A Thing Like Hope
by
Rachel relieved herself behind a small tree, the best shelter she could find by the side of the road. The snow turned yellow and her legs warmed from the steam.
She pulled up her pants, her fingers numb from the cold, the sky ahead grainy in the fading light. But she wasn’t in a rush to get back to that car with Brian. Peaking around the tree, she saw his dark shoulder in the driver’s seat and the small orange dot of his cigarette moving from the armrest to his lips. She rubbed her arms in her puffy coat and thought about her options.
She could run over past those trees, up the white hill and see what presented itself: maybe some snow-covered farmhouses, maybe a fire station with muscular men desperate to save a desperate-looking woman.
She could fall down and pretend that she was dead. Maybe Brian would get scared and drive off without coming for a closer look.
Or she could dash out in front of a car, flailing her arms. Sure, she’d risk getting hit, but what were the odds the car would swerve? 70-30? 60-40? The way things were going she would probably die soon anyway. Might as well go out with a bang instead of slow and itchy like what was happening now.
Furious at her lack of conviction, she trekked back to the beat-up old Ford, threw her coat in the back, and climbed into the passenger seat. She knew decisions weren’t her strong suit, but come on, anyone should know when enough is enough.
Brian didn’t start the car.
“What’s your problem?” he asked.
“You know very well what my problem is.”
Rachel had a long history of getting involved with men she already had a history with. Especially when they were as good-looking as Brian, and especially when they promised her things she knew deep down they couldn’t deliver.
“You get me out here after dumping me a month ago, saying you’ll make it all up, only to tell me we’re visiting your parents, who I didn’t want to meet when we were dating, and I sure as hell don’t want to meet them now that we’re not.”
She was breathing heavy and shaking a little. The car rocked as a truck swept by. Brian went on looking at her and reached into the backseat.
“You keep that away from me,” she said, but was already interested in what he’d pull out.
He lifted his bag onto the divider. He was looking at her in a way that even if she was a stronger person, maybe even if she was the strongest person in the world, there was no way she’d be able to look away. Few people in her life had that kind of power over her, and that’s why she knew she should’ve ran out in front of a car when she’d had the damn chance.
“Listen.” He took out a thick book of Shakespeare’s works and a baggie of white powder. “We’re almost there. And I really want you to meet them.” He shifted a small amount onto the book and spread it into a line.
She took the book from him and set it in her lap.
“Besides,” he said, “I really need the money.”
“I know what you need,” she snapped, lifting the book to her nose. Once she was done he floored it onto the highway.
“That’s fine for you if you need to get money from your rich parents.” She tossed the book to the floor. “I just don’t understand why I need to go, especially without warning, with my hair a mess and dressed like this.” She looked down at her yellow-stained blouse and faded jeans that were torn at the knee.
“They won’t yell at me if someone else is there. Besides, my mom has this crazy hope I’ll find some girl to settle down with and marry. Adding to this delusion makes her happy enough to give me whatever I ask for.”
“What do you mean delusion? Aren’t you going to settle down and marry me?” She laughed and watched him bounce in his seat. His lips curled into a smile.
“Sure, I’ll marry you. But I don’t know about settling down.”
Now what she needed was a second to think. She examined the side of Brian’s face, hoping that he wasn’t going to talk again. She turned to her window. The snowy trees whipped by so fast she could barely see through the gaps in the branches.
Last night had been bad, real bad. After drinking alone in her small apartment, she’d had this feeling right before she blacked out like maybe she wouldn’t wake up. Like maybe she’d never wake up again, and that would be just fine with her.
But there she was the next afternoon, on the floor in her living room, with Brian pounding away on the window. The ceiling fan rattled above her; it was broken in a way that it couldn’t be stopped, and she watched it spin around and around as she listened to Brian.
Maybe she shouldn’t have opened the door and had him in for coffee; she should’ve lain right where she was and kept staring at the ceiling. But when she heard Brian out there, this thing like hope flew into her chest and ideas started going through her head, like maybe things could work out. Like maybe certain things were meant to be.
She’d had similar thoughts when other old boyfriends showed up only to screw her over again. And even though she realized this, riding along to meet Brian’s parents, and watching those trees and that snow blur together into a great gray wall, the damn fluttering hope wouldn’t go away, and she rolled down the window and stuck her head and chest into the cold.
Her hair lifted. Her ears filled with rushing air, and the top of her body rocked sideways. Gripping the window ledge, she closed her eyes and knew how easily she could be swept away.
The car swerved to the side of the road and Brian’s hand grabbed at her waist until she lowered herself back in. She was laughing and feeling good, like all the depressing crap she’d been through the past month had happened years ago and to somebody else. She sat down and looked at Brian, who wasn’t mad, but was grinning at her.
“That’s what I love about you,” he said, glancing behind and merging onto the highway. “One minute you’re sitting over there, nice and peaceful, and the next minute you’re flying out the window.”
She leaned back in the seat, flushed, her whole body pounding, and felt just a little like how she imagined a real girlfriend must feel, one who was going home with her boyfriend for the very first time.
Jessica Hollander is currently pursuing her M.F.A. at the University of Alabama She graduated from the University of Michigan in 2004 with a B.A. in English and Literature, and in 2006 received a United Arts Regional Artist Grant for her writing in North Carolina. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in The Emerson Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Hobart, Denver Syntax, Opium, and The Delinquent among others. Learn more about Jessica at her
Loss courtesy Art.com
Trompe-l’œil
by
As he started out from Philosophy Hall towards the subway entrance at 116th and Broadway, he was tired—of arguing, certainly, but also of the rules of argumentation. He heaved heavy eyes towards a logic-free heaven, then let them sink back down to earth—finding nothing of Quine’s quiddities there to help, but suddenly seeing heras she exited from Lewisohn. He carried a well-thumbed Schopenhauer. She, he saw, carried only herself and a sheaf of papers—though both exceedingly well.
