The Box of Cereal

by

Nannette Croce

 

 

Hi, this is Richard Drake. I’m either not home, or I’m busy creating some ingenious piece of software. So leave a message at the tone, and I’ll get back to you—honest.

“Richard, are you there? Are you there?” It’s Gwen. She has a new voice these days, high-pitched and loud, an even worse teeth-grinder than her old one. “I need to talk to you.  It’s important.” At the word “important,” I reach for the phone.  Then I remember that there’s nothing important left to tell, and I relax back in my chair. “Richard. If you’re there and you’re not picking up...” Dead air. The machine clicks off. Maybe I’ll call her later. It doesn’t really matter. She’ll call back if I don’t.

Whatever her pretext is, she’ll only end up asking one more time what I remember about that weekend. It’s always the same questions. What did he do? What did he say? Did he act depressed? Where could he have gotten the gun? And I answer the same way every time. “I don’t remember,” or “I don’t know.”

Sometimes I think she likes hearing just that. “I don’t know.” It’s how she hammers home that I was wasn’t clued in to what was going on around me. One of her big gripes when we were still married. Because, otherwise, what’s the point? It can’t change anything. But then, rehashing the past has always been one of Gwen’s favorite pastimes, especially when it involves some great wrong I’ve done.

Shit, I was on the verge of a breakthrough here, and now my mind’s all over the place. Even without living here, Gwen still manages to break in at the worst times and destroy my train of thought.

I close my eyes. That picture flashes behind my lids, and I snap open my eyes before it goes any further. Rolled up on the sofa are the pillow and blanket I got the last time I forced myself to go upstairs. It looks inviting, but instead I go to the kitchen and pour myself another cup of coffee. The place stinks of garbage and wet coffee grounds. They’re all over the counters and running down the sides of the sink. Some might even be little brown ants. Best not to look too closely. I turn my back and lean on the counter, sipping lukewarm coffee.

Okay, sure, maybe I did miss some clues that weekend. But Gwen was the one on the ski weekend with her boyfriend.  I was right here in same house, working. Consulting isn’t a nine-to-five job. You work days. You work nights. You work weekends. Nobody cares if your kid is sick or it’s your anniversary. A deadline’s a deadline. Gwen never got that.

And I can’t say I noticed anything different about him. Nothing out of the ordinary. I never kidded myself. He hated spending time at my place. He was a teenager, for chrissake. He wanted to be out skateboarding with his friends. Here, he’d sit in front of the TV all day playing one of his video games or texting his friends. I tried playing those games with him a couple of times, but he destroyed me. I have no eye-hand coordination.

He didn’t even like the same computer games I did. I bought him a great one where you find your way off this island by solving intricate puzzles. Apparently, he wanted the one where some jarhead saves the world by blasting weird-looking mummies that get in his way––all reaction time. No brainwork.

I light up another cigarette. The pack’s already almost empty.  Last night I went out to buy some basics, like milk and eggs and bread. I remembered the milk, and then, on the way out, I asked for this pack of cigarettes—just like that. Just like it hadn’t been ten years since I’d bought the last one. I’m drinking too much coffee, too. It’s past keeping me awake, but I feel a hole burning in my stomach. It would probably help if I ate something with it. I haven’t had more than one meal a day for weeks, if you can call a slice of dried up cheese rolled in piece of bread a meal. Funny, though, it hasn’t affected my paunch any. Even without nurturing, it clings like a needy woman.

The menu of items in my cabinets is meager, and nothing really appeals to me. Then I remember the cereal. Dry cereal is what my Mom always gave me when I felt sick and couldn’t keep anything else down.

I open the cabinet and the first thing I see is that cookie cereal. His cereal.

Why am I surprised? I’ve been buying it for years. On the front is a little man with skinny legs and a cookie body. On the back is a puzzle game a two-year-old could solve. When he was a little guy, he refused to eat breakfast, until, on one of my weekends, I pointed this one out at the grocery store. He liked the picture. Only he still wouldn’t eat it unless I ate it too. Gwen proclaimed it “crap” and wouldn’t let him have it at home. But I always kept it here, next to my raisin bran, for when he came to visit, and I still ate it every weekend, until––

I swallow hard and take a deep breath and another sip of the acid coffee. I don’t really know if he even ate the stuff himself anymore. Ever since he got to the age where he slept in, he’d get his own breakfast and eat in front of the TV while I worked. Maybe I was the only one eating it on weekends. Maybe I was buying it for myself.

I pop one of the miniature cookies into my mouth. Actually, it’s not bad without milk, kind of like a hard chocolate chip. I dribble the last bit of the coffee into my cup and lean against the counter, popping little cookies and washing them down with bitter coffee.

How old could he have been when Gwen left me—five, maybe six? I came home from a business trip and found her packing. He sat on the bed next to the suitcase, staring down at the floor. When I asked what was going on, she said I wouldn’t understand. She got that right. I didn’t understand. I still don’t. I know she griped about how I didn’t spend enough time with them, but I wasn’t clairvoyant. I told her, plenty of times, if you think I’m spending too much time in front of my computer, just tell me, and I’ll stop. But saying that only made her madder.

Sometimes I wanted to ask my son if he understood. And sometimes when Gwen had another new guy at the house when I picked him up, I wanted to ask him about that, too. I wanted to know if these guys really did all the things she said I didn’t do. But, then, what would have been the point? She made the decision to go, so it must have been what she wanted. My son never said it bothered him. So why ask?

When I dig to the bottom for another cookie, there’s only a grainy pile left in the corner of the box. I shake it up and feel around hoping there’s at least one more whole one hiding somewhere down there, but all I get is sugary crumbs stuck to my fingers. I slide a bowl from the pile in the sink, rinse it a little, and dump out the sandy cereal remains, tapping the box to get every last bit. With just enough milk, it turns to grainy paste. I sit down in one of my scratched up captain’s chairs, careful not to lean on the loose arm, and rub the scratchy concoction between my tongue and the roof of my mouth, savoring the sweetness of each mouthful before I swallow.

The phone rings again. The machine in my office clicks off right after the greeting. It has to be Gwen. She must be desperate to talk to me. I guess there are some needs that boyfriend of hers can’t meet.

The sugar and coffee have started to kick in. It’s only ten o’clock. If I can just get enough done to make it through that demo tomorrow, maybe I can quit early and tackle that stack of overdue bills.

Only, when I drop the bowl in the sink, I’m still not satisfied.

What else can I eat? There’s my raisin bran, of course, but that doesn’t appeal to me right now. The rest of my cabinets are pretty bare. Most of the milk is used up, and I don’t even want to check the date on those eggs. All I can find is a little peanut butter. I scrape a knife across the thin film on the bottom of the jar, then toss the knife in the sink without tasting it. I don’t want peanut butter, or raisin bran. What I want is more cookie cereal.

 

 

It takes me a while to find my keys between the cushions of the sofa and my wallet under a pile of to-do lists. My hair’s sticking out in all directions, but, hell, it looks like rain anyway. I don’t even bother to grab a jacket, though it’s chilly.

I head out for the Q-mart.

The car radio is on, set to my usual NPR station. Some guy droning on about the inspiration for a novel I haven’t read. I hit the scan button. Little snips of music flash by, interrupted by voices or static. But one tune does catch my ear. It’s one of those elevator-music instrumentals of an old pop song that, for some reason, seems significant, though I can’t remember why. The words float around somewhere at the back of my brain, but they won’t come to me. They’re connected with something I should remember––something from when Gwen and I dated maybe?

I can do dum dum now the dum—no, wait... yeah. Something about seeing clearly after the rain has gone... I can see all Popsicles on the tray.

All Popsicles on the tray? That can’t be right. What was it, some dumb commercial jingle? But now that stupid line is stuck in my head, since I can’t remember the rest of the words, and along with the repetition, a memory seeps in. Actually, it’s more of a feeling. It’s the feeling of riding in that Mustang convertible, with the wind pounding around my ears. I can smell the leather seats and another scent… the scent of little boy. The scent of the sun beating down on his shiny black hair, like the smell of newly ironed clothes. Now I remember. Gwen did sing that a lot for some reason, but the “Popsicle” part was his. I can hear that high-pitched little boy voice singing at the top of his lungs, back when he didn’t care if people were looking, and I’d sing it too, with his misunderstood words.

I guess we did have fun together sometimes—probably before the divorce. But I got that Mustang after Gwen left, one of the perks of being single…when did things change? When did we stop being silly together? When did he become the kid who ended up doing what he did?

