3.4 Mantra

Charlie Newman

your children render you obsolete
repeat after me: my children render me obsolete
engrave it on your heart: my children render me obsolete
remember it like September 11: my children render me obsolete
take it like your daily dose of prozac: my children render me obsolete
in spite of the fact that between us, you and me, there is a secret that will remain a secret for a while: my
children render me obsolete
even though I know myself and every piece of baggage I haul around with obvious pride on my hopefully
one-way trip uptown: my children render me obsolete
walking on water as the sunrise kisses my nakedness to buffer the shock of recognition that comes with
the light: my children render me obsolete
I carry what needs carrying and hold my voice this time and that, as needed, and stop to smell the rusty
roses no matter who or how many look at me strangely and still: my children render me obsolete
the howling man on the corner nods “yes,” “yes,” “a thousand times, yes” teaching me his burning song
while I break my mental back trying to think of something—ANYTHING!—that will prove my love and
earn me a place by the right hand of the Lord before I have to hit the road chanting: my children render
me obsolete
you let me in and wonder where I’ve been and how I dream my dreams and how, in the name of all that’s
good, joy leaps from my heart: my children render me obsolete
ask if I remember my history, my pilgrim’s progress and wonder how much further I can go now that: my
children render me obsolete
after the fall, the long fall, the sure fall, the predicted fall, the fall that awaits us all, I appeal to be
awakened even though I am bruised and I am battered and I am bloodied and my journey enters it’s
endgame with the cold efficiency of a ticking clock, a pointing compass, stars crossing the night sky in
the veiled face of God and you ask me if: my children render me obsolete
I am my father’s son and so it is not easy to surrender, I am my mother’s son and so it is not easy to
surrender, I am as far as my family has come...except...except for my children and the one truth they
thrive on like locust in wheat fields: my children render me obsolete
my children render me obsolete
children render me obsolete
render me obsolete
ME!
obsolete

Self-Respect

You said you wanted breakfast,
So I made the perfect eggs, toast and bacon
A phone call later from whoever, there was
This sudden rush to skip your first meal
I have reached my tolerance in digesting
Half-truths and second-hand affections
I would rather wait for nothing,
Be in constant cold than in a warmth dependent
On the weather of your chameleon moods
It is not healthy for the heart to be immersed
In a hot-and-cold ocean of emotions
The topography of my life has been mixed fields
Of flourishing green areas and devastations
Part-time lover, the world will not revolve
Solely on you anymore
I deserve to be your only one,
Or I would opt to be alone
I have been happy on my own before you came
No reason why I could not live without you

Eruption

I have created a hurricane to take my fury

You painted my face and called me a clown
But I am too wicked to smile

I am no cat with numerous lives
I have but one
Diminishing

The drop of a needle and
You hear it as thunder
I wish I could sew your mouth closed with
Your utensil of destruction

Hate would make me a talented tailor

Probable Cause

If you’ve had
more than six
sex partners
you probably
have herpes.

If you’ve had
less than six
sex partners
you’re probably
a comic book collector
living in mom’s basement.

Late Night Domino Theory

Maybe the girl lost in the woods
Just dies
And maybe the chick cuffed to the bed
Just dies
And maybe Stephen King grows old
And dies
And maybe stimulus doesn’t work and people
Die
And a random nuke creates
Death
And a plotted Plague creates
Death
And Christians and Moslems and Bhuddists and Hindus
Die
Die
The merrygoround went belly up, fuck you-DIE
You know why you're here, Morning Glory?
To snarksniff a flower
Dryhump a lover
Toddlequick to find meaning
Wrinklecry
And, Die

Now, quit arguing with me
You said Italian sausage?
No
Everyone gets that

Tracy M. Rogers Biography

     Tracy M. Rogers, Editor and Creative Architect for The Aurora Review: An Eclectic Literary and Cultural Magazine, is a photographer, writer, and web designer. She grew up in Fayetteville, a college town in northwestern Arkansas. She holds a history degree from the University of Arkansas and dropped out of graduate school due to “creative differences” with her faculty advisors. Her poetry can be found in Poetry Kit Magazine and the current issue of Prism Quarterly. When she is not masterminding The Aurora Review, Tracy is either busy writing her first novel or working on her ongoing “Clouds” photo project.

The Kitchen Manager

I’ve just started working
in the kitchen of a French restaurant
with a small, wired guy named Carlos
who talks a lot. I’m hunched over
the dish pit and I can hear Carlos
running vectors between stacks of pans,
countertops, ovens, chattering—

“Hey Don get that order moving.
Don. What kind of white bread
bullshit name is that? Before
my mother left me she said

‘never trust a guy with a white name.’”
Then, in an instant, he’s standing next to me,
unloading an armful of dishes.
“What about you? What are you into?”
When I tell him I’m studying poetry
he says, “Poetry?
Like flowers and love and that shit?”

He laughs at his own joke.
He is facing me, breathing heavy,
and I can see the sweat on his face.
I’m sweating too. I jump at a flame
that leaps from the stove,
and say “Yeah, pretty much.”
He laughs, and rushes off.
Besides, this is his turf, and he

knows it well. He knows the poetry
of how a greased pan makes the dish water
turn white as it swirls down the drain, hot,
so you know it’s clean when the water
comes off it clear. Or how
if given a soup ladle to wash,
no matter how careful you are,
you will always end up with bits
of dressing on your apron.

I end the night soaked, grease-stained,
small cuts and nicks on my hands,
my black shoes grey from what
I’ve spilled on them. Carlos has been here
for three years. He stays clean.

He can mince a pile of cilantro
without a spot of green getting on his apron,
or clean out the deep fryer without
a single scalding splash, or take out
two bags of trash, leaving a trail of garbage
juice that leads to the dumpster, without
a drop of it on his shoes.

But just like I don’t tell him, he will not
teach me this, knowing the best teachers
are burned skin, stained clothes, sore muscles—
that these, not him, will be what I take
with me—the particulars, not the one
kitchen manager among how many thousand
working in French restaurants
across the country.

Deep Throat

Strange
to think that a pseudo-clever code name
that was the name of a popular-at-the-time porn movie
could ever be seated at the children’s table of history,
but
there it is
For years
guessing the true identity of the famous anonymous source
was a popular parlor game for people of power,
until
2005 and the big reveal,
the solving of the mystery more than thirty years old
And
the man’s name was Mark Felt
And then
came the continued children’s-table prating,
the lame debate among statists of various tripes:
‘liberals’ proclaiming him a hero for helping to bring down the hated Nixon,
while
the ‘conservative’ attack dogs of that and subsequent administrations
decried him as a traitor for revelaing their machinations
I proclaim them both wrong,
or,
maybe,
both partially right,
though
not for the reasons either intended
Here’s the sordid saga of sour grapes and pseudo-heroism

Felt had worked (wormed?) his way up the hierarchy,
becoming
the Associate Director of the FBI, the #2 man,
under Hoover’s successor L. Patrick Gray,
but
then retiring/resigning after not getting the top job himself
after his bumbling boss Gray was forced to resign
(possibly
the Nixonites suspected Felt of leaking information
to the ‘hated’ Washington Post)
Hero or traitor?
You make the call

Hoover dies
Felt helps Hoover’s secretary destroy
17, 750 pages contained in 167 files,
unofficial (secret) files,
while
simultaneously proclaiming
“the Bureau doesn’t have any secret files”
and
“There’s no serious problem if we lose some papers
I don’t see anything wrong and I still don’t”
(okay,
grammar’s obviously not his strong suit)
Later,
he and others burglarize
(euphemistically called black-bag jobs)
on 9 separate occcasions
the homes of suspected members of the Weather Underground
or members of their families,
never once
gaining anything that led to a capture
(dishonest and inefficient: nic combination)
for which,
in 1978,
Felt and others
were indicted;
they
“did unlawfully, willingly, and knowingly
combine, conspire, confederate
and agree together and with each other
to injure and oppress citizens of the United States . . .
in the free exercise and enjoyments
of certain rights and privileges secured to them
by the Constitution and the laws
of the United States of America”
(I agree,
some legal minds don’t write any better than Felt speaks)
Convicted,
after a trial where Nixon,
slithering out of the slime of his disgrace,
made his first post-resignation court appearance
by testifying for the defense
(crimes against ‘radicals’ are okay,
but
Nixon crossed the line in committing crimes
against the other half of the Ruling Party)
And,
as well,
five former Attorney Generals testified for Felt
And yet,
amazingly,
he was still convicted,
though
he was pardoned in early 1981
by Ronnie Raygun
“I feel very excited and just so pleased
that I can hardly contain myself”
Nixon
sent along champagne and a note
“Justice ultimately prevails”
“You did what you thought was in the best interests of the country
and someone on technical grounds indicted you”
Now,
at death’s door,
Felt felt
it was time for him to cash in,
to
reap the rewards of his wrongdoing

The web version of this poem does not have Michael Ceraolo’s indentations.
Order the print copy of cc&d to see this poem in it’s true form.

Just for fun

    i reside within you i’ll eat your insides then jump out and skin you make a jacket with your flesh go in your fridge and grab a frash beer and watch tv throw your remains in the ivy take your car and go to the store grab a whore and bring her back to your place fuck her to death then rip off her face and make a mask and dance around like a satanic clown smash pictures of your family and slash myself with the glass i have mass appeal in hell they love me they wanna shove me in a blender and all take a drink i wanna run your family van off the road and watch you all sink in the lake screamin fuckin cryin i’m laughin while you’re dyin no fuckin ryme no fuckin reason i just like to hunt and humans are always in season

The Optimism ofthe Criminal Mind

The gun had symptoms
of malnutrition.
The barrel’s blood
visible beneath
a layer of fastidious grime.
Butt scraped and scuffed,
no flash no pop
like the old days.
Now, a manicured hand
lay it in a purse
of plastic earth.

53 Chevy

People laugh at my old beater car.
It’s a 1983 Chevy. I’ll admit it isn’t
much to look at particularly the
rusted out wheel wells. It gets good
mileage and doesn’t burn oil. It gives
a good ride. Why would I want a
new car? I’m not into status symbols.
You can keep your conspicuous
consumption. You can keep all of those
slick sports cars. Convertibles are inane,
trucks are for working men and vans are
for soccer moms.

I don’t care for the glitz, that’s not what
a car is for. If you take the long
perspective my old Chevy does what a
car is supposed to do; it gets me from here
to there and yes, there are no monthly
payments.

When Daddy Comes Around

He is never around
when the children need to be
driven to school, soccer practice, or a recital.
He is not even around when
child support payments have to be made.
The only time he is around
is when he wants to play
baseball or football with his son
or pretend his little daughter is a princess
dressed up in her mother’s wedding dress and high heels.
How do you know when he comes around?
Just look for the guy who shows up at the front door,
wearing mouse ears and
holding a football under his arm
and a big silly grin that could get him
promoted from kindergarten to first grade.

About Julie Kovacs

     Julie Kovacs lives in Venice, Florida. Her poetry has been published in Children Churches and Daddies, Because We Write, Illogical Muse, Poems Niederngasse, Aquapolis, The Blotter, and Cherry Bleeds. She is the author of two poetry books: Silver Moonbeams, and The Emerald Grail. Her website is at http://thebiographicalpoet.blogspot.com/

too far

thought about
getting a rib or two
removed
like Cher
but I figured
they’ve got to
be there for
something
and hey, that’s
just going
too far

The Apartment

    “Could you pull out a can of sardines to have with lunch?”, he asked me, so I got up from my chair, put down the financial pages, and walked into the kitchen. The newspaper fell to the ground, falling out of order. I stepped on the pages as I walked away. I realized he hadn’t been listening to a thing I said.

    He had to look for a job, I had told him before. This apartment is too small and we still can’t afford it. I put in so many extra hours at work, and he doesn’t even help at home. There are dishes left from last week. There is spaghetti sauce crusted on one of the plates in the sink. I opened up the pantry, moved the cans of string beans and cream corn. There was an old can of peaches in the back; I didn’t even know it was there. I found a sardine can in the back of the shelf.

    I saw him from across the apartment as I opened up the can. “We have to do something about this,” I said. “I can’t even think in this place. I’m tired of living in a cubicle.”

    He closed the funny pages. “Get used to it, honey. This is all we’ll ever get. You think you’ll get better? You think you deserve it? For some people, this is all they’ll get. That’s just the way life is.”

    I looked at the can. I looked at the little creatures crammed into their little pattern. It almost looked like they were supposed to be that way, like they were created to be put into a can. The smell made me dizzy. I pushed the can away from me. I couldn’t look at it any longer.

This writing appears in the books Hope Chest in the Attic, (woman.), and Exaro Versus.

leaving

She walked over to the thermostat again.
“It’s hot in here,” she said to him again,
but the temperature still read a cool 68 degrees.
He started complaining to her about something,
like he did before, like he’d do again.
She walked into the kitchen and started
to splash some cold water on her face.

“Could you get a can of sardines while
you’re in there?”, he said to her.
Without saying a word, she walked to the
front door, picked her denim jacket off
the brass coat rack, grabbed the keys
hanging from the hook, and walked out the door.

She walked a mile and a half in the cold
before getting to the empty field.
Late November brought the first snow,
and bits of ice clung to the ground
in the early December night. She walked
out into the grass and leaves, and
listened to them crack as she moved.
The water she splashed onto her face
before was now frozen. Her ears,
her nose -- the skin on her hands and
cheeks -- were turning red, then purple.
The tops of her legs hurt from the cold.

She walked to the center of the field.
She sat down in the dirt. She smiled.
She laughed. She watched the moisture
from her breath freeze as soon as it left her
lips. She hurt from the cold. And she laughed.

A Socially Accepted Target

rape is anger
misdirected towards
a socially accepted target:
women
                  - Men and Politics Group,
                  East Bay Men’s Center,
                  Statement on Rape

i didn’t get the promotion i deserved
i work in a cubicle
the boss doesn’t know my name
i put in too much overtime
this tie makes it hard to breathe

this traffic is always in my way
there’s all these bills i have to pay

i’m angry all the time

and the damn kids are banging
their toys when i come home
and dinner is never on time
and your looks have just gone to hell
and i hate you

i just want a fucking beer, you bitch

it’s all your fault

for better or for worse

Most Accurate Metaphors

it is a political crime
committed by men
as a class
against women
as a class

rape is an attempt by men
to keep all women in line

                  Bob Lamm, 1976

now there’s two ways
this can happen, little girl
you can keep fighting me,
and if that’s the case, i’ll
have to keep my hand
over your mouth and
this knife at your neck,
or you can relax, enjoy
yourself, make this easier
on the both of us

you know you want this
so stop fighting it

i saw the way you were
looking at me earlier,
the way you stared at me
the way you were dressed
i know what you were thinking
so don’t say a word

did you think those drinks
were free

how long did you think
i could wait
it’s my turn now
you owe it to me

just do as i say
and no one gets hurt

i’m really going this time

i pack my bags
say i’m really going this time

you throw my bags
scream at me to leave

before you get more violent
and you mean it this time

i’m sitting in my car
outside the hotel

see you at the window
holding the drapes back

why do i have to think
that means you care?

why do i come back,
asking you if you realize

what you’ve done to me,
if you realize what

you’re about to lose.
i’ll bet you think

you’ll call me once
and everything will be

forgotten. other times,
yes, i’ve forgiven you.

i’ve come back. but i
can’t take being thrown

to the ground, strangled.
when i realize what i

lost that night, i’m
scared. but i have to

remember that you
lost more. you lost me.

i’m really going this time,
and you won’t see me again.

carry this with you,
always. this pain, like

the pain you’ve given me.
you won’t see me. carry this.

precinct fourteen

margaritas until two in the morning,
but of course we then decided that the
best thing to do would be to go out

and so off to the blue note we went,
found some interesting people to talk
to, closed the bar, i think that was the

first time i ever did that, closed a late-
night bar, i mean, and at four-thirty you
drove me home down milwaukee ave

and i know it angles, and you can see
the traffic light for oncoming traffic
as easily as you can see your own light,

but i’m sure the light was green, and not
red like the cops said, when they pulled
you over. you could have been in big

trouble that night, no insurance, no city
registration sticker, a michigan driver’s
license when you’d lived in illinois for

over a year now, a cracked windshield,
running a red light, probably intoxicated.
so they brought us to the station at five a.m.,

and all they did was write you a ticket,
and they gave me a business card, said if we
had any problems to give them a call.

you drove me home, and the cops met
us there, too, hitting on me again, and
although we both agreed that the night

was a lot of fun, even with the involvement
of the fourteenth precinct, i still believe
that damn light wasn’t even red.

Loss

saw you a few times
after they told me you were sick

you looked fine
you looked good

I couldn’t see anything wrong with you

*

finally, I would call you
ask if you could still drive a car

and I invited you to visit me
so we could spend some time together

and you would say, why
so I’d have a new tv to watch for a while

I didn’t want this to happen to you,
I swear

your family watch lupis take a loved one
and now ALS consumes you

your mind is just fine
that’s what the doctors tell me

it’s just that your nervous system
is breaking you down cellularly

and your crystal clear, sharp mind
has to stand by and watch yourself fall apart

I know this is rare
but it’s progressive, degenerative, fatal

and watching you go through this
increasing and spreading muscular weakness

as you live through your days now
I imagine hearing your heartbeat

like the flapping of hummingbird wings
under water

I know I’m not the one suffering
but I am

*

I know I’ve lived through hell
but it’s not fair that I survived

just to watch this happen to you

*

went to a funeral today
and saw you there

wheelchair bound, slurred speech
thin as a rail

but still smiling when you saw me
and I had to smile and small talk with you

with you, who could barely speak
and I had to act like everything was okay

your friend held your cigarette outside with you
put the cigarette to your lips

so you could inhale, then he pulled it away
to wait for your next breath

*

I couldn’t stay at the funeral too long
today I had seen too much death

my love for you
will stay the same

(a song)

everybody’s looking for some shelter from the storm
and everybody’s looking for someone to keep them warm
but I don’t wanna play if you’re a temporary game
my love for you will stay the same
my love for you will stay the same
        (my love for you)

now the tide is turning
the fire embers burning

everybody wants to find a way to shed the shame
everybody wants to find a way to share the blame
but you can put me through the heartache, I can take the pain
my love for you will stay the same
my love for you will stay the same
        (my love for you)

the rhythm in your fingers
the memory still lingers

listen to your flowers now, the petals scream out loud
and all these seasons come and go without a single sound
i can hear the flower petals calling out your name
my love for you will stay the same
my love for you will stay the same

Keep Them Apart

you think they’re meant to stay apart
you think you’ve done everything humanly possible
to keep them apart

but they’ll come together
trust me

it doesn’t matter where that car is traveling
to Colorado, through Utah
to California to Las Vegas
even through Texas, past New Orleans
it doesn’t matter if we have to kick people out of your home
it doesn’t matter if we have to act like nothing’s going on
because at some point,
no matter how far away
no matter how remote
we’ll get together

even if it’s only to cross each other
then go or separate ways

Only For One Night

I didn’t know what I was looking for
but when I came to you
I thought
            from here
I’ve got a nice view
and I thought that was enough

you had the same anger in you as I
and I didn’t think anything of it
until I was alone
and saw that we could be
angrily, passionately together
even if it was only for one night

Got on the Road Again

after scrubbing my clothes
with a small bar of soap in a sink
in some no-name hotel
I drove across the country
    my washed, wet clothes held down
    by closed car windows at the seams
    as American roads dried my clothes
until I was ready for you

when I was with you,
everything was cosmopolitan
and casinos harmonized
their winning and losing chimes

and it was harmonizing
when I won with you

but I had to pack up again
this is what I do, you know
so I gathered my clothes
saved them for the suitcase
and got on the road again

what we need in life

(a song)

I don’t know where this highway’s taking me anymore        and
I don’t know the right lines to say
I don’t feel the things that you’re feeling
                down deep inside of you        but
I know this ain’t the way

nothing ventured
nothing gained
nothing changes
nothing stays the same

but you go your way
I go mine
maybe one day
we will find

what we need in life

what we need in life

I watch the ashes from your cigarette
                fall to the ground        and
I think this fire will die down
I think I now see what is happening here
                between us        and
I have to say good bye

nothing ventured
nothing gained
nothing changes
nothing stays the same

so you go your way
I go mine
maybe one day
we will find

what we need in life

what we need in life

I can’t stay bitter and lonely and restless anymore        and
I can’t be here with you
I see the red in your eyes and it scares me half to death        and
I’ll take this road alone

nothing ventured
nothing gained
nothing changes
nothing stays the same

you go your way
and I go mine
maybe one day
we will find

what we need in life

what we need in life

This song was original performed by Mom’s Favorite Vase (music by Warren Peterson) at bars in Chicago (inclding a venue with Poi Dog Pondering for a political event and a concert where the Grateful Dead tribute band Uncle John’s Band opened for Mom’s Favorite Vase), but this song has been performed this millennium (with John Yotko) live in Chicago, Tennessee, Alaska, and over the Pacific Ocean to audience members from the United States, Canada, Ecuador and Austria.

