Mourning Together
Christina Basher
The bottle of Jack Daniels sits on the table in front of me, half empty. With my knees pressed against my chest, I wipe the tears from under my eyes. Each day passes and I stay there watching the bottle until it becomes empty. Hands gently touch my shoulders and I don’t take my eyes off of the Jack.
“It’s time for you to shower,” my husband, Garrett says.
He walks around and kneels down in front of me. Taking a deep breath, I close my eyes and exhale.
“Come on, Honey,” he says rubbing my arm.
I let him help me out of the chair and he lifts me into his arms. My head finds his shoulder and I close my eyes. He smells like lemons and soap; I love that smell. He has already drawn a bath and steam swirls over the water. My feet touch the cold tile as Garrett sets me down. With my hands hanging at my sides, he gently removes my clothes and sets them aside.
He lifts me up and gently sets me into the steaming water. My body embraces the warmth and I bring my knees to my chest. Garrett kneels down next to the tub and gently rubs a washcloth over my body. I lean my head back and let him wash my hair with a lavender scented shampoo. Once he finishes, he helps me out of the tub and dries me off.
With the towel wrapped tightly around me, Garrett leads me to the bedroom and helps me into my pajamas. Once I am dressed, he helps me into the bed and I lay there with my eyes open staring at the plain white ceiling.
“I’m going to go take a shower,” Garrett says as he kisses me on the forehead and leaves the room.
The room feels like it is closing in on me and the blankets feel like they are wrapping tighter and tighter around me. I push the blankets away and walk out of the room and into the hallway. Running my hand along the wall, I stumble my way into the next room. My fingers find the light switch on the wall and I flip it on. My heart beats faster and my chest squeezes tight.
Bright yellow walls stare back at me and I walk over to the crib sitting under the large window straight ahead. I reach into the crib and grab the light blue blanket from inside and hug it to my chest. Scanning the rest of the room, I see the toys that were left on the nightstand and changing table. The blanket slips out of my hands and I walk over to the toys and push them off of the surfaces. They clatter to the floor and I scream, tears streaming down my face. I grab the lamp and throw it against the wall. The bulb shatters and glass flies across the room.
Dropping to my knees, I crawl forward and grab the blanket. Garrett comes running into the doorway, shirtless and wet with a towel wrapped around his waist.
“Aria? What’s wrong?” he says running to my side.
Garrett looks around the room and then back at me.
“Your hands are bleeding.”
I look down at my hands gripping the blanket and see the deep red blood. Lifting my shaking hands, I hold them up and see small pieces of glass still stuck in certain spots. Garrett grabs me and carries me back to the bathroom.
While Garrett looks for the tweezers, I hold my hands out in front of me with my palms up. Tears drip from my cheeks onto my hands and my heart aches more than before.
“You should have stayed in bed. I meant to clean out his room last week but I haven’t had time.”
As he turns around, I search his deep brown eyes for something I can’t find. It has been nearly one month and yet it feels as if it was just yesterday. My lips part as I try to say something but then I stop and look away, biting my lower lip.
“Aria, please say something. I miss you, we haven’t spoken since the funeral.”
With my eyes closed, I remember each moment of that day as if it happened just minutes ago. The tiny casket laying on the table in front of me, there shouldn’t even be a reason for a casket so small to exist. Garrett picks out the pieces of glass with the tweezers and then cleans my hands. After he wraps them in gauze, he helps me walk back into the bedroom and wraps me in the blankets.
Once he has pulled on some boxers and pants, he sits on the edge of the bed with his back to me. His muscles are tense and he rubs his hands over his face. As he lays down, the distance between us seems to grow and I feel another emptiness inside my heart.
Cooper was two when we found out about the cancer. We only had six months with him after that and those were the shortest six months I had ever lived through. Garrett and I watched as our son died painfully.
As I roll over the next morning and look at the clock, I see it is nearly 12:00 in the afternoon. I push myself out of the bed and find myself standing in the doorway of Cooper’s room. The glass has been cleaned up and most of the furniture has been removed. Garrett sits in the rocking chair in the corner of the room with Cooper’s teddy bear pressed to his chest.
His back is to me and his shoulders shake. I hear the gentle sounds of his sobs and finally I see what I searched for in his eyes last night. Garrett had only cried at the funeral and I realize now that he has been crying, just not in front of me. He was being strong for me.
My feet move toward him and before I realize it, I stand in front of him. His eyes find mine and I sit down on his lap. Garrett wraps his arms around me.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
Garrett doesn’t speak and I hold him close as we mourn the death of our son together.
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The Heist
Kyle J Cisco
Yellow tape lined the entrance of the museum. The red and blue lights atop the police cars danced upon the building’s exterior. Officer’s waved to the black SUV and the vehicle rolled through the checkpoint. Jessie watched from the tinted windows of the SUV, as it came to rest in front of the museum. Reporters swarmed the vehicle like flies attracted to shit.
The police forced the reporters back, and Jessie emerged from the vehicle. She strode with a confidence one should have being the veteran agent on the taskforce for stolen art. As she made her way to the door a barrage of questions buffeted her.
“What is the FBI doing to find these vicious robbers?”
“No comment,” a police officer said. As he ushered Jessie into the museum doors.
Broken glass littered the floor in the vestibule leading to the gallery. Bullet holes marked the walls. In the corner the night guard lay dead, his service weapon in hand. A pool of blood surrounded the man’s body.
“This was quite the botched job,” Jessie commented.
“Wait till you see the rest, agent,” the police officer who had escorted her inside said.
As they came into the gallery the scene turned grim — two men lie dead on the ground and two separate pools of blood ran from their heads. A single bullet in the back of each man’s head. Jessie glanced about the room and saw empty spots on the walls where most of the valuable paintings once hung. Frames of the stolen art strewn about the room in fragments.
“Seems as if they were betrayed by the third assailant,” the officer said.
“Thanks, Captain obvious. So, what do we have so far?” Jessie asked. “Like the estimated value of the art? Anything?”
“N-no, ma’am not yet, and we have no leads. The value of the art stolen is well over a quarter billion dollars though with many of the original pieces- “
“That’s enough I want the scene scrubbed for evidence and sent to my office ASAP.”
The ride back from the crime scene was quiet, while Jessie thought of the events of the night. Not just the thought of the crime scene but the events before that. Jessie pulled into the driveway at her town house. As she turned on the lights to her room she opened the closet, and moved the clothes to the side revealing the door hidden in the wall. A chair sat in front of several pieces of art. On the table to her left lay a Glock 19 equipped with a silencer.
“A quarter billion dollars,” she said.
She dialed the number on the business card that lay next to the gun. Two first two rings happened in rapid succession. Then the line opened, and a man’s voice on the other end said.
“Is it done? Do you have them?”
“Yeah, It’s done — things got a bit messy with those two thugs you hired but I handled it. Now release my family,” said Jessie.
“We will see about that,” said the man. Then the line went dead.
Tears ran down Jessie’s face as she thought of her little boy in the hands of such a vile gangster, and the actions she committed to get them back. She had never had to take a life before in her years of service. But two in one night, even if they were thugs the grief weighed heavy on her conscience.
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Kyle J Cisco bio
Originally from New Jersey, Kyle J Cisco decided he’d had enough snow for a lifetime from his days stationed in Alaska and moved to Orlando, Florida with his wife and two children. Now when he’s not soaking up the rays, he can be seen in his office furiously writing and honing his craft. Along with being a USAF Veteran, he’s also begun self-publishing his speculative fiction novels.
He can be reached at kyleciscoauthor.com.
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Vacancy
Kyle J Cisco
Red light illuminated the parking lot of the motel. Jessie let out a sigh as she grabbed her Glock 19 and attached the silencer. She tucked the gun into the back of her pants. 113-B the numbers on the door were slanted and the paint of the green door was dotted with red where the paint had peeled. The door creaked opened, she walked in taking note of the man on the patio outside, as well as the doorman.
“The boss is waitin outside for ya,” the doorman said.
She walked to the patio taking in the details of the room as she passed through. The sink dribbled water one drop at a time. Every other cabinet had been left open. The room smelled of bleach.
“So you have the art?” the boss said.
“Where is my daughter? she said.
“In time. First the art, then we can discuss your daughter.”
The boss placed his hands together as if he were praying, revealing his golden pinky ring and Rolex watch. She shifted in her chair. The gun made sitting difficult.
“The art is in the trunk of my car. Now please give my daughter back to me,” she said.
“Good, now we are getting somewhere.” The boss waved to the other man. “Billy, take the agent’s keys and get the art. Then bring the girl in.”
She handed her keys to the man. He headed out the door. Once the door creaked closed she pulled the gun.
“Now listen to me, grease ball, me and my daughter are getting out of here alive.”
“Jessie, Jessie, you know that was never an option,” he said. “No one crosses Victor Gilanto, and lives.”
Sirens pierced the silence as Jessie stood from the table, and grabbed the cuffs from her back pocket. The man tried to flip the table but it was too late. A shot sounded in the room as the door collapsed and hit the floor.
“FBI, nobody move.”
“Federal agent don’t shoot!” Jessie said, raising her hands.
The body of Victor Gilanto lay still on the floor a gun in his hand and blood formed a circle around the body.
“Good work, Jessie. We have your daughter, and the henchman Billy is in custody.”
“Did you get a chance to tell him he had been played before he died?”
“No, but I think he got the hint with the sirens.”
As Jessie headed outside the motel room where cops hurried about to cordon off the area. Two cops came out with handfuls of drugs and guns from inside the room. This was to be one of the biggest busts of the year.
“Mommy!” said a voice from across the parking lot.
Jessie looked to her little girl as she sprinted toward her. Once she saw her little girl a smile crossed her face from ear to ear, as she ran to meet her with open arms.
“I am so sorry baby are you ok?”
“Did you get the bad man, Mommy?”
“Yes, baby, I did. Now let’s go home.”
Lights of blue and red danced along the front of the motel. Boots pattered on the blacktop of the parking lot as the swat team gathered the remaining drugs and guns from the room. The vacancy sign out front of the motel flickered red as the red neon No disappeared leaving only the word Vacancy on the sign.
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Kyle J Cisco bio
Originally from New Jersey, Kyle J Cisco decided he’d had enough snow for a lifetime from his days stationed in Alaska and moved to Orlando, Florida with his wife and two children. Now when he’s not soaking up the rays, he can be seen in his office furiously writing and honing his craft. Along with being a USAF Veteran, he’s also begun self-publishing his speculative fiction novels.
He can be reached at kyleciscoauthor.com.
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There Were No Voices Raised in Song
Elizabeth York Dickinson
The fast boat takes one and a half hours.
Thick, tropical air born of a Nicaraguan summer.
Adventure in a skiff, small engine but loud.
We went in search of toucans and waterfalls.
They knew secret lairs in the wilderness,
mysteries of the remote rainforest village.
Coral snakes, Dart frogs, Two guides.
“What if the jungle is aflame,
Or the fortress begins crumbling?”
“You wait for the next boat”.
“Does the Armada come in if you’re under attack,
Will Tarzan swing in and save someone suffering?”
“Pirates take care of us for an offering of white powder.”
Red cheeks, backstroke with the current,
the calls of birds buried in foliage.
The deck overlooked the San Juan River.
Dingy water lingered in my hair.
Cheap beer, Gallo pinto, fried plantains.
A photo exuding palpable joy.
A steep hill. The setting sun. A visit to friends.
No one home but a fellowship of gnats
giving thanks for a saviors birth.
His hand tightened around my wrist,
The big guy,
A strength that branded my veins.
I followed, scared of time.
He pushed, I fell, they ripped and tugged.
There was a spider adhered to one wall,
both of us still,
“Sister, I can’t help you,
They think it’s funny when the blood spatters.”
Choppy. He went first, the big guy. A wave sprayed my stomach.
Spun around. Used. Dry stare.
His turn now, the little one. Smash against a rock. Rapid and rabid.
For all the effort my stomach remained with the spray of one.
>
Piecing together clothing from scraps,
the blanket my cleaning cloth.
“Female, their web was intricate.
The fast boat takes one and a half hours.”
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An Open Invitation
Cathy Porter
this disease takes the mind,
twists it like a pretzel, then walks away, unbothered
What becomes of the brain, discarded —
past the sale date, relegated to mush
and given no bother?
As time slides off the clock, each day
a mirror to the one before and after.
Clouds gather even on sunny days, your eyes
vacant like an abandoned lot in a town
hit hard by recession –
Or depression, for this is what it is:
a new-old wound where we laugh to cover
ourselves, to preserve the last spec
of land left —
The one where you once ran free
in perfect stride, calling us in for dinner,
the summer sky an open invitation
to anything possible.
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Even The Ones That Hurt The Heart The Most
Cathy Porter
Sara couldn’t remember the first time she saw her flipping out –she just knew it changed everything. Watching her - The “Crazy Lady” - as the kids in the neighborhood called her –triggered something in Sara. Call it curiosity. She just felt better knowing someone seemed as miserable as she was. Sure, not very nice – but when your own life has been nothing short of a horror movie, well, you start to not care so much about being “nice.”
Here’s the deal: Sara also envied the hell out of The Crazy Lady. She wished SHE could cut loose like that, not care what anybody thought. Watching her over the years having her sporadic freak-outs for the entire block to witness, showed Sara that she wasn’t the only one hurting – and there is no shame in letting that hurt out. But talk around the neighborhood was anything but positive. Words that stood out: nut-job, looney tunes. And those were the good ones. The Crazy Lady would be her official “legal” street name.
One day, Sara came home early from work. Of course, her boyfriend Sam was gone. Probably out getting drunk. He sure wasn’t working. Sam hadn’t had a job in over 6 months, and he wasn’t looking very hard for one either. Sara decided to play a little hooky from work, come home and just jam out to some tunes. Maybe some Sabbath, Queen, a little old-school rap. And of course, The Beatles. John knew pain. You could hear it in his voice. Help! wasn’t just a song, it was a war cry from one generation to another. John understood.
Sara was just about to crash to the fade-out of Abbey Road, when she was jolted fully awake from loud screaming coming from outside — like someone was getting murdered. She jumped out of bed, and peeked out the window. And she saw her: The Crazy Lady was in high gear, screaming and running up and down the block, preaching about the Lord and some other stuff Sara couldn’t quite make out. That’s it-Sara was going outside to talk to this woman, and see what was up.
Sara made her way outside. The Crazy Lady was in full wacked-out mode. When she saw Sara approaching, she threw her hands up and shouted, “don’t you come near me, or I swear I will kick your butt” Sara stopped in her tracks. “Okay, but I just wondered if you could put a lid on it. I’m tryin’ to sleep.” The Crazy Lady just started to laugh. Now, Sara was angry. Who did this lady think she was? She was causing a commotion on the entire block. Sara couldn’t get any rest. And now, she was going to kick Sara’s butt? For what? Sara stopped for a moment, took a deep breath. Something told her to talk to this lady. Just talk. Hell, nobody does that anymore. Everybody’s on their phone 24/7. Just talk.
“I’m not gonna bother you. I was just wondering” ...Sara couldn’t finish what she was going to say, because she had NO idea what she wanted to say.
“What, you got somethin’ to say? Say it!”
Sara decided to go for broke. “Why do you act the way you do? I’m not tryin’ to be a jerk, I just really want to know.”
The Crazy Lady was stunned. Nobody ever asked her why she did anything. People just made fun of her and called her names. Or worse – just plain ignored her. Ghosted her. Well, she asked, so she decided to give it to her:
“You know, I used to be normal. But the war took care of that. Don’t ask which war—doesn’t matter. All war is the same. Death and destruction. From the battlefield, all the way to the “home” field. But the parades don’t talk about that. Oh, no. All they do is wave flags, and paint a rosy Americana picture that is anything but rosy. So, this is my way of getting’ it out. Nobody listens unless you scream the loudest. And even if they don’t, at least I get something out of me. I have to do this – ‘else I would just be silent and drift away to dust. And silence doesn’t do anybody a bit of good. There. You asked.”
Sara was rattled. She expected some sort of sarcastic comeback, or an angry outburst filled with four-letter words. THIS was not what she was ready for. But she had to admit, she was intrigued. And genuinely concerned. Wow. That was a new emotion. She decided to continue the conversation. She politely inquired about her name-she had one, right? The Crazy Lady told her that wasn’t important – to just appreciate each day, because they all matter — even the ones that hurt the heart the most. Even the ones that hurt the heart the most. And with that, she ran down the street, yelling for all the world to hear, turned the corner, and disappeared. Like a ghost. More like she ghosted Sara.
Sara went back to her house and tried to lay down. She couldn’t get this lady out of her head, or the words that seemed to spear her heart into a combination of acute pain and action. She went over it all in her mind, until finally, she fell into a deep sleep.
Sara woke the next day to someone, or something, banging on the front door. It was her friend Scott, who had some weird news. Something about some lady found dead behind the shelter last night. Could it be that crazy lady always flippin’ out? Sara didn’t know for sure, but from the description Scott gave, it sounded like an identical match. Scott said something about how she tried to crash at the shelter, but they were full, so she went and drank herself into a stupor, took some drugs, and OD’d in the alley behind the shelter. She had no ID on her; the only thing the cops found in her jacket pocket was a picture of a young man — really a boy, he looked so young – in an Army uniform. The cops were asking people around the area if they knew this guy in the picture, as a source of possible identification, so maybe they could locate him or any family members. Nobody knew the boy in the picture – or anything at this point.
Sara didn’t say much after Scott filled her in. He was in a hurry to get to work, so he gave her a quick hug goodbye, told her he would see her tonight at the party. Oh yeah, the party. Sara remembered she had promised Scott they would go to her cousin’s party together. Now, Sara didn’t feel much in the mood to party. But she didn’t say anything to Scott as he headed out the door.
Later that day, Sara walked by the shelter and kept on walking. Some guy tried to talk to her, told her she looked pretty, and hey, could she spare any change? Sara kept on walking — ghosted the dude as fast as the pull of a trigger. She had things to do. She saw this job online that looked like it might be a good fit. Something about working with the homeless. That sounded more interesting than her current job at Bag N’ Go. Sara knew nothing about how to help anyone. She needed help too. But that didn’t matter. People fight wars every day and most don’t have a fancy name. But every single one matters. Even the ones that hurt the heart the most.
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oil
Janet Kuypers
haiku 3/1/14
flowers on the water
broke the oil seeping up from
the submarine grave
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Visit the Kuypers Twitter page for short poems— join http://twitter.com/janetkuypers.
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading (C) her poem oil from her “Partial Nudity” book release feature live 6/18/14 at Chicago’s open mic the Café Gallery
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading (S) her poem oil from her “Partial Nudity” book release feature live 6/18/14 at Chicago’s open mic the Café Gallery
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See Vine video of Janet Kuypers reading her haiku oil from cc&d’s 23 year anniv. Scars Publications book the 23 enigma as a looping JKPoetryVine video 5/30/16.
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See Vine video of Janet Kuypers reading her haiku “oil” from cc&d’s Scars Publications collection book Clouds over the Moon as a looping JKPoetryVine video 8/5/16.
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers 12/17/17 reading every poem in her “100 Haikus” book reading at the AIPF booth / 2017 Awesmic City Expo, including much, out, can’t get you, of his thirst, know, pleading, coincidence?, found haiku, close, defenses, destroy, floor, hold, forever, jumped, study, Even with no Wish Bone, addiction, stagger, everyone, last, bruised, organs, choke, ends, explosions, fit, fought, heaviness, extinct, feel, escape, opening, pant, strike, civil, found, need, kill, kindness, run, pet, John’s Mind, humans, mirror, elusive, keep, greatest, instead, Arsenic and Syphilis, life (Periodic Table haiku), life (2000), timing, Two Not Mute Haikus, He’s An Escapist, Ending a Relationship, nightmares, knife, free, years, groove, errors, job, jobless, out there, gone, console, form, knowing, oil, cage, evil, faith, guide, behind, sort, barbed, difference, predator, blood, easy, existence, judge, fog, upturn, Translation (2014 haiku), sting, enemies, Deity Discipline (stretched haiku), Ants and Crosses, energy, knees, force, you, this is only a test, misogyny, ourselves, key, scorches (Lumix 2500).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers 12/17/17 reading every poem in her “100 Haikus” book reading at the AIPF booth / 2017 Awesmic City Expo, including much, out, can’t get you, of his thirst, know, pleading, coincidence?, found haiku, close, defenses, destroy, floor, hold, forever, jumped, study, Even with no Wish Bone, addiction, stagger, everyone, last, bruised, organs, choke, ends, explosions, fit, fought, heaviness, extinct, feel, escape, opening, pant, strike, civil, found, need, kill, kindness, run, pet, John’s Mind, humans, mirror, elusive, keep, greatest, instead, Arsenic and Syphilis, life (Periodic Table haiku), life (2000), timing, Two Not Mute Haikus, He’s An Escapist, Ending a Relationship, nightmares, knife, free, years, groove, errors, job, jobless, out there, gone, console, form, knowing, oil, cage, evil, faith, guide, behind, sort, barbed, difference, predator, blood, easy, existence, judge, fog, upturn, Translation (2014 haiku), sting, enemies, Deity Discipline (stretched haiku), Ants and Crosses, energy, knees, force, you, this is only a test, misogyny, ourselves, key, scorches (Lumix T56).
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A New Idea in the Neighborhood
Francis Raven
After I said that I didn’t get as much out of traveling as other people Aaron Krempa disagreed and said that I was probably getting more out of it than I thought. He said that it was like metabolism: you don’t know if the food you eat (whether cereal or steak) goes to your feet or your biceps. He said that it was his idea, he seemed proud of it, and I thought that he deserved to be proud of it. I iterated and then reiterated that I thought it was a good idea, strong enough for questions such as:
If metabolism is a metaphor for experience do we want to encourage faster metabolism? If so, how do we go accomplish this? If experience is food does it matter what we eat? Are there the experiential equivalents of empty calories? What stands in for protein? In this setup what would it mean to be a bulimic? Is there such a thing as vomiting an experience? Is that the same as forgetting? Is a glutton someone who can’t get enough experience, but then doesn’t know what do with it? The answer to which obviously leads to the question: what is shit in the analogy? Further, can we starve or does the life of the mind always provide enough nutrients for us?
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The Painting
Andrew Schenck
A light pink hue of the cheeks warmed her pale complexion. Glowing bands of light, powered by a dangling incandescent bulb, danced with the shadows down toward her shoulders, exposing a natural sheen that accentuated her long black hair.
The painting was absolutely beautiful. I studied her. I wanted to know her. I wanted to stay with her. But then I noticed the flaws. Tiny cracks in the enamel made it clear to me that she was an impossible memory of a past I always wanted. I walked out of the gallery, realizing the emptiness of a life never lived.
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Star Colonizers, 2151-2160
Tom Ball
Cast of spacecraft, “Deep Explorer.”
Admiral Wang, a Chinese woman. Colonel Buddha, an Indian. He was considered the finest scientist on the ship. And the Major, she was a white American, a cyborg specializing in engineering.
There were 3 captains and there were also 2 Lieutenant cyborgs and 2 Ensign cyborgs. The cyborgs appeared with a transparent visor. All of the cyborgs worked in engineering. And there was one Lieutenant Hologram. And four other Lieutenants and 6 other ensigns along with 60 ordinary crew men and 40 children under 12. One of the lieutenants was a doctor and one was a love counsellor.
They appeared in the green and white uniform.
The ship had antimatter engines. Speed: 2 light years/hour. Shape: a flying saucer.
Admiral: “We are currently 4 000 light years from Earth. Earth’s moon gigantic telescope had detected life forms on the approaching planetary system, the Lazarus star.”
Ensign Berry: “Two ships are approaching fast. They’ve fired weapons.”
Admiral: “We are under attack, fire nuclear weapons. Ensign Berry, enable deflector shields. Turn the ship invisible. All hands to tactical stations. What is the range?”
Ensign Berry: “Range 300 000 km and closing. Two ships.”
(The ship shakes)
Colonel: “Direct hit on both ships. Both are destroyed.”
Admiral: “Any escape pods?”
Ensign: “No survivors.”
Admiral: “Damage report?”
Captain A, “No damage just some turbulence from their weapons. Shields are holding. And some personal defensive auras are at greatly reduced power.”
Admiral: “Resume course.”
Admiral’s journal: After the altercation with two alien ships, we landed a team of 10 on Vegas planet in the Lazarus star system. We had detected life signs on what we had previously believed was an uninhabited planet.