There are no other cars at the Q-mart. I park right next to the handicapped spot.  A fine drizzle is falling now, so I hoof it into the store, which is empty except for a skinny kid behind the counter who continues talking on his cell phone. I can see practically the entire inventory from the entrance, and I spot the cereals right away. Unfortunately, they don’t include my cookie cereal. Still, unwilling to give up so soon, I approach the counter.

After several minutes, the kid decides to acknowledge me. “Help you with somethin’?” There’s no inflection in the voice.

“Yeah, I’m looking for that cookie cereal.”

“Got a name?”

“Yeah, I’m—oh, you mean the cereal.” How many years have I been buying it now, and I still don’t know the name. I would know it if I saw it. “Uh, it’s like little chocolate chip cookies. Only it’s a cereal.”

“That’s all the cereal we got.” He returns to his conversation.

“Gee, thanks,” I say as I shove the door. What a moron. Did it ever occur to him that if he tried a little he might do better than spending his life behind the counter of a Q-Mart making minimum wage? What is it with these kids today? They’re either on a phone or on a skateboard––preferably both. God forbid they should use their brains once in a while.

I hang in the parking lot entrance for a while trying to decide my next move. Was it really worth all this just to get some goddamn cereal? I’ll be lucky if I’m ready for my meeting tomorrow, let alone get around to anything else.

But, hell, I’m out now. I’ll take the route past the supermarket.

As soon as I make the first turn, I’m stuck in traffic.

I dig a cigarette from the pack and try to figure out where the lighter and ashtray are in this car. I reach toward the radio, but then change my mind. That song is still going in my head, and the words come out to the rhythm of the windshield wipers.

Some-thing-some-thing-now-the-rain-is-gone.

We did have fun that day we bought the mountain bike for his birthday. I couldn’t surprise him with it. I wouldn’t know the first thing about buying a mountain bike, but I asked him what he wanted and that’s what he said, so I took him to the store and let him pick it out. After, I thought that maybe I should have set a price limit, but he was so excited, I couldn’t refuse him the one he wanted.

He was intent on showing me all the features, too. He went over them with me as we stood on the hot driveway. I feigned interest, though, since I really don’t find bicycles all that exciting, and I needed to get a lot done that weekend. He took it out for a while, and when he came back, he made me come outside again so he could show me some more features he’d discovered and tell me how it performed. He offered to let me try it, but I declined. Then he said how he was planning a bike trip with Sean or Sven, or whatever the hell his name is—Gwen’s boyfriend.

For some reason, that kind of bugged me. I don’t know why. I mean, it’s not like I wanted to go instead. I don’t think I could ride one of those things on flat ground, let alone up a mountain. I guess it was that I had spent all that money and all, and taken all that time out to get it—I guess that was it. Of course, I didn’t tell him any of that. What would have been the point?

I think about turning around and going home. But it looks as bad in the other direction, and I can make out the sign for the supermarket a couple of blocks up. If I don’t get the goddamn cereal, I’ll have wasted all this time for nothing.

By now, the drops are running down my windshield. I speed up the wipers, and that song speeds up in my head.

I can see all Popsicles on the tray....

That was well over a year ago now, when we got the bike. I wonder if those two ever did go on that trip. He never said anything about it. But then, we didn’t have long conversations.

He seemed like a pretty nice guy, that Sean... Sven? He came at the end of a long string of boyfriends, and he was a good bit younger than Gwen was. I always figured that’s why she hung on to him so much longer than the rest. But he was good with the boy, and maybe that was the real reason. Maybe, in her mother’s way, she was testing out guys for the one who would make the best father.

He sure had me beat. For one thing, he liked doing kid things, not like me. I didn’t like doing kid things even when I was a kid. And the times I’d seen him at Gwen’s, when I’d go to pick up the boy, he didn’t act like the other guys she dated, anxious to boot the kid out the door. He’d pat him on the shoulder or muss his hair.

That’s another thing Gwen always accused me of. She said I wasn’t “demonstrative” enough.  She was big on those pop psychology analyses. She claimed it had something to do with my inability to “connect” with people. According to her, I never “connected.”

The supermarket lot is crowded. You’ve got to wonder why anyone else would pick such a lousy day to do their shopping. By the time I get inside, I’m shivering and my hair is dripping in my eyes. It’s one of those mega-markets that sells everything from fruit to mortgages, and even after three years, I still have to check the signs at the head of the aisles to find what I want. And, of course, the cereal is way at the other end of the store.

I search up and down the shelves. It would help to remember who makes it. Finally, yes, there it is, on the bottom shelf.

I pick up a box. Then I replace it and take the jumbo size instead. I grab another box and another. Hugging the three boxes to my chest like a girlfriend’s schoolbooks, I head over to the dairy aisle. With all this cereal, I’ll need plenty of milk.

It’s a tough act balancing the milk on top of the cereal. The cashier gives me a funny look.

“Cash?”

“No, debit.”

“Exact?”

“No, give me an extra twenty, and I’ll need a pack of Lites.”

She cocks her head toward the service desk. “You get them on your way out.”

“Oh, yeah, sure.”

“Have a nice day,” she says, handing me the receipt. For some reason the words don’t quite register, and for a second, I stand there and look at her. She half-shrugs. I move on.

In the car, I drop the wet plastic bags on the passenger seat then, just as I put the key in the ignition, I catch sight of a woman running her cart through the rain. A little boy sits in it, swinging his legs and babbling as though it were any other sunny day. She pulls up the hood of his slicker and kisses the top of his head.

I swallow hard again and again and again.

I will not do this. I will not sit here in this fishbowl of a car and let that woman see me cry. She will feel sorry for me. Her heart will go out to me, and I do not deserve her sorrow.

I’m not like her. I never even really knew my boy. No matter how I strain, I cannot remember one thing he did or said that last weekend. His last birthday––his very last birthday––all I could think of was how much money I spent and how much work I was missing. How would I know what made him sad, when I didn’t even know what made him happy? Gwen was right. I don’t connect. He was at my house every other weekend for nine years, and all I have is a song I don’t know the words to and a cereal he probably didn’t even eat anymore.

Have a nice day?

The hell I will. I will never, ever have a nice day again.

I ram the key into the ignition, the wheels squealing as I pull out of the lot. This time I tune the radio to a talk show and hold that song out of my brain, while I swipe the tears with the back of my hand and hope no one in the other cars will notice.

Whatever caused the traffic jam is gone, and the rain is letting up. I’ll be glad to get home. Women are wrong. It doesn’t feel better to cry. My eyes sting and my head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton balls. All I want is to close my eyes and sleep for hours and hours.

By the time I reach my driveway, some patches of blue are showing between the clouds and small columns of steam rise up where the rays of sun hit. I no sooner unlock my door than the phone starts again. The last thing I want is to talk to Gwen. My head is pounding. But she’ll only keep calling and hanging up all day. I toss the grocery bags onto the counter and tuck the receiver under my jaw so I can light a cigarette.

“Yeah, hello.”

“Richard, is that you? Did you pick up? Hello?”

“Yeah, Gwen, I’m here. I’m here.”

“Where have you been? I’ve been calling and calling. Didn’t you get my message that I had something important to tell you?”

What? Are you calling to tell me it was all a joke? The kid’s really been hiding out somewhere. It was just one of those gory masks they sell at Halloween. But that’s too mean even to say to Gwen. I tell her I went to the office. “So what’s so important?”

“I thought you ought to know... I’m getting married. I wanted to tell you. I didn’t want you to hear it from someone else.” For some reason my stomach sinks. “Richard, are you still there... hello?”

“Yes, I’m here. Congratulations, and the same to—what’s his name?”

“Robert.”

“Robert? I thought his name was Sean or Sven or something with an ‘s’.”

“Sean? I broke up with him months ago.”

“You did? Why would you break up with him? I really liked him.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, you didn’t even know him. Besides, you met Robert at the funeral.  As usual, you...” I wait for her to continue, but she says, “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. Robert and I are getting married two weeks from Saturday.”

 “That soon?”

“Well, there’s no sense in waiting. I’m sure he’s the one. It was almost like fate. I met him a couple of months before––he’s a psychologist, and when everything happened, it was so helpful that he was there.”

“He wasn’t there.  I was there.” I realize immediately what she meant, but it’s too late.

“There for me. You’re so literal.”

I wait for her to continue. Surely she will recite my other faults, too. Certainly she will tell me how I fell down on the job at that most critical time. She will at least ask the questions again. But on the other end, there is silence, and that quick shallow breathing she has now.

“Richard? Are you there?”

“Yeah, I just––I thought you were going to say something else. Is there anything else?”

“Well, no––unless––you don’t want to come, do you?”

