The Story Page

Nostalgia

2005-11-18T08:12:00.000-05:00

I grew up in a sunlit apartment. The radiator clanked and clicked. The landlord turned the heat off at night, so Momma would stuff blankets under the doors and chinks in the windows to keep the heat in.

Before I was born, Momma painted my nursery walls with scenes from a swamp. A great friendly green frog looked at me in my crib. Plants grew haphazardly around the windows. Everything was green and yellow, kind and warm.

When I was four, bats came in to my room one summer night. Before I cried out for Momma to shut the windows, I watched the bats drift back and forth over my head, fluttering my dreams away, frittering them to the night sky. And then, I cried out, and Momma came in her long nightgown, chasing the bats out and crooning to calm me.

My father smoked a pipe in a great chair with wings. He read the paper and smiled at me playing on the floor. I remember him being so grave, but he was only 31 at the time. At night, he would give me horsey rides. One time, he stayed home from work with me while I was sick. He tried to draw pictures for me, and talked to me, and we had a nice time eating soup and napping. As we aged, Daddy grew away from me. But in that sunlit apartment on Case Street in Evanston, I was his little monkey.

Momma and Daddy played records all the time. Daddy would tap his toe and strum along on his guitar, while Momma would sing in her faint soprano voice, and I would sit in the sun breaking through the window, and stay warm, and lie on my little stomach.

There were walks in the park, and swing sets, and the beach on Lake Michigan. Friends of all walks came to visit. Laughter and wine and soft blankets. These memories, I remember. But mostly, I remember the sun wandering through that window-filled apartment, warming the crooks and nannies, warming my little body so I grew just as the murals in my bedroom, spreading up to life.

Resolve: Another Flash Fiction Friday (Click Here for Details)

2005-10-29T10:36:00.000-04:00

It was just a bad feeling, sitting in that dark, smoky bar. The band had finished their set, and I needed a drink after doing a rather poor cover of "Jesus Built My HotRod". The audience was the usual group of pathetic goths and punks, hiding their graying hair with black hair dye. I thought to myself while sipping the third vodka tonic of the evening, "How do the drug stores keep that dye on the shelves?"

Sandy and Shelly, two 'groupies' of my band, came up to the bar and draped themselves around me. Both smelled of sweat, alcohol, cigarettes, and something more foul...Loneliness. In the dull light of the neon signs, I saw through their white makeup, the pores of dried out skin, the scars of acne, the fine lines of age.

"That was a killer set," said Sandy in a lilting voice.
"Thanks," I muttered, draining my drink and slamming it on the bar.
"Are you guys having an after-party?" asked Shelly.
"You mean, are the five us guys gonna go back to the warehouse and get trashed?" I replied. "Yeah, there'll be an after-party."
"Can we come?"
"Don't you come every Saturday?" I asked, malevolently.
I didn't wait for their replies, got up from my seat, and went to the bathroom. While urinating, I read the graffiti over the urinal.
"Fuck Franky!" "Sex and Drugs=Rock and Roll"
I smiled at these frank messages of angst. But just lower from all the other scribbles, I saw small, neat handwriting.
"Arthur. Go out to the alley."

What the fuck? Who knew my name? Who knew I would be standing right here at this urinal? Am I that stoned? I shook and zipped myself up. It's a joke. Somebody in the band...playing a stupid prank. Nevertheless, I made my way out of the dank bar into the chilly alley. Nobody there. I chuckled, lighting a smoke. As I turned to re-enter the bar, a voice softly sounded from behind a dumpster.
"Arthur."
A hooded figure emerged, shadowed and ephereal. I smiled; this was a good prank. The figure lifted the hood, and I beheld a vision of beauty.
Here was a woman, young, with light reflecting from her porcelain skin. Her hair was light ash, her eyes colored gems, her lips ruby red. She had a young, full face and a full figure to match. She was heavenly.
"Who are you?" I asked, removing my sunglasses and running a hand through my black hair. I suddenly wished I wasn't so drunk, or so pale, or so thin, or so wasted of life.
"Don't fret, Arthur. I've been watching you. You're ready, now, I think."
"Ready for what?" I asked, suddenly sober. Awed. Transfixed. My God, there were no words.
"There are no words for what I can offer you," the woman responded. I immediately sensed her reaching into my mind, fingering every sad memory. She grasped a hold of one memory, holier than the rest, even more tender. Candles, shadows, a bed, rumpled sheets, Rachel lying in pools of blood, open wrists, my sobbing, and those words, "Why, Rachel? Why?"
The glowing woman was silent as she wrapped herself around this memory.
"Rachel couldn't stop herself, Arthur. The poison had caught hold of her, and she could not forgive herself. She is at peace, now."
How did this woman know about the heroin addiction? How did she know about Rachel's tortured inner self? I asked these questions in my mind, and the woman simply smiled.
"It's time, Arthur. She's waiting."

Rachel-the summer of my life. Dark, funny, mysterious. She was Greek, with olive skin and liquid eyes and full lips, and hair that trembled and curled to the small of her back. We met in the spring years before and fell violently in love. The heroin only enhanced our love, until Rachel began to fade. Insanity breached our fortress. I got off the heroin, replacing it with alcohol. Rachel couldn't stop. And when her veins had collapsed, and her eyes had lost their light, and her hair had fallen out, and her limbs ached, and the tests came back positive for HIV, she couldn't go on. So, she had made our bed a shrine, and laid herself on it, and lit candles, said Hail Marys, and opened her withered flesh for release.

These memories came back over me in a great tidal eclipse, and I fell to my knees. The lesions on my legs split, and a grasped a lock of my own hair, only to see it fall out in my hands. For the first time since my diagnosis, I began to weep, and those tears felt like daggers rolling down my cheeks.
"Please. Help me," I begged, all of my sores opened and bleeding. I felt like Christ.

The woman came and wrapped her great cloak around me, and I fell into her bosom, and wept myself clean. And ever so gently, the woman brushed the hair from my nape and bit, deep into the red poison of my blood. I felt no pain. The woman drank deeply, and as the life ebbed from me, she lay me down on the pavement, and held me in her arms. I knew what she was. But she was not as one would imagine; she was not evil or tainted. She was pure and innocent and fragile.

So, I smiled a smile of great relief, and felt something warm wash over me. It was the air, the molecules, the light. Everything was shifting and becoming translucent, and the Angel of Death reflected joy into my eyes, until it all become indistinguishable.

And then, there was only one voice. Rachel's voice.
"Arthur. You've come home."

There is no deeper breath than the breath taken by the dying man.

Flashed Again...Click here for details

2005-10-21T23:27:00.000-04:00

With money in my pocket and cotton candy in my hand, I hop away from my father at the carnival. At the wise and illustrious age of ten, I have earned the privilege of roaming the fairgrounds on my own instead of dawdling with the family. In one hour, I have to meet Mom and Dad and Chuck back at the Ferris wheel. I have a whole hour of freedom.

Dad gave me five dollars to spend anyway I want. Instead of losing it all at a game booth (rigged for profit, of course), I know exactly what I want to do. Skip the kiddy rides! Skip the funhouse! Those are for babies. I'm going straight to the wagon.

Every year, we've passed the gypsy wagon with the sign out front reading "Madame Zartha--Seer of All Things--Oracle and Truth Seeker!". Every year, I've tugged on the hand of my mother and dragged my feet. And every year, she has said one of the two responses: "Too much money!" or "The work of Satan!" But this year? This year, Madame Zartha is going to See into my future. I've been planning the questions for a week now. Will I have a boyfriend by the time I'm thirteen? This school year, will my bedtime get pushed back an hour? Can I get out of dish duty? Will I become a famous pilot? The questions are written on a pink piece of notepaper.

The wagon looms in front of me. Lucky me! There is no line. I will have an entire fifteen minutes with the madame, uninterrupted by other fair-goers. I have already calculated the worth of my five dollars--a card reading and a palm reading. Madame Zartha has a crystal ball in the window of the wagon but I am certain it is decoration.

I ascend the rickety steps to the wagon, excitement bubbling in my stomach. I throw the cotton candy onto the ground--no need for that, now. I pat my hair down and straighten my shirt. A voice calls from within, "Enter!"

The wagon smells musty and magical. It is the scent of cigarette smoke, liquor, and something a bit older--something indescribable. It is dark except for the dingy light shining through the dirty window. Madame Zartha sits at a tiny table. She is a short woman with black hair and a turban wrapped about her small head. Her nails are long and painted shiny red. Her weight is indeterminate, as she wears a long gown that puffs and gathers. I am a little afraid.

"Sit, child. You have the fare?" Madame Zartha's voice is not accented, as I imagined it would be, but is lustrous all the same. I press the five dollar bill into her hand and sit, eyes wide and lip trembling.
"You have come to hear the truth?" Madame Zartha tucks the money into a wallet on the table next to her. From here, I can see she has a moustache. I am entranced.
"Yes," I whisper.
Madame Zartha pulls my hand toward her and grasps it firmly, spinning it over, palm up. She stares into my eyes as she traces the faint lines with one hand.
"Ah. You are a brave girl to come here all by yourself," she says. "You have the heart of a lion."
I blush; she's right! It takes a lot of guts to walk around a fair alone.
She continues, still staring at me. "Great love is in store for you. You consist of fairy blood--beautiful and precious. But!" Her voice grew loud with warning, "You must protect yourself from those who would take advantage of your strength! There are those who would use you, then throw you away! Heed the danger!"
I gasped and nodded, scared of the terrible people out there who would hurt me.
"Your knight is strong. He waits for you, and sleeps with your face imprinted into his dreams. You must be patient; you will find him. Do not give up on his love." Madame instructs. She caresses a long line in my palm.
"You will succeed in all that you do. You will have to work hard, and not give up. Life will not always be easy for you. Sometimes, you will feel very alone and unappreciated. But you must keep trying! You are a chosen one--your life will make an important impact on those around you. You must know when to respect your elders, but you must also challenge old ways that stunt your progress. Be wise and wary as you go about life. If you do this, you will be happy, and loved." Madame Zartha speaks in a trance. Secretly, I am relieved: looks like I'll get to stay up later this year than last.
"The spirits are leaving me now, child. They leave me with one impression: you are a warrior-woman, beautiful and impressive. You are kind and charitable. You think before you speak. You never lie or speak without reason. People respect you. Your knight cherishes you. You shall be a pride to your parents and a gift to all whom you encounter." With that, Madame Zartha falls silent. She closes her eyes briefly, then opens them.
"The reading is over," she says. I stand, my shoulders back.
"Thank you, Madame," I state clearly. She regally smiles at me, and I turn to leave.

I step out of the wagon, feeling adult, mysterious, and beautiful. I turn to look at Madame Zartha one last time. She is hunched over the table, smoking a cigarette. She looks very small from here, and very alone. I turn and see my family striding toward me, probably 'by coincidence'. I walk towards them, feeling older and wiser than ever before. My mother smiles as I approach them.

"So, you finally got your wish, huh, Lizzy?" she asks.
"Yes," I say.
"And was it everything you hoped it would be? Did she tell you anything you weren't expecting?" Momma is pulling hair back from her forehead, and I see fine lines by her wide eyes.
"It was..." I hesitate. How could I explain how Madame Zartha allowed me to grow up in five minutes? How to explain the new truth of myself?
"It was everything I wanted it to be."

With that, I take my mother's hand, and we go to the Ferris wheel, where we will whirl into the sky and lose our breath at the expanse of the sky, and be quiet in the presence of clouds, hopes, and the warm sunshine.

The Book of Job as Told by Job

2005-10-21T20:04:00.000-04:00

*I'm submitting this to a magazine for a contest, so don't you DARE plagarize it.

