ken*again
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ken*again
|
Duck
Sense Lisa Braxton |
The Ride Leigh Pierce |
by Lisa
Braxton “Hey, watcha doing?” he asked. “Oh, nothing,” I responded. “You’re in the tub again, aren’t
you?” Darn it! He must have heard me splash.
I took bubble baths at least twice a day. They were my escape, my therapy.
A
good bath with creamy, triple-milled soap and scented bubbles was for me what a
trip to the steam room was for an overworked executive. But Dexter didn’t
seem to understand this. “No, I’m not in the tub,” I
responded. “Jazzmin, I can hear you sloshing
around. Don’t lie to me.” “What difference does it make
anyway?” I said. He paused a beat. “Yeah, I guess you’re right about
that. What you do in the privacy of your own home is your business.
I just hope
you don’t shrivel up from all the baths you take.” I sighed heavily. “Is Mr. McDuck with you?” he
continued. “What do you think?” “Oh, he’s becoming your favorite,
isn’t he?” I sensed sarcasm in his voice. Dexter took every opportunity to razz
me about my rubber duckies. I had a collection of them: a firefighter duckie, a
nurse duckie, a doctor duckie, even an astronaut duckie dressed in full
spacesuit and helmet. Dexter discovered my collection by accident one day when
he went into my linen closet thinking it was my kitchen cupboard and all the
ducks tumbled on his head. It didn’t seem fair that he made my
duckies the subject of his ongoing joke, especially since he had a pretty
extensive collection of saws. Dexter is a trustafarian, living off of a trust
fund left to him by an uncle—a mechanical engineer—who worked on the
design of one of the early plasma television sets. Dexter had the luxury of
spending his days in his loft designing and building handmade furniture that he
would later sell to custom furniture stores. Dexter typically used one
particular saw to cut large slabs of wood for the furniture, yet, he had a
collection of more than 30 saws. But I was nice enough not to razz him about
that. “The reason I’m calling is because
there’s a meteor shower tonight about 11,” he said. “The science museum
is opening up the observatory to the public. You want to go?” I thought about it for a moment.
If I
got out of the tub by 9, that would give me plenty of time to dry off, get
dressed, and meet Dexter at the museum. “Sure, I’ll go!” I responded. “Great!” Dexter said. “And can
you do me a favor?” “What’s that?” “Leave Mr. McDuck home, will you?
We
wouldn’t want him exposed to the night air after his bath.” I thought of a clever response, but
then decided to keep it to myself. “Sure thing, sweetie,” I
responded. “Sure thing.” by
Kane X. Faucher
It is not the only original that has
appeared in this city in the last year. I have counted 103 such buildings
that mysteriously have insinuated themselves in the spaces between other
buildings as if they had always been there. It is the people that are more
disconcerting, but I am still somewhat spooked by this gradual shift in
displaced architecture. I moved here because of a better
job. It was a mixture of reluctance and eagerness. I was leaving the
place of my nativity, and it is the complacencies and comforts of a hometown
that both make it unbearable and habitually close to the heart. I had been
so enthusiastic, finally putting into motion all those checked desires to leave
the close confines of my drab hometown, but I was suddenly faced with the stark
reality of finally departing this place I had so intimately known. For some people, landing in a place so
strange and new is not so strange and new, especially if their relationship to
their surroundings is appreciated only peripherally. I am not so
well-traveled, and so I was anxious and a touch afraid, but this was mediated by
the firm realization that I would gain my bearings here and eventually come to
call it something approximating home. Brave-facedly, I explored, rewriting
the internal map of my daily routine in accordance to this shuffled urban
geography. Comfort takes time and it was slowly
creeping up on me like resignation, blotting our or fading the memories of my
hometown…or at least making them as untouchable as the subject of a
photograph. A year ago, my newfound level of
comfort had started to diminish due to some curious incongruencies. While
waiting for the bus to whisk me off habitually to work, I caught sight of
something both old and new. It was new in its context, but indexed on a
familiar reminiscence. Where the discount store with the empty units above
it rose three floors from the street level stood a nameless corporate edifice of
roughly the same size. It had not been there the morning before, and there
were none of the usual traces and debris of demolition or construction. It
was a thirty-year-old building transplanted there, I supposed. It looked
exactly like the one I would see every day in my hometown. It was indeed
the exact same building, in sight plainer than memory could record, with the
same derivative iron art deco lining the portal. My reason chalked it up
to coincidence or poor perception, failed memory. I told myself that I was
adjusting here so well that I was confusing my memories of the two
buildings. Or, perhaps I was homesick and projecting fiction upon space. Two days later, I saw a convenience
store run by someone of Arabic extraction. The sign in English was done up
in a font with excessive curlicue as if it were trying to transition into
arabesque script. Again, I recalled this exact store 234.3 miles out
east. As weeks progressed, more buildings from my memory either replaced
or populated between the buildings of this city. Perhaps more unnerving was the slow
