Slavery

Wash my face with papaya soap,
Then wash it with oil-free face scrub.
Once again, with papaya soap,
Then, alternately, with face scrub.

Wash my hair with coconut shampoo,
Then use a conditioner twice. Pat dry
And dab my skin with astringent
Moisturize it with anti-aging cream

I wake up the next morning, hopefully
With at least seven hours of sleep,
To the same standard bathroom procedures:
Wash, scrub, shampoo, moisturize...

There will come a time for a routine-change,
As aging requires more drastic measures;
Then, a time for a permanent routine-end,
As death no longer requires hair and skin

But for now, let me stick to the program...

Tranquility Haiku (verse 2))

One with the seasons,
Take comfort in changing tides.
They empower me.

Full Metal Emotional Availability

If Love is not a feeling
But duty as
Automatic response
Then, it’s not a whole lot different
From the Army
I used to dream, as a boy
About kicking the SOB DI to Hell
Grew up a tad,
Learned you went to jail for that
Grew up some more,
Learned the same about marriage
Aloneness is a weekend, nothing on your plate,
Bored out of your skull
You can spend it in the sunshine
Assuming that’s good enough

This Here Question of an “Us”

I hear you, human woman person
It’s not an illegitimate concern
What SHOULD I want only a
Mirror Body
There solely to reflect
Affirm
Receive sperm
A Yes machine
Robot with entrance options, no waiting
Your life to prove Me to
Myself
Your very soul immortal spirit in Reality
Mine
Why want that?

Why???
Did you just read the Above?
Read it again

Still don’t get it?
Yes
Precisely
Wherein is the primordial No-Answer
Of Why there can be no love

everyone’s a nigga

the white boys rapping
as they walk up third avenue
checking out the rims on a black car
calling each other nigga
they are like the group
of middle eastern kids that i passed
on fifth the other day
standing in a pack outside a hookah shop
with their hats on backwards
nigga
nigga
was all i heard coming from their mouths
i know this asian kid
keeps his hair cut really short
wears baggy clothes
talks with an affixed street accent
he’s best friends with
the token black kid on the block
they both call each
other nigga too
i didn’t understand it
nigga
oh, i’m sorry
the n word
i was always told that the word was taboo
but i tried it using it
in casual conversation
just to keep myself current
i called up rosa parks
i said
what’s up, my nigga?
she hung up on me
i guess she’s not down
she’s living in the past
that sullied, muddled time
when words were loaded
when they had historical context
she doesn’t understand how it is now
i tried again
i called up martin luther king jr.
i said to him
what’s going on, nigga?
but he hung up too
same thing with malcolm x
frederick douglass
benjamin banneker
sojourner truth
and booker t. washington
zora neal hurston
said that she was going to wash
my mouth out with soap
langston hughes threatened
to kick my ass
i didn’t understand it
what was i doing that was so bad?
i called up w.e.b. dubois
he said that i got it all wrong
that we got it all wrong
all those white boys rapping
the middle eastern boys
the asain and his black friend
you and me
all of those rich rap stars making
millions off of the word
nigga
nigga
but i’m not sure i believe old w.e.b.
his voice is like dust
floating in a light breeze
he doesn’t have the latest technology
i can’t find his blog anywhere
besides i just passed two indian kids
on the street
they were wearing football jerseys
that hung down to their assholes
they were hitting on girls
and calling each other
nigga
so i think i’m going to keep up
with this for a while longer
nigga
i’m a nigga
you’re a nigga
you’re dead grandmother
was a nigga too
so go and scratch it on her grave

equality and diversity at last

ain’t it grand?

Timekeepers

an old clock
ticking loudly
in an empty room
still tells the time

an old man
turning restless
in a crumpled bed
still knows the time

a nurse coming in
to change the linen
finding the batteries drained
will mark the time

as orderlies enter
to sweep away
the memories of the long moments
lived there.

My friend says

My friend says the left foot is longer than the right.
But uneven feet manage uneven ground
And rocks float
And birds swim
And mowed poppies return every year
My friend says the left calf is more defined than the right,
But my friend moves along
And wind circles still air
And four is less than five
my friend says the right arm is more muscular than the left
But my friend prays with the right
And listens with the right
And thumps me on the head with the right.
My friend says one of the ears (not sure which one) bends out further than the other,
And that is very true
But craters on the moon often come in pairs.
And for every Atlantic there is a pacific
And a sneeze is not a cough
And My friend doesn’t like that ear as it makes the face value look off center.
But face value is something I have never heard of
And I can’t integrate a polynomial.
Or cry for my dead cat
My friend says the left breast is a little smaller than the right,
But I never distinguished
And One dimple is deeper than the other
but only when smiles are deep
And my friend is right
And now I see
All the disparities
I see the blue paper and the red
And the fresh tomatoes and the dried
And dinosaurs painted pink
And confetti streams
And all the different styles of buttons

the backwater tree

in the back yard
just within the fence row
a tree branches out gray;
blood-water stains the grass near it.

a mother has given birth to a dead calf;
she licks the black coat clean.
her nudges against it to stand
are ineffective.

One Through Five

1. Vivian Leigh has died, so you don’t
have to try, so splendidly, to compete with her

2. Yes, I know you have a cold. But a fever?
No, hon, in fact, your forehead feels cold to me

3. Yes, I saw the full moon with its ragged
purple edges. Rose over town just as work went down

4. No, you’re not dying, But yeah sure you could be
Then by God you’d see this man murdered by sorrow

5. But, honey, in the mean time — where’s my wine?
The sheer size of that disc has this old soul in its hands

Good Bad Year

Twelve months and a third less income
Delayed repairs to my cars and home
Cut back on movies and restaurants
Less time at the supermarket—more at the Dollar Store
Learned that $20 buys me at least two weeks of food
If I eat once a day
Found out what I need and what I can do without
Drove less and rode my bike
The problems with my cars and home worsened
Had to ask mom and dad for help to pay the bills
I like going to the movie theatre
Last year was a bad or a good year
Maybe this one will be better

Just Because I’m A Female Soldier

Just because I’m a female soldier
Doesn’t mean I’m a bitch
Doesn’t mean I’m a slut
And it doesn’t mean I’m a lesbian

Just because I’m a female soldier
Doesn’t mean I risk my life any less
Doesn’t mean I don’t pull my weight
And it doesn’t mean I don’t break a nail

Just because I’m a female soldier
Doesn’t mean I don’t need love
Doesn’t mean I haven’t been hurt
And it doesn’t mean I don’t get scared

Just because I’m a female soldier
Will I not be remembered too?
Who will remember?
I hope you do.

Beckon the Beast

“I am not sure I possess,” he says
“the energy to be bad
but, for you sweet lady, I will try”
“In the name of sanity, why,” she cries
“do I call a wolf to my bed
deny the gentleman
entertain a monster”

Blood & Earth I Write

I would paint with words
soft & violent colors
stabbing, caressing

Tom {WordWulf} Sterner Bio

    Tom {WordWulf} Sterner, lives in Redding, California and Arvada, Colorado. He has been published in magazines and on the internet, including Howling Dog Press/Omega, Skyline Literary Review, The Storyteller, and Flashquake. He is winner of the Marija Cerjak Award for Avant-Garde/Experimental Writing and was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2006 and 2008. He edited the English translation of Hameed Al-Qaed’s ‘Noise of Whisper’, edited and wrote the forward for the Arabic to English translation of the poets of Bahrain, ‘Pearl, Dreams of Shell’ published in 2007. Published work includes two novels, Madman Chronicles: The Warrior and Momma’s Rain.

Fingers Black

you told me nothing

all I could do
was turn my fingers black
scouring the newspapers
searching for any news
about what happened
with us

Bar Poem 20100423

& I tried to shake my confusion out of my head
as I drank my beer

Somewhere Else

we’ll put sharp metal points
on top of the sidewalk fire extinguishers

we don’t care if you’re tired
look for a seat somewhere else

Pinchy

a lobster tank @ a bar
had a sign that said,
“you catch ‘em we cook ‘em”

8 lobsters
w/ a carnival-style
pincher
try your luck
4 only $2

if I ever caught 1
I wouldn’t eat it
he’d be my crustacean pet
& I’d call him Pinchy

Twitter version:

Pinchy

“you catch ‘em we cook ‘em”
@ a bar lobster tank
w/ carnival pincher
only $2

if I caught 1
I wouldn’t eat it
Pinchy’d be my crustacean pet

Keep Driving

you drove a convertible
& I saw you driving away in one
months after you died

please
keep driving
I’m tired of following ghosts

Evicted Today

Buddha was evicted today
and I don’t know how it happened
because Buddha lives inside me

what

what happened

Live in my Imagination

I wish I would find a reason
I wish I could get out of this house
I wish I didn’t have to live in my imagination

opinions

if your fish die
why don’t you just fry them up?
so that if they’re minnows
they’re really crispy

and much better than cats

Rushed

a woman
2 weeks pregnant
with twins
chain smokes
aspires
to move
to a 2 bedroom apartment

after 15 minutes
and 4 cigarettes
I rushed
to get
my new baby
away

The Distances

I awake,
crying and in a cold drench,
to an eerie tapping noise,
sharply reflecting an impression, three-dimensional, from the walls
as a chill in our bedroom
is marked by the wintry lace
of a two a.m., half-opened window,
and I am cut into shreds
like a blood-stained sheet of notebook paper
as I lie here alone
in an unfamiliar bed without you,
littered nightly with our unfulfilled dreams,
haunted by the fact that
your illness was extremely unkind to you....

just like I was.

Entry

The achievement of entry penetrates
the core of what we care about in heart
and awaits fulfillment.

About Tray Drumhann

Tray Drumhann’s work explores the dimensions and depth of human nature. His goal is to communicate the personal and cultural dynamics that condition how we view ourselves and others as well as how our individual experiences condition such perception. Notable publications featuring Drumhann’s work include: The Pinch Journal, Tiferet & Adagio Quarterly.

Sahara Shores

    For eight minutes the shock of the earthquake shook the Sahara Desert. The earth trembled and the movement sent fear into the minds of all animals.
    Wide-eyed Hadji Ali listened to his twelve camels bawl and grunt as they rose to their feet without his usual command then stomped nervously on the sand. Hadji grabbed the rope on the lead animal to try and calm her so she would not attempt to run away. She spit. The others crowded each other and Hadji feared they would break their ropes should they become too intent on escaping into the dunes.
    The camel driver had never been to sea but he felt the earth moving in waves that he had seen off the west coast of Morocco. He had never felt the earth move like this in all of his thirty-four years. He was scared. He had faced all kinds of danger in his young life, but never had he felt the earth threatening to envelop him in a sea of sand that shifted much more than in a windstorm. He thought of huddling down next to his lead camel until the earth calmed down again. But, would the earth ever calm down?

    Hadji Ali knows every one of his twelve camels. He knows how much weight each can carry and he knows their different endurance limits so that he can judge how far to travel without feed or water for them. Hadji is a smuggler. He does not restrict his operations to any particular class of contraband; Hadji will smuggle anything that he can load onto his camels.
    Now, he wishes he were not a smuggler because he thinks that his illegal activities have brought a curse upon him. Alla must be displeased with his way of life. Alla has decided to either teach him a lesson or is determined to bury him in the sands of the desert he has known all his life.
    The wave movements cease. The camels calm. Hadji is thankful and wishes he had brought his prayer rug. The camels take the place of the prayer rug in his thoughts. Hadji talks to his beasts of burden and thinks they listen. He hopes they listen. Again he starts his caravan filled with contraband for Morocco and tries to forget the fear he had felt toward the waving movements of the earth. Little did he realize that those movements of the earth’s crust would change his desert to something that he had never envisioned.

    Carlos Apodaca watched the seismograph located at Sunset Crater north of Flagstaff, Arizona and couldn’t believe his eyes reading a 13 on the Richter Scale. In his ten years at the place he had never seen such a measure of tectonic activity. Immediately he switched his computer to network other seismographs around the world and found that by triangulating his reading with two others that the earthquake had occurred in the Sahara Desert, a most unlikely place for such a phenomenon according to his education that he had pursued to a master’s degree in geology.
    Carlos sent his readings to the center for all seismographic abnormalities along with the triangulations he had established, and then waited for any commentary that might come in to his computer.

    Hadji had his camels moving out at their usual three miles an hour pace heading westward for Morocco with the hashish he had agreed to deliver to his contact in Tangier. They traversed the nearly 1500 foot high Tifernine Sand Dunes whose sand is trapped in a basin surrounded by mountains of basalt. The camels moved with a certain reticence that Hadji had never experienced. He wondered what else was affecting them. He no longer felt the earth move, but the camels seemed to be trying to tell him something. Then he saw what his camels knew but could not tell him. From his position above the surrounding desert Hadji saw a sea of water advancing in finger-like rivers. He turned the camels to even higher ground after wondering if he was seeing a mirage. “What is Alla doing?” he said aloud to the camel he rode. “Perhaps I should stop smuggling if I do not drown first.”