“FROM WHOSE WOMB DID THE ICE COME FORTH, AND WHO HAS GIVEN BIRTH TO THE HOARFROST OF HEAVEN?” God asks.
“What are you talking about?” I respond. I’m picking at a scab.
“STOP PICKING, JOB. I’M WORKING OUT MY NEXT STORY.”
“You and your manuscripts,” I whine, sucking on a locust. “You know, half don’t make any sense. I know; I’ve proofed all of them.”
God grumbles at me and a cloud rolls over my head. It feels nice; I’ve been sitting in the sun for days.
The trouble started a couple of weeks before. See, I made this contract two decades ago with God that I would edit His work. I’d let Him sign off on the corrections and I’d camel-courier them to a tablet press in far-off Gadara. The tablets would be etched and scattered throughout the pagans’ lands. The way God figured, if a nomad stumbled on a tablet in the middle of the desert written in his language, he would have to read it. Once the nomads heard from God, they’d be convinced to get to the nearest Temple, put on a yarmulke and have their foreskins shaved off. Not exactly fool-proof, but definitely creative. That was God for you. Always up to some new-fangled idea.
Things got sloppy last time. I was schlepping edits about Ezra, but the courier was drunk when he showed up for the delivery. The camel didn’t look too steady either; turned out the camel had a severe case of the clap. Well, off went the drunken courier and the S.T.D.-ridden camel into the desert, where they got sidetracked in some rat-hole town. The delivery didn’t get to Gadara, the edits were lost in a tavern, and the courier also contracted the clap, though whether from the camel or one of the working girls, I’m not sure. God got pissed off and told my wife I was in deep shit. Then, I got in trouble with my wife.
“It’s too important to be screwing up like this!” she nagged.
“I know,” I replied.
“We’ve got a party to host in one week, all the kids are coming back with the in-laws, and we gotta slaughter livestock and get the caterer here. I can’t deal with your continual screw-ups!”
“I know.” I’ve learned to succumb.
She put her hand on one hip and stared at me. “Do you KNOW who you’re dealing with here?” she demanded.
“Yeah. God.” I replied.
“No, ME!”
A knock sounded at the door. A servant stood there, looking a little scared. I asked, “What’s up?” The servant looked fearful, saying, “A gang just killed some of your livestock, and a fire came from nowhere and blazed through your entire herd.”
“I thought I smelled barbeque,” I replied. “Dammit.”
While I was trying to explain all this to my wife, a bunch of neighboring villagers pulled up in a wagon and ran to the door.
“You just parked in the cabbage,” I said to the group. “Oh, now LOOK what the mule is doing! What’s the big idea?”
“Um,” said a villager, “Yeah, we just passed by your kids’ house?”
“That commune they live in? Sure, what’s going on?”
“A dust cloud came out of nowhere and blew the whole house down. Now they’re all dead.”
“Dammit! I told them not to build that place of straw!” I yelled.
I pounded the wall in anger and jammed two fingers. “OW! DAMMIT!” I screamed. My wife was hysterical at this point, so I had a servant drug her with opium and she fell fast asleep. I sat down with wine to mourn, clutching my fingers, and that’s when I noticed the sore.
“EWWW!” I screamed. A green boil had shown up on my thigh. My upper thigh. I wondered if I got the clap from the camel.
God showed up.
“JOB!” He said.
“What? Can you see this? What is this?”
“GROSS. PLEASE COVER THAT UP.” God commanded. “I’VE COME TO VISIT YOU WITH DESTRUCTION AND GRIEF.”
“For what?” I asked. In the background, I heard my wife scream in her drug-induced haze, “For screwing up, you schmuck!”
“For what?” I repeated softly to God.
“WHAT SHE SAID. THOSE PROOFS WERE MY ONLY COPY. I’VE GOT TO RE-WRITE IT ALL. I CAN’T REMEMBER ANY OF THE FIRST BIT WITH EZRA. HE WAS WASTED DURING THAT PART.”
“Look, God, this was the first time I failed you! I’ve been doing so well; I mean, I got that whole ‘Song of Solomon’ published by Fish Press, and you know how much they hate the pleasures of the flesh! I got your first ROMANCE novel published. You can’t be this upset over one boring dialog with a drunk!”
“ENOUGH!” God yelled.
“Okay.” I said.
Because everyone seemed ticked off at me, I decided to sit beneath a great leafy tree that was shady and peaceful. As soon as I sat down, the tree withered up and died, and the sun shone bright on my skin, now puckered up with boils. My head itched, and as I began to scratch, little bugs fell out of my hair—lice. I shaved my head beneath the hot sun and felt miserable.
Some of my drinking buddies came to see me; they missed me at cocktail hour. Larry, rubbing his beer belly, asked, “Dude, why don’t you just screw the whole God thing? I know this other writer—he’s fantastic! He’s written a LOT about sex and wine and how good revenge feels…he’s a genius!”
“Larry,” I said, “Satan has really predictable plotlines.”
Larry got quiet and the guys sat and chatted with me about what a total wuss I was.
“You know,” said Larry, “If I were you, I’d be cursing God right now. There are other bosses out there that wouldn’t, you know, SCREW UP YOUR LIFE just for one lousy mistake. Now look at you! No kids, no sheep…” He was interrupted by Bart, another friend.
“Yeah, you had some pretty fine-lookin’ sheep,” Bart said.
“Why would you want to remain faithful to a jerk like that?” Larry asked.
“Because, you don’t give up on a good boss after twenty years of decent pay,” I lectured.
“Oy,” Larry said, waving his hands in disgust. The other men agreed I was being ridiculous, so they left to watch camel-polo. I stayed under the tree, and that’s where I am now, listening to the Big Galoot go on about ice in heaven.
“I thought,” I say while examining a sore, “that heaven would be warm and friendly.”
“IT IS,” says God, “I’M MERELY TRYING OUT DIFFERENT VOICES.”
In the distance, I hear the pounding of hooves. A figure is emerging from the sand dunes, seated on a black horse. The horse appears to be breathing fire, and a great pink fur coat is streaming from the rider.
“Aw, shit. We’ve got company,” I inform God.
“HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I ASKED YOU NOT TO CUSS,” God says.
“About as many times as you’ve damned humans to a fate worse than hell,” I say as the figure gets closer.
“What’s up, niggaz?” cries the man as he brings his horse to a halt and hops down. The man is decked out in hot pink leather and wears a bright fedora.
“Aren’t you roasting in that thing?” I ask Satan.
“Hell, no! Shit, thanks to the Big Brother in the Sky, I ain’t got no problems handlin’ heat.” Turning to God, Satan yelled, “Hey, Big Pimp! Check out the duds!” Satan sits down next to me, fingering his Jeri Curl locks.
“WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO BE A PIMP?” God sighs.
“Homey, I grew up on the mean streets. I gots to do what I gots to do to get by, you dig?” Satan snaps his fingers, glittering with ice.
“YOU GREW UP IN HEAVEN, SATAN.”
“Shit. Talk to the hand,” Satan raised a hand up to the sky and looked at me.
I scratch at a boil.
“You really shouldn’t pick at that,” Satan says while lighting up a blunt, “It’ll scar.”
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE, SATAN? JOB AND I ARE DISCUSSING WORK.”
Satan sighs and looks at me the way people look at lepers.
“I know I look rough,” I say, “But my wife thinks my bald head is sexy.”
“You know, I gots an idea for a book right now. ‘Satan: Pimpin’ the Galaxy!’ You like? I can get you a hard copy. It’s about me and my gang, man. Some of the Bloods from around the way.” Satan adjusts his fur.
“Nah,” I say, “You know I’m contracted with God.”
“GO AWAY, SATAN, WE’RE INCREDIBLY BUSY.” God says.
“Chill out, Big Brother,” Satan yelled. Turning to me, he says, “I can take care of you. You’ll be my agent. Shoot, brother! I will lay out the cut and you will be up to yo’ nose in blow! Hell, you probably still think that contract you signed with God is kosher, don’t you, Blood?”
“Huh?” I ask. “I don’t understand you.”
Satan dropped the act and said pointedly, “Look. That contract you signed with God was a farce. The thing is, Big Brother made Free Will, which is pretty much why I can stay in business. God can’t MAKE you be his editor. Work for me! You’re independent, man—a freelancer!”
God remains silent.
“God?” I ask, “Is that true?”
“THINK OF THAT CONTRACT AS AN INCENTIVE. IT KEEPS YOU OUT OF TROUBLE,” God says.
I feel crappy about this, like I’ve been hoodwinked. “My companions are treacherous like a torrent-bed that runs dark with ice, turbid with melting snow!” I scream.
“HEY, THAT’S GOOD. I’M GOING TO WRITE IT DOWN.”
Satan glances at me. “So, we ridin’?”
I think about this. I consider God--He’s very intolerant of some things and can be bossy. Satan would be easy-going about deadlines and is filthy rich, while God talks about the fruits of the hard-working, yada yada. God wiped out my family, my livestock, and my hopes. I’m still thinking about this when God speaks up.
“YOU KNOW, I FEEL INCLINED TO TELL YOU, JOB, THAT SATAN PUT ME UP TO ALL OF THIS.”
“What?” I ask.
“OKAY, THERE’S A BIT OF TRUTH TO WHAT HE SAYS. I DID WANT YOU FOR AN EDITOR, BUT NOT JUST BECAUSE YOU ARE GOOD AT IT. YOU ARE ALSO A VERY DEVOUT JEW.”
“I know,” I say. “I blame my mother.”
“ANYWAY, I WAS GETTING AROUND TO TELLING YOU THIS. I DIDN’T FIGURE YOU WOULD DROP ME, BUT THIS ASSHOLE,” said God, directing His voice at Satan, “CAME TO ME THE OTHER DAY AND THREW ME A WRENCH. SATAN SAID YOU WERE OBEDIENT TO ME BECAUSE I GAVE YOU A LOT OF WEALTH. THE MINUTE IT WAS GONE, YOU’D TURN YOUR BACK ON ME. IT WAS A TEST.”
“Here I am, just trying to live out a nice, peaceful life! I obey the Ten Commandments, I commit to one weekend a month and two weeks during the summer for Hebrew training, and you guys want to test me?” Now, I’m incensed.
“You get decent benefits? ‘Cause I got yo’ back on benefits,” Satan whispers.
“Shut up, Satan!” I yell. “God, why doubt me? Not only are you the great ‘I AM’, but you also have some pretty interesting writing. I like your dry humor. You’re money!”
“YOU THINK I’M THAT GOOD?” God asks.
“Yes, I think you’re good! I also happen to think you are a Beneficent Being. But YOU,” I say, turning to Satan, “are a HORRIBLE writer. It’s all the same with you—lust, sex, greed, murder, hatred. The first nine sex scenes are great, but they get old. God’s the one with the talent. All the pink fur in the world wouldn’t convince me otherwise.”
“You’re an idiot,” Satan says, wiping the dust off of his pink pants. He stands and looks up at the sky, saying dejectedly, “Well, I hope you’re pleased.”
“I AM. FOR JOB’S OBEDIENCE AND PATIENCE, I SHALL REWARD HIM TWOFOLD. HE SHALL HAVE TWICE THE WEALTH, LIVESTOCK, AND CHILDREN…”
I clear my throat.
“…OKAY, HALF THE NUMBER OF CHILDREN AS BEFORE--BUT THE SAME WIFE.”
“Deal,” I say.
Satan jumps on the horse and gallops off. I notice the horse’s platinum shoes, and I shake my head incredulously. Satan’s get-up does look pretty snazzy.
“Hey, God,” I ask, “You think you’ll ever wear a coat that cool?”
“THERE’LL BE AN ICESTORM’S CHANCE IN HELL BEFORE THAT HAPPENS. GET ME A CUPPACINO. I’VE GOT A STORY I WANT TO WRITE.”

(c)Elizabeth Anne Fritz

The Children Are Gone

2005-10-16T09:06:00.000-04:00

*It's Flash Fiction Friday Time!

"The children are GONE," Miranda frantically cried into the phone.
"What do you mean 'gone'?" Daniel asked, his deep voice sounding tinny from the other side of the world.
"I mean, they were with me, but then little Adam...oh!" Miranda began to weep in earnest.
"What? Adam WHAT?" Daniel demanded.
"Oh, he's just three, Daniel! He just slipped away! And before I could tell Geoffrey any differently, he ran off in search of him!" Miranda was crying and clutching the phone to her ear.
"Miranda! How could you let this happen?" Daniel was upset in the way men become when they cannot fix a problem.
"I don't know! It's just...so scary here. It's like feeding time at the zoo! The people...oh, God, there are SO MANY of them, and they all wander about, crazed looking, and it's like they see you but they don't really SEE you..." Miranda's voice trailed off.
"Calm down, Miranda. They can't have gone too far," Daniel was trying to calm down, miles away.
"You don't understand, Daniel. This place is a football field! It's enormous! And the noise, can you hear the noise? Two little boys will not survive alone!"
"Miranda, please, honey, you have to calm..." Daniel's voice was becoming harried again.
"What will these people DO to them? What will they do? Why, they could snatch our babies up and I'll never see them again! Oh, it's all my fault!" Miranda cried. "Oh, Daniel, how could you let me come here ALONE with the children? I thought you loved me. I thought our hard times were over, and you would protect me, and the children! Now, you'll never see your sons again, and all because you couldn't leave your precious library!" Miranda was screaming now. She turned to look around her. She searched the sea of faces for her little children. They could be anywhere! They could be hiding in a dark corner, or trembling with cold somewhere.
"Miranda, we've been over this too many times. I simply CANNOT hold your hand through everything. You HAVE to understand--there are some things you must face alone," Daniel said.
"Yes, alone! Okay! But NOT with the children! You made all three of us vulnerable! You've abandoned your family for the last time! I won't put up with it. You can put me away again, lock me up, ignore me forever. But if you ever put our boys' lives in danger again by stranding them here, a place such as this...I will never forgive you!" Miranda screamed. Some of the faces in the crowd turned and looked at her with empty eyes. For a brief moment, some of the faces registered panic in Miranda's voice, but this realization quickly dissolved. The zombies were too numb to help Miranda.
She prayed all of the zombies were like these--dull, dumb, and without desire for two little boys. Oh! Geoffrey had on a bright red Mickey Mouse shirt...Miranda scanned for the color. No, nothing. Adam had on his little Oshkosh jumpers with the train embroidered on the front pocket. Those were the jumpers Miranda's mother had bought for him. To see that little train again would be a miracle, but Miranda had given up hope.
"Daniel, if we survive this nightmare, if I can come back with our babies, I promise you, I will never EVER come here again unless you are with me! Do you understand?" Miranda shouted.
"Of course, dear, yes, but please...go look for the children!" Daniel cried.
"Wait, wait, I hear something," Miranda's voice grew quiet on the phone, and from the large house where Daniel sat alone, he heard a voice grow over Miranda's breath.
"OH! I must go, Daniel. I must go!" Miranda hung up the phone and began to run through the thick crowd. Her eyes frantically darting here and there, she almost careened into a tall, devilish man, but she righted herself and kept running. And there! There, around the corner, thirty, now twenty feet away, she could see her boys. Geoffrey and Adam were standing together, holding hands, eyes large with fear and grief. And the voice came back on the loudspeaker just before Miranda collided with her children and gathered them into her arms, sobbing loudly with relief.
"ATTENTION WAL-MART SHOPPERS. MS. PATTERSON, YOUR PARTY IS WAITING FOR YOU AT CUSTOMER SERVICE."
Miranda Patterson clutched her cart, white-knuckled, while she bundled the two boys into it. She glanced around at the other shoppers, oblivious to her plight, and sighed a deep sigh. As the three reached the exit doors, Miranda left her items in the cart and yanked the boys to the green mini-van.
She buckled Geoffrey and Adam into the backseat, climbed into the front, and made sure the child safety locks were on. She placed the seatbelt across her chest and began to reverse out of the parking lot.
As the minivan rounded the corner of the street, homeward bound, little Geoffrey spoke up.
"Mommy? I don't ever want to go there again!"
Miranda nodded and glanced in the rearview mirror.
"Don't worry, baby. We'll never EVER go back to Wal-Mart."