injection of people. None of them were even vague acquaintances, but
people whose faces you register in your memory because of unique characteristics
or by the common ubiquity of seeing them as they crossed your path with the same
quotidian regularity. Eventually, dozens of them were appearing—on the
bus, street, in stories, in any place of pedestrian transit. Since I never
introduced myself to these people when I lived back there, I found no
justification for doing so here, despite my aching curiosity and
confusion. What my perception and memory registers differs from others,
and perhaps they would not recognize me anyhow. Last month, the situation
worsened. Or, let us say, increased in its arcane quality. Most of
the buildings and recognizable strangers in my hometown were here, milling about
as they once did back in my hometown. Street names changed to reflect
those of my memory. No one I spoke to seemed to think anything was awry,
claiming that building x had always been here or street name y always had that
name. They regarded me curiously as if perhaps mad. I made a special
trip after work to photocopy a map of the city from the library with its street
names inscribed. But as the names changed day by day, so did my photocopy
of the map reflect these changes. I recorded on paper the names of
businesses on any given street to find that, as they were mysteriously replaced,
the phone book did not list the now-absent business that my memory identified,
and my written list seemed to change alongside changes in space without any
evidence of my correction. I have come to resignedly accept the
situation and no longer combat it with my reliance on reason. If I dragged
these buildings and people in the existence of this place through enigmatic
integration where I have unwittingly and without agency rewritten reality, or if
I am simply a madman with a confabulating memory, I will not know. But
when asked where I come from by the mildly interested who make small talk at bus
stations or in lineups at the tobacconist’s, what else can I truthfully
respond but here and there?
by
A mile from our tree lined paradise was a large industrial
estate that housed an enormous factory manufacturing aircraft engines, but in
1921 when my parents set up home at “Holly Oak”, an engineering complex
located a mile away was of no consequence. However being at war with Germany in
the early 1940’s had changed all that. For two consecutive moonlit evenings
in late May, the German Luftwaffe were able to pinpoint their target with
precision bombing, dropping thousands of pounds of high explosives on the
factory, and killing a number of night workers, mostly girls, but astonishingly
only a small area of the production line had been destroyed. I am sure that my
parents German ‘AR’ counterparts would have studied the photographic
results of the bombing, and notified their military masters that more sorties
were needed to destroy the whole complex. And this was indeed the case five
nights later, when we heard the terrifying drone of the lumbering heavily laden
bombers approaching. Unfortunately or not, depending on where you were
situated, the returning air crews had a brilliant moon to guide them to their
target. It was a beautiful night, scudding clouds scattered the night sky, and
the surrounding trees were distinct dark silhouettes lit by a moon which
bizarrely, reminded me of Atkinson Grimshaw’s hauntingly mysterious night
landscapes. Those of us in the avenue felt smugly secure nevertheless,
selfishly convinced that a bright moon would enable the pilots to pinpoint
their chosen targets exactly, leaving houses on the outskirts of the industrial
complex unscathed. It was at moments like this that I suffered appalling pangs
of guilt, knowing that many of the workers in the factory would be dead or
injured before the following morning was over, while we were cocooned in our
safe haven at home. On a shelf under the stairs, mother had placed a key wound
cream coloured alarum clock. The loud tick tock was reassuring, and reminded us
of time passing and that the horrors of the night would soon be ended. For over
an hour we listened to the stomach-churning shriek of falling bombs and
explosions, and felt their shockwaves as the blast was funnelled down the
avenue, rattling doors and windows, dislodging roof tiles and shaking chimney
stacks to the point of destruction. Even the leaves on the beech trees seemed
agitated by the tumult. And then abruptly it was all over, the drone of engines
swiftly receding into the night. But we were deceived; for just as rapidly, the throaty growl
of a lone German bomber could be heard approaching, much closer this time.
Transfixed, we heard the bombs shrieking fall and knew instinctively, that one
or more of them was intended for “Holly Oak”, and trying to escape their
wrath would be futile. The first sound we heard was the breaking of roof tiles, then
amazingly the splintering of ceiling lathes, followed by a sharp crack, as the
projectile broke through the bedroom floorboards, to be followed ultimately by
a deafening crack, as the front of the bomb burst through the stair treads
immediately above our heads. The period between the breaking of the roof tiles
and the bomb's emergence was a few seconds, yet in that brief ‘suspension’
of time, my intellect, freed by the knowledge of our imminent deaths excelled
itself in its memory. I calculated the angle and speed of its descent, how much
it weighed, who had betrayed us, how the sound of it falling was very much like
the unearthly calling of two love sick foxes yet magnified much, much more?
