him. He’s so busy, I take it. An investment banker . . . very successful.”

“Look, Maude. There’s Father Griffin,” Margaret motioned to the back of the room.

Father Griffin, the old Irish priest, ambled down the center aisle, waving and shaking hands with guests as he progressed towards the front. His rumpled suit and scuffed shoes gave his clerical garb a threadbare look of humility. He was an old and friendly priest who’d endured in the parish for forty years. He was suddenly showing his age. Maude stood in the front row with Margaret at her side to greet him. He spoke with a smooth, comforting tone as he took Maude’s hand and turned to look at

Seamus: “Mabel, my dear child, what a wonderful turnout.”

Margaret said under her breath, “Mabel?”

Maude kicked her gently without blinking.

“It does an old priest’s heart good to see the love of the church the body of Christ as solace in your hour of need. God bless them, and you, Mabel . . . and certainly Seamus.”

Maude responded, “Thank you, Father Griffith.”

“It’s Griffin, my dear Mabel. Father Griffin. Of course, you’ve been under duress.”

At a distance, Sara said to her doll: “What’s Father Griffin’s excuse for not knowing her name? Mom said Maude hasn’t missed a Sunday Mass in the more than thirty years, not sincemshe was a little girl and had the influenza. Mom and Mrs. O’Toole have been best friends since third grade.”

“Ah, yes. God has blessed him,” Father Griffin said. “He’s in the Lord’s bosom, we can be sure, the final resting place for all of us.”

He drew Maude up to the coffin, where they stood side by side as he made the sign of the cross over Seamus and whispered his blessing. Then he took rosary beads from his pocket, kissed the cross, and pressed it to Seamus’s lips. Blessing the beads, he placed them in the coffin and said, “Seamus goes with God.”

He escorted Maude back to her seat. With a wave of his hand, he moved Margaret over one seat and sat between them. Facing Maude, he looked over his shoulder to acknowledge

Margaret with a nod. “God bless you, too, Mildred.” His attention returned to Maude. “How can the church be of service to you, Mabel?”

“Prayers, Father, for Seamus and for me and our six daughters.”

“Prayers, indeed. Prayers we have. Prayers aplenty. That’s the mission of the Holy Mother church prayer. You’ll not be without prayers, I assure you.”

Maude replied wearily, “Thank you, Father.”

Father Griffin stood, stretching to his full height and declaring, “We’ll recite the five sorrowful decades of the rosary for our dear departed brother, Seamus.”

All but Sara froze in silence as she said under her breath, “But the Holy Name Society said the rosary just before he showed up.”

Margaret turned and shook her head to hush her before Sara could speak loud enough for others to hear. The guests resumed their animation as the priest’s announcement met with
disbelieving stares and coughs, though no one contradicted the wishes of the priest. The rosary chorus reached a crescendo then faded as Sara looked at her Mickey Mouse wristwatch with a yawn.

To her doll, Sara said, “Can you believe we had to sit through that again? Why do they put up with that silly old man? I don’t want to be a grown-up if that’s what it takes.”

The yawns and sighs of the faithful didn’t dissuade the old priest when he stood to say a few words at the end of the second rosary. The tension among the exhausted mourners was obvious by their fidgeting, coughing, and loosening of neckties and scarfs.

Father Griffin said, “Considering the hour, I will make my remarks brief.”

An audible sigh of relief came from the faithful.

Then the priest continued relentlessly, “It would be a travesty, however, for us to assemble and take note of Seamus’s life before we’re about to celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ without saying a few words of praise in his behalf. Ah, he was a fine man the stalwart of his family, no doubt. He was true to the end, a man of the church and a friend to all. Not a modern man, but a man of principle. You might say he was from the old school. Oh, he had his short-comings, plain for all to see, but then, who doesn’t? He who is without sin may cast the first stone. We won’t be casting any stones at poor Seamus today, I assure you. We are, none of us, sinless. Sin infests this world as the devil does his evil work. No, there’ll be no stones cast here. All we can do is pray for one another and for Seamus’s soul, with hope that his time in the fires of purgatory might be brief.”

All froze except Sara, talking aside to her doll, “Maybe Mr. O’Toole isn’t in that coffin after all. Father Griffin thinks he’s being tortured somewhere until God forgives him for coming home drunk after spending the grocery money at O’Lunny’s Saloon. I’ve heard Mom tell Dad all about it.”

Maude gulped then whispered to Margaret, “Purgatory? Tell me I’m not hearing this in front of all these people. My Seamus? What could the old bird be thinking?”

Patting Maude’s elbow, Sara’s mother assured her, “He means well, I’m sure.”

Father Griffin stirred the crowd with, “No one goes straight to heaven. Like Seamus, we’ll all spend our time in purgatory repenting for our sins. Only the prayers of the faithful will get

Seamus out of the fires of pain and into the arms of God. It could takes years, maybe centuries.

We cannot judge. Only God can judge. Pray for Seamus!”

He became more animated and louder.

“Don’t leave him in the damnable pain of purgatory where he is right now. God bless you and thank you for coming!” He raised his right hand high then, making the sign of the cross, he blessed the mourners already heading hurriedly for the exit.

As the priest walked towards her, Maude said, tongue in cheek: “Thank you, Father, for those inspiring remarks.” Before he could reply, she gently took Father Griffin by the arm and guided him to the side exit. You’ve lightened my burden with your assurances about Seamus’s faith. I can’t thank you enough.” At the door, she abruptly nudged him out. “Good night, and God bless you, Father Griffith!” she called out, nearly closing the door on his heels.
Muffled outside the door, the old priest shouted back, “Grif-fin, Mabel! It’s Father Griffin! You tell her, Mildred!”

When all of the guests had left and only two dim candles on pedestals brighten the reception room at Flynn’s Funeral Parlor, Maude and Margaret sat lumped together in the front row and faced the open coffin. The other chairs were empty except for Sara, seated in the rear row with her doll. Some of the flower petals had fallen from the arrangements that were quickly wilting.

* * *

The next evening Sara returned to Flynn’s Funeral Parlor with her mother to comfort Maude O’Toole again for her last good-bye to Seamus.

Sara spoke to her doll: “So much for the so-called friends of Seamus O’Toole, Maureen. After all that talk of purgatory, all the men went to O’Lunny’s Saloon and stayed till four o’clock
 in the morning. No one’s seen that O’Leary boy. Gosh. Someone wanted to drag the pond in case he’d stumbled in on his way home from that God-awful saloon. Poor Maude. Everybody came yesterday, but no one’s come back today. With nobody else here, I might have to look in the coffin. Maybe Maude will close it soon, then I won’t have to. I just can’t bring myself to look at the dead face of Mr. O’Toole. I hardly knew him. Time’s running out and I feel trapped.”

Maude broke the silence to let off steam: “All afternoon, and no one’s come at all. Drunk, the whole lot of them. Not even Father Griffin showed up. Probably worked himself into a stroke
with all that talk of purgatory yesterday. Purgatory, mind you! My God, has he no sense? I’ll not have him or anybody discussing Seamus’s purgatory in public. So what if my Seamus didn’t go directly to heaven? Maybe he did. Anyway, his wake is no place for speculation. No wonder no one came back today. That old priest should retire. I think he’s getting a little daft. Don’t you think so?”

“He’s always been that way, if you ask me. But he is our priest, so I suppose we should be more charitable.”

“Mabel, for God’s sake! He called me Mabel.”

Margaret kidded her, “He was so persistent, I’d begun to think maybe I’d had it wrong all these years. He called me Mildred.”

“It wouldn’t be so bad if Mabel Flannery wasn’t the one Seamus had almost married just before the war. That was a barb I could’ve done without, especially now, of all times. I think that old fool called me Mabel on purpose.”

“Father Griffin may be an old fool, but don’t let him upset you. He meant well, I’m sure.”

Maude wearily shook her head. “Oh, he may mean well, but when will he get any sense?”

“If it’s sense you want, you won’t find it here, Maude. Not in this vale of tears.”

“You’re right. I’m just so tired that I’m talking fool’s talk.”

The best friends walked slowly to Seamus’s coffin and stood there silently, finally letting his death sink in. Maude realized she would never be awakened at 4:00 a.m. again to the sound of

Seamus stumbling through the door after a Friday night session at O’Lunny’s with the firehouse boys. She’d miss his snoring till midday and the moans from his hangover.

Maude sighed as she and Margaret held hands. Sara felt uneasy, silently watching the backs of their identical black dresses leaning shoulder to shoulder. Their heads were motionless.

Their grip tightened as each took faltering breaths, the only ripple in the cloying solemnity of the silence void of the Christmas cheer outside and all around the town the day before Christmas.

Finally, Maude released Margaret’s hand, leaned over, and rested her hand on the coffin for a moment, then she turned and embraced Margaret. Without a word, they stepped back, straightened their dresses, patted their hair, coughed then sputtered. They straightened their postures, turned, and walked down the center aisle to where Sara was sitting alone with her doll.

Margaret said, “We’ll get some tea before we return for our last good-bye.”

Sara nodded, and with the coffin left open, she was relieved to be leaving the room. The three were walking towards the door of the funeral home just as an old, hunchbacked, toothless woman in ragged clothes, opened the door and leaned her head in. She peered this way and that. The two women and Sara stopped aghast a few feet from the door and froze.

Sara whispered to her doll, “Golly, Maureen. Look who’s here Humpback Hattie, the homeless woman who scares all the kids in the neighborhood. She growls, spits, and cusses at them. Some kids even heard her say the F-word once. What’s she doing here? She’ll upset Maude and Mom if she starts cussing in the presence of the dead.”

Maude and Margaret anxiously waited for Hattie to identify herself, though they surely knew who she was. Hattie looked at them, then at the empty room, and back at them. Hattie sputtered and snorted, wiping her nose on her tattered sleeve.

Maude said, “Excuse me. If you’re looking for the Catholic Charities Food Bank, it’s at Saint Mary’s back in town.”

“Ain’t lookin’ for no charity!” Hattie squawked. “Ain’t this the O’Toole affair?”

Taken aback, Maude quivered, “Why, yes. It certainly is.”

“I don’t wanna intrude,” Hattie grumbled with a shrug. “I suspect I’m too late.” She hesitated with just her head sticking through the open door.

“Did you know my husband?”

“He was a friend to me,” Hattie said hoarsely.

Maude was puzzled. “Do you want to come in?”

“If I might. Just for a minute, mind ya. Don’t want to be a bother.”

Maude smiled. “You’re not. If you made the trip, you’re most welcome.”

Hattie stepped awkwardly through the door. Shaking her head, she said, “And what trip it was. Walked all the way from town. Saw the notice posted at St. Mary’s and had to pay my respects. Thought I’d get here sooner, but the old legs are failin’. Too damn slow. Took me half the night.”

Hattie was wearing a tattered, green sweater and a flowered dress that was a decade out of fashion and drooped to the top of her mismatched socks. Her shoes were wrapped in tape to hold the uppers to the soles, and her hat was moth eaten. One of her eyes was milky and blind and the other had a cataract’s glaze. She limped and was clearly destitute. Maude, Margaret, and Sara moved aside as Hattie slid awkwardly past them, bowing slightly to the women holding their heads away from her emitted odor.

Hattie said, “I’ll just say good-bye to him and be gone.”


They watched her shuffle towards the coffin and take out a handkerchief then peer into the coffin. She bowed her head and kneeled with a groan of pain in prayer. Maude and Margaret looked at each other with a shrug. Sara held her breath.

Margaret nudged Maude, whispering,” Do you know her that well?”

“She’s Humpback Hattie. Everybody in town knows who she is, but do I know her? I’ve never spoken to her in my life. She looks too old to be a friend of my Seamus. In difficult circumstances for sure.”

Margaret nodded. “That she is, poor soul. Looks like she could stand a square meal. Wonder how she could possibly have known Seamus?”

Maude shook her head. “Just can’t imagine.”

Hattie propped herself up off her knees with her cane then stood silently staring at Seamus awhile. She sighed, shrugged, and blew her nose in her handkerchief as she limped with her cane down the aisle towards the exit. She nodded before passing the three sitting on the aisle.

Before Hattie left, Maude called to her as she reached the door, “Excuse me, Ma’am. How did you know my husband?” Hattie said, “I’m sorry for your loss, Missus. He was a fine man.”

“Did you know Seamus’s family? His mother, perhaps?”

“Seamus, is it?” Hattie made a jack-o-lantern grin. “A fine name, too. Didn’t even know his name till the moment ya said it. Just overhead some drunk talk when some firemen were coming  out of O’Lunny’s last night . . . more like morning.”

“May I ask why you came? Why you’d walk all the way from town?” Maude asked with puzzlement. “You’re very thoughtful.”

“He was a friend to me—dropped me a dime every day for more than thirty years. Never missed a day. Looked me up in the homeless shelter a few years back when we had the blizzard. Said he’d worried when I wasn’t out on my corner as usual. Too sick to weather the elements for a while. Never told me his name, but he never missed a day—called me Miss Hattie. ‘Good morning, Miss Hattie,’ he’d say. ‘Lovely day we’re havin’, Miss Hattie. Keep well.’ Then he’d flip me a dime. ‘Your business prospers, I hope. Good to see you looking well again, Miss Hattie.’

“Respect, you see. He never called me ‘Humpback Hattie’ like the others. Not even when he was a snot-nosed kid playin’ Kick-the-Can in the junkyard by the railroad tracks. He couldn’t have been more than eight years old, deliverin’ newspapers, when he gave me that first dime. Surely wasn’t my looks that charmed the li’l rascal. Ha! I’ve scared the crap out of most every kid in this ol’ town since the end of World War Two. That’s when I lost my own boy, over there in France . . . Normandy. That was the day my hubby an’ me started drinkin’. Hadn’t ever touched a drop before. My husband’s liver lasted only a coupla years, so I been on my own for a hell of a long time. ‘Except for your Seamus, I never had a friend. Your husband was a special man. He showed everyone respect, even the likes of me.”

Hattie paused with a sniffle as she looked at the floor. The others audibly gulped.

Hattie mumbled, “Won’t miss the dimes, but I can’t go on for long with no respect. We all need some, even if it’s just a little.” Hattie turned and walked out the door.

Maude and Margaret exchange understanding looks. Hattie’s revelation about Seamus O’Toole mesmerized Sara. Silently, the three walked back down the center aisle to the coffin. Sara approached the open casket,
but turned her head aside.

“I think she’d said the final good-bye to my Seamus better than I ever could,” Maude said, nodding for Margaret to help her close the coffin’s lid.

Sara followed behind her mother and Maude to the exit. As they closed the door behind them, Sara suddenly call out: “Maureen! Mom, I’ve got to go back and get her! I must’ve left her on the chair. I can’t leave her in there alone!”

Tired, Margaret huffed, “Then go back in and get her.”

Sara’s eyes widened. She croaked, “Alone?”

“Don’t be silly, Sara. Go get Maureen while I wait here with Maude. We’ve said our good-byes. Go on. Hurry, now!”

Sara stood shivering alone in the doorway. Reluctant, she went to the closed coffin. She paused with indecision, her hands on the lid, then she eased the coffin open with her arm extended. For the first time, she saw Seamus O’Toole at peace in his grand navy blue suit. She reached under her black shawl and took out her doll, concealed with her all along. She kissed her doll like

Father Griffin had kissed the cross. She clutched Maureen while she pondered over the deceased and noticed his lips were turned up at the corners in a smile. She held up the coffin’s lid with one hand and placed her doll beside Seamus O’Toole.

“Take good care of him, Maureen, so he won’t be lonely. He was a good man. Good-bye, Mr. O’Toole. Good-bye, Maureen.”

Sara closed the coffin lid and ran for the door, which she swung open with a new appreciation for the chiming Christmas bells and distant carols cutting through the cold night air.

Happy New Year
​
By Alexandra H. Rodrigues



Bored Jane listened to the popping of the corks from the Charles Heidsieck Champagne, one of the most famous French bubble waters there is, here and now meant to send off the old year in style. The gayety displayed by the mixed group of guests, lounging around in the luxurious Greenwich Village penthouse, failed to give her a lift. Her brocade dress was extremely short, although much in style. She did not dare to cross her shapely legs when sitting down, for fear her panties might show. To say the least, Jane was uncomfortable and depressed.
“What’s wrong sweetheart? This is great champagne,” Jim Butler touched her hand as she reached hesitantly for the glass. He added, ”Dinner will be served shortly. We are waiting for a chap they hired for the service. He is scheduled for 10 o’clock.” Jane’s eyes followed Jim’s imposing, muscular figure. He wore an immaculate sharkskin suit, Brooks Brothers written all over it. He had left to join a group of equally well-dressed men. The group was most likely exchanging shady jokes, as their throaty laughs sliced the smoky air.
Jane had met Jim about six months ago. On the train ride to Massachusetts, where she was to attend Mount Ida College. It was her first trip alone, away from home. Tom’s kiss had still been lingering on her lips. Tom and Jane had become very close the last year before graduation. Now their ways had parted. Tom stayed behind to work in his father’s garage. His parents were less off than Jane’s family. For him a college education was out of question. He would have to contribute to the family’s income.
While she had been thinking about what the future might hold for her and Tom, a gentleman now known to her as Jim Butler, had taken a seat across from her on the train and offered her a cigarette. He had gray temples, bushy eyebrows, a very acceptable, mature figure and was dressed like a successful business man. Soon she knew that he worked in New York and that he was on his way to his ranch house at the outskirts of Massachusetts, also that he was recently divorced, that money was no object and that his prime residence was in Manhattan. A neighbor, Jane thought, as she was from Long Island. Jane had been pleased with the diversion as it had interrupted a rather uncomfortable daydreaming about her future. She had given her new acquaintance her address at the college and he had sent her off, saying, ”You are a very charming young lady. ”
A week later Jim had shown up at the campus, driving a Mercedes and presenting her with 12 pale orange Gladiolas. They had spent some fun hours over dinner at a small local restaurant. Jane had been impressed by Jim’s polished, cosmopolitan conversation skills. He was ten years her senior but she saw no cause to turn down an invitation to a party planned at the house of
one of his friends on New Years Eve. There had been no reason to refuse. Very conveniently for Jane, the festivity was to be on Fire Island.
A romance had started. Like a princess in fairyland she’d sipped cocktails, while lounging on a velvet couch and smelling the enticing aroma of dark red roses, which had been delivered to her in a strange hotel room. She felt so grown up. She was stimulated and intrigued and yes she’d fallen for Jim. It did not feel like the big love she had dreamed about in the past but it was so new and tantalizing. She liked Jim’s persuasion and chose not to think about Tom, who up to now had been the only man she had shared sexual favors with. Tom Boyd was simple, tender, rather uncomplicated in his personality but also no real challenge to her. She side swept any thoughts about what her parents would say if or when they found out.
With studying and fun the first semester had passed quickly. For X-mas, Jane had gone home for a few days and talked a lot about the college and new friends but avoided to make any mention about Jim. She had left the exquisite Aquamarine ring he had given her for X-mas in the safe at school. Her excuses not to be alone with Tom became plentiful.
New Years Eve had come. Luckily Tom had a work assignment someplace. Jane had told her parents that a girlfriend was giving a party to which she was invited. It all seemed to work out smoothly.
When Jim had introduced her to Nancy, the lady of the house, a mundane woman in her fifties Nancy had said, “Well Jim, what a charming young girl you brought this time. I see you pick them younger every year.” Jim’s answer, ”I take them as they come,” had not really been meant for her ears but she had entered the conversation at just that moment .The comment hurt Jane and suddenly she felt cheap.
At ten o’clock the doorbell rang. A voice, that Jane knew only all too well, said, ”Yes, thank you for asking me to help out.” She would have been able to detect that calm, re-assuring vibrato anyplace. Tom!
Jane was shaking as she put her hand on Jim’s shoulder. He was in an animated conversation with a redhead and hardly turned, when Jane said, ”Jim, I don’t feel good. Let’s call it quits for today, I am sorry, please take me home.” Irritated Jim responded, ” Want to spoil my fun? Just go upstairs and lay down in one of the guest rooms. Maybe you had too much to drink. You feel better soon.” With that he turned back to the redhead and continued the flirting with that woman.
The cool satin covers of the twin bed cooled Jane’s face.
She could not tell if it was a temperature or a flush of shame that blushed her cheeks. She cried silently. Tom was outside, so close. She would have given anything to erase the past months and her affair with Jim. Why had she fallen for that man? She had been blended by his lifestyle. His morals were alien to those of her family. It was all her fault, she had played the role of a flirty girl and not considered any of the possible consequences.
In the distance one could hear a brassy church bell ringing in the New Year. From the Living room came the echo of kissing and giggling. It must have been more than an hour since she had come up to this bedroom but Jim had not bothered to even once check on her. She was alone, beginning a New Year. Suddenly the door opened – Tom! His slinky, youthful figure moved slowly toward her, his face vaguely illuminated by the dim light. A frown on his forehead. He sat down at the rim of the bed and said, very matter of fact,”I knew you were here at the party. I saw your coat.” His large, water blue eyes held hers, questioning, sad.
“You are here with that guy, Jim Butler, I heard.” The tone in Tom’s voice conveyed that he did not have a great opinion of Jim. Jane wished she could throw herself into Tom’s arms but she was too ashamed to do so and he seemed to be in no mood to make it easy on her. She had no right to blame him. Instead she pressed her face deeper into the satin pillow and only whispered,” Tom, I – I do not know how to explain. I am truly sorry.”
At that moment Jim appeared in the doorway. In a demanding voice he queried, ”Jane?” Then he must have seen Tom, who in a reflex had put his arm around Jane’s shoulder. For a minute, Jim’s face expressed anger but quickly a broad grin spread over his alcohol-reddened face and he shouted jovially, ”All right Baby, Happy New Year. Sorry I interrupted. I see you are learning fast.” It was obvious that what was happening did fit into his plans.
Jane stared at the door, which had closed with a loud, although unintended bang, behind Jim. Tom’s arms released her and fell limp to his sides. Without looking at Jane, he did get up and began to pace back and forth with long strides.
Tom did not utter a word till Jane got up and held a hand out to him, pleading tears in her eyes. He took her hand and she felt him squeeze it just a tiny bit. “Let me take you home,” he said. “I am finished here and it looks to me like you are too.”

The Xmas

By Jonathan Fenn

​
Huck Fenn for pen name.
Huckfenn13-on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WordPress



The flash of bright headlights with the screeching of brakes then broken glass flying in the car while I’m trying to cover my beautiful girlfriend. Just seemed too real to me again which caused me to wake up in a cold sweat again. I look over to her sleeping without a scratch on her caramel brown skin. I had to get up and dry off being I was soaked so I rolled out of bed then quietly crept to the bathroom. There I stared at the reminder that I got from the crash on my chest. To tell the truth, I was glad that I was one to cut on my chest. I run my fingers down my smooth scar when her hand comes up from behind me. She lightly squeezes me. “I know, it’s close to that time.” She said while half asleep.
“Go to bed, Alex,” I said. “I will be back in there in a minute,” I told her calmly before turning around and kissing her lips. She walks out of the bathroom then I quietly sneak down to the kitchen for a cup of hot chocolate milk being I can’t just fall back to sleep after reliving that night. When I’m in the kitchen, I turn on the radio to quietly listen to some Christmas music then I poured a glass and put in the microwave. I stop the microwave with a second left being I don’t want to wake up everyone else. The snow falls lightly while taking a sip of the hot cholate milk. It becomes very relaxing to me then I head up to bed to fall asleep next to Alex.
***
While getting ready for a day at the office, the smell of bacon and pancakes hits my noses. I grab my briefcase before heading down the stairs. “I was going to tell him last night,” Alex said while I entered the kitchen to see Phil, Nicole, and Tommy sitting around at the table. Nicole has been our friend since college, and they lost their apartment due to water damage.
“Tell me what?” I asked before kissing Alex.
Nicole stands up. “Phil, grab Tommy, and we should give you some space.”
I chuckle. “Stay eat while it’s hot and it can’t be too bad.” Alex shakes her head no. “What is it?” I asked.
“I’m Pregnant,” She said excitedly.
“Really?” I asked stunned. Alex shakes her head yes. “I’m going to be a dad,” I said excitedly while I hugged her. “Don’t cook, we are going out tonight” I looked at Nicole. “Y’all are coming, right?”
Nicole shook her head no. “We don’t want to be a bother.”
“Y'all haven’t so far, my treat.” Nicole shakes her yes then I look at the time. “I got to get.”
***
My job is boring, but I got a lot of security there being I’m an investment banker that comes in every day of the week, so I’m up on the ladder. I was in my office looking over the files when my gray-headed boss comes in. “I got the files right here. I was about to send them to you.”
“Thanks for coming in on short notice.” My boss said.
I smiled. “No problem anything else?”
“Just keep up the good work, and you will be all right.” He said turning to walk out.
“Can I cut out?” I asked.
He looks at his watch then back at me. “Going to pop the question?”
I chuckle. “No, that’s Christmas. She having a baby.”
A smile creeps on his face. “I remember my first kid, my door is open, get out of here.” He said before walking out of my office.
***
There we all were sitting at the busyness steakhouse in town on short notice. “What are you getting babe?” Alex asked.
I smiled being the answers was evident. “Chicken” I replied.
Phil looks at me. “Don’t you get tired of that?” He asked. I just shook my head no being chicken hasn’t done me wrong yet.
“So we are going back to the east coast for the holiday so can y’all give us a lift to the airport?” Nicole asked. I just shook my head yes.
***
I was sitting back in my office when my boss walks in. “Hello, Sir?” I said while looking over the numbers.
“So are you and your girlfriend leaving for the holiday?” He asked. I shook my head no. “Well, I own a beach house in Hawaii. Headquarters are there as well and there a yearly wrap up meeting that you need to attend if you do go.”
I stopped then looked up at him. “You want me to participate in the yearly wrap-up meeting on your behalf?” He nodded his head yes. This was a big step for me but was huge for my career. “I will talk it over with Alex.”
***
Alex wanted to the trip more than what I expected, but that made my big surprise even sweeter on Christmas. I hope that she says yes while not thinking that it’s because of the rug rat that’s growing inside of her. She is the love of my life, and I don’t know what I would do if I lost her.
***
After I had left the office, I wanted to suspire Alex with some flowers. Granted, they were going to be dead by the time we got back, but it’s worth it to see that smile of hers. I don’t know why I walked to the flower shop in the light cold snow, but I’m kinda glad that I did. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t of saw them playing in the alley. They were having the time of their lives, but they didn’t fit which caused me to stop while everyone else passed by. “Hey,” I yelled. The two of them stopped then looked at me. “Where’s your parent’s,” I asked. I couldn’t place an age on them being they was wrapped up.
“Inside” The one them yelled then the other one smacked them. I didn’t know what they meant by inside being one building was under construction while the other one was vacant which was caused by a massive fire.
“Can you show me where?” I asked, but they took off running. I followed them into the building that was under construction. It was a perfect spot for homeless to hide during this harsh winter. I found them in the corner with their mother. She was in front of them with a knife pointed at me.
“Get back” She yelled.
I threw my hands up. “I’m just looking to help. How about a hot meal at my house?” Their mother lowers the knife. “I can put y’all up at a hotel afterward for the holidays,” I said. Their mother lets her guard down. “Please come with me.”
***
It’s was an odd feeling having so many people at my house to eat while not being a major holiday. If anything, that was part of the Christmas spirit. A knock came on the door while the cookies were finishing, we need to fix them before the end of the year anyways. So I open the door to see a group of eight or so Christmas carolers. “Joy to the world” They started singing then everyone else began to gather around. After a couple of songs.
“Come on in, it’s cold, we got some cookies in the oven,” I said. The carolers came in while I took the jackets. The party just grew, and it felt more like Christmas even though it was the 19th. Everyone was laughing and having a fun time.
***
I woke up to a knocking at the door, I was in the middle of my empty living room with a pounding headache while empty whiskey bottles and a stocking was beside me. As I sat up, I reached for my chest and felt the ring than my scar. I grabbed the stocking then headed to the
door. Frankly, I didn’t care who was on the other side of the door, but I opened it and peeked out to see a smiling Asian. She is beautiful. “Merry Christmas, Joe,” She said. I didn’t know who in the hell she was, but she knew me. “Can I come in, I brought hot cocoa” I opened the door then just walked back into the living room. “What do you got in the stocking?” She asked while shutting the door. I dropped the stocking.
“Who in the hell are you caused I don’t remember you,” I said.
She lost her smile. “Joe, it’s me. Lily, from the flower shop. I helped you after the crash.” I reached for the stocking. “what’s in the stocking?” The material from the stocking shocked my arm as I slide it in. “Joe,” She said louder. I started to drift off. I was the only one to get out of the crash alive. Alex, my unborn child, a van full of carolers, the two families of three and the trucker all died. I don’t know how I didn’t, being I tried to shield Alex. My head was just inches away from the hunk of metal that killed Alex. Bang. The gunshot brought me back to my empty living room with Lily holding my hand above my head. She has tears rolling down her face. “I see them all the time too.” She said as I lowered my arm. The stocking and gun fall to the floor before I wiped a tear from her face. I wasn’t the only one dealing with the pain, maybe she could help me.

​



CHRISTMAS: AN ANCIENT GHOST STORY

By R. B. Ejue


The people who live in the forest of the Western Protectorate of Nigeria have always feared spirits. The most feared of these spirits is the one called Ewure Fufun. Three hundred years ago, the ancestors of these people did not rear sheep. Then one day, their chieftain decided that he would explore the northern lands on his own. He was away for eight months, and when he returned, he brought along a flock of sheep, gifts from Fulani herdsmen he’d encountered during his adventure.
Every sheep in the flock was white, with no stain or blemish on their fleece. For three months, the villagers regarded these new creatures with awe and wonder. None of them had encountered animals with fur so pure that it could outshine a piece of white chalk.
The chieftain was proud of his flock. He saw to their care himself, and liked to show them off, parading them in the village square every evening, and boasting that they were a sign from the gods, showing his right to rule. The sheep soon mated among themselves, and produced a new flock. Although none of the lambs had pure white fleece – some born black, others white, with patches of black on various parts of their coats – they were strong and healthy, and the chieftain was pleased with them.
His happiness was short lived though, because soon the older sheep began to disappear one by one, until one day the chieftain woke up and went to the pen he’d made his people build behind his hut, only to find that the last of the white sheep had been stolen.
He was pained by this. He called a meeting of the town’s people, where he asked the high priest to make everyone swear an oath that none of them had stolen his sheep. When all of them had done this, with no one confessing to the crime, he drew out the dagger that had been passed along his bloodline as a symbol of their royalty, and stabbed himself in the heart, muttering a curse with his dying breath on the villagers and their offspring for their treachery and lies.
Ever since then, no pure white sheep has ever been born, and towards the end of the year, a white sheep appears to someone in the village as a ghost-like apparition, which only the person it appears to can see. After which there is a thunderstorm at night, and the person who has seen the ghost sheep dies in his sleep.
The villagers lived like this for three hundred years, and then the white people came. They came first with their bible, as missionaries, and set about converting the villagers to Christianity. And then more of them came later with their riffles, as colonizers, and this time made the people their subjects.
Christianity has its by-products, and one of these is Christmas, which is to be celebrated the next day. It is because of this that the boy’s father sends him into the forest to hunt birds. A year ago, his father had taught him how to handle a sling made of animal hide, but he has been unable to kill a single bird with this sling. So he does not like hunting.
His father tells him to go to the forest in the morning, when the birds aren’t alert, easy to hit with a stone. But he dawdles with his friends, first at the stream, where he takes off his girdle, which holds his sling and hunting knife, before diving into the cold water, and then at the village square where they crack palm kernels to extract the fruit inside, which they then chew to grind out its sweet nectar.
He does this until it is evening, when the birds are returning to roost, then he says goodbye to his friends and goes into the forest.
It is dark inside the forest. The branches of tall trees have overlapped to form a canopy that not only blocks out sunlight, but also traps cold and vapor, to form a fog blanket.
The boy knows that the fog would migrate during the night and spread over the village, settling on the ground in flighty tufts of condensed vapor. Tufts he likes to play with in the morning. Grabbing them and watching them melt in his hand.
He goes deeper into the forest as he searches for birds. He finds only a few, and these he misses with shots fired from his sling. He doesn’t notice when it grows dark, not until he realizes that he can’t see more than two feet in front of him. The forest temperature drops.
Then the forest becomes luminescent in front of him, and when he looks, he notices the image of a sheep come into focus. The animal’s coat is of the purest white he’s ever seen, and from it emanates the light that brightens the forest.
His father has told him that never in the town’s history have they bred a pure white sheep. His father has also told him about the curse of the white sheep.
He looks at the sheep, which also regards him with interest. The boy assumes that this is his fate, to die at the hands of the ancient chieftain’s curse. He believes this is all well. After all, he’s a useless son, one who hasn’t been able to slay a single bird with the sling his father made for him. His father would no doubt be happy to be rid of him; his birth right would be passed unto his younger brother.
The sheep regards him with a stony face. It stands on the pathway, resembling a primed colonial in starched khaki. It is here to kill him. But from what the boy remembers of the story, he is supposed to return home and lie down to die in his sleep. He goes towards the sheep. It moves. This is an action that the boy didn’t anticipate. Ghost sheep aren’t meant to retreat, are they? The boy moves forward again, and the sheep stumbles backwards. The boy takes out his sling, fixes in a big, round stone he’s been holding in his left hand, takes aim, and swings at the sheep. The stone catches the creature square in the face. Its hind legs wobble, and it falls. The boy pounces on it with his hunting knife, and in a few minutes it is dead and bleeding on the ground.
When the missionaries first arrived, they’d been given sheep as gifts by the town’s people. They secluded their flock of sheep inside the bamboo fenced compound that also held their living quarters. The boy assumes that the sheep had wandered away from that flock. This is the story he tells his father when he returns home with the dead animal on his shoulder.
His father isn’t bothered by this. He doesn’t like white people. He has his own sheep pen, so no one can accuse him of stealing anyone’s sheep. The boy’s family butchers and roasts the sheep that evening. It doesn’t rain at night.
The next day, after attending mass in the karaboot church built by the missionaries, the boy’s mother serves the mutton. Everyone enjoys their meal, and gives thanks to the boy for bringing them this meat. The boy finishes eating before everyone else, and goes outside for some fresh air. He looks back into the mud-brick house through the window, and sees his younger brother seize the last piece of mutton from the meat tray. As he raises it to his mouth, another brother snatches it from him and dashes out of the house.

The Miniature

By Vance Alexander

 
  At midday, Veronica Ardmore opened the heavy oak sliding doors into the second parlor. The usually dark, overly decorated room looked bright and cheerful today. It was the Christmas tree. She was annoyed looking at the giant green monster, which was taking up so much room and presenting itself with a delicious aroma and great beauty. The servants had done a splendid job trimming the tree with strands of threaded popped corn and cranberries. The additional decorations were: paper chains, cut out stars and cornucopias in silver and gold foil made by the children. Tonight the candles would be lit but she wasn't feeling happy or festive. It was the day of Christmas Eve and she would have to put on a brave face for the sake of four year old Toddy and six year old Emily. Veronica had done her motherly duty providing presents for the youngsters. At the Emporium, she purchased a bisque doll from Germany for Emily; it was beautifully dressed, had real hair and eyes that opened and closed. Toddy would be the recipient of a carved Noah's Arc filled with twenty pairs of animals, a delight for most boys his age. Under the tree would also be presents for Ezra and Liza their dear and caring domestics. 
Veronica moved around the tree in a somnolent state making small unnecessary adjustments, straightening candles, draping a sagging popcorn strand or moving a decoration for a better affect. Too mentally drained to do anything more, she closed the doors and met Liza dusting in front parlor. 
  "Miss Veronica you look quite ill, is there anything I can do?" 
"No thank you, Liza, I think I just need to rest before dinner and the festivities with the children. Mr. Todd's parents are due to arrive at six, please wake me at five if I should fall asleep."           
"Very well, you get some rest, Miss. Ezra and I have everything in order for this evening."
  "Thank you Liza, I don't know what I would do without you."
Climbing the stairs seemed a monumental task. In her room, reclining on the chaise lounge, Veronica picked up the letter from the war office. She had read it a dozen times since it arrived a week ago. The words "has suffered serious injury in the line of duty" had shaken her world. She had no idea how badly he was injured or where he was. Veronica paced most of the night in her room, and when she wasn't pacing, she slept fitfully and awoke with a tear stained pillow. 
Completely exhausted, she fell into a deep black sleep; it was then that she was in the back parlor. The Christmas tree had been replaced by baskets of flowers exuding a powerful scent as they surrounded a velvet draped bier upon which lay a wooden coffin. Veronica, near hysterics, hesitated before approaching and looking into the sheet lined coffin. Her head pounded, her body shook, and she could not breathe, but she forced herself to look. There was an empty space - empty space; no body, no Todd! To her this was a good sign. But, to her great consternation, there lay the gold locket. When Todd had been conscripted into the army, Veronica had a miniature portrait painted for him to carry as a talisman. She had presented it to him on the last Christmas Eve they spent together three years ago. Now the flood of tears and screams began, her arms flailing as she fought to claw her way from the blackness, her throat burning from the screams. 
"Miss Veronica, please, please wake up!" Liza was gently shaking her shoulder, "you're having a bad dream." 
"What, where am I, oh yes, it was a dream, only a dream. Liza it was awful." She clung to the older woman trying to gain strength from her. What's done can you repeat no
"You'll be all right, Miss, but now it’s late and you must get ready for dinner." 
"Yes, Christmas dinner, I don't know how I'll get through it. Liza, I had a dream; it was awful." and then her choking sobs began. 
The older woman felt an overwhelming pity for her young mistress whom she thought of as a daughter. Her practical nature knew she had to do something quickly. Taking Veronica by the shoulders, she shook her until she had her attention. Looking directly into her tear filled eyes, she said, "Listen to me child, there are your children to think about; don't destroy their Christmas.  And you have Hanna and Johnathan Todd too entertain. No parent wants to think about the loss of a child, besides you don't know anything yet about Mr. Todd."
"But Liza the dream..."
"Yes, it was a bad dream, but only a dream." Taking Veronica's arm, she led her to the ornate dressing table, unpinned her hair and began to brush it in long soothing strokes. "You are going to look your most lovely tonight." 
Leaving Veronica to put up her hair, Liza selected a gown from the armoire she knew to be Mr. Todd's favorite. She laid out the skirt and four underskirts on the bed. Just as she had everything organized, they heard muffled yelling from the children through the door. 
"I had better go and check on the youngsters, it's probably the arrival of their grandparents.  I'll be back shortly to help you dress. Meanwhile, you can finish your hair, and you might add the tortoise combs, they are so becoming." 
  Left alone Veronica looked into her mirror and saw a sad woman seemingly drained of life. Oh my, the children have seen me like this for a week, Liza is right, I cannot appear this way tonight. Very carefully she applied powder to her face and pinched her cheeks to bring out a little color. A few moments later, Liza returned. 
  "Are the children all right? Why were they being so boisterous, was it their grandparents arrival?" 
"Indeed it was, now we must get you dressed." 
 After Veronica had stepped into her crinoline and been tied off, she stood quite still while Liza began to layer on, first a flannel underskirt, then one of muslin and another of cambric. Finally, the silk over skirt was put in place followed by the low cut bodice jacket, which was laced up the back. Standing in front of the cheval mirror, Veronica was pleased with the reflected image. 
"You look beautiful Miss Veronica, here are your gloves, you are ready. Your in-laws and the children are in the front parlor. After you greet them, Ezra asked that you check the tree before anyone sees it; I took the liberty of having him light the candles when Mr. and Mrs.  Ardmore arrive."
"But I checked it this afternoon, and it looks wonderful." 
"It will only take a moment, and Ezra wants to please you. Will you do it, Miss?" 
"Of course, and Liza, thank you." 
When Veronica glided down the staircase, she felt better knowing that she would try to make this evening special for everyone. Hanna and Jonathan Ardmore greeted their daughter-in-law warmly, and the children were excited seeing their mother smiling and looking so lovely. 
After the greetings and exchange of pleasantries, Veronica excused herself and opened the doors to the back parlor only enough to squeeze in, not wanting to spoil the effect of seeing the tree for Emily and Toddy. 
The gigantic tree looked spectacular, the candles were like glowing stars and the decorations looked to be in order, but something was out of place. From one of the branches, she picked up the small object and became misty eyed thinking about that other Christmas when she gave Todd the miniature. The miniature. Could the dream, could it be coming true? 
      "Oh Todd, my Todd, where are you?" Her voice was filled with anguish and tears ran down her cheeks. 
       "Here my darling," the deep baritone voice said. "Here waiting for you!" Captain Todd Ardmore limped from behind the tree to gather his wife, into his loving arms.  

SHADOWS

By
​
Louis Sisto


The Magician was perched comfortably in his recliner, the eraser end of his stubby pencil tapping lightly on his chin as he searched for grammatical inspiration. The creation of poetry always helped him return to a state of mental equilibrium following one of his “contracts.” A “contract”, dear reader, was a pivotal piece of his chosen career field. The Magician’s real name was Theodore Sauer, but to his cronies in the underworld, he had a vast array of colorful nicknames: Teddy, Teddy Numb Nuts, Teddy the German, or, his best known moniker, The Magician. Looking at the slightly tanned, brown-haired gentleman of no more than five feet, eight inches in height, one would reasonably assume him to be a well-to-do, nine-to-five embodiment of ordinary life in the Midwest. The Magician earned his particular title because of his uncanny ability to make others disappear, at times in the most horrid ways imaginable. He was damn near forty years old and had tarnished his soul with the cold embrace of organized crime since his early twenties.
He rubbed his feet together as he slid a bit lower in his recliner, his faded cotton socks creating a warm, relaxing friction. The light, powdery scent of the barbershops of old drifted up to his nostrils as his Skin Bracer aftershave made its presence known. He nibbled on the pencil’s eraser as his thoughts skipped back to the piece of work he had completed just a few short hours ago. The union official and his wife never even opened their eyes and saw him. They died together in the bedroom, their hands still clasping each other’s, their bodies entangled in the black, silk sheets as the Magician interrupted their peaceful slumber. He departed the house as casually as he had entered, almost whistling to himself as he returned to his vehicle. He had ten grand coming his way from the higher-ups.
Another day, another dollar for Teddy
The Magician’s mind was a carousel of various thoughts and emotions. He scribbled on the small notepad resting on his lap as he relived the events from a few hours ago. His work gave him a peculiar sense of creativity, neither rational nor irrational, but harboring somewhere between the two. He had been writing poetry for years as a method of mental catharsis, to the point where it just became a part of his daily routine. Maybe he was just being artistic in his own, indefinable way. After all, he could have inherited the quality from his parents. His eyes floated up from his notepad for a moment as he thought about his deceased mother, Giuliana. She came from the Puglia region of Italy and was as vivacious of a woman as you could ask for. He remembered sitting at the kitchen table for hours as a young boy, his hands gently folded in front of him, listening to his mother sing along with Mario Lanza on the radio. She had a soft, soothing voice that could melt the wings of an angel and force open the gates of Heaven. There were plenty of instances where her singing would reduce her to tears, often for reasons unknown, even to herself, as a young Magician sat curiously nearby, flooded with a mixture of
understanding and confusion, an all too common dilemma for a boy in that age frame. His father, Sebastian, immigrated to the United States from Germany with his parents at the age of four. The Magician could recollect many conversations with his father about being his own man one day and living life on his own terms. His father had been an avid artist, at times leaving the young Magician in unmatched awe of the various shapes and vibrant colors that decorated the canvas. He remembered when his father would take his brush, lightly dab the end of it with a color of the Magician’s choosing, and playfully swipe at the canvas, making a mark of no particular distinction. Then all traces of levity would vanish in an instant as his father would peer into his eyes, the message resonating loud and clear:
“Teddy, you make your own mark on this world.”
His parents had always made time for him, even though they were constantly attending to the drudging responsibilities of daily life. The Magician had an older brother of three years, Ralph, with whom he had a very close relationship while growing up. With a voice as beautiful and encouraging as his mother’s, the strong, consistent discipline bestowed upon him by his father and the camaraderie and affection given to him by his brother, one could have only surmised at that time that the Magician (or Little Ted) would have nothing less than a proud, successful future, full of all of the treasures of life that a man could ever dream of.
***
The roaring of a car engine on the street below shook the Magician out of the daze he had seemingly fallen into. The fragmented memories of his mother and father, their cherished lyrics and works of art, dissolved from his consciousness as he glanced at his watch. It was a quarter to five. He would be leaving soon to meet his brother, Ralph. They had grown apart over the years,
for what appeared to be a thousand different reasons. Ralph had been aware of the Magician’s descent into criminal life long before anyone else. Ralph sought refuge and solace in his faith, distancing himself slowly from the Magician over time. He moved out west to Nevada eight years ago with his wife and children following the death of their mother. Their father had died of a sudden heart attack many years ago, shortly after the Magician started high school. For the past eight years Ralph made it a point to return to the Midwest to visit his younger brother, almost out of a feeling of pure obligation, as opposed to any real desire to have even a general friendship, let alone a sibling relationship. They always met for a few hours at a tiny outdoor café on the outskirts of Chicago to catch up on each others’ lives. The discussion was always civilized and proper, with the two even sharing an audible laugh at times, reminiscent of their time together as young, naïve boys, not having a care in the world. Underneath it all, however, lurking like a hungry, angry predator, was awkwardness so profound that the Magician felt he could sometimes see it, touch it and cut it right in half.
The Magician lifted himself from his recliner with a small grunt and rose to his feet. He tore off the page in his notepad he had been scribbling on and shoved it nonchalantly into the pocket of his lavender-colored dress shirt. The apartment slowly became a shade darker as shadows engulfed the living room from all directions; the previously sunny and vibrant sky was now being invaded by unrelenting, unwelcoming clouds. He walked calmly over to a nearby coffee table and poured a half glass of red wine for himself. He drank it down rather gracefully, feeling his muscles loosening up as the alcohol warmly blanketed his esophagus. There was no point in delaying the visit with his brother. Time to get this over with. The higher-ups would no doubt have more business for him to attend to later.
***
“Two coffees, please,” Ralph said to the waitress as he enthusiastically wiped the powdered sugar from his lips. He and the Magician were in the process of indulging in some scrupulously baked dessert cookies on the outside deck of DiNella’s Eatery, a small, family-owned café bordering on the city limits of Chicago.
The Magician smiled mischievously at the waitress. “Actually, Ma’am, I’ll take an espresso.” He glanced smugly in Ralph’s direction. “These Nevada boys forget what real caffeine is,” he said, trying his best to stifle a small laugh in the process.
The waitress, an animated young lady in her early twenties, put her hands on her hips for a second, as if preparing to scold the brothers. She shook her head as she headed for the patio door, amused at the petty, but good-natured, insults the two had been hurling at each other all evening.
“Speaking of Nevada,” Ralph said, thumbing at a thatch of gray hairs in his beard, “when am I gonna get you out west?”
The Magician toyed with the band of his watch for a moment and then looked toward the darkened road in front of them as a steady rain continued to fall. He couldn’t walk away from his life in the Midwest. He knew a lot of bad things about a lot of people. They would find him and it would all be over. He didn’t need to put Ralph and his family in any danger.
Ralph’s voice returned, this time with a solemn tone of complete sincerity: “Teddy, I worry about you every single day.” He exhaled deeply, the entity of frustration even more apparent than it had been in past conversations concerning the same topic.
The Magician could hear the underlying tone of helplessness in his brother’s voice. He had a mental image of a lever being pulled inside of him all of a sudden, shutting down his emotional capabilities. During moments like this, he had no choice but to do that to himself. There were just some things that he would not allow his cognitive domain to process. He preferred to be a shadow, quick and abstract, not possessing any predisposition for human emotion. A man in his position could not afford to be lead by emotion like a stray dog was by the temptation of tattered remnants of food. The higher-ups, his bosses, had told him from day one that emotion could ruin a man entirely, if he let it. Without warning, his father’s voice suddenly flashed into his consciousness for a brief moment:
“Teddy, you make your own mark on this world.”
He had chosen his life, or his mark, if you will, and Ralph needed to accept that. End of story.
“Ralph, lemme ask you something,” the Magician said, trying to keep his tone as amicable as possible, “did we come here to visit or did we come here so you could start with all this bullshit again?” He surprised himself for sure; he asked the question a hell of a lot nicer than he thought he would. Wonders never cease.
“Look, Teddy, don’t get angry with me. Please.” A slight quiver could be detected in Ralph’s voice. He wanted to keep the peace. He knew what kind of man his brother was…and could only imagine some of the things he had done. He could only imagine.
“Teddy, do you think I would travel all this way to see you if I didn’t care about you?” He paused as the waitress returned to deliver the coffees…well, one coffee and one espresso to be exact.
The Magician waited until the waitress was out of earshot before responding. “I know you care, Ralph, but I gotta do what I gotta do.”
He felt justified in defending his position, regardless of his lifestyle. A brief slideshow of some of the atrocities he had committed toward others over the years began playing through his head; for a moment, he thought he could actually hear the hum of his mental projector, before he realized that it was the air conditioner turning on behind him. The things he had done to others were the very things that he kept in the shadows, away from everyone else, even himself, in a way. It all came down to the way he had personally conditioned himself over the years. The natural world moved on every single day without him. Other men his age were taking their bratty kids to zoos and theme parks, changing shit-clustered diapers and loving every minute of it. He lived on the outer limits. He was the monster that the “normal” people read about in their morning newspapers as they sipped their tea and wrapped their klutzy bathrobes around themselves just a little tighter. He was, essentially, a man without a face.
Ralph tinkered with the small glass handle of his coffee cup for a few moments, trying his absolute hardest to muster up the courage to talk man-to-man with his brother. A stray rain droplet splattered the right leg of his tan dress pants as he looked up toward the Magician.
“Teddy, do you remember the lessons we had in school, as kids, about God?”
The Magician’s eyes remained fixated on the dark, deserted road sprawled out before him. He said nothing, his mouth instead occupying itself with the blunt aftertaste of the espresso.
Ralph continued, “This may not mean much to you, Teddy, but have you ever given any thought to what happens to us all in the end?” He sipped his coffee slowly, his eyes harboring a pleading fervor that the Magician had never quite witnessed before.
The Magician remained a stone fixture of silence. He listened closely to the melancholy anthem created above as the raindrops pattered the roof.
“I firmly believe that a man has to answer for every single thing that he’s done in his life,” Ralph said, anxiously rubbing the palms of his hands together. “I think that-“
The Magician’s left hand abruptly shot into the air, cueing Ralph to terminate his inevitable sermon. His temper was unique; the Magician never became outwardly angry. He always had a way to contain the negativity. For as long as he could remember, he always pictured his dark energy resting inside random, discarded liquor bottles, perched on a dust-ridden, rotted wooden bar top. It was in these pathetic, forgotten bottles that the darkness could hide away, never to be looked upon by the eyes of ordinary men. Some would call it a defense mechanism; the Magician’s explanation was always a bit simpler, coming off with something along the lines of ‘not having time to think about that shit right now.’
“Now that’s where you’re wrong, Ralph,” The Magician said, his thick Chicago accent echoing powerfully in the evening’s strange silence. He took a quick sip of his espresso before continuing, “You know what the most honest moments are of a man’s life?”
Ralph shook his head. He was curious as to where his brother was going with this one.
“Yeah, I knew you’d shake your head,” The Magician said as he sat forward in his chair. “You wanna know something, Ralph? A guy is at his most honest when he shaves.”
Ralph, not in a particularly humorous mood at the moment, found himself somehow smiling just a little. His brother had him quite intrigued now.
“Why is that, Teddy?”
“What do you mean, ‘why is that, Teddy?’” To a pair of innocent nearby onlookers the Magician would definitely have solidified his position as the older, wiser brother, based solely on his body posture and the conviction in his words. Yet that was not true. The Magician, the baby brother, felt like he was bestowing upon Ralph the basic life wisdom he should’ve acquired long ago.
“When a man shaves, he looks into the eyes of nobody but himself; not even your God.” The Magician pointed emphatically at Ralph as he finished the last part of the sentence, as if giving his brother complete ownership of all of the world’s misconceptions. “A man looking into his own eyes has no choice but to own up to his actions. The most honest pair of eyes in the world, Ralph, are the ones in your own reflection, like it or not.”
The waitress returned briefly, humming nonchalantly to herself as she tossed another handful of napkins on the table.
“You boys ok?”
The Magician offered a pleasant, reassuring smile in return.
“We’re fine, honey.”
The Magician and his brother sat beside each other for the next several minutes, neither man speaking, both of them lost to the world around them, thinking of the cruel uncertainty of the future. The steady, forceful rain eventually transitioned to a dreary, uninspired shower. A passing car’s headlights briefly illuminated the brothers as they remained glued to their chairs. The few other inhabitants of the patio began dispersing little by little, random fragments of
conversation infiltrating the ears of the Magician and his brother. Another few agonizing minutes passed before the Magician stood up.
He tossed a crisp fifty and twenty dollar bill on the table in front of Ralph. Ralph’s body remained motionless, only his eyes carefully studying the Magician’s movements.
“I got some business to see to, Ralph. Thanks for the visit.” He leaned over to embrace Ralph, the random, misshapen shadows of the night swarming his field of vision as he looked over his brother’s shoulder. A clumsily-folded piece of yellow paper fell from his shirt pocket as the two brothers released their grip on one another. It landed innocently on Ralph’s shoulder. The Magician turned and began strolling toward the patio door as Ralph called after him.
“Hey, Teddy, you lost your paper here,” he said, waving it casually in his right hand.
The Magician turned his head slightly in acknowledgement. He pondered his writing session from just a few short hours ago. He remembered every single word he had written, almost as if he had taken a photograph of it and copied it into his consciousness. He smiled as he responded:
“Why don’t you keep that for yourself, Ralph? When the time is right, you can read it and let me know what you think.”
With that being said, the Magician was gone, leaving Ralph and his weak coffee as the sole occupants of the patio.
***
Ralph Sauer stood at the edge of the patio deck, staring out at the bleak, empty road as the other patrons of DiNella’s Eatery sang and laughed around him, the joy and gratitude in their
voices a haunting reminder to him of what he would never have again. Images of Teddy and him sitting on the patio from last year, bantering jokingly about coffee, played through his mind like an old, familiar videotape as he watched the last rays of the sun lose their vibrancy with the progression of the evening. He turned and glanced futilely at his table, a half-eaten cannoli and a glum cup of coffee decorating the top of it. Teddy would have scolded him like an unwanted stepchild, yet again, if he saw that his brother’s preference for bland coffee had not changed. Teddy’s chair was cold and aloof this particular evening, as it had gone unused the entire time that Ralph had been skimping his way through dessert. Teddy had been murdered four months ago. Ralph had made very few inquiries about what had occurred. The most common version of the story he heard in their childhood neighborhood consisted of Teddy being found slumped over in the passenger seat of his Cadillac. His body had supposedly been lying in the brisk, below-zero temperatures for several days, finally spotted by a sanitation worker who noticed that the vehicle hadn’t been moved for awhile.
It didn’t matter; not anymore. Whatever really happened was insignificant. The harsh reality of the situation settled into Ralph’s heart like a grotesque tumor when their waitress from last year inquired about Teddy.
“He passed away unexpectedly,” was all Ralph said. Nothing more, nothing less.
The crumpled piece of yellow paper that had fallen out of Teddy’s shirt pocket during their final embrace the year before now rested in Ralph’s left palm. It had been tucked away in his money clip for an entire year, scrunched between an old credit card and a shoe repairman’s business card. He opened it carefully, taking extra precaution as the page was already torn and nearly falling apart.
For every shadow there is one final act. One final emotion, one final pact.
Nowhere seen and nowhere heard, these shadows have concurred.
Only in your faith is truth undeterred.
Ralph’s concentration was broken by a highly energetic round of applause at a nearby table. A young boy, donning a black, plastic top hat, was putting on a magic show for his peers at a birthday party. Ralph studied the amazed and amused expressions of the toddlers as they observed the spectacle before them. The last line of Teddy’s poem resonated loudly in his thoughts.
Only in your faith is truth undeterred.
He walked slowly back to his table, placing the crinkled poem back into his money clip. His waitress met him upon his return.
“Anything else for you?”
“I’ll take an espresso to go,” Ralph said, as the magic show continued, unabated, behind him.
 

THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE

By

JAKE COSMOS ALLER

Ever since that fateful night when I was indoctrinated into the “True Knowledge” I have looked at the world in a different light. They say that the "Truth shall set you free". They also say, "Knowing the Truth, the so-called "True Knowledge" usually kills you for as Jack Nicholson so aptly put it, "You want the truth, well you can't handle the truth." Ain't that the truth my friends, and ain't the truth a real first class bitch?
It all went down so fast. After learning the secret history of the last five thousand years, I saw everything in a different, more sinister and dark light. Knowing what I know now - that the end times are close approaching - left me with dread, apprehension and yes paranoia. As Kissinger put it, even "paranoids have real enemies." And boy, does mankind have sinister enemies living amongst us, plotting our utter destruction for thousands of years.
The list of people who have been brought into the conspiracy reads like a list of the most prominent political and business leaders of world history. You often wonder how so many smart people can create such disasters like our current fiasco in the Mideast? Now I know. Nothing happens without a cause. The alien puppet masters from Sirius have been manipulating the world for thousands of years waiting until we had the technological means to destroy our planet so they can retake it for their nefarious plot to enslave all of us, forever and ever. However, I am getting ahead of my story. Let's begin at the beginning of my involvement. After reading my story, you will know the truth. Knowing the truth will either drive you mad, get your foolish ass killed, or give you the knowledge needed to survive the coming horrors.
I work for the government, just one of the army of white-collar “govbots" who float in and out of the Metro system every morning commuting to their jobs with the government and back home to their suburban townhouses. The day my world came crashing down on me began as I picked up a brochure from the "Lyndon LaRouche Group" at the Foggy Bottom Metro in downtown D.C. I commented to my colleagues on the way home that I enjoyed reading it, although I did not believe most of his conspiracy theories but he had a point, many good points. We laughed it off as a big joke.
A few days later I was getting on the train, when a middle age non- descript white man, with brownish hair, about 6 feet talk, dressed like any other middle age white suburban federal employee in a conservative suit and tie - probably on his way home to his suburban home in Virginia, bumped into me. He apologized and slipped me the following note. I saw the note when I got home and connected it with the strange incident at the subway.
The note read, "Lyndon used to work for us. He knows most of the truth but not all of it. When he found out what we were really up to we had to marginize him, discredit him as we do with anyone who gets too close to the truth. We are able to ensure that no one takes his writings seriously. He is a useful idiot though and we feed him disinformation on a regular basis.
My job is to prevent knowledge of the truth; the so-called "true knowledge" gets out. Anyone who appears to be taking his stuff seriously has to be followed and either brought into the game, or neutralized. Be very careful. Our agents are watching you like a hawk and have your internet connections under constant surveillance. Your phone and house is tapped. We have enough already to get you into serious trouble with your bosses as we know you are a dissenter, and don’t buy into the current government propaganda. You are too much of a free thinker for that. The authorities are also monitoring you but for now you are considered safe enough to leave alone.
We know that you like pornography and we know about all of your affairs and we have copies of e-mails you sent to various women with shall we say suggestive comments that could be misconstrued. We have even faked a few photos and video tapes of you engaging in some of your fantasies. By the way, you are a good writer!
Next time we contact you, make sure you come to the meeting spot. I will meet you and explain further. Momentous events are about to happen and you can either be on the inside on the winning team, or on the outside or probably end up dying like most of your fellow human beings. It will be your choice, my friend. We believe that you could be an asset, - you can
write persuasively, you can speak persuasively, you have many loyal friends and most importantly, you are probably intelligent enough to know that being on the winning ticket is usually the right choice to make for you and your family. Remember tell no one about this – not even your wife."
Agent Spartacus X
I am of course intrigued and freaked out. I thought of the X files and numerous SF thrillers I had read over the years. I said that this could not be happening must be some sort of vicious joke. In any event, I am intrigued enough to get out the Lyndon pamphlet from the trash and read it. I finally decide to try to sort out what he is saying and come up with the following schematic based on the pamphlet and looking at his web page and other web pages that have similar points of view.
Lyndon posits a grand conspiracy of British and American big bankers working together since the 15th century to dominate the world. The roots of the conspiracy dates back to the Knight Templars of the middle ages, which morphed into the Freemasons, then the fabled Illuminati. They were behind the Opium war as the British Royal family is among the inner circle of the conspiracy.
Most recently, they have been associated with the Council on Foreign Relations, The Bohemian Club, and The Project for a New American
Century. They are often now often called the Vulcans or the Neocons. However, the Neocons are just a small American inner circle of a much broader interrelated international conspiracy.
They had almost succeeded in their plans when the Great Depression came along and wiped out most of their plans. In response to the Great Depression, they took advantage of the chaos, engineered the rise of Hitler, Mussolini and Togo, and were working to bring Britain and US into the fold. Their goal – a Pan Germanic-Anglo dominated world fascist system to fight against the evils of Communism and Socialism. They thought that the U.S. would fall into place and eventually Hitler would unite the Germanic and Anglo worlds into a grand empire that would control the world forever. They would run the Empire through charismatic fools like Hitler. They would have continual wars, which are good for business, and they would have periodic depressions to ensure that they can continually buy up their competitors. Franklin Roosevelt disrupted their plans, as did Truman, Kennedy, Carter and Clinton. Nixon, Ford and Bush 1 were part of the Conspiracy. Reagan and Bush 11 were merely useful puppets. Obama is a useful idiot and not part of the conspiracy. Trump is an outlier – and dangerous to their plans. Hillary is part of the conspiracy.
Donald Trump is merely their latest puppet. Their mission is to bring fascism to America and then use America's military muscle to impose Pax Americana on the world. They plan to bring back a Neo-Nazi party to power in Germany and they plan to launch World War 111 against the Islamic world. Once they have secured the Islamic world for the West they will have to take on China and perhaps Russia. India they think they can make a junior partner like Europe and Japan.
That briefly is the Lyndon conspiracy. I still did not buy it. I did not think that any of our leaders were so corrupt and evil. I thought perhaps they were stupid, ignorant and making wrong decisions but I also thought like most Americans that they were genuinely interested in doing the right thing and were looking out for American interests in an increasingly dangerous world. And yes, I considered myself to be a bit of a dissident but I did not want to lose my job so I kept my thoughts largely to myself, my journals, my unpublished poetry and stories.
Therefore, I wrote down what had happened in my journal, and decided to be careful. I thought that perhaps the Lyndon people were trying to scare me in to joining them.
Just to be prudent I kept my journal entry on a diskette that I carried with me at all times. I quit writing anything in my computer that could be compromised. I installed some additional spy ware and did daily checks.
A few more weeks went by. I saw the Lyndon people at the subway and gave them a wide berth. I even denounced one of them in public for being a paranoid conspiracy freak. I wanted to give anyone watching the impression that I did not buy any of their crap.
One day I see Agent Spartacus on the subway. I go up to him and ask him how is doing, acting as if he is a fellow employee that I have not seen in a while. He responds, "Just fine." He then whispers, "Check your phone for a message in 10 minutes." He jumps on the Orange train and I wait for the Blue train. At King Street station, my phone beeps with a message.
"Meet me Friday night at 'Coyote Ugly' at 6 pm. Be on time. We will have a drink there and then find some place we can talk quietly. Be prepared to spend a couple of hours. Your wife will be out of town on business. Remember we are watching you and monitoring you. Good move on your part on writing your journals on diskettes. Bring them unaltered. If you alter them, we will know. BTW, I know you like sushi so we will have sushi in one of our affiliated businesses, sort of a 'safe house' so to speak in
Chinatown. Spartacus. We also know what porn you watch, that you like anal sex and oral sex and are not getting enough oral sex with your wife although getting a lot of anal sex. We can arrange a partner for your every need. "
I was freaked out after reading the message. My wife had not mentioned any business trip. I go home and she tells me she has to go out of town on Friday for a weeklong trip to Ft Hood on TDY. My wife was in the military, I was used to her constant TDY's on short notice, and I knew that sometimes she could not tell me what she was really up to as her clearances outranked mine by an order of magnitude. However, how Spartacus knew bothered me. Was my wife part of the conspiracy? I knew that I had to meet him. What he was hinting was monstrous. Moreover, the possibility that my wife was involved even more horrible. I knew if I told her my suspicions, she would laugh it off and tell me to lay off the Science Fiction novels for a while. The possibility that she could be working with them also entered my mind and stayed there like a stubborn weed that would not die. The offer of an extra marital partner turned me on although I knew it was a honey trap and I should turn it down but boy did it turn me.
And if she were part of this conspiracy would she tell me or them? I thought that I could not go to the authorities because it seemed clear that many of the senior officers were part of this dark conspiracy and no one would believe me. I would be dismissed as a nut case, possibly hauled to a psychiatric hospital or just made to disappear or even declared an enemy combatant and sent to Gitmo or some other secret detention center. Since they have also strongly warned me to be quiet I knew the risks would be pretty high so despite my burning desire to talk things over with my wife, I kept quiet.
I went to work and try hard to pretend that nothing is bothering me. A few people noticed that I am not my usual chipper self and I laughed` it off, saying that Angela is out of town and therefore I am usually a bit gloomy when she is on TDY.
Friday night I go to Coyote Ugly. I sit down. Spartacus is not there. A beautiful Korean woman wearing skintight blue jeans, a tank top with long black hair running down her back and lovely almond shaped eyes, and a cute face sits down unasked and tells me that Spartacus sent his regards but could not make it. She would go to dinner with me instead. I am suspicious
that some sort of honey trap was being set up against me. I looked around for cameras and surveillance but realized that they would probably be hidden. I resolve to keep my wits about me, not drink and not give into temptation, although when she went off to the restroom her luscious ass tempted me. I starred at her until my eyeballs began to hurt and she knew that I was starting at her world class ass and could not help it.
The old blues standard by Junior Wells, "Everyone Getting Some but Me" starts playing on the jukebox. I listen to my favorite line, "A girl in skin tight pants walk on by, with an ass so fine my eye balls hurt" and I said to myself. "Damn. They are good. They even know that I am an ass man, love the blues and this song in particular, and I love Asian women. Damn."
I pay my bill and Miss Lee and I walk down to China town and enter a sushi place. They seem to know her. We order some sushi. A message comes into my phone.
"Jake. Could not make it. Miss Lee works for me. She will give you a letter. Read it and leave or stay and have fun with her. She will do anything and everything you ever wanted from a woman sexually. She has been instructed to seduce you as a honey pot approach. Not my idea, but my superiors. I would rather play you straight up with the facts. But if you do
go with her know that it will be recorded and used against you if you step out of line. On the other hand, she is good and we know what you like as we have read your sex fantasies. You are a good writer, my friend. So if you do it, enjoy. We will meet next week after you read the letter and survive this first test. Spartacus"
I ask Miss Lee in Korean if she knew what was going on. She laughs and said that she was told to give me a letter, and then to show me a good time. She also said that she was told what I liked and wanted me to have her anyway I wanted her.
I thanked her, and asked her for the letter. I take the letter, and then decided to not go forward with the rest of the planned events as I thought showing a little independence might be a good insurance policy. I apologize to Miss Lee. She asked me why I did not want her. I told her that I felt guilty being with her and had to go home. She told me to take her home. I ended up kissing her, and taking her phone number and e-mail address. She told me she knew that she would succeed in seducing me as no one has ever turned her down before. She laughed and said, "You'll see. No one has ever resisted my charms, before the week is over you will be eating my pussy,
and your cock will be in my ass and in my mouth. I guarantee it. Read the letter and then decide."
I leave the restaurant and read the letter on the yellow line subway home:
The letter was as follows:
"By now you should be aware of our power and reach. Your wife is part of the conspiracy but not yet a member of the inner circle but we will approach her if you decide to join. We think she would be also an excellent choice. She suggested Miss Lee who is one of our top operatives and one of your wife’s friends. Play along with us and you can have her and you can have a threesome with her and your wife. Your wife says hello and have fun with Miss Lee.
However, each approach is different as you can well imagine. By now, you either have decided to have a good time with Miss Lee or have decided to decline in a mistaken impression that showing a little independence would be a good move. Either way would result in the same thing – either you will have some great sex which we will film or we will
take pictures of you and Miss Lee and morph them into a nice porno movie which we will send to your wife, your boss and your security folks one week from today unless you agree to the following:
Meet me Sunday night at the sushi place. Bring flowers for Miss Lee. If you turn her down, she will be miffed, as she does not take rejection lightly. She is determined to seduce you, you know. You were the first to turn her down. Took a lot of guts to do that. Oh well.
When we meet, I will then tell you the whole story. You can then go with Miss Lee or not. Your choice but remember the video is already being produced so you might as well enjoy her while you can. We have lots of work to do soon so I have to bring you in sooner than we usually do. Consider Miss Lee as a reward for joining. First of many as the members of the inner circle can have anything they want and will after D-day. Join us in being masters of the universe. D day is coming soon."
Spartacus
I call her up and she comes over and strips and tells me to eat her then she will let me have her ass. As I go down on her she tells me she is my
wife’s secret lesbian lover and they were planning to surprising me with a threesome on my birthday. I have the best oral sex and anal sex of my life as she is just perfect in bed.
I wanted to call my wife and confront her over Miss Lee but I was not at all sure she was telling me the truth. I knew all my wife’s friends and she had never mentioned Miss Lee. And my wife having a lesbian lover on the side while a big turn on for me seem sort out character for my wife. And she would have told me knowing how much that would have turned me on. So I suspected that Miss Lee did not know my wife but then again it seems she knew my house. Perhaps she was part of the surveillance team?
Sunday evening, I meet Miss Lee at the restaurant. I give her flowers and we have dinner. She is flirting up a storm and I was looking forward to round two and the subsequent threesome.
Spartacus shows up and the mood turns serious. Miss Lee is now totally professional and serious. The flirting was all an act of course and she was a true professional. Spartacus looks tired. He takes me into the back room and begins his tale of woe. I listen and don't want to believe any of it. It was so monstrous and evil but I knew he was telling the truth. And boy the truth did not set me free let me tell yah.
Spartacus starts off,
"Lyndon was one of our operatives. He was a rising star, but had an attack of guilt and left us. We debated whether to kill him or not. I suggested that we let him go, discredit him but use him as bait. Anyone who reads his stuff can be identified and those who show signs that they believe it and might be persuaded to join us we could recruit. The others can be eliminated. So we persecuted Lyndon, made him look like a paranoid idiot and we kept feeding him disinformation which he would disseminate.
What he writes about is only part of the truth and is the most visible, most documented part of the story and mostly true with some disinformation in it. For example, Lyndon misunderstood Hitler's rise to power. Hitler was a stooge, a "useful fool" in Lenin's phrase and Lenin and Stalin were part of our inner circle as was Mussolini and Togo. Roosevelt was our enemy as has been most of the Democratic leadership. That's why we are hard at work to destroy the Democratic Party and install a right wing republican one party state under our control but with "useful fools" like Bush as figure heads. Bush is not one of us, but we control him because Rowe, Cheney and the
Neocon cabal are all part of our inner circle. Most are human, but some are fellow Sirians.
I had to stop him and interrupted.
"What do you mean by Sirian? I mean this seems like a long-term conspiracy dating back centuries. Are you guys from some ancient Middle Eastern cult?"
He looks at me and laughs.
"I mean the Planet Sirius, the so called dog star. I will clue you in just listen. Anyway, the aim of our plot? Total domination of the world, then a planned destruction of the worldwide civilization through nuclear, and biological warfare where 90 percent of humanity will be destroyed. We will clean up the pieces and establish a worldwide dictatorship. Then the invasion begins and humankind is enslaved forever to the power of the master race, the Sirians.
Most of the people who work with us do not know that they are working for the Sirians. However, it does not matter. If you are with us, you will be rewarded with power, wealth, and access to Sirian medical technological wonders including life extension treatment which will allow you to live almost forever. If you oppose us, you will be thrown out into the world to be destroyed along with most of the rest of your dismal race.
I am a Sirian. We came to your planet five thousand years ago. We set up a colony, which you know as Atlantis. It was destroyed in a nuclear war between two factions of our race – the progressives who wanted to establish their version of democracy and what you might consider fascists or realists, as we like to think of ourselves. When you see the real me you will see that the progressive and realist groups are actually different races of Sirians. We are red in color and much more muscular and frankly more intelligent and realistic. They are darker, green in color and smaller and filled with useless compassion. They still exist and occasionally cause us trouble. We are always watching to make sure that they do not try to approach our human agents and corrupt them with pernicious "liberal or progressive" ideas - to use the current phrases - nonsense.
However, I digress. The realists won the war but Atlantis was destroyed. Most of the Sirian race on earth was killed in the war. Those of us realists left formed a tight little group and decided that we would bid our time, build out forces, take over the planet, and when the earth had achieved sufficient levels of technology contact our home world, and await instructions.
The progressives formed their own group and disappeared spending their time trying to enlighten humankind. What a load of crap. They just got misunderstood and killed for their troubles. Jesus, Buddha, Mohamed, Confucius, Sai Baba – all Sirian democratic losers every one of them.
The progressives formed their own group and disappeared spending their time trying to enlighten humankind. What a load of crap. They just were misunderstood and killed for their troubles. Jesus, Buddha, Mohamed, Confucius, Sai Baba – all Sirian democratic losers every one of them.
Some of the progressive Sirians disappeared into the wilderness and their descendants gradually intermarried with the natives and their descendants became the Cherokee, the Incas, the Mayan and other civilized American Indian tribes, and they also intermarried with the Jews becoming one of the so called lost tribes of the Jews and the Pharsi of Iran and India as well. Although intermarriage between our species is difficult, it is possible,
the descendants of such a union can marry either a human or a Sirian equally well. Most of the progressives intermarried and many of their descendants most if fact have no idea that they are part alien. The alien DNA is detectable if you know what to look for and we can tell if we are dealing with a half breed. Many of our agents are half breeds.
The progressives actually believed that we should all take native wives and inter marry and form a new race. Most of the progressives alive today are only half Sirian. The progressives once they took that step lost their immortality. The pure bloods did not and have kept the aging technology alive. If you are your wife join us, you will both be given the treatment. All of the fascists are pure blood.
None of the Cherokees knew that they were actually descended from aliens from Sirius and native people, although the Cherokee and Hopi have legends that their ancestors came from the Stars. Thus in a way you are part Sirian as we know your mother is half Cherokee. We actually tested your DNA and yes, you have traces of Sirian DNA in you.
The question of what to do about humans became the key issue dividing us then and now. The so-called fascists to use modern terminology
thought that you earth people were hopelessly backwards, superstitious and barely capable of intelligence. We felt that we should kill most of you off, then enslave the rest. That is still our plan. Besides, on our home world we rose to power by killing off a rival species that were humanoid looking. Ever since then Sirians have had it in for humanoids and primate species.
The progressives thought that they should work with you, bring you up to civilization and educate you and then have you join us as equals. They also felt guilty about wiping out the humanoids on Sirius and several other planets and wanted to prove that our species and humanoids can live in peace. They had a lot of admiration for your species. Why I could never figure out.
In any event, the damned progressives have never learned a damn thing from our history. The Sirians have conquered 25 planets; in every case, they enslaved the native races who were always inferior species. There is nothing different here. You are a particularly interesting race though – all of your sub-races, and your religious passions. The Sirians are materialist and are atheistic. We do not worship gods. We are the gods of the universe. We are the master race. However, I digress.
Well, as you can imagine, it was very difficult hiding amongst your people for all of these thousands of years. You see Sirians are by nature very long lived, and the life extension technology extends our life even further. The average Sirian lives 10 thousand years and we therefore have a long historical memory. Most of us are now what you would consider early middle age. Since we do not age as humans do, we have to kill ourselves off on paper every 50 to 70 years. That was easy to do in the old days, much more difficult to do nowadays which is one of the reasons why we moving up our time tables. In any event, the constant need to change our identities makes it difficult to keep our conspiracy going.
Until very, recently we were limited by your technology as our space ships and most of our technology had all been destroyed in Atlantis. Only 100 of our race survived, mostly of the Fascist side. We lost track of the progressives who have gone deep underground. We have managed to reproduce and now there are about 10,000 of us scattered around the world, most in senior levels of government and business. And we estimate that there are several thousand pure blood Progressives mostly working in religious or academic institutions and perhaps five million part sirians such
as yourself none of who knows they are a Sirian. There are a few half breeds who are aware of their ancestry though and most are on our side.
Keeping the conspiracy going has been difficult due to our constant need to change identity as we have discussed. Among other difficulties, we are hidden within human bodies that are artificially created skins. Our real appearance is not human at all. We look like birds or reptiles in our real selves. Few humans have ever seen us as we really look. We have the ability to manipulate thoughts and thus few are able to see us as we really look, even when we are out of the suits.
We wear the suits whenever we are around humans as maintaining thought control is very tiresome. HP Lovecraft saw us as we were trying to recruit him. After he saw us and learned the truth, he went mad and wrote his 'Cthulhu' stories about us. We left him alone as we thought his stories, which were close to the truth, were both amusing and would never be taken seriously. Others have seen us on our retreats in the woods and we have been called many names through the years, 'werewolves, vampires, ghouls, ghosts, demons, goblins, trolls, Satan, the devil, witches – you name it we've been called it. Bad for our self-esteem don't yah think? ' but perhaps satanic
does our most credit as we look like little devils. In fact, that is a pet name we call ourselves the Sirian Devils.
The damn progressives get better press and are often seen as 'angels'.
We have tried intermarriage with your race and have found for the most part it does not work, as our two DNA structures are incompatible. Those stories of alien abductions etc. are true for the most part as are stories of UFO's. We have been able to rebuild space ships but they are not interplanetary, as we do not have technological resources to do so since most of our technology had been destroyed and those technicians who knew how to maintain the ships and build them all died in the war anyway. Besides our Sirian leaders back home don't trust us. They want us to stay here and do their bidding whether than return home.
We communicate with each other in Sirian through secure communications now through the internet. The NSA and other government snoops keep picking up strange language chatter on the internet but since we control the spooks they never follow up.
We have been in touch with Mother Planet. Our instructions are to set off Armageddon and destroy human civilization while keeping the planet
habitable after a few years of nuclear winter. The invasion begins after the nuclear war is over, nuclear winter has died down and most people have been killed and your technological infrastructure destroyed. We will wait out the nuclear storms in underground compounds along with our human allies. It will take ten years before the earth recovers enough for us to reemerge.
We are launching WW111 very soon. Once the war has been launched, nuclear winter will ensure and most of the earth will enter an ice age. We will then invade and take over the habitable areas and use slave labor to mine for minerals etc. under the ice. Sirians like cold icy planets as that is like our home planet. Your planet is too hot for our liking anyway. So we needed to terraform or should I say Sirianform? it anyway. "
At that point, the invasion fleets arrive and we rebuild a Sirian civilization on earth. We will then take over and enslave humankind. Those humans who helped us will be given top jobs in the Sirian administration and eventually given full citizenship rights for them and their families. Most people will be killed or enslaved. Think what happened to the Indians? That was a Sirian plot from the beginning.
Most of human history has been the result of Sirian plots. The problem we have is that you humans are so hard to predict, rule, control etc.
And our biggest problem is with intellectuals. Once they know the full story either they go mad, or they try to warn their fellow humans, or they kill themselves. The 10 percent who survive after hearing the true story usually join our movement. Moreover, on course the damn progressives are always watching us, trying to warn human kind of the impending danger. Nevertheless, as you know few will ever believe the truth. If everything you have known is a lie, you usually cannot survive that knowledge and as I said, most humans when exposed to the truth by either side go mad and are useless to our cause.
So your choice today: Join us, resist us and die, or walk away and keep quiet and wake for death.
I stopped him and ask him many follow up questions. I was having a hard time believing this, kept thinking it was some sort of elaborate joke, perhaps an episode on "Pinked" TV. On the other hand, maybe I really was going mad. I did not want to believe him. Finally, I tell them the only way they could prove they were telling the truth was to reveal themselves as they really were.
Agent Spartacus said,
"Very well. Agent Lee is only part human. She is one of the few successful hybrids. She looks human but a blood test would reveal alien DNA. I am pure Syrian and have long opposed the inter-species experiments as being anti-natural and degrading to the Sirian race. I really do not give a rat's ass about you humans. Follow me and you will see. But you do take a risk that you will freak out and become a mad man."
We walk into the back room. Agent Spartacus removes his skintight clothing. Underneath it laid a hideous, repulsive ugly reptile like biped creature minus a tail. Dark red with black strips on both sides. His face looked like a bird's face with sharp beaks, beady red eyes, and a mouth full of sharp teeth. The top of his head had horns on it. He laughs, and said,
"See why most humans believe in a real devil?"
I could see why most people would freak out at the sight. He was just hideous to look at. Must be something in-bred in humans to instantly fear
and loath their real appearance. I am having a hard time coping and want to throw up.
He gets dressed again. I ask him if it was difficult to be enclosed in a human skin costume, as it must be difficult to fit into it. He admits it was difficult. He says that they all live together in various safe houses, where they run around naked when there are no humans around. It is impossible thought to fit their face into a human mask so they employ a holographic projection. Only a few humans have seen them as they really are. He concluded by noting that I should consider it an honor that he has shown me his true self.
Agent Lee had also stripped revealing even more alluringly beautiful women that I had imagined. I was tempted but knowing that she was half-alien and in league with these evil creatures turned my stomach.
I tell agent Spartacus and Agent Lee that I had to think about it and went home. I wrote this all down and sent it off to my best friends and of course my wife. I hope that this does not result in a death sentence for me, but so be it. I have to do the right thing. I have resolved to search out and
join the resistance led by the progressive Syrians. I hope there is still time to derail "Armageddon" but I fear that time is running out.
Jake Lee
E-mail sent by Jake Lee moments before nuclear attack on DC that ushered
in WW111.

​

Marriage on Edge

By Alexandra Rodrigues

​
Was it a web we had spun around ourselves?
Had we both put on a show for eight years of marriage? A marriage that was jealously looked upon by outsiders. Is it that human nature resents peaceful relations for any extent of time? All of a sudden the spell of our confidence in each other, our trust in each other through the years, was broken.
We had gotten married eight years ago and from the very day that we had said “Yes” to each other, we both convinced ourselves over and over again that this was exactly what we wanted. It had gone so far that during intimate conversations we had confided in each other that if either one lost the partner, life would be meaningless. My husband had told me, “If anything should happen to you, I would follow.” I myself had become so dependent on him, that on the rare occasions when we were separated, I would get jittery and frightened. As a rule, we spent 24 hours a day together; our jobs as flight attendants for an airline facilitated that. There had hardly been an argument in all those years.
This was the way I, Angela, had started a first chapter to a novel. During the last year I had taken up writing and now was working on my first short story. I just tried to get some ideas, taking some real facts and characters like in this case out of my own marriage. When it came to the point where I was to introduce a plot, I got stuck. I took the initial attempts and left the piece of paper I had taken out of the typewriter on my desk. Never had I dreamt that a plot so fabricated by my imagination would shape my reality. I couldn’t figure out why all of a sudden my husband’s playfulness ceased. Bill was no longer telling me at night, “I’m not sorry I married you.” Politely he tried to cover up for his behavior by pretending to feel sick. “I feel miserable,” he would say and I knew he did, but I also was aware it was not physical pain that was bothering him. The sparkle of joy in his brown eyes was gone. A deep wrinkle had developed over his nose and his movements lost vibrancy. He, who would have been found washing the boat, painting the furniture, or making dinner for us, was now moping around spending his time in front of the TV or flipping listlessly through magazines. Only on flights, when working together, did he chipper up a little.
Always trying to give people a good time, he would forget about what was bothering him and even laugh occasionally. Once off the plane and alone with me again, he would withdraw back into his shell.
To me those were very strenuous weeks. This was a side of him I did not know. I tried several times to make him talk about what was bothering him, but every time he said, “Oh, it’s really nothing.” A coolness had crept into our relationship. When my attempts to ease his foul moods failed, I became stubborn. There was nothing I could think of that would justify his changed behavior. All kinds of motives entered my mind. Had he lost interest in me? Why all of a sudden? I hadn’t changed. Was there another woman? But it was nearly impossible since we were together most of the time. Did he go through a natural depression? But no, if that was the case, he would turn to me, let me help him. We always had managed to pull each other up during occasional letdowns. Every now and then I felt his eyes on me questioningly. I tried to accustom myself to the new situation. I refrained from making an effort to be especially nice or go out of my way to please him. Why? What for? I was not guilty of anything, so why should I make up? I concentrated on writing, but it did not help me much. Before, when I was writing would first think, “Will Bill like it?” And only then, “Will the public like it?” Will I make money? Now my pride forbade me to let him read what I was writing since he obviously had lost interest in me. So my writing did not come along very well during that period.
It is complicated to explain what exactly had changed. We still worked together, ate together, and slept in the same bed. In the beginning I had tried to entice him to make love. He pretended not to feel well or being too tired. So I shrugged my shoulders and let it go. It was obvious that the bond that had made our marriage so special, the understanding each other without words, was gone. The strain was catching up with me. My nervousness escalated and an old thyroid trouble developed anew. I had to go and see a doctor.
Dr. Gordon, who had been recommended to me by a girlfriend, was very nice. Too nice and too good looking. Having been slighted by Bill, I was now longing for recognition and when Dr. Jack Gordon made it clear to me that his liking for me was more than a doctor-patient relationship, I was flattered. My complexes which had developed due to Bill’s coldness dwindled. I was young, only 29. My figure was enticing and my mind hungry for compliments. When Jack Gordon said, “You are beautiful, you have such a flair.” It felt good.
I never gave it a thought that this little flirt might develop into something serious. I was in love with Bill despite what was going on. I had gone along with the flirt to regain a hold of my self-esteem, which Bill was undermining constantly, but that was all. I was hardly interested in Jack Gordon physically. All I was doing was using him to build me up. I went to his office several times when Jack had no consulting hours. We sat on his heavy oak desk. I sunning myself in his attention and compliments. He was probably waiting for me to yield since conversation was not all that he was looking for. Thinking back on it, I know now that I played unfair. Jack wasn’t married. His interest in me seemed genuine and I believe honest. Since I had told him that there was uneasiness in my marriage, he must have gotten the idea that sooner or later I would leave my husband. He was considerate enough to play the “getting to know you game” first.
Bill never asked me where I went or where I was. In the past, we had had known every minute of each other’s whereabouts. What had made him change so much?
It was a Monday in spring. The buds on the roses were beginning to show and the blossoms of our cherry tree already had fallen off. But my thoughts were closed to the beauty. I was just preparing dinner when the telephone rang. I went to answer it. “Hello, this is Jack.” It was the first time he had called me at home. Bill was moping in front of the television. I went into the bedroom where I could talk more freely. Not that I thought Bill would care. “Hi Jack. Nice to hear from you,” I said and I meant it. Maybe a little joking over the phone would give me a lift. But I hadn’t expected what followed. “Angela, darling, what happened yesterday, why didn’t you come, you had an appointment you know?” Darling? He had never called me darling before. “Oh sorry, but yesterday I was still in London, you know in our job…The weather was bad, so we are a day late.” And then Jack said, “I missed you terribly. I have to tell you... Darling, I love you.” His voice had become a whisper at the last sentence. It had been great to listen to his compliments, to have our glances intermingle in something more than casual exchange. But when I listened to his truly passionate outbreak on the phone, here in my own home, with Bill, my sulking yet beloved husband in the living room, the thrill was gone. I didn’t know what to answer, but I had to say something. So I said, “Don’t Jack, please.” Then because everything seemed so silly, the man I loved sat in front of the TV or so I thought and here Jack who only meant something to my pride but not really to me confessed his love. I said,
“Jack please forget about me. I am sorry.” I couldn’t explain any further, but what I meant was I am sorry I played with you, used you, evoked those feelings in you only to pacify my hurt pride.
I never went to see Jack afterwards. Never talked to him again. But I am thankful to him, thankful that he got annoyed and mad. As he said “You are a Sphinx. You made me believe that our feelings are mutual and now all of a sudden you are not interested. All that sweet talk and now you are chicken.” I didn’t blame him. He was right. He had every reason to believe I too had wanted more than just talk. Again I said, “I am sorry.”
Then I heard a click in the receiver and slowly I hung up too.
I sat at the edge of the bed wondering, “Had it been the right thing to do?” I had made it final. When I turned around to look at the clock on my dresser, I saw Bill standing in the room. I could tell he was excited by the twitch in his right eye and by the way he was trying to clear his throat. The grudge he had carried around for months came to the surface. He came closer to me. It must have cost him a lot of effort to make his point. He swallowed a couple of times and then in a raised voice, something very unusual for him, he said, “Now what? Here you had your chance to get out of the web.” I looked at him uncomprehending. I did not understand. “Why do you still go on with the show,” Bill demanded. Without thinking, just to answer something, I asked, “What show? What web?” He came over to me and his hands clamped down on my wrists. All the emotion he had tried so hard to cover up during the past weeks now surfaced: “The show our marriage has been. The broken spell of confidence in each other.” This rather poetical way of putting things was so very unlike Bill. Those were not his words. And then suddenly I remembered, I had used that phrase in one of my stories. I tried to think which one. In that instant it became clear, it was the story I hadn’t finished, the one I had hardly begun. Where was it? Oh yes, I had left it on the table in the study. He must have read it and thought I meant US. All those weeks I had hoped he would tell what was bothering him. But now that I understood the ridicule of it all: I was speechless. But now Bill had made up his mind to talk about it: “Why didn’t you say something? So you were bored. You were lying constantly. It didn’t mean a thing to you from the beginning, but because you’d said ‘yes’, you figured it was best to play the game.” I started crying. I couldn’t help it. It was all so idiotic. How could I reason with him? How could I make him
understand that one had to make up situations, feelings and beliefs when one wants to write? I screamed, “It’s fiction! Fiction, fiction! You understand? Fiction!”
Bill was sensitive, too sensitive as he had proven, and the naked honestly of my outcry made its point. It took us some time to get back to our old ways. And I am sorry to say it was the end of my career as fiction writer. I changed to writing nonfiction. Maybe a small doubt remained in Bill’s mind and I wasn’t going to take any chances.

Letters in Blood ©
​
a Tom Larkin thriller excerpt
by
Gerald Arthur Winter
 

Depths of Deceit
 
At Manley Airport in Kingston, Larkin waved to Mona across the tarmac where she sat in her red Porsche with its top down. Chief Barnes made last-minute security arrangements with Major Theo Witt of the Jamaican Constabulary for Larkin and him to fly to Guantanamo to coordinate their report about Larkin’s niece Dawn’s kidnapping and the sinking of the Marie-Galante in the hurricane. Barnes and Theo seemed satisfied with the arrangements for the small propjet chartered for their flight.
“Walk good, Tom,” Theo said. “A part of me goes with you, Larkin.”
“I’m sorry about Chanteuse, Theo. You understand how I felt about her.”
“The same way I felt about her mother, Carmen, but that’s like trying to lasso the wind.”
The only passengers aboard the eighteen-seat propjet were Barnes and Larkin. From his window seat, Larkin waved to Theo, who returned the gesture then turned to three men with their backs to Larkin. Taking a sip of his coffee in a paper cup, Larkin offered the rest of it to Barnes. The chief nodded and finished it in two gulps.
“The trauma team has done a great job with Dawn,” Barnes said. “She’s a tough kid but, as you’ve admitted, she’ll be better off apart from you and staying with your sister and her family.”
“Yeah. I need to put all of this behind me for a while,” Larkin agreed.
Barnes grimaced. “Damn! This coffee’s raising hell with my stomach.” He handed Larkin the empty paper cup. “Feels like it’s going right through me. I’ve got to use the john in back.”
He walked to the toilet in the rear of the propjet and flipped on the “OCCUPIED” sign as the door locked behind him.
Larkin felt uneasy as the plane taxied and turned to take off. Heading slowly towards the runway, he saw the faces of the three men with Theo. He thought, for a moment, they were the Mexican hit men from his nightmares. But when a luggage trolley passed between them, blocking his view for a moment, he then saw Theo standing alone and still waving to him. He shrugged it off as nerves, but sniffed the dregs left in the paper coffee cup as the plane took off.
He shook his head and laughed for feeling so suspicious then soon dozed off . . .
Larkin awoke when the flight attendant called to him from the food and beverage station several rows behind him. Staring out the window, he asked for a beer, feeling he deserved it after saving Dawn and ending the threat Chanteuse had posed. He took out his wallet to tip the flight attendant. The cracked photo of Chanteuse in a bikini, which he’d taken from the Rabelle mansion on their first encounter, fluttered from his wallet into his lap. He unfolded the photo and stared at her haunting face. Visions of Chanteuse passed through his mind recalling her yacht, the Marie-Galante, shattering in the waves and sinking to the bottom of the Cayman Trench.
Then he remember Captain Hurley’s words: “The mini-sub is fine in open sea, even in the worst stormy weather.”
He thought about the radar operator’s sighting of a reef or fifty-foot debris under the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Flamboyance. Breaking into a sudden sweat, he began to peel off the back of Chanteuse’s photo and saw the words le roi le veut in one corner—the king wills it. He took out his cigarette lighter and lit the corner of the last letter of mark—sealed behind her photo all the time he’d had it, but didn’t know. He watched her face distort as it burned, a vision of her multiple personalities crumbling in flames.
He looked out the window and realized when he saw the Cayman Islands below that they must be flying off course.
The attendant’s hand touched the back of Larkin’s seat, and she said, “Sorry, no smoking—Thomas.”
“Old habits die hard,” he admitted, turning slowly to see Chanteuse dressed as a flight attendant. One eye was still puffy where he’d punched her, believing she was Maman-chere, the spectre of her dead mother. She wore a parachute pack and aimed a pistol at him. Her other hand was just a metal hook, which she used to snag his collar.
“The Marie-Galante was a disposable shell on the deck of a mini-sub,” he said. “A brilliant plan, Chanteuse, I must admit.”
“You’re clever enough to figure that out, so you must know what I want,” she said.
“This is all that’s left of your damned inheritance.” He blew the ashes from his food tray into her face.
Chanteuse kept the gun aimed at him as she opened the side hatch. “Come with me, Thomas. There’s only one parachute to share. It’s not too late for us.”
He felt himself moving towards her. Her sweet essence flared in his nostrils, and her long, corn-rowed hair draped over both their shoulders as he put his arms around her. She fell back, pulling him with her and free-falling in their passionate embrace. At first, he felt wonderful as they floated down and kissed several times. The soft, slow beat of reggae music in his head gradually increased to a frantic tempo when the chute wouldn’t open, even when he yanked the emergency cord.
Chanteuse grabbed him, pulled him close, and opened the parachute.
Grinning seductively, she said: “Just wanted to excite you, Thomas.”
They floated peacefully again to the calm music in his head. They embraced with a lingering, open-mouthed kiss but, when he opened his eyes, he saw her mother, a cadaverous Maman-chere with a white streak in her dreadlocks. Her horrible, zombie-like face glared at him as she shrieked with hideous laughter exposing her bright gold incisor tooth. She pushed him away letting him fall.
He plunged far with her shrill scream still in his ears. Anticipation of his deadly impact into the Caribbean woke him with a jolt to the sound of Chief Barnes banging the door from inside the john . . .
Larkin sniffed the dregs of the paper coffee cup again and crumpled it. Getting up to see what was wrong, he noticed the plane’s half-open side hatch. As he looked out, he saw the billow of a descending parachute below.
Barnes’s banging and shouting distracted him. He shut the hatch and went to the rear of the plane, where he removed a wedge jammed beneath the lavatory door.
“Try it now, Tim,” Larkin said.
The lever slid sideways and the sign read “UNOCCUPIED.” There was a loud whoosh as the plane tipped forward. When he opened the door, suction from inside pulled him forward until he saw Chief Barnes clinging precariously to the sink with his pants still around his ankles.
The john’s floor had opened like a trapdoor.
Larkin struggled until he pulled Barnes back through the door and jammed the door closed again, which steadied the plane from its awkward descent. Barnes pulled up his pants and removed the wedge to the cockpit door where the co-pilot was banging on the other side.
“Are we OK?” he asked the pilot.
“We’ll be fine. I’ll contact Captain Harddacker to let him know all is well. We should land in Guantanamo in half an hour.”
Larkin went to the window and saw the speck of the white parachute still descending to the turquoise sea. He turned to Barnes, without mentioning the parachute he’d seen. Then said, “Caught with your pants down this time, huh, Chief.”
“Just when we’re finally square over you saving my life in Mexico,” Barnes grumbled.
“Damn it! Now I owe you again.”
“Forget it, Tim. I was the cause. That death plunge was meant for me.”
Barnes noticed Larkin’s distraction and squinted out the window. “Who did this? Did they get away? Do you see anyone down there? I lost my glasses when the floor dropped out from under me.”
Larkin took out his high-powered binoculars he used on stakeouts and looked below. He shook his head. “There’s nothing to see, Tim. Ever since Mexico I’ve been seeing things that aren’t there.”
But Larkin saw the parachute floating on the water and someone swimming. Then a white mini-sub emerged from the turquoise Caribbean and picked up the swimmer. He said nothing to Barnes about what he saw, and just remarked in his usual glib manner, “Nothing a little R and R won’t cure, Tim, Nothing at all . . .”
 
R and R
 
Tom Larkin knew of no one he could trust to listen to his story, but all the grim details
still remained clear in his head if the opportunity ever came to confess.
Months after leaving Jamaica, and before he returned to the states, he was riding the brown, shallow current in a twenty-foot motorized canoe. Its engine purred just enough to avoid any natural hazards protruding from the river. It was a three-hour trip eastward on the Rio Napo, headwaters to the Amazon at the eastern base of the Ecuadorian Andes called El Oriente by the natives.
Retired from the DEA after his wife Vera’s murder, he needed some R and R before starting his second career. Chief Barnes had finally sent him the FBI file on Vera’s murder containing all the grim details. He’d put that thick manila envelope in his backpack under the canoe seat. He hadn’t opened it yet, and probably wouldn’t for a few days, not until he’d sucked dry a couple of bottles of Stoli and collapsed in a jungle hammock. Maybe he’d be up to reading those gory accounts by then, but perhaps not. Maybe he should put his old life behind him and start fresh with amnesia concerning his past mistakes.
He felt subliminal reasoning for his coming to El Oriente. It was a vast jungle of receded riverbanks at the height of the drought just days before the rainy season. Any day the river could flood every village within hours. At the depths of his soul lay his reason for coming here at such a time, but his mind hadn’t told him why—not yet.
If there were any emotion attached to this exercise, the only clue his mind conceded was its similarity to a family’s need to camp on the beach where their loved one’s plane had crashed offshore. The people they mourned weren’t there, and hopefully neither were their souls, but going to the site connecting them to the tragedy brought needed comfort to the bereaved by showing respect for the ones lost, simply by attending.
The receded river since the last rainy season, had left levies and stagnant ponds where piranhas bred and anacondas lay in wait for unwary prey. Native children waved to him from the banks as he passed, so he waved back. When he docked his canoe at the Hotel Jaguar, set on a crest fifty feet above the receded riverbed, the hotel manager, el maestro, greeted him.
Larkin had known him from years earlier when he’d worked for the DEA in Guayaquil, Ecuador. With guests rare at this time of year, el maestro was glad to see his old friend again after so many years.
“We need to carry your canoe up to the hotel, Señor Cabal,” he said, calling Larkin by his former undercover name. “We never know at what hour the rains will come, but we can be certain they will be upon us soon.”
“No problem. Let’s do it,” Larkin said, glad to exercise his stiff legs after the three-hour canoe ride.
He put on his backpack, and the two of them carried the canoe across fifty yards of dry, stony riverbed and up the steep fifty stone steps to the hotel. A simple wooden balcony overlooked the river, with a sheltered bar and kitchen behind. Farther back were a half-dozen connected stucco rooms with tin roofs. Not meant for luxury, the Hotel Jaguar was a rustic retreat, a place for an escape from whatever you had left behind.
After climbing the jagged, rocky steps to the hotel, Larkin was exhausted, not just from the long day’s journey downriver in sweltering heat but from months of intense negotiations in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands with Chief Barnes testifying in his behalf. From the start, the Guy Jasparre narcotics case had prematurely ended his career with the DEA, but now it opened the opportunity to begin his venture as a private-eye.
“Give me one hit before I take my siesta,” he told el maestro.
El maestro set a frozen bottle of Stoli on the bar and poured it into a frosted brandy snifter, then he poured the same for himself. They clicked their glasses together and nodded with a toast, “Salúd!”
Larkin winked with a nod for el maestro to hit him again.
He felt sweat trickling down his forehead to his neck, and all the way into his shorts as the icy Stoli started to kick in, flashing memories of his stintin Jamaica like the rush of Dunn’s River Falls—vibrant and titillating.
“To good friends!” he offered.
They turned to the mirror behind the bar, where several genuine shrunken heads hung from beaded chains like dried fruit in a market place. El maestro handed one to Larkin, which he put around his neck with a nod.
Then el maestro leaned across the bar and quietly said, “Your guest arrived yesterday and is sleeping now. Shall I wake her?”
That news came to Larkin’s mind like a surfboard gliding and twisting on a great wave, but the wave was vodka, and the information, though anticipated, came with a jolt that suddenly toppled him into the thunderous surf of his mixed emotions, churning him downward breathlessly.
A third shot was a charm as Larkin swirled the frozen Stoli like syrup lacing the snifter. He winked at el maestro and whispered, “Let her sleep. I need rest, too. But later . . . this is what I need you to do for me . . .”
In his twelve-by-twelve room with a narrow shower stall and a sink, he dropped his backpack on the cement floor and took off his sneakers. He couldn’t remove his damp socks without falling back onto the soft bedding. He pulled the mosquito netting closed around him and drifted into slumber, still sensing the river’s flow winding through his tired limbs like a nest of squirming anacondas.
Birdcalls and a monkey’s screech were counterpoint to his heaving breath. Then a woman’s shriek from the adjoining room interrupted his solace. Not alarmed, he knew the hotel’s pet peccary had snuck up on her in the shower in the adjacent room. With its wet porcine nose parting her buttocks, the peccary had given her its customary welcome with a vigorous snort from behind.
Envying the peccary, Larkin muttered then rolled over on his side into a deep sleep uninterrupted for hours . . .
When he woke then showered, Larkin took the FBI file from his backpack and leafed through the dozen pages. Pausing to reflect, he spread the pages on his bed in an order that posed the most-logical sequence to him. The facts were there for him to see clearly for the first time how his wife Vera’s murder and other events before and after that tragedy, suddenly made other, seemingly unrelated information, stir his imagination. That mix and its obvious conclusion with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight fueled Larkin’s anger as he heard a light rap on the door.
“Señor Cabal!” el maestro called. “I’ll be serving cocktails on the balcony before dinner if you wish to join your companion there in half an hour. She’ll be expecting you.”
“Thank you! Larkin called back to him. “I’ll be there!”
Later, when Larkin came to the balcony overlooking the river and facing west where the bright red sunset silhouetted the Andes, he found her leaning against the railing. Her dark skin shimmered from sunlight reflecting off the river below. Her open-backed gown came to just above her knees, and her spine made a serpentine curve from the base of her long neck to her pelvic perfection.
Her ocher eyes shimmered when she turned to him with a swish of her long, black hair. The auburn highlights of her silky drapes of hair in the last moments of dusk radiated a warmth in her face that Larkin had never seen before.
“Salúd!” she toasted, touching her glass of red Campari against his frosted glass of
Stolichnaya swirling on impact with a high-pitched chime.
He noticed that she’d replaced the clumsy metal hook with a graceful prosthetic hand that served her well.
She stared over the brim of her glass and remarked, “Your reputation had preceded you in Jamaica, Thomas. Yet, despite our differences, you’ve always treated me with utmost respect—as your equal.”
“You’re a woman of the highest caliber and, according to reports I’ve just read, you still remain, shall we say—unspoiled territory. The chicken blood on my sheets and a prerecorded phone message was meant to make me believe it was you calling me. But you were still in bed with me at the time pretending to be your mother.”
“I don’t understand what that’s supposed to mean,” she said, wide-eyed and playing innocent as if she were unaware of her many masquerades and deceptions. “I suppose with
us on opposing sides that our passion for each other would never make sense to anyone but us. But if our mutual attraction hadn’t prevail, neither I nor you would have bothered to travel this far. We’ve each kept our promise to come to this godforsaken jungle just as we had agreed in Jamaica. Though our mutual feelings may remain the same, our positions remain as adversaries. After retiring with honor, you’re free to do as you please—hail the conquering hero!” she said sarcastically with a wave of her arm. “But I’ve been reduced to an international fugitive with a price for my head if anyone learns that I’ve survived.”
Feeling her desperation, he gave her a look of concern assuring her, “You can be certain your secret is safe with me, Chanteuse. You’ve played a hard game and lost. So have I, but I wish you no harm.”
“To the victor belongs the spoils, Thomas,” she sighed. “But what possible attraction could you feel towards me, now?”
He took a deep breath. “Maybe I just need to know what goes on behind your incredible eyes—”
“Incredible or unbelievable, Thomas?” she asked with a squint.
“Both. Maybe that’s been the attraction all along. We can’t say, ‘We’ll always have Paris,’ but we’ll always have the Cayman Trench. Won’t we?”
“Paris might be the only place left where we could share a life together,” she said, staring pensively into space. “I spent my four college years at the Sorbonne. Do you want to live in Paris with me, Thomas?”
“I want to know what makes you tick.” He grimaced. “That’s a mystery I need to solve.”
She pursed her lips and squinted at him. “As is often the case with men; when the mystique is lost, so is his interest. I won’t become your victory’s booty, Thomas.”
He couldn’t help being glib, but at least with a dimpled grin to deflate her swelling anxiety with: “You, Chanteuse, are the quintessential diva of the booty call.”
But as if she hadn’t heard a word, she pointed downriver and remarked, “A few years ago, five oil-prospecting engineers were killed ten miles downriver from here. Their prospecting was illegal, but they had paid off the right Ecuadorian officials.”
He listened attentively as she spoke.
“Six months after they had declared those engineers officially missing, a search party found their video camera, which showed them trading with an Auca tribe. That’s the last anyone has seen them, but DNA tests on one shrunken head retrieved from the Aucas’ village by the oil company determined the fate of at least one of them. The Aucas had killed him then shrunk his head as a trophy. The manager here at Hotel Jaguar told me that story when I arrived this morning. I suppose that’s supposed to excite and frighten his guests.”
With a nod, Larkin stared off at the meandering river and remarked, “Just ten miles downriver from here, so they say. Hard to believe we’re sipping cocktails just an hour away by canoe from such terror.”
As they reflected about el maestro’s story, they turned to look at each other, but a brilliant blue butterfly with lemon yellow polka dots suddenly appeared on Larkin’s shoulder.
“Perhaps an hour,” she said, “but only in the dry season because—.” She halted, seeing the butterfly. “Don’t move!”
She cupped her hands around it gently to observe its beauty without touching it.
“Perhaps you think of me as this beautiful butterfly, only to satisfy your eyes and not your burning passion to possess it.”
“Ow!” Larkin flinched with pain and slapped his shoulder.
“Thomas! You’ve killed it!” she shrieked.
“Killed what?” He winced. “Something stung me.” He pulled up his short sleeve and revealed a red welt on his shoulder.
The manager came hurriedly onto the balcony. “What’s the trouble?”
Larkin showed him the swelling.
“It was only a harmless butterfly,” Chanteuse said, wrinkling her nose.
Larkin fell to his knees.
“Where is this butterfly?” the manager asked with concern.
When she pointed to the crumpled blue wings on the floor, el maestro lifted Larkin to his feet and hoisted him over his shoulder with a groan, then carried him to his bed. Closing the mosquito netting, he turned to Chanteuse waiting nervously in the open doorway.
“You have little time,” he warned her.
“Time for what?” she asked with agitation.
He waved her towards the bar, where she saw various reptiles, insects, and dangerous flora preserved in jars. “Mariposa Apasionada,” he said with authority. “Most rare, and its sting usually fatal.”
“Is there no antidote for this passion butterfly?” she asked.
“Yes, but it is almost the rainy season. You are my only female guest. There’s just my wife, my twelve-year-old daughter, and . . . you. Only you can save him.”
“Tell me how?” she pleaded.
“Within an hour, the victim must--forgive my crude expression, Señorita, but he must—you both must—together. You cannot deceive nature. Legend has it that back to the days of the conquistadors, men who tried to save themselves, alone, still died—and most horribly. Only your perfect union can neutralize its venom. Timing and chemistry must be precise, otherwise, he will surely die before daybreak.”
“But look at him. He’s nearly unconscious,” she stammered.
“Only his mind,” el maestro nodded knowingly, pulling the mosquito netting aside for her to look. “See how the venom has begun its evil fate for him. If it is true that a man’s—you know—has no conscience, then perhaps it has no memory as well. There’s little time. Will you save him?”
She nodded.
“Then you must act quickly,” he implored.
“Go, now!” she said, pushing el maestro to the door then latching the chain behind her and whispering, “Thomas, I will do my very best to save you.”
Larkin shuddered when her warm, supple loins strode his naked flanks. Then he mumbled in delirium, “Wha—what’re you doing?”
“Sparing your life, my darling Thomas,” she said, surprised by his ardent, physical response . . .
Later that same night, the season’s first rain rumbled on the metal roof and deafened Chanteuse so that she couldn’t hear el maestro’s boisterous laughter from the kitchen. He was telling his wife about Larkin’s charade, so she could share his amusement as they counted the wad of money Larkin had paid him to stage their performance.
Regardless, their torrents of passion flowed beneath the mosquito netting for several hours as Larkin watched her silhouette gyrating tirelessly against the strobe light effect of flashing lightning. She used her tireless prosthetic hand to grasp the beam above her for leverage. Clutching that beam, she rode him like a bucking bronco until her arm went numb and they collapsed embraced moistly in deep slumber. Convinced that she’d saved Larkin’s life, Chanteuse’s lips curled in a satisfied smile.
Well-pleased with his deception, Larkin’s mind flat-lined into a void of complete guiltless
Disconnection  . .
 
Kiss of Death
 
By morning the river raged and rose to the hotel’s balcony. Abruptly awakened to take the motorized canoe upstream against the roaring current to safety, Larkin and Chanteuse scrambled to dress and pack the few necessities they’d brought to El Oriente. Larkin jumped into the canoe first. His backpack felt cumbersome as he extended his hand to her. He briefly flinched at the touch of her prosthetic hand, but it was an improvement over that cold metal hook. Her luggage between her legs served as ballast in the center of the canoe while Larkin sat in back and controlled the powerful outboard motor at the stern.
As they roared against the driving current upstream, she turned to him to avoid the driving rain that made her mascara and eye shadow streak down her face, reminding him of her past charades.
“One of those oil company engineers was my DEA partner, Billy McCann!” he shouted above the engine’s roar and the hiss of driving rain. “Billy was undercover, trying to stop drug smuggling into the United States on oil carriers. One of his informants led him here.”
Chanteuse turned her head away from him and into the gale of rain stinging her face, as if she didn’t want to hear what he had to say.
”It was a trap for Billy, with two of the other four men backed by an unknown source who’d been arranging the cocaine transports in barrels of crude oil.
“The two legitimate engineers suffered simple executions by the other two, but the two decoys who killed them tapped into Billy’s good nature and youthful inclination for adventure by leading him downriver to the head-hunting Aucas. He was only twenty-three. The rest, Chanteuse, you know because you had been his informant. At eighteen, you’d beguiled Billy into believing your every word while dangling your charms to lead him to a horrific end. You even handled the camcorder yourself. That’s why you were never scene in the videos. That’s how you learned everything about me ten years ago from Billy, that if anyone could stop your drug trafficking from Jamaica to the U.S., I was the one. That’s how you got to my wife, Vera. With Vera gone, you kidnapped my niece, Dawn.”
Chanteuse remained silent with her back to him as the rain pelting her stone-face that neither water nor time could ever soften.
“Billy was proud to talk about his best friend, his mentor, and his family, because he thought that as his informant, you were one of us—surely not the enemy.”
Still looking away from him, she shouted above the roar of the river, “I thought your DEA partner had shot himself.”
“You of all people should know the misleading effects from trauma over the death of someone close,” he said with a healing tone as foreign to him as it was to her, but referring to her as much as to himself. “It becomes a jumble, especially if you drink too much, as I often have. Then the pain becomes a mire, dragging you down and choking out all sense and reason, as it must have for you, when you realized you’d killed your own mother.”
She said sullenly, “How could I know he was your friend when I didn’t even know you then? Your friend was a casualty of war. Can’t we put all that behind us, Thomas? There are much more important matters for us to talk about than old friends and family—dead or alive.”
He couldn’t hide the crease that cut between his eyebrows. From the middle of his forehead, across his wrinkled nose to the cleft of his rough chin propping up his pouting bottom lip, his facial roadmap betrayed his rage.
“What the hell else could be so fucking more important than the loss of a partner?” he shouted.
“Really, Thomas, you must stifle that sort of vulgarity from now on,” she said, dismissing his outrage as trivial, then turned to face him. “Although I can’t be certain, yet, it is possible--
after last night—that I could be pregnant with your child. You’ve taken my innocence and you’ve stolen my heart.”
He heard her, but ignored her as his thoughts rose to a higher level. “I caught up on
some reading yesterday, Chanteuse. I saw the FBI reports on a case back home. If I hadn’t stopped Peter Quigley in Jamaica, we could never have had any DNA to connect him to my niece’s kidnapping. Even though he’s dead, he was the only one we could place at the kidnapping crime scene.”
“What else did you expect?” she snapped. “I didn’t kidnap her. It was never my idea.”
“Granted, but you weren’t so careful at the real estate office, Chanteuse.”
“What real estate office? I don’t know what you mean.”
“You killed Vera, but I don’t understand why?”
“Not me, Thomas. Maman-chere killed her.”
He saw she genuinely believed what she was saying. He felt conflicted by seeing someone who was even more screwed up than he was. Chanteuse no longer had clue about who she was or her impulses to inflict terror on anyone who opposed her.
“There’s the not-so-small matter of thirty-nine lives of cadets killed by your bomb at Quantico,” he bluntly stirred her memory.
She gave him a blank stare. “That was Jasparre.”
“Not sure how you did it, but the massacre was a favor to the Triad for providing your marine biologists for your Owen Island research center. You were the missing female cadet,
Chanteuse. All of it was you!”
She remained deaf to his insinuations. “I may no longer have my letters to take what is rightfully mine, but I’ll eventually become impeccably legitimate in all my businesses. That’s something we have to share in our future.” She caressed her belly, “in our child’s future.”
He tried, but couldn’t hold back his anger. “I can’t figure how all this began, Chanteuse, but it has to end badly.”
“No, Thomas. Don’t say that.” She moved towards him with affection, blocking his view upstream. “I’m yours now, only yours—”
Without warning, the canoe hit a large drifting log, and she fell overboard into the raging river. She tried to grab the side of the long canoe, but her prosthetic hand kept slipping off the side until she floated past his outstretched hand.
His instinct was to dive in after her, but something held him back. He tossed her luggage overboard to see if it would catch up to her and serve as a life preserver, but the strong current dragged it down immediately. Knowing his backpack would float, he threw it towards her where she struggled ten yards behind grasping onto a stationary log. The backpack bounced towards her on the crest of the fast current.
When she reached desperately to grab the backpack, she lost her grip on the log. Still clutching the backpack the current pulled her downriver and around the bend, quickly out of sight. Her last word was her shrill scream for help: “Tom!”
He wondered if he’d heard her right, calling out his nickname, which she’d never used before, as if she actually trusted him to save her. Or was it Vera’s voice he’d imagined in her final desperation? Was Vera’s soul trying to remind him what Chanteuse had done to her?
What he’d read yesterday in the FBI report, but could hardly believe. That Chanteuse had decapitated her with a machete then ritualistic had shrunken her head as a charm just as the Aucas had done to Billy years ago.
Chanteuse is a resourceful woman, he thought, so her chances of survival would be better than most, even in this hostile environment. She had that fierce maroon heritage to sustain her, just as in a dream he recalled.
He felt as if he’d just set a pet alligator free by flushing it down the toilet. Though a cold blooded reptile might thrive in the sewer, there was always the long shot that such a resilient creature could also return to bite him in the ass.
“A much better chance than you gave, Vera.” Larkin recalled the lab report he’d read, matching DNA from Chanteuse’s saliva at his home where she’d bitten his shoulder with the DNA at the real-estate office in DC, where she’d thrust her tongue in Vera’s mouth in a parting gesture before brutally killing her. Had Chanteuse actually believed she was Guy Jasparre when she committed these heinous acts of violence, or Maman-chere—anyone but the noble and charming triple threat, Chanteuse?
That was the kiss of death, he thought, but yours, not Vera’s.
He opened his shirt and from around his neck took an object the size and texture of a kiwi berry, but with a scrunched-up face.
“She could be in Auca territory in much less than hour, Billy,” Larkin said to the shrunken head, as he continued upriver against currents of the flood. “Perhaps in just minutes. But who’ll be worse off, Chanteuse or the Aucas? So, much for R and R, Billy—Revenge and Restitution.”
 
 

The Thief is Me


By Alexandra H. Rodrigues and Jenny McCain



This is the story that somebody felt. She had sent it to me as I wanted to write a story with her as we had once done in the past.
When I read it I decided it is too beautiful but also too personal for me to muddle with it by adding and changing anything about it. So I declined and did explain the reason.
However, this particular write has stayed with me for quite some time now. Last night, when turning restlessly in bed I decided: I owe it not only the author but also the conveyed thought itself to let it enter the limelight.
So here it is! Let me give it birth by which I allow myself to claim a slight share in it.
The title of the write in question is GRIEF, a reason why the word THIEF appears in my title.


Grief
Pain echoes this lonely path along with me. Silent & guilt ridden, like a parasite leached to my back. She drains my exuberance & spirit with her quick soul-sucking breath. She leaves nothing but a painful clarity in her wake
The clarity lays waste to my innards, flutters in my stomach, consuming, expanding and leaving me sick & breathy with knots
I’m doubled over wishing for something anything to make pain leave when I hear the knock.
As if invited he walks in without asking. A tiger-like grace about him as his eyes survey my domain. His cold calculating eyes finally alight upon me & he kneels down. Cupping my chin with his hand he stares hard into my bloodshot eyes and wills me to obey. Speaking softly he says, “I am Grief, and you will know me well.”
Grief’s dark soulless eyes are deep. Deeper than the darkest corner of the ocean. It is the ocean, it’s everything within & without
And I struggle valiantly in Grief’s steel vice like grip
Still struggling I’m somehow finding the energy and
I am dodging left
Ducking right
Twisting and turning Grief & I are dancing to a long-forgotten song
As the slight strains of a melody, soft sad & sweet reach mine & Grief’s ears… I remember
And I ache inside. Almost lay down my battle armor and concede the fight with Grief’s ever-reaching tenacious fingers & talon-like claws
But something holds me back
This song – I do know it!
And its sprightly tune has me jumping & leaping with joy
Limbs remembering long forgotten dance moves
I jump and dance my way out of Grief’s grasp–
Remembering the one who sang this song to me nightly to comfort and soothe my weary head
I’m empowered, emboldened I blaze a path far from Grief’s prickly fingers
Dancing, singing & remembering a time before Grief’s & Pain’s unwanted arrival
Happy memories invoked by the power of song
Cause Grief’s tightly wound grip to loosen
His tethers fly off me
And for this moment in time I’m free of him


Did it touch you? Do you agree that it would have been insulting to this writing to forget it and possibly let it rot away in a drawer of a basement cabinet? I am satisfied. I gave “Grief” life and the opportunity to make its way in a world that is dominated by myriads of taste, likes and dislikes. You are free to judge!

In Memory of Keum Suk Lee  
December 14, 2002 


​


The Black Chemise

by

Gerald Arthur Winter


She had seen the dress in a custom tailor shop on Boulevard the week before. The dress was in the store’s window and worn by a mannequin with its arms and legs cut off at the elbows and knees where it was displayed like Venus de Milo on a pedestal.
“Is it a shift,” I asked as we stood outside the dress shop. I’d heard my mother use that term for my girlfriend’s prom dress back in high school. It was strapless with translucent lace across the bust and at the hem a few inches above the knees. All black, it was alluring but simple, and meant to draw attention to the curves and swells of the woman who would shape it.
“It says chemise on the sign,” she said as we huddled that cold December, and almost dark before five o’clock. Multi-colored lights flashed around the window—the holiday season in full array.
A handwritten sign, more like a note, was pinned to the waistline and written in both English and Korean. I understood only the English but Para understood both. She was neither fluent nor literate in her second language after a decade of living in America. However, our intimacy in nose-to-nose conversations for hours for the past year had vastly improved her uptake outside her sheltered Korean society within America. Since leaving Seoul, she had come here by way of California then had lived in Flushing, New York for a year. After that, she had found a basement apartment in Palisades Park, New Jersey where most store front signs were in Hangul characters and English. We had been sharing her apartment for almost two years.
“There’s no price on it,” I said with my words emitting vapor in the frigid air.
“The sign in Korean says, ‘price negotiable according to tailoring.’ I want to go inside,” Para said.
I couldn’t imagine trying to learn a language that could say so much with so few written strokes. She’d told me that Hangul doesn’t express words but rather ideas and emotions. I imagined they were much like Para’s facial expressions, subtly concise. I’d once asked her if she was angry with me for doubting her love. I’d made a jealous gesture over her friendships with other men when we’d first dated. She’d continued those friendships after we’d expressed our love for each other and I’d objected. Her face had revealed no expression at my request that she cut off those men from ever calling her again, but her silence had made me think she was angry.
“Are you angry because I’m jealous?” I’d asked.
“I could never be angry with you,” she’d said, easing my concern, but only for a moment.
“But I am disappointed.”
In a second I’d realized I’d prefer her to be angry with me. Disappointing Para because of my behavior felt like a knife through my heart. I’d vowed never to disappoint her again and always to trust her and our love for each other as the truest truth we would ever know.
“Love is not possessing,” she had said. “True love is letting go.”
“You say that,” I’d said in jest, “but wouldn’t you be angry and jealous if you learned that I had made love to another woman?”
“If you did it only to hurt me, yes,” she’d said. “But if you needed to, I would never object or love you any less. Men are weak when it comes to this. I won’t lose you by trying to change the tides of a thousand seas. As I shall endure, so will our love.”
I’d felt a hollowness in my heart, telling her, “But you must expect the same from me. I couldn’t endure your unfaithfulness. I’d be angry.”
“Men are selfish,” she’d said with a shrug. “I have no control over how you would feel, but I do over how I would react to how you feel. Consider yourself already forgiven. Our love is forever. Foolish things we may say or do during our journey have nothing to do with our love or who we really are. Not if we won’t let them. I won’t let foolishness change our true course.”
“Me neither,” I’d vowed, but wondered if I’d have the strength to keep that promise.
 
* * *
 
Inside the dress shop, Para bargained with the elderly Korean woman about the black dress. She measured Para and jotted some notes in Hangul and took the dress on the mannequin from the window and marked it with chalk according to her notes. Para smiled broadly at me, her perfect teeth like brilliant pearls. She prided herself for never having had a cavity at age forty.
She said she owed it to tofu, brown rice, and kimchi. She hadn’t tasted cheese until age thirty when she had arrived in L.A. and studied nursing and worked at a hospital in Korea Town. She’d followed a boyfriend to the East Coast and had settled in northern Jersey. She hadn’t spoken much about her former boyfriend, only occasional references to “Joe.”
Occasionally her cell would ring and she’d say hello in Korean and head towards the bathroom in our apartment. When I’d start to say something, she’d put her index finger to her lips and shake her head. Seeing the quandary in my expression, she’d cover her cell and whisper, “It’s only Joe.”
She’d close the bathroom door behind her and turn on the fan. All I could hear was her muffled tone in Korean through the door. When she’d come out of the bathroom twenty minutes later to see my look of frustration, she’d nestle beside me on the sofa and say she was sorry, that it was only Joe, no reason to be upset. Joe had been her friend for twenty years. They’d met in Korea when he had worked there and he had convinced her to come to America where she would find a better life. She loved America, but her soul would always be Korean. We’d been together for a year when I asked her to marry me. She said she didn’t want to be married, that she wanted to be a free spirit, that marriage often spoiled true love. When she saw my pain, she embraced me and told me her family story in Korea when she was known by her birth name—Keum Suk . . .
Yoju, Korea
When Keum Suk heard her father’s harsh tone to her mother, Sun, she covered her ears and curled her knees to her chest as she lay on the thin floor mat she called her bed. For months Keum watched her mother’s decline with her father’s lengthy absences and stormy returns. Sun sought comfort in her daughter’s arms. Keum embraced her mother as they both shuddered and wept. Alone in the dark, they rocked and Sun sang to her, caressing Keum’s head and wiping her tears till morning.
Keum’s father, Kim Jae Lee, farmed his fertile land in Yoju southeast of Seoul. The eldest son of a middleclass family, Kim had inherited fifty acres when his mother died in 1952.
Keum’s grandmother was a strong woman, but the hardships of war and the separation from her two sisters in North Korea had aged her quickly.
Though Keum’s grandmother did not live to see peace come in 1953, Sun told Keum,
“Your father’s mother was too attached to her sisters in the north to appreciate her son’s hard work here on the farm. Her heart was no longer in this world, but she is at peace in Buddha’s garden, so don’t fret for your grandmother. If you wish to be happy in your life, you must find peace from within yourself. Joy and love come from within, not from this harsh world.”
As an adolescent, Keum thought long about what her mother had said. She sensed no bitterness in her mother’s words, but rather resolution. Keum did not understand the conflict between her parents until a woman ten years younger than her mother came to their farm house with a boy at her side, both carrying luggage. Keum watched curiously from the chicken coopwhere she gathered that morning’s eggs. Keum knew this young woman came from the city by her dress and manners—polite but curt. The boy had no manners and grimaced at the rural surroundings with his nose scrunched in offense to the farm’s stench of dung. Keum picked a bouquet of wild flowers and draped them in her egg basket as she brought them to the house as a peace offering to her mother’s guest who gradually revealed her belligerence. Though Sun remained cordial, Keum noticed her mother’s hands shook with the high pitch of the intruder’s grating tone.
“My son must have his own room,” the young woman demanded. “You must share with your daughter – I will share the main bedroom with Kim . . .” She paused as Keum shyly presented the wildflowers to her.
The young woman looked down into Keum’s wondering eyes and took the flowers.
“Your daughter has a good heart. Kamsamnida.” She thanked Keum with a brush of her hand under Keum’s chin. Keum liked the unfamiliar floral scent of the woman’s hand, so different from her mother’s aroma of rice and dumplings and the tang of kimchi, offensive to those who didn’t eat the spicy pickled cabbage every day.
Sun pulled Keum away from the woman and hugged her close to her bosom. Her bottom lip quivered as she spoke. “I can only hope Kim will tire of you . . . but it is not for me to interfere with his desires. I expect some help inside the house, but I know you are unaccustomed to the labors of a farm. My daughter and I can manage, but your son can be of use—Kim would want him to learn how to farm the land.”
“Perhaps you are right, but Kim will direct Yung, not I, and certainly not you. He is our son, not yours,” the younger woman said with disrespect.
“Then bring in your luggage. I have already moved in with Keum. There is fresh fruit if you like, but Keum and I must finish our duties before dark. My hus—,” she caught herself.
“Kim will be back from the market in two hours. We’ll prepare the rice and kimchi? He will be hungry.”
She nodded and directed Yung to bring in their luggage. As Keum passed him to complete her chores in the field, Yung stuck out his foot and tripped her. She fell scuffing her knees and elbows to protect the basket of eggs in her hands. Only one broke, and Sun whispered that it was all right, but Keum glared at the smirking Yung. When he glared back, she experienced fear for the first time. This young woman and her son toppled Keum’s world, but when her mother shuddered beside her in bed that night to the sound of her father’s panting
and the young woman’s shrieks from the next room, Keum’s outlook had changed forever . . .
 
* * *
 
In Palisades Park, the old Korean woman at the dress shop told Para that she wanted ninety-five dollars for the black chemise, including the tailoring and accessories, which included a small, lacquered black purse with a thin shoulder strap.
“How much?” I asked Para as we came a week later to pick up the dress.
As I took a crisp new Franklin from my wallet, Para grasped my forearm. After a lively exchange between the shopkeeper and Para, the old woman nodded with a crooked grin. Para leafed through my wallet with nimble fingers taking four twenties and handing them to the shopkeeper. We bowed to one another with expressions of thanks in both languages, and I carried the box containing the dress and the purse under one arm as Para clung to the other. The I sidewalk on Boulevard was hazardous with patches of ice from a snowstorm earlier that week.
Mounds of snow still lined the street where parking spots had been carved out with shovels. Our breaths blew back in our faces with crystalized vapor that stung our faces. As we walked back towards our apartment against the wind, we heard Christmas carols from the shops along the way. We stopped to the chime of a skinny old Korean man dressed as Santa Claus and slumped beside a cardboard chimney for Salvation Army donations.
I thought I was generous reaching for my last twenty-dollar bill to put into the chimney, but Para’s gloved hand grabbed me by the wrist as she nodded to the Franklin I’d intended to give the old woman for Para’s black chemise. With a sigh I dropped the c-note into the chimney, and said to Para,
“I thought you’d agreed to pay her ninety-five dollars for the dress.”
“She’d be insulted if I didn’t bargain for a better price,” Para said. “If I’d let you give her that hundred dollar bill, it would have been an insult to you. We settled on seventy-five. The rest was a tip for her kindness and skill. I also told her that you were a bestselling American writer so she should be flattered that you saw her dress in the window and came into her shop to buy it for me.”
“Selling? Maybe. But Best? Only because you love me. The old woman seemed pleased.”
“Of course,” Para said with a chortle. “She would have settled for sixty dollars.”
We laughed squeezing each other in our overcoats with our scarves wrapped around our necks. She saw from my expression how much I wanted to kiss her, but she squinted one eye to remind me that public demonstrations of affection, even between husbands and wives, was unacceptable in Korean society. For all intent and purposes, Palisades Park was Seoul, Korea. What Para held back from me on the street was more than made up for as we thawed out in our apartment drinking hot green tea with honey. Our table Christmas tree was lit and the smell of blue spruce permeated the room as we played Christmas carols on CDs and cuddled beneath the silk sheets in our king-size bed. Our red noses were still cold as we kissed, making us laugh. Hours later we were hungry and Para prepared a special doku soup with shrimp and tofu and dumplings which made our stomachs growl. After the soup we returned to bed with her cheek resting on my chest and her long black hair draped down to my thighs. I felt as if we’d become one person, that life could never be better than that moment.
We dozed off for an hour, then when we woke, Para kneeled on the bed and looked towards the black chemise hanging from the door and her shiny black purse with its thin leather strap over the hook. A pair of designer black heels stood at the base of the door. All that was missing from that image was Para. She cocked her head back and forth as if taking measure of the dress.
She spoke my thoughts: “I’ll wear it tomorrow when you take me to Radio City for the Christmas Show and The Rainbow Room for dinner and dancing till Midnight. It will be the best Christmas ever. I’ll feel like Cinderella. I’m afraid the black chemise will turn to rags at the stroke of midnight and the best day of our life together will be lost. I don’t ever want to lose that day. I want to wear the black chemise forever. I want you to always see me that way . . . promise that’s how you’ll always see me.”
“Of course,” I said, pulling her close. “I’ll love you forever.”
 
* * *
 
We enjoyed the Christmas Show at Radio City and we walked around the skating rink at Rockefeller Plaza to take in the beauty of the enormous Christmas tree with the sounds and scents of Manhattan turning our special day into a winter wonderland to remember forever.
In The Rainbow Room, Para was glad to remove her overcoat so she could display her black chemise on the dance floor. We ate and danced from eight to eleven that night, then she whispered as we danced cheek-to-cheek, “We have to make it home by midnight.”
I started to object, but when she pulled away I saw her earnest expression.
“Hurry,” she said as we turned off Boulevard onto our side street. It was 11:55 p.m.
“We’ve had a bottle of wine,” I said, patting her knee beside me in the car. “I don’t want to celebrate Christmas with a DUI. I have to be able to drive you to the doctor tomorrow for your checkup.”
“Quick! Into the apartment,” she said as I parked. She didn’t wait for me to open the car door for her.
“Take it easy,” I cautioned her. “Especially in those heels. The sidewalk is icy.”
She kicked off her heels and scampered down the steps to the apartment and hopped
on the “Welcome” Christmas rug to keep her stocking feet from freezing. She shivered as I unlocked the door then burst into the warm apartment. She’d dropped one high-heeled shoe on the Christmas rug behind her, making me laugh as I picked it up and thought—Cinderella.
She removed her dress and hung it back on the door. She took her cell phone, lipstick and a package of tissues from the purse and hung it on the hook with the dress. It was Christmas Eve and we made love for an hour before she fell asleep in my embrace. Moonlight shone through the bedroom window giving the black chemise a bluish caste where it hung on the back of the bedroom door. I blinked imagining Para in the dress, so full of life that evening. The image of the dress hanging on the door remained in my mind as I drifted into slumber.
 
* * *
 
The aroma of an omelet cooking stirred my senses the next morning. My mind had kept the memory of the black chemise on the door, but it quickly faded to my view of the empty hook.
“Choen achime!” I called good morning to Para where she was busily preparing our breakfast and setting the table. I got out of bed and put on my bathrobe then embraced her from behind at the stove. “Where’s the dress?” I asked.
“Turned to rags at the stroke of midnight,” she said, bumping me with her hip. Then she turned and saw my frown. “I put it away for next Christmas.” She laughed like a child. “It will take years, but eventually it will turn to rags. I am Cinderella, really I am.”
Later that afternoon, we sat in the waiting room for our appointment to see her doctor. She wouldn’t consider seeing an American doctor even though Dr. Kim smoked at his desk as he asked her medical questions in Korean. Then he turned to me to say the same in English.
“There could be a problem,” he said.
I turned to Para and saw tears in her eyes.
“I told her about the calcification on her X-ray three months ago, but she’s ignored my recommendation. The results of her mammogram from a week ago show what may be Stage 4 cancer in her right breast. She needs to see an oncologist this afternoon. Here’s the information for your appointment at three o’clock . . . I’m sorry.”
 