Traveling Without Moving

2005-10-11T16:27:00.000-04:00

On the eighth floor of a hospital in Brooklyn, by the western window, a man is sitting in a wheelchair. The sun grazes the linoleum floor. The ward is quiet. The man is silent.

He is Lou, and he has lived in this hospital for many years. He is more familiar than many doctors and nurses. The orderlies feel quite comfortable with Lou, because Lou is more like a piece of furniture than a patient. He is rigid and faint; he does not speak. No visitors come to see Lou. He is easily moved from corner to corner, and he is very compliant because he cannot speak.

Lou has a bath once a week, given by a pretty nurse. He shows no signs of excitement during bath time, even though the nurse is buxom and fair. After his bath, Lou is shaven by the nurse, and she combs his hair in a sanctimonious manner. She puts aftershave on Lou’s neck.

Lou is in a psych ward because the doctors cannot figure out what else to do with him. Lou is not crazy, but he is not normal, either. A stream of specialists have come in to work on Lou, hoping to have a revelation, or discover some new neurological disorder to name, or simply get to the bottom of the problem of Lou. Unfortunately, none of these specialists get very far with Lou, and grow frustrated, and take their specialties to other patients. A battery of medications has been forced on Lou in the past, but he does not respond to the drugs, so now, Lou is only dosed with blood pressure medicine and a mild sedative. The sedative is to ensure ‘appropriate reactions’. This is fancy medical speak for ‘keeping him quiet in case he gets loud’. Getting loud is not what Lou does, and the doctors are foolish to waste the sedative on Lou.

In other hospitals, on other psych wards, there are many people like Lou. They have been forgotten, even while still in the same room with others. They are shadow-like; somehow, they disappear into the walls of the room. There are many, many people like Lou all over the world.

In ancient times, Lou may have been regarded as a spiritual master—a man so still in thought and meditation that he rejects the world and its noise. He might have been called a priest or a monk. But it is not long ago; it is 2005, and Lou is merely considered statuesque. Lou is catatonic; doctors would reject any claim of spiritual meditation. Lou is not a Zen master; he is just an old piece of human furniture.

So he sits by the same window (because he is pushed there by a nurse) and he seems to stare out into the sunlight. This is what Lou does until he dies.

Lou dies in his wheelchair; he was sitting for eight hours until the shift nurse realizes he is there. It is only when she takes his pulse for checks does she realize Lou is cold and rigid and deceased. The shift nurse feels very sad for Lou and very relieved that Lou is not her father, or herself. The shift nurse calls the proper numbers and doctors come to ascertain that Lou is dead. When he is pronounced dead, orderlies move him to a stretcher and he is pushed down to the morgue. The morgue finds his cause of death as heart failure. The morgue embalms Lou, since he has no known family, and arranges to have Lou buried in the small cemetery next to the hospital, for the poor souls who are without family. Lou is very properly and formally dead.

When Lou opens his eyes from beyond the grave, he is quite relieved to have his faculties of communication back. Others understand him, and bounce around him in balls of light. Lou enters the darkness of space in a quiet manner. He feels joyful and content. There is, after all, something after death, and that Something is a great collision of nameless souls, of which Lou is one. So now Lou doesn’t really have an identity, much like in life, and he doesn’t have any concerns, much unlike life, and he is very, very glad to be with Others.

Lou asks the Others, in a transcendent way, of course, “Why?”
And the Others reply, in a transcendent way, “Why not?”

And Lou is content with this answer, and realizes that for his entire measured human life, he had been traveling without moving, and in death, he is continuing his journey. Lou thinks: “What a relief. What a grand, great relief.”

For Michaela

2005-10-09T20:43:00.000-04:00

I write this for myself and Michaela, a native of Omaha. I lived in Omaha for four years while studying at Creighton University. These were some of my most depressing years and eye-opening years. Nebraska was the home of my catharsis--Nebraska is where I reconciled the child in me with the adult.

You start in a covered wagon.

You start with the trail-blazing pioneers, etching a path to California, only to be stopped in the dead center of the Earth, too tired to move forward, too tired to forge back. You quit in the brown spot, and that brown spot is named Nebraska.

You build a shack of dirt and line the floor with dirt. You sweep dirt out, only to find it caked in the porcelain dishes you brought from back East. You wash clothes, only to dry them in dirt. You find dirt in your food, bland and white.

You build a real home out of expensive wood, because there is hardly a tree in sight. You put in glass windows so that you can gaze out onto the brown fields of prarie. You wish there was something else to look at, but there is nothing.

You get some livestock, and you plant some wheat. You have some babies and farm the land. Your blood is thinned, your skin is thick, your hands are tired. You nurse sick calves and sick babies. Many of them die in the winter. You bury them in a grave, and make a cross for the children, and stick the cross amongst the brown, brown wheat.

And then the trains come through, and the town becomes a city. The city builds itself out of the pioneers who have come, but the city never loses the dirty sheen from the dusty land. And in the winter, when the sun is dimmed and the cold snow has belched upon the tundra, there is only brown surrounding the city. But now, you are in a home, with alleyways and separate garages and stocks in the beef trade.

And then, the beef trade goes on to better places, where the ranching is more prosperous, and it leaves the dirty city in Nebraska. The trains still run through, but not as often. The trains are bound for more fantastic places--Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles. You are left behind in a trail of dirt.

You go along the North Platte river, out to the wilds of Northern Nebraska. You stand amidst the brown wheat and smell the air. It is ripe with pollen. It is bleak and soul-crushing. Later, the land goes fallow, but a quarry opens, and so you go to work at the quarry. You see girls, young girls, with shoulders like men. These girls drive trucks and Hi-Lo's and go home to cook bland meals of meat and potatoes for their husbands, who still read The Farmer's Almanac with the poise of the religious.

You are Catholic, Protestant, German, Irish, Scottish. Your hands are still tired, your skin is still tough, your blood does not always warm you in the middle of the gray, gray winter. You wonder why you stay in such a bleak, brown place.

And then, in the middle of summer, you stand at a fountain in the middle of this dusty, windy, gray city. And the sky is dark, but off in the distance, far to the West, a lightening storm begins, thrashing purple violet against the ground, soundless and beautiful and awe-inspiring. The air is thick with electricity, and it is as though Thor himself is standing atop the Mutual of Omaha building and tossing down these forks of power.

You awake the next morning, and the sky is so huge above you, and so blue, the expanse leaves you breathless. While the city remains gray and lifeless, and the Earth remains brown and dusty, you know why you stay. You stay for those skies. Those incredible Nebraska skies.

The Chase...Flash Fiction Friday

2005-10-07T17:29:00.000-04:00

Loping along through the moonlight, the priest tore at his cossock. A sweat broke against his brow as he ripped his collar into bits.
“O Heavenly Father, I am not worthy so much as to gather up thy crumbs at thy feet…” the young priest thought as he ran, panic transforming his heavy features into a grimace.

The path he took was steep and filled with roots of the surrounding forest. Many times, the priest lost his balance, tripping over the wet, bleak ground of the Estonian coast. His black shoes had fallen off somewhere behind him.

He heard the distant shouts of angry citizens, clanging their way through the dense underbrush, waving torches and screaming for justice. This night, it was not just the recently converted Muslims (departed from their lands as Jews, now taking on Arabic names). It was his own parish.

He was long used to the chases, and was also adept at finding shelter. But this night was different, for the town cryer had spotted his hideout, and had also identified him as the newly stationed priest from distant Romania.

His Orthodox stature, the priest thought, would surely protect him. Alas, it had only camoflauged him for a certain time, and then, just like before, in all the other little villages and towns throughout Middle Europe, he was discovered, and chased and hunted as an animal, and forced to beg the Papal consulate for further orders.

The priest, still running in outright fear, found his rosary and began to chant the Salve Regina, hoping for God’s intercedence. The would-be captors were nearing, and the priest was beginning to tire. His abdomen clenched in a familiar way, and he hurtled to the damp ground again. He tried to stand, but could not, for the pain was so intense. It traveled through his gut and into his bones. He moaned “Kyrie Elesion, Kyrie” but again, God did not respond.

Momentarily, the priest was thrust backwards in time, as a child, when he first Awoke. His Master stood before him at an altar, and raised a sword above the child’s head. And the priest clearly saw, just as he had then, the single drop of blood, the single wiry hair, pinned onto the very tip of the sharpened blade. And how it had plunged down, puncturing the boy’s gentle skin. The searing pain..oh, the pain…

The priest returned to the present, gathered his cassock (or what was left of it) into a bundle, and arose. The torches were much nearer, now, just feet away. The priest heard the screams and yells of dozens of different languages, none his Mother tongue. And as the mob surrounded him, and saw him for what he was, he lifted his head and screamed for his brethren to help, as God would not come to his aid.

Through the dense brush, the wolves came with lamplight eyes and snarling snouts, and gathered ‘round the monster, heeding their Master’s call. And before the mob stood the Werewolf, slaving for flesh, howling in pain, agony, and bleeding from one great paw. The stigmata was upon this monster, yes, and the mob’s fear was only slightly diminished by the pity felt for him. But then, the wolves began to advance, and the mob was thrown into action. After several attempts to slay the wild hounds, the mob turned to descend the mountain and escape.

The wolves howled as they ran, and the Master wiped at his snout. He swatted away one single, crystaline tear. It was the one tiny piece of humanity the Lord left him this evening. It was one tear during a whole summer of the full moon.

For Love of Water

2005-10-05T16:35:00.000-04:00

I became a mermaid when I was twenty-six.

If you know someone who likes to bathe in a bathtub versus a shower, you need to be warned: that individual is likely to become a mermaid, too.

If your three year old constantly wants to be wet, and turns on faucets randomly, and puts on a swimsuit in December, you also should be warned. Your child is going to grow up to be a mermaid. Or merman. I wouldn’t want to be sexist.

When I was twenty-six, I was landlocked in a self-sustaining suburb which drew water from a far-off manmade lake. My apartment complex had a pool, but it was only three feet deep, and the presence of other people made me too aware of my fondness for the water. Plus, it was chlorinated water, a sad imitation of fresh water. I would prefer salt water, even, to chlorinated water. The nearest lake to me was three hours away. I felt like a dried out weed. I felt cracked and brittle and staunched. So, I spent two hours a day in the bathtub.

It was a nice, deep tub. I think it is called a garden tub—yes, that’s what I had. I would immerse myself in the bathtub in slightly cold water—a temperature close enough to a body of water. I would close my eyes and sink beneath the surface of the water, and from behind my closed eyelids, I would watch the rippling of the water and imagine myself in a deep cavern in the ocean, a blue and gentle place, quiet except for the distant booms of ships running aground or whales singing back and forth to one another. I would blow bubbles through my nose and imagine my voice underwater, as a mermaid. It would be haunting, like a Byzantine chorus. It would echo amongst the fish and coral, the ruins of lost treasure. And while in the bathtub, imagining these things, I would smile, and let the world fall away.