As
it burst into our cocooned little world, I was comforted by the warmth in my
mother’s smile, and the touch of my sister’s hand on my face. I noted
bizarrely, how ‘beautiful’ the steel tipped front of the bomb looked;
highly polished, and which at that instant looked perversely like a woman’s
breast, not exuding milk giving life, but distributing a malignancy that would
annihilate all of us, receivers as well as senders! I noted the etched number
on its side 241, and felt relieved that the girls in the armaments factory
would blessedly; never know who this particular bomb was destined to destroy.
I
thought about the grisly havoc an explosion in a confined space would yield and
shuddered, as we disintegrated into a million pieces. Ashes to ashes, dust to
dust, how trite but true! And just before I died, my thoughts turned to father,
poor father, who depended on us so much, and I wondered; how would he cope with
the gruesome aftermath?
by
he
phone rang just as Mr. McDuck and I were getting comfortable in the tub. Mr.
McDuck, my goggle-wearing, red plaid rubber duckie, was doing floating
pirouettes as I was sinking further and further into the tub, flutter kicking to
keep him moving. I didn’t have to bother looking at the caller I.D.
I knew it
was my boyfriend Dexter on the phone. He always called when Mr. McDuck and I
were taking our evening bath. It didn’t matter how many times I’d tell
Dexter not to disturb me between the hours of 8 and 9 p.m., he’d always call
anyway.
have seen this same daub of hastily applied paint on this exact wall three years
ago and exactly 234.3 miles away. It has been painted over several times
beside a poor patch and priming attempt 8.3 inches to its left. The same
rust-tinged license plate from 1942, added there as an afterthought décor item,
hangs to its right. In fact, this place is not just similar, but I have
become increasingly convinced that it is indeed the exact same place. “Identical”
implies that it is a faithful reproduction, but this is the authentic original,
displaced 234.3 miles from its last standing location where I came to know it
three years ago.
y name
is Ruth Summery. I was barely fifteen when I was killed along with my younger
sister Rachel, and our mother Irene; such is the frown of misfortune in war.
My
parents were prosperous professional people working on ‘AR’, Aerial
Recognition for the Air Ministry as well as ‘message intercepts’ at that
time. They were privileged to be able to conduct their work at home.
Motorcycle
dispatch riders would call on a regular basis with triple locked brief cases
filled with what I later learned were photographs and messages that required
de-coding. It was in their oak panelled study on the ground floor that they
carried out their meticulous and ‘secret’ work. Our large detached house
was located in a pleasant tree lined avenue in Surrey, less than twenty five
miles from the docks in London, and considered a place of safety from German
aircraft on their bombing raids. Immediately behind the study, father had
erected a forty foot metal radio aerial/receiver. Curious neighbours were
informed that he was an enthusiastic radio ham, although in reality he was
monitoring ‘external’ communications for the Air Ministry and other
government departments. Like our neighbours, we had a large garden with ample
space to build an underground ‘bomb proof’ shelter if needed. We decided
however, that “it would be a pointless exercise, and a waste of resources to
build one as it was highly unlikely that the house would be subjected to
bombing, and anyway in the remote possibility that it was hit, there was
adequate protection under the stairs.” The descriptive word 'adequate' was
fitting. The property was sturdily built of solid, hand made bricks and an
abundance of seasoned oak. Oak windows, oak rafters, oak trusses, oak beams, an
oak staircase, oak floorboards and a herring bone pattern covering of oak on
the ground floor. Moreover, the womb like space under the stairs was fitted out
with a snug and comfortable mattress, and powerful battery operated lamps.
Whenever the air raid siren sounded, we three ‘girls’ would quietly settle
down with our novels for as long as was necessary, while father prowled around
the house and up and down the avenue like an over protective wolf on ‘incendiary
watch.’
Two proud swans marshal their fleet of cygnets along the far shore, teaching them to fish. The man himself fishes with a nine-foot surf rod, too large for the tiny perch, and he hopes for gar or striped bass. Instead, sunfish nibble disinterestedly at the lure. He thinks about how easy it would be to turn to drink, about how easily the gin and tonics had gone down last night. The fishing is better, of course. Or is it? His skin burns in the heat, and flies swarm his ankles.
He sits on the graveled shore and watches the shallows, focusing on the tiny minnows which zoom in their thousands, their stripes glittering in the afternoon breeze. A mating pair of mallards paddles by and eats them, gulping hundreds with ease and aplomb. What if she never came back? That was unthinkable. But he does think it, and as he casts out into the muddy swamp, his heart trembles.
Dragonflies buzz the lily pads. The cygnets are more successful, dipping their brown heads for minnows. He reels the line in, and the worm still wriggles and struggles after an hour drowning in the brownish sludge. The man realizes that the worm is stronger than he, and pulls it carefully off the hook and sets it in the dirt under a bush. Better check if she has called.
he
shadow cast down the hill looks as if a giant is standing there, waiting to
pounce on his prey. But this isn't a giant, unless you count the size of his
heart.
His eyes are shut slightly by the bright sunlight, as he makes a visor out of his hand. He stands with his chest puffed out like a gorilla showing his dominance. He pulls his hand away from his forehead and wipes the sweat from his brow.
