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Mielikki

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Mielikki 2

Once a Revolutionary

Once a Revolutionary By A.G. Ortiz The late afternoon was thick with humidity, the sky a blazing haze of blood reds and burnt oranges. The leather straps that bound her wrists dug deeper while sweat puddled in the small of her back and dripped into her palms.  "Abuela, ayudalos," she prayed aloud. “Please let them be a good shot, please let them be a good shot, please let them be a good shot, please le- “ * * * In a time before the violence Kiera hadn’t thought it possible to be separated from her grandmother. The old woman had been the umbrella sheltering Kiera since birth; a north star, guiding her through the present while keeping a part of herself in the past. When the forces of the future descended upon them Kiera felt the keen sense of the world slipping sideways, a cavernous mouth tipping the plate with her on it. Her grandmother, the woman who taught her that all women bear the weight of the world upon their shoulders, had let herself be dispossessed and led away to live out her days surrounded by strangers in some far-off land taken from other peoples long ago. “Come Kiera, let’s go for a walk,” the matriarch said on the morning of her departure. The two forms, one tall and strong, the other stooped and feeble, walked along the boundaries of the family compound. Early morning bird calls rang out across the sky. Kiera recalled their names, though she could not see a single feather. Robin. Starling. Crow.  A rivulet of water marked the boundary of their land and the two women sat upon a boulder watching it flow down into a tributary. Fog rose around them, smelling deeply of pine and last night's campfire. “Mijita, I understand your frustration. It is a woman’s duty to defend the legacy of her people,” her abuelita had said. Looking down into her wrinkled palms she cursed, “ Malditos sean estos viejos huesos artríticos. ” “Don’t say that abuela,” replied Kiera, grabbing her grandmother’s hands, “these hands pulled me from my mother and have kept me safe everyday since. Benditos son.” She kissed the deep lines etched into the withered bronze flesh. Looking up into her blessed grandmother’s face, Kiera sheltered her eyes from an errant sunbeam. “Thank you for that, amor mio . I only wish I were not so old for such things as revolutions. I feel as though I am leaving you alone in the darkness.” As the two women embraced one last time, Kiera reminded her grandmother of the story la viejita had told her when she had started her period. “ Abuela, I will remember that the hands of a woman brought forth the first child and buried it, too. I will honor my place as a gateway to this world and as a midwife to the dying.” “ Recuerda esto también, ” said the old woman, tears rising in the corners of her eyes, “When the moment comes, you must dig deep within yourself and call upon us all.” Later, alone for the first time ever, Kiera struggled to manifest a distinct vision for her next steps. Abuela may be too old for revolutions, but I’m not. * * * The ripples of revolution look small from the center of the lake, but a single stone can make waves to the shoreline. Though as it sinks it can become entangled by all that cannot be seen from the pristine surface. In such a position did Kiera find herself after becoming swept up in the local opposition forces that had gathered in strength since the last deportation. What she thought was a simple case of imperial encroachment in the typical aggressive Western style was actually a complete and systematic usurpation of her ancestral lands for corporate greed of all colors and styles. The takers doubled each day as news spread of riches and fame. The continental collective known as the Commonwealth was offering support to any oligarch willing to invest in the newly discovered natural resources buried in the mountainside. Guerillas soon found themselves surrounded by security forces bearing the flags of several foreign nations and the weapons of the strongest army on Earth. Using their superior knowledge of the terrain to their advantage the rebellion formed into a cohesive knot and melted into the foothills. Quickly assessing their numbers, the rebels discovered cooks and healers, weapons fanatics and hunting scouts, and even a retired army captain to be among their ranks. Their first base camp stood on a summit midway up a 2,000 foot peak. The rocky outcropping had been used by traveling bands of hunters over generations. Kiera looked down on the thick woods they had spent a week traversing and tried to summon the sap smell of her lodge, the taste of cold, crisp river water, the sound of pine needles rustling beneath her boots. Up here there was only the whistle of a bitter wind and the blasting heat of the midday sun. "I'd like to thank you all for trusting me with this immense responsibility", said Captain Juarez on the day he took command. "I'd like to tell you now how much I need you.” The rebels eyed one another nervously. How could they help a man as hardened as this one? What could they know that he didn’t?   “As some of you know I have served overseas and have seen active duty, but this struggle is a new one for me. I am familiar with open battlefields, not tangled forests more fit for the kindling of wildfires." When the captain’s gaze settled on Kiera a shiver went down her spine. She could read in his eyes a deep sincerity and felt the weight of her purpose settle on her shoulders. "I'd like to help however I can," Kiera called out. "I'm no tracker, or hunter, but I know these lands well." "You have my thanks. The success of this endeavor depends heavily on any information any of you can provide. Anyone else?" In the end six surveillance teams were assembled, with Kiera at the head of the first. “Your sacrifices won’t be forgotten,” Captain Juarez said at the close of the meeting. ***   With Captain Juarez at the helm, guerillas in the foothills stalked six government weapons caches offering the least resistance.  "I believe these walls to be more a hindrance than a helpmeet to those sentinels guarding the cache," said Kiera at her first debriefing with Captain Juarez. "Is that so?", he replied, "Why?” "You had us stationed there for a week and I noticed a day when neither of the rear towers were manned. They must think the walls are too tall to scale. But that just leaves us an opportunity to approach from the foothills unseen." "Interesting, Gustavo from Bravo team reported the same thing ," Captain Juarez told her. "It would seem their behaviors are somewhat lax. All the easier to plan accordingly." Though Kiera had been commanding a band of scouts through enemy territory for nearly two months she could not bring herself to volunteer for the raids. Her fear took hold and rooted her to the spot when Captain Juarez had called out for volunteers. The other scout leaders scoffed when Kiera could not meet their gaze. “ ¡Todos los demás, fuera !,” barked Captain Juarez, dismissing the rest of the party without a second glance. Kiera had marched miles from her family’s compound, but deep within her she knew all that surrounded her, every hilltop, mountain peak, and all the valleys between, held the bones and blood of her people. She could hear the voice of her grandmother echoing in her memories: What now, girl? .  There was no force that did not bow before the name Fuerte. That was what the sage old woman had said when little Kiera asked to know the legend of their family name. Strong, like the black bear, were our ancestors. When they took those light skinned wives they asked to be named in the language of these new ancestors. So they were bestowed with Fuerte. Ahora, Nina, que va hacer con este nombre tan sagrado?    * * * The days following the first raids were a flurry of activity; relocating camps and covering their tracks. Kiera's every moment had been filled with food preparation, clothes washing, and ditch digging. Their latest rendezvous location stood on a ridge at the base of one of the highest peaks in the region. As she stood over a rain barrel, camouflaging it's bright blue with mud, sticks, and leaves, Kiera heard the familiar blue jay call Captain Juarez used for signaling the scouts. Climbing over a small embankment that camouflaged the center of the base camp, Kiera caught the tail end of Bravo team's report. "We're sure captain. There is no sight line from here to the south facing towers," Gustavo paused, waiting for his commander's reaction. "Even still," said Captain Juarez, " I want escape hatches dug and concealed all along the ridgeline. We'll need a twelve person team for the breach." Captain Juarez looked around at the faces of the disenfranchised youth who had placed all their hopes for the future in him. " Bueno, mi gente, ponte las pilas, pues. Who's ready? " Kiera's hand shot up. The captain nodded in her direction, surveyed the remaining scouts and filled the eleven remaining vacancies. Suppressing an instinct to flee, Kiera grabbed a spade and joined the que marching west across the ridgeline. Kiera swore she would not balk at whatever was asked of her. Swallowing hard, she began making a mental checklist : uniform, boots, machete. Gate, stairs, storeroom, escape. * * * The steamy fog rose off the mountaintop 1,000 feet above and descended like the wet embrace of a twice used bath towel, enveloping the rebel camp at the base within seconds. A daily occurrence in the foothills of this particular expanse of the southeastern mountain passes, the rebel forces knew to be patient and crept slowly on their advance into the valley below, using the fog as offensive cover. Armed with stolen service weapons, hunting knives, and hammers, several male volunteers approached the outer gate after circumnavigating the walls of the compound. Like panthers under cover of darkness they stalked their enemy at the entryway. The fog, thickening to its zenith, completely obscured the guerillas as they eliminated the sentinels stationed there. Signaling to the waiting rebel force, the first attackers threw open the gates and made for the storeroom located on the second story of the Southern watchtower. Encountering immediate interference the guerillas bottle necked halfway up the tower stairwell; Kiera’s secondary attack line crushing into the backs of their comrades. Afraid of being taken from behind, the unit leader ordered an immediate about face and retreat from the secondary party. Kiera could not say which pounding was louder, that of her heart in her chest or her boots on the concrete steps. As her party reached the landing of the ground floor they were met by armed sentinels. The thin unit leader was the first to fall. As he crashed onto the grey floor, blood spluttering from mumbling lips, Kiera shouted his name, throwing her body over his. Trembling, she looked into his eyes and tried to pray, but could not think over the sounds of shouting. Only one other volley of shots was needed to dissuade any remaining rebels on the stairs to surrender. Kiera was quickly yanked off Gustavo’s corpse, restrained, gagged, and led with the other survivors to a courtyard at the center of the compound. Of the twelve volunteers selected to storm the cache only six remained.    The captives were deposited in a holding cell in the middle of a storeroom. She slumped against the cold iron bars, feeling like a caged circus animal as a voice came over the speakers positioned atop the watchtowers: “Rebels, this location is under the protection of the Commonwealth. As such, you are hereby under arrest. Anyone wishing to make a confession of guilt for their crimes against the Commonwealth may do so during processing. You are hereby found guilty of those crimes with or without confession and will be executed by firing squad at sunset.” Tears began to stream from Kiera’s eyes, over her bound mouth, where the most guttural noises emerged without bidding. Nothing had prepared her for this moment. She tried, but failed, to summon the voice of her grandmother; to seek her power, or at the very least her solace. She and the others were led into the compound where they were detained until sunset. One by one they were removed from the holding pen and escorted to a small office. When Kiera’s turn arrived she dry heaved as the gag was removed, but didn't resist when the guard secured her restraints to the chair. The door opened some moments later to the sight of a petite man, neatly dressed and carrying a clipboard. “Apologies for the wait, Miss,” he wheezed nasally, “the call of nature waits for no revolutions.” He laughed at his own cleverness, closed the door behind him, and took the seat opposite Kiera. “Now dear, your name and profession, if you please. For posterity,” he wheezed once more. “Always good to know exactly who the bad apples were, you know.” He looked up at Kiera for the first time, an expectant gleam in his eyes. She could see the empty greed in those beady little orbs. “Kiera Fuerte,” she said stonily, having momentarily regained her composure in the presence of such a mouse-like man. The acidic taste in her mouth making her feel as though she could spit venom, all the good it would do her now. “I was once a revolutionary.” “Is that so?” remarked the pencil pusher. “And pray tell, what are you now?” “Just a woman, like all those before me,” she looked once more into those tiny, soulless eyes, "and all those that will surely follow me." * * * * * *

y1t4d7

Our First Christmas Together

With Christmas only two days away, the Lawrence household was beyond chaotic. Mrs. Lawrence and her sister were out shopping for those last few Christmas gifts and without them 18-year-old Jase was having quite a time keeping his young cousins in check. Being an only child, he was unaccustomed to such a laborious workout as this. Playing basketball was one thing, dealing with screaming little kids running in circles around him was entirely another. None too soon the door was pushed open, and the two women blew in with the snow. Bags of gifts nearly fell out of their arms; it took both of them to shut the door. Simultaneously they took a deep breath before entering the kitchen. Jase quickly unloaded their burden and then escaped to his bedroom upstairs. The silence gathered around him, and he let out a sigh of relief. He liked his cousins but sometimes they could be a handful. In a moment he sat down at his desk and flipped out his laptop. Some relaxing music would be perfect. As he browsed some violin songs the notification bell rang, and he glanced over to see who had messaged him. He froze. The name Phoebe Dotson danced in front of him, cutting through his peaceful life with a steak knife. His birth mother. Jase’s parents had made certain that he grew up knowing that he was adopted and why. Phoebe's husband was killed in a car accident two months after their wedding and she had no way to take care of Jase, so she put him up for adoption before he was ever born; choosing Sam and Christina Lawrence to be the parents. But now Jase had no idea how he was supposed to feel. His parents had let him know that he could contact her now that he was of age, but . . . He clicked on it. Jason, I know you probably don’t want to hear from me, but I want to hear from you. I’m your birth mom. Could we meet for Christmas? He had made up his mind years ago not to be mad at her, but did she really think he would give up spending Christmas with his family when he didn’t even know what she was like? After a minute he regained control over himself and wrote back. Phoebe Dotson, I’m gonna need time to think. This is quite a surprise. She asked if she could keep writing to him and he figured it was the least he could do. Now the question was, Do I say anything to mom? He was quite aware of how she was when they had visitors. ******** That night he folded his laptop and leaned back rubbing his eyes. He had been conversing with his birth mom since just after supper. He felt more confused than ever. She seemed so nice. Standing he wondered if he should even bother trying to sleep. It was late and he might as well. Climbing under the covers his thoughts remained on his foreign longing to meet this woman that had everything to do with his life. He started to doze but the phone rang so loud even his well-insulated walls didn’t block it out. He jolted to a sitting position. Only bad news came that late. He found himself hurrying downstairs in his pajamas and waiting anxiously next to the phone table as his aunt’s face turned from white to gray. He bit his lip and glanced at the clock. It read eleven-thirty. Finally, his aunt said a shaky goodbye and set the phone down. “Well, what is it?” Jase asked, a little louder than necessary. “Your grandfather had a stroke.” She didn’t look at him as she spoke. “I need to go pack.” She flew past, nearly knocking into Mrs. Lawrence in her hurry. Jase saw them talking for a minute and then his aunt slipped into the guest room and his mom put an arm around his shoulders. “You going too?” He wondered. She shook her head. “I’ll stay here with your cousins.” He nodded wordlessly. ********* Morning came too soon but there was no avoiding it. Trying not to think, he climbed out of his bed and into his clothes. When the breakfast call sounded, he slowly made his way to the kitchen counter, wishing he was hungry. His seven-year-old cousin stumbled onto the seat next to him. “Where’s mom?” Jase gave his mom a helpless look and she rescued him. “She is spending Christmas with your grandfather.” Then quietly to her son. “Can we talk in my room?” He glanced around nervously and then nodded. He followed her and sat down in his father’s brown rocking chair that he knew his mother abhorred. But, with his father in the military, she kept it around as a reminder that he would be coming home. “Jase, you’re 18 now.” He expected her to go on, but she didn’t. “Um, yeah.” She shook her head and smiled. “You can contact Phoebe Dotson, your birth mother.” What now? He hoped his face didn’t show too much. “I have.” “What?” “Actually, she contacted me. She wants me to come for Christmas, but I told her . . . I was having Christmas with you and dad.” “Oh, Jase. You’ve had Christmas with us for 18 years!” “I know, but I barely ever get to see dad any other time.” She was silent for a moment. “It’s entirely your choice . . . but . . . don’t you want to meet her? I mean you aren’t mad at her, are you?” “No! Of course not.” He shifted in the worn chair. “Don’t you want me here for Christmas?” “We’re gonna always want you with us, you know that. However, I’m excited about you meeting her. She deserves this.” There was a long moment of silence. “Okay.” His mom let out a squeal of delight. “I’ll tell your dad.” He couldn’t help but smile. ********* For the first time Jase was leaving their home state alone. He had emailed Phoebe to let him know he was coming. He felt slightly guilty about being so excited when his grandfather had just had a stroke, but a phone call from his mom shortly after his bus left the station set his thoughts at ease. It had been only a small stroke and though Jase’s aunt was staying down there for a while he was going to be fine. When the bus stopped, Jase jumped out, scanning the crowd. He had exchanged pictures with his birth mom and now he spotted her face through the crowd. He caught her eye and waved, making his way toward her. She looked hesitant to move so he grabbed her in a warm embrace. She began crying. After a long moment they released each other. “You’re . . . you’re not mad at me?” She sniffed. He shook his head and hugged her again. A long moment went by without either speaking. Then he searched her face, his green eyes dancing. “Thank you, mom.” This brought another round of tears. “I shouldn’t have taken you away from your family.” “You are my family.” She smiled and wiped her eyes. “You should go back for Christmas.” He would’ve disagreed at once but something in her eyes held him. “Only if you come too. I want you to be there.” ******** Jase joyfully watched his cousins playing as he sat in between his two moms. Each one was thinking similar thoughts. Life could really change fast! Then he heard the sound he had been waiting for. The door sliding inward and the heavy boots knocking snow off. Jase jumped up and rushed through the kitchen and into his dad’s arms. “Hey, hey, I thought you were spending Christmas with your birth mother.” Jase smiled, wider than ever before. “I am.” The End

ymvnh1

A Blessing of Sorts

It was a long line, with screaming babies and shuffling shoes and droning beeps. In front of Nhyira was a woman, with sandy, blond hair and blistering red arms. Behind her was a man with the neck of a giraffe creating a cloud of heat above her. Occasionally, he would rain down a waterfall of spit as he spoke to the poor woman who stood beside him with a rusty wedding band on her finger. She looked to her left, and then to her right but she was choked. She craned her neck out to watch those lucky enough to spend an extra 100 dollars on priority tickets, strolling past the queue. She closed her eyes, and rested her arm on the handle of her tiny, tattered suitcase. It belonged to her mother, who pushed it into her arms, insisting that she finally put it to use. Nhyira smiled, as she remembered the glee in her mother’s eyes, waving and crying until she was swallowed by the crowd around her. She smiled apologetically at the man with the giraffe neck when he tapped her forward. The line was finally moving, and her body marched on. Her fingers were clutched around her little green book, within which was a long rectangle of thin paper sticking out the tail end. Her heart pounded as she approached the woman in white and red, with a smile plastered to her face. Her hair, silky brown like that of the women in the movies, was tied neatly into a bun. “Passport and boarding pass please,” she sang. Nhyira nodded, shoving her documents into her hands. Next thing she knew, with a chirpy beep and a cheerful nod, she was ushered down the jetway. Out the window, planes whooshed up and down. The sun popped in and out of clouds, spilling pink and orange onto the dark blue sky. For a moment she stood there, mesmerised. This is where those giant, loud birds came from. She watched a flurry of orange and green vests run up and down as they checked the engines and loaded the suitcases and removed the cones. She heard the rumble of suitcases behind her; she heard the stern speaker announce the last call for boarding, and still she stood there, watching the sun drown in the dark purple sky. From her eyes fell hot drops of water her cheeks. This was it. This was the one chance she had to make a living for herself, and for her family. She crouched and wiped her tears and her snot, suddenly aware of the incredulous stares of those who, like her, were boarding the flight. But they had no idea about her life; they did not know that her story was just beginning. Nhyira was the first of four children – or rather, the first to live past five years of age. Before her were three boys, one who died before meeting the world, another who couldn’t cry and the one who shattered any hope her mother had. When Nhyira was born, her mother refused to name her. “Ah well,” she was told when the girl came crying out, “this one sef is not even a boy, so the loss will not be that great.” So, she laid back down and refused to look at the child. The midwives oohed and aahed over the girl’s big brown eyes, but still, she would not turn. Instead, she closed her eyes and mourned the day that this girl too would pass. “This is your captain speaking,” said the booming slurred voice, “welcoming you all to this KLM flight to Amsterdam.” Nhyira’s knees were locked, her neck stiff, and her eyes searching. She was sat at the tail end of the middle row, with strange men – one balding, and the other squished into his clergy collar – seated to her right. To her left were those lucky enough to look out the window, but still, she would watch. She stretched her neck and peered out the window, watching as the plane leapt off the ground. Then, she caught her breath and hid her thumbs in a fist until she could see nothing but the blinding blue of the ocean. Everything would be just fine. On Nhyira’s fifth birthday, her mother scrubbed her in the large metal basin that sat in the compound, and she sobbed ceaselessly. “Oh my child, oh my child,” she wouldn’t stop wailing. All the women on the compound came out to see what the commotion was. They saw Nhyira, perplexed, standing in the basin, covered in soap; then they saw her mother, singing as tears shot past her cheeks. Upon seeing them, she sang louder, “My God has not snatched my child! Oh yes! My God has blessed me!” Her father would come home to a jubilee of sorts. The women kneaded banku and boiled a pot-full of soup; they fanned the flames when the charcoal died down, and they hushed their own screaming babies. “Ah,” Aunty Abi sighed knowingly, “me I told you this one will survive nau. ” “ Ehn, ” Aunty Ama chimed, “God cannot give you girl and then now come and take that one too.” Tied to her back was a baby boy who cried constantly and kicked himself out of the tightly knotted cloth. “Me all I know is,” said Nhyira’s mother, thrusting her fists joyously, “If it’s a boy oh, if it’s a girl oh, this child is my very own blessing.” The women nodded and murmured in agreement. The priest nudged Nhyira and gave her a reassuring smile. He looked so much like her father, his eyes smiled even before his lips did. “You travel often?” He asked. His skin was dark like hers, and his face was round and flat like a pancake. But his voice was high-pitched, and he ended every statement with a question mark. “No sir,” was her response, “this is my first flight.” “Oh, I see, Amsterdam is your final destination?” “America, sir. I am going to study.” “Oh, me too,” he grinned a toothy smile, looking very pleased with himself, “but I’m going to teach.” He had come to Ghana as a missionary and was returning home to continue his ministry. She nodded at him with a polite smile. “Well anyway,” he continued, “what’s your name?” “Nhyira, sir.” “Oh, that’s a beautiful name… what does it mean?” She tilted her head at him and beamed. “It means Blessing.”

oh9ylq

My New Friend Marie

My eyes flutter shut, the corners of my mouth curling into a bright smile, as the breeze dances through the short green leaves of the grass beneath me. I giggle quietly, my toes stretching from the ticklish sensation over my bare skin, but I don’t move, allowing my body to sink deeper into Mother Nature’s embrace. The sweet scent of peach and vanilla travels to my nostrils and I eagerly inhale it, wishing this moment would last forever. “Is it always this peaceful out here, Ava?” Marie asks me, her petite frame rolling over to face me. She brings her hands together, before resting them under her left temple for support. I watch as strands of her chestnut coloured hair fall over her right cheek, the dark flesh the faintest shade of red from the warm rays of the sun shining above our heads. “Only in school time…” I reply in a low voice, as the tip of my index finger brushes her perfect skin to tuck her hair behind her ear. “We timed it well today.” Marie nods. “Thank you.” “For what?” “Showing me around.” She sits up, the hem of her baby-blue skater dress draping over her thighs. “I’ve only been here a couple of days, but I’ve seen way more than I’d planned to. All thanks to you.” The rich chocolate-brown of her irises rests on me and I can’t help but gaze into her eyes, lost in the rawness of her natural beauty. My lips part but no sound comes out, short for words to express my thoughts. Marie frowns, leaning toward me. “You have an eyelash there,” she tells me, pointing at my tear duct with her manicured nail. I flinch, my nerve twitching under the sensitive flesh. “Here?” I gently swipe the pad of my ring finger across the thin skin of my eye. “Is it gone?” “No… wait, let me…”And with that, Marie scooches closer, her face now only an inch away from mine. My heart stutters in my chest at the proximity of our bodies, her breath brushing my cheek in a gentle rhythm that soothes my nervous system. Her middle finger strokes the skin below my eye, the motion light but precise. Normally, I would pull away, untrusting of the unidentified finger poking at my eye. But it is different with Marie. I stay still, the sweetest of tingles travelling through my body, awakening every nerve ending in me in the process with the most delicious of shivers. My middle quivers and I stare at her softly, mesmerised by her bewitching energy, wishing her touch would never pull away from my now-flushed flesh. I wish this moment would last forever. “There… Got it!” she exclaims, proud of herself, before waving her digit at me. “Thanks,” I manage in a breath, looking away, embarrassment at the way my body reacts to hers washing over me like a cold shower. But Marie squints, leaning in again. So I hold my breath, my heart stammering loudly against my ribs as her lips pause in front of mine. For the shortest of seconds I think she is gonna kiss me, but then she says, “You have beautiful eyelashes.” My skin burns at the compliment, and I feel her gaze invade my soul as she focuses on my eyes again, before casually pulling away to sit back over the tall grass. I force a smile, begging my body to calm itself down and my breathing to resume at an appropriate pace. I bring the backs of my hands to my hot cheeks, inhaling deeply. Had Marie lingered in front of me a second longer, I would have made a big mistake—I would have kissed her. I swallow hard, dread suddenly prickling my every limb and organ in a sharp, uncomfortable pins-and-needles sensation, because this is wrong. I have never felt such a strong magnetic pull for anyone the way I do for Marie—not even for Adam, my boyfriend of twelve years. I barely know her, but there is something about Marie that attracts me. It is like being sucked into a river current; no matter how hard I swim the opposite direction, the force of gravity urges me to go with the flow— her flow. Marie has only been here for four days, but she has turned my head and heart upside down. She is the first person that enters my mind in the morning as I wake up, and she is the last one I see when I close my eyes in bed at night. I can’t focus. I can’t eat. I can’t work. I can’t live like I used to unless I am with her. I have been blaming it on the lack of sleep and utter excitement at having a new friend, but deep down I know there is more. It can’t be love, though, because that would be wrong. And yet, how could something that feels so right be wrong? I thought I had my life all figured out, until Marie checked in at Hard Rock hotel, where I work as a receptionist. I had made plans long before her arrival, and I knew exactly where I was going and how I was gonna get there. I was gonna save money to buy a house with Adam, and then we would get married and have kids, so that we could grow old together as a family. That was— is —the plan. But maybe, just maybe, I might want something different after all. Something else. Or someone… else. The thought saddens me, because I went through my entire life knowing where to go, but now… Now I come to myself within the deep dark current of Marie’s river, and I realise the straight way has been lost. And it scares me. The journey with Adam is safe and familiar. The way to it is right there under my nose—all I have to do to get to it is… nothing. I simply need to remain where I am, living my life the way I have always lived it. And that is the opposite of scary, but if I think deep enough about it, I don’t know that I want it, this non-scary life. Maybe I don’t want scheduled and monotonous. Maybe I want unexpected and thrilling. And that is how my life has been since Marie. “I think school is over,” she remarks, her head bobbing at the horde of children dashing across the park in the distance. She graciously gets to her feet, before extending a hand out to me. “Coffee?” “Always,” I chirp, eagerly accepting her grip. Our skins meld—hers a rich chocolate shade, mine caramel looking—and I feel a spark, a subtle twinkle of electricity that makes the butterflies in my middle flutter all over. We exit the park hand-in-hand, our fingers entwined in the most natural of fashions, when the pad of her thumb suddenly, gently strokes my knuckles, my heart jumping in my ribcage. Did Marie mean to do that? I glance at her from the corner of my eye, but I can’t see anything different about her. Her features are as peaceful as an angel’s, her dark hair hovering over her upper back as the breeze caresses her face. I command my body to compose itself and stop imagining things, because that is all it was—my imagination. We enter the coffee shop, a quaint establishment run by a single mother of three. I order my usual and Marie has the same—a coconut latte with a sprinkle of cacao powder over the foamy surface—before we settle in the booth in the corner of the confined room. The bare skin of our legs touch under the rectangle table, the hems of our dresses stopping mid-thighs, and I can’t help but revel in the exquisite warmth radiating out of her, knowing that I long for more. “Oh look, Ava,” Marie interrupts my train of thought. “Isn’t that your boyfriend?” She points at the glass door with her chin, so I follow her gaze. Shame instantly washes over me the second my eyes land on Adam’s tall frame. As I urgently force myself to scooch away from Marie, she frowns but doesn’t say anything, her gaze lingering over my anxious features with concern. I feel the skin of my cheeks burn under her stare, because soon she will officially meet my boyfriend and that isn’t something I wanted to happen. Ever. Because Adam will burst our bubble. His very presence will only remind me that whatever it is I am feeling for Marie is wrong. Sure enough, Adam spots me across the coffee shop. A beaming grin lights up his face as he waves at me, happiness shining out of him through and through. A lump grows in my throat, however, feeling awful for not reciprocating his giddiness. I force a smile, awkwardly shaking the flat of my hand over the table in an attempt to greet him in the distance so he doesn’t feel obliged to come over. But to my utter desolation, Adam collects his coffee and swiftly joins us, his black Vans stomping all over the little bubble of magic that was left around Marie and I. “Hi, babe,” he greets me, sliding over the pink cushioned booth to sit beside me. “Hi,” I reply in a small voice, my frantic eyes darting to Marie when he kisses me on the cheek. But she doesn’t react. She smiles kindly, like she always does, before casually sipping her coffee. “And you must be the infamous Marie,” Adam goes on, extending a warm hand to my friend. “Indeed, I am,” she giggles, nodding as her small fingers close around his. “Nice meeting you.” I sigh, my back sinking against the booth as I watch Adam and Marie engage in an animated conversation about how much I have been talking about my new friend lately. I listen to them both for a while, silently sipping my hot beverage, cursing myself for bringing Marie here, where the entire town goes for coffee. The corners of my lips eventually curl upward into a mask of pretence, my head bobbing left to nod at Adam, before tilting right to agree with Marie, as I force myself to look somewhat composed and not in the least disappointed I have to share her with him.

lj4sut

Leo the Flea

I can’t undo the zipper! My plan has gone terribly wrong, and now I can't breathe. It all came from me wanting to meet my idol, Lionel Messi. My name is Leo, just like his, except he is Lionel and I am Leonard. We are just alike. His nickname is La Pulga, which is the Spanish word for what my Mom calls me, Flea. She says when I was little I bounced around and was always where she didn’t want me to be. I have to see Leo play, I have to! I didn’t have money for a ticket. But I made a plan. I live right next to the Oakland Coliseum. Or at least the fence. It's really my grandfather's apartment, but we live here, my mom and me, along with my uncle and my two older cousins. My cousins laughed at me when I told them my plan. That is OK, they laugh at me all the time anyway. I have to spend most of the day outside because the small room my mom and I share with all our stuff feels too tight. I need to have the window open when I am in there, no matter the temperature. I first heard the rumor when I was outside playing soccer a few streets over. I didn't believe it at first, Barcelona is on the other side of the world, why would they come to Oakland? But then when Diego said it was happening this weekend, I knew it to be true. Diego was in high school and was always right. Messi's team, Barcelona FC, was going to play against the San Jose Earthquakes at the Oakland Coliseum. Messi was coming to the stadium I lived next to! The buzz inside my head made it hard to sleep that night. I have to go to that game no matter     Black people play basketball and football, not soccer. That is what my grandfather says. My family says soccer is dumb and boring. I tried to like football, I did. But football doesn't like me. Or the kids who play football on my street at least. My cousins and the rest of the boys won't play with me because they say I am too small. When they said I had to be the referee again that day last summer, I just left. The boys a few blocks away were kicking a ball around. I stopped to watch, amazed. It was like the ball was on a string, moving quick and controlled. At first I thought they only spoke Spanish, but once I got to know them they said they did that so the boys on my street couldn't understand them. They played ‘football’ but it was different from the football that I knew about. This football was a game where you could not use your hands, only your feet or your head. What I liked was no one jumped on me or tackled me onto the street. By the time I learned that this game is soccer, I couldn’t stop playing. It fits me better. Once I got the hang of using my feet, I could keep up with anyone. Quicker than all the boys, except for Mario, I was small enough to move into small spaces fast and shoot for the goal. I have never been good at anything before. I love to score. On real soccer fields they have large white goals with nets. On the street where we play we put our backpacks down to make small goals. My favorite part is when I am running free, I can dribble through the other team and tap it in for a goal. When Diego said I reminded him of Messi, I was sad and was about to leave. I thought it was an insult. But he laughed and showed me the Youtube videos on his phone and I understood. He was small and fast and could score too! Diego told me when the game would start. I got there early and waited for my chance. I was wearing the Messi jersey Diego gave me. When I saw the large back gate open for the huge blue and red bus, I pushed up the small hole in the heavy wire fence and squeezed my body through, scraping my knees across the dirt. I scrambled the few steps to the broken stadium chairs and then dove behind them. I peeked out to see if any of the men in dark uniforms saw me. Even though at full height I was only as tall as the hood, I duck-walked from parked car to parked car, slowly getting closer. An image flashed in front of my eyes, last year’s certificate for Fastest Duck-Walker in 3rd Grade from Mr. Jimenez’ PE class. The single Certificate of Achievement I received. I was a few cars away from the large door to the back entrance to the stadium. My plan was working- I was going to see Messi play soccer! But I had to get into the stadium. There is a spot below the bleachers I had found when my cousins and I snuck in for the Oakland Raider game. It is football that is boring, all the stops and starts, but that experience has come in handy. Several men are at the gaping door, unloading bags off the bus onto carts. If those people would move, I can make it in.  Some players are getting off, was that one Messi? I can only see the back of the players' heads. With just a flash of black hair and a slight movement of the shoulders, I see enough to know. Yes, that has to be him, Messi! I let out a shriek before I throw my hand over my mouth. I have to be quiet. I get on my tiptoes, straining to see better. Last time I was here for the Raiders game the door was wide open and we ran easily into the stadium. The cement hallways were huge and I thought we would get lost, but we followed the noise and soon enough we were looking out onto the field from the bleachers. The players were so large in their uniforms, I felt like an ant. Packed with people yelling and cheering. I didn't stay for the game. It was too tight in the stadium and I hate football.  Something was happening at the bus. I leaned over to to see better- Suddenly heavy boots thumped loudly behind me and a shadow moved over the car I was hiding behind. I turned back quickly and there was a guard, all in black, a huge man with his hands on his hips and silver polished glasses. I saw myself reflected in those glasses, small against the car, eyes wide, and my body frozen. I can not get caught- I have to get into the Coliseum to see Messi! I held my breath waiting for him to make the first move. I stepped back into the fence the car was parked against, trapping me in the corner. The tight space made my body vibrate. No! Without thinking I used my best Leo Messi move, feinting down to the right before launching myself to the left, running as fast as I ever had. I zig-zagged between cars in the general direction of the stadium entrance with the blue and red bus parked in front.  With the people standing nearby looking the other way, I took a chance and dove under the bus, my face in my elbow to quiet my loud breaths. The black boots of the security guard clomped past. OK, I can wait here until- A rumbling sound started above me and then with a whooshing sound, the bus began to move.  I am going to get caught! Over to the side of the bus, bags were piled up next to a cart. The people were walking away as the bus left. One of the bags was huge, with round spheres sticking out of the black material. Scraping across the cement under the bus, I scanned the area, before reaching out and unzipping the bag. I pulled out most of the shiny-new balls, pushing them away from the other bags until they rolled and bounced across the parking lot, loose until they were caught again under the parked cars. I plunged into the bag, curling down to the bottom before reaching back and zipping it most of the way closed, carefully leaving a few inches open so I could have air to breathe and would not be trapped.  I instantly knew this was not a good plan. The dark bag wrapped all around me, tight against my head and shoulders. I could not straighten my legs! Anxiety began to build, will they even bring this bag inside? My fingers reached up to open the zipper back up, when someone stepped to the bag, grabbed the handle and snapped the zipper closed all the way. The bag was lifted quickly up, and then thrown roughly down. I felt like I was moving then, maybe on the cart. It was hard to breathe, my lungs were burning, my whole body prickled with sweat. I am going to die in this bag! To be stuck in this bag forever bubbled in my head like the boiling water I used to make my pasta. I had no control and could not open the zipper from the inside. Stuck like when I am in the room with the window closed. The cart stopped, Spanish voices loud and joking outside the bag. I tried not to squirm but the panic jolted through me, my legs were twisted and I felt other bags pointing into my back, hard and sharp. The cart moved again and I felt it roll for what seemed like forever. I need to get out! Finally the bag was picked up and dumped one more time.  I heard voices come closer and the bag was unzipped roughly. I looked up and saw a dark brown face that matched my own. The bright eyes sparkled and the man's mouth shaped an ‘O’ of surprise.  “Quel genre de ballon de foot est-ce ?” ( What kind of soccer ball is this? ) Said the man in the blue and red striped jersey. “Hey little man, come on out of there.” I stood up but had to close my eyes, the bright lights of the stadium blinded me. I took a deep breath, filled with relief to escape the bag. Slowly I opened my eyes to see I was in the middle of a vibrant green field surrounded by the Barcelona team in their blue and red jerseys, matching my own. I blinked several times looking around at the players. “Where is Messi?” I said. “Oh another one!” The man laughed, his white smile broad. “His fans are everywhere, even in the football bags!” He bent down with his hands on his knees. His dark legs were thin and wiry, rippled with muscle before they entered into his knee-high blue and red socks. “Messi doesn't come to these Friendlies over here in the States. He is back home in Barcelona while the second team puts in the work. But you get to meet me! My name is Ousmane. ” “My name is Leo.” I looked around at the bright green grass, the stands, so full of fans and colors it was a picture, not real. The sky, only a metal fence away from the one I saw everyday, looked bigger and more blue. This was another world. “Leo, really? Of course it is.” Ousmane smiled again, and pulled the last ball out of the bag and dropped it at his feet. “Come on, you are out here now, do you play?” I grinned and ran forward to kick the ball from Ousmane’s feet. “OK Leo! Show me what you got before we have to get you off the field.” Ousmane said. “Where were you yesterday Leonard?” Grandfather said, his deep voice echoing in the small but well-kept kitchen. He was opening his newspaper like he did every morning sitting in his chair at the table.  “I was playing soccer with my friends.” I said through bites of cold cereal at the kitchen table. We always sat together on weekend mornings. Grandfather moved several items away to make space in front of him. He placed the newspaper on the table. The crinkled page had a fold through the middle of a picture. His dusty brown hand pressed the paper flat on the table. “Your friends, you say?” Grandfather repeated with a frown. “You really like soccer?” “I love it Grandfather! I said, putting down my spoon. “And I am good too, like my favorite player Ousmane. He is black like us, and skinny like me! He’s my idol." I nodded slowly. “We are just alike!” Grandfather smiled. “Maybe I should talk to your mother about getting you on a real soccer team. He looked down at the newspaper on the table. “Or are you already on one?” Confused, I followed his gaze to the newspaper on the table. In between newsprint articles was a picture of several players wearing jerseys of thick blue and red. In the corner, with a smile spread from ear to ear, was a small black boy in a matching jersey, his foot connecting with a soccer ball. 

r61oci

Speak Now

“Speak! Now!” My father boomed as we stood in the dark foyer, my shoes in hand and socked toes gripping the cold marble tile.           “I’m sorry. It’s not—”           “—It’s not what? It’s not what it looks like? I was fifteen once, too, J.P., and it’s always what it looks like.” He continued without acknowledging I was speaking. I had snuck out of the house for the third time that week, not returning until a little after 4:00 a.m. This morning was the first time anyone had noticed; of course, it had to be my father: James Princeton McAllister III, esquire. My mother would proudly preface with “the honorable” when introducing him to anyone who looked in their direction. I remember her once announcing his newest title to the bleary-eyed cashier at Stop and Shop. But around the house, he was known as Jimmy or Daddy, unless it was me, then it was Sir. I am his namesake, his firstborn, his legacy; James Princeton McAllister IV. As the fourth, all traditional nicknames had been taken, so I ended up with letters: J.P.           “Jimmy? Is he home? Is he alright?” My mother was calling from the top of the polished white staircase that curved up to the second floor. There was no light, and I couldn’t see her; But I knew she was making her way gracefully down, her silky ivory robe, with the roses on it, whispering as it slid across the top of the steps.           “Rosie, everything is fine. J.P. is fine. Go back to bed, dear; I will handle this.” My father tenderly replied as he turned his scowl towards me. I didn’t need a shard of light to know he was scowling; he always was, especially when looking at me. I will never forget his face, the tight lips, folded brow, and reaching stare. He has the most intense stare; you’d swear he could see straight through to your soul. It’s no wonder he was appointed a district court judge. I pray for any poor soul standing in front of that scowl wrapped in black judges’ robes.           “J.P., you had us worried sick. What were you thinking?” My mother gasped and wrapped her arms around my neck, planting a kiss on the top of my head.           “Mom, I’m sorry, I was—”           “—Don’t waste our time with your adolescent apologies, son. Actions are what matter. Actions distinguish the criminals from the law-abiding.” Judge McAllister preached; he never wasted a teaching moment.           “Yes, Sir”           “Jimmy, he’s not a criminal. He’s just a teenager.” My mother was quick to defend me these days. I knew her secret.           “Rosie dear, he may be a teenager, but he has acted criminally. Leaving the house in the middle of the night, he can only be up to no good.” He stated while reaching for his worn leather wallet embossed with our initials, J.P.M., “Go check your pocketbook, make sure he hasn’t taken any more credit cards. You know we can’t bare other financial setbacks after what he has spent on those damn video games.” A glimmer of panic sped up his words. “We are all but maxed out on credit; we’ll have to sell the Cadillac next, the Mercedes too.” The shame was evident in his voice as he listed the luxury status symbols they would be forced to part with.            Everything would go, including the antique crystal chandelier above our heads, before they would give up this stately manor we called home. The McAllister manor had been in our family for more generations than I could count and provided a level of social status that no Cadillac or Mercedes could rival. Although, having the ample brick driveway sit empty would start the neighbors talking. Rumors can be dangerous; they are rooted in truth. Their truths would be catastrophic to their way of life. I will keep their secrets. ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦           “Good morning, Hunny.” My mother sang as I walked onto the four-season patio encased in glass like the terrarium on my biology teacher’s desk. She dubbed it the breakfast room because she always had Valerie, our housekeeper, serve it there.           “Morning,” I grunted; these late nights were taking their toll. “Where’s Babs?”           “Your Sister is spending the weekend with the Malloys’; I guess she and Molly entered a talent contest at school, and they need time to prepare their dance routine.” She replied with a loving smile that quickly turned wistful. “You’ll need to get yourself to school on Monday; the Malloys will bring your sister. Your father sold the cars yesterday. All we have is your grandfather’s Volvo. Your father will have to leave for work early to avoid being spotted in it if we are to preserve a shred of dignity.” I watched her sip her coffee with a gentle slurp.           “Okay. Joce can drive me. I’ll see her tonight and make sure it’s okay.” I replied flatly. I knew this was coming; Jocelyn Parish was my best friend, and she also knew. Joce had been picking me up for weeks in her sun-blistered El Camino for my overnight shift at the Lazy Daisy Motel. It had once stood next to a rolling field of daisies and welcomed all-American families on their summer road trips. Now, it was surrounded by cracked pavement and flanked by a twenty-four-hour diner and greasy gas pumps. The only reminder of its wholesome past was showcased in patinaed frames in the lobby; faded photos of smiling families holding handfuls of daisies as they posed in front of their station wagons. Most of the guests these days were weekly raters, calling the Lazy Daisy their permanent home, so there wasn’t much checking in or out, making the job a cakewalk. I spent my nights behind the counter studying.            Education was important to the McAllister family; it bought bragging rights within their circle. One-upmanship was like a sport to them; whose kid was on the honor roll? Which one scored the highest on the S.A.T.s? What pretentious university were they attending next fall? But I didn’t do it for them; I did it for me. I did it for freedom. I knew an impressive G.P.A. and high test scores could get me into any school in the country or beyond. That was my dream, the freedom to go beyond. Beyond their shallow world of secrets that I had to keep tightly wrapped in gold-plated foil and studded with moissanites.           “Oh, is that who you’ve been sneaking out with? Jocelyn – Parish?” My mother said Jocelyn’s name like it was a bitter clump of grapefruit pulp stuck under her tongue. “I wish you would spend your time with a girl like Prudence Clearwater. Her father owns half the commercial real estate in town. If it were her, I wouldn’t have to keep your late nights a secret from your father.”           “Secret?! You want to talk about secrets?” I could feel my ears turning red and my skin heating up.           “J.P., don’t start with me.” Her voice was a whisper, and I could barely hear it over my speeding heart.           “Your whole life is one big secret, filled with a million tiny secrets!” I burst out. Rage can only stay locked away for so long. “You’ve spent all your money and Dad’s, plus some, on your desperate attempt to bring another McAllister into the world. Just face it, you’re too old to have another baby. Why can’t Babs and I be enough? “My emotions were getting the better of me.           “J.P., you just don’t –”           “—Just don’t what, mom? Don’t understand? I understand you let me take the blame for taking the credit cards and spending the family into debt. You know I didn’t do it; I don’t even play video games. I’m too busy studying! You tell mountains of lies and keep so many secrets to protect your fake diamond-encrusted image you don’t know what’s real.” I sat there catching my breath, not breaking my stare at my mother’s astonished face. It felt good to finally speak some truth.           “And you do?” She replied after a moment, holding back her emotions.           “Yes. I’m real. And I don’t want to keep your secrets anymore. Why can’t we just be happy?” My words lacked the power and fierceness of before but gained sincerity backed with the mist of my tears.           “J.P.,” she said my name with such comfort it almost washed away the hurt. “I know it’s hard to understand, but some things must be hidden and stories made to replace them to have happiness. I promise it’ll all fall into place. Just keep quiet about the money for a little longer. One more round of I.V.F., and I’ll have my happiness. I’ll buy you any car you want for your sixteenth birthday. Won’t that make you happy?” She finished with a timid smile.           I can’t believe she was bribing me to keep taking the blame for her irresponsibility. And, with a new car, no less, it’s like she thought the cars were in the shop getting the latest G.P.S system installed instead of sitting in some used car lot. I worried that she might be delusional. Did she really think everything would just work out, and she’d suddenly have her millions back, buy me a Lambo, and we’d be one big happy family with her new bundle of joy? Maybe we could take a trip to the Lazy Daisy with our rose-colored sunglasses and add our portrait to the nostalgia clinging to the ripped wallpaper of yesteryear. ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦           “It’s getting harder to make it out of the house unseen. The Judge and his wife are watching me like a hawk. They even threatened to lock me in the attic all weekend if I snuck out again.” I leaned across the counter to hand Jocelyn my biology notes.           “J.P., that’s insane. They can’t do that. It’s cruel and unusual punishment.” Jocelyn responded.           “Tell that to The Judge.” I scoffed. “I’ll be ready to quit next week. One last paycheck is all I need. I have almost enough saved to buy that red Range Rover over at Del’s Used Cars. My mom will love it; the Rover has heated leather seats, a heated steering wheel, and even heated mirrors!”           “That’s a lot of heat.” Jocelyn giggled.           “Plus, it’s red. She loves red.” I continued.           “J.P., you should keep the Rover for yourself. You’re the one who earned it.” Jocelyn urged lovingly.           “What? Are you sick of driving me around?” I teased, flicking a rubber band at her.           “Of course not! I’d drive you to California and back and love every moment of it. I just think you’re putting too much faith in the people who keep letting you down.” Jocelyn’s tone softened as she glanced up from her textbook.           “They’re my parents, Joce. I love them, even if I hate their secrets. They need my help.” I said defensively.           “Okay, okay. Let’s get back to this practice test. I heard from Lisa the biology midterm was brutal.” Jocelyn redirected.           “I’m not worried about it. I already got an acceptance letter to Kensington Prep.” I said apathetically.           “What?!” Jocelyn screeched. “That’s amazing! You’ve been working so hard for that; I’m so happy for you. I mean, it sucks, but I’m happy. Kensington is like a ten-hour drive. I won’t be able to visit much. I don’t think my car could make it ten hours without busting apart. You’re not going to forget about me, are you?” Jocelyn’s smile faded as she realized the distance that would be between us.           “Don’t worry, Joce; It’ll all fall into place.” I lied. ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ “Mom! Dad! Babs! Come outside.” I yelled excitedly into the foyer, my voice echoing through the empty rooms. “What now, son?” Judge McAllister was first to the door, my mother and sister on his heels. “Just come outside and look!” I replied. The cherry red Range Rover was parked in the driveway, centered in front of the manor, like a trophy for the whole neighborhood to gawk at. I had been pulling overnight shifts at the motel for months while studying continuously, I was tired, and I wasn’t going to let my efforts be wasted. I had collected my last paycheck from the Lazy Daisy and, with Jocelyn’s help, went straight to Del’s Used Cars. Del himself sold it to me. He didn’t care that I didn’t have a driver’s license when I told him the Rover was for Judge McAllister. He even offered to deliver it free of charge. I hated using my name as a bargaining chip, but it worked, and this was important. “J.P., what have you done? Where did this car come from? I can’t believe you’ve escalated to auto theft! It’s bad enough you’d steal from your own family, but now you’re committing grand theft?” My father had his phone in his hand, dialing the sheriff’s office. “Dad, stop. I didn’t steal it. I bought it. I bought it for mom.” I whined like a chastised puppy. “Son, there is no way a fifteen-year-old hooligan like yourself could afford a Range Rover. Where exactly am I supposed to believe you got the money for such a purchase? It’s not like you have time for a job with all the sneaking around you do with that Parish girl. Stop lying, save our family the embarrassment of a trial, and just confess when Sheriff Mosely arrives.” Judge McAllister fumed. “Mom, do something!” I pleaded with my mother to intervene. “I swear I didn’t steal it; I have the receipt. It’s in the glove box.” My sister jumped forward and scrambled into the passenger seat of the Rover. She quickly located the sales papers and produced them as evidence of my innocence. My father scowled at them, disconnected his call, and walked back into the manor without another word. My mother looked at the glimmering red Range Rover with intrigue, moved towards it, then turned to face me. “An Audi would have been a better choice. Classier.” She said as she walked past me, taking the key from my outstretched hand and retreating into the manor. “I like it.” Babs said earnestly as she skipped up the front steps, following our parents inside. I was left standing alone, staring blankly at my reflection in the glossy paint of the Rover. That wasn’t how I had imagined this moment. Instead of receiving the excited cheers and loving affection I had expected, I received accusations and disapproval. I continued to stare at myself in the Rover. Why do I keep trying to win the approval of people that don’t believe in me?

7ezqrk

Tiny Differences

The only person Malorie could think of as she walked down the halls made of tiny tile was Oskar Gillion Best. Just the thought of her teenage flame brought goosebumps to the surface of her skin. What changed? Was he married? This tiny fixation might seem like obsession, but to Malorie, it was simply nostalgic excitement. Who didn’t ask these questions when they came face to face with people from the past? All the trophy cases were in the same places. The glass was barely holding together after decades of quick fixing. Everything looked smaller now; less impressive with far less clout than it had. “YO!” A voice called after her as she wandered toward the gym. She spun around to find Courtney making his way toward her. He’s not who she was looking for, but Mal decided to keep her pleasantries in tact. “Oh my God, Courtney?!” she feigned excitement, pulling him into a hug. “Look at ’chu!” “Well, I don’t wanna brag, but,” he chuckled. “The years have been far too good to me. “And you’re just as humble as ever.” They shared a laugh before Malorie spotted the large blue eyes of a mousy woman over his shoulder. “This is my wife, Jane,” Courtney added clumsily onto the end of their conversation as if he’d nearly forgotten she was there. “Pleasure,” Malorie lied, shaking the quiet woman’s hand. Jane was just the type Courtney would marry 10 years out of high school. He’d reached peak rebelliousness and, naturally, he retreated back to the cookie cutter life. At least that was how Malorie saw it. Jane nodded and kissed Courtney on the cheek, saying something about going off to explore his past or something. Honestly, the girl just seemed like a background character, so when she left, it was back to the high school’s queen and her rebellious king. Still, Oskar lingered in her mind. Courtney disappeared later to find his wife and Malorie continued to the gym from there. She was already late. As an STNA, she was lucky she even made it to the reunion at all. The gym was filled with the music of their generation. “Crunk” generally was the term. Malorie scanned the room to find even a hint of Oskar somewhere. In her anxiousness, Malorie couldn’t find him. It was when she went to the punch bowl that she realized that, in just 10 years out of high school, she had become a Punch Bowl Kid. Unbelievable. Malorie poured herself some of the drink in one of the cups stacked neatly near the bowl. A smile tugged at the corners of her lips as she realized someone spiked it. Or multiple people, judging by the taste. It was more alcohol than fruit punch at this point and it hit Malorie right where she needed it to. Thank God for liquor. She chugged the drink and ladled herself another, glancing around the room. Still no Oskar, but she had seen a few familiar faces. Like that girl that was somehow popular, though she was painfully boring. Courtney entered a little while later and stole the show as he usually did. This night seemed like a bust, but she remained hopeful. With a pleasant buzz, Malorie thought of ways she could happen upon Oskar. She would know him if she saw him despite any changes. Courtney certainly didn’t change too much, except he seemed to have completely forgotten the pain she’d caused him. “Malorie Cortez,” A voice she recognized almost instantly chimed into her thoughts. It was a voice she’d fallen in love with, albeit an entire key deeper than it had been back then. She already knew who he was, but she turned in a way that seemed nonchalant. There he was, standing with his dreadlocks pulled into a large bun atop his head. He. Was. Unmistakable. “Jesus,” She lied, “You scared the hell out of me.” Oskar laughed, but there was cynicism now where there used to be nothing but friendliness. “Now why do I feel like that's not true?” Oskar called her bluff and Malorie wanted to scream in a good way. “Well you can assume what you want,” Malorie flirted back with a shrug and a smile men generally killed for. “It’s been way too long. What have you been up to?” When she heard herself speak, she couldn’t help but feel as though her voice sounded a bit shrill. Desperate even, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Well, I host a radio show now,” he answered. “My boss is trying to get me to do a stand up special, but I don’t think my wit is quick enough.” Malorie laughed too hard. She knew she laughed too hard because Oskar gave her a look that made her feel 15 again. Taking another sip of the punch clutched in her hand, she coughed lightly, forgetting for a moment the alcohol inside. They shared a redolent laugh when she told him it was spiked. The entire time, Malorie thought about whatever hotel he paid for. If he was obvious about taking her home, Malorie probably would have beat him there. Then again, maybe it was the liquor taking over her thoughts. So she told him what she did for a living and all he had to say about it was “still?” “Whoa,” Malorie attempted to defend herself. “We were having a good conversation until now.” “All I’m saying is,” Oskar continued, though Malorie was already disgruntled. “It’s been 10 years, you coulda been way farther ahead...” Malorie was ready to go home after that comment, but, as he ladled punch into a cup, something made her stay. Malorie almost left another three times before she decided to finally just ask him: “Are you single?” “I broke up with my girlfriend recently,” Bingo. “I just wasn’t feeling her vibe anymore.” Before Malorie blinked, her drink was gone. She was buzzed before, but now she was just plain drunk. It was then that Malorie decided that drink would be her last one. Upon that decision, the music stopped abruptly and the old class president began crowd pleasantries. Malorie watched Oskar, but he was watching the stage. A slide show started up, filling the dark room with chuckles and reminiscent stories. For Mal, however, the lights were beginning to blur. Oskar said something about getting closer and Mal followed him toward the front of the stage. Halfway there, they ran into Courtney who had also drank the sacred poison. The meeting between the three of them was awkward. For her, anyway. Skar and Courtney fell right back into place as if she wasn’t Yoko. Courtney said something about needing to be seen and everything was a blur now. “Hey,” Malorie began, attempting to correct the slur in her voice. Her heart was beating a million miles a minute. She hoped the vulnerability didn’t reveal itself in her eyes. “What happened to us anyway? We could have really gone somewhere.” Oskar smiled condescendingly and Malorie’s heart fell into her stomach. “It’s just weird Ri,” He patronized. “It’s like, sometimes I forget all about high school, but...you’re stuck there.” Malorie heard enough, but Oskar continued. “No offense but...even in high school, it felt like high school was your peak.” “And yet...I’m still offended...” she grumbled. “Look, baby, you cool,” Oskar responded, shrugging. “But I’m way different and you’re...well...the same...” It was like the air was pulled roughly from her lungs. Like when a person falls flat on their back. Oskar ended his complete massacre of everything she expected to happen with a casual goodbye. The kind of pleasantries suburban house wives and businessmen leave with. So Malorie stumbled toward the punch bowl again. The slide show was over and the president began to speak, but her voice faded to background noise. This, Malorie swore, would be her last drink as she ladled all the alcohol that sank to the bottom. Malorie chugged the remaining punch before tossing her red solo cup onto the ground. Her dark eyes scanned the few people left at the reunion and she spotted Courtney. She took in that comfortable, creamy skin and his bright blue eyes. What Mal wanted now, more than anything, was to feel wanted again. She thought of the way he looked at her earlier and convinced herself that he wanted this too. The excitement of the epiphany the dark haired woman swayed toward him. It felt like a mile, but it was really only a few paces and she was in his personal space. “Let me see something,” she garbled, before pulling him into a deep, sloppy kiss. “...So, since they funded the event, it would only be right for the queen and king to go to Courtney and his lovely wife!” The president announced. A light broke through Malorie and Courtney’s kiss while another fell onto Jane who she’d completely forgotten about until now.

31fdbw

The Box

   He’s really gone. The thought rattles around in my mind, tumbles into meaninglessness. When he comes home for the holidays this Christmas, it will not be him. It will be a man, with experiences, a life I don’t know about, dressed in his skin. Looking almost the same, but so very different. What do I think of this unknown man? Resentment, for stealing my child from me. Fear, at the inevitable changes. But most of all, pride, at who he is becoming.    In the room, we optimistically call the “laundry room,” is a jumble of items in several cardboard boxes, labeled “trash” in his untidy handwriting. Being more frugal, I think most of it can be donated. I don’t admit to myself that a memento might get tucked away.    Starting with the box of clothes, it’s instantly obvious that they all need to be laundered before anyone else might consider wearing them. Opening the washing machine, I quickly check each item of clothing before putting it in the machine. Coins, crayons, a plastic dinosaur that makes me smile briefly — all these treasures were left carelessly tucked into pockets, usually in his blue jeans.    A folded-up dollar bill, now into clothes from his early teen years. A cigarette lighter — what! — another story I’ll never know. A tangled lump of t-shirts, outgrown rock bands, fill a good part of the box. Untangled, they tell a story of a boy’s love of music evolving as he grows. Those would make an amazing quilt . The smaller ones are boy-bands, the medium-sized pop rock. Once medium becomes large, the bands are far less innocent, the music much harder, the lyrics darker. I put the shirts in the washer, knowing the quilt will never be made, but charmed by the idea of it, more for myself than for him.    The socks and underwear are rags, no one would want them, not even Goodwill. In a moment of good intentions, the grungy things are tossed into the trash. Clothing box done, it’s time to move on to a box of miscellany.    Science fiction paperbacks, those can go. Plastic models of cartoon characters, likewise. Everything, back in the box! That one I move past the washer, near the door, convenient to carry out when finished.    Returning, there is only one more box. More books, paperbacks, but then… I pull out a finely bound leather volume, and of course recognize it at once. It’s a Christmas gift, from back when he was 12 or 13, just a stocking stuffer really. A diary. Well-used from the thumbed-through look of the pages, this is obviously not something just forgotten and thrown away.    I hold the book in my hand, torn. Of course I want to read it, but I never will. I respect my son’s privacy, as he’s always respected mine. I can’t violate it to satisfy my curiosity. Still, I puzzle what to do with it. No way would I put it in with Goodwill things. Likewise, I would not throw it in the trash. Not until he said he didn’t want it. Put it up for him, wrap it up as a stocking stuffer again? That might be fun.    The rest of the box is full of music CDs, which I leave untouched in the box. That one also goes in the Goodwill pile. I start the washing machine, smile at the idea of the rock and roll quilt. Maybe I really will make it. Only not for myself. No, it will be for him. That, and the journal, will be his Christmas gifts, I decide on the spot. It’s going to mean a lot of time spent cutting and sewing in the coming weeks, but he’s so worth it. # I’m right, damn it. My fingers are so sore, and they keep wanting to cramp up on me. I haven’t sewn a quilt in forever. I could have used a machine, but it wasn’t right. This is personal, and I want to make it with my own hands. I made it, and in time for Christmas. Wrapping it is fun, I use an X-Box container to hide it in, then tape it down thoroughly. He is known to prank me with a gift occasionally, and this one means so much, I want him to work for it. The journal I merely wrap in shiny blue paper with silvery trees marching across it. # It is The Day, Christmas Day, and I alternate between watching out the front window and checking the time on my cell phone. Of course he wouldn’t have me meet his plane, he’d catch an Uber or something. I need to calm down. I do one of the breathing exercises I learned in yoga, and it works well.    Finally, a strange car pulls in my driveway. I watch my tall son unfold himself from a roller-skate of a car, pull his backpack from the back seat, and exit, laughing and chatting with the driver. He looks around the property as he walks up to the front door, re-examining the background of his childhood. I am at the door, waiting, willing myself not to cry. I succeed until he hugs me. Then, a few tears leak out, I just can’t control them.    “Hey, mom, it’s great to see you! I’ve missed you, especially your cooking. I think I’ve lost ten pounds.” He wanders through the dining room, shedding his backpack on the table as he walks by. “Nice tree.” He stops and tucks a wrapped box under it, then continues on his mission: the kitchen.    Mouth full of cookies, he turns to me, mumbles something I pretend not to understand. He finishes the mouthful, swallows, then repeats himself. “Can we open presents now? I can’t stay long, I’ve got something else important I need to do today.”    I feel like the one with a mouthful of dry cookie. Finally, I can nod. “Sure.” We return to the tree, with its old-fashioned decorations, the things from our past I just can’t let go of. It’s strung with lots of silvery tinsel, lit with tiny fairy lights in a riot of colors.    “Here, mom, you first.” He shoves his package at me. I open it, to find something that looks like a rectangular egg with rounded edges. He explains it’s a set of Bluetooth wireless headphones I’m going to love. I laugh at his enthusiasm. We both know where he gets his love of music.    I urge him to open the quilt first. He laughs at the X-Box, opens it, pulls out the quilt, and he’s speechless. His mouth gapes open, and he just keeps turning it, looking at one band, then another. “How… Where did you… This is amazing, mom! It’s like seeing myself grow in music. I love it!” He jumps up and squeezes the stuffing out of me. I’m delighted, it’s worth every sore finger.    “Don’t forget your stocking stuffer.” I gesture toward our old stockings, still hung up on the wall behind the tree. His is bulging with a rectangular package. Mine has a few candy canes in it, for looks.    He takes out the package, turns it over, unwraps it. All the color leaves his face until he’s so chalky white I’m afraid he’s going to pass out on me. “Did you read this? Please tell me, did you?”    I shake my head; he is reminded I will never violate his privacy. He closes his eyes for a long moment. Then he opens them, smiles at me, and hands me the diary. “Here, read it. I want you to. It will help you understand. That important thing I need to do? I need to meet up with someone. Their name is Andre, and I really want you to meet them. Can I bring them with me to Christmas dinner?”    Christmas meal can safely feed a regiment, so one more will not trouble me. He can tell from my voice that I understand. As he hugs me tightly, I rejoice in my son’s growth to manhood, seeing in a glance infant, toddler, child, boy, teen, and now… man.

2gg2rf

Homemade Wine: A Sestina Story

Homemade Wine: A Sestina Story by M. S. Mabrito Late on a warm fall afternoon many years ago, I had planned to meet friends behind the abandoned bottle factory and drink as much beer as I possibly could but as I passed my grandfather sitting on our porch drinking a glass of his homemade wine, he intercepted me and began to lecture me about my lack of drive and imagination. I was the only son of his only son and he desperately wanted me to imagine a life beyond what he called, with some contempt and some sadness, the small, unexceptional world of my youth. After all, he had taken a chance and crossed an ocean as a young man because he had imagined a better life for himself and warned me if I didn’t think about my future, I would have regrets when I was old. He talked for a long time about why this was important and how things were when he was a young man while refilling his glass until the bottle at his feet was empty and the afternoon had become the twilight. Out of respect for him I stayed and listened – mostly- though this gave me no pleasure. Long before my grandfather finished what he had to say, I realized that I was not leaving the porch that afternoon to see friends or drink cold beer and I regretfully abandoned that plan. By the time he had concluded his monologue, my grandfather, however, had come up with another plan. He decided that he would help me work on my lack of imagination. As the head of our family, this was his responsibility and to do so would be not only his duty but a pleasure. Slurring his speech just a bit, he informed me that beginning the next day, I was to help him make his yearly 200 gallons of red wine, the limit the government allowed a family to make for their own use, just as he had helped his grandfather make wine in the old country when he was a youth. When he announced this, I was glad he couldn’t see my grimace in the twilight. I couldn’t see his face clearly either, but in the semi-darkness of the porch, he almost sounded like a boy, and not someone who was old. My mother worried a great deal about her only son and did not think making wine was a proper activity for a boy who was twelve years old. But my father, a good Italian son who went out of his way to show respect for his father, convinced her of the worth of my grandfather’s plan. So, after his shift at the plant was over that next afternoon, my grandfather and I got into his Plymouth sedan and arrived in the Union Pacific rail yards at twilight. There were hundreds of boxcars in the yards filled top to bottom with crates of grapes from California - many more boxcars and grapes it seemed than anyone could ever picture in their imagination. I followed my grandfather through the crowd of buyers and we approached an open boxcar to wait our turn there, where, unloading the boxcar, was a husky, dark-haired youth. Taking cash only, the young man unloaded crates of grapes from the boxcar and placed them into open car trunks, the flatbeds of pick-up trucks or tied them to the tops of sedans with thick twine, working quickly and with pleasure. When it was our turn, my grandfather made a show of slowly and carefully inspecting the grapes but quickly settled on a price and I was surprised to see how this simple exchange gave him such pleasure. I had never known him as anything other than old. But in that moment, he looked almost as young as the boxcar youth. I knew he was pleased that I was with him and that he had thought up this plan. As our crates of grapes were secured in the trunk of his sedan, he smiled at me, and I wondered if he could see himself as a boy in his imagination. We were both happy as he drove us home in the fading twilight. We arrived home just at the end of twilight. Under the cover of darkness, we attempted to avoid the notice of our teetotaler neighbors and smuggled crates from the car into the basement so as not to reveal our guilty pleasure. We laughed for we knew that, in spite of placing newspaper with scotch tape over the basement windows so that no one could see us at work, the scent of the ripe and soon to be fractured and fermenting grapes would permeate the entire neighborhood and leave little to the imagination. We knew exactly what to expect as this family ritual was old. But different this time as I was now part of the plan. And in this way, my grandfather would ensure the ritual would live on by passing it on to the family’s youth. To my surprise, it turned out that my grandfather had not merely been putting on a show for me at the rail yards but actually had been inspecting the grapes carefully and purchased barely-ripened, large grapes similar to a variety he had known in his youth. He claimed that these grapes made the best wine and one afternoon, weeks later, after we had crushed, fermented and squeezed the grapes, we worked for hours to finally bottle the wine, finishing as we had first began the process - at twilight. My grandfather then poured two small glasses of the new wine to mark the successful completion of his plan. The wine was strong, dark, bitter with a hint of sediment, and it made me choke at first swallow, but I had made it and I eventually drank it all with pleasure. Salute! my grandfather had said before we drank, which is a toast that’s old. It comes from the Latin word for health and as we finished our glasses of the homemade wine, I pictured all those generations of our Italian forebears wishing us good health and raising their glasses in my imagination. I didn’t plan what happened that fall day of my youth. My grandfather’s imagination made it possible in the mysterious half- light of twilight. It was a pleasure that was unexpected and I still remember it even though now, as my grandfather was then, I am old.

3vf3vz

Alice in Wonderland

Alice’s breath fogged the windows of the bus, further obscuring her view of the unremarkable countryside, its features silhouetted by the darkness of early morning. Beyond the glass, she could just make out the blurred shapes of forgotten farmland against the backdrop of rolling hills far in the distance. The lopsided farmhouses and single room homes now just empty carcasses – mementos of those whose dreams, realized or otherwise, had come and gone. The desolate landscape was a stark contrast to the oppressive skyscrapers of the city. Just the thought of the towering monoliths had Alice pulling her legs to her chest as though huddling next to a fire for warmth. Almost unbidden to her, she remembered her first impression of the place. Of how she had stared up in wonder at the flashing lights, her very skin seeming to vibrate in response to the car horns, the street vendors and performers, the men and women marching down the street, eyes straight forward, lips moving in rapid speech into their cell phones. Never had a place made her feel more alive . That was a long time ago. Or it felt as though it was. Before her own dreams had slowly taken on the shape of the forgotten dwellings still whizzing past. Dreams eroded by rejection in all shapes and forms. How long had it been since she had dared to imagine a bright future? Had looked into her small bathroom mirror, and felt pride and not shame? She had promised herself, time and time again, that her new life in the city would bring about the change she sought. To be able to look at herself in the mirror and see herself as someone worthy. Alice blinked, her flitting eyelids dragging her attention from the view beyond, to the window itself. She pulled up the sleeve of her hoodie and, while trying to ignore the neglected nail polish tarnishing the tips of her fingers, wiped clear the excessive fog cloaking the glass. There it was again: her reflection, in all its unfiltered glory. She saw her frizzy, brown hair, which stood up like bundles of wire. She saw the freckles and pimples marring her skin like graffiti. Then there was her weirdly shaped nose, the shape of her mouth…everything was just wrong. Reflexively, Alice scowled and turned away from the window, flipping up the hood of her jacket and shoving her hands into the front pocket. Her thumb perched on the volume button of her music player. Louder. Louder still, until she could no longer hear the thoughts in her own head. Still, her eyes drifted to the backpack resting on the floor. To the headstock of her ukulele peeking out from the top. How many hours had she dedicated to mastering it and her voice? To creating music good enough to be heard? And how many times, after all that effort, had she failed? Too many times. Far too many. Alice stared at it for a second longer before closing her eyes. Let the pulsing music silence every stray, maligned thought, until there was nothing but pounding bass to join the faint rumbling of the bus, and the welcome darkness of her closed eyes. “Let me get this straight. Because it sounds like you’re having a rough time adjusting to the city and pursuing your passion. Which is normal – everyone struggles. But going on a sabbatical? Don’t you think that’s a tad…drastic?”            “No, mom. I just need to get away for a while. Someplace I don’t have to…” Alice bit her lip to stop the next words. Words that would reveal too much. Instead, she chose, “Just somewhere I don’t have to be surrounded by so many distractions. You get it, don’t you?”            Alice’s mother stilled, as though a ghost suddenly whispered the unspoken words. Alice laced her fingers together beneath their shared table, failing to avert her gaze from the one pinning her to the seat. Her mother was something she could never be; so effortlessly, annoyingly…beautiful. The sun seeping in through the blinds caught her twinkling, looped silver earrings, and limned her brown hair with the last golden sighs of the evening. Everywhere they went together, Alice heard snatches of conversation complimenting her mother’s eyes. Of their rich caramel hue, rimmed with a color like sunshine on honey.            “My little queen,” her mother spoke gently, in a tone almost wistful. “Life is so much more than what lies on the surface. You have to see the beauty inside yourself. See just how much you’re truly worth. If those are things you’re struggling to realize…then perhaps this trip is what you need. I just wish you saw what I already see – that you’re more than enough.”            Alice scoffed, choosing instead to stare at her messy green fingernail polish. “Whatever. You’ve ALWAYS been pretty and talented. And I have to listen to people go on and on about it. When I’m around you, I feel like…like I’m not even there. Like I’m invisible! And I’m just…just…”            “Just what?”            “I’m just not good enough! Okay?” Tears blurred Alice’s vision, her green nail polish becoming unfocused. “ I moved to this big city because everyone told me there’d be so many opportunities! And what do I find? Doors slammed in my face, one after the other! So maybe it is me! Maybe I’ll never be…worthy. Worthy of just being seen, for once in my life. To not feel invisible when I stand next to you. Is that too much to ask? I just want to change who I am. It's what I’ve been trying to do for the last year. But I’m still the same, unworthy person.”            A sudden lurch from the bus had Alice snapping her eyes open, her dislodged headphones bringing the old bus’s machinations to the foreground. With her groggy senses lagging behind, Alice reached dazedly for her backpack, blinking rapidly in the abundant sunshine streaming in through the windows. Had she arrived already? Overslept?            Alice’s mild panic caused her to half-rise from the seat, surprised that only she and the driver remained the bus’s only occupants. What was more, was that the old windows were slightly opaque with age, making it nigh impossible to see through them properly. Alice could tell, though, from the shapes passing by that people milled about the bus, a sort of buzzing excitement permeating the otherwise stilted silence of the interior.            “Are…are we here?” Alice called in a falsely cheery voice.            “You’re exactly where you wanted to go, miss,” The driver answered, his gravelly voice sounding bored, if not, slightly impatient.            Alice swallowed, unable to shake her apprehension. However, she wasn’t keen on pestering the driver more, so with trepidation slowing her steps, she shouldered her backpack and ambled to the front of the bus. She gave one last, perfunctory glance to the bus driver, who only gave her a customary tip of his cap.            It’s fine, Alice mentally berated herself. You’ve just got the heebie-jeebies because you slept all morning.            With that thought, she strode out of the bus, immediately shielding her eyes against the oppressive sunshine. Still, she could discern the mountains standing tall against the horizon, a sea of evergreen trees obscuring the jagged rock beneath. The din of voices outside the bus became amplified as though she had just removed a set of ear plugs, and before her, rows of homey, two story buildings lined either side of the street – a cozy, if not bustling town at the foot of the mountains. So far, so good.           But that was where everything stopped being…normal.            Why were there so many Volkswagen vans parked on the side of the street? Why were the people passing by saying “groovy,” and “far out” so much? Alice then turned, and felt her mouth fall open. Women bedecked in crop-tops and bellbottom jeans strut up and down the streets, the men joining them sporting afros and aviator sunglasses. Indeed, something was very, very wrong. Alice spun, hand flinging for the bus. But to her horror, it was already a small blue dot in the distance, getting smaller and smaller as it rumbled away from her. For a moment, she stood there, hand suspended awkwardly before her. All she had wanted was a quiet get away in a quaint mountain town. To go on a trek through those nearby mountains, where she could be alone with her thoughts and discover who she was at her core. And, just maybe, find the change within herself she so desperately wanted. Instead… “Hey there! You look lost!” The voice, so bright and cheery that it ought to be fined, shook Alice from her brooding. Slowly, she turned towards its source, ready to pop in her headphones and don her hood if she needed to make a quick getaway. There stood a tall woman in 70s regalia, her bellbottom jeans obscuring most of her platform shoes. She wore a bright red tube top with noisy frills at the edges, and her permed hair and ebony skin caught the rays of the sun in ways Alice had never seen before. “You could say that,” Alice ground out, not caring for how unfriendly she sounded. “What, exactly, is going on here?” She made a wide sweeping gesture, indicating to the antiquated automobiles, bedazzled peace signs plastered on seemingly every surface, and the decades’ old wardrobe on display. “Oh!” The woman laughed in a way that made the air around her seem brighter. “You poor thing. Happens every year. I’m guessing you didn’t know about the Wonderland Festival! It’s an annual tradition – people come from all over to relive the 70s!” Alice stood there in stunned silence. She ran a hand through her hair, fingers getting caught in the knots, all while trying to wrap her head around this “Wonderland Festival.” How many times over the past year had she planned something, only for everything to go awry? Now here she was, trying to do something for herself – to get away from it all – only for “it all” to find her. “Aw, I’m sorry if we ruined your plans, sugar,” the woman kneeled to Alice’s height, the wrinkles around her eyes making her words that much more genuine. “But if you wanna tag along with me, I promise I’ll make this trip worth your while. How about we just start with the basics? Mind tellin’ me your name?” “Alice,” Alice said numbly. “Yours?” “Well,” the woman leaned in as if sharing a secret. Alice, to her own surprise, leaned in too. “I’ve got two names. When I’m not here, I’m Shanice. But when I’m here, my name is Dawn.” It was a struggle for Alice to not roll her eyes. “Right. Do I need to come up with a ‘other’ name?” She crossed her arms, raising a brow. Dawn paused, then gave Alice a mischievous smile – one that, for some reason, stirred something in her chest. A tight knot, comprised of every negative thought and disappointment she’d recently felt. And as Alice uncrossed her arms, she felt that knot loosen, too. “Nah. I think Alice is perfect! Now let’s not dilly-dally. Come with me!” Dawn grabbed Alice’s hand and steered them forward with an exaggerated sway to her hips, her permed hair bouncing in ways that made Alice jealous. The quaint mountain town Alice had seen in pictures had been totally transformed, both in appearance and atmosphere. On top of the artistically graffitied Volkswagens, the animated spring everyone seemed to have to their walks, and the disco music blaring from the inside of most buildings, there was an inexplicable feeling of…was it happiness? Contentedness? Alice couldn’t put her finger on it, but the feeling was infectious. It buoyed her spirits, and further loosened the knot stirred by Dawn’s smile. “Where are we going?” Alice asked. Dawn turned midstride, dazzling smile still intact. “To meet my friends of course! I just knew I had to after I saw that Ukulele. Cause wouldn’t you know it, they’re musicians too!” “No!” Alice skidded to a stop, pulling her hand from Dawn and shoving them both in the pocket of her hoodie. “Sorry, I know that was really drastic. I just…I’m not that good. I never have been.” Dawn seemed to be at a loss for words. Alice kicked at a pebble on the gravel road, glad to be out of the hustle and bustle of the town. Glad that no one else could witness her embarrassment. “I didn’t know I’d hit somethin’ so heavy,” Dawn’s sad voice reached Alice from what seemed like a great distance. As if they hadn’t just been happily joining hands. “How about we all just mellow out to some music then? You don’t have to play. Promise.” Alice could feel the knot in her chest tighten. And in spite of herself, she fought down tears. Why did every fiber inside her scream to play her instrument, to sing her songs, when doing so had brought nothing but pain? “Yeah. Okay.” Alice resumed walking down the gravel path, an unwelcome weight causing her footfalls to feel heavier. She looked up, through the slightly swaying pine trees, and at the mountains towering above. They weren’t unlike the skyscrapers, with their intimidating height. But unlike the city, these mountains had a way of making her feel small, but not forgotten. At the foot of these nature-made monoliths, she felt as though they were trying to teach her something. That she, too, could be seen. Minutes later, the sounds of voices and instruments joined together began drifting from a small grove in the woods. Sunset had begun, the final rays of light finding their way through the trees and into a grove where a small group of people were gathered. “Good times! These are the good times! Leave your cares behind!...” A smile tugged at Alice’s lips. “I know this song! My mom…she dances like a total dork to it when no one’s watching.” “I’d say your mom’s got good taste,” Dawn said, clapping Alice on the back. Together, they wound through the small encirclement of trees, the music and voices causing Alice’s heart to race. Alice counted five people sitting on logs around a low fire: a small drum set played by a slender man with an afro, his aviator sunglasses reflecting the orange sun; two men – Alice assumed they were a couple by how they sat next to each other and gazed into each other’s eyes – played acoustic guitars; a woman who could pass as Dawn’s sister sang, her eyes closed, hand raised as though in a trance; a woman with porcelain skin, her long platinum hair swaying as she played a small, electric keyboard. The evening sun caused all their instruments to twinkle and glow, as if what they were doing was… “Magic…” Alice whispered under her breath. She joined Dawn on a spare log, taking in the sun, the music, and both Dawn and the woman’s voices as they took up the song together. Again, Alice felt the stirring to join them. To lift her voice as she imagined her mother dancing along. But the voice in her head – the one she listened to most frequently these days – told her she would ruin the performance. Because like so many times before, when she dared to show her face, dared to play her music and sing her songs, the result had always been failure. Her backpack, now resting at her feet, shifted slightly as it settled on the ground, her ukulele nudging her shin. As if it were a sentient being yearning to do that for which it was created. Alice looked away, content to just…listen. To watch Dawn take up the chorus with her friends as the fire crackled and popped merrily in the background. Maybe she wasn’t meant to play music. Maybe the purpose of this journey was to learn to appreciate it from a distance. Perhaps this was the change she needed. “Do you know why we come back to Wonderland every year?” Dawn suddenly asked. Alice looked at the woman, her dark skin glowing in the light of the fire. “It isn’t about ‘just getting away’ or ‘just being a hippie’ …though that last part’s pretty fun.” She nudged Alice and winked. “But most importantly, it’s about letting go . Letting go of all the negativity we endure. Both from the outside, and the inside. No prison is more powerful than the ones we build for ourselves.” “Our new state of mind! These are the good times!...” Alice blinked, and felt a tear roll down her cheek. The music she heard no longer felt like it was merely around her, but moving through her. A melody coursing through her bones and renewing something she didn’t know was broken. She revisited the moments she scowled at the person she saw in the mirror. The moments her voice and her songs were deemed “unworthy.” They were all part of the prison. Dawn, with her kindness and patience, had given her the key to walk free. She didn’t need to make herself seen, for she had never left. Alice reached for the ukulele in her bag and withdrew it, cradling it in her arms. She took in the singers and players, absorbed in the music and song, and found she was already with them. With a gratifying sigh at the star flecked heavens, Alice put fingers to strings, and began to sing. 

xppiyc

What About Math Club?

I never imagined it would be this warm on New Year’s Day, even out west at Aunt Sarah’s place. The view from my new room isn’t just beautiful, it’s serene. Cornell Road and the stately houses across the street, and the woods and hills beyond – it’s like one of those idyllic storybooks I used to read in grade school and imagine my life was in one of those imaginary towns, instead of my dirty and gritty hometown with all its unemployment and gangs and worse. Little did I know then that I would get my wish before I was even into high school. And all it would take was losing everything. Enough self-pity, I remind myself, and I turn away from the morning sun blossoming over Cornell Road and back to the vision board I’ve barely started. Maybe the first goal I should set for myself is wondering why I get so down in the mouth when everything is so much better now. As I sit back down at my desk – or really Aunt Sarah’s desk, as is nearly everything in my new room except for my clothes – I can already imagine what Mr. Sanchez would have to say about that. Leave the past in the past, Andrew. You’re a bright boy with a great future if you can leave all that behind you. “Make high honors all four quarters,” I write on a green post-it note – my favorite color. It feels like cheating when I’ve already done it once, but then I remember eighth grade and making high honors first quarter and getting two D’s third quarter. Mrs. Leastrom’s red hair flashes through my memory and I let out a silent yelp and pound the desk, and Aunt Sarah’s room comes back into focus. I re-read the post-it note and decide it really is a perfectly good start – or really, not a start, a goal that everything else can reach for. I paste it in the center at the top of the blue posterboard, right under the first syllable of VISION in the ANDREW’S VISION BOARD I’ve written in gold and purple outliner pen. With that done, I dig out the book of colleges Mom gave me before she went away and cut out a couple of pictures of majestic buildings from some big northeastern colleges she’d love me to end up at. Mr. Sanchez will love that too, I’m quite sure. Mr. Sanchez is kind of a square old guy, the kind where you’re not surprised he became a guidance counsellor, but he seems to like me and I don’t want to let him down. Actually that fits just about everything about my new school and my new life out here. My grades are up, I’m not gorging myself on junk food anymore, and Aunt Sarah and Uncle Drew have been better hosts than I could have hoped for. They haven’t told me how Mom’s doing, but I’m not even sure if I want to know. I look at the photos I’ve posted to the board, and imagine myself a few years down the road in a letter jacket chatting up a girl – rather a woman, a really intelligent woman, like Mom or Aunt Sarah – in a preppy sweater and skirt, and remind myself high honors alone won’t get me there. I draw three lines from the first note and add three yellow post-its: “Join school newspaper.” “Join French Club.” “Join yearbook committee.” It’s too late to join the band and I’m no athlete, but there are so many other options…although those three are the only ones I can think of for the moment, I do leave room for more post-its to add later. I scrawl a surprisingly good drawing of the Eiffel Tower and a few proofreader’s marks and an open book with last year on the cover in big numbers. I imagine Mr. Sanchez saying it before I can stop it: What about math club? I jump up from the desk and take another look outside, but it’s too late. An old truck is trundling down Cornell Road but I see Mrs. Leastrom’s Subaru. Now I’m in the passenger seat with her grinning hungrily at me at every stop sign, which never actually happened if I recall correctly – she just drove me to her house out in Candia, eyes on the road. But I see her drooling at me as if all set to devour me all the same. I didn’t even know she drove a Subaru until she had already…well…devoured me, if you will. Months into the “affair,” as she’d called it, and I didn’t know what else to call it. Don’t tell me I was raped. I was, but don’t tell me I was. I got enough of that from my mom when she threw me out of the house, saying she couldn’t even stand to look at me anymore. “Write to Mom once a month.” I don’t really want to, but I turn back to the desk and force myself to write that on a plain white post-it note, really a great analogy for my feelings about the whole thing. It’s got to be done. It’ll please Aunt Sarah, for one thing, and right now I owe her everything. I put the white note over on the right-hand side of the board, an island of white in the blue, where it’s not connected to anything but it can’t be missed. Aunt Sarah won’t tell me how she’s doing but she did tell me Mom was delighted with how I was doing at school, so I owe her that much. She’s doing pretty well in that place they sent her to as well, at least that’s what Aunt Sarah tells me, but I really don’t want to know any of the details. I flip through my notebooks and magazines and junk for a picture to go with “Write to mom once a month,” but of course nothing fits. Maybe a picture’s worth a thousand words, but sometimes you only need six words. Six words. “Is there anything I can do?” That was what I’d asked Mrs. Leastrom the day I learned I was running a C in math. With a 95% average on the tests, I hadn’t seen any need to do the homework – until now. “Well, Andrew, I don’t think there’s time to make up all the missing homework you owe me. But I do have another idea. Meet me after school in the gym, by the girls’ locker room?” I was only human, male and thirteen years old, as I heard again and again in court later on. And I had the day to imagine all sorts of bizarre fantasies, nearly all of them involving Mrs. Leastrom ordering me to undo her bra just for starters. None of those served to lessen my shock when she actually did give me that order in the girls’ locker room. I realize my fists are clenched so tightly my fingernails are all set to draw blood. I unclench them and open the window and drink in the clear, cool air – just a bit too chilly to open the window, but warm enough to remind me Mrs. Leastrom isn’t just in jail, she’s thousands of miles away. It’s just enough for me to regain control, and I pick up the orange post-its. “Join Math Club and stop letting math trigger me.” Mr. Sanchez has seen my file, he’ll understand. He’s been kind enough not to ask me anything about it, another reason why I want to please him. I draw an elaborate square-root sign and flip through the magazine on top of the pile, looking for a picture of someone sleeping peacefully. It takes three magazines but I find a mattress advertisement that fits the bill. Now the vision board is about a third of the way full and I’m once again feeling almost grown up in Aunt Sarah’s guestroom. My room, she tells me I should call it, and I guess I should. “Make my room feel more like home,” I write on a bright blue post-it that contrasts nicely with the darker blue board. I post it just under the photograph of the sleeping woman, and only then do I realize it is a woman. Without missing a beat, I grab up the pink post-its and write, “Get over my fear of girls.” “Fear of girls” really isn’t quite right, but I don’t know what else to call it. Mr. Sanchez will understand. I’m no girl, Andrew. A little girl would never know how to do this… A deep breath and this time I do leave the window open. The bracing air is most welcome. It’s back to the magazines, and I find an ad for a private academy down south somewhere with a clutch of girls in school uniforms a lot like I was imagining for college, and nothing like the garish dresses Mrs. Leastrom schooled me in pulling off her. Mom always used to tell me if I spoke up in class more and didn’t act so aloof, the girls would love me. Just one of way too many things I learned she was right about since I’ve been out here, or maybe it’s just that none of the girls here know just why I moved here. Another blue post-it, “Read at least two books each semester by people who aren’t like me.” I draw a line to it from “Get over my fear of girls.” Mr. Sanchez probably won’t get the connection, but I don’t care. Then I imagine every English teacher I’ve ever had saying “people who aren’t like me” is too vague, but Mr. Sanchez isn’t an English teacher. Besides, I’m not sure just what I mean either. If nothing else, more books by women would get me more grounded about women. I stand up and read the board at a glance. It’s all so short term. What about next summer? I don’t want to impose on Aunt Sarah and Uncle Drew and right now I don’t even care when Mom is going home. Back to the green post-its, where all my favorites go. “Get a scholarship to some summer camp.” Too vague, so I paste three more green notes to the right with arrows from the first one. “Language camp?” “Computer programming?” “Science?” I’m already a committed humanities-nerd, but my science grades have been good enough for it to be an option anyway. Now only the lower left-hand corner remains. How many more ways could I make the case for “I’ll do better in school and do right by Mom”? All at once, I’ve got it. “No TV except on weekends,” I write on an orange post-it, and sketch a television set with a bullet-hole in the screen. I’ve lost all track of the shows I used to watch since I came here, and only now do I realize I haven’t even missed them. Maybe that’s because it was the TV that got us caught, maybe not. Either way, I’m blindsided by the flashback to the day she was fondling me in her living room with some daytime soap on, both of us stark naked and the television turned up too loud for her to notice when her husband came home early. A violent shake and I yelp out loud this time, remembering his boot clobbering my back and throwing me into the wall. At least the pain was fleeting before I passed out. I’m on to remembering waking up in the hospital with the cops glowering at me when Aunt Sarah comes rushing in. “Andrew?” I don’t remember standing up from her desk – my desk – but I must have, as I’m up by the time she arrives to throw her arms around me. “Another flashback?” “I’m sorry, Aunt Sarah.” “Don’t say that! You know we don’t mind. What was it this time?” “Mr. Leastrom.” “That bastard never did apologize, did he?” “I guess I can’t blame him.” “You’ll never convince me he didn’t know what his wife was, Andrew, and he could see you were just a kid.” She’s still holding me and rubbing my back. “Listen, want to go to brunch at Sandy’s? Your uncle and I are leaving in about ten minutes and you could use the fresh air.” “Oh, Aunt Sarah, I – ” “Don’t say you couldn’t, Andrew! You can! Supporting you is between your mother and me, and we’ll worry about that when she’s better.” “Is she improving?” “Yes, and that’s still all I’ll tell you.” She releases me but she’s still smiling. “See you downstairs?” “Sure,” I say. “I’ve just got one thing left to add to the board,” I say, pointing, and she’s decent enough not to look too closely at it. “Wonderful.” As soon as I’m alone again, I take a green post-it and write in all-capitals: FIND A WAY TO THANK AUNT SARAH AND UNCLE DREW. I feel no need for visuals as I paste it just under the destroyed TV set.

ml2bwv

Ain't No Mountain HIgh Enough...

Ain’t No Mountain HIgh Enough… There once was a girl called Lydia. She was pretty and sweet, but not the prettiest and sweetest. She was smart and clever, but not the smartest or most clever. She never won awards for her work in class. She was fit and active, and loved being outside, but she never excelled and got blue ribbons at contests…she preferred to just challenge herself. In fact, Lydia was quite content in her own little world; it was a beautiful place. She dreamed of mountains, and seas, and blue skies and birds that she chatted with would land on her finger and sing to her in her world. It was a magical place. But every once in a while, Lydia longed for the prizes and good grades her classmates would win. It didn’t seem fair, as she certainly tried hard, that she never got the accolades she so wanted and deserved. During recess, while the other kids screamed and yelled on the playground equipment, Lydia would go off in her world in the fresh air. She was quiet, and didn’t like yelling or screaming. It seemed so immature and counterproductive. Girls would hang upside down and show off, but the monkey bars only gave Lydia blisters; she couldn’t see the point. Boys would throw balls and hit each other, and occasionally an errant one would hit her; Lydia didn’t like being hit by things. In fact, because she was sweet and quiet, boys would bang into her, throw paper wads in her curly locks, or spill things on her during lunchtime. Her mother told her that’s how boys show they like you and want your attention. Lydia thought this a ludicrous way of getting it! Why not just say ‘hello’? Seemed to make a lot more sense. Lydia was usually lost in her beautiful world, singing songs back to the birds, but she wouldn’t mind sharing it. Or, because it could be quite lonely, she wouldn’t mind being invited to play with the other kids, but being hit seemed more an insult than an invite to her. Besides, the bigger, meaner girls in class would do similar things; drag her by her neck in the classroom when no one was looking. Stuff her into a stack of tires so she couldn’t get out. Her mother told her that’s because they wanted her to be their friend; Lydia thought that being dragged around by force was a funny way of showing that. Nothing ever happened to these kids as punishment. In fact, most of the red and blue ribbons were handed out to this lot come Game Day, so they were rewarded for being bigger and stronger. It seemed patently unfair to Lydia, so she just watched from the sidelines in her little world. It was a safe place to be… Lydia’s mother sensed her daughter’s frustration and decided to enrol her in something she could excel in. Since she was graceful and loved to dance around the garden, she thought ballet would be a good fit. It wasn’t a team sport, there were no balls flying apart, it was silent so no screaming, and it was a magical activity. Since she was pretty and sweet, she fit the part. In the large mirrored studio, Lydia was lost in a bigger world she could see reflected in the glass. Her blue leotard was the only thing she could see, and squinted so she looked like a bird in her mind, with her curls up to look like a crown of gold like her feathered friends in her world. The other girls didn’t matter; she couldn’t even tell you what they looked like. Lydia was very good at following directions, something she never got awards for in class, so she loved learning the new French words for dance steps, and shaped her body best she could to conform to them. During floor exercises, out in the centre of the room, Lydia saw the mountains, and the rivers and seas…she saw the birds that sang and danced in tune with the classical music. Ballet clearly placed her directly in the world in which she lived. For her first recital, her dance teacher did a very simplified version of Swan Lake. Lydia loved it! Dressed in a white tutu with a feather headdress, she felt like the beautiful birds she saw in the rivers below the mountains in her world. Sure, they didn’t sing, but they moved with the grace of a ballerina. Lydia’s mom bought the record to practise the dance to the music at home; and practise she did! She had a long mirror in her room, and danced and tried to be as perfect as her young self could be. Come the recital, Lydia danced her heart out. She continued with ballet for a few more years, but the bullying at school got worse. Lydia now had something she loved to do. She was already tiny, but now with her straight posture, the kids assumed she was being aloof. They really picked on her, so she decided to be a tomboy and drop out of ballet around the 4th grade. She changed from wearing pretty dresses, and now wanted to sleep in her brother’s bunk bed and play with his toys. It seemed being tougher was the only salvation for her at school. Her parents went along with this for a year or so, but they realised there was something wrong. Her mother asked around, and a friend of hers at the bank had a daughter that was a former ballerina. She had trained with a Russian ballet master, and started teaching. So, her mother enrolled her there. It was a more disciplined environment. Lydia did well following a more strict dress code and curriculum. She focused more on technique, and getting more advanced. She no longer wandered into her world, she learned to stay in the moment. Besides, by now the music told her the story or world she was living in at that moment; some dark, some light, some heavy and slow, some quick and jovial. She learned her world could be more diverse, more beautiful and rich, based on the music and mood of the dance. This was a performing company, and Lydia rose quickly through the ranks so she could perform as many different types of rolls at as many different venues as possible. Even though the ballet world changed Lydia’s purpose and drive, nothing changed at school. Because of the way she now carried herself and her slim build, the kids now thought she was stuck up. They bullied and picked on her. She was never picked to join teams, sit next to kids at lunch, or be a part of anything. By the time she was about to enter HS, Lydia was having downright panic attacks about this. She didn’t want to be hurt by the kids and endanger her dance career. It was Lydia herself that wrote the school district about the bullying, and took her learners permit with her mother in tow to explain her case. Her mother had always pleaded with teachers and thought that’s all she could do, and they said Lydia would grow out of her dreamie state and they would keep an eye out for her, but she still was picked on. Meantime, her mother had made arrangements with her ballet teacher, who taught adult classes at a nearby college. Lydia arranged her own transfer to another High School out of district, her parents arranged her transportation, and because her grades were good [never award winning good, but good], she was allowed to skip some classes so she could cross the street and study ballet instead of study hall. By that time, she was taking ballet several hours a day, every day, and intense eight hour a day workshops in the summer. The minute Lydia entered that new HIgh School, she changed her story. Because she was pretty and sweet, and by now was slim and had a fashion sense, the new kids were drawn to her rather than repelled. In a heartbeat, she knew she never had to be a victim anymore, and could be popular and accepted. She spotted girls she liked, and sat with them, not knowing they were at the popular table. Lydia’s mother had taught her to sew years ago, since she made so many of her costumes, so by now she designed and made her own clothes, so HS was like a fashion show for her. With a graceful walk and bearing, the school corridors were her catwalk. Lydia went to the guidance counsellor, and argued her way into honours classes, glad to write essays to prove her intelligence. It had never been acknowledged before, even though her mother had her IQ tested a few times and it was quite high. Lydia got involved in activities, since no one was throwing anything at her; she enjoyed joining choir, drama and dance team. Boys now noticed her and didn’t throw things at her, but her focus was her future. Her schedule was tight, since her mother had to pick her up and get her to ballet class. Lydia’s grades improved, and she earned scholarships for college. She couldn’t just hang out with kids as her life was disciplined, but she sure was happier. Upon graduation with honours at 17, Lydia had several college credits in dance already, and scholarships to further her education. She had a clear plan, and the bible on NY ballet companies. The compromise was a performing Arts college in Seattle, so she went to school but also danced and got her degree. She did eventually wander to NY, and also London. She travelled as a ballerina, seeing the view on the train of the mountain, the rivers, the birds and blue skies of her world, not a reality. She danced on stages all over the place, and had picked up many more dance forms over the years. She had not only moved those mountains, she had travelled them as well. Ten years after graduation, there was a reunion. Lydia had kept in touch with some of the popular girls. But it was a fascinating experience to actually be around everyone. It seemed most had never left their hometown. High School sweethearts married each other and moved a block from their parents house, if not in the actual house itself. The jobs they had back in the day, flipping burgers or working at the checkout in the grocery store, were the same jobs they had today. The conversations now could have been merely left off from yesterday, not ten years later. Lydia had not lived in the area for years; in fact she won the farthest distance to travel, as she came from Europe. In HS she had won most likely to succeed, and indeed she proved that now. Outside of the popular girls, who had gone to sororities and married well and had careers, everyone else had stood still in time. As the slender ballerina dressed in a gown of white, Lydia stood out in the crowd. The boys, now men, that noticed her back then, noticed her now. The girl that was never pretty enough or clever enough to win any awards when she was young, won the biggest award now; a life well lived with success. She had moved the mountains and travelled them to follow her stars…

fj6ez7

Journeymen.