* * *
 
Memories of Christmas quickly faded. A mastectomy followed by radiation and chemo took up all of spring and most of the summer. Wearing her wig, Para rode her bicycle beside me in Overpeck Park and showed regaining strength from the ordeal. There were autumn leaves in full color on Korean Thanksgiving celebrated in the park with many smoky barbecues stirring our appetites. After that celebration, Para didn’t want to sit around the apartment everyday worrying about her condition, whether it would continue to metastasize or go into remission.
She took a job as a receptionist for a Korean chiropractor within walking distance of our apartment. Getting out on weekdays for six hours brightened her spirits and gave me time to write without watching her every move to be sure she did everything her oncologist said for her to do. Except when she took off her wig at night or changed clothes and her surgery scars showed where her breasts had been, Para seemed perfectly healthy. She hadn’t vomited from nausea in weeks and had been eating normally. Color had returned to her often smiling face.
Before we knew it, December had come again. Though at minimum wage, Para’s meager salary was off the books, so she was preparing envelopes with cash as gifts to her Korean friends for Christmas. She marked each envelope with a friend’s Korean adapted English name so I’d know whom each envelope was for.
“This one’s for Alice,” she’d say. “You know her as Grumpy Girl. This one’s for Yuji, Ugly Girl, and that one’s for Stacey, Boring Girl.”
I laughed at her serious expression as she told me this, which reminded me of her English Study Manual with the sedate Korean woman on the cover, apparently a well-known actress in Seoul. When I’d helped Para practice her conversational English lesson, I’d asked her to give me the English expression to excuse herself to use the bathroom.
With her bright smile, Para said, as if she were at a cocktail party at the White House:
“Pardon me, but I have to take a dump.”
My mouth dropped open. “No way!” I said. “Let me see that.”
Sure enough that was the translation in the manual. Every time I saw that Korean actress’s face on the cover, I couldn’t keep from laughing till my eyes teared. Para would punch my shoulder and say with inflection, “Please excuse me, I want to use the ladies’ room.”
From the pain in my shoulder from her punch, I felt confident that she was surely regaining her strength in remission.
Two weeks before Christmas, Para bought a wind-up Christmas toy of a fluffy stuffed rabbit the size of a teddy bear with dangling ears. Wound up, the rabbit would play "Auld Lang Syne" on a saxophone as it gyrated to the melody. Whenever I wound it and played the song, Para would mimic the rabbit’s gyrations and we’d both laugh joyously. It became our foreplay to making love for the holidays.
The week before Christmas, Para hung the black chemise on the back of our bedroom door with the purse by its strap and the high-heeled black shoes at the base of the door.
“I want you take me dancing again,” she said, nodding to the dress. “This time on New Year’s Eve.”
“Of course,” I said. “When ever you want.”
 
* * *
 
The Monday after Christmas we waited in the oncologist office for the results of Para’s scan taken the week before. Usually spirited and often whistling in past visits, the oncologist seemed glum in his silence. Then his five words hit me like the thuds of nails into a coffin: “It’s metastasized into her liver.”
When I translated for Para, she said, “But I feel fine.”
“I’m sorry,” the doctor said, “but it won’t be long before you don’t.”
“What can we do?” I asked with a lump in my throat.
“Enjoy yourselves for as long as you can,” when the pain begins there’s hospice.”
My head jerked back and forth from him to Para as she wept.
“How much time does she have?”
He just shook his head. It was anybody’s guess.
I clutched her prescription for pain as we headed to the car, wondering if I kept from filling it, maybe the pain would never come. I put it off until the next day because she hadn’t complained of any pain and just smiled with watery eyes. We spent the next day in bed just holding each other and staring at the black chemise hanging on the door. She had no appetite and neither did I.
The day before New Year’s Day she stared at me when she woke. Her eyes were glassy and her pupils were dilated.
“I’ll get the prescription filled,” I said. “Should I call for hospice?”
She shook her head. “Don’t be long,” she said with shallow breath.
It took me no longer than twenty minutes to come back to our apartment with the pain-killing drug. The drapes were drawn in our bedroom so it was too dark to see our bed when I first opened the door. As light poured in from the hall, I saw that the black chemise was missing, but the purse and the shoes remained.
“Para,” I called softly to her, but got no response from the bed. I pulled the drapes open just enough to see. My heart fluttered and I was short of breath. I lifted her to sit up and leaned her against my chest. The satin sheets were soiled and dried blood from her nose ran down to her chin.
“Keum Seuk!” I shouted. “Para!”
Para was her Christian name given to her by the nuns when she’d become a Roman Catholic in Seoul at age twenty-seven.
She had told me over the past two years much about her life before we had met. Her disappointment with her father when he’d brought his mistress and their children into her home, and when he had, how her mother had died young of a broken heart. She’d feared her stepbrothers when her mother had passed, but her father had given her enough money to leave the farm and get a college education in Seoul.
In Seoul, she became a kindergarten teacher at the Catholic school where she’d met a young priest named Joe. A virgin in her late twenties, she’d thought of becoming a nun, but Joe had convinced her not to.
“Joe had opened my heart,” she’d told me. “I’d feared men because of my father and my older step-brother, and my two younger half-brothers. Joe was so kind and gentle. We fell in love and I became pregnant. He was going to leave the priesthood to marry me, but I lost the child. I saw it as a sign from God that Joe was meant to be a priest. He is such a good man. I vowed that if he remained a priest that I would never marry. I had kept that promise till I met you. Joe may have opened my heart, but you have stolen my heart forever.”
I heard her voice telling me this again as if she were still alive and we were dancing on New Year’s Eve. Then I noticed that her dresser drawer was open and she’d taken a bound notebook from it and left it spread open on top of the dresser. I kissed her forehead and eased her head back onto the satin pillow. I went to the dresser and read the notebook. She’d printed very concisely, obviously some time ago. There was Father Joe’s address and phone number in upstate New York, and she wrote that he had her last will and testament and her instructions and the funds to pay for her Catholic funeral and cremation.

She’d written:
JOE WILL KNOW WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU CALL HIM. HE KNOWS I LOVE
YOU AND THAT I ALWAYS WILL.
PLEASE BE KIND TO HIM. HE WILL GRIEVE FOR ME AS MUCH AS YOU.
DON’T MOURN FOR ME FOREVER. SPREAD YOUR LOVE. OTHERS WILL NEED IT. I WILL BE WAITING FOR YOU. UNTIL THEN, YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO.
SARANGEEYO YANG HAN WEE,
I LOVE YOU FOREVER.
PARA
XOX

I hung my head and wept. I took a deep breath and slammed the heel of my fist on the top of the dresser. The impact shook the dresser and the floppy-eared rabbit sitting on top of it began to gyrate. I gasped for breath as the maudlin melody of "Auld Lang Syne" on a saxophone poured into our bedroom like smoke from smoldering cinders. My feet felt like lead with each belabored step towards the bed. I lifted Para from the bed into my arms. Her bare feet dangled in the air as we swayed to the music as if it were New Year’s Eve on Times Square and the ball had dropped down declaring Happy New Year.
I would put off calling Father Joe until tomorrow on New Year’s Day, meantime Para and I would continue to dance till dawn, me in black tie, she in the black chemise.

The End
 


​

​Painting below by Gene McCormick

Friend Request

By

Joshua Britton


Ray sent me a friend request and a message. It said nothing special; he was wondering what I’d been up to all this time. I hadn’t thought of Ray in years and hadn’t seen him in even longer. As children, we lived on the same street. Back then, we didn’t need a better reason to be friends.
If childhood ends with puberty, we were knocking on the door. Matt, Tobin, and I had just lost our best friend after his family moved to the rich side of the city. We were still in mourning when the new kid arrived. This put Ray at a disadvantage from the start. Ray never fared well in comparison to others.
He certainly didn’t make a strong first impression. He was smaller than Matt, Tobin, and me. He spoke with saliva, and he laughed inward, as if it didn’t come natural, he didn’t actually think something was funny, and he was just trying to fit in. He was an odd little runt. And we
couldn’t make sense of his Jacksonville Jaguars clothes. They don’t like the Jaguars even in Jacksonville, so why was a kid in upstate New York telling people he rooted for an expansion team?
Ray’s mom and Sal lived together even though they weren’t married. That was unusual. My parents had recently separated but at least they used to be married. And Ray called him Sal, not Dad. Maybe Sal wasn’t Ray’s real dad. I never learned for sure.
Sal yelled. Nobody had air conditioning so windows were always open during the summer. Tobin lived next door to Ray, and from inside Tobin’s house we could heard Sal screaming at Ray. Sometimes we heard a bang or a crash. After those outbursts, his mother answered the door to tell us Ray couldn’t come out to play. Come September, Ray missed time at school.
We were not destined to be lifelong friends, Ray and I, though for a while I ran into him here and there. He made the news when he was a high school senior. After school one afternoon he and a friend were racing to Burger King. Burger King was at the bottom of a hill down a stretch of road where everyone had gotten a speeding ticket at least once. The road narrowed from four lanes to two, which was good news for Ray because he was winning. But the cars in front were slowing down, and for Ray slowing down meant risking the lead. There wasn’t any oncoming traffic, and, because he couldn’t imagine anything worse than pulling in last to Burger King, he changed lanes to pass the slow pokes. The reason for the slowing, however, was that at the front of the line an elderly woman was about to pull into her driveway. She turned left just as Ray tried to pass. To his credit, Ray was wearing a seatbelt, and he suffered minimal injuries
when he slammed into the driver’s side of the turning car. The woman didn’t make it. Ray was eighteen, and he did some time.

*

In the mornings, Matt, Tobin, Ray, and I would bid our parents farewell until supper and race out of our neighborhood, across the expressway on-ramp, over cars screaming and eighteen-wheelers roaring underneath the bridge, with a quick stop at the gas station to buy pop and slushies, and down the boulevard a ways before finally veering off to the right into a labyrinth of dirt bike trails. The trails were well-worn and mostly easy to navigate, though in one spot, a log had fallen, leaving only a ten-inch gap to thread bike tires through. After all our practice, only occasionally would anyone wipe out.
A mile in any direction we might’ve been run over by a minivan, but the woods felt like wilderness. There were even fish in the creek. I never saw one more than a couple of inches long, but we tried hooking them anyway. Away from the water there were hills that were great fun to bike down, especially after some bigger kids piled up a dirt mound at the bottom where, going full speed, we could get serious air. And in the winter, the four of us simultaneously raced down on sleds. The objective was to create the greatest sledding collision ever. If someone made it to the bottom of the hill unscathed, he would look back at the mess of sleds, snow, and limbs, and feel sorry for himself.
Unless someone’s parent happened to be going for a run through the woods, we went hours without adult contact. Nobody was ever kidnapped. We swore with the best of them, but we never did drugs or smoked cigarettes. Pretty much everyone suffered bloody noses, bruised ribs, and mild concussions, but nobody died.
What we needed Ray for most was two-on-two football. With only three people, we were limited to Murder the Man With the Ball, which was fun, but not authentic enough. Nobody wanted to be paired with Ray, but Matt, Tobin, and I used a steady and tactless rotation to decide who was stuck with him on any given day.
It was hard having Ray as the only option. Matt, Tobin, and I were pretty evenly matched; I can’t say one of us was better than the other two. But Ray couldn’t catch or throw. He could hand off to someone all right, but handing off to him proved more interesting.
“Ok, Ray, you’re going to line up in the backfield to my left. I’ll yell `Hut!’ and you go in motion, cross over to the right. Then it’s `Hut! Hike!’ and I’ll pitch the ball to you. You’re the Jaguars’ running back, all right? What’s his name?” Ray looked at me blankly. “Never mind. Anyway, they’ll be following you so cut back towards me immediately. I’ll block the way and you take it in. Ready?”
We broke the huddle and I held the ball out to where I best guessed the line of scrimmage to be. Matt was in front of me, ready to count to five Mississippi before he could blitz. Ray lined up to my left but in front of the ball – off sides.
Tobin was lined up opposite Ray. “I think you gotta back up,” Tobin said.
Ray took a step back.
“More,” I said.
Ray took another step back.
“Back up like ten feet, man,” I said.
Ray was a deer in headlights so I called “time out” to go over the instructions again. This time I blatantly pointed to the spot I wanted him to stand, and to the route I wanted him to run. He appeared to comprehend so I took my position back at the line.
“Hut!” I yelled. Ray didn’t move. “That’s your cue, dude,” I said. Ray jogged to his right, behind me. “Hut! Hike!”
I lateraled the ball back towards Ray. He held out his arms but the ball hit him in the face.
“Fumble!” Tobin yelled.
A loose ball meant Matt and Tobin didn’t need to wait for five Mississippi before crossing the line. Matt was the first to the ball and bent over to pick it up and take it the distance, but his feet got in the way and he booted it out of reach.
“Jump on it, Ray!” I yelled, breaking after the ball behind Matt and Tobin. Ray was quick and had a beat on it. He lunged but his aim was off and the ball squirted inches away. I put my arms up and took out Tobin. It might’ve been an illegal hit, but we were both laughing before we hit the ground.
With Ray on his belly, Matt tried to jump over him to get to the ball, but Ray rose just as Matt was midflight and tripped him. Matt fell on his face while Ray yelped in pain. Tobin and I got up to catch up with them. Ray army-crawled to the ball and got a hand on it just as Matt arrived. Tobin dove through the air, landed on the two bodies, kneeing them both in the back, and pronounced, “I got it!” Not wanting to be left out of the pile-up, I jumped on top.
When we got the ball back, I made Ray quarterback. I didn’t mind taking handoffs, but it got boring, so I told him to throw it up. He had no aim, but if he got the ball high enough, I
thought I’d have a decent chance of making a play. The first attempt was remarkably successful, which I guess gave us false hope because Ray’s next two throws somehow went backwards. Tobin pointed out that an incomplete backwards pass was the same as a fumble. I decided not to risk Ray throwing backwards again. I took over at quarterback and stuck the ball square in Ray’s gut. It took him a second to secure the ball, long enough for Matt to meet him in the backfield and take his knees out. We had to punt.
I stuck with the conservative game plan each time we had the ball. Occasionally Ray wriggled away and picked up a couple of yards. Then we slapped fives as if we just won the Super Bowl. More often than not, though, either Matt or Tobin barreled into his chest and drilled him into the ground. One time Ray tried an ill-advised leap into the air, as if he could fly over his would-be tacklers. Matt caught him and, with Ray and the ball in his arms, ran the length of the field for a safety. Tobin brought to our attention the “forward progress” rule, which prevented such defensive plays, but I let the safety stand anyway.
This went on for a good half hour in Tobin’s and Ray’s backyards. Ray never complained. He took handoff after handoff, and big hit after big hit. When he didn’t rise right away, I held out my hand to pull him up. He seemed to like that, and he smiled. Then I gave him the hand-off, and he got leveled again. The score was as lopsided as ever, but it sure was hilarious.
Ray was tackled for roughly the thousandth time that afternoon when we heard Sal crash through the backdoor of their house.
“Get off of him!” he yelled, instantly upon us.
When Sal said something, we listened. His tone of voice was familiar, except we were used to hearing it from a distance. Matt, Tobin, and I backed away, eager to avoid a beating.
“I don’t like the way you’re playing!” Sal said.
“It’s ok, it’s ok,” Ray insisted.
“It’s not ok.” Sal glared at us. “You’re just hitting him over and over. Some friends you are!”
He grabbed Ray by the arm and pulled him toward the house. Ray moved his feet as fast as he could to keep from dragging. “Ow,” Ray referred to Sal’s grip on his arm. “Ow ow ow!” he cried.

*

I think Ray is doing okay now. He’s out of jail and was working at one of those instant oil change joints. Before I moved away, I saw him there every three thousand miles. He was happy to see me and spoke fondly of the good old days. He wished we were kids again. He used to ask about Matt and Tobin, but those guys haven’t kept in touch. I never asked him about Sal, though it was never far from the tip of my tongue.

*

While we played football in our backyards, there was more to do in the woods. We built fires but quickly put them out before a grownup could get us in trouble. We waded in the creek and caught crayfish in a bucket. We fished for hours without hooking anything but weeds. After rain, we went down mud slides climaxing into the deepest parts of the creek.
We rode our bikes a lot. Sometimes we took the straightest and most direct path so we could build up the highest speed, but sometimes we went out of our way in search of obstacles, which was slower but more challenging. Either way, we always ended up flying down the big dirt hills, slamming the brakes at the bottom so hard that the back tire spun us around and we finished facing the other direction.
Ray was the least stable on a bike. He was able to build up a good pace on the paved streets in our neighborhood, but he didn’t come close to the same speeds in the woods, where he was convinced the trees, logs, and bends were out to get him. Eventually he built enough courage to go down the big hills, but never before coming to a complete stop at the edge, and then inching forward with his feet on the ground before he couldn’t control it anymore and rolled the rest of the way down, pumping the hand brakes as he went. At the bottom he coasted off to the side, and, before coming back up top to join us, paused to catch his breath and calm his beating heart.
The speed bump at the bottom of the hill turned up randomly one day and instantly added another dimension to our shenanigans. I was already going a healthy speed around the bend before even getting to the top of the decline, and by the bottom I went so fast that the wind in my face almost stung. I hit the bump and leaned back, and the bike and I catapulted high into the air before bouncing back to earth. After that it was a wobbly and mildly terrifying twenty feet before I regained control and avoided the patch of trees that were inconveniently too close. Then we all raced back to the paths to build up speed and do it again.
Tobin was the first to lose control. His aim was off and he went over the speed bump too far to the left, where it was uneven. The bike tipped over midair and crashed to the ground on its
side. Pinned between the bike and the ground, Tobin slid for several feet before flipping the bike off and hopping up.
“Wow!” he exclaimed. The rough dirt had scraped a good bit of skin off of his legs just below the knee and there was already some blood visible even from the top of the hill. “Man, that hurt!” he said, clearly in pain, but relishing it. He got back on his bike, howled briefly as he pedaled back up top where he bypassed my turn in line, sped down the hill and over the bump, picked up some air, and skidded to a stop a few feet in front of a large tree.
“That was your best one yet!” I called down to him.
“All right, killer,” Matt said to Ray. “You’re up.”
Ray stood with Matt and me at the top and peered down the hill towards the bottom, where a little mound of dirt, a mountain to him, stood in his way.
“I don’t know, guys,” he said, with tiny saliva bubbles collecting at the corners of his mouth. “It’s a little scary looking.”
“It’s not scary,” Matt said, rolling his eyes.
“You don’t have to do it,” I said. “But we’ve all done it like twenty times already. It’s easy.”
“You just saw me fall,” Tobin said. “And I’m fine.” Ray glanced warily at Tobin’s bloody leg. “It doesn’t even hurt,” Tobin insisted.
“Just do it,” Matt said. “Or else you’re a baby.”
“It’s fine, man,” I said. “Go for it. It feels really cool.”
Ray looked down the hill again, and then back at us. He sat on his bike and, with his toes still touching the ground, inched forward, as if to the edge of a skyscraper.
“All right!” Matt said. “Now we have a show!”
And Ray pushed off! It was one of his more daring trips down the hill. He didn’t even try to slow down with his feet, and if he was pumping the hand brakes, I couldn’t tell. It was the most confident I’d ever seen him, or would ever see him again. He looked like he was having fun, like he felt good about himself, as if he fit in.
He may not have been pumping the brakes downhill, but once he reached the bottom he slammed them hard. His body’s momentum pushed him forward and he leaned over the handle bars. The front tire wedged and jammed the bike, and inertia sent Ray through the air and crash-landing shoulder first into the ground.
Ray’s screams were heard throughout the woods. Matt, Tobin, and I were down the hill in seconds. Tobin grabbed ahold of Ray’s arm to help him off the ground, but Ray’s shrieks only grew louder.
“I’ll go get help!” Tobin said with an air of responsibility for his neighbor. He tore off on his bike and out of sight. He couldn’t have been gone more than ninety seconds before Matt and I started wondering what was taking so long.
Ray had a broken collar bone, we would later learn. Matt and I did what we could to console him. We told him that Tobin would be back soon with his parents. We told him a doctor would set everything right. We apologized for making him go down the hill. We told him how
brave he’d been, and how good he looked as he approached the bottom. It didn’t matter what we said; the sobs, tears, and mucus kept coming.
Matt couldn’t take it any longer and made up some crap about how Tobin must’ve gotten lost.
“Can you walk?” I asked Ray once Matt had disappeared.
Ray nodded silently and got his feet under him to stand up. I balanced our two bikes on either side of me and, with one hand on each set of handlebars, slowly rolled them up the hill. The pedals banged and scraped against my shins. We walked for ten minutes, Ray’s whimpering and sniffling my only clues to his presence, before we and the bikes emerged from the woods onto the sidewalk along the four lanes.
A familiar car screeched as it pulled to a stop at the side of the road.
“Oh my God, Ray, honey,” Ray’s mother said as she got out of the car and rushed to her son’s side. Ray’s crying had sedated, but he let loose again in his mother’s bosom.
Tobin got out of the car, too, and stood sheepishly by my side. Sal had driven. He popped the trunk and picked up my bike.
“That’s mine,” I said.
He put it back down, glared at me, picked up the other bike, and threw it in the trunk. Ray’s mom helped her son into the back seat of the car and buckled the seatbelt for him.
“See you later, Ray,” I said.
The grown-ups got into the car without saying anything to me. Ray didn’t look up from the back seat. Sal violently glared at us once more before pulling away from the curb, into traffic, and down the road. I still had my bike as Tobin and I began walking home. It was rush hour and the road was loud with speeding cars inches from the sidewalk.
“You all right?” I said to Tobin. He’d been silent since he returned with Ray’s parents. His lips moved but I couldn’t make out any words.
Sal hadn’t said anything but the look he’d given us more than made up for it. I remembered him scolding us once before, and I was sure Tobin was thinking, too: some friends we are.

Gothado


by

Gerald Arthur Winter


The old man stirred from a fretful doze and wrapped the blanket around his shoulders as he sat in his comfy easy chair before his stone-faced fireplace. Only remnant embers crackled in the hearth, and through his bay window a full moon gave a bluish cast to the snow-covered ground. Leafless trees hung their limp branches encased in shimmering ice that weighted them towards the ground. Some broken limbs were scattered across the hard crust of the foot of snow that had fallen between Christmas and the New Year. A stiff north wind blew some of those branches across the crest of that holiday snow, twice thawed and refrozen by mid-February. His aching bones made him hope that the groundhog had been right and this would be the last of winter’s bitter harvest of gray and gloom.
He shifted his weight in the chair and put his slippered feet up onto the hassock. His reading glasses had slipped off his nose onto his fluffy down bathrobe, which he pulled snuggly around his neck to ward off a chill. Beside him on the side table was the book he’d been reading before he’d fallen asleep. The dregs of a fine single malt scotch wafted a peaty aroma towards his flaring nostrils. The grandfather clock in the hall chimed eleven times. After its final chime faded, he thought he heard a rustling coming from behind his easy chair and figured it could be a field mouse seeking warmth from the tundra icescape outside.
Live and let live, he thought. It’s cold enough without having a cold-blooded heart.
Then he felt a tickling sensation at the back of one ear. He turned and stretched in
that direction, but as soon as he did, he felt the same tickling on his other ear.
“What the beejazzuz!” he shouted, but soon heard a high-pitched giggle like a squeaky wheel that needed oil. “Who’s there?” he demanded. “Show yourself.”
“It’s just me, Grampa,” she said, coming from behind the easy chair and standing before him with her teddy bear in one arm. She was wearing the one-piece, green pajamas with the snuggly feet coverings that she had to step into and have her mom zip up before going to bed. They were her Christmas jammies with snowmen and reindeer patterns.
“What are you doing up, Sophie?” he asked. “I promised your mom you’d be fast asleep by nine o’clock. Are you OK? Do you have to go to the bathroom?”
She just shook her head and giggled.
“Then you need to go back to bed,” he said. “C’mon. I’ll tuck you in.”
Sophie just shook her head and said, “Uh-uh.”
“You’re gonna get your grampa in trouble if you don’t, Sophie. You know how your mom can be.”
She nodded repeatedly.
“Let’s go then.”
She shook her head again.
“OK, my lil’ darlin’,” he sighed. “What’s your grampa have to do to make you go back to sleep?”
“Story, Grampa. Tell me a story.”
“I haven’t told stories to little girls since your mom was your age,” he said with a sigh.
“I’ve probably forgotten how.”
She shook her head, not believing such an excuse. “Mom said you used to tell her lots of stories.”
“I suppose I did,” he said scratching his chin. “But I’m sure I’ve forgotten them all.”
“Did your mom tell you stories when you were little?” she asked.
“I was never little, Sophie, I was born just as I am now.”
That absurdity, even to a six-year-old, made her jump up and down and laugh till she nearly fell onto the floor.
“I guess I can’t put one over on a smart little girl like you,” he said, and motioned with both hands for her to come up onto his lap.
She snuggled against his warm chest and cradled her teddy bear as she waited for him to tell her a story.
“I really can’t remember any stories I’d told your mom, and my parents only read me the stories that all kids have heard, like the three little pigs and the big bad wolf, or Goldilocks and the three bears. But when I was five years old, my Great-aunt Georgina used to tell me stories she knew from England when she was a little girl. They weren’t like any stories I’d ever heard before or since. I’d never even thought about any of those stories again till now.”
“Why not, Grampa?”
“Not sure, but I think it’s that cold winter weather out there that just reminded me of one tale she’d told me. It’s not a story about cold winter or snow and ice, but about a forest that had been laid to dismal desolation where nothing would grow anymore because of a curse.”
“What did Aunt Georgina call the story?”
“She called it Gothado.”
“I never heard that name before.”
“And I daresay, you never will again.” He took a deep breath and began his tale just as he remembered his Great-aunt Georgina had told it . . .
He wasn’t a giant by any stretch of the imagination, but to George, his best friend since their chance encounter as young boys in the Gnarly Wood, Gothado, had the biggest heart in all the land.
You wouldn’t think they’d have a thing in common. George had reddish, straight hair down to his shoulders. Only when he bathed would George remove his pointed, brimmed hat donned with a scarlet plume. His belted shirt had sleeves that flowed loosely down to his elbows. His tights defined his well-toned, muscular legs from the hem of his untucked shirt to his boot tops, which extended to just below his knees. He had three leather outfits all told, brown, blue, and green, depending on his mood.
Gothado had once told him he preferred the blue—that it made George look like
royalty.
Both had laughed, rolling on the ground over such an odd notion, because the Gnarly Wood had no royalty, not since the Quadraque had torched the castle. The only remnants of the royal fortress were charred, moss-covered stones—a reminder to those who’d fancied commanding others whose dignity they’d disregarded. The Quadraque was a four-headed, bloodless, reptilian-like quadra-ped that could generate fire from its foul breath whenever it detected any aura of human bliss, expression of glee, or even a notion of goodwill.
Gothado had survived the Quadraque’s torch by his might while George’s diminutive stature had frequently provided opportunities to become unseen. Unlike George’s fine tailoring, Gothado’s attire was crudely stitched and patched where worn through over time by his habitual brawling fueled by alcoholic consumption. Gothado and grog were attached at the lip rather than the hip. His frock, when new, had been corn yellow and his loose pants were maroon. But his attire had become so worn that it was like a rainbow collage of patches with varied textile textures.
“You look like you’re wearing a goblin’s quilt,” George told him.
Gothado rebutted, “My mum said my great-uncle on my father’s side had goblin blood flowing through his veins. It may give me strength unlike yourself who hides in fear of the Quadraque’s monstrous footsteps sending tremors through the Gnarly Wood.”
“What I lack in bulk,” George huffed. “I more than make up for with my resourcefulness.”
“Hmm,” Gothado pondered. “My strong grip had once choked the Quadraque before it could spark its fiery breath.”
“My trickery confused the dragon into believing I was a mere slug rather than a pixie.”
“Haw-haw-haw!” Gothado’s guffawing shook the ground, making Jack fall to his knees.
“That time I’d swallowed a slug, you’d barfed when you saw me do it. Stained your fine blue shirt. Made you look more like a mini-troll than a pixie.”
George blushed recalling his embarrassment, then he broke into his high-pitched shrill of amusement. “Then you puked up the slug when the Quadraque approached. You’d wrestled the fiend to the top of the fiord and tossed it into the sea before it could set you afire.”
“Uh-huh, that I did, George.”
Though they’d had their differences over the years, whatever the rub, they’d soon shrug, laugh at themselves, and shake hands. That was until Gwendolyn fluttered through the Gnarly Wood. The mighty Gothado and the resourceful George had never seen the likes of her before—not in the flesh. Their great-grandparents had spoken of fairies from their youth, creating an imagined fantasy of lithe beauty in their simple minds.
Gwendolyn, however, stretched the bounds of both of their minds and they were bedazzled every time she blinked her almond-shaped, azure eyes and fluttered her diaphanous wings with obvious flirtation.
“You may call me Gwen,” she told the befuddled twosome.
Both blushed and tugged nervously at their shirts for gwen was the common word for passion within the Gnarly Wood.
“I have a secret treasure which I must deliver to the king without the Quadraque’s interception,” she said. “May I depend on your confidence in this dyer matter of epic consequence?”
George nodded, but Gothado was confused by Gwen’s fancy words and fluttering manner, which made him feel dizzy. He turned to George with a blank expression.
“She needs our help to avoid the Quadraque,”George said, then waved him close to whisper in his huge, floppy ear. “She may be lovely, but I think she’s daft. She believes we have a king in the Gnarly Wood.”
“A wha—?” Gothado started to blurt, but George pinched his earlobe making him roar.
George put his index finger to his lips then bowed to Gwen as he removed his feathered cap. “We are at your service Maid Gwendolyn. Where is this treasure that you want us to protect?”
She snickered with a shrill. “I carry the treasure in my heart, but none but the king can see it.”
George and Gothado exchanged glances with expressions of resolve.
George assured her, “We will guarantee your safe passage through the Gnarly Wood, but you must tell us your final destination . . . so where does this king reside?”
She turned to Gothado, ‘Does this little one always speak in your behalf? Have you no words of your own?”
Gothado removed his cap and stuttered as he shuffled his feet and stared at the ground. “George is smarter than I, so whatever he says is OK with me.”
“What if George says the Gnarly Wood has no king?” she asked.
“Then you already know,” George said.
“Let Gothado answer my question,” Gwen said, frowning at George.
Even when she frowned, Gwen was beautiful as only a fairy could be, emitting charms and essences that made pixies, giants, and even goblins and trolls quake in her presence.
“The Witch of the Netherland has told me that you have wrestled with the Quadraque,”
Gwen said to Gothado. “Is this true?”
Shyly, Gothado nodded, shifting his great weight from one foot to the other.
“But the Quadraque still lives,” she said. “Why didn’t you destroy that wretched creature?”
“No one can destroy the Quadraque,” George said. “It’s a bloodless dragon that will live forever.”
“I wrestled it to the far corner of the Gnarly Wood and threw it off the fiords into the frozen sea, but its fiery breath melted the ice and it returned to shore and still roams the Gnarly Wood looking for a rematch.”
“This time you must destroy the Quadraque so the king can return to rule his domain,” she said as if she were reading a prophecy from an ancient scroll.
“That’s a death sentence,” George argued in behalf of his friend.
“I ain’t ascared, George,” Gothado said smiling at Gwen. “If you want me to kill the Quadraque, I’ll give it my best.”
“He’s just saying that because he thinks you’re pretty,” George said. “You’ll get him kilt with your unwise proposal.”
“If you don’t kill the Quadraque, Gothado, we’ll all be dead by the next full moon. The witch has told me so.”
“Maybe it’s just a trick,” George said, “and the Witch of the Netherland wants the
Quadraque dead so she can rule the Gnarly Wood herself, perhaps forever.”
“She’s a distant cousin . . . my great-grandmother was a witch,” Gwen said. “She speaks the truth—fairies always know a lie, even before it’s said.”
“I wanna do it, George,” Gothado said. “Just point me in the direction to the king.”
“Your feet already know the right course,” she said. “Just put one in front of the other and we shall follow.”
George stared down at Gothado’s big feet as if they had minds of their own. He looked at Gothado, but the giant just shrugged. His feet moved forward and he smiled broadly at Gwen and George as if he were a child taking his first steps. He was quite pleased with himself until the distraction made him walk into a two-hundred-foot redwood crashing the aged tree to the ground into splinters. Gothado’s great might exceeded his brain, which George had often kidded was the size of a pea.
At first Gwen gasped and covered her ears with the thunderous crash, but when she saw that Gothado was unharmed and bashfully grinning at her, she burst into her shrill laughter and George accompanied her in harmony.
“Gosh, I’m so clumsy,” Gothado admitted dusting himself off and shaking broken branches from his head and shoulders as he hummed. “Sorry, Maid Gwen. I’m ready now.”
“OK. Let’s go!” she shouted at high frequency.
With George perched on his broad shoulders and Gwen fluttering around his head like a butterfly, the trio surged deep into the darkness of the Gnarly Wood where none of them had ever dared enter before. All their ears, Gwen’s pointed, listened intently for any sounds of the Quadraque’s horrendous spectacle of certain ruin.

* * *

Night had fallen as they nestled down to sleep. They could hear the sea crashing against the rocks at the foot of the fiord.
“This looks like the same cliff where I’d wrestled the Quaraque,” Gothado said with a yawn.
“There’s plenty of fish in this sea to satisfy the constant hunger of that heartless
creature,” George said. “I think it’s near. I can smell its smoldering breath a mile away.”
“We must sleep the night and wake well-rested,” Gwen said. “We’ll need all of
Gothado’s strength and George’s trickery to destroy the evil beast.”
“But where’s your king?” George asked her.
“Closer than you’d imagine, even with your pixie shrewdness,” she said with a stretch, extending her long, slender arms.
George’s eyes widened at the sight of her. She rested her head against a broad leaf.
Seeing George staring at her, she winked at him then turned to face the other way. He sniffed the night air and sighed, closing his eyes with images of Gwen’s exquisite charms. Though she excited him in ways he’d never felt before, he didn’t trust the words of fairies as his parents had taught him, for fear of their innate deceptions.
Facing Gothado, Gwen saw he kept one eye open to protect her from the approaching Quadraque should it catch them sleeping. But his eye was filled with Gwen, imagining her gentle embrace. Unlike George, his parents had taught him to fear nothing. He tried not to blink that eye so she’d think he was asleep, but she puckered her lips with a subtle kissing sound that made him shut both eyes and groan with forbidden gwen for Gwen.
Gwen closed her eyes comforted by her odd-sized, would-be heroes who’d risk their lives for her whims. Though she hoped that each believed his mission was to restore the Gnarly Wood as the domain of its rightful king.

* * *

When Gothado awoke, he jumped to his feet and shook George from his slumber.
“She’s gone!” Gothado shouted. “Gwen is gone!”
George rubbed his eyes and blinked. “Just like a woman,” he muttered. “Fairies—such fickle creatures.”
“Maybe she’s in danger,” Gothado argued, still with images of her striking beauty on his simple mind. “We’ve got to save her.”
Before George could protest, despite his lingering feelings for Gwen, they heard her shrill screams for help echoing from the fiords’ jagged cliffs.
“Let’s go!” George shouted.
Gothado put George on his broad shoulders and ran as fast as his bulk could carrying him, much like the mythical Hippopotami of the southern hemisphere, crashing through trees and pushing boulders aside to find Gwen.
“There! At the edge of the fiord!” George shouted, for pixie’s eyes were more focused than giants’ to protect their tiny beings from the swooping creatures of the sky.
Gothado squinted and nodded. “I see the Quadraque, but not Gwen!”
“It’s got her in its mouth! I see her wings flapping between its jagged teeth!” George yelled into his ear.
“We can’t let it eat her, George!”
“I don’t think it wants to eat her, at least not swallow her,” George said. “It’s just tasting her like sweet candy, a foreign taste to such a beast.”
“She’s crying for our help,” Gothado said.
“I’m not so sure,” George said. “Me thinks she’s in rapture.”
“What’s rapture?”
“It’s like gwen, but the end result.”
Gothado’s face turned red and there came a rattling fury from his chest. “I’ll kill that monster!”
The Quadraque saw Gothado’s rapid approach and closed Gwen inside one pair of jaws while the other three snapped sharp teeth to ward off the giant. George hid behind one of Gothado’s floppy ears and trembled.
“Beware its flames,” George warned Gothado.
They could hear Gwen’s muffled shrill from inside one of the Quadraque’s horrendous mouths drooling as the other three heads reared back ready to torch Gothado like a baked ham with George as a charred garnish.
“I’ll distract them,” George said, knowing his size and speed would be a more difficult target for the three flame-throwing heads. “When they focus on me, grab the three heads around their long necks and strangle the life out of them.”
“What about the fourth head. It’s got Gwen in its mouth.”
“It must like the taste of her, or it would have swallowed her long ago. It’s savoring her honeyed sweetness like a sugar plum.”
Even as he said it, George’s mind wandered for a moment, wanting to know Gwen’s taste himself. The same thought passed briefly through Gothado’s dull mind as well, but his rage against the beast discounted his gwen for the fairy.
Ducking and dodging, Gothado reined in the three squirming heads before they could exhale their lethal fire. Drooped with eyes shut, only a sputter of black cinders emitted from their death rattles. The fury that had been quelled by Gothado’s strangling grip of the other three heads now transmitted to the fourth. The Quadraque spit out Gwen and snapped at Gothado. George jumped from Gothado’s shoulder and picked up Gwen in his arms and took shelter from the ensuing battle.
The Quadraque singed Gothado with its breath, but he avoided its lethal flames. He used the playful trick George had so often pulled on him by tapping on the beast’s hind flanks as a distraction to make it turn aside. He grasped the Quadraque from behind and took its scaly neck in both hands. Its tail lashed about striking Gothado in the back of his knees. The giant dropped to the ground, but without releasing his tight grip around the monster’s throat.
George covered Gwen’s eyes with his plumed cap so she wouldn’t see the bitter end, especially if the Quadraque might still get the best of Gothado with its incendiary breath. A loud bellow shook the earth and Gwen brushed George’s cap aside so she could see. Gothado had done the impossible. He’s killed the bloodless Quadraque, the scourge against all decency in the Gnarly Wood.
George cheered and jumped about, and pixies of his like kind emerged from their hiding places throughout the Gnarly Wood.
“We shall feast on Quadraque flesh tonight!” George shouted to his kin. “Gothado the Great has conquered the Quadraque! Prepare the fire!”
Gwen smiled at George and brushed the back of her smooth, flower-scented hand against George’s blushing cheek. With her other hand she plopped George’s feathered cap upon his head.
“Gothado was right,” she told George. “You are a royal soul. From her white satin frock she took a sparkling wand and tapped George’s shoulder with it. He knelt on one knee and bowed his head. “For your great courage and resolve and for your dedication to your brave friend, Gothado, I dub thee Prince George of the Gnarly Wood.”
“What about Gothado?” George asked. “Can’t you make him a duke or an earl?”
She smiled and pointed to Gothado unraveling himself from the coils of the Quadraque’s limp tail and long necks. He grinned and shrugged his broad shoulders. She motioned him to come forward and go down on one knee before her.
“You are the sole survivor of your kin, but the Witch of the Netherland had put a curse on you at birth for your father’s shameful behavior towards his people. Her evil plan was to keep the Gnarly Wood enslaved by fear of the Quadraque. But no witch’s curse can ever be fulfilled without a key to unbind its tethers, no matter how impossible it may seem to those ensnared by its unyielding grasp.”
Though skeptical, Prince George the pixie sensed a beam of understanding, for with his new title there no longer were any limits to his wisdom. Turning to his friend Gothado, he was able to see the giant in full light of his newfound wisdom.
But Gwen curtseyed to Gothado then dubbed his shoulder with her wand. With her touch, he rose standing to face her for the first time her eye to eye. The pixies gave out a tumultuous roar echoed by a deeper chord of fairies flying from all directions towards the top of the fiord where the great crowd had gathered.
“What has happened?” Gothado asked Gwen, for he could not see what everyone else could see and know with all certitude.
Gwen leaned close to Gothado and lifted her head to offer her pursed lips. He couldn’t resist his urge to kiss her lips, but tenderly for fear that his great strength might crush her. Her lips were sweeter than the finest honey and the blend of all her essence flowed from every pour of her being.
“You have broken the curse of the Witch of the Netherland on the Gnarly Wood with your unselfish bravery. Just as you have restored the realm, so shall you rule as king, as you were so destined from birth to reign forever, had it not been for your father’s cruelty to his minions. And I, Your Majesty, if you will have me, will remain at your side forever with love and faith that you will cherish me as your queen as I will cherish you as my king.”
“I will cherish you forever, Queen Gwendolyn,” King Gothado the Great promised her and to the myriad of witnesses in flight and on the ground.
It was a great feast that night and all attended partaking of the Quadraque’s broiled flesh upon the spit, which gave every inhabitant of the Gnarly Wood eternal immunity to the selfish evils of the world beyond the distant view atop the fiords.
Prince George was no longer lonely, now that he was among his kin and soon found his pixie princess to share his life. The moss on the ruins of the castle receded in the glow of the full moon confirming the end of the witches curse. With the glowing hearth behind them within the castle, King Gothado and Queen Gwendolyn looked out from their balcony. Their silhouetted figures, now of natural human height, were backlit by moonlight and sparling stars. They embraced that great moment, knowing that their love story would become legend among the pixies, fairies, goblins, trolls, and giants. But legends evolve into myth, and myths into fairytales, of which this one had been duly noted by the scribes of the Gnarly Wood . . .
Sophie suddenly stretched and yawned. She’d been asleep, but her grampa wasn’t sure for how long. He wasn’t sure if she’d listened to the whole story or only parts. But as he looked out the bay window, he saw the sun rising above the crystalline branches adorned with icicles. He sensed a thaw was coming with daylight, but it would be a subtle transition much like from childhood to awareness. No matter how much she had heard of Great-aunt Georgina’s fairytale, he felt certain that Sophie, like him, would one day recall all of it, for dreams of children are made of such and often last forever.

Unearthing

By

Joshua Britton


Tom’s elbows dig into the grass when he leans back to catch his breath from retching. Across the yard is the hole. It deserves another look, he thinks. Eventually he’ll crawl back over and glance down.
This isn’t Tom’s backyard; it’s Amber’s. She’s been openly jealous of her neighbors’ landscaping skills. Amber’s front yard is small and has a gigantic century-old tree smack-dab in the middle, and its fat protruding roots make it difficult to plant grass, let alone a few bushes. There is an equally large deciduous tree behind the house, but the backyard is bigger and Tom selected a patch of lawn far enough away from the tree where he figured three equidistant holes could be dug for three identical bushes that, once grown in, will not only be a cosmetic improvement but will obscure the rotting fence dividing Amber’s yard from her neighbor’s.
But, while digging his first hole, Tom struck something hard. He assumed it was just a rogue, water-seeking root, and he hacked away.
Now he reaches into the hole, picks out a clump of clay, and brushes off dirt to confirm what he thought he saw before: a human head.
More gagging. More dry heaves. Until now his biggest worry was how to tell his parents he’s gotten his girlfriend pregnant.
“There’s a dead body in the backyard!” Tom says into the phone. “I was doing yard work and I dug it up! You need to send someone over quick!”
9-1-1 asks follow-up questions: “I found it just now.” “I think a man, not sure.” “About two feet deep.” “Months. Maybe years, I don’t know!” “No, I don’t recognize him!” “With a shovel. I might’ve damaged it. Like, cut it.” “Please hurry!” “What do you mean you’ll try?! Somebody is dead! Please get over here as soon as possible!” “Tomorrow?! What are you talking about? Today! Someone needs to come over today!”
“You haven’t turned on a television recently, sir, have you?” the operator says.
“No. Why?”
“There was a school shooting earlier. All of our officers are on hand at the school.”
“Oh no,” – Amber is a high school teacher! – “which school?”
“Central.” A momentary sigh of relief; Amber teaches at North. “Turn on the TV, sir, and we’ll get an officer out to you when we can.”
Tom obeys. All of the news channels are covering the Central shooting. So far, three students and a teacher are known to be dead. The authorities assume more, though they haven’t
yet entered the building; the shooters are thought to still be inside. Dozens of students are unaccounted for, but whether they’ve become hostages or simply ran off without telling anyone is unknown.
Tom looks out the window. He’d spent several hours online, and several more at Home Depot, to settle on three self-sufficient arborvitaes that wouldn’t die if he or Amber forget to take care of them. His landscaping project, which seemed like a great idea, probably isn’t going to happen now, even after the excavation.
Back at his hole, and the modest dirt pile next to it, he covers his mouth at the sight of the head, but he’s gained more control of his gag reflex in the last few minutes. The shrubs lean against the fence. His shovel lays flat on the ground. As unappetizing an idea as it may be, the more of the body he exposes now, the quicker it will be gone once the proper authorities arrive. He won’t try to remove it, only to uncover the rest. He picks up his shovel.
“What are you doing?!”
“Amber, don’t come over here!” Tom says. He drops his shovel and rushes to her side. “There’s a dead body buried there.”
“No, I mean, why are you digging?”
“I was going to plant those for you,” he says, pointing at the arborvitaes. “As a surprise. But there’s a dead person, Amber. A man, I think. Hopefully the police will be here soon. I just called them.”
“You did what?!”
Amber turns around and rushes into the house. Tom quickly follows. He’d left the TV on and he glances at footage of police and SWAT ready to bust into the school.
“Where are you going?” Tom calls after her. She didn’t seem that interested in the body, he thinks. “Why are you home so early?”
“All the schools shut down because of the shooting,” she says. She tosses clothes into a suitcase she’s pulled out of the closet. “You called the police, you say?”
“Yes, but they’re busy at Central.”
“Still,” she says, “they know.” She zips up her suitcase and stands it upright. “Do you have any cash?”
Tom nods toward his wallet on the bed stand. He has a lot of cash, Amber is pleased to discover, and she takes it all.
“I need to leave,” she says. Tom is speechless. She kisses him. “I’m so sorry.”

#

When Tom was a teenager he figured out that his oldest uncle was born only four months after his grandparents got married. He confronted his mother about this startling revelation, but she excused his grandparents by saying, “They loved each other a little too much.”
– Mom, Dad, I’m going to be a father.
– Oh, well, Son, that’s ok; these things happen. So when do I get to meet my future daughter-in-law?
For weeks Tom has been thinking of little else. He should be grateful for so big a distraction.
When Amber told him that they were pregnant, she listed abortion among their options. Tom was conflicted. He was against abortion, at least that’s what his church always told him to believe. On the other hand, how much simpler life would be right now if there wasn’t a baby on its way. Turned out he didn’t have a say; Amber was humoring him and had already decided to keep it.
“Let’s get married!” Tom said. Just because the baby was conceived illegitimately doesn’t mean it has to be born illegitimately. And besides, he thought he wanted to marry her anyway.
“You’re sweet, but no.”
“You don’t want to marry me?”
“Maybe. But if I do, it won’t be because of this.”
Tom’s grandparents married before they turned twenty. His parents married during college. Tom is the middle child of seven, the only one not yet hitched, and the only one without children of his own. He’d let all this slip early on, and Amber correctly inferred that her new boyfriend was desperate for a wife. She’d had no intention to remarry, or at least not so soon. When she did involuntarily imagine happily growing old with Tom, she got annoyed with herself. To preemptively stave off his pressuring, she turned the tables and pressured him into bed. Tom had been committed to preserving his virginity until marriage, but she wore him down. Amber knew that in Tom’s eyes this was one of the major perks of marriage, and now he had it
without the legal commitment. Now all talks of marriage could be shelved. It worked remarkably well, until it backfired.
Seventeen confirmed dead: two teachers and fifteen students. This isn’t the worst school shooting of all time, but it’s up there. The school has been searched once, and is being searched again, but most everyone has accepted that somehow the killers, now identified, have gotten away. With the suspects at large, nobody will sleep well tonight. Over a thousand students and two hundred employees, the police can’t possibly protect everyone.
The networks broadcast pictures of the deceased. Tom doesn’t recognize any of them. Amber works at a different school, but he wonders anyway if she knew either murdered teacher. Overall, though, his mind is elsewhere, and he watches the coverage with less horror than he did past mass shootings.
Where is she? he wonders. Where did she take our baby? What happened to the guy in the backyard? Sooner or later he’ll have to explain to his parents that not only has he gotten his girlfriend pregnant – a girlfriend they haven’t even met yet! – but that the baby will almost definitely be born a bastard. Suddenly, that doesn’t seem so bad compared to this new scenario:
– Mom, Dad, your newest grandchild will be born in prison…
“I made a mistake!” he blurts. “It’s not a human body. It’s a dog. I didn’t look very closely and I overreacted. But I’ve double checked and it’s definitely a dog. The police don’t need to come anymore.”
“Ok, sir, noted.”
– My girlfriend’s dog died a couple of years ago. This was before we started going out. She told me it was buried in the backyard, but I forgot.
That’s believable, Tom convinces himself. That’s what I’ll say if they follow up.
He makes another call, but Amber’s cell vibrates on the end table next to him. Tom hits “end”, frustrated; she left her phone behind.
In the backyard Tom takes another look inside his hole. He’s been to funerals, but this is the least healthy corpse he’s ever seen. He takes his shovel and dumps in enough dirt to re-cover the body. For the next step, Tom waits for dark.

#

Out of respect for the victims of the Central High School shooting, a moment of silence precedes the baseball game. Tom watches from the comfort of his home. Well, Amber’s home. Tom still has his apartment, though he’s been spending far more than half of his time here, another secret he’s kept from his parents.
– I’m almost thirty years old, Mom! I’m flesh and blood. What do you expect from me? How many more failed engagements do I need to go through?
When the time comes, hopefully he’ll react better in real life than he does in his imagination.
The networks have shown nothing but coverage of the shooting, even now, during primetime hours. The manhunt continues, and Tom flips between it and the ballgame.
Another catcher’s visit to the mound, another pickoff throw to first base, another excruciating seven-pitch walk, the innings crawl by slowly. He pines for the conclusion of this episode of his life, but the game is only halfway through and outside it’s only dusk.
“You must be Tom.”
Tom jumps up from the couch, startled. Who just walks in uninvited?
“Who are you? Are you a cop? What are you doing here?”
“You’ve got guilty written all over you,” the intruder says. He walks through the house and out the backdoor, surveys the situation, and comes back in. “I’m assuming no one’s been here yet?”
“Everyone’s busy with the shooting,” Tom says. “Who are you?”
“Did they give an ETA by any chance?”
Tom doesn’t respond.
“Relax, Tom, God. I’m not real thrilled with you digging up the past, but I’m still here to help.” Tom feels the urge to wet himself. Sensing his nerves, the visitor offers a handshake. “Derrick, all right? Amber asked me to check things out.” Rather than shake the hand, Tom crosses his legs. Derrick gestures towards the bathroom, says “Go ahead,” and Tom scampers off.
By the time Tom finishes relieving himself Derrick has opened one of Amber’s beers and taken Tom’s spot on the couch. Amber has an ex named Derrick, Tom remembers, though how long ago and to what degree of significance, he’s not sure.
“How do you know Amber?”
“I haven’t seen her in a couple of years, actually,” Derrick says. “Have barely even heard from her, in fact. You see someone every day for a year, and then not at all – it’s an interesting phenomenon.”
Tom lets this sink in. “Every day?”
“Husbands and wives tend to live together, Tom.”
All Tom knows is that he doesn’t know anything. He’s been in denial about the possibility she might’ve slept with someone before him. But now, in addition to having impregnated a fugitive out of wedlock who doesn’t want to get married, she’s a divorcee. His parents are going to throw a fit.
“No one’s coming,” Tom says. “I called back and said I made a mistake. I said it’s a dog.”
“Good thinking,” Derrick says. “Relax, man.” He pats the couch cushion next to him and again offers to shake Tom’s hand. “We’ve got a long night ahead of us. Do you want a beer?”
Tom gives in, sits down, and shakes Derrick’s hand. “I don’t drink,” he says.

#

The flashing lights are blinding. Tom has gone through a stop like this before. They’d surrounded a couple of bars and were checking for DUI. Tom was driving through by chance. “I’ve never drank in my life,” he told the uniforms, amused, even proud of himself. He can’t honestly say that anymore, though he’s still never been drunk. But alcohol isn’t the issue, and now he’s nervous.
“I’ve never touched a dead body in my life!” The windows are closed, and he screams inside the car. “It wasn’t me!”
– I got my girlfriend pregnant, though. We loved each other a little too much.
At least the arborvitaes are planted. “Amber told me about your idea,” Derrick had said. “It’s cute. First thing tomorrow morning, though, you’re going to want to scour the yard and make sure we didn’t miss anything.” Two were planted into either end of the expanded and human-sized hole, and a separate hole was dug for the third. They’re not symmetrically spaced apart as Tom had planned, but it’ll do.
The body didn’t lift out in one piece, and Tom threw up, for real this time. What a nightmare, though Derrick didn’t seem to be having much fun either.
With its loose limbs folded tightly in a tarp, the body was dropped into the trunk of his car, not Derrick’s; Tom wasn’t given a choice. He’s been following Derrick, but Derrick has made it to the other side, and Tom has nowhere to go.
As if the strobing lights on top of the police cars aren’t bad enough, a flashlight blasts into his face.
“Have you seen either of these kids?”
The flashlight shines onto the photographs. Tom looks and recognizes the kids as the shooters. “Just on the news,” he says. “They’re still out there?”
The cop nods and waves Tom along.
Tom exhales and puts the car in drive. The car stalls and the cop looks annoyed. Tom’s
face burns. He restarts the engine and pulls through.
Derrick leads him to a secluded farm house. Already dug and waiting for them is a hole, behind the barn and next to a woodpile. The two men lift the body out of Tom’s trunk and dump it in the hole. Derrick grabs hold of the tarp and yanks it free, like pulling a table cloth out from under dishes. He soaks the remains with lighter fluid and then tosses in a lit lighter. With the body aflame, Derrick throws logs from the woodpile on top.
He takes out his phone. “I think we’re good.” He listens for a moment. “Sure.” He hangs up.
“Was that Amber?” Tom asks.
Derrick nods and gives him permission to leave. “Until next time, Tom,” he says.
Derrick doesn’t offer to shake hands, nor does Tom say goodbye. He’s thrilled to distance himself from Derrick and the farmhouse. He’s hurt that Amber didn’t ask to talk to him. He doesn’t know how to reach her, and he wonders if he’ll ever see her again, but then an unfamiliar number flashes on his cell phone screen.
“Derrick says we’re in the clear,” Amber says.
“Apparently,” Tom says. “We.”
“I’m sorry about all this.”
“It happens.” Tom rolls his eyes at himself, and he’s angry at the woman he’s hoping to bind himself to forever. “Who was that?”
“Derrick or the other guy?”
“The other guy.”
“Do you really want to know?”
He guesses not. “Was he a bad guy at least?”
“The worst.”
Tom has the burning desire never to talk about this again.
“Where are you?” he asks.
“In an uncomfortable motel room without a car. Will you come pick me up?”

#

Tom’s headlights blind two bums leaning against the side of a dumpster when he pulls into the parking lot. “Sorry,” he says. He’s recently been blinded by a police flashlight, and he knows from experience that it’s not much fun.
Amber steps out of her motel room into the chilly pre-dawn air and wraps her arms around Tom’s middle.
“Thanks for coming,” she says, her suitcase at her side.
“Do you want to meet my parents this weekend?”
“Ok,” she says. “And you need to meet mine. Maybe we can talk about planning for a wedding.”
“Really?!” Suddenly this has become one of Tom’s better days.
Amber likes Tom, there’s no denying. Derrick had been a mistake; he’d admit it, too, if asked. She agreed to go out with Tom because he was safe. But Tom’s not only a nice guy who treats her well; she’s grown to love him. She’s not any good at being a rebel, and today he’s
really come through. As much as she tried to fight it, the pregnancy made marriage seem inevitable. But now, why prolong the inevitable?
Tomorrow is going to be a good day, Tom thinks. He’ll call in sick. All the schools are closed for the rest of the week, so Amber won’t work either. They’ll sleep in and have breakfast in their underwear. He’ll call his parents, the first step towards telling them about the baby. Maybe he’ll call his siblings, too, and invite them all to dinner. It’ll be like a family reunion! They might all gang up on him, but at least at the end of the evening he’ll be able to walk out with Amber.
As they drive to Amber’s house, Tom cracks a smile most of the way. They hold hands, which rest on her lap next to her belly. Sometimes, when she doesn’t have a shirt on, Tom thinks he can see the beginning of a baby bump.
Tom doesn’t know everything, he’s aware. Nobody has told him how the body came to be buried in her backyard, or, between Amber and Derrick, who the biggest culprit was. He doesn’t want to know. He could dig deeper and try to unearth Amber’s past, but people who don’t know anything are generally happier.
“This is really nice,” Amber says, as Tom shows her the upgraded backyard. They are home and the sun is on its way up. “Thank you.”
“Your motel room was number 115, right?” Tom asks.
Amber nods. There were two bums loitering in the outskirts of the motel parking lot. Tom is such a charitable guy that after Amber vacated room 115 Tom offered it to the young vagrants. Amber worries that they’ll trash the place and she’ll get blamed. Still, it’s hard not to admire Tom’s devotion to mankind.
Tom pulls out his cell phone and dials three digits.
“Hi, yes, you know the kids from the school shooting? I think they’re in a motel room. Let me give you the address.”

​Which Way Up


By Jerry Vilhotti


​
And I said, still having the gumption to speak up to my siblings and
their spouses even though I was the last born, that  since all FDR's
distracters were looking in the wrong places for the truth about how he
had indeed squeezed the Japanese into attacking us so getting the nation
to unite as one - that damn Civil War - that the nearly great man
thought they were going to hit the Philippines and our two hundred or
so soldiers there would have escaped death and injury, covered by a
canopy of trees and our God trumping their God. Adding he was the only
president elected four times - and this would bug "Gus the GOP" my
sister's husband who told people he had shot down a million kamikaze
planes while a signal man in our great navy in the Pacific campaign and
people in the great state of Connectandcut would believe him electing to
the Board of aldermans  - still nurturing pride in how they and The
Great Britain had vanquished the first intruders in their new land with
their guns and  smallpox  blankets - and what bugged Gus even more
was when I said that FDR - was just as shocked as the rest of the
country when Pearl Harbor was hit bad. He called me a damn communist in
a Joe Wisconsin McCarthy way and said I should be burned at a Salem
stake as the Taliban people had done to the witches who didn't believe
in their God as they did who left England for religious persecution
reasons and if my siblings had a stake handy and a bunch of matches, I
would have joined their God in a plume of smoke. 

Playwright

TERESA ANN FRAZEE
  
would like to announce and invite you to a production of her newly written, One Act Play titled
                                                                
"INCOMPLETE SENTENCES"

  as part of EMPTY CLOSET WOMEN'S THEATER  

                                                                     presents                                                                  

    TRIFECTA!!!

3 One Act Plays
 
SATURDAY  NOV. 5, 2016        7 P.M.
SUNDAY MATINEE    NOV. 6, 2016        2PM
 
A mind stimulating evening of live theater is promised. Held at LGBT Compass Community center in Lake Worth.
Proceeds go to a good cause. A charity chosen by Empty Closet Women's Theater.
 
Tickets on sale online or at door day of performance. Purchase tickets online to save money and insure seating.
facebook: Empty Closet Women's Theater or http://emptyclosetwomenstheater.com/trifecta.html


The short story her play is based on follows here: 



​


Incomplete Sentences
​
By

Teresa Ann Frazee
 
 
Everett T. Crawford ended the last black and white dream of his sleep when a vaguely familiar sound woke him to his 33,215th morning. From his unshared king sized bed he reached for his gold rimmed spectacles on the night table and they were handed to him.
 
“Who are you? How did you get in here?” Half asleep Everett asked with a tremble in his voice.
 
“The question is old man, how do I get out?” said a rugged man of some twenty years towering over the bed with course hair black as artist paint straight from the tube. “I answer to the name Tobias, the name you gave me. I’m one of your cast aside creations.”
 
“Creations!” Everett repeated as he adjusted his glasses and rose to a sitting position. “My wife and I, may she rest in peace, never had any children.”
 
Tobias laughed shaking his head as if Everett had said something funny.
 
“I’m not a mere offspring of yours. I’m your character, conceived from your mind not your body. I was created from you and you alone. I don’t give a damn about your dead wife. She had nothing to do with my conception.”
 
                        Threatened by his tone, Everett asked, “What do you want from me?”
Tobias heaved a deep sigh of disgust and put his thumb in the front belt loop of his tight faded dungarees that were stuffed into laceless boots then rolled up the sleeve of his tee-shirt with his free hand which looked toughened from endless outdoor work.  On the hard muscle of his arm was a dark tan and a do-it-yourself tattoo. It said FURY underlined in black inked barbed wire. A thin film of sweat gleamed over throbbing veins protruding from his skin even though the bedroom had the crisp coolness of a late November morning in New York.
“I want the life you started to write for me. The life you owe me, old man. I want to ground my heels into the rich black earth of God’s country and walk down streets paved with gold, can’t even imagine seeing a city of angels, mostly I want to get out of this Godforsaken room.  I’ve waited long enough!” Tobias said explosively with the expression of a wounded beast doomed to the unmerciful neglect of his master. He leaned over to Everett and yelled in his face; “Now get up and write the rest of my life!”
 
The sound that had woken Everett had begun again; it sounded nearer, more real. A ball was rhythmically hitting the bedroom’s hard wood floor. In the far corner of the spacious bedroom between a rusted file cabinet and an antique rolled top desk of oak wood lined with several of Everett’s previously published leather-bound novels stood a haggard bride wearing a yellowed tattered waltz length wedding gown. Close to her, a disheveled young blonde boy with short pants, scraped bare knees and high socks bounced a Spaldeen off the floor. The bride and boy stared without speaking.
Tobias continued, “Do they ring a bell?” gesturing over to the onlookers between the rusted file cabinet and desk. The bride and boy spontaneously approached the bed which gave the atmosphere an unpleasant smell of moldy old paper. Tobias breathed deeply through what appeared to be an unskilled boxer’s nose and seemed comfortable with the scent of his own kind. With sudden horrified surprise, Everett sat up as straight as he possibly could and was sure by his dog eared memories of these characters that this was not one of his black and white dreams that flashed back images of his life like the moving pictures of his era. They had lain a long while dormant in the wilderness of his mind.  Everett knew though how he was responsible for creating their unfinished existence; he also knew he could not make them disappear. It was evident that even artist license is often met by serious consequences.
 
                       “The bride has been waiting the longest of the three of us.” Tobias
                       finished speaking and glared bitterly at Everett from the corner of his eye.
 
“Hello Everett, remember me- Lola,” said the bride, her voice dying away like an orphaned sparrow in a ravaged nest. “See what’s become of me? They say write what you know, but you obviously don’t know anything about women. I was never to be married. You stopped writing, left me at the altar and ripped me from the pages of your manuscript. Tobias, the boy and I were shoved in the back of your file cabinet in a folder marked “dead ends”, reduced to archives in a rusty museum of vanished characters. How could you?” Lola stood spinelessly projecting the body language of a rag doll and glanced down to the floor when she spoke which made her look pitiful. Her face had nondescript features with suffering eyes the clarity of ink blotches. An inky tear bled into a membranous completion. Matted hair fell on bloodless shoulders like dead pressed roses preserved in a book of sentimentality.
 
“I’ve waited decades, watching you author book after book, for you to write my character into a story. I’ve endured meaningless nights offering faithless prayers to nobody, clinging to the vanishing letters of my name, silently staring at the blinding white vacancy of a blank page, grasping after a life, no tradition behind me, no gift for anything, with no commitment to passion. Countless times I’ve pressed my forehead against the blazing hot windowpane, in other seasons the glass permeated temperature changes of icy cold and I’d look at the street below with some absurd sense of freedom that looking out the window at the city could possibly give. Envious of the flesh and blood creatures in the current fashion of the time, I watched their styles change, barred from the public behind the window. Doomed to a world not to be seen or touched. Welcomed madness passed the time. I’ve recrossed traceless footsteps as if with the eternal journeys of soleless feet of anonymous ghosts. I’m an abandoned being not in any particular world hosting the secret inner workings of decay. A deviant of nature jolted by the unnatural sound of my faint hybrid scream. You are the author of my existence. You have the vocabulary to give life. I want to be surrounded by colorful adjectives and active verbs again. I want bright blue eyes, lovely soft-fleshed rosy skin with high cheekbones. Everett, I want details. We, the cut off heirs to your printed word do not make this request lightly. We won’t revert to our uselessness. We’ve waited in exile long enough.”
 
“I’m too old and tired to write. I don’t know where to begin”, Everett pleaded to his word captors.”
 
“Oh don’t give me that, for crying-out loud you’re a Pulitzer Prize winner. Your novels are in every library around the world. It’ll come back to you, I suppose like riding a bike,” Lola said, her low voice veiled in resentment. “I have no clear concept of bike riding, I only know of such worldly things from reading your shelved books.”
 
 Everett clutched his blanket to his chest like a child with a false sense of security and glanced round the semi circle of literary outcasts.
 
“Boy, refresh my memory, what’s your name?” Everett asked the boy who had poet’s eyes, sensitive yet wise to the streets he never knew. The boy shrugged his shoulders causing his unkempt hay colored locks to ruffle under a shapeless cap. He mouthed something in trapped speech.
 
“He never had a name that stuck,” Tobias intervened and said through clenched teeth, clasping his hands making his finger joints crack, “You never gave him any dialogue. He can’t speak. He has no native language.”
 
“Tell us Everett. Why us? We’re the sole visible representatives of your underdeveloped words yet so many other disposable characters have been crushed into paper balls and thrown away with the trash. They were the lucky ones. Once outside this room those incomplete characters ceased to exist. But you saved us. Why us?” Lola insisted.
 
Everett shivered. Uneasy thoughts stirred in the back of his mind.  His overworked heart thumped in his chest from the overwhelming verbal bombardment. His white flannel nightshirt heaved with each breath. Both cheeks sunk into his mouth like a carved pumpkin left to rot on the porch long past the first frost. There was a long silence, except for the drone of the muffled belch of a stop and go garbage truck, a chorus of sirens and impatient traveler’s horns from the waking city below. Everett began to speak slowly.  
 
“Tobias, your character was based on who I always dreamed of being. Did you not know the T in my middle name stands for Tobias? Of course not, how could you know. You see I was a frail child. I hardly played outside. My mother, may she rest in peace, was afraid I would get hurt roughhousing with bigger boys. She made certain I studied; to make something of myself. On rare occasions the carnival would come to our town. With repeated persuasion, finally breaking down my mother’s resistance, I was permitted to go accompanied by my father, an always tired fellow who was the president of the only bank in town.  Everyday, even on carnival day, my father would wear a silk tie knotted tightly around a stiffly starched collared white shirt under a fine tailored three piece suit with razor-creased trousers. He was preoccupied with the spit shine on his patent leather shoes, checking to see if messing about on the gravel and grass of the carnival field would dull a most vital part of the integrity of his banker’s uniform. I could tell he would rather be in his element, sorting bank notes sitting hunched over his presidential desk then mingling with his customers outside the secure walls of the bank. Fresh air never agreed with him. The outdoors seemed to irritate every fiber of his being, as though he merely tolerated the sweet smell of the very essence of life only as a means to get from our house to the bank. At the carnival he was putting in his paternal obligation. He was just killing father-son time. You see, Tobias I envied men like you, strong tattooed drifters who smelled of salt and leather, with their own personal slanted code of morals. Men hired to run outdoor carnival rides, men of few words except when they talked the wise slang language of the road to us. Free from the leash of the business world, the stranglehold of conformity and yes, free from the study room. It always intrigued me to observe my father and the other fathers willingly transfer responsibility over to a total stranger threatening the security of the wholeness of their family. I remember I was put in the hands of carnival ride operator with a perspiring stubbly cleft.  A man my father and townspeople had dismissed as a failure and disciplined themselves not to invest any real thought in the matter.  The same parents who had made life and death decisions for their children for ten years or so were asked to step back from the ride’s platform. They all did. After the children entered the ride’s car, a single metal bar was manually flung down and popped into place at their waist, the only restraint from bodily harm or worse. The ride would start with the operator’s touch of a control button, a lever or a switch. The ride’s car would rise, suddenly stop, swing and dangle high above the fair grounds at the operator’s command; surely worrying the parents who stood nervously waiting below who looked tiny and insignificant then. For the ride operator was the children’s new guardian with the power to return them safely to the ground. A mysterious understanding of certain things was established high in the air.  There was a kind of unspoken power your kind had. Power without titles.  In an instant, a task many tried but few succeeded, you humbled my father.  He was reduced to the singleness of his newfound purpose, a helpless spectator in the welfare of his only son. The only time I ever witnessed this exchange of absolute power was on carnival day.  Now look where I’ve caged you, trapped in my bedroom. My dear Lola, you were based on a beautiful girl with perfect posture. I recall several times I had to bring my father’s lunch to the bank. Mother would have made it for him but he was so anxious to get to work, he would forget it, leaving it out on the kitchen table almost on a daily basis. One day during my obligatory lunch time errand, there was Lola.  She was the new girl at the bank. In her position in the teller’s cage she swung a stray auburn curl from her upswept hairdo behind her shoulder as she counted out bills and said “Thank you, come again”, in that sing song voice of hers. A memory I’ve tucked into a fold of my heart. My infatuation struck me like lightning. The courtship went forward secretly outside of the confines of the bank. I was to marry her long before I met my wife. My parents forbid it. She was not educated enough for their only son. Apparently the Crawford’s had the high rank of superior breeding; but those inherited qualities of refinement were spoiled by arrogance. Now listen to you Lola, you speak so eloquently. And you boy, you were abandoned at such a young age. You’re not a page over twelve. You were based on the child I never had. Finally a boy to play ball in the park with. You were intended to be a chatty child with a wild imagination. But now you are left only with a pantomimic testimony inflicted by your arrested development.  No one, not even a successful person as I have become, wants to admit having lost to failure especially not in print.  I’m sorry for you all but to continue writing about your characters was too painful for me, nevertheless I could not let you go.” Everett pleaded in self defense, “Forgive an old man?”
 
