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HUMDINGER LITERARY E-ZINE: All kinds of writing for all kinds of readers.
IN ARCHIVING PROCESS. THE MOST EFFECTIVE WAY TO MANAGE THIS PAGE NOW IS TO SCROLL DOWN THE SIDE.
Unforgettable Fiction and Poetry @www.humdingerzine.com, P & E Readers' Poll 2006 TOP 10: Poetry E-zine, Literary E-zine, E-zine Editor
Editor-in-Chief: Chris Goebel/ Editor: Lorena Smith/ Editorial Assistant: Chronika McDowell/Contest Judge: Tim Bruderek
Volume One, Issue Eight May 2006 Bookmark this page as a favorite; visit monthly.
MAINSTREAM FICTION, COMIC FICTION, TALL TALE CONTEST FINALIST,xanadu's gate writing poetry contest, BETTER THAN POTTER CHILDREN’S FANTASY FICTION CONTEST FINALIST, POETRY, , SCIENCE FICTION, HORROR, and FANTASY.
MAINSTREAM FICTION
Strange fruit, part two By Lorena Smith
The Parable of Ramón By Ricky Ginsburg – March 2006
Inspired by the song of the same title by Richie Havens
A Terrible Night in the Armpit of America By Ben Bostick
Elspeth's Trick By Jerry Watson
COMIC FICTION
Laundromat By Carmen Diode
No more fleas for Connie By Antherton Grant
TALL, TALL TALE CONTEST
An Old Man Story
By Dan Sullivan
INTERNET DATE
By Carmen Diode
TALL TALE
By Scott M. Sparling
He Married a Yeti
By Lloyd Hudson Frye
“Yo-de-ley-e-he!”
By J.B. Pravda
OLD DOG RUMBLE
By Robert Rives
XANADU'S GATE WRITING CONTEST FINALIST
Springwine: The Absinthe Season
By Kalae S. Anthony
Forced Retirement
By Anne Cahalan
Gotas–De–Lluvia (Raindrops)
By Robert Prives
MagicWorks--where the magic is real
By Chrissie Sparling
HUNYA
By JB Pravda
Planet X and theInvasion of the Shadow People
By Scott M. Starling
HORROR
NIGHTSTALKER: IN THE CREEPING DARKNES By Chris Goebel
Present Tension By Tanya Cillia
Sir Rodney's Adventures By Thomas E. Jordan
SHAKESPEREAN FICTION
What a soul is by Heather cook Lindsay
Leaf by Heather cook Lindsay
Collection of Poems By F.I. Goldhaber
Collection of Poems By Brennan Fitzgerald
NONE THIS MONTH
I was standing at the Lake House bookstore looking at a book
about a little girl skipping rope when the bomb went off.
Strange fruit, part two
By Lorena Smith
Have you ever smelled burning human flesh? It’s a sickly sweet smell that sits in your nostrils and mouth and throat like compact concrete and stops you from swallowing or breathing or thinking. Like oil dripping on barbeque coals. Like the body being burnt is trying to hang on to life by burrowing into your eyelashes or tongue or pores. It suffocates you.
I was standing at the Lake House bookstore looking at a book about a little girl skipping rope when the bomb went off. It was a yellow book and I was staring at the picture of the blonde little girl. Not many blondes in Sri Lanka. She looked so happy skipping rope in her yellow book.
All the books fell off the shelves around me and the windows shattered. The place was quiet and hushed before and everything froze for a second as people browsing in the afternoon heat stopped and tried to understand what had happened.
The bus depot.
Everyone started moving toward the bus depot so I went too.
I remember the owner of the bookstore stopped and locked the door. Even though all the windows were shattered. He locked the door.
I walked alone. Even from that distance, I could already smell the smell. Seeping into my clothes, into my eyebrows. And the closer we got, the louder the noise. First a hum, a wail, a scream.
Buses careened past us, driving the wounded to the hospitals. The sides were streaked crimson with blood. When I got closer, I saw the blood was from mothers who were shoving their wounded children in through the windows of the already moving buses so they’d get help sooner.
The children bled down the sides of the buses.
I followed the people into the central bus depot. They rushed here and there to where they thought people they knew might have been standing. Someone next to me screamed “nangi, nangi”… over and over and over. A shriek that made me want to cover my ears.
Nangi means little sister.
I saw a man who was helping dig people out from underneath the rubble bend down to help a little girl. Her eyes were closed. She had a red barrette in her hair in the shape of a flower. He and I saw at the same time that it was just her head picked from her body and deposited at our feet like a fruit. He turned around and vomited but I had this smell filling my throat and I couldn’t.
So I sat at the head and read it the yellow story book about the little girl skipping rope until her mother found her. She wrapped the head in the fall of her sari and walked away with it cradled like a baby.
Then I got up and walked home.
I found the book some years later when I was packing to leave the country. I never even paid for it.
It still smelled funny so I threw it away.
But the smell stayed on my hands for a long time.
© Copyright, Lorena Smith
The Parable of Ramón
Ricky Ginsburg – March 2006
Inspired by the song of the same title by Richie Havens
The sun baked his brains from the moment the cool sandy soil turned into an enormous hotplate, until the soft tempering rays of the rising moon extinguished the blaze. Ramón worked his small portion of Mexican farmland with the same homemade plow his father and grandfather had followed. The mule which pulled the plow shared the same bloodline as the ass and mare belonging to his grandfather. Little changed in a land where time was measured in seasons and survival belonged not to the most fit, but the most willing to survive. Ramón was only thirty-two but to look at his face you would give him an extra thirty years just to be on the safe side. His hands, cracked and hardened with the texture of the soil he plowed, had lost any chance to give a woman a tender caress before his twentieth birthday.
His life was all about the future, not years or months away but only tomorrow. To survive the day meant he would see the morning sun rise again. His labor would never be in vain, his crop would bring him the small sum of money he needed for a Sunday dinner of fish or chicken or - if he was lucky to sell enough - a piece of freshly butchered steak. Ramón slept in a hut constructed from the clay of this land and the scraps of the harvest at the western edge of his field. The one room shack was a place to go when the rains came rumbling across the plains on a summer afternoon, his refuge from the heat of the midday sun for a cup of lukewarm water and piece of stale tortilla. The hut was small but it was his and his alone.
Ramón worked his fields every day of the week except on the Lord’s Day, Sunday; a day meant for a short drive down a dusty road in his mule powered cart to the faded white church to offer thanks with other farmers. He had no special clothes for Sunday but he did keep a clean straw hat he wore only one day a week. He prayed with the passion of all the saints in heaven for rain, for an abundant harvest, and for the health of his mule. The farmers spent less than an hour in worship before they continued on to the town square to sell their weekly harvest for either barter or small change.
The four corners of the town square were filled with taverns where, once the day’s trading had completed, the farmers could wash the dust out of their throats with warm cerveza and hot salsa. Some had comfortable chairs allowing the men time to reflect on their toils and discuss matters of great import. Others had simple jean-worn mesquite stools to convince the tourists to drink and move on. The taverns also attracted the local flock of young women, each looking for an afternoon’s pleasure. The unmarried and recently widowed farmers, some much younger than Ramón, but more many years his senior, accommodated them willingly. They would ask for forgiveness next Sunday.
They were men of all ages, teenagers who had never heard the word ‘prom’ and old ones with crooked, creaking backs singing in unison with the rusty door hinges of every tavern they entered. They worked to survive, manual labor pleasing to a gatekeeper in hell. They worked to bring food to hungry families which never stopped growing. And they worked to have the have the right to drink with their friends on Sunday in a bar. They drank warm beer, but it was cheap and often free as the bartenders matched glasses and shots of tequila with their regular customers. Ramón had a stool with soft red leather which molded into his jeans and offered nothing but comfort as the hours slid by and the liquor loosened his soul. The men talked about their sons and how they would be there to run their farms when they could no longer bring themselves to leave the tavern. Most wanted to be buried under the dusty dirt floor so those left behind could pour a shot on them once and while. Ramón would be happy to not die in the field and spend his days being dragged in ever widening circles by the old mule who would never find the tavern on his own. The older men shook their heads in agreement, the teenagers laughed.
The men bought the women as easily as they purchased bottles of tequila; both were there for pleasure and neither ever came home with them. Some of the older women, battered by the dry winds and rough handling, would take a bottle in payment; the younger ones, accumulating a dowry they would never spend outside of this one-light town, wanted nothing but cash. Of course, the wealthy touristas who crossed the border legally unknowingly left behind wristwatches and jewelry which were bartered alongside rice and corn in the local market; it was the women’s crop and it paid their bills when the farmers drank themselves unconscious.
Serene was not the most beautiful of these local girls. Her face had also hardened with the dry western breezes and her skin had bronzed under the same sun pulling the growing corn toward the sky. She had a tender touch and a voice convincing enough to lead an angel to sin. She awoke each morning with an almost constant desire for the feel of a strong man inside her. Serene had bedded all of the younger farmers many times; she had no need for the older men with nothing but memories to offer. Ramón was no stranger to her bed.
“Ramón, will you buy your girlfriend a glass of wine on this hot Sunday afternoon,” she purred in his ear. “Just seeing you here makes my nipples grow hard.”
“And what will you give me in return that I have not already had?” asked Ramón.
“I have clean sheets and bottle of Tequila waiting for us upstairs,” she offered.
“The same sheets Paco screwed you on last week? The same bottle of watered down Tequila you’ve been pouring favors from this month? What do you have to offer I can’t get from someone much prettier and younger than you?”
Serene wrapped her slender, bronzed arms, jangling with silver and turquoise bracelets, around his shoulders and nibbled on the closest earlobe, pleased he had the good sense to bathe at least once a week. Ramón had much to offer, much that she was willing to take.
“I can offer you a future, a child, a boy child who will till your fields and sell your corn when you are too old to push your wooden plow another day. I am ready to have a child, Ramón, your child, your son. I am ready to leave the town square and share your bed in the fields.”
“Why Ramón? Out of the dozens of farmers, some younger, some richer than me, you have chosen Ramón to father your child. Tell me why, Serene.”
“Because you are a good man. You work hard, harder than many of the other farmers. You have a large field, larger than most of the farms in this district. And you are the best of my lovers – no one can please me in the same way as you. With the other men it’s over before I am even ready. They throw me on the bed, tear off my clothes and plunge their erections in me deep and fast, too fast for me to get any enjoyment. But you have always been tender. You wait for me to climax before you are finished. None of the others has any patience. You are a good man and you deserve a boy child to carry on your family name.”
Ramón was stunned; no other woman had ever spoken these words to him. Both he and Serene were orphans. She was offering the one thing he needed to see his name and his farm survive, a boy, his boy; it was a future running so far ahead of him, he was breathless from trying to catch the idea. The thought of a son to take on his farm when he was no longer able to force the old mule down the cornrows was enticing to him. And then, to hear her speak about his sexual prowess and compare him to all the others in such words; he was aroused. He had never talked about sex with anyone, man or woman, so he had assumed everyone did it the same way. To hear her sing his praises in this passionate way made him blush, but it also brought an immediate swelling in his jeans.
“You sing an angel’s song, Serene, but your truth is covered in cobwebs. How can you promise a boy? Do you have one hiding in your closet ready to pop out and call me ‘father’? Have you stolen a baby from some drunken tourist who sweated on your sheets while his wife bargained in the market for straw hats and painted skirts?” Ramón laughed at her as he loosened his belt.
===
The birth of their daughter was a day mixed with frustration and fear for Ramón. Serene had promised a boy. What was he to do with a girl child? There was food for the two of them now, but a mother’s breast would only last the child for a few short years. Who would work the farm when he had given all his strength to the fields? He would have to work harder and do his best to increase his crop or they would all starve. He looked at all the blue blankets in the hospital nursery and spat into a trash can. “She promised me a boy. What have I done?”
He prayed on Sunday to his God for a large crop. He begged for rain. He even asked for his neighbor’s crops to wither so he could sell more and at higher prices. The taverns were out of the question now. There was no time for cerveza, no afternoons with dark-haired local girls and watered down tequila.
Ramón got up long before sunrise and planted corn by the feeble glow of the full moon. He worked late into the night pushing the tired old mule beyond the point of exhaustion. And when he finally collapsed on the creaky iron bed, he had no energy left for his wife. His lovemaking had come to an end; all he had left was survival.
Each day the sun would bake him into a dry shell. His midday break would be in the field with the scorching wind blowing dust into his face as he sipped some warm water and ate the crumbs of a tortilla. In his hut, Serene and the baby girl rested in the cool shade and watched Ramón as he turned the miserable soil. He would see them through the doorway as the mule pulled to the west and the cornrows came closer to the edge of the field. He cursed his life and wondered how they would all survive another season.
At night the baby cried and stole the sleep Ramón needed to gather strength for the following day. When the sun burned the sweat from his back and the buzzards circled, waiting for the mule to drop, there was no water for his thirst, Serene used it to wash the dust his plow kicked into the air from the baby’s face. He could not plow a dozen rows without running to the well and filling her bottle. It was too hot for Serene to carry the infant across the courtyard and back. Ramón’s field was not going to get plowed in time for the next planting. He worked one Sunday, but by noon he was in the red leather bar stool trying to keep pace with the bartender.
His resentment towards the baby girl had been kept deep inside him for several months but, with the necessity of a whale, it had to eventually surface. “She promised me a boy, someone to work the fields with me, to carry on my name. What has she done but given the world another whore for the farmers’ enjoyment on Sunday afternoon. What good is this child? She eats our food, drinks our water, and offers no future to either of us.” He would not speak these words aloud and even resisted the temptation to reveal these thoughts in the tavern. Part of Ramón knew they were evil thoughts but the farmer who lived in his skin sought only survival. “There is not going to be enough for all of us to eat in another year. A boy child could at least fend for himself. A baby girl is of no use on my farm or in my life. She has to go.”
He sat on a large rock and sliced crosses in a thick piece of cornstalk and watched tumbleweed dance in the night’s breeze. A lizard crossed in front of him and Ramón swung his machete slicing off a foot of the animal’s tail. “Bitch,” he spit at the stump as the creature ran off into the safety of the darkened field. He finished his second bottle of tequila and passed out just as a clap of thunder shook the dust from the walls of his darkened shack.
===
The rains came and the corn grew tall and the time to harvest had come at last. Serene tied the child into a harness on her back and followed Ramón into the field. He would slice the corn from the stalk with his machete and she would pick up the fallen ears and put them in a large burlap sack she dragged along the row. There were no words between them.
Ramón moved at a furious pace, hacking and cutting, dropping ears of corn two at a time. He would turn and watch as Serene picked them up and tossed them into the burlap sack trying to match his pace, failing, and falling behind. Twice he bellowed at her to catch up as he stood slapping the blade against his thigh. He sipped from the leather pouch hanging from his shoulder which no longer carried water as he turned away from her furious gaze.
They reached the end of a row and the baby became restless and started to cry. “We have to stop for a few moments while I nurse the child,” Serene commanded, dropping the sack to the ground and unhitching the harness.
“We’ve only done two rows out of thirty. Can’t you leave your annoying baby in the shade somewhere while we work? Does such a mournful child have to be with us all the time?” complained Ramón. “She needs to learn to live like the whore she will one day become.”
“She is your child. How can you speak such words?”
“No, she is your child. My child would have been a boy and some day a man. You have borne a whore, a useless bitch with no future ahead of her except on her back,” screamed Ramón, “I did not ask for this child. This is God punishing me for some unknown sin. Maybe this is God punishing you for your years of whoring and lying. This child does not deserve to live under my roof or eat my food!” He tilted the pouch and let the warm tequila take charge of his thoughts. “You fooled me; you took my will with your lies and liquor. You had no way to give me a boy and you hoped that at my age you could watch me work myself into a grave. You wanted my land, my farm, my crops, and the only way you could get them was on your back. You will always be a whore, Serene. But neither of you are going to watch me fail.”
