The Good American                                                                         

by Quentin Poulsen

                                                      

he crowded elevator rode up in silence.  For the third time that day Robert went through his elevator routine, checking his messages and schedule on his mobile phone, then turning to straighten his tie in the mirror.  His hair was a fraction overgrown, he observed once again.  He would have to visit the hairdresser for a trim.  There was a break in his schedule on Friday.

Between the sixth and seventh floors the elevator shook and trembled, then abruptly ground to a halt.  All eyes turned to the display panel, as if those digital numbers could tell them anything.  The time had not come for speaking, however.  Momentary glitches such as this occurred now and then and one would appear foolish to break the silence.  Save that for a real emergency, which likely would never come.

Indeed, the car was soon on its way again and Robert was safely deposited on the tenth floor.  He nodded to the usual faces, having greeted them once already that day, got coffee from the machine and went through to his cubicle.  There were a few e-mails in need of reply before the afternoon's meeting.

The objective of the meeting was to agree on a retail outlet for the new product.  Consensus favored the Rosakis chain, which dealt exclusively with top-of-the-range merchandise.  Robert had known this would be the outcome.

He sat back and listened to the others making their points.  Steinmeyer was running the show anyway, as always.  He was an asshole but he was just the kind of asshole who was good for this business.  Like Henderson and Fritz, he wore a shirt of the glacier blue shade then much in vogue, cuffs unbuttoned and folded back twice in the prevalent fashion—the 'JFK movie' look.  Robert decided he would have to get himself a shirt in that color, and a burgundy tie like Steinmeyer's.  They went well together.

Jennifer fell in beside him as he made his way back to the office after the meeting.  "Heard the latest on Fernando?"

"That subway business?  Sure.  He chased a kid who'd snatched a handbag, got into a scuffle with him and came away with a broken hand.  Old hat."

"That's not the end of it," said Jennifer triumphantly.  "The kid's parents have pressed charges.  Fernando's up for assault on an eighteen-year-old."

Robert blew the air out of his cheeks.  "Wow!  Poor guy.  Tries to help out and winds up with a busted metacarpal—and a felony rap."

"Said he was fool enough to give chase while everyone else just stood back and watched.  Things get complicated very quickly."

"They do," Robert agreed. "Best to keep your head low and stay out a these things, like a good American."

"Amen to that!" said Jennifer.

They came to the elevator and waited for the car.  A fellow from the accounts department joined them and they were obliged to avert their eyes.  The silly dope had left his fly undone.

At six o'clock Robert closed his computer down and left the office.  He picked up a Danish on the way to the bus stop.  Not for the first time, he observed that the filling was almost non-existent.  They used to sell good pastries at that place but it had gone downhill lately.  He would buy them elsewhere, if only there were another outlet between his office and the bus stop.

The six-fifteen arrived and Robert took a seat behind the driver, facing the aisle.  The front page of his newspaper told of more violence in the Middle East.  He went straight to the financial pages, as was his custom.

"The emperor has no clothes!"

Robert glanced up from his newspaper in surprise.  It was an old black man who had spoken.  He was on the seat opposite, leaning forward and gazing at the newspaper with slightly bloodshot eyes.  Robert flushed uncomfortably as he realized the comment had been directed at him.  What was he to say to something like that?  The fellow was obviously crazy.

"It's a good adaptation.  I saw it last week."

Flipping his newspaper around, Robert saw that the old man was referring to a play running at the O'Neill Theater that month.  He looked back at him and smiled in polite acknowledgement.  As he did so his eye fell on a small tear in the fellow's jacket.

The other passengers were peering curiously at them.  Robert felt the prickle of sweat on his forehead and hoped that no one would notice.  He cleared his throat
and buried himself in the Market Data section once more.

Mercifully the old-timer got off a few stops later and Robert was able to relax.  The incident had quite unsettled him.  It was not the done thing, to speak to people you didn't know.  He had not been sure how to react.

He stared out the window at the traffic flowing by in its orderly rows; green buses, yellow cabs, white, silver, blue and grey sedans.  Pedestrians marched along in their summer clothes; women in their airy blouses and skirts or straight jeans; men in their shirtsleeves and slacks.  The bus was making good time, he noted.  He ought to be home by seven.

Three blocks from his home, however, the bus came to an abrupt halt, sending passengers hurtling forward in their seats.  Looking beyond the driver, Robert saw through the windscreen the bizarre spectacle of a motorcyclist spinning along the road ahead of them, his bike careering away to the left and ricocheting off a car in the next lane.

For some moments nobody moved.  The cars and buses had all stopped.  The pedestrians nearby either paused to gawk or merely continued on their way. Robert experienced the prickle of sweat on his forehead again.  A man was lying out there in the street, evidently injured, perhaps gravely, and he did not know how to react.  Should he get out and try to help?  But what could he do?  To move a guy like that might prove dangerous.  Robert was not trained in first aid after-all.  No, better to leave it to those who knew what they were doing.  Things could get complicated very quickly.

It was a surreal space of time.  Two or three people came forward to help the fallen rider.  Then a police officer appeared and began to divert the traffic around him.  Robert looked down as the bus went by but could obtain no glimpse of the victim's features nor discern anything of his condition.  A little further along the blare of a siren reached his ears.  It was a sound he heard almost daily, only on this occasion it bore some significance in his life.

Robert could have walked those last three blocks more quickly than the bus carried him.  The accident had proved no minor disruption.  Nonetheless, it was only a little after seven when he reached his apartment.  Again the text message-schedule routine as he rode the elevator up.  The succulent aroma of grilling steaks welcomed him when he entered his home.  Of course.  It was Tuesday.

He poked his head into his son's room.  Colin was at his computer playing war games.  Robert had to tap him on the shoulder and ask him to remove the earphones so he could say hi.  The boy revolved his chubby features around:  "Hey, Pa."  Then he was back at his game, shooting wildly, whooping with delight at every hit.

Further down the hall Robert knocked on Toni's door, invariably closed.  "Come in."  He did so and found her seated cross-legged on her bed, watching 'Sex' on DVD.  Robert was not too certain he wanted his teen-aged daughter watching a show like that.  But Marianne assured him the Schulers allowed their kids to watch it, and they were regular church-goers, so probably there was no harm.  Besides, Toni was given to quite fearsome tantrums these days, when she couldn't get her way, and he had no desire to go through all that.

"You've dyed your hair again," he observed as they exchanged a brief hug.

"Oh, Pa, it's only henna.  It's like all the rage at school."

"No, no.  It looks fine," he said, though privately he thought it made her look like a Flintstone.

He left her to her sitcom and made his way to the kitchen.  Marianne greeted him with a peck on the cheek.  Her hands were all grimy from the cooking.

"Go and put your feet up, dear. It'll be ready in fifteen minutes."

This he did.  The news was on television and provided a visual account of the story he had seen on the front page of the newspaper.  Scores killed that day, three US soldiers among them, prompting renewed calls for the withdrawal of American troops from the region.  The images of bloodshed were not confined to the Middle East either.  It seemed the whole world was in turmoil.  Thank god they were safe in America!  The economic news followed and brought more cheerful tidings.

Robert popped open a bottle of Californian red wine to go with the meal.  His steak was well-done, just the way he liked it.  He proposed a toast to his wife.  She knew how to look after him.

"Forrest Travel Agency called today," she informed him.  "Everything's been confirmed: flight times, airport transfer, hotel reservations, sightseeing trips, even your game of golf!"

"Excellent."  He smiled back at her.  "So all we gotta do is show up."

"That's why we always deal with Forrest, dear.  They have the best package tours going."

Robert chewed his steak a while.  He was unable to get the image of the motorcyclist out of his mind.  Perhaps it would help to share it with Marianne. 

"Oh, I'm sure he was alright," she said dismissively.  So long as he had his helmet it on."

It was a response that Robert found vaguely annoying.  She hadn't seen the man, spinning along the road like a flimsy rag doll.  He sometimes felt his wife was out of touch with reality.  Better to change the subject.

"Well, Fernando's up on an assault charge, you know.  The handbag-snatcher's folks are takin' him to court."

"He should never have got involved," Marianne replied, and stood up to clear the dishes.

After dinner they went through to the living room to watch television.  There was a movie on that night about the Vietnam War.  Robert was a big fan of war movies.  There was the adventure, danger, heroism and tragedy that he would never experience in his own life.  Nor would he want to, of course.  He had a wife and two children to take care of.  The screen of the television was as close as he ever wanted to get to that kind of action.

Shortly before they retired for bed, they heard the banging and shouting again.  The first few times they had not been sure if it was actually real or just something one of their neighbors was watching on television.  But the banging now carried a muffled vibration with it.  The man's voice was rough and monotonous; the woman's an outraged shriek that descended to a mournful wail as the drama progressed.  Once or twice they thought they heard a child cry out.