He continued walking towards the subway—watching, then sensing, that her footsteps might now be nudging the continents towards some sublime, quixotic shift. As the two of them emerged from under the arches, he saw a limo standing in a No Standing zone. Her driver also stood—holding open, with a servant’s hand and salute, the back door.
She ducked down to enter and caught her mink on the handle; a few papers went flying. He came up quickly behind her; picked one up; recognized the comely shape of verse; read the header and the first two lines:
They Know I Did It
In turns, we’re heir to nightmares;
and so, debauched of dreams.
He paused as he considered what he might’ve just stumbled upon: another Sappho-in-the-making; a masked poetess.Masked, in-the-making, and in mink—hence, a minx, he thought as he gave the piece back with a single word of acknowledgment—“Provocative”—and accidentally touched her glove in the hand-off. She thanked him soundlessly with only a flicker of her lips, though eyes aided and abetted—and not just a little.
Nice mouth—she thought.
The quad lay behind him; the MTA in front. A turnstile to any torch show in Manhattan was his for the pushing—until, that is, he caught the scent of something like perfume; heard a sound on concrete no sneaker could make; glanced back and understood, in an instant, how easily even heathens could hallelujah when an angel heaved up on a pair of spike heels.
He pretended to fumble with his transit card—which, at his age, was first blush, second nature. Pretending? He still lacked the catechism for it. She, meanwhile, stood at the kiosk attempting to purchase a subway token. An opportunity, he thought—as purchasing subway tokens was clearly not her kind of shopping. But then it suddenly fell upon him like spring rain: perhaps she was no better at pretending than he was, even if one thing was now perfectly clear: fumbling was not her forte.
“Fuck it,” he pretended to say as he turned away from the turnstile and started out towards the stairway on the opposite side of Broadway.
“Fandens også!” was the collision of consonants and odd vowels he heard her whisper as he saw a hand slip back through mink and drop the two bills—though he would’ve known nothing of the syllables, much less of the sexy little accent. Lights on this scene in any case went to dark as he hit the exit.
When he came back up and turned the corner, it was to a set of sun’s rays retiring over Riverside. She came up after him and immediately claimed her turf with a single stiletto heel while perusing the panorama—real lighthouse-like. Sending a beacon out in search of lost sailors, however, was not a couch this Siren could get cozy on, as she was more accustomed to being the shoal on which they crashed. And the clean-up? Somebody else’s problem.
She finally saw him walking much too cavalierly down 116th in the direction of the park; studied his walk; then mimicked it—staying a frivolous fifty paces behind. He leaned up against the wall of a building, fumbled with a cigarette. She leaned up against her own piece of wall, took out her own cigarette. He flicked at something frantically. She slipped out a Dunhill 18-carat gold-enameled; pressed down gently on the lever; let the electrons do the heavy lifting.
She inhaled, then let the smoke flow back out. Charming as a bounty of church bells chiming ‘Glory Borealis’ he thought as he caught her exhalation out of the corner of his eye.
He, she noticed, was still flicking. She advanced and extended the Dunhill. He looked briefly into a pair of cool emerald greens, then back at the lighter; cupped his hands ‘round while letting one thumb rest an instant upon her glove; took the fire and inhaled.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Pas de quoi,” she answered.
He lost the momentum of the exchange—though only for an instant. “Vous êtes—?”
“Just teasing,” she sniffed as she put the cigarette between her lips and inhaled, then let the smoke stream back out through flared nostrils. Gentle as a riptide, he thought, his brain now just a commotion of molecules. Beautiful and Baudelairian—he also thought, but couldn’t say, as he was now just a bashful mass of feet and no mouth.
She, in the meantime, grew bored—and glanced down at his carry-on luggage: The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason.
Perhaps—she thought—I could throw him a starter kit. “How many squares would a square root wreck if a square root wrecked for a reason?”
Not only beautiful, he thought as he looked up, but—.
They both exhaled simultaneously. Perfect timing, she thought. Much better than sufficient reason.
For the next minute, they exchanged only smoke and stares. He then dropped his cigarette and stamped it out. She dropped hers, kicked it in his direction. He looked down; got a fix on its location; looked back up as he squashed it. Lids dropped like a last curtain call on a pair of prominent cheekbones, Danish-cut. The time for dallying, he thought, is done.
“Wanna chuck wood?”
“Sure,” she said. “Let’s chuck.”
He grabbed her hand and moved. The sun, now a mere palimpsest over the Palisades, drew them in the direction of Jersey, just across the Hudson—and about a million miles away.
At Riverside, he sought a shady spot. Moonbeams can be murder on a mink, he thought. He found a maple, looked for moths—spotted a pair and told ‘em to scram—then probed for rough spots before leaning her back against the bark. The curtsy of her coat suggested that rough spots—like moths—were now on the run. Her own sigh confirmed it.
“Te-tell me—” he stuttered.
“Show me,” she countered. The stop, he thought, was drop-dead glottal.
He reached under her coat, then let his hand rise slow as sizzle on a hotplate along the inside of her thigh as she rotated. Like a pirate on a picnic, he felt a tremor, paused, waited till it had subsided; then eased his hand on up until it met with an impasse of pure silk.
He was now Marco Polo, but also Kepler, Copernicus and Galileo. He’d found the road to China—but was about to blow it off for a date with the Milky Way.