Chris pulls on his Sesame Street gloves that he got this morning for his second birthday and wiggles his fingers making sure they are on right. He cocks his head to one side like a dog when it hears a can of food being opened. He rolls his head around on his shoulders the way he sees the big guys on TV do it. He squints his eyes again and peers down the long grass hill he is standing at the top of.
He thinks out loud as he begins to tremble a little from the dangers of his upcoming mission.
"This is nothing. I can do this. That guy who wears the American flag pajamas does this on his motorcycle on TV all the time. I still can't figure out why they say he's evil. He seems nice to me."
Chris leans down and picks up his cooking pot helmet, stolen out of Grandma's kitchen cabinet, with the duct tape on it for a chin strap. He takes a deep breath as he puts it on his head and pulls the tape around his chin. He pounds the top of it with his balled up little fist to test its durability.
He begins pacing across the top of the hill, staring down to the bottom like a man staring down the barrel of his gun at a deer. He smiles at the possibilities.
"I can do this. It's just a little ant hill. Covered by grass. It's not as steep as it looks. This is nothing. I could do this in my sleep."
He keeps checking over his shoulder to make sure that his parents are still inside his grandma's house. There they are. Busy cleaning up the mess from his cake. His plan is working out perfectly. Eat like a pig. Get cake everywhere. Make a huge mess. Get sent outside so he doesn't make more of a mess.
"Good. They're still busy. No interruptions."
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pair of scratched up safety glasses that he found in his dad's junk tool box. He wipes them on his shirt, leaving a dust streak across Grover's face. He puts them on. He still wonders why his dad would just toss a perfectly good pair of glasses in his junk tool box. He just couldn't see why, of course that could be because he lost half his vision from the scratches on the lenses he was now looking through.
"All right. Almost ready."
He looks over his shoulder to see if anyone is on their way out to stop him. Hoping that someone will come out, rather than worrying that someone will come out.
As he peers down the hill he can't help but think about the disaster that was the umbrella parachute event that got him grounded from using ladders and ten stitches. But they always say lightning doesn't strike twice, so this should go off without a hitch. This was his time to shine. His time to show them he was a big guy now.
He paces the top of the hill again looking for the smoothest path to the bottom where the dirt jump is. He finally finds it and pulls the big yellow metal dump truck to the starting gate.
He looks over his shoulder one last time hoping that Mommy is going to see him and come running out of the house to stop him, making that horrible screeching yell that only a Mommy can make, but no such luck.
He takes a deep breath as he sits on top of the yellow behemoth. He rocks it back and forth, feeling the paint chips scratching his legs. He grabs a hold of the rusty front lip of the truck and pushes with his feet. The two front wheels creep off the edge of the flat top of the hill as he begins his descent.
"Here we go!"
The truck starts rolling at a pace that was not expected by the two year old. Flying faster and faster, almost bouncing down the hill.
"VROOM VROOM SCREACH VROOM! He's in the lead people. He's coming to the bottom of the hill!"
Chris narrates as he rolls wildly out of control down the steep hill. Clumps of dirt him in the face and stick in his teeth that are exposed by his enormous smile. His chubby cheeks jiggle with every bump of the wheels. His head bouncing on his shoulders as the cooking pot helmet slides down over his eyes.
"He's getting to the final jump and..."
The big yellow metal dump truck hits the dirt pile and flips end over end over Chris over end. Slamming his doughy two year old stuntman body into the ground and landing on top of him. He spits out some dirt, tries to push the heavy yellow death machine off him, and tries to muster up some tears to make this mistake seem a lot less naughty.
The sound of his cries make his parents jump up and run out of the house, or so he thought. It was actually his dad noticing the truck go out of control, seeing as he was watching the whole production from the bathroom window, again.
Chris lays there with his metal helmet and broken safety glasses ten feet away from him and the dump truck on top of him. When his dad arrives he sees that the bruise already forming below his son's left eye isn't nearly as dark and prominent as the one forming on his indestructible two year old ego.
"Are you okay tough guy?"
Chris fights back the tears and sucks a snot bubble back into his nose.
"Yeah. I think so." He stands up on wobbly legs and hugs his dad. "I really thought I could make it this time."
"I know, I know tough guy. I was watching from the bathroom window like usual."
"Daddy, I think I pooped a little."
His dad smiles as the thought, brushes some dirt off his teeth, and does the only thing a dad can do at this time. Encourage him.
"You got really close this time. Good job. Maybe next time you'll nail the landing."
As Chris wipes the blood from his elbow he is startled by a tapping on his forehead.
He awakes from his dream, looks over to see his wife asleep next to him, and his two year old son, Matt, standing next to the bed and tapping him with his stuffed dog.
"Daddy, can we go over to grandma's house today? She said she had a birthday present for me."
"Sure thing tough guy. But don't forget to bring your dump truck again."
