Bob's Magazine

Images in Ice: An Exhibit in Three Parts

2010-12-28T10:52:00.000-08:00

-1-

My friend Jim Shirey sent me the photograph above as an email attachment, with the note that he hoped I was still alive. I am at present, but do not want to be overconfident. I was excited to see another of his amazing photographs of nature, this one part of his ongoing fascination with images of ice and called "ascent of the frost spirits."

Jim uses his camera to pick up spirits in nature. I put this photograph up as wallpaper on my laptop so I could look at them and think about them as I worked on a story I've been writing. At first I found myself thinking of the central figure as Queen Mab, who, according to Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," brings us dreams. I thought also of Diana surrounded by her nymphs in a line from Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale." The speaker has allowed himself to be carried away on the wings of poesy, seeing in the night sky "haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne/Clustered around by all her starry fays."

Then the central figure began to change, or show her many dimensions: an insect self, even a Virgin Mary self inset in the lower portion of the figure, and back again to her whole and truest self. I told Jim that I loved the photograph though it scared me a little.

What, I asked myself, has he caught in his lens?

He sent me another email, with the following two photographs attached, which he introduced as follows: well, if the frost spirits scare you, try these on for size.

2010-12-28T10:49:00.000-08:00

-2-

I had to admit these impressed me in a strange way, especially the first one. Lisa Sarkis said it reminded her of a painting called "The Scream" by Edvard Munch. I thought so myself, but it also looked a little like the mask used in the movie "Scream," though much more forlorn. It now seems to me that the primary identity is the forlorn spirit captured in or finding expression or traveling through the ice. The second one I leave entirely to your imagination (alien).

In a longer email, I wrote to Jim:

...whatever madness possesses you enters through your eye in these photos. I don't even know whether they are photographs so much as visions. You once called them portals, and I think you're further than that in these. You are not looking in through a portal, you are all the way through the portal when you are taking the picture...I don't know how you capture these things, but the first step, I'm pretty sure, is seeing them. I will be looking at them for a while to come.

Jim wrote back, referring at one point to a scrape with cancer:

i have gone partially through the portal. being close to death has that effect if you are open to it. this makes me really curious about death. will things come to me and ask what took so long? will they ignore me? do these questions even make sense in the context of death? will i retain enough worldly consciousness to know if these questions are answered? am i going to eat my sandwich before the dog laps it up? the little bastard is eying it already.

2010-12-28T10:43:00.000-08:00

-3-

These final images Jim just sent me, saying he had caught them earlier in the day.

In the first, it seemed to me the spirit of man and fish moved through ice together, though what the relationship of man and fish might be, or how and why this happened, I cannot and do not want to say. In the second, I find myself thinking of Elizabeth Smart traveling with her cruel and delusionary abductors, though I am certain you will see better images. Why such an image would be caught in ice, I cannot say, so I am almost certain I must be wrong...unless these images are spirit photographs themselves, moments of our lives captured in the frozen waters.

Jim wanted to clarify something about his 'seeing' the images in ice:

by the way, i cannot see these images in the world until i process them. the colors are too muted. so i am taking a picture of what is inside the door and seeing it later. later, the door has changed, so i can never go back.

When I asked him if I could post these on my blog so others could see them, he said: go for it. they are my gift to the world.

2010-09-07T06:23:00.000-07:00

Katie Sabaka/"Storms"
Brian Sabin/"A mother sits crying..."
Maria Paxos/"Solitude"
Alexis Pope/"Coughing Up Petals"
Joshua Friedt/"The Girl with the Ridiculous Headband"
Michelle Sinsky/"The Edge of the Park"
Rachel Stone/"Dead Letters"
Janell Brownlee/”Caught”
Cheryl Evans/"The Lady on the Bus"
Seth Hepner/"The Rat"
Sarah Oser/"Stuck in a Moment"
Karen Pavlisko/"Lola"
Sarah Dravec/"Absolution, Resolution"
Curt Brown/"They Brought It Up in Trucks"

Go right to any of these by looking in the Blog Archive at the bottom of the page and clicking on the writer.

Katie Sabaka

2010-09-07T06:20:00.000-07:00

Storms

The boy peered out his living room window, watching the sky morph in color and shape. As he had walked home from school the sky had been a bright, clear blue but the dark clouds had gathered quickly, following him down the sidewalk to his house. The boy leaned in toward the window till his nose touched the glass. Storm clouds and the setting sun gave everything outside an eerie, orange glow.

A loud sigh filled the room. The boy looked to his mother as she turned over and buried her head deeper in the couch cushions. She was asleep and unaware. She had always been the type that preferred a glass of wine and a long afternoon nap over the nagging responsibilities of a kid, a house, a life.

A flash of lightning drew the boy’s attention back to the window. The rain began to fall slowly, a sprinkling haze. The wind picked up and the boy watched as the neighbor’s empty trash can rolled and tumbled down the road. Then without warning the sky opened and torrents of rain crashed down. The rain blew sideways beating against the window pane in an unending percussive beat.

Headlights pulled into the driveway, shining through the window and momentarily blinding the boy. He blinked rapidly and involuntarily leapt to his a feet, a surge of adrenaline pulsing through his veins. He quickly made his way to the small, dull-yellow kitchen.

The front door slammed and in an instant the boy had secured himself in the cabinet under the sink. It was a small space and his legs tangled with cleaning products and the cold, wet sink pipes. The boy could hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears and he took a few deep breaths to calm himself.

It began as a muffled disagreement, a small skirmish whose accusations were drowned out by the pouring rain. But then the shouting began. It grew louder till screaming words cut through all other noise.

The boy could only make out a few words and phrases that reverberated off the walls but he couldn’t seem to understand what was actually being said. To him every shout felt like a sharp stab ripping through his stomach. He wrapped his arms around his middle tightly, attempting to protect his insides from the onslaught of words.

Soon the screaming was accompanied by a scuffle of violence. The boy winced at the noise of something large and metallic crashing to the ground. Next came the sound of breaking glass or perhaps it was ceramic? Maybe it was the blue lamp that sat on the end table or was it a window?

The boy decided it must have been a window because the sounds of the storm felt suddenly more intimate. He swore the howling wind was whipping right outside his thin cupboard door. His mother’s unintelligible sobs were mixing with the sound of the beating rain. Something, most likely a fist, banged against the wall and the vibration traveled all the way to the boy’s hiding place.

The boy squeezed his eyes shut. He wrapped his arms around his legs and drew them in closer to his chest. He could feel a small insect crawling up the side of his leg but he didn’t dare make a move to swipe it away. No, the boy sat completely still and waited for it to stop.

He knew it would stop eventually.

It always stopped eventually.

Brian Sabin

2010-09-07T04:42:00.000-07:00

A mother sits crying on the front steps of her once quiet suburban home. Traffic screams past without so much as a passing glace from the drivers. Had anyone paid enough attention they would have seen the horrific state of the woman's clothes and emotions. She killed her husband today. Just a few moments ago.

Less than a half hour ago, when she arrived home from work, she came in to find a nearly demolished interior. The lamp lay broken next to an overturned television whose screen was blank and cracked but still projected the sounds of the Oprah Winfrey Show. Her first instinct was panic. She didn't know if the children were safe. Their father—her husband—was recently laid off from work, so he should have been home to supervise them.

A commotion from the back room instilled fear but an unselfish courage all the same as she raced to the room to investigate the sound. To her dismay, she walked in on her husband who had just finished killing their children. An instant rage overcame the woman but fear for her own life caused her to flee. As she ran for the garage—husband now in quick pursuit—he managed to tackle her and a struggle ensued. He clamped his hands around her throat which is when she realized that she might not make it through this encounter alive. Her only chance was to raise her knee into his groin and hope for the shot of a lifetime. Fortunately for her, she landed a perfect strike and he grimaced as he rolled off of her.

She then made her way to the garage—scraped and bloody—to her son's pile of baseball equipment where she was able to take his aluminum bat, walk back out to her still reeling husband, and proceed to bludgeon him to death. For ten minutes she continued to swing until she could no longer lift the Louisville Slugger over her head--he'd been dead for nine of the ten minute beating.

He lay on the ground, white t-shirt soaked crimson, and she walked to the front of the house, half-dazed, thinking about her dead children as well as the revenge she took on the man who took them from her. Sitting on the front steps crying, traffic screams past without so much as a passing glace from the drivers.

Maria Paxos

2010-09-07T04:38:00.000-07:00

Solitude

Well it’s another sleepless night for the young woman. By young, I mean a thirty something divorcee trying to hold on to youth as humanly possible. Every time she closes her eyes, all she sees is his face. This face of his has definitely gotten her into trouble. What on earth was she thinking? Did she think that a much younger man would be the answer to her lonely nights? She suffered a marriage with someone who treated her more like a roommate instead of a soul mate. This young man showed her more passion and zest for life then she knew how to handle. She liked the excitement the risk she was taking was worth the price she was later going to pay. Oh and she certainly was feeling that pain now, it’s been over a month and yet there he is in every thought, taunting her. He put an end to the love affair simply stating that he was way in over his head and that this relationship couldn’t possibly go anywhere. YES, he is correct but why wasn’t it her, the older more mature adult to make this decision? Instead she fluttered around like a little school girl thinking that perhaps this could work. Well why not, it works for Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher and they appear to be happier than most Hollywood couples? That’s it she rips the comforter off of her and gets up swiftly out of the bed. She needs to go outside to catch some fresh air, the cool early autumn night may help calm her nerves. Just wearing cotton pajamas and a t-shirt she takes a seat on her porch steps. She closes her eyes gently, takes a deep belly breath in, pauses and slowly begins to exhale. Her eyes open but have become misty from the autumn chill in the air. She is thinking that this may validate her to just start crying uncontrollably but she may not stop till daybreak. Just then she looks to the night sky and notices that some whimsical clouds break away and there in all its luminous wonder is the moon. It is a harvest moon, it has a shade of blue, she cannot peel her eyes away from its beauty. How amazing, how the sight of something so beautiful can literally take our breath away in an instant. She thinks for a minute who else might be out at this time of night, gazing into the same mesmerizing moon, perhaps also contemplating life’s greatest mysteries? Through the clouds a hawk makes his way dancing through the night sky without a care in the world. The bird is free floating and living for the moment, not worrying about what may come tomorrow. How silly is it that this woman is worrying about something that she chose to partake in. She knew what the circumstances would be but yet continued to follow her heart. Correct, she followed her heart because up until recently she was over-thinking her decisions and not enjoying herself. It probably wasn’t the right decision but oh well she took it anyway. What is life without risk anyway? Perhaps this was just another chapter to be added to the book of lessons titled “What not to do with a handsome man who has nothing to offer but his great body and witty charm”. A wild delirious type of laughter begins to rage out of her. Was she really losing sleep over such a petty little game called lust? Deep down it does leave a little sting and from time to time when she looks back it will make her question “Why did I think that was a good idea”? The end result is this, it is better to fall flat on your face and feel the earth below you, rather than wonder why you didn’t just tie your damn shoe laces and play it safe from the beginning. She takes in another deep breath in and releases a smooth exhale. She picks herself up off the cold porch and starts to head back into the house. She turns to take one last look at the moon and it is gone, hiding again amongst the clouds. It served its purpose for the evening, now it is up to her to be at peace with her decisions. She smiles and turns to go into the warm house and into bed. Hopefully this is just what she needed to rest her mind and body, at least for tonight.

Alexis Pope

2010-09-04T16:14:00.001-07:00

Coughing Up Petals

The little girl, blonde ringlets and all, walked up to the small tree. This tree, bare except for a few thinly spread leaves, was exactly five years old today. It had been growing in the space between an abandoned playground and a neighborhood street in desperate need of a fresh asphalt job. The little girl had watched this tree grow from infanthood to its present stature. Lately she had lain in her bed at night wondering about death, and also what it would be like to drive a blade into the tree’s barky flesh. The blonde girl tightened her grip around a hatchet she was hiding behind her back in her right hand. Playfully running her left fingertips along the hem of her pleated skirt, she stood directly in front of this tree and was a threat to the life it had just begun to enjoy. The tree, in fear for its life and finding itself in a quite stationary position, had little time to think of a plan of defense. On his fifth birthday this tree was already experiencing a potentially tragic situation.

The tree decided to reach deep, down into the earth. His roots ached as he gathered energy from the rich soil and allowed it to run up his trunk and stretch through to the tips of his branches. Suddenly the tree began to grow at an incredibly alarming rate. The little girl clenched the arm of the hatchet, with both fear and amazement. This was not ordinary. She had never seen anything like this before. Neither had the tree, and he’d seen a lot (especially late at night in the playground, mostly between horny teenagers, but that’s another story).

His branches spread out before her. Creating a constellation of deep green leaves in the air above her head. Flowers began to blossom from a previously flowerless tree. Petals of rich color: red, pink, yellow, orange, purple, even aquamarine. Now that’s cool! His blossoming flowers were much more than ordinary. They formed into shapes. Now, not your average flower shape, but actual images of for-real things: lollipops (the girl loved these tasty treats), underpants (she was also familiar with these), bicycles (she was pretty into hers), coffee mugs (she preferred hot chocolate), and other pretty spectacular shapes, but I could go on forever so I will restrain myself.

Now the tree became pretty exhausted during this process. He could no longer manifest these outrageous blossoms. He stopped. With any strength he had left, he hoped. He hoped that the little blonde girl would not heave the hatchet into his trunk. Investing every inch of bark and root to hold his position long enough for the little girl to retreat. The girl stood very still. Staring at the tree, an icy gray tear appeared at the corner of her eye. The tree’s petals, feeling her pain, began to fall around her shoulders. They fell in waves and the shapes melted off the branches, broken into singular entities. The petals’ colors were glowing, illuminated by the earth’s raw energy. The blonde girl’s mouth was slightly ajar and one lone petal fell onto her plump young tongue. It tasted of fresh fruit, the tree’s life became one with her saliva, and she swallowed.

Suddenly she felt a warm, tingling from within her belly. The tree watched as her skin, once pale, was consumed by an all-encompassing blush. Then brown hues took the place of pink. Her feet began to grow: long and espresso-colored. They broke through the grass and into the soil. She was taking root. The hatchet fell from her hands, as her fingertips became branches. All over her body bark grew from her flesh. Her eyes, mouth, and nose became divots in her trunk’s surface. The hatchet’s wooden arm dug into the ground as well, silver flowers sprouted from its blade. The girl’s thoughts about life and death disappeared. Her body began breathing sunlight and she dug deeper into the rich earth. Her blonde hair turned to green leaves. The tree’s birthday wish came true. He now had a partner to share his life with. The girl, now tree-girl, was also happy. Instead of destruction she was the very image of life.

Joshua Friedt

2010-09-04T08:06:00.000-07:00

The Girl with the Ridiculous Sweatband

My favorite song is “Purple Rain,” but not the version made famous by Prince. I prefer an alternative version I heard back in middle school, it’s edgier and has some amazing guitar riffs, it’s such an awesome song. As I ride my motorcycle down along the beach front I happen to hear that particular version, which I haven’t heard in at least a decade. As I pass the corner made famous by a local celebrity, I see a group of girls running. The girls are dressed in typical athletic attire; one of them is even wearing a ridiculous sweatband. Across the street I can hear the laughter of three surfer dudes exiting a surf shop, boards and wax in hand. As I complete my turn around the corner to continue my journey home, I can still hear that song playing, drifting in the warm, salty summer air. It’s almost as if it the song itself was following me, like it knew I loved it and didn’t want it to end. I pulled up into the white sand-covered driveway of my apartment complex; the song was still mysteriously playing. How could this be? No one appeared to be around, it was a very warm day and like most warm days, everyone was at the beach. Freaked out by my current thoughts, I hopped off my bike and bolted for my apartment, I couldn’t get there fast enough. Upon entering my chilly, yet comfortable living quarters, the song stopped playing. But, little did I know, this wasn’t my apartment. Something didn’t feel right, how could I have gone into the wrong apartment, I’ve lived in this complex for the past ten years. As I began to get lost in my thoughts I realized I couldn’t hear. I attempted to figure out what was happening, bright flashes of white light began to encircle me. The events that were occurring didn’t add up. “Sweet Jesus,” I thought to myself, “have I lost my mind?” I tried to scream for help, but I had no idea if any noise was escaping because I couldn’t hear… utter silence, deafening silence. Outside, I ran around and spun in circles, still no one to be found, but the girl with the ridiculous sweatband. I weakly and feverishly uttered words so I could ask what was happening. The girl replied, “You struck me with your motorcycle. As my body flailed in the air my head collided with the road, killing me instantly.” I then asked her, “How is this possible? If you’re dead, why can I see you?” With much hesitation she replied, “You also died in the accident.” As I came to the realization that I, Justin Andrew Mahoney was dead, no longer to exist in the world, “Purple Rain” began to play once more; warm, glowing whiteness engulfed our bodies.

Michelle Sinsky

2010-09-04T05:27:00.000-07:00

The Edge of the Park

As soon as the coin slipped into her pocket, she made a quick and pointed pivot with her heel and continued down the street. She took an unhurried drag from her cigarette, putting the pocketed hand into reverse and fixing her hair with the flat of her hand, just as she imagined it to look were someone strolling alongside her with a large mirror.

The park ahead presented itself like a mirage behind a hill, though under her feet she knew it to be completely flat. She felt the sudden impulse to duck, to shrug into her jacket and disappear, to bolt; she stuffed this down as securely as the coin, but it turned in her pocket nervously.

"Hey!” A whistle from the car parked some spaces behind made her straighten and at once the smile returned to her face. She walked towards the playground. It was early in the evening for this but the day was bright, still; traceless of the town’s frequent overcast.

The boy on the swing set grew larger and the dirt sucked her heels square into the sod. Not that one. Her feet noted the resistance of the earth; her hands swung coolly and indifferently. A girl skipping rope was called away to supper and in the corner on the perimeter of the blacktop, two boys poked a dead frog with a stick.

She spotted a smaller one with a single piece of chalk by the bushes and walked over.

"What's your name?" She knelt and dropped her shoulders to his level.

"John." He dragged his chalk in directionless lines.

Her hair was dyed the color of baby powder, of communion linens, of textbook pages, of all things innocent and weightless. But her eyes were a hard black.

"Myra." She smiled and took her fingers away from her hair.

John took the outstretched hand and walked out to the car's open door. At the edge of the park the chalk fell earthward and broke.

Rachel Stone

2010-09-04T05:17:00.000-07:00

Dead Letters

Dim candlelight lit the hollow darkness, as I read the ardent letters from my mistress. Her beautiful, precise handwriting was like calligraphy on the page. She wrote to me of poetry and passion, and as I read her letters, I recalled our last meeting with great despair.
~

Arabella was stunning in her sensuous, aubergine dress. She inched toward me, her voluptuous hips swaying beneath the silk and crinoline. Her piercing gaze set my heart ablaze, and I wondered why I ever married my wife. Arabella had always won my sincerest affections. Her raven-black tresses fell down her chest and back, and they brushed against my neck as she leaned in to kiss me unabashedly. Without hesitation, I wrapped my hands around her perfectly cinched waist, feeling her curves under the loosened fabric of her bodice with my calloused hands, a low growl in my throat. Gently, my fingers traced the fine boning of her corset. Arabella’s lips rouged with my familiar, intense kisses. The air grew heavy; my knees weakened, just as they always did whenever Arabella was around.

“Henry,” She rasped suddenly, as if awakening from a trance.

“Yes?” I said, slowly kissing down her alabaster décolletage.

“We mustn’t do this,” She replied, pushing me away.

“Why?” I asked, not understanding. Emily and the children were away for the whole night, with my mother-in-law. There was no reason to discontinue.

Arabella looked away, her blue eyes turning gray with unspeakable sorrow. “I am terribly sorry,” She began. “I’ve met someone else.”

My head began to spin. This could not be happening. I would not lose the woman—only woman—I ever loved; it took a while for me to be able to think, let alone speak, but eventually I asked the one question that had been smoldering on my lips, like an over-seasoned curry:

“Whom?”

“Someone,” She sighed simply. Her lithe body was shaking now; clearly, this was not easy for her, either. “There is nothing you can offer me anymore. I don’t want to sneak around. I want a real family—a real husband.”

Desperately, I wanted to protest, but she was right; my duty was to my wife, regardless of how much I wished otherwise. I knew this now.

“I still love you,” I said tenderly; the words fell from my lips like a hopeless prayer. I could feel my heart—a dead weight in my chest.

Arabella said nothing as she walked out the door, tears glistening from her rosy cheeks.
~

The last of Arabella’s letters felt like an albatross in my hands. I was a useless puzzle, for half of my pieces were missing. Without her, I would never be the same.

Numbly, I stared at her last letter, unsure of how to carry on. But then—on an impulse, I threw the letter into the fire, deciding that her letter’s ashes were better-suited to my memory of our last encounter.

The red-hot coals melted the fine stationary from the inside out, and I pretended to find salvation in the incinerated pieces.

I would never have another mistress.
~

Janell Brownlee

2010-09-03T12:47:00.000-07:00

Caught

The room was cool and quiet, lit only slightly by the neons outside the open window. A light breeze rustled the curtains every now and then, and the sounds of the city outside played like white noise in the background. She moved through the room with a purpose. There was no time to spare and no time to hesitate. She made no noise and was quick and efficient in her actions. She did not think. If she thought, the memories of her life, of her actions, might cause her to fumble. She did not have time to fumble. Time was of the essence. She counted the documents she had collected, leafed through the photographs. Was it enough? Was it convincing? Was it everything she needed?

She dressed quickly in a non-descript black outfit. Her whole existence rested upon her ability to blend in to the background. To never be noticed. As she fumbled with the buttons on her jacket, her thoughts began to slip. Was she a good person? Was she moral? What had she made of her life? Quickly, she pushed her emotions aside, never noticing the button that fell from her jacket to the floor. She gathered her belongings and stepped out into the busy evening street. The people that passed by seemed ordinary, but she could never be sure. She could never let her guard down. Did they know? Did they see her? Could they tell? She never made eye contact.
She hailed a cab, stepped inside, and gave the driver the address. The stillness in the cab was unnerving compared to the bustle outside the window, and the stagnant air forced her to crack the window for relief. She breathed the cool fresh air deeply as the cab slowly crept forward through the busy streets. She checked the documents and photographs once again to make sure they were accounted for. Occasionally, she would glance over her shoulder out the review window of the cab. The cab ride seemed to be taking longer than it should have been….

When the agents entered the room there was a pervading, quiet stillness except for the noise of the street drifting up through the window that was left open. The room appeared untouched, never occupied. They searched the drawers, cabinets, and dressers not knowing quite what, or who, they were looking for. They were chasing a ghost. A nameless, faceless person, always one step ahead. As the last agent left he scanned the darkness. As he stepped forward he heard the distinct crack of something under his foot. He bent down and picked up the two halves of a broken copper button that lay under his feet…

As the cab continued toward its destination she sat in the back with a cold sweat beginning to collect on her neck and forehead. Somewhere off in the distance she heard the sound of a siren and wondered if it was finally all over.
~

Cheryl Evans

2010-09-03T06:15:00.000-07:00

The lady on the Bus

The woman in front of me keeps bumping me with her bags. Her arms are loaded down, and I can see the red grooves that her bags are making in the soft flesh of her forearms. It looks painful. She's teetering back and forth and I swear on the next turn she's going to fall over. It's the bags. They’re throwing her off balance. I will never understand why people insist on buying more than they can carry. I mean, didn't she know she would be riding the bus? Not that she’s dressed for it. Her hat is bubblegum pink and looks like it could be made of felt or something. It’s one of those funny french hats, a beret I think they’re called. And then there is the dress. It’s pink, like the hat. And it fits to her body like plastic wrap on leftovers, really tight in some places and baggy in others. It’s low in the front, so low I can see the tan line from her bathing suit on her breasts. Her skin is lightly golden 'til it hits that line and bam! White as whipped cream. Her earrings are so heavy they are pulling down her ears. And they’re cheap. The kind that you know is supposed to look expensive but isn’t foolin’ anyone. The bracelets loaded up her arms clink every time she sways and her feet are shoved into stilettos at least a size too small.

You know she is really trying to look sophisticated but the heat isn’t helping her one bit. Sweat slicks her hair to the back of her neck and it’s starting to curl around her face. She probably spent hours on that hair only to have it ruined by the lack of air in this tin can on wheels. It’s obviously dyed and she probably calls it blond but it's actually yellow, like the petals of a daffodil. It’s oddly pretty actually.

As the bus comes to a stop, a kid whizzes by on his scooter, squinting to look in the windows of the bus. I wonder if he can see her hair, lemon yellow under a pink beret, through the bus windows.

I am fixated on the woman in pink. I have so many questions for her. I wonder what she does? Is her to-do list filled with tasks like dye hair, get manicure? Does she work? No, she can’t to be shopping on a Monday. Does she have kids? I wonder...

A screeching baby snaps me back to reality. The mother sings softly to the child, trying to soothe her. I turn around to glance at the baby and when I look back she’s gone. I stand quickly, knocking my purse off my lap and dumping its contents onto the dirty bus floor. I scan the bus in a kind of panic to see where she went. Then I spot the hat, bobbing toward the front of the bus. As she exits she stumbles, her heel getting stuck in a sidewalk crack. She moves through the crowd on street head held just high enough to seem forced. The bus lurches forward and she fades into the distance like pink mirage.

I wonder where she’s going, wonder, wonder.........

Seth Hepner

2010-09-03T06:11:00.000-07:00

The Rat

A man sits in the sunroom of his colonial home with his legs crossed reading a newspaper. His recliner creeks as he reaches for the coffee mug sitting on the end table beside him. Not even one ray of sun shines through the windows, but the inches upon inches of snow provide the light to skim the crime notes in section B of The Repository.

He shakes his head as he passively reads through the easily comparable drug related arrests the previous night. The longest of the crime notes deals with a hold up at the liquor store, just down the street, that the man visits almost daily. Without his fix of Maker’s Mark Whiskey or warm glass of red wine, he’s never able to sleep well enough through the night to feel capable of reading the paper before his 10 a.m. breakfast date with the regulars at the local diner. Knowledge of the local news is required to participate in the discussion at the breakfast table.

Turns out, the man who robbed the liquor store got away, and the police are offering a reward for any information on a suspect. Ironically, he only got away with two liters of Maker’s Mark and a bottle of sweet vermouth. While adjusting himself in the recliner the man thought a good Manhattan, free of charge, might be worth the risk of prison.

The thief wore a typical black ski mask, clothes, and gloves that covered his skin. The clerk confirmed this and that a small hand gun was held to his forehead at one point.

The man closed the newspaper; he folded it just right before tossing it to the beige carpeted floor. Outside the window a large rat struggled through the snow like a man climbing a mountain. He wondered if the thief’s experience was anything like the struggle taking place before his eyes, and he doubted it very much.

Sarah Oser

2010-09-02T07:15:00.000-07:00

Stuck in a Moment

The hummingbird hung in the air, suspended in time. It seemed that he really wasn’t moving at all. He was like an image, like a photograph captured in one isolated moment. He was unreal; his vibrant colors, the yellows, blues, and greens couldn’t be natural. Everything about him went against the laws of nature—the way he was frozen in air, his intense coloring, and the way that nothing affected him. Not even the breeze could move him.

From a distance it appeared that he wasn’t even a living breathing thing. In reality, his heart was humming and pounding rapidly and his wings flapped wildly—so fast that the human eye couldn’t see. What seemed to be a moment stuck in time was really the opposite. So much speed prevented this animal from propelling into motion.

All around the hummingbird the rest of nature was in motion. Leaves blew in the breeze, lifting off the ground, swirling around in the air before landing back on the ground. Birds made dramatic plunges from far up in the sky only to level out inches from the ground in an effort to catch their prey. Cars speed by with passengers inside hurrying towards their destination. The passengers are moving so fast that they are unable to perceive the bustling life around them.

The hummingbird remained suspended in midair. All his movements were concentrated on staying in this one space. Although the surroundings were so hectic, nothing could match the humming of the bird’s pulsing wings.

Karen Pavlisko

2010-09-02T07:14:00.002-07:00

Lola

We called her “Spider-Girl” inspired by the spider web design in black ink that adorned her left arm, tracing all the way down it and tapering off into her middle finger on the back of her left hand. But the name could have come about due to the fact that she looked almost like a spider. She was thin, spindly, and sickly looking. Pale white with long, frizzy, black hair that could best be described as “big.” She had large dilated black eyes that were only further enlarged by the wire rimmed glasses surrounding them, which were much too large for her thin face. She wore oversized dark clothes, commonly frequented by a black hoodie tied about her waist, and socks that stuck up a few inches above her sneakers.

Every day we could see her through the bus windows riding up to school on her purple bicycle. She was the typical “weird kid” that other students would normally make fun of, but for some reason nobody ever said anything to Spider-Girl, and she never said anything to any of us.

She worked at the convenience market on the corner of the main road, and therefore everybody from school avoided the place like a sick leper, though sometimes they would watch it from the ice cream shop across the street to see if the purple bicycle was tied up in the front. Many said she had troubles at home. One boy, Richie Findle, a fat red-headed fellow with freckles and a double chin, swore that he had proof that her mother gave her nothing to eat at home but old peanuts and stale croutons, and beat her if Spider-Girl ever asked for more.

Curtis Clermont offered to give her a ride home one night, pulling over to the curb just past the market in an old, beat up, navy pickup truck. Although the rain was coming down cold and icy, such that it was almost hail, spider girl refused, with excessive shaking of her head and increased the speed to her pedal.

It was startling how much the incident changed Spider-Girl. She grew nervous and jumpy, and would snap at people in a high-pitched squalor if ever they came to close to her. We were all frightened; pondering if we had ever even heard her voice before.