Like a lonely reverend, he pulled the silk aside, unzipped and slipped in. He’d surely fry—but he had the rest of his life and then some to contemplate how hot the coals. Now, however, he bowed his head to the nape of her neck, inhaled, found tiny hairs with his lips, and touched the salt of her skin with the tip of his tongue.
The sight, feel, smell and taste of her sent his synapses into overdrive, while his cortex collapsed in a smooth smolder. She’d burned her way in—and the memory would forever after stick to him like a brand.
Russell Bittner lives and scribbles on a small island off the East Coast of the United States. The island is called "Long" and his borough is called "Brooklyn." This first chapter of his first novel, Trompe-l’œil, appeared in the literary journal Snow Monkey in February of 2007. The novel has not yet been published. In the meantime, and until it finds a home between hard covers, he is simultaneously at work on two others: Gigolo, Gigolina and My Cradle, My Crucible.
Headlight of Approaching Subway Car in Station courtesy Art.com
January Thaw
by
The wind is whistling around the corner of my sixth floor flat. The sound of it reminds me of those long winters spent in the middle of nowhere. It would whistle and blow through the wide open spaces of north eastern Indiana for weeks without abating. Snow sometimes made it impossible to open the front door because of the drifts on the porch. I miss those times in our drafty old farmhouse that was impossible to heat. They were good times. The wind howled and whistled around the corners of our house. Sometimes it couldn’t be bothered to stop for months at a time. It forced its way through every crack and continued on its journey right through the house. The children contented themselves with watching television, all snuggled up together under a warm blanket, until next they decided to venture outside into the wild winter mountains the snow always brought.
We laughed and talked about what a small town we lived in and how different it was from the small city from which we had move. There were no trucks coming along with sand or salt. There were only the farmers and their tractors trying to hold it all at bay. The wind toyed with them. It swirled the snow all around them and moved it right back to the street from the piles they were trying to create. They always gave up and had to wait for the wind to stop, or at least die down.
We were snowed in almost every winter. Usually just for a day or so, but sometimes for a week. Once it was for two weeks. The first blizzard hit overnight when the children were due to go back to school after winter break. Poor Melissa had a miserable birthday that year. We couldn’t get to the store to buy a cake mix, let alone the bakery 35 miles away where her cake sat waiting. I don’t think she had a proper birthday while we lived there. We made do, and that perhaps left her with much better memories, like my first attempt at baking a cake from scratch.
When the snow came, we were isolated from the rest of the world until the County cleared the drifts and salted the highway that ran outside of town. Sometimes the highway would open for an hour or so before drifting closed it again. There was always a flurry of people trekking to their neighbors' houses to see if they needed anything from the store, or wanted to ride along while roads were passable. The farmers were often the first to churn up that unmarked blanket of cold when they came in with their tractors to plow the streets in town. These same tractors were used in the summertime to mow their large yards and all it took was a few minutes to attach the plow blades on the front. They pushed the snow into huge seven-foot high piles on the corner by our house. The kids sat at the window and watched for them as soon as the snow started falling, and laughed because the machinery just couldn’t keep up with the steadily falling flakes.
It was an idyllic town in northwest Indiana, right on the eastern edge of the great rolling prairie lands. The kind of small Midwestern American town they show in the movies. We had a post office, a library, two bars and two churches. We had a small market/pizza place as well. The old timers used to sit there drinking their coffee comparing notes on all the blizzards they had survived. "This is worse than the one in ’53 when we got 24 inches in two days," and similar things could be heard when you went in to see if there might possibly be a loaf of bread still on the shelf. There usually wasn’t, but the trek through the swirling drifts and compacted mountains of snow piled along the way wasn’t for nothing. There were friends and neighbors to commiserate with and to make you smile when they pointed out it could be worse. It could be so bad the wind prevented the highway from being cleared until May.
The nearest gas station and grocery were seven miles in either direction, but you needed the highway to get there. The gravel roads running between were impassable after a blizzard. Sometimes people tried using the back roads but they always ended up sliding off the road and into a drift. The car would sit nearly buried there until the weather warmed up and the snow began to melt. You see, we would get lots of snow, but there was always the January thaw to look forward to. The warmer weather and sunshine were always welcomed and our complaints about the slush were more from habit than because they were really meant. It just seems to be human nature to complain about what we can't control, even when it's welcome.
As I sit here now, in Scotland, so many miles away from that place I loved so much, the wind sounds the same. It's a lonely sound as it whistles by. It's in too much of a hurry to stop and talk. Sometimes it will gust and it sounds completely different. You see, here it doesn't whistle all the time, only when it gusts around the corner. It’s like it stops whistling to tell a lie and it talks long enough that you start to believe it. It sounds like a sheet billowing out when you shake it in the summer sun. You won't know what I mean unless you've line dried laundry in a summer breeze. It sounds just like that; you can even hear warmth in it. Then it whistles and you know there is no warmth in it, but there's no snow either.
I'll not wake up in the morning and have to go out the backdoor to shovel snow away from the front door before we can open it. I'll not have to shovel snow for an hour to be able to find my car so I can attempt to go to work. The children won't be bundling up in layer upon layer of clothing to go out and throw snowballs and make snow angels, or to play King of The Mountain on that hill of snow on the corner. I won't be struggling to help them find their missing gloves and mittens and failing so that they end up wearing socks on their hands. I won't be mopping up melted snow from the floors, and I won't be making popcorn, cookies and hot cocoa to warm up anyone who stops by. I'll be here, in a high-rise flat in another country, where I'll see sand and water instead of snow. I'll bundle up here, just like I did there, and I'll wear my fuzzy slippers and flannel shirts to keep out the cold wind that seeps inside. I'll listen as it blows on its way, thawing myself with memories as January is carried away.