The Long Road Home

    This drive is different than other drives. Normally I might be looking at the saguaro cacti or the vast, arid and strangely refreshing beauty of the desert. This drive is over an hour when speeding and there is usually a balance of peace and urgency due to the monotony. One straight line, while on both sides escorted by purple mountain tops. Tempting and unattainable they seem, for they are far from this flat landscape; even more so knowing I don’t won’t be looking at them again. At least I have the breeze of a moving vehicle. My palms are sweating and my heart is spasming uncontrollably it seems. If I dared to look at my chest, I might see it like never before amid its desperation. I don’t.
     I have to keep my eyes on the road. I have to smile and wave when I see the border patrol SUV’s. Not too much and not too friendly, but just enough so that they can be distracted from my passengers. I won’t look in the backseat, because that will be like acknowledging that they are there and I cannot dare to do that. Acknowledgement is the first step to guilt and I am totally consumed with breathing normally at this point. My passengers are my salvation on this day. They are also a painful reminder of what I’ve become.
    They are two large green duffel bags, overflowing w/ compacted marijuana. Alex didn’t have a chance to strap it to the bottom of the car like he promised. We had to move fast. Upon arrival to his trailer his dog growled at me as usual and he burst out of the door w/ more alertness than usual. He looked around intently and suspiciously, obviously straining to move slowly. He told me there’s at least one Border Patrol vehicle over that hill, but they aren’t paying attention. I wanted to hug him and say “Thank You” and so much more, but the wheels had already been set in motion and there were no brakes for this train. There was no room in my trunk-too small. So there they were, in plain view in the back seat of my little car. I was worried, but it was too late. He asked, “Do you want to back out?” I told him, “I can’t, I need the money Alex”. His condolences ended there, because he was a business man. You couldn’t let his drug habits or sentiments fool you. His baby’s face concealed his shrewdness and survival instinct. I didn’t know it upon first meeting him, but he was a regular at cock and dog fights and apparently had been importing drugs for years. I might have preached to him in another life, but this was not that life. He was my only open door. Suddenly dog-fighting and coke-snorting all move to the acceptable pile, when you are in a world on fire and he is the only person helping you to extinguish the flames.
    All of these feelings and recent memories swirl quickly and I have to struggle not to hyperventilate. I see one border patrol car. “Smile and wave... smile and wave”, I tell myself. They don’t even follow me, like they used to when I didn’t have 100 pounds of marijuana in my car! It becomes increasingly more difficult during this long drive to keep my cool. I then resort to talking out loud in my car and saying “Almost there, keep it calm... you’re fine, fine, fine”. I do this so my mind does not have a chance to fully comprehend the possible consequence of this act. I try to nonchalantly dry my very slick palms w/ the air-conditioning vent, as the next border patrol car passes by. I am only able to smile with out waving this time. Did they notice?
    During periods like this in one’s life you cling to any bit of encouragement. That is how I found myself reading my horoscope that morning. It said, “Do not pass up this opportunity. It will only be available today.” Being the impetuous alcoholic I am, I rode with it. I immersed myself in the fantasy. The horoscope was speaking to me, I reasoned. What originally was going to be a let-down conversation with Alex, turned into a full-fledged moment of truth. Normally I’d be fidgeting with the CD player trying to find the appropriate song or lighting my cigarettes off of one another, but today I can only hold on to the steering wheel and look straight ahead. This place does this to you. It cuts us all down to size. When I first arrived at the ranch and Valerie pointed out The Border, my first question was, “where is the fence?” Her response: a laugh. It was confusion and then I removed it from my thought process. Maybe if I had been more aware, I could have seen it coming. It was a slow denigration of my integrity. I was not only on the border of the US and Mexico, I was on the border of civilization itself.
    There were unspeakable crimes committed within hearing distance and more just out. Hearing about people traveling miles through the desert with their infants and all of their earthly possessions, is one thing, but meeting them is another. Hearing the wranglers talk about witnessing some Brazilians being robbed at gunpoint by Mexican thugs is a lot closer to home. I want to get as far away from this place as possible after this. I will. Just one leap of faith, one bargain with the devil and I will be free of this place, it seemed.
    So I wait in the parking lot on the edge of town, just as promised. The duffel bags silently read me the riot act in the rearview, reminding me of all of the charges I could face, if someone figured out how long I’d been sitting in my car without entering the grocery store. I smoked and thought calm thoughts. These things happen every day, even Valerie and her husband from the city new that their law degrees couldn’t protect them from licking flames of the border.
    Alex was calm and laughed quietly while he counted out the hundreds for my payment, and he asked, “So, you want to do another one?” He meant another drug run. I told him my heart couldn’t take it, but the truth was—my luck had run out. Another spin of the roulette wheel, and I don’t know where it would land. No, this was my one chance out of this place. As I drove east toward home, the wind whipped fiercely like a gale at sea. It must be the same feeling when a sailor survives a storm in the Bermuda Triangle—with less trash and more glory. I turned the radio up then for the flames were at my back now and any new song promised to be better than the last.

Tube Travel

    They came for him early that morning. Not even allowing him to eat breakfast, they slapped some handcuffs on him and said, “This is your day. If you live through it, you get to go free.”
    He grumbled back, “Oh great.” He was thinking of the bank job that led him to this place, and the ten-to-twenty he faced otherwise. All for twenty grand I never received. This is the best option I have. I’ll play their game this once. The bastards.
    They led him out of the prison, to a waiting van. The offer was repeated to him by an official at the medical institute. By prior arrangement with the state, his sentence would be commuted and he would be freed. But only if he agreed to help test out a new transportation device, and sign a waiver absolving the government of any responsibility in case of an accident. He signed, thinking ‘what difference would it make anyways; they were killing him slowly with prison life. If something went wrong it would just speed things up.’ They drove him to a building belonging to the institute, located out in the suburbs.
    Mark looked out the window, seeing lush houses, cars, the lucky people owning such things.
    How I would like to pluck some of that fruit, he thought, scenes of rape and theft running through his mind.
    The Tube apparatus was warming up. A high-pitched whine emanated from racks of collimation modules, preparing the thousands of precise beams. An ozone smell permeated the area. All of the indicators were green, and everything appeared to be functioning at high efficiency. Mark was nervous. He eyed the small tube he was facing with apprehension. He was seated in a square chamber, about six by six by ten. Surrounding his ‘chair’ were hundreds of beam nozzles. and receptors. These, in turn, were surrounded by miles of cabling, power units, computation modules - enough to fill half the building. They would scan every atom of his body, and then convert his atoms through a process of magnetic plasma modulation. His atoms would be converted to an intense beam of pulsating laser light, and fired through a fiber-optic cable hundreds of miles, to be decoded and re-assembled on the other side. It had worked on animals - most of the time.
    “How do you feel, Mark?” a voice sounded in the chamber.
    “Alright, I guess. I think the sedative is beginning to take effect.”
    “Good. You just relax. The animal trials have been successful in the hundreds. You should be fine,” said the voice, belonging to Dr. Sanderson of the Institute for Advanced Medicine. “And then you will go down in history as the first human being to travel through a fiber-optic cable - albeit a highly specialized one.
    “Oh, great. Bad enough that I got busted trying to rob that bank; I should have taken out a couple of guards while I was at it. Oh well, gotta go somehow, eh?” He looked over at the heavily reinforced window, at the assembled teams faces, and winked.
    “Come on, now, Mark. You knew what you were getting into here. And, like I said, it is proven safe. It’ll be a piece of cake!”
    “Alright, alright. Let’s get this over with, shall we?” Mark was getting annoyed all over again.
    “Only a few more minutes. Relax now, Mark. Soon this will be over, and you will be in the history books,” said Dr. Sanderson. Soon, Mark was left alone with his thoughts. He remembered the botched bank job yet again, how with just a few adjustments in their timing, it might have worked. He imagined himself knocking over a bigger bank, or even taking an armored car - that would be a retirement package - if he ever made it through this so-called test, that is.
    All of a sudden, a multitude of beams laced his body with bright light, tracing contours, measuring, calculating. Then, even brighter wavelets of light ran up and down his body, compressing spaces, altering shapes. Powerful particle beams copied every cellular pattern and molecular link, and encoded these onto the laser beam even now pumping his essence through the glass fiber-optic cable (specially constructed for this purpose). Several minutes later, in a receiving chamber, light played out over an empty plastifoam chair, and a form began to appear. Particle and light beams translated his essence back into a body, and the body back into a human one, the human one back into Mark. He became whole again, all spaces intact. The process took about five minutes. Then the door opened, and doctors rushed in to check his pulse and vital signs. His body rested limply against the webbing, head lolling, eyelids fluttering. His heartbeat was erratic.
    “Get the paddles! STAT,” shouted a medic. Other aides rushed up quickly with the necessary items. They moved him into a specially prepared medical theater next to the chamber. A short jolt from the paddles stimulated his heart to beat at a proper rhythm. Some oxygen from a mask helped him to breathe. An IV was inserted with a nutrient solution. And Mark had made it. He could not remember precisely what happened - his thinking felt fuzzy. The altering beams could not capture thoughts mid-stride. The effects on his brain chemicals were unknown, but could be surmised from the numerous animal experiments and computer modelings. So he was held for a week at the clinic in Portland, for observation and therapy. They determined that he appeared to be fine. He had done it. He had made a trip through a tiny glass fiber, hundreds of miles, from Los Angeles, California to Portland, Oregon, to an Institute clinic. And he was intact.
    “Wha... What happened?” he said, upon regaining consciousness.
    “You did it, Mark. You made it through the fiber! You remember the fiber?” replied a medic.
    “Yeah, I think. I was supposed to do this crazy experiment, go, oh! You mean I made it? I went through that tube?” Marks eyes widened in surprise. He touched his face with shaking hands in wonder.
    Dr. Carlson grinned. “Yes, yes. You did it. Congratulations. Now, you have to give us a run-down. How do your joints feel? Are you hungry?”
    Mark rubbed his forehead. He felt different inside, like he was in love with life - odd. “Be patient with me, please,“ he said. Carlson frowned. “We need your help filling out some questionnaires.”
    “I would be happy to, Doc.” Mark flashed a beatific smile. “Just tell me what you want, and I’ll be happy to help out.”
    Dr. Carlson hesitated, and looked Mark over curiously. “Are you sure you feel alright? “
    “I feel confused, doc, although I could use a glass of water or something.” Mark sat up in his bed and patted his stomach. “It feels pretty empty - but I don’t want to be any trouble.”
    Wow, this is a change. The devil becomes an angel. “Sure, no problem Mark;
    Someone get this man a glass of water!” Dr. Carlson yelled out the doorway.

    “But we need to do some of this right away, while your memory is still fresh. Now, please, Mark.”
    “Okay, I‘m ready.” said Mark. “What do you want to know?”
    “For starters, how do your joints feel? Arms, legs, fingers?”
    Mark stretched and flexed his limbs. “They feel okay, I guess. A bit stiff. My fingers are sore.”
    “Where?”
    And the questions went on for an indeterminable amount of time, but to Mark, it seemed like it went by quickly. They finally removed the IV and fed him a lunch, and it was delicious. For all intents and purposes, he felt fine. He informed them that he remembered up until being seated in the sending cubicle. And then, the next thing he remembered, he was laying on the receiving web.
    Dr. Carlson was talking to Dr. Sanderson on the phone. “It was as if his body blocked out what happened. Since, of course, the body would have no way of really remembering being dissasembled bit by bit and reassembled hundreds of miles away.
    Sanderson replied, “Well I am glad he made it through okay. Shows that our invention really works.”
    Carlson grinned. “Kind of gives you faith in your own hardware, eh?”
    “Well, it is one thing to send rats through, but a live human body is another thing entirely. But we are very pleased with these results. This is the culmination of two decades of work by the Institute,” enthused Sanderson.
    “Maybe the time has come for one of us to use it, now that have a successful human subject.”
    “Perhaps. Dr. Kagin here has expressed a desire to go through; Maybe he will be next. We will let you know. Meantime, keep tabs on Mark Maulsby - he should be monitored for quite awhile, for any aftereffects.”
    “Sounds good. Bye for now.” Carlson ended the call.
    Then Carlson went to the room where they were holding Mark. “Well, Mark, we need to do some further assessments; we should be done here in a week. As I understand it, you will go through some processing, and then be freed in another week or so. The Correctional Officers are coming by in awhile to pick you up. By participating in this test, you have gained your freedom.”
    “Good, I look forward to going out and making a difference in the world. There are so many people with needs out there.” Mark got a faraway look in his eyes.
    Carlson blinked a few times. “Well, I’m sure they will be glad to hear that at the correctional institute. Now let’s get you to your room to rest up, and then do some further tests.”
    Later, dictating a record of the experiment, Dr. Carlson noted, “The only side effect I can determine is that it changed a career criminal’s attitude to that of a charity worker. Amazing transformation. We will monitor him, of course, but I hope this sticks. Perhaps the tube travel apparatus could be a quasi-treatment for sociopaths!”
    “Yes, he was fine. No obvious side effects, although we are keeping him for observation.” The voice sounded reassuring. Dr. Kagin listened, and then delivered his bombshell. “I want to try it. Why? Because I helped design it, and I am not getting any younger. We have had dozens of successful animal trials, and now a good human test. I want to give it a try. Oh, don’t worry. Hell, I’m in my sixties, I don’t really care at this point. Okay....sounds good...” Finally Kagin ended the call, a satisfied look on his face. Why shouldn’t I get to be one of the first through the tube...

    Mark Maulsby was walking down Main street on a sunlit morning. He was free now, and feeling full of love, and in love with life. He loved every ounce of the world, every dirty cigarette butt on the ground, every soiled park bench, every grimy bus sign, every stumbling, slobbering homeless drunk. He still had some cash from the modest amount given to him by the correctional facility upon his discharge. As another panhandler approached him, noting how he had handed out some bills already, he gave the man a big smile. “Do you need help, sir? I want to make a difference in this big, beautiful world.” And handed him one of his last dollar bills.
    Mark didn’t much care where he would lay his head down, only that he would find a place. Meanwhile, the world needed his healing love. He kept walking for a couple of miles, and finally decided it was time to rest. Even someone determined to help the world needed rest at times. He sat down on a bus bench near a busy intersection.
    Another gentleman plopped down next to him shortly afterward. He was disheveled looking, long stringy hair, and needed a shave.
    The man squinted, rubbing his whiskered jaw. “Well, look at what we have here? Is it really Mark Maulsby?”
    Mark turned and looked at the guy. “Do I know you, sir? Do you need help?”
    “That tube squirt must have scrambled your brains for sure. I was with you on that last job, remember?” said the man, sitting back and staring at him.
    “Dennis? It is you! Do you need help, Dennis? I’ve changed now.”
    “Oh well isn’t that special. Well, Mr. Help The World, what I would like to know is why there is a price on your head right now. See, somehow a hundred thou disappeared from that last job, and the cops never recovered it. They still don’t know where it is. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that now, Mr. helping hands?”
    “I don’t know what you are talking about. They grabbed me without any money. You guys were supposed to take the sacks. Anyway, that life is over. I’m a new man now, Dennis. You should go through the tube. You will be astounded at how it makes you feel,” said Mark.
    “Well, that is interesting, but that is the same line you have told everyone. And since the man who hired us is not too happy about his money being gone, you have to be made an example of, Mark.” Dennis reached underneath his coat, looking around furtively.
    “Dennis, please. Now lets talk this over. You don’t understand what has happened...”
    “Oh I understand all right. They just let you go after some tube experiment. And now you are handing out money right and left to every bum you see? Yeah, I understand. Not too bright, Mark.”
    Mark sputtered. “You don’t understand....that was the money they gave me...”

    He didn’t get a chance to finish. Dennis produced a 12-inch long hunting knife, and plunged it into Mark’s side one, two, three times. Mark gasped in pain and surprise, his hands trying to block the knife and getting cut in the process.
    Dennis leapt up, and said, “nice knowing you, do-gooder. See you in hell.” And then he ran off, tossing the blade away.
    Mark settled back on the bus bench, thinking to himself, “at least I was able to help some people before I go...” The red haze that permeated his fall into unconsciousness was shot through with love for humanity and all its fallibilities. Then, his world went black.

    Dr. Sanderson sat stunned in a break room at the institute, watching the news report with several other doctors and aides. “Mark Maulsby, a former inmate who recently took part in a groundbreaking experiment in long distance travel, was found stabbed to death on a bus bench in central ......”
    “After all we have done, now this? Who can understand these things?” he said to no one in particular. An office aide came up, and sat next to him. They both stared at the TV in shocked silence.

    “The fact of Mark Maulsby’s transformation from a hardened convict to a charitable person is something that requires further study. The fiber-optic transport system that we thought would revolutionize travel now seems to have an additional benefit. It seems that during Maulsby’s transit and reassembly, the computer programs that reassembled him made some automatic adjustments to his brain.” Drs Sanderson and Kagin were lecturing an assembled group of specialists at an institute office in Los Angeles.
    “So let me get this straight. Instead of his brain structure, the software assembled him back together according to what his brain should have been, a more standard structure,” an assistant asked.
    “Yes, that is correct. The computer made certain decisions and reconstructed brain tissue accordingly,” said Dr. Kagin.
    “What it says to me, is that anyone going through will be rebuilt according to a computer model, and not who they really are. In effect, you are killing the original to make a copy?”
    “Well - not exactly. The whole thing will require further study. Anyone going through will need to sign waivers, and go on a strictly volunteer basis,” said Sanderson.
    A laywer piped up from the back, “Make darn sure they know all the risks - and sign a pile of waivers. The institute could potentially be charged with murder if we don’t get this right!”
    “True enough. We still have a lot of work to do,” said Dr. Sanderson, grimacing.

    Dr. Kagin thought to himself, you just can’t help it, you old fool. Always having to be the adventurer.
    But there is only one way to understand the problems with the transport system firsthand, and that is to go through it. Here goes nothing!
    “How do you feel, Doctor?” the voice came through a speaker in the chamber where Kagin sat in the transport chair.
    “A bit funny in this one-piece suit, but otherwise fine. Let’s get on with it, shall we?”
    “Okay, Dr., just checking. Just relax and try and be still. Initiating the process in 30 seconds now...”
    The light flared up all around him, and then Dr. Kagin lost all awareness of what was happening. His molecules, atoms were being scanned, copied and stripped away at the speed of light, from multiple directions. He shrank and shrank, tissues being exposed and stripped away in milliseconds. Soon, he was nothing but encoded light, travelling through glass, on his way to Portland, Oregon. He arrived in moments, and was reconstructed, layer by layer in the special receiving chamber. A few moments later, he began to dream again.
    “Dr Kagin? Can you hear me? Dr. Kagin, are you okay?”
    His dreams, full of passions and animal lusts and desires, were rudely interrupted. Some damn fool, how dare he?
    “Wha...What do you want?” He opened his eyes. Bright light, doctors. “Where am I?”
    “You made it, Doc. You are in Portland. How do you feel?” Dr. Carlson was looking him over. He held up some fingers. “How many fingers?”
    “Three, you dummy. Whatsamatter, don’t think I can count?” Kagin gave him a scowl.
    The doctors in the room glanced at each other uneasily. “We are just seeing if you are okay.”
    “Of course I’m okay, I made it through, didn’t I? Now would someone get that IV out of my arm and get me something to drink? I’m famished,” barked Kagin.
    The medics slowly moved to comply, still surprised by this change in his demeanor. One whispered to another, “He was never like this before, was he?”

    “Are you sure you won’t stay a little while longer, Doctor?” Dr. Sanderson looked at Kagin, concerned.
    “I’ve stayed here for a whole day. My vitals are stable, and I feel fine. What more do you need?”
    “Well, you will fill out the questionnaires? That is after all why you went through,” said Dr. Sanderson.
    “Yes, of course. Give them to me, will you?” A medic moved quickly to comply.
    “I’ll mail them to you, Sanderson. Now, if you please,” said Dr. Kagin.
    “Okay, Doc. Be careful out there. I suggest you get back to LA in the next couple of days.”
    “I’ll be going to the airport tonight - I just feel like getting out and getting some air. Thanks for your concern,” said Kagin, adopting a softer tone.
    “Alright then. Take care.”
    “Thanks, and thank you all for your efforts,” said Kagin, addressing the doctors and medics assembled in the room. He soon took his leave from the Institute building, and walked out onto the streets of Portland. He had some amazing new appetites, and it was time to satisfy them. All he needed was a suitable weapon, and some victims. He rapidly moved to acquire both.

    The meeting room had built up an aura of tension almost as thick as the odors of sweat and stale coffee.
    But it was about to be concluded, finally. The moderator gaveled for silence, and then said:
    “So, it is agreed then, that the State of California Penal Commission will commence experimental trials on ten inmates, who have given prior consent, for the purposes of particle-dispersal and reconstruction tube travel, for ethics modification testing? Can I have a motion?”
    An assemblyman stood and read out a motion. “Second?” “I second” “How many in favor?” “How many against?” “The motion has passed! The program will commence upon the selection of ten suitable volunteers.”

    Renie Abelson stared at the strange apparatus facing him. What he saw were hundreds of protrusions all around his ‘chair’ and facing him was a small glass tube about 1 inch in diameter. They told him he was going to be sent through that? <>IMaybe this will be my execution, they just didn’t want to tell me outright. Well, no turning back now. I signed all the papers. If I make it, I get to go free - a commutation by the Governor himself.
    “OK, Renie. Sit up straight and face the tube. Try and take a few breaths and relax. Just a few minutes to go.” He heard a distant whine rise in pitch, and more join in. Like a hundred dentist drills.
    Shortly, the beams came on, the room lit up like the Sun, and Renie was disassembled before he knew what hit him. His essences were encoded on beams of light, and pumped through the specially-made fiber optic cable. He arrived in Portland, intact, five minutes later. Just not conscious. He slumped against the webbing. He was not breathing. The team rushed in, and administered CPR. Within minutes they had him revived, breathing, heart beating. He was whole again.
    “Renie? Can you hear me?” Someone lifted one of his eyelids, and flashed a light in it.
    “Hey - ow. Stop it. I am here.” Renie found himself conscious and all too aware. He opened his eyes, saw himself laying in a bed, with an IV in his arm, and surrounded by people. “Did I - looks like I made it?”
    “Yes, indeed you did, Renie. You are whole, hale and hearty as far as we can tell. So how do you feel?” Dr. Sanderson flashed him a smile.
    “Not too bad, Doc. I feel happy inside, but probably from the ride I just had - is that the right thing to call it? I feel good. But I could use a little water....”
    The docs looked at each other, nodded. Yep, this one is changed alright.

    They sent more inmates through. The results were mostly what they had hoped. The meaner, more vicious death-row inmates came out the kindest, sweetest people one could hope for. But the last one, who was merely a convicted small-time drug dealer, came out the least changed. He was still a bit worldly. And he was showing some ill aftereffects.
    “So Josh is slurring some words, and showing some motor deficiencies?” asked Dr. Carlson over the phone.
    “Yes, he stutters some, and he stumbled about every fifth step. We need to keep him here awhile, I’m afraid.”
    “Well, do so. I wonder if the beam calibrations are being adjusted properly. I think it is time to halt the experiments awhile to do a thorough check of all of the equipment.”
    “That seems sensible to me. By the way, has Dr. Kagin showed up there yet? He said he was going to fly back a long time ago.”
    “No - we haven’t heard from him yet. I thought he was staying on there with you guys,” said Sanderson.
    “Uh oh. We need to find out what happened to him, ASAP. He was not acting normal when he left here.”
    “Well, thanks for letting me know about this now. I wonder, should we call the police?”
    “No - not yet. Let me hunt for him some here. Dang it, things were going so well.”
    “Well, you better handle it, Carlson. We don’t need bad publicity now.”
    “I will, I will. Better go now. Goodbye.” Dr. Carlson ended the call, and swore.

    Meanwhile, Dr. Kagin was enjoying the sights, sounds and smells of Portland street life. He had been patient, biding his time, selecting a victim carefully. We didn’t get to use a knife like this in med school. But then I never got to do an autopsy on a live person before. He could already smell the blood, hear the screams, and this gave him an erection. His intended victim, a small girl, ran and skipped away down a street. He followed from a distance, figuring out the best place to do his thing.
    There - that is a good spot. A narrow alley, just ahead. He sped up his pace, getting right up behind the girl. He would grab her and whisk her into the alley. Just then, he heard a police car making those electronic beeps. Turning to look, he saw someone inside the car waving at him. Darn it - better hide the knife.
    “Are you Dr. Jonas Kagin? Please come over here, sir.” The cop was polite but firm, waving him over. Kagin shuffled over to the police car. “Sir, the institute called us and they are very concerned.”
    “I’m fine, officer. Thank you for your concern, but I feel fine. Really.” Kagin had a large knife shoved in his back pocket, hoping they wouldn’t see it. The cops looked at each other, then one said, “Well.. they want you to call them immediately, they are very concerned.”
    “I will, officer, I promise. Thank you for your concern, but I must be going.” Kagin turned to walk away. One of the cops saw something in his pocket. “Where are you going?” Kagin began walking away swiftly.
    “Hey! Dr. Kagin! Stop.” He broke into a run. The cop began chattering into his radio, and they moved to follow him. The little girl had long since moved on, oblivious to her sudden good fortune.
    The car slowed, and one policeman jumped out to give chase. They shortly had Kagin collared and cuffed - he didn’t move as fast as he would have liked. “It’s back to the office with you, doc. What are you carrying around this knife for?”

