mudjob

Nathaniel Tower

2012-02-22T23:30:00.000-06:00

Skydivers and Pornographers

Marcus had to redo the big scene for Going Down Without a Chute. His co-star passed out in midair before he'd even taken off his pants. Jana fumed when she heard the news.

"It's just skydiving," he said.

"Is it even possible?"

He rubbed her gently, making her quiver like a reed in a torrent. "Of course it's possible. I just need you there. You're my inspiration." She succumbed to his touch, her body collapsing on the couch.

"I'll be there," she sighed. For a moment she felt like one of his co-stars, but then she remembered it was just a suede couch. He was off her before it was over anyway, his belt barely buckled as he told her to get in the car or they'd be late.

Marcus was a pioneer, the innovator of the genre. First there was the mountain climbing scene. He didn't even use gear, although his costar wore a harness. Then he rode a horse and a woman to victory in an actual horse race. Then, cageless scuba diving with sharks. There was the gator-filled swamp scene, the wall rappel, the jousting match. And of course there was the scene that had made him the most famous of all, the flaming bed of nails.

He'd survived it all, to rave reviews, and the women, oh the women, how they came and came and came. Just once Jana wished he could do to her what he did to them, but she was too afraid. She would try to support him though, even as he jumped out of a plane and somehow found the dexterity to penetrate a strange woman. Only the woman would wear a parachute, so he couldn't remove himself from her until they reached the ground.

When they arrived, Marcus gave her a rough kiss on the cheek and thanked her for coming. She wished him good luck and returned his kiss.

Jana watched as Marcus jumped from the plane and shed his clothes. He stripped the woman and found a way to keep himself inside her as they pierced the delicate clouds. The parachute didn't even tangle when he turned her around. Jana could hear the woman moaning thousands of feet above the ground. It gave her a strange twinge of excitement.

When Marcus landed and dismounted, Jana gave him a hug and said she was proud of him. "Can we give it a try?" she cooed in his ear.

"I don't mix work and pleasure," he said. "Besides, I need to do another take with Amber. I made her moan too soon."

Marcus went off to the trailer. Jana, fuming again, sneaked off to the prop box. She didn't bother to wish Marcus good luck.

Grounded, Jana watched her husband penetrate the sky and the woman again. This time the chute didn't open. Marcus and Amber fell faster and faster, Marcus thrusting all the way, Amber howling to the ground, Jana getting in the car before it was over.

Nathaniel Tower writes fiction, teaches English, and manages the online lit magazine Bartleby Snopes. His short fiction has appeared in over 100 online and print magazines. His first novel, A Reason To Kill, was released in July 2011 through MuseItUp Publishing. Visit him at www.bartlebysnopes.com/ntower.htm

Paul de Denus

2012-02-15T00:46:00.000-06:00

Dark Black

The world ended on Saturday evening as Clayton Dill danced and weaved in the sand, a glass of red in one hand and a cool brunette in the other.

I was chuckling at his nonsense, eyeballing Laura Lang, Clayton’s tightly held girlfriend when the block of frigid air dropped and plunged the sunset atmosphere into a deep freeze, the sky dimming ultramarine as the red ball fell over the horizon.

Beach goers who had clustered along the water’s edge to enjoy the fine wine and light conversation stumbled about, bodies stunned and stiffening as if hit by ice-blue electricity, some looking to the water… others to the sun’s last slash of gold glimmering along the rim… then to each other as shoulders hugged and shivered and I heard Clayton drunkenly say, “for fuk-say, sum-one turn on the heat” but I was already down, driven to one knee; the startling slap of Siberian-like cold wrapped my body in an icepack, Laura Lang grabbed wildly for my arm, her brown eyes confused, her fuck-me smile disappearing in panic and she collapsed near Clayton who stared quizzically at the people staggering from the beach.

I stood, legs shaky and unsure - that of a toddler - and lurched for the access ramp into the parking lot, the hazed light receding in diminishing shades with each passing second - faster than my mind could comprehend - but one thought formed clear: the sun has gone out.

My teeth ached from the cold and I nearly passed out as I fumbled with the car keys, my hands like frozen rubber, the white chill touching hot marrow, shocking nerve endings; the fading light turned a deep blue velvet coating my skin like cold molasses, weighing me down and I scrambled to hold back panic wondering if I were having a heart attack.

My limbs numbed, my legs moved in slow motion and my arms swam in the semi-darkness… a darkness that felt alive and lurid like a child’s voice in a well and I wanted to go down the well into the dark where the voice, now spoiled and bleak echoed: the sun has extinguished… come to me… but I held my concentration - thin as it was - fragile as loose cobwebs and I shivered and sped through indigo streets, the look of disbelief on the faces I skimmed by, their feet slogging as if encased in cement, their bodies dimming as the remaining light of day slowly winked out; from above, birds - heavy as bricks - plummeted from the blackened sky onto the street.

2

I found myself home, staggered inside and pawed at the hallway switch; the room illuminated and I felt better almost immediately as if a light had flicked on inside my body and I moved freely then, lurching into every room as my body warmed and my brain cleared, turned on every beautiful light, wondered how long the electricity would last.

In the kitchen, the window over the sink hissed like air escaping from a tire and a memory from childhood bloomed in my head: I bounced inside an inflatable fun house… the structure suddenly losing air and I sank down… into cascading plastic waves… deep and overwhelming… grasping at smooth walls… the dark roof descending. I slammed the curtain over the hissing window and scrambling into every room, pulled the drapes and shutters fast on the rest of the gaping black mouths that now shrieked.

Searching the bureaus and closets, I found two working flashlights, a scattering of batteries - old and new - a half tray of eleven-inch taper candles, several matchbooks and in my bedside drawer, my handgun.

I clicked on the television, only to be greeted with pure static and white snow on every channel and I jumped when my cell phone rang – just the once - but there was no one there, only the darkness of dead air.

There was a fleeting second - only a moment - to ponder that someone finally did something crazy… a terrorist plot maybe… a government mistake… some asshole pulled the wrong switch, pressed the wrong button… and then more frightening, a simpler answer; this was just the nature of things.

I stoked the kindling in the fireplace and let out a child-like cry when it offered an encouraging flame and after several dry logs caught on, I tore into the furniture around the room.

3

According to the battery clock on the wall, it’s after nine in the morning and the sun should be up but it’s not.

It is beyond dark outside … I don’t have to look… through the numbness I can feel it; the house is ice and I can hear the outside skin cracking, falling; I have no power.

The living room windows bulge, the drapes push inward and I wonder if I’m imagining it or if it’s my alcohol consumption zanily taking control of things.

Wrapped in cold comfort, I drift but stay awake – why I don’t know – I should just let sleep take me but I don’t and I’m crying again… calling for anyone but there’s no one home… no one anywhere.

I can’t get my head around what has happened and I slip into a tearful giggle; my head feels swollen, my numb hands form into bent claws and I imagine myself T-Rex with the same damn look on its swollen face when the world disintegrated around him.

The fire is dwindling, the light all but gone; it’s a lost cause as the dark moves in and I fondle the handgun and yawn… Laura Lang leans in next to me and I pull her closer, the handgun too and force a smile knowing the flash in her brown eyes will be the last light of the world I’ll ever see.

Paul de Denus is a graphic artist by day, writer by night. He has been published at Six Sentences (The Love Book, Word of Mouth, and 6S Vol 3), Smith Magazine, Fictionaut, and Espresso Stories.
Paul's writings and self published books appear at his blog: Me, the Other Twin.

Edward Strand

2012-02-08T00:30:00.000-06:00

Along the Meridian

After Mr. Canaan was dead, his widow and her lawyer opened his safety deposit boxes and inside discovered over two million dollars and a few Tai Chi videotapes.
The lawyer claimed Mr. Canaan was a gambler and had won the money in Atlantic City over a period of years and had stowed it away. He said one of the bundles was bound by a tape with the insignia from one of the casinos. Mrs. Canaan said she was unaware that her husband had been such a heavy gambler, but it must have been so because on finding the money she saw several casino binders. She mentioned the names of several.
Sherri Palatnik, a chronic junior executive, said she was not surprised. She had always thought something was amiss but she wouldn’t elaborate. Later under oath in front of a grand jury, she denied having any knowledge whatsoever. In fact she denied having implied that rumors had reached her ears.
None of the partners of the law firm would give the goods on any other. Even those who had retired and were granted immunity refused to implicate any former coworkers. Each who came to testify fidgeted and appeared uncomfortable when the employee expense accounts were read out once again.
The Union had changed leaders a couple of times since Mr. Canaan’s tenure, so none of the officers who came to speak could say much with any conviction.
The only thing that was a certainty was that after the election in which Mr. Canaan had lost his position, the law firm handling the Union’s legal requirements was dropped in favor of another, not entirely different, firm. Many of the lawyers moved to the new firm. They were familiar with the Union members’ needs.
In the end, the district attorney’s assistant failed to make his case so it was a moot point as to how the money arrived in the safety deposit boxes. Mrs. Canaan was two million dollars richer, minus her attorney’s fees of course.
And the old law firm which was paying a pension to the retired partner who had been a long-time friend of the deceased? They walked away quietly licking their wounds and hoped to rebuild their good name. They really did not need the bad publicity a trial would have brought them.
Those were rough times. Everyone said the stock market was due for a correction, in which case even privately held companies would suffer. Buying Union contracts proved prohibitive under the new economy.
Mrs. Canaan became a celebrity whose every move for well into six months was reported by the tabloids until she spent a goodly sum from her mysterious windfall on plastic surgery that healed badly. Looking ordinary, she was treated ordinarily, and stargazers eventually lost interest in her exploits. Most of what they had wanted to know was demystified in gleaning Sherri Palatnik’s book for the juicy parts. Tell-alls sell well even in hard times, though she had waxed heavily on the symbolism underpinning the Tai Chi tapes.
Six years later, when Mrs. Canaan, on a shopping trip in London, stepped in front of a double-decker bus and was killed, a writer for the Village Voice tried to revive her celebrity without success. The New York Times gave her a scant sixteen line obituary in which her ex-lawyer then riding a career highpoint said he had lost touch with her and was quoted in an off-color remark about the results of her surgery and other unwise investments. Elsewhere he commented that fifteen minutes was hardly enough time to do the right thing, and unless one was prepared to take advantage of their moment, they could easily lose their way along the meridian.

Ed Strand has written on the Six Sentence Social Network and Thinking Ten, and also tried his hand at blogging a semi-journal called Stranded Online, for which he has not written in several months. He describes Along the Meridian as a comeback piece.

Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal

2012-02-01T02:00:00.000-06:00

HALF BLIND

I look at the world half-blind.
It does not bother me.
I take my glasses off and see
the blurry mountains in the distance.
The afternoon light makes my eyes
water. It leaves me nearly blind.
I look at life with disappointment.
Dust is thrown in my face
by the passing busses. Lack of love
feels like soap in the eye.
Wounded, I keep my head up.
Perhaps love will come;
happiness ever after;
everything I missed out on.
This dark heart needs light.

AT THIS HOUR

At this hour

the sunrise hides
behind the mountain.

A brilliant cloud
veils the golden sun.

The rose wilts.

Life is good.

The flowery garden
awaits the sun
and welcomes the rain.

The greatness of this hour
must be divine.

FLOWERS FOR HER

I gather my thoughts as I gather
flowers. The hummingbird
watches me as does the butterfly.
The flowers are for the one I
love. The birds sing without
judgment. I choose yellow, red,
and white flowers. They are
sparkling with dew. In the early
morning I am half-awake. I want
to make a good impression on
the one I love. I think of sweet
words to say to her. The flowers
are brilliant. It starts to rain.
Still the birds remain singing.

Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal's poetry has appeared in Blue Collar Review, Orion Headless, and Right Hand Pointing. Pygmy Forest Press published his first book, Raw Materials (2004). His latest, Peering Into The Sun, was published by Poet's Democracy (2011).

Bill Floyd

2012-01-25T02:07:00.000-06:00

Cataclysm

One of the worst parts is when the girl’s parents come by. They want to lay down flowers at the foot of the tree in our front yard. The trunk is splintered there where the Jeep hit it, but the tree is still standing. There is a great scattering of loose branches and pods strewn around the trunk. Jess and I stand in our front yard and we shake their hands, feeling wholly insubstantial. I tell the girl’s parents to take as long as they need to take, and then we walk up to the house. I linger by the front window a moment, watching them looking at the ground, and then Jess gently pulls me away.

“Leave them be.”

We heard the impact near eleven o’clock Friday night, just as we were getting ready for bed. The whole house shook. I ran to the front door and turned on the porch lights and called for Jess to dial 911. Other neighbors had heard the crash, too, and came running. Glass shards in the grass, the smell of engine fluids. Someone had brought a flashlight and everything was kind of encircled, images at the end of a telescope. The girl was in the passenger seat, twisted into an impossible shape. Later on, the reporter on the news said she was only seventeen. Just a kid. The flashlight briefly found her face, a fixed surprised look, pink lipstick and aqua eye shadow.

When I was just a kid I used to drive careening through the streets of my hometown, drunk and high on whatever was available to my grabby little hands, and sometimes I’d turn the headlights off in the middle of a curve. Sometimes there were people in the car with me. I steered on instinct, and my instincts were bad. A great bewildered hurt turning to fury inside. A tremulous bluff masquerading as "I don't give a fuck."

Thanks to the reliable twenty-five-year cycle of fashion, the culture of the 80s has recently made a sort of cosmetic comeback. I graduated from high school in 1986. My friends and I weren’t into new wave and we hated preppies and we hated rap. I saw Ghostbusters three times the day it came out. I remember the first time I fell in love, saying the words with no restraint, all heart and no future. Defiant. We knew MTV was bullshit and we watched it anyway. Nostalgia is for kids who weren’t even there, who seek a veneer to cast the present in a manageable light, an imagined culture that was in reality nothing but what little we didn’t scorn from the abundance we were handed. When I hear all the synth-y music the kids listen to these days and I see their popped collars and their aquas and pinks it doesn’t take me back to the prom or the good old days. It takes me back to that whirl of anguish and faith and headlong surrender to impulse that made me smash the bottle and gun the engine and suck in the smoke as deep as it could go.

Sometimes I still have difficulties breathing.

They found the Jeep's driver staggering through another front yard a block away. He was bleeding and dazed and in shock. He reeked of alcohol. When the police brought him back to the scene you could hear him saying he was sorry, over and over. But his eyes had the calculating look of someone accustomed to formulating lies, bald faced lies that were so ineffective they might’ve only served to muddy the waters in his own head.

I thought the parents might come up to the house when they were done praying or whatever it was they were doing. They didn’t linger, though. I wasn’t surprised when they never came back. Unimaginable, or maybe that's not really the right word at all.

I mowed around the spot for a while. Mowing the yard used to be something I looked forward to, a couple of hours a week mindlessly steering the mower back and forth, considering things in a purely hypothetical sort of way.

Eventually I threw the remains of the flowers in the trash. One day I came home and found Jess kneeling in the dirt out there, planting a rosebush. Talking to it, or to someone.

Bill lives in central North Carolina. His first published novel was called The Killer's Wife and came out in 2008. He's been doing more experimental work since then, but is currently trying for a commercial follow-up so he won't have to go back to a day job.

Patrick Trotti

2012-01-18T22:57:00.000-06:00

Green with Envy

The plane’s constant moan kept Francis and Carol awake for the entirety of the trip. Francis wasn’t going to sleep regardless but Carol wanted to get there refreshed. Instead she ordered a procession of miniature sized cocktails and began flipping through glossy, trashy celebrity magazines. It was her one guilty pleasure. She felt safe up here, off of the ground. Safe enough in her anonymity amongst fellow travelers, faceless people she’d likely never see again, to blatantly indulge in her mindless hobby. Every few pages she’d glance over at Francis. She was amazed at him. Everything about him, his posture, his ability to remain still for hours after hour doing nothing except staring out the window into the dark, endless night, amazed his wife who was visibly giddy with excitement for their arrival and the beginning of their vacation. She was also jealous. But in a good way. She longed for his patience and his certainty of what he was doing was right in moments such as this. Carol wanted that and more from Francis. At the start of their relationship she’d gone out with him just to feel his energy vibrating off of him. She wanted to catch some of it, to somehow bottle it up and better herself, awaken herself because of it. Over the years, through everything, that energy hadn’t ceased. Instead it grew stronger and Carol loved her husband for that above all else.

Of course it wasn’t a vacation to Francis. Sure he could enjoy parts of the summer that lay before him. Moments of isolated solitude with just him and his wife enjoying a quiet breakfast in the city or a postcard view of the countryside on a weekend trip but those would be few and far between. His silence, although fooling his wife into a quiet admiration of him, was more of a muzzled energy that he turned inward, analyzing everything that he had to do once he touched down. This trip wasn’t a job to Francis; it was more, much more. It was a chance to reshape the economic and environmental future of his ancestral homeland. Up until now Francis had gone about his career with the acquisition of wealth serving as his guiding light. That certainness was his solace. The unceasing quality and value of money stabilized Francis in times of personal upheaval. Through hair lost, waistline expansion, even death to loved ones, Francis could always rely on his never ending quest to try and obtain more money. This goal was, at first, an attempt at the American dream, to provide his family with more comfort than he’d had growing up. It somehow morphed over the years. It was now a part of his personality; it was what made him feel whole, what got him out of bed in the morning. To resist this urge, to accept this job pro-bono and take on all of the expenses of the summer as an out of pocket loss, although he could afford to, was a defining moment in Francis’ life. He’d found a new mission thirty thousand feet above sea level over the dark, cold waters of the Atlantic.

It was early morning and the air outside the window had gone from a dark, uninviting blue that looked like a day old bruise after a fistfight to a light hue of powder blue sprinkled with rays of warm orange coming from the few places that the large, fluffy clouds allowed them to sneak out of.

Carol leaned in to try and share in the vision. She could still remember the first time she saw the west coast of Ireland. Its rolling green hills resembled a vast, never-ending quilt with its patchwork of different versions of green. She never knew color could have so many variations. That was before they were married. No kids, fewer responsibilities.

But now, with more than a dozen trips behind her, she took in the color and the quilt came to mind but the land, the vision, had more to offer her now. That quilt, once just a beautiful view now had a story behind it. She’d heard on her trips, around the fireplace at the pubs late at night in between songs or back at the cousin’s country farmhouse around dinner. She’d felt the knee-high walls separating Francis’ family’s farm from their neighbors. The cold, jagged rocks were stacked haphazardly.

She once asked why there were no large farms like back home. Francis looked at his feet. She detected a pinch of shame in his eyes.
“Because that’s all the Queen allowed them to have.”

Only in the early morning fog of one too many Guiness’ drank did he open up a bit more. Stories told of shared pasts, a common struggle. Carol didn’t share; she had no tales to tell. She listened, devoured it all. Each and every story. The famine. The wars and revolutions. The imprisonments. The struggle to somehow legitimize an entire people through government policies. The religious clashes. The anger now turned to guilt and shame. The repression of their native tongue in their own schools. The drunken revisionist debates over which leader to follow- Collins or de Valera. There was no wrong answer, only deeply personal allegiances. That much Carol was sure of.

As Carol saw the coast appear now she gently rubbed up against Francis resting at the base of his neck, just under the part of his neck where his stubble begins. She caught a glimpse of the coastline. That was enough for now. She had the entire summer. She focused on Francis. He hadn’t blinked since land came into view. At that moment, as her husband leaned his head up against the small glass window, faintly touching it with two of his fingers trying to desperately reach out and touch the beauty below, Carol knew that he was full. Full of joy, full of gratefulness, full of life, full, for the first time in his adult life, just full, of, life.

Before they touched down, making the journey complete and tangible, Carol’s appreciation of her husband’s contentment instantly vanished and was replaced by a deep, sharp feeling of self-guilt and loneliness. Maybe it was the other couples surrounding them, sharing in the excitement of anticipation, almost bursting at the thought of opening the door and stepping foot on Irish soil, or maybe it was the barely audible conversations: the mutual appreciation of the moment shared. Carol sat in silence. The seatbelt felt tight, constricting, locking her into place like the obedient partner she was. As Francis remained unmoved, his entire attention devoted to the bleak early morning view of the airport tarmac, Carol wanted to scream. Scream out to him, to remind him that she was there. That it was okay, somehow necessary, to communicate his feelings with her and make sure she was enjoying herself.

This wasn’t her trip; nothing about this summer was hers. She realized the childishness of her emotions but they were real, and growing by the moment. His demeanor reeked of fulfillment, making it difficult to penetrate. He’d built a wall around him and she couldn’t intrude. In times like these Francis reminded Carol of her father. His silence, especially in his later years, paralyzed the entire household, holding her mother ransom. She wasn’t going to let that happen to her. The plane finally stopped rolling, idling in place at the desired gate. Carol sat back and tried to let her feelings pass. This was important to her husband so, in turn, it was important to her. It should be that way; it had to be that way. Made things easier.

She wanted to take in the moment, own it somehow like Francis but something wasn’t right. She knew what the summer held for her. Lone trips to used bookstores, museums and historical sites. One ticket for plays, tables for one at small, family owned side street cafes.

Carol took comfort in the rationality of her feelings, her ability to work through it by herself.

The next three months would be the crowning of a life’s worth of being a plus one. Carol’s value was tied to the men in her life. Handed from her father on her wedding day to Francis. The old man silently nodding in the groom’s direction, signifying the unspoken transfer of modern day patriarchal ownership. She’d play the dutiful, happy wife. For his sake. His needs were paramount. Always had been. Carol recognized the imbalance in their marriage but this wasn’t the place to bring forth her argument for change.

She grabbed her bag from the overhead storage compartment and prepared to leave the plane. Francis grabbed her bag in one swift motion. No smile, no sincere declaration of manners just a simple act. Carol soaked in the moment; trying to hold onto it, somehow freeze it hoping that it would be sufficient enough to last until his next gesture.

Patrick Trotti is a writer, student, and founder/editor of the online lit mag (Short) Fiction Collective. You can check out more of his work at patricktrotti.blogspot.com. Twitter:PatrickTrotti.

Leviathan

2012-01-11T22:45:00.000-06:00

A God Dances Through Me

“I betcha don’t believe a word am sayin’. Betcha you one of them city boys who believe God won’t push the button no more.” The old man said. “Well, you betcha sorry ass He has.”

Crazy people tend to pray on the fears and vulnerabilities of the other people. Most of them could smell that in their prey like no other animal.

I told myself not to panic. A single click of the ignition could be all I need to put it behind, and a bit of faith that broken down vehicles in the middle of a highway have a way of sorting themselves out on the first sign of trouble.

And the old man was trouble. He was trouble all the way.

Feeling nervous, I asked. “And when do you reckon He did that?”

“It’s been two days straight, or a little over. When did you last switched onto your radio?” He pointed to the car radio. “Or does the damn thing work?”

The damn thing that the old man referred to did work. My Sony car radio looking a touch too battered by years of neglect.

He began pleading, as if reading my thoughts. “Yo’ sti’l plannin’ to head north, arentcha? Like the rest of them fools.” He paused, half expecting me to panic and race off. “God’s finally made up His mind to get back on us you see. You ever seen people meltin’, that’s what it looked like to me back there. And most of the newborns lookin’ half finished too.”

“You been in some kind of trouble, old man?” I asked, losing my patience. “Back there where you from.”

“Huhn. What didcha say?”

“Up to something no good back there perhaps? Got too drunk and whacked a fella, or touched a wrong girl or somethin’. Got an old limpin’ fool like you scurryin’ off like that.”

The old man stared at me, long and hard. “Now look here, young man. Don’tcha go smartin’ on me now. I ain’t tellin’ you to do nothin’. Dig your own damn grave if its fits ya. All am doin’ is telling you that back north, things ain’t the same no more.”

I reached for the ignition, praying for a miracle.

************

My initial reaction was to run the damn thing down, and I probably would have, had it not been for a broken down car in the middle of a fucking desert. And no, I ain’t crazy, I ain’t the killing sort of man. It was just this thing, you see. Something about him that … that just didn’t quite fit in. Looking drunk, starved and running as if to escape God’s little planet.

Or to ruin it.

A desert noon playing tricks, that’s all. I told myself.

Stranded on the highway, I couldn’t help but notice a figure running in the middle of a heated noon, waving about at the speeding vehicles, though there were none to speak of. The old man hardly had any clothes on. He cut a lone figure on the long deserted road, lingering a shadow longer than I had ever seen.

Fell for the worm as they say. Curiosity makes a fish of us all.

“Car trouble?” The old man asked once he got close enough, standing next to the car window with his eyes squinting, staring down at my face. “You headin’ north?”

He looked a forlorn drunken figure, probably in his early 70s, long hairs and sunburns. Yes, plenty of them, and they looked a lot worse up close.

But sometimes, you miss out on something that is right in front of your eyes.

I replied in affirmative.

“I ought to warn you off. Been doing that since I got off them towns, and none of those fools on the wheels payin’ shit to anything I said.” He paused. “Seemed to me that the whole world is headin’ north them last couple of days.”

Around us, nothing else seemed to move. Nothing else seemed bothered. The whole universe had dipped its fat round head in the intergalactic pit of sand against the face of this intruder.

I asked him to explain himself. Quietly telling him he was making no sense.

“There ain’t nothin’ in them towns but trouble.” He croaked. “You can’t be headin’ north. No one in his right mind should. Need you to turn around, and put as many miles behind ya as ya can.”

A crazy doomsayer on a highway wasn’t something I would have made my bets on when making up my mind for a trip back to my hometown after a decade of keeping distance, a decade of cold heartedness on my part borne of an unhappy childhood. Though the fact that my distant father has passed away recently made it a lot easier to go back to the things left behind. The trip wasn’t just about visiting him, but to bury him, and hopefully the memories that came with it.

I noticed the empty bottle of whiskey in one of his hands, knowing where exactly all of this was going.

The man looked back north, contemplating. “I been livin’ one of them towns. Them’s all too ugly now. All of them folks down there too. The whole bunch of towns’ lookin’ like scattered swamps, swarmed with bunch of creeps who once looked like men.”

He pointed down his feet. “Lookie! I got a bit roughened up ma self. Down the riverside I walked yesterday morn’, Got ma feet all nastied up in the water there. Ain’t looked like no water I ever seen in ma life.”

I needed to move on.

************

I told him that the radio worked just fine. I recalled listening to Cold Play’s Viva La Vida, Bill Withers’ Aint No Sunshine, and even to gruffly voiced Dylan getting feverish about death and dying. Telling us it was ok to die if you only put up a little fight, made it long enough and hard enough against the dying of the light.

“Been listenin’ to the news lately?” He asked. “It ought to be in the news by now.”

“Yes, I have.” I lied. “There ain’t nothin’ in them that I noticed.” I haven’t specifically been hunting for news on my trip so far.

“Hmm, well, maybe the news hasn’t reached them ears yet.” The old man didn’t reply. “Or maybe they ain’t no believers no more. Little city boys like you busting their asses off for a livin’ while the world’s running short on time.”

I took a moment to stare deep down into his bushy eyes, and saw nothing. Nothing of the madness pouring out his mouth.

I pointed at the empty bottle dangling on his left hand. “You been living of them cheap whiskey for too long, old man.” I managed a smile. A right amount of whiskey in the veins could bring the whole world crumbling down.

“Whiskey my ass”. The old man crooned. Smashing down the bottle on the road as if to prove it. “I been runnin’ down this road for two days straight and this damn bottle ain’t licked liquor for the best part of it.”

“You expect me to believe that?” I said.

“I expect you to turn on that darn radio.” He replied. “That’s what I expect you to do, good and proper.”

I looked at him, keeping a straight face. Thinking how crazy I would have to be to actually reach out for my radio, if only to make sure if the world was still round enough since I last checked in.

“Turn it on, wontcha.” A wide grin appeared on the old man’s face, unveiling the dark holes between the random set of crooked teeth and bad gum. The expression on his face seemed to be one of invitation. Daring me to accept the challenge.

“Turn it on and believe, city boy.”

He is from some other planet. A crazy thought occurred to me.

“Whatcha lookin’ at me for like that”. The grin just got wider. “You ain’t no smart city boy are ya. Can’t ya tell that a God dances through me? Can’t you see nothing beyond the busted cars and sunny radio sets.” Paused. “Can’t ya see nothin’ yet?”

I half expected the old man to change. To watch him waver and blink as a hologram would, failing to hold on to some mysterious relay gone momentarily stray, channeled off by some cosmic plateau none have heard of; a deep dark hole in space responsible for all this.

And I have fallen for the worm.

Looking back at the radio set, I watched my hand reaching for the little red button, trying to hold onto the part of me saying that all I have to do is to turn the damn thing on, switch to one of those news channels, and that would be the end of this whole crazy episode. Same part of us that laughs about things we don’t understand, pats us on the backs, and tells us that it’s nothing at all.

I froze. My fingers against the cold dreaded button, itching to home in. Telling myself I ain’t the crazy one here. Telling myself that all I needed is a little push.

Though a software engineer by profession, Leviathan tries to spend almost all of his time reading and writing down whatever comes to his mind. He enjoys brooding over and seeking inspiration from writers such as Don DeLillo, Cormac McCarthy, Thomas Pynchon, John Steinbeck and Stephen King.

Harris Tobias

2012-01-04T03:06:00.000-06:00

The Finger

The Poindexters were happy to be home. Janet was exhausted. She'd planned the trip to Europe down to the last detail. It was something she'd dreamed of doing for so long but at 65 she underestimated how strenuous it was going to be. Milton, on the other hand, was happy for a totally different reason. He spent the entire two weeks with a nagging, anxious feeling that he was being followed. Something menacing was stalking him. Often he'd turn around to see if he could catch sight of who or what it was. Of course there was never anything there. He never mentioned his unease to Janet. This was her dream vacation, after all, and he didn't want to spoil those few precious days on the continent with his paranoia. Janet was happier than he'd seen her in years as she marched them from castle to palace to museum. Eight cities in two weeks didn't leave a lot of time to get to know a place, but they each had their own cameras and snapped away trying to record every sight.
Now they were home and the anxious feeling was gone. The bags were unpacked and put away in the garage, the film was dropped off at the drugstore and the familiar routine of their lives was restored. A few days later, Milton picked up the developed prints from the pharmacy.
When they got them home, he and Janet spread them out on the dining room table, all four rolls worth. It was immediately obvious that Milton was a poor photographer. Many of the pictures he took had a big pink blob somewhere in the frame. When Milton saw them that anxious feeling returned.
"Oh Milton, don't you know enough to keep your fingers away from the lens?" Janet chided him. Milton shrugged and tried to laugh off his apparent incompetence. Janet sighed one of her "what can you do with a man like that" sighs and proceeded to put the pictures, both good and bad, in an album. It was a cherished record of their trip dragged out at the slightest provocation to show their friends.
Everyone got a kick out of Milton's inept picture taking. They all made jokes about the big pink blob that traveled with them throughout Europe but Milton wasn't convinced that the big pink blob was entirely his fault. He might not have been the best photographer but he knew how to use his camera and he could swear he knew how to hold it. But there it was lying across a roof top or lurking behind a building or down one of those marvelous cobbled streets in some medieval town. It struck Milton as odd that the finger always appeared on the edge of the picture. He studied it closely looking for proof that it wasn't his finger but proof was as elusive as the blob itself.
Matters rested there for several weeks until one fine summer afternoon when friends were gathered around the pool and Milton, with a scotch in one hand and his camera in the other was snapping pictures of guests and grandchildren drinking and cavorting in the sun. He caught a whiff of that almost forgotten feeling, that ominous presence he had in Europe. Here was a chance to prove to himself if there was something to his paranoia or not.
He took special care how he held the camera and how he placed his hands. He took a few random shots of nothing in particular to see if he could catch the finger off guard. He could hear Janet teasing him about those shots even as he took them. "What's this, a shot of the shrubbery?" she‘d probably ask.
When the photographs returned from the drugstore, Milton couldn't wait to see them. He eagerly shuffled through the envelope in the middle of the store. Sure enough, there was the same pink blob. It wasn't in every picture but it was in one or two of them. Especially the unplanned, random shots of shrubs and trees. On casual examination it looked like a finger. But if you really studied it with a magnifying glass, you could see that it wasn't a finger at all. What it was exactly, Milton didn't know but he was determined to find out.
In the following weeks, Milton became obsessed with capturing the finger on film. He'd taken to calling it "the finger" for lack of a better name. Everyone referred to it as Milton's finger anyway. He faced a lot of good natured joking from Janet but Milton was determined to get to the bottom of the mystery. He bought himself a better camera, one with interchangeable lenses.
"Again with the camera?" Janet would say. "We need more pictures of your finger? And what's with the gloves?"
Milton explained, "I'm making photography my hobby. The gloves keep me from smudging the lenses."
He shot a dozen rolls of film before he had his proof. He'd taken to wearing white gloves when he went out picture taking. That way he would know that if it was indeed his finger it would be white but if it was "the finger" it would be pink. Milton roamed the parks and towns near his home looking for subjects and snapped away. His picture taking improved considerably. When the finger appeared it was always pink.
"Got you," Milton said looking through the latest batch of prints and finding one with a big pink blob in one corner. He tossed away the rest of the prints even though some were excellent compositions. He was elated. Here at last was proof that he wasn't being paranoid, proof too that it wasn't his fault. He didn't expect anyone would believe him but he now knew for sure—"the finger" was real and it was following him.
He rushed out of the drug store with the print in his hand. He was going to show Janet what he'd discovered. He was never seen again.