Marianne looked across from her armchair.  "Don't you think we ought a call the police or something, dear? This is really quite a disturbance."

"Let someone else do it," he advised her. "We don't wanna get caught up in this.  Things can get complicated very quickly."

"I supposed you're right. We might end up having to go downtown and sign statements, or even appear in court or whatever."

Robert nodded in accord.  "Best to keep our heads low and our noses clean, like good Americans," he said.

Later that night they were startled from their dreams by what sounded like a gunshot.  A short while later the blare of a siren pierced the silence.

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Mr. Baxter                                                                       

by Frank Zubek

                                                                         

t was midnight in Seven Hills, Ohio and Julia Miller, dressed in a grey sweatshirt and matching shorts, sat in a wicker chair on her patio in the backyard.  The full moon bathed the trees and bushes with thekind of soft light that you usually see in a romantic movie.  She loved this time of night.

There were very few lights on in the immediate area.  Enjoying the cool evening, she took slow sips from a glass of wine, and swayed in her chair to the music from a jazz station that drifted out through the screen door from the kitchen radio.

Since they lived in the last home at the end of a cul-de-sac, just west of the Bedford Reservation, they had an abundance of lush, wooded area surrounding them.  She would, more often times then not, on evenings such as this, see a rabbit, or several deer, stopping on their nightly rounds, sniffing at the evening air.  Or, the occasional raccoon would waddle through the area, oblivious to its surroundings.

Her husband, Patrick, was downstairs in the bathroom, preparing for a shower.  A couple of months ago, he had been offered a position at a Cleveland consulting firm after being let go from a San Diego company that had been bought out.

* * *

Julia had been a part time school teacher, so it had been easy for her start over.  She contacted the local high school and was able to secure part time work teaching English.  She also started up her freelance editing service again, and posted her e-mail and phone number on the school bulletin board.

It had been a hectic time, as moving always was, and the only contact with the new neighbors had been the occasional friendly nod or from the dozens of errands that needed to be done.  Once settled in, with most of the unpacking finished, Julia focused on meeting some of her new neighbors.  She began to do several things throughout the day that would put her in contact with them.

She happily found that several people went out regularly for a morning jog.  She waved or nodded to them, and was a bit disappointed that none of them stopped to chat.  Several attempts while grocery shopping or performing daily chores such as going to the post office, or errands at the local mall proved just as fruitless.

People were friendly enough, but no one seemed interested beyond a how-do-you-do, or the standard weather comment.  Beyond that, nearly everyone seemed to want to just keep to themselves.  Almost as if there were some dark neighborhood secret that she wasn’t privy to.

People at the school seemed a little friendlier, as she met a couple of the faculty members who promised to get together for lunch and give her whatever assistance she might need.  Patrick himself also noted that he had met one or two friendly people at work, but for the most part, none of them seemed to be candidates for long term friendships.

Out of all of the attempts over several weeks, Julia had made one friend, Mrs. Neddle, a kindly old widow who had two grown children and spent much of her mornings watching her grandkids, allowing her own children to work their hectic jobs in the city.  

One late afternoon, after the grandkids had been collected up and taken home, Mrs. Neddle walked over with a home made pie, and proceeded to fill Julia in on what she knew about everyone in the neighborhood.  She told Julia about the Kiesler’s, five houses down, who had a son and daughter in college.  The Becker’s around the corner who were rumored to have a lot of money, but they sure didn’t act like it, and Beth Williams, ten houses down, who it was said had been divorced three times, and was on the hunt for husband number four.

Aside from that, she knew very little about anyone else.  In fact, she noted, that Julia had been the first friendly face in awhile who had wanted to talk.  Mrs. Neddle confirmed Julia’s instincts that most of the folks in the neighborhood pretty much stuck to themselves.

Especially the elusive Mr. Baxter, who was Julia’s neighbor.  Mrs. Neddle never saw him go anywhere.  All she knew was that he was a retired banker and had his groceries and most other essentials delivered to the back of his home.  But Mrs. Neddle assured Julia that the neighborhood was safe enough, and the local police were pretty much around for show, if anything.  In fact, there hadn’t been a crime in the area worse then the occasional shoplifter at the grocery store for several years.

In fact, Mrs. Needle joked that Julia hardly needed to ever lock the door.

Julia showed Mrs. Neddle out, and walked her back home.  Thanking her for the pie, Julia walked back to her house.  As she walked up her driveway, her eye caught some movement in the Mr. Baxter’s window next door.

A pinkish nub from a thumb broke the stark white pattern of the vertical blinds.  As if he knew he had been caught watching, Mr. Baxter slowly withdrew his thumb, allowing the blinds to swing shut, cutting off Julia’s attempt to see more of her secret admirer.

Probably just a very shy person, Julia thought to herself as she went inside.  Perhaps one of these days she’ll bake him some cookies.

Her editing service caught on and a few times a week several of the students from the school would stop by and either drop off, or pick up work that she would do for a reasonable fee.  A few of them had her look over term papers and other school related projects, but many of them were trying their hand at short stories, with an eye towards a career in writing.

Sometimes, as she waved goodbye to one of her clients, she checked the mailbox, and on the way back up the driveway she would glance over at the house next door and nine times out of ten, would catch a blind gently close. Even if she didn’t, she could still feel his eyes.  Watching.

A month or two went by when it seemed as if he become bored of the boyish peeking.  It was understandable to a point.

Retired and all alone in the house.  Nothing else to do all day, and suddenly a lovely young wife moves in next door.  Something new in the daily, boring routine.  Why not take a peek once in awhile?  She didn’t feel the need to tell Patrick, as it was more then likely just the usual sophomoric schoolboy curiosity.

Once her weekly routine was established, she became busy with the holidays and decorating the house.  Once in awhile, she would glance out one of the side windows and catch the blinds quiver.  Or maybe it was her imagination.

She still didn’t think it was enough to bother her husband about.  The winter came and went and she had long forgotten about her unseen neighbor and once spring returned, she took up gardening in the backyard on weekends.  One particular Saturday afternoon, with Patrick in town on several errands, she went into the garden, dressed in a t-shirt and blue jean shorts.  Down on her knees, picking tomatoes, she quietly hummed a favorite song to herself, busy with her plants.

“Lovely day for that.”

Startled, Julia whirled around.  Falling off balance, she landed on her bottom, a spattering of dirt sprayed across her legs.

“Oh my gosh-you scared me!”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you.”  There on the other side of the fence, which ran the length of Baxter’s property, was Mr. Baxter, leaning on the fence as if he had been casually watching a baseball game.

“My name’s Baxter. Harold Baxter.” He extended his hand over the top of the fence towards her.  With his neatly trimmed dark hair, wire rimmed glasses, and button up shirt, he did indeed look very much like a banker.  Looking at him now, it was as if he was welcoming her to sit at his desk at the bank— Hello, Mrs. Miller, would you like to open a checking account today?

Julia quickly stood up, removed her gloves, and began walking towards her neighbor.  She pulled off her gloves and brushed the dirt from her pants, reached out and accepted his hand.  It was firm grip and she blushed when she let go of his and yet for a moment it felt that he held her hand a moment longer then she thought was proper.  But again, it was probably her imagination.

“Julia Miller,” she replied.  “I was picking some tomatoes,” Julia said.  She turned to point towards where she had been.

Busily unaware. Exposed.

“I haven’t seen you much,” she said.  A long pause followed as her mind raced for something to say, hoping he would speak next, yet at the same time, worried about what it was he would say.  When he didn’t say anything—on purpose?— she stammered, “Umm….I hear you’re a banker?”

“Yes.  Retired.”  He smiled.  It was the kind of smile a villain wears in a movie—charming, but dangerous.

Another agonizing pause.  She didn’t want to ask anything that might lead him on, since she figured that he must surely be aware that she knew he had been taking peeks at her through his windows last year.

Just then, as if it knew it should help her out of the awkwardness of the moment, the phone rang.

“Well, I’d better get that,” she said.

“Nice to meet you,” he shouted at her back.

She gave a quick wave without looking back, and hurried inside, feeling his smile even as she shut the door.  For the first time since moving in, in the middle of the day, she felt the urge to lock the door.

Don’t be silly, a voice in her head reminded her, it’s just your imagination. I gnoring the voice, she walked back to the screen door with the phone cradled in her shoulder, and locked it anyway.  Looking out into the backyard, she that he was already gone—almost as if he had never been there.

It worried her a bit, but still not enough to tell Patrick.  She didn’t need him going off half-cocked.  Baxter was, after all, a retired banker and he must have money.  He hadn’t been openly vulgar, or threatening.  Just a little creepy.  And there was no law against that.