He lowered his moist eyes and nodded his head as though he were in a confessional. They did not feel sorry for him, not a concern showed on any of the three faces. They had not been written for sympathy. Each character helped Everett out of bed. They dangled his spindly legs on the side of the bed, hoisted him up and shuffled him to his desk, to the typewriter, to their future lives. Everett was not steady on his feet. His knees buckled. He knew if he stopped he would collapse. They leaned on one another like siblings of a dying god. Together they left a trail of white dust behind them on the bedroom floor. Tobias rolled up the desk drawer that buried Everett’s vintage typewriter for so long. It was already fed with white onion skin paper. Beams of daylight filtered through the window and illuminated the typewriter in a mystical way.  For a moment they stared at the typewriter with paralyzed concentrated attention. Securely, they sat Everett down to collect his subconscious thoughts accumulated during the long years of silence. With long-drawn-out patience they waited for the keys of the typewriter to be struck. They waited for the sound that would make them whole; the sound of breathing words. Ideas finally leaped from Everett’s mind, descript, detailed and clear. He transformed them onto the paper. Each stroke of the keys was a literary pulse. Lola peered over Everett’s shoulder as he typed. She did not want to come between him and the stream of written words. Glimpsing down at chapter one she read her character was crossing the street in a rural town heading to the bank where she worked as a teller. Stopped at the red light was a red pickup truck with a man at the wheel named Tobias. Lola continued to randomly read on. A barely pubescent boy was hitting a ball against the brick wall of the bank. She stopped reading the manuscript knowing at least her character was a main part of chapter one. Lola believed she was owed the same courtesy life grants any newborn. She was not as naïve as to expect the guarantee of a happy ending but she only wanted to fully experience the unknown, good or bad as each page turned, to wonder and dream as the story of her life unfolded, to feel anything other than chronic resentment.
 
Time had passed and so did Everett. Some said it was the stress of writing a book at his age; others swear it is what kept him going for so long. But all agreed it was his best novel ever. No one could understand what could have possessed Everett to write again after such a long period since his last novel. In his epilogue Everett wrote, “I had always been openly suggestive with fate, but in the end fate alone had the last word”. The newspapers read, “Everett T. Crawford was the most prodigiously talented writer of his era. A writer who had the ability to breathe life into the printed word transforming his characters into people as real as you or I. The haunting characters seem to go on living long after we have put the book down. His powerful novel thrusts inward toward personal truths written from the heart.  His latest novel “Incomplete Sentences” reads like a memoir of a god”.
 
They held a book release party.  Many loyal fans and long time publishing agents arrived. It was a gala event excepting the absence of Everett, the honored guest. The parties theme was each guest was to dress up as their favorite character from Everett’s last published novel. There were hundreds of Lola’s, Tobias’s and a boy, who was named after Everett. They say all brides are beautiful but in walked a stunning bride with lovely soft fleshed rosy skin with high cheek bones and bright blue eyes. She swung a stray auburn curl from her upswept hairdo as she walked with perfect posture into the room. If there was ever a Lola, she was her. Behind her walked in a Tobias with an expression of invulnerability, an expression such as a man withdrawn from society might wear. As he walked in the party he left a trail of fresh dirt ground from under the heels of his laceless boots. A thin film of sweat gleamed over tan muscular arms even though it was a New York early spring. Most of the young boys called Everett were accompanied by adults. There was one well groomed blonde boy in particular who was there alone. His bare scraped knees showed signs of healing. He was a friendly child and chatted freely with everyone whom he came in contact with. One host asked out of concern, “Son, where are your parents”?  The boy called Everett looked up with his poet’s eyes, adjusted his stiff cap and replied. “Oh, they’re waiting for me at the library”.

Mysophobia

By Shannon Metcalf

​

That’s what my therapist diagnosed me with. She doesn’t know me though; nope… No she doesn’t. My… issues started back when I was only in my early twenties. I had just turned twenty two; wait, let me explain who I am first. My name is Nicki Maloria. I’m a tall, thick legged woman with long smooth black hair. I’m pale white, with thick lips, a bubbly nose and an even bubblier personality, if you get to know me that is. My eyes are a pure green and I have a long face, these huge hands; the hands that are perfect for holding a basketball with just one of em’.
(Yes, I can actually do that.) I have a sweet tat that covers a huge section of my left thigh. It’s of my favorite gaming protagonist of all time, Ezio Auditore… He’s my faaavoorite! My back has a giant spider web with the first letter of my name, which is Nicki. (Yes, my name is spelled weird.) Right, I’m very tall - like I’ve said before - and I have piercing all over my left ear, with a gauge in my right. I always wear these super short tank tops that show off my slightly chubby belly. I also wear a pair of skin tight booty shorts that hug my butt perfectly.
(Yes, I’m an emo girl and I love the color black. In fact, right here and now, I’m wearing a super, super tight pair of those shorts I spoke about earlier. And my top…? Well my top is so tight that my breasts yearn to break free.) But back to my mysophobia that my therapist so claims that I have. So I went into her office today; it was just a typical old Thursday afternoon for her, but it put me so out of whack. The bitch doesn’t even wash her hands when she goes to the bathroom… I’ve seen her; don’t judge me. I secretly germ-x’d it when she was gone.
She also tells me that I have an enormous OCD involving hand washing and that my fear of heights is just an excuse to get a Zanex from time to time. (Does she have any idea how hard I try not to scream, when I’m up on those towers at the factory? I have to keep forcing myself to focus on throwing boxes down it, just so I won’t freak the fuck out!) She tells me that it’s called, acrophobia. Where the hell is she pulling these words out of anyway? I’m sitting here, paying her with my hard earned money, well the tax payer’s money, but that doesn’t matter.
The point is that this old woman kept telling me that it’s all in my head. ‘It’s all in my head?!’ What kind of therapist tells someone that? Especially if they’re fragile… Like I am. So I figured, since the old broad was gonna live the rest of her life as germ filled as she was, then she wouldn’t mind if I… adjusted that timeline a bit. And when I say adjust, I mean literally. I had her head in my massive hands, peering into her cold, beady eyes. The mutterings of her pleas for help would not phase me; not today they wouldn’t. Not on the anniversary of my parent’s death.
They’ve been gone for over five years ago. They passed away in that horrendous murder suicide and my father…Sorry, it takes a lot to call that pig of a man my dad. He tore my mother apart. Ugh huh! And he did it in front of me, like it was just a typical old day of the week. So forgive me if I’m going off on a mental tangent and I feel this woman’s skull crushing between my hands; I don’t mean it! Eww… And now my hands are dirty… Uugggh! I gotta wash em’! I thanked god that there was a private bathroom, just outside this woman’s office.
So, death dripping off my fingers, and my brain going completely ape shit over the filth, I darted into the bathroom. I had to of been in there for what felt like hours, scrubbing and re-scrubbing over and over and over again. Even now, with my bleeding hands, I cannot tell whether it’s from my therapist’s head, or my own skin chaffing. No matter how much I washed, my phobia would not cease. Finally, I felt peace deep inside, and my skin throbbed, but at least it was clean. I knew that someone would come along and find that old bat, so I slid out of the bathroom like the snake I am, and fell onto a bit of open grass. The behavioral health clinic was in this massive, stone building.
I made my way out into the parking lot, swiping my hair from my face like it was just another typical Thursday afternoon. (I repeat myself a lot, but I guess that’s all part of having an OCD issue.) Not a single part of me gave a crap about that woman back there. That’s why I had a smile on my face as two burly looking men in the jail yard across the street whistled at me. (I failed to mention that I live in Norwich New York. The court house is in that same building I just left, but these big dudes were right there. One of them was as dark chocolate as a man could get and I’m gonna tell you that it’s turning me on right now.
He had a scar running down the left side of his face, and his right ear had half of it torn off. The sun was beating down on his head, shining bright like a cue ball. I could practically feel the heat burning my back, so I rushed to a nearby shaded area. No worries; it still overlooked the jail yard. The other guy who kept eyeballing my massive breasts was making was making some obscene movement and blowing kisses at me.
He was a lightly tanned man, with short black hair, a long nose and a wide mouth. He reminds me much like a totem pole character. I like the big black guy anyways, besides, (you all know what they say about black guys, right?) This got me to thinking about my first time and it was with someone who looked like this prisoner guy. Inmate 2300 I think his tag said. I don’t know one hundred percent to be honest, but I got a quick glance whilst walking by. (Right, I was on about my first time…)
Well this really tall black guy from the college football team came up to me one night. He reminded me so much of a mixture of Terry Crews and Denzel Washington, with a hint of Fifty Cent. The guy had his way with me and took my flower so fast that I didn’t even feel a thing. Anyway… What was I talking about again? I’m standing here, still gazing at those two inmates, and the wind has just picked up. I’m so cold… Why am I so cold? And why is the sky darkening so much? Where’d the sun go? What the…? Off in the distance I can see something dark; something, huge is rising up out of the ground.
A large pair of blood red eyes are gazing at me. M-My heart feels so frigid; m-my…my skin won’t stop crawling. “What do you want?!” The monstrous hulking mass started to make its way down the street. With every single thing that it touched, it would become destroyed. The walls are rotting off the houses and the cars are turning to giant rusted masses. My skin won’t stop crawling… It feels like bugs are gnawing at my muscles. “Aaahhh! M-My arms!” My muscles are bubbling; my hands are cracking and thickening. M-My fingers! “Owww!”
They’re stretching and growing before my very eyes. My teeth are aching… “UGH!” My teeth are thickening and my gums are throbbing worse than my hands were before. “My legs! My feeeet!” My shoes are trying to restrain my feet but… th-they’re failing! “OWWW! UGH! AAAHOOWW!” Bit by bit, the seams of my shoes ripped. My feet burst out of them, crackling and growing at a rapid pace. My socks are trying their hardest to stop them, but they are already ripping straight through. I catch a glimpse of a thick, dark black foot as it begins to poke outward.
One by one, my toes snap away from me, and I begin to grow taller. My calves won’t stop shaking and my thighs are angrily jiggling. “What’s happening to meeeee?!” I grasp onto my belly, feeling it rippling. Muscles begin to form; my butt tears through my shorts, exposing a giant dark skinned mound, that won’t stop growing. “My l-liiipppss! UGH!” I can feel them moving and growing. My nose won’t… “UGH! UGHHHHAAAAAOOOOWWW!” I can feel horns beginning to sprout from my forehead, thickening and stretching straight out of my skin.
My breasts are achingly making these weird groaning noises. I look down to see them beginning to rip through my top. They quickly rip it straight off like it’s made of paper and my bra strains to contain them. That monster was getting closer; I can practically smell its hot breath. “Yes, change for me! You are perfect to be my princess!” He said to me in a very low voice. My shorts tore completely off as a tail began to sprout from the base of my spine. My hands were still growing and my hair grew down to my waist as my hips flew this way and that.
I was becoming a tall, muscle clad, hourglass figured demoness. The horns that were growing began to curl inward, like a wild goat’s. The demon was only ten feet away now. “Grow. Grow my little girl.” “AAAHHHHH!” I instantly shot up another eight feet. My legs an buttocks burst outward all at the same time, and my feet stretched outward fast. With one last grunt from my lips, I stopped growing. I was taller than all the buildings around me, easily towering over them by fifty feet. The demon stared at me; I could see a bright pentagram seared into his forehead.
Suddenly a burning sensation took over on my own, I grasped it, with tears in my eyes. I could feel the skin searing and knew the pentagram was forming. My eyes started to burn shortly afterward; I knew they were turning that bright red, like this demon’s. Before I knew it, his and my own mouths were locked. Overhead I could hear thunder clashing and saw lightning flying all over the sky. Fire began to form all around us; our passion was so sac religious and so wrong, but why did it feel so right? I wanted this demon to grab a hold of me and take my worries away.
The fires rose upward, licking at our sides as we began to descend into the ground. Not even the super heat of the earth’s inner core, was a match for my newly grown, thick skin. We sank lower and lower, until the ground above me began to seal itself up. Then there was a never ending black abyss. I could see Hell looming off in the distance below us. Numerous amounts of people were groaning and moaning as we passed by them. Some were begging for money, others plead for death. “You can decide my princess. What will their fates be today?” The demon asked me.
I could feel excitement taking over my entire body. My heart won’t stop beating like a freight train, though I’m not sure if it’s because of my hulking mass of a body, or something else. We entered this large, cavernous area, surrounded by lava. Men and women of all sizes were screaming in agony, as the demon and I began our track towards these massive thrones. They sat upon a hill of bones. I sat upon my seat with the demon to my right, as he snapped his fingers. A list appeared before my eyes, with hundreds of names on it. “Take your pick my princess. Who shall suffer today?” I ran down that list and my heart skipped when I reached the M section.
“M-Maloria?” I muttered. Then I saw my father’s name Arthur, my mother’s name, Abigail and even my older brother’s name, Ethan. But then, right at the bottom of the Maloria list, I saw it. “Nicki? W-What?” I couldn’t help but gaze at the demon beside me who smiled. “Welcome home daughter.” He laughed as the list burned in my hands. All around me, other demons appeared, including another female and a tall, lanky male. The demoness peered down upon me with a long mane of grayish hair. A cane was in her hand; beside her was a tall. The thin demon got down to one knee, bowing before us two. The elderly demoness did the same. “What’s going on?” I asked.
The demon that transformed me grabbed a hold of my hand, rubbing his thumb along the top. “Welcome to our family’s personal hell. We sold our souls to the devil years ago, and the tradition hasn’t changed since. You claim to have mysophobia but that is not true. Your phobia of germs was only because of the good you felt around you. No matter how much you washed your hands, did the feeling ever go away?”
I shook my head in return, and the demon smiled. “You see, that’s because there was too much good around you. That time when you killed that therapist? That was when I knew you were ready to join us. You didn’t even care that you killed an innocent woman and even afterwards, you started lusting over two criminals. Your lust is just like your mother’s here. As for your acrophobia… I guess that’s my fault. I was always afraid of heights when I was human, but I got over it after I transformed. I know you‘re confused, but that murder suicide was all an angle the police came up with. Your mother and I sacrificed our human bodies to do Satan‘s bidding. I killed her and then myself; Ethan here took himself out shortly thereafter, but you were not ready yet.” All of this was too much for me to take in at once.
“What happens to me now?” As I asked this question, the list appeared and I saw my name being burnt out of it. “You no longer are part of those who suffer. But you are special; more special than all of us.” The old demoness was speaking now. She was only a few feet away, staring up into my eyes. A smile was on that twisted face of hers. “You will be the one who will be allowed to walk the earth in human form. Your job will be to recruit as many people as you can to come down here. So, go back to the surface. Your talents are needed.”
Suddenly I felt a wave of pain rushing throughout me. My hands were beginning to move around again and started to shrink. My breasts, chest, arms, legs, feet and buttocks were following suit. I felt the horns disappearing back into my head and my teeth and head shrank as well. I fell off the throne grunting as the tail flew back into my
body. My entire being kept shaking as the shrinking continued. When I opened my eyes, the fiery pits around me were gone. I was back outside the jail yard, but I was naked. I quickly covered my chest and disappeared into a nearby alley.
As I sat there, in the cool shade, I felt my stomach churn. Something was wrong with me but I couldn’t tell. I closed my eyes, feeling my head aching and when they reopened, I was back in the therapist’s office. My clothes were back on and I had the woman’s head in my hands. My heart jumped instantly; I felt like I was gonna have a heart attack. “I-I’m sorry ma’am. I must’ve lost my mind a bit… I-I’m so sorry.” The woman smiled, grasping my hand, and that was when I saw her irises turning yellow. “It’s alright honey, just take a rest. You’ll need it when you transform again.” I heard my mother’s voice for the second time and laid down upon the bed in that office. The woman kept smiling at me, bearing large, sharp teeth. I knew what my job was now and why I was so different. And I loved every single minute of it.

Haunted House

by

Gerald Arthur Winter


The kids in our neighborhood had to protect the reputation of our local haunted house at any cost. We all swore that the ghosts of Old Man Hoogesteger, his crazy hunchbacked wife,  and the two trick-or-treating kids they’d allegedly murdered, still haunted the dilapidated mansion on Springfield Boulevard.
Gossip had it that the Hoogestegers had gone nuts when the stock market crashed in 1929 two days before Halloween. The old man had been president of the local bank. Supposedly, he’d lost everything on Wall Street. Which of the two Hoogestegers had chopped up the kids in the cellar was still uncertain, but the old man had hanged himself in a closet in that mansion, and the court had sent his wife to an insane asylum.
More controversial than any competing haunted houses in the area, the Hoogesteger mansion still retained the added myth of missing gold bullion. The old man supposedly had absconded with gold bars from his bank, but they were never found. Many believed he’d hidden his stolen treasure in his mansion which had stood empty for over twenty years.
Walking to school I’d pass the house twice a day and would always walk on the far side of the street. Just wide enough for two cars, Springfield Boulevard had no sidewalks. I’d squeeze against the mulberry bushes in front of the vacant lot across the street. I’d keep constant watch on the house, always leaving plenty of running room for a head start whenever I’d pass the spooky place.
After hundreds of crossings past that dreaded vacant house, its scary image had become fixed in my mind two round towers separated by the jutting peak of the main roof topped both ends of the fourth floor in the middle. With round, stained-glass windows, the mansion resembled a church. The windows and towers reminded me of an English castle.
High privet hedges separating the house from the road had become so overgrown that kids could swing down from the fifty-foot maple tree in the front yard and land on top of the hedge without falling through. My older brother Bobby and I would often lie spread-eagled atop the hedge, feeling suspended in midair. Without a scratch, we’d shimmy on our backs towards the outside edge before riding the bending shoots to the ground.
Kids had broken most of the windows of the house long before I was born. When wind would whistle through the old place, most kids thought they’d heard ghosts howling inside. My dad had expressed amazement that no one had ever stolen the fifteen-foot oak panels of the front entrance. In my imagination, those scary carvings looked like demonic signs. Each kid had his own translation of what they might mean.
The gray paint on the shingles hadn’t peeled over time, but wind had worn them over the years as if they’d been sanded and buffed smooth. Four spruce trees had grown high over the black, shingled roofs and would cast sinister shadows at dusk. The grass had grown three feet high in the yard and had gone to seed every season for decades.
No kid would ever venture near the Hoogesteger mansion unless on a double-dog dare out of fear of being called “chicken.” When three or more kids would get together on a boring Saturday afternoon, one of the older boys would invariably propose an assault on the haunted mansion.
“Let’s go to Hoogestegers,” Bobby suggested one day, “We’ll hide in a closet and listen for the ghosts. Maybe we’ll even catch one.”
Younger kids like me would usually say, “Nah. That’s no fun. Let’s play Red Light or Ring-a-Leevio. How about softball at McNulty’s Field?”
“Are ya scared?” the older boys would say. “What babies! Nothin’ bothers ya in the closets, not unless Old Man Hoogestegers’ ghost is still hanging by his broken neck in one of them. Then you’ll have to run like hell before his crazy hunchbacked wife can snag ya with one of her crooked, boney fingers. You little kids just stick close to us. They walk only at night anyway. Let’s go. Come on, Jem. You, too, Joey. We’re goin’ on a ghost hunt at Hoogesters’.”
“Nah,” I’d say. “I’m not goin’. Joey and I are goin’ to the beach. Right? C’mon.”
Lying on his back, his eyes closed as he chewed on a piece of tall grass, Joey would say:
“Nah. I’m sick of the beach.”
“Come on, babies,” Bobby said. “We’re goin’ to Hoogestegers’ mansion to scare those damn ghosts.”
Bobby and his friends got to their feet and tossed stones at us younger boys.
“Let’s go, babies. We’re doin’ it. Now!”
 
* * *
One day the march began with a lazy, single-file trek through the woods behind the homes along Springfield Boulevard between the brook and the old wooden, Public School 161. Bobby and his best friend, Billy Kahras, led our motley band with big Ted Urtel right behind Johnny Meinz, the fat kid in the neighborhood, shuffling behind.
I followed ten paces back shouting over my shoulder to Joey Amidon, who still lay on the ground without moving. “Hey, Joey! Let’s go! Wake up, ya idiot! We’re leavin’!”
Jumping to his feet, Joey ran after me. “Hey, Jem, wait!” Somehow, despite his untied sneakers, Joey didn’t stumble on his face. “Hey, where ya goin’?”
“Hoogestegers’, birdbrain. Don’t ya ever listen?”
“How come?”
“Jeez, Joey. Wake up. They’re tryin’ to scare us ’cause they think we’re just a coupla babies.”
“I’m scared of Hoogestegers’.” Joey shivered. “Why do we have to go there?”
“If we don’t, we’re babies, and they won’t play ball with us and stuff. Don’t start cryin’.”
“I hate that place.” Joey shuddered. “Gives me the creeps.”
As we approached the old mansion, the closer Joey and I walked behind Ted and Johnny. Seeing the old house through the trees, Bobby and Billy crouched in the bushes to scout the yard. The rest of us kneeled behind them, all staring at the spooky place.
After a few minutes without any signs of danger, we scurried, still crouching, to the last line of overgrown bushes behind the Hoogestegers’ backyard. Bobby led, giving us orders.
“Don’t move,” Bobby whispered. “We’ll go in one at a time. I’ll go across the lawn to the cellar door first. Next will be Billy, then Teddy and Johnny, then you little kids. Stay down, move fast, and keep your voices down. Ghosts can hear so good, they know when you blink your eyes. Don’t blink.”
Bobby scanned the house and overgrown lawn he was about to cross. After a few seconds, he bolted from the brush and ran as fast as he could in a crouch until he was ten feet from the house, then he dove, flipped over, and covered the last few feet tumbling until he ended up at the foot of the old cellar door.
Standing fast, he pressed his back against the side of the house and waited. When nothing happened, with confidence he waved for Billy to follow.
Ted repeated the commando attack on the house with the same result. Johnny was next, but he couldn’t run and crouch simultaneously. Instead, he lumbered sloppily across the lawn and arrived safely, but wheezing all the way.
Next came Joey, them me, without waiting for Bobby’s signal. Running for our lives, we choked back screams and tumbled into each other near the end of what felt like a twenty-mile run. We fell in a pile at the older boys’ feet, but the big kids grabbed us by our shirt collars and yanked us to our feet, pulling us tightly against the side of the house without a word.
All listened in silence . . . then we heard the noise.
I figured ghosts don’t talk, but just shuffle around.
First, we heard them coming down the stairs. There was a brr-rump sound from inside the house, then rump—rump, then silence. Pushing my ear against Bobby’s chest, I heard my brother’s heart pounded. If those noises frightened the big kids, they had to be real. That meant the ghosts had seen us coming and had come down the stairs to grab us.
I heard brump—bump—rump then silence again.
Joey pinched Johnny’s fat belly so hard, Ted had to pry away his grip. Bobby and Billy’s wide eyes scared me even more.
“We’ve fooled around with these ghosts once too often,” I said. “They’re mad and banging around in that empty house something fierce.”
Brump. Rump. The sounds came again. Scurry-scurry-scurry-scurry. It sounded like a dog’s paws slipping across a linoleum floor.
“Run for it!” Bobby headed across the yard with his head thrown back and his arms pumping like a track star.
The others broke after him, but they tripped over one another other, arms entangled and loose sneakers coming undone. Seeing Joey hopping with one sneaker in hand, he looked like he was in a Laurel and Hardy comedy, but there was nothing funny about running for our lives. The big kids jumped through the bushes to safety. Before Joey and I caught up with them, we skinned our elbows and scratched our faces crashing through the thick brush. We ran another hundred yards along Springfield Boulevard until we saw the older boys, winded and wheezing with laughter where they sat under a gnarled elm tree. In my piqued imagination, the old tree looked like it had a twisted mouth and a scary expression as its limbs hung over the older boys.
“You little kids OK?” Bobby asked as we sank to our knees with our heads down ready to puke our lunch. “Scary, ay, Jem?”
“Scared you, too,” I said breathlessly.
“Sure did. Those ghosts almost got us. If they start movin’ that quick, just get the hell out a there. There’s no tellin’ what a ghost might do to ya.”
I didn’t sleep well that night. Who could after an assault on Hoogesteger mansion?
 
* * *
 
That next June a new kid named Tommy Milligan moved into the neighborhood. After his father had died in the city, Tommy came to stay with his aunts for the summer, Mrs. Stellingwerf and Mrs. Milligan, elderly widows who lived across the street from my family. I figured the widows were rich because they owned a big, black car, hired an Italian gardener, and always dressed up, even for breakfast.
At twelve, Tommy was two years older and seemed to know a lot more than I did. He’d lived in Manhattan and read the New York Times each morning. Not even my dad read that one. Dad preferred the local Sentinel and the Daily Mirror for important topics like sports and the funnies. I liked Tommy because he was smart and had good manners. I learned that city kids often went to museums and libraries. They’d also go to the theater, not just to the movies, and saw live shows on Broadway. They’d dine out and meet important grown-ups, like Arthur Godfrey and Dave Garraway, who were on television.
Tommy came over one morning and sat on my porch telling me a story about the time he’d seen Victor Mature walking through Central Park. Gosh. He played Samson in the movies.
“I saw the Shah of Iran going into the Waldorf Astoria Hotel,” Tommy told me, though I had no idea what a Shah was or where Iran could be.
“The Waldorf is grand with gold ceilings and crystal chandeliers the size of your bedroom,” Tommy said.
My mom called that kind of talk, bragging, but I didn’t think Tommy was a braggart. He just behaved differently than my other friends, and in an interesting way.
I made it my job to show Tommy around town. He may be older and smarter, I figured, but a new kid always needed someone like me to show him the ropes.
We’d begin each day that summer with a city story on my front porch before I’d give Tommy a tour of the neighborhood to meet other kids. We’d play ball at McNulty Field, visited Kaplan’s candy store to meet Mr. Kaplan. Sometimes we’d walk to the bay, where I’d taught Tommy the difference between a horseshoe crab and a blue claw. We’d pick blueberries behind my house and raspberries near Vanderwall’s farm. I’d convinced Tommy to swim naked in a hidden cove, just to get the feel of it. Tommy would be patient though I was younger. He made me feel as if he’d found my ramblings amusing, whether he’d believed what I’d told him or not.
Tommy followed me everywhere for a few weeks at the beginning of the summer and always appeared interested and grateful no matter what I showed him. That was until our daily
adventures inevitably led us to the haunted Hoogesteger mansion.
“See that empty, old house?” I told Tommy, both of us crouching in the mulberry bushes across the street. “Old Man Hoogesteger and his hunch-backed wife went nuts and killed some kids on Halloween in that place before we were born. The Hoogester’s ghosts and the two little kids’ ghost still haunt it.”
I lowered my voice to a hushed, conspiring tone. “With sudden death and gruesome violence, spirits always stay where they were killed. They’re all in that old mansion, the dead kids and the Hoogestegers all still howlin’ up a storm.”
“What makes you think so?” Tommy asked with a grin that annoyed me.
“Everybody knows it,” I said. “No kidding. I’ve heard them. They’re really in there.”
I sensed a challenge coming.
Tommy shrugged. “All little kids think an old, empty house is haunted.”
Behind my feigned expression of patience, I was fuming.
“Kids’ imaginations run wild,” Tommy said, “like on Halloween, Jeremy.”
He always called me Jeremy, not my nickname Jem, because his aunts were so formal.
“I guess Halloween wouldn’t be much fun,” he said. “if you didn’t believe in ghosts and goblins. Same with haunted houses. Parents want kids to imagine ghosts just to make it more fun, but I don’t believe in ghosts.”
He’s a new kid, I thought. What does he know? Jeez. What a stupid way to talk after I’ve been so helpful. I fought the urge to argue, though I still felt I had to defend my honor and the dignity of our neighborhood’s ghosts.
“Ya wanna sneak in there? Look for yourself,” I challenged. “I promise you’ll hear them.
They’re in there for sure. Could be the last thing ya ever hear.”
“OK.” Tommy shrugged. “I’d like to see inside that big old place anyway.”
I thought, Jeez, what a cool customer. He’s too smart for his own good.
“I dunno,” I grumbled, staring at the mansion. “We can’t just walk in. We have to wait for the right moment. You have to sneak up to a place when the ghosts aren’t expectin’ ya, then take ’em by surprise. Otherwise, they’ll know you’re comin’. That’s big trouble.”
I’m weakening and losing respect, but what should I do? I wondered. You can’t just go whistling and licking a fudge sickle as you stroll into that place. You need to mount an assault. I can’t go by what some new kid says. What could a city kid know about our ghosts?
Tommy stood up and said nonchalantly, “Let’s have a look.”
He squeezed through the mulberry bushes, but I caught him by his pant leg.
“Wait! You can’t just walk in!”
“Why not? Is it private property?” He glared back at me through the bushes. Sure it was private property. A faded, broken sign had informed people of that on the front lawn for many years, but older boys had chucked the No Trespassing sign into the hedges last spring and no one had bothered to put it back.
“We have to sneak in,” I said. “We always sneak in so they can’t see us coming.”
“What for?” Tommy asked. “That’s only if you believe in ghosts. I don’t.”
“The heck with ya. Go ahead and walk in. It’ll serve ya right,” I huffed.
“Come on.” Tommy squeezed through the mulberry bushes. Standing erect and in view from the house, he crossed the street towards the mansion. His actions bordered on suicide.
I’m responsible for the new kid, and he’s walking to certain death with his head up and his arms swinging at his sides as if he’s ready to buy the place.
“Tommy? Wait!” I hissed.
Tommy didn’t hear me as he walked into the mansion’s front yard. I watched, unable to move. My eyes burned straining to see Tommy and to assure myself that he was still alive.
The kid’s a gonner, I thought. Jeez. He must be nuts. Look at him walking up to the front door. He’s a damn fool.
To my disbelief, Tommy reached the door and disappeared for a few minutes behind the house before reappearing through a broken window from the inside.
“Holy Jeez!” I said, thinking—he’s walking around like he owns the place. Through the broken windows, I saw Tommy meandering around the front room.
He’s looking at the architecture like a termite inspector, I thought. As I remained frozen in my crouched position behind the mulberry bushes, I didn’t know how much time had passed. I couldn’t see Tommy anymore, and I started to have trouble breathing. My legs began cramping. I thought surely I’d seen the last of Tommy. No sound came from the house, nor was there any movement at the windows.
I needed to straighten up, but remained safely behind the bushes. What will I tell his aunts? The kid’s dead. What will I tell everybody? Mom will blame me. It’s murder to let a new kid wander into that place. Poor guy. I liked him, too.
I shuffled nervously from side to side. “Come on, Tommy,” I whispered. “Come on out of there before they get ya.”
Suddenly, there he was standing in the front doorway, carefully inspecting the carvings on the oak doors, swinging one back and forth with his arm as if he’d just hung it.
I crashed through the bushes onto Springfield Boulevard, but stayed on my side of the street. “Tommy! Get out a there!” I shouted.
Tommy waved back. “Jeremy, come here. Look at these neat carvings. They’re interesting. They look Byzantine.”
What do I know from Byzantine? I wondered. I can’t believe this guy. “Who cares! Get the hell out there, will ya?”
“Come here, Jeremy! Come see these nifty designs!”
“I’ve seen ’em a dozen times! Let’s go home!” Feeling exhausted from Tommy’s confounded calmness, I turned up the street towards home. Resigned to whatever fate might befall Tommy, I thought, the kid’s ridiculous. The hell with him.
Tommy caught up with me. “Jeremy? What’s wrong? There’s nothing in that empty house but interesting old stuff. No ghosts or anything scary. What’s wrong?”
His manners and calm demeanor made me crazy. Speechless, I kept walking and just stared straight ahead.
“Jeremy, are you mad at me for going into that empty old house? I thought you said it was OK, that it wasn’t private property.”
When we arrived at my house, I turned to go in without a word, leaving Tommy standing in the street and calling to me.
“I’m goin’ in,” I called over my shoulder. “See ya tomorrow. But stop callin’ me Jeremy.
My friends call me Jem.” I took the steps two at a time, then slammed the screen door behind me. I watched Tommy from my upstairs window. He walked slowly back to his aunts’ home with his head bent and his shoulders stooped. I felt ashamed for being so mean and rude to my new friend, but his attitude about my haunted house had insulted my pride. It was hard to stay mad at Tommy for long. My mom said I’d learn good manners from Tommy because his family was what she’d called “refined.”
 
* * *
 
During the rest of that summer, Tommy and I would explore the mansion many times. We figured out where Old Man Hoogesteger’s bed used to be and found pieces of broken china that must have been used in 1929. We discovered a curled section of a sallow, black-and-white photograph with a woman’s head cut in half along a jagged edge. She’d been standing in front of a sapling, which must have grown into the fifty-foot maple tree in the yard over the past decades.
We also found a sterling silver fork with the letter “H” for Hoogesteger. Tommy guessed that the Hoogestegers used the big room along the back of the house to play billiards, because we saw leg marks the size of a billiard table on the threadbare carpeting. Holes in the walls marked where cue racks had been. Tommy was smart about things like that, a regular Ellery Queen.
Late that summer, when Tommy and I had become comfortable with our secret expeditions into the Hoogesteger mansion, I’d get edgy if we’d stayed inside too long and the sun had begun to set creating long, creepy shadows cast by angled sunlight coming through the broken windows. I’d feel my imagination running wild again and would rely on Tommy’s cool-calm-and collective approach to the scary place.
Our most frightening experience at Hoogestegers’ finally came, but when we’d least expected. For a brief moment, even Tommy believed in ghosts. Calmly exploring in late August, we courageously descended to the dingy cellar’s depths, where hearsay had placed the murder. Tommy discovered the entrance concealed behind a china closet. Without hesitation, he told me to follow him down the rickety stairs to the mold-ridden cellar.
After exploring for an hour, Tommy held up a filthy pillowcase as he called to me, “What do you suppose this is doing down here?”
Tommy started to shake the pillowcase to show me there was something heavy inside it.
Puzzled, we blankly stared at each other.
“Maybe it’s a gold bar old man Hoogesteger stole from the bank?” Tommy said with a hopeful grin.
That would make our summer, I thought.
“Let’s see!” I said, grabbing the pillowcase and reaching into its open end.
“What is it, Jem?” Tommy said, finally trained to use my nickname. “Let me see.”
“It’s hard candy, old candy, all dried out and—” I froze.
As I was about to finish speaking, the door at the head of the cellar stairs suddenly swung open, and we saw the long, creepy shadow of a hunchbacked figure on the landing.
“It’s trick-or-treat candy from Halloween!” I shouted.
“Whatcha doin’ in my house?” a voice rasped. “Find what yer lookin’ for? Ya nosy little creeps! When I catch ya, I’m gonna skin ya alive!”
We screamed and ran for the outside cellar doors leading to the overgrown garden. A hunchbacked old woman hobbled down the cellar stairs after us. We glanced over our shoulders
as we dove into the mulberry bushes and saw it was the old, homeless woman in town who the kids called “Humpback Hattie.” Everyone knew she was a little crazy, and some suspected that she’d take shelter at night in abandoned houses. She didn’t come out of the house to chase after us, but we still ran all the way home.
My mom told me the old woman was sort of crazy but probably harmless. Tommy’s terrified expression that day convinced me not to tell him the truth. I thought a good scare might do Tommy some good and make him more humble about our haunted house. I had to promise him that if we ever entered the haunted house again, it would be only in early daylight to avoid any chance of being trapped inside after sundown with Mrs. Hoogesteger’s ghost.
“OK,” Tommy said, “from now on the cellar is strictly off limits.”
Sometimes we’d hide in the upstairs bedroom when little kids were coming home from school down Springfield Boulevard. We’d make ghost sounds by howling and scraping a dried branch across the wooden floors.
The little kids would stop, stare at one another then run off, looking over their shoulders to make sure they weren’t being chased by a ghost. Though Tommy and I’d laugh, I often felt sad about it. I stopped scaring the little kids after Tommy returned to Manhattan when school started.
Tommy’s mom had gotten her affairs in order over the summer after Tommy’s dad’s passing. She was happy to have Tommy return to Manhattan with her. I missed my adventures with Tommy after that summer. He’d written to me occasionally, and I’d enjoyed answering his letters with detailed accounts of my own solo adventures.
When I was in junior high, I passed the empty Hoogesteger mansion one day and saw a sign staked on the overgrown lawn: FOR SALE.
The maple tree, privet hedges, overgrown lawn, broken windows, and even the two round towers looked the same. The empty old house had remained just as before, but it was no longer haunted, except perhaps in the mind of a boy crossing over into adolescence where ghosts and goblins had become mere shadows of his vivid imagination.
 

Now and Forever


by

Gerald Arthur Winter



At age eleven my curiosity often got the best of me, especially regarding an old homeless woman in town. Whenever our paths crossed, the old woman’s distorted image always startled me. Though most kids called her “Humpback Hattie,” my mom wouldn’t allow such disrespect in our home for the downtrodden. Even my dad referred to her as “Humpback Hattie” whenever Mom wasn’t around. Having known her by that name for as long as he could remember, Dad couldn’t break his childhood habit. No one else had ever questioned the impropriety of such a name, because the old woman had actually responded to her derogatory nickname, but always
with blatant belligerence that terrified kids with her cussing tirades.
Even at Town Council meetings, Mayor Potsworth had referred to historical events
in town as occurring, “before or after Humpback Hattie’s time.”
She and her nickname had become key elements to the town’s folklore, a benchmark on the community’s historic calendar. Events occurred BHH or AHH—before or after Humpback Hattie had first appeared in town,
a date which no one could recall with any certainty.

I hadn’t know how old she’d been when I’d first seen her hobbling down Valley Road,
but to most kids, she seemed at least a hundred years old. Her dirty, white hair was always sprayed out from under her gray fedora, which looked like a hat the junkman might have put on his nag. She was so bent over I couldn’t guess her height. She looked maybe four-feet-nine and probably weighed over two hundred pounds. Her deformed right hip stuck out making her torso lean to the left. She’d balance by resting her right hand on her deformed hip and sticking
out her right elbow. Bent in that position, she’d waddle along, supported by a gnarled wooden cane in her left hand. She’d occasionally swing that crane at kids who got too close when they’d taunted her:
“Humpback! Humpback! Humpback Hattie!”
Cranky and gruff, she’d take pleasure in scaring any foolish kid who’d come near enough for her to hook her crooked cane’s handle around his neck and pull him closer to grab him by an ear or pinch his nose. Though I’d never called her names or taunted her, she’d growl at me if she noticed I’d been staring at her.
“Get home where ya belong!” she’d snarl as kids passed her on the street. “Go home, or I’ll take ya home with me. What a dandy flavor you’ll add to my soup tonight.”
Her threats had struck fear in the hearts of all the children in town.
Feeling they were losing control of their own naughty kids,
frustrated parents would say,
“If you won’t behave, I’ll send you to Humpback Hattie’s. She’ll straighten you out.
You won’t eat the vegetables here, so maybe you’ll like fish heads and chicken claws Hattie finds in the trash to make her soup of the day.
How’d you like Hattie to spoon-feed broth to you tonight?”
That would shock a kid into two weeks of good behavior. Nothing could be worse than being banished to Humpback Hattie’s lair, because if any kids had ever been sent there, they must not have lived to tell about it.
No one knew for sure where she lived. Humpback Hattie’s having her way with a kid had become a recurrent nightmare in all kids’ minds. She’d been a tangible threat, not like vampires, werewolves, or goblins that would fade a few days after a Saturday matinee. Hattie would continually reinforce her frightening folklore by growling and snarling at kids as they cowered in the mulberry bushes or behind shopping carts at Bohack’s supermarket.
“What’re ya lookin’ at, ya snivel-nosed brat? I eat kids a lot bigger than you for break-
fast. Get the hell out a here!” She’d spit out her harsh words through her missing front teeth that made her resemble a jack-o-lantern.

She carried a tattered cloth bag full of things that kids had imagined were naughty kids’ ears and toes she’d kept as trophies. Trying to hit kids with her carpetbag, she’d snarl, “Skinny kids like you ain’t good fer nothin’ but cryin’ like a bunch a babies. Get out a here before I whack ya one with my cane.”
Her intended victims would squeeze out of a store’s doorway and run down the block
before stopping to turn back and taunt her.
“Humpback, Humpback, Humpback Hattie!” they’d chant. “Nah-nah, na-na-nah!
You can’t catch us!”
Hattie would look back as she continued her mysterious rounds from one store to the
other, filling her carpetbag with odds and ends from storekeepers. They’d give her something, anything, just to make her move on and stop scaring away customers. As the sun set, Humpback Hattie would always head to her secret lair.
Kids had often dared one another to follow her, but she was cagey, always giving them the slip. I’d followed her around town for two hours once. She’d led me to the hospital through the ER’s waiting room, but then she’d never be seen coming out.

Another time she’d completed her rounds at Saint Mary’s Catholic Church and had
entered the dark interior, never to emerge. A few days later she’d led me to the junkyard at the dead end of Cannonball Road, where I’d thought I’d finally found her home. My three-hour search of every inch of that scary junkyard before dark hadn’t uncovered a trace of her.

When I asked my dad where Humpback Hattie lived, he got a faraway look in his eyes,
reflecting, “Hmm. That’s one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in town. Many have tried to find her home, but as far as I know, no one ever has.”
“She’s a crippled old lady who’s lived in this town since the dawn of history, Dad.
Someone must know where she lives.”
“If they do, they aren’t telling,” Dad said.
“You’re just teasing, right?”
“No. I don’t know where she lives, and I don’t know anyone who does.”
“Someone should try to follow her home,” I said. “She’s slow and crippled. It should be
easy.”
“Why don’t you just ask her? I’ve never seen her without her tongue wagging a mile a
minute. She’s just apt to tell you.”
“I never thought of that. Maybe I will,” I said, swaggering out of the room.
From the corner of my eye, I caught the look on Dad’s face as I turned into the hall. He
smiled with an approving nod.
I’d have to succeed on my own because a group of kids following Hattie around the streets would alert her. Then I’d never learn where she spent the night. It had to be a solo mission with a top-secret plan.
At first, I’d thought following her alone might’ve taken the fun out of it, but I found that solitude and quiet planning had heightened the challenge and mystery, making my hunt for crazy Humpback Hattie’s home more exciting, maybe even dangerous.
The mission made me feel older, too. This wasn’t kid’s stuff. I’d be the first one in the
town’s history to discover Humpback Hattie’s secret. If I were successful, Mayor Potsworth would have a parade in my honor followed by fireworks that night. I might even learn who she is, where she lives, and maybe even her age. Did she have a weird, reclusive family hiding in the woods? It was a perplexing mystery, one I became determined to solve. When school closed for summer there was plenty of time to follow the old woman and study her habits. I began the first day in front of Seal’s Candy Store. Humpback Hattie would limp past Seal’s every day at 7:45 a.m. on her way to Mass at Saint Mary’s.
She was always on time.
Never letting her out of my sight, I followed her into the church
then sat in the last pew. She sat in the first pew and began praying at the top of her lungs, to the obvious annoyance of Father Griffin.
“Our Father, who art in heaven!” she yelled.
Hattie followed a word behind, speaking in a voice twice as loud as the priest’s. The
prayer sounded like an echo, but louder than the original sound. Pausing in the middle of the prayer, Father Griffin glared at Humpback Hattie, but was oblivious to his stare. Caught in a spell of piety, she hadn’t noticed he’d stopped,
so she kept right on praying loudly.
“Hallowed be Thy name! Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done!” she boomed.
When he realized he’d lost control of the Mass, Father Griffin tried to pick up the prayer wherever Hattie had been and followed her lead to the end. His face contorted with repressed anger as he muttered the Lord’s Prayer
under Hattie’s gravelly baritone.
Hattie finished with a dramatic, “Amen!” and a nod to the priest,
signaling him to continue the Mass.
Her nod made the pompous priest’s face contort in frustration, clearly visible to the
faithful in the congregation. His face had turned red as he fought for self-control. His eyes twitched as he fought back the urge to hurl himself at Hattie.
After a few tense moments, he walked behind the altar to finish the Mass. Hattie
remained oblivious to his anxiety. Before the priest finished the final prayer, Hattie lost interest in the proceedings and began bumping and banging her way from the pew until she reached the aisle. Once there, she turned towards the front doors with her bulky, deformed hips facing the altar and hobbled out with a final act of disrespect to the frustrated priest.
Father Griffin glared at Hattie’s wide butt as she waddled down the aisle. Biting the index finger of his clenched fist, the priest retreated from the sanctuary with a muffled groan.
Determined not to lose her trail, I hurried in pursuit. As I emerged into the sunlight,
I almost ran into Hattie on the church steps.
“What the hell do ya think yer doin’?” she said.
I jumped back a step, pressing my back against the church doors.
“Ya followin’ me, ya little scamp? What do ya expect ta find, ya nosy brat?” Hattie
said. “You’ll find the back of my hand or the end of a sharp stick! Get out of here before ya piss me off, ya skinny, bird-brained snot!”
As she cocked her cloth bag to swing at me, I jumped out of her reach, running down
the street a hundred yards before I felt safe.
At the corner of Valley and Maple, I dodged into Whelan’s Drugstore for a soda. Tom
Bickford, a high-school senior, worked there as the fountain boy.
“Hey, little guy,” he said. “What can I get ya?”
“Don’t call me little guy.”
“No offense. Big guy, then.” Tommy smirked. “How’s that?”
“Cut it out, Tommy. I’m doing something important. I’m trailing Humpback Hattie to
find out where she lives. It’s my mission this summer. Gimme a lime ricky.”
“You’re following Humpback Hattie? A little kid like you? Forget it,” Tom said.
“Full-grown men can’t find out where she lives, who she is, or what she’s been doing here all these years. Ya think you’ll find out just by walking behind her? Forget it.”
“What’s the big deal?” I asked. “She’s just a crippled old lady who hobbles around
town. Why can’t anyone follow her?”
“She’s slippery and clever,” Tom said. “You’ll never figure her out.”
“I gotta try.”
“Be careful. She’s dangerous,” Tom warned. “You never know what she might have
in store for a little kid. Well, I don’t mean little, I mean—”
“I know what you mean. What do you figure she’d do to a kid my age?”
“Something horrible—that’s for sure. Over the years, we’ve had missing kids in town
¾unsolved mysteries.”
“What kids? I’ve never heard about that.”
“We’re the only town with Humpback Hattie,” Tom said. “I bet she kidnapped those
kids, curious kids like you. Their bodies must be rotting under a floorboard somewhere in town.”
“How Many kids?”
“Quite a few over the past ten years. Here one day, gone the next.”
“Jeez. I never knew that. Hmm . . . missing kids . . .”
“Yep. It’s Humpback Hattie if ya ask me.”
I couldn’t get that grim prospect out of his mind . . . Wow! Missing kids.

* * *

The Bulletin wasn’t exactly The New York Times, but Elsie Barwick had run the local
paper as if it were. She’d hold regular staff meetings with her only reporter and printer, Bill Fink.
She’d write an opinionated editorial column each week, scolding some local politician for a minor infraction of her complex ethical or cultural standards. She’d maintained an up-to-date news library that had consisted exclusively of back issues of the Bulletin filed chronologically back to what seemed the beginning of time,
surely back to the BHH era. 
I stood for several minutes in front of Elsie’s desk in her office with a pencil and
notebook in hand before she acknowledged my awkward presence.
“State your business,” she said sternly, squinting over the top of her granny glasses.
“I’m doing some research for school about our town’s history,” I said. “I’d like to
look up some information in your library files.”
“Hmm. Highly unusual for a . . . young man such as yourself,” she said. “Do you
want to become a reporter?”
“Maybe . . . if I find some newsworthy information from the past that could be
interesting now.”
“You mean like a cold case?” she asked.
“What’s that mean?”
“Some offense that was committed but never solved because there wasn’t enough
evidence—case closed.”
“Yup. That’s it.”
She stood up from her swivel chair and stood two feet taller than I. She came from
behind her desk to shake my hand. She smelled like lilacs when she bent down to look me in the eye.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Jeremy Winter.”
“Annie’s boy?”
“One of them. My older brother Bobby is in eighth grade.”
“How old are you, Jeremy?”
“Eleven.”
“Never too young to start a newspaper career,” she said. “What would this story
be about?”
“Missing kids.”
She cocked her head as if I’d hit a nerve. “Missing how?” she asked.
“Maybe an accident or a kidnapping.”
She raised her eyebrows and said, “That could use up all your free time during summer vacation. Maybe all for nothing.”
“It’s just something I gotta do.”
She smiled so broadly I thought she’d laugh. “Sounds important. Let me show you
where you need to start.”
Elsie cleaned off an old oak table to serve as my research center in the middle of the
Bulletin’s offices. She pointed to the dozens of oak filing cabinets lining the wall behind the
table. “Help yourself,” she said, “but be sure to put the files back each day before we close
at six o’clock.

* * *

I searched back through fifty-two issues from 1946 without seeing any reports of missing kids. That alone had taken over three hours. Since Elsie had confined hard news to the Bulletin’s front page, I’d been able to pull them quickly from the file and comb through the front page of each issue. Returning each to its proper place would be the hardest part because Elsie would be watching me closely.
I started searching 1947 issues:

The Bulletin - March 14, 1947

Jane Wilson’s Parents Report Her Missing to the Police

The Bulletin - August 7, 1948

Rash of Runaways Continues

After a troubled summer of run-ins with the police and clashes with his parents,
Johnny Tate’s parents had suspected he’d run away. Without a corpus delicti, the police couldn’t prove Johnny had met with trouble. The article had concluded he could be another runaway, like the two others reported by parents in recent weeks.
The rebellious-teenager syndrome had swept through town. Maggie Mason and Bill
Ash had also rebelled by running away that summer, but police had found them together, safe but shaken, after drinking beer all night in Pine Forest off Valley Road.
It had been a red-flag year for missing kids in 1949. Just plain missing.
The articles had contained no information about where anyone had last seen the
missing kids, or if anyone had suspected foul play. Browsing through the rest of the 1949 issues to see if any of the kids had returned or had been located by the police, I’d found no more mention of them.
1950 and 1951 had no reports of missing kids, so he went on to 1952.

The Bulletin - July 23, 1952

June Clausen Feared Drowned

June Clausen, age 12, last seen swimming at Crystal Lake, may have drowned.
Police dragged the lake for three days without a trace of her body. They have always
recovered other drowning victims in the lake. However, currents may have swept her
body to the deepest part of the glacier lake
to one of its bottomless underwater caverns.

The next group of issues had turned up nothing more about June. Then, in 1953,
I found another story:

The Bulletin - November 1, 1953

Two Trick-or-Treaters Vanish

Two little girls had never returned from trick-or-treating. Though local authorities
had suspected kidnapping, according to following issues of the Bulletin, no one had ever demanded a ransom.
There had been no missing kids reported in 1954.
After eight hours researching. Elsie sent me home and closed for the day. I dreamed
about missing kids that night.
I worked at the Bulletin for three more days, going back to 1944 then tracing issues
to the present. In a decade, twenty kids had vanished without a trace. Each story had offered a different explanation. Between drownings, runaways, and possible abductions, no one had seemed to notice how many were missing altogether. I pointed that out to Elsie Barwick.

“What do you make of that, Jeremy?” she asked.
Since I had no proof, I didn’t speculated yet about foul play from Humpback Hattie.
I would keep that to myself until I’d found more convincing tangible evidence, though I felt certain Hattie must have played a part in at least some of those disappearances.
I tailed Humpback Hattie again the following morning. I hadn’t bothered to attend
another painful church service, but had waited outside until she came out to make her daily rounds at the local shops. She grumbled and muttered to herself as she waddled down Valley Road towards Harddacker’s Grocery Market.
I followed fifty paces behind, making sure she didn’t see me. Entering Harddacker’s
she immediately accosted Bud Harddacker who hadn’t seen her coming.
“Buddy boy, where the hell did ya get these measly potatoes?” Hattie asked. “No damn good. How do ya expect me to survive on these puny spuds?
Ya wanna starve folks to death?
The size of marbles for crap’s sake! What the hell are ya up to?”
“Good morning, Miss Hattie. How are you today?” He greeted her with a calm smile as
if she’d hadn’t insulted him. “How about a couple ears of this beautiful corn? I got them fresh this morning from Tyson’s Farm.”
“If I wanted corn, I’d of asked for it. Potatoes, ya buzzard! I want potatoes!”
She left him and continued shopping just as he knew she would. She took two ears
of corn, one large tomato, a head of lettuce, and a turnip placing them in her cloth bag as she went. It was Bud’s job to watch her and charge her accordingly before she left. She never bothered with the checkout stand, always paying with coins from her moth-eaten purse. When she finished selecting vegetables, she limped towards the door. Bud intercepted her, asking for $1.15. She paid without a grumbling comment then left, heading towards
Tanberg’s Butcher Shop.

Three local women were in the shop when Hattie lumbered through the door and up to Tanberg’s counter. With her right hand planted on her hip and her torso bent to the window level of the meat counter, she studied each piece on display. The other women stopped their conversation when Hattie entered. They stood to one side, waiting for their orders as Hattie inspected the meat counter from end to end. All knew that one false move could set Hattie’s tongue wagging with a string of obscenities that would take them a week to get over.
Hattie grumbled, “No scrapple today, Tanberg?”
“No scrapple, Miss Hattie!” unseen, he called from behind the counter as he bent over
his work for the three ladies waiting.
She said, “If no scrapple, make it tongue.”
Her order placed, she turned in her bent position towards the door, seeing the shoes and  hems of the three petrified women shying away in the corner. She tipped her head back to look at them from under the brim of her hat, shrugged, and turned towards the counter again.
“Make it tongue for those three. The cat’s already got their tongues today.
Need some new ones.”
She shuffled to the storefront then sat on the wooden bench outside the door.
When Tanberg brought Hattie the tongue wrapped in butcher paper, she paid him
without comment. Hefting herself from the bench, she trekked awkwardly up Valley Road towards Saint Mary’s.
I was hiding across the street behind some maple trees. As she headed for what I hoped would be her home, anxiety made my stomach gurgle. Because she hadn’t seen me yet, she wouldn’t have to take any evasive action. Hopefully, she’d be so tired from a day of awkward ambling that she couldn’t do anything else
but go straight home.
As she headed up Valley Road, I followed at a safe distance. She walked slowly, one
hand on her protruding hip and the other holding her heavy cloth bag
barely off the ground.
She wore a gray woolen cardigan sweater over a faded red-and-blue-checked cotton dress. The fedora and her white hair completed her ensemble giving her the appearance of an overstuffed
scarecrow.
I felt sorry for her as I followed her to the edge of town and down the road towards the lake. With the breeze gently blowing her faded dress, she continued hobbling along at a snail’s pace.
I wondered why I suspected her of crimes against kids. Impulsively, I ran to catch
up with her to offer to carry her sack. But before I reached her, she turned into the woods. When I arrived at the same point, she was gone. I rushed into the woods to look for a trail or path, any sign of her, but found no clue. I searched the woods until nightfall without success.
As usual, Humpback Hattie had vanished without a trace, even after I’d been so
vigilant. I realized then that she must have known she’d been followed. I felt a chill of fear. I concluded that Hattie must possess supernatural powers to vanish so quickly without a trace.
Darkness soon enshrouded the woods faster than I expected. Everything within the thick forest took on new shapes, appearing sinister and out of focus as night cast shadows between bushes and trees. Losing track of how far into the woods I’d wandered, I felt nervous. I’d lost my bearings without any idea how to retrace my steps to the road before nightfall.
A cool breeze stopped me from my search for Humpback Hattie. I felt a tingling
sensation down the back of my neck, realizing I was lost. I spun around, trying to remember my route through the woods, but nothing seemed familiar in the dark. Descending night had washed out all color from the scene. Shadows and dark clumps replaced bushes and paths.
The evening breeze whistled through branches bringing the woods to life.
I turned full circle, peering into the shadows, trying to discern anything familiar and
comforting. My breathing quickened erratically. Trying not to panic, I took a deep breath to steady my nerves. Rather than staring into the dark, suffocating woods, I looked up at the sky and saw wispy clouds scooting past the ascending full moon.
Calm down and think, I told myself. I can’t be more than a hundred yards into the
woods. When a car goes by on Valley Road, I’ll hear it and walk towards it. Just relax, sit quietly under a tree and use my hearing as a guide.
With a hand extended, I took a few steps towards a large oak I recalled seeing earlier,
but it faded to a dim outline. I felt like I was entering a movie theater in the dark and stumbling because I couldn’t see the rows of seats.
When I felt the oak’s rough bark, I sat against the trunk to rest my befuddled mind and shaky legs. The trunk and the ground were warm from the heat of the day, giving me some comfort. I sat still looking into the dense, darkened woods and night sky with its full moon flickering brightly above through the forest’s canopy.
I felt like whistling but didn’t. I listened, realizing the darkness had made my hearing
more acute. Branches rustled, squirrels moved in the trees and, occasionally, a larger animal, a skunk or raccoon, would scurry nearby. I waited to hear a car to go by, but none had or would.
Some Boy Scout you are, I thought. Be prepared? Yeah, right, tenderfoot.
I jumped to my feet and tripped over a root and hit the back of my head against the wide tree trunk. I lay there on the ground, feeling tired from the day’s exertions. With a yawn and
stretch, I soon fell asleep . . .
At first, I thought I heard a beautiful female voice humming in the distance as a song
came faintly to my ear. Then I thought it could be a high-pitched bell ringing in the breeze, or perhaps a chorus of children singing a hymn from a mile away.
Yes, it’s a chorus of children, I thought, stirring from slumber and hearing their distinct voices. The girls’ high-pitched voices, clear and resonant with the boys’, tingled and shimmered:
“We are one, now and forever, always together.”
Their words were audible just above the wind. A second group of voices replied with the same melody:

“We are one, having fun, now and forever.
We have won, never done, having fun,
now and forever.”

I peeked around the tree trunk to look for the singers coming closer.
As my head cleared
the trunk, I saw a faint, white light spreading out below a chest-high mist rising from the ground.
The fog gave the forest an eerie aura as it swirled around bushes and trees.
Under the rolling mist, white footlights created a feeling of expectation, as if something important were about to happen and surely would. I wasn’t able to see the source of the light.
The glow illuminated the ground under the mist, covering at least twenty yards across its trail. The singing persisted, becoming clearer and louder, as if the singers would soon appear as they
came closer.

“We are one, now and forever, always together,”
they sang delicate harmonized choral tones.

Listening to the approaching music, I pulled my head back behind the tree trunk. My
earlier fear subsided as I rested my head against the trunk. I waited with resignation for the chorus to surround me.
The ground light dispersed around the base of the tree and moved past me on both
sides then rejoined in a straight line, leaving me trapped but safely hidden in the darkness of the tree’s long, narrow shadow. The singing filled the bright area around me with great volume,
but without penetrating the darkness of my shadow.
The volume became soft and low, while
the light pulsed with the children’s penetrating voices.
I saw nothing more than the white ground
light under the forbidding, swirling mist of the night fog gradually enshrouding the entire forest.
Then, like oozing honey, booming voices poured sweetly into my shadow.

“We are one, having fun, now and forever.
We have won, never done, having fun, now
and forever. We are one, now and forever, always together.”

Though I felt through my body the ear-shattering volume of the sound in the light, I
heard only tender, modulated tones. I didn’t dare move, because I feared that, if I’d step from the shadow into the light, the crushing volume would pierce my eardrums, shattering my sanity.
The bright light might erase my shadow and would crush me with its intense volume if I violated the delicate border between light and shadow. I sat and watched the moving ground light. The
children’s voices continued to sing. I listened to children’s soft, soothing voices as I waited. I stared straight ahead at the
long, narrowing shadow. Although it disappeared at a point in the distance, I felt confident that the light wouldn’t merge with the shadow, but instead, would continue separately into infinity.
As I stared into the endless shadow, I saw her walking slowly towards me. There had
been nothing more than a vague movement at first, until the image gradually became Humpback Hattie. I didn’t recognize her at first, because she stood straight and tall. She wore no hat, and her white hair flowed down her shoulders and draped down her back. For the first time, I saw her smile.
She had all her teeth, perfectly aligned and sparkling white.
Her voice was musical and crisp: “You have chosen to join the missing children. You’ll
leave your family and the world you know to join us in the eternal light. You need only to cross the boundary between light and shadow. Then we will be as one, having fun, now and forever,
always together.”
With bright eyes, she smiled at me, but I knew that if I’d cross the threshold of light, the inhuman decibels of the children’s chorus would crush me.
“Who are you?” I asked, hoping to buy time. “Where am I? Where’s Hattie?”
She smiled, giving me a familiar tilt of her head as if to say, “Here I am.”
“You’re in the middle, precious boy, but you must decide. Your curiosity has led you this far, but you must choose to step into the light or remain in the shadow. Answers you seek are in the light. Satisfaction eludes those who remain in the shadow. Join me in the light.”
She came close enough to offer her hand.
Jumping back, I hit my head against the tree trunk again with piercing pain rippling from behind my eyes. “Ow! I don’t know what you’re talking about!” I shouted. “I just want to go home!"
The tree and the light on both sides hemmed me in, and Hattie blocked my escape down the shadow’s center. I tried not to show my fear, but she stared at me, with eyes glowing and her body floating a couple of feet off the ground. She waved her arms like an orchestra conductor, and the volume outside the shadow doubled.
I cringed, covering my ears.
“Join the missing children!” she boomed over the music. “That is your reward for seeking the truth.”
The chorus continued at high volume as she hovered in front of me.
“The missing children are dead!” I shouted. “I won’t join them. Let me go! I want to go
home!”
She waved her arms, and the music rose again, but to a deafening volume.
Covering my ears, I fell to my knees with unbearable pain. With my head pounding,
I felt nauseous, hearing:

“We are one, having fun, now and forever.
We have won, never done,
having fun, now and forever.
We are one, now and forever, always together.”

Unable to stand the pain, I sprung to my feet, running directly at Hattie where she
remained in the center of the shadow. Whether she stepped aside, or I ran through her ghostly image, I’d never know, but I kept running down the center of the shadow. Blinded by pain, I avoided the light on both sides, stumbling over rocks and shrubs.
Run! I told myself. Don’t stop! Go! Go!
I tripped over a log and plunged headfirst, immediately falling unconscious.

* * *
I awoke the following morning with a headache and a deep, bloody scab from my right cheekbone to my right ear and a goose egg in the back of my head. I lay still for a few minutes before noticing the red glow in the east just before sunrise. It was dawn. I’d slept all night in the woods. I rolled over and leaned against a tree trunk. Painfully rising to my feet, I took a look around. I heard traffic and headed in that direction through the woods lit with morning’s glow.
I thought, Was it a nightmare? Was it real? I felt the lump on my head. That was real.
Dirty, snagged, and wrinkled, my pants reminded me of my narrow escape from Humpback Hattie.
Realizing I’d never stayed out all night before without telling my parents, I knew they’d
be upset. Thinking of my mother’s worry, I hastened toward the road and headed home, wondering what I’d tell my parents.
Arriving home at seven o’clock that morning, I learned that my parents had waited up all night for me. Though visibly fatigued, they seemed very glad to see me. Mom was on the phone when she turned and saw me enter in my bruised and disheveled state.
“It’s OK, Bobby,” Mom told my brother on the phone. “Jem’s home. I want you to
come home from Billy’s now. We’ve had enough concern for one night.”
“What happened, Jem?” Dad asked. “We’ve been worried sick.”
“Sorry. I went hiking in the woods on the old country road and tripped and fell in the
dark,” I told them. “I lost my way in the woods.”
“We’re glad you’re home safe,” Mom said, grabbing my chin and turning my head to
examine the welt. “You haven’t been fighting, have you?”
“No, Mom. I fell. Honest.”
“OK, but shower before breakfast,” she said.
Dad said, “I’ll whip up some pancakes for your welcome-home.”
Knowing Dad made the best pancakes in the world, I showered quickly and put on fresh clothes. As I came downstairs, the aroma of pancakes and bacon wafted from the kitchen and made my stomach growl.
“Better call Dr. Davey to ask if Jem needs a tetanus shot for that cut!” Mom yelled to
Dad. “He might have a concussion!”
Dad made an appointment for me to see the doctor later that day.

* * *

After I got a tetanus shot, I walked to McNulty’s Field to see if any kids might want to
play baseball, but no one was around. Glum, I sat on the rickety old bleachers, tossing a scuffed baseball into the air as I waited.
Minutes later, I spotted an old woman hobbling across the field from Valley Road. Even from a hundred yards away, I knew it was Humpback Hattie. Bent over, carrying her cloth bag, she moved slowly, giving me plenty of time to run, but I wasn’t able to move a muscle.
Unflinching, I watched her crossing the middle of the diamond between the second base pad and the pitchers’ mound. She seemed to be heading towards an opening in the wooden fence behind first base. I sat motionless in the stand along the third base line hoping she wouldn’t see me.
When she reach the pitchers’ mound she called to me,
"What’s the matter? No one to play ball with?”
I didn’t answer, so she halted, jerking her head towards me. I held my breath.
“Cat got your tongue, sonny?” she called to me. “Ya dumb kids are all alike, scared of
yer own shadow. I’m not gonna bite. You’re too damn skinny for eatin’. Go find some friends to play with. Go on. Get goin’!”
I didn’t budge. My heart pounded and I felt short of breath.
“Ya heard me. Go on. Get the hell out a here!” she shouted.
Finally, she shook her head, continuing her journey towards first base and the broken
fence. As she reached first base, she looked over her shoulder at me. She bent over slowly then scribbled something in the dirt with her cane. She straightened back to her distorted posture and hobbled towards a loose board in the fence. She left the field with the board swinging and creaking behind her.
I never saw Humpback Hattie again, and I never told anyone what she’d written in the
dirt with her cane. I figured no one would believe me anyway. They’d think I was crazy. Still, I needed to tell someone what Hattie had written that day. I was sure Sara O’Neil would never
laugh at me if he told her. Instead of laughing or mocking me, Sara listened quietly and looked deeply into my eyes.
She gave me my first grown-up kiss long and sweet as a ripe peach in August.
After telling Sara about my encounter with Humpback Hattie in the woods, I told her
what happened after Hattie had left the ball field. I’d slid off the bleachers, running to first base to see what she’d scribbled with her cane. Sara had been the only one with whom I’d ever shared Hattie’s words etched in the baseline dirt.
Though the wind had quickly blown the words away, I was sure that Sara would take me at my word, even if no one else would believe me.
Years later when we were going steady in
high school, Sara would often wink at me in the hall as we changed classes. Then she’d whisper our shared secret “Now and forever . . . Always together.”