    Dr. Sanderson waved a copy of the LA Times at the assembled board of the Institute, in consternation.
    “It’s all here. The device particulars, the agreement with the governor’s office. Even the unintended effects of the device. Look at this headline!” He pointed to the large, bold words: New Transportation System Reforms Criminals. “My phone has been ringing all day. The Governor is livid.”
    One of the senior doctors on the board, named Livingston, said, “This is terrible. We will probably be investigated up, down and sideways.” Another piped up, “So who talked? That is what I would like to know.”
    “Me too, Parker. Me too.” Sanderson fixed him with a glare that made him sit back. Sanderson straightened up, and looked over the entire group of men and women, mostly doctors. And said, “I’m suspending the program. We have sent through eight of the volunteers anyway. I would suggest that everyone be ready for phone calls from the press, if you haven’t already gotten them. And please, please - refer all questions to me or Dr. Carlson. That is our job. Thank you.” Dr. Sanderson sat down. Then, the room erupted.

    Dr. Kagin sat in the busy police precinct office, gazing around. An officer finished typing his report, turned to him and said, “one of your colleagues is coming down to pick you up.”
    “I told you, I am perfectly fine. I can walk back to the institute from here!”
    “That is not what they said; you need to be checked out further, doc.”
    Kagin stood up, and yelled, “This is outrageous! I demand that you let me go! You can’t hold me!”
    “If you don’t shut up, we are going to have to put you in a cell...” the cop didn’t get a chance to finish. Kagin grabbed him by the shirt and hit him, knocking him over. Some other cops ran over to help, and Kagin was restrained. “Take him to a cell! Damn crazy idiot.” They did so, pushing him in a common holding cell and slamming the door shut.
    Dr. Kagin stood a moment, shook himself, and then looked around. He perched himself down on a bed with a grimy mattress, and tried to meditate some. A man was seated across the way in the large holding area. He peered at Kagin, then said, “Say, aren’t you one of those eggheads at the Institute? Yeah, I recognize you.”
    Kagin said, “Excuse me, but I don’t believe I know you.”
    “Oh yes you do. You bastards cheated me out of a sentence commutation. I was going to be number nine through that tube of yours, and you went and canceled the program on me.” The man approached Kagin and stood over him, fists clenched.
    “I don’t know you! Get the hell away from me!” Kagin barked. The man grabbed Kagin by the shirt to lift him up. Kagin reacted as only his changed self could, by hitting the man in the face. They then went at each other ferociously, hitting, grabbing, even biting. The two cops standing outside the wire-cage cell were going to intervene, eventually - but they wanted to see the outcome of this. It wasn’t every day that two guinea pigs from the Institute got into a fight right under their noses.
    Finally, when Kagin had the other man beaten unconscious, they decided it was time to stop things. It took three policemen to restrain him. His victim ended up in a coma anyway. Eventually, Dr. Kagin had to be committed to an institution for the criminally insane.
    The institute decommissioned the tube transport system, and sold the component parts for scrap. Drs. Sanderson and Carlson were brought up for malpractice charges in the state of California, but managed to escape with fines and probation. Several of the volunteers that went through did live happy and productive lives. Josh, the last one through, ended up going back to prison on a burglary charge, and died in a riot the very next year. No one ever tried to use fiber optics to send people long distance again.

Kelton

        Kelton House was a home for old folks who needed watching over. On a quiet, leafy old street in Hot Springs, Arkansas, it was a turn of the century house, white with green shutters and shingles, a wrap around porch, a side wing that had been a conservatory and ball room, and ramps convenient to walkers and canes.

    Eliza Wilkins parked her older model LeSabre in the gravel lot in back and walked around the azaleas in the side yard to the front door, which had an oval leaded glass inset and a burglar bar screen. She had a good fiftyish figure and glossy platinum hair. She always wore a skirt, because wives of fundamentalist preachers did not wear pants, male attire.
    She rang the buzzer and saw Emma Kelton coming down the hall to unlock the door. Emma, who had been a geriatric nurse, had started the home, for ambulatory old folks; her family lived upstairs. Emma was a stocky woman with a broad, pleasant face and large, capable hands.
    “I thought I’d drop in and take Mama to CiCi’s for pizza.” She sniffed the fragrance of chicken, celery, and sage in the hall. “This smells so good she might want to stay here for lunch.”
    Eliza and Emma walked into the kitchen, where Emma’s daughter had a big pot of chicken and dumplings simmering on the stove and latticed apple pies cooling on the counter. Jessie Kelton, a lean woman with curly hair, was a nutritionist who planned and cooked the meals. She heard Eliza’s remark and laughed.
    “Not Miz Marie! You know she loves pizza more than anything.”
    “Jessie fixed pizza last night,” Emma said. “Miz Marie talked Miz Cherisse out of her share. I had to make her give it back!”
    The three women chuckled affectionately. Eliza could visualize the scene. While talking easily, Eliza scanned the surroundings – the impeccable kitchen and the dining room where meals were served family style. Two men were already at their places, napkins tucked under their chins. The housekeeping at Kelton House was always flawless, as Eliza knew because she dropped by at different times every day.
    The big old-style rooms had been partitioned into rooms for two or three people. Marie Rayburn had been delighted with the parquet floor and tall, arched windows in her room, once part of the ballroom. That partly resigned her to being put in a home: she could think of it as an elegant residence for select company.
    Emma touched Eliza’s arm in the hall. Her face looked troubled. “Miz Marie is asking for Mr. Richard again. She wants to know when he’s coming to get her.”
    “You just must tell her – gently – that Daddy is dead. Otherwise, she’ll think he left her.” Left her again, Eliza did not say. There had been a time when he did leave her; he came back; but abandonment was still a great fear with her. “And that would be awful.”
    “I know. But she’s so pitiful....”
    Eliza nodded. She could imagine. There had been a time, many years back, when Mama had a nervous breakdown and just knew they were coming to get her. Daddy hugged her and declared that he wouldn’t let them get her. That calmed her down enough for Richard and Eliza to get her to the Texas State Hospital in Terrell. But he had confirmed her fantasies. They had a hard time getting her over that one.
    Marie Daniels, either sulking or sad, curled on her narrow bed with her face to the wall.
    “Miz Marie, look who’s come,” Emma called.
    “Want to go to CiCi’s, Mama?”
    “Pizza!” She sat up. A bright smile broke through.
    She was a petite woman with a fresh permanent in her grey hair. Emma had an arrangement with a local beauty parlor and barber to keep the residents groomed. She wore a bright pink and purple striped muumuu. She darted to the mirror to put on a pillbox hat and little white gloves. She smoothed her muumuu. She revolved for Eliza’s inspection.
    “Do I look all right to go out?”
    “You need a touch of pink lipstick,” Eliza suggested, because she knew her mother loved to fuss over her appearance and have Eliza notice.
    Marie put on the lipstick and went out with Eliza, her eyes shining in anticipation.
    Tomatoes and garlic and oregano seasoned the air and sharpened appetites. Eliza and Marie pushed trays down the buffet line.
    “Don’t take too much, Mama – it’ll get cold. You can come back for more.”
    Marie’s pink lips pouted, and she made a hand gesture like a pinch on the air. But she did as she was told.
    Eliza settled her mother in a booth and brought cold drinks from the self-serve fountain. Marie was already tucked into a pepperoni slice, her fingers and chin greasy; but her gloves and purse were neatly placed to the side.
    Sending up a silent grace, Eliza slaked her own hunger with a spinach slice. She held up a pack of new pictures of her granddaughter. “I’ll show them to you one by one, Mama. Your hands are greasy.”
    Marie sniffed indignantly and slipped her greasy fingers into her little white gloves and took the pictures. She commented delightedly on each picture. She adored her greats.
    She clouded over and whimpered, “Honey, why can’t I go back home with you?”
    “Mama, I can’t leave you alone all day. I’ve got to work. And there are all the things a preacher’s wife has to do.”
    Small Independent Baptist churches did not make money. Most of the preachers had to work weekday jobs, while still doing their pastoral duties. Sam Wilkins managed a motel, and Eliza worked in the office. With all the calls for visitation and soul-winning, Eliza could not stay home. Marie could not bear being by herself. Most nursing homes were too impersonal and much too expensive. Eliza did not know what she was going to do. She felt desperate, but then Kelton House opened. Not exactly a nursing home, more of a boarding house, the rate was the amount of Marie’s Social Security check; and she only needed one inexpensive prescription that Eliza could pay for. Eliza believed Kelton House was a literal answer to prayer.
    “Honey, when is your daddy coming to get me?”
    “Mama, Daddy is dead. He died three years ago. Don’t you remember picking out the headstone yourself? Making sure there weren’t any flowers carved on it ‘cause he was allergic.”
    Marie looked uncertain.
    “What’s going on in Kelton House now? Tell me all about - ”
    Eliza deflected her mother into relaying all the gossip about what “those crazy old people” were doing now.
    When Eliza got her mother back to her room in Kelton House, Marie sat on the bed with her toes turned in and her hands clasped between her knees. She bent her head and looked up under bangs, a woebegone child.
    “Honey, Richard is dead, isn’t he?”
    “Yes, Mama. Three years.”
    “Did he suffer?”
    “No, Mama. He had a heart attack and never regained consciousness. It was very quick.”
    “That’s a blessing.”
    “Amen.”
    Before she left, Eliza went around and spoke to all the residents she saw. She knew them, and by now they knew her. She was aware that Marie had gone into the living room and bragged that her daughter had taken her out to eat pizza.
    Emma went out on the porch with Eliza. “You do them good – bringing cheer.”
    “I’m happy to do it. And you’ve been an answer to my prayers, and you’ll always be in my prayers.”
    Eliza drove back to the motel. Her mother coasted up and down the same emotions, the same questions then acceptance, every day. It would be the same tomorrow.
    Eliza knew this.

The Girl who Pulled Down the Sun

    Soft as a snowflake
    A feather in my bed
    Soft as a snowflake
    The skin of the dead

    Once upon a—
    “Wait! You can’t just start like that and move on. You’ve got to explain yourself.”
    It’s only a nursery rhyme.
    “If it’s only a nursery rhyme, why haven’t I ever heard it?”
    It’s an old one, before your time. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
    “Nursery rhymes aren’t true. That’s why they’re nursery rhymes. And anyway, how do you know how soft dead skin is?”
    “Yes, how do you know? Have you touched it? Where? When?”
    It touched me. It touched all of us. Are you going to let me tell my story? It deserves to be told.
    “So you admit it’s a story?”
    It’s God’s honest truth.
    “I don’t think God has anything to do with it.”
    “Just let him tell it. I’m in the mood for a good story.”
    “Fine. Tell on, old man. But I reserve the right to stop you when you’ve gone too far.”

    Once upon a tower there was a girl who pulled down the sun.
    “The Roxbury Tower?”
    The Tower. Trust me this will all make sense before the end. Her name was Ellie, and she was the first beautiful girl in the world.
    This was seventy years ago, a time of ash pits and quarries. A time of toil and dust, and a coldly distant sun. The Turning Eye of God, the old timers then called it. As in turning away from us. All the seasons were winter, our skies as pale as ice. We had no love—at least not in the way you young people understand it, with its sweaty thumping passion—we had no beauty. We had our work.
    And that was enough for us.
    But then she was born. Elena Shepaug. Ellie, to her family. The Black Hand, to the rest of us.
    “The Black Hand?”
    The Black Hand of the Devil. It was what we called her then, for that was what she was. Of course that was before she pulled down the sun. That was before we understood what beautiful things the Devil’s hand could grow in God’s hard earth.
    But until we understood, we despised her. And because we despised her, she had to die.
    And how our world would suffer if she hadn’t.

    She was born backwards and upside down. I know, for I was there. It was a cold winter’s day, and all the men were at work. Lydia Shepaug, my mother, lay beside the fire, panting her prayers up the chimney. The midwives were tending to others, and I, well, I was a boy. What good was I?
    I stood in the vine-covered doorway, open-mouthed and useless, as the heels of the newborn pushed out, like two round potatoes, like the meal I’d eaten just last night.
    By the time my father had returned, my mother had grown two twitching feet between her thighs, a pair of delicate ankles, and shins so brittle I could snap them with a glance. At once he grabbed the child’s feet and pulled, but his hands, oily from the pumps and slick with birth, could find no purchase. He hollered for me to fetch help, and it was only when I was out the door, into the cool hard stone of the day, that I wondered if there was a reason the baby was being difficult. I couldn’t help but think it was ashamed to show its face
    I returned with Mr. Sparry and his six months pregnant wife, but they too had trouble removing the child, for all its slip and squelch. After a few valiant moments, they muttered, “Such is life,” and stood in the shadows, waiting passively for the child to die.
    For my part, flattened against the front door as I was in fear, I knew I had to do something. My baby brother or sister was dying! I couldn’t allow that to happen.
    But try as I might, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t run. I could only stare into my mother’s wild eyes as her half-born child turned to stone between her legs.
    No one moved, no one said a word. Perhaps we were used to such tragedies, perhaps we knew the trouble the child would one day bring. Either way, for several long beats of our hearts, the only thing stirring was the sun, a single white spot, crawling like a dog across the floor.
    All eyes watched it move, amazed that something so remote from our lives, something so cold, should be right here, right on this floor, in this very house, a living presence of heat and light. It crept onto my mother’s body, and there it remained, her blanket of white against the cold blackness of death.
    Until—and bear with me; this may seem strange to you, as it did to me then, but it happened as sure as I am sitting at this table—the vines left the door at my back, twisted and curled across the floor, and wrapped themselves around the baby’s ankles. A single rotation, an anklet of green each, and onward they crawled with the west-moving sun.
    And with them both went the child, straight from my mother’s thighs, born in a tangle of ivy. The sun fled the western window, the vines retreated back to their walls, and there was my brother or sister lying face down on the bloody boards.
    “Hold on. Are you saying the ivy came to life and yanked your baby sister from the womb? That’s absurd! Ivy doesn’t do that.”
    Of course we thought the same as you. And we didn’t know she was a girl. Not yet. But they say ivy is attracted to light, that it can, should it choose to, reach for the sun. That’s what we told ourselves then; what choice did we have? Admit the miraculous? It was the sun’s fault my sister was born at all. The ivy could not be blamed; it was simply following its nature.
    My father was the first to respond. He knelt beside the baby, and with a trembling hand, wiped away the after birth. Then all of us gasped, including my poor spent mother. For the baby wasn’t right. Upside down and twitching with new life, but indescribably, heart-breakingly wrong.
    Pale she was. As pale as a sheet, as pale as a mineshaft ghost. But it wasn’t just that. Where other children were born as lumpy and misshapen as discarded ore, she was delicate and thin, fashioned to perfection. Worked over by skillful hands, smooth as a kiln-fired pot.
    We had no words for what she was, not yet, not for many years. But if you had seen her you would have called her beautiful, radiant, exquisite, out of this world.
    My father turned her over then, and what had been a confusing sight from the back became a terrifying one from the front. He took a step back, as did we all. I remember because, until that day, I had never seen him back up from anything. But there he was, as pressed to the walls as we were, staring aghast at his newborn daughter.
    I know what we all saw in her deep green eyes, her wisp red hair of flames, her thin, grasping fingers, and her belly of pure quartz white. In all her parts, we saw the coming years of jealousy and anger and greed and gluttony. We saw the sins a more present God would condemn and which, until then, we had never known. We saw a future of trouble.
    This girl would inspire and destroy. This girl would be the ruin of us all. We knew this without a doubt. I don’t know how we knew it, but we did.
    She seemed to be taking us all in then, her green eyes looking from one to the other to the other. Such intelligence, such awareness! Then, as if she knew very well what we were thinking, she opened her lips with a delicate smack and giggled in our faces.
    We shivered where we stood.
    Such was the birth of my sister. Born into the world with giggling beauty, to one day leave in screaming pain.
    All because of us.
    “Can we take that as your confession?”
    I confess nothing. I’m a storyteller.

    The day after, the sun once again retreated to the top of the sky and turned away, ashamed of what it had done. My mother, in the cold shadows of the front porch, accepted her child to bosom for the first time. Revolted at first to clasp such a strange, otherworldly face to her breast, she was still a mother, and her instincts were strong. For our parts, feeding time was the best time of the day. It was when my sister buried herself in my mother’s blouses. It was when she was hidden. It was when we could almost forget.
    Unfortunately, the town could not. Inspired by whispers and rumor—it’s unfair to blame Mr. and Mrs. Sparry too harshly, for it was the first secret either of them had ever had to keep—our neighbors thronged the doorstep at all hours. A glimpse of the Pale Child, as she was first called, was all anyone needed. We tried to accommodate them, parting the shutters and gathering candles around little Elena’s crib, to emphasize her paleness, but the commotion soon overwhelmed us.
    My father and I had grown up work to do. We couldn’t waste time with childish displays.
    So we did the next best thing. We built a manger in the front yard, piled it full of blankets and pillows, dragged out the crib and a rocking chair, and propped my mother and little Ellie up inside. All the curious had to do on their way to the mines and fields was glance over, get their fill of our misfortune and be on their way.
    Mother was less thrilled with this arrangement than we, but it was either that or hundreds of feet trampling through her gardens. She quickly gave in. Besides, since the birth she had grown melancholy and seemed indifferent to the world’s curious movements.
    All that changed the day Agnes Wilton, the wife of Roxbury Mine Works president, Boss Wilton, came to view the baby. She stood staring at it for a long time, an adoring expression on her face, then she spat at my mother’s feet and hissed, “Blasphemer!” before whirling away in a tornado of gray skirts.
    No one in our town was religious. At least not then. If God was anywhere He was underground in the mines, as elusive as silver in the rocks. He, like his Turning Eye, was a distant presence in our lives.
    Which made Mrs. Wilton’s remark all the more strange. I tried to laugh it off, telling Mother what stories of the old woman I could recall. How once, after a night of potato wine, she dunked herself seven times in Roxbury River, then climbed naked to the top of Seeker’s Rock, in order to catch the moon between her legs. How another time she sewed a coin inside a roast pheasant and swore she’d sleep with whoever, man or woman, bit into it first—she bit into herself, of course, which accounts for the chip on her front tooth.
    None of the stories was true, mind you, but they made my mother feel better while I was telling them.
    Afterwards, in the dark hours, she got to thinking maybe Agnes had a point. It made no sense to parade around a child like that. Ellie was Nature’s mistake. How else to explain such delicate fingers, and those green eyes, and who had ever seen eyelashes so long? No, better to hide her from view until she grew out of whatever illness she had.
    Those were the days my mother still had hope.
    In this spirit, she retreated indoors, where she refused to take visitors of any kind. She would incubate this child, she would nurse this child, on her own terms and without distraction. If the revulsion still showed in her face on occasion, that was okay, only Father and I were there to see it.
    But it wasn’t enough to dismantle the manger, nor was it enough to hide. Agnes Wilton would not let the matter go. She roamed the town gathering disciples for a march on Town Hall. These matters could not go unspoken, she said. The safety of everyone was at stake.
    She was rich and bored and had nothing better to do, or so it seemed to me.
    Still, for all her ravings, she made a certain sense. Ellie was different from any other child. Besides, we couldn’t dismiss the old woman entirely; her husband owned us all.
    As I sit here thinking back on all that Mrs. Wilton did, I harbor no scorn. She did what she thought was right. And what’s more, no matter what role she played in my sister’s death, it was no greater than my own.
    “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
    “Shh. Don’t interrupt him. Please, go on.”

    You want a confession? Here’s one: I loved my sister. It didn’t matter what Agnes Wilton said, it didn’t matter that, in her eyes, Ellie was a freak. She was my sister. She was my blood.
    Of course, she disturbed and frightened me, and I tried to avoid her as much as possible, but there were times, particularly after she had been weaned and my mother was off avoiding her twice as much as I, that I felt drawn to her.
    Rocking her to sleep—she never cried; she cooed, which was even worse—I would stare down into her shuttered, rolling eyes, and I would feel a pull. A pull to places I’d never been. In those eyes I could imagine rich green forests where now existed only granite hills and machine-made trenches. I could see fields of tall grass and swaying colors, soft fields, fields that produced bright sweet things. I could dip my toe into lakes that reeked of springtime, not sulfur. In my baby sister’s smiling face, I remembered good times I never had, sifted through experiences that were not my own.
    It was enthralling to be so near to her, but then I’d remember. I’d remember what Agnes Wilton said, I’d remember the jibes of my friends, I’d remember that my own mother found her revolting, I’d remember that step back my father took, and...
    But then my eyes would brush across her hair. How red it was! Redder than a furnace flame, as fiery as a dead deer’s blood. Maybe it is fiery, I’d tell myself, reaching out to see. Would it burn my fingers? Oh, how I wanted it to! Heat I could understand. Beauty I could not.
    Then I’d remember something someone else had said, and I’d glance at the flickering candles in their holders. A careless hand, a clumsy knock, and her pristine cheek would gobble up the scalding wax.
    I loved my sister, you see. But she conflicted me.
    “Enough to kill?”
    Sometimes, I suppose, yes.
    But before we get to that, I should tell you a little about us. So you don’t think we were entirely crazy for what we did.
    “There’s little danger of that.”
    The Mine Hill you know is not the one of my youth. When you look out these windows, you see rolling hills and deep green forests. You see a crystal clear Roxbury River galloping down between the maples. You see a sweet pure lake full of bathers and boaters. You see forests an old man like me could get lost in. You see a blossoming little town of antique shops and galleries, a weekend getaway for the city folk.
    You see a quiet country place where nothing ever happens.
    I see granite cliffs and tumbling boulders, and not a tree around for miles. I see a river choked with industrial debris and fish flopping dead on its banks. I see a sulfurous lake for livestock drinking and dinner tables that smelled of eggs. I see a thousand people in town, all dirt and grime and stone hard faces. I see storefronts painted black with soot and snow the color of night. I see hardness everywhere I look. I see death.
    Of course it wasn’t death to us, not before Ellie was born. It was only after, as the years passed and she grew even more beautiful, that we came to realize how dead our world was. It was in her smiling, shining face that we understood our perpetual night.
    But, we thought, why be awake to the sun when we, in all our grimy blackness, could never shine like that?
    That’s why she had to go, you see; she was being selfish with the light. That’s why we sent her to pull down the sun.

