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.
***
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.
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
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
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, c