She soon stopped worrying about him and became very busy with her schooling and editing duties.  With summer break on, she always leaned towards picking up extra business during the summer months.

It had been awhile since their meeting in the backyard and one day, in the afternoon, Julia had been expecting a phone call from a student who wanted her to edit something, and had decided to take a quick shower before the call came.  As she was drying herself in the bathroom, the call came.  Quickly wrapping the towel around her, she ran to the bedroom to answer it.  Holding the towel to her body with one hand, drying her hair with the other, she talked on the phone by tucking the handset in the crook of her shoulder.

Standing without a thought in front of the window, the blinds open to the world, she was deep into the conversation and casually looked out the window.  The movement of a passing car in the street below had caught her eye.

Looking across the open space between the houses, she looked right into his own bedroom window, which was opposite hers—and right into his eyes.

His blinds were open, and he just stood there looking at her, smiling, just like he did that day in the garden.

And it was not as if he had been just walking past the window—he had been waiting there.

Waiting for her to finish her shower.

She gasped as she quickly moved away from the window and hung up the phone.  She had been holding the towel to her chest, but she had been in a hurry and knew it hadn’t fully covered her.  Reaching out her hand, she closed the blinds shut, and then sat on the bed, staring at the wall until she stopped shivering.

Once again she had been caught unaware and exposed.

She jumped when the phone rang.  It could be the student she had hung up on a moment ago—and yet.  It could be Baxter . Lovely little mole you have on your thigh, Julia.  She let the phone ring.

She still decided not to tell her husband, afraid of what he might do.  In the end it could still be considered just innocent voyeurism.

A week went by, and she didn’t see Baxter at all.  Maybe he had gotten scared and worried that he shouldn’t continue.  Maybe she should finally tell Patrick.  But the fear of what Patrick might do still kept her quiet.

Several more months went by without incident.  Then Mrs. Neddle told her in passing that she had heard that Mr. Baxter had been talking to some real estate agents.  Maybe he was thinking of moving.

* * *

Finishing the wine, Julia stood up and walked into the kitchen, taking the glass over to the sink to rinse it before placing it in the dishwasher.  She bent to open the dishwasher to place the wine glass inside when she heard the screen door!  Hadn’t she locked it?

She stood up and turned around and Mr. Baxter was standing in her kitchen—HER kitchen!

He stood right there—just a few feet from her, as if he were in a museum, standing quietly, admiring a beautiful painting or sculpture.  A quiet, serene look on his face.  But no smile.

She gasped loudly, placing her hand to her mouth— but it hadn’t frightened him.  With just five steps he would have been able to touch her, that’s how close he was.  She couldn’t move, feeling like a deer caught in the headlights of a car that wasn’t slowing at all, impact only a moment away.

Then, as if he had a sudden thought as to how he should be reacting, he changed his facial expression to that of a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar, or that of a grown man caught peeking into the window of a married woman.

“I’m sorry, Julia.  It won’t happen again,” he whispered.  A quick finger up to his lips, he quickly walked out through the screen door, closing it gently behind him, and he was gone.

“You coming to bed, dear?”  Patrick asked from behind her, gently touching her shoulder.

Julia screamed in fright and when she saw that it was her husband she hugged him tightly.

“What’s the matter?” Patrick asked.

“N-nothing.  You startled me that’s all,” she said.

“I’ll get the door.”

“Make sure you lock it,” she told him.

                                                                                                        
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An Ice Wall                                                                                                   

 by Ranvir Singh Parmar

veryone had their own way of dismissing my story.  Some stayed silent and stared into my face; few others fell into laughter, resorted to high-fives, and pulled out their handkerchiefs or used the end of their dupattas to wipe the tears of joy that melted in their eyes.  There were some who frowned and said, ‘that was a poor joke.’  The last ones were usually my seniors at office and some of them had threatened to dismiss me if I dared to misbehave again.  I was not a talented man and I knew it would not be easy for me to find another job.  Therefore I kept my distance from them.  Instead, I started to tell my story to my subordinates, the people who had no option but to listen to me.  But even this gave me no satisfaction.

The people below my rank didn’t wear shirts and pants.  They didn’t carry briefcases and entered into the office with Ray Ban propped on their heads.  They were peons, janitors, and cleaners.  They listened to my story out of respect for my shirt and pants.  They stood holding onto their rags and brooms, and time and again shifted their tools from one hand to the other.  Sometimes I took the broom or rag if their movement became distracting and hid them behind some wall or under the stairs.  I would return back to find these people blushing with embarrassment.  They tried their best not to look into my eyes.  Even when I stressed some point by getting too close to their face they would curve their shoulders, bend their knees, and bow their necks, as if preferring a guillotine to my story.  But nevertheless I liked them.  They never sneered, rolled their eyes, or nudged each other through my narrative.  They listened to me with a quiet that it would not make much difference if I would have replaced them with few tethered goats.

‘Five years?’ they said, after I would finish telling the story.  They would turn their faces to the sky and frown as if it was raining.  ‘Did you say ‘years,’ sir?’

I didn’t mind such forthright questions.  They were as surprising as if some real goat had spitted out the hay it was masticating, and bringing its hoof to its pointed mouth, said, ‘five years.  That’s long, sir.’

I went to great extents to clear anyone’s doubts.  I suspected these people’s imagination and so I sometimes drew for them the architecture of my house.  ‘Here,’ I would say.  ‘Now you know, his room was this and mine is still this.’

They would take the paper in their hands and lift it to the light.  They would slide their forefinger on the lines and tapped on the paper in understanding.  ‘But sir,’ they would say, holding the paper out for me, ‘five years?’

I would utilize the opportunity and gesture them to keep the paper.  I would even bring out my pen and tuck in into their pockets (in case of ladies, just held out for them) as a token of my appreciation for their patience.

I wrote a letter to my mother after five years.  After reciting the story to so many people, so many times, it took me less than an hour to write about all these years.  Most of the effort went in describing my last few days with him.  I wrote about the things I had observed in the house that lead me to the conclusion he was no longer there—no voice from his side, no water drops on the utensils and sink and bathtub—before I went to his side of the house to check myself.  “He is gone, ma,” I wrote.  I finished writing and slid the pen into the envelope so she didn’t have to go around the house looking for it if she wished to reply me.

But even after waiting for one month, no reply came from her side.  Meanwhile, in the office, many of my colleagues had stopped laughing at me.  Though, they all exchanged looks when I entered into the office.  Those who still wanted to laugh on my arrival were careful enough to cover their mouth with their hands and exit out of the room.  For some reason my women colleagues had undergone the most serious transition since the last time they burst out laughing after hearing my story.  On a rotating coaster each one of them invited me for lunch, much to the envy of my seniors who considered dining with the junior women staff their birth right.

Over the plates of biryanis and dosas, the women were more than ever frank in conceding their initial views for my story.  Everyone admitted they believed my talk was some kind of prank, and their laughter was an indication they hadn’t fallen into my games.  The women bent over the table, pushing at the bowls with their breasts, to take my hand and apologize.  The first time it happened with the first lady I went out for lunch with, I caught a sign of naughtiness around her lips, a smile dying to curve around and meet the sockets of her eyes, but held back with full force.  I guessed the ladies were still far from believing in me; but the lunches suggested they wanted to give me a chance.  I answered all the questions with an enthusiasm of a sales person, and for the first time ever I happened to look nowhere other than their eyes.

‘But, darling,’ one of the ladies said. ‘You told us you guys just have one washroom.  Even once in so many years you two never simultaneously felt the need to pee?’

‘Several times,’ I replied.  ‘But we always managed to avoid each other.  In the primitive times people never delayed the necessities of the nature.  Behind the bush, upon the rock, inside a flowing river they eased themselves whenever they felt the need.  But not in the modern times,’ I said, checking the lady’s expression to make sure my descriptions were not too vivid to reduce her appetite.  ‘Now with the space for the movement of bowels restricted to a tiny hole you have to wait for your turn.’

‘No, no,’ the lady said, casting a heavy stare to the still untouched plate of Manchurian.  ‘That’s not what I meant.  I mean, you never even stumbled upon each other at the toilet door?’

I fetched a tissue paper and spread it on the table.  I brought out a pen and started drawing.  ‘Now look very carefully,’ I said.  ‘The toilet in my house has two doors, one on his side and one on mine—’

‘It’s still the same one bloody toilet,’ she said.  ‘How come you two never opened the doors at once and saw each other.  Five years?’

I smiled.

What else can a man do when a lady is determined to use her wits?