The colonel led the party along with a captain and two lieutenants. I stayed on the ship, watching the results of the bio scan. And I reflected we had now encountered at least three different types of aliens in our voyage so far including the mysterious two ships. It seemed it was just a matter of time before we encountered an opponent with superior weaponry to us.
Colonel (on the surface), “We heard loud shouting and are going to investigate.”
Bridge ensign, Berry: “Maintain contact with the ship.”
The party encountered a group of 20 creatures dancing round a fire. In the middle of the fire is a creature burnt to a crisp. The fire is in the middle of a settlement of flat roofed homes made of stone without mortar. They were apparently very primitive. They all had six arms and six hands and moved swiftly. Their heads were the size of an apple. They were covered in hair.
Colonel: “Hail them.”
Old creature with white hair: “You are disturbing our sacrifice to me. Now that you are here however you must partake of the flesh of the sacrifice.”
We switched to MRT; the colonel read “Under no circumstances be part of their sacrifice.”
Colonel: “We are bringing you offerings. We have some rifles and some pretty beads to give you as a gift.”
And he mind read, “We are not giving them any additional ammunition so they probably won’t be able to do much with these ordinary rifles.”
(They tried out the guns and were very impressed, oohing and aahing). And the colonel read these creatures’ minds and determined that they were benevolent.
Colonel “How many people live on this planet?”
Old creature, “I am not sure. Certainly, many thousands.”
We all partook of the stimulating drink of these people, who called themselves “Lazarians”.
The whole time we were there our MRT worked also with the admiral directly in case of trouble.
It was getting dark, so we decided to return to the ship. We told the Lazarians we’d be back the next day.
#
Back on board, the landing party were all suffering from a virus which was turning them into various exotic animals. They were quarantined in the hospital. But the doctor quickly isolated the virus and produced cures for all 10 of the landing party. Some of them said, “They felt different, felt more violent and free.”
#
And then suddenly, the bridge was boarded by 10 “police” who opened fire on the crew, who were protected by a defensive aura, so none were killed but a few were wounded. All 10 of these police were gunned down. One had only been seriously wounded and he said, “They were the “Guardians of the planet,” and we had interfered with the “people” on the surface.”
These guardians had beautiful facial skin, but their faces lacked noses and ears and they were mostly covered in hair. After the fire fight we figured they were the same creatures who had piloted those two ships we destroyed.
We found their bio signs disguised and hidden beneath the surface everywhere on Vegas...
They had a number of fighter jets and teleport keys everywhere, so they could try and board our ship again. So, we moved off a few million km from the planet, outside of their teleport range. We had virtually infinite speed and distance for our teleporters.
The admiral announced, “Because of these hostile ‘police’ we won’t try and colonize the planet. I want to colonize a virgin land, without any inhabitants if possible. A land with a breathable atmosphere.
#
Lieutenant McCauley was a love counsellor, she made sure everyone on board had at least one lover. Often, she offered herself or one of her two girls and two guys; all four of her love assistants were regular crew.
There was one lesbian couple and one homosexual couple on board.
Admiral: “Lieutenant McCauley, my marriage is on the rocks. My husband says I am too busy with the business of flying the ship.”
Lieutenant M.: “Why don’t you consider delegating more work to your crew?”
Admiral: “To be honest, I love another more than I love my husband. He is Captain Cubbins. Even though my husband and I have had 2 children together.”
Lieutenant M: “Perhaps you could try a trial separation?”
Admiral: “I am afraid it would be the end of the relationship. I guess he and I are doomed.”
Lieutenant M.: “Perhaps you could try an open relationship, so your husband could get more loving.”
Admiral: “The thought occurred to me, but I am glad to hear it from you. You know us better than almost anyone else. But I’d like to use the sperm bank to get famous Admiral Stetter’s sperm and have a child.”
#
The doctor’s 13-year-old daughter was complaining...
Daughter: “I don’t like to play with the other kids. They always cheat and fight. And Danny always wants to kiss me. I hate him.”
Dr. “The universe isn’t perfect. You have to learn to get along with your peers. I’ll tell Danny’s mom to have her son not kiss you.
Daughter: “And I am having aural hallucinations.”
Dr. Your health checks out right. Let me know if the hallucinations reoccur. It’s probably nothing.”
Daughter: “Thanks mom!”
But the doctor did some checking and found one of the cadets had built a MRT (mind reading technology) radio which could penetrate the invisible helms and was in the heads of his 4 love interests.
He was called before the admiral.
Admiral: “We’ve discovered you’ve been in the heads of 4 girls illicitly. I have personally interviewed the four girls and they all point the finger at you. What do you have to say in your own defence?” Cadet R. “Nothing ma’am. Sorry ma’am.”
Admiral: “I hereby confine you to prison, solitary confinement, until you can be brought back to Earth...”
#
Admiral to Earth: “We’re getting faint brain waves from Nexus 14, a star system, 18 light years away.”
Station Earth (orbiting Earth): “Go ahead and change course for Nexus 14.”
Upon arrival in orbit, we determined that the local denizens lived in globular homes. And the local dwellers resembled humanoids and had two arms and two legs and a long neck and a large triangular face and a big head.
Admiral: “Colonel assemble a landing party of 10 yourself included.”
Colonel, “Yes ma’am.”
So, the Colonel along with Captain Ruse and Lieutenants Fargo and Yakut and Ensign Carey and four male crew men all armed to the teeth with their defensive aura around them as if they were angels.
Colonel: “We used MRT translators to communicate directly with a group of 4 creatures outside one of their houses. It turned out they had four sexes all of which could interbreed.”
They were good people and shared their food with us which were very agreeable.
They were called the Platinas and their society revolved around platinum. They mined it and melted it down. They offered us platinum in exchange for some of our technology. And they gave us platinum statues of ourselves as gifts. Their planet was very rich in platinum.
We gave them Earth TV and radio and they were very pleased. The platinum might be useful to us in future alien encounters.
Their population was 1 million scattered over three continents. They were not that fertile and so didn’t have many children.
We mind read them and determined they were agreeable to our presence.
But there were also some low intelligence animals, that bore an uncanny resemblance to Earth animals such as deer and wolves.
And there were also a number of “dopplegangers” who copied other life beings and lived their lives while killing the original. They took over Lieutenant Berlin. So, we quarantined the Lieutenant and we killed off the dopplegangers. There were many thousands, but we figured we had them all. The Lieutenant made a full recovery.
The Platina lifespan was only 20 but they were fully grown at the age of 2.
So, we told them, “We wanted to build a small settlement on their planet.” They said, “Certainly and they were interested in our space technology.”
Ensign Carey was quite taken with one of these creatures. The colonel said, “You are quite the pervert.” Ensign C.: “All love is good. I am traveling with our ship to find new loves.”
Anyway, Captain Ruse was to lead the colony. Lieutenants Fargo and Yakut were to be his assistants. Also, Ensign Ganesh and Ensign Hsu. And 10 regular crewmen, were to help them. Seven men and seven women and lots of sperm and egg banks. The 14 agreed in an unanimous vote to outlaw marriage.
We helped them build a nuclear reactor which took 2 months with only a skeleton crew on board “The Deep Explorer.”
And we also built houses for the colonists made out of local plants and bricks. The goal of the settlement was to be an outpost of humanity and they were to construct space going ships and have numerous offspring from their sperm and egg banks.
We decided this, our ship’s first colony, would be called “Prometheusville.” We also gave them a giant deflector shield that would deflect all weapons into space.
#
It was big news in the interspace TV program. The program was called, “Trojan Testament.”
There were other interspace TV programs such as games and sports and video games and virtual reality shows. Writers, movie stars, and criminals all made for popular shows. They helped kill the time of the long voyages& #047; colony building.
Gossip was a problem on board the ship, but it couldn’t be helped. Many were bored. And seven crew men wrote gossip about the ship for the “Trojan Testament.”
#
The “Deep Explorer” left them with teary-eyed goodbyes and a promise to return soon.
#
Admiral’s log: Then we made a detour to investigate a black hole, Magnus III.
We fired a nuclear weapon into the black hole causing it to collapse into a super giant sun. It was formed with a colorful explosion, but we were many light years away.
Some talked of time travel within black holes; it was just a matter of your speed they said.
But Earth dogma stated that all science fiction was true except time travel. Anyway, we didn’t learn much from the former black hole.
#
Admiral’s log continued...
Then we orbited a small volcanic moon with life signs in the Johnson star system. We observed them and determined they were Molten Magma people. We tried to communicate with them from onboard our ship. They said, “They wanted to be left alone.”
We asked them, “If they would mind us building a settlement on their planet?” They said, “Go away.”
We copied their brains for further study. And we left. We were headed for Alpha VI planet which had an Earth-like atmosphere and no apparent life signs. But after our affair with the “Guardian police,” we didn’t assume anything about life spans from space.
#
And cabin fever was taking its toll. The colonel informed me, “Two crew men got in a fight and one was killed by a laser which blew his head off, killing him.”
But we had a clone of the victim in cryogenics, updated to last week and so he took over the dead crewman’s duties. All our crew had clones to be used in colonization eventually.
The murderer was subject to brain changes so that he would never be violent again and was kept in the ship’s jail until we could bring him back to Earth. The jail was cold, and the food was bad, and he was in solitary with nothing to do all day.
#
Meanwhile the chief scientist had an announcement. “He had developed invisible helmets which could be worn all the time to protect the crew against unauthorized MRT (mind reading technology). But as admiral, I demanded to use MRT with all the crew, one at a time, once a month. It was one-way communication; the crew couldn’t read my thoughts while theirs’ was being read. My MRT was powerful and short range and so could penetrate the invisible helms and fully read their minds.
#
And we had some bad news. Earth’s colony on Zeus IV asteroid had been obliterated by a nuclear explosion during research on a new space drive. The radioactivity was too high to try a new base there. The asteroid was rich in uranium and other radioactive elements. And they had been experimenting with creating new elements.
#
Meanwhile the chef was offering food that was spiced all wrong and some crew men were vomiting. It was determined that a malfunction in the automatic production machine (APM) had caused it. This was a relief to all.
There was only one restaurant, but the fare was highly varied, and it was open 24 hours. There was also a bar open 24 hours, so that those on different shifts could eat and drink.
Major Nicholson was talking to her latest love..., Lieutenant Borges. The Major was a cyborg. She had a visor which was blank and transparent while she talked with the Lieutenant.
Major: “I still don’t want to break up with Lieutenant Query...”
Lieutenant B.: “Why don’t we just carry on as we have been?”
Major: “It is not fair to Lieutenant Query. He is so devoted to me.”
Lieutenant B.: “But you love me more so why don’t you break up with him then?”
Major: “But we have a child and have been through a lot. I guess we will just have to see what the future brings.”
Lieutenant B: “Anyway, how was your day?”
Major: “We are having some problems with the engines overheating down in engineering, but we have added a coolant.”
Lieutenant B.: “On the bridge, people are talking about which worlds should be colonized. I think they are too picky. Let’s just settle the worlds with a breathable atmosphere and continue from there.”
On the speaker phone: “This is the admiral. Weapons are being fired at our ship; all hands to their tactical stations...”
|
Hunting for Life
Janet Kuypers
two tweet poem, 1/8/18
If you’re on the hunt for aliens,
start studying a rover in Antarctica
NASA’s got its sights on Europa,
one of Jupiter’s moons, who bows and flexes
from the tugs and pulls of it’s massive
planet’s gravitational pull. ‘Cuz, you see,
these science types think there’s a giant ocean
under all of Europa’s ice. And what we’ve learned
is that where there’s water, there’s often life.
But with these elements
in these temperatures,
if you’re looking for life,
you’ll never know what you might really find.
|
The Best Laid Scheme
Edna C. Horning
“This could be it, for sure,” he mused. “And I didn’t have to keep looking for it. It’s come looking for me.”
Mort sat on the edge of his bed and flipped through the yellow pages to “Dentists”. He began dialing, but the first three or four calls elicited only refusals. Polite refusals, but nonetheless.
“I’m sorry, we’re far too busy today. But if you could you come in on Thursday? ”
“I’m sorry, but Dr. Thiel is not accepting new patients.”
“I’m sorry, but we don’t take that insurance.”
Sorry, sorry, sorry. And, finally.
“Well,” the receptionist hesitated, “Dr. Vitale’s at a professional conference until tomorrow, but maybe we could arrange an appointment with Dr. Vitale’s father. He’s also a dentist, and his office is only a short drive away. From us, I mean. Which hotel did you say?”
Mort remained seated until he received the confirming callback. The lady happily explained, though Mort could not have cared less, that Dr. Vitale, senior, would soon move into full retirement but was currently keeping a limited practice and could see him at twelve-thirty.
Taking up the notepad with Braidwood Hotel printed across the top, he scribbled her directions and tore off the page. Only an hour left before the appointment, and the sooner the better. Less time to back out.
He decided to leave immediately in case the place was harder to find than it sounded, and it would not do to squander an opportunity not likely to pop up on the horizon in the foreseeable future. Or ever.
Mort closed the door behind him and slid the key card into his pocket. He was reserved for one day more and had staged the scene precisely as someone planning to return later would: a few clothes lying about, toiletries on the bathroom counter, open laptop on the desk. And in the lobby, he quizzed the desk clerk on the merits of local dinner restaurants.
Seated behind the wheel of his rental car, Mort explored local radio and set it to one playing bouncy popular trash. You couldn’t be too careful. Some hot-eyed rookie might be curious about his mindset immediately prior to events. Ditto the two voice mails to his family. He’d kept them as normal sounding as possible: the first alerting his son that tuition for the upcoming semester had already been deposited and the second asking his wife to make sure the truck delivered the bricks to the back yard so that he could begin paving the new patio upon return.
His hastily scratched notes proved letter perfect and guided him to Greenlawn Professional Park a full fifteen minutes early. It was a typical suburban office complex, not especially new by the look of things, housing the usual doctors, dentists, state government bureaucrats, insurance and real estate agents, and a couple of non-profits. And a small Asian grocery.
He parked as close to Suite G as possible to make the sedan easy to find. All suites were accessed by exterior doors opening onto a sidewalk, and as he placed his hand on the knob, Mort turned his face upward for a final look. No sonnetier could ask for lovelier. Birds swerved and curved in a cornflower-blue sky against which the nearby trees provided a striking contrast of brilliant autumnal scarlet, orange, and yellow.
A pity he could not stay.
“I am Mr. Delay,” he told the receptionist.
“Yes, Mr. Delay! We’ve been expecting you although it may be a bit till the doctor can see you.” She paused, her voice and expression apologetic. “I hope that’s convenient.”
“Oh, for what I need I’ll wait. Till closing, if necessary,” he said, smiling thinly.
His manner struck the receptionist as a trifle odd, but she gave him the benefit of the doubt. He was, after all, hurting, or so he had told the younger Dr. Vitale’s office.
He took a seat. The strains of “The Four Seasons” issued from the office sound system. Mort had long suspected that some evil, subterranean cabal enforced a ruthless requirement that every doctor’s and dentist’s office in the land play Vivaldi, or else.
But maybe there was a sensible reason for that. Music was such a funny thing, with the power to push people into remarkable feats they never dreamed themselves capable of or, conversely, stop them dead in the tracks of their rawest intentions. So perhaps the cabal had gotten it good. Who, anxiously awaiting painful probes, wants to hear Barber and his screaming violins? Or Tavener’s angst? Almost impossible to get lathered one way or another over Vivaldi and so just what the doctor ordered to keep emotions tepid.
Mort had arrived at a quarter past, and when next he consulted his watch it read 12:40. Off-the-shelf analgesics taken earlier were wearing thin, and spikes of pain, sharper than previously, began shooting through his lower jaw.
“Mr. Delay?”
No response.
“Mr. Delay!” A little louder.
Mort jumped, astonished that he had actually begun to doze.“Sorry,” he apologized for nothing in particular. “Yes?”
“Dr. Vitale can see you now.”
“Fine. Thank you.”
A second assistant stood at the inner doorway and smilingly motioned him through. She took him to the room on the right, settled him comfortably in chair, adjusted it downwards, and pinned a paper bib around his neck. Scarcely had she finished than a tall, gray, dignified-looking man, six-four if an inch, entered. He smiled, flashing a set as white and perfect as those in any toothpaste ad, and placed a hand on the arm rest of the chair.
“Hello, I’m Dr. Vitale. My receptionist tells me you are from out of town and are having difficulties?” His voice rose at the end of the sentence, questioning.
“Yes, I live near Chicago, but periodically business trips take me farther afield. The pain got much worse during the night.” He paused. “Thank you so much for seeing me.”
“Oh no, glad to be of assistance. So. Let’s have a gander.”
With his left hand, Dr. Vitale repositioned the overhead light while picking up a metal pick with his right. He examined Mort’s open mouth for half a minute, frowned, and said, “I can see how that could be a problem, but we need to take x-rays. Gabby?” he summoned in a modulated voice barely louder than normal speaking.
Evidently Gabby had supernormal hearing because she materialized instanter. “The lower left, please” he instructed and then excused himself.
Gabby finished in a matter of minutes and went out, presumably to inform the doctor, but Dr. Vitale had yet to return. Mort sighed audibly and redistributed his weight in the chair. He took in his surroundings. An enormous, emerald green model of a frog with a set of twice life-sized plastic human teeth grinned down at him from a shelf. An equally outsized tooth brush, no doubt another prop for demonstrating oral hygiene, lay across the frog.
The wall facing him was a mural painted with palms, boats, beaches and balconies under a tropical sky. Amateurish in appearance, it nonetheless had a mildly soporific effect, and Mort’s breathing and heartbeat became slightly slower until Dr. Vitale’s footsteps roused him.
“Well, sir, I don’t wonder that you’re having pain,” the dentist said sympathetically. “That’s quite an abscess you have there, but if you want me to start the drainage process, I do have the time in my schedule. Unless you’d prefer me to tide you over with enough dope to get you home.”
Mort considered this and then admonished, “As long as you promise to deaden the area good and proper first. Otherwise, no.”
Dr. Vitale chuckled. “Do you doubt it?” he said jokingly. “I’m no fiend! Give me a few minutes, and we’ll get started.” Smiling, he patted Mort on the shoulder and walked from the room, and once more Mort was alone with his thoughts.
In appearance and general demeanor Dr. Vitale reminded Mort of old Dr. Floyd who had lived across from his family in his childhood. In actuality he had been a pharmacist rather than an MD, but Mort’s mother explained that in days gone by pharmacists were often referred to as “Doctor” by the old-fashioned as a sort of courtesy title, and Dr. Floyd himself had been nothing if not courteous. All affability to the end, he had died at an advanced age when Mort was seventeen, but even now Mort remembered him as the habitually genial, neighborly sort who went out of his way to be of service to others. And with the thick, wavy white hair and full, white moustache he kept until his demise, all he lacked to pass as the perfect Santa Claus was a beard.
Ah, Santa. For all the jolly fat man’s universal appeal, he still represented, at least to Mort, the universal unwillingness of the human race, most of it, to put away childish things. Mort recalled the day a play yard cynic had sneeringly informed him that parents and not Santa delivered Christmas morn’s largesse. Disbelieving at first, Mort had been beyond shocked at such heresy. But as the probability of its truth took hold, he grieved silently while keeping the awful news to himself and letting on nothing to his own parents or other children.
It had been the beginning of Mort’s own growing contempt for fairy tales, a term he applied to whatever he regarded as nonsense. He was determined not to be fooled again on such a grand scale, and from that moment on he shunned anything that, to him, smacked of the illogical and irrational, and had reared his children to follow in his footsteps. Only matter mattered because only matter existed.
In college he concentrated on science and business and eventually settled into a career with an engineering firm that had fingers in a number of promising pies. And throughout, he’d been true to his beliefs. Or, more correctly, his lack of them.
And that had landed him here. That and a leaked copy of the preliminary audit.
He felt his resolve slipping due to genuine regret over what he would be doing, if all went as anticipated, to the remainder of Dr. Vitale’s personal and professional life. Why did he have to resemble kindly old Dr. Floyd so strongly? Why couldn’t he be cold and uncaring instead of warm and supportive? Why was –?
His dark musings were interrupted by Dr. Vitale’s return. His assistant placed a clinking handful of instruments, some metal, some not, on the platform, and without turning his head, Mort was able to cut his eyes sideways enough to see them.
There was no syringe. Mort felt a surge of panic. The syringe, or more specifically its contents, was the key to his deliverance.
Then he saw it. Dr. Vitale had it in his hand.
“Open, please.”
Mort did as directed and closed his eyes. Sight was shut away, leaving only blackness, and in the void Mort called to mind a comment made by an uncle decades ago at a family funeral. Upon seeing his young nephew’s fear and bemusement at this initial close encounter with death, he said, “Death is nothing to be afraid of, Morty. It’s no different from going to sleep.”
And now, at long last, Mort grasped its brash absurdity. Had his uncle not grasped the same absurdity, that when tired people calmly and contentedly snuggle amongst the warm covers for their nightly rest, it is because they have never, not even once, failed to wake up the next morning and fully expect to go on doing so? Did he not understand that if they knew they were not going to awaken, whether the next morning or any, it would be entirely different?
Throughout this blind review, Mort had been waiting to feel the pressure of the needle being pushed into his jaw. And waiting.
Except that it did not come.
Mort looked. Dr. Vitale was staring off into space, his expression perplexed, unblinking. He continued thus for several moments more until, absent a whisper of explanation, he turned and walked from the room with the syringe still in his hand.
Mort raised his head and swapped puzzled looks with the assistant. Before either could speak, Dr. Vitale returned, except that he no longer had the syringe. Taking a stance in the doorway with feet slightly apart and arms folded across his chest, he fixed a stern gaze on Mort, his eyes all but drilling holes in him. Gone was the disarming affability, gone the gracious indulgence. They had been replaced by something quite different.
In a low voice, the dentist asked, “Why didn’t you tell me that you’re allergic to Novocain?”
Mort swallowed. “I don’t know that I am. Allergic, I mean,” he added smoothly, attempting recovery. “Once, years ago, I was given Novocain and blacked out for a few seconds, but I came around and experienced no serious lingering effects.” He cleared his throat. “Why do you ask?”
Dr. Vitale’s expression, still stony, now registered disbelief as well. He shuffled his feet before shifting his gaze to the assistant and dismissing her with a slight movement of his head.
“Sir, it’s like this,” he continued after her departure, “if you want me to treat that abscess,” he explained, “you’re going to have to endure it without anesthesia. Because you aren’t getting any Novocain in this office. Not from me you aren’t.”
“All right,” Mort sighed, near victory quashed by defeat. “Go ahead and do it your way.”
____________________
Mort did not yet feel equal to driving, and so prior to getting in, he reclined the driver’s seat for a snooze. He was amazed at how quickly the au naturel procedure, awful for the duration, had been over, but the residual pain would be a different story. He leaned his head back gingerly so as not to jar his still-throbbing jaw. Dr. Vitale had flatly refused to give him prescription painkillers, and Mort’s OTC stuff was in the hotel room. So, for now, he was stuck and decided he might as well use the opportunity for recap.
An hour earlier nothing could have deflected his focus from his looming legal predicament, but Dr. Vitale’s parting words had done the trick. For when Mort had felt sufficiently recovered and began to rise from the dentist’s chair, Dr. Vitale had placed a hand on his shoulder, this time in restraint.
“Not yet.”
Mort complied, and Dr. Vitale began to pace, frowning and studying the floor as though its tiles held the answer to an imponderable mystery. Then, still pacing, he said, “I imagine you’re wondering why I did what I did,” he asked.
“It crossed my mind, yes,” Mort conceded with a trace of sarcasm.
“What went on here a few minutes ago was, bar none, the strangest experience of my life.” He spoke slowly, appearing to choose his words carefully. “Nothing else that has ever happened to me comes close, and obviously I am no longer young. It was so – so bizarre that I’ve been debating with myself whether or not to tell you. But it concerns you directly, and so I’ve decided I will. And you may make of it what you must.
“Seconds, half-seconds before I was to put that needle into your jaw, I glanced up and saw my mother, who has been dead for nineteen years, standing in the doorway. I saw her as clearly and distinctly as I did in life, as clearly as I see you right now. And then she spoke, and I heard what was unquestionably my mother’s voice say, ‘Ben! Ben! Stop what you’re doing at once! Stop! This man is severely allergic to Novocain, and he knows it. He’s trying to commit suicide and make it look like an accident so that his family will get the life insurance money. If you give him that injection, he’s going to die here in your chair, and you will be blamed. You will be held responsible for his death.’ And having said that, she disappeared into the thin air she came from.”
