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Rochelle Hope Mehr Christina Delin Doug Tanoury Miles Hitchcock Kelley White Mia Ernie García  Guillaume Destot JB Mulligan Arlene Ang Debi Faulkner Joelle Renstrom Beth Pardue Kathleen Green Gardner      Gender Confusion by Rochelle Hope Mehr They got me so confused, those therapists. The one in Greenwich Village advising Me to act like Marilyn Monroe.  I Should have been flattered he thought I could pull It off but instead was highly offended. And what about the psychiatrist who Told me that I was, "A good little actress?" She thought I was already acting a part. I did realize that I imitated her clanking about In her stiletto heels but she was supposed to be A role model, wasn't she? I never could figure out their vision of Femininity:  Red smooching lips? Curvaceous hips?  Honey-tongued siren Baiting Odysseus?  To this day I wonder if I am too aggressive, a gamma ray. I never could properly act the part of a tart. Does this make me gay?     This Can't Be a Poem by Rochelle Hope Mehr It bears too much resemblance to reality It lacks the diffusion used in photography to scatter light to soften the shadows The shadows lengthen I try to run To keep one step ahead Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page         Studio Lens by Christina Delin Looking among the tiny shadows of objects lost & houses burned, Oh that they would move along the silver walk, Troubled by men in white & green. Doesn't he see the loneliness, the sunburst, the dragon in the mean? Mirrors, drawings, garbage & harmonicas, All huddled alone among the dwellings, Knocking, falling, tumbling up, Celery stalks around the rocks. Oceans, thimbles, sevenths & rests, Whatever happened to whispering        your best? Find them in the forest green, Seeing the willow trees gape at the traveling moon. Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page         Dialog by Doug Tanoury It was sometime ago, Before my life became a short story Written by Gogol, That I was afraid of the dark and Would often sleep with the light on And the television playing some Black and white movie starring Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney Into the early hours of the morning, So that snip-its of the dialog Would drift eerily into my dreams. Somehow, I have become Freddie Bartholomew And Spencer is speaking to me: "Wha you tink a dat, leetle feesh?"   I have come to understand That the only way to fight fear Is to whole heartily embrace it, To make it your friend. Now, I love the darkness, relish its peace And wrap myself in it.  Yes, I wear it Like a new Brooks Brothers suit. I spend the evenings sitting in the house With every light extinguished And emanating only darkness. When I sleep the television is off And it is quiet except for the dialog In my dreams, spoken in the little boy voice Of Freddie Bartholomew: "Manuel, please, please don't go!"     Retail Egyptology by Doug Tanoury In the supermarket Where navel oranges are stacked high With great precision Like the great pyramid of Gaza, And Santa Rosa plums Form a lesser monument For a more mediocre monarch In The Valley of the Kings. I am the jackal-faced god, A duster of old bones And petrified flesh, Who breathes the desert air At 5:00 a.m. and peers wearily Over the meat counter, For a fleeting glimpse Of the floating head Of Queen Nefertiti In hopes her regal gaze Will fall on my English cut roast. Awake Osiris to the sound Of the Nile's water And sea birds calling from the reeds To catch the gleam of light On stainless steel countertops For it is the deli meats Hanging in long strands from the ceiling, Indeed it is the garlic bologna and hard salami That unite the upper and lower kingdoms. Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page         Colaba by Miles Hitchcock On the streets of Bombay there is a woman who sits against a wall next to a Colaba fruit stall with no eyes with no mouth she smiles a hawk-like smile an obvious bold beautifully-worn bowl beneath her feet. This is a photograph. I do not give, I take. “you emotional westerners” she, absurdly, said.     Slum by Miles Hitchcock White eyes hollowed in a crescent lamp glow. Coughing from where water runs behind stone. Every tree is cut every brick trodden every stone laid pinging in tap blackness onto copper pots scrubbed to the glint. Every movement is work every rest pleasure. Women in red blow flames from trash smoke three walkmen pass hands around staffs. Every family is business every son a father every daughter work. Kerosene cans grow tomatoes thunder, someone smokes. Every business is pleasure every trade a gift In a doorway a naked baby holds tin coins a chicken is tossed out. Every meal is trade every child a meal every movement rest. Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page         Five Poems by Kelley White blind eyes turned to a row of blind faces Philly row houses   cold wet winter day a lavender umbrella forgotten outside   Dusk steals the colors from gold leaves and deep green ground leaving sweet gray lines.   First rain after drought— I startle a grouse drinking from a mud puddle.   I fled the dance gray light on cold feet   Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page         Asleep by Mia As pushpins on a globe, the journey is marked by rests, periods of silence in between long stretches and endless temptations that swerve, arc in mid-flight towards the ocean which is still free, only place that moves beneath your feet. Nothing else will save you not wings, not land, not prayers. You’ve been fed futures all your life: investments, securities, education and children fattened on insurance policies— those nets will not stop you from falling in their design merely meant to catch you. Rest assured you will be caught wondering what keeps you captive, tied to timecards and the clockwork of factories.  In dreams in panic, in motion, train wheels roaring, bearing down on you—your body sound asleep. Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page         Days of Nineteen Eighty Seven by Ernie García  It was all about September when the sun Sat farther away.  Where sweat was a Little boy's anxious waiting for the ball, And not the product of bad home insulation Or a busted a/c.  It was about Fist fights over first downs and that Hail-mary, fingertip grab that instigated Rematch, never repossession or Eviction, engine failure or bad wiring. The lines down our palms were crossing Routes to touchdowns, which say nothing About love. It was about the stinging of a thousand Needles when the football hits your chest In the middle of December and knowing Someone was ready to pop you in the teeth. It was falling down and getting up Bleeding in the street because you'd made the catch Of a lifetime, and you're yelling out loud Enough to make your parents step outside because the game went on Playing past dusk without a single person leaving until It ended. Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page         Tundra Sleepwalker, A cataleptic stroll in unfriendly climates by Guillaume Destot If I could only bend and observe The mouths of these emptied burrows I might see I'm heading the wrong way; But evidence of previous migrations Escape my attention Aware of nothing but The back of my eyelids —a perpetual indoors whiteout— I proceed. Frozen lichen crackle beneath My slippered feet. Pajamas flapping anxiously In the enormous frosty sigh Of a semestral dusk, I propose to pitch Camp when I reach Unattainable horizons. From the permafrost rise the Weak heartbeats of comatose earth And somewhere, thousands of miles away, Nanny wakes up to find me gone. Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page         the aquarium of night by JB Mulligan ("The dream is the aquarium of night."  V. Hugo) Necrotic sea depth, surge and swirl of current and sand, and nebulous specters, seaweed-hung, bearing pearls in their hands, white irises in wide, bony eyes. Mermaids shining, swollen and luscious, singing an unending word of vowels and desire.  Their scales ripple with light.  The green smooth length of their tails. It is all real!  It is true!  It is sand in a public ashtray, where an old man plucks cigarette butts, and drops them into the pockets of a torn and crusted coat. Angels watch our sleep, and bet with demons, arguing odds and outcomes. We gulp at air and water, desperate. We clutch at doppelgangers.  We think we sleep.     drowning by JB Mulligan The kitchen clock is leaking— tip tap tip tap— the seconds, days and years seep into the floor, darkening the grout between the tiles. We were young once, the doors of the horizon opened out. I remember your hair. It was longer than the night I was in you for an hour and a half. (We laughed later, rubbed raw and polished to a glow.) I remember your hair. Now we are drowning in time. You are all I can breathe.     garden by JB Mulligan August.  Ash-dry light on the cropped, browned lawn. In the dawning time was bird-song, bird-rumor: hesitant, questioning, responding. Now the only music in the silence is the steady heavy hammer of the sun on the surface of the afternoon. The occasional whisper of a truck on the distant highway seems a softer sound than this. The garden, where in summers past, tomatoes plumped, corn wavered in wind, and thin tubes of zucchini inflated and stretched, is a jungle of weeds, fronds, several trees now shorter than I am, but growing, opening slender branches braced with slick leaves. Hours spent there, digging, raking, working in peat moss and fertilizer, and cutting and plucking the prizes— you spend your time, and the change you get is the time is gone that was there before and the worn-out coinage of memory. I would like, sometime, to clear it, rip out the trees, the fronds, the weeds, resuscitate the drained and broken ground, and set the seeds and seedlings, watch them rise and spread. Will I do that? As the years grow fewer, they shorten. The boxes on the calendar describe nobody’s life. But something is necessary, like light, like the voices of birds, like the bowed, bright fans of tall weeds, something necessary within itself to continue, if not the garden, something, in the hard unshining stillness of desperation, something, need pushing through the cracked dry skin, absorbing light and water, space and time, blossoming, something, some garden, something. Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page         Home by Arlene Ang Small fingers clasping a latch-key turned the lock. The white door slowly swung open and disappeared into the house. 'Anybody home?' he ventured. Mumbled echoes answered from brick walls and wooden stairs that led the way to darkness. Out of habit, he tried a switch in the living room and another by the kitchen wall, forgetting that both had outlived their fuses and no one had time for light bulbs. In the close-shuttered shadow of an afternoon, he longed more than ever not to have to come home.     Little Man's Lake by Arlene Ang Listen to the waft of weeping from Little Man's Lake. Drowned in his own tears, Rumpelstiltskin will never sing his name again. The miller's daughter saw to that when she sold his gift of spun gold for a place on the wizened king's throne and sent him away with her derision drawing boils on his back. For days Rumpelstiltskin wept in his cavern of gilded touch until tears swallowed him whole, gushed forth from the earth to form a dark fishless lake. Listen to the waft of weeping and sing his name for him. Perhaps in time he will learn to laugh gold from his heart again. Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page       A Moment Ago by Debi Faulkner (1st draft) The flame sighed, burned her fingertips. The image of the room disappeared from the window (glow diminished to shadows).  Memory led her; he lifted wine to his lips (no reflection); his eyes ghosts, her hands nothing (beauty not required in the dark liquid that flows at night) (2nd draft) “there is a smell of clothes thrown on the floor, and an            absence of flowers”—Neruda long blades of ice drip    from gutters,             hang in the sun        too bright even    for shaded eyes,            she         (he backed out         of the driveway blinded) touches       the  window, leaves fading fingerprints,                    keeps  the cool     mark in her         hands (final draft)                            ring of water bleeding into the table, glass held to her           lips—his face taking shape through the bottom;                           questions asked, answered (a sleight of hand, altered glance—          weight shifting left, right, left again) you may ask                            "and what of it?" nothing except the sigh of air across lips           Still Life With a Clock by Debi Faulkner I he shudders         into sleep (the late hour wrapping him          in its cool arms)                  (my body) I take his breath (breathe, breath, breadth) into my own           lungs,                  touch his ribs                            his heartbeat (small                  assurance of life) before turning (hands           on a clock) leaving (again, in time)                               him there for my own                    darkness II          stones lying                   at the bottom of a pond          (silent                    as night on the edge of the horizon)           dictate the rhythm                     of water (slow pulse                      of a pendulum):                               below           the surface (the pull                             of moonlight sinking at impossible angles) (breath drawn                            released) III we wake           to rain           (silence)                   breathe in the early                   tide (rhythm of waves) (rhythm                     of breath) (pulse of your heart) (that                            stone) we rise          in this hour embraced                                   apart                (hands of a clock)     Still Life With Eclipse by Debi Faulkner Hand passed in front of eyes (face hidden/exposed) behind glass (behind sheer curtain-like clouds in a window) with a view, without a view—obscured by rituals of cyclical seasons— one sun, one moon, one vase of cut flowers: watching an eclipse through shadows Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page         And So God Chose County Cork by Joelle Renstrom Madonnas began to levitate, floating on the helium breath of God, arms bent as if cradling pigeons or a small burden of boys. Virgins stirred restless all over County Cork trying to break their status, trailing after people like shadows, ghostly grey of a gentle exhaust. People came with lawn chairs and second-coming wares, others drew the blinds and waited for the apocalypse praying that the eyes of the silent mothers would return to fly half-mast like the flags in Belfast. Boys knelt in alleyways and saw worlds between their hands; girls wove flowers into their hair after mass. Yet stone was stone, was still stone. Violets sprouted on the famine roads.     Full of Emptiness by Joelle Renstrom Pastel couch cushion, wax hardened         from last night’s candle, light left on in the kitchen, darkness standing before it like a solid shadow draping the room in grey, stove shining with wandering oil. Fan in the window hums a hymn for Tuesday night, burned spot on the lampshade sizzles under its breath. I watch the quiet like stored rain,         and the cloud:  the backpack lolling on that kitchen chair, its belly         a proud, full achievement, licking its zippers one by one.         I can almost see it on your back, a crazy         monkey, sleeperhold round your neck. That almost happened.  I should put it away, unpack it. Resting on the chair next to it, how close you came to leaving. Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page         Picture by Beth Pardue I have this picture You in that old olive recliner Me poised on the arm. We’re mirrored From the green Izod shirts To the blonde strands of hair. It sits in a frame. It hangs in my heart. I remember you young & tan Before too many things Sank into your skin. When I had pigtails And called you mommy. Maybe time fades pictures, curls their edges. I’ve taken a million steps away From that moment It’s still clear, it’s still happening Whenever I close my eyes     Disillusioned by Beth Pardue Why don’t my fingertips feel like soft petals covered in draping pearl drops of dew? The skin peels too easily like an ancient stonewashed man sitting, waiting in the garden listening. A marinated soul Dripping with envy, rage Pick your character flaw, your label Seal it into your woven skin Like a brand so that everyone will know What it is that you don’t do quite right. Windows have withstood wind Pushing Intentions slide Ripping, tearing Like the tip of a briar turning Plate glass to shards Crumbled, shattered What we once preconceived About the functions of this Disdainful earth But it is not in this to define me— I want no mark protruding from my casing Forgive the affliction of how the world Turns us inside ourselves Pretend your interior still holds passion. Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page         Rust by Kathleen Green Gardner Reflection in trees overshadowing yards played in, front doors no longer resist hands sidewalk overgrown in weeds garden long past winter food farm house with weathered attitude. Shutters missing and faded wooden floors creak a hall shorter than remembered. No sounds of toy cars on scratched wood floors no fresh bread no smell of apple pie the rocking chair empty like flowerpots.  Dusty sofas, chairs and carpets worn, draperies stained from a distant storm and cracks in the walls long before. Plastic in the attic embrace earliest dolls in a bureau drawer waiting for a prodigal return, a rusty bar a collection of dresses from graduation prom and wedding ruffles. A last look her presence remains. Youth, I am reminded of my abandonment of you. Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page