I served myself a little bit of Manchurian.  The lady was not to be convinced, and I felt impatient wasting time on such trifles.  My motive behind the lunch was not to give speech on ‘shit holes’, but to discuss where the guy could have probably disappeared.  But there was no point unless the woman was fully persuaded, and ready to put her heart and soul in brain-storming various possibilities that may explain his disappearance.  So I told her of the varied situations where through mere god’s grace one of us farted or burped or coughed before barging inside the toilet door, and the other on the opposite side held his breath and whatever was yearning to come out until he would hear the flush falling silent.

‘So now you know,’ I said.  ‘How we avoided seeing each other?’

‘And what about the kitchen,’ she said excitedly, finally looking convinced.

‘Same,’ I said.  ‘Bloody same.’

Sometimes the lunch would exceed time.  This often happened when some lady would prefer to delve more into the philosophical side of my story than the factual.  She would not treat my life as a conundrum she had to break at any cost before the end of the lunch, but would question with utmost humility the basic foundations of mine and his life and the gradual path it took.  ‘Very much possible,’ one such lady said.  ‘Once I didn’t see my husband for one week while living under the same roof with him.  We guys just stopped speaking; no fight, nothing, like you guys, and then we also started avoiding looking at each other.  I was so glad I wished I would never see him again.’

These discussions always meant I would be late from lunch.  My seniors, angry at my popularity with women staff,  looked forward to such times when they would summon me into their cabins.  ‘So, Mr. Casanova,’ one of my bosses said.  ‘When you are dating a woman it is better to do it outside the office premises, outside the office time.  Our government can’t afford this new burden of love on its shoulders?’

‘I wasn’t dating her, sir,’ I replied.

My boss’s whole body appeared taut with tension.  He had long time designs on the woman I went out for lunch with today.  Everyday he hovered without fail outside her cubicle, going back and forth rehearsing some practiced lines.  Several times his feet would turn towards her cubicle, but pusillanimous as he was, would stop right at the entrance and spin into another direction.  The woman perhaps knew of his intentions and every time would look up nervously from the screen at the sound of the feet.  After a while, unable to beckon the courage to ask her out, he would storm back into his cabin.

‘Whether you were or not is none of my business and this office?’ he said.  ‘The consequences of your actions are the business of this office and mine as well.’

‘Very right, sir,’ I said.

‘My business is to see that people come on time,’ he said.  ‘I am also paid to hear what people talk about as long they are in the office, and to deal with any ‘talk’ that holds the tiniest possibility to distract them from their work.’

I knew what he was referring to.  In recent days there was a gossip going around the senior circles that my story was keeping people from performing their duties.  Some said the scenario my story offered and the questions it posed were too luring.  Many of the staff had been found compromising their work and gathering into small circles to discuss the countless possibilities my story presented.  Some letters were intercepted where the employees had raised issues related to my story with their counterparts in the other branches.

‘You are bringing us disrepute,’ he said.  ‘Some people think this office is where the jerks get employment… I won’t let this happen.’

I kept my head down, unable to think of an appropriate answer.  I couldn’t fathom what he expected from me.  Did he expect me to stop talking about my story?  If that was the case I had done it long back.  Nowadays, my contributions to the clamor attributed to my story were only limited to providing satisfactory answers to the people’s queries.  People came to me after placing bets over some aspect of my story and demanded my assistance in figuring out the winner.  Though, nothing of the sort that was happening nowadays was fruitful in any way in expanding my understanding as to the reason of his sudden disappearance, and what it meant for me apart from swelling my expenditure on my bills to double their previous size.

‘Things are not going the way they should in this office,’ the boss said.  He grasped a paper weight and started turning it.  ‘Anyways, what are you doing this Sunday?’

‘No plans, sir,’ I said.

He shifted his weight to one side and pulled out his thick wallet from the rear pocket.  His fingers flicked through the slabs of money and brought out a card.  ‘Take this,’ he said, throwing the card towards my side of the table.  ‘There is my home address on it.  My wife wants to meet you.  She has some questions…’

‘Your wife, sir?’ I asked loudly, unable to conceal my curiosity.

‘She could not figure out how you guys managed your bills,’ he said, keeping his eyes at the table.  ‘You didn’t see each other for five years and still shared all your bills.  What about the rent?  Do you own the property?’

‘No, sir,’ I said.

‘Your landlord must be a very patient man then,’ he said.  He eased back on his chair and stretched his arms.  His initial caustic manner had all of a sudden receded.  He looked so at ease, as if this room we were sitting hadn’t seen any worries for centuries.  He opened the drawer and brought out a toothpick.  ‘Your landlord first knocked on the front door to ask your mate for half the rent, and then the back door for the other half?’

‘The book, sir,’ I said.  ‘We wrote the expenditures and put the money in it, and one of us would deposit the bills and rent.’

‘Bloody silly,’ he said.

He opened his mouth wide enough to allow half of his hand to go inside.  He used the toothpick over his teeth in such a ferocious way as if he had another set of teeth ready somewhere, and did not care if the present one bled itself and disintegrated.

‘Anyways,’ he said, spitting at the side of the chair.  ‘My wife also wants to know how you guys settled your grievances, I mean, any issues with rent or house or anything?  Did you keep another folder for it?’

I started to speak, but he raised his hand to hush me.  ‘Not to me,’ he said.  ‘To my wife.  Do you think I give a shit about your story?’

‘No, sir,’ I said.

‘Don’t lose the card,’ he said.

I took the card between my fingers and slid it into the upper pocket of my shirt, taking care not to bend its edges.

                                                                                                        
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Breakdown                                                                                

by William Gladys

ear Aunt,

Thank you so much for your kind gift and the considerate letter in response to my earlier phone call.  Amazing to think it is October 1998, already!  Needless to say I am angry with Melissa for releasing my private diaries to the medical authorities.  She had no right!  I am not sure whether they should have read them anyway?  When you have looked at some of the diary entries which I have enclosed with this letter, you will conclude I am sure, that Melissa’s concerns regarding my mental health are baseless.  I will be staying at Manor Cottage for three days and will phone you on my return.  Best love, Andrew”.

Wednesday 8th.  Casseroled Fanny Craddock the TV Chef this evening.  Somewhat sinewy.  Could have done with more salt.  Her husband Johnny, didn’t seem to mind all that much, but sensibly suggested that the addition of a beef cube would enhance the flavour.

Tuesday 15th.  Scaled Mount Everest.  Quite tiring!  Returned via cross channel ferry and then on to Waterloo terminal.  Met Sherpa Tensing, the first conqueror of Everest, and his accomplice the white man whose name I have forgotten.

Saturday 22nd.  Afternoon phone call from Queen Victoria.  Off to Balmoral without delay.  Shared bed night of the twenty-third and twenty-fourth, a voluptuous and highly sensual lady.  Has a thing about the crown.  Specially adapted with straps under the chin to keep it in place.  Wears it in her sleep.  Kept getting in the way, quite entertaining at times.

Well here I am settled at last in Manor Cottage, my far-flung retreat for an undisturbed three day treat.  It’s eight o’clock on a Friday evening in October.  Financial worries, family matters, disgruntled employees, a failing business, ailing pets, threat of psychiatric confinement, a leaking chimney stack; they can all wait till Monday, tedious, dreary, bloody Monday.

The weather is wet, very, very, wet.  A violent storm will ensure absolute seclusion over the week end.  Eighteen hours of slashing rain have transformed a pleasant garden into a quagmire, which sucks at my boots as I trudge from the edge of the river to the yellow painted cottage door.  The apple-wood logs blazing in the hearth are drying my damp clothes, while a large tumbler of Scottish whisky, “twelve years maturing in oak barrels” waits on a table for an appreciative kiss.

Well water, hand pump just inside the front door and an earth privy round the back.  Its disposal pit at the bottom of the garden, far removed from the well, skulks under the ash tree.  Cold, sub-zero flagstone floors, retrieved from a recycling centre by a deranged architect, ‘you must have these aesthetically pleasing cottage delights.’   His enthusiasm now seen retrospectively as a blameless blunder to boost sales of chilblain medicaments.  Must contact ‘Cosy Carpets’ for a quote’.

Five carefully placed oil lamps extend a warm glow.  Mixed with the scent of burning apple wood, they permeate the interior with a sweet smell, as the dry open fire, in conflict with the wet oil lamps, continues its timeless struggle against condensation and damp.

No TV, no microwave, no fridge, no electricity, no gas, no cooker, no washing machine, no computer, no alarm system, no tea maker, no sandwich maker, no dish-washer, no electric powered garage door, no drills, no planers, no staplers, no jig saws, no circular saws, no alligator saws, no kettles, no juice extractors, no wife!  Must remember to phone Welsh Electric, and get a price for installing power supply!