God and the Witch
 
By Heather Cordray

 
“I’ll have two cubes of sugar,” God said.
Tabitha looks at him in question. “You like your tea sweet, huh?” she asked.
“Well, the fruits and herbs that make up the tea were sweet enough initially, but Man has Dr’d with plants so long that the plant themselves have become watered down. They have lost their potency and flavor over time.” he went on.
Tabitha tilted her head to the side. God knew what she was asking before she opened her mouth. He answered the question. “Yes, man is my creation, thus making him perfect. But I gave them souls and free will. In their perfection, lies the crux. They are TOO perfect, they think themselves Gods. They see their nerves or their vascular system, and view each other as ….anyway.” He raised his hands in a helpless question.
She dropped the sugar in his cup and poured tea over it. She seated herself across from him and poured herself a cup of the stuff. She inhaled it’s gentle aroma and grinned. There was nothing wrong with the tea as far as she could tell, but she only had 30 years of experience to draw upon. She couldn’t remember a time when tea tasted more vibrant. She was a tea expert of sorts, she mused.
God was going on about the perfect invention; man. He spoke of capillaries and nervous systems then he settled on the topic of souls. Tabitha perked at the change in topic.
Not that she doubted the perfection of man, but she tired of hearing about it. Sometimes it seemed like he was bragging. Then again, He WAS perfect. Wouldn’t it only make sense that he thought highly of himself?
Souls were of special interest to her, though. He had said something about giving Man a soul. She interrupted him right there.
“Gave them souls?” where did the souls come from? I thought you created them.”
“No, I didn’t create the souls…….They did, actually. I was trying to give them intelligence, a sense of self worth. Then the serpent enticed the female. They gained self awareness all right. They gained an entire soul at that moment. Whole and unfettered. I’ve been trying to reign them in since. I don’t fully understand souls, to be honest. I can see them inside man, but I believe man isn’t using them to their full advantage. The key is love. If they but loved one another fully, as I love them, they would realize the depths of their souls.
She shook her head Yes, and then no. Her experience with humans was that they were a fickle species. They’d come to her for love potions, then hexes, then abortifacients. They’d love each other one moment, and wish each other dead the next. Human’s didn’t know what they wanted, as far as she could tell. Or else they wanted different things, depending on their moods.
Maybe that was the point, maybe their moods and emotions determined too much about their lives. Maybe they had internal struggles that had less to do with love, and more to do with some tug-of-war inside their minds. Something that having a spiritual soul and a biological body with biological needs caused.
God was watching her emotions flicker across his face as he stroked his beard. He said nothing at first, just sat and watched her. “So, what’s going on between you and the Morning Star? You still seeing him?” God asked with a glint in his eyes.
“I’m single,” she said while looking at her fingernails. She put her hand in her lap finally and looked him square in his eyes. It was a challenge. “I’m saving myself for love, true love.” She said
God continued to stroke his beard, but deep in thought this time. “So, you’ve never been in love?” he asked her.
The idea of God asking her about her love life struck her as funny, and she laughed out loud.
Though technically she was human, she aligned herself with spiritual beings mostly. Angels and demons, nymphs and sylphs.
She felt the urge to dance suddenly, and crossed her legs at the ankles and gripped the table edge to stem the need to be up and away. God felt her restlessness through his bones, because ultimately she was one of his children too. He felt her unwillingness to love and he loneliness at the same time. He wished her happiness, the way he wished it for all of his children.
He felt a tenderness for her suddenly. He thought of her as his child certainly, but foremost as his friend. They had been meeting since she was a tiny child and served him tea from her toy tea set. She had been a quiet child, not many friends. He an omnipresent being. It was a weird fit, but he immediately liked their tea dates. She seen him as most mortals refused to. She saw him for what he was: both everywhere and no where at the same time.
She saw him as pure love. She didn’t fear what she didn’t understand. He admired that about her. There was so much too fear on earth now, mostly because of free will. He allowed Man to do whatever he wanted on this plane. Man invariably chose to live in sin.
She couldn’t help herself a second longer, she got up and wandered away, swaying to a tune only she heard. She ran past the little white picket fence and down to the sweet gurgling stream. She watched it tumble over the stones a few moments, then she decided to walk in, still wearing her little canvas shoes.
The stream was cool and exhilarating. It sent her feet into dance mode. She danced around and around. She kicked water up and her legs got all wet under her little sundress. A few rabbits, a sylph, a couple deer and about 10 tadpoles came out from hiding to see her happiness, her love of nature. She climbed out of the water and went to a tree, she felt it’s bark and mourned with it about the acorns that had fallen that day. But rejoiced with the squirrels about the find.
She found a fresh dandelion and took a little spade out of her apron and dug it out by it’s roots, thanking the forest for the delicious find,
​and the dandelion for giving itself unto her.
A little honey bee buzzed by her and lighted on her arm, she stood still and watched her clean the pollen from her wings and then fly off again. She felt the love of the forest, and loved it right back.
God was beside her suddenly and held her hand. He felt her love and knew her to be alright. She was really ok, she wasn’t alone after all, she had so much love inside her, enough for all of humanity. Maybe humans would be ok after all.
1. I think the English hold the sugar cubes in their teeth and drink the tea through it. This is my attempt to make God seem multicultural all at once
2. She is 30, yet has the mind of a small child. My view of a lady I know is the inspiration for this character. Kind of learning and socially disabled yet spiritually and emotionally rich and developed.
3. She is human but aligns herself with spiritual beings and nature.
4. Sylphs are water spirits, nymphs are tree/forest spirits.




Below: Charles E.J. Moulton in the production of Benjamin Britten's "Gloriana"
Gelsenkirchen, Germany

Altered Reality
 
By Heather Cordray
 
 
The day was lukewarm with a chance of cloudy, to mar the beautiful sunny September afternoon. As a frequent kite flier, I was out to get my last flight in. The best weather in Ohio for kite flying was usually in the spring, but I was going to get the last bit of air I could for my kite. I wouldn’t call myself an enthusiast, but I was pretty close. Kite flying was still mostly a diversion, not quite an obsession yet. That’s what I told myself anyway as I selected my favorite kite. ‘Old Blue’ was the last kite I had flown with my father, before he died. I grabbed the box kite out of the hatchback and set about testing the stays and tying a new string to the kite.
“Well, Old Blue, you feeling the weather today?” I asked her as I neared the field I’d chosen for this afternoons flight. So engrossed in the act of preparing mentally for flight, I’d forgotten to look around before speaking to the kite. A little girl on the swing set giggled at me for talking to the kite.
“That’s ok,” “She doesn’t understand” I told Old Blue.
I wondered briefly if I even understood, but it was the briefest of thoughts, and it barely registered in the forefront of my mind. It manifested as a shiver down the spine on a warm September day. I took my jacket off and started walking backwards with the kite billowing out from me. The wind was perfect!
I found myself running with the kite in no time. I kicked my sandals off without a moments hesitation. I was laughing and running and suddenly the wind picked Old Blue up and carried her high above the trees that stood on the edges of the field. The kite was up and swimming in the breeze like a fish in the water. The wind whipped Blue back and forth, but held her aloft all the same. I tugged the line and she tugged back, taking more string and going higher and higher. I tugged again and she made as if she were going to plummet, all the air sucked out of her sail, only to catch the wind and sail to even greater heights.
Old Blue always left me breathless like that. I was so engrossed in Blue’s flight that I almost didn’t see the cheap plastic kite crossing across Blues’ string. Too late, I yelled for the offending kite to get clear of me and my kite. I was looking up(rookie mistake) and ran smack into a little girl and her (?) father. I tripped over the child and knocked her down in the process. Blue’s line went slack and she started to droop to the earth. The little girl started crying and I ran to catch my kite. The father pulled at his
line and his cheap plastic kite darted headlong towards the dirt, dragging Blue with it. I ran to my kite, trying desperately to catch her before she hit the ground and damaged herself. The guy had the nerve to yell at ME, as if I’d done something wrong.
I looked around for the first time at the father and the little girl. The girl was wearing an old red sweater that was way too big for her and a pair of jeans. The sweater looked like it might actually fit the father. He was one of those weekend fathers, you could tell. He had a bit of scruff and no money or he’d be somewhere besides a public park for this glorious Saturday. I could smell desperation on him, it clung like body odor to his thin frame.
The brat was wailing about her ankle and the guy was trying to coddle her into not making a scene. But making a scene, she was. Though no one was there to see her wail. I looked at the child for the first time, really looked at her. She was pretty in a little kid way. She had long brown hair and a smattering of freckles across her nose, She was at that gangly age where nothing fits and everything is too big or not big enough. Her jeans were a good inch above her sneakers and that’s not the way the kids were wearing them right now. At least I didn’t think they were wearing them like that….not that I knew lots of kids.
I looked at my kite and then the girl and the guy. I heaved a huge sigh and asked the girl if she were ok. The girl looked confused and didn’t answer fast enough for me. So I ran toward the kite and was shocked and disappointed to see that one of the stays had indeed broken in the fall. That and the rice paper that made the panels of the kite were punctured by the cheap plastic kites plastic sticks
that made the frame for the thing.
The plastic one, in some weird karmic display, was fine. I went to kick it out of her way, or step on it ‘accidentally’. I considered myself a very nice person to strangers. Though, truth be told, I didn’t bother them if they didn’t bother me. But this girl and her father had intruded into my private time with my memories.
“Olivia, squeeze my hand if you can hear me,” her mother said.
There was a snuffling from her father, over that was the sounds of ventilators and beeping machines and whirring machines, the cold drip of the IV bottle and the warmth of her mothers hand. The warmth of the hand seemed so very far away. The sounds of the hospital were coming from a great distance as well. The room seemed to be on an out of tune radio station, not coming in all the way and fading fast. The dream was so real, grass stains on bare feet, mid day sun.
“John, look! Her eyelids are moving, call the nurse.” Madeline told her husband in an excited whisper.
“We’ve been over this before,” John whispered back, “Eyelid movement doesn’t indicate brain function all the time.”
Liv could hear them from a million miles away. She could hear their voices and the intonations. She knew the voices, like the hand, belonged to her parents, but she couldn’t tell what they were saying. She could tell they were upset, she felt that it had something to do with her, but something was missing. Some crucial part of the puzzle was missing.
The little girl was rubbing her ankle and her tears had subsided. I brought the surviving kite to the girl and her father. I felt like crying about my own mangled kite, but I maintained my composure. I WAS the adult here anyway. The girl wiped her eyes on her sleeves and reached out her hand for her kite. I kept ahold of it until the father could witness me being nice to the girl. The father, in all his scruffy-ness, was running to where Liv and the girl were standing. Neither of the females thought they were in the wrong, the Dad reached out his hand and introduced himself as Michael. “Sorry about colliding with you there miss, we kind of lose our heads when we fly kites”, he said. The girl looked like she’d been slapped by her father.
I knew that look, the look of betrayal. Her father had just admitted to a fault the girl didn’t share. The girl harrumphed and stalked off with her kite
in hand. Michael still had his hand out and I realized that he, like most men, had no idea what had just happened.
I chuckled in spite of myself. “Name’s Liv” she said at his confusion. “You just really pissed off your daughter”. I told him.
“I know, but she’s 12, everything pisses her off”. He said with a wink.
I didn’t know whether to offended for the girl or for feminism or what, but I felt somewhere between thinking this guy was a complete ass and feeling like I was in on a grown-up secret for once.
People didn’t share secrets with me. Not that I would tell other peoples’ secrets. But I didn’t really have friends that needed secrets kept. That’s not to say that I didn’t have friends,… of course I have friends, I must have friends….
Now it was her father’s turn to talk to her. He talked in her ear about warm rain in the summer and snow on your eyelashes in winter; hot chocolate with marshmallows. He spoke of when she was a girl and coming in from sledding to a grill cheese sandwich and tomato soup. He talked about the time he had taken her fishing and she had refused to either bait a hook, or take a fish off the line. At the time he had grumbled about why she even wanted to come, but now he understood she’d just wanted to be with him. He talked about the kite he’d bought for her when she was 12, about how they should take it for a flight as soon as she was better.
A tear leaked out from under her eyelid. His breathe caught in his throat. He wasn’t sure what he’d seen for sure. He heard a tiny scratching sound and looked down towards her hand. He pinky finger was moving up and down in a scratching motion on the bedsheet. This time he DID call the nurse.
Madeline was drowsing on a chair they had brought in for them to take turns sleeping, since neither would leave Olivia’s side. It had been like that for the few weeks since the accident. They only left her side for the essentials, bathroom breaks, showers, and food. He was retired and she had a part time job that gave her all the time she needed to get Liv better.
The nurse came in looking tired and overworked. The couple had come to the nurses station a dozen times in the last few weeks with ‘She isn’t doing well, we have to save her’ or the occasional ‘Liv just moved, get a Dr.’ Usually by the time the nurse came into the room, whatever Liv’s parents thought was happening had stopped.
There had been brain activity, but no movement. Her team of doctors had told the family that there was no reason why Liv hadn’t come out of her coma, she just hadn’t. That some brain injuries required more healing than others. They told Madeline and John (her parents) that it was up to her to fight to come back to them.
The nurse came into the room as Liv’s eyelids fluttered, and then opened a crack. John gasped and Madeline was awake in a heartbeat at the sound of them back in the room. Liv’s hand slowly closed and Maddy rushed to grasp it. First she held the hand of her daughter gently, then more firmly, willing the hand to move again.
Liv’s eyes shut and her hand went slack. Maddy didn’t let go of it for long for fear she would miss a second of connection with her daughter. Maddy sat on the edge of the bed, tears streaming down her cheeks. Liv was still in there! Somewhere, somehow, they had to reach her. Maddy looked at John and asked him what he’d been talking about to Liv. In what seemed to be slow motion, the nurse checked some papers that were pooling under Liv’s various machines and wrote something on her chart. Looking at her wristwatch, the nurse said that Dr Brown was on duty now, and she went to go page him to Liv’s room.
John was almost in shock at the turn of events. He had almost given up hope, though he’d never tell his wife that. But Liv was struggling to come back! He snapped out of his mind fog and answered his wife. “I was telling her about fishing in Johnsons’ pond and how she refused to bait her own hook. I talked about Old Blue. I talked about how much fun that kite has been and how we needed to go for another flight as soon as she was better.” He said it all in a whisper and Liv’s eyes fluttered again. “The kite, that has to be what she’s responding too,” he said even softer. The lights were out in the room, it was 4 am and the hospital was observing ‘quiet time’ which was when the floor lights were dimmed and the nurses only bothered you for meds or emergencies. John and Maddy had gotten used
to speaking in hushed tones over their daughter. Though John felt like shouting from the rafters and dancing a jig. Liv was going to come back!
Liv and Michael walked over to her car and she put her busted kite in the back. His girl was back on the swings and was shooting the two of them dagger eyes every time Liv looked in her direction. You know how when you feel someone staring at you, you can’t help but look back? That’s the situation here. Michael had his back to the swings, so he didn’t see the death glare, but Liv couldn’t help but see. Every time Michael spoke, Liv would look at him and see the naked hatred from the girl. It got to the point where the girls’ fury was all consuming, Liv began to lose track of the conversation between her and Michael.
He had asked her a question, she was sure of it. He was saying something important about kite flying. “I used to fly with my parents, I wanted Maddy to know the joy I felt as a child. I’d buy her a better kite if I knew she’d get into it. No use putting out the money for yet another hobby she abandons in a week, you know?”
He had said the child’s name was Maddy, that was a weird coincidence, wasn’t it?
I looked at him dumbly, would he know that I’d been doing the nod and smile thing to him for the last ten minutes? Of course not, he WAS a man. In my opinion, men didn’t notice too much.
“What’s Maddy short for?” I asked him.
He looked at me as if a frog had jumped out of my mouth. He blinked a few times, then said “Madeline. It’s a family name.”
“My mother’s name is Madeline,” she said. “also a family name.”
Michael noticed he had left his fiat’s lights on. He went over to go shut them off. I went over to go talk to Maddy. I cleared my throat when I got to the swings. Now the girl wouldn’t look at me. I got on the swing next to her and started swinging. She swung higher, I swung higher still. Soon she was swinging till she was up, even with the bar of the swing set. I
laughed and fought gravity to get even with her. When I was, I did a ‘cherry bump’. When I was at my highest, I let the chains of the swings go slack. When gravity kicked in and I was on the down swing, it made the whole swing set ‘bump’. A shiver went down my spine. I laughed and Maddy laughed with me. She did a cherry bump when she was on her down swing. We both laughed like old friends. I did a couple more cherry bumps and then she did. I hadn’t giggled like that since I was Maddie’s’ age. Before I thought better of it, I leapt from the swing and flew through the air. Flying was easy, landing wasn’t as much fun as she remembered though.
I landed on my feet and instantly sharp pain shot from my ankles to my knees, and back down to the balls of my feet. It knocked the wind out of me. I crouched down and my eyes teared ever so briefly. The park swam and I blinked it back aright. Maddy skidded to a halt and came to see if I were alright. I heard her behind me and stood up. She was behind me and touched my shoulder. I turned to tell her concerned eyes that I was fine.
Michael was walking across the parking lot toward us, I looked Maddy in the eye and a jolt of pain hit me across the chest this time.
…”But what happened?” John asked the doctor.
“You can’t be here, please wait outside.” The nurse said to him. “We’ll take care of Olivia, but you have to let us do our jobs.”
John went back to Liv’s hospital room and his concerned wife. Maddy was wringing her hands and crying. He thought about the last 24 hours.
Liv had shown signs of getting better. She was opening her eyes and gesturing with her hand. One her doctors had suggested taking her off the ventilator. They had whole-heartedly agreed. She was then breathing on her own. She slept a great deal of the time still and the Doctor said this was normal with brain injuries as severe as hers. Her parents still were concerned with the amount of sleep she was having.
There was never a short supply of Doctors with opinions at the hospital. One day a young doctor came in and suggested they try and
experimental drug that would wake her up and promote brain activity. It would ‘speed’ her up in a sense, he said. He introduced himself as Levi.
Worried about their daughter, John and Maddy agreed that the drug was in Liv’s best interest. Levi wrote something on her chart and shook both parents’ hands. Then he strode out of the room. Liv was waking up and Maddy rushed to her side. Grasping Liv’s hand Maddy told her daughter all the things that had happened today at the hospital. There wasn’t much to tell, but Maddy could make drying paint sound interesting. She had the gift of a born storyteller. Liv watched her animated face and wondered at her mother’s nervousness. There was something Maddy wasn’t saying. She could always tell when her mother wasn’t being completely honest about something. Even though she could tell a mean story, Maddy couldn’t tell a lie to save her soul. Not even lies where she simply omitted the truth. When Liv had been a little girl, her mom could never tell a story about Santa Claus or the tooth fairy. Liv, being a naturally curious child; would ask if Santa was real. Then Maddy wouldn’t be able to lie about it. Liv could see right through her even at 6 years of age.
“What’s up?” Liv croaked in a thin voice and then put her hand to her throat. The ventilator had made her voice raspy, her throat sore. It hurt Liv to talk, Maddy knew. As much as it hurt her to keep things from her daughter, Maddy thought Liv might not be seeing things as clearly as Maddy and John were. It didn’t occur to Maddy that Liv was clued into her as she had been before the accident. Maddy didn’t see that Liv was focusing on the conversation and responding.
Maddy was just being a mom. She wanted her daughter to be well. After the months of nothing working, Doctor Levi was offering a solution, and Maddy was jumping on it with both feet. Maddy patted Liv’s hand and told her not to worry herself, that everything would be fine, now.
The magic drug arrived the next morning in the form of a syringe and several sheets of paper. One was permission to administer the drug, there was a couple pages telling what was in the drug and possible side effects.
Maddy leafed through them, found the place to sign, and signed the forms. The Doctor on duty lifted the syringe from his clipboard and went over to Liv’s IV. In what seemed to be slow motion, he injected the fluid into her line. Then he walked out of the room and they never saw him again.
Within minutes Liv’s heart monitor began beeping faster. In the next half hour, the machine monitoring her brain waves started scratching across the page faster. Liv woke up and smiled at her parents. Then three things happened at once: Liv eyes lit with a surreal glow, she spoke very clearly to Maddy, “what did you just do?”, and her heart monitor let out an alarm that sent every nurse and doctor on the floor running to her room.
John was awake in an instant and jumped off the chair/couch thing. He ran to Liv’s side as the nurses and doctors were starting to wheel her down the hall.
John ran to keep up with the gurney, he grabbed at Liv’s hand and that’s about the time when the nurse interceded. She told John to go back and shut the emergency door in his face.
John went to Liv’s room and looked at his wife of 30 years. “What just happened, Madeline?” He spoke in a voice he only used when she had screwed up something. When she had had the affair early in their marriage, she had used that tone of voice.
“The doctor came with the drug to wake her up, the one we agreed was in her best interest.”
“What doctor? John asked.
Maddy looked shocked and confused. “He—he didn’t give me a name, just these papers.” Maddy began riffling through the paperwork, and nothing looked familiar. Nothing but her name. She read what she had signed and her face went slack, all the color draining from it.
The paperwork stated something along the lines of the drug was experimental (which Maddy knew) but there, above her signature was a statement she had to read 4 times and still didn’t comprehend. John took the papers out of her hand and read what she had signed.
As temporary legal guardian, I give permission to Dr. Levi Thon to administer this drug to Olivia Bertram. In so doing, I will agree to give possession of her body to the university hospital for study in the event of her death.
After that was her name, Madeline Bertram, in her neat handwriting.
“I don’t understand any of this, John said.” Madeline looked at the drug information again, through teared filled eyes. She blinked a few times to clear the tears. The words swam before her eyes. She wiped furiously at her eyes.
There were a few pages she signed, the last one she didn’t recognize her own handwriting. The papers slipped out of her hands, leaving the one she had signed when she was a child. The one promising the devil her soul of her first born in exchange for the woman at the park going away forever.
As soon as she glanced at this sheet of paper, it turned to dust in her hands. She looked at her husband and again the world was in slow motion. She sat/fell to the floor and the commotion in the hall was far away. Her husband was far away, there was only a little girls rage at being dismissed by her father and the evil bitch that had ruined her day of kite flying with him.
There is only a little girls rage at being dismissed….Dismissed by my father, talked down to by the lady with the blue kite. I swung higher and glared at them. The lady was still talking to Dad. I hated her on principal. Everywhere we go, there is some lady that Dad finds to talk to. I wished she would go away, I wished it so hard that I was sure it would happen. I closed my eyes and wished it even harder. I wished it so hard I dreamed a little bit I think. All there was in my world was the creaking of the swing, the muffled conversation of Dad and the lady. Then there was silence.
I opened my eyes and I was in a white room with a bunch of machines in the corner. They were beeping and humming. There was a man and woman standing around a cot with a lady on it. The lady from the park! A man with a stethoscope around his neck walked into the room and spoke to the man and woman. Then he walked up to me and put his hand on my shoulder and led me out of the room. We walked out of the room and into another room. It was a quiet room with no machines in it, nothing was in it but a really old man. The doctor told me his name was Levi. He said he’d heard my prayer. I looked at him curiously. “Prayer, wish, same difference.” He waved my concern away. “I can make your wish come true.”
I just looked at him. “Hold on a minute,” he told me. He walked over to the old man and touched the man’s forehead with his finger. “Time to go, he told the man.” The man sat up and started to get out of bed. He was very thin and his legs were wobbly, they didn’t look strong enough to hold the old man up. He stood up on his thin legs and fell to the floor.
Levi moved between me and the old man, blocking out the site of him on the floor. For some reason, as soon as I couldn’t see the man, I almost forgot about him.
Levi took my hand and told me again how he could make my wish come true. “All you have to do is sign this paper, and that mean ole’ woman will disappear forever. I looked the paper over, what the paper said was something weird about my first borns’ soul, giving it to the corporation under the control of Levi Athon.
I shrugged my shoulders and signed the paper. I gave it back to Levi and I was swinging again.
Dad had walked away from the woman and was opening the car to put my kite in the back seat. The lady came over and started swinging with me…
The man was gone, the ‘dream’ was gone; oddly, so was my anger. She didn’t say anything, just sat down in the swing next to me and started swinging too. It became a competition, who could swing higher. Pretty soon I forgot all about the stupid kite and the dismissive attitude of my dad.
All at once the lady jumped off her swing and landed in the dirt. I was dragging my feet in the dirt to stop before she stood up. I reached out my hand to touch her shoulder as if in a dream. She turned towards me as I asked if she was ok. As soon as she looked at me, something weird happened. She arched her back and fell back in the dirt. Dad, who was watching us swing on the swings, ran to see what had happened to the lady. She looked at me with a far away look in her eyes, questioning me with her silence. She clutched her chest and tears streamed out of her eyes. Dad was calling 911 and speaking rapidly, giving the operator our location.
She looked me in the eye and said “Why?” to me. And then she was gone. Her eyes rolled back into her head and her chest hitched one last
time and she stopped breathing. Dad got to his knees and tried to do CPR until the paramedics got there, but I could have told him that she was already dead. I didn’t know how or why I knew that, I just did.
Liv was in a car accident on April 14, 2014. She lost control of her car on the ice and slid into an overpass. The car was totaled Liv was lucky to be alive. Everyone said so. At first, her hospital room was filled with friends and concerned loved ones. Eventually, most of them got back to their lives, going to work and dropping in only on the weekends. Then all but a few of them stopped coming at all. Her boyfriend stopped coming around altogether 6 months into her coma.
The doctors at first didn’t want speculate about Liv’s condition. Saying that her brain had received a major blow, that they wouldn’t know more until the swelling in her brain went down. They wound up drilling a series of holes in her head to help relieve the pressure around her brain.
That was all within the first few days. The swelling went down, as expected. Her brain healed itself, but they couldn’t know if she would ever fully recover. The ekg’s showed signs of brain activity, but she didn’t recover for months and months. Only her parents stayed with her after a year. They never gave up the vigil. They watched for a sign, ANY sign that would mean Liv was still in there.
Then came the day the doctor with the magic cure came into Liv’s room and offered salvation.
Madeline’s mind reeled. A thousand images filled her brain at once. She tried to sort them, and failed.
Michael’s look of confusion, the lady at the park, dying, causing so much anger one minute, so much concern the next. Liv as a baby, Liv at age 12, Liv graduating high school. Liv laying lifeless on the hospital bed. So still, so innocent. John’s look of confusion and then betrayal. Liv’s look of confusion, and then fear. Liv mouthing the word, ‘why?’ before she was wheeled away.
Madeline crumpled to the floor, distant laughing could be heard in another room. Maddy lost her mind at that exact moment.

Blank Face


By Shannon M Metcalf


​
 
The abyss has become my home for as long as I can remember. I always recall those nights where I would be put to bed and there was nothing but the slight orange glow of the streetlamp to attempt to wash away my worries. My fears… The worst part of that word, is the fact that no one else can see it. Not like I can anyway; not like I can. I would lay there in bed, gazing across my room towards my door. Most nights I would think nothing of my paranoia, and play it off as my enormous imagination trying to get the better of me, but tonight was different. I’m no longer a kid anymore, in fact, I’m twenty four and still living at my parents’ house.
My fear of the unknown never wavered however, yet I know nothing of what rests in that black void known as darkness. But like I said, tonight was different; yes, tonight I heard something far more chaotic than the images I have in my brain. It started slow and far away; it was a slight creak as if my parents
were walking around. Though I knew this couldn’t be true as to the fact that they were both gone at the casino. They did this a lot, mostly on Fridays to try and blow off some steam; I had to go investigate, naturally so. So there I was, standing already in the center of my room when the creaking goes off again. But this time it sounds so much closer than before.
In fact, I could practically hear it just a few feet beyond my doorway. My hands wouldn’t stop sweating and my heart felt like it was beating deep in my throat. Every time I swallowed my saliva, it ached. Each breath I took sounded shaky and labored as if I was recovering from a nasty chest cold, but I knew I wasn’t. That paranoia I spoke about was coming into full blow at this point. The door was only a foot away; my hand rested on the cold, unforgiving knob.
I could feel it; something was just behind this inch thick piece of wood. Part of me screamed to go back to bed and pray for my parents to get back home. Another part, the loud booming voice in my head told me to investigate. Just like any typical Horror cliché, I did just that. I swung the door open, and was met with complete and impenetrable dark. I could practically feel my eyes straining to adjust to the sudden change of light as I looked
this way and that. A weird sensation took over in my stomach, almost like that feeling you get when plummeting on a roller coaster.
My head rang as adrenaline coursed throughout me. The stairs were just to my right, going down immediately and curving to the left before descending more. Somehow the darkness seemed even more intense than where I was at this very moment. Creak. My heart stopped; the floor had just been stepped on only inches to my left. I was in shock; I wanted to uproot myself and slam my door shut. I wanted to lay and pray in my bed, begging for whomever or whatever was in my house to go away. Alas, I was unable to remove the invisible concrete that held my feet to the floor.
Please, let this just be my brain getting the best of me. This thought continued to run through my head like a broken record player. The creaking sounded again, this time a few feet away, down towards my parents’ room. Almost instantly following this, my feet were able to shift. I felt a cold sweat drenching the back of my night shirt and my breasts were covered in it as well.
Had I known now, what I would’ve seen then, my ass
would have long but gone from that house. Even though I’m not a runner, I’d jog until my heart felt like it was gonna explode. But I was an idiot back then. I continued to walk down the hall, past the bathroom on the left. The door was wide open, revealing a semi-lit, orange room. I shuddered a bit as a cool breeze ran through my long black hair. I could practically feel it moving as if a fan were on right behind me. My parents’ bedroom door was always closed, no matter what. They stressed in having privacy and urged me to do the same.
That’s why when I saw that it was ajar, my inner voice was beginning to freak out, but I continued forward. The door was only a few feet away; my feet slid across that tacked down carpet. I checked my pulse at this time, unable to believe how fast my heart was really going. Despite all this, I found myself nearly slamming into the door to my parents’ room. It was this tall, light brown stained door with a glistening coat of water protection covering it. I hadn’t even realized that my hand was clenching hard on my shirt, not until this moment. I slowly pushed the door open, and felt around the wall for the light switch.
Please be my imagination. Please be my imagination. I thought and I begged as I finally found the switch. It slid perfectly
between my middle and ring fingers and flipped up. A blinding light met my eyes, stinging them a bit as they were forced to readjust quickly. When I finally uncovered my face, that voice that always spoke to me couldn’t udder a single word.
No… It couldn’t, and I can’t blame it, now that I think about it. Death… It was all in this room. Not only could I see it but I felt it straight down into the pits of my very soul. The light that illuminated a few seconds before had been tinted a color that I wish I could push from my mind. My breathing became sporadic; my hands shook and my legs felt weak as I fell to the carpeted floor. Two bodies were resting across the room from me, one was wearing a suit whilst the other wore a long white dress. “M-Mom? Dad?” I felt the stinging in my eyes, not knowing if it was sadness or the putrid stench that emanated in that room.
I got to my feet, barely able to hold in my vomit when I heard something. Creak. My heart nearly stopped as the loud floorboards mercilessly mocked me from behind. Don’t turn around. If you value your life, then don’t turn around. It took all my courage at that moment to not scream, and I clenched my eyes shut. I figured that if I couldn’t see it, I was safe. I felt my way around the hallway, heading back towards my room. As my hands
slid across the walls, I felt something warm and slimy.
I knew it was something bad, and refused to entertain whomever wanted to destroy my life. I wouldn’t give them that satisfaction no matter what. So I felt the doorframe to the bathroom seconds later, and stumble over something on the floor. Instantly I’m reaching to catch myself, and hear a loud snap from my left wrist as I hit the tiled flooring of the bathroom.. “Ow.” My eyes were open, which I realized and wanted to shut them, but the bathroom light flicked on. The door slammed shut and I was faced with the most horrifying imagery I had ever seen.
I saw a message, strewn across the wall, so angrily with dirt and grime. It said: The voices won’t stop… I’m Sorry. Before I knew it I was screaming that loud piercing silent scream you see in the Horror movies. It was so loud that my ears rang seconds following this. The nasty liquid was pouring down the walls and into the tub. Just the contrast of it against the white tile bared too much for me and all of my worries turned to sickness. Just as I was about to throw up, the door slammed back open; I whipped around, only to be met with a giant mammoth of a man.
He towered up to the ceiling and his nose was completely
gone, as if it was never formed; the same went for his mouth. Though it looked like a long burn scar ran across, where it should’ve been. The only thing he had for eyes were two long, scars. I was paralyzed with fear, wanting to just sprint as fast as I could. The man tilted his head a bit, acting like he was taking in all that he created. His hands were covered in grime and then I knew who wrote that message. “Please don’t kill me. I promise I w-won’t tell anyone!” I tried to plea with the man, but he just laughed.
And I mean that, even though it was confusing as to where the laughing came from. As he continued laughing, I heard numerous amounts of hushed voices from every single inch of that bathroom. As if these voices were powering this man, he stood straight back up and tilted his head again. Just then a slit formed where his mouth should be, widening farther and farther, until it ran straight up each side of his face. Jagged, rotting teeth appeared as he smiled so eerily at me. I felt like a deer in the headlights as the man lunged his hands towards my face.
“Please stop!” I yelled, but he threw me onto my back with such force that I became paralyzed. He was reaching for something in his pocket, and then pulled out a long, rusty knife. The edges
were jagged and some parts were dull. He pushed the blade closer and closer, pressing the tip of it onto my forehead. I screamed as I felt the semi-dull blade touch my skin. The last thing I remember before my death was the way this man kept watching me. It wasn’t just a look of shock, but it was sadness as well. He was actually crying somehow as his mouth sealed back shut.
* * * *
The abyss has become my home for as long as I can remember. Ever since the night I died, I wondered who that man was. I pondered how a person could do something like that to human beings, and never truly got my answers, at least not to his morality. Now, as I sit here, watching over this nineteen year old boy, sleeping in place I used to sleep in, I fear for him. I saw that man today, pacing out behind this house. I heard the hushed voices whispering heinous things as he became frustrated. All I can do is sit here and pray this family gets it right and moves out of this house.
It was only now, in the afterlife, that I got a glimpse of this person’s story. The story of Blank Face cannot even be truly touched by myself, not now anyways. Legend says that he’s the man with no nose; he was born without a nose or nostril holes. He
was a man who grew insane in this house after hearing voices whispering throughout the halls. He slaughtered his entire family despite him not wanting to. As the legend goes, he permanently sealed his mouth shut until the spirits allowed him to re-open it. The last thing this man did was make sure he’d never be able to see again either and blinded himself.
All I can do, other than pray, is hope that one day this house gets condemned and nobody else will be harmed by Blank Face. Alas, I cannot force their hand for I am just a trapped spirit after all.
 

Unknown Destination

By Karen King


The Harley rider waited at the bus stop, because his bike was being serviced. He had to get a lift into town to retrieve his bike from the shop. He was missing the purring of his bike. It was like an overgrown, sensual cat. He loved the power and pull of its engine; it was like a dream. The bus pulled up after a long wait and, seeing a lady driver, the motorcyclist, cheekily, said, “How about a free ride on your bus today?”.
“No!” she exclaimed. “There are no free rides. In fact, there are no rides today. I am just dropping off passengers who have already paid. This is the last stop. I am taking the golden ticket holder to Le Chocolat d'amour today.” “Oh, damn!”, the main protested, obviously disappointed. She continued, “The golden ticket was won six weeks ago. You’re too late. I’m sorry!”
Feeling somewhat crestfallen, the man turned around and stepped off the bus and, unsure and confused, sat back down on the bench at the bus stop. He hoped the bus would return one day. She seemed friendly and feisty and had certainly caught his eye. Perhaps there would be another chance to win a golden ticket in the future?
“I would love to go with her to Le Chocolat d’amour”, he mused. He had seen this advertised. Apparently, it was a beautiful world of chocolate and love – an adult version of Willy Wonka’s, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”. It certainly sounded idyllic to him!
He knew Le Chocolat d’amour was where the warm waters flowed, ready to be savoured, encapsulating and embracing its admirers. The heads of flowers flowed into the chocolate river, bowing their heads, as if in reverence, of its power and strength. At times, their heads bobbed, as if nodding in agreement as they accepted the ever-flowing changes taking place in the river, which was like a mirror in the ever-changing flow of life.
He hoped he would be able to travel on the glass elevator; up higher and higher to anotherstratosphere with this tantalising woman, where the stars twinkled, temptingly, inviting him to another kingdom in his imagination. He hoped all floors of Le Chocolat d’amour could be explored and all temptations tasted. He sat at the bus stop and pondered upon the smooth, seductive river as his imagination flowed and flourished, like the river, against the encircling banks. The man watched as the bus trundled away, into the distance. He, hesitatingly, walked away.
Life was full of twists and turns, like the ebb and flow of the river. This lady driver obviously had a journey to take. Perhaps she didn’t really know where it would lead, but he could see her soul spoke clearly to her. She had to follow the path of her destiny to her unknown destination. He heard from the bike shop. His bike was ready. There would be no “free ride” on the bus today. His spirit soared as he returned to his trusted bike, hopped on board and road into the distance, wondering if he would ever encounter her again.

Karen King Copyright 2016

Blood


By Charles Rammelkamp

​
“I think Alicia’s trying to poison me.”
Marla and I looked at each other. Her brother Burt was always saying goofy shit like that. When he was younger he’d tell casual acquaintances, in our hearing, letting us in on the joke, that that he’d been contacted about a photo shoot for GQ. Or that he’d finished the Boston Marathon in the top twenty. Just for the gotcha effect. Now a shade past fifty, with a gut, he used to be athletic. He and his wife Alicia were teachers at the high school.
“Why would she do that?” Marla asked.
“Wish she’d thought of it earlier,” I joked.
“I’m serious. I found a bottle of strychnine in a kitchen cupboard behind a jar of peanut butter.”
“But what makes you think it’s for you?”
​Marla asked, not conceding she took this seriously.
Burt shrugged. “We don’t have a rodent problem that I know of.”
“We had mice last winter,” I said. “I caught about half a dozen of them in the live trap and let them loose in the park.”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Burt fretted. He looked worried, but was it just an act? “I don’t think I can go home. I don’t feel safe there.”
Marla gave me another look then but I refused to make eye contact. What if we invited him to spend the night, or even move in? Would we fall into his trap, his little joke?
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” I said. “Have you asked Alicia about it?”
Burt shrugged. “What good would that do?”
We all sat together in an awkward silence for maybe a minute, and then Burt rose from his chair.
“Well, I guess I’d better get going,” he said, glum. He didn’t look at either of us.
Marla and I looked a mutual question at each other, and it was like a tableau for half a second, and then I rolled my eyes, and that seemed to settle that.
When the door was closing behind him, I blurted, “Give our love to Alicia.” I still thought of her as family.

Life and Death
 
By Heather Cordray
 
Lilly sat on a field of aging dandelions. The yellowness had faded from most of them as they went to seed. There was white puffs everywhere and she was glad that she didn’t have allergies.
She sat with her back to the wind and thought about life and death.
The life of a butterfly, the death of a star. She thought about Virgos, the virgin constellation. She had been doing a paper on it for school. She liked the idea of new stars coming into being in the ‘virgin’ constellation, but they weren’t, not really. New stars were coming into being other places in the galaxy, but nothing notable was happening in Virgo. But there was a symmetry to new stars using old star parts to be born.
As far as butterflies go; their consciousness had to change when they changed from caterpillars to become butterflies. When consciousness ceases, you are considered dead. But what about one celled organisms? They were alive but not conscious. Or do they have a consciousness that we can’t comprehend?
Some cultures saw death as a process, rather than a single event. If you die by degrees, how can you ever really be dead?
People that loose a limb sometimes have what’s called ‘phantom limb syndrome”. That’s where you feel the limb you lost even though it’s gone. Lilly thought back to when her Uncle Pete had lost his thumb in a wielding accident. He had gone to see the local psychic on a whim, the advertisement had said they were preforming ‘Aura photographs’. He’d always felt his thumb was still there but taking a pic of his hands’ aura, it showed 4 fingers and a thumb. His body still believed the thumb was there!
Back to butterflies: do caterpillars know they are going to change so completely? Are their minds up to the task? The more Lilly’s mind wandered, the more relaxed she became. Soon the stress of the day was lifted from her.
The breeze began to blow, fluffing more dandelions into a cottony cloud around her. She was in a time out of time, nothing held her to the ground.
She looked down at earth and saw the people scurrying around down there. Her belly grew round and firm, she knew herself to be pregnant. She was somehow transported to the heavens where she gave birth to a galaxy.
She awoke on the hill of dandelions, they were white and fluffy around her. She picked one up and blew the seeds into the sky.
 

                                         
Louisville Slugger
 
                                             
A Tom Larkin Mystery 
                           
by
                                            
Gerald Arthur Winter
 
 

         Bobby McFee and I had grown up in rural New Jersey, but we’d lost contact
 
a few years ago. I couldn’t accept his suicide, even with the note left at his desk.
 
Allegedly, Bobby had jumped from the 30th floor balcony of his Fort Lee high-rise.
 
I called Bobby’s ex in Vegas to see if she’d heard the news.
 
         “Hi, Tommy,” Lena answered. “Haven’t thought about you in a decade.
 
Leave it to a private dick to find me in a haystack.”
 
         “I didn’t know if you’d heard about Bobby.”
 
         “Caught it on the news last week after my act.” She referred to her exotic
 
dance review in Vegas where Bobby had met her a dozen years ago on a binge.
 
“Bobby means zilch to me.”
 
         “We once knew a better time together.” I took her off the defensive, but
 
knew the best time of Bobby’s life was before Lena Lopez had dragged him down.
 
“You had good times together before Bobby’s drinking took him out of the game.”
 
         Her silence told me she wasn’t letting down her guard. Lena knew if any
 
foul play had taken Bobby’s life, he could count on me to find his killer, but Lena
 
hadn’t counted on my finding her.
 
         “I’m not forgetting how he beat me up, Tommy. The steel plate in my left
 
cheek still makes my face throb on cold nights.”
 
         I doubted Lena had ever experienced a cold night in her life. If anything
 
throbbed, it wasn’t from the cold. There had been a time when I’d envied Bobby’s
 
marrying Lena. I couldn’t have conjured up a better body from the depths of my
 
depravity. We had both bought into Lena’s looks from the start, but Bobby had
 
paid the whole bill with booze and a self-destructive bent that made his alleged 
 
suicide an obvious consideration, even by me.
 
         I wasn’t going to let the obvious cloud the truth. If my pride as a private
 
investigator wasn’t enough to goad me on, my guilt over surviving my best friend
 
would make up for any shortage. We’d begun in a small Jersey town on the
 
opposite sides of the tracks. Regretfully, I’d taken my middle-class, supportive
 
family for granted along with my acceptance to Rutgers University. Bobby was a
 
river rat by reputation and was the only child in a dysfunctional family with an
 
alcoholic father, who thankfully was rarely around to take out his temper on
 
Bobby.
 
Bobby’s mom was Puerto Rican and took the brunt of his father’s abuse for
 
Bobby’s sake. Despite his adverse environment in a world of junkies and future
 
felons, Bobby had raised himself above it, bridging the gap between us. With high
 
academics and social attributes, Bobby had taken the military route. He’d
 
graduated from Berkley with an Air Force ROTC commission, got purple heart
 
from Vietnam, earned his Masters in Sociology at Columbia, then a DEA
 
retirement at fifty, and had become a PI in New York City. 
 
         After my BA from Rutgers and Nam, I became a cop in my home town,
 
Most of my colleagues on the force were the guys I’d pegged as future felons from
 
Bobby’s side of the tracks. Bobby’s mom had often thanked me for being a good
 
influence on Bobby, but he’d done it all on his own, leaving me in awe of his
 
determination to succeed. Bobby never let adversity bother him. He took his
 
father’s suicide in stride for his mom’s sake, but family history was another issue
 
to tip the scale in favor of assuming Bobby’s self-demise.
 
         “I’m coming East tomorrow,” Lena said. “Not that I care, but Bobby’s
 
attorney called to say I was still named in his will. I asked if it would be worth the
 
trip. He said it would.”
 
         “Good for you, Lena.  He always regretted the divorce, so I’m sure he’s
 
done right by you.”
 
            “How about you, Tommy? You’re his best friend.”
 
         “Bobby thought a guy should take care of himself without any handouts. His
 
heart was soft for the gals.”
 
         “Too soft, the cheating bastard. . . . Hey, how about we have lunch in Man-
 
hattan tomorrow? The last time I was there was with Bobby in 1993. We went to
 
Tavern on the Green. What do you say? For old time’s sake. . . .”
 
         “You buying? You could be the sole heir of his estate, Miss Golden Thong.”
 
         “I never paid for a dinner in my life, so I’m not starting now. Knowing
 
Tommy, there’s nothing left but his IOUs and an IRS debt. Thank God we’re
 
divorced, or I’d be taken to the cleaners.”
 
         “OK, Lena. I’ll make the reservation and pick you up at your hotel.”
 
             Only interested to see if she’d inherited any money, Lena stayed at the
 
Marriott off the Belt Parkway at JFK so she could be back in Vegas the next day.
 
My sources said Lena had been living with a handicapped Desert Storm vet, and
 
She’d been able to support them both with her dance review on the strip. Along
 
with his pension, Social Security disability, and a little luck at the casinos, they’d
 
survived any major financial setbacks.
 
Turning off the Van Wyck onto North Conduit, I called Lena to say I’d be in
 
her hotel lobby in five minutes. Waiting in the lobby, I watched the elevator doors
 
open and there she was, still stunning and drawing attention from men seated at the
 
bar.
 
         Lena’s perfume wafted as we embraced. She was as beautiful as ever,
 
but a little cracked around the seams. She’d obviously had some work done,
 
but who was I to throw stones. At another place in time, I’d have found a reason
 
to go to her room. Despite the frills of a high class lunch, I was on a case, my
 
own with no pay other than the satisfaction of finding Bobby’s murderer.
 
Since Lena hadn’t been to Manhattan for so long, and our reservation was
 
another hour later, I gave her the scenic tour of Ground Zero, and some midtown
 
highlights, like the now Disney-fide Times Square. It began to rain hard by the
 
time we got to valet parking at Central Park West, so it felt cozy when Lena
 
snuggling close, taking my arm under a shared umbrella. It was noon and the
 
reading of Bobby’s will was at a Park Avenue attorney’s office. Bobby had kept
 
an office in Manhattan though he’d resided at the Fort Lee high rise in Jersey.
 
         When Lena came from the restroom to our table, every hair was in place.
 
She was never the type a guy would want as the mother of his kids, but she was the
 
perfect vessel for every other secretion between a man’s adolescence and his death
 
rattle. Sometimes Bobby had been gruff with her, too gruff. He’d refer to when we
 
played poker at their home as his LBFM, and if she didn’t like the insult and
 
threatened to leave him, he’d tell her, “Don’t let the door hit your ass on your way
 
out.”
 
I’d often told him to go easier on Lena, that he was luck she stayed with him
 
when he got so mean and drunk.
 
         “Sounds like you want her for yourself,” he’s say. “Help yourself.”
 
Even the head waiter, for all his poise, had a gleam in his eye that made me
 
wonder if folding Lena’s napkin in her lap was all he had in mind.
 
         “A bit too attentive, don’t you think?” Lena’s cheek creased with a dimpled
 
smile and her perfect teeth sparkled from the reflective chandeliers around us.
 
         “If you drop your napkin I may have to wrestle him to the ground for it,” I
 
said with a winked. “You still drinking fruity martinis?”
 
She nodded.
 
“Are we going to see who can drink the other under the table before you find
 
out just how rich you are?”
 
         “I’d better stick with a chardonnay, so I uphold a ladylike composure for the
 
attorney.”
 
         The drinks came and went, and came again twice more between lobster
 
bisque and a dozen oysters. By the main course, Lena seemed to crystallize in a
 
defensive shell, and I wondered if I’d gotten sloppy with so much bourbon in my
 
veins. I held out my hand to test for the shakes and I was fine. I got the impression
 
she was counting money in her head rather than my drinks, so I baited her.
 
         “Lena, darling, is there no one to share your inheritance with in your old age.
 
I mean, come thirty years from now?”
 
         “There’s a guy—but, you know—there will always be a guy. It’ll be you
 
if that’s what you’re hinting at.”
 
         “Nah. You know better than that. I’ll never settle down, no matter what good
 
fortune might come my way.
 
         “It’s got nothing to do with the money, Tommy. You just got that pussy-
 
yearning bug that comes from a kid that got it too young and could never get
 
enough to suit, not even with a fine piece of ass like me. You’re looking me
 
straight in the eye now and  imagining how great I’d be to screw all the live-long
 
day, but you’ve got another pair of eyes between your legs scouting the hostesses
 
at the door and thinking two at a time, maybe three.”
 
         “And my good points are?”
 
         “You’re true to your best friend, even though he jumped out a window and
 
wanted to end his miserable life, just like his old man.” Lena put her hand out
 
across the table to touch mine. Hers felt smooth and warm. Her eyes looked
 
watery. “If I get a lot of money from Bobby’s will today, I’d love to let you screw
 
me and miss my flight, but you’d never forgive yourself, Tommy. That’s who you
 
are. You couldn’t do it because you’d think you betrayed a dead buddy, but that’s
 
a crock. You wanted to screw me when he was my husband, so now’s your big
 
chance. After the will is read, spend the night with me. At forty-two, I’m still the
 
best lay you’ll ever have.”
 
         “Carpe diem?”
 
            “What’s that, something on the dessert menu?”
 
             “Yeah, but I’m not into sweets,” I shrugged, thinking if maybe she’d ever
 
read a book, combined with those looks, I could have put Bobby out of my mind
 
for a few hours and have saved my guilt for the afterlife.
 
         A little weaker and less resistant sharing the umbrella back to my car, I
 
found the touch of Lena’s hip against mine and the soft warmth of her breast
 
touching my arm, gave me the comfort of an old pair of slippers. We had both
 
shared Bobby for some time. Now his death had put us together again.
 
As I drove her to the attorney’s office, I wondered if she held the key to a
 
reason for Bobby’s suicide, or even motives for someone to kill him and make it
 
appear as if he’d taken his own life.
 
         We parked beneath the building and took the elevator to Suite 3017
 
where the gold letters on the mahogany door read: Rooney, Shea, Cronin,
 
& McGiver. Leave it to Bobby to have Irish lawyers, I thought. Bobby McFee
 
was a green bigot from childhood, and his career in law enforcement had
 
canonized his worst opinions of any other ethnic consideration. Though half
 
Puerto Rican, Bobby thought no more of his mother than as a vessel for is
 
father’s blarney seed. Yet, Lena’s Hispanic looks had attracted him from their
 
first encounter.
 
“Opposites attract,” he’d said with a shrug when I pointed out this incon-
 
gruity of his mind over member. Regardless, Lena attracted every man, evidenced
 
by the craggy senior attorney, Tim Cronin, who gave Lena a visual scan just short
 
of a body-cavity search.
 
         Much to Lena’s apparent surprise and delight, Bobby had left her just short
 
of a million bucks. For me, my inheritance was no surprise. Bobby and I had
 
shared much nostalgia, but he believed any guy who’d accept a handout was scum.
 
He left me his signed Mickey Mantle bat, the one Mick used to hit his record
 
eighteenth World Serious home run off the Cardinals’ Bob Gibson in 1964. It
 
was a treasure Bobby had kept from his youth, which was now encased in glass,
 
a memento he knew I’d appreciate. Though worth six figures to some, the bat was
 
a prize he knew I’d never cash in.
 
         Cronin, peered over his glasses to say, “Your benefactor says: ‘Tommy,
 
you’ll know what to do with this; hit a line drive into the bleachers for me.’”
 
Confused, Cronin shook his head and gave me a receipt with the address where
 
I could pick up my prize.
 
         I dropped off Lena at her hotel, but I passed on her invite to come up for
 
a drink. Lena was like a delicious, salty snack; you couldn’t have just one. Though
 
feelings of regret were already passing in waves through my libido, I had to con-
 
centrate on Bobby. Though his note regarding the bat would indicate he’d been
 
thinking about his death and give credibility to his suicide, I’d known Bobby to be
 
cryptic and sarcastic in our dialogue over a lifetime. We could say just one word or
 
a name that would bring up an image, like an imbedded file several layers deep
 
on a PC screen.
 
I drove to NYC CSI, to see my buddy, Frank Scardo, from my days on the
 
beat. His cousin worked across the river in the Bergen County Corner’s Office
 
where photos of Bobby’s body were on file. A closed case ruled a suicide gave me
 
some leeway with viewing the photos. The blood connection between Frank and
 
his cousin, Chris, only opened the door. As a retired Honors Legion Member of the
 
Bergen County PBA, I got the courtesy nod all the way to Bobby’s file draw, not
 
yet shipped to the Meadowlands’ storage bins.
 
         “You don’t have any ideas about reopening this case do you?” Chris asked,
 
as he slid open the case drawer. “Assistant DA Puglia was adamant about putting
 
this one to bed to get on more important cases.”
 
         I glanced at Frank, whose expression warned me to step lightly, but he knew
 
Chris’s warning fell on deaf ears.
 
         “Why would he take a special interest in this suicide, Chris?”
 
         “She–ADA, Marie Puglia,” Chris corrected. “No special interest other than
 
concentrating more on gangs in Hackensack, the mob in Lodi, and white collar
 
crime in the pharmaceutical corporations in Franklin Lakes and Englewood Cliffs.
 
I think she ruled this one a gimme from the start.”
 
         “Do you mind if I reserve my judgment on that call?” I winked to deflate
 
the mounting tension. “Just give me a couple of hours to look through the photos.”
 
         Chris agreed and gave me a private room to look at the evidence. I went
 
through the twenty photos several times till I narrowed it down to two. I was
 
thankful for the first time for my hitch in Nam where I had to hold several buddies
 
in my arms till each coughed his last breath. Looking at your best friend with half
 
his skull smashed in was not for the queasy.
 
With a closer look through my loupe, I saw something at the base of
 
Bobby’s skull from two different angles. Almost obscured by his hair matted with
 
blood, I saw what looked like a tattoo, not one I was aware of. It seemed to be
 
letters. In one photo I saw “l l i v” and the other “i u o.”
 
         I didn’t want to leave that room till I had an answer, but by 6 PM I had to
 
leave, frustrated by the conundrum of the letters. To clear my head and follow the
 
only lead I had, I looked up ADA Marie Puglia by finding out she was single and
 
still living with her parents in Cliffside Park. I knew she’d have an unlisted num-
 
ber, but her dad was a retired fire fighter, and had probably lived in the same house
 
for fifty years with a listed number and an address in the book. In an Italian town
 
like Cliffside Park there had to be a Puglia or two. My fifth call was a charm when
 
a young woman answered.
 
         “Is Vito Puglia home?” I asked to disarm her.
 
“No. May I say who called and leave him a message?”
 
         “Actually, I’m an insurance claims investigator and I’m trying to reach his
 
daughter, Marie.”
 
         “She isn’t here either. . . . May I tell her what it’s about and have her call
 
you?”
 
         “It’s a private matter in regard to a closed case involving suicide. She’ll
 
probably know the one I’m talking about. I have some new evidence, which could
 
convince her to reopen the case. . . .”
 
         “I see. . . . Where can she reach you, Mr.—?”
 
         “Tom Larkin. You know The Plaza Diner on Lemoine in Fort Lee by the
 
GWB? I’ll be having dinner there between eight and nine tonight. If she’s inter-
 
ested, tell her to meet me there. It’s a crowded place, so she can be sure I’m not
 
some crank.”
 
         “She knows the diner well—I’ll give her your message. . . .”
 
            I was half through my omelet and on my fourth cup of joe when I saw who
 
had to be Marie Puglia, svelte with a fine rack, hollowed cheeks, and a pair of lips
 
that made Angelina look like a withering vine. She was sharp, too, picking me out
 
the moment she entered and walking straight towards me. She slid into the booth
 
without introduction.
 
         “Who the hell do you think you are calling my home, Mr. Larkin? I
 
have an office.”
 
         “Whoa! You seemed so much warmer on the phone, ADA Puglia. I’ll
 
settle for Tom if you’ll allow me a Marie?”
 
         “Look Mr. smart-ass PI from across the river, I’ve got a file on you. Be brief
 
and to the point. I’m too busy for nonsense. It was a suicide.”
 
         “I think there’s physical evidence to the contrary, Marie.”
 
         “What evidence?”
 
         I showed her the letters I had drawn from the close-up I’d seen in the two lab
 
photos. “It could be a tattoo, but none that I’m aware of.”
 
         She glared. “What do you expect me to do about it?”
 
         “You’re an aggressive pro, Marie, not satisfied with being an Assistant DA.
 
You’re beautiful and smart and still living at home with mom and pop, not likely to
 
make an Italian family happy, not unless you have political aims, or are seeking a
 
judgeship.”
 
         “No flies on you, but what’s that got to do with the McFee suicide?”
 
         “A faster climb up the ladder in Hackensack when you find Bobby’s
 
murderer with my help.”
 
         She pondered a moment. “OK, Larkin. I think your dead wrong, but
 
you’ve got twenty-four hours to come up with physical evidence. Everything you
 
learn comes directly to me. What’s in it for you?”
 
         “I owe it to my buddy to find his killer . . . but if I’m right and you’re wrong,
 
I get a homemade Italian dinner.”
 
         “That’s it? In Jersey there’s always a hidden agenda, something under
 
the table,”
 
         “Under the table? I’m a gentleman, Marie, but a thank-you kiss would do
 
fine.”
 
         She smirked with those incredible lips, which was as good as a handshake,
 
so I went right back to the lab at the coroner’s with permission to experiment with
 
the two photos and have a closer look at the letters on Bobby’s neck. When I
 
got as far as I could, I talked to Frank at CSI to use more sophisticated digital
 
technology.
 
It was 4 AM when I got a break; one more letter appeared faintly in both
 
photos, the letter “s” after  “l l i v” and before  “i u o.” The letter “s” was reversed,
 
like a kindergarten kid might print.
 
         I knew I had to get some sleep to let this sink in, so I curled up in a chair and
 
concentrated on Marie’s lips as incentive to make sense of the cryptic letters. Deep
 
in slumber, I dreamed of the 1964 World Series and saw Mantle rocket a line
 
drive homer. The sound of the ball hitting the steel girder below the right field
 
mezzanine woke me with a start that clarified an image. I realized that if the “s”
 
was in reverse, the other letters must be, too. I took the final blow-ups of the letters
 
in the photos and held them up to a mirror.
 
         “Son of a bitch,” I said as Frank came in the room fresh from a good night’s
 
sleep.
 
         “What?  You got something?” Frank asked as I pushed past him towards
 
the door.
 
         I yelled back, “A line drive into the bleachers for Bobby!”
 
* * *
 
           In the afternoon, I left a message for Marie at her office, saying I was ready
 
for a homemade Italian dinner that night within the twenty-four hours she’d allot-
 
ted.
 
She left me a voice-mail on my cell: “This better be good. Come at sixty-
 
thirty.”
 
         When I showed up at the door I had two long, rectangular, giftwrapped
 
boxes in each arm. Marie opened the door. Her hair was up revealing a long
 
slender neck, and she had tomato stains on her white apron.
 
         “With your busy schedule, I figured Mama would be making dinner.”
 
         “Mama hasn’t cooked since Papa died last year.”
 
         “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
 
         “Besides, with my work hours, there hasn’t been a gentleman caller in years,
 
so Mama would have insisted I flaunt my culinary skills regardless.”
 
         I could smell the aroma of a fine Italian meal as we went to the dining room
 
where I met Mama, under five feet tall with broken English and mostly nods and
 
welcoming hand gestures. Marie conceded that we would eat first and judge my
 
evidence later.
 
         Filled with Chianti and pasta, I sipped my espresso and Sambuca. I turned to
 
the two boxes I’d brought and had Marie open the first, a dozen roses to celebrate
 
the occasion. Mama put them in a vase and nodded her approval. I opened the
 
second box to reveal my acquisition, the Mickey Mantle bat encased in glass.
 
         Maria shrugged with a frown. “This is your evidence?”
 
         “I expect it will be after what I show you what I found, still protected by the
 
estate attorney’s seal and untainted. If the other evidence I present is substantial, I
 
expect you to use this collector’s item as physical evidence to support your case for
 
murder.”
 
         “Let’s have it.”
 
         I took out the two blow-ups revealing the letters separately, then showed her
 
one blow-up with the letters from both together joined by the reversed letter “s.” 
 
Marie saw: “l l i v s i u o.”
 
         “Looks like Italian.”
 
           I held it up to the dining room mirror where it read: “o u i s v i l l.”
 
         “What’s it supposed to mean?” she asked.
 
         “If you add an ‘L’ at the beginning and an ‘e’ at the end it spells ‘Louisville.’
 
This bat’s label says ‘Louisville Slugger.’ This is physical evidence that Bobby
 
was struck in the head twice with this bat before he was thrown from his thirtieth
 
floor balcony. I believe this bat is the murder weapon and Bobby’s blood on this
 
bat and the letters on the bat will match those in reverse on his skull. Though not
 
tampered with by the estate attorney, I believe you will find the glass case was
 
resealed since the murder. I can’t prove that yet, but fingerprints or DNA found
 
on the bat or glass casing may match a handicapped Desert Storm vet living in
 
Las Vegas with Bobby’s ex-wife, who put him up to it for the money. You might
 
want to keep Lena Lopez from heading back to Vegas.”
 
         Marie stood and came around the table to view the bat and the letters.
 
         “I admire your persistence,” she said with a breathy voice. Her eyes seemed
 
glazed with the prospect of a court victory. Lips pursed temptingly, Marie turned
 
suddenly to her mother entering the room. “Mama, this gentleman is expecting you
 
to give him a kiss for his fine detective work.”  She winked and whispered in my
 
ear, “But next time Mama will cook and maybe I’ll do the kissing.”
 
                                       
 
 
 

Below:
​
Charles E.J. Moulton, 1997, in the Viennese production of Roman Polanski's "Dance of the Vampires"
Raimund Theater, Vienna, Austria
This production ran for two and half years, 700 times, until January of 2000,
and was seen by a million people.
Charles treated himself to a trip to London, England, at the beginning of the production, 
and a trip to Paris, France, at the end of the production.