She began riding up to school later and later, until her attendance became such that she skipped several periods before arriving, and began having similar attendance problems at work. The popular rumor was that Curtis’s gesture was the only nice thing that anyone had ever done for her, and the realization that anyone could ever be nice shocked her to the point of snapping.

One week in February Spider-Girl stopped showing up to school all together, but Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday her purple bicycle could be seen at the convenience mart. We all grew concerned for her, although not a one of us could call her friend. A few days later the corner market burnt to the ground overnight. That Friday school was riotous with excitement and rumors as to what had happened. Spider Girl was still unaccounted for and our curiosity led us to bazaar conclusions about Spider-Girl setting it afire. Richie Findle’s explained it as Spider-Girl’s suicide; how she trapped herself inside the lit building, taking her only real home with her to her death.

A few days later the charred frame of a purple bicycle was found amongst the ashes of the corner market. Although no body or skeleton could be found amongst the rubble, we never saw Lola Fulton, the girl with the spider web tattoo, again.

Sarah Dravec

2010-09-02T07:14:00.001-07:00

Absolution, Resolution

She wondered, really, how many stars there must have been in the patch of sky above the four houses that bordered the end of the street. From the screened-in porch, she wondered and gazed up into the space above the house next door. Twelve, thirteen maybe—there was too much goddamn light in a suburb to be sure—and she spent a moment wanting to step onto the thin ledge along the screen like a tabby to walk the perimeter of the room and count the rest of them. Goddamnit, she may have said aloud. The cane that always grazed her right hand when she sat ruined everything.

So, how many more angles could there be from this room with twelve or thirteen stars at the end of them? Four seemed safe to assume. There were four cardinal directions, eight if you counted the in-betweens, but why did it matter? Fifty, she guessed. Fifty visible in the night sky, but better yet, she thought, there were really fifty-two. Two more came from the other side of the wicker couch; two goddamn stupid tattoos the boy had gotten the moment he was eighteen, she remembered. They were patterned different colors in alternating sections—nautical, he had proudly called them—and one rested an inch above either elbow. Goddamn stupid, she thought of them. Fifty-two, then; fifty real stars, two nautical ones, how goddamn stupid could a person be—

“Grandma,” Seth said, timid once she turned to him, “take this.” He tugged at his long sleeves. “Please take this,” he said, and he pulled off his hooded sweatshirt and stood beside her, draping it over her shoulders so she could pull the sleeves over herself. She had been noticeably shaking in the cool air, but she refused to go inside. She couldn’t stand to think of the scent that still lurked in her home, clinging to her possessions. She leaned forward, extending a wavering hand toward the cup of tea that rested on the table in front of them. The grip of her fingers was weak; the delicate glass fell to the ground, spilling as it went and shattering when it landed.

“Goddamnit,” she said too loudly, and Seth winced.

“It’s okay,” he said. He couldn’t comfort her. “It’s okay,” he said again. “Hold on a minute, Grandma, I’ll get you another…” and his voice faded as he reentered the house and busied himself with another teabag, another cup of boiling water.

She stood, taking several seconds, clutching her cane as tightly as her hand would allow. “Goddamnit,” she said when it hurt her back to stand up straight. Her legs wobbled. She regripped her cane and took slow steps toward the outer door of the porch.

The walk to the backyard cost what little energy she had and took more time than it would have even a few weeks ago. She barely lifted each foot, swearing as she went, but she remained diligent as she rounded the house. The energy it took to walk, the chill it brought her to navigate through the dark. She thought of bones, the chill to her bones; she thought of how weak her own must have been. A bird, perhaps away from its nest mistakenly, flew just above the trees that divided her property from the homeowner’s beside it, a person she had never met, maybe some goddamn idiot with ink in their skin—bird bones! she thought. Hollow, extraordinarily light, and able to move without the complications of an elderly woman’s age. Birds flew, she thought, and humans, smarter, never got off the ground. Birds shit on the ground. Men and women stayed in a single place if they were unlucky, and she was, and they still, more or less, shit on the ground. Birds, then—smarter?

She stopped in front of the largest bush that bordered the house. There were several buds poking out of the leaves, but only a single rose had opened its petals. She looked at the flower, iconic, frail, and red, and let out a sigh of relief, but the bush had not been hers. It had come from someone and somewhere else, surely a cramped store that sold plants for sales and never for plants. The bush had come from a bit of stem purchased because of the darkness that awaited them all—everyone on the street, in the suburb—beneath the fifty stars.

“Grandma?” came his voice between the shutting of the porch doors as he emerged, looking for her. There were children, she thought, the ones who belonged to her and the ones who didn’t, stems and the hands that buried them in the ground, and did gardeners garden in hopes that their hands would touch other hands that had once been in that ground?—and grass slowly grew, and the children still grew in a slower manner that was much too fast. They would fail each other, goddamnit. She knew it. She always did.

“Here, Grandma,” Seth said as he moved closer behind her. She turned and saw his sweatshirt in one hand and a new cup of tea in the other. He stretched his arm, placing it just in front of her free hand, and she took the handle of the cup slowly. The teaspoon in it made a tiny clink, and the sound held onto her, and her eyes were heavier than perhaps they had ever been.

“Thank you, Son,” she said.

Curt Brown

2010-09-02T07:13:00.001-07:00

They brought it up in trucks, in trope

Grumble... grumble... wondered the nephewless uncle, his niece has gone toward stores weeks ago—migrated westward and shallowed the clouds as they stumblebummed their freight across the bindlestiff plains. He wondered, expressed wonder in grumbles and pushed his cap back to let a line of sweat trace floorward. Orange juice, she had said. The light snaked in cracked blinds. She was gone. His sister was all metaphor. Why hadn't she birthed a boy? Bouncing in blue—bubblegum cigars. Instead she left him with railroads, carving their rails back, illusory-connecting in distant childhood.

Grumble. He wondered again, pulling a folded pack of cigarettes from the pocket of fade denim coverall. Rivets, he thought and he did his best to rivet his memory of her—of both hers—into firm coiled dirt. He planted the tiny metal where it could afford a view of the sea. Swallow the salt. Steal an errant beam. His nephew was a lighthouse. A pulsar. Still, wood clambered in bits. Jagged. His hands were full of splinters. Orange juice, stanzad citrus. Hollow, he thought. Grumble. The pins engaged, the rectangles were plagiarists. There—concrete. The sea heard as blood, beating in tide to his head. Groaning light, hum. In this hue, just. His hand gripped. Cold. Grumble, he wondered, is Florida this close?

Gertrude Stein on the Atomic Bomb (1946)

2010-07-21T05:38:00.000-07:00

~
They asked me what I thought of the atomic bomb. I said I had not been able to take any interest in it.
~
I like to read detective and mystery stories. I never get enough of them but whenever one of them is or was about death rays and atomic bombs I never could read them. What is the use, if they are really as destructive as all that there is nothing left and if there is nothing there nobody to be interested and nothing to be interested about. If they are not as destructive as all that then they are just a little more or less destructive than other things and that means that in spite of all destruction there are always lots left on this earth to be interested or to be willing and the thing that destroys is just one of the things that concerns the people inventing it or the people starting it off, but really nobody else can do anything about it so you have to just live along like always, so you see the atomic [bomb] is not at all interesting, not any more interesting than any other machine, and machines are only interesting in being invented or in what they do, so why be interested. I never could take any interest in the atomic bomb, I just couldn't any more than in everybody's secret weapon. That it has to be secret makes it dull and meaningless. Sure it will destroy a lot and kill a lot, but it's the living that are interesting not the way of killing them, because if there were not a lot left living how could there be any interest in destruction. Alright, that is the way I feel about it. They think they are interested about the atomic bomb but they really are not not any more than I am. Really not. They may be a little scared, I am not so scared, there is so much to be scared of so what is the use of bothering to be scared, and if you are not scared the atomic bomb is not interesting.
~
Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense. They listen so much that they forget to be natural. This is a nice story.
~
[first published in Yale Poetry Review, December 1947]
~

2010-06-13T11:08:00.000-07:00

The Year Halloween Fell on a Thursday
~
Charity Anderson had polished off three quarters of a bottle of her favorite Merlot. The subject for this evening’s homily—her own sad joke—was “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” All she wanted for her shy little boy was for him to grab just the teensiest portion of the life out there for us all. She had been so clever, gone in the train store and found what she wanted, laughed all the way home—this would do the trick. She had schemed on such a small scale, for such small purposes. How could she know what trick it would do? How could she be expected to know?
~
If Tom hadn’t run off to Australia two years before (good riddance, she had thought) he might have told her to leave it well enough alone, let the boy be himself, whoever that self turned out to be. He would have been right, that’s what hurt the most. She shouldn’t have been so proud—too clever by half. She took another hit off the cigarette before she slowly, methodically set the glowing ember into the soft, white skin of her inner arm, among the bright and fading flowers there.
~
She remembered the year Halloween fell on a Thursday as vividly as if it had come yesterday, or earlier today, for God’s sake, as if it was happening right now all the time. There was Billy, her only child, telling her he had too much homework, but she wanted him to go trick-or-treating. I'm too old, he said.
~
Fifth grade—that's too old? Eleven years, too old? But she knew the problem all along: masks frightened him. That’s how she knew he wasn’t ready for this world. That’s what scared her. When masks are all we know, you can’t be scared of masks—be scared of the real face, that’s what she would have told him if she could.
~
She imagined him across from her at the kitchen table, a grown young man of twenty-two. When you were little, you mistook the mask for the reality. You didn't like knocking on strangers' doors, and you didn't want to admit you were afraid. I was the original aging hippy. We once watched a children’s show together because I wanted you to see Ringo Starr, the former Beatle, playing Mr. Conductor. So…knowing you wouldn’t want to go trick-or-treating, I bought a conductor's hat and jacket, a long, wooden whistle that sounded like a passing train.
~
You might have been a little fifth grader, but you were a smarty, good in math and science like I had never been—your father’s genes at work. But, smart or not, you were still a kid. The whistle interested you, so you tried the hat and jacket. It didn't feel too bad—hardly a costume. The sound of the whistle excited you. You went out as soon as it got dark enough, carrying a hemp bag your old hippy mother provided. Several neighbors remembered you at their door. You seemed to be enjoying yourself, blowing the whistle as you went from house to house collecting candy. A boy named Jimmy Samson remembered saying, “Cool whistle.” That comes back at night, when I don’t know that I’m awake.
~
That girl in your class, Julie Jenkins, said hello to you. You smiled back at her but were too shy to say anything. The ghosts and goblins must have seemed pretty harmless. You wondered why you had been afraid—a little cute one then, with the bluest eyes and lightest brown hair that almost floated as you walked. And when you put your glasses on I wanted to cry.
~
You might have been out an hour, heading for one of the last houses you intended to hit, when you ran into Ralph Bunch, who only co-operated because his friend Kip Green mentioned seeing you. Once the parents and police started asking everyone, Kip couldn’t keep quiet. Keeping a secret is holding a balloon underwater—it wants out.
~
It had gotten dark by this time, and chilly. You weren’t dressed warm enough, and later on it started to rain. I hate to think of you out in that weather, no one paying attention to whether you were warm, whether you were dry. You blew your whistle as you passed the trees bordering old man Hager’s house—that drew their attention. Kip had wrapped himself in ace bandages and painted his face brown with yellow lips. Ralph was a tall seventh grader who had gone as a vampire. You didn't recognize either of them.
~
All you saw was a chubby zombie and a tall vampire with a white face, red blood dripping from his black lips and fluorescent fangs. It must have terrified you to see them standing there, blocking your way—a zombie and a vampire. You must have lowered the whistle and looked at the vampire’s eyes, glittering green in blackened sockets. The cape spread out on one side as the vampire's arm drew back. The fist shot out, slamming you in the nose—this according to Kip who thought it looked cool when the fist in the white glove came out. For no reason but he wanted to, that’s why I blame him.
~
You went down flat on your back. That Ralph didn’t want to admit this either, but Kip told us he snatched the cap off your head and spun it in the trees. That’s where I found it, no one else thought of going in and looking for it. I kept thinking I saw you behind a bush, or lying under a tree. In my dreams I see you running here and there, in and out of trees, giggling or crying, which wasn’t your style at all, I know that. You would have been quiet.
~
They left you there, on the ground where he had knocked you, didn’t even go back to see if you were all right. Ran on, laughing, never thinking they might have seriously injured my sweet little boy. Left him for dead, thought no more of him than that. Was he still conscious? Was he lying in the dirt wiping his mouth or blacked out to the world? They did that, left him there, the last anyone saw of him that night, my Billy boy, or the years since.
~
How many nights have I walked out there to stand, smoking a cigarette, looking at the spot where he lay on his back, unattended how long? There was the empty house, the dark windows from which Jim Hager could have watched the moment when the white glove shot out from the black cape. Did he have a moment’s good intentions? Did he come out to see if my boy was all right and find him there unconscious, semi-conscious, wakeful but ashamed? How did he get Billy to come inside? Was it that Billy recognized him as the kindly old fellow? Had he been inside the house before? Or was it entirely different? Had Ralph Bunch and Kip Green done more than they said, done something worse and dragged him off into the trees? Or was it something else?
~
She would walk out back of the Hager house and stand where bones had been found by a neighborhood dog fond of digging, with a sense of smell that went back years. He had come home, this mangy black and white, one blue eye and one brown, with a rib bone in his mouth. What possessed Sarah Miller to take it from him, turn it over in her hands, and show it to her husband?
~
When she let him out again he ran back to the same spot, came up with another—a dog with a bone. Over here, here’s where I found that one. Come look, come and look now. Was her tail wagging high? Why now? Why this time? Had it simply been long enough in the ground?
~
Was there some key to everything in the length of time such things must go undiscovered. She walked around the Hager house, looking in the windows, sometimes found a way inside and gravitated to the basement, even though she found nothing to indicate anything that would make some awful sense to her. Sometimes going home she saw the faces at the windows, watching the mother in her bathrobe, smoking another cigarette, coming back from they knew where.
~
How long had it taken kids at school to get used to your empty desk? No one asked much more, except one teacher and a couple friends of mine, once in a while, but even they avoided me when you became a scary story: Billy Anderson, the boy who disappeared the year that Halloween fell on a Thursday.
~
It came as a shock when bones were found by Happy, Sarah Miller’s black and white dog, inside the woods behind the Hager house, less than a mile from where we live. No one wanted to remember you, but there you were, your little bones, as they had been when they were planted in the dirt.
~
Oh, I knew immediately. Police said they found a rotting wooden whistle nearby, the kind that sounded like a train. I kept covering my face with my hands, looking between my fingers, as if I couldn’t keep myself from seeing the last moments or hours of your precious life. Behind the Hager house—what did that mean? Hager had been dead for seven years, by his own hand, with a shotgun in it. But he had always said he hadn’t seen a thing, and who could doubt a poor old man, with all his liver spots and sagging skin, those enormous watery eyes swimming behind aquarium lenses?
~
Cleaning crews had spent a couple of weeks there but didn’t find a thing to make them suspicious he was anything more than a lonely old man. Now, I’m turning forty-three, and all the years you didn’t live have been collected with the bones in loose dirt behind the Hager house. Those who still remembered you had a little fear some retribution might be exacted from those who did nothing to save you. But the one that suffered, little man, besides you, was me, who ceased to think of anything except the fact that I insisted you go out that night.
~
The little cap, the rotted whistle on the table, she keeps hoping they tell her something more. All they can say is, I am dead, I died an ugly death, and it was your own fault. So when she sets the ember to her wrist, between the roses burned in there already, it doesn’t hurt. She keeps them fresh. She holds it there until she feels the spark of something left.
~
One rose for every year that he’s been gone.

2009-12-09T06:05:00.001-08:00

Incomplete

This semester is almost over. I have turned in grades for two classes and have one to go. I mark days off on my calendar, like a prisoner chalking days on his cell wall. I will pick up some essays at school and read them tonight or tomorrow morning. I will experience momentary happiness giving students who have done a good job an A or B and momentary unhappiness giving students who did a less than stellar job a C or less. Even when the latter is accurate, it is never satisfying. It leaves the taste of incompleteness in my mouth--like biscuits not cooked through completely.

I recently heard from a couple of friends that they hoped one day to read all the books on their shelves which they have started and not finished or had intended to read but have not cracked. That sounded like something I ought to understand, but I realized I did not have this problem, as I have enough of a driving need to finish what I have started or know why. A book I have not finished does not go back on my shelf, but into the Goodwill box--because it seems to me not worth finishing. There's another feeling of incompleteness.

Once I pick a book to read, I generally read it through. And I generally pick a book knowing a little bit about it. I have usually read or heard something about it, or, more often, read a few pages or a chapter in the book store, enough so I know whether or not I want to read it. A lot of people loved The Lovely Bones, but after a few pages of stomach turning prose I knew I would never be able to finish what seemed essentially a book for young girls. I think the word that tipped me off was skeezy, though I may be botching that word. The young girl who was clearly about to be molested and killed said that something made her feel all skeezy. I put the book back on the shelf. There was enough in that word usage to let me know I had nothing to gain there: morbid sentimentalism and false youth.

There is not much better than finishing a book knowing that it has satisfied you in many of the ways a book can satisfy. I can name things that beat it on the fingers of one hand, though, to be honest, I use all the fingers. In the pitch of the last weeks of a semester, I am usually unable to read something not required of me, as I must reread the books I have assigned, and student papers and stories, perhaps a thesis or two, keeping up and finishing off as grandly as possible. So as soon as I had attended my last class of the semester, and even though I still had plenty of work to complete myself, I picked up a book my dear Lisa recently bought and began to look at it.

When she bought it, it seemed like a book I would pick out; it had been niggling at the back of my mind since she put it on the shelf unread. As soon as I got home from the last class, I pulled it out and gave a look. It looked short enough I thought I might finish it in time to get back to what the world required of me. Two hundred pages of pleasantly produced text, a handsome cover with a photo of lissom grass on a sand dune, obviously near the ocean--inviting and forbidding under the title Being Dead. The writer was a Brit named Jim Crace, who looked pleasantly like he had spent some time on such a dune. Also on the cover, a small gold seal which claimed this novel had won the National Book Critics Circle Award, which had no effect on me whatsoever until I finished the book and felt this was a pretty good choice for such an award.

One thing I noticed right away: each 'chapter' of the book was short, generally of the same length as all of the chapters. This matched the gentle and generous tone of the novel, and made it more pleasant to read, as it seemed to open before me. In the very first chapter we understand that a pair of married zoologists have been rather brutally murdered on a sand dune much like the one on the cover, that Celice is naked from the waist down, and her husband Joseph is totally naked and holding on to her ankle.

Throughout the novel, the couple remains dead, though they are visited by various insects and birds and small mammals, and, finally, by their human counterparts. You might say that the entire novel is a meditation on their being dead, though we go back to the momentous and very unspectacular day they met, and several days in between, but that doesn't really account for how engrossing the book became for me.

Why does it strike me as a small miracle that the two main characters, though dead, were in their fifties? And not entirely attractive. She is built a little like like a satyr, a lovely, small-breasted torso from the waist up, and the large butt and thighs of a normal woman. He is too short for most things, as he often points out, and certainly shorter than her. Their lives, though intense and dedicated to their science, are really common, moderate, usual. And the natural processes of death to which they become susceptible are also completely normal, though often shied away from in the course of our lives.

I want to note that I am sixty-three years old at this writing. I have had a heart attack, which I like to call minor, and have two stainless steel bits in my chest to keep arteries from occluding once more, so thoughts of death, while sometimes as inviting to me as to anyone else, are not entirely welcome. I do not like to take long walks through graveyards--which I take to be the reason I chose not to read The Lovely Bones. In addition to this, sentimentality often seems to me like a way to invite death to your doorstep; please don't ask me to elaborate. But this death I enjoyed reading about. It left me unfrightened, accepting, acknowledging.

Perhaps this is because Crace is something of a naturalist in his understanding of the processes of senescence and thanatology, which are the basis of the study to which the deceased couple gave themselves in life. How, you might ask, can such a gentle novel of death keep the reader's attention? I think the answer is balance. He balances this discussion of death with scenes from life, and just when it seems impossible that Crace could keep my attention alive through his meditations, we get a new character--the daughter of the deceased couple who becomes involved in discovering what has happened to her parents.

Even with her rebellious nature (she has left home, shaved her head, and gone to work as a waitress at a hot spot called MetroGnome) she manages to charge the prose without taking over. In the course of the novel, she discovers her place in this world, and a little about her parents, even if only that they were born to die; much more isn't required of children, is it? Children of decent parents, let's say. That should be enough to cause them to be loved by the child who took life from them and will yet take it further than she or they could have imagined.

But now, alas, I must leave this discussion unfinished, as my duties call me back. I must finish, submit grades, a hundred other little things--some of them large and heart-breaking in their smallness. But let me say this much: the life in Jim Crace's book is real, unadorned by dreams or falsity, yet touched by the grace of decency, of respect for life, such as it is, such as it will be, in this world. And finally, it is touching. Because, at last, the novel is as beautifully complete as their lives.

A Few Words about "Flip Cards"

2009-08-09T07:53:00.000-07:00

~
I am going to say a few words about my personal essay "Flip Cards" for my friend Steve Smith, who asked me to. An English class he teaches at Manchester High School will be reading it in the Fall of 2009. When I think of what to say about it, I first think about the experience of getting it published, and only after that what it was like writing it, so that's the way I'll go here. I think these notes will be best after you have read the personal essay.

"Flip Cards" first appeared in The Georgia Review, was reprinted in The Pushcart Prize and then again in my book of stories, Private Acts. I never really thought much about whether it was a story or an essay, and when I first sent it to Stanley Lindberg, at The Georgia Review, I didn't identify it. Stanley told me he first thought it was a story, but then it lit up when he realized it was a personal essay. I had sent him a few things before, and he had published an essay of mine already, but this time he sent me a rejection saying he wanted to publish it but felt the ending needed to capture and reflect the whole essay. I had ended with an image of my friend Danny's father wandering around their house playing the accordion, which seemed to me to do everything I wanted, but then I am strongly oriented toward the visual image rather than excess talk or reflection.

This rejection found me at the end of my rope. It exasperated me more than I could say, enough to write out, by hand, a rather frustrated response that stated that I thought the reflection and any conclusions that could be made were already obvious from what was there. I told him what these reflections and conclusions might be under the force of my anger that even my best work, which this seemed to be, was being tested like someone sticking their toe in the ocean. I laid it out for him. What did I have to do, walk on water? I let him have it. And this is a testament to how frustrating it can be to send out your work, because he was the smartest, kindest, most gentle editor with whom I have ever had the privilege to communicate.

A few days later I got a phone call that I never expected. Stanley asked me if I had a copy of the note I sent him, and I said I did not, a little embarrassed that I had sent it at all. He said, "Let me read it to you," and then I felt like pure crap. But he read it to me, and then he said, "Bob, this is what you need at the end of your essay. Now, I'm going to send this back to you and you see if you think you could work it in. Don't do it if you don't want to, but I think this is exactly what you need." As he said it a light came on in my mind. I could see exactly what he was saying, and that what I had sent him was in fact the true end of the essay. I could not wait to get the note back, but by the time it had arrived I had already been working on the end. I rewrote it and sent it back to him, knowing this was the right way to end the essay. You can see how it ends now, and this is the result of Stanley feeding me back the note I sent him.

Once he had the finished essay in his hands, he called me on the telephone, at a time he had already set up, and we read the essay to each other over the phone. He said he wanted to hear it. He asked me questions about the essay and we talked about it for over an hour--he had a meter on his phone. We didn't change the essay, just read it aloud, perhaps the best experience I have had with an editor. I did make one change from the conversation. For some reason, I had decided to make one of my paragraphs one long sentence. I had seen writers try to make long sentences before, and I always thought they weren't really sentences, that the reader knew most of the time that this one had been patched together for effect. I wanted to write a really long sentence that worked perfectly and that no one would notice. Don't ask me why. Probably pride.

Anyway, Stanley was reading at this point, and when he reached the end of the sentence he paused. "I just noticed," he said, "that sentence is one, two, three....thirteen lines long." I told him what I had tried and he said, "You did it. Now, can we put some periods and commas in there?" I laughed. "Sure," I said, "now that I know I did it." The paragraph was just a little better, and there were no splashy effects after that one was removed.

And then, some time after the essay appeared, Stanley called again. "The Pushcart wants to use it. This is firm. They want to publish it." He was very happy about it, almost as happy as I was, it seemed to me. But all this took place after the essay had been written.

When I wrote it, I experienced delight, not so common for me. I can't remember how the idea entered my mind, but the first thing I did was to describe a game we played when I was a kid, involving baseball cards, and how much I loved these cards, and how they smelled, and how good I was at playing flip cards. Sometimes you discover a talent you didn't know you have and you have no reason for possessing, and it's a high experience, so you go with it. Asked once why she wrote, Flannery O'Connor said she wrote because she was good at it. I played flip cards because I was good at it, and because it became the mode of the day, the thing we did, the expression of our desire.

I spent a very long time one bright morning writing that first section and then I went home. I wrote it at my office at the university, and I didn't think there was anything more, until I returned the next morning and started thinking about my childhood friend Danny Gary, and his parents, and where they lived. I thought, there is more to this, and so I wrote the next section. Every morning I returned I had something more to say, more to remember about this time in my life. What a wonderful period this was, living on the edge of the ocean! Delight filled me as I wrote, and then I spent some time putting it all together. I just laughed when I finished it, a little embarrassed about the way I had been spending my time, feeling foolish about writing so much about my own childhood.

When asked to give a reading on my own campus, I decided to try it out. This seemed like a safe forum, but I was deeply embarrassed to be sharing such private moments, and to talk about who I was at that young age. But I read it aloud and the response was overwhelming. My colleagues might be polite a great deal of the time, but this went beyond politeness, and it surprised the hell out of me. I went back to my office, put it in an envelope, and sent it to Stanley Lindberg with my heart beating. So when I got that first rejection I was dashed.

This was the process of writing, a pure joy, an exploration of memories. In an earlier story, "Beth," I had discovered that once you began to remember a period of time, the memories came back with greater fluidity. You remember what happened before and after, and then before and after again. It spreads, it opens up, before it finally closes again, and the story is finished. This happened with "Flip Cards." And the memories were so bright, and so filled with delight for me, that even the darkest moments were mitigated. The essay made me happy like a piece of music, and it had taken two weeks to complete!

I immediately started another autobiographical piece, one that I had been thinking of for some time, about the year I was seventeen and a paper boy in Maryland. Six months later, worn out, pleased, and still engaged, I sent out a completely different kind of personal essay that had come in three parts. The first, "The Friends of a Stranger," appeared in The Missouri Review, again the first place I sent it, and the third part appeared in the alumni magazine under the title, "Lucky Bob." All three appeared as the last entry in my book of stories, under the title "A Million Billion Trillion Stars," a title taken from an e.e. cummings poem about the good Samaritan. This one was darker, but, I thought, in the long run richer, but readers have always like "Flip Cards" best.

I wondered why this one made such a hit, and for a while I thought it might be the baseball stuff, with the baseball card material, and then I thought it might be the delight with which it was written, the glow of light from another time. Finally, I just let it be and stopped rereading and revisiting it. I moved on, but it was back there, the spot of light, that landscape and seascape with the sun rising or setting over it. It was there just a surely as that time in my life had been there, as magical in the experience as it had been in the writing.
~

2009-04-12T11:35:00.000-07:00

"The fairy tale...takes these existential anxieties and dilemmas very seriously and addresses itself to them: the need to be loved and the fear that one is thought worthless; the love of life, and the fear of death."
--Bruno Bettelheim, in The Uses of Enchantment

My first experience of fairy tales was my mother reading at night before we went to sleep. She read other stories, recited poems, but nothing in a fairy tale stopped surprising. I'd like to know your take on any fairy tales that sticks with you: essay, story, poem. Send to rpope@uakron.edu, whatever form it takes.

Contents:
Steve Smith, "black dreams and blue thieves"

Dave Materna, "Boondockle"
Robert Pope, "The Tailor's Boy"Mary Biddinger, "Show Pony"
Shurice Gross, "The Princess of Building 4"
Tony Bradford, "Slumbering Siren"
Alex Cox, "The Edge and the Other Side"
Dave Materna, "Pre-Mortem"
Gillian Trownson, "True Love Waits"
Tara Kaloz, "Mr. Horner's Heads"
Brittany Stone, "In Support of the Little Guy"
Two by Kristina von Held, "Transformation," "The Pull of the Water"
Nick Elder, "Sandy"

Steve Smith

2009-04-12T11:19:00.000-07:00

black dreams and blue thieves

a pregnant wife should dream of

willows and cotton and children

pattering across blanched linoleum

mine dreamt that construction was

going on across the street at 4 am;

the elementary school—crews had been

there for summer weeks.

but nowthe school was vacant and black

so her mind's rattle of saber saws and

clanging scaffolding had to be

the work of a sinister imagination.

REMs spinning like a cockeyed phonograph

they buzzed and screamed in her

wee hour ears and

she thought someone sawing and

grinding and sawing through chains.

she awoke.

sat up, belly full, upright and

cautious—stole a glance

through the window gauze

like deer at leafy branches

watching evening shadows

fall across fallen corn

there, in the back yard, were

the workers that had been laboring—

at least in the black electric dream of hers.

now they'd come back to life

as thieves in midnight blue

wheeling her gas grill noisily through

wet grass—a broken security

chain dragging behind like a brat

by the hand.

for the man next to her side

half nude, open-mouthed and

exhaling dryly like fine sand,

for him

summertime poverty

whispers a strange psalm

that the killing verse

should follow a blue thief to

the grave. final.

here’s the shotgun loaded

in my hands and i pull back

sleep's webbing and

whoosh through

the front door in underwear

boiling blood

Harrington & Richardson is a

tunnel that does not change course or

bird shot in the chamber

and low-brass in the hand.

when you draw a bead

on another man you decide

right then—if you take a chunk of

the criminal mind, you just might

blast something else from the midnight sky.