    Perhaps you are wondering where God was in all this, why He didn’t pull the sun down himself.
    “I must admit I was not.”
    I can only say that, as yet, God wasn’t present in our lives. But he would be. Agnes Wilton was seeing to that. But before He came, little Ellie, the Devil’s Black Hand, was free to grow out of her crib and step onto the floor, a tottering tower of white.
    How swiftly she grew! How slender! We knew we had to do something. Give her a week and she’d be up and out through the ceiling.
    So it was, in Ellie’s third year, Mother took her to town. “It’s unfair to the house,” she said, “to keep such a girl inside.”
    Ellie had become quite a handful by now, smiling at everyone for no reason, cooing rather than crying for her supper, humming rats out of the pantry from her high chair in the kitchen. The very house itself was alive with her energy. Every morning we’d awake to find bugs and vermin nestled snuggly in her bed, beneath a fresh blanket of vines. We’d shoo the bugs and beat the rats and clip the ivy back to the walls. But the next morning there they’d all be, seekers of her warmth and energy.
    “What if those vines choke us in the night?” I remember Mother saying. “Ellie will be left all alone!” She didn’t say this as a mother, I knew, she said this as gardener. Leave a single weed untrimmed and in time it will destroy the lot.
    In response, Father grumbled, “Leave the vermin alone. We must learn to live with what we made.”
    Mother agreed, only reluctantly, but slept for five years in a collar made of iron.
    So off to town we went. The air might do Ellie good, we thought. The air might snuff her light, as it had long since done ours.
    For the outing, Mother cut off Ellie’s strange red hair, gave me the clippings to stuff under the hens’ bottoms outside, and wrapped her daughter up tight in a black cloak and hood.
    “Don’t take this off,” she said, tying the hood beneath her chin. “The sun is not good for your skin. You will burn.”
    Whether or not Ellie understood, she nodded as if she knew very well what the sun could do.
    We walked down Roxbury Lane, like any mother and her children. Except that neither of us reached out to hold little Ellie’s hand. She was a shadow to us, a sidelight, nothing there to hold...
    It was a thriving town. At that time it was. There was the post office, which is still there, as you know, a general store, a hattery—we all wore hats back then, not just gentlemen like yourselves—a tailor, a dressmaker, a blacksmith, a hardware store, one school each for young children and old, the Great Town Hall, a cigar shop, and many other shops besides. There was an old church too, but it was derelict, empty as a tin drum and twice as hollow.
    No one had used it since before any of us could remember. But it would be used again, and soon.
    Ellie stopped walking beneath the shadows of the steeple and could go no further. I picked her up, put her chin upon my shoulder, and carried her the rest of the way. She was light as a hen, I noticed, her breath as soft as cream butter. And her heart! Her heart thumped so strongly into mine that by the time we arrived at the store, I couldn’t tell the two apart.
    I was relieved to finally set her down. I was relieved to pick up my own beat.
    At once Ellie ran inside the store, a cloaked raven pecking at my mother’s heels. Mother put up with her and reminded her to keep her hood down tight, even inside. The sun has a way of seeping through things, she said.
    Ellie nodded and did just what she said. Until she discovered the mirror. Perhaps she’d seen her reflection in the soup broth or floating in her weekly bath, or maybe she knew it from dreams. However little of her beauty she knew before, she knew it all now.
    While my mother bartered for the sugar, Ellie gazed at her reflection and wept. These were the first tears I had seen my sister cry, and I was moved.
    “What is it? What’s wrong?” I asked, not daring to reach out for her. Her hood was down and I didn’t want to attract attention.
    Ellie stared at me for the longest time, her eyes loose as green yolks. Then she opened her mouth and whispered a single word, her very first. “Richard!”
    “Who is Richard?”
    I am.
    “But it says right here your name is—”
    My new name, yes. But I was Richard back then. Anyway, it might as well have been a gunshot. Mother whipped around with a stricken look on her face. This is the beginning of conversation, she must have been thinking.
    Rebecca Mayfair, the store clerk, looked over too, and her mouth fell open. “Get that curse out of my shop!” she bellowed, pointing a nasty long finger at her.
    Curse? Mother hadn’t heard this rumor, nor had I, and for our parts, we didn’t know what it meant anyway. A curse was something that happened to the crops. A curse was a cave in at the mines. A curse was something natural. Ellie was something else.
    That something else ran out of the shop, not in fear but in delight, shouting, “Richard, Richard, Richard!” over and over again. She seemed to have forgotten her image in the mirror, prompting me to look back on my way out, half hoping she’d left it in the glass.
    She hadn’t. She’d taken it with her. Along with my name, which she was shouting all over town.

    We stored her in the silo after that.
    “You stored her in the silo? You have an odd choice of words, old man.”
    Odder still what happened inside. Ellie grew up. Not overnight, of course, but over the long years of her banishment.
    “When you say long years...”
    There were ten.
    “Ten years!”
    Ten years. Please understand we did what we thought was best—in with the sunlight, out with the shadows. And she didn’t mind. I swear to you she didn’t. She was a princess in a tower, the sun a fire-breathing dragon. There was nothing to do in the world but burn.
    That’s what we taught her and that’s what she learned.
    As time passed, our lives almost returned to normal. Ellie’s vermin fled the house and took shelter in the silo—spiders, rats, bats, and fleas...gone, gone, gone, and gone. The ivy too crept from the walls to the outside world, a train of green from our white bride house. In the absence of creeping, crawling things Mother, Father, and I went about the business of our lives with peaceful hearts and minds.
    It’s not that we forgot about Ellie; we could never quite do that, particularly years later when her red flame hair was cascading out the silo window and pooling on the ground. But we could pretend it was just the three of us again. We could pretend the pure white girl in the tower was a figment of our dreams.
    It was a dream the whole town shared. Out of sight, out of mind. Even Agnes Wilton’s eyes turned elsewhere for a while.
    For three years I fed my sister and cleaned her, and cut her hair to her scalp. But then the animals took over, and I was no longer needed.
    The squirrels brought her nuts
    The birds brought her worms
    The spiders webbed her bluebottle flies.
    Her existence was a poem in those days, a fairy tale. In the stories I told myself, I saw my sister at school, learning letters from a treetop owl. I saw hummingbirds at her lips, to sip her sweet kisses, and robins nesting eggs in her palms.
    In my stories, Ellie pressed one dirty thumb into the white bright of the moon, claiming possession of the night.
    In my stories, Ellie was a princess and I her brother, the prince.
    “Oh brother,” she’d holler down on my way to the mines, speaking to me every day the same. “Could you pull down the sun for me today? It’s frightfully cold up here.”
    I’d nod at her once and holler back, “If it is in my power to do so, I shall. But there’s little sun where I’m going either.”
    There’s little sun where I’m going either. Truer words I never spoke, yet I spoke them every day.
    Years passed just like this. The town was quiet. My mother and father were happy. And I, well, I secretly fell in love with my sister. Oh no, not in the way you are thinking. I fell in love as a brother to his kin, as a prisoner bound for life.
    “Oh brother. Could you pull down the sun for me today?”
    If it had ever been in my power, I swear to God that I would have.

    But I had no power, at least not yet, and Rumor was a hawk.
    A naked girl had been spotted up at the mines. Long past an October midnight, when the ghost mist swirls above the shafts and moonlight glitters in the granite, she was there, white and free, frolicking among the stones.
    It was unheard of behavior, dangerous and wild. Rumor swept down into the valley at once and whispered into Agnes Wilton’s ears. In response, she summoned God to the church, told Him what she had in mind, and gathered her brothers for a march up the hill.
    “Come down from there this instant!” she cried when she got to our house, standing shin deep in my sister’s red hair. The town’s only Bible lay open in her palms.
    Mother and I were out of the house by then, straining against a wall of Wilton chests. “Stay back!” one of the men commanded, and we did just that, waiting to see what unfolded. Ellie hadn’t come down from the silo in ten years, so we wondered what she could possibly have done.
    “I said come down here, you beautiful little...!” The old woman was at a loss for words.
    But Ellie wasn’t. Her curtain of hair parted and she stuck her head through. “What’s the matter Agnes?” she asked down brightly, her face even more beautiful than yesterday.
    I had seen that face every day for years, but it still made me swoon. As did it the Wilton men, who up and down the line gasped and sighed at the sight of her.
    Agnes Wilton, for her part, maintained her dignity and fainted dead away.
    When she finally revived, the Wilton men dragged her off to the church and stored her in the rectory, where it was said she muttered, “The Devil knows my name!” for three long days in a row.
    I remember something else about that day. The way Ellie waved at the Wilton men as they left and called them each by name. How those coal black miners blushed!
    My face, however, burned. She was my princess, not theirs. Their names had no business on her tongue.
    “So now we come to your motive.”
    Motive? It wasn’t a motive; it was a weakness.

    “Stay away from those men,” I told her one evening as she braided her hair out the window. By then I thought I knew what men like these could do.
    But she said, “Don’t be silly Richard. Their hearts are pure as glass.”
    “It’s not their hearts I’m worried about. Besides, what do you know about hearts? Or glass for that matter? And how did you know their names? And were you really naked at the mines?”
    “Oh, Richard!” she scolded. “Look.” She draped a finger out the window and pointed to where Mrs. Wilton’s Bible was already half-buried by roots and vines and her own flaming curls. “Do you really think I could break free of this tangling earth and fly away to the mines?”
    She gave her hair a tug to show that she was rooted to the spot.
    But it didn’t matter. I did think so. For she had been flying in my dreams for years.

    A week later the town commissioned The Tower. It was an audacious project, an odd project, since most of the building I had ever seen went into the earth, not above it. We were miners. What did we know about towers?
    Still, the work went on, on top of Roxbury Hill, under the supervision of Boss Wilton himself, and I played my part, pulling ore from the ground for its construction.
    If I had known what it was being built for, if I had heard Mr. Sparry—the Mr. Sparry—declare, “My little Libby was born blind from Ellie Shepaug’s sun! I say we spit her on a tower and let her roast!”—I probably would have done things differently.
    But I didn’t know, and I was blind too, so I did my duty best.

    Weeks passed, months, during which the Tower slowly rose, in beams and scaffolds, into the pale blue sky. Maybe someday, I thought, it would stand higher than the sun itself. Maybe Ellie would sit above it in the end.
    If I worked extra hard, I figured, I might, someday, in someway, save my sister.
    Of course, that was not meant to be. I was young then. And stupid.
    “Richard!” she would holler on my way to the Tower, “I’m still waiting for that sun!”
    I’d holler back, “Why don’t you get Ed Wilton to pull it down for you? Or maybe you’d prefer strong Fred, or stupid Frank, or handsome Carl...”
    “Don’t be silly,” she’d say when I got like this. “Only you can do it. Do you think I’m beautiful? I had a dream about a mirror.”
    I’d scoff at her, “I do not,” and go on my way.
    Ever since Agnes Wilton had come, Ellie ended all our conversations this way. Do you think I’m beautiful? Of course I did, but I couldn’t tell her that.
    I couldn’t bear to see her cry.

    Soon enough, the men came. Young men, old men, married men, the men of town, the men of the mines.
    Ellie’s behavior toward them hastened her death, even though she did what she did out of love. She was innocent. If anyone is to blame, it is I, for never managing to pull down her sun.
    They became her knights. I was just her brother.
    “Daniel Clingingsmith,” I’d hear Ellie call down. “The robins told me there were fresh blueberries in Southbury. Could you fetch them for me?” And poor, besotted Daniel would spend the next three days trekking across the rivers and fields.
    “Robert Taylor,” to another. “I’ve grown ever so tired of my black hood and cloak. Do you think you could find me a red one?”
    “William Ruscoe. I do so long for a telescope.”
    “Books, Mr. Pennoyer!”
    “A comb, Stephen Betts!”
    “A map of the world, Samuel Redding!”
    “That tree over there, Philip? It blocks my view!”
    Each command she gave was like a jackhammer to my heart. It wasn’t that they were unwarranted or petty—we had locked her in a silo for ten years, after all—it was that they were given to other men. Even to Father, who spent a full week in New York City tracking down a copy of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, a story one of the crows had told her about, and which, for her, held special appeal.
    But it was worse than all this. A mining town without active mining is only a town. And towns without a purpose die. With so many men off on Ellie’s missions, or standing swooning beneath her window...well, it was only matter of time.
    And what’s more, Ellie’s missions had created competition and chaos where before there was cooperation and harmony. There were fights over them and burglaries in the course of them and, if Rumor could still be trusted, murders to end them once and for all.
    Ellie, of course, knew none of this, and the one time I told her, she simply answered, “I knew a wolf spider once, but he died too.”
    The chaos didn’t end there. Women brought their daughters to the silo, for honest comparison, only to realize that the faces in their little ones’ mirrors were but earth to Ellie’s shining sky.
    In short, my sister had no idea what she was doing to the rest of us. She pricked and reminded and goaded and shed light and irritated and angered and broke hearts, and she did it all with a smile.

    Agnes Wilton, however, saw the Devil in Ellie’s teeth. Not only had the old woman’s brothers abandoned her for beauty, but so too had her husband, the Boss. When he wasn’t supervising The Tower site, he was standing beneath Ellie’s window reciting poetry he’d written for her himself.
    Black earth swallows
    The Devil’s in the floor
    Watch those hollows
    Death in Mine Shaft Four!
    He wasn’t much of a poet back then. None of us were.
    In a desperate rage, Mrs. Wilton brought God back to town and locked Him inside the church. For seven straight days she sermonized at Him, and in the end, persuaded Him to act. Round the town He went, turning all from the path of sin.
    And so it was, in this atmosphere of religion and rage, that my sister’s fate was sealed. The Tower was standing tall on Roxbury Hill by now, a narrow post and platform, slicked with grease, ready.
    We had only to vote.
    Mother and Father refused to come that day, not out of general principle, since they too acknowledged their daughter’s disruptive presence, but out of bitterness toward the Wiltons. Ever since Ellie’s birth, Father had been passed over for promotions more times than he could count, and his hatred of the company had grown strong.
    So there I was, my sister’s only hope, ready to cast my stone.
    The conclusion was foregone, of course, but we went through the motions all the same. We weren’t entirely uncivilized.
    First to the dais went Agnes Wilton, but her husband shooed her aside and took it himself. She might own the church, his supercilious look seemed to say, but I, I own the town.
    “There is a Devil among us!” he boomed without preamble. “A—” he nudged his wife for the right words—“a Black Hand you say?” She scowled at him and pushed off into the crowd. “Yes, a Black Hand! And what do we do with black hands, people of Mine Hill?”
    “We read them foolish poetry!” came an angry woman’s voice from the floor.
    “I ask again,” Boss Wilton continued, ignoring the comment. “What do we do with black hands? That’s right! We wash them clean!” There was a round of applause. “And then what do we do with them?”
    “We blue—we bury them,” Daniel Clingingsmith stammered, never having spoken in council before.
    “Bury them where we mine? We most certainly do not!” Boss Wilton said, and there was poor Daniel frowning at the floor. “We’d just end up digging them up again. No, we build the tallest tower in the county and set the wicked on top. And may God have mercy on their souls. But before we begin, is there anyone in attendance who objects to these proceedings?”
    His eyes turned to me, and the crowd soon followed. I was embarrassed by the attention and wanted to slink out the door, but I stared back at him strong. I knew this was the last moment to save my sister.
    If I objected maybe I could stop this, or delay it. And yet I wasn’t sure I wanted to, for I felt certain the will of the town was more important than the will of my sister, or my own. Besides, look at them all sitting there, I told myself. Ellie’s faithful knights. If they could condemn her, so could I. After all, she had condemned me.
    I remained silent.
    And when it came time to vote, I cast my stone with the rest.

    I had achieved one concession, although in doing so I condemned my sister to further humiliation. I convinced the council to let Ellie choose her punishment freely. Given the choice, she would climb, I knew, and she wouldn’t need the town at her back. She deserved to leave this world as she entered it, I told them—bathed in light and full of wonder.
    The council agreed, with the condition that if she were free to climb, she must climb as freely as the day she was born. Freedom came with a price.
    “I’m sorry I haven’t been able to pull down the sun for you,” I told her, this the last conversation we’d ever have, “but I know how you can pull it down for yourself. First, you must strip off your clothes and dunk yourself seven times in Roxbury River, then you must repeat, ‘My brother is my knight,’ until the wind’s blown you completely dry. After that...”
    It was a game I sold her, a fairy tale, and she bought it before I finished pitching.
    She was an innocent soul, my sister, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t guilty.
    “My brother is my knight,” she repeated as I freed her tangled hair from the ground.
    My brother is my knight. These words shall sing me to my rest.

    I hope you’ll forgive me—
    “Forgiveness isn’t our job. Justice is.”
    The rest of the story is based on hearsay. Neither my parents nor I were permitted to the Tower, lest we feel compelled to stop the ascent. Therefore, my account follows what I heard from Rumor, scattered whisper, the wind, the vermin and the birds, and the ivy old women boiled to find answers in the leaves.
    “Well, that should make it reliable.”
    No more or less reliable than Nature herself.

    Naked as I instructed her, Ellie climbed to the top of Roxbury Hill. Hidden behind rocks and machines were the men of town, but they dared not stir. She was timid as a deer, or so they thought, and their darting eyes might scare her away.
    She stepped barefoot onto the ladder, took one last look around—looking for me, I told myself ever after—and climbed.
    Up she went, and up again, leaving the earth behind.
    The journey was long, but she did not falter, for she had never learned to fear. For hours she climbed, for days, the soles of her feet turning thick with callous.
    Halfway to the sky, she took her rest, wrapping the rungs like a spider. If she looked, if she squinted, she could just make out the barren hilltop below. The men had long dispersed, bored by beauty that was no longer there.
    But she was not alone. Her vines had arrived, as had her vermin, swarming around the Tower’s base. The ivy was the first to climb, twining itself around the ladder, round and round, spreading slowly into the sky.
    Ellie carried on with her journey, inspired by the nearing sun. She left behind her halfway point, and didn’t look back, leaving blood upon the rungs.
    Yes, my sister became a woman that day, on a ladder between the earth and sky. Down ran her blood, and up came her ants, gobbling all the way. As soon as they’d had their fill, they streamed back to earth and vanished into the mines. Where they gathered in a pile and gave birth to chips of red garnet. We never saw the ants in town again.
    How do I know all this? The ivy said so. It spoke the news into the boiling pot.
    It was midnight when she reached the top. She crawled off the ladder onto the greasy platform and went to sleep at once.
    Far below her on the ground, the ladder was pried loose from the Tower and taken away. It was said that when they broke it down and set it on fire, the wood was so green it doused the flames at once. So they threw the pieces to the bottom of Mine Shaft Four and left them there to rot. They lie there still.
    Ellie awoke with the sun. Sitting cross-legged on the platform, she sized it up, wondering just how she might pull it back down. And there she sat, for one full day, as the sun beat down on her and burned.
    “How long did she stay up there?”
    Five days. It took her five days to die.
    “And you never tried to rescue her?”
    Never. The will of the town was final. Although it wasn’t easy, I must confess, for no matter where I went, her whispers followed. “My brother is my knight. My brother is my knight.” In the deepest, darkest places of the earth they found me, in the far away reaches of my dreams.
    On day two, her pale skin turned red and cracked. She tried to curl around herself, to shield herself from the sun, but the metal platform grew too hot and she was forced to stand and hop.
    She was utterly exposed. And the sun showed no mercy. She could no more stand than sit, and she could only lie down at night. But by that time she was in such pain she could not sleep.
    Three days in, her cracked skin started to flake and fall. She was screaming now, in fits and starts, but no one on the ground could hear.
    Or if we could, we ignored her, preferring our new world of wonder to her terror in the sky.
    It was snowing in springtime! Or so we first thought. But of course it was only Ellie’s skin, soft as petals and filled with the sun’s light, a flurry of rainbow colors. The children of town were the first to notice, eyes so used to looking up. They skipped about, free from their mothers’ hands and unburdened from their chores, catching the skin flakes on their tongues.
    Soft as a snowflake
    A feather in my bed
    Soft as a snowflake
    The skin of the dead.
    But of course you already know that part.
    It snowed for two days, and wonders never ceased. Nurses gathered up the flakes, fed them to the sick, and sat back laughing as their patients rose from their beds, belched clouds of pink, and left whistling songs no one had ever heard. Libby Sparry herself caught a flake each in her eyes and spent the next fifty years forgetting the color black.
    “What ridiculous nonsense! Libby Sparry never learned to see. She had a school for the blind named after her, after all. You try my patience, old man.”
    I am sensing you do not believe me. Perhaps you’d rather I stopped.
    “Don’t listen to him. He wouldn’t know the truth if he took its confession himself. Please finish.”