Dr. Vitale stopped pacing. Shaking his head slightly, he said, “I don’t know if that really was my dead mother or some outlandish pathological hallucination. I’ll probably never know. But whatever it was, it kept me from giving you any Novocain.”
At this, the dentist lapsed briefly into silence and then said, “We’re through. You may go. And don’t ever come to my office again.”
____________________
Still semi-recumbent, Mort felt midafternoon drowsiness descending in tandem with the autumn chill. He didn’t fight it, but neither did he give in completely. He let recall drift to the incident he had lied about to Dr. Vitale.
On that day in the far past he had not “blacked out for a few seconds before regaining consciousness with no lingering effects.” Instead, he very nearly died and would have had not a medical team working feverishly for hours pulled him back from the brink. Upon discharging him, the attending physician had direly warned, “Do not ever let anyone give you Novocain in any amount for any reason because next time it will kill you for sure.” And his own regular dentist, aware of this from the start, deftly worked around it.
Ah, well, he sighed. It was worth a try.
Irony seemed to be lurking around every bend these days. Not a week earlier Mort had scanned an article which, while not about incarceration as such, mentioned in passing that ramen noodles, no matter the brand, had replaced cigarettes as the de facto currency in prisons. Pile your stash high enough, and you can pay other inmates to clean your cell, do your laundry, and smuggle fruit from the kitchen.
Handy to know at the outset, he decided. But, of course, self-interest nearly always rises to the occasion. Except for death, it usually has the last word.
|
Whiskey Island
Allan Onik
The flies buzzed around the marina bar as the sun began to set amid an orange hue. The locals drank rum and cokes and tourists drank margaritas-everyone was wet with sweat and humidity. Ana sipped her margarita and Gardner sipped his.
“Do you love me?” she asked.
“Of course I do, what kind of a question is that?”
“You took me to this island, and all you’ve done is sit on this dock like a sick bird. The day after tomorrow we’ll be back in Pittsburgh and you’ll be back at the plant again, back to Mars.”
“Tell you what. Just before dawn tomorrow we’ll take out one of the dinghies with a local. I’ll get a beer and we can fish. Do you like to fish sweetheart?”
“I like you. Or I used to. Where is this place anyways?”
“It’s wherever you want to be. I can feel the whiskey seeping into my bones like a litany of shadows, dear.”
They went to the island club and drank, smoked hashish and listened to the music as the locals danced and sang. Under the moonlight they rested on the beach and stared at the waves. When their spirits were gone they got more and walked the sidewalks during the parade on Main Street, hugging the islanders.
“It’ll be dawn soon, love,” she whispered in his ear. He woke up lying in the canoe with his fishing pole and bag of night crawlers.
“And you’ll come too right?”
“Of course.”
They began to paddle out.
“You know,” he said, “I can’t remember ever arriving in this place.”
“Neither can I,” she said, “I Love you.”
“I Love you too.”
Soon the crest of light sparked the horizon, and he began to fish.
|
34
Allan Onik
In the Coliseum, the Caesar sat on his throne and popped a grape into his mouth, then washed it down with some ice water. “It’s Flamma’s 34th battle, and even after four offers of freedom he continues to show his lust for blood, and his tenacity as a Syrian. Tell me, Lucius—do you think he will win?”
“Everyone must end at some point,” the General said, “it’s only a matter of time. And Metas Lionus is his toughest opponent to date.”
With his small sword, shield and half armored body, Flamma bowed before Caesar. The crowd roared, and the sand of the Coliseum blew in the wind beneath a fierce sun. Metas approached out the gate on a chariot drawn by 6 black horses. On his breastplate was forged a fierce lion.
“Today is a good day to die,” Flamma thought, “with honor.”
Six lions emerged from pits in the sand and descended on him. With his small sword he fought with grace, killing every one of them as they bit and clawed into his flesh. When the last one fell, Flamma fell to one knee and rested his sword in the sand point first. He was bloodied and battered, and blood dribbled from his mouth. Lionus descended on him with his spear and chariot. Flamma closed his eyes, lifted his face to the sun, and smiled.
|
Six
Allan Onik
I roll away from the chopper as it crashes into the compound. Full dark-no moon. Operation live. Putty on the explosives on the main house walls. Set to ignite. Courier Kuwaiti neutralized in firefight at guesthouse 20 yards away. Sputter of the rounds sound like firecrackers Team One clears. Explosives ignite. Enter main house and neutralize AK wielding Abrar on first floor. Feels like Hell Week in night-vision adrenaline hue. Neutralize the daemon’s son Kahlid on staircase—falls like a lifeless doll. Our form is like a force of nature, natural and tempered. Up the stairs. Eye through crack in bedroom door. Kick it open. The man himself cowers behind female human shield. Aim your HK416 soldier-no easy day. Two shots to the head. A flurry of rounds to torso as he falls. Into mic: “For God and County.” The Present speaks to me and the Situation Room: “We got him.” No easy day soldier, no easy day.
|
Grace
Allan Onik
Gardner watched the football on his HD TV. The Los Angeles Sharks had just scored a touchdown. His roommate walked into the apartment den.
“You must think you’re some kind of Caesar,” she said, “watching all that violence. Like a Roman watching in the Coliseum. Gladiators. Why don’t you go outside for once? Instead of having your eyes glued to that screen 12 hours a day?”
“I think that’s a good idea,” he said. He turned off the TV and stood up from his Lay-Z-Boy.
The sun in the park was bright and the flowers were multicolored-blues, greens, reds, pinks, and violets. The light created a warmth and Gardner could see the birds and butterflies like wisps. The park contained a pond with lilies and frogs and muddy fish. A limestone bridge spanned across the pond and rested on both sides of the water surrounded by flower beds. Bees landed on the flowers and buzzed. Ana read Walden underneath a willow.
“It’s Sunday,” she said. “What are you doing out of that high castle?”
“Never expected to see you here, either.” He stretched out next to her in the grass underneath the shade.
“Did you know that Monarch butterflies migrate to Mexico in the winter?”
“No shit.”
“It’s a natural phenomenon. Just like everything else out here. The Egyptians worshiped statues and wore amulets to ward chaos, while there are other cultures that believe stillness can lead to greater introspection and vision-calmness in any storm.”
“Never knew it. You’re a regular Thoreau.”
“I sit here and read every day. There is an owl that lives in this tree. The spirit of the owl is meant to guide you from confusing situations. Unplug from the phenomena and just be!”
Gardner stood of from the grass and looked at the sky. Ana was still reading, pretty with dark hair and no makeup. The clouds covered a deep, inviting blue. He began to walk the path toward the distant hills.
“Leaving so soon?” she asked.
“No,” he said, “just Lucifer.”
|
A Day After Tomorrow
Marc McMahon
It scares me when it gets like that when my darkness comes with the noonday sun. Uninvited, unwanted, and unliked. My little brother kept telling me these days were coming. A day when the still, soft, whispers of the night would become my friend. A prophecy spoken to me by a child? Or merely a dreamy little brother with too large of an imagination and what some might consider an addiction to the Sci-Fi channel. Either way, I get a really bad feeling in my stomach sometimes when the strange things he tells me match up with recent dreams I have had. Ok, maybe it’s not a bad feeling the little creep gives me, but it is definitely weird that’s for sure.
I am not sure how I would describe it to you? It’s almost as if you know something tragic is about to happen but not sure when. Oh, I know it’s like the feeling I used to get when I would take money out of my mom’s purse so me and my little brother could run down to the corner store and by licorice. Black, that’s my favorite. Or it was until I ran into the licorice love of my life. I will never forget the day we first met, me and my new grape seductress, my first kiss, blissful. Kissing a girl after I had sampled that first bite of the new flavor was now a distant memory. If I had had it my way back then I would have bought all the grape licorice in the store and eloped to Las Vegas to live with my licorice love forever. But back to reality.
It’s not just the weird feelings my brother gives me either. He has this look that almost pierces right through you. As if at the age of 7 he has that power, or ever will. But it does not change the fact he does it and mumbles these words that no one has yet been able to make any sense of. He only does this around me which makes him even creepier. My mother says that the words he mumbles sound like the baby talk he used to babble when my step-father would hold him when he was very young. It is just odd to think that my step-father had a massive heart-attack while holding him one morning while everyone else was away from the house.
I overheard my mom telling my aunt one day that when she walked in that afternoon she found Gil laying on the kitchen floor with his lips swollen, blue, and not breathing. She checked his pulse, there was none. Baby, sitting contently on his step daddy’s chest happily drinking his bottle as if nothing ever happened. I don’t find it odd that the kid was too young to realize his father had just died, but in light of recent events and the similar sounds to his mumbled garble when he is with me, it often makes me wonder. So yes, I guess I am a little afraid of my brother if children under 9 are even capable of invoking fear. Who knows, maybe it is me that’s losing his tween childhood mind and needs a therapist, not my kid brother.
Speaking of therapists, my mom just informed me I would also be seeing the same kid shrink as my little brother and my first visit was a day after tomorrow. I threw the best temper-tantrum I think I ever have before in protest of the new news but to no avail. It did nothing to convince the jury in my mom’s mind that therapy was a bad idea, although she did pause a moment, hmm. Well, I obviously did not convince them beyond a reasonable doubt. I don’t want to go see a therapist but why am I telling you that, you don’t care, nobody does, well accept.
“Kenny the Doctor is ready to see you now,” the cute receptionist announced as she stood up from the desk and walked over to open the shrinks door for me. I think that’s one of the reasons you always see cute girls working in Doctors offices. Think about it. Young boys my age especially just automatically get up and follow a girl that pretty simply because she is talking to you, and no other thought than that can go through your mind. You cannot think of a word to say, a smile to show, you simply blush and with eyes wide open walk in your hypnotic state to wherever she leads. Whew, thank God Mom was there, that receptionist could have led me anywhere.
“Hello Kenny, welcome, I am Doctor Sullivan. How are you today?” Eyes still contently following the young secretaries movements as she closes the door Kenny blinks two times, shakes his head, then turns around to the Doctor and says “I don’t want to be here lady — there’s nothing wrong with me, I want to go now!” Dr. Sullivan not as young and pretty as her secretary, which may be working against her here right now. Still is a very attractive 32-year-old clinician with her Ph.D. She is very physically fit an avid cyclist, triathlete, and one of only a handful of world-class female ice-wall climbers. She definitely has no problem attracting attention, and in today’s modern society that comes from men and women alike. Yet she is still single and on a very rare occasion goes on a date. Not much of a socialite, she will admit that herself.
She was just recently interviewed by Time Magazine. They were doing a piece on how she endured a tormented and tragic childhood, locked in a dog crate for days on end only to be let out to be at the mercy of her mothers drunken and abusive husband. And then only to be assaulted sexually, physically, and emotionally. This all started for her at the age of five and was not finally stopped until almost eleven years later. The article explained how at the end, how finally the neighbor lady convinced the police to investigate.
More importantly how she finally convinced the mom into admitting to the Police when they did come to the door that there was a problem inside giving them the permission they needed to enter the home. This way they could look around and go down into his pit where he keeps her, where the mom has only ever been one time, and that one time was right when this all started. What happened to the mother down in that basement that winter morning sixteen and a half years ago no one knows. What is obvious though is that whatever it was put enough fear into her to stay silent or else. That it gave him the permission he needed to take her daughter and raise her like a piece of meat in a cage. Only to be taken out to be tenderized by his violent and rage filled sexual actions and the bare knuckles of his fist
Then how she ultimately after not saying a word to another person for almost a year and a half walked into her kitchen and told her mom that she and God loved her very much and that they were both very sorry she had to live through that. She then went on to get her GED, and put herself through college ultimately winning a scholarship that would not only pay for her Grad School but cover all the prior costs she had incurred thus far including her student loans. With her finances taken care of and her miraculous apparent spiritual recovery from her abuse, she went on to not only graduate Grad School but first in her class.
The whole time writing and speaking publicly to other survivors of unspeakable abuses and helping them heal and understand, and learn and grow. A truly remarkable woman and that is the main reason Kenny is mad standing in her office at this very moment. “I said I want to go, lady, you can’t keep me here I know my rights, I’m a minor and you’re not my parent. I want to go now,” he shouts. The good Doctor seeing that Kenny is visibly upset by the sweat beginning to bead on his forehead and those undeniable tween watery eyes of pure frustration because he is not getting his way and is scared, replies softly. “Well actually Kenny, your mom figured you would respond like this and signed an order giving me permission to physically keep you in my presence if I feel it is in your best interests. With that being said it does not mean that I have to act on it, only if I think it will help you and today I do not believe that it would so if you will do one thing for me I can then put in your chart we had a successful short visit, ok Kenny?”
Kenny who about mid-rant hearing mainly only blah, blah, blah, did catch the mom signed an order part, and the one thing and we can part friends thing as he back to the Doctor was already reaching for the door. He stops stares at the floor and with a heavy sigh turns to the Doctor and says “What!” Doctor Sullivan extremely concerned at the amount of anger displayed by this young boy says “I just need you to tell me what day next week you would like to come back and meet with me again?”
“What are you, stupid lady? Bad enough my mom brought me to a kid shrink but she could have at least found a smart one. I’m not coming back lady you can’t make me, my mom can’t make me and my dad’s too drunk all the time to care so I’m not making a day to see you ok?” Heart nearly melting now for her new 12 year old very mature for his age new client she replies “I am sorry Kenny but no, that is not an option for you I am sorry your mom said in order for you to leave today we have to have an appt scheduled for next week. So I am willing to give you what you want so you can go home now but you have to do this for your mom before she will let you go.”
The Doctor is extremely good at what she does, she has already had Kenny in her office for almost 10 minutes now. She knows from experience she is just a moment away from getting that little boy to burst open with emotion and find all the comfort and understanding he has always sought, yet thought to be unattainable, available in the good Doctor’s arms via a hug. Kenny is getting increasingly agitated as flashbacks of the reoccurring nightmare begin to flashback in his mind. “Fine, I’ll make the stupid appt. I don’t care, I’m not coming to it anyways, so there. You’re so stupid, I hate you lady, I Hate You” he screams. Still shouting and now tears starting to come, the doctor steps back in a sign of understanding and compassion and to invite Kenny in to tell more. “Like you would even care, you wouldn’t understand you can’t and you’re just gonna tell me I’m crazy like the rest of my mom’s stupid Doctors think and I hate you all” he sobs. “Kenny, I don’t think you’re crazy sweetie, I think you are just a little boy who needs someone to understand what he thinks for once. Kenny, I think you are special and I want to help you feel better.”
“Shut up, Shut up, Shut up.” Kenny proclaims. At that time there is an unexpected poorly timed and very unwanted knock on Dr. Sullivan’s door. As she asks Kenny to please step behind her she reaches for the knob and opens. Standing there in all his testosterone filled, chest puffed up uniform was the building security staff who heard the constant yelling and thought they might check to make sure all was well. However, Kenny, not real fond of authority and rightfully so begins to shout again. “I told you, you don’t care you are just like the rest I hate you. You don’t want to help you want them to take me.” Security guard concerned steps toward the Dr. as if to push into the office and subdue the out of control youth is met with fierce and unexpected opposition. Almost like she was the Lioness and Kenny was her cub.
The Dr.’s hand on the man’s chest says “excuse me, but me and my client are fine so if you will excuse us we have work to tend to.” Being the professional that she is and realizing that the security guard was merely following protocol put in place to keep Doctors safe says to the guard as he leaves “I appreciate your concern, but from now on when I have a minor in my office you call me before you knock on my door,” and then she closed hers.
Kenny seeing the Doctor stand strong in his defense for privacy and all things non-authority begins to see the Doctor in a new light. It’s not a very bright light mind you but it’s a glimmer and that is more than the boy thinks he has seen in awhile so he concedes to the Doctors wishes and blurts out “Next Thursday I can come after school about four if that is ok?” With a big sigh, the Doctor nonchalantly looks at the wall clock on the wall above Kenny’s head and thinks to herself victory, twenty-seven minutes and a willing come back — whew! “That works for me Kenny, I will write it in my book.” “I hope you like dead people” “What do you mean by dead people Kenny, do you see them? Please feel free to sit down if you like Kenny. In that big comfy chair or you can even lay on the couch if you want, or we could sit over by the windows there.” “I know what you’re trying to do lady, I’m not the stupid one here remember?” Except for this time when he said it, she detected a little smirk develop, not for long, but she knows what she saw.
“No I’m not staying, you can’t trick me into staying and talking to you I told you no. Ok fine stupid you really want to know what I dream about, all the time and see sometimes even in school if I daydream. I see me younger and crying, in a diaper all alone walking on scorched grass, the sky is amber, masking the color of a flame in a slowly cooling fire. The trail I am on is cold, there are crosses as far in front and behind me as I can see. There is a haze or fog, or maybe smoke, yes smoke like something is burning, maybe its hell. Crosses on both sides of me, they straddle the path. Then from each cross dangles a rope and from each rope there hangs a beaten and bloody body. There is no sound other than my own cries and all I do is walk and cry and see dead bodies, everywhere. I will see you next Thursday lady.” This time she knows she saw a little smile as he said lady and almost slammed her door in a show that he was still in charge. He needs that illusion right now, it’s where he draws his strength and the good Doctor knows this as well and is just happy he will return door slamming and all. I guess that’s why she gets paid the big bucks as the phrase implies............................To Be Continued.
|
Last Straw
JD DeHart
that was it,
the tether torn. I’m
a generally forgiving
guy. there comes
a place for moving in,
for moving on,
when the mind
erases even the first
syllables of a congested
congealed memory.
|
The Monkey-Man
Abbey Faith Serena
Winifred was eighteen-years-old when she met the love of her life, the monkey-man.
“I would like to paint your portrait.”
On a cool day just like any other, she was bent over a cart, smelling the loaves of bread that were spread before her. She straightened when the voice came from behind her, so close that the warm breath moved the fine hairs on the nape of her neck. “I shouldn’t like to be bothered while I’m choosing breads.” She said dismissively.
The man laughed, a croak of a laugh that made her wonder if he hadn’t laughed in years. “I’ve been watching you from across the street, miss. You’ve been smelling these breads for ten minutes. If you ask me to wait until you’re finished, I’ll be standing here for the rest of the night.” When she tipped her head again and sniffed a loaf of rye, he said, “Are the breads unsatisfactory?”
The older gentleman, Mr. Harris, who baked and sold the breads, turned around and quivered his fat lip. “Young man, anyone who has ever bought my bread will tell you that it is the best bread in London. It is so fresh that it melts in your mouth.”
There was a thread of a smile in the man’s voice. “My apologies. I didn’t mean any offense, but this lady is taking so long to choose a loaf of bread.”
Winifred picked up a loaf of barley and handed Mr. Harris a fistful of coins. After her bread was wrapped, she said, “I enjoy smelling all of the breads before I choose a loaf. Don’t you ever stop bustling around so that you can simply smell the air?”
She finally looked at the man who wanted to paint her portrait and had to lean her head back to see his face. He might have been handsome had his hazel eyes not been so close together and his mouth a thin, crooked line. A pile of reddish-brown hair spiraled off of the top of his head and had grown so long that the ends curled around the collar of his tattered shirt.
His lips twisted into a smile that showed her a set of crooked teeth. “I’m an artist. Of course I like to slow down and smell the air, just not when all I can smell is manure and people who haven’t bathed in a fortnight.”
She glanced past him, at the muddy street where horses clomped their metal shoes and shook their heads when their drivers cracked whips. A mountainous woman with a babe in her arms hurried down the street, her gelatinous body rolling toward a vendor who had just put his jewelry on sale. She returned her attention to the artist and said, “I don’t wish to have my portrait painted.”
He folded his arms over his chest. His shirt hung loose from his emaciated frame. “You’re an attractive woman. Do you not want to be immortalized? When you’re dead, people will look upon your portrait and wonder if you were a goddess.”
She started walking down the street, but didn’t know where she was going. She hadn’t taken more than a few steps before he called, “You could have a chaperone.”
Turning around, she stared at the artist as he leaned against a brick wall, arms still coiled around his torso. His face was severe and angular, his top lip peeled back from his teeth, his eyelashes flickering. A notch had wrinkled the space between his heavy, apelike eyebrows. The shadows of the building he stood against obscured him from the view of the people meandering around. The artist wasn’t a civilized being who belonged in a London market, shopping for fish and bread, but rather a wild creature that might have been raised by monkeys in a jungle.
She lowered her eyes to the ground. “I haven’t had a chaperone in years.”
Something in his face changed. His mouth twitched and his eyebrows lowered so far that his large eyes nearly disappeared beneath them. “You’re a married woman?”
“I’m a fallen woman.” She said plainly. She didn’t fear the response anymore. “Do you still wish to paint me?”
“Of course.” He barked. “Even more so. Fallen women are more interesting than innocents.” Peeling off of the wall, he stepped deliberately closer to her. Even though he was quite small in stature, the confidence that poured off of him in rivulets made him the size of a god. He lowered his voice, “If you’ve already had a scandal, you have no reason to not let me paint your portrait.”
“Your arrogance is unbecoming,” she said softly, mouth contorting into a grin when he recoiled. “You could be displeasing to me. Are you unaware that most people would find your brash personality disagreeable?”
He choked out a sound that might have been a laugh or indigestion. Pushing out his jaw like a primate, he came closer to her and said, “You think you’re clever, but you haven’t said anything that I haven’t already said. I find myself disagreeable.” For a long moment, they stood together in the middle of the market. People grumbled as they had to break their quick paces to move around them.
“I don’t wish to be remembered,” she told the artist, whose mouth tightened. Now that he was standing before her, she noticed the freckles on his pale skin.
“The portrait will be mine.” He gestured with his hands. Paint stained his long, tapered fingers. “None shall ever see it, except for my own eyes. You won’t be remembered for a long time, for I don’t intend to spend much longer here.”
“You’ll be leaving London soon?” She asked.
After a minute passed, he twisted his mouth into an unconvincing smile. “You’re still not as clever as I am. I won’t be leaving London until I’ve painted your portrait.” He leaned toward her and winked, “Will you be coming to my flat for our first session, or must I follow you to your home and serenade you from outside of your window until you give in?”
She wondered if someone’s entire body could turn red. In that moment, she knew that hers did. “I’m Winifred Palmer.” She said, resenting him for his widening smile. “Do you have a name or shall I refer to you as the artist?”
***
Winifred was posed on the settee that the artist had moved beneath the large window, the one beautiful feature in his apartment. The window overlooked the street with the vendors and the people that moved like swarms of bugs, scurrying from one cart to the next and devouring everything they could put their hands on. Because she was so high up, Winifred couldn’t hear the buzz of their voices or the clomping shoes of the horses. But when she twisted around, she could look down on them, those people who were more similar to bugs than they would care to admit.
She heard a scrape from another room and turned back around. The apartment walls were littered in portraits that Ettie’s clients had rejected. Ettie would rather be a failed artist, he had told her, than be dishonest, so he captured all of the weak chins and bulbous noses that he saw. This caused many people to flock to other artists who were kind enough to ignore those faults.
Ettie strode back into the room, his eyes tracing the contents of a sheet of paper. Paint blotched his gray shirt. His hair had grown so long that it curled against the nape of his neck.
She had known Ettie for seven weeks, and yet there was still so much of him that was foreign to her.
Ettie placed the letter on the table and rubbed the side of his face. Winifred knew what the letter said, but Ettie told her, anyway. “I have a month to come up with the money or else I lose this place.”
Winifred frowned. “What are you going to do?”
Ettie never planned for anything. “I’m not certain,” he said. “Perhaps I’ll start selling my body.”
He came over to his chair and easel. After sitting down, he lifted the sheet off of the canvas. Winifred readjusted her posture and tipped her head to the side, as she had done every day for the past seven weeks. “When will I get to see it?”
Ettie smirked as he sorted through his paints. “Eventually.”
“Are you being honest?”
He moved his face to the side of the canvas and looked at her, his dark lashes quivering. She wondered if he was pleased with what he saw. She didn’t know why she hoped he would be. “I’m always honest when I paint.” He said, and she looked at the portrait behind his head, a portrait of a woman with beady eyes and a large forehead.
***
One day Winifred waited an unusually long time for Ettie to emerge from his bedchamber. They had a routine that had never been broken before. Winifred sat on the couch and listened to the clock tick a quarter of an hour away, and then a half hour. After waiting and listening for any movement, she stood and walked toward the closed door that Ettie always came out of.