Harris Tobias was raised by robots disguised as New Yorkers. Despite an awkward childhood he learned to read and write. To date Mr. Tobias has published two detective novels, The Greer Agency and A Felony of Birds, to critical acclaim. In addition he has published short stories in Down in the Dirt Magazine, Literal Translations, Electric Flash and Ray Gun Revival. He currently lives and writes in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Michael D. Brown

2011-12-28T22:31:00.000-06:00

It Takes a Village

Madame Treyne had crossed the Rubicon in a way she could never explain to old friends and acquaintances, with whom she could not even communicate in any way ever again as her fondest desire had been granted; the person and she had exchanged lives for this and all Christmases to follow. The lonely, imagination-clouded widower who had for many years been caretaker of the colorful little village would now reside, as she had done for several carol-filled weeks perennially in her flower shop and for the rest wrapped in paper along with the others in a box in a dark place, though he would most likely make use of one of the gingerbread cottages that had mysteriously appeared, propitiously electrified, on the west side of the mirror lake, two, perhaps three, years earlier. Time was so hard to reckon these days now that it flowed continuously and did not occur in fits and starts as it had done for as long as she could remember. Her greatest regret on coming to this seemingly unstill life was that the joyously uneventful, yet musically charged days she recalled came again so rarely and held little of the charming ambiance she had formerly found so stultifying, but now missed with all her porcelain heart. There were times, to be sure, so filled with activity she did not have time to think about her former occupation, where it had been so easy to relate with her kind, but for the most part she now experienced the longing to be small and uncharged with responsibility that had shrunk the lonely heart of the person with whom she had traded places for all the wrong reasons. She often found herself gazing upon the unresponsive hand-painted figurines who populated her ever growing holiday village, which was never packed and stored as it sat eternally on display beneath a small, potted, carefully tended pine tree in a dedicated corner of what people sometimes referred to as her living room.

Harris Tobias

2011-12-21T22:28:00.000-06:00

A Chanukah Story

It was the coldest Chanukah anyone could remember. Icicles hung from the eaves and a cold wind blew the snow into drifts on the lawn. It was the last night of Chanukah and the fully lit menorah would do what it could to compete with the multi-colored twinkling displays of Christmas lights on all the other houses in Stony Glen Estates.. As the subdivision’s only Jewish family, little Sarah Greenstein took special pride showing the menorah in the living-room window. The menorah was a heavy silver antique passed down, like her Jewishness, from her Mother. Unfortunately, it required a rather large odd sized candle which the Greenstiens had to special order many weeks in advance from a Judiaca store in Brooklyn. The candles were kept in the drawer with the tablecloths until they were needed.
This is how Chanukah had been for all of Sarah’s nine years. But this year something had gone wrong with the candle order. The count was wrong and the box from Brooklyn was short the nine candles needed for the last night. Instead of containing 44 candles, which covered all the nights of Chanukah, the candle box was completely empty after the seventh night. Not only were there no special candles left, there were no candles in the house at all and the storm outside made driving to the store impossible.
The mood inside the Greenstein’s house was as dark as the menorah. All around them the neighbor’s houses twinkled and flashed with Christmas color. Some houses had illuminated Santas and sleighs on their roof or lawn, some had reindeer and wise men, and one had a huge inflated snowman. Everywhere there were lights; cascades of lights hung off the roofs and engulfed every shrub and tree. The menorah’s slow build up to its fully lit splendor was all but lost in the Christmas glare.
Alas, it appeared that there was nothing to be done to salvage the situation. The festival of lights was headed for a cold and dark conclusion. Sarah sat in her room disappointed and stared out her window. The neighbor’s colored light show reflected off the icicles hanging from the eaves giving them the appearance of colored rods. Maybe it was that colored glow that gave Sarah the idea that saved this story and her final night. Running down the steps she ran to her father and told him her idea.
“Put icicles in the menorah”? her incredulous father asked. “I don’t think that’s a very good idea. They’ll only melt and make a mess”. But Sarah begged and pleaded until her father put on his winter coat and went to fetch the ladder from the garage. In a few minutes he returned with a pail containing nine icicles just about the size of the menorah’s candles. Sarah set them in their sockets ready for lighting. It looked a little strange but there was no denying it had a certain charm about it. The family gathered around the curious candelabra, joined hands and said the Chanukah prayer. Father even went as far as to light a match and touch it to the shamus, the center candle that lights the others.
No one was more surprised than the Greenstein’s when the icy shamus held the flame just like a real candle. In a few moments all the ice candles were lit and
the menorah burned in full glory. Not only did the menorah burn all night long but, if that weren’t miracle enough, the storm knocked out all the power in Stony Glen Estates plunging it into darkness. The Greenstein menorah was the only light anyone could see for miles around.

Michael D. Brown

2011-12-14T22:25:00.000-06:00

Don't Open 'til Christmas

In the bakery Señor Wemple is making the cookies for the children’s posada because the Christmas season is when he comes alive. The incessant caroling, however, has him a little on edge; it’s not that he doesn’t like Christmas carols, but there are only five of them and they play continuously while the people are away.
The florist, Madame Treyne, has made her most beautiful arrangements and is now sitting back to admire them, and this year a family will stand in front of her window apparently about to enter her shop, but they never will. All year long she works so hard in the box hoping that when they let her out they will appreciate her toiling, but nobody seems to have a care; only she must look her best to please them.
Madame Sparger lives on Crescent Way, alone except for her little dog Caesar, and a rabbit named Luther, and she is unaware that Caesar and Luther, able to communicate with each other, have planned a surprise for her this Christmas. How could a dog and a rabbit execute a plan one might ask, but one must wait, like Madame Sparger, until Christmas morning to find out.

This year there were two new buildings in the village and lights where there never used to be; in addition, children would be able to ice skate on a mirror, but since they rarely had time to move, nobody but tiny Rudolph was able to take advantage of the innovation. A young couple, obviously lovers, she with a muff, and he sporting a tam o’shanter, sat on a park bench that had been installed in the cottony snow bank, never moving even when it was possible; though Rudolph said they had snuggled closer during the time he had ventured out onto the icy mirror. Madame Treyne had looked her absolute best last year before being put in the box, but never reappeared in her florist shop, which continually displayed previously-fashioned arrangements, and it was rumored she had been broken in storage, which happens occasionally. Madame Sparger spent as much time as she could in the bakery with Señor Wemple, which kept him unaware that the caroling repertoire had been increased by several songs from an earlier era, and the two made suppositions as to who might be inhabiting the new houses, if anyone did, as the lights stayed on all hours. Caesar could have told them the little houses were electrified but empty as he discovered from sniffing around, but aside from these few moments snatched from suspended animation, there wasn’t much activity in the village this year, and it was rumored the people rarely went out because times were known to be hard, in spite of the new pieces, which were probably set up to distract from that fact.

With my Lois and Clark ® mug of coffee in hand, I sit staring at less renowned, yet smiling porcelain figurines, and invest whatever emotions I suffer to run into theirs. Outside the season, they don't have any of their own, you see. Before the deaths of friends and loved ones on key dates, it was just a holiday experience, from the ides of November through the opening of January, but lately the time frame has expanded on either side of the calendar, and now my ennui obtains until well past anniversaries in April. As the miasma of the rainy season, with nary a catalytic flake of snow, synthetic or otherwise following, lasts here from April through September, the year is fairly well drenched with unextraordinary days. Sometimes, I wish I could go back in the box and sleep along with Madame Sparger, Señor Wemple, and the rest for eleven months, but then there would be no one to awaken them and let us have our lives. Alternatively, I wish I could, like Superman, fly backwards really fast around the world and relive undamaged days.

Harris Tobias

2011-12-07T22:19:00.000-06:00

Blang!

Blang! God damn this ground is hard. It’s like steel. The damn pick just bounces off the permafrost? It’s like steel I tell you.
Blang! You hear that? Steel. You try digging in frigging permafrost. No one can.
Blang! And here it is freaking Christmas eve. What the hell am I doing working on Christmas eve anyway?
Blang! At this rate it will take a week to dig the grave. just look at the size of that guy, will you? Just my luck to have to bury a giant fatty.
Blang! There’s got to be a better way. I wish I had some dynamite or some of that High Explosive crap we use. That would make short work of this job. Yeah, dream on. Like anyone cares about making my job easier.
Blang! Who test fires a missile on Christmas eve anyway? What, they don’t have anything better to do? Don’t they have families? Sure they have families. They’re home with their families right now decorating the tree and drinking freaking egg nog while I’m out here freezing my ass off burying some fat guy. It’s so not fair.
Blang! Will you look at that hole? I’ve been banging away for almost an hour and I couldn’t bury a frigging tea cup. Damn this ground is hard.
Blang! Well, I guess things could be worse. They can always be worse, right? Never better, only worse.
Blang!
Blang! Phewwww. Man this is hot work. Look at that poor schmuck. Dead. Dead as a doorknob. What the hell was he doing out on a night like this anyway? Flying around in restricted airspace is asking for trouble?
Blang! Well it could have been worse. At least I don’t have to bury the freaking reindeer.

Angela

2011-11-30T23:55:00.000-06:00

Text Curse

It starts the minute she opens her eyes and she immediately looks at her cell phone to see if the good morning text has arrived; it will be a fine day if it is there already, and if it is not, then the waiting begins before she is even out of the bed and she will try not to take the phone with her into the bathroom while she uses the toilet, showers, and brushes her teeth.

She will fail, and there she will stand with the phone in the bathroom, since she will be able to at least check to see if any message comes in, even though she cannot text back and attend to her basic needs at the same time – although she has tried before. It was clumsy and awkward, and the thought of him finding out what kinds of tasks she might be performing while communicating with him will make her nervous, even though she knows he would have no way of finding out.

Then, wondering why she keeps doing this day after day, she will stare into the mirror, and will think she does it because the good morning message has not come in yet, and she does not want to miss it. This is an answer to the smaller question of why she is doing this at this particular moment, but it does not address the larger question of why she is doing it over and over every day, and why she can’t just text him if she wants to, or dial the phone and speak to him, and hear his radio voice. This larger question echoes against the bathroom tiles and she will ignore it the same way every morning with lessening success.

She will glance frequently at the little screen while she brushes her teeth and pats herself dry and hates herself and questions how she became so woven into this thing that keeps her spun into a strange and tenderly angry fabric. In her worst nightmare it might all be a bluff at love. Then again, maybe it is love and she is just making it crazy with her thoughts, because maybe she does not even know how to recognize love, perhaps - but surely not; he says she is perfect for him.

Angela lives an outwardly quiet life in a small town that appreciates that kind of behavior. Inwardly, well, things are different.

George Masters

2011-11-23T23:59:00.000-06:00

The Monster (Concerto for Harp)

The monster entered our hotel room when I wasn’t looking. Anna, my new wife, was standing in front of the mirror admiring her wedding band. Seeing me in the mirror, she glanced over her shoulder and smiled. Wearing black silk pajamas, lipstick and heels, she went back to brushing her hair. She was twenty years my junior and as I sat at the foot of the bed watching her, I had a problem believing in monsters.
She said, “Good evening, Mr. Harp.”
“Dearest Anna.”
“Can it always be like this?”
“Why not?”
“I mean really.”
Wearing black tuxedo trousers, shirt unbuttoned at the neck, tie untied, I nodded.
She said, “Mrs. Thomas Harp. God, I love my new name.”
“I like how it sounds when you say it.” I started to add something but stopped. Something about her and the room had suddenly caused me to change expression and mood. Perplexed, I leaned forward and blinked. Seeing Anna dressed that way, just then and a little out of focus, I found myself staring into the monster.
Beneath a jungle canopy, a monkey called, a bird cried, and nothing moved. After a long silence, an enemy patrol appeared. Clad in black pajamas and khakis, carrying weapons and supplies, they moved swiftly down a vine tangled trail. Appearing, disappearing with ghostly speed, one of them was briefly recognizable as female. The figure that was Anna and not Anna moved like black water. Never a clear picture but an old snapshot just the same. I shook it off.
“What?” she said and turned. Pajama top unbuttoned, she tried to smother concern with a smile. “What’s wrong?”
I didn’t know what to say. I was caught in the past and smelling it.
She ran a red thumbnail down along the fine embroidered collar. “You don’t like it?”
Above and to the left of the trail, Sgt. Mike Davis from Austin, Texas and I lay side by side. Concealed and camouflaged, our faces darkened by mud, we chewed gum, held our fire and observed.
Turning away from Anna, I looked back and saw two of her. I shook my head to clear it.
She said, “Are you all right?”
I tried to focus on her eyes. It wasn’t working. I tried her nose and that didn’t work either. I said, “I do, I do like it.”
In an October rain, tanks moved fast down a muddy road borded by rice paddies. In a ditch off the road, a woman wearing black silk pajamas and a cone straw hat stood next to her bicycle waiting for us to pass. Tanks bouncing, treads throwing mud, we grinded toward the fighting in the hills to the west, the distance wet and green. Riding on top of one of the tanks, I was soaked and hollow eyed. Cigar stump clamped between my teeth, rifle in one hand, I held on to the tank with the other and stared at the woman until I lost sight of her.
Uncertain if she should be hurt or angry, Anna pouted. “You don't like it, fine, I'll change.” Beginning to take off her silk top, I raised my hand and she stopped. She blinked rapidly. “Then what’s the matter?”
“You look terrific.”
“No I don’t.”
On a hot, dry afternoon in Happy Valley, The fire fight was over. Dirty and exhausted Marines, smoked, reloaded, pissed in the grass and checked their weapons. Drinking water, emptying canteens over bare heads and down our necks, we moved about the enemy corpses making sure they were just that. Helicopters circled overhead preparing to land. Green smoke from the LZ mixed with the patches of fire in the still burning grass. Occasional shots sounded in a tree line.
I stood above a dead young woman, my rifle pointed at her feet. Wearing black pajamas and crossed ammo belts, she curled on the ground, knees drawn up like my sister with a stomach ache. Tough, dirty bare feet, empty ammo pouches, the flies were starting to land in her hair. Shrapnel had punctured her neck and temple. The girl had lovely perfect teeth and an arm blown off at the shoulder.
Cocking her head, she took a step toward me. “Tom, what is it?”
My breathing was ragged. I was sweating and a ringing sounded in my ears. I found myself having to speak above the noise in my head. “Don’t ever wear a cone hat with that outfit.” My tone of voice surprised me and changed her eyes.
Anna took a step back. “A what?”
“Cone hat. Chinese, Vietnamese hat, looks like a lamp shade.”
She took another step back. “Okay.” She looked around the room and then down at herself before closing the black silk top with her hand. “I’m sorry, Tom. I mean I guess I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t be sorry.” My voice sounded like it was coming through a bad radio connection.
“I hoped you’d like it.”
I stood and with everything I had, I willed the war to depart. I cleared my throat. “I love your pajamas.” I saw she didn’t believe me. “Anna, you look sensational. Please, come here.”
“You sure?”
I went to her, and she didn’t run for the door. Holding her ground she gave me a suspicious look.
“Yes, Mrs. Harp, I’m sure.”
Then Anna did that thing with her eyes and mouth-- part smile and part mystery question, as if she knew the answer and wanted to see if maybe I did. It was a look that made me forget everything else in the room; in the world. She said, “How sure?”
I held my arms out.
“That much?”
“For starters.”
She raised an eyebrow. “For starters?” I nodded.
She came into my arms. “Then Kiss me, you fool.”
I did. And she kissed me back.

George Masters was born in Philadelphia and grew up in Vietnam. After the Marine Corps he attended Georgetown University and began to write. He has recently completed the crime novel "Trouble Breathing" and is seeking a publisher. More of his work can be seen at www.georgeeyremasters.net

Bill Lapham

2011-11-16T03:21:00.001-06:00

Appomattox Exodus

Jim Noah and James Dix were tending their generals’ horses outside Wilmer McLean’s red brick colonial in the village of Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. Jim looked neat in his best blue uniform, brass shined, leather polished, clean shave. James was a skinny man with long, scraggly blond hair and bright eyes. He was dressed in his best grey uniform, the one with patches in places. He wore dusty boots with holes in the soles and he was chewing tobacco. He spat some on the ground in Jim’s general direction, testing him. But Jim took no offense, he’d seen enough fighting.
“What’s his name?” Jim inquired of the gray horse James was grooming.
“This ‘ere is Traveller,” James said.
“This is Cincinnati.”
“Looks fast,” James said, not looking at the horse, but tending to his own chores.
“Is,” Jim said.
Jim tried to take advantage of the broken ice.
“My name’s Jim.”
“James.”
“I go by Jim.”
“I go by James,” he said, squinting one eye against the afternoon glare to see if the other kid got it. He did.
“Huh,” Jim grunted. “You figure the war’s over, James?”
James leant over and spat on a nearby rock, away from Jim this time.
“If Gen’l Lee says it is, it is,” he said.
“What if he says it ain’t?”
“Then I’ll shoot you.”
“Hell you say,” Jim said with a chuckle. “What if he says go home?”
“I’ll do whatever the Gen’l says to do.”
They worked on their horses as they waited for the generals to emerge from the house; each minute seemed to take an hour’s time. Jim wondered how such a big decision could be left to two mere mortal men. Maybe they were immortal, he thought. They were still alive, weren’t they?
“Where’s home?”
“Russell County, Alabama,” James said in his best southern drawl.
“What’d’ya do before the war?”
“You got a lotta questions, don’t you, Yank?”
“Jus’ curious, I guess.”
“I went to school, like you.”
They didn’t look very old, twenty, maybe twenty-one, Jim figured.
“How ‘bout y’all?”
“Small town in southern Indiana—on the river.”
“What river?”
“The Ohio.”
“What’s the name of the town?”
“Rising Sun.”
“Huh,” James grunted. “Sounds like an Injun name.”
“River runs north south there. Town’s on the west bank. Sun comes up over the river.”
“Sounds nice.”
“Is.”
The horses were still saddled because no one knew how long the generals would take. They ate from feed bags as the orderlies tended their duties.
Presently, they heard a loud southern voice.
“Orderly!”
“Oh shit, that’s Gen’l Lee.” James quickly removed the feed bag from Traveller’s nose and hustled the horse around front of the house.
“I’m headed back to camp, James.”
“Yes sir,” James replied. “Gen’l, sir?”
General Lee looked down from his mount, blinking back tears.
“Gen’l, is the war over?” James asked.
“It is for us, son,” he said, looking across the rolling countryside. “It is for us.”
James wasn’t sure if he was sad or relieved. He had survived his father who was killed at Second Manassas, early on. He was only sixteen at the time. Seemed like a century had passed since then. He wasn’t sure where his mother was, or if she was still alive. He’d heard stories of Sherman’s campaign in the South. Wasn’t sure if Opelika even existed anymore.

* * *

James rode into Opelika, Alabama five weeks after Appomattox. He had the horse at a slow walk as he looked around the ruined town. He saw a few women and children, some old men, but nobody his own age. He stopped at a saloon, lashed his horse to weather-beaten hitching fence and stepped inside.
The floorboards creaked as he walked to the bar. His spurs rattled. His visage in the mirror looked thinner than he remembered the last time he looked in a mirror. He asked the old man tending the bar for a drink of whiskey. The bartender wiped out a shot glass, set it in front of James and poured him a drink.
“Not many men around here your age, son,” the old man said.
James took a sip and felt the warm liquid slide down his throat. The burn felt good. A glow ignited in his belly.
“You know a lady named Annabelle Dix?” James asked.
“I might. Who’s askin’?”
“She’s my mother. I ain’t seen her since the war started.”
“You Philip’s boy?”
“Yes sir.”
“You know where he’s at?”
“Kill’t. At Second Manassas.”
“Huh.”
The old man was washing glasses, shining them with his bar rag while he tried to correlate similar dates with disparate events. Maybe some things were related, he figured.
“I ain’t seen Annabelle since around that time, I guess.”
“Any idea where she got off to?” James asked, finishing his drink and placing the glass on the bar.
“No, I’m sorry.”
“Hmph.”
“You’d be James then?”
“That’s right.”
“I remember you boys running around town when you were youngsters, raising hell. Where you been?”
James had to think. Where hadn’t he been? The 15th Alabama had fought at Front Royal, Gaines Mill, Manassas, Sharpsburg, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, Knoxville, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, and those were just the big ones. He couldn’t count the skirmishes in places with no names.
“I been wherever Gen’l Lee’s been.”
The old man gave a soft whistle.
“And you’re still alive?” the bartender said in a tone like he’d just entered a sacred tomb.
“Jus’ lucky, I guess. What happened here?” James asked.
“Yankees sacked the place last summer,” the old man replied, filling the boy’s glass again. “Most folks high-tailed it outta here ahead of ‘em.”
“But not you?”
“I’m old. I tend a bar. Shoot me,” he said. “They busted up the tracks for thirty miles east of town and burnt the warehouses.”
“Did many folks come back?”
“Some did. It’ll take some time, I reckon.”
James finished his drink and reached in his pocket for coinage.
“Drink’s on the house, James. Welcome home.”
“Think I’ll ride around some; see what I can see.”
“You do that. I’ll be here.”
James stepped back into the springtime sun. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes, it felt good to be alive, to breathe warm southern air. He mounted the horse he called Bama and continued down Main Street. He made his way out of town and headed southeast toward Salem. His mother’s house was about halfway between the two towns.
Outside Opelika he passed the warehouses that before the war stored cotton awaiting shipment east and north by rail. During the war, the warehouses stored war materiel: bullets, bombs and blankets, everything an army needs to conduct offensive operations far afield. Now their roofs were caved in, timbers burnt black and sticking up at odd angles inside distressed brick walls. The fire was out and the smoke was gone but the ruins remained and probably would for foreseeable future. Who would have the confidence to rebuild them?
It took him the rest of the afternoon to reach his house, what was left of it. Somebody had torched it. It had not been far from the tracks that connected Montgomery to Atlanta, so he figured it was probably Yankees that did it. Safe assumption anyway. Not that it mattered. The house was gone, but they didn’t destroy the barn. Seemed odd. The fields where they grew vegetables had gone to seed and was overgrown with four years worth of thistle and assorted other weeds.
He dismounted Bama but held on to the reins. He stood for a moment, listening. There was a soft breeze blowing in the pines that reminded him of his childhood. It was dead quiet but for the pines. The sun hid dipped below the tops of the trees but it had not set. He led his horse around to the barn, slid open the door and released a flock of doves that scared the dickens out of him and riled Bama a little bit. He patted the horse’s neck and they both calmed down. He stepped inside and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.
There were a few bales of hay laying around, farm implements in various stages of disintegration and rust. Dirt and dust and cobwebs. Tools lying under a blanket of dust. A familiar smell, too, the smell of something dead. Light leaked through the cracks between the boards. There were holes in the roof. He probably could have found a dry comfortable place to sleep but something didn’t feel right, a feeling of foreboding. Maybe it was the dead animal smell. At any rate, he was not comfortable inside the barn. They turned and went back outside. It didn’t look nor feel like rain was imminent, so he decided to spend the night where he had spent so many nights in the last four years, outside on the ground.
“C’mon, Bama. Let’s get us some’n to eat.”

Bill Lapham started writing a few years after he retired from the Navy. This is what came out last. You can find more of his stuff at Just a Pedestrian.

Joe Gensle

2011-11-09T12:00:00.000-06:00

Prey of a Grey Panther

With a wig that’s never quite straight on her broad head, she’s the elderly, heavily perfumed relative who kisses you on the mouth and transfuses enough Max Factor #16 Fiery Red to your oral area, in clown width, to rouge Warren Jeff’s entire ~~family~~ families.

‘Ger-Nads’ was our Aunt Gert’s nickname because of her old-lady mustache and to convey that what she dishes out is as bad, maybe worse, than you’d want from any man. Angry, she’s bristle ‘n gristle with laser sights on your every weakness. Aunt Gert redefines vitriol as the gasoline additive to fiery tempers that maul you by mouth. She creates fireworks of revenge that shoot straight at the gas tank of your life, and the chances of your survival are as good as hiding between the double-o in “moot.”

There are three things to remember about Gert’s revenge:
1. It’s worse than Montezuma’s;
2. The consequences are beyond unpleasant;
3. It’s multi-tiered.

I’m being too rough on her? Consider:

Aunt Gert took her bashed, battle-wagon of a car in for engine repairs. The estimate was $1,340. The next day, the garage owner called and told her the car had bigger problems. The estimate rose to $1900. She agreed to have the additional repairs done and was promised the car two days later.

Promptly two days later, she showed up at the garage and was waiting for her turn at the counter. There was one of those word processor-made signs on the wall behind the register that read:

The Only Checks We Accept Are Corn, Wheat or Rice.
So Snap-Crackle-Pop Your Credit Card or Cash.
Thank you.
Piedrum’s Garage

She got to the counter, stated her name and a man presented her repair ticket.
“Your car’s ready and the total came to $1,872.21,” and he excused himself to answer the phone. When he turned back to her, a check lay on the counter in the correct amount. He said, “We take a credit or debit cards or cash, Ma’am, no checks” using a thumb to gesture at the sign over his shoulder. (Aunt Gert seethes when people address her as ‘Ma’am’)

“You’ll take this check right now and give me my keys.”
“Ma’am? Ain’t happening, Ma‘am. There’s the sign. You see it. I’ve told you. No pay, no car.”
“Bruce--if that emblem’s really your name or did you grab the only shirt that didn’t stink--CAN YOU READ or are you as dumb as a greased rear-view mirror!!?” she bellowed.

He didn’t reply. She pointed to the imprinted, personal check.

“This says, “Gertrude Joetta Rice, with my address, and I have state-issued I.D. to match. Your own sign says you accept, quote, “Rice” checks! GIVE. ME. MY. KEYS YOU LUBE-GOOBER!” she roared, causing denture clack, using a tone that causes dogs to whimper and small children to paw at their mothers’ inner thighs seeking reentry into their wombs.

It sure wasn’t the good Lord who blessed her 166-pound frame with a Transformers-like mouth that converts her taste buds into verbal Slice ’n Dice machines.

“Ma’am, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Credit or cash is easy. The cops taking you out of here is hard… and, we still keep the car.”

Aunt Gert flipped-open her smart-phone, photographed the sign, and used her gum to stick her check to inner glass door’s upper pane. She photographed that, too, and left like a Brahma bull leaving a rodeo chute.

The next day, Mr. Piedrum called. They argued. She asserted they could now deliver the car. He countered: she could pay with cash or plastic like everybody else or he’d put a mechanic’s lien on the car, to which she agreed when she signed the original repair authorization. Aunt Gert snorted he best get her car into her driveway.

In the weeks that passed. I lost my part-time job stocking parts and cleaning up ...at Piedrum’s.

Sure as paper towels don’t tear on the perforations, the lien was executed by an angry Mr. Piedrum who left Aunt Gert a phone message: “We sold your car for $9,500, took our $1,872.21 for repairs, and another $600 for sixty days’ storage, and mailed you a check for $7,027.29.”

Just his word, “check,” set her off like a top fuel dragster. It was all-out war. “I’m on Piedrum like “Rice on white,” she shared with an evil grin as cockeyed as her wig. But the cell phone photos were straightforward and worthwhile.

She e-mailed General Mills and Kellogg’s, attaching the sign photo, with the query, ”Are these fellows making fun of my favorite cereal?” for which Aunt Gert received an envelope with a slew of coupons for free General Mills’ products and a thank you letter from their V.P of Consumer Relations, complemented by in-kind coupons from Kellogg’s.

The garage got two “Cease and Desist” orders from a judge, via complaints filed by General Mills and Kellogg’s legal departments. The local paper splashed the story with photos, citing Aunt Gert’s ‘elder abuse’ complaints and you can guess what that did for the number of customers bringing cars in for repairs and estimates.

She leveraged her age, sympathy and mechanics-are-thieves arguments to tip persuasion’s greed scale to land a lawyer. She sued and won. Her judgment against the garage paid for a car fancier than her last, and even covered the rental car.

The garage is now a pizza parlor, whose owner gave me a delivery job.

Every year, Clovis Piedrum gets a Christmas card signed “Miss G.J. Rice.” There’s always a personal check enclosed for $1, along with a coupon for breakfast cereal that caused us to replace her ‘Ger-Nads’ nickname with “Cereal Killer.”

We’d lie under oath before admitting it because we don’t want any of what Gert-the-Hurt dishes out when she‘s uncorking the devil’s own wrath, Hell bent for Sunday.

Joe Gensle lives in the Desert Southwest with his dog Coconut. He enjoys international travel, music composition, and is working on a novel. He frequently lurks at sixsentences.ning.com and at headseeds.blogspot.com

Deboleena Bose

2011-11-02T00:03:00.001-06:00

Hazel Eyes

A quiet empty home. A resigned empty heart. And silenced emptiness within. Amidst them, Isabel and her defeated self struggled to strangle the turmoil within; fearful it might set itself free. Her once familiar space, the bathroom, reeked of an oddity, quite unknown to her senses. Cloistered, she could almost feel the weight of the barrenness that had engulfed her and her life. The walls around seemed disconcerted. Perhaps, they had sensed the disquiet brewing deep under her skin, she thought.

Isabel sat, all by herself, nursing a lesion she had long managed to hide from the world outside. In the gloom of her muted presence it had spread; a contagion that had left her with no hope of deliverance. Infected, she yearned to find solace in it. It, however, chose to devour her in return.

Unwrapping the past has never been easy, especially one wrought with fears, loneliness and heartaches. The wounds heal with time; their scars linger behind, unsullied and fresh. Isabel had always run away from her times of yore; she had run as fast as she could and as distant as she could get. Yet, they never ceased to chase her, irk her, breathe and grow with her. Like a shadow, she thought, they would follow her to her grave someday.

Though orphaned at birth, deep down in her heart Isabel had clung on to a sacred belief; an unwavering faith that became the center of her existence; her conviction that sooner or later, love would certainly come knocking at her door. A firm believer in ‘a happy ever after’, Isabel knew in her heart of hearts, that all she needed to do was await it; wait as tolerantly as she possibly could. And so, when love did touch her life one day, she embraced it with open arms and gave it all. Those hazel eyes and Evan came to mind.

Soaked in agony, and plagued by sharp jabs inside, Isabel cringed. Inundated in emotions that bore neither a name nor form, tears arose from the depths of her subconscious and began to flow. Warm and blissful, they brought along nothing; nothing except recollections of a history she had chosen to consciously forget. And then, without a sign, those derisive visions, ominous figures, trampled forms, those muffled voices, the mayhem and the paranoia - all came rushing back to her. A choked and breathless Isabel quivered at their retreat.

As she braced herself to revisit the past, Isabel comprehended despondently the severity of the collateral damage she had inflicted upon herself. With no turning back, running away was no longer even an option. Harrowed persistently to the point of no return, she had to make one absolutely frantic strive to face the demons of the portentous night. She had to walk through hell, yet again.

Shaken by the very thought of it, Isabel could feel the strong pounding of a wounded heart that beat inside her. Her fears and the familiar sinking feeling came riding back – the ill-fated night rose from the dead. Along came fiendish recollections of the car crash that had blown it all up. One turbulent night had robbed her of all she had held dear – her faith, her future and her love. The tempest had rocked her world and ripped her apart, crushing her and tender dreams, once and for all. When the dust settled, everything around had fallen silent. And contained in it was a shattered Isabel, her broken heart, and a motionless Evan. The night had taken him away; never to return to her again.

Isabel fell apart. And as she disintegrated, tears welled up her eyes. Realizing she had long lost the battle, a frail Isabel, all battered and bruised, decided to yield. It was time to let her guard down; time to let herself go. She heaved a sigh of relief. As she turned on the shower, water began to trickle down her bare flesh and every pore of her being seemed to respond to its warmth. A burden lifted off her chest, Isabel felt light and invigorated.

The foul taste of an abruptly ended nightmare still fresh in her mind, Isabel felt gratified to be jolted awake. Exhausted by the journey, nevertheless, she was content to be a part of the experience. The past though dead would evidently never be gone. Isabel and her world had been altered perpetually, destined never to reclaim their aboriginal dimensions again. An amicable coexistence with bygone times would make no difference to her existence, she discerned. What it could, however, do was lend some credence to her life and make living a lot more worthwhile; perhaps, hearten her some day, to see the world in a new light – through those hazel eyes.

About the writer: Deboleena lives by the river Hudson.

Brian Michael Barbeito

2011-10-26T12:00:00.000-05:00

How The Globalists Ruined My Summer Vacation

Those were WW2 houses- built just after the war, and they were all very similar. They felt like bungalows- because there were only a few steps up to the top floors- and the yards were small but well. What this meant was that they made sense. What that meant was that in those days, there were not as many extravagant pools and showy decks anyway. There were not four foot stainless steel BBQs and outdoor furniture. There was hardly any decadence and decay at all. Instead there was a moral fibre- and that is not said sarcastically- on the worst day there was moral fibre- more of it than on the best day decades later. See, in that time- the country was equipped with a strong working class. To be a radical was not even that threatening to many- but more of a Halloween show or youthful immature gesture full of romanticism and naiveté. And to be rich- well- that was for someone else- someone far away- and someone you heard of through another person, but didn’t know and would never know. There weren’t really cigarette boats on the docks or too many kidney shaped pools with a stone mason outdoor Jacuzzi. You just gotta have it! - Have you seen the latest? Well, those houses...they were well kept, and though sometimes the women knew things or took some work- for the most part they did not. The men- the fathers and husbands- worked in lumberyards, in factories, as motor rewinders, or as shipping and receiving men, as yard hands and drivers, as welders, and on roads, docks, and railways. Some were engineers, accountants, or even entrepreneurs. The seasons came when they were supposed to- autumnal hues in the late months that brought the dawn of winter on. Cold icy snow months- with icicles and boots- and the spring- where showers were directed into gullies and streams-. And of course the summer- its bright proud flowers watching the inhabitants of the place- these flowers growing in sync with the arching summer sun as it grew in the sky.
But something changed in the decades to come- and it was not only in that town. Sometimes the result of something you see has many factors- and things conspire to make a place downtrodden and sadder. And sadness can flip flop into constant melancholy- which can border on danger or hopelessness in time if not checked. And it was not the inhabitants only that experienced this- it was the brick and trees, and the trellises and eaves, it was the streams even in the distance- and somehow possibly the sun itself! It was impossible to really believe- to truly believe in the place- in the country- in the economy. The globalists had fucked everything up- willfully- through their plans. One couldn’t be an economic nationalist if one wanted- through any intention- unless you were a Freeman, or a Ruby Ridge type! Manufacturing was outsourced oversees- so was one third of the service industry- and how they did that through telecommunications was easy- and a sin- but they did it. Well, they could manufacture anything, and sometimes they even manufactured wars- just to keep their thing going- and to keep you looking the other way- like a global sleight of hand- magician playing tricks- and not a very good magician- but the only game in town. And the town. Well- many towns had polluted water from Hydraulic Fracturing- but that was another thing. The main thing was that that town was half unemployed. The next quarter was only marginally employed, and the fourth quarter was employed in minimum wage jobs- what the pencil necks and university geeks had thought to call- recipients of competitive wages. The audacity! “Competitive wages.” The guys who thought up terms like that were no doubt the sons and daughters of the globalists.