 

 

   

• Golden Boy  Owen Kilfeather

• From Grotli to Geiranger  Rochelle Mass

• The Boat  M. A. Haarhaus

• Brothers   Corey Mesler

• In Memoriam:  My Not-Yet-Dead Sister   Saskia van der Linden

• No!  Emile Alexander Dodds

• Twilight:  Maywood, New Jersey  Martin Bayne

• The Dreamhouse  Richard Meyers

 

---

 

 

Golden Boy                                                            

by Owen Kilfeather
                                                                           
       

usybusy today.  Right now, my left ear I have the feng shui consultant flitting about the office telling me the place has good positive chi, my right ear pressed to the phone a woman youngsounding she wants me to drag her by the waist into a powderblue Beetle, stuff an amyl nitrate-soaked satsuma in her mouth and a freezerbag over her head.  I tell her to hold the line.

Chi is the energy that everything in the universe living or no possesses.  It is Chinese, and has replaced vibes as the word of choice.  Living or no, everything has an energy field peculiar to itself, although influenced by and connected to everything else.  The great stream of being, the feng shui consultant calls it.

Everything has a flow.  Work with the current and one is harmoniously positioned in the universe.  Peace prosperity good health follow.  This office is, she can see, a peaceful and productive one.  Clutterfree.  Potted azalea to absorb electrical pollution.  My walnut desk with curved edges.  

“Money will always slip off of a desk that has right-angles to it so we say,” she says.  No trophies or pictures of family or whatnot.  Serve as distractions.  My photo of Marion still facedown in the middle drawer at any rate.    The feng shui consultant hangs a set of metal windchimes above the door.  Enliven and purify the air and dispel sickness, according to the good lady.

The office across the corridor is a different story.  She has not yet met the occupant but she knows whoever it is has read Kafka.  To get behind the desk one has to climb over it.  Teetering bookshelves.  “Not conducive to healthy business,” she says.  I tell her that statement pretty much sums up George Fox.  Words with him later on.  Exit feng shui consultant, to wave her wand across the corridor.  Windchimes tinkle, enlivening and purifying the air, dispelling sickness.

I take the freezerbag lady off hold.  “That’ll be just fine come into the office we’ll sort out particulars and payment.  Directions.  Coming from the river drive past the old mill you’ll come to a church in the middle of the street.  Street ringing right around it, that’s correct.  Take the ten o’clock road off it, Annesley.  We’re on the righthand side.  Greenglass structure.  Can’t miss it.  Look forward to seeing you.”

Ailbhe on the other end now.  “Greg Shurety on line two,” she says.  She punches it through.  Shurety.  Shurety.  Ah.  Last week’s gangland.  Perhaps to complain about the considerable amount of his whiskers that came off with the electrical tape.  But no.  Wants to thank me.  Late last Friday night we hauled Greg Shurety out of his bed, tossed him in my trunk and hung him by his bound wrists on an S-shaped hook in a meatlocker.  Slapped him about some, in the style of The Long Good Friday (1981).  “Thanks again,” he says.  Since then he’s been running his restaurant with a newly applied vigour.  “Never felt quite so alive,” he says.  I am genuinely pleased to hear this.  “Well,” I say, “Usually the result of a vicarious experience with death.  Don’t mention it.  Merry Exmas to you too.”

Ailbhe on the other end now.  George on line three.  She punches it through.  Traffic hiss in the background.  His voice has a hounded waver to its tone I’ve been hearing a lot of lately.  Right now I don’t feel like having my fine humour punctured.  “I’m busy and can’t it wait?” I say, “Good.  Good.  Marvelous.  Bye George.” 

Return to my paperclip-chain ball.  Coming along nicely.  Size of an infant’s head already.  Thus I occupy myself until I run out of paperclips.

Have not stepped outside my office all morning.  Decide to remedy this.  I open the door against the sound of Ailbhe speaking on the phone.  Windchimes tinkle, enlivening and purifying the air, dispelling sickness.  My eardrums pop and I feel like I’ve burst through a membrane or somesuch, everything restored to full sound and brightness, stirring the air.  Voices burbling, clackclicking keyboards, dark tang of coffee, swarming colours, the gorgeous hustle and glow of the everyday.

Ailbhe, while inspecting fingernails of a loosely clenched hand through lidded eyes, is listening and speaking to a disembodied voice which is being broken up into bitty little digital pieces on the way from wherever it is and then reassembled and channeled into her ear by means of a moulded-plastic earpiece manufactured by some Third World nonunioner wearing a nappy and earning about ten cents a week:   “…way the week is carved up.  Oh isn’t it just.  It always seems to be Friday.  They toss you a scrap of a weekend.  Here you go.  Play with that like a good little girl.  And god forbid you get bline drunk and miss most of it.  Um.  Must go.  Love you bye.”  She cradles it.  She faces me.  Looking tasty as lead paint today.

“Ha.  It’s alive,” she says, “Was waiting for a funny smell to seep out under the door before phoning.”

“In medieval France, smelling funny was a sign of personal virility,” I say.

“Feel like anything special for lunch then do you.”

“Thinking about going downstairs.  Laziness prevailing.”

Pink wet tongue slides out partway between pursed lips to indicate disapproval.  “Ack,” she says, “Mass-catering.  Everything is shiny.  Even the mash.  I’m on this new detox thing.  Meat is out, which I don’t miss.  So is cooking.  I was told that during the Second World War the Japanese gave their Brit and American prisoners raw rice and veg by way of rations.  And being Westerners, they cooked them.  Cooking all the nutrients out.  So I’m going to this new place.  Venerable Cheese, if memory serves.  Pita wrapped around peppers cucumbers almondbutter and garlic guacamole.”

“Sounds good.  Better bring me two.”

“Come if you like.  No man is an island.”

Nuh huh.  I’m a continent with a small peninsula.  I tell her, “waiting for a client.  Said she’d be in around this hour.”

“Anything interesting?”

“Nah.  Grab and bag.  Possible asphxophile.”

“Be careful.”

“I will.  Powderblue Beetle again.”

“Second this month.”

“Popular eh.”

“Could be topical.  Tell you what.  I’ll bring you back yours and have mine here too.  Back shortly.  Toodles.”

Fortyfive minutes.  Not a sniff of Ailbhe.  Ich habe hunger hunger hunger hunger.  Clock display in bottomright corner of my monitor changes from 1:46 to 1:47.  Feel like I’ve seen something supposed to go unseen, interrupted a private moment maybe.  Wonder if this is the first time I’ve seen this.

Windchimes tinkle, enlivening and purifying the air, dispelling sickness.  George.