She pressed her ear to the door and thought she heard something, a soft, raspy breath. Perhaps Ettie had slept late. She backed away and thought that she would leave a note for him to let him know that she had been there, but a muffled groan caused her to hesitate.
A pained grunt burst through the door.
Winifred didn’t hesitate before she flung herself into the room. “Ettie, are you hurt?” She asked. She stumbled backwards when her eyes bounced all over him, every naked inch of his body. He was hollow and ashen, like a body that had been set on fire. His gray skin quivered and his face was puckered as if he had tasted something sour. The crooked object between his thighs was engorged and angry, red skin pulsing, veins jumping, like a piece of boiling meat.
The air was clogged with liquor, so acerbic and rank that it stung to take a single breath. Empty bottles were scattered on the floor, several of them broken into glittering, bloody shards. Ettie suddenly reached out for her, showing her his scraped palms. “Winnie.” He gasped. “Help me.”
***
Winifred stood on the curb of a street, her bodice rapidly rising and falling. Pushing her thick, golden curls out of her face, she flicked her eyes toward Ettie’s apartment window and imagined him inside, sprawled out on his bed and fisting the heavy weight between his thighs. She had only seen one of those before, and it hadn’t been quite so monstrous. She dug the heels of her hands into her eyes as if she could smother the memory of Ettie’s naked body.
And the alarming way that her body had reacted, the wetness and heat that dripped out of her stomach and pooled in her most secret place.
She started walking away from the apartment, expecting to feel Ettie reach for her hand and wrap it around his elbow. She had come to love the way that he chattered endlessly to her during their walks back to her home, although it had greatly irritated her at first.
There was only one other time that Ettie had made her feel as if she were nothing more than a dish that he wanted to devour. She had always been aware that Ettie was a perverted creature, barking out crude remarks about women’s bodies, offhandedly mentioning his sexual appetite. But there was one day, just a fortnight ago, that Ettie made it clear that he wanted Winifred for more than his artistic gain.
Winifred was propped on the settee by the window, eyeing Ettie, who was behind his easel. He sat like a monkey when he painted, his back hunched and legs folded so that he had to rest his weight on his feet. He was freshly tousled from bed, his curls swept back and his mouth still crusty. “Ettie,” she murmured, watching him move his hands behind the easel. “Where did you come from?”
Ettie glanced up at her and took a deep breath. “Hampshire. Are we talking about our childhoods now?”
“I don’t see why not. We’ve known each other for nearly five weeks.”
The corners of his lips curled. Turning back to the painting, he muttered, “I was born in Hampshire. My father was a lawyer. He sent me to London when I turned nineteen so that I could study medicine. He wanted a doctor in the family.” He put down his brush and reached down for his bottle of liquor. Winifred noticed that his hand trembled as he brought it up to his lips.
“You shouldn’t drink quite as much as you do,” she said quietly, even though she knew she wasn’t supposed to talk about the alcohol. “My father always said that liquor poisons you.”
He smirked. “Love, liquor has already poisoned me. You’re flogging a dead horse. Anyways, I became bored with my classes and found myself enamored with a woman. I stopped attending my lectures so that I could stay in bed and paint her. Well, one thing and the next and the next, she became with child. Word traveled back to my father, who decided that he didn’t want an artist with a child that he couldn’t afford in his family anymore. Now I’m disowned.”
Winifred tried not to flinch away from the fact that another woman had carried Ettie’s baby. She lowered her voice, “What about the woman?”
“Oh.” Ettie took another drink of his liquor. His hand quivered as he set the bottle down. “She miscarried. We parted ways. Mind you, I was going to take care of her if she was to have my child. Because I couldn’t make more than pennies off of the portraits, I started to paint erotic art for old, lonely men who haven’t slept with their wives in more than two decades. After she miscarried, I grew weary of erotic art and gave it up. Now I’m living off of the money I made from the erotic art until something else catches my interest.”
After he made more marks on the canvas, he raised his eyes to her and said, “When we first met, you told me that you were a fallen woman. Why? Do you have no care for your reputation? Do you have no intention of finding a well-bred, wealthy husband? If you go around telling all of your suitors that you’re fallen, none will have you.”
“I’ve no interest in marrying.” She said softly. “I have the ability to take care of myself. I have since I left my home many years ago.”
“Oh?”
“When I left, I stole a large sum from my family’s safe. After that depleted, I found small jobs, such as cleaning or mending. I also teach the other poor people who live in my neighboring community how to read. Many of them are illiterate. I’ll admit that I never have enough money to buy new dresses, but I have enough to feed myself and to pay my rent. I would rather keep my independence, no matter the cost, than settle for a marriage with a man who would be condescending to me because of my status.”
Ettie slowly rose from behind his canvas, revealing his paint-splattered chest. His stomach was caved in, his shoulders sunken inward. He came toward her with deliberate motions and his eyes wildly flitting from side to side. Rather than be intimidated, she pushed her chin up. Once he was in front of her, he sat down on his haunches and cupped her small face in his hands. “I don’t give a damn that you’re fallen, no matter what you did.” He muttered, his eyes large and black. “What I wouldn’t give to tear your dress off with my teeth right now.”
For just a moment, he bowed his head toward hers, and she reached around the nape of his neck. And then he was gone, bouncing like a monkey across the room, crouching into his chair. He picked up his liquor as if nothing had happened.
Winifred hurried to her own apartment and locked the door behind her, but still didn’t feel like that was enough of a barrier to keep Ettie out.
***
Winifred did not return to Ettie’s apartment for the next two weeks. After giving herself some time to forget about what she had seen, she went back to Ettie, who opened the door and leaned his hip against the wall. He had trimmed his hair and shaved the scruffy beard off of his chin. She pursed her lips as a warm feeling spread inside of her. The sensation was foreign to her. A need to be close to someone. To him.
She pressed herself to the front of him. He responded with a sharp intake of air. And then his lips were against hers, brushing lightly, teasing, biting, and she took more of him with a nudge of her mouth. They were moving, stepping backwards, and she closed her eyes and let him lead her. He could have been taking her to another world, where there were no consequences for pleasure and she would wake up knowing that she wouldn’t regret absorbing him into herself.
Some time later, Winifred lie in Ettie’s bed, which was little more than a mattress and a sheet. Blood stained the white cotton that he slept on. Ettie’s arms were curled around her, but suddenly her lover became her uncle. She was a young girl with developing breasts and eyes as round as saucers. The worst part had been the crushing weight of her uncle, whose stomach was distended and neck and face were bloated from the liquor. His sour, wet mouth rubbing against hers. That foreign object, which she now knew intimately, pressing against her pelvis.
One maid or another had come into the room, intending to light the hearth.
After that, Winifred remembered what happened in still images. Scrunching herself into the corner of her bed, trembling so fiercely that the coils screeched. She couldn’t stop trembling. Her breasts were sore. Her face was scratched. She watched her parents from a distance, watched her father urge his staggering brother from the room. Her mother mumbled incoherent noises to Winifred.
Ettie, who was half-dozing, pressed his face into her disheveled hair. He opened one of his eyes, while the other half of his face remained smushed against the pillow. “And you left after that?” He rasped.
“I left that very night,” Winifred murmured. Ettie’s face was relaxed for the first time since she had met him. The wrinkles that marked where he squinted his eyes were clear. His eyebrows were smooth. She pressed her thumb onto his bottom lip and pulled it out, making him look like a monkey. “I don’t want to leave you, Ettie.”
***
A week before Ettie died, Winifred realized that he would never paint again. Ettie had threatened that he would stop painting before. There were days when he drank too heavily or claimed to be fatigued. Sometimes he wouldn’t come out to greet her, but would rather lock himself inside of his bedchamber, letting the cigar smoke that breathed out of the cracks in the door answer for him.
She had once approached Ettie when he was sulking on the settee, his face squished into a cushion and his mouth drawn into a tight grimace. Kissing the notch between his heavy eyebrows, she had laughed and said, “You should have been an actor, Ettie, for I have never met such a dramatic man.”
The day that Ettie held a paintbrush for the last time was different than the other times that he had merely been searching for sympathy. When she entered his apartment, she found him sitting on the floor, head tucked between his knees, with all of his rejected paintings stacked around him. She didn’t move any closer to him.
After a handful of minutes ticked away, Ettie muttered something she didn’t hear. She hesitantly inched closer to him. “What did you say?” She asked.
“You’re a man now, Ettie.” He pressed his face into his thighs. Even sitting down on the floor, he seemed dangerous to her, as if he could spring up at any moment and attack her. “You’re a grown man, son. You’ll be a great doctor.”
He suddenly barked out a rough sound and shoved the towering portraits in front of him. The wood frames cracked against the glass, creating a cacophony of sound that made Winifred step back. “Ettie.” She said.
Ettie could have forgotten that she was standing in front of him. He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes and sobbed. “You’re a disappointment.” His voice was louder. “You’re a failure. You’ve been leeching off of me. Why would I continue to give an allowance to a son I don’t want? You’re not an artist. Painting won’t make you a living. You’ll be dead by the time you’re thirty.”
Rolling onto his side, Ettie knocked over the rest of his rejected portraits. Each one of them showed the face of someone with flaws. Ettie smothered his face with his hands as he cried. Winifred finally came forward and pushed aside a few of the portraits with her foot. She knelt beside of Ettie, who was gasping, mouth pried open like a fish stolen from the water.
She drew his hands away from his face and used the sleeve of her dress to wipe the silvery residue from his cheeks. “Ettie?” She said again. As he gazed up at her, something went out from his face, some necessary thing that had given him life.
He licked the sticky film from his lips and whispered, “I’ll never find anything that will make me permanently happy.”
She had hardly known him for more than a few months, and yet she had to keep herself from flinching. She was just another portrait to Ettie. Picking up one of his paintings, she said, “Doesn’t your art make you happy?”
He laughed and took the painting from her hands. As he looked at it, he curled his lips and threw it aside. “Yes, love. Being rejected again and again by people who are too conceited to admit their flaws gives me the feeling that I’m doing something worthwhile. If my father were still alive, I would travel right away to tell him...” his voice broke off. He bit the side of his hand to keep himself from choking. After he gained his breath back, he said quietly, “Look, Father, at all of the wealth I have earned as an artist. I’ve proven you wrong. I own estates in Wales, Scotland, and France. I have a castle, Papa. I own statues that were carried out of Egyptian pyramids. Would you like to see them?”
Ettie’s body shook as he started to cry again. She coiled her arms around his neck and pulled him against her breast, like the small child that he’d been reduced to. She wanted to tell Ettie that she loved him.
***
The last time that Winifred came to Ettie’s apartment, he was swinging from the ceiling. Like a monkey, she thought, like the wild animal he’d always been. She wasn’t surprised to see him dangling from a rope. She had accepted it a long time ago, when she realized that Ettie was too dramatic to peacefully fade away.
She closed the door and leaned against it for a few moments, watching his rugged, sunken face. The bulging skin of his neck where the rope had tightened. His limp body, feet nearly scraping the floor. She wasn’t aware that she was crying until a hoarse sound hiccupped from her throat.
She started moving toward Ettie, crunching the glass that had protected all of his rejected portraits. Before she reached his body, she realized that his chair and easel were still sitting across from the settee. As she looked at where he had painted her, month after month, squinting his eyes and chewing on his lip as he glanced between her face and his canvas, her knees softened and she stumbled forward. A terrible noise ruptured from inside of her.
Winifred lowered herself into Ettie’s chair and stared at the white sheet that covered her portrait. Pinned to the sheet was a small scrap of paper written on in his scratchy handwriting. She reached out for the paper, but her hands shook so badly that she couldn’t pick it up and had to bend over to read it.
I’m sorry, Winnie. Your portrait is finished. I was honest when I painted it. I love you.
She glanced back up at his body. It seemed strange that in a matter of seconds, she had Ettie, and now this monkey was all that was left of him. Easing herself out of his chair, she shuffled back over to him and stood with her nose nearly brushing his neck. He didn’t smell like a dead person yet. She wrapped her arms around him, noticing that he was still warm, and thought about the times when they were twined around each other, two insane people who knew how to protect one another.
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The Ivory of the Elephant
Abbey Faith Serena
In the Victorian era,
there were prostitutes—many,
who, walking toward their sexed-up men,
trod over oriental rugs designed with undulating swirls
made from fine, gold silk.
The walls surrounding them were papered with ivory-colored,
abstract shapes
and deep red birds that appeared to be in movement,
although they were all stuck in one place.
The hue of the buildings in which they lived were chosen
by owners who claimed that color could, indeed,
affect one’s mood.
Red, supposedly, was the color of intimacy and arousal.
The gold silk was to make the patrons think of luxury,
make them believe that they weren’t inside of a brick building
on the west side of London,
or broken-down soldiers during wartime America,
paying to have sex with women who hadn’t been their age
for about thirty or forty years,
but were instead within the lavishly expensive corridors
of a manor house.
Of the ivory, the prostitutes were never sure.
Perhaps it was more for themselves than the men,
to remind them that a precious part of them was being torn away
with every man that pumped inside of them,
just like the elephant,
which dies in the process of giving up the one thing
that man desires from it.
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A Runaway
Ana Vidosavljevic
It all started when I was 7. As far as I remember, my parents were fighting and arguing all the time. They couldn’t talk normally, actually, I think they couldn’t stand each other. I wonder how and why they stayed together and why in the first place they had got married. Well, maybe the first few years before I was born, things had been different between them. By the way, they named me Igor, but that is not so important for this story.
Just a day after my 7th birthday, there was a big fight between them. They were yelling, breaking cups, plates, bowls, throwing at each other chairs and storming that it seemed the whole house was shaking. I had enough and decided to run away from that house. I packed, in my small school backpack, some things I couldn’t leave behind. For a seven-year-old kid, the treasures are his favorite toy, book, half-eaten chocolate, basketball cap of his favorite team, a pair of socks and a rain coat. Luckily, it was spring so I didn’t have to worry about cold weather. I didn’t have any plan where to go and I just went out and started walking along the main road. It was the late afternoon and after 15 minutes of walk, I realized that it would get dark soon. But I kept walking. On the way, I met some of the people from our hometown and politely wished them good afternoon and it seemed no one noticed that I was running away. I even met my friend and his mum. They were probably on the way to the hospital since that day at school he was not feeling well and the teacher called his mum. When I met them his eyes were red and his nose was running and he was carrying a handkerchief. After 30 minutes of walking, I left my hometown. I passed by the shoes factory and petrol station and continued walking towards villages that we often passed when we went to visit our cousins in the big city which was just half an hour by car far from our hometown. But on foot, it would probably take much much longer. I remember that I was already maybe even half a way to the big city when it started getting dark. It must have been dangerous walking along the road with not many street lights since cars were stopping and people were asking me if I got lost or need a ride, but I told them that I was fine and that my house was in the first village from there and my parents didn’t let me enter a car of people I didn’t know. So they would just leave me alone and continue driving. I must have been walking for more than 2 hours and I was getting tired and thirsty. I realized that, stupid me, I didn’t bring any water. But luckily, I had some pocket money. I saw a small shop not that far from the main road, at the entrance to some village. I turned away from the main road and I went to the shop to buy some water. The girl who worked there seemed surprised since she probably knew everyone in the village and she didn’t know me. She asked me where I was going and I told her I was going to visit my grandma in the village next to this one. She seemed like not believing my story but she didn’t say anything. I bought the bottle of water and continued walking. Finally, I started feeling tiredness kicking me. I was looking around and couldn’t see any place where I could sleep. There were just big houses in distance and nothing else next to the road, so I continued walking. Another half an hour of walking and I couldn’t stand it any longer. Finally, I saw some shack next to the main road. It was a bit spooky and all in ruins but I just needed a place to hide and roof over my head in case it started raining. I opened the door and put my rain coat on the ground next to the open door. I decided to sleep next to the open door just in case. I fell asleep immediately and I woke up very early in the morning when the sun started creeping through the open door. I ate the rest of the chocolate I had and continued walking along the road. But not for long. After five minutes of walking, a car stopped next to me and I saw my parents and a police officer in it. What can I say?! My running away was unsuccessful and when we got home, my father slapped me few times pretty hard but instead of me, my mother was crying until evening.
My next running away from home happened when I was 12. My father taught me to ride a motor bike. He had some old motor bike that he used to ride around the town and after begging him every day, he finally accepted to teach me how to ride it. It was pretty easy and after few days I got so confident that I drove it too fast. I know it was stupid but I was only 12. My mum was not happy that the father let me drive it alone and they fought over it. At the end of summer, my father came home very late and he was very drunk. I was in my room getting ready to sleep when I heard him and mother yelling. Then, someone hit someone else and shouting became even worse. Again, there were broken glasses, slammed door and a lot of yelling. I couldn’t stand it. I sneaked out of my bed, put on my jeans, T-shirt and jacket, took my backpack and packed few chocolate bars and a bottle of water, another T-shirt, my reading glasses, the book I was reading and I went to the garage. I pulled out my dad’s motor bike and waited when the shouting was loud enough to start it. I was almost sure both my mother and father didn’t hear me starting the engine since their yelling prevailed over other sounds. I started driving toward the center of our town. I didn’t have any specific plan where to go. I just wanted to ride. It made me feel so free. It distracted me from thinking about anything. I felt as if my brain had been empty, no thoughts, no thinking, no pressure, no headache. Just wind in my face. But I guess I was not focused on the road. And the last thing I remember from that drive was the tree in front of me. After that I woke up in hospital. They told me I was lucky since I did hit the tree but I was not driving fast so I ended up only with a broken arm. It was not very successful attempt to run away.
When I was 17, I finally finished high school and I decided to go to the university in the furthest city north from my hometown. That was not the most beautiful city and the university was not the best one but I needed to go somewhere far far far away from everything that I had known and that had surrounded me the last 17 years. I got the scholarship and moved there. During the first year of my studies I came to my hometown once in few months, but then those visits became less frequent. My parents didn’t push me to visit them either, so everything was fine for all of us. After I had finished my studies, I found a decent job in the same city and stayed there. One rainy day, after work, my mother called me. She told me that the father had passed away. He had been drinking too much the last few years. Luckily, I was not there to witness his alcohol-fuelled outbursts. But poor mum. She was the victim of his craziness and violence. I felt guilty that I had decided to run away. But I couldn’t help myself. Running away was in my blood. I just couldn’t stay. I couldn’t explain that. I couldn’t stand staying with people for a long time. I couldn’t stand getting attached. I felt like I had been trapped, or I had been in prison, or shackled.
Every girl I started dating was pretty and nice. Anyway, I was not a womanizer. I dated only few women. However, after I left my hometown I was almost always surrounded by nice people. But the moment I felt a girl started getting attached to me or I started having feelings for her, I would get scared. And I would leave her. Or I would just start avoiding her. It was not something that I really wanted but some animal instinct, something inborn or programmed in me pushed me to do that, to run away. And no matter how much I liked the girl, that feeling to run away, to break free, to be alone, unattached and uncommitted was stronger than anything else.
There was one girl that I particularly liked and loved. Her name was Silvia. We dated for a few months and I started feeling that I really liked her. As the time was passing by, we started seeing each other more often. But then she also started calling me almost every day, and I flipped. I couldn’t stand that. I got scared and I started avoiding her. The more I avoided her, the more persistent she was. Silvia was leaving me messages that I never replied to. She was asking my friends if they had seen me. And then she even started waiting for me in front of my building. I was getting crazy and I decided to change the apartment. I rented a small apartment on the totally opposite side of the city from my previous place. I couldn’t understand why she was so persistent. Couldn’t she get it? How come she didn’t realize that I didn’t want to see her?! It took her few months to stop chasing me. When I started slowly forgetting her, one day, in a park, in the center of the city I saw her. And I was shocked. She was not the same! She was bigger, not fatter, just her stomach bulged. Silvia was pregnant! And it stuck me! She had been so persistent in talking to me and meeting me because she had wanted to tell me the news! I was frozen and couldn’t move. I was just standing there and I knew she saw me and saw my shock. But she didn’t come to me. She turned around and went in the opposite direction. I was probably standing there for more than half an hour with a lost face expression, since an older woman approached me and asked me if I needed some help.
The next few days I couldn’t eat or sleep. I called my mother and I told her about the baby. She seemed not listening to my outcry for help. She was too excited that she would become a grandma. She was like a parrot repeating the same things over and over again: “;Oh, Igor! It is amazing! It is wonderful! I will be a grandma!”
I had no one else to share my fear, anxiety, and confusion with. I was walking every day marathon distances hoping that these longs walks would give me an answer what to do. I was sitting in a park watching children playing and no matter how funny and interesting they were, they were someone else’s children. The fact that I would have my own child who would turn my life into a prison of fatherhood and family life, into some kind of bond, dependence, commitment, scared the crap out of me. On the other hand, how could I have been such an idiot and leave Silvia alone to raise a child?! One evening, I decided to go to Silvia’s house and see her. I didn’t find a solution for the whole situation and I didn’t know what to do but I just wanted to see her. Before leaving my apartment I drank a few glasses of vodka. I needed alcohol to help me cope with that situation. When I came in front of Silvia’s house, I stayed in front of it for 10 minutes thinking what to say and do. I still didn’t figure it out. Then I knocked on her door. She opened the door and the wave of surprise hit her face. She was holding the door knob and probably hesitating if she should shout the door in my face or let me in.
Finally, she let me come in. I sat in a chair and asked her how she was. She didn’t answer, just have me a scornful look. There was a moment of silence and then I began apologizing and telling her that I was scared of commitments and attachments. I wanted to explain to her what it meant to me to get attached to someone. I really wanted to describe how hard it was for me, but I failed because the words couldn’t describe it. She seemed ignorant to my explanation and somehow distant as if thinking about something else. When I stopped talking, because I understood that she didn’t care for my words, she told me that I had no obligation to accept the child. She decided to take care of it alone. I was looking at her and Silvia seemed so cold while telling me that. I told her that I wanted to try to take care of it as well. I told her I was not sure if I could be a good father but that I was willing to try. She looked through the opened window and didn’t say anything. After few minutes of complete silence, she told me she had to think about if she wanted me in her and her baby’s life. I said “;alright” and stood up from the chair to leave. While I was on the way to the door, she called me and told me that I had hurt her and she was not sure if she wanted to forgive me. I saw tears in her eyes and I felt awful. I told her I was sorry and I left. I was not sure what I was thinking when I told Silvia I would like to take care of baby as well. But I know that seeing her so fragile, distant, sad and lonely made me put some efforts to try not to run away. The next day, Silvia called me and said she had thought about what I had said and she wanted to try again. She said the baby would need a father and since I, Igor, was its biological father, she couldn’t think about anyone better than me to take care of it. I was not sure if she was right. I knew nothing about babies and I was not sure I would fulfill the role of a father. But I said I would try, so I had to try.
After few days, Silvia moved to my apartment. It seemed strange to live with someone after so many years of loneliness. In the beginning, I couldn’t stand the idea that I had to share my sacred place with her and going back home after work was a bit unpleasant, but after few weeks, I got used to it. Silvia also put efforts not to disturb too much my daily routine, so she made sure not to be too present everywhere and she gave me a lot of space. She would prepare meals before I came back home and then retreat to the bedroom leaving me the spaciousness of living room. She knew I liked watching TV while lying down on a couch. She didn’t talk much either. It seemed as if she had understood my weirdness, as if she had realized my deformity and tried to adjust herself to it and I loved her even more because of that. I started thinking that probably she was the only person who understood me. And it was not easy, since often I didn’t understand myself.
Then, the big day came. Silvia had a long and difficult labor. It was a cesarean delivery. They had to cut her. But a baby girl was healthy and fine. We named her Dori. How did I feel? It was a mix of shock, or better terror, and happiness. Dori was crying all the time. She was purple and pretty ugly but there was something spectacular in the whole process of being a part of the creation of new life. And this baby girl was part of my blood, skin, cells. I didn’t know how to behave in the hospital but I know that there was a smile on my face. And Silvia, my unwed wife was happy. I tried to hold Dori but my hands were shaking so after a minute I gave up.
After a week, when we brought Dori to our apartment, a new scary part of my life began. Dori was sleeping during the day and crying during the night. I tried to ignore her and let Silvia take care of her, but even her mother was struggling to calm her down. We had our nerves on edge. I couldn’t stand listening to Dori crying. And I told Silvia I would spend some time in the hotel not that far from our apartment. She was upset and started accusing me of being a lousy father. She said she had known this would happen. I told her that would be only temporarily and that after few weeks, I would come back home. She said that the baby would not disappear after few weeks. And it was the end of our conversation.