Matt smiles at his dad.
"Do you think I can make it this time?"
Chris looks at the picture of him and his father on the night stand. The one of him wearing a Grover shirt with a bandage on his arm. The one that was taken on his second birthday right after the dump truck incident. He looks down at the pale scar on his left elbow and can't help but smile.
"Yeah, I bet you can."
Matt smiles excitedly, but a worried look quickly overtakes his face.
"But what if Mommy or Grandma try to stop me?"
Chris smiles like a naughty little kid and remembers how he got away with it.
"I'm pretty sure me and Grandpa can keep them busy. They'll be cleaning everything up after we're through having cake."
Matt smiles again and looks at his dad's elbow.
"When are you going to tell me how you got that old booboo Daddy?"
Chris stops to touch the cheese grater texture that the dirt jump created on his elbow.
"Maybe tomorrow tough guy. Maybe tomorrow."
by
Quentin Poulsen
rkun
came to the shores of the river and laid his hand cart down. All the long day he had hauled his
produce over the difficult terrain. Pale green melons, yellow and striped, dark green and white.
Now he squatted above the muddy banks, gazing at the broken bridge, contemplating his fate.
"I am an unlucky man. The footbridge has collapsed. And not a boat to be seen."
Among the trees on the hilltop behind him a movement caught his eye. It was a goatherd and his flock,
silhouetted by the glow of the setting sun. Those dark shapes wriggled and melted into the land.
Orkun discerned the lean figure of the goatherd, with white beard and long staff, like Musa, leading his flock
down the slopes to the water.
He rose to his feet and greeted the elder with a reverential bow. "Good evening, Uncle."
"Good evening, Young Pup," returned the other. "Why the long face?
Has your boat sunk in the sea?"
Orkun dipped his head again. "I have neither boat nor any means of crossing the river.
These melons are ripe and ready for market."
The old man perused the cargo, then raised his eyes to the sad features of the youth before him.
"These are fine melons. You are a young man. Your problem is easily surmounted."
"There is no way, Uncle." Orkun shook his head.
"Such despondency from one so young!" The goatherd stroked his beard and studied him more closely.
Orkun slumped onto his haunches again. "With the proceeds from this crop, I hoped to buy a horse.
Now I cannot reach the market to sell it. This path has become as all others.
Last summer I sought a bride. But the harvest was poor and my family could not raise
the dowry. Now she is betrothed to another. Everything conspires against me."
The elder stood beside him and stared at the fertile lands beyond the muddy river.
"Courage, Young Kite. Suleyman Pasha traversed the Dardanelles; Fatih Mehmet
the Golden Horn. But not without overcoming the greatest of difficulties.''
"I am neither a builder of boats nor a mender of bridges. How am I to cross this river with my cart
full of melons?"
''By believing that you can. First you must want to get there. You must want this enough to take the
necessary steps to prevail over the obstacles. One cannot simply say 'I want this' and it shall be so.
The mind is a limb. It needs to be trained and exercised. If you truly wanted to build a boat, you
would. If you truly wanted to mend that bridge, you would. If you truly wanted to swim the river with the
melons tied to your sides, you would.''
"Belief does not make one a magician, Uncle. Some things are possible and others are not.
Or life would be without meaning."
"There is no magic and no great surprise or disappointment that does not come within the realms of
your expectations. Bad things happen to you because you believe that they will.
Your expectations have determined this. The life you speak of is no more than
the reality you perceive. But it is not the same as mine. And it is only a very small part of you, who are
infinite. We may never grasp the infinite, but we can enlarge the boundaries of our conscious world by
learning to expand our minds."
''And if I believed this cart could fly, with I and the melons upon it...?''
"If you truly believed it, it would come to pass, one way or another.
However, your mind has been conditioned far beyond the point where you would be prepared to believe in such a thing with conviction.
Given time, this too could change. But for now your mind must focus on a simpler task.''
Orkun thought deeply. The river at this point was some hundred and fifty metres wide.
He could barely swim that distance, let alone go back and forth with sacks full of melons.
Besides which, how could he transport his cart across? He turned his gaze toward the bridge.
The near side was submerged about thirty metres from the shore, and the far side a little further.
The distance between was perhaps no more than half the river's span. If he slept the night he could, during
the course of the following morning, transfer the melons from this side of the broken bridge to the
other. There remained the question of the cart. Nonetheless, his spirits were invigorated.
Detecting a change in his expression, the old man enquired as to its cause.
His lips formed a smile of approval as the youth explained.
Then Orkun came suddenly to his feet. ''As for the cart, I will turn it over and float it across.
The whole thing is solved! By this time tomorrow I will be in the market place.''
''So let us make camp together,'' said the goatherd. "I have some meat and cheese, and with one of your
fine melons we can prepare a feast that will give you strength for the morrow's labour.''