Sheri Whitlock lived in Indiana most of
her life, with a few short stays in other areas of the United States.
She is a published poet and essayist who now lives in Fife, Scotland
with her husband, John. She is currently working on her first historical
novel, but still finds plenty of time for poetry and essays.
Little Boy Checks Out a Snowdrift Against a Front Door courtesy Art.com
The Tattered Bookmark
by
My newborn daughter, Vanessa, kicked her tiny foot against my stomach and gave a weak cry. I adjusted her bottle. “There you are, sweetie.” She latched onto the nipple and stared at me. I was in love with my three-week-old little girl.
Georgia, still recovering from giving me my first child, walked up to me. “Happy, Father’s Day!” She smiled and handed me an envelope. “Michael,” she apologized. “I didn’t have time to shop. This is all I have for your first Father’s Day. I wish I could give you more.”
I looked at her. “Georgia, it’s OK. You’re still not well. It’s only been a couple of weeks.” I looked at the gift in my arms. “You gave me Vanessa. Could I ask for more?”
She stared at me. A tear formed in the corner of her right eye and began to trickle down her cheek. “I know, but this is your first Father’s Day. I wanted it to be special.”
“It is special.” I replied and reached for her hand. “Look at her!” I glanced at Vanessa. “This is the best Father’s Day gift.” I turned back to Georgia, “Hun, this is the gift.”
I opened the envelope and pulled out a note. “Dear, Michael.” it began. I looked at Georgia. The tear on her cheek reflected the morning sun coming through the window across the room. I turned and read the rest. “Happy Father’s Day! This is the moment we dreamed about before we married. We have our Vanessa. Now we have to plan for a Justin.” She signed it, “I Love You, Michael! You’re going to be a great daddy.”
I looked at her again, “Thank you, Georgia. I’ll do my best.”
“There’s more.” she smiled.
“What do you mean?”
“In the envelope.”
I picked it up and opened it again. In the bottom was a colorful piece of cloth. I pulled it out. It was a cloth bookmark with vibrant bands of color. White fringes dangled from each end. It reminded me of a Mexican serape. I draped it over my hand and looked at Georgia. “I love it.”
“Michael.” she said. “It’s just a bookmark. I wanted to get you more.”
“Georgia, I love it. It will always be special—my first Father’s Day gift.”
“I love you.” she said.
I sniffed the air. “Do you smell something?” I asked.
“What?”
I set the bookmark aside and changed my first diaper.
On weekends, I did the midnight feedings. I sat and read. The house was quiet. Through the baby monitor, I heard Vanessa stirring. Her small cry crackled through the speaker. I placed my Father’s Day gift between the pages of my book.
I cradled Vanessa in my arm. I held her bottle with one hand and my book with the other. Her tiny chin quivered as she suckled. My gaze bounced from my book to her. The bookmark was draped over my thigh.
***
Justin was born. Vanessa, now three, slept in her very first bed. I held my newborn son in my arms. The house cracked as it contracted in the sub-zero temperatures outside. The bookmark rested on the back of the sofa. Justin snuggled against my chest.
The job I held for fifteen years disappeared. Everyone slept. I sat studying. I was back in school and stressed. When I finished my studies, I picked up my book, opened it, and slipped the bookmark into the pages ahead, marking things to come.
I finally found a new job, but it was in a different city and province. I sat on my bed in a lonely room. Georgia, Vanessa, and Justin were in Nova Scotia. I rented a room in a home in Saint John, New Brunswick. I tried to read, but tears made the words blurry. I missed my wife and children. I placed the bookmark between the pages, turned off the light, and cried into my pillow. It would be a year before they would be able to join me. The bookmark, its fringes frayed, dangled from both ends of my book.
Three years later, after another move, I sat on my deck in Ohio. Justin stepped out. “Dad, wrestling is cool. I love it.”
Vanessa, now sixteen, joined him, “Dad, they made me second in clarinet!”
I hugged them both. “Way to go, guys!”
The kids went to their rooms. Steaks sizzled on the grill. I pulled the bookmark from my book, placed it on the patio table, and read. Life was good.
“Hun, I’ll get home when I can.” I said to Georgia. My job in Ohio was gone. I took an offer in New Jersey. We decided she would stay in Ohio, so Vanessa could finish her senior year of high school. Georgia and Justin would join me in Jersey in ten months.
I stood on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River. Manhattan sparkled in front of me. Miles of buildings, windows full of light, stretched out in both directions—a dazzling display.
Back in my apartment, I settled into bed, picked up my book, and thought about the day my family could join me and see the view. I pulled my bookmark from my book and placed it on the covers beside me. It was worn after years of use. I spoke to it. “We’ve been through a lot. We can get through more.”
I dozed off in my new surroundings. The book rested on my chest, rising and falling with each breath I took. My bookmark lay beside me. I turned in my sleep. The bookmark slid to the floor.
***
Eleven months later, I sat in a chair reading. Georgia lay on the sofa. She’d been in New Jersey for three weeks. My son slept upstairs in his new bedroom. My daughter stayed in Ohio to attend college. Georgia stirred and moaned—her organs failing. While I was away, her liver failed and then her kidneys. I feared her end was near.
Her eyes opened. “Michael?”
“I’m here, Hun.”
“I’m thirsty. Can you get me a drink?”
I placed the worn bookmark between the pages. “What would you like, Hun? Do you want juice?”
She shook her head. “Is Vanessa home yet?”