Curses.

“Fantastic Mr. Fox,” I say.

“Hallo Dave,” he says.

“Ailbhe coming by with lunch if you’re hungry.  Delinquent in her return so far but I’m sure she’ll persevere.”

He shakes his head.  Fine.  Don’t want to break bread with me you can fuck yourself.  Keep this to myself.  Only my groaning stomach speaking.  A hungry man is an angry man.

George is more root-faced than usual today.  Jacket hanging just-so on his frame.  He could have been my partner way back when.  Offered him a groundfloor-in to David Blaize Garland pee ell cee.  Could have had an equal share in my concern for ten thousand.  This was when money was actually worth something mind you.  He declined.  

Too risky, he said.  I employed him instead.

So far, he has not done right by me.

His personal demons are heavyweights it would seem.  I gained a smidge of insight as regards this at the staff Christmas ‘do on Saturday.  Place beside the Tivoli called Nettie’s.  Had heard good reports.  What I got was a modern art masterpiece of a meal.  So George, after polishing off two Spanish reds by himself, told me that each morning he looks at his face in the mirror while shaving and thinks to himself:  Not yet.

Not yet.

This interests me.  Like he’s constantly waiting for some fixed point in the future when his looks and talents are to suddenly magnify, or realise themselves.  Ailbhe, sat the other side of him, said, “Nothing but now, George.”

Bless ‘er.

George paid no heed.  Never underestimate the faculty of the male mind for overwriting existing unflattering data with something entirely more egofriendly.

How this attitude finds its mark upon George’s professional life is he makes for a formidably crappy kidnapper.

This means clients yell the safe-word.  Call a halt.  This means refunds.  Which I am understandably loathe to give.  One client a while back told me as I tore up his cheque he didn’t feel at all during the experience that George was in control.  And the client was the one blindfolded and trussed with bungee cord remember.

Result:  He slash she takes his business elsewhere.  Cocks a snook at Death elsewhere.

George has his palms out already.  “About the McFadden package—”

I raise a hand to shush him.  “George, another instance like that and my hands are tied.  Next one.  I am withered threatening.  I am now a man of action.  Been looking over your progress just now,” tapping monitor screen with fingernail tinktink, on it a page of a site devoted to celebrity skin conditions, “and things will not go on as they have for much longer.”

“Whatwhy?”

“You ask why, George?  Why is the sky blue?”

“Simple:  what we see is dust suspended in our shell of air, quadrillions of prisms shattering pure sunlight into spectra.  Blue is the colour that scatters.  The moon’s sky is black and the sky over Mars is red.”

“Listen you.  I’m going to have to see some agreeable numbers on this screen sharpish or your position here may become untenable.”

Where’s my lunch?

George retains the presence of mind to stay silent and nod solemnly.  Tacit.  This is why he stays.  I reach into a drawer and press into his hands a crystal paperweight as he stands.  “Here.  This absorbs chi and spreads it around the room.”

He looks at me like I handed him an eggbeater and told him do a raindance.

“Keep it on your desk.  Bring you luck.  Keep it on the opposite side to your peecee though.  It emits electrical vibrations as well as absorbs them.”

Hand on doorknob, over his shoulder at me, “Your life turn out at all like you pictured it Dave?”

“Hell no.  Imagined I’d be in a funk band with twenty others and we’d all wear capes.”

Windchimes tinkle, enlivening and purifying the air, dispelling sickness.

Ailbhe returns with lunch.  It fills the large George-shaped hole in my soul.  Phone jangles.  Ailbhe tells me freezerbag lady is here to see me.  Windchimes tinkle etc.  She appears to be between eighteen and twentyeight.  Lopsided Louise Brooks cut.  Slung on crook of arm a tan and cream bag looks like it may contain a bowlingball.

Introduce myself.  She says, “I see.  This is your baby then is it not.”

“Mmm hmm that's right.  Three glorious years.  Story goes I was on the Tower Bridge one summer afternoon.  Spotted a boy and girl sporting identical Jack the Ripper Tour teeshirts.  Jack The Ripper tore women’s faces off and slung their innards over their shoulders as they breathed.  Both on the bridge looked to be about your age.  Triumph of marketing or a triumph of marketing.”

“I’m sure.  David Blaize Garland.  Quite a handle.”

“Dave Garland to those who know me,” I say, “but I feel the presence of a middle name lends it an air of infamy.  Like they call famous murderers by their full names.  Sets them a comfortable distance apart from us.”

“Mark David Chapman.”

“Zackly.”

“Charles Julius Guiteau.”

“John Wilkes Booth.”

“The current occupant of The Great American Hovel.”

“Now now.”

“Jaime Ramon Mercader del Rio Hernandez.”

“Have a seat.”

“The Donatists of fourth-century North Africa,” she says, legs crossed high, “were so keen on the idea of death and martyrdom that they would stop strangers and demand to be killed by them, threatening death.”

“Might put that in the brochure.”  I glance at her form.

“Frudie.  Quite a handle.”

“Christened Isabella.  Called myself Frudie as a toddler and it stuck.  Isabella too thorny a word for a twoyearold tongue to wrap around presumably.”

“Okay Frudie.  What do you want?”

“A more authentic life.”

“Come to the right place.”

“Metaphysical consolations are not enough.”

“Good for you.  Got any pets?”

Shifts in her chair.  “A golden retriever.  Kumiko”

I ask her how to spell that.  She spells it.  I jot it down.

“Frudie, Kumiko is to be your safe-word.  You yell Kumiko, I stop the show.  No refunds.  ‘Cept extenuating.  If you are unable to yell, strike me anywhere.  As you can see, that’s a lot of available surface area.  Anywhere.  Arm or head say.  Shave-And-A-Haircut.  You know Shave-And-A-Haircut?  Like this.  Right.  Tell me. What is the safe-word?” 

“Kumiko,” she reels off.

“The knock?”

She raps walnut with one knuckle.  Dat dat dat-dat-dat.

Redtape:  waivers, consent declarations to be signed.  I give her the spiel, then, “That it?” she says.

“That it,” I say, “Unless…”  I stretch a rigormortis stewardess smile, “Choking or non-choking?”

Splutters a laugh.

“You can pay Ailbhe,” I say, “she’ll issue you with a receipt.  Answer any questions. Go about your week.  Do what you do. Your thing.  We’ll find you.  Bye until then.”

We shake and she sallies out of the room.  Spy a tattoo on her coccyx.  Small black circle.  Wonder what that is.  Celtic band.  Zero.  An oh.  The wheel of being.  Crosshairs for a tap.

Windchimes tinkle, enlivening and purifying the air, dispelling sickness.

Home soon.  I have seen what George goes home to every night.  Crooked little semi overlooking a pissyellow alley.  Cats yowl and screw all night beneath his sill.  Paint flaking badly.  White with blue trim.  Reminds me of a pair of Burt Reynolds’ underwear.  I’m stuck with George even if dee bee gee pee ell cee, my baby, goes over the falls in a barrel.  Perhaps have him on mopup a month or two.  Scrubbing gouts of cornflower syrup off tiles.  Applying Savlon to rope-chafed skin and the like.  Do him the power of good. 

Windowsill decked with Exmas cards.  Satisfied customers.  Beyond the cards, sun shines directly in my eyes and it is just gone four.  It is winter remember.  I see gridlock ant-trails, slow piddling streams of drivers with genuine murder in their brains.

Come see me I say.

I’m in the book.
                                                    
                                                    

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From Grotli to Geiranger                                    

by Rochelle Mass

 

he winds that had pushed her rented car to the side of the highway, sometimes so close to the edge she could smell the ocean below, were now quiet.  Something kept them low and playful.

The village of Grotli was like Main Street, North Winnipeg, with rows of dusty stores.  She stopped at the first coffee shop, ordered cole-slaw.  More carrots than on Main Street, and red wine.  At home she didn’t drink with lunch, but in Grotli, said her travel kit, that’s what they did, and why not red wine, the glory of the region. 

A pastry? the waiter suggested as he cleared the dishes.  What he brought was not as sweet as ladyfingers from Gunn’s bakery back home, but with deeper flavor.  Grotli was not North Winnipeg.   This was her first stop.  The first time she’d traveled on her own.  The marvelous thing about stopping on the way, she thought, is you don’t know who the people are, can’t get any help from the language, which was thick and slippery, so different from French. 

She hid her gratefulness when the waiter said pastry?  clear as an invitation to dance.  He brought it on a plate fluted like a wreath.  She moved the travel kit aside.  Hotel? Grotli?  She looked up to see the waiter smoothing his apron.  Hotel, Grotli, good.   Nice.   He pulled out a chair, sat across from her.

She shrugged, circled the fluted edge with her finger, looked at her watch, a full hour before she had planned to stop for lunch and hours before she was to spend the night in Geiranger.  Had a recommendation from Sally, at work, whose brother had trained for the Olympics there.  Great beds, Sally said, with real feather quilts, the best cinnamon buns.  That was her plan, but now a waiter was smiling across from her.

Drink he urged and she obediently took up her glass.  Cheers, you say?  She nodded; he looked in the direction of the kitchen.  Before she set her glass back on the white cloth, he was handed one and brought it towards her.  

The wine was warm.  He leaned forward, placing a dark hand on her map.  Grotli good place for lady.  She pulled at the neck of her sweater.  I not old and you not  he said as though reciting from a poem.   

Why rush off to Geiranger, she thought, letting the wine and his smile settle like the morning winds.  A tray of bread was brought to the counter and she was covered with the kind of optimism fresh baking offers.  

I show you.  Get hotel for night.  He said, his hand still on the map.  

Name—Elvo  he said quietly. 

Name—Marnie she answered.  

Now Drink!  he urged and as she took up her glass she knew he was right.
                                                    
                                                    

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The Boat                                                           

 by M. A. Haarhaus

                                                                                                        

s the road bent to her left, Emma kept a look out for the boat that was supposed to be there.  “It’s right there,” he’d said.  “You can’t miss it.”  Emma always had trouble stopping to look at things left on the side of the road.  It somehow felt like breaking the rules.  These things belonged to someone, and who was she to go pawing through it.  If they wanted to throw it away, then they should be able to throw it away.  She knew this was a silly thought process, but that’s how she felt about it. 

The view to her right was one from a dream she was sure she’d had as a child.  Or perhaps it was something she had seen on a postcard.  Water, encircled by bushes, trees and gentle little hills—just a glimpse of a house or two that undoubtedly had perfect lawns.  A bright red boat was rocking at anchor.  A family on a larger boat, close, intimate, happy to be with each other.  Another power boat pulling two water skiers along behind.  Picture perfect, idyllic, Emma thought.  She felt the bile rising to the back of her throat as her heart constricted from the pain of sadness.  A sadness arising from the knowledge that it was a dream, a dream she knew would always be denied her.