My days in the hotel were like a holiday. It was a real vacation for me. And I couldn’t stop thinking that for the last 9 months of my life with someone else I had lost myself. Only when I was alone did I feel alive and at peace with myself. Maybe I was not meant to share my life with anyone else. These thoughts started harassing me and I stayed in the hotel much longer than I had initially planned. I spent 2 months there. Finally, I picked up courage to go back to the apartment. But the next days were unbearable. While before Dori was born, Silvia had done everything to make me feel comfortable in that apartment, this time, she was putting efforts to annoy me and piss me off. She was loud, sloppy and had some weird emotional outbursts. One moment, she was crying and the next she laughed like a maniac for no reason. I started feeling like a stranger in my own apartment. I tried to talk to her, but she seemed not willing to listen to me. She talked all the time, actually shouted and told me that I could leave any time because she didn’t need me. And that’s what I did.
One early morning, when both she and Dori were sleeping, I packed the necessary things I wanted to bring with me and I left. I didn’t have plans, schedule, idea where I was going. I sat in my car and started driving. I left the city and continued toward the small town not that far. I found a cheap motel and stayed there two nights. Finally, I pulled myself together and started looking for jobs on the Internet. And I found one! In a foreign country, on the other continent! But that was what I needed and wanted: to run away from everything and everyone. I applied and after two days I got an answer. They scheduled me a Skype interview and I got the job! I was supposed to leave within three days. As far as I was concerned, I could have left the same moment they informed me I had got the job.
The morning before my departure, I called Silvia and I told her that I was leaving but that I would keep sending money for her and Dori every month. Silvia didn’t want to talk and she didn’t say even a word. She just hung up the phone.
I did what I had promised. Every month, I sent the same amount of money and I knew it was more than enough for the two of them to lead a normal life. And I also knew that the money couldn’t make up for my absence from my daughter’s life but I didn’t know any better. I was a sad man with a strange deformity which was irreparable.
The new country, new climate, new language, new people. I got what I wanted. I was a complete stranger in a new place. No one to stifle me, to ask me to stay, to look for me. But my heart was heavy. I knew that I left my child. That thought forever cursed me. It tortured me. But I also knew that I would never be a good father. And I wished Silvia would find someone else who would be a decent father to Dori.
Few years passed and I never called them to ask how they were. Yes, I know. I was the last living bastard. Then, my cousin called me one day. He told me that my mother passed away. I was sad and I even felt like crying but my self-sufficiency taught me not to cry over anyone. I knew she had been probably the only person who had loved me the way I was and never tried to change me or judge me. And she died. I packed my backpack, booked the first flight and went to her funeral. I didn’t spend the night in my hometown. Instead, I went to the city where I used to live and where my daughter now lived. Somehow, I believed and felt that the two of them still lived in the same apartment. And some strange curiosity, guilt and sorrow pushed me to walk the streets nearby. It was a sunny afternoon, and kids were playing in the park. I found an empty bench far from people and sat there watching the kids playing. Somehow I hoped I would see my daughter. Half an hour passed and I didn’t see her. It was silly of me to think that she would just appear there because I wanted to see her. Finally, I stood up and started walking toward the bus station. And then, I saw them: Dori, who was a beautiful 5-year-old blonde girl in a purple dress, Silvia, who hadn’t changed much and a man in a jeans and dark blue T-shirt. The three of them looked so happy. They seemed like a happy family coming back from the zoo or cinema. They were giggling and smiling. First, I was confused by the scene I had witnessed but then I felt some weird dose of happiness and comfort that the two of them were not alone, that they had the man who was able to take care of them. He was probably everything I was not able to be: a father, a husband, a lover. It made me even more deformed, since I couldn’t believe that I was happy because some other man replaced me. What a weirdo and freak I was! But I was happy, indeed.
I went back to the country which then I called my home and I continued my simple hermit life of non-attachments, simplicity, quietness, loneliness and work.
Many many years passed. On my fiftieth birthday, I got a birthday card. The only birthday card I had received in the last 25 years. It was a shocking experience. Someone was thinking about me even if I didn’t think much about anyone in particular. And probably the only person I thought about once in a while was my daughter but she probably didn’t know that I existed. I doubted her mother told her about me. But I was wrong. The card was simple, with blue and white stripes and a small teddy bear who was holding a birthday present in his arms in the right corner of the card. It said: “;Happy birthday dad! Wishing you a lot of love and happiness!” I was holding it in my hand for who knows how long. I can’t explain how I felt. I just know that unwanted tears started filling my eyes and when my eyes were not enough to hold all the tear flood, the tears started falling down on the birthday card and within a minute, the card was all wet and the letters smeared. I let the tears fall down and I sat in the chair with my face buried in my hands. I don’t know how long I stayed in that position, but I know that when I finally stood up it was pitch dark outside. The rest of the day I spent drinking vodka, and when I was so drunk that I couldn’t see anything in front of me except some blurred images, I guess I fell asleep. The next day was a working day and somehow I managed to pull myself together, take shower and decided to walk to my office. I had a bad hangover and didn’t feel capable of driving a car. Even while I was walking, I still saw blurred images and my balance was not great. I was staggering, swaying a little and even though the thought of calling my boss and asking him to take a sick day crossed my mind, I didn’t feel like spending a day in the apartment. So I decided to go to work anyway. I was going slowly since I couldn’t walk fast. Then, something weird happened. I started having a headache. The pain in the right side of my head and whole body was getting more and more intense. It seemed that with every new breath the pain was getting stronger, and at one moment, I felt that it paralyzed the parts of my body. I wanted to ask someone for help but it seemed that I was not able to speak. Actually, my muscles started getting weak and motionless, and the next thing I remember was blackness all around me.
I woke up in a hospital room. First, I didn’t know where I was and it took me some time to remember who I was. My brain was working slowly. I couldn’t remember many things: where from I was, what language I speak, how old I was. Somehow, it took me so long to remember these. I wished I had had a remote to speed up my brain. Then, I realized that I couldn’t move my left arm and left leg. My left side seemed paralyzed. There was that sharp stabbing pain all around my chest and my vision was still a bit blurred. The doctor came and told me I had had a pretty bad stroke. He told me I couldn’t talk and I had difficulties moving the left side of my body. Luckily, my right side was still fine. But he told me that I would have to spend some time in hospital since they were afraid that my condition could get worse. They were afraid that I might have another stroke and wanted to monitor my condition. Since I couldn’t talk, the doctor asked me to write down if I needed anything. And he left me a notebook and a pen. I didn’t know what I was feeling. I guess I felt pain and numbness at the same time. And I felt like crying but for some reason the tears wouldn’t fall down. I was all alone and I asked myself: wasn’t that what I had always wanted? To be left alone. Well, I got it! I didn’t have anyone to be there with me and I didn’t want anyone I knew to see me in that condition. But I couldn’t stop thinking about Dori. Actually, she was the only one I wished had been there. However, I would have never called her. I would not like her to see me and meet me in that condition. However, I felt that I owed her explanation of who her biological father was, how he felt, how he grew up, how he ran away from everything and everyone constantly through his life. I wanted her to know all that. So I took the notebook and the pen and I started writing. I couldn’t write fast. I was writing maybe half a page per day, and here I am now still writing but finally finishing what I wanted her to know. My hands are shaking and I am so happy that I have managed to more or less write everything I wanted to tell her. And again, maybe some parts are not very well-written and I am not sure she will understand how I have felt my whole life, I am afraid that she will not understand my deformity, my devious character, my distortions. But I honestly hope she will. That is the only thing that comforts me. And I feel that I will probably not be here for long and that is not at all a scary thing. What scares me is that Dori will never find out that I love her. And I have always loved her in my weird way. Maybe I have never been a normal human being but my feelings for her are as strong as any father could have for a child. Maybe even stronger. No matter that this father failed as the father, he has always loved his daughter.
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Ana Vidosavljevic short biography:
-graduated from the University of Philology (English Language and Literature), Bachelor’s Degree
-graduated from the University of Political Sciences (International Relations), Master’s Degree
-worked/works as a teacher, marketing manager, spa manager, translator, interpreter, surf and stand-up paddle board instructor.
-an ocean lover, loves surfing, swimming, everything that allows her to be in the water.
-writes poems and short stories.
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knowing
Janet Kuypers
haiku 3/1/14
fallen to my knees,
I can feel my chest cave in
knowing it’s my time
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Visit the Kuypers Twitter page for short poems— join http://twitter.com/janetkuypers.
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading (C) her poem knowing from her “Partial Nudity” book release feature live 6/18/14 at Chicago’s open mic the Café Gallery
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading (S) her poem knowing from her “Partial Nudity” book release feature live 6/18/14 at Chicago’s open mic the Café Gallery
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See Twitter video of Janet Kuypers reading her haiku knowing from Down in the Dirt’s v137 Scars Publications book The Hive 5/30/16.
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See a Vine video of Janet Kuypers reading her twitter-length haiku “knowing” from Scars Publications’ Down in the Dirt Jan./June 2016 issue collection book “a Stormy Beginning” as a looping JKPoetryVine video 12/12/16 (Austin; Samsung Galaxy S7).
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See a Vine video of Janet Kuypers reading her twitter-length poem “knowing” from Scars’ 2016 collection book “the Chamber” @ Craft Pride bar as a looping JKPoetryVine video 12/31/16 (filmed in Austin Texas from a Samsung Galaxy S7).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers 12/17/17 reading every poem in her “100 Haikus” book reading at the AIPF booth / 2017 Awesmic City Expo, including much, out, can’t get you, of his thirst, know, pleading, coincidence?, found haiku, close, defenses, destroy, floor, hold, forever, jumped, study, Even with no Wish Bone, addiction, stagger, everyone, last, bruised, organs, choke, ends, explosions, fit, fought, heaviness, extinct, feel, escape, opening, pant, strike, civil, found, need, kill, kindness, run, pet, John’s Mind, humans, mirror, elusive, keep, greatest, instead, Arsenic and Syphilis, life (Periodic Table haiku), life (2000), timing, Two Not Mute Haikus, He’s An Escapist, Ending a Relationship, nightmares, knife, free, years, groove, errors, job, jobless, out there, gone, console, form, knowing, oil, cage, evil, faith, guide, behind, sort, barbed, difference, predator, blood, easy, existence, judge, fog, upturn, Translation (2014 haiku), sting, enemies, Deity Discipline (stretched haiku), Ants and Crosses, energy, knees, force, you, this is only a test, misogyny, ourselves, key, scorches (Lumix 2500).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers 12/17/17 reading every poem in her “100 Haikus” book reading at the AIPF booth / 2017 Awesmic City Expo, including much, out, can’t get you, of his thirst, know, pleading, coincidence?, found haiku, close, defenses, destroy, floor, hold, forever, jumped, study, Even with no Wish Bone, addiction, stagger, everyone, last, bruised, organs, choke, ends, explosions, fit, fought, heaviness, extinct, feel, escape, opening, pant, strike, civil, found, need, kill, kindness, run, pet, John’s Mind, humans, mirror, elusive, keep, greatest, instead, Arsenic and Syphilis, life (Periodic Table haiku), life (2000), timing, Two Not Mute Haikus, He’s An Escapist, Ending a Relationship, nightmares, knife, free, years, groove, errors, job, jobless, out there, gone, console, form, knowing, oil, cage, evil, faith, guide, behind, sort, barbed, difference, predator, blood, easy, existence, judge, fog, upturn, Translation (2014 haiku), sting, enemies, Deity Discipline (stretched haiku), Ants and Crosses, energy, knees, force, you, this is only a test, misogyny, ourselves, key, scorches (Lumix T56).
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Nice Guys Finish Last
Beau Sherman
A headache, eight stitches, and a tooth. The headache could be dealt with; the stitches on his face, an improvement most would say, but old bicuspid number three, now that he was going to miss. Stanley chuckled as he reached up and opened the cupboard door. Aw, no aspirin left. Well, a bag of ice would do just fine; he had plenty of ice, and plenty of Ziplocs. He wrapped his ice bag with a paper towel and placed it just below his receding hairline atop the mountainous, rosy lump. There, feeling better already.
It wasn’t like Stanley couldn’t defend himself; growing up at the orphanage, one had to get tough or get lucky, and Stanley was anything but lucky, so he got tough. But these sly muggers had snuck up and got him from behind; next thing he knew, he was lying face down in a cold, dark alley. Why they chose him over anyone else, the world would never know, but whatever the reason, they chose the wrong guy. Stanley’s wallet had been completely devoid of money save for a little pocket change, as it was most nights, and the muggers took their frustration out on him. At least they didn’t steal the puppy dog chow he had just bought for little old Nibs. He poured some for the pup and then resigned himself to the scruffy couch he had gotten at a garage sale. It was stained, had springs poking out everywhere, and was not in the least bit comfortable, but he had gotten it for cheap, and after a while he had grown attached to it. He flicked on the television with his remote and relaxed with the ice bag on his aching forehead, preparing for another peaceful night of seclusion. Just him and Nibs, like always. The tiny pup hopped up onto the couch and curled up bedside him.
Stanley couldn’t quite discern at what point he had dozed off. He was just sitting there watching television with his icepack on his head and Nibs’s little furry body curled up beside him when his drowsiness took over. He awoke in a similar fashion, not knowing how it had happened. It could have been when his ice-bag, now just water, fell to the floor, or when Nibs changed position, but what Stanley did know was that he was definitely awake; he never had a migraine in his dreams before. When he heard a strange sound coming from outside his trailer, though, he reconsidered. Maybe he was dreaming.
It sounded kind of like the purr of an engine, but not quite, and it also seemed like the whistling of the wind, but not exactly, and whatever it was, it emitted a bright light through the windows and caused the trailer to shake and Nibs to whimper and nuzzle his little snout beneath Stanley’s leg. The startling sound only lasted a few seconds, however, and then it died down and the bright light faded away. That was peculiar, thought Stanley, but thought nothing more of it. “Never fret,” was his motto, “things of the past are just that, past, and should be left there.” But this little bit of past didn’t feel like staying there. Instead, it started up again. Stanley’s trailer shook, Nibs whimpered, bright lights flashed through the windows. What was going on? The ruckus continued and Stanley began to get worried. The neighbors would have to notice at some point. All the light, noise, and shaking had to wake someone up. But then the noise died down and the lights began to fade. The rumbling ceased, and all was quiet and peaceful once again.
Stanley was quiet for a few moments, listening, waiting for it to start back up, but it didn’t. “What do you suppose that was all about?” he asked the puppy held tightly in his thick arms. Nibs whimpered in reply.
A moment later, Stanley heard three soft knocks on his door. What time was it? Two o-clock? Who would be knocking on his door at this time? Stanley didn’t know what to make of it. Should he answer it? Should he ignore it, and maybe whoever it was would go away? He looked down at Nibs for some advice. Nibs always knew what to do. The look he was giving right now told Stanley that he should answer the door; it would be rude not to, and if it was someone looking for trouble, they couldn’t be very good at it to come into a trailer park at two a.m. and start knocking on doors. On the other hand, that could mean they’re very good at it. But what if it was a neighbor, coming to ask or explain what the strange ruckus was? Stanley left Nibs on the worn-out couch and approached the door. He waited a second, looking back at Nibs for reassurance that this was the right decision, then opened it.
Standing there in the night, dressed in dark clothing, was a nice looking young man with mousy hair and grey eyes that seemed filled with mist. Not a neighbor at all. “Hello, Stanley,” he said with a pleasantly soft, warm voice. “It is an honor to finally meet you.”
Stanley hesitated. “Uh, may I help you, mister...?”
“Right,” said the stranger, “you may call me Mr. Right. And I have traveled a long way to see you, Stanley Wilbreck.”
He knew Stanley’s name? Now that was peculiar. What was also peculiar was that he should happen to show up at Stanley’s door so soon after that strange ruckus. Could it be he who had so greatly disturbed Stanley’s home, not to mention the rest of the trailer park? “Um, I’m sorry,” said Stanley, “I don’t mean to sound impolite, but do I know you?”
“No need to be sorry, Stanley,” said the young stranger. “I have something of the utmost importance to discuss with you. May I come in?”
At first, Stanley was so flabbergasted at the stranger’s response that he was unable to speak. Then he realized that he had been a little rude. “I’m sorry. Mr. Right, was it? Come on in and take a seat. You must be freezing out there.”
“Thank you, Stanley,” said the young Mr. Right as he stepped into Stanley’s trailer.
As Stanley pulled out a chair for his guest at the little table where he had his meals, he couldn’t help but contemplate the awkwardness of inviting a complete stranger into his home in the middle of the night. This stranger couldn’t possibly be here to mean him harm; his luck was bad, but not that bad. Was it? To be attacked twice in just a few hours? Nibs watched from the couch with his head tilted to one side and his eyes bright and curious as Stanley sat down across the table from the young guest. The stranger didn’t fit the typical serial killer profile, that’s for sure. So what did he want with Stanley? “Well, Mr. Right, what can I do for you?”
“Actually, Stanley, I believe it is more of a question of what I can do for you,” replied the stranger.
Oh boy, if Stanley hadn’t heard that a thousand times over. Now it made sense. “A salesman, eh?”
Mr. Right smiled. “Of a sort, I suppose you could say; only I’m not here to sell you anything, but simply to offer.”
Stanley almost chuckled but managed to catch himself before he let it out. All salesmen say they’re not selling anything; they say you’ve been pre-selected to win or that you’re eligible for their services or some other baloney. Now, Stanley didn’t presume that Mr. Right was a liar, or a bad person, he was probably just doing his job, trying to make ends meet like the average Joe. Stanley remembered when he turned eighteen and was released from the orphanage, he knew better than anyone the hardships of trying to find one’s place in the world. He didn’t blame this guy for coming here at two o’clock in the morning; maybe he was just struggling to fill his sales quota by tomorrow. In that case, Stanley might be able to buy whatever he was selling, help the poor guy out.
“Now Stanley,” said Mr. Right, “you know that you’re in no financial status to be throwing out money like that for charity.”
“I know,” said Stanley, “But you just seem so...” Wait. Did he just say what Stanley was thinking?
“So...desperate, Stanley?”
“How did you”
“I have traveled a long way, Stanley. I’m here to help you, not refinance your home. Although, I am here about your residence.”
“My residence?”
“Yes, Stanley. I am offering to relocate it.”
“What? What do you mean? To where?”
There was a silent pause in which the two men just looked at each other, the nonchalant Mr. Right with his mousy hair and misty eyes, and the befuddled Stanley all bruised and battered. Then Mr. Right spoke, and the situation changed dramatically.
“To my planet, Stanley: thirty-thousand light-years away.”
Right. To his planet: thirty-thousand light-years away. Well, at least Stanley could tell his friendswait, scratch that, he didn’t have any friends, at least he could tell anyone he could get to listen that he had an interesting night. This poor guy must have escaped the loony bin and had been wandering around trailer parks telling whoever he could that he wanted to take them to his planet. Stanley restrained himself from chuckling; they’ll call the guy The Trailer Park Abductor.
“Actually, Stanley,” said the grinning loony. “I’m not here to abduct you. I’m inviting you to come of your own free will.”
“Right,” said Stanley as he slowly got out of his chair. “To this planet of yours?” He slowly made his way over to the phone.
“That’s correct,” said the insane stranger, with a wide, amused smile.
“Well, that sounds great,” Stanley told him as he began dialing. “I’m just going to call my friends and let them know I’m moving, ok?”
“But you don’t have any friends, Stanley.”
He stopped dialing. “Of course I have friends.”
“Stanley, you haven’t had a friend in years. And even then, they weren’t real friends.”
“Well, I have to let my family know then...that I’m moving.” And Stanley began to dial once more.
“Stanley.”
“What?”
“You have no family.”
He dropped the phone; it swayed as it dangled from the hook. “I have family.”
There was a pause. “I apologize. You’re absolutely right. You have Nibs here.” And Mr. Right motioned toward the canine on the couch, who looked back and forth from Stanley to Mr. Right a few times and then barked softly.
“That’s right,” said Stanley, “he’s my family.”
“He can come too, you know.”
Stanley snapped out of it and shook his head. “Now, listen. I’m sorry but I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“I will, Stanley,” Mr. Right told him, “I will. But first, if you don’t mind me asking, how did you get that gash on your face? The one on your left cheekbone that’s all stitched up. And that big, red bump on your forehead.”
Stanley lifted his arm up instinctively and touched the bump. It stung. “Got mugged.”
“Who did the stitches? I know you couldn’t pay to have a doctor do it.”
“I did it. I got a mirror; I don’t need a doctor.”
“And you didn’t fill out a police report because...?”
Stanley hesitated. “Well, they didn’t steal much. I don’t think they realized I had nothing to steal until after they got a good look at me. Must have made them angry, going through all that trouble, so they cut me. Wouldn’t have let them do it, but they caught me off guard and knocked me on the head.” Stanley chuckled and looked at the floor. “They were probably just poor and starving. Needed some money, that’s all. Just angry at the world for dealing them a bad hand.”
Mr. Right gazed at Stanley and smiled. Nibs whimpered, hopped off the couch, and hurried over to his master. Stanley picked up the pup and held him in his arms as he returned his gaze to Mr. Right. “Now, I’m afraid I have to ask you to leave my trailer.”
Mr. Right sighed and reached into his pocket. “Very well, Stanley. But may I ask that you do something for me first?” He pulled out something very small. “If you would be so kind, could you place this on your forehead, somewhere around that red bump.”
Stanley, with little Nibs in his arms, examined the tiny object on the tip of Mr. Right’s index finger. “Looks like one of those little wart remover things. This bump isn’t a wart.”
“It is not a wart remover, Stanley. It will not harm you in any way, shape, or form. It will stick to your forehead slightly, but you will be able to remove it at any time.”
Stanley took the tiny Wart Remover-like pad and examined it more closely. The little thing didn’t seem like it could possibly be dangerous, and hell, if it would get this loony to get out of his trailer, why not? He placed the tiny round pad on the center of his forehead while he held Nibs in one arm, and the thing stuck like glue. It was a tiny, cold dot on his skin. He waited for something to happen. Nothing. “There. Now, will you please leave?”
Mr. Right smiled. “All in good time.” He pulled out a small remote device. “Do you remember the orphanage very well, Stanley?”
“What? Listen, I don’t know how you know all about me, but-”
“Could you do me a favor and try to remember a particular moment at the orphanage when you were little, Stanley, a moment where you saved another’s life?”
“Now, Mr. Right, I’m really sorry but it’s very late, and my neighbors”
“Very good, Stanley.” Mr. Right positioned his finger to press a button on the remote.
Stanley did a double take on the device. “What are you doing? I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to, Stanley. You needed only to remember.” Mr. Right pressed the button. There was a beep.
A moment later the world changed. Shapes blurred and colors mixed. Nibs began to bark and Stanley held the pup closer to his chest, aghast at what was happening around him. Shapes and colors became duller and duller until everything except Stanley, Nibs, and Mr. Right was just a messy blot of insipid hues.
“What’s happening?” Stanley exclaimed in terror.
“Just wait,” Mr. Right replied calmly.
The ugly blot that was the world began to form new colorsgreen, white, blue, and shapes began forming and becoming solid. Next thing Stanley knew, it was daytime, and he, Nibs, and Mr. Right were standing outside a large multi-windowed building. Young children were running around everywhere. They were playing tag, swinging on the swing sets, climbing monkey bars, laughing, enjoying the afternoon.
“This is...” Stanley began in astonishment.
“That’s right, your orphanage,” Mr. Right finished.
“But...but how?” Stanley struggled to contain Nibs’s wiggling body. The excited pup was begging to run around the rich grass and play with the children. “I recognize some of these kids.” His eyes widened with realization. “This is 25 years ago! We went back in time?”
“No,” said Mr. Right, “this is but a memory. Your memory, to be precise. Look around, can you tell which one of your memories it is?”
Stanley observed his surroundings. It wasn’t long before his wide, bedazzled eyes caught sight of a group of boys kneeling by a cluster of bushes. “Yes, I know which one it is. But how are you doing this?”
“You really haven’t figured it out yet? Did you forget about that tiny, cold dot on your forehead?”
Stanley reached up and felt the little round pad. “This little thing?” He didn’t take it off, but let his arm return to holding his puppy. He looked at Mr. Right with both fear and amazement. “You were telling the truth. You are from another planet.”