Dave Materna

2009-03-27T08:17:00.000-07:00

Boondockle

Gary from Indiana was way outta his league by then. Poor and busted again. He had an old car that looked the part and a handful of little foam footballs in the backseat. He even gave one of them away once without his autograph on it. A shame. Still he drove on through the mountains toward Tennessee. He had a case of exotic perfume that he swiped from the Burgundy Motel in Plainsworth the day before and he could damn well use the money.

By the time Gary got to Tennessee he was out of footballs and hungry. He had a trap in the trunk and caught a raccoon with it before sunup. The pelt and guts were worth $26.50 and he bought three nights in half a house trailer down by the river and still had $4.75 left over. Gary slept till dusk and woke up starvin’. He knocked on the door of the other half of the place and when no one came he went in and stole a whole raw catfish and some bread to make a sandwich. He hid the case of exotic perfume under the bed to wait until tomorrow.

Donny was one of those guys who went to the gym. He didn’t go there to workout necessarily, but he did like to stand around the locker room naked, maybe just wearing matching tube socks in Green Bay Packer colors, and talk to the guys, maybe stand by the blow dryer and show off a little bit. It was his excuse to get out and to fool himself that he was working-out somehow. Nobody ever really spoke to Donny in the locker room except to say fag or queer. It was usually really nobody’s fault. Donny kept warm beer in his locker.

When Gary went to the free clinic he had to wait. For a pretty long time. His stomach was killing him. He started to look around. There wasn’t much to read unless you liked pamphlets. And boy oh boy there were lots of those. Urinary tract infections, gonorrhea, syphilis, genital warts, tooth decay and heart disease, cigarettes and blood platelets, perfume and cigarettes, ringworm, HIV, the dangers of dating older guys, dating older guys who might be HIV positive, they covered the most horrific ailments to be found by mankind. Then they called Gary’s number.

Donny was watching TV at four o’clock in the morning in his little room at the Bennington Motel when an infomercial about girls with acne came on for a whole half hour. I’d like a girl like that, Donny thought, but I wouldn’t know what to do with her slipper kiss.

Looks like October, feels like March. In the middle of February. It was so early it was still dark but the doctor was smiling. Gary told him about the catfish he’d eaten and how he was now poisoned. The doctor smiled some more and gave Gary some Tums and sent him on his way. Gary drove his old car back toward the trailer and thought about what he should do with all that exotic perfume. His guts were on fire and he saw a light so he stopped at this little bar for a drink. Gary spent two dollars of the $4.75 he had left on a tall glass of ice cold draft beer. Donny walked in at precisely 6:23 AM and sat down next to Gary. He ordered a can of oyster juice with a side of horseradish and a vodka chaser. “How ya doin’,” he said to Gary.

“That’s gotta hurt,” said Gary.

“Nah,” said Donny, “but it is an acquired taste, I’ll admit.” The tired bartender watched as the tired early risers filed in and ordered their morning drinks. Donny said, “how’d ya like to be them?” He pushed the dark hair from his face. Gary said. “No way man.” They sipped their drinks in silence. Then Gary said,” I got a big case of exotic perfume that I’m willing to sell for cheap.” Donny shot his vodka and put down a dollar for a tip. “Let’s go,” he said. Donny had a dream, to be the best he could be, and not be like everyone else. It hadn’t quite come through yet, but he was a bettin’ man and he’d been bettin’ on this you’d better believe it. One chance in Hell.

By the time Gary and Donny got back to the trailer the little family from the other half sat outside their half of it staring at their campfire. “Someone stole our catfish” the littlest girl explained. “and now we’ve nothing for our supper tonight.”

“Fuck,” said Gary.

Donny said, “Go in and get the godddamn exotic perfume.” Gary got the case from beneath the bed. Donny said open it up and let’s have a look. Gary opened the case on the steps of his half of the trailer. The little family looked on from their fire with a certain hunger in their eyes.

“I should give them a bottle. For the catfish that’s killin’ me,” Gary reasoned. He twisted his moustache. “They could sell it maybe...”

“Hey you dumbass,” Donny said as he held one of the little sparkling bottles of bubbles. “This ain’t perfume. These are potions. Witches potions.”

Gary looked at the labels. They were written upside-down and backwards. “I thought it was some sorta French,” Gary explained. Donny flipped the black case around and read the various labels. “Plague, Lovesnorts, Ima-bima-bee, Precious-nice, Babble, a dozen or more in all. On the back of each ornate and elaborate bottle was a yellowed paper label with tiny handwriting. Donny inspected the one he held, Zombie Dance it was called, holding the tiny bottle with his fingers. It was round and curved and flowing without shape yet somehow square where it should be with dozens of glass spines jutting sharply from the surface. He squinted to read the label.

“It’s the directions,” they both said.

“You take our fish?” the apparent father asked quietly a few safe paces from Donny and Gary. Gary turned to look at the guy.

“Well, to be honest, yes sir I did and if it makes you feel any better, the damn thing nearly poisoned me.”

“Well mister, I got to feed my family.”

“Here. Take one of these bottles of perfume. You can sell it in town. Or somethin’.

“Oh well...” the little man sighed, “What they smell like?” Without really looking he plucked the one called

Plague from the silk case, pulled out the glass stopper and took a whiff. He dropped to the ground, dead.

“What’d ya let him go and do that for?” Donny hissed. “That was the “Plague” one for Christ’s sake.”

“Whoa—that shit really works,” Gary said. “We better scram-olla.” The little family ran to their poppa and each fell dead from the lingering poison. Gary and Donny tore off in the ’73 Pontiac leaving the family and the fire and the trailer door swinging wide open. But Donny had the case of potions resting on his quivering thighs. Blue smoke rattled from the motor as the duo sped the thirty-six miles to Kentucky. Three miles on the other side they pulled into a gas station with four little log cabins arranged neatly about the grounds—and Donny offered to pay for a night so they could figger out what to do with this chance of a lifetime setting in his lap.

“We could rule the world,” Donny laughed looking at the bottles lying on the twin bed of cabin one. “Look at this one, Fear and Flightless. ‘Put a drop in the sleeping ear, your foe cannot run, but he surely will fear...you.’ Looks like some one wrote in the ‘you.’”

“So what good is that?” asked Gary.

“Think, man, think!” Donny picked his nose. “If people fear you but can’t run from you, you can control them. Like Hitler.”

“Man I don’t wanna be Hitler. I wanna play football again.” Gary picked his nose as well.

“Who said you gotta be Hitler? Here’s another one. ‘Run and Jump’—the spell reads, ‘Take a drop with a spoon of honey, your feats of strength will make you money.’”

Gary plucked the ball-shaped bottle from Donny’s hand. “It’s almost empty. Lots of people must like this one.”

“Yeah, probably a lot of pro athletes...Probably paid a lot for a drop of this too. Try it.”

"I’m not tryin’ it. Besides, we ain’t got no honey.”

“That’s just ‘cause it probably tastes bad. Here...”

Donny dripped a drop on Gary’s fingertip and he licked it off. Nothing happened. Not right then, anyway. But when Donny woke up from his nap, Gary was not in the log cabin. Donny opened the door to the pouring rain and a flash went past. Then it flashed past again. Donny watched as Gary ran about the grounds leaping and jumping and running really fast. He looked exhausted.

“I been...doin’this...for a while...” Gary wheezed with each pass, “And I can’t stop...”

“Yeah, but your getting in great shape!” Donny hollered encouragingly. He shut the door and looked at the potions. This shit really does work, he thought. “Jesus.”

When Gary wound down some time later he vomited and passed out on his bed in the cabin. When Donny couldn’t rouse him in the early morning, he decided it was a good time to split up. He left sleeping Gary the rest of the bottle of Run and Jump and threw ten bucks on the bed. Then he took the case and Gary’s keys and shut the cabin door behind him.

The Pontiac smoked and chugged up the mountain road and Donny turned the radio up way loud. He never saw the witch until she landed on the hood with the weight of three days of hatred and a toothy snarl of delight. The car flattened to the road as the huge creature smashed through the windshield with one giant black talon and pulled Donny’s head out by the roots, much like pulling the stopper from a bottle. The witch popped it into her mouth like a peanut and screamed and spit. Then she hooked a red claw through the handle of the case of potions and flew off as the old car caught fire.

Gary limped along the mountain road sore and stiff and angry. He had ten bucks, a few drops of potion, no car, no footballs, and a long way to go. He walked with his thumb out in case some one might pick him up. Gary looked to the sky when he heard the wind of beating wings and never, ever looked at the sky again.

Mary Biddinger

2009-03-01T09:18:00.000-08:00

SHOW PONY

Every year the fair came
they let the rhinoceros out
to see if he'd come back.

Boxes of tiny panda
mice, bags of goldfish
and other small prizes.
The girl with the heart
grown outside her body
stayed at the Ramada
for safe-keeping.

In the exhibit hall
ten rows of berry pies,
and that woman who grew
earwigs a finger's length
on a diet of cornstarch
and ground turkey.

The girl with the heart
played cards in her grotto.
I threw fried dough at her
because she was not
lovely, but still caught
every eye. Hourly
she'd unbutton.

The boy raised by
wolves watched harness
racing, greased pig
chases. The heart girl
loved him, but he loved
everyone, and was also
known to bite.

When the rhino arrived,
the concert was underway.
Trophy hunters followed
him closely. The earwigs
left their meal piles
and shuttled up walls.

Should we be happy
our paths crossed
so many times?
The heart girl wept
in the bandstand
as goldfish circled
their plastic bags.
.
.
"Show Pony" appeared in Apalachee Review and Mary's book Prarie Fever
~

Shurice Gross

2009-03-01T08:02:00.000-08:00

The Princess of Building 4

Artesia lived in the top floor apartment of building 4. Her father said Arty was the princess of the penthouse, but she knew she was just a small brown girl with knobby knees, ashy elbows and a big puff of kinky curly hair.

Her bedroom overlooked the small, fenced playground sandwiched between buildings 2 and 3. A basketball court, a tetherball pole and one set of swings for all the children in the Alfred Wilshire housing projects to share. There were lots of children, but not very much sharing and Artesia sometimes preferred to stay in the would-be penthouse and watch her friends from the window.

Her two best friends, Kenny and Chevron lived on the third floor of building 3 with their mother, grandmother, three aunts and four cousins. They hated being inside and were almost always at the playground.

One rainy afternoon, they noticed Artesia in the window and waved for her to come down and meet them in the yard.

Artesia waved back. She was not supposed to go outside. Not supposed to leave her room until she’d cleaned it. According to her stepmother, she wasn’t even supposed to touch the doorknob until the room was “spic and span,” whatever that meant.

Standing in the window looking down at her friends, Artesia felt very much like a princess locked away in a tower. She touched her knobby braids and wished they were long enough to toss over the windowsill. Kenny and Chevron could climb up and rescue her.

Artesia could hear her friends’ muffled screams through the glass; Chevron began jumping up and down as she waved her arms in the air. She turned away from the window and stepped towards the door. Her eyebrows furrowed as she concentrated, twisting the knob slowly until she could see down the empty hallway. She could hear her stepmother humming in the shower. She squeezed through the doorway and closed the door behind her before tiptoeing past the bathroom. Artesia ran through the living room, snatching her coat from the couch before she escaped out into the hallway.

She ran down the eight flights, her feet rhythmic against the stairs like her father’s fingers on a bongo drum. Forced open the heavy metal door of the building and ran across the concrete to meet Kenny and Chevron.

“Rainy days are the best days,” Chevron said as they ran for the empty swing set. “Because most everybody stay inside.”

“And we ain’t gotta fight for the swings,” Kenny said. He reached the three swings first and chose the one on the left, and his sister grabbed the one on the right, leaving Artesia the middle swing.

Rain soaked through the seat of her jeans as she sat on the strip of black plastic. She gripped the slick chain links and leaned back in the swing. Her legs stuck out in front of her as she pumped the swing higher and higher, wishing she were brave enough to send the swing all the way around the metal top bar. But no one was ever that brave and she had to settle for the raindrops on her face and the view of her sneakered toes pointing towards the gray sky. The wind buzzed against her ears as she thought about jumping off and soaring through the air, weightless until the ground, sure and sudden, caught and cradled her return to the harsh concrete.

“Arty,” Chevron said, her voice close and then far as their swings rushed past one another. “Slow down.”

Kenny watched as she dragged her shoes against the ground to slow the swing. “Your half-mama calling you,” he said, pointing at building 4.

“She ain’t no parts my mother,” Artesia stood in the bowed earth under the swing and stared at her palms, laced with curved indentions. Her hands smelled of sharp rust and she inhaled, waiting until her pulse slowed.

“Argh-tease-yah!”

All three children looked up towards the window. Artesia’s stepmother leaned out of the window, her heavy arms pressing down on the sill. Even from where they stood on the playground, her gray eyes were like lasers. “Artesia, get your narrow behind up here right now!”

Her stepmother’s words were like a dragon’s angry breath. Artesia imagined the unfortunate raindrops that fell before her had been sizzled into nonexistence; their smoky souls sent back to the clouds they had fallen from.

Kenny pulled his brown jacket hood over his head and looked away from the window. “I keep looking at her I might turn into a statue or something.”

“You already look like a gargoyle, so you halfway there anyway,” Chevron teased. She jumped off her swing as Kenny chased her towards the tetherball pole.

Artesia glanced up at the empty window. “I’ll see y’all later,” she said over her shoulder. She walked slowly towards building 4. Took her time climbing the stairs. When she finally reached the top floor, her stepmother was waiting for her.

She leaned against the doorjamb, her thick arms crossed over her chest. One bare foot tapped against the hallway floor as her eyes narrowed to slits.

“Took your sweet and precious time getting up here, didn’t you?” she moved to the side and let Artesia squeeze inside the apartment. “Get your butt in that room and clean it up.”

Her stepmother followed her down the hallway to the bedroom and pushed her inside. “You got lots of nerve sneaking outside when this room look like this.” She sucked her teeth and flung her arms open, pointing at the floor. “Look at this. Like a toy store blew up. Your daddy got you rotten spoiled, but you’re gonna clean this place up.”

Artesia looked up from the messy floor. “Where’s daddy?”

“Don’t you worry about that,” she said. Her laugh was like a tortured cat. “Daddy can’t help his spoiled little project princess from where he is. You just do like I told you.”

Her stepmother slammed the door behind her and Artesia listened to her mutter as she shuffled down the hall. She sat on a pile of clothes and looked at her room. It was messy, true. But it had always been a mess and she had never cleaned it. She did not like the hard laminate floor and with so many clothes and books and toys tossed about, it was almost as if her bedroom was carpeted. But her stepmother did not understand that she needed some softness, some buffer beneath her feet and the cold floor of their building 4 apartment.

Artesia gathered her books around her, separating them into stacks – picture books she should give to Chevron and Kenny’s baby cousins, library books she’d never returned, and favorite books that had been buried and forgotten. She unearthed Where the Sidewalk Ends from beneath a pile of stuffed animals and began to read. When her stepmother opened the door an hour later, she was still sitting on the floor, reading poetry.

“I guess you just don’t care if you never get out of here,” she said. Her long toes were a swarm of brown cicadas clicking against the floor. “Put the book down, Artesia. If I come back in here and this room still look like this, you’ll be sorry.”

Artesia let the book slide from her fingers as the door closed in front of her. She glanced at the drops of rain streaking the window. She got up from the floor to see if Chevron and Kenny were still at the playground. Kenny dribbled his cousin’s basketball up and down the court and Chevron’s tasseled red hat bobbed up and down as she jumped rope with some kids from building 1.

They had already forgotten her.

She wished the fire escape was outside her window, but it was on the other side of the apartment beneath the living room windows. Artesia went back to the clean spot on the floor, but pushed the book of poetry back under the stuffed animals. She spotted two playing cards, the queen and five of hearts, and thought of finding the rest of the deck so she could play Solitaire. It would have been better if she could play Tonk with her father.

Artesia returned to the other side of the room and opened her window. She stuck one leg outside, straddling the sill. The ground really wasn’t that far down. Lifting her other leg, she balanced herself in the window, using both hands to hold onto the frame. The sky was the same gray as the hairs in her father’s beard. The warm raindrops like his kisses on her forehead. She pointed her toes towards the ground, leaned forward and soared through the air, weightless.

Tony Bradford

2009-02-24T13:33:00.000-08:00

Slumbering Siren

I’d been newly stationed on one of the orbiting military satellite bases when the warning signal was sent out. A large unidentified vessel had been picked up on the radar, slowly approaching the earth's atmosphere. The control center at the main space station had attempted to make contact with the approaching vessel, but no one responded to their call. Since the vessel was closest to our post, we went to investigate. We would have to take the stealth pod and board the thing ourselves. The pod only fit four soldiers, so Smiley, Hickson, Loverboy, and I were assigned to the task. We carried the new high-caliber pulse rifles with us, special issue—our first real mission.

We sat with chins touching our knees due to the limited space, but the pod got us there quick. We saw the large foreign craft through the window below, constructed of eccentric shapes and angles, an architectural style I'd never seen.

"Land us at a good spot," I said to Loverboy at the controls. "See that hatch down there?" I pointed. He eased us down, hovering above the hatch. The vacuum tunnel extended out and attached itself to the craft.

"We're on solid," said Loverboy. "Go for it, Cap."

I climbed out of my seat and crawled over Smiley and Hickson to the back of the pod and turned the wheel to open the pod hatch. When I climbed in the vacuum tunnel and closed the hatch behind me, I was weightless. I floated to the smooth side of the craft and with the heat drill in my helmet I cut my way through the strange metal and kicked it in.

It clattered against metal somewhere in the darkness beyond. I turned on my visor flashlight as I held to the edge of the hole and looked down into the dark, eerily empty ship. I dropped to the metal walkway not far below then buzzed in with the comm-link on my visor. "I'm in," I said into the headset.

Hickson, Smiley and Loverboy followed, one at a time. Once we were all in, I went ahead with caution, my rifle tightly at my side as I led us through shadowy corridors. The interior walls arched to one side, creating an odd sense of walking diagonally. The halls were more like tunnels, narrow and curvy. We meandered through the vessel like cells, turning so many rights and lefts it felt like a maze.

Before we knew it, we'd reached the end. We had entered a large open space-- a wide chamber somewhere deep in the ship's interior. Looking out from where we stood, we saw her: perfection. The most beautiful creature I'd ever seen, captured from a fairy tale, it seemed--her naked body elevated above us, locked in a sealed transparent capsule against the wall.

All along the floor in front of her, along the walls around her: writing in an obscure foreign hand glowed with light, and though the markings were unfamiliar, it was clear what they were. Numbers and equations, scrawled sporadically, as if the hand that had written it was toying with endless ratios and possibilities.

The three of us stared in awe, speechless. The pale beauty floated in liquid beyond the glass, eyes closed, sleeping peacefully. Loverboy broke our silent gaze.

"I have to touch her. She's so fucking beautiful."

He walked further into the chamber, closer to the beauty, like one entranced. None of us said a word. We all wanted to touch her. We all watched as Loverboy clung onto a beam jutting randomly from the wall and started climbing, grabbing onto jagged beams that stuck out almost vulgarly here and there in no discernible pattern. The wall was like jagged stones at the bottom of a cliff. He pulled himself onto the platform in front of the capsule and slowly touched both hands against the glass as he stared into it, at the beauty, and at his own reflection inside her. He touched the glass as if he could feel on the other side.

The capsule must have been heat sensitive. His touch made it light up, a soft bluish white gently pulsating light. The liquid in the capsule drained rapidly. Her fluttering black hair floated down upon her shoulders like tangled wet vines as the solution around her receded. Soon she stood in an empty vial, glistening with a supernatural glow, the liquid dripping off of her naked, perfect body.

Loverboy had removed his hands from the glass. He was too close to perfection to turn away. The glass slid apart, opening horizontally. He paused, stiff for a moment, then inched forward, tentatively. He reached out his hand, hesitant, as if trying to pull it back. He couldn’t. His hand touched a stiff wet breast.

A shudder of envious rage rushed through me—a strange moment. I glanced over to see Smiley and Hickson biting their bottom lips. We all looked at each other, then looked away, embarrassed. Something was different—a pair of eyes had opened, gorgeous eyes, the color of a star spontaneously combusting. The eyes peered through Loverboy like he wasn't even there.

By the time I realized it was happening, it was too late. Not that it would've mattered. When I tried to yell, my voice caught in my throat, trapped. I watched as a slender arm lifted Loverboy off the ground by his coat collar. His feet dangled. The other arm impaled him through the chest like he was nothing more than dough. Guts leaked from the back of the wound. The hand reached through the hole in Loverboy's back, clutching a bloody mass that was his heart. Then, the arm was removed, bloody now, a shocking contrast of blackish red and pale white.

Someone pissed their pants. I couldn't tell which one of us it was.

Loverboy hurtled violently to the deck, bouncing, thudding like a rubber doll. A childish laugh echoed through the dark chamber as the monstrosity leapt onto the deck near us with a heavy thud, much heavier than a human body could make. The floor shook beneath us. She turned her head mechanically, staring at us for a moment, and I saw her beauty up close.

Her beauty was utterly frightening—more frightening than death, something demonic and grotesque. I looked closely at her eyes looking back at me. They were a child's eyes. She laughed again, childishly—maniacally—then came for us.

We fired repeatedly. Bullets and lasers ripped off pieces of skin from her jaw and neck, but she kept laughing—walking toward us. We kept firing and sparks showered us as they struck her.

She lifted Hickson by his rifle—he wouldn’t let go—and slammed him to the ground, loudly breaking one of his legs. Quickly, she whirled, struck me across the face, and sent me flying back several yards. I lay there, believing my jaw had been broken for sure. I'd never been hit so hard. As I faded, all I could hear was that cackling girlish laughter, the laugh of a brainless killer.

When I awoke, trails of blood led from where my men last stood. Loverboy's body lay sprawled dead yards away. The murderous beauty was nowhere in sight.

I pulled myself to my feet, using my rifle for support. Gunfire sounded beyond the chamber entrance, deep in the corridors. Faintly, I could hear men screaming.

Then, all was silent.

Alex Cox

2009-02-23T13:36:00.000-08:00

THE EDGE AND THE OTHER SIDE

The toaster isn't working. I would go to the office. I would make some money. I would make a difference, make something of my life. But the toaster isn't working. Without the toaster there is no toast. Without toast I'm not interested in breakfast and without breakfast I'm not setting foot in the office. After all, breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

This is all the toaster's fault. Stupid piece of shit. I glare at the miscreant appliance and my warped reflection glares right back. “I hate you,” we both mouth.

Plan B. I'm not going to work so I might as well play golf. It's 6:00 AM. I've been up all night anyway. I leave the kitchen and walk down the hall, doubling back at the hall mirror. I'm still wearing a shirt and tie from yesterday. The wrinkles are ancient and damn near permanent. A cigarette hangs limply from my chapped lips. What a picture. My boss couldn't possibly want to see me looking like this anyway.

I grab a nine iron and a box of dusty, garage-sale golf balls, then head out into the morning air. Outside, the world is quietly, groggily preparing for another day of responsible labor. The park bench is engrossed in the newspaper, the squirrels are marching to the office. The pigeons are holding a board room meeting. Everyone is industrious, everyone but me. I'm leaving this workaday world and heading to the edge. I amble through broad, suburban streets. I pass house after uniform, practical house. I walk right out of town.

Eventually, the ground drops off and I can't go any further. I've reached the very corner of the known world. Or something. Yesterday's strip mine is today's scenic wonder: a poor man's Grand Canyon. Since it's early in the day, the mist hangs heavily throughout the depths. I can't see the bottom of the ravine, I can't even see the other side. Perfect. It's tee time at the edge of the abyss.

Somewhere deep, somewhere ensconced in the ether, there is a line of demarcation. Beyond that mythic boundary, everything is ordered and perfect. There is a mirror world, a world of fairy tales and happy endings. Beyond that border, beautiful people fall forever in love. Beyond that border, evil is defeated time and time again. There is purpose and meaning in this mirror world, there is succor that I will never find. From where I stand, the impenetrable void mocks my life of jangled imperfection.

I hate that fairy tale world. I hate the reflection it casts back upon my face. I cannot join in on the happily-ever-after, but at the very least I can make my feelings known. I push a golf tee into the dirt. Here we go.

Prince Charming is galloping about on his noble steed when I brain him with a well aimed shot. He pitches forward into a brambly thorn bush. Rapunzel is combing her long, long hair and staring off into the horizon when a darting shot caps her in the forehead. She totters, then slides head first out of her tower window. The Cheshire Cat grins and then takes a golf ball right in the teeth. I swing and swing and swing, raining contusions and concussions down upon the seven dwarfs, the fairy godmother, the three little pigs.

I was never meant to be beautiful. I was never meant to be happy. I was never meant to win. But if I can't win them I'm sure as hell going to cheat. The key, I've found, is to adjust the rules until I can't possibly lose. Right now, I'm getting a hole-in-one with every swing. All I had to do was find a large enough hole.

Golf balls aren't the only missiles I launch into the mirror world. I've been known to fling large rocks, car tires, framed pictures, worn out furniture, and shopping carts. I am lethal. I am quietly furious. I am a winner. I once crushed Sleeping Beauty with a futon. I ended five of Puss in Boot's nine lives with R through Z of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

I've never seen the bottom, nor do I want to. That would ruin everything. I don't want to see dirt and rocks. I want to see a fantasy land terrorized by my unquenchable rage. So I come here early in the misty morning. I come here at dusk. I come in the dead of night. I fling all my cares over the edge where they disappear forever. It is very cathartic.

I've never heard anything hit bottom either. There are two possible explanations for this phenomenon. Explanation 1: the ravine floor is composed of soft, noise-muffling dirt. Explanation 2: There is no ravine floor. Only one of these answers is true. From where I stand, I'm inclined to put my money on the latter.

With each swing I listen for the telltale plunk of impact. I listen for splashes of water, ricocheting rocks, cries of pain, anything. I hold my breath as the club finishes it's swooshing arc, then dangles above my head. Nothing. There's no wind, no crickets, no singing birds in this place, no ambient noise that could mask the thud of impact, however distant it may be. The hum of town ended somewhere back on the trail. Here, at the edge of the void, all is silent.

I've been here a thousand times. I've hurled a thousand odd nothings into the greater nothing. Each time I've listened. I've waited and waited but the void swallows everything without a trace, as if there really were another world lurking in the depths.

But now, breathless and frozen, I can hear it.

It's unlike anything you'd expect to find wafting out of the ravine. It is tiny. It is incredibly faint. When I move, even when I breath, it vanishes entirely. I stand rigid, transfixed, I tautly snatch vibrations from the air. There's no doubt about it, the noise is real. It is singing.

What does this mean? Is this the fairy tale world rising out of the abyss? Is this a trick? Is it a trap? Whatever is happening, it's all wrong. Nothing is supposed to be able to come back up out of the abyss. The edge is where I hurl my misery. The edge is where I dispose of all my haunted baggage. Whatever crosses this boundary cannot trouble me again. That's the rule. There is nothing tangible out there in the darkness, nothing frightening, nothing intriguing, nothing at all. But now there is singing. This is practically an epistemological crisis.

It's time to initiate contact. “Hello?” I call out into the mist. I've never spoken at the edge before. This sanctuary of calm is governed by a code of silence. Now, I am surprised by the disruptive power of my own voice. My call reverberates off of unseen walls. The echo fills the ravine and returns my own greeting to me, now hollow and ghostly. There is no other reply.

I try again, this time louder and longer, “Hellloooo? Is anyone out there?” The echoed words crash together as they roll about the canyon. They fade and once again there is silence. I hold my breath and listen. The singing continues. It is sweet and sad, low and beckoning.

I pace back and forth, frustrated. I need to know where that singing is coming from. But how? Climbing down the ravine would be foolhardy. Who knows what's down there? One false step and I might as well be a fairy tale myself.

The smart choice would be to surrender and go home. I could brew a pot of coffee. I could try my luck with the toaster again. Maybe I can still make it to work on time. The possibilities are limitless. But no. I'm a winner, and winners don't quit so easily. Besides, I threw the coffee pot over the edge last week.

I gingerly toe the ground as it drops off into the void. The sun is feebly peeking over the horizon. This fog won't lift for at least half an hour. Right now, it's impossible to tell how steep the descent is. A gentle decline? A straight cliff? The yawning pits of hell? Perhaps this isn't such a good idea after all. Winners don't quit, but winners don't hit bottom either. What a conundrum. Maybe I'll take just a couple steps and see what I can see...

I crouch low to the ground and shimmy downwards. The dirt is soft and loose. It's easy to slide, too easy in fact. My feet get ahead of me and suddenly I'm on my butt, slipping faster and faster. This is no good. A vicious bump and I've lost what little balance I had left. I can't even face forwards, I'm tumbling. Dirt and gravel invade my shoes and fill my pockets. Dust enters my lungs, choking my startled cry.

Then something hard and hollow breaks my fall. A washing machine? Well I'll be damned. I don't recall tossing one of these over the edge. This must be someone else's dirty work. Puzzling, but an admirable feat nonetheless. I stand up, brushing dirt and pebbles from my soiled clothing. Too bad this derelict washer can't function anymore.

I pause and listen. The singing is louder here, closer. I still can't decipher words, but the voice is stronger, richer, more than just a wisp on the air. It is female.