“Georgia, Vanessa is in Ohio. She’s not here.” I replied.
“Oh! I forgot.” she smiled weakly.
I made her a cup of tea. She sipped it carefully as she stared blankly at the television. The bookmark rested on my thigh again. “Michael?”
I looked up. “Yes?”
“Is Vanessa home yet?” Georgia asked again.
“She’s still in Ohio, Hun.”
“Oh, right. I forgot.” Her eyes closed. She drifted off to sleep.
I placed my bookmark between the pages, put my book down and went to bed. Tears filled my eyes. I wished my wife could climb the stairs to join me.
***
The bookmark stretched across my stomach, I held my book in front of me, not reading. On the television, a sitcom blared unwatched. My friends had left. Justin slept in his room. Vanessa, who came from Ohio, slept in the spare room. Georgia’s ashes rested in her urn on the credenza. My children were with me again, but I was alone.
I grabbed the bookmark, marked my spot, and carried my book to my empty bed. “Lord, I don’t want to be alone.” I prayed. “I want love in my life.”
***
The sun warmed my back. Ginny sat in the chair across the patio table from me. I lifted the bookmark from my lap, marked my page, stared at her, and said, “Ginny, I love you.”
She looked up, put her book down, and smiled at me. “I love you too.”
“I love you more.” I smiled back. “Now back to our reading.”
We picked up our books and read. The bookmark rested on my lap.
***
Ginny slept beside me on the sofa. I spread my bookmark across her thigh and stared at it. The white fringes were long gone. There’s a spot where it must have torn. I don’t remember when, but I can see the loving stitches that hold it together. The whites are grey. The bright bands of color are faded. It can’t be washed. I fear it will fall apart.
I lifted it from Ginny’s thigh and placed it between the pages of my book. “Ginny?” I shook her shoulder.
“Hmm? she moaned.
I shook her again, “Ginny, time for bed, Hun.”
“Yes?”
“Come on, Hun. Let’s go to bed.” I took her hand in mine. “Come on, Hun.”
We climbed the stairs. I held her hand and carried my book. The tattered bookmark dangled from each end.
I sat up in bed. Ginny slept beside me. I pulled the bookmark from my book and looked at it again. We’d been through a lot and both showed our age. Like its tassels, my hair is mostly gone. Its middle is folded in from years of being pressed together between the pages of countless books. My middle is folding out from years of good food and not enough exercise.
My bookmark started out marking spots in my books. I’ve come to realize, it didn’t just mark the pages of my books, it marked the pages of my life.
Michael T. Smith lives in Fort Lee, New Jersey with his wife and son. He works as a project manager in the telecommunications industry and writes in his spare time. His stories will be part of a collection to be called, From My Heart to Yours. Sign up and receive Michael’s twice-weekly stories and read more of Michael’s stories.
Fondly Do We Remember courtesy Art.com
Brimstone and Liars
by
In hell, bowling is the pastime of choice. It’s like a rite of passage. I’ve been here two days, and once you get used to the sulfur, wailing, and the constant loop of Michael Bolton songs, it’s still bad, but you get used to it. Just don’t look in a mirror; you don’t want to know what you look like. I’ve found it’s best to keep myself distracted, and since bowling is the only thing as perpetual as the itching and burning, I’ve been doing a lot of that.
My bowling team today consisted of Shirley, a former waitress-turned-shoplifter; Jeff, who was an IT guy until a big rig plowed into his Honda Civic; and Judy, a sweet housewife who’s been here since 1957. I haven’t met any famous people like Hitler yet. They’re probably on one of the deeper levels of hell where you’re personally tortured by Satan for the rest of eternity. I’m not that far down. Not yet, anyway. I’m on the level for people who didn’t tip their waiters, or jaywalked too often.
The thing about bowling is, if you win, you get to go to a better level of hell. If you lose, you go down a level. If you’re one of the dorks on your team with a score somewhere in the middle, you stay, but a couple of Satan’s little helpers–shadowy, lesser demons with a penchant for aggravating hell’s citizens—will prod you with hot pokers for a while. The latter has been the extent of my bowling success so far. So, in theory, if you have a bad game and get thrown to one of the crappier levels of hell, you could always win another game and get back to the level where you were before. Word has it, though, that few, if any, bowlers in hell have ever recovered from a losing streak. The further down you go, the harder the games get. If you’re really good, you might be able to bowl your way to limbo, but I haven’t heard of anyone being so lucky.
You don’t have to bowl, but it’s better than the alternative (i.e., Satan’s helpers’ constant torment). Judy has been able to stay on this level of hell for sixty years by being a totally mediocre bowler–she’s never won a game, but she’s never lost. I hoped some of that mediocrity would rub off on me.
“You’re up, Drew.” Shirley handed me the smoking black bowling ball–the palms of my hands still hadn’t adjusted to the sensation. I winced and stepped up to the lane, passing the hot, smoking ball from hand to hand to ease the pain. You should see Judy’s hands–nothing but pure calluses on those babies. I was in fourth place at the moment, thanks to two gutter balls. I rolled the ball down the lane and crossed my fingers. The ball plowed right into the pins, knocking over all but three. Sweet.
Jeff was in first place, as usual. He’d worked his way up two levels of hell during his scant two weeks here. He rolled his ball down the lane and all ten pins hit the floor.
“Hell, yeah!” He did a victory dance, retrieved the ball from the return, and passed it to Judy.
She feebly rolled the ball down the lane and we all watched and waited for the next several minutes, until it eventually knocked down four pins. Judy and I were now tied for last place. With one round left, I was getting anxious. Shirley took the ball and bowled a strike. I bowled a spare, and, of course, Jeff managed another strike.