“To the wedding? Oh, no.”

“I didn’t think so. Well, then... I guess... good-bye.”

“Yeah, wait, Gwen? One thing. You said this guy was a psychologist, that you knew him, you know, before... what has he told you? Did he notice anything? Were there any clues?”

“What?  Well, he said some things, in retrospect, but––well––obviously he didn’t say anything before or I would have... they really didn’t talk all that much, and anyway. Why would you ask that? What’s the point?” The word “point” comes out like a squeal.

“Yeah,” I say, “exactly.”

We say our goodbyes, actually a couple of times. Then I click off the phone.

I guess that’s it. I won’t have any reason to see Gwen anymore or talk to her. I should be relieved, but it feels odd.

So she and Sean broke up. That’s too bad. He seemed like a nice guy, and I think the boy really liked him. Then she picked up with this psychologist. I swear I don’t remember seeing him. She said it was fate. Whose fate? Her fate, I guess. It certainly didn’t change anything for anyone else.

Did Sean know, I wonder, about the boy? Did Gwen bother to tell him? Did I see him at the funeral too? I can’t remember.

It occurs to me that it might be kind of nice to talk to Sean. To tell him what happened, if he doesn’t already know... to tell him what I think of this psychologist guy Gwen plans to marry, and to find out if he ever did go on that bike trip with... Kevin... and if they enjoyed it. And maybe to tell him how much it meant to me that he was so kind to my son, and that it really wouldn’t bother me that they had fun together. In fact, I’d like to hear it.

But how would I find the number? I’d have to call Gwen back, and that would be awkward.

I stump out my cigarette and grab one of the cereal boxes out of the bag. The front looks the same as always, with the running cookie man, but this time I notice the side panel, where they list all the nutritional information. I never really checked that out before. It says here that one serving contains ten percent of my daily requirement of vitamins A and C, and twenty-five percent of a whole bunch of other stuff including important things like iron and niacin. A serving amounts to just one cup. That’s not much. So, according to this, only four cups of this cereal with milk could fulfill all my nutritional requirements for an entire day.

Gwen was wrong. It isn’t crap.

I take my three boxes and place them in the cabinet, next to my raisin bran.

Nannette Croce is Co-managing Editor of The Rose & Thorn. Her essays and short stories have appeared here and in various other online and print publications, including The Philadelphia Inquirer. An earlier version of The Box of Cereal appeared in the July 2004 issue of The Writer’s Post Journal. Visit her website .

Time for Breakfast courtesy of Art.com

Mitch’s Future

by

Hillary Elser

 

 

The day I first saw Eva, it was windy.  Nothing could be contained.  Trash blew down the middle of the street, as trees bent their branches and brushed the ground in an awkward dance.  Leaves rushed over my car like air skimming a jet.

Eva pulled a tricycle into her garage.  She was working against the power of the wind, so that the peddles spun in the opposite direction.  Despite the force of nature, the bike glided.  Her motions were smooth and graceful. 

I sat in my car and stared, trying to figure out why she was the only solid installment in a world of windswept objects.  She glanced over at that moment and lifted her delicate hand and waved.  Her nails were red and her fingers were slim.  The motion of her wave was miniscule, so I was not sure if she had greeted me or if the wind had found a way to sway her body.  While I was trying to decipher her motion, she smiled and turned into her house.

Their son, Hunter, wouldn’t be allowed to play in this wind.  I would have to wait for a calmer day to see him--a calmer day to sweep into their life and blow them over.

We were newlyweds when Mitch received the call from his Great Aunt Alma.  A cousin of a cousin of a cousin twice removed, or some such web of relation, needed help.  “You know Mitchy, sweetie, when family needs help there isn’t much to think about,” Aunt Alma said, her words playing like notes on a piano.  Changing her tone, she whispered, “His sperm, it’s no good.  He wants children . . .”

We were just young enough to still believe that we could make the world a better place.  Our idealistic notions led us to a sterile room in order to give Mitch’s sperm to a sterile man, a man we never even met.  We exchanged cards of thanks and congratulations, but no more.

After Mitch died I wondered if the same list of phone numbers had been dialed amongst his family to spread the news to a cousin of a cousin of a cousin twice removed.  In the end it didn’t matter, because no one could bring Mitch back to me.  I spent night after night retracing Mitch’s entire life.  Trying to salvage a path that would keep me connected to the man I had loved.

I had exhausted every detail of his past when it dawned on me that he had a future too, one I had forgotten--he had a child.  I wanted his child.  I wanted his future.

The frightening afternoon of wind was followed by a night of terrible storms.  I sat in the bathtub of my motel room and prayed that a tornado would either miss me and spare me, or find me and take me.  I couldn’t decide which I wanted more.  I found myself alive the following morning and drove back to the same street corner.  Remnants of the storm littered the lawns, but the sun triumphed over the clouds.  The muggy weather left little fresh air for me to breathe.

Even with my windows open the heat found a place in my car, thick and heavy.  The neighborhood was as silent as the humid air until Hunter burst outside, his scream of excitement sending a bird fluttering from a tree.  He rode his tricycle down the driveway whooping with delight.  His hair was the same honey-soaked silk that Mitch’s had been, his face the same square shape.  There were bits and pieces of Eva around his features, as though a painter had blended them in as an afterthought.  

 

 

The sight of Hunter pierced my eyes, and I found it difficult to blink.  A dry sting started to radiate from my eyes to my heart.  Seeing Hunter wasn’t helping.  It wasn’t bringing me any closer to having Mitch back.  I threw my head down hard on the steering wheel, relishing the pain that shocked my forehead. The sun drenched my arm as I rested it on the sill of the open window.  Tears boiled on my skin, leaving a dusting of salt in their path. 

“Are you okay?”  Eva’s hand was cool, and the contrast of it to my heated pain caused me to jump.  “Can I help you?” she asked.

“I’m . . .” I couldn’t form words that would explain:  I came to steal your child, but have changed my mind.  I wondered if Eva had been watching me the last two days, as I had been watching her.  Was she scared?

“Come in and have some water.”  Eva reached through the window and popped the lock.  When she opened the door I fell onto her, a deep sob, squeezed from under my ribs, escaped into the folds of her sundress.  The smell of laundry detergent and animal crackers filled my nose.

In the cool of their kitchen I found my voice.  “I’m sorry for any trouble.  I seem to be lost.”

“Being lost is uncomfortable,” Eva said.

As I finished my water, I heard Hunter bang in through the back door.  I froze for a moment to decide if I wanted to see him again.  I chose to look one more time and then leave.  I turned toward Hunter, but my gaze never quite made it to his face.  On the wall behind me was a collage, titled “Hunter’s Angel.”  It was framed in dark, solid, oak wood.  Each picture had been cut with precision and placed on a backdrop of dark blue.  Mitch’s face smiled down at me.  The photographs were from the Christmas cards that I’d sent every year.  A close cousin or aunt must have passed them on to a distant cousin or aunt.  Anyway, it happened they had found their way here, and Eva had cared about them.

In one small corner there was pasted the one Christmas card I had made it onto; most often the card was just Mitch and our dog.  I stared at a different version of me, one that was unknowing. 

I turned back to Eva and saw her staring at the collage too.  Her lips twitched but she stayed silent.  I was not sure whether she had moved, or if the moment had just found a way to sway her body.

“I should find my map and get back on the road.”

I stood and walked out the front door, never turning towards the collage or Hunter again.  Eva stood aside as I left her home; a small sigh escaped and pushed its way through the thick air.  I was unsure if the sigh was mine or Eva’s.

Hillary Elser is a freelance writer and stay-at-home mom who received a degree in psychology and elementary education from Moravian College.  She has seen her work published in Skyline Magazine.  She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two young sons.

My Boy courtesy of Art.com

The Prettiest Woman in the Room

by

Jeff Crook

 

 

She entered the restaurant flanked by two very pretty, dark-haired little girls. Davis couldn’t guess her age but if he had to guess he would say she was either a youngish forty or a well-used thirty. She wore a jacket that looked like an oversized version of a little girl’s jacket, black and pink with that pink you only see little girls wearing, that washed-out Barbie pink. Her hair was cut short above the shoulder and rather curly, brunette with auburn highlights. PTA pretty. The kind of woman he might see at the PTA meeting and decide she was the prettiest woman in the room, though certainly not the prettiest woman he had ever seen.

As she seated her girls, she glanced at him for the first time and he knew—thirty years had crept by her on swift silent pads and here she was with two girls, suddenly wondering if she had grown old while waiting for the clothes to dry, dinner to cook.