It went on like that. And on any given day in that place- you would not want to make too much eye contact- because it was getting rougher and rougher. The laissez faire economy and its trickle effect hadn’t trickled down. Someone had put a stop to the money-water. The only thing trickling was some beer that a shirtless man with sleeve tattoos spilt on his chest- as he raised his arm. Then he wiped his lips with the front of his forearms, and lit a smoke. Life was good, he thought, as it was a sunny day, - and he thought about the new tires he was getting. It had only cost four more dollars to order white letters. That was cool. That was awesome. As for the Globalists, he never heard of em’ really, and didn’t care much about basketball anyway.

Brian Michael Barbeito writes short fiction. His work has appeared at Glossolalia, Exclusive Conclave of Delights Magazine, Lunatics Folly, and Mudjob. He resides in Ontario, Canada.

Toby Tucker Hecht

2011-10-19T12:00:00.000-05:00

Descent

Peter had ignored his wife Nella when she first began to complain about her symptoms. There had been earlier periods like that in their marriage, times when Nella wanted more attention, more gratitude, and more affection. At those times, she’d had headaches and indigestion, and had been given to emitting long pensive sighs, especially at the dinner table or while Peter was trying to enjoy thirty minutes of television before he began his preparations for the next work day. Peter had always responded the same way, by doing exactly the opposite of what was being asked. Giving in was a bad thing—for him and for Nella. It changed the rules of the game and created ambiguity. Once he’d refrained from love-making for an entire month until she got the whining out of her system. It was the tactic his brother had used with his wife, and it had worked for them; they’d just celebrated their fifteenth wedding anniversary.
Nella had wanted children. Peter knew this. He hadn’t exactly said no, but relentlessly postponed the possibility with her. He felt proud that he hadn’t hurt her feelings outright about it; he just did what he had to do.
Nella kept a journal. He imagined she wrote about her girlfriends, the gossip they never seemed to tire of, and complaints about their husbands. She wrote in it every night before going to sleep. He had no interest in looking at the journal. It was left unlocked on the night table beside the bed. She trusted him. They had a good marriage.

When she began to bruise—big purple and yellow splotches on her extremities, he asked her if she’d been walking into things. She stared at him and said that she thought she ought to see a doctor. Something was wrong. Very wrong. She felt so horribly tired and her gums bled when she brushed her teeth. Peter told her that she needed to floss her teeth more often. And of course she was tired. If she’d only get more exercise she’d be in better shape. He was happy that she accepted his suggestions without a fuss. He hated women who became defensive about everything.
A month later, Nella began to run a fever. Peter gave her Tylenol and said, “See how I take care of you. How many other husbands do that?” She could hardly hold up her head, but she smiled at him. She stopped writing in her journal.
Peter had been preparing a presentation that, if successful, would mean a great deal of money for his company. He stayed late at the office for days at a time, which was just as well since Nella had stopped cooking dinner. He often found her in her pajamas lying on the sofa under a quilt—even on warm days—when he returned at night. He wondered when Nella would snap out of her self-absorption. She’d become rather demanding, asking him to take off from work to accompany her to the doctor. He was a professional, not an hourly wage earner. Couldn’t she get one of her gossipy do-nothing friends to take her if she wasn’t up to going herself?

Then, he arrived home one day and couldn’t arouse her. He called 911. A whirlwind of ambulance sirens, IV tubes, and radio transmissions to the emergency room, was followed by blood tests, scans, physical examinations, and an admission to the Intensive Care Unit of the University Hospital. Peter waited for hours, sitting, pacing, and then he stood on the other side of the thin curtain listening to the doctors speak about her grave condition. Was she really not pulling a stunt this time?
And then they were talking to him. Nella was terribly far-gone. They told him the name of the syndrome. He’d never heard of it before. If they’d seen her earlier in the disease process, they said, they might have been able to save her, or at least prolong her life, but now, well, they were very, very sorry. It was a matter of weeks, at best.
“She must have been very good at covering up her illness to you,” one of the doctors said. “She must have had her reasons,” another added, fixing her gaze directly at Peter. “Go home and get some rest.”
He called a taxi and returned to the house. It was then he detected the penetrating smell of sickness in the bedroom among the still damp, crumpled sheets. How had he failed to notice it before? He sat down on the bed and put his head in his hands. That was when he saw Nella’s journal. He turned to the last page, an entry of over a month before. There was a date written in a shaky handwriting, next to which was a long letter, to him.
He didn’t read it then, although in the days and weeks and even years after Nella’s death—whenever he felt the need to do penance—he would.

Toby Tucker Hecht is a scientist and short story writer. Her fiction has been published in The MacGuffin, The Baltimore Review, THEMA, The Foundling Review, Red Wheelbarrow, Epiphany, and other print and online literary journals. She is working on a series of short stories with singing or dancing somewhere in the plot. When not writing, she can be found at the National Cancer Institute in Maryland where she is passionate about translational research, that is, taking promising concepts developed in the laboratory and testing them in the clinic for the benefit of cancer patients. Toby blogs at the Six Sentence Social Network http://sixsentences.ning.com/profile/TobyTuckerHecht

Vivian Faith Prescott

2011-10-12T12:00:00.000-05:00

A Dead Woman's Shoes

Ten pairs of shoes, laces intertwined with Styrofoam and plastic six-pack rings, piled together, tossed aside at the Wrangell City Dump. I untangled laces as if unraveling the mystery of her lingering within the musty cardboard box.
I rummaged through her life–way worn soles of brown patent leather, faded red cheerleader shoes, black dress flats, tennies and white canvas slides. Now, I wear the dead woman’s shoes and each stride senses that my footfalls have somewhere else to go; each step pulses her soul’s quickening. And as I walk, I wonder where her shoes might have tread, where she is now—if she even needs shoes. And if I continue to wear the dead woman’s shoes, will she forever be a transient, footloose—walking from her world to mine.

In My Father's Cabin

The oil-barrel stove sears fire, spinning black soot into spider webbed patterns on the ceiling. Wool socks hang drying on bunk bed rails, river sand scatters across the floor. On cabin porch, I swat mosquitoes, and glimpse a dark silhouette awash in graying light; its yellow eyes lope into my thoughts.

It is here at the end of the world that clan brother chases sun and moon, fleeing with tracks and windblown sand. Inside the cabin, my sleeping bag is unable to warm the howls wounding the nightfall; its aching bay answered
deep the timber behind the cabin.

Like the man beneath the transformation mask, the cry releases loosely hinged cedar, unfolds its split image panels and exhales on the burning lantern, bellowing the flickering shapes, shifting cabin wall to forest path, invoking a story my grandparents told me about hunting in Thomas Bay—
at dusk wolves ambled through the treeline and in waning daylight, stood—transformed—and walked like men.

Doubt

Last Sunday the preacher said she must believe
          in three gods, in wrath, in brimstone,

fire and death, things she could not see.
          But this, she glimpsed every night

from her veranda, their glint and flash,
          their phosphorescent fins.

So one night, shadowed on the cliff
          behind the old Iglesia, she stood atop

her grandmother's crumbling crypt,
          let her words be her guide, the black chant

of ancient fishermen curling her tongue in exotic fire.
          And with a hand loop on her wrist,

coiled line and net, the lead line over her left shoulder,
          she unwound her body into that space

between twilight and morning where belief
          sometimes nestles, gray and faded.

and pulled in with all her strength
          a castnet bursting with silver stars.

Vivian Faith Prescott lives in Kodiak, Alaska. She and her family are involved in the Lingít language revitalization in Southeast Alaska, and have established a non-profit called Raven’s Blanket, which is designed to enhance and perpetuate the cultural wellness and traditions of Indigenous peoples through education, media, and the arts; and to promote artistic works throughout Alaska by both Native and non-native Alaskans. Vivian has been published in several journals and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in Poetry. She blogs at: Planet Alaska http://planetalaska.blogspot.com/

Callan

2011-10-05T15:35:00.003-05:00

The Littlest Truck Driver

The family Holiday stood ankle deep in mud outside the gates of the graveyard. The sky rumbled and dark clouds rolled in. In the distance, lightning streaked the horizon. The tallest member of the family flung an arm upward in a futile gesture of frustration. There was an enormous crack of thunder that shook the ground and rattled the gates of the graveyard. The gates were not locked but the wind from the storm had slammed them closed in the night, and now the thunder shook the air, and the gates swung open. The man dropped his arm, startled at the coincidence. He rested his hand on the broad speckled back of his eldest daughter. He gave her a gentle shove. She was the first through the gate. Once on the other side, she turned towards her family and facing them broke into a short routine of light calisthenics. The rain began to fall, and after the applause she jogged towards her grandfather’s grave. The rest of the family followed, stopping at the gatehouse to retrieve the coffin. They marched in the mud with singular purpose through the storm, towards the open grave.
The grave was filled with water, and the coffin would not fit. The senior male member of the family looked skyward and signaled violently with his hands. Planes rushed over head in the distance. The slow pragmatic sound of heavy equipment could be heard. Temporarily the wind and rain slacked a bit. The dark sky hung above the muddy graveyard, and the Holiday family redirected their vapid gaze away from the scarred earth, towards the sound of approaching equipment.
The crew appeared, a flotilla of heavy machinery in the thick sea of mud. The tractor lost its balance and had to back up. “BEEP BEEP BEEP” it cried as it pulled itself free from the heavy mud. The driver had decorated the inside of his cab with cheery Christmas lights. The bulldozer behind him had lashed a pink Christmas tree to its grill and streams of blinking lights were dragged behind it in the mud. The truck with the sump pump pulled abreast of the two greater machines, but what the little truck lacked in stature it made up for in enthusiasm. The entire truck was outlined in lights and a deer shape comprising lights was mounted on top of the cab. It was a marvelous sight and a cheer went up from the Holiday family as they saw assistance approaching.
They were so eager to show their appreciation that they tore flowers from the funeral wreaths and stripped petals form the stalks, tossing them in front of the tractor. The operator was so moved that he leaned out of his cab, and steering with his knees, gave a gentle, magnanimous wave, coquettishly turning and glancing over his shoulder to the delight of the mourners, who laughed and clapped and cheered, until their joy turned on them and became a unified sorrow.
The Holiday family collapsed in a heap and began to wail, so that when the smug, festive little truck driver passed them, they threw no flowers and raised no cheers, and he took it to heart, and was wounded by their apathy. After all, he thought, I am the one who will drain the grave of water so that they can commend their grandfather to the earth.
He pulled alongside the bigger machines, exited the cab of his truck and approached the heavy equipment operators who were loathe to help him unload the sump pump. The heavy equipment operators didn’t want to know the driver of the little truck. They haphazardly helped him to unload. Then, they walked away without a word, leaving the driver of the little truck alone to complete the arduous task of drainage.
The family Holiday continued to weep as a group, finding consolation in their shared misery.
The driver of the little truck had to work furiously, against time, against the weather, all alone, soaked through to the skin, while the heavy equipment operators relaxed, waiting until they were needed.

* * *

At last, the grave was drained, and the driver of the little truck was exhausted. He slogged through the heavy mud to inform the Holiday family, who were moaning and flailing their arms in a demonstration of sorrow. But they had grown weary of their own show, and only wanted to get out of the elements, and when the senior member of the family saw the approach of the driver, he broke off from the group and met the man, rested a heavy hand on one of his shoulders and passed a damp twenty dollar bill into his hand. The little truck driver’s spirits were lifted. Anyone could see how empty the construction show was. People needed him. He should not get so down; he was the one people needed. He strode back to his little truck and hopped into its little cab and sped away from the graveyard. He moved so swiftly that the deer mounted on the top of the cab fell off, but he did not stop for it--only chased the rest of the morning through the graveyard gate, leaving behind the family Holiday, and the vainglorious heavy equipment operators.

Callan left Orange County, Ca. in 2007 and moved to the country to focus full time on her writing. Her work is featured at Six Sentences and her blog: theworksofjanecallan

Edward Dean

2011-10-05T00:12:00.000-05:00

Bob Boyce (I'll Be Around)

The full dark straight hair that framed Bob Boyce’s long slender face made his large sleepy eyes more pronounced. It seemed to speak to his sexuality. His ruddy pock marked face added strength to the perception.
Bobby used his overactive libido to solve his loneliness. His frequent forays to the local bars could always yield a female in desperate need of attention. Alcoholic playgrounds seemed to be a magnet for the lonely. Everyone there was looking for a respite from seclusion. It solved the inconsolable need for human contact. Whether it was simple conversation or the warmth of another body, Bobby was always accommodating. Most evenings, a willing female participant accompanied Bobby home. His well honed skills as a lover made him a favorite with this frantic crowd. They used him to fulfill some void in their lives. He had a latent emotional sense that could satisfy their fantasies. His ongoing trysts never lasted. Whenever a female partner put burdens upon him or demanded that he be faithful, he gracefully departed. To say that he was shallow did not speak to the core of his being. It was more of a lack of a time. His most deep-seated fear was death. A family history of all closely related males dying prematurely gave cause to Bobby’s fear. Few had lasted for more than forty or fifty years. He knew his life would be short. In a way it was peaceful and easy for Bob. He faced his own mortality early on in life when it was easy to look into the face of death and not blink. The sudden shock of his first angina attack at an early age of thirty-six put this certainty into focus. From then on, every day was a new beginning for Bob. To taste every nuance of every offering from life was a mission that he pursued with vigor!
Most any evening, you could hear the soft lilting tones of Frank Sinatra or Tony Bennett emanating from his apartment. He had literally worn out two copies of Franks The Wee Small hours of the Morning album. If there was ever a piece of music that spoke to his soul, this was it! The serenity of the midnight hour was comforting to Bob; he had tasted and relished another day.
The song, Wee small hours, would set the tempo for his melancholia. By the time he got to When your lover has gone, he would be well into his second scotch. There was a voice or feeling lurking in his brain for every phrase of every song. His other repast was comedic movies. It was the pain in comedy that he identified with. He loved to laugh and did so with great gusto.
His and Suzie’s relationship was founded on common ground. They were kindred souls in many ways. Oddly they both wanted detachment. To be alone in each other’s company was their bond. A sharing of good scotch, music and revere’ gave them a sense of peace. Even in the bedroom, there was solitude as they shared each other’s body. To be able to savor and hold on to one’s own orgasm gave them a sense of contentment. To let the body speak uncontrollably, with no intrusion from the voices within their own minds was their holy grail.
Suzie was always thoughtful and gracious enough to call before going upstairs to his apartment. She never knew if Bob was entertaining. It really didn’t matter to Bob. He would always offer to have Suzie join them. Bobby wanted in the worst way to enlist Suzie and his newfound partner in a ménage a trios. Suzie would laugh at the suggestion. She was aware that this was every male’s fantasy.
‘When are they going to learn that they can’t handle one woman, much less two at a time? Maybe it takes the pressure off of them to perform and let the women take care of each other. Or is it the show that they’re looking for? I really don’t understand men sometimes. They can be so strange; and they have the nerve to talk about us women!’
A deep smoky voice answered the phone. “Sure, come on up Suz. Hey have you got any scotch? I’m just about out.”
“Of course Bobby.”
She grabbed her last bottle of single malt and headed up.
True to his casual ease with Suzie, he answered the door clad in his boxer shorts. The ever-present waft of Sinatra music greeted her as she entered the room. Bobby smiled gratefully as he took the most excellent single malt and poured them both a drink. He handed Suzie a large crystal snifter containing two inches of the delectable liquid with two ice cubes; just the way she liked it. Bobby always drank his neat. The importance of cut crystal, small art pieces and fashionable clothes were important in Bobby’s life. The finer things of life were his must enjoyment of the now.
They both fell back on the deep leather couch and began to cuddle. Suzie’s favorite position was between his outstretched legs. They sat that way for the longest time, listening to the music, saying nothing. The warmth of the darkness and a kindred soul satiated their needs. They both shared a knowing smile at each other when the ‘I’ll be Around’ track came on. Regardless of the sex, there was an unspoken pledge to one another. A commitment to be the lifeboat in each other’s sea of turmoil; nothing asked, nothing expected but a bond inherent in their own melancholy.
“You got a visitor upstairs tonight Suz?”
Bobby knew of her voices and certainly understood. He was never sure that he comprehended his own. He knew they were there whispering to him but they were never strong enough to assert themselves like Suzie’s did.
“Yea…..” She just didn’t feel like elaborating tonight.
He laughed softly into her ear,” Well would you like a visitor downstairs?”
“Not really Bobby. Do you mind? I just want to cuddle against your erection and enjoy this scotch. Just hold me Bobby and make me safe and warm.”
He smiled lovingly and gently rested his cheek against her soft perfumed hair. After the second album and a third scotch, sleep crept easily into their brains and the nagging voices grew silent in the warmth of their bonded flesh.

This story was supposed to have appeared on Blake N. Cooper's Thinking Ten: A Writer's Playground, and may yet arrive there.

Ed Dean

2011-09-28T00:00:00.000-05:00

Sam's Club

He walked out of his own life with a bang! The thirty-eight slug made a bigger mess of things than Sam ever did. Despair was his only refuge and he welcomed the comforting darkness with its blanket of self pity.
His chosen vehicle for his long ride on the highway to hell was greed. It started so long ago that even he never knew when it started but it always gave him a warm comfort in his own insecure world.
At an early age Sam collected things of all sorts. He hid them under his bed, in the closet and the basement. Just knowing that he had many things empowered him.
When Sam went to college he collected friends and favors. Classroom notes and term papers were his commodity of the day. He expanded his loner personality bit by bit. Finding obscure term papers to offer his classmates, from the archives of the university library was his forte, though the recipient never knew they were stolen property. Sam learned to relish the ease of his duplicity.
After graduation his offer from a major brokerage firm was the ideal venue for self promotion. His astute eye and ear allowed him to collect ideas and techniques. Over time of observing and listening, he learned the art of the deal! Most every stock the brokerage house was touting, he shorted.
The manager pushed and prompted the brokers. “ABC, ABC; guys. Always be closing! Some of you are wasting too much time with some of these stiffs. You gotta qualify better. Know your mark before trying to set him up. Let’s get those sales and cash register flowing, will ya? Make them bleed for the need of greed. It’s so damned easy. Everybody wants to be rich but we want to be richer!”
The scene was no different at Morgan Stanley or Goldman. Dreams and money were in play and someone needed to collect them. You only needed to get a tiny piece of their pies but tens of thousands of crumbs makes one sweet deal.
Sam and his fellow brokers were living a Chinese parable of; ‘A little from many grows to much for the chosen few.’
Collecting women was no different than collecting things. His lifestyle and trappings far outweighed his lithe stature and common looks. Women were no different in feeding from the same honey pot than the guys. Flashy cars, elegant restaurants and jewelry were always payment in kind for bad sex and uncaring relationships but most women knew innately the one thing they controlled was their own emotional honey pot. Love was a foreign substance that Sam was never privy to. He understood the concept but never drank its intoxicating liquor. In his mind it was classified as a controlled substance far more dangerous than any drug he knew. He desperately wanted to partake but didn’t know how.
His choice of Helen was a calculated gamble. Her family was well connected in the upper echelon of the moneyed power brokers. Their mutual wayward mental focus gave way to a marriage made in hell.
Affairs became a tit-for-tat scenario but at the country club they were always showered with the title of the ‘golden couple’.
The years were kind to his deceit. Over time, Sam and Helen pursued the ultimate human collection; progeny to extend their dominance over their part of the planet. Children were simply an easy group of collectibles; managed, controlled and a necessary asset for the Christmas card picture.
Later life brought him a collection of companies and O.P.M. (Other People’s Money). In getting more and more, there was always a higher and higher escalated gamble but Sam learned to eliminate most risk by cheating. It came easy and in waves. A brisk commodity of insider trading and information finally gave way to ‘the big lie’ which was always believable to his gullible needy and greedy customers. Everybody wanted to be a member of Sam’s Club. ‘Some’ was never enough and the difference between million’s and billion’s was power and glory. It was also the difference between success and ‘because I can’.
The day the markets and Sam’s Club crashed, the S.E.C. and Feds were breathing down his neck. His paper empire smoldered on the ruined lives of his client base.
His attorney advised him to come clean and give back all that he owned to appease the courts. They promised to portray Helen and the children as unwitting victims.
To Sam this was unforgivable nonsense. If he lost his things, he would lose himself. They just didn’t understand. It wasn’t about them, it should always be about him.
Blackness shrouds all mysteries and Sam was desperate to hide. There were a few things Sam was certain of. Good cognac and a .38 magnum were his partnered pair of solutions.

Ed Dean grew up in Dearborn and Highland Park, Michigan until being drafted into the army and subsequently into the N.S.A. Having been in sales and marketing most of his life, Mr. Dean is now semi-retired and spends much of his time writing. His own experiences in the military, traveling throughout the U.S. and Europe, and as a wine enthusiast provided much of the background to his book. Mr. Dean has three books in the works, including a sequel to The Wine Thief.

Jeanette Cheezum

2011-09-21T12:00:00.000-05:00

Miss Emma

I pulled up in the little silver company car. The kids in the neighborhood saw me and ran ahead to tell Miss Emma I had arrived. I never knew what to expect when I came here. Would her children or the caretaker be there? Would Miss Emma be in a horrible mood or just the sweetest thing? I took a deep breath and entered the hallway to her apartment on the third floor.
The door was unlocked; the way it always was when she expected me.
The apartment smelled like cake. That was a good sign. Now I could exhale.
“Miss Emma, its Dotty your favorite nurse.” Silence. “Miss Emma, where are you?”
I began to worry and then looked in all the regular places. Where was she? Maybe she was on the balcony.
Then, I heard the sound of a man behind me. “Can I help you?” He asked.
“I’m Miss Emma’s nurse. We had an appointment.”
“She doesn’t live here anymore.” He looked me straight in the face and thought I believed him.
“Oh, when did she move?” I stood firm.
“Last week.”
I had seen her two days prior. This son-of-a-bitch was up to no good.
“Ah, you must be her grandson, Willie?”
“Yeah, that’s me.”
You lying bastard, she doesn’t have a grandson, only granddaughters. “I’ve been driving in bumper to bumper traffic. Would it be okay if I use one of the bathrooms?”
“Okay, lady, but hurry. I have to leave for work soon.”
Someone would have called to tell me. I went through the motions and used the bathroom. Why did the house smell like fresh baked cake? Maybe I’d call the police and see what they thought.
I chose the back bathroom next to Miss Emma’s bedroom. When I opened the door he was there waiting for me.
“Open your purse--”
“This is a med bag; I don’t carry cash or credit cards. My billfold is in the car.”
“You got any drugs in that bag?”
He towered over me and I could smell the sweat and cigarettes seeping through his pores.
“No, I don’t carry anything but bandages and a blood presser cuff. Can I leave now? I have other patients waiting for me.”
He flipped me around and shoved my right arm up behind my back and snatched my bag away from me. It hit the floor hard. That’s when I heard a muffled voice from across the hall.
He opened the closet door and shoved me in with Miss Emma. She sat there with one of her knee socks stuffed in her mouth and a piece of twine about to cut off the circulation in her wrists.
Knowing Miss Emma I could just imagine what she would have done if she could have taken him down. We heard the door lock and the intruder searching through the house. My cell was in my jacket pocket but I waited.
“Miss Emma,” I whispered into her good ear. “Just be quiet until he leaves, and I’ll call the police.”
I began to work on her wrists, but the knots were too tight and I couldn’t free them. Now, did I dare to remove the knee socks? Because she would yell out some profanities that might make him open the door and smack her.
Things were quiet now. I reached over and removed the sock.
“Blah, why did you wait so long? Let me out of here. I’ll kill the ugly beast.”
“The door’s locked. Let me call 911.”
“They better not charge us. I remember one time I had to pay them five dollars because Julia hit 911 instead of 411.”
Lord, help me. Her blood pressure would be sky high. I thought, “How will I code this? The company doesn’t have a code for this. We have to have a code! If Medicare doesn’t get a code, we’ll have to hear about this from Miss Emma for the next five years.”

***

“Thanks officer for letting us out. We’re really lucky he didn’t hurt us.”
“Easy for you to say, my wrists are cut. I’ve peed my Depends and The Young and The Restless has just gone off.”
“Now Miss Emma, you need to calm down. Let’s see what he’s stolen and give the policeman a description.”
“Sonny, I’ll deal with you in a minute. I need to make sure my cake isn’t burnt.”
“She does pride herself on being a good cook.”
“Ma’am, I think she needs to keep the door locked from now on.”
“Yes, Sir, I’ll tell her.”
We found Miss Emma in the kitchen holding a rifle.
“Ma’am, what do you have there?”
“I’m going to get my son-in-law Jerry on the phone and we’re going to find that beast. He was an Army Ranger you know. He’ll take care of it.”
“Hold on! Can I see the rifle?”
“No! A poor defenseless woman has to protect herself. You can’t have it. This was my husband’s hunting rifle. Do you want me to show you the deer heads with antlers? Then I’ll fix us some cake. We can have a nice visit. I don’t get too much company. Just a nurse and she was late today.”
“Well if you don’t mind, Miss Emma, I’ll take your blood pressure and be on my way.”
“Okay, I’ll talk to this nice policeman and you can lock the door on your way out.”

See Jeanette’s Pubit eBooks at Barnes and Nobel, A Bark, A Shell and a Squiggly Tail for children, Big Stories Told Short and Fish Wife for general adult audiences. Coming soon Twisted Branches. You may see where some of her work is published on the About Me page at http://cavalcadeofstars.wordpress.com/ or on the members page at http://www.hamptonroadswriters.org

Sam Raddon

2011-09-14T00:00:00.000-05:00

The Soul

In a place where time has no meaning, he sang. He sang to no one but himself as he swam in a world of darkness. The loneliness of being a soul lost in the dark blanket of – not solitude – but a crowded pool of souls left to wander the place of voicelessness.
He often wondered if he would ever leave the compounds of his own mind and travel where his dreams of basking in an endless light danced before his eyes. He played his imaginative pictures across the screen of black tarnished souls like a flipbook.
He knew he was not alone in his dark, cold cell of a world, often bumping against other soft bodied souls such as himself. Having no way to communicate to them other than acknowledging their existence through the physical connection like bumper cars set loose with mindless drivers.
This soul knows that there is a better place waiting for him, but how to get there he cannot fathom. His mind plays tricks on him, giving him the illusion of light after so much darkness.
No one, not even he, can remember where or when he came to be. He lives in a world where time is non-existent. He knows not what a body is other than the form he takes now, and even that is only what he thinks it is – not knowing if he is but a shadow or made of atoms and cells.
Lost in time, in space, in his mind, he drifts. He watches his flipbook of images, believing that a soul lives forever, but in reality, he knows not that he will die.

* * *

The creator wades through her dark pool of souls, knowing that their thoughts dream of worlds they’ll never see, never know, for souls are not created equally. These were handpicked by her own hand to do her bidding. She allows some souls through the passage of endless time to live and die in a body. Human or animal, plant or merely insect, she cares not, for her creations are only for her entertainment.
These souls, these black possessions she uses to create her injustices upon the souls she’s given true life to. Each black soul bounces off of her. Carefully she chooses one, not caring that it has dreams of light or darkness, not knowing that this soul could make or break her mold of being.

* * *

This dark plastered soul, with imaginative pictures of light bringing him out of darkness can feel the creator’s caress thinking it to be nothing but the bodies of surrounding souls. In his mind he can suddenly hear the voice of a woman. Her singing more beautiful than any pictures or sounds he can create.
He imagines that this must be the light he’s been waiting for.
He pulses his body to the rhythm, thinking he’s not alone in hearing the voice. Other souls he can feel are touching him trying to share in the beauty.
The music that only a creator can create turns to screeches and screams. The soul shudders to a stop. The light he had been imagining for an infinite amount of timelessness ends replaced only by images of death and desertion. New images of pain fill his mind and thoughts of believing a soul never dies is replaced with a doubt so deep he folds into himself.

* * *

The creator watches as she tortures the soul in her hand. She had given it life, not the life that some of the other souls were given with bodies, but life in her daunting waist deep pool made for evil magic. She relies too heavily on it, on them, for her strength and she knows it. Not the only creator in her endless infinite world, she fights for respect amongst the others. She regards the others with distaste and hatred believing that they have no right to rule the worlds so close to her own. No matter, she decides taking the last of the black aura surrounding the soul in her hand using it to feed her happiness and her power. Life and death is but one nick in an eternal timeline.

* * *

Feeling the weight of his own death, the soul cries out, something between pain and sadness escapes within his final breath. The countless souls swimming in the voiceless pool, incapable of communication except touch, hear his cry.

* * *

A shockwave of sound pounds the creator, knocking her into the pool where she sinks to the bottom fighting for air, and for the first time in many millennia, she feels a fear stronger than any hatred kindled in the deep recesses of her own blackened soul.

Sam Raddon is a High School English teacher who enjoys basking in the warm Florida sun while trying to inspire himself and students alike. http://samraddon.blogspot.com

Brian Michael Barbeito

2011-09-07T00:00:00.000-05:00

Jacob Easton Ellis
(Of Cowboys, Indians, and Columbians)

Jacob went into the interior of the metropolis. He was definitely in an abyss, and had, ‘fallen down a drain’ as it were. But what could he do? Sleep and respite would not have him, and since there was no repose for a soul such as his, he had to tumble on, and though he was floundering, the thought came to him that he could try to learn something.

He spent a lot of time with the urban cowboy, now exiled from the fields. The cowboy had one eye and they walked along always in the bright metropolitan day. Jacob noticed that the dregs of society stretched before them, and this coupled with the hot sun gave him uneasy feeling. Jacob had thrown an empty milk carton at the cowboy. ‘Don’t throw things at me,’ said the cowboy, ‘ cause I only got one eye, and I ain’t gone lose it. I been through too much to lose the last eye. The other eye is glass. I been through a lot. I had my own operation of product in the mountains until the police raided it. And even in the end I never gave into them. I beat it too. I beat it with a good lawyer. But I is in the city now, and lookin’ for a new start. I know that the construction workers is many of them bad. They go to church on Sundays, and they sleep around with lots of women durin’ the week. Me, I left all that- left everythin’ and now I am just a cowboy anarch. How do you say it? An anarchy. I am an anarchy to myself.’ And the cowboy always spoke with his finger pointing, like he was admonishing everyone and everything. Jacob grew tired and soon parted with the strange and often contradictory man. He continued on.

The Indian and Jacob were like kings from different courts. There was a group that the Indian was the leader of and a group that Jacob was leader of, though a reluctant leader. But they met on the bus once, and had reason to talk. They found that they did not quarrel, but instead became fast friends. Jacob talked to the Indian about Carlos Castaneda and the Indian, before disappearing for six weeks at a stretch, explained things such as the time the Indian said, ‘ I carry this bag, and it has matches, and a few other items in it. When you die, and you go to the next world, you will need four things. Always I carry them with me, because death can come at any time. Others are not so far on their healing journey, but I am and I want to be prepared for all things in all ways.’ One day the Indian threw his cigarette off of the balcony. Jacob laughed and asked him why, if he held tobacco in such high regard, did he just do that so flippantly and dismissively. The Indian laughed and made the sign of the cross over the balcony railing as if to bless the discarded filter. Soon when the Indian left to the fields to find his way out of the mire and much that is the cityscape, Jacob found the Columbian.

She was of medium height, and wore high platform shoes, her hair short, and the eyes looked out from under a light brown wisp of hair that was turning a golden hue from the summer sun. They walked and at a street festival she got on a stage and danced. The Columbian had lost much, but tried to stay upbeat. The Cowboy and the Indian had suffered immensely in their own ways, but it was hard for Jacob to see that suffering enormous and dark had come to the Columbian because she was a woman. The cowboy and the Indian also knew her, and Jacob and them had spoken about it often. All she really had wanted was to be happy, to be settled, but she had drawn a very lousy hand. Death and sickness were around her, and would continue to be around her all he days of her life. Yet there she danced, in the bright sun, with rhythm untold of in the Northern Hemisphere. ‘You are our leader Jacob,’ said the Columbian ‘and I would follow you anywhere.’ But the Columbian was only wishing that she could follow. Soon enough, the summer was winding and hints of things autumnal came slowly but surely in those nights.

One night, when they all found themselves so far to the edge of the metropolis that Jacob did not recognize any of the streets, he knew it was time to journey outward again. He kissed the Columbian softly on her pouty lips. To the Indian he yelled a sort of war cry- and the Indian and he laughed at this, - the Indian bestowing his Christian blessing with the sign of the cross in the air again. Jacob shook hands with the cowboy- and asked him to please try and look out for the Columbian, to take care of her and keep an eye on her. Then Jacob left.