    The 747 had begun the gradual descent to land in Cairo. Passengers included four United States Congressmen, their aids and assistants along with a bevy of newsmen scheduled to meet with President Mubarek for a conference on the democratization of Egypt. The Captain, a veteran of the Navy during the Vietnam War, enjoyed the charter flights that took him all over the world. Mike Bader loved to fly. Flying had been his primary focus since he received his private pilot’s license while still in high school.
    He gazed out the window to the vast Sahara Desert. He shook his head and looked down more intently. “Charlie,” he said to his co-pilot. “Look below and tell me if you see a giant lake in the middle of the Sahara Desert.”
    The co-pilot turned his head to the right and looked down. “Holy shit, it looks like a small Mediterranean Sea.”
    “I’m glad you are seeing the same thing as I see,” Mike replied. “I thought I might be looking at a mirage or the flight attendant put something special in my coffee.”
    Mike continued to look out the side window from the cockpit. “Look down there again, Charlie. Do you see all that water gushing from a long, wide crack in the land?”
    Charlie looked down again and saw what Mike was talking about. “I wonder if it is draining the Mediterranean.”
    “I doubt that, but I am going to radio back to headquarters and report this,” Mike said, as he put the microphone up to speak into it.
    When he had finished his transmission he signaled the chief flight attendant to come to the flight deck. When she arrived, Mike took off his headset and turned toward her. “Monica, have you seen all that water in the middle of the Sahara?”
    “No, Captain. Water in the Sahara Desert?”
    “Look out the window.”
    “Wow, what is water doing way out here?”
    “Beats me, but we saw a long fissure back a ways with water gushing out of it. Get on the horn and tell those passengers to look out their windows and I’ll fly around so they can see it all.”
    “Yes, Captain Bader,” she said, and left the flight deck to make the announcement.
    Mike waited long enough for Monica to inform the passengers about the huge flooding, and then turned the aircraft so that passengers on both sides of the aisle could witness the inland sea forming in the middle of the desert.
    After listening to the flight attendant the passengers looked down to the flooding Sahara. They hollered exclamations and the reporters took digital images from their cell phones and sent them to their editors via their laptop computers that they always kept within reach.
    One congressman stood in the aisle after Mike had finished giving everyone a view of the unique phenomenon.
    “I think we should keep this to ourselves for now because the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will probably want to investigate what is happening,” he said.
    One of the reporters who had already sent his dispatch to his newspaper in Washington stood up. “Congressman, pardon me for questioning, but what in the world would a military man investigate about a flooding of the Sahara Desert?’
    “I have no idea, but we should keep this classified until further notice,” the congressman said.
    “Sorry to disappoint you, Sir, but I have already sent digital photos and a message to my editor,” the newsman said.
    ”You may not be invited to fly away with us on our next mission,” Congressman Ivan Post Daily said, and turned to his chief assistant.
    “Henry, get a call off to Loring Lincoln and tell him about this. Loring is a big time developer of resorts and retirement communities, and, as you well know, a generous supporter of my last three campaigns.”
    “Yes Sir,” Henry replied, and opened his laptop to send the message he knew would grab the attention of Loring B. Lincoln, the billionaire developer who helped elect the congressman by very generous campaign contributions above and below the table. The “B” was for Bertram of the Boston Bertrams who owned historic vacant land around Scituate, Massachusetts, dozens of Maine coastal islands and several California properties that they were in the process of developing. Henry knew that the congressman wanted to let his benefactor in on a potential goldmine. Or, actually a desert sea that could support millions of people from around the world who were well heeled and looking for a unique place to live or even visit for part of the year.
    The other congressmen fled into conferences with their assistants and aids so that the result was myriad messages sent at high priority to various constituents who had been donors to campaigns, past and present. The airwaves congealed into such a mass of requests and demands that the CIA and the FBI had a chance to intercept only a few because the federal budget had reduced the number of interceptors to a minimum for complete coverage. The system had broken down because of budgetary cuts in order to fund the major project, Iraq, that had been a continual drain on the deficit treasury for so many years that no person, no group, no think tank could unravel the eccentricities of such a mixed up set of principles of basic economics.
    Therefore, when the dispatches arrived and became subjects of interpretation, and classification within the government’s system of protecting the military/industrial complex that had existed since the Eisenhower administration, there was nothing done about investigating the flooded Sahara because the investigative time-line had not been determined by the Secretary of Investigative Determinations. He being a man who had earned his PhD from a mail order university located at an internet address called U-Name It.com.
    Bader guided the 747 to the Cairo runway setting the aircraft down smoothly before switching to reverse props to slow the huge jetliner as it hurtled along the asphalt. He had landed at Cairo forty times during his current assignment flying foreign charters. Cairo charmed him for the first three visits, but now Mike looked forward to a restful three days in the hotel before flying his passengers and crew back to Washington, D.C.. The state department had booked all of the passengers and crew into the same familiar hotel that could be counted on to serve a substantial menu of American food and drink in addition to Arabian delicacies. Mike had stayed at The Cleopatra several times and enjoyed the Margaritas the bartender had learned to mix. Deplaning after the passengers had left, Mike and Charlie made their way into the terminal. They were surprised to see all the passengers crowded in front of a large television screen with their eyes glued to the newsman who told about the gigantic earthquake that was causing an enormous flood in the Sahara. The news anchor, speaking in English, noted that the report had originated from a reporter in a jetliner heading for Cairo. When the TV anchorman finished the group gathered at the luggage claim area, retrieved their various suitcases and boarded a chartered bus for the ride to the hotel, affectionately referred to as “The Cleo” by those who had become loyal clients. Mike considered himself one of the faithful.
    Most, after registering, retired to their rooms for showers and a change of clothes from their traveling attire to more casual ensembles. However, Congressman Daily and his chief aid, Henry Blankenship met in Daily’s room and began trying to reach Loring Lincoln to describe what they had seen happening on the Sahara.
    Two of the other congressmen also engaged themselves in contacting developer friends who might enjoy hearing about what looked like an inland sea. The meetings with the president of Egypt took a back seat in the minds of the three. It fell quickly into a predictable routine. The financial backers of the politicians found the occurrence of the fissure and subsequent mass flooding a most interesting phenomenon and concurred with their bought and paid for politicians that they should fly to Cairo and meet the congressmen after the sessions with Mubarek. These decisions happened individually between the congressmen and the financiers. All three congressmen stressed the potential for a huge resort with seaside estates and hotels. They didn’t yet know if the flooding was fresh or salt water. As Daily told Lincoln on his cell phone, “Who gives a rat’s ass as long as it is wet?”
    “The people who go there will give a rat’s ass if they try to drink salt water,” Lincoln said.
    “Hell’s fire, Loring, we can always desalinate the stuff for drinking and other necessities.”
    “See if you can find out about what kind of water we are dealing with,” Lincoln said.
    “I’ll call you back as soon as I find out,” Daily said, and turned to Henry Blankenship. “Henry, see what you can do about finding out if that flood in the Sahara is fresh or salt water.”
    Henry consulted his Rolodex file of Egyptian contacts and flipped through the cards. He came to one who was a hydrologist with the U.S.A.I.D. Program, and called him while Congressman I. P. Daily retired to the bathroom for a shower.
    As it turned out the hydrologist had already heard about the flood and had flown out to the scene to test the water and look over the situation. As Henry talked to him on his cell phone the aircraft was heading back to the airstrip outside Cairo. Henry chatted with the man for a while after learning that the water coming from the fissure was fresh. Henry knew enough about what was going on not to sound enthusiastic about the news in case the hydrologist, too, might be connected in some way to land developers.
    Daily came out from his shower in his bathrobe, and upon hearing the report from Henry, called Loring Lincoln again to inform him about the fresh water. Lincoln told Daily that he would be flying into Cairo the following day with his staff.
    “I have a meeting with Mubarek tomorrow,” Daily said.
    “That is no problem, my friend. We are coming to have a look-see. Thanks for all the information. I hope to see you in Cairo at the Cleo.”
    “I’m in room eighty-seven. Leave a message at the desk if I’m not here when you arrive.”

    The conversation between the congressmen at supper flitted around a great variety of subjects that one or another felt important to take up with the President of Egypt the next morning. Not one brought up the flooding of the Sahara Desert.
    They met for an early breakfast to attempt a final statement of purpose for their meeting about the democratization of Egypt. Henry Blankenship listened to the conversation between the Congressmen and decided that none of the four were really excited about their mission. Henry had a feeling about what was really happening, but over the years he had had many feelings concerning the politicians he worked for or had to associate with because his job demanded it. He accompanied Daily to the first meeting. The other aids went with their bosses to sit along the wall listening and taking notes for future consultations. That’s what they always said, but actually the notes would be needed for the aids to write reports to the Congressional committee justifying the junket.
    The meeting lasted until noon. Henry could tell that the President of Egypt had spent a boring morning with the American politicians. Mubarek invited them to lunch, but excused himself because “I must look into the recent flooding of the Sahara.”
    Henry glanced around at the congressmen and saw their scowls. He figured that none of them wanted waste valuable time having lunch without Egypt’s President. All of them wanted to get in touch with their financial backers to discuss the inland sea that had appeared so quickly and without warning. Of course, there were six courses for lunch. The congressmen and their aids had a difficult time enduring the period as servants kept bringing in various Egyptian delicacies for their visitors’ pleasure.
    Returning to the meeting room, the congressmen sat down at the long oval table waiting for the President. A man who represented the president arrived to inform the American delegation, “The President of Egypt regrets that he is forced to fly over the Sahara to inspect the flooding.” Henry wished he had a recorder to capture the sighs of relief from the congressmen. They hurried back to the hotel to begin communicating with their benefactors.

    Still in awe at the sight of the flooding, Hadji Ali gazed out at the former desert landscape from his position on the mountain trail that he had taken on occasion. But, always before he had preferred the sands. He couldn’t believe his eyes as the water slithered up valleys and spread over the sand. It hummed as it filled the pores in the sand. He was thankful that the camels had calmed and were no longer threatening to run away to escape the flood. Hadji felt proud that he had forced them to climb on the rough basalt. That had saved them from drowning in the vast sea that opened up in front of his eyes.
    He thought that the flooding waters could have dissolved his cargo of contraband had he not been acquainted with the trails that led into the mountains. Then he suddenly realized that the inundation of water was so huge that it blocked his usual route through the desert and he would be forced to find another way to carry his smuggled goods to their destination in Tangier. As he watched the water invade he thought that it might be a good time for him to look for another means to make a living rather than smuggling.

    The meetings with Egyptian government officials lasted another day but without Mubarek who had excused himself because of “important pending matters”. When the congressmen and their aids returned to the hotel they were astounded to see a group of six well known land and resort developers from the United States sitting around a table in the lounge drinking Margaritas with Mike Bader and his co-pilot.
    Daily approached Loring Lincoln and the two shook hands. “Could I have a word with you in my room?” Daily asked.
    “Certainly, Ivan. It’s number eighty-seven, right?”
    “Good memory.”
    “I’ll be up in a few minutes when we get through with this conversation.”
    The other congressmen greeted their developer friends and retired to their rooms for showers and casual clothes for the evening.
    Daily opened the door when Lincoln arrived. “Come in Loring. Nice to see you.”
    “Thanks Ivan, I got quite an eyeful out there today from the helicopter.”
    “So you have been out to see the inland sea?”
    “Oh yes. I booked the helicopter and went right out as soon as my plane from New York landed. That is quite a sight, I must say. My pilot approached and we circled over the fissure to watch all that water gush out. Then all of a sudden there were four more helicopters joining us. It looked like a bunch of bees rendezvousing at their hive. When we all returned to Cairo we discovered that we were all friends of congressmen who were engaged in discussing democracy with Egyptian officials.”
    “I thought I sent you secure messages,” Daily said.
    “Of course you did, Ivan. Obviously your colleagues sent secure messages to their friends, too.”
    “I suppose this has been an embarrassing situation for you, Loring.”
    “On the contrary, we have been discussing forming a consortium to cope with this project. It is far too extensive and complicated for any one of us to tackle.”
    “I’m glad it seems to be working out.”
    “Ivan, I am grateful for your getting in touch with me on this phenomenon. It is absolutely mind-boggling. All of a sudden an earthquake opens a huge gash in the middle of the Sahara and wonderfully pure and cool water gushes forth. It is perfect for a grand slam as far as developments go. It has everything.”
    “Loring, have you considered the complications presented by so many territories that will be involved?”
    “Heavens yes, Ivan. You have contacts in State and Commerce as do the others. Certainly there will be a way to convince these North Africans that such a scheme can put many dollars in their Swiss bank accounts.”
    “Leave that up to me and the others. I am sure they have the same contacts as I do. These camel jockeys love dollars.”
    “Ivan, I am so glad we met when you campaigned successfully that first time twenty-five years ago when you ran for Governor.”
    “I can’t tell you how much your support means to me, Loring. But, our friendship through the years matters more.”
    “I feel the same way. I’ll fill you in on what this consortium will need when I learn all the particulars. When are you flying back to Washington?”
    “Tomorrow. I’ll be glad to get out of this colossal den of banditry and intrigue.”
    “Chrisakes, Ivan, what do you think you are going home to?”

    From their table in the corner of the huge lounge Mike and Charlie watched the big party that the developers put together for the congressmen and their aids. “Makes you wonder who is paying who for what, doesn’t it?” Charlie asked.
    “Every time I fly charters for politicians I end up feeling disgusted with the way business is carried on between the guys making big bucks and the politicians who, from their end, make it possible,” Mike said, sipping his Margarita. “I’ve been flying damn near all my life and enjoyed every minute. These politicians and money moguls walk on pins and needles most of the time worrying if their schemes will get scrutiny and that they might get busted big time.”
    “I suppose that’s the chances some people are willing to take to get rich,” Charlie said.
    “I’d just as soon earn what money I make in these flying machines,” Mike said.
    “”I have to agree with you completely,” Charlie said. “I think I’ll turn in. We have a long flight tomorrow.”
    “I’m with you,” Mike said. “I am tired of watching this bunch of bullshit going on here.”

    The following morning Mike and Charlie, carrying their sparse luggage, walked through the terminal glancing around at the people in the waiting room. They arrived at the assigned gate to their aircraft and went aboard to prepare for the flight to Washington. Once settled in the cockpit after getting the preliminary checks underway, Mike turned to Charlie. “Did you see those hung over bastards in the waiting area?”
    “Yeah,” Charlie said as he turned two switches on. “I’d hate to feel the way they look even if I didn’t have to fly.”
    “It makes you wonder how late they stayed up and how much business they accomplished,” Mike said.
    “If they did make any decisions, I doubt they will remember them.”
    “Check on the luggage so we can load these idiots and get going.”
    Charlie called in to the terminal and asked about the status of the luggage destined for SunAir, Flight 702.
    “We’re loaded and secured, Captain,” Charlie said.
    “Good, let’s get those party boys aboard.”
    Charlie sent word to board and watched as the flight attendants welcomed the passengers aboard SunAir, Flight 702 for Washington, D.C.. They made sure to include the destination in case someone was boarding by mistake.
    When the head flight attendant had all passengers accounted for she stepped into the cockpit and informed Mike that they were ready to leave. Mike motioned to the “mule” driver to back the aircraft out of the gate. “Mule” refers to the tractor used for guiding the aircraft away from the gate and onto the tarmac to head for the runway and take-off.
    “The runway looks empty,” Mike said. “I hope we don’t have to sit out there and wait for Mubarek’s air force to take off or land.”
    “Are you planning on re-fueling at Dakar again?” Charlie asked.
    “That’s probably the best insurance I know of. We could probably make it all the way, but I’ve seen headwinds over the Altantic that make these babies suck jet fuel down like it was Margaritas in front of politicians and money moguls.”
    At Dakar International Mike decided to refuel without allowing the passengers to deplane because he wanted to get airborne again as soon as possible to arrive in Washington at a convenient hour for the passengers to find their ways home in daylight.
    By the time Mike landed the 747 there had been enough hours passed so that the story of Sahara’s inland fresh water sea had made headlines all over the world. The flight to New York with all the developers arrived at approximately the same time. Lincoln had moved to that aircraft because during the long flight the developers had planned to hold a conference to unify in the venture. Loring Lincoln had needed to be there to keep tabs on the plans. They all knew that they had to move quickly to grab permits from all the North African countries that had shorelines along the new sea. Otherwise there were more Europeans who would recognize the financial potential as soon as they read about it or watched the satellite pictures on television. Each man knew there would be a bunch of sleepless nights while the situation got organized. They decided that using conference calls at specified hours of each day would help keep the efforts synchronized. They smiled as they agreed that each knew enough congressmen and senators that they could get them on their telephones to make appointments with those in charge of the North African countries involved with the inland sea.
    Each developer agreed that they should form some sort of organization that would carry credibility with the North African politicians so they decided on: Association of Northern Unified States, or A.N.U.S..
    The air was full of cell phone activity and Internet messages between congressmen, senators and North African officials. In turn the communications between developers and American politicians kept everyone involved so busy that nothing else saw progress. Programs that the politicians were trying to get passed stayed in limbo. Projects in the United Stated that the developers were in the middle of moved like inchworms. Contractors tried to reach the higher up executives but got put on hold for an hour or more. Nothing else mattered but Sahara Shores.
    Mike Bader and Charlie flew many flights to each North African country with politicians, developers and officials from the Departments of State and Commerce. The entire fandango, Mike realized, was great for the charter flight business. Sometimes he thought it might be nice to own the aircraft. Then he got realistic and felt glad and happy that all he had to do was climb into his seat in the cockpit and fly it. And, Charlie was not only a good co-pilot but also a skilled navigator and friend.
    The developers and the politicians, most of whom were lawyers before getting elected to office, sought international legal advice. There was so much complicated maneuvering across the Atlantic that none of the principals of the Association of Northern United States could maintain an accurate understanding of the confusion. This monumental task involved negotiating between the developer/politician group and ten North African countries, some of them in political upheaval so that it was never clear who was making decisions and agreements. In addition to those difficulties, a substantial number of European and Asian developers and politicians had fervent desires to have things in North Africa for themselves. As Loring B. Lincoln said to Ivan P. Daily on the phone one day, “Ivan, does anyone anywhere have the slightest idea about what is going on?”
    “Loring,  I have State and Commerce reporting in every day,” Daily said. “Algeria is close and Libya will probably go along as well. Mali was once French so they are diddling around with Pierre Rebeil because he seems to have some sort of a hold on Mali’s power boys.”
    “All right, let’s try this approach. Promise every country involved that we will build an environmentally sound development wherever we go. There will be no polluting engines, no airports within the area of New Sahara, and all vehicles will be electric. An electric high-speed monorail will connect every resort complex and electric cars like golf carts can be purchased at reasonable prices. You might add the golf carts to the list of franchises we will give to the individual rulers of these countries. That might sweeten the pie a bit.”
    “Let’s hope they all like the same pie,” Daily quipped.
    “Another point you might drive across to them is something that we have thought out for construction material,” Lincoln said. “One of the guys from Pennsylvania has suggested we build all, or most of the buildings out of Polystyrene. It’s a very strong plastic that can be blow molded and extruded. The guy from Pennsylvania said he knew engineers who can develop a covering that can be painted. This stuff will make great, light weight and insulated walls that the desert heat will have trouble penetrating as long as the buildings are designed properly.”
    “That sounds like a helluva good idea,” Daily said. “We might suggest to the decision makers in these countries that they should set up manufacturing plants to make this stuff and sell it to the construction companies.”
    “Now you’re talking, Ivan. Along with that idea we should designate industrial zones that are restricted to light industry.

