Pintura

Blue and green
I get confused by them
square and round
I’ll mix them up

Blinking with my eye lids
I see once green next blue
in same place or neatly displaced
as by failure of
bodily reminiscence
of eyes and visions.

Monsters

Under a red sky
a crowd of zombi-likes
appear postmachine
faces and alleged bodies

They are there to scare you
from justice unto injustice
the side they are on and off

Representing classicism
as well as romanticism

Art brut as well as naive cartoons
monsters as well as devils

They group up like
contemporary nightmares

Disturbing your dreams
like a global conspiracy

Shake Shaking Shaped

Cubism may define faces
deindividualize shapes

But still through the cubes
Hidalgo left eye

May pierce through
while the right one seems blind

If not both portrayed like
an introspective figuration

Art forlorn reflection
focusing on pocket square instead

Yellowish folded like bright
rather flowerish pouf

That emerges from his left
chest pocket of vest jacket

Next to bright blue and
black cubist gray

That has been shaken unto now
formalisms out of folklore

But new psychologisms out of folk
may get stuck in blinding of colors.

Spilimbergo

Black white gray diamonds
of shape and color only
remain from the opulence
of Latin America

And two couples of women
regaining classicist rest
at the seaside near the mountains
in corridors of lost buildings.

burned village

i loved you then
loved you still
always have, always will;

i know without a shadow
of a doubt
you were a light i was never

meant to lose
yet i extinguished our friendship
with the darkness of my rage

that black light blew out
every candle of every thing we ever shared
until now we stand oceans apart

strangers—
i wonder if i ever drift upon your focus
upon the painting on your canvas

or the page of your book
the flickering light of a person’s smile
or the honeyed words of musician,

and i cannot help but miss you
when i thought i was over it all
i saw a pink sunset that made me weep

for you;
and i realized that i could never
stop loving you

because no matter what i will miss you
even if i can never tell you face-to-face
as i dream of reconciliations in roses

pale as your skin—
time remains, my love unrequited;
a friendship burned like a village.

your own fault

raped of reason
you think a woman
is your possession
because she exists,
and i tire of men
like you;
too tired and incoherent to
have a mind or heart
used for justice and righteousness—
you reduce women to insects
crushed beneath your feet
because you cannot handle the truth
we are goddesses, we are monsters, we are life givers,
and we are life takers;
every shade between and if you don’t
treat us with care and attention then our magic
will turn from kindness and dreams
to darkness and nightmares
so if you find there is no light
remember it was your own fault for assuming us
nothing more than your pussy,
your moral compass, your failures.

all my wounds (edit)

i’m sorry that i hurt you,
and you’re right
when you say not one of us
is perfect;
and i know there were good times
but there were bad times, as well;
i just cannot seem to let go
of all the wounds
but i am trying to heal—
didn’t mean to make you cry in the process
or to make you feel criticized or judged,
and i certainly don’t hate you;
but i understand that i may have taken
the wrong approach or said
something in a way i should not have—
i’m sorry that you felt
as if i didn’t love you,
that really made me feel like crap;
because i do love you
that’s why all these wounds hurt so bad

sometimes the scars

i want to see the girl,
but lately
all i see of me
is the
monster;
when your tears fell
guilt washed over me
realized
i had become the very thing
that i wanted to avoid—
perhaps it’s time to let this rage
inside me die,
but i don’t know how to quell
these fires;
i will try to be more mindful
of this anger
will try not to burn those i love with it
because that was not my
intention—
my spirit cannot be broken,
but i can always
find ways to improve upon myself;
please be patient
sometimes i hear the insults more than the
compliments and sometimes the scars
are more evident than the joy.

Final Destination

The dark skinned
sun creased old timer;
a black man called Jolly,
was sitting next to me
at the Dorrance Cafe,
downtown, Providence.

I was confused, lonely,
angry, & feeling the beer.
Skeptical over my faith in
an unseen god;
I was puzzled over church dogma
& the hypocrisy of those who shouted it
from the pulpit.

Jolly looked me in the eye,
told me straight.

“Oh, stop it, man,
don’t be worry’n’ ‘bout
strayin’ from dat damned path,
followin’ they thinkin’,
& havin’ to believe what
they be sayin’ ‘bout right & wrong.
Ain’t nuthin’ wrong witch you, boy
‘en how you be livin’ yo-life.”

He put his meaty right hand
on my left shoulder,
gave a squeeze,
tilted his polished, bald head
to the side,
squinted both eyes; left elbow on
the mahogany bar.
Jolly stroked his curly white beard.

He went on.

“Let me tell’ya like it is, Zane...
Too many folks be talkin’ ‘bout
bein’ righteous-
‘bout they wunnaful god,
heaven & hell,
& don’t know ass from elbow.
Don’t let ‘em be spoutin’ ‘bout
they god,
& how it be da’ true one,
& how you gots’ta believe
or else booshit!”

Jolly lit a smoke.
I put mine out,
& swallowed the dregs of my beer.
He hollered down the bar,
ordered 2 shots & 2 beers,
took a drag off his Kool cigarette
exhaled- then continued.

“You’z gots’ta
find you own way, boy.
We all gots’ta walk
a fuck load’a tar
to gets to where we be goin’.
Each and every bump & growl,
laugh & cry,
be preparin’; groomin’ us like,
fo-da finale.”

Skeeter, the bartender,
put down the beers and shots.
Jolly stopped for a minute,
paid the man,
pushed a beer and whiskey
my way.

He lifted a toast,
dark brown eyes sparkling,
wide grin on his round face.
We downed our shots.
Jolly finished with a
rumbling laugh, clever wink,
& nod of the head.

“She-e-et, Man,
‘en dat dare finale
may not be
so damn hot ‘en final,
afta h’all, Zane.”

Jolly let out a belly laugh;
his entire body rumbled.
Good naturedly
he slapped me on the back.

“Jus’ think fo-you self boy.
Drink up!”

Jolly was my friend.

Winter Storm

a dusting of fog
shutters snowbound piers
into mirages of ghosts

mood lit
ice falls over frozen crests

white owl sighs

about Michael H. Brownstein

    Michael H. Brownstein’s work has appeared in American Letters and Commentary, Skidrow Penthouse, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, The Pacific Review, After Hours, cc&d, poetrysuperhighway.com and others. He has nine poetry chapbooks including A Period of Trees (Snark Press, 2004) and The Possibility of Sky and Hell (White Knuckle Press, 2013). His book, A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else: A Poet’s Journey To The Borderlands Of Dementia, was recently published by Cholla Needles Press (2018).

Gray Cloud

Gray Cloud
White lightning

Legacy

We were young then. It’s really no big deal now. There is more.

Speech & Sex

One    comes      as an obstruction to a silence
The other       its consummation

One the furnace
The other        the fire

And vice versa      Back and forth they go
Exchanging roles       stoking       exploding

Containing       Dividing       Joining       Molding

Pause a moment       Think
About how that is true

Then about what that might mean
Re what you and I might do

And then
When
You’re ready
Let       me
Know

And we can have a conversation
Or not

Dirty Girl

She brings dirt with her,
In a jar with soot and ash.
And with her brings a dust cloud
Which rains down granite stones
That smack me on the forehead.

She says it is the soil,
In this little glass cup she has,
Of some great oak tree,
Which burned in the backyard
Of her childhood home.
Somehow, she was bound to it
In a matter of the soul and atonement.

In the jar she has, as well,
The body of her former self
Or the self she sometimes sheds.
With this atrocity in her hands
She asks me not look her stray
When she puts her skin back on
And I love her so, I simply keep away.

Each hour she wants more of me;
My food, my home, my trying times.
She has gone so long without amenities,
Any act of kindness will surely help her to her feet.
But her presence is that of soot, where she walks,
Black footprints stalk across my white carpets.

I question my life as her tar jar torments me.
I hate the darkness in my home, I hate the world.
I will hate anyone but her; the dirt girl.
While convincing myself the normalcy of ash;
I rip out my porcelain sinks to compensate its filth.

Is she really cursed? She tells us all she is
And describes how she turns to sand at night
For the curse her mother placed upon her.
She slips through her own fingertips and
Catches her own soul as it falls from her chest.

I could tell her,
“You’ve tracked dirt into this house.”
Though I know she would only
Smile while she put her dirty hands
All over my clean, white walls,
And she would not care nor know it.

“Even the glass burns me”
She says, and I ask why she carries it;
“We have to have a little pain,
When we burn we are alive.”
She answers and I want to shake her
And ask her, “What is wrong with you?”

I know, I neither get an answer
Nor have an argument with her;
Powder souled friend of mine.
I am still wishing on the kindest windstorm
To blow away the ashes of a well-loved corpse.

bio

    Cheyanne Brabo is a poetry and fiction writer from Northern California. She’s been published several times in Inkstay Magazine, in Anatolios Magazine’s inaugural issue, and in a self published chapter book entitled “The Darkness Has No Enemies” which is available on Payhip. When she’s not writing, she enjoys her job as Foster Assistant at the Placer County S.P.C.A.

Give Me No Signs

I asked for an omen for weeks on end,
Until my lips chapped with the effort of begging.
On the fifth day of longing, I begrudgingly conceited.

When I went to rest my weary head,
A neon church bulletin came hurtling from above
To slam me like a bug on the windshield of a mack truck.

“There are some you cannot drag into Heaven.” It said.
“Those people are not destined for the Devil, just not destined
For you.” And I swallowed another spoonful of cotton.

In the bookstore, three novels and a magazine
Spelled out my spouse’s last name and the initial of our child
And I tried to force coincidences, just to see if I could.

But a gift is hard to rehome once it’s been given.
Nothing indifferent was to ever happen to me again.
I got in arguments ordained by our very creators.

What was that life? I didn’t know. I was a footstone.
I was allowed to conduct botched experiments on myself,
The outcome always being something I previously divined.

Every road I took became something I’d seen before,
Whether it be in a dream or - the much less unappreciated -
Product of my wishes that I whispered, like prayers at night.

Anyway, we people are not allowed to live that way for long
Not unless our flesh has weathered, or our souls are far away;
No one alive should see their future as present as the nose on their face.

“Am I trapped?” I asked everyone, disclosing no details
And getting no answers. I suppose if we are all prisoners,
The cells for people just like me happen to be bigger.

bio

    Cheyanne Brabo is a poetry and fiction writer from Northern California. She’s been published several times in Inkstay Magazine, in Anatolios Magazine’s inaugural issue, and in a self published chapter book entitled “The Darkness Has No Enemies” which is available on Payhip. When she’s not writing, she enjoys her job as Foster Assistant at the Placer County S.P.C.A.

Hajib

The car rounds my corner
as I count breaths while waiting
through a familiar melange
of urine and rotted fish
She is framed in black hajib
children seated in the back
of course she is not driving
and her gaze catches my eye
She’s not looking at me
She’s not looking at anything
as her eyes light the boulevard
She is somewhere, not here
I know that intensely
because I know that look
She’s more than distant
from her rented reality
She leads a double life
far from the stench of the boulevard
far from that car and the code that veils her
She speaks to me long distance
in freestyle and I can hear her laughter
see her hair carried along the breeze
its highlights caressing sunkissed shoulders
as she watches her children play
near an ocean, somewhere
I know that look
I have self swathed in hajib to please
My eyes grew weary on roads
I would have traveled
if not for shackles, unseen but real
yet I had choices, keys
and unfortunately, cowardice
I took too long to carve a path
I see her youth and scream silently
She is gone. Did she hear me somehow?
Her chains are stronger
those keys lie protected in dogma and fire
I knew her when I saw her eyes
but we are worlds apart.

Genesis One

Before the beginning, there was nothing.
In the beginning, the abundance of everything
was trapped into a microscopic spec of nothing,
and decided to become energy, expand, break free.

But here is the dilemma for the average Joe:
“Wait a minute, you say there was nothing,
it’s hard to imagine, but if there was no space,
how does energy expand, into nothingness?”

Ah, now you’re starting to understand
what all those great minds and saints
have been trying to grasp. In the beginning,
space was created by that expanding energy.

And in the beginning, there was no form,
in the vacuum of space there is no matter.
Only when the energy of Hydrogen electrons
pass through a Higgs field to trade some

energy for matter, that’s when the void
and darkness was given form. Let there be light,
and so it came to be, as particles
energetically sped away from each other

at faster and faster speeds than the human
brain can imagine. And as time came to pass,
this energy made stars; let there be more light.
Above the orbiting rocks, let there be firmament,

where celestial orbs scatter through darkened skies,
surrounding and circling these stars, as they
all spin together to share their cosmic ride
through the heavens, expanding, farther, faster.

As spinning slows and temperatures subside
let orbiting ice from the sky shower water
on these celestial orbs, and let there be seas,
separated by stone and rock we call dry land.

And on this one place that we now call Earth
with seas separating land, bring forth grass,
herb yielding seeds, fruit trees yielding fruit^*.
Time was divided to day and night; let it be so.

A greater light ruled the day, a lesser light
ruled the night, and we saw that this was good.
Once on this Earth, teeming with the primordial
ingredients for life, let there be life, created

in the waters, brought forth abundantly^*, and
every living creature will moveth across the land^*.
And now, nature could be fruitful and multiply,
and so it was, where more was created in its image.

As more and more grew, more and more learned
how to live on the lands separated by seas
to better suit their natural environment, to grow, to
survive and thrive, to further multiply and be merry.

And to the creatures of this blessed Earth,
they shall have dominion over what they can harness
with every green herb for meat: and it was so.^*
Behold, this thing that was made, it was very good.

After all this work and all that was made, rest
and appreciate all of this great creation, the plants,
the rain that falls after humankind tills the soil,
breathing into your nostrils the breath of life.^*

* Though small phrases from Genesis in the Bible are mentioned throughout
this poem, phrases of four or more words were asterisked.

Genesis Two and Three

His father said I was made for him,
and we shall be of one flesh.
You would think we would have to be
perfect for each other,
but when you’re alone with only one man,
your choices are limited.

Now, we lived on a beautiful land,
with beautiful gardens and beautiful food...
And even though this was never
explicitly said to me, I got the impression
I shouldn’t touch or eat from the tree of knowledge —
because I shouldn’t understand good and evil.

All I cold think was, what a ludicrous thought.
Who would be so demanding and foreboding
to forbid us from knowing right from wrong?
No matter that the fruit looked so succulent,
no matter that I wanted to learn or grow,
why would you want the ones you claim to love

remain do utterly ignorant? If you know better,
Ignorance is not bliss, ignorance is ignorance
so when it was suggested to me
and I could be godlike if I only tried this fruit,
I thought, I couldn’t die from touching this
knowledge, eating it’s fruit, or learning from it...

So I did what I had to do, and anyone
with drive or ambition or desire to learn
would do the same. So in my desire to be wise,
I ate this fruit, and I saw that it was good.
Then I realized that maybe being the only
wise one around here wouldn’t be a good idea,

maybe the only man I’ve ever known
could stand a little more knowledge too.
I offered him the food; he knew the rules
and decided to eat the fruit from the tree
of knowledge anyway, even though his daddy said no.

Now, you may think it’s short-sighted or childish
to have issues with father figures, but if you knew a man
with this much pent-up rage, you may think differently.
It did not matter to this old man who would never
just up and die that I was the mother of all living.

I knew better, and I had to suffer under his wrath
because he didn’t believe a woman should be smart.
In this little time I first spent with this one man
I missed out on the tree of life, but at least I got to learn
a thing or two about how life really is, even though this
ultimately means that we women will always fight

an uphill battle, wondering if we can ever truly win.

Genesis Four:
Cain and Abel,
and sin from killing

Two sons were born of a woman
who lived in a land where their Lord
told them that they had dominion

over the creatures, but more importantly,
that every green herb was for meat.^* Not
animals, but greens; they saw this was so

and they thought that this was good, as
their first son tilled the ground to create
great food — herbs, fruit, and vegetables.

Knowing this was a peaceful way to
provide a healthy sustenance to his family,
the first son was pleased with his work.

But the first son saw his younger
brother tend to flocks of sheep
instead, then slaughter them as offerings.

How unholy, the older brother thought,
how barbarian, and antithetical to the
peaceful way we’re supposed to be.

The older brother knew he was on
a morally higher ground, but when
the lord was pleased with the slaughter

offering from his younger brother,
the older brother was lost. ‘What have I
done wrong?’, the older brother thought.

‘Have I not followed the Lord’s way,
have I not done what the Lord wanted,
and did I not prosper by being peaceful?’

The older brother couldn’t understand
how slaughtering animals and extracting
the fat to give away was thought of as good.

And as the older brother’s darkest fears
swelled, he heard the Lord say unto him,
“If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?”^**

‘Yes, if my Lord abided by his own rules,’
the older brother thought. This off-hand
question from the Lord that opposed morality

flew the older brother into an internal rage,
because he had done well, and for this he
gained no respect with the Lord for his deeds.

And more importantly to the older brother,
his younger brother actually gained
respect by explicitly being disrespectful.

‘Where can morality lie when our Lord
cannot be moral?’, the older brother
wondered, contemplating what to do.

Soon after, the younger brother came
to the older brother as he worked
in the fields, and an argument ensued

about morality, and in a blind rage
the older brother killed the younger.
Which kind of killing is more of a sin,

the older brother thought... but
eventually the older brother heard
the Lord ask him, “where is your

younger brother?” And the older
brother responded, he did not know.
he was not his brother’s keeper.^**

After this, the older brother
wondered, ‘shouldn’t the Lord,
if he is all-seeing and all-knowing,

shouldn’t he already know? Or
is this just another test of my will,
and how is my will tested

when I am shunned for doing
the right thing, and my younger
brother is praised for sinning?’

The older brother, understanding
morality, could hear his younger
brother speak to him from beyond

the grave, and after the older
brother truly acknowledged his sin
after burying his brother in the ground,

no food from the ground tasting
sweet would grow from his land again,
no matter how he tended the soil,

as if the blood of his younger
brother contaminated all
the older brother tried to grow.

He wondered, ‘if the world knew
of the sin the older brother committed,
would they care of the sins

of the younger? Do they not
hear the cries of all they have killed,
or all that been killed for them,

for a death-filled meal? Which lives
are worth saving?’, the older brother
thought, as he then left the land

that would no longer grow for him.
Although many may have killed him
for the act he had done to his brother,

the Lord understood the morality
of the older son’s choices and
protected him. He protected him

to live in a world that is now
filled with people wanting to kill
for food when they should not,

and do not need to. The world
the older brother was born into
was truly a cruel and uncaring world,

and the older brother, after one
immoral act, was stuck living in
a world where slaughter was

eaten at every meal, and violence
like this was to become the norm.
And sadly enough, this is a world

the older brother feared the most.