As the road bent, again to her left, the boat came into view.  It sat just off the road, entangled in brambles and honeysuckle vines.  The trailer it was on had seen better days, and, in fact, so had the boat.  Luckily, for Emma, there wasn’t a house in sight.  She pulled off on the opposite side of the street, and leaving the car running she got out to take a closer look.

The little boat was about 15 feet long by 4 feet wide.  It was a small sailboat that needed some TLC if it were to ever sail the sea again.  Emma was delighted.  It was just her kind of boat.  She ran her hand longingly along its keel and moved to the other side.  She lifted a stray bramble that was trying to board and pushed it back.  As she stood looking at the boat a sense of euphoria began to take over her mood.  All anxiety about stopping and touching someone else’s property began to fade.  She began to feel as if this little boat were already hers.  As she moved back around, she stepped on something soft and soggy.  Looking down she found that she had stepped on the “for sale” sign that had fallen off some time ago.  It was lying face up near the boat and her foot obscured some of the phone number that had been meticulously printed on it.  The numbers had been printed in a near perfect block letter style, by hand.  She stared blankly at the sign for a few moments before conscious thought came back to her.  It occurred to her that if she moved her foot and saw the whole number, she’d have no reason not to call and ask about the boat.  She didn’t have any money, certainly not for spending on a boat.  Why bother to call and ask about it?  He’d said if they wanted money for it, it was probably not worth it.  He’d said perhaps they wanted to just get rid of it.  Emma looked again at her foot and moved it a fraction of an inch exposing one more number.  Maybe he was right.

It was obvious that the sign had been on the ground for a long time.  As it hadn’t rained for days, the wetness of the grass would have been what was responsible for the sogginess and smudging.  Maybe the other numbers would be completely gone if she moved her foot, thought Emma.  It was a possibility, and then the decision to call and ask or not would be moot.  Emma moved her foot another inch; another clearly readable number was exposed.  With it, her anxiety came back.  There was something nagging at the back of her mind; a memory was trying to connect itself to her present activity.  It had something to do with a boat.  It was not a pleasant memory she felt, and she wanted to distract, or deflect the connection.  She started to move to the other side of the boat again in an attempt to redirect her thoughts.  As she took a step, she tripped on the edge of the sign and fell against the boat.  The memory she was trying to deflect came flooding back as if it happened yesterday.  Like an old black and white film, the memory took over all thoughts and actions.  Emma was glued to the spot until it was over.

Rocking, swaying, the smell of the sea, hard wood, a smack, and the taste of soda.  These sensations were what she remembered about the boat.  She was young, worse she was little.  The life jacket they made her wear was choking her.  She was on a commercial fishing boat with her aunt and uncle.  It was to be a day of fun, fishing and time away from her brothers.  Emma felt very alone, and sick to her stomach.  She was sick from the rocking and swaying of the boat.  There was no place to sit, or lie down.  She was definitely going to throw up. 

It started out as quite an adventure for Emma.  It was not often she got to be the one to do something the others didn’t.  She could only assume that her aunt and uncle asked for her.  Although she couldn’t figure out why, it didn’t matter.  She was the one going fishing, on a boat.  It turned out to be a gray, misty day.  She had on a sweater and a pair of tattered jeans.  Mother had put a scarf over her wayward hair, but it was not meant to keep her warm, and she was cold.  Her aunt sat forward, on a folding chair and was wrapped in a warm coat, gloves and a knit hat.  She was formidable looking and Emma was afraid of her.  But, she was the keeper of the cooler with food and drinks in it, so Emma put on as happy a face as she could muster to please her aunt. 

Emma was standing in the middle of the deck trying to stay on her feet.  The boat swayed drastically and the mist had made all of her clothes wet through.  Her stomach was lurching in the complete opposite direction of the boat.  She threw up—her aunt was on her feet in a flash.  She swooped down on Emma and slapped her soundly on the back of her head and pushed her down onto the wooden deck.  Emma’s head reeled—whether from the blow, or from having just emptied her already empty stomach, she didn’t know.  She curled into a small ball and waited to die.  Her aunt then went to the cooler and took out a coke, which she gave to Emma to drink.  At first the bubbles threatened to make Emma throw up again as they invaded the back of her throat and nose.  Fearing another smack, she swallowed.  The coke did, in fact, make her feel better.  She went over to a small platform made of slatted wood and laid down.  She couldn’t close her eyes, however, as it only made the motion of the boat seem worse.  She worried about what her mother would say.  She’d been admonished to “be a good girl.”  Emma sure hoped she’d been a good girl.  The look on her aunt’s face said otherwise, however. 

After what seemed a very long time, the boat docked.  She rose from the cold, wooden slats and made her way down the gangplank.  She saw her aunt talking to her mother and knew she had not “been a good girl.”  Her battered stomach took a turn and she threw up.  Mother grabbed her by the arm and raced her to the car.  Emma knew what lay in store and crawled onto the floor of the back seat and curled into a small ball.

Emma moved her foot to cover the numbers on the sign.  She took a step back from the boat and thought perhaps this was not the right boat for her.  He’d said that if they wanted any money for it, it was probably not worth it.  She’d have to discuss this experience with him at their next session.  Right or not she was angry with him for even telling her about the boat.  She was angry with him for the memories that kept coming back.  She was angry with him for caring. 

Turning from the boat she headed back to her car.  She had a lot to talk to him about.  She smiled a little at the thought of seeing his self-congratulatory smile as he nodded his understanding of what this new/old pain was all about.  As she put the car into drive and whipped a u-turn to go home, her anger grew.  It irked her that he would understand this so well.  Sometimes she thought he could read her mind and knew all of these stories already and then he would set her up so that she would re-experience the feelings.  Oh, she had a lot to talk about at their next session she thought as she watched the boat grow smaller in her rear view mirror.
                                                    
                                                    

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Brothers                                                                                      

 by Corey Mesler

 

is brother wasn’t like that.  It was the other boy and the other boy was their preacher’s son which made it worse, he thought.  As if a preacher’s son knew some special evil, or knew where his actions could take him and not curse him and he was safe and protected in his special desires, in his abuses.  His brother wasn’t like that.  Not normally, not during their everydayness and sometimes he took him driving in his new yellow Corvair, Jim liked that word, Corvair.  It was up to date.  It was as cool as any of the other boys and their things or even their older brothers’ things.  He was on top of the world in that Corvair and he put his knees up on the glove compartment and he felt the wind through his white-yellow hair and his brother drove with just one wrist bent over the steering wheel with a studied nonchalance which was the height of cool and his brother squinted like Montgomery Clift and his wrist was bent over the steering wheel of the Corvair and he was beside him and even if they were only going up to Deshazo’s for some bread or milk or only to Raleigh Drugs for something his brother needed, something like aftershave, which was exotic and mature, even if they were only going a mile or so, Jim relished the feel of the trip, the wind, the musty smell of the second hand car’s interior, his brother’s undeniable coolness and once the radio was playing The Young Rascals, Jim’s favorite group right then because he wanted to be a drummer and they had the best, Dino Danelli, he could twirl his sticks while he played.  Even the short trips  Jim relished.  But sometimes Al took him out driving, that’s what they called it, just driving, which meant exceeding the speed limit down some backroad, hooded with trees like a cool, quiet cave, Old Brownsville Road, or even further out, in Ellendale where Jim knew some bad boys lived, some river rats some of his friends called them, mean boys who didn’t have parents or who had parents but lived in the Boy’s Home anyway, they were that mean.  And those rides, those rides, were the real thing, when he wasn’t afraid of anything for a while and his brother beside him and that was love if he wanted to use such a word but he didn’t have to. 

He was content to just lie back under the sun flickering in and out in and out between the leaves and pretend their Corvair was taking them deep into some underground place, some clandestine place, like he read about in The Hardy Boys, books Al had loaned him, books he was, to be honest, a bit bored with, but he knew adventure when he read it and he imagined that adventure now, just him and Al and the wind and sometimes Al wore those sunglasses he bought at Raleigh Drugs, the ones their mother didn’t like. 

So his brother wasn’t like that but he still got sick to his stomach when his parents were going out and Al was left there alone with him and there was that possibility that Billy Woodrell was coming over, Pastor Woodrell’s son.  His parents said, “We’ll be home a little late, Jim, you go on to bed when Al says to, ok? and don’t bother him and Billy, they want to do their things.”  And  still to Al she’d add, “You take good care of Jim, will ya?”  And father said nothing and it didn’t matter where they were going, usually just to the movies or sometimes to the Woodrells, it didn’t matter, the time was interminable, the hours were like endless nights and he didn’t want to go to bed with Billy Woodrell in the house and he didn’t want to get into his pajamas with him there and it was all horrible horrible.  And they wouldn’t be out the door, not even down the driveway or off Kenneth Street and Billy would start in as if he couldn’t wait, as if tormenting Jim was what he lived for, he fairly bubbled over with it.  “Hey, little girl,” he’d say and when Jim would look at him he’d laugh as if he were the funniest man in the world and say, “Hear that, Al, your little brother is a little girl.  He answered when I said, ‘little girl,’ isn’t that right, little girl?”  And it was worse if Jim answered “I didn’t answer, I just looked at you” because boys like Billy Woodrell had all the comebacks and he would know just what to say to make Jim feel even worse and most often Jim let every insult roll over him like waves of nausea and his brother did nothing, his heroic brother.  But it was only when Billy was there.  Al wasn’t really that way.

And Billy Woodrell had arms like a wolf’s, covered with hair, and he would hold Jim pinned to the carpet, Jim’s own scrawny arms like a kitten’s in Billy’s man’s grip, and Billy would pin him there, sit on him and let him wriggle for a while just to watch him and Al did nothing and Billy would get real close to Jim’s face and make his eyes meet his and he would look at him like he could kill him and it scared Jim really badly and he thought he might just as well die and he wished he would and wouldn’t Al feel bad then and his parents for leaving him here like this and maybe even Billy Woodrell whose father was a man of God, maybe even he’d feel bad if he actually killed him.  Maybe that would be the trick, maybe that would end the torture.  But no Billy would just get as close as he could and sometimes he would breath right into Jim’s mouth and nose and say, “Does that taste good, little girl?” and he would turn to Al and say “You got a sweet little sister, here, Al buddy, a sweet little girl sister, see how still she’ll lie here for me.”  And Jim would feel even sicker and Al would look busy with his Popular Mechanics or maybe he was watching Wild Wild West, a show Jim loved, too, and they watched it together when there wasn’t any Billy Woodrell around to ruin everything and to make life miserable and Jim wished Billy Woodrell would be the one to die and then he and Al could watch Wild Wild West together and maybe even pop some popcorn, they did that once when they were all alone and their parents had left and then another time they ate the cake their mother had made for the church picnic and that was extra sweet because they were together, guilty as sin, brothers, real brothers in crime.