As the months passed, I found myself aware of other mermaids, too. They were everywhere! At the grocery store, a woman would stop in front of the bottled water display and seem to salivate. At work, a married woman would stop all projects if it rained. She simply had to be near a window while it was wet outside. As I look back, I see that my father and mother were both mer-people. My father avidly sailed, my mother swam passionately. I was thrown into the Chicago YMCA’s pool at the age of two. I guess I had always been sensitive to mer-people, even when I was not aware of my affection for the water.

My transfiguration occurred shortly after I was fired. I went home and drew myself a cold bath. I sunk in the bathwater and heard the Byzantine choirs again, the angst of older sailors, and closed my eyes with abandon, and delved beneath the water. There I remained, drifting away, farther and farther into the ocean, the wide expanse of the Earth’s womb. When my breath could no longer hold, I lunged out of the cold calm of the bathtub and gasped for air, all the while missing that lovely place I had encountered. Soon after, I emerged, clean, wrinkled, damp. I gathered some smallish items, filled up my tank, and closed the door to my apartment. I sat in my car, and tucked one damp piece of hair behind my ear. And I began to drive.

I drove for eight hours, before I reached the coast of the Ocean. It was nightfall; I found a remote beach dusted with rocks. I parked and stepped out into the fresh air of the shores. The stars above twinkled as souls of Mer-People smiled on me. My shoes came off, then, my clothes. I let my hair down and let it brush my shoulders. And, oh, how I smiled.

Because as I neared the water’s edge, and heard the lapping upon the sand, and the tides swim out and in, out and in, I heard my family call to me from beneath the waves. One foot went into the water, then another. My skin tingled with the thrill of water, my blood pumped hot through my chest. I was up to my knees, and feeling the kisses of tiny fish welcoming me home. I turned and glanced one last time to shore. There was no one there to see me off. There was nothing to go back to. And so, my thighs followed, then my hips. My hands skimmed the waves, allowing my body to be rocked back and forth, a sort of backwards birth. The water was black and blue and green in the dim starlight. The stars, still chirping with hope, grew brighter. Now, the water was up to my chest, then my neck, my mouth and nose, and at long last, my eyes.

As I did in the bathtub, I closed my eyes and listened. But this symphony was so much more complex than I ever imagined. The grand crash of waves about my head, the silence beneath me, a dark cradle in which I could float, was all so overwhelmingly sensory, I almost gasped. I drifted to and fro, gently rocked, and finally opened my eyes to the inky ocean.

I expected to see mere shadows there. Instead, I saw with great clarity and wonder the entire expanse of the ocean. I saw boulders ages old crumbling on one another. I saw shipwrecks, rotting and mussing the ocean floor. I saw every wondrous sea creature ever imagined. I watched dolphins frolic with sea lions, and kelp caught between the gentle, majestic mouths of sperm whales. And the light refracted from the stars, and made everything gentle, not harsh like the florescence of land, but soft and dimmed, like a candle. And the sounds! Oh, the sounds of the ocean are incomparable. Every movement goes noticed, every flap of fin or wiggle of reed or collapse of ship was a sound, echoing far into the deep blue. Hearing these noises for the first time, I almost wept with its beauty. As I looked and listened, I let go of the air trapped in my lungs, and a great bubble escaped. When this was done, I felt even lighter, even more at ease. My hair swam about me as a great inky cloud of an octopus. I tasted the salt of the ocean and the water of all shores, and was filled with satisfaction. Further out into the sea, I swam, and as I swam, I realized my legs had formed into one magnificent, iridescent tail. There were tiny scales, just like a fish’s tail, and ripples of color throughout. And my fin was magical silver, and spun light through the water as I dipped. The further I swam, the better I saw and smelled and heard. Then, I stopped, for I had heard an unnatural noise, and looking beneath me, I saw another Mermaid. She waved to me, and smiled with pearls for teeth and sapphires for eyes. I drifted deep, deep down, and saw the rest. So many mermaids are here with me, now. So many friends.

When someone tells you about a suicide, like my death was classified, ask if it was suicide by drowning. Because we do not believe those are suicides, down here. We believe those deaths are the deaths that result in dreams of water, of peace, forgiveness, and friends. We believe that each entering into the water is a re-cleansing of the soul, a new birth to the seas of the world. And we embrace our brothers and sisters who join us. You may not understand, but then, you may not have been born a mermaid.

Ms. Hall's Family Legacy

2005-10-03T15:18:00.000-04:00

Say what you will, I won't move from this house.

It's smack dab in the middle of a field owned by the octogenarian, Ms. Hall. Ms. Hall is a true saint; she won't sell this land to the developers for nothin'. She lives up in town, just a few miles away. But I haven't seen her in ages, because I won't leave this house. I rent it from her, you see, and have been for near fifty years. She gives me a sweet discount, seeing as I survey her property, and keep trespassers off the land.

Once or twice, I've seen those power trucks rumbling through the woods and made a phone call to Ms. Hall right quick. She told me the power company was trying to set up an easement on her acreage, without even asking! She told me to chase them off if I seen them again, as she is in the process of suing them for a pretty penny. She's old, all right, but she hasn't lost her quick.

So, here I am in this house in the middle of Ms. Hall's field, and I WAS as happy as tick, just sucking off the land and living out my golden years. Everything was just fine until a few weeks ago, and then something strange happened.

Now, before I elucidate on the rest of my tale, I'll tell you a little bit about the field. It's in Georgia, see, and about a hundred miles or so from Atlanta. That's a purty far distance, but these suburban types now are holing up in whatever little town they can, so now this backwater town of mine is considered 'metro' Atlanta, and the newcomers like to drive two hundred miles round trip to get to some building in Hot-lanta where they make about a gazillion dollars a year, I speculate. Anyway, about this field--see, back in ought nine or ten, some farmers started planting this stuff around our little town to keep the erosion down and feed the livestock for dirt cheap. This stuff is called kudzu, and I'm sure you read about it in one of your uppity magazines. The kudzu kills all the vegetation it gets near, but it's also good eating, filled with vittles and sustenance. Why, I eat a salad of it just about everyday. However, kudzu grows so fast, you can't hardly keep up with it. In one hot muggy day of a Georgia summer, kudzu can grow up to a foot. A whole foot! And Ms. Hall's field is just covered in the stuff. I gotta burn it back in summer, just so's I can keep the driveway clear. But that's not a problem--not really.

Well, getting back to it, I had me a good dog. His name was Luther and he stayed near me all the time. He was a shadow, that dog, and kept real good company. He was the most obedient dog there ever was, and I was glad for it. Some weeks ago, I let ole' Luther out the door to do his business. It was nighttime, but still hot outside. Luther normally did his thing and then ambled right on back to the house, but this night, Luther didn't come back right off. I figured he got a scent and went to follow it, so I's turned on the porch light and left some food out, knowing he'd be back after awhile. But he didn't come back after awhile. He didn't return during the night. And when the morning came, and old Luther still hadn't come home, I knew something was wrong. I put on my walking shoes and long pants, and went to go look for him.

Well, I'm old, so it takes me a bit longer to get moving than it used to, but I plowed through the kudzu and called over and over, "Luther! Luther!" to no avail. I figured that boy up and chased some fowl out and got lost. So I brought some dog biscuits with me and kinda sprinkled them here and yonder, hoping he would smell his way back. It was about two o'clock in the afternoon when I got tired of looking and started making my way back to the house. I was about one hundred yards from my house when I heard something in the undergrowth of the kudzu.
"Luther!" I called out, real sharp, 'cause I was annoyed. The only sound I heard was a little whimper, and then it got real quiet. Deadly quiet, like all the birds stopped twittering and the kadydids stopped strumming. So I followed that whimper and took my walking stick out in front of me, so as to poke around. Sure enough, I followed the sound to where the kudzu was rustling and poked and wouldn't you know I found Luther's old collar? But no sign of Luther.

Now, that disturbed my greatly, seeing how I'm an old man out here with no one for company. And it was mighty strange that I'd find Luther's collar, but not Luther. So I hung that collar up by the door and kept watch for him for a week or so, but he never did show up. And at the end of the week, I was surprised to see the kudzu had grown another three or four feet, and my driveway was starting to get eaten up, so I burned the kudzu back, like always. This time, maybe my nerves were getting to me, because I could swear I heard the kudzu screaming as it went up in flames. But plants do that when they burn, on account of them being filled with water. The episode did make me rather uncomfortable, so I haven't eaten any kudzu since.

I called Ms. Hall after this and informed her she might do well to hire some professional gardners to come out here with some fancy equipment and take care of this kudzu, but she told me in no uncertain terms that would not be happening. She didn't want nobody messin' with her land, and no trespassers anywhere on it. I was adamant and told her about the kudzu and Luther gone missing.
"Well, Mr. Taylor, I hope you are not suggesting the kudzu ATE your dog?" Ms. Hall said, real loud in my ear.
"Oh, no,ma'am, I ain't sayin' THAT. I's just sayin', this kudzu here is gettin' real hard for me to control."
"You'll do fine, Mr. Taylor. That field has been full of kudzu since I was a girl. You just keep burnin' it back!"
I believe it was the next day that I heard a rumble of a truck in the fields. I got my walking shoes on, but went on ahead and climbed into my 1973 Ford Ranger, just the same. I followed the sounds of the trucks way out, about half a mile down the field. Pretty soon, I came up on the trucks, and sure enough, they was from the power company. So, I shut my old Ford off and got out. Strangest thing was...the trucks were still running, but no one was around.
"Hey!" I cried. No one responded. So I leaped up into the cabs of both trucks and turned off the ignition. Now, the field was real quiet again, not a sound from the trees or the earth. And that's when I heard a man's voice, muffled and scared, sayin' "Help, help!" So, once again, I followed that sound into the undergrowth.

My, even if you saw what I had seen, I doubt you'd believe it. I still have a hard time seein' it. But there, right in front of me, was a grown man with great vines of kudzu growing over his arms and legs and his shoulder. The kudzu was sneaking into his mouth and his eyes looked like they was gonna pop right out! I said a word of exclamation, and lo, that man stared right at me. I ran to pull him free, but that kudzu was clinging fast and strong, and my old hands couldn't beat it off. I struggled, and so did the poor man, but after a bit, I couldn't see no more of him, and he disappeared right up into the foliage. Just like that!

Well, I high-tailed it right out of there before the kudzu could get me, and got back to the truck. Wouldn't you know that kudzu had latched itself onto the cab and grown over the wheels? Why, it was plumb stuck! I couldn't make it go forwards or backwards, so I just started to run back to the house. As soon as I could, I called Ms. Hall. I told her the whole story, and thought she would commit me to the loony bin for it. But when I stopped talking, and was breathing hard, she started talking.
"Now, Mr. Taylor, what you have related to me is strange, indeed. I would tell you you're off your rocker, but I know you ain't lying. Back when I was a girl, my Mammy Nurse told me that land was the family's slave land. And when the war ended and all the Negroes were freed, some of them stayed on to sharecrop the land..."
"Yes, ma'am, I know that. My grandpappy was a sharecropper on this here land.."
"Don't interrupt me, Mr. Taylor, I'm tellin' you something. Anyways, that land stayed sharecropped until it dried up, and then that kudzu came and Papa planted it there and the sharecroppers had to move on, 'cause that kudzu grew so fast. But the house you live in, that was inhabited by Mammy Nurse's Grandma, and she was vile, that woman. She was blind and crazy, and said she could put spells on people. And Mammy Nurse said she practiced voodoo, so my daddy didn't make that old witch move, 'cause he was afraid of her. But the story goes that as long as living things go about that land, they'll be eaten up every so often by that kudzu, just to keep the family aware of what they did to the slaves and sharecroppers. And as far as I can remember, it's only happened once; my uncle went on a dove hunt, wound up in the field, and never did come out."
"Ms. Hall!" I shouted. "How you gonna let me live here all this time, knowing what you do about this land bein' hainted by some old voodoo lady?"
"Mr. Taylor, you needn't raise your voice. I was just comin' to that. Story goes that as long as the sharecroppers' blood remains on the land, the kudzu won't spill over the boundaries, and won't threaten the bloodline. Mr. Taylor, you the last grandson of Mammy Nurse. You got to stay there, or else that kudzu will just tear through this whole town!"
"Now, even if that's so, Ms. Hall, I can't live forever! I don't have no kin. What's going to happen when I die?"
Ms. Hall spoke real slow and said, "Well, we'll both be gone. And it won't be our problem any longer." And she hung up the phone. That was yesterday.

So, here I sit, on the porch, watching the kudzu grow and grow. I believe in the past four hours it's come up a whole six inches. I've shut up the windows of the house, so it won't come in. I'm just sitting here, watching it grow, knowing it'll win, eventually. It'll get the house, then me, and then it will move past the boundaries and into the housing developments, and before you and I know it, that kudzu is going to eat the soul of every interloper from here to Decatur. But they ain't nothin' I can do about it, no-how. I's just gonna sit here, and watch, and wait.