Ramón was striding towards her as he shouted these venomous epithets at both wife and baby. Sweat formed a swift flowing river down his arms and back as the burning glow of the midday sun cooked what was left of his senses. The machete in his right hand was swinging back and forth, its blackened blade dripping with the sap from the corn stalks. His eyes were wild, steely blue marbles reflecting no light. Serene shrunk away from his approach. There were wild animals that gave her less fear than the sight of Ramón swinging his hideous machete.
“Ramón what are you doing? Have you gone mad?”
“No Serene, I must survive and for me to survive your child must die. You swore to give me a son and you have lied. The child must pay for your sin.” He stepped closer and swung the machete in a wide arc slashing the corn stumps and spraying the milky white sap across the row.
Serene tried to move back out of the way, but stumbled on the burlap sack behind her. As she fell to her side, Ramón jumped and swung the machete in midair at the child’s head. Serene pulled the child out of the path of the knife as he hit the ground. Ramón’s left foot came down on a slippery ear of corn and his leg shot out from under him. As he went down, the machete flew from his hand and spiraled up into the air. Ramón lost sight of the blade in the blinding sun for a moment. He saw the glint of the sun off the razor sharp edge of the machete slice across his neck and then nothing more as he fell to the hard packed soil on which he died.
Serene sat in the cornfield sobbing until the sky blackened and cracked with spears of lightning. She hitched the mule to Ramón’s wooden cart and took her baby back to the red leather stool and the friendly bartender. She was going to need someone else to plow her fields.
© Copyright, Ricky Ginsburg
The night attendant at the hotel, a pear shaped, forty-something clean-shaven bald man with tiny black eyes and no visible eyebrows, was perched on top of a big, sturdy lobby chair on all fours with his nose smashed flat against the window, apparently barking, though I couldn’t hear him with the radio on….
A Terrible Night in the Armpit of America
By Ben Bostick
Route 66 is no longer the main vehicular corridor between Chicago and Los Angeles. Once called the “Main Street of America,” it’s no longer even a road. The only glimpse the modern traveler can get of the fabled highway is the occasional snippet of original asphalt that still remains alongside I-40 in the Southwestern states, found by following the ugly brown signs that say “Historic Route 66 next exit.” At each exit so marked, the intrepid traveler will find a town that long ago came into existence precisely because of that “historic” road that now only exists within their city limits.
The bad news is that these towns have lost all their old vitality—the enterprising first-generation Route 66ers of the 1920’s have passed away and been replaced by their great grandchildren, a strange breed of white trash that has grown up in decaying towns on a doomed highway and become the menacing gas station night attendants and peculiar owners/managers of the town’s excessive amount of creepy, cut-rate motels. The buildings’ cheaply constructed futuristic-style Gernsbackian facades and square rooms with outdated color schemes have aged no more gracefully than would any neglected child denied sufficient food and the occasional bath.
The good news is that the same mythical weirdness that gives the old road its legendary status still exists on these isolated three-mile stretches of motel-and bar-studded pavement that somehow survived the mighty conquest of the American Interstate Highway system. Only, that weirdness that used to be spread out along 2,400 miles has now been compressed into superdense pockets around a relatively small number of interstate byways, prompting a giant aura of eerie uneasiness to vibrate through every mortal inch of the fabric of these towns, occasionally sending rippling omnidirectional pulses of excess fear out over the empty desert, causing coyotes to tuck their tails and run madly through the night, snapping deliriously at every passing sagebrush.
My girlfriend Maggie and I were making our first cross-country road trip: 2,200 miles from Atlanta to LA. The first 1,000 miles of the drive, through central Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and the first half of Oklahoma, was the visual equivalent of listening to a broken John Cage record: tree tree telephone pole tree tree … But the second you break free of the ugly traffic within the city limits of Oklahoma City, the trees go away, the sky opens up, and a powerful sense of desolation sets in. Something about the run down flourmills, the red dirt, and the sunken sallow faces in the broken down towns taps into a long-forgotten stash of vague terrible feelings that have been silently lurking in the bowels of your psyche, waiting to be stirred up and revived.
In the daylight, Maggie and I had long conversations about how glad we were that we didn’t have to live out our lives in these gnarled and scraggly little shitkicker towns full of beaten down bodies and slow talkers. But when the sun went down somewhere west of Amarillo, the conversation switched to how much we didn’t ever want to be anywhere around these forsaken places … not even passing through. Finally, though, at around 11:00, after some thirteen hours on the road, Maggie was asleep in the passenger seat and no longer could even the Allman Brothers blasting out of the back seat speakers keep my eyelids above my pupils. I couldn’t ignore the creeping of the flesh feeling that was telling me not to take the next exit, but my tired body took control of my mind and pulled the car onto the exit ramp to Tucumcari, New Mexico.
Between Oklahoma City and the New Mexico border, Maggie and I had already passed a hundred towns just like Tucumcari, but our experience in these towns was limited to a quick slide of the debit card and a brief handshake with the gas pump at the local fill up station. Things got a little more intimate in Tucumcari.
Tucumcari is about thirty miles due west of the Texas/New Mexico border ... about an hour from anything. As you might expect in a one-horse town somewhere between the edge of Texas and the middle of the desert, there wasn’t much activity on Main St. at 11:00 PM. Visible activity, that is.
The only light in town is provided by the few buzzing light bulbs on the signs of the dozen or so cheap hotels that line either side of the street. “FANCY DESERT MOTEL: $19.95 … MOTEL 66: $22.95 … POOL … FREE ESPN!” I couldn’t believe how cheap these rooms were. They were dumpy looking little shacks, but the nightly rate was unbelievable. But as dirt cheap as these motels were compared to the chain motels that cover the rest of America, something happened to my tired mind around the time I saw the tenth sign for a room under $23. No deal was good enough for me anymore. Even though we had spent $44 on a room in Little Rock the night before, the $22.95 motels in Tucumcari now seemed absolutely unaffordable.
I morphed into a vicious and crazed bargain hunter, in hot pursuit of the best deal in that two-bit, jerkwater whistlestop. Nothing could keep me from fetching the finest fox in all the king’s empire, and just to make sure I wasn’t getting cheated out of a buck, after I had run the main drag a few times, I explored the streets a block on each side. But when I noticed I had wasted nearly a quarter tank of gas, I realized that my bargain hunting had become counterproductive. I pulled back onto Main St. and cried “Tally ho!” as we neared the primest, rarest deal east of the Continental Divide: “The Royal Palacio: $16.95.”
Startled by my passionate fox call, Maggie awoke suddenly.
“Creepy! We’re not staying here tonight are we?” she asked as I pulled into the carport next to the Palacio’s front office.
“$16.95. Best deal in town. Probably in the whole country.” She didn’t really seem to care about my find, and I was about to give her a good, mean lecture about how I had saved her a lot of money. But then I realized that her attention was so focused on something else that she hadn’t even heard what I said.
“What is that man doing?” she asked me, looking past me into the hotel lobby.
I swung my head around to look, and what I saw made me lurch backwards in fright, causing my seatbelt to lock and dig into my side so hard it made me bleed through my white undershirt. The night attendant at the hotel, a pear shaped, forty-something clean-shaven bald man with tiny black eyes and no visible eyebrows, was perched on top of a big, sturdy lobby chair on all fours with his nose smashed flat against the window, apparently barking, though I couldn’t hear him with the radio on. When he saw me start so violently, he threw his head back in delight and howled with laughter.
If it hadn’t been the cheapest motel I had ever seen, I would have peeled out of that parking lot in nothing flat ... but I kept my wits about me and told myself that sometimes you have to make a few sacrifices to get the best deal. Interacting with this lunatic would be an interesting cultural experience.
Maggie wouldn’t go into the lobby with me, so I went to deal with the dough-faced mental defective myself. I took a deep breath to steel myself against what may come, but as soon as I opened the car door, I felt a rush of sleazy Tucumcari air pour over me, leaving a strange, scummy film on my skin and in my hair. I hesitated for a moment, but thought better of myself, for the predator can sense the fear of the prey in any unsure movement. To make sure the attendant knew I wasn’t scared of him, I puffed out my chest, swaggered up to the door, and kicked it open.
“Whoa, there, cowboy! You ain’t gotta come through here like an earthquake now,” he said to me in a high, excited voice.
I mustered my deepest growl, “Gimme a room. One bed.”
“You sure are a whole lot tougher now than you were a minute ago, cowboy. I thought youse gonna jump straight through the roof when you saw me barkin’ in here.”
“How much do I owe you?”
“You just want the room, or you want some company, too?”
“Just the room,” I said quickly, accidentally breaking back into my normal voice. What did he mean by “company”? A whore? Himself?
“Just checkin. Sometimes we get some lonesome rollers blow through here lookin for a little ‘sump more than a place to sleep.”
“Just what the hell kind establishment are you running here?” Back to my tough voice.
“Cool your jets, cowboy. We keep those rooms separate from the ragalur guest rooms. That’ll be $19.34 with tax.”
I slipped him a twenty and told him to keep the change. Thoroughly creeped out myself, I knew Maggie would pitch a fit if I told her what really transpired in that seedy office, so I went back out to the car with plans to tell Maggie the guy was “normal” to avoid any protest. But she was already fast asleep again when I got in the car.
We had room eleven, and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The color scheme was circa Eisenhower administration, but there were no conspicuous stains on the mattress pad or the walls. As long as the door and window were closed, providing a flimsy but reassuring layer of defense against the heavy rotten effluvium that composes Tucumcari’s air, and the curtains were drawn, staving off the ultraviolet rays of the raw floodlight right outside our window, our room was downright cozy ... well, tolerable is probably a better word. It was downright tolerable.
The smart thing to do in our situation would have been to lock and latch the door, watch the day’s sport’s highlights, slip underneath the covers for a refreshing six hours of silken repose, then get up, check out, and hit the dusty trail by daybreak. But I like to get a taste of every place I stop when I travel. You know, feel the place out so I have something by which to remember it. In Tucumcari I knew the only kind of pleasure I could get from mingling with the natives would be of the perverse nature, but I had seen a little 24 hour diner when I was driving around bargain hunting that didn’t look too scummy, so I decided to give it a try.
Maggie was in her pajamas practically as soon as we stepped through the door, and my efforts to talk her back into her street clothes were quickly shot down. So I hopped in the car and rolled on over to “24 on 66” all alone. Painted on the door when you walk in is the restaurant’s motto: “We do it all nite every nite!” I remember wondering what all “it” implied.
When I walked in, the waitress was smoking a cigarette.
“Anywhere you like,” she said, gesturing to all the open seats in the place.
Besides me, there were two withered looking male customers sitting on opposite ends of the building, both smoking cigarettes. I sat down somewhere in between the two, and the waitress yelled to me, “What’ll it be?”
“What do you recommend?” I always ask for the server’s recommendation. Trying to get a feel ...
“Here?” she chuckled. “Nothin.”
What pride, I thought. I ordered a cup of coffee and tried to make conversation.
“So, what do you do here for fun in Tucumcari?” I asked the waitress.
“We go somewhere else,” she replied, looking out the window.
The two regulars started to give me funny looks after I asked a few more questions, and I could tell my presence was becoming less and less appreciated. I’m not exactly sure what I was interrupting, but I decided to make myself scarce and let them get back to it.
Back at the Palacio, things seemed serene as I pulled into the parking space in front of room 11. I opened the door and fumbled around in the dark for the lamp and turned it on. I started getting undressed and then I looked over at the bed, and where the hell is Maggie? The bed was empty. I stopped dead with my jeans around my ankles, hair standing up on my neck, jaw clenched in anxiety.
“Maggie?” I whispered, shrinking. I could feel my legs turning to rubber, my muscles becoming weak, useless.
“Maggie?” I whispered a little bit louder, hoping for an answer.
“I’m in here.” I heard her whisper coming from the bathroom.
“Oh, thank God!” I exclaimed in my regular voice. “I thought you had been abducted by some redneck.”
“SSHHHH! Come here.” I kicked my jeans off and walked into the bathroom. It was dark. Maggie shut the door behind me. “What the hell took you so long? Someone has been tapping at the window.”
“What? At our window? I just went to that little diner down the street. What are you talking about? Who’s been tapping at our window?”
“I thought it was you trying to play a trick on me, but I was too scared to check. And then it kept on going.”
“It was probably the wind knocking something against the pane.”
“No! It was human. It was tapping out patterns.”
“Okay, just calm down. I’ll listen for a few minutes, and if I hear something I’ll go check on it.” I was trying to calm her down and be brave, but I could tell she was really honestly spooked and that scared me. After several minutes of silence, I convinced her (and myself) that it was safe to go back out into the room.
I mustered all my courage and ran over to the bed and hopped under the covers. Maggie quickly followed. We were both on edge, so we were holding on to each other to create some feeling of safety. A few minutes passed.
“Maybe I was just imagining things,” Maggie said.
“I guess so.” I hope so, I was thinking. Ten minutes had passed since we got into bed, and so had most of the anxiety. I was just about to fall asleep when—tap tap tap.
Before she even said anything, Maggie was out of bed and back in the bathroom. I wasn’t far behind.
“Is that it?” I asked her when she let me in. I was shaking.
“Yeah. It’s the same tapping.” She was shaking too.
“It’s gotta be the wind or something. Let’s just wait to see if it stops.”
Tap tap tap ... tap t-tap tap t-tap ... It didn’t stop.
“Go see what the hell that is, Bobby,” Maggie commanded me.
“Maybe it’ll stop.”
“It’s not gonna stop. Go check it out. You promised.”
“One minute.”
“Now, Bobby. It’s freaking me out.”
She was pushing me out the bathroom door, but I couldn’t seem to make my legs carry me over to the window. I was frozen stiff with cowardice.
“Go!” she yelled in a hoarse whisper.
I decided the best thing to do would be to use the band-aid method: just run over there a rip open the curtain as fast as I could and most likely I would find nothing there. Just a loose wire from the floodlight being blown by the wind, knocking on the windowpane. Worst case scenario, some sort of strange desert squirrel trying to eat its way through the window. Creepy, yes, but I could shoo it away.
Tap tap t-tap tap ... tap tap.
No, these were human patterns.
“GO!” the tension was getting to be too much.
Before I could second-guess myself, I ran over to the window and threw open the curtains.
I hardly remember what happened next.
Before my mind registered that it was the dough faced pervert from the front desk with his nose pressed up against our window tapping out crazed rhythms with his overgrown fingernails, shattered glass was everywhere and my right hand and arm were bleeding badly. Everything was moving very slowly. I looked out where the window used to be and saw a crimson flower blooming on the sidewalk around the head of the dough faced desk attendant. He was bleeding very badly from his face and his neck. He wasn’t moving.
I was just standing there, my right arm bleeding, looking, not comprehending, not acting. Maggie, behind me, was frantically gathering our things together, screaming something. She handed me my bag, pulled me out of the room, and pushed me into the passenger seat of the car. I remember being very tired. And then suddenly very aware. I had a towel from the Royal Palacio wrapped tightly around my arm. I could feel the arm pulsing along with my heartbeat, but the cuts didn’t hurt very much. We were moving fast, ignoring stop signs and stoplights. Maggie was driving. We were getting on the freeway.
“We need to call 9-1-1, Maggie.”
“No. We were never there.”
“I think I killed that guy, Maggie.”
“That place doesn’t even exist.”
© Copyright, Ben Bostick
Elspeth lowered her voice and leaned forward over the table. I wish she would stop leaning forward over the table like that….
Elspeth's Trick
By Jerry Watson
Even with the window closed, you could still hear the bees buzzing around the hydrangeas and the jonquils. The noise wasn't enough to drown out Elspeth Higginbotham though. Everyone at the Senior Center agreed Elspeth used up more than her fair share of oxygen. I put an eight of spades on the table and Elspeth dropped the Queen of spades right on top of it. "Elspeth...!" I said. But she was still talking.
"You should have seen Marjorie Jean! I can't believe she would wear something like that at the flower show. I have a dress like that but I wouldn't be caught dead wearing it at the flower show. But that Marjorie Jean thinks she can wear anything!" Elspeth took a sip of coffee and said, "I can't stand the coffee here! You ladies know what I bet?"