But now Billy Woodrell held him down and now he was rubbing his big wolf hands around one of Jim’s forearms and saying “Hey, look, I’m starting a fire, Al buddy, this is the way the Indians do it,” which he thought was real funny because they called that particular hurt an Indian burn.  And then the worst would happen, as inevitable as the time finally passing, as their parents car turning into the driveway and the headlights casting large dancing lights across the ceiling and the little honk their father gave to say, “We’re home,” as inevitable as the fourth and final frame of Wild Wild West when they solved everything and Jim West (they had the same name!) kissed the girl, which was embarrassing and exciting too but he couldn’t talk about that, as inevitable as sunset, Jim would cry and the sport would be over.  Not as bad as the night Jim wet himself in front of Billy Woodrell and cried at the same time but as hard as he fought against the tears they came, they came, and Billy would rise up, a funny look on his face, sort of satisfaction and disappointment at the same time and Jim through his tears would see those wolf arms rising away from him and know he was free for a little while, though Billy would half-heartedly risk a few more nasty comments, he’d rise with a derisive “little girl” let out like a tired exhalation, like he’d been in a fight and he’d won but it didn’t satisfy his need to discipline, to trounce somebody or something and he was a preacher’s son, Pastor Woodrell’s only son, and that must have been special to him and he stood up over Jim like some Old Testament punisher and he looked down at how small Jim was and Jim sobbed but knew it was over for now and Al said nothing.  

And Billy would leave after that sometimes and Al would not look at Jim for a while and when it was time to put Jim to bed Al would very gently touch his shoulder as if anything stronger would bruise and he would half guide, half follow Jim into the bedroom they shared and he would sit on his own bed while Jim got into his pajamas and Jim was sick with shame but relieved Billy Woodrell had gone before he’d gone to bed and Al would be real still while Jim got dressed and he’d wait there on the bed while Jim went and peed and brushed his teeth and when Jim got back Al would still be there sitting on his bed looking between his knees and Jim would kneel and tent his hands and say his prayers aloud which were always about what he wanted for himself and his family and rarely about anything he had done wrong and sometimes Jim sinned and inside his prayer, inside the one he spoke out loud, silently, he would wish for Billy Woodrell’s death and he knew this prayer was a bad prayer, a stillborn prayer and that God wasn’t listening because death was a bad thing and besides Billy Woodrell was a preacher’s son.  And he knew sleep would not come soon and he would lie in bed and listen for his parents’car and he would worry about what his life would be like being so weak and the world so fierce and he knew it could never be better, time without end, and he tried to think about the good things like the Corvair and the wind in his hair and going to Deshazo’s for milk.  And Al would look at him sometimes right before he went to sleep and Jim thought Al loves me and Al would smile a little bit and when he turned out the light Al might turn back, just for a moment, and whisper, “Sweet dreams, Jimbo,” and then Jim would add something else to his silent prayers, his secret prayers inside the other prayers, and he would wish that God would let Al live forever.
                                                    
                                                    

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In Memoriam:  My Not-Yet-Dead Sister                         

by Saskia van der Linden

 

 

[1975]
ook Mum, twins!’  A plumpish blonde woman shouts it out and I want to punch her, tear her hair out, or at least cry back that my sister and I are not twins.  Never have been and never will be.  That, just because our mother makes us wear the same clothes all the time, preferably unfashionable little flowery dresses, that does not mean we are identical.

[1983]
We are finally allowed to pick our own clothes and you choose the same coat I have just paid for.  I’d like to shake you and slap you hard in the face, but instead I say grumpily that this is not fair.  Then, obtaining an identity of your own has never been your problem, being the first-born.  I will struggle all my life to become un-twinned, to un-clone myself from you.

[1974]
You’re the pretty one—I have the brains, or at least that is what our mother says.  It makes me feel proud.  All my friends are feminists like myself, we fight with boys and usually win, too.  We work hard and play hard.  You don’t have any friends, you are very silent and shy and you usually keep to yourself.  When I am for once sitting quietly on the couch, watching some children’s programme with you, our mother walks in and tells me to sit like a proper girl.  I don’t understand what she means.  All my girlfriends sit like this, with their knees pulled up and their arms around them and we all think this looks cool.  My mother tells me I can’t sit like that when I am wearing a dress, for people can see my knickers.  I snap back that they should not be looking there, then.  For this, she slaps me hard in the face.

[1982]
Calling the Child Helpline is one of our favourite hobbies now that there is no parent around the house to guard us when we come home from school.  You usually do the talking, and I make it a challenge for you not to burst out laughing when I am laughing myself or making faces at you.  I finally succeed when I pretend I am sticking our rabbit Succubi’s head into my mouth.  ‘Why are you laughing?’  I hear the social worker on the other end of the line ask.  You immediately recover, breathing hard into the receiver:  ‘It’s just that I am so terribly nervous...’  ‘Poor kid,’ he replies, ‘How long has your father been doing this to you?’

[1973]
While I am running around the house and producing lots of noise a girl shouldn’t be making (says our mother) you are making beautiful drawings.  Our father keeps repeating all his life that you could draw hands with actual fingers that even have got nails at an age when other children draw them like forks.  No wonder he is so proud of you.  We regard you as a bit of a genius and are convinced you will be the next Walt Disney.

[1985]
You were caught in the girls’ toilets at school smoking a joint.  Our parents feel betrayed because their good esteem in middle class society has gone down with all the gossip that starts spreading around our small town.  I feel betrayed because it is now clear to me that there is a whole world you’ve been hiding from me for years.  This wasn’t your first smoke.  This wasn’t your first contact with drugs.  This wasn’t the first time people at our school were gossiping about your strange behaviour.

[1976]
Our solidarity is exceptional and people often remark on that.  As we have decided that you are best at drawing, I will not take up a pencil anymore.  As I am better than you at writing short stories, you give up writing altogether.  We are going to be the new Brontë sisters, with the difference that our names will appear on the same book cover.  You will be the illustrator, and I the writer, of our children’s books.  I have not mastered another genre of fiction yet.

[1981]
Our father, who has just been elected Chair of the parents’ committee of our school, and his girlfriend Meg visit our house.  He tells us that my short stories are often being read and discussed in the staff room.  My mother shrugs her shoulders:  ‘That is hardly going to pay her rent, is it?’  Meg asks her why she is always putting me down.  Both my mother and I stare at her blankly.  Unexpectedly, I hear your voice, saying:  ‘That’s true, Mum.  You’re always doing that.’

[1986]
You’ve run away from home and come back a heroin addict.  I can’t stand the sight of you, sitting there sloppily on the sofa, your long black hair unwashed and withered.  I shake you.  Hard.  I shout at you.  Loud.  In the end, our mother tells me to leave you alone.

[1979]
You cry a lot.  Puberty has started, obviously, but not yet for me.  Last night you had your first period and everyone is being sweet to you today.  You have been given your first bra from the most expensive clothes shop in town, and Granny and Mum are telling you all about the first time they started to menstruate.  I feel very much left out, even though we are inseparable and usually know all about each other.  We even let each other read our diary entries.  The other day I walked into a newsagent’s and the man behind the counter wanted to know if ‘the other girl’, who often accompanies me wearing the same coat was my best friend.  I had to giggle as I told him, ‘Yes, she is.’  He paused for a moment and looked at me uneasily before he replied:  ‘Oh. I was not sure if you were friends or sisters.’  I proudly said to him that we are best friends and sisters.  By now, people have no problem telling us apart.  Your thick black curls and my thin, straight long hair which can’t easily be put into a clear colour category (‘dark blonde’ and ‘light brown’ will do) makes most strangers doubt we are related in any way.  But our voices are the same, so much so that people can’t tell us apart on the telephone.

[1980]
I haven’t been prepared for all the blood, and I scream.  My mother knocks on the loo door to hand me a towel.  We have been expecting this, as our GP told us it could happen any day now.  Yet now it has happened I am in a state of shock.  I’m in agony and I feel as if I’m going to burst out into tears any minute now.  My mother tells me not to be such a wimp.  It is past eight o’clock in the morning and time for me to go to school, anyway.  I can’t tell anyone as I am only eleven years old and there’s no other girl in my class who has had her first period yet.  I have never felt so lonely in my life.

[1987]
I meet Tony Askew, the most handsome boy from high school, at a bus stop . When he spots me, he yells:  ‘Hey, aren’t you Kat Pierce’s little sister?’  I nod.  We start chatting away, and I am trembling on my feet as he asks me out.  In my excitement I turn to Meg later that day for advice on what to wear and what to say, as Mum will not leave her bed anymore unless there is a phone call from you, her beloved idol.  Meg goes into town with me and buys me a beautiful pink top and white skirt.  She also helps me apply some make-up, smiles, and tells me I look adorable.  Even after all these years I still think people are taking the mickey when they compliment me, and I smile back as if not only my teeth, but also my tongue and lips are aching.  I am very nervous as this is my first ‘real’ date, but when we meet up Tony only wants to talk about you.  ‘She’s been spotted in town wearing only a black teddy, hasn’t she?’ he grins, leaning forward and giving me a conspiratorial look.  I have fancied Tony for years but now, in the time-span of one second and right before my eyes, he turns into a creep.  After I have finished my shandy I pretend to have a headache and go home.  Tony calls me a few times that week but when I keep making up excuses for a new date he finally gives up.  I hate him, but I hate you even more.  You have ruined all my chances of being a normal girl who leads a normal life and goes on normal dates with normal guys.

[1988]
I pack my things so silently that neither you nor Mum notice that I am leaving.  I have decided that I will move in with Meg.  She is no longer with my father, but they are still good friends, and he will pay for the course I will be starting this term in a town close to hers.  I can’t concentrate on my homework anyway while you are breaking things regularly and screaming.