A Sacrifice

2005-09-30T19:56:00.000-04:00

For "Flash Fiction Friday"
****
I’m having a problem with God. No, not one of those theoretical problems, like, “How do we know He exists?” or “How can He be everywhere at the same time?” I’m having a Real Problem with God. Call it a Crisis.

See, God just told me to kill my son. Yeah. Now, that’s a problem.

I had the kid at a pretty late age. I mean, the old lady had the kid, not me. God still hasn’t pulled that off—the final trick—a man having a baby. I’m pretty sure there’s a movie out there about it, though.

See, the old lady and I have been pretty decent people for a long, long time. We’re really quite old. And we asked God repeatedly for a kid, but He just wouldn’t get back to us on that. I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t empty His voicemail, or some angel forgot to deliver the messages. In any case, it was a long time before we heard back from Him.

I distinctly remember the conversation, though.

Me: “God? Hey, you there? Pick up if you’re there!”
God: “What now?”
Me: “Yeah, we put in a request like, I don’t know, fifty years ago for a kid, and we still haven’t heard anything back.”
(Shuffling of papers in the background).
God: “Oh, yeah, here it is. It got lost in a stack.”
Me: “Well, you know…can I get a response?”
God: “You still listening to my broadcasts?”
Me: “Weekly.”
God: “Good. I like it. Sure, kiddo, knock yourself out!”
Click. The phone went dead and then, from the bathroom, my wife started crying.

“You won’t believe what just happened to me in there!” she screamed.
“I’d probably believe it,” I said, “but I don’t really want to know the details.”
Well, you guessed it. She turned up pregnant. We were really pleased.

And then: the reality set in.

Here’s my wife, seventy years old or something, going through pregnancy. She throws up in the morning and dislodges teeth. She craves prunes and Metamucil. Her bones hurt constantly with the osteoporosis, and the kid is sucking her dry of any nutrients. She takes vitamins, but they’re only for seniors, so now she takes Flintstones vitamins, too, and complains how they hurt her cavities. It’s at this point that I began to see how this whole idea was pretty lame-brained. I mean, my wife is miserable! So, I’m miserable, too.

“Call him,” my wife gasps at me one morning between heaves.
“Call who?”
“HIM!” and she points to the ceiling.
“Yeah, and say what?” I ask.
“Just tell Him I’m miserable,” she said, ducking back to the toilet again.
“Well, honey, there are a lot of people in the world who are miserable. I mean, you certainly are not the first woman to go through a pregnancy, and after all, it IS kind of your lot in life…” I was interrupted by the screaming.
“If you don’t call Him right now, I promise you the rest of your life will be nothing short of misery, old man.”
I looked around innocently. My eyes found an old crayon that I used to write parables with. My wife had put it in a cup besides a stack of papyrus papers. I picked it up and fingered it, saying, “I had no idea that’s where that goes.”
“CALL HIM NOW!” She was near an apoplectic fit.
“I’m on it.” I went outside.

“God? Hey, you there?”
No response.
“Hey, uh, God? God? Can you hear me now?”
“WHAT?” He asked. He sounded peeved.
“Oo, sorry, didn’t mean to bother You. What are You doin’?”
“Painting the ceiling.”
“You’re painting the ceiling? Isn’t that what the angels are for?” I asked.
“Turns out it’s not in their contract.” He said, sounding agitated.
“Contract?” I asked.
“Yeah, you know who most of them are contracted with, right?” He asked.
“No! You can’t mean-Satan?”
“Worse. Teamsters. These guys got by-laws that get them out of all sorts of work. So I’m stuck painting the ceiling. You called just when I was at the top of the ladder.”
“Oh, I’m sorry about that, God. Hey, wait a minute. I thought you were able to be everywhere at once!”
“Can we not get into that right now? What do you need?” He sounded annoyed again.
“It’s the old lady. Turns out this pregnancy is pretty tough on her, you know, being so old.” I said. In the background I heard the wife say something about ‘not being all that old’.
“Well, you know, you DID ask for the pregnancy.” God said.
“Yeah, but, I mean, I didn’t know it was going to be this miserable!”
“Well, it’s nice to hear you empathize with your wife,”
“No, I mean, miserable for me!” I said emphatically.
There was silence.
“But of course I love her, and hate to see her so ill all the time, and just want to be a good provider, O Great One, and make sure my family is well provided for, so I beg for your Mercy, O Lord of All, O Great Benefactor of…”
“Okay, shut it. Shut it. I’m on it. Problem solved. Look, I gotta run. There’s paint dripping on my shoe.” God said, and then hung up.

I went back inside.
“Nicely done,” said the wife. I thought she was being sarcastic, but for once, she wasn’t. Because there in her arms lay the most perfect, rosy-cheeked little baby I had ever seen. My son was born, and was healthy and beautiful, and my wife and I lay back in the glow of God’s greatness and smiled with affection and tender love upon the gift from Heaven, the little angel…and all was peaceful.
For five minutes.
Then, the kid started to cry.

So there was that whole ‘parenting’ thing we had to go through, my wife and I. Many times, I was on the helpline to God, but He had gone to an automated voice recognition system at that point, and I kept getting directed to India for help. Here’s an idea of THOSE conversations.
Me: “Hello?”
Yogi: “Please hold. I am currently trying to reach Nirvana.”
(Musak)
Me: pushing zero several times to get to the operator.
Yogi: “You persist much. Tell me, what is the nature of your question?”
Me: “The damn kid doesn’t get fractions. I tell him ‘Go get a fourth of a pound of lamb from the freezer’ and he just looks at me. So, I do the whole apple routine. ‘If you’ve got two halves of an apple, you have one apple. If you have four quarters of an apple, you have an apple.’ There’s just no getting through to him.”
Yogi: “Yeah, I can’t help much in that department. We’re on a different measurement system over here.”
Click.

But we managed to get by, and the little squirt wound up being pretty well-loved and nurtured.

Yesterday was his thirteenth birthday. We slaughtered a kid for him (no, not the neighborhood bully—I meant a kid goat). We put a bright red balloon on a string around his neck, to signify his importance. Of course, he almost choked himself on it, so we tied it around a chair. We had some of his little hooligan friends invited for a big party. I hired some troubadours for entertainment who only asked for wine as payment. I mean, I had done pretty well on expenses and the wife was happy and the kid was really thrilled.

So, an hour before the party started, I get this message while out feeding the sheep. It’s Him.

God: “Hey, you.”
Me: “Well, hey there, Stranger! Long time no hear from!”
Silence. Then, “I’d appreciate it if you spoke in a manner that expresses respect for Me.”
Me: “Um, sorry. Your Humble Servant doth verily apologize, O Great Master. What can I doest for Thou?”
God: “Better. Tomorrow, take your kid up to Mount Moriah and kill him for Me. It’s a sacrifice.”
Me: “Huh?”
God: “You heard Me. I need you to do this. The angels are demanding better terms in order to keep working for Me, and I’ve got to satiate them with the blood of a human boy, preferably a well-behaved one. That way, they can’t say I only stick it to them.”
Me: “Huh?”
God: “I know, it’s a trouble. I guess I now know what the Collections department must feel like when placing calls. But I need you to do this for Me. Okay?”
Me: “How am I going to explain this to the wife?”
God: “Easy. Don’t. Sins of commission are better than sins of omission.”
The line went dead.

So, you see my crisis, right?

I just went and gathered my son. He was busy playing with some new action figures.
“Look, Dad! This is how we stomp the Philistines!” he cried as he stomped all over some green army men.
“Uh huh. Look, kid, we gotta take a walk.”
“Where to, Dad?”
“Uh. It’s a secret. Like a mission. Or something.”
“Like a mission from God?” My son really liked parables.
“Yeah, kinda.” I said.
We’ve begun walking at this point. The evening is cool, and the sky is layered in all sorts of panoramic colors. The air is whispering of much-needed rain.

“Hey, Dad.” My son says.
“What’s up, buddy?”
“It sure is nice out, huh? And I had such a good birthday, and next week is the Bah Mitzvah, and maybe I’ll get some money…”
“Son, maybe we should just be happy for the time we have. Right now. Together,” I say.
“Oh, yeah, totally. Hey, are we climbing up this mountain?”
“Yeah, thought I’d work my muscles some.”
“Dad, you’re like ancient. You should so not be doing this. Here, lean on me while we walk.”
This makes me want to cry, so I slow down some. Now, night is setting in. We walk further up the mountain, and the first drops of rain hit our cheeks. The rain is ice cold, and it stings. I try to protect my son with my arm, but he pushes that away so that I can lean on him for support.

“Kid, I’m supposed to be protecting you, not the other way around,” I say.
“Well, I guess God would say we both have to take care of each other, right? I mean, He doesn’t talk to me the way he talks to you, but I guess that’s what I think.” My son wrapped an arm around my waist. I want to tell him that’s not God’s plan at all; apparently, God likes to torture us and not answer our prayers and totally disregard humans, and when He’s not ignoring us, He’s making us do really downright bad things. Like killing our kids for sacrifice. I keep silent on the topic.

We come to a ledge.
“Isaac, stop. Lemme sit here for a moment,” I instruct. I sit down and take a deep breath. I feel the cold blade of my knife under my robe, and imagine spilling my child’s blood for God. I’m shaking.
“Dad? Are you okay? You know, it’s pretty dark up here, and I’m soaked. Maybe we need to go home.”
“Listen, son. There’s something…well,” I stall, because this is so hard. I brush tears from my eyes.
“I haven’t always told you that I love you. That’s because I’m old, and cranky, and think most of the time, you take up too much energy. But the fact is, kid, I love you a lot. You are God’s gift to your mother and I. You are as precious to us as all the gold in the world,” I say tearfully.
My son moves closer to me, in order to comfort me. He embraces me, and as he does, I place my hands firmly on his shoulders, keeping him from moving. He goes soft, trusting, not understanding his life is in danger. I turn him around gently, then, I swiftly drop him to his knees as I pull the blade from beneath my robe and place it at his throat.
“Father!” he is screaming. Lightening cracks down the black mountain, and a voice comes through, loud and clear.
“ABRAHAM,” God says.
“What now? Huh? What do you want? I’m in the middle of killing my son for you here. WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT NOW?” Rage is shaking my voice. My hands can’t seem to steady themselves.
“ABRAHAM. LET THE CHILD GO. YOU HAVE PASSED THE TEST.” God is speaking in a movie star voice, deep and powerful.
“What test?” I say, dropping the blade as Isaac stumbles away from me.
“I DID SEEKETH YOUR FAITH. I WANTED TO KNOW IF YOU TRULY LOVED ME. IT SEEMS YOU DO.”
“Well, no crap, God! Of course I love you! I mean, not like THAT, but, you know, I love you!”
“GOOD. I AM PLEASED. I HAVE TRULY CHOSEN THE FATHER OF ISRAEL, AND OF THE JEWS, AND OF THE TRIBES. BLESSED ART THOU, AND BLESSED BE YOUR SON, ISAAC, FOR HE SHALL CARRY ON THE BLOODLINE OF THE LORD.”
Isaac clamps his hands over his ears.
“Yeah, okay, thanks God. Can you stop with the dramatics? I’ve got a frightened kid, here, you know,” I say.
The lightening and rain cease. Isaac stands up and looks at me doubtfully. I shrug with an apologetic face, mouthing the words, ‘He’s crazy!’, as I point upwards.
“I saw that,” God says.
“Sorry, God,” I say.
“I know I don’t always make sense. But I promise you this: I’m always going to take care of you. Even when you doubt me and curse me, but then suck up to me to get back in my good graces. I’m going to help you. I may give you tough things to do, but only because I know you’ll succeed. I promise you, it’s all going to work out,” God says in a
kind tone.
“Dad, can we go home?” My son, forgiving, comes and wraps his arms around my frail waist. We begin to descend the mountain. Halfway down, we hear God again.

“Oh, Abraham?” God asks.
“Yes, Lord,” I respond.
“In forty minutes or so, can you bring some of that fried goat left over from the party?”
“Can’t you just come to the house?” I ask.
“Well, see, I just started this really good book. It’s on Oprah’s book club, and I’m coming up on the juicy part, and it’s so nice up here on the mountain…” God explains.
Isaac tugs on my robe.
“I’ll bring it back, Dad. I have a feeling that God and I have a lot to talk about. Like where babies come from. And how can God be everywhere all at once? You know, kid stuff.”
I smile at my son charitably. Of course the kid can walk up this damn mountain again. I’m going home and having the old lady rub some balm into my joints, because I’m an old, old man. I’m the Father of Israel.

Devoveo Ad Mare

2005-09-24T08:32:00.000-04:00

The Captain pulled the wool coat close about his throat and stared hard to port.

The sea was roaring, she was, angrier than any harpy, any Charybdis. The Captain scowled.
Although young for a Captain, he had already adapted the look of a weathered seaman, used to barking out orders and having few friends on deck.