    Roxbury Hill changed almost overnight. With each touch of skin it grew softer. Worms and roots spiraled up out of the earth, on the scent trail of death, only to find life waiting for them on the surface. No bodies to take back with them. None of God’s stricken. So they returned to the dark, unwanted and unfulfilled. But their work was done. In their rummaging wake they had left rocks broken, the clay split, and all the hard earth turned.
    They left Roxbury Hill a garden of dirt. The bees supplied the flowers.
    Swarming the Tower, they collected Ellie’s skin on their legs and bore it away across the barren hills of Litchfield County. Along the way, they dropped and dispersed and scattered and strew, and when they finally found what sprigs of green they could, they pollinated them, showed them the way, and went back for more.
    The seeds were now planted, the army was made, but before the flowers could march the long way from Southbury to Woodbury to South Britain to Roxbury, they needed a day’s full rest in a much softer bed.
    Four days into Ellie’s punishment, ash started to fall from the sky.
    She had done her job. She had reached up with her beauty and pulled down the sun, but what felt comfortably warm to us on the ground must have felt like a blanket of flames to her. Lest you think me indifferent, I felt her pain. I could always feel her pain.
    Still she endured. With the last of her strength, she crawled to the edge of the platform and looked down on a landscape she had made. She couldn’t see it—she was blind as poor Libby by now—but she could sense the beauties unfolding. How she longed to join them! To break free from this vengeful sun and twirl like a feather to the ground.
    But she couldn’t; she knew no other fate than this.
    And so her ash continued to fall. Down the slopes of Roxbury Hill, into the lakes and rivers, and all over town, a thick layer of black. On streets and rooftops, into windows and wells, from the heights of the church steeple to the depths of the mines.
    We were everywhere covered. And we reveled in it.
    And we weren’t the only ones. The earth itself breathed in Ellie’s ash and sneezed back flowers. Up and down the hills, throughout the valleys, across the rivers—on white boat lilies—they bloomed. Posies and irises and roses and tulips, and a million other flowers we hadn’t names for yet, ran wild across the countryside, turning our empty hills into overflowing baskets of color and life.
    But that wasn’t all. Ellie made rivers with her ashes and birch trees with her bones, and when her heart fell into Roxbury Lake? How sweet the water became!
    “Hold on! Give me an example of a river she made.”
    The Ferris.
    “Ha! It was Bridgewater Dam that made the Ferris. Everyone knows that. Ash from a dying girl indeed.”
    It’s a well-known story. A team of Gould Ferris’ workhorses was pulling a load of anchors down to the shipyards when they stumbled through a pile of my sister’s ashes and discovered speed inside their hooves. Off they galloped, forgetting all about their work, their anchors trailing trenches in the dirt. Halfway to the coast, they hooked a thread from Waramaug Lake and pulled it in a swelling stream all the way to New London. And so the Ferris River was born.
    “That’s some story. Although I can do you one better. ‘Once upon a time there was a blue ox named Babe...’”
    That does sound better, but let me finish. Maybe we’ll both change our minds before the end.
    Onto a land covered with soft earth and flowers, Ellie’s bones started to fall. One by one by one, her fingers and toes, two by two by two, her teeth. And where each one hit, a birch tree was born, until, in time, there was a forest of white growing around the Tower.
    But that was not all. Vultures plucked out the rest of her bones—except two—and flew them away, while insects planted eggs in her organs. As a leg here or an arm there fell, and became parts of other towns’ stories, butterflies burst from her stomach, hornets from her spleen, and midges, gnats, and mosquitoes, lightning bugs, locusts, and cicadas, and all the other insects of the earth and sky, emerged from everyplace else and scattered where they would.
    The beasts of the field came next.
    Way across the oceans blue
    Through the desert sands
    High above the mountains too
    Into the tall grasslands...
    Such were the rhymes the children told.
    “Can we get back to what really happened? There are no deserts in Connecticut. And what beasts are there to speak of? A couple of bears, a few deer? Children’s rhymes do not a history make.”
    In five days my sister was gone. From skin to bone to ash to dust...gone, gone, gone, and gone.
    “What about her ankle bones?”
    Those remained, of course. Her ivy made sure of that—a single rotation, an anklet of green each, and then the sun moved on, pulling the vines with it. And with them both went—
    “What happened to Agnes Wilton? Sorry to interrupt, but you’re starting to repeat yourself.”

    I’m an old man and I’m tired. We’ll save Agnes for another day. Now, if you’ll excuse me. There’s nothing left to tell.
    “Are you going to just let him walk out like that?”
    “You heard him. There’s nothing left.”
    “What about the bones?”
    “They’re seventy years old. Maybe they deserve a storybook ending.”
    “A storybook ending? Now you’re talking like him!”
    “There are worse things.”
    “Fine. Let him go then. I don’t care. Justice will catch him in the end.”
    “Justice catches us all in the end. But it can’t touch our stories.”

    The old man pushed his way through the forest, a smile upon his lips. Finally. He was finally finishing what he had started seventy years ago.
    At the top of Roxbury Hill, he stripped off his clothes and scattered them beneath the birch trees. Seventy years ago, he thought, there was nothing here but granite. And now look. Look at what she’d done.
    He shivered and moved on, into the center, where the branches were thickest, where the shadows kept back the sun.
    It was there, where it had always been. The Tower. Standing tall above the hilltop. Only now it was as green as grass, wrapped in vines and leaves. But the platform was still there, he knew, just above the trees.
    Nature had covered it, but she couldn’t take it away.
    He put his foot to the vines and climbed.
    Up he went, and up again, leaving the earth behind.
    It was a long climb, hours it seemed, but in time he reached the top.
    He crawled out onto the platform, his old flesh wobbling, and lay flat on his back beneath the sun.
    She pulled it down, he thought. Maybe I can push it back up. He had grown weary of the heat, weary of softness. He remembered how it used to be, how hard the land was, how cold. Not anymore. Not with so much to be warm for. So he pushed. He pushed and pushed, but the sun wouldn’t budge.
    It seemed determined to burn him. He lay back and let it.
    “My brother is my knight,” he whispered.
    And his old skin cracked and bled.
    “My brother is my knight,” he whispered.
    And his old skin flaked and fell.
    “My brother is my knight,” he whispered.
    And his old lips kissed the sun.
    “My brother is my knight...”
    And as he fell from skin to bone to ash to dust and scattered across the bright green land below, the land she had made, there was only one thing left to say.
    “It’s all so beautiful.”

Beasts

     Gran-ma-ma would fill my head with any number of tales, each one similar to the one that came before: the hapless heroine, played by yours truly, would end up the glorified meal to some toothy, touchy beast.
    I imagined Gran-ma-ma greatly desired to be devoured herself by some fierce and frenzied creature, though I would never utter such a thing to my austere matriarch. When she spoke of that rough beast, the paper-thin skin on her fingers and hands stretched and fluttered. Her wrinkled cheeks flushed, and her eyes, oh, her eyes, became so bright...
    “But why must it always be a man-beast?” my mother said, lighting her pipe. It had at one time been my grandfather’s. Mother, in a fit of young temper, had taken the pipe, lit, from grandfather’s frosty lips and plopped it in her own. Within the year she had appropriated all his pipes in a similar manner. This one, her first and his largest, was her favorite.
    She wrapped her lips around the small end and furiously sucked, her cheeks becoming emaciated and full in successive rhythm. She said, “Don’t the bitches of the forest have to eat as well? In fact, don’t they do the most of the work?”
    Gran-ma-ma shushed her with a quick, jerking movement of her hand. “It’s always been a man-beast. Always.” She scoffed, her throat rioting up into a hack. “Can’t tell the story right,” she said once she was in control of her voice again, “unless you tell it like it’s always been. Oh, put that out! It bothers my throat.”
    Mother moved to the window.
    When Gran-ma-ma went back to her house in the middle of the forest (accompanied by my father, not because grandmother needed an escort, my mother would say, but because she was prone to tripping and breaking her glass-bone hips) mother would sit me at the table – me to her right, herself reclining regal at the head – and tell me, her voice all reason, that if I ever met a man-beast in the forest I should simply gut him and be done with it.
    “But what if he is a kind man-beast?” I asked. “What if-”
    She tapped her pipe on the table, a dull resonance that demanded my full attention. “There is no such thing. All man-beasts will eat you, no, destroy you, if you give them half a chance.”
    Mother was always optimistic like that.
    One day, my father was out gathering berries to make his daily fruit pastry with. You’d never seen nor tasted anything more delightful than the rows of tarts, cakes, pies and sweet buns that adorned our sills, our counters, our tables, and when finished with this task, my mother would take his berry stained fingers to her lips and wrap her tongue around the fleshy digits, saying what a good boy he was. Mother called out to him to get some blueberries for a pie, then sat by the window, puff-puff-puffing on her pipe.
    “You should visit your grandmother,” she told me. “I haven’t heard from her in days. She’s probably got the flu again and hasn’t deemed us worthy of a call.” She indicated the phone with a dismissive wave.
     “But, mummy,” I said, “Gran-ma-ma usually forgets how to use that ‘inane contraption’”
    “Pah!” my mother spat in the flowerpot on the sill. “Stubborn old bag.”
    In spite of my complaints, mother had packed a large, wicker basket of day old fruit tarts (blueberry and raspberry, yum), a bit of hard, black bread, cheese and a bottle of wine. As she packed that, wrapping the heavy bottle in a checked cloth, she told me I had better not drink any.
    “But it’s bad for Gran-ma-ma!”
    “Pish posh,” said mother. “It might give the old hag a thrill.”
    She wrapped me in my red wool cloak with the pointed hood that I’d gotten from Gran-ma-ma as a birthday gift years ago, and stuck a box of ammunition for Gran-ma-ma’s shotgun in the pocket. I did not tell her that it was unnecessary; Gran-ma-ma had never touched the thing after politely letting Mother show her how to use it. She also handed me her sharpest hunting knife – her favorite for gutting rabbits.
    “Remember to twist it,” she said, placing the handle in my hand. “You need to really get it in there and twist it if you want to really do some damage, sweetheart.”
    Mother was always practical that way.
    I took off through the forest, passing my father on the way. He gave me a dazed goodbye, his eyes fixed on his basket of fruit. Cherries, today. He’d be making tarts again.
    The forest path to get to Gran-ma-ma’s is lovely. It was the end of summer, so the trees were slowly beginning their beautiful rot. There were tinges of yellow on the greens, and the wind carried the scent of sweet decay, like a ripe apple just about to turn.
    There was always a sense of calm danger in the forest, like you were forever walking on the precipice of a breaking dam. One wrong move, or perhaps even stupid chance, and your fortune would flip and the rushing waves of animal jaws would devour you whole. Gran-ma-ma always said that there were demons and spirits in the forest. They were once paid homage with ancient blood-rites and strange dancing, but Mother always brushed Gran-ma-ma aside, telling her to stop telling me such ridiculous tales.
    After awhile, I began to notice that the forest grew quieter the more I entered its winding body. The birds stopped their bell-like twittering, the crickets ceased rubbing their musical thighs, and even the leaves were still against the tranquil air; this was the archaic, intrinsic indication of danger, of change. The fine peach fuzz stood up on my neck, and I felt my less-than-musical thighs quiver in expectation.
    Then, like the rise of a primeval god of the forest, I saw him.
    He was large, feral and strange; a black figure with yellow, glowing eyes, his long teeth a sparkling gleam, while his rough, red tongue ran its wet length across his lips. And his lips, easily pulled back, easily shut, with a dash of red – blood? – by the dark bead of his nose.
    Had he just eaten some young, pale deer that could not jump from his jaw in time? Or perhaps some white rabbit corpse lay not a few feet from me, its own blood staining its fur, its eyes trained, helpless and wide, toward inevitability. But this god, this demon, was lean, almost famished, and I knew that there was no homage of bodies at his altar, nor blood running from some adulation-chalice, and it was very likely that he thought me an offering.
    I grasped Mother’s gouging knife with a trembling hand in the basket, ready to strike if he made the slightest move. But he did not jump at me, nor make any movement which indicated violence. Instead, he stared at me with something like amusement, that I felt very foolish. I let the hilt of the blade go, and it tumbled to the bottom of the basket.
    The wolf lowered his head and approached me. I was nervous at his large form; it looked like he would tower over me if he went on hind-legs like a man. I dared not move.
    He walked around me with his body so close that I could feel the whisper of his fur, rough and matted, against my hand, or brushing my legs. I shivered and squirmed when I thought I felt his long tooth slide across my arm, but was too terrified to look down to be sure. A growl escaped his throat, but it was soft and drawn out; a sigh of pleasure.
    When he did not bite me, I grew to enjoy the feel of him close to me, his heat and soft panting just by my thighs. He continued his slow circle and I felt bold enough to reach my fingers out and brush them, as lightly as I could, on his thick-furred back.
    Quicker than I could retract my hand, the wolf grabbed hold of my wrist in his teeth and bit down hard enough to leave nasty red imprints, but did not break the skin. I fell to my knees, and he shook my hand in his sharp maw. I cried out, “oh, please, oh please, I didn’t mean it! I won’t touch you again!”
    This seemed to calm the beast, for with one final shake he released my hand, and instead took to sniffing me. He was most enraptured at the scent where my skin bore the mark of his teeth. As for myself, I felt inexplicably calm under his attentions, assured that I would remain safe so long as I did not touch him.
    When I felt his rough tongue run across my neck, I did not breathe.
    After awhile, the beast huffed and turned his back on me. When I saw that he was making to leave, I felt a coldness touch my legs, my neck, and my stomach; I was afraid of him, but I did not want him to go. I called after him, “I am going to my Gran-ma-ma’s house in the middle of the forest. She’s probably very sick, you see.”
    The wolf did not turn to face me, but he stopped moving away, and twitched his ear.
    “I wouldn’t mind seeing you again, if you want,” I said. “You’d need only follow the road.”
    The wolf made a snorting noise and was gone, but I thought I would see his dark form again.
    I arrived at Gran-ma-ma’s house just before sundown.
    Something was wrong. I noticed the front door was open, and I could hear strange noises, so strange I could not even begin to describe them, coming from inside. The window seemed like the perfect place to spy, so I snuck up to it as quietly as I could. I peeped in and saw Gran-ma-ma’s prone form laid out in bed. She was wearing the blue and white lace bonnet and nightgown that my mother detests but which Gran-ma-ma treasured. I held my breath when I saw the wolf step up onto the bed.
    I could hear Gran-ma-ma’s breathing begin to grow quick and deep, like the heavy panting our dog used to make before mother put the decisive end of the shotgun in his face. The wolf seemed taken aback at this, because his paw visibly shook, and he would put it on the comforter and take it off in twitches.
    “Is that you?” came Gran-ma-ma’s wavering voice, quiet and earnest. “Oh, I’ve waited, I’ve waited. How I’ve waited!” She gave out a low, pitiful wail, like the caterwauling of a wretched cat in the peak of its estrus. “Why did you not come sooner?”
    The wolf’s soft ears flattened and he lowered his head, as if asking for forgiveness. The beast opened his slick jaws, and each shiny pointed tooth was visible. I was afraid for Gran-ma-ma, and the feeble warning was about to issue from my mouth when the beast drew out his long, red tongue, and ran it slowly up her neck, ending on her pale, thin lips. Gran-ma-ma did a funny thing then. Her breathing came out in erratic huffs, like she couldn’t get enough air into her lungs, and then released a high pitched whine, like the one my father makes at night sometimes, accompanied by my mother’s heavy grunts.
    “Oh, what a sweet tongue you have!” she said.
    I was enthralled. I imagined that heavy tongue running across my own sensitive neck again, or my lips. Perhaps even my tongue would dart out, quick and shy, and meet his lips, or his fuzzy snout.
    In the midst of my fantasy, I almost did not notice the wolf cringing back from my Gran-ma-ma. His soft whine filled my ears, and I felt pity for the dumb beast when he began to lightly paw at Gran-ma-ma’s still form.
     Her dull eyes and that plastered, adoring smile said enough. My stomach tightened like when I wore the corset Gran-ma-ma gave me to put on one summer before my mother expressly forbid it. I felt like vomiting.
    The wolf, skittish by his own realization, looked as if he would bolt. I cannot really explain it, but I did not want the wolf to leave. So, quick as I could, I slammed Gran-ma-ma’s only window shut. The beast was petrified at the bang. I could see his base animal coming out as he growled and pulled back his lips to show those trembling, vicious teeth. I ran to the door, shouting loudly as I did. The trick worked, for the wolf, terrified at the screams and bellows backed up to the dead fireplace and hid, best as he could, in the nook.
    When I’d entered the house, making sure to lock the door behind me, the wolf seemed confused; his sharp teeth were weary. Without making any sudden movements, I put the basket on the ground and raised my hands in supplication, palms outward. The wolf lowered his head, but his teeth and eyes glowed in the fading light.
    “I mean you no harm,” I said quietly. “I only thought that you’d like to stay a little longer. Must you leave so soon? The forest is cold at night, and it is very warm here.”
    The wolf made a vicious noise, like rocks grinding in his throat, and moved to the back wall. I knew he wanted to escape, but I could not allow this. After all, the beast had come for me. I had asked him to come. It was not fair that Gran-ma-ma should be the only one to enjoy him.
    I indicated the basket. “Would you care for something to eat? I’ve packed things for my Gran-ma-ma...” I looked to her still body, and I hoped the wolf understood that she would not need it anymore.
    The wolf paced back and forth, nails clicking on the wood floor.
    “Perhaps you’d like some wine? I bet you’ve never tried wine before.” Slowly, very slowly, for the wolf had stopped moving and was watching, I reached down and picked up the bottle of wine and showed it to him. He seemed interested in it, so with my eyes on him and his eyes on me, I went to the cabinet and took out one of Gran-ma-ma’s breakfast bowls. I poured half the bottle in the bowl and set it on the floor.
    “Come now, it’s safe. And very tasty.” I knelt down and dipped my fingers in the wine and brought them to my lips. “It’s just like the blood of a rabbit.”
    Tentatively, the great beast made his way over to the bowl. He growled at me, and so I moved away from it, but remained crouched, watching. His tongue darted out and tasted the wine. He must have liked the taste, or really believed it to be blood, for he began to lap it up. He got his whole snout in that bowl, and when he pulled his head out the blood by his nose was gone, replaced with the lighter, thinner wine.
    When he had finished the bowl, I was unsurprised to watch him stumble on wobbly legs to the foot of the bed and collapse. I quickly went to work.
    Using some of Gran-ma-ma’s rope, I tied a tight collar around his thin neck, and tied the loose end to the bed, silently thanking my Gran-ma-ma for having had it nailed to the floor. With another bit of rope I tied a sloppy muzzle around his snout to keep him from snapping at me when he woke. Pleased, I brushed his coat. It was rough and warm. I could even feel the strong pulse of his heart through the thick skin. It was comforting, so I lay my head down on his stomach and rested.
    I awoke to a wet growl in my ear and my head thumping on the floor as the wolf moved out from under me and stood. There was never was such a sight as that animal yanking and wrenching at the rope. He was like a bird throwing itself at the bars of his cage, or the fox gnawing at his leg in the steel trap. I was enraptured. The fullness of his rage and power struggling against such little thin strips of rope made my stomach clench. I salivated when the ropes held. I wanted to run up to him and throw myself on him, to rub my body against his as he struggled, to bring some of that passion into me.
    It was painfully beautiful to see his neck and snout rubbed raw by the course twines, and to hear his grunts and groans turn to breathy whines, but I steeled myself from pity. It was the only way to keep him.
    When he’d tired himself out, lying prostrate on the floor and following me with his cold, yellow eyes, I took stock of the house. I am ashamed to say I had forgotten all about poor Gran-ma-ma with the business of the wolf, and looked with curiosity on her now. She looked peaceful with that queer smile still gracing her face, her wide eyes staring at nothing. With Mother’s determination in me, I went about covering her body with the blanket. After, I did not know what else to do with her. There was no way I could carry her outside and bury her all by myself, though I did consider getting some flowers to lay on her. But that seemed too sentimental; it’s not like she’d appreciate them anyhow.
    The wolf did not move the entire time I strutted around the house, and I found myself admiring his bound physique more often than not. What was missing from his bones was meat, and so I tried to tempt him with the foods Mother had packed, but he would have none of it. I spoke very softly, as one would speak to a child, and told him how yummy the bread and cheese and tarts were, but he would not take it. He only turned his head away or swiped at me with his paws.
    As the days drew on, the wolf grew more and more haggard. I could only get him to drink water, and even then I had to wrestle him down and open his jaws as far as the rope would allow with my hands and funnel the liquid down. This task grew easier as time passed and his strength diminished.
    The other problem was Gran-ma-ma had begun to reek. I had no idea that the body began to decay so quickly, but the smell, at first just a faint whiff of rot, soon grew unbearable. Almost convinced that I would have to drag her body out somehow, even if it would take all day and night, I came upon a realization - one that would solve both of my problems.
    With trembling fingers I removed the muzzle from the beast. Thinking he would snap at me, I backed away, but the most he did was stretch his jaw. It made a terrible cracking noise. Untying the leash from the bed, I tugged at him until he stood up and followed. I made him climb on the bed by slapping the mattress, as one would with a dog. Uncovering Gran-ma-ma and trying not to look at the grotesquerie of her sunken cheeks and rotting eyes, I lifted her hand to his mouth.
    Gran-ma-ma would have wanted it this way.
    Several hours later he vomited her up.
    I soothed his growling stomach by feeding him soft breads and fruit and milk. After a few half-hearted attempts at resisting, pure survival instinct kicked in, because he ate in a daze. His eyes became dull and glossy, like the doll’s eyes that Mother had given me when I was a girl. I’m not even sure he knew what he was eating.
    I knew he was a carnivore, perhaps even carnivore embodied in flesh, so I attempted to get him meat by trapping rabbits like Mother had shown me how to do with snares of wire or rope. I always cooked the meat before I gave it to the wolf, and he would knock it about with his paws, seemingly dejected when it made no movement. Still, he did eat it.
    Soon he grew healthier, and there was a definite pudginess to him. His coat grew shiny and strong, and he never resisted when I put my hands through his fur, which I confess I did often. Eventually I was able to leave the muzzle off, and even the leash when I wasn’t off in the forest hunting. Whenever I came back it was always the same: he’d be where I left him, staring at the dancing fire in the hearth, his body in a chair, his head and front paws prostrate on the table.
    I would like to have said that I was happy, but I was not. He no longer was that fine demon I had first met, but some sorry lump of flesh and fat. I tried to plead with him, I burrowed myself into his soft fur and cried, I offered my arm to him and told him he could bite me if he wanted to, rip me to shreds and eat me as a sacrifice to his once-might, but he just looked away or rolled over onto his side so I could put my head on his growing belly to sleep.
    And though he was warm and soft, his dull eyes horrified me. There was a nothingness in those dark, wide spheres (and oh, what large eyes he had!). I could feel myself being drawn into them, helpless in an ever widening recess which no amount of my presence would fill.
    The only thing to do was to let him go. Perhaps if he was back in the forest he would be as he was, as I wanted him to be. When I cut his leash with Mother’s knife and threw the door open the damn thing just sat there staring at the greenery beyond the door like something he once might have known, which was now foreign and strange.
    When he would not leave, I took the rifle Mother had given Gran-ma-ma and shot him.