Far and far he travelled, beyond the city limits. The vibration of the environs rose, as surely and definitely as the sky was blue or the ground was below one’s feet and not on top. When he reached his destination he took a long shower and got ready to sleep. He would sleep on and off for three days, but it was not a physical sickness he was trying to let the cosmos cure. The past was still on him, like an unhealthy psychic cord- and he could not cut it- but only had to hope it would wear and break through time. So he began the wait for the new season- the autumn, where the colder air might kill the past. The past, well meaning, but like a bacteria living however it knew could. Or like a drowning person grabbing onto another and drowning that person as well. The autumn would come. It always did. He would wake and it’s bright and rich textured hues would be waiting for him just outside- and lead him to a new life.

In the meantime he slept.

And dreamed of wild open spaces in fields covered in shadows and the moon’s light.

Brian Michael Barbeito writes short fiction. His work has appeared at Glossolalia, Exclusive Conclave of Delights Magazine, Lunatics Folly, and Mudjob. He resides in Ontario, Canada.

Harris Tobias

2011-08-31T00:00:00.002-05:00

The Element of Ritual

From the NY Times May 4, 2010
...one idea would be to deliberately increase the element of formal ritual in medicine. Studies of “alternative” therapies show that strong placebo effects can be induced by ritual. Indeed, in mainstream medicine, surgery is the treatment most surrounded by ritual; perhaps this is one reason it appears to be the most powerful placebo.

Nurse Smithers straightened Dr. Baumgartner’s feathered head dress. it had slipped down below the caduceus so carefully painted on his forehead by the medical ritual staff. The MR (Medical Ritual) dressing room looked more like the backstage at a Broadway show— racks of costumes, shelves piled high with musical instruments, makeup artists and hair stylists scurried about helping physicians prepare their illusions. It was a far cry from the old days before doctors finally understood what healing was all about—illusion. It was illusions that kept the patient’s belief system functioning and if the patient really believed, they were practically cured.
Ritual was Placebo General’s way of maximizing the curative powers locked away in each patient’s own belief system. Modern medicine was all about placebos much to the chagrin of big pharma. There was precious little money to be made from a science fiction set and a shot of salt water. These days medical treatment was more show than substance. If the patient believed he was being cured, his mind took care of the rest. His attending physician, Dr. Baumgartner, knew that the contents of the syringe he was holding was not nearly as important to the patient’s recovery than the ritual that preceded it.
In this case, the patient, Mr. Louis Silverblank, a portly 60 year old from New Jersey, was just waking up from his placebo heart surgery and was expecting a shot of painkiller. His pre-surgical work up revealed that Mr. Silverblank was superstitious and distrusted modern medicine. He tended to a strong belief in more primitive forms of treatment. As a result, his surgical team dressed for the occasion in a combination of Haitian Voodoo and Amazon rain forest garb. His surgeon, Dr. Numsey, performed the operation in a sterile loin cloth and body paint. Numsey was highly regarded throughout the region as a master of the elaborate and effective primitive scenario.
Nurse Smithers, herself dressed in a flowing muumuu with a colorful tropical theme and a hat filled with colorful fruits, began a rhythmic beating on a small drum hung around her neck. Dr. Baumgartner accented her rhythm with staccato shakes of a rattle made from a tortoise shell. Together they entered Silverblank’s room in a shuffling Samba chanting in a language no one present understood. A semi conscious Silverblank seemed impressed by the ceremony and felt much improved just watching the medicos working so hard to stimulate his trust. Nodding his head to the rhythm he gave nurse Smithers a shy smile.
His smile increased as Dr. Baumgartner raised the syringe high in the air and called upon the mystic forces of healing to flow into it. Nurse Smithers beat a furious crescendo on the drum. Dr. Baumgartner turned around three times, produced a puff of smoke from his palms and injected the saline solution into Silverblank’s enormous rump. Mr. Silverblank heaved a blissful sigh and lapsed back into sleep.
Dr. Baumgartner and Nurse Smithers turned and left the sleeping Silverblank’s room and hurried down the corridor to the MR ready room. They had to change out of their feathers and beads into a futuristic costume consisting entirely of chrome and plastic prosthetics. Nurse Smithers donned an android mask while Dr. Baumgartner slipped into a breastplate filled with flashing lights and gauges and hurried off to operating theater 4, the Doctor From Tomorrow set. Mrs. Hackman was having her gall bladder removed or at least thought she was.

Paul de Denus

2011-08-24T00:00:00.003-05:00

The Attraction

He’d passed the same attraction three days running. Down the dry leafy back road, just off the golf course and up around the bend, it waited patiently for him like an old friend ready for play. The monument of snapped limbs and discarded brush stacked high, a rambling golden pyre, bone-dry, quivering like an expectant lover. He had hoped running would alleviate the burning need, create another game with less to lose. He slowed to a trot as the mind game caught hold; a glowing ember of it circled - wanted to touch with one strike of a match, one finger-flick of a clean cigarette - lightly crackle “you’re it.” Later, from his spot on the hill, he watched it run and play, quietly glowing hot and bright, pleased with what it had started.

It was faint at first, like a distant train whistle calling from somewhere along the darkening horizon, but now the sound was louder. It was not a whistle but the blare of wailing sirens and he relaxed a bit. The sirens smothered his pounding heart with a blanket of relief like that of cool rain and he licked his dry lips.
“It will be alright,” he whimpered, almost collapsing. He turned to leave and his eye caught a glimpse of something that did drop him to his knees: a surging wall of orange flame boiling through a row of trees that kissed along a ridge of large homes hugging the golf course.
“What have you done?” it said.

The first engine arrived and a fireman heavy with gear stumbled from the side railing. He was shouting instruction to the other firemen as they scrambled from the vehicle, serpentine hoses uncoiling over the road like spilled guts from some reddened beast. On the hill he watched them play, mesmerized as flames took the first two houses. They flowered, a hushing sound like marshmallows to the flame.
“It’s just a game,” he whispered, his face shiny, angelic. “We can stop anytime.”

There had always been an affinity with fire. When he was very young, it spoke to him, drew him like moth to flame. His mother had seen it in him too - this calling - had noticed how his eyes would light as they stared blankly into the blazing fireplace. In church she would encourage him to light a votive candle for lost souls and the dearly departed. She believed it was goodness he saw, some guiding light, the flame a source of warmth and comfort. She was wrong. His father, a heavy smoker, a heavier drunk, saw it exactly as it was. “You’re it,” the old man would say, flicking a flaming match toward him as the boy played on the floor with his older brother, Davey. “Oh you’re it alright,” he’d slur and laugh between pulls of the bottle and drags on the hand-rolled smoke. It was a contemptuous laugh, malicious. But it was quickly silenced the first time the boy - quick as a viper - snatched the lit match as it bounced off his chest. With widened eyes, he felt the sting of the flame, then overwhelming sadness as it quickly extinguished, the burn searing his palm. The boy didn’t mind though; he liked it… this new game. “Fire’s a motherfucker… a beast,” his father grunted, holding the shaky cigarette up close to eyes. He lightly blew on the smoldering orange ember. “It’s like you. It’s tricky.” His eyes faltered, then drowsily dropped down upon him. “Unplanned,” he mumbled. “Unplanned and tricky. That’s it.” The boy didn’t understand all the things his father had said but he trusted the man knew what he spoke of. He and Davey rolled and played about on the floor, dumping plastic soldiers and Tinker toys into their father’s stained fireman’s helmet. Crinkled matches lay scattered about the carpet, as black and as brittle as torched bodies.

He started setting fires when he was eleven. The attraction was a rough clearing out in the old dump near Rollins Swamp. It seemed a safe place to play, with so much ready to burn, so much smoldering there just beneath the surface of discarded trash. It was a game - “I’m it… you’re it” he’d say - and flick matches one by one from the long matchbox, each one tumbling, some flaming out, others burning bright as they landed in a scratch of bramble and oily boxes. They quickly caught on. He always heard the voice in the crackle - his father’s voice - a soft whisper at first that would detonate into a terrifying roar. “YOU’RE IT!” it would boom.

He controlled the fires at first, kept them small but the day came when the winds seemed to shift out of nowhere, the world opened wide and he was confronted with the beast. It stood before him, alive, taunting and unstable. He was not afraid. He was terrified. It ran around him, leering, its fiery tongue lolling and whispering around his ears. It quickly turned and rolled toward the swamp, like some living creature eager for water to soothe it, to cool it. He followed and waited. Instead of water, it found fuel to feed. The dry bramble swamp exploded and it consumed everything, its gaping maw, red and hot.

He had run then, somehow escaped through the thicket, excited and horrified, sprawling flat in a ditch as the fire engines screamed past down the smoke-choked road. As the last truck flared by, he glanced up in time to see his father riding the top of the engine’s cab, saw the terrified look as their eyes locked. He never saw him again. Outmatched and trapped in the swamp, his father and three other firemen were consumed by the monster’s fury.

There was no other consequence, the origin of the fire blamed on conditions at the dump, on shifting weather, an unfortunate and horrible accident the papers said. After that, he ran in a futile attempt to outrun what had happened. Then in his mid-teens, he started running with the fire, hoping it might grow tired of the game and burn itself out on its own. But it circled… circled and chased him. Always.

The fireman stood frozen. The blaze towered above him, the heat an open oven wrinkling the air. It had taken hold everywhere, jumped the street to the left of the golf course, rolling like a wave toward the opposite curb. Smoke churned between the remaining houses, hugged the gravel in a low thick fog as orange spikes flickered and peeked through like demon eyes in the night. He felt his partner then - Conrad - at his side grabbing his arm; he was shouting, barely audible through his mask over the roar.
“We gotta go… go now!”
For a moment, he thought he might faint. His vision blurred and he felt disorientated as if falling down a funneling dark tunnel. He thought he heard Conrad again but the voice was different, familiar.
And he knew.
It was a voice coming from the hill high above him somewhere, his brother’s voice screaming, screaming. He turned to look but all he saw was Conrad’s face wet and pleading, the beast rising behind him.
“We gotta go Davey,” he shouted. “We gotta go… NOW!”

Paul de Denus is a graphic artist by day, writer by night. He has been published at Six Sentences (The Love Book, Word of Mouth, and 6S Vol 3), Smith Magazine, Fictionaut, and Espresso Stories.
Paul's writings and self published books appear at his blog: Me, the Other Twin.

Bill Lapham

2011-08-17T00:00:00.003-05:00

Turner, Raymond K.

We found him inside his gun turret charred black, his mouth frozen in a permanent smile, teeth white as fresh sheets on a country clothesline. His dogtags said he was Turner, Raymond K., Protestant, Blood Type A+. He was frozen in position and in time as if someone had doused him in black plaster. He had been loading a projectile into the breach of his gun when another had penetrated the armored skin of the turret and exploded. For some reason the explosion did not blow Turner’s body to bits but incinerated him and cemented it into the exact position we found him in. He would still be there, stuck in World War II loading that shell, if we hadn’t gently recovered his body and buried it at sea where it rests still today.

Earlier that day, before Turner, Raymond K. had been hurled from his upper rack by the call to General Quarters, he had been studying a picture of his wife who was back home in Liberty, Iowa. The picture was threadbare and faded, details of the image nearly imperceptible, rubbed away by his fingers and thumbs. The case on the pillow under his head was moist from the tears that had run down the sides of his head. He missed his wife.
He had answered his country’s call to arms with reluctance. Others were. Sure the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, but before December 7, 1941, who had never heard of the place? Hawaii wasn’t even a state for chrissakes.

Before his ship had set sail as part of the fleet invading the Philippine Islands, Turner, Raymond K. had been lying on the beach in Waikiki enjoying the sun and the waves and the motion of the beautiful Hawaiian ladies in their grass skirts. Most guys his age were drunk by noon, or hungover from the night before and sleeping it off in their hotel rooms or back in the barracks on base. Not Turner, Raymond K. He enjoyed his time off sight-seeing, sun-bathing and running on the beach. He liked sitting in the shade of palm trees, looking at Diamondhead while listening to ukulele music. Every once in a while he would climb Tantalus Mountain and hike on the trails in the rainforest above Pearl Harbor and Honolulu. War had brought its own kind of peace to the mind of Turner, Raymond K.

Before his ship had steamed off to the Hawaiian Islands, it was overhauled in the shipyard at Mare Island near San Francisco. Those days had been long and hot. Not that it was hot in San Francisco, it wasn’t, but it was always hot in a ship with no air conditioning. And the destroyer-escort USS VIRGIL J. JOHNSON had never seen any air conditioning. Sweat dripped off the end of Turner, Raymond K.’s nose as he polished the bright work in his gun turret. He referred to it as “his gun turret” because it made the long hours he spent locked up inside it training and cleaning easier to endure. He knew the purpose of every switch, valve, lever, door, swivel and fastener inside the contraption. He could operate the thing blind-folded. And he could lift the shells and stuff them into the breach until 7 times a minute from now until the gates of Hell swung open to welcome him home.

Two years before Turner, Raymond K. hauled his seabag up the brow of his new ship, he was driving a tractor on his Uncle Jim’s farm in Liberty, Iowa. He and Karen had just been married and she was expecting their first child. The doctor in town thirty miles away had given Karen a clean bill of health and said the baby was doing just fine. He could hear his or her heartbeat and it was strong, nothing to worry about. Two days later, Karen miscarried. Such was the state of prenatal medicine at the time. Karen was devastated and Ray could not console her. Eventually, after months of getting used to the idea, Karen resolved that she wouldn’t have a baby until God was ready to give her one, and when that time came, they planned to name the baby William after his great-grandfather from Ireland. Ray was relieved that Karen seemed to be back to her happy self again.

Before Young Ray married Karen and long before he shipped off to the South Pacific to fight the Japanese Navy, he was a strapping young lad living on a farm owned by his father’s brother in Iowa. His parents had been killed in a freak fire at their home two counties away. He had narrowly escaped the blaze and survived only because his dog Jake had jumped on his bed to warn him of the impending danger. Both he and the dog fled the burning house out his bedroom window, and despite yelling until his throat was raw, could not raise the attention of his parents who must have died in their sleep. He never saw them again. The next morning, his Uncle Jim came to the house and found Ray asleep on the grass under the sycamore tree hugging his dog Jake, the smoldering embers of the house lying in ruins not far away.

Not long before the tragic loss of his parents and his house, Raymond K. Turner was born into a peaceful world on the verge of unprecedented wealth, peace and prosperity at the beginning of what would come to be known as the Roaring Twenties. He had a happy childhood living on his parents’ farm, playing with his dog, Jake, growing up strong and smart and morally straight. He worked hard, studied hard and played hard. He loved baseball. He loved his parents and his dog and he could not wait for the day when he would have his own farm and family.

Bill Lapham is a retired submarine sailor and current MFA student at Goddard College in Vermont. Find his blog here.

Callan

2011-08-10T00:00:00.007-05:00

The Apparatus

I am floating, above an orange sea, unfinished, unborn, free. There is a hole inside me, but I am tethered to myself. I float above myself, above my hot and narrow bed. I see myself twisting unconscious in damp sweaty sheets. I see my own flesh my, own twisted body. There is a grinding screech, then, a violent pull.
Long metal nails against an old-fashioned sign, the teacher is demanding attention, but the class room is outside, in the dusty abandoned parking lot of an old drive-in. All the desks are empty. There are no students. I am seated in the center of the row, in the center of the bank of empty desks. The teacher with the long metal nails drags them across the sign. What does she want? What answer is she looking for? She wears a beehive and a tight dress. She has no eyeballs. Blood streams like tears from where her eyeballs should be.
I wake, but the sound, the horrible sound, of metal against metal comes again.
It is the apparatus. It is in need of secrecy oil. I climb out of bed and walk to the window. I lean out shading my eyes with my hand and eyeball the suffering metal components of the machine.
My upstairs neighbor flings open a window and shouts down at me, “Oil your apparatus I am trying to take a nap.”
I yell back at the neighbor, “I am out of oil. Could you give me a ride into a town?”
“No, I will not give you a ride into town, I hate you! I hate your irresponsibility, your sloth and laziness, and most of all I hate your reckless treatment of your apparatus. Some of us don’t have an apparatus. How could you! How could you allow yours to run out of oil! Why, didn’t you buy extra secrecy oil? You must have known it was low on oil, yet you did not prepare for the future. If I had an apparatus, you can be certain it would never, ever run out of oil.”
With that, the upstairs neighbor slammed the window shut, retreating behind a musty red curtain, possibly forever.

.........................................................................................................................

I had to get secrecy oil for my apparatus. With no other alternative, I set out walking. The journey proved insurmountable in the unrelenting heat. When momentary lapses in traffic occurred, I could see pools of water that did not exist. The longer I walked, the harder it became. The breaks in traffic came more often, and the hallucinations of the road grew more detailed, more menacing.
First, the mirages consisted only of small pools of water, but as I walked, the hallucination became more elaborate. The pools widened and took on depth. Palm trees bristled on the road. Camels dotted the immediate horizon. Mermaids appeared. They caressed their sleek cold bodies with white and perfect hands, tempting the camels.
I became discouraged. I stopped in order to assess where I was. To my dismay, I discovered that I had traveled only a block and a half from my apartment. I checked my watch and saw that a mere fifteen minutes had passed. It was the heat, of course. It was so hot outside that time had melted.
These walks had a tendency to rend my sanity. I gave up. The walk home was a gentle slope. The dry wind was at my back. I was bothered no more by visions of bestiality-laden oases.
As I approached the apartment complex, I caught site of the apparatus. It labored and twitched in the brittle grass of the side yard. It groaned horribly. I ran towards it and watched as it sputtered and spat, its lubricated springs straining with the effort of production. What my neighbor had shouted at me was true. I had known the apparatus would soon be out of oil, but had done nothing. I had failed the machine. Still, it struggled on my behalf.
As I watched, it began to turn itself in a slow circle, cutting an agonizing swathe in the half-dead grass. Its springs came loose. Sparks flew. The dry grass caught fire. It spread, consuming the apartment building. The neighbors’ window flew open, and they called down to me, but the roar of the flames swallowed their voices. They fell to earth with vapid, accusing eyes, pitifully grasping empty air with empty hands. I did not move, I did not cry out. I was glad to burn.

Callan left Orange County, Ca. in 2007 and moved to the country to focus full time on her writing. Her work is featured at Six Sentences and her blog: theworksofjanecallan

Bolton Carley

2011-08-03T00:34:00.001-05:00

HoW addiction got me here

I can’t believe it’s come to this…

I’ve denied it since the days of big hair and stirrup pants. I’ve tried to focus on other things, but inevitably I fall off the wagon. It’s steadily gotten worse as I’ve aged. Life stresses and old age have put me in a panic. Admittedly, my marriage and job have been chucked into the backseat because my addiction was cozied up riding shotgun. In fact, it’s probably happened on more occasions than I wish to admit. Many a late night, I’ve been up sulking about the house with a drink and my thoughts.

All of it seemed harmless enough; just a hobby or a tension release. Nothing more, nothing less. Everybody else does it, too, don’t they? Apparently, that assumption was wrong. Mid-snit the other night, my husband came home to find me slumped over in his Lazyboy. His words were ones of love, concern, and compassion. He’s always been my cheerleader and keeper. Perhaps he knows better than I do, so I agreed to take this first step.

Now here I am walking into all these seemingly confident, uninhibited strangers. Polar bears are tap-dancing on my heart; my gut instinct is to run. Jesse Owens wouldn’t have anything on me right about now. Why? Why did I agree to do this? What was I thinking? Obviously I did not think through the process far enough to realize I’d be facing a firing line, or at least a circle of addicts claiming they’re no better than myself (of which I know they are stronger and further down the road to success). At this point though, I realize it’s too late to tuck tail and amscray. They’re all staring at me like I’m a piece of raw, fatty, flavorful prime rib in a lion’s den.

A familiar, yet unknown woman is already hugging me as I’m rooted to the stained shag carpet in uncertainty. What happened to a good old-fashioned formal hearty handshake or a new-fangled fist bump? Hugging? Really? Crap. They hug each other here? It must be one big happy family, or at least a family. Is there any chance I’ll fit in? Is there any chance they’ll understand my situation and not judge me harshly? Thank God that woman over there has already taken a seat and just gave me a jaunty, if not half-scared, wave. Maybe this isn’t old hat for everyone. Maybe she’s new, too.

I’m scanning the room hoping I don’t stick out like a sore thumb in a middle finger kind-of crowd. Already I’ve spotted a stocky, charismatic guy grazing at the snack table in back, trading one addiction for another. Another guy is knee-deep in his iPad, paying little or no attention to the rest of the group forming. The long-haired beauty queen with her back to me talks like she’s semi-worried about her children at home with their father. Then there’s some guy with a canary yellow shirt that people are flocking around. Good. Hopefully, they all glue-stick to him so I can slip in over in the corner to watch without notice like an old man at a strip joint. I know I don’t belong here. I won’t fit in with these people. It’s a guarantee. Even before I admitted my situation, people condensed me into nothing more than goat cheese on a vegetarian platter. I told my husband that, and he informed me I needed to give it a chance. I might be surprised at how much I have in common with these people and if not, I shouldn’t worry. He assured me they’d be accepting. How could they not love me? He asked. Yeah, right.

As I gage the situation, I notice they all chat amongst themselves like they’ve known each other forever. Will that be me if a few months? Will I be sharing the intimate details of my life with these people? Will they feel more like family than my real one? I hear it happens. Oh, how I hope they recognize my obsession and welcome me into their fold. Lord knows why it is so important to me, but it is. Perhaps, I am literally and figuratively starting a new chapter.

Now here I sit on the furthest perch I can get on this flowered couch pondering how to properly introduce myself. With all these somewhat anonymous people, how do I cleverly seek their friendship? Do I tell a light anecdote? Do I share why I’m here? Do I give my real name? Do I try a joke? Or maybe it’s best to keep it short and sweet. What’s that old saying about being a fool but by opening your mouth you remove all doubt?

Okay, I can’t get negative. I promised my husband I would give it my best efforts. I will not give up. I’m a fighter. I can do this.

“Hi, my name is Erica and I’m a… writer… or at least I play one on the computer screen….”

Bolton is a farmer's daughter/teacher/attempting writer/author of YA verse novel: Hello, Summer Vacay and blogger of lessons learned the hard way at www.boltoncarley.wordpress.com

Grey Johnson

2011-07-27T00:12:00.000-05:00

All the Reasons

I bring you little gifts, set them around the room, and study you as you walk, watching you touch them one at a time in the afternoon light, with the drapes drawn against the heat. You tilt your head, and give me a sort of doubt I enjoy, for I can never tell if you like a thing until you lift your eyes. The moment before you look up is endless and staggering, and I feel like a puppy – which I despise but cannot resist.
You put your feet on my coffee table, and your gentle knees know how to smile. Sometimes I hate to touch you because of it. It has been months, but I still cannot believe I let you dab lipstick on my mouth, as I was rubbing my hair with a towel. It was an ambush, and I surrendered out of shock and confused pleasure. You know, sometimes you get face powder on the tops of your eyelashes, and since I cannot think of a gentle enough way to remove it, I do not. Then I feel guilty for letting it stay.
I am distracted by the subtle colors and textures of all your lingerie, and sometimes I want to ask you to leave it on longer, but I do not, which makes me feel childishly shy. You never ask for anything, so I feel preoccupied with trying to predict your wants. I think I have even forgotten how to carry on a conversation, since you coax me with questions, and I fret that you will find me dull. Once we part, I predictably think of hundreds of things to say. It is such a fucking cliché. I resent your ease with words.
Your motions are so deliberate and graceful to me, that I lose track of time as you flip the pages of a magazine. I refuse to talk about your smell, or your lips, or your hair, or your skin, or the sound of your breathing, or the way you grace your hands over me as you sleep and keep me awake half the night. You exhaust me, and when we are together for more than a day, I am so tired I feel as if I am dreaming, sweetly, on my feet.
Recently, I have begun going to ridiculous lengths to keep my apartment clean, even scrubbing the faucet handles with an old toothbrush. I cannot figure out why I want you to teach me to iron, because I know this will be interpreted as a milestone gesture, and I am not ready to make it. Yet I fantasize about the steam curling around your hand, the creaking sound of the ironing board, and the smoothing of the wrinkles. I know it will be work not to warn you against getting burned. I should be rational, and realize I do not have time to spend worrying over collars and cuffs. That is why I take my shirts to the cleaner – but the comforting image remains.
There is a rhythm to our communication now, a dependability that feels stifling, yet when I do not talk to you, it seems the day yawns rudely in my face. I can never understand the tone of your emails, and I am crushed or made furious constantly, only to discover your humor later, as you laugh at my responses. Clearly, you do not understand my tone either, and it makes me feel isolated from you and somehow lonely. This is the exact opposite of what I need.
I feel itchy and annoyed all the time. You give me strange thoughts about housekeeping, and insecurities about being able to communicate. You cause me endless doubt. You take unwelcome liberties with my furniture and my lips. Yet, I allow all of it - but why do I do this?
It makes no sense at all, because I do not love you.

Grey Johnson lives in a small town in northeastern South Carolina. Her garden is very important to her, and so are her dogs. She reads and knits rectangles, but seldom knows what to do with them. She doesn’t have a blog or website, but writes some on the Six Sentence Social Network. You can also check out her brilliant little collections on Issuu.

J.O. Vaughn

2011-07-20T12:00:00.005-05:00

JULIANNA ~ MAY 2008

I told Oskar that when I had been younger a group of my friends and I had gone to the Village Tavern one night for dinner and it’s when I had my first grand mal seizure. I’ve been afraid to return all these years and now I’m standing in front of the restaurant. My heart is pounding and I tell myself it’s just a mild panic attack, not a seizure, I’ll be fine. I must look completely petrified because Oskar has his hand on the small of my back rubbing it gently. His voice tickles my ear as his whispers, “I just figure it’d be one last fear to have to face. Only thing left is marriage and that should be a walk in the park after tonight.”
He has no idea how many fears I have to conquer, points in my life I have to face, so that marriage isn’t frightening to me at all, at the present. It’s strange, I understand his logic and pushing the visions of my past away, agree with his sound advice and take the initiative to walk inside. The waitress seats us together and I nearly burst out laughing when she asks Oskar if his wife was coming to join us.
“This is my wife,” he takes my hand and pulls me to sit beside him. The woman is stunned but I’m not surprised, I may be twenty-nine but I am constantly mistaken for a teenager or a college freshman. In all my years there has only been one stranger to guess my age correctly and when I asked how he’d done it he said it was because I’d told him I’d been in Winston ten years and he assumed that’s when I came for college.
“Our menus,” Oskar motions the waitress who is still staring blankly before apologizing as she gives us the menus. Before she starts to walk away, she returns realizing she never asked for our drink orders.
“Ice tea for me and water without ice for her,” he catches her before she has gotten out of sound range, “and a small bowl of lemon slices please.”
I’m smiling. I am being continually amazed by Oskar, “Your wife?”
He shrugs, “I was your fiancée the other night. Why not my wife now?” He pauses before asking if I’m feeling alright and I nod. I don’t want to mention that where I am sitting right now is the exact some space I was in the night of my seizure but then he asks, “What was it like?”
“What was what like? My seizure?”
He nods.
I’m flabbergasted, I don’t know how to explain something like that, “It was just, ‘gone’, I can imagine everyone being frantic, ‘Is there a doctor in the house!’ and all that, but I was just gone. No day dreaming or whatever, I’m just giving the waiter my order, freeze – the girls said in like a Michael Jackson’s Thriller monster pose - and then waking in an ambulance strapped to a table.”
“I’d been on a stretcher before. Had a minor heart attack – if there is such a thing – didn’t seem minor to me. I really hate those damned things, make me feel like I was already in a coffin except decorated like a UFO or something, all these wires and gizmos, alien looking people sticking things in me, interrogating me,” he sees my concern and pulls me close, “Ah, don’t worry, I was a stupid kid, wasn’t taking care of myself. Got a dietician, physical trainer – sad to say I think this belly is going to be with me for some time but I’m a lot better off than I was a few years ago.”
His arms are so secure, I feel sheltered and feel myself melting into him, I want to fall asleep and probably would have if the waitress hadn’t returned with our drinks. She asks if we’re ready yet and Oskar orders for the both of us: 8 oz steaks, both medium rare, but with different side dishes so – he explains later – we can share and have a wider variety. He says we can order more if we’re still hungry but after I’d had their double layer cheesecake he doubts I’ll be able to stomach anything else.
I wish there were more men who listened to their dates. Everything he’s done tonight he remembered either from my profile – where I mentioned my love of mandarin oranges and steak (the side dishes he ordered for my plate were on the list too) or from our first night together at Borders when I mentioned Village Tavern and why I only drink water on a typical outing. I’d only sipped at the smoothie he’d bought me because too much sugar makes me ill and I wanted our date to last all night.
I stand and move over to the other side of the table. He looks at me curiously and I explain how stunned I am at the moment, not just by what he’d done but by the fact we are in the same exact both and for a moment I was in the same exact seat as when I had had my seizure. He gets out of the booth and I think he’s going to ask the waitress for another table but instead he pulls me out of my seat and forces me into his, “I think it’ll be better for you if you sit here tonight. It’ll give you some confidence when you see that nothing happens and it’s not because you were sitting in a different seat.”
I can feel the adrenaline rushing through my body, it’s a fight-or-flight instinct and if I hadn’t noticed people looking at us I might have resisted but instead I just go sit where I was told like a good little girl and spend the rest of the night holding myself together. It takes a lot out of me to control myself and I spend most of the night reminding myself that this isn’t the start of a seizure, the Lamictal I have coursing through my body will continue to keep me strong, this is just nerves, panic, and it’ll be over soon.
God, I think to myself, just don’t make me throw up tonight.

FYODOR – MAY 2008
   JULIET (22:43:10): Fyodor!
   ROMEO (22:24:17): What’s wrong?
   JULIET (22:24:28): I think I blew it. Me and Oskar.
   ROMEO (22:24:32): Why?
   JULIET (22:24:40): He hasn’t answered my email. Hasn’t called me.
   JULIET (22:25:30): Well.
   ROMEO (22:25:34): Well what?
   JULIET (22:25:41): What should I do?
   ROMEO (22:25:43): Wait.
   ROMEO (22:27:39): You always jump to conclusions when you think someone doesn’t like you or is stopping likeing you. Just chill and I’m sure he’ll call. When did you send the email?
   JULIET (22:28:01): About twenty minutes ago.
   JULIET(22:28:13): I guess you’re right.
   ROMEO (22:28:13): Twenty minutes, give him time.
   JULIET (22:29:41): He probably isn’t even home yet.
   ROMEO (22:30:07): He just dropped you off?
   JULIET (22:30:09): Yes.
   ROMEO (22:30:22): Darlin’, you really need to take a breath. Breathe with me now. In...
   ROMEO (22:30:24): Out…
   ROMEO (22:30:26): In…
   ROMEO (22:30:29): Out…
   ROMEO (22:30:35): Release the tension.
   ROMEO (22:30:38): Out…
   ROMEO (22:30:46): Release the fear.
   ROMEO (22:30:50): In…
   ROMEO (22:31:10): Feel better?
   JULIET (22:31:15): I guess
   ROMEO (22:34:07): Honey, I’m happy for you, just relax and if he wants to be with you as much as you say, he’ll write. Hell, I don’t know what you said but I’m sure it’s nothing bad. You have a very poetic nature. It’ll be beautiful and … just don’t worry.
   JULIET (22:34:15): Ok. You’re right. I just – I’m tired, I’ll guess I should just go to bed so I don’t dwell on it.
   JULIET is OFFLINE.

I want to hit the monitor. I stomp my foot like a little child who isn’t getting what he wanted from Wal-Mart. She gets obsessive, her desire for the love and support she’s never gotten. She stays with me but she has never been the same since our night together in her dorm room. I’m the one to heal her body and apparently Oskar has been chosen to heal her soul. I really want to hurt this man, whomever he is.

J.O. Vaughn lives in Winston-Salem, NC where she spends most of her time researching, having a passion for knowledge, which she uses for her writing. She appreciates constructive criticism.

Sandra Davies

2011-07-13T11:58:00.002-05:00

Arc of Adaptation

The circumstances of her first time taken had added to the hurt. The confusion and the absence of her father and her brothers, her being left alone, knowing but unknowing danger, never known before, the dark and pain of edge of stone pressed in her back, of hands on thighs and throat, of alien breath too close of tongue too wet and wetness elsewhere grunt and shove and shout of strangeness, pain within ...

But she had become accustomed, had understood, in time, his need, at times had felt it too ...

And then he died.

A new man - he said men called him Yarl - had claimed her as his woman even as the body of the other lay still-fleshed, unstripped, unburied, rites not yet performed. His haste prevented her from mourning chaste as was the custom, gave her too small a space of time to pay the honour due and so she broke the ring to acknowledge that first man had been a man of worth, had begat a son on her and she’d been glad to bear him such.

This new man, this Yarl, was much younger than the man before; near to her and not so much her father. Black haired, his striding loud, cocksure, roughshod across her life had made her angry from the first with him. She respected, for his rank, but did not like, had refused to be submissive even to be sure she would survive. But also from the first the urgency of Yarl told her she had some power, though she wanted not to let him see he had it too. Perhaps such skills were also learnt with rank ...

Having power stopped her hurt – or was it that she would not let herself be hurt that gave her power? For that he’d chosen told her she had something that he wanted, something that he thought she would supply. She knew such wanting was worth knowing, for the fact it gave her worth.

She asked what other than her body was it that he sought from her and he told her that her value lay in family land, in tribal name, in ancestors, for land with men all gone was then known and held by women and her status as a woman of the white tail eagle tribe did add to and increase what was already his.

She told this Yarl, ‘You do not, cannot own my ancestors’ and he to her surprise did say he knew that but the sons that she would have by him would call them theirs and thus the land would stay with those who owned by birthright not by force.

‘Why force?’ she asked since he was calm and listening and he told her that her family men had been too few, too weak, had failed to fight for what was theirs, deserved to lose their women and their lives, to lose their freedom and their birthright. He told her that his people risked their lives for land, in seeking land on journeys across sea and if and where they won it was they who were entitled to the land and to the women and the sons that they would bear.