I felt repeated taps and repeated grabbing of my shoulder as I was asleep. The sound that no man wants to hear when he is in a deep slumber is, “Vladimir, wake up. It is time to go to work.”  I slowly opened my eyes at the sight of my father already wearing his work uniform. Black corduroy pants, with dark brown and black wool flannel. I could see my reflection in his black-rimmed round glasses. The only light in the room was coming from the sun starting to rise because it was the crack of dawn. My father looked at me with concentration, with those bright blue ocean-like eyes. His face looked serious, but I wasn’t sure what he was serious about. “Let’s not be late. We have one hour to go to work. Hurry up!” He said again as he left my room.  I looked over and saw my older brother, George. George was dressed in black corduroy pants with a black corduroy jacket. George looked at the ground as he buttoned up his jacket. George always looks at the ground when he gets dressed. I am not sure why.   “Vladimir, we are always waiting for you. Hurry up!” George said as he walked out of our room, without giving me a look. I ripped off the white sheet that covered me, jumped off the mattress that was laid on the ground, and quickly found what I hoped were clean clothes. I chose black slacks that barely fit me anymore because they were hardly above my ankles and a black, wool button-down. I grabbed my peeling leather jacket and put it on as I ran into the kitchen that was just outside of mine, George’s, and Vera’s room.  Vera is my older sister. Vera is normally awake before everyone else. Vera is probably behind the house feeding the chickens, the two cows, the bunnies, and whatever animal shows up. I am not sure what she is doing now. “Vladimir, you don’t have time to sit down and eat. I put your food in this napkin.” My mother said as she handed me a crinkled napkin that covered two pieces of cheese, one slice of a cut tomato, and a piece of bread. “Thank you, mami.” I said and gave her a kiss on the cheek as I ran outside to meet my father and George.  “Vladimir, your boots!” My dad yelled as I looked down and saw my bare feet.  “Shit.” I mumbled as I gave George my food and ran back into the house and into my room to put on white socks that covered the part of my leg the pants did not cover.  I quickly laced up my peeling leather boots on the porch and ran to my dad and George. The three of us closed the creaking gate to our house and started to walk down the dusty concrete road toward the mountains that lived across from our village. Ahead of us, we saw other sons and fathers walking up the mountains.  __ The horizon shifted into sky blue as the shades of red and orange began to vanish. The only red and orange left were in the clouds. The sun was not bright enough to shine through the trees as it normally does at noon. The crisp, cold air in the mountains always made it feel like you took your first breath in life, and it made you feel invincible. The bright green trees that were blooming in the summer began to turn red, brown, or yellow as the season started to change. If you were quiet enough, you could hear the streams of water nearby and hear the fish jumping in and out of it. It was a shame that the purpose of this hike was only in favor of the Communists so that they could have their energy and leave nothing for our people and take from us. Turning off our power at night to save "their money".  Soon, the crisp air would be masked by the smell of fathers teaching their sons how to smoke the cigarettes they rolled the night before. I heard a father whisper to his son, “Smoking helps you more than these communists will.” Out of fear, there was a Communist in the trees waiting to hurt anyone who spoke against them and their party. My father, brother, and I hardly speak to each other when we go to work. We keep quiet until we are back home. I walked in the middle of them and noticed that they both looked toward the ground while they walked. They both had the look of tiredness drooping on their faces. I was the only one who looked ahead.  The more we walked, the sounds of drills and machines became clearer. My breathing started to become uneven because the smell of coal started to take over my body. Your body gets used to it the more you are around it. The crisp air that filled my lungs was being polluted with black air. Finally, we arrived at work.  There were three giant buildings cemented together with crimson and gray bricks. Standing side by side. These buildings produced electricity by burning coal in a boiler to produce steam. There were four rusted orange drill machines that we would take underground and remove coal from the Earth. Inside one of the buildings was an elevator that took men underground.  Behind these buildings, there was a stream of water where we would splash our faces when our faces became too black, or if we became thirsty. The mountain water was always cold and refreshing. The mountain of rocks behind the water stream was where we all sat for our 30-minute break. The only break we would get was during the entire 12-hour workday. For seven days a week. “ALL OF YOU IN YOUR UNIFORMS NOW! WORK STARTS AS SOON AS YOUR UNIFORM IS ON!”  __ Darkness soon took over the sky, with only the moonlight lighting our way back home. My co-workers were quieter than they were in the morning. The only sound in the night was our feet walking on the rubble-filled road, and the snapping of twigs. I was basking in the smell of wet wood from the short rainfall that happened in the middle of the day. All of us were wet. All of us were covered in soot. All of us were tired. We had another half hour of walking before we were home. I looked at my father and George. Again, they only looked at the dark ground while I looked ahead. “Why do you always look down?” I asked George. “What?” George replied. “You always look at the ground when we walk to and from work. Babi does too.” George shrugged and said, “I don’t know. I didn't notice I do that.” “What are you talking about, Vladimir?” My father joined in. “Babi, you and George always look down at the ground when you walk. Why?” I asked. My father looked at me like I was crazy. My father turned his head and said, “It’s nothing.” But why? All I could think was they were depressed or something. They never seemed to enjoy the beauty of nature. To see the different colors of birds, to see the bunnies or deer, the color of the sky, and the changing color of the leaves and trees. Why am I the only one who enjoys looking at this?  There has been a voice echoing in my head for the past few days. The voice kept saying “keep going forward.” I wasn’t sure what that meant. I thought I was going crazy. I thought that I want more in this life than what I am doing now. I don’t want to live under these rules. I don’t want to wake up at the ass crack of dawn, hike a mountain every morning in any weather condition, only to be covered in soot, and make eight dollars a week. For what? Why should I work hard so someone else lives better than me, or my family? I work hard. I deserve to live a nice life. I should listen to Greek music without sneaking into the woods, with the radio in my ear having the fear of a communist coming to shoot me for listening to Greek music. Last night, before I fell asleep, I thought about fleeing to Greece for better work. Maybe it was better money. But there are soldiers on both sides of the country who are guarding the borders to prevent any crossing. Whether it is coming into Albania or going out of Albania. I could not think of a safe way to cross the border without being arrested or killed. Even if I crossed into Greece, they cannot know I am Albanian. Do I learn Greek? Do I pretend I am mute, or deaf? Do I act like a donkey? Should I cross the border safely and then worry about that? How can I leave my parents and siblings, and my other family behind? I doubt George would come along with me. Vera, definitely not. My parents are in their early 50s. They can’t walk the way they used to. I’m 21 years old. I can’t stay in this communist country forever. I won’t allow myself to. Wait a minute. The Pindus. “George. Let’s go out for drinks with Keti.” I spoke. “Vladimir, it’s eight p.m. We must be awake at six.” George said almost disappointed. “George, one drink. I need to talk to you two.” George looked at me with that same drooped face and said, “Okay.” Finally, we came down from the mountains and walked into our village. Keti, our cousin, lived in the city that was a 10-minute walk. “Babi, we are going out for drinks at Valbona with Keti. Tell mami.” I told my father as he looked at George and I was confused. He turned and opened the gate to the house and went home. __ “You want to what?!?” Both Keti and my brother yelled when I told them I wanted to flee to Greece. “Shhhh. No one can hear this conversation. You don’t understand. It would be good for the three of us! We are still young.” I spoke. “Vladimir, we have a job,” George said. “But it’s killing us slowly George. We can breathe fresh ocean air. Have the sand between our-” “And get killed, Vladimir. Either by communists or mami.” Keti and George sipped on their raki. As they looked at me as if I were an alien from a different planet. I sighed and ate a piece of cheese. “How do you plan to sneak over?” Keti asked, breaking the silence. “The Pindus Mountains.” I replied. Both started laughing at me. I rolled my eyes and sipped my raki. “You? You’re going to walk through the mountains? And hope to stumble into Greece?” George asked as if he was mocking me. “I don’t see you having a better idea,” I replied. “My better idea is living,” George replied. “How do you know there aren’t any soldiers in those mountains?” Keti asked. “I don’t. But none of those pigs are brave enough to stay with the bears, or wolves.” “And you are?” George said while chuckling. “Vladimir, it’s almost a three to four-day walk. How are you going to manage it?” Keti asked. “I save my money. I can kill with the knife I carved, and bring my own food. I can bring a blanket.” Silence took over the table. We all looked at each other. I still was not sure how I was going to tell my mother and father about leaving. I was not sure how I was going to quit my job, or if I was simply going to leave. All I knew was that in three months when my birthday arrives in June, I would no longer be here. “Okay. Let’s do it.” Keti broke the silence again. George and I looked at him surprised. Silence took over the table once again. The only sound was the belting laughter of the town drunks with the mixed conversations and the overwhelming smell of raki and cigarettes. Then, darkness erupted in the building. Everyone went quiet. We all looked outside the windows and noticed pitch black. “Everyone, time to pay! The lights have been turned off since it is 10 p.m. Curfew.” The bartender yelled in the bar. With that, we put down one dollar and left the bar to go back home. __ It was midnight. It was time for Keti and me to leave. He came to my home since it was riskier to leave the town. As Keti and I put bread, cheese, onions, tomatoes, and cherries into our bags, my father came from out of his room and approached me saying, “Are you two ready to leave?”. Keti and I nodded yes. We walked outside of the house and stood next to the gate. My father and I looked at each other. “Keti, can you start walking? I will catch up.” I spoke. Keti nodded, opened the gate, and started walking. “Have a safe journey. Please write, or call if you can. Let me know where you are and if you are safe. We will worry about you.” My father said. I grabbed him and pulled him into a hug. Tears were leaving my eyes like an open faucet. Soon, he grabbed me just as tight, and I heard him sniffle. “Babi, calling you will be the first thing I do when I walk into Greece.” I said choking between tears. Soon, we let go of each other. My father looked at me with those same ocean-blue eyes, now drowning in water. “Vladimir, don’t stop looking ahead.” He said to me as he kissed my forehead. I left home and caught up with Keti. As we neared the entrance of the mountain, I looked back and saw my father standing in the middle of the road next to the house. Staring at us. He would also be staring at us the moment our figures disappeared into the mountains. 

sack6x

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Kittens

Even when Ellie was little, I had a feeling she was destined to do great good in life. She was smart as a whip, responsible and her heart was always in the right place. I couldn't ask for a better daughter. It had been five years since my wife had died, leaving a great hole in our life. Although both of us still missed her greatly, we were past the devastation and moving forward. Christmas had become fun again, and it was just days away. I still hadn't shopped for her present. Work had kept me terribly busy, and I wasn't sure about what to get her. What does a ten year old girl want to see under the tree anyway? No need for clothes. She had plenty and had never asked for anything special, or specific. Ellie loved to read but thought buying books was a waste considering you could always get them from the library. Too old for toys and stuffed animals. When she was seven, she had asked if we could donate them to less fortunate children. I had been racking my brain over the perfect gift idea. My coworkers suggested a gaming system. They said it would be a lot of fun and would help us bond. I really had my doubts but was running out of time. Off to the mall I went. The staff at Electronix assured me that I was making a great choice. Purchase paid for, I headed to the sea of cars, found mine and drove home. Ellie was fast asleep when I arrived. I showed the sitter what I had got and after she left, I put it under my bed. Fast forward to Christmas Eve. We snacked on cookies and cocoa while watching movies. I turned towards her to say something; she was fast asleep. Still not too heavy for me, I picked her up and carried her to her room. Setting her down, I tousled her hair and tucked her in. She opened her eyes and said, " I love you Daddy." Stopping outside her door, I listened to her saying her prayers, "God, I don't want anything big for Christmas; I hope Daddy didn't buy anything expensive." Oh boy, looks like I blew it. I'm sure there's still time to figure something out. Maybe Ellie can tell me what she wants. Our neighbor agreed to wait at our house while I went back to the mall. I returned the present for a refund and headed back to my car. Flurries were coming down and the air had quite a nip. If I hadn't paused to live in the moment, I may have never heard the little cry. It was hard to tell where it was coming from. Getting on my hands and knees, I looked under my car. There he was, a little black kitten, shaking from the cold and fright. I coaxed him out, placed him on the passenger seat and reassured him that everything was going to be fine. He was asleep by the time we got home. A few hours had been spent making the stray kitten feel at home. A box cut down and some shredded newspaper served as a temporary litter box. Christmas morning arrived with me waking up on the couch. I looked around the living room and saw him under the tree batting at one of the low hanging ornaments. Grinning, I wondered what I was going to do with him. Before I had much time to consider it, Ellies door opened, and she came out. "Merry Christmas Daddy!!" "Merry Christmas darlin' ", I replied. Her attention was drawn to the tree and a smile lit up her face. She squealed, "Thank you! It's just what I wanted. " She walked over and picked him up. It was love at first sight for both. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I had planned on making some phone calls after the weekend. It looked like my plans might be changing. Ellie picked him up and placed him on the couch between us. Content, he curled up into a purring ball and went to sleep. She had lots of questions, and I didn't have many answers. I told her we would need to get him to a vet for a wellness check as soon as possible. I explained to her about how I had rescued him, and he wasn't really a true gift. She said, "That's fine, I think he's great!! How do you like Inky for a name?" "I love it sweety." I was certain I would be handling the bulk of "kitty care". Ellie was already doing a lot to help me out around the house. It was a small price to pay to see her so happy. I was in for a surprise. She fed him, played with him and even made sure his litter box stayed fresh and clean. When she wasn't at school, they were inseparable. Mary had her little lamb; Ellie had her little cat. Every night when I tucked her in, he jumped onto her bed and curled up next to her. When he was about four, he became rather ill. No matter how Ellie tried, she couldn't get him to eat. Saturday afternoon, we took him to an emergency veterinarian. After an anxious wait, the vet came back with his prognosis. Ellie began asking lots of questions but when the vet responded, he was looking at me. Looking him dead in the eye I said, "My daughter's asking the questions, direct your answers to her." After he was finished detailing Inkys treatment plan, he took me to the side and said, "My apologies, your daughter is a bright young lady and I have no doubt she'll take great care of Inky. Have her call me if he worsens, or if she has any questions." Inky got well, time passed and soon Ellie was a senior in high school. She had a few friends, one of her best was a boy her age. He asked her to the prom. She graduated at the top of her class, and between her GPA and SAT scores, was offered scholarships to several schools. She decided on Michigan State University. I wondered why, it was a few states away and Charlie was going to a different university. When I asked her, she replied, "They have one of the best Veterinary Science degree programs in the country. " God, I love that girl. She's got drive, dreams, and goals. Thirteen more years go by fast, like water under a bridge. Ellie and Charlie are engaged and living in Charlotte, Michigan. He's a fine young man and I know they'll be happy together. Once again, Christmas is days away. I look outside and watch the snow coming down and think about that day twenty years ago. My cell phone rings, it's Ellie. I answer the call, fearing the worst. From bleak beginnings, Inky is now twenty. I'm afraid my girl has called to tell me he's gone over the rainbow bridge. Instead, I listen as she tells me she's preparing to open her own veterinary practice!! I'm thrilled for her as she describes everything she has planned. In addition to her clientele, she will put aside time for pro bono patients. When we're finished talking, and have said goodnight, I feel as if Ellie has just given me a Christmas present. I marvel at her and the aging black cat that was a kitten on a cold winter night, years ago. I can't help but wonder how life would have changed if I hadn't been living in the moment.

i80kd9

Beyond Words

A bell chimes above her as Katy pushes open the old wooden door that leads into Silo’s Books and Curios. She had finally found the small, almost invisible, shop tucked in between a craft store to its right and a health food store to its left. It would have been easy to walk by had you not been expressly looking for it, as Katy had been. Ding, Ding. Katy looks up at the sound, surprised to see not a brass shopkeeper’s bell, but two silver bells that look as though they have just been cut from Santa’s sleigh. The crystal-clear ringing of the bells hangs in the stale air of the otherwise quiet shop long after she shuts the door and cautiously steps within. The lights are dim and the walls are covered from floor to ceiling with tall, rickety shelves. And every inch of every shelf is stuffed, corner to corner, with books! Old books, new books, soft and hard-cover books, picture books, and old boring-looking books. Books, books, books, as far as the eye can see, more books than she has ever seen before. In Katy’s house, where she lives with her mom and dad, all of her parents’ books are kept in a very special glass case, and she is not, under any circumstance, to touch them. Her mom says they are precious and to be treated with respect and that she can read them when she is older. Her dad calls them expensive and not for little girls and their grubby, sticky hands.     But these books aren’t behind any glass. They are just sitting here, waiting to be held, to be touched, to be read. Katy looks around the shop suspiciously, curious that no one else seems to be here. After a moment, and moving very carefully, she makes her way to the bookshelf closest to her, raises her hand very slowly, and stretches her fingers towards the books. “Fancy an adventure, do you?” a voice says mysteriously from somewhere in the darkness behind her. Katy pulls her hand back and spins around, looking horrified as a tall, slender, and bearded man makes his way out of the shadows in the corner of the bookshop. He appears to be very old. “I’m…I’m very sorry,” Katy stammers, as she takes a step backwards, away from the tall man, whom she assumes is Silo, the name on the sign above the door. At least she hopes it is. She bumps into the shelf behind her, and an old, expensive-looking book tumbles from its home and lands heavily at her feet. “I shouldn’t have tried.…” She stops talking as she looks up at the old man and he stares back at her, and for a moment she considers running to the door. Just then the old man tilts his head back and laughs, loudly and heartily. There is something special about him, but Katy isn’t sure what it is. Before she has a chance to say anything else, Silo takes two long strides towards her and bends down to pick up the book. He flips it over and inspects its cover as he stands back up straight. “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, eh?” he asks, smiling again, “fancy a ride down the Mississippi, do you?” He holds the old book out to Katy, but she doesn’t take it; in fact, she is scared to be even close to it. “I shouldn’t,” she says, looking up at the old man cautiously. “It looks expensive.” “Pshhh,” Silo exclaims as he pushes the book into her hands. “Books are for reading, young lady, not for coddling. I implore you, please, take a look.” Before she can protest any further, he walks away towards the old cash register at the back of the shop, leaving her with the Twain classic clutched tightly to her chest. When he reaches the counter, he turns around and looks back at her. “Open it up; you may be surprised by what you see.” He smiles slightly, and Katy sees a small twinkle in his eye before he bends over the counter and begins to scribble on some papers. She watches him for a second longer before returning her attention to the book still clasped in her small hands. Very carefully, she opens it at random, somewhere in the middle. What she sees next makes her gasp in surprise. In the middle of the page, where Katy expects to see words, and sentences, and paragraphs, there is instead something that looks like a cross between a picture frame and a small, rectangular television set. At first she thinks it is a picture, but when she looks more closely she sees that it is moving. She can see a large river and after a moment two young boys on a small wooden raft paddling along the shoreline. She moves her face so close to the page her nose is almost touching it as she watches the small raft bounce along in the current. The boys on the raft turn and wave, smiling widely at her. “You could join them, if you like,” Silo says quietly from across the room. Katy looks up from the book and sees that the old man is looking at her again, a smile on his face. The twinkle in his eye is still there. “What do you mean?” Katy asks, glancing between Silo and the book, watching the boys continue to make their way down the great Mississippi. “I mean, you could dive right in,” he says, “take part in their grand adventure. It has only just begun.” She says nothing for a minute as she continues to stare into the book, watching the boys she holds in her hands make grand plans for their day. After a minute, she looks back up towards the counter. “I can’t swim,” she says shyly, as she carefully closes the book. “I’d be too scared to try.” “Well, that’s all right,” the old man exclaims as he bounds out from behind the register. He rushes past Katy towards a bookshelf on the other side of the shop. He pauses there, one hand on his hip and the other on his chin as he looks up and down the rows of books. “AHA!” he cries and reaches high above his head and snatches another book from its home. He hurries over to her holding the book out in front of him. “Have you ever wanted to explore the cosmos?” “The what?” Katy asks incredulously, looking up at him with a questioning expression. “The cosmos,” he repeats, “Space!” He stoops down and holds out the book. It is the most chewed up, dog-eared, poorly treated book Katy has ever seen, but she is able to read the cover, faded though it is. “A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Eagle,” she reads, looking up at Silo as she carefully pronounces the author’s name. “Madeleine, yes, perfect.” He flips the book open and once again Katy sees, instead of words, a small frame with something inside of it. She peers carefully inside and sees three young children, two boys and a girl, standing at the edge of a forest in the dark, appearing to be scared but also relieved as they look out at a large house just past the trees. As Katy watches, the young girl turns and gives her and the old man a small nod and a little smile before returning her attention to her friends. The two boys don’t seem to notice them. “You could tag along if you like. Meg, Charles, and Calvin are travelling the galaxy, trying to save their father. I’m sure they would be happy to have you.” Katy watches the page for another moment as the three children leave the forest and head towards the large house. Then she turns and looks up at the old man again. “I can’t go to space,” she says, looking nervous. “I haven’t brought a coat with me. I would be so cold.” She wraps her arms around her shoulders, as if she could already feel the freezing, desolate vacuum of space all around her. “Not a worry, not a worry!” Silo says, and the old book snaps closed in his hands, causing dust to fly up in the air between him and Katy. He places the book on top of a pile of others, sitting atop a very wobbly, spindly-looking table. He then begins to turn on the spot as he surveys the shop, hand once again on his chin, fingers weaving delicately through his beard as he does. After a moment he crouches down and pulls a book from the lowest shelf. “Now here is one that may be just a little bit warmer if that’s what you’re looking for,” he says with a wink, as he hands the leather-bound book to her. Katy takes the book carefully from his outstretched hands and looks down at the cover. It is very old but in remarkably good condition. It is black, with large, gold embossed letters on the front. “The Jungle Book,” she reads, running her finger over the name, feeling the gold beneath her fingers. “It’s beautiful.” “Just wait until you get inside,” Silo replies, grinning at her out of the corner of his mouth. Moving very slowly and being careful to touch only the edges of the pages, Katy opens the book. At first she can’t see much of anything at all, just a dense forest, tree after tree covered with a thick blanket of green leaves and vines. Slowly but surely, however, the jungle starts to thin and before long she can see a clearing ahead. There is a stream with a fallen tree lying across it. Suddenly, a young boy, wearing only a small loincloth around his waist (Katy averts her eyes for a second before remembering it’s a book) hops onto the log and begins to walk across it, holding his arms out for balance. Right behind him, a large bear follows. He doesn’t look like he is chasing the boy, but just following along. Taking up the rear a large, black panther prowls nearby, looking as if it is just out for a leisurely stroll. “It certainly is beautiful,” Katy remarks to Silo, who is still standing beside her, high above her shoulder, as he also peers into the book. He says nothing, but points down at the page, smiling. As Katy looks back she sees a giant python winding its way down a tree towards the three friends. It turns its head slowly to look at Katy and the old man before flicking its tongue at them. Katy snaps the book shut. “Snakes?! I can’t stand snakes!” she says, pushing the book quickly back into Silo’s hands. “I could never go on an adventure in a jungle!” “I see,” Silo replies, with no hint of disappointment on his face. He takes the book she has just thrust on him, carefully walks back to the shelf, and gently squeezes it into its home. Then he turns back to her and smiles once again. “Then, my dear, the question is: What kind of adventure would you like to go on?” Katy looks back at Silo for a minute, unsure of what to say. She gazes around the bookshop, books as far as her eyes can see. Adventures, mysteries, love and romance. They are all at her fingertips, but yet…. “I want to have my own adventure!” she exclaims, thrusting her hands high above her head. “My own adventure that takes me places that I never thought I could go, to see things I never thought I could see. Full of surprises and magic.” She spins in a circle, but then suddenly stops and stares at Silo again before adding, “But no snakes.” Silo looks at her carefully, so carefully in fact it seems as though he is trying to look right through her. “Sir, are you okay…” Katy asks, sounding concerned, afraid that she has upset the old shopkeep, but just then Silo’s magical grin returns as he spins on his heel and walks back to the wooden counter where his cash register sits. He ducks out of sight, and as Katy approaches the counter she can hear him rummaging behind it. Before she can say anything, he reappears, wearing the same magical smile upon his lined face. “Well, I think I’ve found it,” he says, the twinkle in his eye shining brighter than ever. “Found what?” Katy asks, searching his face for an answer. She finds none, but Silo doesn’t keep her waiting long. “The perfect book for you,” he replies, and from behind his back he reveals a small, white book. It looks neither old nor new. It’s perfect. He places it close to his heart for a moment and then without another word holds it out for Katy to take. After a second’s hesitation, she reaches up and slips it delicately from his fingers. She looks down at the small book and finds there is nothing on the cover. No picture or any writing adorns it. She flips it over and discovers that the back is just as blank as the front. Then, very slowly she opens the book to the middle. To her surprise, the page is completely empty. She flips from page to page and finds them all without a mark. “It’s completely empty,” Katy says, trying not to sound disappointed. “There’s no adventure in here at all.” “Well, of course not, dear,” Silo says, his face breaking into a wide smile as he gazes down at her, his long beard twitching with delight. He reaches into his breast pocket and pulls something out, but before Katy can see what it is he stretches out his long arms and holds the mysterious object in front of her. It is a pure gold fountain pen, with her name engraved on its side. The name she had never told him. “You haven’t written it yet.”

cco2p3

To Mama

"Write about somebody breaking a cycle." To Mama, Thank you for you for giving me life, I know that the labour must've been painful because that was all you talked about when we fought. Thank you for making sacrifices, yet always choosing to sacrifice my opinions for your endeavours. But you always apologised, then continued starting the cycle again, a routine that casted spells. You've always enervated my emotional state because of how you would shower me with affection like rain does for plants. But even if rain was good, it'd end up to be trouble for you and I. Especially me, your daughter who you love to demand and reprimand. Both words mix like a gentle piano of melody and harmony, but if only they didn't hurt me as devastatingly as your words. And while others wait out this storm together, it'd grow us separate leaves. Even if there was a rainbow at the end for them, there was none but emptiness because that was how the solutions always were. I'd like to thank you though, for teaching me to allay myself so I could assess my feelings without negative emotions. But It's quite obvious that I'm self-taught, a constant in my life. You, yourself, after you calmed down would use it to pacify me. The same method you would use to calm toddler Asya when she had a fit because a small thing made her uncomfortable. I always knew that you preferred tiny Asya to progressing Asya. Who wanted to see you watch her grow through the seasons. But you instead liked her--. The tiny Asya wasn't even introduced to the idea of verbal battles and violence. Because tiny Asya had yet to show that she had to stand her ground in order to reach the only thing that was left tumbling through the years, herself. I wonder if you ever looked back at your life and even tried to have a moment of silence to reconnect with your younger self. Because that younger self wanted attention so badly, it manifested into its current self and onto her child. I know that life wasn't easy back then, I know that you needed to heal but that didn't mean I was your method of healing. I also know that it isn't your fault that you ended this way, but it is your fault for the treatment I received. Because you were supposed to be Asya's Amazonian warrior. Because that's how I knew you. I love you still, because I know you tried. I know you tried to be unlike your mother and father and it still pains me that you had to capitulate. All because you didn't even have the resources like I did to educate yourself or friends to support you. Or anything at all because of how neglected you were that you didn't even know you were starved. I can't bring myself to even willingly sever my ties with you because even if you tried building around your trauma it would come back. So, I hope this is your wakeup call. I don't want you to leave this planet without getting what you deserve. I'll try to be there, but I'm also on this journey of healing. I'm now a traveler on multiple journeys in the guise of one. Which is what I've always wanted because I never wanted to settle for less and I never liked being trapped. So using my newfound freedom, I'll liberate the tiny Asya who was the first to begin seeing the hurt. I can now look back at her, and progressing Asya, and current Asya. Knowing that I've learned from my friends who love me for myself and fought for me to acknowledge the Asyas before me. To my teachers who provided me a place of serenity. And myself, for trying to keep my head above the water even though I was tired. You probably never thought that this day would come. But I always did, because I knew that this life you gave me was too ugly to be reality. That the world isn't about growing up, reproducing and dying. I admit that there were moments of my life when I wondered a big why. To answer those questions that no child could comprehend, that child tried looking for an adult to answer. But that babe was too shy to try to push herself over that wall. She also had nobody, so she had to make up many things. My imagination and curiosity was very powerful. It could let me dream whatever I wanted. But no dream of my childhood ever came true. No matter how hard I tried to fantasise about a big sister who'd listen to me speak, respected and trusted me and was the adult I needed. She never came, she never glistened down from heaven for me. Because if you couldn't even listen, it was hard to believe others would. But I still longed for her and held onto this balloon that was tied to my hand throughout my odyssey of growing up. The only time she'd be gone was when reality would hit me. It took multiple reality checks for me to realise that this mental Neverland was unhealthy. And it hurt, it hurt the same as you, because something that protected me for so long was actually hurting me. So yes, you hurt me more than you and I will ever know. And yes, there's a part of me that is echoing that forgiving will never be visible. But there's another part arguing, because of the memories we built that adds up to the complexity. But even with it all, I would never want my childhood for anybody to experience and it ultimately decided what I should do. I'm even amazed that I was afloat but then again I was struggling and barely knew how to swim. And after every storm is there an aftermath and how we respond to that sets up the foundation for many. One of which is our relationship. So please choose for the better. Goodbye, Anastasia

51w3lm

The Innocent One

The Innocent One You ever get accused of doing something you didn’t do? Well, I have. And it ain’t too grand, Stan! The only thing worse is getting grounded for something you didn’t do. It hurts. Really! I know. You get this real bad feelin’ right in your gut like you ate too much candy before breakfast the mornin’ after Halloween. That feelin’ stays there ‘cause no one will believe you.                           Ain’t that great! Like maybe once you did do something and didn’t get caught. Maybe sometimes you did. And this time you really didn’t do a darn thing, but everyone thinks you did. Then your dad says, “Go to your room, son!” You ever notice how they always call you son  when they’re mad at you. Well, anyway, you’re sittin’ there in your room — like I am right now. So I can think about my actions for awhile .   Only I didn’t have any actions! CAN YOU HERE ME DOWN THERE?! I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING! CAN YOU HEAR MEEEEEEEE?! I guess they can’t. They’re all watchin’ TV havin’ a good time and I’m stuck up here. It’s not fair! It’s a good thing they didn’t hear me. Dad would make a special trip up here to give me one of those man-to-man conversations with me. “Vinnie, you’re 8 years old and you have to take your punishment like a man.” And I would look at him nodding my head, but I wouldn’t hear a word he said. Why? WHY? You ask.  Well . . . I don’t know why. “Cause I’m mad. That’s why! I’m sittin’ up here lookin’ at a spot on the ceiling from when the roof leaked last summer. And the more I look at it, the more it looks like the shape of Bart Simpson’s head and neck. I ain’t kiddin’. But I don’t wanna talk about that, okay? Where was I? Oh, yeah. I said I was mad, right? And I’m sittin’ up here while everyone else is downstairs watchin’ TV. Yeah, that’s it. Well, it burns me up.               What did I do to deserve this? I’ll fix ‘em. I’ll runaway. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do. See how they’d like that. They’ll come up to my room tomorrow morning and yell, “Vinnie, Vinnie, time to get up, dear.” That’s my mom for ya. “Rise and shine, my big boy. Time to get up. It’s already past six.” Then when I didn’t come down they’d send Becky. When she walked in I’d have a picture of her boyfriend Todd on my dresser. And I’d have a black marker mustache on him. HA! She’d scream and the family that wrongly punished a really good kid... ( ME) would find an empty room.     And a note:     My dear ex-family, I know that this will be hard for you, but I’ve decided to runaway.   I really didn’t take Becky’s music player.  I know you found it in my room, but it wasn’t me. Got it!? Maybe Grandma put it there. You know how forgetful she gets. Or maybe Becky left it there herself when she was having one of her a secret conversations with Toddsie-Woddsie. Maybe Baby Matt climbed outta his crib and did it. You never believed me that time I told you I found him at the head of the stairs about to have his first lesson at the Jackie Chan Falling School. I saved his life. Look, if you wanna know what I think, maybe it was a ghost that did it. All I know is it wasn’t me. But you won’t believe me.   All I can say is goodbye, adios, so long. Love, Vinnie      PS. I’ll write when I can. (I doubt it seriously.)      PPS. Don’t worry about me.  I’ve got nine dollars saved.      PPPS. You lost a good son.      PPPPS. A real good son.      PPPPPS. Me, that’s who! Boy, that would fix ‘em. Mama would be crying and Dad would say, “I shoulda been nicer to that boy. He was the best son a dad could ever have. Who will I take to batting practice, now? Who will I teach the restaurant business to?" Then they’d all turn to Becky and blame her. “It’s all your fault!” Mom, Dad and Baby Matt — all at the same time... ‘cept Baby Matt... 'cause he can’t even talk that good. They’d probably call the police. Everyone would be looking for me everywhere. Ha! I’d be on the front page of the newspaper: FAMILY SEARCHES FOR FAV SON TO BEG FORGIVENESS But I’d be long gone, probably to Timbuktu — wherever that is. But wherever that is I’d be there. All by myself. I could get a job.  Yeah, that’s what I’d do.  I’d show ‘em. I’d start at the bottom ...a roadie for some rock n’ roll band. A cool one. But I’d work my way up to lead singer. People would be screamin’ for me everywhere I’d go. But nobody would recognize me ‘cause I’d dye my hair and have a real weird hair-do, like one of those all-messed-up-on-purpose kinda hair-do’s. The fan magazines would interview me and ask, “Tell us about your parents, Mister . . . uh, what’s your name?” I’d tell ‘em . . .” The Innocent One .” Yeah, that’d be a great name. “And I’m an orphan from,” where can I be from? . . . uh, I know, “from Germany.” “Will you speak some German for your German fans, Mr. Innocent One?” “No, I just lost my accent and I don’t wanna get it back,” I‘d say. ( Perfect answer! ) Boy, that’d be so great! Me, the lead singer in the number one rock n’ roll band in the world. I could probably afford a zillion music players. I’d buy a hundred of ‘em and send ‘em all to Becky, just to show her. No. Scratch that. Then they’d know it was me and I was all right.  I don’t wanna let them off the hook that easy. Naw, make ‘em sweat. They did it to themselves. They had a son and they blew it Big Time!  Too bad, so sad, I’m glad! Okay, so here I am on TV about to receive my Grammys ...and an Oscar, too, for my latest album and video. — First time ever they gave one guy both at the same time. I go to accept and say, “I’d like to thank all my fans for believing in me. You’re the best! And you guys in the band, I couldn’t have done it without you. And my parents, I wish I could thank you, but I can’t ‘cause you never would believe me when I told you that I didn’t touch Becky’s music player. After I did that speech on TV and my face was everywhere they’d find out it was me. Then they’d all come to my house. “Vinnie, is it okay if we call you Vinnie , Mister Vance?” my dad would ask. I‘d say, “I don’t know, Andy.” Boy, that would hack his berries callin’ him by his first name. “We just came over to say we’re sorry for the way we treated you, son... I mean, Mister Vance. And we realize now that it was a ghost — just like you said. We didn’t believe you ‘cause Becky talks on the phone too much. But she couldn’t help it ‘cause she’s a teenager. Please, can’t you find it in your heart to forgive us so we can come live with you?” And Mom would plead, “I’ll make French toast and let you have that cereal with all the extra sugar and preservatives in it.” And Becky would say, “I’m sorry. You were the best brother in the world. Here, you can have my music player, Mister Vance, and I’ll only talk an hour after school with Todd.” And Baby Matt would say . . . uh something.  I’m not really mad at him. Then I would say, “Nobody’s perfect. I forgive you.” We’d all be so happy again. All I wanted was for you to believe me. “ Vinnie! Vinnie! ” my dad called from downstairs. (Uh-Oh) I could hear him coming up the stairs. “Yes, Dad,” I yelled and went to open the door. When I looked out, he was at the head of the stairs walking towards my room. “I made a special trip up here to see how you’re doing and to have a man-to-man talk with you. You’ve been kinda quiet,” he said and closed the door. Oh, criminey , I said to myself, but then to him I said, “Great, Dad.” “Been thinking everything over?” he asked. “Yes, Dad.” “You have to admit that story about the ghost was pretty far out there, huh, son?” He smiled. I nodded. “We were just trying to get to the bottom of this. We’re a family and we have to learn to respect each other’s things,” he said as he stuck his finger at me. “But, Dad . . .” “No buts about it, son. You have to agree with my basic premise, don’t you?” “Which one is that?” I asked. “The one I just spoke of: We, as a family, living together, have to respect each other’s property,” Hands on hips.  “Yes, Dad.”  “Good, let’s put this behind us. Come on, down and watch TV with the rest of the family, Vinnie.”  “Cool!” I said and started out the door. When we got to the stairs I turned to him and asked, “Dad, man-to-man, do you believe in ghosts?”  “VINNIE!”  “Okay, I’m sorry, Andy... Say, you don’t mind if I call you Andy , do you?”  “You’re pushin’ your luck, kid.” THE END

ckb3fx

Time to Move On

Time to Move On. Fourteen is an awkward age for a boy. You're surrounded by life lessons. Sometimes you learn them by making mistakes, sometimes by making the right decisions, and sometimes from good mentoring. One of my most important lessons learned came from none of these. It was pure serendipity. I found myself headed to the Assistant Principal's office. That's not good, but even worse, being escorted by my favorite teacher of all time, Miss Taylor. So vivid to me even today was the trip. As a kid, you're usually in the hall before, after, or between classes. This was during class. The hall was empty. All I remember hearing was the 'click-clicking' of her heels and the 'swish-swishing' noise of her pants-suit legs. She was motoring. When we got to the office, she pointed to a bench in the hallway and said, "Sit here." Within a few minutes, she returned and said, "He'll be out for you in a moment." She left, leaving in the same brusque manner as our arrival. Perhaps it was a moment, but it seemed much longer to me. I was trying to weigh in my mind, how much trouble I'd be in. Maybe in my favor was the Assistant Principal himself, Mr. Leister. He occupied other titles in my life, basketball coach and next-door neighbor. He knew me quite well. His receptionist finally came out and said, "He'll see you now." When I walked into his office, he was sitting there, flipping through some papers which he finally put away. He then placed a yellow pad in front of him and pulled a pencil from his desk drawer. He looked up at me and peered over his glasses. After a wait, he said, "Sit down. You're in trouble, you know?" I sat down. It didn't make sense for me to say anything, so I just sat there. The ticks and tocks of the old Regulator clock were the loudest noise in the room. He finally spoke. "Miss Taylor said that you disrupted her class. Frankly, I was surprised. It didn't sound like something you would do. Also, Miss Taylor is very fond of you. She has told me on numerous occasions that you were one of her best students. You always read your book assignments and turn in all exercises on time. What made you disrupt her class today?" Looking up, I timidly replied, "I didn't mean to." He wrote something down on his yellow pad. He said, "She was doing a class exercise and asked the class what fictional character had the most impact on their lives. Since she was getting zero feedback, she specifically called on you, knowing that you seem to read more than the rest of the class. She felt that your thoughtful response might encourage more participation. The only participation you encouraged was laughter." "I didn't mean for that to happen. In honesty, once that answer left my mouth, I wanted to reach out, grab it and pull it back." "Okay, Bill, for the record, what was your answer to the question of what fictional character had the most impact on your life." Looking down at my feet, I practically mumbled, "Popeye the Sailor Man." He wrote some more on his pad. "That's what Miss Taylor said. Now, what is it about that answer that you think wouldn't be disruptive?" I didn't say anything. Mr. Leister finally asked, "Bill?" "If I tell you, you'll probably laugh or think I'm dumb." "I doubt I'll do either. It is a bit unusual that I probably know you better than any other student in this school. I truly do want to hear your answer and have a serious conversation." Taking a breath, I started. "Until last Friday, Susie Stine was my girlfriend. We went to a party at a friend's house and Larry Eubanks just danced her out of my life. After the party, Susie told me that she just wanted to be friends. Do you know what that means?" "Well, Bill, it could mean a lot of things. It could mean she just wanted to be friends." "Come on, Mr. Leister. You said a serious conversation. What it means is to drop dead and get out of my life. Do you know Larry?" "Well, I don't know him as well as you. I know that he's the quarterback on our football team and is a very good athlete." "Yes sir, he is all that. He's also an obnoxious bully. Being held back a year, he tends to be bigger than most of us. In classes we've been in together, he rarely does homework and is a big prankster. He always seems to wear the coolest and neatest clothes in school. So, he's the guy that just danced Susie out of my life." Mr. Leister chewed on the end of his pencil before finally replying. "I know it hurts right now, but I believe you'll have lots of girlfriends in your life. You've got a lot going for yourself. In time you're going to see that this is just another day in your life." "You might be right, but I know that it sure hurt me. Did you know Chris Brown?" Mr. Leister was silent for a moment. "Yes, I knew Chris. He was well-liked in this school. His suicide last month was a shock to us all." "Well, it was sure a shock to me. He was my best friend. When I got home last Friday, I started to dial his phone number. Girls naturally seemed to like him. I knew he would give me good advice. I'm glad I didn't finish dialing. It's just hard for me to believe that he's gone." "Bill, I'm glad to talk about these things, but it is unclear to me how they are related to our situation." "I know, Mr. Leister, but they all connect. This Sunday, I walked down to our basement. My sister was on the couch watching cartoons. I sat there for a minute and wasn't paying attention. All of a sudden, I noticed that the cartoon was Popeye. Olive Oyl told Popeye that she didn't want to be his girlfriend anymore. At that moment, Brutus drove up. He was in a brand-new car and had a fancy suit on. Olive grabbed his arm and they practically waltzed out the door." I took a breath, really just checking to see if Mr. Leister was listening. He was, so I continued. "Popeye was broken up. He walked around muttering to himself, stopping every once in a while and looking up, and finally said, "I loves you, Olive Oyl, but you've got to understand, 'I yam what I yam and that's all that I yam. I'm Popeye the Sailor Man." As it turned out, Brutus wasn't all that he seemed to be and Olive came back to Popeye." "Okay, Bill, I bite. What's your point?" "Mr. Leister, believe it or not, Popeye made sense to me. Susie might come back to me, and that's fine. If she doesn't, that's fine too. It got me to thinking. I yam what I yam as well, and guess what?" "What's that, Bill?" "I'm okay with that. I like myself just fine. I’m moving on. " Mr. Leister paused for a minute, made a note in his notebook, and pulled out an index card. With a magic marker, in block letters, he wrote, "I YAM WHAT I YAM AND THAT'S ALL THAT I YAM. I'M POPEYE THE SAILOR MAN." He posted the note to his corkboard. Looking up at me, he said, "Just go on back to class. I'll clear this up with Miss Taylor. You know what? You are okay."

5k3kz6

I just wanted a sandwhich

Maya let out a slow breath as she pulled into the parking lot of “Scott’s” at 10 PM. She had been coming to this same hole-in-the-wall dinner almost daily for not quite a year now, and yet somehow, it had quickly become the only constant in her life. Just over halfway done with her first year of college, moving away from her family, and starting her new job in such a small time frame had taken a toll on her, but being able to pull into this parking lot at any time she was free and wanted a cheap yet satisfying meal had been one of the few things that kept her pushing forward. Today was particularly tiring. A combination of high customer counts at work, and incoming deadlines on multiple assignments had kept her busy and stressed to the point of exhaustion recently and all she wanted right now was whatever insane combination of ingredients would be making up today's “Specialty Sandwich” that Scott- the haggard old man who seemed to be permanently behind the counter- had made today. While other customers being here at this hour was not strictly uncommon, to see another car in the parking lot at this hour on a Tuesday was somewhat rare. And even stranger was that the two occupants seemed to be leaning over the hood of the car looking up in surprise as she stepped out of her car. A man and a woman, both appearing to be around 50 years old, visibly tired, yet they greeted her with warm if desperate smiles. Which she met with her own tight smile and respectful nod as she took her first step towards the entrance. “Excuse me ma’am.” What she assumed was the man spoke. The desperation in his voice was palpable as he continued. “I beg you, allow me to wash your car where it stands, all that I ask is whatever money you would be willing to donate for gas. Were stranded very far from home.” She did her best not to wince at the stain of his throat as she reached for her wallet, looking down at the lonely 10 dollar bill it held. “I'm sorry, but this is all that I have with me. Please, you don’t have to do anything for me. Just get home safe” Her heart broke at the look of relief the women had when they saw the money. Maya had always been rather reserved, so when she blurted out, “Do you think I could buy you two a meal,” she felt just as shocked as they looked. They had already begun their tired walk back to their car but had turned back to her with eyes welling at her words. “Thank you for the offer,” The woman started, “But you have already given us more than we have gotten all day, we couldn't take more.” “Well then what about a trade? I'll get you two something to eat, and you can tell me your story. I got a feeling you two have been through quite a bit.” She hoped her smile was inviting. And judging by the sigh they both released before smiling thankfully at her she had succeeded. “It'll be a long story” The man warned somewhat playfully. All Maya could do was dip her head in the direction of the dinner with a smile and begin her walk once more. The same familiar jingling of the bell as she held the door open for them was a welcome sound as she stepped into the homey space that was “Scott’s”. Taking a seat at the counter like she always did, her eyes narrowed at the decidedly blank whiteboard that normally held the day's “Specialty sandwich” name and ingredients. The deep rumble of Scott’s chuckle as he came out from behind the door which connected to the kitchen was what drew her eyes away a moment later. “Ran out of bell peppers.” He stated mirthfully, “It was “Savory by the Bell '' but once I'm out of the main ingredient I can't exactly keep surviving it.” His eyes widened slightly when he realized that there were other people sitting with her, “Hello there, welcome. Can I get you anything to drink?” When they had looked at her questioningly, as if to try to give her an out if she had changed her mind, Maya was quick to answer for them. “Anything they get will be on me,” She told the owner before turning back to them, “Please order whatever you like.” With a grateful expression they answered in unison, “Some sweet tea please.” Ever the fan of discretion, Scott barely even raised an eyebrow in question before nodding with a smile and facing Maya once more, “And you?” He chucked once more when she deadpanned at his question, “Two Sweet Tea’s and an Arnold Palmer coming right up.” In all the times that she had come here, Maya could count on one hand the number of times she had ordered anything other than an Arnold Palmer for her drink, and all of those had been well over 3 months ago. Scott knew this and yet he still asked every time when he realized it would rile her up even somewhat. “You come here often then?” The woman asked gently when Scott disappeared behind the kitchen door. “That I do…” Shame quickly hit her as she realized in all this time, she had neglected to ask their name’s or venture her own. “I am so sorry, my name is Maya Esparsa, and you are?” “Tired and thankful” The woman said pointing at herself then the man to her right with a small laugh. “I kid. We’re Rosa and Manuel Leos, and I can't thank you enough for this.” “You are very welcome.” She cajoled smoothly as Scott stepped back into view, placing their drinks in front of them individually. “And what can I get for you to eat?” He questions after pulling out a notepad from a pocket in his apron. “Seeing as I can't have what I can only assume what was the best sandwich ever,” She said with a mock glare that Scott met with a jovial smile, “Do you think I can get whatever tomorrows will be?” “It'll take a while to prep, want some fries while you wait?” “Sure, that sounds great,” she said before sending her view to the aged couple beside her, who were looking somewhat frantically at the menu before looking up to Scott. “We'll take the same if that alright,” Manuel had said after tentatively placing the menus back in the paper towel holder.” “Right away.” Was Scotts simple reply, placing away his notepad, taking no more than a minute to bring out the fries before stepping back in the kitchen. “Thank you again. For doing this. We've been having a rough go of it lately.” Rosa said quietly. “Don't mention it. But I do believe I was promised a story.” Maya responded playfully. At the old couples' tired sigh, Maya questioned if this was a good idea for the first time. Their eyes met each other before they both gave a resolute nod to the other. “My Brother passed away about a month ago…” Rosa began. The next half hour was a rollercoaster of emotion for Maya, and if his supportive smiles were anything to go by, Scott felt much the same from the little bits he would hear when he came back to the front on occasion to refill their drinks or ask if they needed anything else. The Leos’ had been in town for the funeral as they lived about 3 hours away. In their time here their car had broken down to the point of needing a mechanic to survive it for about a week, had been robbed, and had been staying in the cheapest motel they could find. Their family’s that had also been in town for the funeral had left immediately after, unaware of their precarious position. And when they had finally been ready to leave, they had burned through all of the money they had access to, stranding them here with less than an eighth tank of gas. When they had finally finished their tale, the Leos’ had looked as drained as Maya felt. The impromptu group sat in plaintive silence for a few minutes after, though drained, the old couple did seem to have less weight on them as they finished off their French fries, until Scott returned one final time with their actual meals. “I'm thinking of calling it “Up Shoot Creek with a Patty”. A slow cooked chicken patty with salted devil's club shoots, on a whole grain bun. Salty yet savory, perfect for turning a bad day around”, he sent the Leos’ an understanding smile, “I’d like to help you two as well, whenever you're ready I'd like to fill up your tank.” That seemed to be what finally broke the dam for them. Tears started to flow freely from their eyes as they looked back and forth between Scott and Maya. “Thank you.” They both said through shuddering breaths. With a contented smile, Maya took a bite of the sandwich she had come in here for. Despite everything that she had gone through over this last year, this meal somehow made the whole world look brighter. “Everything would be ok,” Maya thought to herself. “They had to be.”

ft439s

Cards of Reality

It was summertime once again. Graduation celebrations were going off left and right all across the country; a time for celebrating one’s physical and, most importantly, mental growth. Khali, who is in 7th grade, is one year away from such a momentous occasion, but he is now placed in a position where such growth would be needed to have everyone come out of it unscathed. “Are we doing this, or are you still childish?” Khali decided to have his best friend, Malcolm, come over to his house to hangout together before going on family vacation. Khali’s parents weren’t home just yet since they had to go run errands before they all went out of town, and his sister, Bibi, was too young to be by herself at home since she was in 5th grade. “Maybe when you finally get to middle school, but your brother is still going to watch over you for now while we’re gone, okay?” Even when she was told this by her mother, Bibi didn’t mind, because she trusted her brother with everything. They were always close and Khali would always protect her from harm. Because of these two preconditions, it slightly startled Khali that his best friend decided to bring his freshman brother, Keshawn, over with him to all hangout together. The two 7th graders were out in the backyard, shuffling a deck of playing cards which they would use to play war or slapjack for fun, but Keshawn had another idea in mind. “You guys got money? We can play war or whatever, but I want to win some money here. It’s all we do in high school for fun, anyway.” Malcolm backed up Keshawn’s validity to Khali. “Let’s do it, Khali! Shawn is always the one that teaches me the more adult stuff he sees from high school.” Malcolm gets lessons from Keshawn on how to be a high schooler so that he can be prepared for his high school freshman year. Khali decided to follow along with Malcolm’s ways of learning. Khali saw it as a way for him to grow faster as well if he learned from Keshawn’s time in high school, even if it was just one year. He saw his dad as not a good source of information since he might’ve forgotten a lot from his years in school. Khali went upstairs to get his bank where he had a little over one hundred dollars in tens, fives, and ones. Going back downstairs, his sister hears him and asks what he has his money for. “We’re doing grown up things downstairs. And besides, I thought you were sleeping.” Bibi charges for her big brother’s back and jumps on it, clinging to him and not letting go. “Aggh! You’re choking me little girl!” “I wanna see what you’re doing, so I woke up!” Khali insists that she should just go back to sleep, but Bibi just squeezes tighter, making him tap out and give up on making her stay upstairs. Heading down, Bibi sees the freshman outside the window and asks who he is, burying her face into Khali’s shoulder. “That’s Malcolm’s older brother, don’t worry, it’s fine. Not all grown ups are scary.” Khali walks outside and while Malcolm greets the girl he’s known for a year now, Keshawn asks why Khali brought a little girl out here. Khali reassures him that Bibi will just be watching, and he has to watch her anyway since their parents aren’t home. “How old are you, girl?” He sits, leaned over in a position where his elbows are on his widely spread knees. Bibi stares at Keshawn behind Khali’s back and puts out two pointer fingers to indicate that she’s eleven. “Ohh! So you’re growing up as well then, huh? You watch us play and then you join in, alright?” He pays attention to shuffling the cards while telling Malcolm to take his money out. “Wait a sec,” Khali interrupts, “she can’t be involved in this. She’s just going into middle school after this summer!” Keshawn still has his eyes on his shuffling. “And?” Malcolm looks up at Khali, then at Keshawn. “Look, do you think that treating her like that is gonna make her grow up? Like look at you, carrying her around like she’s a toddler!” He looks into Bibi’s eyes, which makes her shrink down into Khali’s back a little bit again. “C’mon girl, you’re already in your double digits! You might as well learn how to be grown like us to be better in middle school, right?” He sets down three stacks. “You’ve played war, right?” Bibi nods her head, slowly peeking at Keshawn’s face. “Alright then, that’s all you have to do! You’ll be fine, just watch us while you play the normal way. How’s that sound?” He looks at Khali, who looks at Malcolm, who looks at him and gives a face that says “just let her play”. Khali starts to look back at Bibi until he feels her grip loosen and sees her run towards the cards. “Okay!” she shouts, and tells Khali to hurry up and play. He takes a few seconds to reassure himself. This is just a game, Khali thought. What’s there to be worried about? She’s not even betting either! They sit in a circle in the grass—everyone evenly spaced out except for Bibi, who was latched onto Khali’s arm—with crinkled up dollar bills and bugs flying everywhere in the bright sun. War is going by its simple rules: put down a card from the top of your deck, and whoever had the highest number would take all the cards that were played. There was, however, a rule that Keshawn added that stated you could choose when to put down a card or not. With this rule added, it made the game more interesting since you had a little more control over the outcome. For every game won, that person would get the money. For the first couple of games, everyone was active and relaxed around each other, and Bibi ended up winning the third round after Malcolm won the first two. She was excited and boisterous until she remembered she couldn’t be included in the gambling portion. Keshawn smirked. “Remember, you’re too young right now Lil’ Bibi. Your big bro is looking after your innocence. Ain’t that right big bro?” He looked up at Khali, who slightly sneered at Keshawn before looking at Bibi and her pout face. Khali reminded her that she doesn’t even have anything more that five dollars, and that she would lose her money after one round, and Bibi made a huge sigh and continued on with the game with a slightly sour face. Overtime, the winning was being performed by the younger kids, but only for a few games. Soon enough, Keshawn started to win ever and over again, ending up with all the money used. Both Khali and Malcolm fall out on the grass, laughed at by Bibi who claims that she has more money than them, now. “Well, what are we supposed to bet now?” Khali sighed. He thought in his head that he shouldn’t have used up all his money like that. “Don’t worry now,” Keshawn encouraged while tucking in his winnings. “We still have things we can use. And this time,” he rubbed Bibi’s head, “you can be involved in it!” “Really? Well what’s that suppo—” Keshawn pulled out a red, glass bottle from his bag he had on him. That and what looked to be some sort of pen. “Now we’re gonna be big boys and girls!” Khali was nervous, but he saw Malcolm’s face of excitement. Khali knew what the bottle was at least, so he knew he wouldn’t be too accepting of what was from that pen. Keshawn was explaining how whenever someone lost all their cards, they would have to take a sip of the drink or put their lips on the pen and breathe in. “Not too much or y’all will kill your lungs.” Khali stuttered out a complaint of the dares and how they might be dangerous, but Keshawn sounded aggravated. “Come on dude! Malcolm said you was his coolest friend he knew! Listen, if you’re gonna be grown and cool in high school, you need to be keen on this. This is how everyone in high school has fun, just like with money. If you don’t want to be like us, then just say that! We’ll leave if that’s what you want. C’mon, Malcolm.” Keshawn got up and ushered Malcolm to follow. The best friend looked at Khali with irritation, causing Khali to break and tell them to stay. “...Now that’s what I’m talking about, homeboy!” His malice was completely gone, and he sat back down in his open-leg pose. “Oh yeah,” Keshawn picked up a shot glass of the red bottle liquid and gave it to Bibi and rubbed her head again. “That’s for when you lose.” He looked straight at Khali, intently. “Now here’s something else to remember, for the both of y’all.” He pointed at the two siblings. “Khali, bro, stop babying her. She needs to learn to grow on her own. Lil’ Bibi, you know you’re going into middle school soon, so learn now to not be so clingy to your big bro, alright? He’s gonna be gone to his own school again, so you gotta learn to be…Hey, what? Don’t be like that now.” Bibi starts to tear up and look at her brother. Khali looks with worry in his own expression as he looks to Keshawn who slowly shakes his head. “Bibi…listen to him. You gotta—” Bibi violently shifts away from Khali, making the circle more even. She has a pouty face again, more genuine than the last, and downs the drink she has in her tiny hands. “Woah, you didn’t even lose yet! Hahaaa!” The rest of the game went on with Malcolm drinking more than puffing the smoke that came out of the pen, and Khali puffing more than drinking. Bibi, holding onto her stomach overtime, did both. Every time one of the kids coughed, Keshawn would laugh. His attitude was a lot more vigorous, speaking more like how he wanted to, forgetting the polite tone he wanted to keep while being at Khali’s residence. Keshawn ended up drinking a lot from the bottle, even though he never lost a game, ironically, since the new dares were added. Even though it was new, Khali started to feel like he was having fun. Malcolm, who always showed off his experience with alcohol at school, was falling over himself, giggling, making Khali laugh as well. This is “adulting”, isn’t it? Khali thought to himself. This was necessary to experience in order to be prepared for the world of high school and all its drinkers and party people. It felt weird to him and his throat was a little burned, but this was growing up. It had to be this way. “Hey, little girl,” Keshawn has his arms weighed down on the sick girl’s shoulders. “Hey hey, little girl, you wanna do a better dare than this?” Bibi side eyes Khali looking over at the two of them, making her dart back to Keshawn. “I’m a big girl. I can…I can handle anything.” Trying hard not to throw up, Bibi made sure she was understood. Throughout the game, she has isolated herself further from Khali and drawn closer to Keshawn, the oldest of the group. “You seem old enough...You're old enough, yeah." Keshawn gets adventurous with his eyes, leering at the eleven-year-old. Bibi could feel the intensity of the high schooler’s eyes, but she told herself she had to be big on her own, and that Khali wouldn’t care anyway what the dare was. Despite how he felt about the dare, which he couldn’t even process was about to happen, Khali felt something off about those eyes. He knew because of something his mom told Bibi while he overheard. “Now baby, you know you’re getting bigger. You’re actually growing faster than other kids in your class, and you’re not even ten yet! As you get older, you’ll definitely realize, but us girls, we need to make sure we aren’t too…revealing, especially when another man is around, be it your teacher or even your brother. You understand?” Being older, he definitely understands now why he and his sister couldn’t run around hitting each other with their clothes or bathe together anymore like they used to. “Listen up, Lil Bi, we’ll do a one on one game, and if you win, you get all the money in my pocket!” Bibi lit up. Khali felt nauseous. “But! If you lose, that means you do whatever I say.” Bibi doesn’t think before saying she’s going to win all the money, but Khali butts in asking “what exactly do you want her to do?” “C’mon, I can’t just give it away like that! I will say, whatever happens is going to be upstairs in this house. It is starting to get dark, and I wouldn’t want your sister to catch a cold out here. Right Bibi?” He’s rubbing her face with his hand that almost cups her entire head. Bibi slightly tenses her face and fists, but takes being pet anyway. “So you tell me big boy? Are you going to be chill about your sister making her own decisions, or are you gonna start bitchin’ again to me?!” Khali is frozen. He looks at his best friend for help, but he gives back a more serious, yet dazed, face. “Just let it happen, dude. You’ve been so uptight for no reason. He’s grown, he knows more than us.” Khali agreed in his head, but was that a good thing? Was what Keshawn knew actually good to know? Thinking more about it, Khali wondered if Malcolm would really bring someone so dangerous around his little sister. There was no way. All that’s happened so far is Keshawn teaching them what it was like to be actual high schoolers. He wouldn't do anything wrong to her; he must have been respectful being a new high schooler. And, he thought, if anything were to happen, I could tell Mom and Dad that I didn't know something like this was going to happen . But how would he not know if he had to plot out this whole backup plan in the first place? “Alright, Keshawn, I’m not gonna—” suddenly a blast of screaming and crying was heard from the little girl being handled by Keshawn. “PLEASE DON’T MAKE ME GO ALONE KHALI!” Bibi still sat next to Keshawn, but she was fully facing her brother while sniffling and sobbing. “Please go with me! I don’t want to be alone!” Keshawn dramatically gets up and struts over to Khali. “You see what your pampering does? Now she’s clinging onto you again. Now tell me right now.” He squeezes Khali’s shoulder while looking him dead in the face. “Are we doing this, or are you still childish?” Khali looked around and saw three distinct people: a boy who owns the title “freshman”, a kid he invited to his house that he knew from the beginning of middle school, and a little girl that he decided not to take care of for the sake of his own care. But, of course, Khali didn't see it that way. He didn’t grow up yet to understand it. “Don’t come to me.” Khali looked up and away from everyone, walking over to the farthest side of the small backyard. Everyone was silent for a moment, especially Bibi, who stared at the back of her brother's head that wouldn't turn around for anything. He didn’t grow up yet to understand it, but the words still were bouncing in his head. Please, don’t do it. But there was no sound. The game was played. The sister stared at the cards with tears rolling down her face. The 8th grade boy ran around and picked up the sister. The acquaintance is told to follow, and drunkenly does what is told of him. And the growing boy sat in the grass in the summer heat, facing away from the girl he left to live on her own for who knows how long. Sorry, but it was a game of chance and you lost. The game was rigged at the start.

orl8h5

The Eleventh Floor

I got up at five and drank a hot cup of instant coffee as quickly as I could. The coffee was strong and chased away the half a night's sleep fogging my mind. I thought it was important to really see the place one last time. Jay, my only friend left in Taiwan who can remember what happened told me the old place was coming down. I had chased away the memories for several nights with tall cans of beer. Then one day I woke up and I thought I should look. Then I thought I shouldn't. The Pong game in my head. The ball, expertly flying across the screen of my mind and never out of play. It was better to go and see. I know the memories could hurt, but I also needed to know that I did something about something I couldn't do anything about. I picked the scabs on my knees and elbows as a boy, and now I pick at the wounds in my heart and mind. I remembered the life before. The pain before Taiwan, and the pain now. He said he 'sometimes thought he was a sociopath,' as he laughed eruptiously down on me. I wished to disappear into the earth. I was frozen in my seat in the coffee shop where I'd first met her. He'd hit on her, and I hung back resigned to failure. But my silence had appealed and my growing time with her and away from him had brought a change. My life was changing, and his wasn't. I expect now that this was a pain he saw easily how to change into a great pleasure. My pain was a food for him. I was cooked in his gaslighting and browned black in shame He'd driven her away because I didn't believe he and his friend would, and because he could. And because she was a harbour safe for me from his scheming and controlling behavior. He broke it up because he couldn't have her. This jealousy, once finally detected, became the bedrock upon which I could build my new life. It began to get easy once I could see. If he indeed envied me, and clearly, he did, then my value wasn't the zero I thought it to be, but instead, some unimagineable sliver only he could see. It couldn't be much, I thought, but it also couldn't be nothing. He would never reveal it. I'd need to find others. People who didn't control me. People who didn't demean me to others. People who didn't love hating me. People like her. I remembered her hair. Her skin that stretched a warm, healing world beneath my hands. Her lips and the promise in her eyes. The joy she felt and created as she sang along with the radio. Her face in the afernoon and evening. Her face in our one night of hot sweating car sex. And her phone call soon afterwards. A new world taken from me by my sociopath friend and his new friend. The shame and the loneliness and pain. Then, glacially, her love of cats, and my budding realization that people can also have nine lives. In Taiwan, I met more like the sociopath from my youth, but the walls held. Soon, I had a home and a door people would knock on. The life he'd knocked down had not grown back like a cancer, but was instead built back with rules and work and friends and change and love. I got downtown after sunrise and the day was already getting hot. The streets stood eerily vacant. Soon a sea of cars, trucks buses and Taiwan's signature, the motorscooter, would roar and scream and smoke impatiently over them, but it was still safe to trust I could be alone in the morning with an old memory scheduled so soon for demolition. I saw a worker spraying the road as a dumptruck exited the demolition site. His face bored and his movements robotic. A river of brown clay apartment blood ground up by the parade trucks washed lazily down a drainage grill at the roadside. It shone gold and tree bark in the morning light. The noise of the workers and their machines broke open the day. The building was wrapped nearly completely in a shroud of cloth to protect people and property below from any falling objects. The place looked as dirty, gray and dead as it clearly was. I looked up and saw I could still count the floors, visible through the blowing cloth, and fixed my eyes on the eleventh floor through the gauze around the building. What had been the courtyard beneath the building was now a sea of brown mud cut apart everywhere by the snake tracks of the dump trucks. My mind recreated the courtyard's hard tile floor, flowerbeds and irongate easily. And then the memories raced through me speeding motorcycle fast. The airport in Taoyuan, the bars, the foreign cigarettes, the endless summers, the holidays, the plans and dreams and the endless nights of food and friends and drinks to safeguard us from life and the tropical sun. Then Tommy. Still alive, but only in memories. His laugh and kindness. His love of books. His vacations to Bali. His taste in food. His CD collection and the blasting grunge rock that fed so many great times long past. Then there the constructions. Memories formed by the magic of words spoken in explanation of Tommy's strange death. Words that painted pictures across my mind. Tommy's shoes and socks found afterwards on the floor of the common balcony beside the elevators which promised an easy jump of one meter into his kitchen balcony where he could retrieve his house key and whatever else he needed and had locked himself out of. His kitchen where we ate and talked with the beautiful girls from the bar. His living room and 90's movies and work and life. Then Jesse, his Taiwanese girlfriend telling me through gasps, snot and tears that the police had ruled it an accidental death and not a suicide because of the key found in the apartment and the shoes and socks found outside. Her Nirvana T-shirt. Her beautiful hair hanging limp and ugly. The red eyes. The All Stars she'd been wearing so much that summer. She told me he made the jump once before. It had worked out. That time. Just once. The pain is still real but not raw. Soon the building and the trucks will be gone. A new building will be and I'll see it. The pain will be older, but I see so clearly that will be sticking around like a squatter. 'I'm still fucking here I thought,' and looked up at the hot sun burning my tears away.

emjefk

My personal angel

When you’re born, it’s not like you have a blueprint of how you’re life is supposed to go. Loving parents or not, no one truly has any of this “life” thing figured out. That doesn’t necessarily mean the thought of me having some sort of “life” disadvantage hasn’t crossed my mind. Do I psyche myself into thinking it is okay? All the time. Is it though? No. As soon as I grew conscious of my actions and the people around me it was like I was entirely unable to know what I wanted, but the outcome of every choice was unfulfilling. Every choice I was given did not suit my needs but I didn’t even know what I needed. Apparently, that’s what happens when you grow up around highly controlling people, never truly getting to develop a personality or healthy habits. Read that in a book once. I was in high school when I realized this wasn’t normal—outside point of view and all. Growing up with social anxiety could drive anyone nuts, especially at the ripe age of ten trying to make new friends. “Hey! You new here?” The voice belonged to a lively, tall, brunette girl with a few pink extensions in her hair. She was pretty and loud hence very intimidating given that I was in fact fresh meat in this school. Instead of answering, however, I stayed frozen in place and gave a faint nod. Eye contact was foreign to me so there was a slim chance she even registered my response. Her friends approaching us from the cafeteria started to call her over, saying “the quiet kid is a lost cause anyway”. Maybe I was, but they don’t know that. I wish my eyes weren’t as pleading as they were that day, but her silent judgment made me feel so pathetic. The urge to prove them wrong did not outweigh the sheer fear that swept through my body from feeling so small in front of her. The lack of speaking on my part and the viral impatience that plagued this school truly made my days, living hell. “Why didn’t you do your homework huh?” Silence followed with mouth gaping slightly to no avail. “I don’t wanna hear your excuses. Paper in tomorrow, kid.” “Who do you want to team up with?” Silence, a complete lack of confidence, and just the general feeling of wanting to disappear. “Alright, you’re with Jake and Nia then.” Jake was obnoxious and gave me anxiety when it came to any PE activity. Nia was terrifyingly good at everything which made me want to not be a burden on the team. So yes there were better options in this situation but I didn’t have the guts to object. Who was I to choose who I wanted to team up with anyway? It’d be easier on everyone, even the outcasts, if all teams were assigned to us I think. I don’t know. Having to make a choice was not my thing I guess. Being alone was great though. Aside from the loneliness that crept up from time to time, I must say it was pretty neat. The one-hour window between one hell and another was what got me through most things. Most of the time I’d try to keep out of my family’s way. But there are unfortunate occasions where I had to endure the craziness of being yelled at or told off about something I haven’t even done. Now being the way I am, I just stand there and take it, ‘cause if I say something, suddenly I’m “disrespectful”, “talking back” and “being difficult” which to me is bogus; but I can’t say that. The next time someone came up to me at school unprovoked was a guy wanting to be nice and invite me to a party around the end of junior year. I know him I’d say. A side effect of being so quiet and insecure constantly is that I got significantly more observant hence I know a lot more about people than what they might think. Not in a creepy way of course, but on some occasions I’d overhear something, and it would get filed away because I have quite the memory. So yes, this guy was trying to be nice and I appreciated that. Thinking about it in hindsight, he was kind of brave for wanting to invite me. Now why I think that, is because this guy treated strangers like aliens or something. If he didn’t know you, he’d be super weird around you, almost acting like you can’t understand him. Like he’s the most intelligent one in the room without flat out treating you like you’re dumb. He also holds this constant air of passive-aggressiveness that a lot of people think is rude. Just like I’m not good with people in general, he’s terrible with strangers. When he came to me with an invitation, I took it and watched him leave, fidgeting with the ring around his thumb. He had dazzling features, a nice frame, and impeccable style for someone in junior high. We didn’t have any classes together but he was around his friends who I shared classes with a lot for me to not know who he was. I don’t know if someone told him I kept stealing glances or not, because why would the guy talk to me in the first place. I never played in the school soccer team, or basketball team, nor did I run track. Despite that, I wasn’t completely antisocial. I was around people all the time, just doing my own thing to not draw attention to myself. It worked for the most part since I narrowly avoided meetings with the school shrink. Somehow, my sister got a whiff of the party and that I was invited and oh-so-dearly told our mother about it. I never went anywhere, but that day, I had enough and went anyway. It was a fifteen-minute walk, and I wasn’t planning on staying for that long; I just wanted to go. Did it give me an almost crippling sense of anxiety walking out of the house? Yes. Was there anyone there to stop me? Thankfully not. The walk felt nice. What also felt nice was the knowledge of finally giving my mother something to actually yell at me for. Quite the rebellious moment if you ask me, but I refused to tell her off so the option to just leave without my family knowing seemed to be the best one. No confrontation, just the way I like things. Walking into a fairly packed house I tried to find the guy who got me here. The looks aimed my way were enough to make me turn my head and walk right out of there. It freakishly resembled a few of the nightmares I had at the time, making my chest feel tight and my feet feel heavy. I didn’t dare to ask around for him so I had to walk around for a while before I found him on the upper level of the house leaning over the balcony edge with a drink in his hand. Ring ever so present on his finger but now his body was adorned with a cream white silk button-up and black slacks. Pretty, with the light from the pool softly lighting his features up in the otherwise dark surroundings. Finding him alone was a relief, unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. The chance to talk to someone without another person talking over me was rare. And it was quiet in there. The general aura was inviting too, so I slowly made my way over to stand next to him and look over the backyard and the people playing in the pool below us. To say he was surprised to see me wouldn’t be too far-fetched. I could see a smile tug at his lips while a soft scoff in disbelief left them. It was hard to resist a smile of my own, however. The feeling of proving someone wrong was nice. Felt like a pat on the back on the way to personal growth. He brought up a hand to greet me and we exchanged a casual dap-up; very shyly on my part. “Didn’t think you’d have the guts to be here,” he’d said honestly. “I know that.” I’m not stupid. I know what’s expected of me on a daily, and this was very unlike me. “So… you like me or something?” The question took me by surprise, I’m not gonna lie. I hated it. My mind was very loud, voicing responses I’d never say out loud on a normal day, but a refreshing gust of boldness came over me. “And if I did?” Now, I couldn’t look at him fully, but stealing a glance out of curiosity for his reaction, I saw that the smile never left his lips but his eyebrows did shoot up in yet another surprised expression at my out-of-line actions. “Don’t you think it’s even a little bit weird?” “Not really, no.” I was being honest. This is the most “myself” I’ve ever been in anyone’s presence. But liking him wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. “Ever been with a guy before?” At this point I was just thinking “what is this guy on about?” but he was not coming off as rude or condescending as he did with most strangers so I decided to ride the wave for a little longer. My nerves hadn’t caught up to me just yet. “I don’t even have friends,” I decide to say. It should’ve been common knowledge to him. “Fair enough.” He fell quiet as he handed me his cup. I waved it off politely. “I wasn’t planning on staying too long.” “Too bad.” “Why’s that?” “I just found out you like me- well, kind of, so I thought I’d get to know you some more.” He had started to act more bashful which I found strange. No one ever did that around me. “You really think you’d wanna be in any kind of relationship with me? Let alone a romantic one?” “Wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world,” he said, turning towards me fully. My heart had dropped a little. All my life I had seen myself as nothing but an extremely self-loathing lost cause. For someone to be willing to pursue anything with me was scary. On second thought, I genuinely thought that it would be the worst thing in the world for him . A waste of time even. “It really would though,” I answered feeling defeated, letting my head hang low in shame. I should’ve left right there and then. It was hard to tell if he could sense my discomfort, mostly because I didn’t want to look at him, but a hand stroked my shoulders in a comforting manner. “I have to ask if you’ve ever been with a guy before,” I say hesitantly. He was single. That much I knew, but not much else, and curiosity had gotten the better of me. “Oh, so you’re interested?” He asked a little amused. “Are you?” I hate confrontation but I really couldn’t help myself so I looked up at him waiting for a response. “And if I was?” A playful smirk spreads on his face. “Then… I… would be… too?” “Is that a question?” he chuckled softly. “No! No. I- I would, seriously.” “Cool.” “You’re so weird,” I scoffed out, not fully believing this conversation was actually happening. It was like a fragment of my imagination came to life in the strangest way. “Says who exactly? I might not know you at all but it felt like you’re the one who went off script here, pretty,” he chuckled. Making me let out yet another unamused scoff. “Stop playin’, I’m serious.” “So am I.” “Get outta here.” “It’s my house.” “Shut up.” “Do you want me to?” Man… “You’ve kept yourself really small since you first started which is something I found out from my friends. But I feel like I wouldn’t be able to talk to you in school if we became a thing after I take your cute self on a few dates.” Jesus, this guy . “We wouldn’t be the first ones,” I said, starting to get a little frustrated at the new topic. Why did people have the disgusting behavior of getting into others’ business that had nothing to do with them? “I know that.” “So?” “I wouldn’t want to put that pressure on you.” “I can handle myself.” Oh, wow. That was a complete lie. However, I was thankful he didn’t call me out on it. The remainder of the night had been interesting. It was his party but most of it he had spent with me on that balcony. He had me talking about myself which was something I never got the chance to do and to begin with he treated me like a friend. I couldn’t get close to his friend group because they were all loud and intimidating, making me feel small. I would just be on my phone when they were talking. I felt guilty about it every day, but he made sure to tell me he didn’t mind it, in turn calming any uncertainty brewing inside me. He was like an angel sent to help out in life since the Universe must’ve taken pity on me. Reality was still a thing and we were not the couple who would change the world overnight. Rumors were spread in school like the water from a broken dam once senior year started. My sister ended up ratting me out again and it was not the first time I cried myself to sleep. Not out of sadness, but out of brutal anger and frustration. No one was certain about anything when it came to what sort of relationship I had but for my family to say they “always knew I was on the wrong path in life” was awful. That I needed “help” and made me feel like there was something horribly wrong with me? That I was sick and needed to be cured? That I was some sort of puppet of the devil? Needless to say, I was reaching a psychological rock bottom that day, but there was not a single part of me that wanted to stop what I had going on with my angel. Not one. The rest of the world could go to hell for all I cared. The following day, I went to school like usual. Keeping to myself like always. Things stayed true to routine until I spotted my guy and made my way to him with uncharacteristic courage. “Hey,” I greeted him timidly. The smile he gave me could rival the sun in brightness but it was nothing compared to the comfort I felt when he intertwined our fingers. “Hello,” he said softly, and oh how I wished we were alone. “I’m gonna kiss you, is that cool?” “Why would I say no to that, love?” “Because we’re at school, in public with people who are going to talk,” I laughed humorlessly. “I really couldn’t care less. Why so suddenly?” “I’m sick of caring?” “Then go for it, you know I got you.” I did know that. To control what people knew and didn’t was an addictive sort of power but it could never truly be real. However, not letting outside opinions control what I felt about myself was a power that would last me a lifetime. So I kissed him in the hallway with a complete lack of care for the gasps of air I could hear all around me. And my angel kissed me back with love, reassurance, and passion that made me feel like we were floating in clouds. Yeah, no, because after that? I refused to live in a mental prison keeping me from voicing my own opinions and needs, especially in front of my family. I made sure I was valued in my own home and the second it got overwhelming, I could seek comfort from my favorite person. Life is still a mystery and to work on my damaged self-image was hell but worth it nonetheless. The most important thing was to see the light at the end of the tunnel and make sure no meaningless comment distracted me. I had had enough of all that. 

s7jpkh

Your Death Is Guaranteed

“Jarious Ganfry!” The booming voice called my name as I approached. “Your Death is Guaranteed!” He sounded happy about this. Excited, even. The entire audience was applauding as I shook the voice’s hand and took the rolled-up paper from him. As I left the stage, I could hear the next several names read as I walked behind the curtain, out of view of the audience. They were names I knew. None of which I’d considered my friends, but I’d shared classes with them and was generally friendly with them if we were ever partnered up for any school projects.            The crowd cheered after each name called, and while I heard that noise for a bit longer, it, too, faded as I walked the long narrow hallway. I let my left hand brush along the painted wall of the hallway as I went. I don’t know why I did it. In my gown there were no pockets, no place for my idle hand to go. My right hand was occupied with the rolled-up paper.            There were little bumps along the wall where it’d been painted over and over again. How many hands rubbed against these walls? How many of them still lived? How many were dead?            My mother had attended the same school years ago and her class was around two hundred and fifty students. The school had expanded over the years, though, due to the incrementally increasing size. There were three hundred and eighty-two students in my graduating class. My name, Jarious Ganfry, came exactly one hundredth in line.            At the end of the hallway was a small pedestal with a large ceramic bowl on it. I approached the table and an administrator, I’d never know who, stood in a full robe and mask and watched. In front of the bowl on the table was a small piece of paper, upon which was written, “Take One. Proceed To The Room.”            I reached inside the bowl and found hundreds of small metal pieces that felt like coins. One side of which was smooth, the other had a small raised circle in the middle. They were roughly the size of a quarter both in diameter and thickness, except for the raised area on one side. My fingers brushed the ceramic all the way down inside and I pulled one out from near the bottom of the bowl. There was a small number painted on the smooth side of the coin, 144.            The administrator stepped aside to reveal another hallway. This time, however, there was a small brown plaque on the side of the left wall that said, “All Rooms This Way.”            I started down the hallway and heard the administrator shuffle back behind me. Shortly down the hall, there were branches that went both left and right. Signs on the left read “1-47” and on the right read “48-112”. In front of me the plaque read “112-412” and I continued straight. I found myself at some stairs and proceeded upwards. There was no other way to go, so I climbed. The Stairs turned back three times and then headed back in what I assumed was the opposite direction as I’d been going but one level up. I went down a similar hallway to the one below and came to three branches again. This time the plaque on the left read “113-177”. I took the left and followed the hallway, and halfway to the end of the hall, there was a room marked 144 on it. In the center of the door, just underneath the number, was a small recessed circle with a smaller recessed circle inside of it. I felt the small coin in my hand and pressed it into the recess. There was a mechanical click, and the door slowly slid open.            When the door was fully open, a rhythmic clicking started. A countdown? A timer? I stepped through the doorway and after a few more moments of clicking, the door slowly closed.            Inside the room were a small table, a large fluffy pillow, and a bucket. On the table were a glass of clear liquid and a small glass bowl. The room itself was no more than a six-foot square, and I thought if I laid down flat on the ground, I’d have just enough room to fit. If all the rooms were this size, a few of my friends would either have to bend or lay diagonally across the room.            The instructions we were all given were to unroll the paper once we got to our rooms. The rolled-up paper still in my hand was fastened with a small piece of string. I untied it and unrolled the thick, cream-colored paper. The room was lit by a dim light on the ceiling and the light bounced around the unadorned white walls. It was just enough light to see the printed words on the paper. At the very top were the following familiar words, “Your Death is Guaranteed.” I read. “This is a fundamental fact of our existence. We all die. We do not know when we will die.” It continued a few spaces below in smaller print. “This ceremony is a reminder of this fact. Keep it ever present in your mind. Today, and every day, you face your possible death. On the table before you are 100 small pills.” I glanced at the bowl. In it were, if the paper was to be believed, a hundred round balls no bigger than a half of a centimeter in diameter each. I continued reading. “99 of these pills are filled with sugar. One pill is filled with poison. You are to take and swallow one of the pills. After you have done so, turn to the next page.” I let go of the bottom of the paper and it rolled up, slightly, trying as we all do to make the same shape it had been prior to being freed but never quite getting there. I looked at the bowl of pills. It didn’t look like enough to be a hundred. The bowl wasn’t very big, and the number one hundred is a big number. One hundred apples is a lot of apples. But this was just a few handfuls. I poked around in the bowl, moving some of the balls around as I did. In the silence of the room, my heartbeat seemed to echo off the bare walls. One chance out of one hundred. One percent. I probably wasn’t going to pick the poison pill. But then the words from the top of the page came back to me, “Your Death Is Guaranteed.” I could always not take a pill. I could fake it. Nobody would ever know. But even as the thought still bounced around in my head, I knew that wasn’t true. I know. I knew the reasons for this test. This wasn’t a test of survival; this was a test of courage. Did I have the courage to risk my life in order to live it? Because to live is to risk death. I knew if I didn’t do this, I’d think about it forever. It would stay with me forever. Just like if I did swallow a pill, that would stay with me forever as well. No matter what would happen in my life, I took a chance. I removed a pill from the middle of the bowl and pinched it between my thumb and middle finger. It was hard, like a stone, and completely opaque with a dark coloring. I couldn’t tell if it was black or blue or purple in the dim light of the room. Your death is guaranteed.  I thought again, followed by, we do not know when we will die. The ceremony, which was supposed to be secret, was quite well known. Every year we had one class devoted to it where we learned the reasons for it. We learned quite a bit more about the ceremony from older siblings and others that went through it. We knew how pills were all randomly mixed into the bowls, and how the bowls were randomly assigned to the rooms, and how the students randomly chose the rooms, and finally how the students chose one of the pills. I took the pill and put it on my hand, then picked up the glass of liquid and drank both down. The water was refreshing in the already stuffy room. The pill went down easy enough, and I unrolled the paper again and flipped to the second page. “Life is precious because it will die. All that begins will end. That end is unknowable to us. Act accordingly.” I continued reading. “Without death, there is no life, only existence, and existence has no meaning.” Then, in smaller print below, “You may die at any moment. We perform this ceremony as a reminder of this, to keep it ever-present in your mind. You have just taken a pill that may end your life right now. Please be comfortable and use the following list of questions as a guided meditation on your life.” That must be what the pillow is for. “You will be in this room for roughly an hour. The door will then open and you will proceed back out to the stage the way you came.” There was another space on the page and then a list of things below. I took the glass of water and finished it, then sat down on the pillow with my back leaning against one of the walls of the room. Did I just take a poison pill? Would I die?  Am I already dying? From my schooling, I already knew the answers to these questions, however it did seem more urgent now. That was the point. I looked down at the first question on the page. “Who are the people that will miss you when you die?”  I closed my eyes and my family came into my mind. My mother and father were holding hands and smiling at me. They were also separate, as if there were three parents, my mother, my father, and both of them together. Each a separate being in my life. They loved me, they told me such, quite frequently, but beyond words, I knew. It was how they acted, how they behaved. They always took small moments in the day to make sure I knew, like how they always got me orange flavored vitamins rather than grape (which I still think tastes like garbage) or how they made a point to come to every sporting event I’d ever played. They helped me, they pushed me, they taught me and supported me. My parents love me. Or have they loved me?  I thought. Past tense. I wasn’t sure whether I would ever see them again, maybe the poison was just now reaching my heart and would begin to take effect. My sister came next. She was a few years older and I remember when she went through this ceremony. Growing up, she teased me and yelled at me, but after her ceremony, she softened. It was clear that the ceremony changed her. Would it change me, too? I didn’t think it could, and yet my sister was proof that it could. She still teased me, but she also told me she loved me as soon as we met after the ceremony ended. She came up to me, even before my parents, and hugged me. With tears in her eyes, she told me she loved me. I thought of my friends. I thought of them attending my funeral. What would they say about me? Would they move on? Or would they be too overcome by sadness to live? I pushed that last thought away. Of course, they would move on. I wouldn’t want them to wallow in sadness forever. For a little while, sure, but not forever. I thought of Cray, our dog. Short for Crazytown, Cray lived his life as most dogs did: With reckless abandon and an utter disregard for personal safety. More than once we had to stop him from chasing cars in the street and risking getting hit by one. Cray just lived moment to moment. And yet Cray was a sweet dog. When my sister came home after a bad breakup in high school, Cray went and laid his big dopey head on her lap while she sat and sobbed. I’d taken him on countless walks, well, I walked, Cray had a habit of darting back and forth trying to sniff the entire neighborhood. I tried to think of more people who would miss me, but kept thinking of the dog. What must it be like to not know about death? Would it be freeing? Cray has never, to my knowledge at least, known anyone to have died. He wouldn’t understand it. To be able to live without the threat of death hanging above you, to be able to live in the moment, as Cray seemed to do, what would it feel like? And if I died, what must it feel like for someone you’ve known your entire life to just be gone. There one day, then gone the next. How confusing, how…terrifying. And yet they would all eventually move on. My friends, my family, even Cray, would wake up the next day and continue on living. My eyes focused on the paper again and I read the next line. “If you had ten minutes to live, what would you say and to whom?” I thought of the same people again, my parents, my sister, my friends, and my dog. What would I tell any of them? What could I tell them? I’m sorry? I’m sorry for, what, dying? Why should I be sorry about that? I didn’t want to die. Most people don’t. No, I wouldn’t say I was sorry. What would I say? I love you? Ok, but then what would I do with the other eight minutes? Then, all at once, it hit me. Thank you . Thank you, mom and dad, for raising me, for caring for me. Thank you for having me. Thank you for loving me. Everything started to pour out now. Thank you for being patient with me, as I know I haven’t always been easy to handle. To my sister, thank you for looking out for me, even when you were hitting me. And then I thought of Cray and my eyes started to well up. Thank you, Cray, for being my friend. I know you don’t understand what’s happening, and I’m sorry for that. This will be hard for you, but I want you to know that I’m thankful to have had you in my life. To all my friends, and to everybody, thank you for laughing with me. Thank you for crying with me. Thank you for spending your lives with me. Tears were coming down my face now. I wiped my face with my robe. Did they know all that? Did they all know how much they meant to me? Did they all know that without them, my life would be…less? Not once did I think of arguments I’d had, or fights I’d gotten into. None of that mattered. It was the people whom I loved; the people who loved me that mattered. After some time spent crying, I settled down. I wished I hadn’t already finished the glass of water, because I could use some now. I looked at the third question on the page. “What do you regret not having done in life.” So much. I was just a kid. I shouldn’t have to die yet. Kids shouldn’t die. Old people should die, after they’ve…lived. But I knew that children died. There were accidents and illnesses. Children died much in the same way that anyone died. There would always be things I still wanted to do. Even in my nineties, I’ll still have things I want to do. I’d want to see my grandkids grow up if I had any. I’d want to spend more time with family and friends. I’d want to taste more of life, because life was so impossibly huge that to even sample a single percent of everything life had to offer would take thousands of lifetimes. I wanted to find a partner to share life with. I wanted to raise children. I haven’t had a chance to do any of those things yet. I wanted to help people. I wanted to learn things. I wanted to share things and work for things. Because that’s the deal, right? We all die, but we all get to live, because of it. There was one final line on the page. “Knowing all of this, how will you choose to spend the rest of your life.” I hoped that I’d survive the day. That thought came first. I hoped that I wouldn’t die here, now, in this tiny room, alone. I hoped that my life would be full of those things that I haven’t had a chance to do yet. I hoped that my friends and family would all live long and happy lives. And yet, I may already be dead. One hundred pills, and one of them was my death. A grand game of Russian Roulette. Nobody knows when they will die, only that they will. My death was guaranteed. If I lived until tomorrow, I knew what I would do. I would get ready for university. I would prepare for a career. I would try to help people when I could. I would spend time with my family and friends. But if I didn’t, that was ok. We all have to die, and that is ok. I’m grateful for the life that I’ve already had the pleasure of living. Now, sitting in that tiny room, I sat and thought of my family. I loved them, and they loved me. And I was at peace. 

h6qhfu

Rabbit Hole

On August 20th, 2013, Lena walked into the classroom of the Queen. She taught junior and senior AP English. She had long blonde curls and piercing blue eyes. As always, she dressed with a retro air, choosing a fitted navy skirt, red heels, and a white blouse. The Queen was also the Debate coach. Which is why a fourteen year old Lena walked into her classroom at 2:05pm because she would join the debate team, just like the cool and confident girl on her TV. That girl was involved in lots of extracurriculars which is why she was so popular. The White Queen held the door open for all of the students. “Welcome! Please, have a seat anywhere.” she would call with a smile. At around 2:30pm she checked the slim gold watch on her left wrist and closed the door. Then, he walked in...five minutes late. He entered the room with striking confidence. He was as Mad as a Hatter. His curls made him seem three inches taller than he really was and he had green eyes. Lena knew, in that instant, that he would be in her life. That he would change her life. In fact, he sat at desk right next to her. Lena wondered how she could concentrate on the presentation that the Queen was conducting on the basics of each type of speech and debate competition they could enter. The Queen turned the next hour over to the older students who were clustered around small pods of desks with white boards and markers. The groups would teach the students, in depth, about the type of competition they were experts in. That is when the Hatter actually spoke to Lena. He turned to her with a smile, his eyes were greener than she could have ever imagined, “Wanna come with me to Lincoln Douglas?” He indicated the table in the corner to the right of them. He smelled of cinnamon gum. Lena followed the Mad Hatter to the Lincoln Douglas table. The Tweedle Twins ran this table. They were both tall with long faces and pitch black hair. Dee opened the presentation explaining that Lincoln Douglas was one versus one debate. Dum cut Dee off explaining that topics were decided prior to the competition to allow the competitors to prep. Dee inserted that time ahead of the competitions could be spent researching, then practicing against one other. Before Dee could finish her sentence, Dum added that the winner of the round faced another opponent. Dee and Dum smiled mirrored grins and laughed together. The Hatter asked for examples of topics. His voice cracked as he finished his question. Lena blushed. At the second meeting Lena confidently went to find her seat next to the Hatter. But it wasn’t free. In her place was the Rabbit, her hair dyed with streaks of pink and purple. She had a bohemian skirt and Lena’s heart broke as the Rabbit made the Hatter laugh. But her heart rejoiced when the Hatter called her name as he pulled another desk over to him. The Hatter introduced the Rabbit to Lena as an old friend. She captivated both of them with eccentric stories of her life traveling with her military parents while they waited for the meeting to begin. Lena listened as everyone planned how they would compete in the tournament of the year which was on Saturday. Once again, the team split up into their respective events and the Twins made sure that the Lincoln Douglas students had their outlines ready with points, counter points, and strong conclusions. The time exhausted Lena. The Twins experately dismantled all of her arguments, pushing her to find better words for her thoughts. The Hatter waved goodbye as he hopped into his father’s car. Lena watched as he pulled away and kicked small stones atop the short brick wall encasing the rose bushes by the parking lot. The air felt cooler. She wondered if the Hatter might kiss her lips beneath falling red and orange leaves soon. Lena woke up early Saturday morning. She spent an hour showering, doing her hair a thick braid, and perfecting her makeup. The Hatter was already at the bus stop along with the Rabbit. Lena almost fainted as she felt her heart quicken to see him in a gray suit and tie. He seemed out of place next to the Rabbit’s green flowery skirt and dangling gold bracelets. Both of them smiled at Lena. The bus pulled up right on time at 6:30am. They drove thirty minutes to Carroll High School in the next town over and shuffled into the bright cafeteria. With expert speed, the Twins found a suitable table and everyone crowded around using the precious thirty minutes to prepare. The time seemed to slip through her fingers and Lena was nervous as she walked as calmly as possible to room 101 which was across from the Hatter in room 102. They smiled at one other. The judges approached them, college students who got paid for the day and a free lunch. Right before entering his room the Hatter spun on his heel, locked his green eyes on Lena’s brown, and said, “You. Will. Do. Great.” Lena had the confidence of the Hatter on her side. Lena and the Hatter both won round after round. She took home third and he took home 1st. They stepped outside to a big oak tree. The Hatter pulled Lena next to him and tossed his arm over her shoulders. She could smell fresh linen and his cinnamon gum, her cheeks burned bright. The whole team stood and took a photo with Lena and the Hatter proudly clutching their medals. They rode side by side on the bus. The Twins proclaimed that they were rising stars. They handled the opening season of the year with grace and elegance. Every competition one or both of them took home a prize. October signaled the start of the real tournaments. Now students on the same level as the Twins could begin to truly compete along with everyone else. Suddenly, the Twins spent less time helping Lena and the Hatter. Red appeared the first week of October. She was a seasoned actress and the pupil of the Queen. Her apple red lips formed a perfect cupid’s bow and to the amazement of Lena, never seemed to clash with her red hair. The Queen praised Red. Red was a junior, she had been in the drama competitions since her freshman year and would compete alongside the team as she always had. Red was cold to Lena when Lena loudly expressed her excitement at the big tournament because it was an opportunity to hone her skills, remarking that, “You are a novice , darling.” Her cold stare silenced Lena’s excitement and the Hatter did not make eye contact with her the rest of the meeting. On Saturday, October 5th, Red wore a black lacy dress and matching gloves. She wore 1920s style pumps and carried a small white handbag. Somehow, her lips and hair were redder against the gray sky of the fall. Red picked the table they would sit at. Lena found herself asking this astonishing woman for tips. Red competed in Drama. She told the story of Zelda Fitzgerald, the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Red was a perfect Zelda. She had mastered a sultry southern accent and embodied Zelda’s plight for independence in her marriage. “Darling, I doubt that the way I win my competitions have anything to do with your world,” Red motioned her away. As she had done time and time again, Lena plopped down at the table waiting for everyone to finish their competitions from round one. She was doing her best to analyze her weak points when Red arrived. “How did your round go? Did you see any interesting pieces?” inquired Lena. Red took a deep breath and plucked her earbuds out. Suddenly, her icy black eyes were directed at Lena and Lena alone, “Darling, I do not feel the incessant need to discuss my successes, nor my failures with you .” That day, Lena did not win. Red did. October cooled into November and frosted over into December. Lena tried her best to avoid Red. She did not talk to her nor did she ask her any questions. The morning of December 14th, the Hatter wore his signature gray suit. Lena decided to wear her red dress. She had settled into the safety of the consistency of the tournaments. She practiced as much as she could and then she competed. Her mother sped off to a yoga class and left Lena in the cold of the morning. Christmas was coming. The Rabbit wore a big fluffy green sweater embroidered with a glittery Rudolph on the front. Underneath was a more tasteful green dress. She paired it all with a set of brown boots and her messy hair looked purposeful. The Hatter had his earbuds in; he enjoyed his ritual of listening to music before the tournament and right after. It gave him the space to clear his head. The Rabbit was friendly, asking about what Lena might do differently in this competition rather than the last. Once the bus pulled up, Lena sat silently alone and was shocked when the Hatter joined her. “You don’t bother me in my ritual,” he explained and popped his music on once again. It was a longer ride and Lena was aware of the feeling of his warm thigh against hers. She was cold; she hadn’t prepared for the weather because she felt her tattered beige jacket didn’t look good with the dress. Suddenly, the Hatter shifted and Lena did her best to not look at him, not disturb him. With expert swiftness he shifted out of his jacket and draped it along her shoulders. She burned bright as her dress. “You looked cold,” he said simply and shrugged. She held his eyes for a moment and smiled. He returned to his ritual. Lena inhaled the scent of the Hatter’s cinnamon gum as quietly as she could as they pulled up and gave the Hatter his jacket as they deboarded. She felt herself blush again. The cafeteria was already warm due to the crammed teenage bodies all bustling around, trying to practice and plan. Red sat at a table. She had decided on an elegant purple velvet dress. Not a lot of people could make velvet look elegant but her curves and confident white pumps completed the outfit; along with her red lipstick of course. Lena had never been courageous enough for lipstick. She didn’t meet Red’s gaze, just watched as she called over the Hatter. Lena sighed, at least she still smelled like him. The students were permitted freedom between rounds. LD was a briefer competition than some. Lena returned to the table to find it empty. She decided to meander the halls for a bit, listening to the clicking of her heels on the green tiled hallway. She noticed a figure in the hallway. The Knave was taller than her, almost six feet she imagined. His black hair was combed back perfectly and he was dressed in a full tux. He stood by the stairway so she had to walk past him to return to the cafeteria. The windows showed gray clouds giving way to a soft snow. The Knave smiled at her. His eyes were an ink black and his smile enthralled her. He smelled of peppermint and she blushed at him. Boldly, he introduced himself and offered to take her to the library. This was his home turf and there wasn’t much to do while the competitions were in full swing. He was handsome and charming, convincing her to run away with him for a bit to the library out of her dreams. Huge wooden bookshelves created a maze. The shelves hid a small nook with two arm chairs; the air was perfumed with the intoxicating scent of old books and they Knave let her wander for a while. He asked her questions about her school, her hobbies, her competition. She flipped through page by page of an older book, letting herself get lost in the world that was created. And when she looked up...the Knave kissed her. The next round pulled Lena away from the Knave, but he followed her to the competitions when he could. If he couldn’t they’d return to the library. Lena ate her PB and J in the library with him and he gave her his Oreo cookies. They didn’t kiss again, but delighted in conversation. The Knave wanted to know Lena which surprised her. He complimented her dress and told her that she was smart and kind. He helped her in debate, too. He pointed out moments when she lost the judge in her argument and ways that she could button things up. The day was done. She waited for him at the library, she had made it to finals and was excited to tell him what she thought went well. She waited. She waited. She waited. Eventually, it was 4:30, time to go to the theater for the awards ceremony. She desperately searched for him in the crowd and filled the Rabbit in on her mystery man. Finally, the ceremony began. The Knave was nowhere to be found. Lena boarded the bus in silence. The Hatter sat with Red. At home, Lena sank beneath the bubbles of the bath. She wondered if the Knave wondered about her. The heat felt good on her skin and grounded herself out of the fantasy. She had imagined that the Knave would find some way back to her. She imagined he would burst in debate practice, professing his love for her. On the first day back from break, Lena walked into school wearing pink lipstick. It was her big Christmas gift from her mother, a set of lipsticks. She was excited to return to debate. When she entered the classroom, a hush fell over the room. All eyes were suddenly on her. Red sat in a corner and her eyes were rimmed with tears. Lena timidly approached the Rabbit who looked at Lena with disgust. She was left to find a seat. The Queen wasn’t at practice that afternoon. The Rabbit explained that she was just downstairs at parent teacher conferences if they needed her. It still didn’t explain Red’s tears. “For heaven’s sake, Rabbit,” exclaimed Red, “She kissed him. She knows exactly what she did.” The story tumbled out quickly. It turned out that the Knave already had someone to kiss. He had Red. They had been together for 18 months and twenty two days. Rabbit encouraged everyone to sit down. The Hatter didn’t look at Lena at all. The whole debate team sat criss-cross applesauce and the Rabbit was the mediator. She asked for Lena’s side of the story and then Red’s. Red clarified she had met the Knave in elementary and that they were neighbors. He had asked her out by giving her a red rose one perfect, Colorado afternoon and the rest was history. According to Red, she had been distressed that she couldn’t find her boyfriend at his high school. Apparently, during Christmas break, it all came out. The kiss, the betrayal, and the break up. The group sat in stunned silence. Lena pleaded her case as well as she could. At this point, she was crying, too. After a moment, the Twins turned to Lena. “Stop the tears, it’s pathetic,” they ordered her in unison. “Here is the reality of the situation,” began Dee, “You show up to practice and loudly exclaim how good you are. You don’t acknowledge our achievements. It’s obvious you’ve had a thing for the Hatter.” Dum picked up where his twin left off, “Yeah, no that’s been obvious. You think you’re hot shit because you’ve won a couple medals and a couple ribbons.” Dee interrupted,“It’s exhausting hearing your accomplishments and how you disguise it all to sound as if you are taking an interest in our work. You throw yourself at the Hatter and then kiss Red’s boyfriend behind her back. It’s not fair to her.” “You are drama. You need the world to surround you and no one else,” said Dum “It has to stop,” they spoke in unison again and looked at each other with matching Cheshire Cat grins. Lena watched through tears as each member systematically stood up for Red. At this point, Lena couldn’t hear anything. She had thought that she had done well at caring for this family. She thought her triumphs were theirs. Eventually, she got up and walked out. On February 1st, the Rabbit showed up at Lena’s doorstep. “Let’s take a walk,” she said. Lena shoved herself into jeans, a sweater, and tennis shoes. They walked down the apartment stairs and outside to a surprisingly sunny February morning. The Rabbit led Lena to Rolling Meadows. The Rabbit broke the silence, “You know the saddest part of all of this is…” she trailed off. “The saddest part is that the Hatter liked you. You were just too caught up in your own feelings for him that you didn’t notice… I guess.” She shrugged her shoulders. The gravel crunched beneath her steps. The girls walked in silence. The Rabbit offered Lena a quick hug when they returned to her apartment and hopped away. The sun shone brightly down on Lena. It seemed to jolt her awake. Like the time she had spent in Wonderland was just a dream. 