The Captain saw the waves swallow the tiny boat in the distance. He saw the arms and legs of men waving in desperation, flags hung upside down in distress. But his vessel could not bear the storm. He could not tack in this wind; it would be too much for he and the skipper to handle alone. The skipper was worthless, at this moment. Skipper was a huddled mass of quivery flesh, weeping in the galley, crying against the cold saltwater pouring in through the deck.

The Captain remained alone on the bridge, scowling at the tiny boat as it was flipped over and deposited the men to the high, gray waves and white capped vices. The men were fifteen in number, just enough to man a small vessel like the Captain's "Muse", just enough to fit into the one lifeboat the Muse carried.

The Captain had tied the rudder to stay the course through the storm, but put anchor down. It was not much help, as the seas were rough and hungry for life. The Muse rocked to and fro with each fervored hurtle from the water. The lines, battered and beginning to fray, were just holding in place. The boom was shuddering.

The Captain slid his way to the cabin, and practically swam down the stairs as the water rushed in. He could see the skipper in the galley, and made his way to him. As expected, Skipper had weakly lashed himself to the mast stem for fear of being washed out of the cabin--a foolish thing to do, indeed, for it the Muse went under, the Skipper would have no hope of escape.

"What's this, then, Skipper? Stop being a yellow-belly and get on deck with me!" Captain barked through the wet wool jacket.
"Captain, please! Untie me!" Skipper begged.
"You fool!" barked Captain. "You got yourself into this mess of rope, you blimey dunce! Now I have to cut you out!" And the Captain took his blade and cut Skipper loose.
Captain turned back toward the deck, saying, "Now, Skipper! To the bridge! Alas, our mates have squandered themselves by throwing themselves to sea too early! But I declare, the Muse will outlast this storm, and any like it! No mutiny will bring this ship to rest at a watery death! Come, Skipper, advance!"

And then, the Captain felt a hard shock to his head, and his eyes saw only water as he sank to the galley floor.
****
When Captain regained consciousness, he found himself lashed to the mast on deck, and a rag stuffed into his mouth. Skipper stood at the bridge, hands grasping the rail, posture stiff. Captain made a strangled noise, and Skipper turned. Skipper came to Captain with a scowl.

"The sea is quieter, now, Captain, as you see. Perhaps your sacrifice made her so?" Skipper asked scornfully, while removing the gag from Captain's mouth.
"What is the meaning of this? Unhand me at once, you bastard!" The words came out of Captain's mouth in froth.
"Don't attempt to be incredulous, Captain!" screamed Skipper. "Don't attempt to befuddle me with idiot wiles! Damn well, you know you put those men on that little, worthless vessel and sent them to sea! You put them there at gunpoint! You sailed them into the storm in a fit of madness! Your eyes were black as hell, they were, and your voice was cruel! Those men have perished because of you, you demon! And I? I, you lashed in the galley, screaming of mutiny and the storm! I, your best friend, your comrade in all things, your only confidante! You have betrayed me in your madness, and have killed fifteen men by sending them over!"

The Captain, lashed as he was, could do naught but slowly see the scenes of ten hours past play in front of him. The pale faces of the boys as he marched them to the boat, the tears of the youngest mate, only thirteen years old. He saw himself as he had been, blackened with rage and madness, shrieking of the sea's request for blood, sermonizing to the sentenced crew of sacrifice. The sea brewed quicker as the lifeboat had been hastily set afloat, and the Skipper had cowered in fear. These things, the Captain saw as he looked at the Skipper, his closest mate, his dearest friend.

"My God...I am mad..." Captain whispered.
"Mad? You are cursed, you horrid damp soul! You are a plague to the sea! Too many years, you've sat adrift in this ocean, on the Muse, and forgotten what life is! Too many years, you've broken yourselves against storms such as this! Captain, these years have stolen your sanity!"

The winds broke hard at that moment, and the ship rocked hard to starboard. Lashed as he was, Captain saw Skipper slip against the movement, and grasp a rail, only to have his hand loosed by another great wake of waves. Captain saw Skipper rolled down deck, and pushed over board. But Captain could not assist Skipper, tied as he was. He screamed into the wind, only to have it take his voice away from Skipper. Skipper was a spot in the sea, now, growing weaker by the moment, until his flailing arms quieted, and his mouth stopped gaping open like a fish caught on a line. And then, Captain could see Skipper no more.

Now, the sea was rough and black, and the night had fallen in. The temperature was desperately cold, and Captain could no longer feel his extremities through his wool coat. Captain groaned to the sea and sky for mercy, but the sky would not listen, and the sea continued to brew. The Muse took on more water, with no one to man her, and the Captain felt the list to port. Soon, the boat was almost on its side, taking in too much, and the Captain hung parallel to the sea. And as he stared into the water, lashed to the mast, he saw the vixens of the sea calling to him, holding up their pale arms amongst their deadened green hair. Here, the sirens of the sea were calling him once again, their lithe limbs curling into waves. And as the vixens came to the Captain in a great leap of water, and broke the mast with their fury, and lashed themselves about the Captain, he grew resilient and scowled at them.

"You whores of the sea! Take me, and suck my bones dry!"

As he screamed, the sky opened up its greatest fury, and pelted the ocean with rain, while the sea swallowed the Captain into a black tunnel of wet rage, followed by the wreckage of the Muse, and digested them into the darkest cave far below the surface.

The Captain came to rest amongst a bed of rocks, and suffocated amongst the mossy tresses of sea vixens, the lank swirls of despair, and closed his eyes, and was crazed no more.

A Chip off the Old Block

2005-09-17T04:57:00.000-04:00

I got Flashed at JJ's Blog.

Hell bent for leather and ugly as a dirt clod, Max climbed out of the sewer onto the busy parkway.

The Zybus flew overhead, and someone kindly deposited a wad of chewing gum on Max's head. Max shook his head in disgust, and ran past the Zybus Depot, blinking with advertisements posted by the Government. He didn't stop to read them. Like everyone else, he knew the ads by heart.
"Save the Earth! Stay indoors!"
"Don't Pollute your Mind! Put the book down and turn on the Telly!"

Max was running for another purpose--that is, he was running away from the Government Squad. He could still see them now, as they were three hours ago, in the detainment room.
The two male droids were sheathed in pale blue metal, and had strikingly handsome faces. The female droid (the sergeant) had a pale pink apron on over her metallic breasts. The droids had been very charming and polite when they had informed Max of the intent to kill him--humanely, of course.

"But I haven't done anything!" Max proclaimed.
"Not so, sir," said the female droid, "We've documentation of your work in the lab."
"But that's my job! I work for the Government! Dr. Astley..."
"Dr. Astley is considered a fugitive, sir. He is a ribald example of rebelliousness within the confines of the Government."
"But I've paychecks from the Government! I'm a coroner, for President's sake! I belong to the union of the world government just like you!" Max was bewildered.
"I'm sorry, sir," the female droid continued, "that you were disillusioned about your work. That does not excuse you from performing immoral and degrading acts upon the bodies of the Government!"
One of the male droids slammed his hand upon the table.

Apparently, much to Max's benefit, the Government had another power failure that so recently plagued the world. All droids, being attached to the power source by remote location, shut down. At this point, while the three droids were drained of power, Max jumped from the seat, ran to the door, and escaped. He'd like to think he was incredibly clever about the whole thing. He wasn't. Simply, the entire building had lost power functions and no one noticed a slightly balding twenty five year old dashing out of the building and onto the Parkway. As Max ran, he thought about the 'immoral and degrading' acts he had so recently committed against the dead bodies piled at the Government interment Center.

He and Dr. Astley had been working round the clock to discover what was killing off so many individuals in the city. A plague like this had not been experienced since five hundred years ago. The Government doctors were unable to diagnose the causes, as doctors no longer really diagnosed anyone. Doctors simply dispensed pills to lengthen or shorten life. Nutrition was amply provided by Government Vitamins, and citizens decided the length of their life, generally provided on the lottery they were assigned upon birth. But the dead! Max had determined the dead were all over the age of 35, but not by much, and all had a small flap placed in the frontal lobe of the brain, where a tiny chip of some type had been placed.

Dr. Astley and Max had determined that somebody was heartlessly placing termination chips into the brains of the victims. The victims were of no certain pattern. Other than being around 35, the dead were women, men, black, asian, white, poor, rich. There was no denomination among them! It was perplexing. But the work was approved by the Government! Wasn't it...?

Max had run from the precinct on the parkway and had found the old sewer tunnel. Of course, it was not in use, as the Government had found an ecological method to remove waste (it had much to do with dehydration and small packs of aluminum shuttled to space), so Max found himself quite alone in the sewers. But as he trundled blindly along the passages, he found his locater government card was beeping urgently. Max was ready to ditch the card, but as he pulled it out of his pocket, he saw a ghastly sight on the small screen. It was Dr. Astley, trying to contact him! Max fingered the 'call' button, and placed the transmission through.

"Dr. Astley! Are you all right?" Max cried into the card.
"Max! You must come immediately! I've discovered it all! The plague..all of it!" Dr. Astley was frantically whispering.
"Yes, then! I'll come to the lab!" Max replied.
"No, no! Not the lab! Go to the Leatherface Saloon, by the Zybus Depot! I'm in the back, hiding!"
The transmission was cut short.

So, here Max came, climbing out of the sewer and by the Zybus Depot, running blindly into a darkened alley where he was directed by the locater card. He found the Leatherface Saloon by its ghastly sign depicting an old character from a movie, holding a blade of some type. Max stumbled into the dingy bar, shocked at its antiquity. He saw about him ancient serving taps for ale, and a telly predating the Government's reign. The barkeeper, a squat man with a patch, looked at Max and nodded toward the door behind the bar. Max dashed through the door, and there, he found Dr. Astley.

Dr. Astley was sitting behind a desk, with papers and ledgers spread out before him. His old hands were still and quiet. It seemed Dr. Astley was quite collected. While Max was observing this, seven droids stepped out from the shadows of the room and surrounded Max. Max gasped in surprise as he was shoved down in a chair before Dr. Astley.

"What the devil is going on?" cried Max.
"Tsk tsk, dear boy. You musn't fuss," said Dr. Astley. "I felt it necessary to bring certain events to light before your termination!"
"Dr. Astley! I do not understand!"
"Ah, poor Max," said Dr. Astley as he stood up, "You have the true brain of a scientist. So eager to discover! So foolish to believe the discovery will not lead to consequence!" Dr. Astley stepped into a darkened corner, and turned on a light. In the corner of the room, on a palette, lay a corpse, covered with a sheet.
"Come, come, Max. Come have us a looksee!" Dr. Astley directed. The droid behind Max shoved him in the shoulder. Max stood and joined Dr. Astley at the palette. Dr. Astley uncovered the corpse, showing it completely dissected with the facial skin pulled down and the cranium sawed open. The brain was exposed, and therein lay a tiny chip.

"My dear boy, you stumbled upon the Government's newest and greatest invention! While you pilfered away, diagnosing and determining death, I had to contact the Government and inform them of your great skills of deduction." Here, Dr. Astley took a scalpel, and delicately removed the chip from the corpse.
"You see, Max, this recent plague of illness, this recent surge in the death toll, is due to this little contraption. You came to the conclusion that the chip was a termination chip, like those seen in old computers. You were wrong. It was not a termination chip." Dr. Astley glared at Max with clouded eyes.

"Why, Max, would you think a computer chip could kill a human?" Dr. Astley asked.
"But it's been done! We've seen the exercises on the champs. A chip is placed neatly beneath the skin, preferably in tissue, and it rearranges electrical impulses throughout the body, thereby killing!" Max was sweating.
"But why so sudden, dear boy, would we see it happen on humans, without warning?" Dr. Astley queried.
"Well, I certainly don't know, sir! I'm merely a coroner!"
"Foolish boy. The termination chips have been used for years on humans, yes, but all at once? No, no. Tut tut! The Government is smarter than that. We clean out riff-raff in a much more discreet manner, and never place the chips in such an obvious way. No, Max," and here Dr. Astley sighed, "what you discovered was something completely different. You see, a number of years ago, our droids began...feeling things, yes? They began thinking, and functioning independently. The droids began to feel emotion. Some of the droids discarded their blues and pinks for street clothes. They mingled with humans in bars and nightclubs. And through some glitch in evolution, they mated with humans."

"What?" cried Max.

"Yes! Quite the problem! The Government was nonplussed, but thought the offspring, if able to survive, should be monitored before extinguished. Perhaps, something good could come of it! Meanwhile, the droids behaving this way were terminated, and the human parents were left to wonder their partners' disappearances. So, these individuals were tracked, this half-breed of human and droid. They functioned quite well, with adequate socialization and general human characteristics. But there was a problem. Most of the individuals began to...question the Government more than any human had. It seemed they were capable of understanding both droid and human aspects. In short, they were a threat to our society, our way of life."

Dr. Astley fingered the scalpel, watching the light glint off the steel.

"We knew someone would find out. Someone would be observant enough to discover the chip, a mutation in these half-breeds. And soon, someone would see the Government had short circuited each chip through the Power Source...hence, the recent failures of power."