Mr. Right’s smile widened pleasantly. “I always tell the truth, Stanley, and I’m never wrong. Now, let’s go see what those boys are doing.”
“I know what they’re doing,” Stanley told him as they approached the group of kneeling children. The boys had just captured a praying mantis and were preparing to unleash it in front of a garden spider. Stanley was about ready to protest, when a thought occurred to him. “If this is just a memory, does that mean they can’t see or hear us?”
“That is correct,” replied Mr. Right. “So it would do no good to try and stop them.”
The boys released the praying mantis and began to cheer. Suddenly, a short, skinny boy with wild, scruffy hair ran up and grabbed the battling insects. The other boys hollered and called him names as he took off with the two bugs.
“You were pretty brave for a seven-year-old,” said Mr. Right as he and Stanley followed Stanley’s younger self over to a hedge.
“Thanks,” Stanley replied, his attention on his younger self, who was placing the insects in separate parts of the hedge.
“Sorry about them,” Stanley’s seven-year-old self apologized to the two bugs. “Don’t blame them, though, they just get a little bored at the orphanage sometimes.” A second later he was shoved from behind by one of the very boys he was apologizing for, and fell face first into the hedge. Present day Stanley quickly pulled the little round pad off his head and a moment later he, Nibs, and Mr. Right were back in his trailer.
“What’s wrong, Stanley?” asked Mr. Right, but it was obvious that he knew the answer.
“Just painful childhood memories is all,” said Stanley.
“Are you referring to the beating you got from the other boys, or the allergic reaction you got from the spider bite?”
Stanley’s eyes strayed downwards and the pup in his arms whimpered softly. “Why did you show me that?”
Mr. Right sighed gently. “Because, Stanley, I wanted to show you why I have invited you to come live on my planet.”
Stanley waited for more but there was none. He raised his eyes to Mr. Right. “And...? I don’t get it. You feel sorry for me? You pity me? I know there are many other people on this planet who live harder lives than me.”
Mr. Right studied him for a moment, then spoke. “That may be true, Stanley, but I haven’t chosen you because of your poverty and hardships in life.”
“Then what did you choose me for!” Stanley exclaimed.
Mr. Right simply gazed into Stanley’s eyes, attempting to hint at the answer, but Stanley was too humble. “Do you remember that boy Ethan, the littlest boy at the orphanage?”
“Yes,” Stanley answered with suspicion written in his voice and painted in his eyes.
“Do you remember how he joined in with the other orphans in tormenting you whenever he got the chance, even though you stuck up for him whenever he got bullied, and you continued to stand up for him?”
“Yes, but we were just children.”
“Ah, well, what about after you left the orphanage, all the times you got the short end of the stick at work. You never complained once, but when someone else was mistreated, you stuck up for them. How many times have you lost your job after taking the blame for someone else’s mistake?”
“I don’t know. I don’t keep count. I just can’t stand seeing other people sad.”
“Like I said, Stanley, I didn’t choose you because of the hardships you’ve gone through, I chose you because of how you faced your hardships. I chose you because of your character, the honor and virtue within your heart. On my world, individuals from other worlds such as yourself, who possess those qualities, are revered beyond measure. Selflessness is the core of our belief system. Only the purest of souls may live among us; anything else is a risk to our society.”
Stanley took this all in. He had never thought of himself as virtuous or honorable. He looked down at Nibs in his arms, and looked into the pup’s eyes. Did he deserve such praise? No. There were billions of people on Earth, how could he have been pinpointed out of them all?
“You’re not the only one on Earth chosen to make the long journey to my home world, Stanley,” Mr. Right told him, knowing once more exactly what Stanley was thinking. “There are others. We have observed your planet long enough to find the ones who are worthy. Individuals such as you always shine the brightest. You, Stanley Wilbreck, shine brighter than a newborn star. Your eternal optimism brightens your light tenfold. You watched every child but yourself get adopted, but your hopes never dwindled. There was always the next day, and you were positive that you would be adopted. But you never were.”
Stanley’s eyes watered and Nibs whimpered sympathetically.
“You never had one honest friend that didn’t take advantage of your kindness, and you never had a family to share a meal with. Most would have fallen into deep depression ages ago, but you, Stanley, have the light that never fades.”
A single tear trickled down Stanley’s cheek. It stopped at the tip of his chin, then dropped onto Nibs’s snout. But it wasn’t the countless years of sorrow finally snuffing out his light; it wasn’t the decades of loneliness that forced that single tear out of his watery eye; it was the sudden, horrific thought entering his head that gave the final push needed to send that tear down his cheek, off his chin, and onto Nibs’s snout. “Mr. Right?” he asked.
“Yes, Stanley.”
“These ‘honorable’ people and me, you aren’t just offering us the opportunity to come live on your planet.” The thought had welled up inside of him without warning. The words clogged in his throat until he almost choked on them. Then he spat them out. “You’re offering us refuge.” It wasn’t a question. He knew it wasn’t.
Mr. Right’s pleasant smile faded away and he bowed his head. “I suppose telling you that my race just felt like having some new friendly company around wouldn’t suffice?”
“No,” Stanley uttered with regret. “I don’t think it would.”
“Very well. Yes. When my race predicts a planet’s destruction, and we are almost never wrong, we feel it is our obligation to give that planet’s worthy inhabitants a chance to live on, and save their race, if they are worthy. We have a large planet with plenty of room.”
Stanley’s fears were confirmed. “So Earth is definitely going to be destroyed? When?”
“She shall watch the life she gave birth to destroy her within the next decade.”
Stanley drifted over to his couch and collapsed onto its worn cushions. Nibs hopped out of his lap and curled up beside him. Stanley let out a long, unsteady sigh, and asked one more question. “So there is no hope for this planet at all?”
Mr. Right let out a similar sigh and said, “I wish there was, but I’m afraid not. The intelligent life on this planet is growing too powerful and too destructive. I am truly sorry. It is not easy to lose one’s home.”
Nibs rolled over and Stanley began scratching the pup’s belly. “No,” he said, “it isn’t.”
“It shouldn’t be a surprise, really. It shouldn’t take an advanced race of beings to predict this planet’s future. Many of the people on Earth are well aware of the destructive path their planet is on; they choose to ignore how close to the end they are.”
Stanley looked down at Nibs. The innocent animal was oblivious to the impending doom of his planet. He would never pee on an Earth bush again. Stanley smiled slightly; he couldn’t help cracking a joke, even at such news as this. Maybe that ability to make himself smile is what had kept him out of despair for so long.
Mr. Right watched Stanley for a few moments, then spoke. “Before you give me your answer, Stanley, would you like to see my planet?”
Stanley lifted his head and his eyebrows raised. “Ok.”
Mr. Right pulled out another Wart Remover-like pad and attached it to his own forehead. Then he took the remote back out of his pocket and clicked a button. Suddenly everything got brighter. Stanley squinted and covered his eyes for a moment, then they adjusted to the light and he looked upon a grand spectacle.
His couch was sitting on a grassy knoll. A little stream passed by the side of the couch and dropped off a cliff a little way ahead. Stanley’s eyes followed the stream to the cliff edge and caught sight of a city of dazzling beauty, on the far side of a great, emerald valley. The sky was serene with pink and orange hues, and the faint outline of two moons could be seen behind the golden spires of the city. Sleek, shiny vessels soared in the sky around the forest of towers. Stanley could hear the faint sound of laughter and joy in the tranquil valley. He hid his face for a moment and wiped away his tears. When he looked up he was back inside his trailer, and his little black television screen sat before him.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Mr. Right sighed.
“More than anything I have ever seen,” replied Stanley.
“So you have made a decision then?”
Stanley thought about all the children in the world who hadn’t been given a chance yet to make the right choices, and the ones who made the wrong choices only because they didn’t know better, or had never been shown any kindness by anyone. He blinked and wiped away his tears. “I have.”
Mr. Right gazed at Stanley, his eyes beaming with sympathy and admiration. “I understand,” he said, knowing he could not change the man’s mind. “Well, it was an immense pleasure to meet you, Stanley Wilbreck.”
Stanley got up from his couch to shake Mr. Right’s hand and see him off. “The pleasure is all mine, Mr. Right. Thank you for what you’ve shown me.” He led Mr. Right out of his trailer and into the cold, dark night. “There’s just one thing.”
“Yes, Stanley?”
“Could you take little Nibs here with you? He’s just a pup, and he won’t get very big, you know? He’s got his whole life ahead of him.”
Mr. Right smiled a pleasant smile and nodded. “Of course.”
Stanley kissed Nibs on the forehead and then handed his best and only friend over to Mr. Right.
“And don’t worry,” said Mr. Right, “because I know you are. There are other pups on my planet. Nibs won’t be lonely at all.”
“That’s good to know,” said Stanley, looking at Nibs, whose little beady eyes glazed over with drowsiness in the arms of this pleasant stranger. “That’s good to know.”
“Farewell, Stanley.”
“Take care.”
Stanley waved. There was a vibrational kind of humming that was nothing like an engine, and an unnatural whistling that could no way be the wind. There was bright light for a second, and then Mr. Right and Nibs were gone and the trailer park was once more as dark and quiet as the emptiness of space.
Stanley ambled up the steps back into his trailer and hunkered down on his couch. He leaned his head back and gazed at his crumbling ceiling. He needed to fix the place up. Maybe he would join the Peace Corps. Or Green Peace. Something with the word peace in it. Maybe he could save the world. If an alien could travel thousands of light years to visit a nobody like him, anything was possible, right?
Stanley lay back on his tattered old couch. He sneezed from some dust that kicked up from the cushions. He would miss Nibs.
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The Screaming Mime
Ron Richmond
If that mime doesn’t stop
Screaming at me,
I will be forced
To cut off his hands.
He just doesn’t understand
He’s nothing like me at all
Made his fortune signing to ghosts
Who can’t remember their names.
He argues with them all night long
stuttering, hands moving so fast,
I can’t sleep
Through the hollow silence.
Tongue tied by hangnails,
Arthritic knuckles
Popping and cracking like a Swahili ventriloquist,
I cringe with each fragmented thought.
If he throws out another dangling participle
I will be forced to remove it.
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Time traveler
Erin Farias
Light flickers like a snap catapulting me backwards
I’m a time traveler, traveling through layers of time and
scars
digging my way through tissue tiptoeing towards
escape when memory bolts
shock the air in my lungs
how I will it to exhale
and let go
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Circles
Roger G. Singer
Dreams are fragrances,
reminding us to remember
the vision, the voice departed,
the place of youth no longer
visited; the person we were,
but have changed.
Regrets are long. Promises
become minced oaths
and lies hurt us the most.
Attempts to make the right
from the wrongs are absorbed
each day; rumbling of strengths
no more.
To take back or retreat is the
stone too great to move.
But we try, as time circles our
soul.
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Patina
Roger G. Singer
It was called,
“The Hotel.”
Like a childhood friend
known by one name.
The lobby exhibited signs of
artistic death. There were
overused red velvet chairs.
A couch without cushions.
Ceiling fans without life.
Strips of wallpaper peeling
Like a melting glacier.
Many have passed through
the thick wooden and
glass doors onto
black and white tiled
checkerboard floors
showing the wear of
time.
The radio speaks about
vacations far away.
No one listens.
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When Johnny Came Marching Home
Milton P. Ehrlich
to a no-confetti parade
after 8 years in the army,
he was proud of his stripes
and his courage under fire.
For the first time in his life
he felt most alive.
He doesn’t complain about
the steel plate in his head,
but hasn’t been able to sleep
since he saw his army buddy
blown up to smithereens.
He came home to discover
his girlfriend hooked up
with his older brother,
who once was his moral rock.
Drowning in a sea of pain,
all he can think of is his betrayal
and the longing for revenge
like dropping the Fat Man
on the raptors he once loved.
All he wants now is to get back
in the fight in Afghanistan,
but the army won’t let him re-up
because he’s blind in one eye
and has made 7 failed attempts
at suicide.
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Milton P. Ehrlich Bio
Milton P. Ehrlich, Ph.D. is an 86-year-old psychologist and Korean War veteran. More than 150 poems of his poems have been published in periodicals such as the “Wisconsin Review,” “Descant,” Taj Mahal Review,” “Toronto Quarterly Review,” “Chariton Review,” “Vox Poetica,” “Red Wheelbarrow,” “Christian Science Monitor,” “Huffington Post,” and the “New York Times.
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Bruco’s Game
Mitchel Montagna
Bruco is in a wheelchair today. But he used to walk just fine. He had kind of an arrogant stride, like people better get out of his way.
He once said to me, “I’m gonna break that Irish cocksucker’s arm.”
And, he did. The 14-year old Bruco punched McMullen out, and stomped the kid’s arm until it snapped like a stick.
That was about twenty years ago. Back then the community must’ve had a “boys will be boys”-type attitude. Because I don’t remember Bruco getting into much trouble. Maybe someone yelled at him, or he sat in school detention. More likely, everybody winked and thought: what a tough little bastard. The men thought: just like me at that age.
Bruco’s father was a barrel-chested, scowling kind of guy. In all the years I lived next door, he didn’t say a dozen words to me. He didn’t appear to say much to his son, either, but he beat the boy often. The whippings came, as far as I could tell, when Mr. Bruco thought his son wasn’t being tough enough. I remember in second or third grade, a car ran over Bruco’s dog. Bruco started crying and his father slugged him. I doubt Mr. Bruco minded his son breaking McMullen’s arm. For that, the old man would’ve been proud.
Bruco was a chip off the old block. Like his dad he had black hair, which Bruco grew thick to his shoulders. He had his father’s powerful body and swarthy complexion. And like his dad, Bruco wore a mustache (it had appeared, suddenly, around seventh grade).
But their eyes were different. I found that interesting. While the old man’s were small and mean, Bruco had inherited his pretty mother’s eyes. Bruco’s eyes were big, dark and shiny. They damn near glistened.
The soft eyes were deceptive. Bruco was surely his father’s son, a mean, destructive bully. Inflicting pain excited him, and he’d pound and kick people long after they were helpless.
By the time Bruco was in 10th grade, he had everybody scared to death. When he couldn’t find enough kids who’d fight him anymore he turned his aggression to athletics. He became an all-county linebacker, roaming the field like an assassin. When he hit someone you heard the explosion from the top row of the bleachers. He also excelled at baseball, playing catcher with a shotgun arm and a strong bat.
I was two years younger than Bruco. Of course, I worshipped him. He didn’t mind me hanging around. Both of us were the lone kids at home; I was an only child, Bruco had older siblings who’d left. From his point of view, I guess, my presence was convenient, as long as I didn’t get on his nerves. As a jayvee football player myself, I was undersized, but hard-nosed and unafraid. Maybe I had his grudging respect. Evenings after I’d done my homework, I might go to Bruco’s house to watch Sanford and Son or Mannix. I’d tag along when he’d walk to the corner store. A few times my dad drove him home after football practice. I’d sit in the back seat, thrilled that people would see us together, damn near as excited as a girl.
Bruco taught me a few things. One was that the biggest sons of bitches get the sweetest rewards. Bruco was nasty, a tyrant, didn’t give a shit about school. But his life was great. He pretty much did what he wanted.
And the cutest girls swarmed to him.
For me these girls were objects of fantasy but they were like toys for Bruco. After he was finished with one, he’d have an even prettier replacement by sundown. I used to watch him pull these girls into his arms. I saw him hug and kiss them. I imagined he went further. It blew my mind. I wondered how it was possible to experience such joy and still go about your business.
One girl was considered, by most, our school’s best looking. Her name was Cynthia. She was a cheerleader, a year ahead of me, one year behind Bruco. Cynthia’s hair was blond, long and tousled in the Farrah Fawcett style of the era. She had great violet eyes and her smile brightened entire hallways. Cynthia was taller than most girls, with legs that rose forever before snuggling into short skirts.
Cynthia hooked up with Bruco early in her junior year, which was Bruco’s senior year. It started in our school’s weight room. I happened to be in there at the time.
I was using the universal gym, trying to build up my upper body. They used to test us to see if we could bench press our own weight. Most guys could; I couldn’t. I weighed 120 and couldn’t even budge that much. It was embarrassing.
Bruco was in there too, putting me to shame. He weighed about 180, and could throw that much through the ceiling. I’d seen him bench press 300. His body wasn’t one of well-defined muscles. Instead, it was a thick hairy mass that bulged evenly through his chest, shoulders and legs, looking brawny and hard. The threat of power came off him like a smell.
A third person was in the room. Cynthia. That made two of the school’s leading players, and myself — a worm. Given my rank, and because I was a year younger, I’d never spoken to Cynthia. She was wearing the girls’ gym outfit – white and blue-striped top, and blue shorts. Her hair was in a ponytail.
Lying on the bench, I lowered some weight – probably about 80. I puffed air and sat up. Cynthia and Bruco were talking.
He was discussing Saturday’s football game, which our school, Pine Oak, had won.
“They tried to put their biggest guy on me,” Bruco said, sitting on one of the stools. Sweat had soaked through most of his t-shirt. He laughed, his big eyes flashing. It was magnetic.
“But he was a fat slob,” Bruco said. “Way too slow for me. Our idea was, I’d criss-cross with Morales. So every time they had a pass play, one of us was in the backfield. We fucked ‘em up good. Pardon my French.”
Pine Oak had won the game like 30-0. Bruco had scored not one, but two touchdowns after forcing fumbles and picking up the ball. Sweet Jesus.
Cynthia laughed in appreciation. She talked about a new routine the cheerleading squad was working on.
She was sitting at a leg-pressing station. Her knees were bent in front of her chest. The bottoms of her feet were up against two pedals connected by cables to weights.
She finished her story and Bruco said, “Mark, you wanna grab me a towel.”
I took one of the clean folded towels nearby. Instead of tossing it to Bruco, I walked it over. For no better reason than to get a closer look at Cynthia. It damn sure wasn’t to show myself off. Bruco wiped his face and neck, which were gleaming. His chest and arm muscles shifted as he worked. I looked at Cynthia and nodded.
She responded with something short of a smile but her teeth showed, white and healthy. It was nice. I sat on a stool in front of a power-lifting station, designed to exercise your shoulders. I watched Cynthia’s feet press against the pedals. The pedals moved, lifting a block of weights. Cynthia exhaled audibly. Her legs straightened, their taut muscles straining.
Cynthia’s legs shone through the room, looking chiseled. I stared, awestruck like I was watching The Creation.
Bruco was studying her, too. We both fell in love at that moment. But only one of us counted. “Good,” Bruco said. “That’s good. You got strong legs for a girl.”
She drew her knees back, lowering the weight with a satisfied smile.
That same year, I was interested in a girl who was in some of my classes. Her name was Paula. I thought she was sort of a Cynthia “lite”. She wasn’t as tall, nor was she flawless. Her chin was a little broad, her nose slightly flat. But Paula’s blond hair had the same windblown look as Cynthia’s, and their skin had the same healthy glow.
One day Paula wore a short black skirt. It didn’t even reach mid-thigh, which was exciting enough. But there was more. Running just above the hem was series of small holes. They ran all around the skirt. Through those holes you could see flesh. It put shivers through my body.
When I wasn’t fantasizing about Cynthia on the leg-pressing machine, I pictured Paula in that skirt. Since Paula and I were often in the same classrooms, it wasn’t hard to find an excuse to talk with her. She was civil, but her eyes were distant. She wasn’t interested.
Meanwhile, Cynthia and Bruco became inseparable. In the hallways you could see them embracing. Their kisses were wet and loud. When Cynthia looked up into Bruco’s face, she had a flushed look like she was dreaming of magical things.
One evening I wandered over to Bruco’s house. It was a Love Boat night, which was sort of a regular thing for us. I never understood why Bruco watched, since he lived it. But he seemed to enjoy making obscene cracks about the women. As for me, well, I figured maybe I could pick up a few pointers.
The sky was already dark, and the moon was behind me. I crossed my yard, entered his, and approached the Brucos’ back door.
Our houses were split-levels, where the bottom floor windows are even with the ground. Bruco’s room was on the bottom floor; and before I reached the door some movement inside caught my eye. I crept over to a hedge, crouched behind it, and looked into Bruco’s room. A floor lamp shone next to a desk, giving me enough light to see.
Cynthia and Bruco were naked on his bed. She was on her back, Bruco hulking above her, jammed between her legs.
His upper body looked dark and full. Her skin shone. They kissed for a long time, then Bruco arched his back. Cynthia arched her back. I watched Bruco drive forward, forcing Cynthia to slide backward. Her legs were wrapped around his waist. I saw her breasts, large and bright. Bruco squeezed them. They kissed some more, arched their backs again. Cynthia’s hair was fanned out wildly.
It took my breath away. I’d never seen anything like this. My heart pounded in my head. My skin got hot and sweaty. It was like I had a fever.
Finally, Bruco and Cynthia slowed down. Their bodies lingered together. I pulled myself away, crawling backwards, panting with excitement.
I felt weird, and my house was the last place I wanted to be. How could I go home after that? But I had nowhere else. The moon burned in my eyes as I hurried through the dark, across the grass. I went into my room and got in bed.
When I closed my eyes I saw Bruco and Cynthia going at it, like you keep seeing highway lines after a long drive.
Later that school year, Bruco was starring for the baseball team. I’d been cut from jayvee baseball, so I went out for track. They didn’t cut their roster; they took anybody. I hung on as a nonentity. I still went regularly to the weight room, still trying to budge 120.
Bruco called me one Friday evening and asked me over. It was still daylight, getting gloomy, as I crossed my backyard. The spring sun was pale yellow, shining from behind a house across the way, looking cold.
Bruco opened his back door when I knocked. He wore a muscle shirt and shorts. His hair was tied in a ponytail; his mustache was full. He had a couple of days’ growth of beard.
“Get your ass in here,” he said. “I got a surprise.”
Last time I heard those words, he had a new deer rifle to show me, a Remington 700 I think it was. He’d handed it to me like it was a baby. I didn’t know shit about guns and smiled politely. So, Bruco telling me he had a surprise didn’t necessarily mean much. Maybe he’d bought a new catcher’s mitt and wanted my opinion. He was hoping for a baseball scholarship to the local community college.
I followed him down a half-flight of stairs, through a living room with a long, bright red sofa and a framed painting of Jesus.
“Your parents home?” I asked.
Bruco snorted. “You fuckin’ kidding?”
I shrugged. What did I know?
I followed Bruco into his room. Paula, of all people, lay on the bed. Her head was propped up on a pillow. She was naked. Astonished, I stopped in my tracks.
Bruco turned back toward me, extended an arm.
“C’mon, dude.” He grinned, and electricity was in his eyes. He grabbed my elbow, pulled me forward.
I was aroused, and my mouth was dry. I stared at the girl on the bed. Paula’s body was perfect. Flat stomach, swelled breasts and hips. Smooth legs.
But her eyes were slits. She had a lopsided smile.
It didn’t look right. Genius that I am, I figured that much out. It threw a panic in me. I yelled. “Whatsa matter with ‘er?”
“Nothin’. Shit, Mark, where you been? She’s fine, she’s gonna be fine. She won’t remember a thing.” Bruco laughed. “You been bitchin’ to me forever about this chick. Now we’ll see if you got the balls.”
His remark about balls hit a nerve. As intended. God have mercy on me. I stepped closer. Paula did look good. Seemed to be breathing fine, and all.
“Whadjya do?” I whispered.
“Somethin’ in her drink.”
Give the evil bastard his due. Some 20 years before this shit hit the news – so-called date rape drugs, Roofies, whatever – Bruco knew all about them. He was ahead of his time. He got more pussy than any 10 guys. He didn’t need to do this. He wanted to. It was fun. Who was gonna stop him?
Bruco walked round to the other side of the bed, looking at Paula like she wasn’t human. He knelt on the floor, put his hands next to her body. “Kids today. What’s the world comin’ to?” He leaned close to Paula’s breast, and inhaled.
“Ahhhhhhh,” he hissed. “That is fine.”
A bolt of fire zapped my crotch.
“Hello,” Paula said. Her mouth twitched. “Is somebody there? Somebody there?” Her voice was tired, mellow.
Frankly, it didn’t matter what she said. She could’ve pleaded for her dignity or her life. It didn’t matter.
I sat on the edge of the bed and started taking off my shoes. I remember moving slowly, as if to postpone the pleasure. I heard Bruco laughing. I wasn’t myself. I stood and unfastened my pants. I stared at Paula’s flesh. I could taste it.