* from Genesis 1 of the Holy Bible
* from Genesis 4 of the Holy Bible

Janet Kuypers Bio

    Janet Kuypers has a Communications degree in News/Editorial Journalism (starting in computer science engineering studies) from the UIUC. She had the equivalent of a minor in photography and specialized in creative writing. A portrait photographer for years in the early 1990s, she was also an acquaintance rape workshop facilitator, and she started her publishing career as an editor of two literary magazines. Later she was an art director, webmaster and photographer for a few magazines for a publishing company in Chicago, and this Journalism major was even the final featured poetry performer of 15 poets with a 10 minute feature at the 2006 Society of Professional Journalism Expo’s Chicago Poetry Showcase. This certified minister was even the officiant of a wedding in 2006.
    She sang with acoustic bands “Mom’s Favorite Vase”, “Weeds and Flowers” and “the Second Axing”, and does music sampling. Kuypers is published in books, magazines and on the internet around 9,300 times for writing, and over 17,800 times for art work in her professional career, and has been profiled in such magazines as Nation and Discover U, won the award for a Poetry Ambassador and was nominated as Poet of the Year for 2006 by the International Society of Poets. She has also been highlighted on radio stations, including WEFT (90.1FM), WLUW (88.7FM), WSUM (91.7FM), WZRD (88.3FM), KOOP (91.7FM), WLS (8900AM), the internet radio stations ArtistFirst dot com, chicagopoetry.com’s Poetry World Radio and Scars Internet Radio (SIR), and was even shortly on Q101 FM radio. She has also appeared on television for poetry in Nashville (in 1997), Chicago (in 1997), and northern Illinois (in a few appearances on the show for the Lake County Poets Society in 2006). Kuypers was also interviewed on her art work on Urbana’s WCIA channel 3 10 o’clock news.
    She turned her writing into performance art on her own and with musical groups like Pointless Orchestra, 5D/5D, The DMJ Art Connection, Order From Chaos, Peter Bartels, Jake and Haystack, the Bastard Trio, and the JoAnne Pow!ers Trio, and starting in 2005 Kuypers ran a monthly iPodCast of her work, as well mixed JK Radio — an Internet radio station — into Scars Internet Radio (both radio stations on the Internet air 2005-2009). She even managed the Chaotic Radio show (an hour long Internet radio show 1.5 years, 2006-2007) through BZoO.org. She has performed spoken word and music across the country - in the spring of 1998 she embarked on her first national poetry tour, with featured performances, among other venues, at the Albuquerque Spoken Word Festival during the National Poetry Slam; her bands have had concerts in Chicago and in Alaska; in 2003 she hosted and performed at a weekly poetry and music open mike (called Sing Your Life), and from 2002 through 2005 was a featured performance artist, doing quarterly performance art shows with readings, music and images. Starting at this time Kuypers released a large number of CD releases currently available for sale at iTunes or amazon, including “Across the Pond”(a 3 CD set of poems by Oz Hardwick and Janet Kuypers with assorted vocals read to acoustic guitar of both Blues music and stylized Contemporary English Folk music), “Made Any Difference” (CD single of poem reading with multiple musicians), “Letting It All Out”, “What we Need in Life” (CD single by Janet Kuypers in Mom’s Favorite Vase of “What we Need in Life”, plus in guitarist Warren Peterson’s honor live recordings literally around the globe with guitarist John Yotko), “hmmm” (4 CD set), “Dobro Veče” (4 CD set), “the Stories of Women”, “Sexism and Other Stories”, “40”, “Live” (14 CD set), “an American Portrait” (Janet Kuypers/Kiki poetry to music from Jake & Haystack in Nashville), “Screeching to a Halt” (2008 CD EP of music from 5D/5D with Janet Kuypers poetry), “2 for the Price of 1” (Janet Kuypers poetry to music from Peter Bartels), “the Evolution of Performance Art” (13 CD set), “Burn Through Me” (Janet Kuypers poetry to music from The HA!Man of South Africa), “Seeing a Psychiatrist” (3 CD set), “The Things They Did To You” (Janet Kuypers poetry to music from the DMJ Art Connection), “Hope Chest in the Attic” (audio CD set), “St. Paul’s” (3 CD set), “the 2009 Poetry Game Show” (3 CD set), “Fusion” (Janet Kuypers poetry in multi CD set with Madison, WI jazz music from the Bastard Trio, the JoAnne Pow!ers Trio, and Paul Baker), “Chaos In Motion” (tracks from Internet radio shows on Chaotic Radio), “Chaotic Elements” (audio CD set for the poetry collection book and supplemental chapbooks for The Elements), “etc.” audio CD set, “Manic Depressive or Something” (Janet Kuypers poetry to music from the DMJ Art Connection), “Singular”, “Indian Flux” (Janet Kuypers poetry to music from the DMJ Art Connection), “The Chaotic Collection #01-05”, “The DMJ Art Connection Disc 1” (Janet Kuypers poetry to music from the DMJ Art Connection), “Oh.” audio CD, “Live At the Café” (3 CD set), “String Theory” (Janet Kuypers reading other people's poetry, with music from “the DMJ Art Connection), “Scars Presents WZRD radio” (2 CD set), “SIN - Scars Internet News”, “Questions in a World Without Answers”, “Conflict • Contact • Control”, “How Do I Get There?”, “Sing Your Life”, “Dreams”, “Changing Gears”, “The Other Side”, “Death Comes in Threes”, “the final”, “Moving Performances”, “Seeing Things Differently”, “Live At Cafe Aloha”, “the Demo Tapes” (Mom’s Favorite Vase), “Something Is Sweating” (the Second Axing), “Live In Alaska” EP (the Second Axing), “the Entropy Project”, “Tick Tock” (with 5D/5D), “Six Eleven” “Stop. Look. Listen.”, “Stop. Look. Listen to the Music” (a compilation CD from the three bands “Mom’s Favorite Vase”, “Weeds & Flowers” and “The Second Axing”), and “Change Rearrange” (the performance art poetry CD with sampled music).
    From 2010 through 2015 Kuypers also hosted the Chicago poetry open mic the Café Gallery, while also broadcasting weekly feature and open mic podcasts that were also released as YouTube videos.
    In addition to being published with Bernadette Miller in the short story collection book Domestic Blisters, as well as in a book of poetry turned to prose with Eric Bonholtzer in the book Duality, Kuypers has had many books of her own published: Hope Chest in the Attic, The Window, Close Cover Before Striking, (woman.) (spiral bound), Autumn Reason (novel in letter form), the Average Guy’s Guide (to Feminism), Contents Under Pressure, etc., and eventually The Key To Believing (2002 650 page novel), Changing Gears (travel journals around the United States), The Other Side (European travel book), the three collection books from 2004: Oeuvre (poetry), Exaro Versus (prose) and L’arte (art), The Boss Lady’s Editorials, The Boss Lady’s Editorials (2005 Expanded Edition), Seeing Things Differently, Change/Rearrange, Death Comes in Threes, Moving Performances, Six Eleven, Live at Cafe Aloha, Dreams, Rough Mixes, The Entropy Project, The Other Side (2006 edition), Stop., Sing Your Life, the hardcover art book (with an editorial) in cc&d v165.25, the Kuypers edition of Writings to Honour & Cherish, The Kuypers Edition: Blister and Burn, S&M, cc&d v170.5, cc&d v171.5: Living in Chaos, Tick Tock, cc&d v1273.22: Silent Screams, Taking It All In, It All Comes Down, Rising to the Surface, Galapagos, Chapter 38 (v1 and volume 1), Chapter 38 (v2 and Volume 2), Chapter 38 v3, Finally: Literature for the Snotty and Elite (Volume 1, Volume 2 and part 1 of a 3 part set), A Wake-Up Call From Tradition (part 2 of a 3 part set), (recovery), Dark Matter: the mind of Janet Kuypers , Evolution, Adolph Hitler, O .J. Simpson and U.S. Politics, the one thing the government still has no control over, (tweet), Get Your Buzz On, Janet & Jean Together, po•em, Taking Poetry to the Streets, the Cana-Dixie Chi-town Union, the Written Word, Dual, Prepare Her for This, uncorrect, Living in a Big World (color interior book with art and with “Seeing a Psychiatrist”), Pulled the Trigger (part 3 of a 3 part set), Venture to the Unknown (select writings with extensive color NASA/Huubble Space Telescope images), Janet Kuypers: Enriched, She’s an Open Book, “40”, Sexism and Other Stories, the Stories of Women, Prominent Pen (Kuypers edition), Elemental, the paperback book of the 2012 Datebook (which was also released as a spiral-bound ISBN# ISSN# 2012 little spiral datebook, Prominent Tongue, Chaotic Elements, and Fusion, the (select) death poetry book Stabity Stabity Stab Stab Stab, the 2012 art book a Picture’s Worth 1,000 words (available with both b&w interior pages and full color interior pages, the shutterfly ISSN# ISBN# hardcover art book life, in color, Post-Apocalyptic, Burn Through Me, Under the Sea (photo book), the Periodic Table of Poetry (with poems written for every element in the Periodic Table), a year long Journey, Bon Voyage! (a journal and photography book with select poems on travel as an American female vegetarian in India), and the mini books Part of my Pain, Let me See you Stripped, Say Nothing, Give me the News, when you Dream tonight, Rape, Sexism, Life & Death (with some Slovak poetry translations), Twitterati, and 100 Haikus, that coincided with the June 2014 release of the two poetry collection books Partial Nudity and Revealed. 2017, after her October 2015 move to Austin Texas, also witnessed the release of 2 Janet Kuypers book of poetry written in Austin, “(pheromemes) 2015-2017 poems” and a book of poetry written for her poetry features and show, “(pheromemes) 2015-2017 show poems” (and both pheromemes books are available from two printers). In 2018, Scars Publications released “Antarctica: Earth’s Final Frontier” and “Antarctica: Wildlife” (2 Janet Kuypers full-color photography books from the first passenger ship to Antarctica in 2017), performance art books “Chapter 48 (v1)” (2009-2011) and “Chapter 48 (v2)” (2011-2018), the v5 cc&d poetry collection book “On the Edge”, and the interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”.

no worries

research proves
a nagging wife
can prevent
diabetes in
husbands...
“so there,
no worries,”
she states

about ayaz daryl nielsen

    ayaz daryl nielsen, veteran and former hospice nurse, lives in Longmont, Colorado, USA.
    Editor of bear creek haiku (28+ years/150+ issues) with poetry published worldwide (and deeply appreciated), he is online at: bear creek haiku   poetry, poems and info

no worries

the world empties my heart
prowling silence of
unanswered questions

about ayaz daryl nielsen

    ayaz daryl nielsen, veteran and former hospice nurse, lives in Longmont, Colorado, USA.
    Editor of bear creek haiku (28+ years/150+ issues) with poetry published worldwide (and deeply appreciated), he is online at: bear creek haiku   poetry, poems and info

Creative Processes

Let not Passion and Inspiration ever fail Thee

They are, after all, among the major tools of your imagination

When the latter is keen and flexible, and propelled by Love,
Thee can create.

When Creation happens, your Joy and Happiness are assured.

These two are dynamic and encompassing.
They feed the divine processes of the Heart and Soul.