Max grew aware of the droids circling in closer around him.

"What we didn't know, dear Max, is that there are thousands of these creatures, all roughly the same age, all roughly the same intellect, and all roaming about our fair World, thinking un-Presidently things. And what we didn't count on, dear Max, is that one of their own would discover the deaths."

A droid grabbed Max and threw him to the floor. He was pinned by droid hands; his head was restrained and a droid drew back his eyelids, so that he might see the dreaded Dr. Astley coming closer.

"It was the leathery skin, dear Max, that gave you away. So tough compared to mine. So durable. It's such a shame that we lost such a great scientist."

And as Dr. Astley plunged the scalpel into Max's eye, and tore through his brain, Max remembered his father, a solid man with strange mannerisms, a man of calculating knowledge and leaden features. While Dr. Astley located the chip embedded through evolution in Max's brain and plucked it out, Max understood, finally, why his father had disappeared so suddenly. And as Max slowly died, the lights of the Government World dimmed, and then, went out completely.

A Wooden Heart

2005-09-14T09:17:00.000-04:00

Beloved, gaze in thine own heart.
The holy tree is growing there.
From joy the holy branches start
And all the trembling flowers they bear.
-The Two Trees
William Butler Yeats

The boy had not dreamt in weeks. The doctors told his aunt the boy suffered trauma, stress, and behavioral changes. The boy overheard the doctors when Aunt Lynn came to retrieve him from hospital. The boy did not think he was suffering from any behavioral changes. He just didn’t dream, anymore.

London: 1946.

The boy’s name is Daniel. He lives in an old brownstone with his Mum and Da and Nanny, Cook, and Butler. The furniture has been sold. The great pieces of mahogany were pushed out the door, sold to an Indian gentleman three streets over. Da’s bank had dried up since the Nazis began the air raids, and Mum and Da had to sell a great many things to buy milk, bread, cheese, meat. Nanny, Cook, and Butler stay on because (they told the boy) the Old Country is worse off than England. Daniel does not think of the Nazis anymore than he thinks of Prussia, or China, or Japan. He has heard about the camps in Japan, but when he hears the word ‘camp’ he thinks of a great safari in deepest Africa.

He is thinking of elephants when the sirens ring again. Nanny bustles Daniel out of bed, cooing in Gaelic. She takes Daniel up in her arms and runs down the stairs. Daniel looks for his parents; Mum and Da’s bedroom is empty.
“Where is Mummy?” Daniel cries. The windows are shaking, the sirens are screaming. ”Where is Da?” Daniel screams as Nanny runs outside, to the street, toward the shelter.
Daniel looks back and sees Blackie, the cat, in the windowsill.
“Blackie!” Daniel is screaming, the sight of his pet cat sending him into a panic. He kicks and dislodges himself from Nanny. He drops to the ground and charges back to the brownstone. Nanny is on the street, screaming for Daniel when the mortar shells drop down. Daniel is launched into bushes, his little frame writhing. When the great boom has cleared his ears, he sits up. Nanny is gone. Her left shoe is on the street. That is all.
Daniel whimpers, and goes back into the house. He grabs Blackie by the scruff of the neck and hunkers in the corner of the dining room.

He is an orphan, now. His Mum and Da had been at the church while he slept. They had gone there to pray together. The church was hit harder than Nanny had been. Butler is gone. Cook is gone. Daniel and Blackie remain in the darkness of the house, not knowing his mum and da were dead. Daniel and the cat sat for one day, huddled in the shadows. Daniel clenches Blackie to his throat the entire time. He wets himself, to afraid to go to the loo. The soldiers come and search the homes.

“ ‘Allo? Anyone here?” cries a soldier. Blackie squeaks. “Mew!”
The soldier follows the cat cries and finds Daniel. Daniel cannot move. The soldier picks Daniel up and takes him to hospital. Blackie escapes. Now, Daniel is alone in hospital with the doctors until Aunt Lynn comes. Aunt Lynn is Mum’s sister. She is dressed in wool. Everything about Aunt Lynn is scratchy and dominant. Aunt Lynn hoists Daniel to his feet.

“There, there,” Aunt Lynn says. Daniel is weeping.
On the boat to Ireland, Daniel looks over the rail and sees the North Sea, belching great white capped waves. The sea is gray and lonesome. The boat rocks to and fro and Daniel clutches the rail, white knuckled fear. Aunt Lynn finds Daniel on the slippery deck and whisks him to the cabin. She sets him on her scratchy lap and places her two great arms about him.

When Daniel and Aunt Lynn reach Cork, he looks about her cottage in wonder. It is warm and cheery and bright—not scratchy at all. And there are cats all about. Daniel sinks into the straw mattress and sleeps, but still, he does not dream.

Outside of Aunt Lynn’s cottage grows a great tree with a wide hollow in its trunk. Daniel has found this tree mysterious and inviting. Aunt Lynn gives Daniel chores and lessons, and Daniel is obedient. He goes to church with her, and sits still as a dormouse. Daniel accompanies Aunt Lynn to town and tea with her lady friends. But when they return to the cottage, in the evening, Daniel crawls into the trunk and finds the heartbeat of the great tree. Here, he can dream, and he dreams of the brownstone in London, and his mum’s footsteps, and Blackie’s yellow eyes. Daniel speaks quietly in the tree, and sings to himself. Only in the tree are the screams of the sirens silenced.

Aunt Lynn finds Daniel in the tree one morning. He is curled into a ball, a smile upon his face, his still hand curled against his pale cheek. And before the ghost of Daniel leaves, she sees spots of color on his flesh—the color of youth, of happiness, of joy. Aunt Lynn weeps for the boy, for he passed in such a relenting way, such a quiet way. And for just one moment, Aunt Lynn hears the heartbeat of the tree--a steady, ponderous beating, thumping nourishment to its green leaves, to its long limbs.

The Last Supper

2005-09-13T19:01:00.000-04:00

Lindsay stared at her plate. The waiter was smirking, his hands tucked behind his back.
“What IS this?” Lindsay asked.
“Your salad, miss.” The waiter was wearing one of those snobby server aprons. It was white and stainless and looked ironed.

“No, there’s a misunderstanding,” said Lindsay, “I ordered the house salad.”
“This IS the house salad, miss,” the waiter said, condescendingly. “It’s the arugula con scallops especial.” The waiter stalked off to harass another customer.

Lindsay picked through the fountain-like stack of fish on her plate.

“What the hell happened to this place?” Lindsay asked Sam.
“What? It’s classy, honey. It’s totally hot.” Sam was looking at his Cartier watch while shoveling some kind of tuna burger in his mouth.
“Shut up.” Lindsay tried a taste of the salad. She spit out some of the carrot shavings.
“Oh, Lindsay, please! Don’t spit in public!”
“Fuck you, Sam. We’re breaking up. That’s why you dragged me here. Isn’t it? The last straw! The final slap of humiliation! You’re taking your hick girlfriend to some upscale Manhattan restaurant to humiliate me and then break up with me!” Lindsay started pushing scallops all over the twelve inch plate, decimating the six-inch-tall stack of food.

“Hon, it’s our anniversary.” Sam was patronizing.
“I KNOW it’s our anniversary. You do this to me on purpose! You’re trying to poison me with this yuppie food! I just wanted a freakin’ burger. You know, beef? A patty, slightly rounded? On a bun? With lettuce, not some weird weed grown in the South of France? Jesus. I can’t wait for the main course. No, really, Sam, I can’t wait.” Lindsay was steaming.

Sam smiled at a nearby table of onlookers. He mouthed, “Withdrawals” to the table. The onlookers raised their eyebrows in understanding and went back to their conversation.
Lindsay saw the whole exchange.

“Excuse me!” she yelled to the table of onlookers. “Hey! Hello…yeah, you, people. I am NOT going through withdrawals. This man is trying to kill me. He’s dumping me and killing me on our anniversary! When I wind up dead in a dumpster outside of Radio City Hall tomorrow and you see my mug in the New York Times if they still post that kind of thing, well, yeah, you’ll be sorry you believed him. I don’t have a problem with withdrawals. I firmly believe in staying ON my drug of choice, thank you very much.”

The waiter approached with the main course, presumably. He whisked the salad plates away.

“Hey, I was eating that!” Lindsay cried.
The waiter made no reply and slapped the plate down in front of her. Lindsay took a moment to look at this new insult called a meal.

“I ordered a chicken breast.” Lindsay said.
“It is a chicken breast…marinated in the finest sunflower oil and brushed with wheat germ. It is then sliced to perfection and wrapped around baby pickles. The whole affair is then made a soufflé with some squash and toothpicks.” Now the waiter was just mocking her.
Sam smiled behind one manicured hand.

Lindsay grabbed the waiter by his collar and yanked his face eye-level. Now, all of the patrons were observing Lindsay.

“Listen, you scum of all servers, you trial of all mankind, you filth from the homeless man’s rags, don’t EVER humiliate me again. Now, tell me something,” (and she shook the waiter a little, so that his eyes watered), “Tell me what you had for dinner tonight.”

The waiter swallowed nervously. Clearly, he was dealing with a psychiatric patient.

“I had a bowl of macaroni and cheese and a ham sandwich,” the waiter squeaked.
“Oh, really? Well, that sounds nice. Yes! That sounds perfectly reasonable! What a nice, wholesome dinner! What a pleasant thing to dig into! My! I certainly would LOVE a bowl of macaroni and cheese and a ham sandwich! Maybe you should march right back into that kitchen and prepare something like that for me!” Lindsay let go of the now whimpering waiter and sighed heavily. The waiter limped away, head down.

Sam said, “Remember the Sesame Street character who went to the restaurant and Grover was always the waiter? And how Grover kept messing up the order? And how, eventually, the customer would get so angry he would leave or go into the kitchen and yell at the chef? Think about that for awhile.”

“Don’t make light of this! Don’t do it! This happens every time I go out with you. EVERY TIME! You’re plotting my death, is what it is, you fiend.” Lindsay was screeching.

The waiter returned with a B.L.T. and a bowl of chicken noodle soup.
“How’s this, ma’am?” His entire demeanor had changed.

Lindsay looked at the food set before her and smiled, just a little.
“Now THIS,” she proclaimed, “is REAL food.” And she dug in, without another word.

As Sam and Lindsay were leaving, the waiter pulled Sam aside.
“Sir, what will the review read?” the waiter asked.

“My wife does not affect my review material,” Sam replied. “You’ll see the review in the paper.”

The next morning, while eating dry toast and nursing his pride, the waiter found the review in the Metro section. He was found later in the week, hanging purple from a ceiling fan.

A Ship Without a Rudder

2005-09-12T21:36:00.000-04:00

If only I had been able to retrieve the Ark of the Covenant before that awful flood.

Look, I know what the Pharisees have told you. I'm sure you've heard them in the town center or at the well. They'll stand there and wave their arms around and look like snake charmers without the turbans. They'll tell you all about the Laws and the Prophets and the Ark of the Covenant.

If you are the common illiterate Aramaic, you'll ask commonsense questions, like, "How do we know you're telling the truth about what the Laws say?" and "Where is this Ark of the Covenant?" And the Pharisees will condemn you to live as a village idiot or make you shovel sand for some silly king, or some such nonsense. More importantly, they'll bitch at you about Moses.

"Moses went to the mountain and brought down the Ten Commandments! But the Jews were so devious that Moses threw the great tablets on the ground and they cracked! Now, the sight of these tablets are so powerful, normal peons like yourself would go blind and insane if you saw them! We've protected them! We've gathered them and placed them in a sacred place! The Ark is holy! Just believe what we tell you and put some coins in the box at Temple."

Lemmee tell you. Moses did NOT find those damn rocks; I did. I built the boat, I put the animals on it, I put up with my wife and in-laws for forty days and nights, and I saved humanity. Those damn rock tablets came tied on the back of an Asian elephant (the one with the small ears). The elephant had trekked all the way from China or someplace with her mate. By the time they got to the boat, the elephant was cranky and tired. We got some chimps to untie the tablets, but you know monkeys. They're just plain clumsy. By the time the elephant got on the damn boat, the tablets had slipped and fallen on the deck. They cracked, all right? Plus, they plummeted right through the deck into the cabin...right in with the penguins. I promise you, those were some unhappy flightless birds. Yahweh really gave them a shit deal. Can't fly, only hang out in the cold, very unimaginative dress. Yeah, you can imagine. Well, those two penguins are down there in the cabin and BAM! here come two big tablets.

Then, Shem, the black dude, gets all frantic. "Dad! Those rocks are gonna send the weight limit over! Look, we're working with some pretty intense measurements. The Big Guy said," Shem drew out the blueprints, " 'Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it.' Those stone tablets are gonna throw the dimensions off by 3.1456648789521256789432466614588751's of a cubit. We gotta lose 'em!"

(By the way, whoever started that crap rumor about black dudes only being good at basketball was SO off the mark...Shem whoops my ass on the court AND at calculus...)