3ooc51

Teenage Angst

       Teenage Angst  Where I come from, teenage boys have already grown into adulthood, and are therefore sexually mature.                              The phone call came as Donald was sitting in the only decent chair in his house.   " Hello!"   " Hi, Donald, it's Brian."   "Hi, Brian, what's up?"  "Are you doing anything this weekend?"  "Not really. Why?"  " It's my sister's fifteenth birthday, I wonder if you want to come to the party."  "Yeah, sure, when, and what time is it happening?"  "Saturday night, don't come before eight, oh and if you can get your hands on some liquor, go for it, okay. My parents are away for the weekend, so we can have a blast without any stupid adults looking over our shoulders every minute."  "Sounds great. Who else will be there?"  " Well, Sheila's invited a bunch of girls from her class at school. So, you never know, you might be lucky and get some rumpy-pumpy, if you know what I mean?"  " Excellent, thanks for inviting me; see you then."  Rumpy-pumpy? Who's he kidding? Not that it matters anyway. I wonder if the other guys are like me, boasting all the time about their exploits. Christ, I'm sixteen, and I haven't even plucked up enough nerve to kiss a girl, never mind rumpy-pumpy or whatever the hell it's called.  "Mum, Brian's invited me to his sister's birthday party on Saturday night; it's okay if I go, isn't it?"  " Will Brian's parents be there?"   "Of course."  "Okay, but make sure you behave yourself; you know I worry about you. You know Donald, it's not easy being a single mom now that your dad is no longer with us."  "Oh. for heaven's sake, mom, give it a break. Dad died almost five years ago. We manage fine. You need to let me grow up sometime. It's not as though I've ever been in trouble."  " I know, Donald, but I'm still your mother, and it's not easy for me, even if you think it is."  Shit! Will she ever get off her poor me, pity wagon?   Saturday afternoon arrives, and Donald is in a state of heightened apprehension. He always gets this way when he knows he is going to be in the company of girls. A shy boy, he is a rather plain average-looking teenager. His hair was cut short because of his mother's insistence that a well-groomed man is a well-behaved man. Nothing in Donald's features stands out except for a small birthmark on his forehead. More than anything, his acute awareness of the birthmark is why he has no experience of the opposite sex.    As Saturday evening approaches, Donald knows his mother won't be back from her job as a teller in the local Safeway for at least another hour. He opens the cupboard that stands next to the television; He sees the special dishes on the cupboard shelf, only to be used whenever they have important company. In his lifetime, Donald had never seen this elusive unique company in his house. Almost hidden behind the dinner plates, on the top shelf, stands an unopened, half bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label Scotch Whisky. Feeling guilty, although not guilty enough, Donald takes the bottle from the cupboard and slips it into his jacket pocket.   Mom arrives home at 6 pm and puts their Hungry man Salisbury Steak TV dinners into the oven. Donald doesn't bother to ask what's for dinner. Every Saturday night, they eat a Hungry Man Salisbury Steak Frozen Dinner. Nothing ever changes in this house enters Donald's thoughts.   "Mom, please don't wait up for me; I won't be back until the party's over."  "When will that be, Donald? You know I worr,"   "Oh! Stop it, mom. I told you not to wait up. I'll be back the second I open the front door."  "Okay, but you know I won't sleep until I hear the front door opening."  " That's your prerogative, mom, but it won't make me come home any sooner."  Stepping out of his house, Donald walks fast toward the bus shelter so he won't get too wet. Unfortunately, the rain is beginning to pick up from a steady drizzle toward a downpour. Finally, the bus arrives, and he finds a seat next to the window. Noticing the rain becoming heavier, he wonders if it's worth the journey. He then visualizes his house with the drab, aging, heavy, Victorian furniture and his drab, aged, heavy mother and thinks to himself, 'I can't wait to get out of the house and away to college.'  He alights from the bus and walks the fifty or so yards to Brians. Donald can hear music playing from inside the house. He knocks on the door, then presses the bell for a few seconds to make sure someone inside will be able to hear him. Brian's sister Sheila opens the door. She is wearing a pretty green dress that accentuates the female curves of her teenage body. She is also wearing a seductive smile on her face.  "Well, hello Donald, welcome to our house of ill repute."  "Hi, Sheila," Donald replies, handing her the half bottle of Scotch. Entering the den, he spots an empty armchair, settles into it, and then surveys the surroundings. Someone has put a Johnny Mathis record onto the turntable, and he sits listening to the music. Moon River is playing, and Donald closes his eyes to heighten his listening enjoyment. Someone is tapping him on his shoulder. Looking up, he sees Sheila smiling down at him.  "So, do you always sleep at parties?"   Without thinking, Donald reaches up and puts his arms around Sheila's tiny waist. He pulls her toward him and goes into an almost catatonic state as he feels her give way. The next second she is sitting on his knee, her summer dress hitches up, exposing most of her thigh and stocking suspenders. Sheila then takes Donald's hand and places it over the top of her stockings. Donald feels the suspender connecting clasp beneath his fingers, and his hand freezes to the spot. He feels his heart pounding against his chest, his embarrassment heightening acutely aware, his erection is threatening to burst through the material of his trousers. Sheila leans in closer, lays her hand on top of his penis, and starts to rub her hand against it. She then tugs at his shirt and manages to pull it out from the waistband. Donald's lower back tingles as Sheila's left hand explores the area. Next, her fingers reach for the cleft of his buttocks.  Bending her head close to his, Sheila proceeds to put her lips on his. She pushes her tongue between his lips forcing his mouth open. As her tongue searches every area of his open mouth, she squeezes his penis hard. Donald's body jerks with uncontrolled spasms; his sperm shoots out and soaks through his pants, dampening Sheila's hand. She immediately jumps off him crying out,   "Yuck, you disgusting pervert." Confusing emotions overcome him. Donald leaps out of the chair and rushes out of the house and into the rain, bucketing down. Thankful that his pants are now well soaked from the rain, he walks as fast as possible to the bus stop. He wonders just what the hell happened and how he can face Brian and the other kids in school on Monday.   Arriving home, he opens the front door with his key. As he removes his jacket and hangs it on the halfway coat rack, his mother calls out.   "Home already Donald, has the party finished so soon?"  "No, mom, it's still going, but I thought of you sitting here by yourself and decided to come home."  

1bn46x

my corner of the world

I didn’t realize just how much I could re-discover about myself just by returning to the place I’d spent the majority of my childhood. The place I felt was truly home. Those days now seem so much easier, long before being influenced by others, their expectations, by my own insecurities. Back then, in my hometown, those things were all irrelevant, yet to come. I don’t remember ever worrying about what I’d be doing five years from now. I was never worried about having perfected college applications or how popular I was or wasn’t or whether I should send my crush a rap song to seem cool or a song I actually like but that they may find boring. My depression took up only a small part of my brain, I enjoyed family dinners and ice cream at my favorite spot after school without feeling guilty and punishing myself with exercise afterward. As I stare now, at my old front porch, at the dying flowerbed, the one my mom would spend hours watering, its flowers now wilted, with patches of bald spots like an aging man’s head…I remember how I used to walk out the door, cross the street, and knock on a big brown door. The door would open, and I’d smile as my neighbor, Will, opened it. He always knew I was there to see if he wanted to walk - or scooter - with me to the park down the street. We’d sometimes race along the sidewalk of our quiet neighborhood, lined with towering trees which blanketed the street in what I’d imagined to be these grand arches, the sunlight seeping in through the cracks in the leaves. Seventeen year-old me now walks along the same street, looking up at those arched branches, reminiscing those days, taking in a deep breath and, with a sigh of relief, stares up at those leaves, those rays of sunlight still shining through, still just as bright. The houses all remain the same mismatched colors, another thing I always loved about my neighborhood - you wouldn’t ever see two houses the same size, shape, or color. Some had crooked roofs or wonky porch steps. There were thick, long weeds poking out from the cracks in the pavement, and cats of all shapes and sizes crossing the street - they were never hit, of course - they belonged to my neighbor, who at the time was known to everyone as the ‘crazy cat lady’. She owned many, many felines and always left her windows open so they could come and go as they pleased. I always aspired to someday be just like her. The park down the street wasn’t my favorite park for the shiny swingsets or the pool i learned to swim in (but never to dive - i was always afraid of entering the deep end head first, still am..) but for its famous fallen tree. There was a large tree which lay on its side, funky looking and so big it was like a redwood had accidentally been planted in the middle of the park. And it was perfect. In those times, this tree felt like mine, and I’d climbed it since I could remember learning how to walk. Revisiting the tree felt like an old yet familiar ritual. Approaching it, I gently felt of its grooves, gliding my hand along its trunk as if it was a horse’s mane. It almost felt like one, with eyes looking into mine, and a soul that could sense what I was thinking. I had this intense sense of nostalgia as I set foot onto its base, remembering how my five-year-old self would wobble, terrified of falling from what now seemed like such a low height, walking the length of the tree like a tightrope, afraid of plummeting to what I once felt would be instant death. I almost still get chills now, like I used to all those years ago. Remembering now how brave I felt the first time I made it all the way to the end; To its branches, sitting down to enjoy what at the time felt like the most beautiful view from so far up above, but now felt like taking a seat not too far from the ground below. It wasn’t just the park i needed to revisit, though, but the church across the street, too. I’d never once set a single foot inside the quaint white chapel, but its charcoal parking lot was sacred. I’d learned how to ride a bike there, my nose running with snot as I’d let out frustrated screams and protests, telling my mom I’d be the only kid in the world who couldn’t ride a bike. I felt it was ‘too heavy’ to peddle.. all this would happen as she laughed while filming me, then contemplated submitting the video to ‘America’s Funniest’. Yet one day, as fate would have it, in the middle of that empty lot, I did it. I ditched that pink Minnie Mouse bike amd its stupid white training wheels for a real bike, in fact it was my brother’s old bike I first learned on. And maybe he rode around effortlessly in the background for all of my many tantrums, but soon of course, I caught up to him. And I wouldn’t end up as the only kid who couldn’t ride a bike, which at the time meant more than wearing certain clothes or shoes or makeup. That same lot also had a small playground of its own, one that wasn’t as shiny and new as its neighbor, but had jagged wood railings and uneven squeaky swings. But I remember sitting on those swings, trying to catch ‘lightning bugs’ and getting stung by mosquitos during the hot summers. This little corner of the world would forever and always be my corner. The most familiar place in my mind, forever imprinted in my memories. I would never forget the imperfections in the playground’s wood which gave my palms countless splinters, all those times I’d fallen running down the street while trick or treating, even the strays I came to know. This will always be my home, no matter where I go.

whbl3o

Puzzle Pieces

Well, my alcohol consumption increased dramatically. It’s not that I didn’t drink at all before moving home, I just didn’t have anyone to drink with. Not that I didn’t have any friends… I just… didn’t have any friends that really drank. Some had valid reasons. They were allergic to alcohol. I wouldn’t give peanut butter to someone who was deathly allergic to peanuts, so I was not about to give a glass of wine to a friend and watch them pray to the porcelain gods all night. Sorry for the imagery. Others, just didn’t? Not that alcohol consumption is a necessity to have a good time, but some social lubrication helps the ease and flow of conversation when people are a little shy. Also, the buzzy, floating sensation of being tipsy is fun! We humans find 101 ways to find a high and this one just happens to be legal and readily available. However, where I was living, people, for whatever reason, thought fun was a word that started with “f”. To be avoided at all costs. If there was a glimmer of it on the horizon, people reminded themselves, and everyone around them, of how miserable they were or how the world is going to a dumpster fire and half. It was a race to the bottom with people trying to out misery themselves. It led to very dull conversations with relatively uninteresting people. Misery is repetitive, especially when it’s just for misery’s sake. It is a pity really. I believe every person is capable of some magic, and they could have been quite interesting people if only they saw themselves as anything other than miserable. So that was my life. Life with the miserable people. On a quiet street that closed up shop at 9pm, and where there was nothing to do after the sun set over the hills. Heck, it was so sleepy sometimes the gas stations would close early. Personally, I thought by definition with the lack of public transportation in the area, places like gas stations were legally entitled to stay open at all times in case someone had trouble getting from point A to point B. I was wrong. Then I moved back to my hometown. The weeks are no longer defined by the days split between weekends. The people in my life possess various small and large passions. Some are amateur musicians or comedians. Others love to dance or hold giant bbqs just because. They are human- they still have their down moments, but people here no longer appear defined by them. And, the gas stations are open 24/7! Needless to say, when I first moved back home, I was in a bit of culture shock. Scratch that. I was in complete culture shock. It’s not like I moved into a new land with new languages and customs. I just moved around the U S of A. The stars and stripes still wave in the breeze. American accented English is still spoken on the streets. But I came home and felt as if I was transported to a whole new world. First thing I noticed? Eye contact. I have this slight habit of naturally looking people in the eye as I walk past them. Can’t tell you where it came from or why I started doing it. It’s such a habit I don’t even notice myself doing it half… all… the time. What I am used to is looking strangers in the eye and people looking away at breakneck speed. Sometimes they even moved to a different aisle of the grocery store! Now, when I find myself making eye contact with a passerby, it tends to linger for a fraction of a second. A moment of recognizing each other’s presence. It took me a few days to get used to a stranger’s reciprocal momentary acknowledgement of me, another human being, walking the same Earth as them. It’s nice. The biggest culture shock for me, however, was the rapid-fire pace of conversations. Listening to the ping pong of different stories and conversations where the people gulped for air before bouncing the conversation back to the other person like a professional game of catch. Or Olympic style ping pong. I was used to amateur hour where conversations started and faltered like someone trying to throw a football for the first time. It drops, fumbles, and wobbles through the air. I became so used to being my counterpart's guide, driving conversation points to topics I think they would find interesting so the conversation didn’t stutter and stall and we were left awkwardly standing there looking blankly at one another. Good thing, I am very good at steering conversations to a place where they can be sustainable. Like a baby deer taking its first steps, after 5 minutes they were usually good on their own. What caught me off guard was when I moved back, people passed the conversation immediately back at me. I spent years walking people through the proverbial game of catch of a conversation that when it was thrown back at me, I was left looking at the conversation in my lap, trying to relearn how to immediately throw it back. I feel silly writing about my culture shock. They seem so incredibly basic. So woven into the fabric of being human. Eye contact? The ability to hold a conversation? I’ve got to be kidding myself. How can I possibly be moved by such basic human details? I did not realize how far I twisted myself around into a pretzel trying to compensate for how others perceived the world until I didn’t have to do it anymore. For years I have felt like a puzzle piece slamming myself all over the picture trying to make myself fit in. I tried to see if I fit in the foreground of the picture and tried to see if I could float among the clouds. Was I the issue? I must fit somewhere in this picture. Nothing worked. Each new location made me feel more lost. Yet, some puzzle pieces aren’t meant to fit together, no matter how we orient them and where we place them. As soon as I moved home, I felt my puzzle piece slide into place. Gradually I feel myself unraveling from the pretzel position I’ve tied myself in. I’m sleeping more deeply, breathing more clearly, and laughing more loudly. My hometown hums with activity and I can feel the energy slowly seep back into me. All and all, it’s good to be home.

mg32gd

Hana, Hanako, Hanabi

Once, when I was a child, my father took me on a day trip to Nagasaki and said, "This is what can happen when you're not careful." He gestured to the Peace Park around us, the chestnut trees and the memorial statue and the plaques commemorating the atomic bombing. We were alone, save for a few crows roosting in the treetops, but he spoke like he was divulging classified information. "Your great-grandfather, for example. He passed away in the explosion, as did many others like him. Unprepared." He stood with his back to the sun, forcing me to squint every time I looked at him. I was so focused on my eyesight that I said nothing. And perhaps he mistook silence for confusion, because then he whistled, a high-pitched noise that got lower and louder by the second, until he clapped his hands and mimicked the sound of an explosion. "Just like that," he said. The finality of his tone knotted my stomach. By way of distraction I pictured my mother as she'd appeared that morning when we drove off. She wore a sun hat and gardening gloves emblazoned with orchids. She waved as we sped down the road, then returned to pruning our cherry blossom tree. I imagined myself by her side, the two of us like a mother-daughter superhero duo, carefully snipping off dead branches and saving our tree from fungi and disease. It wasn't until later, after my father—knowing I couldn't yet read—had guided me to a bronze plaque cluttered with words and told me that my great-grandfather's name was etched in the tablet, after he'd made me touch it and I cried, that we finally trekked back to the van and drove an hour back home. The heat from the oven greeted us when we returned. My mother emerged from the kitchen, dusting her flour-crusted hands on her black apron. The smell of matcha cookies trailed her like a shadow. "Did you have fun, Hana?" she asked. My father closed the door behind us, stayed beside it and jiggled the knob. "Yes," I replied, feeling his eyes on my back. And I gave her that same answer when she asked if I wanted to play our game. We had a routine, the two of us. Every day she would twist my name, adding syllables and letters, teaching me the meanings of new words and phrases. The day before, when we were in our flower garden, my mother taught me Hanako . Her mouth curved beautifully around the weight of the new syllable, filled the word with promise. "Flower child," she translated in English. She plucked one of her precious hydrangeas, nestled it in my hair. I didn't know when I'd ever have any use for English. Still, I liked to imagine myself with these names, wondering what kind of person I would've been if only I'd been born as Hanako or Hanae. That day in the kitchen, with the smell of matcha cookies spiraling around us, my mother closed her eyes and said hanabi . "Fireworks," she clarified, and raised her fist. When her arm could extend no further, she whispered "Bang!" and released her fingers, sprinkling us with imaginary gunpowder. Feeling particularly clever for catching the connection between this and my father's expedition, I giggled and said, "Oh, like great-grandfather?" My mother blinked once, twice. Her mouth bobbed. The oven beeped, its timer flashing a parade of zeroes, and she almost dislodged the tablecloth when she jumped to retrieve the cookies. Later that night, their whispers snaked through the floorboards. I stared out the window at the silhouette of our tree, tracing the outline of its missing limbs as my father's voice grew louder. "She should know," he shouted. "Why not? She has a right to know these things so she doesn't make the same mistakes." "What mistakes? She's five-years-old, Daisuke," my mother said. "There's a time and a place for—" "What time? What place?" Then my mother murmured something. I closed my eyes, held my breath, did everything I could to hear their words, but the only noise that came after was my father's footfalls on his journey to the couch. The next day, I found my mother in the kitchen and the batch of cookies in the trash can. When questioned, she said, slowly, "I made a mistake while baking them. I wasn't careful." "Okay," I said, and decided not to tell her that I tiptoed into the kitchen during the night and ate three of them. They'd tasted fine to me, bittersweet and nutty. My mother stood at the sink, her hands submerged in the soapy water. "I think it'd be best if you didn't talk about your great-grandfather anymore, Hana," she said. "Okay?" I stared at the mound of green cookies, stacked like bodies. "Okay." After she finished washing the dishes I waited for her to broach the subject of our game, eager to hear the other permutations of my name. She didn't mention it. Not the next day, either. And after a few weeks I gave up altogether, resigning myself to be just plain old Hana. *** Years later I played the game by myself, sitting before the glow of the family desktop. I limited myself to researching one word per day, and always repeated their English definitions. By the time I was a teenager, I'd amassed hundreds of names and fanciful identities. This proved helpful when, a week after my sixteenth birthday, my father accepted a job promotion with a twist: he was to lead his company's operations in Seattle. On the plane ride to America, as the sky darkened under the wing of the 747, my father issued a litany of instructions: no drinking, no drugs, no parties. Then, before he brought his blanket up to his chin, he added, "And no other boys." He fell asleep before I could ask him to clarify "other," but his tone said it all. In this new world, any boy that wasn't like us was trouble. *** And maybe it was because he was the first person at my new school to talk to me, or maybe it was because he also spoke with a trace of an accent, but trouble found me. His name was Cliff. He drove a Ford pickup, worked part-time at a grocery store, and made C-average grades consistently. These I knew because he told me the day I transferred, as though he were in a rush to expose his imperfections before someone else had the chance. At first I rolled my eyes, pretending not to notice his glasses or his toned arms. My father's words occupied the back of my mind like an uninvited houseguest who's worn out their welcome. Cliff was certainly an "other" boy. But somewhere along the line it became another game, just like the one my mother and I used to play. He would tell me one new thing about himself every day in first period pre-calculus: that he hadn't actually read a book since second grade, that he thought vomit was tougher to mop up than blood in the grocery store, that he believed true love only came around once in a lifetime. He looked right at me when he said that last one and didn't turn away, even when the teacher shushed him. Maybe that was the moment I knew Cliff was different. Once, I'd missed the bus after school when my sixth period teacher made us stay fifteen minutes late to punish one of my classmates. When we were released, I dashed to the bus zone but found it empty except for a few seniors' cars. Sighing, I tried to calculate the how long it'd take to walk home when someone behind me honked. Cliff rolled his window down and beckoned. Against my better judgement, against my father's forewarnings, when he leaned over and popped open the passenger door, I slid in. We rolled through the streets with the windows down and the music up. Unlike the Cliff I saw in first period, the Cliff behind the wheel was overly cautious, checking his mirrors and his blind spots with the fervor of a zealot, pulling over to the side when he heard the hint of a siren behind him. "Tell me something about yourself," he said as we were waiting for the ambulance to pass. "I'm always telling you stuff about me but I feel like I don't know anything about you." I considered what I had to match his stories, said, "My mother and I used to play this game where we would form different words from my name," and I gave him a few examples with the translations. He laughed. Hanabi, he said, was his favorite. Ten minutes later, when we pulled into my neighborhood and made it to the driveway, my heart stopped. My father's car was parked in front of the garage. He was never home early. "Let's do this again sometime," Cliff said as I collected my backpack and prepared to alight from the truck. "Sure," I said, my voice more distant than intended. I turned to thank him, only to feel his lips on mine. My body tingled; my eyelids closed of their own volition. I'd never been kissed before. Cliff pulled away, a dreamy look in his eyes. "See you tomorrow?" he said. "You know where to find me." My legs wobbled as I answered, "Yeah," and closed the door behind me. He flashed a peace sign and disappeared down the street in his sputtering truck. It wasn't until I got inside that I realized what'd just happened. I took a step toward the staircase, hoping to make it to my room undetected. "Who was that?" my father called from the couch. "Come here, Hana." "It was a friend from school," I said, and swore under my breath. When I entered the living room, I noticed the blinds were ajar. He saw. He knew. "What did I tell you?" my father said, standing up. Then, louder, "What did I tell you? No other boys!" Something snapped inside me. He had no right to talk about someone he hadn't even met, someone he had no intention of getting to know. "You don't know what he's like," I shouted back. "You don't know anything. Just because he died in the bombing doesn't mean—" And I couldn't bring myself to mention my great-grandfather by name. And then it didn't matter because I recoiled, snapped back into reality by the stinging in my cheek. I felt the imprint of my father's hand before I even knew he'd moved it. "Don't tell me what I don't know," he said, right before I retreated to my room. *** It happened months later, on Independence Day. Our neighbors from across the street decided to host a block party. After months of spending her time sequestered inside the house with no flower garden or cherry blossom tree to occupy herself, my mother leaped at the invitation. She commandeered the kitchen, perfumed the house with the aroma of her matcha cookies. She filled two Tupperware tubs by late afternoon. Only when she was stuffing the mixing bowl with more dry ingredients did she realize she was missing something crucial. She called me in from my spot on the couch. "I need you to pick up some matcha powder at the store," she said. Her hair was frazzled, her apron stained with flour. "The organic kind, if you can find it." My father, who was at the dining table tucking bits of salmon into sushi rolls, scoffed. "Like they'll be able to tell the difference," he said, and placed $10 on the table. The Safeway was ten minutes away on foot. Inside, air conditioning flowed freely, putting up a barrier between the customers and the summer heatwave. The place was almost empty, except for the employees. Maybe that's why I startled in the coffee/tea aisle when I bent to grab the non-organic matcha powder and my name rang out above me. Cliff stood a few feet away. He looked like a mix between Clark Kent and Superman in his glasses and apron with the red-and-white "S" logo stitched in the middle. "Did I do something wrong?" he asked before I could stand. "If I did, I'm sorry. Really, I am." Heat bloomed in my chest, in my cheek where the memory of my father's hand lingered. Cliff still texted me occasionally whenever he saw something interesting or thought of something that might make me laugh, but I never responded. I'd stopped speaking to him in first period after that day. I told myself it was because I wanted to be careful. The words came tumbling out. "I'm sorry. It was never your fault. I just couldn't," I said, but wasn't sure where to go from there. He exhaled, releasing his balled fists. His expression was inscrutable, somewhere on the precipice of relief and skepticism. "I've been wanting to talk to you," he said. "For a while now." "I know." What else was there to say? He eyed the tea powder. "Look, are you busy tonight?" he said. "I mean, I know it's a holiday and all, but I was wondering if maybe, if you weren't doing anything, you wanted to spend it together. To catch up. I know this great place where everyone's going." The matcha box felt like an anchor in my palm. "I don't know, Cliff." His name still had an edge to it that I loved, a sharpness. He held up his hands. "Hey, no pressure. If you change your mind, I get off at ten o'clock. You know where to find me." "Okay," I said, and forced myself to move in the direction of the checkout aisle. I told myself not to look back, not to be careless. *** At 9:50, as they mingled with neighbors we'd spent the year living with but had never spoken to, I told my parents my stomach hurt. My father raised an eyebrow, but my mother, the life of the party thanks to her matcha cookies, permitted my return to the house. I closed the backyard gate behind me and continued on down the block. Cliff stood at the entrance of Safeway, still wearing his apron. Behind him the evening light was fading on the horizon. "You made it," he said with a smile. "I made it." When we got to his truck, he held my door open and waited until I buckled myself to close it. Then he piled in and backed out of the lot and we cruised down the road. Like the pavement underneath us, our conversation was rough, full of starts and stops, potholes and speed bumps. We drove with the windows down, feeling the wind in our hair and ears. We finally found our rhythm fifteen minutes later when Cliff joked about his job at "Slaveway" and how he could almost afford to buy Netflix with all the money he made. Another ten minutes later, when we arrived at the place Cliff mentioned, the place where everyone was supposed to be, it was empty save for one other car parked a good forty feet away. The place was a glorified field of grass, rampant with weeds. Insects trilled outside the window. He unbuckled himself but remained seated. "Where is everyone?" I asked. Cliff pointed vaguely to a spot beyond the windshield, cut the engine. "Wait for it." Seconds passed, then minutes. The headlights of the other car beamed for a moment then fizzled into darkness. I stared to the spot Cliff indicated but saw nothing. Before I could speak, he said, "Hey, can I ask you something?" It was dark in the car without the glow of the dashboard or any streetlights. It sounded like Cliff was looking at me when he said it, but he could've just as easily been speaking to the steering wheel. "Yeah?" "Did you ever miss me?" he asked. "I thought about you all the time, how you were doing. If I messed things up. I never knew." "Yes." But the word didn't seem strong enough. I thought that if I could explain myself, if I could let him know that I never meant for it to be like that, if I could only tell him how this all began, we'd be back to normal, back together. "My great-grandfather," I whispered for the first time in over a decade, and stopped when a burst of color spanned the length of the windshield. We watched as the sky brightened with bursts of gunpowder. Fireworks crackled to life, bathing us in light one second and shadow the next. "I missed you, Hanabi," he said. Then he dipped forward and placed his lips on mine, prying open my mouth with his tongue, and I knew where things were going. When he pulled away and yanked his apron over his head, crumpling it until the Superman-style logo vanished, I knew it then too. When he leaned over and unbuckled my seat belt, I saw things in my mind as clear as when I imagined myself and my mother pruning our cherry blossom tree together. And when he put his hand on my knee and spider-walked it up my leg, I let him, silently cursing my father for being wrong and right. Because Cliff wasn't like the other boys. But I understood too what he meant then, how things could happen when you were unprepared, how you could try to fight against them and still be helpless. Another firework arced into the sky and exploded, releasing a pinwheel of light in the shape of a chrysanthemum. Just before the sparks faded, I caught a glimpse of myself in Cliff's rearview mirror, and I wondered which version of me I was seeing then: Hana the gentle flower, or Hanabi the dazzling firework, or someone else altogether, someone not yet named.

8bjzpl

Abuela's Tamales

The streets are crowded. This is the first time I have been in my Abuela's food stall at night time. It is really busy. The streets are lit with glowing pink and yellow lanterns, and people bustle by, hoping to buy and eat some of my Abuela's famous tamales before she sells out for the night. My family's little food stall, the Especia de la Calle is crowded with people. My Mama is making the filling for the tamales in a large frying pan over an open flame, mixing the shredded chicken, beans, red chilli and pork with a large spoon until the mozzarella cheese melts in while my Abuela makes the corn-based masa dough in the biggest metal bowl I have ever seen. She is churning the lard and corn mixture with that old arm of hers, and even though she looks fragile and bony, she is still passionate about food. Papa has me sitting on a stool in the corner of the stall, trying to get me to help fold the masa dough in the soft corn husks he soaked earlier. It is confusing, so I just tie them up with string and put them on little paper plates and sprinkle them with a tomato, onion and cucumber mix. It's cold outside, but with the burning open flames from all of the stalls, the body heat of all the people and the fast movement of arms and legs in the kitchen, I'm warm. I'm actually sweating. My head trickles with sweat and I wonder for a moment how my Abuela does this every night. She wakes up at 5:00am to gather her ingredients, and sometimes I go to the market with her. Then she prepares everything and sets up the stall. Then, she cooks. I am getting hungry. The scent of tamales is making my stomach rumble. I tie a tamale up with string and place it on a plate. "Keep going, Luna. The people won't wait much longer! Do you want your Abuela's stall to keep its customers?" Papa's voice is firm. I knew he was only raising his voice because it was getting later and food was selling out, but I nodded and responded with a loud breath, "Yes, Papa." My hands are burning. The mixture from inside the corn husks is burning my fingers. My hands are red from the heat, and how quickly I am tying up the tamales with string and sprinkling them with the tomato, onion and cucumber mixture. My eyes are lazily drifting away from what I'm doing, and I just want to eat. I'm bored and hungry and I don't want to be a part of this food stall anymore. Even though it sounds dramatic, I just want to go home. This is the last batch. I tie up the string and place the tamales on a plate before sliding them onto the counter where papa takes the money from a customer. The street has quieted down now, and only few groups of people still wander around. Most stalls are packing up, ready to go home. Abuela is still making one last batch of corn dough, but I wonder who for because no one is waiting at the counter. She turns to me, her small blue eyes tired and droopy. "Well done, mi nieta ." "Thank you, Abuela," I say, passing her the bowl that was filled with the masa dough and shredded chicken. She shakes her head and puts more dough in the bowl with her big metal spoon. I sigh. She wants me to make more tamales. I take the bowl back and place a soaked corn husk on my lap, rolling the masa dough into small balls in the palms of my hands. It is hot. Abuela clicks her tongue and points at me with her wrinkly pointer finger. "Now, te haces un tamal, Luna. " 'Make a tamale for yourself, Luna' she said. I smile at her, folding the corn husk and tying it with a piece of string. She had never let me try one of her tamales. She insisted that if anyone from the family had one, it would waste the masa dough and shredded chicken. We don't have much money to buy the ingredients from the early morning market, so she insists we use everything for the customers, so we get paid more for the next day. I place the tamale on my small paper plate, and with a plastic knife and fork, I pull the corn husk back and shovel a spoonful of the tamale into my mouth, along with the tomato, onion and cucumber. It is spicy and warm, savoury, filling and delicious. The melted cheese is stringy and hot. Now I understand why so many people come to the Especia de la Calle . This is why Abuela cooks. This is why my family cooks. The food is why. Twenty years later and I'm still going. The stall is still running on the same lantern-lit street. The same customers come and order the same thing, shredded chicken tamales. The same familiar smells, the same noises, mama, papa and even my children are here. It's early in the night, and I am just setting up. I pull the safety gates aside and get out Abuela's big masa dough bowl. I scrub the benches and carry the ingredients from our house to the stall. I talk to Abuela's photo. She is still in this stall, even if she isn't really there in person. I kiss my finger and press it to her photo before I start to work. When I was thirteen, I never thought I would be doing this, and yet, here I am. Mama is making the filling in her frying pan, just like she has always done. Papa is taking orders and soaking corn husks. My cousins are washing dishes. I am making the masa corn dough with Abuela's big spoon. It is hot, and my black hair is sticking to my sweaty cheeks, but I keep going. In the corner of my eye, I see my daughter, Carmen, sitting on a stool in the corner, tying the tamales with string. The same job I had when I was her age. I put the spoon down and walk over to her, bend down on my knees and put my hands on her lap. She fake-smiles, her freckles spreading wide over her nose. "Can we go home yet, mama? Por favor," She asks, handing me one tamale on a paper plate. I shake my head and put the paper plate on the counter. "You keep tying those tamales with string. We do it for this family. I know it might seem hard and boring, but It will change your life. It really will." She rolls her big hazel eyes and I turn back to my masa dough. I keep mixing, occasionally checking back on Carmen. She is doing a better job than I ever did. Even though street food is made by poor people, in small stalls on loud crowded streets, it will change your life. It changed mine.

59f8oe

Not a Quitter, Not a Winner

TW: Themes of mental abuse "I quit", were the words that uttered out of my mouth, as I slammed my moog synthesizer on my ex boyfriend's coffee table- causing it to break it's circuit board, amongst other damages (beyond materialistic). I'm a musician, and I have been in an electro-dream pop band with my boyfriend and his mistress for the last two years. Word to the wise, never pursue music with a love interest- we've seen the outcome time and time again (a la Fleetwood Mac), yet, I didn't heed to that cautionary tale when I decided to pursue my passion of both my love of music and sex. Nope, I did the impulsive thing and joined a band with my now ex. Oh, that rhymed, heh. Milo and I, Corina, had met at a rock show. Typical, I know. It was a cliche and generic post-punk band (I forget the name) and we instantly bonded over our distaste for the mundane stage presence and even more blasé auditory components coming out of the prestigious amplifiers. Well, first we eye fucked from across the smoky albeit cigarette stench laden dive bar, and than- as if we were magnets, drunkenly hobbled to one another and started giggling like school children. I first noticed his teeth, they were stained yellow and crooked- I could tell he was insecure about them because he kept wryly smiling with his mouth closed as soon as my eyes glazed over to his lips. I personally thought they complimented his tall and lanky stature, but I wasn't about to gas him up, because he still had a smug composure... At the time, when we had met, I was a mousey and shy lass. I had choppy chestnut brown hair and thick rimmed glasses. They didn't look cute. I remember that I attempted my hand at being a fashionista by mismatching a floral print dress with some black Doc Marten boots. On paper, it sounds hip and aesthetic, but the execution was objectively terrible. I had lipstick stains on my buck teeth and horribly blended foundation on. Some would say that I looked like a new-age, progressive John Waters film character. I think that's what attracted Milo to me. I believe that he was intrigued by my blatant inability to present myself as a femme fatale, especially in comparison to the hot babes surrounding us- all doused in leather BDSM outfits, smoking their cigarettes like champs- collar bones protruding like daggers sticking out of a poor sad sacks back. After the show, we made out for a good two hours by the alley way. His breath reeked of PBR and Marlboro 100s, and I was infatuated. "Let's get out of here", he whispered in my ear, as his hands caressed my bum and made its way under my dress and into my, dare I say, granny panties. I was 19 at the time, I am 23 now- he was 32. You can do the math. I was a virgin, as well, and had never had a casual encounter like this before. I was shy, but also randy, so I obliged and walked with him a few blocks at 2 AM, over to his apartment. It was dingy, and smelled like cigarettes- much like his breath. He slept on a bed that was stained and probably glued to the floor. I was simultaneously disgusted and excited, but my arousal only grew. Here I was, 19 years old and alone with some brooding old guy, alone in his apartment. We had sex, it was really good- and about a week later I had moved out of my parents house and into Milo's dingy apartment. It was the beginning of a very tumultuous existence for me. About three months in, Milo walked in through his door, holding a clunky MOOG synthesizer and a plastic bag filled with old vinyls. He loved his record player, almost as much as he loved himself. "Here, babe, I got this for you" he muttered under his breath as he placed the synth on the coffee table. He really got it for himself, but he had a habit of buying me gifts that were actually intended for his utilization. I had never expressed an interest in playing the Synth- in fact, I had moved on from my interest in music and started pursuing interior design instead. I was even applying for grants to go to school out of state, which I am sure bothered him. "You said you needed some hobbies, right?" he continued, as he lit his fourth cigarette that day (it was 1 PM, he woke up at 11 AM). I also never even implied I needed new hobbies. "Sure", I humored him, however. "You'll love this, it's so fun babe. We can jam out together now". Milo started noodling around on the synthesizer and shooing me away when I tried to play it- I let him have his fun, and stared at him for a solid 30 minutes before he finally gave up trying to sound like Rick Wright and handing it over. "Have at it", he seemed frustrated. I grinned. Milo is a narcissist. I was a victim of narcissistic abuse and had no idea until seeking therapy years later, about a month ago. Something about narcissists, is that they are insatiable parasites. They don't care who they hurt, as long as they are getting what they want, which is usually based around their own ego. I could tell that, a few months in, I was starting to bore Milo with my own interests and passions. He needed a new supply. That's when Linda came into the picture. Oh, Linda. The typical beautiful buxom blonde that had no business being out in the real world, but more so on the cover of Playboy and only Playboy. She had no business being in my apartment, I called it my apartment because... Well, I had turned what was a crack den (aesthetically speaking), into a home. I had bought all the decor and furniture for the apartment, my job as a barista was paying for the rent and bills at that point, as Milo collected unemployment checks and spent all day watching porn and making "music" on his Peavey hunk-o-junk electric guitar. Back to Linda. Milo had met her at the local record shop, Busters. She was an employee there, I would like to say that she was vapid and had no interests- but unfortunately, she was extremely cultured and knew about everything relating to pop culture and music. She wasn't just a big tittied, pretty faced blondie. She was also very interesting, and it was slowly corroding my self esteem. Milo had brought her over to the apartment about a year into our relationship, she walked in wearing a Kraftwerk tank top and some shorts that accentuated her perky butt. Her smile was paid for, and extremely bright, it quite literally lit up the room. "Hey, babe. This is Linda, she's my new friend and our new band mate", he boasted- as if she was his girlfriend. Oh, and she was. She was his "other" girlfriend, but I didn't find that out until recently. "Oh my god!" She screeched with her shrill tone, "this apartment is so kitschy". She started touching all my action figures and collectables that I had acquired over several months, I sat there with gritted teeth. It's almost as if I was in her home and didn't want to be rude. She had the affect on people, you can tell she owned whatever room she walked into. Milo stared at her as if she was a prize trophy, and kept wafting his wispy hair. I could tell he fantasized about sleeping with her all the time. I sat in the corner as if I was chopped liver. A few hours passed, which consisted mostly of them flirting and giggling, when we finally started jamming. I was on the Synth, Milo on guitar and Linda on drums. We owned a drum kit, by the way. We sounded very good. It was frustrating. She kept coming over after that for "band practice", and every time, Milo would "walk her home" and be gone for hours. I found out he was cheating on me with her, long story short. How did I find out? It was obvious, he didn't deny it when I would bring it up. Which leads me to today, the day I "quit" my relationship and our band. It took a lot out of me to come to terms with the reality of my situation, I gave up everything for this man and he threw it away by having sex with the hot blonde girl. So, here I am, in a coffee shop at 2 AM, writing about my woes. I am not sure where I am going from here, but anything is better than going back to the nightmare that was my life with Milo.

lyhfby

Perdidos

Mamá's lost her mind again. It happened sometime last night. I know because it's Saturday morning and her station wagon is gone, and the house doesn't smell like huevos rancheros, and I woke up an hour ago to find Papá sweeping broken lamp shards off the floor. This is the third time it's happened, so we know what to do now, what to expect. Last time someone found Mamá swimming in a fountain in a park a few towns over. Papá went and got her and she was home by dinner, shivering and sneezing like a Chihuahua. Maybe that's why he doesn't call Tío Benecio to come and watch Luis and me like he did before. "You're in charge today, Hugo," Papá says from across the kitchen table. He pulls his muddy work boots as high as they'll go, tugs on the laces. When he turns my way, the sunlight from the window makes his face look tired and old, like a raisin. "You're a big boy now. The temporary man of the house. ¿ Entiendes ?" I tell him I understand. I don't mention how last week, after I tried telling my brother the truth about Santa Claus, Papá yelled and told me he'd never been that inconsiderate when he was ten. I just say yes and keep my mouth shut and listen to the sound of Luis snoring in his bedroom. "Good," he says, rising to give me a hug. When he wraps his arms around me, he smells like smoke and aftershave. "I'll be back soon with Mamá." "Okay." "Don't tell your brother what's going on. You know how he gets." He doesn't let me go until I promise not to tell Luis. Then he's headed for the door with me right behind him. Then he's starting his car and rolling down the windows and backing out of our driveway. Then he's too far away for me to see him, even though I'm still waving goodbye. *** The first time Mamá lost her mind, a year ago, our uncle thought he was doing the right thing by telling us the truth. After Papá sped off down our street spraying gravel everywhere, Tío Benicio sat Luis and me down on the sofa, stood in front of us, and told us that our mother had been spotted near a McDonald's downtown, pulling out her hair and shouting swear words at pedestrians. He told us the police had gotten involved, which is how Papá found out. " Perdida ," he said, pointing to the top of his head and spinning his finger in a circle. Then, for Luis, he said in English, "She's lost." And right after he said that Luis jumped up from his seat next to me and he went, "Then let's go find her! Let's find Mamá!" "You misunderstand," our uncle said, shaking his head. "I don't mean she's lost physically." But then Luis did that thing all five-year-olds do. He stomped his feet on the hardwood until I could feel the sofa shaking. And when that didn't work, he kept saying it louder and louder: "Let's find Mamá!" And finally, when he couldn't get me to say it with him, he cried. He dropped to the ground and banged his fists against the floor and cried. Only then did Tío Benicio give him what he wanted. He led my brother and me to the kitchen, through the door, out to where our backyard meets the woods. He told us to wait right there, by all the twisty trees and the fallen branches. He went back inside the house and returned minutes later with our puffer jackets and a set of flashlights, even though it was March, and the afternoon sky was as blue as the Cookie Monster. After zipping up Luis's baggy jacket, he said, "Let's go find Mamá." By the end of the day, I was grateful for the jackets and the flashlights, because we stayed out there until it was past dark and my skin had turned numb from the cold. Every time there was a noise—a twig breaking under our feet, a bug chirping—Luis would point his flashlight in that direction and shout "Mamá!" and we'd have to follow him because he would take off running. By then, the batteries in my flashlight were dead, and I tripped a few times and scraped my hands and knees when I tried to keep up with him. "Can we go back now?" I asked Tío Benicio after my fourth fall, showing him my sore hands. It was the first time I'd spoken since we went looking for Mamá. "I need some Band-Aids." In the glow of the moonlight and his flashlight, my uncle gave me a look that I'd seen too often on my father's face. It was the "please-let-your-brother-win" look. So I did that thing all nine-and-a-half-year-olds do. I told him it was okay, that I would go back to the house by myself, alone, in the dark. Tío Benicio made another face, only this time it was like he just ate a lemon. He sighed. "It's getting late, Luis," he shouted into the darkness. "Let's head back now. We can order some pizza." Luis complained that we hadn't found Mamá yet, but his hunger won that fight. He let our uncle take his hand and guide us back home. And there she was, waiting for us on the sofa. A patch of hair was missing from the side of her head and her clothes looked wet, but it was Mamá. Luis shouted her name. Papá took one look at us—at our dirty clothes and faces, our scratched bodies—and made a funny face of his own. "Would you look at that!" Tío Benicio said. He glanced at the room like he'd never seen it before, looking everywhere but at Papá. "There she was this whole time. She was probably looking for us while we were out looking for her." But even back then, when Papá asked to speak with Tío Benicio alone in the kitchen, when Mamá stood and scooped Luis and me in her bony arms, I doubted my uncle's words. *** The Saturday morning cartoons are finished by the time Luis stumbles out of his bedroom. We eat cheese quesadillas for lunch. It's the only thing Mamá's taught me how to cook. Luis says his taste too buttery, but he still inhales both of them before I'm done with one of mine. With his mouth half-full, he asks where Mamá and Papá are. "They went over to see Tío Benicio and Tía Abriella," I say, pleased with how natural the words sound. I've been practicing them under my breath for the past hour. "They should be back in a few hours." Luis closes his mouth, gulps his food, and looks at me like I just grew a second head. We've never been alone in the house together, just the two of us. I'm hoping he doesn't realize that. I haven't come up with any more lies yet. "Well," he finally says, "can we watch some TV?" We spend the rest of the afternoon watching Nickelodeon game shows, rooting for the families that look the most like us to win. They never do. After the sixth episode in a row where our favorite family loses, Luis starts to whine, so I open the VHS storage cabinet and let him pick a movie to watch. He chooses the same one as always, some dumb movie about an elephant who can fly. I've never been able to focus on it to understand why or how that's possible, and that doesn't change today, but it keeps my brother from asking questions. It's almost seven o'clock when the elephant movie ends, and all the sunlight is gone outside. The house is silent. Before I can distract him, Luis asks, "Aren't they supposed to be home by now?" "Who?" I say, and look at the dirt underneath my fingernails, nice and calm-like. "Mamá and Papá," he replies. "You said they'd be home in a few hours. But that was at lunchtime." "Maybe they're watching a movie too." Luis stares at me like he did when I told him about Santa, like maybe what I'm saying is true or maybe I'm just being mean and pulling his leg. "Well, I'm hungry," he says, and his stomach rumbles at that moment as if to prove his point. "I wanna eat dinner." "Okay," I say, and head to the kitchen. "Fine." I'm getting ready to wash the quesadilla skillet when Luis tells me to stop. "I don't want quesadillas again," he says. "I want hot dogs." "We don't have hot dogs." "Yes, we do," he says. He opens the fridge, bends down, and snaps back up with a package of hot dogs in his right hand. "See?" "Well, I don't want those," I say. "I want quesadillas again." "No. You don't make them right. Mamá's are way better." I can feel something in me starting to slide away as I grip the skillet tighter and start washing it. "Mamá's not here right now," I tell him. The words come out meaner than I meant. "Okay, well, she'll be back soon," he says. "If you won't do it, I'll just wait until she's here to make me some hot dogs." "You're gonna be waiting a while then," I say. And before I can stop myself, before I can remember the promise I made to Papá, I add, "Because she's lost again." At the same time that I finish washing the quesadilla skillet, Luis drops the package of hot dogs. They hit the floor with a soggy thud. Then they skitter over to my side of the kitchen when Luis kicks them while running out of the room. "We have to look for her!" he shouts. I can hear him opening the hallway closet, swiping the coats and jackets while trying to reach the flashlights on the top shelf. "We have to find Mamá." "No." The hallway noises die down. "We have to, Hugo. She's lost." "Papá left me in charge, and I say we're not doing that. It's too late and too dark out. He left to go get her anyway. They should be back soon." Luis's feet shuffle across the floor and he pokes his head into the kitchen again. "But that's how it was last time. You heard what Tío Benicio said. She only came back because we were looking for her." "No, she only came back because Papá brought her back." "That's not true." But even Luis doesn't sound like he believes what he's saying. "That's not what Tío Benicio told us." "It is true," I say. "She wasn't looking for us. She doesn't even care about us." It isn't until the words are out of my mouth that I wonder why I said them, whether I actually believe that or if it's me getting caught in the moment. But now that they're out, I can't take them back, and as the big brother, I can't back down either. "She doesn't care," I say, because it's like when I was telling him the truth about Santa Claus: now that I'm going I can't stop. "That's why she keeps losing her mind. She wants to leave us but Papá keeps going after her. He won't let her leave. She doesn't care about us anymore." When my brother makes a face, it's like nothing I've seen from Papá or Tío Benicio. His lips go into his mouth, and his eyes seem to stare at everything and nothing at all, and his shoulders get all droopy until they look like that flying elephant's ears. Then the only sound in the house is Luis dragging his feet against the hardwood. And then the only sound is the slamming of his bedroom door. I stand at the sink, the skillet feeling light as a pencil in my hand. Moonlight shines through the kitchen window and hits the center of the pan, and I think I can see my reflection in it. Before I can tell for certain, the house phone rings. "Change of plans, Hugo," Papá says after I answer. "It's going to take a little longer than I thought to bring Mamá home. It won't be tonight. The police," he starts, but all that comes through the line is his breathing and the faraway sound of other people's voices in the background. "Okay," I say, because it's the only thing I can think of at the moment. Because I don't want Papá to think that I can't handle this responsibility. "We're fine here." "Maybe tomorrow," he says. "Monday at the latest. We're working on it." "Okay." "You can call Tío Benicio if you two need anything," he reminds me. "You know his number, don't you?" "Yes," I lie. "Good." And before the line goes quiet and the dial tone comes, he says, "We'll see you two soon." They're the last words I hear before I go to bed. *** The squeaky floorboards wake me. I'm thinking I must've dreamed it and I'm trying to go back to sleep, but then comes the unmistakable sound of a zipper, followed by more floorboards groaning, and finally the rattle of a window opening. It's completely dark in my room and I'm still rubbing the dreams from my eyes, but I have an idea of what's going on. Forcing myself to get up and walk to the kitchen, I lift the one of the window blinds just in time. Through the gap I can see the shadow of my brother in the backyard, painted in moonlight and flashlight. He's got on his polar bear pajamas and his oversized puffer jacket zipped all the way up. His flashlight moves everywhere: the trees, the ground, the woods in front of him. He looks over his shoulder once, stares at the house for a few seconds, then disappears into the darkness of the woods. He's going to look for Mamá when I told him not to. That thing in me earlier, that sliding feeling, is back. And now I can feel something else snapping, getting loose. The sleepiness is gone. I'm fully awake now, fully aware of my body, in control of my hands as they push open the door to Luis's dark bedroom, shutting and locking his window. Then I make my way to the front door and lock that too. I don't stop until all the entrances are locked, until there's no way back inside the house. Only then do I return to my bed and wait. I won't sleep until I hear it. Eventually, it happens. The front doorknob breaks the silence of the house. It clanks and jiggles under the weight of my brother's hand. Once, twice, again. The noise stops. Then his hands are against his bedroom window as he struggles to open it. His hands smack the glass in a panic. And then they're against my window. Quiet at first, but then the sound of his knuckles hitting the glass echoes in the night. I don't move. I imagine that when he gets tired enough, he'll go to the front porch where we've got a porch swing with a cushion and sleep there for the night. It's not so bad outside—definitely warm enough to sleep a few more hours with the clothes he's got on. Still, Luis keeps knocking on my window, and I pretend I'm asleep so long I actually end up that way. *** This time when I wake up, it's because of a car door slamming. I'm not expecting much, but I tell myself that it might be Mamá and Papá. And when I get to the living room window and pull back the curtains, that's exactly who I find parked by the sidewalk. Papá is at the wheel of his Jeep and Mamá is beside him. All her hair is gone this time, and her clothes look like hand-me-downs, but it's her. Papá did it. He brought her back. "Luis, wake up!" I shout, my voice clogged with sleep. "They're home!" My words bounce off the walls, the sofa, the fireplace. There's no reply. The house is completely still, so I decide to wake him up myself. Luis's bedroom is cold. I push the lump under his covers, then pull them back. In his place are his stuffed animals, the koala and the giraffe and the bear and the monkey, all squished together to resemble a six-year-old's body. I flinch. It takes me a moment to remember what happened last night, but when I do, I rush to the front porch to wake him. He isn't there either. They're both out of the Jeep now, coming closer. They take each step together. Papá's got his arm locked around Mamá's, like if he lets go even for a second, she might float away like a balloon. "We're back," Papá says with a smile. "I'm sorry we couldn't get here sooner." "Hi, Mamá," I say, but I don't recognize my own voice. It's scratchy and sounds too high to be mine. Mamá greets me, holds me tighter than she ever has, and in that moment, I know more than ever that what I told Luis last night was a lie. She does care. Papá uses his free arm to check his watch. "Geez, is your brother still sleeping in there? It's almost eleven." That sliding feeling is back again. I say nothing as they walk past me into our quiet home. Because right now, looking at them, looking at Mamá, I also know, more than ever before, that there's so much more than just your mind that can be lost.

twb477

My favorite part of the week

Ten minutes to gunshots. “I am the dead end for food,” I said as I shoved another piece of celery into my mouth. “I’ll never be as notorious as her, but I’ve at least I have all the celery I want.” I nodded toward my sort-of rival. “Feeling gloomy today?” Rachel asked. Our lunch room wasn’t the raucous kind. Sure, it was a public school, but we weren’t barbarians. Angie was putting down her tray next to the choir kids this week. I am a great observer. She rarely ate three meals in a row with the same group of kids. I wondered if that was what made her so well connected in the school. Beauty and brains probably helped. “Not gloomy. Just ready for this experiment to end. I’ve done my three months of celery and other green foods. There has been no change at all in the way I feel, the size I see in the mirror, my ability to concentrate, nothing.” Rachel made a sympathetic noise, and dragged a tater tot through her swamp of ketchup. The other two showed up. We could count on each other, our little group. The funny ones. The smart ones. The ladies who probably wouldn’t ever have a date in high school. Even Angie stopped by our table for the occasional lunch, so we weren’t absolute misfits. OCD Maya make sure her chair and her tray made perfect 90° angle alignment before sitting down. Shakirra flipped her long hair extensions out of the way as she collapsed in a heap of jangling bracelets and too many bags. I wasn’t the only one who thought it was hilarious these two were besties. Angie had mentioned it to me only last week. “The class rankings out for the quarter?” Maya asked innocently. I stared at my floral lunch bag And tried to look unobtrusive. The results were always predictable. Since middle school, anyway. “I checked this morning,” Rachel said, giving me a casual whack on the arm. “First and second, as always. Angie and this woman.” Three minutes to gunshots. Shakirra had to pluck a hair extension from across her tray before eating. It was time to refresh those things. They tended to loosen up over time. I hope she picked teal again soon. She said, “Why does anybody even check anymore?” My friends knew it would take a long time before I stopped blushing, and my celery wasn’t sliding back down my throat the way I hoped. I hadn’t looked up since the conversation started. Rachel wanted to know, “Does Mike even make it into the top five anymore?” That made me blush even harder. I had to stand up for him, though. “This year hasn’t been the best one, since his mother died. He’s always in the top 10, but he takes care of his siblings a lot.“ Mike had been my best friend since preschool. We had a comfortable relationship, although his new-found height, his gentleness, and his increasingly chiselled facial features gave me all kinds of romantic confusion. Being his incredibly lumpy friend, there would never be anything more than easy joking between us — unless joint study counted as romance. It was like a dagger twisting in my side every time I saw the way he looked at Angie. Maya had her food arranged to her satisfaction, and had cleared her mouth of the first bite. She wiped her mouth with a crisply creased napkin. “Well, we all know the only person who is going to maintain a 4.0 for the entire four years of high school is Tam, here. Mike could still pull out a top five position, though. That’s good for scholarships.” “The only reason Angie is ever listed before Tam. is that her last name appears earlier in the alphabet,” Rachel observed. One minute to gunshots. It was only the end of the junior year, and all of us had time — we could redeem ourselves or totally blow it. I wondered to how much more blood could be shoved into my skin, rather than my brain or other organs. It felt like my face throbbed with the effort of all that blushing. Rachel must’ve noticed how uncomfortable I was getting. She changed the subject to the new girls’ choice dance. We were all pretty secure in two things. One, our academic records would remain the highest in the school — maybe for years to come. Two, none of us would go to the dance, because nobody would say yes even if we asked. Shakirra might have all those hair extensions, but she was just downright ugly. We all knew it, but we never said it. I was, putting it bluntly, obese. Maya with her OCD would never be able to handle the unpredictability of a dance; and she could only be considered “plain” anyway. Rachel, the most socially astute of us, had no confidence with guys, and her physical averageness wasn’t redeemed by anything except her brain. Talking about a dance was a safe zone for everyone, since there would never be any jealousy. Ten seconds. Mike usually studied through the lunch hour, but today he was headed towards us with his tray. My heart lifted. The small click followed by static meant the announcement system was coming on. I had never experienced it on “turbo mode.” Didn’t even know turbo existed. Apparently, the administration must’ve had it installed only for emergencies. I may have allowed my adoration to show as Mike was approaching, and I’m glad that his was the face I saw as the announcement boomed across the lunchroom conversations. The only word in my brain — and I couldn’t dislodge it — was “beloved.” WE ARE IN LOCKDOWN. SHELTER IN PLACE. The noise of gunfire, magnified by the new super loud announcement, underscored the words. A small cry, and then silence where the final things we heard from the office. The school communication center was being obliterated. We heard the sound of distant bullets, as that particular room continued under assault. In the next moment, Mike’s eyes hardened, still connected with mine. He set his tray on the nearest table, and pointed to me and then swept his arm toward the door, instructing me to crouch away from any windows. The lunchroom was oddly silent and still, with kids still in shock. This was obviously not a drill. Mike’s voice carried authority through the stillness of the room, “We’ve drilled this since elementary school. Crouch near the doors and turn off the lights.” . . . and that was the last voice we heard speaking in a normal tone for the next hour. It was strange to see student body officers, and athletes, and even adult lunch workers following Mike’s instructions calmly. It wasn’t until the automatic bell system rang the end of lunch hour that I realised Mike wasn’t in our clustered group near the door. Was there one shooter, or more? Bombs involved? Were there chemical weapons involved? Schools were such easy targets. Lots of underdeveloped, frightened people. Where did my friend Mike go? Would we all live through this? Maya tried to control her breathing. I helped her sense of order by silently arranging people in neat rows around her. I rubbed her back, listening to the breathing go from a hyperventilating panic to a shallow draw as close to death as anyone would want to get. Shakirrah gripped Maya’s hand tightly. Rachel seemed ready to spring up, like her cat getting ready to escape a bath. I knew I had to do more for that friend, and everybody else here, too. With a whisper as loud as I dared, I told everyone, “There is a possibility the violence will come closer. No matter what, our best strategy is to stay right where we are. There is nothing more tantalising to a predator than seeing running shapes.“ A shudder seemed to ripple through the room. I continued, “I will only say two things, then we must all go back to quiet. Soothe the people around you. Keep in your head a calm image that will help you stay silent during gunfire. There will be held at the end of this.” The shudder from before turned into a great wave of serenity. That was actually three things I told them. I figured only Maya and me would get hung up on that fact. Where did those words come from? I felt my own heart beating less painfully. I breathed long and deep breaths, and though the sound of my breathing was next to nill, people around me must have heard, and synchronised with my cadence. After the main office, the library and lunch room — at this time of day — would be that easy targets. Although I knew that intellectually, the deep breathing give me a detached feeling regarding even my own peril. Even when the gunshots came closer, the sense of calm remained throughout the lunch room. The backpacks, trays, and chairs had been left in disarray, and a door to the exterior of the school was intentionally left open. We all knew that driveway was for food deliveries, and the gate remained locked during school hours. It would be a trap to have gone that way, but we hoped our attackers did not know that. Sprays of intermittent bullets resounded through the empty hallways. There was a gentle ramp leading down to the lunchroom. Floor-to-ceiling windows shattered as the bullets hit those glass partitions. At the corner of the lunchroom, the bullets plunked into low areas of the walls. These shooters must have had the same drills in elementary school that we had. They knew if anybody was sheltering in place they would be on the ground near the front doors. Block construction below the windows saved most of us. The bullets sprayed again and again into the walls. The rattling of the doors somebody try to open them nearly broke our calm, but people were actively soothing each other in whatever way they knew how. Gentle touch, a locked gaze into another’s eyes, even mild humming. It certainly couldn’t be heard over the sound of gunfire, but it could be heard by a person right next to the one humming. I was positioned too close to the door. I felt a plasma-hot spear of pain in my thigh as a bullet entered and left, it lodged in my opposite ankle. With a sharp intake of breath, I resisted the urge to cry out. My three closest friends reached out for me. I grabbed one of the nearest hands, and clenched my teeth. As I looked around, frightened eyes turned in my direction, wondering if this was the end for all of us. My eyes met Angie‘s. Too many wisps of blond hair fell across her face. This wasn’t just a beautiful effect any blonde girl knows. She was in pain. I saw the tight face, looking almost like a smile, but realised it was a grimace. Then I saw blood seeping from the place where her hand clenched on her stomach. That wound was more serious than mine. With my free hand I gestured to the two people on either side to help her. Somebody applied direct pressure to my leg and ankle. It must’ve been more than one person helping me. I often wish I knew who to thank. Three other students in our cluster with wounded, but superficially. A huge banging of the outside doors at the end of our hallway announced the arrival of the police. My eyes never left Angie‘s. But both of us found it harder and harder to keep those eyes open. Then, there was gunfire in two directions, but no longer into our sheltering group. As my eyes closed, I prayed that none of the police would be killed. ————- We are safe. Not well, but safe. Guess who my roommate is in the hospital? Obviously, Angie. We’ll both live. We’ve both seen so many doctors, we now can’t remember the specialties, their names, or really, even the faces. Grief counsellors, and trauma counsellors, and counsellors who just don’t have any other jobs to do pestered everybody on this floor until we thought about holding a protest against therapy. I even began a petition, sort of as a joke. “We, the undersigned, want to be able to sleep, not talk about trauma.” We got more signatures than there were beds on the floor. Family members and nurses signed for me. We posted it on the exterior door to the ward. getting shot wasn’t my favorite part of the week. Being awake for the best visitor of all wasn’t even my favorite part of the week. Mike hurried into the room with a huge bouquet of flowers, and three helium balloons. He had a teddy bear tucked under his elbow, and a card clutched in the hand holding the balloons. He looked distracted, and a little unkempt. “I haven’t been sleeping since I heard you were in the hospital, and they haven’t let me come see you.“ I glance over at my roommate, assuming that is who he has come to see. “Oh, hi, Angie,“ he says. “You’ve also got shot?“ She doesn’t have time to answer, because the idiot turns straight back to me. “These are for you, Tam. But if it’s okay, can I give one of your flowers to Angie, too?” Maybe I’m not the type of girl anybody wants to date. But at least my friend Mike thinks I’m important. That, right there, is my favorite part of the week.

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Trail Angel

I took the headlamp off and whacked it against my thigh, cursing under my breath as the light flickered again before fading out completely. At least I had already placed the bear cannister at least fifty yards away from the tent and made it back into the tent before the light died. After fumbling around on the floor of the tent for my cell phone, I hit the side button and was surprised to see it was already 9:15pm. Knowing I still had two full days on the trail and couldn’t waste my cell phone, I reluctantly powered it off. For at least the fifth time that day, I questioned if I was capable of finishing what I had set out to do that weekend. Earlier, six miles into my forty-mile hike on the Timberline Trail around Mount Hood, I had stopped to chat with a day hiker, feeling smugly superior with my brand-new backpack towering above my head. As I walked away from him, he called out to me to make sure I knew the Timberline Trail was to the left after the next curve, and not the left I had just taken. Of course, I pretended I had intentionally gone off the trail to pee, as my ears burned with embarrassment. Less than two miles later, I had almost slipped into ice cold water after stepping on a loose rock while crossing the Sandy River. Even if I didn’t finish the loop, I was at least proud of myself for making it to Ramona Falls, my planned stop for the first night, with enough daylight left to set up my tent. Wiggling into my sleeping back, my tense, tired muscles started to relax, and I reflected on how I had ended up out here in the woods. It started when Bowdoin College connected the incoming freshman with their dorm roommates in early July. Mine was a girl named Ava from Vermont who had talked about the backpacking and kayaking trips she had planned for the summer. On a whim, I had mentioned the Timberline Trail to her in a text message, and therefor unwittingly committed myself to actually doing it. I had lived in Oregon, one of the most beautiful states in the country, for my whole life but had only been camping once or twice with my father and younger brothers, and then twice in the last year with a big coed group of friends to escape parental oversight.  Even though this was by far my most wholesome camping trip, I had lied to my parents, saying I had a soccer retreat, because they never would have let me out into the wilderness alone.  My best friend Kayla was my emergency contact, and the only person who knew what I was doing. Although I didn’t remember drifting off to sleep, I suddenly jolted awake when I heard the rustling of a large creature approaching. The bear spray was in my backpack, and I was petrified with fear, unable to reach for the pack at the foot of my sleeping bag. Instead, I rapidly cycled through the list of scented items I was carrying and whether I had remembered to put them in the bear-proof cannister away from the tent, or whether I may have kept one close to me as unintentional bear bait. I expected the rustling continue moving away from my tent but it didn’t, the noise instead changed timber and continued, sounding like it was only a few feet away. When I thought I saw a shadow looming, I couldn’t stand the uncertainty and unzipped the edge of the tent door. The evening clouds had dissipated and the nearly full moon was bright and clear. A scoff of relief escaped when I saw the source of the noise – a petite woman with a perky ponytail in hiking shorts and a sleeveless shirt laying out a sleeping bag in the clearing. Not a bear, or a cougar, or a serial killer. A wave of relief crashed over me as the adrenaline filtered from my bloodstream. Looking up, she said, “Oh damn I’m sorry, I saw your tent and was trying to be quiet.” I realized how creepy I must have looked peeking out of the edge of the tent door to stare at her so I unzipped it enough to fold my legs out. “Oh no it’s ok, I’m just really happy you’re not a bear. Or a murder,” I said sheepishly. The pitch of her laugh nearly blended with the tinkling of the nearby waterfall. “Nope, neither of those things.” She started setting up a small camp stove and pouring water into the top. “Now that I woke you up, want to keep me company while I make dinner?” I nodded. I was still pulsing with relief that she was not a threat, and it didn’t even cross my mind that my whole motivation to do this trip was to prove to myself that I could do something hard independently, not to make new friends. She introduced herself as Luna, her “trail name”, and even though I hadn’t yet done any long-haul backpacking or earned my own trail name, I instinctively knew better than to brush this off or ask for her real name.  We settled into an easy rhythm of conversation as I sat perched on a rock and she sat on her heels in the cool dirt, eating an identifiable rehydrated food-like substance out of a foil pouch. We chatted about my first day on the Timberline Trail, and her disappointment that the Timberline Lodge brunch buffet – a legendary feast among Pacific Crest Trail through hikers - had been another casualty of COVID. When she made a comment about missing fresh fruit the most, I realized I had a Ziploc bag of grapes in my food cannister. “Can I borrow your headlamp?” I asked. “The battery on mine died and I’m trying to save my cell phone battery.” Luna passed it over to me and I scampered to the bear cannister and retrieved the grapes, presenting them to her triumphantly. Her eyes widened like a kindergartener being presented with an ice cream cone. “Are you sure?” she exclaimed. “These look so good!” “All yours,” I replied. “You are a Trail Angel,” she said, playfully bowing to me. We spent another half an hour sitting in the clearing next to the waterfall as she told me about her adventures on the trail in California – the snowfall in the Sierras, the sketchy river crossings, the days of chocking wildfire smoke. Finally, we both admitted to getting sleepy, and she lay down on her sleeping bag out in the open while I zipped myself back into the false security of my tent to toss and turn on the thin foam sleeping pad until I fell asleep. The next morning I woke up stiff, sore, and sweaty on top of my sleeping bag. I yawned and stretched before unzipping the tent door. Disappointed to see that Luna was gone, my eyes caught a glint of silver directly in front of the opening. There were three AAA batteries, exactly what my headlight needed.

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Off the beaten track

During my childhood, nothing was bigger than my Dad’s footsteps. Everything seemed to shrink compared to it. His feet, often clad in the same woolie-socks all year around (even during summer, encased inside his enormous sandals), were no match for the other Moms and Dads at the soccer-practice or at parent meetings. You could always see which pair of shoes stuck out. They looked like something the gargantuan cats Hogne and Tovner, known for carrying the Norse goddess Freya, had dragged in. And I mean, his feet were a considerable, European size 46, but in my mind it was bigger than lorry-wheels, logs or barn-doors. My dad’s footsteps metaphorically dwarfed the moon and the sun. I was twelve, it was winter, mid-winter even, and what I gazed upon in the setting semi-darkness was my Dad’s enormous foot-steps in the snow. Magnified by the snow-shoes he insisted on wearing (in some concocted contraption he even wore them ON TOP OF his ski-boots, still strapped to his long-distance skiis), the strange footsteps bathed in fluorescent magenta-blue twilight like puddles of spat-out-Slushie and sort of kind of formed my destiny. He had already entered the silent-treatment-mode, which he usually reserved for really drawn-out days (he could literally go days without speaking) when I had been “giving him lip” for long. But this day, I had done nothing I could think of to deserve his gawking, wounded silence. He stared back at me, daggers from hell, and just nodded in the direction of the forest clearing ahead of us. You come, now, boy, and may Odin have mercy on you and the Fenris wolf devour you if you don’t keep up . My Dad sat off into the woods. I was alone in the cold and the dark, and we were miles from our cabin. No help came from the Gods. I had to keep up. I made myself steel, and started to push, push and push with my ski poles deep into the several decimeter deep snowy ground around me. I had to go fast to keep up. Could I go fast enough? Or would he just speed ahead? Join us in the next episode of Arvidas anxious-ambivalent-attachment-childhood. * He wasn’t always like that, my Dad. My Old Man. My Beloved Father. I had a hard time saying any of those epitets out loud in those days. To me, he was just an impersonal Peter. Peter, his Christian name given to him by one Göran and one Anna Johnson. Nothing special about Peter Johnson, except the outdated job-description of “lumberjack” and his hurt, sullen way. He did not find the song “I’m a lumberjack and I’m ok” funny. His idea of making an effort kitchen-wise was to heat up Heinz Baked Beans, boil a few potatoes AND to heat up some Bullen’s Pilsnerkorv. Whenever Eurovision appeared on TV, he’d change the channel. Just a gang of fucking faggots . Whenever Allsång på Skansen or some Saturday night-show would appear on TV, he’d change the channel. False fucking Stockholm-Liberaces, the bunch of them . The things he would call “gay” as in bad, never ceased. Too long line at ICA, gay . Traffic jam, gay . His boss giving him a hard time, f ucking faggot . Made you think he’d closeted so much and so long that he saw everything in a hate-rainbow-filter. He called all music made past 1890 “noice” and had to turn off even the classical music channel when something too jolly came on the radio because it “hurt his ears”. No, he was not into what you would call “Arts”. Or crafts. Except anything wooden or metal, thing he could shape and mold with his bare hands. He rarely used gloves, that “was for pussies” and even in winter, even when doing the dishes, even when carving wood with sharp tools, his hands would swell up, go blue and cold and/or obtain a patchwork of blisters and bruises, all in vain because all strapping a pair of gloves on top of his weathered hands would do was to protect them. But that’s a metaphor for Peter Holger Sture Johnson. He would go around and get all kind of hurt, but never admit it, hiding it so hard his fists would go white, thinking that it wouldn’t show. Guess what, it showed! Fucking showed all the time. I would have divorced him if I’d been in a consensual relationship with him. But I was twelve, raised a boy (and once a boy, always a boy as he would life-sentence me), and well, depended on him. And as the cliché goes, since Mum passed, he was all I had. And I was all he had. At least he didn’t drink * Still no Gods reaching down from the darkening skies (Norse, Christian or other) as I started out that December afternoon. No sign of my Old Man (he was like some character out of a Nordic fairy-tale this day, The Watcher of The Woods, The Keeper of The Trees, the Olden One on this haunted day), he had scurried like a frantic moose into the forest, beyond the clearing and into the sweltering army of blackened pines and firs that stood its ground. I, like a marbled statue chiseled out of thin winter-air, clad in my armor consisting of my Fjällräven-jacket, cheap gloves, duct tape-infested coveralls, my skis and my ski shoes, just stood there. For a couple of minutes. I guess I was stupefied by the pure danger of the situation. He had been a drama-queen before. Several times. When it was just us, when we were with folks from our extended family, even with teachers. He had stormed off in social gatherings when he, quote “couldn’t take it no more!” (i.e., when someone disagreed with him and wouldn’t change their mind despite numerous attempts by him to persuade the counterpart) and left someone (usually a woman) to clean up the social mess he’d made. He had made threats to leave, my, our home, places we were at, and sometimes done it, but up until now, he had always come back. Never apologizing, but silently returning in itself being the ghost of a shadow of an apologizing gesture. But this time, he wouldn’t return. I could just feel it. Also: this time, our destination was a lonesome cabin which we’d just arrived to the same morning several kilometers away, this time the quicksilver in the thermometer showed 15 minus Celsius at noon and were steadily declining from there, this time a creeping darkness laid siege to the landscape. This time, it was for real. And I knew, that the reason he had ran away (because that is what had happened, a twelve-year old had frightened a 37-year-old person away), was the last thing that I shouted in our argument. It was one of those arguments who meanders into a swamp of everything, where the combatants by way of scorched-earth-tactics make sure that every stone that might hurt gets turned over, exposing every little crevice, minor fault and feeble little wood-louse crawling underneath said rock. I had shouted the one thing I know he could not argue against, because I was right, he was wrong and deep down, he knew. My shout had been: I’m not your little BOY! I’m a GIRL, I TOLD YOU so many times and you KNOW it! * To know Peter Johnson, you’d have to go back in time, to when his father many times a month beat him with a carpet whip. Sometimes for “being a sissy”, other times it was him “making a mischief” or taking too long (or too short!) doing something. If you did it too fast, no matter how thoroughly, you didn’t “do it properly”, you see. So more times often than not, Old Peter, which was then Young Peter, would see his father with a dead object in his hand, ready for action. His father was a stay-at-home-dad, but not in a good way. This was back in the sixties, (man!), but no progressive winds had blown through the mexi-tile house of the Johnsons. When Peter pleaded to reason, i.e. screamed that it was illegal to hit children, his father would just shrug it off, like he shrugged most things off. Or rather, turned them off. The feelings, that is, except raw anger which had helped him fight his way through his rough childhood. So the equation goes, Peter mad because his father talked to him through a braided tool used to beat on woolen furniture, Holger mad because he’d grown up in abject poverty with eight siblings with six that lived past the age of eleven, and his dad Sture mad because he grew up one of the last “statare”-generation, being sold a child slave in some Småland market in the early 1900’s. And well, earlier on, even more things to be mad about, I guess, in the booze-oozing backtracking of our drunken family tree with farmers, farmers and more farmers, all the way back to when Gustav Vasa, celebrated on the 6 th of June with waving flags and balloons, used to kill, torture and maim people in their neck of the woods for hosting rebels, being Catholics or some other mischief. So: a lot of anger coursing through our veins. But anger was my fiercest companion that day in the forest. * When I knew in my heart he wasn’t coming back, and also when my whole body started to massively shiver, I started off, pushing myself forward with my ski-poles. I went off the beaten track, leaving my Daddy’s footsteps and taking another route through the thick walls of firs and pines, determined to make my own way through the mass of trees. In the moment, I couldn’t decide whether it was a) a deliberate and subsconcious way of taking a short-cut, trying to beat him to the cabin b) a tweenie little rebellious move just taking whatever track he was NOT taking or c) an actual death-wish (screw you BUP! screw you social services and special-teachers!). It could, even, be a little from every one of those columns. But I mostly remember rage. A flaming rage, with a tint of fear of the unknown, is what I remember from those dark hours. And I remember, I don’t know if it was a pure hallucination, some reflection from the dying winter sun or my imagination conjuring up images to keep me going, but I thought I saw the rainbow above the pine-trees and the fir-rows. All of its colours bleeding out into the darkening heaven, knowing all, including all, seing all. When you think of it like that, it was kind of a religious experience. But without salvation, God, apparitions, Damascus lighting or epiphanies. Just little old med jotting through a soon-to-be-pitchblack forest. But boy, how that little trans-girl could ski. I jolted, bolted, crashed and burned through that forest like I was setting a record for Swedish long-distance skiing. I never took the time, but I bet I could have at least reached a top five, competing with my own age and my district. Oh my, is this how stories your uncle keeps going on about the potential and the star quality of his youth? About how he could have been champion of the world, European champion or at least win SM in some sport you could never even picture him in? Well, add me to the pantheon of old folks dwelling on their youth, then. But I swear, if someone had taken time, and considering the terrain, my previous experience (not that much at all, really) and my shitty equipment, well you’d say, that boy is gonna go far. Except that I wasn’t a boy, and that I never got that far in life. In skiing anyway. * All this digressing is perhaps my way of saying: I don’t remember much about that March for Freedom, that Long March that got me into a shivering state of coldness, got me a couple of bruises and burns but also laid a founding stone in my personality, symbolized my life and journey as an independent person and marked a step away from the moody tyrant that was my Old Man at the time. It took me off the beaten track, created my own set of unique footprints in the snow, and guess what? I beat my dad to the cabin. That was almost the most surprising thing about the whole ordeal. My little enterprise of stepping sideways had paid off. I had beaten my invincible Lord and Master. He’d never let me win anything, let you let children win. To this date I had zero wins in the honorable games such as Backgammon, chess, Fia-with-a-push, ping-pong, Stiga-hockey etcetera. I won none of all types of running contests, swimming competitions and tennis games between us. He just couldn’t take a L, as you say. But the thing is, when I saw him coming (round’ the mountain, actually) towards the cabin, puffing and panting, screaming and swearing, crying and cussing, he was defeated . Haunted as a hound, tail between its legs, ears drooping to the ground. Defeated. And at that moment it struck me: that’s a part of him that always showed. A defeatist attitude against the injustices in life which he used as an armour and shield, and which, to me in my new enlightenment, was all too easy to see through. He should have looked at a scared little boy when he saw me. But instead, it was I who looked unto a scared little boy, all the way into his soul. * Beyond this, it goes into the private. We have the right to a private life according to the Swedish basic law. I won’t share exactly what was spoken those minutes, whose tears fell when a certain line was uttered, whose frozen beard made a pillow for me to rest my weary head upon, who felt like a three year old watching some children play with more colorful toys, wishing he could play with those as well, a five year old watching the teacher moving her mouth yelling that apparently, that type of bathroom wasn’t meant for him and it was very naughty of him to try it out anyway, a seven year old wrestling his angry way out of the mock-police uniform he’d gotten as a birthday present, “ruining the party” because he wouldn’t try it on… I won’t bore you with that. But I will say, that when my Dad for the first time spoke the words “I love you” and at the same time called my by my right name, it was a internal ice release that is still happening, still murmuring it’s clarion call among the murky, icy waters in there and that I’m still figuring out. What a difference an offpist-range in the forest, a pair of skis and a willpower, a rainbow… and a name, makes.