The decline is shallower now and I can walk upright. I follow the Siren song towards an unknown doom. Here in the depths, the mist is thick and I can't see far. But within my small island of vision, ghostly forms peer through the ether. A box spring here, a vacuum cleaner there, a patio table, a printer, a guitar. I'm walking through a graveyard, a cemetery for the obsolete and unloved.

Many of these objects I recognize. They sit in the dirt, accusing and haunted by memories I'd thought I was rid of. There's my old typewriter. The wire hammers are twisted and mangled, the keys leer with a gap-toothed smile. Once upon a time I wrote poetry. I used to sit and plink out ridiculous little rhymes.

There's my niece's plastic Cinderella doll. My sister brought her kids when she came to visit last month. One of them left the doll behind by accident. I meant to return the stupid thing, I really did. But when life went downhill, so did the doll. Now Cinderella lies on the ground with dirt smeared into her dress. Her cheeks are muddy and brown but she's still smiling her implacable, beauty-queen smile. She's still wearing those glass slippers. I shudder and keep walking.

The singing is close now, very close. I can make out words but I cannot understand them. Is that Latin? Italian? French? The voice is mysterious and alluring. It weaves a silken spell around me, drawing me ever closer. Who is this singer in the mist? Is she a fairy queen? An angel? A princess with alabaster skin? Is she trapped by some spell and waiting for a hero to rescue her? Am I that hero? Perhaps this is my own fairy tale, finally come true. Will I at last live happily-ever-after? Or maybe this really is a trap. Maybe this is a cunning ploy, hatched by the wounded denizens of Fantasy Land to revenge themselves upon me?

I continue to walk and the voice sings ever louder. I walk through the mist and at last behold a singular vision. There she is, beautiful beyond words, sad, and regal. She sits atop the forgotten detritus of civilization: soda cans, cardboard boxes, car parts. Her throne is ruin and she the singer amidst the wreckage. Why is she here? This woman is the embodiment of all that is perfect. What business could she have amidst this desolate waste?

For one second, for less than a heartbeat, she pauses from the weeping melody to acknowledge her pilgrim visitor. The lady smiles, then raises her voice to a wailing crescendo. The mists swirl and part. I lurch forwards, stumbling to my knees, I want only to touch this vision, to know that she is real. Yet as I raise my head, the singer is gone. She was never there in the first place. A battered radio plays atop a pile of rubbish. The antenna is bent and the speaker hangs loosely by fraying wires. The music crackles weakly.

I recognize this radio. I threw it over the edge three days ago. I stand and grieve for the lady who never was. The small miracle of this radio is utterly lost on me. Yet the radio plays on. Bravely, defiantly, it performs its function long after the master has ceased to care.

I stand quietly cloaked in thought. Soon the light of the climbing sun will burn the mist into empty air. Soon there will be no more illusions, no more shadows, no more ghosts. Soon there will be nothing left to hide. As I walk back towards town, the void itself will fail. But what of that? I'll be back again this evening. Perhaps I'll bring my friend the toaster with me. Then again, perhaps not.

Dave Materna

2009-02-20T13:20:00.000-08:00

Pre-mortem

“I don’t understand you,” he said and shot her in the head. He’d been creepin’ about for some time so it finally felt good. The snowfall on the streets was soft and quiet as he crept away to find his car down the block and vandalized. Parked there for maybe ten minutes. And now the mirror was torn off and the driver’s-side window smashed. I can’t do nothin’ he thought and sulked for a second.

A second later came a woman ‘round the corner, not bleeding but looking as if she should be and running from a nun with a knife. He jumped into the car in the nick of time. The nun slipped and slid down the sidewalk and stopped herself by plunging the knife into the ice like a mountain-climber.

The running woman was black and white in all the right places and got in the car and said “I gotta go”

“What’s that fragrance?”

“Meat. Salt. Whatever”

“Oh. Yeah.” He started the car. The nun got up and lashed at the window with her Bowie knife. She finally fell over and they zoomed off in the wreck, trailing sparks.

It was the best decision they could have made. He drove out past the houses and bones and streetlights into the dark and found a place to pull over.

“I can’t talk to you right now,” she said. “I just quit the nunnery. The nun-hood.” She tried a kiss.

“Okay.” He got out and opened the trunk. He took out a box kite and assembled it in the beams of car light. Snow was thick on the bare branches and he thought for a moment about heading south.

“What’s your name?” she hollered from the smashed-out window.

“Jake,” he answered. He fired off a round from the gun and tried to fly the box kite in the winter air. Jake ran up and down the road to get the kite aloft. A puff of wind chill finally took it and he stood on the road, away from the lights, and flew the box kite while he hummed an old tune.

“There’s something I’d better tell you,” she hollered through the smashed out window as Jake flew the kite in the dark.

“Nope. Don’t,” he said.

Headlights appeared and came down the road toward them. The car went past spraying slush and Jake let the kite go. It flew off to nest in a nearby tree as he got back in.

“I’m Gertrude,” she said, but you can call me Ruby.” The lights were coming back.

“That’s what you had to tell me?” The car pulled up behind them. A wolf climbed out with a tree monkey on his shoulder.

“Not so fast,” said the wolf. The tree monkey snarled. The wolf looked at Jake then at Ruby. “Hell, I’d eat her,” he said to Jake. “Oh, and ‘go fly a kite’ is merely an expression.” The tree monkey, a water-eater, whispered in the wolf’s ear. Murder. Killer.

The wolf looked at Ruby. “Don’t look at me,” she said, “I’m a nun.” She lit a smoke.

“Uh huh” said the wolf licking his chops. The tree monkey grinned like a tree monkey can and jumped through the smashed out window into the smoky car.
Take me with you, he rasped.

“Okay,” said Jake as he sped off to leave the wolf without his monkey.

The monkey climbed down and clung to Ruby’s chest.

WOWGODDAMNIT, Ruby said.

“My whole fucking life is a wreck,” the monkey said.

“We’re desperate. Get used to it.” Jake grabbed the monkey by the scruff of the neck and placed it neatly in the back seat. He squirted and squirmed a bit but then seemed to get used to it. Ruby took off her habit. Red hair fell loose and damp across her face and fired her green eyes. “You may be desperate,” she said, “I just needed a ride away from the nun-hood.”

“Too late,” said Jake. “The wolf’s behind us now. And gaining.”

“Yep,” squealed the monkey from the back seat. “He does that.”

Jake swerved down the dirt street spitting snow from worn-out tires. The wolf was indeed gaining. Up ahead was a fork in the road.

“Left,” screamed the monkey from the back seat.

“Right,” said Ruby from the passenger side. She grabbed the wheel and pulled it hard and the car went right in the flash of lights. Cops had lined the old road in wait. Jake slowed and stopped.

“Get out,” he told Ruby, “and take the monkey.”

“You were never right,” Ruby said.

“And I was never wrong,” said Jake. She slammed the car door shut and the monkey stood up on her left shoulder and waved his paw. I never dream about my teeth anymore he whispered in Ruby’s ear.

Jake ran the cop blockade in his big black Oldsmobile. He knew the wolf was in hot pursuit, so he moved fast and forward.

“I should’a not shot my girl like that,” Jake said aloud while he drove and whipped up the winding gravel road, running from the wolf and the eight cop cars.

One by one the flashing lights were left behind in his rearview mirror as Jake sped on in the big car while Ruby and the little tree monkey watched all the cop-lights and tail-lights and sirens dissolve in the mist over the faraway hills into the winter night.

Only one car remained, idling a hundred feet back with the headlights still blazing in the falling snow. Ruby walked with the tree monkey on her shoulder to the empty car and got in. She put her habit back on and turned off the motor. They sat and watched through the windshield and waited.

Jake looked again in his mirror as the last of the lights dwindled and went out, blinking off like bug lights—all gone now in the dark night. Lonesome.

“I shouldn’t-a killed her that way,” Jake mumbled again as he checked his mirror.

First he saw the ears. Next he saw the eyes. Then he saw the fangs. Strands of drool ran thick, streaming from a grinning jaw.

“That’s what I thought as well,” said the wolf from the back seat. “You should’a done it like this.”
.

Gillian Trownson

2009-02-18T18:40:00.000-08:00

True Love Waits

Prince Charming’s parents had decided a year ago that he needed to get married, and soon. They were getting on in years, and wanted him to have someone with whom he could share their modest kingdom when they were gone. They became obsessed with the idea of marrying him off to someone, anyone, provided she had royal blood or, at the very least, a wealthy family.

That’s why they held the balls. For three nights in a row, women of fine breeding from all over the continent came and danced and mingled with him, hoping for a connection. And he had found one, but much to his parents’ chagrin, the woman he chose had not even been invited to the ball, but had crashed the gates; he fell in love with a dancing scullery maid in clear plastic shoes.

After announcing his intentions to marry Cinderella, Charming’s parents did all they could to get rid of her. Eventually, of course, they succeeded; they always did. He didn’t know what happened to Cindy, only that she had been there one day, and the next she was gone. Charming’s father declared his innocence, but his mother simply told him that the little tramp wasn’t coming back, ever, and that no bleach blonde hussy would ever be queen as long as she had anything to do with it.

Some months later, to assuage his grief, he adopted a dog, a butter yellow long-haired mongrel with a ratty tail and big paws. Princess was ugly but faithful, and somehow helped to fill the void Cindy’s absence had left. The two of them would pass their days together going for walks in the palace gardens or playing fetch with his father’s royal scepter, and Charming was, for the most part, happy. He missed Cinderella, but as the months went by, he slowly released the last remnants of hope he retained of ever seeing her again. He let the lock of hair she’d given him fly in the wind, imagining it to be a deep and symbolic gesture of his readiness to move on with his life: he was giving the only thing he had of hers to the birds and it was free to soar away as she had. Unfortunately, as the wind carried the lock from his hand, Princess jumped up and devoured it in one long and labored gulp, and Charming doubted that he would ever have Cinderella completely gone from his life.

It was around this time that his parents started nagging him about getting married again. “You’re not going to have us around forever,” his mother said, “and we just want someone to be there to take care of you when we’re gone.”

“I’ll do it in my own time,” he said, repeating the mantra his therapist had once made him chant on a weekly basis.

“We’ll see,” his mother said with a smile.

In bed that night, with Princess curled up by his side, Charming began to worry about what his mother had said. “I still love Cindy,” he told her. Princess licked his hand and he scratched her ear. He thought for a moment. “If I could just marry you, I would,” he said. “But it isn’t legal. Even so, you understand me better than anyone else, and you never leave the bathroom a mess. You don’t care about money or jewelry, and I don’t think you’ll ever leave me. You’re the best dog a prince could ask for.” Princess whined and nuzzled closer to him, and Charming put his arm around her and fell asleep.

The next morning, Charming’s mother knocked on the door.

“My darling boy.” She was grinning.

“What is it, your majesty?”

“Your father and I have a young lady coming for you today, a lovely young heiress from Bulgaria. You must get ready! Your facial begins in one hour, and then you have a mani-pedi at one. Finally, we want you to have a detoxifying body wrap before she arrives. I think it will make you less irritable. She is very special, son; I do hope you will make a good impression on her. Oh, and keep that mongrel in your room while she’s here.”

Charming dismissed his mother. “What a witch.”

Princess growled in agreement.

Seven hours later, the preparations for Mila’s arrival from Sophia were complete, and Charming stood in the foyer waiting for her white stretch Hummer to cross the moat. He was wearing a tuxedo, a burgundy velvet cloak and his crown, which he hadn’t worn since his parents had arranged for MTV to host his sixteenth birthday party three years earlier.

The Hummer drove through the front entrance. Charming opened the door for Mila and bowed to her lightly. She was slight, dark and beautiful, with long, chocolate colored hair, deep brown eyes and long lashes. She brushed by him with a quiet “Thank you,” and stood in the center of the foyer, the broken colored light that filtered through the stained glass window shining on her. She smelled like gardenias and he instantly hated her.

“I’m Charming,” he said, in case she hadn’t noticed his crown.

“I know. Mila.”

He led her into the main dining room, where his parents were waiting.

"Mila,” his mother said, rising from her seat and kissing the girl on each cheek. “We are delighted to see you.”

Mila smiled and curtsied, and took a seat at the table.

“Tell us a little about yourself dear,” said the queen.

“I’m an only child and my father owns a mine. I grew up in Bulgaria, but I went to school in France. I speak four languages fluently, and I have my own chateau in Switzerland. I’m a world class ballerina.”

“Oh how fascinating!” his mother said.

The rest of the dinner went on in a similar way. Charming learned that Mila could play both the piano and the violin, that she wanted to be an actress some day, and that her favorite drink was Cristal. She didn’t want to have children, but instead to adopt, and if she and Charming were to marry, they would own twenty three houses in nineteen countries between the two of them to start. Throughout this, Charming was elated to learn that he need not speak at all. He simply sat at the table, nodded when Mila spoke and drank beer after beer, waiting for the meal to end.

As the servants cleared dessert, there was a large crash in the kitchen. Amid the sound of crystal goblets and the good silver tumbling to the ground, there was a long, low growl. The door to the dining room burst open and in bounded Princess, the chain that kept her tied in the menagerie broken. She snarled at Charming’s parents and bared her teeth at Mila, who slowly backed away, clutching her champagne flute.

“I told you to keep that mutt under control, Charming!” his mother said. “It’s scaring your guest!”

Charming stumbled to his feet and reached for Princess’ chain. The dog calmed down immediately and began to rub up against Charming’s leg, more like a kitten than the 120 pound oaf that she was. “That’s my girl,” he whispered, patting her head. She looked up at him, and from the sudden comfort reflected in the dog’s eyes, he saw something, something his parents would not have wanted him to see.

A flash of recognition. That’s all it was, one brief millisecond, and he knew. This wasn’t a real dog; it couldn’t be. The look in her eyes was too human, too understanding. And was her fur not the same color as Cindy’s hair? The dog’s coat was shinier, but Princess’ fur had never experienced the damaging effects of peroxide bleach that Cinderella’s hair had. No wonder the dog was so loyal, so faithful to him, no wonder she loved him and detested everyone else. He’d always thought it was the hint of pitt bull in her, but no. She hated the others because she knew they were trying to make him forget her. He fell to his knees.

“Cindy, Cindy! I can’t believe it’s you Cinderella!” he threw his arms around the dog’s neck and she licked his face.

“Charming, what are you doing?” His mother looked genuinely concerned. She frowned at him and crossed her arms. “Are you feeling okay?”

“No! You turned my girlfriend into a dog! I loved her then and I love her now. Change her back!”

"I don’t know what you’re talking about, dear. Why don’t you go up to bed and we can talk about this later...”

“No. I want you to change her back. Now. Please,” he added.

“You’re crazy,” Mila said.

“No, he’s drunk. Mila, how about I have the king escort you back to your car?”

Mila nodded and the king pulled her away quickly.

His mother tried to pull him up, but Charming could no longer stand. He was unable to do anything but hold onto Princess’ neck and laugh.

“Maybe if I kiss her, it will break the spell.” He leaned in and kissed Princess squarely on the mouth, but when he pulled away, nothing happened. The dog licked his face and whined. His mother left the room.

“You must think I’m an idiot for not noticing before,” he said between fits. “But if you won’t change her back, I want to marry her like this, now.”

He reached into his pocket for his cell phone and called information. “Yes I would like to speak with Fred Wednesday,” he said, giving the name of the local television station’s investigative reporter. “It’s very important.”

His call was transfered, and after two rings, Fred Wednesday picked up. “Fred Wednesday, Channel Five News.”

“Fred, Fred, hi, this is Prince Charming and I need you to uncover some dirt on my parents.”

“Have you been drinking?”

“Only a little. Look, my mom is a witch and she turned my girlfriend into a dog and I really need you to expose her as the horrible person she is, and also get my girlfriend turned back into a human so I can legally marry her, or find out how to make it okay for humans to marry dogs, or--”

“Son, son. You want to marry your dog?”

“Yes, but she’s actually my girlfriend and she had a horrible spell cast on her.”

"And what is your dog’s name?”

“Well, she was named Princess, but now her name is Cindy, because I know her secret identity.”

“I see. Well, it certainly sounds like an interesting story, Prince Charming. I’ll see what I can do for you.” There was a click, and the call was over.

“Thanks,” Charming said into the dead phone line. “I really do appreciate it.”

The next morning, Charming awoke on the dining room floor curled up with Princess. He had a massive headache.

“Good morning, beautiful,” he said. She yawned and stretched. “I’m going to get you some breakfast and see if we can’t figure this thing out. There’s got to be a way to turn you back.”

He went into the kitchen, wincing at the fluorescent lights above him. He grabbed some microwaved bacon, a bagel and the disheveled newspaper, and headed back into the dining room. He fed Princess the bacon, piece by piece, as he struggled to put the paper back together. On the front page, he saw a fuzzy picture of himself from last night, trying to kiss Princess.

Royal Heir Wants to Marry Mutt, the headline read. Underneath was an eyewitness account by some of the kitchen staff, stating that the prince had gone crazy last night, eschewing a beautiful maiden in favor of his mangy rescue dog. “We’ve always known he was a bit strange,” the head cook was quoted as saying, “but I never thought he would resort to bestiality. His parents are so nice and normal, and I’m pretty sure that bitch must have fleas.”

This is only the latest in a string of strange behavior from our future ruler. Last fall, he tried to marry a poor scullery maid. Channel Five investigative reporter Fred Wednesday says he believes that the prince suffers from a classic case of “White Knight syndrome,” the desire to rescue any woman he perceives as being in trouble. “I will of course go more in-depth in my hour-long special Wednesday night at eleven o’clock, but I believe that the Prince truly thinks that the only way he can adequately save this dog is by marrying it. I hope to prod as deeply as possible into his psyche, showing the imbalance that awaits us as a society if he is allowed to rule in the future.

"That bastard,” Charming said. “I trusted him. So much for an unbiased media!”

The article continued on, and while everyone had his own theories about the prince, there was one consensus opinion. All the interviewees seemed to believe that Charming was dangerous, at the very least to himself, but more than likely to the people as well.

And then, just as suddenly as he’d known that Princess was actually Cinderella, Prince Charming knew what he had to do to save face. He called a press conference for later that evening. He had some very important news to share with the kingdom.

“My friends,” Charming began, “I will be brief. I will not take any questions; I would simply like to tell my side of the story. Almost a year ago, I fell in love with a wonderful woman, Cinderella. She was a scullery maid, but she was a good person and a fantastic dancer. My parents, as you may know, did not approve of her, so it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me that she disappeared one day, and despite my best efforts, I was never able to track her down. I was distraught. The only comfort I found was in my dog, Princess. This is where things, admittedly, get a bit strange. I have reason--serious reason--to believe that this dog is none other than my beloved Cinderella, put under a spell by my mother, whom I believe is not a royal, but a witch.”

The crowd booed.

“As such, I can no longer in good conscience continue living life as I have with my family. I do not trust them, nor do I condone the actions that I believe they perpetrated. Consequently, I feel that I must give up my birthright. I shall no longer be your prince. I wish only for a normal life with my dog, who I love with all my heart. I am formally handing over my claim to the throne to my dear uncle, Prince Obsequious, effective immediately. I shall leave the castle under the cover of night, and I would like to live out the rest of my days in anonymity. Please respect my wishes.”

Camera bulbs flashed and the crowd cheered. Charming quickly left the stage, ignoring photographers’ requests for him to hug the dog for their cameras.

That night, he and the dog climbed into a black Buick LeSabre his parents had procured for him, and they left the kingdom forever. Charming and Princess moved into a small cottage in the Scottish highlands, where he made his living as a fortune teller and Princess served as his protection against intruders. They lived a happy life together for the next several years; Princess grew fat on haggis and blood pudding, and Charming felt the sort of freedom he’d never had as prince. He was a doting lover, and when Princess finally died of old age, he started a lost dogs home on his property. Somehow, every few years, a dog was born that possessed the exact characteristics of the woman he once loved, and Charming knew that Cindy was always with him. Although he now realized the spell could never be broken, he still kept hope that someday he would wake up to find the beautiful bottle blonde with the clear plastic shoes lying next to him instead of a yellow dog, if for nothing else then to get rid of the fleas that had become a permanent fixture in his bed.

Tara Kaloz

2009-02-17T23:35:00.000-08:00

r. Horner’s Heads
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Midnight in a distant relative’s house.

Not even sure how I know him. It was after the wake, the open bar at the reception (per request of the deceased), and I stumbled into a conversation that led me to an overnight respite at Mr. Joseph Horner’s house. The man claimed to know me as the son of an aunt’s niece. His could’ve been a fake name, the familial relation nothing but a lie. Regardless, I stepped into the night with this man. The night with its rain and lack of stars, no moon to cast shadows meant to inform. No umbrella, either. No coats to serve as shields.

Once inside his door, he offered me, first, a towel then some dry clothes.

I don’t recall the outside of the home or any sense of exterior grandness (as one can sense these architectural volumes, heights, and widths like a kind of molecular aura), but the maze of hallways and rooms and doorframes suggested wealth and a considerable square footage. I reevaluated my wavering mistrust of the man and found for him a naïve and sheepish respect.

With each upturned switch, various assortments of sconce-style and torch lamps came to life, casting a dim light onto lush rooms, packed with antique-looking tables, stocked bookshelves, shapeless paintings set into square frames, and so on. All variations of impressive to someone with any aesthetic taste or appreciation. Horner moved forward into each room with a confidence only known to those who live by themselves, fearing no out-of-place obstacle. He spoke of how he often walked the rooms at night, without even a candle, he knew the place so well, telling of how it had been passed down through generations and generations, reaching far back to the times of historic dust-covered names.

“The whole lot of them travelers, I’m afraid that’s in the blood as well. An inheritance of which I shall never complain.” He began to gesture at artifacts from numerous countries all over the globe, listing destinations by their even older names (Abyssinia, Ceylon, Southern Rhodesia, Siam, Edo, Constantinople, Gaul, Persia, Mesopotamia).

His language seemed to grow more archaic as we went along. I imagined him on the stages of theaters long since burned down. The little remnants of alcohol left in me surfaced a laugh. Horner didn’t turn, he just stopped. It was only a pause. He continued forward with fewer words.

“So, this is your room. You can use the intercom if you need anything.”

“I have to thank you for your hospitality, Mr. Horner.”

“Please, you can call me Joe. Heck, we’re family, right?”

Comforted by his slip back into a familiar diction, I smiled. “Okay, Joe. Although I’m not sure we’re too close in the family orchard. This place is amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it, except for those audio-guided museum tours, you know, with the headphones and the booklet.”

He offered a polite laugh and turned to go.

“Bathroom.” My embarrassment for the bluntness and tactlessness of my request was superseded by my bladder’s urgency manifesting itself as an ache in my sides.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. How inconsiderate of me. The guest bath is just down this hallway here.” As he pointed with one hand, he flicked another switch with the other, sparking a sequence of evenly spaced lamps on both walls. “At the end, take a left.”

“Thank you.”

He nodded. “I’ll take you back to the funeral home in the morning.”

By now, no longer feeling the slur of alcohol on my lips and in my steps, I could’ve made it home just fine. As he walked back from the direction we had come, I heard the sound of switches (one by one by one) and saw the glow of lights turn to the quiet of darkness. I thought of calling out to him, but felt it would be impolite to insist that he take me back now what with the time of night, the weather outside, his kindness in offering me a place to stay and dry clothes, not to mention the fact that I could no longer even hear his footsteps as they made their way through the house. I stared into an enormous void, its mouth swallowing my every nerve.

There was one path left illuminated and I moved with fast steps to the bathroom at the end of the hall. On the way, I felt a rush of air, much like the inhale or exhale of breath. There was a stirring as well, a noise, small. Perhaps a mouse or large insect. I considered stopping, but the sudden pain in my side brought my bladder’s needs to the forefront of my attention. I will investigate further, I told myself, after the bathroom.

As I leaned with one hand against the wall, pissing, I noticed how well-decorated the room was, despite its size. There was a painting above the toilet, framed in gold, which was flaking due to its age, much like the frame of the mirror. I peeled off a flake and let it crumble into nothing between my fingertips. The hand-towel was a rich burgundy color with a tiny fleur-de-lis pattern. On a small table occupying the corner, was a box of cigars. I didn’t know much about these things, but, lifting the lid led me to consider learning more. They smelled delicious, much like the dried leaves and spices of autumn, and appeared to be hand-rolled. A thick black bathrobe hung from a hook on the back of the door I hadn’t bothered to lock.

After I finished with the task in hand, I took a while to wash my face, and shrugged into the robe. We are family, this strange man and I, so I didn’t think he’d mind. I also had to help myself to one of the cigars, my pack of cigarettes no doubt being left in the casket.

Walking back to my room, the robe’s ties trailing behind me, I thumbed the cigar and placed it in a pocket. There was the inhale (exhale) of breath again, a movement in the air, and I swear it was at the exact spot I had sensed the disturbance before. And to think, I almost forget about my investigative poking about.

On my left, I saw a bust on a stand about waist-high. It could’ve been anyone really (Poe, Mozart, Shakespeare, Bach), but the part that got to me was the moving of the lips and the voice (part distinguished, part snide) that came out of the mouth.

“Thanks be to good graces,” it said. “Finally, someone to talk to.”

Just then, another head appeared – a face out of nowhere. It was fixed to the wall, above the bust and to the left. This one spoke, too, but the voice was more brittle and unsure. “Hey, what am I? Chopped liver?”

“See what I mean?” the bust said.

The second face was reminiscent of Africa with its tribal masks. It was carved, with a hole for a mouth (not quite a frown, but no smile), and speckled all over. Its ears were pronounced and large in proportion to the rest, the eyes, painted on over gouges in the wood.

“Don’t act like you’re king around here.” The mask rolled his eyes down in the direction of the bust before they turned to me. “We all have to deal with him,” he said.
Clearing his throat (if he even had one), the bust spoke again. “The conversation runs short and dry when you’ve been with the same company for as long we three.”

Another voice chimed in (though more of a gong than a chime) with drawn out, lazy tones. It was a stone, twisted face, like many of the gargoyles I had seen when reading about places I’ve never been, and was positioned on the wall, to the right of the bust.

“I don’t much mind the quiet, honestly,” it said.

I looked back at these faces, studying each one. They stared at me in return, waiting for a reaction, I would guess. I tied the robe closed and crossed my arms. At first, I questioned my mental faculties, but knew full well I was no longer inebriated. Nor was I dreaming (the old pinch test proved that much). Then, I suspected a trick, a kind of off the wall game at my expense, brought forth by Mr. Horner and his intercom. The heads, though, how they moved could be nothing less than magic or insanity. After inspecting the walls, I could find no other intercom, and the one in my room was far enough away.

“Okay,” I said. “What’s going on here?”

“Well,” the bust answered, “as you can see, we’re kind of stuck here. The old master visits us less and less.”

“And he no longer tends to our necessities anymore,” added the mask.

“Good riddance, if you ask me,” said the third.

I moved my hands to my pockets, finding the cigar.

Perhaps it was the presence of three heads, instead of just one, that made me feel more at ease. “And what do you need exactly?” I asked the mask.

“I thought you’d never ask!” he said. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I could use some blood. Just a taste.”

The bust scoffed. “What need have you for blood? Only skeletons want blood.”

“What do you think is under this veneer?”

“Only splinter,” replied the bust.

“Skeletons want blood?” I asked.

“I wonder why that is. Seems it would pour right through.” The mask was looking at the ceiling.

“Maybe that’s the point. Maybe it’s a vain attempt to be whole again,” said the third.

“Nonsense,” said the bust.

“Alright, alright,” said the mask. “It was a shot in the dark. If I may, though, ask you to run back to the bathroom. In the cabinet, there are some cleaning supplies, namely, some wood polish. If you could, go get some for me, with a rag.”

Without words or a second thought, I went back to the bathroom and found the polish, where the mask had said. As I was walking down the hall, washcloth in hand, I saw the heads following me with their eyes until I was in front of them again.

“Okay,” said the mask, “if you could then, be so nice as to dust and polish my face.”

When I sprayed the cloth, the mask said, “Watch the eyes.”

The bust sniffed. “That smells rather pleasant,” he said. “Lemons, if I’m not mistaken.”

I looked at the bottled and said, “Yep.”

The mask sighed and said, “Much better.”

“Now, I suppose it would not be too terrible if I asked for something,” said the bust.

I shook my head. “Not at all.”

“I could desperately use a smoke,” he said.

“I believe there are some of those in the bathroom, as well,” said the third head.

“No need.” I brought the cigar out of my pocket. “Will this be okay?”

“Oh, much more than okay,” he said.

I felt my pockets and realized I wasn’t in my own clothes and did not have a lighter with me. The cigar needed to be cut, too.

The third head seemed to read my thoughts and gestures. “Well, those things would be in the bathroom. Next to the cigars, possibly.”

This time in the bathroom, I splashed my face with water, just for good measure. If I returned and there were no talking heads, no faces to be found, then I would know this was just some delusion or some strange effect of the house on my senses. Regardless, I grabbed another cigar from the box (releasing the fine-rolled perfume into the air once again), along with the cigar cutter, and a matchbook.

Upon returning to the hall, I found myself happy with the fact that the heads were still there and were, indeed, still chatting away between each other.

“Well, then,” the bust said, “were the items found?”

“Indeed they were.” After cutting the tip, I placed the cigar in the bust’s mouth. His lips held it in place as I ripped out a match. There were creases in his gray forehead as he stared down (cross-eyed) at the cigar. I held the new flame to the cigar and the bust puffed away (how he did this without lungs, only now am I beginning to wonder).

Every five puffs or so, I’d pull out the cigar from his mouth, doing the work of his non-existent hands. The others looked on – the gargoyle face, quiet in his observation, while the mask was wide-eyed.

He said, “I think I would like one of those, too.”

“You’d catch fire,” said the gargoyle head, “what with all that polish.”