    For the following six months the developers met with bankers. Politicians met with other politicians and they all met with North African leaders making deals and arrangements so that the gigantic project could start. Meanwhile five hundred survey crews darted around the perimeter of the freshwater inland sea staking out everything from residential lots to large-scale community centers where recreation and shopping would eventually become located. Shortly after the survey had been accomplished work began on the huge electrical generating plant that would use the energy from the still gushing water from the fissure to generate enough electricity for the entire project that would include electric trains for transportation to various cities outside the perimeter of the project which had finally been named Sahara Shores. The various planned communities became Sahara Shores plus the names of the countries in which they sprang up. There would be vast communities made from polystyrene. For example the major community along the inland sea in Algeria became “Sahara Shores Algeriad”. The one in Mauretania became “Sahara Shores Mauretaniad”.
    The major reason for the separate nomenclature was to satisfy the “Mother Governments” that those communities would remain politically under the pre-existing governments. Lincoln knew that without such guarantees the leaders would have a more difficult time extracting their under-the-table gratuities. There were times during the negotiations when Lincoln wondered if it was all going to be worth the effort to pull the project all together and whether he would live long enough to enjoy seeing the profit derived from his part of the deal. Congressman Ivan P. Daily looked forward to the day when he could retire from politics and spend his time on his porch overlooking the Sahara Inland Sea sipping Margaritas and reading novels by Jim Woolard, his favorite author. Ivan P. Daily had grown up in Columbus, Ohio near where the great novelist lived.
    Four of the countries established polystyrene manufacturing plants and had them in operation within four months, using technology from the United States and Japan. The developers and engineers had decided that a thin metallic coating both inside and out would be the most efficient both for applying colors and insuring that when it rained there would be no seepage around the bases of the buildings even though rain was a rare occurrence in the Sahara. Extruded angles of hard plastic made like PVC pipe was the framework holding the large panels together. Loring Lincoln enjoyed the speed with which the engineers designed all the particulars.
    The buildings began springing up after the electric trains were in place. The developers and many of the congressmen arrived for a “sand-breaking” party. Someone had brought a collapsible kayak and entertained himself by paddling around near the shore while drinking single malt Scotch whiskey straight from the bottle. He was one of the politicians who had put a considerable amount of his own money down to speculate on residential lots.
    After the ceremonies and speeches they held a meeting with the principal engineers to learn about more detailed plans for systems such as waste removal, water circulation, window shading and basic transportation including the logistics of supply for all sorts of commodities and goods.
    Lincoln marveled at the idea for piping human waste outside the perimeter where it would undergo sun drying, packaging and sales to farmers growing fresh produce, fruits and grains for the millions of residents that planners projected. One politician questioned the health safety of such a system and the engineer explained that Japan had used human waste for fertilizer for centuries and they used it raw. The engineer explained how the sun drying process would take ninety nine percent of the dangerous bacteria out of the mass and that radiation before packaging would render the fertilizer risk free.
    One politician asked why solar power didn’t seem to be included in the electric systems. The electrical engineer’s answer was in two words, “too expensive”.
    After two days when the meetings adjourned all the participants boarded the electric train bound for Bamako, Mali, where Mike stood ready to fly the entire delegation back to Washington and New York.

    Hadji Ali watched all the activity from a distance as he drove his camels back and forth from Tangier, Algiers and Cairo. The huge inland sea of fresh water made his journeys easier and took less of a toll on his camels so that they could make more trips with fewer rest periods. Before the inland sea they needed to rest after being dehydrated from five and six days without water. With the new water source Hadji could easily water the camels every other day.
    One day as he passed close by one of the new buildings made of polystyrene. He waited until the construction crew had left for the day before approaching the structure. Dismounting from his camel, Hadji walked over to the house and felt the walls. He could not understand why the funny looking men who drove around in funny looking vehicles were not making the new houses out of mud. It did not cross his mind that the source for mud was far distant. He again mounted his camel and returned to his journey to Tangier. On his return trip Hadji looked in wonder at the buildings painted different colors and many with pictures and murals painted by various artists that went around drumming up business from newly transplanted residents. The artists found a valuable niche because they all recognized that without the colorful walls on the buildings Sahara Shores could be quite boring. A.N.U.S. contracted with five of the artists to decorate the recreational facilities. Hadji liked the mural on one of the larger structures best. It was a camel caravan.

    Within a year there were enough communities finished that video people and producers arrived to film the enterprise for advertising on television around the world. A.N.U.S. wanted international sales for an international population to prove that human beings could live in peace once they understood each other, a gesture to balance their greed. They could also sell to people all over the world.
    The success of the initial sales campaign staggered the imaginations of the planners. Sales departments added personnel to take care of the flood of orders. The chief of sales remarked to his number two man that with this kind of success they might not have to give away chartered flights to show the project to potential buyers.
    Construction crews began double shifts and more people logged in for training and transportation to the Sahara Shores communities to put up the polystyrene buildings for residences and community centers.
    A university sociology professor sought permission from Loring Lincoln to study the reasons for such a popular development so far away from either New York or Los Angeles. Lincoln was only too happy to have such a study made and offered to send the professor to Sahara Shores on the next chartered aircraft to get an idea why his buyers were almost gobbling up the contracts. Loring also wrote a letter for the professor to the sales department so that he might find addresses and telephone number for contacting his interviewees.
    A month later the professor sent Lincoln a letter telling him that there had been only one disappointed interviewee out of nearly two hundred thus far in the study. He also thanked Lincoln for the kind hospitality he had shown him. Lincoln met with the marketing department to tell them about this favorable opinion of the project gleaned from the academic study.

    Within two years the resort complexes, residential areas and some of the industrial zones had begun to fill. There were twenty-four models for homebuyers to choose from. The resorts had separate designs to enhance individuality. A sailboat maker had set up a production line complete with a heavy-duty filter to keep odors from fiberglass to a minimum inside the plant and let none of it escape to the outside the same as the polystyrene plants located outside the developments.
    A company from Phoenix that had made a bountiful harvest of dollars bottling White Mountain spring water set up a bottling plant and accompanying warehouse where the cases of bottled Sahara Shores Water could be kept waiting shipment by air worldwide. The ban on internal combustion engines hampered the logistics, but once an electric freight train began operating they maintained a steady flow to their international customers.
    Not everything ran smoothly. There was a constant necessity to deal with the various leaders of the North African counties. Many thought they deserved more of a slice of the pie and found different ways to make their demands. It kept Daily and the other congressmen busy making sure none of the resort complexes got invaded by North African troops. After a while this particular problem sort of reached a plane of equilibrium, but there were always other challenges to solve.
    One particularly vexing problem for Loring Lincoln became the evolution into ethnic neighborhoods. From the beginnings of Sahara Shores Lincoln, a true idealist, had envisioned multi-ethnic neighborhoods with the opportunity for people from all over the world living together and getting along with each other without zealous politicians and religious leaders encouraging adherence to political leanings or religious dogma to cause friction between the residents. The other developers enjoyed the idea but met it with skepticism. Therefore the contracts for the sale of the lots and houses had written in stiff penalties should anybody want to trade. The contract explained that a house would have to sell as used at a lower price. Sahara Shores could not actually sell the lots because every North African country would only issue ninety-nine year leases.
    By the time all the costs got added to the land, the lots averaged about one hundred thousand U.S. dollars, a pittance to the many Californians who flocked to Sahara Shores selling their expensive real estate and escaping the smog, crime, horrible traffic and high taxes. Many New Yorkers arrived for similar reasons. Most arrivals had either retired or were close to it so there was no need for a school system. Should younger families settle in Sahara Shores, their children could take advantage on an excellent education via satellite to their computers.
    Because of the dominant age group A.N.U.S. built a medical facility staffed with doctors and nurses who could handle most complaints. Should someone require more intense hospitalization he or she could be transported to one of the major cities outside the perimeter of Sahara Shores.
    At the end of three years of sales there were ten thousand souls living in Sahara Shores. The seven resorts that were sprinkled around the new sea had a comfortable one hundred thousand visitors over a one-year period with the average stay per guest at six days. Most of the resorts hired help from the nearby cities. Travel agencies the world over advertised the new idea, and received slightly higher commissions than they enjoyed from other resorts in the world.
    At the beginning of the fifth year of Sahara Shores Ivan P. Daily decided not to run again for Congress and moved to his spacious house by North Africa’s inland sea of fresh water. The house had a large porch from which Daily spent hours looking out over the water as he read Jim Woolard novels, sipped his Margaritas and wondered why his wife of thirty years had divorced him three years before. He looked out at the vast expanse of water and gave a chuckle and a smug smile as he thought about his congressional pension that amounted to as much as his salary.
    The following year saw further changes. The board of directors decided they wanted new blood in the CEO’s chair so they forced Loring Lincoln to step down. Lincoln had enjoyed the five million dollars a year for his expertise in development and putting Sahara Shores on the map. He wasn’t disappointed in the board’s decision. Instead of fighting his removal he resigned completely and retired to a ranch he had purchased many years before in the White Mountains of Arizona. He left A.N.U.S. with only one regret. He had wanted to see ethnic mixing work, but in the long run he realized that he might have been naîve.
    Everything seemed to have worked out quite well for Loring Lincoln except his wife contracted breast cancer and didn’t discover it until it was too late. She demanded that she be allowed to go to live on the ranch in Arizona for as long as she had to live.  After she passed away, Loring overdid on ranch work and suffered a massive coronary during the fall gather. He never made it to the hospital in Show Low.

    Hadji Ali prospered. He now drove twenty camels. The demand for hashish had increased and the prices in Tangier he received for his favorite commodity had tripled. He was still able to purchase the hashish at a price that gave him a substantial profit. The lengthy treks across North Africa were far easier with the abundant water even though he had to sneak his camels to the shore during the night because the shoreline was crowded with buildings and Hadji had no desire to be caught and try to explain what he was doing with twenty camels drinking their water and crapping on their sand. He became aware of the newcomer attitudes toward his camels when he started bringing in Berber rugs on his return trips. The rugs sold quite well, but he decided that the hassles from the various “Environmental Enforcers” complaining about his camels discoloring the sand were not worth the effort he had to go through to make a small profit compared to what he earned from the hashish trade. After selling two hundred rugs he withdrew and resumed “dead-heading” back to Cairo.

    Harry Atwater the new CEO of Sahara Shores had an array of degrees. He had earned a Bachelors and Masters in engineering from M.I.T. and a PhD in Geography and Area Development from Arizona State University. Atwater listened to the board of directors as they went through the reasons why they had replaced Loring Lincoln. The principal factor was the strong complaint from the Sahara Shores Water Company Ltd.. One of the hydroelectric generators burned a bearing and the subsequent shutdown for repair had caused a brownout and the freight train that hauled the cases of bottled water to the outlying airports didn’t have enough power to operate. The result was warehouses overflowing with outgoing cases of Sahara Shores Water.
    The following week Atwater met with the big wigs of the water company and offered to set up emergency procedures to use diesel-electric engines that would be housed outside the perimeter until needed if that need ever arose again. Atwater’s offer included Sahara Shores Water’s fifty percent contribution toward the purchase of the engines. The water company executives complained that there were other companies and industries that used the freight trains.
    “You people are the only ones who are complaining,” Atwater said.
    The new CEO of Sahara Shores shoved the agreement papers that had already been prepared by Sahara’s lawyers across the table for their approval and signatures.
    It took a year before the emergency engines arrived at their terminals, but fortunately nothing drastic happened with the generators.
    People continued to arrive with the money they had made from selling their expensive real estate in California, Arizona, New York and Illinois. There were also a few hundred from the Denver/Colorado Springs area.
    The latter proved troublesome because they insisted on building evangelical churches. Harry Atwater met with them in the auditorium and put his position bluntly on the table. Having had to make a special flight to deal with the problem, Harry scowled as he tapped the table on the stage with his index finger. “Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry to disappoint you but there is no provision whatsoever for evangelical churches in Sahara Shores. However, I am able to offer you complete refunds so you can return to Colorado Springs where your churches are already well established.”
    “What about our furniture and the airfare?” said a woman carrying a Bible in her hands.
    “I suggest that you sell your furniture to incoming residents. As far as your airfare is concerned, I hope you didn’t spend all your money getting here because Sahara Shores is being extremely benevolent to extend the refund since there is a clause in your contracts that states your rights and privileges, which do not include the right to build churches of any sort. Even if you were American Indians you would not be allowed to build sweat lodges.”
    “We never saw anything like that in our contracts,” the woman said.
    “I have one last suggestion,” Atwater said. “If I hear one more complaint from any of you I will cancel my offer to refund your purchase prices. Thank you, and have a nice day at Sahara Shores.”
    Harry Atwater rose from his chair, started for the entrance to the executive offices, but turned around before opening the door. “You may sign those agreements or not. Leave them on the table and I will have my secretary pick them up in exactly ten minutes.”
    He heard the papers rustle as he went through the door to his office. He left Sahara Shores that evening on the train and flew back to New York the following afternoon.
    After ten years sales began to flatten considerably. Harry and the board decided it must be because real estate prices had slumped in the areas that had provided most of their clientele in the United States. In other parts of the world the economy continued to slump because of the inescapable deficit accumulated by the United States during President Sage’s eight years. As Harry looked back he was astounded that that administration had had no clue as to the globalization that was occurring so rapidly. At one meeting of the board they were discussing that situation.
    “They must have thought that the United States was an island and invincible to world conditions and vice/versa,” Harry said. “It is an absolute wonder that Sahara Shores has survived and even prospered. I never knew Loring Lincoln well, but I certainly admire his foresight.”
    “I have to agree with you,” Preston Ageton said. “But you must remember the earthquake that made this all possible.” Ageton had been on the board since the beginning of the project. His bushy white hair was always rumpled from his habit of running his fingers through it as if he were checking to feel if it was still there.

    On May 10th, two months after the board meeting in New York, Roy Sanchez kissed his wife of thirty years and wished her “Happy Mother’s Day”. Mexican Mother’s Day always fell on May tenth. They had moved to Sahara Shores from Los Angeles eight years before, after selling their small house in the San Fernando Valley for five hundred thousand dollars.
    Maria Sanchez showed her husband the Mother’s Day cards their four children had sent. All four had moved from California to Arizona and New Mexico. Roy looked at the cards and smiled. “We are lucky,” he said.
    He went to the kitchen, made two Margaritas and brought them out to the porch overlooking the great inland fresh water sea. “Sometimes I wish we could see the kids more often,” Maria said.
    “I know, I feel the same way, but they have their own lives.”
    “It wasn’t this way when we were young,” Maria continued. “Our families lived close by and we all gathered for holidays.”
    “That has all changed since people started moving around so much.”
    “Que lastima,” Maria said.
    “I have to agree that it is a shame,” Roy said.
    “Maybe we should move to Arizona or New Mexico to be closer to the grandchildren. They barely know us.”
    “”You have a good point,” Roy said. “Let’s find out if we can afford to make another change.”
    It was 11:16 PM. They had been in bed for two hours and Roy was snoring. Maria had awakened with the noise and lay thinking about moving back to be close to the children.
    Suddenly the house began to shake. It was a little at first, then the shaking increased. Maria heard a strange sound coming from outside. It sounded like a giant toilet flushing. She poked Roy. He awoke with a snort. “What?” He asked sleepily.
    “Can’t you feel the shaking and hear the funny noise outside?”
    Roy sat up, cocked his head and listened. “What in hell is going on?”
    “I don’t know, but I’m scared,” Maria said.
    Roy reached over to turn on the lamp on the bedside table. The switch only clicked. “The damn lights are out,” he said.
    “Go outside and see what is making that horrible noise.”
    Roy got out of bed, pulled on his “Chino” trousers and walked barefooted to the front door that led to the porch. He went to the edge of the porch and squinted to sea what was making the sucking noise. It was louder than before and seemed in the direction of the generators that were somewhere in the neighborhood of ten miles away from the shore front house. There was a strange smell that he detected before returning inside to report to Maria.
    “The noise sounds like it is coming from the generators, but there’s a funny smell outside,” he said. “I’ll bet it has to do with the generators burning bearings like they did a few years ago and we had that brownout.”
    “I hope the power doesn’t stay off too long. Our frozen food wouldn’t like that a bit,” Maria said.
    Roy sat down on the edge of the bed. “While I was out there on the porch I got to thinking about our conversation over the Margaritas,” he said. “I think we have plenty of money left in the mutual funds that we bought after selling the house in San Fernando to move back even if we have to take a beating on selling this place.”
    “You know more about that stuff than I do. When can we move?”
    “I see you have already made up your mind,” Roy said.
    “I was thinking it all over before the shaking started and I really want to go back. It has been fun, but it really is time to get back with our family.”
    “I agree. Speaking of the shaking, it seems to have stopped.”
    Roy had no more spoken the words when the shaking increased until they thought the polystyrene walls would disintegrate. “I think we should get out of this house before it collapses,” Roy said.
    Maria had already gotten dressed. Roy put on the rest of his clothes and they went out to the porch. In addition to the sucking sound a distinct rumble came from the same direction. The house continued to shake for another fifteen minutes. “To hell with this crap,” Roy said. “I’m going inside and make us another Margarita.”
    “I think you had better hurry, so forget the salt,” Maria said.
    Roy hurried into the house and came back with two glasses containing the Margaritas without any salt on the rims. They gazed into the darkness listening to the sound of a giant toilet flushing.
    The house didn’t collapse, and Roy made another pair of Margaritas with salt. A breeze had begun blowing from the community center and the resort. They could smell polystyrene but didn’t give it much thought. They went back to bed.
    Roy awoke with early morning light. Without thinking about his trousers he walked out on the porch. His jaw dropped as he looked out over what had been the beautiful inland sea of cool fresh water. In the far distance he could barely see the faint glimmer of a rippling surface of water. The sea had emptied to almost nothing. Roy turned abruptly and dashed into the bedroom.
    “Maria, get up and come outside! The water’s gone.”
    He returned to the porch and again looked out at what was once the attraction of Sahara Shores. He stood there incredulous at the sight. Maria had dressed and joined him.
    “Madre de Dios!” she exclaimed. “Where is all the water?”
    “I would like to know that, too,” Roy said.
    Sunrise would be in five minutes. Maria looked over in the direction of the community center and resort. The main buildings of both had collapsed.
    “Look, Roy,” she said, pointing to the once elegant structures. “That’s probably why we smelled that plastic smell a while ago. Should we go over and see if anyone is hurt?”
    “I say we stay here and I will keep trying to find out something on-line on the computer.”