While they ate, the darkness descended. The two men sat talking in the warmth of the fire, their faces
cast in a flickering hue. The elder produced half a bottle of grayish-white raki, already mixed with
water, and this they shared. They heard the song of the river and the occasional be-e-e-eh of a goat.
They smelt the earth and the roasting ashes. The stars were out, the new moon had begun to shine.
"Tomorrow is going to be a clear day," observed the goatherd. "With Allah's will and The Prophet's
blessing, you shall cross this river."
"You invoke the will of Allah, Uncle. Do you not believe that it is He who controls our destiny?"
"Allah is within us. He is our collective spirit. Allah, the universe, our collective subconsciousness;
this is one and the same, and we have the power to control it. We have always had some inkling of this
but cannot comprehend it. We attribute the mysterious workings of the subconscious mind to a greater power."
Orkun stopped chewing. "Are you denying the omnipotence of The Creator?"
"My conception of The All-Merciful merely differs from yours. What one man believes is as real for him as
what another believes is for him. Our thoughts, dreams and emotions are all part of an ever-changing
universe. Only our conscious world is confined by the limits of reason."
The elder imparted one last piece of advice before they lay down to sleep.
"Before you close your eyes repeat to yourself nine times: 'I will cross the
river.' This thought will accompany you into the land of dreams and strengthen your resolve."
The youth did as he was told, and indeed he dreamed a vivid dream of reaching the far banks of the river.
All trace of doubt was removed from his mind when he arose with the dawn's first light.
He reenacted the steps he had taken in his dream, tying the sack about his waist, filling it with
melons, and swimming the distance between the collapsed ends of the bridge.
It sapped his strength and he was required to rest longer after each crossing.
But the task was completed before the sun had reached its zenith.
By dusk the young man had reached his destination and was hawking his wares in the market place.
His prophesy of the evening before had been fulfilled.
Back in his village some days later Orkun added these proceeds to his savings and bought the bay mare he had
long coveted. Upon her he strutted about the village, testing out his new-found sense of power.
"Together we can clear that fence!" he would say, and repeat it to himself nine times.
"Together we can catch a brown fox! Together we can outpace Strong Ali
on his red Circassian."
All these things came to pass, and others less probable, so that Orkun began to wonder at the extent
of his power. What were its limits? He grew in stature
day by day, and the villagers marvelled at the change in his bearing.
"How Young Orkun has come of age!" they would say. "Such an unassuming lad before.
Now he goes with the swagger of a sultan!"
Indeed, he began to conceive of a higher station; muhtar, aga, maybe some day even the pasha.
Inshallah!
More than once he dreamed a hazy dream of himself as master in the sovereign's harem.
But the old man's words served to sober him. These things would not simply become so.
He needed to train his mind and take the necessary steps to attain his goals.
In these days of exultant self-discovery there remained one matter which gnawed away at Orkun's
spirit: his love was betrothed to another. Each time he saw her seared his heart like fire.
"Elif, who is it you love?" he asked when they met at the well one morning.
She mocked him with her large brown eyes. "Orkun, you know it is not my decision.
Mother has accepted the offer of Birgul Hanim, mother of Murat. Now don't be
foolish."
He began to brood deeply, venturing into the village less and less, devoting his attention instead to the
tending of his family's fields. It had been a fair crop that summer, but too late for him.
When the robin disturbed his sleep one night he was seized by a fit of rage and slew it with his sling.
"I am an unlucky man," he told himself. "What do I profit by this recent good fortune when my heart stays
broken? The goatherd's words are of no use to me now. Elif is betrothed to Murat.
The nine repetitions cannot reverse a vow. It is a predicament alterable only by some chance misfortune, and these matters lie
in the hands of Allah."
But had not the old man said Allah lay within us; that The Creator, the universe and our collective
subconsciousness were one and the same? Thus, if Orkun willed it, a part of Allah willed it also, while only
He, The Magnificent, The Giver of All, could bring it to pass. And had not the old man spoken of strata of
existence? If some misfortune were to overcome Murat and his marriage to Elif unable to go ahead, would
this only be so in the stratum of Orkun?
He asked himself how much he wanted this. His soul yearned for nothing more.
Then he must train his mind to accept this possibility. He must be prepared to
take the necessary steps to make it a reality. Nine times each night he pledged to attain that which his
heart craved most, and indeed he dreamed most vivid dreams of its eventuality.
It was news of the aga's imminent arrival that provided his opportunity. He and some other men of the
village were wetting their mouths in Hasan's cafe one
evening, Murat among them.
"The aga's share is too great," Dark Kemal was saying. "We must stand up to him, sooner or later."
"We can barely feed our families," said another, "while he basks in the luxury of Selim!"
Orkun knew these words to be hollow; men made lions by the spell of the raki.
The same fine speeches were spoken before the aga's every visit. But when he came
they would all turn over their share, as always, without question.
As the night progressed the talk grew bolder, and it was Murat himself who cried, "Curse the aga!