‘My first born son should rank above all sons of yours since he was born of your people.’

‘He will not: his father was of lesser rank, was a fighter not a leader, you cannot insist ...’ and she knew he had both power and the mind to take him - not kill, but send away since boys could work elsewhere - and she stayed silent so that she would keep her first born son nearby and safe from harm - accepting since she had no choice.
But first to him she had a daughter.

And then she was afraid.

For she knew that one might be allowed to live in times of glut of fish and meat, in times of health and wealth, but rarely more than one and only then when sons had come before.
She would not plead for that would weaken her, and she was certain he was hard enough to do the deed himself. But the first - his first - he had allowed to live, and the second was a son, and he was proud and then the third another girl but first had caught his heart and he could not end the second daughter’s life, knowing what she could become, and in hope of times of glut.

And for that, from the first of his reprieving, and doubly so the second, she had changed her view that he was not a man to like.

Sandra Davies is an artist and printmaker and recently-emerged writer of fiction, with a long-established interest in family history. Born on the Essex coast, she now lives in Teesside in the north east of England, both places having the flat landscapes and sea-edged horizons considered essential for a sense of well-being. More writing can be found at lines of communication and some prints at Print Universe
This piece can be found in Sandra's excellent book Edge which comprises Curve of Early Learning, Arc of Adaptation, and Circle of Celebration

Joe Gensle's "The Battery"

2011-07-06T12:00:00.010-05:00

See, that's what they call the combination of a pitcher and catcher in baseball. And that's what we were, a battery, going back to when we were little kids.
Tommy and I were 5 when our parents moved into brand new houses across the street from each other. I spotted him in his front yard one day, throwing a baseball into the air as high as he could and catching it. I walked over and said, "Hi, I'm David and we moved into that house," turning to point at what had been a model home. He said "Hi" back, and I asked him if I could get my mitt, if he wanted to play catch.
I bet we played catch or whiffle ball in his yard more than 350 days a year, ‘cuz it didn‘t rain much in the desert. All through elementary school and into freshman year, we were out in front with our gloves, throwing a ball back and forth, even doing grounders and stuff.
He's right-handed and I'm a leftie. He used to say that the arc in my natural curve could go through his front door, turn right, and sail down his hallway. I guess it could, because I actually had to concentrate to throw a straight fastball. Tommy said I was crazy if I didn't want to be a pitcher, and that if that's what I wanted, too, then he should be a catcher because who else could handle that curve, had more experience at it?
When we were about 13, my practice goal was to build-up my speed, and to learn how and when to throw a killer change-up. Tommy's older brother, Bob, told Tommy, early-on, "Catching isn't enough. You need a big swing!" And, boy, did he ever learn how to hit. Bob was already in college, and started taking Tommy to the batting range three or four times a week. It was Bob's idea for us to go to the high school field some weekends, and Bob would catch me while Tommy hit.
At first, Bob and I would laugh when I'd throw a real bender to the plate, and the frustrated look on Tommy's face when he swung and missed it by a mile doubled us over. Sure, it made Tommy madder, but it made him concentrate, more determined. I'd put my mitt over my face to keep Tommy from seeing me laugh--his temper boiling over to the point of quitting. But he wasn't a quitter. Ever.
By our sophomore year, Tommy and I made varsity, and we were starters. Junior and even senior girls began to acknowledge our existence, but we knew it was only because we had letter sweaters. Not only were we starters, I got five wins in six starts that year. And I wouldn't have lost that one if we hadn't had errors by the shortstop, second baseman, and a couple missed and dropped balls in the outfield.
I know nobody's perfect, but that kinda hurt, you know? You throw your best stuff and, for all time, have to see your name next to "Losing Pitcher" in the record books and articles.
That was the first year our high school ever made the division playoffs, and we made it to the final round. The team that beat us and made it to the state championship got some dumb luck. Our starter got blasted for a couple homers in the tie-breaker, and we had, again, suffered the ‘Curse of Oops" with our gloves, as Coach Brown called it. "Oops" meant, "Out Of Practice, Son!," and when so cursed at practice, Brown called us "Hone-Yocks," "Yoders." We never did figure out what that meant, but at least he didn't cuss us out like other teams' coaches did.
We won the state championship our junior year. I had a perfect season. Tommy hit .413, led our division in batting, set a record for doubles, and we both made All-State. It was cool seeing our names in the newspaper sometimes, and we clipped-out the pictures from the three times they featured us on the high schools' page. The sportswriter guy mentioned I might start getting attention from pro scouts as long as I didn't burn-out my arm or get hurt, and merely continued to develop as 16-year olds do. Jim Hawkins, the sportswriter, even wrote about Tommy, saying "Johansson may even have a better shot at the pros than Petrie, because catchers just don't wield the big stick like this kid can hit. You just don't see batting power like that in catchers anywhere in today's majors."
The morning after we won state, we made the front of the sports page: "Electric Battery Clinches Title for Washington High." My fastball had been on fire, my curve was baffling the Brophy squad, and the change-up I had perfected, according to the article, "Embarrassed Brophy's batters all the way back to the dugout in Petrie's dazzling 12-strikeouts, 4-hit, shut-out performance." It went on, "Tommy Johansson, the other half of the ‘Electric Battery,' scored 4 RBIs on two doubles and a home run that sailed over dead center field that is probably still rolling, smashed with power this writer has never witnessed in a solo shot."
In the season opener our senior year, I got the start because St. Mary's Catholic High stole lots of great players from all over town, giving them scholarships, and seemed to field an all-star team every year. They, like the all-boys Catholic high school (Brophy College Prep) recruited city-wide, always earned a slot in the playoffs, and were serious inter-division rivals.
Four innings in, electric-like pings started in my elbow. It didn't hurt, but sure didn't feel good. I found that if I adjusted my motion, it wasn't so bad. But, after about ten pitches with the change in my mechanics, all of a sudden it felt like someone hit the inside of my shoulder with a rubber sledge hammer. I shook my mitt off my right hand, and grabbed my shoulder. Tommy flung his mask down and charged the mound. Coach Brown screamed, "TIME! TIME OUT! TIME!" at the ump about a hundred times all the way to the mound. I told 'em I was okay, not that bad, but I couldn't finish.
We had a two-run lead, and Preston, who sometimes had control problems, was called to warm-up on the mound as I went to ‘ride the pines,' as Coach Brown called sitting on the bench. Mr. Sheets, the assistant coach, had a towel full of ice from the cooler ready to wrap my shoulder, numbing the pain.
Preston threw a few warm-ups, and Tommy kept looking over at me on the bench. I knew he was all weirded out, wondering how bad it was.
The first batter flied out. Then, this guy Danielson stepped-up. Tommy kept glancing over so many times I had to wave him off. Preston's first pitch to the right-handed batter was way outside, and Tommy had to lunge to snag it. Tommy's look to me said, "Oh crap, Preston's a wild!" the foreboding thought I shared.
The world went into slo-mo. Tommy was shooting me a look as Preston's fastball left his hand, heading inside. This guy Danielson stepped back so the barrel of the bat--not the handle--unleashing a vicious swing. As he did, Tommy, for whatever reason, stuck his head too far in and the bat clipped the edge of the Tommy's mask.
Two neck surgeries and three months later, Tommy was still hospitalized, in traction, paralyzed from the neck down. He'd be in a motorized wheelchair, forever. After school and practices and games…I visited every day. Lots of those days, all we said was "Hi," because he didn't feel like talking.
We won the College World series, and I was offered a pro contract after my junior year at Arizona State. Clipping after clipping compared me to the all-time great lefties, "The Next Juan Marichal" or Whitey Ford or Sandy Koufax.
I signed with the Giants, and wouldn't have signed with any team that had Spring Training outside of Arizona. I, not Danielson, put Tommy in that chair by hurting my shoulder and I owed him a life. Tommy never agreed.
Tommy went to every Spring Training game. I flew him to San Francisco, and arranged for him to be in the dugout for my first start as a major leaguer. We won, 1-0. Tommy was ecstatic when I ran off the field from teammate hugs and high-fives to hug Tommy in his chair.
He cried when I handed him the game ball of my first win. "We'll always be the ‘Electric Battery,' buddy, even if yours has to roll you into the cheap seats at my games," and we laughed as only lifelong friends can.

Writer: Brian Michael Barbeito

2011-06-29T00:00:00.003-05:00

Fabrics

Black formations in the sky were far away but felt close, and Jacob looked also briefly at the telephone wires, the bridge that was passing, and the tall grey abodes. All and more were only sinister portents of an acute descent, and though the vehicle went slowly, the world felt as if it moved at breakneck speed. Save for the hiding sun, there was nothing to create kindness. He looked at the leg of his pants, and the fabric seemed to move. Part of it dislodged from the other part and jingled around. He knew on one level that it was a hallucination. Yet the artificial nightmare was not any more terrifying than the real one. They could be together, could cohabitate, and in fact were. There were, in the city, shells, and the shells had eyes and hands, legs and arms, brains and feet. Big steel trucks raced past. This was a foreign land, and always had been a foreign land. Any illusion of home had dissolved. Sparkling went the sun, surely on the other side of the city. On this side it was only the waking dream in full fledged malevolent laughter. Jacob remembered the time when he was in the cold area, and felt the breaking of the world- and though did not laugh outwardly- grinned inwardly, because he thought he was in hell. This too was now hell, but just another level. The different areas of such a place were spread all over. That fabric from the pants. Moving round like that. The other time- on a walkway- frozen- in a blue sweater. Others. The fabric on the pants. The fabric of the telephone wires, the brown buildings in the sea. The fabric of the complacent world. The prior world- the false Eden, had descended down some hidden drain. The drain was impossible to see- but it was so patient, so proficient. After it took all the water- it sucked at the air- it brought many things- many solid and subtle things down and away. What was where the shells with eyes and ears were- the grey glowing buildings- hallucinations at dawn- and silent inner laughter that hell had come alive? Surely not floundering at any of its developmental stages...surely having no birth pangs. Arriving on its own time, like a perfectly formed leopard gecko in the desert, waking up and beginning a hunt, the sand under foot, a knowing and ancient material, as old as creation itself.

Brian Michael Barbeito writes short fiction. His work has appeared at Glossolalia, Exclusive Conclave of Delights Magazine, Lunatics Folly, and Mudjob. He resides in Ontario, Canada.

Poet: Abigale Louise LeCavalier

2011-06-22T12:00:00.000-05:00

Isolate

Willing to do nothing
in small rooms,
not thinking much
of daffodils or daisies;
pocket money
less the pockets.

Picking the dust
form the bottom
of an ink well,
writing names and initials
in broken cursive,
some I remember.

Some I remember I forgot.

Pushing thumbtacks
in my sole,
or in my soul,
gravitating without the gravity
to the center of me,
or what used to be me anyway.

And the voices outside
scare me a little
scar me a little more,
I wish they would go away,
I could go away.

To a field of snapdragons
and lilies,
put my head to the stone
and quietly
slip away.

A Whole Hole

Shaking like an aspen
in a static summer breeze,
there are no
sunny feelings anymore.

Not ashamed,
because I gave it all I had
and it left me empty,
hollowed in the middle,
a whole hole
where sand and sugar
used to be.

Shallow,
not being able
to see through walls,
or the sarcasm
in her smile.

She aggravates me, truly.

Been buried before;
I can handle the weight
but not the pressure.

And I wash
in warm wine,
slipping into fine frustration,
grasping at the not so many straws
I have left.

Believing,
the next time it will be better.

Or at least trying too.

The Simple Life

Cut in two pieces,
she wears razorblades
around her neck
and wrists.

A not so subtle warning.

Bewildered;
the crying stopped
long ago,
but the screaming
never did.

And she holds the world
accountable,
spitting through the syllables
of simple conversation.

Though that’s exactly what it’s not.

Moving the air in and out
with velocity
and momentum,
shouting fire
without the heat,
without the heart.

Impatient,
she breaks.

And there is no one left
to put her back together,
again
and again.

Abigale LeCavalier's poetry has appeared in many online as well as print magazines: Fullosia Press, Feelings of the Heart, Black Cat Press, The Sheltered Poet(twice), The Same, FreeXpression, The Journal & Original Plus, Abandoned Towers, Negative Suck, PigeonBike, The Linnet's Wings, Vox Poetica,The Blotter Magazine, Roses & Vortex's, Language and Culture, The Writers Block, Visions and Voices, Camel Saloon Press, The Second Hump, The Eclectic Muse, Lit Up Magazine, Leaf Garden Press, Illogical Muse, Raven Images, Ken*Again, The Scruffy Dog Review, Jerseyworks, 63 Channels, Speech Bubble, The Stray Branch, Clockwise Cat, and, Record Magazine.

Poet: Diana E. Backhouse

2011-06-22T06:00:00.001-05:00

My Thingamajig

I first met what’s-his-name thingamajig
Whilst setting to sea in a two-sailed brig.
He swung from the mast which he’d gone up to rig,
Had the what-do-you-call-it thingamajig.
He wasn’t too small and he wasn’t too big,
Not human, nor monkey, cat, dog or pig,
But a what-do-you-call-it thingamajig.
His feet were quite large but his figure was trig,
He was ugly but said he did not care a fig,
That what-do-you-call-him thingamajig.
His head was quite bald but he wore a blonde wig
That had been fixed on by a welder named Mig,
Firm on the head of the thingamajig.
He was drinking ale from a four-handed tig.
As he chatted to me he kept taking a swig,
That ,now rather tipsy, thing-ing-amajig.
As, on the deck, in our chairs we did lig
He told me he really wanted to flig,
Be a pilot, a dare-devil fligamajig.
He took out a Vesta and lit up a cig’
When I said “that’s not healthy”, he took the hig,
Did that huffiest, puffiest thingamajig.
He leapt from his chair like a chirruping crig,
Got on his high horse, called me a prig,
That hopping-mad what’s-it’s-name thingamajig.
I tried to cajole him, I gave him a dig.
He relented, cheered up, then we danced a jig,
Me and that funny-old gigamajig.
When we got to the river, with a pin on a twig,
He caught some trout and a nice fat snig,
Then I dined in style with the thingamajig.
We reached the shore, had a ride in a gig
And rode to his home which was funded by thig,
For he was so poor, was that thingamajig.
The house was a dump but he wasn’t called Stig.
His name was Zygo, his twin sister Zyg.
For I now knew a pair of thingamajig!
After rushing around like a fast whirligig,
All dressed in white with a flowery sprig,
I walked down the aisle with my wonderful, funny-old thingamajig.

Diana E. Backhouse is a sixty-something Yorkshire lass who writes (often at the 6S Social Network) to escape.

Poet: Paul de Denus

2011-06-22T00:00:00.001-05:00

Yard Sale

the boy, maybe ten
has a chipped toothbrush holder and two Scooby-Doo cups
which I tally at two dollars
and he gives me five for the three.

his companion stumbles and twangs
over my dented guitar,
asks how much and I say, depends?
do you play?

men and women in shorts and long faces
pull up in beaters and Volvos alike
to run the tables and gamble
on my cheap winners.

I got most everything
worthwhile
to someone else
but not for me, no more.

I’m out of here
after they’re all done
ransacking
my life.

A Cop Can Make You Twitchy

a cop can make you twitchy
his lights an intermittent strobe
flash disco

your eyes cock crooked in the rearview mirror
fingers tighten snug
in the glove compartment

you’ve seen this movie before:
the tap on the window, the click-
HANDS IN THE AIR ASSHOLE!!!

you’ve done nothing wrong,
well, maybe a mile or two
of speed

the cop looks shaky; he’s a drinker too
you can tell
his hand trembles proudly

as he issues the citation
- you’ll throw it away later -
bars cross your minds

Tossing Cards

in hand,
my extra deck,
- doubles, singles and triples -
bent around the edges,
some plain worn out
lesser players
I’ve already saved,
held together with
a thick rubber band
like a wad of pure cash.

they sail through the air
like lazy fly balls,
good sports hoping to
hit the wall perfectly
as close as possible
for a win.

Wilson flips his own deck of losers
he’s hard to beat
I hope he’ll make
a rare mistake
like a Hank Aaron
in the outfield.

Paul de Denus is a graphic artist by day, writer by night. He has been published at Six Sentences (The Love Book, Word of Mouth, and 6S Vol 3), Smith Magazine, Fictionaut, and Espresso Stories.
These poems have appeared previously on J.M. Prescott’s blog as part of her April Challenge. Paul's other writings and self published books appear at his blog: Me, the Other Twin.

Writer: Harris Tobias

2011-06-15T23:55:00.013-05:00

The Blob—A Memoir

First off, I want to apologize to my fans. I’ve been in seclusion since my failed comeback in an unfortunate remake of my 1958 classic, The Blob. The 1988 release of the Return of The Blob was a big mistake, and for that I take full responsibility. I have been brooding over that fiasco in my Beverly Hills mansion ever since. Ashamed and addicted to alcohol and pain pills, it took years of therapy to undo the damage to my self-esteem. I am proud to say I am currently clear headed and drug free. One day at a time.
When my last film flopped, I went into a downward spiral. I blamed my writer, my director, everyone but myself. I went on an eating binge and gained a lot of weight. I really became a blob. My affairs and divorces were sensational scandals and dominated the tabloids for months. My life was a mess. There is no need to go into all of that here, suffice it to say, I retired from public view and went into a 30-year sulk. Today, for the first time, I feel as though I can talk about my career without remorse. I would like this memoir to be my first step on the comeback trail.
The world has changed so much since 1958. Those were the Eisenhower years and, when I look back, I can see just how innocent we all were. In those days it was enough to simply eat a few citizens to strike terror into an entire town. Those were the golden years to be a monster in Tinsel Town.
That’s not to say it was easy to get work; there were always younger, hungrier monsters waiting to eat my lunch. I had some stiff competition—The Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Thing, It Came From Outer Space, even Godzilla were all there, competing for scripts and headlines. But as frightening as those monsters were, they weren’t The Blob. I was the big cheese, the go-to guy, the monster with the cult following. I had a lot of offers. My agent begged me to audition. I turned them all down. Looking back, I regret my foolish pride.
The competition was purely professional, though. Off camera we all were friends. We hung out together. Sure we had different styles, different histories, but we were there for each other. We were pretty close, as close as celebrities can be. We shared scripts, starlets, saw each other socially, and played golf. None of the kind of sniping and backbiting so common today. We took care of each other. We had a lot in common.
But tastes change faster than an actor can adapt. The public wanted fresh thrills—creatures from space, big, dumb monsters that killed without reason, mutant insects that just ate and ate without the slightest feeling. Monsters today have it easy. Modern screen techniques do all the work, all a monster has to do is snarl and show its teeth and the technicians do the rest. In the old days we really had to work to make look it real. Now some guy at a keyboard just pushes a few buttons. Sure some victim gets torn to shreds, and you hear the bones crunch and his brains pop out of his ears, but it isn’t real. It has no integrity. It isn’t all that scary and it certainly isn’t acting. Where’s the art? When I ate someone, I felt it and the audience felt it too. And we did it in black and white. I’m not saying monsters were kinder then, but somehow we were more human.
A fickle public began demanding less gore and more relevance in its monsters. Young monsters, raised on Stanislavski, were only too happy to oblige. Hollywood spawned sexy monsters, monsters with motives, monsters with angst for Pete’s sake, as if being eaten alive wasn’t horrifying enough, you had to care what his motivations were. It was the era of method acting and it spilled over to our kind. Personally I thought it was a lot of silliness—a monster needs motivation, since when?
I don’t think much of today’s monsters; I would ingest the whole lot of them and not even burp. Aliens, mutants, zombies—fah!—the whole lot of them are no match for The Blob in his prime. These days, I don’t know, I hardly eat anyone; I guess I’ve mellowed.
My last film, the 1988 re-make of my cult classic, was a disaster. I admit it. I co-wrote the screenplay with the late, great Oscar Heimlich. It was a good gut wrenching eat 'em up. It was our producer Leonard Malcontent’s idea to give the movie relevance. He saw me as a symbol, a vehicle to deliver a more subtle message—to reveal the dangers of Communism and explore the nature of good and evil. Heimlich and I wanted a straight forward monster movie filled with panic and confusion; an innocent town held hostage by an unquenchable menace, innocent townsfolk disappearing one by one or in small batches until the terrifying conclusion. That’s the role I was born to play. Fuck subtlety. But Malcontent insisted on a subtext and that was the movie’s undoing.
The producer’s insistence on substance over action confused the audience, and resulted in hiring the wrong director, choosing the wrong cast and setting the whole movie in the wrong location. I mean, after all, what can you do to Newark, New Jersey to make it more terrifying than it already is? My artistic voice was muffled and the result was both predictable and inevitable—instead of a tawdry monster flick played for cheap thrills and maximum shock value, we got a half-baked psychodrama that convinced no one. It went directly to the drive-in theaters. Where it died a well-deserved death. The reviews were so bad I swore off acting and began drinking.
I still have my fans, and for that I am eternally grateful. They have stuck with me all these years. It is because of them that I have cleaned up my act and am exploring some new opportunities. I have a new agent and am working on a screenplay. I don’t want to say too much about it, but it could be the beginning of an HBO miniseries on bullying, urban violence and the nature of good and evil.

Writer: Matthew Müller

2011-06-08T00:00:00.006-05:00

The Girl from the Video Store

The aisles of the video store feel like a mausoleum of fantasies. Only the new releases in the front still hold their brightness. The older ones, stacked tight on wooden shelves leading to the back of the back of the store, are rarely picked up to have their dust blown off. The store has been on the main street in town ever since we moved here, to upstate New York. In the winter people always come early, before it snows, and leave with stacks of films to see them through the long nights. There are two large dogs that patrol up and down the aisles and the same man has always owned it and the same girl is always there too, but she’s also growing older, treading the line somewhere between blooming and inheriting the face of her adulthood.
I took my younger brother to the county fair in town the year I was just out of college, and he scampered off with his high school friends, voice high and eyes bright, swallowed into the music and lights. I joined two of my friends and we moved through the crowds and passed the rides and stalls of vendors. It felt like walking through a movie I’d seen five times already. We stepped into the barn in the agriculture section and a young cow licked my hand, and kept licking, until she had the whole thing in her mouth. We watched the end of the demolition derby, something that used to excite me. All the cars were stuck in a dirt oval, exhausts blowing. They crashed into each other over and over again until only one motor was left running, and this one declared victor, even though his engine died too, before he could turn it off. The high school kids all ran around in groups, stood pushing coins into the gambling machines, or in front of the game stalls, aiming toy rifles at the small metal targets. The boys tried to shoot like men, suddenly gaining a smiling pride when they were passed the rifle. It was easy to see how desperately they wanted to hit each target, to give their girls the prize of a stuffed animal, and how much they resembled me, when I was young.
We settled in the beer tent. They were playing country western and classic rock through the speakers on the empty stage. We were on the outside where the tent opened to the tractor lot and old men stood leaning on the giant tires, talking. The band had already quit playing but no one was ready to leave. The lights were bright and the music loud. Might be the only real night out in months for most people. The mountains sat quietly in the darkness behind the grounds, receding into their dark halls, the animals whispering, their quiet feet, looking down anxiously at the bright lights, all of that noise downstairs, like young children watching their parents getting drunk.
Only a few older people were dancing. I stood up and bought another round, beer in plastic cups. A new group of younger people streamed in. They must have been in before. They were swaying and yelling. The girl from the video store was there. She threw her cardigan on the bench of a picnic table and moved out onto the floor, grabbing one of her friends with her. She started dancing like it was the first time she had discovered an amazing love, her feet pounding down into the ground, her legs disappearing into the deep black boots she soon kicked off. Her hair flew around her, up and down, fishtailing behind every one of her gyrations. Her shorts were cut off and frayed just below her pelvis. All of the older men turned to look.
She washed in like water from an old dam that had finally broken. She danced with everybody. None of her was held back, everyone could drink from that water. A tall skinny man falling into middle-age moved shyly toward her and she grabbed him around the waist, moved him out onto the floor and danced all around him, her body grinding up and down his skinny tree frame, his tucked in flannel shirt coming loose and his feet scrambling; his disbelieving eyes. She leaned her head back, arching as far as she could, her hair touching the floor and her torso stretching out in front of him, her breasts all to visible under her thin white shirt, and her pelvis pushed directly against him, at once holding him in place and showing him everywhere he could, and could not, go. Then she snapped back and he was lost in a cloud of hair and before he knew what had happened she was circling another man.
All the older women watched her and talked among themselves. Maybe she was a memory to them growing up out of the dark earth of things they thought no longer mattered. Maybe she was something they had once been, or something that they had always been too afraid to be, something they regretted. But the men watched with their hands on their belts, quiet and interested. And the stoic ones never got up, never moved onto the floor, but in their minds they were moving over it and around her, they were dancing better than any man who actually did move into the bright lights, better than any of those fools. She finally left the floor between songs, stood by a table and took a long pull from a bottle, her face flushed with life. She flipped her hair back with her eyes closed toward the ceiling of the tent above, put her leg up on the bench so that her shorts rode up to where her underwear should have been.
The next time I walked into the video store I saw her sitting quietly behind the counter. The two dogs barked their way down the long rows toward me, and she held them off with shouts that weren’t convinced of the commands they were giving. So the dogs didn’t really listen, licked my hands and jumped up against my waist, while outside it was raining, same as yesterday.

Matthew Zanoni Müller was born in Bochum, Germany and grew up in Eugene, Oregon and upstate New York. He received his MFA from Warren Wilson's MFA Program for Writers and teaches at his local Community College. He still lives in upstate New York and you can learn more about his work by visiting: www.matthewzanonimuller.com

Writer: Michael D. Brown

2011-06-05T22:33:00.001-05:00

Unobserved

As your tear-blurred eyes indicted me, I came to believe I could never learn the grammar of your unwritten language, the gist of which appeared to claim a promise to mollify is a promise nonetheless and not to be mitigated by melancholy, while not discounting the prerogative of reconsideration. Memory has its place, but what of the moment and the unworded glance?

Though I might one day visit the place from which you spoke, I would be traveling alone. Having allowed your lesson to slip away in a grasp at understanding the context of the moment, thereby overlooking the details, will I fail to recognize history, in a way, repeating itself? Will you, then, wherever you are, smile at my foolish lapse? Or will you take pity? Can your intangible pity supply anything more than a reprimanding look from the silent ghost of a guilty conscience? Will that ease the pain I may be going through then, as I now, ineffably attempt to ease yours?

Such a shame you will pass intestate, and those of us who survive can only guess and try to remember wishes you expressed on brighter days. The irony of the sword that strings together your mumbled incoherencies is in how it likewise pierces our hearts when recalling that you taught this stuff for years. Making sense was your livelihood.

There were times when I could not immediately ascertain what you were trying to say in your writing, but the compositions were always available for rereading. We were both men of letters in those days, and though you were always a private person and declined to relate your own tale, one could divine your work’s provenance. Now, this kind of transitory communication—this does not work for me. I cannot discern whether you are begging or damning, and desperately need something to go on.

As I watched you swat invisible insects and relate your unstoried life to shafts of sunlight, I asked, “Where are you now?” “Schism…trellis,” you said, or at least that is what I heard, as your mind regressed through several decades perhaps seeking comfort as a tabula rasa, every observed movement an unformed, but learnable word.

In this last month-long half week, your race to that place has quickened, and I am reminded of college days, and Einstein, and the hypothetical astronaut who returned to encounter his aged self. If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one around to hear it...?

The night comes on, and the atmosphere in this room, responding to a faulty thermostat, is chilled by what does not occur between us. I am certain there will not be many more of these nights. Honestly, and I apologize for feeling this way, I no longer believe in my promises from yesterday which you could not help leaving unacknowledged. I pass on what you could not parse.

I replace the pillow at the foot of this strange bed. I cannot commit to our fleeting plan. I do not have it in me.

There are no words for how I feel, and you have none to give me. I do not know where you are, but you will have to find your way alone, as I will. We are beyond enabling each other.

I think I want to leave, want to run, but I only think it, and instead sit in a chair by the useless window in hopes that if I wait and watch a while longer, Nature in her kindness will obviate the need to erase what has not been written here.

“Cello…ingmit…grense,” you utter in sounds that in no way resemble condemnation nor atonement.

Writer: Bryan Curtis

2011-06-01T00:00:00.001-05:00

Going Out

He awoke slowly, drifting in and out of hazy stupor. Consciousness danced at the edge of his vision, swimming in harsh fluorescent light. Words were starting to form at the fingers of his mind. Where am I? Panic forced perspiration, adding to the mix of sensations assaulting his form. Sitting up caused the haze to slowly retreat, but it was soon echoed by waves of nausea, leaving only dull ache and distressed thought. The world he entered now was far removed from the one he remembered. Twisted steel and the stench of flame gave way to clean white cloth and the stale smell of chemicals. As dizziness took over he once again sank back down into the soft embrace of polyester. His mind was racing now, searching for images, sounds, anything that could give clues to this sobering arrival. The monotonous beeping in the machine behind him said he was alive, but the blood in his veins felt cold and foreign.
Focus. He shut his eyes tight against the pain and once again rose. As the dizziness passed, sharp dark eyes scanned the area. He lay on a small hospital cot in a room no bigger than a king-sized bed—something that he certainly craved—and would receive should he find the fortune to return home. The cramped walls and single, covered window lent no aid to his sickly feeling. Machines perched around the bed, sporting all sorts of tubes and wires, looking like some misshapen flock of vultures. Waiting for prey to sigh the last breath, he thought grimly. The vision brought a small smirk to his face.
The door swung open with a clatter, and a petite young woman with disheveled brown hair, and bags under her eyes skittered in through the door. She must have mistaken his smirk for a smile, because she grinned back in kind, a lopsided expression that showed a few too many teeth. The only emotion he could muster was pity. The nurse scampered about to and fro, and he watched her youthful body go about its business. She appeared tired to him, and although the bounds and hops suggested otherwise, he could tell she felt uncomfortable. He liked this. After finishing her diagnostics, the nurse retrieved a clipboard from the foot of the bed. At last she met his gaze, and smiled again, though weaker this time—she received no similar gesture. What is she afraid of, he mused. My stares? Or maybe my form. He looked down at his arms, and for the first time noticed the heavy bruising and lacerations. His left forearm sported three long parallel gashes, and numerous tender dark patches. His right shoulder was in a tightly bound wrap, and his wrist followed suit. Under the blankets he could feel his ankle in a brace as well as numerous scrapes and injuries, though he detected no serious damage.
Another wave of nausea, and he found himself lying down again spinning through time. As he shut his eyes tight against the pain, visions of his employer came to mind. They had met only briefly in a compound just north of Baltimore. Formerly military, but abandoned after the cold war. In the bright glow of the single pale bulb he could make out only the cold hate in his employer’s eye. His thick form wore a flak jacket and strapped more guns than his numerous lackeys. After donating a single black duffel, as well as a sarcastic, “Good luck.” On the way out of the door his employer had made one thing very clear. No loose ends.
As once again nausea was trumped by haste, eyes winced open, and he found the nurse standing still, at the foot of his bed, patiently waiting for his return. He nodded slightly, tucking away his memories into some forgotten corner of thought. As she rattled on about how he had been involved in a car accident, and how he had barely survived, and how the paramedics had rushed him here just in time, he let go of the conversation and drifted back into his mind. Had the nurse been more attractive he might have faked attention, but as it stood he just wanted to get the hell out of there. His eyes scanned her face, weathered beyond years, surely from tired hours at the hospital or late nights poring over books for medical exams. She finished her spiel, just as he was starting to find her interesting. She helped him into a pair of jeans and a tee shirt before showing him out. Her hands were cold, but practiced and he marveled at how precise she was, even at such a demeaning task. As he walked towards the exit, the nurse and her heels clicking away at his side, the glaring bars of light forced recollection into his mind. The clamor of voices, the gurney wheels squeaking away, the smell of sweat, fear, and oil. Again, he forced these away. There would be time to reminisce later.
He arrived at the door and thanked the woman for her time and help, but sincerity would not grace his tone. She smiled curtly, and scurried off, and he listened to her heels click off down the corridor. As he turned to the door it slid open spilling blinding sunlight in through the opening. His feet moving awkwardly into the sunlight, his hand shielding his eyes against the midday sun, a glance at his wrist informed him his watch must not have been as lucky as he. He could vaguely make out burns where it must have been torn away during the impact. Damn shame, he thought. The nurse had mentioned his car was gone, but that did not worry him. They had not found his phone either, but were able to recover his bloody wallet and a few bent keys. As his feet steadily dragged him along the pavement the quiet hubbub of the city was for once a peaceful thing. His new jeans and white tee hung loosely on his previously bulky form. Weight was not the only thing he lost in the hospital. He began to quicken his pace and let his body take the brunt of the work. Joints clicked in stiffened resistance, but his suddenly anxious demeanor would have none of it. The car accident was no longer any concern to him. He had to leave—now, before they realized who he was. Again the smirk, which would take more than the local police department to discern, crept onto his face.
A minute later he stopped just outside a closed down liquor store. The street was practically deserted. Good. The graffiti he saw on the shop window looked like an ancient bloody warning, irony that did not escape him. He removed his wallet, and emptied it down the sewer grate behind the closest car, a green Chrysler. He then dropped the wallet as well, but not before removing a key from the inner pocket. He walked around to the driver's side and unlocked the car, the nervous feeling in his body growing by the second. There is no way that they just let me walk away. He sat down and started the car. He flipped down the visor and caught the cell phone that dropped. He glanced again at his wrist, only to be greeted by dark red burns. Right on time. The Chrysler pulled away from the curb, in a puff of exhaust.

Bryan Curtis says he is a student at Cornell University, and has no history of published work. This may be his first story posted on the web.