Creepy Uncle Is Watching You

    Welcome to the not-so-brave new world. Don’t get too comfortable. Try not to relax.
    The new world is the world of information. Information is wealth. Information is power. Information is control. Information is everything. You are information.
    1984 went by and we thought we were safe. We were wrong. Orwell was a lightweight. Brilliant, of course, but he had no idea. He thought there would only be mindless drones transcribing the conversations of the disloyal on manual typewriters. We’re so far beyond that now. Oceania seems like a utopian Garden of Eden next to this.
    Big Brother is dead. The men behind the throne took him out and blew his brains into the rosebushes. He was soft, too much of a wuss. He wanted to help. He wanted to control people by being their friend. There’s no need for that now. Big Brother has been replaced by that creepy old uncle, the one you hid from at the family picnics. The one who was always leering at you over the potato salad. He’s watching you right now. Smile.
    Everything is information now. And Uncle has all of it. He has your DNA, your fingerprints, your retinal scans. He has brain scans you don’t remember having done. He knows your birth sign and he has a frighteningly accurate projection of how and when you will die.
    Uncle collects information the way a black hole collects light. Nothing is safe. Telephone calls are monitored and reviewed, mail is scanned and sorted. Packages are x-rayed. Vehicles are followed from red light camera to traffic control monitor to toll road scanner. He knows where you are. Cameras mounted on every city street are running, sending in the pictures to be scanned through facial recognition software, sorted from there into digital reconstructions. He knows what you look like. He knows what you read. Buy a book on plastic or check one out from the library, it’s recorded. Buy a CD, he knows about it. Then there’s the internet. Every keystroke that goes on the net is routed and collected, stored for future reference. In case it’s ever needed. Data strings travel the net constantly, scanning hard drives, transmitting everything back to Uncle. Uncle knows everything. Watch what you do.
    Uncle can’t tell what you’re thinking. Yet. But he has people working on it. Watch what you think, just in case.
    All the data’s collected, run through NSA computer banks using software that hones in on key words, analyses context, reviews past records. It finds patterns in data. It sends up red flags. It notifies the authorities. Then things start to happen.
    You don’t believe this. I know, it’s hard. You want to feel free. We all do. I used to feel free, and I miss that. Maybe you don’t want to know the truth. I understand. But if you want to know, it’s easy to find out. There’s a simple test you can do, but I don’t recommend it. All you have to do is type a sentence using the words “jihad” and “bomb.” Any combination like that, the computers will...
    Uh-oh.
    That was a mistake. I didn’t mean to do that. Is there an undo on this? Hey, it was just a joke, you know. I was just fooling around.
    It’s very quiet now. The dogs have stopped barking. I can’t hear the birds. There’s a sound that could be a helicopter. Maybe two of them. They’re very quiet, but I can hear them. They’re right overhead. Oh my god! Something just hit the roof. Something is happening out there. I’m going out to see. If I’m not back in ten min

Bio

    Brian Haycock lives in Austin, Texas, where he has worked mainly for nonprofit organizations. He enjoys running (especially in the summer heat), hiking and reading stories of all kinds. His stories have appeared in Thuglit, Nefarious, Yellow Mama, Amarillo Bay, Crime and Suspense, Reflection’s Edge, Darkest Before the Dawn, Pulp Pusher, Swill, and other highly respectable publications. His book about modern Zen practice, Dharma Road, will be published in Fall 2010 by Hampton Roads Publishing. Check him out at brianhaycock.blogspot.com/. Unlike the people he writes about, he is law-abiding and reasonably sane. Really.

The Performer

    He’d been job hunting all afternoon and had finally scored a point. The elderly woman at the YMCA on 87^th and Roosevelt had taken his application, asked him only a few additional questions, and promised that someone in administration would call him back—about working the front desk evenings for 8 dollars an hour, 26 hours a week. Well, it was something; it would help pay his bills and his food. Now he was trying to relax. The Junction Boulevard bus wended its way south toward home. Crowds of passengers got on at every stop or got off. It was getting close to rush hour, maybe 4:30 or so. He sat way in the back of the bus, the classifieds tucked neatly under his arm, and almost started to doze. At Corona Avenue, a huge black woman dangling two shopping bags filled to the rim insinuated herself next to him, coming within inches of crushing his hand. He barely looked up.
    This was his life, his fate, his heartbeat—He had been laid off from a chemical plant two years earlier in 2006, where he had worked in the machine shop ever since he had graduated from high school, in 1981. He had never really considered the possibility that manufacturing would become so little needed, that economic factors would conspire to close thousands and thousands of smaller and even larger factories. He was 45 years old and desperately in need of some sort of life-sustaining income; his unemployment ran out after a year. There was no one in New York to help him out. His parents had died years ago, he had no siblings, and no friends to speak of, unless you counted the beer-guzzlers over at Mac’s on Woodhaven.
    So he kept on looking. His landlord was very understanding and recently had let him get behind a couple of months, but he didn’t want to push his luck. A cousin in Philadelphia, a psychology professor at Temple, had reluctantly loaned him a substantial amount of money last year. It was all but spent. Beer was his panacea; he couldn’t live without beer, at least a couple of cans a day.
    He rode buses, buses, more buses. He knew every inch of Queens, every intersection of Brooklyn. He hadn’t even tried the Bronx yet. There had been a few interesting ads out on Long Island, which was serviceable by Amtrak or by the subways, but thus far he had apparently been underqualified for those jobs. He wasn’t a waiter, nor could he throw himself into a fast-food job or work in one of those huge groceries like Stop-N-Shop. For him, that was simply too much responsibility. He could, however, handle simple reception or front-desk jobs; hotel, animal hospital, construction office—that kind of thing. The Y didn’t seem to pay as much as he would like, but it would do. It would do until his ship came rolling in, as he liked to put it.
    The bus was traveling along Broadway for just a bit, paralleling the subway line, until it would backtrack on 51^st, then onto Queens Boulevard to eventually pick up Woodhaven at Queens Center Mall. He had about a mile and a half to go. The driver knew him, knew he would most likely ring for a stop at Penelope and Woodhaven. A white-haired, handsome-looking gentleman carrying a guitar got on the bus and stood close by the front doors. After a few more blocks, he carefully opened his guitar case and began to play a song. Interesting, he thought. He wondered if the driver would ask him to stop playing, but the driver didn’t seem to mind. The guitarist could barely be heard above the din—many riders were talking on cell phones or listening to audible hip-hop or grunge rock on I-Pods. This man was singing, in a mellow voice, a very unfamiliar tune, yet it seemed to resonate within him. He knew the music of the 1960’s, knew it as though he’d been born in 1950 and not 1963. He’d studied, and listened on the Internet, and knew about as much of the trivia and statistics as it was possible to know. This song sounded like an old sixties folk song. It was lovely and melodic—what he could hear of it, that is; it was coming toward him like waves on the Sound, calling him to a quiet, placid atmosphere somewhere in his astonished mind. The guitarist paused briefly, as if to wait for applause or some sort of acknowledgment, then launched into another folk tune. He was moved, affected in some unfathomable way. He got up and found a vacated seat behind the musician, where he listened to the words the man was crooning, so mellow, so quiet, although completely clear now he was right next to him. The older man turned quickly around and offered a brief smile, as if somehow he knew, was able to read his mind. Do you remember this one? I am a poor, wayfarin’ stranger, travelin’ through this world of woe..........I’m only goin’ over Jordan; I’m only going, over home. Yes, yes of course he knew it. He didn’t remember how, or where, he’d heard the melody, nor how he knew the words, but they called his name. He found himself singing along. Beauteous fields......where souls redeemed their vigil keep........and it was just the two of them for a fleeting minute, just the two men on the crowded Queens bus, reveling in a long-forgotten folk song, a buried treasure brought back to life in the heyday of the folk rebirth of the 50s and 60s. They finished it together, almost harmonizing. Just as the performer earnestly said, “Thank you,” to him, the bus driver called out “Penelope!” It was his stop. He had to get off, and some fat woman with a scowl on her face was waiting for him so she, too, could make her way off the bus at the front. “Thank you,” he mouthed back at the guitarist. There he was at his corner, alone and free once again. He still heard the refrain in his mind, still felt some kind of vague admiration for someone who could do that, could just get on a bus and express himself so, even to the utter indifference, the coolness of a whole universe of bus riders. Why had he been so bold? Why did he endeavor to join in with the man? For what purpose, to what aim had this been? Did no one care about this at all? Yet he was much angrier with himself for having grabbed the chance, than with the silence of the unaffected passengers. He would spend the remainder of the evening brooding about it and remembering the exhilaration, the oh-so-brief animation of their spirit. And he would continue to ask himself why, and, he told himself, hey, if the Y hires me I’ll invite him to come and play in the lobby. Right, sure, the mocking, gloomy voice in his head replied. You’ll never see the guy again, nor are you meant to.

Fake It ‘Til You Make It

    Rachel is a girl. She collects shiny rocks. She spends hours listening to raindrops collect in jars on her window ledge. The rain falls through the open window, landing on her face and arms, but she does not care. Rachel lies on her back and watches the ceiling fan go around and around until all the blades blur together. She does not smile like other children. When she laughs, the sound she makes is flat. If they touch her, she screams and bangs her head on the floor until she loses consciousness. That is because Rachel is crazy.

    I look down at my stomach. It is round and hard, like a melon. I move my head closer to it and rap it with three fingers like old ladies do with cantaloupe in the grocery store. Once, one of the ladies told me that if you heard a hollow sound that meant it was ripe. I listen to see if my stomach makes a hollow sound. A few minutes later, there is a tap from the inside and I wonder if the thing within is listening to see if the world makes a hollow sound.
    In two months the thing within will become the thing without. I have seen videos where women push and scream to get it out of them and I think that they must be afraid to leave it inside and afraid to feel it coming out. The screaming and crying and all the lights in the hospital room on the television give me a headache. Sometimes they cut open the hard rind of the stomach and take it out and the woman does not scream or struggle. That is what I want them to do. Let them take it so I don’t have to feel the thing falling out of me.

    Rachel will not put her feces in the toilet. She hides them in the bottom of her toy chest. Even when they make her use the toilet, she will not flush it. She just stares down at the pieces of her floating outside. When they tell her to flush it, she ignores them. When they flush it for her, she hits them and they hold her down and let her scream until she can not make another sound. That is because Rachel never lets anything that was inside her go so far away.

    Sharon tells me that cutting it out will leave a scar. She says that natural childbirth is best. Sharon works in the library and so do I. She talks to me because I am very quiet and she believes this means that I am a good listener. Sharon asks me if I know who the father is. I say that I know who made me pregnant. I say pregnant because I know that is what you are supposed to say when you have a thing in your uterus and that thing is not a tumor.
    Sharon says that I should make him pay me for making me pregnant, but this does not make sense to me. Usually someone pays you when you give them a thing, and not the other way around. I do not say this. I say that I do not want to and Sharon laughs loudly. Her laugh is rolling and nasal. Then she says that “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” and I mimic her laugh because I know that she has made a joke. I also know that it is not her joke, but it is from a book written by Gloria Steinem with a glossy, blue and white cover and that its call number is 305.4 S822S.
    On my second day of work, I told one of the librarians an entire call number without looking it up. He was very surprised and he told all the other librarians behind the desk and they asked me to do it again. They gave me another title, but that time I took the number in my head and subtracted three from the first number, two from the second and so on. That way they thought that it was a coincidence. No one ever asks me to remember call numbers anymore. Now I write them down when I go from the front desk to the shelves, like everyone else.

    Rachel is eight years old. She can multiply numbers like 3,598 by 1,569 in her head. She can remember a random string of up to twenty-five digits after seeing it written once. These are games that she likes to play. When others hear her games, they make her take tests for hours. Some of the tests are puzzles, which are fun, but most of the tests are pictures that you have to make into stories. These tests make Rachel angry because stories are not pictures and making things into something they are not is not fun. If she does not finish the tests, they make her talk to strangers, as many as three at a time. When the strangers talk to her, she hums until she can not hear them anymore. Eventually, she stops playing her games and, eventually, they stop testing her. That is because Rachel can play their game.

    Sharon says “Rachel, having a baby is the most wonderful experience” and I nod because do not want to talk about my uterus anymore. But if I say this, she will ask me a question and then I will have to answer the question or she will ask me why I do not want to answer the question...ad infinitum, which means ‘unto infinity.’ Sharon continues, because she thinks that when I nod, it is an invitation to continue and not an invitation to go away. This is why I do not like gestures; because they are ambiguous, like the picture of a white vase on a black background that is also two faces in profile. If I try to see both pictures at once, I get a headache, and it is the same with gestures.

    Rachel lies on her back in the room with the couch and watches the ceiling fan. Sometimes she holds her hand, fingers splayed, above her eyes and moves it back and forth, slowly at first, and then faster and faster. The pattern of light and shadow makes her calm. This is because when she is looking at the pattern, nothing else can get in and she is alone, even when there are people around. When someone else is in the room with the couch, they stand over her, so that she can not see the fan. She continues to move her fingers back and forth, but the pattern is not the same. They tell her to look them in the eyes.
    They do this every day for a month. She screams and they ignore her; she bangs her head against the floor and they call for people to pick her up and take her into the padded room with no ceiling fan; she starts to look them in the eye and they start to leave her alone. Rachel does not even turn ceiling fans on anymore. That is because Rachel can learn.

    Seven months ago, a man who used to come to the library every day asked to take me home after work. I live in an apartment on the fifth floor of an eight story building. I walk up sixty-five steps to get to my floor. I do not take the elevator because it always smells like a crowd of sweaty people, even when there is no one inside. My apartment has four small rooms: a bathroom, a living room, a kitchen and a bedroom. The bedroom has a ceiling fan with an attached light and my bed is right underneath it. There are two switches next to the door, one for the fan and one for the light. I never use the fan switch.
    The man who drove me home walked up the stairs with me. When I opened the door to my apartment and went inside, the man followed. I did not want him to come into my apartment, but I did not tell him this, because you are not supposed to tell people to go away for no good reason and not wanting someone to be near you is not a good reason. When you do not have a good reason for something, you have to use gestures, even though they are ambiguous. One gesture that makes people go away is to not look at them and not to talk to them, even when they say something to you. This is called ignoring them.
    The man did not understand that my gestures meant that I wanted him to leave. He thought it meant that I wanted him to touch me. He took my hand and led me into my bedroom. He flipped both switches on when he walked through the door. I stayed very still while he reached under my skirt and took off my underwear. I stayed very still because I do not like to be touched, but telling someone not to touch you is like telling someone to go away; you have to have a good reason and I could not think of one.
    While he was on top of me, I looked past him at the fan above me, but I did not let the blades blur together. I did not move until I heard the front door slam, and then I put my underwear back on and turned off the fan. The man does not come to the library anymore.

    Rachel screams when anyone touches her and bangs her head against the floor. When they ask her why she does this, she tells them that it hurts. They tell her that being touched does not hurt, unless someone touches too hard. She tells them that it is always too hard and they tell her that she is wrong. They take her into a padded room and someone touches her on the arm to show that it does not hurt.
    Rachel screams until her throat is sore. She tries to bang her head onto the floor until she knocks herself unconscious, but it is not hard enough. She tries to bang her head against the wall, but it is as soft as the floor. After a long time, Rachel stops moving when they touch her. She does not scream when they pick her up and carry her back to her room. That is because Rachel can wait.

    Sharon tells me that the thing inside me is a piece of me to send out into the world. When you cut an apple into pieces, the pieces are still apple. If I cut a part of myself out, the part is still me. I do not want to flush me out into the world so far away. Sharon keeps talking about pieces of us in the world and I begin to hum so that I can not hear her. She stops and asks me if I am upset; when I keep humming, she reaches out and touches my hand. I want to scream, but screaming is like a gesture and some people think it means you want a lot of them to crowd around you. Instead I stay very still and quiet until she stops. I say that I am sick and need to go home. I say this, because that is how you are supposed to ask to be left alone, even though it is not a question.

    Rachel is in the hospital and she has been there for years. They say that she is sick, even though she does not feel sick. They will let her leave when she is better. They believe that she is sick because of the ceiling fans and games and wanting to be left alone. Rachel does not understand this because those things make her feel good and being sick is supposed to feel bad. She stops doing those things, anyway. They believe that if she looks at other people in the eyes and talks to them and plays their games that she will be better. Rachel does not understand this, because those things make her feel bad and being well is supposed to feel good. She starts doing those things anyway. That is because Rachel can fake it.

    I am in the hospital and I am not sick. It is time for the thing to come out. The nurse in the doctor’s office asks if I am sure that I want a caesarian section. I say that I want Rachel to be cut out, which is what caesarian section means. The nurse smiles and asks me if I know that it will be a girl and I nod. I do not know that the thing will be a girl, but I do know that it will be me. I nod because I know that saying that the thing inside you is you is a strange thing to say.
    When you say strange things people ask you questions and I do not want to answer any. There is rarely such thing as just one question and more than one question makes me tired. I watch the ceiling pass over me as they push me into surgery. I close my eyes and feel Rachel move inside me and wonder if I will still feel when she moves after they take her out.
    I wake up in a bed with a curtain around it and the nurse leans toward me, holding Rachel. She is screaming and trying to pitch her body out of the nurse’s arms. The nurse puts her in my arms and her screams become even louder. The nurse tells me that I was asleep for so long that they had to bottle feed Rachel, but that she still hasn’t stopped crying. I say that I want to put her down in a crib next to me. She asks me if I am sure and I nod. The nurse leaves for a few minutes and comes back wheeling a basinet, which is a very small crib with smooth, plastic sides.
    I put Rachel into the basinet and her screams become softer. The nurse says she has never seen an infant stop crying when someone put it down. This is because Rachel is not an infant, she is me. I do not say this. I ignore the nurse. She understands this gesture and goes away.
    I splay my fingers and hold them a few inches above her eyes. I move them back and forth, slowly at first, and then faster and faster. I roll over onto my back, with my fingers still moving a few inches in front of her eyes. I hold my other hand above my eyes just like they are above Rachel’s and begin to move them the same way. The pattern of light and shadow soothes us, because nothing else can get in, even though there are people behind the other curtains.

    We are a woman and a very small girl. We collect shiny rocks. We spend hours listening to raindrops collect in jars on the window ledge. The rain falls through the open window on our arms and face, but we do not care. Sometimes, we lie on the bed together and watch the ceiling fan go around and around until all the blades blur together. We do not smile like other people. When we laugh, we do not mimic anyone and the sound we make is flat. If anyone touches us, we will scream and bang our heads against the floor. That is because we are Rachel.