the second half of the story
Mortal Zone

    He leaned back in his chair and waited patiently while I took another sip of water from my cup.
    “You remember the strange fact I told you regarding the bodies, both of the animals and of the humans; the fact that they did not decompose and remained fresh until they were completely eaten? And you remember that I mentioned that there was something more to the animals than what met the eye?”
    “Yes I do.”
    “Well, first of all,” I said, “the fact is that neither the humans nor the animals were truly dead at the time their bodies were collected, exhumed, or stolen from their morgues and catacombs. Each one of them was an instance of the situation where one appears to be dead due to there being no detectable signs of life on the person but is not truly dead. Where the person – or animal - is merely in a state of....”
    “Clinical death.”
    “Yes. Buried with no strings attached, so to speak. That’s the state they were in at the time they were taken and kept in the cellar.
    “In a sense, you can argue that it therefore makes it murder. However, there was virtually no chance that any of them would have been resuscitated anyway, given the conditions from which they had been taken. In a way, I am somewhat grateful for that for it helps relieve me of some of the burden on my conscience. But now, the question you are wondering is how did they remain fresh even during the slow and prolonged period of consumption?”
    “Yes. How did they?”
    “It’s actually rather simple,” I said, “though extremely bizarre. It’s because, for each one, a person occupies its body during the whole time it is been eaten until it is fully consumed. And by ‘a person’, I mean a consciousness other than the one that lies dormant in the nearly dead body. It is this second consciousness residing within the body that causes it to remain alive even while in a state of disintegration.”
    “You mean it acts as a kind of psychosomatic force that keeps the body from dying or bleeding as it normally would in such a situation?” the doctor said.
    “Yes. Basically.”
    “And this remains so right down to the point that only a small part of the body is left?”
    “Yes, though there is a systematic, procedural way in which the consuming has to be done, which our friend, Zelma, grimly tutored me on my first week. The brain, of course, has to be the last thing to be eaten. It is through this process of consuming this animated flesh that we gradually learn, by a rigorous process of introspection, how to immerse our minds into the bodies of other people through their brains.
    “Of course, as I have indicated, not just anyone is able to do this. I and the other members of this cult all share in common the ability to recall past incarnations of ourselves – our past lives - albeit only in a limited fashion. In my case, however, due to my amnesia, I haven’t had any such recollections since I came here a year ago. But I have nevertheless come to realize that I, like them, possess this trait. And, as it so happened, your own testimony this morning, doctor, appears to confirm it.”
    The doctor stared down at the table for some time clearly flabbergasted by everything I had been saying. Then he looked up at me and said: “But if this is how the people in this group gained the ability to input themselves into another person or animal’s body, how were they able to do it right from the start? How were they able to keep the first animal alive that they did it to so as to acquire that ability in the first place?”
    “Good question, doctor,” I said. “But surely the same mind that asks it should easily see what the answer is.”
    He gazed at me for a couple of seconds and then said: “It started with a tiny animal didn’t it? Perhaps a small mouse. Or maybe it was even done with an insect.”
    “No,” I said, shaking my head. “No insects. Just flesh. It began, as you’ve rightly guessed, with a tiny animal – very likely a young mouse or lizard – an animal that could be consumed alive at once. And it was likely done with several of them until the desired result was achieved. This gave way to the ability to enter, given enough will power and technique, the brains of other creatures of roughly similar degrees of consciousness, including those slightly higher. Once that had been achieved, the person could then immerse himself or herself into larger creatures while another person – or other people - gradually ate them alive until they too gained this ability. Thus, it was via this process of incremental graduation of species that their ability to temporarily reside inside the minds and bodies of fellow living humans was attained.”
    The doctor pondered on this for some time. Then he said: “Am I right to assume that it was this man, the founder of the group, who began the process at the level of the tiny creatures?”
    “I don’t know but that would be my assumption as well,” I said.
    As I looked up, I suddenly detected in the doctor’s eyes, as he stared blankly in the direction of the door, a glimmer of faint recognition and bafflement that seemed to make him shiver. I could not tell what it was. Attempting to insert my mind into his brain, even if I had been willing to do that, would have been pointless since such immersions do not open the thoughts of the local resident consciousness to the alien one; all they give is the power of bodily control.
    He regained his composure and turned to me and asked: “Why are you in this mortal conflict with this man? Why you in particular and not any of the others?”
    “I do not fully know,” I said. “Though, I have a feeling that it has something to do with my having a greater access to previous lives than any of the others. Based on your account of what I told you in Addiha, I must have had access to memories of a relatively large number of past lives of mine, significantly more than most people. Though, as I said earlier, ever since my memory loss, I am no longer able to remember them, at least on a conscious level.
    “But, perhaps more importantly, it is also because, unlike the other members of the group, I am morally opposed to what he is doing – or what he is trying to do with this ability to possess the minds and bodies of other human beings at will, the ultimate purpose of which I am yet unsure of. I am far more morally at odds with it than any of the others. I find it to be a grotesque violation of human sanctity and dignity. Not to mention the horrendous things that one could do with such power. While I have participated in this necrophagic process of developing my ability to perform such psychic entries, I have done so only in the belief that it is an important advantage that will someday come in handy for me. Furthermore, I have never once, since the day I joined them, assisted in the process by placing my own consciousness into one of those bodies in order to sustain it for consumption. It may be rather selfish of me, but as long as I am able to take advantage of the benefits without having to do that, I am happy to do so.”
    “But why does he allow you to do it?” the doctor asked, clearly baffled. “And why were you led here in the first place? After all, as you mentioned earlier, you probably didn’t just wander to this particular town by accident; something must have brought you here. It might even have been by means of conscious submersion into your own brain.”
    “To be honest with you, doctor, I am still rather mystified by it myself,” I said. “But my feelings and intuitions tell me that it was probably due to some kind of necessity; that this fight simply has to be fought for some reason. What this reason is, I do not yet know.”
    I could still see faint signs bafflement on the doctor’s face that were reflective of the look I had seen earlier. I knew that he was deeply puzzled by something, but I still couldn’t tell what it was.
    “What’s the matter?” I finally asked him. “You look troubled by something.”
    He shook his head and said: “No. It’s nothing. It’s just that the bizarreness of everything that has happened is hard for me to wrap my mind around.”
    I could see that he was unable, for some reason, to tell me what it was that was bothering him. So I let the matter rest.
    After some silence, he finally turned to me and said: “So what is it that you would like me to do at this point, Mr. Seden? How can I help?”
    “You can call me by real name now,” I said. “I don’t mind anymore.”
    “I’m relieved to hear that,” he said with a faint smile. “So what can I do to help, Mr. Halin?”
    “I am very grateful you asked,” I said. “There is really only one thing at this point that you can do for me, doctor. And it is very simple. I need you to walk with me to the town’s graveyard so that I can show you the symbolic venue of the battle between I and this man.”
    I had a strong feeling that I would have an encounter with the man at the cemetery at this hour, and I wanted the doctor to come with me. I chose not to tell him the true purpose of my request in case it might cause him to refuse. I knew that he was a brave and noble man, but I didn’t want to take any chances.
    “What do you mean by the graveyard being the symbolic venue upon which the battle is fought?” he asked.
    I contemplated for a moment before answering. “Within the dream itself, as the battle takes place, I occasionally see the landscape of a large grave vaguely superposed as though it was the frame upon which the four dimensional board hosting this strategic battle is placed. I suspect it might even be the reason why I was brought to this particular town; and it is why, as I told you earlier, I have to remain here in order to complete this fight.”
    I took out my watch and looked at the time, making a remark about it. I then looked at the doctor and asked if he accepted my request.
    “Certainly,” he said. “I’ll go.”
    “Before we go, doctor,” I said. “I feel I have to show you something, also in the spirit confidence. It will help confirm to you the things I have been telling you.”
    I got up and walked over to a wooden cupboard which stood against the wall that my bed was next to. I opened it and brought out a plastic bowl that was covered. I then walked back to the table and set the bowl down.
    “Brace yourself a bit, doctor,” I said. “I doubt that any number of years spent in medical practice completely inures one to the sight of these things.”
    He stood up from the chair as I spoke, his eyes fixed on the covered bowl.
    I lifted the cover and revealed a roughly two pound chunk of raw meat, largely layered with coarse hairy skin, lying in the bowl, only mildly laced with blood in its cut and severed surfaces.
    The doctor stared at it with great curiosity, looming over the bowl with his back stooped over the table. He then looked at me and said: “May I touch it?”
    “Certainly,” I said.
    He drew the bowl and then carefully picked the flesh up with the fingers of his left hand and examined it closely.
    “It’s the upper part of a human calf,” he said. “From the hair on it, it’s undoubtedly from an adult man –likely an elderly one.”
    “Yes, that’s right,” I said.
    “No indication of necrobiosis at all,” he said, studying it close to his face with intense fascination. “And yet I imagine it has been in that cupboard for more than a day now.”
    “Three days, to be exact,” I said.
    “So the effect of the psychic immersion remains on the flesh even after it has been separated from the whole?” he said, looking at me with amazement.
    “Yes,” I replied. “Until it has been consumed.”
    “But why then does the desecration have to be incremental?” he said. “Why can’t the bodies be chopped into pieces at once?”
    “Because sustenance of the immersion is easier the more whole and less fragmented the remnant body is?” I replied. “That’s why each person is encouraged to detach only one consumable piece at a time. I just happened to preserve mine due to a loss of appetite a few days ago.”
    “And how long can this psychic immersion be sustained?” he asked.
    “For as long as the person that is doing it can remain in the trance without food and water,” I said. “Usually no more than five days.”
    He put the thing back down in the bowl in a manner as though with a bit of fear and awe at the uncanny fact that it was alive with the essence of a person inside of it.
    After staring at it for some moments, he looked at me and asked: “How often do you eat this diet?”
    “Only occasionally,” I said with a slight shrug. “About once or twice every month. Naturally, the frequency or quantity was much greater in the beginning. Since then I’ve enjoyed a much wider, not to mention holier and healthier, diet than this, thank heavens. But even then, I only eat sparingly, as you can see from my rather gauntly features.” I paused in hesitation for a couple of moments. Then I said, still staring down at the bowl: “As you can see, I haven’t eaten that much of it since I obtained my share of the flesh three days ago.”
    I looked up at him and said: “You see, doctor, during the past several weeks, I’ve been having certain bizarre mental effects which I attribute to this diet. Though, to be frank, I have also suspected that my fairly recent engagements in this strange and phantasmagorical battle with the leader of the group might also have something to do with it.”
    “What effects?” he said.
    “Certain types of visions I’ve been having lately. They are occasional and seemingly random and unpredictable in nature. They are typically brief and they tend to occur at the onset of sleep or the threshold of waking, like some of the ones you said I had back in Addiha. But what is particularly strange about these ones is that they are visions about happenings in a different location, and they are usually subsequently confirmed. Though, they are typically mundane and banal events. As an example, I saw you even before you entered the house.”
    “You saw me?”
    “Yes,” I said. “Though it was only a part of you; just your hand that knocked on the door. I was just coming out of deep sleep at the time when I heard the knocking. And that was when I saw the vision of your hand knocking on the door. When you entered, everything I saw in the vision was confirmed; the complexion and texture of the hand, the color of the coat, everything. Of course, one could reason that perhaps I may have subconsciously expected you to come looking for me since I asked you to do so a year ago even though I had no conscious memory of it. But then again there was no way I could have known the day you’d be coming or the particular coat that you would be wearing.”
    “Actually, I only bought this coat about six months ago,” the doctor mused. “Thus, you’ve never seen me wear it.”
    “Well, there you go.”
    “And what do you think it means?” he asked.
    “As I said, I think it’s a side effect of recent activities that have been affecting my mental state, as well as, perhaps, a function of the stage I am in this process. My guess is that there is some form of psychic instability in my brain that sometimes causes my mind to be projected, mostly during semi-conscious states, into other people’s brains in ways that are somewhat random and sporadic.”
    “Yes,” the doctor said thoughtfully, “that sounds reasonable given everything you’ve been telling me. In fact, that was the explanation I had in mind.”
    Still staring at the bowl, I said, rather dourly, almost under my breath: “Well, in any case, doctor, I don’t think it’s going to matter anymore.” I put the lid back and covered it, picked up the bowl and returned it into the cupboard. I then walked back to the table and said: “Alright, doctor. If you are ready, we may go.”
    He put on his coat and hat and we exited my somber little cottage. And as we did so, I had a strong conviction that I would not be returning there again.
    The day was already brimming with sunlight. Yet I could still see an abundance of dark grayish shadows streaming across the edges of the clouds. It gravely reminded me of the blood that laced and trickled across the severed surfaces of the living flesh that lay inside the bowl in the cupboard. As the doctor and I walked, I felt an inexplicable sense of relief that I would never need to touch, much less eat, such a thing ever again.
    This time we went down the path towards the main road that led out of the wasteland. Though, it was still a long walk before we left the moors. We took the roads leading northeastern edge of the town.
    We passed many people along our way; people mindfully heading their destinations, pensive about the comings of the day that had been ushered in by the blissful morning.
    I decided to pick this point to tell the doctor the full reason why I asked him to come to the graveyard with me.
    “Dr Ruther,” I said as we were walking, “there is something else I ought to tell you about this cemetery I am taking you to see, besides the fact that it is the symbolic setting of the battle.”
    “What is it?” he asked.
    “First, before I tell you, I want you to know that you are still perfectly free to leave this destination and take the other route leading to the town, and I would not blame you in the slightest if you choose to do so. You have already done more than enough for me and I will remain eternally grateful. Furthermore, this is something I can still handle myself.”
    “Oh come on, Mr. Halin. Just tell me what it is,” he said rather impatiently. “You know that I’m highly unlikely to leave you and let you go off alone. So what is it?”
    We walked on in silence for a few moments before I answered.
    “I believe that we shall encounter him when we get there,” I said without looking up.
    “Who? The leader of this cult?”
    “Yes,” I said almost in a whisper, nodding slowly.
    “How do you know that?” he asked.
    “It’s an insight that came to me during the course of our conversation,” I said. “I’ll explain later. But, in the meantime, let me ask, doctor: are you armed by any chance?”
    “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t normally go about armed.”
    “Not even a scalpel?”
    “No,” he replied. “I’m a psychiatrist, not a surgeon. If possible, I can always use a blade in an emergency situation.” Then he looked at me and said. “Why, do you think it will be necessary?”
    “No,” I said. “I just wanted to ask. But it won’t be a problem. You have my word on that.”
    We walked up a road through a woody region that took us right to the grounds where the large cemetery was situated. There was no one else in sight. Thus we strode quietly without any distraction, each of us deep in thought and foreboding about what we were heading for.
    We eventually reached the zone of the cemetery. There was a wide area of low grass delineating the zone from the places we had traversed along. The place itself occupied several dozen acres, and at its boundaries were low fences of strong wires that were held at intervals by short wooden poles that they were attached to. We soon crossed the boundary and began to walk through the massive graveyard, keeping to the roads and pathways as we went past the graves and monuments around us.
    As we walked, my eyes darted about the small trees, hedges and the fences that were nearest to where we were. I was searching for something.
    We eventually came to a stop. At that point, I had satisfied myself as to what I was looking for. We were standing at a path that was not very far from the midline of the graveyard. There was a fence a good distance away at our left that separated the grounds from a neighboring grassy region. Graves, giant crosses and tombstones were situated in a roughly ordered manner around us, extending far and wide.
    “So this is the site,” the doctor said as he looked about him, finally breaking the silence.
    “Yes,” I replied. “This is the dimension in which it takes place. The realm of the nonliving. And this, I believe, is where it shall end.”
    “But where is he?” he asked, scanning about the distance somewhat warily. “There doesn’t seem to be anyone else here?”
    “Oh no,” I said, nodding slowly. “He’s here. I know he is.”
    He glanced at me a bit nervously.
    I then turned to him and said: “Alright doctor, this is what I want you to do for me. Please wait here. I’ll be right back.” I left him and headed over to the fence that was nearest to where we were. I went to one of its short wooden poles and, with considerable effort, I began to detach the wires from it and I soon managed to pull it out of the ground. The bottom end that came out was sharp and pointed, just as I expected it to be.
    I walked back to the doctor with this weapon. When I got to him, I handed it to him and he took it with a slight amount of puzzlement.
    “What about you?” he said. “Don’t you need to be armed?”
    “No, that won’t be necessary,” I said.
    I began to undo my shirt, and then I cast it to the ground, the whole time conscious of the fact that the doctor was staring at me in bafflement. Then I took off my undershirt and threw it too onto the ground.
    I was now wearing only my trousers and sandals. The gentle morning breeze brushed pleasantly and refreshingly across my torso and I treasured the feeling in spite of the circumstances. I then turned to the doctor and said to him: “Dr Ruther, this is what I need you to do for me. I know you have never done this before. But this is one time in your life that you absolutely must do it. I want you to thrust that stick into my body with as much force as you can. Aim for my heart.”
    He gaped at me with a look of horror. Yet, at the same time, I detected that there wasn’t much surprise in his eyes.
    “Why?” he gasped.
    “It gradually and very slowly began to dawn on me during our conversation, doctor, from the time you told me about the visions I had in Addiha, that this mysterious person, this masked man, is in fact myself. And by that I mean that he lives within me; my brain and my body.”
    “How is that so? By psychic immersion?”
    “No,” I said. “By incarnation; right from birth. We are two different consciousnesses inhabiting the same body.”
    “So it really was you!” the doctor gasped again.
    “What?” I asked, puzzled as to what he meant.
    “That thing you mentioned to me about the man having started the project off by eating tiny animals alive. I remembered that there was a particular time I paid a visit to your home in Addiha. This was during the early period of your distress. You passed out for some time after talking to me due to the insomnia you were suffering from. I then had a brief look around the house to see if there were any drugs I suspected you might be taking that I had not recommended that could be affecting you adversely. I noticed, at one point when I entered the inner bathroom of your bedchamber and opened a cupboard, fragments of bones and tussles of fur of what I guessed to be remnants of a young hamster lying in a dark corner. I was slightly puzzled by it since I knew that you did not keep any pets in the house. But I didn’t think much of it and I soon forgot about it. That was until our conversation this morning.”
    “So that’s what it was that you were thinking about,” I mused with a pensive smile. “Yes, it’s starting to come back to me now – not the animal remains for I never saw that, but the remembrance of talking to you in my house that day.” Strangely enough, as we stood there, and as he spoke, the memory of my past life before I came to this town began to slowly open up to me. No longer was it vague imaginings and speculations, but clear and concrete images blessed with a confidence and assurance that only genuine memories could bestow.
    “But who are you exactly?” the doctor suddenly asked me.
    That question seemed to trigger a strange transformation in me. Looking back, I suppose it may have been due to the fact that it was my mortal opponent - my alter self - who could truly answer that question, or at least was in a position do so much better than I could.
    I found myself staring at the doctor bemusedly. Then I finally said with a smile: “Well if it isn’t my dear old psychiatrist friend, Dr Ruther. It’s lovely to see you again, doctor, after so long. Though I must admit that here in the graveyard of Dova is the last place I would probably have expected to encounter you.” After some pause, I added: “I imagine my archrival must have brought you over here to help him.”
    The doctor merely stared at me speechlessly.
    It was then that I noticed for the first time that I was naked from waist up. I glanced in surprise at the shirts lying on the ground, not quite knowing what to make of it. Then I looked at the doctor again and glared curiously at the sharp dangerous stick he was holding. He wasn’t holding it in a threatening way, and so I wondered what he was doing with it. I did notice, however, that he stiffened up a bit and instinctively raised the stick slightly as I spoke to him. But I could understand that he felt nervous and threatened. All I could really tell at this point was that my other self must have brought him to this site, though it wasn’t yet clear to me exactly what his motive was for doing so.
    “Split personality disorder!” the doctor finally whispered. “There were times I suspected it back at Addiha; especially on those few occasions when you would seem to show surprise about something you ought to have known, and one occasion several years ago when you didn’t seem to know who I was. But I was forced to put it down to lapses in memory and quirks in your personality. There just wasn’t sufficient evidence to conclude that it was a case of split personality syndrome.”
    “Yes,” I said, grinning slightly. “Once I had deduced years ago that I was not the only person in my body, it wasn’t difficult for me to act sufficiently so as to conform to your expectations regarding the other person on those rare occasions that you and I met.”
    “So you did not want me to know that that was the condition you were suffering from.”
    “Suffering,” I said, chuckling. “The only person who has really suffered from this situation is my old adversary whose body I now share. Yet, while I wish I could say that I am in the better position, I can’t really go that far at this point given that he has the privilege of being the primary consciousness and thus he is the one who enjoys life most of the time while I only make relatively brief and occasional appearances into conscious awareness. Nevertheless, I enjoy the unique privilege of having complete access to the memory of all of my past existence while he has only a limited access to his.”
     I then asked the doctor: “Has he mentioned to you the little game he and I have been playing for thousands of years?”
    He appeared puzzled for a moment. Then he said: “He mentioned something to me about some kind of battle of abstraction regarding continuous reincarnation over the span of human history – a battle that you and him have been fighting in your dreams.”
    I couldn’t help but smile at the naivety of his words. “This battle, doctor,” I said, “is neither an abstraction, nor is it merely a dream. It is as real as can be, and it’s a matter of life and death. You see, it’s quite simple; one of us has to go. It’s either going to be me or him. Whoever loses will simply cease to exist. No more incarnations. Those dreams you speak of were us living through the span of human history in different incarnations as different people at different times. They weren’t just dreams; we really were actually living through them.”
    “How is that possible?”
    “It just is,” I replied. “Yes I know it seems highly paradoxical that two sentient agents can engage in a process that itself must have preceded their own current existence. But the nature of this world is much stranger than you might imagine.” I gazed at the expanse of the graveyard about us as I continued to speak. “In any case, those ‘dreams’ are over. We seem to have reached the final point of our battle. I confess that I never in all those thousands of years imagined that it would culminate in both of us being reincarnated in the same body. I never thought that was where it would eventually be decided. But apparently it is.”
    “So it is actually two people in the world, and not just one, that has always had this unique ability to remember all of their past lives,” the doctor said.
    “Yes,” I replied. “It is two of us. I see he told you it is only one person.” I chuckled again. “Well, as I said earlier, the consequence of us sharing the same body is the fact that he has limited knowledge of his past existence while I, on the other hand, have much more limited time than he does for conscious life.”
    “Have you both been aware of each other’s existence inside your body prior to him losing his memory?” he asked. “And if so, how?”
    “You have a scientifically inquisitive disposition, doctor,” I remarked, “given the amount of credulity you have shown so far.”
    “Your other self has shown me enough evidence of his claims to satisfy me as to what has been going on,” he said defensively. “I don’t think I am a credulous person, Mr. Halin.”
    I fell silent for some time as I pondered on what types of evidence my alter self may have shown him. As I did so, I reflected on the fact that he couldn’t possibly have known, nor could he still now know, where I had been keeping the mask and clothes I had been using for my disguise in my meetings with the sect. In any case, I had already decided by this point that I would have to take care of the doctor for he knew too much already.
    I looked at him and said in an agreeable manner: “Alright, doctor, I’ll satisfy your curiosity. First of all, the fact that we are both living in the same body is something that I came to surmise over the years by reason alone, though I was never completely sure until about a year and a half ago. Because I could not sense him anywhere else in space and time, as I had always done in previous lives, in spite of the fact that I knew that our struggle had not ended, it began to occur to me that it must be because we had both incarnated in the same body.”
    “I’m sorry to interrupt,” the doctor said, “but I have to ask this. Had you always been aware of the intermittent and sporadic nature of your own conscious awareness?”
    “I can see that that is of deep interest to you as a psychiatrist,” I said. “The answer is no, as you no doubt expect. We may be existing as distinct personalities, but we still share the same brain. Thus, the fact of conscious awareness tends to be taken for granted and is based on the inertia of the prior state of the brain. The gaps in memory are merely regarded as mundane.”
    He nodded. “I just wanted to be sure.”
    “As for him,” I continued, “he has never been aware of my existence in his body until sometime fairly recently.”
    “But why did you bring him to this particular town?” he asked. “And how did you do so?”
    “First let me ask you,” I said, “since you have asked me several questions already; it’s my turn to ask one. What else has my alter self told you about what he has been doing since he came here?”
    He studied me carefully for several moments. Then he said: “I know about the psychic immersions; your ability to input your mind into other people and animals and take control of them. I know about the cult you have formed and the fact that you’ve taught them how to do the same thing.”
    “Interesting,” I said, nodding slowly. “And I presume you also know how I did it. No doubt he has told you about his dietary habits within the past year.”
    “Oh yes, of course,” he said. “I know about the bodies.” After a brief pause, he then said: “What I do not know is what exactly you plan to do with this power that you’ve attained.”
    “I can see that you are not a man of great imagination,” I said. “In any case, that is yet another question, and I am only interested in answering your preceding two.”
    “Please do,” he said.
    “Alright, doctor. First, I will tell you why this town of Dova is so special. You see, ever since I discovered that there was a way in which I could enable myself to enter into the bodies of other people, I also realized that I needed some people to help me in achieving it. Of course, I also realized that I could make use of them for other purposes. As I’m sure my alter self has told you, these people had to be the types who have mental connections to their past lives. A very rare trait, as you can imagine. Now where would be the most ideal place to find the greatest concentration of such people? Of course, it was this remote country town of Dova. Why so? Due to the sheer age of its burial site, having served intermittently as a burial ground for tens of thousands of years – the longest of any such location in the world.”
    “How did you come to know that?”
    “You tell me, doctor.” I said. “How do you think?”
    “Through your previous incarnations, I assume. Especially given the nonlinear and global nature of the thing.”
    “That’s correct,” I said, smiling. “I see that my infinitely close friend has told you quite a lot.”
    “Not quite enough,” he said. Then suddenly he froze up as though something had just occurred to him. “Hold on a moment. I just realized something. If they weren’t merely dreams, and both of you were actually waging this conflict in the real world in four dimensions, then that would mean that you know the future, given the nonlinear nature of the process – you skipping back and forth across time. In other words, you remember your future incarnations!”
    I broke into a gentle laughter. It felt rather refreshing doing so for the first time since I saw him standing a few feet from me upon this graveyard holding the stick in his hand. “I almost wish I could say you are right, doctor. But unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. As I said earlier, the world is stranger than you might imagine. Sadly, my memory is only, and has always been, restricted to past incarnations. I cannot remember the future ones because, by definition, they haven’t happened yet. It’s another one of those strange paradoxes you’ll have to get used to. No doubt, the same applies to my adversary – my other self.”
    “So that’s why you chose this town as the place to build your powers,” he reflected. “And you must have made several trips here during your periods of consciousness and then returned back to Addiha before they expired.”
    “That’s right,” I said.
    “But it still doesn’t explain why you made him come here.”
    “I was getting to that,” I said patiently. “You see, there was something else I came to realize about this place which was even more profound. And that was the fact that this town – particularly this burial ground – is also the ideal place for the battle between my rival and I to be settled. It couldn’t have been mere coincidence that we both reincarnated at the same time in the same body in a region of the world not too far from it. And I imagine that was why he brought you to this site. He probably knew intuitively that this gravesite is where it would eventually end.”
    “And why did you initiate him into your cult even though he is your enemy?” the doctor asked.
    I knew he already had a pretty good idea of what the answers to these questions were. But I decided to oblige him nonetheless. I felt the natural sense of obligation that one tends to have towards a person who stands in the face of death.
    “I brought him here for the purpose of settling this battle,” I said, “in the hope that I will become the only consciousness in this body and enjoy every conscious moment of the rest of its life. I knew that it was only by giving him the ability to enter other brains that we could both pass the mental wall that separates us within our brain and engage in this duel. Until then, while I could pass through the barrier and enter his dreams, it was impossible for him to engage me or even recognize me. However, he did finally come to the knowledge of my existence within his body shortly before he left Addiha, for there was a particular dream in which we both saw each other and, for the first time, he recognized me. Even now, I still do not quite know how it happened. Of course, he later forgot about it during his fugue. Yet that knowledge remained deep in his subconscious. And that’s why our duel could be conducted in the dream state.”
    “So it was you that he saw in that banquet dream when he looked in the direction of his previous standing position,” the doctor said. “And that was what disturbed him so much that he began to lose his memory and left Addiha.”
    “Oh, I see he has told you about it,” I said with a smile.
     “But how did you get him to actually come here? Did you psychically manipulate him somehow, like how you do with other people?”
    “No. That would be impossible.” I paused for some moments. “He didn’t actually come here. I did.”
    “I don’t understand what you mean.”
    “Sometime after he left home and began drifting through Addiha, consciousness was transferred to me. Then I simply travelled straight here. Incidentally, it reverted back to him as I was approaching the town.”
    “And by that time he had completely lost his memory,” he said, nodding thoughtfully. Then he stiffened again as if something he had suddenly remembered something. “But yet he knew the name of this town before he left. In fact it was his intention to come here. He gave me the name prior to his departure. How did he come to know the town and have the intention of coming here?”
    “Why don’t you have a guess, doctor?” I said invitingly.
    He stared at me for some moments. “You planted it in writing, didn’t you? Notes or letters that you probably left in strategic places in the house or mailed to yourself to tell your other self of this place and that he needed to go there. Writings that must have been mysterious to him as to their authorship but which were nevertheless persuasive enough to compel him to use the information given in them. In fact, it was you who wrote his name on a certain card; the name that you wanted him to use when he arrived here. And, incidentally, that is the very card that he gave to me before he left.”
    “That’s interesting,” I said. “I never expected that he would give you that card. He was supposed to use it for himself.”
     “But he did write it down for himself just before he departed. He probably did it knowing at that time that he was losing his memory and might forget it.”
    “I know,” I said with a faint smile. “I accidentally found the piece of paper on which he wrote it sometime after he began living here. I figured he had written it shortly before he left. Incidentally, I decided to get rid of it.”
    “Why?”
    “Because I had realized by then that he had no remembrance of his past life and I figured it was best that it remained that way. I did not want any such connection to Addiha as that piece of paper lingering around with him in case it might awaken his memories. Of course, I hadn’t expected that he would suffer a fugue and lose his memory. Nevertheless, it made things even easier for me. What I also did not expect was that he would give you the information. And I’m sure that’s why you came here.”
    “He asked me to come look for him if he didn’t return after a year.”
    “I see.”
    There was a brief silence and the deathly aura of the massive graveyard reverberated all around us. I listened to it with some awe. Then, looking at the doctor, I said musingly: “So he brought you to this town. And now he has brought you to this gravesite.” I was studying him carefully. Then I said to him: “May I ask what exactly you are doing with that stick?”
    “Nothing,” he said, glancing at it. “I just decided to take it in case we were attacked by grave robbers.”
    “Really?” I said with a smile.
    “Yes,” he replied cautiously but defiantly. “And what do you intend to do with this ability that you’ve acquired of entering into and taking control of other people’s bodies?”
    “As I indicated earlier, it’s none of your business.”
    “I think it is,” he said, peering carefully at me. “I think you intend to use it for selfish and malignant purposes. I can’t imagine that you intend to use it for any sort of good. There is never any virtue in taking possession of the minds and bodies of other people and depriving them of their freedom.”
    I was forced to smile again at that point. “No doubt you see me as essentially being the evil one, and my alter self as the man of virtue,” I said. “But you have to remember, doctor, that we are of the same body – the same brain. Whatever I am is basically what he is. I am merely the expression of his dark side, his secret inner ambitions, the desires that he cannot admit even to himself. That is all I am. And that is what I have incarnated in this life to become.”
    “And if one of you was to be annihilated from existence so that only the other is left in your body, as is your hope and intention, then what happens? Wouldn’t the personality of the body go on to be that of the leftover person?”
    “You’re the psychiatrist, doctor,” I said. “You tell me.”
    “That’s exactly what would happen and you know it,” he said.
    I suddenly fell into a brief silence as a shadow came over me. Then I looked at the doctor and said: “And that is why you have to kill me, Dr Ruther. That’s why you must kill this body. Do it immediately before he returns.”
    The doctor’s eyes startled for a moment. He seemed somewhat unsure as to who had just spoken to him.
    “Do you remember what you were saying to me before you spoke just now – the conversation we were just having?” he asked me.
    “No, I don’t,” I said, shaking my head thoughtfully. “I’m not even completely sure why I said what I just said. But I mean it nonetheless.” I paused again to contemplate. “My entire existence up until this point has been a search. I think for thousands of years I was searching to come to terms with myself; by coming to a knowledge and understanding of whether and why I was better than how I might have been if I had been essentially the opposite of myself. Not merely better but fulfilled.”
    “In other words, your inner enlightenment had to be in relative terms,” the doctor said, “not in absolute terms.”
    “Yes. But in a sense it is absolute,” I said with a wistful smile, “given that it is with respect to my own self.”
    “So both of you have essentially been each other’s mirror opposites at each point in this battle.”
    “Essentially, yes,” I said. “But, as I mentioned back at the shed, it was never really in a manner that was direct or obvious. It was always in ways that were deep and subtle. I suppose that’s why neither of us was able to successfully resolve the struggle until it came down to this point; both of us being in the same body - the same brain. Now the choice is much simpler and clearer.”
    “I suppose it is,” he said, nodding slowly. “It has come down essentially to a choice between good and evil, and between ignorance and knowledge.”
    I was quiet as I gazed thoughtfully at the dark earth upon which we stood.
    “And when you saw him in that dream,” he continued. “That dream that disturbed you so much and eventually caused you to go into a fugue – it was essentially your mirror reflection that you saw. That was what you were looking at as you sat on the table looking in the direction of your previous position. And that was what horrified you.”
    “Yes, it was,” I said, reminiscing on it. I could remember everything now. My memory of my past, including bits of some of my previous lives, had been fully restored.
    Then I suddenly looked up at him and asked: “So which is it, doctor?”
    He glared at me with a momentary flash in his eyes as though he was startled at the fact that I was speaking to him. I figured he had just been talking to my other self.
    “Who is the truly advantaged one?” I continued. “Who, potentially, is the truly enlightened one as far as reality is concerned? I am asking you, as a learned and elderly man whose views I should respect and who has evidently been brought to this graveyard to usher in and bear witness to the climax of our conflict. Therefore I am asking you to be the arbiter and make that decision for us. Since obviously neither he nor I will agree and each of us will insist that he is potentially the truly enlightened personality, it is only fair that we have a third party decide it for us. And I can’t think of anyone better than yourself to do so. So tell me – tell us: Is it better to be evil and having the benefit of greater knowledge, or to be virtuous but having the veil of ignorance?”
    I couldn’t help a slight smile as I watched him.
    For some time, he stared at me somewhat vacantly. Then his eyes focused clearly on mine and he said finally, in a low soft voice: “It is not a decision that I am qualified to make. I am only a psychiatrist. That is something that you shall have to resolve for yourselves.”
    I nodded softly and stayed silent for some moments in deep thought.
    Then I found myself looking up and saying to him: “Then kill us and let us resolve it in death. Do it now, doctor, or you may not get another chance the next time he returns.”
    He merely stared at me, clenching the stick in his hand with great hesitation.
    “I would have done it myself without bringing you into this,” I continued, “but I was sure that the survival instinct within me would have caused my alter self to rise into consciousness and prevent me from doing it. That’s why I had to ask you to help me.
    “The one mistake that he has made is that he underestimated your loyalty and moral courage. It is those qualities that have allowed me to entrust my fate upon you by bringing you to here to help me. And for that I will forever remain grateful to you. But if you continue to delay for much longer, my alter self will come to understand why you are holding that weapon, if he doesn’t already, and that you are capable of using it. Once he does, he will disarm you and kill you with it. As you can tell, in spite of my rather poor health, I am still much quicker and stronger than you are. My alter self doesn’t necessarily want to die. But I do; because I know that it is the only way this can truly be resolved. You simply have to put an end to this incarnation of ours. He has become too dangerous... I have become too dangerous.”
    “And will this be the final incarnation?” he asked.
    “For one of us, yes,” I said. “Only one of us can go on at this point. You may think of this body as a vessel with a wide entry but a narrow bottleneck through which only one person may exit.”
    “And whoever it will be shall depend on the answer to that question,” he said softly.
    I noticed at this point that he had maneuvered his fingers around the stick so that he was now gripping it in the opposite direction and had raised it slightly.
    “Absolutely,” I said, nodding. I felt a sudden tendency to smile again. The doctor may have seen it in my eyes and sensed that my alter self was returning, for he acted instantly. Within a second, he drew the stick backwards like a spear and then thrust it at me with everything he had.
    The next moment, I felt a smooth searing movement through my chest, accompanied by a stiffening sensation of suppressed breathing. The view before me seemed two dimensional: the man at my front, the wider landscape of the graveyard and its distant trees and scattered shrubs. I seemed to freeze in time for some moments. Then I felt a dizzying sensation as I fell backwards and watched the earth and the sky revolve around me. I barely noticed the pain that was blazing through my body. It was after I had hit the ground that I began to writhe in agony for a brief time, only vaguely seeing the doctor standing over me a few feet away. Then I lost the sensation of sight and gradually felt nothing.
    The sense that I had died with my eyes open was confirmed, with morbid fascination, as I peered down at the half-naked body on the ground with the blood-stained stake sticking grimly from its chest. I spent a minute or so being mesmerized by what had happened. Then I tried to step forward but I staggered. Upon regaining balance, I stood still and waited for the dizzying and tingling sensations running through me to subside.
    After I began to feel more in control of my new body, I went forward to the body on the ground and carefully bent over it. A tiny pool of blood lay at the left side of the mouth. The open eyes stared lifelessly towards the sky.
    I stooped down and gently closed the eyes. As I did so, I began to have recollections of having performed a similar action a few times in the past in this new body.
    I straightened up and looked around. It was at this point that I began to fully realize and marvel at the fact that my memory of everything that had happened – with respect to both personalities in my previous brain – were fully restored and present in this new brain, along with the indigenous memories of this brain. Though, I realized that I no longer seemed to have any recollection of my past lives before the previous and deciding incarnation. It was something I had not expected. And I spent some time thinking about it.
    I began to look about the site for a place to bury the body.
    Soon, I bent down and began to drag the body by the hands towards a vacant area of the graveyard about forty yards away. I made sure to pick up the shirts on the ground and take them along with me. After setting him down, I removed my hat and then proceeded to draw the stick out from his chest. Then I began digging and clearing the soil as much as I could using the stick and my hands. The whole time I was solemnly conscious of the fact that my new body was neither young nor very fit. Thus I found myself straining and sweating much more than I would have liked. Eventually, I had cleared enough ground to create a grave for a proper burial. I then put the body into the grave, along with the clothes, and buried it, filling it back up with the same earth I had exhumed, and then cleaned my hands with a handkerchief.
    I straightened up and stood panting with my hands on my hips, my face and body drenched in sweat. Then, as I stared at the vastness of the graveyard, the trees in the distance and the light blue sky towards the horizon, I let the fullness and reality of the situation sink into me. It was a feeling that I was sure I had never experienced in any of my previous lives or the bodies in which I had lived them.
    It was done. It was over. And now was a new beginning. The power of bodily transference that I had gained had proved useful in a way that I had not even anticipated when I sought to acquire it. It had come at the expense of the doctor’s own consciousness, and that seemed to be the real irony of it all, given what he had said earlier. I suspected that, being the man he was, he would have decided that it was worth losing his own consciousness if he had known it would happen, even if he wasn’t really sure who exactly would take his body.
    I remained standing upon the dark soil, reflecting for minutes on end as I gazed at the view beyond.
    I then put my hat back on, dusted my clothes and began to exit the graveyard. I had unfinished business to take care of regarding the sect my previous body had built. Contemplating the immenseness of what lay ahead of me, I strode carefully and quietly past the legions of graves and tombstones, barely listening to the dirge of the sparrows as they sang their songs of mourning far into the distance.

see the previous issue of cc&d for the first half of the story Mortal Zone.