    Hadji had watered his camels just after sunset and had driven them about nine miles to a place he had been using as a camp for more than ten years. He walked among the camels when the shaking began, trying to calm them as best he could. The shaking felt stronger than he had experienced ten years before when the water arrived. The sucking sound didn’t help his concern about the camels. With twenty, he had to trot up and down the strung out line to touch them and talk to them. One by one he had them go down to the sand. He was glad that he had trained them well. No longer standing the camels were in less position to run away. Hadji cocked his head to listen to the strange sound. His campsite was just beyond a large Barchan dune. He soon gave up trying to figure out what was making the noise and rolled out his bedding, a nice Berber rug large enough to fit his five foot ten inch body.
    The sound persisted when he awakened at first light. Before heating his morning tea he climbed the dune to see what he might discover. “Alla is at it again,” he murmured. “First He sends the water and now He takes it away.”
    He returned to his camels. “Well, my friends, it looks like we will have to go to Abuul Daba Oasis for water from now on. It was good while it lasted.”

    Roy and Maria read the notices on the computer together. All residents and visitors to Sahara Shores would be evacuated as soon as the freight trains had hooked up to the emergency diesel/electric engines. Everyone should be advised that only basic clothing would be allowed aboard because space was limited and speed was needed to get everyone out before the bottled water ran out.
    The announcement began to repeat telling that an earthquake of immense proportions had caused the inland sea of fresh water to drain back into the fissure from whence it came ten years before. The generators were no longer functional and that everyone should remain calm to facilitate the exodus from Sahara Shores.
    “Well, all I have to say is we should have left a month ago at least,” Roy said.
    “You got that right, my man,” Maria said. “I suppose we should get the clothes we like the most and go to the station.”
    “I just want to get out of here and I want to be in the first train or those jokers might forget to fill the engines with diesel,” Roy said. “When I saw all that water heading for the fissure I wondered if we made that happen by wanting to leave.”
    “Aren’t you important,” she said, and laughed. “For some reason I don’t give a damn about anything except getting out of here as soon as we can.”
    “I am taking this great little laptop and try to communicate with the kids,” Roy said.
    “You saw what the announcement said, only basic clothes.”
    “I am wearing that Mexican Guayavera shirt and it is big enough to hide this little gem of a laptop.”
    They got themselves ready and left the house that had cost them a hundred thousand dollars and the furniture that they had bought at the community center eight years before. Roy stuck his computer under the Mexican shirt and it was hardly noticeable. After closing the house they walked to the train station where they joined the line of Sahara Shore residents and tourist visitors who all wore worried looks on their faces.
    Roy and Maria stood behind Ivan P. Daily who had a valise in his hand and a sterling silver flask in his shirt pocket. “I don’t think they will let you on the train with that suitcase, sir,” Roy said.
    “Don’t be concerned young man,” Daily said, slurring his words. “I was on the first board of directors of Sahara Shores and A.N.U.S..”
    Roy said no more but he noticed that when the train finally arrived the man was not allowed to bring his suitcase, although the conductor let him take the bottle of tequila out before leaving it on the platform.
    The news of the earthquake and subsequent draining of the inland sea hit the New York offices of Sahara Shores like a bombshell. Harry Atwater called an emergency meeting of the board of directors. They were able to assemble by the following morning. One man had to come in from Boston on his Learjet.
    Most of the concern was about lawsuits. Harry called on Moses Fruchtender, Sahara’s chief attorney. The lawyer pointed out that each contract had a clause that the company could not be held liable for acts of God.
    “Since this all happened in North Africa, “ Atwater said. “Does the clause apply to acts by Alla as well?”
    Fruchtender shrugged. “I expect we will find out,” he said.

    A month later Hadji Ali drove his camels down to the former Sahara Shores and looked around. He saw no people and there were still no lights as had once sparkled in an early evening. He dismounted next to the house that had been Ivan P. Daily’s Sahara Shores residence, walked over and tried the door. It opened. Hadji walked in and looked around. The place looked like the owner would return at any minute for supper. Hadji walked over to a cupboard and opened the glass door through which he could see a number of bottles. He took one out and looked at it. He had seen the label before and recognized it as tequila. Hadji never drank spirits, but way out here with nobody to witness his transgression, he decided to partake. He hoped Alla would understand. He took the bottle out to the porch and put it down next to the comfortable chaise lounge that by now had an accumulation of sand on it. He brushed the sand away, but before sitting down he went back to his camels and had them go down to spend the night. He told them that he would load the Berber rugs from the houses and take them back to Tangier and sell them back to the rug merchants.
    Returning to the porch he sat down and looked out over the sand of the Sahara that the wind had started blowing into dunes again. He wondered how soon the looters would arrive to haul all the furnishings away to the cities. He took off the top and lifted the tequila bottle for a drink. The strong spirits burned his mouth. He winced and took another swallow. Putting the bottle back on the floor of the porch, he took out a small packet of olive brown hashish, cut off a small chunk and stuffed it into his hash pipe. Lighting the pipe with his butane lighter he took a long pull and holding his breath as long as he could, muttered, “I wonder what happened to all that water.”

E.D.

    Without a doubt, God has a unique sense of humor. Look at the world we live in. The better something tastes, the worse it is for you. Spend too much time in the great outdoors, and you’ll develop skin cancer.
    God’s humor becomes a bit more twisted, when it comes to sex. He creates homosexuals, and then convinces mankind that they are evil and the work of the devil.
    The heterosexual doesn’t escape his wrath either. He gives man a continuing urge and desire for sex, but then takes away his ability to perform. And for the coup de grace, he decides that when a man’s best years are behind him, his spouse will just be reaching her sexual zenith.
    Man’s ability to perform during his teenage years was never a problem, the opportunity to perform was. Remember those days, erections and wet-dreams — your Johnson would often have a mind of its own — growing at the most inopportune and embarrassing of moments. Never again would you be so potent, yet society frowned on sexual activity during that period.
    So why, when the equipment goes on the blink does the urge continue? Well, take Ed for example. Happily married for over twenty years, with an attractive wife who has barely started to show her age. His sexual prowess had been diminishing, and completion of a love-making act had become a rare occurrence. How rare? Well, if it was classified as an animal, it would be on the endangered list.
    But his desire was still present, and as strong as ever — no aphrodisiac was needed for his libido. He became a master of improvisation. Still, complete satisfaction remained an infrequent event. Frustrated, he tried pills, vitamins, exercises and various gadgets with little success.
    One night unable to sleep and feeling unusually horny, Ed went into the living room to watch TV. There was a movie on that he always liked — an old detective flick, 1940’s circa. But it was different, the hero and the girl were kissing, but they didn’t stop there. He began to undress her, and soon she was completely nude. She was posing in positions that Ed had only dreamed of. She was unbelievably hot! He had never been so turned on. What was going on?
    Just then they had a commercial break, and a man started talking about an erectile dysfunction cure. Ed swore he was talking to him alone.
    “Have you tried all the remedies out there, and still no success? Are you tired of failing to satisfy your partner?”
    The man’s appearance began to change. His face reddened and became long and narrow, and his ears were now noticeable pointed.
    “Is being able to fornicate like you were eighteen again is important to you? Then just follow these simple instructions.”
    Ed was ready to try anything. He was worked up to a frazzle.
    “Place your left hand on your groin, your right hand in the air and swear your allegiance to me.”
    “I swear, I swear,” said Ed.
    “All you will have to do is say these magic words: I WANT A BIG ONE. Anytime those words are uttered out loud, within your earshot, immediately you will possess a hard-on like you have never had before. But I warn you; you must commence an act of sex with a partner within fifteen minutes. Otherwise, your penis will continue to grow and eventually drain every bit of blood from your body.”
    The screen went blank and he fell asleep in the chair. Waking up about six he went back to bed.
    Fay heard him come into the bedroom and sat up and turned on the light by the bed. “Where have you been?” she asked.
    “Sorry, but I fell asleep in the living room.”
    Ed noticed the strap on Fay’s nightie fall off her shoulder partially exposing her ample breast. Desire was consuming him and he leaned over to kiss her.
    “Not now Ed, it’s barely six AM.”
    “If I can get old Captain Winkie to salute, will you change your mind?”
    “Yea, that’ll be the day,” she answered, as she turned off the light and laid back down.
    “I’ll be right back.”
    Ed went into the bathroom. He didn’t want Fay to ever know the magic words. He dropped his pajama bottoms, looked into the mirror and quietly said, “I want a big one.”
    He felt a tremendous rush and was amazed to see his penis grow. He could never recall having such a long and hard erection. He proudly walked into the bedroom and turned on the light, and pulled the covers off of Fay.
    “What are you do ...” her eyes quickly fixed on his enormous member, “sweetheart get over here.”
    They made love like they never had before. They both called in sick and stayed in the bedroom all day long. Their lovemaking episodes continued with an astounding frequency for the next few weeks, including a couple of unexpected copulations.
    One such experience happened when they were walking around the town’s annual festival. They were passing an ice cream vendor, where a man was carrying his little boy on his shoulders.
    “What size ice cream cone do you want, Bobby?”
    “I want a big one,” said the child.
    Ed panicked, there wasn’t any privacy to be found anywhere. Their car was too far away. What would he do? Time was running out. Finally, he grabbed Fay by the arm, and pulled her into a nearby port-a-potty and initiated a violent round of love-making that nearly overturned the structure.
    This unexpected reversal of their sexual fortunes had come at the perfect time in Fay’s life. She never questioned Ed’s sudden revival south of the border; her carnal appetite had been aroused and seemed insatiable. Ed couldn’t turn her requests down. He felt he was making up for the years of inadequacies. But the furious pace was wearing him out; he realized he couldn’t keep it up. He had to get some rest, and the only way was to get away from her for awhile. He decided a little fishing trip would do him a world of good. Fay reluctantly agreed to let him spend a day by himself.
    Saturday morning Ed drove to the lake, and took his boat out to a distant part. It was a beautiful morning. He felt nothing but reverence for the peace and quiet of the setting, and the opportunity to relax and recoup his strength before returning. Once anchored into his favorite fishing spot he decided to check in with Fay.
    “Hi dear, just wanted to let you know that I’m ok. I’m at the far end of the lake, about an hour out.”
    “I miss you already,” she said.
    “I think I need to recharge a little, if you know what I mean. I’ll be a new man when I get back tonight.”
    “Sweetheart, I can hardly wait.”
    “With a little luck, I’ll catch a few perch — your favorite.”
    “That would be great.”
    “Have the frying pan ready — hope to have a couple on my stringer when I get home.”
    “Remember, put the smaller ones back,” she said.
    “Because?”
    “I want a big one.”

Ocean’s Pounding

    “I’m going running, mom,” she says. She waits for the yell.
    “You’re what?!” the voice calls from downstairs, right on queue. Footsteps pound down the stairs. Traci’s mother scrambles to the kitchen and tries to block the back door, what Traci called the beach door when she was little.
    “You are not going out there, young lady,” she says. Traci sighs. She knew this was coming, but it still grates her.
    “Mom, I’m fifteen. I can take care of myself,” Traci says. “Look, I even got this at the store yesterday.” She pulls a small can of MACE out of her pocket to show her mother. Her mother’s eyes grow wide.
    “When did you get that?” she asks.
    “I told you, mom. Look, Amy and I talked a long time last night. We both agreed that if we didn’t do something, they’d win.” she says.
    “Then let them win!” she yells. She pulls a stained note out of her pocket. “keep your dyke slut cunt dauter away from our kids or we kill her,” she reads. Tears spring up in Traci’s eyes, and her mother’s face softens. “Honey listen, I know you want to make a stand. You’ve never been one to back down, and you know I love that in you. But these people are crazy. I don’t know if they’ll really kill you, but they’ll hurt you. I’ve already called up your uncle Kerry, and he says we can stay at his farm for awhile. I even called Amy’s parents, and they say we can bring her with us until this whole thing cools down. Honey, please, we have to be safe. I can’t let anything happen to you,” she says.
    Traci falters. The farm up in Vermont would be nice this time of year, with all the leaves changing. Also, the thought of spending so much time with Amy sounds wonderful. A scene flashes through her mind, Amy and her spending an afternoon up in the hayloft, wrapped up in a blanket together, sharing a thermos of hot chocolate, sharing whispers, sharing other things. But then she looks at the note in her mother’s hand, and at the sheet of plywood that their neighbor helped put up to patch the broken living room window. She shakes her head.
    “I’m sorry, mom,” she says, pushes past her mother, and runs out the door. The ocean’s autumn air hits her skin hard, and she realizes how flushed the confrontation with her mother has left her. She can hear her mother calling after her as she races down the sandy path to the beach. She blocks her out. Her mother doesn’t understand, not really. It’s not just about the note tied to a rock, death threat or not. She’s been getting threats ever since Amy persuaded her that they should come out together at the end of the summer.

    They had walked into Robert E. Lee High on the first day of school hand in hand, and kissed each other goodbye when the first bell rang. Before the day was through, they had been called into the principal’s office and received a heated lecture forbidding any further offensive displays of affection. When the principal said affection, it sounded as though he was spitting out some awful piece of rotten meat. Traci had pointed out how often the students saw the football stars making out with their girlfriends of the week in the hallways. The principal flustered something about how boys will be boys. The girls received a week’s detention, and a strong feeling that their kind wasn’t wanted in this proud school.
    That was just the start of things. Before the detentions were up, both girls had lost many of their friends. Traci remembers coming to school that first Tuesday morning and seeing one of her best friends, Becca. Becca wasn’t part of the group Amy and Traci liked to call their posse; she had known this girl since they had been in second grade, and they’d been close since fourth grade, but when Traci said hi that morning, she could almost see icicles growing off the hello she got back. When she asked Becca how she was, so got a stiff “fine,” and an awkward silence. The bell rang then, and Traci let it go for the time. Later at lunch, though, Traci went to sit with Becca. When Traci sat down, Becca got up and moved to a different table. When Traci confronted her about this after school, Becca tried to shrug it off.
    “This kind of thing happens. Friends grow apart. It just happened,” she said.
    “Bull! We hung out most of the summer. Come on, Becca, what’s happened?” she asked. Becca heaved a sigh and glared off to the side.
    “God, you really don’t know? You’re dumber than I thought,” she said, and turned away. They hadn’t spoken since.
    Most of their friends outside the posse just started ignoring them. The other students, however, were not so kind. Traci began dreading opening up her locker. It seemed as though there was another hate note in there every morning. There were plenty of Dykes Stay Away and No Gays in our Town; many had a religious flavor with proclamations of God Hates You, Burn in Hell Bitches, and other similar sentiments. About two weeks before Amy and Traci both got rocks through their windows, Traci found Amy crying in one of the bathrooms. When she asked what was wrong, Amy showed her a noose she had found hanging in her locker. When they reported it to the principal, he dismissed it as a Halloween prank, even though it was still the first week of October. The biting whispers and comments became so ubiquitous Traci stopped hearing them; the hate-filled stares of strangers told her what her ears ignored.