Elspeth lowered her voice and leaned forward over the table. I wish she would stop leaning forward over the table like that. Every time she does, Dorothy drops her cards and stares and it's embarrassing. I know Elspeth is well endowed but I wish Dorothy would stop staring like that. Well, anyway, Elspeth lowered her voice and said in a whisper loud enough so everyone at the tables on either side of us could hear, "I bet they are letting Louise make the coffee again."
Elspeth laid her cards down on the table and crossed her arms. I noticed Dorothy staring again. I do wish she would stop staring! That Elspeth went on saying how everyone knows Louise is married to a South American and how she bet Louise's husband grew coffee beans down there.
"I bet that's why they let Louise make the coffee," Elspeth was saying. It was my turn again, so I laid the Ace of spades on the table and gave Elspeth my most intense, hinting look. She ignored me and threw down the three of clubs!
"Elspeth...!" I said. And she kept right on talking about Mrs. Brunamaker's son Richland.
"Everyone knows they call that boy 'Richie' but I'll never understand why," Elspeth said. "Why, I don't know of a person alive who doesn't know that 'Richie' is short for Richard and Mrs. Brunamaker's son's name is not Richard, it's Richland!"
It was Elspeth's turn to deal and she pulled the pile of cards over and began to shuffle them. All the other ladies at our table began to smirk at Elspeth because they didn't think she was going to be able to shuffle and deal the cards and keep on talking; they haven't known Elspeth Higginbotham as long as I have. Elspeth dealt the cards and we all counted ours because Elspeth was talking about the sermon at the Presbyterian church and we were sure she had misdealt.
"That new pastor they got is way too young to preach in a church that size," she said, "but those Presbyterians think they're so up and coming! Why, I heard from Matilda Watson over at the grocery store that they are even starting a young people's mission trip to South America. Can you imagine that? I bet they'll probably get Louise's husband to act as their chaperone! Maybe they won't even have a chaperone," Elspeth said, "Hmmmph. Those Presbyterians think they're so up and coming!"
"Don't you go to that Presbyterian church, Elspeth?" I asked.
"Well, I used to. But my Bert says that pastor they have over there is too young to be preaching in a church that size. He says he thinks those Presbyterians are getting a little uppity. He says if they have the time and money to send those young people to South America, they don't need our time and money anymore. By the way, did you know that Matilda Watson was to the doctor the other day? She told me they told her to eat more roughage. She told me that right in the vegetable aisle at the grocery store but do you know what I saw she had in her cart? Well! I can tell you for sure it wasn't roughage!"
There Elspeth went again! Leaning forward over the table and lowering her voice so everyone in the room could hear her. And that darn Dorothy. I do wish she would stop staring!
Elspeth and the bees kept droning on and on and I put the Ace of hearts on the table. There! I thought. Let's see that gabby Elspeth Higginbotham take that trick.
© Copyright, Jerry Watson
COMIC FICTION
I absentmindedly picked up a pair of her sheer panties out of her laundry basket and asked, with a smile, if she needed any help folding her clothes.
LAUNDROMAT
Carmen Diode
I found myself in a Laundromat outside the city of Chicago. I don't know why I was there. I live in Chesterton, Indiana, and I have a perfectly good washer and dryer at home.
I had nothing with me to wash, and I was a little fearful of being pegged as a loiterer, so I purchased a small box of Tide out of a vending machine. The Laundromat attendant sauntered over and naturally, I engaged in conversation with him. He seemed like a nice enough guy, but reeked of cheap wine and Downy.
He told me that his name was Todd. He said he was saving his money for a sex change operation. Todd also claimed to have microcircuits implanted in his head and he said he is being monitored by Alien Dadaists from the planet Centaur, who had ordered him to confiscate any Dockers that were brought into the Laundromat.
It was cold and overcast day, outside. The temperature was probably around 28-- maybe 21 if you factored in the wind-chill factor. The Barometer reading was around 99.28 kPa, and rising. The wind speed was probably about 10.3 km/h. I would guess the dew point was around 21 C. The relative humidity had to be around 75%. There was no precipitation at the time, but I was forecasting a 45% chance of sleet and snow before the day was over.
My curiosity became aroused by a young, attractive Caucasian woman. She was dressed the way that I remember my mother having dressed, when I was little--in a skin tight, red leather micro-mini skirt, a thin and narrow white cotton tube top that barely covers her ample, braless breasts, dark nylons and 5' spiked high-heels. I walked over to the large industrial dryer where she was removing her clothes. I absentmindedly picked up a pair of her sheer panties out of her laundry basket and asked, with a smile, if she needed any help folding her clothes. She then went ballistic on me and proceeded to beat me quite viciously with a white tennis shoe that was not yet dry. Then, to add insult to injury, she took my box of Tide as I lay writhing in pain on the floor.
As I started to leave the Laundromat, I saw the lemmings, without hearing their cries. There were maybe fifteen in all. Dancing pirouettes, playing leapfrog, humming Jimmy Buffet songs. At times the lemmings looked as if they were headed for the White Hen Pantry, next door, but just as they were about to exit, a single lemming would break rank and lead them back. On one of their trips back I opened the door to one of the dryers in operation and watched as they dutifully followed their leader, single file, inside. I closed the door and the dryer began to run again. As I left, I thought to myself, boy, will these people be surprised when they come to retrieve their clothes.
© Copyright, Carmen Diode
TALL, TALL TALE CONTEST
An Old Man Story
by Dan Sullivan
Sull30@aol.com
Joe Bartholomew hobbled into the Kenney Retirement Home lounge as quickly as he could. Wheezing and clutching his cane, the 79-year old managed to grasp his way to an old, beat-up recliner, where he carefully lowered himself to the seat.
“You won’t believe what just happened to me,” he announced to the lounge occupants. No one responded. In fact, no one even turned toward him. Of the seven elders there, most concentrated on the large window overlooking the rear yard of the complex.
“I must have been gone for days! Hasn’t anyone noticed?”
“Quiet! Bewitched!” someone yelled. It was 72-year old Ruth Lukenson who was staring at a television mounted on the wall. Everything she said was at a really loud volume, so in her mind, she wasn’t yelling.
“You’re yelling again, Ruth,” responded Joe. “Never mind Bewitched, you’ve seen that episode six million times. Never mind that nonsense, listen to this instead.”
“Listen to you?” asked 80-year old Alice Atkins. She sat in the chair next to Joe and was about to take a nap when Joe entered. “You have about a hundred different stories a day, Joe. We’re tired of listening.”
“But this one’s different!” Joe exclaimed. “I was just out with my nephew.”
“Which one?” asked Alice.
“I don’t know which one; I’ve got about a thousand nephews. He took me to that mall across town. You know, the one that’s about fifty stories high with … I’d guess around … nine thousand stores?”
“Deed ya git t’all of ‘em stores?” It was Jeremiah Strug, a 69-year old retired farmer whose accent could not be placed by anyone. “’Cause eef ya deed,” he continued,
“you’d a spint ‘bout a hundred thousand dollars. My cousin, he spint that much once een one a ‘em malls somewhere.”
“A hundred thousand isn’t even a lot of money,” replied Joe. “My nephew and I spent about seven hundred thousand dollars today.”
“Then where are the things you bought?” asked Alice.
“Well that’s what I’ve got to tell you. But first I’ve got to tell you about the mall. My nephew took me there in his new car. A great car; it has around three thousand horsepower or something.”
“I heard a dat car, they’s nice,” said Jeremiah.
“’Course they’re nice,” said Joe, “and the lot at the mall, was filled with millions of cars. The parking lot must have stretched for miles and miles. They had trains that could sit a thousand people and take you from your car to the mall entrance.”
“Trains in parking lot?” asked Peter Diefendorf, one of the window gazers. He was a 70-year old immigrant from Germany. “Never heard such a thing. Belong on track.”
“I saw them, Pete, with my own eyes,” replied Joe.
“You mean eye?” Peter inquired. Joe had lost one of his eyes to cancer about nine years ago.
“Yes, yes, eye. With my own eye! Now, we entered the mall through these fifty-foot tall doors made out of stained-glass. Beautiful, I tell you, beautiful. And the lobby was huge, shops immediately to our left and right, and down the center was…a pool! A giant pool with a fountain shooting water up about a thousand feet. And all these kids were going down a water slide. My nephew said the slide started at the top floor, twenty-eight stories up, and spiraled all the way down.”
“I can’t hear Bewitched!” screamed Ruth.
“Ruth: lower tones please,” said Peter. “Now Joseph, I thought you said mall was fifty stories high, not twenty-eight.”
“Well,” said Joe, thinking, “that’s because the other floors are underground. So that means … twenty-three stories were below us when we walked in.”
“Twenty-two,” chimed Stanley Benson, who stood by the window. Stanley was a 77-year old former accountant. “And I’ve heard of these underground malls. They actually have whole cities underground now. I saw it on the news.”
“I seen dat too,” agreed Jeremiah.
“They do not, that’s outrageous,” replied Joe, waving a hand in disgust. “If that were the case, this whole city we’re in now would be underground. They’ve only got malls underground.”
“Ya know, he mighta be right,” said Jeremiah, rubbing his bristly chin.
“’Course I’m right. Now, my nephew needed to buy a pair of running shoes. So we looked on this directory right by the entrance as to where to go. These directories list off a million things about the mall that you’d want to know, and show you where to find anything.”
Alice squinted in thought. “What if you wanted to find a phone number?”
“You could find a phone book store. They had about forty of them. We needed shoes, though, and it turns out there was a whole floor of shoe stores. It was seventeen stories up, so we took one of the elevators that go about seven hundred miles per hour to where you want to go. They could even go sideways to get to certain places if needed.”
“My daughter’s second cousin, he helped invent those sideways elevators,” said Stanley. “Smart man.”
“Really?” asked Joe. “I think they’ve made about a hundred trillion dollars at this point, too.”
“Two hundred,” Peter said.
“Right, two hundred. But never mind that. I’ve got to tell you about the shoe store.”
At this point, Joe had captured everyone’s attention, except Ruth who was still drawn to the Bewitched episode. There were two other old-timers in the lounge as well, sitting comfortably by the window. They were Helen Coughlin and Wendell McAndrews, both 84-years old. Unfortunately each had gone mute about five years ago. However, they listened intently to Joe’s story and everyone else’s comments, with wide eyes and white knuckles. Joe continued on.
“The shoe store we finally decided on had about fifty thousand brands and one hundred foot walls holding everything. You needed this crane that was in there to get the shoes at the top of the wall. So my nephew ended up trying on about forty pairs of shoes, but couldn’t decide what he wanted. So he just bought all forty pairs.”
“Dat was smert,” said Jeremiah. Stanley and Peter nodded their approval as well.
“Will he wear all of those?” asked Alice.
“Oh yes,” Stanley said before Joe could even respond. “Runners need tons of different shoes to try out and experiment with, not to mention they run about a thousand races a month usually.”
“’Course they do,” agreed Joe, “which is why we then needed to find a water bottle for while he’s running. We went up to the top floor, the water bottle floor, and they had all sorts of bottles. The best ones were the ones that chill the water while it’s in the bottle. It’s all state-of-the-art equipment.”
“I’m trying to watch Bewitched!” screeched Ruth.
“Ruth, keep your voice down please,” said Stanley.
“Even I seen show five hundred times when I not even live in this country,” complained Peter.
“My grandson has about seventy of those new water bottles, Joe,” continued Stanley. “He says they’re great. They can be run over by thirty buses in a row and they still won’t break either.” Helen and Wendell both looked at each other in surprise. Alice frowned.
“When would thirty buses ever run over anything?” asked Alice.
“That’s a standard water bottle test,” answered Joe. “So we got a bunch of those, about nine hundred, and since we were at the top, we decided to take the water slide down. I’m telling you all, we were probably going about two hundred miles per hour down the thing, it was incredible.”
“Ohhhh boy, dat musta been a helluva sweet ride geettin’ down,” Jeremiah exclaimed.
“How’d you go down a water slide if you can’t even walk without a cane?” asked Alice.
“I was just laying there,” retorted Joe, “and you don’t walk down a slide, you … slide. Besides, they held my cane for me. Anyways, we needed to find one more thing: shorts for running. Clothing was all underground, so we took these new escalator contraptions that whisk you down three floors every second.”
“I think it’s six floors every second,” Stanley quickly interjected.
“That’s impossible!” replied Joe. “Six floors? No way, Stanley.”
“I think Joe right about three floors,” said Peter, in his cadenced English.
“’Course I’m right. Now the shorts we ended up buying are made out of this new material that’s half cotton, half nylon, half elastic, and half micro-spandex. They cost around twenty thousand dollars each, so my nephew only got twenty pairs of them. You don’t need that many shorts.”
“Everyone be quiet!” demanded Ruth, at the top of her lungs. “Bewitched!”
“Can we unplug that TV she’s watching?” asked Alice.
“Theen she’ll yill fer days,” answered Jeremiah.
“So my nephew, being the good nephew that he is, said he’d buy me a gift for accompanying him. I told him a watch would be superb, so we took the elevator back up to the fourth floor where there must have been about three hundred watch shops and sellers. I enjoy a nice pocket watch, so he bought me one worth about sixty thousand dollars. It had a crystal casing and a gold face. Beautiful.”
“Where is it?” asked Alice.
“I’m getting to that. So after we got the watch we went up a few more floors to the food court, where they had every restaurant imaginable. We ate like kings. I think I had about sixty rolls from this one establishment. This is where we ran into trouble.”
“Trouble?” asked Peter. “What sort of trouble?”
“Well some kids started harassing us, stepping in our way as we left the food court. They wanted our purchases, our bags. One pushed my nephew to the ground.”
Joe’s audience gasped at the mention of physical abuse. Ruth smiled at the small window of silence that took place. Joe let the silence hang a bit, cleared his throat, and continued.
“So there seemed like a hundred of these kids, all circling around us. They started grabbing our bags and taking what they could get their hands on. I was forced to fight back with my cane. I believe I whacked fifty of them off the head before they sprinted away with our goods.”
“You hit children over head?” cried Peter.
“Ya deed tha right thang there, Joe,” Jeremiah confirmed.
“I’ve held your cane. It’s heavy,” Stanley added. Even Alice seemed impressed.
“My nephew managed to subdue a few more, but it was too late. And when mall security came by, they were no help. We must have told them our story four thousand times before they finally understood just what had happened. At this point, my nephew figured, the kids must have left the mall. So we were out of luck.” Joe leaned back in the recliner, signaling that his story was through. The listeners all stared at the floor, amazed at what had happened to their colleague. Ruth shouted mention of how good the Bewitched episode was. Helen and Wendell each threw loafers at her. Finally Alice spoke up.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone you were going to the mall?”
Before Joe could say anything, Stanley spoke up. “Obviously he planned on buying us a bunch of things and wanted it to be a surprise. That right, Joe?”
“’Course it’s right, I had left that out so you all didn’t feel bad. But I had gotten a bunch of different things: books, movies, a crochet set and … a decks of cards, board games, a new TV for Ruth and ... vitamins, slippers, new cushions for the sofa, a seat, a phone, newspapers … and … a million other things!”
Everyone except Alice issued Joe thanks and reflected on how great a friend he was. Alice just closed her eyes, hoping to catch the nap she had pushed off. Soon the rest of them all nodded off, each thinking how he or she could sleep for days, but also wondering what they would purchase at such a great mall.
In the viewing station sat Nurse Craft and the new nursing assistant, Nurse Hebert. They had listened to Joe’s story and the reaction it received. Nurse Hebert looked at Nurse Craft.
“I didn’t even know Mr. Bartholomew had been granted a leave pass,” she said, confused. Nurse Craft looked over at Nurse Hebert and smiled.
“I didn’t even know Mr. Bartholomew had been granted a leave pass,” she said, confused. Nurse Craft looked over at Nurse Hebert and smiled.
“Funny how they all exaggerate, huh? Mr. Bartholomew hasn’t been outside this building in a long time. He refuses to go out, even refusing the short walks we take all the patients on.” She paused and chuckled. “He hasn’t been outside in like a hundred years.” She sighed and stretched. “Alright, c’mon. We’ve got about a million medications to administer. Let’s get going.”