Photo: Rolf Bock

An Excerpt from the novel


Hemingway’s Trunk © 

​

by

Gerald Arthur Winter





http://www.geraldarthurwinter.com 

contains a book trailer of the novel



 
Topping Out


The sun was going down and Manhattan began to light up like a Christmas tree. From
the Upper Westside, facing the Hudson River, I could see the Empire State Building and The Freedom Tower miles south. I held out my arm to hail a taxi, but a sudden swoosh blew my hat off into the street. A body hit with such impact on the pavement that it splattered blood and grey matter on my freshly polished shoes. From his tweed suit and white beard, I realized instantly who the corpse was. I’d just spoken to him on the way up to the 50th floor of the Trask Arms. I suddenly realized I’d been set-up to take the rap. My mind raced in rewind back to the one
who’d sent me there two hours ago . . .
She brushed the back of her cool, smooth hand against my rough cheek and
whispered seductively in my ear,
“If you need more incentive than a ton of cash, go for it.”
Speechless, I realized her allure had fogged my reasoning. I had no more insight
about her motive than the scent of her expensive perfume redolent on my lapel.
With her hip, she nudged me out of her penthouse door with no more than her wisp of a promise to pay my fee. Now I’d have to meet her billionaire husband and face the dire consequences of my quickly fading prurient interest.
I should’ve bailed on this case while I still had the chance, but Sophia Trask’s
inappropriate proposition had spun my mind in a whirl.
Sometimes just a breath of fresh air can be worth more than anything money
can buy, but when you’ve lingered through a financial drought, the smell of hard cash
is the best way to start the day.
I had no proof yet that an old steamer trunk was authentic, but the intrinsic value
of its contents had quickly become the motive for murder. Now that the first body had shown up at my feet, I felt sure that a trail of body bags would follow.
An hour ago, my taxi had pulled in front of a superstructure where a six-hundred-
foot crane towered above me. David Trask was holding a topping-out celebration on the roof of his future twenty-billion-dollar high-rise. According to his wife, he’d be expecting me, but I already lacked the confidence that anything Sophia Trask told me would be the whole truth. I sniffed my lapel. Her scent was still on me, but my time had come to ante up with her husband.
Ahead of me, waiting in line to enter the caged exterior elevator and going through
the same security check, was a tweedy senior with a shock of white hair and full beard. He had a diminutive stature reminding me of Kris Kringle in Miracle On 34th Street. His thick granny glasses gave him a scholarly air and his curt tone with the security guard was more cross and agitated than merry.
“Of course I’m here to see Mr. Trask,” he said. “Why must I wear this foolish
looking hat if I’ll be on top of the building? Do you expect the sky to be falling?” He
turned to me with a wink. “I may be short, but I’m no Chicken Little?”
The guard replied sternly, “You can’t enter the superstructure of the construction
site without a hard hat, sir. City law, not Trask rules.”
“Oh, well. If I must,” he sputtered as I followed him onto the lift that took us to
the top of the most recent Trask construction, which looked like one of my grandfather’s Erector Set projects from the 50s. It was merely the skeletal framework of the luxury that would follow when the multi-billion-dollar Trask Arms was completed. But the ornate façade overlooking the Westside Highway towards New Jersey confirmed my opinion that David Trask suffered from an edifice complex. Time to see through that masquerade.
“Excuse me, but you don’t look like an architect, an engineer, or worse—a pandering
politician.” I said to the scholarly old gentleman.
“Neither do you,” he replied with a squint. “What’s your business here?”
“Not sure yet. I was summoned to show up just an hour ago. ”
He nodded with mutual understanding as if to say—join the club.
I prodded, “Why are you here?”
“I’m retired from the Smithsonian Institute,” he said with a deep cough. “Rare
documents . . . too much dust inhaled over many years . . . I was head of the Archives
Division of Antiquities since 1963.”
“Interesting work, but why were you invited to attend David Trask’s topping-out
party?”
“A private matter,” he said as we reached the roof. “Mr. Trask’s schedule was too full to fit me in at another time to review my report.”
“What kind of report? Is it Doctor?”
“Dr. Sean McCullough,” he said proudly. “Confidential—no one else’s business--
Mister—?”
“Tom Larkin.” I handed him my card. “I believe we’re both here for the same purpose
—to assure Mr. Trask that the rare find is genuine before he bids on it.”
“A private detective?” he said, reading my card with a sneer. “That’s absurd. Is Mr.
Trask investigating me?”
“No,” I said with conviction, since it was Sophia Trask, not her husband, I was
working for. “I won’t interfere with your expertise, Dr. McCullough, but I’ll be tracking
the steamer trunk’s path back to its source to match the history, hearsay, or even the myth about its contents.”
McCullough pouted seemingly satisfied that I wouldn’t be tampering with his
scholarly efforts. He stared at me before we got off the elevator then said, “I’m sure
you’d like to know my opinion after examining page one of the manuscripts. But since
Mr. Trask has paid me generously for my expertise, I owe him my professional confi-
dentiality regarding that information.”
“Maybe so, Doc, but if they were fakes, I believe just a phone call would’ve
sufficed.”
His face flushed as he crumpled my card and littered the rooftop of the Trask
Arms. I followed him to a group of people, which included both contracted and potential
tenants. They were ushered to their seats by Trask’s personnel identified by security tags and matching navy blazers with the company logo: Trask Enterprises, LLC. From this high vantage point we could see the city ablaze with lights like The Milky Way, including Jersey and Staten Island.
Lady Liberty’s torch was aglow in the harbor downtown.
Publicly, Trask was never at a loss for political schmoozing. His helicopter landed
on the rooftop where both U.S. senators from New York, the governor, and the mayor of New York City came out of a second chopper. Trask’s minions escorted them to cushioned folding chairs. There were nods of recognition from the other guest and future tenants, which included a variety of wealthy international business executives, men and women. U.S. Marines unfolded an American flag and raised it ceremoniously on a pole thirty feet above the rooftop. Domina Scala, winner of Trask’s TV talent show competition sang the national anthem. I remained standing with my hat over my heart as the others took their seats.
I quickly surveyed the audience. Dr. McCullough had distanced himself from me by squeezing between several Japanese and Saudis several rows behind me.
Before he began to speak, Trask eyed me curiously, so I sat down. He thanked all
the politicians for coming, apologized for disrupting their busy schedules to come to the celebration, and promised to fulfill his commitment to New York City by providing
meaningful luxury housing that would attract businesses and an influx of new wealth.
He asked the mayor to say a few words, which were of praise, and the governor
followed in kind, while the senators of opposing parties were let off the hook because
of recent non-related political issues under controversy. Their nods of approval sufficed, though both parties were deep into Trask’s pockets for campaign contributions.
The ceremony took about forty-five minutes, the average time for a wedding
without partaking of the Eucharist. That’s how I felt when Trask motioned me to come
forward on the red carpet. As the other guests departed in the elevator, I headed towards the podium to partake of the body of Trask, but preferred the sweet taste of his wife. Distracted by Trask’s motion for me to come forward, I’d lost track of Dr.
McCullough. Trask’s two bodyguards, the helicopter pilot, and I were the only ones
left on the roof with the real estate magnate. In his sixties, Trask stood six-feet-four
with unruly salt-and-pepper hair often referred to by late-night talk show hosts as his
wife’s “pet skunk.”
He wore a navy suit with a white silk shirt and a solid vermillion tie. He was
almost a head taller and thirty pounds heavier than I, but concealed his senior paunch with expensive tailoring. His fine threads euphemized the truth—he wasn’t just a fat cat, but an out of shape lard-ass. Trask’s foul breath blended with his musky cologne that choked me with a stifled gag.
A splash of his spittle hit my right cheek as Trask rasped above the city sounds
five hundred feet below us. His milky blue eyes flashed from side to side as a warning to me of his bodyguards’ threatening presence.
With a slight lisp, he asked, “Who the hell are you?”
“Tom Larkin, Mr. Trask.” I handed him my card. “Your wife told me I would
find you here.”
Trask wrinkled his sunburned nose from playing golf
at one of his dozen world-class courses.
“She said you would understand because Tim Barnes referred me to you in regard
to your recent rare find.”
Trask’s posture shifted to a relaxed tilt on one foot as if ready to chip a golf ball.
“Timmy was my college roommate at Rutgers.” Trask smirked.
“Yes, Mr. Larkin. I wasn’t always a rich man, but Rutgers gave me the liberal education I needed to provide the opportunities to become the worldly real estate guru I am today. The key to success is to know a little bit about everything, so those who only know a lot about one thing can be bluffed into thinking you know more than they do.”
” I went to Rutgers, too, Mr. Trask. That quaint old Jersey town likes to brag
about its alumni, so I’m surprised I’ve never heard that you attended there.”
He grinned, admitting, “I pay them not to tell. Otherwise, the Scarlet Knights
wouldn’t have that new stadium, at least not for another generation. I subsidize their
athletic programs.”
“And I thought our biggest claim to fame was Tony Soprano.”
“I’m hiring you as of this moment, based solely on Timmy’s recommendation,
so our contract will require your silence in regard to my education background, as well as total confidentiality about all my business. Got it?”
I nodded in agreement and shook his hand. His grip was firm, but felt like a,
skinless, overcooked chicken breast, dry and pale with liver spots.
“Though I spent three and a half years at Rutgers, I never graduated,” Trask
admitted. “My grades were failing, so I enlisted in the Marines and served in Vietnam.
I started investing in real estate when I was twenty-three and never looked back. I havemy honorary degrees from several Ivy League schools, but I’m a summa cum laude from the School of Hard Knocks.”
“What can I do for you?” I asked, wondering if my prior agreement with his wife
might conflict with what he’d ask me to do.
“Next time you see Timmy, tell the bastard that Davey Trask told him to fuck off.”
He laughed heartily then put a hand on my shoulder and nodded for his bodyguards to back away so he could speak to me privately. “I saw Timmy in D.C. a month ago. He mentioned you, just in case I’d ever have use for your line of work. At the time, I didn’t. But I never mentioned anything to him about—my rare find—as you’ve discretely put it. So either you’re the best at your game, or I have a security leak at the top of my organization.”
He looked me up and down for the answer, but I’d given away zip under physical
torture by Mexican drug dealers in my undercover years with the DEA. I revealed nada about my contract with su esposa, the source of that information.
“OK, Larkin.” He conceded with a shrug. “I’ve ruined a lot bigger fish than you
could ever hope to be. So if you cross me, you’ll be numero uno on my shit list.
Got it?”
“Understood.”
“Call my office and ask for Julie,” he said. “Give her your routing and account
numbers and you’ll find twenty-five thousand dollars on account in your bank within
the hour. I expect a report daily and a monthly accounting of your expenses against your retainer. This is my twenty-four-seven hotline.” He handed a card to me. “Are we on the same page, Larkin?”
“Yes, Mr. Trask. I’ll need to know where you first learned about the steamer
trunk. If that source is questionable, you’ll have a problem with the authenticity of its
contents.”
“I have no problems.” He turned his back to me and waved one hand over his
head with a dismissing gesture. Before boarding his helicopter he turned around and
shouted back to me, “That’s your problem. You’re the detective. Find out and tell me
by tomorrow or—you’re fired!”
As I watched the chopper take off, I realized I hadn’t seen Dr. McCullough
speak to Trask, and he was nowhere in sight. Before my elevator descent, I tried to
reach Tim Barnes to thank him for his referral, but more so to ask him about Sophia
Trask. I couldn’t reach him through the federal bureaucracy so I called my secretary,
Mona, to tell her she could pay the rent this month as well as my overdue Verizon bill
still crumpled in my pocket.
As usual, Mona replied sarcastically, “Let me check my calendar, Tom, just to
make sure it’s not April Fool’s Day.”
Reaching street level, I started to hail a cab, but was suddenly shocked by an
alarmingly thud. I wasn’t sure if the body fell from the roof or from some mid-level of
the Trask Arms superstructure. Regardless, just a few steps away, the corpse looked like
a burlap sack stuffed with rotten tomatoes, but the bloodied sack was tweed, and the
shock of pink-tinted white hair and beard made it obvious that Dr. McCullough had
taken the plunge, most likely with unwarranted assistance. It appeared David Trask’s
topping-out party had just bottomed out.
A Body of Work
It was only an hour after I’d agreed to take this case and already blood and
grey matter from a dead body had splattered my shoes. My instincts said it wouldn’t
take long for other murders to follow—so much for that breath of fresh air. Whether
authentic or not, as I’d predicted, the contents of an old trunk at auction had become
the motive for murder.
When I’d met Sophia Trask earlier, I was hesitant to become ensnared in the
trappings of the ultra-rich. Now I wondered—would the last corpse thrown onto the
heap be mine?
As NYPD patrol cars came to a screeching halt and encircled the dead body in
the street, I was sure my taking this case had been a mistake, but it was my consideration
for the innocent scholar who just died that kept my wheels turning. Despite his gruff
demeanor, I liked Dr. McCullough in our brief encounter and felt I owed it to him to
find his killer.
When I saw Homicide’s Chief Detective Sloan’s accusative expression, I had to
sort out in my mind what had led me to this precarious position before he tried to drag
me down to the precinct for questioning. As Sloan eyed the blood on my shoes, I retraced
my steps to free me from suspicion.
I gave Chief Sloan an abbreviated account of the past hour, omitting some facts
to protect both my client and myself, but the details still stuck in my mind. . . .
Cost was no object to Manhattan real estate mogul, David Trask. His deep
pockets had toppled his adversaries worldwide. I felt uncomfortable among Trask’s
elite entourage, but I was a month behind paying bills and wasn’t about to cut off
an infinite source of cash just because Trask’s aristocratic airs rubbed me the wrong
way. Neither David Trask nor one of his minions had contacted me, but rather his wife.
“Mr. Larkin, this is Sophia Trask,” she started to leave me a voice mail, and I
hesitated to answer, figuring it was just another collection agency. “I must see you
immediately, but I’m unable to come to your office—”
I answered, still assuming this was some prank from one of my buddies from
my DEA days, “Tom Larkin, private investigator, speaking . . .”
“Timothy Barnes referred you.” She dropped the name of my former DEA
supervisor, now Foreign Office Chief. “Tim met us at the Kennedy Center Awards last
month . . . You come highly recommended. Tim knows my husband—El David.” I trust
you know who I am. . . .”
In media interviews, she pronounced her husband’s respectful title El Dah-veed
 
with a taint of her Spanish accent. Sure she could trust that I knew who she was. Under
thirty, she was a retired supermodel on track to become the next breeder for her billion-
aire husband more than twice her age. Although she was obviously a trophy wife and
next in the long line of ex-wives who’d eventually out-lived their spawning days, Sophia
was highly respected by the media as a woman of elegance. The paparazzi swarmed
Sophia with adoration even before she’d married Trask, and “Sophia” was all that was
needed to identify her among high-fashion icons.
“Of course I know who you are, Mrs. Trask,” I said. “Do you think your husband
is cheating on you?”
Her long silence made me wonder if she was covering the phone to stifle the
sound of her laughter over such a ridiculous notion. Five years ago she was considered
the most beautiful woman in the world. Still, I knew from personal experience that it
took more than just a woman’s good looks to keep her man on a short leash.
“This isn’t about me. I overheard my husband tell an appraiser that he would
stake his life on the authenticity of rare items of antiquity, and if they were genuine, it
would be—a deal to die for. He’s become so obsessed with obtaining these rare items
that I fear for his life. I can’t discuss this on the phone. I need to speak with you at our
penthouse—immediately. . . .”
“I work by-appointment-only, but I’ll make an exception in your case, since Tim
Barnes referred me. I’m on my way.”
I took time for a quick shoe shine at Grand Central before hailing a cab. Otherwise,
Sophia would have to take me as is. I didn’t need reminding that I was no blueblood.
Those in Trask’s narrow circle had a way of sizing you up that made you feel your
clothes would be better off in a dumpster than to cross their thresholds. Though I
resented her demand to appear on short notice, I had enough respect for Tim Barnes to
comply. Obviously Tim had been clicking champagne glasses with the D.C. elite and
future presidential hopefuls like David Trask. Sophia’s inviting me for high tea within
the inner circle of the one-percenters made me feel out of place—not a feeling I relished.
Facing Central Park from Fifth Avenue and 63rd Street on the 50th floor, Trask’s
penthouse was a few blocks north of the Trask Trade Centre where Trask ran his multi-
billion-dollar real estate empire. Though Sophia had forewarned me, passing building
security in the lobby made me feel like an illegal alien applying for a driver’s license. If
I’d paid my phone bill on time, I’d have tossed it in the trash. But it was still crumpled in
my pocket in case I needed it towards six points of ID verification to gain entrance.
The guard smirked when he saw the phone bill with Mona’s note in red ink--
Verizon will cut off your service if you don’t pay by the 15th.
I told the guard, “My mom still puts my name inside my sneakers when I go to
summer camp.”
Deadpan, the guard said, “Only a formality in your case, Mr. Larkin. Mrs.Trask
phoned ahead to clear you. Homeland Security on all Trask properties usually requires additional identification, and here, for anyone going above the 5th floor. In your case, we’ve made an exception.
Please take the express elevator directly to the penthouse.”
After the 5th floor, the glass elevator provided a view of the Plaza Hotel to my
left and the skating pond in Central Park to my right. When I reached the penthouse, the sun was setting in Jersey across the Hudson aflame with sparking sunlight. I could see the George Washington Bridge then the Tappan Zee north around the bend with the Palisades in between. With binoculars at the 50th floor, I could’ve spotted the Bear Mountain Bridge twenty five miles upriver.
None of the luxury surprised me in the outer foyer where another guard stood
ready to clear me for entry to the inner sanctum of the Trasks’ refined abode.
“More Homeland Security?” I asked the guard humbly, reaching into my suit
jacket to show my six degrees of separation from the upper one percent.
Shaking his head, the guard said, “Not necessary, Mr. Larkin. We had a
robbery in this foyer last month when Mr. Trask had a cocktail party. I merely provide
virtual discouragement to theft. I’m not here, but on the 49th floor below, where I can
prevent a thief from escaping. You’re looking at my hologram.”
I ran my hand through the specter of the guard’s image.
“You’re telling me about it seems to defeat its purpose. I’m not discouraged.”
“Mrs. Trask said it would amuse you. I just follow orders.” He pressed a button
to signal my arrival. At least his image did.
Much to my surprise and pleasure, rather than the expected servant to greet me,
Sophia’s voice came on an intercom: “The door is open. Please come in.”
I pushed the door open and her voice echoed across the hardwood floors: “I’m
on the balcony. Please join me.”
Her perfume wafted to me as I came onto the balcony but still saw no one. Then
her voice startled me from where she stood on her head against the wall behind me. “I’m so pleased to meet you face-to-face.”
And what a face, with an inverted glistening smile that could contribute to global
warming. Her head was cushioned by a satin pillow. Upside down, the gravitational pull on her white short-shorts and halter top revealed a lacey purple thong and bikini bra. Her deep tan showed a paler pattern of scant swimwear.
She pushed off the wall and fell backwards into my arms. I inhaled her expensive
perfume like a line of cocaine as she shook her long raven hair, smooth as silk,
in my face.
Though she’d gained her balance, she didn’t seem to mind my continued grip
around her slim waste with both hands. Then she abruptly turned to face me.
“Well now we’re face-to-face,” she said with a grin. “What do you think of our
penthouse security?”
“I’m old school—too Disney for me.” I glanced back towards the foyer. “What
did the burglars take?
“Mostly everything that was in the foyer that night, a few rare vases, a Cezanne
sketch, an Eighteenth Century Rococo love seat, and an oriental rug formerly owned
by the last Shah of Iran. Thank goodness they didn’t take El David’s prize possession.”
I raised an eyebrow observing the only item in the foyer then asked, “Not this
moldy old steamer trunk?”
“How did you guess?”
“If they were pros, they would’ve come prepared to protect the breakables by
putting the rare vases in the trunk for easier transport,” I said. “They couldn’t that night, because the trunk was full and too heavy, so they took everything else. If they had the time, they might’ve come back for the trunk, but someone made an executive decision — a bad one, since the most valuable items were in the trunk.”
Sophia furrowed her brow and pursed her lips with a flip of her hair that flowed to
the base of her spine. As she turned to lead me to a patio chair, I saw a two-inch, heart-shaped tattoo encompassing “EL DAVID” just above her butt cleavage—Trask’s brand on his sacred cow.
“I see why you come highly recommended. How did you guess that there was
something valuable in the trunk?”
“You said the thieves had left your husband’s prize possession. If you’ll excuse my
candor, this trunk is a moldy piece of junk—unless it belonged to Abe Lincoln—so the
value had to be its contents.”
“Close. May I call you Tom?”
“You can call me El Tom if you like.”
“Only if you earn the title,” she cautioned me. “David believes the trunk belonged
to Ernest Hemingway. The trunk is over ninety years old and went for two-hundred-fifty-
thousand dollars at auction.”
I blew a low whistle, though that amount was probably Sophia’s monthly allow-
ance for shoes. She sat across from me on the balcony overlooking Central Park as an
Indonesian houseboy bowed and served us iced tea and bite-size watercress sandwiches.
“What was in the trunk?” I jested. “Hemingway’s body?”
“Not far from the truth. We’ve since removed its contents, which actually may
be Ernest Hemingway’s body—but of his earliest work—unpublished—never seen before.”
“Manuscripts?” A mouthful of watercress stuck in my throat. I washed it down
with iced tea and gulped.
“Yes . . . a dozen short stories and probably his first attempt to write a novel. I
don’t know what this means, but David said the novel would have predated Hemingway’s
Nick Adams stories.”
“The Nick Adams Stories were written around 1925,” I told her. “Hemingway’s first
novel, The Sun Also Rises, was published in 1926.”
“Then you know more than I do. I grew up in Spain where Hemingway was greatly
appreciated as an aficionado of the bullfights, but I’ve never read any of his work. How much do you know about his writing?”
I took a deep breath and tried to speak respectfully in Papa Hemingway’s behalf,
“His crisp prose, simple and concise, hit his readers like a left-hook followed by a right-cross, which he hoped would knock his readers—and his critics—on their butts.”
“Doesn’t sound like the romance novels I read on the French Riviera,” she said,
raising an eyebrow and cutting a dimple in her perfect high-boned cheek.
“Definitely Mars rather than Venus,” I agreed. “But he romanticized his views of
the women he loved, in life as well as in his writing, which usually reflected characters
from his own experiences.”
“How many of his books have you read?” she asked.
“All of them—and all of them about him—including his war correspondence
articles during World War Two.”
Rather than seeing my Hemingway experience as an advantage, Sophia’s eyes
glazed in thought and her beautiful smile twisted as if I’d just soiled her expensive
oriental carpet. I seemed to have hit a nerve.
I shifted gears with: “If the manuscripts are no longer in the trunk, where are they?”
“David has them. I’m not certain where,” she said. “He’s hired an expert, someone
he trusts to evaluate the authenticity of the first page of the novel.”
She admitted with an impatient huff,
“He’s still waiting to hear the results, perhaps this evening.”
“This has been an entertaining deviation from my usual routine—s spying on cheating
spouses—and I’ve enjoyed this walk down Memory Lane through American Lit 101, but I’m a private detective, so why would you need to hire me?”
“These manuscripts could be fakes. You need to cross-check their authenticity,” she
said, suddenly pulling a long thin cigarette from her cleavage, which surprised me, knowing David Trask’s long-standing, well-publicized opinion against smoking.
When she reached in the back of her shorts and pulled out a 20-karat gold lighter,
it became obvious that Trask had no knowledge that his next heir’s mama was committing what El David considered a cardinal sin—especially if she was already pregnant. I wondered how many other rules Sophia was willing to break, but more importantly --
why?
Didn’t she already have it made, even if she had to be sired by lard-ass with the
skunk on his head?
“No video surveillance here,” she said with a wink and a long drag on her cigarette.
I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. “I’m not qualified, but I’m curious, why does
your husband want a cross-check if he’s already hired an expert?”
“David doesn’t want a cross-check.” She grinned with an exhale of smoke in my
face. “I do.”
I turned my head to avoid the smoke knowing the temptation to take just one drag,
even ten years after crawling out of the nicotine abyss, would always be there luring me back down that black hole. I’ve had the whiskey lure under control, too. But what I still couldn’t avoid was my addiction to any beautiful woman with a cutting edge. If I took this case, there would be that added taboo—aligning clandestinely with the gorgeous wife of one of the most powerful men in America.
I stood up and stared her straight in the eye. She sat in an expensive, designer patio
chair with her supermodel’s slender limbs cross-legged as she dragged on the long, thin cigarette. Capri—I noted on the pack she set on the coffee table.
She glared defiantly at me when I asked, “Am I to conclude that El David knows
nada about El Tom?”
“He’ll have to know about you.” She grinned. “You’ve appeared in our foyer
surveillance video. Since the robbery, he reviews every pixel. I called him just before
you arrived. He’s expecting you soon at his topping-out party on the Upper Westside.”
“Just like that?”
She brushed the back of her cool, smooth hand against my rough cheek and
whispered seductively in my ear, “If you need more incentive than a ton of cash, go
for it. . . .”
When the tip of her tongue diddled at my earlobe, I knew I was already in too deep.
Apparently I hadn’t taken the bait quick enough, because I was still in shock as she nudged me with her hip out of the penthouse door. But I wedged my foot in the door before she could close it.
I held up my card to her face, for her eyes only.
She read it silently without expression, just the halo of her aloof attitude.
She saw: Fee $500 a day— plus expenses. Two-day retainer required.
She made an X in the air with her index finger then held up two fingers in a V and
blew me a kiss from her pursed lips to indicate she was doubling my fee. I nodded and slapped my left palm with the back of my right hand, demanding my retainer. She pouted assuming her Trask credit was beyond question.
I twisted my face to one side and shrugged, saying with deep satisfaction from
the depths of my libido, “You’re the boss . . . Sophia,” wondering if Trask and I were
the only ones to get to call her that up close and personal. I relished the thought, but
so far she was always one step ahead of me.
“What’s the address?” I asked, wondering what had just transpired between us.
“You can’t miss it.” She shrugged. “It’s the only high-rise under construction in
that section of Manhattan’s Upper Westside.”
“What’s a topping-out party?” I asked. “If it involves a bris, I already gave at the
office.”
She shook her head, oblivious to my attempt at humor then assured me, “You’ll
know it when you see it.”
She closed the door, leaving me in the foyer with the friendly hologram.
“I just want to take a closer look at the steamer trunk,” I said to the guard’s
holographic image, which promptly nodded.
As I stood the trunk on end and opened it, a musty smell wafted in my face,
reminding me of the smell of old comic books in a damp basement from my youth--
a cool place to escape a dog-day afternoon into the realm of superheroes. I put the trunk back in place and nodded to the guard as
I entered the express elevator and departed.
As my taxi cut through Central Park, I wondered if today’s hiring would lead
me deeper into a land of make-believe created by the rich and famous, but the image of the inscribed initials E.M.H. inside the weathered trunk gave me sharper focus on reality.
Hemingway’s middle initial stood for his great uncle’s name on his mother’s side,
Miller, but I still could be dealing with a criminal mind capable of pulling off a multi-
million-dollar scam on David Trask. I’d barely scratched the surface, but realized when
I saw the fifty-story superstructure of Trask’s newest high-rise, that if I wanted to get
to the bottom of this case, I’d have to start at the top and work my way down.


​

 
SIGNS IN LIFE

By John S. Lewis

 
Between the years 2000 and 2012 I spent about ten years alone in the forested, ‘hilly sand and clay belt’ region of Guyana. Quite unlike most men I know, I love living alone; and I hate intrusions except by a chosen few. The question of loneliness is often asked of me. I’m human, of course I sometimes feel the need to see my children; and the urge to make love to a woman. However, when I weigh my lonesome living against the hassle a man must endure when living a normal life in a settled area, I opt for the former lifestyle.
I’ve discovered that a man alone in the forest is in fact, never alone. Let me cite some incidents to prove this:
Before I moved into Loo Creek, I was told that it was the last of the hunters’ paradise along the forty-five miles of highway, linking Linden Town with Soesdyke. Yet for many months I saw no such spectacular evidence. The truth is, I had not yet developed bush senses. When I eventually evolved to that animal level, I cannot say, but my first recollection was that night I heard a very stealthy dragging sound; I shone my torch outside my window in time to spot the tail of a boa constrictor disappearing under the floor of my cabin. It had been sharing the camp with me for quite a while without my knowledge! The smooth scooped-out basin in the sand bore tell-tale signs of long term tenancy.
I began to focus on its habits, and was surprised to discover that the snake had adapted its goings and comings to fit my established pattern; so as to avoid confrontation with me. Every full moon, several bush rats would venture onto my roof, and begin scampering about. I would remain still, listening; until there came a silent hissing of satisfaction—one rat was going down the gullet. The last time I caught the boa out in the open it approximated fifteen feet in length. Once it realized that I knew of its presence but did not attempt to harm it, the snake quit trying to hide from me. It simply went about its business as if I wasn’t there.
* * *
Awareness gradually took hold of me. A family of powis birds got to find out that I was vegetarian, so they went about their business, often passing by quietly while I farmed. I learned to distinguish when their warnings, and that of the canje-pheasant suggested the presence of Man. One day, after hearing the warnings, I casually retreated through my pineapple plants, to my cabin; and armed myself. The forest subsequently became very still. It was as if every creature was holding its breath. Instinct told me that, for the first time, a man or men had invaded my privacy. From the dim interior of my cabin, I began to sweep the jungle perimeter through my binoculars. And behold, I was completely surrounded by policemen and soldiers! I lifted a particular sheet on my roof and returned my unlicensed Mauser shotgun to its hiding place. When they approached my cabin, they found me eating, and with a look of surprise on my face.
* * *
In the hot mid-day sun, a red and white crab confronted me at my door; it hissed and sought to clip me with its tentacles. That was the first time I’d ever seen a crab in that area. As a man alone in the bush, my thought-pattern differed from that of ordinary men—the creek was over
two hundred yards away; and there was no soggy area close-by; which suggested that the crab was a sign. I knew that in the dream realm a crab has to do with a disharmonious love affair; so I took note. I killed that crab. My lover paid me an unexpected visit that day; she sneaked right up to the door, and stood just where the crab attacked me. She pretended otherwise, but I sensed that her heart was drifting from me.
Several weeks later, another crab turned up. I observed it at my gate this time. And what do you know—my lover hailed me from the gate when she arrived that very day. I decided to tell her about the crab and its significance; and I showed her the shells of both of the crabs I’d killed.
The next time she visited, she mocked my theory, deeming it mere superstition. I had to hold my peace because she’d appeared this time, but no crab had appeared to forewarn me. She’d walked to the cabin and, tired from the one mile walk from the highway, seated herself on the second rung of the stairway of a house I was constructing next to the cabin. In the midst of her mockery, I spied a crab crouched under the very rung she sat on. When I showed her, I beheld a fleeting expression of fear and guilt sweep her face. I did not kill that crab; neither did I make love to her. This bushman was beginning to feel that he should acknowledge these signs. But what was the fullness?
Whenever I spent more than average time pondering a matter, to the level where it affected my appetite and my sleep, I would receive a sign in the form of dreams. True to form, I dream I saw my lover in a brown dress, dancing with a man, the way lovers do. I did not see the man’s face. However, when my lover turned, I noticed a mark like a brand on her face—it was a circle with a ‘Y’ turned downwards; and inscribed were the words: HIV POSITIVE. I jumped out of my sleep.
I became so concerned for my own health that I couldn’t work properly. I decided to travel to town, and confront her. I had no need to do so. The first acquaintance I met informed me of her deadly activities—she’d given her body to a bus driver who secretly had the virus. My informant pointed-out the bus and the driver. I confirmed he was telling the truth when I noted that the manufacturer’s symbol on the front of the bus was similar to the brand I’d seen on my lover’s face in the dream. I hastened to get myself tested; and breathed a long sigh of relief when I was eventually declared absolutely negative. Then I made certain I collected a box of condoms to take back with me.
* * *
As the years passed, life on my pineapple farm became more and more unbearable due to the advent of a nosey and noisy neighbor. The more I complained about the noise, the more they persisted—firing guns, cussing at the top of their voices, playing music loudly… And to think that I was the one who invited him to the land. I began to regret that decision deep in my heart, but I tried to tolerate my neighbor. I moved my cabin deeper into my farm, so that my gate was now about two hundred yards from the cabin; and the trees shielded me from most of their negative behavior.
I usually finished my cooking at about six-thirty every morning; then I would do my morning prayers before proceeding with the day’s work. However, this morning I felt reluctant to go out. I knew that the primary reason was the fitful night I’d suffered the night before. My bushman’s interpretation of that sign was one of spiritual warfare, the results of which was soon to manifest.
A house fly alighted upon my ears. I hated flies, mosquitoes, bees… all insects! I slapped, and almost popped my eardrum. That already pissed me off; then that fly kept coming at me! I picked-up a coconut-branch broom and swatted it, but simultaneously knocked my pot of food off the stove. That did it. No work for me today. I flung myself into my hammock, and simmered until the heat of the sun forced me to rise up. Then another fly found the spilled food, so I had to get busy cleaning up the floor. Done with that, I was about to dish out some of the food still in the pot when another fly came at my ears with that droning sound. I upped and fled my cabin, intending to chill-out for a few hours on the highway.
The sun approximated the eleven ‘o’ clock hour, so I decided it would be cooler to walk through the forest rather than the sunny trail. The sound of a strange vehicle passed heading in, but I was too deep in the jungle to see it. Later, when I decided to head back to camp the sun was showing a short shadow to the east—almost two ‘o’ clock, I guessed. Again I walked through the jungle, and again I heard the sound of that strange vehicle; it was leaving the area.
When I reached my cabin, I saw dozens of tracks left by military boots all around my cabin! My thoughts flashed to that strange vehicle. ‘What the hell! What wrong did I do now?’ I wondered.
‘Was my neighbor bent on removing me from here?’
Just then, I heard his vehicle pull up. He blew his horn, and beckoned me to the gate. I called on my God for protection, then I began to walk towards the gate. I watched for any signs of aggression as I closed with him.
“The Police come in and beat-up my workers, and gone with all of them to the lock-up. They said they received a report that all day we does be shooting guns behind here, training criminal elements…”
I was rendered speechless, because I could see and feel the vibrations of my neighbor—he had already accused, tried, and convicted me as the culprit who allegedly reported their reckless behavior.
“That wasn’t me buddy. I don’t deal with the Police. I does deal with Jah,” I declared.
“How come the Police aint do you nothing?” He pressed.
“They came in here, but I wasn’t at home.”
We found out later that it was the works of our closest neighbor, one mile away as the crow flies, but about two miles away by trail.
Whatever the modus operandi, I regained my peace from that day; and I took note of the sign that came to me via my arch-enemy, the fly, and stored it in my data bank for future reference.
However, years later when I attempted to teach these things to my children, I realized that such things cannot be taught, one must live and earn one’s own experience.

Rules of the Wild


By Shawn D. Brink



With a single gunshot the man fell dead.
Thin wisps of steam surrounded him as his warm blood mixed with the cold snow.
Max was confused. He could not fathom the reason for this murder any more than he could understand why these men had chosen to spend the short arctic summer sifting yellow rocks from the riverbed instead of hunting the migrations of living flesh.
Max was a wolf-dog and the ways of men confused him. The fact that humans spent so much energy gathering yellow rocks was baffling.
Although he did not understand men, he did understand the ways of the wild. He understood that living meat exists to be killed and eaten by other, stronger pieces of living meat. The yellow rocks were worthless and that was so he could not understand why one had murdered the other and taken his rocks away. Max stared at the deceased man. This recent turn of events frightened him. Unbreakable rules had been broken. Living flesh had been killed, but not consumed.
He looked up from the dead body to his master and pleaded with his eyes. If no one else was going to eat the flesh and obey the rules of the wild, then he would certainly be willing to do the job. His master did not give him permission.

#

Max obeyed his master when commanded to take his place as the lead sled-dog. He watched from his place at the harness as the man overloaded the sled with bag after bag of rocks.
Behind him, the rest were harnessed, six others, put in pairs. They all stood motionless and in their eyes, he could see that they all shared the same fear.
Max wished that the man would abandon the rocks and load the sled with food instead. He looked again upon the dead man cooling in the snow. Why did the surviving man not load up that hunk of meat?
The man seemed to be reading Max’s mind. “In Dawson, there will be plenty of food. We just need to get to Dawson.”
Max whimpered. He feared that they would never reach Dawson. Winter was near. There was much wilderness to cover and unbreakable rules had been broken.
With a crack of the whip, they were off. It was cold. It was dark. They pushed on nonetheless upon the hard-packed snow.
The darkness was not complete. Above them, the northern lights danced.
Max tried to not look up. Those lights appeared alive and unhappy.
He felt that those lights were watching him. He had not felt this way since he had been a pup.
Those younger days came flooding into his memories. As good parents should, his mother and father had watched him with a keen eye, waiting for him to break a rule. Then, upon such breakage they would pounce and punish. That was how good wolf-dog parents taught their offspring about the rules of the wild.
He sensed that the northern lights were just that, parents waiting for the right time to pounce, waiting for the right time to punish. Such premonition frightened him.
They traveled until spent. Then, the man ordered a rest. It was an uneasy rest.
Once stopped, Max heard a howling. It sounded something like wind, but he felt no breeze. It sounded something like wolves, but not quite. It sounded strong, whatever it was. Max feared what he heard and wondered if the time for pouncing and punishing was close at hand.
Max began to whine and the other dogs joined in. They were all northern breeds and had knowledge of the rules. A price would need to be paid.
The man seemed oblivious. He cursed the dogs. He cursed them into silence as he threw them their daily ration of salmon. Then he built a fire.
Max swallowed his salmon in one ravenous gulp and watched as the man created his magical blaze. It amazed him. Man had a strange sort of intelligence. They were capable of creating fire, but seemed incapable of learning even the most basic rules of the wild.
With his ration eaten, Max burrowed under the snow for warmth as did the other dogs. Within moments, his exhaustion spirited him away to the land of dreams and nightmares.

#

Max dreamt.
Alone in the wilderness, he ran as fast as he could. He ran from something unseen but not unheard. The howler grew closer with every stride that Max made.
Before him, the northern lights flashed. He barked as he ran. He barked in protest. He begged the Punisher to stop the pursuit. It was not he that had broken the rules. He should not have to pay the price.
Behind him, he heard a snapping. He looked back and yelped in terror.
Angry-looking Jaws were right at his heals, massive and wolfish. Above those jaws, eyes flared with the power of the northern lights, glorious and terrible. It slashed at him with sharp talons. Its saliva steamed and dripped from its carnivorous canines. Strangest of all was its fur, pale-blue and semi-transparent.
He fled.

#

Max awoke and exploded from his burrow. He spun around, trying to see everywhere at once. He saw nothing.
The man continued to sleep, but all the dogs looked as he did, awake and fearful. They all huddled together for protection, all of them except one. Jack was gone.
Jack was a Siberian husky, a true dog of the north and as tough as nails. Now, he was missing.
When the man awok, he called for Jack. Jack did not come. Finally, with little choice, they broke trail with one harness empty.
Max led the team. He pushed them onward. He pushed them to their limits. He was too terrified to allow them the mercy of anything less. Above him, the northern lights flashed as before.
Finally, after hours and miles had passed, they collapsed in the snow, exhausted. Again, they made camp.
The man slept. He seemed unshaken by the howling that Max heard. Perhaps he could not hear it, Max thought. Maybe the man’s ears are deaf to the sounds of the wild.
He burrowed into the snow, but kept one eye exposed. He needed to keep watch.

#
​
He jolted awake, unaware that he had drifted. Remnants of his nightmare dissolved as he fully awoke.
He stood absolutely still, barely allowing his lungs to breath. He could sense something in the camp, something predatory.
He refused to move. He shifted his eyes only, scanning his surrounding for any movement.
He could not zero in on the intruder. It remained on the very edge of his sight, blurry and out of focus. He knew what he had to do. He loathed doing it, but he had no choice. In anguish, he turned his head and bared his teeth, but nothing was there save a billowing cloud of snow. Had a wind caused the billowing? He felt no wind.
The snow settled. Two more dogs, Ivan and Charlie were missing.
Eventually, the man awoke and cursed the fact that more dogs were gone. He called for them but they were nowhere to be found.
Max could be a part of this no longer. He had to make a stand. When the time came, he stood his ground refusing to be harnessed to the sled.
At first the man tried to force Max, but when Max snapped at him, bad became worse. The man pulled an item from the sled. It was a club.
The club had never been used on Max. It had never needed to be used on him. Max had always been an obedient dog.
Max had seen it used on other, less obedient dogs. Those memories made him cringe.
But now, it did not matter if the man had his club. Max had made up his mind and there were other things at play here; more powerful and darker than this man with his club.
Max stood his ground and let out a growl of defiance. He prepared to fight.
He stared hard at his old master/new enemy and realized that the man’s eyes were not on Max, but on something beyond and behind him. Judging by the man’s expression, what stood behind him was something terrible.
The Punisher attacked. It flew past Max in a flash of airborne snow and brilliance. It stopped in front of the man. It punished the man.
All this happened so quickly. The man opened his mouth and began to scream. It was a scream started, but left unfinished.
The man fell to the ground, black with frostbite and dead. The Punisher feasted. It consumed the man in keeping with the rules of the wild. He consumed every bit. Nothing was wasted.
The Punisher rode a sled of ice. He himself was as white as snow. A vapor emanated from him as if he were infinitely colder than his surroundings. He was not a man. He was not an animal. He was something more, the sum of all northland creatures combined.
The ones who pulled the sled were as from Max’s nightmares, larger than life wolfish beasts. Their eyes flashed with the brilliance of the northern lights. Their semi-transparent pale-blue fur glistened with inner light.
The wolf-beasts were not harnessed to the Punisher’s sled. Max had the feeling that they were above harnessing. They simply led the sled and it followed.
Having witnessed the ravaging of the man, Max grew fearful. He turned. He fled.
He ran through the northern wood. He heard howls coming from behind and knew that he was being pursued.
He looked to his left, then his right. The wolf-beasts were flanking him!
Over his head, one of them leap, landing in front and blocking all escape. They circled around him, continually drawing the circle tighter.
Max looked at the wolf-beast directly in front of him. He stared straight into its eyes with defiance that, up until that moment, he did not know he possessed.
Inexplicably, his fear evaporated as he stared into those eyes. He suddenly understood everything. He was not being attacked. He was being adopted.
The Punisher approached, hand extended. Max sniffed it, and then licked it. It felt cold and hot all at the same time. It was wonderful.
He looked at the wolf-beasts that surrounded him. They were familiar somehow. Jack? Ivan? Charlie?
Max looked at himself. He was not who he had once been. He had become one of them, larger and stronger. He felt the power of the northern lights fill his eyes and his heart.
Max was thankful. The Punisher had only dealt out its wrath on the one who had broken the rules of the wild. He had spared the innocent and given them a higher purpose.
With happiness, Max served his new master.
 

DROUGHT
 
By Roger D. Hicks
 
 
            Ballard had already swept the oiled wood floor of the store and, minus a few bits of paper, he had picked up for the garbage, shoved the dust across the porch and into the narrow ditch which divided the front porch from the county road.  He had placed his broom back in the feed room just off the main storeroom and gone back to the porch to lean his hickory bottom chair against the wall and take in his first chew of Red Horse.  The sun was just rising down the creek and Ballard was wondering how long it would be before his best friend, Ep Newsome, would open his door across the creek and head to the porch to begin their day of talking, chewing, whittling, waiting for the occasional customer, and telling a few tall tales to any innocent victim who might be toyed with for a few minutes. 
            Ballard did not have to wait long.  Ep’s front door opened across and he headed out his gate, across the bridge over Steele’s Creek, and up the steps to the porch.  Crossing the bridge, Ep stopped to stare into the dry creek which usually flowed with at least a foot of water in August.  This had been an exceptional summer and a major drought had dried the creek almost to extinction.  Ep stared at the cracks in the mud below him and realized they looked a great deal like the veins in slate or the wrinkles on the face of his wife who had been only sixteen and smooth as silk when he married her more than sixty years before.  He saw a small collection of dead minnows fifty feet or so upstream where a slightly deeper hole of water had saved them for a week or so after the majority of the stream bed was as dry as a canned biscuit.  He sighed, shook his head, and moved on across the road to the store.
            “Well, Ep, how are you this morning?” Ballard began the day like every day with the two.
            “I’m doing pretty good.  But I was just looking at the creek.  If we don’t get some rain pretty soon, everything around here is going to die off.  Do you think it’s going to rain, Ballard?”
            Ballard let a small smile cross his lips and replied, “Well, it’ll be a long dry spell if it don’t.  I guess this is just about the worst drought we’ve had around here that I can ever remember.  Have you had your morning coffee yet, Ep?” 
            “Yes, I had a couple of cups when I got up.  I had breakfast too.  But we didn’t have no eggs.  My chickens have just about quit laying since it got so dry and hot.  I water them twice a day but I guess the heat makes it worse too.  I never had no ambition to be a laying hen, did you?”
            Ballard ignored the attempt at humor and responded, “Well, have you got any news about your boy?”
            Ep reached toward the pocket of his khaki work shirt, “Yes, we got a letter yesterday and he sent some of the strangest Kodaks I ever saw.  They sent him out somewhere over the water after he finished up that first training for the navy.  He says he’s doing pretty good.  He’s on a big ship sailing off somewhere but he can’t say where he’s going.  He said they stopped for some reason or other on these islands and they had the biggest lizards he ever saw.  I can’t believe the Kodaks.  Here look at these things.”  Ep handed Ballard a handful of black and white photos of large monitor lizards in a nondescript setting filled with rocks and bushes which could have been anywhere from Widespot to the moon. 
            Ballard gave a soft whistle of disbelief when he saw the first photo.  “Them things must be six or eight feet long.  That big devil in this picture has got his head up over a bush that must be three feet high.  What is them things?” 
            “Well, my boy said they call them the Dragons of Komodo.  He said they’re the biggest lizards in the world.  He said in the letter that them critters can get to be eight or ten feet long and weigh over three hundred pounds.  They’re plumb scary to look at.  You know a lizard that big ain’t got nothing on his mind except eating and making little lizards.  What have you got going on today?” 
            Ballard kept staring at the photos of the lizards but responded, “I reckon that young salesman from the Paintsville Grocery Company is supposed to be here today if he ain’t already quit or been fired.  That boy is a little off, Ep.  Can you believe his mother named him Clyde Dale Horst?  It’s awful easy to misunderstand that name and think he’s a plow horse.  I am willing to bet that we can have some fun out of that boy with these Kodaks.  If you don’t have anywhere to go, stick around till that boy shows up and I think we can pull his leg a while.” 
            Ep agreed with Ballard’s assessment of the mental powers and condition of the young salesman.  “I never did think he was right after he showed up here the first time wearing that paisley suit and a pin striped tie.  Who did he think he was going to be selling groceries to in this county anyway, some of the Rockefellers?” 
            “He usually gets here pretty early in the morning’, Ballard said, ‘I think he’s only got one more stop between here and the county line where his route ends.  I think he starts up at that other place next to the county line and then comes here and works his way back to the warehouse.”
            A few customers came and went buying little or nothing as the morning wore away to noon before the little Studebaker drove up the creek and stopped in the single parking space between the store and the road.  The young salesman hopped out carrying an order book and a price list and trotted jauntily up the steps.  Ballard and Ep were still sitting against the wall in their hickory bottom chairs.  “Well, how are you today, Clyde Dale?” Ballard inquired. 
            The young drummer puffed out his chest and nearly popped the buttons off his tight little shirt which was decorated with a small horse pattern in sequins which might have been worn by Little Jimmy Dickens if he was playing a medium sized town.  Ballard nearly strangled trying to not laugh out loud when Ep spotted the shirt and began humming under his breath, “Too dah dump, too dah dump, too dah dump dump dump!”
“Well, gentlemen, I am having a wonderful day.  I stopped at a few places on my way up the creek instead of going to the county line and I believe I beat that fellow from the other wholesale house to at least one big order.  I’m just doing great.  How are you, gentlemen?” 
            Ballard stuck to the niceties of mountain conversations but also plowed directly into his effort to use the photos for some fun and games.  “Well, we’ve been doing pretty well, young man.  But this weather has been a double edged sword.  Just about everything around here has started drying up and dying off.  The gardens ain’t worth ten cents.  The cows won’t give no milk and Ep was just saying this morning that his chickens have just about quit laying.” 
            Ep nodded in agreement and the young salesman responded sympathetically, “I’m so sorry to hear that, Ballard.  How has business been though?  What kind of order do you have for me this morning?”  His employer at the grocery company had ridden with the salesman once or twice and schooled him at length on “sticking to the point, getting that order, and moving on”. 
            “Well, son, I reckon I will need a few things.  But this is important, Clyde Dale.  I was going to say that this weather has been awful bad but there’s a bright side to it too.  Ep realized more than six months ago this was going to be a dry year for the record books.  He got out his Old Farmer’s Almanac back in January and read the signs, went and talked to the old granny woman up the creek, and remembered what his grand pappy had told him about droughts more than sixty years ago.”  Ep knew Ballard was headed somewhere with this but hadn’t been able to figure out where.  He was quietly nodding from time to time and keeping his mouth shut till he knew where they were headed.  Ballard went on, “Ep, figured out this would be a world record drought and told me that nothing would be able to make it this summer except lizards.  He said, ‘Ballard, this will be a fine year to go into the lizard business’. And that’s what we done.  We went into the lizard business.” 
            The young salesman had graduated from high school but nowhere near the head of his class.  He was baffled about whether this was the truth or one of the tall tales he had been hearing every trip he made to the store.  “What do you mean, Ballard?  You say you went into the lizard business.  Let’s get started on this order, please.  How do you go into the lizard business?  Did you start a pet shop?” 
            “Boy, you sure are persistent about them orders ain’t you?  I’m sitting here trying to tell you about the next big business opportunity in the world and all you want is a grocery order.”  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a hand scrawled list of items he needed from the wholesaler and handed it to the boy.  “Here, you can write this down while I talk.  I’m trying to tell you something important, son.  Ep figured out that this would be perfect weather this year to raise lizards bigger than lizards have ever been. He was certain that if we caught them big brown lizards and put them in a pen and fed them good, we could raise lizards big enough to kill and eat.  He knew we could raise lizards six and eight feet long.  And that’s what we done!” 
            The mental picture of a lizard eight feet long finally got the salesman’s attention and he stopped writing as his mouth dropped open.  “Lizards eight feet long…there aren’t any lizards that big around here are there, Ballard?”  Clyde Dale’s eyes swept up and down the creek as if were afraid the lizards were approaching from both directions. 
            Ballard knew he had the boy’s attention and gave him a knowing grin. At the same time, Ep caught on to the general idea of the yarn and chimed in on the story.  “Yes, young feller, lizards can be eight feet long, maybe even ten.  We don’t know yet.  We had to be mighty secretive about this when we first started catching lizards in March.  We would slip off to the creek and the woods and if anybody saw us catching lizards we just said we were going fishing.  We caught every lizard we could get our hands on, penned them up behind screen wire in cages and started feeding them the things lizards like to eat, flies, bugs, gnats, crickets, worms.  Then when they started growing we had to go from screen wire cages to rat wire cages and dog kennels. We kept them hid from everybody but now they have got so big we have to go public any day.  We’ve got them behind a ten-foot-high chain link fence down on the slate dump now. We even had to put a chain link roof on that thing.  You don’t want no lizard that size getting loose.  We lost one for a week when they were about three feet long and people caught a glimpse of it once. It put an end to Old Widder Higgins’ tom cat.  It started an awful lot of wild tales.  I had to get my old Colt pistol out and track it down and shoot it and bury it just to stop the tales.” 
            The young salesman figured he had found a loophole in the story and said, “You can’t feed eight foot lizards on flies and gnats and worms.  You’re just lying to me.” 
            Ballard responded to the young man, “No, Clyde Dale, eight foot lizards don’t eat gnats and flies.  When they get to be about a foot long, we have to start feeding them things like road kill and frogs and fish and I even made a deal with the slaughter house for all the guts.  I told them I was going to feed a pack of fox hounds so they would sell me the guts and stuff.  A lizard eight feet long will eat just about anything.  I almost lost an arm one morning when I went to feed by myself.  Now we feed together and both pack pistols.  They’re dangerous.  But they are going to be the next best thing in this country.  A lizard eight feet long will dress out just about enough meat to match a three-hundred-pound hog and they lay eggs too.  You can get your entire breakfast from one critter, bacon or sausage and eggs both.  It’s going to lower grocery prices for sure. It’s just a shame they don’t give milk too.  And me and Ep is going to get rich selling breeding stock.  After we kill and dress them, they’ll make fine shoe leather too.  A pair of lizard skin boots would look mighty fine with that nice horse pattern shirt you’re wearing, Clyde Dale.  You could look a lot like Tex Ritter in a pair of lizard skin boots.” 
            The young salesman laughed out loud, “You can’t eat a lizard.  They’re nasty.  And I’m already better looking than Tex Ritter even without cowboy boots, Ballard.” 
            Ep smiled back at the boy and said, “Can’t eat a lizard?  What do you think alligators are, boy?  They ain’t nothing but oversized lizards and them Cajuns in Louisiana has been living on lizards ever since the King of France throwed them out of his country and shipped them across the water to that big swamp down south.  I’ll bet you them Cajuns will be the first ones to buy breeding stock from us.  They’ll want these dry land lizards because they won’t have to fight them alligators in boats no more.  They won’t lose near as many people to drowning.” 
            The young salesman actually stopped to think about the rejoinder from Ep before he responded.  “You could be right, Ep, if they are used to eating alligator, they might not mind lizard meat.  But there ain’t no eight foot lizards.  You’re still lying to me.” 
            “Well, Clyde Dale, you just keep believing that and you’ll miss out on the biggest business deal around here since we figured out how to sell pulp wood.  We could cut you in and you could help us spread the word.  You cover several counties every month and talk to a lot of big money people.  You could be in charge of the publicity department, Clyde Dale.  It wouldn’t be long at all till you could quit the grocery company and afford a Hudson Hornet or a Cadillac Convertible.  You could wear clothes every day like Porter Wagoner wears on Saturday nights.  This is a big deal, Clyde Dale!”  Ep was thoroughly enjoying painting with a wide brush. 
            The young salesman indicated he was nearly done writing the grocery order and asked Ballard a couple of questions about sizes and numbers of items and then started to wrap up his visit.  He put the order in the back of his order book and said, “I guess I’ve enjoyed this conversation, gentlemen, but I have to get on to the county line.”  Then he turned for the steps. 
            Just as he started to walk past Ep to leave, the older man reached up and took Clyde Dale by the arm.  “Before you leave, son, I’d like to show you something here.”  With those words Ep handed him the photos with the clearest shot of the largest lizard on top.  “I just want you to know for sure what you’re walking off and leaving, boy.” 

Copyright 2016 by Roger D. Hicks
            

The Paper Route

 by Thomas M. McDade

 
“I’m hoping to climb the ladder from hot walker to jockey. The fifth leading trainer, Frank Tyler, is my boss. I live in a kind of dormitory with other lower rung track workers and kitchen help. We get a cot, blanket and a trunk for cheap. I had good luck hitchhiking, two big rig rides is all it took to get to RI.”
In a way, those postcard words applied to me although no one would believe it since the postmark was 1945, the year I was born. I’d always fantasized about both long-range hitchhiking and piloting a tractor-trailer. I had a postcard existence, no past and no future to it, mostly the small written words that strained my eyes controlled it. If no note or one that was uninteresting, I might have dropped in at the featured track. If people pictured, I was able to stand beside them, observe but no sound. I was invisible. Sixty-seconds all allowed. I tested thoroughly with a kitchen timer. No race riding thrills. All I had to do was press my right hand index finger on the stamp to enter, let my left pinky wander over address and message. The system was finicky. Occasionally I’d land on a lawn, driveway or sidewalk in front of a house or apartment. Two of the 1968 cards, Los Alamitos in California and Oaklawn in Arkansas sent to publishers in New York requesting paperback catalogs provided Grand Central Terminal visits. I’ve taken a very brisk walk on the Avenue of the Americas. I figured publishers received thousands of such requests. Many I suppose rescued from the trash as those two of mine must have been, dreaming horses, West Coast and Dixie, anywhere to leave the workaday grind in the dust. What would happen with a postcard actually addressed to me, Jeff Gardener?
This weirdness began with a cigar box full of vintage postcards I bought for five bucks at Paper Memory Antiques in East Providence. I heard a guy telling the owner only clock factory cards interested him, nothing else, no need for clutter. I belonged in his league, happy with thirty-two, twenty-one of Rome and Paris. One is in Italian, two in French. A card from Toulon said someone named Jean jumped ship there. The ten thoroughbred racetracks held the magic. Well, there was another track, Blue Bonnets in Montreal. It had this message, “Banner day at a cashier window” and a stamp but no entry door opened. The claim was probably a fish story.
I’d tried all sorts of pressure on stamps (one cent, two, three or six –Washington, Jefferson, FDR and Adams) to stay beyond the minute limit without success. The address was Clinton Street, Davenport, Iowa, Mrs. H. Vashinsky, no number. Her son Luke sent it, Narragansett Park the image, horses rounding the clubhouse turn, many fans, colorful awnings and banners. I grew up twenty minutes away. It was a major track once: Whirlaway, Seabiscuit, movie star clientele but now an industrial park. I’ve never bet on a horse in my life. I have watched a few Kentucky Derbies and taken part in pools at Rock’s bar but never won. My Churchill Downs card mailed in 1941 went to Master Bobby Tharp in Wildwood New Jersey. Mary Neill was the sender. “If only I could pick the right horse,” was her scribbled complaint. She’s a good-looking woman wearing a red dress. I wondered if she would end up working in a defense plant or become a WAC or WAVE, maybe a nurse.
Traveling days of any kind are a hazy memory now. I had a stroke, ended up in the Crestwood House, a nursing home that doesn’t live up to its grand name. Raymond the janitor, pastor of a storefront church on the side calls it “The Crestfallen.” He is a tall, gentle fellow, wears a big cross on a neck chain that looks like it could do him harm or maim another. Occasionally, he comes to work without his false teeth. There’s a sad looking housing project across the street. “Guests” here turn over Social Security checks and wait to die. The case worker tried to get me into a Vet’s Home in Bristol but the waiting list was years long. My check is measly, didn’t make a lot of money my working days, exclusively dishwashing, Copper Kettle and Johnson’s Hummocks. My first year of retirement I lived in a small apartment near a bus stop, very happy; most of my life spent in furnished rooms. I did miss having all my meals free at the restaurants, chopped sirloin, filet of sole, except leftover chef’s salads that cost a buck. It took a couple of months to adjust to the rotisserie chicken, cold cuts, baked potatoes and canned soups. I was considering having a phone installed, first one in my life. I was up to a hundred push-ups a day. I belonged to a duckpin league, carried a fair average. I resumed churchgoing, once belonged to the Saint Matthews Men’s Bowling League but I got sick of people trying to fix me up with sisters, cousins and friends of the family. I was content with my many waitress adventures, enough for a lifetime. I impressed them with my vocabulary I’d honed doing Sunday Providence Journal crossword puzzles. The relationships couldn’t be more than temporary; dishwashers don’t fit into many women’s futures no matter how articulate the pearl diver. For a time I enjoyed sitting through
Sunday Mass but when hounded to pass the collection basket, I took to arriving late, stood at the back of the church near the holy water font, departed early and quickly.
I alternated afternoon solo bowling and matinee movies. Looking forward to see No Country for Old Men—that sure got to be the truth—I cut an ad from the paper in anticipation. Woody from the TV show, Cheers was in it, one of my favorite people. In retrospect I should have kept working instead of taking early retirement. The job health insurance wasn’t great but might have placed a few rungs up from the Crestwood.
I stroked out at Al’s Lanes on East Avenue after throwing a strike, half of me paralyzed. I got the worst of the fifty-fifty odds. I’m right-handed. No one has mentioned physical therapy or chances of recovery. I think the doctors have forgotten me, haven’t seen the case worker in weeks. No priest either. I’ve given up on God. My brother Don cleaned out the apartment after burglars took their share, hard up folks wasted energy on the jittery black and white TV set. The postcards must have looked valuable or just a curiosity to give to a kid or old-timer for a gift. They’ll probably end up back in an antique shop, magic for somebody new but I like to think that charm just for me and the cards will return like dogs and cats in newspaper stories, gone for two or three years show up on doorstep. They were in a Ben Franklin Cigar Box with money orders for bills yet to be made out, some cash too. I can’t recall any figures. Christ, they took my skimpy wardrobe, no great loss except for my pea coat that still fit me after nearly fifty years and my St. Joseph’s Missal that I’d had since my teens. Don’s visits were short. He
couldn’t wait to bolt Crestwood, can’t say I blame him. He did his brotherly duty as far as I was concerned, stored the used sofa bed, kitchen table, chair, utensils, sauce and frying
pans, bowl and a plate in his girlfriend’s cellar. So he said, might be at a Salvation Army store. I don’t care, lost hope. He’ll be stuck burying me. I gave him a paid up Metropolitan life insurance policy worth five-thousand, told him to keep the change. I was extra grateful he brought my penlight and transistor radio, earphones and extra batteries. At least I could listen to the Boston FM station that broadcasted old time radio shows. Suspense was a favorite along with NBC University of the Air that presented great novels in an hour’s time like Moby Dick, Lord Jim and Grapes of Wrath. The two twenty-dollar bills I called my S.O.S. stash hidden in with the 9-volt battery still lived there. It was hell opening the compartment one-handed to check. Oh, Don also dropped off my Bluejacket’s Manual. I keep it under my pillow. I was in for two years, only made seaman. I spent a year of shore duty at the Norfolk Naval Base. I loved taking the bus to Virginia Beach running into the waves. I saw the Beach Boys at the Civic Center and The Highwaymen at the Golden Garter. Next duty was aboard a Destroyer Tender, USS Sierra AD-18 that never got underway. I worked in the galley both places, serving food or in the scullery. Sometimes on the ship I’d get “Hamburger Heaven” duty, provided them for the oncoming mid-watch. I’d make up some of the burgers with chopped onions and pickles, a half-teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce, a big hit. I liked to watch a movie before reporting to “paradise” as some sailors called the snack bar. I never heard it called “hell.” I remember seeing my first James Bond flick, Goldfinger.
Trying to speak is an embarrassment. I did open up when a nurse’s aide named Diane kindly picked up the bills that dropped during a transistor battery change. I know they
would have been history had anyone else fielded them. She asked what I wanted to do. I handed her the Bluejacket. When she was placing them between the pages, a USS Sierra postcard dropped out. I’d forgotten all about it. That set me off. I started rambled on about the postcards that disappeared, amazing she could understand me. She might have been pretending but I didn’t care. I told about the ten racetrack cards that were my favorites but not about the mystical qualities. I was comfortable with her care especially in sickness’s most embarrassing intimacies. She pushed me around the corridors in a wheelchair once a week. Two or three times she pulled over close to a wall, massaged my shoulders. When I could feel her fingers on my right side, I honestly felt that time was moving backward and I was growing younger by the second, ready to sprint out of Crestwood any moment. When there was no sensation, I thought my beard would rapidly extend to the floor and drag me to the grave. I decided her moods that I judged by her chatter determined my reaction. She was a tiny woman, maybe five-foot-four, amazing how she got me out of bed and ready to roll. In her mid-twenties, reminded me of a waitress I known at the Kettle, brilliant smile, full lips, medium-length chestnut hair and fair complexion. Her fine body turned many a bald, pewter and dysfunctional head. She alternated earrings, tiny seahorses, sand dollars and horseshoes. Sometimes her brown eyes sent danger signals, fear anxiety, faraway drifting, couldn’t name it for sure. My
mother would have found a guilty conscience in them. I’ve never been good at appraising people. Christmas she gave me a gift, a book, I See by My Outfit by Peter S. Beagle,
about two guys traveling from Scranton to San Francisco on Vespa scooters. She pointed out that it’s a full-blown motorcycle on the cover. I’m not much for reading but I liked
the jumpy line map on the second and third pages. I ran a finger across it often. I’ve tried stopping on one of the locations, St. Louis, Grand Canyon, Las Vegas hoping to travel but nothing happens. I’ve kept a fingertip on one so long I expected to leave a print stain. I copied that map onto a note page of the Bluejacket to have a backup just in case the volume got legs. I just initialed the places by making dots and connected them. I didn’t look forward to writing my name. I looked over other note pages, Virginia Beach outings, number of days countdown to discharge, lines across digits like a guy in prison would do. A list of the money orders I sent home as well as the first time I got drunk at the E.M. Club. I never drank again; my visit to the MacArthur Memorial downtown Norfolk and the date I went to Mass at St. Mary’s, an all-black church. I’d seen Jesse Esters a boatswain mate walking back from communion. He did a triple take. In addition, names of people I’d lent money, some figures not crossed out.
Diane showed up one afternoon holding her hands behind her back, told me to close my eyes, count to ten then open them. She held out an envelope. With eyes welling up, she explained George Harvey, a gentle, smart man, on the first floor had passed away. It had been his; a stamped contribution envelope to Equine Equals, an abused horse charity. She apologized that it was from a trash receptacle, at the top, no damaged done. The ten-
cent stamp was a tribute to horse racing. It was beautiful, bright yellow background, a field of horses rounding a turn. The second one was equally attractive, two horses
chasing the leader ahead by a length. The third was plain, honored the Pony Express and put the postage two cents over the first class rate. “Just a little something to replace one of your lost postcards,” she said. I was truly grateful.
Diane expected to take a cross county trip with two girlfriends in a rented van. She wouldn’t be a copycat, wouldn’t follow Beagle’s route. I thought I’d have another stroke imagining postcards from all her stops and that possibility had me feeling the best I had since being Crestwood doomed. I was hesitant to burden her with postal responsibility. Finally, I spoke up. She said my speech was improving but I think she was being kind. Yes, of course she’d send postcards. It was tough getting her to accept one of my twenties for the expense. She said if she landed anywhere near a racetrack, she’d make a bet, look for a horse ridden by a jockey named Jeff or the initials J.G. or “Crest.” I talked her out of the last choice, suggest her name. She went on about her mother who’d been a hippie, traveled the U.S. and Canada in a VW Bus and even lived in a California commune for a while.
I didn’t put the remaining twenty back in the radio, thought it wise to make a change. I started to slip it into the Outfit but had the feeling someone was watching me. I waited until after dark. Under the covers using the penlight I slipped it in the space behind binding of the Bluejacket. It was a good damned thing I did. It wasn’t long before two
cops barged into my room; one carried a pile of books. Outfit, sitting on my nightstand, quickly joined the collection. Raymond got a kick out of the raid, “Got Peter S. Beagle,
wonder if Peter S. Rabbit’s been cuffed too.” I learned later that Diane worked at the Acorn to Oak Bookshop nights, had been robbing the business blind, cash as well as the books she either gave away as gifts or sold to used book dealers. Although my postcard dreams were over, I hoped the hell she got away, graduated to bigger, better, crime. I sure did miss her. The replacement was middle-aged male lout, shaved his head and smelled like a bottomless ashtray. He made me feel like a rotting side of beef.
I struggled through an entry in the note section of the Bluejacket: “Bonnie is gone and I wish I were Clyde.” Returning the book under my pillow, it fell to the floor. It was a bear retrieving it and more so the Sierra postcard that escaped. As if a lighthouse beacon appeared over my head: the Equine Equals twenty-nine cent stamp was more than enough to mail a postcard, of course, might just work. I ordered herb tea, bag on the side instead of decaf the next morning. I ripped off the stamp part of the envelope to soak in the cup. It didn’t take long for the stamps to separate. I placed them on my dead hand palm for an hour or so to dry. I tucked all but the crucial stamp in the Bluejacket. Gluing it in place was my next mission. I wouldn’t trust the nicotine aide. When Raymond came around to replace a chipped floor tile, I saw my chance. He took great pride in setting the stamp using the industrial glue. When he saw the ship he told me his nephew was a signalman on the first Navy ship named after a black man: the USS Miller, DE-1091. I
had to commend myself on the job I did in forced southpaw addressing the card to myself as well as the message. The words came from a deep voice in the back of my mind.
“Greetings, I just sewed on my third class cook crow. I might stay for twenty! I bowled a perfect game! The Sierra will be pulling out in a week to dock in Naples, Italy. Expect
postcards from Gibraltar, Rome, Sicily, Pompeii, Monaco and other exotic locations.” I almost signed my name but settled on “Guess who?” instead. I recalled letters my mother and father sent me, c/o Fleet Post Office, NY, NY. Raymond said my printing was nothing short of art. He was happy to drop the card off at the P.O. I thanked him, shook his hand in the sorry way my condition allowed.
No telling why so long but three days later the postcard arrived. Smoky the Bear smirked as he handed it to me probably thinking, “Who’d write this pitiful bastard.” I waited until well into the night to experiment. It took a few attempts but I was able to reverse my method, my left hand had to serve as the right once had. I laid the card on the bed just below the left side of my pillow, fixed my penlight beam. When the baby finger of my bad hand eerily twitched over to the message, trembling on the phrase “third class cook crow,” I cautiously put my left paw index finger on the three-horse stamp. I felt no Sierra deck under my feet but a slide show began, flicking through every track in the nation, sixty seconds in each. It worked better than on my originals, Golden Gate Fields, Rockingham Park, Turf Paradise, Keeneland to name a few. It was Jeff Gardner all right, same age but healthy and walking tall. When Pimlico Race Course showed up, the
display halted and flashed wildly before displaying a tobacco, candy and souvenir stand. Diane was licking a stamp. The snow-haired clerk watched closely. Four cops walking toward them spread out. Just as the stamp hit the postcard, I was ten feet away. Minutes
passed; no time limit on this connection. I looked at the eagle on my left arm. I was a third class petty officer, no age spots on the back of my hands. They both worked. I was invisible to bystanders as I’d been in my other paper adventures. I walked like a shadow through a group of people watching the cops converge. I hurried to Diane’s side touched her hand that still held the card. “Diane, it’s me Jeff.” The mob broke up, cops headed off in other directions. She was invisible to all but me but she started to shrink. Her horseshoe earrings became seahorses and sand dollars followed by a host of others. Her hair went through multiple lengths and modes. Her clothes changed styles and sizes as if a television segment tracing the history of fashion. She was losing years as I had. I remembered the old / young sensations of her wheelchair massages. Sinking to my knees I massaged her child shoulders. Shortly a reversal, she was slowly blossoming into my Diane. When I saw the horseshoes on her lobes I grabbed the postcard, dropped it on the counter to the once white now redheaded clerk’s amazement and mine. She stuffed it into her purse. We stayed for the rest of the races. Diane wore my white hat and my neckerchief that she waved wildly and snapped like a whip when our imaginary bets triumphed, especially J G’s Jubilee. We lingered for hours in clubhouse seats, talking, hugging and kissing then walked through the locked gates. We headed west. It was the first time I’d been on a motorcycle. Diane handled the Indian touring model as if she’d been born on it. I locked my arms around her waist. Soon after we hit Route 80W in
Youngstown she moved my right hand to her breast. For a silly fraction of a second I thought of a duckpin bowling ball.
At Crestwood House, Raymond was sweeping the lobby when the mail arrived. He paid the twenty-two-cents postage due on the postcard addressed to Jeff Gardner. He’d hold it
until his return. A man in his condition couldn’t have gotten far. How the heck could he even get out of bed? He might have had help. He was chummy with Diane the book thief. Raymond hoped not her. She was trouble. He’d recently heard that a hoodlum arrested for car theft implicated her in a credit union robbery. Putting on his reading glasses, Raymond sat on a torn fake leather corner chair. The card was from Pimlico Race Course, “Post Parade” the caption read. He counted the horses, ten of them, one grey. That’s the one he’d bet. It was a four-cent stamp, Arizona desert scene, a flowering cactus. Maybe the stamp for the rest of the postage had bad glue. The message was just a large “Greetings.” After studying the postmark, he ran his hand over his head and down around his neck; back at his knee he took a deep breath before muttering, “How could this be?” His false teeth clicked on their own. Contemplating where the card should go in his Bible, “Psalms” chapter 19 or 64, he rubbed the cactus with his index finger. He quickly pulled it back in pain, heard a coyote howling.
 