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Noisy Neighbors

To say that the noisy neighbors were next door, with loud arguments between a wife and her husband about one thing or another, was an overstatement. They did that of course from time to time, with pots and pans clanging, screaming and the like; but it was we who were the noisy neighbors. The four of us were living in an off-campus apartment with cheap furniture, cheap beer cans every where and a more or less constant party, if one could call it that. A party in those days was where everyone was supposed to have fun dancing and getting laid by some beautiful co-ed. None of that happened, at least as far as I can remember. And by looking at a picture of the four of us, one could understand why. Rob Roy Cheek was our leader in a way, and was what later became known as a beatnik. He would have said that he wasn’t, but then Rob didn’t like terms made up by media people trying to categorize others. What Rob did like was wearing his old beat up red cossack hat, driving his equally old MG sports car into the desert for a few days and living on lizards and whatever else he could find out there, which wasn’t much. He rarely bathed and his clothes were washed even less frequently, but I loved him. He was my hero. I was the opposite of him, thanks to my mother. Clean, well groomed, well-kept and bored out of my gored. Rob saw that in me almost immediately and invited me to live with him, Bob and Gary. Bob liked to shoot things and eat them so we had a freezer full of illegal, underage, out-of-season dear meat. And Gary talked all the time, all the time that he talked anyway, which wasn’t very often, about sailing into the South Pacific. Trouble was that he had never sailed, and didn’t have a boat, but I was all in, so to speak, until I told my mother. I had yet to learn that mothers shouldn’t be told much of anything. They just get worried. And if they have to show up in court one day, as mine did, when I was charged with some misdemeanor that I can no longer remember, my mother just sat there looking bewildered and when I was called before the judge he asked me if I was a student. Yes. At 18 I was a sophomore at a teacher’s college in Oregon. I had no idea why I was there, and had no interest in becoming a teacher, but the information impressed him enough I suppose and he waived the charge. Today we would call that white priviledge. My mother and I had one of those on-again, off-again, relationships. She worked most of the time because my dad didn’t make much money and had no health insurance. I rode my bicycle around, picked up empty beer cans and pop bottles from along side Heine Road, the road we lived on across from the cabbage patch. Anyone care to guess what a field of dead cabbage smells like after a big rain? Then, when I had a few bottles and cans, I would walk down to the gas station on the other side of the railroad tracks and buy candy. All of that was fine with me. I got a paper route, worked in a hard-ware store later on and went to school, where some dude and his friends decided that I needed grooming, taught me how to wear clothes, how to eat soup correctly, which meant that the soup spoon went forward into the bowl rather than backward, and alter my clothes so that they were close fitting. I became a freak, and if it weren’t for a man, who the others knew, coming over to my apartment one day wanting to give me a back rub, I might still be one. I liked Rob much better. Who cared if he wore a communist hat, we lived in a pigsty and we each tried out best to sleep with women we didn’t know because neither we nor they wanted to go home after a party and say the truth — that nothing happened. It was on a morning after one of those all night events during which Gary blasted In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida all night long and loud enough to rattle the windows, that there was a knock at the front door. It was a quite Sunday morning, and the girl I didn’t know just rolled over in the bed we were in, and nobody moved. Except me. And that wasn’t right away. Then there was another tap on the door, so I got up. It was my mother. She had decided that Sunday morning to drive her blue Plymouth Valiant the sixty miles down the highway to where I was and deliver a box of apples. “Hi! Do you want some apples?” I don’t remember what I said, but took the apples and closed the door. Six months later I went on probation, dropped out of college and joined the Navy so that I wouldn’t have to listen to In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida anymore, smell the garbage in the kitchen and then be drafted and become a ground pounder in Vietnam. When I told my mother, I made sure it was after the enlistment, so she couldn’t do anything about it. Well I guess that wasn’t really true. She pulled strings and got me to take an entrance exam into Westpoint military academy. I passed, despite hearing a woman’s voice in my head telling me to hurry up. When I turned down the appointment, it was the last time my mother suggested anything to me, not even if I wanted a box of apples. When I finally saw my mother the following Christmas Eve after I had left the noise of my apartment behind and drove to Tijuana with someone I don’t remember meeting, she hid at the end of the table looking embarrassed and ashamed at her wayward son who would just willy nilly join the military during that war. But I was gone, if not physically at first, then at least mentally. I had had enough, whatever that meant, but I was willing to serve, so the military liked me. And my friend, Rob? He was later run over and killed by a large truck while passing another vehicle in his MG. So here we go Rob, this one’s for you my friend. Thanks for helping me become a noisy neighbor.

oeicqi

Bloodline

“That’s not what I’m saying at all.” “Then what are you saying?” “We should've stayed near the river.” “What river?” Lightning stretched and cracked above, illuminating the forest glen. Carl stared at his brother. He always did this. Saying things with supreme authority. It infuriated Carl. Thunder boomed. Loud enough to shake the ground. Carl felt it in his chest. Strangely, it calmed him. Knowing there is something more powerful than his brother Avery in the world. “Avery, are we lost?" "Does it matter if we're lost?” “Can you just tell me what to do?” Another bolt of lightning and the clouds glowed with electricity. Thunder crashed and Carl flinched. Avery glowered back at his brother. Another lightning strike, this one in the distance. The glen filled with light again. Avery’s eyes glowed white hot, boring into Carl’s soul. “You are asking the wrong question," Avery growled. “Oh hell! I came to you for advice!” Avery’s struck a match, his face glowed amber as he lit a cigarette. He offered the pack to his brother who declined. “Have a smoke with me, Carl.” His face lit up with every puff. Lightning cracked off to the West and thunder bounced off the trees. A sweet awesome crash. Avery sniffed the air. “The rain missed us. Shame. I needed a quick rinse.” He gathered sticks, tossing them into a pile at the center of the clearing. “Go into the tree line and grab a few large branches. Nothing too big.” Carl obeyed. He trudged into the wood like a petulant child told to brush their teeth. Avery was always the leader and that’s how it is. No questions asked. Ever. By the time he returned, Avery had a small fire going. “Perfect timing my boy.” Carl dumped the sticks at his brother's feet. He watched his brother examine each branch before placing it on the fire. He arranged a neat tent-like pattern above the small flame. Soon the branches lit and the fire crackled. Carl hated how effortless his brother was with everything. “Ave. Please. We didn’t come all the way out here for you to do this.” “Maybe I did.” Carl plopped down in the dirt an arm's length from the fire. He rummaged through his rucksack. After some frustration and cursing, he pulled out a plastic bag. “Jerky. I ate some on the way. Sorry.” He grabbed a handful and tossed the bag to his brother. Avery grinned. “Of course you did. You’re the reason Maw Maw super glued the cookie jar shut.” “I thought you did that...” “Nah man, she did it. It was her saying you’ll never eat another cookie in her house again.” Carl snorted. “Why didn’t she just tell me to stop eating cookies?” He grazed his hands on the forest floor, searching for and finding a rock. He examined the rock with his fingers. Running his thumb over each sharp ridge, a little too roughly. “Ow!” He put his thumb in his mouth, tasting blood. He liked the taste. Avery watched his brother nurse the wound. He tried so hard to see a man. Instead, he saw a child sucking his thumb. He took a bite of jerky, gnawing and pulling at the tough meat. “What the hell Carl? How long have you had this?” “I bought it this morning.” Avery struggled to chew. He searched for his canteen. “Jesus boy, it’s like eating a tire. Is that where you bought it?” Avery grinned. “Yup. Poli’s.” “Dammit son. Do you know all that is for decoration? You’re not supposed to actually buy anything he sells in the office. “So why does he sell it?” “Because once in a while an out-of-towner with a flat tire waits in the office. And once in a blue moon, they buy some of his expired food!” Carl bursts out laughing. “I didn’t buy it at Poli’s. I’m not that dumb.” He cleared his throat. “I bought it at the convenience store up past Danby’s Moot. Avery swallows at last after a gulp of water and takes another bite. “It’s not that bad, but you bring a bag of jerky out of everything in the world to eat. Not soup? Or those freeze-dried meals?” Carl rubs his neck and gazes into the fire while still nursing his wound. “I had other things on my mind.” Avery drops his smile and chews his food. He stares at the ground. “This decision is eating you up…” Carl grunts and nods. “Yep.” Avery looks over at his younger brother. “Boy! Stop sucking your thumb!” He throws his rucksack hitting Carl in the arm. “I cut my finger on a rock! It’s bleeding.” I don’t care if you sliced the tip off opening a can of tuna. Knock it off.” “That was once and I didn’t slice off the tip. You’re such an ass.” Carl tossed the bag back but missed. It landed on top of the fire. “Jesus!” Carl bursts out laughing as he jumps up and pulls the bag off the flames. The fire's tent-like structure is gone. “I meant to do that,” Carl said. Avery hadn’t moved. He watched his brother struggle. He wished it hadn’t come to this, but wishing is like pissing in the wind. Carl threw a few sticks on the fire haphazardly. They wouldn’t burn as well, but Avery didn’t say anything. He needed to learn from his mistakes. “Carl, how old are you?” “You know how old I am.” “I know but do you?” “I’m seventeen.” “Of course you are. You are seventeen for three more months. And then what?” “And then I turn eighteen.” “Oh good, you can do basic math.” “Shut up!” I’ll throw another bag at you,” Carl laughed. The storm had passed and the crickets began to crawl back out of the leaf-packed forest floor. A breeze brought wafts of rain, but far in the North. Its sweet odor could lull one to sleep. Avery watched the branches high above lean into the wind. “Do you remember Paul?” “Dad? Maybe, but it could be false memories. From looking at all the photographs of him in that album Maw Maw had.” An owl hooted in the distance. Both followed the sound instinctively. “Why do you ask that?” “He left when I was eight. And you were two.” “What’s your point?” “I became a man at eight years old. Not because I wanted to, but because I had to.” “Ok…” “I tried for so long. I fought as much as possible, but the thing is—“ “What are you saying?” “I’m sick.” “Why’d you drag me out here if you’re sick? Let's get you home.” “It doesn't matter. Bed rest ain’t gonna fix what I got.” A gust of wind rolled through the glen. Leaves chattered and crunched across the ground. Avery watched his brother think. His eyes squinted as he aligned the pieces. “It’s your blood.” Avery nodded. “Just like—“ “Yep.” Carl stiffened. “I can help. I can—“ “Listen hombre. It skipped you. It’s my burden.” Carl rubbed an eye with his thumb. He winced and watched it bleed anew. He forgot the tears and stared at the blood as it ran down his thumb. “So my blood works and yours doesn't?” “Something like that.” “So what are you saying?” Avery crumbled the empty bag of jerky. “I’m saying we should’ve stayed near the river. How should we get back?” “We follow the ridge line south. We missed the rain so it won’t be slick.” Avery sighed and watched his brother work. Carl stamped the remains of the fire out and kicked dirt over the embers. He collected the rucksacks and tossed the empty jerky bag in his own. “We’ll be home by noon. Let’s go,” Carl said. Avery nodded in approval.

qc69ac

Temporary Tattoo

      The buzzer sounds, cutting through the air with authority and resonance. A gaggle of thirteen-year-old boys clear the court, limbs bouncing and dripping with sweat. Boys from both sides collect their belongings, take long sips of water, and find their family members in the bleachers, waving to them weakly. Brennan finds his dad by the doors of the gymnasium. He pats Brennan on the back twice, and they head out into the December night with their coats hugging them.            Brennan watches headlights move through the parking lot, fluid like a ballet. Snow floats down from the black sky as if originating from nothingness. “Ah, Dad, I shouldn’t have tried to pass the ball, I should have just gone for the shot.”            “It’s alright, buddy. It’s not always clear what the right choice is.” Brennan keeps his head bent, a little ashamed despite his dad’s reassurances. White flakes the size of navy beans stick in his sandy hair, limp with sweat. “Hey. This weekend, me and you will go down to the park and go over some maneuvers. Maybe I can get John to come with us. You know, he used to play when he was your age.”            “Sure, Dad, that sounds alright.”            “How about this,” he begins as they near the ’95 Camry. “Let’s go get pizza. At your favorite place.”            Brennan smirks. “Why? I did terrible.”            “Don’t say that. It’s a reward. For all you did tonight.” His dad grins as he unlocks the car. With the remaining strength he has, Brennan throws his bag into the backseat. His eyes sweep the parking lot. Across the lot, a thin woman stands next to a Kia with her hand affixed to the door handle, strangely still. Though it’s hard to tell through the snow and dark, it seems like she is watching him. Somehow, she looks familiar, but he’s almost sure he’s never seen her before. “Ready?”            Brennan closes the back door, still staring out at the Kia in the darkness. “What is it? It’s cold, Brennan.” He slips into the passenger’s seat and fastens his seatbelt.            “Sorry. I just thought I saw someone.” ***            The air inside of the restaurant is warm and smells of garlic and marinara. Brennan can feel his skin flush in the heat. By the entrance is a row of dated gumball machines, temporary tattoo vending machines, and vending machines that dispense capsules with miniature toys inside. A little boy with emerald eyes and a snotty nose uses both hands to try to turn the valve of the bouncy ball machine. Despite his effort, the valve doesn’t budge. “No, stupid.” An older girl picks the dimes and pennies out of the slots and replaces them with quarters. “Now try.” The valve turns easily as the quarters are swallowed by the machine. The waitress is a college-aged girl but not in college, she reveals voluntarily. Her movements are swift and coordinated; she snatches a pair of menus from the front counter and brings them along to their booth. “Can I get you started with something to drink?” She places a menu delicately in front of Brennan. He peeks at her shyly, chewing on a hangnail.            Brennan’s dad looks at him, prompting him to order first. “Pepsi, please.”            “Sure,” she says, flipping her ponytail over her shoulder. “And for you, sir?”            “I’ll also take a Pepsi.”            “Okay, I’ll be right back with those.”            After the waitress goes to fetch their drink orders, Brennan discretely smells his jersey.            “You have a crush?”            Ignoring the question, Brennan instead quickly begins looking over his menu, reciting the toppings in his head to relieve the rush of blood in his cheeks. After a minute of checking out the side orders, he realizes his dad is looking elsewhere. “What is it, Dad?” His eyes are glued to the entranceway as if he is expecting a natural disaster to tear in from the blackness outside. “Nachos at the game aren’t a meal, Dad, you know.”            He smiles but it seems forced and taut, like a stretched rubber band. “Oh, nothing.” For the first time that night, Brennan notices the unbecoming stubble on his dad’s face. He watches him uneasily, trying to translate his demeanor.            It has only been Brennan and his dad since he was about three years old. She was in a car accident , his dad had told him when he was nine. He’d asked how, how the accident happened, but his dad never answered, and he couldn’t remember anything about it. It must have been gruesome, he realized. His earliest memory is of him and his dad at the pond, folding a paper boat and placing it on the water. The USS Brennan . He could distinctly remember letting the boat go, like a baby bird leaving the nest. He had been scared it would sink, but because he trusted the design and his dad, it floated along the surface of the water rather simply.            The waitress reappears with the Pepsis and a pair of straws. “Actually, can we have another menu, please?”            “Sure thing.” She pulls an extra straw out of her apron. “Waiting on someone?”            “Um. Maybe.” He gives her the same tight smile.            “Who are we waiting on, Dad?”            “You’ll see.” This response is so final, Brennan feels himself nearly shrivel with dread. There’s light chatter in the dining room. A waiter briskly walks by with two pizzas, the smell of green peppers trailing behind him. Brennan watches him pass as if the scent is visible, like a flowing river cutting past. He falls back into his seat, feeling too distressed to focus on his menu. When the waitress returns, there is a woman with her. “I assume this is yours?” The waitress hands her the extra menu. Brennan’s dad and the woman gaze at each other. His expression is still stiff. “Here, Lynn, sit next to me.” Brennan’s dad scoots aside. She slides into the booth across from Brennan and awkwardly contorts as she sheds her coat. She flattens her blond hair along her temples, dotted with snowflakes. Is it her? “I don’t smoke by the way,” she bursts, still fighting her coat like she’s wrestling with a tiger, when Brennan crinkles his nose. “It was the Uber driver….” “Brennan, this is—" “Were you…at the game?” “Yes, I was actually.” She leans forward, bearing true interest. She tames her coat and rests it next to her. “You guys are pretty good.” Brennan exchanges a glance with his dad. Why is she sitting at our table? “We weren’t tonight. We lost.” “Well, I enjoyed watching you all play. Especially you! I can tell how hard you work.” “Thanks.” Her eyes dance with her intonation. It’s as if she’s talking to a third grader. “We’ve got some good players. Like Max, he’s probably our MVP.” “Yes,” she agrees as if she knew this all along. “You’re pretty good friends with number sixteen. You’re over at his house a lot.” These are not questions. Brennan feels a terror, like an ominous tingling, beginning in his fingernails and slowly creeping throughout his body. Like a dropping blood oxygen level. He looks hurriedly between the woman and his dad. “How would you know that? How do you know about Grant?” “We’re closer than you realize, Brennan.” Her face is solemn. The smell of pepperoni and peppers is suddenly like poison in his nose. The air is unbreathable. “ How do you know my name? And what does that mean?” Brennan picks up his menu and holds it upright like a shield between him and the woman; a shield to block all the uncomfortable truths to come. “What does she mean, Dad?” His dad flicks the corner of his menu, scratches his forehead, then rests his chin in his hand. He waits for Brennan to arrive at an answer on his own. A thought unfurls in his head. His heart beats faster, as if he were still dribbling down the court amidst a crowd of other boys swiping for the ball. He can hear the buzzer in his head, but it never seems to stop. “You tricked me.” Brennan’s dad sighs, holds his Pepsi glass in both hands like a piece of pottery he is trying to form. Like he’s trying to conjure some peace, some way to make things go smoother than he knows they will. “I didn’t trick you, Brennan.” “You should have told me. You should have asked.” Panic paralyzes Brennan. His skin prickles as if there was an explosion of glass propelled at him at one hundred miles per hour. “I didn’t wa—” “You didn’t want me to say ‘no!’” Lynn watches the exchange, wordless. Her hands are clasped in front of her on top of her menu, and Brennan is vaguely reminded of a teacher sitting at a desk. “Well, I have a right to.” He tears apart his straw wrapper, letting the strips of paper rest in a pile in front of him. “ Stop looking at me.” “Brennan.” Lynn remarks gently, looking at Brennan’s dad as she speaks, “It’s just, we thought you might be old enough to understand now…” “Old enough to understand what? That I hate this, and I want to go home? That I was lied to? Old enough to know what a lie is?” Brennan squeezes the remaining wrapper in his fist, so hard it nearly vanishes completely. There is a protracted silence. Maybe his sharp tone has just put an end to this unbearable conversation or so he hopes. “ Where is the waitress? I need a refill.” Brennan’s dad swirls his cup so the ice cubes clink. Lynn says, “I know this must be unexpected… I know you must be feeling—" “You don’t know anything about me.” His ears and face feel hot and swollen as if they have been stung by bees. Rage builds in his chest: the hive. “ Has anyone seen the waitress? ” “Well, why don’t you tell me something, then?” Brennan retorts with a look as icy as the air outside, “Why don’t you tell me something. Tell me about your ‘accident.’” “I’m here to talk to you about you . Let’s not talk about me right now.” Brennan’s dad awkwardly interjects, “You want pepperoni, right, buddy?” “No.” He’s not predictable like that, you know. The waitress comes by to give Brennan’s dad his long-awaited refill. He is overly polite, thank you thank you , as if his manners will cover up the drama at their table. “Do you like deep dish?” Lynn asks; it’s an easy, nonintrusive question. “Never tried it.” “I really do.” “I thought we weren’t talking about you.” “Well, what do you like?” “Not having you in my life. Things are fine how they are. We’re happy. Aren’t we, Dad?” His voice wavers at the end. He rubs the straw paper between his fingertips to comfort himself. He looks at his dad’s stubble. They’re happy, right? Without saying anything, Brennan’s dad starts wildly looking for the waitress again like a horse swinging its massive head away from flies. “I’m ready to order now. I think I’m going to get chicken wings. What sauce sh—” “ Dad? ” Finally, he sighs. “Brennan, look. I arranged this because I was hoping you would spend some time with…her. I think it would be good for you to get to know each other now that you’re older.” “Yes,” Lynn agrees. “I was thinking maybe you would come stay for a little while over Christmas break?” Brennan feels strangled in his jersey, as if the neck has contracted around his throat. “What is this, Dad? You can’t make me do this.” Lynn watches him steadily, like a sniper through a scope balancing her aim. “Come on, Brennan, you’re thirteen, you can g—” “And maybe that isn’t old enough. Because I can’t understand the point of this.” “That’s enough, Brennan. She’s your m—” “No, she’s not! She died!” Brennan leaps from the booth and shimmies into his coat. Without a backwards glance, he pads toward the entrance. Outside, the blackness speckled with white has become white speckled with black. He watches the snow, momentarily mesmerized. How easy it is to get lost in a blizzard, even from the other side of the glass. An elderly couple approaches the entrance, so Brennan moves aside next to the vending machines, pasting himself to the wall. His puffy coat deflates audibly. Disinclined to return to the booth , he examines the machines. He reaches into his pocket to count his change. *** ‘If this restroom needs attention, please notify an employee,’ reads a sign posted on the wall opposite the sinks. Brennan sees it behind him in the mirror. He breaks down the sentence: If, needs, please. He presses a wad of wet paper towel to his cheek and holds it there for what he guesses is one minute. When he gingerly peels the waxy transfer paper underneath away, there’s a rocket ship stuck on his skin. He runs two fingers over it. Somehow, the touch is sobering. *** After delivering a glass of water to a neighboring table, the waitress heads over to their booth. “Have we decided?” She strokes her ponytail as she talks. “I think I’ll get honey barbeque.” Lynn skims her menu. “I’ll have the alfredo.” “What about him?” The waitress gestures toward the empty seat across from them. Lynn turns to Brennan’s dad, somewhat startled by the mention of him. “Do you know about Brennan? Did he want pepperoni?”

21cyvd

On the Streets

“I can see it now.” “See what, Mama?” Hasina questioned. “Yeah! See what!?” Imani said. I smiled at both of my girls. “All of this.” They both cuddled under the baby blue blankets, as I dimmed the light to a dull brightness. We were poor . After my mother lost her job, we lost everything. Lost our house, lost hope. My father left us a few years before, so my mom was alone. Our apartment wasn’t big to start with. My brother Obi and I shared a bed and my mother slept on our couch. Obi’s name means heart and he had the biggest place in my heart. At the time, I was 13, and he was 6. I took him everywhere I went. After we got the letter that my mother got fired, she knew that unless she got a new job before the month's end, we couldn’t afford to stay in our apartment. She spent hours and hours looking for homeless shelters that would take us in, but every single one of them was full of people just like us. Nowhere to go. After. all, it was New York City. My mother sat us down in our apartment. Little did I know that would be the last night I would sleep there. She held me and Obi’s hand, her voice was trembling. “Guys..” she said, trying to sound okay. She wasn’t good at hiding it, both of us could sense that something was wrong. “So you know that mama lost her job right?” she said, her voice shaking. Obi and I nodded our heads while looking at the beige carpet below us. “We can’t afford to live here,” she said so fast, with her eyes shut. I gasped. A million thoughts were running through my head, I still remember that feeling. My mother started to cry and the energy in the room collapsed. I remember that exact moment. I was biting my lip so I didn’t start sobbing as well. Two months later, we were physically stable, but mentaly exhausted. We slept in the Cortlandt Alley, which was by Pier 25. We all hated it, but what choice did we have? One thing you should know about me when I was a child. I loved to dance. Throughout this whole journey of being homeless, having no education, I danced through all of my problems. Obi had a guitar my father gave him when he was little and he learned how to play songs on it. I moved to the strumming beat on Obi’s guitar and used his navy “New York Yankees” hat to collect tips. I danced like no one was watching. Apparently, people loved us. Some days, we had a whole crowd and Obi’s hat was overflowing with green bills and shiny coins. Other days, people just shuffled around us and didn’t notice. New people stopped by and watched us everyday, all different faces. After a few days I noticed this same boy, about my age, stop by. I think this was the fifth time I saw him. He looked at me dancing like I was a precious gem or something. One day, after Obi and I finished a song, he came over and looked me in my eyes. I glared into his blue eyes as he said, “You’re really pretty.” I was shocked. No one had ever called me pretty other than my mother. I didn’t think that my brown skin, dark braided hair, and hazel eyes would count as beautiful. “Th-th-thank you.” He nodded his head and smiled at me. He had dark skin and curly brown hair. “Oh, I'm Jay ” he said awkwardly. “I’m Jasmine.” Obi’s music filled the awkward silence between us and after a second he asked, “Wanna dance?” We did. It was amazing; he was amazing. “Wait did you say Jay?” Hasina questioned. “That’s dad’s name!!” Imani exclaimed. I smiled a sly smile and looked out the window into the dark night. He came back everyday to dance with me. We just…somehow worked together. Just two kids and four beat up running shoes, but it was like magic. We got more and more tips and it was more fun dancing with someone than doing it alone. “But mommm…” Imani whined. “I still don’t get it. What can you see now?” I took a breath and started. Being homeless sucked, trust me. None of it made sense at the time. However, now, when I look into both of your eyes, I can see that there is a reason for everything, and it all worked out in the end.  They both looked at me in awe. And, we fell in love. Hasina and Imani both started giggling. He came back every day for months. We hung out for hours, just walking around the big city talking about pretty much anything. Our pasts and future, but the present was amazing. It was the first time in a long time where I had someone to talk to. Someone to have fun with. My mother found a job, and she made enough money to get us a small apartment. I gave her all of my tips and surprisingly, it made a difference. The tips added up to $2,000 for four months. My mother told me that all relationships start with friendship. After four years growing from strangers to best friends, we started dating. He left for college, but I didn’t give up. I heard the bedroom door creak open. “Daddy!!” Imani shouted. “What are you girls still doing up?!” He said with a smile. “Mama is telling us the story of how you met!” Hasina spoke. He looked at me and sat down on the bed. “Your mother was the most beautiful girl I ever met.” He complemented. “There are a million people dancing in the streets of the city, but no one like her.” He turned and looked at me. “The prettiest girl, too.” “I get it now!” Hasina and Imani said. “It all ended up perfect.” Jay whispered as he kissed both of our girls on their foreheads. He turned out the light. 

tkq7ez

Never Tear Us Apart

Daniel folds his clothes carefully, putting them one by one in the backpack so they won’t crease on the trip back. It’s the mirror image of the ritual he did exactly one year ago, he reflects, when he had been preparing to leave home. “One year from now, it will be over,” he had thought then, aware he didn’t know exactly what “it” would entail. His younger, more innocent self thought that at worst “it” would mean twelve months of drudgery and annoying nonsense, to be put behind and forgotten as soon as they were done. But there is no way to know what will slide away and what will stick to your skin like a tattoo, becoming a part of you for the rest of your life. The door opens and Lambert comes in. “You all set, Fernandez?” “Not quite,” Daniel replies. Despite being among the half-dozen who slept under the same roof, he and Lambert were never close. But now there is something else in the room that causes both to breathe more carefully, to avoid breaking something invisible and fragile as a bubble. One that was always there but which in its ultimate moments takes on a myriad of colors, like the sun will throw his brightest fires right before setting. Holding their breath while pretending not to, voices as neutral as their words, careful not to color anything with what they can’t afford to show. You all set? Yep, just a couple of things to take back to the armory and then I’m done. Make sure you give a good sweep under your bed. Done. Like it matters anyway. And their brief laughter, casual like the rest. Both treading as carefully as they did on reconnaissance missions during those night exercises in the first weeks of training: another thing currently falling down the bottomless rabbit hole of memories, so deep it’s vertiginous to stand at the edge and watch it expand. Lambert has finished packing up and is trifling with his backpack. He’s been doing and undoing the straps three times already, as if he needed something inside then decided he didn’t. Guess I’m done now. Your folks coming to get you? No, I’m taking the train. You’ve got 45 minutes to go then. Good enough. They both know the station is just 15 minutes away. Well, Lambert finally says then grabs his bag and walks to the door. They stand face to face, knowing they will never see each other again and suddenly the rest of their lives is flashing before them like a drowning in reverse. “Goodbye Fernandez.” “Goodbye Lambert.” In the few seconds that follow, more is said than in twelve months. And then Lambert is gone and Daniel goes back to folding clothes. * Later: the bag is packed. At least it’s too full to accept another item. Now he’s standing before his locker, half empty and soon to be someone else’s. Looking at what he can’t take but can’t bear throwing out either. “You’re gonna sleep here or what?” Ben asks. “I wish,” he says and realizes he means it. Ben is the only one who will stay behind. Tonight, when Daniel sleeps in a home and a bed that were once familiar, Ben will be in this bedroom. Daniel finds the thought comforting. “Never thought you’d miss it, did you?” Ben says, knowing the answer. “Maybe you should stay too.” “You know I can’t do that,” says Daniel. “But I know how much you want to.” “Will you stop torturing me?” “You’re just torturing yourself.” He knows Ben is right. By delaying his departure, he’s only making it harder. “Everyone who was supposed to leave has left,” Ben now says with his usual knack for twisting the knife. Daniel goes to the window and rests his head against the cool glass. He can see part of the yard where in the early days they were taught to march in line as one, so many of them trying not to blow a fuse or laugh at the sheer absurdity of it all. You learn to communicate beyond words when you’re not allowed to talk, not allowed to laugh, not allowed to move except in unison. When the most you share is all that is forbidden, complicity becomes the norm. Sometimes as they silently stood at attention, a giggle would spread like wildfire from one to the next. Everyone trying to stifle it, panic fueling their laughter, for whoever broke down would drag the whole group with them and those in command would make sure no one stayed amused for long. It was childish, as were the pillow fights and horsing around, but it did wonders for the morale of the troops. For most French teenagers who didn’t fancy themselves warheads or fous de guerre , the year of mandatory army service called "service militaire" was a nightmare looming ahead as soon as they reached 18. Those who couldn’t dodge it went in expecting to go Full Metal Jacket. This in itself was enough for bonding. Stripped of individuality, from social status to haircut, the main thing they had in common was going through what they could not avoid. It was the greatest equalizer for those who would never have met in civilian life, now equal for the first and last time in their lives. And for one last time, they were allowed the innocence of children who only need a playground to get along. In times of peace, the ritual of becoming a man culminated in the games of childhood finally played on a life-sized scale. The last war fought on this land was four decades into the past; a concept that to their young minds could only be processed through games, films or fiction. If there was to be another one, they knew it wouldn’t be fought with the obsolete weapons they were given. The whole thing was like a fragile dream, the kind you hold on to when you don’t want to wake up. The draft itself was living out its last days. In a few years, it would be abolished. Then it would be official: there would be no point in what had brought them together in the first place. Names come to him: Martin, Jean, Burgonde, Chavagnac… They had been closer than brothers, with no expectations on either side than to get through this together. They knew that whatever life had in store for them, such intensity could never be repeated. It's been less than a day and they're already memories. The yard looks empty but to Daniel it isn’t. Something has to remain, invisible yet palpable – and if not here, in a dimension beyond their reach, but surviving for what they could grasp of eternity. I was standing You were there Two words colliding And they could never tear us apart The song had played almost daily during the first month of training. Now it’s just an echo, the sole reminder that something took place. “Where does the time go?” He hadn't meant to say it aloud, but it’s a question he will ask himself often in the coming years. What he really means is: what happens to all the things time takes with it? Now he understands that ghosts are not always the dead. Surely some part of what they shared lives on somewhere, vibrating like waves in space. “Your New Age is showing.” Ben, always happy to piss on sentimentality. “Don’t fool yourself, Dan. A year ago to this day we were all strangers to each other, and that’s exactly what we’ll be a year from now. Oh yes, there’s been talk of meeting again, and maybe some will a few times. But you won’t be able to fool yourselves for long that we all move on. And that’s the best-case scenario.” Daniel doesn’t need to ask about the worst-case. Ben is on a roll: “And maybe some day, years from now, you’ll come here again or just ‘happen to pass by’. And you will do your best to conjure up what used to be, and maybe fool yourself about what you’re feeling. And maybe you’ll ask permission to visit this room, provided it’s still there. Just don’t expect to find anything here but kids young enough to be your sons, who will wait politely until you give them back their space. Like that guy, remember?” Of course he remembers. The middle-aged man looked like he had never been young. Yet there was something in his eyes and his wistful smile that hinted at all the emotions bubbling under the surface as he surveyed the room, seeing things only he could see. Daniel had wanted to say something to him, but wasn’t sure what. Maybe a question to which neither had the answer, that would have only left them faced with the insoluble riddle of time. * The locker is finally empty, save for one photograph taped on the inside. The photograph shows the same room, except they’re all in there – that is, all except Yvan who must have been the one operating the camera. This is more deduction than remembrance for Daniel. Poor, shy Yvan always so helpful yet so discreet he was always bound to fade in the background or disappear. Ben, softly: “We should never have left him alone that night.” “How could we have known?” Daniel, slightly defensive. “Remember when the Sergeant would act all crazy and we’d just shrug it off, like: Sergeant's just being an army guy? Turned out he was just plain crazy after all.” “Again: how could we have known?” Daniel’s eyes turn back to the photo and its absent friend. Yvan, who had sought out his friendship in his own timid way but seemed to take for granted that Daniel would prefer the company of their most boisterous roommates. He wishes he could drown out Ben's voice who goes on, relentless: “I wanted to stay with him that night, remember? But you said it was better to let him sleep and go out with the guys.” “Well, you know: male bonding and all that.” “Dan, please. You just wanted to get drunk.” “Isn’t that what male bonding is all about?” Ben won’t leave it alone. “None of this would have happened if we had stayed.” “And what about the others before Yvan?” Daniel shuts the locker, more forcefully than he meant to and the slamming resonates in the room. “Are we responsible for that too? We didn’t even know them.” “Oh, I guess that makes it all right, then.” “Staying here won’t bring them back,” Daniel says. “But running off will make you forget it ever happened?” A pause. Then Ben starts again : “We could have brought the whole place down if we had spoken up. I wanted to, remember? You wouldn’t.” “Against them? None of us would be alive today. You know how they all stick together. You try so much as to question an order and you’re a traitor to the nation.” They’ve had this argument countless times. In a minute it will become a speech about how Nazism started and Daniel doesn’t want that. Not on this day. He knows there’s no point in pursuing this. Atonement is an island you never quite reach and you could drown crawling for it. Because no matter how calm the waters look, the undercurrent will never let you go. Yet he keeps trying. “Everyone knew the Sergeant always went nuts when a new contingent arrived,” he now says. “But no one would have thought –” “You know,” says Ben, “I always suspected it wasn’t a new contingent arriving but the old one leaving. All these guys he had lived with for months and would never see again.” After a pause, he adds: “I’m starting to understand how he felt.” “Is this why you want to stay here?" asks Daniel. "So you can go crazy in peace?” “Beats doing it in the civilian world, you’ll have to admit. Less obtrusive at any rate” Daniel laughs: “Don’t let the Colonel hear that.” “Tell me again what the Colonel said. I need a laugh too.” Daniel sighs, recalling his final visit to the Colonel earlier that day: “He said: Now you can tell anyone who didn't serve in the Army : At least, I am a man. ” “Good old Colonel. The funniest thing about him is that he has no sense of humor whatsoever.” Not for the first time Daniel wonders if becoming a man is a gift or a curse society puts upon you. That question has been nagging at him for some months. And the closer he gets to the answer, the less he wants to know. “We were just kids,” he murmurs. “We still are,” Ben answers. “Only now we’re supposed to pretend we’re not.” “It’s gonna be a long life,” Daniel sighs, “playing at being an adult.” “Why do you think I'm staying here?” says Ben, not even asking. In the last months, Daniel had pondered enlisting. It didn’t look so bad after all. Serve fifteen years and get a lifetime pension. The temptation was strong for signing up – so strong in fact that it was a deciding factor against it. He suspected the impulse was more rooted in fear than anything else. No wonder Ben wants to stay. And this despite all that happened. Right now it seems a small price to pay compared to the great unknown outside. Soon we will be ghosts in our own lifetime, he thinks. And there will be no one to remember we were there. Like Yvan, whose body was never found. “Time for you to go, Dan.” Ben now says softly. Daniel looks around the room one last time. “Well, good-bye then.” It’s a different good-bye than the one he exchanged with Lambert. Without waiting any further, he picks up his bag and walks out. * The gates and the outside world are getting closer. He doesn’t turn back as he crosses the yard. In his mind he sees himself through the eyes of someone else. He pictures Ben watching him walk away, like the final scene in a movie, the one with a song playing over the end credits. I was standing You were there Two words colliding And they could never tear us apart. When he finally turns back for one last look, the yard is empty. * The trees have been replaced by a forest of buildings, tall and gray. The train is approaching its destination. Daniel sees the city looming ahead, and the years stretching out before him. He holds on to his military card, soon to be the artifact of a previous life. The picture that stares back at him, taken one year ago, could be someone else’s. It is certainly not who he is now, yet this piece of paper is supposed to represent the sum of his parts. Last name: Fernandez. First names: Daniel, Benjamin. And the red stamp that is the sesame to the new world: “Discharged of military obligations.” His mind goes back to the Colonel’s parting shot, the blessing doubling as a curse. Now he speaks the words out loud, trying them on for size: “ I am a man now.” But even as he says it, he’s aware he has never felt less complete.

vec16o

Dancing in the Rain

After a long time of processing her information with the court, she finally reinvented her identity. It only took the majority of the months the year was kind enough to give her. As she stared at the name in the document that had just arrived that morning, her mind was at ease. No longer was she weighed down by the crushing weight of the past. She thought about the relationships in her life. She had a wonderful fiancé and a few friends that had been there for her through this journey. Of course, it's hard to think of the present without acknowledging the past. A fleeting thought was enough to cause a twinge of pain to her heart. For the sake of her life, she had to leave permanently. Simply cutting out the ones causing her the most pain was not enough since the rest of the people in her life were too connected to them. She knew that if she attempted to spend time with the others as they'd attempt to try to trick her into meeting with the people she feared the most. There was never any physical threat. However, the damage to the psyche that those people would cause would be irreparable more than it already was. She sat for a long time on that old porch. She and her fiancé had just scrounged enough money to buy a small home deep in the countryside. It was dirty; the paint on the wood was fading so that it was a muted red with sunspots in some areas and water stains in others. The house was slightly run-down though they made it work; her fiancé volunteered to build homes in their youth and had some experience in the maintenance necessary to keep the place from falling apart. They had a good-sized yard, though surrounded by corn on three sides; while she appreciated the privacy, she did miss the neighborly feeling that her previous city had brought. It was slightly windy that day, and the sun was peaking through some darkening clouds. A warm day with a breeze was her favorite weather type. The few trees in their yard swayed, making a calming noise in harmony with the wind while old music playing from the speaker through the open window. She could smell the rain was coming from the mixture created by the air and the road nearby. She focused on her breathing as she stared at that name. She had it picked out for a long time; It felt like her, it felt like home. She sat imagining what life would be like for her loved ones had she followed through with her plans all those many months ago. What it would be like if she were not sitting on her porch looking through her mail. She thought about death and what it could mean. She had always been curious and sometimes close to it. It had always brought her a sense of comfort. Having been raised religious, but no longer, death seemed as a grand adventure. With nothing certain, there's only one way to find out the answer to this ultimate question. She had always been curious to know the answer. But looking up from her mail at the trees and hearing their sound, she knew in her heart that there were still things in this world joyous enough to keep her from searching too far. Her life was more uncertain than the answer following the inevitable. Although soon to be married, children were not in the plans. Given what she had been through, she did not want to raise children knowing, in her heart, she would not be able to love them fully. The people in her past and the subsequent traumas that she had experienced prevented it. But she was capable of love; the love she felt for her fiancé was like one she had never experienced. She was proud to imagine herself at the alter with him. Along with this she was falling in love with the little things more and more each day, and she realized this as she listened to the soft howling of the wind as the darker clouds came rolling in. Looking back at this new name, she knew she could come to love herself again. Many hours passed as she mulled over the differences between life and death, the past and the present. Not once did she leave her spot on the old porch. The future did not cross her mind much unless it was to do with the wedding. She hadn't really planned much beyond that. She had a job but didn't know if it truly made her happy, so she was toying with the idea of starting a business from her home, possibly by making jewelry or writing. She smiled as her thoughts shifted to her wedding and to her lover. They had fallen in love young despite everyone's disbelief at first, and they have proven their love time and time again as they continue to support each other through their ups and downs. She was so caught up in her thoughts that she had barely noticed her lover pulling into their short driveway, walking up to the porch to sit next to her. By then, the weather had shifted as the clouds started to sprinkle. The smell of the rain much stronger bringing a sense of ease to wash away all anxieties of the day. "You okay?" her lover asked as they sat and started rubbing their knee. They had dropped a box of books onto it during the move two weeks prior; it was still bothering them at times, though they couldn't find the time to see a doctor as they didn't think it was that serious anyways. She didn't say anything. Instead, she lifted the document up to show her fiancé what had arrived that day, looking up at a bird that had started to chirp. After a quick examination there was a sigh of relief. It was a marker that both of their stressful days worrying about the past were truly over. They could finally move on. She looked back at her lover with a smile, kissed them, and took them by the hand. As she looked over at them, the last of her worries slipped away and were replaced by feelings of love and belonging as she realized how truly in love she was. "We ought to go inside before the rain gets stronger, eh?" her lover asked as they slowly stood. There was no covering on the porch, both of their clothing became increasingly damp. She leaned back and arched her head to look towards the speaker in the still open window, droplets splattering into the windowsill and sliding towards the sink below. It would cause stains, but compared to the rest of the house would hardly make a difference. While most would look at the place disgusted, she loved its character. It felt like it had a history she could now be a part of. Like her, it had a chance for a new beginning. She looked back to her loving fiancé and slowly stood, a mischievous grin growing on her face. After sitting for many hours, her pent up energy was finally ready to spill. She let her thoughts drift away as she returned to her usual playfulness and suddenly took her lover by the hand, dragging her off the porch. With her new sense of freedom she couldn't think of anything more joyous than dancing to the old tunes playing from the speaker in the window, just out of reach of the rain. She threw her arms up and spun around. She splashed in puddles. All while trying to get her lover to join her as she danced in the rain. She finally knew what it felt like to be one of those girls in the movies who, so overcome with emotion, frolic in the downpour, enjoying the feeling of the droplets falling on their face. Her lover just shook her head and laughed at her expressions of joy, reminded of the reason they had fallen in love with her in the first place. 

gmcpjz

Katie

"Last night I dreamt that you killed me." I tried to laugh, but my attempt was weak, and Kate wasn't convinced. She never seemed to be. "Y'know," she began, leaning back in her chair as if to get as far away from me as possible without just standing up and leaving, "when you invited me for coffee, that really wasn't what I was expecting you to start with." Naturally, she was defensive and I tried to backpedal. This had always been the yin and yang of our relationship. "I just thought it might be an interesting ice breaker.” A lie, for the most part. I just knew the idea would make her uncomfortable. Admittedly, I was trying to get a rise out of the girl. I was testing her waters. Not even I sounded convinced by this ice breaker idea, but I plastered on a smile as genuine as I could muster. To my surprise, Kate's demeanor seemed to actually soften. This was more than a rarity; I'd thought her ability to be kind had gone completely extinct. I could have sworn I saw it shot dead and pictured on her ex boyfriend's Instagram, held up by the horns and accompanied by a valiant smile. Or maybe that was just her virginity... "Well, how did I kill you then?" she asked me as her softness retreated, leaning back in ever so slightly to reach her caramel macchiato. She hadn't taken a sip of it yet, she was too busy training her eyes onto me. The concept of her being a cold blooded killer hadn’t really crossed my mind before then, but the more I sat there and felt her study me, the more I became convinced it was a feasible reality. With a bead of sweat forming at my brow, I sucked in a breath. I weighed my options as I took a swig from my hot cocoa. I could tell her how she actually did kill me in my dream last night i.e. brutally stabbing me in the chest and face until I looked like a pile of ground beef, or I could try and pivot the conversation a little bit. In the spirit of being less argumentative, I chose the latter. "Listen-" I began, but she stopped me. "I want to know now," she said, insistent that I give her all the gory details. "I don't want to give you any ideas, Katie," I sighed, yelping once I realized what I had done. My mouth met my drink again as I tried to gauge her reaction. Her face was unreadable. I definitely hadn't missed that. It was all behind her eyes, too deep for me to decipher. I could tell gears were turning, but never in which direction. Kate always made me feel lost somehow, maybe that's what they mean when they say "lost in your eyes.” I always pictured it feeling a little less like lost at sea Life of Pi style, and a little more like lost on white sandy beaches surrounded by turquoise waters with an umbrella drink in my hand but hey, go figure. "If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it by now," Kate replied smoothly, obviously not wanting to give me a reaction after I had slipped and called her Katie. If she wanted to kill me..? Little did she know, she already had. I was beginning to regret this entire idea. I was stupid to think we could ever be together again, as friends or anything more. It was suddenly so obvious to me that Kate was still the same girl she always had been. She was cold and brutal. Somehow being killed by her in my head was far less damaging than sitting across from her in a coffee shop. Seeing her face. Hearing her. Smelling her perfume. My mind was suddenly flooded with memories. I could see her holding my hand in the hallway at school, all while wearing my sweatshirt, could smell her cherry blossom shampoo in my teenage bedroom. I could feel her skin, hear her voice soft in my ears. See our very first date at the drive-in, and our last at my house ... while we put up Christmas decorations. I could see her tears glittering as they fell down her face, hear her footsteps crunching on freshly fallen snow as she left. My face stinging under the crisp December air that day, making my tears fall like hail, heavy and cold. Christmas never came that year for me, just a deep, dark winter. I stared at my coffee cup, defeated. Her eyes all over me, pricking me like needles. How could I have been so in love with Kate just years earlier, and now want nothing to do with her? I wondered if first loves were always like this, or if I had just been dealt a pretty shitty hand. Maybe some things were just meant to be short lived. We had been like a sunset, or a season finale, or an ice cream cone in July. When we were good, we were great. Yet the nagging in my brain, buzzing like a bee trapped in my skull, that things ended too early never seemed to quiet. "Why won't you look at me?" Kate questioned, her voice even and calm. I knew if I spoke the lump in my throat would leap out like a frog. I shook my head gently as tears tickled the corners of my eyes. A moment passed, and I tried my best to breathe and calm the waves in my chest. I felt like the ocean was crashing within me, tears bubbling up through my body. My organs shuffled like ships in a storm as I felt my stomach push against my ribcage. Suddenly I felt sick. All I wanted to do was cry, and go back in time to tell myself not to do this. Don't call Kate and expect to get Katie back. You'll never see that same sunset, never enjoy that same ice cream cone. Maybe that's okay. Kate's hand was suddenly on mine, stretched across the table between us. I looked up at her with bloodshot eyes, a singular tear sliding down my cheek. She was touching me, and I still felt football fields of space between us. Her eyes, cool blue, not an emotion to be found in them. Calm, even waters. I was anything but. Her soft blond curls, her angular face. She looked so different and yet so the same. Sure, she was older now, but I still saw that girl that kissed me behind the bleachers, the girl I called Katie. I sat and stared at a woman that I loved, but a person that I didn't like at all. So, I told her the truth. "You stabbed me," I finally choked out, pulling my arm back out of her reach. As I stood up and gathered my things, sloppily wiping at my wet cheeks as I did, she stared at me with a puzzled expression. "Wait-" Kate stood up as well, willing me to sit back down and explain myself. I could see she felt badly, but more for the fact that I was making a scene than my tears. "I can’t ... You’re killing me," I said, swallowing another crashing wave of tears, hoping this time not to drown. 

ifdpae

INVISIBLE

The moment winter break ended, all kids could talk about was the summer. It didn’t matter if ice was still stuck to the school bus benches or snow filled their shoes as they walked home, they talked about summer like it was just around the corner. I never shared their excitement. I liked school and I liked being busy. Summer meant empty days of sitting in front of the fan in the living room and swatting away mosquitoes that snuck through holes in the window screen which dad promised and then forgot to fix every summer. Most kids had something to look forward to, like camp or a trip to a new place. All I had to look forward to was one week at my grandma’s house in New Jersey and the most exciting part about that was her cat Prince and the beach which was only an hour drive away. In many ways I dreaded the summer. Summer meant my only company was Ada. Even though Ada was older than me by a year and one month, Mom would tell me just as the school year was ending that I was a good influence on my sister. She hoped summers would straighten Ada out by using me as her leash, tying her to our forested house under the excuse of “ Ada, you have to watch your sister and you can’t leave her out.” Ada thought I was boring and told me so. She hated that I never left the house and usually guilt would build up in me until I’d follow behind while she waded through the shallows of Lehigh River or balanced along the railroad tracks that cut through town. This summer, Ada had different plans. For Christmas, dad got her a Canon camcorder. He said it was new but there were scratches by the strap and the screen that flipped out was loose. Ada didn’t care. She said it was the best gift she’d ever gotten. Ada was obsessed with the movies. Jim Thorpe didn’t have a movie theater so every other weekend we’d drive to the next town over to catch whatever was playing. The seats in the theater stuck to my legs and the rooms were stuffy and thick like it was filled with the exact same air as when it opened. I never wanted to go but mom dragged me along saying, “ It’s good to do things with your sister, Elsie, and to like some of the things she does.” Mom didn’t have a very good relationship with her sister and I think she was scared of me and Ada ending up the same way. Anyway, this summer was different because Ada wanted to make a movie. She’d been planning this for a while. Her Math and English notebooks were filled with drafts of scripts, outlines, and rough drawings of how she wanted each scene to be set up. I never asked her about it because I knew she’d get mad at me for snooping. We were both older now, too, and on the first day of summer break, Ada made the argument to our parents, “ I’m 14 now and Elsie’s 13. She’s too old to be babysat and anyway I’m too young to watch her.” She was cut free from me; her summer would be one of roaming without dragging me behind. But mom had a condition, one Ada and I dreaded equally: “ You don’t have to watch Elsie, but you have to include your sister in your movie.” It was an unusually cool June morning and a crowd of ten or so kids was assembled in our backyard. Our backyard overlooked low, rolling Pennsylvania mountains and the break in the sweeping landscape where Lehigh River lay. In the summer, the mountains looked plush and soft, billowing with the deep green foliage. Dad said of anywhere he’d been, Jim Thorpe was by far the most beautiful. He worked at the tourism office in town, though, so he had to say stuff like that. The kids sitting on the chairs and railings of our porch were all from Ada’s grade. I recognized most of the faces, like Harry Lisner who broke his arm playing soccer and Tessa Rae who tried to hide her acne under thick layers of off-colored concealer. I sat on the edge of the eighth-grade crowd and hoped they’d ignore me. “Good morning everyone!” Ada said. She walked in front of the group with a big stack of papers in her hand. A few weeks ago Ada took the kitchen scissors and chopped her long, black hair off. Her hair now rested above her chin but the baseball cap she wore all the time made it seem even shorter. She wore a boy’s tank-top and a pair of loose jeans. I knew some kids at school teased her for looking like a boy, but no one dared to say it to her face. She handed a piece of paper to everyone. It was a scene with two characters, Bill and Nancy. Handwritten in the corner was “INVISIBLE Written and Directed by Ada Monday.” “Thanks for all coming out here. Before I cast anyone in roles, I need to see you act a little–” “What’s the movie about, Ada?” a kid with a buzz-cut asked. “I was gettin’ to that, but alright. The movie is called Invisible . It’s about a kid named Olivia who goes missing. Her parents, Bill and Nancy, are in the middle of a bad divorce but they have to put that aside to find their daughter. The whole town gets involved in finding Olivia, but no one can. The twist is that she’s actually been invisible this whole time and has been trying to get her parent’s attention but they have no idea.” There were some oohs and ahhs from the eighth graders. I thought the plot sounded silly. “This scene is with Bill and Nancy. They’re fighting about where they think Olivia might have gone. Everyone needs a partner for this, doesn’t matter if it's boy-girl or whatever. I’ll give you ten minutes to practice and then we’ll get going.” She clapped her hands together and the eighth graders began claiming partners. Molly, Ada’s good friend, walked up to me. “Wanna partner up?” Relieved, I nodded. I liked Molly. She was pretty and always had her red hair in two neat braids. She was nice even though her mom was gone and her dad was so mean to her. I knew this because I’d eavesdropped on her and Ada once or twice. Molly helped Ada edit the script, so every day the two of them raided the kitchen of chips and chocolate-covered pretzels, locked themselves in Ada’s room, and blasted music. Molly said she’d be Bill so I took the role of Nancy. Molly wasn’t very good, she read the words as though she were reading part of a book for class, but I felt more comfortable with her than I would have anyone else. I doubted any of these eighth-graders would be actors one day. Ada watched each scene attentively no matter how bad they were and said at the end, “Thank you both, that was pretty good.”  “Alright, Molly and Elsie, you’re next.” Paper gripped tightly in hand, Molly and I stepped in front of the group. Ada’s small, piercing eyes fell on us unkindly. She had a notebook in hand and was already scribbling in it. “Whenever you’re ready.” “Nancy, I just don’t see what the use is! We have been searching all night!” Molly bellowed, making her voice deep and throwing up her hands in exasperation like a man would. My mouth felt dry and the words on the page blurred together. The pause I created grew big around me, enveloping the group in stillness. I swallowed and tried to pretend Ada’s eyes weren’t burning through me. “Yes we’ve been searching all night, and yes my feet are tired and I’m hungry and I wish I could just sit on the couch all evening, but our daughter is out there , Bill.” I pointed towards the sloping forest, where Olivia might be. “She’s out there and until she’s back in our arms, I’m not going to stop looking for her.” “Psh. You are always trying to make me look like the bad guy! I care just as much, Nancy!” The paper I clutched was comforting but I no longer glued my gaze to its words. I looked at Molly. “That’s the thing, Bill. You give up too fast. You didn’t even fight for me, for us . When I told you I wanted a divorce, you said nothing. You just sat there. Now it’s time to get off your, uh, ass.” I glanced at the open door that led to the kitchen, where my mom was preparing us a lunch of mac and cheese and frozen peas. I worried she’d hear me cuss. “And scene!” Ada declared, jumping from her seat. Feeble claps came from the eighth graders behind us. “Wow! Elsie, I won’t kid you, I was not expecting that .” “Yeah, Elsie, that was awesome. You really captured Nancy’s anger,” Molly said, playfully tapping my arm with her script. Ada stared at me with a small, reflective smile. I squirmed under her gaze. “Great job, sis. Alright, next we have Harry and Amanda.” Ada only ever called me sis when she was grateful I didn’t snitch on her, it had never been used in the context of praise. I sat in the grass and watched the rest of the pairs run through the same dialogue. Ada’s razor eyes watched each one of them just as closely, but she never told anyone else they were “ great ,” and that, against my contempt for her, made me feel good. A day later I sat outside and read, burying my bare toes into the cool dirt mindlessly. Ada startled me when she plopped down beside me. She peered at what I was reading and when she saw the cover of Number the Stars she scoffed and adjusted her hat lower on her forehead. “Oh come on. Don’t tell me you’re already starting summer reading. We’ve been out of school for like a week.” I dog-eared the page and looked at her. “Did you want something?” Her scowl melted easily into a toothy grin. “I wanted to tell you I’m casting you as the lead. You’re gonna be Olivia!” Before I could respond, Ada threw her arm around my shoulder and squeezed me tight. “Yup, I already know you’re gonna be perfect for the role. I really didn’t think anyone else was that good so you’ll have to carry quite a bit of the performance but Molly and I will be here to help. Where did you learn to act like that anyway?” Uncomfortable with how sweaty her palm was, I tried to loosen her grip. “Uh–I don’t really know.” I didn’t, honestly. I had only ever acted once before, and that was in fourth grade when our school put on A Christmas Carol . I was Tiny Tim. “It’s probably because you read too much. You just understand the characters easy.” Ada removed her arm and began picking her fingernails. I had never thought of it like that. “It seems like a good script.” It was like Ada was seeing me for the first time. I felt awkward and like I had to say something nice back. “And you’re gonna be a great director. I can’t believe you got all those people to come audition.” Ada smiled. “It wasn’t easy, but Molly was a great help, too. I’ve been so excited about this all year, and now that it’s actually getting started I can hardly believe it.” She leaned back on her elbows. “Once it’s all put together, I want to do a big screening right here. We can tie a big sheet to those trees and Harry’s dad has a projector I think he’d let me borrow, and speakers, too. We can make lots of popcorn and it’ll feel like a real movie.” I could imagine our backyard covered in blankets and lanterns and the low noise of kids in anticipation, their silence when the screen turned on and the blue glow it’d cast on everyone’s wide eyes, then finally the burst of cheers that would erupt when the screen displayed “ THE END .” I could tell Ada was picturing this, too. She stared dreamily at the backyard like she was already there. I smiled thinking that the title screen might say: “ INVISIBLE Written and Directed by Ada Monday, Starring Elsie Monday.” Mom would feel righteous about that, I was sure. “Alright, well, I’ll leave you to your book. I’ll get another copy of the script printed for you.” She stood and brushed off her jeans. “You should start memorizing the moment I put that script in your hands, got it? I want to start rehearsals as soon as possible.” She called back as she opened the screen door, “Hear that? A.S.A.P!” In the weeks that followed I spent hours each day practicing Olivia’s lines in my bedroom. While making a bowl of cereal one morning in the kitchen with her parents, Olivia realized she couldn’t be seen by anyone. The first third of the movie followed Nancy and Bill and them trying to find Olivia, then it’s revealed that Olivia was actually with them in each scene, screaming her head off and hoping one of them would finally hear. This meant that most of the scenes were done twice, once without Olivia and once with her. I thought this was a rather clever technique on my sister’s part. Molly told me to really think about what Olivia wanted beyond to be literally seen. The further I read, I started to understand that Olivia felt invisible to her parents who were wrapped in a messy divorce. They didn’t understand her or listen to her and I often repeated the line, “ Oh, why can’t anyone just see me!”     Ada was a picky director and forced us to do scenes over and over until they suited her just right. I knew we’d have to start from the beginning when Ada curled her nose and rested her chin on her fist. She’d say, “Let’s try this one more time” and all the kids would groan. We were actors in her movie and she made sure we understood that. Some days it’d be too much. One afternoon, Ada had us redo a scene three times, a scene pivotal for Olivia. I was giving it my all, but every time I’d see Ada’s nose begin to scrunch, my stomach would turn and I’d lose my focus. “Elsie, I just need a little more from you. Olivia is ready to give up, ready to accept this as her fate. This is her plea–” “I am trying , Ada, but I don’t know how many times I can repeat this over and over–” It escalated from there. I called her a dictator and ran to my room and Ada sent everyone else home for the day. All afternoon I thought over the scene, trying to understand how Ada could want any more from me. When my anger cooled and it felt like my muscles had all finally loosened again, I read the scene over one more time. Script in hand, I knocked on Ada’s door though I doubted she’d hear me over her music. The door was unlocked. “Ada, I think I get what you mean–” I stopped in my tracks. Ada hurled herself from Molly, nearly falling off the bed. Molly’s face soaked red and every cuss word I’d ever heard flew from Ada’s mouth as she slammed the door. I retreated to my room, stunned. It looked like Ada and Molly were kissing but they broke apart so fast I could hardly say for sure. A few moments later there was a soft knock on my door. I knew it was Ada. She came inside and sat beside me on my bed. “I’m sorry for cussing at you,” she said, looking down at her hands that she couldn’t keep still. “I want to explain before you run and tell mom–” “I’m not gonna tell,” I interrupted. The thought never crossed my mind, honest. Ada sighed and her shoulders relaxed. “That’s good. Thanks, Elsie. I’ll just cut to the chase then. Molly is my girlfriend. We’ve been dating since New Years and no one knows but you. I know you might be confused about all this, but I am, too. Molly just makes me really happy.” I shrugged. “Then that’s all that really matters, right?” I felt weird about it. Ada was lying to everyone and no one knew it. Ada was right to think our parents would be mad, though. Ada stared at me, her eyes looking wider than ever with her cap gone and her forehead bare. Her eyes were a bit red and I wondered if she’d been crying. “Thanks, sis. That means a lot.” I wrapped my arms around her and she squeezed me tight before pushing me off. “Alright, alright.” She laughed and wiped her nose and tapped the top of my head with the rolled-up script that I was holding. “We can talk about this some more later, but right now I need my star actress to get back to work.” I smiled and nodded and with an awkward grin over her shoulder, Ada left. Re-reading the scene again, I realized how much Olivia meant to Ada and wondered whether Ada, who had only ever been loud and rough and would sooner risk being grounded than concede to anyone else’s opinion, felt as invisible as the character she wrote. Suddenly, Olivia was a little more important to me, too.

rrgavi

A Night Of Waking Dreams

“I can see it now,” She says nervously. Her big blue eyes stare over you, out the window. “I can see the rain now. It wasn’t raining before, was it?” You pretend to be asleep. Rise and fall. Rise and fall. You force yourself to take big, deep breaths, breaths like the ones Aria takes, the times she’s fallen asleep faster than you. You let out a little sigh, a sleeping sigh, and pray it wasn’t too dramatic. Aria is sitting up. She had been asleep—then the storm started. Probably woke up to the sound of the sky cracking in half and booming as it broke. Not literally, of course. But by the thundering growls outside, it sure sounded like it. ‘Iris?’ Aria’s small hand taps your shoulder, ‘Iris? Are you asleep?’ You choose not to answer. Your eyes are closed, but you can still feel her eyes on you, in the way most sisters can. She’s watching for a twitch of the eye, a flick of the wrist, a jerk of the leg. And you won’t give it to her. The thunder roars, past the yellow flowered curtains, lighting filling up the night sky like flying electric eels. Squinting your eyes the littlest bit, you see shadows dancing and twirling and waltzing on the bedroom wall. The room, and the world outside the window, looks eery and dark. The clouds cover the moon, but sometimes they shift to let its light through. The soft glowing white rays illuminate the walls and the objects in the messy bedroom, filling places that shouldn’t be filled with a sheet of ghostly white. The storm and the night work together to play tricks on your eyes, on your mind. You see a shape flick past you, to your right. Or maybe you don’t. you hear a howling in the distance. Or maybe you don’t. a hill to the west, not visible through the small window, but there nonetheless, would make a perfect place for howling at the moon. A perfect place for dangerous night things. A perfect place for fear. But you’re thirteen years old. Storms don’t scare you. You’ve studied them in school, studied their patterns and formations. And you’ve lived on this farm all your life, lived near the hill to the west, and you have never seen a dangerous night thing. Yet. A small hum comes from your side, light and high and worried. A siren. Or a little girl. You remember Aria next to you. In truth, you never forgot. You feel her weight shift, as she lays back down, seemingly giving up on the thought of waking you. Not that she could. You like to consider yourself the best fake-sleeper there is. Seven years of sharing a bed with Aria does that to you. You wait until you hear her breathing slow, hear her whimpers resolve. You turn slowly on your side, facing her, silently hoping she’s really asleep. Or even in that land between sleep and waking, that land filled with tunnels of light and explosions of dreaming particles. You like that feeling, that feeling of being half-asleep, half-awake. You like feeling like time has frozen in place. You feel safe there, in that land, so close and yet so far away. You hope Aria feels safe, there, too. Her little body is curled in on itself, frilled, clumped. She holds a small bundle—a bundle of rags. A bundle called Rugs. A bundle called love. Her young, plump fingers squeeze the tighter and tighter and tighter. Unflinching. Clenching. Because it seems she’s still awake. It seems she hears the thunder. Though her eyes are closed, she must see the bright flashes of lightning behind her lids. That’s alright. You used to worry that you subconsciously liked Aria best when she was sleeping. A strange worry, that was. You’ve had a lot of strange worries. But you know now, for sure, that even though you like sleeping Aria, you like awake Aria better. Normally. But maybe not now. Not an hour past midnight. She looks so peaceful, even if she’s only faking sleep. And then, the thunder cries louder than it has before. The ground seems to rumble the ceiling fan swings ever so slightly, casting a dancing shadow—a large bird flying in the dim light. Aria’s eyes fly open. Her death grip on Rugs loosens and she reaches her small arm to you. She needs you. ‘Iris,’ her little voice—the voice of a bumblebee, mother says—calls to you. ‘The storm,’ she whinnies, a pony with pigtails, ‘Rugs is scared.’ Rugs is scared. Of course rugs is scared. Rugs is a bundle of rags. If you were a bundle of rags, you'd be scared, too. Fine. Fine, she wants you awake. You had both been faking each other, in truth. And you both knew it, too. You weren’t asleep, and neither was she. ‘What, Ari?’ your voice comes out more crackly than you thought it would, ‘What can I do to help Rugs feel better?’ A roaring thunderous boom. Aria sits bolt upright. Her hair is sticking up at all angles, and you would laugh, if she didn’t look so terrified. ‘Rugs wants a story. Can you tell him a story, Iris?’ she says. ‘Ari, its late. Later than late. I’m not sure if a story’s a good idea.’ ‘Pleasssse,’ she stretches out the word so long it sounds more like a moan. ‘Oh, alright. One story. And then will Rugs stop pestering me and go to sleep?’ She bobs her head full of straw-colored hair. Up and down. Up and down. ‘Once upon a time,’ you start, ‘there lived two sisters. One of them, the older one, was called…um…Isabel. and the younger one was named…Addy. And they were pirates. They lived on a boat called the Dangerous Night Thing, but they called it the DNT for short. Yeah. The DNT. Anyway, the two sisters were—’ ‘Princesses?’ ‘Excuse me?’ ‘They were princesses, right? Weren’t they princesses, Iris?’ ‘Uh…well, I told you they were pirates. That’s their thing.’ ‘They can have two things, though. Can’t they be pirate princesses?’ ‘Pirate—oh, fine. Let me keep going, though. These two pirate princesses sailed the seven seas with the DNT, and they fought sea monsters for a living. Not because they liked too, really, but because fighting sea monsters was a stable job with a good hourly pay. And this one night, they were fighting a big sea monster with tentacles. It was like a giant octopus, if a giant octopus was neon orange. And it had one eye. One big, glaring, blinking eye. And it could swallow a whole fishing boat with one gulp, a bit like how you ate your potato salad yesterday. But it couldn’t eat the DNT, because the DNT was as big as it was. It would be like you, trying to eat a motorcycle. If you were the size of a motorcycle. But yeah. Isabella—’ ‘Isabel, Iris. Her name was Isabel.’ You give Aria the stink eye. ‘No,’ you say, ‘I’m telling the story and I say her name was Isabel. But she went by Isabella, sometimes, too.’ She shrugs. ‘Keep going.’ ‘That’s all there is to it. They were fighting a sea monster. In the DNT. And they were winning. The end.’ ‘That’s not a very good story.’ ‘I know.’ ‘Then make it better.’ You cross your arms. ‘How?’ ‘Act it out.’ Aria’s little bottom lips pouts out. She seems to have forgotten about the storm outside. Good. You’ll keep it that way. ‘Alright. Lets say the bed is the boat. See that chair? That’s a lifeboat. And the ceiling fan in a seagull.’ The thunder clapped outside. Aria leaned closer to you. ‘Rugs doesn’t like the thunder, Iris,’ she says softly. ‘Well, tell Rugs that’s not thunder. That’s just the sea monster roaring as we so bravely vanquish it.’ Aria’s frown twists and flips until it runs into a grin. ‘I can tell him that. So we’re fighting it—the sea monster—right now?’ ‘Yup. We’re winning, too.’ And, looking out into the bedroom, you let yourself imagine. You haven’t, in a long time, but you do now. The carpet dissolves into a black ocean. Your guitar in the corner tangles into a school of piranhas. There have to be piranhas. Obviously. Aria’s soccer ball becomes the DNT’s anchor, slowly sinking so that you can keep fighting the monster. Oh, the monster. It roars and growls and hisses. It gets louder every few seconds, then dies down as you stab at it with your swords. Side by side, you and Aria take on a beast. But the roaring gets louder. Louder than any living thing could get. And the carpet turns to carpet again, and the guitar and soccer ball become just that. And you and Aria find yourselves squatting on the bed together, facing a monster that never existed. A powerful crash of thunder. ‘Iris?’ Aria’s bumblebee voice squeaks, ‘I don’t want to be on the boat anymore. Rugs is scared. Tell me another story.’ And you do. Because you want to feel that feeling again—that feeling you get when you imagine, and everything dissolves into something better. You want to feel alive. This time, the story starts in a jungle. ‘Not just a jungle, a jungle cave. Two super smart and brave scientist ladies are there together, studying the rare one-footed dart frog. The frog lives on trees but will squirt poison at your through its eyes if it sees you. So that’s why they’re hiding in the cave. And in this jungle, it never rains or thunders. Ever. Never ever.’ ‘But Iris,’ Aria interrupts, ‘How are there trees if it never rains?’ So smart, that one. ‘Well,’ You say quickly, ‘The trees get their water from an underground river. Like a aquifer.’ Take that big word, Aria. You’re smart, too. Aquifer. Ha. ‘Where’s the cave for us?’ she asks. ‘Under the bed, of course. Ready to go?’ And together you crawl under the bed. Its warm and stuffy, and its cramped (because you seem to have grown since the last time you were there), but a jungle cave is warm and stuffy and cramped, too. ‘That pile of clothes? That’s a rare berry bush. Called the shadow berry. The lamp it the tree we’re watching. And that stain on the lamp, from when I spilled my chocolate milk, is the one-footed frog. It looks asleep, but its only faking.’ Aria stares at the frog with an intensiveness you match. You can hear the tropical birds calling to each other from high above. And then you hear a scratching sound. Like a fingernail against a blackboard. But it’s not, obviously. No, it’s the big oak outside the window dragging its branch across the glass. Errrrrch . It might be the spookiest sound you’ve heard all night. Aria shivers beside you. She’s not looking at the stain or the lamp or the pile of dirty clothes anymore. She’s looking out the window, at the dark silhouette of the branch, like a witch’s hand, dragging on the sill. And before you can stop her, Aria’s squirming out from under the bed, Rugs in hand. In a flash she jumps under the covers and pulls the quilt over her eyes. You hear her ragged breathing coming fast from beneath the fabric. It takes you longer than it took her, but you join her on the bed. ‘Aria?’ you ask quietly. ‘I don’t want to be in the cave anymore,’ she says, ‘Rugs is scared. Tell a different story?’ Its late. And you’re starting to feel tired. The adrenaline from studying the poison-shooting jungle frog is wearing thin. ‘I think we need to get some sleep. Rugs, too.’ This affects her instantly. ‘I caaan’t!’ she whines. If Rugs talked, he would be whining, too. You rub you temples. But you have an idea. ‘Fine. One more story. Once upon a time, there was a little girl. This little girl wasn’t a pirate, or a princess, or a scientist. She didn’t live on a boat, or in a jungle cave. She lived in a little house on a farm with a hill to the west. And she was sitting on a bed with a blue quilt. And she was holding a ball of kitchen rags wadded together. She called it Bugs.’ Aria’s eyes narrowed. ‘This girl sounds a lot like me. And Bugs sound a lot like Rugs. I don’t know what you’re doing, Iris, but whatever it is, stop it.’ You go on. ‘And its storming outside. But here’s the thing: this little girl and her bundle of rags—Bugs—loved storms. And so she walked up to the window and looked out. And she saw God. Well, maybe not God, but she saw something that looked a lot like God. She saw little drops of silver, falling from the sky in the smallest drops. Where had those drops been before? She saw a flash of bright light, like a ray of sunshine, only faster, quicker, smarter, filling the night sky with a powerful blanket of a thousand stars. She saw the fingers of a motherly oak, stroking the windows in a caress. And she heard the most spectacular sound. Like a billion moments of laughter, all bundled up together. Like a collection—a chorus! Of miraculously hilarious instances, let out in a few seconds of built up noise. It was awesome. And the little girl just sat there, for the rest of the thunderstorm, with Bugs by her side, and she watched and listened. And she felt so small. But that felt good. Because there was so much out there—so much awesomeness. And the storm reminded her of that. And then, after she got really tired, she went to sleep. And because she was asleep, her big sister felt safe and secure. And her big sister kissed the little girl’s cheek, and kissed Bugs’…well…kissed on of Bug’s rags, and went to sleep, too. The end.’ You cleared your throat. And sat in a moment of silence. Was Aria asleep? You turned to face her. No. no, she was awake. She wasn’t looking at you, though. And she wasn’t looking at the bed-boat, or the lamp-tree. She was looking out the window, at the rain. The lighting. The oak branch rubbing the window. And the thunder boomed loud and powerful and good, and she didn’t hide. She didn’t curl closer to you. She just held Rugs a little tighter, and kept watching. And she didn’t say a word. She just sat there. And you sat there. But oh, were you tired. Slowly, ever so slowly, you laid down. You closed you eyes. You fell asleep. Later, you awoke—but not really. You were half-awake, and half-asleep. Maybe your eyes opened, and maybe they didn’t, but the next morning, you could have sworn you had seen Aria, still watching the window, a small smile playing on her lips. Hours passed, and then you woke up for real. It was still dark outside. The storm was over. Water droplets were racing each other down the window pane, and the oak’s branch wasn’t waving in the wind anymore. Aria was next to you, fast asleep. You leaned over and kissed her forehead. And then you kissed Rug’s…well…rag. And you laid down next to your little sister, and let yourself drift off into a world of your on creation. You dreamt of pirate princesses and neon orange sea monsters. Of explorers and poisonous fake-sleeping frogs. And you dreamt of new things, wonderfully crazy things, until morning came.

i3tbtp

Sunshine girl

Warning: this story contains accounts of eating disorders and abuse. If you are easily triggered by these things, please consider not reading it. The first time it was said to me was at birth, not even old enough to open my eyes. Swaddled in my mother’s arms, the words fall from her lips: “My sunshine girl.”            I’ve heard stories of when I was still waddling around on two chubby legs, my hair sticking itself out like a wispy mane. I was always laughing and smiling. The world was my playground, and I could see everything through a lens filled with light.            I have no recollection of the hospital bed but panic and confusion seemed to strike hard. With every needle, every draw of blood, time seemed to slow down. I was oblivious to all of the serious connotations that went with my new chronic illness because I was so young that all I could ever really hold onto was the pain. I can imagine my mother pulling me into her arms, her eyes soaked wet with tears, whispering, “It’s going to be okay…my sunshine girl.” My life wouldn’t be as simple as my mother had hoped for it to be. In my mind then, life was still simple. All I worried about was which color of crayon to use for my crude depiction of the sun. I went to school with my mind open to new possibilities and creative plans. I was shy at times, but to those who really knew me, I was charismatic and bright-eyed. Illness just seemed to weave into the wave of brightness that still radiated from me. Innocence held onto me tightly.            Years later, I danced back and forth across from a studio mirror that seemed to stare me up and down. Not fat but not quite “thin”, I still compared myself to the elegant, long-legged girl moving next to me. I had tried in agony for years already, but it didn’t seem to matter. I realized that I would never look “ideal”. The less I ate, the harder life became. Returning home to the bathroom, I weighed myself like one would a sack of potatoes in the self-checkout line of a grocery store, dreading if the scale tipped over a little more. You might as well just starve. Coming home from a sixteen-hour whirlwind, I found it hard to breathe. I reached for something to eat in the fridge but stop suddenly. Tears threatened to escape my eyes again. I painfully recall the events of that day, hoping with all my heart to play that beautiful role in the musical that year, only to hear that I just “didn’t fit the part”. No more insulin injections, because insulin equals fat. Months seemed to roll on and on with waves of uncontrolled sickness, digging the hole deeper and deeper. Self-hatred and depression bubbled inside me. But I had to shake it off. It was all in my head, and there wasn’t anything wrong with me. After all, I needed to be that “sunshine girl”. I felt myself wade in a pool of molasses with every passing day. Unwanted attention shoved himself in front of me. I can still feel the anxiety from when practice started to when it ended like I was slowly being boiled alive. I can still feel him lurking there, his eyes undressing me. It was moments like this where I resented the fact that God made me a woman. Grabbing my hand forcefully, he asked, “You scared of me?” Yes. It was years down the road when I saw abuse for what it was. In those moments I was an object, like a rag doll or a throw rug. You can’t say anything really. Technically it wasn’t rape, why are you making it such a big deal?            I shoved it down deep, so far that I couldn’t bear to reach. For years no one knew- not my family or my friends. The concept of trust slowly faded away for me, because no one understood. How could they? And if I did open my mouth and speak, would they really care to listen? As far as I could see, vulnerability and trust were pointless delusions. In a college dorm, I put on eyeliner for the first time in ages. Another night and another strong attempt to find a connection. But for some reason, I knew it would be just like all of the other ones: left feeling used, misunderstood, and manipulated. My heart wasn’t just closed off at that point, it was put in a safe that had I lost the key to. Every time I tried to break it open, I would be reminded why the box was made of titanium. So, where was the sunshine? The rays that I so desperately tried to catch and keep were just that-rays. I couldn’t seem to make them stay even if I begged. I sat in darkness. The “sunshine girl” seemed to be just a figment of imagination.            Yet…I remember being a little older and speaking in a language that I had barely learned. The humid heat suffocated my neck as I walked through a concrete jungle day after day. I noticed my missionary nametag shine in the sunlight as I walked. Some days were easier than others, but there was always something that made my heart beat again.            One night, I retreated to a familiar home and a familiar face. A small, aged but beautiful brown-skinned woman stood in front of me. She spoke very few words, but her expressions spoke for her. She looked at my worn, troubled face with a light so familiar. She gently took my hands into hers and said only three words: “You are beautiful.” These three words that I had heard before, but never allowed myself to believe. Warmth seeped through me from vein to vein. I didn’t look “ideal”. I did not have money, a degree, or a ring on my finger. I was still sick. I still felt broken, and the past couldn’t be erased. They were scars that no one could see. But at that moment, the rays started to seep in through the cracks. Her voice held power, surety, and strength. And at that moment, it was like a God, a father, was speaking to me. “You are still beautiful…my sunshine girl.” Today, I am still beautiful.

9oensx

At Our Round Glass Table

I am having a hard time writing as I sit here at the kitchen table. I am not in a writing mood. Sometimes, here at the kitchen table, I have been in a spectacular writing mood. I sat here with my Dell computer on middle school summer vacations and seventh-grade half-days, typing away as I ran my hands over the rhinestoned computer back, tapped my fingers on the tabletop. I stayed up until the house was dark and still and my eyes were sore and dry, immersed in the swings and roundabouts of imagination. I was going to write a famous book that surpassed even Harry Potter . It was going to be so epic, and my mother would be so proud, and of course then I wouldn’t have to go to college. Other times, I have not at all been in a writing mood, here at this round glass table. I have stared at the fingerprint-smudged glass, not seeing it as anxiety roiled through my chest, a beast, twisting my heart with its acid claws. I have sat here all alone after shouting matches with my parents over college applications, after feeling as though, if only computers didn’t cost so much, I would smash the stupid keyboard with my mug of tea. I have sat here empty after pulling down the blinds around the kitchen table so that I didn’t have to see how darkly the night was pressing in. Most times, here at the kitchen table, I shift about in the mildly uncomfortable leather chairs, and I do not think about writing at all. I have often sat here and studied into the wee hours of the morning, a strange, thick pressure in my chest and a hand clutching at my frowning forehead. I have scrawled frustratedly through monstrous calculus homeworks, picked diligently through redundant chemistry puzzles, broken down over English essays I wrote and yet didn’t understand myself, as sometimes happens with English essays. I have cried at five in the morning at this table as I finished a calculus review sheet. My head felt as if it would split in two. I have drunk more cups of steaming ginger tea than I can count here at the kitchen table. Cups of ginger tea leave a round, foggy mark on the glass surface when my mother sets them down, the shape of a full moon late in the night. The ginger tea is dark, so that you can’t see the bottom of the cup. I have squeezed more honey bottles than I can count dry at this kitchen table, because my mother never stirs in enough honey. She says it is bad for me. I have eaten so many dinners at this table. I know a rotating list of foods that my mother conjures in her scrubs: soy sauce-sautéed vegetables with rice; steaming tofu soup; orange fried rice, sometimes with spam; Korean barbecue with lettuce and spicy red bean paste; pesto pasta salad. I can’t pinpoint what we talked about when we ate all those times, just that we talked, and that we teased each other, and that my dad always finished first because he ate so fast. And that my mother scolded my sisters and dad when they forgot to thank her for the food. I have shifted my leather chair at this table so that my mother could crouch and gather the crumbs and dirt from underneath it. I have sat down at this table and felt bad that my mother crouches down to gather up the crumbs and dirt from underneath my leather chair. I have sat here and typed out a Google Sheet designating chores to everyone in the family but her, so that she wouldn’t have to sweep the floors and wipe the fingerprints off the table and whip dinner out of thin air in her scrubs. I’m leaving fingerprints on the table as I write—I will wipe them later. I have chugged hot ginger tea at this table late in the night, my other hand sprawled over a precalculus textbook. The tea scalds my throat with ginger spice and boiling heat, but I drain it, teary-eyed, as my mother sets down a hot snack by my elbow and asks, in her polka-dot nightgown and night glasses, how much longer I will be up. My sister has sat in the seat next to mine, here at this round glass table, in the night with the blinds drawn down. Her eyes have dried out over math study guides, she has picked through the mud of biology textbooks till dawn just barely kissed the windows. She has fallen asleep here at the kitchen table, the cup of steaming ginger tea our mother placed by her head cooling through the night. Our youngest sister will, too, sit here at the kitchen table, maybe in that leather seat across from mine, or in the one I sit in and type in now. She will take out her pens and pencils, and when she sets them down our mother will set down a mug of piping hot ginger tea next to them, and tell her not to stay up too long. Then she, too, will lift her feet off the ground as our mother crouches down in her scrubs to gather up her crumbs. Just as her mother, our grandmother, did in their little house in New Jersey, reaching with a cloth beneath the thin wooden table and telling our mother to lift her feet a bit more, shift her hard chair back an inch or two. Just as her mother did, crouching down six decades ago to clean the dust by our grandmother’s feet beneath the low, glinting wooden soban at their house in Korea, telling our grandmother to drink up—ginger tea is good for your stomach . And when I close my eyes, I imagine that one day, perhaps it will be me. Me, crouching here as I weave through my daughter’s ankles, gathering up the dirt and glancing up to study her tired, determined face through the smudged glass of a table, the blinds drawn closed around us. I hope that she will not stay up too long.

nylqjw

The Secret

“What do you think is in here?”      Philip asked knee-deep in curiosity and sewage. His head swiveled over to look at Peri, shining his flashlight directly into their eyes. Shutting them swiftly, Peri shrugged. “Something no one wants us to find.” Emily laughed and quickly flew her hand up to her chest pocket on her flannel coat. “Too late!” She shouted, her freckles bouncing around on her face.      A small stitched horse seemed to be shouting its disagreement as she dug around in the pocket. Finally, her hand flitted over to the huge vault and she slipped in an odd Rubix cube-like shape into its perfect hole. A click sounded as soon as the cube fell into place and all three of us gaped in wonder as the cog began to turn all on its own.       Slowly new cogs began to reveal themselves in the machine, shaking off waste items I’d rather not speak of. As new and smaller cogs appeared the group began to take the shape of an odd tree, extending its branches with each click and shudder.      Philip was the first to speak with a muffled “Wooooah” Just as he spoke the bundle of cogs swung toward him and with a yelp, he leaped headfirst into the murky liquid-like substance. Groaning he sat up and with a squeamish look on his face began clawing off the substance, however, he froze halfway, gasping in awe only to begin coughing as the action made him swallow the unspeakable items contained within the sewer.      Whilst Philip sputtered Emily stepped into the area now revealed to them. “Uhhh, peri, you’re seeing this right?” She asked nervously, almost fearful in amazement as she stared at the pristine flooring just beyond the odd cog machine door. Peri nodded, breathless.      In front of the children was a laboratory with squeaky clean tables filled with colored chemicals bubbling up together. Most fascinating however was beyond the initial glace, because while what I just described to you is what the children could see if they only looked straight ahead through the doorway by simply tilting their head their eyes feel upon an entirely different scene.      Surrounding the clean laboratory were the same tables turned to ash, it looked as if the whole rest of the lab had, had a terrible baking incident. Not only this damage but glass bottles had also been turned over and they lay shattered on the floor.      Just as Philip finally managed to stop his violent coughing and shuddering Emily began walking over to the cog door. Her eyes seemed to sparkle as she ran her fingers along its brown and dusty back, revealing a bronze that shined under her flashlight’s glare.      Not wanting to be out adventured Peri quickly waddled over to Emily, “Are we gonna go in?” They asked in wonder. Emily took a moment to respond, seemingly considering this more than she’d ever considered anything before. She peeked into the room, examining every crevice for some sneaky creature just waiting to jump scare them. Finding nothing in her search Emily hopped into the lab and Peri tailed after.      Philip was the only one of the trio to doubt Emily’s inspection, having a peek himself before reluctantly stepping in as well. “This seems like a bad idea” He muttered, his boot squelching as he removed it from the sewage.      As Philip tripped his way into the lab Emily examined the shards. “What do you guys think happened here?” Peri shrugged, staring at the colored bubbles in the clean part of the lab, “Probably something bad.”           “You know Peri you don’t talk a lot.” Emily innocently commented as she began gathering the glass tubes. “Why is that?”      “Aren’t we getting a little old for you to act like a toddler who points out the first things they notice?”      “Damn okay, you don’t want to talk about it you don’t want to talk about it.”      Philip finally landed awkwardly on the pristine ground and bolted over to the pair. “That was uncalled for Peri, is something bugging you?” He asked sliding in as a barrier between Peri and a table.      Your high-pitched voice for one , Peri bit back the reply and instead said, “No, I’m fine. Just a little annoyed with my dad.”      Emily nodded, although anyone could see that she was still startled by Peri’s sharp reply earlier. “What’d he do this time?” She asked, trying to add some light to the conversation.      “He just, he wasn’t even a little bit suspicious when I asked him for these clothes.”      “Isn’t that a good thing though?” Philip asked, “I don’t think he would have let us come in here if he had figured out what was going on.”      Emily came up behind the two and shoved Philip out of the way and into a turned-over table, “Of course, it’s not a good thing Philip! Honestly don’t you even pay attention? Peri’s dad has never shown any concern for them! Isn’t that a little bit worrying to you?”      Rubbing soot off his patchy brown sweater Philip shrugged. “I guess? I dunno Emily I think it makes things a lot easier for all of us. I mean, imagine if Peri had to come up with elaborate lies like me, or sneak away like you! It’d be so much harder for us to get our hands on all the equipment their dad keeps locked up in that weird basement!” Whilst he tried to get up he ended up he revealed a small trapdoor hidden under the table.      “Hey, guys, what’s this?” Philip tentatively asked, brushing ash off the handle. Bored of staring at the walls in wonder Peri and Emily walked over to him. “Well, it looks like the next page of this mystery,” Emily said excitedly, her cheeks going red as she began to examine the trapdoor. Instantly Pei pointed out a small hole, “I don’t think we’ll get to see that next page until we get the next key though.” Their voice drooped a bit in disappointment.      Emily pouted, letting her head fall back in dismay. “But I worked so hard! I thought I stitched together all the clues and we were going to crack this town’s deep mystery.” Peri rolled their eyes in mild amusement in reaction to their friend’s whining.      “Isn’t there any other way besides the sewer to get out of this place?” Philip asked, dismayed as he stared at their ungodly entrance.      While Emily continued to sulk a little next to the trapdoor Peri and Philip split up into either side of the room and searched for a different exit.      “There’s no way someone entered that loose manhole every time they wanted to come down here,” Peri muttered. Emily began picking herself back up and trying to shift some of the less charred tables around, “Then why would that entrance be so extravagant?” Philip shrugged, “Maybe they wanted to alligators to see it?”      Peri and Emily flashed him a look. “What? Alligators live in the sewer!” Philip shouted  defensively. The two simply shook their heads, sad that Philip’s education had failed him so.      Finally, Peri pushed aside a table that had been flipped against the wall revealing… a door! One which had miraculously completely avoided the explosion which had taken out most of the lab.      “Found it!” They called, and without waiting for their friends to come over Peri turned the door handle. It was rusted and the handle didn’t turn easy however after a few seconds Peri powered through and slammed open the door. A bit surprised at the noise they had caused Peri paused for a moment, peering up into the darkness.      After a moment Peri heard shuffling from above them and what sounded like the creaking of floorboards. Having reached the door Emily peered in, “I think it’s a staircase, but where does it go?” curiously, she was the first to begin climbing up the stairwell. Peri was next, quickly grabbing onto the handrails. Philip hesitated for only a moment before joining them in the climb.      “What do you think we’ll find when we climb up?” Philip asked, uncomfortable with how steep the stairs were. Emily bounced as she stepped, her mind alit with creativity. “I bet we’ll end up in the townhall! And then we’ll learn that it was the mayor’s grandfather who built this place. And, and, we’ll soon figure out that it was destroyed by artificial life he created after they failed to find meaning in their existence and tried their hardest to destroy not only themselves but also the very man who forced them into that meaningless thing called life!”      Peri exasperatedly huffed, although there was a smile on their lips as they did so.      “Well, what do you think we’ll find? We’ve already heard Philip’s stupid alligator theory, it’s your turn”      “What do I think we’ll find?” Peri asked, smiling. However, before Peri could tell the other two what terrible thing they thought lay at the top of the stairwell a light other than the trio’s helmet flashlights flooded in.      Just above them, a mustached face looked quizzically back at them. “Peri? Is this what you were up to?” Peri rolled their eyes as soon as the voice hit their ears, “Dad” they said unenthusiastically.      Philip began to panic, “Oh, uh, well, hello there sir! We were just… just…” he trailed off from his stuttering and hoped that someone else would figure out how to make this completely normal.      Emily realized far quicker than Philip how odd it was that Peri’s father had just happened to find a doorway to this weird lab. “Say Mr.” she trailed off for a moment, desperately trying to remember Peri’s last name from when their teacher took roll.      “Ulm.” He said, nervously.      “Right,” Emily said, even more, suspicious now because of the odd last name. “Mr. Ulm, just what do you work as?” Peri’s father simply looked her up and down and answered, ‘Why don’t you come up here and we can have a nice chat about that.” Emily nodded slowly, her lips pursed and her eyes all squinty.      When Emily didn’t move Peri shoved her a little up the stairs, growing annoyed. Suddenly remembering where she was Emily began marching up the stairs, rather confident for someone who smelled like waste products.      When the three reached the top of the stairwell which they discovered to be the bottom of a chest in Peri’s basement they instantly ripped off their sludge-covered overalls, boots, and gloves. In turn, Mr. Ulm switched off the flashlights on their caps and took them off, piling them up before throwing them onto the pile.      “Now then, should I arrange for parents to come to pick you up, or would you two prefer to handle that yourselves?” Emily looked as if she wanted to say something however Peri spoke first.      “So that’s it? You’re not even going to question what we were doing down there? I gave you a lie you know, you didn’t even want to hear what I was going to do with your stuff but I gave you an excuse anyways! And it was a dimwitted lie and we both know it! I was all like ‘I need it for a school project’ and you did not bat an eye! The least you could do is pretend to care about me!”      “Listen, honey, I figured-”      “NO! I am not done talking father ! You stare past me every day! I could be doing whatever crazy stuff I want to and you just ignore me! And that hurts ! I just can’t understand why you would ever adopt a child if you were never going to care about them!”      Philip and Emily uncomfortably sat on a dusty stitched together couch.      “Peri” The name came out as a whisper for Louis, “I do care about you honey, I do” His eyes began tearing up as they went on. “No, no you don’t!” Peri’s voice grew raspy as their volume lowered. “I saw your photobook this morning, you left it out! I saw how happy you were with her! And then she realized what a rotten person you are and left you! So you decided to adopt someone else to torment and that ended up being me!” The word rotten stung Peri even though they were the one who said it.      “Peri, Peri my darling my child. I’m so sorry.” Louis’s voice shattered into tears. “That’s not true and I’m so sorry I made you feel like it ever could be. That, that lady was going to marry me 15 years ago but then she had to go fight in a long war overseas. So two years later I saw your photo on a website and I knew I could give all my extra love to you.”      Eyes wet Peri crashed into Louis’s arms. “I’m sorry I thought so bad of you” Peri apologized, thinking themself silly for ever having such a thought cross their mind.      “I know I haven’t been the parent you wanted me to be Peri, and I’m sorry, I’ll make it up to you”      Still awkwardly sitting together Emily and Philip were finally noticed by Louis. “Ah,” He said, “Yes well back to my earlier question, would you like to walk home or…?”      Emily quickly shook herself out of the awkward and went back to her suspicious face. “Not so fast! You haven’t explained why you have a secret lab!”      Philip chuckled, “Eh she’ll walk home and I’d like to be picked up, please.” Mr. Ulm nodded, “Right” He swiftly grabbed his phone out of his back pocket and began texting. “In the meantime, I do believe I owe you three an explanation.”      Peri sat down behind his armchair as their father sat down. Seemingly embarrassed to have been so emotional. “I currently work from home as a biochemist. How I work from home, used to be that lab. Currently, I use our garage.”      “You’re boss lets you work from home?” Philip asked, curiosity getting the better of his awkwardness.      “Well, I am my boss so yes. I run my own business funded by investors interested in my experiments. “The previous lab was destroyed when-”      “You had a huge accident with your chemicals and accidentally blew everything up!” Emily interjected excitedly. Louis tilted his head and shook it.      “Precisely! Wow, who are you Pythia? Although you will have noticed a specific area where everything was clean, that was the area I had planned to propose to my lover in.”      A ding sounded from Mr. Ulm’s pocket. “Well go on then Philip, your parents are here.” Looking a bit disappointed that he wouldn’t get to discuss their findings with his friends Philip stood up, “Bye guys, I’ll come over tomorrow for us to talk, okay?”       “Of course! See you tomorrow Philip!” Emily shouted a little louder than she had to given that Philip was less than 5 feet away.      As soon as Philip disappeared Emily sprang to her feet and began to beg, “Mr. Ulm can I please stay the night here? My mom’s out on my business trip and my Dad will definitely say yes so can I please stay here tonight?” Louis rubbed his nose, sighing, and nodded. Then quickly looked to Peri as Emily exploded into squeals. They smiled at him sweetly and nodded.      As the three climbed the stairs Peri had a thought come over her that they couldn’t believe they’d forgotten. “Hey, dad, there’s a trapdoor in your lab, what’s under there?” Peri asked.      Louis looked back at them and grabbed their hand, sighing. “Child of mine, that is a secret you’re just not ready to know.” And as he said this he let go of her hand and giddily walked to the kitchen.      Emily met Peri as they exited the stairwell. “So like is your dad some kind of… biochemist, Einstein ? And why doesn’t everyone know about his work? Why does he feel the need to hide it in a secret lab? Will that woman ever come back to him” Peri shrugged, “I Guess That’s just something the world’s not ready to know”

x9reeb

Shooting Marbles

“Grow up.” “But I hate onions.” “Just eat them, stop being a baby.” When his mom stops looking, Eli reaches his fingers between the bun and the patty of his cheeseburger. Delicately, he removes the onions from the bed of ketchup and lettuce. He flings them onto his napkin like little tapeworms. He’d recently seen a video about parasites on Youtube and, like many preteen boys, he had an affinity for gross things. It’s a desolate, Midwestern Sunday in January. The sterile, blue sky peeks between bare branches. Dust and gravel kick up like dead wishes and complacency when trucks cruise into the parking lot. Eli, his mom, and his grandma have just picked up his fourteen-year-old brother, Skyler, from the park where he does his mandatory community service. He’s usually lethargic after they pick him up due to a combination of sleep deprivation and resentment. But lately, he has been increasingly unpredictable. His hand tremors slightly on the table. He fiddles with his fork to try to hide it, but Eli, sitting next to him in the booth, notices. The boys’ grandma asks him how it was today. “Alright.” The waitress comes by to refill their glasses. Their mom smiles at her with pinched lips because nothing anybody does is ever good enough for her. “I stayed pretty busy today.” “I know you did, Skyler.” Their grandma winks at him from across the table, then takes a long sip of decaf coffee. He takes a bite out of his turkey wrap.  “Doing what, Skyler?” Their mom asks with a hint of skepticism and a mouthful of lettuce. She stabs her salad with her fork. A cherry tomato bursts and the seeds spill out, like little larvae, Eli thinks. Skyler busted out the storefront of a local Macy’s. He loaded a pair of paintball guns with marbles and shot out the windows. It was later that night that the police were at their house. There had been witnesses, apparently. Their mom was furious. In the days that followed, she exercised rigorous self-care, painting her toenails and cooking pasta. Their grandma, a religious and kindly woman, said, “I know you didn’t mean to, I know you were just having fun, Skyler.” He recently started at his second placement. The first one had been at the local outdoor shopping mall, changing trash bags, sweeping the curb, and washing windows. He’d asked his probation officer if he could change his placement because he claimed someone almost hit him with their car. Now, he is at the park picking up litter at the playground. Their father is incarcerated so “statistically speaking,” said a very sophisticated officer, Skyler is more likely than the average kid to end up in prison. As if Skyler could understand statistics. Their dad sent them letters on occasion, written in first-grade scrawl. Sometimes they would arrive all crumpled up, probably because he was noncommittal and hated himself. So, he threw them away before he decided to send them. Every time he sent a letter to Eli, it read, “I can’t believe you’re not a baby anymore,” or, to Skyler, “I can’t believe you’re not still in preschool.” Which made sense, because the last time he’d been a part of their family was ten years ago. Skyler strokes his temple. “Uh, cleaning graffiti off the slide.” His knee bounces under the table. It reminds Eli of the days when Skyler wanted to be a drummer and would practice with the pedal. Discreetly, Skyler slips his trembling hand into his jacket pocket, his fingers wriggling around like a ball of worms. If it’s chewing gum in his pocket, he better share it , Eli thinks bitterly. “Good, Skyler, young kids don’t need to see stuff like that. Why do they do it?” Their grandma tsks and chews her food slowly, considerately. Next to her, their mom stabs at her salad like a knife in the heart, a crime of passion, a bit of sadism too. “What did it say, Sky?” “Um…” “Don’t answer him.” Their mom points her fork at Eli. Her rings are too big for her fingers so they slide across them like an abacus. “Eat your goddamn cheeseburger that I paid for. Put the onions back on it.” While their mom scolds Eli, Skyler slides forward in his seat and slips a few fingers into his jean pocket. Presumably, he’s looking for whatever he didn’t find in his jacket. From the corner of his eye, Eli can see something glinting in his lap. Quickly, Skyler shoves it back into pocket. Eli cannot think of a kind of gum that comes in clear plastic. “I want to give you something….” Their grandma pulls a ten dollar bill out of her wallet. “Here. Take it. I know they don’t pay you.” “Because it’s not a job. He’s in trouble, Jean.” Skyler takes the money. “Well, I think he does a great job and he deserves something for it.” She nods at him encouragingly. “He needs new headphones. Didn’t Theodore get a hold of the cord and chew it up?” “Yeah.” She stuffs her wallet back into her purse. Instead of going back to her plate, she carries on with Skyler: “Have you made any friends? You’re out there with other kids your age, right?” He crams the bill into his pocket. “Yeah, I met a couple.” He takes another bite of his wrap. Skyler tells Eli someone named “Zeb” gave him the pills. He holds them in his palm for Eli to see. The two are sitting on Skyler’s bed. Peach lamplight illuminates the walls and their young faces. It is the best time to take drugs. Their grandma is mostly immobile and busy watching The Price is Right in the living room. And their mom is at the grocery store where she works as a clerk. “Here, take one.” Skyler holds a little, white tablet out to Eli. He examines it warily. “I don’t know.” “Come on, don’t be a baby .” “What will it do?” “Well, you won’t know unless you try it, will you?” “Can I only take half?” Skyler sighs and rummages through his nightstand drawer. He pulls out a pair of craft scissors. Then, he puts the tablet on the table, stretches the scissors open wide, and, with his hand cupped over it, pushes the blade down onto the tablet. The cut is very uneven. Eli picks up the smaller piece. Looking at him sideways, Skyler slips some of the tablets into his mouth. Eli is not sure how many, only that it is more than one.  Eli had caught him with a cigarette before and it horrified him. Seeing Skyler swallow the pills is almost nauseating. But he is curious about Skyler. He wants to know the truths about him because he is his older brother.  “How is it going in there, boys? Need any help with your math?” their Grandma calls from the living room. “No, it’s going well, Grandma,” Eli replies while he puts the tablet on his tongue and takes a swig of diet Pepsi. He smirks at Skyler. See, I’m not a baby after all . Eli jabs his phone screen with his thumbs. His brain feels a little bit numb, almost as if it is floating inside of his skull. There is also a tingling in his limbs. But that’s about all so far. Skyler has been sitting against his pillow, playing a mobile game, too. The two talk lightly about their teachers and about their games, making small utterances of annoyance as they play. There is a warmth in Eli’s beating heart because he has not sat on his brother’s bed and talked to him since he was under ten. But the warmth turns into a chill when, eventually, Eli notices Skyler is slumping further and further down the wall. He drops his phone in his lap. The game’s tune still plays on loop. “Skyler?” His lids are droopy, so that the whites of his eyes are in a crescent shape. His palms open up toward the ceiling. Eli picks up Skyler’s phone and places it into his limp hand, assuming that will rouse him. His fingers barely twitch. “Skyler?” He starts to mumble something incoherent. Eli pushes Skyler’s golden hair out of his face as if he might kiss his forehead, as if he might kiss him goodnight. “Can you hear me?” Skyler doesn’t respond. His breathing is no more than a whisper. Eli crawls close to him and listens to his chest. He can still hear the air, like a winter breeze, in his lungs. It is foreboding and thin. What he can hear more distinctly is the television in the living room: “Ahh” says the audience in tandem. Unsure of what to do, Eli leans back and appraises Skyler from across the bed. He chews on his nails. “Skyler, this was a mistake, Sky, this was a mistake,” he whimpers. He knows can’t go get Grandma, he can’t tell Grandma that Skyler has died or is dying. She would for sure freak out. And if he told her about the pills, she would be so disappointed. Not only that, but she might have to call for help and then Skyler could be in trouble which is almost just as bad as dying. What if he had to do more community service? What if they sent him back to the shopping center and made him chase bottle wrappers across the parking lot again? Eli also has fleeting and inappropriate thoughts, maybe like all people have when they panic. He remembers that Xbox game he wanted last year, the one he obsessed over and finally got for Christmas, how awesome was that? He remembers watching Skyler hold the paintball gun in his left hand and load the marbles with his right hand. He remembers how Skyler admired one of the marbles, one with swirly green and gold and he didn’t fire that one, he kept it because it was cool. Eli tried to think of where it was because it did not end up in that store, it did not end up in that store because Skyler put it in his pocket, he didn’t load that one. He shouldn’t have helped him handle the guns, but Skyler is his older brother and he wants to know him and his truths. Eli knows Skyler is fourteen-years-old and he should not die. But he is not certain what to do because he is twelve-years-old, and his brain can’t solve such complicated and immediate problems. Because he can’t rely on his brain, he relies on his fist. He hits Skyler in the face and he falls sideways, knocking the lamp off of his nightstand so that there are strange shadows cast on the wall and ceiling–a result of the contorted lamp shade. Skyler lies twisted with his hair fanned out across the nightstand. He moans, and it is not like a normal moan, it is long long long and eerie and inhuman. As if he is a zombie. Eli wishes he wouldn’t have agreed to take that tablet. He wishes he would have done things backwards; that is, eaten onions and not taken the tablet. Maybe if he would have just eaten the onions he wouldn’t have had anything else to prove. He picks Skyler up, all dead weight, and shakes him desperately. When he releases him, he slumps back against the wall into a position that hardly looks natural. He makes a small sound, maybe a word? Eli grabs his face. “What is it, Skyler? You have to say it louder, I can’t hear you.” Running out of ideas after only trying two things, Eli lays a cold washcloth on Skyler’s face like a pall and for the first time he begins to cry. It doesn’t rouse him. Eli peels the washcloth away and stares at Skyler’s face. Eli doesn’t care what that probation officer said. Skyler looks nothing like their dad. Down the hallway, the phone rings. Shortly thereafter, their grandma calls again, “Your mom wants to know if you boys changed the litter in Theodore’s box.” Speaking through the cracked door, Eli answers mechanically, “Yes, we did, Grandma.” Then he decides he definitely will not tell Grandma. He closes it and turns the lock. Eli gets a blanket from Skyler’s closet and wraps it around his brother’s bony shoulders while he coos like a baby. It’s as if Skyler’s bedroom has detached from the house and is falling into a black hole. Their grandma keeps calling them about chores, about homework, about dinner, but Eli feels like he exists in a different world now. Her voice becomes a figment of his imagination as his head fills with white noise and his pulse. His pulse has become his entire being. He is a pulse. Eli cuddles close to Skyler and feels, somehow, both secure and disemboweled. What he wanted and what he didn’t. An unconditional attachment. A funeral suit. While he lays with Skyler, Eli notices that there is a white cord with the insulation chewed apart hanging out of the nightstand drawer. The cord is held together by a few hair-thin wires. Eli sits up and plugs them into Skyler’s phone. He opens his music app and, after a long hesitation, plays a song. He’s afraid to know. But he can hear the music, though faint and a bit garbled. He lays back on Skyler and listens. And waits for him to wake up.