Writer: Rich Ives

2011-05-25T00:00:00.001-05:00

Flash Group

Concerning the Part I Played in the Movie I Thought Was About Me

Tony T. Toast was talking to the weather and the weather was talking back. I mean I was telling the world to be like me, and it wasn’t. I was listening to the voice it gave me, which wasn’t mine.
Tony watched the branches’ knobs turning back like the knuckles of a tough, badly beaten veteran still going back for more and already lost in himself. Built like an over-ripe pear, I had been offered an important part in a movie I was already in. I began crying right along with the deceived lover, who was not so much crying as slipping jewelry into his pants.
I was pretending to be Tony, who was pretending to be me pretending to be married to Eileen, my semi-beautiful, my beloved, my dipsy human pomeroodle of decency. The fog was smiling wanly.
Aw Sugarpaps, said Tony, I had hoped to witness the resurrection of our spoon, and she mouthed she had been drinking. Perch brandy, sounded like. Tell ya somethin’ else, Tony said for me, I take lessons at the club, but I can’t get out of my cleverness.
Eileen’s love, you see, was carried in a vessel too beautiful to continue because before I knew it, Tony had given me license to act like Tony, which was who I was, but not who I wanted to be in my movie, even if Eileen got the supporting role.
So I went to the workshop in my head, which I call the garage. Garage, however, is unpretentious, garage is lingering, like happiness and despair living in the same neighborhood. It’s where I live when my body’s looking for something I can turn in. Like a marriage lost off the coast with all hands, the ocean of still to come closed up over the parts the way what we think childhood was closes over what childhood was, only we haven’t sailed towards several but away from one.

Confessional

This is a true story about the lies I tell.
I’m patient for a little while, but this isn’t like the wet days of travel and deprivation I’ve been telling you about. This is external.
And I’m staying here because counting the beads on an endless rosary of misfortunes has begun to look like a lovely fat piece of excruciating excitement. Better at least than over there where Toto and Wilhelmina are playing with Bobby’s shiny rubber ball as if it could assimilate the subtle tenor of sexual innuendo visited upon it by their deceptively discrete interchange of gestures and whispery vocalizations.
This time the cold wet shadow with your name stitched on its skirt was taunting the relevant seashells under their hard velvet tongues like surprisingly cool nosebleeds, and the ambiguity had begun swelling and threatening suicide.
That’s just the distance between then and now that won’t quite disappear. It’s the lack of meanwhiles that bankrupts the salt ranch. We couldn’t have lived there without a little moisture.
Which is why I see you as one of those gifts that sits in the closet for a while and then bingo, out it comes on the occasion of someone else’s celebration.
I should have known better than Toto that Wilhelmina’s latent homicidal tendencies would not be excited by Bobby’s genderless skirt without the assistance of the patent leather shoes and a good stiff polish. Some things should be obvious.
Which is why I stabbed Toto with an eraser and the wound, of course, disappeared.
Which fails to account for the baby that lives in my head, continually laughing and dribbling, refusing to announce its age or sexual preferences, although I’ve discovered its name has been Meanwhile all along. It’s not, of course, a real baby but more of a vocational choice.
Which means I’m so happy singing the institutionalized version I can’t even tell you what makes it taunt its sadness so relentlessly. You just can’t give up if you expect anyone to be yourself.

Consequence

Okay, I’ll admit that it was sad, but at that time in my life my best friend was a dog, a mangy big mutt named Jimmy Carter. We lived in a trailerhouse I tried hard to keep bright and cheery because I wasn’t feeling very bright and cheery and the trailerhouse was getting old and tended towards the dark and gloomy. I had Christmas wreaths (fake of course) all over the place, and I sprayed them with pine scent. I had bowls of leaves and cinnamon sticks that smelled like air purifiers in 1963 Buicks spread out across the unattended surfaces of the countertops and tables. It seemed to confuse Jimmy, who sometimes limped from one to the other trying to figure out what that smell was. Jimmy had never experienced a 1963 Buick. There was an oil painting above the plastic fireplace that made snow look like something so comfortable you’d want to curl up and go to sleep in it. I had a picture of butterflies and children jumping around like popcorn on the side of my refrigerator. I can remember sitting down with Jimmy for a heart to heart and telling him there wasn’t anything to stop us from being happy. I was entirely sincere, and I believe Jimmy understood that. I had put the reliable old fan that sounded like the starter of a roadgrader into the dumpster the day before, so there weren’t any conspicuous impediments to keep him from comprehending the full import of my revelations. I was done believing that the world was against me. It was ungodly hot outside, but I had begun to wonder why I wasn’t out there frolicking. I consulted the time to see if it could help me.
I stepped with my left foot, I stepped with my right foot, and then suddenly I was going somewhere. I found it surprisingly exhilarating.
Elevated thinking was not part of my agenda at that time in my life, but I suppose I must have had relative moments of increase. I mean there were some complicated things going on around me right there in the grass outside and the sky demanded attention, but it didn’t seem to bother me that I was receiving the world on a rather simple level.
When I got home, I started looking for a hole punch. I needed some kind of a symbol that wasn’t too complicated. I thought it would save me from a lot of difficulty.

Cute Little Digression with a Taste for Chilled Asparagus

A window floated down the river. Fortunately, it wasn’t open, and the river couldn’t get out.
“It’s really something quite extraordinary,” I said without talking through my nose. Robert and Bob and Rob all agreed the window was not an ordinary expression of extraordinariness.
In this way, I was trying to describe myself, but I wasn’t listening, and I realized I do not wish to be removed from that which contains me, even if I have yet to fully comprehend the containment. I am certain to need a device of numbing if not a device of pushing away or of casting asunder.
“I can see your inevitable confluence and the tributaries seem promising,” said Robert and Bob and Rob to the enclosed river in the kitchen, where they were seeking alimentary completion. And then I heard them refer to, “One of those impulses that seem to arrive entirely unbidden, which herewith has caused me to observe that I have an ordinary and dangerous testicular condition the experts say is called masculinity (no no silly boy that’s the key to my heart).”
They opened the window. I told them I was their child and discovered they had not opened the window after all.
“I’m so glad the offering was chilled,” they all said, and, “speaking of transportation might not be the best means of realizing our abandonment of childhood, but neither have the methods in evidence thus far proved to be infallible.”
Finally we agreed that our participation was stimulating, yet reserved. We agreed that the window between us, and the attraction it created, was itself quite attractive. We agreed that containment was not an adequate career goal for asparagus. We agreed that we did not understand how the asparagus had come to be a part of our experience, and we enjoyed it waving gently in the chilly wind behind the window all the more for that reason.
Story

Rich Ives is the 2009 winner of the Francis Locke Memorial Poetry Award from Bitter Oleander. In 2010 he has been a finalist in fiction at Black Warrior Review and Mississippi Review and in poetry at Cloudbank and Mississippi Review.

disenthralled: Two by MDJB

2011-05-21T21:31:00.000-05:00

Open publication - Free publishing - More disenthralled

Writer: Harris Tobias

2011-05-18T12:00:00.001-05:00

Crown of Thorns

I must have been a genius when I was my original self but, of course, that was quite a few jumps ago. All I have left of that original me is my memory of the jumper box and the crowns. The me that made them must have been awfully smart. He must have known a lot about neurology, biology, physics and a half a dozen other disciplines but, as fate would have it, the world is not likely to know of this invention.
Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Benjamin Donald Dapp, I think I was Doctor Dapp at one time but who remembers? What I did was build this device that switches minds from one brain to another. I’d been working on it for years and I’m sure it was Nobel Prize winning science but there’s little likelihood that I’ll ever see any reward for my breakthrough. Sometimes it’s best not to experiment on yourself.
The principle of the jumper is simple even if the actual electronics are not. One crown goes on one head and one crown goes on another. A button is pushed and consciousness is switched just like that. No big crackling machinery, no lights dim, not even a hum. The jumper is smaller than a pack of Marlboros and uses regular double A batteries. Pretty neat invention if I do say so myself.
I was so focused on the equipment I never even considered the psychological toll switching minds would have on the individual. When the jumper was ready, my first volunteer was my faithful and loving wife, Myrtle. She trusted me completely. We lay side by side on the bed and put on our crowns and pushed the button together. In an instant, I was Myrtle and she was me. I saw the world through her big blue eyes, I had access to all her memories and, I assume, she had access to all of mine. Almost simultaneously our hands rose to our mouths as our most hidden thoughts and actions were revealed.
I saw Myrtle’s youthful indiscretions, her torrid affair with the milkman, and her frustration at our marriage. Her loneliness and pain while I frittered away our relationship spending more time in the basement than with our daughter, Doreen, who it turned out, had none of my DNA.
Myrtle saw my masturbatory fantasies and addiction to Internet porn. She knew my curious proclivity for sock puppets and my real opinion of her poetry. Needless to say, we switched back as soon as we could. The marriage has never been the same since.
I went back to my workbench and rewired the box adding a few filters to keep deep secrets from rushing in immediately. When it was ready, I was eager to test it out and went next door to my friend and neighbor, Reggie Phelps. Reggie is a good guy, quite a bit older than me but supportive in my work and flattered to be of help. We sat side by side in his living room and put the crowns on our heads. In a second I was Reggie and he was me. It only took an instant to see that I made a terrible mistake. Reggie’s life was a horror show. What was worse was that he wouldn’t switch back. He grabbed up the jumper and the crowns and ran off to my house leaving me stranded in his shoes, his life and his aging body.
Almost immediately his enormous shrew of a wife, Josephine, came home angry at the world and heaping abuse on everyone and everything. I could see that Reggie loathed her and the rest of his life. “What was that weasel Dapp doing here?” Josephine sneered.
“Nothing, dear,” my cowardly answer came out reflexively.
“I don’t trust that creepy little snot. I want you to keep away from him.”
“Oh Ben’s not a bad guy,” I said.
“Like you could judge,” Josephine bore down on me like a freight train. ”Go change your clothes, the Dimmerman’s will be here at three.”
I wanted to get back to my house and get my jumper back but Josephine had spoken and I disobeyed at my peril. Dinner with the Dimmerman’s was excruciating in both its length and mind numbing dullness. I made a mental note never to jump into Dan Dimmerman’s head. Dan was an insurance adjuster with a side interest in algae. When dinner was over Josephine dragged me upstairs and demanded I service her. I found her body revolting but she seemed to enjoy herself saying, “I don’t know what’s gotten in to you, Muffkins, but I like it.”
As soon as I could I slipped out of bed and snuck over to my house. I stole up the steps to find my body in bed with Myrtle. I was immediately consumed with jealousy. I left them sleeping and began searching my house for the jumper. I must have been making more noise than I thought because I heard Myrtle wake up and send me downstairs to investigate. What transpired was an ugly confrontation between Reggie and myself in barely suppressed whispers.
“Where is it?’ I wanted to know. “It’s mine and I want it back.”
“I hid it,” Reggie said, “I’m never going back to that harridan. I like Myrtle. I like your body, I like your life. What’s that old expression about walking a mile in another man’s shoes?”
I was steaming mad. Our voices must have been rising because I heard Myrtle call down the stairs, “Is everything all right honey?”
“Everything’s fine,” we both said together. Then I glared at myself and reached Reggie’s old hands up to strangle my neck.” Reggie simply brushed my attack aside and whispered, “Get out of my house before I call the police.”
“Your house? Why you, you henpecked old fart,” again I lunged for his throat and again he batted me aside. He grabbed my pajamas in a tight fist and pulled my face until we were nose to nose.
“Listen up Dapp, you’re me now and I’m you and nothing’s going to change that. Now be a good little Muffkins and go back to Josephine and leave me alone. Oh and one more thing, what’s this with the sock puppets?”
I was totally humiliated. The next few weeks revealed just how awful a life can get. Josephine was a bully and a sexual tyrant. I felt like one of those exotic fish that are reduced to nothing more than a pair of testicles on the body of an enormous female. In addition to his haranguing wife, Reggie’s grown children hated him and he hated them. Reggie’s only joy came from working in his yard. Digging and weeding along side his friend, Jesus, a laborer dropped off by the lawn service twice a week. I personally never cared for gardening but I soon came to appreciate the respite it gave me and Jesus did seem like a nice guy although our communication was limited by our poor knowledge of each other’s language.
While I planted tulips, I plotted how to get my life back. I kept a close watch on the house. Reggie was having fun, that was obvious. I could see him being a good father to Doreen and a caring husband to Myrtle. I hated his guts and planned my revenge. I waited until Reggie took my family on an outing and my house was empty. I let myself in and ransacked the place looking for the jumper. After hours of searching, I finally found it in the garage under a pile of old Hustler magazines. I was just about to take the equipment back to Reggie’s house when the garage door popped open and there they were. Reggie, Doreen and Myrtle all staring at me stuffing something in my shirt.
Reggie acted outraged and demanded his equipment back. Myrtle hustled Doreen inside to call the police. Reggie attacked me and easily overpowered me, ripping the jumper out of my shirt while sitting on my stomach. He let me up when Myrtle called out to tell him that the police were on their way. Indeed I could hear a siren waling in the distance. In desperation I grabbed a big wrench off the wall and fetched Reggie a mighty blow on his head. He went down like a bag of cement. There was a lot of blood, Doreen fainted, Myrtle screamed, the siren was only a few blocks away. I grabbed the jumper from Reggie’s hands and ran down the street toward his house. What had I done? I might have killed myself or was it Reggie? There was no time to examine the philosophical implications of what I’d done. I had to escape.
As I ran home I saw Jesus weeding the azaleas. I went up to him and pantomimed and gesticulated that I wanted him to put on the crown. “Bueno para los flores (good for the flowers)” I said in my high school Spanish. Good friend that he was, Jesus put on the crown and I did the same. In less time than it takes to tell, I was in Jesus’ head and the cop was coming over to arrest the bewildered guy. Jesus turned out to be a fortunate choice, as he couldn’t really explain that he wasn’t Reggie. The cop cuffed him and put him in the back of the squad car while the poor guy jabbered away in Spanish. They probably thought he was crazy as well as dangerous.
For my part I had a lithe young body, brown skin and a craving for tortillas. Best of all, I was free of Josephine and that hate filled family. It was a nasty thing to do to Jesus but I was sure it would all get straightened out in the end. I went back to weeding and after a while Josephine came out looking for Reggie. She asked me if I’d seen him. It was a real pleasure giving her a big dumb shrug like I didn’t understand a word she was saying.
Jesus’ life was dirty and unpleasant. The lawn service treated him like dirt stealing half his wages because he was illegal. What little he earned he sent most of it back to his extended family in Honduras. The only bright spot in this whole mess was that I had the jumper back and, if my body survived, I might be able to make things right.
I continued working for the lawn service and watching the comings and goings of both families. Josephine hired a lawyer to defend Jesus against the assault charge. She and the hateful children visited him in jail. I even saw her studying Spanish so that she could speak to him. She practiced some phrases on me but this time I really didn’t understand a word she was saying.
Myrtle and Doreen went to the hospital daily to visit the unconscious Reggie. I wanted to know how he was doing so I asked Myrtle in my most heavily accented English, “how Meester Dopp doing?” Myrtle said, “not good,” and burst into tears. I thought about going to the hospital myself and switching back into my own unconscious head. If I had to be a vegetable for the rest of my life then so be it. But before I could formulate a plan of action, fate intervened and I became even further removed from my self.
Fate materialized in the form of the INS. I was arrested in an immigration sweep and taken to a crowded holding cell somewhere. My jumper was taken away and I never saw it again. I was at more of a disadvantage than the ordinary illegal alien as my rudimentary Spanish made me seem especially stupid. I could speak to the immigration lawyers in fluent English but that would only blow my cover. The long and short of it was that I was deported to San Espirito. Honduras. where I was warmly received by Jesus’ family.
So here I sit in my mud hut in San Espirito. I have six children and a host of aging aunts and uncles. We all live together in a single room with a dirt floor and an open fire. We go to mass on Sunday where I fervently pray for a miracle. I work our pitiful plot of land but life is very hard. One bright spot is that my Spanish has improved considerably. I often wonder how my old body is doing. If Reggie regains consciousness, I hope that he and Myrtle have a good life together. As for Jesus, stuck in Reggie’s old body, it has to be a pretty weird scene. If he gets off with good behavior he might enjoy living with Josephine. I don’t expect to see him show up here anytime soon.
As for me, well I am tired and undernourished. I may very well be a genius but there’s no opportunity to use any of my talents here. I suppose there is a moral in this tale someplace and maybe with enough reflection it will come to me. In the meantime there’s corn to plant and a dozen hungry mouths to feed.

Writer: Jared Handley

2011-05-11T00:00:00.000-05:00

Segue

Programming the dreams is easy. I can understand why to a layperson it would seem difficult, but in actuality what appeals to me most about my job is its utter simplicity. I write a code, a program reads that code, feeds it to the patient's brain. It knows where to transmit the data, the medical guys hook everything up when the patient first arrives. All I do is create the information; paint the picture. Programming is a breeze.

Now compiling successful notes during Familiarization, on the other hand, is extremely hard.

When a patient arrives at Dock 22, where I’m positioned, you know they're a very important person. Very. So when that VIP account is assigned to your bay, the Subject Identity and Desires Familiarization Procedure can be the most stressful thing you'll ever encounter.

Early in my career I had an old man who owned fuel mines on several planets. He had traveled the Universe, been a father of five, fought in two wars, and experienced extreme wealth and opulence. They hooked him up, hooked me up to him, and for five days--like I said, this was early on; three days is tops nowadays--I traveled his memories, in a largely lucid dream of my own. I was awestricken by what he had lived.

At the end of that fifth day, when they unhooked me and sent him on to Installation, I had thirty hours to use my notes to design a Segue and Dreamfield that were good enough he’d accept it. That is: create a dream that this man would prefer to his real life. The coolest real life you could ask for.

The way it works is, after Familiarization, they sedate the patient to a consciousness somewhere between the waking state of their arrival and the never-to-return sleeping state of Suspension. It takes about thirty hours to set in enough that you can safely infiltrate their thoughts with manufactured ones. If they aren’t deep enough though, you might completely fry them, so you have to wait thirty hours.

Then you have about eighteen hours, two days in total, until they’re in for good. That period is the Segue.

The Segue is tricky but not too bad; once you’ve figured out where they are and where they want to be in their Dreamfield, all you do is lay the track, and they’ll travel. If you’re careless--not that you work Dock 22 if you’re careless--it is possible for a patient in Segue to awaken, if they want to bad enough.

Has to be that way. No one would sign a contract with any company offering Suspension unless they get a chance to experience it first. It makes sense, what with some of the horror stories you hear. Sloppy programmers, sadists, that sort of thing. If you aren’t careful you could spend your life locked in a nightmare worse than Hell.

I am, if I may brag, a master of my craft. Never lost a single one for the company. I’ve had hundreds of patients, all shapes and sizes and creeds, all of whom have had the kind of lives that even the moderately wealthy long for, and I’ve sold all of them on my interpretation of their dreams. I know that programmers often get lumped in with the medical guys and the engineers, but we truly are the last remaining artists.

People want some strange things from time to time. There was a lady not long ago who owned a snack foods company. The same face I’d seen on cookie and cake wrappers since I was a kid, just laying there on the Familiarization table waiting for me. I got inside there and you know what she wanted? She wanted to be a stray dog. And I’m not talking in any of the forts either, she wanted to be out there roaming the wastelands and ghettos out in the natural world.

Of course that’s not what she would’ve really wanted. I’ve been out there, you can’t even stand around for that long before your voice goes raspy and your eyes start to burn. But, she wanted to be a dog out in the unprotected environment, so I had to figure out why.

What appeals to her about that life?

What is her threshold for discontentment?

You must figure out how much bullshit a person is willing to take before giving up. The mind will sniff out the flaws in a perfect world then start to realize it’s all fake. If things are too good, your patient won’t be convinced and you’ll lose them before the dream takes hold. Or if it happens when they’re already deep, though it’s much more difficult to lose them at that point, they could panic and enter into an irreversible nightmare state. You don’t want that on your record, my friend. You can get prison time for that sort of malpractice.

I’m careful though. She wanted to be a dog, so I convinced her she was a dog. Not the happiest dog, not the unhappiest dog, just a dog. The way she thought it would be to be a dog, that is.

People have the strangest dreams, but I never judge. Understand that: I never judge my patients based on their dreams. If that’s what you want...

It all changed for me, very suddenly. They brought in this woman, younger than me. Karen. In the first place, I couldn’t understand why she would want to be Suspended. No kids, huge fortune, perfect body, and a pretty face. If she didn’t want her life I could find a few billion who’d swap with her.

When I got into her memories, things started to make sense. She was an astronaut, very highly ranked as a matter of fact. She had gone on a few peace missions and had been successful in introducing Earthlings to multiple new races, only once encountering hostile lands.

Her last mission had taken them to a settlement on a tiny planet. The native life was not, as predicted, intelligent and peaceful. It was insentient and beastly; vicious animals. The crew hadn’t gone a mile before they were on them; six spiny legs as big as a man, slick, fishlike torsos, mouths like an earthworm’s with a sharp ring of teeth inside. I knew I was witnessing a memory, yet it was the most frightening vision I’d ever seen.

She was the only survivor.

But as she was launching, out of the copilot window, she saw something move below. Before she could make it out, she was in orbit. I went back over that memory again and again, as I’m sure she had.

Was it one of them? Had another survivor tried to catch up with her?

Back on Earth, she’d received an award, a fat pension, and a nudge into retirement. After what she’d witnessed, her rights to space travel were suspended indefinitely. They don’t want head cases taking on the skies up there, and nothing leads to space dementia like the shell shock of an alien battle.

The most curious thing about her was her fascination with life on Earth at the beginning of the Information Age. She was a pioneer, discovered new and amazing civilizations all the time, yet she’d had this lifelong attraction to ancient society. It seemed the vision of being able to walk beneath a blue sky called to her most.

She had wanted to return to explore heavens, seek out another place like that old Earth. But if she couldn’t do that now, Suspension would have to work. It made sense.

Something strange happened to me. It took nearly two weeks to come out of Familiarization with her. I learned so much about her, her memories, her dreams. I just couldn’t finish up because I couldn’t learn enough about her.

I had fallen in love with her. Completely and truly in love.

Still, she had a dream and it was my job to create that dream. So I made her a Segue as good as any I’d ever made. I set her up in a fairly mundane life typical of the early Information Age. Nothing too special to be suspicious, but she got her blue sky.

Now, she can take that dream and disappear into that great sleep. Or, she can wake up, come away with me, and find that beautiful place she dreams of. She might not have the clearance to fly, but as far as they’d know she’d still be in the bay, dreaming away her life. I have full clearance and my own personal craft. It’s nothing great, but it can make it through a few galaxies. With her piloting we could do it.

She could have what she really wants instead of living in this dream. The problem is that right now she’s convinced she’s sitting at a computer screen in the 21st century reading a story.

Just wake up and we’ll go. Come on, Karen.

Jared is a writer, sometimes theatre actor and director, and salesman living in Dallas with his wife and daughter. He can be found at Six Sentences and at ThoughtsfortheAbsentMind.blogspot.com.

Writer: Bill Floyd

2011-05-05T00:00:00.002-05:00

Plague Clock

He cleans the gun reciting
placenames
like an insomniac
counts sheep:
San Ysidro, CA, Killeen, TX, Blacksburg, VA, Littleton, CO, Tucson, AZ, etc.

It is never quiet anymore
inhere;
"I have been wronged"
and now you
will listen to me.

He lives down
yourway
across divides measuring the
slimmest of
moments.

Distant Sighting

We just went to the mall to get me some shoes.
Ronnie’d been working his new job for about six weeks and he’d finally saved up some money and wanted to buy me something. I was always carrying on about how my feet hurt cause I had to stay on my feet all day talking to the customers. I think about that a lot, how it was my bitching that got Ronnie killed. Even his own mama said that’s bullshit and it wasn’t no one’s fault except that sick crazy bastard’s. But I don’t know. There’s this look in her eyes when she says it.
Everyone saw the news reports from afterwards or the security camera footage that leaked on the Internet, so you know what the mall looked like. It was Saturday afternoon, lots of people there. They say the guy was trying to set some kind of record. We never even got to the Foot Locker. We were in front of the fountain outside the bakery, you know how it always smells so good you just have to buy a cookie? That’s when the guy started letting loose. This blank look on his face. The shots were so loud. So unexpected, so out of place.
Ronnie pushed me behind him and fell on top of me. I heard him grunt a few times and I knew he was shot. One of the bullets came right through him and hit me in the knee but I was so scared I didn’t really realize it until after. The screaming from all around. The crazy guy made this sort of wailing sound right before he put the gun in his mouth. Horrible.
I rolled Ronnie over and started calling for help. He had this real strange look on his face, kinda peaceful. The big dumbass always wanted to be a hero.
My hero.
I had a mind to go after the crazy guy and do something to him even though he was already dead. But when I tried to get up my leg just went out from under me. People held me down and told me the paramedics were on their way. They thought they were being helpful. I guess I kind of lost my mind for a minute there.

After I got home from the hospital all kinds of strangers sent me messages and gifts. This church group from First Presbyterian came by the house with food and some things they figured I’d need for when I recovered. One of the things they brought me was this brand new pair of walking shoes with real cushiony soles and all. The minister said the doctors had told them I’d need shoes with some support. They even got the size right.
I just cried and cried. I took it as a sign, like Ronnie was trying to tell me he was okay. Can’t nobody tell me any different.

Bill Floyd is a writer from North Carolina who is feeling his way around the on-line world of micro-fiction. He blogs occasionally at www.sixsentences.ning.com.

Writer: Thomas Sullivan

2011-05-04T12:00:00.001-05:00

Meeting the Suburban Gangbanger

It's my first lesson of the morning, but I'm already in a rough mood. Teaching seven or eight lessons day after day is like driving to Seattle and back on a daily basis. Given my random crop of students, it's like spending each day with a series of cabbies whose skills you don't quite trust.
I'm checking out the wheels on my car while I wait for a new student. With my faith in fleet maintenance plummeting, I'm starting each lesson with an assessment of the tires and an inspection under the car for mysterious fluid stains on the pavement. Today's assigned vehicle, a sad looking heap of dilapidated metal, is new to me, so we're about to embark on our maiden voyage together. I have no idea where the red Mazda came from, and really don't want to know. It's probably up from New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. The car looks like something even a suicide bomber would reject.
I see a kid wearing an oversized NBA jersey and slinky nylon shorts shuffling towards me. As he gets closer I notice that his huge high-top sneakers are unlaced. This is one suburban white kid who's having nothing to do with the standard attire of his town.
"You the teach?" he says.
I nod and look at his head. He's got a baseball hat yanked down to the bottom of his forehead, so I can't see his eyes.
When the second student shows up, the kid swings away from me.
"Yo Slice, wassup bro!" he shouts.
They slap a high-five and laugh. I wait for a break in their jibing and posturing to start the lesson, but they ignore my presence. A minute later I interrupt them and we load into the car. Slice loads into the back seat while his buddy slumps behind the wheel. The kid shifts the backrest on the seat toward the rear of the car and slumps, ghetto style, with one arm stretched out to the wheel. I manage to get his seat more upright, but he resists advancing to the vertical position, so we compromise on a quasi-gangster setting.
I get a glimpse of my face while I adjust the rearview mirror. I look like someone you could feed on Thanksgiving for a contribution of $2.16. I glance over at my driver and ask, "Ready?" Head facing forward, he responds by jabbing his right hand toward the windshield and saying nothing.
The kid bolts away from the curb without bothering to check for traffic. I emphasize the need to steer with both hands and he grudgingly complies. A minute into our drive the kid drops his left arm off the wheel and resumes steering with his right. I'm about to correct this when a police cruiser passes us on the other side of the road. The kid lifts his left hand to the window, flicks two fingers forward, and says, "Mr. Baaacon." He whips his head toward the back seat and glances at Slice, who laughs apprehensively.
"Okay," I interrupt, "let's keep our eyes on the road. And use both hands."
The kid sighs theatrically and puts his second hand back on the wheel. Looking through the windshield he says, "Yo, got it." He seems to be relishing the show for his buddy in the back. I decide to let the police comment slide, hoping he's now got the need for posing out of his system. We continue rolling down the road. He's actually a pretty good driver, though I notice that he prefers not to signal, probably as a means to retain street cred.
Ten minutes later we swing right at an intersection and start rolling down a four-lane road. My driver looks out his side window and stares toward the curb across the street. Looking past him I spot a woman in a tight blouse and skirt lugging a big shopping bag down the sidewalk. Still gazing through the window he says, "Yo, Slice, did ya feel the heat comin' offa dat one." Slice laughs, less hesitant than the last time.
That's it.
"Okay, pull the car over, onto this road here," I order. I jab my fist in the air, pointing to our right.
The kid peels onto the road, races up to the curb, and grinds to a stop. I reach down and shove the gear shifter into park. It's silent for a moment as I compose my thoughts. I look over at my junior gangbanger, who turns his head towards me. I still can't see his eyes and fight the urge to reach over and flick the hat off his head.
"Look," I say sternly, "you're here to impress me with your driving, not Slice with your comments."
The kid tilts his head back and our eyes meet for the first time. He looks at me with dull indifference, like I'm a principal he couldn't give two shits about. I feel like a flustered stepfather trying to deal with the resentment buried in some other guy's neglected spawn.
"Okay?" I ask, softening my voice into a pleading tone.
Sensing that the gig's up, the kid shifts to English and says, "Okay, got it."
We proceed quietly through the remainder of the lesson without incident. I try to encourage my driver, periodically commenting on things he does well. He's probably had fifteen years of adults focusing on what he does wrong. A half-hour later we finish the lesson. It's the last time we'll meet.

Thomas Sullivan’s writing has appeared in Word Riot and 3AM Magazine, among others. He is the author of Life In The Slow Lane, a memoir about teaching driver education. For information on this title, please visit his author website at http://thomassullivanhumor.com.

Guest Writer: J.O. Vaughn

2011-04-27T12:00:00.005-05:00

Ephemera

物の哀れ. It’s written with a silver sharpie pen on top of Bethany’s latest sketchbook journal. I don’t know what it means but I have to admire the patience it must have taken for her to write out the characters, this means something important for her. I only hope she remembers when she looks at it again. Bethany is resting on the chaise in the living room but all her research materials are scattered around the floor. She’s had another tantrum and by the looks of things it was serious. Inside the 物の哀れ notebook is a small sketch in the bottom right corner, a tree losing its blossoms, they’re being carried away by some majestic current and I can’t be sure but something tells me the drawing is incomplete; there is something missing that should be between the roots.
Picking up another notebook – the one I’d seen her carrying over the last few days – I can see just how difficult things have been: what use to be delicate calligraphy now looks like something a third grader would scribble on a good day. A lot of the words and sentences – most are incoherent and misspelled – have been scratched through, some so harshly it has torn the page, and where her ink pen had been left to bookmark her last page the last thing she’d done was draw several pictures: what looks like a hospital bed, mail with dollar signs on them, and a frowning face, the art doesn’t begin to measure the quality in the sketchbook but this wasn’t meant to be a work of art and when I look back at the sentences I know what it means now.
Having finished my duty, a sense of pride for having been able to do it without waking her, I move to gaze at my queen. She looks flushed, a soft rose color in her cheeks which, under normal circumstances, would have been flattering with her soft brown complexion, except I can see where the tears ran down her face. Her glasses were on her laptop and so tracing her steps she must have quit trying to hand-write her ideas and after it got too difficult to even type them, perhaps the brightness of the screen was just too much, she tossed it all aside and decided to cry herself to sleep. It has been a very rough night for her.
I’m drowning in memories of the last few weeks – she is beginning to lose comprehension not only of words but more simple things like when the water is scolding hot against her skin; she says she feels cold and can’t get warm. Her decline accelerates but she never shows me this side, she always manages to give a smile whenever I’m around but she hasn’t noticed she doesn’t sing anymore so I know just how truly depressed she feels. Thinking of this morning when she sent me off to work with a kiss and a smile, embracing it for a second, I don’t notice she’s been awake, perhaps for some time, and staring at me until she rests her hand on my knee, “I’m not going back to the doctors.”
She voice is passive but determined and knowing her the way I do and seeing her recent work I understand she rather die than leave me bankrupt as well as alone. If she weren’t looking at me with her empathic brown eyes, that transcended look of hers, I would have allowed myself to rage but there’s nothing I can do, “I was going to make myself some coffee. Cranberry juice?”
She shakes her head, “Mono no aware,” she says barely audible as she sits up and points at her sketchbook which is sitting on top of the rest of her reference materials.
I’m not sure if she is speaking coherently or if this is another episode of hers, “What,” I ask nervously.
“On the sketchbook, that’s what it says, ‘Mono no aware’.”
“Which means?”
“Wiki says it means ‘the pathos of things’. It’s Japanese. I had to look up a lot to understand that I already understood it. It’s what I’ve been feeling lately. More and more lately,” she gestures for me to give her the book.
I can’t begin to fathom what she’s talking about, she has always had the upper hand when it came to anything academic, I’ll have to look it up later after she’s fallen asleep. I don’t want to seem ignorant – lately she hasn’t had the patience to put up with it – I just don’t want her to stop talking, “Where did it come from?”
“A friend. Sebastian. We were talking and I told him about a dream I had. It’s a dream I’ve always had when I was a child but it’s back and been haunting me lately. I dream about sakura. Laying in a bed of sakura, cherry blossoms. The petals swarming around me, burying me, but it’s so peaceful. I don’t ever want to leave it and I get mad when I have to wake up. Sebastian says sakura is associated with death. I looked it up for myself and that’s when I saw it: Mono no aware.”
Her eyes are losing focus, and she’s lost grip of the notebook, I can’t let this happen before she tells me everything. In the morning she will have forgotten it all and right now she looks so content, she needs to remember about the sakura, “And?”
“And what?”
“Mono no aware.”
It’s too late, I know before she even asks, “What’s that?”
I can’t bring myself to tell her it’s happened again, “Nothing,” I stand, bringing her along with me, and carrying her to our bed I just let her have peace, “Just something I heard about, thought you’d be interested being the family genius and everything; something to do with sakura. You can look it up in the morning.”
She murmurs as she presses closer to me, “I want to – sakura,” and she’s gone.