[1977]
Running away is our favourite childhood game.  We will leave a note saying ‘Good-bye, Mum’ on the kitchen-table, grab some biscuits to survive the first days outside the house and walk off to the nearest park.  By the time it gets dark and we have eaten all the biscuits, we will go back home.  Even though it has become a ritual, and so predictable, we will always find our mother in tears and that she has called the police.  We once overhear her telling a friend who’s visiting, ‘I think our divorce has badly affected them.’  We burst out laughing.
                                                    
                                                    

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No!                                                                                   

by Emile Alexander Dodds

                                                                                                                                              

splashed water on my face to wake up as I looked in the mirror.  Unfortunately, this would be one of those extremely rare days when I would actually have to go to ‘work’.  And I knew what that meant.

With a sigh, I put on my jacket and ventured outside.  It was a beautiful morning in West London.  Most people did not see it, though.  The streets were busy and most people wore business clothes.  Eyes fixed straight ahead, they marched on at relentless speed to their destinations.  I also had a destination this morning, but it needed me more than I needed it.  I slowed my pace.

A scruffy man was selling The Big Issue outside the Baker Street tube station.  “I’ve already got that one,” I told him.  He did not look like he believed me.  I gave in and bought a copy.  When I turned the corner, I tossed it into the nearest rubbish bin.  One day I would have to learn to be firm.

I bought a ticket, got on the train and took a seat next to man preoccupied with his Discman.  After a couple of stops, he took off his headphones and mumbled something to me about King Alpha and Queen Omega.  I told him I did not have the slightest idea what he was on about.  Still, I felt my mood beginning to lift.  Maybe his words did have some kind of effect on me.

I got off the train after only a few stops.  Even though I was in better spirits, I decided to take my time.  The corridors of the station seemed like a maze and I drifted along, reading the posters plastered on the walls.  Some of them were quite imaginative.  “Ever wonder why you never see baby pigeons?”  This was a ploy to sell insurance.  “A taste of home!”  This was written above a yellow ‘M’, the symbol of the ubiquitous McDonalds.  One poster really caught my eye. With black letters on a plain white background, it read, “All we want on the Earth is love, Brother and Sistren.”  I pondered this for some time.

Outside the station there was, of course, another scruffy man selling The Big Issue.  He appeared to have been drinking and was hurling abuse at people passing by.  Stopping to watch, I saw him pick out a thin man wearing spectacles. “Stuffed bloody suit!  Go on; walk past, you piece of crap!  Capitalist bloody pig.”  He turned and saw me watching him.  “What the Hell do you want?”

“All we want on the Earth is love,” I told him.

Walking on, I eventually reached my destination.  88 Rothschild Boulevard.  I entered and passed by the lifts.  I had been taking the stairs since I was a child and it was force of habit.  Still, everything had changed now.  I was no longer here to play.  I was here to lead my army.  Or to be led by it.  At the top of the stairs, two glass doors still boasted my father’s name.  That would have to change soon, too.

Inside, a flustered receptionist and an impatient mustachioed man in a dark suit watched me enter.

“I tried your mobile but I couldn’t get through,” the woman said.

“It’s about time,” the man said before ordering me to follow him.  He led me down the pristine corridor and through a door marked ‘Conference Room’.

There were eleven people in the room, all wearing dark suits.  The man that had met me made twelve and I made thirteen.  In the centre of the room was an oval meeting table.  This, the leather chairs and the cigar-coloured walls all breathed an air of dignity into the proceedings.

I took my seat at the head of the table with the executives seated on either side.  The man with the moustache was at the other end of the table.  He remained standing.  “We all know why we’re here,” he said.

As he launched into his speech, I took the opportunity to examine the men in the room.  The finest tailors in London were certainly well represented here.  Down to the smallest touch, these men were symbols of fine taste, immaculate grooming and the best education that money could buy.  Their faces, however, told a different story.  On each was etched the story of a lifetime’s pursuit of money and power.  They held serious expressions, which warned that they were not to be trifled with.  I wondered what the Big Issue seller would have to say to them.

I shifted my attention back to the speaker and tried to give an impression of listening earnestly.  He was stating his case with great emphasis, choosing his words carefully, like a lawyer.  I became captivated by his motions.  He held his hands behind his back.  Then he launched them out in front as if he was literally catching the points that he was talking about.  He even moved them in great sweeping motions like a conductor.  My impression of listening seemed to work; he went on and on without stopping to ask or check anything, his voice booming and echoing through the room.

The man was standing in front of a large window overlooking the Thames.  I became aware that I could gaze beyond him and look out at the mighty river while still seeming to listen intently.  The words that he spoke did enter my head but somehow I knew that words had no power compared to raw unspoken ideas.  The people who know where to find the baby pigeons are the ones with the real power.

Time dragged on, but I was comfortable.  I took in the scene inside and the river outside.  I watched the mustachioed man with his strange motions and I sneaked glances at the executives in their leather chairs.  They were all transfixed by the message.  Not one turned in my direction.  The speaker directed part of his energy at them, and the rest at me.  He talked and talked until I was afraid he would run out of breath and collapse.  It occurred to me that the price of vigilance is eternal freedom.

Then, all of a sudden, it was over.  Now I had twelve sets of eyes fixed intently on me.  I saw a smug confidence there, but I also saw a certain fear.  The mustachioed man smiled broadly down at me.  He gestured to the paper laid out before me.  On top of the document lay a pen.  I looked up once more at the hungry eyes.

“No,” I said.  Then I stood up and left to enjoy the rest of the beautiful morning.

 

                                                    
                                                    

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Twilight:  Maywood, New Jersey                             

by Martin Bayne

 

nother bad dream.

Another brutal assault on the senses:  shadow figures screaming in pain and the smell of open wounds.

For Paul W Cathcart III, CEO of the nation's largest supermarket chain, the dreams had become worm holes into a world of Hieronymus Bosch images.

And he was frightened.

He had fallen asleep on his veranda.  When he awoke, his sweat-soaked clothes were matted to his body and the pungent smell of fear competed with the orange and lemon groves on his 700 acre Pacific Ocean estate.

But a long shower, change of clothes and Peach Daiquiri was the usual antidote, and in short order he had regained his equilibrium, lying on a chaise lounge, watching the yachts maneuver the shallow waters of the harbor.

He closed his eyes, letting the distant toll of the buoys and the noonday sun against his face carry him away.

Moments later he was a child again, walking in the snowy woods of Vermont with his father, as Jake, his faithful German Shepherd, tagged close behind.

He loved these walks.  The simple joys of the smell of pine and the crunch of snow beneath his feet provided a moment of sanctuary from the banality and indifference of adulthood.

Later that afternoon, as a gold and crimson sunset flooded the veranda, and a queue of sloops stretched across the harbor, Cathcart awoke from his walk in the woods, slightly startled to find a woman sitting next to him, holding a tray of food.

The blue tray was the kind you'd find in any institutional cafeteria and the woman, clearly old enough to be his grandmother, appeared... well, resigned, he thought.

He smiled.  "Gerry sent you, right?"  She looked away, ignoring his question.  "I knew it!" he said, slapping his thigh.  "Mr. Gerard Michael, our illustrious Personnel Manager has outdone himself this time."  Cathcart stood up and began pacing across the veranda, grinning like a child who had just found the perfect marble.

"Is it real?"

Again, she ignored his question.

"The food.  Is it real?" he repeated?

She changed her posture, and her voice took on an edge of irritation.  "We have to keep our strength up," she said, cutting his food until each piece was no larger than a quarter.

"OK, but at least tell me how you got past security."

Her icy stare was the only acknowledgement she even heard his question as she continued cutting his food.

The practical joke had now gone too far, and a flash of anger appeared on Cathcart's face.  "Look, lady, you either tell me who the hell you are, or I'll have a security detail here in 10 seconds and arrest you for trespassing."  As his voice trailed off, a half dozen seagulls swooped in for bits of food that had fallen off the tray.

She leaned over, placed her hands on his shoulders, and positioned her face only inches from his.  "I'm Linda, your wife.  The same person who's been visiting you at this nursing home everyday for the last 12 years."

Cathcart froze, as the Pacific Ocean estate that surrounded him slowly began to lose its three-dimensional texture—and was gradually being replaced by...

He watched with a familiar sense of claustrophobia as four walls grew around him.  Now, finding himself in bed, Cathcart scanned the room, suddenly aware of the smell of aging and death, and the sights and sounds of the shadow creatures.  He gagged as nausea and panic pounded on the door of his psyche.

The dream was back again.
                                                    
                                                    

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The Dreamhouse                                                     

by Richard Meyers
                                                                                                                                                          

arge was packed and ready to move.  Her house in the city had sold at a decent price and by summer she wanted to be settled in the new place.  Sam, her boyfriend, was resolved to help her in every way.  He would rent part of the property, fix up wherever necessary, paint the porch and attend to the details.  His son, Aaron, was determined to lend a hand.  Enthusiastic about the change for his father, he had often enumerated the advantages of country life.  Safety and serenity were the most important, followed by the freedom from distractions and the minimizing of stress.  It was all settled except for actually selecting the house.

When the realtor arrived at the cottage they were renting on River Road, Sam was drowsily making the bed.  Morning had snuck up on him like an opaque mist, something that was still part of his dream and refused to let him awake.  He had been dreaming of the past again that night, and his dream had been rambling and confused, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle trickling across his mind.  Marge opened the door for Sylvia Willit from Horizon Properties.

“This house I’m about to show you is the one.  I feel it,” the neatly-dressed woman said.

“I’ve got my fingers crossed,” Marge replied.  “We’re getting tired of searching, I want to be in the new place before summer.  It’s a three bedroom, you say.  And it’s not in the flood area.”

“Absolutely. It’s beautiful.  It’s sunny on the south side, forested on the north.  The terms of sale are perfect for your situation.  It’s all up to code, properly zoned, over an acre of land.  You saw the pictures.  It’s your house.  If you don’t think so I’d be surprised.” 

“Well, we can go as soon as Sam’s son gets here.  He’s just down the road walking the dog,” Marge said.

“There’s plenty of space for animals in this place,” Sylvia added.  “And you’ll love the garden, Marge.  The previous owner was a landscaper.  He planted everything.  There’s a huge oak and several manzanitas.  It’s all self-maintaining with a timed sprinkler system.  There’s even a miniature waterfall switches on every few hours.”

The door swung open and Aaron entered with a golden retriever named Rex.  He looked younger than his twenty-two years and he exuded that confident, boyish energy.  He took the leash off Rex and smiled at the woman talking to Marge.

“Aaron, this is Mrs. Willit from Horizon Properties.  We’re going to look at that place on Silver Springs Road, the one we were talking about.  We’re just about ready to go so get your father moving.  He’s pretty slow.”

“He’s always slow in the morning,” Aaron said.  “I’ll get him going.  That’s the house with all the space, the one you read to me.”