After she got the girls settled and their jackets off and hung over the backs of their chairs, she removed her own jacket. Davis noticed her hips—broadened by childbirth but not entirely ruining her figure. Tight faded jeans and a gray knit sweater that zipped up the front. She wore the zipper low between her breasts, and when she bent over the table to pick up a mitten, he could see down her sweater almost to her belly.

Davis knew that all he needed was to smile, be nice to her, let her go first at the salad bar and he would comment on how pretty her girls were and ask their ages and where they went to school and he would mention his own kids and their ages, and he’d surprise and flatter her by asking for her phone number, and at first she wouldn’t give it to him, but later, if he waited long enough, she would gather up her girls and put on their jackets and bend over the table writing something on a napkin and when they passed his table, she would set the napkin on the table without stopping. And there would be her phone number on the napkin, with her first name and a warning not to call after six.

But for now, he watched and occasionally glanced at his book. Her girls were near enough in age to be friends rather than sisters. They talked constantly. She had to interrupt them to ask what they wanted for lunch, and while they agonized over chicken fingers or cheeseburgers, she looked at him and rolled her eyes. Davis imagined her in bed, her enthusiasm, her abandon. He wouldn’t even have to try very hard—a twenty dollar bottle of French wine, some Godiva chocolate, then a story about the time he was lost in Panama and rescued from the crooked cops by the daughter of a drug lord.

 

 

That had never really happened, but he could make it happen for her and she would believe him because she would want desperately to believe. They’d be in some hotel room, not too expensive but just expensive enough, and when she came, she’d really let herself go for the first time in her life, nothing to hold her back, no kids to overhear, no expectations or reservations, nothing to be embarrassed about. And she would think he had given that to her without really understanding that he had only brought her to it.

She rose and headed for the salad bar and he knew this was his chance. Davis noticed then how she walked slightly bent at the hips, as though she were used to stopping every second step to pick up something from the floor. Davis could see her house, the floor cluttered with Barbie shit and piles of unwashed laundry and piles of washed laundry waiting to be folded or ironed, and her sitting in the midst of it, lost and alone, clutching a delicate pair of toe shoes that she’d dragged in her overwhelming self-pity from some bottom drawer while she confronted the fact that she would never, ever catch up with the housework until her children were grown and she was old, old, old as her mother and as dead inside as a frozen bag of giblets and neck bones. As she walked to the salad bar with that humped over stride, she looked back at him and smiled.

Davis closed his book. He had already paid his bill and he was late getting back to work. He couldn’t rescue her. He could fuck her. Sure, he could do that. Who couldn’t do that? But he couldn’t be an ongoing part of her life. He couldn’t take her away from having to stop every second step to pick up a toy or a dirty sock. He couldn’t take her out of that little girl jacket. And he couldn’t pretend to rescue her just to get her into bed.

So he stood and left without looking back, because if he looked back, he knew he would be as lost as she. 

Jeff Crook's short fiction has appeared in Nature (twice), Nature Physics, Paradox, Horror D'oeuvres, Sein und Werden, Theaker's Quarterly, Hub, Pindeldyboz , Eclectica, and numerous anthologies, including the Futures from Nature anthology published by Tor Books. Two of his stories were recognized as Notable Stories by the 2006 story South Million Writers Award. He is the author of four fabulous novels and the editor of Southern Gothic and Postcards from Hell. If you would like to learn more about his work, you can find it all at jeffcrook.blogspot.com, which is the official blog of the Lard Information Council of Kansas.

Can We Talk courtesy of Art.com

Tools

by

Bonnie ZoBell

 

 

His toolbox sits on the porch like an aphrodisiac. She eyes the rust that has had its way on the well-used metal, function over form, though the form ain’t bad either. He’s a man who earns his dinner.

“You gonna open the door for me, ma’am?”

“Oh, yeah.” She laughs, unlatches the screen, pushes it open so he can enter.

The sleeves of his t-shirt have been ripped off, exposing muscle mass never seen on women. Somehow he gets those shoulders through the doorway. She forbids her hand from rising, touching the silky hair under his arms, from combing her fingers through, smelling the maleness. This man could start a fire with two sticks anywhere, protect her from a bear, save her during nuclear fallout.

He wears worn-in combat boots and worn-out cargo shorts. She swoons at the tear on his thigh, white threads unraveling from so many washings. This is not a man who gets several wearings out of his clothes. He uses them up. The hint of a belly ensures always feeling small beside him, unfat. 

“It’s right down this way,” she says, realizing he’s waiting. She runs her hand over her hair, just to be sure. She points the way down the hallway. 

Past two bedrooms, she follows as he stalks to the bathroom. A suede and canvas tool belt slings low on his hips. Phillips head screwdrivers, wire strippers, and needle-nose pliers slap his rear end. A good person to be near in an earthquake.

 

 

“The fan doesn’t work,” she says. “I’m hot.”

He blushes before getting down to work.

“You want water, lemonade, ice tea, beer or wine?”

His mouth drops in indecision as he squats by the toilet for his toolbox. The thick haunches below his shorts are tan.

When she returns from the kitchen, he’s reaching for the ceiling, skilled fingers unscrewing the fan. His belly drawn taut, the concentration on his work is animal like.

“You live around here?” she asks, sitting on the edge of the bathtub, sipping a glass of wine. He wanted only water.

“Pacific Beach,” he says.

“Married?”

“Girlfriend.”

Naturally, he’s good at what he does, and when he finishes, satisfaction is guaranteed.

“Could you look at the washer?”

“What’s it doing?” he says, once they reach the small pantry.

“It slides in and out of channels, but right after it sprays, it shuts down.” Only six inches from his body, her head reaches to his chest.

He pulls off the top, and they lean in together, side by side. Black hair rests on his forearm, though hers is creamy white. These limbs almost make contact. He turns on the water as if he doesn’t notice how close they are. Steam surrounds them. He uses a wrench, some pliers. He tinkers. She inches, micro-inches, her feet, whispers herself in his direction, so that now their shoulders do touch, their hips. If they faced each other, their lips would meet. And that’s what she does, turns her head his way.

Abruptly he stands back, cutting the whole machine off.

“You need a plumber,” he tells her. He reaches for his toolbox, heads straight for the street and his van to write the bill.

Maybe she could have him install a light fixture over the back porch. She’s needs a new fire alarm. An extra electrical outlet in the bedroom would be convenient if she could find just the right spot.
 
She starts to say something when he returns, but he interrupts. “Sorry. Next job’s waiting.”

She pays, watches from the window as his van withdraws. Afterward, in her bedroom, she lies down and closes her eyes, searching for that perfect spot.

Bonnie ZoBell has received an N.E.A. for her fiction and a P.E.N. Syndicated Fiction Award. Her work has appeared in such print magazines as American Fiction, The Bellingham Review, The Greensboro Review, and Cosmopolitan Magazine, and online publications such as Juked, Word Riot, and Salome. She received an M.F.A. from Columbia University and currently teaches at Mesa College in San Diego.

A Choice of Treason

by

Megan Arkenberg

 

 

My lady Damascena’s study feels much colder now than I remember it.

This is not only because the fire in the hearth has been allowed to die, though it has – something that never would have been permitted back before Halion’s death. It is late summer, and such things normally would not matter. But the carefully hand-painted wallpaper begins to peel just a little at the corners, and the thinnest layer of dust accumulates on the bookshelves. Disorder, I imagine, draws heat away from the body.

Damascena must be thinking so too, for she shivers and tugs her sleeves down over her bare forearms. Like her study, she has changed since her son’s execution. Her once lovely face is a harsh landscape of angles and shadow. When she speaks, her voice comes as a dry whisper.

“Do you have a plan?”

“Not yet,” I say, shifting on my hard wooden chair. “I need more time. An oath like mine is hard to rescind.”

Damascena snorts at my words, but she cannot deny their truth. She was at Queen Almea’s Naming sixteen years ago: she heard me swear my life to the service and protection of the royal family. She knows better than anyone else the hard position in which I’ve trapped myself.

“You have already broken half of it,” she says. “You helped Halion poison Astrum and Sola. Their daughter is the last obstacle: when she is dead, there will be no more Latarya  Queens. Power will belong to the people once again.”

“Yes, but I’m not so sure that’s what I want anymore.” My hand moves to toy with the clasp on my cloak, a nervous habit. “Things were much simpler before the rebellion.”

“What?” Damascena snaps, her eyes contorting hideously. “Will you nullify the sacrifices of so many, just because it’s your turn to do something distasteful?”

“Killing the woman I’ve sworn to protect is not merely distasteful, my lady.”