    Traci’s back yard is a good quarter-acre, with the back fence coming right up to the edge of the beach. Right through her back gate, there’s about ten feet of soft sea grass, then all is ocean and sand. As she reaches her back gate, she kicks off her sandals and rushes towards her beach; the verdant grass brushing her, the cool morning sand bringing her alive. Traci had spent the first six years of her life away from the sea. Her idea of a large body of water was the lake that her dad would take her to in the summer. Then he had gone away, gone forever, and Traci hated him for it. Her mother told her that they were moving, and Traci decided she would hate wherever they went, because it wasn’t where he had been. She had arrived at her new home in a haze, not seeing or hearing anything. When they got to the new house, she rushed to her room and flung herself on her bed. She cried for an hour. As the last of her sobs were running out, she began to hear something. It was like a great, comforting breathing all around her. Then she looked up through her bedroom window for the first time, and saw the sea. It filled her eyes, and for the first time she felt her heart may heal.
    Now that it is fall, all the summer people have left. The beaches once again belong to the locals. It is a gray, overcast day, and Traci has the beach to herself as she runs. She runs on the thin borderland between sea and sand, where the white foam rushes to kiss her feet with each wave. The sea is awake this morning. It was not angry, not yet, but it seemed to be in a bad mood already. It flings a mist of water up into Traci’s short brown hair as she runs on; the green of the sea dances with the blue in her eyes. As she runs, her memory goes back to that day three summers ago.

    Traci met Amy when they were both twelve years old. Traci had been walking along the beach on a breezy June day. The beach in front of her house was packed with tourists, so she decided to head to the cliffs. The cliffs were about half a mile down from Traci’s house. They were almost sheer walls of rock which went on for about two miles. Traci hadn’t started running yet, but she loved walking alongside the cliffs. Thet were underwater during high tide, so there was always something new to look at. More importantly, most of the tourists stayed away, so aside from a handful of locals, this stretch of beach was hers.
    Traci was almost at the other end of the cliffs when she noticed a cave in the rock’s wall that she hadn’t seen before. The only reason she noticed it today is because there was a girl standing at the entrance. She was wearing a bright orange one-piece suit, and her straight black hair was still slicked with salt water. The two of them stared at one another, and Traci felt an unfamiliar twinge inside her. The girl raised a finger to her lips and mimed to Traci, shhhhh. Just then, Traci heard someone yelling further down the beach.
    “Amy! AMY! Where’d you get at? Come on, you bitch, get back here!” Traci saw that the shouts were coming from a high school guy, probably a senior, at least a junior. He was wearing camo-print swim trunks, and he was headed Traci’s way. He took a swig from the beer in his hand, and that’s when he noticed Traci standing there.
    “Hey, you. Did you see a girl walking that way? Couldn’t miss her, had a ass-ugly orange suit on,” he said. Traci shook her head. Normally she would’ve said anything; she was scared of guys older than she was, but that finger on the lips, and the can of beer, told her that she should do her best to keep the cave girl hidden.
    “I haven’t seen anyone, not since the other side of this cliff,” she said, then realized this was probably a tourist, so she added, “It goes on for about two miles, so, I would’ve seen her.” Traci kept her eyes locked with this stranger. She had heard that liars always look away. His eyes seemed to hold turning fire.
    “Shit, girl, I know the cliff. I’ve only lived in this backward town for the past 17 fucking years,” he said, and kicked the sand. “Well, if you see her, tell her that her brother wants her,” he said, and stormed off in the other direction. Traci let out her breath, and realized she was shaking. There was a vibe coming off that guy.
    Traci looked back over to the cave. A huge smile had made its way onto the girl’s face, and she waved for Traci to come over and join her. Traci made her way over to the cave, made sure the camo-trunks guy wasn’t looking, and ducked inside.
    Traci followed the girl into the cave until they were both out of sight. The cave was damp and cool, but not unpleasant. There was just enough light to see by, and Traci could see sea vegetation growing on the walls, left over from the centuries of high tides that had visited this cave. The girl sat down on a rock, and Traci sat on the cave floor next to her.
    “Thanks for that,” she said.
    “No problem. That guy looked like a jerk,” Traci said. The girl laughed.
    “Yeah, my brother is most definitely a jerk. Hey, what’s your name?” she asked.
    “I’m Traci, who are you?”
    “My name’s Amy. Are you here visiting? You know, ‘cause it’s summer?” Amy asked. Traci shook her head.
    “Nah. We live here, my mom and me, just on the other side of the cliff,” she said. Amy’s eyes lit up.
    “Oh wow, cool, so you’re practically my neighbor!” she said. “Maybe we could, ya’ know, hang out, when you’re not spending time with your other friends.”
    That stopped Traci. She hasn’t really made many friends, any real friends, since she had moved. The other kids hadn’t been mean, for the most part, but not many had reached out. There had been a group of girls she would sit at lunch with during school, and she had been invited to her share of birthday parties, but there had never been any real connections. She was standing on the verge of the unexplored frontiers of 7^th grade, and up until this point, she had been afraid that she would be left standing alone. Then, out of the blue, this girl came along and let her know that it didn’t have to be that way. The idea made Traci pause, and Amy looked worried.
    “I mean, it’s OK if you don’t want to, I just thought-“ she said, and Traci interrupted her.
    “Have you explored this cave yet?”
    “No, I just found them this morning.”
    “Want to see how far they go back?” Traci asked. The girls smiled at one another, and began exploring the dark earth.

    Traci continues running along the beach. She has just reached the cliff. If she had not been so lost in thought that morning, she would have paid more attention to the close violence of the sea. As it is, though, the roaring of the sea matches the pounding in her heart, and she runs on. As she run, she remembers how her friendship with Amy had grown. Amy had spent almost every day that summer over at Traci’s house, talking, playing, growing through that great summer of change together. When fall came, they entered school side by side, and stuck together through the storm of middle school raged around them. The cruelty of their peers crashed against the wall of their friendship.

    They had other friends at school. They had a group of six other kids who made up a posse of outcasts, spurned by the popular and unpopular alike. They were the group that the geeks called nerds. But they were loyal to one another, and they kept each other from going insane. They were introduced to pen and paper role playing. It was a great unearthed treasure in the land of their imagination, birthed from the fertile fields that J.R.R. Tolkien’s trilogy and its descendents left so fertile. The new Dungeons and Dragons system left room for endless adventure, and these outcasts spent most Friday or Saturday nights exploring dungeons, fighting orcs and looting treasure. There was only one other girl in their group, Sharon. She was going steady with one of the five guys. Traci thought that she would get a crush on one of the other four guys. That didn’t happen, even though she was well in to puberty, with her body changing and growing so quickly that her mother sometimes joked about getting the ceiling fans taken out of the house, just in case. Her hormones were raging so quickly that she was sometimes sure that she could really feel them crushing through her body, and her sex drive kicked into overdrive at least once a day. But she still didn’t find herself looking at her boy friends as anything more than friends. She couldn’t see any boy as anything more than another person. They didn’t excite anything in her. But when she was around Sharon and Amy, she felt a stirring in her she had never known. She didn’t know what this new feeling was, but she knew she liked it, and she knew she wanted more.
    Up until that point in time, Traci had no concept of same-sex attraction. She had heard talk about homosexuals, but everyone said they were wicked people who spent their time hating God and messing with children. The idea that she could be that way was beyond her cultural imagination. It wasn’t until one night that following summer that she could finally admit the truth to herself.
    Their band of friends had gathered on the beach for an end-of-school cook out. They built a small bonfire, played games, sang Floyd and Zeppelin, and enjoyed life. It had been cloudy most of the night, but as the fire burned down to embers the sky cleared and the stars shone down on the sea. The rest of the group had gone home after many fond farewells, and the only ones left were Traci and Amy, sitting by the embers in moonlight and the ghosts of firelight. They sat side by side, less than a hand-breadth apart. They enjoyed a comfortable silence as their eyes moved from the burning coals to the burning stars. Eventually, Amy broke the silence.
    “Hey Traci,” she said.
    “Yeah?” Traci asked. Amy was silent for another two minutes. Traci was about to ask her something again when she looked over and noticed the tears rolling down Amy’s face. The firelight turned them into rubies.
    “Amy, hey, what’s wrong?” she asked, and put a hand on her shoulder. Amy shook her head and wiped her face.
    “Give me a minute,” she sniffed. There was another short pause, and then she dived in. “My brother, you remember him? The guy who yelled at you last summer?” she said. Traci nodded. “He’s home from college, and my parents were away all day, and he cornered me in my room and he, he...” Hacking sobs took her then, and Traci wrapped her friend in a hug. Amy planted her forehead in the crook of her neck. Traci could feel the heat pulsing off her.
    “I kept crying for him to stop, it hurt me, but he kept...pushing me, grabbing at me. I tried yelling for help, but nobody came, so I locked myself in the bathroom. I just cried and waited, for three hours. He grabbed me here, and here” she said, pointing at her new breasts and her crotch. That was all she could say. She squeezed herself tight against Traci and wept. Traci froze for a moment, then squeezed her back, tight as she could.
    “Oh Amy, oh God, Amy, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she said. They sat there as Traci felt Amy’s tears fall on her shoulder and roll down the back of her swimsuit. Traci’s mind was racing, trying to figure out what she should do, when before she knew what was happening, she heard herself begin to sing.
    Shining starfire way up high, burning in the black
    I’m always looking in your eyes, you’re always looking back.
    You’re the bonfire in my heart, burning from afar,
    Oh my precious starfire, take me where you are.
    Bring me up into the black and hide me when its blue,
    And when the night has come again, let me dance with you.
    Amy, my own starfire, let me dance with you.
    There was silence on the beach for a moment, and then Amy pulled away.
    “What was that?” she asked.
    “It, um, that was -“
    “Traci, what was that?” she asked again. Traci began backing away.
    “Look, I’m sorry, just forget it, I’m sorry-“ she said. She started to get up to leave, but Amy grabbed her arm.
    “Wait,” she said. She leaned in close and kissed Traci. Light poured into the world as Traci felt those lips on her own.

    She is over halfway along the cliffs now, and her mind finally rouses itself out of memory enough to recognize the ocean rushing across her feet. She slows to a jog, and thinks that the water shouldn’t be anywhere close to her, it’s too early. Then she remembers what her teachers had told her on Friday, reminded her again and again – set your clocks back this Saturday night. She had forgotten. She was always sure to go running early in the morning to beat the tide, but today she has forgotten, and now she’s racing the tide. She knows that if the water gets deep enough before she escapes the cliffs, the storm waves will throw her against the rock like a forgotten ragdoll. She starts running faster.
    The water is rising, already almost to her knees. Each wave threatens her balance. Her pace has changed from a morning run to short sprints during the waves’ recession, followed by bracing herself against the rock wall to keep from falling. She’s still a quarter mile from the other side of the cliffs and her cave when she first begins to worry that she might die. Not long after this thought raised its head, Traci is bracing herself against the cliff as a violent wave crashed around her. A jagged rock is flung up by the water, and it makes a large gash on Traci’s left leg. She cries out in pain and stumbles. She feels the water begin pulling her out towards the sea, and she scrambles to regain her footing. It’s at that moment she begins to panic. Her mind escapes to memory as the fog of survival falls.

    Traci and Amy decided to come out to their posse at the start of that summer, right after school let out. The eight of them had been in Traci’s living room, running two campaigns on two tables, drinking Mountain Dew, eating Cheetos, laughing, enjoying the bonds of solidarity and friendship. Traci’s heart was pounding. She’d been researching stuff online, and she knew that girls her age coming out wasn’t anywhere close to unusual. Girls did it all the time. But she was still nervous. She couldn’t remember ever meeting another homosexual in her town. Either they all kept quiet about who they were, or they’d been scared off. Traci was old enough to recognize that tolerance was low on her town’s list of virtues. She thought her friends would be different. They had talked about this kind of thing before, about how stupid they thought people like Fred Phelps and Rush Limbaugh were, but that had been different. It’s easier to go against the grain in the abstract, but when it’s your friend? That changes things.
    They were taking a short break from the campaigns, and there was a lull in the conversation. Amy decided it was time.
    “Hey guys, um, Traci and I have something to tell you all,” she said. She grabbed Traci’s hand under the table and gave it a squeeze. “We’re gay.” Silence filled the room for a time until one of the guys spoke up.
    “You mean you two are, you know... Into each other? Like Sharon and Vince?” he asked. Traci and Amy both nodded their head. There was another silence, and then he said, “Cool.” There were murmurs of agreement from the group, and then Joe, the group’s crass joker, asked if he could watch them make out. Traci threw a Cheeto at him, and everyone laughed. That was that, the group accepted. Over the next two weeks, the four single guys in the group came up to either Traci or Amy and lamented that they had been harboring a crush on them all these years, and now their hopes were dashed, but this was done in a friendly, almost brotherly way. Sharon told them both how much she respected their courage, and that she really looked up to both of them. In its own strange way, coming out ended up drawing their close circle even tighter to one another. It still took them another few months before they could come out to the whole town, but that night was a stepping stone to their choice to walk hand-in-hand into high school.
    That night, after the others had left, Traci and Amy agreed to tell their parents the next day. They said their goodnights and Amy went home. The next morning, Traci got up and dressed for her run. She put on a baggy t-shirt, a cheap thing from a Race for the Cure event her mom had taken her to in the spring, and headed downstairs. Her mother was sitting at their small kitchen table, looking out the window at the sun glinting off the sea. She was drinking her coffee and reading the paper, going through her morning ritual as she prepared for work.
    “Morning, mom,” she said. Her mom looked up from the paper.
    “Morning, honey. Did you and your friends have fun last night?” she asked. Traci nodded.
    “Yeah, it was good. We didn’t keep you up, did we?” she said. Her mom shook her head and went back to her paper. Traci stood in the doorway, her stomach tying itself into tighter and tighter knots.
    “Hey mom, do you have a minute?” she asked. Her mom put down her paper. “Of course. What’s up?” her mother asked. Traci shuffled forward and sat across from her mom. “So, you know Amy, right?” she said. Her mother laughed. “What, the girl who seems to live here more than her own house? What about Amy?” she said. “Well, um, the thing is, we’re kind of... Dating,” she said. Her mother paused, took a sip from her coffee, and said, “I know.” Traci gaped. “Come on, the oogly eyes you two give each other every time you’re together? The way you play footsie under the table when you think I won’t notice? Traci, I’ve known for a long time,” she said.
    Traci paused. There was no shouting so far, and words like oogly and footsie didn’t usually come up in conversation which ended in getting disowned by your parent. “So, what do you think, mom? I need to know how you feel about this,” she said. “Well, to be honest, I’m not sure yet. At first, I was hurt that you didn’t tell me, but now I think I understand you were probably scared. We don’t exactly come from a homosexual-friendly background, do we? Now, I guess I don’t feel comfortable with all this, but I feel OK. You’re still my kid, I still love you. I’m not kicking you out, and I’m not going to lock you in your room ‘til you’re eighteen. So yeah, I guess I feel OK,” her mom said.
    They sat in contented silence for a moment, then her mother added, “Do her parents know?” Traci shook her head, then stopped herself. “No. Well, maybe by now. We both said we’d tell our parents this morning, so maybe,” she said. Her mother nodded. “I think they’ll be OK too. I just hope they keep it from her brother,” her mother said. Traci was about to ask why, then stopped herself. She knew why. Amy’s brother was well-known in town. When he left for college, most who knew him, all but the most Pharisaical, breathed a sigh of relief. He was off working as a camp counselor someplace over the summer. Traci and Amy both agreed they felt sorry for any kids in his group. “We’re going to meet up after breakfast to share how it went, so I need to get going,” Traci said. Her mom nodded and said, “Honey, if I was wrong... If her parents didn’t take it well, remind her about our spare room.” Traci beamed. “Thanks mom. I love you,” she said, and headed down to the beach.

    Traci’s mind is still swallowed in panic. She doesn’t even see where she is when the wave picks her up off her feet and carries her towards the cliff. Her vision is clouded and wild; all she sees is raw rock flying towards her. As she is plunged into darkness, her first coherent thought is that she has died. Then she feels the water around her, pushing her forward, and she sees. She is in their cave. The sea has taken her home. She is floating on her back, and above her the cave’s ceiling is burning with natural fluorescents. She whispers “Starfire,” and the wave starts pulling her out again.
     She is dragged back out to the shore by the sea, into the blinding grayness of the day, feeling the power of the ocean as it tries make her one with its titanic self. The sea foam coats her like a hand-knit blanket. The sand pulls against her skin, pulls against the gash that the rock made earlier, and she comes back to herself. She leaps to her feet, fighting the rage of the crashing gray around her. The end of the cliff is in front of her, in reach. She pushes herself farther than she had ever known. The adrenaline of survival flooded her body, leaving her mind no escape but memory.