© Copyright, Dan Sullivan
We were in the middle of a discussion about the dollar's position versus various foreign currencies when she abruptly said, "My penguin has died." I nodded, pretending to understand what she meant, and asked her if she wanted to go to dinner. She indicated that she would. Our waitress came with our bill, and I sprayed her with a can of Raid, making her go away….
INTERNET DATE
By Carmen Diode
Not too terribly long ago, I decided to try my luck with Internet dating. I discovered a romance advertisement service associated with an Anna Kournikova website that I was visiting on a frequent basis. The personal ad that I chose to respond to was elegant in its simplicity:
"Fortyish woman, slim and attractive, upbeat and adventurous, enjoys
dancing, movies, romantic dinners, and long walks on the beach.
I am seeking a man who is intelligent, fit, kind and gregarious. Must
be stable, dependable, energetic, and love lots and lots of HOT & WILD SEX!"
I am not sure what aspect of this ad most attracted me, but I resolved to answer it, if for no other reason than to find out which beach this woman took her walks on, considering that we are at least a thousand miles away from the nearest large body of water.
Having not dated for a while, I decided to tap in to the new electronic technology to see if I could locate an appropriate match. Online dating seemed ideally suited for an individual like me who has limited time, money and energy to woo potential dates and who is prone to embellish the facts about myself and what I like to do.
I answered the ad, and apparently, the woman found my response to be charming and witty. She wrote back, wanting to know more about me. I came to know her, for several weeks, as bds42@Hotmail.com. She signed her e-mails bds, for short. Cautious and a little reluctant, as well, to reveal my true identity, I signed my e-mails to her as Copernicus.
We traded e-mails for several weeks, and then phone calls. Our conversations were engaging and captivating, and aside from her frequent use of the word "fromage" in sentences where it really didn't seem to fit, I felt an attraction developing between us. We both agreed, during one of these conversations, that the time had come to actually meet.
She told me that her real name was Maureen, and I told her that mine was Mr. Ed, still remaining inexplicably reticent about revealing my true identity. We arranged to meet, for coffee, at a local Borders book store. If things went well, we would go to dinner.
Neither of us knew what the other looked like. Romantically misguided though it may have been, we both agreed that it would be more interesting to focus our attraction to each other's psyche and personality without the distraction of physical appearances. She told me to look for a woman with average length brown hair, wearing blue jeans and a red World Wrestling Entertainment t-shirt. I told her that I was unsure of what I would be wearing, but that I would bring signal flags in case we had trouble locating each other.
I arrived thirty minutes ahead of our arranged scheduled meeting time, wearing a cheap and squalid disguise that consisted mainly of large sunglasses, a hideous blond wig that my daughter had used as part of her Halloween costume, and a vapid mustache fashioned out of some of the strands of the blond wig that I had chopped off to make the length more fitting for a man. I had decided that I would make a hasty exit if this woman turned out to be ugly.
I found a vantage point, in the erotica section, where I could observe people entering and exiting the bookstore. I pretended to be browsing through a book on ethnic fondues (it was either misplaced or dealing with sexual practices that I am inexperienced with) as I waited for my date to make her appearance.
Ten minutes passed beyond the appointed meeting time, and no one entered matching the description that she had given me. I did notice a woman in the Philosophy section, dressed in the manner that she had described, pretending to browse through a book about Kierkegaard, and amazingly wearing the same disguise that I was wearing. We made eye contact, and I used my signal flags to make the universal message for "Are you Maureen?" She nodded yes, and I signaled for her to follow me to a table in the coffee bar.
Maureen ordered a mocha latte from the waitress, and I ordered a set of pneumatic power tools that were on sale at a reasonable price. After twenty minutes of small talk and pleasantries we felt comfortable enough to remove our disguises. Under the cheap and tacky blond wig, Maureen wore a cheap and tacky brown toupee. I encouraged her to dispense with the formalities and to drop the Mr. and just simply call me Ed, which she was happy to do.
We managed to conquer our jitters about meeting for the first time and enjoy each other's company. I was drawn to her naiveté and good natured outlook, and she seemed to appreciate that I had purchased her a set of snow tires.
We continued our animated conversation, on a variety of topics for another half hour or so. We were in the middle of a discussion about the dollar's position versus various foreign currencies when she abruptly said, "My penguin has died." I nodded, pretending to understand what she meant, and asked her if she wanted to go to dinner. She indicated that she would. Our waitress came with our bill, and I sprayed her with a can of Raid, making her go away.
We decided to drive separate cars to our dining destination, Barney's Burger Bar. After she left, I remembered that I had walked to the book store and had to hitch hike to the restaurant.
The restaurant was crowded, but the maitre’d said that he could seat us at a table for two if we were willing to share one chair. We took the table, but I grew uneasy watching her stand, so I asked our waiter to take the chair away, and I also stood. This seemed to make her feel better.
I ordered vichyssoise and leek salad. Maureen ordered a plate of butter, which she sucked, noisily, through a straw. And, for some odd reason, she spit her iced tea at the waiter each time that he left our table. At one point I noticed that Maureen had a chunk of celery sticking out of her ear, but I didn't want to embarrass her so I let it pass without mentioning it.
We talked of many things during the course of our dinner. I expounded on books, politics, movies, and religion, while she discussed fashion, her job, and small cycle engines. Since we both spoke at the same time, we never really heard or understood what the other was saying.
We both declined dessert, so our waiter brought our tab. The back of his shirt was drenched in iced tea. I waited for Maureen to offer to pay but it became clear that she expected me to take care of it so I left the bill on another table as we departed.
Outside, it was raining. I offered Maureen my umbrella and she surprised me by taking it because she already had an umbrella of her own. We walked to her car and she thanked me for a nice evening. She said that she had a wonderful time, but I couldn't really tell if she was being truthful. The fact that she had asked for the waiter's personal phone number, as well as the phone numbers of the entire kitchen staff, still weighed heavily on my mind.
Maureen indicated that she was going to leave. I wasn't sure if I should kiss her or not, so I decided to grope her breast instead. It was obviously the wrong thing to do as she slapped me on the side of my head with a loaf of dinkel bread that she just happened to have in her purse. She told me to call her and hinted that maybe we could meet again. She thanked me for dinner and the umbrella, then drove away.
All in all, the experience was not that bad, and I learned a few things that should serve me in the future should I continue to use the Internet as a means to locate dates. One thing that I won't do again is tell someone that I am six foot, five inches tall when I am really only five foot, eleven inches. I was only able to jack my height up to about six foot one inch with the heels that I wore, and they were extremely uncomfortable since I was unaccustomed to wearing them. Another thing that I believe I will avoid doing is embellishing my career. If a woman is unwilling to accept me for who I really am, then I am most probably better off without her. Fortunately, Maureen and I have not progressed far enough into our relationship for her to learn that I am not really the starting quarterback for the Denver Broncos, as I more or less led her to believe that I was.
© Copyright, Carmen Diode
“This is so stupid,” I told myself. “You can’t really do this. You’re going to die!”
But I smiled all the way down.
TALL TALE
By Scott M. Sparling
The theater’s back wall at my old high school was something of a memorial. It easily stood ninety feet wide and just over thirty feet tall, far taller than the curtain proscenium, and was etched with the names of a few decades’ worth of actors who had worked under the theater hot lamps and anxious audiences.
Names and graduation dates. Some were written in blue ink, permanent marker, and even latex paint.
I used to go there during lunch hour or after school. Sometimes during class hour too, because I knew the trick of signing my own mother’s name and giving myself notes of excuse from classes. Even if a teacher had suspected something in the notes, they never questioned the notes anyway. My father had died that year and as a form of pity, the faculty let me get away with whatever I wanted. It was a silent, unspoken privilege they gave me, and it came along with sympathetic smiles and sorrow filled gazes that I guess I took advantage of.
I loved the smell of that theater, dusty old clothes and chalkboards and ancient make-up. Cheap tricks and wizardry.
I used to stand there, facing the wall with my back to the empty audience and pace the wall’s entire length, reading the names and touching them gently. I wondered who each person was and what they might be doing at that moment. Perhaps working in an office or selling a used car or managing a department store.
When I touched the cracked writing with reverence, did they suddenly shiver from some inward draft? Did they even remember writing their names on the great wall?
You had to stand on a chair to read the names at the top, and a few of the names were fifteen feet up because some student in a long ago time had decided to use the theater’s ladder and get his or her name higher than anyone else’s. At that time, a Bobby Braden from the class of ’88 was the highest on the wall about halfway to the ceiling, and there was a multitude of signatures just under his as if everyone else had known they couldn’t get any higher, and were content just to have their names next to Bobby’s as a symbol of respect.
I often wondered if Bobby Braden had come up here alone. Did he close his eyes for hours on end and just breathe in the magic of this place? Did he feel alone as I did? A person who could get his name up that high could not have been alone. Not with all the signatures circling under his. I imagined what he looked like, balance precariously on the top step of the theater’s ladder, red marker in hand and reaching as high as he could while his friends watched on from below with breathless anticipation.
“Where are you know, Bobby?” I asked aloud in the dusty silence.
“He’s out of here,” I answer myself. “Bobby Braden is long gone.”
Long gone.
I don’t know how long I sat there staring at his name that day, but I remember hearing the lunch bell ring twice, opening and closing that mad frenzy of conversation, greasy pizza and traded ding dongs. Maybe an hour? Two?
And I snapped out of it so suddenly I would have been surprised on any other day, but that day had some sort of enchanted fog wrapped around it. A flavor of fate.
I walked back behind the loft stairs and grabbed a bucket of black paint and a brush. I went back to Bobby Braden and looked up at him, wondering how I could get there too. Higher even.
I pulled over the large dining room table that had graced so many of our plays over the past two years. I set it up against the wall under Bobby’s name, and went for the ladder.
With the ladder up on the table, I could reach well above Bobby, but it seemed a cheap slight to beat him by mere inches, so I climbed back down and got the kitchen table from the right wings. With this place on the dining room table and the ladder on top, I could write my name about five or six feet over Bobby’s.
I looked down. The ladder wobbled. It didn’t seem so high up from down below, but from my position over the two tables I was nauseatingly aware that I could break a leg, arm, or neck with one slip. I carefully climbed back down.
Backing away, I looked up at the white brick I had reached from my last position on the ladder. It was pretty high, and I suppose if I wrote my name there, it would remain the tallest champion for years to come.
But what of the years after that?
I took the ladder down again. Now I was sweating and my back ached with all the twisting and lifting. This time I put two prop boxes on the table, then put two chairs on either end of the prop boxes. Even without the ladder, the entire ensemble was too rickety. I tied a rope between the chair legs so that they wouldn’t slide out away from each other. And used the remaining rope to tie the prop boxes together as well.
Down the hallowed halls, a bell rang, signifying the end of fourth period? Maybe fifth? Hopefully not the end of the school day.
I managed the ladder up onto the chairs, trying not to notice the way the tables swayed to and fro as I stood on them. When I got the ladder set up, I went for one more box, a small prop box about two feet high, and I carried it and placed it on the top step of the ladder.
“This is so stupid,” I told myself. “You can’t really do this. You’re going to die!” But I smiled all the way down. I laughed as I brought the paint up, brush in my back pocket. “Just hope you don’t die until after,” I warned myself. “Get this painted first!”
The hardest part (though not the scariest, that comes later) was getting onto the box on the ladder, and bending back down on my knees to get the paint bucket from the second to last ladder step. It took me several minutes to gently lift my feet under me and to stand to my full height, one hand against the cold wall, the other holding the paint bucket.
The ceiling was about six inches from my head. I shook so violently that the entire assembly rattled beneath me. I forced a deep breath. Then another.
I pried open the paint can, having to remove one hand from the wall. The lid came up easy, with a little “pop” that splurged paint over my t-shirt and jeans. I laughed.
I started painting, huge letters thicker than my hand in width, until I had my entire name up there, plus the cool little apostrophe with my graduating year’s numbers behind it. Another bell rang.
“Vat are you doing up der?”
I whipped around and leaned against the wall. It was Marina, the foreign exchange student from Romania that all the guys were hot after. She was so tiny below me, nose tilted up and face in strained terror.
“You’re goink to fall!” she warned.
I smiled and winked at her, then turned to put the last coat of paint over my name. When I turned around again, she was gone. I slowly lowered myself on the prop box, and fished one leg about to gain purchase on the ladder below.
That’s when the whole thing tilted. I felt the ladder going (my bladder almost went too, if I’m to be honest) and I opened my mouth. It’s funny how you remember little details like that when you’re about to die. I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. In a last ditch effort, I pushed away from the ladder, back toward the wall. The entire ladder flew downward, and landed with a crash right where Marina had been a few minutes before. The chairs and prop boxes had fallen over as well, making a huge clatter in the empty theater, and I managed to land on my feet on the kitchen table. I heard a kerslop! And looked at the paint bucket still clutched in my right hand. The paint had sloped about a bit, but I hadn’t spilled a drop.
I jumped down from both tables, and ran to put the paint away. Someone had to have heard the crash from the choir room, or maybe the cafeteria, and who knows if Marina went to tell somebody.
I ran back and slid the prop boxes back into place, and put the ladder away. At this point, I could hear voices from the theater front door. I ran the kitchen table back and was just sliding the larger table into place when the curtains opened and the entire drama class walked in, followed by Mister Fiddler, the drama coach.
“What is going on?” he asked, hands already on hips for his “I’m going to give a lecture” stance he used when most upset.
Marina pointed up. “Look. See?”
Everyone craned their necks until they saw my name. They sat there, like a crowd at a movie theater, staring with wonder.
“How in the hell . . .” But Mister Fiddler didn’t even have the words to go on. He stood with the rest of them, mouth agape and eyes wide.
Someone in the class started clapping and it spread fast. Everyone kept looking up at my name and clapping. I even started clapping too, as silly as that sounds.
I didn’t receive that lecture, and though my antics were widely repeated throughout the school, the story never followed me into college. After high school, I never heard of it again.
But I did recently go to vote for my county two years ago, and the votes were held in the theater of my old high school. The curtains were open when we all walked in, and there was my name fifteen years later but every bit as startling as the day it was painted. Sure, there were plenty of daredevils that had gotten close to my name, even a few just up under it, but no one had dared to go as far as I.
Is there some kid who hangs out in the theater now, rubbing the ancient names that litter the wall, wondering where the people are who wrote them and what they might be doing?
I’m sure there is. I can tell you right now that I know many of those names. They are office workers and store managers and used car salesmen.
I’m here kid. We all are.
© Copyright, Scott M. Sparling
“Before we could even brush the snow off our parkas, two huge forms leaned over and lifted each of us to our feet. Even in the dark it was obvious they were giants, at least three meters tall.”
He Married a Yeti
By Lloyd Hudson Frye
“ABOMINABLE SNOWGROOM.” The 1952 headline read like a fourth page piece in the gossip rags. Here in the grand ballroom of the London Historical Society, with reporters from all the major papers of the world, it seemed to be the biggest story of the century. My name is Random Spencer. I work for the London Daily, third largest paper in England. When my editor said, this is your assignment, I almost sent spittle into his face, but when he continued with that worried look on his mug, I sobered up. He said there wasn’t time to go to Tibet to verify the story, just have to report what this chap has to say.
Jimmy T. (for Tall) Long would be my photographer, the best in the business, at 6’ 10” tall, he always got the perfect shot. He would lean over the crowd of reporters and take his shot from above. We had worked together before on several assignments and got along brilliantly.
Traffic was worse than usual, but the cabbie found a couple of passable back alleys, and dropped us off in front of the impressive façade in plenty of time. I tipped him double, and he gave me a great big toothless smile. The front steps were packed with reporters in front of their cameramen, using the massive, marble-covered building as a backdrop. I followed Jimmy up through the solid mass of suits, fedoras, and umbrellas. He always managed to cut his way through a crowd like an Antarctica ice breaker, using size and weight to push men to the side.