“Guess who’s goin’ up another level?” he asked, as the pins fell.
I was suspicious, though. Every time he got a strike, the last few pins wouldn’t fall until after the ball had dropped back into the return. The ball would strike, a few pins would fall, then the rest would stand there for a few seconds. It wasn’t until several seconds later that the rest would fall, and that’s when I saw something–a hand or a tail–pop out of the ball return and knock the rest of the pins over. Judy took the ball from the return and stepped up to the lane. As new pins were set out, I walked down the brimstone lane to the ball return and looked inside. Something moved. I reached inside and felt scalding, slimy skin. I yanked the offending creature out: a tiny, black imp with glowing green eyes and jagged yellow teeth. I glared at it, then at Jeff.
“Got a helper, huh?” The squirming, squawking imp caught the attention of some of the other helpers. Helpers are only supposed to do Satan’s chores, not the bidding of some random IT dork trying to cheat his way to limbo. A swarm of little helpers pounced on Jeff, as well as the renegade imp from the ball return. Judy had already rolled her ball down the lane. It inched towards the pins, but halfway there veered to the left and into the fiery gutter. The ground beneath Judy disappeared, and she plummeted to next level of hell. Satan’s helpers carried Jeff to The Pit–a fiery hole that goes straight to the bottom of hell, where Jeff would probably get far more acquainted with Satan than anyone would ever care to.
As Jeff’s tortured screams echoed from The Pit, Shirley and I exchanged looks of relief as the gaggle of shadowy demons ran toward us with glowing hot pokers.
Stephanie Scarborough lives in Fort Worth, Texas with her two feline overlords. Her work has appeared in Every Day Fiction, The Harrow, and CROQ Zine, and she has work forthcoming in Bewildering Stories and OMG! The Book of Awesome Stuff. You can learn more about Stephanie at her website.
Ten Pins courtesy Art.com
A Gift for Eternity
by
His mother's eyes pleaded. She held out the keys. Jenna was gone, and, so far, the police had no leads. Forty-eight hours and nothing.
"Haven't the cops gone through everything?"
"You know her, they don't," his mother said. "You two are alike . . . think alike."
"Right," he snapped, not meaning to, and saw her eyes glisten with the beginnings of tears. He reached out and wrapped her in his arms, her tight black curls smelling faintly of the dye she used to cover the white that had come to her early, come with their birth thirty-six years prior. He felt her shoulders shudder, but she didn't cry, just leaned into him a long while until her shaking stopped.
She stood up, then, supporting her own weight, her hands pushing a little. James let her go. "You'll look, won't you?" she asked, her voice still quavering.
"I'll look."
"I mean you'll try," she whispered.
He nodded. "Yes, Mom. If there's something, I'll find it."
She held out the keys again, and, this time, he took them, a small shock of static electricity sparking between them.
On the stairs, he looked back, just once. She was watching him, hope shadowing grief and worry. Then he turned and took the steps slowly, one at a time, dreading the violence, dreading the violation, he knew he was about to suffer in all its full and terrible potency. For nineteen years he had avoided it—nineteen years of peace, joy, pleasure—his visits to Mother limited to the safety of the bottom two floors of the intricate, rambling three-story that was his and Jenna's inheritance. They had no brothers, no sisters. James would have welcomed either . . . both . . . many—someone to share the burden and battle, someone to distract the salivating forces of Jenna's malice.
At the top of the second floor landing, he paused. Inside, he felt again the creeping terror, the pressure, that he'd suffered all his juvenile years until, graduating early from high school, he'd driven away. That very night he had fled, taking his clothes and his car, his books and his writings, escaping to the quiet, light-filled world of an empty university campus at Christmas. There he'd been safe. There he had stayed for ten blissful years of intense study, getting his degree, then finally winning a professorship. They couldn't get rid of him, and, ultimately, they didn't want to. He had become the foremost lettered expert in his chosen specialty and field of endeavor. Even that had been due to Jenna's influence, though—to the forces that drove her. James had studied his whole life to protect himself from her and those like her.
The last three stairs of the uppermost flight seemed to swallow him—the first, his feet; the second, his legs up to the calf; the topmost, his body, crotch-high. He was wading in darkness now, its fluidity a heavy, palpable thing. Its strange waters sucked at his clothes, at him, hungry for what had been denied for so long—nineteen years. "Jenna," he whispered, the words falling involuntarily. "Jenna."
At the door, his hands shook as he fitted the key. He paused only long enough to draw a steadying breath, then turned the key in its lock. The door fell open before him, weighted as all of them were in this too grand house, its every embellishment designed to impress and intimidate. His great grandfather's house, a man who had demanded power, had created political thrones, then perched upon them, using the minions beneath him to bleed dry those who believed the weave of lies that had brought him Congressional office. Since 1895 the family had thrived on his lies, each generation in turn using the weight of wealth to create more, the leverage of favors bringing the family ever more power, more money, until the pinnacle was a reach away. His father had made that reach, that grasp for the Presidency—and died at age forty-eight. Jenna and James had been just eleven.
His mother, thirty then, had retired from the public, content in a greatly reduced social schedule. She'd been happy for the first time in her life, except for Jenna. Jenna was his mother's one eternal grief, her perpetual worry—Jenna, dark-humored and sullen.