Eating a supper of organic olives, tomatoes, and bread and cheese, I recall my GP’s recent ministrations!—‘…eat more organic food Mr. Woodley, lowers your blood pressure, minimises the risk of a heart attack.  Eat plenty of fibre and wholemeal bread, keeps the bowel in tip top condition.  Increase your folic acid intake, keeps dementia and delusions at arms length, old chap.’   This man overly frank at times, unwittingly plants anxiety instead of confidence!  The delusional problem he refers to is yet another inaccurate psychological assessment, failing to identify the delusion as a repositioning, a transference of his own delusional state on to me.   Remember to change Doctor.

As I loll in the well worn armchair, rescued from yet another financially ruinous and mentally mashing marriage, I consider his intellectual deficiencies.

In the morning, I find that the river has burst its banks, demolished the foot bridge, dispatched the car towards the sea, and roaring like a bull elephant, is flowing within a few feet of the front door.  A house mouse, whiskers’ twitching, sits on the windowsill quietly surveying the chaos outside.  I join him, and together we contemplate the dramatic irrefutable finality that is developing.

Twenty miles to the east, the saturated hills have released water like a dam previously held in check.  At a rapid rate of knots, trees, cattle, sheds, sheep, cars, trucks, half a dozen brightly painted red and blue tractors, from a display centre surely, are swept past in the direction of the sea twelve miles away.  In midstream, a body, kept afloat by an air filled anorak gyrates in the current, grey hair twisting and turning exposes a bald patch.  A marooned stag beetle clings to it in desperation.

At the other end of the room, an eclectic mix of interesting and gifted people has gathered.  Some have been to Manor Cottage before; Sylvia Plath, Abraham Lincoln, and John Lennon; Virginia Woolf, Leon Trotsky, and Ernest Hemingway are newcomers.  A tall titian haired Pre-Raphaelite beauty in a green velvet dress talks animatedly to Hemingway; he puts a muscular arm around her waist and calls her Beatrice.

Turning towards the window, Sylvia Plath my most intimate of friends places her warm hand on my shoulder, and kisses me tenderly on the cheek.  Outside, the roar of the torrent is suffused with the rhythmic slap- slap- slap of a magnificent white painted paddle steamer.  On its side the words Mississippi Bell are clearly visible.  As the siren sound of the ship’s horn calling to late comers’ echoes across the water, Sylvia takes my hand in hers, and we plunge into the welcoming water.

                                                                                                      
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A Little Bit Of Romania in Monterey, California
(Short Interview with the Sunseri Family) 

by Iolanda Scripca

violent “asthma of the soul” cough made me reconsider my priorities of this Californian winter.  It seems I have been so busy with life that I forgot to live…

The reinforced concrete of the large Metropolis was holding me hostage within a cocoon full of social and environmental pollution, with “graffiti” carved deeply in the local psych.  The sole escape was through the upper opening, towards a tired sky, but of a borderless freedom.  Suddenly, I decided that my shoulder blades would not be scarred remainders of my broken dreams but orange with black wings, wings of the Monarch butterflies which migrate by the millions, every winter, to Monterey, California.

Santa Ana winds were pushing me West, away from the immorality of the souls dried by the sands of the Mojave dessert.  A painful longing of my past experiences of a high spirituality was sustaining the altitude of my wish to revisit a place of artistic Heaven, where the ocean maintains the symphonic “Rhythm of the Rocks”, where childhood feeds itself with a continuous and curious delight of the sealife “Whale Watching,” “Pelican Can Can,” “Sardine Song,” “Sea Lion Shuffle,” “Tidepools” (titles of original songs by MaryLee Sunseri), where wild deer wander through the yard in the middle of the forest like art lovers admiring the artist’s sculptures, and where, literally, dogs (Charlie) sleep in trees.

It was time to meet again: Frank Sunseri—sculptor, painter, poet, and his wife, MaryLee Sunseri—artist, singer and composer of children’s songs.

I parked my car next to a tall, forged iron fence which glittered with rays of the sunset over the Pacific ocean.  The gates of the past opened wide like the warm arms of eternal Beauty.

All of a sudden I froze in wonder.  Was that the whisper of the Romanian pan flute crying among the bay leaves of Monterey, California?  No, such a thing is impossible!

My heart started aching for the Romania I used to know, with thick forests where only my grandfather and I picked mushrooms on my summer vacations, where rivers giggled full of playful trout and where a blond little girl was losing herself happily among the wild flowers of a world where nothing bad could happen to her.  And yet, I was still hearing the wind playing the pan flute through the Californian pines…

The door of the Sunseri’s cabin was wide open.  I was expected for this interview.  I entered a comfortable room, full of musical instruments, where even the wood in the fireplace was cracking on the cinder in an enchanting musical rhythm.  In the backyard, in the forest next to the ocean, stood Frank’s studio, a place where his talent and inspiration materialize through an original series of sculptures.  We sat down next to the hot fire, exactly like fifteen years ago, when I last visited, only that, now, two armchairs were empty…my parents.

***

Iolanda Scripca:  As the late Romanian artist Constantin Brancusi said:  the people who call my work “abstract” are imbeciles…what they call “abstract” is , in fact, the purest Realism, the reality of which is not represented by external form but by the idea behind it., the essence of the work.
Frank Sunseri, could you explain to the readers what is the essence of your wonderful sculptures?

Frank Sunseri:  I call my sculptures “Free Form” rather than abstract because they are not abstractions of realities, instead, they are new realities of their own.  They are slowly peeled from my sub-conscious mind with no representational meaning other than pure, elegant, balanced form from Nature’s own exquisite material.  “The stone speaks…and then I carve.”

***

All of a sudden I startled with wonder…Was the storm over the dark Pacific screaming through the pipes of the Romanian pan flute?  The hot flames from the fireplace were throwing shadows and lights caressing the two empty armchairs…

“ Anda, I am so sorry to hear about your parents’passing.”

“Thank you, MaryLee!—and I closed my eyes…

A musical tidal wave pulled me back in the past of the enchanting faces of pure and beautiful Romanian girls, where healthy grapevines burst with sweetness and where horses gallop worriless rinsing their manes in the blond waterfalls of wheat…and I made myself one with the earth back home and threw myself on the pottery wheel from Voronet and I tattooed myself with the eternal rainbow of the beauty of the soul…A deafening pleasure made me open my eyes…Frank Sunseri was just ending a tune at the pan flute.

“ Anda, do you remember your parents’ gift to us, fifteen years ago?”

Yes!  Now I know…it was the pan flute given to the Sunseri’s…and I glanced at the two armchairs which, now, were not unoccupied any longer.

***

Iolanda Scripca:  I was very impressed what a real artist can do with a simple gift given from the heart: not only to recreate a little bit of Romanian spirit by making high quality pan flutes, but, also, to personalize this instrument with tunes of your artistic soul.  Frank Sunseri, as an American artist, what do you feel insights your heart when playing the Romanian pan flute?

Frank Suseri:  I feel an affinity toward Romanian culture. T heir passionate appreciation of art and music is an attribute many Americans do not have.  When I first blew air into the Romanian pan flute, it was as familiar as the first time I put chisel to stone.  Both were like ancient memories re-appearing from my soul.  Also, like sculpting, the melodies merge simultaneously from my sub-conscious mind.  If I become aware of self, the music does not flow.

Iolanda Scripca:  Frank, when we visited your home studio I saw your paintings called “Chaos Corners” and “Martian Moonscape.”  They were a combination of pure joy of color and freedom of expression.  Can you describe the moments prior to picking up the paint brush?  Where you closer to God or closer to unruliness?

Frank Sunseri:  The process of art is to bring order out of chaos.  There is nothing more unruly than a blank canvas or an uncarved block of stone.  For me, the completion of an art piece is a step closer to order, to nature, and, yes, to God.

Iolanda Scripca:  Frank and MaryLee, I always admired you as a couple of artistic souls who found each other in this universe.  Have you ever collaborated in any forms of art?

MaryLee Sunseri:  Frank and I collaborate in the kitchen quite a bit!  And all around our little cabin are signs of us working together to make our very small living space practical, simple and easy to care for—so we can get on with our art and music.  We, sometimes, play mandolins together just for fun and my husband has always encouraged my artwork.  Frank played a beautiful, improvised melody on pan flute for my recording of  “The Rice Harvest Lullaby” (on the CD album “Rhythm of The Rocks”).  It’s what you hear playing on his web site when you visit the pan flute page.
Also, when we travel together we share experiences, places, landscapes and the superb sounds of Nature.  Then we come back home and the process of creation starts.

***

The darkness was pulling me out of the cabin.

I said “Goodbye!” to my friends, I threw a last glance at the play of light-n-shadow onto the armchairs and I left a little bit of the Romanian soul, in safety, in Monterey.

It is said that when you do not have parents anymore you cease to be a kid….

Stars with untied shoelaces were chasing one another along the windshield of my car like the musical notes from MaryLee’s children’s songs.  I stepped on the gas along the Pacific, with the sunroof entirely open so Dad could spray my face with the marine drizzle and Mom to give me a funny perm from the speed of my car.
I was alive again and I was not afraid of the dark.