There was quite a delay at the door when a Press Pass didn’t seem to be enough to get by the coppers with the clipboards. I stepped in front of Jimmy, and folded a hundred pound note into the hand of an eager looking young man with a badge marked monitor. Soon our names were added to the list by hand, and he winked at me, as we squeezed through the opening. The room was immense; ceilings at least twenty-five feet high, mahogany paneled walls, huge chandeliers, and carpet with pile so thick, it was hard to walk. The dais was six feet off the main floor; several white-haired men sat in tuck-and-roll, red leather, high back chairs, seemingly bored with the proceedings at that point.
The noise level forced me to scream into Jimmy’s ear, “Get closer for the close up.” I would stay back and record from the recording stage, using one of the plug-in circuits provided. Using a large gavel repeatedly, a tall, thin man with a handle-bar moustache, called the press conference to order. He then introduced the guest speaker, Sir William Benchley Larchmount IV, Earl of Dover.
A very old man entered from a side door, hunched over; with the aid of a walker, he inched toward the pulpit. The flashes were increasing in intensity; finally, he stood in front of what had to be a hundred microphones, jammed together like tiny POWs in a small battle-field prison. Loud-mouthed reporters in front were yelling out questions, but the old man just stood there, silent. Finally, the roar died down and the speaker asked if those in the back could hear, a trick used by pros to get a crowd to quiet down. In a soft, shaky voice Sir William began his tale.
“In the summer of 1743, several landed men of my acquaintance, formed an expedition to the Tibetan Himalayas, to search for the Abominable Snowman. Legend had it, that they were to be found high in the mountains, in ice caves. Money was no object, so supplies were carried by over a hundred locals from base camp, to the first high camp. This would serve as the focal point, for any number of small excursions looking for signs of the Yeti. It was on one of those small hunts that our party fell victim to an avalanche. In our attempt to dig out, my guide, Mantunin, and I managed to loosen an ice bridge over a chasm. The bridge collapsed, and both of us fell a score of meters into the abyss. When we came to a stop, it was dark, with just a dim hint of sunlight from far above. I checked for broken bones and cuts, both deadly in the higher elevations. Mantunin said he was good for hunt, but he groaned right after.”
Sir William paused, held a glass of water to his lips, and returned it somehow without spilling it. His trembling hands were noticeable from the back of the room. He smiled, like that was an accomplishment, then continued.
“Before we could even brush the snow off our parkas, two huge forms leaned over and lifted each of us to our feet. Even in the dark it was obvious they were giants, at least three meters tall.”
The room broke out in chaos, as the obvious finally hit the slowest of the reporters. Shouts of “Fraud” and “Imposter” were heard. Sir William remained calm, taking advantage of the situation, to take another drink of water. As the shouting turned to grumbling, he continued.
“We were brought into a monstrous cave, with twenty-foot stalactites hanging from the top. The bottom was made up of ten-foot stalagmites, which formed small rooms with smooth floors. There were torches in sconces around the entire perimeter. Sunken down four meters, in the middle of the complex, was a small volcanic fountain, complete with churning, red-orange lava. Around the fountain were three rows of seating, just like the Coliseum, only smaller. Seated around the circle were dozens of Yeti with…”
Again the room erupted into a din, as many covered their ears, the flashes started up again. The man who had introduced Sir William stood up, leaned over to the microphone, and said that if this continued, the press conference would be over, and everyone would have to settle for a standard issued statement.
“We were ushered to the edge of the fountain. Thoughts of human sacrifice to the mountain ‘God of Fire’ raced through my head. My resolve to be brave to the end had me standing straight and holding a stiff upper lip. Mantunin, on the other hand, had bent over as if his ribs were broken. The Yeti discussed our fate for some time. I watched their faces for signs of anger; no emotion was in their speech.”
He stopped. The room was totally silent.
“Then, from the back, a shorter Yeti raced down to me and threw its body over mine, taking me to the floor with its weight. The voice was high; I guessed it was a female. She seemed to be pleading for my life. The story of Captain Smith and Matoaka ‘Pocahontas’ came to mind. Could this be some sort of redemption ceremony? What had to be a warrior, dropped his hatchet onto the floor with a deafening clank. My body relaxed for the first time since the fall. I noticed how heavy she was, thirty stones or so. The king or leader called out a final decree and the tribal meeting ended, with everyone returning to their rooms.”
He stopped for another drink. The men in the room were spellbound, not a single conversation could be heard.
“The girl Yeti took my hand and placed it on her chest and said ‘MEEO.’ I told her my name, she shook her head and holding her hand over my chest said, ‘OOHO,’ which later, I found out meant, small hairless one. The next thing I knew she pulled me to my feet, dragging me off to one of the outer rooms of the cave. I turned to Mantunin, but he also had a smaller Yeti dragging him off, in a very possessive manner.”
He stopped, smiled, and continued.
“I won’t go into any details of our life together, even in my book. What I will tell you is that Yeti women are what men dream about when they think of the perfect woman. There were several children from that marriage, each one a gift from God Himself. After her death I left the cave, never to return.”
At this point, Sir William broke down and cried. No one moved. Finally, he regained his composure and asked if there were any questions.
“Sir William, did you mean the 1943 expedition to Tibet?”
“No, 1743.”
“But how could you live over 200 years?”
“The Yeti worship a tiny white frog that survives freezing. Once thawed, it is ground into meal. There are ceremonies, where each member of the tribe is given a flat wafer on their tongues and told it is their right to life.”
“Will you go back someday?”
“My heart would break in two, if I ever returned to our room in the cave”
The clamor rose to a fevered pitch as men pressed forward to shout their questions. The cameras flashed, shouting increased, and the pushing started. The announcer got up, said the conference was over, and led the old man back to the side door.
I slumped into an empty chair. It was certainly an interesting story, but with no time to substantiate before for the midnight deadline, I was forced to settle to find out whether there was ever an Earl of Dover by that name in the 1740s.
I called the library in Dover and sweet-talked a Miss Louise Thumb to look on their records for an expedition to Tibet in 1743 and a certain landowner named William Benchley Larchmount IV, Earl of Dover. She came back a few minutes later and confirmed both for me. I promised I would send her a signed copy of his book.
© Copyright, Lloyd Hudson Frye
•Yo-de-ley-e-he!
•© By J.B. Pravda
•NexTrends & Associates prided itself on its ability to detect and capitalize on the upcoming fads way before the competition; their latest was as far out as it was daring and soon its clients were making preparations to integrate the ‘next hot thing’----yodeling----into their products and services. One of their biggest accounts was to supply elevator music to every elevator in the City, thousands of them. Proud survey teams fanned out all over town, riding elevators, recording listeners’ reactions: almost without fail, smiles were seen beaming broadly across the faces of the usually catatonically silent patrons of the closeted trip. Reports poured in overwhelmingly positive. Bold innovators that they were, this breakthrough would be crowned with a coup de gras suggested by their specially assigned senior researcher from Bavaria, Klaus Hergesheimer. His plan was simplicity itself: live yodelers, donning leiderhosen and Bavarian costume would be dispatched to the most prestigious buildings citywide as a grand publicity stunt, promoting both the firm and its prescience; when the companies learned of the musical innovation through their upbeat employees, the fortunes of NexTrends would be sealed. The day had arrived, along with a planeload of the fascinating crooners. At the largest skyscraper in town, the whole management team was packed into one elevator to witness the marketing coup: suddenly, in mid-yodel, the most accomplished of the Bavarian songsters hoisted himself up through the elevator ceiling so as to achieve maximum echo-effect, and to the surprised glee of the passengers, stood atop the car and then completed a particularly difficult yodeling riff of very high pitch, causing the cable to shred, thereby killing everyone on board in a terrifying plunge of 75 stories.
COPYRIGHT (C) j.b. pRAVADA
OLD DOG RUMBLE
By Robert Rives
Old dog named Rumble sitting on the porch, relaxing enjoying the shade from the sun old men sitting across the street playing dominoes, talking mess and stories about the past; one old man looks over and says look at that sad old dog and starts laughing just like that everything stops; all the other old men says hey now wait a minute that’s Rumble over there; let me tell you a story about Mr. Rumble one old man says; at one time there wasn’t a dog in this whole city that would take a bone from old Rumble, look it here, look it here; I remember when every female dog here was having his puppies--old Rumble had them all! and would whoop every dog in the hood! People got tired of old Rumble getting all the girl dogs pregnant, man they would be stuck! had to pour hot water on them, sometimes that wouldn’t even work! Man, all you would hear is the females howling; as for the boy dogs he would wear them out, but he would never bother or bite people, always playing with the kids, having fun, chasing the balls, getting squirt with the water hose, but like everything, someone complained that one day old Rumble would bite one of them kids!
Man old Rumble had fun with them kids! I remember them kids would bring part of their dinner out and feed that dog! but it had to end! They took poor Rumble and chained him up, built a big fence around him, but them kids would still go in that gate to feed and pet Rumble; I remember one day people move in down the street with this big, wide, ugly monster of a dog that hated everything, especially them kids; now that dog was a killer, hated cats, postman, people, dogs, even cars; that dog chased trucks down the street; one day, a little girl was walking down the street--that monster got out and was on her! before you knew it! Rumble must have sense something, ‘cause the chain was broke! and part of the fence was down. In the street, Rumble had that monster! but that monster was tuff himself; boy they went at it through fences, trash cans were knock over, cars were dented, but true to his name, Rumble wore him out in the end; that was the end to that monster, but that fight cost Rumble dearly; he now walks with a limp! and one of his eyes isn’t very good, so now all he does is sits on the porch and wait for them kids and some parents to come pet him and give him part of their dinner! Yeah, we all love that dog, OLD RUMBLE HELLA OF A DOG.
© Copyright, Robert P Rives
XANADU'S GATE WRITING CONTEST FINALIST
Springwine: The Absinthe Season
By Kalae S. Anthony
The glass becomes the chalice: holy wine.
The fading shadows flicker spectral ghosts.
Melissa, honey: bittersweet and fine,
dissolves in pearly green the sug'ry host.
Iridescent grail's inspiration,
a glinting springwine fire on my lips,
citrine blaze: the candle’s admiration:
elixir, gentle, soft and slowly sipped.
Behind the glassy wall, a secret door
that leads you to the path of vanished dreams;
a world where waxen wings will let you soar
into the purple skies where diamonds gleam.
Plummet, fall through velvet petalled skies,
through the glittering maze of seeker's sleep.
Absintheur, the elixir never lies
to those who drink; to those who swim the deep.
You will be lured across the rivers gold,
and from the blue-cloaked boatman, payment asked:
then let him taste the anise nectar’s cold,
from shining spoon immersed in silver flask.
You’ll come upon the blazing gates unseen
and hear the siren song so soft and sweet
sung by the perfumed maiden draped in Green.
Continue past the gates, this is no dream.
Be lashed like brave Odysseus to the mast.
"Cry out! Exult in tempting lust!" she screams,
"loose the flotsam and jetsam of the past!"
Kaleidoscopic bursts of colored rain,
the emerald water swirls with pale storms—
Silence. Madness. The sacred and profane:
the stillness of the night so gentle; warm.
Awake. The storm of peridot subsides.
Peer out in wonder through the window's jade.
What part of you is lost, what part has died?
Do you still hear the voice of that Green Maid?
You've travelled far, my friend, your candles burned.
The dreary world holds little; now you've seen
that travelling sometimes means you can't return . . .
when lost inside the glass of milky green.
© Copyright, Kalae S. Anthony
Forced Retirement
By Anne Cahalan
I just think I’ve earned a little more,
that I deserve a little better than this—
after all I’ve seen and all I’ve done,
the places and the mazes,
I’ve wound my way through the tangles,
the sudden drops and sticky swamps.
I drew the first lines of the map,
and it was hard work and dark work
and night in uncharted territory
is a scary place to be.
So don’t you turn on me,
when I have suffered
the snake bites and thorn scratches
of your wild mind a million times.
I’ve pulled you out of your own trees,
slogged you out of your own quicksand,
and left my own neat flower beds and hedgerows
time and again
to nearly lose myself in your morass.
And I’d do it again,
in a heartbeat,
because I’ve also seen your bright wildflowers,
heard your iridescent songbirds,
felt the startling serenity of quiet groves
after the storms have passed.
And I think I deserve better than I’m getting,
now that your huntsman’s paths are being paved
and the jungle plowed under for agriculture.
I wasn’t a weekend Indiana Jones, you know,
or a naturalist or a tourist;
I meant for the long haul;
I meant for your greater good.
But now my machete is rusting and
I haven’t seen a malarial mosquito in months
and I’m happy for you,
I really am.
I just think I deserve a little better than this.
© Copyright, Anne Cahalan
Gotas–De–Lluvia
(Raindrops)
By Robert Prives
While lying in bed listening to the Raindrops, my mind danced with the beat of the raindrops; as the thunder pounded with my heart, I drifted into a deep sleep and my sequences of dreams began: My first dream began with me as a lost puppy out in the rain trying to find my owner and searching through the darkness with no luck, I was soaked and wet and very hungry as I sat by a tree trying to find a little shelter from the rain; I shook as the rain and the cold took control! Just then I heard a faint whistle and heard here boy, here boy. My tail wiggled—yes it was my master coming to save her lost little puppy. I gave my puppy cry and! I was soon wrapped in a warm towel and treated to something good to eat and put on a nice warm bed and was soon yawning, stretching my paws with a belly full of food. My second dream began with me as an old woman in the rain and cold with no place to go! OR call home. As I pushed my shopping cart with all my belongings down the road, I found myself under the freeway with a little shelter in the rain. I lit a small fire and tried to stay warm when I heard the voice of an old man asking me if he could sit and get a little warm; we sat and drank a little wine from his bottle and shared a smoke and talked about how life used to be … but now were free to do as we pleased and did not want it any other way! My third dream began with me as a boy in a small house with my two sisters and my mother sharing a can of soup; as we sat there in the candlelight listening to the raindrops, I thought that maybe one day I would own my home and my mother and sister would not live in the dark. While we sat in the dark huddle up trying to stay warm, I heard the silent cries as tears rolled down my mother’s cheek, so I got up and went outside and looked up at all the raindrops until I was completely soaked; then I heard my mother’s voice telling me to come inside out of the rain. My fourth dream began with me as a bird flying south for the winter, flying in formation—what a beautiful sight, but halfway through our journey the rain began. The clouds grew dark and the rain got stronger. I lost sight of the formation and my wings got tired. I heard the cries of other birds and when I flew toward the cries I heard a bang, bang? and felt a sharp pain; I glided as far as I could and ended up in a pool of water surrounded by a fence. I heard a child saying, mama, mama come and see—it’s a bird in the swimming pool. When the people came closer, I was scared as could be, but the pain kept me from getting away; the next thing that happened was I was taken out of the pool to a warm house. I heard the child say, he is hurt—look at the blood; with the sounds of tears I heard the child say, mama what are we going to do? My fifth dream began with me as the King of a nation of rainbow colored people; when I stared out my castle window, I saw the sky get dark and I knew soon that rain would be here, but being different from most, I loved the rain. I watched as people in my kingdom hurried inside and the market places closed down and the streets became deserted. While staring out my window, I listened to the raindrops play a melody that could never be duplicated by any musician. The raindrops sang to me about being the best king ever and to love all throughout my kingdom and beyond. The raindrops said, take the poor and feed them, take the sick and try to heal them, take the orphan children and let them call you father and put shelter over their heads, and take the hands of single mothers and give them homes in your kingdom. I felt a hand on my shoulder; it was my beloved queen as we stared out the window together and waited for the rain to stop, so we could see the Rainbow over my peaceful Kingdom!
© Copyright, Robert P rives
BETTER THAN POTTER CHILDREN'S FANTASY FICTION CONTEST FINALIST
MagicWorks--where the magic is real
By Chrissie Sparling
Sally raised her hands above her head. “Watch closely now boys and girls, for I, Sally the Magnificent, am about to make this silk vanish into thin air.”
There was a collective “ooh” from her audience of six-year-olds and their matching parents.
“Let’s count to three.” Sally fluttered the silk up and down in front of the kids’ faces as they screamed at the top of their lungs, causing any of the neighbors happening to be home on this warm Saturday afternoon to reach for ear plugs.
“One, two, three.”