Keep Calm and Carry On

    My grandmother sat on the toilet seat. I was on the floor just in front of her.
    She brushed my brown curly hair until my scalp hurt.
    “You got your grandfather’s hair. Stand up. Look at yourself in the mirror. That’s much better, don’t you think?”
    I touched my scalp. “It hurts.”
    “You gotta toughen up, Aiden. Weak people get nowhere in this world. Your grandfather was weak. Addicted to the bottle. Your mother has an impaired mind. Now she’s in a nuthouse. And your father, he just couldn’t handle the responsibility of a child. People gotta be strong. Do you understand me?” She bent down and stared into my face. Her hazel eyes seemed enormous. I smelled coffee on her breath. There were blackheads on her nose. She pinched my cheeks.
    I reflexively pushed her hands away.
    “Life is full of pain, sweetheart. And I don’t mean just the physical kind.” She took a cigarette from her case on the back of the toilet, lit it, and inhaled. “You’ll be hurt a lot, but you got to carry on. You know what the British people used to say when the Germans bombed London during World War II?”
    “No.”
    “Keep calm and carry on.” She hit my backside. “Now run along and put some clothes on.” I was wearing just my underwear and t-shirt. “We have a busy day.”
    I dressed in the blue jeans and a yellow short-sleeve shirt she had bought me. She stood in front of the mirror by the front door of the living room, holding a picture of my mother. She kissed the glass and placed it on the end table next to the couch. Then she looked at herself in the mirror and arranged her pearl necklace, put on bright red lipstick, and fingered her gray hair, trying to hide a thinning spot at the top of her forehead. She turned and smoothed her green cotton dress, glancing at herself from behind. “Not bad for an old broad.” She looked me over. “Come here.” She tucked my shirt in, licked her hand, and smoothed my hair. “You’d think I never brushed it.”
    Just as she opened the front door she said, “Hold on,” and went to the kitchen counter and put her hand in an glass jar full of bills. She took out what must have been at least thirty single dollar bills.
    “Here. Give this money to the kiddos next door.”
    When we were outside, she pushed me towards their house. They were playing on their swing set in the fenced-in yard. In front of the broken-down house was a yard of weeds. A rusted bicycle with no wheels lay on the ground. The young pale girl with stringy hair looked at me suspiciously as I approached the fence. Her brother stood, arms folded, in the background. He had a mean look on his face and spit.
    “This is for you,” I said, shoving the money through the chain links. The girl reached out to grab it, but most of the bills fell onto the dirt.
    “Thank you,” she said.
    As I walked away, her brother yelled, “We don’t need no charity from you.”
    I opened the door of my grandmother’s blue Plymouth; she had the air conditioning blasting and it was already full of cigarette smoke.
    She crossed herself. “Say it with me. ‘There but for the grace of God go I.’”
    I repeated the words with her and we drove to her friend Margie’s house, not more than ten minutes away. Margie was a smelly fat lady with a big white cat that hissed at me. She always wore the same navy blue sweater, and was constantly picking white cat hairs off her clothes, while talking about the latest sermon, God, or the devil. Nanna told me when they were young girls, their classmates made fun of her. “Stinky” they called her. And she did smell. Like urine, and cats, and mothballs.
    “Don’t let him get out,” Margie yelled, as the cat pounced from behind the open door. “Arnold, don’t you dare run away!” She bent over to grab his tail and groaned at the same time. “My back!”
    “Don’t worry. I got him.” I had my arms wrapped around the white monster. He hissed.
    “Why don’t you put him in the closet when you open the front door? We go through this every time,” my grandmother said, pushing past her towards the kitchen in the back of the house. “I gotta sit down. It’s hot as hell out there.”
    Margie placed a tray of ham sandwiches, along with cheese and crackers on the round grey Formica table. I liked her wallpaper—white with the red outlines of trains. Her husband had been a conductor; he died when he got squished between two train cars.
    “I don’t know how I feel about all those miracles Father Tom was going on about.” Margie placed a sandwich on a plate for me with some chips. “What ya want to drink, Aiden? I got nice lemonade.” Her two front teeth were red from where her lipstick had smudged. And as usual she had white cat hairs all over her blue sweater, especially the ledge of her belly where the cat sat all the time.
    “That sounds good.”
    She smiled. “Always such a nice boy. Polite. You’ll never have any trouble with this one. Not like you did with Lorraine.”
    “I hate when you call her that.”
    “That’s her name ain’t it?” She poured my grandmother and me lemonade and sat down with a huff.
    “That was my mother’s name, her formal name. I’ve told you a thousand times to call her Laura.”
    “What the hell difference does it make?” Margie bit into her sandwich and rolled her eyes at me.
    “Makes a lot of difference. My mother was a crackpot. I named my daughter Lorraine to be nice.”
    “Well, Laura is . . .” I knew Margie was going to say that my mother was a crackpot, too.
    “Laura is what?” My grandmother put her sandwich down and leaned into Margie.
    “Is a nice girl. She’s got problems, but don’t we all.” She reached out and clasped my hand. “Right, Aiden?”
    “Yes, Margie.”
    My grandmother rubbed her neck and spoke softly. “Nobody’s perfect. Laura’s getting better. She’s just got a few psychological issues. And the new meds they have her on seem to be doing her good. She’s a beautiful human being, and that’s what’s most important. Besides, who’s to say what’s normal? My Laura has always been different. One of the happiest people I ever met.” Her eyes were shiny and her face flushed. Her bottom lip trembled. She looked at me. “Don’t you gotta use the bathroom?” She raised her eyebrows. That was her signal.
    “Yes, I gotta pee.”
    “Well, you don’t have to get so detailed,” she said. “Just go.”
    Margie laughed hard and farted.
    I made my exit just in time, creeping up the gray stairs. The old bannister was dusty. The rug in the upstairs hall was full of Arnold’s hair. I bent down and picked one up to examine it, then rubbed my pants. Nanna said Margie’s room was the last one on the left. Her jewelry case was on top of her dresser. I took the diamond earrings and opal bracelet Nanna had told me about. There was also a couple of pretty rings—one a large red stone, the other a blue one. These and a gold necklace with a cross I shoved into my pockets. Then I walked to the bathroom and flushed the toilet. I messed up the towel a bit so it looked like I dried my hands in it.
    When I entered the kitchen they were still talking about miracles.
    My grandmother passed our plates to Margie who had filled the sink with sudsy water.
    “Of course there was raising Lazarus from the dead,” Margie said. “And then the healing of the deaf and dumb men. Oh, and the blind man, too,” she said raising her hand and splashing my grandmother.
    “Let’s not forget about the fish. And the water into wine,” my grandmother said.
    Margie shook her head. “I don’t know Catherine,” She looked down. “It’s hard to believe that Jesus could have done all that. Why aren’t there miracles today?” I imagined a fish jumping into her face from the water in the sink.
    My grandmother smiled at me. “Of course there are miracles today. As a matter of fact, I’m taking Aiden to that priest at Mission church. A charismatic healer is what they call him. Aiden’s gonna be cured, aren’t you, honey?”
    “Cured of what?” Margie said.
    “Oh he’s got a little something wrong with his blood is all. Too many white cells. Leukemia. But this priest is gonna take care of all that.”
    “Leukemia!” Margie said. “Catherine, that’s serious.” Margie tried to smile at me, but I could tell she was upset. “Sit down, honey.” She motioned for me to go to the table. “We’re almost done here.”
    “You gotta take him to a good doctor,” she whispered to my grandmother, as if I couldn’t hear.
    “I know that. I’m not dumb. God will take care of everything.”
    We said our goodbyes and when we were in the car, my grandmother said, “Let me see what you got.” I pulled the goods out of my pockets while she unclasped her black plastic pocketbook. Her eyes lit up.
    “Perfect. She isn’t lookin’, is she?” I looked at the house. Margie was nowhere in sight. Probably sitting on her rocking chair with Arnold in her lap.
    “Now put those in here,” she said, nodding towards her bag, and I did.
    When we were about to turn onto Tremont Street where the church was, I remembered the gold necklace and cross. I pulled it out of my back pocket and my grandmother took it from me, running a red light. “This would look beautiful on Laura.” In a moment, there was a police car pulling us over.
    “Don’t say anything,” my grandmother said, as we moved to the side of the road. She looked in the rearview mirror and put her window down.
    “Ma’am, you just ran a red light.” The policeman was tall with a hooked nose and dark brown close-set eyes.
    “I know officer. I was just saying a prayer with my grandson. He gave me this gold cross. I got distracted. I’m very sorry.”
    He leaned into the car. I smiled.
    “Is that a birthday gift for your grandmother?”
    “Yes. I wanted to surprise her.”
    “And he certainly did,” she said, patting my knee and smiling at the police officer.
    “It’s a good thing no cars were coming. You could have been hurt,” he said. “That’s a beautiful cross,” he added.
    My grandmother began to cry. “Isn’t it though?” She sniffled.
    The officer placed his hand firmly on the edge of the window. “Consider this a warning. You can go. I’d put that cross away.”
    “Of course. Of course.” She turned to me. “Here, Aiden. Put it back in your pocket.”
    The police officer waited for us to drive away. I turned and looked. He waved.
    “Are you sad, Nanna?”
    “Don’t be silly.” She waved her hand. “That was just an act.”
    I laughed and she did, too.
    We parked. “I need to get that chalice, Aiden. I read an article in The Boston Globe that said some people believe it has incredible curing powers. It’s a replica of a chalice from long ago, over 100-years old, with lots of pretty stones on it. Experts say it’s priceless. I’m thinking if I have your mother drink from it, she’ll get better and come home to us. Won’t that be nice?” She rubbed my head gently and smiled at me.
    I looked away, towards the church where an old man was helping a lady in a wheelchair up a ramp. “Won’t God be mad?”
    “Aiden, I’m going to return it. We’re just borrowing it for a little while to help your mother. I think God will understand. Don’t you worry, sweetheart.”
    We entered Mission church. It smelled of shellack, incense, perfume, and old people. It was hard to see in the musty darkness. Bright light shone through the stained-glass windows where Jesus was depicted in the twelve or so Stations of the Cross.
    “Let’s move to the front.” My grandmother pulled me out of the line and cut in front of an old lady, who looked bewildered. “Shouldn’t you go to the end of the line?” she whispered kindly, smiling down at me. Her hair was sweaty and her fat freckled bicep jiggled when she tapped my grandmother’s shoulder. The freckles reminded me of the asteroid belt.
    “I’m sorry. We’re in a hurry. We have to help a sick neighbor after this. I just want my grandson to get a cure.”
    “What’s wrong?” she whispered. We were four people away from the priest, who was standing at the altar. He prayed over people then lightly touched them. They fell backwards into the arms of two old men with maroon suit jackets and blue ties.
    “Aiden has leukemia.”
    The woman’s eyes teared up. “I’m sorry.” She patted my forearm. “You’ll be cured, sweetie.” Again her flabby bicep jiggled and the asteroids bounced.
    When it was our turn, my grandmother said, “Father, please cure him. And can you say a prayer for my daughter, too?”
    “Of course.” The white-haired, red-faced priest bent down. I smelled alcohol on his breath. “What ails you young man?”
    I was confused.
    “He’s asking you about your illness, Aiden.”
    “I have leukemia,” I said proudly.
    The priest said some mumbo-jumbo prayer and pushed my chest. I knew I was supposed to fall back but was afraid the old geezers wouldn’t catch me.
    “Fall,” my grandmother whispered irritably. Then she said extra softly. “Remember our plan.”
    I fell hard, shoving myself against the old guy. He toppled over as well. People gasped. His friend and the priest began to pick us up. I pretended to be hurt bad. “Oww. My head is killing me.” Several people gathered around us. My grandmother yelled “Oh my God” and stepped onto the altar, kneeling in front of a giant Jesus on the cross. “Dear Jesus,” she said loudly, “I don’t know how many more tribulations I can take.” Then she crossed herself, hurried across the altar, swiping the gold chalice and putting it in her handbag while everyone was distracted by my moaning and fake crying.
    “He’ll be okay,” she said, putting her arm under mine and helping the others pull me up.
    When I was standing, she said to the priest. “You certainly have the power of the Holy Spirit in you. It came out of you like the water that gushed from the rock at Rephidim and Kadesh.”
    “Let’s get out of here before there’s a flood.” She laughed. The priest looked confused. The old lady who let us cut in line eyed my grandmother’s handbag and shook her head as we passed.
    When we were in front of Rita’s house, our last stop before home, I asked my grandmother what “tribulation” meant. And where were “Repapah” and “Kadiddle.”
    She laughed. “You pronounced those places wrong, but it doesn’t matter. Your mother used to do the same thing whenever I quoted that Bible passage.” She began to open the car door. “I don’t know where the hell those places are. Somewhere in the Middle East. . . . And a tribulation is a problem.”
    “Oh.”
    After ringing the doorbell a couple times we opened the door. We found Rita passed out on the couch.
    My grandmother took an ice cube from the freezer and held it against her forehead. Rita sat bolt upright. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. You scared the bejesus out of me.” She was wearing a yellow nightgown and her auburn hair was set in curlers. “Oh, Aiden. I didn’t see you there,” she said. She kissed my cheek. For the second time that day I smelled alcohol.
    “So do you think you can help me out?” my grandmother asked. Rita looked at me.
    “Of course I can.”
    “Just pull me up and I’ll get my checkbook.” I suddenly realized all my grandmother’s friends were fat.
    At the kitchen table, Rita said, “Should I make it out to the hospital?”
    “Oh, no. Make it out to me. I’ve opened a bank account to pay for his medical expenses.”
    “Will five thousand do for now?” Rita was rich. Her husband was a “real estate tycoon” my grandmother was always saying. He dropped dead shoveling snow a few years back.
    “That’s so generous of you.” My grandmother cried again. More fake tears, I thought.
    We had tea and chocolate chip cookies. Rita asked how my mother was doing. My grandmother said “fine” and looked away, wringing her hands. Then she started talking about the soap operas that they watched. My grandmother loved Erica from All My Children. Said she was a woman who knew how to get what she wanted and admired that very much. Rita said she thought Erica was a bitch.
    When we were home, listening to talk radio in the living room, I asked my grandmother if she believed in miracles, like the ones she talked about earlier in the day with Margie.
    “Sure, sure,” she said, not looking up. She was taking the jewelry and chalice out of her bag and examining them in the light. I saw bits of dust in the sunlight streaming through the bay window.
    “You’re not listening to me, Nanna.”
    She put the items back in her handbag and stared at me. “Of course I am.”
    “Well do you think I’ll have a miracle and be cured of leukemia?”
    “Aiden.” She laughed. “You haven’t got leukemia. You’re as healthy as a horse, silly.”
    “But you told everybody I was sick.”
    “Sweetheart. That was just to evoke pity.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “Make people feel bad so we can get things from them. I need money to take care of you, Aiden.” She spoke hesitantly and looked down, like she was ashamed. “I’m broke. Your grandfather left me with nothing and I gotta pay for your mother’s medical expenses. If Margie notices her jewelry gone, maybe she’ll think you took it to help your Nanna. I told her I was having a problem paying your hospital bills.”
    “Sorta like a tribulation, right?”
    “Exactly, sweetheart.”
    “Is my mother a tribulation?”
    This time my grandmother’s tears were real. They gushed like water from that rock in the Middle East. I knelt before her and put my head in her lap. She hugged me, bent down and kissed my face several times. Then she looked out the window. It seemed the tears would never stop.
    “Don’t worry, Nanna. I believe in miracles, too. Someday Mom will come home from the hospital.”
    And we stayed like that until the sunbeams dimmed and the dust disappeared and her tears stopped.
    In the quiet of the room, she whispered, “Keep calm and carry on” to me or to herself. Or to both of us.

&bsp;

“Keep Calm and Carry On” was originally published in Fiction on the Web.

Every Takeoff

    Taxiing is, I think, a misleading term. I am taxiing, you are taxiing, she is taxiing, we are taxiing, taxiing, taxiing, taxiing. Misleading. A taxi departs from one location and arrives at another with little change in external conditions. A taxi does not depart, putter about for a bit and then accelerate past all comprehension and fling me into the clouds.
    Yes, misleading, like...pilot. I would expect...expect? Too optimistic. Wish? I would hope that an airline pilot does not pilot his airline—plane, one cannot pilot an airline. I would hope that an airline pilot does not pilot his plane as he might pilot say a new brand of...antiperspirant? Depressant. As he might pilot say a new brand of antidepressant.
    Antidepressant. I need an activity. The young woman next to me is playing some sort of game on her phone. What a good idea. Why don’t I have any games on my phone? Why didn’t I think to download even one? I certainly can’t do it now. Why don’t I ever anticipate this? Because thinking about it in advance is not an option. I’ll get out my book—no, if I start reading that it will color my experience of what is probably a novel that does not deserve it.
    Wait. Look. Somebody left the Times in that...thing. That thing—on the back of the seat with the magazines and the escape instructions, what is that called? I thought they were supposed to clean those out between flights—don’t look a gift thing in the mouth.
    Oh lordy no national or international news under this circumstance. No. Read something completely ephemeral, put it away, remember it fondly later as only a temporary sedative. Sedative. Again, unprepared and why. We’re in line to go, find something and read it, taxi, taxi, pilot, pilot, taxi, stop. Business section, not quite—the Arts, close but a shame—Travel, god no—here, Food, perfect. These pages, my fingers are moist, it’s all reverting to pulp, find something, anything, please, what must that girl be thinking behind her game? Here. Here. Here. Celia Rossi Makes a Simple Roasted Garlic Reduction for Pan-Seared Steak.
    Fantastic. Shoot. Now. No. Go. One head of garlic, a teaspoon of olive oil, a cup of good beef stock, a tablespoon of chopped fresh thyme leaves, salt and freshly grou-ou-ou-ound black pepper, shoot. Turds! I’ve tried, I’ve tried, I’ve tried, I’ve tried several different several different reduction liquids, red wine muddies muddies and overpowers the flavor of the gar-garlic while white wine takes on an as-ass-ass! astringent quality I find that beef stock brings out just the ri-ight notes of beef stock brings out just the right NOTES of beef stock brings OUT just the right notes OF beef stock brings out JUST the RIGHT notes of BEEF stock brings OUT just the right notes of notes of notes of BEEF. STOCK. BRINGS. OUT. JUST. THE. RIGHT. NOTES. NOTES. NOTES. NOTES. NOTES. NOTES.
    NOTES.
    Notes.
    Beef.
    Brings.
    Notes.
    Just.
    Right.
    And.
    And.
    Now.
    Allow.
    Allow.
    Allow. Allow. Allow. The roasted. Garlic bulb. Allow. The roasted garlic. Bulb. To cool. Enough to handle. Separate the. Cloves and. Squeeze. The garlic. Out. Of the peels. Onto a small. Plate. Add thyme leaves. I hate this. And salt. I should get. Help. And lots of freshly. Help. Ground black. I don’t want to. Pepper.
    I would have to. Think. About it.
    And then.
    I won’t. Ever.
    Mash together, with the back of a dinner fork, into a smooth paste.

In the Fall

    The rust man is waiting at the bus stop. His vacant grin curls up when he sees her, ruddy cap masking his eyes, bulbous nose shiny and blood-shot.
    She is casting a circle of protection around herself and her boy, but the bus pulls up before she can seal it; she boards the bus, putting her carefully counted change in the slot. “Jonah put! Jonah put!” Her boy’s fuzzy Grover mittens flail around, knocking the last quarter and dime from her hands. As she scrambles to pick up the coins, more passengers cram on out of the cold and into the sweaty, crowded confines.
    “Damn, Jonah, can’t you ever...” she mutters to the grimy slush of the floor.
    Someone knocks her down.
    “Wait!” says a man, helping her up before the herd can trample her.
    “Jonah? Jonah?!”
    A shapeless woman beside her makes a tick-tick sound with her tongue. A faceless man opens and closes his mouth. Two teenagers laugh, eating hamburgers. “Help, my child!... A little boy - Jonah!” The driver raises a meaty paw, cutting her off. He shakes a finger at a sign on the bus window: “DO NOT talk to the driver!”
    “But sir, please help me! It’s an emergency. Stop-this-bus!”
    Is he hiding? He likes to hide. Sometimes in their small apartment, it takes her half an hour to find him. He stays there so quietly, even sometimes when she starts to do the dishes, as if he really doesn’t mind not being found. He won’t come out even for ice-cream. Her only hope is to make him laugh - the involuntary reflex that gives him away. Last time, he hid in an old suitcase beneath a pile of camping gear, zipping himself in. She wondered how he could even breathe.
    He’s never hidden in a public place. No - his sense of self-preservation is even greater than hers.
    “What’s going on?” asks the man who helped her up, pulling out his earphones - she realizes he’s not really a man but probably a high school kid. He wears black jeans, exposing nearly all of his day-glow orange underwear, and some chains, an army green bag with buttons on it showing symbols and slogans she doesn’t understand. Despite the cold, he’s in a tight black tee-shirt exposing tattoos, but wears a hat over longish black hair and most of his forehead.
    “My kid!” she yells, though the man-boy is right there, a few inches from her face, the same height. She can see into his chocolate-brown eyes, so unlike Jonah’s ocean-blue ones. “Can’t... he’s gone!”
    “OK, well, we haven’t stopped yet, so he’s gotta be on the bus. Hey mister?” he yells to the driver, politely but loudly. The driver ignores him and pulls up to the next stop.
    The teenage girls shove past her, followed by a tall man in an overcoat, and an old woman with a cane which she uses to hack through the jungle of legs.
     Ouch! The crone is already gone by the time she can feel the pain. She is herded into the middle of the bus, away from the man-boy.
    She watches carefully. She doesn’t see any children get off, though maybe because of the thick trunks of the jungle in which she stands. Her senses are heightened - she can hear a conversation in the last row of seats. It is about which things you can buy wholesale and what you can freeze.
     “Call 911,” she thinks. Another her inside is trying to cling to rationality, while her life is like a ripped up envelope in which no meaning can be contained.
    In this state she has come home. For so long she shoved against the door with all her might to keep out the rust man all the while singing nursery rhymes.
    Her phone drops. Her voice, too, shakes. “C-c-can someone h-h-help me?”
    Her voice, coming from far away, is lost like a coast guard ship swallowed by fog.
    As she bends to pick up her phone, heavy boots crush down on her hand.
    “What the hell?!” she yells, nasty this time, snapping back to life.
    As if in one orchestrated mind, passengers move away from her and the cold air wafts in between them. The wave of fear washes through, almost cleansing, at least unifying.
    If she could be all of them, there would be no pain. The sum of their struggles cancels it.
    They remember.
    There’s been trouble on this line before.
    