“All the more reason for it,” said the bust when the cigar was away from his lips. “Put us out of our misery.”

“It probably wouldn’t be a good idea,” I agreed with the gargoyle face.

When the cigar was finished, I returned to the bathroom to dispose of it, first running it under water to snuff out its smolder. All of this walking to and from the bathroom, I thought, was enough exercise for the night. I was thinking about trying a different way back to the room, to bypass the heads, so I could enjoy my pilfered cigar. Of course, there was no such alternate route.

“Anything you’d like?” I asked the gargoyle face (more out of courtesy than care).

“Why ask? I never get what I want,” he replied.

“I’m serious. Ask away. The others did and they are better for it.” The other two heads agreed and nodded as much as they could.

He waited, thinking.

I grew impatient, turning over the second cigar in my pocket.

“I know what I’d like,” he said.

“Go ahead.”

“You know the man who owns this house?”

“Yes, of course. He is a relative of mine, though distant, who offered me a warm place to stay and dry clothes.”

“Master Horner, yes. You see, the fact of the matter is, I’d like you to bring me his head.”

I nearly choked on my surprise. I said, “But he has been such a gracious host. Why would I think of doing such a thing?”

“Gracious? Him? Why, if not his head, it’s yours,” said the gargoyle face.

The bust spoke, too. “We know his intent. There used to be four of us. Now only three remain. He’s begun his search for another fourth as of late and I am not leaning in the favor of coincidence on your part.”

“He is a cruel man,” the mask said. “All we know from him is neglect.”

I had no reason to doubt the heads, that I could tell, and if what they said was true, I was certainly now suspecting foul play from my supposed distant relation and host. Joseph Horner’s quick kindness and accommodations were perhaps too eagerly supplied.

The heads spoke to each other as I turned the options over in my head.

“Do you think he’ll agree?” said the bust.

“You shouldn’t have asked him. Now we’ll all be in trouble. Destroyed even!” said the wooden mask.

“Shh. Here’s his answer.”

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll do it.”

All the faces, their mouths turned up into smiles.

“Splendid decision,” said the gargoyle face.

“It’s the right thing to do,” said the mask.

“If you’re ready,” said the bust, “there is a long knife in this cabinet I rest upon.”

I tried the door. “It is locked.”

The bust mumbled and started prodding his cheeks from the inside with his tongue. He stuck out his tongue, providing a key. “This should be the one,” he said. “Go ahead.”

I held the blade in my hands. A foreign shape to me, it reminded me of the jungle and those adventure movies, getting through all that growth.

The gargoyle head watched as I turned the blade over in my hands, bumping over the pearl-studded grip. “It’s a kukri,” he said.

“Another of the master’s trappings,” said the bust.

“Tell him how to get there, already,” said the mask.

“Yes, of course,” said the gargoyle head. “You just go back the way you came. The way he brought you to your room. When you find the front entrance, his is the first door down the opposite hall. You more than likely passed it on the way up.”

As I started down the maze of hallways, I heard the heads conversing.

The last thing I could hear was the bust talking to the mask. “I guess you can have your blood after all.”

There was laughter. I joined in, too, though much quieter so no one would hear.

When I found the room, there was the flicker of light under the door. My nerves made me freeze. Every breath became loud in my mind. Heartbeats. Blood pumping, surging into my brain. I had to think.

I remembered, though, what the heads had said. If not him, then me. It was his life, or mine. Only one head would be returned to the others, and all I wanted was the cigar in my pocket, to enjoy the inhale, exhale of its perfume. My body relaxed and pushed me into the room, the door, unlocked.

Mr. Horner was awake, his fingers pressing against the intercom, mouth open, head tilted with one ear, listening. He was white, sheet-like, expectant.
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The next morning, I was no longer surrounded by the strange and lush atmosphere of the house. Instead, I was in my car, drool slipping out of the side of my mouth and onto the car seat (reclined). A man I recognized as the funeral home director tapped on my window. His suit was different than yesterday’s and there was the perspiration of dew on my windows.
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I was in the parking lot. I was in my car. I was in my own clothes, slightly damp.
I rolled down my window and apologized. The man gave a humble nod of his head and walked back to the double-doors of the entrance.

On the drive home, I was laughing. I thought of dreams and all of the bizarre sorts I’ve had, finally able to claim a winner.

The sharp turn onto my street jerked something loose on the passenger seat. I looked over, seeing a cigar, pre-cut. A small shiver coursed through me, mixed with the excitement aroused by the cigar’s rich scents. The turn into the driveway, the bump, shook something else loose, this time in the trunk.

Of course, I knew what I’d find there.

My hands shook when I put the key to the lock at the back of the car.

I was right. I was still alive. And, somewhere, three heads were happy. In his robe, there was the body (headless) of the former Mr. Joseph Horner.
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Brittany Stone

2009-02-17T09:16:00.000-08:00

In Support of the Little Guy

Dusk is coming on the hill, and Uncle Willy and I are tired of riding. He allows the engine to die, runs both hands through his hair, and spits out a big black wad of Copenhagen. From the back of the four-wheeler I can smell the raw stench of leaves and soil and my uncle’s Stetson. For years we’ve taken off on a whim, climbed West Virginia hillsides like outlaws on the tail end of something big. When the excitement begins to feel mundane, we coast down toward home with dirty mud flaps and our blue jeans warm from the heat of the exhaust. Sometimes Willy talks to me while we’re forging those old beaten paths, tells me where he set up a tree stand this year or how his knees have been hurting since the weather turned cold. I don’t bother to respond over the roar of the machine because I know he won’t hear. Our rides are a good lesson on listening.

Once upon a time, Willy was the worst crying baby my grandmother had ever seen. He cried for six months straight while she rocked him, fed him, and started falling asleep mid-sentence with him screaming in her arms. Willy was my grandparents’ fourth child, born smaller than but not noticeably different from the other babies they’d been raising in that little green house at the mouth of the holler. Doc Boggs told my grandmother that her baby was suffering from colic, so she put him face down over her knee and tried rocking him to sleep that way. The only photograph I have of Willy in those days is a black and white from a studio in the town of Clay, West Virginia, his face frozen on the edge panic, his arms outstretched. He’s wearing overalls and a T-shirt that reads, “Hands Off.” I imagine my grandmother on the other side of the lens, embarrassed, nervously pulling her bottom lip into her mouth. At that moment, she wouldn’t have known that her son was afflicted with a form of achondroplasia, or dwarfism, and that the symptoms were already fiercely brewing inside his tiny body. While my grandmother and Doc Boggs treated colic, Willy’s legs bowed and his ears filled with pus until his tiny eardrums were pushed to the point of bursting. He would never recover from the damage done to his bones and ears during that first year of his life.

For most of his childhood Willy attended a one room schoolhouse in Nebo and learned from a county teacher who rented speech books from the library and attempted to train his tongue to maneuver around the hard tissue of the mouth. After a while, the school board determined that my uncle wouldn’t benefit from a formal education and let him stay at home with my grandparents. He learned to change tires and oil and make drop biscuits. Now, at the age of forty-five, he’s a little over four feet tall and can’t hear a darn thing without his hearing aids. He speaks in the same muffled tones that I used to hear when I fell asleep against my mother’s belly.

In fairy tales, it’s not uncommon for the villain to be afflicted with dwarfism. Today, that word dwarf hits my ear with clumsy intonation. I hate how it makes me feel, how it conjures up images of impotence, of short, gnarled arms and legs, blank faces, and trickery.

When I was a child, laid up on the couch for a week after a tonsillectomy, someone brought me a videotape of Rumpelstiltskin’s story. I call it Rumpelstiltskin’s story (though some might argue that the story belongs to the princess) because he is the character I feel most sympathy for. The story belongs to him. At seven years old, hoarse and lame from surgery, I was disturbed by the harsh portrayal of Rumpelstilkskin’s short stature. In the movie, he stands about as tall as the princess’ thigh, wearing ridiculous mustard-colored tights and a stocking cap. I wasn’t frightened by his height, although other children probably would have been. At this time, I was already taller than Uncle Willy, and didn’t remember any different. But Rumpelstiltskin’s height was not just conveyed as physically limiting, it also served as a marker for social freakishness. He was live on the fringes of society in a house deep in the woods. I thought about the kid at my elementary school who was kept in a special classroom during recess because he tended to bang his head against the wall. I always wondered why the teachers never let him play with the other kids, and I thought maybe he banged his head against the wall because he resented being caged up like the hamster in Mrs. Dawson’s second grade class.

As if life weren’t bad enough already, poor Rumpelstiltskin was not only ugly but weird, sucked dry of his resources by the miller’s daughter and then sent back to the woods where he was left to maniacally sing and dance his jig and wait to take the baby that was rightfully his. I hashed the plot out with my mother—very gingerly, of course, because I was healing—and she listened at the foot of the couch with her eyes squinted as if she might really be thinking about what I was saying. I told her that Rumpelstiltskin was clever enough to spin straw into gold, but it was the miller’s daughter who became a princess. With Rumpelstiltskin’s help, the girl regained her life and won a husband and baby.

“Rumpelstiltskin will never get married or have a baby of his own,” I said and took a bite of jello. “If I were the princess, I’d give him the baby. He’s just lonely.”

I don’t remember what reasoning my mother offered at this point in time, but whatever it was, I can bet she wasn’t thinking about her brother. It’s funny how truths collide so frequently and how seldom we recognize the stories that weigh so heavily on our own lives.

I do remember her telling me, years later, that a doctor once deemed my Uncle Willy sterile. This reality still keeps me up at night and makes me believe that there is fear in all great stories—in even the most far-fetched works of fiction—that originate from a great and throbbing core of human truth.

On the hill, Willy and I get off the four wheeler and lean against a tree at the edge of a ridge. We’re silent for a while, and he spits again and wipes his mouth with the sleeve of his flannel shirt. He tells me he’s met a woman at Granny’s Kitchen, the restaurant built on stilts over the Elk River where he orders eggs and biscuits and wraps his leftovers in a napkin to take home to my grandmother. Uncle Willy still calls my grandmother mommy and rubs her legs down with alcohol every night. She’s got arthritis, and Uncle Willy’s got it in his joints, too. He won’t tell her he aches at night.

A whippoorwill sings from some faraway perch, and we look down through a clearing in the trees at the faraway shape of my grandparents’ house. Smoke rises from the stovepipe and it suddenly occurs to me that fall is here.

“She’s really pretty,” he says, and pulls out his wallet. He shows me a picture of a blonde woman sitting in a booth at a restaurant, her legs long and crossed at the ankles. “She smiles and talks to me when she has a break,” he says. “She’s busy, though. Right now, it’s no big deal.”

I look at him, surprised. He tells me that she’s young and shy and has folks down in Elmira. He says he took her to lunch at a sandwich shop in the next town over. I imagine the two of them driving to this restaurant, the radio playing bluegrass tunes and the delicate, long shape of a woman next to my small uncle propped up on his driving cushion. How odd and slightly erotic. Suddenly I realize that I’ve never thought of Willy as a man capable of romantic love. I feel guilty, as if I’ve been propagating the lie that has led generations of children to believe that Rumpelstiltskin doesn’t deserve the love and adoration of a woman or a child, that his condition is enough to merit exile to the woods, a place for lowly animals and for humans who aren’t worthy of an elevated level of human love.

Willy turns and faces me. “Don’t tell Mommy about her,” he says. His eyes are dark and serious; his features are as smooth and clean as a child’s. For a second, I think that I’ve never seen anything more pure or beautiful in my life.

“I won’t,” I say. “I’m happy for you, Will.” And really, I am.

The sky is a strange purple-orange, and we talk about how everything looks different when you get up high. Quietly, he turns around and heads toward the four wheeler.

I tell him to wait up, and shuffle through the undergrowth, zipping my jacket up to my chin as I go. He swings both legs over the seat and stands up so I can take my place on the back. I’m nearly twice as long as he is and I think about how we must look coasting down the hill, eyes on the rocks jutted out from the path, momentarily oblivious to any distraction in world but the road ahead of us. We lean against the slope to balance the disproportionate weight of our bodies.
.
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Two by Kristina von Held

2009-02-15T01:52:00.000-08:00

Transformation

Alyssa was walking through the woods. Even though she had come down this path before, she noticed a basswood tree with low branches for the first time. It seemed to offer itself to her, and she couldn’t resist. Swinging her arms and legs around the lowest branch she pulled herself up. Slowly she made her way into the tree until she reached a branch at least twenty feet from the ground. There she rested and looked around. The path was now far below and she felt herself embraced by leaves. A whispering sound reached her ear.

“Alyssa, Alyssa.” How did the tree know her name, she wondered.

“Come stay with me,” he continued. “I know you better than you know yourself. Let go of the world. I will catch you in a bed of soft moss that I have prepared for you between my roots.”

The leaves were rustling in the breeze, and a blue jay was calling nearby. Alyssa felt the rough bark of the tree underneath her fingertips. It seemed easy to loosen her grip on its trunk, slide off the branch, and let herself fall into the soft leaves.

When another hiker came across her lifeless body beneath the tree, he found her hands clutching small branches with leaves, as if they were sprouting from her arms.

2009-02-15T01:48:00.000-08:00

The Pull of the Water

On Sunday, she went to the Arboretum. It was a late September afternoon, the sun already low in the sky, and every bush casting long shadows across the grass. After walking through the rose garden where a few late summer roses were still in bloom and quietly sending fragrance to no one in particular, she made her way to the pond, where she sat down right by the water’s edge and watched the leaves of the water lilies, bright green trays set on the watery surface. Mottled red goldfish were sitting in the dark green water underneath, hardly moving at all.

Suddenly a motion at the corner of her eye caught her attention and she looked up to the opposite edge of the pond. On one of the rocks by the edge sat the biggest frog she had ever seen, motionless and without expression in his huge eyes. She stared at him with a mixture of disgust and fascination. His skin was olive green with some brown on the legs. He looked otherworldly. When he opened his mouth she noticed that his inside was not green, but a lovely soft pink color.

“You know what to do,” he said, but she wasn’t sure she had heard correctly.

“No,” she found herself answering, briefly looking around to check that no one was nearby, overhearing her conversation with a frog, but the place was empty except for her and the frog.

“You must climb down the lily pad and join me at the bottom of the pond, where we will hibernate.”

“But isn’t it cold and dark down there?”

“It will be cold and dark up here soon, and down there no one will bother you. Occasionally, fish will nibble on your toes, and the water will hum you to sleep.”

“But what would I do? How would I breathe?”

“You will lie back, hair floating in the water, and forget about your life up here: the air you were breathing so eagerly, the flowers you were looking at with such longing, and the people you thought would bring you joy.”

A dragonfly made its erratic path across the water. She gazed at the frog’s shimmering green skin. The water below seemed dark and deep. She imagined it seeping into her lungs, turning her body weightless.

“Perhaps next year.”

She got off the rock and walked back to her car.

Nick Elder

2009-02-13T13:16:00.000-08:00

andy
..
.
.

A few years ago, your wife left you because, according to her, you’d become a “fat ass slob.” At first, you thought it was just the beginning of another of the many arguments you’d been having, where she’d start by insulting you, and then ream you for everything in the world; the dog shit on the floor, the laundry, the fact that she still wasn’t pregnant, despite the two of you not having sex in months. In short, everything from the astronomical inflation of lipstick to global warming would be, according to her, your fault. It was just the way things had been. And so you didn’t think anything of her insult or of her stuffing clothes into your old pleather suitcase. This kind of thing was normal. This kind of thing happened. She’ll be back, you assured yourself when she stomped out the door. But then things took a turn for the worse. You looked out the window and saw that the bottom of her favorite green dress seemed to be waving goodbye to you from the corner of your suitcase.
............You knew this meant she was gone.
............You knew this meant the end of “happily ever after.”

Now, three years later, you find yourself in a similar situation, only this time, it’s not that snooty little pre-Madonna. No, this time its Sally. Lovely Sally White, the girl who loved you, who still loves you, but just told you all teary-eyed and white with fright that, “There are things about me you don’t know. Things that would break your heart. I think it’s best that I go now.”
............This was sudden.
............This was unexpected.
............Things had reached a point. A good point. A point that led you to believe that it was time that you cut the shit with the “I need my own space at night” routine, and asked her to stay over.
............This…this whole her telling you that there were things you didn’t know and running out the door towards her rusty old Buick wasn’t the response you had in mind. You’d envisioned candle light flickering off her skin white as snow, entanglement of fingers in her ebony locks—you’d envisioned entanglement of other sorts as well.
............You hadn’t however, envisioned this.
.

You don’t want things between the two of you to end, especially not like this, so you run. You run after her. You run after her to her car, where she sits tear-streaked and fumbling for her keys. You knock softly upon her window, you speak gently, you speak charmingly. “Sally. Sally please don’t go,” you say. “There’s nothing you could tell me that would make me want you to go.” And it’s true. It’s true not because you think you couldn’t love someone else, but because you know you couldn’t find someone else with skin so white, hair so ebony.
.
“I can’t keep this from you anymore. This secret. This curse,” she says. “I’ve been meaning to tell you, I just haven’t figured out a way.”
“I’m sure we can talk this out,” you say. “Come on Sally, get out of the car. Please, can you do that for me?”
.
She finally gets out and she hugs you so tight you could swear you feel your belt buckle push up against your spine. And then her tears really start coming—they come in big waves that soak through your shirt, as she tells you that this thing, this thing she has to tell you, has really been the proverbial monkey on her back. She knows you’ll scream at her, you’ll tell her to get the fuck out of your life, but she has to tell you anyway.
.
You wish she’d just come out with it already. You’ve been around women enough at this point in your life to know that these “secrets” usually aren’t all that surprising anyway. They usually involve another man, or men and their respective sexual organs. If it’s a really “bad secret,” as Sally’s tears seem to indicate, it could possibly involve a whole heard of men, or even a goat. Even if…you probably still wouldn’t want her to go.
.
“If you tell me, you won’t feel so bad. Just let it out,” you say.
.............She almost stops crying.
.............Almost lets the proverbial monkey off her back.
“Is it your roommates? Did you sleep with one of them?” you ask.
............She doesn’t answer.
.
“All seven?...Which one was it? Harry? Barry? Jack? John? Lenny? Lou?...Frank?
............She still doesn’t answer.
.
She presses her face into your chest and wipes her eyes on your shirt. Now there is this outline of her face in the middle of your chest that you’ll have to carry around until you do laundry in the morning. Finally, she speaks. She asks, “What if I told you that late at night I turn into a heavy, foul-mouthed, old woman who drinks heavily and drives a truck? A woman who drives a truck and chases other women. Would you still want me to stay over tonight?”
.
............You tell her of course you would.
............It’s not like you have a choice.
............It’s not like this isn’t make-believe.
.
You start to ask her what the real secret is, but before you can, she wraps her arms, white as snow, around your neck and kisses you hard on the lips. She kisses you so hard, that you have to pull away. When you do, you notice three little drops of blood running from her lips down her little white chin. She looks at you and you can tell she’s just melting inside. You’ve passed her test. You’ve proven you really care. She wraps her arms around you again, and the two of you can’t take it anymore. You rip your clothes off and go at it right there on top of her rusty old Buick, right in front of the neighbors.
.
Afterwards, you lay there on top of the hood staring at her skin gleaming in the moonlight and you stroke her ebony locks. She sighs, feeling a little relieved and tells you, “If anyone can love me for the way I am, it’s you.” You get a little teary- eyed, and then you feel bad for getting teary-eyed, for being so sensitive.

............You go inside.
............You go to bed, together.

.
.
A few hours later a terrible crash startles you from your sleep. You reach across the bed desperately searching for Sally. You want to prove to her that you’re here. That you’ll protect her…But she’s nowhere to be found.
“Son of a bitch that stung,” yells this raspy southern voice, and then you hear this somebody toss pieces of glass into a pile at the other side of the bed. You turn the light on your nightstand on, and then you see it— you see this woman—this old, wrinkly woman—this old, wrinkly and naked woman with a crew cut staring at you. She’s holding the fragments of a picture frame in her hands.
............She smiles at you.
............She smiles at you and drops the frame.
............She drops the frame and extends her hand.

.

“Name’s Sandy White,” she says. She notices the horrified expression on your face as you grip her calloused hand. “Don’t worry honey, I’m as shocked as you are. I must’a been real good and tuned if I came home with you. Not that you ain’t cute. I’m just not real into the boys if you know what I mean,” she adds and winks. “Now could you be so kind as to hand me those underpants by your pillow there?”
.
You hand her the underwear. You don’t know what else to do. You’re utterly spellbound, utterly horrified. She pulls the giant panties up over her waist and then grabs a pair of jeans, a dirty old hat, and a flannel shirt off the floor. She tips her hat to you before she lumbers downstairs towards the living room looking for her “no good, god-damned keys.” You follow her, still not sure what to think. You want to know who the hell she is and how she got in your bed. When you ask, she tells you she agrees that this was a mistake, and she wishes she could help you, but that she just doesn’t have the best memory after she gets to drinking too much. She adjusts her sagging breasts and pats her pocket, as if this might make her keys magically appear.
............At this point you’re willing to believe anything is possible.
.
“I can’t seem to find my god-damned keys,” she says. “Guess you’re taking me to the shop to fetch a spare.” You can no longer think. All logic has left the building, has left you standing naked in the living room scratching your head like some sort of caveman. She gets tired of watching you stand there. She tells you to cover that god-damned thing up with a sock, and grab a pair of shoes because she’s got loads to deliver.
............You grab your keys.
.
It takes a while to maneuver around the mysterious sparkling white semi in the driveway, but eventually you make it. Sandy laughs hysterically the whole time and tells you you’re the worst driver she’s ever seen, that she hopes you drove your big-rig better than your car, if not, it’s a good thing she doesn’t remember. You’d normally think of something witty to say in a situation like this, but then again, there really aren’t situations like this, situations similar to having your girlfriend seemingly morph into an old, lesbian truck driver.
............You throw the car in gear.
............You throw the car in gear, and head toward Sandy’s shop.
.
Fifty Miles, three cigarettes and five passin’s of Sandy’s flask later, Sandy tells you to turn onto a dark and nearly grown-over dirt road. You begin to speculate about your future, as in, the distinct possibility that your about to be lacking one. You tell Sandy the road is too grown-over, your car will never make it through; you’ll get stuck. “Bullshit,” she says, taking another swig from her flask. She tells you to give it hell and when you fail to respond, she stomps your foot on the gas pedal for you. The car takes off, it accelerates, it accelerates at a rate that far exceeds its four cylinder capabilities. You’re no longer driving, the car is driving itself, steering its way through impossibly tight spaces, around trees as tall as houses, over roots resembling hands reaching towards your door. And then…the roaring engine falls silent, returns to its natural put-putting, and you somehow emerge onto a newly paved driveway. In the distance, a million watt sign flashes NAPA AUTO PARTS in painful neon spurts.
.
“There she is,” says Sandy. “Pull on up around back. I’ll make this quick.”
.

............You pull around back.
............You pull around back and check your shorts,
............You check your shorts and follow Sandy,
............You follow Sandy like a scared child.
.
Inside the shop, the smell of diesel fuel and fuel injection cleaner permeates everything. It’s as if the place has formed its own variation of the Earth’s troposphere. Sandy rummages through a giant red toolbox and curses the many “god-damned, mother- fucking whatcha callits,” while you take a look around. There are seven little red toolboxes lined up next to Sandy’s. They look like ¼ scale models of the real deal, only they’re neat and orderly; Sandy’s is messy and covered with pornographic images. You smile when you see Miss January, 1974. She was your favorite when you were a kid rummaging through your Dad’s private drawer.
.
After several minutes it occurs to you that you and Sandy are not alone in the shop. The whole time you’ve been here, there’s been the unmistakable clanging and banging of ratchets and torque wrenches coming from behind you, but the combination of the shop’s tropospheric composition of diesel fuel and the general shock associated with one’s girlfriend morphing into an old truck driving alcoholic has numbed your senses to say the least. It’s okay though, there’s been no permanent damage to your psyche, at least none associated with the composition of the air you’ve been breathing. Your reactions are just a little slower, a little surreal. But now the banging and clanging are registering clearly in your temporal lobes thanks to an as yet undamaged primary auditory cortex. You hear them clearly, the tools, the men singing in their singsong fashion.
.
............You hear them singing.
............You hear them singing Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho,
............It’s off the hubcaps go.
.
You turn around hoping to glimpse the faces of this chorus, but all you see is seven little pairs of red shoes, seven little sets of legs, hanging out from under seven giant semis. The seven little sets of red shoes sway to the rhythm of their seven little voices.
.
“Ah fuck it, I guess we’ll have to hotwire her,” yells Sandy, throwing her last wrench on the floor. “Just take me on back to your place,” she says, and then she yells towards the seven little sets of shoes, “Alright boys, me and this fella’s outta here. I’ll see ya’ll later.”
.
............Seven little voices fall silent.
............Seven little ratchets and torque wrenches
............Fall to the floor.
.
On the way back to your place Sandy scans her delivery chart. Aside from the four pallets of non perishable food, nothing is urgent, nothing is required to be delivered before sunup. She and the seven little sets of red shoes apparently put in overtime last week thanks to daylight savings. She looks at her watch and sees it’s only two. She suggests you catch a bite to eat at Denny’s. She’ll buy, she says. Gas doesn’t grow on trees after all. Besides, she feels bad about you feeling bad for sleeping with her. She smiles sweetly at you. She smiles so sweetly, you could almost swear she was little Sally White again.
.
............You know you’ve seen those little red shoes before.
............You’ve seen them.
............You know you have
............But where?
.
Everyone at Denny’s knows Sandy. You can tell for some people this is a good thing-like the pretty waitresses, and the older Strippers who were sent home early. For others it’s a bad thing. It’s an especially bad thing for the men with the strippers, the ones who’ve made the mistake of raising a hand to them when Sandy’s around. Sandy waves. The strippers wave back and smile so big that their makeup masks begin to crack and reveal the signs of aging and abuse. The men stare firmly at their Grand Slams.
.
Stan, the third shift manager, comes thru the swinging kitchen doors with a giant grin on his face. He tucks his shirt in and adjusts his tie. Then he hugs Sandy. He thanks her for taking care of that skirmish between the aging and young factions of strippers last night. He thanks her for reestablishing equanimity. He asks her what she’d like “on the house.”
.
“No need for thanks Stan,” says Sandy. “But since you offered, I’ll have the usual. My friend here strikes me as the Ultimate Omelet type. Grits instead of hash browns.” You nod approvingly. You compile a list of evidence on your napkin suggesting Sandy is indeed Sally, that this isn’t in fact, some sick joke. The list looks something like this…