He will take nothing this time!"
Orkun swallowed his raki and smiled back at him, a serpentine flicker in his eyes that was not lost on
his prey.
Next morning he visited the bath house and conveyed this news to the washer-man.
It was enough. What the washer-man knew the village knew, and the villagers
were most apt to believe what they wanted to believe. Before long the news was on everyone's lips.
Murat was going to deny the aga.
"What have you done to me?" Murat confronted Orkun. "Many words are spoken in Hasan's cafe which are not
meant to be taken seriously. How would it be if you reported them all throughout the village?"
The latter stepped back, intimidated by the fury in the other's eye. But Murat was not a man of violence,
and this perhaps was worse. Orkun would never forget the look he gave him before he turned away.
Some days later Murat was gone. To stay would have been to lose face in front of the entire village, for
no man could afford to incur the aga's wrath. The path was thus made clear for Orkun's family to approach the
family of Elif. It had been a fair crop that summer. The dowry was no longer a problem.
The offer was accepted. The young man had what he wanted. Elif was his betrothed and all was well.
But now he found himself unable to hold her gaze. It seemed to him that she was different, and that perhaps
she no longer wanted to marry him. His mind reeled like a drunkard's.
In his dreams he saw the robin, become giant, refusing to die. The stones struck it, disappearing into its
plume, yet it merely continued to sing. Cik cik. T-r-r-r-r. Cik cik.
T-r-r-r-r. No matter how he tried, Orkun could not kill it.
Then one night he dreamed a gruesome dream of Murat lying dead in the field.
He, Orkun, stood above him with his sling, for it was he who had slain him.
He awoke in a sweat, as one gripped by fever. What was it the old man had said?
Our dreams too were part of an ever-changing universe. Was not Murat's death real,
therefore, in another stratum? But in Murat's own stratum of existence he could not be dead.
So why this sense of anguish?
Unable to sleep, he wandered outside into the frosty dawn. Was the sun beginning to rise only because he
expected it? What did it all mean when everything and nothing was real?
But Orkun knew it was wrong. This was a feeling that came from his bones.
It was not Elif who was different, but him. It was not she who no longer wanted to marry, but him.
It was not Murat he had slain in his dream, but a vital part of himself. He must now consign himself to the same fate as his
rival.
by
Marcus Rose
The conversation between the cashier and the rectangle was
only broken by the customers, who were scarce and never numbered more than two
at a time. When a customer entered, the conversations sheared suddenly and
lingered with nervous complicity. As the customer browsed the selection, the
cashier stared blankly past him at what she was able to see of the rectangle,
which returned her stare desperately, fearing the customer might disrupt the
train of thought as he had done the conversation. The train of thought faced the
most danger when the customer approached the counter. At first this inevitably
spelled doom for it, but as the cashier pressed into habit asking for I.D.,
scanning the bar code of the liquor, announcing the price, bagging the bottle,
taking the money, securing it inside the register, and wishing “Good night,”
less and less conversations between the two had to start anew. The conversations
deepened in emotional complexity. Customers already candid with tipsiness—or
even drunkenness sometimes—asked, “Are you drunk? You look flushed.” “No,” answered the cashier as she handed the customer his
liquor. “Good night.” Midnight—the end of her shift—brought the entrepreneur,
his terse smile brazen in his face as it disrupted the rectangle inspecting the
store. He began to straighten the bottles nearest to the rectangle and, as if a
rollicking party had scattered debris there, solemnly announced, “Time to
clean up.” “Just let me lock the register.” She did. Then both the entrepreneur and the cashier straightened the
bottles, each on either side, no conversation. “Sweep so we can go,” said the entrepreneur. The cashier
grabbed the broom from behind the register counter. She swept with her back to
the rectangle, which stood beside the entrepreneur, its solemn burliness intact
in the abject wordlessness. In direct proportion to her progress, the
entrepreneur slowly receded into the rectangle; soon he was waiting invisibly on
the pavement outside. Her dust pile grew and she soon found herself breathing
the darkness of the rectangle; and she turned to face it. Her pulse quickened at
the intimacy and with a breathlessly rapid flourish she swept the dust into the
rectangle. She stepped limply to the pavement and then had to close the door,
which the entrepreneur locked with jingling finality. “Do you want a ride home?” he asked.
he entrepreneur had opened
a tiny, narrow liquor store—just a ten-foot by five-foot hallway lined with
floor-to-ceiling shelves of bottles—in a warm little town, and, the corporate
world indelible in his mind, set the store’s schedule at twelve to twelve.
The
store was dingy, made of plywood walls supported by two-by-four beams, all
painted green. The door, also of this thin green wood, the entrepreneur deemed
“primitive and uninviting,” and employees were to prop it open whenever the
store was open. And presently, three years after the store’s opening, the
night-shift cashier often found herself alone, staring from her perch behind the
counter through the dim green hallway at the rectangle of night framed by the
open doorway. This rectangle was pure black; the cashier loved it. It provided
thoughtful conversation about philosophy and love and other sensitive topics,
which it delivered in a strong stentorian diction that always pleased her; its
burly masculinity always intimidated her community college textbook, most times
closing it.