    When the bus stops again, she is still on the ground.
    They don’t even reach for their phones. They know the police have far too much to do to bother with every shooting. One thing they have to do is bury their own dead, and no one wants their son going into the forces anymore (let alone their daughter), even the pro-gunners themselves. Knowing this they leave, glancing furtively as if to catch the parade candy of bloodshed that’s not their own.
    Only those who don’t have enough to live for stay on, though shaking from another kind of cold. That shake jostles an old whim awake in the expanding confusion of her cells.
    Powerless, she seizes power. It is from someone who is not her, from another time.
    “Freeze!” she orders.
    She can taste the crispness of the first fall apples, bitter and hard, smells of hay, donuts frying, and pressing sweet cider from what was rotten and fallen. The trees were old, on a rolling hill, and when she’d climb suddenly she owned all these hills. What happened at home, no one would ever fully (not even herself) believe. But it mattered little to the apple trees, though they were not unkind.
    She was kind to her son and maybe that came from the trees who raised her.
    Even the bus responds to the power surging through her, jerking to a stop and starting again.
    In the interval, she grabs her voice, slowly, clearly: “Has anyone seen a little boy? He’s wearing a green jacket. He was on this bus. Please...”
    Most people do not even shake their heads, because they are trying to be invisible. Safer to disappear into stillness. As long as she doesn’t splatter the whole bus, they should be alright.
    A new panic surges through her: any of them could be armed. Her son, an orphan, taken by the state.
    Or much worse.
    Since becoming a mother, her life’s mission has been to keep him from that cellar.
    At the next stop, even the stragglers pile off, casting final, furtive glances towards her. Some will wait for the next bus and others will stagger into the cold unknown. They’ve done this before. Even the people about to board think twice when they see the exodus.
    Now, she can look. She looks under every seat twice, among the thick ankles in their sagging tights, the ragged edges of jeans. There are children, eyes bright, while their mothers’ are milky and unconcerned with anything but a vague dream. Other children, whose legs do not touch the ground, but are not his.
    Downtown. The station.
    Working with the police had been easy - no attachment to the victim - just to her own obscure science of heightened intuition.
    She can see nothing now. Maybe another could.
    Officer Gordon gets up to greet her with a hearty smile, that quickly falls when he sees her face.
    “My boy is missing.”
    He has already picked up the phone and asks her questions as he processes the answers back to the person on the other end. The syllables are static to her, just sounds, and she floats above the scene, above the thought of the unspeakable.
    Maybe someday she will learn other nightmares; for now, there is only one.
    Officer Gorden hangs up. “Sit down, please.” He holds her hand a second as he places a styrofoam cup of coffee next to it. His own hand shakes.
    He makes calls on his walkie-talkie, though she cannot decipher the sounds. Lost in her own body, she steps outside. Two officers, feline in their muscular bulk, have just lit cigarettes, the smoke mixing with the mist of their breath. When they see her, they stomp these out. She doesn’t see them leave, but they are gone.
    Across the street, he winks at her. Her heart stops. Then it starts again: if the rust man is here, he doesn’t have Jonah.
    But is the rust man anything but a mask?
    In the financial district, businessmen walk shoulder to shoulder, blocking the sidewalk. The street is a hive of taxis.
    “Excuse me! Excuse me!”
    They keep talking, shoulder to shoulder, laughing sometimes, rattling off numbers and names. One knocks over the coffee cup of a beggar, splattering pennies on the ground. “Excuse me!”
    She shoves through them, remembering Jonah in the game of red rover at nursery school, in the middle, confused about where to run.
    She picks up the pace.
    She drops her jacket, just drops it, and miles later drops her sweater, till she is down to her turtleneck.
    She looks at everyone. She searches the faces of all children. Nothing is familiar anymore. She sees his smile, his eyebrows’ arch, as if he has been spread around the city, severed parts scattered, picked up and used. She sees him in the face of a dog.
     Her legs will not stop cutting through the cold, gray smog by the tracks where a few tomb-like factories still belt out smog.
    There. Under a bridge, above the putrid smell of a tin-can fire, the rust man warms his hands. This time both eyes - bug eyes - are popping out at her. His mouth opens so wide she can see its torture chambers.
    The jagged W of it spells “Where?”
    “Ha!” he laughs out a spiky metal ball. She ducks. He pulls up his shirt and she is assaulted by the smell of burnt metal rusted by decades of rain. He laughs and she sees Jonah in his mouth’s cavern. His sound seems to attract the two feline cops (or cops like them), who come running down the slope by the bridge, slipping down to them, hands on their holsters. The rust man disappears genie-style into his oilcan fire. The police look around then run past, one of them searing his coat as it brushes against her. An odor of burnt polyester hangs in the heavy air.
    She runs.
    The hill. She follows the glass-strewn path to the highest point. You can see the whole city, and so it seems she will see him. As she chants an improvised rhyme, feeling leaves her, cells dissipating, spreading.
    She becomes beggars and businessmen, market women and doctors in white offices, pizza-tosser and paper-girl. She becomes rats in sewers and fish in tanks, the dog running free, cat on the roof, monkeys in the zoo. She becomes the young lovers embracing, fumbling, for the first time, the widow at the funeral refusing to wear black, the grandma taking her granddaughter to the movies, the father digging a grave. Her spirit-cells go into it and everything more: the student failing the test, the car crash victim, the lonely woman adopting a kitten, the bored cashier, all the books in the library, one by one, with all the knowledge and speculations, all the congregation’s discordant notes, the teenage satanists in a garage, the refugee turned back to be killed, the president’s gun-fun parade-float driver, the clown who has a cold, the lion-tamer who is high, and the couple getting married on the happiest day of their life. She stomps backward down the evolutionary pathway until she is a spider and then a web, and in that web she sees him, arms stretched out and calling.
    It.
    Her childhood: the long, silent scream.
    Suddenly he doesn’t matter, the rust man. She takes him in to herself, only to find he is already there.
    Now, she knows where she must go.

ends of the earth

I would go to the ends of the earth
to have you with me once again —
my baby, my love, you are my life.

Was

    “My name is Ariel Phillips, I was Jordan Turner’s best friend.” I have been rehearsing these ten words since before the sun touched the sky, and the sentence still sounds defective. Taking a deep breath, I slip into my mother’s wool pea coat and my ebony high heels.
    “Are you ready to head out, sweetie?” My mom calls out from the front door as my dad starts the Honda. I want to scream. I want to proclaim to every soul on the planet that I am not, in fact, ready. How could anyone possibly prepare for this? I could never prepare for my best friend’s death, let alone prepare for him to die when we’re only seventeen years old. Jordan has been there for all the important moments in my life. We grew up together. How could I be ready for him to suddenly disappear?
    Without uttering a word, I trudge out of the house after my mom. My parents lock eyes as though they are asking one another what they could possibly say to bring comfort to my aching heart, but neither has anything to offer. What could they say? They have suffered the loss as deeply as I have; he was the son they never had. Our silent journey to the church is simultaneously far too long and not nearly long enough for me to reflect on what is happening.
    We pull into the parking lot. I close my eyes, desperately attempting to restrain a waterfall threatening to escape my tear ducts. After I collect myself, I open the car door and walk into the church. My stomach has been twisted like a knotted ball of yarn all week, but somehow when I enter through these doors and walk towards a pew, it only worsens. It is as though that ball of yarn is climbing its way up my digestive system, urging me to vomit. I remind myself that I can make it through today. I will not have to utter a single word besides my already rehearsed sentence “My name is Ariel Phillips. I was Jordan Turner’s best friend.” Is the ground trembling? Is the room doing somersaults? My body is as perplexed as my mind.
    “Ar, if you need some air, we have a while before the service begins,” my dad tells me, clearly noticing how much of a disaster I am.
    I rush out of the back of the church, pushing my dad away from me and avoiding Mr. and Mrs. Turner. Not even the gentle breeze can ease my pain, and I do not know that I will ever be at peace again. With my face in my hands, I urge my body to pull itself together. I have to return. If for no other reason, I have to go in there for him. I was not there when he needed me, so I need to be now. However, my legs remain paralyzed by a combination of fear and regret. I stand alone for I don’t know how long.
    “Are you alright?” a shaky voice asks. As I lift my gaze, I see Sam Turner. His typically vibrant blue eyes are swollen and the color of ripe cherries. Sam’s voice doesn’t just offer sympathy; it carries the weight of empathy I wish he wasn’t experiencing. Sam should not have to be in this kind of pain; he’s twenty-two. He should be worrying about when his term paper is due and when fall break starts, not how to cope with the loss of his brother. I want to apologize, I want to admit to him that it is all my fault. I want someone to loathe me as much as I loathe myself for what happened, but I simply cannot bring myself to do it. Besides Sam, a young woman I recognize as his girlfriend, Daphne, stands. Looking briefly at Sam, and then at Daphne, I force a weak smile and nod.
    “I don’t believe we have met before. I’m Daphne, Sam’s girlfriend.”
    “My name is Ariel Phillips. I-I was- I was Jo-” I stammer, I cannot even bring myself to say his name aloud. “His best friend,” I finish.
    Saving me from another disastrous interaction with Daphne, Sam intervenes. “Ariel, we ought to head back in there if you’re ready.”
    As we reenter the church, the entire congregation is seated. So many of the faces I gaze upon bear the mark of loss. There are people here he barely spoke to mourning the guy I
    called my best friend. Our geometry teacher from last year has mascara running down her face. His track coach grips his wife’s hand. The two guys he was in the band with look at me, and then each other, before bowing their heads. The girl he tutored on Wednesdays sits with her eyes closed and bites her lip. I wasn’t ready to see all these faces. Maybe if Jordan could have understood how many people cared that he existed, he would be standing here beside me.
     My name is Ariel Phillips, and I was Jordan’s best friend. I should have been there to make sure he knew. How could I let this happen? Maybe all I needed to do was pick up the phone. If I had just been there in time, he would be here.
    Seeing his family is even more difficult than I anticipated. His father, a man who I have only ever seen with a room-brightening smile, appears as though he has not stopped crying since he heard the news. Mrs. Turner clutches his ten-year-old sister, Lily, like her life depends on it. Lily is crying, but I doubt she has truly processed his death, especially the way he died. I haven’t even processed it.
    How could we not have known he was going to jump off that bridge? How could I not have known? My name is Ariel Turner. I was Jordan Turner’s best friend, and he was mine. He knew everything about me, from the name of the guy I had a crush on to my deepest fear, I don’t believe there was a single detail about me that went unnoticed by him. I knew he had depression, but I thought he was doing better. I really thought he would have talked to me before taking that step off the ledge. That step changed my life; it changed everyone in this room forever. What signs did I miss?
    I realize I have not moved a single step closer to my seat. I mutter an apology nobody except perhaps Sam and Daphne hears and quickly move to my parents. I sit quietly throughout the service, a constant river of tears gliding down my face, but I feel numb. After the funeral, I embrace both Mr. and Mrs. Turner for a long time. They begin to introduce me to relatives Jordan rarely talked to.
    “My name is Ariel Phillips. I was his best friend” I repeat to everyone I meet, for that is all I can manage to say. In my head, all I can think is about how I missed it, how I couldn’t help him. Words of regret do not stop rolling in my mind, and I cannot make them stop. They won’t stop.
    “Make it stop!” I shriek. My world is crashing down, I cannot catch my breath. I feel like I no longer have any control over my limbs.
    My eyes flutter open as fluorescent lights flicker above and walls cream of color surround me.
    Suddenly, I hear a calming voice from above. “Ariel, Ariel everything is alright” I look up and see a doctor standing above me, calling me in a soothing voice.
    “Where-where am I?”
    My mom appears from the corner and explains.
    “Ariel, sweetie, something happened with Jordan.”
    “Mom, I know he’s dead, I watched him die. I went to his funeral! But how did I get here? Did I pass out or something?”
    She looks at my doctor, confused.
    “Mrs. Phillips, your daughter hit her head pretty hard. When combined with a traumatizing experience moments before her injury, it could certainly cause some details to be fuzzy for her. Her brain could have made some conclusions.”
    “What? Will someone please tell me what is going on? I think I would know about my own best friend’s death. I’m the one he called, and I didn’t pick up in time to talk him off that bridge. Mom, I saw Jordan jump off the bridge, I got there seconds too late. He never even saw me before he did it. I called 911, but they couldn’t save him.”
    “You weren’t too late Ariel,” my dad claims.
    “But-”
    “The Coastguard got there just in time, Ariel. They saved Jordan, but the paramedics told us you fainted when you saw him on the stretcher, understandably assuming he was no longer with us. When you fainted, you hit your head on a rock. You’ll be just fine. You’ll just be dealing with a concussion. I will let your parents fill in the rest of the details. Please let me know if you are in need of anything else.” The doctor exits.
    Is this true? Was that all some unspeakable dream? No, that can’t be true. I wish it were, but it can’t be. This has to be my mind desperately trying to convince itself that Jordan is okay.
    “Jordan? So, is he...alright? How is that even possible?”
    My mom smiles and says, “There is no other way to describe it than miraculous. It sounds like he will make a full physical recovery-”
    I cut her off, “Has someone talked to him about treatment options for his depression?”
    “The Turners said the only thing left to do is discuss which plan is the right one for Jordan, but he is willing to accept help.”
    “Mom, can I please see him?”
    After making both of us rest a little longer, the nurses finally place me in a wheelchair and bring me into Jordan’s room. It is true. He is alive. I immediately release that waterfall of tears I have been fighting against. My best friend is alive; I didn’t lose him.
    “Ariel, I’m sorry-” he starts.
    I don’t let him finish.
    “So am I. But neither of us have to be.” I lean over the side of the bed to embrace him.
    “I am so glad you found me, Ariel. I need you to know that you answering the phone wouldn’t have done any good. I called you to say goodbye. But, I’m glad it wasn’t goodbye. I regretted it as soon as it happened, and I thought nobody would ever know that I regretted it as soon as I jumped. I promise to keep fighting this Ariel,” he whispers.
     I am crying too hard to respond with anything but a smile.
    That was 16 years ago. I have never forgotten that day, or that dream. Jordan’s journey has not been an easy one, but he has been a warrior. There are still difficult days, but they don’t seem as impossible to overcome.
    Today, I am here at a church and will introduce myself to those same relatives I did in the dream, but instead of crying tears of sadness, my tears embody my overwhelming joy. Today is Jordan’s wedding day. I see him smiling, and I know he has never been happier.
    “Ariel, can you come over here?” I see a tall, thin woman with gray hair; I believe she’s his great aunt. I smile at Jordan, and then at her.
    “My name is Ariel Phillips. I am Jordan Turner’s best friend.”

The Wit and Wisdom of Voltaire’s Candide
part one

    Francois-Marie Arouet (1694-1778) aka Voltaire was the French literary giant of his time. His most popular work was Candide, ou l’Optimisme. This tale was considered so ribald, rowdy and religiously offensive that prior to 1929 U.S. federal authorities prohibited the importation of Candide to the United States “because of the text.” The following is based on Lawrence M. Levin’s accepted French version with large slabs of poetic license. This piece focuses on Voltaire’s marvelous wit and relentless dedication to free speech. Hopefully stimulating others to read a complete version in English, French, or both if you prefer.

    In Germany there was a young man named Candide who lived in the grand estate of Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh. Yes! You read it correctly. I will not use his whole name again. Baron will do.
    Together with the estate’s aristocratic children Candide was exposed to a tutor, Pangloss a master of metaphysico-theologo-cosmolo-nigology. You won’t find nigology in most standard dictionaries. Perhaps in a Thomas Pynchon novel.
    Pangloss, influenced by a covey of philosophers, espoused the thesis that everything in the world was for the best. Voltaire had trouble with philosophers espousing that everything has been created for a definite purpose. He ridiculed this doctrine whenever he could.
    Candide was enthralled by his tutor’s masterful flow of knowledge. However, he did manage to cast an eye on the Baron’s beautiful daughter Mademoiselle Cunegonde. This gentle bump fuels the entire story. The following day Cunegonde “innocently” dropped her handkerchief. Candide pulled a hamie scrambling to recover this valuable article. He recklessly kissed her hand. Then their lips magically met. The Baron spotted this uninhibited expression of lust directed towards his innocent daughter. Candide was kicked out of the great estate.

    Without any resources, experiencing hunger and thirst Candide stumbled into the village of Valberghoff-trarbk-dikdorff. Even using Google I defy you to find this on a map of Germany. Another word I will not abuse you with. Noticing his exhausted and harried air the two recruiting sergeants persuaded Candide to join the Bulgarian Army. Promising him a life of fortune, glory and hero status.
    Candide learned. Left face. Right face. About face. How to load and unload a musket without blowing his toe off. How to lay down and fire. March double quick. For his efforts he received 30 blows from a sergeant’s baton. Next day performing the same exercise a little more competently he received 20 blows. On the third day he only received 10 blows. His comrades considered him a veritable prodigy for learning the manual of arms so fast. Candide was disappointed he hadn’t achieved hero status as promised earlier by the recruiters.
     One beautiful spring day he went for a walk. Candide believed: “It is a right of the human species, indeed all species, that legs were made for walking providing some degree of pleasure strolling in a pleasant milieu.” This right was not shared by all.
    After traveling two leagues he was rapidly secured by four other young heroes and hustled into the brig. One hero officially inquired: “Would you prefer to run the gauntlet and be whipped 36 times by the entire regiment or receive simultaneously 12 bullets of lead in your head?” Voltaire had witnessed several examples of military discipline and that was enough for him.
    Candide, a resolute believer in free will, favored neither choice. Still the gauntlet seemed the lesser of two evils. Thirty six strokes x 2000 men equals the number of strokes he’d receive. Voltaire was big on hyperbole. As the ordeal was about to be repeated for the third time. Candide flashed the time out sign.
    He politely requested: “I might’ve been a little wishy-washy about selecting the gauntlet rather than slugs in my head. I hope you won’t hold that against me. But after some experience with the gauntlet. Let me tell you. You guys are really good at it ... It would be in my best interests to have you shoot me in the head. Moreover if it isn’t too much trouble to ask or an undue inconvenience, I’d like to request a blindfold. Mind you. Doesn’t have to be a clean one. It’d make facing a firing squad a little easier to handle. Finally and I hope I haven’t offended anyone with my puerile requests, could I break with regular military SOP, and kneel down before you shoot me so I don’t unnecessarily bruise or hurt myself falling.”
    Candide was saved from the firing squad by none other than the King of the Bulgars. The latter an equal opportunity disciplinarian (whippings, firing squads, hangings, rack, wheel, and water boarding) for others, chanced by Candide’s execution site. Impressed by the young metaphysician’s ignorance of the world’s ways, he pardoned Candide. After only three weeks of rehab mind you, Candide’s brutalized body was deemed fit and healthy enough to march off to war against the Avars.

    Prior to his first battle Candide produced a mantra comparable to Henry V’s great oration before Agincourt: “The beauty, activity and resplendence of the two armies lined up to kill one another. Takes ones breath away. What could be better? Trumpets. Fifes. Oboes. Drums. Canons producing a harmony never even heard in hell.”
    “Canons destroying 6000 good men on each side. Followed by musket volleys killing about 10,000 scoundrels which pollute the earth’s surface. As the piece de resistance bayonets designed for the specific task of gouging and ripping flesh account for killing thousands of more souls.”
    Candide the philosopher tried to conceal his trembling delight and excitement during this heroic butchery. Was Candide missing something here? The tale was written (1759) during the Seven Year War reflecting Voltaire’s horror of this human behavior.
    But Candide wasn’t through rhapsodizing on this splendid event. “Wonder of wonders! After the terrible losses incurred in battle the two opposing kings reassembled their armies to sing a Te Deum in each camp. Te Deum laudamus=We praise Thee O, Lord.” This hymn was sung on special occasions of thanksgiving as for example after some notable victory. Voltaire consistently ridiculed such ludicrous practices delivering this beauty: “And then. We start killing again,” Candide grandly exclaimed.

    Candide met Jacques, a young man of inestimable character. Candide was immediately attracted to him. Almost coincidentally a wretched phantom like creature embraced him. It was a dirty and disheveled Pangloss who had survived the horrific effects of the Lisbon earthquake and tsunami (1755).
    Master Doctor Pangloss related his woeful tale: “The Baron’s chateau and estate was totally destroyed. Mademoiselle Cunegonde was killed.” Candide fainted on the spot. Pangloss revived his student.
    “Is this the best thing in the best of all possible worlds?” Candide gasped.
    Pangloss continued: “The Baron’s head was smashed in and Madam La Baron and her son didn’t do so well either as both were killed. But on the positive side we were avenged by the Avars who did exactly the same thing to a neighboring estate of a Bulgarian Baron.” After hearing this harrowing account Candide fainted again. One is not encouraged by all this swooning by the story’s hero.
    Candide introduced Jacques to Pangloss, describing his new friend’s many good characteristics. Unsolicited, Pangloss interjected that “Everything is for the best.” Jacques took serious exception to Pangloss’s central theme.
    “Men were either weak or corrupted by nature,” Jacques maintained. “They’re not born as wolves but become wolves. God did not give them canons or bayonets but they produced them for purposes of destruction.”
    While this discussion ensued the sky became overcast followed by a strong wind.
    The vessel was threatened by a terrible tempest as the Port of Lisbon came into view.

    Passengers and crew were overwhelmed by the storm. No one was in charge. Jacques took the tiller. A jealous sailor became angry because Jacques had up-staged him assuming command. The sailor knocked Jacques down, violently pushing him aside. The sailor ironically fell overboard. Without hesitating, good and noble Jacques immediately helped the sailor back aboard. Jacques lost his balance and ironically went overboard in full view of the sailor. The latter who had just been saved by noble Jacques let him perish with little or no effort or regard.
    Horrified at the sailor’s ingratitude, Candide started to jump into the angry sea to recover Jacques. Pangloss stopped him. “This proves,” Pangloss maintained, “that the way to Lisbon occurred expressly for Jacques to drown.” Don’t you love Pangloss’s rationalization just a little bit.
    As the storm increased the vessel started to sink. The sailor successfully swam to shore as Candide and Pangloss were transported there clinging to a plank.
    They viewed the terrible destruction of Lisbon. Candide said, “This was the end of the world.” In contrast, the brutish sailor ruthlessly searched for money from the dead, shouting wildly with joy with each find. Who ever said life was fair.
    Candide asked Pangloss what had transpired in Lisbon. The good Doctor discussed the nature of earthquakes producing almost 30,000 fatalities. Some generous survivors shared a meager meal with Pangloss and Candide.
    “As dinners go it was pretty bad and sad as guests shed tears on the bread,” Pangloss complained to Candide. “Still in all, this was nothing compared to what had happened for all this was for the best.” About this time I would’ve cut Pangloss’s tongue out and strangled him.
    A Familiar or ecclesiastical agent for the Inquisition approached Pangloss politely requesting a word with him. “Monsieur apparently you don’t believe in original sin if everything is for the best. The fall of man would’ve never occurred,” the Familiar said.
    Pangloss responded: “The fall of man is a curse that entered the best of all possible worlds.”
    “Don’t you believe in free will?” the man persisted.
    “Your excellency. I beg your pardon. Free will exists as an absolute necessity, for it is necessary that we should be free to determine ...” Pangloss didn’t finish his answer as the Familiar didn’t think too much of Pangloss’s argument.