“Killing that selfish little brat is hardly murder. Do not forget, it is her fault Halion is dead.”

“Maybe if Halion had the sense not to be caught with his hand halfway between the King’s cup and a vial of poison, he needn’t have died.” It is cruel of me to say such things to a grieving mother, but I cannot help it.

Damascena’s mouth twists as she tries to think of a retort. Her reddened eyes move about the room, finally fixing on an empty patch of wall above my head.

“Do you know what used to be there?”

I shake my head, though in truth, I can remember every detail of this office as it was so many months before, the night we plotted the King and Queen’s assassination.

“It used to be Halion’s portrait.” Damascena smiles wistfully. “He was such a handsome young man, you remember?”

“Yes,” I say, “I do.”

The lady’s smile turns to a snarl. “I don’t. I can’t remember anything of what he looked like. That’s why I took the portrait down. You’ve never lost a child, have you? Then you can’t know what it’s like to see his face every morning, see all the features perfectly captured in paint, and then to realize just how fast they’re fading from your own memory.”

“You know I am sorry for your loss, my lady. But you cannot take Almea’s life out of revenge for your son’s death...”

“Yes,” she says coldly. “I can.”

Damascena stands and crosses the room to a large standing chest. She unlocks the top drawer with a key from her belt and pulls out something long and bulky. From the way she carries it, I know it must be heavy.

“This is Halion’s sword,” she says, laying the bundle down on her desk. “I want you to take it. The people’s army is gathering in the square before the Latarya Palace at dawn tomorrow. Will you lead them?”

I look down at the cloth-wrapped blade. It reminds me of a body covered in its burial shroud. “If I say yes, will you demand I kill Almea?”

“I thought that obvious.”

“But surely she would be of more use to you--”

“The only useful queen,” Damascena says with great certainty, “is a dead one.”

And if I don’t kill her, someone else will. At least I can give her a clean death. With a shudder, I pull the cloth away from the sword and wrap my hand around the hilt. A traitor’s sword. It fits my hand perfectly.

“So be it,” I say.

Damascena’s smile has all the softness of a thorn. It is a horrible thing to see on the face of a woman who has just lost her son. “So be it,” she agrees, with a hungry snarl. “May the Peace of the Goddess go with you.”

I bow and follow her to the door, Halion’s sword a dead weight in my hand.

“Perhaps,” I say. “But I sincerely doubt it will.”

 

 

It is not yet dawn, but the night sky in late summer has a way of making you forget the darkness. I stand on the steps of the Latarya Palace. On either side of me, rows of stone lions stare inward with cold ruby eyes. They have been silent witness to much, as have I. Together, we watched Astrum and Sola recite the marriage vows on these very steps. We all listened as I swore my oath to serve the Latarya family until death. We all watched unmoved and unmoving as Halion’s life ended in the square below.

Now, they alone will bear witness to my final act of treason.

There are only sixteen steps from the square to the palace door. Just sixteen steps. Only sixteen years since I knelt here and took the vow I am so soon to break. By the Goddess, it feels so much longer than that.

I climb the stairs, Halion’s sword pounding against my side with every step, and open the doors at the top. They are not heavy, though they look like they should be, and they are never locked.

The palace is dark inside, but I know my way around. There are no guards: they have all sided with the rebels. Almea is only safe because she is hidden, but like the lions, I have seen all there is to see of this place.

I find the eastern stairs and begin climbing. Though it is pitch-black, I know every detail of the paintings along these walls. It is the Latarya family line, from the first Queen down to the last. I feel their eyes following me, accusing. As I pass Astrum and Sola, the sword in my hand becomes so heavy I fear I will drop it.

But I don’t.

For the first time in months, I allow myself to wonder just what my foolish pact with Halion has started. I should have known better than to listen to him, but he could be so persuasive when he tried. The picture he painted, of a world where no man need bow to another or suffer for no more than an accident of birth, had been so beautiful.

His methods were not.

Queen Sola died in my arms. While my assassination had been quieter than Halion’s, it was far more bloody. I wasn’t brave enough – or coward enough – to use poison. The look in Sola’s eyes as my dagger pierced her heart is one I can never forget. She had been so beautiful in life, but in death...she was no more than a corpse.

At last, I reach the end of the stairs. A hallway opens off to my left, and it leads to Almea’s old chambers. I know she isn’t there tonight. Farther down the corridor, another lion statue lurks in the shadows: I hid in the alcove behind it while Halion was arrested. No one has searched there since then, but if they do, they will find my dagger still stained with Sola’s blood.

I clutch the sword with one hand and twist my cloak clasp with the other. Another staircase now, this one blank-walled and drafty. I wonder if it’s too late to turn back. But no, already the wind has a taste of morning to it: if I don’t kill Almea now, someone else will. And I know Damascena would not rest until my blood is spilled as well.

That does not make it any easier. Nothing will. Yes, Almea is young, and naive, and selfish. Yes, she is unworthy of the throne, but if it hadn’t been for us, she would never need to be. If we have a fool for a queen, it is only because we’ve given her the crown.

So does she really deserve to die? Is death truly the price we must pay for the inability to act the part in which Fate has cast us? If so, no one is more deserving of execution than I.

Almea’s door looms before me. Stone lions crouch before it, shielding it from view, but I know this palace well. I cover Halion’s sword with my cloak and knock softly.

No answer comes. I push on the door with my fingertips, and it swings open.

The room beyond is black. I grope along the wall beside the door until I find a candle and bit of flint. Lighting a candle single-handed is no easy task, but I manage.

Almea is curled up on a sleeping couch with her back to me. I feel a rush of relief, quickly followed by guilt. How can I strike her down from behind?

How can I strike her down anyway? My whole body begins to shake. Almea, with her clear young face, her night-black hair, the scent of roses cling to the air around her – she may as well be her mother.

My mind floods with memories I cannot fight. I stand there, tormented, struggling to stay afloat. All I can see is Sola's face as it was the moment before death, the moment she looked up at her murderer and knew it was me. I hear her dying, and beneath the screams I can hear her daughter’s quiet breathing.

And then I hear another mother screaming for her child. I hear Damascena’s ragged sobs as the treason charges are read in the square. I feel her struggling to break my grip as I drag her away from the scaffold. I see her standing beside me on the palace stairs, mourning without tears, her eyes as cold and red as the lions’ around us.

I raise Halion’s sword.

One downward thrust. Just one, and this will all be over. Damascena will have her revenge, the people will have their rule, and no one can ask anything more of me. This is all I have to give.

I turn the point towards my heart.

But no, I must make preparations first. I must explain things to Almea. Sighing, I toss the sword to the floor at my feet and gently wake my Queen.

* * *

The bed is soft, but I refuse to let myself sit down. If I begin to rest, even for a few moments, I know I shall fall asleep, and I need to stay awake. Only for a few moments longer, I must stay awake.

Almea is gone. My hand moves to my neck, to the place where my cloak clasp was less than an hour ago. But the clasp is gone: Almea needed the disguise more than I. What have I to hide from anymore?

My arm trembles with fear and pain. The gash on my wrist has stopped bleeding, and I know my blood has dried on Halion’s sword. When Damascena finds it on her doorstep this dawn, she will not question whether it is mine or Almea’s. She, who has questioned so much, will not question that.

I wonder where Almea will go after she delivers my message. She will leave the city, of course, but where is there for her to go? What will she do, now that she has lost the only home she has ever known?

I shouldn’t think about it. I shouldn’t think about anything. Dawn is nearly here: there is a small window beside the bed, and it faces east. East, towards the sunrise: east, towards the square. The army is gathering. Sunlight glints off their drawn swords, staining them red.

I watch. Watch the sun rise over the ragged palace skyline, watch the army gather and mill about. I watch a shadow dip between two buildings in the distance, and though it is a long way off, I imagine I can see the detail of my cloak clasp.

I close my eyes, and smell the air of a late summer’s dawn.

I wait.

Megan Arkenberg is a student in the Midwestern United States who enjoys a wide range of hobbies, from piano to European history to theoretical astrophysics. Her poem Leanansidhe was featured in the Lorelei Signal webzine July-September 2007 issue, and her short story The Countess ran in the July issue of A Long Story Short.

The Forever Stone

by

Jeffrey B. Burton

 

 

“I’m an absolute moron when it comes to wedding rings. Can you tell me what makes for a perfect diamond? I’m interested in quality, nothing but the best.”

And, for about the first time when it came to financial matters, I was sincere. Michelle knew it was coming, both sets of parents knew it was coming, and—as the saying goes—they knew that I knew that they knew it was coming.  But in all honesty, I had known it was coming since she shot me a shy smile from across the freshman composition class almost five years ago.