............Reasons Sandy Must Be Sally

............1. Sandy smokes. Sally too smokes.
............2. Both their smiles give me butterflies. Is this strange?
............3. Sally-seven roommates. Sandy-seven coworkers.
............4. Both order for me, and get it right.
............5. Sandy likes women. Sally is
................a woman.
.
Between big yolk-soaked bites Sandy asks you about the picture beside your bed. The picture in the frame she broke. The picture she’s pulling out of her pocket with the hand she’s not stuffing her face with. You tell her it’s Sally. Sally White. The girl you love. The girl you wish you were here with right now. You also tell her it’s kind of fucked up that she steals pictures off of stranger’s nightstands. She apologizes and slides the picture across the table towards you. She tells you she took it so she could have it reframed for you. She knows a guy who does custom frames, and obviously this girl is very important to you. Yes, you tell her. She is. You also tell her it was thoughtful. The intent to reframe, not the stealing of your picture.
.
The Ultimate Omelet, and Sally’s flask hit your gut just right. You feel good. You feel whole. You feel chatty. The two of you talk about Sally, about the way she makes you feel, about how she’s the first woman you thought you could trust with your heart since your ex-wife left you, but that after tonight, you’re not sure, things have become complicated. How so? she asks. It’s like she’s a different woman all together sometimes you tell her. “We’re all like that. Even me,” she says, and she smiles at you just like Sally. Just like Sally White, and you want to peel off her greasy hat, run your hands through her crew cut, and kiss her hard on her withered red lips.
.
............You kiss her.
............You kiss her so hard her lips bleed,
............Three little drops fall on her chin.
.
“Well hot damn! That was about enough to make me straight. Just about,” she says, and she laughs. Everyone in Denny’s laughs, you included. You laugh so hard it hurts. Sandy pats you on the back laughing just as hard, and passes you her flask. You talk about failed loves, failed expectations. Sandy tells you that when she was younger she wanted to be a beauty queen, or a princess, but that she never felt right in a dress. She tells you that late at night she would sneak down into her father’s garage and make a tiara of his air filter, a scepter of his wrench. When he found her, he would cry and say, “You can be a princess in the morning Sweetpea.” You add Sandy and Sally’s shared nickname to your list.
.
It’s three thirty when you finally leave Denny’s. Sandy tells you she had a great time. She tells you Sally’s a lucky girl. If all guys were like you, there might be less girls like her that hate men. You tell her she’s just drunk. It’s just the rum talking. She agrees she’s drunk, but says, “It ain’t the rum talking honey. Come on, take me to my truck. I got those pallets of food to deliver before sunup.”
.
............You drive Sally back to her sparkling-white
............truck.
............She sings. She sings-Heigh-ho,
............Heigh-ho
............It’s off to mother fucking work I go,
............I go.
.
“Touch the green wire to the white one,” says Sandy. She’s having you hotwire the truck. She’s having you hotwire the truck because she’s too drunk to do it herself. She’s also too drunk to drive, but that isn’t going to stop her. She says she’s seen you drive, and you’re pathetic. “If you can’t fuckin’ control four wheels,” she says, “how are ya going to control eighteen.” You touch the green wire to the white wire. The semi pings and pangs to life. Sally tells you nice work, you might be useful after all, and she pats you on the back in that loving way of hers. She pats you on the back and throws the truck in gear.
.
The whole way to the Piggly Wiggly you and Sandy sing along with her Credence cassette at top volume. She toots her horn to the rhythm of Susie Q while you play air guitar and turn the dash into a snare drum. When the A side of the tape ends, you tell her that for Christmas you’re getting her a CD player or an IPod because it’s time to get out of the eighties. She says, “Fuck your CD’s, I like my cassettes just fine. Now stop yakking and sing dear.”
.
.............You sing.
.............You sing till it hurts.
.............Till it hurts enough
.............That you know you’re still alive.
.
When you finally get to the Piggly Wiggly, it’s four-thirty. Sandy is concerned by this. She says she can’t get back to the shop later than five. Frank, her boss, forbids it. “He’s not a mean guy, real sweet in fact,” she says. “He and the other guys just worry about me. They like me to be home and in bed before sunup They know if I’m not, I’ll just pass out where I stand.
............You know now where you’ve seen those little red shoes.
............You know now why Sally never had a problem with your
............not wanting her to stay overnight.
.
It’s four fifty when you and Sandy finish unloading the truck. The produce manager is not happy. He tells Sandy he’s considering switching shipping companies. She tells him to blow it out his ass. She and her new partner here are faster than anybody else he can find so he can shut his god-damn mouth. The produce manager drops his clipboard. He drops his mouth further. You tell him not to worry. These things happen when you’re dealing with Sandy. You hand him the order. He signs, and you and Sandy head back to the truck high-fiving and passing her flask.. It’s nearly five when you hop in the cab.
.
When she gets up in the truck, Sandy tells you she’s not feeling so well. She tells you she hates to do it, but she has to let you drive her home; she might just fall asleep if she doesn’t. You tell her it’s probably just the alcohol. She says, “I don’t think it’s that. I just get this way every mornin’ and I can’t put my finger on it.” You tell her to relax. You know where to take her.
.
You slide into the driver’s seat, and Sandy crawls back into the sleeper cab. She tells you if you hurt her baby, she’ll beat the piss out of you. You laugh nervously and grab the wheel with one hand and the shifter with the other. At first you grind the gears a bit and Sandy growls in her sleep, but after awhile, you get the hang of things. You even start to sing Sandy’s little song.
.
............Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho
............It’s off to mother fucking work I go.
............I go.
.
The sky begins to turn a lighter shade of blue and the moon becomes less pronounced as you make a wide right-hand turn into your neighborhood. You hear Sandy groan in her sleep when you catch the curb with your rear wheels. You ease the truck back onto the pavement. You’ve never seen your neighborhood at this hour. It’s beautiful. Everything’s stock-still. In an hour, the birds will begin to chirp, the coffee makers will churn, and the sun’s rays will begin to break over the horizon and dance on the truck’s sparkling white hood. But for now, it’s just you and Sandy navigating through this deathly still landscape. You tell yourself you could get used to this. ..
.
When you get to your house, you notice a little blue and yellow work van in the driveway. You park in the middle of the street and check on Sandy. She’s out cold.
You throw her over your shoulder and stumble up the drive. You head inside to deal with the seven sets of red shoes.
.
When you walk into the kitchen you see them. You see Harry, Barry, Jack, John, Lenny, Lou, and Frank. They’re all drinking little thimbles-full of your best scotch, well, all except Lou; he’s already passed out naked in the pantry. They’re all drinking your best scotch and singing in that sing-song way of theirs. They’re singing…
.
............Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho
............It’s down the bottle goes
............When the drip drip hits your lips
............It’s time to show some nips.
............Hi-ho Hi-ho.
..
You ask them, What the hell is the meaning of all this? Don’t you know a locked door means do not enter? You also ask them if they have any idea what they just drank. Frank tells you, “Yes, we drank your Dalmore 62 Single Highland Malt Scotch, and that’s no way to talk to your guests.” You tell him, they’re not your guests. Lou stumbles out of the pantry and urinates in the refrigerator.
..
“We noticed someone wasn’t sleeping in their bed,” says Harry.
“We noticed someone wasn’t at the shop by five,” says Frank, pointing at Sandy passed out on your shoulder. “We were worried.”
..
“She was fine. She was with me,” you say.
..
“We were so worried,” say all seven sets of red shoes, even Lou. Frank, who’s always struck you as the tough-guy out of all seven roommates, gets a little teary eyed. He tells you he’s so glad she’s okay. He’s so glad you understand. He asks you to sit down so he can explain the details, and offers you the last shot of your Dalmore 62.
.
............You tell them to wait.
............You tell them to wait and,
............You Lay Sandy on the couch.
.
You pull a stool up to the table and take your shot. You take your shot and tell Frank you’re all ears. Fire away.
.
Frank tells you that this whole Sally/Sandy morphing thing is the result of some curse Sally’s great, great, great grandmother’s stepmother put on her when she was a little girl. On the distant grandmother, not Sally. Sally just had the misfortune of inheriting this awful thing at birth. “She also inherited a house in the woods, and all seven of us,” says Frank. “We were supposed to be her servants, but she didn’t think it was fair to boss us around. So we just make sure she’s okay now. We love her. She’s like family. Like a pretty sister, and an over-protective lesbian sister all in one. It’s nice.” You ask Frank a series of questions, like—how is it Sally knows about Sandy, but Sandy doesn’t seem to know about Sally? And why does her Buick change into a Semi; couldn’t there just be two vehicles? He tells you it’s complicated. It’s a mix of repressed emotions and magical realism that, when it comes down to it, you either accept or you don’t.
.

............You find this answer to be sufficient.
............It’s not like you have a choice.
............It’s not like the woman morphing on your couch
............as you and frank speak
............isn’t
............evidence enough.
.
You excuse yourself from the table.
.
As you approach the couch, you notice the beams of sunlight dancing across the horizon, fragmenting off the Buick’s rusty hood thru the window—they’re illuminating the steadily disappearing wrinkles in her skin white as snow, accenting the transformation of her tightly trimmed locks to long flowing ebony stands while the two of them lay as one on the couch before you, a wonderful juxtaposition of brashness and beauty. You look at them and you realize you love them. You love them both.
.

2009-02-13T05:54:00.000-08:00

________________________________
Bob's Magazine
Winter 2009, Volume II, #1: Writers Reading

2009-02-02T10:22:00.000-08:00

"A book should be an ax to break the frozen sea inside us."

Franz Kafka, Letter to Oskar Pollack, January 27, 1904

.
Contents:

Shannon Miller, "The Solace of Open Spaces..."
Katie Stoynoff, "Who Wouldn't Love a Talking Pig?"
Michelle Skupski Bissell, "Something to Talk About"
Elizabeth Modarelli, "From Yellow to Blue"
Shurice Gross, "The Introduction of Possibility"
Steve Smith, "Red Wheels Rolling"
David Giffels, "Jerry Todd and the Purring Egg"
Jason Mullin, "S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders"
Dawson Steeber, "An Old T-shirt"
Eric Wasserman, "A Lifelong Treasure"
Emily Dressler, "The Day I Met an Author"
Tobin Terry, "Reading Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle..."
John Skarl, "Pigman"
Robert Pope, "The Golden Slave"
.

If you recall the experience of reading something early in life that has stuck, or something more recent--some important reading experience--I'd like to hear about it. Such moments have sensory as well as intellectual and spiritual elements. Send them to rpope@uakron.edu and I'll put them up. Short pieces are more readable on a blog, but that doesn't make them less whole!

Shannon Miller

2009-02-02T10:11:00.000-08:00

The Solace of Open Spaces, by Gretel Ehrlich

In July 1998, I walked into the Jackson Hole Booktrader on Broadway in the downtown historic district, not knowing I would find within the dusty shelves there the book that would change my life and shape my writing forever.

Searching for a home to meet my own wide open spirit, I stumbled into Jackson broken hearted and broke to open up this book and read this: “the detour, of course, became the actual path; the digressions in my writing, the narrative.” I had met my literary match.

If the world ended and I had to grab a handful of earthly possessions, I would cling tightly to my tattered, highlighted, underlined copy of Solace. I devoured the book at night when I was alone in my cabin, reading by oil lamp and listening to the Hoback river running behind. No other author, much less woman, had ever come close to documenting my own thoughts and feelings about nature, loneliness, heartbreak, and landscape – the landscape we both loved: Wyoming.

In her descriptions of ranchers and the dust that settles over the west, I felt at home, for I could look out my very window and see this very scene, “Dust rises like an evening gown behind his truck. It flies free for a moment, then returns, leisurely, to the habitual road – that bruised string which leads to and from my heart.”

In her narrative, we seemed to be living the same life. I was living in a one-room cabin without running water, and my only companions were 180 Alaskan Huskies at the sled dog camp where I lived. For those who’ve never seen a Wyoming winter, it is an overwhelming beauty, a force extreme. During those times, I’d stoke the wood burning stove – my only heat source – and read: “days when the temperature never rose above zero my log cabin felt like a forest pulled around me. Outside, hard wind-packed snowdrifts grew, flanking the cabin like monstrous shoulder pads. Rusty the dog …was my only companion. I played Scrabble with him every night and he won.”

I can still smell that wood burner when I open this book. I can still hear that river, still feel that loneliness and heartbreak and the sense that I had found myself alone, but at home. When I open this book, I remember the wild roaming spirit inside of me – the Americana that proudly, fiercely clings to the culture of all of those who endure despite challenges, who persevere despite adversity. I am connected and inspired by the strength of that west, of those who are hardened from an unforgiving landscape and hard work, but soften at the sight of a rolling prairie or a lone sheep in a winter storm.

Katie Stoynoff

2009-01-27T08:18:00.000-08:00

Who Wouldn’t Love a Talking Pig?

There are conflicting reports about my reading abilities as a youngster. My dad says all I asked to do when I was young was read. My mother says I didn’t want to read and will tell anyone who will listen that I couldn’t read when I went to Kindergarten, as if it is some sin of which I can’t be absolved. The only thing I can say with any certainty is I loved to read after third grade.

My third grade teacher, Mrs. Spurgeon, was a throwback to a different time. When I had her in 1984, I was confident she was at least 85, when in fact she couldn’t have been more than 50 or 55. She was “Mrs. Claus” with yard stick and a West Virginia accent. She meant business. Her career started in the 40’s in a one room school house, where she had perfected a loving nature, mixed with just enough grumpiness to keep the wild boys in our class in line.

The reason I remember her so vividly, when the memory of so many of my other elementary teachers has faded, is her art for reading a story. Over the course of the school year, I imagine she read us hundreds of chapter books and short stories but by far my fondest memory comes from her reading of E.B. White's Charlotte’s Web. She had a voice for every character, which brought them to life. We read a chapter everyday, and I looked forward to the time after lunch when we gathered on the “reading rug” to hear the next adventure of Fern, Wilbur, and Charlotte. I have read the book no less than 30 times. I still hear her voices.

Mrs. Spurgeon died in 2007. The picture in her obituary showed she had changed little since 1984. Her passing caused me to reflect on her teaching and what I learned from her class. I realized that I learned a lot about being a good teacher from her. Successful teachers know when to be a warm-hearted “Mrs. Claus” and when to use their “yard stick” to teach students the important lesson that their success is based on their choices. But more importantly than that, I learned from Charlotte’s Web what it means to be a good friend. I imagine that is what she wanted us to get from the book - that and a lifelong love for talking pigs. Fortunately, I got both.

Michelle Skupski Bissell

2009-01-24T13:52:00.000-08:00

East of Eden: Something to Talk About

The first time I walked after doctors slit open my lower abdomen to drain and remove two menacing cysts, I nearly passed out, my ears full of the buzzing that comes just before unconsciousness as I attempted to lift my legs back into bed (also an impossible task with traumatized ab muscles). Recovery was eight weeks. Eight weeks, and for two of those walking was as painful as any activity I’d undertaken in my twenty years. So I didn’t walk much, only to the street corner and back, once a day for the first week, my mother wrapping her arms around me, supporting my hunched figure. I spent most of my time reading, turned sideways in an oversized chair to relieve the pressure from my sutured skin. It was during those eight weeks (which really only turned out to be six) that I read, for the first time, John Steinbeck’s East of Eden.

I cannot deny the fact that the conditions in which I read East of Eden shaped my experience of it. I was a twenty-year old college student comfortable in a life of instant gratification: I ran daily, felt the sweat poor down my back; I craved Cheez-Its, drove to the store and bought a box. Suddenly I was trapped in a house with my mother (whom I love dearly, but nonetheless), quite immobile. Novels, and I sifted through a number of them during my recovery, provided a means of mobility. For the hours my mind engaged in coursing the pages of Steinbeck’s masterpiece, I was not in the big blue chair in the family room of my parents’ house. Well, I was, really, but I was not focusing on this fact, and, as far as my mind knew, I was in the Salinas Valley. If my physical body could not move, then at very least my mind could. There is no more fitting way to exercise the mind than through narrative because it is familiar, comfortable. There is a beginning, middle, and end trapped between two covers. If only all of life was that tidy. I can’t squeeze my personal narrative, still in motion, between pieces of cardboard, so, in that way, a novel is a reminder of mortality. There is some satisfaction—gratification—in being able to close a novel and know that I’ve finished something (and not my own story). In the case of East of Eden, I finished a 601-page something. I needed to feel a sense of accomplishment during those weeks.

Now, nearly five years after that stationary summer, I would describe myself as a Steinbeck fan. But I only became a Steinbeck junkie because of a family vacation scheduled for six weeks after my surgery (which is why I cut my recovery short; I had Bryce Canyon to climb). My parents had always wanted to take my brother and me out west, and it just so happened we were going to be making a stop in Salinas, California. My mom did her research on the area and tempted me with the prospect of visiting the National Steinbeck Center on our way down California’s coast. I’d previously read The Grapes of Wrath and maybe Of Mice and Men, but that’s hardly enough familiarity with Steinbeck’s life work to justify subjecting my father and my seventeen year old brother to hours of Steinbeck paraphernalia, including, as I recall, Rocinante, the trailer Steinbeck traveled the country in while writing Travels with Charley. So I began reading Steinbeck, beginning with East of Eden. This is the most literal example of what a novel can do: prepare one for life experience.

If it was simply the circumstances of reading East of Eden that made it memorable, taught me about the possibilities of a novel, I could just as easily be writing about Cannery Row or Tortilla Flat right now, as I read those, too, during my six-week entrapment. But there’s something, several things, about East of Eden that cause me to name it, quickly, when asked about my favorite book. For one, there’s Cathy Ames, though I have to admit that I had to look up her name. Steinbeck begins the first chapter that traces her life like this: “I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents” (71). That is the readers’ initial glimpse of Cathy Ames. She is monster-like, truly, burning her parents home down as a teenager, intentionally, and them with it. She committed such an act without any regret. She lies and manipulates, conjuring fake tears while explaining her fabricated story about her situation to the whoremaster who hires her (92). Now that’s a character. And that’s only the beginning of her character. It’s been one year since I reread East of Eden, and I can’t name most of the characters or highlight any plot points. But when I close my eyes, searching for some of the book’s details, all I find staring back at me are red, devil eyes, Cathy Ames eyes. In the book, she doesn’t have such eyes (to the best of my memory), though that’s how I picture her. I should want to forget her, those eyes, her evil acts, but I don’t. I want always to be able to retrieve her character. That’s the power of a novel, to create within readers a tension.

And second, there’s the plot. I already noted that the plot is, at best, hazy in my memory. I do recall, however, thinking this: Steinbeck so gracefully steals the Biblical narrative (parts of Genesis, that is). There is so much emphasis in academia, especially at the graduate level, to think originally, to write something new. As a poet, I feel an inordinate amount of pressure to develop a form or tackle taboo subject matter just so that I can apply that adjective ‘new’ to my work. New, fresh, original. East of Eden is all of these things despite the fact that it derives from an age-old story. That’s its brilliance. East of Eden reminds me that it’s acceptable, respectable even, to mooch. I can rejuvenate old stories, poems, and ideas to create something both familiar and foreign.

I’ve read East of Eden twice now, and each time I finish reading it, shutting the cover, reveling in that sense of accomplishment, I feel a desperate urge to open it up and begin it all over again, as if I would be satisfied to adopt Cathy Ames’s narrative, or Caleb Trask’s narrative, as my own. Of course, I resist that urge, though I suspect I will reread it many times more, until I can recite its story as fluently as I can my own. Instead, I brag about East of Eden to family and friends, sometimes even buying more copies to give away so that others might be able to enjoy it as much as I do. Perhaps that’s the most important accomplishment of a novel: creating human connection. If I were ever trapped in a room, sitting sideways in an oversized chair, with all the people, dead or alive, that have ever read East of Eden, at least we’d have something to talk about.

Cited: Steinbeck, John. East of Eden. New York: Penguin, 2002.

Elizabeth Modarelli

2009-01-24T04:25:00.000-08:00

From Yellow to Blue

By the time I was about eleven or twelve years old, I had already read all the books with yellow YA (young adult) stickers on their spines that the little branch library on Kenmore Boulevard had to offer. Okay, maybe not all of them, but all of the good ones, anyway. Good, of course = those with intriguing pictures on the front and/or jacket summaries interesting enough for me to take the effort to check them out (what a huge responsibility those jacket blurb writers have!). I had always been a reader and a regular library patron. When I was very young, Mom used to take me once or twice a week, and we would check out enough books to fill two canvas bags. The library was small, though about half of it comprised the children’s section, so the selection was fairly large. Also, some books were so great that I checked them out more than once. Nevertheless, at a pace of twenty to forty books per week, a kid could go through those holdings much more quickly than expected.

So I graduated to the YA section. I read staples by Judy Blume, Cynthia Voigt, and Paul Zindel, a couple of series aimed at adolescent girls (Sweet Valley Twins and Baby-sitters Club come to mind), and some pretty bad mysteries (which, I’m convinced, turned me off of the genre for good). They were all okay, and I had such a hunger for reading that I didn’t really discriminate much. I just wanted to read. I don’t know if I really felt it at the time or if I’m projecting onto my memories, but I seem to recall a growing dissatisfaction with these books with the little, round yellow stickers. It wasn’t enough to make me stop reading, though. For some reason, boredom with the increasingly mundane and predictable stories didn’t stifle the urge, the almost physical need, to read. I knew I should probably advance to the adult section, where the round stickers were blue. I knew I had to move on, but I think I was a little scared, so I stuck to the YA section until I had read all the books with moderately interesting jackets or back covers.

One day, after returning a particularly disappointing batch of yellow-stickered books, I took a few steps to the right of the YA section into a small section of shelves labeled “Classics.” The books on these shelves looked different—no flashy covers, more dignified in some way. I stood there for a while, running my fingers along the spines of these plain-looking books with names of authors that felt strange on my tongue—Fitzgerald, Hawthorne, Steinbeck—feeling as if, at any moment, the librarian would walk over to me and steer me back to the YA section, where I belonged. These books looked heavier, and I was surprised when I took one off the shelf to realize it didn’t weigh more than the books I had been reading. I’m not really sure how I settled on A Farewell to Arms. I would guess it was a combination of several factors:

.......1. “Ernest Hemingway” just sounded like the name of a great writer (I had probably heard it somewhere before, though I wasn’t conscious of remembering it at the time).

.......2. The back cover blurb probably mentioned something about a beautiful love story during a time of war. The jacket blurb of the copy I have now promises “a story of a volunteer ambulance driver wounded on the Italian front, the beautiful British nurse with whom he falls in love, and their journey to find some small sanctuary in a world gone mad with war.” What adolescent girl could resist such a story?

.......3. I was growing increasingly nervous under what I thought were the disapproving gazes of adult patrons and library staff (though, admittedly, I had a wicked imagination when I was younger that no doubt created danger where was none in my boring, sheltered life). I just wanted to grab a book, hope they let me check it out, and get out of there.

It was summer, so I had all day to read. I remember feeling that, beyond the fact that I was reading an adult book, there was something different with this writing. Though it was written at least twenty years before most of the books I had been reading, and though it was set decades before during a war I knew little about, it somehow felt more real than the yellow-stickered books. I couldn’t put my finger on it—still can’t really—but as I read that book lying on the bed in my yellow (yes, yellow) bedroom, I felt like this was what I’d been searching for but had until now been unable to find in books. Page after page, I was drawn in through the language—simple enough on the surface for my adolescent mind to follow, but containing deeper meanings I’m sure I missed—and I got to know the characters, characters who were not predictable or flat. Though I certainly couldn’t have put it into words then, I think, in a way, I understood that this book had been crafted, like a piece of art. It wasn’t just the story (though the story did intrigue me) that made this a great book; it was the language, the deliberateness of every paragraph, every sentence, every word. This was certainly something new to a girl who had been reading books in series written by ghostwriters, books pumped out at an alarming pace.

There was something else that made this book different—no happy ending. I remember desperately turning the last page, looking for the rest of the story, tears running down my cheeks, crying aloud, “Wait, that can’t be how it ends! Books don’t end this way!” At first, I was angry. I had just invested two valuable summer days in this book—beautiful, sunny afternoons I could have spent in happy activities that wouldn’t make me cry—that didn’t end how it was supposed to end. I threw the book on my bedroom floor, cursing this Ernest Hemingway and vowing never to venture out of the security and happy (correct) endings of the YA books again. I didn’t read another book for a few days after that (my mother felt my head for a fever, this deviation in my routine causing her to think I must be seriously ill). I tried to forget about Catherine and Lieutenant Henry, but I couldn’t. And this frustrated me even more. After all, almost immediately after closing many of the books I’d read before, the characters disappeared from my mind, making room for those of the next book. They didn’t hang around, pestering me with thoughts like, “Hey, little girl, this is real life. Shitty things happen, and the boy and girl do not always live happily ever after.”

Although it would be a stretch to claim that reading A Farewell to Arms immediately propelled me into an adult (other factors of that time period, like entering junior high, reaching puberty, and the like certainly contributed), I think it was a pivotal experience for me. After my three-day long hiatus from reading, during which time I concluded that a book that could elicit such a strong reaction deserved better treatment than being thrown on the cluttered floor of an adolescent girl’s bedroom amidst muddy tennis shoes and Mad Libs, I returned to the library, dropped Hemingway (who had lived up to my initial assessment of his name) through the “Return Books Here” slot, and walked past the YA section over to the classics again, this time with a little less apprehension. I had read one of these books and survived, though the last few pages were now marked with my tears, so I felt as if I now had a right to be there. I don’t remember which book I chose that day, though I know it wasn’t another Hemingway—I wanted to see if it was just him or if other writers in this enigmatically named section could affect me so powerfully. I don’t remember because that summer started my voracious devouring of “classic” literature that would continue through junior high and high school and prompt me to declare English as my major in college.

I feel a little embarrassed to admit this, but though I’ve read many Hemingway novels in the twenty years since that first summer, several of them more than once, I have not reread A Farewell to Arms. I own a beautiful hardback edition, and I have told myself I really should read it again, but I think I’m afraid of sullying the memory of that first reading. What if I don’t like it this time? What if it doesn’t make me cry? I’ve returned to many books I read when I was younger, getting something different out of each reading, and I lived through these experiences just fine, better in fact, for being able to compare readings. But I have built up A Farewell to Arms so much in my memory that it feels like there is some danger of unraveling the very identity of my reader self if I return to it with all the knowledge of Hemingway’s biography and with comments of fellow graduate students who claim his writing is overrated and misogynistic as background noise. As a student of literature, particularly one who leans toward feminist theories, I can see their points and even, to some extent, agree with their assessments, wondering how I would feel about his novels if I approached them for the first time today. But a part of me remains oddly and fiercely loyal to the writer who brought me into the wondrous world of the little blue stickers.

Shurice Gross

2009-01-23T08:39:00.000-08:00

The Introduction of Possibility

Mrs. Katz, the librarian at the elementary school I attended, was very opinionated about the kinds of books children should or should not read. Our small basement library was filled with reference books, volumes of Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew novels. But the kinds of books I liked to read were not found on those dusty shelves. I once overheard Mrs. Katz explain her hatred of Judy Blume, one of my favorite authors. “She’s just not a good writer,” she said. “The books she writes are too mature for children.” Not only was this statement a bold-faced lie, in my fourth-grade opinion, it only made me want to read more Blume.

My mother got me a public library card and I was allowed to walk the seven blocks from home to the Maple Valley library. To a voracious reader, a library card is better than high-limit credit card. I carried home as many books as my small arms could carry. The myriad choices were daunting to a 9-year old, but I made it through Blume, through Cleary and into the D’s. Authors I had never read before, but I happened across an old, worn hardcover edition of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Every book I’d ever read up to that point had been straightforward, reality based, and even still, those are the stories I enjoy most, the stories I enjoy writing the most. But Dahl introduced me to a nonsensical world in which anything, indeed, everything was possible. There was a separation in my mind concerning the world of fairy tales and the world of say, Ramona and Beezus, and I’d never encountered a book that dealt in both. Dahl’s description of the Bucket family’s destitution almost made poverty admirable. I began savoring my Hershey bars, eating them bit by bit, trying to make them last as long as Charlie did.

Here, in this story, was a hero’s journey. A classic rags to riches tale, but one that moves through a magical world of Oompa Loompas, Everlasting Gobstoppers and chocolate rivers. Charlie Bucket, with his 10-cent birthday candy bars and daily cabbage soup diet was a character that I recognized. From Aesop’s fables, he was the tortoise, slow and steady, but destined to win it all. A charmed prince disguised as a hopelessly innocent, hopelessly poverty-stricken little boy.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory became a precursor to other eventual childhood favorites, Norman Juster’s Phantom Tollbooth, and Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story. I was entranced by the ridiculousness of the story. It was a world that I wanted to wallow in – who could not want to follow Charlie into Wonka’s factory? And once there, what child would not want to stay?

After my first read, I knew my mother would love it. But she worked nights and slept days, which didn’t leave much time for reading. She asked me to read the book to her as she dressed for work. We settled into a routine; I lay on the carpeted hallway floor as she dashed back and forth between her bedroom and the bathroom. It took us a full workweek to finish the novel. My mother enjoyed the story, as I thought she would. She interrupted me with her comments, “Now if they are that poor, he know he shouldn’t be buying tobacco,” and stopped me to point out the underlying morality in the story, “See, that’s what happens when you don’t listen. I like this story.” I’ll never forget how she laughed at the end, when Charlie, Grandpa Joe and Willy Wonka crashed into the family’s house.

CRASH, went the elevator, right down through the roof of the house into the old people’s bedroom. Showers of dust and broken tiles and bits of wood and cockroaches and spiders and bricks and cement went raining down on the three old ones that were laying in the bed, and each of them thought the end of the world was come.[1]

My mother stood in front of the bathroom mirror, one hand holding the Maybelline mascara brush in the air as she laughed, her head tilted back, neck exposed, hair curled around her ear. That may have been the moment when something came together in my mind. I could make my mother laugh like that – I could make other people laugh like that with my own stories. It’s fair to say that I chose this book partially because that memory is precious to me and in that moment, I felt as if I’d also found a golden ticket.

[1] Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (New York: Penguin, 1964) 153.

Steve Smith

2009-01-13T19:26:00.000-08:00

Red Wheels Rolling

It’s fitting that nowhere on Amazon dot com can one find the cover image of the story book for boys, Watch Those Red Wheels Roll! Published in 1965 and written by Marion Renick, this book carries with it a meaning consistent with my notion of what makes a good book still today. Its obscurity seems apropos because as I read this book from cover to cover at age 10, it kept me reading simply because it represented a good story. Period. A good story. Neither jaded nor learned, I was simply a poor boy living in the inner city of Akron, attending a newly built school—Clinton D. Barrett Elementary School. This book was about race cars. Make no mistake—I would have surrendered every molar in my head if I could have had only the means necessary to build a race car suitable for competition in Akron’s All-American Soap Box Derby.

Sadly, that dream sprung up in the home of a struggling truck driver with four children. It thrived a bit then died and faded there in the Wilbeth-Arlington Housing Project. The beauty of the book, however, was that it sowed in my mind the first seeds that if my ragged friends and I could not afford to race down the majestic green and white lined hill that stood just two miles from our homes, we might build and race our own. Renick’s book got me thinking that with some stolen lumber, a mix of lawnmower and golf cart wheels, axles and washers, a steering bolt, and a hunk of jump rope, we could race Ericsson Avenue down to Rosemary Boulevard and from there pert near to Arlington Street, wood shop goggles and glory.

How great the story a boy discovers without the educated arm shadowing over him pointing out the recognized and critically reviewed. Better yet, how great the story that illuminates for children the path to ingenuity and fun.

David Giffels

2009-01-12T06:10:00.000-08:00

Jerry Todd and the Purring Egg

When I was a kid, my parents used to make Sunday afternoon visits to the Bookseller in Akron and allow each of us to pick one old used book from the basement shelves, an endeavor that taught me one of the great joys of literature: its smell. In those basement stacks, I took to cracking open the spines and, when no one was looking, breathing deeply the dark perfume of aged pulp and ink, sometimes even touching my tongue lightly to the page for a taste. It was in this way that I selected "Jerry Todd and the Purring Egg," published in 1925, one of a series of B-level adventures for boys that quickly became a skewed passion. Because of the nature of the Bookseller's inventory, I became an aficionado of thickly anachronistic pulp literature, favoring books with fanciful frontispieces and characters named Red and Scoop and Cap'n and boys who drank coffee and other such truck. And always, always testing them first with my nose.

When I was studying at Akron, I would do the same thing at the Goodwill store at the edge of campus (which store I will always associate with the smell of the Wonder Bread factory). That's where I learned that I was a fan of books with the Penguin penguin on the spine, without really understanding the higher principles of brand identity; when hundreds and hudreds of 25-cent books are randomly gathered and displayed with equal randomness, tiny details make all the difference. (Isn't that how butterflies find their mates?) I discovered Mary Gordon that way.