J. O. Vaughn lives in Winston-Salem, NC where she spends most of her time researching having a passion for knowledge which she uses for her writing. Feel free to check out her website Inkslingers Anon. She appreciates constructive criticism.

Guest Writer: Cath Barton

2011-04-27T00:00:00.007-05:00

Heading for Lake Titicaca

My left shoulder felt like someone had punched me, a bright light was hurting my eyes and there were rustling noises all around. It was not meant to be like this. I had planned it all out in my mind the previous night and by this time I should have been on a bus heading south. Instead of which I was stumbling upright in a cornfield, barely out of a dream in which I was sitting at a restaurant table with Laura and all was as it should have been. Before it happened. I shook my head and bent forward, squinting in the effort of listening. Nothing. There were probably all kinds of small creatures living in the field. Just as well they had woken me because I needed to move on. Although only the sun’s rays could see through that ripening corn, there would be people out looking for me.
I pulled on my jacket and plunged my hands into its deep pockets. There was something hard and smooth in the left-hand one. My breath bubbled in my chest. Surely I hadn’t picked up that...? Trembling now, I pulled the object out. Chocolate. I started shaking with relief and stupid laughter, broke off two squares and forced myself to eat them slowly. Wrapped the rest of the bar carefully and pushed it to the bottom of my backpack, under my few clothes.
Two hours later I was on the bus, squashed between a woman with a basket of squawking chickens and an old man chewing coca. This was fine. They were not people who were going to ask questions of a dishevelled white man. They’d think me just another backpacker. I dozed as the bus bumped along the badly-made road. Next thing I knew I was being elbowed by the woman. “You deaf or stupid or what?” she was yelling. Then I realised that she was trying to stand up and that we had entered a built-up area. Small dusty houses with small dusty gardens in front of them. I grunted at the masticating man and we both edged into the crowded gangway for the woman to get off the bus, which was shuddering to a halt with an agonised squeal of brakes.
Pushed against the window now by the man’s spread legs, I peered through its grime at the crowd. They were gathered round a small group of women wearing tiered dresses of many colours with fringed shawls and bowler hats. My neighbour was pointing at them. “They’re wrestlers,” he said. “We have this tradition in Bolivia.” It seemed a weird costume to wear for wrestling, but then lots of things about this country were turning out to be weird.
Images flashed in front of my eyes. Of that man coming into the restaurant the night before. Of Laura standing up as he came towards us....
“How long you staying here? You want to see the wrestlers?” The man was dragging me up and before I could protest we were off the bus. “You’re looking pale, man,” he said. “You want some coca?” In my confused state I thought he was offering me drugs, and the last thing I wanted was something else the police could try and pin on me. “No, no,” I protested. But he persisted. “It’s too high up here for you white boys. You chew the coca and you’ll feel better.”
So there we were, me and this old guy, crouching on the ground in a small town on the Bolivian Altiplano, chewing coca leaves and watching women in fancy dress wrestling. “You want to see Lake Titicaca?” he asked me. “Sure,” I replied casually. But my heart was thumping. The lake was where Laura and I had been heading. Till that deranged man had come into the restaurant. But I couldn’t say anything about that to this guy. “I’m going up that way tomorrow,” he continued, “Got a reed boat at a place called Suriqui. I’d welcome some company. Travelling alone you must get lonely too, don’t you?”
I’d never heard of Suriqui, and I was sure it hadn’t been on our itinerary. So although the police might head for Lake Titicaca, it was one hell of a big expanse of water and they would not be expecting to find me in the company of a Bolivian fisherman. Now that the whole of life had become a gamble, this sounded as good a one to take as any. The guy told me his name was Fortunato and offered me a bed for the night in his little house.
I slept comfortably, and when I awoke next day I turned to tell Laura. But of course she wasn’t there. And then I remembered the man rushing up, shouting, and pulling out the knife, and dropping it before most people saw, and people surrounding me, and me running and running...

It took a full day to get to Suriqui. There was a group of English people there, come to see these reed boats. There was a buzz going on about something. I was curious, in an anxious way, so I hung around near the group. Sure enough, I heard the name Laura. “Excuse me,” I said, with foolhardy bravado, “Has there been some accident?”
“Not exactly,” one of them said, “Seems a guy thought his girlfriend was being attacked and ran off. Now they can’t find him and she thinks something’s happened to him.”
Not dead then. My Laura. So now I could go back. But the funny thing was, I suddenly wasn’t sure whether that was what I wanted to do. I flipped a coin in my head. Heads I stay. Heads it was.

So that’s how I came to be spending my life on the shores of Lake Titicaca, mending the reed boats , taking the tourists out for trips and chewing coca leaves with my friend Fortunato. I count myself very lucky to have met him.

Cath Barton is English, of Scottish descent, and lives in Wales. She blogs on the 6S Social Network and is published here and there, including in 100 Stories for Queensland (forthcoming).

Guest Writer: Elliott Cox

2011-04-20T12:00:00.001-05:00

Lightning Strikes

"Where do I go from here?" I asked. I was driving through an unfamiliar part of the state with my friend Matt, who guaranteed me that the trip was worth it. Matt said, "You go straight, where else would you go?" I said, "What? Drive right through the gate?"

"No, Einstein, you see those tire tracks that go AROUND the gate? Use em." After a knowing nod from Matt, I drove through the ditch and around the gate that had a sign attached to it with barbed wire. The sign bore the spray painted words, Jesus forgives trespassers. I make sure he stays busy. I said, "Are you sure that this is okay?" He said, "Jeez, man, I've been out here in the county dozens of times. Trust me for once would you?" He was laughing as he said it, so I drove on.

A few minutes later, Matt and I pulled into a driveway that led to nothing but trees. I asked, "Are you sure this is it?" He was already out the door and walking backwards toward the edge of the woods, which I thought was a bit odd, until I saw the huge man wearing overalls aiming a double-barreled shotgun at him. I hadn't completely sorted that vision out in my mind before Matt muddied it up even more by smiling in my direction and waving me over. I've never had a shotgun shoved into my back, but I don't think that my first reaction would be to smile and wave my friend onto the battlefield; I've known Matt long enough to know that the crazy prick mostly knows what he's doing, so I followed suit.

When I backed up beside Matt, all questions of what I would do if I ever had a gun shoved into the small of my back were answered: I peed a little bit. Matt said, "Lou, Phil...Phil, Lou." The man that I assumed was Lou said, "The hell you boys doin owcheer?" Matt said, "Come on, Lou. You remember me don't you? I've bought at least three jugs of shine from you. Matt? Come on, man."

Judging by the increased pressure of the twin twelve gauge barrels digging into my back, Lou wasn't impressed with Matt's reply. He said, "Dunno no Matt. You boys is the po-leese ain'tcha? Coupla narcs, huh. Musta dint read the sign when you come past my gate." After he said "come past my gate," Lou made a sound like “uh-huh” that I thought was him clearing his throat, until he clicked his teeth twice. When I made the connection that Lou had such an audible nervous tick, I almost laughed...despite the gun pressed against my tenderloin. I looked over at a wide-eyed Matt, who was pleading silently for me to let it go. The combination of seeing Matt scared almost to death and the hillbilly spitting on the back of my neck made things easy for me: I let it go.

Matt said, “No, Lou. No, man. You’ve got it all wrong. You really don’t remember me? Matt? We’re just looking to buy a couple of quarts from you. We’re not the cops, Lou, I swear.”

Uh-huh click click. “Why’nt you boys lead the way,” Lou said, gesturing toward the wood line. I followed Matt’s lead because it looked like he had been through this drill before. About a hundred-fifty yards into the woods, we walked into a clearing that held but a small wooden shack and a contraption that was about the size of a Buick, but looked like an old steam locomotive. When we rounded the corner between the locomotive and the shack, we saw two old, frail-looking men sitting in chairs that were leaned against the side of the shack. The one with the beard down to his gut asked, “Whatcha got here, Lou?”

“These here boys say they wanna buy some lightnin. Say they ain’t po-leese.” The beard looked to his right and told his buddy to pat us down before turning back to Lou and saying, “Christ, Lou. Put yer gun down offem. They look too scared to run.” He looked me in the eye, smiled, and said, “They wouldn’t get too far if’n they tried, anyways.” Note to self: If we get out of this alive, kill Matt. After our uncomfortably thorough pat down, the beard said, “So you boys wanna buy summa Carolina’s finest, huh?” Matt said, “Yes, sir. We would like to get two quarts from you, if you don’t mind.”

“Boy, don’t you never call me sir again. I bet you’s just a couple a college boys, ain’tcha?” Matt cleared his throat and said, “Yes, si...ahem, yes, we are.” The beard lit a cigarette, looked straight at me, and said, “Mmm-hmm. An I betcha boys wanna impress all that college tail by tellin em how you came out to the hills and got some moonshine from the hicks owcheer. I bet you tell em how we was sittin round the liquor still in our overhalls and pickin a banjer, won’tcha. All that ‘purty mouth’ stuff an all. That whachoo gon do, boy?” Matt started to speak, but the beard kept his eyes on me, pointed a finger at Matt, and said, “I weren’t talking to you, boy. I wanna hear what blondie here has to say bout it.” From behind me, I heard uh-huh click click.

I turned Don’t say sir, don’t say sir over and over in my mind before I said, “My friend here told me that he knew where to get some really good moonshine. The pure stuff. I’ve never had any before, you see. We’re having a party this weekend and thought that it would be cool to have some there. We do want to impress the girls, but there’s no way in hell that we are going to tell anybody where we got it.” I realized that I was rambling because I was scared almost to death, so I cut myself off. The beard held my gaze and I saw his eyes soften a bit. He said, “Get em two quarts, Lou.” Matt and I both sagged a little from the rush of relief. Matt said, “So how much do we owe you?” I could’ve slapped him.

The beard’s eyes hardened again. He said, “Gimmee your wallets.” My hand was immediately in my back pocket, but Matt hesitated until I dug my elbow into his ribs. He handed me his wallet, I handed both of them to the beard. He opened mine, looked at my driver’s license, and closed it. As he opened Matt’s wallet, the beard said, “Goin rate’s twenny five a quart.” He thumbed through Matt’s cash and pulled a hundred dollar bill out and put it in his shirt pocket. “But I think you’re a little asshole, so you pay double...an you buy both of em.” He nodded toward me and said, “Don’t you never ask him for his half, neither.” The beard pulled Matt’s driver’s license from his wallet and examined it before putting it in his shirt pocket alongside the money and said, “If we get raided by the po-leece in the next month, me an Lou will see you after our bail gets posted.” He handed my wallet back to me and threw Matt’s on the ground in front of him.

Lou came around the corner holding two mason jars filled with clear liquid and asked the beard, “They squared up, pops?” The beard nodded and Lou handed us a quart each. The beard said, “Nice doin bidness with ya, boys. I reckon you can see your own way out.” Without a word, that’s what we did.

After thirty minutes of silence on the ride back home, Matt asked, “So are you going to give me half?” I laughed and said, “Why don’t you just consider it a ‘stupid tax’ and take that as a lesson in keeping your mouth shut.” I made sure that Matt was in charge of passing the quart jars around at the party that night, and I made an extra effort to let everyone in attendance know that we had some “real stuff” available, “All you have to do is go ask Matt for a snort and he will hook you right up.” I followed each and every person that staggered up to Matt that night seeking a taste of Carolina’s finest. Like clockwork, every person brave enough to take a taste would say, “You got a purty mouth, boy” before turning the jar up. Matt would screw his face up almost as much as the person that was experiencing moonshine for the first time. Without giving Matt a chance to recover, I would say, “Hey, Matt, you have to tell them how you got the shine! You guys are going to love this story, uh-huh click click,” and I would walk away. A hundred bucks and a driver’s license says that he will never give me any grief about it.

Elliott Cox is a father, son, aircraft mechanic, college student, writer, and musician. Not always in that order, and never all at the same time. Elliott writes in both of his spare minutes, but never without the help of his friends.

Editor's Note: A very special thanks goes to Elliott for his putting together of a terrific video helping MuDJoB celebrate its first anniversary of Guest Writes. The video can be seen here.

Guest Poet: Stephen Torelli

2011-04-20T00:01:00.003-05:00

The Ironic Garden

Born in a garden the plans begin;

the courageous commander submits to sin.

He plans his carnage and promotions too

within the garden’s quilted hue.

Fountains, flora, and fauna galore,

warring warriors at destiny’s door.

Death and horror are his show…

it ain’t TV or radio.

Peaceful gardens it may seem

are the center of mankind’s dream.

And though the General drafts his plan

without the help from any man,

what are the garden’s astounding sights

that assist this soldier with his plight?

Is it the roses, and violets too,

or the spangled sunlight’s hue?

Popping poppies in this patch,

posing posies here to match.

Tangled tulips for your eye,

budding blossoms make you sigh.

Willowy willows on that site,

brilliant buttercups shine at night.

Pungent peppers for your taste;

Poisoned pears…don’t make haste.

Hatched in a garden, the plans are complete,

twisted tombstones at your feet.

Stephen Torelli teaches Citizenship in a New York City High School and frequently contributes to The 6S Social Network.

Guest Writer: Barry Basden

2011-04-13T12:00:00.002-05:00

Three Short Pieces

In the City of Ruined Cathedrals

She puts on white makeup, a white gown and shawl, then leaves her room in the pale early morning. Like some virgin specter, she drifts past the abandoned kaserne, searching for movement at empty windows, certain of enemy soldiers lurking there.

South Oak Cliff

Four of us kids in my weedy front yard. Mayes and Fergie, a year older, watch Jimmy Pickard pound my left arm as I circle, try to keep my guard up. We wear boxing gloves my father gave me last Christmas, thin maroon leather. Make a man outta you, he said. I skirt the shade of the chinaberry, move steadily away from Jimmy's fistful of asps. He grunts, lunges again, his eyes rat fierce.

How to Make It Through the Night

Don't answer calls from your ex-husband. Hold yourself in your arms, rock gently. Hum something soothing. Don't think about Bobby on his tricycle behind your van that day.

Barry Basden lives in the Texas hill country with his wife and two yellow Labs. His writing has appeared here and there. He is coauthor of CRACK! AND THUMP: WITH A COMBAT INFANTRY OFFICER IN WORLD WAR II and edits Camroc Press Review.

Guest Writer: Eric G. Müller

2011-04-13T00:00:00.005-05:00

Debut

I sat at the back of the packed hall, waiting for my turn to perform a duet with the resident flautist. We were last on the program, the highlight of the evening – the finale. It would be my formal debut into the new school community, both as a teacher and accompanist. It would also be my debut playing a classical piece after ten years of rock and roll, but that bit of info I kept to myself.

Financial desperation and a tad of hubris led me to take the job as a piano accompanist at the school where my wife had graduated. There was an opening and I auditioned. As a kid I’d taken piano lessons for a couple of years, but I gave that up to play guitar. I went back to the piano when I noticed most rock bands needed keyboardists. I played by ear and improvised, emulating maestros like Rick Wakeman, Keith Emerson, Vangelis and Chick Corea. After my stint as a rock musician I resumed my academic studies, going to grad school where I met my wife. She played the violin, and in order to accompany her, I decided to learn how to read music again. By the time I auditioned I could play two pieces by heart. I only pretended I could read the music, and my renditions of Schumann’s “Von fremden Ländern und Menshen,” and a Chopin nocturne were only so-so. But they loved my improvisations. I got the job and now had to pay my dues.

The air was stuffy, the program too long, and my solar plexus shot nervous currents up my spinal cord. I hadn’t wanted to play with Mrs. Googlin. She was the best flautist around and I didn’t feel ready to play publicly yet, especially not a piece by Bach; the driving polyphonic texture confused my fingers. But she assured me it was very simple and that I would have no trouble at all. She’d heard me play a few times at different events – coffee houses, parties, cabarets, weddings – but each time I’d played by ear, or improvised. She thought I was brilliant, and besides, she couldn’t find anybody else. I yielded.

And now I was mentally preparing myself, going over every note in my mind, imagining my fingers flitting with precision over the keys. The children were getting increasingly restless and the program was never-ending.

I’d practiced like mad. I learned the whole thing by heart (my third piece). I played it ad nauseam, to the exasperation of wife and neighbors. But when I rehearsed together with Mrs. Googlin I still faltered. She assured me that I’d be fine. “And you still have a few days to perfect your playing.” We hadn’t practiced since, and now I was stuck in this stifling concert hall, waiting to go on.

At last our turn came. Amidst applause we stepped on stage. As I sat down by the grand piano she whispered to me, “Whatever you do, don’t stop. Just keep on playing.” I nodded. The expectant silence set in. My head was filled with noxious smog after the long wait and the lack of ventilation (too much carbon dioxide). Mrs. Googlin nodded and I began.

Not three measures into the piece and I made my first mistake. I should have stopped right there, smiled, breathed deeply and started again (after all I had rehearsed it hundreds of times), but I didn’t, because she’d told me not to. At the flute entrance my blunders began to multiply, and my clammy hands started trembling, but I didn’t stop – just like when I used to play with the band, Tokolosh. I was their keyboardist and frontman. We were an unstoppable sonic avalanche even when we witnessed fights and melees erupting in the mosh pit, or when tables, chairs and bottles went flying in clubs and bars. I used to strut across the stage like Jagger and scream like Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant. I postured and played the part of the proverbial rock star; I was a demigod backed by an arsenal of amps and a towering PA system. And who cared about mistakes, anyway? It was part of the metal grit we hurled at the gyrating mass beyond the blinding spotlights. But now I cared, each blatant error drawing blood.

She played beautifully, though her silvery notes did not coincide with mine. I was not even sure whether we were following the same measures or tempo. The hall had become a morgue, and I was hyper perceptive to the audience’s sudden attentiveness as they listened to the gradual tonal implosion. Her words propelled me forward. So I adhered to the credo: the show must go on!

By now I was utterly lost, though I scurried around the key of E flat major like a beheaded turkey, hoping to find my way back to the melodic path – anywhere along the way would do. Pleadingly I glanced up at the formidable Mrs. Googlin, but she tooted right on, playing with fierce determination – no stopping this iron-woman. And where was that flagrant rocker, oozing with self-confidence? By now Bach had morphed into an atonal collage of chance encounters between distorted sharps, flats and accidentals crashing into one another – 4’33” of noise. Children began to snicker, which underscored the expanding, oppressive mood surrounding the inexorable butchering of Bach.

I leaned forward, swaying with the music, as if it was heart-wrenchingly moving. All the while I felt the sweat run down my face and neck, seeping through my scalp, draining into my collar, trickling down my chest and back, soaking my shirt. The piece in its entirety was hardly five minutes long, but I’d begun to understand the concept of eternal hell and damnation. As heavy metal macho-men we used to conjure forth doom and gloom images for show, but now I was living it – payback time. I was plunging down a precipice, head first, feeling the fatal pull of gravity.

At last I heard Mrs. Googlin play the final long, soft notes, and I knew we’d arrived at the end. I played the last chord in unison with her, but even at this moment I struck a minor instead of a major chord. At least it was played molte piano.

Amidst isolated and perfunctory clapping, Mrs. Googlin walked off in a huff. I, in turn, got up, grabbed my score and took cover behind the black grand, fumbling with a plastic bag I found on the floor. Thus occupied, scrunching my music into the dusty bag, I waited till everybody had left, before sneaking out the back entrance – a fallen rock star. For a moment I'd thought of apologizing, of seeking her out, but then her voice resounded in my ears, "Whatever you do, don't stop."

Eric G. Müller is a musician, teacher and writer. He has written two novels, Rites of Rock (Adonis Press 2005) and Meet Me at the Met (Plain View Press, 2010), as well as a collection of poetry, Coffee on the Piano for You (Adonis Press, 2008). Articles, short stories and poetry have appeared in various journals and magazines.
www.ericgmuller.com

Guest Poet: Brad Rose

2011-04-06T00:01:00.002-05:00

Arrow of Time

No one prepares you for this, certainly not at school,
but when you turn fifty,
the arrow of time reverses.
Everything spools backward:
your best deeds shrug undone,
echoes ricochet back into throats,
volcanoes bury their heads in sand.

In sifting sieves, the hours empty themselves,
their hour-glassed seconds, vacant Saharas.
Your memories become children,
infantilized at the mere thought of now.
Zeno halves the distance,
until next to nothing remains,
zero’s empty egg.

When, at last, you reach the gleaming bead of origin,
a tiny speck in the chromosomes of clocks,
you are nothing, again,
ciphered and concentric,
waiting for your fathers to be born,
your mothers to be loved,
waiting for something taut and true
to take slow, deliberate aim at you,
and with perfect point and pitch,

release.

Brad Rose's poetry and fiction have appeared in: Third Wednesday, Off the Coast, Barely South Review, San Pedro River Review. Tattoo Highway, Boston Literary Magazine, Imagination and Place, Right Hand Pointing, FutureCycle Poetry, Unfold, SleetMagagazine.com, Six Sentences, Fiction at Work, Monkeybicycle, Up and Under/QND Review, Getting Something Read, Espresso Stories, SMITH Magazine, SpokenWar, Pow Fast Flash Fiction, Six Little Things, Short, Fast and Deadly, Staccato, and Blink Ink.

Guest Poet: William Doreski

2011-04-06T00:00:00.004-05:00

Three Poems

Lyra, Cygnus, Libra, Scorpius

Documents litter the table. Charts,
graphs, memos. Nothing important,
but the clutter lends dignity
to the meeting of our minds.
You look rumpled by intellect,

the wrinkles of your summer dress
corresponding to the powerful
convolutions of your brain. We nod
over competing data and frame
criteria to assess. The moon

basting the lawn outside rebukes
our slackened postures, our lack
of prowess. I’m too old to name
myself after the summer stars—
Lyra, Cygnus, Libra, Scorpius.

And you’re too reflective to share
my love of nighthawks cackling
through the humid dark. Extinct
in most of the state they thrive
still in Keene for some reason

ornithologists haven’t discerned.
We have to complete this proposal
if it takes all night. Lightning flares
a hundred miles north, gilding the sky
for an instant. I gather a mess

of papers and shuffle while I think.
You fix your brown gaze on me.
With a rustle of your cotton dress
a surge of will exudes to force me
to accept your proposition;

but I don’t understand its language,
which isn’t Indo-European
but something fevered by the dark
matter of the universe, which bulks
so mightily between us.

Tossing Your Room

Tossing your room for contraband,
I find underwear large enough
to decorate a rhino, glasses
thick as plywood, three huge wigs
clumsy as shag carpeting. Whose
are these? Not yours, not anyone’s,
but planted to bemuse me.

Light thickens in the window. Storms
approach with their petticoats flaring.
A siren razors the avenue
as police respond to famous crimes.
I’ve bundled these silly objects
into evidence bags. Evidence
of your improper irony,
your groping, speculative mind.

I’ve also stolen your sex toys,
whether plastic, leather, or bone,
bagged your bags of marijuana
and the vials of crack and crystal meth
you hid behind the wainscoting
in your spare bedroom where lovers
disgruntled by your humours hide.

The first sheets or rain shatter
against the side of the building.
Your room smells like the closets
where families keep their skeletons.
For years you’ve expected me
to search it, leaving your door unlocked
and shouting down the hall as you leave
for your wild nights in vodka bars.

Now I’m sorry. The wigs suggest
beheadings, the glasses muddle
rather than correct my eyesight,
and the underwear would transform me
into the saddest of transvestites
if I were fool enough to wear it
even with no one looking.

Magic Easy to Believe

Arguing at the grave of a witch
hanged in the seventeenth century
you deny that magic can heal
the ruptures in the social fabric
and the leaking oil well in the Gulf.
I want to bring back the stigma

if not the fact of black magic
to frighten our smug politicians
into cleaning up the planet.
You deny, but when you spotted
that car parked at the graveyard
with license plate reading ZOMBIES

you doubted your own denial.
A man toting a tripod with no
camera or telescope attached
may have been the zombie-master
who oversees nightly excursions
in search of edible brains.

Voodoo, you agree, is magic
easy to believe. Its followers,
if they actually attempt to live
on brains, would probably starve
in these united states. None the less
I argue that faith can resolve

the wounds the planet has suffered
if the politicians fear powers
that lobbyists can never bribe.
The witch’s gravestone bears
an hourglass and a curse to keep
the creature dead and decomposed.

You laugh because I want to claim
her powers had some currency
in her era, but the wind in the pines
speaks her language, and the lilt
of a song sparrow by the river
elegizes us as well as her.

William Doreski's work has appeared in various e and print journals and in several collections, most recently Waiting for the Angel (Pygmy Forest Press, 2009).

MuDJoB Guest Writes: First Anniversary

2011-04-05T00:00:00.001-05:00

Views

Two small people carry one large thing and an argument ensues,
It ends with the big thing left on the street when one of them blows a fuse.
A patient sues his doctor and the lawyer sports new shoes,
The doctor makes excuses, saying, “I’m always the one they accuse!”
Fans at the game are anxious to see the visitors lose,
Though the leading player rolls on the ground and rubs a swelling bruise.
Mom and Dad watch a crime in progress on the local news;
A hateful man in an interview hurts with the words he spews.
Three competing suitors are hoping the beauty will choose
Against a backdrop of music and hearts of pink in varying hues.
The tenants default on their rent with excuses by ones and by twos,
And complain of the neighbor who stinks up the hall with the garbage that he strews.
Eli propounds on Kate’s erroneous definition of clerihews;
In order to get her to see the light, he gives her a book to peruse.
The church falls short on worshippers who can’t sit in predestined pews,
And Masons turn out their membership for failing to pay their dues.
A husband abandons his wife in aborted attempts to amuse;
Her demeanor is drowned in pot luck casseroles, soups and stews.
A detective sifts through the ashes searching remains for clues;
He’s found an earring, a tooth and a nail, but he doesn’t know whose.
Teenagers wooing, say they aren’t smoking. They are. It’s only a ruse.
They’re thinking of eloping because her father is turning the screws.
Workers waiting for jobs are standing outside in queues,
While the hardnosed factory owner seeks alternatives to use.
Someone is at the zoo with a child his ex-wife would abuse,
And an old man who’s lost a fortune regains it by singing the Blues.

Guest Poet: Sandra Davies

2011-04-03T18:59:00.002-05:00

Circle of Celebration

Our One-Year Anniversary Together

2011-04-01T00:00:00.000-06:00

Guest Writer: Grey Johnson

2011-03-30T00:00:00.006-06:00

A Body of Water Invites All Things

As I step down a grassy bank in a slow backwards tango toward a canal, I stumble a bit, laugh, and am not allowed to fall. The breeze is insistent, making twinkling quivers on the surface of the water, which has been fattened by recent rain. All around us are the gray and brown trunks of trees, slender and thickly standing together, their bark silently watching.
He leans me into the water, and as he holds me, I float on my back and talk to a hawk tracing circles between some clouds. My arms smooth the current and my hair comes to life, swimming away from my scalp. His hand rests firmly on my chest, and I feel smaller. I will myself to sink, and holding my eyes open, I cross into a hushed space filled with inky gray and honey amber. The light forms a cool bright sphere above my face, and I feel a garment I am wearing begin to flutter.
I am held, suspended sweetly. His hand moves to my forehead, giving warm, reassuring pressure, like a child might feel as her father checks her for fever. We press me tenderly down.
The water becomes full of nothing but me, and I know that if it pleased him, I would try to live without air, or sound. My heart becomes thin and wide and flickers like silver. Tiny bubbles wiggle up from me like bits of hope, and I do not move. I feel him smile, and it makes me proud to affect him so easily, just by staying still, and waiting.
As I rest there, we watch a transformation. I lose all my edges, and turn into the shadow of a mysterious and beautiful siren, capable of chasing light and lost souls, and of feeling the language between words. My resistance sublimates. There is a long instant of perfect relinquishment, in which I imagine droplets of water plinking into my lungs in a slow, musical fashion, like icicles melting in a perfect cave.
I cannot stay under without him, and he has let me up without warning. When I wipe my eyes and look around, I think he is gone. The air spanks my face, and I need my hearing back, although I do not want it. When I finally spot him, he is in the grass, resting on his back, staring impassively at the sky.

Grey Johnson lives in a small town in northeastern South Carolina. Her garden is very important to her, and so are her dogs. She reads and knits rectangles, but seldom knows what to do with them. She doesn’t have a blog or website, but writes some on the Six Sentence Social Network. You can also check out her brilliant little collections on Issuu.

Guest Writer: J.K. Davies

2011-03-23T00:01:00.006-06:00

Foot & Mouth

Duane's grandmother called us to her to tell us a story about the last big breakout, from her chair in the corner of the room on that heavy afternoon when the adults had all left the complex, her cracked whiskery voice pulling us closer in, her flat unemphatic words were delivered in a staccato non-rhythm. The atmosphere of abandonment still felt temporary, we didn't believe the grown-ups would not come back, that they would, could leave us here. They would have to come back for Grandma as she couldn't get out of her chair by herself.
We crouched together on the bed to listen to her, a blanket around our shoulders now that the heating had stopped, imagining the disease stalking the land, a stick legged giant with a flapping coat of rooks wings pointing its myriad fingers at its myriad victims. We could smell the fatty smoke she described, and see her tongue lick around her dry old mouth when she spoke of the charnel stink.
"The pyres sent plumes up to Heaven," she'd said, and looked upwards, and we did too, wondering what we would see there, but it was only the wood-chipped ceiling.
"We had to shoot them all, even those who had no disease. The scientists, they told us it was the only way to rid ourselves of it. The fires, they burnt for weeks, turning the bodies to charcoal," and she rocked forwards, backwards, rocked again.
"Oh, that it should happen again in my lifetime," she moaned
We clutched each other in excited horror, two boys on the edge of an adventure, having heard the grown-ups whisper of foot and mouth and BSE and CJD before they went, wondering if we too would have such horror-tales to tell when we were old.
"But, Grandma," Duane asked, trying to putting the pieces of the puzzle together. "What are cows?"

J.K. Davies is a practised reader & practising writer living in Germany. She blogs mostly at practice makes perfect and has a nasty side at too much practice (http://toomuchpractice.blogspot.com)
Website:
http://jkdavies-dailywritingpractice.blogspot.com/

Guest Writer: Len Kuntz

2011-03-23T00:00:00.001-06:00

Thunder Comes Around

We hide under the rusted hood of someone’s abandoned car that we’ve propped up over the lip of an outcropping rock, our makeshift tree fort on ground resembling a squatter’s shanty more than anything.
Rain beats on the metal, little thumps atop our heads. Our breath is cold and vapory.
I know my sister’s staring at me but I keep my eyes on the ground. She asks if I’m mad.
It was her idea to do it. She said he had it coming.
“Damn it, I don’t know,” I say when she asks again.
Hunters were used to coming down off the bluff and marching into the ravine where tall maples clustered and made it easy for deer to forage and keep hidden. Easy pickings. We’d hear their gun blasts on the weekends, hoots and jeers.
Our father was a hunter of sorts himself. In fact, it was his gun I used.
I knew the area the way a blind man knows his bedroom. I found the perfect spot with a boulder for both my perch and hiding spot.
My sister said to make sure I took him down, even if it meant several shots. I’d seen her frightened plenty of times, and many times angry, but never both emotions stirred up simultaneously.
“You sure?” I asked.
Her head nodded swift, like a guillotine.
When I shot him in the back, my father’s shoulders flew up like chicken wings. I hit him in the neck next. Before he could drop, I put three more bullets through his torso.
Afterward, I thought I heard the shots echo, but it was thunder that had come around, and then with it angry, unforgiving rain the size of coins.
He’s still out there in a heap, probably stiff as lumber by now. We brought two shovels, though, and a tow rope.
When I look over, my sister lifts her worried, wet eyes, but it’s the jaw marks I notice, the float of purple bruises tinted mustard. Her lower lip is split and one side is so swollen that it reaches up and curls around her nostril.
It used to be Mother that got his beatings, but she was smarter than us and left a long time ago.
When my sister blinks her eyes at me, I flap my hand, giving her a playful, invisible slap. “Nah,” I tell my sis. “It’s all good.”

Len Kuntz lives on a lake in rural Washington State with his wife and son. His writing appears widely in print and online at such places as Blue Print Review, Orion Headless, Heavy Bear and also at lenkuntz.blogspot.com

Guest Writer: Janet Yung

2011-03-16T00:00:00.003-06:00

Emily at the Piano

Studying the color wheel, he tried to remember why he was here, but only grew more confused as he concentrated, one color bleeding seamlessly into the next. Somewhere, in the distance, he heard water running and he was overwhelmed by the image of Emily at the piano. A broken water pipe on the second floor had created a waterfall, cascading down the living room wall while Emily pounded on the keyboard, keeping time with her off-tune air.

“Excuse me,” someone said, jostling past him and he mumbled in response, anxious now to escape the big box, stifled by the limitless selection and cloying atmosphere. The paper dropped from his hand as the doors swooshed open, allowing his egress into the heat of the late summer morning.

“Could it be that easy?” he asked, the odor of hot asphalt filling his nostrils and lungs. Pulling out of the parking lot, it was impossible to absorb the images flashing around him, driving the side streets until he reached familiar terrain.

The building was still standing, listing slightly to one side, left to tumble in upon itself. Weeds sprouting in the bare patches where grass had once grown, a tattered curtain blowing slowly against a broken window pane.

Passersby stared at the stranger, parked along the curb, window rolled down, staring at what had once been a home, but he didn’t notice them, focused on the front porch, absorbed by what had happened there before.

“Are you okay?” An older woman stood next to him and he looked up, startled anyone could see him. He nodded, unable to articulate everything that needed to be said. “It’s awfully hot to be sitting out here in a car,” she said and, shaking her head, disappeared down the street as the engine turned over.