mcwf2w

If only

Grow up she said to me as I stared at her. Eventually, when you become a teenager, you'll start to find yourself but there can be people who don't want you to find yourself. Age 15 came around quickly, and I argued with my mother, "let me cut my hair" I shouted as she refused "why, your gonna look like a boy, Your my little princess" in moments I snapped "I didn't ask to be one, oh if I had the choice, I wouldn't even hesitate to pick boy, because guess what being a girl isn't all that fun." I said as I slammed my bedroom door. Moments later there I was, cutting my beautiful curly brown hair. Looking at myself in the mirror, I finally felt masculine, now I have short fluffy curly hair like all the other boys. As I walked out of the bathroom there stood my mother staring at me in disbelief, "sarah what have you done" she said as she walked towards me, "my name is milo and I'm a boy" "you're just a kid, you're my little girl, why would u wanna change that" and then suddenly I found myself opening my mouth once again but only this time a little too much, "really why would I want to change that, I don't know mom maybe its cause I don't feel like a girl or maybe its cause if I had short curly hair that I could mess and fiddle with, girls would maybe stop and stare, or maybe its cause I would rather have a flat chest and deep voice but unfortunately I don't have a choice, I wish I could like the gender that I do without it being a sin, or unnatural. I wish i was a he but alas, it's just a wish I'm still me still a she." she stared, not having any words to say to me. Bringing her home was the worst mistake, as I walked into my house with my girlfriend she introduced herself "hello I'm Milos girlfriend" I knew my mother wanted to say something but she kept quiet. Dinner time came around and that's where it all started "honey close your legs" my mom said to me "no" I simply replied and continued to eat my dinner, "close them or Allison is leaving" I looked up from my plate "why can I sit with my legs open mom, I should be allowed considering I'm a boy but wait no u still view me as a girl, I'm a boy and I can sit how I would like, I can play "manly" sports but oh wait you wouldn't like that, I wish I could tell the teachers at my school that my pronouns are he/they but alas they make a face, I wish I could have a boy name, I wish I could change." and now I felt Allison staring at me, while my mother slammed her fork on her plate, standing up. My mother walked into my room as I was crying my eyes out "honey what's wrong" she asked as she sat on my bed "I wish I could wear a suit without others making remarks, I wish I was a boy, A boy who had best friends, and girl best friends, I wish I was a boy who didn't have to care how people thought about them. and I wish I was a boy, I wish I could just change. but life isn't that easy is it? having to tell ur family, u changed ur gender, having to wear a binder to have a flat chest, having to do everything that u wouldn't have to do if u were just born a he, not a she, it's hard trying to be someone who you cant be bc of others" I knew I opened up too much, "honey, your you, and if I'm whats hurting u cause I don't view you as a boy ill change my view" "mom it's not that" I said while sitting up on my bed "changing is so hard" “it's gonna be hard but you can make it” she said as she left my room Weeks later it started, Picking up the blade and pushing it against my skin to make red-colored marks on my body. I was clean only every time someone uses the deadname I use silver to color red on my skin. “I missed this,” I said while still coloring on my skin, but I made a cut too deep, I feel dizzy, I'm falling, crashing against the floor, managing to say “mom” the last thing I saw was my dad in tears and then it went black.  I woke up at the hospital seeing my mom wasn't in the room but instead my dad. “Kiddo what did you do,” he told me as I blinked multiple times wondering if I was in a dream, “dad is that you” “yes what have you done” “I'm sorry, I didnt mean to I wanted to feel alive again,” I said as I started to feel weak again and then nurses rushed in, I felt myself slowly slipping out of my body, seeing my dad on his knees crying begging for them to save me. I began to realize the love he had for me when I told him I was a boy and not a girl, he took me to buy clothes and shoes, he bought me a binder, he got me cologne, he was so happy but now he’s seeing his son die in front of his own eyes, the pain I've caused him in this very moment, and suddenly I found myself waking up. My dad stood up and hugged me, “please don't ever do this again” Arriving home from the hospital was difficult, having my little brother run up to me looking like he hasn't slept in a day or 2, my other brother looking like he’s been crying for hours with puffy eyes. My mom was nowhere to be found, I later found out she left us. I know it was my fault, if only I was a girl if only I would've stayed a girl my mom would still be here with us.

fiv2oo

Bridge

Now my friends, as an Asian-American, you would think that I would have often faced racism and that I would have nursed each of my broken pieces into somewhat of a nice-looking sculpture with cracked lines running all over. But in fact, it was quite the opposite. As I was growing up, I luckily did not face as much racism as I do now. But now, I hurt for the brothers, sisters, and the elderly that could've been my grandparents. Every time I scroll through another article, I know that we have lost so much, yet we continue to climb the hard rocky path in hopes of a brighter and better future. We have lost so many just because they were born with different skin colors, faces, and cultures. And, I know I am not the only one who cries and fears. I know that we are not the only ones who have also shared the pain. Although I did not face much racism directly from other people, I received it more backhandedly from society. I was isolated from my culture so I could fit in. I rejected my language so I could be more American. I wanted to do everything that the ideal American kids did, so I gathered all the strength that my young arms could carry and pushed myself away from my language, food, and habits. I turned my head away from what my family told me. My first language, Mandarin Chinese, was nearly forgotten. To make friends I needed to be like them, to speak like them, and to act like them. In the end, none of those actions helped. One of the most vivid memories that scarred me and seared itself into my mind is one of the key experiences that I have had with racism and isolation from my culture. In fact, it was not from other people but from within myself, which shows you how peer pressure works, how it feels to want to conform to a group, and what people tell you. When I was a kid, I went on a trip with family friends. And, you know how almost everything terrible starts with a game of UNO? Yeah, you heard me. I said UNO. When I was in 5th grade, I left for a road trip with my dad and family friends. As an American-born Chinese, also known as ABC, I could not speak Mandarin well anymore. I felt very awkward with these family friends since they were from China. There were the Chinese parents, their son, who was 18-years-old, and his about 20-years-old friend. We were sitting around the wooden table where we were staying in Arizona. Now, here’s where we get to the very controversial part about the UNO rules… The way I played UNO was when you didn’t have the same color or number, you would draw one, and the next person would go. The friend, let’s call him K, played the rules differently. If you did not have the same color or number, you would draw cards from the deck until you got one. Of course, I argued for my way, and he argued for his. Everything built up, and the tension rose like a volcano on the brim of erupting. Everything finally erupted when I shouted, “How are you going to tell me how to play UNO when UNO is an American game?” I continued, “You’re from China, and I’m from America. I know how to play the game better than you because UNO is an American game!” When the words left my mouth, it was too late, and the damage had been done. I ran outside. I cried like a baby, and I felt so sorry. I realized how terrible it must have been to be on the receiving end of that and how racist it sounded. My heart and mind were burning with shame, but I apologized. How I got to that point is somewhat a mystery to me, but I hope those scenarios never happen again. The types of situations where I disassociate and disown my culture to fit in with people that do not even want me here. I hope I will never choose the people who hate me and think I’m gross over my people. Now that I look back on it, I realize what it meant for me as an Asian American but mostly American at the time. Every time I search my mind, I see choices that I have made. Sometimes they come back and whisper, and sometimes they shout at me. The regret emanates from my soul, but now I’ve accepted it, and I’m grateful that I have changed. Although, some actions are too late, like speaking my language. I think about what I see in the news. Every new story crushes my mother’s heart, then my aunt’s, then another Asian person that I know, and then my own heart. And, I ask myself, how do we live like this where we’re pushed off onto subway tracks, where we’re blatantly assaulted in public? It is then soon followed by the question, “How do we, Asian-Americans, live when we aren’t fully accepted by both countries?” Thinking about these questions, I realized that it would be a challenge for me to be Asian-American, for the people I know to be safe, and for me to connect to my culture. For me to even learn about it, so much of the history has been erased. You would think both of the roads have been paved for me, and that I could go either places. However, they are just even more challenging and limited now. I’m connecting to my culture again, even though it may pose dangers for me because of my location and the difficulty it is to actually feel and find the information. It’s still my home and my origin, and for that, I wouldn’t trade it for anything else in the world. To be Asian and American is a blessing and a curse. It wasn’t my choice to be born as both, but it happened. And to be a neutral bridge between parallel lines is quite an exceptional experience; It forced and forces me to adapt continuously.

nbftuo

Two Little Words

Grow up". Those were not the words spoken but rather the thought she had in her mind as she watched the small baby being wheeled off to the NICU. The tiny baby was the shell of what was to be a girl. Three pounds 4 ounces and despite having the ten fingers and toes every parent hopes for she knew as her baby fought for every breath that she too was in the fight of her life. "Your daughter may not make it through the night" She of course would not hear such words or give them power to manifest. "She will, I know she will." The little girl did make it that first twenty four hours though her hospital stay was to be a long one. The first touch she would ever know would not be that of her mother's loving embrace but those of a nurse who would adjust the machines and regulate the temperature that was needed to sastain life. Three months would go by. Three months of a home with a crib that never got slept in, clothes that never got warm still hanging with tags on. Three months where the piece that was supposed to complete a family left it in pieces instead. Here she was an eighteen year old mother. She was healthy and strong, why couldn't the same be said for her baby. She got down out of bed in that very hospital gown and when her knees hit the cold floor she prayed. She knew she had no right to ask anything of the Lord. Who was she to question him and his plan? Still and yet she talked to him through the tears. Tears of anger, joy, frustration and fear. What had she done in her life to deserve this? There were people every minute of each day in these very same hallways some that have even been in this very room who take home healthy babies. Why at twenty six weeks had her body betrayed her and expelled the very thing she felt was keeping her heart beating. Now her heartbeat was lying in a makeshift human struggling to do the very same thing she, at this very moment was too, and that was to catch her breath. "Please God give me my miracle" Every minute of every day seemed consumed with the hospital and doctors and machines beeping and alarms sounding. They were both prisioners of those walls. Instead of holding her new baby and soaking in the smell she instead got used to the smell of latex, the barrier that kept her from touching her baby's new skin. ""Summer" that's your name." "Summer Leigh" she would hum to little Summer as if to say I'll be right here, I would like to go but your love has made me stay. Under the tap and the tubes she could see her daughter was beautiful. As she heard the machine inflate she watched the tiny girl's chest rise. Doctors came and went and in three months she had answers. These answers however were to questions she was afraid to ask. The doctors said there were problems but the extent of these would remain to be seen. The small girl had been deprived of oxygen during birth. The exact amount of time remains in question but the best guess was a few minutes. The girl would never walk, she may not speak and though the list went on. All she could do was look at her Summer. Sure sure she looked weak. The deck was surely stacked against her. She knew that her Summer had the will that she herself possessed. It could have been her faith that months earlier had her on her knees or just her "mother's intuition" but she refused to believe that her daughter was going to be anything less than God's amazing grace. She sat like clockwork every day in that same old rocking chair and gazed upon her daughter. She touched her through gloved covered hands and sang to her over the machines. She knew the her prayers had been answered this whole time. She prayed for God to give her a miracle. This baby was a miracle, and they say miracles happen every day and she couldn't testify to that but on that day in late June she knew that God was looking out for her. Tests would confirm that baby Summer had cerebral palsy. That was the bad news. The good news was that only meant the brain was affected in the region that is responsible for muscle control. The left side of Summer's body both arm and leg would be affected. It would be three years and several surgeries and physical therapy appointments later but Summer did walk. The good news was that intellectually Summer was normal she learned to talk and became a very gifted reader. By the time she was four she could write her name and just like the other little girls her age she learned to count and her colors and shapes. There was a September day in 1994 there she stood with five year old Summer. She looked down at the little girl clutching tight to her backpack and lunchbox waiting anxiously on the bus that would carry her to school for the first time. All at once the tears came rolling in as the bus came into veiw just around the corner and as stood there she stoked Summer's hair and she thought about that night five years ago. "She may not make it through the night" "she won't walk" "she won't talk" and she saw her newborn baby in the place where her little girl now stood. Her thoughts began to focus as the bus came to a stop. The other kids piled on but Summer held on to her hand. "Mommy why do I have to do this?" She dropped to her knees and kissed her daughter and said so you can "GROW UP"

4283xp

Chin Up

“It's five pm, dad should be home any minute”, I thought to myself as I peered down our driveway. I had already laid down the measuring tape, pencil and even managed to flatten out my unruly bushy hair into a tight ponytail (I wouldn’t want to cheat and pretend to appear taller). I heard my father's car approaching from a distance, he always managed to procure vehicles that had a distinguished sounding horn ... I was up on my feet and ran towards our main door. I saw him pull into the driveway. He warmly greeted me at the door, my father doesn’t know this but his evening greetings are memories that I still hold close to my heart. As a middle-aged hard-working man, my father not once exhibited his fatigue and frustrations of the workday to us when he would come home, when my sister and I were younger we would leap into his arms and we would stay there until it was time for our evening tea. As he walked into our home, he proceeded to greet my grandmother, who at seventy-six still insisted to do her sewing.  “ Daddy, you must measure my height at once”, I demanded as looked up at my dad with my chin up and shoulders pulled back. “You aren’t going to grow in a day Ruby “, replied my dad with a gentle tap on my shoulder.  “I know, I know but please dad they’ll be assorting us into our height divisions at school so we can compete in the upcoming sports championship, and I want to compete with all of the tall girls." My Father without much debate proceeded toward the measuring tape and pencil I had already laid out for him, and I stood by our doorframe still as a statue waiting for him. With a gentle smile, my dad proceeded to measure me, I tried to look up at him without moving my eyes too much so I could read his expression. Composed, no change…someone should take my father to a poker game. He stepped back and wound up the tape,  “So, Did I grow dad ?” He sat down as he began to take off his shoes “ four feet and eleven inches, the same as yesterday” he said with an almost apologetic smile, I could feel my face turn red and my eyes began to swell up with tears. “NO! now what do I always say about crying”, he said with a now firm and yet gentle voice. “ Only fools cry”, I managed to mumble. With a gentle smile my father proceeded to ask, “ Is my daughter a fool?”, “No” I replied with a small smile of my own. We dint speak much of my height that night and retired to rooms. The next day my alarm went off and I was ready at five-thirty am to be driven to school for my first sports event of the season, as I passed the doorway I noticed the grey pencil mark right under the five feet mark. It infuriated me, as I bent down to pick my bags up, I realized that my father was watching me as he sipped on his first cup of tea. Our car ride today was quiet, contrary to the other days where I would chew my father’s ears off with absolute nonsense, but It was a day I learned something about my father he was oh so very observant. He noticed me looking at my legs as they dangled inches away from the car mat and asked “Would you tell me why you have a sudden obsession with your stature”, back then the answer was simple... my parents and my sister were considered tall in accordance with Indian standards, on the other hand, at a mere four feet and eleven inches I was the odd one out. I voiced this to my father, and he proceeded to explain genetics to my then thirteen-year-old self. At the time I thought it ridiculous that my height was a predicament of ancestors who I had never even met. Like every teenager’s mind, my mind wandered onto other things almost immediately and for months I had forgotten about it. On my birthday it was almost a tradition that my father would take me out shopping, and almost every year it would be Pepe jeans or Levi’s. Those brands back then coasted a fortune and even in my puny teenage brain, I knew that my parents were splurging on me for my birthday. Like every year I picked a few colors, tried their fit, and had a few alterations made. On the car ride back home, I wanted to glimpse my new jeans in the natural light, so I pulled them out of the paper bag and felt something drop to the floor, it was almost twenty centimeters in length, it was all the excess material from my altered denim pants. I didn't say much on that car ride either, just went into our home and ran towards my bedroom. My parents were doing their evening readings when I came out of my bedroom, with an eraser in my hand and began aggressively rubbing out the etchings of my height in the past few years. My father was a man of few words but when he spoke you were compelled to listen and absorb everything he was saying, and every word my father said to me that evening I absorbed like a sponge. He didn’t try to stop me from erasing the etchings on the wall but simply waited for me to stop and join him on the couch and then gently embraced me as I cried and said in that same soft, gentle yet firm tone.  “ Yes, you are small, I cannot and will not lie to you that you are not at a disadvantage. People might overlook you, not take you seriously and even make fun of your tiny stature. But you are Strong, Intelligent, and so much more than ju­­­­­st your height. So from today you will walk with your head always held upright, chin up and you will command every room you walk into”. I don’t recall saying anything to my father after his brief advice, but I did from that walk upright and aimed to command a room with my presence alone. A few years later as we were packing our things getting ready to move into our brand-new house. I remember walking through our house for the last time when little etchings on a wall caught my attention. I didn't want to lose out on our deposit, so I grabbed an eraser to take them off. I hadn’t seen these etchings in years and from what I remembered I had taken them off. But on closer inspection, I realized that my father probably re-marked them, as I began to slowly erase each carefully marked line I stopped as  I caught a glimpse of something I hadn’t noticed before. My father had meticulously written down the dates next to each line. Back then part of my frustration included the thought that nobody in my family would understand or even care about my height or what I thought of my height. I was wrong, my father did care. Not because he wanted me to be taller, but because to him I was growing. After all these years, those little outburst dint seems to mean anything. I grabbed a few boxes and headed towards the door and caught myself standing a bit taller and holding my chin up.

5o7eay

Buster Browns

BUSTER BROWNS I could remember as a little girl, I was always intrigued with some of my classmate's shoes. Coming from an immigrant background, I grew up with scarcity as my everyday fashion snag. As I took my mind to Karl Clemens Elementary, the bell rang and I made my way to our assigned desks. I always lifted my desktop to make sure my pencil and eraser were still there where I left them the day before. It was part of my daily routine along with checking out Rosie's, Susan's, Ester's, and all the little girl’s shoes. The white ones with the pink laces, the black ones that shined like glass, the red ones that sparkled like Dorothy's on the Wizard of Oz. Although I didn't know what fashion was, I look at it now and I swear I had a front row seat to the best fashion show ever. One day, we welcomed a new student; a little dark haired girl with a yellow dress. She sat next to me in the last row next to the window. I smiled and she smiled back and I knew that we were going to be friends. Her name was Ray. I thought that was strange for a girl to have a boy's name, but nonetheless, it made sense when she said she was a "Ray" of sunshine to her mother. Little did I know she would become my "Ray" of sunshine for the rest of my life. Ray came to class one day looking especially pretty. She sparkled from head to toes, and I mean toes because she was wearing the most beautiful shoes I have ever seen. They were brown with double leather straps that buckled up on the sides. I had never seen such pretty shoes. As time went on, we soon became close friends. One day Ray and I decided to play on the playground; the grass was especially soft and cushiony. I suggested that we take off our shoes and go barefoot on the grass. It was the most incredible feeling of soft, cool grass. We played, and talked and I noticed her shoes again. I discreetly pushed my shoes to my side; out of sight as I was embarrassed she would see my cruddy, old, faded shoes with the hole on the side from the wear and tear. As I was glancing at her shoes, I noticed a picture displayed on the inside of her shoes. A picture of a little girl carrying a little dog. I was fascinated with the picture. I asked Ray, " Is that your dog?" "No silly, laughing under her breath, “The shoes came like that" "Wow!" I said, with a surprised face. " I've never seen shoes like that before in my life!" "My mom bought them for me because I fell in love with the puppy." I told Ray that the puppy was very cute, but not as cute as the shoes itself. The picture in the shoes just added another amazing feature to the shoes I already desired to have one day. The next day I was anxious to get to school to see Ray. She always left me fascinated with all her pretty bright dresses and of course…. those shoes. I finally got to the school playground. I figured we’d catch a few minutes of play time before the bell rang, but I didn’t see her. She must be in the classroom, so I hurried to class, but no sign of Ray. The bell rang, and Ray didn’t show up to school. As a matter of fact, Ray didn’t show up to school the whole week. I wondered if she was ever coming back and I started to worry. Three weeks passed, and Mrs. Curry, our teacher, finally called the class to her attention. She said that one of the students in our class was very sick in the hospital and will not be coming back to school. She went on to say that the student was Ray and we were to write her some “get well” cards. I felt sick to my stomach, and somehow I knew that I would never see her again. I began my “get well” card to thank her for being kind and showing me what true friendship was about. You see, Ray belonged to a prominent rich family. Her father was a philanthropist of sorts. He traveled the world for his job and along his travels he contributed his blessing over and over to the needy. Little Ray has seen poverty and destruction at a young age. She was familiar with how it looked . Perhaps that is why she displayed such a humble spirit. In the few weeks to come, it was announced that my most precious friend had passed away from a disease that was unknown. I felt a sadness that I have never felt before. As I remembered our times together, I never forgot her friendship. School was finally out and I was relieved because I felt a sense of loneliness and I wanted it to go away. One day during the summer, I received a package in the mail forwarded from our school to my address. With my name on it, I opened it and to my surprise, a pair of the most beautiful pair of shoes I have ever seen. They were brown with double leather straps that buckled up on the sides and a picture of a little girl carrying a puppy named Buster Brown in the inside soles. One of Ray's last wishes was to send me a pair because she remembered how much I admired hers, but I know deep down inside that she noticed my beat up shoes and wanted me to have new ones. Every once in a while in deep thought, I can picture Ray…. walking in the door….. on that first day of school….with her dark hair, yellow dress and her beautiful Buster Browns that will forever and always have a lasting impression in my heart. By Elizabeth Escamilla

nfl48k

The Well-Dressed-Gentleman of New York

The first time I saw the Well-Dressed-Gentleman, he was just walking, no, strolling  down St. Marks wearing this perfectly creased three-piece-charcoal-gray-suit, bowler hat, and an umbrella (it was not raining). There was a silver pocket watch and fob on his vest, and his black wingtips were buffed to an immaculate shine, reflecting the afternoon sun as they made a rhythmic  click-clack-click-clack  on the pavement, and his umbrella dangled languidly from the crook of his elbow as his hand rested in the pocket of his suit jacket and the other hand held up an old and well-worn book. Needless to say, the hand was gloved. I didn’t see the Well-Dressed-Man’s face at all. Thing was, I only saw him for, like, a second or two before he turned a corner and disappeared. My immediate instinct was to follow him, but I thought better of it, cause, ya know, I don’t have a dungeon/torture room in my basement. I don’t even have a basement, cause, I mean, who can afford a basement in New York? Anyway, you get my point. I’m not some creepy stalker-guy. I know I kinda come off like one in this story, but I promise you, I’m not, even though that is probably exactly what a creepy stalker guy would say. Anyway , the Well-Dressed-Gentleman turned the corner in a jaunty fashion and, just like that, he was gone. And I was sad. I don’t know why. At least, I didn’t at the time. But I was suddenly very sad, which wasn’t really anything new. I’m kinda low-key sad most of the time. Melancholic one might say, if one were a 19 th  century dilettante.  I saw him again in Central Park on a Saturday. He was walking, no, strolling  along the lake, this time with a polished black cane, a black long coat (it was July), and a black fedora. He looked like a perfect silhouette, tall and lanky, sans the pocket watch and fob, gold this time, dangling from his vest, and his bright red tie. Again, I did not get a good look at his face, but I knew it was him, not just from his shape or the way he moved, though both were incredibly distinct, but the way his clothes hung off of him, as if they were living extensions of his body.  The swish of the long coat behind him was like a cat’s tail. So obviously, I found myself staring. Again. But this time he looked back at me.  But I still didn’t see his face, because I immediately looked away and kept looking away until the click-clacking of his shined black shoes faded in the distance. Once more, I was taken with a sense of melancholy.  Once more, I didn’t know why. Or at least I couldn’t articulate it. Then I saw him again. It was winter. There was snow. Fresh, white, shimmering snow against an inky black sky. And so, as a matter of course, I found myself in my favorite café/bar (at least my favorite when it’s winter and there’s fresh white snow against an inky black sky; I also have a favorite café/bar for Fall and Summer, respectively).  The place was sparse, dimly lit, and quiet, and every now and again I saw the shadowy flicker of mice scurrying along the wall out of the corner of my eye.  Then he walked, no strolled  in. He wore a wool coat (black), and a cream-colored scarf over yet another three-piece suit, this one a deep crimson with pinstripes, and a pair of shined red oxfords to match. The pocket watch he chose for today was neither silver nor gold but bejeweled in an ornate pattern like a tiny mosaic. His hat was a beret this time (also black). He sat on the couch opposite me, by the fireplace, and I saw his face. Not his eyes, though.  His eyes were hidden by a pair of round wireframe sunglasses that reflected the flames of the fire, creating a somewhat demonic look. Now, contrary to what you might expect, he was not an especially handsome individual.  Not ugly either. I mean… he was almost handsome, but his face was just a bit too long, his chin a touch to sharp, what he was was interesting looking.  Perhaps that’s why he dressed the way he did. He was pale. Very pale, which was only accentuated by the deep red and black of his clothing. As I took him in, I had completely forgotten that I was staring at him, and I was surprised to find him looking back at me. More surprised still that I didn’t look away this time. In fact, I nodded. My nod was returned. Now what? Neither of us looked away and went back to their business, which would have been the natural thing to do in such a situation. It was like a game of chicken now.  Had he recognized me from before the way I recognized him? I didn’t know. I still don’t know. As he looked at me, I was suddenly struck by a crushing wave of self-consciousness. Surely, this man, this living silhouette, this Well-Dressed-Gentleman who stood before me,  surely he must have been sizing me up behind those green tinted glasses, starting with my barely-held-together sneakers with the flapping soles, soaking wet from the slush and snow, working his way up to my frayed ill-fitting blue jeans, and finally my stained T-shirt with the holes along the stretched out collar and faded threadbare jacket. Surely this man, this Well-Dressed-Gentleman of New York, was judging me, me and my complete and utter lack of care, effort, or concern. Judging me and my slouched beanbag posture. I could only imagine the sheer unfiltered contempt in his hidden eyes. Still, for whatever reason, I didn’t look away. I held the gaze. Let him judge. Eventually, the moment passed. I sipped my drink (a dark stout) and he sipped his (a port), and we read our respective books. I was reading a book of short stories by one of my favorite authors, all of which I had read many times before, and he was reading the same well-worn old book I saw him reading back in the Spring. I glanced at the cover: Leaves of Grass .  We made periodic eye contact, followed by nods acknowledging one another’s presence, then we went back to sipping and reading as the fire crackled and the mice scurried along the shadows. Then the Well-Dressed-Gentleman got up. I looked at him. He didn’t move, didn’t leave, just stood there. I soon realized that he was waiting.  For me. I stood up.  The Gentleman didn’t wait any longer, but walked out the door. I followed. It was snowing and fat fluffy wet snowflakes clung to me as I followed the Gentlemen, who kept a steady pace, five or six feet in front of me.  Neither of us spoke, but just walked, me and this dark silhouette, like a shadow, moving through a twisting pitch-black tunnel of brick, wind, and snow, throwing only the slightest backward glance in my direction every now and again, not even breaking his stride.  He turned a corner, ducking into an alleyway. Here I stopped. I peered in and saw the Well-Dressed-Gentleman standing about twenty feet off, illuminated only by the faintest glow of the streetlight behind me and the white glow of the full moon above, half bathed in darkness, his perfectly round sunglasses glinting.  For the life of me, I don’t know what possessed me to ignore every ounce of common sense and self-preservation and follow him into that alleyway, but follow him I did, lowering my head and shouldering through the bitter howling blast of the concrete wind-tunnel.  I followed him around another corner, and another, and another as we made our way down the twisting urban labyrinth, till we came to a rusted metal gate, covered in ivy. The Well-Dressed-Gentleman fished in his deep pocket and produced a long thin skeleton key. He unlocked the gate and opened it with a long, painful crrrreeeaaaak  that shot through my ears and set my teeth grinding.  Then, saying not a word, the Well-Dressed-Gentleman slipped through the gate of the back entrance (to what I did not know). I hesitated, but followed, making my way through an immense garden of dead and gnarled plants covered in snow, which made them look like strange abstract sculptures. This was the first time in my impromptu journey that I took my eyes off the Gentlemen, lost in the surrealness of where I was and what I was doing. SLAM!!! I immediately whirled around and saw the Well-Dressed-Gentleman standing by an open cellar door. He then opened the second cellar door and let it drop. SLAM!!! He stooped low as he went down the cellar. For a third time I hesitated, thinking to myself: “Is this how I’m going to die?” I mean, that was a distinct possibility, was it not? But for reasons that to this day remain unclear…. yeah, I went down that cellar in that strange back-alley garden in Greenwich. You’re Goddamn right I did. As I walked down the dark, narrow stairway, towards an old green wooden door, I heard the muffled sound of… violin music.  I reached the bottom of the stairway. The doorknob was an antique, glass with an ornate design, and felt cool in my hand. Now as I turned that knob, I can’t say for sure exactly what I was expecting to find on the other side of that door. Could’ve been any number of things, really: torture room, fight club, sex cult, society of vampires, Christian fundamentalists, etc. But one thing I was absolutely not expecting to find was a secret underground fashion boutique. Much like the Tardis, it was bigger inside. The cavernous underground room stretched on for what had to have been several city blocks. There was an immense fireplace, gilded lantern sconces on the walls, Victorian molding along the ceiling and hardwood floors, highbacked crimson leather armchairs, dark green walls, and a high, high ceiling. And clothes.  So many clothes; men’s and women’s clothes draped on antique department store mannequins in all manner of casual poses; suits, tuxedos, blazers, cocktail dresses, swing dresses, trench coats, leather gloves, high boots, pill box hats, scarves, shawls, wraps, vests, and vales; tweed, wool, cloth, and corduroy; trousers, chinos, jodhpurs, and capri’s; Oxfords, Derby’s, Loafers, and straps; florals and sequins and slips, and on and on and on and on, all lovingly, immaculately, painstakingly tailored, sewn, and cut; an elegant drawing room soiree frozen in time. Oh, and that violin music I mentioned earlier, that wasn’t a recording played on a Victrola (which would have been in keeping with the overall vibe of the place), but a violinist in a sleek black evening gown standing off in the corner. I suddenly jumped when I saw a ruffle of movement out of the corner of my eye only to realize that mingling amongst the wooden mannequins were other people, all dressed to the nines, many swirling drinks in their hands, walking, no, strolling down the aisles of clothing on display, lovingly caressing the material. Some were dancing, slow and close, all around me, smiling pleasantly. I admit that, for a moment or two, I had to ask myself if this was an Overlook Hotel type of scenario. It was all so surreal, yet all so comforting and joyful.  And the Well-Dressed-Gentleman? I had forgotten all about him until he stepped forward, as if out of thin air, smiling now. More than ever, I felt deeply, glaringly inadequate. What was I, but a blight on the beauty and elegance of that room and those people? And those clothes.  Those divine and glorious clothes. I wanted to disappear, but I stood frozen as the Well-Dressed-Gentleman of New York stood before me and removed his tinted glasses. His eyes were as pale as his face, gray and sad, like an overcast sky.  He placed a slender, delicate hand on my shoulder and said, “Welcome, my friend. I can see that you are kindred spirit.” I was surprised to find that his voice was a rich baritone that didn’t quite match his face or frame. Everything about the Gentleman was just a bit incongruous. Yet this made him no less appealing. If anything, it made him more so. I glanced down at my clothes (if they could even be called that), embarrassed.  The Gentleman smiled warmly and gently guided me through the maze of vintage clothes, down a hallway, and through a large set of double doors into a great circular room of dark oak with a Cheval mirror in the center. Wrapped around me were more clothes, just as beautiful as the ones adorning the mannequins in the front room, clothes of every conceivable style, design, vintage, and combination, with row after row of shoes to match, a glass cabinet display of pocket watches, and dressers stocked with smoothest socks I’ve ever felt.  I turned to the Well-Dressed-Gentleman, who stood at attention, holding his beret. It was the first time I had seen him without a hat and so the first time I noticed that his hair was completely white, the very color of the fresh fallen snow outside, and for the life me, I could not guess at how old he was. In fact, I’d say he was…. ageless. “Please,” said the Gentleman. “Do take your time.” I smiled, still embarrassed, and told the Gentleman: “Thank you. But I couldn’t possibly pay for any of this.” The Gentleman’s smile widened and his eyes gleamed. “Oh but you misunderstand, my friend.” “I do?” I said. “This is not a store.” “It isn’t?” I said. The Gentleman shook his head with a chuckle. “No. This is my private collection.” “You’re joking,” I said. “Not a bit of it,” said the Gentleman. “You see, I much prefer to share my darlings that they may live and breathe than horde them away in a dark closet in which to collect dust and be eaten by moths. You will join us in the ballroom, will you not?” “Ballroom?” I repeated. Again, the Gentleman chuckled. “Find something that speaks to you. Something that calls to you.” With that, he left me alone with the clothes. Something that spoke and called to me? I shrugged and began my search. I’ve never much liked clothes shopping, nor particularly cared about what I pulled from the rack, and so one might think that the situation I found myself in would have found me standing frozen and gawking. But I wasn’t in that massive closet a second before something did indeed call to me.  I snatched up a bright red dress shirt, and a black jacket, vest, and slacks, along with a black leather belt with a gold buckle and a blindingly shiny pair of black oxford shoes. I inspected myself in the mirror for a moment before removing the jacket and returning it to the rack from whence it came. I looked at myself again, appraisingly. Yes. Yes, this was more like it. This was more like.

u7j8nm

The Prescription Sunglasses with the Strap at the Back

Stephen loved the semi-colon. Stephen knew that this love was irrational yet in his heart he knew it to be true and he could not have it any other way. Stephen walked from his English class into the halls and felt cramped. He could do anything; he was big and held potential and in him ebbed and flowed the feeling that he could accomplish great things. He felt wide-shouldered and imposing, not with physical prowess, but with the knowledge that he was armed with the ability to fulfill and endless number of possibilities that awaited him. The sun bounced sharply off the metal in the parking lot and it stung. Stephen reached into his bag and put on his sunglasses. The lenses were tinted black and the rims were black as well, and the strap that wound around the back of his head had a little bit of red lining. He walked around to the front of the school and he felt the probing eyes of his schoolmates on him. The glances were fleeting, but they lingered longer than normal looks, and accompanying those slight lingerings were tiny arrows that whittled away at the defenses of Stephen’s self-esteem, and they stung more than the bouncing light. Stephen sucked in his gut and bottled his emotions and tried to feel as big and unfaltering as he had in the hallways not a moment ago. He tried to be the semi-colon: tall and unique and resolute, and not afraid to be in the middle, holding everything together. Unique and uncommon, different and special and evincing from some feelings of power and beauty, just like it did from Stephen. Through some incomprehensible process, the irrationality and uniqueness of these thoughts made Stephen even more believing in his love, and he was filled with a renewed sense of composure. He smiled discreetly and made his face look easy and relaxed and he gave his walk a slight bounce. He had seen someone else with a bouncy walk and it gave the impression of nonchalance, so Stephen had started walking that way when he was trying to overcome harmful attacks from his self-conscious. “Why does it have to be so sunny today, I have to wear these things now.” Stephen stood upright and talked with his friends. His eyes were cold and he had small, glaring, semitransparent vision spots which made him uneasy. His arms felt heavy and rough against the side of his waist and he didn’t know what to do with them. He laughed and joked but his speech seemed distant and not part of him. A feeling of misplacement and a lust for movement made him leave the school and start his walk home. The walk home was thinking time: torrents of thoughts bounced illogically within his head, each thought rising to the surface of his mind briefly and then submerging once again into deeper recesses, each failing to establish a foothold on Stephen’s full attention. He contemplated why he left the school so quickly without staying to talk to his friends; he didn’t have anything else after school. He thought about his love of words and the gentle rolls and shifts in cadence of sentences. Paradise by the Dashboard Light kept his ears company and his lips moved rhythmically to the song. The May sun was a gentle warm: it was not too hot as to generate an uncomfortable sweat, yet not noticeably cold either. He crossed the street and a girl driving one of the cars waved to him. He did not know who she was, but he suddenly felt within him a deep affection for her, as if he had known her for a long time and they had disclosed secrets to one another. It was not a physical attraction, more a strong, spiritual, mutual affection. Stephen longed for love. Young love - according to him - was a different kind of love: carefree and innocent where both parties are inexperienced so neither can do wrong. Stephen could see himself with the girl in the car: they had just experienced a tragedy and they only had each other. They were falling in love without knowing it, and in one single, beautiful moment they realized that the feelings were reciprocated and that they loved each other. A hard murmur beat in Stephen’s chest because he had imagined the love so vividly and becoming conscious of the fact that he would likely never experience such a thing sent him into a momentary depression. His jaw became set and his eyes fell. His legs were stiff and his arms were hot in his jacket and there were sweat rings forming where his glasses touched his skin. What if I take them off? Stephen liked being alone and he knew the difference between being alone and lonely, and he was certain that he was not lonely. He had a close group of friends that hung out on the weekends and he had a beautiful family, but he felt different. Not alone, just different. And in that moment his longstanding battle with his feelings of difference was won unequivocally by the glasses. A great feeling of independence flowed within him like a grand ocean wave, carrying on its crest a message saying: “do what you must do and do it with purpose and without indecisiveness.” He reached into his bag and took out the stiff case. It felt bulky and awkward, but familiar. The glasses were off in an instant and in the case, then in the backpack. Stephen walked on. He walked along the precipice of doubt: doubt in his actions because he knew what he was doing was not right. But no one was staring at him, no gaze lingered. People on the sidewalks and in their yards didn’t notice him, and they paid him to heed. Was it like this before? He could not remember. The clouds parted and the sky was bluer than before which made the sun sharper than before. Stephen’s eyes felt cold once again, and a small needle of pain manifested itself in the back right area of his head. His arms felt loose and he looked around at the walk which he had walked so many times before. Everything was the same. The sunglasses had made his world darker, but now the world seemed dull and unoriginal. He tried desperately to enjoy himself, to reaffirm his decision of taking them off, but his efforts were in vain, and he felt confused and upset: why had he taken them off? He continued to convince himself that he was a different person without them, more homogenized. This is what he wanted. The sun shone brighter than ever, and the rays penetrated deep. Why did he leave the school so early; what was he planning on doing? How did he get a ninety-three on his arithmetic when he knew everything and should have gotten a 100? How can one even start to understand the meaning of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man ? Stephen was dazed and he was wrapped in an inquisitive confusion. And then the blurry, transparent, distorting vision spots returned stronger, this time in his right eye alone, and a furious calm befell Stephen. How could he have been so irresponsible? How did the decision seem so right in the moment, yet so irresponsible now? He tried to focus on a street sign, but could not, which only redoubled his fury and his calm. A dejected, beaten, exasperated sigh escaped from his fixed lips and he was carried to his house by a hearse of dull, white anger and regret and frustration. It handled him roughly, each interruption of smoothness a reminder of the consequences of his actions. No one was home when he arrived. He made his way upstairs and emptied his bag, all the while partially blinded by the vision spots. Finally, when he could suppress his thoughts no longer, he made his way to his room. He took the glasses from his pocket and set them abruptly on his dresser. What should have been a shielding protection, a prevention of pain, was now a decoration without meaning on display. Why did he love the semi-colon? Did he tell himself that he loved it purely because he felt unique because of it? But being different was good, he thought. He lay down on his bed, still filled with confusion and anger and a perverted sense of who he was. Why did he ever take them off in the first place? Stephen closed his eyes, and allowed the migraine to take over, still confused about who he was. 

8508ju

A Letter from the Pool House

 A Letter from the Pool House                                   Lilies sent their perfume from the yard next door and it was distracting to say the least. The last time I’d  been subjected to those particular flowers was at dad’s funeral. The oppressive melancholy perfume was a tad lighter out in the garden but it was still a type of hit. I’d just moved in two weeks ago so hadn’t been in the neighbourhood long enough to pick up it’s personality. I tried to focus on the letter, it was an assignment for my contemporary lit class. After returning to my home town, I’d signed up for some courses. Apparently I’d been ‘drifting long enough’. This admonishment came from the mouth of my younger sister Emily, Em. This pool house was on her property and renting to me was her way of helping me ‘get myself together’. The project was to write a letter to my past or future self, it was up to me to decide which of the egos required more advice. I had considered just flipping a coin until the scent from next door brought back the funeral and more importantly reminders of the man. Dear old dad. He was Robert Senior, I was just Bob. No Junior or Robert the Second for this kid, from the start he separated himself from who I was. Naming me after him was mom’s idea. She had some kind of hope that we’d be closer if we shared a moniker, but you can’t change someone’s psyche just because they share initials with a baby. He and Mom hadn’t been together for long when she got pregnant with me, ‘up the stump’ he called it. Charming eh? They’d only been on a few dates and when she broke the news, her dad broke a chair and demanded there be a quickie marriage. They stayed together long enough to have two more kids, my sister Emily, and my brother David who died at seven years old of Leukemia. Six months after he was laid in a small coffin, dad had dropped mom and us two kids off at her mother’s place and started a life without us. In terms of time and distance that was back in 1980, in a state county three over from where I sit. I bent my head and considered where I’d start this letter to young Bob, then the emotions started to flow and my fingers flew over the keys of the old HP. Bob: if I had one thing to tell you from the future is this, ‘don’t get attached’. This may sound cruel and you might say ‘how can you be so cold?’ I’ll tell you how. If you spend your childhood, as you did, with a man who blames you for being saddled with a family, you figure out pretty quick how to stay out of his way. I don’t know how old you’ll be when you read this, maybe you already look up to him. I get it. He was handsome and funny, smart in business and an all-round athlete, as a package he’s the perfect man. He should have been a good husband and father. The behind-the-scenes Robert Sr. however had little personality quirks that the guys at the golf course didn’t see, or the women he ‘visited’ picked up on. For your sake I wish mom could have been around a bit longer after we moved in with Mee-maw. When David dies, you’ll be 10 years old. This means you’ll be the ‘man of the family’ weeks after you hit the double digits. Emily at 9 came from the womb a sharp tack, she had more of his charm too. That girl could flash her dimples and the world would rush up to hand her whatever she wanted. You, on the other hand were a scrawny kid, all elbows, big feet and so many freckles you could join them together with a  pencil. A shy child always hidden away scribbling your little stories until it was time for dinner. All the way through school you aced English and history but math and sciences eluded you, other side of the brain I guess. You were never picked on, though you wondered why, slinking through the hallways eluding the jocks and pretty girls. Well, you know all this, you were there, still are in some ways. What you don’t know, couldn’t know then was how Mom’s death would spin you. We weren’t told as children how she died, too young for ‘that kind of information’ was how Mee-maw put it. I found out the whole truth just a couple of years ago. We’re, or I’m 30 years old now. Holy Cow I hear you saying. It isn’t that old really, but I feel ancient. Anyway, back to the story. Turns out Mom was doing some hustling. She didn’t have much money then, dad wasn’t giving her any, she’d have had to track him down first anyway. Mee-maw had her pension, the house and what Grandpop left her. Raising two children and supporting her daughter hadn’t been in her retirement plans. So, when Mom was caught taking money out of a strangers’ wallet after their business was completed, he turned her into Sheriff Martin. Fred Martin and mom had gone to school together and he was dismayed at having to charge her with theft and prostitution. His job came first though so he went ahead and put her in cells. Sometime that first night she wrote a note and then hung herself with a bed sheet from the bars. So, all of a sudden, she was dead and you and Em were going to stay where you were. The first couple years went by in a fog, and it wasn’t until your twelfth birthday that things changed. Em was eleven and still charming the birds from the trees. She had learned piano and was singing a perfect alto in two choirs, church, and school. People in town figured she could ‘go places’. All the attention was on her for the next couple of years and you, you got lost along the way. You’ll start stealing around your birthday, there wasn’t a party that year so you decided to pick up a gift for yourself. Markstrom’s department store was ripe for the picking. The couple that owned it were a trusting, new to the community Swedish couple. The store had, if I recall correctly wooden floors, high shelves full of foods, toys, and candies you’d never seen before. You wore your jeans that day, they were nice and loose because Mee-maw bought them big enough for you to grow into. They might have been embarrassing at school but for this project they were perfect. Just a reminder that by twelve you’d gone through some changes. The freckles had faded, you’d shot up and out and your red hair had deepened to a dark auburn. The girls who used to tease you were taking a second look now. You weren’t paying any attention, yet. So, back to the store. I wish I could tap you on the shoulder and say, ‘don’t do it, someone is watching you, put it back.’ But I doubt that kid would have paid any mind of a stranger, hell I know he wouldn’t have. Torger Markstrom had been a goalie on the Swedish junior team as a youth, his hands were faster than any television gun slinger. When his big sun-tanned mitt wrapped itself around your wrist you didn’t see it coming. He pulled you along to the front of the store and made you empty your pockets onto the counter. There was the usual Saturday crowd of shopping mothers’ in there, standing in line and watching the whole show with gleeful interest. You could hear murmurs about the ‘stealing running in the family’ and something about ‘loose morals goes along for the ride’. Your shoulders were hunched up to your ears so you don’t pick up all the comments. At this point everyone in the store including Torger is waiting to hear what you have to say for yourself. I recall that it wasn’t what an apology usually sounds like, and definitely leaned towards the profane. The upshot was that you were hauled to the very same sheriffs’ office as Mom was and put into the very same cell, though there’s no way you could have known about the second bit. Torger decided in the end not to charge you with theft as you hadn’t actually left the building with the stuff, he did talk to Mee-maw though. As you know she was the law in our house, and tougher with it. So, you got a whooping and had to give up your weekends for the next six months at the store. Torger had you sweeping, carrying groceries and whatever else he could find for you. It wasn’t so bad but ultimately it wasn’t enough. By the time sixteen rolls around you’ll have gone on some kind of tear. In and out of youth detention units for theft and driving without a licence among other things. Emily wasn’t speaking to you,  she was on her own path by this point anyway. Nashville had come calling and she was determined to get out of town, she even took a different last name. She tried to say it was for show business but you knew the truth in your heart. Having the same last name as the county criminal wouldn’t have been good for her career. When you weren’t in jail you were at Mee-maw’s place. She didn’t really want you there, at least that was your gut feeling, she never said as much. She was aging pretty fast, well by the time you were 20, she’d be nearing 75. Too old for all the stress you were putting on her heart. When she did die, she was alone but for the cat. You were out with some buddies at the bar and Em was making a music video for her latest single. You used her death as an excuse to get drunk for a week, including at the lawyers’ and the church funeral service. Em sang a song at the reception afterwards then hopped into the record company’s limo and left. There you stood, alone and feeling sick, unsure what the future held for an angry young man. With half of the proceedings from the house and pensions sitting in the bank you had some decisions to make. Emily had tried to persuade you to go back to school, get some training and a real job. You’ll decide that’s not for you, not yet anyway. You decided to find your father and get some things set straight. By the time you reached twenty-seven you’d worked construction in nearly all the states. Days off were spent in libraries going through old newspapers for word of him. You even tried contacting his former business associates, finally, success. After work at a construction job back east you hit the bar with some of the crew. On the television above the taps, the Yankees were playing the Red Sox. The play was slow so your eyes drifted to the ads. On the board above left field was your name. Well, his name at least in letters ten feet high. It advertised his company, phone number and all. You wrote it on the back of a coaster without comment, shoving it into your back pocket. Two weeks later you were sitting in a lush reception area of Robert Lake and Associates. The pretty, dark-haired receptionist only raised a tapered brow when you gave her your name. She had likely heard a lot stranger things in an advertising company. When he opened the door to his office you stood up to meet him eye to eye. You wanted him to see how much you’d grown, that you were a man now and he didn’t intimidate you anymore. His grey eyes took in your build, your determined chin and steely gaze, he just nodded and walked forward, hand stretched out like you were a business client. From that first meeting, you decided that though he was still handsome with tanned skin, silver hair with suspiciously even black wings. At nearly 53, he was still a stone-cold bastard, he hadn’t even asked about Emily or Mom. I spelled out our lives after he left, the highs and lows, the painful deaths of Mee-maw and Mom. I even admitted my law-breaking years. The only sign of recognition of us as family was when I mentioned Em’s career. He recognized her name, of course he would, she was a star at this point. He was totally in awe that a daughter of his was famous. I shot out that he gave up that right a long time ago, that I wasn’t the only reason she took a different name. We finished lunch and shook hands on the pavement outside while he waited for his car. The mutual feeling was that we’d keep in touch, but there would be no warm and fuzzy father and son bonding. I realized as I walked away from him that day that I used to think my life would have been different if I’d had a dad, I was wrong. If I’d had a good dad however, someone who cared, who disciplined when it was needed, that would have been different. I worked for a couple more years building homes for people, never getting the irony that it was something I strived for. Last December I received an email from Emily asking me to join her in Tennessee for the holiday. I wrote back and accepted, figuring it was time that we talked. It was a good Christmas, and we had a lot of effective, honest conversations. There were tears over those we’d lost, admonishments and forgiveness for deeds of the past. Her invitation to stay in the pool house at the ranch was a welcome one. I’d missed having family and knew if I were settled somewhere I could start anew. So young Bob, here I sit on a warm Nashville afternoon, iced tea at my elbow, ruminating on all the choices I’ve made, all the decisions good and bad that have brought me to where I am. I don’t mean the pool house, but where I am in life. Do I wish there had been someone around we would have taken advice from? Hell, yeah but would we have listened. I’ll wrap up this letter with one correction, remember when I said at the beginning, ‘don’t get attached’. I was wrong. Humans need connections and attachments, love, and respect. I hate that we had to wait until 30 to figure this out. I saved the document and sent it to my prof before I drove myself batty with the edits. I picked up my glass and made my way through the sliding doors to the kitchen. I was cooking dinner tonight and Em would be home any time now. We had a close bond with enough physical distance between us for privacy. She was going on tour in two days so this was my last chance for several months to spend time with her. I wasn’t sure yet how long I’d stay here, but for the first time in ages my feet weren’t itchy.

aty2qg

Sequins

He ran his fingers along the smooth material of the clothing, unknowingly falling in love with it. If someone were to ask him why he loved it so much his answer would hardly make sense to anyone but him; he just did. 17-year-old Simone couldn’t grasp the concept as to why someone would want to throw out such a beautiful article of clothing, sitting perfectly in the trash bin, untouched. He couldn’t stop himself when his fist tightened around the shiny cloth and he pulled it from the trash bin, stuffing it prudently into his messenger bag. Simone wove in and out through the crowds of people on his busy New York street, throwing himself onto one of the public buses before it could pull away. He snapped his headphones over his ears and opened a textbook, but the thoughts of the garment in his bag seemed to linger in his mind. His thoughts snapped away with the rough, piercing whistle of the driver pulling the breaks. Simone shot up and stuffed his things back into his bag, hardy noticing when the shimmery fabric slid around a little. He thanked the driver, then waddled off, bag hugged close at his side. “Mama, I’m home!” Simone called through the house, zipping into the kitchen before he planned on going upstairs and hiding his room, deciding what to do with the fascinating clothing. His mother glided into the kitchen, dish towel swung over his shoulder. “What is this?” She asked, skeptically, ripping the sequin-covered dress from his bag. “Are you a girl now? What is it?” Simone’s mom could be the living embodiment of ‘helicopter parent’ since she hardly leaves him alone. “It’s… It’s for my girlfriend, ma. I’m gonna go study.” He pulled the dress back and scurried up to his room, hoping that his mother wouldn’t trail after him. He wouldn’t dare telling his mom he was gay; out of fear that she would kick him out, or worse, try to send him to conversion therapy. Simone dragged a mannequin out from his closet, one he bought with his own money and kept hidden away, then gathered some materials and draped the dress across the hard stencil of the mannequin. The dress was clearly made for someone with breasts, but he overlooked that detail and went back to hemming. Once he had evened everything out to fit his broad shoulders and square-shaped torso, he pulled the zipper down from the back of the mannequin and stripped his shirt. If his mother had seen him, she would just about have an aneurysm, but he had to do this for himself and all the other queer kids who couldn’t represent themselves the way they wanted. He was in nothing but his boxers when he slipped the dress over his head. The sequins ended mid-thigh, showing much of his unshaved legs. He wanted to shave them, but his father told him that real men don’t shave, and all but took the razors from his hands. It was a slip dress, with a dipping neckline that showed a little bit of his pec, and a skirt that flared a little. There was a small slit in the leg, one that made the dress look even more attractive. His mind ran with images of big wigs and pretty makeup, fishnets and high heels. “Simone!” His name ripped through the hallways and bounced off the walls, alerting him that his mother was flying up the stairs, bringing a storm of questions with her. Unsure what to do, Simone shoved the mannequin back into the closet and tugged the dress off, hastily kicking it under the bed. “Simone García, put pants on, now. Dinner is ready.” Simone released a heavy breath, a wary sigh. That was a close one. Though there had been close encounters in the past between Simone and his mother while he was dazzling, as he calls it, they had never been so close that he had to disrespect his material and simply kick it under the bed. He retrieved his dress from below his bunk and pulled his mannequin back out, sliding the dress back onto the mannequin and sliding the mannequin into the dark place that is its home; in hiding, to stay in the shadows until Simone had control over his own life. - Extensive research was put into one night and one night only. The plan was simple: Make sure Mama goes to bed early Collect all materials needed Sneak out the window Watch out for predators Walk to Club Indigo on the corner of Hanover BE HOME BY 2 AM ! If this plan was followed step by step, nothing could go wrong, and Simone was ready to make sure of that, no matter what it took. Every afternoon for a week (since the interaction with his new dress was just seven days ago), he sat down at his computer and Googled every Drag Bar in New York city. The next filter was finding one in walking distance. It was the night -August 5th- and Simone could hardly hold in his excitement. Like he had planned, his mother went to bed early, which meant everything would be smooth sailing from there. He grasped a bag and the various clothing items he had collected for this night. His fist tightened around the material of his dress, just like it had the day he found it. He folded it, placed it in his bag, and opened his window. The air outside was warm, fuzzy. He was grateful that he didn’t do his hair at his house, instead waiting until he got to the Indigo Club. The sidewalk was deserted except for the occasional homeless person or someone trying to sell him drugs, but he was used to the bustle of New York. It is the city that never sleeps, isn’t it? He stood in front of the glowing sign, hands shoved deep in his pockets. He debated walking back to his home and pushing all of these thoughts of feminism out of his head. But he didn’t. He grabbed the handle and yanked the door open, entering a world of possibilities, a world for the unknown. “Hey kid,” Simone turned to a desk with a male appearing person with a clipboard, “do you have a reservation?” “Uh..” his brain malfunctioned for a moment, the realism setting in. “Uh, yeah, I do. Under Simone García. I’m performing.” The person looked up at Simone and smiled, reassuringly. “Is it there? I thought I did the process right but I wasn’t sure-” The person cut Simone off by handing him a small, red ticket. “You got this, kid. Give the ticket to the security guard at that door,” the person pointed, “and she’ll let you in. Have fun.” The person ushered Simone off as the line behind the boy grew. He showed the guard his red ticket and she let him in. His jaw fell low. It was a back room, as a theater kid he had seen many, but this one, this one was different. It was glowing, it was alive. The people looked towards him as the door opened and he smiled nervously, trying to stop his lip from quivering. “Well what’s your name?” One of the queens asked. There were 5 queens in the room. “S-Simone. It’s Simone.” He reassured her with a small nod. She gestured to a station and he ran over to it, suddenly remembering where he knew that particular queen from. She was in a limited edition People magazine from pride month last year, one that he got and hidden from his mom. The queens seemed to be whispering about him, but he tried not to notice as he struggled to do his lipstick with a shaky hand. He had never done lipstick before, and this was taking it from level zero to level one hundred in sixty seconds. “Babe, do you need help?” The man next to Simone whispered, finishing off his extreme blush. Simone responded with a nod, muscles too tense to say or do anything else. “Show me what you want and I’ll do it.” The man smiled and Simone lunged for his phone, pulling up the photo. The eyeshadow was rainbow, with glitter in his eyebrows and shiny stars lightly covering his lid and a little bit of his cheek. The queen smiled and grabbed his brushes, beginning on Simone’s face. He assisted Simeone a lot, whether it was makeup or tips on walking in heels, he was there for Simone, even if he hardly knew him. The desk manager poked their head in. “Ladies, it’s time.” They said, dramatically, before leaving the room with their clipboard and all. Everyone stood up, including Simone, and finished smoothing out all the kinks. Simone shook his hands out. This is it. You’ve been waiting for this moment for 4 years. He reminded himself as the first queen went out. One by one, the drag queens disappeared onto the stage until Simone was the only one left. His name rang through the speakers, and soon the crowd as his song began playing. As if the nerve went away, he stepped onto the stage. The lights that may have blinded someone else only made him more excited, and the screaming crowd lit a fire in him that no one would be able to put out. He gave it his all, dancing and singing his heart out. People threw bills onto the stage and he collected them, cheering along with them. As the lights went out and Simone walked back backstage, he realized that for the first time in a long time, he finally had someplace he belonged.

2ssvix

Still

Take the pink sponge rollers out of your hair quickly because it’s Sunday morning and everyone is already rushing toward the car to go to church. Slip the black Goody comb through your dense, hot combed, jet-black, Ultra Sheen-glazed hair and style your curls because it is important to look shiny, crisp, and coiffured at your church. When it doesn’t look good, keep combing it over and over, even when Mom is banging on the door. When you finally open it, angry because your hair is still a flat, lackluster mushroom-shape, do not give Mom any attitude when she slaps your face and pulls you out of your room by your hair, down the hall, down the steps, until you finally break free, still trying to fix your hair because you have to go to church with impressive hair. Do not look at her hatefully when you break free because she will slap you three times instead of just the two. Suck your lip to remove the blood; don’t wipe it with your finger because Mom will say you are making a production out of it. Keep a straight face and don’t look hateful in the car when she describes to your father and your four siblings how she slapped the hell out of your vain self and pulled some of your hair out for your primping in the mirror, exposing your punishment to everyone, even though it was done privately and could have stayed that way if it were discipline, not a Mom-temper tantrum. Be patient during the long ride that starts in the idyllic tree-lined street in your neighborhood, crosses into the next town, traverses the downtown, over the railroad tracks, over the drawbridge, and into the hood. Ignore the shenanigans occurring on the way to church, like your mother placing a topless ceramic mug filled to the brim with coffee, on the car’s dashboard. Do not react to your mother’s shrieking and name calling at your father when a drop of her coffee laps over the lip of the cup because he could have driven over the bumps in the road more smoothly to prevent the liquid from spilling during the 45-minute car ride, she said. Wonder again if people live in the houses that look like small square boxes with roofs, have peeling paint, crumbling steps, and tires, furniture, and mattresses strewn in the yards around the corner from Mount Zion Baptist church. Then ask your father if anyone lives in those houses, even though he never answers that question when you ask him every Sunday. When you get to church and the car is finally parked, after 10 minutes of your father searching for a parking space, be careful when you open the car door because there are expensive cars there, packed tight. Walk quickly in your semi-high, black heels and long skirt to the church because you are late again, but do not switch your hips because you do not want people to believe that you are a fast-tail girl. Go to the bathroom first to check to make sure that your hair looks fine. Do not pay attention to the sour smell in the bathroom, the cracked linoleum, or the leaking sink. Do not be upset that your hair looks puffy because the humidity got to it and it was pulled halfway around a house. Go to the basement and into the corner room where your age group is having class, and everyone is already there. In Sunday School do not laugh at Ms. Ida May when she tries to teach, even though you cannot understand what she is saying because she works her mouth and mushy words tumble out. Do not join in with the other kids who are fooling around in Ms. Ida May’s class because you don’t know how to fool around. Notice that Ms. Ida May wears her white church suit that looks like a nurse’s uniform every Sunday, looking like a walking black and white picture. Think about why Ms. Ida May has always been there and will always be there. When it is your turn to read in Sunday School, read each word correctly and in your real voice. Do not pretend to not know how to read and do not speak with a black brogue just to fit in like Tracey Hightower, who was a soft-spoken, sweet girl last year when she was new to church, but now is mean and womanish acting - walking wide-legged and and throwing her developing hips into it, rolling her eyes and popping her neck at you and your sister for no reason every Sunday. Don't be surprised when sixth, seventh, and eighth graders cannot read words like ‘the, come, thus, thee because it happens every Sunday. Try to say hello the right way to Antwon because he is always cool and confident, even if he cannot read. Do not sound stiff when you talk to cool, black, church kids. Do not feel disappointed because when Antwon nodded and said, “Sup” you blew it and said “Hello,” way too timid and proper sounding. When you line up to march into the choir stand with the youth choir and high voice Tonya gives you the dirty eye and tells you and your sister Belinda off, ignore her. Remember that you and Belinda always have each other, and you don’t need the tough, black church girls. The youth pre-teen choir gets to sing with the teen choir today, and they will sing fast, loud, hand-clapping songs. You will sing in the alto section, and so you cannot sit by Belinda because she is a soprano. You will be fine because you will get to sit by Carolyn, Lisa, and Sheila and they have never made fun of you. Do not get caught by Ms. McDonald, the choir director, talking to Carolyn, Lisa, and Sheila during church. Instead, pass notes. When the choir director starts directing the choir to move back and forth to the music, admit to yourself that you do not want to rock in rhythm with the choir, even though you can. Stand still.

g82lof

Welcome to the Suds and Duds Team!

“There’s no I in TEAM!” the perky woman with the bubblegum pink hair screams from the stage. If Henry had to hear that catch-all mantra from every “Ted Talk” wannabe one more time he was going to scream. “Less than five minutes to finish your spaghetti towers! Remember the winning team gets 10 extra points for their Team!” Pepto Head spouts as she tries to talk over room. Henry was dying inside, little by little, with every piece of tape he handed over to the Engineering genius in their group that took charge from the word GO. He kept looking at his watch trying to make time go faster. “Don’t you just love these silly challenges? I learn so much!”, said the weekend porn star next to him. “Yessssss”, Henry replied with his best smile. Mr. Maddox, Henry’s boss of three months, was convinced that a two day team building conference would be just the thing to make Henry feel welcome at the Suds and Duds. And in truth, it was a welcomed break from the daily grind of checking in peoples comforters that their puppy had puked on. Henry’s favorite days were when the local Senior Center drove their residents in to wash their “unmentionables”. Helping old people count out their pennies to come up with enough money for one load of laundry was always a challenge, and Henry’s change jar at home was getting pretty low from contributing to the cause. A year ago, he was considered one of the hottest commodities at the architectural firm Henry was interning at. Monday mornings were spent recovering from the excitement of living in the city. And weekends were for hard chargers, like Henry, that wanted to move up as fast as he could. Social dinners, company credit cards for travel, and fridges stocked in the breakroom with energy drinks were all taken for granted. But then his world stopped. Henry’s Mom lost her corner bakery and asked him to move in with her to help with expenses. Moving back to his tiny childhood town in the middle of a pandemic made him realize that he had it pretty good. After months of searching for a job, Henry finally accepted an offer from the local laundry mat. It was better than having no money at all coming in. And his Mom needed the extra income. On the first day of work Henry caught a glance of himself in the hall mirror in his “Suds and Duds” polo shirt on his way out the door. “Wow, is that you?”, he asked his reflection. “What happened to us?” The hall clock was ticking loudly and reminded him of where he was and where he had to be. Grabbing his keys from the kitchen counter, he yelled “Bye Mom! Love you!” on his way out the door. Walking into Mr. Maddox’s office for the first time was like that scene from Hot Tub Time Machine where you have to shake your head and ask yourself what year it is. Dented metal filing cabinets lined the walls, filled with papers from the era of paying bills by hand. A Mr. Coffee machine that looked like it had never been cleaned sat on an overturned bucket in the corner. If you were brave, you could have coffee in one of the many mugs Mr. Maddox apparently brought back from his getaways with his wife. The “Niagara Falls is for Lovers” one was Henry’s favorite. “Hey there’s the boy genius”, Mr. Maddox crooned. “Come in and have a seat. It’s Senior day today so I only have a few minutes to talk with you before it gets crazy”, he said. “Hey Mr. Maddox, I really appreciate you giving me this job”, Henry replied. “No problem kid! Me and your Mom go way back” he said with a wink. From that moment on Henry was his protégé. It was an answer to Mr. Maddox’s prayers. His own kids didn’t want to learn the business. All they wanted to do was play video games in the basement. It was so refreshing to find a kid like Henry to come work for him. And maybe he and the wife could get back to weekend trips away once Henry learned the ropes. A scream from the table next to him reminded Henry of where he was. “You almost had it!” pouted the Ex-LuLaRoe saleslady. Their spaghetti tower had cracked in the middle and was in pieces on the floor. Henry studied his team’s tower, which was leaning heavily to one side. “Turn it upside down”, Henry said. “Sure that’ll work”, snarked the laid off mall security guard. “No really, I’ve seen it before. It takes all the weight off the spaghetti.”, Henry replied. With seconds left to go, Henry reached across the table and flipped the tower upside down. “Well, I’ll be dammed kid! It worked!”, exclaimed the Iron Chef wannabe. Henry just smiled at his group while they screamed as the buzzer went off signaling the end of the team challenge. “An extra ten points for team Ready For The World!” yelled the instructor. Henry stifled a laugh as her flamingo colored hair made it look like she was going to take flight as she was running towards their table. Another crisis averted, he thought, as he made his way to the lunch buffet. “Henry, how are you?”, a voice called behind him. It was his friend from high school who was busy serving food for the conference. Henry’s brain started going down the list of names trying to remember this one’s.  “Hey Stan! Nice to see you. You work here?” “Yeah, I like it. And Michelle and the kids get to swim in the hotel pool for free, so its not so bad”, Stan replied. Stan and Michelle were the hottest couple in school, he being the football captain and Michelle the head cheerleader. It made Henry think how quickly life throws curve balls at you just to screw with you. He almost felt bad for them. “You want an extra sandwich or something? I can get it for you.”, Stan whispered. Henry looked down at his stained Suds and Duds polo shirt and realized he must have looked like he was down on his luck. “If you need a place to stay or something, Michelle won’t mind if you spend a night on our couch.”, said Stan. Stan’s sincerity caught Henry off guard. “He thinks I’m homeless”, Henry thought to himself. Stifling a laugh, Henry put out his hand to Stan. “No man, I’m good. Moved back in with my Mom to help her out. I got to use the restroom before our break is up. Good to see you!” Henry turned towards the back of the room. As he was walking away, an overwhelming sense of peace came over him. For he realized that life is as fragile as spaghetti, too much pressure and you can break, but just add water and it can be delicious.

ulm4r3

I Will Lay Me Down

TW: Suicidal thoughts We were coming back from a day trip to Fallingwater and stopped to swim in a river that cut through the low-slung hills. After an hour of driving, our stepdad, Mark, a native to the general area, pointed out the windscreen. “Here! We can picnic just on the side.” Mom dropped her feet, from where they'd been sunning on the dashboard. She offered one of her signature, premeditated smiles. “How nice.” Beth, my sister, drab and dreary, huffed. Lately, she spent her mornings expertly patting her face ghostly with pale creams and taking over half an hour detailing her eyeliner. She often matched an assortment of striped, fingerless gloves to her Converse high-tops and JNCO jeans. Today, however, she'd been forced to subject herself to khakis and a blue sleeve capped shirt with sunflowers stitched on one side. This was because mom started the morning off wrong by tossing the 'dreadful Gothic trash' out the bedroom window. With nothing else but a cotton nightgown packed in the suitcase, my sister rolled curled into her knees, refusing to cry or leave the room. When I told her that she could wear anything of mine, she spit. A massive, green loogie landed in my stringy pigtail braids. I was saved from another flying gob by our Step-brother, Penn. He tossed his blue corduroy bear at her face, shouted, “GANGWAY!” and yanked me out by the wrist. He and I waited outside of the apartment, the summer morning was fusty and damp. Penn gave me a tissue for my hair and laughed at me, but I didn't mind so much. We both knew his bear was now at risk in Beth's hands. We made tiny fairy huts in the neighbor's flower box, waiting for retaliation or for the day to proceed according to Mom's meticulous itinerary. In the end, Mark and his mother silently went up to the attic to find clothes that had once fit his sister, back in 1977. With that, the issue was declared settled. Mom was the first to appear at the threshold. She clutched her new grass woven handbag, and stared at us, but spoke to me. “Look at you. Nasty and getting dirty when you knew we had plans today. I expected better from you.” Her spiky eyelashes fluttered so wide, they left pockmarks of mascara in her orange skin. Her long, pink nails plucked a bit of tissue that had stuck to my braid. “What have you done with yourself?” She didn't wait for an answer but marched toward the rental van with a huff and became agitated when Penn and I didn't immediately follow. After that, much of the morning passed by in stilted silence. Occasionally, Mom attempted to force games on us. “I spy with my little eye –” Penn spent the journey to and from Fallingwater, with his face pressed against the window. The ends of his bright red hair stood damp from the failed attempts to brush it into place. He wanted to see an Amish person. Mom kept snapping, “It's inappropriate to sit in your seat like that! You look like a gorilla-ape! Sit proper!” He would, but, inevitably like a puppy too wound up with expectations of the day, Penn's nose would find itself smudging the window once more. During the Frank Lloyd Wright tour, we managed to behave. Penn and I both taking interest in the architecture and the story of how the house was built. I was enamored with the iron gray water as it ran through the floors and how the windows opened into the hills. I wanted to point out that the trees claimed every inch of the sky and rooted deep into the slopes and curved over exposed stone like lazy snakes. But I didn't know the words. Instead, I tugged on mom's silk sleeves. She was preoccupied by Beth's movements, how she swanned like an anemic Victorian, around the house. For some reason, I'd thought if I could grab Mom's attention, Beth would have some breathing room and might actually start to like me. Or, at least, she would appreciate my sacrifice. “Mom, look at the robin!” Again. “Hey! Mom!” “Shhh,” she shook her arm free and moved away, closer to the attractive tour guide. “Don't interrupt. You're too loud.” I imagined myself with a considerable amount of wealth to afford such a place, so far up that a draw bridge would be needed to get to the front door. I decided I would close the bridge to everyone but Penn. Maybe Mark could visit, too, but he'd have to learn to get a spine around Mom. Otherwise, it'd be as good as inviting an enemy to dinner. Mark's decision to picnic by the river must have been inspired by the house, with its dining room hanging off the cliff and seamless windows to give the appearance of living in the canopy. “Like Robinson Crusoe!” he'd said. “But with the modern conveniences.” Either that or he wanted to free himself of the static prickling around all of us. Penn kept moaning about the lack of horse drawn carriages. Beth only responded to direct questions by quoting ICP lyrics. Anytime I tried to say something, I was far too loud and causing Mom to develop one of her headaches. We found a decent parking spot, nosed in toward an overlook, where we could see a handful of other families wading into the mossy green water. Beth and I were instructed to use the far back of the van to change into our swimsuits. Three times she angled her knee or elbow into my floating ribs, all the while announcing it was an accident. Then, it was Penn's turn and Beth pushed me out, declaring that I was always in the way. I spread my arms out for Mark to spray me down with sunscreen and he made sure to get the wide part in my hair. I was all fat and gangling legs and arms that struck at awkward angles from my swimsuit. Beth, in her spotted bikini, looked like Jhonen Vasquez's interpretation of Twiggy, and she made a point to walk ahead of us. She stared at the group of teenage boys but when they looked back, she rolled her shoulders in catly disinterest. “Want to look for frogs?” Penn asked, grabbing my hand. “Or a tide pool?” “I think that's just for salt water,” I said. He shrugged. “We can still look.” Mom flicked open a thin, cotton blanket and stationed herself on it with her coltish legs gently curved. Her large brown sunhat concealed the better parts of her face so that she was only a demure smile. She knew people liked to look at her and posed herself to be featured, however briefly, in strangers' thoughts. Mark had his camera out and his attention turned to a fraction of sunlight gathered in a dipping part of the stream. He smiled and waved at us, lifting his camera. Penn and I wrapped ourselves together and stood for pictures, before growing restless and darting off to explore. Our plastic sandals slapped against the shards of honey-brown rock, rising above the bubbling river like the scales of fish darting between the sunspots. We picked up flat stones, attempted to skip them, but didn't talk to each other. Sometimes, I didn't know what to say to Penn. He was half my age, but I felt so dumb and incapable of keeping up with his interests. I liked him and I figured he must have known that, even though there were times when he found himself tangled in a stiff sadness that I carried around. A sadness I was unable to name until well into my adulthood. I followed him, nodding as he pointed out different plants and types of rock, naming them with authority. I wished the water was strong enough to carry me away. I didn't want to die, or drown, or maim myself unrecognizable. I just wanted to be gone. We found a patch of river that was knee deep and sat in it. The current meandered like the southern heat we aimed to escape. Penn spread his fingers, watching the green water bounce and cap white ahead of us. “Am I red?” “No,” I squinted and cupped a hand around my eyes. “Not anywhere. Me?” “On your shoulders but just pink.” I shrugged. It didn't matter. I was always getting burned, despite the layers of sunscreen sprayed on me, and somehow, I survived. I lifted my hips, pushing my hands down into the silt, just to see how far I could go before the lip of rock trapped me. I wished I wasn't fat, then maybe I could swim or be carried. And then. I was floating down river, unshackled from the rocks and the slow turn of the waves. The current became faster and the bright red plastic balls the marked the drop off were framed by my legs. My mind cleared and the sun was warm on my already burnt skin. Oh bliss! Oh God in heaven wrap me into your arms! Take me from this unnamed pain! My plastic sandals disappeared over the edge, and I waited patiently for my turn. I nearly made it, too, but the rocks came up again, smooth and mossy, shredding the water into separate trunks before it dipped below the plastic barrier. Now, no more than a speck upstream, Mom let loose a horned owl screech and flung her arms into the sky. “SOMEBODY HELP MY BABY!” “Mom!” I shouted back and rolled my eyes. “There's a path right here.” To make a point I stood and began to shuffle forward, mindful of the tender points that were slick and precarious. “DON'T MOVE! YOU STAY RIGHT THERE!” I did not imagine the knife edge of danger in her tone. I looked at Penn, twelve feet away from me, and shrugged. He offered half a smile and began walking parallel to me, reaching the shore, where Mark stood, peeling off his socks. “Dad!” I pointed down. “it's a clear walkway!” “Okay!” he called back, unhooking his camera and setting it in the pebbled shore. “HELP MY BABY!” Mom shouted again and I watched, in horror, as she flung herself around one of the teenagers Beth was pretending to ignore. “Deb, it's fine – ” Mark began. He was already in the water, coming to meet me halfway, but Mom shoved him aside. His bad knee buckled and he fell backward, water and mud splashing around him. “GO SAVE MY BABY!” Mom kept screaming and the boy she'd abducted, took several startling steps out to me. I began to walk toward him but Mom let out a demonic bellow, “DON'T YOU DARE MOVE!” It rooted me to the spot. The boy, too, seemed unsure about the safest course of action. What was more deadly? My mom, or the edge of a cliff? I waited and eventually, he splashed toward me. “I'm sorry,” I whispered, then kept repeating it when he put his back to me to lead me to the shore. My sunburned legs chaffed. “I'm sorry. I'm sorry.” For the inconvenience. For wanting him to tell me that it was okay. For not being cute enough that he'd want to brag to his friends. For walking so slow. For Mom's dramatics. For wanting to die. The boy escaped from us at the first opportunity. Mom had the decency to wait until all our things had been gathered, and we were in the shadow of the rental van, before she removed her sneaker and slapped it around my backside. “You ruined a perfectly good afternoon! How could you be so stupid?” “I don't know,” I lied. “It was an accident, Barb,” Mark grumbled, folding a towel in the driver's seat. His right knee was swollen. “She's safe. That's what matters.” Mom huffed and flung herself into the van. “Well, it's the last time we listen to you about going for a swim anywhere that isn't a pool!” On the drive back, I sat in the third row by myself, not permitted to change out of my swimsuit. Beth plugged in her yellow Walkman and pretended to sleep. Penn stared out the window. Silence, anger, disappointment, all bundled into the van as it made its way down the twisting back roads. Eventually, we came to the point in the river where the drop off had been. Fifteen feet, or a little less, where the green, glassy water turned into a tumble of white foam and mist. Mark whistled low and I wondered if hitting the base would have hurt. At the next, sloping turn, Penn burst the tension I had unwittingly created. “Look!” Ahead of us was a black, two wheeled wagon. The horse that pulled it was broad and dark. “Don't stare,” Mom warned. Penn ignored her and rolled down the window. Mom tapped her knuckle against Mark's forearm. “Speed up. Let's get around him.” “I like your horse!” Penn shouted, his words getting lost in the loud hum of our tires. Mom rolled up his window and put on the parental locks. Penn, ever resourceful, unbuckled his seat belt and spider crawled into the backseat with me. We pushed our faces against the rear window, eyes wide. The bearded driver was weather-worn. He dressed for church: black pants and suspenders, shirt so crisp and white that it glowed in the sunset. His buggy whip snapped in the air and the horse's head bobbed, clopping its hooves in a dance along the shoulder of the uneven road. The man laughed and tilted his wide brimmed hat to us as we waved goodbye. A calm passed through me. I felt soothed like a damp cloth had been placed on my fevered forehead. Then, the man and his horse were gone, hidden behind the trees, as the van slipped downstream.   

sqr2qm

One To Three

“I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first?” A choice? Choices were usually for other people. Destiny didn’t choose to feel run down or to be limited to medical care at the free clinic. She didn’t choose to wait three hours just to be seen by whichever doctor was next in line, but at least she had this choice. “What’s the bad news?” Experience had taught Destiny that the bad news was typically far worse than the good news was good. Her choice, therefore, was determined by a primal need for self-preservation. "The good news,” the doctor began, ignoring her, “is you’re not sick. In fact, you’re as healthy as a horse.” “Then why do I feel like I just ran six furlongs?” “Huh?” The doctor asked, looking up from his notes. “It was a joke. You said a horse. Furlong? Oh never mind, what’s the bad news, doctor? Don’t leave me hanging.” “You’re pregnant, dear. I’m guessing about two months along.” “I’m gonna have a baby!” Destiny blurted out. It would be later in the day before she realized the doctor implied her being pregnant was bad news. “Yes, I'm afraid so. I’ve arranged for you to meet with a family counselor. You do have options.” “Options?” Destiny raised one eyebrow. “What the heck do you mean by that?” “If you don’t want the…” the doctor paused mid-sentence. “I want the ‘the’,” Destiny interrupted. “I want my baby with all my heart.” The rest of the appointment was a blur. Destiny had so much adrenaline running through her veins that she couldn’t concentrate on what the doctor was saying. When he had finally given her the literature and prescriptions for prenatal vitamins, Destiny sprinted out of the office to the closest bus stop. She had some shopping to do. Walking up and down the aisles of the baby boutique, Destiny quickly realized how expensive children were, a fact crystalized when she overheard a salesclerk completing another customer's transaction. “That will be $798.15.” The customer, a well dressed young woman with perfect hair and nails, pulled out a Visa from her purse and inserted it into the credit card chip reader. The clerk and the customer chit-chatted about strollers and cribs and bassinets, neither phased by the large total on the sales slip. Destiny paused and opened up her wallet which had just a SNAP card, a stick of gum, and four one-dollar bills. How could she provide for the baby to come when she could barely afford to take care of herself? Dejected, Destiny turned to leave the store. On the way out, however, she spotted the clearance rack. The mishmosh of garments was not inspiring to say the least. There were odd colored outfits and mismatched shoes, almost nothing worthy of a second look. Desperate yet determined Destiny discovered a lone light blue onesie with the word “LOVE” lettered in red on the front. It had been hidden behind a hooded parka with a ripped sleeve. Love, Destiny thought to herself. I can’t give you much, but I can give you love. The little outfit had been originally priced at $20.00, but had been reduced twice to $5.00. Destiny, commited to purchasing the adorable find, opened the change compartment in her wallet and poured out a handful of mostly bronze coins. As she started to count, she found a single quarter, four dimes, and three nickels. Without even counting the pennies, she grabbed the onesie and marched up to the counter. “$5.25, please,” the cashier announced, as she folded the outfit and placed it into a bag. “I only have $4.92,” Destiny answered, as she quickly counted out the pennies. “I just found out today that I’m pregnant.” “It’s ok, ma’am,” the cashier said with a wink. “I forgot the friends and family discount, so that will be $4.92 exactly.” In her life, Destiny had never been so grateful. For thirty-three cents, the cashier had bought Destiny dignity and the new mother-to-be would never forget the kindness. * * * * * * * * * * “I have good news and bad news.” “Listen very carefully, Eli. I’m pregnant, perturbed, and I have to pee. Again! Are you sure you want to mess with me right now?” “I’m sorry, baby doll, you know me. I joke. It’s my way.” “Fine. What’s the bad news?” “My mom just called—she’s on her way over.” “Destiny is coming? How is that bad news? I love your mother.” “You know how I feel. She’s always wearing that awful uniform. Can’t she take five minutes to change before she barges in?” “ That uniform ? Are you ashamed of your mother?” “Well, no.” “That woman is a saint. She worked her ass off to put food on your table.” “I know—but the uniform…” “You should love that uniform. She paid for your college—as a waitress.” “But…” “But nothing—your mom is on her way over. That’s the good news. Now go make some herbal tea.” It didn’t take long for Eli to make the tea or for his mother to make it to the house. “I’ll get it,” Eli shouted when the doorbell broke the silence. “Be nice,” Melody yelled back, causing Eli to laugh out loud just as he opened the door. “Hello, Elijah,” Destiny said, wrapping her arms around her son’s neck. In his whole life, Eli couldn’t remember a single time that his mother failed to hug him the first time she saw him. He loved the attention as a boy, but, like most teenagers, he resisted it as he got older. On this day, however, he welcomed the display of affection. His wife had reminded him just how lucky he was, and he wanted his mom to know as well. “Hi mom,” he said as he stepped to the side, motioning her in. “It’s really nice to see you.” “Are you sure?” Destiny responded with a wink. “Should I have changed before I came over?” “No, mom,” Eli answered, feeling a bit guilty, giving his mother an unexpected second hug. “How is Melody? You aren’t annoying her, are you?” “A little.” “That’s what I thought. You be nice to that girl. She's been good for you and to you.” “She’s upstairs in bed, Mom, but I know she’d love to see you.” “In a minute. First, I brought something I wanted you to have.” Eli looked down and saw a perfectly wrapped gift in his mother’s hands. “Mom, you shouldn’t have. I told you we have all we need.” “You don’t have this, and I’ve been waiting so long to give it to you.” Destiny said, handing Eli the package. “Should I open it now?” “You’d better,” she answered with a smile. Eli found the seam and carefully tore off the blue bunny-covered wrapping paper. Inside was a plain white box, taped on all four sides. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small pen knife which he promptly used to cut the tape. Finally able to open the box, he pulled off the top, allowing him to see a small faded light blue onesie with the word “LOVE” printed in red on the front. “Mom, I can’t take this. It’s important to you.” The story of the onesie, the clerk, and the thirty-three cents was cherished family history and the outfit was Destiny’s most prized possession. “When I was young,” Destiny explained, “this was my way of showing you I loved you. I bought it myself, and I gave it to you. It’s time to give it to you again so you will always remember the only thing that is truly necessary to give your child is love. Please give it to your son. Will you do that for me?” “Of course I will,” Eli answered, “Let’s go show Melody.” * * * * * * * * * * “I have good news, dad.” “What’s that, kiddo?” Eli asked, looking down at his son. “Grandma isn’t really dead. Wanna know how I know?” “I do, Ben,” Eli responded, genuinely interested in what his five-year-old son was about to say. “Well, my teacher, Mrs. Conroy, she told me that as long as we keep loving people, they never die. That’s true, isn’t it dad? “It sure is, champ. Mrs. Conroy knows what she’s talking about.” “Then I want to do something for grandma. Is that alright?” “Well that depends, kiddo. What do you want to do?” “Wait, I’ll show you.” The little boy answered, charging out of the room, only to return a moment later. “I want to give her this,” Ben said, holding up a little light blue outfit for Eli to see. “L. O. V. E. That spells love. Grandma taught me the letters. Can I give it to her so she knows we love her then she won't really be dead?” “Ben, where did you get that?” “I found it in my closet. Grandma told me all about it.” “Of course, you can give it to her,” Eli said, holding back tears. “I think she’d like that very much.” There wasn’t much talk on the way to the funeral home or during the service. Ben made sure to keep very quiet, waiting for the opportunity to give his grandmother her gift. When most of the crowd had left, Eli found Ben. “Are you ready?” “Ready.” “Great, let’s go.” Taking his hand, Eli walked with Ben up to the casket where Destiny lay. “She looks like she’s sleeping.” Ben observed, looking up at his father then back down at Destiny. “I think she is smiling,” “I think so, too.” “I love you, Grandma,” Ben said as he laid the small light blue onesie near Destiny’s heart. He then reached into his pocket and pulled out a quarter, a dime, and three pennies, laying the coins under his grandmother’s hand. He whispered something Eli could not hear. Then the two turned around and walked out of the chapel. “What did you tell Grandma?” Eli asked. “It’s a secret,” Ben answered, with a serious look on his round little face. “It’s okay, I promise I won’t tell a soul.” “I told Grandma I was giving her thirty-three cents.” “Thirty-three cents?” “Yes, Dad. Just in case they don’t have the friends and family discount in heaven.”

1cdqok

all part of growing up

"Grow up. Grow UP. You have to grow up", they always say. I don't want to grow up. What's the point in maturing. To be exposed to more pain and suffering? To realise that the world isn't like how the fairy tales said it would be? To know that you'll never be enough, despite your desperate attempts to live up to society's standards? I'm not ready to leave my childhood behind. The warm, joyful, carefree days. I miss running across a wide open field feeling as though I had the world beneath my feet. I want to be able to think of all the things I look forward to, like finally being able to go out and party or driving a car, maybe getting a job and getting married. But there isn't any joy in growing up. We are forced to leave all our innocence in the past and become a version of ourselves that fits the conventions of the modern world. Growing up just means getting disappointed more often. Growing up almost never is how you thought it would be. In my opinion, another year is just another batch of problems. It's my birthday today. I'm eighteen now. The age at which people no longer consider you a child. You are now an adult. I am now an adult. An adult. Someone responsible, someone who knows exactly what to do, someone that is able to look after themselves. Someone I'm not. Here I am, watching my friends pour alcohol down each others throats while acting like animals. Bodies rubbing against each other as the yelling intertwines with the blasting music. My friend is shaking me. Jumping up and down as the sequins on her dress flitter around her bodice. "What are you doing just standing there?Come dance!" She hollers over the background noise. She looks like she's having the time of her life. Is this what growing up feels like? The stench is making me nauseous. I can no longer breathe properly. I need to get out of here. I need to leave now. I run to my bedroom, slamming the door and stumbling until my legs finally give out and I collapse onto my bed. The smell of sweat and alcohol is now masked by the scent of my lavender air purifier. I huddled close to the corner of the wall and hold myself tightly until I finally start to calm down. A single tear rolls down my cheek as a flood of tears follow it, caressing my face and removing the heavy layer of mascara I put on earlier. This isn't how I wanted my birthday to be. I shouldn't be crying in my room. I should be celebrating my newfound adulthood with my friends and having fun. My eyes waver around the room as catch my breath. In a faraway dark corner of my room, I glimpse my suitcase full of sweatshirts and books. Thats right, I'm going to college next month. I spent the first 10 years of my life awaiting the day I finally leave my hometown and move to college. But now I don't feel like leaving at all. College always seemed so far away then. I wish I could just rewind time and relive my whole childhood. I miss listening to my mom reading me bedtime stories. I miss going to the beach with my dad and my sister and not having a care in the world. I miss not having responsibilities. I miss getting the kids menu at restaurants. I miss playing in the park. I miss going on walks with my puppy. I really really miss how my grandmother would pick me up and hold me close to her. I miss watching Disney films and thinking I was a princess. But most of all, I miss being able to be truly happy. What hurts the most is knowing that I'll never be that happy. Knowing that nothing will be able to feel safer than being in my parent's arms as they hum lullabies to put me to sleep. I find it funny how people celebrate growing up. When you think about it from another perspective, every birthday is another birthday closer to your death. Every day is another day closer to the day you leave earth. Every hour, every minute, every second. It terrifies me, to say the least. Why are we brought into the world only for all of us to die in the end? I wish I could just be in an endless loophole of age 1-15. Those were the days. It all seems so golden. It's like when a ray of sunlight hits a glass prism and rainbows dance around the room. It's all perfect and beautiful. But just like all things, those moments will never last forever. I have no choice but to suck it up and face my fears. I'm not ready to face or endure the hardships of the world or the blinding lights and deafening music in my living room. But there's nothing I can do about it. I can't rewind time or pause happy memories. All I can do is look forward to the future and overcome everything that will be thrown at me. I'll be by myself with no support system. But in the end, I'll be ok. I am so much stronger than I believe myself to be. I am capable and powerful. But are those attributes enough for me to cope during times when I feel as though I can't go on anymore? I have no clue. So I head out. I hug my friends. I laugh and I swallow my fear. I act as though nothing is bothering me. I feel like I'm underwater and I'm struggling to grasp air. I don't know whether I'll always feel like this. Maybe I'll adapt to this new normal. But I doubt it. There are so many uncertainties, unknowns, that I'm scared of. And there's nothing I can do about it. But I guess it's all part of growing up.