Jenna's room still reflected that, its drapes closed and windows perpetually sealed. The room was even now steeped in gloom, its air stagnant. The only light was that which seeped in through the open doorway, his silhouette long on the hard woven carpet before him—brown carpet with seams of black creepers. He stepped in, still wading, moving at once to the drape pulls—one, the next, the third. He opened the room to the first light he guessed it had seen in long decades, in all the time that Jenna was cloistered there. Then he opened the sashes, the air more heavenly than even the light. It swept the ash of morbidity out through the still open door, out to the hall and down. In his mind he could see that ash drift, and feared for his mother. That fear faded as soon as it formed. She had been living in safety with this since their birth. Somehow, it couldn't—or didn't—touch her.
Looking about, he brushed his hands close to the desk, his fingers approaching, but not touching, a pillar that squatted upon a pedestal next to a keyboard and terminal. It lit at proximity, sending out sparkling tendrils of glowing, writhing blue light. One tendril reached far enough to just touch him, instantly turning florid as it twined about his hand, the lacing cold between his fingers. He jerked back, and an involuntary shiver coursed his body.
Beside the light lay a small book—Jenna's diary or, maybe, her spell book. The latter, he guessed, looking at its placement. Her diary would be in the drawer—he had read it once when, at age eight, the night dreams had started, Jenna within them. Desperate to know how she tortured him, she'd never known, had not even guessed, that he'd learned from her how to protect and avenge himself. And she would still keep that diary where she had hidden it then.
He pulled the drawer open. The small, blue, brocade-bound book lay within, just as always—Jenna, obsessive about constancy, routine, and habit. He was much the same, and he knew the dangers of it. He'd learned early that he had to control his tendencies for the extreme. Jenna, however, had cultivated her every compulsion, reveling in all of them.
"It's opulent," she had said to him once. Even then he had shrunk from the madness that lived in her eyes.
On her bedstead lay a pod of crystals—black quartz, obsidian, hematite, garnet. Beside them was her locket. His fingers ventured near, then shied off as if burnt. He knew the image held there, and the lock of curl beneath it. The boy, David Young, had died the day he had bid Jenna an angry leave-taking, his rage at her seduction and sexual torment of his younger brother bringing him to drive too fast on the turnpike.
On her bed's headboard, the stuffed owl that she had cherished since childhood still sat, mounted in flight, its grim beak open, its talons extended, as if its intended was already dead. Soul-Snatcher, Jenna had named it. She had found it dead in the stables one chilly morning in March on their ninth birthday. His father had grinned when she'd brought it, its body hanging stiff from her fingers, to the breakfast table. James had retched up his food, his father's frown of displeasure burning into him. It had since been a permanent visual memory at any thought of his father, a vision only superseded by one other—the flash of his father, clutching his chest as he gave his acceptance speech, suddenly falling dead at their feet, James, Jenna and Mother standing startled beside him. That was the last time James had seen his father alive. Jenna had laughed, her hysteria a strange countermelody to the screams that echoed in swirls around them all. James remembered taking his mother's hand and leading her back as strangers crowded forward, flashes and strobes blinding him all around.
"Jenna," he whispered again, and, faintly, he felt more than heard a stirring. Looking, he spied his last gift to her. The small casket sat on the wrought iron table he'd sent her the year previous. Again a rustle. He moved over to it and stared down. Then, pulling a fine silver chain from his pocket, he turned the clasp on the miniature coffin, put his hand on the lid, and lifted.
The mirror in its bottom shimmered—purest mercury. He whispered, and that pool of silver wavered, small ripples appearing. Then Jenna's too lovely face came in view to appear momentarily, her eyes their brilliant cornflower blue. Those eyes seemed to see him. They pleaded, and, for the first time in all his memories of her, he saw fear.
Her mouth opened. He grimaced and whispered again. The mercury darkened, proving his famed dissertations on cultural fables and folk superstitions a lie. He dropped the chain into the blackening pool as her last vestige faded.
His lips whispering words that would bind for eternity, he shut the lid, turning the box's small clasp, not to the right—latched—but to the left until it snicked in the peculiar manner that told him the locksmith had crafted the locks in the lid of her coffin correctly. There was a hiss and a flash, then heat under his hand as a small puff of acrid smoke wafted away. Then the seam was gone, the lead in the lips of the lid fused shut.
Picking up her tomb, he left the room open—its door, its drapes, and its windows. A breeze brushed his face. The gloom lifted, his feet coming free from the strangling waters that were her last legacy.
Living in the Purcell Trench in Northern Idaho, E. J. Ruek (pronounced "rook") writes about things which are not quite as they seem—not on the surface and not underneath . . . like your auntie whose secrets drive the neighbors crazy. They just know that something isn't "normal." And it isn't. Says E. J., "Writing is about translating life into words without sacrificing the grimace and the giggle." You can visit E. J. on the web.
Journey courtesy Art.com
A Spatial Affair
by
Gaia struggled a billion years to finally escape the clutches of her dominating husband. As far back as she could remember, she’d been consumed by his powerful energy, buried in t he shadow of his illumination; she’d never felt anything but the heat of his body engulf her. It was only through incredible strength that she finally managed to wrench herself free. She raced across the heavens until she found a safe distance, a space she could call her own.
There were those who thought she stopped loving him. But that wasn’t it, no. In fact, her desire burned just as brilliantly as the white hot kiln that forever fueled Helios to his very core. For centuries though, Gaia had kindled another longing, a longing to find herself beyond her husband’s influence. So she fled. Ninety three million miles she raced until she felt only the gentle warmth from the furnace that was his body.
The distance she placed between them cooled her desire, warmed her once hot lust to a respectful glow. Ecstatic over her newfound freedom, she wept and her tears filled the deepest pores and coursed through the laugh lines that formed during her flight. In her lush fullness, she brought forth new forms of life, green and fertile and crawling all over her. She loved the sensation. And she loved the feeling of cold on one side of her body while the other was warmed by her distant husband. She spun slowly and lazily in a taunting dance, cool then warm, then cool. Ahhh.