    They waited until their parents were asleep. They had to; after the death threats, they had been forbidden to step outside the house. But they had to see each other, they had to talk, so when they had called each other under the close supervision of their parents, they had agreed they had to meet in their cave that night. They hadn’t said so in such plain language, of course; they had used the language all lovers know as their own special tongue. When the house was silent, save her mother’s snores and the ocean’s breath, Traci pulled on a sweater and crept out of the house. She ran in the cloudy darkness of the beach. Even with no moon and stars to guide her, she found her way to the cave. The cave had been the sacred hiding place for all their greatest secrets back when they only knew each other as friends – when they had lamented the unjust sentence of their periods, when they had compared the mystery of breast growth, when they had made lucid plans to run off to the same college together when they graduated. They knew it was the only place for them to talk about what had happened.
    The cave was chilly that time of year, and she was glad for the sweater. She sat alone in the darkness, waiting for her Amy. In the cave, time seemed to stop. Traci began to feel at one with the cave, secret and safe. Even the sound of the waves became far away, muted. After the attack, Traci had been filled with fear, followed by a dead numb. Here in the cave, though, she found peace.
    Before long, Amy arrived. They sat side by side, talking about what had happened, what had caused it. Then they were hand in hand. Then they were clinging to one another for comfort. Then they were locked, lip to lip. Traci felt Amy’s hand crawling up her, pulling her sweater with it. Traci put her hand on Amy’s.
    “No, Amy. Not like this,” she said. She felt Amy’s eyes meet hers in the dark.
    “Why?” she asked.
    “Because we’re not our own here. Not in this town,” she said. The peace was gone; red rage was filling her, pouring from her head down to her feet. “This town feels dirty. All this hate. God! I don’t know how they stand it. I don’t want the first time we’re, you know, together... They call us fucking whores, and that’s what it would be here. Fucking. Nothing more. Because anything we do here is going to be seen as rebellion, not love. So when we do... Have sex, I want it to be something more than... More than what this town thinks about us, that the gays just get together to get their rocks off, get punished with AIDS and die.”
    Amy laid her head down on Traci’s shoulder. “Of course. I can wait. We’ll be worth it,” she said. Traci hugged her close.
    “I love you,” they both said at once, and laughed. Then they made their way back home and tried to sleep.

    She is close now, so close. She can see the end of the cliff. She knows she can reach it. Two hundred feet, a wave. One hundred feet, a wave. She is almost knocked down again. Fifty feet, a wave, and she is clear of the cliff.
    As she runs up the beach, parallel to the sloping side of the cliff, the day is filled with new light. The sea, which had been a murderous force moments ago, is now a testament to her strength. The gray sky screams of victory. The salt air is the green wreath filling her lungs; the sea spray plasters her hair against her scalp, making her head into a crown. She closes her eyes and feels the world spin around her, inside her. She does not see the figures standing beside the cliff, she does not hear the whimpers of fear.
    “Well! If this ain’t just perfect! I went hunting for one dyke this morning, and the other showed up too!”
    Traci’s head snaps around. It’s him, the boy in the camo shorts, Amy’s brother. Amy is there too, kneeling in the sand beside the descending side of the cliff. He is standing just out of the reach of the waves, with a gun against Amy’s head. He pushes the gun forward, crashing Amy’s head into the rock.
    “Say goodbye, bitch,” he said. A trickle of blood runs down the rock from a gash in Amy’s temple.
    “Traci, ru-“ she says, and an explosion fills the morning. The thin stream of blood is replaced by an ocean of crimson and gray. The top half of Amy’s head is gone in an instant. Traci’s feet are frozen to the sand as the brother raises the gun on her.
    “Your turn, you cunt-licking whore,” he says. Another explosion fills the air. Traci’s world goes black.

    She wakes up in a room filled with white light. She tries to look around, but she is too weak to lift her head.
    “Am I dead?” she asks.
    “Not hardly, though that gash on your leg was rather nasty,” a man’s voice answers off to her left. The voice is cheerful. Traci hates this; she can’t remember why.
    “Where am I?” she asks, trying again to lift her head. This time she manages to turn it, and she sees a middle-aged man dressed in absurd Hawaiian print scrubs.
    “Urgent care center. The officer who found you brought you in. What’s your name, honey? We need to call your parents,” he says. Traci wonders what’s happened to her school ID. She always keeps it on her, even during the summer, unless she’s out running.
    Running.
    The morning comes flooding back, and Traci is writhing on the bed, screaming, tears racing down her face.

    It is later. She is home now, but she forgets how she got there. She is in bed; the sunlight of day’s end streams through her bedroom’s far window and sets her room on fire. She lies there for a moment, feeling the sheets beneath her, smelling the smells she has let herself grow used to, tasting each breath as it moves through her. She feels time slip over her. After lying like this for five minutes, the door opens and Amy walks in. She doesn’t speak as she makes her way over to the bed. Traci scoots over to make room for her, just as she has done a hundred times before. Amy lies down with her back to Traci, and Traci wraps her arms around her. She scoots up and rests her chin on Amy’s raven hair. Traci breathes deep, smelling the salt caught in Amy’s hair. They lie together for a moment, then Amy gives Traci’s hand a squeeze and gets up.
    “Amy?” Traci says. Amy makes no response; she starts for the door. “Amy, no! Don’t go! You don’t need to go!” she says, her voice breaking more with each word. Soon she is shouting through tears. “Amy! No! Please God, no, don’t leave me like this! You can’t just go, please!” She tries to climb out of bed, but she crashes to the floor. It’s no use, Amy is gone. Traci wraps herself into a ball and sobs. Her mother comes in.
    “Traci, honey? Are you all right?” she asks.
    “Why didn’t you stop her, mom? She was just here! Why didn’t you stop Amy?” Traci says through her sobs. Her mother kneels beside her and strokes her hair.
    “Oh, baby, she wasn’t here. Traci, Amy’s gone. I’m so, so sorry, but she’s gone,” she says. “We’re getting out of this place. Job or no job, I’ve had it with these people. It’s a miracle you’re even alive – that the cop shot that dick before he... We’re leaving for your uncle Kerry’s tonight. As soon as we sell the house, we’re gone for good.” Traci hears none of this, or anything else as her mother keeps talking. Why can’t she be quiet?
    “I’m going to take a shower,” she says. Her mother stops.
    “Sure, honey, whatever you want,” her mother says. “Anything I can get for you?”
    “I’m going to take a shower,” she says again. She leaves her mother sitting in the middle of her bedroom. Soon she is naked, and the water is slamming against her. As she stands there in the water, as the sun sinks below the horizon outside, she hears the ocean’s pounding.
    Breathing in.
    Breathing out.

In Conversation with My Mind

        A girl sits, a book arranged in her lap. She holds a black biro between her fingers.     Motionless.     A clock ticks loudly from another room.     A dog barks, scratches against the back door.     She jumps, mind flung far at every unexpected noise.     The dog barks again, claws tap against the wood.     Earlier she had trapped a spider under a glass near the door and she was reluctant to move from the safety of her chair.
    What use is a guard dog inside anyway, she justifies to herself.
    The dog barks again, only this time he doesn’t stop.
    She sighs, closes the bare pages of her book and moves to the door, keeping one wary eye on the glass with the spider in it.
    She opens the door sharply, readying herself for the assault of cold muddy paws and hot wet breath.
    But there was nothing.
    Tentatively she peers into the seemingly endless night, expecting the clatter of claws on concrete any minute now.
    She steps out into the garden, a breath of white air briefly obscuring her vision.
    The front door creaks behind her, she turns, expecting to see the flicker of a grey tail disappearing into the house.
    Instead she sees him.
    ‘You shouldn’t leave the door open at night.’ he chastises, arms folded loosely across his chest.
    ‘No one can get in.’ She answers flatly, walking past him, back into the house.
    The dog is asleep at the foot of her chair.
    He follows her in.
    “Maybe you were too busy thinking about that spider by your foot.” He sighs, idly fingering the pages of her book.
    She looks down, her skin prickling at the sight of the brown spider scurrying under the skirting board.
    He smiles slightly.
    ‘Shut up’, she hisses, tossing him a glare as she leaves the room, knowing he will follow her into the kitchen.
    “What are you doing?” He asks, leaning against the door frame, his black coat scuffed at the hem.
    “Making a cup of tea.” She answers flatly.
    “I don’t want any.”
    “I wasn’t making it for you.”
    “You’re a terrible host.”
    “I didn’t invite you,” she replies quickly, watching him as he dips a long white finger into the sugar bowl.
    “Yes you did, you opened the door,’ he answers, extending an oddly long pink tongue to his finger.
    “You’re stalking me.” She accuses
    “What else am I supposed to do? You won’t talk to me anymore.”
    She remains silent.
    “I want to talk to you. I think you know that.”
    He persists, licking his finger clean twice more.
    “Of course I do. I created you.” She snaps, snatching the kettle and pouring the boiling water into a mug.
    ‘I think you miss me. I’m charming.’ he drawls, cocking his head to one side, watching her as she realises she has forgotten the tea bag.
    ‘You’re not even real.’ She whispers, refusing to look back at him.
    ‘Not in the conventional sense, no. I still live somewhere though, I consume, I have a world, a home.’
    ‘You live in my head, you consume my spare time, and your world and your home exist on paper, and paper alone.’
    For a moment he is hurt, his eyes contact lens green with artificial envy.
    “I’m your imaginary friend,’ he beams, recovering quickly.
    ‘No, you are fiction, you are a character from a book that I wrote.’
    ‘Except when you think of me outside of the story, then I’m your friend, your lover.’ he smiles, revealing the series of white teeth that she had given him.
    She draws in a guttural sigh, her mind tiring of this debate.
    ‘So friend, other than a craving for my company, what brings you back to the real world?’
    His eyes glitter; he had thought she may never ask.
    He follows her back into the sitting room, the dog still sleeps on the carpet, paws twitching.
    ‘I’m on a mission’ he declares proudly, following her with all the theatrical ease that she has allowed him.
    ‘I’m going to save the world.’
    ‘I didn’t know we were under siege.’ she replies, holding the mug of hot water between her hands, warming them.
    He rolls his wide green eyes. ‘Not your world, my world.’
    She looks up at him, suddenly acutely aware that the last time they had met, they had made love.
    Ever since then she hadn’t been able to write.
    ‘Your characters are dying; they’re fading away with each day, each hour, and each minute. It’s an epidemic. The longer your pen stays off paper, the more my world disappears.’
    She refuses to let the shock show on her face. She’d designed him to be a character of immaturity and amusement. Until now she hadn’t considered him capable of serious thought.
    Could he be a potential protagonist?
    She looks back up at him. There was such a sense of possibility within his gaze.
    ‘Why didn’t you tell me sooner?’ she asks, her voice almost a whisper.
    ‘I’m telling you now, just in the nick of time. Isn’t that how you like it?’
    ‘Well, do you think perhaps, that just once, you could arrive before the nick of time?’ She asked.
    She was angry, cross with herself for letting her imagination dwindle and the characters she loved so much suffer, and cross with him for becoming so unlike himself.
    ‘You created me remember, you with your frantic mosaic of thoughts, you love me, you’re in love with me.’
    ‘I am not.’ She snaps before taking the time to think.
    ‘This is not a love story, love stories are for lovers, and we were only ever just friends.’

Natascha Tallowin Bio

    Natascha Tallowin is a writer and poet from Suffolk, England. Whilst most of her time is spent writing poetry and sitting in patches of sunlight on the floor listening to David Bowie, she is also working on a magic-realism novel entitled ‘Guylian’s Magic’.

Bluebirds

    “Why don’t the birds come?”
    Jared peered out over the top of his newspaper. Ruby, wearing only a faded pink nightgown, was staring out the kitchen window with her back to him. “Hm?” he asked.
    “Well, it’s a birdhouse, isn’t it?” She turned to look at him, her green eyes bright and framed in curly red hair that shone in the morning sunlight.
    Jared blinked hard and looked at the table. “Yes,” he mumbled.
    “Where are the birds, then?” She looked back to the window.
    Jared put down the paper and joined her at the window to look at their small backyard. They had built the little wooden birdhouse two winters ago. A year ago, when the spring began, no birds had come. They’d heard of mother birds abandoning eggs when they’d been tampered with by people, staying away from the smell of what they perceived as danger. The two of them had just assumed that this applied to houses, too, and that the birds were simply afraid of the unfamiliar smell. So Ruby had been patient through the spring and summer while the birdhouse remained empty.
    As soon as this year’s winter began to thaw, though, she began to look out the kitchen window every morning, hoping to catch a glimpse of a bird flitting in or out of the white birdhouse. She stayed at the window longer and longer every day, peering out in the evening while she made dinner.
    He had often asked if she was alright, but she would only smile and shrug, insist nothing was wrong, and move on with whatever she was doing. This was the first time she’d mentioned anything about the birds and Jared felt relieved that she was finally talking to him.
    “Well,” he said, wrapping his arms around her waist, “it’s not too warm yet. Maybe if we wait they’ll get here.”
    “I guess so. I just... I want to see them. I guess it would make me feel...” she trailed off, her eyes trained on the little wooden house. She placed the palms of her hands on her stomach, rubbing it gently with her thumbs.
    “I know, honey,” Jared whispered. He laced his fingers through hers, felt the warmth of her flat belly. “Be patient. They’ll come.”
    Over the next few weeks, the air got warmer, trees grew blossoms which became leaves, the grass came back thick and green, but still there were no birds. Ruby continued to watch the birdhouse and Jared watched Ruby. He would often see her enter the kitchen and, without a word, cross immediately to the window and peer out. He would wait and hope hard that she would turn around with a smile or some hint of joy on her face. When he saw that her face was shadowy and her eyes were downcast, he felt an intense pain in his chest. He would feel the urge to comfort her sometimes, but he could never get up the strength to move.
    After dinner, she would often curl up in the dark green lawn chair on the patio, her long, thin legs pulled up under her chin, and she would stare out into the evening. Sometimes Jared joined her in silence, but usually he would remain inside, busy himself with dishes or cleaning or his work in the basement. Anything to avoid the sadness.

Chapter 1:
(A Short Story)

     I trot through the new snow to the post box as though hope itself would mail my manuscript. Then I realize I don’t have any stamps on it, and that I’m clutching the thick envelope to my chest with both hands. On my way back to the house, I tuck it under my arm, like I’m a married woman and not a complete numbskull.
    Dripping snow across the living room floor, I say, “Joe. Joe, I need you to take me to the post office.” Joe’s watching that show where the judge yells at everybody in the courtroom and after the verdict is announced the defendant and the plaintiff and sometimes their whole families start to fight and then a clown barges in and takes the whole bunch of them off to boot camp on a desert island where they have to work as a team to survive and some of them end up having sex with each other but only one can be voted ‘American Idol’.
    Without turning from the TV Joe says, “Whaddya you need to go to the post office for?” Lately, Joe just mumbles his half of our conversations to the screen, just like his old man. Except when his dad sits in front of the TV on a weekday afternoon, it’s just sad. His folks don’t even have basic cable.
    “My hair,” I tell him. “I need to go to the post office to get my hair done.” When he turns from the TV to look at me, I grin. Joe doesn’t grin back. He knows the difference between me kidding around and when I’m being a smartass. He’s laid off, not stupid.
    On the way over, we drive past Denny’s and I almost gag from the smell of grease. They’ve got the ‘Help Wanted’ sign up, like they have ever since I left. I don’t fool myself into thinking I’m that hard to replace as a waitress. I used to get in trouble all the time, for hiding in the supply room to write bits of my novel on an order pad, for never quite knowing the right thing to say to customers.
    “Hey, darlin’,” they’d ask me, holding up a sticky menu, “is the Chicken-Fried Bacon Wrapped Steak any good?”
    “Well,” I’d hesitate, “that depends on what you mean by ‘good’.”
    I can feel Joe glance at me as we drive on. I pretend to study my envelope, like I’m worried about whether the handwriting I used to address it is neat enough. I know Joe’s unemployment is about to run out and that we don’t have much in the bank. I also know he won’t just come out and ask me to ask for my old job back. That was the deal: I put him through a year of vocational school, I get a year off to finish my book. Only I know how bad we might really need the money. Well, me and Ma, that is.

    “What kinda woman can’t even tell her own husband she’s knocked up?” Ma asked me, last time we talked on the phone.
    “It’s not the easiest thing to just come out and say, you know.” I was whispering, because Joe was in the other room.
    “Well, no one said you can’t be a lady about it. Here’s what you do: just go out there now and say, ‘Gosh, I sure miss when she used to come visit me every month.’ And he’ll say, ‘Who?’ and you’ll say, ‘Aunt Flo!’”
    Any wonder why I want to be a writer, having a mother who’s such a poet?