3wi3ec

Better Late Than Never

       BETTER LATE THAN NEVER                                                By David L. Elkind                  About a Character Who Ironically Gets Called an Einstein Bill Jensen thought that high school was an inconvenience. He had several priorities in life. None involved school. While he was home, music was always blaring from his room. It was the mid-1970s, and the music that Bill listened to would later be called classic rock. He had a large collection of vinyl record albums. The collection was particularly impressive since Bill had little money, but he learned to compensate for that shortcoming. When Bill was in tenth grade, he developed a particular skill in helping himself to free records. He would purchase a shopping bag at Sears for 25 cents – his sole investment - then walk across the street to Macy’s and head to its record department. He usually helped himself to one album at a time. Occasionally two. The one time that he got greedy and took three albums, it almost cost him dearly. A store clerk looked at his bulging bag suspiciously. Deciding that the best defense was a good offense, Bill looked at her sharply and, speaking loudly, snarled, “What?” He had intimidated her. Not wanting a confrontation, she sulked away. Bill then soon got his first part-time job. He learned that money makes a bad thief. His shoplifting days were over. Bill also enjoyed sports. He loved the three major sports – football, baseball and basketball - and followed teams and players in each sport. He read most of the newspaper every day quickly, until he came to the sports section, which he pored through in minute detail. Bill had a facility with numbers, and was familiar with many sports statistics, most of which were very trivial in importance. Bill’s relationship with his father Don, was tense. The only times that they had detailed conversations without acrimony involved sports. The Jensens had little money and could rarely go to a game, but Bill and his father watched many events on TV, and spoke freely about the games or other sports issues. They never discussed how either was feeling emotionally. From a personal point of view, they knew little about each other. Bill loved playing sports. He was 6 feet tall and a skinny 160 pounds. With thick, wavy brown hair and hazel eyes, he looked athletic despite his weight, and he was skilled in every sport that he played. His efforts to participate in team sports in school, however, met with failure. He tried out for football in his sophomore year of high school, and would have been a wide receiver, but one day he got into a vigorous argument with his coach after he leaped but could not catch a pass, and the coach criticized him in front of the team. Rather than holding in his anger, Bill angrily disputed what the coach said, and the argument escalated, until a frustrated Bill finally said, “Fuck you.” The coach told Bill that he was off the team, and Bill replied that he was quitting in any event, which ended his football career. That spring Bill was running a hurdles race in track and field and was comfortably in the lead when he pulled a thigh muscle jumping over the fifth hurdle. The track coach knew little about rehabilitating injuries, and did nothing to help Bill. Midway through the season, he criticized Bill for not being able to participate with the team. Again, Bill would not back down. “Since you did nothing to help me rehabilitate my hamstring, how the hell can you complain about the fact that I can’t run now?” he asked angrily. That was the end of his track career. Bill’s problems with Don had spawned a deep mistrust of authority. His failed experience with sports only fueled that mistrust. His days of participating in team sports at school had ended. Bill’s other major activity involved smoking marijuana with his friends. He rarely went two days without getting high. Sometimes he partook during school. His biggest concern when he smoked pot was that there would be a ready supply of sweet “munchies” nearby. When he got high during school, that required skipping a class to go to a local diner for a pastry or some ice cream. Satisfying his hunger was far more important than attending a meaningless class. Despite his problematic relationship with Don, Bill’s enjoyment of life was unfettered by conflict with his parents. By the time he got to high school, his parents had abdicated any role in monitoring his activities or placing any restraints on him. Bill had no curfew, and was free to come and go as he pleased. The only relevant comment that he received from his parents came when he brought home a mediocre report card and Don would simply say, “You know that you can do better.” Bill, eager to avoid conflict, would nod his head without speaking. That was the end of their discussion. Don never asked why Bill wasn’t doing better, and Bill never offered an explanation. Bill eventually would regal his parents on Sunday morning with tales of his exploits the night before. Rather than criticize his activities, his parents usually laughed. When he thought about it, Bill realized that he was raising himself. He wasn’t doing a good job of it, but Bill didn’t care. He cared only about the present. He had no future orientation. All that he cared about was having fun now. He was succeeding at satisfying that desire. The biggest reason for Bill’s failure in school concerned homework. He didn’t do any after elementary school. His teachers were unaware of his excellent standardized test scores. All that they knew was that when he was called on to state something about the prior night’s homework assignment, he had nothing to say. This frustrated all of his teachers. In some classes, like social studies, Bill could often state his views without reading the homework assignment. He got better grades in those classes. His teachers knew that he was intelligent, but they assumed that he was a screw-up.     This all boiled over one day senior year in his English literature class. The teacher, Ms. Kelly, an unsmiling teacher well past retirement age, was grilling Bill about the Miller’s Tale from the Canterbury Tales. Ms. Kelly rarely raised her voice, but her natural demeanor included a face that was creased by a perpetual frown as she often spewed sarcastic disapproval of a student’s comments. Bill was able to fake it through the first few questions, but when the questions turned to substantive aspects of the reading, he was clueless. His standard response was, “I don’t know.” After a few questions, it was clear that he hadn’t read the assignment. Rather than turning to another students to get answers to her questions, Ms. Kelly repeatedly asked Bill questions about the reading, as if she wanted to humiliate him in front of the class. Her tactic was working, as Bill’s voice progressively got weaker while he failed to answer each question. Finally, Ms. Kelly had enough. “I don’t know whether you simply couldn’t do the reading or chose not to,” she said, “but it doesn’t really matter. You should be ashamed, Mr. Jensen, because you are a failure. Now sit down, Einstein.” Bill was embarrassed and could feel his face turning red. He heard the titters of some of his classmates. He wanted to tell Ms. Kelly what she could do with her comments, but he knew that she would retaliate by give him a failing grade in the class. That would force him to repeat the class during summer school, and jeopardize his chance of attending the one college that had accepted him. He showed common sense, which was uncommon for him, and nodded before sitting down. His control paid off when Ms. Kelly surprisingly gave him a C grade. The day before his graduation, Bill told his mother that he would be going out with his friends that night instead of going to graduation. “A high school diploma means nothing,” he said. “Nothing matters until you get to college.” His mother shocked him with her reaction. “It does matter,” she said sternly. “You’re going to your graduation. We never thought that you’d get this far.” Bill went to his graduation only after he got high and drank beer with his close friends, all of whom were also going to be at the graduation. This caused Bill to lose any inhibition that he might have had about how he acted during the ceremony. The big secret was that the envelope that every student was handed during the ceremony was empty. They would get their diplomas only after they returned their caps and gowns the next day. When Bill’s name was called, he was handed his envelope as he walked across the stage. Rather than continue to walk, Bill paused, opened the envelope and turned it upside down. When he shook it and nothing came out, he shrugged his shoulders. The audience howled with laughter. He looked to the side and saw the anger in the principal’s eyes while the assistant principal covered her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. Bill winked at them as he walked to the end of the stage. Bill found out from his younger sister Jenny that Don assumed that Bill would flunk out of school during his first semester in college. That view was almost prescient. Bill rarely did homework, and pulled two all-nighters during the last three days of testing to escape with a low B – high C average, similar to his high school performance. Bill had enjoyed his first semester. He had made several friends with whom he regularly smoked pot, had successfully chased a couple of women with whom he had fun, and generally enjoyed himself. His grades weren’t good, but they were similar to how he had done in high school, and he felt that he had made a seamless transition to college, although with a rough finish to the semester. Then he had a harsh lesson that made him realize how much of a failure he had been. Three days before school started, the bill for the spring semester came. It hit Bill like a blast from an explosion, like a ton of bricks. He realized that by attending school, he was putting himself deeply into debt. It made no sense to continue unless he was ready to take school seriously to justify the expense. It was time to grow up and act like a young adult, not like a party boy who lived for the moment and didn’t care about the future. He read all of his homework assignments that semester, and dedicated up to three hours of each day to study. He did well on his midterms, but was determined to do even better on his finals. He studied harder. Early in the semester he had cut back on the frequency when he got high. After midterms, he cut it out completely. He sailed through the first four finals. The last one, in English literature, had a major essay on the Canterbury Tales. Bill had read the book and had re-read many parts, including the Miller’s Tale, a second time. He felt that he had done well on the exam. When he called his parents to arrange to come home for the summer, Don asked him how he had done on his exams. Bill was purposefully understated. “I think that I did okay,” he said. “Probably better than fall semester. But the proof will come when I get my grades.” Bill was home on a Saturday a month later when he received his grades. He said nothing, but went to his room and closed the door. After he saw his grades, he broke into a wide smile. He went downstairs wearing a plain poker face, and walked up to Don, who was sitting on the couch, reading a book. “My grades came,” Bill said. “How did you do?” Don asked. “Not bad,” Bill said. “See for yourself.” He handed the grade sheet to Don. Don looked at the grades for a moment, then his eyes opened wide while a wide grin crossed his mouth. “Yes. You did it,” he said. “Straight As. This is incredible.” He gave Bill a big hug. Bill thought that he could see tears in Don’s eyes. He realized that as thrilled as he was to see the grades, he was even more thrilled to see his father’s reaction. He realized how happy he was to have gained Don’s approval. “What do you want to do to celebrate?” Don asked. Bill had no idea what he wanted to do, but then a thought struck him and he realized that it was brilliant. “Why don’t we go out tonight, just you and me for some beers,” he said. “We’ve never done this before. Let’s plow new ground, and hopefully set a precedent.” “Sounds great,” Don said. They went out for hours, and talked deeply about their feelings concerning a host of topics. Bill almost felt that they were overcompensating for their failure to have any similar discussion before, but he was thrilled. When they got home and had walked to the main floor, Bill and Don hugged. Don said, “I love you,” something Bill hadn’t heard since he was an infant. “I love you too, Dad,” he said. Bill turned away so Don couldn’t see the tears that were rapidly forming in his eyes. “Goodnight, Dad,” he said and walked upstairs. After he closed his door, the tears flowed like water. He knew that they were tears of joy, and he felt even better than he had felt when he saw his grades and got Don’s reaction. August 20 was a hot Monday. It was one week before college started and 15 days before public school started on the day after Labor Day. On a lark, Bill drove to the high school. He walked through the halls, past his old locker and past a corridor of classrooms. He took a left, and turned to the right. Mrs. Kelly’s door was open, and she was working hard, preparing for school. He walked in as she looked up at him as he said hello. “Hello Mr. Jensen,” she said with a note of formality that accompanied her unpleasant voice. “How was your first year of college?” “It went fairly well,” he said calmly. “Were your grades satisfactory?” she asked. “I think so. Do you remember in class when I was unprepared, and after I couldn’t answer a series of your questions about the Miller’s Tale, you said that I should be ashamed, then you told me to sit down and you sarcastically called me Einstein?”  She had a blank look for a second, then a look of recognition crossed her face. “Yes, I remember that,” she said with concern as she waited warily for his next statement. “My first semester, I pretty much followed the pattern that I had established during high school,” he said. “I pulled a couple of all-nighters and escaped with three B grades and two Cs.” “As I recall, that was consistent with your high school performance,” she said. “That’s right,” he said. “Then the bills came right before second semester and I realized that it didn’t make sense to go into debt unless I was ready to do the work.” “Good,” she said. “I’m glad to hear that this understanding hit you before you got too far into college for it to help. I hope that you’re going to tell me that you got no Cs second semester.” “I didn’t,” he said, with an expressionless face. For the first time since he’d known her, Bill saw a slight smile across her face. “I take it that you got mostly Bs, perhaps with an A or two,” she asked hopefully. “Well, not quite,” Bill said, looking reserved. Ms. Kelly couldn’t hide a look of disappointment. Bill finally smiled. “Actually, I didn’t get any Bs,” he said triumphantly. “I got straight As.” Ms. Kelly had a look of shock on her face, then she grinned broadly, a look that Bill couldn’t imagine before. “Yes,” she shouted. She practically leaped across her desk as she hugged Bill. When she finally stopped, the smile looked as though it would never leave her face. “I’m so proud of you. I sensed that when you were in my class, you didn’t give a shit. Pardon my language,” she said apologetically. This time it was Bill’s turn to show surprise. “I felt that you were bright, but that it would take a spark for you to step up. That’s why I embarrassed you in my class. I wanted to piss you off enough so that you’d be motivated to reach your potential.” “It took a while, but I finally got there,” he said. “I’m never going back. I guess it’s okay to be a late bloomer as long as the bloom finally comes before it’s too late.” He broke into a broad smile. “By the way,” he said, “I loved when Absolon burned Nicholas’ rear in the Miller’s Tale, but the one who gets the worst of it is that fool John. I’ve already thought of a way to modernize the story and see what it looks like.” “Excellent,” she said, grinning broadly. “There’s a French saying that applies to you. Mieux vaut tard que jamais.” “Better late than never,” he said. They hugged warmly.     

2s1usy

Runaway pride

I have no idea why my body rejected marriage. I knew I felt a little apprehensive about saying yes when he sprung it on me on my birthday. Like it was a gift to me that he would ask me to marry him on the day I was born. I was really ticked off when he asked as well. Because there was something in my eye and he put my hands down as I was brushing it out and held my face and asked me. I couldn’t even get a clear view of what he looked like when he asked this important question because there was pollen in my eye. I went through the motions of planning it out. Well being present as his mother did. It almost felt as if the wedding could have happened to anyone and whoever said yes got put on a purveyor belt and moved down the assembly line of wedding things for Paul. I started resenting him. For not understanding that everything felt wrong. It was not about one day. Or that I was needed to call the shots being the bride. It just felt that my life was going to be taken over by this family that does not see me at all. I thought Paul saw me. But the closer we got to marriage the more I noticed the cracks in his faced. Like he was playing this perfect character to achieve me. Achieve anyone really. Why does partnership feel like anyone can fit the mold to some people. And others feel like they will absolutely die if they don’t have that perfect imperfect piece to finish their puzzle. Like a mad detective trying to solve the missing piece to a case. I’m not saying that one person exists for me. I’m just saying I don’t think I could play the part of just Girl. Bride. Wife. Mother. I feel I am more than that. Factually everyone is- we are all very intricate and different and you hope you get a partner that likes you for those intricate pieces and not just “yeah she checks off most of the boxes, she will do” I realize this all makes me sound quite insecure. But. It is sort of the opposite of that. I feel secure, feeling I don’t want to settle with someone who doesn’t see or embrace my flaws. I don’t want to cover them up with a smile. I want them to be apart of whatever marriage I enter. As much as I want theirs to be present as well. My body started shutting down the closer we got to the day. I couldn’t eat I couldn’t sleep. I had knots of anxiety for 3 months straight. Everyone said it was wedding nerves. But this felt different. I remember I was talking to this man about sleep training and how it didn’t go so well for his daughter. Everyone says let them cry it out, don’t go back in to the room they will eventually tire and will get what they need. Sleep. This father could tell her cries were different. They sounded painful. He went to check in on her against all the rules of not breaking the cry to ruin the hard work they had done. He said fuck it and went in. When he was picking her up he noticed a hernia on her belly. She had cried so hard she had gotten a hernia. He felt something was wrong and it was. I think about this sometimes. How we can all jump to the general opinion or consensus of how someone feels like its a run of the mill experience. We brush off those feelings and don’t give them extra attention or care. We pass it off as some simple thing that everyone goes through. When they could actually be real cries of pain. I had to trust my gut and leave my wedding. Yes. On the day of. I had to exit and physically leave, mid makeup. Sometimes our external conversations do not match our internal ones. I could not speak about this out loud. It was so painful and confusing. I had to just put one foot in from to the other and leave. I felt awful. Absolutely guilty. But my body went in to panic get out of there mode. If I had stayed I would have been coaxed in to doing it. This all sounds quite dramatic. Boo hoo. A perfect wedding with a great family who seemed to welcome you with open arms. And that is true. I do understand I walked away from what would have been the perfect next step to growing up, safely. But- again, there are SOME people who prefer the challenge of walking thru fire to get to the other side and find something. More. It might sound greedy. But sometimes less is more. I had too much of a surface great thing. Too many of the things every kid writes down on the list of things they want to grow up and marry. But I was starved for an honest connection. A real see you and through you type of love. So I sacrificed what so many girls would kill for. But I sacrificed it for my own little voice deep down inside, that doesn’t really know what’s next but knows that what is in front is not right. Gut. I have learned so much and continue to do so since this wretched day. My ex and I are on speaking cordial terms. His family wants nothing to do with me. Being British and all, public embarrassment is worse than well… It is the worst. I now live in a small flat with 3 other flatmates. No one holds the door open for me, takes me to fancy dinners, wipes my tears when I feel overwhelmed with anything. We drink cheap beer, our place is always too cold and never fully functional. And it is exactly where I feel I am meant to be. I don’t think I replaced what I had with Paul on anyone, a safety net. I do feel though that I have had little cheerleaders on the side lines holding up signs and chanting me on as I get my stride back. We look out for each other. I feel comfortable in my loneliness. In my sadness. My happiness. Because I know that it’s true. I know I was meant to fall to get back up and learn the harder lessons to be the person I am proud to be. You’ll never find it unless you try. In the end its just me myself and I. :-)

jpl6zu

Picture "Perfect"

“Jessica, you’ll be attending the Drucker wedding. Ben, you’ll be attending the Holt wedding. And George, you’ll be attending the Brita wedding. Now everyone listen up, I want you guys to take the family photos, food photos, the kiss, and the dance. Make sure to bring your F29 cameras and please make sure to be on time!” Even before my manager finished his speech, I was out the door and was ready to photograph the Brita wedding. During the whole drive, I kept on double checking to make sure I had all of my materials. After thirty minutes of driving and almost losing my way, I quickly pulled up into the wedding parking lot and I sprinted into the wedding. As soon as I rushed through the grand wedding doors, I saw that everyone wore a very formal suit and tie or a ruffley dress. “Gather around and smile!” Just looking through the lens of the camera, I saw kids itching their bodies, parents hushing the children to quiet down and to not complain about the clothing, and the adults that just patiently waited for the photo to be taken. “ 3, 2, 1, Cheese! Alright, thank you everyone.” After the crowd had dispersed, I checked my camera and chose the best photo out of the three photos that I had taken. The first picture had multiple kids with their eyes closed and another photo had a man in the back who was already starting to walk away probably thinking that the photo was over. The photo in the middle though was perfect. Everyone in the photo was smiling and they looked like they were all having a great time together. Before I was able to delete the other two photos, I saw other families just walking in and I wanted to make the best of this moment so I snapped photos of them too! Some of these guests came to parties of two up to parties of eight too! Once an hour had passed, the wedding song started to play and everyone took their seats leaving the aisle clear. The soft melody kept everyone at peace and in the back some of the kids looked like they were dozing off, so obviously, I took a quick photo of them too. Soon, the groom had walked down and in unison, everyone had turned around to watch him pridefully walk down the aisle. I immediately got out of my seat and took some photos of him striding down the aisle. He was wearing a black and white suit and wore black leather shoes. He had his dirty blonde hair tied back into a bun and he had a grin on his face that seemed too good to be true. Most importantly of all, he was grateful to spend the rest of his life with the woman of his dreams. Next the very allergenic bride had walked down with her bouquet of flowers. She specifically asked for white daisies and red roses because those were some of the few types of flowers that she enjoyed and that she wasn’t allergic to. As she walked down the aisle, she forced out a smile and weirdly couldn’t stop sniffling her nose. I took mostly snaps from the back to cover up her miserable face, but also had to take some from her front profile.  Halfway down the aisle, she started to sneeze uncontrollably and couldn't stop itching her arms which had soon formed patches of red rashes. Knowing that this would’ve happened her mother quickly got up and rushed to her rescue with an epi-pen. She hurriedly injected the shot onto her thigh and within seconds, all of the swelling had gone down. As the bride's mother had gone to pick up the flowers, she noticed that the florist had put in complimentary flowers as a gift for the wedding, but the bride had been allergic to them so it had caused more harm than good. When all the commotion had died down, she completed her walk without her flowers and then she read her vows after her soon to be husband read his. The priest told them that they could kiss and right then and there she sneezed and I took a photo. The bride went from looking elegant to embarrassed. All of the close relatives and friends on the benches tried to stifle their chuckles and giggles, but soon it became unbearable to hold it in.  Luckily though, even the bride thought that it was kind of funny, so she joined in on the laughing too! When everyone had left the main wedding hall and had gotten back to their tables, they all danced to the music playing out of the speakers and had a great time until . . . cake. When the newly wedded couple cut the cake, they had fun by putting frosting on each other. It was all normal, just like what any other couple would do on their wedding day. But instead of eating the cake, surprisingly a small cake was brought to every table in the wedding and a food fight had erupted. I took a photo with cake in their face and how they also smashed it onto others too! It was quite a sight to see. Cake was flying everywhere and it even got on my camera! But on the bright side, it made up my mind for me and gave me an excuse to get a higher quality camera. When the fight was over, all of the guests were handed towels and a slideshow of the newly wedded couple was played. We saw how they met in high school, their first date at a coffee shop, their engagement in front of the Eiffel Tower, and their journey up until today. After the wedding was over and many of the guests had left, I walked over to the couple and I went over the photos, chose the best ones, and I sent it back to my manager with a note saying “I think this was a success!”

9332no

Molly and Emily

MOLLY AND EMILY This was the summer of their sixteenth year for Molly and her best friend Emily, and it was going to be special. They were going to summer camp. Molly was so excited with anticipation that she had butterflies in her stomach and was sick almost every day anxious for their departure date arrive on August 12th. A charter bus would take their girl scout troop from Nucla to Grand Junction, then Denver, and finally Boulder where it would turn west toward Aspen Camp at the foot of Long’s Peak. For months the girls had pored over the brochures and the pictures. There were images of lush green meadows, cabin tents where they would spend their nights, lakes, streams, hiking trails, and Long’s Peak which hovered more than fourteen thousand feet above the landscape like a forbidding giant. Emily worried that the canvas covered cabin tents were too fragile to keep bears out while the same thought excited the always adventurous Molly.  The only bad thing about the camp was Mrs. Kratchner and her two daughters. The good thing was everything else including the nice assistant scout mother whose name was Nancy Parker. Kratchner was the scout mother in charge of troop 108, and she lorded over her position like a military officer. Worse, she considered her daughters Becky and Priscilla as her lieutenants, ignoring the fact that it was Mrs. Parker who was second in what Kratchner called “command.” “Spies,” asserted Molly. “Little miss bitches,” retorted Emily who was uncharacteristically harsh with her words when speaking of Becky and Priscilla. But many of the parents approved of Kratchner’s strict manner because, if nothing else, she would keep them on a tight leash and that would keep them safe. Steele, Molly’s rugged father, wasn’t so sure that her controlling nature was good for the troop. After all, he thought, camp is supposed to be about new experiences and high adventure . More than that, he trusted Molly’s common sense over the thinking of an idealogue who equated obedience to her with godly behavior. Three days before departure, Steele woke Molly up for work at the Columbine Bakery and she threw up on his shoes. “You sick honey?” he asked as he looked down at the slop covering his feet. Three days after that Molly was holding her duffle bag next to Emily waiting for the bus to arrive. Mrs. Kratchner was a heavy-set woman who always dressed in one of her tent-like calico dresses with side pockets from K Mart. She was stalking up and down the line pushing the girls into place and busily ushering them into a straighter line. Molly had her back to her while talking with Emily and did not see her coming. Kratchner grabbed her by her shoulders and forcibly turned her to face the front. That was when Molly threw up on her dress. A sneering chorus of whiny eew’s issued from Priscilla and Becky to punctuate the event. Emily, who was standing behind Molly, tried but failed to contain a guffaw by routing it through her nose. She pretended it was a sneeze. Molly muttered “gesundheit,” with the acid taste of stomach bile still on her tongue.   The bus trip took over six hours. As they exited the bus Molly looked up and saw Longs Peak holding court over the meadows, rivers, creeks, lakes, and forests below. “The air is so sweet,” whispered Emily as she leaned close to Molly’s ear and touched her shoulder. They assembled next to the bus as the driver unloaded back-packs and duffel bags into a pile. Kratchner started calling out names and numbers. Molly and Emily were assigned to tent number 10. Happy to be together, they did a patty-cake to the chagrin of Kratchner. But then she called out two more names for tent number 10—Becky and Priscilla, and the patty-cake ceased causing Kratchner to crack a cruel smile. The highpoint of the week was a hike to a place called Chasm Lake at the foot of Longs Peak. But the hike had to wait until the troop acclimated to the 8,500 foot altitude for several days and only after attending an outdoor safety class put on by Mrs. Parker. She was the assistant scoutmaster who was also a Ranger in the Uncompahgre. Until the scheduled Chasm Lake hike, the girl scouts would have the run of the highly civilized nature trail built by the ranch, other local trails, creeks, and lakes close by Aspen Camp. For the trip to Chasm lake, they would take a shuttle bus to the trailhead. Then they would hike the trail of 4.5 miles, gain of over 2,000 feet of elevation, and rest at the foot of Longs Peak. In the meantime, Molly and Emily contented themselves with staying as far away from Becky and Priscilla as possible. And for their own reasons, they stayed away from everyone else as well. The meadow in front of Aspen Camp was disappointing. Though verdant green and inviting, the water that fed it was underground. There was no river or creek to swim in as with most mountain meadows. There was, however, a local trail that led to Finch Lake. The lake was sometimes crowded since it was less than five miles by road from the Ranch. But Cony Creek which fed it from higher elevations to the north, was never crowded and had no direct access by road. It was covered by forest and had deep pools of cold mountain water swirling around white granite boulders as it tumbled down from the peaks toward Finch Lake. All they had to do was hike a half mile up Cony creek from the lake and they were alone together in the wilds. Mrs. Parker gave her talk on wilderness safety on the first day. She talked about dangers from wild animals, what to do if lost, the danger of lightning storms which came most afternoons in the Rockies in late summer, how to build a shelter and start a fire. At the end of her talk, she asked questions. “So, Priscilla, what do you do if you see a black bear?” “I don’t know. Run?” “Probably not a good idea. Anyone else have an answer?” Molly knew all about black bears. Steele had taught her. “Stand your ground and look as big as you can.” Priscilla smirked until Mrs. Parker said “very good” to Molly. Mrs. Parker went on. “We didn’t talk about this. But, just for fun, what if it’s a grizzly bear instead of a black bear.” Molly shot her hand up again. “There are no grizzlies this far south in the Rockies, Mrs. Parker.” “And how do you know that Molly.” “My daddy told me.” “And your daddy was right. Ok, now class, the next question is what if you are approached by a mountain lion?” Priscilla and Becky shot their hands up thinking the answer was obvious. “All right, Becky this time.” “Run really fast, faster than the lion,” she answered with a confident smile. “No. That’s not what you should do. Anyone else have the answer.” Emily responded. “Stand your ground, look really big, and maybe pick up a big stick or a rock to hit it with?” “That is correct. And where did you learn that? “From Molly’s daddy and you,” she smiled. “All right. Now, despite talking about scary animals, what did I say about lightning? Molly piped up again. “You said it was the most dangerous thing in the Rockies and comes every afternoon.” “Yes, Molly. Almost every afternoon.” Every day for the next three days Molly and Emily hiked to their private spot on Cony Creek. And sure enough, in the afternoon the clouds would form, and they could hear the distant sound of thunder often coming from Longs Peak which was not far away. If they saw a flash of lightning amidst the dark clouds, they would count the seconds: “thousand one, thousand two, thousand three” until the roar of thunder rolled over them. Steele had taught Molly that thunder traveled a mile every five seconds. The closest it had come to Molly and Emily then was twenty five seconds which meant it never came no closer than five miles. But the third day brought darker clouds. Emily saw a flash of lightning and calmly began to count. She had not gotten to five when the thunder crashed over them. Molly and Emily froze and looked into each other’s panicked eyes. “We should’ve gone down the mountain an hour ago,” complained Emily. “What do we do now?” Molly looked around quickly for a low spot away from the creek and trees. A gully was thirty feet away. She knew they had to get as far away from water as possible and made a quick decision. She grabbed Emily’s hand and dragged her to the bottom of the gully. Then she told her what to do. “Stand on the balls of your feet in a low crouch.” “That’s silly. How will that help?” “I don’t know, but it’s what Steele said to do!” As she barked commands to Emily, she could hear Steele’s words coming out of her own mouth, and it was exactly what he had taught her. Soon, fat drops of rain came down like solitary messengers from the dark clouds hovering over them. Heavy globules of water splatted individually against the ground for a few moments. Pit…pat…pit…pat, pit, pit, pit. Then it rose to a roar as the clouds above let loose their load. “Molly,” shouted Emily over the din of the falling rain “We may as well be in the creek. Everything is wet,” she complained as water draining from elevations above formed a temporary creek that flowed down the gully and swirled around their ankles and feet. Ellen was right to complain. Other than staying in a crouch and keeping their contact with the ground to a minimum, there was nothing left to do to protect themselves. As with the bears and the mountain lions, there was nowhere to run that the bolts would not chase them down. Lightning began to strike trees just feet away from where they cowered severing large branches that fell to the ground in flames. Soon the strikes and the roar of the thunder that followed were no longer separate. They joined together as one and shook the ground through the balls of their feet as icy water gushed over them. But just as the storm came to them suddenly, so too did it drift away after just a few minutes of violence. The deadly lightning strikes slowly crept south toward the lake below and left only dark billowing clouds behind along with a few rays of sun to poke through. Thin shafts of light lit up the creek and give the girls hope that it was over. But Emily felt it first and began to shake. “It’s getting cold Molly.” Hail has its own kind of roar. It is loud like rain, but heavier, harder, colder. In minutes, it smothered summer with winter, and the landscape seemed covered in snow. But it wasn’t snow. It was ice— four inches deep, and the temperature dropped thirty degrees in seconds. Molly and Emily were still crouched on the balls of their feet which were now buried in hail ice at the bottom of the gully. If anyone had stumbled upon them, the girls would have looked silly as they huddled and shivered in the ditch. The lightning had passed quickly, followed by hail, but now they had a new worry—freezing cold. They stood up from their crouch to the sound of crunching of ice below their shoes. Their hair was dripping wet, and their t-shirts and shorts were soaked. “So, did Steele tell you what to do when this happened?” “No. He missed this part,” she answered as she broke into a shivering tooth rattling smile while holding her crossed arms close to her body. “But I do know this. We need to wring out our wet clothes, warm up, and then get moving. We’ll freeze here.” First, they stripped. Soon the tree branches around them were strewn with their wet clothing. “Um, how do we warm up?” asked Emily now standing naked except for her shoes and with goose-bumps all over her body. “We hug.” Molly stepped closer to Emily and faced her with a smile and wiped a wet strand of Emily’s hair from her face. After a few awkward efforts at a hug, they leaned against each other pressing their soft naked bodies together. Soon it became more than an embrace as they frantically sought to have every inch of their nakedness touching the other. That was when they kissed for the first time, felt love, and explored it with gentle touches of their hands until fresh rays of sun warmed them and turned their wet bodies into the color of gold. When Mrs. Parker came around the next day to gather the scouts for the hike to Chasm Lake, Molly and Emily peeked out of their tent and declined. “We’re still feeling the altitude,” they said. “Oh, I’m so sorry. It’s a beautiful hike, but I understand. Altitude sickness is not fun. Take care of yourselves and get some rest. You’ll feel better tomorrow.” Becky and Priscilla pushed past the girls and left the tent all to them and mumbled “good riddance” as they boarded the bus. Soon the bus chugged up the mountain road toward the trailhead for Chasm Lake. When the whine of the engine disappeared into the distance, Molly zipped the tent flap closed and laid down with Emily.

n6jy97

Big Blue

When he first had come to the river it was summer and he was 12 years old and he carried a spinning rod and reel. He used a small silver lure that wobbled and flashed on the retrieve. The fish in the river were mostly brook trout, but occasionally a brown trout would appear and even a rainbow, stocked by the local conservation club, and all attracted to the small silver lure that wobbled and flashed. The river was not very wide and it ran crookedly through a forest that had not been logged, his father said, in maybe 50 years. The river water was brown, but clear, the result, his father said, of having been stained by the roots of the trees that grew along its banks. The boy found it one day by hiking along a gravel road that ran past the rented summer cottage that his parents had used for many years and his grandparents before that. It was a beautiful place. One that he sometimes would come to, not to fish, but just to think, and be quiet. He would do that, sometimes, after an argument had upset him, or just because it made him feel good to be surrounded by the fresh, green silence and the perfume of pine resin in the sun, and always because it was an adventure. It was never the same, even if he entered the forest near the big granite boulder that had rolled down the hillside and embedded itself near the gravel road. The road had been carved many years after the boulder fell. It was not until later that he wondered why it was always different if it was the same. He never quite understood that, but it didn't make any difference. What was important is that he remembered it was different and when he remembered, sometimes when he was troubled, it was calming and it moved him past a difficulty. There was a blue spruce on the river that leaned from the bank over the water, he thought, like a prizefighter he once saw portrayed on a boxing poster. The fighter was perfectly straight, but he was leaning at an angle that would not support his body, the result of being hit in the face, and those who viewed the poster knew he was going to fall. The tree hung over a pool and the pool was his favorite place, not only because of the tree, but because there were trout in the pool, and they never seemed to learn that the small silver lure that wobbled and flashed was something to avoid. He did not keep the fish he caught. He had read, in outdoor magazines, that it was better to let the fish go. But he also had read that catching a fish stressed it and it was better to keep it and eat it than to let it go. That bothered him for a while, but he still released everything he caught under the blue spruce, and elsewhere on the river. The tree, which he had decided to call Big Blue, was sort of lonely, in a way, because it was surrounded by hemlocks. And, when he was 12, it was not very big, either, but it still leaned. He did fish in other areas of the hemlock forest, but he always returned to the spruce tree and the pool, like visiting the old house on Bender Road, after the family had moved to a newer place over on Ivy Lane. It was comfortable to be there, by the pool. When he carried his fishing equipment along the gravel road, he would notice the crows that swung in wide circles above him, sometimes calling to one another and talking, he thought, about the boy below with the spinning rod. When he was older, he might carry a .22 caliber rifle to target shoot at the garbage dump on the gravel road. And when he did that he noticed that the crows were gone and he thought crows were pretty smart. His companion, sometimes, was a large dog with long hair and an indiscriminate background. He was called Hopper by the locals because he hopped rather than ran, especially when he was excited. Hopper also was very interested in the fish in the river, the small ones that skittered across the shallow gravel bars ahead of the pool. He once gave the boy a good laugh when, while trying to catch a fish, he entered the river at the wrong angle. His front legs collapsed and he went nose-first into a sandbank on the far side. What was really funny, the boy thought, was that when he came out of the water he looked around like he was expecting someone to embarrass him by laughing at his performance. When he was 20 years old, and had a girlfriend whom his parents had allowed to stay with the family at the rented cottage, he would take her to the river, to the pool, and Big Blue. And though she never showed the kind of enthusiasm, he thought, that the tree and the pool excited in him, she was a pleasant companion and she smiled when he talked about his previous visits to the river. But she didn't really understand, he thought, and after a while, she departed and he went back to school, and graduated, and his mother died. His father, a man devoted to his wife, decided he no longer could enjoy the cottage, and his son discovered that he no longer could visit the river and the pool and the blue spruce, which by now had grown at least eight feet and had tilted another three or four feet toward the water. It wasn't exactly pain that he endured when his visits ended, it was more withdrawal. He didn't have enough money to rent the cottage because he was on a savings mission to buy a house and despite his desire, he was not going to cut one dream short to fulfill another. So he kept saving for the house and kept thinking of the river and the forest with the hemlocks and the blue spruce. After some years had passed and he had dated some women, he asked one of them to marry him, and she did, and he suggested a honeymoon at the rental cottage, and she thought that would be a good idea because she liked to hear his stories about the time his family used the cottage and he was young and adventurous. And she readily agreed to share the mortgage costs on their home. The wedding was lovely, his friends said, and his father helped with the expenses. The honeymoon cottage was about the same except for new appliances, and the road outside had been paved. Still, in the heart of the boy now a man was the anticipation of the visit that he had kept mostly under control for these years, had not allowed his thoughts of a possible return to dominate his behavior, though he had entered a period of counseling to deal with a problem he thought was beginning to affect his life in a negative way. His counselor told him to try yoga and invited him to join a twelve-step program. After a while, he saw the value in stepping back. And after a while, the joy of potentially re-visiting the river became less of an obsession and more of a warm thought, which he planned to indulge on his honeymoon. And so, with his bride of one day, he stood next to the boulder near the gravel road that had been paved for its entire length, and he led her into the woods and toward the river. He couldn't deny that he was excited and, since he had graduated from a spinning rod to fly rod, which could not be used in the space around the pool because of overhanging branches, he was just happy to lead his new wife to his childhood Camelot. The area had overgrown and was dense and he hardly recognized anything, though there were several clumps of white birch that he remembered. Then, like a curtain pulled back from the stage, there was the pool. But there also was something terribly different. Big Blue had disappeared, except for the massive root system that extended upward nearly six feet from the ground. The trunk leading from the roots had been sawed, exposing a diameter of nearly two feet and lying parallel to the ground. On the other side of the river lay the rest of the trunk, its butt about the same width. The missing twenty-foot section also lay on the other side of the river, its barren branches bereft of needles, like a skeleton abandoned by caregivers who had lost interest, he thought. “Son of a bitch,” he said, not loud but loud enough. And he thought of his father grieving over his mother's death, and a mental conflict arose sharply, piercing him with the fundamental difference between plants and animals. Until he realized that trees raise young by dropping seeds for regrowth from their branches. That trees feed each other, too, through their root systems. That grown trees protect each other and even different species that had been cut or burned or fallen to disease. He turned away from his new wife because he did not want her to see the salty water in his eyes. She had said “Oh,” after his curse and then nothing more because she did not know what to say. The hike back to the road was silent except for the snapping of twigs underfoot and the slight gasps of exertion. October was a beautiful month and he thought the world could not exist without October and he was happy that he and his wife had chosen October in which to be married. The few hardwoods in the hemlock forest were brilliant, like rubies and garnets, and they glowed in the sun where they were not blocked by the shadows of their coniferous neighbors. When they got back to the road he suggested they take a drive on the unimproved road that ran along the big lake and began about a half block from the rental cottage. She smiled and said she thought that would be a grand idea.

ac2mlj

Meditative State

On the other side of the paneling, Laney could hear the low humming sound reverberating through the thin wall: “Ohmmmm.” Quietly, she opened her bedroom door and crept down the hallway, her bare feet tamping down the gummy green shag carpeting. She pressed her ear to the door and then lay down flat on her stomach to see if she could peer underneath. Suddenly, the hum stopped. Her sister’s voice called out sharply: “Laney, I know you’re there!” The younger girl scrambled back down the hallway through her own open door and then quickly closed it behind her. She laid on her bed for a moment and then quietly opened the drawer of her nightstand. Slowly, with careful thought, she chose seven multicolored marbles of various sizes and then crept back into the hallway. Once again she could hear her sister’s voice through the door, almost-singing that same low note. She lined the marbles up along the bottom of the door. The humming paused for a moment but then started again. Laney walked back to her bedroom, opened her closet door, and lifted out a Barbie camper and two dolls, Barbie and her slightly more diminutive little sister Skipper. She gathered them up in her arms, chose a few more marbles from her nightstand, and then plopped down again in front of her sister’s door, where the “Ohmmmm” seemed to be getting louder. This time, she arranged the marbles in a circle around the camper. Barbie and Skipper sat inside it, the picture of cowgirl cool, two sister soulmates enjoying each other’s company after a long day on the range, out hiking, or maybe kayaking, having who knows how many unforgettable adventures, just the two of them. Laney was just about to go back to her room to look for reasonable facsimiles of campfire supplies when her sister’s door flew open. “ What are you doing ?” “Playing camping.” “Why here?” “I like it here.” “I’m trying to meditate!” “I don’t mind if you meditate!” Samantha sighed deeply and pressed her fingers to her forehead. The wooden beads on her macrame headband clicked together as she tipped her head forward, and Laney watched as they moved as one with her sister’s long, wavy chestnut-colored hair. Samantha closed her eyes and pressed her hands together in front of her crocheted poncho. “Breathe in patience. Breathe out acceptance. Breathe in patience. Breathe out acceptance.” “Why are you breathing in patience?” “So I don’t clobber you.” “Why would you clobber me?” Her sister took another deep breath. “I’m going back into my room now.” “Do you want to play camping?” “Laney, when you get to be a certain age, you really don’t want to play anymore.” “You still like to play tennis.” “That’s different.” “You like to play the radio.” “That’s different, too.” “Why do you want to meditate?” “To transcend my earthly concerns.” “What are your earthly concerns?” “You’re my earthly concern.” Samantha walked back into her bedroom, but she left the door open. She sat on her floor with her legs crossed in front of her, the backs of her hands touching her knees and her thumbs pressed to her middle fingertips. She closed her eyes and breathed in, then out, then in, then out. Laney put down her dolls, walked over to Samantha, and curled herself into her sister’s lap. “You know, you should try to meet some of the other kids in this neighborhood. It’s gonna be a really long summer if you don’t.” Laney stared at a fake knothole in the dark brown paneling and felt the rise and fall of her sister’s breath. “We’ve been here one whole month, and you’ve got almost two more to go before school starts. You can’t just hang out with me all day while Mom’s at work.” Suddenly, the shrill clanging of a pale pink princess phone broke the silence. Samantha twisted her upper body to grab it. “Hello?” she said quickly, her face lighting up with anticipation as she twirled the cord around her index finger. Laney endured the contortion and continued staring at the wall. “Oh, hi, Tara,” she said, the expectation quickly turning to disappointment. “I am happy to hear from you, and no, I didn’t think you’d be someone else… I’m ok. It’s just really boring here. We don’t know anybody. I still can’t believe we had to move here. And somebody always wants me to entertain her…. Wait, what? They’re on right now?” She leaned forward to turn the knob on a small black and white television set in front of her. Emphatic, staticy music exploded from it. “I woke up in love this mornin! I woke up in love this mornin! Went to sleep with youuuuu on my mind!” Samantha bobbed her head to the music as she listened to the voice coming from the phone. Laney’s body bobbed up and down, too. “There’s literally nothing to do here. I wish I was old enough to get a job other than babysitting .” She reached for a bottle of orange nail polish on her dresser and proceeded to slowly coat each of her outstretched nails with a glossy rust-colored sheen, deftly balancing the receiver between her shoulder and ear. Laney could hear the person on the line talking but couldn’t make out what they were saying. She continued staring at the knothole, her breaths becoming more measured, her body relaxing. Slowly, gradually, her sister’s voice converged with the tinny song on the radio, which converged with the muffled voice coming from the telephone, which converged with the persistent whir of the air conditioner, which converged with the sound of a random car horn blaring in the distance. Still focusing on the knothole, she felt as though all of these things were somehow connected - with each other, with her, and with Samantha. They were separate from her, but they were a part of her. They belonged here, but they didn’t belong here. They were new here. They’ve always been here. The summer stretched endlessly before them. It had always been summer, forever, since the beginning of time. She breathed in, she breathed out, she breathed in, she breathed out. “Oh, God, she’s fallen asleep on me! I was trying to meditate!” The End

tso2pw

The Rainy Season

From Andrea’s point of view, the most valuable thing in the world was empty space. She dreamed of space all to herself, of a vast field or wide open street, to run freely or do cartwheels or throw her arms out and spin and never worry that she would knock something or someone over. To Andrea, open space like that was all but unimaginable. Her home was a small island surrounded by warm, turquoise seas, and at some point it had probably been beautiful. But that time was long past. Today, almost all palm trees or tropical flowers had been stamped out, replaced by brightly-colored concrete buildings divided by streets choked with vendors and stray dogs. The closest thing to a field was a patch of dirt that passed for a soccer pitch. Andrea’s father had told her that around 25,000 people shared the island, which seemed like a lot to her, especially all crammed together in a space that she could walk across in half an hour. In her fourteen years of life, Andrea had never been anywhere else. It was July, season of muggy, chore-filled mornings and torrential afternoons spent languishing on her bed under a fan, headphones not quite blocking out the neighbor’s fussy baby. Living in a single story, three-bedroom house with her parents and her two-year-old sister, Cami, as well as her uncle and older cousin, privacy was a laughable concept. Andrea usually dreaded the summers, though being stuck in a stuffy classroom wasn’t any better, and this year she at least had a job, of sorts, to earn a bit of money. It’s not like the summer deep clean isn’t a full time job in itself , Andrea lamented as she dragged a mop around the tile floor of the front room. The ancient, floral couch easily filled half the floor space, and the side tables were piled high with books, knick knacks, and an old TV set. The effect was claustrophobic. Catching a glimpse of the clock radio, Andrea realized that she had somewhere to be. “I need a break, Mom,” she called as she passed the kitchen door on her way out. “Where are you going?” Carla appeared, shiny-faced from being over the stove, wiping her hands on a stained apron. Some curly wisps of black hair had plastered themselves to her forehead. “I won’t be long, just need some air before it rains,” Andrea told her, pulling the metal door, painted white, closed behind her. There were no sidewalks on the island, so Andrea walked down the gutter to avoid the oncoming flow of scooters, bicycles, and the occasional beat-up car. During the rainy season, the mornings were abuzz with people avoiding the downpour by getting their tasks done early. “Fresh fruit! Mangos, watermelon, oranges! Good prices!” a vendor pushing a cart overflowing with brightly-colored produce shouted as he walked. A mango was just what Andrea needed. She forked over a coin and selected a fruit with rosy, sun-kissed skin, anticipating eating it at her destination. She reached the edge of the island, where the stretching turquoise sea may have been tempting if it weren’t for the floating trash and toxic foam. She dangled her legs over the sandy slab of concrete that divided the thin strip of beach from the road behind her, watching the men drag their boats up onto the sand. Though no one would suspect it from the way that she absent-mindedly bit into her mango and idly drew patterns in the loose sand with her fingers, she was paying close attention to their faces and the cargo they hauled into the back of a pickup truck. Once they were gone, Andrea pushed herself to her feet and brushed her hands off on her denim shorts. She had information for her cousin. Anthony could usually be found heckling the soccer players at the field, so that’s where she headed. As the one public recreation area on the island, it was always crowded. At dawn, seniors gathered to jog slowly around the perimeter, and the rest of the day was dominated by matches that lasted late into the night, except for the hours when it was raining. Scanning the throngs clustered around the edges, Andrea spotted her cousin with his friends, rattling the chain link fence and shouting at the players. She waved to catch his eye. No use. “Anthony!” she shouted. He looked over sharply, then picked his way to the edge of the crowd. “What’s up?” “Three crates on the 10 o’clock, David and another guy I didn’t recognize, older. Loaded into the same white truck.” Anthony dug in his jeans pocket and pulled out three coins, which he handed to Andrea. “Thanks. I’ll be here if you catch anything else.” He ran a hand over his buzzed head. “We really need to get you a phone.” Andrea liked the idea of her own phone, which her parents insisted they couldn’t afford. “Yeah, we do!” she grinned. Anthony laughed. “We’ll see.” He turned to go, but paused, as if a thought had just occurred to him. “You know, my boss is here for a few days and is having a party tonight. If you want to make more money you should come and meet him.” For a few years, Andrea had watched with envy as Anthony brought home new clothes and gadgets, like the flat screen TV in the room he shared with his dad, Carla’s brother. If he was offering her an inroad to earning that kind of money, she was taking it. Later that evening, after the rain, she put on her only dress, pale pink and summery, and experimented with a bit of eyeliner. It made her look grown up, she decided. At half past eight, she tiptoed to the front door, hoping to avoid her parents. “I’m going to Elicia’s!” she called out, slipping through the door. Anthony was waiting for her, and together they walked to the other side of the island. His tall, mustachioed boss, Oscar, greeted them at the door and showed them the house, where guests mingled in hallways and on sofas. It wasn’t what Andrea would call a mansion, but the interior was a clean white that made it feel spacious. Only one person lived there, and not all the time, so there were even a few empty rooms. Most intriguing, the center of the house was open to the sky, with a lush bougainvillea forming a fuschia canopy. She lingered in the courtyard, imagining having such a space at home. “Rum and coke, Andrea?” Oscar extended a glass, bubbly and enticing. She reached for it, but Anthony stepped outside just in time to block her hand. “She’s only fourteen!” he scolded. Oscar chuckled. “This young lady? I never would have guessed. Just coke, then.” Andrea blushed. She accepted the soda, feeling very grown up as Oscar offered her a seat under the bougainvillea. Anthony stood a little ways away in the arched doorway.  “How much does Anthony give you to be his lookout?” Oscar asked, leaning against the wall. “Three per tip.” He raised his eyebrows. “Your cousin is good to you. Stick with him and you’ll soon be making more than you ever could hairdressing or fixing teeth or whatever your parents want you to do after high school.” Andrea grinned. “That sounds good to me.” “It should. Did Anthony show you where he’s moving next month?” Surprised, Andrea glanced at her cousin, who had the decency to look slightly guilty. “Moving? No, he didn’t.” “Why didn’t you tell her, Anthony?” Oscar shook his head. He pulled the newest iPhone from his pocket and brought it closer so Andrea could see the screen. “This is where he’ll be training for a while.” He flipped through a slideshow depicting a green valley bordered by distant mountains. There were low, wooden buildings, but Andrea ignored them, captivated by the wide open pastures. She would feel free there, she knew, claustrophobia just a memory. Best of all, there was no concrete. “The houses are nothing to write home about, but the setting makes up for it, don’t you think?” “It’s huge! You get to live there?” She looked up at Anthony, who nodded. Oscar clapped her on the shoulder. “Anthony trusts you, and I trust Anthony. Show me a job well done, and in a few years you’ll get off this island, too.” The thought lifted Andrea’s spirits for the rest of the night, which she spent trying new, fancy foods from charcuterie boards and being entertained by Oscar’s stories. By the time she realized the hour and said goodbye, the sky was already turning pale yellow on the horizon. She slipped through the front door as quietly as she could, uselessly, as it turned out. Carla was sitting on the couch in her striped pajama set, waiting. Her face was deadly serious as she said, "I have one question for you." Andrea reluctantly faced her mother, suddenly self-conscious in her dress and eye makeup. "What is it?" She tried to keep her voice light, as if this were a normal conversation. "Are you working with Anthony?" Without meaning to, Andrea looked down at the floor, confirming it. Carla sprung up, throwing her hands in the air. "Don't you know what those people do? What they've done to our community?" she shouted. Andrea glanced down the hallway nervously. "Shh, you'll wake everyone up." "Let them wake up!" Carla replied, though she lowered her voice. "How can my daughter throw her life away?" "They're not bad people. Don't you remember when they brought Christmas gifts for all the kids? And Anthony says they bring tons of money onto the island." "If you think anyone sees that money other than themselves, you need to open your eyes. Besides, they hurt people, Andrea. Kill them, even." "No one that doesn't deserve it. And only when they have to." Carla let out a cry of despair, burying her face in her hands. "What did I do wrong?" she wailed. Andrea rolled her eyes. She hated it when her mom got so dramatic, but she put her arms around her anyway as a symbolic show of comfort. To her surprise, Carla shrugged them off. "Just go to bed. I’m sure you're tired after your big night." Having changed into a t-shirt and cotton shorts, Andrea lay on her sheets under the lethargic ceiling fan. The more she thought about her mother’s reaction, the more furious she became. Her one chance to get off this stifling patch of concrete, to create a life better than she ever thought was within reach, and of course her mother tries to ruin it. She wants me under her thumb, where she can control me forever , she thought. The sun had made its way through the gap in the curtains and Cami was stirring in the next bed before Andrea’s exhaustion won out. Hours later, in the early afternoon, a racket in the hallway disturbed her. She roused herself and poked her curious head through the doorway. A steady stream of clothing and other items was flying out of Anthony’s room. Perplexed and horrified, Andrea watched his TV soar out the door and smash onto the tile floor. "What’s going on?" Andrea shouted, rushing down the hall. She ducked a pair of jeans as she burst into the bedroom and was shocked to see her mother, back facing the door, furiously emptying Anthony's dresser. "Mom, stop it!" yelled Andrea. Carla turned around, panting. She looked unhinged, all wide-eyed with sweat running down her brow. "No, I will not stop it. I don't want him in my house anymore. I have turned a blind eye for too long!" "You can't do that!" Andrea protested. Carla raised her eyebrows and took a step forward. Though a good four inches shorter than her daughter, she managed to look absolutely intimidating. "Oh, no? He’s eighteen. His boss can make good on his promise and put a roof over his head, because I’m done with him.” She took another step, brandishing her index finger. “And if I find out that you’re working with him, or even talking to him, you’ll never leave this house again.” Andrea turned and ran down the hall and onto the street. Anthony would fix this. He would explain to his aunt, like he had explained to her, that sure, sometimes they did things that seemed bad, but it was for a good reason. Andrea needed to escape this overcrowded house on this overcrowded island where no living thing had any room to thrive. Why wouldn’t her mom want that for her? Her flip-flops slapped against the pavement as she dodged dog poop and garbage on the way to the soccer field. "Andrea! Hey!" She whirled to face the voice. Anthony, in the crumpled clothes from last night, was leaning against the wall next to Effie's Corner Store, clutching an energy drink. He looked rough; even from across the street, Andrea could see the circles under his eyes. She jogged over, crossing expertly between two scooters. "You have to come home, now!" She demanded as she approached. He raised a thick eyebrow. "Why? Everything alright?" "No! Mom is throwing out all your stuff! She wants you gone and I think she broke your TV." Andrea thought that would get him moving, but he just laughed, a grating laugh that turned into a cough. "Auntie Carla's doing all that?" Andrea nodded emphatically. "Yes, you need to talk to her! I can’t explain things as well as you can." But Anthony shook his head and took a long sip. "You couldn't pay me enough to deal with your mom when she's mad. Besides, there's nothing there I really need." "What about your TV?" Andrea bounced on the balls of her feet, anxious to start on the damage control. "If it still works, you can keep it. I'll just get a new one. I'll have all the stuff I could want soon, anyway." He drained the can and crushed it under his foot, where it stayed. Andrea had forgotten that he was leaving soon, and that it wouldn’t be difficult to pretend that she had nothing to do with him. She felt deflated and embarrassed at her overreaction. Anthony pushed himself off the wall. "I’m about to do a job. It’ll be yours once I’m gone, so it would be good for you to come. You in?" "Yeah, sure,” She smiled, blunder forgotten. "We’ll start here," Anthony said, stepping into Effie's Corner Store. It was dim inside, and Andrea’s eyes took a second to adjust. Anthony walked past the chips and canned foods to the checkout counter, where Effie, the white-haired, soft-spoken shop owner, didn't bother to greet him. "I don’t have it all yet," she said quietly, pulling an envelope from underneath the counter. Andrea noticed that the old woman's hands were trembling. Anthony snatched the envelope and skimmed through the bills inside with his thumb. He smiled suddenly, a crocodile grin. "This is only 200. You no longer require our protection?" Effie’s eyes widened. "No, no, of course I do. I'll get the rest." Both Effie and Andrea flinched as Anthony’s fist slammed the counter. He wasn't smiling anymore. "I'll be back tomorrow." He knocked over a rack of packaged cookies on his way out. Andrea hesitated. This was the job she had wanted, she was realizing, but it wasn’t coming easily to her. Effie, who had sold her candy many times, met her eyes, then looked away. The old woman seemed defeated. "Andrea!” Anthony called from outside. As she stepped over the scattered packages onto the street, Andrea noticed that the light had changed. "The rain’s gonna start soon," she said, face turned toward the dark clouds. "Hurry, then. We’ve got more stops.” He headed up the street, and Andrea jogged to catch up. "What happens if she doesn't pay?" she asked. "There’s no way she won’t,” he replied confidently. “She’ll find it.” “How do you know?” “She’d have to be crazy to choose affording to send her grandson to school over actually having a grandson, don’t you think?” He barked out a dry laugh. “A small price to pay for safety.” “Safety from what?” “If we didn’t collect, someone else would. And maybe they wouldn’t be as nice.” “It’s nice to threaten to kill her grandson?” Anthony looked over at her. “I thought you knew what you signed up for.” “I did but—” Andrea began. “Do you know what would happen if people weren’t scared of us?” Anthony cut her off, “This island would be chaos. Fear is the tactic, not violence. But fear doesn’t just happen.” A few drops began to fall. Andrea felt them soak into her skin just a few seconds before the skies opened and the downpour began. Anthony ducked into a doorway, the Beltran Laundromat. “Good timing. You want to talk this time?” Andrea willed her feet to move, to step into the door. She was foolish to stand out here in the rain, she knew that. But she couldn’t go in. “I think I might go home, actually.” Anthony stared. “I’m leaving soon. You have to know the routine.” “I know,” she said. She turned around. The street was deserted; she was the only soul saturating herself with rainwater. Her home was silent, Anthony’s things still strewn about. Andrea dripped into her room, where Cami was napping. She reached under her mattress, pulling out a thin canvas pouch. Quietly, she walked back into the rain. Effie was seated at the counter with her head in her hands, standing to attention when she saw Andrea come in. “He said tomorrow!” she cried, panicked. “I’m here as a customer.” Andrea knelt down, gathering the packages of cookies that littered the ground. She set them on the counter. “What else can I get for 104 dollars?”

vsfqmi

Forest of Writing Utensils

In the final weeks of summer before senior year, I ventured into a series of sinister eating habits. By the fall’s return, I was paying for it with sleep. My brief flirtation with dietary mischief had activated an alarming bout of restless legs syndrome, which left me frantic with lethargy and insomnia. Worse yet, my punishment was lasting well into the new year. Off the record, my teachers were advised to be more forgiving when I became prone to falling asleep in class. You can only imagine just how mortifying this was for me, at seventeen years old— but now, I find myself rather titillated by these past in-class siestas. They launched me into dreams so vivid that I catch myself dwelling on the facts surrounding the very whims of those dreams. Even now, almost two decades later. Tomorrow I move to Montréal. I’ve resolved to bring just one box of books: a single row of favorites plus a second row of new titles, but no hardbacks. Never hardbacks. I’ve employed the sturdiest, flattest box I could find within the depths of my parents’ basement and committed most of my Yann Martels, all seven Harry Potters, and five Booker prize winners that I bought last year but have not read. I won’t take any old journals; just a couple of fresh Moleskine notebooks to scribe thoughts into whenever I get tired of typing, or feel lonely before bed. Just now I spot the corner of a plum diary poking out beneath a stack of journals. I gently tug on its topmost ring to liberate it. Velveteen pages filled with half-sketches and loopy longhand skip against my thumb without much discernment from me— until I stop on May 3rd, which is today’s date seventeen years ago. Thursday, MAY 3, 2007 I remember the moment I hated Rachel Worton— Jesus. —It confirmed itself during my first week of ninth grade. I was new at All Saints and the standard round of teen gossip had not yet reached my locker bay. But all the same; I had witnessed something obscene during our first encounter. You could say that my first impression felt similar to reading a final verdict. Hello. My name is Rachel Worton. My mom died of breast cancer when I was ten. No big deal. No big deal. She read this out to me as if compelled by a script and, would you believe it, in the same tone you would have used to read the daily announcements on Friday in a good mood. I think she actually believes that if she can get away with pretending her mother’s death shouldn’t matter to either of us— get away with imposing the sloppiness of her grief upon me — that she could somehow convince me we belonged to a world in which it was possible for us to be alike— Ahh, well. I suppose most poeple should anticipate a bleak beginning to any spontaneous teen journal re-read… Although in all fairness, Rachel Worton’s brand of grief was rejected, justly I feel, by nearly all of our peers and not just me. She once altered the pronunciation of her sneezes by replacing the oohs with aahs. With each fit, she would produce a melodic but wholly disingenuous aaaachAAH! as opposed to the classic aaaachOOH! The only protest my classmates and I got away with was the collective grit of our teeth as we endured her blatant malingering for weeks— right up until the characteristically mute Kelsey McAdam saved us all by yelling at Rachel to ‘shut the fuck up”— for which Kelsey was then promptly excused by a harassed Mr. Grimes. If you happen to be a reasonably well-adjusted teenager, Rachel Worton would have inspired the same feelings in you too. I flip the page: Monday, MAY 7, 2007 We all want our ninety minutes worth of close-proximity to Mr. Grimes— My eyes close. I remain still to enjoy a brief silence. A memory of Mr. Grimes is always worth reliving. Especially during brief silences.  —Rachel Worton literally SWAYS to whichever direction he walks in, I’m GAGGING as I write this— Flip. —the reason why I get to first period on time, he tells the best stories. Everyone else is so obnoxious in their observance of him, but I try not to be so obvious. I keep myself composed. I’m satisfied with the third row. I thought he was just late today but, heavy as a horseshoe, Madam Faben clacked in with her kitten heels. The boys took their cue to lounge further into their seats. An airy hum fanned the room as all the girls stopped sucking in their stomachs. It’s dry beneath my eyelids…I feel texture whenever I blink. It’s easily one of the most annoying side effects of perpetual drowsiness. My vision is so quick to tire nowadays and it blurs very often. Either way, I’m not in the mood for Madam Faben. I never am. Thankfully, I sit behind Johnny Novak, who is so tall even when he sits down that I can easily get away with a nap. I cross my arms and tuck my lids beneath the warm crook of my elbow. I listen to the strokes and clicks of Madam Faben’s chalk against the tableau. Mr. Grimes never does this. He prefers the overhead projector. He enjoys dialogue more than anything else. My mind flits between wakefulness and stupor. Mr. Grimes told me about Plato’s cave. The odour is acrid, and wrinkles my nose the way old polish remover does. It gives me a headache. I don’t feel like having one right now and, miraculously, it goes away. A tree, very smooth, and straight. The standard tangle of roots are absent from the base of its trunk. A muddy pulp envelops my shins and I stoop to pick some up; it’s tacky and lightweight, but dense with veins of cobalt and saturnine and black opal that glint up at me upon wielding it under the light. I suppose it’s just waste…I tip my palm forward but then pause— I recognize this paste. I’ve observed the same blue-black gleam across a fresh page after having written on it. I’ve wrinkled my nose to the same smell of rotten, tarnished ink. I am beside myself as each utensil begins to reveal itself. I take note of their species: ballpoint pens, felt-tip pens, quills, pencils, chalk, markers, pastel, highlighters, paint brushes, crayons, all sitting in one great big pool of desecrated ink and lead. Shorter utensils lean to, as branches do, while the tallest ones disappear into the ether above us. Buds of waxy crayon cling to spoiled ink and tendrils of pastel dapple the barrels like crystallized sap on maples. Crumbling chalk that hangs in the air gathers on the surface of various leaf-types— caps and clips and nibs and pen tips— like fresh season snow. I peer up and catch sight of something shiny, like rain water. I grasp the clip of a nearby fountain pen for leverage. Just then, I recognize the something shiny as the curve of a glass rim. By God. Here I stand, in the forest of writing utensils — realizing that I’m actually standing in a pen jar.

5b0rfg

Name: Tokyo Michelle "Einstein" Johnson-Tanaka

Tokyo was her father’s idea. It was where her parents met. Her father was a tailor in the city and her mother was a pilot at the Yokota Airbase. At a party of mutual acquaintances, their eyes met from across the room and couldn’t stay off each other ever since. The words that they wanted to say to each other didn’t always exist in their tongues, but they could always find them in each other’s eyes. Pain. Doubt. Joy. And truth. It was how he knew long before she told him that she would eventually be leaving Tokyo. Her eyes showed how much it pained her to leave him and how reluctant she was to bring it up. On the night of her departure, she was nowhere in sight but he waited for her on the tarmac with a suitcase in one hand and a ring in the other. And as the engines started, she ran towards him from across the airfield with a surprise of her own. On the flight to their new home, he asked if they could name her Tokyo. It was his way of always having the city with them. Michelle was her mother’s idea. Tokyo was born on January 25th, 2009 - days after the presidential inauguration. As her mother watched the First Lady return to the White House, she was enamored with the idea of having the same family that she saw on the television screen. Two daughters in pink and purple coats, and their mother fervently beside them. When she held Tokyo in her arms for the first time, she felt like that dream had started to come into fruition. She looked down and imagined all the wonderful things that Tokyo would do and all the colorful coats that she would put her in. And so, she named her Michelle. Her last name was not one by choice. It’s a reminder of her family’s ancestry - one of suffering, resilience, and hope. Though her mother’s bloodline runs much deeper than the pages of American history, they start in the written records with Johnson. To her family, it’s a painful reminder of the monsters who share their last name - a lingering thread from the masters who withheld their body and spirit for centuries. But, to Tokyo, it was also a reminder of her grandmother who always told her how important being a Johnson was. After all, had it not been for Johnsons, we would have never made it to the moon. Tanaka, on the other hand, was a connection to a world that she had never truly known. Her father did his best to show her the customs and traditions but they could never fully capture the culture that came with her last name. As she got older, one-by-one, she began to meet her relatives and cousins. In a lot of ways, they weren’t so different from her. They enjoyed the same food and shared similar clothing styles. But, when Tokyo would play with her cousins in particular, she began to notice one key difference between them - their hair. She liked their hair more. It was soft and shined against the light with a glossy reflection. It didn’t bother Tokyo too much but it would come to mind on the Sunday nights before school when she and her mother would wash their hair. Her mother would sit her on the bathroom sink and start by breaking the tangles all the way to her nape. She would run a comb gently against her scalp and spray shampoo at the roots of her follicles. Tokyo could always see how excited her mother was to do creative things with her hair. On some nights, the parts above her eyes would be sectioned first into geometric shapes. And on others, her mother would make braids that fell to the sides of her head. By the start of fourth grade, Tokyo wanted to wear her hair more naturally and let it fall from her head like her cousins. Her mother did her best to neatly comb and prepare it, but as she looked in the mirror and at the curls on the floor, it never quite looked the way she hoped it would. On most school days, her mother would leave early for work and so her father would drive her to school. He would pack her backpack and paint her bento box in food from every color. He made sure that all the pencils in her pencil case were sharp. And that the erasers, highlighters, and safety scissors were all in their proper places. On some days, he would even leave a note for her to find later in the day. During the drive, Tokyo would normally talk to her father or sing to the radio. But on one December morning, she was noticeably more quiet. “Tokyo-chan, are you okay?” “I’m just tired.” “Hmm. Even when you’re tired, you still sing Fifth Harmony. What’s wrong?” “I’m just thinking… about my hair.” “What happened with your hair?” “It’s just messy,” she sighed. “Like all the time.” “Well, I like that about your hair. I think it’s beautiful. It’s your mother’s hair… And I like that it’s a little messy.” A long silence filled the space between them. A silence familiar to most fathers that could only be filled with something wise or foolish. “You know who actually had hair like yours? “Who?” “Albert Einstein.” “Who’s that?” “He was the smartest person in the world... All because of his hair.” “Hair makes you smart?” “Aye! You didn’t know that, Tokyo-chan? That’s why you’re going to be the smartest scientist doctor movie star.” He could hear Tokyo’s laugh from the backseat and as he peered through the rearview mirror, he could see her smiling out the window. “Hey… You know what we could do for your birthday this year? What if we did a science-themed birthday party with your fourth grade classmates. We could do some big fun experiments outside and have science-themed foods. “That sounds fun!” she laughed. “And I could be Albert Einstein.” “Of course… We can’t have a science party without Einstein.” Tokyo didn’t know it yet, but her 8th birthday left a lasting impression on her. If you asked her now, she could probably tell you about the foam experiments and the beaker-shaped crockery. The slimey souvenirs that her friends took home and falling asleep that night in her lab coat. It was the beginning of her love for science and as the year went on, this would only continue to grow. She would go through science videos online and share them with her father on the trips to school. She would beg that their family vacations be spent at the museums and science centers. And most importantly, the name Einstein began to stick. In fact, it was how she introduced herself to her fifth grade teacher that Fall. - “Attention, fifth grade scholars. Can I have everyone’s eyes and ears please? This afternoon, we’re going to continue our Math lesson because we’re going to take a Science test tomorrow morning. We’re also going to move ELA from tomorrow morning to tomorrow afternoon and finish both days with Social Studies. The Science test will not be a grade. It’s a placement test for a new after-school program starting soon.” Although it had only been a month into fifth grade, Einstein enjoyed being in Ms. Saromi’s class. Ms. Saromi was the first black teacher that Einstein ever had and she felt an inexplicable kinship with her. Ms. Saromi wore long colorful dresses that fell to her ankles and her hair in braids that reached her middle of her back. She spoke in a way that blended care and rigorousness, and she would often check on Einstein more often than any teacher she had before. Ms. Saromi was aware of Einstein’s affinity for science. On the days that they did labs, Einstein would often be the first to ask when the next labs were. And during science lessons, Einstein would always drive the conversation in curious directions with something that she read or saw prior. She would veer lessons on the basics of weather to museum exhibits on El Nino and discussions on fossils to how scientists predicted the colors of dinosaurs. Although Ms. Saromi was seldom equipped to have these conversations, there was something about Einstein’s enthusiasm that she admired. “Ms. Saromi, is there anything we can do to prepare for the test?” “That’s a great question, Einstein. I think that it’s going to cover math, writing, and some basic skills for the program.” That afternoon, Einstein asked her father if they could stop by the library to see what might be on the test. She found her way to the children’s section and as she sat in the aisle of books, she began to take them off the shelves. They were decorated with wild animals and distant planets, with questions that she enjoyed reading about like what each part of the brain did or why the Earth and the Moon both needed each other. But, she couldn’t find any of the things that Ms. Saromi mentioned. Hardly any of the books had math except for numbers and there were very few places in the books where you could write. The next morning, her father packed her things. Her mother wished her luck. And when she arrived at Ms. Saromi’s room, a laptop sat ready on her desk. “Good morning, fifth grade. You’re going to need your full name and birthday to login to the test. So, if anyone needs help with that information, I’ll be coming around.” When the test began, Einstein saw places to enter her Date of Birth, First, Middle and Last Name . She first entered 01/25/2009. Then, Tokyo. Michelle. And Johnson-Tanaka. But as she looked at the screen, an odd feeling came over her - the kind of feeling you get when a familiar word looks misspelled or when you feel like a stranger in your own body. It didn’t help that the test was nothing like she had ever seen before. There was math in the form of tables and charts, and writing in the form of paragraphs and texts. But it looked nothing like the science that she was used to. It didn’t have any of the wild animals or distant planets from those library books. The diagrams and displays didn’t amaze her like they did in the museums. And the experiments didn’t have the wonder that she was accustomed to seeing. When the fifth grade class returned from lunch that day, students were instructed to find a quiet place to read independently. Einstein grabbed her book and found a spot by the door. Although the room was quiet, she could hardly focus on any of the pages in front of her. All she could think about was the test. Eventually, someone stopped by the door and handed an envelope to Ms. Saromi. “Ms. Saromi?” she whispered as she watched Ms. Saromi open the envelope. “Are those for the Science program?” She hesitated, “They’re just the first few. Some students still need to make up the test.” “But for the ones who took the test?” She nodded. “Keep reading. I’ll start passing these out.” Einstein did her best to focus, but would continue to look over at Ms. Saromi from time to time. And as each pass from the envelope was left on a different desk, the thought of not making it into the science program began to sink in. “Alright, fifth grade readers, we’re going to shift into Social Studies now. Please finish your last page and update your DEAR logs. Then, take out a highlighter and your Social Studies books.” All the students returned to their seats and some were met with passes to the science program. But as Einstein looked around and under her desk, she couldn’t find her pass. “Ms. Saromi, did I not get into the Science program?” “I’m sorry, Einstein.” A guilt began to fill Ms. Saromi. She was at a loss for words and didn’t know if saying more would do more harm than saying nothing at all. “You know what though?” she added. “I’m going to talk to the principal and see if there’s anything we can do.” “But I didn’t pass the test,” Einstein replied. “Maybe the test is just to figure out who might like the program and we already know you like Science. I’ll talk to the principal tomorrow and see if we can work on something. After all, how can we have a science program at our school without Einstein?” Something about the name, Einstein, no longer sat well with her anymore. It was a name that she felt like she didn’t deserve. As she took out the highlighter from her pencil case for Social Studies, she found the note that her father must have left her from this morning. Good luck, Einstein. You’re a superstar scientist doctor movie star! Tears began to well in Einstein’s eyes. And when Ms. Saromi turned away, Einstein ran out to the bathroom with her safety scissors in hand. She bursted through the doors and stood in front of the sink. Her hair had covered the edges of her eyes and spread past the width of her shoulders. And as she looked at her frustration in the mirror, she raised the scissors to her head and began to cut away at her hair. Some of the curls fell down quickly. And others, she would gnaw at until they were severed off. Her hair continued to fall until her thumbs pained and could no longer press her scissors together anymore. The last breaths of anguish left her lungs and only a deep shame remained within her. As she made her way back to the classroom through the empty hallways, the last pieces of her hair fell. She turned the corner and stood in the doorway of Ms. Saromi’s room as the eyes of everyone in the class shifted towards her. A sadness overwhelmed her and her eyes began to overflow onto the carpet floor. “Alright everyone,” as Ms. Saromi ran to her desk. “Create a vocabulary list for this chapter. Put the words from Page 26 under your Do Now.” Ms. Saromi grabbed the silk bonnet from her handbag and joined Einstein in the hallway. “Would you like me to cover your hair?” she asked. “Yes please,” Einstein said tearfully. Ms. Saromi delicately placed her hair in and wrapped the ribbon around her eyes and forehead. Einstein kept the bonnet on for the remainder of the day and after her father picked her up, he brought her to the bathroom and sat her on the sink to take it off. He combed out her hair and did his best to even it out on both sides. “Tokyo-chan,” he asked. “Did someone bully you?” “No. I just wasn’t happy with my hair today.” He nodded, and began to moisturize and roll her hair to her head. When he finished, Einstein went off to her room and pretended to sleep. Through the night, she could hear her mother downstairs and her mother’s footsteps walk towards her room, but she kept still to escape the shame of talking to her. The next day, her mother took work off to take her to school. She found a spot around the corner of the school entrance and turned the car engine off. “Are you okay, Einstein?” her mother asked. “I don’t think I want to be called Einstein anymore.” “Why’s that, baby?” “I’m not smart enough.” “Just because you didn’t get into the Science program doesn’t mean that you’re not smart, Tokyo Michelle. You are one of the brightest, most enthusiastic students at your school. And I know it. Your father knows it. And Ms. Saromi, who called yesterday, knows it.” A long silence filled the space between them. A silence familiar to most mothers that could only be filled with something wise or foolish. “You know, sweetie, the funny thing about Einstein… is that most of the things he said, no one believed. And most of the things he thought, no one could comprehend. And I bet that if he didn’t do well on that same test you took, he wouldn’t have let that stop him either… And that’s what makes you a real Einstein, Tokyo Michelle. Because if you want to do Science, no test should convince you otherwise.” “Thanks, mom.” as she gave a slight smile. “I love you, baby.” “I love you too.” She made her way through the hallways and greeted Ms. Saromi as she arrived at her room. And when she looked at her desk, she saw it - a pass to the science program with her name on it. Tokyo Johnson-Tanaka, please meet Dr. Jackson in the auditorium during lunch today for an orientation to the after-school program. “Greetings, young scientists! It’s great to meet you all. I’m Dr. Jackson, the coordinator for the after-school Science program. We’re just going to get started with a quick attendance check. And when I call your name, let me know if you have a nickname or another name that you prefer.” As she sat there in front of Dr. Jackson, she wondered what she would say. She thought about her mother and her father. About Ms. Saromi, her cousins, and her grandmother. And everything that had happened in the last few days and year. “Tokyo?” Dr. Jackson asked. “Tokyo Johnson?” She raised her hand. “Hi, Tokyo. It’s great to meet you... Is Tokyo what you like to go by?” She smiled at Dr. Jackson, uncertain of what she was supposed to say but more certain of who she was now. She was Tokyo Michelle “Einstein” Johnson-Tanaka, and she was the parts that she was proud of and the parts that she was still growing to love, all living harmoniously within her.

yc0nq7

Never Too Old To grow up

Never Too Old To Grow Up Once upon a time, about sixty years ago, my mother yelled in anger and frustration at me, “Raymond, you have to grow up and get up in the mornings. The school bus won’t wait for you to get out of bed. I won’t call you again!” My mother was true to her word as she was done with my chronic reluctance to get up when she called me. She got me an alarm clock and said, “Set your alarm and get yourself up.” In high school, getting up in time to catch the bus was hard to do, but I did master it with the help of my alarm clock. Life keeps giving us things that are hard to do. Some of us were alive in 1962. Okay, at least a few of us were young then, and we were convinced by a singer named Neil Sedaka that breaking up was hard to do. On Aug. 11, 1962, his song, ‘Breaking Up is Hard to Do,’ was #1 on the Pop Music Billboard. Maybe you had to be there and a high schooler to be thrilled with the scat that began the song and the liveliness of the music to know Sedaka made a sad truth not only bearable but positively tolerable. Some of us were alive in 1975 when Sedaka recorded the same song in a different version. It was a slower and more tender rendering. Again, the song was a hit, and once again, he assured the world breaking up is hard to do. I still believed his message as I had in high school. Some things are worth repeating.  If you are reading this, you are, as you know, alive in 2022. Being alive is a subject that can be debated, but it means, for me, being a slower version of myself than I was in high school. In 1962 as a teenager, I had valid excuses for not growing up completely. I was a slow learner. Because adolescents go to high school and complete it does not mean they have grown up into full-flavored adults. We could also debate how many adults long passed high school or college behave as scattered-brained adolescents or over-sized children. I’m not accusing any one adult of being childish or having less than a fully functioning brain on any given day. I am saying that growing up and becoming more and more mature is hard to do at any age. We speak of growing older and wiser. We assume everyone that reaches the end of biological growth continues to become even more mature throughout their lives. What I consider mature may not be what you believe is maturity in an adult. In my advanced age, I see a need for me to grow and become more level-headed, reliable, discerning, judicious, intelligent, and ever ripening up in more wisdom. Unfortunately, in my seventy-five-plus years, I still have a temper that gets lost, and I say things that will worsen situations. For example, what I bark out in anger makes me sound like I’m attacking rather than discussing an issue rationally. It is easy to justify my occasional outburst of anger, but my actions, my angry words, speak the truth. I need to grow up in my anger management skills and become more level-headed. It is so easy to talk without intelligence, to voice what is feelings, not reliable or judicious facts. Why am I so foolish to think I can discern all there is to know? Because I am an adult of legal age, I must balance the reality that I am not the only person in the world that counts. As a child, it is easy to demand, "Give me that! It's mine! I want it!" As children, it's also a question of what’s in it for me? “Do I have to? Why should I?” Anyone can be self-centered. It takes continuous effort to be intelligent and see facts and reasons beyond our own. How easy to become an extremist claiming I have a right to believe anything I want. As a person of faith, I may lose the perspective that I am not God. While what I think may reflect holy scripture, and I may indeed feel what I believe is true, the rest of the world cannot be forced to accept my confession of faith and way of life. There is no shortage of people who feel the world must be a certain way and will not accept that there can be any other interests or values other than theirs. It is not enough for me to have the maturity not to be entangled in religious militancy. Our culture is more secularized now and has moved to extremism in political protests, demonstrations, and blockades. These become fanatically and radically focused on intimidating innocent civilians. The protestors clamor for freedom, but their actions have no respect for the liberty of others who disagree with them. It’s an easy slide from extremism to terrorism, and both ruin everything around them. I am self-centered enough on my own without joining others who only champion themselves. Many of us didn’t learn how to share with others or care for others in kindergarten. There was no kindergarten when I was a child. Things have changed dramatically since then and will continue to do so. We are more connected with family, friends, and strangers through computers and social media than ever before, but at the same time, more isolated and unprotected. Families in 1962 were larger on the whole because birth control was just beginning to limit family size to one or two children. Six in my family meant sharing and caring and with no illusions about entitlement. Hard work, honesty, and paying your bills were a given. Life was simpler, not better. People were expected to tell the truth, obey the laws, and at least appear respectable to their neighbors. People working hard, being honest, and paying their bills made life good for everybody. Growing up and becoming mature for me today means I must leave the past and remember I need to become mature about the ever-changing present. It is not 1962 or 1975. It is 2022. How do I act in caring for our children who have grown to their mid-lives? How do I connect with our adult grandchildren and the younger ones? I need to respect their generation of video gamers with individual phones, computers, and tablets. I must encourage them to discuss with me and others how they feel they can pursue their life so it is good for others, not just themselves. How can I help them see life as a balance of pleasure, comfort, challenges, disappointment, and pain? Alcohol, drugs, pornography, gambling, and casual sex all appear harmless in movies, television programs, and social media in 2022. They each promise great pleasure, but the pleasure is temporary, and they all have great potential to ruin and destroy those that use them. Maturity means my actions speak loudest, and my example as a father and grandfather is to be an example to help influence what is the best for my family and what makes life better for everyone. Saying “No or Yes!” are personal choices for each of us regarding what is popular and harmless. Making life choices is always hard to do, but it can mean acting in maturity for the benefit of everyone.                       

wh543z

Tommie's Wake Up Call

Tommie’s Wake Up Call Submitted by Constance N. Tiller There are times in life when we are at a fork in the road. It becomes evident that what has worked in the past no longer works.  Tommie found herself at this pivotal crossroad. She was shaking her head in distress. When she was younger the bright beams of possibilities were inviting and appeared to light a path to absolute success. But unfortunately, poor decisions, regrets and disappointment had had its way in deterring her dreams. Maybe even, over time, it had robbed her of the promising and positive vision that she had daydreamed and hoped for. She reminisced and wandered through the history pages of her life, mentally flipping through each page. After the divorce. When all the “I Do’s” had been broken, she often found herself lonely. The early shift was her finding herself suddenly a single parent and now she shouldered the day to day demands of parenting. Her world became work and her two beautiful children. Everyday she was fueled by the idea that her two heartbeats deserved only the very best she could give, she knew their survival rested on her. She had made ends meet, she had done all she could to raise her children, she had made sacrifices to care for her parents. Now, this, she was dazed. A pink slip. Her company was closing. She now was without a job and no plan on how to move forward. As she sat on the couch, she held the notice in her hand, she heard her front door open and close. “Mama”, she heard the sweet voice of her daughter call out. She morphed from hopeless and moping to happy Mom. She steeled herself, as she knew, soon her son would be bursting in the very same door, shortly after his sister. “Yes, dear”, she called out to her daughter.  Her daughter reminded her of herself. Talented at a young age but lacking the confidence to really go for it. She did all she could to ignite the flame of tenacity so that her daughter felt she really did have all she needed to go after her dreams. “Mama!!” she was bubbling with joy and excitement. “Oh, Mama, it was great.” She was beaming with bliss. She continued overtalking herself, each word fighting to be the first to get out. “Mama, it was great. Just like you said I was nervous at first, but I could hear your voice cheering me on! I concentrated and slowed my breath, closed my eyes, and I took a deep breath.” Her mother’s heart flittered with pride as she knew getting the solo part in the school musical was a true desire of her daughter’s heart. Her daughter’s excitement did lift her low spirits. In the moment, like always, she pushed her problems aside, and focused with intent on listening to her daughter’s exhilaration. Then her daughter stopped, cut off her rambling, and then just let it spill. “Mama, I got the part!.” She literally was jumping up and down. She and her Mom were hugging, laughing and enjoying the moment. Then with full force and energy her son burst through the door, bopping like always, “Mama, I nailed it, Ohh!, Mama, on that football field today, I stopped everything that came my way!” She looked with her heart and was so pleased that both of her children were being rewarded for the hard work that they had both put in to accomplish their goals. Her thoughts were her own, but she realized her son never missed a beat. It was as if he had an ever-ending breath and his words were one long sentence. “Mama, My coach was so impressed. He kept feeding me plays and he kept hitting me on the back saying, “That’s it, that’s it!” She didn’t want to let own to her own problems, no, she had to keep her problems suppressed and to herself. So, for the next few weeks, she hid the problem. Her routine never changed. Tommie would get up, prepare, get dressed, cook breakfast and everyone headed out the door for their day. Day in and day out, Tommie continued to meet her children every evening to hear all about their day. Sharing with them their concerns, hearing every pivotal moment, absorbing every dilemma they faced. While she listened to their daily debrief, It almost felt like she was in their school right by their side. Walking the hallways. Sitting at the lunchroom table hearing all the tidbits of gossip that was so important to teenagers. Though reality could not be ignored. She was sitting at home, living the lie that she was too afraid to reveal, she was unemployed and had no plan to recover and move forward. Suddenly, she had the overwhelming anxiety that it was time to make a change. She had started college back when she had graduated high school, but, unfortunately she had been derailed, she dropped out, she took the first job she could get. While she was sitting alone in her living room, the quietness was screaming at her, that’s when she felt almost a bolt of electricity, a jolt. Then, in her mind, a booming voice said “Grow Up”. Who was she fooling, what was she waiting on? There was no genie in the bottle. She was not going to hit the lottery. For this problem, she had to put the work in. She had to take things in her own hands. Every dream is only a dream until you are willing to put in the work to make it happen. With that jolt, she was awakened. She started doing her homework. Defining what she had to do to finish her degree. When could she enroll? How could she manage this determination to “Grow-Up.” She realized that beyond her fear, every step she took to better herself today, was only planting seeds of success for her generations to come. So, with intense determination she formulated a plan. She would do her homework and stop faking her actions.  She did leave the house, she committed to a new job. Her current job was to make a way out of this situation she found herself in. She was on a mission. She knew this was a new beginning. She had been grateful for unemployment payments and for the severance her company had provided. Otherwise, her fake life would have been exposed and she would have been caught up in her lies. This was her secret mission “Operation – Grow up!”. She smiled at herself. As she began to prepare for her future, she knew she wanted to step up her game. In her renewed spirit of letting go, she began to look at everything. She began the work to figure out who she was and what she desired in life. She threw out negative thoughts that she had fed herself. They had only served to weigh her down with self-doubt and pity. As she pivoted from her mental clean up. She turned to her closet and continued the process of letting things go. She had started a box. She knew even though they didn’t “fit” her any longer they could still be a gift to someone else. Today, she had declared, now was her time to be honest. That is what she expected from her children. Today when they entered the door, she would be the one giddy with excitement, bubbling with joy, words running over to share with them her decision and plan, “Operation – Grow up!”.  

z8didb

Ellipse of Time

February 21 This could be the most I've written thus far in my adult life. Yay for me. EIGHT entries since January. I sense an uptick in hand cramps. At this rate I won't feel so entirely guilty over the stack of diaries I've collected that have four pages written in them with the remaining pages poised for entries that never happen. I am wrestling with my younger self. I've always wanted to be an author (and by always I mean from when I was a kid into college). You know how it starts. It starts with a love for books, a love that turns into that wonderful childish hubris that goes "hey I can do this!" Like most kids, I was average. Or maybe unbeknownst to me, I was a little below average. With my Mom being a non native English speaker, I may have had a subtle disadvantage to the language (like how I thought the word was “brefass” but it was actually “breakfast”). I'd wager I made up for that gap in the sheer amount of books I devoured, but who knows, there’s probably a learning curve in there. I digress, back to my flash bulb ambition. I wrote silly books in middle school; protagonists with names like Desdemona, Ophelia, and if I wanted someone more down to earth, Felicity. My heroine would tackle, with such aplomb, tragic car accidents that left her blind, a tragic disease that left her mute where she was forced to learn ASL, or sleeping beauty sickness (mononucleosis) where she tragically slept her youth away. At some point I asked (and received) a thesaurus for a birthday. I was so happy to be able to write not only tragic stories, but also stories that were appalling, dismal, and disturbing (I grew up watching soap operas, drama rocked me to sleep as a baby). High school hit and while my ability to read and comprehend was on track for Advanced English (which happened to be in a spare closet because there were so few kids that qualified and there were no more classrooms) my writing skills were still just fair. I was (still am) a sensitive person. While my adult self is weathered to failure, my tender bud of a young adult was not. The delicate ego couldn’t handle B’s and C’s on creative writing papers. It was seeds of doubt on what could have been the budding career of a writer. This was the same in college. I swiftly changed majors from English with a minor in Creative Writing, to a minor in Technical writing (because losing the imaginative part would really help me get my writing career on track), to SPANISH. Yes, I changed languages all together. I became distracted by adulthood, working three jobs to pay for the college degree I’m not using, and got swept into the current of responsibility. Flash forward almost twenty years, and here I am, once again devouring books, only with children who also devour them and we tell each other our own stories on long car rides. Maybe I should try and be an author. March 1 NINE. Habits are formed one day at time. I’m old fashion, I like a pen and paper to a keyboard, although I have fond memories of hammering out short stories on the many thrift store typewriters my parents bought me in my youth. It’s like I’m reforming the muscles in my hand, one sloppy letter after another. It has always boggled my mind that hundreds of years ago, books were written by hand, and copied by hand. They had to have hands that could crack walnuts. Time is one of those things we think we never have enough of until it’s truly monopolized. I remember lamenting on not having enough time to sit and write, but the truth was, I didn’t have the discipline. This was PRE social media where you can interact with anyone at any time, PRE stream TV when your entire video entertainment is thrumming through the air waiting to flow through your internet, and for me it was PRE kids. Funny thing, once you have to start disciplining other people, you tend to discipline yourself as well. As they grew my adult self grew with them, forging a more refined me, more sturdy to time. Now they are half way through their childhood and I am halfway through my life and it has me seeing the parallels that life draws; their childhoods to mine, my parents to myself, my grandparents to all of us. Some of the lines are so easy to see; like my love for reading and my kids love for reading, my grandparents massive garden, and my smaller, yet some how not as manageable garden. Some are harder to see, some I can only see the contrast, almost a base on which I need to build myself. How did my parents work such boring, low paying, devastating jobs with a promise of safe retirement that has yet to come to fruition? Please don’t let that be a parallel. How did my grandparents raise five kids when I struggle with two? How did my mom let one comment of “Women don’t belong in the office” dash her ambitions of being an accountant? Or my Dad’s dreams of being an architect sacrificed to raise kids because working at a local factory was more practical than going to college? I’m almost forty and I don’t even know what my dream job would be, or maybe I’m too practical, knowing the time and hours it would take to make any dream worth having happen. March 5 TEN. Sigh. I’m tired. There is a chronic, I’m stuck on the treadmill of life fatigue that I’m really feeling today. No room for ruminating. Just get through the day. Survival. March 19 ELEVEN. Fatigue hangs around. Kids ask a lot of questions. So do husbands, and moms and dads. Don’t forget work. Their questions are the real taxing kind, requiring so much of your mental budget for the day. What’s left is easy dinners and early bedtimes. Do you know how long it takes to form a habit? On average it takes 66 days for a habit to be formed, and about the same time for it to be broken. Good news, I’m still in the window before I completely break this very fragile new habit of writing. PRO tip: write about something interesting. HA. Pro, I’m no pro. AHEM, NOVICE tip: just keep it together. Sometimes I’ll joke around with the kids and ask them what I should be when I grow up and they get all exasperated and huffy like I should have already figured that out, isn’t that why they call us “grown ups” ? I kindly point out that we are always growing up. Our bodies grow first, but our minds and souls are always growing up. How can I still feel like myself twenty years ago and also feel so different. I am so happy, confident and secure in myself and my life as long as I keep my blinders on. A quick peek into the lane next to me shows person after person my age gearing up for their midlife crisis. Severe weight loss? Check. Divorce? Check. Drugs/alcohol problems? Check (this is one especially in the mom groups. If you have a bottle of “mommy’s juice down before the day’s over, you most likely have a problem). Pick up a “side hustle” to show yourself you can do it, but in reality you're desperately trying to pay off your $10,000 credit card debt before your spouse finds out? Check. Woah. I shouldn’t have peeked, everyone is crashing around me. How do I not crash? I take an internal evaluation. I am content with my life. I love my husband and my kids are pretty cool. I have dogs, cats, chickens. My job is very jobby. This is great, this is good, right? There is a little voice in the back of my mind and it says this is not growth, this is staying stagnant. This could be the beginning of that. That anxiety is slowly starting to warm my belly, you know, the hot feeling you get before you puke. March 28 TWELVE. Well the anxiety is still there. I thought if maybe I got the ideas out on paper, I’d feel better, but only marginally so. I need to take some risks. With risk comes life. With risk comes failure, and of course sometimes success. I bet statistically there is way more failure than success though, but is it a thing. Like, failing on a small scale is enough risk for us to feel alive but not such big risks that we lose our marriage, home, job, or relationships. Yes, this feels good in my head. I NEED to take risks, to try something new, to learn more, and most likely in tandem, I need failure. I learned how to play chess a few years ago. In the first year I played once a week and won twice. Do that math. On occasion I was frustrated, but overall I really enjoyed the process. What drove me to start journaling again. An echo of a memory, a faint feeling of pen on paper. The smell of a new journal, the crack the binding makes when you sit down to write for the first time. Or is the rush to hear my voice and thoughts in one place. The way I giggle at myself when I think I’m clever, or how I cringe when I’m suddenly being vulnerable. In here, I have found my new risk, the start of a new failure. Let’s see how many times I have to fail to succeed. The start of authoring a book is in authoring my life. 

glupk0

A Broken Plate

Do you remember, trying to press your spine against the wall? And how it felt so cold and smooth in the September heat? And how the shag carpet snaked between your toes because it would be dishonest to wear socks? And how it was just sunny enough to see dead skin cells floating in the light let in from a West facing window? You gave purpose to that room that was so dusty and empty and smelt of stale carboard. You took a dull pencil and marked exactly above where your head was, pressing your hair down first of course, in the name of fairness. You did what they did in movies, ones where there were families that owned a dog and a decent car, and had game nights, and small feuds that ended with ice cream. You marked your own height, and dreamt of being a basketball player, or maybe a model if that didn’t work out. Do you remember the bus? how it smelled on rainy days, packed with too many pre-teens? Or maybe you recall more vividly what happened when you got off the bus; when it was 7:23 am, and still dark. You tried to walk tall with an oversized backpack and shy away from being too smart in class. This meant you didn’t raise your hand much; let’s be honest you didn’t speak much at all, even when you were not in class. But you had a few friends who you walked with through the breezeways after lunch. They were ones that made you feel just a bit cooler until you played truth or dare and refused to ask out the cute boy who was shorter than you; most of the boys in seventh grade were. Those days in a way, were your glory days. Do you remember obliterating them in the pacer test and timed mile? Of course you do. The coaches asked you to do cross country, and even though you planned to since the year before, of course you waited until a year after, because sometimes it was just too hard to do things. That’s all. You did join though. You continued to mark your height against the wall, in hopes that longer legs would take you even further ahead of the boys you still towered over. At those times, your body was so light. Sometimes it felt like a little piece of dust caught in the sun beams floating in that room where you marked your height. You won a 1.7-mile race one day. It made you forget that you rarely talked, or that you had homework, or that you sometimes cried in the toilet stalls at lunch time. People congratulated you by your name. Your calves were crusted and muddy and cried in the most euphoric pain you had ever felt. Even after the exertion of crushing three middle school teams of female runners, you still felt light. You got Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, and a blue rose compliments of dad. Who knew that roses came in blue? It was perhaps the best day to exist. Your body though that once felt so light, could not remain this way. Do you remember the first time you wanted to hide it in a barrel? Let me rephrase that. Do you remember getting your first bra? You had to bend and slouch in a desperate attempt to feel unseen. But you made sure to stand tall when you marked your growth on the wall. And it paid off. You grew about two inches one year. You seemed to change so drastically when you compared the annual school ID photo printed on a small plastic card. But do you remember when they suddenly all blended together? when your face no longer had baby fat to rid itself of, and your legs no longer had the will to elongate. Do you remember your secret brains that you hid? And your fascination in science class? Some knowledge crushed you though. You learned about genetics. You looked at your mom and dad and threw away your dreams of becoming a basketball champion that could work a runway. You marveled at how your cells had been replacing themselves constantly. You wondered then why you felt so homeostatic. You wondered whether that was even a word, and how incorrectly you were using it. You had been marking the same line on the height wall for months. You felt flimsy and heavy, and betrayed by your own corpse. For the first time, your race times became slower and slower until you quit. You left the track hoping to leave with it the feeling of failure. Do you remember what it was like to spend time at home? You would head for the kitchen, then to the computer, and back to the kitchen. You would fall into a rabbit hole of YouTube and pirated movies until you heard the growl of a red Ford on the gravel. Only then, would you leave to your room. You would try to stay there and stifle outside noise, especially when you heard the smoother purr of a Dodge Ram on the cement. But it was hard not to crouch by the door or at the top of the stairs when you heard the owners of these cars downstairs, when you heard a ceramic plate shatter against the wall, and knew it was not an accident. You learned from dad that cursing was reserved for hatred and rage. You learned from mom that running was reserved for fleeing conflict. You learned that sobbing inside your own bathroom was to your surprise, significantly worse than in the stalls at school. The walls were painted a horrifying bright pink that mocked your blotchy eyes and flushed complexion. You would go downstairs only later that night and see the remnants of the broken plate on very cold linoleum. You swept it up with care. Do you remember feeling like the plate? And how its jagged, broken edges scraped at your mind when you rode the bus to school in the rain? You painted that plate as a Mother’s Day gift in the third grade. You wondered if your mother ever made one for hers. You wondered if your father ever hid inside his room when he was 16. You wondered if they ever thought about their shortness, did they too feel the halt inside their bodies that came so subtly but devoured them with immense speed? You wondered when they started throwing plates. You couldn’t forget how sharp the broken edges were. I know you remember sitting on a rooftop, not crying, just sitting. How could you forget the first time you felt so completely empty when looking into a sunset? You were trying to forget the sharp object that you held so delicately in your fingers moments before. You were trying to forget that it was not a broken plate, and that you were too weak, and did not know what that meant. You tried to forget about your body growing in a way that repulsed you, or how the grainy roof shingles felt like sandpaper on your soles. You missed the soreness of your feet after races. You missed not being home. You were 18 and convinced that you would be forever. I wish you knew that it was temporary.