Cynthia and Bruco stayed together for a while. There were rumors he was hitting her. Who could doubt them? They broke up just as he was starting at the community college, which had given him the scholarship.
Bruco’s college career didn’t last long. Paula must have remembered what had happened in his bedroom, and been able to talk.
Her last name was McMullen; she was a cousin of the kid whose arm Bruco had busted years ago. You couldn’t exactly blame the family for not trusting the authorities to take care of it. Paula had an older brother, a couple of older cousins. They must’ve had friends. It would take more than three normal guys to fuck Bruco up.
It happened a couple of weeks into the new school year. The way I heard it, they grabbed him as he left a bar. They took him to the woods. Broke both his legs. Rammed a bottle up his ass. Shattered his teeth.
He was found the next morning, in a dumpster, in shock.
I spent the next few weeks waiting my turn. One morning, I couldn’t get out of bed. Sheer terror had drilled a hole in my stomach. I’d developed a bleeding ulcer.
The McMullens never did come after me. It wasn’t till I was about finished my senior year, still looking over my shoulder, that I began to think I might survive. But with most of my energy absorbed by being afraid, I had little motivation left for anything else. No doubt my life changed irrevocably. Maybe that was the McMullens’ plan, to let a weak fish like me just twist on the hook. If so, God bless ‘em. All these years later, I can barely stand to see my own face in a mirror.
I remember the last time I saw Bruco. It was soon after he left the hospital. It was a mid-morning, the sky was full of white clouds and glare. Someone, I can’t remember who, was pushing Bruco’s wheelchair down his driveway. Bruco was twisted and gaunt, his head shaved. His face was so drawn it was unrecognizable. Except for his eyes. His big, lovely eyes. His eyes hadn’t changed.
They stared out of the wreckage, uncomprehending and sad, full of the sky’s light. When they blinked it would’ve broken your heart, even as you knew he deserved everything he got.
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Eleanor Leonne Bennett Bio (20150720)
Eleanor Leonne Bennett is an internationally award winning artist of almost fifty awards. She was the CIWEM Young Environmental Photographer of the Year in 2013. Eleanor’s photography has been published in British Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. Her work has been displayed around the world consistently for six years since the age of thirteen. This year (2015) she has done the anthology cover for the incredibly popular Austin International Poetry Festival. She is also featured in Schiffer’s “Contemporary Wildlife Art” published this Spring. She is an art editor for multiple international publications.
www.eleanorleonnebennett.com
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The Mystery Box
Teneale Moyer
Jamie hurried down the stairs as the doorbell rang. TJ was supposed to be there to pick her up an hour ago. She swung open the door but saw no one standing there. As she turned around to shut the door, she noticed a small box with no lettering and a small clasp siting on the doorstep. She knelt down and scooped up the box and shut the door.
A small note peered out from the side of the box. Jamie opened the box to find a small key and a little note that read:
“Find me where we first met.”
Jamie became curious. She tried calling TJ again but still no answer. She grabbed the key and ran out the door. She had no time to grab her bike from the shed; she took off on foot. If this was from TJ, they met at Mel’s Drive-In. It was only six miles away. How bad could that walk be?
Jamie arrived at Mel’s and walked to the concession stand. Posted up on the door was a note that read:
“Now that you got the popcorn, it’s time for the movie that we saw on our first date.”
Jamie turned around and looked at the screens. Among the five screens, she didn’t recognize any of the movies. Making a full circle, Jamie noticed a small screen set up in the field beside the main screens. She moved closer to get a better look.
As she approached this secluded private screening, she noticed TJ standing in front of the screen, dressed in a white long sleeve shirt and his nice blue church pants. Lying beside him was a bouquet of flowers. Jamie approached carefully, still unsure of what was going on.
“TJ...is everything ok?” asked Jamie, nervously.
TJ turned around quickly, as if he was startled. He scooped up the bouquet of flowers and a tiny box that the flowers had been hiding.
“Jamie, sorry for the mystery but I know how you love solving puzzles. You managed to solve the mystery that is being with me so I applaud you for that,” TJ said. “In the past three years, I have discovered everything I love about you. You have always held the key to my heart...like you are now.”
Jamie pulled the small key from her pocket. She moved closer to TJ.
“You have given me everything I need in my life, now I want to do the same for you. Go ahead and open this but I need you to turn around first.” Said TJ.
Jamie grabbed the tiny box from her boyfriend’s hands and complied with his request. She slid the key in the lock and heard a slight pop. She pushed the lid up to see an empty red velvet lining. Confused, she turned around to TJ to find him down on one knee with a small rose gold ring in his hand.
“Jamie Garretty, will you be the key to my heart forever and marry me?”
Jamie’s mind almost did not retain what was going on. “What... oh! Yes! Yes, I will.” She replied.
TJ looked at her with joy. “I’m glad I kept this a surprise. You have no idea how hard it was to keep you from seeing the key when it was on my keychain for the past two years.” He said, jokingly.
Jamie looked at him with tears of happiness in her eyes. “Your little mystery box definitely kept me guessing.”
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Teacher Training Video
Cecilia Kennedy
A flurry of emails from colleagues, earlier in the day, questioned the effectiveness of training that suggests we throw things, jump through windows, or zigzag-run through a hail of bullets. But there we were, crowded into the dark auditorium to watch Sergeant Chadwick make a presentation about “mass shootings,” which statistically, are rare, according to his opening remarks. The bulk of his presentation was narrated, at length, as he showed some security camera footage. The video was somewhat grainy, but familiar. Many of us in the audience had shopped at that store before. We knew what happened:
The day before Thanksgiving, as customers at the Chop and Shop searched for the perfect turkey, a gunman entered and opened fire. Sergeant Chadwick was quick to point out the mom with her baby and a man named Robert, who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam that survived that ordeal, then had to face this guy in the grocery store, the day before Thanksgiving.
“So what’s this got to do with us?” a colleague asked. “We’re university instructors on a campus. Do you have any videos we could actually use—like on a campus?”
“Now hold on . . . I’m getting there,” Sergeant Chadwick said. “There’s some stuff here you could definitely use.”
I sensed a collective sigh of boredom as he returned to the video.
“Okay, let’s focus on the gunman,” he said. “He’s already walked through the sliding doors and shot whoever is nearby. That’s typical.”
With great enthusiasm the Sergeant pointed at the blood pooling by the bodies, which, even in black and white footage, was noticeable and disturbing. When we gasped in horror, the Sergeant practically lunged forward in a dramatic effort to pull his audience in even more, but we didn’t want more. We really didn’t. Our college president invited the press and added in a mandatory contract day in order to pack the house with concerned teachers who were ready to take on the bad guys and Sergeant Chadwick was producing the desired effect. We looked concerned, sad, and frightened. The members of the local newspaper press had plenty of great pictures to share of our reactions. We wondered when they’d had enough and we could just go, but we’d only been through about 15 minutes of a two-hour presentation.
“This guy over here is holding his leg and writhing in pain—pleading for his life,” Sergeant Chadwick continued. “Now, the gunman shoots him, so that’s not a good plan. Begging for your life might not work. Sometimes playing dead does work, but only sometimes. Not always.”
At this point, some of us tried to bury our heads in our hands, but we couldn’t cover our ears at the same time as the Sergeant discussed the cashiers in the video. They had dropped to the floor and were “perfect targets.”
“All he has to do is walk over and shoot them—easy peasy—which he does—right here: Boom. Boom. Boom. All cashiers are now dead.”
Sergeant Chadwick then took a confident side-step to the right-hand side of the stage to make another important point:
“Instead of remaining motionless, you could just run in a zigzag pattern. It’s harder to shoot at you then.”
He then followed this point up with a criticism of the people in the back of the store who were just “standing around watching” when they could have been looking for an opening and running for it.
“So why aren’t the police there yet?” a colleague asked.
“Actually, only 2-3 minutes have transpired. A lot happens in 2-3 minutes. Even if we get there in 5-10 minutes, most of the damage is already done. That’s why I’m here. I’m arming you with knowledge you need to survive until the police get there.”
“Well, that’s comforting,” I hear my colleague mutter under her breath.
“Here’s what can’t be explained,” the Sergeant said as he paused the video, fast-forwarded it, and stopped it right before the shooter took his own life (because that’s how these things usually ended, according to Sergeant Chadwick). The news stations never showed this part because they said it was too graphic, but we were getting the “behind-the-scenes-treatment.”
“Did you see that?” he asked.
We all nodded our heads incredulously, but we asked to see it again, just to make sure. On screen, dead bodies were scattered on the floor and the gunman sauntered through the place, looking for those who might still be alive or moving. So, our eyes were trained on the gunman, when a dark, horned figure with claws, stuck its hideous face into the security camera lens and opened its jaws in a terrifying show of jagged teeth and a gaping mouth that was really just a black, hollow, cavernous abyss. The scene went black for a moment or two and then the next thing we knew, the devil creature was running through the store, in an effort to find the shooter, who had killed most everyone by now—systematically—from the front of the store to the back. There was a moment when this thing just paused and looked directly at the shooter. Then, it kind of crept up to him in an almost seductive manner and wrapped his claws around the gunman’s waist—thrusting his pelvis into the killer’s hips. The shooter arched back—leaning into the arms of the creature. Both of his hands fell to his sides in a show of ecstasy? Surrender? I’m not sure. The horned figure then reached for the hand that held the gun and pushed it into the shooter’s mouth, but it was the shooter who pulled the trigger. When his body jerked back from the impact, the creature disappeared.
The room went silent. We weren’t sure what we saw exactly, but no one wanted to talk.
“Here’s what I figure,” Sergeant Chadwick said when he closed his presentation. “I figure if evil’s going to happen, there’s not much we can do to stop it, but look at all the time—all the opportunities people had to save their own lives. Some couldn’t, of course, but many could’ve—simply by thinking on their feet or finding an opening to leave. Staying too long in one place: That’s the problem.”
We pushed back from our chairs and filed out of the room while the president rushed over for a photo opportunity with the press and Sergeant Chadwick. The words “staying too long in one place” echoed in my head. As if it was their fault for not reacting in time. As if it was their fault for not considering the possibility that a horrific monster could appear out of nowhere and attack. Except now, there’s a training video for that scenario and I just watched it: an eight-minute video that took two hours to explain. The presentation will be repeated next month and it’s mandatory to attend, again. I intend to stay precisely one minute. Any longer, and I won’t merit any sympathy if tragedy occurs. “She knew better,” they’d say. “She stayed too long.”
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Author Bio (2018)
Cecilia Kennedy earned a PhD in Spanish Literature from The Ohio State University and taught English and Spanish for over 20 years. She now lives with her husband, son, and cat (SeaTac) in the Greater Seattle area. Kennedy is rather new to fiction writing, but enjoys speculative fiction and her works have appeared in Theme of Absence (“Hello,” April 2017) and Gathering Storm Literary Magazine (June 2017). “How the Blueberries Grow” will appear in Coffin Bell Journal in April. She reserves her “scariest” stories about cooking and minor home repairs for her DIY blog “Fixin’ Leaks and Leeks” (https://fixinleaksnleeksdiy.blog/).
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Sagamore Bridge, MA, USA, photography by Olivier Schopfer
My Brothers
Marcus Vance
My brother’s vomit lay at my feet as mine swelled my stomach. Packed like sardines in a boat on choppy seas, but we weren’t seasick. Fear and anticipation poured from every orifice. I wondered if the icy salt water would rust my Garand. I hugged the weapon closer to me--it gave me a sliver of peace, and I protected it. Can’t have the works getting gunked up by water, mud, sand, blood, or piss. My clothing clung cold to every patch of skin with no hope of ever drying. Thankfully that hid the other wetness. Another brother whimpered as our oldest barked orders that were lost on the waves. We ignored him, his dictum his own nervous survival habit.
Our boat cut through the surf and rose onto land--a whale beaching itself. In that moment a tap-dancing pitter-patter roared against the hull. My brothers and I inhaled in unison. Our noses numbed and I longed for frostbite to rob me of my senses. More orders. An eternity passed. The front of our ship dropped open.
We had never been to France before.
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About Fabrice Poussin
Fabrice Poussin teaches French and English at Shorter University. Author of novels and poetry and the advisor for The Chimes, the Shorter University award winning poetry and arts publication, his work has appeared in Kestrel, Symposium, The Chimes, and dozens of other magazines. His photography has been published in The Front Porch Review, the San Pedro River Review and more than 250 other publications.
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The Golden Age of Silence
Donald Hubbard
Quietly, retired silent film star Marie Bailey moved into the modest beige ranch house on Campion Street in Hale, Connecticut. Since we heard nothing, we remained ignorant of our new neighbor until she started strolling, walking her three dogs who never barked if they did, certainly none of them emitted a sound when they tried. Sensitive citizens of Hale finally empathized with the town mute, Dummy Katcavage, appreciating what a deaf person must endure.
Mailman Ottie Otfinoski outed Marie after noticing that her meager mail deliveries all originated in Hollywood or New York. At lunch one day he visited the Walker Noe town library and sometimes-meth lab, and after consulting the Funk and Wagnalls encyclopedia, concluded that Hale hailed a faded celebrity. He also learned that Marie Bailey left Hollywood once the talkies came into vogue, not because she did not speak, but like Bardot and Bartleby the Scrivener, she preferred not to.
Though Marie observed silence, she proved a friendly neighbor, smiling all the time, letting people pet her dogs and handing out huge fees to kids who mowed her lawns and shoveled her walks. Like any 117-year old woman. Gradually, everyone else in town spoke less, especially since we had thoroughly covered topics like calf auctions, Jell-O molds and the occasional four-leaf clover someone discovered.
The school teachers emulated Marie, writing down everything on the blackboard and throwing chalk at anyone who goofed off. Getting struck by chalk hurt, so we bratty students stopped making noise, confining our insufferability to eye-rolling and scowling. Even class bully Big Molar obligingly began to punch people in the stomach because hitting someone in the face created a thwack sound.
Priests and Ministers stopped delivering sermons or reading from the Bible, now they acted out their moral lessons in pantomime, mime and charades. The ungodly folk Masses at Our Lady of Onomatopoeia ceased.
We excommunicated to each other by writing on etch a sketch and foolscap. If someone cut off your Dad while he piloted the family station wagon, he no longer honked at the evildoer, he simply and courteously rolled down the car window and flipped them the bird. Without sound, we finally learned to laugh at the antics of those madcap waitresses in Two Broke Girls.
Granted, idiots continued to tweet at odd hours, but after a while we tuned them out t0o, figuring they were Commies.
Ironically, Marie ended Hale’s reign of silence, for while she did not like to speak, she found utter silence maddening. She missed the singing of birds, the screams directed at Little League ballplayers by their coaches. She sold all of her silent movie memorabilia to a pawn shop, then bought a stereo and a Hendrix LP and blared out Purple Haze.
Parents argued loudly with each other, girls teased other girls and young boys beat on their drums. Miraculously, Marie’s dogs regained their voices, recording barking dog Christmas records. Simon and Garfunkel fans started to listen to The Sound of Silence again.
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About Donald Hubbard
Donald Hubbard has written six books, one of which was profiled on Regis and Kelly and another that was a Boston Globe bestseller and Amazon (category) top ten. Two books have gone into a second edition and he was inducted into the New England Basketball Hall of Fame as an author in 2015. He has published twenty-five stories in fourteen magazines and had a chapter from one of his books published in Notre Dame Magazine.
He studied English at Georgetown and the University of Kent.
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The African Fish Eagle, drawing by Lavren Le’Clore
Desire
Rae Mobnroe
I want to drink bleach like chocolate
I want to jump from this building
Like Peter Pan preparing to fly
I want to surround my throat
With a Williams belt
I want to stop my breath
Like I’m going for a deep swim
I want to slam my head
Into the wall where stories hide
I want to feel the sharp edge
Like a long-lost lover’s touch
I want to hold the knife’s base
And press, press, press
Until the treacherous red pours out
And stains everything I own
I want to crawl inside an oven
And scream where no one’ll hear
I want to sit inside my car,
And sing High School Musical until the gas wins
I want to run to the bay and breathe it in,
Becoming one with it like I’ve always wanted to
I want to lock myself in a basement
And waste away like Karen Carpenter.
I want you to learn what it’s like
To fear the morning sun,
To shy away from others’ touch
And never know if you have it in you
To love someone, or your own self.
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Smoke Rings
James Mulhern
Just as we were about to step onto the ice, Nonna nudged my arm away and opened the bank door. She slipped; her wig flew into a mound of snow. “My back! My back!”
I yelled, “Help!” Tony, a kid from school, ran from the Citgo station. A crowd of about ten people surrounded us, mostly women. Tony tried to help Nonna get up, but she screeched, “My God. You’re hurting me. Someone call an ambulance. I think I broke something. Don’t anybody touch me. I want a professional.” Her coat was open. She had managed to create a rip in the leg of her pantsuit; there was even blood. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
The bank manager came outside. “Let me help you.”
Nonna hollered, “Don’t touch me! I slipped on your ice. Your maintenance person must be a bombast. He should be fired.” She moaned, mascara a dirty mess on her teary cheeks.
“I’ve got your wig,” a hunched-back elderly woman said. “Do you want me to put it back on?”
“Are you crazy?! What’s a wig gonna do for me? What I need is an ambulance.”
“Ma’am, I can assure you that an ambulance is on the way,” the manager said. He reminded me of Cary Grant in his dark suit, white shirt, and tie. He had dark wavy hair parted on the side.
“I was only trying to help,” the elderly woman said, handing the wig to a twenty-something lady with bright red lips and oversized tortoiseshell sunglasses. She looked disgusted and passed the wig to a gray-haired short man who twisted it with his hands.
“Hey, ya gonna ruin that thing, Mr. It was expensive.”
“I’m sorry.” He gave it to a fat prim woman in a green dress. A game of Hot Potato, I thought.
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” Nonna wiped away tears. Her hands were stained with mascara. “My poor granddaughter.” She pointed at me. “What a trauma to see her Nonna almost die. I’m sure she’s gonna have emotional damage from this whole experience.”
“Ma’am. She’ll be fine. It was just a fall. It’s not like you’re dead,” the manager said.
The prim lady blurted, “That was very insensitive.” She looked to the others for approval.
“Thank you, lady. Don’t forget he said that. You’re my witness.” Nonna whimpered.
“Of course not, dear.” The woman smiled and stood tall.
“Oh my God! I really coulda died. Smashed my head open. And that would have been poor Molly’s last memory of me. My brain all over this ice.” She crossed herself.
The lady with red lips and glasses sized me up, then glanced at Nonna. She smirked.
“Jesus! My leg is bleeding,” Nonna inspected her torn pants. “I must be covered in bruises.” She began to breath deeply. “Oh, oh! I’m having agita!”
The gray-haired man said, “What should we do? What should we do?!”
“Take some deep breaths, ma’am.” The manager kneeled and tried to hold one of her hands. Nonna pulled it away.
“So you think you’re a doctor now?”
“I was trying to calm you.” He wiped his mascara-stained hands on his pants.
“Keep your paws off me.”
The ambulance arrived as if on cue. The crowd opened to make way for two burly men who checked Nonna’s vital signs and lifted her onto a stretcher. They were very sympathetic, and Nonna kept saying, “What nice boys.” Once she was secured in the ambulance I entered. As we drove away, the siren sounded. Nonna covered her mouth to suppress laughter, smiling at me. I turned away because I knew I would laugh, too. “This is just awful. Just awful,” she said to the young man on the other side of her stretcher.
“You’ll be okay. We are going to take good care of you.”
“Thank you, dear.”
Through the window of the ambulance, I watched the crowd disperse. The woman with the red lips remained, staring as we drove away. She glared at me. I stuck my tongue out and smushed my face against the window.
When we arrived at the Emergency Ward of the Massachusetts General Hospital, the paramedics lifted Nonna’s stretcher from the back of the ambulance and pushed through automatic sliding doors. I followed them. We were greeted by a tall thin nurse with a white cap atop an immaculate blond bun. She asked the paramedics what happened. Nonna interrupted, saying she had a terrible fall on an area that should have been cleared of ice. “That bank is negligent!”
Soon, we were brought to an area in the back of the Emergency Ward, a large room full of stretchers partitioned by curtains. Nonna stared at the ceiling. She patted my hand on the railing of her stretcher. “You did good.”
After a while, a handsome doctor in blue scrubs came to the stretcher. He asked me to step away so he could examine Nonna behind the closed curtain. She told the story of her fall again, this time embellishing details, complaining about the “inconsiderate” and “cold” bank manager. “I have witnesses.”
He listened patiently. Then he said that she was pretty bruised up with a small laceration on her thigh. She would probably feel worse a few days from now, after the adrenaline rush had subsided. He didn’t think she had broken anything, and the laceration did not need stitches; it simply needed to be cleaned up to prevent infection. He would order X-rays just in case. Before he left, he asked if there was anyone he should call.
“There’s no reason to bother anyone else in my family. Once I have the X-rays, and you give me the okay to go, my beautiful granddaughter will ride home with me in a cab.”
“Sounds good, Mrs. Janssen.”
“Don’t call me that. Call me Agnella. Janssen is my married name. My husband died a long time ago. He was a pain in the ass.”
He laughed. “Okay, Agnella. Your granddaughter looks like a responsible young lady. I’m sure you will be taken care of.” He opened the curtain and smiled at me. He said I should stay with Nonna and pull the cord for the nurse if Nonna suddenly seemed drowsy or confused.
A timid nurse cleaned out the laceration. We waited for the X-rays, and eventually Nonna was cleared to go. Our family probably assumed we were shopping and had stopped for lunch. The cab dropped us at Nonna’s. We climbed the stairs to her apartment.
She moved slowly, stopping every now and then to rest. “That whole affair really knocked the wind out of me.”
We sat quietly in her living room. After a few minutes, when she seemed like she was going to nod off, she sat bolt upright, very alert. “Ouch!” She placed a hand against her side. “I wish I hadn’t fallen so hard.” Then she said, “Molly, we gotta take pictures. We need evidence for the lawsuit. Let’s go into my bedroom and check out the damages.”
Nonna stripped, throwing the blue velvet pantsuit and her undergarments onto the bed. “Those clothes are going in the trash.” She stared at herself in the mirror. For a moment it seemed she forgot I was there as she traced the bruises on her saggy body and looked over her shoulder so she inspect her back in the mirror. She said, “Grab the Polaroid from the left bottom drawer of my dresser.”
I did, and then she said, “These pictures are gonna be the icing on the cake.” She laughed. “That’s funny, ‘icing.’ Don’t you think, Molly? I mean considering how it happened.” She put her hands on my shoulders and stared into my eyes. I could smell her sweat, her oldness. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“What?”
“You’re thinking your grandmother has sagging breasts, a sagging ass, and flabby arms.” She flapped the skin underneath her biceps with her hand. “You don’t want to get old. But that’s life. I had beautiful firm skin and was pretty like you, but aging is a terrible thing. You lose your looks, and then sometimes your mind. Maybe you get a horrible disease. There’s nothing you can do about it. You just gotta carry on and get as much as you can out of every moment you are alive.” She smiled and kissed my forehead. “Now pretend you’re a photographer for Vogue and snap some pictures.”
It amazed me that she knew what I was thinking. Seeing her old body made me nauseous, afraid of the future.
“This bruise looks like a cow.” She pointed to her right shoulder. “And this one on my ass looks like a barn. What do you think?”
“I can see the cow, but I can’t see the barn.”
“Well maybe not a barn. Some sort of building though. I think it’s the Vatican. I got the pope’s house on my ass.”
“I don’t know what the Vatican looks like, Nonna.”
She eased herself onto the bed and patted the area beside her. I sat down.
“It’s a fancy palace where the pope lives.” She moved my chin with her hand so that I was staring into her rheumy brown eyes. “Listen to what I tell you. What we did today, some people would consider wrong. Certainly the pope.” She laughed. “Grab the cigarettes from the beside table, will you?” I reached over. “And the ashtray. . . Oh, and the lighter.” I handed them to her. She placed the ashtray beside her, lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and blew smoke rings. “See those puffs of smoke.” I watched them float in front of her face.
“Yes, Nonna.”
“Look at that one in the corner.” She pointed. “It’s disappearing already. Here one minute, gone the next.”
I watched the empty air. “So what?”
She slapped my face. My skin burnt and my eyes teared up. When I tried to move my hand to my cheek, she pushed it down and held it against my thigh.
“Why did you do that?”