Helios watched from afar, growing angrier by the century. He was not to be made a cuckold! He threw his fury her way, spitting out pieces of himself as he hurled curses in every direction. Chunks of all sizes flew across the galaxy; each scrap, from the largest lump to the tiniest shard, felt lighthearted, free of Helios’ rule but afraid to drift too far from his pull lest they float off into the vastness of nothing. They positioned themselves around him in a cosmic spiral, dancing a million year waltz. Some of the smaller pieces broke up as they flew past Gaia, dissolving into solar nebula, forever speckling the gloaming like shimmering dust.
Helios saw that his maniacal flailing was ineffective. So, taking deadly aim, he hurled a small bit of himself, a quarter size of his wife. Gaia was prepared. As it grew closer, she merely held up her splayed fingers, palm out, halted the rock in dead space, where it stayed, suspended above her horizon.Over time, Gaia grew to love the little chunk and called her by a number of enduring names. Mostly, she called the little one Selene and shielded her from the wrath of Helios by keeping her own body between them. But Selene was moody and would sneak out regularly to peer around Gaia’s girth, taunting Helios from the safety of her distance.
Gaia and Selene became great friends and shared everything. They found they had much in common, Gaia the wife, Selene, the tiny niece. Their friendship grew stronger but always, always, just as they began to move closer, Helios, with his ever watchful eye and volatile jealousy, would push and pull until they were back in place.
Centuries turned to millennium and Helios grew increasingly more jealous. At last he saw a small speck of himself floating dangerously close and knew he’d finally found his opportunity. He reached out and flicked it with the tip of his finger, sending it hurtling through space.
The thing sped past Selene with a furious velocity and crashed into Gaia full force. The impact pushed her off balance, tilting her ever so slightly so that her dance became a bit lopsided and her vision was mildly askew. Worse yet, the explosion obliterated the lush vegetation that covered her and destroyed her inhabitants, every last one of them.
Gaia was not to be deterred. She loved having her own space and she adored her new friends. Especially exciting was the sensation of life growing up out of her. So she simply began again, and again, and again. And every time Helios managed to poison her with his anger, Gaia would patiently start over, time after time for millions and millions of years.
But lately there have been rumors flying around. Talk is that Gaia and Helios have been seeing a counselor, some distant star who decided to intervene for the sake of the universe. It seems all the other galaxies have grown weary of listening to the perpetual bickering coming out of the Milky Way. They want to reestablish some semblance of harmony. Selene and her Aunt Venus have been whispering words of caution to Gaia, reminding her of the life she’d be forfeiting by returning to her hotheaded spouse. Nevertheless, there is a strong chance that she and Helios will settle their differences and get back together.
Some predict it will happen soon. Specifically during the winter solstice while Selene has her back turned, busy chatting with one of her distant cousins.
Linda Leschak writes from her home in
Houston, Texas. She recently earned her B.A. in Creative Writing from
the Union Institute and University at Vermont College. Her stories and
poems had previously been published in the Lone Star College’s Inkling Magazine
of which she later became an editor. Her poetry has appeared in the
anthology of the International Festival-Institute at Round Top, Texas.
Gaia--The Goddess of Earth courtesy Art.com
Life is a Bag of Frozen Peas
by
A few weeks after my first wife, Georgia, was called to heaven, I was cooking dinner for my son and myself. For a vegetable, I decided on frozen peas. As I was cutting open the bag, it slipped from my hands and crashed to the floor. The peas, like marbles, rolled everywhere. I tried to use a broom, but with each swipe the peas rolled across the kitchen, bounced off the wall on the other side and rolled in another direction.
My mental state at the time was fragile. Losing a spouse is an unbearable pain. I got on my hands and knees and pulled them into a pile to dispose of. I was half laughing and half crying as I collected them. I could see the humor in what happened, but it doesn’t take much for a person dealing with grief to break down.
For the next week, every time I was in the kitchen, I would find a pea that had escaped my first cleanup. In a corner, behind a table leg, in the frays at the end of a mat, or hidden under a heater, they kept turning up. Eight months later I pulled out the refrigerator to clean, and found a dozen or so petrified peas hidden underneath.
At the time I found those few remaining peas, I was in a new relationship with a wonderful woman I met in a widow/widower support group. After we married, I was reminded of those peas under the refrigerator. I realized my life had been like that bag of frozen peas. It had shattered. My wife was gone. I was in a new city with a busy job and a son having trouble adjusting to his new surroundings and the loss of his mother. I was a wreck. I was a bag of spilled, frozen peas. My life had come apart and scattered.
When life gets you down; when everything you know comes apart; when you think you can never get through the tough times, remember, it is just a bag of scattered, frozen peas. The peas can be collected and life will move on. You will find all the peas. First the easy peas come together in a pile. You pick them up and start to move on. Later you will find the bigger and harder-to-find peas. When you pull all the peas together, life will be whole again.
The life you know can be scattered at any time. You will move on, but how fast you collect your peas depends on you. Will you keep scattering them around with a broom, or will you pick them up one by one and put your life back together?
How will you collect your peas?
Michael T. Smith lives in Fort Lee, New Jersey with his wife and son. He works as a project manager in the telecommunications industry and writes in his spare time. His stories will be part of a collection to be called, From My Heart to Yours. Sign up and receive Michael’s twice-weekly stories and read more of Michael’s stories.
Fresh Green Peas in Bowl, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia courtesy Art.com