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Like/Not Me

Content Warning: Transphobia The sterile, lemony scent of Lysol lingered in the lobby, melding with the comforting glow of the afternoon sun streaming through the sweeping exterior windows as Elias carried the box of his old dresses to the reception desk. To the left of the desk, seated at white tables surrounded by colorful chairs, a few teens scribbled in notebooks or tapped away on laptops, perhaps working on homework, though he suspected the trio crowded around one computer in the corner silently clapping each other on the back were gaming. It surprised him for a second that they would have computers. Aren’t homeless people supposed to have nothing? But then he realized maybe people donated laptops the same way he was about to donate clothes. He’d been in homeless shelters before, but never one for people his age. Every few months his family did community service together, and a few of those outings were spent serving food at one of the permanent shelters downtown or helping prep the church basement for the rotating shelter that came through every other year. Last time he had to scrub the church bathroom. His stomach tightened at the memory of the volunteer manager directing him to scrub the women’s restroom. He wasn’t allowed in the men’s room back in those days. Elias set the box as gently as he could on the reception desk, letting the weight of it slide through his fingers like a fish being released back into the water. The receptionist smiled at him. “Welcome to Youth Place,” she said with the same warmth he felt from the sun against the back of his arm. “I’m Bronwyn, my pronouns are she/her. What’s your name?” “Elias,” he said. “Elias,” she repeated, taking out a clipboard and starting to fill out a form. “Let me get Deborah, she’ll help you store your things in a locker. Are you hungry?” “Oh,” said Elias, “I’m, uh, not homeless.” He kept his voice low, feeling oddly exposed so close to the other kids. He pointed at the box. “I’m here to drop off some clothes. To donate.” Bronwyn bowed her head. “I shouldn’t have presumed.” She reached down and picked up a rather bare spiral-bound book. “Looks like someone used my last triplicate sheet. Just a sec.” She popped through the door behind the desk into a back office. A window in the wall let him watch as she rummaged around in drawers and cabinets, pausing every few seconds to glance up towards Elias and the shelter’s main entrance behind him. Elias was used to presumptions, though this was perhaps the most harmless he’d encountered. Not being allowed to clean the men’s bathroom. Not being allowed to join the boy’s swim team, or any boy’s sport. The presumptions people made based on his biology blew. When he thought he was a tomboy, people just presumed he was a guy. He liked that presumption. He didn’t like the apologies that inevitably followed when people heard his voice or his name, the name he buried because it was dead. He presumed his parents would hate him or be ashamed, so he held on to that name for too long until it felt like a rope around his neck lingering there inescapable when his mom and dad spoke it with pride of his accomplishments when teachers called it during class when best friends smiled and breathed it out loud saying hello how are you none of them realizing they made him fight for air beg for air sometimes even pray for the rope to cinch tighter. Saying he felt relieved when he finally told his parents and they embraced him, proving his presumptions unfounded, would be like saying the Milky Way was pretty. He no longer needed to fight for air. Instead, it filled him and let him proclaim his joy at the top of his lungs. Together, they packed what girl’s clothes remained in his closet into the box. He went through a phase a year or two ago where he hoped it would just go away and bought dresses and skirts and makeup. That was just a phase though, a last attempt by the world to control him, tell him he who was. His dad drove him over to Youth Place, even offered to walk in with him. But no. This was something Elias needed to do alone. They were originally going to just drop the clothes at Goodwill, but then Elias learned that almost half of people his has age without homes identified as queer, and of that a disproportionate number were trans. As soon as he heard that, he knew who he wanted to have his clothes. If he could, he would pass on more to them. Lord knows somewhere there’s a 16-year-old trans girl who could make good use out of what he bound up tight to his chest. He planned on getting top surgery as soon as he could, but it seemed like such a waste for them to just get sucked away. Couldn’t there be somewhere trans folx could just go and drop off the parts they didn’t need and swap them for the parts they did? For trade: boobs, never wanted. The door to the shelter swung open. A girl walked in, maybe a little older than him but it’s hard to tell, brown hair down to her shoulders, wearing tight jeans, a pink blouse, and a black jacket. Her face demonstrated the same skill with makeup that Elias had – novice – though he presumed she hoped to improve at it over time, while he hoped to never slather lipstick on again if he could help it. She sauntered up to the desk, smacking on a well-chewed piece of gum. “Hey,” she said. “You moving in?” Elias pointed at the cardboard box. “Well, no actually. I’m here to drop of some clothes. To donate.” “Whatchya got?” she asked, pulling open the flaps and squealing when she spotted the spirit jersey on top. Oblivious to the slight musty smell the clothes acquired sitting in the farthest reaches of his closet, she held the oversized sweater to her chest. “Oooh! She cute!” “Welcome back, Phoenix,” said Bronwyn, returning from the office with a fresh triplicate pad. “Will you be staying with us again?” Phoenix nodded, now clutching a crop top Elias couldn’t believe he ever thought was a good idea to buy. “Yeah,” she said, holding it to her chest. “Mitch tried to hit me again, so I left. And he stopped paying me.” “I’m glad you’re safe,” said Bronwyn. “Just a sec and I’ll get you checked in. You know the clothes have to go into the clothing bank, though. We need to wash them first, and you can get them from there.” “Yeah, yeah.” Phoenix put the clothes back in the box and sighed, closing the flaps. Elias noticed the crop top peeking out of her coat pocket. “There’s an old dude just sitting in a minivan outside.” “If it’s a Honda, that’s probably my dad,” said Elias. “He good to you?” asked Phoenix, studying him with piercing brown eyes. “Yeah.” His answer felt like an admission of guilt for some reason, but he wasn’t sure how else to respond. RIP! Bronwyn tore the receipt off her pad and held it out for Elias. “Thank you for your donation, Elias. And if you know anyone who needs our services, please send them our way. Everyone is welcome here.” “Even me,” said Phoenix, teeth grinding on the gum again. “It was nice to meet you,” said Elias, nodding at Bronwyn. He turned to Phoenix. “I’m glad you’re going to get the clothes.” Was that rude to say? He headed for the exit. He felt the lightness he hoped he would, having left behind that cardboard box containing the final remnants of a person that never really existed, knowing the rest of his life waited on the other side of the door, a life without pretending. A life of joy. Yet he struggled to smile as his mind lingered on Phoenix, on the inequity that grew with each step he took towards his dad waiting outside to take him home. A few moments later, Elias pulled open the door of the minivan and slid into the passenger seat. “You wanna drive, Elias?” asked his father. “You need practice.” Elias reached over and gave his father the best side hug he could across the armrest and gear shifter. “I love you dad.” His father, caught off guard by the gesture, feeling his child tremble against him, rested a hand on Elias’ arm in return. “I love you too, son.”

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TULSA POOL

(This fiction story is about racism in history, and involves critical race theory which some audiences find offensive) Tulsa Pool by    Dominique Bretin On a hot, humid day in Tulsa, Avery, my friend, was asked to leave the pool. My mother had given my older brother, George, and me permission to take the bus downtown to visit the Tulsa public swimming pool. It was a quiet Sunday in mid-August, the temperature over ninety and the humidity just about the same. We were happy to have a chance to cool off. It was the sixties in America, and the culture of our everyday life held a promise of change, including in Tulsa. Our parents were schoolteachers and believed in the work of Martin Luther King. He was a peaceful leader for Black rights. My parents welcomed his teachings into our home and the classrooms where they taught. Mr. King said in a famous speech that we should not judge by the color of skin but by the content of character, but more to the point, he meant all  men are equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among those rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Our parents said that all people loved and laughed in the same ways, and it was wrong to judge others with preconceived notions. Our radios played songs about brotherly love all day long, so we had no reason not to believe them. But unfortunately, on that hot day in August, what they’d told us turned out not to be true. Our family lived in a tract of housing that bordered a town called Greenwood. Mom and Pop told us that it had once been an all-black community. And I guess at the time, Greenwood was a thriving community. When we started out in school many of them were segregated, but then some people fought to change that and when they did our parents volunteered to help drive kids to those different schools. And desegregation was not something my brother and I fully understood. Mom and Pop described it to us as an attempt to right an injustice so that black children could attend better schools. The part that was difficult to understand was that some people didn’t agree. Mom said it was complicated. So, one day I asked her why? “Well, Bobbie, a long time ago, 1921 as a matter of fact, the entire neighborhood of Greenwood was destroyed by white people who didn’t want to believe that black people didn’t have the same rights to succeed in their own businesses like white people. Some thought it was an affront to the social order.” I didn’t always understand my mother’s big words, but it was okay to say when I didn’t. But sometimes, I didn’t need her to go into the long explanations. “Then what happened?” I asked. “A riot took place. A young woman, Sarah Page was an elevator operator in the Drexel building downtown Tulsa. One day, a young black man, Dick Rowland got on the elevator, and she accused him of attacking her.” “And did he?” “It didn’t matter because the white residents of Tulsa would not believe the young man. An angry mob formed to go against the town of Greenwood who stuck up for him because they knew the young man would not do such a thing. As it happens, Rowland, who worked as a shoe-shine boy said he had stumbled getting into the elevator and had accidentally stepped on her foot.” “That could happen to anybody.” “Sadly, the angry white mob did not believe his story. So, they called on the police and National Guard to help them, and together they torched the Greenwood homes and businesses and shot down anyone who resisted their judgment. And the people of Greenwood believed Rowland, so they fought back. And so, all that anger created a terrible riot that burned the whole place down.” “That doesn’t seem right. If only they could have talked to each other. But that was a long time ago, right? And now things are better.” “That still depends. Those black people were not able to ever regain their businesses or their homes. It made things very difficult for them. That is why your Pop and I want you to know about your history here in Tulsa. It is important to never imitate that type of prejudice because you never know how it will end.” I knew what she meant. My brother, George, and I saw it happen at school more times than we liked to mention. I was glad to have an older brother in school because he meant to set an example, and he could be a real tough guy when he wanted to. He was six feet two and captain of the football team. I was thirteen, and though I’d catch up to him in a few years, I never believed I could measure up to him. He never seemed afraid of anyone. If someone said something to him about one of the black kids in our school with the n-word in it, he would go over and talk to them. I was never that brave. He’d say, “When you use words like that, you show your lack of intelligence, kid. Being rude is like a loudspeaker for being stupid. You don’t want to be stupid, now, do you?”  I wasn’t sure he changed any minds when they went back home, but they sure cleaned up their manners around him. I didn’t have any black friends at the time, but George had one who shot baskets with him. His name was Donnie Tyrone. We just called him Donnie. Every Saturday, they practiced hoops in Donnie’s neighborhood. The streets where he lived were overgrown with weeds and the basketball net was mostly shredded, but at least the rim was solid and in decent shape. Mom had told George it was okay to be friends, but not to linger past dark. I never told her that I sometimes tagged along with George, or that sometimes, it was  past dark. I’d never tell on George. I figured I was always safe with him. I never worried. That was how I met Avery. He was Donnie’s little brother. One day, after his chores, Avery came outside with a box of marbles. He had them all wrapped up in a soft handkerchief. He set the box down on the grass and took each one out separately, explaining all about each one. He had some beautiful cat-eyes  and puries  in his collection. He treated them like special jewels. He showed me how to shoot by lining up my thumb and putting a little spin on it. “The right way is to keep your knuckle down on the ground. Keep a sharp focus.” He said and offered to play with me anytime. Since I liked him, I held him to his promise by coming along with George as often as I could.             George told me Donnie was a mighty good athlete. But at our school, he never made the basketball team. I thought George might help him with that, maybe go in and talk to the coaches. Then one day, I overheard Donnie talking to George. He said he was being hassled at school. He’d found something in his locker, a white hood with a note attached— you boy, are next . He worried about his parents, so I think it really scared Donnie. George wanted to go talk to the principal about it, but Donnie said he didn’t want to cause trouble over it. George came home and talked to Pop, but I guess in the end, they decided to respect Donnie’s wishes. Basketball wasn’t everything. On certain Saturdays, I’d go along with George and Donnie when they took the bus downtown to get a coke at Mr. Morelli’s grocery store. He was a nice Italian man who never minded when we came in with Donnie, but just the same, he always suggested we go outside to drink our sodas. A few times we met Donnie’s mom. She used to be a schoolteacher in an all-black school, but when they integrated the schools, Donnie said she lost her job because they didn’t want black teachers. His dad worked in the bottling factory in town. I could tell Donnie liked his mom and wouldn’t cross her. She greeted us like we were special guests, though we never stayed long enough to sit on their plaid couch or watch their T.V. We usually waited for Donnie in the wallpapered alcove. We could smell sweet cornbread baking and his mom wore a clean apron just like ours did when it was around supper time. You could tell she was proud of Donnie like someday he could grow up to be a doctor or something. Donnie said his mom was strict. During the week, he had to be home by five o’clock to finish his homework because she believed if he studied hard in school, he would be alright. That day when we took off for the pool, the sweat dripped through the waistband of my trousers. The sun beat down and it was unbearably hot outside. George had invited Donnie and Avery to go with us to the city pool. I could tell they were as hot as I was by the wet stains on their t-shirts. When we arrived, we heard younger kids shouting and squealing in the water as they splashed a ball at one another. The song, Peggy Sue,  played on the loudspeakers, but I don’t think anyone was listening. We set our towels on the grass near the fence and walked over to the diving board. We couldn’t wait to take our turn jumping in the cool water. A few girls got out of the line when they saw us coming. They whispered something to each other and pointed at us. The boys with the girls sneered when they looked our way and saw Donnie and Avery. They sized up my brother but didn’t seem bothered that he was bigger than them. Though it was allowed, many people didn’t seem to like the new laws allowing blacks into public places like diners and pools, but most of the time they were polite. But that day, those guys, who we didn’t recognize, meant to cause trouble. They went straight up to Donnie and one of them said, “You  coloreds aren’t welcome here. Ain’t you got some swimming hole just for yer kind?” George answered. “Back off, kid. They have a right to be here.” “A right don’t give them permission.” We just wanted to get in that water and cool off. I was confident George would take care of the situation like he always did. But everything happened fast after George told them to move. A larger boy wearing a khaki pair of shorts pulled out a shiny razor-like knife. I gasped. George nudged me over towards the concession stand. “Bobby, get over there and stay put. You understand me?” He meant business, and I got scared. At the same time, Avery tried to get to the pool. I think he had it in mind to jump in to escape. But the big guy with the knife grabbed Avery’s arm and lunged at his chest. The shiny blade pierced Avery’s skin right below his ribs. Avery dropped into the pool. I wanted to help my friend, but George had given me an order. George and Donnie were scuffling with the group of boys. My stomach was wretched. When I saw blood streaming in the pool, I nearly gave up my breakfast. The girls stood gawking. Horrified. No one helped Avery. Instead, everyone that was in the water got out fast. I’d never seen water turn red like that, and I couldn’t just stand there doing nothing. I ran for the telephone near the lifeguard station but one of the boys knocked me down. “Calling the police won’t do you any good, punk.” He said. But it wasn’t the cops I wanted to call, it was my mom. I looked over at George and Donnie who were scrambling against three guys, one with a knife. Fists were flying, and legs were kicking. I couldn’t tell who was up or who was down. Avery thrashed in the pool, a blood-red on his swimming trunks that no chlorine could dilute. I had to do something. I thought of Mr. Morelli. I took off running the eight blocks, my feet barely hitting the asphalt of pavement that was hotter than a frying skillet. I needed to save Avery from bleeding to death. When I reached Mr. Morelli, he dialed an emergency number and locked up the store. He called my mother to tell her to meet us at the pool. It seemed like no time at all had passed, but when we got back, everyone had vanished except the pool janitor. My brother was lying face down, but he was moving his arms and legs. He looked like he’d be alright. But Donnie—he was on the ladder of the pool, his shoulders hunched and trembling, holding the lifeless body of his little brother. Rivulets of red blood streamed down his arms. He was sobbing. And it was the most awful, mournful sound I have ever heard in all my life. A sound I will never forget. Donnie’s mom arrived in our mom’s car. She ran for the pool to hold her youngest boy’s body. We helped her carry Avery back onto the soft grass. She cried out for someone to help her, but there was nothing more anyone could do. Mr. Morelli offered to drive her where they needed to go. Our mom wanted us to go home where we were safe. George took me under his arm and told me I’d done a brave thing to get Mr. Morelli. I remembered my parents saying that it didn’t matter what color your skin was, that people loved and laughed the same. But that day, I learned something else; that they hurt and cry the same, too. I realized that hate doesn’t stay with history, because when they don't learn about it they don't know how to change the future. They just keep on acting in the same old ways. I knew I would return to Avery’s house to check on his prized marbles and puries  and to help his mom do any extra chores she needed doing. But most of all, I promised myself I would write this story because I never want to forget what happened to my friend Avery. It took courage for me to disobey my brother that day. I only wish I would have started running sooner because that was a day when brotherly love had seemed the furthest thing from anyone’s mind, and though it may hurt to hear it, it bears repeating.

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City Me, Suburb Me

This is NOT how I planned to spend my summer! I didn’t want to move. I liked the city, and my friends, and my dog, Spotty. He was better known as the “neighborhood mutt” because we couldn’t keep him in the yard. He always managed to dig his way out under the fence and wander around everywhere. “I don’t want you going to high school here,” Mom said. “Kids are bringing knives to school and I don’t want you to get hurt.” I was in sixth grade and felt I still had plenty of time before worrying about high school. But Mom had already made up her mind and felt a move to the suburbs would be much better, much safer. “What about Spotty?” I asked. “Our neighbors across the street said they will keep him. We can’t have a dog roaming around in the suburbs.” She saw the sad look on my face then added, “We will come back now and then to visit him and your friends.” I was crushed! She never bothered to ask me what I thought! Why would I want to leave the house I grew up in? It was so unfair! In spite of my protests, the house went up for sale anyway and we moved in the spring. We couldn’t even wait until the end of the school year! Of all days, we moved on April 1 st – April Fool’s Day. How appropriate. I was off to a great start…. The new house was nice and had one big bedroom upstairs that used to be an attic. That would eventually be my room and I was fine with that. It had candy-striped carpet (at least, that’s what I was told), and windows at both ends of the room. The main floor was similar to the old house - living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom and two bedrooms. Pretty basic. There was a basement too-with a bathroom in it! We also got a washer and dryer so my Mom wouldn’t have to go to the laundromat any more like we did in the city. She was happy about that, and so was I since I always had to go with her and it was boring. We kept our ping pong table and put it in the new basement, so some things did stay the same. However, the new house didn’t have a fireplace and I missed that. And then there was school. My first day in my new classroom was kind of a disaster. The teacher wasn’t very friendly, (she was old – at least fifty I think), and the kids were kind of snobby. Being small and looking younger than my age didn’t help, so they made fun of me. I was also a “city kid” which put me a few notches lower than the rest of them, at least, in their minds. I was surprised when we got a break for recess. At my old school we didn’t, and instead, we were kicked outside after lunch until the period was over. We had a kick ball area and monkey bars, and lots of gravel. The new school had a nice playground with swings, slides, and grass! I was impressed! My first day in gym class was horrible! My mom had to buy me “gym clothes” – a white button-up shirt with blue shorts. Who wears button-up shirts to gym class? On the bright side, I at least looked like everyone else during that period, but after class was over the real shock came. Before we entered the locker room, the teacher yelled out, “Get to the showers!” What?!!! We didn’t have showers at my elementary school in the city. We went to gym class with our street clothes on, put on sneakers, and played dodge ball like normal kids. After class we put our regular shoes back on and went to homeroom or our next class. Showers?! I NEVER took a shower at school! Like, take all my clothes off in front of the other girls so they can see my naked and very underdeveloped body? It was bad enough there when I had all my clothes on! But the teacher commanded it, so I did what I was told. It was the most humiliating and embarrassing day of my life! When I got home from school, I told my Mom all about it and firmly stated, “I’m never going back!” She provided little sympathy. In fact, I’m pretty sure I heard her laugh a little. I was back in my classroom the next morning trying to survive my not-so-friendly teacher and the snobby kids, with the added knowledge that the girls had seen me naked. Ugh! As time went on, I struggled to keep up with the classwork since the school I attended before wasn’t at the same level. I never considered myself smart, but could at least hold my own. Not so much at my new school. My Mom had a conference with the teacher, and I was given a choice: Repeat sixth grade or go to summer school. There was NO way I was going to repeat sixth grade! So, here I am, my very first summer in my new home, working on math problems in a hot classroom without air conditioning. I hate math and I hate summer school, but I hate the thought of going through sixth grade again even more. I would rather be at the public pool with the kids in my neighborhood. They’re all younger than me, but a lot more fun than the kids at school.  One of the girls in my class lives down the block and sneers at me when she sees me out playing with them. One day she yelled, “Why are you playing with those babies? You’re too old to be hanging out with them!” Um, they are only a year or two younger than me, and I just turned twelve. I guess she feels I should be more mature like her since we were going to be in junior high in the fall. Maybe so, but once I pass my summer school classes (and I WILL pass them), I’m going to enjoy my new friends and be a kid at least until school starts again. And then I will be going to another new and bigger school where nobody will know I’m the “new kid” in the area. I’m a little excited about that! I do miss my city friends, and at least Mom lets me call and keep in touch. Plus, we’ve gone back for a few visits since my church is in the old neighborhood. That hasn’t changed and I am glad about that. It’s nice when some things stay the same. I’ve been going to my church since I was born and we’re there every week. It’s where I learned about God, made friends I’ve known all my life, and I’m pretty fond of the adults there too. My best friend, Nancy, is in my Sunday school class, and sometimes I get to go to her house after church. I’m excited to invite her to my new house. Well, I finished my assignment and it’s time to go home. Hopefully my brother will be on time picking me up because I hate waiting for him. He’s pokey at everything! Just one more week of summer school and then I’m FREE! I think I’ll go to the pool when I get home. We didn’t have pools in the city parks, so this has been a new adventure for me and I love it. I guess this move wasn’t so bad after all. My new bedroom is great, my neighbors are nice, and I love how the trees bow over the road when I’m walking home from school. I still miss my dog but I’m sure he prefers the old neighborhood and gets plenty of attention. All the kids there love him. I don’t think we’ll be moving again any time soon, but if we do, it better be after I graduate!

53iodr

Genesis 51

In the beginning, God opened his arms to the little girl and her single mother. They found Him in the basement of a Chinese church, where for the first time they didn’t feel like strangers in this foreign land they’d just arrived in. They could speak their own tongue and eat their own food, and it was safe. The girl saw her mother laugh and it made her laugh, too, because she thought her mother had forgotten how to do that. Her mother was glowing with a joyful light, and the girl wanted her to have that all the time. But when they returned home to their own basement, the laughter echoed away and the joy was extinguished and it became cold again. So they went back to the church the following Sunday, and every Sunday after that. And the girl saw that the light was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. And God said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these.” (Matthew 19:14). And it was so: the girl went to God unhindered and she liked that He was her Holy Father because she didn’t have a father. She liked being in a nice room with so many nice people, everyone singing songs together, giving hugs, sharing food. In Sunday School, she memorized her Bible verses and learned all of Jesus’s parables. She was not a liar and she knew it was wrong to cheat and steal, so she was happy to be safe with so many other kids who felt the same way. Even when her Tamagotchi got lost and the next week the pastor’s kid had the exact same one with even the same scratches, she knew it would be bad to accuse him, especially in front of others, and she didn’t want to be bad so she stayed quiet and good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day. And God said, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.” (Mark 16:16) And it was so: the pre-teen did not want to be condemned so she put on the ivory robe and nervously stepped down into the lukewarm water that her pastor was waiting waist-deep in, in the hole they’d uncovered in the stage. She was trying to hide behind her long black hair because so many people were watching and she didn’t want them to see all the pimples on her forehead. Her mom was being so embarrassing with her camera, please don’t let it flash oh my gosh it was flashing. She tried to focus on repeating the words the pastor was saying to her, and eventually her embarrassment and fear did fade away. Her heart swelled at being accepted into this new tribe, at the tepid water washing her clean of her sins as she was plunged into it—backwards?! Wait this was not what they’d rehearsed! She emerged coughing and spluttering but as the water rushed back out and the sounds rushed back in they were all clapping and cheering so nobody heard her and she could barely hear herself but it was okay because everyone was so happy and she was happy too. And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day. And God said, “Thou shalt not have premarital sex.” (At least, the teenager was pretty sure He did because that’s what everyone kept telling her even though she couldn’t find the actual verse. Paul said it a lot, though.) On Sundays, she played drums in the worship band and taught Sunday School, passing Jesus’ parables along to a whole new generation of little ones. On Tuesdays, she went to Youth Group with some of her high school friends where they didn’t speak Chinese and could, therefore, say the word “sex” out loud. One time, the youth pastor handed a white rose to someone sitting in the front row of the gathering and asked them to pass it along. It went from one hand to a hundred others, and all the while the pastor talked about sexual purity and holiness. At the end the rose came back to him, broken, bruised, torn, never to be beautiful again. Useless. Her friends nodded in agreement all around her, but she could not. On Fridays, she saw her boyfriend she was trying to save and tried not to think about the rose or the fact that she would never deserve to wear a white wedding dress, but instead she thought hard about both those things and about how she was useless. For years. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day. And God said several things that sounded very similar to what a lot of the other monotheistic deities were saying in the young woman’s comparative religions class at college. Everyone was told to check their personal religions at the door, and she found it increasingly difficult to reclaim hers at the end of each session. The Holy Book (all of them) was just a textbook here, and she found she liked it better that way: as history and mythology instead of a literal account and life manual. Plus there was that Apocrypha. The on-campus Christian groups seemed above all else interested in controlling her life, yet she did not find any of their lives to be desirable models. She searched for answers elsewhere. “Wait a minute. Are you looking for absolute truth?” Each professor would ultimately ask when she came knocking. “Yes!” She would answer with great excitement. “Oh, you won’t find that here.” Evening, morning—the fifth day. And God said … nothing. He was silent when her high school friends grew up and got married and found that they had no identities beyond “virgin,” and sunk into depression. He was silent when her first Sunday School teacher drowned himself in the lake she grew up next to, weighing himself down with a big rock. He was silent when she was the only one willing to drive her sobbing friend to the abortion clinic a few months after the friend had discovered that abstinence meant no understanding of alcohol tolerance, and no understanding of men. He was silent when she realized he couldn’t be real, this all-powerful being that men had created for themselves, whom they believed to be deeply concerned with which women they dated or which stocks they picked. In his silence, she imagined a rug being pulled out from under her, and beneath it was empty infinity, and she was falling. Suddenly, an omnipotent, omnipresent, omnibenevolent, omniscient being was not looking out for her every move. Suddenly, death really was the end. Suddenly, her life was not part of some grand plan and she was as insignificant as everyone else in the eyes of the universe. But in reality, it was nothing like falling. Instead there was evening, and there was morning— And the sun rose and it was a miracle of a very different sort than what I’d grown up being told about: perfectly distanced and balanced to sustain life on this particular planet during this particular nanosecond in the unfathomably vast timeline of the universe, and I was impossibly lucky, impossibly unlikely, to be here. Infinity is underneath me and all around me, mysteries that we are unlocking together as a species that evolved to where we are today through just about everything but intelligent design. Death really is the end, it has always been, and this life, every second of it, is all I will ever get and is therefore precious beyond belief. My existence is not part of someone else’s grand plan, I am free to make it my own. Successes are not the blessings of an invisible hand, they are earned and they are mine. Failures are also not the corrections of an invisible hand, they are also earned and they are also mine. I am insignificant in the eyes of the universe, but we who share this mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam, we who are real and responsible for the pale blue dot we all call home, we can choose to live purposefully like we only get one chance or we can choose to live complacently like we are just rehearsing for heaven. But that one chance is the closest to absolute truth that I have found. On the seventh day, god rested. And I got up.

er0ngh

Blue Baptisia

Sweat beads at the powder-blue nape of my dress and rolls down my back – slowed only by the training bra my mom insisted on buying me this spring. “Are you ready to go inside?” she sighed and looked me up and down that morning – acknowledging that my body was developing into a woman’s, bearing less likelihood to the little girl she would always see. But why is it so hot in this chapel? It is August, but the committee added central air conditioning last summer, courtesy of the Bible School fundraiser. Grandma joked only certain gals (using words I would be grounded had I dared repeat) were the type to sweat in church – and I am only 15. Grandma couldn’t mean me, right? Maybe it is the glaring fluorescent lights over each pew, flooding all of us sinners so we couldn’t possibly hide our shame in God’s house. If not that, is it the preacher’s sermon bringing heat to my cheeks and shame in my heart? Or it truly is an act of God. Will the flames of hell burn right through the floorboards beneath my feet? Then everyone will know my sin. I am a normal teenager, but just like Father Landon says, none are without sin, except Jesus. Still, on three occasions, I felt irredeemable guilt. The first time, I was in the 2 nd grade and had tripped Rebecca Williams down the bus steps for pinching my little brother in the lunch line (but maybe she deserved that one). I asked God if she was just a jerk in my prayers, but I haven’t had a clear divine answer just yet. In the second event, I was in the 4 th grade. I had stolen an extra bag of candy from my Aunt Maggie on Halloween – and very carefully slipped it under the sleeve of my Scooby-Doo Halloween costume and said not a word. When we arrived back home, I had forgotten my secret – and when I took off my jacket the stolen goods came crashing to the floor – a damning piece of crinkling evidence. After a swift swat, and a teary-eyed phone call to apologize to my aunt Maggie, I cried myself to sleep and begged God to forgive me. The last time, the one I will refer to as the Big One – was the week of eighth grade spring semester finals. To celebrate our passage from junior high to high school, the PTA had organized a lights-on, modestly dressed, dance, inviting 9 th -12 th grade students. All the girls were excited, rambling on about the dresses their moms had bought from one of the two formal stores on Riddick Street. I hesitated about a school dance. Would someone ask me? And then I would have to dance with them? While I was beginning my journey to womanhood, I had not been decidedly boy-crazy. I wouldn’t be permitted to date until college, anyway. Two days before the dance, I was escorted by my vicarious mother to the store to choose my attire. She frowned at several gowns, poking and prodding at my shoulders, chest, and thighs – “Ah, that’s what it is. You’re growing up, Sammie. Stay here.” She quickly exited the dressing room, and left me there shirtless, in my childish floral print underwear, arms across my chest. It felt like an eternity. She returned, bearing the ugliest bras I had ever seen, soft pastels with god-awful cups reminiscent of the shoulder pads on my grandma’s Sunday blouses. This must be what Hell is like. How the heck am I supposed to put this thing on? I struggle while my mom observed, almost amused, at the fawnlike movements of her daughter’s first brassiere experience. I stood, arms stiffly at my sides, while she assessed me once more, satisfied with her labors. This would be the only exchange we had about puberty. I chose a powder-blue, modest option, with ruffled cotton material, falling just below my knees. My mom explained to me in the car that due to finances, it would later be my church dress. I nodded. On the day of the dance, I left school and headed home with a sense of dread. No one had invited me, yet I felt somewhat relieved. I was scheduled for a sleepover at my best friend Madison’s house, after the dance, and my mom had my bag packed for me. After dinner, she put me through torturous routines, barrel-curling my already curly hair (and somehow making it frizzier) and applying mascara and tinted cherry lip balm. I looked absurd – but luckily, she had only burned my ear once, this time. Once we pulled up at the school, she grabbed my face, and said “Now, look at you! You’ll have the boys asking you left and right.” I faked a smile. Mom kisses my forehead and I say goodbye. “Samantha!” she shouts, leaning out of the window to give a big wave. I cringed, and two juniors stared at me. I was chaperoned to the door by the eighth-grade math teacher, and PTA volunteer, Mr. Trill. “Hello, Sammie, I… like your hair,” (Liar). Madison greeted me at the hall entrance to the gym excitedly. “I can’t WAIT for the sleepover tonight!” I agreed and we pushed open the heavy doors, side by side, while the outro of Cha-Cha Slide boomed from wall to wall of the gymnasium. The décor wasn’t half-bad, the high school sophomores had arranged it, but dollar store balloons and a backdrop can’t distract from the weird smell that would only be described as “high school boy feet” meets “rubber dodgeball.” Well, I suppose only Jesus is a miracle worker. I am separated from Madison immediately by two seniors, Brian and Jesse. I roll my eyes as they playfully pinch and knock shoulders with Madi. Of course, they would be immature enough to invite a freshman girl like Madison to the dance. A bunch of jerks honestly. While I saw their intentions as strange – for Christ’s sake, they’d be freshmen in college next year, Madison welcomed the older boys fighting for her attention. I shrugged it off, her choice. I cross the dance floor to the snack table, where they had an array of desserts and finger foods. Very few looked appetizing, and not one as good as my mom’s cooking. I stood there, uncomfortable, my new bra itching my armpits (or was it the deodorant?), and waited for something to happen. Three songs pass and the punch has hit my bladder, the dance floor still barren as the night is just beginning. I head to the bathroom, watching Madison be spun around to a slow song. Was it Brian she was dancing with this time? Or Jesse? I couldn’t tell. I swing the door open and hear a hip-hop song rattle against the outdated bathroom stalls. Should I just stay here, in the bathroom? This is embarrassing. My best friend has a date (or two of them, much to my displeasure). I pull out my cell phone and click my mom’s contact number. Perhaps I should just have her come and get me, this whole thing is so miserable. I am startled by the sudden whoosh of the door as four girls waltz into the restroom, whispering and laughing. I ruffle my dress back down while I stand, it is apparent I cannot stay hidden here. It’s not like I was crying or anything! I wash my hands and step up to the mirror, startled by my appearance. The hairspray my mom coated my hair (and the inside of my lungs) with, was already wearing off. I turned to the girls, who had made their way into the bathroom for gossip and comparing dates – “John tried to touch my BUTT!” – followed by gasps and laughter. I interject - “Hi, any of you guys have a hair tie?” I gesture upwards to the mess on my scalp as two of the four turn around to look at me, and one gasps “oh my gosh. Here, Kristen, give me your hairbrush?” In a whirl, my hair is transformed from terrifying to somewhat approachable – a fashionable high ponytail and bumped-up bang that my mom couldn’t attempt. I expressed my gratitude, and the girls ask me to dance. I spent the remainder of the dance with this group, and I felt safe. They also didn’t seem too interested in being vulnerable dance partners to the boys of their 10th-grade class and viewed the 9th-grade boys as wet specimens. At exactly 9:00, the last song is playing, and I go to find Madison, who is holding hands with both Brian and Jesse, swaying side to side to the music. “Oh man, I don’t like those two,” I think to myself, irritated. “Are you ready to go after this?” She agrees and we meet at her dad’s sedan. We ride the five minutes to her house and as her dad gets out of the car, she leans into my ear and whispers “I have a secret sleepover plan.” I look at her, a little surprised, to which she nudges me, and we head inside. What is this plan? Sleepovers are the same every time – snacks, manicures, and late-night conversations. We have since elementary school. Once inside, we are greeted by her parents and our three classmates, fellow sleepover attendees. Our classmates, Jordan, Sarah, and Jennifer all surround Madison. I know they’re not here for me, I am not as popular as Madi. We make our way to Madi’s room, a tidy space with trendy hot-pink bedspread and lime-green walls. Madi’s family has more money than mine. After settling in, Madi introduces her Secret Sleepover Plan . At exactly 11 o’clock, her parents would be asleep. Her dad worked 12-hour shifts and her mom took a doctor-prescribed sleeping pill – and not even Lucifer himself could wake them from their bedside. I felt sick. Madi details the plan, eyes wide – we would be outside at 11:15 p.m., where Brian and Jesse would be waiting for us, ready to take us to a freshman party in Jesse’s mom’s van. While I feared the consequences if we got caught, I wasn’t a chicken. I would deal with it and stay quiet. After a fuss for us girls to get ready, (including using stolen makeup and clothing from collective moms and sisters) and Madi carefully, with almost surgical precision, helping me put on a sparkly lip gloss, it was now 11:04 p.m. Every passing minute seems to slow time and my stomach is filled with anxious butterflies. We exit Madison’s window, quiet as mice, except for a couple of giggles, and ran fast down the drive. I was stone silent. We get in the van and Madison looks at me and whispers, “If this is going to be fun; you have to trust me!” Our eyes lock, and she pats my shoulder, sitting on my lap as the van only had six seats. I felt increasingly tense with her on my lap, I would have preferred she had a seatbelt. Brian puts in a CD, Madi is safe on my lap and she’s singing, joking, everything was going to be just fine. We arrive at the party, and my anxiety is replaced with confusion – there are so many people here! Students, dropouts, and a couple of weird, older people who stood out among the sea of teens. Madi grabs my hand and YANKS me to the beer pong table. We watch one game, and she flirtatiously grabs her dates to play against us. I am clueless at pong, but I have played cornhole at fellowship barbecues, and Madi is a natural player. We lose, but at this time, I have taken 5 sips of my first beer, ever, and my stomach is warm. The beer tastes flat and lukewarm. My legs feel heavy, but Madi is encouraging me to keep drinking and be cool. Her smiles and praise keep me going. I can’t let her down. After our 4 th game, we’ve had a measly one victory and lost three matches. The boys call it a win. They strut over to approach Madison and me – “You two wanna go out to the woods and explore?” I look at Madi’s reaction, she seems intrigued, so I follow her in the direction of the adventure. I have had two beers, and it is dark, but Madi will keep me safe. Right? We reach the property line into total darkness – to bypass the barbed wire fence – carefully, as I have on Madi’s mom’s pink yoga pants, and we’ll be dead by dawn if I rip them. We enter a path in the woods only lit by moonlight and Madison’s laughter. I linger closely behind when a suspicious feeling twists my gut. Is this a setup? Jesse takes Madi further, leaving Brian and me to stare at each other awkwardly. He says a quiet “Oh, hey.” He crunches his face, an expression only seen in forbidden romance movies. I cringe internally when he leans in for a kiss. His lips meet mine and I knock him back – his mouth tastes like tobacco chew and Budweiser. “Jerk,” I scoff and keep walking – Madi’s house is only a mile away – I think I know where I am. I check my phone to see that it’s 12:38 a.m. Undoubtedly, my mom is asleep – so I continue pushing forward. I feel a hand wrap around my wrist, and in my upset, I throw my arm directly left to avert the unwanted grasp and I realize the person trying to stop me is Madison. I turn to her, “Why did we come here?!” She intends to soothe me, “Aren’t you having fun? I’m sorry, Sammie…” to which I shake my head. Jesse interrupts, burping and tossing his beer into the woods (rude), and turns to face me. “I know why you’re mad… Madison is cuter than you. And you’re in love with her, right?” He chuckles, cruelly, and cracks open the beer from his other hand. “So, Madi should just kiss you, not me.” And here comes the Big One - Brian catches up with us, out of breath.  At that moment, Madi laughs, grabs my shoulders, and closes the distance between my face and hers. She waits one, two, three seconds… she’s a much more experienced kisser than I, and slowly removes her lips from mine, also vanishing what remains of the sparkly lip gloss she so carefully applied to my mouth hours earlier – and she lets out a small giggle. “Not bad for your first real kiss,” she says. My face is on fire. My legs are on fire. Madison just kissed me, for fun. It felt wildly different from Brian’s drunken, dry lips encroaching mine without my consent, minutes before. I can’t collect my thoughts. Is it possible I am in love with her? No. God forbid it. I stumble two steps back and plead – “I want to go home. Please take me back, Madison. I just want to go to sleep.” Brian, visibly annoyed, says “whatever, Jesse. They aren’t what we’re looking for.” Madison’s jaw opens, diverting the blow, and says “Okay, Brian, we’ll leave you alone. It’s not like you’re that great, anyway. And your beers are warmer than piss.” Madison pulls my arm for the umpteenth time that night and leads me back through the darkness to the amber glow of the party’s bonfire. I am entranced by her confidence, her wit – but am I entranced by her kiss? No , that can’t be right. Father Landon would condemn me in Sunday service and shame my family. But Madi… her family wasn’t religious. Did she kiss me as a prank? Was it to impress those two idiots? I simply don’t know. I am tipsy now. I call out to Madison, guiding us back to the gathering, that we should leave. She turns to me, “I have another way home. Don’t worry, Sammie.” We return to the beer pong table. We’re offered more, ice-cold beers. I drink 2, then 3. I am drunk from the alcohol and Madi’s presence – she is so confident, so cool. She sails me along with her and I am subject to devotion. We are losing every game of pong, and I don’t care. Getting back to Madi’s that night is blurred from my memory – the only remnant is several more kisses in the back of some freshman’s car, and my body being alight with excitement. Safely back in her bedroom, I sobered up. I looked to her, fast asleep, sharing her twin bed with me. I felt a conflicting mix of guilt and satisfaction. Perhaps even though he was an asshole, Jesse was right. While his ridicule echoed in my head, I hoped he was wrong, yet I was terrified that God already knew. Now, as summer concluded, Madison and I have had many adventures, drunken nights, and countless secrets. That is why I am here in my powder-blue dress, sweating in a pew. This specific type of sin makes the daytime gossip in our little town – so, I will remain silent. Not even in my prayers do I dare mention it. I can’t help it, still, in each Sunday’s sermon, I am the worst sinner of all. I am petrified that under these beaming fluorescent lights, it will become apparent that I am headed to hell. I fear that hellfire will burn through the hardwood, through the carpet, to absolve me to ash and brimstone, leaving my hymnal behind. Since I was baptized within these walls, I have been told in explicit, excruciating detail what hell contains for people like Madi and me. If we’re damned, then so be it. Maybe I don’t care what God thinks of Madi and me, after all, He never answered me before. Even righteous Father Landon - with his harsh lectures on hell appears to have sweat under his collar before the congregation today.

wguhuh

Making a move

Making a move Diane stood on the lip of the cliff. This is it , she thought, there’s no going back now , her mind closed to her surroundings and focused on her next move. Taking a deep breath she tipped her body forward and allowed herself to topple slowly over the edge. Diane’s family had just moved to a remote mine in outback Australia. Her father had been offered an executive position with the large mining company and her whole world had turned upside down. At thirteen years, she’d made long term friends, had niches in her favoured sport and hobbies, a part time job at Kentucky Fried and good relationships with her school teachers.            She hadn’t been a willing partner to this chaotic shift in her universe. There’d been tears, tantrums and pleas, all to no avail. Her dad had accepted the lucrative offer as it was something he had been hoping for and working towards, and would serve him for the rest of his working life. Her mum never made waves. Whatever her dad said, she did without question, followed like the proverbial sheep. She’d already started sorting things into categories of ‘keep’, ‘sell’, 'take to op shop’, or ‘chuck  out’. They obviously didn’t care about her future. A real estate agent had been to evaluate the house and it was placed on the market, a hideous ‘For Sale’ sign hammered into the front lawn.            Diane’s best friend, Jessica, was as tearful as she was, and they promised to keep in touch, send selfies and phone every day. When she was old enough, Diane swore she would move back again. They’d get jobs, rent a little unit somewhere and everything would be wonderful. When they got married, they’d have a double wedding. They spent hours poring over bridal books, looking at gorgeous dresses in the shop windows and discussing bridesmaids, reception venues and honeymoon destinations. Never considered their future grooms may have other ideas. But they were happy in their little world bubble; then the bubble burst.            Diane cried every night for weeks. Central Australia was stinking hot and irritatingly dusty. As the family of the company’s executive officer, they lived in one of the best homes in town, even having a lovely green lawn and garden cared for by professional gardeners. The kids at school teased her about her weird accent, calling her a Pommie. Her mum comforted her slightly by explaining South Australian settlers had been free people, not convicts, with a better education and therefore better speech habits.            She was a bit intimidated by the brash, loud kids at school and kept to herself. A couple of the girls in her class made an effort to befriend her by sitting with her at lunchtime, which she appreciated, but they just weren’t Jessica.            This morning’s excursion to the local water hole had been organised by two of the class teachers. Parents were encouraged to come along and it would be a huge picnic. Of course, Diane’s father couldn’t come and her mother was ‘busy’ doing something. Actually, she was glad they weren’t coming. She would have felt very awkward. As it was, she wished she’d never come. Still – given the option of either the excursion or double maths class – not a difficult choice really.            Poison Waterhole was contained on three sides by high, sheer cliff faces. No-one was sure how deep the water was, but it was agreed it was dangerously deep. And being in the shade of the cliffs for most of the day, the water was incredibly cold. Diane shivered slightly in the cool breeze that breathed across the water. There was a path on one side leading to the top and some of the more adventurous kids ran up and looked cautiously over the edge, waving boldly to the others. Rumour had it that a number of people had actually jumped off the cliff and into the water below. Rumour also had it that a couple of people had died doing it, but no-one was really sure who or when it had happened.            Inevitably, the boys started egging each other on, daring one another to take the leap. Then the girls started, calling the boys ‘scaredy-cat’ and meowing loudly at them. It was easy for Diane to move quietly through the mob without anyone noticing. She walked steadily up the path and onto the lip. As she stood quietly looking into the black water far below, someone noticed her and began to call anxiously. She breathed deeply and steadily, rocking forward and backwards on the balls of her feet. As she leaned forward and toppled over, she could hear girls screaming. Below her every face looked up, mouths agape in horror and unbelief as their eyes, unbidden, fixed on her descent. Clamping her legs tightly together and tucking her head between her forward thrusted arms she moved into a pike, then arms crossed to her chest, a full twist, followed by a double somersault. She then speared straight as an arrow into the water, her entry so neatly precise that barely a ripple showed on the surface.            No-one moved as their eyes were focused on the water. They waited. And waited. Suddenly two of the fathers snapped into action. Ripping their shoes and shirts off they dove into the water, swimming frantically to where Diane had disappeared. With a rush of water and gasp of breath, she burst through the surface like a dolphin, and swam smoothly to the bank.            Her class teacher wrapped a large towel around her shivering shoulders and asked if she was okay. Diane nodded.            ‘Where on earth did you learn to do that?’ Her teacher asked.            ‘I represented South Australia in the National Diving Championships for the last two years – one gold medal, one silver medal.’ She quietly added, ‘My ambition was to go to the Olympics, but I guess that won’t be happening now that I live in this dust bowl’. ‘Don’t lose hope Diane. Just because we live in a dust bowl in the outback doesn’t mean we can’t be involved with great things. I’m sure we can work something out for you.’            Diane looked hopefully at her teacher. ‘Mrs Webber; do you really think I can continue my training here?’            Mrs Webber smiled. ‘Yes I do.’            Diane was suddenly surrounded by a mob of kids all asking how she did that, saying how tough she was, how amazing it was to watch her spearing through the air, and she felt as though she could maybe fit in with these people. She realised she was smiling, even laughing. Perhaps things weren’t so bad after all.

k2njz5

Salvation

Note: Some parts of the narrator's reporting may be disturbing because of mental health issues, pornography and sexual discussion, social media abuse, and religious questions and implications. “Why doesn’t Christine get to go to heaven? Why doesn’t God love my best friend?” Ok, maybe a little too whiny. Mom danced around my words, her responses learned long ago.  “The plan of salvation,” she reminded me, “says only those who believe Jesus was God’s son who sacrificed himself so that we might have eternal life,” she emphasized, “may enter the kingdom of heaven.” Seeing my face, she hesitated before adding carefully, “Christine’s family is Jewish, and they don’t believe in heaven. But I’m sure God loves them just as much as anyone else and wishes that she and they will believe and enter the kingdom of heaven.”  I knew what she was going to say; I could have said it word for word in advance. But her recital didn’t explain anything to me. Dad says that’s all a bunch of crap, and only stupid people believe that Baptist stuff. Dad and Mom are fire and water, oil and vinegar, Democrat and Republican, Catholic and Protestant, poor family and rich family, Westchester and Hell’s Kitchen.  I sure didn’t want to start any further fighting between them, or between us. Dinner at our house is a food fight. I never quite understood how they could have ended up together. My brother had escaped away to college, and I was alone with the madness. Since he’d gone, their drinking had also picked up a lot. I ducked out of any argument I could. Besides, Taffy, our wire-haired terrier,  was having puppies in the back of the family room, and that was way more important. Christine’s mom had told her she couldn’t come over because that wasn’t something a young lady should watch. I guess her mom had no idea what Christine’s brother showed Christine and me when her mother wasn’t around. I sure did, and it was downright disgusting. He had stacks and stacks of hidden magazines showing naked ladies all chained up and wearing spooky black leather stuff. And he loved drawing penises. He explained how his father put that into his mother’s private parts. He said he’d heard them doing it, and it sounded like it hurt. He always asked if I minded if he put his hands under my new bra, or if he could put his fingers down my pants, but I pushed him away, and threatened to tell. He posted awful things on Tik-Tok and distorted his sister’s face in an app to make it look like she had a penis in her mouth. Then he posted it. I don’t know why she didn’t tell. A few times, I was really tempted. But nobody likes a rat. Taffy sounded hurt having her babies. She’d whimper before each one came out. They were wrapped up in these purple sacks of bloody skin, and she licked it off gently while waiting for the next one. Actually, watching the puppies slide out of her reminded me a little of the naked ladies in those magazines. Pretty cool. And then she’d nudge it down to her belly, and the puppy would blindly latch on to her nipples. She had a lot of nipples.  It was taking a long time, so I watched TV in between, flipping channels. Mom had a filter on the cable, so what I could watch was pretty limited when she was around. Funny, huh? What with Christine’s brother, and all? Anyway, when nobody’s around, I like “Stranger Things” the best. It's amazing, a new life, a new puppy coming out from the mommy. How did it all fit? Taffy’s a tan wire-haired terrier, bouncy for her age. Well, not now, but usually, until she got pregnant. Strange, the first puppy looked black and white, smooth. Not much for hair, either. And the second was mostly black. Sort of little rats. What did I look like when I was born? Never get a clear answer on that. “Beautiful” and “Gift from God.” Yeah, yeah. But did I look like a rat? A big rat? No pictures until I was one. Plenty of my brother, but none of me. Last night, the fight was a doozy. It’s because of my baptism last Sunday. Dad wouldn’t go because he said Baptists are crazy and dumb. Mom said how dare he demean her religious beliefs, especially in front of the children. My brother, home from college for the weekend,  pretty much already agreed with Dad. He wouldn’t go either. As it stood now, I wished I hadn’t gone. It started with getting all dressed up, special care of my hair, my lipstick, mom all happy and singing hymns. She has a beautiful voice, my mom. Up until now, I’d say I’ve loved church and Sunday school, learning all sorts of stories from the Bible I never knew, and memorizing psalms and poems from Song of Solomon, and how to pray. It feels good to know that I’ve got a loving and caring Jesus to guide me and watch over me. We talk when I’m upset or scared. Well, not really talk, but I know he’s listening and helping me. And we love to sing. I love singing hymns and Christmas carols, and really, it’s how I learned to read long before other kids did. By four, I knew most of the words in the hymn book, and Dad had helped me back then. We drew pictures and made presents, we helped make food baskets for the poor, we visited nursing homes to sing. It's all different now. The kids at school make fun of people that go to church, and so do the teachers, really. Not exactly, but you can tell they aren’t believers. Like it’s only a thing for children, right? And the only religion we study about in school is Islam because the teachers say that Muslims been discriminated against. Those girls wear head wrappings to hide their hair, and I’m the strange one? Maybe. The baptism changed everything. All dressed up in my new slimming dress, feeling lovely, Mrs. Barclay whisked me into the special room behind the choir to get me ready. She handed me a starched bleached white robe and said, “Here’s the big day, my dear! Take off all your clothes and put them on this chair; put on the robe…it ties in the back. Pastor will be along when you’re ready. She vanished. I could hear the organ starting to play the prelude for service, and the opening homily. My Aunt Peggy was attending in the congregation with my mom, but she had arrived after we did, and I hadn’t seen her yet. I was slow and confused. Feeling shaken at the sudden revelation that I’d be naked beneath the robe, I shivered with anxiety. Mrs. Barclay had left me in this large…closet…alone and naked with a scratchy robe over my tender skin. I changed my mind. I didn’t want to be baptized. I heard the choir begin: “Just as I am……” and was soothed for a moment. Just then, the door opened and in strode Pastor Nestor, smiling in what might have been an attempt to be reassuring. He wore a white robe, as well, but his was gold edged and soft. He took my hand quickly and led me up two steps to the baptismal tank behind and above the church choir. I never even had time to scan the congregation for mom and Aunt Peggy. Pastor said some words about Lamb of God, giving my soul to the care of the Lord, and before I knew what to do, he placed one hand over my mouth and nose, another across my new breasts, and dunked me over his knee backwards underwater. It seemed like forever before I heard some words about washed in the blood cleaned of sins child of God something something. Cold, drowned, rat-like, I stood miserable before strangers hearing strange words feeling empty and ugly and old and naked. When I returned to put on my beautiful new dress, it looked silly and ridiculous. My wet hair resisted all combing, my underwear seemed to not fit. Rushing to the sanctuary's opening, ragged and cold, I found my mother shaking hands with Pastor Nestor. In the car, she explained that Aunt Peggy had already gone home, and we rode back to our house, Mom repeatedly seeking something from me I couldn't give. A smile, a joy of salvation. For the remainder of that day, my parents seethed at one another: mom had forgotten the applesauce Dad liked with pork roast. Christine’s mother wouldn’t let her come over, nobody answered my texts, and my brother left to go back to college before dinner was finished.   I felt utterly alone, and when I tried to ask Jesus for help, he was strangely absent this time. I knew he wasn't gone forever. It was just that he didn't like Pastor Nestor and that church. My salvation is a week watching Taffy with her four new puppies, all the love there is,  growing furry, soft; and it is enough to let the sunshine warm dark places inside.

83bcjr

An old heart-shaped box of chocolates

“There you are Grandpa, did you enjoy my college going away party?” his eldest granddaughter asked. “Yes, Miss Payton, I have. Although, I have to admit to not understanding most of what you and your friends were discussing. Before you go, I need a few minutes of your time. Can you please join me in my study in ten minutes? I have something for you.” “Of course Grandpa, let me say goodbye to Ashley, then I’ll be right in.” Her grandfather made his way through the old family home to his study. As he passed the pictures lining the old hallway it was like walking back in time. To a time when he was young, then married, then with children, and now grandchildren of his own. The sights and sounds of those yesteryears swept into him, and an unconscious smile came to his weathered face. His study was nothing spectacular or grand, but not quite utilitarian either. The simple desktop had few things with which to clutter the space. What was most important was the coaster sitting next to the laptop. To most people the coaster was just something you set your drink on to keep from staining a surface. But to Grandpa Bill this coaster had held his coffee cup, his water, or a glass of his favorite single-malt Scotch. It all depended upon the time of day and why he was at his desk as to what the coaster might hold. After he was done speaking with his granddaughter the odds-on favorite would be Scotch. As he was contemplating the empty coaster, he remembered why he had asked Payton to come to his study. Reaching down into the bottom drawer of his desk he reached all the way to the back and found what he had been seeking. A heart-shaped chocolate box from the early 1970’s. He held the box to his chest, remembering the last time he had seen it, then set the box on the edge of his desk and moved to the grand old rocking chair facing out to the setting sun. Right on time his granddaughter entered, with her youthful exuberance and cherubic smile. “Chocolates!, thanks Grandpa, I’d love one” Payton stated as she reached for the box. “Wait, don’t open that box yet, please. Let me explain what is in that box first. Come, have a seat here on the sofa and let’s talk.” Slightly taken aback, Payton did as asked, and sat on the sofa next to his rocking chair. “I have to tell you the truth Miss Payton, there aren’t any chocolates in the box. No, that box contains something completely different than sweets.” Payton smiled and sat back on the sofa. “I know you love to tell stories Grandpa, how come I get the feeling this might be a long one?” “Only as long as it needs to be. So here goes.” “That box contains everything I have ever failed at. All of my regrets, all of my bad decisions, all of my fears, and all of my hatred. All tucked securely into that box” the old man stated. “I – I – I don’t think I understand you right now Grandpa. I’ve heard your stories. I know you spent years in the Air Force. I know you ran your own successful business for years. And after all of that you followed your dreams and became a best-selling author. I also know how much you loved Grandma, and my dad, and all of your grand-children.” “Do you really want me to see now what bad decisions you made over the last 80 years of your life?” she asked him. “Yes, I do.” With that, her Grandfather reached over to the corner of his desk and handed her the old chocolate box. Payton eyed the box carefully and still wondered whether this was the right thing to do. Why was he doing this? What could she possibly want to know about what had gone wrong in his life? It was at that moment when Payton realized something. The box was incredibly light. She eyed her grandfather one more time, then slowly lifted the lid from the box. Inside was a single piece of old, now yellowed paper. On this piece of paper was a single word written in large bold print. OPPORTUNITY “I’m sorry Grandpa, but I don’t think I understand. You said this box contained all your regrets in life, all your bad decisions, and all your fears and hatred. How does that work with the single word opportunity?” A small smile crept to his face, while the obvious confusion on her face distorted her beautiful smile. “The famous inventor Thomas Edison went through 10,000 combinations of materials before he came up with a light bulb that worked long enough for him to consider it a success. When asked about those 10,000 failures he replied none of them were failures, he just knew 10,000 ways which didn’t work.” ‘As you go away to college and on to the rest of your life, I want you to do something for me. Any time you find yourself in a situation where you think you have failed, stop. Stop and understand what others might see as a failure, you will use as an opportunity to learn, to grow, to do something different. Learn to love again after relationships that don’t work. Learn to see the beauty in the world around us even in the face of despair. Learn to live your life in one which you always look for the opportunity in the face of adversity.” It started as just a small tear in one eye, then developed into both her eyes opening up with a veritable flood of tears. “These were the words given to me by my father many years ago before I left for the Air Force, I have given these same words to your father before he went off to college. And gave these to your uncle when he was about to leave. I now give them to you.” “Grandpa, thank you. I had no idea what to expect when I came in here. I should have guessed something was up when I told Dad you wanted to see me in your study. Now I understand the smile on his face when I told him about this. It all makes sense.” “Life 

4px9wz

Have a Blessed Day Sweetheart

“Are you there God? It’s me, Iris,” I say looking at my reflection in the bedroom mirror. “IRIS! Get your ass downstairs, the bus ain’t gonna wait much longer,” Grandma shouts from the bottom landing. “Crap,” I grab my backpack and run down the stairs two at a time. I’ll have to finish my conversation with God later. I give Grandma a kiss and grab my lunch sack from her hand and fly out the front door, the screen slamming hard behind me. The bus is already starting to pull away and I have to run fast to catch up. “Jesus Christ. How many times I gotta tell you, be on time boy, I mean kid,” the bus driver says to me. “Sorry Donny,” I tell him before making my way to the back of the bus. “Hey shit for brains.” It’s Lorence. He’s an 8th grader who tries to make my life miserable. “Just ignore him Iris. Here, I saved you a seat,” Casey says and pats the seat next to her. She’s my best friend. I spend every Friday night at her house. She’s all bubble gum and Barbie Dolls, that’s what I like most about her. Her hair’s tied up in a big pink ribbon and she’s wearing her Sunday best. “Why you got your fancy clothes on?” I ask. “It’s picture day, or did you forget?” She smirks. Damn, I did forget. Grandma is gonna kill me. Her favorite thing in the world is displaying my school pictures every year. She said this year is the most important one too– 6th grade, my first year in middle school and the year I became Iris. When we get to school, me and Casey make our way to Ms. Henley’s class. I raise my hand as soon as the bell rings and ask if I can go call Grandma. Maybe she’ll bring my picture money. Another reason I need a cell phone! Course she’s pissed off, she was about to go to Bingo at Church. “If you weren’t so busy brushing your hair and staring at that mirror, you’d have remembered,” she scolds. “Just like your mama. That girl, I swear, she spent hours at the mirror…” her voice trails off. The school secretary, Bea, is holding her hand out for the phone receiver, but Grandma is still on the line. I can hear her breathing. She doesn’t talk about my Mama much. “You still there Grandma?” I ask. “Nevermind all that– I’ll drop the money at the office. Go back to class now Iris.” “Yes Grandma,” I say. “Oh Iris,” she adds. “You looked real pretty this morning. Make sure to flash them teeth in your picture. I picked out a special frame for it.” “Yes Grandma,” I say. She hangs up and I hand the receiver back. “She’s dropping my picture money off,” I tell Bea. “I couldn’t help but overhear. And I agree with your Grandma, you look nice today Iris. Real pretty.” I smile and do my best beauty pageant wave. Just like I imagine my Mama would have done. She was a pageant queen and the pride of Ludowici, Georgia. Before she gone and got herself murdered by those two truckers off of I-95. Grandma said she was too friendly to folks at the restaurant where she was waitressing; said she gave men the wrong impression. Pictures are scheduled for right after lunch. “Don’t get dirty,” Ms. Henley yells at us as we head to the cafeteria. When it’s sunny, they let us have lunch outside if we bring cold lunch. Me and Casey always bring cold lunch. We run as fast as we can past the kids standing in the lunch line, through the double doors and right to our spot on the other side of the basketball courts. “You coming over Friday?” she asks as we open our bags. “Course I am. You want me to bring anything? Grandma said she’d make Rice Crispy treats if you want,” I say before taking a bite of my peanut butter and jelly. Before Casey can reply, there’s a commotion over by the PE shed where they keep all the balls and nets and equipment locked up. “Did you see that? Something fell from the sky and landed on the roof!” I exclaim. Casey and I look at one another for a split second before getting up to run to the shed. There's definitely something on the roof moving around and making squawking and crying sounds. “Iris, we’ve got to help it!” Casey moans. She loves animals. I look around and see an old ladder under the shed. Since I forgot to dress up for picture day, I’m in my regular jeans. Course I have my favorite shirt on. It’s pink with hearts and says, Have a Blessed Day Sweetheart. It don’t really matter if my knees get dirty, you can’t see knees in a school picture, so I crawl down and get the ladder. I pull it out and lean it up against the back of the shed. “You want me to go up and see?” I ask Casey. “No, let me go first. I know more about injured animals than you, from helping at the shelter last summer,” Casey says and goes first. “Don’t touch it, you’ll get all dirty,” I tell her. “Just hold the ladder Iris.” She looks down at me to make sure I’m holding tightly… I grip on something fierce, I don’t want Casey to tip over and fall. “What’chu doin back here pervert, looking up girls skirts?” Lorence comes around the corner and sees me holding the ladder for Casey. “Iris, it’s a baby eagle! It’s hurt, oh no, it’s wing is broken!” Casey looks back over her shoulder and sees Lorence standing next to me. Her face sinks. “Come down now, I wanna have a look,” Lorence yells at Casey. I know she don’t want to, I know she wants to stay up there and save that baby bird. “I said get yer ass down here!” Reluctantly, she crawls back down the ladder. I haven’t moved an inch, I’m still holding on to make sure she gets off safely. Then, without warning, the moment Casey is off the ladder, Lorence slams me to the ground and steps on my back as he climbs up. I scramble to my feet, ignoring the blood on my hands and gravel pressed into my face. “You’re an asshole Lori.” My heart is pounding. I just pulled the family nickname card. I know for a fact he hates being called Lori. But, I don’t care. He can’t push me around and Casey too– she wanted to help that baby eagle. All Lorence is gonna do is torment it until it dies. “What’d you call me?” He cranes his head around with red glowing eyes. He’s like a bull; steam rolling from his nostrils as he jumps down to face me. He’s twice my size. He looks at my shirt, then he starts laughing. “I said, you're an asshole!” “You pathetic little freak, with your queer clothes and high voice. You think you can just become a girl because you want to?“ “I am a GIRL. And you’re an ASSHOLE!” Lorence pulls back his arm and Casey screams and I imagine myself ducking and running away, like in the movies. Instead I stand there and he punches me square in the face and everything goes black. “Iris, sweety, I wish you girls hadn’t been behind that shed playing around. I asked you not to get dirty,” Ms. Henley’s voice is calm as she dots my face with a cold cloth. We are sitting in the office. “You are going to have a terrible bruise here for your picture.” “Ugh, well, Lorence was picking on me and Casey,” I inform her. “Yes, Casey told me everything and Lorence is being suspended for his behavior. I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t get transferred to the Middle School in Hinesville after this little stunt.” “Ms. Henley?” I ask. “Yes, Iris?” “What’s gonna happen to the baby eagle? Can we raise it in class?” Ms. Henley and Bea start laughing. “I thought you might ask. We’ve called the wildlife refuge and they are on their way right now to pick it up.” I smile. I remember what Grandma said, about smiling big for my pictures. “Is it time for our pictures?” I stand up and run my fingers through my hair. I look down and brush myself off. “Run along– they are in the library just finishing up.” It takes four weeks to get our pictures back. I’m so anxious, but I don’t want to look at them until I get home and can do it with Grandma. I make Casey get them from the pile at the front of the class and put them in my backpack so I can’t see what they look like. The entire bus ride home is torture! “You want to go visit Lady Eagleton this weekend? Mama said she’d drive us to the wildlife refuge,” Casey asks, distracting me momentarily. “Really? Yes! I bet she’s grown so much since we saw her a few weeks ago.” The bus pulls to a stop in front of my house. “See you tomorrow!” I shout and dash off the bus. I only have one thing on my mind now. I race into the house. “Grandma! Grandma!” “Lord Almighty, what is it girl?” Grandma comes rushing out. She’s got flour on her face and a rolling pin in her hand. I laugh when I see her. “Biscuits can wait, I’ve got my pictures,” I announce and take my backpack off. I bend down and pull them out, careful not to look. I hold them with the picture side facing my chest. My heart is happy in a way I can’t explain, but also scared too. I don’t know why, I mean, I seen plenty of pictures of myself as Iris. There’s just something about this one, this one that’s gonna go on Grandma’s wall. School pictures have been her thing, for as long as I can remember. “Come on now Iris. The suspense is killing me!” I flip it over so she can see. Her eyes well up with tears when she sees my face. “Oh darling, you look– well you look perfect.” I turn the pictures around and look at them. My hair is a little messy, not too bad. My favorite shirt is clean, no visible dirt. My smile, perfect. But, there, big as it could be– a bruise on my cheek from where Lorence punched me. Ms. Henley said it could have been a lot worse, if he’d got my nose or my eye, but instead he hit me square on the cheek. “It’s not too bad,” I reply after looking for a few moments. “Iris, do you want to know why I think they are the absolute perfect first school pictures for you?” Grandma asks. “Why?” I ask. “Because my sweet girl. You’ve got fight in you. You stood up for your friend and yourself that day. Something I’d always wished your Mama, God rest her soul, would have done. She was such a people pleaser, that well, she forgot to tell people no. I have no doubt that you are going to face some hurdles in your life, but damn it, I know YOU will survive.” Grandma lets out a sob and wraps her arms around me. “Grandma! You’re getting dough all over me,” I protest and wiggle out of her grip. She laughs and sniffles and steps back. “Well, then I better finish fixin supper. Put that picture in the frame I got, the one with them fancy little sparkles. Then get washed up and come help me in the kitchen.” “Dear God, it’s me, Iris. I just wanted to say, thank you–”

qug96g

Sky At Night

SKY AT NIGHT by Chris Fallon * “Well that was dramatic,” she said when she finally opened her eyes. Then she rolled over and threw up half the contents of the river.  I flopped alongside her, trembling, my arms and wrists burning from the struggle to drag her from the water and the reeds. “What’s your name again?” she asked when she’d finally stopped coughing. “Toby,” I said with a nervous laugh. “Toby,” she said. “I need you to promise me something.” I nodded that I would promise her anything. “Don’t mention this to my dad, okay?” “Mention what?” I asked, and smiled. “You’re alright,” she said. “You’re cool.” I was more than cool, I was soaked through and freezing, but I was lying next to Natalie Sykes and I didn’t want to ever move. We lay there for the next few minutes, staring up at the starless sky, and for a moment her fingertips brushed against mine. “It didn’t used to be like this,” she said. “Like what?” “Like just: empty. What happened to them? What happened to the stars?” “They’re still there,” I said. “We just can’t see them. Light pollution. But they’re there, every minute of the night and day.” “Wow,” she said. “You’re a poet. You’ve inspired me.” She clambered to her feet. “I’d best get going.” We walked together the quarter of a mile home; Natalie bare feet and dripping wet in a wedding dress several sizes too big; me in my T-shirt and jeans. I was so cold by this time that I could barely speak. “You don’t say much do you,” she said. “You’re the strong silent type.” “I am,” I said. “But my teeth are chattering.” “Ha ha, that’s funny. What’s your name again?” “Toby,” I said. “Well, Tobes, thanks.  And please - don’t say anything to anyone.” “Mum’s the word,” I said. “Yes, I guess it is.” We saw the flashing light of a police car entering the close from the main road and drive slowly towards us. “You’d better scram.” I stumbled into the shadows, ducked down and headed home, clambering over the fence to the back door. And I watched as a policewoman got out of the car, and draped a shiny silver blanket around Natalie’s shoulders, then gently led her across the street by her arm to her house.  Mr. Sykes came to the front door and stood silhouetted in the doorway.  She didn’t look at him as she entered, but kept her head bowed, and he stepped away from her as if scared to be too close. An ambulance arrived an hour later.  And that was the last time I ever saw or spoke to Natalie Sykes. I’d wanted to talk to her since the day she moved in, but whenever I passed her in the street she’d look down or look away and on the bus to school she’d make a point of sitting alone, always putting her bag down on the seat beside her, and looking out of the window the entire journey, as if seeing the world for the first time. She didn’t seem to care that everyone thought she was unfriendly and a weirdo. She was unfriendly and a weirdo, but that’s what we liked about her. We were fascinated by Natalie Sykes and the rumours of her sleepwalking. A year ago, the story went, she had wandered out of her house at 4:00 am, in just her pyjamas and slippers, and was found standing silently outside the corner shop, carrying two empty milk bottles, her eyes wide open but unseeing. When the policeman woke her she ran screaming. Then there was the story — whether true or not was impossible to know — that a month before, on Natalie’s fifteenth birthday, her father had woken in the middle of the night to find her standing at the foot of his bed, clutching a pair of scissors which she then began to plunge into the duvet by his feet. The thought of it thrilled me, thrilled all of us. She seemed so ordinary at school, pale and shy and softly spoken. But her sleepwalking set her apart. The rumour that she had almost stabbed her father in her sleep gave her an otherworldy glamour; she was simultaneously terrifying and magnetic; she was almost a film star. My friends were envious of me when she moved into the house directly opposite. And they’d ask me: have you seen her? Have you seen her sleepwalking? They imagined her, as I did, wandering the streets like Lady Macbeth, in a white nightdress, arms outstretched. I was sorely tempted to lie. I would have loved to have told them: yes, she walked along the bank of the river past my house. Yes, I woke up and she was standing outside my window. Yes, she came into my house…into my room… But I knew that if I started lying it would be impossible to stop, and Natalie would hear about my tales and she would know I’d lied. I trained myself to sleep lightly, like a cowboy with one eye open, and some nights I barely slept at all. I kept my curtains open and I’d lie awake listening for any sound that might tell me that Natalie had begun her nocturnal wanderings. I kept my shoes at the foot of my bed and a flashlight by my pillow. If I ever saw her wandering spectre-like into the night, I’d be there. I’d follow her. “What are you doing? What are you up to?” my mother asked one morning at breakfast. “What do you mean?” I said. “I’m eating my Cornflakes. What do you mean?” “You’ve got dark circles under your eyes. You hardly say a word to me anymore. I’ve seen your homework… your marks…Toby: are you on drugs?” “Drugs?” “Drugs. Yes, drugs, you can tell me.” “Drugs! It’s always drugs isn’t it! It’s always drugs! If there’s something wrong with your kid it’s always drugs.” “Is there something wrong?” “No! I’m eating my frigging Cornflakes!” “Toby. Is it drugs? “No!” I stormed out. It was worse than drugs. I was in love with Natalie Sykes. Natalie lived alone with her father, an esteemed barrister according to my mum. Which, I discovered, is not someone who serves you coffee at Starbucks, but someone who gets you off a murder charge or something. Who knew! Her mum died when she was three. Suicide apparently. That was pretty much the first thing my mother told me when they moved into the street. She learned this at a parents’ night at school and couldn’t wait to share it. “Isn’t that sad?” my mum said. I agreed it was. “Very very sad,” she said. “Yes,” I said. “Extremely.” “Imagine. With a three year old.” I tried to imagine. I could not. My dad had been suicidal when he left my mum. That’s what he told me anyway. But he’d pulled himself together and instead of ending it all, he ran off with one of his students from El Salvador: Azura something. Pretty gorgeous actually and only twenty two. Result! * November 18th. 10:15 pm: Natalie’s light is still on. 10:35: It’s now gone off. Midnight: No sleepwalking. Yet. November 21st No sleepwalking. November 23rd Natalie went to bed at 10. No sleepwalking. Dec 1st I need a girlfriend. Life’s too short - and so am I! Dec 3rd No sleepwalking. I’m discontinuing my journal. 3:00 AM: I hear something! * It was just after 3:00am;  I heard what sounded like crying coming from down the street, from the direction of the river. I looked out of my bedroom window towards Natalie’s. All the lights in her house were out. There was frost on the lawns and pavement, sparkling under the street lights. But there was no sign of movement anywhere and no sign of Natalie. Then I heard the crying again, a soft plaintive wailing like someone at a funeral who’d been asked to “keep it down.” This is what someone who was sleepwalking sounded like, I told myself; sleepwalking and probably speaking in tongues with the spirit world. I jumped out of bed and threw on my jeans and sweater, and a fresh pair of socks that I’d put aside just in case then I tiptoed downstairs and grabbed my trainers and parka and headed out. My mother slept with headphones on listening to dolphin music so I felt fairly confident I wouldn’t wake her. The cold took my breath away, but it was a different kind of cold from the cold you feel waiting for the bus or walking home from school in a howling gale. It was exhilerating somehow. I loved the feeling of it, of being out on the street at 3:00am and seeing the neighbourhood asleep; everything still and calm and silent like a Christmas card. I realised I’d never been anywhere at 3:00am before, except my bedroom.  I could still hear the crying and it seemed to be coming from the direction of the river. I jogged the hundred yards to the bridge, and through the wooden gate next to it and began walking along the towpath back towards my house. It was darker here and it took a few moments for my eyes to adjust; there was no sign of Natalie, but there was something moving at the river’s edge. It stopped and stared at me for a full two minutes as I stood immobile, my heart racing. And I could just see the reflection of the water in its eyes. Then, it bounded up the bank to the tow path and ambled towards me, a dead bird hanging from its mouth. I’d seen foxes before, but never so close; it almost brushed my leg as it wandered past. It was fearless, and suddenly I was fearless too. When it got to the gate, the fox turned and looked at me for a moment as if to say “a pleasure to meet you” and then ambled across the main road towards the fields. I was mesmerised. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. The following night I left the house at 2:45 and sat in the shadow of the bridge for an hour but the fox didn’t reappear. It was another three nights before I saw it again, hunting water rats by the water’s edge. He (I’d decided it was a he by now) must have become aware of my scent because he stopped hunting suddenly, and then slowly came towards me. He stopped six feet away and stared at me for a full minute, then bounded up to the tow path and was gone. It snowed that Christmas, and a sudden storm knocked out our electricity for three whole days and nights. We had to cook on a camping stove and eat by candle light. When I say ‘we had to cook on a camping stove’ I mean my mum, obviously. So she wasn’t as thrilled about it as I was. Mr. Sykes and Natalie had food delivered. The entire village was in total darkness and for the first time in my life, when I went out on my secret midnight walks, I could see the milky way.  I’d sit at the foot of the bridge and gaze at the glimmering reflections of the stars in the river and wished that Natalie could be there with me. But she never came. In February it was so cold that parts of the river froze.  One night I saw my friend Mr. Fox scampering across the ice to a small island in the middle of the river where a duck head had laid its eggs. It was 4:00 in the morning when I got home. I stood in the front garden and stared up at Natalie’s bedroom window and - as if I’d magicked her into being - I gradually became aware that she was in her room staring back at me. The next night: the same. And the following night: the same. Each night I came home from my midnight wanderings Natalie would be watching me from her bedroom window. And every time I’d feel my heart beating, just as I had when I’d first seen Mr Fox.  But I never saw her sleepwalking and she still didn’t talk to me on the bus to school. And then it was Spring. Mr. Fox turned out to be Mrs. Fox, and her off-spring liked to frolic by the river in the moonlight while I sat by the bridge and watched over them like a doting father. I’d trained myself by now to wake up every night at 2:00; then - from 2:00 to 3:30 I’d go down to the river and sit in the shadow of the bridge. Then I’d head home, and sleep soundly until 7:30, when my mother would shout at me to get up and get down for breakfast. This weekend she was away, thank heavens, visiting aging relatives in Wales and leaving me with a whole bunch of ready meals to micro-wave, and plants to water. There was still some lager left over from Christmas, and a half a bottle of port in the cocktail cabinet — hopefully it wouldn’t rain and I could make a night of it. “Make a night of it.” Boy! - talk about “Be careful what you wish for. ” I must have dropped off because I was jolted awake by a sudden crash. Then: a flailing white thing in the water, arms, a face and cries of help! As I eventually told the police: I threw off my parka, peeled off my sweater, kicked off my shoes and socks and waded into the water. Holy Cripes it was cold. Natalie was yelling “Argh! Argh!” and thrashing around. And then suddenly she was gone, as if she’d been dragged under the water by two giant hands. Now it was my turn to flail around. I felt something grabbing at my ankle and I was pulled off my feet and I was under water for at least a minute I swear. But then suddenly I was free of whatever it was that was pulling me under, and the river was shallower here and I was able to stand.  Natalie was face down, her dress billowing in the water like a parachute and keeping her afloat and I tried to turn her over, but I couldn’t. The weight of the dress held her face down but I was able to turn her face to one side, cupping my hand under her chin and walking backwards towards the river bank. I pulled her out of the water and began pumping her chest, as I’d seen people do a hundred times on TV, and like people on TV praying and screaming “Please! Please! Come on! Stay with me!”. And reader: it worked! “Well that was dramatic,” she said when she finally opened her eyes. Then she rolled over and threw up half the contents of the river.  * The police inteviewed me the following day. She had implored me to not say anything, to her father, to anyone and then - in her pneumonia delirium - she had told them everything: how she’d become obsessed with me, and watched me every night, how she followed me to the river and spied on me from a distance; how she had jumped from the bridge in her mother’s wedding dress because she knew I didn’t care about her. She was lovesick, distraught, suicidal… because of my total lack of interest. It all made perfect sense and the police bought it. But I did not. She was hiding something. I don’t know if she jumped into the river because she was in some kind of somnambulistic trance; I don’t know. I don’t know if she tried to stab her father in her sleep. All I know is: she didn’t jump into the river in her mother’s wedding dress because I wasn’t interested in her. But that story stuck. That became the version of events. I was simultaneously the hero - for rescuing her - and the villain; for driving her to attempt to end it all. My reputation soared. Where once Natalie Sykes had once been the most enigmatic weirdo in the school - that honour now fell to me. Girls in the year below me would step aside in the corridor as if scared to brush against me; I’d hear excited whispers as I passed. On my birthday I received fourteen - yes fourteen - anonymous cards and letters. Natalie was in Intensive Care for seven weeks and because of the new pandemic I couldn’t visit her. By the time she’d recovered her father had sold the house, and shortly after - my mother learned at a parents’ night - they’d moved to Leicester. Leicester! A letter arrived a day ago from Natalie; the first words I’ve heard from her since that night. She writes that she’s divorcing her father, and changing her name from Natalie to Skyler. I’ve always loved the name Skyler. She writes that she’s applying to Durham. Which is awesome actually, because that’s where I’m going. END Chris Fallon: Dec 10th 2021. Word count: 2,875

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My Misty Secret

The sound of the school bell buzzing causes me to jump in my seat. Next I hear Miss Jones half yelling my name, “Misty Hawkins, what’s gotten into you?” I quickly blurt out, “Ma’am?” Looking at me with a furrowed brow, she follows up with, “I had to call your name 3 times before you heard me. Where is your head?” Feeling my body heat rise as my complexion quickly made its way from a cafe au lait color to a deep scarlett, I shyly answered, “So sorry ma’am, I don’t…” And then she let me off the hook by saying, “Class dismissed!” and giving me a quick “watch yourself” warning glance. I apologized once more before leaving because I genuinely liked Miss Jones. She gently touched my arm, smiled, and said, “Don’t worry, it happens. I was your age once.” As I walked away I thought, she might have been my age once but I doubt she had a secret as big as mine. I had been named for my secret. Misty means cloudy or covered by mist. I was given this name by my Yaya. She’s my mama’s mother. I call my dad’s mother grandma. I was given the name because I was born en caul, meaning some part of the amniotic sack or in my case, all of the sack and its contents were intact when I emerged from my mother’s womb. This is rare anywhere, only happening once for every 80,000 births. In my mother’s family it’s not only rare but a cause for celebration. For them, en caul babies are said to be born with the veil, which means they will be granted some rare psychic gift. The fact that I was born with my veil fully intact had mystified all who were present for my birth, which took place at home because I entered the world so quickly. Of note also, my mother’s Aunt Tilly, mostly called TT Tilly who acts as a midwife in Cajun country, just happened to be visiting that weekend. When the fluid filled sac around me came rushing out of my mother’s body I’m told everyone gasped and began crossing themselves. My mother’s family is Catholic along with practicing the vodun religion. When she saw everyone crossing themselves she panicked thinking something was horribly wrong with me until TT Tilly picked me up with a broad smile and her eyes all aglow. Half delirious from the pain of labor Mama had no idea what she was looking at. The only thing that kept her from screaming in horror was the triumphant look on TT Tilly’s face as she raised up the strange blob that was supposed to be her baby. When Mama slowly asked, “Is that my baby?” with a desperate and confused look on her face TT Tilly quickly explained as she went to work freeing me from my cozy protected orb. “It’s okay, your baby been born with the veil, that’s all. That’s a good thing, a real good thing! She gone have special powers.” Tilly was expressing our family’s belief that en caul births are generally seen as lucky or good things, though that has not always been the case. Reports from darker times tell of babies being burned as witches following en caul births. My en caul birth remained a secret among the women in my mother’s family from day one because of my father’s conservative Christian beliefs. My mother is descended from a long line of vodun, also referred to as voodoo practitioners with psychic abilities, my father is a fire and brimstone pentecostal preacher and his family believes the same. Most people find it hard to understand how two people from such different religious backgrounds could even begin to think about getting married, and yet, my parents did. I am living proof of their love and I have grown up hearing the tale of how they met and fell instantly and madly in love the moment they laid eyes on each other. He had come to her small town in Texas running a tent revival, which her family had no interest in attending but had no problem with the many townsfolk who did attend. My father typically ate dinner with one of the many families in town. These dinners always consisted of multiple delicious foods which he truly enjoyed. As they were entering town he had noticed a small country store that also sold food to go. A large sign outside advertised, “Fried Bologna Sandwiches.” From the moment he laid eyes on the sign he knew he had to have a fried bologna sandwich before leaving this lovely little town. They had been his favorites when he was a boy and he hadn’t enjoyed one for years. He intentionally kept one night free so he could work on a new sermon while enjoying a fried bologna sandwich along with an ice cold soda and some cookies. My mother was the store cashier that day. According to my father, she was so beautiful he had trouble speaking at first. She thought something was wrong with him but he finally managed to get it together and say a few words to her. She too was smitten, but able to keep her wits about her. He invited her to the tent revival and she went, to the horror of her family members and shock of the townspeople. After all, everyone knew that my mother’s family had been practicing some form of voodoo since their ancestors had set foot on American soil from Africa. Like most Africans, they had learned to enmesh their sacred voodoo rituals within the rituals of Catholicism for the sake of keeping themselves and the religion alive. But there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that they were still faithful to their ancient religion. When the revival left town a few days later my mother’s family figured that would be the end of it. They were wrong. My father returned to visit whenever he could over the next 2 months since the revival remained fairly close. When it came time for the revival to leave the area they both agreed they couldn’t live without each other so they got married and my mother joined him on the road. My parents decision to marry only 2 months after meeting in spite of their opposing rigid beliefs just shows how madly and completely they loved each other. At that moment, they only cared about being together, not how they would deal with the complicated religious differences that would pop up. From what I could tell, my mother set her religious beliefs aside and became, from all I could see, a dutiful pentecostal preacher’s wife to my father. We traveled with the tent revival up until I was six years old. They tried to leave the tent revival when I turned five so I could start kindergarten in the town where we would live for the rest of our lives or at least until I graduated. Unfortunately there was no post available for my father at that point, so my mother convinced him that it was okay to let me start kindergarten with her family in the small Texas town where he had met her. He was somewhat concerned about her family being voodoo practitioners but Mama successfully argued she was raised in it from birth until she married him and it hadn’t hurt her. Did he honestly think a year was going to corrupt me? I had been spending summers with Mama’s family since I could remember so going to live with them for a whole year was like being told I had to go spend a year at a summer camp where I loved all the food and activities. I always went home a little fatter than they sent me, so Mama and Daddy chastised me and Yaya about my eating too many of her cakes, cookies, and candies. They knew I had a mean sweet tooth and Yaya always made sure she had some of my favorite sweets on hand. The year with Yaya was good, but not as good as the summers because only a few of my cousins were there. Most of them were home til summer because of school. The biggest difference that year was that Yaya started talking to me about my birth and teaching me about my birthright. I had never really heard about Vodun before that year and most certainly didn’t know I had been born with the veil or that I was destined to become psychic. Yaya broke it all down to me in words that my kindergarten brain could comprehend. Yaya gave me many gifts throughout my life but she gave me the most important one that year. She went out of her way to make sure I fully understood what it meant to be given the gift and responsibility of having psychic powers. She put emphasis on teaching me to ignore what I saw on TV when it came to psychic powers. Yaya said most of what’s on TV and in the movies about psychic powers is pure bullshit! Without her lessons I would’ve been absolutely horrified when I grew up and started seeing movies like “Carrie” and “The Exorcist”. Yaya had told me she had her first psychic experience shortly after her first menstrual period. She told me that seemed to be the time of awakening for women in our family. When I asked, “But Yaya, how will I know when I’m having my first psychic experience?” “Why Baby, I can’t tell you that. Everybody’s gift shows up differently.” “Differently?” Whaddya mean Yaya? How did yours show up?” “No Baby, I can’t tell you how mine showed up. Then you’ll expect yours to show up like that and it probably won’t. Just trust me, you’ll know when it comes. Everyone always does.” Now here I am, a week after my first period and I’m sure I had my first psychic experience in the form of a dream three nights ago. It was so vivid I could have sworn it was real. I was walking to school along the same path I take every day with the same group of kids from the neighborhood. I have a few good friends I hang out with but I only know most of the kids by face. We cross a railroad track on our way to and from school everyday but it’s no big deal. I’ve never seen any kind of train on that track before, during, or after school. But in my dream, not only was there a train, it was a fast moving train. It came through with such speed and lack of warning that several of the children were caught unaware. Most of them scattered before the train got to them, however, there was a blonde curly haired boy with bright blue laughing eyes in my grade who became startled and tried to turn back rather than run forward like the others. The thing is, our eyes connected just before he disappeared behind the nose of the monstrous locomotive he was trying to outrun. I was yelling no, don’t turn around! I woke up terrified in a dead panic, thinking it had really happened. I actually cried with relief when I realized it had only been a dream. That had been two nights ago. I felt so connected to the blonde curly haired boy after the dream that I made it a point to learn his name the next morning. Mitchell, as I learned he was called, was not only a fun loving young man, he was also quite intelligent. He wasn’t with his usual group of friends this morning so I figured he was probably absent. Then I heard my name being called from somewhere behind me. Not recognizing the voice, I turned quickly to see who it was. To my surprise there came Mitchell, running towards us all smiles. At that moment I thought, “Oh no, what have I done? Was learning his name a mistake? Does he think I want to be his girlfriend or something?” Then a cold shiver went down my spine! As he got closer I recognized the clothes he was wearing. They were the same clothes he had been wearing in that awful dream! I couldn’t help but turn my attention to the railroad tracks. OH MY GOD! There it was! A freight train! What was it doing here? Barreling down the tracks, just like I had seen in my dream. My attention flew back to Mitchell! I had to find a way to keep him from setting foot on that track. I instinctively knew that if he did, his young life would end right there, TODAY! I had a matter of seconds to come up with a plan so I was a nervous wreck. My friend Earlene was talking to me and couldn’t figure out why I was staring behind me not responding. Then she said, “What’s wrong with you? Are you havin a breakdown or somethin? Then I thought, that’s it! I knew exactly what to do! As soon as Mitchell got close enough I fainted, into his arms. I had learned enough about him in one day to know that he wouldn’t walk away from anyone who had just fainted without first trying to help. Plus, I had a plan B in case he tried to leave. It involved my refusing to release Mitchell’s arm and crying hysterically until I knew the murderous train had passed. Fortunately there was no need for plan B as the train passed while Mitchell was gently laying me down on the ground. The train had been sent through our town on those tracks when it was rerouted around a broken down train. Someone didn’t know our tracks had been out of service for years, which could have led to countless other issues considering the fact that the tracks hadn’t been properly maintained for countless years. Parents were upset because nearly every child in our town crosses those tracks while walking to school and there had been no warning that a train would be coming during a time when children were crossing. They most certainly would’ve arranged for special crossing guards had they known. Everyone agreed, it was a miracle no child had been hurt or killed. The railroad flat out refused to dismantle the tracks but agreed to erect some sort of barrier to keep future employees from accidentally rerouting trains through our town without ample warning. A barrier that had to be dismantled would at the very least give folks pause before sending trains in our direction. I tried to play the fainting spell down by claiming I had skipped both dinner the night before and breakfast that morning. The school nurse wasn’t having it. She called my parents who in turn rushed over to the school filled with concern. I was more embarrassed than anything else. Now I was known as the girl who fainted upon seeing the train. I wanted to tell Mama right away but I couldn’t with Daddy and the nurse there. They wouldn’t have understood if I had tried to explain that I pretended to faint because I knew Mitchell would be killed by the train if I didn’t. And I knew it because I had seen it in my first psychic dream two nights before. Nope, it was better for me to just lie there like I couldn’t explain what had happened. Once we got home and I got Mama alone in my room I practically burst with the news. After all, I had saved Mitchell’s life and she was the one person I could tell. I expected Mama to be excited for me so when she wasn’t I felt hurt. When I asked why she wasn’t excited she said, “Because I know there’ll be times when your gifts won’t be enough to save friends and family members from harm or just plain old disappointment. She pulled me close and hugged me tighter than I ever remembered while saying, “When that happens, promise me you’ll talk to me or somebody who understands your gift rather than blame yourself or take it personally. You’re my baby and I don’t wanna see your life ruined behind your gift. Our family’s seen it more than once, which is why we’re so careful. You understand me?” Her eyes looked so sad they made me want to cry. It didn’t take a psychic gift to understand they had seen something that caused serious heartache. Knowing I had fully come into my gift Mama said it was time for us to pay TT Tilly a visit. I didn’t know why but I loved visiting with TT Tilly so I didn’t complain. It was important enough that we flew in to see her so we didn’t have to waste the 8 hours it took to drive each way. When we arrived, rather than take us to her house, TT Tilly took us to a beautiful house in the woods where several women were waiting. They were different ages and colors and their hair was adorned with all kinds of flowers. I immediately asked Mama if I could put flowers in my hair and she said, “absolutely, you are the guest of honor!” What I didn’t know then, but found out later was that we were there to celebrate my coming of age and coming into my gift. TT Tilly said this special secret ritual usually happens after a girl’s first period but before she came into her gift. In my case the timing was a little bit off, but it was okay. I enjoyed being showered with attention and spending time with all the women and girls that evening. In the end it felt good knowing I was a part of this group of women who understood and accepted me and my gift.  

x47dme

Mama's Lesson

I uncovered the box, and the drive to declutter my parent’s basement evaporated. Tucked under the stairs of my parent’s home, the box’s white surface bore my name in English. HANAE Mama’s beautiful handwriting had changed very little since she had made this mark. Pulling it open, I was transported to another place and time, when my hands had lifted this lid and beheld the same treasures they did now. I marveled at the faded green sweater sitting at the top of the clothes inside, the first that Mama had ever made for me. We lived tucked away in the attic of Papa’s two-bedroom childhood home. After Papa brought us across the ocean to live in America, Mama stopped using as much English with me. All of our things sat in boxes that were never completely unpacked into the living space of the house. We’re just staying with Grandma for a little while. In the quiet hours of the day, with nothing else to do and no one to do it with, I journeyed into that labyrinth of my parent’s memories, dust well-settled on their lids. Inside I found Mama’s things from home; trinkets, pens, plastic folders full of papers, and clothes. These things would come out to be used from time to time, but always went back to their box. Year after year, they looked the same. Sometimes, there would be a new box, and our room grew a little smaller. I went to bed beside Mama each night, on a floral pink pillowcase she sewed for me. I liked to press my back against it, and walk my little feet up the slanted attic ceiling as far as I could. From beside me, Mama would look up from a novel and scold me not to, because the oil on my feet would make the ancient white paint dirty. “Nobody comes in this room anyway, so it doesn’t matter!” “We have to take great care of all things. Even if no one sees.” In the morning, she would make toast for me, never with as much butter as I wanted. She stood with me and held the honey jar, so I could stir the wooden wand around in the little amber pool. We both would watch as the bulb of golden sweetness stretched down and mixed with butter on my waiting toast. If I asked for more butter, Mama said if I ever wanted to cook well, I needed to learn what tasted ‘just right.’ One day a black carpenter ant crawled across the white kitchen floor. I gave this ant a drop of honey from the jar, so she would stay a while and eat. Her legs got stuck in the droplet for a while, and she moved the way I did when I trudged in the mud of a low tide. Alarmed, I scooped her out and wiped the drop from the floor. Ants won’t invade a kitchen that’s clean. Some afternoons, Mama would buckle me in my car seat, and drive us into town to do the shopping. I was to be a quiet helper while she picked groceries, home goods, or clothes for us. I liked when mom shopped at the store in the mall that had a T.V. I wasn’t allowed to watch any screens except for weekends, so it always felt like a special treat. It made me grateful we always took a little longer at the registers. Mama would count and calculate and sometimes prioritize. Every trip was a lesson in arithmetic, but I never mastered her art of head-math. Calculations simply seemed to make room to suit her, while I had to fight every number and decimal. Never was she more focused than at the grocery store. Not just for price, but for the dates on each package. The weight of each apple and cabbage. Length of every sausage and zucchini. In our cart went organic produce, meat, and bread. Rarely did she buy colorful treats like juice, cookies, or candy. If I asked for them, Mama said sugar helps colds get stronger. Isn’t it nice not getting sick? Remember how it hurts when your stomach doesn’t want to keep food? Candy was for the Saturdays Papa took me to the Marina. Where Mama said no , I could often get Papa’s yes . I felt so clever. Every evening at five o’clock, Mama and I had dinner ready on the table. Papa woke up before the birds each day to go to work, so by the time he came home he was already fighting sleep. Papa came home as fast as he could to taste whatever magic Mama conjured up in the kitchen. There are few in the world with her sense of taste and resourcefulness. At her table I learned the taste of food prepared well. Papa needed plenty of rest, but he never shied away from fixing the things she couldn’t. The things she could fix, though, she fixed . Worn clothes were carefully patched and mended by her dexterous fingers. When we couldn’t buy something new, she learned to make it. She drove into town to the yarn shop to learn from the employees, and then came home to knit and knit. She carried her work everywhere, and in the Fall of my second year of school, she pulled a green sweater over my head; her first creation. She warned me not to get it dirty or tear it, and I didn’t. One day it was gone from my dresser, and eventually my memory. Until today. I never felt much want in the dawn of my life. I wanted for things, but never that which made my stomach growl, my fever break, or my shoulders dry and warm. I felt aware of the strength in my body from the food she chose, and the power of my mind from the math we did. The kindness of heart I curated in the shadow of her care. I knew how to care for things, and make them last. I tucked the sweater back into the box bearing my name. It was my responsibility to make sure that the next child who wore it would learn to do the same.