    When we pull up to the post office I say, “Oh good, the line in there doesn’t look too bad.”
     “I’ll wait here,” Joe tells me. We usually do things like this together—boring stuff like the DMV and the dentist. I look down at the envelope on my lap and he adds, “You know I can’t stand the smell of hair dye.”
    Then he does smile. I do too, though I’m still looking at my manuscript. When I get out of the car, I want to drop it and put my hands to my head. I don’t know why. My head doesn’t hurt a bit.
    On line are three people. A little old man with a few baby tufts of hair on his shining head, a woman with black hair down to her skirt and about a hundred bracelets on each arm. At the very front is a man wearing a big top hat. He’s carrying a cane. He’s also carrying his head way too high for a man in this town. Bet he didn’t used to work in the auto plant that got shut down five months ago, like Joe, and most of his friends. In my head, I’m trying to make up a story about each one of these people to tell Joe. Not when I get back in the car but late at night, when I can feel him laying there with his eyes open in the dark.
    I’m just getting started on the little old man with the baby hair when he turns to me and says, “My, that’s a big envelope you have! You’re not just mailing an ordinary letter.”
    And I say “No, sir, I’m not.” Then I press my lips together and pray he doesn’t ask me to tell him more. I can see the curiosity burning in his eyes as he stares at my envelope, but also that he’s a kindly old man. All he says is, “You can go ahead of me, since your letter is bigger.”
    No sooner do I thank the man and step in front of him does the woman with the long, black hair turn to me. There’s something in her eyes like lightning and when she lowers her gaze to my envelope, I want to stuff it down my coat.
    “You have something wonderful in there. I can tell.” The woman has a funny accent. It sounds like the bracelets that jangle on her arms as she reaches for my manuscript. I don’t know why I don’t pull away when she does, but she doesn’t hurt it any. Holding it with both hands, she closes her eyes “Yes, yes, just as I thought. The contents of this envelope will take you far.”
    “Pardon me, but may I ask what you have in there?” This is from the proud looking man with the top hat and cane. He takes a step towards us and peers closely at my manuscript, which I’m once again clutching with both arms like it’s a baby. “Just what is in that envelope with the wonderfully neat handwriting?’”
    I look behind me then, wondering if the old man who’d let me have cuts would be sore about me telling Top Hat when he himself’ had had the politeness not to ask. But the old man’s eyes are dark and shining. I step back a little so I can see all of them at once and say...
    “Who’s next?” the post office clerk snaps. No one pays her any mind.
    “It’s half a book. Half a book that I wrote.” I’m careful to keep all signs of pride out of my voice, even when the man in the top hat whips out his monocle (Good thing I read a lot. Where else would you learn that word but in a book?) He studies my envelope even more closely.
    “Half a book, you say? Would you mind telling us what it’s about?’”
    “C’mon, tell us! Won’t you tell us?” begs the old man, who must’ve figured that politeness was getting him nowhere. I’m not used to having a whole crowd of people pay me so much attention; I hang my head, cheeks burning. Lucky for me, the lightning-eyed lady with the black hair lays her hands on my manuscript once more.
     “It’s...it’s about a boy and a girl.” She begins. “Let’s see...they love each other so much that they run off and elope, even though her family’s Methodist and his family’s Church of Christ. Both sets of parents are so mad that they won’t speak to them and the newlyweds have to eat Wok & Roll at the food court in the mall for Thanksgiving.” (At this the old man sniffles and pulls out a handkerchief). “But finally, their families forgive them and they all get together and have the happiest Christmas yet.” The lightning-eyed woman frowns then, and pats the underside of the envelope. “Oh yes...and they get matching tattoos of each other’s names like Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton, who were much more interesting when they were together.”
    “Hey, I didn’t write that about Angelina and Billy Bob!” I say.
    “Well, it’s true.” the woman sniffs.
    As he listens, Top Hat’s eyes have gotten bigger and bigger. “My goodness! All that in only half a book?”
    “Oh, no sir,” I flush again. “That’s just chapter one.”
    With that, Top Hat grabs my arm through my squishy down coat and says, “Allow me to introduce myself! I’m a famous publisher from New York. I’ve paid a visit to your charming burg to offer a two-book deal to a man who writes the most lyrical poems on post-it notes. I’d like to read your novel as well unless...” He looks nervous. “...unless another publisher’s already snatched you up.”
    “Well, sir, no disrespect, but I think I already have a deal with a new publishing company that just opened up in Hicksville.” That’s the biggest city around, 50 miles away. They think they’re so hot because they’ve got both a Super Walmart and a Target .
    “See, I sent them a letter describing my book. Not to brag, but they wrote me back and said they want to read it. If they like the first half, they’ll read the rest for only $500. I mean, that is most of my savings but...” At this, I stop talking, because Top Hat’s face has grown very red and his lips are pressed tight together. He looks like he’s real mad at something. Even though I don’t think it’s me, I add quickly,
    “On second thought, I guess I could give New York a try.”
    When we get outside, I see Joe’s in the truck fast asleep, his head thrown back against the seat. I’m glad, because even though he spends most of his time sitting at the kitchen table, poring over the classifieds, he’s been looking awfully tired.
    “Madame,” Top Hat turns to me with an old-fashioned bow, “your chariot awaits.”
    Now, I can’t believe that on the way into the post office I was so wrapped up in thinking about my book that I didn’t notice a horse and chariot parked not twenty feet away from our pick-up. The carriage is golden and glistens in the whispery November sun. The mare is so big she could eat hay off the top of our truck’s roof, and as white as the frosty breath she blows towards the sky. When she sees Top Hat, she snorts impatiently, pawing the snowy ground.
    “This is not real.” I whisper. I reach into my coat sleeve and pinch my arm. “Ow.”
    “This, my dear,” Top Hat says, “is as real as anything else.”
    I inch closer to the chariot. The horse and I study each other for a moment, until I hold out my hand. She nuzzles my palm. Her nose is the warmest thing ever. “Do you always travel this way?” I ask Top Hat.
    “Commercial flight,” he shakes his head, “is a travesty. After you,” he opens the side door and helps me up the two small, sparkly steps.
    I wonder if it’s even safe to travel in my “condition”, as Mama calls it. But all I say is, “Will I be home for dinner, because I got a casserole in the oven and nothing in the world dries out quicker than Spam.”
     Top Hat shakes his head and says doesn’t he know it. As he climbs in the chariot, he promises I’ll be back in plenty of time.
    I turn around and look at the pick-up truck, at my sleeping Joe. He’d be mad as all get-out if he woke up and found I had taken off with a strange man, much less one with a flying horse. Besides, I’ve never flown anywhere before. What if I fall out or have to pee or this Top Hat gets fresh and I have to knock him silly and fly this darn thing myself?
    Then I think of the letter I got from the publisher in Hicksville, how they’d spelled my name wrong. Someone had crossed it out and wrote it over in pen. They spelled it wrong the second time too.
    “Ready, my dear?” Top Hat asks.
    I turn around and face forward. “Ready.” I tell him. He makes a clicking noise to the mare and we fly up to the clouds.
    Chariots are great, especially the ones made for publishers. After we finish waving to the little old man and the lightning-eyed lady, who’ve come out to the parking lot to see us off, Top Hat notices how tightly I’m clutching my envelope. He shows me a secret compartment by our feet where my manuscript fits perfectly. This is useful, because in a chariot, you sort of need to hold on with both hands.
    At first I don’t notice much. I’m too busy staring at the pale blue sky, or as Ma always says, I’ve got my head in the clouds. Then Top Hat taps me on the shoulder and points down.
    “Wowee!” I say, which is kinda immature for a grown woman. I should’ve said something like, ‘Oh shit!’, but I can’t help it. Looking down I can see my whole town. My entire life is laid out before me, everything as small and perfect as though it were little pieces of a game. I can see where Ma and Daddy live, me and my sister’s old tree house still perched in the big maple. I can pick out the neighbors’ houses, including the McFudders, with their old blue Kia rusting on the front lawn. Last year the Block Association took up a petition to get Mr. McFudder to move it to the garage. When he wouldn’t, the cops came and tried to make him drive it off and Mr. McFudder said, ‘If I could still drive the damn thing do you think it’d be on my lawn?’ I see P.S. 2 and the benches at the edge of the playground where I’d sit reading a book while ropes were jumped and Its were tagging kids all around me. A block up, I see the town library. I spent whole days reading there during junior high and the librarians would hide me whenever the truant officer came around. I avert my eyes from the big, colorless block that up until two years ago was my high school. But I can’t help but smile down at Look Out Point, which from here looks like a little anthill. Lookout is where all us kids would cut class and go to drink Sutter Home and get stoned. That’s also where Joe and I first...well, you’ll have to read my book.
    Pretty soon we go up so far you can’t make out anything for certain—just patches of green and brown and once in a while, a thin stretch of blue. The horse starts breathing heavy, not like it’s tired or anything, just the sound of a living creature using its muscles, making its way through the world. Makes me think of when Joe would come home from the auto plant. He’d flop down in his chair while still in his jacket, kicking off first his left boot, then his right. He’d be whistling.
    “You tired?” I’d ask, as I’d hand him with a beer.
    He’d smile up at me. “Good and tired.”
    “What if my husband wakes up?” I asked Top Hat, who’s on his BlackBerry. “Should I give him a call?”
    “We’ll be back before he knows it, my dear.” Top Hat has to wave away a swirl of clouds to answer me. Pretty soon all I can see are clouds, all I can hear is the air rushing past. It’s all so blasted pretty I decide not to worry, to just let myself be carried along. I hold on tight though, just the same.
    After about ten more minutes, we start to come down a little. Hot damn, I say, but this time just in my head. New York City looks just like it does in the movies, except in real life, to look at all those tall buildings makes something rise up inside me too. As we get closer to the Empire State Building, Top Hat pats the horse’s bottom. She begins to slowly descend, hovering when we are an arm’s length away. He points to the building’s spire (another fancy type book word). “Go ahead, touch it.” He says.
    At first I’m too scared, but the horse turns, looks at me with her liquid, black eyes and nods. So I reach out and grab hold of New York and yell, “Whoo-hoo!” This is exactly what you’d think a hick would say but trust me, under the circumstances, it’s the only phrase that fits.
    “I sure wish Joe was here.” I sigh after I let go, but now the chariot’s heading down faster and the wind is roaring in our ears like crazy. The next thing I know, Top Hat’s saying, “Watch your step.” The chariot has landed by the sidewalk without a bump.
    On the street in front of us, what looks like hundreds of people walk by real fast, as if they’re all late for something. Top Hat points up to the skyscraper we’re parked in front of. On the front is a huge sign:
    SimonSchusterRandomHarperPenguin, Inc.
    “Do you guys publish a lot of books?” I ask Top Hat, collecting my manuscript from the secret compartment.
    “You could say that.” He shrugs, and leads me through the glass doors. “But we’re always looking for fresh, new talent. New authors are a financial risk, of course, but everyone knows publishing’s not just about the money.”
    In the elevator, I turn to Top Hat and take a deep breath, “Sir, is it okay that my manuscript is written in #2 pencil on legal pads?” Top Hat laughs, giving me a pat on the arm. He tells me I’m a breath of fresh air.
    The elevator stops at the penthouse. The carpet is red and so deep my boots are half-swallowed with each step. The walls aren’t walls at all, but books, row on top of row of books, with the covers facing out. I reckon these are all the ones that SimonSchusterRandomHarperPenguin, Inc. put out this year since in a display case right by the double doors are author photos beneath a sign that reads ‘New Voices, New Discoveries—2010’. Some of the authors look almost as young as I am. A lot of them don’t even look killer smart, I mean with glasses or anything. I wonder if my picture will ever be up alongside of theirs.
    I look up to see Top Hat going through a heavy oak door, waving my manuscript. “You make yourself right at home while I read this. Half a novel, won’t take me but an hour. My staff will look after you.”
    I try to listen for any sounds coming out of Top Hat’s office as I’m lead to a black leather chaise by a flock of tuxedoed staff. But I’m soon distracted as I begin to receive a pedicure and deep scalp massage, all the while being fed grilled cheese finger sandwiches, pepperoni filled tater tots and a hot fudge sundae made with Cherry Garcia ice cream. A few times, I can hear Top Hat laugh, ‘Oh, that’s good! That’s really funny!’ Twice, I hear him sigh and say, ‘How true! I’ve often thought that about life, I just never knew quite how to say it.’
    If you haven’t guessed by now, my book is pretty much based on the story of Joe and me. I have, of course, read a lot of fictional novels that featured made-up characters, but none of them seem as real as the two of us. I’ve asked a few of my friends and my Ma and they all agree that Joe and I are indeed a lot more real than the characters even in Oprah books, so that’s not just my opinion.
    Just as I’m being fed the last spoonful of sundae, I hear Top Hat say, ‘Oh noo, how sad!” I bet he’s reached the part where Joe and I are just starting out. We were living in a one-room apartment on the bad side of town, right above Off-Track Betting. Joe was in a vocational school where he trained during the day and went to classes at night. To support us, I was working double shifts. I wonder if Top Hat’s gotten to the part where I’d watch our uniforms going around in the wash, Joe’s with axle grease and mine with Denny’s grease. I would feel like it was the two of us who were being tossed around every which way. But then the clothes would come out of the dryer all warm and tangled like me and Joe when we sleep in on Sunday mornings. That’s how I knew we’d make it; even our static cling was romantic.
     Just as the polish on my nails has finished drying, Top Hat comes out of his office. Only he’s not wearing his hat now. His bald round head is glistening and the sweat is running down his face...or are those tears? I thought he would come out with my half of novel. Instead, clutched in his right hand is a big bag of money.
    “No way,” I stand up, shaking my head. “Stuff like this just doesn’t happen. You’re not really going to offer me all that money, are you?”
    “How do you know it’s money?” Top Hat chuckles.
    “By the $ signs written on the bag,” I answer. He laughs some more and tells me what I’m looking at is only half the money. When I finish writing the rest of my novel, I’ll be paid the other half. As he’s asking me how long do I think it’ll take for me to finish the rest of the book, some of the money—quarters and fifty dollar bills and such, come spilling out the bag. He doesn’t seem to notice, but I bend down to pick up the money and stuff it back in. Reminding myself, I don’t know why, of my mother.
    Suddenly I remember, “My husband! My Spam casserole! Mr. Top Hat, sir, I have to go home.” Top Hat tells me he has some phone calls to return, but that I’ll be fine taking the chariot myself; the horse already knows her way there and back. He pats me on the back, then seems to think better of it and hugs me. It’s not fresh the way he does it; it actually makes me think of my father. Only Daddy hasn’t hugged me since I was little and I can’t see him doing it now over a book. If I helped him win the Superbowl pool, maybe.
     I take a deep breath and tell Mr. Top Hat that there’s no way I could take the money for a novel I haven’t finished. But that I’ll work day and night until I do. He straightens up and looks at me like he’s going to either cry or sing ‘Amazing Grace’. I hightail it on out of there.
    Outside, I watch all the people racing by on the street and think of the real reason I didn’t take the money. Don’t get me wrong. I love Joe. I love my folks. And I guess I’ve had as much happiness as anyone. But sometimes, life doesn’t turn out the way you thought it would. And I know if I had taken that bag of money, I wouldn’t go home to finish this book. I wouldn’t go home at all. I’d run. I’d run as far as my legs could carry me and I’d never look back.
    After I finish feeding the mare the tater tots I saved for her in my pocket, I climb back into the chariot. Suddenly, Top Hat sticks his head out of the penthouse and yells, “Say, what happens with the main character’s pregnancy? How does she tell her husband? I’m dying to know.”
    “I’ll tell you when I find out.” I yell back. Then I take up the reins and the mare carries me over the skyscrapers, back towards home.

