Alex Cox

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

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

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

r. Horner’s Heads
.
.

.

.

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.
.
.
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.
.
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.
.

Brittany Stone

.

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.
.
.

Two by Kristina von Held

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.

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.