“A diamond free of flaws is the highest quality, the purest mineral in the universe. You can see how nothing interrupts the passage of light through its many eyes—its facets.” The owner of Forever Jewelry held one up for me to inspect.

Forever came highly recommended from the director of accounting, my boss, at work. Forever Jewelry was not a chain. It was owned by an aging hippy couple who personally made all the wedding bands in the back of their store. They’d turned it into an art form, which was what I wanted for Michelle. Price was no object.

“Think about it, Rob—may I call you Rob?—think about it, Rob. Most diamonds are cut round with a full fifty-eight facets. If it’s a good cut, light is reflected from each facet and then dispersed through the top of the stone—giving it more sparkle—much like this one.” Forever’s owner held another one up to the light. “Poor cuts lose light through the bottom of the diamond and then, alas, the gem’s poetry is lost.”

I’ve spent the last half decade trying to decipher the sparkle and light Michelle reflects. Beautiful women made me run away nervous, so imagine my surprise when I finally got up the guts to ask her out to a movie and the answer came back in the affirmative. Harder yet to believe she said yes to subsequent requests for coffee dates, study sessions, campus walks, and a first kiss.

“A couple women at work have huge stones on their rings.” I scratched my cheek and tried to sound brighter than I was. “How does size factor in with a diamond’s worth?”

“Size is really a matter of individual preference. Two diamonds of equal carat weight, you see, can vary quite dramatically in price. All depending upon their quality. It’s really the work of a master cutter that allows the diamond to be cut in such a manner as to permit the maximum poetry of light to be reflected.” The owner’s nose crinkled slightly. “Here at Forever Jewelry, we don’t sell the opaque trinkets that you see at the strip mall stores.”

“Can you tell me a little more about this one?” With thumb and forefinger, I took the one he’d been holding and placed it into the palm of my hand.

“This perfect diamond is what they call a round brilliant. It has the best angles and has been refined for the ultimate shine. This is a wonderfully cut piece, Rob. We call it our ‘Forever Stone.’”

I’m still as giddy and goofy today around Michelle as I had been in those first few months of courtship. Holding her hand cured the worst of days. Making her smile or tilt her head back and laugh in that little girl manner was everything—my everything. My life. “I’ll always be with you,” I told her nightly, the last thing to whisper before drifting off to sleep, “I’ll be with you forever, Michelle.”

I continued staring into the piece. “Can you put this stone into the matching wedding band? The one that we talked about for her?”

“I can do anything,” Forever’s owner assured me.

 

 

Having spent my lunch hour at the jewelry store, I was running late. I had a one-thirty conference call with the Sur-Tel folks that—my being the lead accountant—Jack Moran would expect me to carry. The Sur-Tel account was in good health, but they needed the usual client handholding. I promised the Forever owner I’d be back the next day to dot all the i’s and cross the t’s.

I darted out of Forever and started jogging down Grand toward my car, parked a few hectic blocks away. I almost missed the cart that suddenly poked its nose in front of me from around the corner the building. I clipped it with my thigh and sent it toppling over sideways. I half turned and saw what I’d done. A grocery cart was on its side, tires still spinning. Contents spilled out. Empty aluminum cans rolled down the Fifth Street hill. Soiled rags now littered the walkway. Crumpled papers, Kleenex, and what looked like yarn floated in the breeze.

I started back to help, but froze when I saw who had been pushing the cart. The old bag lady sat on the sidewalk, one bony hand still clutching the cart’s handle, the other reaching toward a floating piece of newspaper. She was a smear of filth and grime, with a leathery yellow face and a bird’s nest of white hair—looking like the worst warted crony to have hobbled out of a Dickens nightmare. And she stared up into my face—seeming ancient beyond belief.

I took another step toward her to help her up, but stopped. Her stench of garlic, sweat, and rotting apples drifted over me. I tried not to gag. “I’m … I’m sorry,” I mumbled and resumed my sprint across the Grand and Fifth Street intersection.

When I got across, I turned back. I couldn’t not help her. I wasn’t brought up that way. The Sur-Tel folks would just have to wait. The bag lady still sat on the cobblestones where I’d accidentally knocked her down, but her free hand, the one not clutching the cart, was in the air and pointing at me. She marked me with her eyes, two dead marbles in a pool of white. Her lips twitched up and down in what appeared to be whispered profanity.

I started getting second thoughts about helping when her fingers slowly raised, and I found myself staring almost hypnotically into the center of her palm. I could see something there, something she wanted to show me—something she desperately wanted to share. A scar—bright red—somehow burned deep into the center of her hand. It was mesmerizing, actually. Captivating. So very deeply red. I wondered how it looked up close. Maybe if I could just get close enough to—

It must have been at that instant that I stepped back into the intersection and got hit by a car.

***

Michelle’s hair is cut short to her face, a different look. And I see lines about her eyes—lines I fear I may be responsible for. How the hell long have I been out? Next to Michelle is my good friend and colleague, Jack Moran. I try to speak but nothing comes out. It slowly sinks in that I can’t move a muscle while they gaze down at me. I must be heavily sedated, or God forbid … paralyzed? I stare back, almost blinded by the glare of my vision.

“I’m oddly drawn to this one.” Michelle’s face has the familiar wrinkled look that I’ve seen a thousand times. The one she gets when making a big decision.

“It’s gorgeous,” I hear Jack exclaim.

“It’s one of a kind.” Another voice responds.

I recognize that last voice and am searching my memory when the graying jeweler leans into view. Now why on earth would he be visiting me in the hospital? I suppose the accident happened right outside his door. He probably called the ambulance.

“That one’s got a bit of a story to it.” The jewelry storeowner looks at Michelle and Jack. “Some years back a gentleman commissioned me to make that for the love of his life. He never came back, and I haven’t seen him since, but the romantic in me kept hoping that someday he’d be back. Just this very morning I finally got around to taking it out of the safe and placing it on display.”

“Guy probably got cold feet,” Jack jokes.

“Maybe, maybe not … the fellow didn’t seem the type,” the storeowner muses. “Would you like to try it on?”

“May I?” Michelle asks softly.

“Of course, sweet lady, of course.”

I don’t understand. Am I in a coma? Are they visiting me in some dusty long-term-care facility and making idle chitchat just to pass the time. I see the owner begin to reach down toward me and … Oh … Weightless I am lifted up … My … I have a kaleidoscope of eyes … God … I can see in all directions. Michelle and Jack are closer now, looking right at me, and they’re smiling.

“I love you, Michelle.” Jack is talking now. “I guess I always have.”

“I know you do, Jack …”

With many eyes, I watch the glistening tear slip silently down Michelle’s cheek.

“… I know you do.”

I’m held in front of Michelle, swirling. Then, with one of my many eyes I spot her. I see her as she pauses outside of Forever’s window. How could I possibly forget that white nest of hair? Her dead marble eyes gaze into my lost soul. She’s not quite human I sense, and—as our paths once crossed dreadfully—neither am I. And I see with my now great clarity the final bitter look the spell caster sends my way as she begins pushing her cart of empty soup cans and other found things past the jewelry shop.

“It’s been almost three years, Michelle.” Jack is trying to close the deal. “And you and I both know he’d want you to get on with your life. I’ll be a good husband, Michelle. I’ll take care of you.”

“I know, Jack. And you’ve been so very good to me these past years.” Michelle continues staring down at me. “It’s so … so … it seems made for me. May I pick this ring?”

“I couldn’t think of a better one for you.”

Although I no longer have a mind, I think of the many years ahead that’ll unfold for you and Jack, and for your children and grandchildren. The heart I no longer have breaks in two. My three score eyes, which can never weep, now stream tears of light.

I always swore I’d be with you forever, Michelle … and it appears I’m going to get my wish.

The lies of Jeffrey B. Burton have appeared in Outer Darkness, Crimson, Detective Mystery Stories, Millennium Science Fiction & Fantasy, The Cozy Detective Mystery Magazine, Potpourri, The Rose & Thorn, Dogwood Tales Magazine, Satire Magazine, GateWay S-F Magazine, Quantum Muse, and Murky Depths. Jeff’s collection of short stories, Shadow Play, was published in 2005 by Pocol Press. Jeff’s mystery novel, Sleuth Slayer, is due to be released in spring of 2008. For more information, visit his website.

The Agra Diamond courtesy of Art.com

Go-Go Ghost

by

Kajsa Wiberg

 

 

He was her worst nightmare, and he was coming right at her. In the dark, dusty old hallway, Cass could only make out his silhouette–long, ragged coat, some sort of head collar, and huge hands––but it was enough to scare the living bejeezus out of her. And he was marching toward her. That is, if you can call it marching with one leg lagging behind.