gjr0rc

Wagt Ash-shay

‘More sugar?’ my uncle asked. A heaped spoon hovered threateningly.  ‘No, no, no, thanks amo .’’ my hand preemptively splayed over the top of my full-to-the-brim glass tumbler, steaming my palm. A thick layer of sugar sand had settled at the bottom, resting expectantly under the crystal amber sea of gunpowder mint tea. Shay. Chay. Cha. Thee. Tea. My father’s brother considered bartering with me, for just a moment, but there were other guests in peril of empty glasses. So he issued a disappointed ‘ Akh, habibi ’, with the slightest shake of his head, then moved along the chain of men and boys. We all sat either on cheap white plastic garden chairs or up-ended crates, decked with small cushions. Twenty men and boys assembled on my uncle’s roof, under the blanket of stars that coated the desert sky. Members of our direct family as well as more distant members from the wider tribe. Our clothes reflected 150 years of history and conflict. My father’s cousin, a Mufti, graced us with his presence. He wore an amamah - a kind of red fez, suffocated by a pure white turban. An Ottoman holdover. His body was shrouded in long, grey (or were they blue?) robes. My favourite uncle wore an old suit, a tan holdover from the mid-1980s with a deep scarlet paisley-patterned tie. He sported a thick black Saddam Hussein moustache, as was still the fashion for men of his age. My grandfather wore a white Egyptian cotton jalabiya , a black chequered keffiyeh held together with a black igal rope band, and a grey suit jacket as old as my father. He wore sandals without socks displaying his strong, manicured feet that put mine to shame. I sat in my own small black jalabiya , a gift from one of the assembled family members, and an unnecessary pair of blue Levi’s denim jeans. I carefully manoeuvred the full tumbler to the makeshift table in front of me, before a steaming became a burning, and turned my attention back to my Gameboy. Though the sound was off, my mind invented music to drown out the myriad conversations happening around the ring of chairs. Smatters of chatter on gossip, politics, religion and food. One group would lean in close across their chairs to whisper about this or that. Peals of laughter rang out as memories of childhood indiscretions were dug out of communal memory. One moustachioed cousin yelled across the circle to get the attention of another. The menthol smell of cigarettes, strong oud perfumes, fresh sweat and our sweet tea mingled in the lukewarm air of a Jordanian summer evening. A familiar smell of comfort. ‘Khalid, baba …’ my father called me by my name, reversing the relationship terms, as Arabs are wont to do. My mind registered his voice but Super Mario had my attention. ‘Khalid’, a note sterner and with a light touch on my arm. I gave a barely-audible sigh, turning to him while fluidly switching off my gameboy. The batteries were running low anyway. ‘Yes, baba ?’. Go down and ask your auntie Nida for the sweets. ‘Ok baba ’. I stood and put my Gameboy on the chair, as though reserving it. I eyed my tea quickly wondering whether I could chance a sip but it was still steaming hot so I hopped around the chair and went to the stairs. Pounding down the stairs, my sandals slapped on the crumbling stonework like a fish escaping a net but landing on the boat. My auntie wasn’t in the kitchen but I paused to breathe the aromas of a hundred spices while I was there. I moved to the reception room and knocked lightly on the thick wooden door. Dozens of female voices thrummed in the room, an internal echo of what was happening above. There was music also and the buzzing of fans. They could not hear me. I opened the door ‘ Amti Nidat , I…’. Two of the seated women had immediately reached for headscarves before realising it was me. A barely-there shift of mood from indignation to delight. I was the darling nephew, grandson or young cousin. I wasn’t a man. ‘Come here Khalid!’ my auntie Hala offered, beckoning with her hand. ‘Sorry amti , I’m looking for amti Nidat , I need to ask her for the sweets’. My eyes roved the room, trying to pick her out from the myriad faces. ‘Ok ok, she’s not in the room but Saida will help you. Saida. YA SAIDA.’ Without getting up she yelled for her daughter’s attention and received it. Saida paused laughing with another teenage cousin, ‘Yes mama ?’. ‘Go help Khalid with the sweets, yalla , quickly!’. ‘Ok mama.’ She quickly threw her white hijab around her head and expertly clasped it while rising and walking towards me. All in one expert motion. ‘ Yalla habibi , come with me.’ She took my hand and led me back to the kitchen. ‘ Ya Khalid, which sweets?’ she asked in the corridor. ‘You know, just the sweets.’ I responded, realising I didn’t know. We entered the kitchen and she rapidly pulled trays from various crevices and cupboards. ‘ Ya’ani, we have ghraybeh , baglaweh , warbat , knafeh , gadayef… ’. Baglaweh. Baqlawah. Baklava. ‘Something of everything, please habibti .’ She smiled in return and took out a pan to begin heating some of the sweets. She was thin and tall for her age, equipped with long eyelashes, a disarming smile and a fiery temperament that could meander from honey-sweet to warlike-danger. When I was bored she would often play writing games or board games with me while talking over the latest Arabic music, films or books. I think she felt my eyes on her head. She looked over her shoulder and flashed me a smile. I’d heard my father and hers joke - at least I hoped it was a joke - that we should be married one day. We were only separated by a few years but she was still older than me. Surely she would find a husband well before I was ready? The hints of a sizzle came from the pan as the knafeh cheese began to melt and the syrup boiled away. ‘Ok, we’re ready. Habibi, fetch me the plates’. I went to the cupboard with assorted plates. Not the fine plates used for more formal meals but the colourful, chipped ones, used for minor family occasions and I gathered together some of the larger plates. ‘ Bizzubt , exactly habibi those ones.’ She gently touched my shoulder in affirmation. I pulled the plates up and put them next to the frn ghaz . Gas cooker. Frn. Firin. Fournos. Forno. Oven. As she began loading, I reached for one of the triangles of warbat . Thick, sweet cream eager to leave folds of filo pastry and coated in pistachio dust and syrup. A nightmare of diabetes. And just within my grasp. Her hand lightly smacked mine away as she giggled. ‘ La ! Wait your turn. If you keep sneaking those sweets, you’ll get fat! Here, take this plate upstairs, yalla. ’ She thrust a large plate into my hands and ruffled my hair as I moved off. ‘ Akh , Saida!’ She must have had syrup in her hands; my hair remained in place. I emerged from the stairs into a cool breeze. I hadn’t realised how warm it had been inside. The poor women in their traditional Palestinian thawb and abayah. I instinctively checked my forehead to see if I was sweating and nearly dropped the plate and, worse, myself. Down the stairs. But luckily I kept my balance. My chair remained unoccupied but for my Gameboy but my dad was smoking one of his Dunhill cigarettes now. He knew I hated the smell and the /+risk to his health, even at this age. So he would very rarely smoke in front of me. When he caught sight of me edging towards him with sweets, he quickly took another drag and stubbed the offending white stick on one of the many ashtrays, proper and makeshift, on the tables. When my eyes caught his, I rolled them and increased my pace. ‘ Baba , you said you wouldn’t! Saratan !’. Saratan. Áizhèng. Rak. Kanker. Cancer.   ‘I know habibi, I know. It was just a little. I’ve just heard your great-uncle Radwan has died!’ ‘Oh?’ ‘You remember, you met him five years ago.’ ‘ Baba, how old do you think I am?’ He laughed as he picked up a couple of pieces of ghraybeh , a kind of shortbread.. ‘Take the sweets around ya Khalid.’ I moved around the circle of makeshift seats and the sweets began to disappear. When I had circled back to my chair, I put the plate in front of me and took my seat. There was a single piece of warbat left. I reached out to pick it up but as quick as a hummingbird, the plate left the table. Saida picked up the plate. ‘Mmm Warbat, my favourite.’ She grinned as she lay another fully-loaded plate back on the table. She winked at me and turned to leave. I shook my head and reached out to the new plate. There was no more Warbat . I didn’t care. I picked up my tumbler of tea again and sipped warm happiness. This is Hub . Hub. Ài . Agape. Liebe. Amour. Love. 

ms5tp8

Nicaragua and me

Time to Blume Are you there God? It’s me, Manolo. Ever since we moved to America Mama is not the same. Sure she looks the same. She has the same dark hair pulled into a ponytail and the same hands that make my favorite dish, Gallo Pinto, but she is not the same Mama. God, I need your help to get my Mama back. We left our farm in Nicaragua before the first rays of sun one December morning. Mama led the way carrying my little sister Ana. Mama wanted to leave before Ana woke up. Before the crying and whining. We were lucky she was sleeping. We tiptoed past the banana tree heavy with green fruit. If Ana saw bananas she would scream and then hold her breath until mama broke down and gave her a green unripe banana. Afterwards she would pat her tummy and cry. Up in the trees woodpeckers tapped tree trunks and spotted birds chirped. I waved goodbye to the monkeys pinching bugs off each other’s backs, cleaning up for their day. I understood the monkeys and the birds, without speaking a word. Mama told me we were going to a place called Wisconsin and I would have to learn some new things for my new life there. I would have to learn English, no more Spanish. I would get to see my Abuela. Mama said we were leaving and going to America for a better life. What better life did she want? I wondered as I looked at my best friends and the rising sun, a sliver of beetroot in the sky. Dear God, please come quick Mama is a puddle of tears. I don’t know what to do. Every morning in Wisconsin Abuela turns on all the lights to wake us up. The house is cold and the sky is the color of Mama’s bean pot. This world is silent, no sounds of birds and no chattering of monkeys. I miss my animal friends. When I was on the farm in Nicaragua I always had a few chickens and piggies to keep me company. When I was on the farm Mama would scatter maize for the chickens on the patio and sing every morning. When I went to school I played marbles with my best friend Antonio.  Abuela has a job cleaning houses. She said that the houses are tall like the colonial houses in Granada, but not painted in happy colors; yellow or orange like in Nicaragua. These houses have second floors and so many bedrooms. These houses have big TV’s and machines that wash the clothes and the dishes and even a little round machine like a stack of dinner plates that cut the grass. And now that we are here Mama has to clean the big houses too. Everything in Abuela’s house is crammed so tight. Couches crowd the walls and a table is piled high with envelopes. Abuela says those are her bills. Abuela uses the word “dollars.” She says “dollars” is a very important word in English, maybe the most important. I don’t know what “ dollars” are but they must be special because Abuela is always talking about them. Is this the English Mama was talking about learning? I wasn’t sure about learning this new word or any other words in this new language. English did not make Abuela happy. I was not interested in learning this new language. Dear God,Can you send us some “dollars” to make Abuela and Mama happy. Abuela has so many bills to pay and she needs help. At school I sit in the back of the third grade classroom. I can see tracks of braids running down a girl’s back and a boy's short hair sticking up like the coxcomb of a rooster. I watch Edward pull faces behind the teacher’s back. I notice Esther with hair the color of straw sneaking looks at me with her eyes the color of ocean water. I look away, in a trance, watching the snow swirling outside. I fold my cold fingers into the sleeves of my sweatshirt to stay warm. Mrs.Meyer, our teacher, is drawing a corazon on the white board. “Who can tell me what Valentine’s Day is?” she said. I sink into my seat hoping she doesn’t call on me, but Mrs. Meyer stretches her neck long and calls my name. “Manolo, Do…You…Know…What…This… Is…?” My face heats up and sweat beads pop up on my forehead. Thirty pairs of eyes are burning me. Everyone is waiting for me to speak. I know what a corazon is, I know Dia de San Valentín, but I don’t know how to say it, not in English. Dear God, I’m having a hard time at school. I don’t think I will be able to stay here. Do you think I can come back to Nicaragua? I think the teacher and the kids think I’m stupid, but I know the anwer I just can’t say it. How can I learn English so I can make friends at my new school? After dinner I play with Ana. I give her a little squeeze and she bites me and leaves teeth marks on my arm.I push her away. I try not to cry but the tears come anyway. Ana winds up like a crazy chicken. She yells and stomps her feet and before we know it she is like a hurricane whipping through the living room. Abuela is trying to scoop up the bills that are crashing onto the floor. Mama is chasing Ana and rescuing a tipping lamp. I don’t know if I should cover my eyes or my ears. When Mama catches Ana, Ana belts out a scream and stiffens her body like a rocket. Mama’s eyes are wet with tears too. I look at everyone in the room. I don’t think this is a better life. I am worried about Ana and Abuela, the bills and the dollars, but most of all I feel stupid because I cannot say Corazon in English. Mama puts Ana to bed and then she tucks me under Abuela’s fluffy quilt. Mama asks me how my day was at school. I tell her about the corazon and she says it’s time for me to learn English. The next day Mama takes me to the community center. All the kids are playing. Some are throwing a ball while standing in a circle in the Activity Room. I want to play too, but a worker lady leads me and Mama up to a different room with a computer screen and a box of Legos. “Por favor Sientate” the lady said. I am surprised to hear Spanish from a face that doesn’t look like mine. Inside the computer there is another woman. She speaks Spanish too. “Hola, Voy a enseñarte Ingles. I’m going to teach you English.” I dump all the Legos onto the table. This is my second time playing with Legos. They are new to me. Back in Nicaragua I only played with marbles. I click the bricks together and make boats and houses. Using Legos with the teacher on the computer, I learn about colors and the words above and below and in the middle. I still want to go downstairs to play in the Activity Room in the circle, but I think I will be okay here. I am learning English and I think very soon I will be in the middle of two lands, two cultures and two languages. Dear God, I miss my old home so much. I miss the color of the sunrise and all the animals. Do you think you can take care of everything for me? I think I’ll stay here a while. I think I’m going to be just fine.

hdy57t

The Crimson Reporter

 “Back in my day, we didn’t have to eat this bullshit,” Nana says. “Mom, language!” My mom stands across the room with her eyebrows raised. Nana has always been like this. Using the old language, talking about the old days, both of which were forbidden years ago. The governor decided that the old language was crude and unprofessional and talking about past times wasn't forward facing, not productive for society, so he outlawed both. “We all got to eat what we wanted and when we wanted.” Nana continues without even looking back at Mom. “Why can’t I get a steak burrito? Why the hell do I have to eat corn and beans when I’m one tortilla and some guacamole away from a sweet, sweet burrito?” A smile pulls the edges of my lips, but it extinguishes when I see my mother’s face. “Mother, please.” Her voice rises slightly. “Booker and I will be leaving now. Please finish your food. I love you.” The door closes as she retreats into the hallway. This happens a lot when we come to visit every week. The time is put into our schedule by the government, so, of course, we come every time. But most days, we end up leaving early, like today. Mom gets upset with Nana for one reason or another and leaves. I stand up to follow her out. “Will you be back next week?” Nana asked, perfectly composed. “Of course,” I paste on the warmest smile I can. “Apollo, can I tell you something before you go?” Nana has always called me Apollo. It’s the name my parents wanted to give me when I was born, but the government didn’t approve it because the name Apollo was too popular that year. “Apollo?” I sit back down, not wanting to be rude, but the thought of Mom out in the hallway by herself crosses my mind. Nana smiles. “Go to the buffet and grab my book.” she says. I walk into the next room and slide open the first drawer on the buffet. “It’s the red one,” Nana calls from the other room. Probably every birthday card Nana has ever received in her ninety-seven years of living is packed into the drawer but a red corner peeks through. I grab onto it and ease the book out of the drawer then walk to Nana and sit next to her on the couch. I can’t help but notice her corn and beans sitting untouched on the coffee table beside us. “What’s in the book, Nana?” She gestures for me to give it to her and I do. She adjusts herself in the chair. All her movements are slow and her bones crack. I hate the thought of becoming as old as her, although I would never say it aloud. ‘Age brings wisdom. Wisdom brings age’ is a well-known quote used by many scientists working to improve the lifespans of our people. But still, I can’t quite quell the dread that rises when I think of sitting, as Nana does, for hours at a time, only having the next meal or weekly visits to look forward to. “This is my journal,” she starts, “from when I was young.” I’m not sure what to say so I just nod and look at the red fabric covering the book. “I couldn’t have been much older than you when I started it, but hell, I don’t know if I even remember how old you are.” She chuckles to herself. I flinch a little bit at her use of the crude language of her time. “I know you think I’m just some boomer who just can’t accept that the rules have changed, but I want someone to understand.” She’s looking down at the journal in her hands, not me. I feel as if I’m invading her privacy by even hearing this, even as she addresses me. “Can you take this for me? And read it? Maybe then you’ll get it.” The wrinkles around her eyes deepen as she smiles. Even if I wanted to say no, I couldn’t. She sets the book on my lap. “Goodbye Nana.” I say as I head for the door. I don’t look back, but I run my thumb over the cover of the journal as my mother comes into view at the end of the hallway. The subway is not a long walk from the nursing home where Nana lives. Still, it feels endless. Mom’s tense and everyone else is at a scheduled activity. We’re the only ones walking, making us a subject of interest for the officials along the streets. Mom holds my wrist firmly as she speeds down the sidewalks. One of the male officers across the street catches my eye. The journal in my hand feels so obvious now that we’re out in the open. It’s red, not likely to blend in well with the browns of the buildings behind me or the grey and white of my clothing. I hold it closer to me as the officer’s gaze intensifies. The tunnel leading to the subway is in sight. The officer’s feet are moving now. We have drawn the attention of more officers on the block now and I can see that three are moving with us toward the tunnel. It’s starting to sink in that I don’t know what’s in this book or what rules I’m breaking by having it. The book is not government approved, meaning I’m not supposed to read it. That’s a minor offense since people read passed notes constantly. The concerning part is that it’s Nana’s book. There must be hundreds of old language words tha could get me in endless trouble. The tunnel steadily gets closer, but so do the officers. My eyes grasp the gun on the officer’s hip across the street. His hand hovers about a foot from it. This is all irrational. There’s not much out of the ordinary here. Other than the fact we aren’t at our scheduled activity, we just look like a perfectly normal family walking down the street. For all they know, we could be really late for lunch. I know they wouldn’t shoot us or anything, but the knot in my stomach won’t ease. The tunnel is so close. Only five buildings away. Four now. The officer takes off running for the tunnel. Before I can think, I’m running, too. There’s a brief moment of darkness as we enter the tunnel where I question if the officer will follow. Footsteps ring in my ears for a few agonizing seconds before the bustling people of the subway come into view and envelope us. Even if the officers wanted to search for us now, they couldn’t find us in the chaos. I’m dragged through until I sit in the vinyl seat. My mind wanders, thinking of why Nana wants me to read her journal and why it was so important to her.   May 27, 2020 George Floyd was killed two days ago. Two whole days since Chauvin put his fat-ass knee on Floyd’s back and made him yell until he didn’t have air to yell anymore. Today, in Los Angeles, I joined hands across the freeway with my companions. When I got there someone handed me a sign. “I’m not a threat,” it said. I marched in the street with my head held high, even when the cops got there. It was the best ‘fuck you’ I could have given those pigs for all the lives they’ve taken. Natalia My fingers fly over the keyboard as I search. So far, I have only been able to find George Floyd’s public record. He died on May 25, 2021, just like Nana said. His cause of death: unknown. Nana’s journal says he died because of a police officer. I’ve learned about the police in school. They were the “civil force of a government, responsible for prevention and detection of crime and maintenance of public order.” I don’t know why they were abolished, though. It seems that’s not the only thing that’s left out. I can’t find anything on the protest Nana talked about. If officers were called, I’m sure it would've made news somewhere, but it’s as if it never happened. I hesitantly push open the door to room 224. Mom is behind me with tears still in her eyes. “I’m going to wait out here for a bit,” she says. I know she has no plans of coming into the room. She loves her mother but she doesn’t want to start any arguments.  “Just come in when you’re ready,” I smile. I don’t have to take another step to know that it’s not good. They had told me she wasn’t doing too well, but I didn’t know it was this bad. Nana is there, on the bed with her head on her shoulder. Her skin is so pale I can almost see the purple of her veins through her normally dark pigment. Her legs are covered by a white blanket that goes up to her waist, making it almost look like she’s melting into the bed. Her gown hangs off of her shoulders and exposes her jutting collar bones. Everything about her has a whisper of sickness from her deep eyebags, to her hunched back as she sleeps. I walk across the room to a small chair, setting my bag at my feet. I try to be as quiet as possible. Her eyelids flutter every few minutes. Her chest rises and falls. My eyes dance around looking for cameras. There are no gaps in the ceiling, no colored lights. No cameras. Slowly, I lean down and pull out the book. The next entry is a while later. July 12, 2020 George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, David McAtee, Dreasjon Reed, Manuel Ellis, Bothem Shem Jean, all people murdered by dumbass police. All because of their skin color. In the last month we have been in the streets every damn day. The precinct is burned down, people are dead, a revolution is starting. Through it all, I’ve carried this book. It has seen it all. The rioting, the brutality, the speeches, by both politicians and everyday activists. It has stood in front of those crowds with me to speak. As for the revolution, this book started a whole goddamn revolution! People saw it as a symbol of power and started carrying their own. They call it “the crimson reporter movement”. Most people have written about the protests and what happens in them. Some even posted them online. Gradually, I’ve started doing more than Black Lives Matter work. The crimson reporter project has followed me. There is a meeting scheduled tomorrow for anyone who knows where to look. We will have justice. The Crimson Reporter July 20, 2020 The police have started to recognize the red books as a sign of rebellion. I’ve kept mine hidden in recent weeks, but I’ve seen people everywhere being tackled, books ripped from their hands. The crimson reporters have been meeting regularly. We’ve discussed defense against the rubber bullets, tear gas, and tasers. More impressively, we discussed attacks to counter them. This isn’t just a revolution, it’s a war. The Crimson Reporter Nana’s breath hitches and her eyes snap open. She looks around, disoriented for a moment before her eyes land on me. “Apollo.” A smile grows on her lips. “Hi Nana,” I say, matching her smile. “How long have you been here?” “About half an hour.” I close the book in my lap. “Well, why didn’t you wake me up?” She pulls herself up in the bed, “We have so much to talk about.” She takes another look around the room before she starts talking again. “I see you have the book. Have you read it?” I glance down at the book in my lap. “A bit of it, but I’m kind of confused.” She holds out her hand for the book and I lift myself off the chair to give it to her. “I guess you would be. I didn’t take very much time to explain when I was younger. Where should I start?” I think for a few seconds as she slides her fingers over the book’s cover. “From the beginning? What happened to George Floyd? Who were The Crimson Reporters? What happened to them?” I realize I’ve asked too much and I slow down. “What happened to George Floyd?” I repeat. Nana sighs, “George Floyd was a victim. He was spotted on the street by a police officer. People have said they cuffed him for so many reasons I’m not sure why it truly was anymore, but he was cuffed and laid on the ground where Derek Chauvin put his knee on him, blocking his airways until he died.” “So that’s why you were protesting?” “They wouldn’t put Chauvin in jail for a long time. We wanted him there, so we protested. Later, we rioted.” “Was that even allowed? I know you used to have more freedom, but that seems a little far.” “Apollo, we were mad. Everyone was mad. The government, the civilians,” she hesitates before continuing, “us.” Nana's eyes light up more with every word. “There was nowhere to put that anger other than towards each other. We fought. They were small fights, at first, arguments with a police officer, brawls with civilians of different opinions. Soon, we were burning down buildings and being shot at with rubber bullets. It should have stopped then, but no one felt we’d gotten what we wanted. We kept pushing until we’d started a war.” Nana looks down at the book and flips the pages. “Wait, what? I know you wrote about starting a movement, but a war?” “No one ever truly means to start a war, but when all sides want different things, it’s a battlefield of negotiation and one wrong word is a landmine.” I nod my head, agreeing. “We fought hard, but in the end, we just didn’t have the numbers. People chose the comfort of normalcy rather than the newness of the rebellion.” “So if there was a war, why doesn’t anyone know about it?” I ask, but as I say the words, I realize I know. “The government doesn’t let anyone talk about it,” I whisper, “How can they hide something this big? A whole war under the radar. That doesn’t make sense.” “The government hid it well. The whole of social media was deleted. It was too interconnected to keep any one part. Politicians gave speeches about how ‘it was a terrible time for our nation. We were divided and should never speak of it,’” Nana’s voice takes on an airy tone as she says this last part, “Most people agreed with them and stopped talking. Anyone too close to the revolution was imprisoned if they weren’t quiet. Most who weren’t were killed by people who fought on the other-” Nana breaks into a fit of coughs. I clamber to my feet and grab her hand. She lets out another cough before taking a shaky breath. “Sit back down, boy. You act like I’m dying or something,” Nana smiles weakly. I try to, but it’s forced. “Don’t you think that’s enough talking for today?” Nana doesn’t speak, but I can tell that talking tired her out. I sit there with her in the chair for what feels like hours. Nurses pop in and out, giving her pills and fluids and taking blood. Mom is still outside when I leave for the bathroom. I try to get her to come in. She makes a flurry of excuses and I don’t push it. “Apollo,” Nana whispers hoarsely. “Yes, Nana?” I thought she was sleeping. “Come closer.” I walk next to her bed and kneel so we are almost eye-level. “This is it for me.” “Nana, don’t say that!” “It is. I know, you know, the nurses know.” Nana coughs again. The sound reverberates through my skull. “I never wanted to go out like this. Old and in a hospital.” Tears trail down her cheeks. “But if I’ve learned one thing, it’s that we don’t always get what we want.” More coughing. “I want you to know I love you, and that goddamn mother of yours, sitting outside that-” A cough cuts her off. She takes several breaths in before she stops this time. I hold her hand and kiss the back of it. Pressure builds behind my eyes but I refuse to let out any tears. Her breath catches on the way in. “August 6, 2022,” she croaks. She doesn’t take another breath. I keep waiting for the shuddering inhale, but it never comes. Her monitor starts its steady stream of sound and I finally let the tears fall. August 6, 2022 I found this book today. It’s been almost 2 years since I last wrote in it. Back when we could still use our voices without fear of prosecution. I feel stupid writing this, like anyone will ever find the goddamn thing. If you have a voice, use it. You’ll never know how much it’s worth until it’s gone. I wish I used mine more. Tried to speak professionally, maybe. I was good at it when I tried. I rallied people for a common cause; I inspired them, but most importantly, I put my voice out for the universe. You can do it, too. Make your voice heard and yourself known. You have opinions on something, maybe everything. Do something with them. You will never know how much that can be worth if you don’t use it. The Crimson Reporter My computer sits on the desk in front of me. My newly created anonymous blog pulled up on the screen. Typed out are Nana's word’s, each paragraph taken from an entry. The post button loomes in the corner of the screen and I almost press it, but first, I take a deep breath and type, -The Crimson Reporter.

ed7rl6

A Journey Worth Traveling

The worn, creased paper is soft against the rough pads of my fingers. Growing up, I’ve watched my dad fold and unfold this mysterious form of directions more times than I can count. Some are born with a sense of direction, like my father. I was not. Flipping it one way and then another does little to help with which end goes up. The lines cross, circle and swirl, blend and divide, and a dull ache forms in my head from staring too long. Is that a road or a river? A buzz in my pocket signals an incoming text, reminding me how easy it would be to let Siri guide the way. This is dumb. The man who donated to my existence thinks every eighteen-year-old boy should learn the art of ‘finding your own path’. We met an hour ago at the edge of town for breakfast and to discuss the instructions. Basically, I’m to find the circled destination without the use of my phone, avoid the interstate, and only ask a stranger if I’m desperate. So far, so good. No phone and no desperation. My beater truck now idles by the side of the road as I contemplate the next turn. A gust of warm air blows in through the open window and pulls my gaze to the burbling creek outside. Last night’s heavy rain moves swiftly downstream without hesitation, sure to arrive at its intended end. I’m glad someone knows where they’re going. The broken rays of sunlight glimmer over the surface of the water and a squirrel munches nearby on his mid-morning snack. I hate to admit the scenery is quite invigorating, and there’s no way I would have taken the time to notice if using google for navigation. Bringing my focus back to the task at hand, my finger follows the winding blue line that expires in a lake. River then. Which means I must be on the black line beside it. Good to know. Next turn is left, but in exact miles I couldn’t say. I missed that left turn. Oddly enough, I don’t care. Another opportunity will present itself shortly and I’ve enjoyed following alongside the shaded, curvy riverbank. My normal drive consists of air blasting and radio blaring, but today I’m content to let the sights and sounds of nature permeate my soul. It reminds me of family road trips—dad behind the wheel, mom making a game out of everything, and my brother and I fighting in the back seat. One particular canoe trip stands out of us drifting down river, finding crawdads, fishing, swimming, lunch on a sandbar, and hiking through the woods. I can still hear my mother’s yelp when a water snake paid us a visit. My younger brother snatched it up and we carried the thing around for hours, much to mom’s dismay. When your parents believe memories are more important than gifts, you have a lot of fun stories to draw from. Half an hour later and I’ve left the river valley and wound upward to the top of a mountain. Deciding to stop at a scenic lookout, my lunch is spread out next to me on a bench, I stare out across the expanse of treetops and fields. A turkey sandwich never tasted so good, and I wonder if I’ll be able to replicate said sandwich next month when I’m off at school. Mom has made sure to teach me the basics and I can find my way around the kitchen, but is anything ever as good as when your mom makes it? Doubtful. Anyway, thanks to her I won’t starve. Or have dirty clothes. With lunch out of the way, I make quick study of the route ahead, trying to memorize road names and numbers. I’m thinking the state line is fairly close, and then another hour should do the trick. I’ll drive right under the bypass, but won’t cheat so as not to disappoint the man who raised me. Integrity has been ingrained since childhood and modeled without fail. I realize I’m fortunate in the parent department, even if they’re a tad overprotective for a teenagers liking. After one last gander over the terrain and a restorative intake of summer air, I shove everything in the truck and take off for the final leg of the journey. According to adults, most of life doesn’t go as planned, and the last two hours have been proof of that. A wrong turn, turnaround, construction, and an elderly-driver later, and I’m finally entering the town circled in red. I pull over in the nearest gas station and slide the phone from my pocket. Since entering the city limits, I now have permission to enter the exact coordinates of our meeting place and give my brain a much needed break. I love you Siri. The pin pops up within a few miles of my position, causing a satisfied smile to break out on my face. I’ll be darn. I did it. The predetermined address is not what I thought it would be. I expected a restaurant or something along those lines. My father is seated on his hood, drinking from a Styrofoam cup, and gives me a thumbs up as I park beside him. The engine sputters in indignation when I turn the key and the door rattles its protest to being opened and closed. She’s old, but served me well today. I shuffle over to dad’s Camry as he slides down to greet me. His cheekbones squish his eyes together from a goofy grin. “You made it. How was the trip?” “Fine.” The eyebrows hike in high arches. “Just fine?” I shrug and kick at the pavement. He deserves more than that but I’m not good with expressing myself. “Yeah, it was kinda cool. There was some sick scenery and I only got turned around a couple of times. How long have you been here?” “An hour. I took the interstate.” Of course he did. “Sorry you had to wait so long.” He pats my shoulder, a proud-papa gleam in his eye. “No worries. The black sludge they call coffee kept me company.” I glance around the lot and wonder again why this spot. “What are we doing here?” “You’ll be driving back and forth to college so your mom and I thought it was time for a more dependable vehicle.” Now it’s my eyebrows that climb my forehead. “Are you serious?” His laughter comes out in breaths through the nose. “You betcha. They have some used trucks you might want to start with, in great shape and low mileage. But we can look at whatever you want. Within reason.” “Wow, Dad…I don’t know what to say.” “Thank you is plenty. We’re proud of the young man you’ve become and can’t wait to see what the next chapter holds. I have all the faith you’ll do great things. Now come on, we’ve got some cars to browse.” He spins on his heel and starts to walk toward the row of used vehicles. Making strides to catch up, I grab his elbow. “Hey, Dad?” “Yes?” “Thank you.” He nods in understanding. At least I hope he gets it. The man has spent eighteen years of his life investing in mine with little to no interest or return. Maybe someday, somehow, I can show him how much his sacrifices have truly meant and be the man he’s taught me to be. That in and of itself is a tall order but will no doubt lead to a life well-lived, and I’m willing to give it a try. By Carol Spivey

7zkw2c

Mother May I

Atop the long staircase she would stand with her silky robe tied tightly at her waist. Holding the banister securely always concerned about falling or tripping with sleepy eyes and wide yawns, she slowly descends. Clunking hard down each step. One by one the sound etched into my memory. The oak rail was finished with a shiny coating allowing the beauty of the natural wood to peer through. The steps covered in movie theatre bold carpeting, the grand centerpiece of the home.  I ran all the way home with a puppy in hand. Rocky was just wandering the streets. He was brindle, short, round, and hungry. He was happy to come to me and I was happy to capture yet another stray. “Mom, Mom, look what I found? “Can I keep this one, please, please!” “Samantha he’s filthy and smells. Put him in the garage. One night and then out he goes.” “Oh mom, please I want a dog so badly and I’m going to keep bringing them home until the day you say, YES.”  I campaigned for a dog for a long, long time until one magical day, I received the best surprise of my young life. Mom finally acquiesced with Dad and my brother lobbying her as well. She said,” We will buy you a French Poodle and if the dog pees in the house, out it goes. I waited my entire life to have a beautiful home and I won’t allow a dog to ruin it.” Our newly built home was decorated with light blue wall to wall carpeting throughout. Yellow pee stains garnished that rug for years to come creating a constant threat of my pet’s longevity. With each accident, I would be frantic that this would be the moment she would actually take my dog away. She would scream and cry that this little black French Poodle was ruining her beautiful home, “she’s got to go!” I would hide in the corner of my bedroom hugging Candy tightly and crying while whispering to her, “I will never let you go and if mommy tries to take you, I ‘m leaving too.” Mom never followed through on her threats, but she didn’t have much of a chance because Candy was killed at four years old by a hit and run driver. Mom was saddened for me but happy that Candy could no longer be destructive, to her.  Overwhelmed by the loss my mother felt compelled to allow me to have another dog. I was now four years older, and I vowed to train the new dog in such a way that she would never have any accidents. I knew my mother couldn’t live with the accidents, and I couldn’t live with the threats and the anxiety that each accident would bring. I stayed true to my word and read every training book I could till I devised a plan.   The house was Mom’s golden ticket in her life. It represented everything she did not have as a child as she grew up on the lower east side of Manhattan in a tenement apartment. This home gave her the stature that she believed she would only have in her dreams. As my parents were ascending the ranks of financial success they began to travel outside of the country. They cruised to Europe on the SS France, and it was on that transatlantic journey that they met people whose lives were completely different. Wealthy, educated, cultured. Among their new friends were a couple from Israel that my parents fell madly in love with. This couple was to shape our lives. Mom and Dad came home from that trip completely smitten with both the man and the woman. They, especially Mom, would talk about them incessantly and waited anxiously for their letters. When their letter would finally arrive, it was a huge event in our household. Everything stopped. My mother would call my father at work, and he would eagerly come home to read the letter. Dinner was put on hold until Dad could scrutinize the letter. Then they would have long, dissecting, conversations about the letter. Immediately they would respond and that was always laborious. Mom would write and rewrite making sure her grammar was perfect and that she sounded intelligent before the letter could be mailed. Her preoccupation with the letter took all her time and if she wasn’t writing it, she was thinking about writing it. And when she sent it, she was thinking about them reading it and what they might think. Perhaps they will misunderstand something and become upset with her. Of course, they were in a holding pattern until the next letter came. And round and round it went. Periodically their friends would make a date for a phone call from Israel. Mom and Dad were crazed with anticipation. Mom would speak first, loud and fast as the minutes were expensive and then Dad waiting impatiently would eventually say, “Sharon, when did you buy stock in the phone company? “She knew her time was up. He grabbed the phone and did the same, loud, and fast banter. For those few high-priced minutes, the earth stood still. Once they hung up, mom would be in a dream world for weeks, reliving the moments. “Mom, Mom, Hi, I’m home from school.” “Oh! HI!”, she would answer in surprise. “I didn’t realize the time. And off she swept, her head floating in the clouds. “Mom, Mom, dinner?” “Let’s see what your father wants when he comes home.” “I had my math and science tests today. They were awful. I believe I failed both miserably.” “That’s nice, she would swoon.” Okay, let’s try this again, “I would say sarcastically, “ I couldn’t answer any of the questions, I cheated off the smart kid in the class and got caught and I’m expelled for 3 weeks.”  “That’s so nice. Glad you had a wonderful day. I did too.” Once they started to travel and met this couple, there was no room in my parents lives for anyone except their Israeli friends , the label my parents referred to them as. I was glad that I had my dog, my companion that listened so intently and gratefully. A love that I so wanted to share and equally needed to receive. Mom and dad decided to purchase a home in Israel to be able to visit with their friends for weeks at a time. This began a period in time when they could always be together. If not in Israel, then they would visit in our home for months. My life became very lonely. My brother was away at college. I was home alone for most of my teenage years. If they were home, they were busy. I was cared for by a housekeeper, Pat, with whom I developed a loving friendship. Pat became my surrogate mother, but she was barely older than me. I sought parental guidance from Pat when the need arose, but she wasn’t prepared to mother someone barely older than herself.  When my parents returned home after one particularly long stint, my mother resented the depth of my relationship with Pat. I was forced to turn that off or else I would be in deep trouble. Deep trouble meant the silent treatment, long lectures telling me how wrong I was, and dad calling me and telling me to apologize to my mother. “Do it for me,” he would say. “Otherwise, she will make my life miserable.” Mom never fought her own battles and on occasion she would send in her Israeli friends to pitch her side. My home life was difficult. My mother was always making plans with her friends who lived in the room next to mine and with whom I shared a bathroom. They took lots of time grooming themselves, door open and so much conversation between them as they walked back and forth from the bedroom to the bathroom. They were always arguing and for some reason it sounded so much more dramatic when the anger is in another language. I remember how he doused himself in Aramis permeating the entire house. He walked around in sleeveless tee-shirts and boxer shorts with blue backless slippers and a Marlboro dangling from his hands. He was well soaked in his cologne leaving a contrail of smoke and scent. Dad referred to him as, Mr. Aramis. I learned that mom had a real affinity for him. He was a womanizer. Mr. Aramis with his Paul Newman baby blues, used those eyes to win woman over. He would raise one eyebrow, slightly cocking his head, and looking at his prey sideways, moving his head back and forth with just enough motion to message his intended. He used his accent trying to sweet talk Mom. She swooned and giggled over his tall, dark, presence. I gagged. With my privacy invaded I would resort to keeping my bedroom door closed while blasting my stereo. My senses were able to turn off the intrusion as I tuned out the sounds and their presence creating a safe environment to hide away in. I would lay in my bed with my dog at my side, staring up at an Easy Rider Poster with Peter Fonda taped to the ceiling. I would fantasize about becoming a mother and how I might treat my own daughter someday never denying her, her value.  Instinctively, I knew how I wanted her to feel and how I would treat her to get her there. I knew she would feel important and loved. She would have Elizabeth Taylor violet eyes that my mother always talked about, she would be smart and independent, which I would encourage, and she would be my best friend. We would do so much together. Everyone loved her and wanted to be with her. We would talk and laugh and be there for one another. We wouldn’t ever have to ask; it was a given. A decade later my fantasy was to come true, minus the Elizabeth Taylor violet eyes. I had given birth to a beautiful baby girl and on that day when she was placed in my arms for the first time, I held her close and promised to always be there for her and that she would never feel alone in this world.

x7o3o4

True North

He knew it would happen, One. Fine. Day. And Here. We. Are., he thought. He really should have brushed up on the life.skills 101 - he thought. He remembers 'How To Read A Map' being in the top 5 life.skills. He thinks. He isn't sure of that. He is sure he had a HUGE.CLUE that day, about three and a half years ago, when he and about four of his closest friends, could not grasp the concept of working a rotary phone. 'Let your fingers do the walking' was only for dialing, not web-surfing? Maybe. He knew that day, about three and a half years ago. He knew he should have 'read.up', maybe even 'smartened.up'. But he was too busy having, what the non-elect call, FUN. Always a FUN distraction from taking 30 minutes or less to 'read.up'. If. Only. The map is unwieldy. Too big. Too much information, all.at.once. He knows he should know this. The 'school' said he should know this. They gave him a C passing grade in geography class. So he knows he should know. But the map, the paper, all of those lines, and colors, and WORST.OF.ALL...numbers and letters. All on this BIG.MAP. He unfolded it for the third time, and ripped a hole in the middle when he did. 'I can probably buff that out', he thought. 'It'll all be ok', he thought. It was starting to get dark. He knew how to put a tent up, that's one thing he knew. Where would he get a tent? Now? No one is around. No one has been on this road for hours. He crossed the road's embankment and went to sit in the woods. With the BIG.MAP. He was hungry. And thirsty. He needed the map to tell him where to go to get some supper. He unfolded it for the fourth time. There was a pointy star looking thing on the top. His grandfather had something like this, a compost? No, compass! That's right! He remembered 'True.North' or something like that. But he didn't remember what it meant, exactly. He was going to get around to it, one. of. these. days. He. REALLY. WAS. 'Where am I now? That'll be the ticket'. He had come from the southern part of the village, when the Gray Punicators came into view on the horizon. They were very loud. And very dark. And everyone ran. He does not know what happened to the other runners. It was chaotic, and he is so tired now. He knows there is a stream close-by. He is looking for it on the BIG.MAP. Blue squiggly lines mean water, he is most sure. But there is this thing called scale at the bottom, with some more numbers, and some dots too. Oh, boy. He is getting hungrier. 1 : 50,000. Oh, boy. He refolds the map and closes his eyes. He never had to work anything like this out before, not one day in his whole, entire life. Oh, boy. He is really thirsty now. He does have a small flashlight, on his old key-ring. It is working. YES! He unfolds the map for the fifth time. And shines the light. Right through the hole in the center. Just at first. Then he looks for the name of the road he is on. And does not find it. There are some numbers, 'routes'? 'interstates'? He only knows this is Old Line Lane. He didn't know what the mapmakers call it, or what number they assign to it. He may just have to sleep here tonight. He hears the rumblings of the Punicators, not too far off. He better shut the flashlight off. He knows that much. He shuts his eyes, too. And thinks about his grandfather. All the THINGS. HE. KNEW. That wealth of knowledge, brimming over - he could have had it all. He was going to get to that. One. Fine. Day. Unshakeable faith, his grandfather had. What would THAT be like to have, and to hold?, he thought as his stomach growled, and other noises got a little louder. There would be no sleeping in this night. No mapreading or eating, either. No sir-ree-bob, none of that at all, he thought. If only. He remembered his grandfather talking about Jack London. His grandfather talked about a lot of people like that. His grandfather read a lot of books, when he could get them. He read the newspapers, mostly from trash bins. His grandfather was almost always 'lagging behind' everyone else, but he was one of those, that once he caught up, there was no regression. EVER. He didn't remember, exactly, what his grandfather said about Jack London. He knew about The Call of the Wild, he remembered that movie, and heard it had been a book first. He does remember that The Call of the Wild was NOT what his grandfather was talking about with the Jack London. He thinks it may have had something to do with a fire, but he is not sure, exactly. And another dog, too? But he is not sure, exactly. Something about building a fire? Maybe? ‘If that was ever a movie, I guessed I missed it’, he thought. The noises were very loud. On the road. Close-by. He stayed very still. Hardly breathing. Hardly thinking. But thinking he smelled his grandfather’s pipe smoke. Mixed with old paper. He thought he smelled that, but he wasn’t sure, exactly. They are passing by, on the road, the loud ones, the dark ones. Heavy-footed, heavy-clubb-ed. ‘Just keep going’, he thought. ‘Just. Keep. Going’. And they did. But, of course, that is never the end of it. Even he knows this much. This much, from the movies. That little tidbit of knowledge, alone, makes sleep impossible. His grandfather’s words, echoed back around, from so long ago, on a dark night a little like this – the same only different – ‘To build a fire sometimes requires imagination, son. We wouldn't always think so, though, would we?' He was no more than 5 years of age when his grandfather said that. He didn't REALLY remember him saying that, it was a thought in his head that he knew, for certain, was true.

p3587x

Are you there?

Are you there, God? It’s me again. I think this might be my last time. I’m pretty sick of coming to you and nothing ever happening. My friends all make fun of me when I tell them I still think you’re real. Even my parents make fun of me. Everyone thinks Christians are losers, but I’ve stood up for you, even when you haven’t stood up for me. I still choose to believe, and if those movies about fairies hold any weight, you need believers to exist. Well, I believe and could really use your help this time. I know last time I said it was really important for me to take this girl to prom, but this time is different. And I know the time before that I told you I really wanted to get that video game, so I could finally look cool in front of those guys from school, but this isn’t like that. No, this time is different. This time it’s for Mom. The doctor told her she’s pretty sick. She might be okay, they said, if she does the treatment. It’s really important to me that the treatment goes well, and it’d be really great if you could help Mom have the strength to get through it. We both really need everything to end up okay. You see, I just really can’t do this without her. I had to go live with my dad for a week, and it was miserable. His place smells like a dead rat. And his cooking is horrible. He burnt the mac and cheese he tried to make me. I don’t even know how you do that. Mom laughed and asked why I hadn’t made it, so I had to tell her that Dad had insisted. So you see, I really need Mom so I don’t have to live with him. Hey again. I know I said last time was the last time, but the doctor apparently told Mom that she had a pretty good chance of surviving, so it seemed like you decided to listen this time. So I just wanted to say thanks. Hey God. Mom’s chemo has been going alright. She’s just been really sick recently and has been having a hard time keeping food down. But she still puts on a smile. Sometimes I hear her crying at night in the living room, and when I sneak out of my room to see her, I join. She used to yell at me for doing stuff like that, but now she just lets me hold her. We lay like that until we both fall asleep. I think she’s scared. I guess I would be, too. I try not to talk about how much it scares me. Instead I try to tell her it’s going to be alright. I even tell her about when I pray to you, and how I think you’re really listening this time and that everything is going to be okay after all. The first couple times we talked about it, I could tell it made her really uncomfortable. She’d kind of laugh it off a little, but now she seems a lot more receptive to it. Even says thank you now and then when she thinks I’m asleep. Hey there. I’m really grateful for all that you’ve done but not today. No, today was pretty miserable. These kids at my school were making jokes about fucking my mom again. I’d made the mistake of talking about the last party they’d all been invited to and how funny it was that one of the guys had shit his pants. So, they started talking about how hot they think she is and stuff. I told them to stop because it was gross, but they kept going. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I snapped and screamed at them to stop. And then I really embarrassed myself because I started crying. The tears just kept coming down my face, and the whole class stopped and turned to stare at me. The teacher told me to leave for the nurse’s office, but before I got out the door, I heard someone whisper that my mom was going to die. Through my tears, I yelled that she wasn’t going to die. She was going to make it. She was going to be fine. That God was making sure of it. The teacher pushed me through the door before anyone else could say anything. But I could hear them laughing. I knew they were laughing at me. They let me go home after that, and my mom made me feel really weird by giving me more attention than usual. She even made my favorite: lasagna. We watched a movie together, too. It was really nice. In the end, I was pretty glad I got to go home, but I’m really nervous about going to school tomorrow. I really hope they don’t all start laughing at me or talking about my mom. So I could really use your guidance for if that happens. Hey. It’s been a while. My mom’s been doing a lot worse. I can barely look at her most of the time. Dad doesn’t make me go over to his place anymore. Now he just stays here in the guest bedroom. I think he’s scared, too. I think it really hit him when she answered the door one time a few weeks ago, and he got a really good look of her face. Oh, and she hadn’t bothered with a wig that day, so he finally saw how much hair she had really lost. She’s been walking around the house like a zombie as if she’s already dead. Sometimes I’m not sure if she’s really seeing me. I don’t even think she notices when Dad’s here. They don’t really fight like they used to. Hey. That was some real shit you pulled on me. I’d been really giving you the benefit of the doubt on all of those bad days. Just kind of figured the bad days were necessary to balance out the really, really good day that was coming. The day that she’d get better and everything would be okay. So I lived through all of those bad days pretty alright. It hadn’t been easy, but I’d had faith. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do? Have faith? Turns out everyone was right to laugh at me. You are a joke. Because if you were real she would have gotten better. If you were real, she’d still be alive. If you were real, you wouldn’t think of sending a kid to his Mom’s funeral before he’s even graduated high school. You certainly wouldn’t make me move in with my loser father. But I guess we have our answer. I’d say go to hell, but apparently it doesn’t exist.

2fht35

Black Lines

It was just a few black lines on a white cocktail napkin. Or what had once been a white cocktail napkin. It had faded, marked by time. It had been folded and unfolded. It had wiped away a tear or two. There was a stain left behind in one corner, sticky and dry at the same time. But the written lines were unblemished. Simple and neat. The pen that made them hadn’t bled as it marked out a path for me. If I was only brave enough to follow them. It should be so easy. A left turn here. A straightaway. A right turn there. A starting point and an ending point. A journey in between. But as I stared at the lines on the napkin held in my trembling hand, the doubt welled up inside of me. I could feel it rising, threatening to choke me. I pushed it down for now, but it would be back. It was always back. I looked at the black lines again. The point wasn’t the number of lines or even their direction. The point was what I would find along the way. Someone bumped into me as I sat there, momentarily breaking the spell that a few lines written on a white cocktail napkin had over me. I should have been perturbed but I couldn’t muster the feeling. The muttered apology came. I didn’t acknowledge it. If it didn’t exist between what lay between those few black lines, it didn’t matter anymore. At least not for me. I knew I was on the precipice. I think that much should be obvious. If I stuck one foot out I would fall. That should also be obvious. What wasn’t obvious, at least not to me, was if I wanted to fall. The lines represented the moment when everything about my life could change. It could lead to a future or it could lead to an end. They weren’t the same thing but either way, everything would be different. I stood. I sat back down and the moment of confidence passed. The two options warred within me, mixing and swirling in a terrible mess of indecision. Stay or go? Go or stay? Follow the lines? Throw the napkin away? I had tried to throw it away before. It hadn’t worked. Beads of sweat formed above my lip and I licked them away, the taste salty on my tongue. I decided that it was what fear would taste like. Or maybe what hope would taste like. I didn’t know anymore. “Do you want another one, sweetheart?” the bartender asked nodding to my empty glass. “No,” I replied sharply. I didn’t have time for meaningless questions. I blew out a breath not realizing that I had been holding it. I normally know what I have to do. But this was different. Just a few black lines separated me. Stay or go? Go or stay? Go. Stay. Two little words. Black lines. White napkin. Black and white. No gray to be seen. In a fit of anger, I crumbled the napkin up in my fist, my knuckles white, ready to dispose of it. It wasn’t the first time I had done this. My heart pounded. My breath caught in my throat. I paused again in indecision, in remorse and smoothed it back out, laid it out before me. I laid myself bare at the same time. Despite the violence against them, the lines hadn’t smudged. Even after all this time. They couldn’t be erased or destroyed. It should have been comforting but it wasn’t. They stretched out in front of me, smooth and straight, unfettered and confident in their purpose. Each line was mocking me. I turned the napkin over. It didn’t help. The lines were burned into my brain. Imprinted onto my heart. Go. Stay. What would I find if I followed the lines? Would I be brave enough to face it? And that was it. That was the main problem with those neat black lines. What it all came down to. Was I brave enough? Are any of us brave enough to face the answers at the end? The questions? Those black lines could lead anywhere. For me they lead to one place. A place that I had always wanted to go. And now that I had the way in front of me, a map to follow, directions laid out, I didn’t know if I could go there. I had wanted it for so long that the wanting had replaced the hope of getting . Go. Stay. I closed my eyes, the sounds around me fading away. It was only my breath now. In and out. It filled my lungs. Sustained me. Go. Stay. The words pulsed through my veins, replacing my blood, cycling through my heart, whispering to my soul. I was only those two words. I was only those few black lines. I stood on the edge and imagined myself going over it. There would be no going back. If anyone cared to look at that moment, all they would have seen was a girl, sitting in a bar holding a crumpled white napkin with a few black lines, eyes closed, breathing slowly. Would someone watching realize what they were witnessing? Did they know the power those black lines held? I was done fighting it. I breathed out again and this time I let go of the doubt. And while I expected emptiness in its place, all I felt was peace. It settled into my weary bones and I knew. I knew I was stronger than those few black lines on a white napkin. I was stronger than the agony. I was stronger than the fear. I was stronger than the wanting. Go. Stay. Go. My eyes snapped open and I stood, letting the napkin fall to the floor. I didn’t need it anymore. I had never needed it. I knew where those black lines would lead. And I was finally ready to follow them. I picked up my phone and dialed the numbers that those black lines mapped out, the ones that would lead me home.  

ndmbep

The Conversation

Tea with Nana “Mom, it’s such a beautiful day and I’m not wasting it on Nana. I want to hang out with Theresa today,” Willow whined. “Now, Willow, you know she loves visitors and you haven’t been to the retirement home in ages. She’s been asking about you. Just spend an hour with her for me, please, sweetie please?” Alice knew she could usually get an affirmative response with a ‘please.’ “Oh Mom, she is always putting you down, always putting everyone down, how did you ever come from someone so miserable?” Willow lamented. She had made this trip in to see her Nana many times, but always with the protection of her mom, and she dreaded going there without that armour. Now, her mom was asking her to go on her own. Although the deal was sweetened by the use of the family car, which was alluring indeed, Nana was cutting at the best of times. Willow had her license now for almost a year and she felt pretty comfortable behind the wheel, but nothing beat having the car on her own with no adult making comments or critiques. Her Mom was not harsh by any means, but freedom, being on her own, was delicious to say the least. “How am I going to avoid those crappy conversations with her Mom? It’s a miracle how you manage to talk her out of the downward spirals, she always seems to want to go. I’m not sure I can do it as well as you do. What is your secret and how can I avoid getting angry with her.” Alice thought about this question, raising her green eyes upward, "Hmmm," she said, "I don’t know, years of practice maybe. I do know that I try to focus on the things that she loves to talk about.  Things like the garden outside her window, or I try to go back to a time when she was young, she likes to talk about her youth." Willow contemplated her last visit with Nana, and it was true, she had talked about Nana’s past, even though Willow had tuned out, she was just relieved that she didn’t have to interject. Now she wished she’d paid more attention. I’ll make your favourite dinner,” Alice promised, as she took the laundry out into the yard. Who even hangs their laundry on clotheslines Willow wondered.  With mixed feelings of elation for the use of the Toyota, and dread for trying to make an hour seem like five minutes with ‘Nana Grumpy,’ she headed off to the Oakdale Seniors Residence just a twenty minutes drive from home. She wished it was an hour away, but she soon forgot the looming visit and enjoyed driving past fields and woodlands on the way into town. Once she parked the car however the feelings of inadequacy returned and she took her time getting out of the car, she stretched and arched her back like a dog getting ready to start his day. She glanced over at the austere façade of the residence that held her sharp-tongued grand mother. The walls of the entrance looked solid and the large fieldstones sparkled in the sunlight while the fat pillars gave the place an impressive feeling. The large veranda offered welcome shade in summers, where residents usually perched at various times of the day, but today it was void of the usual walkers and wheelchairs. She sighed and walked into the main foyer, and there as usual, was Gordon, a long time resident of the home who both greeted and pestered anyone who wanted inside. “Hey there, he shouted,” in a decibel that you knew, he had a hearing problem, “ Who you here to see?” “Hi Gordon, “I’m Sylvia’s grand-daughter, Willow. You remember me, right?” Willow knew it was a crap shoot with Gordon as sometimes he’d remember and the next time he’d forget, which then meant a long drawn out conversation about Sylvia’s room number and how long she’d been a resident, but luckily today Gordon did remember, or at least he said he did. It’s a funny thing with the elderly, thought Willow, they didn’t seem to remember anything that happened that morning but talk about something that happened a decade ago, and they were able to give a detailed analysis of the event. Once up on the second floor, the dread returned, as Willow knocked on her Nana’s door. “Who’s there,” came a rather weak and croaking voice, after a moment. “It’s me Nana, Willow. I thought I’d come to visit with you.” “Just a minute,” this time it was stronger and louder, more like her Nana’s voice.  She was wearing her usual baggy dress pants, and loose fitting floral shirt that Willow thought, looked incredibly loud and purple, not to mention, boring and embarrassing. Her Nana looked smaller than she had in the past, so much so that Willow checked to make sure she wasn’t wearing heals. “Why the heck didn’t your mother tell me you were coming,” snapped Nana, “I could have prepared a nice little treat for you, some lemon cake, or a cherry pie. Honestly, she is awfully inconsiderate. Hmmf!” “I’m thinking, maybe she just wanted this be a surprise,” Willow offered weakly. “Well come on, get in here, damn it all,” she cussed, “don’t stand out in that hall all day,” and with that Willow was pulled inside the small apartment type residence and noticed that the television was on low and a discarded sweater lay on the sofa, Willow began to think she might have interrupted an afternoon nap. “Am I interrupting you Nana,” Willow began, “because if you’d rather I come back later, I could go, you know,” shit, she sounded so lame. “No, no, no, cheese and rice, is it too much to ask for a little notice?” No, I’m glad you’re here, damn it, now just go on in and just sit down, and I’ll  get a kettle on for tea.” She padded off to the kitchen mumbling or cursing, Willow wasn’t sure. Yikes, she wondered how she was going to stand her for an entire hour? Nana had been hard on anyone in her world but she was always toughest on her Mom. Willow could never quite understand why. Willow often found herself defending her Mom when she was around Nana. Nana returned from the kitchen a few minutes later, face slightly flushed and perhaps a little uncomfortable thought Willow. She needed to warm her up and get her talking about her favourite topics. What did her mom say? Oh yes, the garden and her youth. Willow got up from her chair and walked over to the patio door and gazed out into the garden in the courtyard. The garden looked average, was her only thought, but she continued, “Nice garden,” she said, regretting her words almost immediately. “Hmmm, you think so? It’s a shambles I think.” Honestly, there is not one good thing to be said about that garden, if you can even call it that,” shrugged Nana. “Pathetic! The man who comes to hoe and clean does not know a weed from a plant, and most of what’s left is weeds, she sneered with disgust.” “Well, it looks organized at least,” said Willow knowing that a garden conversation was over and she noted that she had started to perspire. Beads of sweat formed on her upper lip and forehead, not to mention her pits. Had she remembered deodorant? So to prevent a groundskeeper from further scathing critiques, she decided to change the subject, she glanced around Nana’s room to find a new source of conversation. Her gaze fell on an old photograph Nana had of her family when she was a young mother. Willow had seen it before of course, but had never questioned her grandmother about it. “When was this photo taken,” asked Willow as she casually picked up the photo with one hand, and was now inspecting it, hopeful to find a clue for her next question. “Careful with that Willow,” Nana almost barked, so much so, that Willow began to shake ever so slightly, but not to the point where Nana would have noticed. “That was taken in 1952, your mom was only four years old, and back then I had to work two jobs because your grand dad had passed away and I was on my own,” began Nana. “Back then your mom was a sweet child.” “Wow, you look so young,” Willow said, admiring the pretty woman who was holding her daughter in her arms. “It must have been tough to survive, did you have some help from your parents?” asked Willow. “Hah,” exclaimed Nana, “fat chance of that, my parents did not accept my marriage to Henry because he was protestant. My parents disowned me when I married and I had not seen them until I went to their funerals.” Just then the kettle began to whistle, and Nana took the photo from Willow with a jerk and returned it to the desk. “That was a long time ago,” said Nana as she turned to attend to the noisy kettle. Nana carried a tray with the steeping teapot, two cups and a plate holding a few sugar cookies. “Here let me help you with that,” Willow offered, reaching over to take the tray from Nana, before she could refuse. “Well you are certainly more useful than your mother,” scowled Nana. “You know Nana, I have to ask you a question,” began Willow, “why is it that you are always so hard on my mother?” She is a wonderful mother,” Willow started but was immediately cut off by her Nana. “She might be an okay mother to you, but she was a terrible daughter spat Nana, she left home when she was sixteen and went off and got herself pregnant and she never married the fellow, even though he offered to. How can I hold my head up, be respected in my church and community when she refused to do what is right. Yes, she raised you but not with your father. She should have thought of you Willow, you deserve both parents. She was a selfish woman.” “But Nana, that was sixteen years ago, how can you hold on to this anger for so long. She didn’t give me up, but instead she worked hard to make a life for me and for us.” Willow protested. “I know she wants you to believe that it was the best thing for us. Besides, I still see my Dad and I know why she never married him, she didn’t love him.” “So what!” “Do you think everyone marries for love? Do you think that life is a fairytale? Well I have news for you Willow, life can be very hard and cruel sometimes. I hope you never have to find that out, but life will ask you to think of others instead of yourself. I think your Mom was selfish to ignore your needs and I’ve told her so many times.” Willow was dumbstruck as she watched her Nana, release her anger. Spit flew from her mouth as she spoke, deep furrows on her forehead made her look a bit insane, but she saw that tears were forming in her eyes and an odd feeling overtook Willow.  Sympathy. Instead of defending her mother, which was her first instinct, she bit her tongue and waited. Instead she poured the tea and complimented on the lovely earl grey and the delicious cookies, biting into one, hoping her Nana would relax. “I would have made you a cherry pie if I’d known you were coming,” sulked Nana, sounding a bit sad. “I’m loving this cookie,” lied Willow, trying to smooth things over. “Were these your favourite cookies when you were a child?” she asked, knowing she was reaching for another change of topic. “We never had cookies when I was a child,” began Nana, her eyes scanned the patio door and the unfortunate garden, “we had no luxuries, of any kind. It was a tough existence. My father believed in kids being seen but not heard and he ruled with a heavy hand. My mother couldn’t do anything to calm him down and she lived in fear most of the time. I left home as soon as I could. I was sixteen years old when I met up with Henry, and he was a decent man too, so I convinced him to marry me and we managed to survive, without my family helping us.” “Were you in love with Henry,” asked Willow, innocently. “There you go again child, talking about love as if it’s the only thing to think about,” Nana’s focus returned to the present and the tea and cookies, “Life is not always about butterflies, or total bliss and glorious love,” she’d exaggerated the ‘love’ drawing it out as if it was something distasteful. Willow could see anger begin to rise up again and so she tried to ward off this avenue “Okay Nana, but when I get married it will be for love,” this cleverly took the topic off her Nana and her mother and onto herself. This seemed to soften her Nana, “I must sound like an awful mother to you Willow, but your mother was gifted, intellectually, and I wanted her to succeed. I wanted her to have a happy, full life, with a good man and with you of course. Instead every time I see her I feel like I let her down, she was university bound, and she could have been a lawyer, or a doctor, she was so bright. Somehow I managed to get enough money together for her education, but she got pregnant instead and repeated history,” she suddenly had a far away look in her eyes. “Repeated history?” Willow frowned, ”You mean you were pregnant too before you got married as well?” Nana realized that Willow had not known, and she blinked, not knowing what to say next. “Well, yes, I was pregnant. But that was at a time when we didn’t have the birth control pill,” she blurted out, “I barely knew anything at all about sex, I didn’t even like it, and it hurt,” she confessed as she lowered her eyes to her tea cup. Woah! This was too much information thought Willow, never in her life had she had any kind of interesting conversation with her Nana, this was new territory for them both. They sat and looked at each other for what seemed like long minutes, and finally Nana sipped her tea and sighed heavily. “I thought you knew, I thought your mother would have told you what a terrible example I was for her.” Willow waited a few moments letting her index finger trace the rim of her teacup, “No, my mother did not tell me. She tells me that you always try your best and sometimes things don’t always go the way you’d like. She really adores you, Nana, even though you are always putting her down. I don’t understand why you do that.” “I sometimes think you blame me, continued Willow. I kind of put a wrench into her furthering her studies and she decided to become a waitress instead.  She did end up owning that restaurant though, and now she has five employees, so, not bad for a grade eleven education, huh?” Nana’s eyes bulged, and the tears sprung into them and spilled over the lids wetting her rosy frail cheeks, “Oh dear Jesus, no, I don’t blame you for anything, why you are the one bright thing in Alice’s life. You are the one thing that has kept us together, I could never blame you, I’m only thankful for you. Please don’t think I blame you. I only blame myself.”  She quietly got up off her chair and hugged Willow from behind her chair, awkwardly. This was also new to them both, the perfunctory hugs at family gatherings with the tapping on the back, meant nothing, but this felt tender, awkward, but tender. The afternoon passed with an additional two pots of tea and more conversation when Willow’s phone pinged. Her Mom sent a text, wondering when she would be home. Willow looked at her device and saw it was almost five pm. “Oh, fiddle sticks, look at the time,” said Nana, “we’ve been talking for three hours,” she was grinning now. It was good to see Nana smiling, thought Willow it happened so rarely, she looked kinder, happier. As she got to the door, Willow felt a twinge of regret, for all the years she hadn’t reached out to get to know her grand mother. The good-bye hug was still awkward Willow thought, but it would get even better in time. Nana stood and looked at the old photo on her desk and almost as an after thought said, “tell your Mom, she did a great job raising you.” “No, Nana, I think you need to tell her that yourself.”  Before today she would have been too afraid to say that to Nana but she looked her in the eye, and winked. “ Yes, I think you are right said Nana softly.  But, I think you promised me a cherry pie, Willow smiled, how about next week? Same time?

3xbrj1

A CURIOUS COMING OF AGE

A CURIOUS COMING OF AGE          Edward worked at the auction house every other Saturday during the era of Prohibition.          His son, Bill, also worked at the auction house as a loading man. He wanted to help with the house expenses while he finished his schooling.          As a committed young man with developed muscles, he was easily the next new hire.          Bill’s responsibilities were to load the trucks and cars with the purchased merchandise. One’s speed and dexterity were a big influence on the rewards that would be earned via the tips. The more customers that were helped meant more tips that would be earned. The more merchandise that was loaded would be an important consideration to the tip amount. It was a cut and dry deal.          As the auction reached mid-day, the pace of loading the trucks and cars picked up and would rapidly increase to the point where the young men returning back into the auction house from a loading might be abducted by an impatient customer.          Bill learned many unusual things at the auctions.          On one occasion Bill and his father stood at the back of the large auction house where three large stacks of Persian rugs stood. A filthy man approached one stack to examine the rugs. He then plucked a knife from his pocket. He wasted no time slashing the top rug with his knife. He then started to tear open the slash with his powerful hands.          “Hey, mister! What do you think you’re doing?” Bill yelled.          The man only ignored him and continued the tearing.          Bill could not ascertain what this scruffy man was up to with rug abuse.          His father quickly stepped over to intervene.          “This man is doing nothing wrong, Bill. He is an Armenian rug maker and wholesaler. He comes to the auctions often to bid on the rugs that have found their way here. He is checking on the quality and strength of the weaving. If a few slashed rugs meet his standards, he will bid on all of the rugs in the consignment.          “But he slashed some rugs and ruined them,” Bill argued. “It’s just not right!”          “He will repair those rugs with little effort,” his father explained. “He’s a very experienced rugmaker.”          “Dad, do you see that young woman over there with the red shirt? She usually buys something heavy and cheap, like a box of books, so she can flirt with one of us as we walk to her car. If the guy asks her out, she gives him a big tip. I’ve heard that she makes for an active evening.          “What does she do with all the books?” Edward asked.          “Just drops them back at the auction house during the week. I mean I’ve heard talk that she does,” Bill explained. “What little she gets for them she just puts aside for the tip at the next auction. She’s got quite the operation, huh? Occasional benefits go with it, too!”          “Makes one wonder how many times she’s bought the same box of books?” Edward said with a wide grin.          “Yeah,” Bill chuckled.          “Bill, you must learn to be more broad-minded. People are all different. The various nationalities in this part of town have many and diverse customs,” his father elucidated. “It’s a big, wide world out there! For example, that Armenian rugmaker lived at home until he married. An Armenian custom is that children live at home until they marry.”          The auction was half over. Customers were beginning to make an exit and look for a loading man.          Bill took a few turns loading only small amounts of merchandise and then returned to his station.          “Starting to get busy,” Bill remarked to his father. “See you later at the house.”          As he turned, the scruffy rug man approached him. The rug man overheard the earlier conversation at the stacks of small Persian rugs. “I need a loading man to help me load the rugs onto a rolling pallet to take to my truck. Are you available?” the scruffy man inquired.          “Sure. I am, mister,” Bill replied eagerly.          This job will take a while and I bet he must be rich! Should be a big tip!          They both toiled for over an hour.          “I am Jenab,” the filthy man said as they loaded the rugs into Jenab’s truck. “These rugs are very muddied.”          “Name is Bill. Pleased to meet you”, Bill replied.          “One day you might like to see my rug shop. If you have time, you could come today? You could help me to unload,” Jenab explained. “It’s not very far, and I will drop you back here.”          “I’m good to go whenever you are,” Bill said with a hint of excitement.          They reached the rug shop quickly and unloaded the truck in just thirty minutes.          Jenab gave Bill a quick explanation of how he would repair the slashed rugs. After the repair, a rug would be carefully washed and hung up to dry.          “The auction must be about over. Let me get you back to the auction house,” Jenab suggested.          The two filthy men climbed into the truck.          For Jenab, there was a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment in the air.          For Bill, there was nervous anticipation in the air.          They reached the auction house as a few stragglers were leaving.          “Thank you very much, young man. You were a very big help,” Jenab said. “Maybe I will see you in two weeks. I will give you a tip the next time I see you.”          Bill was livid. After a hard day at work, he had only a few cents to show for it. He would have very little to give his parents to help them with the house bills.          Jenab was not at the next auction.          Bill began to feel that he had been swindled.          When Bill arrived for work at the second auction he found his father and Jenab in friendly conversation!          Does Jenab have any scruples at all?          Bill calmly walked up to them with his anger well in control.          “Well, look who just arrived,” Jenab announced with a smile.          “Do you have something for me, Jenab?” Bill said flatly.          “Sure do. Have it right over here in this box,” Jenab said as two other friends presented themselves.          Jenab pulled out a used glass bottle filled with a golden fluid. There was a cork at the top. The long, narrow neck was stuffed with many large, brown cockroaches.          Jenab presented the bottle to Bill. Bill stood there flabbergasted with his fists tightening.          Edward braced for the moment.          What kind of an insult is this? What a jerk?          Rather than reach out to accept it, Bill pulled his right arm back to take a swing at Jenab.          Edward quickly braced and pulled Bill’s arm down.          “Bill, stop. Listen! Let me explain this to you.”          Jenab appeared to be confused.          Bill was confused.          The moment was static.          “This is a very nice gift that you brought to my son, Jenab,” Edward thanked with sincerity. “The Armenians and Azerbaijanis like to brew whiskey and do so where it’s out of sight due to prohibition,” Edward explained. “So, it’s brewed under the kitchen sink. The whiskey collects in a big tub. The cockroaches run along the pipes. The fumes cause them to fall into the brew. At some point it was realized that the cockroaches gave the whiskey a great flavor. They are stuffed tight into the neck of the bottle so that when pouring it out of the vessel even more flavor is added.”          Edward left to get five paper cups.          Upon return, he poured the elixir into all five cups.          Bill took his cup and poured it back slowly into the bottle.          “Nope. No way,” Bill said, shaking his head.          “I also have three dollars for you, Bill,” Jenab said proudly.          Bill cracked a big smile.          “Anytime we are both here at the auction house, I want you to be my loading man,” Jenab added. “On the Saturdays that there are no auctions, I could use some help at the rug shop with making the rug repairs.          Bill cracked an even bigger smile.          Four raised their cups.          “Hats off!” Edward pronounced.          No one wore a hat, but it was no matter!          Weeks earlier two men, one older and one younger, exchanged only flashes of eye contact during their brief encounters.          Each had now seen something else in the other.          The older man saw it on the first day.          The younger man saw it only today.          Now Jenab and Bill stood and looked eye to eye at each other.          Neither spoke.          This moment was purely a result of happenstance.          “Jenab,” Bill said. “I will be your loading man.”

wkmax8

Winter Dreams” (A 'Christmas Dreams' sequel)

Jessie crashed into a metal post trail-marker while skiing. This predicament all started in her first days of high school. Fifteen-year-old Jessie, lover of Christmas, found a new infatuation: fellow classmate, Greg Hammond. She first saw him about eight lockers down from hers in the first days of school. He wasn’t anyone she went to school with before. He walked right by her one day as he focused on his class schedule and school map, trying to figure out where to go. She should’ve said something but forgot her manners in her wonder over him. He was lank, but with a hint of muscle growing. He dressed simply but decently in jeans, a tee-shirt underneath a hoodie jacket. His shoes were new, and he looked smart, but not in a nerdy way. She forgot herself still as she ended up trailing behind him in the hall, both of their destinations being a class they had together. She was with her friends at lunch that day but still in her own world, thinking about him. They asked what was up when finally noticing her lack of engagement in their conversations. “Have you all seen the new boy, Greg Hammond?” She responded, to which they all had an affirmative answer. One of them said his family just moved to town and all of them were in a class or extracurricular with him. Reading her sappiness, they excitedly squealed and cooed and teased at the realization she liked Greg. Jessie cringed a little; their reaction was rather loud and suddenly she wanted to deny these new feelings. She didn’t know anything about him or much less did he seem aware of her existence. Jessie was in the lost puppy stage for days, noticing how Greg became buddies with the athletes and smart kids. He was part of the pep squad and debate team—not quite her circles, unfortunately. She was more of a quiet, artsy type who got stage fright panic attacks in performance settings and didn’t think herself strong or coordinated enough to be part of athletics either. So the months drug on without any progression in talking to Greg. The long-suffering torch Jessie carried for Greg couldn’t dampen her spirit at the start of Christmastime. It was the season of love, joy, and hope, after all , she thought. In her higher spirits, and inspired by a teen romance advice blog post that encouraged trying to take an interest in a crush’s interests, Jessie joined the school’s ski club after discovering Greg was involved too. Their first outing was at the start of Thanksgiving break. “You wouldn’t do ski trips for me but you’ll do them for a guy?” June, Jessie’s best friend and now fellow ski clubber, jokingly balked. “You trip up the steps like every few days, and you want to move downhill. In the snow. With your feet strapped to a board?” June was primarily Jessie’s wing-girl for this trip, but of course, she was going to double Jessie’s guide to all things skiing too seeing as her friend had no experience with it. “I’m getting better!” Jessie defended, “I fall only once a week now! Besides, sometimes I imagine falling into Greg’s arms…” “Gaagghh!” June bleched out with a laugh, “Maybe you will on the slopes this weekend. You’ve got it bad and something needs to happen between you two!” The club arrived at the resort and purchased their gear if they didn’t have any already. As per June’s recommendation, the two girls got in line for a ski set that Jessie would use. Several other students were in the same line as well, so Jessie didn’t feel terribly out of place, but her heart stopped when seeing Greg saunter through the resort shop with a snowboard . He must be really good at this, she thought. “Crawl before you walk, Jess!” June’s admonishment in her ear broke her dreamy daze, “Ski before you snowboard. That’s square one for you. You can get his attention without killing yourself.” They warmed up and geared up and June led Jessie to the bunny slopes for personal basic lessons. “Alright, you’re coming along pretty well!” June exclaimed after coaching her friend for a while. “I’m going to take a few runs down the hills but I want you to keep practicing on your own. I’ll be back for you in a little bit and we can try something else if you’re ready. You need to really have the basics down before even thinking about the proper slopes. Do not leave this training area! Understood?” Jessie nodded and June left for the bigger trails. She dutifully continued to plod and skid the training slopes and was getting to the point she thought she could manage with her eyes closed. Taking a short break and looking around the ski area, she couldn’t help but notice that most of her classmates were shredding the hillside trails. Resigned to the kiddie corner with no other guests obviously over the age of thirteen, she felt deserted. If she was doing so well, Jessie thought to herself, how come June didn’t invite her to one of the bigger slopes already? Her mind made up, she plodded to a nearby green trail. “I’m sure I could be down this one and back before she knows I’m gone too.” The piste Jessie ended up on was a low-grade, gradual curve downhill. She thought she could get away with minimal maneuvering on it. At the start of the trail, she assumed the position, plodded herself forward, letting physics and gravity immediately take over and do the rest. “Whee! I’m doing it!” She thought several feet in, but her thrill soon switched gears. Her focus was in front of her as it should be, but in her peripherals, she saw an embankment drop on her left. Her fear of heights envisioned a thirty-foot drop-off over it. She leaned to the right to put distance between her and the imagined danger. From one hazard to another, Jessie noticed other skiiers and boarders within her direction of travel while her momentum was increasing fast. Uneasily, she narrowly dodged them, but inched back towards the alleged drop in the process. Before long, the trail widened as other pistes intersected at that spot. The frightening height was gone, but in an effort to avoid the crowds ahead, Jessie made a wrong turn, not realizing she moved into a faster, steeper blue trail. Feeling utterly lost and like she was going 180 mph, she let out a scream, leaning and twisting hysterically trying to slow down or stop, but only increased her lack of control. The only thing that could stop her was a metal post sign marking the trail. Her consciousness finally registered a voice calling her name. “Good Heavens, Jessie! Are you alright?” Inquiring was “Mattie” Matilda Fisher, Dickensville’s tomboy as a little sister to three brothers. I’m not home and I haven’t put the village out yet! How am I here? Jessie wondered to herself before acknowledging the concerned party. Mattie pulled her up from the ground; skis strapped to her feet here indicated she must’ve been trying it here too with Mattie and her brothers and nearly hit a tree. “At least the snow buildup around it softened the blow,” Mattie exclaimed, “or you’d have a bad bump,” “Thanks…” wondering if she didn’t have one already? “I’ve had enough for today though,” Jessie started working her feet out of her skis. “Oh, alright”, Mattie agreed, “We need to be home before dark anyways.” She whistled uphill to summon her brothers before skiing herself ahead into town, a whoop in her voice. She loved adventure; bravery seemed so natural to her. “How are you so fearless?” Jessie asked Mattie when finally catching up to her. “I guess because I haven’t encountered much that I haven’t been able to walk away from and if I ever am in trouble, my brothers or someone to help are almost always around.” Now Jessie regretted not listening to June earlier. Feeling alone was actually the scariest part of her crazy downhill trek. “What’s troubling you?” Mattie turned to her wondering.  “I’ve never skied before in my life,” Jessie admitted, “but I hoped it would help me talk to a boy I like.” “Sounds a bit much,” Mattie could be direct too. “Sometimes half the battle with fear is simply doing it.” “I don’t know how! He and I seem so different I don’t know what to talk about.” “You won’t know that for a fact until you try and being yourself is the simplest thing you can do. If it proves true, you can eventually walk away from it; you’re not losing a limb to bear-wrestling or anything, but sometimes there’s a thrill in proving yourself wrong too.” Mattie’s frank views were refreshing. Between that and finally having her own two feet back, Jessie felt grounded in more ways than one; interesting how that happened in her Christmas dream world of all places. Next thing she knew though, she heard her name called again, but from some vague direction at first. After a couple more times, she woke in the ski resort’s medical center with June calling her name. “I told you not to leave the bunny slopes for a reason!” Her concerned friend chided. “I was going to surprise you…I went to find Greg to set you two up to go down some slopes together! No sooner do I track him down does the teacher find me to tell me you were scooped up off a blue trail and taken to medical!” “I’m sorry for not listening,” Jessie really felt like an idiot now, “and for ruining the surprise.” “It may not be completely ruined,” A boy’s voice claimed. Greg entered the exam room with a cup of hot chocolate. Jessie was pleasantly stunned. June slid out as he came in, subtly signing her thumbs up and ok’s wishing her luck with this endeavor. “So…” Jessie started. Just do it. Be myself. Here goes nothing. “What happened to me?”  “Your face is bruised from the impact,” Greg started, handing her the hot chocolate, “and you may be sore for a few days, but impressively, no other serious injuries.” Hmm, he’s impressed with me. “I ran into a sign though, how embarrassing!” Jessie winced at her social mishap. “I tumbled off a ski lift when I first started out,” Greg countered, laughing. “It wasn’t a long or hard fall, but it was awkward!” That cheered Jessie up. “This is really out of my comfort zone,” she confessed. “I’m so clumsy and I’m just more into cooking and art museums…” “Would you want to go to the one in town when you’re feeling better?” “Really?!” “Yeah! I was wanting to see the Christmas tree exhibit anyways,” “I love Christmas!” “Me too!” Mattie was right; Jessie couldn’t be more excited to have proven earlier doubts wrong. She felt empowered. So this is how it felt to be brave. She had a friend’s help getting to this point, and eventually, she was simply herself, and in the end, things worked out! 

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God Botherers

I’m Alex (short for Alexis) Roberts, my younger (and very annoying) sister is Geneva (Neva for short) and we live with our mum. We’re also God Botherers or Christians, Mum converted after her and dad split up. As a newly minted solo mother she needed someone in her corner. With a handful like Neva I guess she figured only God was up for the job. Honestly my sister would try the entire heavenly host’s patience. Dad’s a cop and he preferred crowd control duty to managing her in full flight, Actually he met mum crowd controlling but that’s a whole ‘nother story. This is about run in with the Tawhais. They’re a big family who live in one of three state houses in our street, They’re also what the media refers to as disadvantaged, meaning the adults are on benefits and our church gives them food parcels. Sunday just gone we’d started out for Church, Some of the younger Tawhai kids were playing on the road. A car just missed the smallest of them, a little girl riding a three wheeler. “Crikey”, shrieked mum rushing into the road, Another one missed her as she held up one hand, at the same time steering the child out of harm’s way. “Mum”: exclaimed Neva “you’re embarrassing us,” Above the din of an irate motorist’s horn she replied. “I’m carrying out a humanitarian mission.” A chorus of giggles ensued. By now the older Tawhai kids’d come outside for a jack. “It’s the God Botherers”, one of them sneered. “Your mum’s mad.” “Yeah cracked. Like all God Botherers.” Neva who isn’t known for tact retorted. ”So, yours is a no hoper,” She had a point. After all no one had been watching that little girl in her three wheeler.q Mum flashed a horrified expression ”Geneva-Leigh shame on you. That’s a terrible thing to say.” Neva stood her ground. ”So is calling you names.” ”You know we’re to turn the other cheek.” ”Humph”, Neva grumbled. “So much for sticking up for you.” The Tawhais meanwhile were getting a kick out of this. Before continuing on our way mum said, “You should come with us one Sunday. Kids Church is so fun.” Neva and I both did eye rolls. That lot were bad enough at school. We didn’t fancy putting up with them on Sundays as well, Catching our expressions mum hastened us on our way, Out of earshot she remarked “Charming attitudes coming from two girls on their way to church, We’re supposed to welcome people, not push them away.” Neva scowled ”Doubt it,” “You saved their little sister”, I added “but not one of them said thank you. If you weren’t there she might’ve been killed, but they’re still calling us names.” At our backs echoed the a familiar taunt….. God Botherers. Along with a few colourful opinions with regards to the prospect of church attendance, In short hell would have to freeze over. At least we were off that particular hook. As to the name calling the Tawhai teenagers had come up with it first. Until now when not even the adults joined in when it suited. Like when mum dropped the food parcels in. Dad who’d been to their house on police call outs said she was nuts. He reckoned they got plenty on the benefit but wasted it on booze and drugs. Mum told even if that was true the church wouldn’t see those children go hungry, ”Church’d be horrible if they came.”, Neva explained to which mum replied. “There were probably some who thought the same when we joined. Besides God loves the Tawhaia as they are, and you can’t blame children when their parents set a bad example.” ”Even when they call us names?” I asked, She nodded, adding with a smile. “Which means we’re in good company. A fair few people rubbished Jesus. They still do and He died for them. What we need to do is pray for the Tawhais.” it’s hard trying to live up to someone like that. Cos even though Jesus had to die horribly He was perfect. For the rest of us just trying to be good is a struggle. It’s all Adam and Eve’s fault. How could they have created so many hassles over a stupid apple? I hope it was sour and gave them the meanest stomach aches ever, It’s because of them we get called God Botherers. Except I don’t get the impression He’s all that bothered. As for the Tawhais so far they didn’t sound too interested in taking up mum’s invitation. Thanks to them we arrived late. As we found our seats people smiled and whispered greetings. They probably thought we’d slept in, whereas I felt proud of our mum. Instead of hurrying past she’d carried out a rescue mission. Stepping in to make sure a little kid was safe because it’s useless family couldn’t be bothered. Like when the Good Samaritan helped an injured man. The Bible doesn’t say if his family were useless or not. It’s possible considering that he was travelling alone in an area where getting attacked was likely. I imagined he had sons who were just too lazy to accompany him. As for bothering God I reckon Neva came close when the singing started. Jumping up onto the pew she fair belted out the chorus of Jesus We Enthrone Thee. Besides loud and pancake flat her version differs from the norm. “Jesus we throw thee”, as rendered by a screech owl. Ignoring mum’s quieting efforts my sister bellowed forth her praises as if our household’s salvation depended upon it. ”It’s enthrone thee.”, I hissed determined to protect my own ears by making her stop…..as if. Eyes shut tight, arms upraised Neva maintained her dutiful worshipper pose. Screech owl tones, wrong words and embarrassment were our crosses to bear. She was not to be deterred by rebellion in the ranks. It was worship time, her version would continue uninterrupted and our feelings aside I knew a God who could love the Tawhais wasn’t bothered in the slightest. That was our cross to bear.

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What Is In A Name?

My quiet night at home ended with an invitation to play bingo. I met 9 women named Jane. After the introductions, we all sat at the same table. We chatted about how each of them had gotten the name, Jane. It is an old name in these parts and once the vote was counted, it was unanimous; all of us really like our names. We all related stories about our names. This was mine. While I was at the orphanage, I was called Cotton-top because my hair was snow-white. My little sister, however, called me Mommy. I was five, and she was three when we were adopted. The big, kind man’s name was Daddy. The pretty lady’s name was sometimes Jane and sometimes Sweetheart. The problem came when my foster mother told me she was Mommy. I immediately thought about Tricia (who I called baby) and the need to protect her. Tricia knew I was Mommy, I knew I was Mommy; I could not see how that could ever change. I cried and refused to accept it. They had named my sister Tricia. Tricia had always called me Mommy and I saw no reason to change it. Without knowing it, I was breaking my mom's heart. This went on for over a year. I answered only to the name Mommy. I called my mom Jane just like Daddy did. Tricia mimicked me and called her Jane too. The first year had passed with me spending a lot of time in my room to think about it. Our first year had presented us with many firsts. My first time holding a salt shaker ended with salt everywhere. Our first time to see nail polish resulted in my mom’s discovery of my artistic talents all over the top of the night table, while “we” were taking a nap. My mom was beautiful, and I was growing to love her very much. She was kind and gave me lots of hugs.  We had learned about the concept of presents. I loved the idea and found myself painting sticks, drawing hearts on paper, anything to give Jane a present. I had learned to love her very much. I had never heard about Santa Claus. When he came to see us at Christmastime I was so overwhelmed by all the things he had left, I ran from the room and screamed, “Send them all back.” Once again I had broken Jane’s heart without knowing it. I ran to my room and curled up on the bed and cried into my pillow. When Daddy came in he cradled me in his big arms. He asked why I didn’t like all the presents. I looked up at his round face and proceeded to explain. If I played with one toy before I played with another, Santa would think I did not love each one as much as the other. If Daddy could just send them back to Santa and then let Santa give them to Tricia and me one at a time, it would be better. Then we could play with each one and introduce them to the others. It would be much better. Daddy seemed to understand. In a little while, all the toys were gone except one big doll. I was delighted. Tricia had gotten a doll just like mine, so we introduced our new playmates to each other and played the rest of the day. Jane explained that Santa would be sending another toy each day for a while until every one of them had been introduced. Another milestone had been crossed. We were also very excited to learn that after Christmas we were going to go see our grandmother while Daddy was off to visit with Santa. Then the day came, Daddy had gone (on a business trip) to see Santa. We had arrived at Grandmother’s house late at night. Jane, Tricia, and I were going to get to spend the night and have homemade cookies. While we were having cookies, my grandmother started to take away the stuffed bear she had given Tricia that morning. I told her she could not do it. I explained that once you give someone something, it is not yours anymore, and you cannot take it back. This was a rule we had learned at the orphanage. Grandmother went on to explain she was not taking the bear back but was going to let it take a nap with mine while we had our cookies. I agreed and let her take the bear. In a few minutes, she asked my mom to join her in the bedroom. Tricia and I had cookies while they chatted in the other room. A few minutes later, Jane called me into the bedroom. She sat on the bed and gently pulled me towards her, so we were facing each other eye to eye. Then she said in a very calm, loving tone, "I have a present for you." I was very excited and started glancing all around the room for a pretty box. "This a very special present that does not come in a box. I want to give you my name. My name is Jane." she said. I looked at her for several minutes with a grin across my face. What a wonderful present. My heart was so full and I was so happy. Then all of a sudden, I started to cry. She instantly pulled me gently into her lap and asked me what was wrong. I simply explained if she gave me her name she could not have it anymore. What would I call her? Then she whispered, with her eyes welling up, "You could give me your name." I could tell she was holding her breath and trembling a little too. The idea brought an instant smile across my face. I was so full of joy over this idea. This would help me give her a present too. I said, "You can have my name and I can have yours. You are now Mommy and I am Jane." I hear her give a big sigh as she started to smile. I looked at her now very wet cheeks. I gently patted her face. “Please don’t be sad, it is a good name, I promise you will like it.” She gave me a big, big hug. I was so excited over my present, I instantly ran to tell Tricia and Grandmother. When I ran out to tell my grandmother and Tricia, my mom followed behind me and I saw my grandmother give her a wink. We all hugged together. Mother often talked about the anguish she and Daddy had gone through trying to make me accept her as Mommy. Grandmother had gotten the idea that it could not be done with force. She knew how much I loved my mom and how happy Tricia and I had been since the adoption had been finalized. She also told my mom there was a little rebel in me that could only be tamed with love. I remember Mommy and Grandmother hugging and my grandmother said, “Sometimes, Mommies need their Mommy.” Many tears of joy were shed that evening. When my dad came through the door, we were all watching TV. As he came through the door, as usual, he said, "Jane, I'm home." I jumped up and said, “That’s me.” I ran to hug him. When he scooped me up in his arms, I explained that I was Jane and that (pointing at my mom) was Mommy. He stood there, with his mouth open and his eyes had grown very big and wide. He asks, “How did we do that?” Then he started to cry and hold me even tighter. Mommy came over, putting her arms around both of us, and said “With a lot of love and a little help from my mommy.”

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Harangue, meringue and pass the marmalade...

Start your story with someone saying “Thanks a lot” (sarcastically or sincerely). “Thanks a lot but no thanks to harangue, meringue and pass the marmalade” I said to myself as a child whilst my mom was stressing out cooking Thanksgiving dinner...although I would coin the latter part of that phrase years later. What I meant was the family headache that is Thanksgiving...I hated it! I didn’t care for the food, or at least the bland way my mother prepared it, nor the relatives, or the shear stress you could cut with an electric carving knife...none of it. As a kid, I decided I would have steak instead for Thanksgiving once I grew up...problem solved. Those years passed, and I had kids young, and always had to plan three holidays in one for any major event; one for us, one that my mother insisted on continuing [God forbid she would ever come to my house, or even let my sister in law nor I help], and one for the ex for visitation. I remember literally vibrating with a throbbing headache once I got in the car with my kids to leave my mother’s to the next location. ‘What’s wrong, mom?’ I would hear from one of my kids in the back...my hands shaking too much to start the engine. It got to where my mother wouldn’t even turn the oven on, her memory so bad, and the bland, watering mashed potatoes were inedible...but we must keep tradition, mustn’t we? I wasn’t the great cook I am now, but did appreciate good food, so started doing cheeky things like pick up bagels and locks [we aren’t Jewish], or a nice cottage pie, or something ethnic, trying to break the tension. The only thing I was ever entrusted to bring was Cool Whip for the three traditional pies my mom would make, as she would never remember that ingredient. Mostly, especially after Christmas when I would find myself alone early in the day after dropping the kids off, I would go home and cry...a sweet release from all the tension of the day. I would take off my matching the kids dress, but on grubby old sweats, and watch Sound of Music and ball...alone in the dark. Ain’t having family great? I thought the idea of them was to not end up alone on holidays! My life became a turbulent series of ups and downs; it was not all typical suburbs and white picket fences. Much of my adult life I ended up spending in England, where my dad’s family came from. I love the Yorkshire people, I get their sense of humour and honesty. But it took me years to find that, so there was a lot of detours along the way. I lived in Cambridge for a while, with my youngest daughter, who ended up spending a lot of her upbringing there. But the relationship I was in there was volatile; his moods were up and down like Jekyll and Hyde. We loved each other, no doubt, but when the moods would swing, I would take my daughter and head to London for a bit. She always thought it was for fun, which in part it was, but I would see the black clouds coming and knew it was best to get out of the way. Eventually, with finances and years of yo-yo living, I couldn’t afford this mini escape, and his moods got worse, and finances were bad. It was so bad, my daughter and I had to be rescued by an organization to help women that go abroad and get in trouble, having no rights or access to money. My daughter had already started college in the UK, but in going back she would have to complete two years of High School in one to graduate with her peers, which she gladly did. That was the year I suggested the steak...we technically had nowhere to go, so stayed at my daughter’s best friend's home. It was an apartment, some of us were sleeping on the ground, but I was grateful. After our Thanksgiving meal [they had turkey], I walked the distance in the dark and worked all night for Black Friday, having picked up two minimum wage jobs at the mall. I did what I knew best; worked hard and dug us out. We had our own place in a fortnight… My daughter graduated, started college and eventually moved out. I spent much of my time alone, but knew I really wanted to find love. Eventually, I moved back to England, to volunteer at my ancestral home. It was fulfilling and I got on well with everyone, and customers loved the girl with the American accent. I started doing voice-overs, and singing again. This is, of course, when an pandemic hit, so returning to the States wasn’t an option. I had some savings and a small retirement, but I hadn’t so much as set up utilities or a bank account when I moved to a different place when it hit; I was in a pickle. Long before that, I met my partner, the man I feel destiny wanted me to meet. I had a business based there before, but didn’t really visit. I didn’t know his house was on the other side of the brewery where I imported beer to the States. Now that garden is where I pick vegetables for our tea! But, being a foreigner still meant he had to commit. The Home Office dragged their feet on my visa for two years, and lost my passport, yet wanted me to return back to the States with the border closed. It was joy and a nightmare all at the same time. We celebrated several Thanksgivings together. The third one, this year, seemed extra special. I am under so much stress to get a job and/or have to return, because I have no savings left. And my visa says we need to move it or get married, and my partner won’t discuss that, so it leaves me feeling uneasy. Still, I planned the whole condensed turkey meal, because as he says, this year it is just the two of us. First off, to make a pumpkin pie in England is the devil, because there is no such thing! Sure, pumpkin pie spice lattes have become popular, largely due to coffee shops, but there is no canned pumpkin. So, we had to grow the pumpkin [my partner is a farmer, and won a contest for the biggest pumpkins in the village], we had to hack it up, I reduced it and spent hours whipping at it with a mixer to get the equivalent of one can of pumpkin. Then I had to make the crust from scratch since I wanted a buttery crust, and fortunately we had the spices and condensed milk. Whew! Two days of work on that! They don’t sell whole turkeys here until December 19, but I prefer a crown [turkey breast] anyway, seasoned with Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme...just like the song, with butter and garlic under the skin. Many years ago, I created what my kids called Momma’s Killer Mash, a skins-on savory version of my mother’s watery ones. When my oldest daughter was in college, she called my mom asking for the ‘family’ recipe, not realizing everything I did was my own way. I always had us say grace, and go around the table and say what we were thankful for. The other thing is, I do it all with grace...trying not to stress. One time, when I worked a fulltime job and two part time ones when my kids were young, I cooked the whole meal in 20 minutes! There was a picture of me afterwards looking exhausted. Anyway, this year was special. After working in my ancestral home with the boilers not working again, I made a special cocktail, I called ‘Turkey-la Sunrise’, with cranberry in the bottom of the glass, and appetizers. The turkey and veg from his garden were perfection, killer mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes and the pies. Afterwards we were sitting on the couch, and I noticed my partner was being extra sweet and affectionate. I finally asked why. He said, “because it is Thanksgiving! We are supposed to be grateful and kind, right?” I laughed and said, “No! If you were in America, you would see family members drunk, someone complaining about who spilled the gravy in 1978, guilt trips and fights!” I guess he didn’t get the memo! I realized I had finally started a new tradition that stuck...

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