Old Man Brier Moran

    They still speak of Old Man Brier Moran. They tell tales of his feats in their cozy confines during the night, and sing songs of his legend out in the Field during the day. Parents tell their children bedtime stories of his exploits and, at the end of these yarns, the same children pray for his protection, their own visions of the man dancing around in their tiny minds. They have never known the truth of the circumstances behind his legend, however, and their ignorance continues to this day. He is their hero “now and has always been” they say, but time twists memories, and in reality, ‘twas not always so.
    I only knew the man for a very short period of time, three nights to be exact. This is his story, as told by the only surviving source.
    Many years ago, Brier Moran had resided in the same House, the house near the woods to the west, as his current following, following their monotonous routine, and living their monotonous lives. He had woken up every morning to the soft smacks of the loving Master’s sandal-laden feet, as she opened up the door, bringing fresh food and crisp water. Every afternoon he was brought out to the field by the loving Master, allowed to prance about, explore, and eat his fill of the bountiful harvest. But never was he, nor the rest of them, for that matter, to venture into the Wilderness, or the Barn that sat inches from it. If they tried, the Master would quickly sweep them up and bring them back to safety before they had even caught a whiff of the place. Brier never questioned these rules, never wondered why they were not allowed to approach the Barn. He had, on a few occasions while lying in the Field, thought he had heard sounds from the distantly mysterious building, but immediately dismissed as imagination, pushing any questions he may have had deep within his hide. He was as mentally stagnant as the rest of them.
    Of course he understood the Wilderness’ connection to the Red Men, and why they were prohibited from venturing to its borders. His people’s histories were filled with stories of them, terrifying creatures whose sole purpose was to prey on the people. But such was the loving protection of the Master that none in his recent memory had ever actually seen the Red Men. They were as much myth as reality, relics of an ancient past. No one knew if they even existed, or if the warning of their existence was just a way to keep them from the Wilderness. Either way, the people were content with their peaceful lives at the House and did not dwell on hypothetically distant possibility of danger.
    Unfortunately, not all was good in the House. Though the inhabitants were oblivious, under the sweet surface there lay a stench. This smell was not obvious, and it is understandable that nobody caught on, but every now and then, under conditions that stank of foul play, a person of distinguished age would be taken to the “home.” The “home” was a place with the greatest of facilities, a place that cured any ailment the people supposedly suffered from. Sickly children too were taken to the “home,” as well as the maimed. These cursed were sent to be cured, but none had ever returned. “Miracles take time” was the explanation that travelled throughout the House. But they were always forgotten before questions arose concerning their whereabouts. The People of the House have never been known to question, though. Their lives of contentment do not promote the exploration of the suspicions they all carry deep within their hearts.
    Brier Moran was an old man when he was taken to the “home”. He had lived in the House for seven unchanging years, doing no wrong but also no right, only living for himself, when one night, the routine changed. That evening, on the first night of spring, the Master came. She picked him up and took him to the dew-glistened Field. There, he was marked on the damp grass, picked up again, and taken in the direction of the Wilderness. Oddly, he said that he was not afraid at this time. As they approached the Wilderness, a veil had been lifted off his eyes and, for the first time, he saw the world. He saw the beautiful blue-hued leaves of the trees for the first time, how they seemed to glow in the moonlight. He heard the million-and-one sounds; the chirps, the barks, and the howls, which must have lain dormant during the day. Brier was excited for the Wilderness, was ready to understand its mysteries, and was altogether disappointed when the Master stopped just short of it, in front of the Barn. She then dropped to one knee, unlatched and opened the wooden door, and sent Brier sprawling inside. It was now very evident that there was no “home”, only the Barn. In the back of his mind, he told me, he had always known there was no “home,” but, like the rest of the people, had chosen to ignore the unpleasant truth for the comfortable lie.
    The metallic scratch of the bolt, followed by the burst of light at the opening of the door, woke the two of us within the Barn. This was the first time I saw Brier Moran, and this is where our story really begins.
    He landed clumsily in a pile of hay and slowly got to his feet, brushing himself off in the process. Old Brier was just that; very old. He was rather unremarkable looking; dark skinned and of rather average height and weight. He did not look healthy, but there was youthfulness in his eyes that contradicted his body. Once he had achieved his bearing, the old man looked to his left and then to his right, where those blazing eyes rested upon us, cowering in the corner. “So this is the ‘home’, huh? From what I’ve heard I kinda thought it’d be more like the Ritz than a Motel 6.” This was our introduction to Brier Moran. His voice had a soul we could not remember having ever encountered in our brief stints at the House.
    The “we” I am referring to are I, Derry Scallon, and my brother, Kerry. We had both lived in the Barn since the previous summer, which happened to be the majority of our short, pitiful lives. We were twins, and very weak ones at that. I was tiny and unhealthy, and had trouble keeping food down. Kerry had more meat on his bones, but was a cripple nonetheless, having been born with a lame leg. After nearly a month, despite the loving nourishment from our mother and the Master, my condition did not improve. As the days dragged on, I became sicker and sicker, until finally, near death, an angel came to me. I now know it was the Master, as Brier’s and Kerry’s descents to the Barn were much the same, but, at the time, in the midst of hallucinating through the sickness, I thought an angel had come to save me. She picked me up, took me outside, and painfully marked me on the Field, just as she would with Brier and Kerry. She then took me to the Barn, the setting of my early life, and went back for Kerry and did the same to him.
    There were a few already living in the barn when we arrived, but their time was short. Kerry said that they perished from the squalid conditions, having been treated like animals. I can neither confirm nor deny this story. He said there were three in the Barn when we arrived. I have no recollection as to what occurred as I was nearly comatose for the early stages. He claimed that the Barn had made them the way they were, and he said this with bitterness in his voice. I don’t know exactly what happened during that period in our lives, only that my condition gradually improved to the point where I could walk around on my own. Kerry had cared for me during the rough stage; he had been my eyes and legs. He doesn’t talk about how he was able to keep me alive in those early weeks, doesn’t mention what he did, and I don’t ask. He was forced to grow up faster than I.
    Our roles began to reverse, however, as the summer faded into the fall. As I grew healthier and stronger, his leg grew worse. I became the breadwinner, so to speak, and soon was caring for him as he had cared for me. It was during this time that he began to retreat within himself. When I was sick, Kerry had had a purpose in this world. He was able to push through his debilitation so that I would survive, was able to keep the “sodomites” as he called them, out of his mind, if not his body. When I became healthy, though, that strong will left him forever, and never returned to the poor soul. With nothing to protect his mind, he slowly slipped into the darkness. Kerry no longer spoke by the time Brier arrived at the Barn. He only sat, constantly staring at nothing and cleaning himself, always cleaning, licking away and away – licking away at the dirt he thought of himself as, I imagined.
    “This is the Barn as we know it,” I replied. I rose to my feet with caution, wary of strangers. Since Kerry and I had become the only two inhabitants of the Barn, the only visits we received were from the Master, never looking at us as she delivered our weekly slops and murky water. The man seemed harmless enough, though, and had already displayed more human-like personality than I had ever seen, so I decided to approach him.
    “This is where they send the discarded. The ‘home’ is a myth. This is it.” I opened my arms and motioned for him to look around. I noticed his marking when he turned to examine his new home. Tattooed into the man’s back was an archaic depiction of the head of one of us, with a single green ear. “Yours is green,” I exclaimed, unintentionally letting the words slip out of my mouth. “Mine is red, and Kerry’s blue.”
    He gave me a confused look. “What in the world are you talking about, son.”
    I nodded my head and chuckled for the first time in awhile. I turned around and showed him my nearly identical mark. “I’m sorry; it’s just that we’ve never had one of the old here before, only people like us. All of us ‘reedy’ ones have always had blue ears, and the ‘cripples’ like Kerry over there have always been red. Apparently the ‘old’ are green. We now have a full set of ORC’s. The people here before us mentioned that the ‘old’ were sent to the Barn too, but we hadn’t met any yet.”
    At the mention of his name, the man looked over at Kerry for the first time. “What’s got your boy’s goat?” He just sat in the corner, staring into the Wilderness, looking at the past, I can only imagine.
    I spoke quietly to the man now. “Kerry doesn’t talk anymore. Please leave him be.”
    He continued to look at my brother for a few more moments with concern in his eyes, and then turned his attention back to me. I could feel his eyes looking me over, boring through me, and analyzing my condition, which, though much improved since birth, was not what one would describe as healthy. He then looked around the Barn once again, really taking it in for the first time. Though he did not initially say anything, I know he was affected by what he saw. The hay was cold and wet, the food decomposing, and the water stagnant. He extended his hand and for the first time I learned his name. “I’m Brier Moran. I can’t even begin to understand what has happened to you two here, but it can’t go on any longer. We cannot live like this. We must get out. To be honest, I’m surprised y’all have last this long, based on the conditions of this rat-infested place. How long’ve you been here?”
    Words cannot encapsulate what I felt at that moment. This man, within minutes of arriving in this hell-hole, was already going to bring about change. We had been here for months, and the thought of escaping had hardly crossed my mind. It had, on occasion, but where were we to go? How were we to survive in the Wilderness on our own? The arrival of this man changed everything however, especially when he said the word ‘we’. He seemed like a man who could be followed. “I’m Derry Scallon and this is my brother Kerry. We’ve been here since the end of the summer. We were brought here shortly after birth. We will follow you wherever you may lead.”
    With that, we got to work. The two of us pried and prodded around the entire Barn, attempting to find any weak point from which to launch our escape. The Barn really was not a barn though that was the name it was given long ago. The building had a wooden frame, with crisscrossed wire walls on all sides. The floor, raised a few inches off the grass, was made of wood, but was covered with a thick coat of years and years of excrement. The only real protection from nature was the slanted plywood roof, off which slid the melting ice, winter’s last memory.
    We worked until the Red Men arrived. They smoothly emerged from the Wilderness with their crimson eyes burning and malice in their smiles. In an instant, the two of them had surrounded the Barn, watching. All I saw of them was their malevolent faces, those eyes and jagged teeth, like stalactites and stalagmites in the caves of their mouths. One stood between the House and the Barn, the other between the Barn and the Wilderness. For the longest time the only sound was silence. Nothing stirred in the Wilderness. Two of us within the Barn were frozen with terror, while the alien visitors looked on, amusement evident on their faces. After what felt like eternity, I slowly moved over to Kerry, who was still sitting on the corner of the Barn, easily within reach of the Red Men. He was still staring into the Wilderness, apparently unaware of our visitors. He cooperated enough, though, and after a while I was able to bring him to the center of the room. At this action, the Red Man closest to the Wilderness spoke. “Let him be, for he knows the truth; the end comes soon, for all of you.” Right on cue, the beast on the other side chimed, “Every once in awhile we come to play. Until you’re gone we’re here to stay.” At that, they proceeded to walk around the Barn in a clockwise direction. They continued like this for the remaining hours of darkness, always keeping the same distance from each other, and never taking their eyes off their captives. As the new day’s light was moments from arrival, the two stopped exactly where they had started. The one, who had spoken first, hours earlier, turned towards us and said, “You’re meat so sweet, we’ll surely eat.” The one who spoke second followed suit. “On the night after next, we’ll lay you to rest.” Without another word the two retreated and were soon engulfed by the Wilderness.
    During that first night, as the Red Men walked their tours, the three of us sat in the middle, and I wished for death. Kerry had told me stories of the Red Men from our first few weeks in the Barn. How they had come when I was sick, had watched, had done nothing but watch. They were terrible creatures he said, that he had nearly died of fright from just watching them, but he did not share with me the details then, and I doubted he would now. I had never seen them before, never seen their graceful steps, or heard their banshee shrieks. Nothing I had imagined could have prepared me for their actual presence a few feet away. Kerry did not have the luxury of imagination.
    Kerry killed himself on the second night, while we had been searching for any chinks in the rusted armor. How funny was it that only the night before we’d been praying for a hole so we could escape, when only a day later we’d hope the opposite? Things do a complete 180 sometimes. He had been sitting in the center of the room, having not moved since the encounter with the Red Men. I don’t know if he ever slept by this time. He only stared outside the Barn. During that night, Brier and I were so caught up in our work that we failed to notice when Kerry actually moved. After a while, I turned around, and noticed him standing in the corner, still looking out into the darkness. His stinking leg had left a trail of blood and dead skin along the way. A part of me died as I witnessed the evidence of the agony that had befallen him every moment of every day during his stinking life. Before I even remembered the two jagged wires sticking out of that corner, I knew what Kerry was about to do, and I will never truly know why I did nothing to stop him, possibly out of indifference, possibly out of pity. Brier saw the same as I, and sprinting towards Kerry, he screamed for him to stop. Kerry turned to look at us one last time and said, “Red Men, Red Men, I wish you had come faster. Too long have I yearned for a place with no Master. Go to sleep, and run away, find my mark, and tear the clay.” He launched himself at the wire and drove it deep within his brain, hopefully vanquishing the memories he had carried for too long.
    I felt no reason to go on after Kerry left. His body still lay in the southwestern corner of the Barn, but he was no longer there. Of course, he had not been there for a long while, but I had always kept hope that that he would become better. Brier tried to stay busy to keep his mind away from Kerry, but he too eventually joined me in the center of the room, sitting and staring at the Wilderness. I felt much affection for this man who could display such emotion for a person he had only recently met. He owed Kerry nothing, yet mourned as if he did, or maybe he felt as if that was exactly the case. He had lived his cushy existence on the inside, with no knowledge of ours on the outside. He was ignorant, and therefore guilty.
    We both knew that our efforts were helpless. The Red Men would find a way inside, would find a way to end us. This thought oddly brought a sense of peace to me, the possibility that I may end up in Elysium with a Kerry who would speak. Hopefully, he would fill me in on everything that I had missed.
    Kerry had had other plans for us though.
    As the third night approached it became obvious that Brier would not sit and wait, whether he had hope or not. I found it strange how a man so old could still fight so hard, but I suppose his mind was young. Though his body had seen many winters, his mind had only just discovered its true purpose.
    I sat in the center as the yellowish-red sunset slowly turned to purple, then black, the newly colored trees and plants illuminated by the vibrant moon, while he perused the room, looking everything over again and again. There was moisture in the air, heavy and pungent, a lively smell, a smell of new beginnings. I heard him rustling through the hay, breathing heavily
    “Do you think Kerry knew something we didn’t?” I asked after a long while, staring into space like Kerry so often had. “What did he mean by what he said? He hadn’t spoken in a dogs-age.”
    From the corner, his haggard face lifted into a smile. I didn’t see it, only felt it. “I think your brother knew everything we didn’t.”
    This brought me out of my sullen trance in an instant, as I hopped up from where I was sitting and ran to where he was standing, in the corner opposite Kerry’s corpse. “What are you talking about?”
    “Find my mark, and tear the clay...” he muttered through that awestruck smile, a smile childlike in its pure joy. It was refreshing to see such unbridled happiness on an old man’s face, especially in such times.
    I followed his eyes to the spot on the floor that he had cleared of hay and rotting apples and carrots. The damp grain had waterlogged the wood, making it difficult to see the rune that had been hurriedly etched into it. I bent down to look. Carved into the floor was a head with only one ear. Upon further inspection, I noticed that the ear had been stained red, with Kerry’s own blood, I imagine. Around the depiction there was a ragged circle, cut in a rush and uneven, done by a man who had not much time. At this point I was stifling tears. They were tears of pride and tears of shame, tears of many different emotions. All I knew was that I felt emptier now than I ever had before, emptier than the space beneath the Barn, as we opened the circular hatch and looked into my brother’s secret chamber.
    This chamber turned out to be a tunnel, or at least the beginnings of a tunnel. The air was stale, filled with the smell of copper, the clay, like the wood above, stained red. Who knows for how long Kerry had been working down there, every night, maybe when I was sick, maybe after, maybe to escape the “Sodomites”, who knows. I had more questions to ask than ever.
    He had used the excess space under the Barn to store the loose dirt, and had made some progress, but not quite enough. For a brief second I thought maybe we could stay here, hide it out, wait for the inspection to end, because, even with Brier, what was I to do on the outside of the Barn, with nowhere to go. I did not share his ideas of heedless adventure, not yet at least. But when the Red Men tore their way through the Barn, and they would find a way in, they would find the hatch, and find us. They were methodical as well as brutal, and I could not think of a combination more dangerous. We had to dig.
    We took shifts, with one of us in front, furiously clawing through the thawing earth, while the other cleared the path from behind, like Kerry had. All I could think about were his dark nights down here, alone and lame. He had had nothing. Maybe he was going to leave me behind, was going to take his chances on the outside. Anything must be better than in here. I dug faster, creating a much narrower path than Kerry had. We did not have time to worry about a comfortable escape. The tunnel was pitch black, but it felt like a comforting blanket, that if we couldn’t see then neither could they. Of course I knew this to be completely untrue. They’d be able smell us, follow us down here. Our best bet was to dig until time ran out, then head up and hope to the Lord that we’d be covered. It’s so hard to tell when you cannot see.
    Brier was in front when they came, their howls as sharp as their teeth, the former slicing through the air as the latter cut through the wood. Even in our catacombs underneath, I could hear them in the Barn, and then I heard nothing. The silence was the worst, taking away the ability to visualize what they were doing, even if what you imagined proved false. The banshee’s blood curdling cry of rage a few moments later, however, released me of this uncertainty. At least Brier had something to occupy his time, as he was still grasping for the surface. All I could do was look behind me, and hope it was still there.
    I heard the wood on wood scrape as the hatch was lifted, revealing its secret, and the quaking rattle as it was launched against the metal cage. There was sound at my end of the tunnel when Brier broke through, the suffocating sweat inside immediately going to battle with the dewy cold outside. I turned and saw red at the same moment Brier screamed, the upper half of his body he used to break on through (to the other side) now in the jaws of the beast. I turned towards him, then back to the other, and tried to move as far forward as possible. The other Red Man was pulling Brier up through the hole, and I was trying to follow. There was nowhere to go. As the eyes came closer and closer, and I backed into Brier’s writhing body, something happened. They stopped. The eyes stayed where they were, but were now accompanied by that familiar shriek. The creature did not back away, though. It was so close that it could taste me. I could feel the heat as its mouth watered and yapped, trying to grab a stranglehold. It kept pushing and pushing, until it finally gave in and attempted to scramble back from whence it came. But it couldn’t. It shrieked and shrieked, louder than Brier even, its bloody eyes filling with tears. I was surprised they didn’t come out red.
    With one of the Red Men currently subdued, I turned my attention to the other, the one treating Brier as if he were a rag doll. I gave myself as much distance from Brier, while giving my Red Man a safe berth, and sprinted as best I could, head down and shoulders hunched, towards my damaged friend. I connected with his back side at the same instant the Red Man above gave him a tug. The added momentum sent us all stumbling onto the cool grass. The fresh air was suffocating in its purity compared to that beneath.
    The Red Man still had a shocked Brier in his grips, but had not expected to be outnumbered at this point. My first instinct was to run, be rid of this mess, but I did not listen. Instead I ran at it and sank my teeth into the Red Man’s arm, near the shoulder. Stunned, it dropped Brier, who had enough awareness left in him to realize this was our only opportunity. He launched himself at the larger creature and went for its belly. The beast thrashed around as hard as he could, sang its terrible song, but we did not let go, and continued to tear away at its vitals. We were both clawed, though, and eventually flung off of its torn body, one after the other. I took with me its right arm. The beast took a few drunken steps towards us, its former arm a stump like Grendel, before collapsing to the soil.
    I tasted the beast’s warm, bitter blood, its life source, in my mouth, and spit it out, choking on the vile taste. Brier was not so active. He was breathing, though they were the very long breaths of those not meant long for this world. Deep gashes ran up and down his chest and back, and blood poured from him like a river. He was as pale as could be and shaking. He too was going to die.
    He spoke before I had made it over to him. “Finish the other one,” was all he said. And he was right, I’d completely forgotten about my friend in the tunnel, though its screaming had yet to cease. I walked over to the hole on the outside, the hole that was only a few feet from the Barn, near the border of the Wilderness. From underneath we felt as if we’d dug miles. Only until I began to kick dirt back into the hole did I realize how much pain I was in, not injured, but pain nonetheless. I only wanted to lie down and go to sleep, sleep away this nightmare. But I didn’t. I kicked the dirt until the shrieks of anger and for help became shrieks of terror, as the beast knew what lie next. After I’d kicked as much loose soil as possible from the outside, I went back to the Barn, and entered through the hole the Red Men had torn through. They had chewed where the wires met the wooden frame, had peeled the metal back like a banana, and entered in this way. Once inside, I climbed down through the hatch, and continued to kick. I did so until its screams became muffled, as if listening to them in a dream.
    I figured Brier’d be gone by the time I returned, but that was not the case. His chest was still producing feeble soft-rock beats, but he had a smile on his face.
    “This sure beats the hell outta dying of old age,” he laughed, though a painful grimace followed. He looked, from where he lay, at the house and then at the Barn, the only two places of residence in his life. “I lived more in a few days here than I ever would’ve back there,” he said, nodding towards the House, “I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
    He then looked me in the eyes and spoke for the last time, “Don’t go back there, you can’t go back, must not be tricked down that mindless, thoughtless path. You won’t be free mentally, let alone physically. Face the unknown. I saw too late, but at least I did, see it, when I came here. Don’t go back, or you’ll just become another cog in their machine.” With that last command, his fire extinguished.
    I did listen to a portion of his request, and never, ever became one of them, a cog in their machine, but I did go back. Where was I to go?
    After the old man’s death, I went back to the Barn, waiting for the Master to arrive and witness the carnage. At first I climbed into the chamber underneath, and listened to the distant struggle within, helping mat down the earth, so as to expedite the process. The sound soon ceased, and I laid myself down on the ground, much cooler now than earlier, and went to sleep. I woke on the hay to the beat of her soft-padded footsteps on the grass. When she finally arrived, I was taken back to the House, while the Barn was cleaned of the evidence. Once in the House, my health began to improve. I became strong. The return to the Barn that I had expected never came.
    I saw my mother upon return, looked right into her eyes and was about to speak, but fell silent when her reciprocating gaze was filled without recognition. She had not a clue who I was, none of them did.

    I lived in the House for many years, never finding the motive within to leave, but telling the people about that night, and always hiding my mark. I told whoever cared to know, how the “home” had been attacked by the evil Red Men, and how Brier had smote them down, saving all of us within, at the cost of his own life. I spoke of witnessing him rise into the sky after his death, the ascent of a holy being. He had been one of them and I thought they should care.
    I never spoke of Kerry, for he was not, nor had he ever, been one of them.
    Towards the end of those many years I was once again taken to the Barn, this time as an old man. The Master came, picked me up, and marked me for the second time on the Field. As she walked us towards the Barn, her grip on me loosened for a brief second. In that moment, I sunk my teeth in to her hand, and felt the warm blood on my lips. She cried out and dropped me on the Field. I ran. I ran faster than I can remember, past the Barn, and into the Wilderness.

Susquehanna University
TJ Heffers, Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania
Editing and Publishing Unedited Interview

with Janet Kuypers, founder of Scars Publications and Editor in Chief of cc&d magazine

    1. Could you give me a brief history of Children, Churches and Daddies? What roots has it sprung from? Where do you think it’s going?

    When I received sample issues to read and learn from after I first started submitting writing to magazines for publication, I saw that a lot of the editors were published in these same sample magazines. Without knowing what it would entail, I decided that if editors got published (and not knowing any magazines that needed and editor), I could just start a magazine and become an editor.
    Starting Scars Publications with the release of my first book (titled “Hope Chest in he Attic”), I then listed cc&d in as many journals as I could to get the word out in the literary community. However, when it first started off cc&d did not have many contributors. But by 1995 cc&d, as a 5.5" x 8.5" saddle-stitched magazine (which started on the Internet in 1995 as well) had so many accepted writings from contributors that it was released every two weeks. 1995 was also the beginning of annual poetry and prose collection books from cc&d (as we were looking for ways to expand the reach of cc&d, and also expand work from Scars Publications). So in 1996, cc&d changed formats (and Internet addresses, from a shout.net internet address to an aol Internet address) from saddle-stitched journals to 100+ page 8.5" x 11" brad fastened issues, and then contained not only poetry and prose sections, but also news, (plus PETA and political news) and philosophy.
    1999 issues were all released as a giant collection book, and occasional issues (many times Internet only, at the current http://scars.tv/ccd.htm domain) were released with collection books for the next few years. In 2004 we decided to start saddle-stitched issues again (without the extensive news or philosophy sections, but occasionally with the “Performance Art” section, from live Chicago poetry shows). By 2009, issues were 44 pages and crammed with as many pieces as we could fit in a smaller typeface and expanded margins (instead of increasing the number of issues we released, the way we did in 1995). We also ran regular editorials in issues (called “the boss lady’s editorial”), but because of space we decided that editorials would appear only in Internet issues. By 2010 we wanted to give contributors more space, but we did not want to start hand printing and binding 100+ page 8.5" x 11" inch issues again. This is why in 2010 cc&d magazine started having their issues formally printed as monthly perfect-bound 84 page 5.5" x 8.5" books.
    Where is cc&d going? I have no idea. (Sorry.) But since cc&d is my baby (so to speak), I try to get cc&d out there on as many levels as I can – for instance, I also host a weekly poetry open mic in Chicago (at “the Café, 5115 North Lincoln Ave), and at the beginning of every month when a new issue is released, I read select short poems from the issue to the live poetry audience (and with the contributor’s permission, I videotape and post cc&d magazine poem readings at youtube as well). Also, since cc&d has had an ISSN number for print since 1993 and an Internet ISSN since 2000, supplement issues of cc&d have also been released – as PDF file chapbooks on line, as saddle-stitched chapbook releases for poetry features, and also as perfect-bound supplement books.

    2. What is your role at CC&D? How has it changed over time?

    I have edited cc&d since its inception, and it has allowed me to interact with other writers, and learn from writers around the country – and even around the world. cc&d is actually named after a poem of mine – “Children, Churches and Daddies” is a 1993 poem of mine that talks about the dysfunctionality of those things at times. And yes, I would get snail-nail submissions at the onset of cc&d with cover letters that started with lines like, “Hello. I am a Christian mother of four, and I am submitting my rhyming poems to you.” Because of this I quickly created the byline “the UNreligious, NON-family oriented literary and art magazine,” and although the magazine name “Children, Churches and Daddies” has never changed, I have been really comfortable calling the magazine “cc&d” (so people don’t hear the long title and instantly assume we’re a “family-oriented” literary magazine).
    The biggest changes to cc&d over the years has been in its format (designing different-sized issues changed the look of the magazine; the style of the headers within issues and title typeface fonts have changed once or twice over the years, the logo had one design change in 1995 and I have adopted using an additional “cc&d” logo in the latter half of this decade). Some things that have not changed include the types of writing we look for. We still look for new writers – the successes of the author don’t matter to us, all that matters is if the writing is good. And we let people know that if they submit writing to us, they retain all of the rights to their work – they are just giving us permission to broadcast their work for them. Right now we currently post all accepted writings in the “writings” section of http://scars.tv under their name, in Internet issues of cc&d on a web page, and in print issues. (And if people request it, we can pull writing from the Internet as well.) We also offer to accepted writers that their writing may also be printed in an annual collection book (as we choose select writing from every year for a collection book or two).

    3. What is the mission of CC&D, in your own words? How does this affect which submissions the magazine accepts?

    At cc&d, we want to let the world know of good writing. Simply put. That is why we try to publish good work that makes you think, that makes you feel like you’ve lived through a scene instead of merely reading it. Reading the guidelines link at http://scars.tv/ccd.htm gives anyone a better idea of what cc&d looks for (where it also explains in the guidelines that 99.9% of what we accept is emailed to us versus snail-mailed).
    I am used to assuming people want to know what kinds of poetry we look for (since we publish poetry and prose), but those guidelines really also make short stories really appeal to cc&d as well. In the first half of the 2010 issues, prose takes up around three fourths of all of the pages. (This is easier to understand when you take into account that a short story takes up a lot more space than a poem.)