After several hours I took a right turn and exited towards Reality.  I got out of the car with a red nose and red cheeks, with my hair tangled, with a naughty smile…and a suitcase overloaded of the eternal purity of Childhood.

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First Date                                                                                  

by Wayne Scheer

hey met at Maglio's.  Ellen arrived just a few minutes after eight, wearing her new red dress, just as she promised.  To Jason's surprise, she was far prettier than her picture.

He could feel himself perspire.  Nothing more disgusting, he thought, than a fat man with armpit stains.  She had described herself in three months of emails as shy and uncomfortable with people she didn't know.  But she readily agreed to meet him when he finally dared to ask.

He tried sounding confident and encouraging in his emails.  He was also careful to send her a headshot taken more than two years ago, before the break up of his fourteen-year marriage and before he put on the extra forty pounds.

As Ellen approached the bar where they agreed to meet, he stood up and pulled his belt over his belly.  She smiled.  But he sensed disappointment.  Something in the way her eyes narrowed gave her away.

In her photo, she wore glasses.  He wondered if she was wearing contacts?

"Ellen?" He held out his hand, hoping his palm wasn't sweaty.  "It's good to finally meet you."

Her smile seemed genuine, but he still had his doubts.  She told him how happy she was to meet him, too.  They found a table after she explained that she didn't drink.  Jason heard himself talking too fast, but he couldn't stop.  He wanted to impress her.  On email, he had time to compose his thoughts.  He'd always been a better writer than a conversationalist.  He remembered the long letters he used to write Mindy when he was in college.  That's what made her fall in love with him, she used to say.  It was easy for him to share his feelings on paper, to joke and make witty observations.  He wanted so desperately to do it now.

Instead, he heard himself repeat the same jokes he had made electronically.  Ellen still laughed, but he felt they were just perfunctory LOLs.

When they told the waiter they didn't want wine, he brought menus with water and a basket of garlic rolls.  Jason devoured a roll as the waiter described the night's special, a sea bass baked in parchment, with a side of vegetables or pasta.  She said the fish sounded delicious, and chose the vegetables as her side dish.

Jason ordered veal parmigiana with double linguini.  When the waiter left, Ellen said, "I feel like I know you so well. I knew that was what you would order.  You once told me how much you enjoyed the parmigiana here and how you always double the side pasta."  Jason wondered if this was her polite way of reminding him of his weight problem.

"You should try some.  Put some meat on your bones."  He saw a slight blush in her cheeks.  What a dumb thing to say, he thought.  "You look fine," he added too quickly.  "Especially in your new dress."

She laughed, saying it was all right.  "I do need to gain a few pounds."

This would be the time to encourage her to talk about herself.  "How's your mother?" he finally asked.  "You said she was having problems breathing.  I remember when my mother...Did I tell you she died of congestive heart failure?"

"Yes, you did."

Jason wanted to kick himself.  Her mother is still in the early stages of the disease and here he is talking about death.  What a jerk!  No wonder Mindy left him for Al Hermanski.  Fourteen years of marriage and two children, and she tells him she doesn't love him anymore.  She moves out with the children and even takes the dog.  Then she wants a divorce so she can marry Hermanski.

Jason grabbed another roll, soaking up as much oil and garlic as he could before consuming it in two bites.

Ellen spoke about her job as an editor for a gardening newsletter.  The work was boring, she told him, just as she had in emails.  "How many articles on the benefits of composting can a person read?"

Jason nodded and laughed, although he remembered her writing this in an email.  Soon he was talking about his least favorite subject: his job.  "I can't imagine ever thinking selling insurance was what I wanted to do with my life.  But it paid well, and I had a family to support."  He looked at Ellen.  "I guess if you share it with someone, it's not so bad.  It's when you're alone, and you have nothing but your job, that you realize how miserable you are."  He resisted the urge to reach for another roll.

Before she could respond, the waiter appeared with their food.  Jason watched Ellen pick at her fish while he dove into his parmigiana and pasta.  She doesn't like the food, he thought.  Or the company.  "Is the fish all right?"

"Yes, its delicious.  I just tend to eat slowly.  But I enjoy watching you eat with such gusto."

"Sorry," he said.  "I guess I'm not used to eating with someone anymore.  I mean, I eat with my children, but that's more like a race than a meal."

"No, no," she said, reaching out and caressing the back of his hand.

He resisted the urge to take her hand in his.  She was probably just being kind.

Jason stared at her lips as she spoke.  Full, round lips, much fuller than Mindy's.  Her dress revealed a little cleavage, but he remained intrigued with her mouth.  He felt perspiration tickle his forehead.

The fat man is sweating, he thought.  Very attractive.  Still, Ellen smiled.  Was she just feigning interest as he spoke of his children and how he called them everyday to say he loved them, even though at twelve and ten, he knew they were rolling their eyes?  "I swear I can see it through the phone.  Lainie, the older one, makes her eyes almost pop out and kind of tilts her head while swallowing her lips.  Doug, he just puffs up his cheeks and blows while raising his eyeballs to the sky.  But I don't care.  I want them to know I love them."

"That's obvious.  You write about them all the time.  I think it's wonderful that you have such a close relationship with your children, despite the...um...troubles."  She looked away.

"The divorce has been rough on all of us, but the kids are doing fine."  He hesitated, wondering if he should continue.  "I'm the one. I mean, I've gained so much weight."

"You look fine," she said.  "Frankly, I was expecting you to look like a Sumo wrestler, judging from your emails."  She smiled and squeezed his hand.

He shared his dream of writing a novel.  "I have a plot worked out," he told her.  "An insurance fraud scheme in a small town.  Most of the town is in on it.  The plan is hatched at a public zoning hearing.  It's based loosely on an actual case I once worked on."

"I could help you edit it," she offered, her voice rising.  Now she was talking fast.  "Id love to do something other than check the correct spelling of parthenocissus quinquefolia.  And you're such a wonderful writer."  For a moment, Jason grew excited about working with her.  Then he feared she was only being polite.

They finished dinner as Ellen spoke more freely about her past.  She had been engaged to a man named Clarence, but her mother didn't approve.  Eventually, he broke it off when Ellen told him she couldn't move far from her mother.

"My father died when I was six and she raised me by herself.  How could I ever abandon her?"

"I respect that," Jason said.  "It's rare to find that kind of devotion nowadays.  My mother moved in with us toward the end of her life." Jason watched Ellen dab at her eyes.

"I hardly ever wear my contacts," she said.  "I'm not used to them anymore."

Now Jason squeezed her hand.  She didn't want dessert, which Jason took to mean she wanted to go home.  "Well, I have an early meeting tomorrow anyway.  Maybe we should call it a night."  He wanted so badly to kiss her.  Instead, he began to stand up.

"Maybe we could stay a little longer and have coffee?" she whispered.

"They do make a good cappuccino.  And it goes well with their New York cheese cake."  He sat back down.

"We could share it," she said.

                                                                                                        
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A Mother's Heart                                                   

by Dipita Kwa

  slipped out of my canoe and into the cold water of the swamp to pin down the lower end of the net into the mud so that no fish would swim through it from beneath.  The water was very dark this morning with all the tree branches forming a thick canopy above.

While climbing back into the canoe, I saw Tiako’s mother bent double under the weight of a full basket of cassava she was carrying on her head.  She descended the steep slope that led to the huge log serving as a bridge across the swamp with her dog Lulu panting beside her.  She held her load with one hand and with the other hand she held a long staff with which she felt her way down.

I knew she wouldn’t make it down to the bridge.  It was not only because it had rained throughout the night or because of her hunchback or because of her left leg enlarged by elephantiasis.  She was weeping.  And I wondered what her son must have done to her again to increase her endless anguish.

I held my breath as I watched her raise the hand holding the staff in order to wipe her dripping nose.  She missed her step, tumbled down the slope and crashed into the water below.  Lulu barked and whined and looked at me and shook her tail.  I saw the woman kicking and clawing at the feeble weeds as she sank.  I paddled hastily to her rescue.

‘I am finished!  I can’t even stand,’ she groused and shook her grey-haired head after I had dragged her out and made her lie on the log.  ‘Oh, God, why didn’t you take me at once and let me rest as you just took Old Mola this night?’  She sounded as though she was thinking aloud.

‘Don’t worry, I will carry you home.’

‘Carry me?’  She stared at me with glazed eyes—the eyes of a mother who hasn’t experienced a grain of kindness from a child for too long.

After tying my canoe to a tree by the banks of the swamp, I strapped my fishing bag containing my catch for that morning over my shoulder.  With Tiako’s mother now clinging to my back, I tottered cautiously towards Mukunda.