© Thomas M. McDade, 2016, All rights reserved & belong to Mr. McDade





Below: Charles E.J. Moulton as the "Waltzing Dinosaur" in the Gelsenkirchen production of Johann Strauss' "The Bat" ("Die Fledermaus"), June 2016

HAPPY HOUR

By Roy Dorman
​


“Afternoon, ladies, what’ll it be?” asked Greg Boxer, the owner of the TKO Bar and Grill. Greg’s bartending because one of his second shift bartenders, Tina Johnson, is having car problems.
“I’ll have a pint of whatever lite-beer is on tap today, Greg,” said Laura Grafton.
“And you?”
“Let’s see; I’ll have a White Russian,” said Gina Leopardina. “With real cream if ya got it.”
“Real cream I got,” Greg answered while drawing Laura’s pint.
“Oh, and can I get that in a bowl, please?”
“Of course. In fact, I just got a dozen fine china bowls in this week.”
The tables and bar stools in Greg’s bar are ergonomically designed so that both humans and animals can be seated comfortably. Due to Greg’s business savvy, his bar is a popular after work meeting place. Laura, a human, and Gina, a leopard, stop in every Friday after work to unwind.
Gina is lapping up the White Russian and quietly purring to herself. Laura sips her beer and checks out her hair and lipstick in the back bar’s mirror. She’s thinking that maybe tonight she could lucky and meet….
“Uh-oh, don’t look now, but Sandy from Legal just walked in,” said Gina. “I hope she finds a seat before she sees us.”
“Aw, Sandy’s not so bad. And hey, I really like that new color scheme.”
Sandy Collie is a Border Collie working as a paralegal for the same company that Laura and Gina do. Sandy’s predominant color is a dazzling candy apple red with the contrasting areas of her face, chest and feet done in a soft cotton candy pink.
“I don’t know,” said Gina. “It seems a little too flashy for a business office.”
“Well, Greg sure seems to be eating it up,” said Laura. “He was sniffing her neck before she even sat down. And look at how his tail’s wagging. I don’t remember seeing that happening when he was getting our drinks.”
“Yeah, well all men are dogs, if ya know what I mean,” said Gina.
Greg is walking back to the taps and just catches the tail-end of the conversation. “Hey, I resemble that remark. Ya gotta a problem with me bein’ a dog?”
“Nah, Greg, you’re okay,” said Gina. “I was talking more in a global sense; ya know, the old “Men are from Mars” thing?”
“If you say so, Gina,” said Greg, pouring a bowl of Chablis for Sandy.
“So, Greg,” said Laura. “From a male’s point of view, what would you think if Gina here was to go with a different color?”
“I’ll tell ya in a minute; let me get this drink down to Sandy.”
Greg exchanges a few words with Sandy and then walks back to Laura and Gina. “Well after that ‘all men are dogs’ crack, I suppose I could think of something smart to say about leopards not bein’ able to change their spots, but I won’t.”
“I think ya just did,” said Gina, with a bit of a growl.
“No, seriously, Gina, I think that the black and gold is very classy. It says this cat means business.”
“Businesslike, but not a lot of fun; is that it?” asked Gina. “Like bright red and soft pink say this dog is a lot of fun?”
“Aw, come on, Gina,” said Laura. “Border Collies are fun dogs. But Sandy’s competent and she’s worked hard to get where she is. And she’s fun because she’s a collie.”
Greg has been listening to the conversation, but now takes the opportunity to drift back to the end of the bar where Sandy is sitting.
“Yeah, well there’s a rumor going around that she may have slept her way to the top,” said Gina in a stage whisper.
“Gina, Sandy’s a dog; dogs nap a lot. So what?”
“You know what I mean. She and the lead attorney are a little touchy-feely sometimes.”
“Well, we may find out in a minute; look who just walked in.”
Greg and Sandy are at the end of the bar howling to the ceiling. Greg is known for his battery of dog-human jokes and he apparently has just told a doozy. John Sanderson, a human, and the head of the legal department, walked up and stood next to Sandy.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said, pulling on Sandy’s tan suede collar.
“Sit,” yelled Sandy, pointing with her paw at a bar stool. The bar goes quiet for a few seconds and then erupts in raucous laughter. Apparently nobody laughs at John Sanderson; he turns and walks out.
“I’ll pay for that on Monday but it was worth it. He doesn’t own me. Nobody owns me.”
Laura smirks at Gina and Gina turns and winks at Greg. Greg winks back and Gina sees that his tail is wagging.
​

The Gateman

by

Gerald Arthur Winter
​
 
My brother Bobby and I were playing with our plastic army figures on our bunkbedwhen a thundering crash shook the window pane and made some of our toys on the bookshelf fall onto the floor.
“What the bajeezuz are you two up to?” Mom shouted from the kitchen where we could hear some dishes falling out of the cabinets and crashing into shards on the linoleum floor.
“We’re just playing army, Ma!” Bobby called back. “It wasn’t us!”
“Sounded like a bomb,” I said wide-eyed and holding my breath.
We scrambled to our bedroom window and saw the LIRR express train going through the railroad crossing with sparks shooting into the air. Someone’s car had been hit by the 5 p.m. express. The explosion was the initial impact followed by a high-pitched squeal of metal against metal as the hood of the car scraped against the side of the train. We could see panicked commuters scrambling inside the train. The passengers screams of terror couldn’t be heard over the shriek of the scraping metal.
Bobby and I thought the sparks hitting against our window were like the sparks in toy machine guns we got for Christmas. When you wound the crank, sparks would shoot out the muzzle. If you put your hand in those sparks, they just tickled. We opened our window and leaned out to feel the tickle. The sparks burned holes in our T-shirts and one made our curtains smolder. The smell brought Mom screaming into our room, pulling the curtains off the rod and stomping the sparks out with her foot.
“Go to the kitchen!” Mom shouted kicking Bobby in the butt all the way down the hall and dragging me by one ear. She poured us each a glass of milk and wiped perspiration from her neck. “There’s been a terrible accident,” she told us. “I hope no one was killed.”
“Why didn’t George the gateman stop the train?” I asked with a milky-white upper lip.
She looked at the clock on the kitchen wall. “It was the five o’clock express. Can’t stop it from outside the train. That car must’ve been on the tracks inside the gate. Stay here. I’ll find out what happened. Don’t—leave—this—room.”
When Mom left I said to Bobby, “I hope George the gateman is OK.”
“He should’ve brought down the gate,” Bobby said, just to bug me because George the gate man was my friend.
I hadn’t started kindergarten yet and no one had a TV accept the crazy old guy who lived alone near the coal yard. He’d built one himself. He let me and Bobby watch a ball game on it once. The screen was the size of the window on a washer at the laundromat and there was so much static interference it looked like the baseball teams were playing in blizzard. I knew what a blizzard was because the day after Christmas last year we had twenty-seven inches of snow, the new record in 1947.
When Mom returned after talking to the neighbors, she told us that the car that was hit by the train was a specially designed ’46 Oldsmobile made for a one-legged man who had stalled on the tracks. The handicapped driver didn’t want to get out of his car because the car was custom-made and very expensive. He’d lost his leg landing in Normandy. You’d think Mom was a news reporter the way she could gather information from a crowd.
George the gateman had seen that the special car had stalled and wasn’t starting. There wasn’t time to push the car off the tracks before the express came through, so he hoisted the one-legged man out of his car and carried him to safety just in time. Mom told me that my friend George was a hero. I stuck my tongue out at Bobby.
After that summer accident at the crossing, Mom sent me down to George’s gatehouse twice a day, morning and noon, with gallon jugs of water she’d kept chilled in the icebox. We didn’t call them refrigerators back then. The top section we call freezers today required a block of ice delivered by the iceman once a week in the winter and twice a week in the summer to keep our food from spoiling in the lower section. Several of life’s necessities were delivered to homes back then: ice, coal, milk, eggs, and bread.
With the opportunity to bring jugs of ice water to George in the summer of 1948, his gatehouse became my first source of enchantment before starting kindergarten. George crankedthe gates by hand to stop traffic from crossing at 224th Street in Laurelton, Queens. Before the Long Island Railroad would elevate the crossing in 1949 with a trestle and train station, that forty-yard expanse of tracks endangered pedestrians and cars if the gates weren’t down. The danger was worse whenever an express train would come through carrying commuters to and from Manhattan. George was very humble and hadn’t thought of himself as a hero when he’d rescued the one-legged man.
“But you could’ve been hit by the train, too,” I said to him.
“Can’t be thinkin’ about that in an emergency,” he said with a grin. “Bet you’d a done the same if ya was grown up.”
* * *
I’d spent a lot of time with George in his gatehouse after that crash. The scent of kerosene, wax candles, cigars, and cheap wine made it a heady, magical place to a four-year-old. George wore an engineer’s cap with thin gray-and-white stripes, and a bib-like, plaid neckerchief with red-and-yellow checks. He wore long johns, denim overalls, and a red-and-black checked wool jacket with an aroma like rain-soaked dog. A coffeepot brewed all day on the potbellied stove. George always seemed thankful for the cold water I’d brought him, but more than that, he was genuinely happy to see me and have a conversation, even though I was so young.
“How ya been, Jer?” George would ask with his raspy voice and gravelly laugh.
“Glad ya came to see me. Nothin’ like a fresh cigar and good conversation with a pal.”
When George said “pal,” I felt a warm glow in my gut.
“What ya been up to?” George asked. “Ya followin’ baseball?”
“It’s February,” I said, wondering what George could be thinking. “There’s no baseball when there’s snow on the ground.”
“Let me tell ya somethin’,” George said, leaning down and wafting stale, cigar breath in my face. “There’s always baseball somewhere. I grew up in the West Indies, where it’s always warm and never snows. Last season somethin’ special happened’ in Brooklyn at Ebbetts Field. It’ll change the face of baseball forever. Yes-siree-bob.”
That mysterious quality about George drew me irresistibly to him. There was something simple and complete about that gatehouse shack with its potbellied stove, kerosene lamps, and sooty little window with old funny papers patching one pane to keep out the cold winter air. George put crumpled, faded comic strips of Blondie and Gasoline Alley against the nearly opaque bottom window, while he used Superman and Jiggs ‘n’ Maggie from a sallow 1945 Sunday Journal American on the top pane.
Whenever I’d approach the gatehouse, the sound of George’s clunking boots on the six-by-nine wooden floor would give me comfort. That would mean George was on duty. I’d come whistling around the barbed-wire fence where the tall rose of Sharon blossomed to the top in spring, and sooty drifts of snow piled against its base in winter.
Sometimes, I’d skip to the gatehouse and see boots set out on the door sill. George would be sitting in his rocking chair and warming his stocking feet against the potbellied stove.
“Mornin’, Jer,” George would call out before I was even in sight.
“How’d ya know it was me?” I’d ask standing in the doorway.
“You were whistlin’ Oh, My Sunshine from the time ya turned the corner. Must be your favorite song. When my daughter was your age, her favorite was I’ve Been Workin’ on the Railroad, especially the part that goes, ‘Dinah won’t you blow your horn?’
“Let me tell ya, she sang that all the live-long day. Drove me crazy, but she must’ve thought I liked it, too. I guess I did, but only for the first million fee-fi-fiddly-i-oes.” He laughed and winked. “My little gal is a grown-up woman now. My, how time flies. I can remember when she was no bigger than you. Seems like yesterday.”
“Brought ya some cold water, George. Figured ya might be thirsty.”
“Thanks, Jer. Kindly thank your mom, too.”
“Anything exciting happen since I saw you yesterday? Any train crashes?” I asked
with enthusiasm, hoping to hear another exciting story of heroism.
“If there was, I missed it.” He laughed at my apparent disappointment then motioned
with his index finger to come closer in confidence. “I saw somethin’ early this mornin’¾a God-
awful, terrible thing.”
“Wow! What happened?” I asked wide-eyed with anticipation.
“Ya know how I’ve warned ya ‘bout that third rail out there?” He nodded towards the
track that carried the high-voltage electricity that powered the trains. To me, that rail was
equal to the boogeyman hiding under my bed, the undertow in the surf at Jones Beach, or
kidnappers lurking in the swamps near Idlewild Airport, kid killers who’d sell my fingers
to my parents for a thousand bucks each, or so Bobby had often warned, so I’d stay out of
the swamps where I could drown. The third rail was lethal, just like the quicksand in the
meadow near the coal yard that could suck you under without a trace.
My heart pounded at the mention of the third rail, more frightening than dreaded
“Mrs. Meany,” an old woman who’d capture kids if she caught them misbehaving. Or so,
Mom had cautioned us through most of our early childhood whenever we’d become unruly.
There was an old, homeless woman in town nicknamed “Hump-back Hattie” who embodied
that same dread kids would get from the mythical Mrs. Meany. But the third rail was the
epitome of danger right at our doorstep.
George’s voice shook me from my terrifying thoughts. “Are ya listenin,’ Jer?”
“Yes, but when ya said third rail I got scared.” I hoped George wouldn’t say it
again. No such luck.
“That third rail is dangerous and could kill ya. I want ya to listen carefully to me.
If folks paid attention before somethin’ terrible happened, maybe they’d keep it from
happening.”
“Will I have to cover my ears when ya tell me this one?”
“No point trying to tell ya if ya do,” George said. “Ya know that stray mongrel Peetie
that’s always hangin’ ‘round the back of the bar ‘n’ grill on the other side of the crossing?”
“Sure. Mom threw a bucket of water over Peetie and Mrs. Deviac’s terrier last week
because Peetie’s butt got stuck to the female terrier’s. Bobby and I laughed silly over it, but
Mom got mad.”
George laughed. “At least Peetie died happy.”
“Mom says he’s a dirty, stupid mutt,” Jem said.
“That was true yesterday, but he ain’t nothin’ now,” George said. “Learn a lesson
from poor Peetie. Just like I told ya, and your Mom told ya, never walk along the tracks.
Besides trains comin’, ya got to watch out for that third rail. Poor Peetie didn’t know better.”
“Ya mean he ran along the tracks near the third rail?”
“Afraid so. It was terrible. Makes me shiver to think about it.” His tobacco-stained
teeth chattered. “I saw Peetie scamperin’ along the tracks near the crossing, so I shouted to
scare him off. The more I called and whistled, the more he scampered and wagged his crooked
tail. When I saw him sniffin’ near the tracks, I held my breath. Then he did what all male dogs
do. He lifted his leg, and the stream splashed onto the third rail. As surely as I’m sittin’ here,
there was a spark then a flash that traveled up that stream. Peetie exploded into a puff of black
smoke right before my eyes.”
Stories like that from George had left images in my mind I’d never forget. George was
magical to me, but Mom had warned me not to get too attached to him. She said George was
different from us, that the difference would become apparent to me as I grew older.
I couldn’t imagine what she meant, especially when George was right about the Brooklyn
Dodgers after Jackie Robinson played first base that season. Though I was a Yankee fan, I re-
membered what my grandpa had said about Robinson playing for the Dodgers, the only team in
the majors with color.
Without electricity in the gatehouse, George needed kerosene lamps and a potbellied
stove for heat and candles and kerosene for light. He couldn’t plug in a radio to listen to a
baseball game. It was long before anyone carried transistor radios like they do smartphones
today. George would send me to listen to the Dodgers on our home radio, then I’d report to
George how Jackie Robinson had played. Mom would turned off the radio after the Arthur
Godfrey show was over, but I’d turned it back on with the volume low so she couldn’t hear it.
George was happy about the Dodgers that summer.
When I began kindergarten, Mom let me cross the tracks alone. Feeling grown up,
I walked the two miles to P.S.137 near the coal yards in Springfield Gardens. Mom thought
nothing of sending me on a bus to Jamaica, Queens with Bobby to see a movie and have an
ice-cream soda at Gertz Department Store. Bobby was almost nine and I was five. Today, my
mom might be arrested for that, but those were different times.
The bus fumes at the terminal made me nauseous, so Bobby bought thick, fresh-baked
pretzels to settle our stomachs. Bobby looked out for both of us. We walked hand-in-hand to
and from the bus terminal to Gertz through the colored neighborhood. Most of the people there
were poor, and many dwellings were in shambles.
At the bus terminal pet shop Bobby bought two turtles, each the size of a quarter. We
carried their turtles home in a white, folding box with a wire handle, just like the boxes for
Chinese takeout.
“Why didn’t we get goldfish instead?” I asked.
“We can get two turtles for the price of one goldfish,” Bobby said. “Besides, it’s
my allowance and I want turtles. When you’re old enough for an allowance you can decide.”
Bobby popped some Chiclets into his mouth. Sometimes the responsibility of looking
after his little brother seemed to get to him. Walking through the colored section to catch the
bus home before dark seemed to unnerve him.
I’d never seen any colored people until we’d left our neighborhood to take the bus to
Jamaica. Few lived in Laurelton, Rosedale, or Springfield Gardens in 1949.
I asked Bobby, “How come we don’t know any colored people?”
“Mrs. Daniels teaches second grade at my school,” Bobby said. “And your best friend
is colored.”
“My best friend?” Confused, I wrinkled my nose.
Bobby reminded me, “Who do you spend more time with than anyone else?”
“George the gateman,” I said without hesitation. “He’s not colored.”
“He may not look it, but he is. He’s light-skinned,” Bobby explained, but I was
was puzzled. “He’s what Grandma calls a high yella.”
* * *
Walking home from kindergarten across the tracks and waving to my mom on the other
side of the crossing, one of my new Buster Brown saddle shoes got wedged in the track’s groove.
My parents had bought the shoes for Easter. Mom struggled to free the shoe while bombarding
me with complaints for being so careless.
“What did you put your foot in the groove for!” she snapped, tugging at my leg.
George ran from the gatehouse and shouted, “Get off the tracks! The express is coming!”
He cranked down the gates.
The crossing’s red lights flashed and bells clanged. I saw the express coming around the
bend a quarter-mile away at Springfield Boulevard and heading right for us.
“Squeeze your toes together!” Mom shouted. “You’re not gonna lose that damn shoe!”
When George heard that, he ran onto the tracks and yanked my foot out of the shoe. As
calmly as if we were in a peaceful meadow watching butterflies, he picked me up and carried me
in the crook of one arm and escorted Mom by her elbow off the tracks to safety.
He set me down and held my hand as the express whizzed by billowing Mom’s dress
and blasting hot air in our faces.
“Sorry about the shoe, Mrs. Winter—a question of priorities,” George said patting
my head.
I noticed Mom shudder when the train had thundered past. All that remained of my
shoe was a tuft of white leather.
That night, I lay awake in my top bunk. From our bedroom window, I could see the
tracks of the Long Island Railroad glistening in the moonlight. George was working through the
late shift. The small window of the gatehouse gave off an orange glow. Smoke emitted from the
stack on the roof so I knew George was in his rocking chair beside the potbellied stove. With that
image I quickly fell asleep knowing George was watching the crossing.
* * *
My family took a two-week vacation driving to Maine that summer. When we returned,
I woke early to share all my experiences with George. I also wanted to know about any excite-
ment I’d missed at the crossing
As I ran along the barbed-wire fence and chased grasshoppers from the dewy wild flowers
along the way, I saw a crowd gathered around the gatehouse. Coming closer, I saw two cops
keeping the crowd back from an ambulance parked beside the gatehouse.
My throat tightened and I began panting. I inched along the fence, feeling rust flake off in
my grasp. With my head down, I feared what I might see. A pair of legs stuck out from the gate-
house door. I choked up when I saw those stiff, lifeless legs.
Mr. McGorey, the cop who lived next door, was talking to two uniformed policemen.
When he saw my curious face pressed against the fence, he waved me over. I tried to turn away
from the legs sticking out from the doorway.
“Must’ve been his heart,” Mr. McGorey told me. “Good thing no trains were coming.
We won’t have that worry when the trestle is completed.”
“Is he dead?” I asked.
“Yep. Stiff as a board. Next week they’ll install an automatic gate until they finish the
trestle.”
I saw the medics from the ambulance slide a stretcher under the legs and lift the corpse.
I covered my eyes and said, “I’ll miss my friend George.”
“That’s not George,” Mr. McGorey said. “This guy replaced him while you were away
on vacation. George retired last week and took his railroad pension.”
I felt sorry for the dead man, but was glad it wasn’t George. Two weeks later, they tore
down the gatehouse. That was the first time I felt truly sad. At five years old, I felt nostalgic, but
the destruction of the gatehouse wasn’t as hard to bear as never seeing my best friend again.
Mom had never understood what my friendship with George had meant to me. He was
my adventure world before I’d even started kindergarten.
What Mom had warned me about, had never come true¾I’d never found any differences
between me and George that mattered. Despite the contrast of our ages, races, and social
positions, we’d understood and respected each other. Mom hadn’t mention George in conver-
sation for many years until she’d told me when I was starting high school that his daughter had
become a popular singer.
I felt closer to George with that news. It was a secret only George and I had shared. His
daughter’s name was Dinah, just like in the song—“I’ve Been Workin’ on the Railroad.”
More than sixty-five years later there’s nothing left of that magical time except what’s in
my mind. Those vivid images and intoxicating smells of the gatehouse would come to life
whenever I browsed through my old baseball cards. I’d see Jackie Robinson’s rookie card
that George had given me. Closing my eyes, I can still return to the gatehouse and smell
kerosene, candle wax, cigars, and cheap wine. I can see the 224th Street crossing before the
trestle was built, when the little gatehouse was my home away from home. I imagine hearing
the LIRR express train coming around the bend from Springfield Boulevard a quarter mile
away. I’d wait in anticipation for the bell to clang, then George would jump up from his rocker
beside the potbellied-stove and crank down the gates.
The image of George the gateman remained as something to hold onto whenever I’d
made an important crossing my his life.
George will be there for my final cross over. He’ll raise the gate and help me pass safely
to the other side. He’ll be waiting for me with his usual patience and good humor, and I’ll hear
him singing in harmony with his daughter:
“ Fee, fie, fiddly-i-o
Fee, fie, fiddly-i-o-o-o-o
Fee, fie, fiddly-i-o
Strummin' on the old banjo.” (1)

(1) Levee Song in the Princeton University compilation Carmina Princetonia, 1898
composer unknown.

The Story of a Carpenter

By Li Lu

Postgraduate Student from Shanghai University of International Business and Economics
and first time published author from Taizhou, Zhejiang Province in China


A room, with less than 16 square meters, is full of timbers piling up and lying on the floor, each of which vary in length. An old man in his mid-70s, with gray hair, is busy smoothing a timber with a hand plane. Some finished products, like tables and chairs, often with exquisite workmanship, quietly sit on the floor, accompanying their owner in the room. He is making new-designed furniture for a new house.
Born in an ordinary family with five children, he was the eldest among his brothers and sisters. His father made a living by working as a house painter. So in early childhood, he and the rest of the children couldn’t get enough food to eat for each meal. However, he was fortunate enough as he was a boy. That said, he had the privilege of eating a bowl of rice while his sisters were always provided with a bowl of porridge, or even a half bowl sometimes. The poor little girls had to fix their miserable gaze on him and said, “Brother, could you please share some rice with us?” As the eldest brother, he loved all his sisters and couldn’t bear to refuse them.
Such life seemed the same as always. Until one day, his youngest sister went to exchange food stamps with grain in the Grain Management Agency. She was only able to get a small bag of rice, though she spent much time waiting in line. But a girl whose father was a carpenter succeeded in getting a bag of rice. So she cried back home and told her families of her bad experience. However, her father lost his temper and punished the girl.
After that, as the eldest brother, he made a big decision that he would learn carpentry from a locally famous carpenter. Actually, being a carpenter was very
decent. A good carpenter always enjoyed a good reputation in the village and villagers often think highly of carpenters. However, at that time, in 1958, he was only 15. Most children of the same age in the village would do nothing but to look after cows on the hill or cut trees; while he chose to learn carpentry after helping his families cut trees for selling for two years since he graduated from primary school. That meant he had to make painstaking efforts in learning new skills from his master or even by himself.
Apprenticeship was the beginning of his journey as a carpenter. As a learner, he had to study from demotion, through framing, to the finish phase. His study process included all “wood-related” aspects, such as sill plates, rafters, door and window installations, and something else that his master could teach him. But when teaching apprentices, his master always held back in case that his apprentices would take the bread out of his mouth. So during the apprenticeship, he had a difficult time learning carpentry by himself. Whenever he had access to the furniture which he had never seen before, he would manage to study the structure of the furniture. As he was a man with ingenuity and had passion for learning, he finished his apprenticeship within two years. Then he started to assist his master in making furniture and he was rewarded with 0.5 yuan each day. At that time, he wedded a girl from the same village and thus he had more courage to continue his carpenter career.
But he still had a long way to go before he became a qualified carpenter. In his spare time, he considered how to make a closet, a cupboard and other finished products. With his own efforts, he finally achieved success. He was more experienced in making furniture than ever before. He could complete a piece of furniture on his
own; he could get the salary of 1.8 yuan a day; he could help his father support the family. In 1960, the Great Leap Forward campaign was still prevailing in China. Chinese leaders attempted to accelerate collectivization and industrial production around the country, particularly in rural areas. The collectivization of agriculture emerged in the wake of the establishment of the people's communes in 1958. Under the collectivized system, he had to spend most of his time in grain production with production teams while making furniture to earn more money. Finally he made himself ill as a result of a heavy burden and had to stay in the hospital for a week. However, when he was lying in bed, he still worried about his unfinished furniture. He asked his father, in a trembling voice, “When can I come back home? I have to complete the furniture before the deadline. I don’t want to spend more money in the hospital.” Then his father comforted him, “If you recover soon, you can devote yourself making furniture rather than farming. But you have to hand in some money to compensate for work points in the production team. So you’d better stay in the hospital and then you can do whatever you like.”
Later, he concentrated on designing and making different kinds of furniture, including chairs, tables, cupboards and anything else that people wanted. He possessed many tools, such as axes, saws, planers,chisels, hammers and other necessary tools. And he was proficient in using these tools. For years, he helped villagers who needed to buy new furniture design and make furniture. Especially when someone got married or built a new house, he was busy making well-designed and quality-oriented furniture, which was well-received by the local people. At that
time, it was very difficult and inconvenient to have a repairman repair furniture. So in his leisure time, he also volunteered to help people repair furniture. In this way, he was always respected by villagers and was called “Master Li” ( Master could demonstrate respect to him). As a result, this created an exciting opportunity by word of mouth, which was very helpful at the stage of a carpenter’s career. And he was so lucky that he received an order from a landlord in the neighboring village, which required him to make an elaborate carved bed. Then he was absorbed in making such a bed, which took him six years to finish. After finishing the job, he earned a large sum of money, enabling him to build a new house for his family with three children.
Before building the new house, he found a designer who was renowned for designing houses in the village. The designer recommended that a two-story house should be big enough to accommodate all the family members. But he insisted that he need a three-story house as the height of a house represented one’s wealth and reputation. So the designer drew a plan for a three-story house and he was happy about it. After finding a team and several workers, he chose an auspicious day to build the new house. At that day, he was brimmed over with pride, excitement and happiness. As several months went by, the new house was completed. The last project was to decorate the house. So he started to design furniture himself and then invited some other carpenters to make the furniture together. Whenever each piece of furniture was finished, he would always check it repeatedly. He was proud of making furniture for his own new house, though he sometimes felt tired and annoyed.
With the development of technology, machine industry became increasingly
popular. He had to give up his career as a carpenter due to lower salary. Then he began to grow vegetables and sell vegetables with his wife in order to make a living. However, he still took the responsibility of a career by volunteering to help his neighbors repair furniture. He enjoyed an excellent reputation in the village as a result of his kindness.
Now he’s in his seventies. He’s making well-designed furniture for a new house, specifically, a new house for his son. It has been over twenty years since he designed and made furniture for his own house. He doesn’t mind the height of the house any longer, as long as his son likes it. What he only hopes to do is to engage in making furniture for his son’s house.

Guy de Maupassant
French author
(1850 - 1893)



MADAME PARISSE

By Guy de Maupassant
​

I was sitting on the pier of the small port of Obernon, near the village of Salis, looking at Antibes, bathed in the setting sun. I had never before seen anything so wonderful and so beautiful.
The small town, enclosed by its massive ramparts, built by Monsieur de Vauban, extended into the open sea, in the middle of the immense Gulf of Nice. The great waves, coming in from the ocean, broke at its feet, surrounding it with a wreath of foam; and beyond the ramparts the houses climbed up the hill, one after the other, as far as the two towers, which rose up into the sky, like the peaks of an ancient helmet. And these two towers were outlined against the milky whiteness of the Alps, that enormous distant wall of snow which enclosed the entire horizon.
Between the white foam at the foot of the walls and the white snow on the sky-line the little city, dazzling against the bluish background of the nearest mountain ranges, presented to the rays of the setting sun a pyramid of red-roofed houses, whose facades were also white, but so different one from another that they seemed to be of all tints.
And the sky above the Alps was itself of a blue that was almost white, as if the snow had tinted it; some silvery clouds were floating just over the pale summits, and on the other side of the gulf Nice, lying close to the water, stretched like a white thread between the sea and the mountain. Two great sails, driven by a strong breeze, seemed to skim over the waves. I looked upon all this, astounded.
This view was one of those sweet, rare, delightful things that seem to permeate you and are unforgettable, like the memory of a great happiness. One sees, thinks, suffers, is moved and loves with the eyes. He who can feel with the eye experiences the same keen, exquisite and deep pleasure in looking at men and things as the man with the delicate and sensitive ear, whose soul music overwhelms.
I turned to my companion, M. Martini, a pureblooded Southerner.
“This is certainly one of the rarest sights which it has been vouchsafed to me to admire.
“I have seen Mont Saint-Michel, that monstrous granite jewel, rise out of the sand at sunrise.
“I have seen, in the Sahara, Lake Raianechergui, fifty kilometers long, shining under a moon as brilliant as our sun and breathing up toward it a white cloud, like a mist of milk.
“I have seen, in the Lipari Islands, the weird sulphur crater of the Volcanello, a giant flower which smokes and burns, an enormous yellow flower, opening out in the midst of the sea, whose stem is a volcano.
“But I have seen nothing more wonderful than Antibes, standing against the Alps in the setting sun.
“And I know not how it is that memories of antiquity haunt me; verses of Homer come into my mind; this is a city of the ancient East, a city of the odyssey; this is Troy, although Troy was very far from the sea.”
M. Martini drew the Sarty guide-book out of his pocket and read: “This city was originally a colony founded by the Phocians of Marseilles, about 340 B.C. They gave it the Greek name of Antipolis, meaning counter-city, city opposite another, because it is in fact opposite to Nice, another colony from Marseilles.
“After the Gauls were conquered, the Romans turned Antibes into a municipal city, its inhabitants receiving the rights of Roman citizenship.
“We know by an epigram of Martial that at this time——”
I interrupted him:
“I don’t care what she was. I tell you that I see down there a city of the Odyssey. The coast of Asia and the coast of Europe resemble each other in their shores, and there is no city on the other coast of the Mediterranean which awakens in me the memories of the heroic age as this one does.”
A footstep caused me to turn my head; a woman, a large, dark woman, was walking along the road which skirts the sea in going to the cape.
“That is Madame Parisse, you know,” muttered Monsieur Martini, dwelling on the final syllable.
No, I did not know, but that name, mentioned carelessly, that name of the Trojan shepherd, confirmed me in my dream.
However, I asked: “Who is this Madame Parisse?”
He seemed astonished that I did not know the story.
I assured him that I did not know it, and I looked after the woman, who passed by without seeing us, dreaming, walking with steady and slow step, as doubtless the ladies of old walked.
She was perhaps thirty-five years old and still very beautiful, though a trifle stout.
And Monsieur Martini told me the following story:
Mademoiselle Combelombe was married, one year before the war of 1870, to Monsieur Parisse, a government official. She was then a handsome young girl, as slender and lively as she has now become stout and sad.
Unwillingly she had accepted Monsieur Parisse, one of those little fat men with short legs, who trip along, with trousers that are always too large.
After the war Antibes was garrisoned by a single battalion commanded by Monsieur Jean de Carmelin, a young officer decorated during the war, and who had just received his four stripes.
As he found life exceedingly tedious in this fortress this stuffy mole-hole enclosed by its enormous double walls, he often strolled out to the cape, a kind of park or pine wood shaken by all the winds from the sea.
There he met Madame Parisse, who also came out in the summer evenings to get the fresh air under the trees. How did they come to love each other? Who knows? They met, they looked at each other, and when out of sight they doubtless thought of each other. The image of the young woman with the brown eyes, the black hair, the pale skin, this fresh, handsome Southerner, who displayed her teeth in smiling, floated before the eyes of the officer as he continued his promenade, chewing his cigar instead of smoking it; and the image of the commanding officer, in his close-fitting coat, covered with gold lace, and his red trousers, and a little blond mustache, would pass before the eyes of Madame Parisse, when her husband, half shaven and ill-clad, short-legged and big-bellied, came home to supper in the evening.
As they met so often, they perhaps smiled at the next meeting; then, seeing each other again and again, they felt as if they knew each other. He certainly bowed to her. And she, surprised, bowed in return, but very, very slightly, just enough not to appear impolite. But after two weeks she returned his salutation from a distance, even before they were side by side.
He spoke to her. Of what? Doubtless of the setting sun. They admired it together, looking for it in each other’s eyes more often than on the horizon. And every evening for two weeks this was the commonplace and persistent pretext for a few minutes’ chat.
Then they ventured to take a few steps together, talking of anything that came into their minds, but their eyes were already saying to each other a thousand more intimate things, those secret, charming things that are reflected in the gentle emotion of the glance, and that cause the heart to beat, for they are a better revelation of the soul than the spoken ward.
And then he would take her hand, murmuring those words which the woman divines, without seeming to hear them.
And it was agreed between them that they would love each other without evidencing it by anything sensual or brutal.
She would have remained indefinitely at this stage of intimacy, but he wanted more. And every day he urged her more hotly to give in to his ardent desire.
She resisted, would not hear of it, seemed determined not to give way.
But one evening she said to him casually: “My husband has just gone to Marseilles. He will be away four days.”
Jean de Carmelin threw himself at her feet, imploring her to open her door to him that very night at eleven o’clock. But she would not listen to him, and went home, appearing to be annoyed.
The commandant was in a bad humor all the evening, and the next morning at dawn he went out on the ramparts in a rage, going from one exercise field to the other, dealing out punishment to the officers and men as one might fling stones into a crowd,
On going in to breakfast he found an envelope under his napkin with these four words: “To-night at ten.” And he gave one hundred sous without any reason to the waiter.
The day seemed endless to him. He passed part of it in curling his hair and perfuming himself.
As he was sitting down to the dinner-table another envelope was handed to him, and in it he found the following telegram:
“My Love: Business completed. I return this evening on the nine o’clock train. PARISSE.” The commandant let loose such a vehement oath that the waiter dropped the soup-tureen on the floor.
What should he do? He certainly wanted her, that very, evening at whatever cost; and he would have her. He would resort to any means, even to arresting and imprisoning the husband. Then a mad thought struck him. Calling for paper, he wrote the following note:
MADAME: He will not come back this evening, I swear it to you,—and I shall be, you know where, at ten o’clock. Fear nothing. I will answer for everything, on my honor as an officer. JEAN DE CARMELIN. And having sent off this letter, he quietly ate his dinner.
Toward eight o’clock he sent for Captain Gribois, the second in command, and said, rolling between his fingers the crumpled telegram of Monsieur Parisse:
“Captain, I have just received a telegram of a very singular nature, which it is impossible for me to communicate to you. You will immediately have all the gates of the city closed and guarded, so that no one, mind me, no one, will either enter or leave before six in the morning. You will also have men patrol the streets, who will compel the inhabitants to retire to their houses at nine o’clock. Any one found outside beyond that time will be conducted to his home ‘manu militari’. If your men meet me this night they will at once go out of my way, appearing not to know me. You understand me?”
“Yes, commandant.”
“I hold you responsible for the execution of my orders, my dear captain.”
“Yes, commandant.”
“Would you like to have a glass of chartreuse?”
“With great pleasure, commandant.”
They clinked glasses drank down the brown liquor and Captain Gribois left the room.
The train from Marseilles arrived at the station at nine o’clock sharp, left two passengers on the platform and went on toward Nice.
One of them, tall and thin, was Monsieur Saribe, the oil merchant, and the other, short and fat, was Monsieur Parisse.
Together they set out, with their valises, to reach the city, one kilometer distant.
But on arriving at the gate of the port the guards crossed their bayonets, commanding them to retire.
Frightened, surprised, cowed with astonishment, they retired to deliberate; then, after having taken counsel one with the other, they came back cautiously to parley, giving their names.
But the soldiers evidently had strict orders, for they threatened to shoot; and the two scared travellers ran off, throwing away their valises, which impeded their flight.
Making the tour of the ramparts, they presented themselves at the gate on the route to Cannes. This likewise was closed and guarded by a menacing sentinel. Messrs. Saribe and Parisse, like the prudent men they were, desisted from their efforts and went back to the station for shelter, since it was not safe to be near the fortifications after sundown.
The station agent, surprised and sleepy, permitted them to stay till morning in the waiting-room.
And they sat there side by side, in the dark, on the green velvet sofa, too scared to think of sleeping.
It was a long and weary night for them.
At half-past six in the morning they were informed that the gates were open and that people could now enter Antibes.
They set out for the city, but failed to find their abandoned valises on the road.
When they passed through the gates of the city, still somewhat anxious, the Commandant de Carmelin, with sly glance and mustache curled up, came himself to look at them and question them.
Then he bowed to them politely, excusing himself for having caused them a bad night. But he had to carry out orders.
The people of Antibes were scared to death. Some spoke of a surprise planned by the Italians, others of the landing of the prince imperial and others again believed that there was an Orleanist conspiracy. The truth was suspected only later, when it became known that the battalion of the commandant had been sent away, to a distance and that Monsieur de Carmelin had been severely punished.
Monsieur Martini had finished his story. Madame Parisse returned, her promenade being ended. She passed gravely near me, with her eyes fixed on the Alps, whose summits now gleamed rosy in the last rays of the setting sun.
I longed to speak to her, this poor, sad woman, who would ever be thinking of that night of love, now long past, and of the bold man who for the sake of a kiss from her had dared to put a city into a state of siege and to compromise his whole future.
And to-day he had probably forgotten her, if he did not relate this audacious, comical and tender farce to his comrades over their cups.
Had she seen him again? Did she still love him? And I thought: Here is an instance of modern love, grotesque and yet heroic. The Homer who should sing of this new Helen and the adventure of her Menelaus must be gifted with the soul of a Paul de Kock. And yet the hero of this deserted woman was brave, daring, handsome, strong as Achilles and more cunning than Ulysses.



​

Leo Tolstoy
Russian author
(1828 - 1910)
​


The Young Tsar
By Leo Tolstoy


THE young Tsar had just ascended the throne. For five weeks he had
worked without ceasing, in the way that Tsars are accustomed to work. He
had been attending to reports, signing papers, receiving ambassadors and
high officials who came to be presented to him, and reviewing troops. He
was tired, and as a traveller exhausted by heat and thirst longs for a
draught of water and for rest, so he longed for a respite of just one
day at least from receptions, from speeches, from parades--a few free
hours to spend like an ordinary human being with his young, clever, and
beautiful wife, to whom he had been married only a month before.
It was Christmas Eve. The young Tsar had arranged to have a complete
rest that evening. The night before he had worked till very late at
documents which his ministers of state had left for him to examine.
In the morning he was present at the Te Deum, and then at a military
service. In the afternoon he received official visitors; and later he
had been obliged to listen to the reports of three ministers of state,
and had given his assent to many important matters. In his conference
with the Minister of Finance he had agreed to an increase of duties
on imported goods, which should in the future add many millions to the
State revenues. Then he sanctioned the sale of brandy by the Crown in
various parts of the country, and signed a decree permitting the sale of
alcohol in villages having markets. This was also calculated to increase
the principal revenue to the State, which was derived from the sale of
spirits. He had also approved of the issuing of a new gold loan required
for a financial negotiation. The Minister of justice having reported on
the complicated case of the succession of the Baron Snyders, the young
Tsar confirmed the decision by his signature; and also approved the new
rules relating to the application of Article 1830 of the penal code,
providing for the punishment of tramps. In his conference with the
Minister of the Interior he ratified the order concerning the collection
of taxes in arrears, signed the order settling what measures should be
taken in regard to the persecution of religious dissenters, and also one
providing for the continuance of martial law in those provinces where it
had already been established. With the Minister of War he arranged for
the nomination of a new Corps Commander for the raising of recruits, and
for punishment of breach of discipline. These things kept him occupied
till dinner-time, and even then his freedom was not complete. A number
of high officials had been invited to dinner, and he was obliged to talk
to them: not in the way he felt disposed to do, but according to what
he was expected to say. At last the tiresome dinner was over, and the
guests departed.
The young Tsar heaved a sigh of relief, stretched himself and retired to
his apartments to take off his uniform with the decorations on it, and
to don the jacket he used to wear before his accession to the throne.
His young wife had also retired to take off her dinner-dress, remarking
that she would join him presently.
When he had passed the row of footmen who were standing erect before
him, and reached his room; when he had thrown off his heavy uniform and
put on his jacket, the young Tsar felt glad to be free from work;
and his heart was filled with a tender emotion which sprang from the
consciousness of his freedom, of his joyous, robust young life, and of
his love. He threw himself on the sofa, stretched out his legs upon it,
leaned his head on his hand, fixed his gaze on the dull glass shade of
the lamp, and then a sensation which he had not experienced since his
childhood,--the pleasure of going to sleep, and a drowsiness that was
irresistible--suddenly came over him.
"My wife will be here presently and will find me asleep. No, I must not
go to sleep," he thought. He let his elbow drop down, laid his cheek in
the palm of his hand, made himself comfortable, and was so utterly happy
that he only felt a desire not to be aroused from this delightful state.
And then what happens to all of us every day happened to him--he fell
asleep without knowing himself when or how. He passed from one state
into another without his will having any share in it, without even
desiring it, and without regretting the state out of which he had
passed. He fell into a heavy sleep which was like death. How long he had
slept he did not know, but he was suddenly aroused by the soft touch of
a hand upon his shoulder.
"It is my darling, it is she," he thought. "What a shame to have dozed
off!"
But it was not she. Before his eyes, which were wide open and blinking
at the light, she, that charming and beautiful creature whom he was
expecting, did not stand, but HE stood. Who HE was the young Tsar did
not know, but somehow it did not strike him that he was a stranger whom
he had never seen before. It seemed as if he had known him for a long
time and was fond of him, and as if he trusted him as he would trust
himself. He had expected his beloved wife, but in her stead that man
whom he had never seen before had come. Yet to the young Tsar, who
was far from feeling regret or astonishment, it seemed not only a most
natural, but also a necessary thing to happen.
"Come!" said the stranger.
"Yes, let us go," said the young Tsar, not knowing where he was to go,
but quite aware that he could not help submitting to the command of the
stranger. "But how shall we go?" he asked.
"In this way."
The stranger laid his hand on the Tsar's head, and the Tsar for a moment
lost consciousness. He could not tell whether he had been unconscious a
long or a short time, but when he recovered his senses he found himself
in a strange place. The first thing he was aware of was a strong and
stifling smell of sewage. The place in which he stood was a broad
passage lit by the red glow of two dim lamps. Running along one side of
the passage was a thick wall with windows protected by iron gratings.
On the other side were doors secured with locks. In the passage stood
a soldier, leaning up against the wall, asleep. Through the doors the
young Tsar heard the muffled sound of living human beings: not of one
alone, but of many. HE was standing at the side of the young Tsar, and
pressing his shoulder slightly with his soft hand, pushed him to the
first door, unmindful of the sentry. The young Tsar felt he could not
do otherwise than yield, and approached the door. To his amazement
the sentry looked straight at him, evidently without seeing him, as
he neither straightened himself up nor saluted, but yawned loudly and,
lifting his hand, scratched the back of his neck. The door had a small
hole, and in obedience to the pressure of the hand that pushed him,
the young Tsar approached a step nearer and put his eye to the small
opening. Close to the door, the foul smell that stifled him was
stronger, and the young Tsar hesitated to go nearer, but the hand
pushed him on. He leaned forward, put his eye close to the opening, and
suddenly ceased to perceive the odour. The sight he saw deadened his
sense of smell. In a large room, about ten yards long and six yards
wide, there walked unceasingly from one end to the other, six men in
long grey coats, some in felt boots, some barefoot. There were over
twenty men in all in the room, but in that first moment the young Tsar
only saw those who were walking with quick, even, silent steps. It was a
horrid sight to watch the continual, quick, aimless movements of the men
who passed and overtook each other, turning sharply when they reached
the wall, never looking at one another, and evidently concentrated each
on his own thoughts. The young Tsar had observed a similar sight one
day when he was watching a tiger in a menagerie pacing rapidly with
noiseless tread from one end of his cage to the other, waving its tail,
silently turning when it reached the bars, and looking at nobody. Of
these men one, apparently a young peasant, with curly hair, would have
been handsome were it not for the unnatural pallor of his face, and the
concentrated, wicked, scarcely human, look in his eyes. Another was a
Jew, hairy and gloomy. The third was a lean old man, bald, with a beard
that had been shaven and had since grown like bristles. The fourth
was extraordinarily heavily built, with well-developed muscles, a low
receding forehead and a flat nose. The fifth was hardly more than a boy,
long, thin, obviously consumptive. The sixth was small and dark, with
nervous, convulsive movements. He walked as if he were skipping,
and muttered continuously to himself. They were all walking rapidly
backwards and forwards past the hole through which the young Tsar was
looking. He watched their faces and their gait with keen interest.
Having examined them closely, he presently became aware of a number of
other men at the back of the room, standing round, or lying on the shelf
that served as a bed. Standing close to the door he also saw the pail
which caused such an unbearable stench. On the shelf about ten men,
entirely covered with their cloaks, were sleeping. A red-haired man with
a huge beard was sitting sideways on the shelf, with his shirt off. He
was examining it, lifting it up to the light, and evidently catching
the vermin on it. Another man, aged and white as snow, stood with his
profile turned towards the door. He was praying, crossing himself, and
bowing low, apparently so absorbed in his devotions as to be oblivious
of all around him.
"I see--this is a prison," thought the young Tsar. "They certainly
deserve pity. It is a dreadful life. But it cannot be helped. It is
their own fault."
But this thought had hardly come into his head before HE, who was his
guide, replied to it.
"They are all here under lock and key by your order. They have all been
sentenced in your name. But far from meriting their present condition
which is due to your human judgment, the greater part of them are far
better than you or those who were their judges and who keep them here.
This one"--he pointed to the handsome, curly-headed fellow--"is a
murderer. I do not consider him more guilty than those who kill in
war or in duelling, and are rewarded for their deeds. He had neither
education nor moral guidance, and his life had been cast among
thieves and drunkards. This lessens his guilt, but he has done wrong,
nevertheless, in being a murderer. He killed a merchant, to rob him.
The other man, the Jew, is a thief, one of a gang of thieves. That
uncommonly strong fellow is a horse-stealer, and guilty also, but
compared with others not as culpable. Look!"--and suddenly the young
Tsar found himself in an open field on a vast frontier. On the right
were potato fields; the plants had been rooted out, and were lying in
heaps, blackened by the frost; in alternate streaks were rows of winter
corn. In the distance a little village with its tiled roofs was visible;
on the left were fields of winter corn, and fields of stubble. No one
was to be seen on any side, save a black human figure in front at the
border-line, a gun slung on his back, and at his feet a dog. On the spot
where the young Tsar stood, sitting beside him, almost at his feet, was
a young Russian soldier with a green band on his cap, and with his
rifle slung over his shoulders, who was rolling up a paper to make a
cigarette. The soldier was obviously unaware of the presence of the
young Tsar and his companion, and had not heard them. He did now turn
round when the Tsar, who was standing directly over the soldier,
asked, "Where are we?" "On the Prussian frontier," his guide answered.
Suddenly, far away in front of them, a shot was fired. The soldier
jumped to his feet, and seeing two men running, bent low to the ground,
hastily put his tobacco into his pocket, and ran after one of them.
"Stop, or I'll shoot!" cried the soldier. The fugitive, without
stopping, turned his head and called out something evidently abusive or
blasphemous.
"Damn you!" shouted the soldier, who put one foot a little forward and
stopped, after which, bending his head over his rifle, and raising his
right hand, he rapidly adjusted something, took aim, and, pointing the
gun in the direction of the fugitive, probably fired, although no sound
was heard. "Smokeless powder, no doubt," thought the young Tsar, and
looking after the fleeing man saw him take a few hurried steps, and
bending lower and lower, fall to the ground and crawl on his hands and
knees. At last he remained lying and did not move. The other fugitive,
who was ahead of him, turned round and ran back to the man who was lying
on the ground. He did something for him and then resumed his flight.
"What does all this mean?" asked the Tsar.
"These are the guards on the frontier, enforcing the revenue laws. That
man was killed to protect the revenues of the State."
"Has he actually been killed?"
The guide again laid his hand upon the head of the young Tsar, and again
the Tsar lost consciousness. When he had recovered his senses he found
himself in a small room--the customs office. The dead body of a man,
with a thin grizzled beard, an aquiline nose, and big eyes with the
eyelids closed, was lying on the floor. His arms were thrown asunder,
his feet bare, and his thick, dirty toes were turned up at right angles
and stuck out straight. He had a wound in his side, and on his ragged
cloth jacket, as well as on his blue shirt, were stains of clotted
blood, which had turned black save for a few red spots here and there.
A woman stood close to the wall, so wrapped up in shawls that her face
could scarcely be seen. Motionless she gazed at the aquiline nose, the
upturned feet, and the protruding eyeballs; sobbing and sighing, and
drying her tears at long, regular intervals. A pretty girl of thirteen
was standing at her mother's side, with her eyes and mouth wide open.
A boy of eight clung to his mother's skirt, and looked intensely at his
dead father without blinking.
From a door near them an official, an officer, a doctor, and a clerk
with documents, entered. After them came a soldier, the one who had shot
the man. He stepped briskly along behind his superiors, but the instant
he saw the corpse he went suddenly pale, and quivered; and dropping his
head stood still. When the official asked him whether that was the man
who was escaping across the frontier, and at whom he had fired, he
was unable to answer. His lips trembled, and his face twitched. "The
s--s--s--" he began, but could not get out the words which he wanted to
say. "The same, your excellency." The officials looked at each other and
wrote something down.
"You see the beneficial results of that same system!"
In a room of sumptuous vulgarity two men sat drinking wine. One of them
was old and grey, the other a young Jew. The young Jew was holding a
roll of bank-notes in his hand, and was bargaining with the old man. He
was buying smuggled goods.
"You've got 'em cheap," he said, smiling.
"Yes--but the risk--"
"This is indeed terrible," said the young Tsar; "but it cannot be
avoided. Such proceedings are necessary."
His companion made no response, saying merely, "Let us move on," and
laid his hand again on the head of the Tsar. When the Tsar recovered
consciousness, he was standing in a small room lit by a shaded lamp. A
woman was sitting at the table sewing. A boy of eight was bending over
the table, drawing, with his feet doubled up under him in the armchair.
A student was reading aloud. The father and daughter of the family
entered the room noisily.
"You signed the order concerning the sale of spirits," said the guide to
the Tsar.
"Well?" said the woman.
"He's not likely to live."
"What's the matter with him?"
"They've kept him drunk all the time."
"It's not possible!" exclaimed the wife.
"It's true. And the boy's only nine years old, that Vania Moroshkine."
"What did you do to try to save him?" asked the wife.
"I tried everything that could be done. I gave him an emetic and put a
mustard-plaster on him. He has every symptom of delirium tremens."
"It's no wonder--the whole family are drunkards. Annisia is only a
little better than the rest, and even she is generally more or less
drunk," said the daughter.
"And what about your temperance society?" the student asked his sister.
"What can we do when they are given every opportunity of drinking?
Father tried to have the public-house shut up, but the law is against
him. And, besides, when I was trying to convince Vasily Ermiline that it
was disgraceful to keep a public-house and ruin the people with drink,
he answered very haughtily, and indeed got the better of me before the
crowd: 'But I have a license with the Imperial eagle on it. If there was
anything wrong in my business, the Tsar wouldn't have issued a decree
authorising it.' Isn't it terrible? The whole village has been drunk
for the last three days. And as for feast-days, it is simply horrible to
think of! It has been proved conclusively that alcohol does no good in
any case, but invariably does harm, and it has been demonstrated to be
an absolute poison. Then, ninety-nine per cent. of the crimes in the
world are committed through its influence. We all know how the standard
of morality and the general welfare improved at once in all the
countries where drinking has been suppressed--like Sweden and Finland,
and we know that it can be suppressed by exercising a moral influence
over the masses. But in our country the class which could exert that
influence--the Government, the Tsar and his officials--simply encourage
drink. Their main revenues are drawn from the continual drunkenness of
the people. They drink themselves--they are always drinking the health
of somebody: 'Gentlemen, the Regiment!' The preachers drink, the bishops
drink--"
Again the guide touched the head of the young Tsar, who again lost
consciousness. This time he found himself in a peasant's cottage.
The peasant--a man of forty, with red face and blood-shot eyes--was
furiously striking the face of an old man, who tried in vain to protect
himself from the blows. The younger peasant seized the beard of the old
man and held it fast.
"For shame! To strike your father--!"
"I don't care, I'll kill him! Let them send me to Siberia, I don't
care!"
The women were screaming. Drunken officials rushed into the cottage and
separated father and son. The father had an arm broken and the son's
beard was torn out. In the doorway a drunken girl was making violent
love to an old besotted peasant.
"They are beasts!" said the young Tsar.
Another touch of his guide's hand and the young Tsar awoke in a new
place. It was the office of the justice of the peace. A fat, bald-headed
man, with a double chin and a chain round his neck, had just risen from
his seat, and was reading the sentence in a loud voice, while a crowd
of peasants stood behind the grating. There was a woman in rags in the
crowd who did not rise. The guard gave her a push.
"Asleep! I tell you to stand up!" The woman rose.
"According to the decree of his Imperial Majesty--" the judge began
reading the sentence. The case concerned that very woman. She had taken
away half a bundle of oats as she was passing the thrashing-floor of
a landowner. The justice of the peace sentenced her to two months'
imprisonment. The landowner whose oats had been stolen was among the
audience. When the judge adjourned the court the landowner approached,
and shook hands, and the judge entered into conversation with him. The
next case was about a stolen samovar. Then there was a trial about
some timber which had been cut, to the detriment of the landowner. Some
peasants were being tried for having assaulted the constable of the
district.
When the young Tsar again lost consciousness, he awoke to find himself
in the middle of a village, where he saw hungry, half-frozen children
and the wife of the man who had assaulted the constable broken down from
overwork.
Then came a new scene. In Siberia, a tramp is being flogged with the
lash, the direct result of an order issued by the Minister of justice.
Again oblivion, and another scene. The family of a Jewish watchmaker
is evicted for being too poor. The children are crying, and the Jew,
Isaaks, is greatly distressed. At last they come to an arrangement, and
he is allowed to stay on in the lodgings.
The chief of police takes a bribe. The governor of the province also
secretly accepts a bribe. Taxes are being collected. In the village,
while a cow is sold for payment, the police inspector is bribed by a
factory owner, who thus escapes taxes altogether. And again a village
court scene, and a sentence carried into execution--the lash!
"Ilia Vasilievich, could you not spare me that?"
"No."
The peasant burst into tears. "Well, of course, Christ suffered, and He
bids us suffer too."
Then other scenes. The Stundists--a sect--being broken up and dispersed;
the clergy refusing first to marry, then to bury a Protestant. Orders
given concerning the passage of the Imperial railway train. Soldiers
kept sitting in the mud--cold, hungry, and cursing. Decrees issued
relating to the educational institutions of the Empress Mary Department.
Corruption rampant in the foundling homes. An undeserved monument.
Thieving among the clergy. The reinforcement of the political police.
A woman being searched. A prison for convicts who are sentenced to be
deported. A man being hanged for murdering a shop assistant.
Then the result of military discipline: soldiers wearing uniform and
scoffing at it. A gipsy encampment. The son of a millionaire exempted
from military duty, while the only support of a large family is forced
to serve. The university: a teacher relieved of military service, while
the most gifted musicians are compelled to perform it. Soldiers and
their debauchery--and the spreading of disease.
Then a soldier who has made an attempt to desert. He is being tried.
Another is on trial for striking an officer who has insulted his mother.
He is put to death. Others, again, are tried for having refused to
shoot. The runaway soldier sent to a disciplinary battalion and flogged
to death. Another, who is guiltless, flogged, and his wounds sprinkled
with salt till he dies. One of the superior officers stealing money
belonging to the soldiers. Nothing but drunkenness, debauchery,
gambling, and arrogance on the part of the authorities.
What is the general condition of the people: the children are
half-starving and degenerate; the houses are full of vermin; an
everlasting dull round of labour, of submission, and of sadness. On the
other hand: ministers, governors of provinces, covetous, ambitious, full
of vanity, and anxious to inspire fear.
"But where are men with human feelings?"
"I will show you where they are."
Here is the cell of a woman in solitary confinement at Schlusselburg.
She is going mad. Here is another woman--a girl--indisposed, violated
by soldiers. A man in exile, alone, embittered, half-dead. A prison for
convicts condemned to hard labour, and women flogged. They are many.
Tens of thousands of the best people. Some shut up in prisons, others
ruined by false education, by the vain desire to bring them up as we
wish. But not succeeding in this, whatever might have been is ruined
as well, for it is made impossible. It is as if we were trying to make
buckwheat out of corn sprouts by splitting the ears. One may spoil the
corn, but one could never change it to buckwheat. Thus all the youth of
the world, the entire younger generation, is being ruined.
But woe to those who destroy one of these little ones, woe to you if you
destroy even one of them. On your soul, however, are hosts of them,
who have been ruined in your name, all of those over whom your power
extends.
"But what can I do?" exclaimed the Tsar in despair. "I do not wish to
torture, to flog, to corrupt, to kill any one! I only want the welfare
of all. Just as I yearn for happiness myself, so I want the world to be
happy as well. Am I actually responsible for everything that is done
in my name? What can I do? What am I to do to rid myself of such a
responsibility? What can I do? I do not admit that the responsibility
for all this is mine. If I felt myself responsible for one-hundredth
part of it, I would shoot myself on the spot. It would not be possible
to live if that were true. But how can I put an end, to all this evil?
It is bound up with the very existence of the State. I am the head of
the State! What am I to do? Kill myself? Or abdicate? But that would
mean renouncing my duty. O God, O God, God, help me!" He burst into
tears and awoke.
"How glad I am that it was only a dream," was his first thought. But
when he began to recollect what he had seen in his dream, and to compare
it with actuality, he realised that the problem propounded to him in
dream remained just as important and as insoluble now that he was
awake. For the first time the young Tsar became aware of the heavy
responsibility weighing on him, and was aghast. His thoughts no longer
turned to the young Queen and to the happiness he had anticipated for
that evening, but became centred on the unanswerable question which hung
over him: "What was to be done?"
In a state of great agitation he arose and went into the next room. An
old courtier, a co-worker and friend of his father's, was standing there
in the middle of the room in conversation with the young Queen, who
was on her way to join her husband. The young Tsar approached them, and
addressing his conversation principally to the old courtier, told him
what he had seen in his dream and what doubts the dream had left in his
mind.
"That is a noble idea. It proves the rare nobility of your spirit," said
the old man. "But forgive me for speaking frankly--you are too kind
to be an emperor, and you exaggerate your responsibility. In the first
place, the state of things is not as you imagine it to be. The people
are not poor. They are well-to-do. Those who are poor are poor through
their own fault. Only the guilty are punished, and if an unavoidable
mistake does sometimes occur, it is like a thunderbolt--an accident, or
the will of God. You have but one responsibility: to fulfil your task
courageously and to retain the power that is given to you. You wish the
best for your people and God sees that. As for the errors which you have
committed unwittingly, you can pray for forgiveness, and God will guide
you and pardon you. All the more because you have done nothing that
demands forgiveness, and there never have been and never will be men
possessed of such extraordinary qualities as you and your father.
Therefore all we implore you to do is to live, and to reward our endless
devotion and love with your favour, and every one, save scoundrels who
deserve no happiness, will be happy."
"What do you think about that?" the young Tsar asked his wife.
"I have a different opinion," said the clever young woman, who had been
brought up in a free country. "I am glad you had that dream, and I agree
with you that there are grave responsibilities resting upon you. I have
often thought about it with great anxiety, and I think there is a simple
means of casting off a part of the responsibility you are unable to
bear, if not all of it. A large proportion of the power which is
too heavy for you, you should delegate to the people, to its
representatives, reserving for yourself only the supreme control, that
is, the general direction of the affairs of State."

The Queen had hardly ceased to expound her views, when the old courtier
began eagerly to refute her arguments, and they started a polite but
very heated discussion.
For a time the young Tsar followed their arguments, but presently he
ceased to be aware of what they said, listening only to the voice of him
who had been his guide in the dream, and who was now speaking audibly in
his heart.
"You are not only the Tsar," said the voice, "but more. You are a human
being, who only yesterday came into this world, and will perchance
to-morrow depart out of it. Apart from your duties as a Tsar, of which
that old man is now speaking, you have more immediate duties not by any
means to be disregarded; human duties, not the duties of a Tsar towards
his subjects, which are only accidental, but an eternal duty, the duty
of a man in his relation to God, the duty toward your own soul, which is
to save it, and also, to serve God in establishing his kingdom on earth.
You are not to be guarded in your actions either by what has been or
what will be, but only by what it is your own duty to do."
*****
He opened his eyes--his wife was awakening him. Which of the three
courses the young Tsar chose, will be told in fifty years.

​NO SIGNS OF INTELLIGENCE
 
by
 
Gerald Arthur Winter
 
 
 
I was brought up to believe in God, but since that day when everything had
changed, I’ve wondered—if God exists, we must have gotten it all wrong. So here we
are left with the aftermath of that misinformation. Or I should say, here I am, because I
don’t know that anyone else is left. It might just be me, only me, who remains to witness
our mistake. If so, was that intentional, or have I just slipped through the grating of mass
destruction? I’ll have to wait here to be sure, but if no one else is left, what’s the point in
that? Why delay my inevitable demise. If God got pissed off enough with mankind, what
difference would my suicide make?
There are no smoking ruins or smoldering embers in sight, only soft sand as far as
I can see from left to right. A tranquil turquoise sea is ahead with mere ripples of surf,
like a subtle memory of the cause and its effects to future existence. A salty sea breeze
wafts to my tan face, with its sun-bleached, frizzled beard down to my navel. My hair
hangs over my bronzed shoulders and halfway down my back. My buttocks is taut
against the palm leaves used to clothe me and held up by a live kudu vine that wants to
take root in my navel.
The white flesh of the coconut I’d cracked open against the coral reef provides my
daily bread. Though the flesh is coarse and dry, its milk quenches my parched throat. My
rough hand strums the protruding grid of my ribs like a twelve-string guitar, but the only
music to my ears comes from distant birds assuring me that life, though highly compro-
mised, still goes on.
Staring out at the sea with a clear blue sky above, I hesitate to turn around and
face what’s behind me. I’ve ventured into the jungle for food, also for kindling and wood
to make a fire. That’s been only after dark, so I wouldn’t have to see any signs of mass
devastation beyond the mountains. So far, the wind hasn’t blown from that direction, so
I wait until it does. And if he, like God, does exist, the Devil will have his do with me,
and anything else that breathes.
Thy will be done.
I’ve marked the days with a sharp stone against the trunk of a coconut palm--
today is day 39. I must have lost more than a pound a day, maybe as much as two pounds.
My clothes hadn’t been destroyed but, after only weeks, they no longer fit and serve me
better as towels, using the cloth to dry myself after a bath in a cold spring of fresh water.
So far, no wildlife has come to that potential watering hole. Either I’ve been lucky
in the event of predators, or there are no living ground creatures here, or anywhere else.
I’ve boiled water from that spring, so I’ve not become dehydrated yet, as I might from
solar exposure on the beach. But I have to go to the shore . . . just to look for any sign
that someone else has survived. It wouldn’t be a boat or a plane, no chance of that any-
more, but maybe a raft with people floating towards the shoreline with the wind coming
from that direction. Just one person would do, anyone.  Please, God . . . if you are out
there . . . if you know I’m here . . . please bring others to me soon. I may not be able to
hang on for even another day. Amen.
This morning I’m gathering clams to sustain me through the day. I find three
between the size of, what we’d called “top-necks” and “cherrystones,” from two to three-
and-a-half inches across. Together they make about six ounces of pure protein. I open
them with a sharp piece of coral that I’ve tapered against a rock. I can’t open them in the
skillful manner I’d learned as a kid at the Jersey shore. Instead, I’ve learned to locate a
clam’s g-spot from watching seagulls. Like a bird’s beak, the sharp implement could
whittle at a clam’s clit. As if it were having an orgasm, a clam would spurt open with its
juice spraying me.
I’m so tempted to eat them raw, the way I used to enjoy them best, but I can’t
chance it, not knowing if they will be toxic without being cooked. I’ve boiled littlenecks
because they still remain tender, but the only way to cook these larger clams is to grill
them to perfect succulence, like a woman.
I haven’t thought about a woman in months, too frantic at the end of the cataclysm.
Now, like a beautiful woman, these delicious clams, if improperly handled, might poison
me.
I pour out the remaining clam juice into an empty coconut shell to make soup
later with seaweed and conch, which is tough no matter how it’s prepared, but will slide
down my dry throat better with clam broth.
Sitting in the shade at the edge of the jungle with my legs folded yoga style, I’m
contemplating the horizon where the turquoise sea meets an azure, cloudless sky. There
hasn’t been a cloud in that direction since I washed up here, wherever I am, even if that
matters. There are no sand fleas, mosquitoes, or flies, but I have seen a few types of bees
pollinating varga bushes around the spring pool where I was bathing.
With the tip of my tongue, I feel a strand of clam stuck between two molars, but I
can’t floss it, so I use a bug that’s trotting between my feet. I scoop it up in my hand and
pop it into my mouth. The carnivorous dentic consumes the clam with a sucking hiss.
Job done, I spit the dentic several yards onto the sand, but a buglizard emerges from
its hole and gobbles the dentic with a crunch. Not satisfied, it finds a sandworm, then
a slamworm gobble them up in a hurry. It blinks its black eyes at me and belches. A
gull swoops down and catches the buglizard in its beak, but a crabdozer snags the gull’s
foot before it can take flight.
An infant troglosaur must have heard the commotion and galumphs from the
jungle’s edge to the beach and inhales the entire menagerie with a snort and a triumphant,
trumpeting roar like a dying elephant, a sound I’d become used to these past weeks.
On day 40, I was awakened by a whirring sound as a spacecraft hovered above
me. Part of my conscience wanted to run towards it across the beach, shouting and
waving my arms, but starvation and precaution to sand predators held me back.
A laser from the spacecraft scanned the shoreline as I watched. My stomach
gurgled and twitched watching a net drop to the sea and pull up a ton of huge fish
beyond the surf, where I’d dared not venture for fear of becoming the sea creatures’
consumption. I’d relied on low tide for food gathering just to survive, but seeing the
silvery fish flipping inside the net and lifted into the spacecraft made my mouth water.
For fear of being left behind, I burst from the brush and ran across the burning
sand blistering my feet.
“Save me! Save me!” I shouted without knowing what language my saviors
might speak.
Instead of lifting me up in a net to safety, they tossed me one fish that bounced
off the coral and landed at my feet. The spacecraft emitted words from a loudspeaker
in a language my ancestors had long forgotten, but as the vessel floated upward and
out of sight, I recalled that language from my ancient linguistic studies at the university.
I used my sharpened bamboo pole to fight off the sand predators as I carried the
huge fish over my shoulder to the jungle. The words from the spacecraft echoed in my
mind: RETURN TO BASE . . . NO SIGNS OF INTELLIGENCE.
 