Monstrous hands reached for her.

She tried to run but there was no room. She ended up trapped in a corner, sandwiched between grimy, half-rotten walls and the charging beast, trembling, sweating, anticipating her last breath. Seriously, why had she come here anyway? It’s not like she didn’t know bad things would happen. Very bad things. Awful things, now so close that in a moment, they would be touching her. Strangling her, probably. Cass let out a loud cry for help, but there was no one to rescue her.

Closer still, her world spun a hundred and eighty degrees. She looked into his eyes and saw a sparkle. Her fear vanished like red wine stains exposed to soda water. All of a sudden, she wasn’t a bit afraid anymore. Instead, she . . . wanted him. With his hands frozen in the air inches away from her, his eyes fixed on hers, and the leg now straight under him, she told herself he felt it too. He pointed to a filthy prison door on the right and tilted his head to the side, inquiringly. Cass couldn’t believe it. They were totally connecting.

Her heart pounding, she followed the monster with the lagging leg through the door. He barely had time to shut it before they were all over each other.

They did it in the dungeon––long, yellowing teeth ripping her shirt apart, hairy monster hands cupping her cosmetically enhanced C-cups. Filthy black nails massacred her skirt, and his face left traces of brown and gray on her perfectly toned belly. Cobwebs fell in her face as she came, making her scream, but that was OK. They were, after all, in a haunted house.

Afterwards, he nibbled on her neck.

“Honey, that was wonderful,” he said, his voice weird and slurry from the enormous amount of plastic in his mouth.

She nodded.

 

 

“Sure, yeah, fantastic. Would’ve been even better if you hadn’t torn my clothes into tatters. How am I supposed to get outta here?”

He smiled. At least she thought so; it was hard to tell with the amount of makeup and dentures involved. Then he took a couple of steps across the cell––not limping this time––and retrieved something from a corner.

“Here,” he said, although it sounded more like “er.”

Cass stared at the piece of ragged brown textile in his hand.

“Excuse me?”

He shook it a bit.

“Wear it.” (weajit)

She kept staring, at his face now.

“Dude! We’re not in Kansas anymore.”

He did that peculiar, kind of smiley face again.

“To get out,” he clarified (togeyoo). He pulled something out from underneath her. “This too.”

Stunned, she recognized that it was body paint, in a variety of colors.

“You want me to . . . haunt people?”

He nodded.

She hesitated for a second.

“But––“

“It’ll work. I promise.”

In that moment, she realized something.

“This isn’t your first time, is it?”

He shook his head, a motion that sent one of his long, yellowing dentures flying across the cell.

“Damn,” he added. Then he turned his attention back to her. “No, I mean yes, but you were fantastic. Come back anytime you want!”

She frowned, smiled, and frowned again.

“Thanks, I guess.”

He painted her old and gray, added wrinkles to her smooth, one-glycolic-peel-per-week face, hid her ample chest in a beaten old coat, and––much to her despair––finished the transformation by slapping thick, brown paint onto her Beverly Feldman leopard pumps. Then he stepped back, surveyed her, and nodded approvingly.

“This will work. Now, follow me. I’ll take you back to the trail. Just keep charging at people on your way out. Tell the security guy you’re taking your break.”

She nodded and swallowed.

“This is it?”

“This is it.”

Walking past the security guard, she thought to herself that forty-five bucks might have been a huge stack of cash for a haunted house but, mind you, it was so worth it.

Kajsa Wiberg is a freelance writer, translator, and horse trainer. Her stories have appeared in The River Walk Journal, Long Story Short, Prose Toad, Chick Lit Review and Insolent Rudder. She is a book reviewer for Eclectica and a script reader for Blue Cat Screenplay. She lives in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, CA, where she’s at work on her second novel.

The Devil in Me courtesy of Art.com

Inside the Glass Room

by

Kristina Marie Darling

 

 

“God will take care of this, son,” my dad whispered to my younger brother, Tim. The only teenager there with a crew cut, he scuffed his shoes and ran his fingers down the spine of a tattered bible, looking unfamiliar in dress clothes and Oxfords.

As we stood on the sidewalk waiting for the assistant pastor, families poured through the glass doors of the church, elbowing past one another as they grabbed brochures from a plastic table near the entrance. My brother watched them as they walked to their cars, smiling nervously each time my father patted him on the back or cited a reassuring scripture. The two of them had made plans to be baptized as members of the church that morning, and stood slightly apart from me and my mother. 

She opened and closed the camera she’d brought with her and asked me, “Do you think I’ll be able to get a good shot of them with the pastor?  I hope our seats are close enough.” Forcing a smile, she wound up the strap and pushed the flashbulb down, placing the ancient Minolta in one of the pockets in her purse.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine. They probably have a special place for us to sit, since we’re family,” I told her. 

Although my father and Tim attended services every Sunday, my mother and I came with them on only Easter and Christmas. The sprawling white brick building, with its two sets of double doors and tiny windows, remained strange to us. In short, we weren’t church material–I was an agnostic student at one of the most liberal minded universities in the country, living at home while I finished school, and my mother attended Buddhist meditations, calling herself “independently spiritual.” 

And each time the service began, with its hymns filled with electric guitar solos and the leftover Christmas lights strung across the plywood stage where the pastor preached, all the glitz left a sinking feeling in my stomach. While my brother and dad talked about the ways their lives had changed since finding religion, my mother and I just stood there, silently appraising the congregants, wondering what separated us from them. As men in suits and women with coats pulled over their long dresses brushed passed us, we knew that there might as well be an ocean between ourselves and this place, with its bright posters and an auditorium breaking out into thunderous applause.  

***

The night before, my father told the three of us what would happen:  he and my brother would be led into a small, windowless room and asked a series of questions, after which, the assistant pastor would make a decision regarding their church membership. In preparing my brother for this onslaught, he made sure that Tim knew the exact date, month and time that he became a Christian. 

“It was in the spring of 2003, on a Sunday,” my brother said, “The day I decided not to go back to high school for senior year.”  He told my father this without flinching or blinking his eyes, looking straight ahead.

“Do you know the exact date? They’ll ask you tomorrow, you know,” my dad told him, arching his eyebrows. 

Listening to Tim prepare for his interview as I studied for midterm exams at my college, I noticed his military style buzz cut, button down shirt, and pigeon colored pants, which he would have never worn three years ago, before he and my dad became, as he tells his friends, “Men of God.” Later, my dad and my brother rummaged through the closet in search of Tim’s school records so that they could page through them and be sure of the date that my brother had dropped out. As they threw scarves and board games into the hallway, I sat curled up on the floor with a book of poetry, simply called The Ledger, leaning against the sofa. I read the poems, wondering for the first time if what my dad professed was true. My mother sat alone in the bedroom, watching a small television and knitting a baby blanket for a friend, and at that moment her influence seemed to disappear. I thought of all the times I had tried to read the books that my dad gave me, mostly inspirational stories of people who had found religion later in life, but felt nothing. 

The same thing happened when I attended services with them at Christmas and Easter–the dramatic sermon, the brightly colored lights, and the glitter would just wash over me. As I walked out to my parents’ car, I couldn’t visualize myself as a member of their community, mostly because of the strictness of my brother and father’s church.  The fire and brimstone, the obligation to preach the message if one accepted it, and the general attitude of intolerance toward people of different faiths and lifestyles seemed like something that wouldn’t allow me to think open-mindedly, a quality in myself that I took pride in. I felt, listening to my dad and my brother, that even if the message was true, that it wasn’t an option for me. I knew, like my brother, I’d become a different person.  Turning the pages of my book, I began to doze, the grey-green flicker of the television becoming like the sound of water as I slept. 

 

 

As my brother and dad were led down a hallway to the small room, questionnaires waiting for them on the table, my mother and I walked into the auditorium, which between services had grown quiet. People talked and paged through the church newsletter, and the whole room seemed to murmur like a tiny lake. 

My mother turned to me and said, “You know, it really seems like Tim’s found a purpose with this church.” She kind of grinned, fidgeting with the hem of her black sweater and furrowing her brow a little. I noticed that the whole time we’d been sitting there she didn’t say anything about my dad.

“Yeah...and he’s nicer to other kids, too. I think it’s good for him,” I answered.  As both of us watched the stage for them, the pastor ascended the tiny row of stairs near the entrance. I remember thinking that churches shouldn’t have stages, that his suit was too nice, and that the entire building seemed too brand-new for me to be comfortable in it, but I rested my foot on the back of a chair and smiled. I felt like no matter what, I was always smiling.