    An auto-de-fe and Sanbenito are not Italian automobiles. After the horrible earthquake that destroyed ¾ of Lisbon, the wise men (Inquisitors) of the region decided they needed a good old-fashioned auto-de-fe. The spectacle of burning a few people alive over a slow fire was deemed an infallible remedy preventing earthquakes.
    The wise men conducted a lottery. An innocent Bascayan merchant who had survived the quake was convicted of having married the god mother of his god child. Such unions were considered incestuous and forbidden by the church. This was news to the poor chap. To keep him company at the stake two Portuguese gentlemen joined him. They had eaten chicken rejecting its fat. One Inquisition rule was that it was necessary to denounce a Jew, if he or she set aside the fat of the flesh of animals they were feeding on.
    During dinner one night an ardent (weren’t they all) Familiar overheard the conversation between Master Pangloss and his disciple Candide. As quickly as you can say onomatopoeia they were secured and hustled into a dungeon for eight days. Both were then slated to start in the next auto-de-fe featuring a special ceremony of the Sanbenito. If the auto-de-fe didn’t provide enough appeasement, then the Sanbenito was a guaranteed crowd pleasing, game changer.
    Participants were dressed in a garment painted with flames and figures of devils. Recalcitrants wore garments with the flames pointing downward and Repentants with flames pointing upward. Candide’s hat had upward flames and devils without tails or claws. In contrast Pangloss’s hat had flames pointed downward and devils with tails and claws. Better to be a Repentant than a Recalcitrant as both found out. Auto-de-fe fans preferred Recalcitrants with all that screaming and yelling. Repentants were only severely flogged providing less entertainment.
    Amidst an eager and highly expectant crowd, participants were marched in procession listening to dreadful sermons, followed by even more dreadful funeral music. Repentant Candide was flogged in time to the music. Can you feature that?
    “Keep in step there young Candide,” a guard complained. “That’s a good fellow. We don’t want to shame this event. Do we?” Suppose. It was Verdi’s Anvil Chorus. Rossini’s William Tell Overture. Khachaturian’s Sabre Dance. Too cruel to contemplate.
    The Biscayan citizen and the two Portuguese gentlemen were consigned to the auto-de-fe. Recalcitrant Master Pangloss would join them. The very next day there was another earthquake. Only the bold ever privately suggested that an auto-de-fe wasn’t an infallible antidote preventing earthquakes. Inquisitors might want to do a little more research seeking a true remedy for these events.
    One inquisitor was heard to say: “These things happen. It’s God’s will. Maybe water boarding would be preferable. Perhaps reintroduce facial rat cages. ...Well the auto-de-fe fans sure loved it.” Voltaire was not a big fan of the Inquisition.
    Candide, puzzled, bewildered quivering all over from these misadventures said to himself: “If this is the best of all possible worlds, what’s occurring in other worlds. If I had only been whipped like I was among the Bulgars, I could’ve handled it. But my dear Pangloss the most famous among philosophers. Why was he burned?’
    “My dear friend Jacques the best of all possible men. Why did he have to drown?
    And Oh! My beautiful Mademoiselle Cunegonde why was she slain?” Candide barely returned to his senses after witnessing this horrific scene, allowed himself to be lead away by an old woman.

    She brought him to a small hut. Fed him. Cared for his wounds. The next day she was accompanied by a young lady. You’re not going to believe this but it turned out to be Mademoiselle Cunegonde. Yes! I thought it was a little unbelievable also. Both were overwhelmed at this joyful reunion. The old woman meekly requested they make less noise lest they disturbed the neighbors. She left them alone to pray for their reunion. One can only wonder.
    Of course Candide wanted to know how she came to Portugal. “I was saved from the rampaging soldiers by Captain Issachar, a Bulgarian merchant trading between Holland and Portugal. He brought me to his family’s country house in Lisbon. I managed to ward off his obvious intentions. In addition, can you imagine how surprised I was to have to discourage the importunities of the Grand Inquisitor. I thought these folks took celibacy seriously. Even with this response he invited me to the auto-da-fe.”
    “Mademoiselle Cunegonde. Would you like to share a highly coveted front row seat with me watching heretics burn? It’s a once in a life time (not for him) experience. Moreover the Familars do a great box lunch. More Madeira my dear.”
    “Without consulting Captain Issachar, I was horrified at the thought of viewing an auto-de-fe and your flogging. I asked the old woman to take you to Issachar’s country home.”
    While Cunegonde was talking to Candide, Issachar entered. Noticing Candide’s attention to Cunegonde became furiously jealous. Drew a long sword attacking Candide. While the Westphalian had many faults and limitations Candide had received excellent training with the epee. He effectively engaged Issachar blocking his thrusts and eventually stabbing him.
    A visiting Inquisitor entered the house. Saw Candide with a bloody epee in his hand. A dead man on the ground. Not quite a smoking gun but close. Cunegonde was terrified at the implications of Candide’s action. Of course it was self-defense but who would believe it. Since the Inquisitor was alone and hadn’t called for help Candide didn’t hesitate. Candide stabbed him doing him in as well. Even though Voltaire was an avowed pacifist, Inquisitors were excluded from this consideration.
    The old woman rounded up horses from the stable. She has to be considered for an MVP in this tale. Cunegonde gathered up money and diamonds. One must wonder about her social life acquiring all these valuables. They arrived at a small, beautiful church placing Issachar in a crypt. According to the Inquisition a Jew could not be buried in consecrated ground. Recall this is the guy who earlier saved Cunegonde’s life.

     Arriving in Cadix they encountered one of Voltaire’s favorite religious orders a group of Jesuits from Paraguay. Voltaire’s first imprinting with the Jesuits was as a ten year old attending their college of Louis-le-Grand. Candide approached the Jesuits and a small army preparing to sail. Because he’d served in the Bulgarian Army he conducted drills in front of the Jesuit General receiving the rank of Captain for a company of infantry. Vetting practices were rather dilatory then for the Jesuits had just recruited some one fleeing from killing two Inquisitors.

    Aboard ship to Buenos Aires the group encountered the Governor don Fernando d’Ibarra, y Figueora, y Mascarenes, y Lampoudos, y Souza. That’s an awful lot of y’s. The Governor loved the ladies not unlike a former governor of Arkansas. Cunegonde was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. In today’s parlance she was hot! He predictably inquired whether she was Captain Candide’s lady friend. Even the intellectually challenged Candide was uneasy about the question.
    “Belle Cunegonde has given me the honor of marriage. I would be grateful if his excellency would officiate at the ceremony. It would be a great honor for us.” Can you believe his naiveté?”
    The Governor turned up his marvelous moustache which had captivated many women knowingly: “Captain Candide. This would be a good time for you to review the disposition of your company’s troops. Yes indeed. A very good time. Demonstrate your leadership qualities.”
    Candide obeyed the Governor’s order without hesitation. The good Governor graciously remained keeping company with Mademoiselle Cunegonde. Or in today’s parlance began hitting on her.
    “Mademoiselle. I’ve never been so bewitched (This week). I must make you mine. Is tomorrow noon too soon for our nuptials? I have an unpopular execution to administer at 10; a fixed polo match to run at 11; but I’m sure I could fit in a 12 o’clock nuptial allowing for a nooner.” Cunegonde thought it might be pushing it a bit to contract The Cirque de Soleil for entertainment. Still she managed to put him off seeking the old woman’s advice.
    “You have the power to become the wife of the most influential man in South America with a truly handsome moustache. You two are on the run. If the Inquisition catches you, you’d be featured in their next best ever auto-de-fe. If I were you, I’d marry the Governor. This would also assure the safety and future of Captain Candide.”
    A vessel arrived in port carrying an Alcalde and constables looking for the murderers of the Inquisitors. Cunegonde and Candide’s flight had become well known. Social media was way ahead of its time here. The old woman persuaded Cunegonde to remain with the Governor and Candide to leave seeking refuge elsewhere.

    Leaving Buenos Aires Candide took on a valet named Cacambo. The latter was ¼ Spanish and mongrel half-breed. Cacambo was the classic jack of all trades and master of none: choir boy, sacristan, monk, commercial agent, sailor, soldier. In addition he parked horses, sold pop-corn and burritos, handed out programs at soccer games, announced the action on ESPN deportes, and finally cleaned up after the games. Why Cacambo admired Candide was beyond me, but the former became an important character.
    “Cacambo. I was just getting ready to marry Cunegonde and the good Governor was going to administer and celebrate our nuptials. Can you believe this now he’s going to marry her. What can I do about it?”
    Cacambo wisely replied: “She’ll get along as best she can. Think positively.”
    It had never occurred to Candide that the randy Governor coveted Cunegonde, and was going to marry her, saving him from the Alcalde, leaving Candide to carry on alone.

    Candide and Cacambo encountered a Jesuit colony in Asuncion capital of Paraguay. The Jesuits were up to their old tricks actively encouraging the natives to resist the power and control of Spain and Portugal. The ever thoughtful Cacambo suggested: “Maybe you should join the Jesuit’s fighting forces as a Captain. I’m sure they’d be thrilled to have a soldier trained by the Bulgars.”
    As Candide and Cacambo were assimilated into the Jesuit colony, the former was surprised to learn that their regional Father Superior was Cunegonde’s brother. The latter had miraculously escaped when the Bulgars withdrew. These things happen a lot in Candide.
    “I shall remember all my life the horrible day when my parents died,” the priest related. “Moreover I’d lost my adorable sister. I transported their bodies for burial near a Jesuit chapel. After some time I was sent as an envoy to Rome. When I returned to Paraguay I became a sub-deacon and Lieutenant. Today I’m a priest and Colonel. We vigorously opposed the troops of the King of Spain. They were beaten and quite rightly excommunicated.” If anybody deserved excommunication it would’ve been Voltaire.
    Then Candide threw a bomb shell: “By the way did you know I’m going to marry your sister Cunegonde ... when I find her.”
    “You’re gonna what?” the priest exclaimed! “I don’t think so. You are a shameless hustler and adventurer to even speak to me about such a rash and crass design.”
    “Master Pangloss has always told me that all men are equal. I will assuredly marry her.”
    “That will not be,” the brother repeated. The latter became so angry he slapped Candide in the face with the flat of his sword. Candide did not take this lightly. He deeply plunged his sword into the brother’s stomach. As he withdrew the sword he came to his senses.
    “Oh my God and the Board of Health” he said. “I’m responsible for killing Master Pangloss, my friend Jacques, my future brother-in-law. I’m a committed pacifist and I’ve already killed three men and two of them were priests.” How could John Oliver, Stephen Colbert, or SNL beat this stuff?
    “I’ll never see the love of my life again, the beautiful Cunegonde. Why should I prolong my life in despair and remorse. And maybe more importantly how will the Journal of Trevoux treat this episode?” As a Jesuit journal it was bitterly hostile to Voltaire’s writings and similar philosophers.

    Both men cursed the Inquisition of Portugal, the Governor of Buenos Aires and the Baron priest eventually falling off to sleep. When they awoke they found themselves uncomfortably tied to a tree surrounded by 50 native Oreillons. They were then marched to a large cauldron, where some were busily boiling water and singing:
    “These are Jesuits/These are Jesuits./ Let’s eat some Jesuits./ Let’s eat some Jesuits.” Voltaire in another piece noted that the phrase: Mangeons du Jesuite = Let’s eat some Jesuits became very popular in Paris. No wonder there was such a love affair between Voltaire and the Jesuits.
    Candide noticed the cauldron and the cries of the Oreillons. “I’m not sure, but It appears we may be boiled or roasted or both.” Candide then went through his litany about losing Mademoiselle Cunegonde and the irony of his future as a mouthful for the Oreillons.
     Cacambo, conveniently and modestly claiming he knew some Oreillon jargon, tried to talk them out of making a meal of Candide and himself.
    “Gentlemen! Gentlemen! May I have your attention. Yes. You back there. Hold it down a little will you. Wait for the Q & A session. Thank you.” Imagine addressing the hungry, angry and avenging Oreillons this way about to roast or boil them.
    “If we are Jesuits let nothing stop you from eating us. We understand your hostility towards us. But gentlemen you shouldn’t eat your friends. I don’t want to disparage the veracity of your drum messages. But sometimes they carry fake news.
    ... I know. It does depend on the origin of the news service. Somehow you believe everyone you put in the cauldron or on the spit is another Jesuit for your mouth. Well! I’m here to tell you that neither my companion or I am a Jesuit and we will never be one of them. In fact just the other day; and you may not believe this, my companion killed a Jesuit. Yes! A splendid kill right in the zortch. Oh Yes! The zortch,”
    Several Oreilllons knowingly murmured:
    “A commendable thrust to be sure,” one native opined.
    “A rare encounter. One doesn’t get a zortch kill every day you know,” another native exclaimed.
    “How did you prepare him to eat?” another asked. “Does a zortch kill taste differently than others?”
    “Since we had a pressing engagement elsewhere,” Cacambo quickly responded, “we hastily vacated the country having sufficient time to eat him.”
    “What a pity,” one native offered. “Truly a wasted opportunity.”
    “What a shame,” another native opined.
    The Oreillions found the above explanation reasonable. They promptly released their prisoners returning them to their original condition. They shouted with great gusto:
    “They were not Jesuits/They were not Jesuits.”
    “What people. What men. What customs. If I hadn’t the good fortune of skewering Cunegonde’s brother, we would’ve inevitably been eaten. I’m unsure about this zortch business, I thought I got him in the stomach but it’s a small detail of little import. They’re exceedingly polite and mindful of our welfare because we were not Jesuits.”

    Cacambo suggested they return to Europe the shortest way possible. Candide mildly resisted: “Where will we go? If we return to Westphalia the Bulgars or Avars will kill us. If we return to Portugal, we’d be slowly burned at the stake. If we remain here, we might meet up with some Oreillons who didn’t get the message we’re not Jesuits, and wind up on a spit for roasting or in a boiling cauldron.” After significant discussion and exhausting travel conditions the dauntless duo entered El Dorado.
    In El Dorado they experienced many singular events and customs. Free hotels and dining accommodations paid for by the government. All presaging Bernie Sanders’ incredible political platform centuries and nations away.
    They encountered a local sage. “The surrounding mountains have always protected us from the rapacity of European nations. You have an inexhaustible passion for the pebbles (emeralds, diamonds, rubies) and dirt (gold) of our nation. For that reason we have always killed them.”
    The conversation continued. “What’s your religion?” Cacambo asked. “Do you have two religions?’
    “We have I believe a unique religion for the world,” responded the sage. “We adore God from morning to night.”
    “Do you adore only one God?” Cacambo persisted.
    “Our countrymen would find these question most strange.”
     Candide prodded Cacambo to ask: “How do you pray to God in El Dorado?”
    “We don’t pray,” the good sage replied. “We have nothing to request from him as he gives us everything we need. We are eternally grateful.” Candide was close to rapture with this response. Many people considered Voltaire an atheist. He was a deist by his own volition. It was the outlandish practices, relentless ceremonies, arcane rubrics and political squabbles among organized religions that he jousted with and argued against.
    While touring the city Cacambo asked: “Where’s your Court of Justice?”
    “We have none. There’s no point in having one because there’s nothing to complain about.”
    “Prisons? You must have prisons.”
    “We have none. Everyone knows the laws. Since we have everything we need, there’s no reason to steal or rob another person’s valuables or property. This also makes violence a nonentity.”
    Finally Candide and Cacambo agreed to leave El Dorado. Swallowing their pride they requested permission to take some pebbles and dirt from the King’s country.
    “Enjoy it as much good as it may give you.” Candide and Cacambo took the good King at his word aggressively removing everything not screwed down in the palace (towels, linens, bath mats, TP roles) along with twenty pack animals for food. Thirty for presents and curios. Fifty for emeralds, rubies, diamonds and gold. The King without criticizing their cupidity warmly embraced the two adventurers wishing them God speed.

    The two arrived in Surinam (Dutch Guiana-NE coast of South America). After 100 days of hard, exhausting travel they approached a small village having experienced heavy losses. They had only two pack animals remaining with treasures. The others had died from starvation, heat intensity and sucking swamps. They encountered a black slave with tatters for clothes.
    “Oh my God!” Candide said in Dutch. “What do we have here? How did you come to this terrible condition my friend?”
    “I wait upon my Master Monsieur Vanderdendur. He’s a famous merchant.”
    “Does Vanderdendur maintain you in this terrible condition?” Candide queried.
    Voltaire had a serious quarrel with a Dutch bookseller Van Duren and incorporated him as a villain in this story.
    “We receive a pair of linen drawers as clothes two times a year,” the man gratefully responded. “When we work at the sugar refinery, sometimes the millstone catches one’s fingers. Then we have to cut off a hand to escape the millstone.” Candide was appalled at this description looking where the slave’s missing right hand should be.
    “Sometimes when we try to escape the refinery we can lose a leg for punishment. Alas! Both misfortunes have happened to me. That’s the price for Europeans eating sugar and candy in Europe.”

The Food Upon Which Others Feast

    We mapped this route Generations earlier, and irrespective of origin, the path is the same for everyone. We also dictated a hierarchy: We, the vanguards, would watch the votaries whom the witnesses were told monitored them.

    Two of our votaries perched thirty feet above the driveway in front of a limestone building constructed in 1868. Obadiah, the senior votary, impeccably attired in a dark blue suit, silk tie - the color of which befitted our calendar, and sunglasses, rested his hands on the polished railing. Ariel, young and eager to impress, hovered with his clipboard pressed into his gray sweater.
    “Who are the two new witnesses?” Ariel looked at the older votary, bit off a piece of beef jerky, and waited for an answer.
    “Take notes at the briefings the way I taught you and you’d know.” Obadiah smiled and looked down.
    Ariel, by now used to such sarcasm, tapped his pen on the report form attached to his clip board. “Humor me.”
    Obadiah shrugged and continued. “That first guy, the red-headed one, is Herb Peavy. He used to sneak into second-floor bedrooms and stomp women to death with his climbing spikes. It’s his second time here. He’d be at the North Center if the vanguards didn’t still have some use for him.” He waited for a moment. “Just watch him. All he wants to do is get close to that thin kid. If he were anywhere but here, he’d get detained for-” Obadiah waited a second. “Following too close.” Laughed at his own joke.
    “That thin guy looks like an eleven-year-old girl.” Ariel pulled his sweater over his belt buckle. “Hell, he looks like a-”
     “Don’t say it. Do not say it. That’s Kenny Dumars. Just two months ago, he was a part-time wheat farmer and full-time high school Spanish teacher livin the dream. Even set-up housekeeping with his girlfriend. But the sheriff caught a Cessna unloading marijuana on his property. Ol’ Kenny boy had a third job - being paid for the use of his farm land.” Obadiah grinned, added, “Poor guy’ll be eaten alive in here,” then shook his head and unbuttoned his suit jacket.
    “He ought’a have a good time in this place with Herb tailgating him.” Ariel watched the red-head smooth his hands over the thin kid’s shoulders. “What’da they want us to do with ‘em?”
    “Well, Herb’s bound to do what he did the last time.” Obadiah adjusted his tie, nodded toward the driveway. “His only value to the vanguards is to see how Kenny reacts around him at the South Center. So, we are required to keep ‘em together after processing and watch what happens.”

    When new witnesses arrived, we required they remain alone for a short period of time. Alone and unattended, but not unobserved, and, certainly not unrecorded. Their movements to be transcribed by votaries onto a checklist. Posture erect? Hunched over? Gesticulations made? People touched? Pockets reached into? Items extracted? Stepped out of line? Anything picked up? Rocks? Cigarette butts?
    The witnesses stood as if transfixed. Blank stares. Clenched teeth, tight jaws. Minds working overtime. They stiffened as a scattershot wind hit their faces. Herb looked east toward the wide expanse of farmland and inhaled the scent of the harvest. Kenny stared at contrails swirling twenty-six thousand feet above. Both shuffled around on the gravel driveway their sounds alternated between crunching and hammering. Neither looked toward the North or South Centers.

    Inside the South Center Processing and Orientation section a votary with a sore-knee limp walked toward the two witnesses, handed each a towel and small cup half-filled with delousing shampoo. “Well, Herb. I figured I’d see you again. What happened? You hear we got a new line of clothing?” He pointed at the open shower. “You know the drill. And keep it in your hair for a few minutes.”
    Amid echoes of “Fresh meat,” and “Come over here and visit me,” Herb walked with his middle finger aloft. He abruptly shouted, “Looks like you’re working old three-pack pretty hard,” nodded toward the man laboring to stand - his left hand clasped three unopened packs of cigarettes, then hurriedly walked to his chair, lifted his pad and charcoal, resumed drawing.
    Kenny held back until Herb returned, then clutched his towel where he thought it might do the most good, and, despite wet floors, rushed into the shower. He finished without drying, quickly headed back, and hurriedly dressed.
    The votary handed each a paper bag and directed them to carry it in their right hand. “What you’ve got there is a toothbrush, toothpaste, and two small bars of soap. The commissary takes ninety days to kick-in but most of you will be gone by then. So, other than your meals, that’s pretty much it.”
    The votary raised his palm. “Ya’ll gonna be buried under the mass of senior witnesses. Just know that you have no rights here. Only privileges. The rest you gotta figure out on your own.” He looked at Kenny in his practiced manner. “Consider that your orientation.”
    The votary knew Kenny was too frightened to remember what was said, but his perspective would change after the doors slammed. When it became apparent that he could never again open or close a door, walk from one room to another, chose when to eat, what to eat, where or when to sleep without first asking permission. When Kenny had the look of an animal that decided to stop running, we would know he had learned our Rules: Eyes down but stay alert - Don’t look but see everything –When you walk hug the wall but do not touch it – There are no gifts; accept anything and you are in debt. – Ask for permission before you do anything.
    The votary led them into an area the size of a basketball court with a walkway surrounding a chain-link enclosure. He assigned both witnesses separate bunks within fifteen feet of two exposed toilets and one rust-stained sink. Then he repeated what he said each time, “Good luck. And don’t come back.” He locked the gate and walked away.