​SCHOOLBOY DREAD

by

Rob Santana

​ 
 “Let me tell you what happens to boys in these parts who don’t finish their homework.”  Mom said to her eleven year-old son Matt, whose textbook lay shut next to the PC.
 “In these parts?” Matt asked, scratching his crew-cut. “Lemme guess, Ma. They get sent to that chiropractor who’s desperate for patients.”
 Mom glared at him, not amused. “Smart-mouth, I’m serious as a death in the family about this.” She scratched her thin nose under the door frame, her brown hair unkempt. Matt hated whenever she paid his bedroom, his sanctuary, an unexpected visit.
 “Sorry, Ma.” Matt slouched back against the swivel chair. The assignment from class was pure torture. ‘Each bone in the human body and its function.’ Bleah. He girded himself.  One bone at a time. What was the point? Who cared about bones? Willie cared. Willie was a dog. 
 “Okay, so we square on that?” Mom asked. “Because I’m not kidding, Matt. That ‘F’ you got for not completing your last assignment embarrassed me, embarrassed your father.”
 Matt drew back. “Dad was embarrassed? When was this, Ma? During his last visit?” 
 Mom dipped her head. It was a cheap shot. But Dad deserved every cheap shot his only son could muster. Dad.  In his unmarked police car patrolling the night streets with his buddy, content to finally be
free from his wife and son. 
 Not that he’d been a bad father. He tried. Just couldn’t handle Mom. Her granny nightgown made her look older than her thirty-five years.
 “Gee, Ma, now I can go around telling my teachers ‘I’m a child of divorced parents, cut me a break.”
 Mom shot him a look. Matt opened his textbook, which featured, in full color, a detailed illustration of each bone. ‘The Impedimenta Of Velocity.’ according to Mr. Garcia, the teacher.
 “Okay? We square? Mom repeated. Matt nodded, eyes averted. Then he remembered her warning.
 “So, what happen, Ma, if, let’s say, and this is a hypo, hypo-“ 
 “-Hypothetical question.”
 “Yeah, that. What if my classmate, let’s call him Mikey, didn’t finish his homework and just went to bed? What happens to Mikey?”
 Mom froze and her eyes bulged. 
 A distant police siren could be heard from blocks away. Willie, the neighbor’s dog, began whimpering. The crickets stopped chirping. Matt frowned as his mother padded slo-mo towards him, leaned over, her face inches from his, and said “The Phantom will come for you-”
 Matt jerked back, not sure how to respond. Mom’s large black eyes, bouncing like pin-balls, bore into his.
 “-and take you away.” she whispered.
 “Take me away where? Cut it out, Ma, you’re spooking me.”
 Mom kept staring at him. She seemed like a stranger who had floated into his room uninvited.
 “Matthew, listen to me verrrry carefully. If you fail to finish your homework tonight, I may never see you again.”
 Matt gulped. “Because of the Phantom.”
 “Oh yessss,” she hissed, her eyes dancing.
 “Ma, stop. Okay?”
 Mom wasn’t finished. She drew closer.
 “It will wait till you’re asleep, and with a wave of its hand, keep you from waking-“
 It. She was calling the Phantom ‘It.’
 -“and then carry you to the stump of the biggest tree you ever saw, and shove you into its maw, shove you into its vast, dark hole, and there you will awaken and join every student who refused to finish their homework, and once it’s filled with children like you, it will strike a match and…”
 Matt covered his ears. Mom nodded and returned to the door, regarding Matt with that creepy pop-eyed look.
 “I am not fooling, my son. You stand warned.”
 She turned and left the room. Matt gazed at the doorknob and shook off the last five minutes. He fingered the binoculars on his desk, shuffled his paperwork absently, and looked behind him at his bedside window, which was covered by a heavy cotton drape. It shut out the world, that drape. Then he grinned.
 Good one, Ma. Had me going there.
 So why was he shaking? If Mom’s warning was a ruse, it backfired, because there was no way he could concentrate on this dopey assignment now.
 It was six past nine p.m. School tomorrow. His back was hurting again.
 Matt opened the thick textbook. Bones. Cranium. Mandible. Vertebrea.
 Vertebrea.
 Where had he seen that word? As part of a sign, swinging under a hanging wooden plaque on someone’s lawn overlooking a brick house. He sighed. The homework was designed for imbeciles. Literally copy down on your notebook whatever was printed on the textbook. How was that learning?
 The drudgery would knock Matt on his ass for sure unless he straightened his spine.
 Sit up, Matt. 
 By Ten p.m. his eyelids fluttered shut. Half-way to go. He battled the stupor and wrote up the next four bones, the ones situated below the waist: Ulna, Lumbar, Humerus, Pel…Pelv…ic…
 He eyes snapped open.
 The clock on the wall, with its raspy hum, read eleven-oh-five. Mom had shut off her TV in the next room. She snored like a man, which drove Dad nuts. Matt swerved and, still seated, pushed aside the window drape. Beyond the backyard’s battered fence was a withered knoll that led to the tree.
 The tall ancient tree with the naked, jagged limbs that threatened to reach down and grab anyone in its path. 
 Since moving here to ‘Suburbia’ from the city a year ago, that tree was the first force of nature that caught Matt’s attention. It stood three hundred yards away but seemed closer. 
 The howling January wind kicked up and made the window rattle and whistle like a kazoo. Why did Mom feel the need to scare him like that? Halfway to go on this stupid homework.
The thought of it made him drowsier still. He closed the book. Later for this crap. Bones. Big deal. 
 Nice try, Ma.
 He set the alarm for five-thirty. Time enough to finish the damn thing on fresh morning brain.
  ***
 A sound woke Matt. The clock read twelve-thirty.
 He shot up in his bed. It got colder. Mom, with her maniacal insistence on keeping the electric bill low, had snuffed the heating system, another reason for Dad having split. It amazed Matt how such minor stuff could create major squabbles between man and wife.
 That sound again. Willie? No. Willie always sounded like what he was, a dog.
 The sound seemed to come from…
 He peered past the window. A full moon, of course. Perfect setting. For what, though? He could make out the tree’s gullet: wide enough to gobble up a boy, maybe two boys. 
 The cross-hatch winds keened and the tree swayed in a slow macabre dance. Matt grabbed the binoculars and focused on the giant, ugly plant. 
 Through the lens he could make out two protrusions just above its screaming mouth. Now it resembled a black craggy face with two choppily eyes. It was a chilling perspective. Matt shuddered from the cold. He dared not go back to sleep. 
 “It” would come and drag or carry him away.
 Bullcrap! Mom with her ploys.
    Then he heard the sound again. Was that a man’s voice? Matt pushed aside the drape another inch and peeked. 
Someone was out there , hobbling, looking over his shoulder, gasping terribly. From the short distance Matt could make out the whites of the man’s eyes, his gaping mouth. He was bald and pasty-faced, giving him a ghoulish appearance. 
 The action had begun left of the window frame and now the man collapsed dead center in Matt’s line of vision. Matt shut off the lamp and returned his gaze at the fallen man. The darkness of the room offered protection and soothed Matt’s nerves. He was now an invisible witness to the scene outside, he thought. It was like watching a movie, the window his personal Panavision screen.
 The winds muted the man’s scream as his hooded pursuer closed in on him, gripping a baseball bat. The hoodie shrouded the attacker’s face but Matt could see his gnarled features. The attacker and his target wore dark clothing, so it was difficult to decipher movement; they were silhouettes in frenzied motion. 
 Before the fallen man could rise, the hooded attacker swung the bat down on his target’s back. The target’s mouth went O and his face twisted in pain.
   The hooded man swung again. The bat crashed against the target’s shoulder. Matt frowned. The impacts seemed controlled, measured. There was a contrivance to the hooded man’s assault. If he wanted to kill the guy he could’ve done so with a swift bash to the skull. He stood there instead, watching his victim slither away. He’s enjoying this, thought
Matt. It was a sight he couldn’t tear his eyes from. He was petrified, staring at the two figures jerking in the gale of darkness.
   The hooded man turned his head and looked in Matt’s direction.
   He crept towards the busted backyard fence, his bat lowered, his stooped frame looming larger by the second. 
   His face looked familiar.
   Matt jumped out of the chair, bolted out of his room, and pounded on Mom’s bedroom door. His pounding was matched by the one coming from the front entrance.
   Thump-thump-thump!
   Mom swung open her door and let go an ear-piercing scream that could wake up Japan. Matt stepped back, his eyes vast, shaking, as Mom kept screaming. It scared him more than the guy with the bat.
   The front entrance doorknob jiggled maniacally. 
   Mom wouldn’t stop screaming. Her shoulders heaved and dropped with each outburst.
  “Maaa, stop!”
   She slammed the door in Matt’s face. Now it was Matt hammering his fist on her door.                “Maaa!!” The front door whooshed open. 
   Matt whimpered, quivering, and turned towards it.
   It was Dad.
   “Matty, you okay?” Dad, in plainclothes, kneeled and studied his son’s face. Matt nodded and shot him a thumbs up.
   “Dad, how’d you get here so fast?”
   “I work the nearest precinct, remember? Got a call from a neighbor. She spotted the guy with the bat. He’s out there.”
   “Dad, Mom went kablooey on me again.”
   Dad straightened and gazed at his ex-wife’s door.
 “Yeah, I heard the screams. Well, that settles it. I want full custody, and don’t fight it this time, Matt.
 Your mother needs help.”
   He rapped gently on her door. She began screaming again. “Maaa! Cool it!” Matt yelled.
   “Linda, knock it off! Dad shouted, his ears kissing the thick wood. The screaming stopped.
   “She’ll sleep it off,” Dad said. “Then she and I will have a serious talk in the morning.”
   Matt tugged at his sleeve. “Dad, I saw him. Outside my window.”
   Dad bent closer, gripping Matt’s arm. “Did you get a good look?”
   “He saw me, too.” 
   Dad swept into Matt’s room and looked out. Matt followed his gaze. The battered man lay on his back, his hands hovering over his chest. Dad radioed for reinforcements and ushered Matt to the living room. In minutes, a mix of distant police and ambulance sirens filled the night.
  “Dad, he saw me.”
   “Shh-calm down, boy. We’re gonna nail that bastard for good.”
   “Who’s the bastard, Dad?”
   A thump. Mom’s voice could be heard from behind the door. “Matty, I told you about using the B-Word!” Dad rolled his eyes. 
    “I’ll sleep on the couch. Now look at me, Matt, and tell me who you think it was.”
  ***
   Dr. Phil Wells, a chiropractor, was captured that morning. He had been careless this time. Desperate to add yet another clueless patient to his rolodex, and confident the previous assaults would never be traced to him, Dr. Wells made the mistake of exposing his face to Matt, using a bat instead of his amazing physical strength to break an arm or a leg.
   Matt had been his patient for two visits eight months ago.
   He found it curious that during those appointments the waiting room had been empty, that no assistant was there to prep Matt. That the phone never rang. 
   Matt shared this information with the District Attorney, and about the comment he overheard the doctor mutter while being treated for back pain. “I shoulda become a dentist. Who goes to a chiropractor anymore? Fuggin’ dinosaurs we are. Well, that’s gonna change. I’ll fuggin’ create my own patients.” Matt had pretended to read a comic book the doctor handed him.
   Dr. Wells’s list of patients grew after that, each one never knowing who or what hit him. The list aroused questions but nothing could be proved. Until last night.
   Matt now lived with his father, who gained custody of his only child. Matt’s mother was admitted to an undisclosed psychiatric ward at the nearest hospital.
   Meantime, Dr. Phil’s practice has been shuttered. Dr. James Molarski, a dentist, would take over the space.  

      End.  

Nasty, Slithery, and Short


By Eduardo Frajman




“For the nature of power is, in this point, like to fame, increasing as it proceeds; or like the motion of heavy bodies, which, the further they go, make still the more haste.”


Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan Ch. X








I am a purple worm. I glide in silence across a two-dimensional surface of black hexagons, powered by an invisible force that requires no propulsive movement, not the undulation of the snake nor the peristalsis of the earthworm. I glide and I eat and I grow. I’ve been in this world only a handful of seconds, grown only a smidgen, when a blue-and-white megaworm lunges before me, forcing me to collide into its body. I die.
The time before this I was orange. The time before that I was green. Next time I may be any one of seven colors, chosen at random by the system, but I am always the same worm. My segmented body is perfectly regular, vertically symmetrical, its only salient features the two cartoon eyes at the front end, black circles inside white ones, which move but only slightly in their eternal quest to follow the arrow that is controlled by the mouse that is controlled by the hand that is controlled by me. In every life I guide my worm avatar as it glides across the world, driven by only two goals: survive and grow. My life may end at any moment. It may last mere instants, or stretch to five, ten, twenty minutes. In either case it will be a life of “continual fear” and “danger of violent death,” a life, as Thomas Hobbes would have it, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
Such it is in this world I’ve chosen to temporarily inhabit, the world of Slither, the multi-player online game I am playing (http://slither.io). It’s the purest, most perfect incarnation of the Hobbesian state of nature I have ever encountered.
Hobbes sought to outline the proper workings of society by unveiling the core aspects of the human condition. “Nature,” he surmised, “hath made men so equal in the faculties of body and mind as that, though there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body or of quicker mind than another, yet when all is reckoned together the difference between man and man is not so considerable as that one man can thereupon
claim to himself any benefit to which another may not pretend as well as he.” With these words Hobbes did nothing less than launch modernity into the world. We are all, in this sense, his children.
Yet, his understanding of human nature was deeply flawed, his political theory reliant on two crucial misconceptions about human psychology. First was his belief in the uncontested supremacy of selfishness. “From this equality of ability,” he claimed, “ariseth equality of hope in the attaining of our ends. And therefore if any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies; and […] endeavour to destroy or subdue one another.” Second was his notion of human beings as isolated, solitary creatures: “men have no pleasure (but on the contrary a great deal of grief) in keeping company where there is no power able to overawe them all.” In a state of nature, he concluded, without law or society to control them, isolated and selfish individuals would forever be ensnared “in that condition that is called war, […] a war as if of every man against every man.”
Thanks to our understanding of our own biology, our evolutionary lineage, our observable behavior, we can categorically state that Hobbes’ view of natural man was incorrect.1 Human beings, like all apes, are social animals, and natural human life, for as long as humans have existed, has primarily taken place within families and kin-based groups. While it is true that humans, like chimpanzees, have always sought to subdue and destroy one another, they have not done so as isolated individuals, but as competing
bands, then tribes, then peoples. Hermit loners exist, but they are the exception, as are sociopaths and serial killers. Indeed, the Hobbesian state of nature is all but unimaginable. Recent attempts to portray what a world of constant war of all against all would look like, in post-apocalyptic novels such as Cormac McCarthy’s The Road or films like the Mad Max series, fall invariably short. Even in the bleakest, bloodiest circumstances, loyalty, compassion, and love bloom everywhere.
Not so in Slither (which I do not endorse in any official capacity and am not affiliated with in any way whatsoever, per secula seculorum, amen). In this two-dimensional world there are no groups, no family, no compassion, and no love. There isn’t even the self-interested cooperation found in most multi-player games. You move, you eat, you grow, you die. There is nothing else. Hobbes believed that fear of death would eventually force right-thinking individuals into abandoning the state of nature for the state of “the social compact,” but fear of death, while a fundamental element of Slither, for death means you must return to your initial puny form and start over, carries less of a sting when one’s avatar can be reincarnated ad infinitum. The comfort of eternal recurrence, and the safety of the virtual, afford me the opportunity to live in a version of Hobbes’ nightmare. It is an exhilarating, addictive experience.
I am yellow now. My worm has a name, which I have given it: EFH. All worms have names in this world. There are many of us. I can’t tell how many. We exist together on the circular plane and never stop moving. The “small beginnings of motion within the body,” declares Hobbes, “are commonly called endeavor. This endeavor, when it is toward something which causes it, is called appetite, or desire.”
We all look essentially the same. Many sport solid colors, like me, because we are playing the free version of the game. The rest, who have achieved special status by accessing it through Facebook or Twitter or other some such inanity, have customized worm avatars, painted in simple designs – white stars on a blue background, the American, French, Italian flag – or with a distorted face – one Cyclops eye instead of two, a creepy smiling face, and, most recently and incoherently, the head of a snail. Such accouterments provide no advantage in terms of gameplay.
As I materialize there is no one else in the immediate vicinity. Slither does you this small initial kindness, a few instants to get your bearings. The tiny map on the bottom-right corner shows my position in the circular, uniform plane. I am closer to the edge than to the center, off to the top left, the northwest. I head southeast, then, towards the crowded middle region and danger, for I am here to play, as are all the other worms.
I’m tiny at first, a tiny yellow maggot. The background of hexagons is littered with shining pellets of different sizes, which disappear as my worm touches them with the top of its head. Each pellet that I consume elongates and enlarges my body. The score is displayed on the bottom left of the screen. The higher the score the larger the worm. Score and girth are one and the same. The score quickly rises from two to three digits. I can sway now, oscillate my midsection.
A red worm is here. It’s smaller than I am. If I can see it, it can see me. I have not yet reached the size to intimidate small-fries like this one. It circles me searchingly, judging my response. “Men,” cautions Hobbes, “live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them.” My finger tenses on the mouse. All players on Slither have a power, one and only one, besides their movement
and their bodies. Holding down the mouse’s button will make the worm’s body glow and accelerate. Most players use “glowing speed” in bursts, to lunge towards or away from an enemy, to beat it out of a tasty morsel. A few play the entire game at high speed overdrive, Dom Toretto style. I prefer the lower pace, the more cautious life. The red worm has placed itself next to me. We’re moving in parallel lines now, its head slightly ahead of mine. Its intentions are clear. It means to speed up, turn abruptly, and kill me.
Of course Red wants to kill me. Although I’m not gunning for it right this instant, I wouldn’t mind it at all if Red died as well. In the state of nature the only good is what is good for me: “The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law; where no law, no injustice.” I know this and Red knows this and we now the other knows it.
If the top of my head touches any part of Red’s body, or any other worm, no matter how big or small, I die. Much like in the state of nature, “the weakest, has strength enough to kill the strongest.” This separates Slither from most other multiplayer games, in which the most skilled combatants are virtually invincible except when fighting against each other. In Slither, as in life, skill and practice will help you, but they can only take you so far.
I could lunge towards Red, but that’s not my style. I like to be patient, which pays off more often than not, in my judgment. Red’s body lights up. I press down on the button. My yellow body ignites as well. Red turns, but I’ve got the jump on him. I rush headlong, my body straight, as Red executes its plan. It’s master, man or woman, boy or girl, somewhere, anywhere on the planet, knows what’s coming. It’s too late for Red, who can’t stop its momentum and crashes into my side. Red is dead. Where its body just
was, there is now a cluster of multicolored balls of red light. I swing my body towards them and consume them by tapping them with my head.
The glittering remnants of dead worms are the priciest sources of nourishment, the primo stuff, that which everyone desires. A single tiny pellet floating in the black is worth three, five points. An ember of dead worm can be worth twenty, fifty, a bushel of them hundreds of girth points. Strike upon the untouched, glistening carcass of a large opponent and you can go from minuscule to massive in seconds. You start out a tiny, pathetic maggoty thing and, as you eat, become a massive, twisting, twirling, slithering monstrosity. A thousand points will earn you a nice, flowing, svelte form. By five thousand the game must shift perspective to allow you enough room to see where you are maneuvering. Reach fifteen thousand and you are one of the big boys in town and the crowd of pipsqueaks to which you used to belong now follows you around to see what you’ll do and have to swerve to avoid your massiveness. They look so small you are tempted to dismiss them as harmless. But they are not harmless. You touch one, no matter how small, and you die.
And die you will, eventually. There is no victory in Slither, no lasting victory at least. The game goes on forever.
After consuming Red I’m dragging behind me a beautiful thousand-point frame. I wobble my head to make my body swirl like a ribbon. The top right of the screen shows me the top ten current highest scores. Somewhere in this place there are bodies carrying ten thousand, eighteen thousand points, slithering, always slithering across the surface, looking to get larger, always larger. Somewhere, the scoreboard tells me, there’s a
gargantuan thirty-nine-thousand pointer, no doubt with a host of pretenders swarming around it, either aiming to kill it or simply waiting for it to make a mistake.
I move this way and that looking for them, looking for the feeding frenzies that offer the most nourishment. “In the nature of man,” claims Hobbes, “we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory. The first makes men invade for gain; the second, for safety; and the third, for reputation.” Reputation, such as it is, entails having your name on the high-score bar, for as long as you can keep it there. Nobody knows who I am, of course, so glory is almost completely internal. I want to be bigger, and bigger, though nobody will ever know it. I want to be the biggest I can be.
One time I reached nineteen thousand points, I was on top of the leaderboard, the largest creature in the world. Dozens of small worms hovered around me hungrily, like a pack of hyenas. I swerved and looped to avoid them, I killed one, then another, then a third. Then I died and lost everything. Why play again after that? What else is there? Well, sometimes you see a forty-thousand-level worm, sometimes a fifty-thousand. Once, just once, I saw a red behemoth who, through luck and skill and perseverance, reached eighty thousand points. I spent a long time looking for it, avoiding the attention of the big worms and the gingerly attacks of my peers. I looked and looked until I found it. It stretched endlessly in beautiful coils and curves, too big to ever be fully straight. It went on and on. Someday I’ll be that big, I told myself. I followed Big Red Giant until, inevitably, it burst into countless balls of red, which I, along with a dozen vultures like me, ate with relish. “It is consequent” to the state of nature, Hobbes reminds us, “that
there be no propriety, no dominion, no mine and thine distinct; but only that to be every man’s that he can get, and for so long as he can keep it.”
A bright-green Cyclops, eight hundred points or so, zips around me, looking for an opening. I twist around myself, using my body as a bulwark against its attack. Cyclops comes at me, undeterred, I spin away again, then again, until Cyclops misjudges a pass, crashes against me and dies. I turn to consume what remains. My score swells to two, then three thousand. My confidence swells at well. Bring on the giants! Once more I point my head towards the central regions, except a rainbow-striped pipsqueak appears out of nowhere and blocks my way. I die. The screen fades to black, slowly though, to allow me a fleeting view of my own remains, purple and sparkling, becoming fodder for other worms, my mortal enemies.
What do I learn by living in the Hobbesian state of nature? I learn that life is short and that, though fate doesn’t always favor the bold, only by being bold will you find favor. My daughter plays Slither with the utmost caution. She hides on the edges, away from the crowds. She never kills, not because she doesn’t want to but because she never dares. Her body grows slowly, so slowly. I urge her to enter the fray, to do something, to live. “You can’t blame me for not wanting to die,” she answers, and she’s right. I can’t blame her. She is content with no glory, just living as long as she can, and this is fine in its way. Until she’s spotted, and pursued, and murdered. “That’s so mean!,” she complains to her unknowable assailant. But it isn’t, not in Slither, it’s just life. I try to use Hobbes’ words to counsel her: “because there be some that, taking pleasure in contemplating their own power in the acts of conquest, which they pursue farther than their security requires, if others, that otherwise would be glad to be at ease within modest
bounds, should not by invasion increase their power, they would not be able, long time, by standing only on their defense, to subsist.” She snorts. If I’m too old to know anything, imagine how ignorant Hobbes has to be.
I am purple again. The pickings are plentiful here. There’s no one around. One hundred, a hundred fifty. I enter into a scuffle with an American Flag, bigger than I, he thinks he’s so hot. I kill him and gobble up his remains. Four hundred. Six. Eight. As I seek more action, I run into an undisturbed cluster of orange lights. Probably a worm that crashed into a giant, who didn’t even notice. Eleven hundred. I’m big now. I have length and girth to protect me. A striped brown bully has encircled a blue, smaller than it, and waits for it to die. A red snail head gets in on the action. So do I. Brown Stripes is dead. We all rush to feed. Snail Head, the biggest of us all, is dead. A Creepy Smile rushes rashly into the fray and dies. So much food, all around me.
I get bigger and bigger. Three thousand. Thirty-five hundred. Four, five, six thousand. When the feast is done I extricate myself from the scrum. I’m followed constantly now. Can’t let my guard down. I catch a glimpse of another battle, I rush in again. Again I’m lucky. I feed and feed and survive while so many die around me. Eleven thousand. Fifteen. Maybe this is it, the great game I’ve always pined for, in which I grow endlessly, in which I reach thirty, forty, sixty thousand. Why not? Why not me? Why not a hundred thousand? Two hundred! I’ll live forever. I will, and I’ll get larger and larger, more and more powerful, forever. I am giddy, entrapped by my own desire, “a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.” About some things Hobbes was undoubtedly right.
I glide, seeking glory. I run into a brown giant. We measure each other up, each looking for an advantage. Brown is cautious, like me. We stay close to each other. If I get him I’ll pass twenty thousand for sure. Twenty, then thirty, for the first time ever. He floats next to me in naïve complacency. The moment is coming. I’ll get him. I make my move just as a snail head, a tiny little thing, appears out of nowhere and blocks my path.
I die.
I disintegrate into shimmering life-giving marbles.
My mind is brought back to the non-Hobbesian world. My back aches from sitting. My fingers are cramped. Time to get up. Time to go make dinner. Time to stop playing.
I don’t want to, says my desire. I won’t go. “One more life,” I promise myself. “Just one more.”

​Barstools and Obituaries  

​By Caroline Perina


 I hate you, Jackie wrote on the alcohol-splattered newspaper clipping.  The bold print of the obituary hovered above the grainy black and white images of those lost.  She gnawed at her lip, hardly realizing she was staring at the shelves of liquor until the shadow of the bartender fell across her empty glass. 
“Another round?”  It was a statement more than a question, and before Jackie could even glance up, the woman poured vodka into a glass.  The splash of cranberry that followed caused her stomach to quiver, but she ignored it with a glare at the window.  A neon Karaoke sign hung behind the glass.  Her ears pounded with the giggly rendition of “I Will Survive” as it was led by two college students,
their crimson lipstick smearing against the microphone.            
She looked up as the bartender slammed the drink onto her napkin.              
Her tongue, even her skin, felt ragged and dry, like a sponge whose water had been squeezed out.  She could feel her flesh crinkle as she sat on the barstool.            
Her fingers ran around the rim of the glass.  She plucked out the sliced piece of lime and placed it next to the newspaper clipping.            
Why did she cut out that obituary? 
More than that, what had possessed her to leaf through the Sunday Times on that particular weekend?            
Tears welled in her eyes, but with a deep breath that sent daggers gutting her throat, she stayed in control.  Movement in the narrow hallway next to the entrance caught her eye.              
Through the dimmed lights of the bar, she saw his shadow dodging between people, coming back to her.  She swiped the newspaper clipping off the counter and gripped it in her fist.            
Blinking with alcohol-glazed eyes, she grabbed her glass and tossed the drink down her throat.            
He smiled as he slipped back onto the neighboring barstool.            
“I was thinking about this in the bathroom,” he said, resting his forearm on the bar and leaning closer.  His warm breath whirled past her cheek.  He screamed the words into her ear, but because of the noise, she still had trouble hanging onto his voice.  “I’m glad you came.”            
“Why wouldn’t I come, Craig?”  The question was empty, just a half-blown helium balloon she released into the air.  She stared down at her drink, counting the reasons in the ice crystals.  She saw her life, the health she felt during moments in the sun, not surrounded by his poison.  She saw the man she married, lying asleep in the king bed they shared, blindly believing her lies that let her escape tonight.  She glared at her drink, fighting to push back the wave of guilt that threatened to ambush her.  Her late night rendezvous, like the heartache stuffed inside the pocket of her jeans, was her burden to bear.
It wasn’t always this way.  At one time she wore that gold band around her finger with pride, holding tight to the man who had offered it to her.  She used to think this was what she wanted.  But now her days were filled with silence at the dinner table, a half-consumed bottle of wine as the rain slid down her window, and his chatter that her mind had learned to drown out.  Her smile was forced, as were the lights in her eyes, and whenever she stared at her warped reflection in her wine glass, she’d often wonder if his smile was fake too.
Now that ring was more of a shackle than a prize, twisting her life down a path she’d never expected to take.  And when the loneliness was too much to bear, her thoughts wandered to Craig.
Each brief thought of him that caught itself at the contours of her mind tugged at the fantasies of earlier days like a summer breeze—other roads she might have taken, other paths she could have crossed.  She looked back at him, and although she remembered she had reservations about meeting him, she could no longer recall what they were.  She bit her lip, unable to contain the smile creeping up her face at the mere view of him.            
She raised her empty glass into the air, motioning to the bartender for another round.            
“Just glad you came,” he answered.  He nodded at the words she had scrawled across the newspaper clipping.  “You gonna leave him finally?”  Under the sheen of the light, he looked like the same boy from college.  The bright blue eyes, the short clipped brown hair, the rush of heat his gaze brought to her face.  Even his skin, fourteen years older than the last time she’d seen it, was still youthful and taut.            
They had shared so many moments together, but still those moments hadn’t been enough.  Why did everything end?  Over the years, her numbness erased the details.            
But they had sworn they’d find each other again.  They’d promised they just needed time to grow up.            
Jackie took a final gulp of her drink as the bartender placed the next in front of her. 
She reached for her glass with two hands.            
Why hadn’t she waited?            
When she looked up at him again, she noticed he’d moved his stool closer.  He rubbed the cuff of his dark blue dress shirt before straightening out his tie.  “How’s work?” he asked.            
“Fine.”            
“Did you ever travel?  Like you said you wanted?” 
Despite all the years, his eyes still maintained that fire, that energy, that by just looking at her, could set her aflame.  The embers spitting in his irises were dimmer now, the blinking of his eyelids somehow heavier, but the shadows of his youth remained.
            Paris, Sydney, Bangkok…all cities they’d fantasized of visiting together.  But when the smoke cleared, all she had left were the ashes of memories to stand on.            
Craig cleared his throat.  “How are your parents?”            
“Fine.”            
He deliberately plucked the sliced lime off his drink and placed it on her glass. 
“Your husband?”            
A new mob of Karaoke singers ambushed the floor. 
“He’s fine,” Jackie finally answered as she watched them, her voice clipped.            
Craig nodded. 
“Then why are you here?”            
“Why are you?” she snapped.            
He smiled, and Jackie immediately bit her lip, her insides drowning with the overflow of emotions threatening to burst forth.  He leaned forward, brushing his hand along the small of her back. 
“You look beautiful tonight, by the way.”            
A girl moved forward, falling into Craig’s stool on her way to the bathroom.  He jostled forward, gripping the edge of the bar.  The girl didn’t stop, didn’t even look back.            
He turned to Jackie, a shy sideways smirk creeping up his face.  He nodded to the door. 
“Let’s get out of here.”
The entrance was infested with smokers getting a fix, grey balloons of smoke billowing into the night sky.  She lost her footing as she stepped off the sidewalk, her bleary eyes  squinting ahead as her hand rummaged through her purse for her car keys.  As she crossed the parking lot, a man standing on the corner called out to her, but before the goose bumps had time to prickle her skin, Craig wrapped his arm around her waist.
“Let me drive.”
“No.  I can do it.”  She unlocked the doors, stepping over a puddle.  The bottom of her heel skidded across the water.  As she slipped inside the car, she caught sight of the flicker of hesitation that momentarily paralyzed Craig’s fingers.  Finally, he joined her in the car.
Headlights splattered across the misty road as she slowly pulled onto the street.  She squinted ahead, focusing on the drive.  She could not think of the man sitting to the right of her.  The night, the clock on the dashboard, all reminded her of the inevitable tomorrow.  The rising sun, the end of the right now, until tired eyes would clump tonight with the past.  Just another memory.
Her two-handed grip on the steering wheel intensified with the sharp bend in the road.  Beside her, Craig inhaled.  His hand clenched nervously on his thigh.
She almost asked him where he wanted to go, but when her eyes flickered to his shadowed form in the passenger seat, he looked away.  She drove to the end of the street, coasted over a small hill, and finally pulled off the road into an unpaved lot.
She quickly turned off the headlights and cut the engine.
Craig looked at her for a moment before the corners of his eyes crinkled, preceding his smile.            
“You look exactly the same,” he murmured.
“You too.  Except look at you now, with your fancy suits,” she teased.            
“Oh stop,” he smiled, shoving her legs playfully.  His touch lingered.            
She looked out the windshield, her eyes gazing across the pitch black sky.  It was a solid sheet of darkness, an impenetrable abyss.             All she could hear were the breaths of the man sitting in the passenger seat.  Was he watching her?  She couldn’t bring herself to look.
            “What have you been up to?” she asked slowly, attempting conversation.            
“This and that.”            
“Still so vague,” her voice cracked.            
“You love it though,” he teased.            
She licked her dry lips.  “And still so self-assured.”            
“Jackie.”  Her name was a soft rumble in the back of his throat.  His lips grazed her ear. 
She turned to him.            
“What?” she whispered.            
It’s that moment before something big happens, when water rushes behind the ears and the mouth dries, and it’s impossible to freeze time because whatever is about to happen, one thing is for sure: Good or bad, nothing can ever be the same.            
Hot air whirled into her mouth.
“You left,” he murmured, his lips brushing against hers. 
They were softer than she remembered, like clouds.            
“Yeah…” she swallowed. “I did.  And I have no idea why.”            
“Yes you do.  You wanted to go.”            
Her voice cracked.  “I missed you so much.”            
His kiss struck her like no time had passed.  The rhythm of his lips against hers was a set groove, unable to be washed away by the tide that came with the years.  Instinctively, she reached her hands around his neck, tugging where closely cropped hair met soft skin.  She breathed in exaltation as he pulled her closer.  She steadied herself with her palm on his shoulder.            
His fingers played with the bottom of her shirt,
flirting up her stomach and pulling it over her head.            
“This is a bad idea,” he moaned into her mouth.              
“Very bad idea.”            
Soft fingertips teased her arms, softly drawing her closer, deeper, into the kiss.  Her skin prickled as she gnawed at his lip, hungry, desperate for him.  How could so much time have passed, yet as Craig’s hand cupped her cheek, she could be easily thrown into him again as though not even a blink of time had gone by?             Her eyes fluttered open, and his blue orbs, masked in shadows drawn from the rain, watched her.            
“I love you.”            
He smiled.  “I’ve waited so long for you to say that.”            
She leaned forward and grasped his wrist.  “Let’s run off together.”            
“We couldn’t,” he answered, picking her shirt off the floor and slowly handing it to her.            
She slipped her top over her head.  “Why couldn’t we?  Of course we could.”            
Craig looked out his window, resting his forehead on the glass as his blue eyes squinted into the darkness.             “Jackie,” he murmured, and though the night was warm, his voice sent chills prickling across her skin.  “Where do you think you are right now?”  He leaned across her and flipped on the headlights.              
Silence rang through the car as she stared ahead at the humps of stone protruding from the ground.  They glistened in the rain.            
“What—?”  She turned to Craig.            
But the seat was empty.
            “Craig?”  She whipped her body toward the backseat.  “Craig!”            
She opened her door and slowly stepped out into the night.  The car idled behind her as she stumbled onto the dirt.  Gravestones stretched into the sky, marble and granite slabs etched with names of those lost.  Leaves crunched under her feet as she moved toward a newly dug grave.  The headstone was already there, but the mound of flowers over where the body lay stung of sorrow.  Photographs and mementos decorated the bouquets, and as the headlights blared into the starless night, she slowly advanced.  Vision blurry with waves of tears behind her eyes, she gasped in an attempt to suck back a sob. CRAIG HANDERSON APRIL 20, 1975 – DECEMBER 12, 2010           She pulled out the contents from her pockets.  The obituary she’d defamed in the bar fell to the moist ground.  A picture of a man, 35, face youthful and bright,
grinned through the black and white.            
She could still hear his voice.            
The wind brushed past her cheeks, his cologne wafting through the air.            
Lips swollen, eyes raw, hair askew, she let her mind race through chances not taken,
testing words left unsaid.            
She could still taste him on her lips.            
The careful tone in which he’d say her name still cradled in her ears.            
“Jackie.”
A single sob racked her body as the first of her tears began to fall.




​

Below: Anna Julia Sofia Kronzell 
1st female driver in Kalmar, Sweden
Silent movie pianist
Charity Organizer
Sweden,1914

​RIVER RATS
 
    by
 
      Gerald Arthur Winter
 
                                                   
 
Oakdale, Florida was more like a movie set than a real town. You had to drive ten
 
miles to I-75 just for a junk burger. If I didn’t want to spend the next forty years at The
 
Banner writing obituaries, I’d have to return with a news story that rang true about the
 
monster flood that nearly wiped out a town nobody but its residents had ever heard of.
 
Heading to the flood site, I sat beside Sheriff Davis seated at the wheel in his
 
patrol car. He drove at five miles an hour like a Disney World tour guide, but there
 
wouldn’t be much to see till we reached the edge of the raging river.
 
I couldn’t wait to get out of this lazy-ass town and back to Ocala where hard
 
news was at my fingertips every day without driving an hour in my old Toyota crap-
 
mobile with a piss-paint refinish and holes in the driver’s seat cushion. OK, so it was
 
a hand-me-down from my mom, my graduation present from USF last May. The
 
sheriff’s patrol car was a pleasurable change from my rattletrap. His red convertible
 
looked like it belonged in a NASCAR series—hot and fast—yet we continued to crawl
 
towards the town’s lowland swamps where the flood presumably had caused the most
 
damage.
 
“Nothing moves fast in Oakdale, accept the river when it’s flooded,” the sheriff
 
said. He was six-four, over two hundred pounds with a beer paunch pressed against the
 
wheel. His wrinkled face showed a man who enjoyed life with a sparkle in his blue eyes
 
when he wasn’t wearing his wrap-around sunglasses. His tan uniform already had dark
 
sweat stains at the armpits and it was only 9 a.m. in steamy September. Rather than
 
cooling things off, the heavy rain that had caused the flood was like throwing ice water
 
on baked sauna stones--psst, sizzle, burn.
 
On his short-sleeve shirt, the sheriff’s gold badge sparkled from his barrel chest.
 
His Stetson, with a tilt to his right ear, sat on his short-cropped, graying head with both
 
ears flat against sideburns just below the top of his ears.
 
It must have been the same hat he’d worn for over twenty-five years, because it
 
fit his square-jawed face like a comfortable, old slipper long for the trash. His straight
 
teeth were coffee stained, but he didn’t smoke. His hands, tanned and veined, were like
 
bear claws grasping the steering wheel, and his fingernails were squarely manicured, but
 
with oil grit under them from working on the patrol car, a red 2010 Camaro, the town
 
council’s gift to celebrate his twenty-five years of service that cost more than Oakdale’s
 
annual budget.           
 
            “How far are we from the river?” I asked.
 
            “A mile from here,” he said with a sleepy expression. “Nothin’ to see but debris
 
floatin’ downstream. Same flood, different year. Nothin’ newsworthy.”
 
            “Where’d you get that fancy gear shift?” The Camaro’s shift knob was a Bud-
 
weiser draft spigot.
 
“Do someone a favor, they do you back.”  
 
            “I’m going to take some photos of the damage with my iPhone. Where we
 
headin’?”  
 
“Only one place to go—homes along the river. Curious to see how my old house
 
held up.”
 
            “Does your family live there?”
 
“Nah. In the Heights on the ridge, but I’ve got boyhood memories from the low
 
ground along the river. The more floods you survive, the tougher you get.”
  
            I jotted down some questions to ask him about the town’s history, but before I
 
could ask him about the flood zone, his car phone buzzed.
 
            “Damn! Just when I thought we’d take a short cruise through the flood zone,”
 
he said. “Can’t be important. Nothing exciting ever happened since I’ve been sheriff.”
 
“Maybe someone drowned.”
 
            He shook his head. “No one’s ever drowned here . . . Hi, Bobby,” he said into the
 
speaker phone noting the caller I.D.
 
             “Hi, Sheriff,” a man’s voice came over the static speaker. “Coupla bodies just
 
washed up on the west rim of the Apopka Reservoir.”
 
            “Don’t touch nothin’, Bobby.”
 
            “I ain’t touchin’ nothin’ . . . they’re wrapped in a hug.”
 
            “A hug?”
 
            “That’s right.”
           
“Men or women?”
 
            “Can’t tell—just bones. But not too big, maybe kids—teenagers.”    
 
            “On my way,” he said, turning to me with a wink. “Finally, a chance to blow my
 
siren and flash my lights. Ya takin’ this all down, son?”
 
                                                        * * *  
 
The sheriff hit his siren and flashed his lights. “Never took her over fifty before.
 
Hold on.”
 
The highest speed in Oakdale was thirty-five. The Camaro hit seventy on the
 
straightaway towards the reservoir. With the convertible top down, my hair and tie blew
 
in the wind’s rush. Before he could slow down, a wave from the rampant river came over
 
the hood, and the patrol car was stuck in three feet of rushing water.
 
            The sheriff turned off his siren, kept his lights flashing, and cursed. We were
 
surrounded by two gushing streams. Flotsam and jetsam slammed against his precious
 
Camaro. He took off his Stetson and fanned himself as perspiration trickled down his
 
face. He panted like a hound after a chase.
 
            “We gonna be OK, Sheriff?”
 
            The flashing lights died and the engine stalled. He turned the key, but the 
 
Camaro just shuttered. He tried again with just a clicking sound, then zip.
 
“Got a stay put.” He pointed where the river was channeling around a house and
 
coming at us from two different angles. “If the river expands any more we’re screwed.
 
Can you swim.”
 
My stomach curdled. “Doggie paddle.” I felt the grits I ate that morning backing
 
up to my throat with a burn. “How can we get out?”
 
            “Current’s too strong. Forget the car. We’ll need a chopper to lift us out.”
 
He removed his sunglasses, revealing a crooked nose bent to his right as if he’d
 
been in a few brawls. Despite his tough physical appearance, his smooth, deep tone was
 
an endearing trait that I grasped onto as the voice of experience that might get us out of
 
this jam. 
 
Please God, I thought, recalling the Gideon Bible in the drawer of my Motel 6
 
accommodations up river on higher ground.
 
                                                                     * * *
 
            The sheriff called Deputy Mike on his flip-model, dumb cell. “I got a situation
 
here. I was on my way to meet Bobby at the reservoir, where a couple of bodies washed
 
up, but I’m stuck in the flood and sure as hell can’t drive out a here. I got that kid reporter
 
with me.”
 
            I bristled at the word kid. I was twenty three.
 
“Call the Troopers and put out a call to Flood Rescue for a chopper . . . Tell
 
Bobby where I’m at. He’s expecting me to meet ’m, but I can’t get there till they lift us
 
out. If you can’t reach me, it means this phone went dead and we’re just hanging on. We
 
can’t keep the water out of the car once it comes in over the doors, but at least that weight
 
will give us some drag, so we won’t move as fast downriver or flip over.”
 
            Taking a deep breath, he must have thought I was scared, but I was pumped with
 
Adrenaline  I knew if we survived, my inside story on the flood could be my break to
 
reporting hard news fulltime.
 
            “You said no one ever drowned here.”
 
            “Not yet.”
 
            “And no crime here since you’ve been sheriff?”
 
He shook his head.
 
“How about when you were a kid growing up in the flood zone? Anything you
 
can give me for my article on this monster flood about local history?”
 
            The sheriff swiped flecks of grit with his index finger from the corners of his
 
azure eyes. He ran his finger over the bridge of his crooked nose, as if that hard bump
 
held some secret from his past. He looked me straight in the eye and spoke with a calm-
 
ing resonance, maybe just to dissuade me from fear of our immediate peril. He tried to
 
distract me with a story about when he was a boy as we waited for help. The rampant
 
river was too dangerous to attempt to swim away from the car. I’d probably drown and
 
and take the sheriff with me if he tried to save me.
 
            The sheriff began his distraction: “There were three of them, ages fourteen,
 
fifteen, and sixteen. Always up to no good, they weren’t much for schoolin’ neither.
 
No intent to go to high school, and the two oldest left back so many times, the three of
 
them ended up in eighth grade together. Two of them did time in Reform School. The
 
youngest was the only one with a spec of good in him, but he was a scrapper, known to
 
kick the crap out a boys five years older. From youngest to oldest, their names were
 
Tommy, Ricky, and Andy.”                                                                                                                           
 
I jotted down every word, but before the sheriff finished his story, a log a yard
 
long and a foot wide came downriver and shot over the trunk of the Camaro and shattered
 
the inside windshield.
 
           “Damn!” he hollered, standing up on the bucket seat and dusting glass shards from
 
the windshield off his lap and chest. He used a handkerchief to pat his face where it bled.
 
I jumped up, too. Astonished by his story, I asked, “What ever happened to those
 
boys?”
 
            Davis turned to me and plopped his hat on his head at an angle. He said the two                                                                
 
older boys had been known for not coming home for days at a time. But after three days,
 
their mothers had finally called the sheriff. Most in town had assumed they’d run off
 
together, as they’d often threatened they would. When they hadn’t shown up for a month
 
general opinion had been that they were either jailed felons somewhere if not already
 
dead. They’d vanished leaving no clue.
 
            Their younger friend had told the sheriff that they planned to hitchhike to West
 
Palm. Except for their mothers, no one had missed them, and the town had forgotten
 
about them for the past forty years.
 
            “What about Tommy?” I asked, but before he could tell me, the fluttering of a
 
helicopter turned our attention skyward as the rescue crew hovered thirty feet above us
 
and dropped a line with a harness to lift us to safety.
 
            “You first,” the sheriff shouted over the roar of the chopper as it blew off his
 
Stetson. The wide-brimmed hat bobbed out of sight in the river’s strong current. From the
 
look of loss on his face, I could see he would never be comfortable wearing another hat.
 
            We stood, then the sheriff helped me with the harness. I fumbled with my note-
 
book trying to tuck it in my belt, but the sheriff shook his head.
 
            “Your life is more important than that old wives’ tale,” he said. “Keep it to
 
yourself in your head.” He tapped his finger against his temple. That’s where I’ve kept it
 
all these years.”
 
He waved to the crew to pull me up. But just as I lifted off, the river gushed
 
over the Camaro’s doors. My weight made the difference. As they pulled me up into
 
the chopper, I watched the sheriff fall backwards with the jerk of the car, then the car
 
surged forward downstream. The sheriff held onto the steering wheel, but the brown,
 
river current pulled the car under. The red Camaro suddenly leaped out of the river like
 
 a whale before submerging again beneath the muddy current.
 
            The chopper followed in the direction where the patrol car was last seen and
 
headed downriver for two miles before we saw the Camaro, upside down wedged
 
beneath a train trestle with no sign of the sheriff.
 
        * * *      
 
          Within half an hour the helicopter brought me to safety to high ground in Oakdale,
 
I planned to recompose what I’d written in my lost notebook about the no-name storm
 
that washed away most of an entire town.
 
            My car was still on dry land upriver where I’d parked it at “Katie’s Place” for
 
breakfast with the sheriff earlier that morning. I went into Sadie’s and ordered two large
 
coffees with cream and sugar, like I knew the sheriff drank his. Sadie put them in a card-
 
board holder, assuming they were for me and the sheriff, as I asked her how to get to the
 
Apopka Reservoir.
 
            “Don’t drive too close to the shore,” she warned. “We get sinkholes in these parts
 
that could swallow an eighteen-wheeler.”  
           
            I took the two coffees in the box and placed them on the floor in the backseat
 
of my ’96 pea-green Toyota heap. Then I drove out to the reservoir, hoping my reporter
 
instincts were right. As I rounded the swollen reservoir, I listened to the radio reporting
 
the storm’s devastation. The river had caused mud slides in “The Heights” area of town.
 
Erosion had washed away the Miller’s home that the sheriff had referred to in his tale
 
about the three boys from forty years ago.
 
            I found Deputy Bob standing on the shore with his cell phone to his ear, trying
 
to reach the sheriff and wondering why he hadn’t shown up. Though I had a brief
 
moment of ethical conscience and moral doubt, I decided not to tell the deputy that
 
the sheriff had died in the flood, not yet.
 
            I called to him from a distance and walked towards him. I carried my spare
 
microphone from the car since my own got washed away in the sheriff’s car. It wasn’t
 
plugged into anything, because I wasn’t interested in anything the deputy had to tell me.
 
The sheriff had said it all, but I needed to confirm what I suspected.
 
 “The sheriff said you’d be here with two bodies that washed up this morning.
 
He’s got more than he can handle down river.”
 
            “Where’s he at?” the deputy asked, squinting as if he was looking for the red
 
Camaro to come to a screeching halt behind me to relieve him from his watch.
 
            “He’s down by the train trestle,” I said with a quiver in my voice. At least I had
 
some solace that it wasn’t an outright lie. I pointed to a lump on the shore that looked
 
like a pile of fish nets knotted together. “Sheriff Davis said you should let me have a
 
close look . . . for my news story about the flood.”
 
            He cocked his head. “Ya gonna put my name in the paper? I’m the one who
 
found ’m.”
 
            “Absolutely . . . Deputy Bobby, right?”
 
            “That’s right. How’d ya know?”
 
            “Sheriff Davis told me,” I said and waved the dead microphone. “Sheriff wants
 
me to confirm in writing what you’d told him earlier.”
 
            “Wha’s ’at?”
                           
            “That the corpus delicti is two skeletons wrapped together in a hug, that they
 
might be teenagers.”
 
            “That’s right. But they must’ve drowned,” Deputy Bob said with a confused
 
expression and a shake of his head. “It prob’ly ain’t one a them corpus thingies. Looks
 
like an accident—not a crime.”
 
            Crap, I thought, side-stepping towards the skeletons, Bubba might’ve read a law
 
book or two at the Police Academy. “The sheriff is waiting for my confirmation,” I said.
 
            “Don’t he believe me?” Bobby said with hurt in his tone and expression.
 
            “Sure, but he has to confirm it for the records with all the news stations swarming
 
around. Got to look good if the FBI steps in.”
 
            That convinced him, but he sidled up beside me step-for-step right to the bodies
 
with flies buzzing around them. With my pen clenched between my teeth, I swatted at the
 
flies with both hands. I couldn’t tell what gender the bodies were, and in their embrace
 
with their knees bent towards their chests, I couldn’t tell how tall they were. A DNA test
 
from Ocala CSI would determine those details. I couldn’t wait. The smell of the rotting
 
bones in the heat nauseated me, but made me wonder how long they’ve been dead. If
 
they’d just drowned, why was their flesh so decomposed? Were they already dead before
 
the flood. Had the just been washed into the raging river days ago? Had vermin con-
 
sumed their flesh first? Maybe a mud slide had washed away a cemetery and their
 
embrace was merely coincidental.
 
            Then something caught my eye. I almost reached out to touch it with my pen,
 
but Bobby was hovering over me and said, “Damnedest thing, huh?”
 
            “I got some hot coffee for us in my backseat over there,” I said, pointing to my
 
car, which made him turn his head. “Would you bring the coffees here, while I give this
 
mess a closer look?”
 
            He nodded and looked back once over his shoulder, heading towards my car, and
 
said, “Don’t touch nothin’.”
 
            “Just looking!” I called back.
 
When he opened my car and bent to pick up the coffee, I looped what I found
 
with my pen and slid it into my shirt pocket. Bobby was already heading towards me at
 
a quick gait, so I couldn’t examine what I’d found.
 
            “The sheriff will be pleased to know that your observations were correct,” I said,
 
as he handed a coffee to me and sipped his own. “You got a coroner in this little town?”
 
            “That’d be Doc O’Grady. He’s the only doctor we got. He writes the death
 
certificates when somebody dies.”
 
            “Call him. With those flies and the stink, it’s a health hazard,” I said.
 
            As I got in my car and pulled away, I saw Deputy Bob talking to someone on
 
his cell, hopefully, to Doc O’Grady. I drove my car back towards Main Street and parked
 
outside Sadie’s. I waited several minutes before I felt in my pocket for what I’d taken
 
from one of the bodies. I held it in my tight fist then turned it over in my palm. I held it
 
close between my thumb and forefinger with one eye squinting to read the name etched
 
inside the cheap ring.”
 
            I was exhausted and couldn’t do what I needed to do until the sheriff’s body was
 
found, so I went to my motel room ten miles away on I-75 and spent the restless night,
 
dreaming about people the sheriff had told me about, but was more troubled over the
 
terrible news the sheriff’s family must have received by now. But during that fitful night
 
in my motel, the story he’d shared came to life as if I’d seen it all happen.
 
                                                                  * * *
 
In the morning, I went to the address Sadie had given me when I came to Oakdale
 
yesterday looking for the sheriff. But Sheriff Davis had found me first, so I’d had no
 
reason to go to his office or home. I drove slowly down a dirt road for half a mile before
 
it opened up to a two-lane paved road then brown fields of shriveled corn stalks gave
 
way to green sod and a large white house in the distance. With my window open, I heard
 
dogs barking and soon saw two black Labs running alongside my car, not aggressively,
 
but more like a welcoming committee. The paved road came to a gate at a white fence
 
where a sign on the gate said: “Welcome to the Davis Homestead.”
 
            Though the dogs seemed friendly, I hesitated to get out of the car, so I beeped
 
my horn. An attractive, strawberry blonde, probably in her fifties like the sheriff, but
 
looking more like early forties, came out of the house and called to me, “They’re harm-
 
less!  I’ll open the gate!”
 
            I wondered if Sadie was a close friend and might have called ahead to Mrs. Davis
 
to tell her that the reporter from The Banner was heading out to see her. I figured the
 
news must be out about her husband’s drowning, so I wondered why she seemed so
 
bubbly.
 
            I drove through the open gate and parked. The two dogs sniffed at me with
 
curiosity, but were quickly disinterested and plopped down on the porch. I followed
 
Mrs. Davis through the screen door into the house. She told me to sit on the sofa and she
 
offered me a glass of sweet iced tea. My throat was parched in anticipation of what I
 
would say to her, but her big smile with perfect teeth took me off guard. She did all the
 
talking with a stream of excited drawl that my mind couldn’t keep up with.
 
She punctuated her incredible story with, “There he was, still hanging onto the
 
Camaro by that damn Budweiser gear shift.”
 
            Ironically, her voice sounded muffled, as if we were both underwater. But by
 
the Grace of God or some force of nature, we weren’t, and neither was Sheriff Davis.
 
            “He’ll be glad to see you,” she said. “He needed rest after that ordeal. Broke
 
a couple of ribs when the Camaro slammed into the trestle, but he’s a tough ole boy.”
 
            That he was. As I came into his bedroom, he was propped up with pillows on a
 
king-size bed with a view out a circular window of horses running in a pasture behind
 
his house.
 
“How ya doin’, son?” he asked, extending a big hand that smothered mine with
 
a vice-like grip. I heard one of my knuckles crack, but felt no pain, just so glad to see him
 
alive.
 
            I laughed. “How am I feeling?”
 
            “I was worried, because I left you in the lurch when the chopper came for us. If
 
you got hit in the head getting’ into the chopper, you might’ve had amnesia and forgot
 
about the story I’d told ya.”
           
            Mrs. Davis came in and chortled, “I think my sheriff has had too much oxyco-
 
done for his broken ribs. No hooch for you tonight, baby.”
 
            “How bout some kooch instead, darlin’?”
 
            “Time to holster yer pistol and take a nap,” she said to her injured bull of a man.
 
She put a gentle hand against his rough cheek, and he closed his eyes.
 
            When I followed Mrs. Davis out of the bedroom, the sheriff said in a deep growl,
 
“Ya can take the rat out of the river, but ya can’t take the river out of the rat.”
 
            I wasn’t sure what he meant. I thought about it all the way back to the motel. I
 
was exhausted just from thinking, let alone the physical duress of being in that patrol car
 
moments before the river swallow it, then spit it out. I couldn’t drive back to Ocala. I
 
needed more time to consider what I should do about the ring I found. I’d need the
 
sheriff’s reaction, then I’d know.
 
                                                                   * * *           
             
I’d already written a draft for Sheriff Davis’s obituary in The Banner. I’d said
 
Davis was a fine upstanding peace officer who’d raised himself out of poverty in
 
Oakdale. He’d graduated from Ocala High School where Oakdale kids had been bussed.
 
He’d been the star fullback on the football team, had served four years in the U.S. Navy,
 
then he’d graduated from the Orlando Police Academy. Over twenty-five years ago he’d
 
been elected Sheriff of Oakdale and now was just weeks from retirement. He’d planned
 
to teach his grandsons how to fish in the local swamp. Since I wouldn’t be submitting his
 
obituary, I spent that night piecing together the sheriff’s story from forty years ago.
 
         * * *
 
Three Oakdale boys, Tommy, Ricky, and Andy, often hung out in a deserted bear
 
cave on the mountain ridge after school, where they smoked cigarettes and told dirty
 
jokes and tall tales, mostly about local girls. Their families lived in the cheap cottages
 
along the riverbank, so their bragging was about skanky river girls they’d French-kissed,
 
or stuck-up Heights girls they’d wished they had.                                       
 
            “What was Reform School like, Andy?” Tommy asked.
 
            “They shanked me once, but when I told them my dad was a lifer for killin’ a
 
Florida Trooper, they backed off.”
 
            Ricky said, “If it wasn’t summer vacation, they would’ve expelled me for stealin’
 
the sheriff’s patrol car. I made it to the Ocala Mall, but they caught me shopliftin’ blue
 
jeans. My stepfather beat me with his belt, but I still told ’m to go screw himself. The
 
son of a bitch took it out on my mom again.”
 
            “Nice goin’ at the movies, Tommy,” Andy said, grinning.
 
            “Yeah, man,” Ricky said. “I wish I’d seen it. I heard when ya popped that high
 
school senior from the Heights, his nose bled all over his white varsity sweater.”
 
            Tommy laughed. “He said his friends would get me that afternoon, but I just
 
gave ’m the finger and asked if they were bringin’ tire irons or chains? Pussies.”
 
For these three boys, hopping onto a moving freight train was a thrill in third
 
grade, but by their teens, even a dive roll at 30 mph from a boxcar into a field of slither-
 
ing cottonmouths just drew a yawn. Tommy dared the other two to jump off the train
 
from the middle of the railroad trestle, a thirty-foot drop into the slime of the stagnant
 
river below, green with algae in the summer drought. Laced with toxic waste that had
 
killed the gators, the river’s surface looked like a putting green, concealing any jagged
 
junk that lay at the rocky bottom.
 
Being the oldest, Andy led the way. Always the middleman, Ricky followed.
 
Tommy came right behind before Ricky even hit the water. When the three surfaced,
 
Andy and Tommy laughed, but Ricky crawled up the riverbank with his shirt bloodied
 
and torn. Tommy and Andy swore not to tell anyone, because Ricky feared his stepfather
 
would do even worse to him if he found out. Washing Ricky’s clothes, his mom saw the
 
blood and took him to the ER in Clermont for a tetanus shot and fifty stitches. Just missed
 
his spleen.
 
When they became teenagers they raised the bar on their misadventures.
 
            Tommy told Andy and Ricky about his victory, “The jerk said, ‘Shut your mouth,
 
River Rat, or I’ll shut it for you!’ I told ’m to take his best shot. He did, but I didn’t go
 
down. Then with one punch, I dropped him like a sack of potatoes.”
 
            “River Rats, forever!” Andy shouted, his voice echoing in the cave.
 
            “River Rats, forever!” Tommy and Ricky toasted, passing a pint of cheap wine
 
and dragging on Marlboros.
 
            “What’re ya gonna do in June if ya don’t graduate, Andy?” Tommy asked.
 
            “My mom said she’d sign the papers that could get me into the Navy. Screw
 
that!  I’m tired of people telling me what to do. I’ll hitchhike to West Palm and steal
 
from fat, old rich people—easy pickin’s. I’ll get me a midnight special, take their
 
diamonds and gold, and if they’re good lookin’ women, I’ll screw ’m, too.”
 
            “Girls there are half-naked in bikinis,” Ricky added. “Let’s go now!”
 
            Tommy admitted that he couldn’t go because he’d be graduating and going on to
 
high school. 
 
          “What the hell for?” Andy asked. “River Rats never finish high school.”
 
            “A girl from the Heights told me that, with my grades, I could graduate from
 
high school, then even go to college.”
 
            “The Heights?” Andy balked. “You kiddin’? What’re ya listenin’ to some stuck-
 
up Heights bitch for?”
 
           Ricky grumbled and spit. “Yer just screwin’ with us—right?”
 
         “I didn’t do much homework, but I got A’s on few tests, so I got a B-plus average.”
                                                                  
The other boy’s mouths fell open, then Tommy told them about how he’d recently
 
followed Wendy Miller home from school.
 
             The principal had expelled Andy that week for throwing food in the cafeteria, so
 
he hitchhiked to a pool hall in the colored section to buy a pint of Night Train for fifty
 
cents. The old janitor from grammar school would get him cigarettes, booze, and even
 
weed to share with Ricky and Tommy in the cave. 
 
            Ricky had gotten detention for using foul language in class. So with his pals
 
unavailable, Tommy held his own, taunting Wendy Miller as she waited on the play-
 
ground for her school bus to the Heights section of Oakdale. He sidled up to her as she
 
gossiped with two girlfriends. The girls ignored him, but he clung.
 
              “What do you want?” Wendy said with a scowl.
 
              “You know,” Tommy said, rolling his eyes. 
 
               She shook her long, red ponytail, pursed her lips, and pointed her nose in the air.
 
              “I’m riding your bus home with ya?” he said.
 
              “You don’t scare me,” she huffed. “See if I care.”
 
            When the bus pulled up and the kids boarded, Tommy headed towards the back
 
of the bus and slid into the seat beside Wendy. She cringed as the other kids looked away,
 
leery of any confrontation with a cornered River Rat out of his habitat—the fetid swamp
 
along the river.
 
            Wendy’s house sat two hundred feet above the river against the hillside, which
 
rose another hundred feet from her backyard to the crest. Her nearest neighbor was a
 
quarter-mile away and out of sight.
 
            Tommy got off the bus with Wendy and followed her up her winding driveway.
 
Wendy’s mom was a nurse and usually came home at dinnertime. Her dad commuted
 
to Orlando and never got home before seven o’clock. Giving Tommy that information,
 
Wendy’s tone was more of a threat than encouragement, but he made the best of a rare
 
opportunity to run solo without Andy and Ricky.
 
            “You can’t come in my house,” she said.
 
            “Then where?”
 
            “You think you’re so tough. Did you really break Jim’s nose?”
 
            “He asked for it.”
 
            “Are you crazy?” she said. “The high school football team will kick your ass
 
when you’re a freshman next year.”
 
            “I’m not scared of them. Besides, I’m not going to high school.”
 
            “That’s stupid. Your grades are OK, and you don’t even do the work. If you tried,
 
you could go to college.”
 
            “College? Now, who’s stupid?”        
 
             “Why do you hang out with those two creeps? They’re going to jail someday.
 
Is that what you want?”
 
             “You know what I want.”    
 
 “You and a hundred other boys, but they’re all going to college.”
 
            “Jeez. You’re so damn stuck up.”
 
            She grabbed his hand. “C’mon. I want a cigarette. We have a shed out back.”
 
She led him around to the house to the backyard.
 
            With grammar-school intimacy they passed a Marlboro back and forth for a few
 
minutes. Sharing a cigarette was as close to sex as either had experienced.
 
             “You better leave now,” she said, taking the final drag.
 
            Before she could stop him, Tommy pulled her close and kissed her. They pulled
 
and grabbed at each other until they heard a car coming up the driveway.
 
            “My mom!” Wendy straightened her blouse. “Come back tomorrow when it’s
 
dark,” she said, shuffling back to the house and waving him towards the woods. “My
 
mom will be on the late shift at the hospital. I’ll be alone until seven o’clock when my
 
dad gets home. Bring cigarettes.”
 
            Tommy hid in the woods up the mountainside and waited until dark. He felt
 
chilled as the sun went down, but he didn’t leave. Thinking about Wendy’s encourage-
 
ment to finish school, with frustration, he picked up a fist-sized rock and lobbed it. He
 
expected the rock to roll downhill towards Wendy’s house, but the leaves on the ground
 
seemed to gobble it up.
 
            Moonlight illuminated the woods as he sat on a log and continued tossing rocks.
 
Each time, the rock rolled and vanished. He dropped another rock near where the others
 
had disappeared. Seconds later, in the hush of night, he heard an echoing splash come
 
from below the surface where he stood. With another rock tossed then swallowed by the
 
earth, he heard the same delayed splash. He took note of the trees around him. With
 
caution, he backed away, then headed home, thinking all night about kissing Wendy
 
tomorrow after school.                                                                  
 
            Next morning, Tommy met Ricky in the schoolyard.
 
            “Andy’s coming back to school today,” Ricky said. “When I got out of detention
 
yesterday I couldn’t find ya. Where were ya?”        
 
            “I took the Heights bus.”
 
            “No way!”
 
            “I kissed a Heights chick and copped a feel.”
 
            Ricky nodded towards Wendy in a circle with her friends. “Was it that hot one
 
over there, the redhead with the ponytail and big boobs. Was she the one who told ya to
 
go to college?”
 
            “Yeah. So?”
 
            “Whew! Some creampuff. Did ya stick it to her?”
 
Tommy shrugged as Ricky’s attention wandered past him, and he shouted, “Hey,
 
Andy! Wait’ll ya hear this!”
           
            Tommy turned to see Andy looming behind him.
 
            “Tommy followed that cute redhead home,” Ricky taunted, “but I think he came
 
up empty.”
 
            “The redhead?” Andy nodded towards the circle of Heights girls. “Great boobs.
 
I know, cause I seen ’em—naked.”
 
            Tommy stammered. “Naked? No way!”
 
            “Sure. I was hitchhikin’ through the Heights one night on my way to play pool
 
when I seen her pull in the driveway with’ er mom. I snuck behind her house and got a
 
great view of her bedroom window. Man, I watched her for half an hour, taking off her
 
bra and checkin’ herself out in the mirror. I seen everything.”
 
            “Ah! Yer bull shittin’ us,” Ricky huffed.
 
            “If it’s true, why didn’t you tell us before?” Tommy said.
 
            “I figured you guys were too young to appreciate a fine piece a tail.”
 
            Ricky said, “Let’s check her out tonight.”
 
            “The three of us will go,” Andy said. “I’ll bring weed, Ricky booze, and Tommy
 
 . . . just bring whatever you got down there to make her squeal.”                                                                     
 
            If only Tommy had convinced the other two to stay in the woods and not go into
 
the house . . . but once Wendy opened the door for Tommy, there was no turning back.
 
            Wendy unlocked the chain on the door and asked Tommy, “Where were you,
 
hanging out with those two river rat freaks?”
 
            He distracted her with a kiss. “I’m here, now. What’re you gonna do about it?”
 
            “Come to my room.”
 
            As she led Tommy through the kitchen towards the hallway, he glanced over his
 
shoulder and saw the chain unlatched and the knob button still open just as he’d promised
 
to leave them for Andy and Ricky to come in behind him.
 
            Tommy saw a clock on Wendy’s dresser and noted the time. He kissed and petted
 
her, but saw that five minutes had quickly passed. As he was about to help Wendy pull
 
her sweater over her head the phone rang.
 
            “I have to get it—my mom’s checking up on me.” She picked up her phone. “Hi,
 
Mom. I’m fine . . . just doing homework. Yeah, I’ll have supper ready for Dad.” 
 
            Seconds closed in on ten minutes. Wendy hung up. His eyes were on her, but his
 
ears anticipated sounds from the kitchen, Andy and Ricky crashing through the bedroom
 
door, but only silence . . .  more silence . . . unending silence.
 
            Wendy anticipated her father’s return home and Tommy remained on edge,
 
regretting his pact with Andy and Ricky. With no intrusion on their forbidden romance,
 
at quarter to seven, Wendy led Tommy from the bedroom through the kitchen to the
 
backdoor.
 
            “Be my steady girl,” he said, pulling off his eighth-grade ring, a cheap memento
 
engraved with his name inside it. He handed it to her.
 
            “Not until high school,” she said, dropping the ring back into his shirt pocket.
 
“Our secret till then,” she said, stopping him with a lingering kiss. She opened the door.
 
“See you at school.” She latched the chain and waved to him from the window as he left.
 
            Tommy headed up the mountainside and let his eyes adjust to the dark. He heard
 
a low groaning sound nearby. He walked towards the rasping whisper coming from the
 
dark, “Tommy . . . help.”
 
            Tommy came within a few feet of the voice. He lit his lighter and saw Andy’s
 
wide eyes peering from the ground. His muffled voice strained and his hands clutched
 
at the loose soil around him.
 
            With caution on one knee beside him, Tommy asked, “Where’s Ricky?”
 
            Andy hissed like a cornered gator, “He fell through first. Damn it! Pull me up!”
 
Andy flinched, losing his grip, but lurched with one hand and clutched Tommy’s
 
shirt pocket. Tommy stood with a quick jerk, and his pocket ripped away, but he couldn’t
 
grab Andy’s tight fist quick enough. Without enough air left in his lungs to cry out, Andy
 
slipped through the earth follow moments later by an echoing splash from below.
 
                                                                   * * *
         
            Though the storm with no name was somewhere in Greenland by now, gradually
 
receding, the muddy river’s stench carried all the way to my motel room. I started my
 
Toyota’s belabored engine and headed back to Oakdale in the morning mist. 
 
            The haze stayed with me along the dirt road through the fallow cornfields, then
 
green sod flanked me up to the gate at the white fence. Oddly, I heard no barking. The
 
dogs were nowhere in sight.
 
            I got out of the car and opened the gate. A dim light glowed at one window
 
through the fog. I rapped on the front door. I thought I heard a murmured response, but
 
no one came to the door, so I knocked harder. The door opened with a long creaking