‘—that is a mother’s pride, my son,’ she was telling me as we journeyed on, ‘to be able to hear your child call you Mama with a smile on his face when his friends visit.  No, not with Tiako who brings his friends home to eat my food but locks the parlour door so that his guests do not see the ugly thing he has for a mother.  If I think of how I,  Engome, prayed and waited to have him!  Look at me—to bear a child!  Only for my child-of-promise to become my bed of thorns!  He came back home last night demanding for fifteen thousand francs and vowing to burn down the house if I didn’t give him the money before dusk.  I had to wake up this morning with the hens hoping to dig some cassava and sell to give him the money he wanted.  I know he is in trouble—I can feel it in my bones.’

‘Those blessed with abundant beans always lacked the nails to peel them,’ I said to myself.  I never knew my mother.  I was told she died when I was thirteen months old, four months after my father was crippled from falling off a palm tree.  Maybe if she had lived, I wouldn’t have ended up as a fisherboy in a small village in the edge of nowhere.

‘Why do you keep taking care of him; giving him money, washing his dresses and cooking his food?’ I asked.

‘He is my only child and I don’t want him to steal.  Who else will give him if I don’t?’

‘And for how long will you keep doing all this—showing him this love that he is too blind to appreciate?  You are too old to be working yourself this much for a son who doesn’t care.’

‘My son, you can’t understand the heart of a mother.  That heart that refuses to condemn but to correct the faults of a child.  That heart that calls a thief My Son and a harlot My Daughter.  It is that heart that keeps me doing all for Tiako.  But I think I will change.  I will need to grow a stronger heart that knows how to say: enough is enough.  But I am old as you rightly said—too old to turn my back away from what I have grown to know as the proper way to live.’

‘Well, I think Tiako will change—’ I said, wishing she wouldn’t say another word all the way home.

We found Tiako sprawled on a mat on the veranda and staring blankly at the cobwebs on the roof.  He didn’t look at us when I carried his mother inside and made her lie on the bamboo bed in a corner of the living room beside the window.

‘Thank you Ngody, God will bless you for what you did to me today.  Thank you very much.  But before you leave, please, call my son here and help me explain to him what happened.’

Explain what to whom?  I felt as to hit my head on the wall in anger but instead went out to the veranda where I met Tiako still concentrating on the cobwebs above.

‘Your mother is calling for you,’ I informed him.

He shifted his gaze first to my muddy feet and then to my face and what I saw in his eyes was sadness and fright.

‘Boy, what problem do you have with your mother?’ I asked.

‘I don’t have any problem with her.’

‘Then why this indifference after what has just happened to her?  She might have died out there in Njiba with only Lulu at her side, yet you do not show any concern.’

I saw him blink and then swallow like someone in agony.

‘What happened to her?’ he asked.

‘Go in there and ask her.’

I turned away and saw him get up and follow closely behind me as I went back into the room.

Just then we heard the door behind us slam against the wall, dislodging a plank.

‘Where is that dog?’ Janjo the chief gravedigger demanded as he burst into the room with a shovel in his hand.  Sputum of anger lined the edges of his mouth.

Tiako must have been crazy to have chosen this gorilla’s home for his adventures, I thought.

‘Come here, you dog!’ the huge man growled.

Tiako backed away until he was flat against the wall.  With two strides Janjo caught up with him, picked him by the collar of his shirt, and shook him like a bunch of vegetables before flinging him across the room.  He crashed against a broken chair and lay still.

‘No!’ Engome screamed and fell off the bed.  ‘Please, Janjo!’

‘I will break his neck today if he doesn’t break mine,’ Janjo swore, matching menacingly towards Tiako but Engome had crept across the room and now lay flat over her son like a human shield.

‘Massa Janjo, please, have pity on him,’ she moaned, clinging tighter.

‘Engome, get off him before I do something that I will regret afterwards.  I, to be disgraced this way by children who have chosen to be irresponsible in their actions!  I swear, I will teach you a lesson, Tiako.’

‘Please, Pa Siliki, this is a matter to be solved peacefully in a family,’ I said, clutching his thick and hairy wrist.

‘What?  Ngody, so you know what he did to my daughter, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I know,’ I whispered, ‘well, what I mean is that I have been hearing rumours about him and Siliki for some time now.’

‘What about them, Ngody?’ Engome asked, rolling off her son as though he had suddenly become a vicious viper.

‘So he didn’t tell you either?’ Janjo barked.

‘He didn’t tell me anything, Massa Janjo.  All we talk about is money.  For the past one week I haven’t had any sleep.  Money, money, money, is all he keeps asking for.  Janjo, tell me what happened.’

‘This idiot got my daughter pregnant and made her deceive me she was going to her uncle’s house for the weekend only to have her locked in Mbida’s room and fed with medicine to abort the pregnancy.  My daughter has been suffering now for two days.  If Mbida had not been too terrified and given her up today, my Siliki would have died there in that rat hole with a baby in her womb.’

‘Tiako, is this true?’ Engome asked in tears.

‘She said she can’t keep the pregnancy otherwise her father will kill her—’

‘Shut up!  Which father?’ Janjo shouted.  ‘How did you expect her to feel after you made her believe that your mother was long dead and that this woman was only your sick and useless grandmother who couldn’t even take care of herself without your help, not to talk of a daughter-in-law and a baby?’

‘When it is rotten on land we take it to the water to wash away the maggots,’ Engome cried.  ‘But when it is rotten in water, where do we take it to?  Tiako, what did I do to you that you hate me to this extent?  See how your hatred for me is killing someone else’s child.’

‘She won’t die, Engome.  According to the nurse, they will be fine.  There is nothing to worry about now.  But as for you—’ Janjo pointed at Tiako, ‘—it is not yet over between us.  As soon as we burry Old Mola, I will visit you again.’

The gravedigger picked up his fallen shovel, shouted and threatened some more before leaving.

‘Ngody, what do I do now?’  Tiako asked me later on as the two of us sat in his mother’s kitchen warming water with which to massage her back and legs.

‘What you have to do from today is to grow.  All this is happening to you because of the type of people you choose to surround yourself with.  Yes, don’t look at me that way.  If you had told her from the beginning all her hard-earned money wouldn’t have been wasted.  You are lucky that no serious damage was caused.  Now is the time for you to sit down and actually look at your life and decide what you want to make of it.  Remember that a baby is now on the way.  You are even lucky to have a mother who loves and provides for you … you are not like me …’

We sat for a long time, silently nibbling at our different worries while flies feasted on the content of my fishing bag.

‘Do you still remember when we were in primary school how children used to insult me that my mother seized their football and was hiding it in her back?’  Tiako asked all of a sudden, frowning deeply.

I remembered alright!  So this was it?  When we were kids it was common to find him squatting behind a classroom and crying after one of the boys had dropped a stinking one on him about his mother’s hunchback or elephantiasis.  Pupils and teachers alike never stopped insulting him until he had to drop out from school in Class Six.  His mother’s disability had always been a permanent source of grief to Tiako.  Wherever he went and whatever he did, he was referred to as the great Hunchback Doctor because it was said that he massaged his mother’s lump with warm water every morning and evening.

‘You can’t understand how miserable my life has been with all the insults.  I had to leave school, hoping to stop the torments, and to deny her as my mother to those who didn’t know, hoping to find some self-pride and peace—but I think I was wrong.’

‘Yes, you were wrong,’ I said.  ‘I never expected you to carry this stigma in your heart over all these years.  You cannot refuse or hate your mother because of a natural deformity, or because people laugh at you.  You didn’t choose to be her child.  Just imagine what Janjo would have done to you today if she wasn’t there.’

After another stretch of silence, he held my arm.

‘Thank you for saving her life today.’

‘You should instead thank God for putting someone there when she needed help.  I have to go now and cook these crabs before they really get bad.  Auntie is not around and my father hasn’t eaten anything since morning.’

‘I think the water is now warm enough,’ Tiako said with a smile.  ‘You know I am the great Hunchback Doctor.’

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A Story of Childhood Loss                                                    

by W. E. Wastell

  woke to the sound of our clock striking 7.00 a.m., and to a female voice interwoven with mum’s hushed tones.  It was the first of May 1957 and I was eleven.

‘Who ever is that?’ I thought.  But soon it went quiet again and I dozed, probably thinking about the school day ahead, until mum came into the bedroom to wake my sister and me.

‘Who was that, mum?’ I asked.

‘Who was who, dear?’ she said.

‘You know, that woman’s voice I heard.’

‘There was no one here,’ she said.  ‘You must have been dreaming.’

I accepted her words and said no more.  I do remember that we weren’t allowed into mum and dad’s bedroom that morning.

‘Don’t wake your father; he’s still sleeping,’ said Mum.