There was no flash or puff of smoke. Those sorts of gimmicks were saved for the charlatans. Not Sally. She simply tossed the silk into the air, and instantly, right in front of the kids’ faces at Macy’s sixth birthday party, the silk vanished. Appearing in its place was a solid wood wand. It spun around in tight circles before falling into Sally’s waiting hand. She flipped the wand over her knuckles with a little flare before exclaiming, “I have a magic wand now, but what should I do with it?” She tapped the tip of the wood against her cheek, taking a dramatic pause.
“Magic,” answered the mix of girls and boys right on queue as if they were being coached, but they weren’t.
“Good idea.” She praised their genius. She moved out into her audience, pointing the wand at all fifteen of Macy’s friends before settling the soft brown tip over Macy’s head. Sally reached her other hand out and Macy took it. They walked back over to the cement porch and stood in front of the glass slider. Sally knelt down in front of the little girl wearing the pink frilly dress and clutching onto a white pony with a sparkling pink mane and tail. The little princess’s hair was in a perfect braid in the back of her head and a plastic crown was set just above her forehead that read Birthday Girl. “Macy, if you had one birthday wish, what would you wish for?”
“Ummm…” the little princess chewed on her bottom lip, stuck a finger to her mouth, and fidgeted with her dress while at the same time wobbling on her feet. “I really want a pony.”
“A pony?” Sally sounded amazed. She looked out over her audience and gave them a knowing look. Macy’s parents let out a little shutter of a laugh that said “what a sweet ridiculous request,” but Sally didn’t think it was ridiculous.
“Let me guess? You want a white pony with a sparkling pink mane and tail.” She ran her fingers over the stuffed animal in the little girl’s arms.
“How did you know?” The girl’s mouth dropped with excitement, as did many of the other kids.
“I’m Sally the magnificent—I know everything you tell me just after you say it.” She beamed, giving an award-winning smile to the group of onlookers.
The adults chuckled, right on the beat.
This was a well-trained audience, and they didn’t even know it.
Sally turned back to Macy and gently pressed her cute, little, button nose. Then she stood up and faced the higgly-piggly mass of people. “All right you guys, this is the last magic trick so I need you all to say the magic words with me.”
Jumping the gun, everyone shouted, “Abracadabra.”
Sally bellowed with canned laughter, “Abracadabra? That’s not a magic word. It’s abracapony.”
The kids laughed, but when Sally took Sparkles from Macy, setting the white and pink pony on an empty spot of grass and stood back, everyone went silent. She pointed her magic wand at the tiny stuffed animal, and in a voice not as whimsical as the rest of the show, she snapped, “Abracapony.”
Instantly, there standing on the grass already grazing was a beautiful white pony with a sparkling pink mane and tail.
Excited screams and extensive clapping echoed through the neighborhood surrounding 42nd Avenue. Macy’s eyes jumped out of her head and her lips caved into her open mouth.
All the parents gawked at Sally—the magician who Mitch and Diane Mayberry had confessed to hiring from the yellow pages under the listing for clowns.
“Now there are rules.” Sally broke the trance for everyone. “Sparkles only gets to spend the day with you. She has to go back to being a stuffed animal tonight when you go to bed.”
“Like Cinderella?” Macy smartly pointed out.
“Just like Cinderella.” Sally tapped her on the nose, letting her know she hit that one just right. “So, can I trust you to treat her well while she’s here?”
“Oh yes!”
“Promise?”
“I promise! I promise! I promise!” mused Macy.
Their pinkies connected to seal the deal before Sally picked Macy up and set her on Sparkles’ back.
Macy’s friends all gathered around, waiting impatiently for a turn to ride the white and pink pony, but Sally didn’t let their pleas affect Macy’s wish. She forced them to sit back down on the grass that outlined the cement porch as Macy rode Sparkles around the back yard, screaming with joy.
Diane, Macy’s mother, stumbled over to Sally’s side; a check for two hundred dollars, with a fifty dollar bill underneath, was in her hand. “I don’t even know what to say.” She was shaking her head mindlessly, “How did you get a horse out of the stuffed animal?”
“It’s magic!” Sally whispered, winking at her as if she just gave away a big secret.
“A horse though?” Diane couldn’t even fathom what she saw happen.
“A horse,” Sally confirmed, “that grazes on weeds and will only be here for a couple of hours. She’ll stay right next to Macy, and won’t cause any problems. At 9:00 PM, on the grass where she appeared will be Macy’s stuffed animal and the real Sparkles will be gone.”
Diane shook her head, still in shock over the birthday party magician. She offered Sally the money with a gratified thank-you. In exchange, Sally handed her a handful of business cards that read MagicWorks—where the magic is real. Home of Spazzy the Glorious and Sally the Magnificent.
“All right everyone. It’s time for me to go.” Sally hurried over to Macy and gave her a big birthday hug. She patted Sparkles on her long neck and then let the fifteen other children grapple her legs, arms, back and tummy. Once everyone had a chance to say goodbye, she stepped onto a clear spot of grass, put one hand on her magical suitcase which shuffled all the silks and bags back into place and closed by itself, and said, “Abracahome.” With a final wink at Macy, Sally the Magnificent waved her wooden wand and vanished from Diane, Mitch, and Macy Mayberry’s back yard.
“Hey honey,” Scott said just as Sally popped into existence inside the office.
“Hey baby.” Sally flicked her wand and the suitcase flew across the room and settled at the top of a clumsily put together, deep-brown bookcase that would make the Leaning Tower of Piazza look architecturally sound.
“How was the show?” Scott picked up a gnarled snub of wood that was airbrushed to look like real flames—the newest fad in airbrushing.
“Good. The little girl wished for a pony.”
“Oh god.” Scott’s tilted back head and amused rolling eyes said it all. “How did her parents handle it?”
“Given the fact that I turned the little stuffed horse into a real horse without the use of smoke, fire, mirrors, or string, I thought everyone handled it rather well.”
“So did you change the fabric of their existence, convincing them magic really does exist?”
Sally smiled, “Nope. They are all still looking for the string I’m sure.” She gave her wand a flick and her hat zoomed merrily from her head and settled on the cluttered hat rack. “You want pizza for dinner?” she asked, moving from the room and heading upstairs. Before Scott could even answer, a sliver of silver swooshed out of the tip of her wand and unfolded into a sturdy pizza pan that floated in front of her. The second swish, a glimmer of golden brown mixed with red and yellow poured onto the pan, arranging itself nicely into a family sized pepperoni pizza.
Scott shot his wand at the computer and that familiar logging off music filled the room as the door to the office closed for the night.
“Yeah, Mom’s making pizza,” Glaysia shouted as the pizza zoomed onto the dinning room table with Sally in its wake carrying paper plates.
“You guys want to watch Bewitched?” Scott asked the family, popping into existence in the kitchen. He picked up Aurrick and Glaysia by their waists and carried the two kids into the dinning room.
“Yeah!” Glaysia cheered.
“I’ll get the drinks,” Maria, the oldest of the three kids announced, pulling her teal green wand from the side pocket of her jeans.
“I’ll make popcorn,” Glaysia whipped up a bright pink wand from her belt.
“Pew,” Sally exclaimed, looking horrified at the toddler. “Aurry, you need to change your diaper.”
Aurrick giggled, and then pointed a finger at a stack of diapers and wipes under the end table. They zoomed at him as he lay down on the floor and waited.
© Copyright, Chrissie Sparling
HUNYA
By JB Pravda
INT. BEDROOM OF A YOUNG MAN/ TOKYO JAPAN-EVE.
A young Amerasian man of 21 is asleep in his Japanese decorated flat, with rice paper window and door decor, etc.; he istalking in his sleep, and begins to react verbally to his dream figures, action. We hear muffled war-like sounds, air raid sirens, children crying/screaming.
HUNYA
No … no … father …
We see a nun rush into the room, wake him. He awakens, suddenly sits up in his bed, with cold sweat dripping; he makes his way to the dresser where a picture frame of his father sits; he holds it looking at it.
HUNYA (CONT'D)
I saw you … you were alive … you were standing, in a beautiful place, a rainbow over your head, but, the Sun, it was shining … you spoke to me: ‘Make it new,’ you said. How I miss you, and, now, mother is gone too…. He looks at the clock; it is four in the morning; he sits at his table and begins to write.
INT. OFFICES OF KATAMI CORPORATION, TOKYO JAPAN-DAY
It is several weeks later; the gifted young Amerasian copywriter for a multinational company has written a prize-winning essay for the UN's UNICEF; he has been summoned to the CEO's office.
MR. KATAMI
Come, come; please sit.
HUNYA
Thank you sir; they said you wanted to see me.
MR. KATAMI
Yes, indeed; how long have you been with us, HunYa?
HUNYA
About a year, sir; I was hired just after high school graduation.
MR. KATAMI
I see; where, that is to say, how did you learn to write so well, especially your haiku verses? Our greeting card sales are way up since you began penning them.
HUNYA
Well, um, sorry, I'm a bit nervous….
MR. KATAMI
No need, you must put yourself at ease, just pretend you are inside one of your lovely rainbows!
HUNYA
(smiling)
Alright, sir … .it's my father, he read much poetry, especially by the American Ezra Pound.
MR. KATAMI
Ah, yes, the Cantos … what was it, that haiku about the Paris Metro station, the people's faces … lovely….
HUNYA
‘The apparition of these faces in the crowd: petals, on a wet, black bough.’
MR. KATAMI
So small, yet so big in meaning … strange, for a Westerner to appreciate that size does not always matter; your father, he was an American.
HUNYA
Yes, he was a pilot, in Viet Nam; he met my mother while on leave to here. He often spoke about the rainbows he would see, high over the clouds, with no beginning, no end, as if … they were protective archways from the heavens.
MR. KATAMI
Well, he has taught you well; I have some wonderful news for you: your entry in the UNICEF has so impressed them that you have been invited to the UN in New York, as a special envoy for their new campaign to enliven their personnel and their mission!
HunYa stands, beaming, with a tear in his eye, and bows gracefully.
MR. KATAMI (cont'd)
Come, come, give me a hug, Japanese reserve just won't do!
They embrace warmly.
MR. KATAMI (cont'd)
My boy, you have brought great honor to yourself, and the company.
HUNYA
Thank you, sir. You gave me the chance, after all; it is only fitting that Katami Corporation should share in my happiness.... I must tell you, sir …
(hesitates)
MR. KATAMI
Yes, what is it, you look almost … dazed … would you like some green tea?
HUNYA
Oh, no, sir, I'm fine … it's just that, well, not to sound immodest, but, I dreamed this!
MR. KATAMI
Dreams must always be immodest, or they teach us nothing; besides, did not Pound see as in a dream: '... apparition of these faces...', ghostlike, they haunted his open yet dreaming eyes; but there is more.
HUNYA
How could there be?
MR. KATAMI
(hands him a paper)
You are entered in the International Elvis Impersonation Competition to be held in New York next week!
HUNYA
But, but … I missed the deadline....
MR. KATAMI
Let's just say that I made a phone call; besides, you're competing for Japan, and the company.
HUNYA
I am greatly honored.
MR. KATAMI
As are we … and, your father.
HUNYA
How did you know he was an Elvis fanatic?
MR. KATAMI
Your mother told me; may I tell you something?
(feigns gravity)
HUNYA
Anything sir.
MR. KATAMI
I do a pretty good impression, myself!
Mr. Katami assumes karate pose, sneers and begins to sing.
MR. KATAMI (cont'd)
'Bright light city gonna set my soul, gonna set my soul on fire ...Viva, Las Vegas!' Why do you think we own a string of Karoake bars all over the world? We are opening one in New York, the very week you'll be there, good place to warm up for the competition.
They both laugh heartily; then embrace again, and HunYa begins to leave.
MR. KATAMI (cont'd)
One more thing, HunYa, for me, and, especially your father: 'Make it new.'
HUNYA
Brand new, sir, like every new rainbow.
INT. JETLINER TO NY-DAY
Hunya is aboard the plane to NY and the UN; as he sits quietly, he looks out the plane window and sees a rainless rainbow, with strange colors he's never seen.
HUNYA
(audible gasp)
The rainbow, rainless, as in my dreams …
Just then, a flight attendant, Oriental, approaches.
AKI
Wonderful, isn't it?
HUNYA
Why, yes ... the colors ...
AKI
I've never seen such colors, in all my years of flying.
HUNYA
My name is Hun Ya, sorry.
AKI
Aki, Aki Ling, pleased to meet you. What takes you to New York?
HUNYA
Oh, my company entered me in a contest for UNICEF and, well, I won.
AKI
Congratulations. You must be my guest at my favorite club, it's karoake, have you ever been to one?
HUNYA
What a coincidence, my company is opening one there, in a few days’ time; perhaps you could join me there.
AKI
Sounds fun, but, you didn't answer my question.
HUNYA
Well, I don't like to brag, but, I've spent some time doing karoake, in Tokyo, since I was old enough to go; I have a confession to make.
AKI
Aha, the man of mystery, cool.
HUNYA
I'm competing in an Elvis impersonation thing, that's where I got started, really, karoake.
AKI
Wow, you won't believe this, but my godfather, sort of, introduced me to Elvis when I was a child and I think I know all the songs.
HUNYA
Well, then, I can see what you are, young lady.
AKI
Huh? I beg your pardon?
HUNYA
(mugs best Elvis)
'You ain't nuthin but a hound dog, flyin all the time....'
AKI
Ha, ha, very funny; gotta go, here's my number, call me.
INT. CEREMONIAL HALL OF THE UNITED NATIONS NY-DAY
Hunya is on hand to receive his special appointment as ambassador of good will for UNICEF; the Secretary General is on hand to emcee.
SECRETARY GENERAL ANON
Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to present to you a work, truly inspirational, regardless of age, and it is that quality of clear yet dream-like imagery which has caused this young man to be this year's Young Ambassador!
There is great applause, and Hunya approaches the dais, looking very much like early Elvis.
HUNYA
Thank you, thank you very musssssh! I have been asked to read my call to safety, for all the children of the world, and for all of them, regardless of their circumstances or language or color, to write to me about their dream place, a safe place—their place of the rainless rainbow, created by the tears of Heaven, that place that they can go, anytime, in between its uncertain beginning and end; an old person, recalling his or her beautiful youth, speaks lovingly of its memory:
T'was there that my soul lept at the intended blending of the
breeze with hum and chatter of the insect and the bird and,
the faint laughter of some human voice enthroned on or near
that jutting liminal space, refuge from the storms of living;
in harmonious competition of ancient marriage unspoken with
its concave covering, urban paths progressed, lined with
tunneling canopy of corresponding branched towers whose
leaves were as dappled light in a bathing prism, their
rainless rainbow with the full complement of hues;
'twas there—'Hunya'—after the sound often heard to issue
from her uppermost reaches when the wind made its hearty
embrace felt upon her hair-like branches; time's tallied Her
trunk's demise, mirror to mine, now shrunken, singular in its
abiding, sans but few poorly bark-ed limbs betraying her
morphic furl from life's joining song;
I lay a once-familiar hand upon the place was carv-ed by my
tremulous member a name, joyful tropism of days past falls
upon my ear! … I 'awaken' to this symbol of vertical youth,
new full and strong, in company of my fellows, at play in
winsome waves of turbulent air, whispering a native tribe's tongue: "Welcome to
Hunya … our name for Heaven…."
© Copyright, JB Pravda
Planet X and the Invasion of the Shadow People
By Scott M. Starling
“Stop! Stop running right now!” Josh demanded, holding up his hand at the four kids ahead of him. They did stop, but urgently looked behind Josh. Josh took another glance over his shoulder, and verified what he saw moments ago; nothing. Just the peaceful sidewalks along 13th Avenue and a few trees and bushes littering the grass of the front lawns. A lazy hum of bumblebees and lawnmowers filled the air.
And Josh’s ragged breathing. He couldn’t avoid his own ragged breathing.
Josh turned back to the four strangers. Though he was panting and dripping sweat, the youths before him were breathing in slow measures. Their hair ruffled in the breeze, but not a single drop of sweat beaded their foreheads. “Just give me back my bag. Please? I don’t know you and I’m not going with you.”