    As Kenny waited in line that evening, his eyes moved from witness to witness. He watched how each held two utensils under a stainless-steel tray, and silently moved toward a wall opening, then placed the tray on a small ledge, and remained motionless as meat and green beans were plopped on it. After a half-pint carton of milk hit a tray, a voice barked, “Next”, and the line moved forward.
    Kenny set his tray on a table near the stage. Herb pulled a chair out, turned it slightly, dropped his tray next to Kenny. Herb looked at Kenny, “What’cha need from the commissary?” Then skimmed his tongue across his upper lip and moved his hand under Kenny’s. After a moment Herb raised his fingers slightly, pulled his hand back, and left a list of commissary items under Kenny’s palm. “I can get you ramen noodles, pens, paper, stamps, cigarettes, peanut butter, pretty much anything. What’cha want?”
    “They told us we can’t use it for ninety-days.” Kenny moved his hand away.
    Herb pushed a package of gum between their trays. “But I can. I’ve been here before.”
    Silence.
    “Why me?”
    Herb stroked Kenny’s hand. “You’re my friend.”
    Kenny leaned forward, gently raised his hand, gracefully rested it on the back of Herb’s head, and whispered.
    Herb’s eyes flared. “We’ll see smart guy.” Then, contemplating his next move, said, “We’ll see how you’re taken care of from now on.” He grabbed Kenny’s half-pint of milk, shoved it into his coat sleeve, stood, left the package of gum on the table, and walked toward the stage and the line of witnesses waiting to be frisked.
    A votary bent to frisk him – calves first, then thighs and hips. Herb, with a one-arm motion, slid the milk carton from coat sleeve to palm and onto the stage. When the votary found nothing, he turned to frisk another witness. Herb picked-up the milk carton, raised his arm, allowed the carton to drift inside his coat sleeve, cupped his hand, lowered his arm, and walked away.

    An hour and a half later, sounds and smells reverberated inside the enclosure. Toilets flushing or not flushing. Bodies unwashed for days. Scattered loud voices. Small groups talking, shuffling. Bunks creaking.
    The gate rattled, and a votary wheeled in a console television. “This will remain on the channel it’s set to.” He paused. “That safety razor on top the t.v. has one blade.” He pointed to the razor. “You have one-half hour to shave,” he said to everyone. “When I return at eight o’clock, that razor will be right there.” He struck the top of the console with his knuckles. “With the razor blade next to it. If I see anything other than that, I will respond.” Tapped the console and left the enclosure.
    Herb rose from his bunk with three other witnesses, walked up to Kenny, blinked slowly. “You busy?”
     No reply.
    “You too busy to spend some time with us?” Gestured toward his bunk, then pulled Kenny’s head closer, “You owe me.”
    “The hell I-”
     “Shut up. Shut the hell up. You owe me. I gave you something. And now you owe me. Don’t renege or I’ll make sure they yank your privileges. Send your ass down behind them damn white doors.” Within moments he laughed, raised his voice a decibel below a yell. “You want that? You wanna be b’hind them doors downstairs?”
    The three witnesses from Herb’s bunk surrounded Kenny, then tightened their circle. Kenny’s head jerked back. Pain descended from eyes to mouth, then came guttural sounds, and he was on the floor in a fetal curl. He knew he was leaking – red or brown – but did not know which. One of the witnesses set a blade on top the television.

    The next afternoon Kenny waited in yet another line of witnesses to be told what to do, where to go, yelled at about something, lined up to go somewhere or lined up to come back. It didn’t really matter. His knees ached, everything ached, and he was ashamed of the stains between the hip pockets of his jeans. Herb cut in. Within seconds Kenny was again encircled.
    “You.” Herb spit on the floor. “You do not say ‘no’ to me.” When he signaled, the circle blended away, and Kenny was on the floor with blood on his shirt and darkening yesterday’s stains.
    A votary meandered over. “Get off the floor.” He raised his voice. “Get over to the infirmary.”
    We now knew Kenny had learned the Rules.

    Late the next day, when Kenny awoke, his eyes followed the white infirmary wall toward a metal desk at the opening of the ward. He blew at the detritus descending from the ceiling, watched it float away, then concentrated on the liquid dripping through a tube attached to an elevated bag. When he pulled down his sheet, he saw stitches below his rib cage and several blood stains.
    A nurse from Honduras walked up. “¿Como estás?” Kenny asked.
    She eagerly responded. “¿Pero, como estas?” Then she smiled and touched his shoulder.
    A witness two beds over pounded his mattress. “Hey, lady, get the hell over here and take care of my bedpan.”
    She rolled her eyes, stooped slightly, walked toward the demand. When she returned, Kenny continued with questions about Honduras, her hometown, his difficulties. In an environment where she was held in less esteem than children’s pets, she lingered. On his third day, she handed him a gift - a Hershey’s candy bar.
    “No te puedo pagar,” said Kenny.
    “No need to repay,” she said. Then added, “You don’t look like you belong here.”
     Kenny laughed, then winced. “Gracias.”
    On his final morning, the nurse placed the Spanish edition of “One Hundred Years of Solitude” on Kenny’s bed. “When you go back, read it,” and tucked it under his pillow, then patted the pillow as if fluffing it. “Wait. Open then.” She knew when he left the infirmary he would not be searched.
    A week later Kenny was strong enough to walk the circumference of the enclosure. He moved carefully. His head down just enough to seem disinterested – as if passing through on an assignment.

    Kenny had waited almost six years since his transfer to the North Center’s third floor when he heard a votary’s clipped accent call his name for the first time, “Du mars.” The sound seemed to extend. “Kaaaa-neee Duuuu-maws. Somebo’y lu’ ya.” He pitched a nine-by-twelve manila envelope on the concrete floor. Kenny hustled down iron steps to retrieve the package.
    Back on the third floor, he flipped to the last page, saw the final word: DENIED. When he read the preceding three words his body constricted. “... the same fate.”
    He reached for the book the nurse had given him. Opened it to the section with the indentation. He did not understand why they allowed him to keep the book. Kenny closed his eyes. His contours hardened as if chiseled. DENIED, that last word on the final page told him whether sunny or dark, summer or winter, held no relevance for him. He knew what came next.
    He would soon be inside a metal building, past racks of the North Center’s food items – cans of peaches and lard, bags of rice and beans, five-gallon bottles of ketchup and mustard – walking toward unmarked doors, then into a building connected to a small concrete warehouse, and through an opening the width of a garage door. When he stopped, the door would descend.
    Lights would illuminate five unsmiling votaries in dark suits and one senior witness. At this point, Kenny would need assistance. We knew it required an element of irrationality to voluntarily continue. “Let’s go,” a votary would say. “Lean on me.”
    Kenny’s shallow breathing would be familiar to the votaries, as would the next sequence – Exam table. White sheets. Straps. No needles. No tubes. Eyes never averted. No request for last words. No more time.
    Our Rules dictated that Kenny remain awake while the senior witness held the toothbrush the nurse had secreted inside the book. The same sharpened toothbrush Kenny shoved into Herb Peavy’s carotid artery.
    The senior witness would press that toothbrush into Kenny’s neck until there was no longer a pulse.

about Thomas Elson

    Thomas Elson’s short stories, poetry, and flash fiction have been published in numerous venues such as Calliope, Pinyon, Lunaris, New Ulster, Lampeter, Pennsylvania Literary Journal, and Adelaide Literary Magazine. He divides his time between Northern California and Western Kansas.

Listen to Life

life teaches you lessons if you learn to listen
life can destroy you if you’re not paying notice
learn what to listen for     and never forget
life can also thrill you if you listen just right

Locals Only

    Trevor walked into Trinity Bellwoods Park on a warm summer morning. The sky was a rich blue and the air was fresh with the smell of lilacs and the busy sounds of birds. Despite the heat, he wore a spring coat over a T-shirt, a wide-brimmed hat, and a pair of jeans with a kerchief around his neck.
    The park was filled with children on the swings and playing in the sandboxes. Couples threw Frisbees. Runners in conversation passed Trevor on the track that circled the park.
    Trevor turned his heavily scarred face away.
    Off in the corner away from the main park but facing a gully below was the favorite bench where Trevor’s deceased wife Hope often met him after work. Trevor quickly rushed to grab it, placing his bag beside him to reserve the seat for someone he expected. The park was always better than his apartment, where signs of his wife were everywhere.
    Trevor opened the bag, his hand revealing also many scars, and pulled out earphones and a music player. He searched on the player for Pergolesi’s “Stabat Mater,” a piece he always played when his spirits were low. His eyes closed. A deep breath of the freshly mowed grass entered his nostrils. For a blessed few minutes, the music was a distraction. It blocked the sounds of sirens, gunfire, screaming, crying, people yelling “help, help, please help me,” and the image of Hope and him on fire.
    Someone approached and bumped into the bench. For a second Trevor believed it was Hope. She would often tease him by creeping up on him and say in a disguised voice, “Is anyone sitting here? Are you waiting for anyone?” He would say, “Yes, I’m sorry, I’m waiting for someone.” But now he was indeed waiting. She would never join him. He would wait forever. The thought made his lips tremble and his eyes redden.
    Trevor wiped the tears away with his coat sleeve.
    A man was standing at the end of the bench wearing sunglasses and a wide hat that hid a face covered with bruises and cuts, and a swollen lip and eye. Trevor moved his bag to make room for him.
    The man sat down without speaking.
    “Mohammed,” Trevor greeted him.
    Mohammed reached out, slowly patted Trevor’s shoulders a few times in a gesture of greeting and reassurance, sat down, and took out a brown papered covered book from his backpack. Very quietly he began reading out loud in a chant-like rhythm in Arabic.
    Trevor also restarted his music, but the images of the darkly lit floor at the vast cave-like club Locals Only had already gripped his mind and were preventing him from experiencing the music. With couples dancing, different colored lights flashing, a band playing at one end, a bar along one side, people one moment laughing and enjoying themselves, the next moment scrambling to the exits, pushing and stepping on one another, shouting, “Move! Get out of the way!” with no explanation, a row of men in masks appeared holding in their hands guns and equipment of some sort while another group dragged Hope and other women and lined them up against the wall. Trevor could hear himself yelling, “No!” while a flamethrower sprayed the women with a fire while the attackers shouted “whore” and “slut.”
    Trevor and several men rushed forward to attempt to save their wives and girlfriends, but it was too late. Once the women were on fire, the attackers shot them all. That’s when he saw himself in the mirrors that covered the walls of the club. He was lifting and holding Hope in his arms, Hope and he engulfed in flames, and, at the same time, from the corner of his eye, the police entering the door, and himself collapsing to the floor, Hope falling on him but still in his arms.
    Trevor turned up the volume of the “Stabat Mater” to attempt to blare out the images and sounds in his head while looking at Mohammed repeating verses from the Koran.
    Mohammed’s eyes and face were now wet. Like Trevor with the “Stabat Mater,” Mohammed believed the reading of the Koran would help him overcome his loss. The image of his beloved sister Zorah was stamped on his consciousness. Zorah had come with two of her female friends to Locals Only to dance. She had just called her brother to come pick her up when the attackers arrived. That was the last time Mohammed spoke with her. When he arrived at the club, police, fire engines and ambulances had blocked off the area, and the street was filled with covered burnt bodies neatly lying in rows.
    A group of grieving men ran over to Mohammed’s car.
    “This is your doing, you fanatic,” one of them blared, pounding the hood of his car. “What’s wrong with you people?”
    They dragged him from his car and began kicking and hitting him in his head until the police intervened.
    Trevor had not witnessed the beating of Mohammed and other Muslim men that night. An ambulance was taking him to the hospital. His first meeting with Mohammed was in the support group of family and friends of those killed at the club. Mohammed sat next to him in a fully bandaged face and a sling around his arm.
    Images of his dead sister and the threats to him and his community forced Mohammed to stop reciting. Covering his eyes, he broke down into a muffled cry, trying his best to conceal his emotion. His arm began to shake.
    Trevor grabbed Mohammed’s arm and held it until the shaking stopped.
    A slight breeze appeared. Dogs were barking. Two squirrels were chasing after each other down into the gully. Behind Trevor and Mohammed, a family was playing a board game. On the baseball field, the crack of the bat hitting the ball and team members shouting out support to each other filtered through the park. Fifty feet away an elderly couple sat on a bench in a similar position facing the gully. They stared forward without words or visible emotion, sharing decades of memories of sitting in their spot. Occasionally Trevor would look over at them in envy.
    Trevor and Mohammed spoke very little to each other. It felt good to be out of their homes, in the fresh air, and have someone else beside them who had a similar experience.
    They had peace for an hour. No one noticed them until two young men heard Mohammed chanting, rushed at him, grabbed his Koran, threw it into the gully, and pushed Mohammed to the ground.
    Trevor stood up when he witnessed this action and quickly removed his hat, coat, and T-shirt to show his badly burned and disfigured body. The sight of the body not only shocked the harassers but revealed the man whose photo was in every newspaper and whom the media had interviewed. In person the physical damage was more horrible than the images they had seen of Trevor on TV, making Trevor appear more like a monster than a human.
    “Why are you sitting with him?” they asked. “It’s people like him who killed your wife and disfigured you.”
    Trevor immediately went down the hill to fetch the Koran.
    When he returned, after brushing the dirt and debris off the book, he handed the Koran to Mohammed, but said nothing to those harassing Mohammed. Instead Trevor helped Mohammed to his feet and back to the bench, where they continued with their private mourning.
    The attackers seemed prepared to continue their harassment when two policemen arrived.
    By now people in the park had heard that there was an incident involving a Muslim and the badly burned man from the attack at Locals Only. Very soon afterwards, the elderly couple deserted their favorite bench. The families nearby gathered their belongings and quickly left. Others too had the same idea and were preparing to exit. The baseball game stopped.
    The police suggested to Mohammed that he should not risk staying.
    Trevor accompanied Mohammed in protest, his shirt and hat still off to bring attention to the situation, hoping the media would broadcast or write about it.
    Once they had departed, the people returned and soon were once again enjoying themselves under a bright hot sun and cloudless sky.

Unforgiveness

    Edwin Ames clutched his chest and gasped for air when he hit the floor, emergency buzzers blared as the elevator doors slammed against his legs repeatedly. He stared up at the directional arrows. Why did he come south of the river? A senior citizen booty call, that’s why. He heard people running down the hallway then he was snatched free of the door. For a minute, he thought he heard Cindy’s voice. “Is he okay?” He was losing consciousness.
    “Don’t know, I think this guy works at the hospital.” A male cop said.
    “Dispatch said the ambulance is stuck at a railroad crossing, help me, we’re taking him.” His partner instructed. They crammed him in the back of their vehicle. He tried not to pass out. It didn’t work.

    Edwin’s colleagues asked with a smile and sat various flower arrangements on the table. “How does it feel to be a patient at the job?”
    “Weird, but thank God.”
    “You had an aneurysm, Edwin, thank God, the cops brought you.” Even with tubes everywhere and words of caution from his doctor he couldn’t help but think who wanted to be Director of Nursing? Time to retire, Edwin, the easy way, not the hard.
    Thank God, they brought him to Masonic General where the best ER doctors and nurses in the world worked. He adjusted the bed to view the north end of the floor and the nurse’s station. They’d want to transfer him off ICU as soon as possible. He couldn’t blame them. Who wants one of the bosses watching them? Two young cops stopped at the desk and made an inquiry. They laughed and joked with the staff momentarily and headed toward his room. Why? He didn’t know either, but the female reminded him of his ex-wife. She pushed back the glass partition, smiled and stepped into the room. “Hello, Mr. Ames or should I say doctor?”
    That voice, he heard it before in the hall where he collapsed. “Ames, is fine, officer and I’m a Ph.D. not an MD.” Jesus, she looks like Carmen, medium height, smooth skin and a heavy chest with curves despite the uniform and protective vest.
    “You got the VIP suite, that’s good. I’m Officer Ames-Smith and this is my partner, Officer Jennings.” He nodded at her partner who looked like a bodybuilder and she stood closer then he liked. “We were down the hall when you collapsed in the elevator. We scooped you up and got you here; I wanted to check on you. It’s not every day we act as an ambulance.”
    “Thanks, you probably saved my life.”
    “Your welcome. We’re on lunch, so we wish you a speedy recovery.”
    “Thanks again.” He watched them rush toward the elevators. Time to get more sleep; and hopefully a better recovery. Did Cindy know what happened to him? She should after all it was in her building right down the hall from her apartment. She convinced him to take the day off. “You need a break, so I’m inviting you over between the holidays. This leg is Christmas, the other New Year’s.” What normal guy could refuse that? She was a fifty-year-old top fashion designer who looked thirty-five with a perfect body and personality. People fell in love just talking to her. She nor anyone else knew why he vowed to never cross the river.
    Don’t think about the past, that was decades ago.
    Every time he said that, he did it anyway.
    He needed to get back to work, it was the only family he had now. He hadn’t thought about the other in a long while. Out of sight, out of mind.

    Edwin Ames, Ph.D. scaled the side of the jagged wine bottle in an effort to dodge the alcohol molecule pursuing him. He woke up drenched in sweat. His heart raced. The monitors beeping overhead were deafening. You’re safe, Edwin, safe.
    Alcohol...his friend, enemy, comforter and advisor — that’s why he lost damn near everything. It had been decades since he drank. Why dream about it? It had to be that late-night slice of pizza. He could not shake the thought, that damn cop reminded him of Carmen. Carmen, a demon waiting to happen and he and alcohol brought her forward. They should’ve never gotten married. Both were unhappy, but he didn’t listen to the best advice a man could get: don’t ever hit her and after he did he drank himself into a blackout, he remembered nothing. When he went back home she sat at the dining room table next to her mother. She had a huge black eye. His heart sank; the grief overwhelmed him, he left out. He sped down the street, ignored stop signs and lights. What was he doing, death wasn’t the answer he’d already hurt someone?
    Snap out of it, that was a lifetime ago.

    Edwin could feel the sighs of relief when his subordinates watched him being wheeled out of ICU. His assistant Director of Nursing smiled. “Good to see you looking better boss — plan on retiring?” His colleague asked in a low voice as they entered the elevator.
    “Don’t know yet, Mary.” The little genius they nicknamed her and at 5'1" she was in great shape being a former gymnastics coach. “Hint, hint or what?”
    “No, not at all, but...”
    They stopped at the nurse’s lounge; Mary pushed open the door.
    “Surprise!” Edwin forgot it was his birthday. He was getting old — perhaps he should leave. But, this was all the family he had after he became a pariah from his other. An hour later the party ended like all office parties. He hoped sampling all the ethnic dishes won’t give him more nightmares.
    Two emergency room surgeons left early on a cop involved rollover accident. Cops, that brought Officer Ames-Smith to mind. His interactions with cops were few and far between. A cousin was a cop, probably dead or retired. After he hit Carmen he threatened to kill him and the other cousins wouldn’t speak to him. Everybody hated him on both sides of the family. His parents said they didn’t like him for what he did. That hurt too. The snobs in the family didn’t fully accept him anyway because he was adopted. He begged Carmen for forgiveness with the promise never to raise his hand to her again. She forgave him alright, but it included serious payback. Was God mad at him too? Everywhere he went he was reminded of domestic abuse. He tried drinking the torment away. That all but cost him his good government job. And, with no money came no honey, even after his reinstatement. That hurt. Who and how many were screwing his wife?
    Stop feeling sorry for yourself Edwin, and enjoy the spices of life.
    The best wife to have is someone else’s.
    Months passed and he’d grown accustomed to not being with Carmen. The night he got mugged and left in the gutter changed everything. Whoever or how many jumped him damn near killed him. It was a miracle he didn’t have brain damage. Was Carmen’s family or friends behind it or his? Nobody visited, that was the proverbial wake-up call. Those blows to the head focused his intelligence. The foolishness stops now. Edwin “Drunk” Ames called his father. “Thanks for the visit and the flowers...I’m gone, good bye.” His situation needed serious analysis. The day of his discharge he stood in front of the mirror; he was well built, good height and muscle tone, handsome and highly intelligent, a lady’s man who fell deeply in love with the wrong woman. He swore he’d never go on the south side again. Decades later he still felt it wasn’t meant for him to cross the river.
    The transporter pushed him into his new room. It was well lit with all the furniture on locking wheels, pastel curtains and blinds, the psychological affects worked well. TV got to be boring with limited channels; crossword puzzles solved that problem until Officer Ames-Smith stuck her head in the door.
    Hey, there Edwin, how are you?”
    Just his luck, he gets settled and here she comes. “Hello, Officer Ames-Smith, I’m fine. What’s your first name, if you don’t mind me asking?”
    “Ellen.”
    “Ellen Ames?” It couldn’t be! That would be too much to bare.
    “Yes, Ellen Ames and don’t forget the Smith.” She gave him the arched eyebrow — a trait of his ex, Carmen.
    “I won’t.” Again, past memories hit him like a tidal wave. Advice from divorcees, “Don’t look back or stick around too long.” He stuck around because his money was funny and he was accustomed to a certain standard of living. Finding a good apartment wasn’t easy. They worked different shifts...a good thing and with no kids it was barely, hello or good-bye in passing. His marriage was over, period. He started a slow recovery from the heart break.
    Carmen fell in love again. Now she was trying to drive him out of the apartment they agreed to share until he found a place. She no longer hid she was seeing someone else. Fine, so was he, but she and her lover should have more respect. Phone calls and innuendos were pissing him off. The voice on the other end sounded familiar, Smith, who transferred years ago. Edwin used wisdom and took the clip out of his pistol and checked-in to a transient hotel; thank God, two days later the reality company called with the ideal apartment.
    A couple of months later his place was perfect; a couple months later Carmen said, she was pregnant. “So. Why tell me, tell the father?”
    “I am,” she laughed, and shook her finger in his face.
    He exploded. “You lying, bitch!!” But, the judge, who found Carmen and her lawyer attractive and stated as much, decided the child was more important than the truth and ruled against him.
    He objected to the judge’s behavior...then she got alimony too.
    Carmen’s revenge or God’s punishment. In spite of that he stayed sober, a lesser man might have given up, but he put the child support and alimony in the budget and never looked back. He heard she had a daughter and his efforts to reconcile with the family got rejected because he wasn’t a father to someone else’s child.
    In today’s world DNA testing would’ve been in his favor.
    “Dr. Ames, Dr. Ames, you with me?” Officer Ames-Smith asked.
    He snapped out of it. “Yeah, yeah, I’m here.” He sighed. He might as well ask the stupid question. “You’re Carmen and Smitty’s daughter, right?” He felt like a fool after he asked and the look on her face said the same.
    “Right.”
    “Did Carmen put you up to this, whatever it is?”
    “No.” She stepped over to his side and poured cup of water. “Want some?”
    He shook his head. “You clean up well like your mom...your day off?”
    “Yeah, thanks.” She pulled up a chair. “I’ll cut to the chase.”
    “Oh no, that sounds intriguing.”
    Ellen downed her water. “Now that you know who I am I don’t mean to open old wounds...”
    “You know about those?” Edwin interrupted.
    “A few, not all, let’s say I know enough.” Ellen took a candy bar out of her purse. “Want a piece?”
    “No, thanks.”
    “Anyway, after an officer takes someone to the emergency room they have to make a report. I remembered the name and you looked familiar from old family photos.”
    “They still got pictures, that’s a surprise.” He shook his head. “Was it on a dartboard?” He laughed, but she didn’t.
    “No, let me finish.” She bit off a piece of candy. “I know you were abusive and a drunk, but I don’t hold grudges for something that has nothing to do with me. And, this is most important, I know you aren’t my father and I don’t agree with what she did.”
    “Whoa...wait a minute. How long have you known this?”
    “Since I was a teen. I told them both they were wrong. Why should you pay for someone else’s kid? I got popped in the mouth, but I’m right.” Edwin nodded. “Don’t get me wrong, I love my parent, but...”
    What was this about, was she apologizing for something or what? Why would they tell her anything? Decades had gone by and by now his name shouldn’t come up. Man, she looked like her mom and dad. She had the same sincere expressions like Carmen. That was a positive. “What do you want to say, Ellen?”
    “I don’t hate you or anything; I want to thank you for the years of support. I cannot imagine what it feels like being forced to take care of somebody’s kid.”
    “Well, you know...”
    “Let me finish.” She cut him off.
    “Sorry.”
    “There were times when that check put food on the table. Don’t ever mention that, please.”
    Edwin raised his hand. “Scout’s honor.” He chuckled. What a revelation; it looks like Martin Smith wasn’t entirely God’s gift to humanity. But, after and during decades of his estrangement from the family hard times may have hit everybody.
    “I’ve wanted to tell you that for a while, but since this happened it’s a prayer answered. I admire your strength and determination to succeed considering what they put you through.”
    “Well, thank you, Ellen.” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. That warmed his heart. That was right. He could’ve been a MD, but working limited him to nursing. Nurse practitioner was as far as he went. “Tell everybody I said hello, I’m not bitter, not that they’d care.” Every year he called his parents on their birthday. He got a dry, “Hello, how are you?” and that was okay. Since he was adopted it wasn’t as hard from them to forget him. At least that’s what he told himself.
    “Will do and I’m keeping you in my prayers.” She smiled and left.
    He was thankful she didn’t bore him with the happenings of Carmen and the rest of the Ames family. He didn’t care. Now time for a nap.