At home, he fumbled with the lock and inside the dimly lit front room, stretched on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, willing the waterfall to once again appear. Quiet settled over the space, cool air washing across his outstretched frame, as he closed his eyes, conjuring up the long ago and, half forgotten history, like recreating a rainbow with the garden hose.

Dozing on the carpet, he lost track of time, abandoning the outline for the day, along with simple chores and promises, ignoring the ringing phone, a well meaning someone checking on his progress.

The evening arrived as quietly and unannounced as reality imposing itself upon his life. When nothing more could be remembered, he stretched, and stood. Outside, in the garden, he studied the sky, waiting for the moon to rise, fireflies dotting the landscape -- the serenity he’d been seeking. Extending his arms, he took a deep cleansing breath, and for a moment, could feel the mist of everything that had been lost.

Janet Yung lives and writes in St. Louis. Fiction has appeared in “The Shine,” “The Camel Saloon,” and "Fast Forward."

Guest Writer: Harris Tobias

2011-03-09T12:00:00.002-06:00

The Travel Agent

“Well, there’s no time like the present you know?” Lorna Trabish leaned on her desk for emphasis and opened the brochure. A full figured woman in her early sixties, Lorna looked the part of the eager to please travel agent. “We have tours to fit every budget and every activity level. She eyed the heavyset couple sitting across from her and gave them a dazzling capped tooth smile.
“You could visit the pyramids. We’re having a big promotion right now—two for the price of one. A tremendous savings. It’s filling up fast. You get to be a part of a slave gang and actually help build the pyramids. Just think of the stories you can tell your friends. It’s very exciting. We have a wonderful guide who will be your overseer. You get to live with a slave family and...”
“I don’t think that’s for us,” interjected Myrna Crump who had been leafing through the brochure during Lorna’s breathless pitch. “Lester doesn’t like the sun.”
“Perhaps something a bit more luxurious,” suggested Lester Crump who was trying to picture Myrna pulling a twenty ton block of sandstone across the desert in her high heels.
“I have just the thing,” chirped the irrepressible agent. “Have you been to Rome? I’m talking about ancient Rome. It’s part of our two week Classics Tour package. A week in Ancient Greece and a week in Rome. You get to hear some of the ancient world’s great orators—Seneca, Plato, Marcus Arelius. A day at the coliseum and a big Roman feast on the last night.”
“Mmm, I don’t know,” said Myrna. “Togas make me look fat.”
“And I heard about that Roman feast from our neighbor,” said Lester in his most confidential tone. “He said it turned into an orgy.” He gave Lorna a lascivious wink.
“Well,” said an embarrassed Lorna, “I hope that wasn’t one of our tours.”
“I think it was Tick Tock Travel.”
“Well, that’s a relief. They’re a low budget outfit and, like so much in life, you get what you pay for.” Lorna was relieved and recovered her poise. "I can assure you our feast is with a better class of people.”
The Crumps exchanged looks and silently congratulated themselves for choosing Temporal Tours even though it cost a good deal more.
“Are you interested in something of a religious nature?” asked Lorna hopefully. “We have a few openings left for the crucifixion.”
“We’re Jewish,” said Myrna.
“Oh. Well then how about joining the Israelites on their wandering in the desert?”
“What’s with you and deserts?” asked Lester. “We told you I can’t take the sun. I burn very easily then I peel.”
“It almost ruined our last vacation,” added Myrna. “We were watching the Aztec coronation in Palenque. We were standing in the crowd and Lester forgot his hat and all that sun. It was just too much. We had to leave and missed the whole human sacrifice and the party afterwards.”
“Maybe something a little more northerly, then,” said Lorna mentally scrambling for a cooler scenario. “I have just the thing,” she pointed to a page in the brochure. “The Camelot package. It’s perfect. Fourth century England, nice and cool. Lovely costumes. Atrocious table manners but that’s all over the ancient world. Let’s see, there are jousting tournaments, and combat for the men and wandering minstrels and a dance around the maypole for the women. Now doesn’t that sound exciting?”
The Crumps looked at each other and 32 years of knowing flashed between them in a glance. “Sounds good,” said Myrna, “tell us more.”
“Well, you arrive at the end of April for the wedding and participate in the festivities. You’ll be in period costumes, of course. We have an excellent guide who will explain the quaint customs. There’ll be lots of celebrating, music and dancing in the streets. It’s very exciting. You’ll be staying in a five star Inn that we’ve completely renovated to the highest local standards which will give you a first hand taste of life at that time— generally filthy, superstitious and brutal. I know you’ll love it.”
“Will we get to see King Arthur?” asked Lester who considered himself pretty knowledgeable on that time in history having once read an excerpt from the Song of Roland in seventh grade.
“We can’t guarantee you’ll get closer than 500 feet, but you’ll definitely get to see the royal couple at the wedding.”
“What about crowds?” asked Myrna, “I get claustrophobic in crowds.”
“Well, it is a popular destination. I dare say that half the people there will be time tourists like yourselves. There’s nothing we can do about it, it’s the peak season and the past is public property.”
“I wouldn’t mind something a little less public. I’ve heard about private tours,” said Myrna. “Surely Temporal Travel offers private packages.”
“Oh we do. Of course we do,” Lorna was happy to pitch private tours. They cost a fortune and the commissions were, how would you put it, huge. “They’re our specialty.”
Lorna reached into her desk and pulled out another brochure. It was bound in leather and was made to impress. “I have to warn you that our private tours set the standard in the time travel industry. No one does it better. Here, let me show you.”

After another grueling hour of suggesting and rejecting, the Crumps were ready to sign. With Lorna’s help, they had settled on a private tour to 18th century France. They would have a room at Versailles an audience with Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Their personal guide would be a well regarded professor of the period who would make the whole experience even more real than it already was. The only problem was the timing. By their nature, private tours were not shared with the time traveling public; only certain dates in the past were available and most of them were already booked.
“We have an opening in July 1793. My book says it’s cutting things a little close with the political ferment and all, but it’s the only date still open. Besides, a little local politics might not be a bad thing. The French revolution was such an exciting time after all and I’m sure Professor Nichols will keep you safe. We’ve never lost a customer yet, you know.” Here Lorna gave a little giggle, “and we don’t intend to start now. If worse comes to worse your guide will have the latest in emergency extraction technology.”
Lorna flashed her white capped smile and segued away from the unpleasant subject of personal danger launching into a detailed recital of the beautiful clothing worn at court, the delights of French cuisine and the splendors of Versailles. By the time she was through, the Crumps were hooked and ready to leave right then and there.
“Of course you can leave at your convenience. Professor Nichols is available, let me see, pretty much for the rest of the month. So should I call him and book?”
Myrna and Lester exchanged looks. Lorna held her breath. “Okay, sure, let’s book it,” said Myrna.
“You only live once,” added Lester.
“Great,” Lorna exhaled and beamed.

The Crumps and Professor Nichols materialized in a Paris Park. Myrna was dressed in the latest fashion. Her mousy brown hair piled under an enormous silver wig, her dowdy figure concealed beneath a magnificent silk dress embroidered with pearls— she looked like a countess from a remote province visiting the city for the first time. The men also wore wigs and with their powdered faces looked like caricatures of themselves.
“Well, here we are,” said their guide. “I suggest we stroll around a bit while I point out some of the sights.”
“I’d like to see the Eiffel Tower,” said Myrna.
“I’m afraid that’s two hundred years in the future,” said the amused Nichols.
“The Louvre?”
“I can try to get us in but it doesn’t open to the public for a couple of years.”
“Well, what else is there?” Lester wanted to know.
Nichols was looking around. They were the only fashionable people in sight and the local peasants were eyeing them with scorn. One fat peasant was hurrying toward them yelling “Allez!”
“I have a better idea,” said their guide, “ perhaps we can take a cab around the city and I’ll point out some interesting sights.”
Professor Nichols hurried his charges to the nearest exit, flagged down a cab and instructed the driver to drive around the city. The driver balked until Nichols gave him some additional coins. They all piled into the cab and, with a snap of the reigns, their tour of the city began. Behind them an overweight peasant halted panting in the road having failed to stop them.
“What were you arguing about?” asked Lester.
“With the driver? He said there were demonstrations all over the city. He demanded extra money to take us. It’s an old trick to take advantage of gullible out of towners. Don’t give it a second thought.” The Crumps relaxed and Professor Nichols pointed out the historic buildings and the famous streets of the city. The Crumps were interested at first but their appetite for architecture soon faded and they began to grow restless. Sensing he was losing his audience, Professor Nichols suggested they stop at a sidewalk cafe and have a bite to eat. He dismissed the cab and found them a table on a busy boulevard.
Lunch was disturbed by a mob of several hundred peasants carrying banners proclaiming Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité. The boisterous mob surrounded the hapless Crumps. When Nichols attempted to explain that they were just visiting and had no political preferences, the peasants shouted them down and held them until members of the Paris Militia came and dragged the three away. They were accused of being anti-revolutionary. When it was revealed that the Crumps were foreigners, their fate was sealed. The militia escorted them to the hotel d’ville where a paranoid member of the Jacobin Committee of Public Safety charged them with crimes against the revolution, being monarchist sympathizers and spies for the English. It all happened so fast the Crumps thought it was just another exciting part of the tour. The crestfallen and worried look on Professor Nichols’ face quickly dispelled that notion.
“What’s wrong Professor,” asked Myrna, “you don’t look well.”
Nichols, lamenting the confiscation of his emergency retrieval device by the militia was quite beside himself. The prison guards ignored his demands for the device’s return considering it further proof of his monarchist sympathies. All he could say to the bewildered Crumps was, ”Be brave my friends.” Then he put his head in his hands and wept.
An hour later, the militia dragged all three to the guillotine where they were quickly and painlessly dispatched. It was a lot more local color than they bargained for.

When the Crumps and Professor Nichols failed to return, Lorna Trabish and the folks at Temporal Travel were forced to investigate. Theodore Wienstock, the agency’s portly owner, went back in time to look for them. He suspected that his clients may have been caught up in France’s revolutionary fervor. And so, dressed as a French peasant, he materialized in the same Paris park at roughly the same time as the Crumps. After a quick look around, he spotted them across the lawn. They were the only beautifully dressed people in sight. They were too far away to call so he hurried in their direction. He saw them turn toward the exit so he picked up his pace.
He ended up running and shouting in French for them to stop. “Allez, Allez,” he called but he watched them board a fancy cab and disappear down the street. He tried to run after them but was soon out of breath and forced to stop. When he tried to flag down a passing cab, the driver refused to stop. The next time Mr. Wienstock saw them, their heads were on display in the public square with a sign declaring them enemies of the revolution. There was nothing he could do but return to his own time and begin filling out the paperwork.

Harris Tobias was raised by robots disguised as New Yorkers. Despite an awkward childhood he learned to read and write. To date Mr. Tobias has published two detective novels, The Greer Agency and A Felony of Birds, to critical acclaim. In addition he has published short stories in Down in the Dirt Magazine, Literal Translations, Electric Flash and Ray Gun Revival. He currently lives and writes in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Guest Writer: Fiona Marion

2011-03-02T00:00:00.002-06:00

Norma

“What are you doing today?” asks the barista to the female customer with darting eyes and dirty collar with her buck lip hovering over her cappuccino.
“Oh, I'm going to my weekly appointment with the psychiatrist,” the nervous lady yells in response through the chatter of the loud and crowded coffee shop.
There is a puddle of silence encircling the woman who made the statement. An elderly woman with glasses and today's paper sitting at the counter looks towards the nervous lady and belts out a laugh of shock. The nervous lady, with eye contact, asks, “What's the problem?”
“Well, it's weird, what you just said about the psychiatrist. Generally people keep that kind of information to themselves.”
The nervous lady smiles so that her clenched teeth show like a window below a lifting venetian blind. She looks down into her soy latte foam and then mumbles, “Maybe that's why I got fired from my job.”
Last week, the nervous lady, who we will call Norma so as not to disclose her identity, was employed at a downtown establishment as a 9 to 5 office helper for a day short of a month. But now it is 9:24 on Monday morning, and she is not late for anything.
Norma fancied herself to be a funny person. In her attempt to provide entertainment for a somewhat sterile corporate environment, she often used her awkward appearance to her benefit by making self-derogatory remarks and embarrassing comments. She believed that she provided a subversive motif to juxtapose with the sterility of the blue-collar world. She was a performance artist of sorts.
Norma identified as nerdcore. People would feel sorry for her, she thought, because they wouldn't realize that she knew any better. She was fortunate to live with the multi-dimensionality of someone rejected by society on the outside, and someone who rejects society on the inside. She would push some boundaries, and play with the concepts of the obscene, the irreverent, and the profane, like a man balancing rocks on the beach, seeing where the equilibrium might lie between the edges of the corporate monster and the anarchist twerp.
The balance here would need to be more refined. After all, at Norma's previous job--yes, the one before the office job--she'd almost gotten in trouble for her behavior. It was a little jewelry booth in a small suburban mall. She had taken the job to become more versed in the dreary lives of the suburban mall-dweller. She planned to subvert the hell out of these assholes.
There was the time she'd told a customer to sew breasts onto his cheeks so she could kiss his boobs in public. Or the time after a sandwich lunch of mostly crumbs, that she'd blown up the paper bag and then popped it right next to a valued customer's head. Not to mention the countless times she'd danced inside the little booth, pouring tiny earring backings out of their containers onto the black velveteen counter cloth, and then telling customers that she was authentically sorry, that she'd stopped taking her medication and was going kind of crazy. And sometimes it was true. She was not always able to control her erratic, crazed impulses.
So when she took the new job at the office, she made a point of letting everyone know all the mistakes she'd made at her previous job, which hadn't gotten her fired, but in spite of providing entertainment for all involved, had caused her to toe the line just a little too close to forsaking her employment responsibilities completely.
She had insisted to these new colleagues that she would be careful now. That this was a far more professional environment and she now took certain boundaries more seriously. Her new colleagues seemed to have caught a curiosity with the side effect of mistrust which spread like a bright red, very itchy rash over them, throughout the course of her employment there. But Norma loved the way that they had started to look out the corners of their eyes at her, the ways she almost caught them mid-whisper. There was a sort of fear to it all which she adored.
Yet she wasn't entirely aware that these signs of pre-emptive alienation, would cause a rift so deep that there would never again be contact. She supposed that when she performed wild acts of eccentricity, they were taken, perhaps not in the same context she gave them. To her, these were mild and subtle forms of eccentricity, to be shared for the benefit of those around her. She loved the shock on peoples' faces when she did things such as telling the HR manager about the amazing porn movie she saw on the weekend. She had delighted in the discomfort moments after she had called a very shy man at work “booty-licious”. She had felt the life of the party when she raved on to everyone who asked about her ongoing saga of weekends of pharmaceutical fun which led to a physical and sexual prowess she had not thought herself capable of. Yet she hadn't realized that these things would be the death of her.
It was already too late when the rash of mistrust had spread across their reddened faces and made their eyes bloodshot. She was halfway through the story of a man with his testicles roped to a woman's wrist, when she realized that no one was laughing. The bloodshot eyes and red face of her supervisor only slightly preceded the torrent of anger which unleashed from her mouth as she ground her French manicured nails into the palms of her hands. Her Abercrombie & Fitch turtleneck seemed to be choking her as her tongue let loose wagging. And that was the end of that.
Hmm. What could I learn from this woman sitting next to me, she thought as she looked into the thick, ivory latte foam for answers, but the small bubbles just dissolved into the brown liquid below, half melting in helpless surrender.
Turning her head, she looked at the woman, who was still looking at Norma to finish her thought.
“Do you really think that was inappropriate?” she asked timidly.

Fiona Marion recently began writing, while living in Brazil for six months as an unemployed expat. She mostly writes about her experiences of traveling and living in Brazil, China, Korea, and Canada. She can be found at her blog: bloodpearls.blogspot.com. She will move to Germany next month, where she hopes to continue with even more travel and non-travel related storytelling.

Guest Writer: John Sheirer

2011-02-23T00:00:00.001-06:00

One Bite

Back in his college days, partly on a dare, partly from fatigue, and partly for love, Tony ate an entire jelly-filled donut in one bite.
Tony and three friends had gone to an all-night donut shop to blow off steam during final exams week. For college students, they weren't terribly rebellious considering there were about a dozen bars in the area. But who needs alcohol when there are donuts to be consumed?
They were the only customers in the place at 2:30 a.m., each of them munching on about their fourth donut. The combination of study fatigue, suddenly full stomachs, and post-sugar buzz had set in hard, so they were in danger of falling asleep right there at the table. Something had to be done to liven them up before they drove back to the dorm to continue studying.
So Tony slammed both palms on the stained formica and announced, "I can eat an entire jelly-filled donut in one bite!"
His friends jumped about six inches out of their seats, swore at him, and then started protesting.
"No one can do that!" Sarah cried.
"I say bullcrap on your donut!" Mike ranted. Mike was pre-med. He had taken a biology final the previous day and a chemistry final that morning, and he was dreading a physics final the following afternoon. His head was stuffed with science, and he moved between anger and frustration, shouts and tears, more than a few times that week.
"If you can do it," Susan said with a smile, "I just might marry you."
"Why?" Sarah asked.
"Think about it," Susan replied.
"Oh," Sarah said.
Mike tried for a few seconds, but his brain didn't have room to work out what they meant. Tony himself had only a slight inkling, but that inkling certainly made him look at Susan in a new way.
Sarah smiled at Tony and pushed a blueberry-filled pastry toward him. Blueberry was his favorite. It was the last one left on the table.
"I've been saving this one," she said. "If you can eat it in one bite, I won't marry you, but I'll give you a dollar."
"Me too!" Mike and Sarah chimed. Three dollars--this was getting interesting. Tony was a poor college student who saw actual paper money about twice a month. Three whole dollars qualified as an academic scholarship.
The donut was about four inches in diameter and two inches thick. Powdered sugar covered the surface, and blueberry jelly oozed from a dime-sized navel on one side. The thing looked pretty darned big as Tony examined it. Under normal circumstances, he would have needed maybe seven or eight good bites to get it down. But then he'd probably think, "Wow, that was so small. How about another?"
He picked it up. It seemed to weigh a pound because, Tony assumed, jelly is heavy stuff. Three pairs of measuring eyes darted back and forth from his mouth to the donut. Tony turned the navel toward his mouth to prevent spillage and brought it to his lips.
On the first push, a third of the donut easily entered his mouth, but then he encountered resistance. Tony had to shove first the left side and then the right side to keep it advancing beyond the corners of his mouth.
This trundle method worked fine until the donut encountered his epiglottis, the little flap of flesh at the back of the throat. Tony started to gag. He mustered all his self-control to keep from yanking the thing out of his mouth. At this point, the first tear plopped out of his eye and trickled down his cheek.
Tony kept pushing
The donut crammed up against the back of his throat and started expanding upward into his pallet and downward under his tongue. By then, it had lost most of its structural integrity, becoming nothing more than a fused blob of pastry and jelly conforming to the inside of his mouth.
The tears began to flow freely now, and some sort of liquid threatened to spill from his nose as well. Tony sniffled as forcefully as he could, snorting up a big dose of powdered sugar in the process. Every force in his body urged him to expel the thing from his mouth.
But Tony kept pushing.
A few more tucks at each corner, and the donut was inside. He clasped his teeth together and sealed his lips.
"Jebus," Mike gasped.
"He did it," Sarah said.
"Not yet," Susan cut in. "I won't marry him unless he swallows."
The three of them began chanting, "swallow, swallow, swallow." They began in a whisper, then built to a low moan. "Swallow, swallow, swallow."
For human beings, chewing usually precedes swallowing. So Tony parted his teeth and closed them again, then repeated the movement a few times, being careful not to open his lips--not out of politeness, but to keep donut paste from spraying across the room.
Normally, the tongue is used to roll the food around the mouth so that it gets ground up by the teeth. But this takes lots of open space, something Tony had none of in his mouth, filled as it was with donut. His chewing efforts managed only to mush up the small fraction of pastry directly between his molars.
In short, the whole mess was stuck in Tony's mouth with no real way for him to chew it. In fact, it was actually expanding as it soaked up his saliva at an alarming rate. To keep his cheeks from bursting open, he had to do something fast.
"Swallow, swallow, swallow," they chanted.
Tony's gag reflex came to his rescue. As he involuntarily tightened the back of his throat, he could feel those muscles smashing a small portion of the donut back there. In desperation, he clamped down harder and found he could actually "chew" with his throat muscles.
After a few more contractions, the donut was soft enough to get some down. Tony swallowed a small portion, freeing up enough mouth space to guide more donut to the back of his throat where he muscle-chewed and swallowed a bit more.
"Swallow, swallow, swallow.
Tony then discovered that he had freed up just enough room to do a little traditional teeth chewing. This was tough going, but it began to work. Bit by bit, he managed to swallow more and more of the donut until the task didn't seem quite so impossible.
"Oh my God," Sarah muttered, breaking the chant. "I think he's going to do it."
It took another full minute, but Tony was able to get the rest of the thing swallowed. His throat burned. His face was streaked with tears. Sometime during the process, he had lost control of his nose. The results were not pretty.
Susan grabbed a handful of napkins and mopped Tony's face. "That was amazing!" she said, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek. When she pulled away, he saw tiny flecks of powdered sugar on her lips. He'd never really looked at Susan's lips before, but he was having trouble looking anywhere else at that moment. Her tongue slipped out to lick the sugar from her lower lip, the fuller of the two.
"I don't believe it," Mike said. "Make him open his mouth."
Susan gently grasped Tony's jaw and opened his mouth to display its lack of donut.
"Ugh," Sarah moaned. Apparently, there was still some donut residue in there. Tony took a swig of hot chocolate (now cold), rinsed it around his mouth, swallowed, and opened again.
"I'll be goose downed," Mike gasped.
"He did it!" Sarah cried.
The three of them broke into applause, nearly awakening the high school kid snoozing through his late-night shift behind the counter.
Susan gathered up the three one-dollar bills from the table and tucked them into her shirt pocket.
"I'll just hold onto these," she said. "My abnormal psych final is over at noon tomorrow. If you meet me at the student union, I'll buy you an ice cream cone." She winked at Tony. "I'm dying to see what you can do with that."
###

John Sheirer lives in Northampton, MA, and teaches at Asnuntuck Community College in Enfield, CT. His most recent book is the memoir Loop Year: 365 Days on the Trail, winner of the Connecticut Green Circle Award. Forthcoming in 2011 are a collection of flash fiction (One Bite) and a creative writing guidebook What's the Story?. He can be found here: www.johnsheirer.com

Guest Writer: T.R. Healy

2011-02-16T00:00:00.002-06:00

Catch of the Day

Hunched over his handlebars, the chin strap of his helmet fastened as tightly as he could get it, Lanier hurtled along the wood chip path that wound through Powder Springs Park. Every couple of weeks, early Sunday morning, he rode his mountain bike on the bumpy trail. Sometimes he was joined by friends from work but usually he rode by himself, which he preferred because then he could go as fast as he liked and take more chances.
"You're delirious, Dennis," one of his friends remarked after riding with him one morning. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were possessed."
About a quarter of the way down the path, careening around a sharp turn, his back tire caught a tree root and he spilled off the bike and plunged into a hawthorn shrub. Its sharp points stung his hands and scratched the sleeves of his windbreaker.
"Damn it," he groaned, futilely trying to rub the sting from his hands. "Goddamn it."
He squeezed his eyes shut, as if hoping he had only imagined the crash, then opened them and saw his bike sprawled against a cedar tree. Slowly he got back on his feet and limped over to it, and as he did he noticed something lying behind the bike in the bushes. Still a little groggy from his spill, he thought for an instant it was a hand but then realized it was a baseball glove---a large one with a thumb the size of a cucumber. He picked it up and slipped his hand inside it, sure he could fit a couple of his fingers into one of its fingers it was so large. It was a pretty old glove, the pocket was very thin and a couple of loose threads hung from the web, so he assumed the owner wanted to get rid of it. He was not surprised. Lots of things were scattered along sections of the path that were adjacent to the lone road in the park. Still, the Rawlings glove appeared to have a few more catches left in it and he slipped it off and looked for some identification. And there under the strap, the same place where he used to put his name and address on his gloves as a youngster, he found the name Krumholz printed in black ink. There was no address or telephone number, however, so it was unlikely he could return it to the owner and started to toss it back in the bushes then hesitated.
Maybe some kid in his neighborhood might like it, he thought, strapping the glove over his handlebars, and if not, maybe he could locate the owner who might regret having got rid of it.

The three kids Lanier offered the glove to weren't interested because soccer was their game, not baseball, so he set it aside on a shelf in the kitchen. There it remained for nearly a week, collecting dust and the occasional paper clip, until one evening he decided to see if he could find its owner. Eighteen Krumholzes were listed in the telephone directory, three times the number he expected, but he was determined now to find out whose glove it was and proceeded to call one name after the other.
The sixth person he called was ecstatic when he told him he found a Rawlings glove with his name on it. Indeed, before he had a chance to ask, the guy described it in considerable detail, including some of its imperfections, to prove that it was definitely his glove.
"Someone swiped it last Saturday when I was at the park," he explained. "It was in my backpack, which I'd put under a bench for a couple of minutes while I helped some woman look for her dog. When I returned, it was not there."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"I had a lot of valuable things in my pack, including my wallet and car keys, but what I missed most was my glove."
Lanier was surprised by the admission. "Is that so?"
"It belonged to my father, you see, and is one of the few personal items of his I have."
"Oh."
"And I was sure I'd never see it again."
"Well, then, I'd like to get it back in your hands as soon as possible," he said. "So is there some place where we can meet?"
Krumholz thought for a moment. "What about the park?"
"Sure, that'd be fine."
"Say, at noon, this Saturday."
"I'll be there."
"I'll see you then, sir, and again thank you for calling. You don't know what a relief it is to know that I haven't lost my father's glove, after all."

After dinner, Lanier took the scuffed glove from the shelf where he put it shortly after he brought it home and set it on the drainboard beside a bowl of hot soapy water. Then he picked up a sponge floating in the bowl, squeezed the water out, and slowly wiped it across the sweat-stained heel of the glove. Then across each finger and all around the web, determined to scour away every bit of dirt and grime. He wanted the glove to be as clean as possible, not the filthy rag it was when he found it in the bushes, figured that would show that he understood how much it meant to its owner. After he was through, he hung it on the clothesline on the back porch.
He never really had a father, not someone he knew anyway because his father left his mother when he was an infant. One of her brothers sometimes came by with his glove and they would play catch together but that only happened a couple of times in the summer. For as long as he could remember, he wished he had a father like Krumholz's who played catch with him all the time, someone who would pass his glove on to him one day.

He agreed to meet Krumholz at the east end of the Fly-Casting Pool, which was located almost in the middle of the park. He arrived a few minutes before twelve, not wanting to be late, and, according to the description Krumholz gave him on the phone, looked for a bearded man wearing a faded Dodger cap. Soon after he got there, he thought he spotted him, jogging from the direction of the tennis courts, but then realized the guy was wearing a Cubs cap so he continued to scan the park.
Some twenty minutes passed, and still there was no sign of the guy, so he was about ready to return to his car when he saw a Dodger cap bobbing above a swarm of children at the west end of the pool. At once, he held the glove above his head and waved it back and forth until the guy saw it and headed toward him.
"Lanier?"
"That's right," he said, handing him the glove. "And you must be Krumholz?"
The bearded man nodded. "First of all, I want to apologize for being late. My damn car wouldn't start and I had to wait for someone to charge the battery."
"No problem. There's probably not a better place to be than in a park on a day as warm as today."
"I can't disagree with that," he said, slipping on the glove and pounding his right fist into the pocket a couple of times.
A fisherman strolled by them, a scarlet rod poised on his left shoulder.
Again, he pounded his fist into the glove. "I never thought I'd ever see this again so I can't tell you how grateful I am to you."
"I'm glad I was able to return it to you."
"You know, I'd like to give you something for your trouble."
"Thanks, really, but that's not necessary."
"Are you sure?"
He nodded, jangling the change in his pocket.
"Most of the kids who come to the park couldn't be nicer but there are always a few who are troublemakers and I suspect they are the ones who stole my backpack."
"But you don't know for certain who took it?"
"No, but I've got a pretty good hunch," he said, tucking the glove under his arm.
"Well, maybe you should stay away from the park for a while."
"What?" he snapped, his green eyes flaring in anger.
"I mean, just until whoever took your glove is found and arrested."
"No one can keep me out of the park," he said defiantly. "Some people might think they can but they can't."
Lanier, startled by his sudden flash of temper, wished now he had kept his opinion to himself.
"I don't have any children of my own, you see, so I often come here with my glove and invite boys to play catch with me," he explained, almost in a whisper. "Maybe there are some people who don't like to see a grown man tossing a baseball with their kids but I don't mean any harm."
Lanier felt a little uncomfortable as he listened to Krumholz insist that he was not a threat to anyone. Not ever, not at anytime.
"You believe that, don't you?"
He glanced across the casting pool, not sure what to say.
"You do, don't you?"
Nodding weakly, he wondered now if some father stole his glove to keep him away from his child, wondered too if he was right in returning it to him.
In another minute, the guy spotted "one of his boys," as he called them, and thanked Lanier again and went over to ask the boy to play catch while Lanier walked away in confusion.

T.R. Healy was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, and his stories have appeared in such publications as Freight Train, Milk and Sugar, Rusty Truck, and Stymie.

Guest Poet: Bill Lapham

2011-02-14T00:02:00.001-06:00

Steady

For Darlene

I know you know
There's an icy harbor
In my heart for
Hallmark days.
But it melts when
I think of you.
Why do we get
Jostled like we do,
Find ways always
To remain steady
Through it all, and
Kiss at the end
Of the day, still
In love?

Bill Lapham is a retired submarine Chief of the Boat and a recent graduate of the MLS program at U of M-Flint. He and Darlene live in Brighton, MI.

Guest Poet: Sandra Davies

2011-02-14T00:01:00.001-06:00

A Stone for Effie

I know why
And could, therefore,
work out roughly when
but I cannot remember
where I collected this stone.

Seventy percent grey
(ninety when wet)
it was the heartbreaking
near-white markings
which spoke to me.

The qualities of line, stuttering,
the shapes, a trio converging
and circles not round but complete at last,
which echoed the one year wed,
three years awaited,
coming together,
in full hope of happy ever after.

I sought to duplicate the emotion,
to evoke by etching,
to commemorate the sad tragedy
of the fitting but unfitting death
in premature childbirth.
evidenced by the headstone
between two pines at Ymir.

Sandra Davies is an artist and printmaker and recently-emerged writer of fiction, with a long-established interest in family history. Born on the Essex coast, she now lives in Teesside in the north east of England, both places having the flat landscapes and sea-edged horizons considered essential for a sense of well-being.

Guest Poet: Ed Dean

2011-02-14T00:00:00.001-06:00

The Dark Side of 14

One earth, one sky, one golden moon.
Thousands of separated hearts yearn across vast oceans.
Two nations, two armies, two leaders, one contested piece of land.
Many dreams, many wounds, many pieces of putrefying flesh.
Ancient soil drinks the blood of all unselfishly.
Prayers go unanswered to a contested god who is woefully silent.
There are no winners, only losers in death.
Tears run just as salty on all faces of next of kin.
Politicians and leaders exhort with the same rhetoric.
One story as old as civilization...
If you must call it that.

Vegas

It’s tax season and there is a reason, just outside of town, to be devious.
It’s not that I cheat but only to bleat with the innocence of a forlorn lamb.
There are so many gray areas in three hundred and sixty five
that offer comfort reductions and deductions, so why dismiss them?
But when the IRS wants to know why I slip about that trip I took as a write off,
I deflect their scorn and simply morn that it was a ‘learning experience’
But they vociferously refute and angrily dispute that that Vegas is not a University.
And then I try to tell them why it’s an education of the first magnitude.
My damned income was dependent on a ‘seven or eleven’ and snake eyes was a learning experience.
He smiled with his own beady ‘serpentine eyes’ and said;
“It truly is sad but it’s just too bad; just fess’ up and give us the money!”
I objected once more that the lady wasn’t a whore and it fell well within therapeutic medical expenses.
His last wry expression and telling lesson was; “We know you played and certainly got laid,
So before this gets contested and you’ll certainly be bested; just give us the frigging money!”
I sadly had to relent because I know I spent much more than was allowed.
But all was not lost because the bridge they never crossed was ‘research and development’! :)
The advertising pliers are all such liars to make us believe;
“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!”

Edward Dean grew up in Dearborn and Highland Park, Michigan until being drafted into the army and subsequently into the N.S.A. Having been in sales and marketing most of his life, Mr. Dean is now semi-retired and spends much of his time writing. His own experiences in the military, traveling throughout the U.S. and Europe, and as a wine enthusiast provided much of the background to his book. Mr. Dean has three books in the works, including a sequel to The Wine Thief.

Guest Poet: Karyn Eisler

2011-02-13T12:00:00.003-06:00

Kiddie Cocktail

Another dinner 'nother drink
from corner view of all who eat
together without her and
for her solitude she bows her
head in:

a) grief.
b) gratitude.
c) a Shirley Temple.
d) Mac 'n Cheese.

all inKlusive

flirtation games at
dinner leave her shy at
breakfast so

she drops her head
stares at her plate of
pancakes eggs
and sausage 'cause

she knows he'll offer
liquid, but
she doesn't want to
meet his smile yet

when he comes
in his own tongue
she says,

brow cocked, "Hello"

and asks:

"Beszélsz angolul?"

[Trans. from Hungarian:
"Do you speak English?"]

Karyn Eisler's poetry has recently appeared in unFold, Leaf Press, and BluePrintReview. She is a born and bred Canadian who lives in Vancouver, B.C. Visit her at www.karyneisler.com. For links to her work, go here.