The leader of the group, a tall boy who had earlier introduced himself as Marty, stepped toward Josh and held his hand out. He had an amazing brush of blond hair and a perfect row of teeth. “Come on. I told you already, we don’t have any time. We need to get you back home.”
“To Planet X?” Josh asked, not really intending a question. “I told you this morning, you guys are all crazy. I don’t need this schoolyard crap!”
“Let’s just take his bag and go!” one of the girls said. She was a pretty girl with skin the color of mocha, but her eyes were a bit unfriendly whenever they looked toward Josh. “We don’t really need him.”
“Wait!” Josh said, holding his hands up again. “Just give me my necklace out of the front pouch. Then you can take the bag. Get out of my life.”
Marty walked back to Josh, taking a deep breath and speaking calmly. “Look, we can’t give you your pendant. It’s what we need. Unfortunately, you need it too.”
“It was my dad’s,” Josh started, but Marty silenced him with a wave.
“That’s why you can’t leave it, and that’s why I am asking you to come with us. It wouldn’t be fair for us to take it.”
“It wouldn’t be fair for us to stand around talking until the shadows get long and our stalkers get closer either!” the dark skinned girl yelled. The other two kids agreed impatiently.
“Stow it!” Marty said to them. He turned his attention back to Josh. “Just come with us, please. Just for a moment. We can explain everything when we get there. As a matter of fact, the place tends to explain itself.”
“Planet X?” Josh said, reflecting back on the crazy nonsense this newcomer had told him in the school cafeteria.
Marty nodded.
“Well . . .” Josh grimaced. He hated confrontations. “Where is this place? Is it a store? A church or something?”
Marty grabbed Josh by the shoulders, and herded him toward the other kids, trying to get him moving again while they spoke. “No. It really is another world, one step removed from this one. A world in the middle of a crisis that you might be able to help with.”
His heart hammered in his chest, and it wasn’t just from the running. Marty and his friends terrified Josh. None of them were right in the heads if they believed this swing set shit, but he really wanted his father’s necklace back. It was the only thing his parents had left for him and, even though he couldn’t remember them, the need to keep it safe was almost physical; an aching in his chest that demanded he carry the necklace with him at all times.
It’s not like I have a choice, Josh thought. The girl with the wicked eyes appeared to have no intentions of relinquishing his bag.
“Okay,” Josh said. “But only for a minute. My mom’s expecting me home any second. When I’m late, she calls the police and stuff. She’s done it before.” The lie was lame on his tongue, and judging by the way the kids looked away and rolled their eyes, Josh figured they knew it was a lie. They ushered him down the street now, not running any more, but walking around him like a royal guard, eyes everywhere except where they were going.
“Is it very far?”
A cold breeze came up the street from behind them, and the sun dipped behind the clouds. All of Josh’s escorts stopped, and looked wide-eyed in the direction the breeze had come from. 13th Avenue held still in the darkening light.
“What is—” Josh interrupted himself with a small gasp. Something moved down the street, almost out of sight, a deep shadow that went from tree to bush, so quickly it may have been his imagination. Josh shivered.
“We’re out of time,” Marty said. He looked about, spotted the Stop-N-Go corner grocery store and gave Josh a shove in that direction. “Move!”
The kids burst into motion, still surrounding Josh and running across the street like maniacs. A red car coming from up the street screeched to a halt and Josh hoped the driver didn’t know his foster parents.
The driver honked, then moved on. The group of kids steered Josh behind the store instead of inside. They went all the way down the back alley and stopped when they reached the cover of the back fence and a sheer wall of blackberry bushes. “Dead end!” the other boy yelled.
“I know,” Marty said. “Start summoning the portal, Trevor!” He turned to the girls. “Jenny, Moon, get ready. We got incoming!”
The two girls reached down their shirts and came up with necklaces similar to the one in Josh’s bag. They faced the narrow alleyway, necklaces held up between their thumb and index fingers like wards; simple jade talismans that somehow seemed as important as life preservers on the open ocean.
While the other boy rubbed a jade ring on his finger and chanted in a strange language, Marty grabbed the bag off the dark girl’s shoulder (Moon, Josh guessed) and ripped open the front pouch. He tossed the beaded jade necklace to Josh and joined the two girls, looking down the mouth of the alleyway. Marty had a jade as well, but his was embedded in a wooden bracelet that Josh saw this morning but had taken no particular notice of until now.
“What is it?” Josh asked, putting his necklace on. He resisted the urge to hold the jade up in front of him as the girls did. It seemed a bit silly in light of the circumstances.
“A Shadow Man,” the Moon said. “A Dark One.”
“What’s he want?”
“You. Your necklace.” Marty focused on the alleyway opening.
Silence filled the back alley for the space of about ten seconds. Josh couldn’t take the suspense. “Is he from . . . ? You know.” It felt ridiculous to say, as if saying it might make him believe it, but he had to know what he was dealing with. “Is he from Planet X?”
“No!” Marty said as if the very idea offended him. “He’s from Obfuscatia. It’s another world, also one step removed from this one, but in the opposite direction of our own.”
“This is stupid!” Those words escaped Josh’s mouth, and no others, because at that moment he felt the hairs on his arm stand on end. The air itself literally crackled with enchantments and a soft glow lit the back alleyway.
Josh turned to the source of the glow, and his eyes widened when a hole appeared in the air before Trevor. The boy rubbed his jade ring and continued chanting as the hole grew larger. The light glow came not from the hole, which appeared dark and sinister, but from the edges of the hole, as if the very air were alight with magic.
“What the—?”
“Oh no,” Jenny whimpered. Josh whipped around, grasping for his necklace no longer afraid of how stupid it might look. He held the jade pendant high as he looked down the alley.
A tall shadow stood between the store and sidewalk. It was featureless in texture, only a dark splotch of shadow, but had the shape of a tall man wearing a trench coat and a sleek Stetson hat, a hat of back alley thugs and assassins. The hat of a killer.
The shadow lurched down the alleyway, and each of the girls shouted out senselessly as Marty stepped in front of Josh. Pink light shot from Moon’s jade, and hit the shadow in the thick of its body. The shadow slowed, but kept coming, leaning forward against the pink beam of light as if it offered strong resistance.
Jenny spoke strange words, gesturing at the shadow with he other hand as if throwing handfuls of pebbles or rice at a wedding. Each time she did, little sparkles flew from her open palm and pelted the shadow’s head. The shadow only shook these off as if they annoyed.
A blue wall of light appeared before Marty, a shield Josh assumed because it reminded him of a force field one might see in a science fiction movie. Complete with humming. Marty began to back up toward the hole calling to the others.
“Moon, Jenny! Let’s go! Let’s go!”
“I can take him,” Moon said, and strained even harder as she concentrated on whatever powers the jade granted her. The pink beam intensified, thickening and almost stopping the shadow. Red eyes appeared on the shadow’s head, but they looked no more human that a spider. Indeed, they were eyes like a spiders. A maw of sharp teeth opened below the eyes and a thick, purple tongue lolled out like a worm. It appeared to smile.
Another shadow appeared at the mouth of the alleyway, and came at them fast. Marty grabbed Moon and Jenny by the back of their shirts, and hauled them toward the hole, which was now tall enough to accommodate an eleven-year-old body.
“Go! Go! Go!” Marty yelled at Josh as he stepped, disappeared, into the hole. Josh didn’t need a second invitation as he flung himself forward and jumped into the hole like a jack rabbit. He rolled when he hit hard earth on the other side, and turned over just in time to see Trevor scream as shadowy hands grabbed him from behind. He and the hole vanished.
“Trevor!” Jenny screamed, scrambling forward and swiping at the air where the hole had been moments before. Josh backed away, in case the hole might reappear and admit the shadows to follow, then he stood and took a quick look around as he gasped in strange tasting lungfulls of air.
“I’m not in Kansas anymore,” he said, and realized he was crying.
The landscape around him had altered so completely that Josh had to turn in three circles, taking it all in over and over. He sky was a deep red. Purple mountains littered the distance beyond immeasurable fields of yellow grass and green trees. There was no fence, no blackberry bushes, and no Stop-N-Go. Indeed, there was no building in sight.
Moon crawled over to Jenny, grabbing her hands and trying to calm her down, though obviously upset herself. Marty stood up and walked over to Josh. He laid a hand on Josh’s shoulder and said, “Welcome to Adoria. Or as people from your place call it, Planet X. Welcome home.”
© Copyright, Scott M. Starling
POETRY
What a Soul Is
By Heather Cook-Lindsay
What a Soul Is
December, a weekday.
The snow falls,
It's a perfect winter storm.
Early dismissal comes
crackling from ancient speakers--
hundreds of children escape,
backpacks bumping:
little souls soaring.
Twelve degrees Fahrenheit and
the cat curls into a half moon.
She's warming on the bed--
pink nose, dazed and voluptuous
with tuna breath, a slight snore.
Her soul swells in front of me:
all she needs in the world she has.
And me,
the iron clad kettle whistles
from the kitchen.
I know more about fear and dread
than I ever imagined;
I'm confused about God.
Still, I stare from the window while
the little boy from next door
jumps into the snowbank.
Russet curls blow across his
porcelain forehead.
His snowsuit's bold like a red sailboat.
These images shape my soul
with a sympathetic hand.
The long streets are still
in the half-light of dusk:
But, it's in all off us, I know--
An envelope stuffed with
words and pictures.
Neither happiness
nor sadness--
a soul just is.
© Copyright, Heather Cook-Lindsay
Leaf
Tore me a leaf
out of one of my trees.
Kept it from passage
on autumnal breeze.
Denied it a grassy
retirement home.
Saved it a place
inside of my poem.
Copyright 2
Collection of Poems
By F.I. Goldhaber
Signs of the Times
He stands on the street
corner, leaning against
the wooden stake
that holds his employer's
message to the passing hordes.
In between cigarettes,
he sleeps on his feet,
swaying slightly in the
carbon monoxide-laced breeze.
Across four lanes of traffic,
his colleague dances and
waves to the passing cars.
At the end of the day they both
collect the same paycheck.
Corporations
Cellular One, Ford, U-Haul
Verizon, AT&T, American Express,
Hewlett Packard, U.S. West, MCI.
Corporate behemoths who have
crossed me, refused to do the right thing,
ignored the fair and just complaint.
I took you all on. I know who to call.
I know where to write. I use my words to battle
those who routinely abuse consumers.
FCC, FTC, SEC, PUC.
AG's Office of Consumer Fraud.
Familiar with the government alphabet soup,
I enlist their aid: for the threat of regulators
gets your attention. I work my way up from
supervisor to VP to CEO. Understanding corporate
structure--how to read annual reports--helps
pave the way. I count my victories
in dollars returned, letters of apology, payments made.
Fellow Travelers
We each have taken
different paths
to recognize
we cannot make the journey alone.
For a short while,
we have traveled
together the difficult road to recovery.
Some of us paid
a horrid price
because we did not
reach this understanding sooner.
Others suffered less,
but still see the abyss
that will swallow us if we can't learn new ways.
We helped each other
over rough
spots in the road.
Though now our paths part,
and we lose that support,
our spirits have intertwined.
We will never forget our time together.
Dreams
Flashes of film
flit through my head.
Snippets of dream
spin my brain from
one bizarre image
to another. My thoughts
race about; bounce off
each other; careen
through the miasma of
my mind 'til I wake.
I lie in bed, exhausted
from the night's exertions.
Betrayal
My words spill out
on the page, exposing
my heart and mind.
I share my words
with the world, but only
when I've weighed each
one to make sure
it is the perfect choice
to reveal my
thoughts. For more than
a quarter century
I have earned my
way in this world
with words. She stole my words,
words not ready
for the world to
see. Words that should have brought
money appeared
on her blog for
all to read. I mourn the
loss of my words.
© Copyright, F.I. Goldhaber.
Collection of Poems
By Brennan Fitzgerald
Library
By Brennan Fitzgerald
Words sit in bookcases
held in neatly like teeth.
That book--you told me about it in your tight lipped passion,
sits proudly on display like silverware at a table--
the binding urges me to feast.
I will never forget how your eyes glinted in the chicory scent of July’s dusk,
all of this--this rope gutting fever
was possible in summer but feels incomplete in the acute confines of a New England
library.
Those unfettered emotions, that were so much like damp hair
become transformed in coherent paragraphs. Look.
I can find you in sentence.
And I think,
if I could know these sets of words, how you did.
If--we could somehow
unify
in experience
maybe we could procreate.
© Copyright, Brennan Fitzgerald
Bophana’s Letters
By Brennan Fitzgerald
I have no power
Isn’t this what it’s about?
I am no longer Hout, but Sita.
The tests of my love for you are endless.
I have reverence for you like a seamstress for cloth.
What am I, but a mechanical hammer, walker, jumper? None of the old convictions can help me.
My life’s purpose has boiled down to this—to not move. Yet still—my arms will flail.
I am impaired as an apple— I will never be Joan of Arc. I will never glide to freedom in a horse. I will not be known.
They will not give me a public burning that yields a deeper wisdom. Violence is like this—it burns like dead hair.
But you, you must stay right there, you must stay with me—
Down to the outside, you are always here.
Stay with me until I can no longer see. Midnight has a cold breath.
You are beneath my skin like sun.
I don’t want to be carved within the square lines on this wall.
My mind has run over them, used them too many times, flagellated in an irrational dance that frightens my brain, but leaves me motionless; I am the woman with closed eyes now, death’s easy rider; the end is a symphony.
Confessions are in reverse here.
I write so that I can die.
I have come to despise boxes, regimes, mightiness; I no longer want to be the speaker, the
Fighter, the one whose words lay confused, resonate against long yards of silence
I want to sit with you and do the simplest of tasks. I want you to watch me wring my hands from water.
I see us no longer inside the Arctic neck hold that this world has placed on our throats.
Fate is an ugly keeper. You are never in front of me, yet I promise, I am always watching you. I know you in remembered words. I know everything about you. I know the way your teeth look when you open your mouth in your sleep.
Look at my stomach. The bones are rakes, yet
Desire lives here, and she is a woman. She is heavy. She always swerves. She is a lion’s stomach.
Go to the dawn, that’s where you will always find me, where even the uniformed men
stop breathing and the honey of your skin overtakes the yellow gold of the sky.
May you never know a day without me, although the frames of your pupils may never hug their gaze around my bones;
May you never know a rest where I am not bringing you peace, kissing your eyelids, where I am not watching over you, covering your body in protection.
This letter no longer exists merely as paper. The letters take me.
It has lost its dryness and has been filled with my blood,
This ink does nothing but jump with the moon, I promise
we will know as ghosts.
© Copyright, Brennan Fitzgerald
HORROR
Welcome to Ladies' Night Fright!
She wouldn’t live through this; many shadows emerged from the lit room and gathered with shuffling sounds around her on the concrete floor. AND THEY GREW.
NIGHTSTALKER: IN THE CREEPING DARKNESS
By Chris Goebel
They had drugged her at the bar. She’d gone to the ladies’ room, left her Pina Colada unattended, returned to a smiling stranger inviting a cool, long drink. These places made her nervous—small town bars on major highways—that, and a skirt she couldn’t pull lower down her legs to be less whorelike. Nina hated wearing a new miniskirt and discovering it was four inches shorter in the wearing than it had been in the trying on: in that skirt, sitting down had stirred lust in every male within two hundred feet. Beauty cursed. Nina had experienced the fear of men wanting her, but this…
You weren’t supposed to wake up on your birthday in total darkness, knowing you’d been drugged—worse, knowing you’d erred on the side of stupidity. Ignorance. Creepy fucking feelings. No sensation in your arms or legs—or anywhere else for that matter (and those parts did matter)—only a roaring scream in your head. Get the hell out of here. Move your damn ass, stupid! They’re coming to get you. This was Friday the 13th, only she was the ignoramus challenging Jason to attack.
No light no sound no movement no wind no hope no future no nothing. You can’t shut out pitch black fear by closing your eyes and Nina could do nothing but wait—closing her eyes, then squinting them open. If the attacker came, she needed to know. No, she didn’t need to freakin’ know! Let the rampage be done. Finish the madness.