Jason Mullin

2009-01-08T09:36:00.000-08:00

S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders

In the seventh grade, the boys at St. James Catholic School fought a turf war over a book: S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders. Although curious of the world, we had no sense of the power of books. For answers, we looked elsewhere. Billy Ruggeri routinely held private show and tell sessions in which he produced numchucks, brass knuckles, and knives of all size and ferocity borrowed from his father’s collection. Chris Gallagher once produced three cans of warm beer, and seven of us gathered round at Webb Park, adopting the bitter, familiar smell of our fathers with each arduous sip. Todd Link often presented us with his mother’s pornography, and Jeff Billings stole cigarettes from his grandmother’s purse at will. These things changed us, and though frightening, they were not unexpected, nothing like our reaction to Hinton. That is, we knew we had to fight one another now and then, and if someone offered a lit cigarette or open beer, then we had to take a drag. Also was it necessary to slip our sweaty palms beneath our girlfriends’ blouses when dared. This we accepted. But a book, a novel no less, rising to a level of importance, of necessity, of grace even, this surprised us wholly.

Before computers and the magic and mystery of the internet fused with the library experience, we regarded the task of searching through card catalogs in order to locate a book equivalent to marching through our own backyards to collect a switch with which to be beaten. The stacks at St. James were impossibly dry, and we suspected wholesome Catholic teachings in every page, positive lessons on life buried deep in the prose. Who could withstand preaching while his body transformed in the grotesquerie of puberty? There was no Stephen King, no Sydney Sheldon (a very good read for a curious thirteen-year-old), no J.D. Salinger, no H.P. Lovecraft. A few liked Poe but were dubious—he wrote poems as well. Was he one of them? The book, our book, had been there all along, we supposed, and now, upon discovering it, we suffered an awakening of sorts.

The Outsiders did not remain checked out for long, two days, maybe three at the most. Many held it a single day, stumbling to school with heavy eyes and the vague notion they were different types of boys than they had thought. One by one, Hinton startled us with the idea such intimacy was possible between us and anything else, let alone a novel. And for those of us not yet indoctrinated, we feared the school would discover the book before we could read it. Despite the recurrent images of handguns and switchblades, the incessant smoking, the coarse language, and the heavy sexual overtones, the book remained on the shelf. Had the nuns slipped? Had Sister Dolores, who had held onto the practice of corporal punishment in school long after its legality expired, allowed us access to this book on purpose? Had the same priests who promised hell fire over missed sermons and Friday cheeseburgers been won over by Hinton’s hard scrabble world? Unless a trap, an oversight this great could not last.

When we spoke of the book, we did not mention its emotional impact, though that was the draw. Instead, we professed love for the knifing by the fountain, for the gang fight in the abandoned lot, or for the way Dally refuses to surrender in the park, choosing a hail of bullets over conformity. We maintained our mantle of aloofness. (Young writers do that, too, disguise their lack of emotional investment with profanity, gore, and aggression.) Yet communal as our experience was, it remained secret. Like all our adolescent pains, we hid them from the only other people capable of empathy, each other. There is no more solitary creature than a seventh-grade boy. Connection was the change we wanted yet feared most. Alone, we confronted our own sensitivity, disapproving, therefore, even of ourselves.

We didn’t know who read it first, who experienced that initial shock of self-discovery, but the fight for its possession gripped us in a kind of temporary psychosis. Eric Gelb wrote Bobby is an Aids-man on the desk of Robert Skully, who insisted no one call him Bobby. And David McMichael punched Terry Burchak so hard in the groin he peed a little blood. Yet no one returned the book unfinished. Those of us who hadn’t read it could scarcely bear the exclusion, the waiting. It’s been three days. Who’s got it? Those in the know teased the others, holding lofty conversations, retelling their favorite scenes, and shooing away the unread. The air in the library thickened, as if violence could erupt any moment. There was something too savage about it all, something awful and permanent about being last, as if our place at the bottom of seventh-grade society was at last confirmed. I would not be that boy.

Back then I was neither bookish nor athletic, neither lonely nor popular, neither bully nor victim. Amorphous in the way of all adolescents, I longed for knowledge of myself. The question what do you want to be when you grow up implies that at present, you are nothing. Finally, when there was no one left tougher than me who hadn’t read the book, the librarian stamped my card. The tattered plastic cover lay bedside while I read the story three times over four days. If I couldn’t read it first, I would read it most, I reasoned. In the novel, Ponyboy suspects his identity is incomplete, that he is more, or at least different, than his greaser label, and sunken into my bed, the only child of a broken marriage, feeling like nothing much, I wondered whether I was something even less than that, perhaps lacking identity altogether, yet realizing on some base level I existed already, an unrealized self, hovering in the future, waiting.

Dawson Steeber

2009-01-02T11:22:00.000-08:00

An Old T-shirt

I have an old T-shirt—coming apart at the neck, stained around the belly—on which is a black and white photograph of Charles “Hank” Bukowski. He looks to be in his fifties, but is more likely in his thirties, and is leaning against a streetlight, one arm wrapped around it like an old friend. His forearm rests on a pamphlet box. The sign on the box reads: JESUS CHRIST SAVES FROM ALL SIN. PRAY TO JESUS NOW. OBEY THE BIBLE. WARNING: DEATH, JUDGMENT, ETERNITY, HEAVEN or HELL. There is also a small note telling passersby to TAKE ONE PAPER FREE. The box is empty. Several people have asked who the preacher is on my shirt, and expressed more than a little surprise that I am religious. I generally laugh and explain that the preacher is a poet and that the shirt, to me, suggests that the Word of God is empty, and Hank is the one to listen to.

I realize this sounds a bit hyperbolic, and too many young braggadocios love to invoke him and his lifestyle, but Bukowski really did have a strong, nearly spiritual effect on me. I was never one for reading. No papers. No glossies. Nothing. Then I serendipitously came across Love is a Dog From Hell when I was around twenty years old. And ever since reading that book from cover to cover over a couple of hours, and repeat readings each day for three days after, I have been addicted to reading his words. In fact, reading Bukowksi was a sort of ironic “moment of clarity”, an epiphanic moment. I read him with the attention an ascetic would poring over the Bible. I read through his oeuvre with a catechismal rigor. I went from simply lying back on the floor of my apartment letting the words rush over me, to actually reading Bukowski’s words.

With his gritty, poignant brevity, with a blunt street vernacular, a frank looseness of tone with seemingly arbitrary line-breaks, the language of the layman—a language that one might use in conversation with a friend over a drink—Bukowski showed me at the heart of the American Dream lies profound ambivalence and empty morality. His first person narratives reflect parts of American society that I had long ignored—the working American, issues of social stratification, a harsh critique of the American Dream, and a critical analysis of work. Bukowski wasn’t the sort of poet that had driven me away from reading poetry; the type that had me disenchanted by literature’s alienating austerity and antiseptic content, though in high school I simply thought it corny and boring.

He was neither elitist, bohemian, nor overtly political, but simply working-class. It was his unique brand of beer-soaked irreverence and comic misadventure, tempered with scathing social commentary, and his blatant challenge to the efficacy of the American Dream; an unwavering assault on numbing, routinized work deadening the majority of Americans and a strong anti-consumerist belief—essentially, to hell with consumption for the sake of consumption—that spoke to me like scripture. I was embracing the sins of man, and Bukowski seemed to be showing me that I had, we have, no other choice. In fact, Bukowski told author Ben Pleasants that all of his, Bukowski’s, work dealt with an America that was “mentally fucked up and unhappy, not knowing what to do, how to get out of bed, how to get a job, how not to get a job, how to get through another day...” Oh, Yes! Tell ‘em, Brother Hank! Brutal truth teller!

I drank in his words and read that my refusal was a positive one, in that it implicitly demanded something more than material affluence. His work, ferociously bleak in its portrayal of life, his depiction of drunks, drug addicts, criminals, prostitutes and outcasts of all shapes and sizes was the world I was living in, those were the people I talked to, worked and drank and rode the bus with everyday.

It was this aliterary style with its characteristic themes of desolation among society’s misfits, outcasts just getting by, managing somehow to cope with the absurdity of life and work, that moved Ezra Pound to recognize Bukowski’s writing as “new” and “slapping the face of the status quo of writing.”

For me, Bukowski’s work will always be one of a kind in its range, its detail, and in its perspective from which readers are able to make value judgments regarding notions of work and its influence on the individual and all of us.

For a long time I carried around copies of Bukowski’s poetry clenched tightly in one hand and, like a bus stop or barstool preacher, I slurred catechisms to anyone who would listen.

Now, a husband and a father, I don’t preach so much, but there is a four shelf altar in my basement to old Hank to which I direct any visitors wanting to read good lines about the bad life.

Eric Wasserman

2009-01-02T11:15:00.000-08:00

A Lifelong Treasure

There is a wonderful line I identify with near the beginning of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe in which the narrator says, “Being the third son of the family, and not bred to any trade, my head began to be filled very early with rambling thoughts.” As the third of four children in an enormous family I didn’t exactly feel special as a little boy. Also, I was a child who struggled in school from dyslexia and was placed in special education classes until the middle of the seventh grade. Reading was definitely no pleasure back then. What I did have going for me was an imagination.

The reader in our family was my oldest brother, Todd. I recall a family vacation to Lake Chelan and seeing Todd reading Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. I was not a reader at the time. I was a boy obsessed with going to the movies and reenacting the plots I loved. My father was one of the first people in our neighborhood to buy a VCR and often recorded movies for us that played on television. One that I loved was the 1950 Walt Disney version of Treasure Island. I remember breaking one of my mother’s brooms in half and attempting to fasten it to my knee with duct tape to play the part of Long John Silver in my playtime fantasies. Treasure Island is one of the first books I read by choice. I read it for two reasons; I knew I liked the story from the movie and I wanted to be like my oldest brother who excelled in school and did not have dyslexia.

Coming from a big family, I had built in playmates, but the truth is that I spent a lot of time by myself imagining stories and acting them out. One of the places I would do that was Highland Forest. Had my mother known I was riding my bicycle into the forest and setting off to play out adventures she would have grounded me until puberty. In that special place I believed I really was Jim Hawkins in Treasure Island. And when the adventures Stevenson put to the page ran out, I created my own because I didn’t want them to end. Alone there in Highland Forest, lost within my own imagination and the world of stories, I found a way to feel special. I would run about the trees singing “Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest— / Yo ho ho, and a bottle of rum!” having no idea what rum was at that age, but Coca Cola would do just fine to play the part. I was a suburban boy dreaming inside boy’s adventures. Like so many places of my childhood, Highland Forest is no longer there. But my imagination is still there among the vanished trees, believing I am living within a story.

When I went on my honeymoon to Scotland I took a copy of Stevenson’s Kidnapped. As I read it on the plane I simply could not imagine a fictional David Balfour. As I read, “I” was David Balfour and Highland Forest was Scotland. I was once again a little boy finding a way to feel special through reading. The Writers’ Museum in Edinburgh has a special Robert Louis Stevenson exhibit. In one of the security protected glass cases is a copy of the first printing of Treasure Island. While there, I stood and looked at it and thought of being that little boy who didn’t feel special who read a book and slipped into the world of the imagination. A book had opened a new door to my life and as a newly married man I was opening another. The once little boy with dyslexia found his life in the special gift of reading was staring at one of the seeds.

Emily Dressler

2009-01-02T11:04:00.000-08:00

The Day I Met an Author

When I was ten, I was obsessed with one author. Her name was Lurlene McDaniel and she wrote books about girls with cancer. They usually died. Every girl was beautiful, even in the throes of sickness. Often, they had gorgeous boyfriends. I devoured these books. I could finish one in a day. They were supposed to make you cry, I think, but I never did.

McDaniel was coming to a bookstore in Fairlawn and I forced my dad to take me. I was nervous about meeting her. I had never met an author before and I didn’t know if you were supposed to meet the people whose books you practically ate. I had been too privy to her private thoughts, and I wondered if it would be awkward to see her.

My dad agreed to take me there on the condition that I stop reading her books. He said I was getting to old for them. Everyone died in the books, I had told him, and I added how grown up that made them. I knew he was right, though. I could tell the books weren’t all that great. It was a guilty pleasure and I was ten. Before we left the bookstore, he bought me Sirens of Titan and Of Mice and Men. Talk about growing up fast.

Meeting her was actually a nightmare. My dad was the only dad there. This was before Borders had a coffeeshop, so he couldn’t even go there and wait. He had to sit there with me. He wasn’t going to, but all the moms were with their daughters, so he stayed with me. I don’t remember what she talked about. I remember that I was the only one wearing basketball sneakers. During the Q & A, my dad nudged me. He knew I had a question. I had asked him my question on the car ride there and he hadn’t been able to answer it.

I asked her why all the sick girls were pretty. I had a big gap in my front teeth, my left eye was lazy, my shoes were never tied, and my hair was an unruly mess of frizzy curls. I asked her if it made the sickness worse, made their death sadder, if they were beautiful. She said no, but her books said otherwise.

On the drive home, I told my dad I didn’t want to read her books anymore. She wrote about people living and dying (mostly dying), and she didn’t talk at all about the magic in anything.

Tobin Terry

2008-12-30T12:01:00.000-08:00

Reading Cat's Cradle at the End of the World

It was the summer of 2007 and I was working for an auto salvage yard in Akron, OH. My job was to be the first person who took inventory of a wrecked or totaled vehicle as it came in. I was required to get into the vehicle to collect information and certain parts or belongings. From time to time, I'd come across a vehicle soaked in human blood. Each vehicle had a story: A suicide car, a broken baby seat, palm crosses on the mirror, a tooth stuck in the dashboard, bullet holes and brain matter. It was depressing to say the least, an occupational pool-pah, if you will.

When Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle was assigned in one of my summer courses, I took it with me to read on my lunch break. I worked ten and twelve hour shifts practically unsupervised, so when I became so engrossed by the book, I took it with me into the yard. I found a wrecked Oldsmobile eighty-eight, maroon inside and out, with broken windows, cleared a spot in the driver's seat, leaned it back and read the book on company time. The novel's sarcastic tone provided nervous laughter where humor didn't seem to exist. I found myself whispering, "busy, busy, busy" and laughing at tragic car wrecks. No, it's not that I was laughing at them, I was laughing at the horrifying seriousness of them. Cat's Cradle was a lesson that it is okay, sometimes necessary even, to do that.

The reading experience was a spiritual one, and I'll never forget reading it, "lying on my back, grinning horribly, and thumbing my nose at You Know Who."

John Skarl

2008-12-29T18:03:00.000-08:00

Pigman

I spent most of my adolescence pretending that I was someone else. A need to transcend the mundane manifested itself through the years I spent sitting around a table role-playing with character sheets and dice. Sometimes role-playing was war in the back of the allotment. In these fictional landscapes, the possibility of death lurked like a dark bird on a highwire.

Dungeons and Dragons experienced a rebirth during the nineties. It had been admonished as a game that further disconnected people from reality, inspired violent behavior, and in some cases, caused lasting mental harm. All three of these side effects could be true for all I know, though I have firm suspicions they are not. I thank God no one forbid our role-playing. Sometimes I wonder if Dungeons and Dragons could have vented Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold’s psychotic behavior into a harmless, hot steam. Our misfit group certainly had violent tendencies, and our discussions, had they been broadcasted or written down, could nowadays be considered grounds for expulsion.

We played other war games. I recall the dank dirt, clingy leaves, army surplus flashlight on one hip, canteen on the other. We had plastic guns—in some cases they were metal—they were all fake, but looked dangerously real. If there happened to be any sissy orange plastic, we pried those parts off or spray-painted them black. We humped the entire woods that spanned for five or six miles behind the allotment—these same woods later became the place we learned to drink or smoke—an irreverent place.

In sixth grade, a man came in to speak to us about the Vietnam War. James Crumb was the father of one of the girls in my class. He talked about how he was drafted. He spoke of his dread but also his sense of duty. He told us his weapon was the M-60 machine gun. That was the gun Rambo held with one arm. He had my attention. He gave us real answers to our questions: “Were you scared?” “Often.” “Did you kill anyone?” “Yes.”

He brought a cardboard box full of books telling his experiences in the war. I was a sixth grader with five dollars lunch money. I decided I could afford to go hungry. Those days I remember thumbing through military equipment guides, marveling over the pictures of guns, tanks and missiles in our library. Here was a living, breathing story. Crumb carried an M-60 machine gun, which could fire 160 rounds per minute. He called it the pig because of its weight, and the pig was called on often.

I still have Pigman. Its cover is a map of Vietnam highlighting the areas Crumb fought in or traveled through. I believe the memoir was self-published because the typeset looks like Courier and there are misspellings. None of these things mattered to me. Here was a true account—truth that wasn't filtered through the news or a history book.

At one point, he described diving into a foxhole to avoid mortar fire. Many others had the same idea, and soon he was buried under soldiers seeking refuge. When the shell hit, these bodies saved his life. He described finding a mass of slaughtered Viet Cong that had been exposed to the sun for weeks and he described their efforts to clean up the bodies on the side of a jungle mountain, how their sun-rotten skin stuck to his hands, the ravenblack smoke clouds, the barrel-rolling artillery planes, how, during the tour, his own reflection grew more and more unrecognizable. It was one book I never forgot.

Robert Pope

2008-12-29T08:04:00.000-08:00

The Golden Slave

When I was very young I read quite a bit but never really noticed it. I read all kinds of things, including Hardy Boys and a series of blue biographies in early years at school. I read indiscriminately. We had a nice illustrated hard-bound copy of John Steinbeck's The Red Pony at home which I read repeatedly. We also had The Winter of Our Discontent, My Chinese Wife, The Good Earth, Please Don't Eat the Daisies, Mister Roberts, The Human Comedy, and quite a few others I also read because they were available. I remember a book by Jim Kjelgaard called Fire Hunter, published in 1951, which excited me more than most books. I checked it out of my school library. I spent some time wandering through the public library reading science fiction books while sitting in the aisles of the stacks. One of my favorite was Martians, Go Home! by Frederic Brown. I hadn't really entered the world of great literature yet, or even the popular favorites of the day. I just read whatever caught my eye or my imagination.

One day I went into the basement of the house we lived in that year--we moved so many times I only remember it by the boxes still sitting around. Even though I recall this as happening when I turned twelve, I must have been fourteen, because the book came out in 1960. Even though I recall this as happening in the house in Virginia, it must have been Frankfurt, Germany because that's where I lived at the time. I pulled a paperback out of a box, The Golden Slave, and started reading--though it might have been a hardback. I saw the paperback years later, so I might have replaced the hardback with paper--if there was a hardback. Within the first few pages--as I recall--the Romans, I think it was, invaded and a mother dashed her infant's brains out against a rock rather than have him taken into slavery. If I am not mistaken, the golden slave went around the world he knew as the world searching for his wife, from whom he had been separated, and performing feats and tasks for kings who rewarded him, at least once--this sticks in my mind--with the lovely woman for his bed pictured on the cover.

I had never read anything like this, and it changed my notion of what a book could do. My eyes were opened. It was a book by Poul Anderson, and once I had read it the world was not the same. It was better and more awesome than it had been before, and the promise of books had grown in the afternoon it took to read it, sitting alone in our basement, on the wooden steps, among the boxes that had not been unpacked. This, I knew, was my father's book, a book he never would have told me about, and I wondered if this didn't indicate the life he lived as a military officer traveling about the world, sometimes with a family, sometimes not. The world promised more than it had ever promised. Literature opened to me as a world with at least as many dangers as the one in which I lived, and far greater rewards. I went after it more actively after this experience.

The Closet

2008-12-12T11:16:00.000-08:00

http://www.valuablesandcuriosities.blogspot.com/

John Skarl teaches at a vocational high school, and I can't think of any better place to be teaching the kind of class on writing fiction that you can read about in his blog (address above). In his blog called The Closet, John has listed and commented on five writers who came to his class and read something they wrote and talked about writing with the students. If writing's not a vocation, John, I don't know what it is. Your students are lucky to have you and this class. Other teachers and schools ought to take notice.

2008-12-12T07:29:00.000-08:00

..............................................Flowers for Everyone

Faith Wally

2008-11-22T09:04:00.000-08:00

The Summer I Stopped Drinking Grape Juice

I was laid up that summer. I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t sit, I couldn’t sleep without pain. The visiting nurse people had dropped off a single bed that rolled up and down with a mechanical crank on the right side. I learned to type that summer. God, I was bored. I got my vicadin prescription refilled over the phone on the bed. My life was lived on the single visiting nurse bed in my mother’s living room. It was the summer I learned how to sleep on my back. I got a lot of phone calls that summer. On a particularly hot day the assistant district attorney called as I typed the brown fox jumps over the big moon. My boyfriend, if you could call him that, broke up with me that same day. I popped vicadin. The second time I called in my prescription they wouldn’t fill it. I think I whined and cried all day over the phone. I couldn’t toss and turn that night; I had to fall asleep on my back.

I wasn’t supposed to walk without crutches for two months; I was stumbling around without them in four weeks. Friends came over and we hung out in the backyard on the bench. We argued politics, film; they kept me in the loop. One of them was a republican. One of them was Goth-industrial. The Goth’s girlfriend had a jeep. She was blonde and plump and boring, but she had a jeep. Sometimes at night, I would spend hours on the phone with the Goth. Bill was his name. He had been in a car accident a year before that summer. We bonded.

I drank a lot of grape juice that summer, I thought it would make me live forever. I really did. I read that somewhere. On the night I threw up all the grape juice I was delirious. I threw up in the shower about ten times that night, and after each violent purple spew, hot water rolling off my head, I went back to the visiting nurse bed with the metal crank on the right side. In the morning I awoke with an anvil on my chest, a fucking hammer driving into my lungs. I tried to smoke a Marlboro light in the taxi on the way to the hospital. It was the first car I’d been in since…dawn.

Dawn on Trexel Road, two bottles of red wine in the back. My best friend is driving and her boyfriend in the passenger seat is trying to change the radio station. I sit in the back with the other guy, a funny guy from South Carolina. Trexal Road is a windy road, and we are on our way to the ledges at Virginia Kendle. There is laughter and commotion and then there is the car pulling to the left. I look calmly at incoming trees and I think for what seems like a flying spark in the face of eternity, ‘Oh. A car accident’. After that there are no thoughts, just tumbling, like the inside of a stuffed washing machine. Tumbling and darkness. I awake in a river, and the stereo is still on. It’s "She Says" by Jane’s Addiction. No one else is awake. I climb out the back, through the garbled hatchback, and when I land in the cold water that is up to my waist, I feel my legs hurt. It doesn’t matter, I am trying to pull open the driver’s side door, then the passenger’s side door. The radio is still playing. A bottle of red wine, completely intact, slowly floats down the steel blue river beside me. I stop moving and watch it bob and float. My legs hurt.

My chest hurts, and trying to inhale the Marlboro light in the taxi makes me laugh, and that hurts too. I am in the back of a cab and the world is floating by and I am scared to be in this car. My bp drops in the waiting room and this causes massive excitement, I feel like I am in a movie, very exciting. It is my second time here over the summer, and this time I stay even longer. One doctor doesn’t believe I fractured my hip, I tell him to fuck off and check the x-rays. He never comes back. The hypothermia caused the pneumonia, but that doesn’t stop the barrage of smoking lectures that week. I drag my iv out on the patio to smoke. I cry the full seven days I am there. My friends visit and give me music to listen to, but I am horribly lonely at night here.

The next week I am back in my living room, on the couch. The visiting nurse people take back the bed with the metal crank on the right. I no longer believe I will live forever; I find grape juice disgusting. I talk to the guy from South Carolina on the phone. I remember him most from the accident. He kept telling me to stop shivering as we watched our friends get cut out of the car. I can’t, I tell him. And really I can’t, it’s dawn in July and the temperature is below fifty and to this day I have no idea how long I was in the water. He tells me over the phone that his best friend will never walk again. I tell him that my best friend is going to prison.

My new friends resume their visits and we sit on the bench outside as the leaves begin to tumble down. We talk about film and politics and the republican rants about how awful Leaving LasVegas was. The pain on my left side is constant for awhile, I am conscious of walking for awhile, I am conscious of sleeping on my side. I no longer believe I will live forever. I walk now wherever I go.

Katherine Schweitzer

2008-11-22T09:01:00.000-08:00

Her Son, His Boy

He decided he would be the morning person since she was not inclined to fall out of bed easily. “He may be your son, but he’s my boy,” he said.

It wasn’t a light decision for her to move in together with him, but it had been less easy for her to raise a child for the past five years by herself.. The child’s father had left after seeing the test strip read: “pregnant.”

“I would have taken care of you when he was born. It wouldn’t have mattered that he wasn’t mine,” he said. “I wouldn’t have left you.”

“He is your boy,” she said.

He was true to his predawn commitment. When little boy feet touched down in the adjacent room, he’d roll out from under blankets and tuck them around her. She listened to the two talking in the kitchen and smelled bacon and eggs cooking. She’d stretch, roll over and wonder why he and his ex-wife never had children. Why he had gotten .a vasectomy. They never even owned a dog, he had told her when they first started dating.

He brought the boy’s mother a tray in bed on Sunday mornings. Toast. Coffee. The other finished products of their cooking. The boy always dove on the bed and he always told him to settle down, so as not to spill his mother’s food. There would be a few seconds of silence before the tray was set on the nightstand rather than her lap. The child squirmed close to his mother and he attacked them both. Out of breath laughter took hold of all three.

Sometimes, he took the boy fishing, or to the hardware store, or out for French fries. The two of them chopped down a pine tree once. He did the cutting. The boy yelled, “Timber!” And both carried the branches to be burned later for a marshmallow roast. They built a scarecrow, fixed the vacuum, and hung Christmas lights.

He kissed the boy’s splintered fingers and bandaged his scraped knees. He made the boy a club house. He bought the boy a puppy. He put cool mud on bee stings and cuddled him on his lap until the child fell asleep, then would carry him to his bed.

“I always knew I’d have me a boy,” he told her one night. The child was asleep and they were soon to follow. He tucked his head under her arm and draped his own across her waist.

“How come you never had any kids when you were married before?”

“The ex didn’t want them.” His bristled chin scratched her shoulder.

“You were cheated,” she said. A tear slid down her temple. She pretended she had an itch.

“I know.”

“So, that’s why the vasectomy?”

“No. I got myself fixed because my wife had an abortion.”

The mother wiped her face with a corner of the sheet, but it didn’t matter.

Matt Gamertsfelder

2008-11-22T08:52:00.000-08:00

A Good Start

When the Mclellan Dam burst, the decades of strain from holding back Lake Dopler finally proving too much for the Depression era construct, it happened over the course of perhaps fifteen minutes. The flood waters enveloped all the houses in Millersburg to their first story before anyone had a chance to utter the word ‘evacuation.’ Even so, half of the townsfolk managed to escape with their lives and impending insurance claims. God was thanked, although curiously not blamed for allowing the dam to self-destruct in the first place. The sight of the bloated and discolored corpses of drowned fathers, brothers, cousins, aunts, uncles, wives and neighbors, birds perching on their abdomens and feasting on their cloudy eyes, severely dampened feelings of relief at having survived, images that would writhe wretchedly behind closed eyes for years to come. Amidst the chaos, a small incident took place involving two middle aged divorced men, Pete Dow, an accountant and Artie Palowski, a sheriff’s deputy, both lifelong residents of Millersburg.

Hanging drywall in the master bedroom of the fixer-upper the men had purchased on the east end of town when the flood hit, Pete and Artie were spared death from the initial rush of loosened water that filled the lungs of virtually everyone on the first floor of any building in Millersburg. To save money, the men lived in the houses they repaired to flip for profit, and so were fortunate to have Pete’s camping gear, which included a high quality inflatable rowboat and a battery operated air pump, in the house’s attic. In the time between the initial rush and the waters rising to immerse the house’s second floor, Pete and Artie got the raft inflated and out the attic window, with them in it, before the water reached much higher than their ankles. Past sunset by this time, and the flood waters having rendered the town void of artificial light, the men spent a long and cold night sandwiched between abyssal blackness above and icy waters below.

By daybreak, Pete and Artie found themselves drifting through what had once been downtown Millersburg, which they recognized by the marble pig statue that stood atop the corporate offices of the Cornfed Meat Company, the tallest building in town, and the only one with its roof still exposed. As they drifted nearer, they heard a faint yelling and saw a man on that roof hopping frantically up and down and waving his arms. Drifting still nearer, they saw him clearly: bald and weighing easily over three hundred pounds, his fine gray Italian suit sopping wet, the man was none other than Lawrence St. Pierre, Millersburg’s most successful divorce attorney, whose services each of their respective ex-wives had retained in their divorce proceedings, leaving Pete and Artie with virtually nothing except each other. As soon as they recognized him, each knew what had to be done. They paddled to the roof’s edge.

“Thank God,” burbled Lawrence, waddling over to them. “I thought no one would---” Artie stood up. “This is called karmic retribution, you fat piece of shit,” he said, removing his standard issue Taser from his duffel bag. He aimed and fired, sending one hundred fifty thousand volts coursing through St. Pierre’s corpulent body, allowing the pulses to continue one after the other until the fat lawyer lay unconscious. They pulled on the cable until his body rested at the roof’s edge then yanked the barbs from his flesh. Arties handcuffed Lawrence’s hands behind him. “Just in case he wakes up before he’s drowned all the way,” Artie said, and Pete nodded solemnly. Artie pushed off with the paddle while Pete grasped the lawyer’s suit jacket, all three hundred plus pounds of unmitigated malice plunging into the flood waters to drown along with so many of his clients and victims alike.