    “Wake up, sleeping beauty.” Edwin’s nosed twitched from something tickling his nose. His eyes popped open; he rubbed his nose and smiled.
    “Hello, Cindy.” She waved a bouquet of roses in his face. “Thanks, I wondered had you forgotten the old man.”
    “No, I haven’t. They scared the mess out of me when they carried you out the building.” She kissed him, a long tongue probing one at that. “I’ve been trying to get info on you, that was a waste of time. I felt bad about you crossing the river, bad karma you said, but you did it anyway.”
    “That’s alright. A booty call might have got him here, but she also virtually begged him to let her fix dinner, that was impossible to turn down. “You look good in grey and black pants hugging the right places. You design those?”
    “Yes. I added a few details before the seamstress made the prototype.” Cindy said.
    “But, before we go further you can cook at my place. Call it superstition, but I’m not crossing the river. Can you live with that?”
    “Yes, I can.”

The Secret Scholar

    Michael’s eyes rolled away from the TV screen to the large wall calendar hanging on the back of the dormitory door. Its surface was filled with meticulous notes and events highlighted by color into separate categories. Written in neon green and circumscribed in bold red, on a square reserved for the 23rd, two days from now, was “English Exam!!” Michael groaned. Mrs. Hardcastle’s tests were notoriously difficult. Garth, to whom the detailed notes and color-coded events belonged, had been preparing for the past week and half. Michael’s nose had not seen the inside of his textbook since the last time he was directed to open it, which was a week and half ago, when he had looked in it at the end of the class in which the exam was announced. He and his classmates were given some rare moments during class to begin studying the material, and Michael found that having the book open in front of him was a good way to pretend to look busy.
    Not that he could afford such poor academic ambition. Michael Middlesby’s GPA was hovering very near the point at which Hightower Academy was considering parting ways with him. Not that that would be the first time such an action was considered. The last time expulsion reared its head, Michael found himself in the headmaster’s office with both she and his parents reading him the riot act about his grades. He promised to do better, and for a time, he did. But he soon found himself drifting off again into the land of comfortable educational mediocrity. It was land in which he was a welcome guest. He had lived there at his old school as well, before his parents decided that it would be worth coughing up some money to send him to Hightower Academy, with its strict standards and high expectations, in the hopes of improving his attitude.
    Now, Michael lay on his bed, looking idly at the ceiling, trying to push all thoughts of the looming exam out of his head. Garth, his roommate, had made it hard to forget, though, with his bright calendar colors and red calendar circles. Michael stared at the 23rd square for several minutes, until he finally jumped up, strode over to the calendar, and vigorously rubbed at the exam reminder with his finger. Like some magical ink, the bright colors remained steadfastly adhered to the white surface. Michael rubbed again.
    “Damn it!”
    Garth, the dweeb, apparently was in possession of the most powerful dry-erase markers on the planet, among whose properties were an inability to be removed by mere mortals. Michael sighed loudly. Despite his lackadaisical attitude toward his schooling, a real panic had begun to bubble inside him. A poor performance would drop his GPA to an irreconcilable level. Hightower Academy had promised him that he would not survive another round of academic probation. His parents promised him that he would be sent off to Grindenstone, a military school, whose reputation for not suffering fools gladly was widely known. Michael shuddered at all the push-ups he’d probably have to do there, for if one thing came near to matching his intellectual apathy, it was his aversion to physical activity. Clearly, action was needed.
    Michael spent the next day in a state of pseudo-studiousness, especially when the hypercritical, watchful eyes of Mrs. Hardcastle or the slightly supercilious eyes of Garth were on him. But he knew it was futile; he was ill-prepared for the exam. That evening, he slipped out of the dining hall in an early exit from dinner, concocting some excuse about preparing for the upcoming exam, and stealthily made his way across campus to the English building. He opened a side door that he knew would be unlocked and made his way down the corridor to Mrs. Hardcastle’s office. He looked through the window in the front of the door and gently tested the doorknob. The door was locked, and the light was off. Relieved, Michael rummaged around in his pocket.
    Now, Michael was not completely devoid of ability or application of his cognitive skills; he simply used the energy he would have spent developing himself as a student to other useful activities, such as picking locks. He removed a small set of tools and worked his way through them, until he found what he was looking for. A few minutes’ work, using some trial and error and a well-developed feel, yielded the results he needed. The lock clicked, and Michael slowly opened the door and tiptoed into the office, gently closing the door behind him. He allowed his eyes a few moments to adjust to the darkness of the office and made his way to Hardcastle’s desk. Michael admitted to himself that the exam may not even be here, but he wagered that Hardcastle had it prepared and ready for tomorrow.
    The top of the desk was immaculately organized, so he moved behind it and began opening drawers. He sat down in Hardcastle’s chair and removed a small flashlight from his pocket. He looked through files, all clearly marked with their contents. He continued working his way methodically through the drawers, occasionally glancing through the small window in the door to ensure there would be no unexpected intrusions while he carefully shielded his light’s small beam. Finally, he found what he was looking for: a large manila envelope with “English 109 Exam” written across the top. Michael felt along the length of the envelope, its thickness indicating that all the exam copies were contained inside. He flipped the envelope over and undid the clasp. He opened it and removed the packet of exams. He gingerly held up the top exam and verified that it indeed was for his class, and that it was, indeed, very difficult. His heart dropped. He looked through the remainder of the pile, hoping to find an answer key, but seeing only more exam copies. He quickly looked through the files in the desk again, hoping to find a clue as to a key’s location, but a distant chiming of the hour from the large clock in the center of campus brought him to attention. He looked at his watch. He hurriedly replaced the exams in their envelope, retained the top copy for himself, returned the envelope to its drawer, and silently made his way out of the office, relocking the door. A hasty exit out of the same side door ensured that Michael made a clean break before the night janitorial staff made their rounds through the building.
    Michael hastily made his way across the darkened campus and quietly entered the front door of his dormitory before curfew, breathing a sigh of relief that he would not have to honestly come up with an answer as to why he was trying to enter the building after it was locked for the night. He ascended the staircase to his second-floor room, and knocked gently, not wanting to interrupt Garth in the middle of something. “Come in,” said Garth’s voice.
    Michael opened the door and quietly entered.
    “Where have you been?” The slightly accusatory question was accompanied by an arch of Garth’s already pointy eyebrows.
    “Studying. You know...big test tomorrow...”
    Garth said nothing, but it was all too clear from his expression that he highly doubted that this was the case.
    Michael sidled over to his desk and smoothed out the exam on its wooden surface, careful to position his body to dissuade any nosy glances from Garth. He read through the questions with a sinking, desperate feeling. All the questions asked him to compare various characters and their motivations across a variety of stories that they had been analyzing in class, describe how the character’s internal and external conflicts influenced their behavior and affected the events of the plot, explain how the use of the setting helped to serve as a character in its own right, be able to identify the theme and tone of each of the stories, and then be able to make a connection between each of the stories and his own life! No multiple choice, no true and false, no matching. Since the questions all required him to have actual knowledge of the stories that were read and discussed in class, and Michael had contrived to possess only the most cursory details of the stories, mainly that some stories were, in fact, read in class, he knew he was in trouble.
    Despite this, Michael began reading the questions on the test in earnest. He dug into his memory and took as many notes as he could regarding the questions. He knew he did not have time to go through all the stories again, but perhaps he could come up with enough information to cobble together some semi-coherent answers. He worked on this for the next hour or so, until Garth announced that they should get ready to go to bed.
    The next day was the 23rd, and the late morning hours found Michael sitting nervously at his desk as Mrs. Hardcastle handed out the exams. “You may now begin,” she intoned after everyone had a test.
    Michael flipped the exam over. He had glanced over the questions and his notes earlier that morning, as a last-ditch effort at preparation. No amount of preparation could have sufficed for what happened next.
    Greetings, applicant! Congratulations on taking your first step towards admission to the Society of Incognito Omniscient Polymaths. If successful, you will join a long line of scholars that have been proud members of our powerful fraternity. We are a highly secret, exclusive, elusive order of thinkers, movers, and shakers who have exerted our influence at all levels of power throughout the world for thousands of years. We have started wars, initiated peace, toppled dictators, elevated kings, built walls, opened borders, crossed oceans, and traversed mountains. We have whispered in the ears of monarchs and shouted in crowds of revolutionaries. We have sat with the broken, stood with the mighty, lived and died with the oppressed and oppressors alike. We have been the wizard behind the curtain, the quiet machinery that moves the gears of the world. We are always ready to welcome another to our ranks. However, know this! Only the most dedicated, the best prepared, the most studious will be permitted to join our society. Is this you? If so, proceed. If not, then best be on your way. For we tolerate no sluggards, nor the intellectually lazy, the incurious, or the hubristic bravados amongst you. Are you ready to proceed? Do you deem yourself worthy? If so, begin. Please read the directions carefully and complete all sections of the application to the best of your knowledge.
    Michael stared, wide-eyed. He quickly glanced around at the rest of the class, a sea of bowed heads and hastily scratching pencils.
    “Mr. Middlesby!”
    A sharp voice from the front of the room zoomed his head back into place. He looked at the paper in front of him again. This was not the same test he had looked at yesterday. He was even more ill-prepared than he had been before. Did everyone else have the same thing? Judging the number of moving pencils in the room, Michael doubted it. A shadow soon hovered over his shoulder. Mrs. Hardcastle leaned in close and whispered.
    “Mr. Middlesby, I understand that you perhaps have not prepared for the exam as well as you should have, but that is no excuse to simply sit there doing nothing. I suggest you begin. Write something. Perhaps it will dislodge a fact that has reluctantly made space in your head.”
    When she left to make her rounds around the rest of the room, Michael looked back at the paper. The application sat there, still waiting for him to begin. He picked up his pencil.
    Name: Michael M. Middlesby. Age: 16 Occupation: Student. And so on. Michael began filling out the application, unsure of why he was doing so. If he was not prepared for his English 109 exam, he was most certainly not prepared to join the Society of Incognito Omniscient Polymaths. He felt quite certain that he fell into one of the categories that was expressly forbidden. What did they want with him anyway? He was no scholar. Mrs. Hardcastle’s presence nearby provided him with some motivation, and he plunged on, recklessly. Michael found himself answering a series of obscure questions regarding his thoughts about the malleability of intelligence, education’s role in society, man’s place in the world, whether there was room for belief in a higher power, and if there could be true equality amongst all peoples. None of the questions had anything to do with the material that was supposed to be on his English test. Michael began to wonder why he had spent any time at all stealing the exam. Unless – he glanced up at Mrs. Hardcastle, now busy with some other work of her own. He quickly looked down again when her eyes conducted another survey of the room. Michael continued answering questions, no longer certain of what he was saying, only certain that he needed to keep going, to say something, anything. He was already beginning to picture his parents coming to pick him up, disappointed, but resigned to their acceptance of his mediocrity. He pictured arriving at the entrance gates of Grindenstone, his greeting committee a couple of burly older students sizing him up for a beating later.
    He shuddered and began to harbor some regrets about slacking in his studies. He would surely fail this test. A poor score would harm his grade. Poor grades would lead to his expulsion. Expulsion would lead him to Gridenstone. Grindenstone would... Michael was uncertain what would actually occur, but it would surely be an unpleasant outcome. He plunged on, currently having no other option. He screwed up his face, slowing a bit, reading the questions carefully. He found himself putting a bit more thought and effort into the questions. He suddenly wanted his answers to make sense, wanted to show that he was thoughtful. Maybe it was too late to completely save himself, but perhaps there was an outside chance that he could gain himself some room to bargain for a third chance if he showed some honest effort. This, of course, did not explain why an application to a secret society had taken the place of his English exam, but at this point, what did it matter? Perhaps the group would take him in, if nothing else.
    “Ten minutes!” Mrs. Hardcastle’s voice filled the small, silent room. Michael skimmed over the remaining questions. He took a deep breath and quickly unraveled his thoughts about the existential threats to a democratic way of life, the role of religion in public life, the divine right of kings, and whether true revolution was possible without violence. The bell rang as he was just finishing off his final thought. He arranged his exam papers together and followed the rest of the class as they went to Mrs. Hardcastle’s desk to staple their tests and place them face down in front of her. Michael gave her a falsely confident smile as he placed his test on the desk.
    He turned to leave. “Mr. Middlesby.” Michael turned again. Mrs. Hardcastle was looking at him with a shrewd, calculating stare. “I look forward to reading your answers.” He nodded numbly.
    The next day something unusual happened. Michael found himself thinking, over and over, about the exam. Typically, he would take an exam, and the minute it was handed in on the teacher’s desk, be done with it, off to the next thing that would require less effort from him. But Michael’s mind continually hovered over the answers that he had written, worried, for the first time, that they were not correct. Many of the questions were so vague and overarching and, in this case, spectacularly unexpected, that all Michael could do was piece together, on the fly, any information he possessed on the topic at hand. His worries, no doubt, were exacerbated by the fact that he was facing a real chance of expulsion and a future at a school that would bear him no warm welcome. The consequences of this had been known to Michael for quite some time, but he had been able to push them back to the recesses of his mind. Now they came crawling back out of those mental caves to torment him.
    Walking across campus one day, his breath rising, taking on visible shapes in the chill air, his thoughts occupied with looming disaster, he was brought to himself by the loud tolling of the central clock tower. He looked up, squinting against the bright sun that brought no warmth with its slanting, seasonally indirect rays. Nevertheless, they illuminated a scene of softly lit beauty. Hightower was a pretty school, with wide, meticulously landscaped lawns and red brick buildings with handsomely academic facades. It wasn’t bad here, and Michael didn’t dislike it, he just disliked...Hard work, admit it to yourself. You’ve messed around for a couple of terms and now look where you are. Your grades have sunk like a rock, boy. You may as well start packing now. Michael sighed, his breath ballooning in large puffs, as if it, too, was angry at him. I need to do something. Start with putting forth some effort. It’s too late. It’s never too late to start. Michael jumped as the clock tower tolled again, startled out of his reveries. He looked over at its face, the huge hands ticking away the seconds, minutes, and hours. Michael strode off to the library. It was never too late to start.
    Except when it was. That was the message he received when he stood, once again, before the head-master. His grades had indeed sunken to depths out of which they could not be fished, even with Michael’s vast capacity of excuses.
    “I’m sorry, Michael, but I cannot simply let you go on academic probation once again. You were given a second chance, which you saw fit to squander. Perhaps Hightower is not a good fit for you. Your parents have been contacted, and they are coming to get you. I suggest that you go to your dorm and begin collecting your belongings.”
    Michael simply nodded, head down, noticing the pattern of interlocking circles on the carpet and the dirt on the ends of his shoes.
    “Unless...” A deep sound of a throat being cleared again brought Michael’s attention to the room in front of him. Mrs. Hardcastle stepped forward, and Michael’s heart sunk. “Mr. Middlesby, did you notice something unusual about your exam?”
    He shifted his feet, unsure of what to say. “Er...well...it...um...didn’t seem to have anything to do with what we had talked about in class,” he said, finally finding his voice.
    “Indeed. I’m pleased to hear that you are aware of the things that we have discussed in class.” She paused, allowing Michael’s momentary embarrassment to pass. “What did it seem to you, Michael?”
    “It seemed to be an application form for some sort of secret society.” He glanced up at Mrs. Hardcastle. “Was it?”
    Mrs. Hardcastle chuckled. “Your powers of observation are rather acute, Mr. Middlesby.”
    Michael paused for a few minutes. “I don’t understand why I had it, though. I mean – I don’t seem to have the appropriate requirements.”
    “Yet. You don’t have the appropriate requirements yet. You have a fine mind, Michael. A sharp, clever wit.” She continued at Michael’s look of utter surprise. “What you don’t have is the right motivation to use it.”
    “If you please, ma’am, I think I do. I mean – I realize now the mistakes I’ve made. Please, I don’t really want to leave Hightower.” He glanced at the headmaster. “Please, I promise to work harder if I’m given another chance.” His voice faltered. “I know - I know I said that the last time, but this time, I mean it.”
    Mrs. Hightower and the headmaster exchanged meaningful glances at each other.
    “I thought that you might say that,” said the headmaster.
    “As did the Society,” said Mrs. Hardcastle, chuckling again as Michael’s face took on another look of undisguised surprise. “You see, it is not enough to have a strong mind, Michael. The Society also requires its members to have a certain, shall we say, degree of disregard for conventions. Misfits.” She gave Michael a deeply pointed look that told him that his lock-picking skills were not quite as discreet as he had imagined. “A knowledge of oneself is also required; a true acknowledgement of one’s weaknesses and an earnest desire to mitigate them is a feature of every Society member. You do seem to possess these, Michael.”
    A small bubble of hope began to rise in his chest, although Michael still felt confused.
    “Therefore,” said Mrs. Hardcastle as she and the headmaster exchanged another meaningful glance, “You will get your third chance.” Michael felt a sudden rise of his heart in his chest. “However,” now the headmaster fixed Michael with a steely glance that matched her tone, “you will only be able to do so on the condition that you also join the Society of Incognito Omniscient Polymaths.”
    Michael’s hope was now mixed with alarm as he thought back to the requirements of Society members. “But...”
    “But what, Mr. Middlesby?” Mrs. Hardcastle interjected. “The Society does not take the choosing of its members lightly. I would not be here wasting my time if I did not think that you were worthy of its ranks.”
    Michael made no effort to feign his shock. “You are a member of the Society?”
    “Of course. How else could you come by that application?”
    Michael took a gamble. “You know that I snuck in your office and stole the exam.”
    Mrs. Hardcastle gave him a thin smile that told Michael all he needed to know.
    “Well, Mr. Middlesby, you have heard the conditions. What is your decision?”
    Michael twisted his foot and again inspected the pattern of the circles on the carpet. “It sounds like a lot of work.”
    The headmaster’s anger cut through his chest like a sword. “You wanted some motivation, Middlesby! Well, here it is! There will be absolutely no more chances if you leave this office having set aside this more than generous offer. Keep this in mind before you take that car ride to Grindenstone, sitting in the back seat of your parent’s disappointment.”
    These words brought Michael to himself once again. “No – I mean – yes, yes I will join the Society.” He glanced over at Mrs. Hardcastle, now seeing her in a new light. “If it means avoiding Grindenstone, then yes, I will join.”
    It was in this way that Michael Middlesby finally became familiar with the sections of the library, where he spent more time than he had ever thought humanly possible. Even Garth was amazed. When he asked Michael about the sudden change of heart, Michael fed him the old Grindenstone line, which was true enough. What he didn’t tell him, because an oath of secrecy was a feature of the initiation ceremony, was that he was now a member of the Society of Incognito Omniscient Polymaths.
    Camera bulbs flashed. Michael turned to face the crowd. His mother wiped a discreet tear from the surface of her cheek. His father beamed proudly, a traditional manly stoicism preventing any outward show of emotion. He walked across the stage as he accepted his diploma, shaking hands with the headmaster and Mrs. Hardcastle.
    “Well done, Mr. Middlesby,” Mrs. Hardcastle said. “I know you will make us proud,” she said with a slight wink and a nod that Michael knew referenced more than Hightower Academy.
    Later, the graduates and their friends and family gathered in the activities center, and Michael stood speaking with his parents and a couple of other teachers and friends. He looked up to see Garth walking through the crowd. He smiled as Garth clapped his arm around Michael’s shoulder and led him a small distance away.
    “Congratulations, Michael. I look forward to working with you in the future.”
    Michael looked at him quizzically.
    Garth smiled knowingly. “Perhaps I should say congratulations on two fronts, fellow Polymath.”
    “What! You, too!” Michael could only say in astonishment as his eyes widened.
    Garth laughed. “I know you will make us proud, Michael.”
    Michael raised a cup of coffee to his mouth and took a sip. He checked his watch and adjusted the dark sunglasses that obscured his eyes. He placed the cup back down on the table, stood up, and smoothed the lapels of his jacket and adjusted the hem of his trousers. His suit was black, crisp, and impeccably tailored. He sat down again and languidly crossed his legs. His picked up his cup and sipped the dark espresso as he stared off into the crowd of people moving down the sidewalk. A man sat down in the empty chair to his right. Michael turned to him, looking at the arch of a pair of pointy eyebrows, set over dark sunglasses.
    “Hello, Garth. How was Moscow?”
    “Full of Russians, strangely enough. How was your meeting in Washington?”
    Michael straightened up, finished his coffee, and spoke in a hushed, even monotone.
    “Productive. I provided my contact with the information that you had given me. I feel that he can now proceed further.”
    “Excellent. One would hope that this entire affair may soon be settled.”
    “Indeed. For our Russian friends, I think that their own elections are quite enough for them to be getting on with.”

Queueing in Line and Shaping Your Life

Without a college education, men created companies that changed the modern world.
Women have made Nobel-prize winning scientific discoveries and inventions
even without a college education, back when they weren’t even allowed to learn.
Of course, going to school can really help you get your foot in the door... but some,
in lieu of queueing in line and waiting for their chance to make a difference,
they look for a way to subvert the system and get ahead on their own terms.
So remember: when you see those who seem like misfits as you’re growing up —
or maybe even when you’re an adult — don’t you dare discount them as nothing.
Behind closed doors, they may be the ones deciding world events, shaping your life.