So, the tablets got put in another box made of gopher wood and thrown overboard. They sunk. So began the concept of concrete shoes.

anyway, you know the story. We float around in the stinking mess of two million plus species and mates, miserable and/or drunk, until the damn dove got the olive branch and brought it back. We ended up in Hawaii, which was fine until the volcanoes started going off. Pretty soon, the Earth looked less like a dirty toilet bowl and more the way it SHOULD...with trees and fluffy little clouds and happy animals and all that Hallmark shit...

Don't you know those damn tablets washed up in Mesopotamia? MESOPOTAMIA! The country sounds like a damn dinosaur! Then, they got to Mount Sinai by way of confused camel, and here comes Moses, walkin' around with them like HE discovered them first. Buncha crap--don't believe a word of it!

Now, I know you're asking, "Why should we believe Noah over Moses?" Well, I'll tell you why. First of all, I actually MADE it to my destination...Moses never even GOT to the Promiseland. And that whole trick with the staff that turns into a snake? Pshaw. Try fitting four million animals, one wife, three lousy kids, their wives, grandkids and a smelly dog in one ark. THAT'S the miracle, folks.

Plus, Moses died at like, what, 950? Well, I'm well over 1200 years old. That just goes to show you...they don't make 'em like they used to. Man, I'm telling you, if I had been able to keep those damn tablets on that rotten waste of gopher wood, I'd be in good shape with a decent retirement. As it is, I just have to sit around these village squares, listening to Pharisees and watching idiots confuse Asian elephants with African elephants.

Sometimes, I almost wish that boat had sunk.

Oy, I gotta go. The wife is calling for some assistance with a balm. If I knew old age was this miserable, I would have signed off centuries ago.

Symphony for Life

2005-09-11T07:28:00.000-04:00

I was born in the rumble of the city, beneath the elevated rail, beside the gassy bus, above the bright yellow taxi cab, shrink-wrapped in checkerboard. I was born in the spring of Chicago, a crumpling between cold and hot, a defrosting of the grimy streets at dawn. I was born in a nondescript hospital room, cinder-blocked walls, a cross over the bed, a doctor, a nurse, a wailing woman. The room had a window; the woman insisted on a window. Through the grimy panes came the faded city sunlight that morn, and as Barber’s Adagio for Strings grows with strength, so did the sunlight as I emerged from the cave of fertility. I was born unto light, in the simple white linens of sanitary bedding, between the gristle bone and blood of my mother.

She heard ringing in her ears, the tonal eclipse of fifty sopranos belting out the fondest notes, the final chords of harmony as I was wrapped in cloth and brought to her breast. And the very end came for her as I lay across her chest, searching the pale light for my mother’s eyes. They closed in a bird’s eye movement, settling shut, pianissimo. Quietly, my mother died as the sun reached the highest point in heaven and I was shuttled away, a babe, just wondering, just barely wondering…where did she go? Where did that life go?

Now, I imagine she alit from the window, soaring high above the brownstones, the traffic, the messengers, the clergyman, the tired trees in metal rods, the skyscrapers, the Gold Coast, Navy Pier, Wrigley Field. She flew above and grew wings and celestial creatures beckoned, and she never looked back at me, the bundle of nothingness left behind.

She is buried near my apartment. I tell myself this is coincidence, merely. A one-bedroom at such a good cost, sublet from a symphony flutist, with crown molding (original) and claw-footed bathtub. I do not allow myself to look East to the skyline, to the grave, to the last bed of the first woman who abandoned me.

There are many women in beds who have abandoned me, but my mother was the initial cause—the alpha of disappointment, of rejection. And so, reclusive I have become, a detective of light, a miserable loner, a reed of a young man.

I spent the last few years of teenage angst in a group home for orphans. I lived with a fat Italian kid, Rich, and five black brothers (in the literal sense; their mother left them all at once on the steps of St. Mark’s Church, Evanston). The brothers’ names, from oldest to youngest: Sorrel, Johnson, Cyrus, Lyle, Nehemiah. Nehemiah, contradictorily, is the tallest of the five. Cyrus is the smartest. Lyle is the funniest. Sorrel is the leader. And Johnson was vacant-eyed slow. Johnson is no more. He died last winter; Sorrel called and informed me. He sluggishly existed until he slovenly wandered in front of a taxi-cab. He died several days later, in a slow fashion that prevailed throughout his life. The brothers four remained, clutching one another in a tight grip, a huddle, a pool of sadness for Johnson. A limb had been severed from the body. I went to the funeral and saw the brothers stand, a united front. No open casket. Flowers were few and faded; the brothers begged the chapel for gifts. Johnson was buried in simple wood. He lies not far from my mother.

Rich eats a lot; he comes over on Saturday nights and we get take-out pizza. We go from family-owned pizzeria to pizzeria, trying to deliberate.
-Is Johnny’s better?
-You can’t think so. Johnny’s fuckin’ Irish.
-I’m sayin’. I like Johnny’s.
-Take it from a wop. A wop makes a better pizza than a mick. Fuckin’ mick, he fuckin’ learned pizza from a wop. It’s a lie.
Rich still eats Johnny’s pizza. He gets mad because I’m Irish. Shocked red hair, freckles, skinny body, potato head. Rich is short and fat and squeamish about his clothes. Every oversized shirt is perfectly ironed, every expensive sneaker, wiped with damp rags.

After Rich leaves, I open the window. Somehow, the lake wind gets in here, this apartment facing the wrong way, and the breeze spins up the curtains in a lazy way, and I watch the sky, or the condensed water on my glass drip down. Entropy. I miss my mother.

The record player is old; the needle needs replacing. But my mother; she left me these few items. The record player, the needle, the albums, the vinyl. She told the nurse on that morning:
-See that he gets them.
She waved to the items in the corner. Three boxes. Maria Callas, Mozart, Bach, Barber, Handel, Strauss, Wagner (how I hate Wagner), Beethoven, Pachabel. Requiems. Misere’s. Albums and albums of Oxford Choir, Westminster. Evensongs. A whole church library of religious music. The boxes have followed me for twenty six years, each tatter a memory, each new scratch delivered an epic history. My whole life in those boxes my mother gave me.

On Sundays, I open the window wider and place the record player beneath the sill. The records spin. The children love Gershwin. The little girls twist their hips to the atonal qualities of his rhapsodies like they are dancing to hip-hop. The old men sit in the alley and smoke pipes, mumbling at the music, complaining. I know they enjoy it; otherwise, on the hottest of summer, these men would not sit on the stoops or overturned crates to hear the music and watch the children. It brings the old men joy to complain, to have the right to complain. And beneath the elevated rail, we listen to the hymns of the choirs of majesty, or the trinkles of Irish ballads. The solitary wail of the first Soprano.

I bring this world music. This is a slice of my life, just one tiny gift. When the sky opens wide its maw to swallow me as it gulped my mother, I will leave behind this legacy. Three boxes of music, of vinyl, of sacred broken needles and abandoned jazz trios.

Then, one moment, it is Sunday and the little alley is teeming with life. Next, she is there. A porcelain doll, but real and fleshed out. Her forehead is wide, her face is long, she has lashes curling over her round cheeks. What is she, Slavic? German? Asian? I can’t tell, but I see the part in her waxen black hair. It zigs simply over her crown, a river of browns and blacks and reds. There is so much depth to her bearing, I could dive from the sill into her heart. She is looking up at me now, her eyes pools of darkness, her skin the shade of paper lanterns. And now, I am home. Her adornment is simple. One thin tattoo wrapped around one ankle. One bracelet. One sheath of a dress, no pattern. Sandals. Smooth skin and the smell (I imagine) of linen and soap. Our gazes will not break; she is enthralled with my crystal blue eyes, my speckled face, my lean arms and bony shoulders. And she hears the music drifting and wafting.

The children have stopped playing and observe this springtime ritual. The little girls are impatient to grow older and have men look at their eyes in the same manner. The little boys scratch their heads and throw balls to one another. The old men have seen this before and cluck to one another. I go down the stairs, letting the music continue to play.
We meet. Simply, we duck into each other like fallout victims in shelter. This time, we promise one another, will be different.

I take her to my mother’s grave the next Sunday. I lean down to the gravestone, and plant my lips on the granite of my mother. She is still silent. But Hannah folds her hands in front of her and smiles her funny little smile.
-She is a loud ghost
-I never hear her, and I am her son
-She is loud to me. Her singing is everywhere.
-I never hear her.
Hannah sighs and looks far off; she is listening to my mother.
I am so jealous of Hannah during these times, but I trust her to convey to my mother my happiness in this new find of love.

The brothers meet us at Johnny’s. Rich comes in, jeans creased, jersey shining. Cyrus is yelling for cold beer. Nehemiah has to put his feet in the aisle as his legs are too long to fit underneath the table
-Short micks, he says.
-Shut up, I say.
Rich cusses the pizza until the owner’s wife glares at him. Rich falls silent. Sorrel says something about Johnson, how he talked to all the stray cats. We laugh and remember him. Johnson is now my mother’s new pet, I am sure. She keeps him from running into the highways of souls.
Lyle talks about politics. No one listens. Hannah lays her head on my shoulder and I see all about me, the angels of dead composers have drifted over to our table. Our music is the loudest orchestra. Our movements include all brass, wind, string, timpani.

And then, there is only Chopin, at night, during candles and Hannah’s skin. There is the shadow played on each crease of skin, each hair, each fleck of desire. Only then do I see my mother, and hear her. She is smiling, and Hannah gasps in the glow of candle. It is these tiny staccato beats I hear in her skin that I desire. It is the flap of earlobe, the crest of her nose, the smattering of moles on her chest, the aureoles of pink.

As the candle burns down, these nights, I hear the rumble of the city that birthed me, and I lay my palm on Hannah’s back, and drink in the shimmering lights glancing off the puddles in the alley. The record stops playing, and Hannah’s breathing evens.. There is only the sound of needle against groove. I am my mother’s final movement; acknowledging her presence and her absence, I lean over and kiss Hannah, and we are left with darkness and each other.

Simple Fuel

2005-09-05T15:01:00.000-04:00

On April 27th, 1985, the day was cheery-cold and brisk.

The man went to work. He walked down the cold roads with his fellow friends. He shoved his hands in his pockets. His knuckles were bright red and chapped.
In his knapsack was a hunk of bread and cheese-supper.

The tests were to begin this day, and he worked outside the core reactor. Just outside.

The great towers that ran the cooling water up and down up and down were churning this day. It was a dangerous day, but what day is not dangerous at Chernobyl?

The man sat outside the core reactor when he got to work. He listened to the instructions. Tests were to begin. The man ate his bread and cheese at the supper bell, then listened to more instructions. He was to assist in case of emergency.

The engineer inside the head core turned the power down, down, further down. The water pumps began to cool the reactions off. The engineer was sweating heavily. He twiddled his thumbs and watched the monitors...beep beep.

One monitor grew red in hot frenzy. The water pump was failing. The water pump was failing! The engineer saw the molecules expanding in his mind's theater. The molecules wore faces of Stalin. The molecules were cruel and relentless. The molecules grew and grew and grew until there was nowhere else to go. The engineer could not turn on the pump. The control rods shook and broke. The energy released.

The engineer squawked into the radio, "Shut it down! Shut it down!"

The man with the chapped knuckles rapped on his radio, once, to make sure he heard it right. He looked at the land surrounding the plant. He looked at the land in requiem.

The reactor whirred down, but the molecules had created their own flight pattern, and now the fire came. It was a fire unlike any other. It was a boom, a cloud, and mist, an ash spray of hope. It swelled as it hit oxygen, and the molecules fired into destruction.

The man with the chapped knuckles found the engineer. He wrapped his coat about the engineer's head. Both men began to feel the searing heat of nuclear burns. It was unlike anything the man had experienced.

He remembered his grandmother singing the old songs, and talking of God when God was illegal.
He remembered his wife on their wedding night, her peasant face an explosion of joy.
He remembered the harsh winters.

The heat sears through flesh. The heat melts bone, gristle, and organ. The heat takes away the senses. The heat transfigures the body into that of a space creature-smooth, ivory, plastered.

The explosion was done. The fallout began. The firemen came from nearby villages. They only brought water. No masks. No protection suits. The firemen began to die. Next, the government sent in the liquidators. The Liquidators did not know what they were fighting. The wind blew over Europe. The government arrested the engineer.

The engineer was sentenced to fourteen years in prison. He died three weeks later.
The man's knuckles were no longer red. His knuckles had melted. His wife was not permitted to see him. The doctors treated him through plastic sheets. When the nurses came, they wore gas masks. He could not see the faces of his care-givers. He thought the whole world now wore a gas mask. The man didn't need to wear one, now, because his ears were gone. His hair was gone. His mouth was gone. His lungs had melted.

He died, enshrouded in plastic. The man thought of one thing as his skin evaporated, his breath expired.
He thought of fresh cheese and bread, and the taste of simple fuel.