    “Took you long enough.” Joe says when I get back into the truck. He looks like he’s just woken up. The clock says I’ve been gone twenty minutes. Joe takes his time yawning and stretching his arms so now I have to wait on him. He stretches his right arm into my face, so I give it a bite. After he starts the car, he rests his hand on my knee. “Man!” he says. “I’m so hungry, I smell pepperoni.”
    Joe takes the long way home, past the pub, where some of his former co-workers from the plant stand smoking out front. You can see groups of them at the barbershop and at Bert’s Burger Barn, like soldiers on leave from a war they know they can’t win. Once we leave town the only person we see is Joe’s old foreman, Big Phil, walking home. He’s carrying nothing but a loaf of bread, like his wife sent him on a fool’s errand just to get him out of the house. Joe honks but Big Phil doesn’t notice. He’s watching his boots in the snow as though he’s not sure they’ll leave a trace.
    It’s not like that with me and Joe; he doesn’t get in my way. When we get home, I set out the napkins and forks and ketchup and he takes out the casserole, spooning it on to the plates. The casserole didn’t burn at all; the Spam is still pink and moist. Steak in a can, as my Dad likes to say. It’s a little early for dinner, but there’s nothing else to do.
    I pick at my food, realizing there’s no way I can explain to Joe why I’m not hungry. “I’m halfway done with my book.” I say, after a bit. “I guess it won’t kill me to go back to waitressing for a while.”
    It’s exactly what Joe wanted me to say, but there’s no win on his face. “Won’t be forever,” he tells me. “You’ll get your chance, I promise.” I nod, take a quick sip of Tang. “Maybe if I can get financial aid,” he continues, “I’ll go to that trucker school. My old man hated driving but...” Joe hunches his shoulders into a shrug..
    “Or maybe I’ll sell my book and it’ll make a million dollars.”
    “Yeah, maybe.” Joe says. He’s staring out the window, at the dark-already winter sky. I’m wondering if I re-apply to Denny’s, will I have to start at the bottom or will I get a few of my old dinner shifts. I’m wondering what I should name the baby. The one who might be in the book, I mean. And whether we’ll end up like our parents. And what’s the use of eloping if you’re just going to move across town and end up just like them? And maybe that’s why they forgave us. And no matter what I decide to do about my situation, will Joe ever forgive me? And when I finish the last sentence of my book, how will it feel to write, ‘The End.’?

Walk With Me Awhile

    Outside, in the sun-blazed parking lot, the young people chattered. Children of hope and despair, they listed the contents of their dreams freely, never convinced that planted seeds bear fruit. This was a direct result of the bitter juice of their branches. To be young is often to be helpless, and helplessness often brings despair. They were neither wealthy nor privileged. Having been neatly and finally categorized as such, they embraced their plight. Attempting to survive where they were, they wore the uniform of the foresworn. One could read the future in their eyes. They had youthful dreams, but had been judged unlikely to succeed. They were considered a blight on the community, like their parents before them, and their parents before them. Now, it was that time of the spring ritual known as the Prom, and they were involved with the grandeur of the moment. They were in awe of themselves. Like many young men and women, their scope of the subject was limited and limited further by their limited circumstances. And yet, they were encouraged by an elder universe to pursue the night of satin swatches, tuxedo rentals, limo rides, and fulfilled wishes. Such is the urgency of humanity to be recognized as a living member of the human race. To not express desire when the expression was sought was to be dead. To greet every challenge as an invitation to combat was to be a hero. Life was a declaration of war. Half-lit wishes were steamed in the sunlight.
    There was no one at the wheel of the car. It was an automobile of indeterminate make. It was parked. No one had seen it before, so it had just arrived. Most of these young people did not have cars, not even a parent’s car. The ebony vehicle was truly a novelty. And where did it come from? Maybe it was an ancient wagon, or an obscure foreign brand. There were no identifying details. Just the gleam of a brand new engine. Sunset is pink on the island of ooh-la-la because there is neither too much nor too little of anything.
    Celina coasted to invention as best she could. Life was hills and valleys. After you got to the peak, you could just roll. She didn’t have a boyfriend, or a date for the prom, so she invented one. When she saw the fine, shiny car parked in a tight space, she casually mentioned that it belonged to her man, her escort for the Prom. Of course, it was not true, but there was no one around to refute the statement, which fell casually into the streams of conversation. Thereby, she flowed into the rivers of discourse, such as they were for the ever-youthful. Therefore, the car, a curiosity in their midst, was soon forgotten, waylaid by more pressing, personal issues. Therefore, Celina was surprised when she found the unspoken for set of wheels parked in front of her residence. Loitering alongside it was a handsome, young man. He was dressed in a manner that quietly and tastefully asserted wealth. Celina stopped in her path when she saw him.
    “Did you mention my name?” the good – looker asked her.
    “No,” Celina answered, truthfully.
    “You’re not like most of the girls around here. You speak up,” he told her.
    “What’s your name?” she asked .
    “Adam,” he answered. “And your name is Celina. I asked around.”
    “I don’t know if I like that,” Celina answered, demurely.
    “You like it,” said Adam, “Because you’re a flirt.”
    Celina slipped through time into the future in her mind and in her intentions. She felt suddenly bold.
    “I like you, Adam,” she said, “And not just because you drive the fanciest car I have ever seen. Do you think you have room for a low-class girl like me in your front seat?”
    “And the traditional back seat, too,” said Adam.
    “You drive too fast, but I’ll slow you down,” said Celina.
    “So, do you plan to go to the Prom with me, I hope?” asked Adam.
    “Haven’t you heard? I was already planning to go with you,” answered Celina.
    “Then it’s a done deal. We go together,” said Adam.
    Spirits intertwined. Celina and Adam walked down the summer fields, hand in hand. They were a striking couple, though in that crowd of dewy eagerness they were barely noticed. Celina, with her sizzling attitude and her street wisdom was charmingly irresistible. The combination of inexperience and smarts gave her a beauty that was peerless. Adam, with his polished sensitivity, was an undeniable catch. The fact that he was tuned in to the feelings of others while being unscarred himself, made all the girls sigh with longing. So Celina and Adam went away from their first meeting a true item. For Celina, the seeded fields were in bloom and alive with birds and butterflies. She giggled shamelessly. Adam smiled at her girlishness.
    “See you tonight?’ he asked her.
    “I’ll be waiting,” she answered.
    Adam left Celina at her front door. The remaining hours sped by with the fever of anticipation. Celina dressed dreamily for the encounter. What is the likelihood that one will get to know and hold the love of one’s life? Celina never thought of the odds, therefore she did not feel lucky. She felt only Adam and his impending presence. Celina studded her hair with flowering nuance and waited with humility for her prince to arrive. He drove up to her door in that same gleaming automobile.
    “Now, my future princess, descend your celestial stairway and find your seat in my carriage. Your pumpkin awaits you,” said Adam.
    “Just call me Cinderella,” said Celina.
    Adam drove , on that balmy evening, through a shower of stars, to a place reserved for lovers only. In a moonlit nook, he set their table with wine and bread and cans of tuna. He sniffed the cork and then laid it on the table he had brought.
    “I knew you would be hungry,” he said. He handed Celina a can opener and fork. Then, he opened the package of bread and poured some wine into paper cups. “I know you are old enough to drink,” he said.
    “Is my heart old enough to be here alone, with you?” asked Celina. She felt that she was diving into an unknown and delightful pit from which there was no escape. She did not want to be rescued.
    And so the stars burned down, candles into patient dishes. There was morning, spun from the night before, woven by expectation. The new sun found Celina in her bed. She had not arrived home too late, not wishing to arouse her mother and father. She wanted Adam for the Prom. Parental disapproval would only get in her way.
    Celina wore out her shoe heels looking for a dress. It had to be special because it was the Prom and Adam was her escort. She saw him every day. Her parent’s tongues clicked and scolded. His time with her wasn’t hastily squeezed in between other essential happenings. He was the central event of every twenty-four hours. The older folk told her, “You need to study, you need to rest.” But it was almost summer and a chapter in her life was ending, another soon to begin. She could study and rest anytime. Adam and this milestone in her life were not to be ignored or wasted.
    And then Celina’s mom and dad wanted to meet Adam’s mom and dad. They told him to bring them with him on Prom night. Adam did not answer. His silence was taken to be an assent. Later, alone with Celina, he became agitated.
    “Celina, I can’t bring my mother and father to meet your mother and father,” he told her.
    The plan had been that Adam would take that fabulous car, with Celina as passenger, to the Prom and back again. With such a stunning vehicle, what need for the traditional limousine? Celina though Adam’s sudden lack of valor had to do with the car and their intention to use it on that important night.
    “But you always drive that car, Adam. You practically live in it,” said Celina. “Why are they objecting now? We don’t drink or do drugs?”
    “That’s not the reason. It’s my car and I can do what I want. I can’t do this for you, but I want to be with you. Tell me how to do both,” said Adam.
    “Why won’t your mom and dad come?” asked Celina. “Don’t they like me? How can they decide that they don’t like me? I never even met them. They don’t know me. It’s not fair for them to judge me,”
    Celina had become excited. She was shouting, but Adam didn’t seem to notice.
    “I love you, Celina,” he said, “I’m young, but I know I love you now, and that I always will. We are our own forever. I have never felt like this about anyone before, and I have had lots of girls.”
    “Adam, what’s going wrong?” Celina asked.
    “Baby, I am all alone,” he told her.
    “You don’t have a mother and father?” Celina asked.
    “Girl, I have stolen too much time. I have taken too much of your love. But this is the way love is, Celina. What you don’t have anymore, you will keep forever. That’s my forever gift to you,” said Adam.
    He seemed to be pleading. What was he asking of her? A panic of loss rose like a choking vine around Celina.
    “Adam, you are my whole life, now,” was all Celina could say.
    “I am all alone,” Adam said. He was moaning, and no longer quite coherent. His words were spoken clearly, but his soul was slurring his speech, as though he were not quite sure that he wanted to say them.
    “Adam, are you alright? Do you want me to drive?” asked Celina.
    “No,” he answered her, “I am taking you home. I can’t be with you anymore tonight. I am taking you home. I am all alone.”
    Celina was afraid to protest. Adam drove her home and left her on her doorstep.
    The Prom was the next evening. Celina did not hear from Adam all day, which was not typical. She phoned him and phoned him. She went to the library and sent him messages that would take a year to read, but Adam did not respond to any, at all. The day dragged on, with Celina pretending nothing was wrong. She dressed for her Prom and waited for Adam. His hour of arrival came and went. When it was thirty minutes past that, Celina called him again, urgently, but like before, the phone kept ringing with no prompting to leave a message. Celina’s heart beat hard and fast, like a demanding drum requiring attention. She paid it no heed, for Adam would surely come and then everything, including her aching heart, would be fine. But Adam didn’t come. Hours later, Celina stood by the window still in her Prom dress. She felt rooted to the spot, like permanent décor. Then, all of a sudden, the gleaming, purring, fantastic car pulled up to the curb in front of that same window, in plain sight of Celina’s anguished vision.
    “Adam!” she cried, weeping tears of forgiving joy. She ran outside to the vehicle. The dark, humid night draped her bare shoulders. Adam did not exit the car, so Celina ran to the driver seat door, which was unlocked, and opened it, and looked inside so she could embrace Adam. Adam was not there. In fact, no one was inside the car. Which meant that the car had driven to her home without a driver, or passenger, or any control, or human impulse. Celina understood the improbability of the incident she was witnessing. She fainted in the street, a puddle of tears and fake silk.
    The driverless car remained a mystery to all who heard of its existence. Records were checked, but no one could determine ownership. Adam never returned and was never located. Nor was any family of Adam found. No firm conclusion could be drawn about the origin of the car or the man. Some felt it was from another planet and Adam was an alien being. Some felt the car and Adam were part of classified military research. Others felt the disappearing act was connected to syndicate crime. Still others felt that Adam was an upper class snob who had gotten tired of his working class toy. Celina accepted none of this. Adam was somewhere and she loved him. She would always love him.
    Adam and the car became a part of public record. Both were deemed unexplained. Celina was part of the mystery. She was given the role of jilted prom date and partner in weird events. She did not like the role she played, but she played it for lack of any other. Nothing else happened for awhile. Then the car disappeared . It had been towed away to who knows where, and then it vanished. Celina was convinced Adam had taken it. She was sure he would come back to her. Her opinion was not widely shared. She was ignored, except for when she was ogled as a local oddity. The eventual conclusion was that it had been an elaborate prank. Celina was devastated . Her heart had been broken for the first, and last time. She found that all of the attention had, after all, been embarrassing. People laughed at her, outright. She did not go out much anymore. She took to solo haunting of what had been Adam’s favorite spots. And in one of these, one sultry, summer day, Celina herself disappeared, for the first, and last time. No one ever found her, either. Some decided that she had simply come to the end of her road with them. Some felt she had been taken into a spaceship. Whatever the cause, Celina passed into mystery. She lives now in the haze of spring promises. Whenever the days grow longer and the privacy of night grows briefer, one may see, in the uncertain distance, a metallic flash of speed on wheels. Or the milky air of night may be stirred by fleeting headlights. You, yourself, may pursue, on whatever green fields you can find hunting for dew on the tender grasses, the glowing shadow that moves in darkness. If you chase the image, you may find the legacies of romance driving down well-known roads. If you should happen to catch the blossom of invention, you will see a momentary engine riding the highways of longing, empty of passenger, vacant of will.

First Impressions

    First impressions are big. When I first met Max he seemed compassionate, different from my previous employers. I was wrong.

        “I have a little kid,” I explained, desperation forcing my voice louder than I wanted.
    My play at sympathy was met with a cold stare from an unyielding granite face. “You can finish your shift, Maggie. I&’m sorry.” Sorry didn&’t cut it. I&’d never been let go from a job before, for any reason. I didn&’t know what to do or what to say. My stomach felt like it&’d been kicked with one of Max&’s size eleven steel-toed boots. Being a single parent was hard enough, but being jobless, too, made life nearly impossible.
    In the following months I scoured the town, looking for anything that would pay a wage, but was met each time with the same sympathetic smile and apology. The economy made jobs scarce, and, with just a high school diploma, I wasn&’t exactly at the top of anyone&’s hiring list. As my labored search became more frantic, I had to make tough choices. The car payment and credit cards were no longer priorities, but I kept food on the table and a roof over our heads. Mac-n-cheese served as supper most nights, and I barely had enough money left to keep the utilities on. I worried but never cried. I was scared but stayed strong. When unemployment benefits ran out, my frantic search became a predatory hunt for something, anything, that would earn me a paycheck. Finally I caught a break. It wasn&’t my ideal job, but it beat the alternative.
    My friend, Pete, warned me, “Are you sure about this? I mean, I know that area of town. It&’s dangerous.”
    “Dangerous? It&’s not like I&’m catching king crab on the Bering Sea. I&’ll be fine.” My light-hearted response placated Pete but did nothing to ease my nerves. I&’d buried concerns for my own physical safety under the hopes of financial security.
    So I focused on my new job, starting with my wardrobe. With the last of our money, I bought several skirts and a nice pair of heels. It felt good to dress up and not go to work looking like a grease monkey in Max&’s shop. Stress had consumed me with doubt, but the nice clothes strengthened my confidence.
    As I prepared for my first day on the job, I battled fear for control of my body. It took over an hour to fumble through my make-up, and then I fussed with my hair for another hour. First impressions are big, and, after a finicky couple of hours, I was finally ready to impress.
    Our final box of Mac-n-cheese became our dinner, and, without milk, the sauce would once again be watery. Bobby&’s mouth drooped with disappointment, “Mac-n-cheese again?” It ripped my heart to see him disappointed; I prayed my new job would make a better life for us. It had to.
    “I have to go — wouldn&’t want to be late on my first day,” I announced. “Bobby, be good, for Pete&’s sake.” Pete&’s frown and obvious disapproval flattened my attempt at humor.
    Bobby flashed me a gapped-tooth grin, “You look like Cinderella, Mommy.” Although my life felt like anything but a fairytale, it was moments like those that kept me going.
    The foreign sound of my clicking heels on the sidewalk brought back memories of Sunday church services, but they were quickly shoved aside by Pete&’s warning replaying in my mind. Walking through this part of town was unnerving. But at least I wasn&’t on the Bering Sea. My pace slowed as I reached the entrance to the Venture Building, but my heart continued to beat frantically. Trash overflowed the lone receptacle used to collect greasy fast food bags and discarded newspapers. A nearby traffic signal clicked through the go, caution, stop routine several times. Oh good, “Jesus Saves”, according to the balloon font graffiti defacing an adjacent parking garage. Anchored to the sidewalk, I stood, palms sweating, contemplating how to make the most of my first impression. Would I be witty or keep it professional? My mental conversation was interrupted by a dark sedan creeping along the curb.
    The tinted car window descended, and a well-dressed man leaned over like he was lost and needed directions. “How much?” he asked.
    He seemed nice. “Fifty,” I nervously replied, climbing in. After all, first impressions are big.

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!

The magazine Children Churches and Daddies is Copyright © 1993 through 2010 Scars Publications and Design. The rights of the individual pieces remain with the authors. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

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.