She could almost pierce the darkness to see her bound hands and ankles.
Now she was a quadriplegic without a wheelchair or device. A dove without wings as the stealthy cat creeps. A body in space, awaiting unmentionable torture. The door would open; light would shine in and blind her. She couldn’t move. He’d remove his pants, lower himself to her, slap her around—his sweat would shower her with neverending grief and guilt—no one would believe she hadn’t consented. The drug would be out of her system in hours. Fucking asshole finish me now, you shiteating, yellow slime sucking, perverted specimen of subhuman, shrunken gonad bullying cowardice! Peon!
Nina’s head pounded. She wanted to vomit or she had already—or maybe she had and would soon. This was worse than trying every drink at Pat O’Brien’s in New Orleans (151 Bacardi, unrelenting alcoholic purging that only beans and rice can soak up out of your liver). She was 21. Her parents wouldn’t come looking for her. She saw a tombstone glowing next to Commander’s Palace, or was it the Governor’s Mansion in New York? Mount Rushmore? WHERE IN THE HELL AM I? and no answer, no sound, no compassion in this vortex of loss, highness? Was she high? This was more than a drinking buzz.
The man at the bar was a fuzzy memory. Nausea attacked like high sea waves.
Light. Shadow. Mist. Mist? The cool vapor entered the room before the shapes. She wouldn’t live through this; many shadows emerged from the lit room and gathered with shuffling sounds around her on the concrete floor. AND THEY GREW.
They seemed twelve feet tall, wore capes that swept the floor. Large, angular heads.
Not … human.
Alien rape? Would some alien child pop out of her belly and start eating her family?
Talk. Beg! No words came and the shadows shuffled closer, their huge faces a few inches shy of fuzziness. Nina tried to tighten her knees, was too afraid to look down and see if it worked; hope drained out of her like urine. There was no freakin’ way she was gonna be gangbanged by aliens and not defend herself!
Then one touched her temple and though she closed her eyes, heat radiated from the thing’s finger into her brain and she knew what it wanted. Her mind!
Nina tried to move her head but nothing happened. As the alien worked her brain, the memory returned. She saw the picture as if she were outside of herself. She had gone to the bathroom, entered the stall, closed the door. When she’d pulled down her skirt to sit on the toilet, the alien—fully visible in his tangerine hue—had pierced the back of her neck with its jagged, clawlike appendage. Like a Brown Recluse bite, the chemical going in numbed the area. No wonder why she hated freakin’ spiders! The pain was yet to come. She would still go have the drink.
The end of the drink had progressed to sexual madness on the stranger’s motorcycle while driving down the highway. Damn that skirt!
The motorcycle dissolved—along with the driver.
The previous momentum had thrust her to the street and the last thing she felt besides numbness was her skin scraping the pavement.
Like tarantulas in the desert, the aliens had come for her. Like prey, she remained etherized.
But this one wasn’t taking liquid substance from her. It wanted something in her mind. Thoughts and memories raced before her eyes, a million conscious and subconscious memories (So her boyfriend had slept with her friend while she’d been sleeping! So she had been adopted! Wait! Adopted?). The math problem she’d solved last week, the discovery of an extinct bird, accidentally killing a butterfly. Learning to sew, to cook, to make love.
At once, the stabbing sensation awoke in her, the stifling realization arrived. How could anyone feel this pain and live? Her body writhed while her eyes widened with acute terror. She recognized the face of her first love, her first kiss—the inexplicable honeyed sweetness of human innocence and love. “Nina, will you go steady with me?” And that was what the alien wanted. As much as Nina knew what thought he viewed, she felt his desire to swipe this memory.
She vomited, but the alien didn’t stop. She vomited again, until the dry heaves overtook her. Ice picks pricked at her skull. Vices gripped her brain.
“Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin,” she whispered, then again, louder. “NOT BY THE HAIR ON MY CHIINY CHIN CHIN.” Then it was Disney and Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Then it was the Pythagorean Theorem. Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Wait, but she’d never studied that before.
The aliens shuffled around her. Since sensation was returning, she kicked at what she hoped was a crotch. No movement. Great, either no balls or iron balls.
The Laws of the Universe Complete. The equation for Entry in Concentric Universes. This had to be something she knew somehow. She tried pulling back her thoughts, but pictures and mathematical equations flashed by her eyes.
The aliens got closer yet; the mist intensified. No scent, just wetness. Maybe they would rape her yet.
Headache. Body ache. Scraped skin. The extracting appendage. Her head would explode and she recalled something in a mind apart from her own, separate from the one the alien examined.
She had been beaten senseless as a child. A second mind evolved, a second conscience, a second being. Now that being awoke and saw the examination of Nina’s mind and laughed. They had attacked the wrong consciousness. Without her help, Nina would die. But Sostena knew what to deliver. Without much effort, she circumvented the alien’s mind probe into her own mind. Nina was now safe and if anyone died, it would be Sostena—but this mind knew no fear. In fact, Sostena’s brain possessed the one thing that could erase horror out of the corners of her mind.
She shot the wave of depression and hopelessness into the alien, injecting him with the wavering dryness of years of abuse. Beatings, crying, screaming, invasion, betrayal, lack of compassion, fright, death, lack of love, horrid loneliness.
The Nightstalker withdrew, the vapor immediately drying around them as the aliens dissipated, the ropes dissolved, the room disappeared. The motorcycle reappeared with the mysterious lover from the bar. She stopped in mid thrust. “I don’t think I know you,” Sostena whispered as she got off the motorcycle. Unlike Nina, she didn’t tug at her skirt as she dismounted. She couldn’t figure out why short skits embarrassed Nina. They had damn nice legs.
© Copyright, Chris Goebel
FANTASY FICTION
Enjoy Sir Rodney’s Adventures from
Thomas E. Jordon!
The Adventures of Rodney
By Thomas E. Jordon
“Oh, by Pope Carl’s hairy left nostril!” Sir Rodney spat when he looked down thirty feet between his toes and saw the troll under him. The foul creature had walked up, tilted its head back and now stood there with its mouth open. Rodney could hear his father’s whiney voice, “You can’t blame him, Son. He’s only there for lunch.”
Rodney, standing in the blood-stopping loop he had tied in a creaking rope no more a size around than his pinkie, was starting to question his judgment. But there, just five feet away from where he hung, in the mouth of a cave magically drilled into the cliff face, stood what was undoubtedly one of the ten most beautiful women in the world.
“My, Lady!” Rodney called across the way. “Ask me your question.”
The fair maiden leaned against the wall of the cave and pulled her long blonde hair back from her face revealing milky white perfect skin, pale pink lips and huge gold doeish eyes. He thought for a moment that her smile didn’t quite look right, but then Rodney reminded himself that he had other things on his mind as well.
She giggled, then blew a puff of air toward him.
The shattered stump of the once-proud oak that Rodney had thrown the other end of his rope around made itself a little more comfortable in the ground. “Your question, My Lady,” Rodney called again as he wondered if his present arrangement was up to the next part of his plan.
“Oh.” She made to go back into the cave, then stopped and smiled vacantly at him. “What starts on three, goes to seven and ends with one?”
“Three, seven, one,” Rodney said.
“Three, seven, one,” she childishly sang back to him.
It was at that moment, as the rope slipped dropping him a quarter of the span of an angel’s wings, that Rodney figured there came a point when one could carry that "faint heart never won fair lady" thing just a little too far.
© Copyright Thomas E. Jordon
Click here to read Thomas E. Jordon’s Brief Bio.
Sometimes
By Thomas E. Jordon
"By the Apostle John's shriveled left testicle," Sir Rodney groaned as his lance buried deeply into the vestigial-winged dragon without encountering a single vital region. Before he could withdraw the harpoon, the dragon ripped its serrated tail across his horse's belly. Immediately, the stout-hearted mount snorted blood and began sinking to the ground.
Rolling free of the doomed animal, Rodney drew his sword. He felt bad about the charger. Despite its irrational fear of scarecrows flapping in the wind, it had been a loyal and steadfast companion.
Rodney lowered himself into a fighting stance and began swaying back and forth on the balls of his feet. With the flat of his sword, he swiped aside one of the creature's clawed feet. Moving in on the nightmarish reptile, Rodney noticed Sir John's shield with its fighting dachshund emblem beside the entrance to the beast's lair. Poor Sir John, Rodney thought.
He recalled their last encounter. John had bought most of the tankards that passed between them and before parting company, shared one last bit of advice. "Always remember, Rodney, sometimes the dragon wins."
© Copyright 2005, Thomas E. Jordon
Present Tension
By Tanja Cilia
I look, I listen, I learn. I came, I saw, and I conquered. Much good it does me; they tied me up again today, because they said I am in a self-destructive mood. But it’s not true. I am not necessarily me.
That is, I am, but I am other people too, mostly people in my own family, but there are exceptions … I think.
Take the time the house burnt down … albeit I use the word house in a broad sense. We had just discovered fire, and I sort of instinctively knew that boar fat would make it go better. I had just gouged out some lard from between the (dead!) animal’s heart and lungs, and when I threw it on the fire, the whole universe—mine, anyway—went up in smoke.
I must be the only thirteen-year old mental patient in a strait jacket in the padded cell, anywhere in the world. And they cannot understand my powers; silly geese, they even got the priest in to try to exorcise me.
They told Mum I have a tendency to mislay things, but that’s because they stole my ring as they knew it is special.
I’d like to see the look on the face of the person who wears it, when …
"I know that ring!" I said, as I picked it up. The last time I'd seen it was on my grandmother's ring finger ... just before they closed the coffin lid and lowered it into the grave.
Now, in my semi-lucid state, I felt a light kiss on my cheek and footsteps running downstairs.
The thing is—I live alone, with no one to kiss me or present me with rings. Not since ...
I put it on—and suddenly, I heard a baby bawling from somewhere downstairs, and a smell of burning reached my nostrils. I slid down the banister rail, and saw that the frying pan on the stove was aflame. Without thinking, I grabbed the baby and ran.
Running across the muddy common, I hoped Sandra was at home. I banged on the door; a stranger who was yet familiar opened it. I gasped a few unintelligible words.
I immediately knew that somewhere along the line I had transmogrified into my own grandmother, and that the child I had just saved was my own father. Heaven knows how many times he had told me the story. But how could I explain to people that I was just "passing through"? They would burn me at the stake, or the equivalent.
I understood what was happening with wisdom far beyond my fifteen years. My husband—my grandfather—was away at sea, and wouldn’t be back for another month. By then, I had to have everything cleaned and repaired, because otherwise hell would break lose and he would beat me within an inch of my life. That, I knew, too.
Dragging my feet, I walked into the pawnshop. The sneer on the pawnbroker's face said it all. As soon as I removed the ring from my finger, I felt faint. I came to in a kitchen; the calendar said 1973.
I searched everywhere, but could not find the ring. And suddenly I recalled that Sandra’s granddaughter’s daughter had borrowed it to complete her outfit as the Wicked Witch of the West at the Halloween party.
I panicked. With a feeling of deja-vu, I grabbed the baby from the cot and ran to Sandra’s house. Apparently, from what they said later, only “the ring” was coherent enough to be understood. But when Sandra climbed the stairs to talk to the young girl ... the room was empty, and a white cat played with the ring on the quilt. And Sandra shouted my name. I tried to run upstairs, but I tripped forwards … in time.
The digital display on the otherwise blank wall said 2008, and I tried to explain to the Warden how I had come by a ring so precious when both I and my child were in tattered rags. Clearly, he did not believe me. When he manacled me, and forcibly removed the ring from my fingers with a view to placing it in an evidence bag (or purloining it?)—we dissolved before his eyes.
With my third eye, I saw him throw the ring, terrified, across the street into the sea. As it sank, it caught a glimmer of light from the setting sun.
I woke up in what I later learned to be Italy. I was in a café, with a steaming cup of something—I recall the word now, cappuccino—in front of me, and two miniscule almond tasting biscuits. In fluent Italian, I patiently explained to a typically tall, dark, and handsome singnore why I could not marry him, saying that I was betrothed to someone whom I recalled faintly as my husband. But, the thing is, I was 13 years old, so I couldn’t have had a husband.
When the stranger indicated this salient point, I showed him my black-gemmed ring. He laughed, and I flew at him like a tigress, because I deemed he was ridiculing me in front of everyone at the café.... Just because he was rich, it didn't give him a right to mock me.
I turned and ran out—smashing into a glass partition as I did so.
I was wearing one of those ruffled neckerchiefs, and I had to re-learn my life, because somehow I catapulted backwards, tumbling through space and time, into Queen Elizabeth I’s day. There, I found myself treated as a special person. I was called The Holy Fool, and they took my advice when I spoke, at random, about battles that ought to be waged and others that were to be avoided at all costs. Truth to tell, I had the foresight of hindsight!
Came the day when a traitor—who shall be nameless—tried to sneak in on me in the dead of night. I smelled his particular garlicky odour and saw his purple aura when he was still yards away.
So I called up my polystomatous sprites from Afar, and they ate most of him. I had the freedom of the castle, and so I made as if I’d found him lying there—after I appropriated the ring with the jet stone—and screamed and screamed. If it had been the theatre, I’d have brought the house down—again.
With everyone running toward me, there was too great a sensory input to bear—so I wished myself elsewhere, and, indeed, I found myself in Malta, right in the middle of the square at Bugibba. The Times headlines on the poster in front of the newsagent’s were dated 3rd September, 1959, and soon afterwards, I felt birthing pains … and this means that I was both myself, and my mother, giving birth to me.
Still dazed from the rush to hospital, I tuned in to the mumblings of the medicos around me, and realised that I had contracted some serious infection the source of which they could not fathom. Probably the unsavoury living conditions of my immediate past life, but I wasn’t telling them that, was I? They would have blamed post-partum depression, and sent me to the cuckoo’s nest.
But when I heard the word typhus, I panicked. I tried to get out of bed, intending to scrub myself with antiseptic soap … but I was still wobbly, and I fell and bumped my head.
I found myself in this padded cell, and when I did some astral travel the first night I was here, I discovered that the date is 2009 and I have been brought here because I am delusional … or so they say.
But I can’t move; it’s not that I’m mechanically immobilised; I’m either in a coma or else I’ve been drugged. But there are electrodes all over my head and strange noises from even stranger machines all over the room. The apparatus I recognise is a computer monitor of sorts. But there’s no keyboard.
I hear the rustle of clothing. Someone gently eases the ring off my finger, but this time I cannot make any resistance. I borrow a fly’s mind and follow the man to his lodgings.
A child opens the door upon hearing his step on the stair-treads. He has been playing with a white cat. The man puts enough oil in a pan and waits until it starts smoking. Then he tiptoes upstairs and puts the ring on the dressing table where a sleeping woman—hey, that’s me!—surely would see it. He can’t resist kissing my petal-soft cheek, before running out of my life, as he thinks, forever. He runs downstairs...
And I smell the burning oil, grab the child, and dash across the road to Sandra’s house. I remember the ring, and dash back for it, without offering any explanation. The flames cut off my escape. I throw the ring into the empty space before me—and I leap to my destiny from the tiny bathroom window.
And I, also one of the children in the crowd of spectators, see the glimmer of the ring as it catches a flame. I put it on, and tumble into blackness; I wake up in a coffin.…
"I'm, alive!" I scream … in vain. And I feel the clods of sod fall on my bier; I’m being buried alive.
And the grave looter took the ring and broke into the house of the mother of his child, the woman who’d scorned him way back in Italy, but then had second thoughts. He leaves the ring on the bedside table, and puts a pan of oil on the Aga. He lights the flame and leaves the house, carrying the baby with him. He knows he can sell it on the adoption black market. Babies with black hair and blue eyes are all the rage lately. His last action is to lock the door from the outside.
I smell the oil, and I frantically search the house for the baby. I survive, but barely; I have 3rd degree burns over more than 50% of my body. The prognosis is bad.
Ah, that’s what you all think. So, read my lips—or rather, the computer screen. Give Me Back My Ring so I can get back to my cocoon in the padded room.
© Copyright, Tanja Cilia
SCIENCE FICTION
NONE THIS MONTH
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