***

I discovered my father’s transformation two years ago after working the night shift at a hospital to pay for school. I’d come home and find strange objects around my house:  a drawer full of Gideon bibles, books about the battle of Armageddon, and a tiny cross hanging from a gold necklace. It was always raining that autumn. I’d come home from my job and read poems and novels, listening to bad pop music as everyone else slept.  Some nights I’d page through the Bibles I’d find around the house, looking at which passages were underlined. They were often bleak descriptions of people who had faced adversity and lost, and I’d lie in bed thinking about why those stories had struck my father and brother. When my dad sat down to have a talk with me about religion on my day off, I wasn’t surprised. He pulled out a study bible and flipped to passage after passage, citing reasons that I should change my ways, and the sooner, the better. 

I kept telling him, “I’ll think about it.” Knowing that becoming a Christian was the only way to make my dad proud of me, that no matter how many good grades I racked up it wouldn’t make any difference, I really did think about it. But I knew that no matter what I did, this rift in my family wasn’t going away. 

After coming home from work one night, I opened the bible and started reading. I felt as though I’d been struck by the cold, noiseless air that drifts in through my window. The comfort that my dad and brother said they felt when they were reading, the reassurance, and the joy just weren’t there for me. I left the book on my desk, its pages rustling a little as I climbed into bed.  My old radio played on as a moth flew in through the open window.

After those who said “yes” were led to the altar and handed reading materials about the church, a light switched on in a tiny room to the side of the stage. Enclosed within the four sparkling glass walls, a waist-high pool of water glistened behind the assistant pastor. As my mother prepared the flash on our camera, a man in a dark suit led a young blonde woman in grey overalls toward the water. She was smiling. They lowered the blonde woman into the pool, pulling her doused head out again, and my brother emerged near the door, looking backward.  He whispered something to the man in the dark suit.  I could see my father standing next to Tim, both in grey overalls. As they went under, the lights bore down on me like a heavy rain. I knew, watching them, hands clasped, that I would never be a part of this, and I think my mother knew too. As the flashbulb went off, she looked almost happy, her white teeth sparkling in the colorless light. When she lifted her camera again, brightening the flash, it was a smile like a glass of water.

Kristina Marie Darling is an undergraduate at Washington University in St. Louis.  She is the author of four chapbooks, which include Fevers and Clocks (March Street Press, 2006) and The Traffic in Women (Dancing Girl Press, 2006). A Pushcart Prize nominee in 2006, her work has appeared in many publications, which include The Mid-America Poetry Review, PIF Magazine, Janus Head, The Midwest Book Review, The Arabesques Review, and others.  Recent awards include residencies at the Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow and the Mary Anderson Center for the Arts.

The Voice of the Father's Over the Water courtesy of Art.com

You Tell My Your Name I'll Tell You Mine

by

Louisa Howerow

 

 

"My family was taken from me, my language, my culture."  The speaker waits for her audience to take in what she has said, repeats the phrase.  "Family, language, culture."

In a windowless basement room in a modest Sarnia hotel, fifteen women lean forward on their metal chairs, pens poised to take notes. 

We are attending a three-day retreat, organized by and for Ontario women school teachers.  The focus is anti-racism and cultural appropriation.  All day Friday and Saturday we have listened to speakers give voice to their stories.  We have been prodded and challenged to rethink our assumptions about history, equity, power and charity.  We've joked about being an underground movement, but the joke carries with it our determination to use what is being offered to improve teaching and learning in our classrooms. 

Our speaker is wearing the uniform of our collective: slacks, knit top, jacket.  One hand holds the side of the lectern.  She is speaking without notes.  Her voice is quiet, firm, the voice of a patient grade three teacher.

The story begins with her childhood in an Ojibway village, north of Lake Superior.  We hear about exploring bush trails, berry picking, fishing.  "I was happy," she says.  "When I was seven, my life changed.”

A priest drove her to a residential school.  She was too young to realize, the priest said, that this was for her own good.

She stops in the telling.

We wait for her to continue.  One can hear the silence in the conference room.  How many times have we used the words "for your own good"?  How many times do we continue to use this phrase?  Act on its assumption?

I had once been a teacher in an Indian residential school.  The children I taught on James Bay, children as young as seven, were taken from their villages to live at the school with no hope of seeing their families except for ten days at Christmas and two months in the summer.  Did leaving villages in large groups make it any easier?  For them?  For their families?  I try to imagine the town where I now live stripped of its school children.  If my daughter and son were taken away, would I be able to forgive?

The speaker does not tell us the name of the school, but I imagine it is prefaced with the word “saint”.  The saints gave their lives to constant prayer and acts of piety.  Catholic Indian residential schools and the Anglican Indian residential school where I worked carried a saint's name, but not his spirit.

 

 

Her new school housed a large communal showering area.  Cement walls, floor, ceiling.  A steel bathtub was waiting for her and a steel bin.  Scrubbed, hair cut, doused with disinfectant, dress burned, she was deemed ready to put on a school uniform.

My James Bay students wore uniforms, but I had never witnessed the first week of orientation--the baths, the hair cutting.  What happened to the children's clothes?  Their belongings?  It seems incredible to me now that I never bothered to ask those questions.

The conference speaker describes the school beatings and humiliation.  She laments the loss of language and culture, the loss of who she was.

Catholic schools, Anglican, Presbyterian, United Church, Mennonite, Non-Denominational Christian.  So many God-fearing institutions.  So many individuals eager to bring children to salvation.

I know what she says is true.  Because she is bearing witness to her life, because others have written about the destructive nature of residential schools, because I was once a teacher in a residential school.

I tried to stay away from playing savior.  Being skeptical of salvation, mine included, I was far more interested in learning about my students' way of life.  In class, I encouraged them to write, draw, share their stories.  But as I listen to the speaker, these efforts seem pitifully thin.

She comes to the end and introduces her son, a man in his twenties, who is sitting in the row behind mine.  He stands and we clap politely, if not enthusiastically.  “This is the first time my son has heard the whole story,” she says.

An awkward silence settles on the room.  Some listeners who were shuffling papers into briefcases, readying to leave, stop, while others stare down at their workshop notes.  Ten years younger and he could have been one of my students.  A generation ago, he would have been in a school like his mother.

Our speaker has shared a story of survival and courage; her story is a public story.  I find myself shaking.

She asks if there are any questions, comments.

Before I know it, I rise to speak.  My voice is too loud for the room.  "Are we to say that everyone who worked in residential schools is now to blame?"  I do not add that I worked in a residential school and that now, without wanting it, I am wearing the cloak of collective and personal guilt.  Guilt for not doing more, for not asking the questions, for not paying attention.  I am asking for understanding, for forgiveness.

The conference participants turn to look at me.  Some squirm, look at watches, cross or uncross legs.

"How would you define blame?" the speaker asks.  "And is that enough?  I am demanding that we examine what has been.  I am asking that we understand the role we had and have now.”

The last federally run Canadian Indian residential school, Akaitcho Hall in Yellowknife, was closed in 1990.  A mere eight years before the conference.  The pain remains.  The survivors of the residential schools are still with us, so too, are their families.

Her son walks to the front, puts his arm around his mother.  She has passed her story to him, and he will pass it to his children and they will never be able to walk away from it.  On their way out, they stop by my chair.  "I did not mean to upset you," she says.

I am deeply ashamed, because this was not the time to question her story, but to listen.  I nod, apologize for my outburst.  My words are correct and inherent in their correctness is their feebleness.  I do not admit to my role.  No thank you.  No words directed to her son.  Not taking her hand in mine.  Not even a simple exchange of names.

Dinner is in an hour.  The conference members file past me; they congratulate me on speaking up.  No, I struggle to say, you don't understand.  The past needs to be remembered.  The question wasn't for us, it was for me, but no one wants to talk now.  No one wants to hear another story of residential schools.  This is past; it's history.  Besides, they weren't involved.

“Just one thing,” I say as the women walk by.  “Did anyone write down our speaker's name?  Her first name?”  No one.  We will take our notes, go back to our classrooms, initiate projects.  Some will really believe that this is enough.

What were my students' names?  What was her name?  It haunts me still.

Louisa Howerow has published creative nonfiction, short stories and poetry in journals, magazines and on the Internet.  She has been nominated for two Canadian awards: National Magazine Award in poetry and the Journey Prize for a short story.  Many years ago she worked in an Indian residential school on James Bay.

Cowboys and Indians: Mother and Child courtesy of Art.com