“Yeah, it was in the brochure.  I’m really excited.  Got my fingers crossed,” Marge replied.

“Great! O.K. we take Rex along?”

“Sure,” Sylvia Willit answered.  “Let’s get everyone’s opinion.  It’s wonderful when the whole family’s in agreement.”

“Get your dad,” Marge said.  “Let’s get going.  What’s taking him so long?”

“Spacing out as usual.  That’s my Dad.”

Aware of the attention drawn to him, Sam emerged from the bedroom.  He was a rather short, muscular man, and he had just lost weight from a diet he started some weeks ago when he and Marge and Aaron had sublet the cottage on River Road.  His jeans looked baggy on him; his curly hair was longer than it used to be, and uncombed.  He smiled at Sylvia Willit and ran his hands affectionately through Rex’s hair.

“Which one are we looking at today?” Sam asked.

“Silver Springs Road,” Marge answered impatiently.  “We were talking about it last night.”

“It’s a three bedroom.  An acre and a half.  Flood free, well insulated,” Sylvia said.  “Why don’t we talk about it on the way?”

“I guess I’m holding everything up,” Sam added.

“I didn’t say that.  You’re just dragging this morning,” Marge answered.

“It’s the rain,” Sylvia offered.  “Rainy cold mornings make one sluggish.  Takes some getting used to coming from the city.  It’s winter in the County.  This place I’m showing has central heating.”

“No, I’m afraid not,” Sam blurted out.

“She doesn’t mean this place, Sam,” Marge said.  ”We’re talking about Silver Springs Road.”

“I’ll explain the finances in more detail,” Sylvia said.  “The owner’s really flexible if you can put down the bid you mentioned.  It’s a good idea to get a bid in soon after Christmas.  Early post-holiday offers, we find, have some advantage.  Things relax after Christmas.  By a few weeks after New Years the asking price tends to go up.  That’s the pattern.  I’m not sure why.”

“Must be the New Year’s resolution,” Aaron said humorously.  “The owners resolve to be greedy again.”

“That’s funny,” Sylvia said.  “You really pay attention, don’t you?”

“He doesn’t miss a trick,” Marge replied approvingly.  “Aaron, you put Rex in the back of Mrs. Willit’s van.”

“Call me Sylvia.  Please.”

“Sam, are you ready,” Marge hurried him.  “I think we’re going to love this place.  I hope we don’t have to look any further.  This one may be it, Sammy.  Come on!  Let’s get there before Christmas.”

Sam put on his jacket and grabbed an umbrella near the door.

Christmas had come up in a dream, but the details had vanished upon awaking.  This morning, with his mind not on immediate things, he had managed to dredge up a memory of a Christmas morning in childhood, when he and his brother were disappointed that their parents could no longer afford to buy them the bicycles they were promised.  Mom and Dad had owned a grocery store that was robbed just days before Christmas.  It seemed funny now.  Old stories retold had a way of camouflaging the pain.  What seemed funny was that it had been turkeys that had been stolen, holiday turkeys.  It was explained that his parent’s business depended upon the sales of the birds to make the payments.  It was like this day, a Sunday morning in winter.  Sam and his brother had visited their friends’ homes to see all their Christmas presents.

Sylvia Willit put her client in the front seat of the Electra van and held the door for her.  She opened the back door for Sam and Aaron, Rex jumped in behind them in the trunk area.  Sylvia walked around the car austerely and got in.  She leaned forward over the steering wheel to look up at their cottage as though it were she, rather than the family, who was checking on the property.  “Everything locked up?” she asked.

“Oh, yes.  Let’s go,” Marge answered.

Once they were on their way, Sylvia said, “Let’s drive along the river and then I’ll turn north to the Silver Springs area.”  As they drove, Sylvia chatted easily about the buying up of land by the rival grape vineyards over the years, forcing what was left of the country real estate to sell for increasingly high prices.  Sylvia talked on about the spread of Korbel and Gallo wineries and the hundreds of new smaller vineyards that were springing up everywhere, breaking up the available land into smaller, fragmented parcels.

Sam found it difficult to listen.  He had been dreaming vividly in the night and wanted to return to sleep so he could find out how the dream ended up.  He never thought it would bother him the rest of the day.  He had wasted a lot of time while dressing and shaving trying to remember the dream’s details, probing them for clues, weaving through the emotional texture, until morning’s awareness had banished the whole thing.  Sam had learned not to expect to complete dreams, but their fragmentary nature was troublesome.

“Dad,” Aaron asked abruptly, “what do you think of these vineyards taking over?”  Sam was aware that he ought to respond, but instead of speaking, he smiled at Aaron and continued looking out the window.

“Dad, I’m talking to you,” Aaron repeated.  Rex lunged his head forward and began licking Sam’s ears.  Sam turned around and nuzzled his head into the dog’s neck of fur.  Again Aaron repeated his question.

“It’s a problem.  An enormous problem,” his father said.  “You read about it all the time.  Pesticides and toxic sprays.  A problem, ecologically, for sure.”

His answer seemed to satisfy everyone and it set Sylvia talking about the sudden rise in property values and the lack of decent buys these days.  Once the voices in the car became engaged, Sam continued gazing out the window.  Aaron’s question, the way it was asked, brought to mind Marge’s inquiry earlier that morning.  Sam had been watching her at the sink, rinsing the cups and drying them carefully with a thin dishtowel before putting them back in the cupboard.  She dried her hands and looped the dishtowel through the refrigerator door handle.  “So what should we do if we really like this place we’re going to see?”  Sam stopped looking at her and turned slightly away.

“We’ll, there’s a lot to consider,” he answered.  “Price, location, the terms of agreement.  That’s important.”

“Sam, I can’t believe you!  How can you state the obvious?  I know all those things.  Look, they’re right here written up, here on this paper.  You can read.”

“What I meant was that it’s your house, Marge.”  Sam felt immediately the silliness of this statement.  But the truth was that he had become comfortable in the cottage they rented.  It was manageable.  He had grown satisfied with the control he exercised over the place and he disliked even the smallest changes, and whenever Marge brought something bright and new for the cottage, he couldn’t help wondering what she wanted with it.  Thank God, she wasn’t like his ex-wife who liked to constantly move furniture around.  Marge was a frugal and sensible woman.  She was too wise to think that rearranging resulted in perfection.

“You never notice anything,” she told him, “this place needs all kinds of work.  It’s not insulated for the winter.  The plumbing leaks.  Look at these beams.  They’re rotting.  We can’t live here.  None of the doors hang right.  Have you tried closing the one in the bathroom?  It can’t be done.”

“Maybe I could fix it—“ Sam began.

“Sam, don’t go making offers.  Just don’t.”

“I need the right tool.”

“Don’t,” she insisted.  “One minute you’ll promise, then twenty minutes later you’ll forget.  So just forget it.  Spare us.”

There was a mild drizzle as the vehicle turned off the river road and into the forest area that flanked Summit Knolls Road.  Sylvia explained some things about the area to Marge.  “This area, of course, is flood safe.  Your water up here is pure.  Comes from the reservoir.  There used to be all kinds of fish in that reservoir, but the County had it drained years ago.  You like fishing, Aaron?”

Sam didn’t hear his son’s answer.  His mind was somewhere else.  The thought of fish interested him, however.  There was something about fish in his dreams the other night.  What was it?  Never mind, it was useless to try to recall with any accuracy images in a dream.  He remembered having an aquarium of fish as a young boy.  That was the period of time in the old neighborhood just before his family moved to Blueberry Heights.  There was no problem in recalling some of those details.  He could see the tank with its rust-red gravel, algae mottling its sides.  In it he had accumulated a large variety.  It was a strain to recall all the different kinds.  At night, with all the lights turned off but the one in the aquarium, Sam would watch the fish swimming about from the coziness of his bed.  Sam was entranced by their constant passivity.  They swam in their warm and luminous world, never a plan for escape, never stirring against their condition.  Food appeared regularly.  What did fish make of their world of captivity, its glass containment with its lines and contours?  Were their little hovering souls slanted to the proper angle of ineffectiveness, so that their contented lives might be lived out in a cage of glass?  Sam was devoted to his fish despite his father’s insistence that they were “not coming to the new house.”  The family could get a “fresh start in a higher class neighborhood”,  his father argued, and “there was no need to bring old fish into a new house.”  Sam and his brother carried on so that their father finally gave in.  “But you won’t catch me carrying that smelly tank.  I won’t be humiliated in front of the new neighbors.”  His father kept his word and refused to lift a finger to help his sons carry the huge aquarium into the house.  The water splashed over the sides of the tank as the brothers carried the jostled fish.  Stumbling along the path leading to the front stairs, Sam lowered his end to rest the tank on the grass lawn.  His foot got hooked on the “Keep off the grass” sign and the glass edge slipped out of his grip.  The tank went crashing to the ground, splattering shards of glass and spilling algae-water over the corpses of gulping and dying fish.  Neighbors were watching as the boys struggled for hours to clean up the mess.

“Dad,” Aaron said, “we can go fishing once we get settled in the new house.”  Sam was drifting as the van pulled up to the picket fence that ran the length of the property on Silver Springs Road.  The van doors swung open and everyone followed Sylvia Willit to the front door.  The realtor found the key on the round metal ring that unlocked the door.  Rex suddenly leapt off the porch and ran into the forested area behind the house.

“Let him go,” Marge said.  “He’ll come back.  Look at the redwood paneling and the high ceilings.  So this is the living room?

"Two fireplaces and a wood burner, Sam, look at all this.  Close the door behind you.  Sam, don’t you love this living room?  What’s the height of the ceiling here?  Oh, I see.  That sliding door goes right into the kitchen.  It’s even bigger than I imagined.  Aaron, where are you?  Look, he’s already upstairs checking out his future bedroom.  This washer and dryer are fabulous.  You said that they stay, right?  Great!  Look, Sam, the kitchen windows look out upon the garden.  Over an acre, you said?  Here’s the separate breakfast area you were talking about.  Sam, look at this.  It’s darling.  Sylvia, all this furniture stays.  That’s for sure?  I don’t think I’d change a thing.  That’s a maple cabinet and chest of drawers.  My God!  Sylvia, before I go upstairs to check on the bedrooms, let’s just go over those terms again.”

“Well, with the market hopping the way it is you’d be smart just to make your bid.  Forego for now the contingencies on inspection.  The loan is assured.  Just go ahead and make your offer.  All I need is your joint signatures, yours and Sam’s on the purchase offer.  Move fast, but don’t get ahead of yourself.  Wait until you see the bedrooms and the garden.  Marge, you’re going to fall in love.”