    4. What design challenges has CC&D met? Has there been a tension between print and online formats?

    The one thing that has been nice (in my opinion) about designing cc&d is that it has always been my baby, and I have been able to do whatever I wanted design-wise with it. When I started the magazine, I designed the logo and put everything together as I saw fit. And when in my profession I was working as an art director for food trade magazines (where you had a specific market to target and very specific guidelines while designing magazine pages with extensive advertisements), it was so nice to be able to design cc&d magazine and only answer to what I believed the magazine needed (and not to a corporate staff and a fleet of salespeople).
    I have wondered at times if there should be design changes, but when I get to those points, I study the options and make appropriate changes as I see fit, I hope I have done a good job designing issues over the years; looking back I think that some issues look messy (I think I went overboard with design choices in 1998 and 1999 releases, for example), but I like how a lot of material has turned out over the years from Scars Publications.
    But when it comes to designing Internet (web page html) issues, the design completely changes. I cannot give all web browsers the fonts I use in designing print issues (and I really don’t want to make transparent gif file images out of the titles, because that too would affect how the pages looked in web browsers). Structuring an html page of a cc&d issue means that items in relation to each other will be different. Layout of accepted materials in html issues is completely linear (versus artwork appearing throughout a short story, for example). And it is kind of sad that when reading an html page issue, the reader cannot open a set of pages to read material, but although it is designed differently from print issues, I believe the Internet issues also work out well.

    5. What has led to CC&D’s stance as being the “UNreligious” magazine? Does this tie in with the political nature of the submissions the magazine looks to get?

    I think I started to answer this before: because with a magazine named “Children, CHURCHES and Daddies,” I would get snail-mail submissions in the early to mid 1990s with cover letters that started with lines like, “Hello. I am a Christian mother of four, and I am submitting my rhyming poems to you,” so I quickly created the byline “the UNreligious, NON-family oriented literary and art magazine”. We do get a lot of submissions from people, and we (at times) really push the edge with the kinds of writings we publish. When people know the byline, we occasionally get letters asking if mentioning religion or talking about religion is off limits, and we tell them no, it is fine. We just don’t want the world thinking we’re looking for “praise Jesus” writing. This is why we even include past issues on line for people to check out – everyone can see the kind of writing we are looking for and the kind of writing we would publish by seeing what we have published.
    And yes, we do like political poems and short stories. Because people think about politics and how politics affect many different aspects of our lives, it is good to write about it.
    In fact, for the longest time I had editorials running in issues of cc&d (at the front of issues, in a section called “the boss lady’s editorial”) that usually talked about something political. I have even released two books called “the boss lady’s editorials”, and have a cc&d book release coming out by the summer of 2010 of editorials (pending title: “Adolph Hitler, O.J. Simpson and U.S. Politics” – from Clinton to Bush to Obama, I try to tie everything together through editorials). Political stuff is good. Stuff about environmentalism is good. Stuff about religion can also be good (I even did an editorial called “Proving the Existence of Jesus”); we just (as I said before) don’t want “praise Jesus” writing.

    6. Does CC&D hold strongly to the promise, on its guidelines page, of “publishing some pretty hot stuff from some of the best underground writers?” Why is this important to the magazine?

    Making a statement like that on our guidelines page would be entirely subjective (anyone can say anything, and it is always based on the opinions of the writer). And I just checked the guidelines page on line (direct link http://scars.tv/guide.htm), and saw that we never described what we published anything that we described on our guidelines page as “hot”, and the word “underground” never even appears on our guidelines page.
    But writings we have accepted have ranged from mild-mannered writing and slice-of-life writing to overtly sexy to sometimes pretty graphic sexually to sometimes grossly violent. Because we have published over the years a lot of new writers as well as well-known writers, people looking for more “underground” publications (where a lot of writers turn to for a creative outlet when mass publishers won’t give writers like us the time of day) for publishing their work. We want to let people know that we are not looking only for well-known writers (and excluding others). Plain and simple, we look for good writing. It doesn’t matter to us if the accepted writer has a long credit sheet or none at all.
    If we mention underground writers, we are stressing that we don’t search for only well-known name for publishing writing at cc&d.

    7. What political issues does CC&D try to champion with the pieces it publishes? Which of these is most important to the magazine? How have these issues changed in the most recent political era, since 9-11?

    As the guidelines mention, we look for writing that makes people think. Anything political makes people think. (Imagine getting two talking heads from opposing sides on the cable 24-hour drive-by news shows, and you can imagine the two sides getting angry with each other, trying to cut each other off to get their point across. In other words, people have opinions about political issues.)
    And yes, over the years what people have written about (and what we have highlighted) in cc&d has changed. Because I am a vegetarian, a lot of articles, poems and short stories have reflected that. (Even if I may not personally support all of the things PETA does, for instance, some of the points the organization makes are worthy of thinking about, so I listed some of them in cc&d.) In the 1990s I even released on the web copies of the Unabomber’s Manifesto (which C Ra McGuirt of Penny Dreadful Press completely loved, and it’s funny that I posted this anti-technology manuscript only on the Internet). After 9/11 Scars has released pieces bringing up 9/11, and yes, the changing climate changes what people submit to us.
    Of course political changes change what people think about, and it changes what people write about. So what cc&d would consider and accept would reflect that as well.

    8. Why does CC&D take such a strong stance against experimental poetry?

    That question made me laugh (sorry, it’s not like we’re on a quest to extinguish “experimental” poetry). And “experimental poetry” is hard to define, but poems that are shaped like something (or even rhyming poetry), are poems that is specifically designed for something other than the actual content of the writing.
    Experimental poetry (and oftentimes even rhyming poetry) is more about making something fit a stereotypical form, and overlooks the message in the actual writing. If we ask at cc&d for writing that makes people think, we want readers to think about the message, and not think about working to read it because it is indented in difficult ways. Even in rhyme, readers get lost in looking for the rhyme instead of meaning, and the less experienced writer will usually work harder on making sure lines rhyme, even if the chosen words don’t accurately get the meaning across.
    This is why we say in our guidelines that poems with repeated or intricate indentations are frowned upon. There are two reasons for this: the literary reason for this is because if the poem cannot read well without the mass special indentations, then it’s probably not a good enough poem for publication at Scars. An additional reason is because of us publishing poems on the Internet as text as well. Because we have to redesign the writing so it appears on a web page, which cannot be replicated precisely, special indentations cannot be done with text (on a patterned background, as our issues and the writings section of http://scars.tv are). So we explain to people that we prefer writing that wins us over not on how it looks on the page, but how it reads.

    9. What do you feel the duty of the literary magazine is in the current literary world? Does the literary magazine have a role to fulfill that no other medium can?

    I don’t believe in the idea of a “duty” when starting or editing a literary magazine. But if people are passionate about something (like writing, or publishing a magazine) publishers are interested in having good voices out there, to broadcast for the world to read. They want to highlight good writing, so other can read it and learn from the better poems and stories. Writers want these outlets because they want feedback on their own writing, and learning what others think (and potentially comparing your style of writing with other accepted writers) helps them improve as writers as well. Writers also want these outlets because it not only provides them a variety of venues to read a wide variety of writing styles, but reading other people’s work also give writers ideas. I know there are a number of poems I have written over the years because I saw someone else’s poem, and it inspired me to write.
    We are all looking for ideas, and all of the writers that support magazines like cc&d look for places to read a variety of voices on a variety of ideas. People look for this venue in on line journals, saddle-stitched Xeroxed poetry collections and other literary magazine outlets everywhere. It becomes a place not only for people to be able to share their work with others, but also a place to hear new and refreshing ideas that you so not see in any major mainstream venues.

    10. What do you think the future of publishing looks like, and what place do you think CC&D has in it?

    I have never thought cc&d “having a place” in the publishing world, but I have never wanted cc&d to remain stagnant. In 1993 and 1994 as the magazine was starting, the goal was just to get issues released. So by 1995 cc&d changed their logo, and more than doubled the number of issues as well as the issue length. Scars Publications also released the first cc&d collection book by the end of 1995. By 1996 we changed the format of cc&d for a few years, then by 1999 we decided to run cc&d as solely collection books (then books and Internet issues, which included mp3 file audio Internet issues). Scars Publications has been on the Internet with web pages since 1995, but cc&d further expanded on the web after 2000 and the founding of the domain name for http://scars.tv – this gave us the chance to include audio files. As youtube started, we found another avenue to expose cc&d and Scars Publications to the world.
    Since we halted the production of individual issues in the beginning of this millennium (and chose to rely on book production and Internet issue releases with mp3 audio issues), we decided to start releasing issues again (with quarterly 8.5" x 11" brad fastener issues in 2003, then monthly 5.5" x 8.5" saddle stitched issues in 2004). Once we were releasing monthly issues, we released more and more collection books (in addition to books of collections of issues in 2007 through 2009). The new format of cc&d monthly perfect-bound books in 2010 has also been a major boost with quality and quantity of issues released. With my starting hosting the weekly poetry open mic at the Café, there is also a venue to read poems from accepted writers in current issues regularly.
    The point? We are trying to get the word out for cc&d in as many ways as possible (audio, video, print, Internet, and now also as download files anyone can order for issues).
    Every month we look for ways to find new avenues for the expansion of cc&d – and expand the awareness of the literature we release for the entire world. We have published writers from the United States, Canada, Australia, Belgium, England, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Malta, Norway, Pakistan, Russia, South Africa and Turkey (and we have also had input from both Japan and Slovenia). We continue to try to expand our base of contributors, so more people from around the world can learn about this publication.
    After cc&d and Scars Publications work in a certain realm for a short while, we search for new options and additional steps to take to expand the knowledge of both cc&d magazine and Scars Publications. We cannot know what steps we will take in the future, but we are always looking for ways to expand our services and expand people’s awareness of the writings, audio and video we share with the world.

Jim Maddocks, GLASGOW, via the Internet     I’ll be totally honest, of the material in Issue (either 83 or 86 of Children, Churches and Daddies) the only ones I really took to were Kuypers’. TRYING was so simple but most truths are, aren’t they?

what is veganism?

    A vegan (VEE-gun) is someone who does not consume any animal products. While vegetarians avoid flesh foods, vegans don’t consume dairy or egg products, as well as animal products in clothing and other sources.

    why veganism?

    This cruelty-free lifestyle provides many benefits, to animals, the environment and to ourselves. The meat and dairy industry abuses billions of animals. Animal agriculture takes an enormous toll on the land. Consumtion of animal products has been linked to heart disease, colon and breast cancer, osteoporosis, diabetes and a host of other conditions.

    so what is vegan action?

    We can succeed in shifting agriculture away from factory farming, saving millions, or even billions of chickens, cows, pigs, sheep turkeys and other animals from cruelty.
We can free up land to restore to wilderness, pollute less water and air, reduce topsoil reosion, and prevent desertification.
    We can improve the health and happiness of millions by preventing numerous occurrences od breast and prostate cancer, osteoporosis, and heart attacks, among other major health problems.

    A vegan, cruelty-free lifestyle may be the most important step a person can take towards creatin a more just and compassionate society. Contact us for membership information, t-shirt sales or donations.

vegan action
po box 4353, berkeley, ca 94707-0353
510/704-4444

C Ra McGuirt, Editor, The Penny Dreadful Review (on Children, Churches and Daddies)     cc&d is obviously a labor of love ... I just have to smile when I go through it. (Janet Kuypers) uses her space and her poets to best effect, and the illos attest to her skill as a graphic artist.     I really like (“Writing Your Name”). It’s one of those kind of things where your eye isn’t exactly pulled along, but falls effortlessly down the poem. I liked “knowledge” for its mix of disgust and acceptance. Janet Kuypers does good little movies, by which I mean her stuff provokes moving imagery for me. Color, no dialogue; the voice of the poem is the narrator over the film.

    Children, Churches and Daddies no longer distributes free contributor’s copies of issues. In order to receive issues of Children, Churches and Daddies, contact Janet Kuypers at the cc&d e-mail addres. Free electronic subscriptions are available via email. All you need to do is email ccandd@scars.tv... and ask to be added to the free cc+d electronic subscription mailing list. And you can still see issues every month at the Children, Churches and Daddies website, located at http://scars.tv

Mark Blickley, writer     The precursor to the magazine title (Children, Churches and Daddies) is very moving. “Scars” is also an excellent prose poem. I never really thought about scars as being a form of nostalgia. But in the poem it also represents courage and warmth. I look forward to finishing her book.

MIT Vegetarian Support Group (VSG)

functions:
* To show the MIT Food Service that there is a large community of vegetarians at MIT (and other health-conscious people) whom they are alienating with current menus, and to give positive suggestions for change.
* To exchange recipes and names of Boston area veg restaurants
* To provide a resource to people seeking communal vegetarian cooking
* To provide an option for vegetarian freshmen

    We also have a discussion group for all issues related to vegetarianism, which currently has about 150 members, many of whom are outside the Boston area. The group is focusing more toward outreach and evolving from what it has been in years past. We welcome new members, as well as the opportunity to inform people about the benefits of vegetarianism, to our health, the environment, animal welfare, and a variety of other issues.

Gary, Editor, The Road Out of Town (on the Children, Churches and Daddies Web Site)     I just checked out the site. It looks great.

    Dusty Dog Reviews: These poems document a very complicated internal response to the feminine side of social existence. And as the book proceeds the poems become increasingly psychologically complex and, ultimately, fascinating and genuinely rewarding.

John Sweet, writer (on chapbook designs)     Visuals were awesome. They’ve got a nice enigmatic quality to them. Front cover reminds me of the Roman sculptures of angels from way back when. Loved the staggered tire lettering, too. Way cool.     (on “Hope Chest in the Attic”)     Some excellent writing in “Hope Chest in the Attic.” I thought “Children, Churches and Daddies” and “The Room of the Rape” were particularly powerful pieces.

    Dusty Dog Reviews: She opens with a poem of her own devising, which has that wintry atmosphere demonstrated in the movie version of Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago. The atmosphere of wintry white and cold, gloriously murderous cold, stark raging cold, numbing and brutalizing cold, appears almost as a character who announces to his audience, “Wisdom occurs only after a laboriously magnificent disappointment.” Alas, that our Dusty Dog for mat cannot do justice to Ms. Kuypers’ very personal layering of her poem across the page.

Cheryl Townsend, Editor, Impetus (on Children, Churches and Daddies)     The new cc&d looks absolutely amazing. It’s a wonderful lay-out, looks really professional - all you need is the glossy pages. Truly impressive AND the calendar, too. Can’t wait to actually start reading all the stuff inside.. Wanted to just say, it looks good so far!!!

    Fithian Press, Santa Barbara, CA
    Indeed, there’s a healthy balance here between wit and dark vision, romance and reality, just as there’s a good balance between words and graphics. The work shows brave self-exploration, and serves as a reminder of mortality and the fragile beauty of friendship.

    Mark Blickley, writer
    The precursor to the magazine title (Children, Churches and Daddies) is very moving. “Scars” is also an excellent prose poem. I never really thought about scars as being a form of nostalgia. But in the poem it also represents courage and warmth. I look forward to finishing her book.

    You Have to be Published to be Appreciated.

    Do you want to be heard? Contact Children, Churches and Daddies about book or chapbook publishing. These reviews can be yours. Scars Publications, attention J. Kuypers. We’re only an e-mail away. Write to us.

Brian B. Braddock, Writer (on 1996 Children, Churches and Daddies)     I passed on a copy to my brother who is the director of the St. Camillus AIDS programs. We found (Children, Churches and Daddies’) obvious dedication along this line admirable.

    The Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology
    The Solar Energy Research & Education Foundation (SEREF), a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., established on Earth Day 1993 the Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology (CREST) as its central project. CREST’s three principal projects are to provide:
    * on-site training and education workshops on the sustainable development interconnections of energy, economics and environment;
    * on-line distance learning/training resources on CREST’s SOLSTICE computer, available from 144 countries through email and the Internet;
    * on-disc training and educational resources through the use of interactive multimedia applications on CD-ROM computer discs - showcasing current achievements and future opportunities in sustainable energy development.
    The CREST staff also does “on the road” presentations, demonstrations, and workshops showcasing its activities and available resources.
For More Information Please Contact: Deborah Anderson
dja@crest.org or (202) 289-0061

Brian B. Braddock, WrBrian B. Braddock, Writer (on 1996 Children, Churches and Daddies)     Brian B. Braddock, WrI passed on a copy to my brother who is the director of the St. Camillus AIDS programs. We found (Children, Churches and Daddies’) obvious dedication along this line admirable.

    Dorrance Publishing Co., Pittsburgh, PA
    “Hope Chest in the Attic” captures the complexity of human nature and reveals startling yet profound discernments about the travesties that surge through the course of life. This collection of poetry, prose and artwork reflects sensitivity toward feminist issues concerning abuse, sexism and equality. It also probes the emotional torrent that people may experience as a reaction to the delicate topics of death, love and family.
    “Chain Smoking” depicts the emotional distress that afflicted a friend while he struggled to clarify his sexual ambiguity. Not only does this thought-provoking profile address the plight that homosexuals face in a homophobic society, it also characterizes the essence of friendship. “The room of the rape” is a passionate representation of the suffering rape victims experience. Vivid descriptions, rich symbolism, and candid expressions paint a shocking portrait of victory over the gripping fear that consumes the soul after a painful exploitation.

    want a review like this? contact scars about getting your own book published.

Paul Weinman, Writer (on 1996 Children, Churches and Daddies)     Wonderful new direction (Children, Churches and Daddies has) taken - great articles, etc. (especially those on AIDS). Great stories - all sorts of hot info!

    Okay, nilla wafer. Listen up and listen good. How to save your life. Submit, or I’ll have to kill you.
    Okay, it’s this simple: send me published or unpublished poetry, prose or art work (do not send originals), along with a bio, to us - then sit around and wait... Pretty soon you’ll hear from the happy people at cc&d that says (a) Your work sucks, or (b) This is fancy crap, and we’re gonna print it. It’s that simple!

    Okay, butt-munch. Tough guy. This is how to win the editors over.
    Hope Chest in the Attic is a 200 page, perfect-bound book of 13 years of poetry, prose and art by Janet Kuypers. It’s a really classy thing, if you know what I mean. We also have a few extra sopies of the 1999 book “Rinse and Repeat”, the 2001 book “Survive and Thrive”, the 2001 books “Torture and Triumph” and “(no so) Warm and Fuzzy”,which all have issues of cc&d crammed into one book. And you can have either one of these things at just five bucks a pop if you just contact us and tell us you saw this ad space. It’s an offer you can’t refuse...

    Carlton Press, New York, NY: HOPE CHEST IN THE ATTIC is a collection of well-fashioned, often elegant poems and short prose that deals in many instances, with the most mysterious and awesome of human experiences: love... Janet Kuypers draws from a vast range of experiences and transforms thoughts into lyrical and succinct verse... Recommended as poetic fare that will titillate the palate in its imagery and imaginative creations.

    Mark Blickley, writer: The precursor to the magazine title (Children, Churches and Daddies) is very moving. “Scars” is also an excellent prose poem. I never really thought about scars as being a form of nostalgia. But in the poem it also represents courage and warmth. I look forward to finishing the book.

    You Have to be Published to be Appreciated.
    Do you want to be heard? Contact Children, Churches and Daddies about book and chapbook publishing. These reviews can be yours. Scars Publications, attention J. Kuypers - you can write for yourself or you can write for an audience. It’s your call...

    Dorrance Publishing Co., Pittsburgh, PA: “Hope Chest in the Attic” captures the complexity of human nature and reveals startling yet profound discernments about the travesties that surge through the course of life. This collection of poetry, prose and artwork reflects sensitivity toward feminist issues concerning abuse, sexism and equality. It also probes the emotional torrent that people may experience as a reaction to the delicate topics of death, love and family. “Chain Smoking” depicts the emotional distress that afflicted a friend while he struggled to clarify his sexual ambiguity. Not only does this thought-provoking profile address the plight that homosexuals face in a homophobic society, it also characterizes the essence of friendship. “The room of the rape” is a passionate representation of the suffering rape victims experience. Vivid descriptions, rich symbolism, and candid expressions paint a shocking portrait of victory over the gripping fear that consumes the soul after a painful exploitation.

Dusty Dog Reviews, CA (on knife): These poems document a very complicated internal response to the feminine side of social existence. And as the book proceeds the poems become increasingly psychologically complex and, ultimately, fascinating and genuinely rewarding. Children, Churches and Daddies. It speaks for itself.

    Dusty Dog Reviews (on Without You): She open with a poem of her own devising, which has that wintry atmosphere demonstrated in the movie version of Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago. The atmosphere of wintry white and cold, gloriously murderous cold, stark raging cold, numbing and brutalizing cold, appears almost as a character who announces to his audience, “Wisdom occurs only after a laboriously magnificent disappointment.” Alas, that our Dusty Dog for mat cannot do justice to Ms. Kuypers’ very personal layering of her poem across the page.
    Children, Churches and Daddies. It speaks for itself.

    Debra Purdy Kong, writer, British Columbia, Canada (on Children, Churches and Daddies): I like the magazine a lot. I like the spacious lay-out and the different coloured pages and the variety of writer’s styles. Too many literary magazines read as if everyone graduated from the same course. We need to collect more voices like these and send them everywhere.

    Fithian Press, Santa Barbara, CA: Indeed, there’s a healthy balance here between wit and dark vision, romance and reality, just as there’s a good balance between words and graphics. The work shows brave self-exploration, and serves as a reminder of mortality and the fragile beauty of friendship.

Children, Churches and Daddies the unreligious, non-family oriented literary and art magazine Scars Publications and Design ccandd96@scars.tv http://scars.tv Publishers/Designers Of Children, Churches and Daddies magazine cc+d Ezines The Burning mini poem books God Eyes mini poem books The Poetry Wall Calendar The Poetry Box The Poetry Sampler Mom’s Favorite Vase Newsletters Reverberate Music Magazine Down In The Dirt magazine Freedom and Strength Press forum plus assorted chapbooks and books music, poery compact discs live performances of songs and readings Sponsors Of past editions: Poetry Chapbook Contest, Poetry Book Contest Prose Chapbook Contest, Prose Book Contest Poetry Calendar Contest current editions: Editor’s Choice Award (writing and web sites) Collection Volumes Children, Churches and Daddies (founded 1993) has been written and researched by political groups and writers from the United States, Canada, England, India, Italy, Malta, Norway and Turkey. Regular features provide coverage of environmental, political and social issues (via news and philosophy) as well as fiction and poetry, and act as an information and education source. Children, Churches and Daddies is the leading magazine for this combination of information, education and entertainment. Children, Churches and Daddies (ISSN 1068-5154) is published quarterly by Scars Publications and Design, 829 Brian Court, Gurnee, IL 60031-3155 USA; attn: Janet Kuypers. Contact us via snail-mail or e-mail (ccandd96@scars.tv) for subscription rates or prices for annual collection books. To contributors: No racist, sexist or blatantly homophobic material. No originals; if mailed, include SASE & bio. Work sent on disks or through e-mail preferred. Previously published work accepted. Authors always retain rights to their own work. All magazine rights reserved. Reproduction of Children, Churches and Daddies without publisher permission is forbidden. Children, Churches and Daddies copyright Copyright © 1993 through 2010 Scars Publications and Design, Children, Churches and Daddies, Janet Kuypers. All rights remain with the authors of the individual pieces. No material may be reprinted without express permission.