“One hundred ninety-nine short or not, I’ll call that a good start,” Pete said.

Dane Esposito

2008-11-20T07:03:00.000-08:00

My son Dane, age 8, recently entered the world of horror fiction. It's a snappy little number he wrote just before Halloween.

--Frank Esposito

THE WICKED GHOST OF THE WEST

In the old west there was a ghost named Eric. He was wicked, and he would suck the souls out of people. He puts them in a soul jar. A boy named Geek Am I was playing with a yo-yo. Little did he know he would die in 13 seconds! Today was Friday the 13th. SWOOP! Eric was taking Geek Am I's soul!

THE END

Marcia Stamer

2008-11-19T08:12:00.000-08:00

THE ANNIE STORIES

Annie's Morning
Annie Observes
Play Date

2008-11-19T08:09:00.000-08:00

Annie’s Morning

“Got your backpack, Annie?” Dad asks as he walks into Annie’s bedroom. “Time for us to go.”

“But how come you’re taking me to school instead of Mom?”

“Annie, we’ve been over this. Over and over.” Annie’s Dad pushes his hand through the top of his hair and messes it all up. Then he has to smooth it down again. “We are going to see Mr. Wills in his office. He has to talk to us before you can go back into Miss Evers’ class.”

“Well, what will he ask us about?”

“Annie, you know what he wants to know. And for that matter, so do I. Why did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Annie! Why did you bite Miss Evers’ bottom at school yesterday?”

Annie only frowns and clumps down the stairs in her cowgirl boots. She had decided to wear these boots when she saw rain outside her window while she was getting dressed. She picks up her backpack by the door that leads into the garage and says, “Bye, Mom! See ya later.” She doesn’t wait for her mother to respond. She thinks that’s best.

In Mr. Wills’ office, Annie sees her teacher, Miss Evers, sitting on a blue chair that looks like a square. Mr. Wills, the principal, sits behind his big brown desk, and Annie can’t even see over the top of it. But Mr. Wills stands up when Annie and her dad come in after they knock and he shakes Dad’s hand. Dad sits down and Annie climbs onto his lap. Dad gently picks Annie up and sets her into another square chair. This one’s red. Annie slumps into a corner of the chair, her cowgirl boots with the red stitching poking up straight in front of her. Annie moves her feet in front of Mr. Wills, who sit directly across from her, so that she can’t see him.

Mr. Wills sighs as he looks at Miss Evers and Dad. Then he looks at Annie.

“Well, Annie, it is time for you to tell Miss Evers why you bit her yesterday. Then you must apologize too. I am sure you know it was not right to bite her.”

Annie looks down at her feet and wiggles them back and forth like the windshield wipers on Dad’s car this morning. The room is very quiet, and Annie sees her father scooting a little in his chair before he finally says, “Annie, you must tell us what on Earth made you do this.”

“Lottie told me to.”

“There’s no Lottie my class,” says Miss Evers. She looks at Annie, and Annie thinks that her whole face has changed into another face. It’s red and stretched tight like a rubber band.

“Lottie is Annie’s pretend friend, and Annie, you cannot use Lottie as an excuse again. We have talked about this,” Dad says.

Annie thinks about telling her dad that Lottie is real and is her sing along friend, but she decides not to.

“Annie, we are waiting for you to tell us the truth,” says Mr. Wills.

Annie notices that Mr. Wills looks very angry. She slides down in her chair, stiffens her legs and crosses one leg over the other. She opens her mouth wide and looks at the ceiling.

“Annie, stop it!” yells Dad. “She does this when she doesn’t want to cooperate,” Dad tells Mr. Wills. “She tries to pretend she can’t talk and makes her body look like her sister’s. I think you know our older daughter who has cerebral palsy.”

“Umm, yes,” says Mr. Wills. “Annie, please, right now…”

Annie sits up suddenly and says, “I’ll show you.” She reaches in her backpack and takes out a DVD. She puts it on Mr. Wills’ desk. It’s a DVD of the 101 Dalmatians movie, showing one of the puppies biting Cruella DeVil’s butt as she is bent over reaching for another puppy, an ugly sneer on her face.

It looks as if Mr. Wills’ face might change into another face too, but he swipes one hand across his mouth to stop the change, then says, “Annie, you go with Miss Evers to class now. Your dad and I will talk about a punishment for you after you leave.”

Annie looks at Miss Evers and says, “I really am sorry I bit you. The puppies were the good guys, and even though you aren’t a bad guy or a cartoon, I just thought I should bite you when you bent over to help Claire with her numbers.”

Miss Evers looks a little dazed and tells Annie that they will talk some more about this later. She shakes her head and sighs, and as they walk together to Miss Evers’ kindergarten class, Annie just hopes that there won’t be any scissors there that tell her to cut her hair today.

2008-11-19T08:07:00.000-08:00

Annie Observes

Today I showed Mom the picture I drew at school. I told her all about the sky and the swing set and the trees and the gravel and where the gravel turns to grass and where Jeffrey threw up once. She said that I am very observant. So now I am going to be observant some more.

I went outside after I had a snack of Oreos and milk, and I looked at our house. Our house has red bricks with lots of tiny lines in them. I tried to count them, but I kept messing up. I kicked the house, but that hurt my toe and made marks on my shoe. So now I’m thinking about how the brick makers put all those lines there. I think they would have to use a thread like Mom has in her sewing basket and stretch it real tight between their hands and make the lines before they put the bricks in the oven.

After awhile, I decided I did enough observing of the bricks, so I looked around for something else to observe. While I was looking all over the yard, Mom’s friend Lisa drove up our driveway. Her mini-van is red. She got out of the van, and she was wearing a green shirt and light brownish colored pants with brown shoes. I might draw this later.

I like Lisa because she doesn’t talk to me like I’m a baby. She doesn’t talk to Jolee that way either. Lots of people we know and people at the grocery store too come up and talk to Jolee like she’s some kind of baby since she’s in a wheelchair. So I always tell them she’s not a baby because she is older than me.

Also, some people who talk to Jolee and me ask what’s wrong with her or say they are sorry she’s that way. No one ever asks me what’s wrong with me, even though Dad says sometimes, “What’s wrong with you?!” when I spill my milk at dinner or throw myself on the floor when my Legos break apart. Jolee doesn’t spill her milk because she can’t hold her cup and she can’t throw herself on the floor, and Dad never asks her what is wrong with her. So why would people who don’t even know her ask her that? Don’t they know she can’t talk and answer them anyway?

I followed Lisa into the house, and observed that there’s a straight line from the front door to the back door, only the kitchen table is in the way. I told Lisa that if she moved the table in the kitchen that I could run all the way from the front door to the back door without stopping. But Mom heard me and said, “No running in the house.” Mom always says that.

2008-11-19T08:05:00.000-08:00

Play Date

Today Sarah came over to play in the morning, and Mom said she was going to eat lunch with us and play more after that. I never had a friend eat with me, and I was so excited. Mom asked what I wanted to have for lunch, and I changed my mind a million times. Finally I decided on make-it-ourselves pizza with bagels, sauce and cheese.

I waited and waited, and finally Sarah came to my house. I was so excited that I screamed and ran around talking fast, and Mom made me sit on the couch for a minute to catch my breath and told me that I must calm down if I wanted to start playing. So I just kicked my feet back and forth for awhile while Sarah stared at me, and then we both started to giggle.

“Girls!” said Mom. “Go play quietly, now.”

We went to my bedroom and Sarah said, “Hey, what’s this?” when she saw my bookcase with books and toys on it.

“This is where I play sometimes and this is where Jolee sits.” I pointed to the yellow bean bag chair.

“Can I sit in it too?”

“Yes, but if Mom brings Jolee in, she will have to sit there because she can’t sit anywhere else.”

“Where is Jolee?”

“She’s taking a nap on Mom and Dad’s bed.”

“Why doesn’t Jolee walk?”

“I don’t know. But everyone talks too much about walking when they are around Jolee. I wish she could talk and play toys with me. I would like that more.”

“Why doesn’t she? Doesn’t she want to talk?”

“I think she does want to, but sometimes she can’t even hold up her head.”

“Oh. Well, does she have teeth?”

“Of course she does, I think. Mom brushes them, so they have to be there.”

Sarah didn’t believe me, so we tiptoed quietly into Mom and Dad’s room to look, moving like Tom and Jerry on the cartoons when they are being sneaky. Jolee was asleep on the bed, so we climbed on beside her. Her mouth was a little bit open, so we pushed her lips back. Yuck, they were slimy, and I wiped my fingers on the blanket. But there they were, real teeth.

“Count them.” Sarah commanded.

“No, you do it, it was your idea.” Then Jolee woke up and her body jumped a little bit like when someone scares you in the dark. I thought she wasn’t going to tell on us, but then she looked at me and started to cry.

Then Mom called to us and asked what we were doing. Sarah said that I wanted to show her Jolee’s teeth, so I made her come in and look.

Now I’m mad at Sarah because she blamed it on me, and I don’t want to eat lunch with her. I knew I didn’t want her to come to my house.

2008-11-19T06:24:00.001-08:00

Some Thoughts on Teaching a Writing Course

2008-11-19T03:03:00.000-08:00

Some time ago I discovered that assignments could teach. If I could design a writing assignment that caused a learning writer to write in scenes or to focus first on character, I could stop talking once I had described the assignment. I designed such assignments, and they taught the learning writers more in the doing than any lecture or lesson or post-story criticism could have done.

That was interesting: start from the beginning rather than the end of the act of writing. Most of my experience in class had been with workshops where we wrote stories, turned them in, and then received critical commentary, often called constructive criticism. In these critical sessions we received correction on what we had not done and congratulations on what we had done.

These sessions became an art form in themselves, capable of teaching a great deal. Some of our fellow writers even became quite proud of their ability to provide critical commentary, rightly so. For someone like me who could not be stopped--at least not right away--the commentary provided some interesting discussion of writing that might well come into play on the next thing I wrote--rarely on the piece under discussion.

We tend to continue methods and lessons we learned from our best teachers and our favorite writers. But then I asked myself, what is it I most want to teach to learning writers? What do learning writers most need to learn? I had been reading books on writing and reading stories and novels with an eye then to what learning writers most needed to learn.

For example, John Gardner, in a generous paraphrase of E.M. Forster, said that plot is more than just one damn thing after another. He also said that every writer needs to learn how to create profluence, the ability to make readers want to turn pages and keep reading. You have to find a way to interest readers. That's natural enough, and clearly something every writer ought to know in their bones if not their heads.

Could I make an assignment that taught students, in the doing, that lesson? I thought probably so, and I tried it. Gardner also said the most basic plot is that someone desires something, goes after it, and gets it or doesn't get it. This creates profluence. Once we know what the character wants, we wonder whether or not he or she will get it. By the end of the story we should probably know this or know why. Further, we should have an idea of what it means, of what kind of loss or gain is involved in the getting or losing.

Kurt Vonnegut said that every character in a novel should want something, even if it's just a glass of water--if the world is to be whole and true. Desire and frustrated desire seemed to me a significant aspect of our lives. What we want and what we'll do to get it, and what will be done to us in the getting or losing. So I thought, here's the form of an assignment: Someone (a character) wants something, goes after it, and gets it or doesn't get it.

But that didn't cover all of the possibilities. What if the character decided not to go after it, that the prize was unattainable, wasn't that a story? And in any event, wasn't it possible that such a character might attain the desired object in spite of not going after it? Why should I want any learning writer to produce exactly the same form of desire? Isn't that what makes differences in characters, the very lifeblood of fiction--or one vein in the lifeblood?

What if the character got the desired object but discovered he didn't really want it, or she had mistaken what it would mean to possess it? So here's how the assignment was shaping up, more or less: Someone wants something, goes after it or does not go after it, attains it or does not attain it, and knows or does not know that he or she has attained the object.

That began to imitate the act of fiction as Gardner describes it: choices made along the way. Character is fate. Will the character take the meatball from the offered platter or not? But there are other aspects to the writing of fiction. Let's reduce this to absurdity and say that the character, a young man, wants a saxophone that sits in the window of a music shop. How do we convey the desirability of the object, or even the obvious lack of desirability?

What comes along with the sax? The color, the shape, the musical tone, the dent in the bell, and so on. Recordings of great saxophonists, the posture of those who play the saxophone under a spotlight on the stage, the lives and excesses of the sax world. All of these are part of the desirability and dangers of the saxophone, and the writer should at least think about these threads of imagery that might be strung through the story of the man who desired a sax.

But that's not quite enough yet, because there has to be a world for this character to inhabit, someplace he lives, his pad, his room, his apartment, his home, and this will tell us something of the nature of his desire. There must be space between his home and the music shop, and in that space there must be streets and sidewalks, dogs and people, and, most of all, there must be weather. There must be somewhere sun and moon, sky and cloud, tooth and nail.

Here is the assignment so far: Someone wants something. Goes after it or does not go after it. Gets it or does not get it. Knows it or does not know it. Be aware of all of the potential imagery, visual, aural, tactile, and so on, that comes out of the desired object, whatever it is. These should recieve some attention throughout the story, as if it were a ribbon threaded through the length. Let us know through what kind of weather the character moves, and something of the world in which he lives, including sun, moon, sky. An animal should make a brief appearance.

Is this too restricting? Not at all. In fact, as Richard Hugo says in The Triggering Town, such limitations distract the conscious mind long enouigh to allow the unconscious mind (Jung's theory at the heart of the operation) free reign. While the dog is chewing on the bone, the thief gets into the house. These limits and structural columns in the fiction actually help the learning writer to shape something that looks and feels like a story, that makes the reader turn the page, and engages our apetite for suspense.

What is the benefit of this? Nothing teaches a writer how to write a good story so much as writing one. Nothing benefits a learning writer more than having the direction on the front end of the story rather than after the fact. No sense of failure can be implied or imputed. Did you do the assignment? Yes, you did. All of the elements are there, and, moreover, it sings a little in the process. And furthermore, the assignment has left no mark on the story; no reader would know from what's on the page where it began--what Eudora Welty calls the jumping off place.

The release and confidence the assignment gives the writer reaches into language. Everything is better than what the learning writer could have accomplished before he or she began. At the end, no one needs to tell the writer to develop a plot, that the story lacks shape or life. The teacher is freed to be a studio art teacher: Look here, at this bit of sky, think you could accentuate that? How can we make this a better one of those? I like the bird chirping in that tree. There is no need for criticism that makes the writer feel a failure and wonder why he tried in the first place.

And in fact less criticism encourages the writer to think for himself or herself, and encourages the writer to reach once more into the void and pull out a story. On the down side, for some, there is no lording it over the learning writer. No one has the power over the writer's work but the writer. We don't say, now that you have written a story, I will tell you what is wrong with it. We say, look how that worked? Wasn't that fine?

This is essentially the process I followed in creating assignments. Another, for example, came from stumbling on Anne Beattie's "The Burning House," which is startlingly wonderful in the creation of a single evening, essentially one scene with a few rhythmic breaks. Weather comes in the door and through the radio. The world is breaking down even as it is beautifully depicted in its nature and context. And nothing is more important for a learning writer to learn than that the basic syntax of the language of fiction is the scene.

I don't have them read the story--at least not yet. I really don't like to be leading. Instead, I tell them to write a scene that takes place indoors. Three characters are involved in some activity. One of them is related to another though you shouldn't tell us how. You should just know it. During that activity, a fourth character arrives carrying or wearing something unusual.

Throughout this scene, the flow of time should be unbroken. One character may leave the room or scene or building, but we should continue with the main character in an unbroken movement of time. Though we are indoors, you should bring in the weather outside in some natural way. You may even take the main character and one other character outdoors in the same movement of time. Use one color three times, though you may vary the word or the hue.

This accomplishes something else the Beattie story demonstrates: how to handle more than one or two characters naturally, how to get them on and off the stage. The assignment doesn't follow the Beattie story strictly, but it uses some of the basic elements. I also add that someone should say something that surprises the main character, though you shouldn't point out that the main character is surprised except through some action, gesture, or response--and it should be subtle.

The learning writer sets out to accomplish this task and in the process learns or tries out what it is to make a scene, handle characters, and move through time and space. This is what I mean by the assignment teaching the learning writer, and, again, it doesn't require that we then tell a student that he needs to show, not tell, that she needs to write in scenes. It takes us at our word and shows rather than tells what this means.

I have seen that this works and that the writing of learning writers is better when you teach with the assignment rather than post-story criticism, which may have the unintended effect of teaching learning writers that what they do well is not as important as what they don't do well. And that the act of reading is essentially looking for mistakes. This approach tells the writer what kind of object they are making beforehand, and then looks to see how it works after.

I suppose one assumption from which I work is that it is better for a writer to be confident in his abilities and imagination than hesitant--though I am sure that there are those who think every speaker should be made to stutter. I'd like the learning writer to know the shape of the thing she's making. And I think it's important for the writer to depend more on himself for judgment than on me. That's what's necessary in a later stage, when you confront the bare page and start the story, knowing now what it is, and having been introduced to the language of fiction.

That's the idea of the studio teacher, and it's a good one.

Bob

2008-11-10T12:22:00.000-08:00

Z, Darkness

B, a boy of 17, identified as the newly hired waitress no one had met Miss A, even as she stepped onto the path on which he walked at a distance of no more than 75 yards. B wore camp-issue tan t-shirt and shorts; new employee A wore a red summer dress, her shoulders bare, her honey hair swinging free.

Inconsequential people of various sizes and ages as well as trees in full foliage were strewn about. He could not at that moment see the small beach on the North end of the Chesapeake Bay down the hill to his left, nor the sun at his back, but took as articles of faith their existence. What became arranged in his mind as the only matters of consequence were 5 yellow cabins--C, D, E, F, and G--on the left side of the path on which she progressed toward him.

He calculated that if he B ran full speed behind points C, D, E, and broke out between points F and G, he would arrive at a point on the path X through which she passed in exactly 30 seconds, and counting. B's legs flew, moving past C, D, and E, leaning into the turn immediately after F, racing toward point X where he expected to see A approaching, at which moment he would be the very first to introduce himself and win a little bit of heaven in the good old summertime.

B had predicted the rate of travel for A precisely but had incompletely imagined a space of 15 feet between F and G in which had been planted, in some past period of stability, a concrete bench H equadistant between F and G. He recognized in a flash that his diagram had become ridiculously twisted.

His right shin, designated here B prime, leaped out at the instant B recognized this error, striking the wide, gray seat of H and breaking not only the progress of the body in motion but the skin, at the very least, of B prime. So abruptly did B strike H at B prime that he spun 3 times and dropped on his back in the center of the path on which oncoming A stepped over B with simple grace and the mincing words, "Excuse me."

Recumbant B remained in the path, which he now, far too late, designated Y. The region of B prime which had struck H began to bleed profusely. In that moment he understood how frail are all the plans and deeds of man. Still, but ever so briefly, in the mind of B there glowed a vision of A's tanned thighs stepping over him before all points collapsed into Z, darkness.

2008-11-10T07:44:00.000-08:00

FOUR MEN WRITING SHORT SHORT FICTION

Matthew Meduri
Daniel Von Holten
Matt Gammertsfelder
Christopher Bair

NEW STORY CHALLENGE: Cause & Effect

Forget plot & character; focus on a principle of both elements: cause & effect. This must be written in third person, though you may have an ‘I’ narrator not present in the story. In order to do this right, imagine three very specific examples of cause and effect before you even start to write, preferably not at your screen or paper. In one, include a piece of machinery of any kind—machinery in the broadest sense. In another, an animal, but don’t have the animal mangled or hurt. Consider weather in one imagined series. Clear your head of the examples and sit down to write a precise, analytical cause and effect sequence. You may have from one to three people in the story, treated as people, as bodies in stasis or motion, and not as characters. Use one color consciously, at least once. But remember, it’s a story too—of a very unusual sort—at 500 or fewer words.

Matthew Meduri

2008-11-10T07:42:00.000-08:00

The Woman

Rain again, autumn rain. Like on the day I met that woman for the last time, the day I started feeling nervous and skeptical about him. Before she and I met, I thought I might be in love with him. We understood each other and did what we wanted. I still don’t believe that woman. How could I? I don’t even really know her. I mean really know her. All that she said, everything she told me could be a lie, an utter and miserable lie.

Why? Why do I feel skeptic? What is my reasoning?

She must be delusional, the way she talked and talked. It started out pleasant; I met her in line for coffee. Somehow our petty chitchat turned in the direction of him. Maybe I mentioned I lived with someone, him. I can’t remember, but I think she directed it. She knew him from a past life, another place.

We planned to meet for coffee again at the same place another day. This time she talked about our commonality, about plans. Then she turned dark. First, it was a subtle hint. A hint turned into a remark, and a remark became a hate filled rant. I had nothing to say until I finally could take no more and I had to leave. She apologized defensively, saying it is what I needed to know about him. She freaked me out. I left trying not to think about any of what she said to me about him. How could I? It may not even be true. It wasn’t true. At least I don’t think it is.

The rain blurs the window, but I still see his empty parking space. I want to disregard what she said but it weighs too much on me. I want to tell him also that I met her and all the terrible things she said about him. But when I look at him walking around the apartment, smiling, or talking, I notice certain qualities about him. They slightly resemble something of what she said. It’s strange—and I’m acting strange. Well, it feels that way. I think he can tell that I know something, but he won’t say it. He couldn’t be capable of what she said he did. He is too sweet.

The woman’s voice has slowly left my thoughts unpleasant and unwanted. I need to tell someone about her but when I try to call a friend, I don’t mention a thing. It isn’t true and that woman is crazy. So why am I still skeptical?

Daniel Von Holten

2008-11-10T07:38:00.000-08:00

Walker

Jim drank the last of his breakfast Guinness as he walked over the ice. There were only two hours of daylight this time of year and he planned to watch the sunrise from his favorite bluff. Those pussies in Anchorage don’t know how good they’ve got it. The money was good though; was good. He saved enough to say he won, but he wasn’t ready to head back to the lower forty-eight. Spent most of his last pay on booze and women and the next morning was left with a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue and a tumbler from the bar. That was when he came up with his plan to hike to his bluff and drink it neat from sunup to sundown. Tumbler in his pocket and Johnny between his coats, he hiked four miles of tundra.

The cold couldn’t touch him; he was wrapped in arctic layers and alcohol. The Aurora glittered off the ice and snow. The world was one big disco ball and Jim stopped for a minute to do the robot.

On his bluff, Jim pulled back the flap that covered the watch face strapped to his coat. He had half an hour; Dawn fondled Aurora and Jim thought the light show was the sexiest damn thing he’d ever seen.

He brushed some snow off a boulder and gently set Johnny down in the surviving powder. He pulled off his outer gloves and mask and brushed the ice from his hood. Hell, it was going to warm up in a few minutes anyway. He pulled the tumbler from his coat pocket, shook out a paperclip and blew away lint. For good measure, he washed it with snow. The girls in the sky were really gettin’ into it.

Fine whiskey under a sky like this, he might never get to do this sort of thing again. Since the girls had already started, Jim opened Johnny and poured a drink that steamed in the still air. He lifted the glass in a cross between a toast and a prayer before tasting the best damn whiskey in the world. He noticed the wolf between his third and fourth sip.

It was alone, injured and just a sorry lookin’ excuse for a noble animal. There were no trees on the bluff or anywhere for over a mile; this one was on its own. People say wolves wander away on their own do die; he always wondered if that was why the Eskimos shoved off their old folks. It sat in the snow a stride away, looking for the sunrise over the ocean. They sat in silence for a moment and Jim finished his glass. He poured a second.

“Rekon you and I got something in common. See if you like this.” Jim sat in the snow and set the glass as close as he could to the wolf.

Curiosity made the wolf pull itself to the glass and it tasted the whiskey. Then it began to lap at it gently. Jim took a pull from the bottle. “Damn fine place to die, but may as well have a drink or two while you wait. I won’t bug ya.”

Jim drank from the bottle and refilled the glass once before the sun came up. They both let out a sigh and Jim raised the bottle to the sun as Dawn and Aurora ran off to play on the other side of the world. Jim and the wolf gradually moved closer as the sun pulled itself from the ocean. Jim was already getting warmer, so he took off his outer coat and set it over the scrawny wolf.

“No reason you should be cold either.”

Jim felt the sun wrap arms around him. He took the last swig of Johnny and he stretched out to bath in the light. Aurora and Dawn danced behind his eyelids.

Matt Gamertfelder

2008-11-10T07:31:00.000-08:00

Roasted Peanuts

I liked to help people. Like when I was in seventh grade, and my social studies teacher, Mr. Heeney, couldn’t say the word peanuts; it came out as ‘penis.’ The other kids would really get a laugh out of that. They’d ask, ‘Mr. Heeney, what’s your favorite snack food?’ and he’d play right into their hands, replying, ‘I love salted penis.’ Or, ‘Mr. Heeney, do you like roasted almonds or roasted peanuts better?’ and he would say, ‘Well, I’m just crazy about roasted penis.’ Or, ‘Mr. Heeney, do you think the cafeteria should sell chocolate covered pretzels or chocolate covered peanuts?’, to which his response would invariably be, ‘Well, I don’t know about you kids, but fill me up with chocolate covered penis and I’m as happy as can be.’ About halfway through the year, I got sick of hearing the stupid joke everyday, so one day I stayed after class and told Mr. Heeney what was going on. He thanked me, and said that as far as the class was concerned, he would never touch ‘penis’ again. It only took about two days before the other kids realized they couldn’t get Mr. Heeney to talk about ‘penis’ butter sandwiches anymore, and they let it go. Even though I though Ohio history and government was about as interesting as watching mold grow on stale bread, I got an A in social studies that year.

I don’t know why I kept thinking about seventh grade social studies that Sunday, but it gave me one massive craving for some peanuts. We were having a windstorm, growing in intensity all through the afternoon and into the evening, probably shattering records for wind miles per hour left and right. That’s as close as you can get to a hurricane in Northeast Ohio, which is like comparing a paper cut to a stab wound, but for people used to having the wind do nothing worse than making it kind of hard to hear on a cell phone outside, it was bad enough. Branches were being ripped out of trees like grapes pulled off the vine by a horde of illegal Mexican immigrants, but without those catchy snatches of folksongs in Spanish, and in splotches across our corner of the state Mother Nature pounded the power grid into submission. At my house the electricity flickered on again, off again, a few minutes each way for an hour or two, then just a little after six the lights went out and stayed out. Due to the weather, it may not have been the best night to go out and about town, but I didn’t have anything better to do at home than watch candles burn down to pumpkin spice and French vanilla scented little nubs. And I wanted some damn peanuts.

My journey to Wal-Mart actually went off without a hitch. Since the sun had not yet set all the way, irregular illumination from streetlights proved no obstacle, and I was genuinely proud of my fellow drivers for maintaining harmony on the roads even though every other traffic light hung dark and useless above its intersection. Power still shone brightly inside the megalithic temple of capitalism, but the Massillon Wal-Mart Super center’s parking lot was as devoid of artificial light as the primeval night.

I found the peanuts easily enough, in the snack foods aisle with the chocolate chip cookies and Ritz crackers and Wheat Thins and saltines. Call it whatever you like, serendipity or my attunement with the cosmic forces of Good or what have you, but on the way to the front of the store to check out, I walked past the hunting and sporting goods section, and I saw a man there. Pretty nondescript really, dark hair, black leather jacket, blue jeans, Nike tennis shoes. His gloves probably drew my attention more than anything else, knit gloves, blazing neon orange like the cones you drive through for the BMV maneuverability test, with tiny black rubber nodules on the palm sides for added gripping capability, hunter’s gloves. This man was a hunter, a predator, and from the way he eyed those knives, I knew he was up to no good. He made his selection, a bowie knife, eight inches long and an inch and a half wide. An associate opened the case for him and the predator walked toward the front of the store. I followed him. He bought the knife and a pack of Marlboro Lights, and after I paid for my peanuts I followed him outside, ten steps or so behind.

Well away from the storefront, he pulled a black ski mask out of his jacket pocket and removed the knife from its plastic blister card, which he threw on the ground. The wind, still howling, covered up the sound of my footfalls. No power meant no security cameras as well as no lights, and slipping the mask over his head, this predator clearly meant to find prey there in the parking lot. Then I saw his intended target: a pretty girl, early twenties, shoulder length blond hair pulled into a loose tail, wearing a gray cardigan over a red and yellow sundress, fiddling with grocery bags in the trunk of an inky blue late nineties Chevy Cavalier. The hunter readied his knife as he crept behind her, his tennis shoes seemingly replaced with cat’s paws for all the noise he made. He held the knife point at the small of her back.

“No screaming, missy, or I’ll stick you,” he said.

“Please don’t hurt me. I’ll give you anything you want,” she said, trembling with fear. The predator chuckled at that, and placed his other hand on the woman’s ass.

“You’re damn right you will, bitch. And if you do a real good job, I just might not hurt you.” His voice dripped menace like a cobra’s fangs drip venom, before it delivers the death strike.

Channeling the second string pitcher I had once been, I threw the jar of peanuts at the back of the hunter’s skull with all the force I could muster. It shattered, sending showers of honey roasted peanuts all over the asphalt, and he dropped like a stone down a well. The woman screamed, and I ran to her.

“Miss, are you alright?” I asked, putting a hand on each shoulder. That’s when she blasted me in the face with pepper spray. If the devil himself poked you in the eyes with his pitchfork, it wouldn’t hurt that much. I tripped on the peanuts and fell, joining the predator on the ground writhing in agony.

“You asshole!” she said. “He’s my boyfriend; we’re acting out my abduction and rape fantasy.” She landed a kick in my groin that made my own nuts feel pretty roasted. “You should mind your own fucking business. Come on, baby,” the woman said, helping her boyfriend off the ground, “Let’s get you home.” I’m not so big on helping people any more.