“Because you gotta be tough. You don’t get anything in this world the easy way. What we did isn’t going to hurt anybody. That bank is gonna settle once we threaten a lawsuit.”
I turned my head, feeling a pit in my stomach.
“Don’t you look away!” She grabbed my face. As she spoke, I felt spittle on my nose. “And don’t you dare utter a word to anyone about our plan today. You understand?”
“Yes,” I mumbled.
“Say it louder.”
“Yes! I won’t say a word.”
“Your poor Nonna and you were walking to the bank. I slipped on ice and had a bad fall.” She laughed. “And I got bruises to prove it. She stood and pointed to the Vatican. “As God is our witness.”
“How much money do you think we’ll make?”
She gazed at her body in the mirror, as if making an appraisal. “I’d say about ten grand. Those hotshots at the bank won’t want bad press about an old lady falling on ice.” She moved the ashtray to the top of her dresser, then tamped out her cigarette. “Now you go downstairs and make us some coffee while I wash up and get dressed.”
When I was in the kitchen, I heard her fall down the stairs. “Oh shit!” was the last thing she said. I found her body on the mahogany landing. There was a pool of blood around her head, and her right arm and left leg were contorted, like the Gumby doll of an angry child. I stepped over her body, walked up the stairs, and into her bedroom, where I sat down and lit a cigarette. I coughed, but as I watched the smoke rings dissipate, I realized Nonna was right.
“Here one minute, gone the next,” I said, and walked to the phone on her bedside table. I dialed 911. “My grandmother,” I screamed. “She fell down the stairs and I think she’s dead.”
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Bio
James Mulhern has published fiction in many literary journals and has received accolades. Three stories were selected for different anthologies of best short fiction. In 2013, he was chosen as a finalist for the Tuscany Prize in Catholic Fiction. In 2015, Mr. Mulhern was awarded a fully paid writing fellowship to Oxford University in the United Kingdom. That same year, a story was longlisted for the Fish Short Story Prize. In 2017, he was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He has received other awards. His writing (novel and short story collection) earned favorable critiques from Kirkus Reviews.
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aflame
Janet Kuypers
3/9/18
blowing smoke rings, she
set her fingernail aflame,
cigarette in hand
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If You Lived Here You’d Be Home Now
Suki Litchfield
During his own college days Annie’s father was something of a hippie, so it was probably inevitable that he would get one of those water-saver showerheads installed. At some point over the past three months it seems he did just that, because Annie hasn’t had a decent shower since winter break began.
The showers in the dorm are real showers (prison showers, they joke), scalding rivers that bring heat and weight and a roaring sound as the water rushes over her. The family’s new environmental appliance seems to dilute the water with air, and it just makes an irritating hissing noise.
This is only one of the betrayals Annie has discovered as she explores the house. And really, she has nothing better to do. Throughout winter break, she will be the house’s prisoner – she has no social life, no car, no one even home during the day. It’s sort of like a hostage situation.
Even more irritating than the changes in the house are the things that have remained the same. Her mother’s repertoire of six, meat-centric meals. The fact that her father doesn’t step in to help. The fact that their cul-de-sac is seven miles from downtown and the neighbors are apparently invisible.
And they’ve been using the same brand of soap since she was born. Jesus Christ, she thinks, haven’t they heard of body wash?
At the mercy of her parents’ bath products, she soaps up. She has one of her mother’s Beatles albums (on CD!) blaring on her sister’s stereo. Even though the music is playing a room away, she can easily hear it over the sound of the water. Annie sudses and sings along, trying to remember the songs from the last time she heard them, when she was about eight. She is so intent on remembering the lyrics that at first she doesn’t notice that the music has stopped.
When it occurs to her she is singing a capella, she just sighs. Ah, prehistoric technology. Her sister’s stereo is a fourth generation hand-me-down. Annie swears, but that’s about all she can do about it standing beneath the lukewarm spit of the shower with Prell dripping into her eyes.
Prell. Honestly.
The dusky scent of the shampoo, like the smell of the dishwashing powder her family has always used, or the taste of her formerly favorite meals, makes Annie claustrophobic. Which doesn’t make sense. It also doesn’t make sense that this house, which is a gazillion times bigger than her dorm room, feels like it’s closing in on her. Or that she has two roommates at school, but since she moved back into her childhood bedroom she has begun waking up in the middle of the night with the sense she is being watched.
During her last few years of high school, she felt like her parents were smothering her. She feels the same way now, even though her parents are in no way restricting her activities – even though they’re not even home most of the time. She didn’t expect her parents to skip work or her sister to drop out of school or anything, but Annie’s being home seems like a non-event.
And she doesn’t mind spending time alone, but going from the social buffet of the residence hall to sheer solitude is a shock. Her best hometown friend was swept away to visit relatives in India the moment her semester ended, and Annie has sort of fallen out of touch with everyone else from high school, which she’s okay with. She has made friends in college, but her newfound social skills are useless way out here. What is she supposed to do, start knocking on the neighbors’ doors? Ask them if anybody has some pot?
Without the stereo to back her up there is no way she can remember the Beatles lyrics, so Annie switches to the Love Boat theme, using her loudest voice and show-stopping gestures. While she is welcoming her audience of shampoo bottles aboard and assuring them they are expected, the floorboard out in the hallway creaks.
Annie stops singing and listens. She lived in this house for eighteen years. It is an old house. The floorboards creak.
When somebody steps on them.
She is concentrating so hard the bar of soap slips from her hand. It ricochets around the tub and then rides the stream of sudsy water to the drain. Every bit of her is covered in gooseflesh now, and every bit of her is listening.
Another creak sounds, sharp against the dull hiss of the shower.
Annie’s scalp constricts beneath the shampoo. As she holds her breath to keep from making noise, her lungs grow hot and she starts seeing white dots of light against the green shower curtain. I’m going to faint or throw up soon, she thinks, and then: I want to faint. Please let me faint, let whatever’s going to happen to me happen while I’m unconscious. Let me drown in the shower water, let me crack my head open against the side of the tub, let me choke to death on Prell, just let me die now, quickly and even painfully, but now, because I can’t stand this fear any longer.
Shaking too hard now to even make a fist, Annie pulls her hand into a hook. With her last bit of strength, she flings back the shower curtain.
The plastic rings click together, the bottom of the curtain sticks along the inside of the tub, but the top pulls back and cold air and bright light rush at her, making her blink, letting her see – nothing.
Annie lets out her breath, gasping laughing, groaning all at once. Nothing. She reaches over and turns off the faucet, hearing it squeak, hearing the slurp of the water down the drain, hearing the chattering of her teeth, and then, heavy breathing that is not coming from her. She can hear hers as she stares through the steam to the dripping mirror across from her, she can hear her breath and her blood and her cells, she can hear her hair growing, her breakfast digesting, she can hear the bile rising in her throat, she can hear her own body perfectly, and the breath from behind the bathroom door is not coming from her. Annie tries to match her own breathing to it. She stands there in this house that is no longer her own, both of them waiting, both of them breathing.
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Bio
Suki Litchfields fiction has been published in Elements, The Storyteller, and Mudrock: Stories and Tales, and online at Toasted Cheese. She grew up in Massachusetts but now lives in Florida, where she works at a historic inn. Yes, it’s haunted.
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Double Door, photography by Kyle Hemmings
Violations tested
Janet Kuypers
3 tweet poem, 2/6/18
Was driving to meet someone
who had so little time off for lunch.
Was running late, still a few miles
on a stretch of 120 to their office.
So although the sign said 30, I went 55,
following a cop speeding down the street.
So after about a mile, that copper
turned his lights on and signaled me over.
And he walked over to my Saturn,
asked me if I knew how fast I was going.
And I replied, saying, “I don’t know,
I was just following you sir.” And I waited.
If he wrote me a ticket, there’d be a record
that he was speeding while not in pursuit.
If he wrote me a ticket, his faults would be
found... and cops wanna think they’re invincible.
So the cop finally said to me,
after looking at me for more than a moment,
“Watch what you’re doing, and
watch your speed in the future.” That’s all he said.
And I nodded very subserviently, “Yes sir.”
And I, a little bit slower, went on my way.
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See YouTube video of Chicago poet Janet Kuypers reading her 2 new poems “Violations tested” and “Violations in the name of love” then her intro poem “Questioning Atoms through Inference” to her book “The Periodic Table of Poetry” (read from the book) 2/10/18 at Georgetown’s “Poetry Aloud” (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
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See YouTube video of Chicago poet Janet Kuypers reading her 2 new poems “Violations tested” and “Violations in the name of love” then her intro poem “Questioning Atoms through Inference” to her book “The Periodic Table of Poetry” (read from the book) 2/10/18 at Georgetown’s “Poetry Aloud” (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
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See YouTube video 2/25/18 of Janet Kuypers reading her 2 poems, “Violations tested”, & “Holding My Hand”, + her prose “How Are You” at the Austin open mic Kick Butt Poetry: Spoken & Heard (Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
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See YouTube video 2/25/18 of Janet Kuypers reading her 2 poems, “Violations tested”, & “Holding My Hand”, + her prose “How Are You” at the Austin open mic Kick Butt Poetry: Spoken & Heard (Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
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See YouTube video of Chicago poet Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Violations tested”, “Violations in the name of love”, and “Hunting for Life” from the Down in the Dirt 6/ v158) magazine issue/book “The Painting” 6/4/18 at Austin’s “Recycled Reads” open mic (Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
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See YouTube video of Chicago poet Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Violations tested”, “Violations in the name of love”, and “Hunting for Life” from the Down in the Dirt 6/ v158) magazine issue/book “The Painting” 6/4/18 at Austin’s “Recycled Reads” open mic (Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
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Violations in the name of love
Janet Kuypers
2/6/18
a long time ago,
a long-time friend
was engaged to
the man of her dreams.
But she violated
their trust when she
started sleeping
with a co-worker.
She told me,
“I love this guy,
but everyone loves
my once-fiancée.”
I told her,
well,
I told her I hope
it works out.
And apparently it did,
her longtime love
forgave her, the
wedding was on again.
She even asked me
to be a bridesmaid,
but that’s then everything
started going so wrong.
I’d respond to her every email,
and even though
I tried to appease
she’d be enraged at me
because I believed in truth.
So, according to her
apparently honesty
is not what friends are for.
When I saw
there was no way
this “friend” could ever
be moral or honest
to her friends,
to the man she’d marry,
or even to herself,
that’s when I ended
the friendship.
We were no longer friends,
but because of our
past she invited me
to her wedding.
I didn’t go to the church
(for her lack of
morality, a church
seemed kind of ironic) —
but I went to the reception
on February 10th,
did like everyone else
and complimented the bride...
But they played country
music (which isn’t my style),
so even though
the was snow outside
the reception hall doors,
I went outside to dance
with my love in the snow,
where the music might be
muted.
A minute or two
after dancing,
and old man walked outside
and asked to cut in.
My love smiled, and I
was touched that a stranger
saw us from the hall
and joined the snow for a dance.
In the name of love,
these two once-lovebirds
chose a wedding day
close to Valentine’s Day —
but three different men
bearing that name
were all martyred centuries
before that date meant love.
I suppose it makes me smile
knowing my parents
were married February 18th
for Valentine’s Day,
but I should remember
that the Valentine’s Day
before my dad was born
was the Valentine’s Day
Massacre, with Al Capone
in my hometown
killing seven guys
from the other side.
Because sometimes
Valentine’s Day isn’t pretty.
And even though
my once-friend married
near this date, that was
only another sign to me
that her marriage
would never last.
Years later, I hear
from another woman
that remained her bridesmaid
said that she’s divorced now.
She should have known
that violations
in the name of love
would never lead to happiness.
Violations of that nature,
no matter your implied intentions,
will never set you free,
where true love is meant to be.
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See YouTube video of Chicago poet Janet Kuypers reading her 2 new poems “Violations tested” and “Violations in the name of love” then her intro poem “Questioning Atoms through Inference” to her book “The Periodic Table of Poetry” (read from the book) 2/10/18 at Georgetown’s “Poetry Aloud” (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
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See YouTube video of Chicago poet Janet Kuypers reading her 2 new poems “Violations tested” and “Violations in the name of love” then her intro poem “Questioning Atoms through Inference” to her book “The Periodic Table of Poetry” (read from the book) 2/10/18 at Georgetown’s “Poetry Aloud” (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “the Way you Tease me” from her book “Chapter 38 (v2)”, “Tin” from her book “The Periodic Table of Poetry”, and her new poem “Violations in the name of love” live 4/8/18 at “Spoken and Heard” @ Kick Butt Coffee (filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “the Way you Tease me” from her book “Chapter 38 (v2)”, “Tin” from her book “The Periodic Table of Poetry”, and her new poem “Violations in the name of love” live 4/8/18 at “Spoken and Heard” @ Kick Butt Coffee (Panasonic Lumix T56; Edge Detection).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “the Way you Tease me” from her book “Chapter 38 (v2)”, “Tin” from her book “The Periodic Table of Poetry”, and her new poem “Violations in the name of love” live 4/8/18 at “Spoken and Heard” @ Kick Butt Coffee (Panasonic Lumix T56 camera; Sepia Tone).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “the Way you Tease me” from her book “Chapter 38 (v2)”, “Tin” from her book “The Periodic Table of Poetry”, and her new poem “Violations in the name of love” live 4/8/18 at “Spoken and Heard” @ Kick Butt Coffee (Panasonic Lumix T56 camera; Threshold).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “the Way you Tease me” from her book “Chapter 38 (v2)”, “Tin” from her book “The Periodic Table of Poetry”, and her new poem “Violations in the name of love” live 4/8/18 at “Spoken and Heard” @ Kick Butt Coffee (filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “the Way you Tease me” from her book “Chapter 38 (v2)”, “Tin” from her book “The Periodic Table of Poetry”, and her new poem “Violations in the name of love” live 4/8/18 at “Spoken and Heard” @ Kick Butt Coffee (Panasonic Lumix 2500; Edge Detection).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “the Way you Tease me” from her book “Chapter 38 (v2)”, “Tin” from her book “The Periodic Table of Poetry”, and her new poem “Violations in the name of love” live 4/8/18 at “Spoken and Heard” @ Kick Butt Coffee (Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera; Hue Cycling).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “the Way you Tease me” from her book “Chapter 38 (v2)”, “Tin” from her book “The Periodic Table of Poetry”, and her new poem “Violations in the name of love” live 4/8/18 at “Spoken and Heard” @ Kick Butt Coffee (Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera; Threshold).
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See YouTube video of Chicago poet Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Violations tested”, “Violations in the name of love”, and “Hunting for Life” from the Down in the Dirt 6/ v158) magazine issue/book “The Painting” 6/4/18 at Austin’s “Recycled Reads” open mic (Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
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See YouTube video of Chicago poet Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Violations tested”, “Violations in the name of love”, and “Hunting for Life” from the Down in the Dirt 6/ v158) magazine issue/book “The Painting” 6/4/18 at Austin’s “Recycled Reads” open mic (Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
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Janet Kuypers has a Communications degree in News/Editorial Journalism (starting in computer science engineering studies) from the UIUC. She had the equivalent of a minor in photography and specialized in creative writing. A portrait photographer for years in the early 1990s, she was also an acquaintance rape workshop facilitator, and she started her publishing career as an editor of two literary magazines. Later she was an art director, webmaster and photographer for a few magazines for a publishing company in Chicago, and this Journalism major was even the final featured poetry performer of 15 poets with a 10 minute feature at the 2006 Society of Professional Journalism Expo’s Chicago Poetry Showcase. This certified minister was even the officiant of a wedding in 2006.
She sang with acoustic bands “Mom’s Favorite Vase”, “Weeds and Flowers” and “the Second Axing”, and does music sampling. Kuypers is published in books, magazines and on the internet around 9,300 times for writing, and over 17,800 times for art work in her professional career, and has been profiled in such magazines as Nation and Discover U, won the award for a Poetry Ambassador and was nominated as Poet of the Year for 2006 by the International Society of Poets. She has also been highlighted on radio stations, including WEFT (90.1FM), WLUW (88.7FM), WSUM (91.7FM), WZRD (88.3FM), WLS (8900AM), the internet radio stations ArtistFirst dot com, chicagopoetry.com’s Poetry World Radio and Scars Internet Radio (SIR), and was even shortly on Q101 FM radio. She has also appeared on television for poetry in Nashville (in 1997), Chicago (in 1997), and northern Illinois (in a few appearances on the show for the Lake County Poets Society in 2006). Kuypers was also interviewed on her art work on Urbana’s WCIA channel 3 10 o’clock news.
She turned her writing into performance art on her own and with musical groups like Pointless Orchestra, 5D/5D, The DMJ Art Connection, Order From Chaos, Peter Bartels, Jake and Haystack, the Bastard Trio, and the JoAnne Pow!ers Trio, and starting in 2005 Kuypers ran a monthly iPodCast of her work, as well mixed JK Radio — an Internet radio station — into Scars Internet Radio (both radio stations on the Internet air 2005-2009). She even managed the Chaotic Radio show (an hour long Internet radio show 1.5 years, 2006-2007) through BZoO.org. She has performed spoken word and music across the country - in the spring of 1998 she embarked on her first national poetry tour, with featured performances, among other venues, at the Albuquerque Spoken Word Festival during the National Poetry Slam; her bands have had concerts in Chicago and in Alaska; in 2003 she hosted and performed at a weekly poetry and music open mike (called Sing Your Life), and from 2002 through 2005 was a featured performance artist, doing quarterly performance art shows with readings, music and images. Starting at this time Kuypers released a large number of CD releases currently available for sale at iTunes or amazon, including “Across the Pond”(a 3 CD set of poems by Oz Hardwick and Janet Kuypers with assorted vocals read to acoustic guitar of both Blues music and stylized Contemporary English Folk music), “Made Any Difference” (CD single of poem reading with multiple musicians), “Letting It All Out”, “What we Need in Life” (CD single by Janet Kuypers in Mom’s Favorite Vase of “What we Need in Life”, plus in guitarist Warren Peterson’s honor live recordings literally around the globe with guitarist John Yotko), “hmmm” (4 CD set), “Dobro Veče” (4 CD set), “the Stories of Women”, “Sexism and Other Stories”, “40”, “Live” (14 CD set), “an American Portrait” (Janet Kuypers/Kiki poetry to music from Jake & Haystack in Nashville), “Screeching to a Halt” (2008 CD EP of music from 5D/5D with Janet Kuypers poetry), “2 for the Price of 1” (Janet Kuypers poetry to music from Peter Bartels), “the Evolution of Performance Art” (13 CD set), “Burn Through Me” (Janet Kuypers poetry to music from The HA!Man of South Africa), “Seeing a Psychiatrist” (3 CD set), “The Things They Did To You” (Janet Kuypers poetry to music from the DMJ Art Connection), “Hope Chest in the Attic” (audio CD set), “St. Paul’s” (3 CD set), “the 2009 Poetry Game Show” (3 CD set), “Fusion” (Janet Kuypers poetry in multi CD set with Madison, WI jazz music from the Bastard Trio, the JoAnne Pow!ers Trio, and Paul Baker), “Chaos In Motion” (tracks from Internet radio shows on Chaotic Radio), “Chaotic Elements” (audio CD set for the poetry collection book and supplemental chapbooks for The Elements), “etc.” audio CD set, “Manic Depressive or Something” (Janet Kuypers poetry to music from the DMJ Art Connection), “Singular”, “Indian Flux” (Janet Kuypers poetry to music from the DMJ Art Connection), “The Chaotic Collection #01-05”, “The DMJ Art Connection Disc 1” (Janet Kuypers poetry to music from the DMJ Art Connection), “Oh.” audio CD, “Live At the Café” (3 CD set), “String Theory” (Janet Kuypers reading other people's poetry, with music from “the DMJ Art Connection), “Scars Presents WZRD radio” (2 CD set), “SIN - Scars Internet News”, “Questions in a World Without Answers”, “Conflict • Contact • Control”, “How Do I Get There?”, “Sing Your Life”, “Dreams”, “Changing Gears”, “The Other Side”, “Death Comes in Threes”, “the final”, “Moving Performances”, “Seeing Things Differently”, “Live At Cafe Aloha”, “the Demo Tapes” (Mom’s Favorite Vase), “Something Is Sweating” (the Second Axing), “Live In Alaska” EP (the Second Axing), “the Entropy Project”, “Tick Tock” (with 5D/5D), “Six Eleven”
“Stop. Look. Listen.”, “Stop. Look. Listen to the Music” (a compilation CD from the three bands “Mom’s Favorite Vase”, “Weeds & Flowers” and “The Second Axing”), and “Change Rearrange” (the performance art poetry CD with sampled music).
From 2010 through 2015 Kuypers also hosted the Chicago poetry open mic the Café Gallery, while also broadcasting weekly feature and open mic podcasts that were also released as YouTube videos.
In addition to being published with Bernadette Miller in the short story collection book Domestic Blisters, as well as in a book of poetry turned to prose with Eric Bonholtzer in the book Duality, Kuypers has had many books of her own published: Hope Chest in the Attic, The Window, Close Cover Before Striking, (woman.) (spiral bound), Autumn Reason (novel in letter form), the Average Guy’s Guide (to Feminism), Contents Under Pressure, etc., and eventually The Key To Believing (2002 650 page novel), Changing Gears (travel journals around the United States), The Other Side (European travel book), the three collection books from 2004: Oeuvre (poetry), Exaro Versus (prose) and L’arte (art), The Boss Lady’s Editorials, The Boss Lady’s Editorials (2005 Expanded Edition), Seeing Things Differently, Change/Rearrange, Death Comes in Threes, Moving Performances, Six Eleven, Live at Cafe Aloha, Dreams, Rough Mixes, The Entropy Project, The Other Side (2006 edition), Stop., Sing Your Life, the hardcover art book (with an editorial) in cc&d v165.25, the Kuypers edition of Writings to Honour & Cherish, The Kuypers Edition: Blister and Burn, S&M, cc&d v170.5, cc&d v171.5: Living in Chaos, Tick Tock, cc&d v1273.22: Silent Screams, Taking It All In, It All Comes Down, Rising to the Surface, Galapagos, Chapter 38 (v1 and volume 1), Chapter 38 (v2 and Volume 2), Chapter 38 v3, Finally: Literature for the Snotty and Elite (Volume 1, Volume 2 and part 1 of a 3 part set), A Wake-Up Call From Tradition (part 2 of a 3 part set), (recovery), Dark Matter: the mind of Janet Kuypers , Evolution, Adolph Hitler, O .J. Simpson and U.S. Politics, the one thing the government still has no control over, (tweet), Get Your Buzz On, Janet & Jean Together, po•em, Taking Poetry to the Streets, the Cana-Dixie Chi-town Union, the Written Word, Dual, Prepare Her for This, uncorrect, Living in a Big World (color interior book with art and with “Seeing a Psychiatrist”), Pulled the Trigger (part 3 of a 3 part set), Venture to the Unknown (select writings with extensive color NASA/Huubble Space Telescope images), Janet Kuypers: Enriched, She’s an Open Book, “40”, Sexism and Other Stories, the Stories of Women, Prominent Pen (Kuypers edition), Elemental, the paperback book of the 2012 Datebook (which was also released as a spiral-bound cc&d ISSN# 2012 little spiral datebook, , Chaotic Elements, and Fusion, the (select) death poetry book Stabity Stabity Stab Stab Stab, the 2012 art book a Picture’s Worth 1,000 words (available with both b&w interior pages and full color interior pages, the shutterfly ISSN# cc&d hardcover art book life, in color, Post-Apocalyptic, Burn Through Me, Under the Sea (photo book), the Periodic Table of Poetry, a year long Journey, Bon Voyage!, and the mini books Part of my Pain, Let me See you Stripped, Say Nothing, Give me the News, when you Dream tonight, Rape, Sexism, Life & Death (with some Slovak poetry translations), Twitterati, and 100 Haikus, that coincided with the June 2014 release of the two poetry collection books Partial Nudity and Revealed. 2017, after hr October 2015 move to Austin Texas, also witnessed the release of 2 Janet Kuypers book of poetry written in Austin, “(pheromemes) 2015-2017 poems” and a book of poetry written for her poetry features and show, “(pheromemes) 2015-2017 show poems” (and both pheromemes books are available from two printers).
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Thank you to Thom Woodruff for taking photos of Janet Kuypers as she was reading from the Down in the Dirt 6/18 perfect-bound ISBN# book “The Painting” in her “June 2018 Book Release Reading” 6/6/18 in Austin’s Community Poetry @ Half Price Books.