At thirteen, my sister was almost two years older than me, and we were not great friends.  We seemed to quarrel most of the time.  Perhaps it was because we had to share a small bedroom.  I’m not sure why we bickered so, but I do remember being called out of a primary school class once to see the school doctor with my sister.  Mum was there too.  She made me confess to the doctor that I was responsible for the bite marks at the top of my sister’s arm, since they had formed themselves into a recognisably mouth-shaped bruise, impressively coloured in shades of yellow and black.  I think I was suitably ashamed.

On that first day of May we went our separate ways to catch the bus to school.  I went by the most direct route, and Jackie walked in the opposite direction, as she usually did, to call for a friend.  So I didn’t discuss the mystery lady’s voice with her as we set out to our grammar school.

I don’t remember anything about that school day.  It probably passed very much like any other day.  I caught the bus home with my friends, and my sister with hers, and we returned home from the bus stop the same way we had set off.  So it was I who arrived home first.  We had a long, concrete path from the road up to our house, and I was surprised to see mum waiting on the path as I turned into our driveway.  Do eleven-year-olds recognise distress on grown ups’ faces?  I certainly didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.  I was probably starving hungry.  I was always starving when I arrived home from school.  We had a long day with nothing to eat but a disgusting canteen-cooked meal at lunchtime.  I remember huge jacket potatoes as hard as a rock, and horrid spotted-dick sponge pudding nearly every day.  I still hate sultanas.

‘Your father’s gone,’ said mum.

‘Gone where?’  I asked in complete ignorance.

‘To heaven I hope,’ was her reply.

And that was it.  I was totally unprepared for such earth-shattering news and couldn’t quite take it in.  I knew dad had been ill for a long time . I don’t remember how long, but it must have been at least a year because, when he died, my first year at grammar school was coming to an end.  I remember rushing home from primary school to tell mum and dad that I had passed the 11+ exam, and finding dad sitting on the front door step.  I told him the news straightaway.  He was delighted.

‘When I get better,’ he said, ‘I’ll dance round the lawn with you.’

That’s what I expected to happen one day, and now I’d been told that it never would.

He had been in and out of hospital several times, sometimes staying for long spells.  The previous week I had been excited to spot an ambulance outside our gate as the bus bringing me home from school passed the top of our road.  I knew he was coming home that day.  It’s obvious now that he was being sent home to die.  I have his death certificate in front of me as I write.  ‘Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia’ is written in stark medical terms as the cause of death.  He was fifty-seven.  He died at 6 a.m. on that Mayday morning, and the voice I heard was the voice of our neighbour, who mum had gone to fetch.

I have no memory of sharing this terrible event with my sister.  I don’t remember comparing notes with her at the time, so whatever shock and grief we went through, we went through it separately.  Jackie has told me since that Mum told her dad wasn’t going to get any better, but it was nowhere near enough to prepare her, at thirteen, for his death.  I had been told nothing.

Mum insisted that we did whatever homework we had to do, to be sent to school in the morning, and she announced that we could have the next day off.  Strange how you remember minor details surrounding a traumatic event so vividly.  I even remember that I got an unimpressive 5 out of 10 for that French homework.  It must have been impossible to concentrate on French grammar.

We girls were not consulted on the question of attending the funeral.  When the day arrived we were sent to play with friends up the road.  It was all hushed up as far as we were concerned.  Neither of us can remember anyone ever talking to us about dad’s death.  We were not encouraged by mum to dwell on it because it upset her so much and she didn’t want us to see her cry.  We had no living grandparents, no aunts or uncles—no family around at all.  Friends and neighbours avoided the subject.

I went back to school.  I felt sure that I was going to be the centre of attention.  I imagined my friends, maybe even teachers too, their arms around me, offering words of sympathy.  But not a word was said.  I don’t even know if the children in my class had been told.

My school report, written only two months later, seems to confirms this conspiracy of silence:

‘A disappointing exam result.  She could take more part in class.’ (History)  ‘Exam result disappointing, and shows need for more attention to learning.’ (Latin) And this revealing one from the French teacher. (My dad was French.  I was usually quite good at French.):  ‘Fair only.  Her performance this term has been very erratic and her contributions to class work are much too infrequent.’

Looking back today, these comments make me feel angry.  I was fifteenth out of a class of thirty-two, and had just gone through one of the worst traumas that life can throw at you.  I wonder now if the teachers even knew, or if they did, did they remember as they applied themselves to the writing of report cards?

The overall remark from the headmaster is cryptic:  ‘I hope that she will improve next term.’

Was this an oblique reference to the bereavement I had suffered?  Was it a nod and a wink so to speak, or was it just one of many comments he’d had to think up for hundreds of school reports?  I shall never know.  But it is documentary evidence that shows my father’s death went unremarked, and no allowances seem to have been made for it.

I realise now that death is, and was then, a taboo subject, and that people feel more comfortable when the bereaved can hide their feelings and say nothing.  I can see how bewildering that must have been to me as a child of eleven.

In 2003, 46 years after dad’s death, my husband and I returned to live in an area close to my native village, and I went to visit the cemetery where he is buried. I knew which row the grave was in and that it had no marker.  Mum hadn’t been able to afford a headstone, and the small wooden cross that originally marked it was long gone.  It was next to the grave, also unmarked, of my friend John’s dad.  I liked John a lot.  He took me to see Elvis Presley in the film ‘Jailhouse Rock’.  What I recall most clearly about it is getting on the bus one stop before him, and carefully applying lipstick before the bus arrived at his stop—not an easy task upstairs on a double-decker.  Mum didn’t know I wore lipstick, and naturally I’d told her that I was going with a girlfriend.  I knew that John’s dad died of leukaemia too, around the same time as my dad, but I don’t remember ever talking to him about it.  What does surprise me is that the date of the film’s release was 1957, so it must have been the very year of our fathers’ deaths that we went to the cinema together, when I had just turned twelve.  I saw John on and off for several years and we were sort of girlfriend and boyfriend, although he was much more like an older brother.  Perhaps we gravitated towards each other because of the loss we had in common.  Or could it possibly have been that our dads met up on their final journey and somehow contrived for us to be a comfort to each other?

I easily located the two unmarked graves, my dad’s on the left, and reported back to my sister.  We agreed that we would like to mark the grave with a small headstone and a simple inscription and, as I lived nearest, I said I’d arrange it.  First I had to contact the person in charge of the cemetery, and this was the Rector of the church to which the cemetery belongs.  He had no objection to a small headstone, and he agreed the location of the grave by consulting the burial plan of the cemetery.  This plan also confirmed that the grave next to it was indeed that of my friend John’s dad.

I got in touch with a sympathetic-sounding stonemason and ordered a small headstone in York stone with my father’s name, the dates of his birth and death, followed by a simple ‘R.I.P’.  It took a little while for the stonemason to get the right piece of stone and engrave it, and then he phoned me to say it was ready.  I suppose it took about four weeks in all.

‘I’ll meet you at the cemetery,’ he said to me on the telephone.  ‘You’re sure you know where the grave is, because I’ll be carrying the headstone on a trolley, and it’s very heavy.’

‘Oh yes,’ I said.  ‘There are two unmarked graves together, and his is the one on the left.’  Arranging for this headstone to be put in place had become an interesting experience.  It was too long after the event for me to feel any great sadness and I felt very happy about what I was doing.  I met the stonemason outside the cemetery gates.  He had a pick-up truck, and he manoeuvred the headstone out of it and on to his trolley.  We set off into the cemetery, with me confidently leading the way towards my father’s grave, listening to him explaining how clergymen and important people were buried facing one direction, and everyone else was buried facing the opposite direction.  I found all this fascinating.

We reached the right pathway and suddenly I became confused.  Where was the grave?  I couldn’t locate it.  Something had changed.  It took me a few moments to work out what had happened.  In the few short weeks since I was last there, a headstone had appeared on the grave immediately to the right.  Sure enough, there was the name of John’s dad engraved on the stone with the date of his death —‘4 May 1957’— just three days after my own father’s death all those years ago.

After I’d gathered my thoughts together I began to realise the tremendous coincidence of what had just taken place.  Forty-six years after the deaths of our loved ones, each family, unknown to the other, had erected memorials to them in exactly the same month of the same year.  Amazing coincidence?  Or was it those two dads up to their scheming again?

 

 

 

Crystal Sky

Janet Lusk

 

 

The Treehouse

Janet Lusk

 

Below (10):  Ten Zen ways of looking at an insect whose  biological and folk names I do not know

Duane Locke

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Death Floater

P. Williams

 

 

The Ignorant

Steve Cartwright

 

 

 

Waist Deep

P. Williams

 

 

                     

Octopus Island

P. Williams

 

 

 

Three Stories

P. Williams

 

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