Sam was in the kitchen gazing through the windows.  The thin drizzle sent drops trickling down the panes.  Through the glass he could see the landscaped garden and beyond that lay the forest.

“Sam,” Marge called out, “let’s go up to have a look at the bedrooms.  Aaron, we’re coming up.  How do you like it?  Your dad and I are coming up.

“Marge,” Sam said.  “You go on up.  I’ll follow.  Just as soon as I find Rex.”

“Come on, Sam.  Let’s finish.  Mrs. Willit doesn’t have all day.  We’re not her only clients, you know.”

“It’s going to pour any minute,” Sam replied.  “Let me go bring Rex back before he gets soaked.  I’ll only be a minute.  It’s going to start pouring.  Let me go get him.”

Sam took the path around the side of the house that led to a grove of redwoods.  The tree branches glistened like glass.  He remembered that one winter there was a freezing rain.  How lovely people said when the trees started to shine with ice.  Farmers had moved their livestock into the barns.  Most of the animals were safe, but he heard that some of the chickens wandered off and their eyes froze shut.  Sam began calling for Rex.

He walked on farther beyond a fence and the sign that read, “No trespassing.  Private.”  He saw dark spots in the distance.  He moved closer.  The spots began to move.  He stood amazed in the icy rain.  Turkeys, wild turkeys all right.  Six or seven of them.  Sam’s breath streamed out in slow puffs of steam.  The turkeys’ breath came out in quick small white puffs.  He had heard people talk about the wild turkeys, huge feathered creatures that roamed the backwoods of the county.  They lifted their heads, dangling red flesh from their neck.  A spread of color, a fan of ruffled feathers appeared.  Their heads pulled down into their chests.  A few of them lifted their heads and turned them from side to side, but they were blinded by rain and didn’t move on.  Sam stood motionless only some feet in front of them.  Things all around were shining and dripping with light rain.  The redwood branches.  The ferns and broken stems of grass.  The colored feathers of the turkeys.  Everything glistened in the wet stillness.  Something about it all seemed very familiar to Sam.  He felt that he was walking into an image in a dream he had years ago and he thought, “Here it is. I remember.”  Maybe it was only the atmosphere of a dream left behind.  He could not be certain.  Memories of dreams had always been random and confusing; like the wind, coming and going.  In the past he awoke with a painful and disagreeable feeling.  “It’s only a dream.  It’s not real,” he would say.  He had never wanted to believe in them; they just occurred.  Now what appeared before his eyes was more than that.  It was an experience he had to locate, an image in sleep he wanted to explore.  The woods and the rain and the wild turkeys pulled him into a motionless spell.  He focused, fixed on unraveling the moment’s mystery.  “I have been here before,” he repeated.  What did it mean?  There was a center to this feeling that had a gravitational draw towards directions he was hesitant to follow.  He could hear the soft irregular patter of rain.  It made the world seem far away and faint.  It was as if he had to reach into the dream world of the past for any understanding.  It was an effort of which he felt barely capable.  The challenge paralyzed him.  He needed to find his center in this dream image he was now experiencing; he had to recognize it.  He feared that if once again it eluded him, little by little everything in his life would become less clear and he would be unable to move on.  He might never feel at home in himself.

For a moment Sam thought the barking sound was coming from inside a dream.  He felt Rex’s fur slide along his legs.  The dog barked loudly and the turkeys sunk their heads into their breasts and made sharp puffing sounds.  The turkeys stood motionless.  Now Sam felt the rain soaking through his jacket and shirt.  Rex ran a circle around him and darted off back up the road.  Sam followed hurriedly across the slippery grass, unsure of his footing, the rain clinging to his skin as they made their way towards the blurry lights of the house.  Trudging up the sopping wet path to the “No Trespassing” sign, he could see ahead the dark spots along the porch of the house.  As he approached, the spots focused into the figures of Marge, Aaron and Marge’s sister Alice and her husband Frank.

“Nice going Sam,” Marge shouted.  “Mrs.Willit couldn’t wait.  You blew it, Sam.  Where the hell were you?  We waited so long.  I had to call Alice and Frank in Rosa to come and drive us back.”

“Dad, what took you so long?” Aaron shouted.  “Rex has been back here a while ago.”

“Better part of an hour,” Marge continued.  “I wanted to put the bid in, damn it.  It needed your signature.  She had the papers in her hand.”

The station wagon rolled slowly down Summit Knolls Road and turned onto the river road that had begun to dry in the brief burst of late afternoon sun.  Marge was in front talking briskly to her sister.  Frank said nothing and drove on steadily, professionally, as if he were alone in the car.  Aaron had a vacant stare and wouldn’t turn to look at his father.  Rex was in the back hugging the seat and staring out at the highway.  The wind was cool and rushed against Sam’s hair.  “I want you up bright and early tomorrow, Sam,” Marge said. “We’ll be at the realty company when they first open to make our offer and sign.  Now where are we going to eat?  Should we go out for Chinese?” 

Sam sat back next to Aaron and leaned to the window on his right, put his arm out and dragged it in the wind, and his face out too, the way dogs hang theirs out, riding in a car.  He started to see a picture of himself walking the streets of his childhood, but that faded away.  Then he started to see the flock of wild turkeys strutting alongside the car, their great fans of feathers fluttering in the wind, but that gave way, too.  Sam leaned his head further out the window, as if to get at those elusive images.  He could feel his breath sucked away from him.  He squinted his eyes at the rushing countryside, the dark anonymous hills, the fleeting shapes and forms, so many shadows, dim against the lighter sky.  Marge’s words broke into a remote sound.  “Sam, we’re waiting.  Do you want Chinese?  Can’t you ever make a decision?”  Marge’s words were softened and cloaked until the wind tore them away.

                                                    
                                                    

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Cuba	Deborah Batt

  

 

Time Keepers 2

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Time Keepers 3

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Angel of eternal birth

Konstantin Skoptsov

 

 

Waiting To Dance

Allison Cesario

  

The Cockerel

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The Musician

Durlabh Singh

 

Nude	Durlabh Singh

 

 

Pocong

Geoff Fox

 

 

Tidur

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Recycling

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"A thousand league journey starts with a single step (Lao Tzeu)"

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They Like to Touch                                                 by Tom Reynolds here’s a little red and white windmill in the front yard, and I look around half expecting to see Quixote and Sancho somewhere, off on another adventure.  But there is only the windmill.  Later, whenever I think about this day, I’ll always picture that windmill in my mind and be reminded of the Van de Kamp’s  Bakery logo.  I guess it’s because the windmill formed my first impression of the Home.  I’m standing on the front porch, my guitar slung over my shoulder, and I ring the doorbell.  I don’t know anyone here, and I feel somewhat apprehensive.  I’m here because a woman named Rose, the program director of the Home, called and asked me if  I’d come.  She was at the benefit I played three months ago, and she called the next day.  I told her I was booked solid for the next few weeks, but she said that’s alright, come whenever you can.  They’d be so delighted, she said.  After a minute the door opens.  Rose greets me with a smile.  “Come in, come in,” she says warmly, and I return the smile and go in, not quite knowing what to expect.  I’ve never been in a place like this before.  “We’re all ready and waiting,” she says briskly as she closes the door. She leads me through the foyer where there’s a reception desk behind a glass panel; I feel like I’m in a doctor’s office.  We walk down a long hallway, and as we pass room after room I can’t help but notice the stale smell on the air.  The doors are all open and some of the rooms are vacant, but most are occupied, and I get my first glimpse of the people who live here.  There’s a single bed in each of the small rooms, and I see a man here, a woman there.  Some of them are sick, but mostly they’re just old. Just old... We come to what Rose calls the “Social Room,” and I can hear someone playing a piano.  And later, when I think about it, I’ll remember that piano, too.  The piano and that windmill.  Red and white.  Van de Kamp’s and tinkling keys. “Ladies and gentlemen,” Rose begins as we enter the room, and as she introduces me, the woman who had been playing the piano, smiles, then gets up and takes a seat with the others.  I find out later that she’s 79 years old.  She’s been playing piano for 70 years. My audience, some 40 people in all, is seated in folding chairs around the room.  Three are in wheelchairs, and one woman is standing off to the side; she’s 76 and wearing a kind of Flapper dress and beads.  Dark red lipstick, and a lot of rouge.  Some of them are smiling, others just waiting.  Some are just sitting, hands folded in their laps, a distant look in their eyes.  I look around and suddenly I begin to feel that this is all a dream... The room itself, the very air I’m breathing, seems old, and strange.  Strange; and I realize that this isn’t a Home at all.  It’s a Time Machine; I’ve been transported to another time, another world, and it isn’t 1975 anymore.  It’s 1942 and 1918; 1896 and 1929.  Two or three wars, a Depression, a turn of a century, telephones and talking pictures.  Clara Bow and Al Jolson.  Al Capone and Hoover Dam.  The Grapes of Wrath and “You ain’t heard nothin’ yet.” The room is full of old photographs, hanging on the walls and propped up on the piano.  Faded black and whites and hazy, gold-tinted ovals; some with frames, some without.  Husbands and lovers, soldiers and sweethearts; wives, sons, daughters and dogs... It doesn’t seem real somehow. For the next hour I sing for them, new songs and old.  Mostly old.  “Five Foot Two” and “If You Knew Susie,” “Hey Daddy” and “Sentimental Journey” and “After You’ve Gone.”  Any requests, please.  Sure, I know that one.  Sing a few bars and we’ll try it.  The gal in the Flapper dress is dancing and some of the others are singing along.  “My Blue Heaven...”  Now I’m finished and there’s a polite round of applause and I look at their faces...  They’re not happy, not sad.  They’re quiet.  Wistful.  And there are tears; not sad, but bittersweet.  And as I thank them for having me I swallow and there’s a knot in my throat.  I’m glad I don’t have to sing anymore today.  And I realize something else— they haven’t been listening to me at all.  They’ve been listening to their memories.   A woman shuffles toward me.  She’s staring at me and she doesn’t say a word.  She reaches out and touches my arm, then my cheek, my hair...  I’m startled, and I glance over at Rose.  “It’s alright,” she whispers, “Sometimes they like to touch...” Rose walks me to the door and thanks me graciously.  She asks me to please come back again soon.  “They need it so,” she says. Yes... I walk past the little red and white windmill, and I look around again.  Somehow I get the feeling that perhaps Quixote and Sancho are here, after all.  In hiding, perhaps, but here.  Somewhere. I take the guitar from my shoulder and I get in the car.  I look over at the windmill.  Van de Kamp’s.  And I go home.    Return to Contents Return to Top of Page