“No”—she wheeled her bicycle to the road and mounted it awkwardly, textbooks being in hand—“Good night.”
The community college subjected her to the delicate male voice of the textbook, which spoke in abstractions and euphemisms; the blackboard might have charmed her were it not the transcriber of the textbook’s babble. With chin in hand she cast her bored eyes to the classroom’s doorway, which, despite that it supported the great blank white walls and was not pompous as the textbook, contained only florescent light.
This routine repeated itself for weeks, months. The rectangle and she abandoned any of their differences and settled into one long lovely stare that was able to remain intact in her memory long after the dust was swept; she could now fully conjure its image against the painful euphemism of community college. Classes quickened and she changed no part of her routine until she graduated. After this the entrepreneur offered her more hours in the store but she decided to only work her night-shift, spending the daytime gathering her thoughts and composure for the rectangle. She observed one day that the entrepreneur’s huge, tinted-window truck, which had been perpetually shiny when she first met it, had begun to carry grime immune to water, soap, and scrubbers; time had passed, she realized. Two years.
The day after her realizing this:
As per custom, the cashier rode her bike through the darkening evening, which would relinquish itself to blackness when she arrived at the store; she timed it this way to let her darling prepare himself, to let him wash from his body the lingering traces of his daytime sleeping. However: When the cashier arrived, the green flimsy plywood door was shut. The entrepreneur’s truck stood sadly on the pavement in the dark, and the cashier, stunned by the breach of routine, stopped her bike beside the passenger door. The entrepreneur in the driver’s seat—adjusting his position before she could consciously register the head-hung slouch—saw her and rolled his lips into a smile of consternation. He held the look for a few seconds. Then he exited and invisibly on the other side of the monstrous truck she heard him mutter, “Agh damnit.”
“What’s wrong?” she asked—her question went unanswered as the entrepreneur walked to her side of the truck. He paused.
“The goddamn store got robbed,” he said—the hours since had taught him to restrain his anger.
She sat on her bike wordlessly shocked.
“Right at goddamn noon! At opening time! Carla”—the day-shift cashier—“said it was two Richard Nixons, guys with Richard Nixon masks. The cops came and I had to close the store. So take the goddamn next couple nights off. Do you need a ride? It’s dark.”
“No I’m all right with my bike.” She rode off without another word; and silently she would spend the days until the phone buzzed and informed her to return to work.
After receiving the news, the cashier excitedly prepared herself for the rectangle. She pedaled her bike faster than usual; and from twenty yards through the dark she spied a cancer on the liquor store. A silver glass door had replaced the flimsy plywood one, and it was closed; her gut swelled. As she entered the store the other cashier—not Carla—flung her purse around her shoulder and briskly exited. For one minute the night-shift cashier stood silently, not facing the door, and then walked to her counter and grabbed the broom. She returned to the door, looking at the floor to avoid the glass’s rendering of the rectangle. She violently pushed open the door as far as its hinges allowed, and propped it open with the broom. The broom fell immediately; the door shut; it was too heavy to be restrained.
Seeing
Stars
by
ext,”
the clerk behind the deli called.
Mildred inched towards the case, her hand extended, clutching the small yellow
tag indicating she was number nineteen, the next number in the queue.
“Excuse me,” Mildred tried to elbow past the young man who’d wedged
himself between her and the counter. He didn’t have a number. “I believe I’m
next.”
“Uh?” he stared at her, his mouth slightly open, as if he were seeing her
for the first time.
“I was next.” She looked up at him while the clerk waited for someone to
order.
“Okay, but I’m in a hurry.” His expression indicating she couldn’t
possibly have any place else to be while he had an important engagement. Everything was important when you were that age, Mildred remembered.
She held her ground, cleared her throat and ordered a half pound of potato
salad. “That’s all,” she smiled when the clerk handed her the package.
Edging away from the lunch crowd she heard, “old bag” and felt eyes on her
back. She straightened up. Maybe she should’ve waited till after the noon rush
or gone to the market before, but she’d been busy. And, it wasn’t as though
she’d ordered a half dozen items, hemming and hawing about each selection
while the mob grew anxious and angry, the clock ticking away on their lunch
hour.
She smiled at the check out line. She was finished with lunch hours.
Except the
ones she kept without set limits.
Outside, it was beginning to drizzle and she stopped in the middle of the
sidewalk to button up her jacket, the bag with potato salad and bread dangling
from her arm. She felt someone came up from behind, nearly forcing her to the
ground, as he brushed past her.
She looked up—it was the young man who’d tried to push ahead of her in
line. “Bitch.” There was no doubt that’s what he said, thudding to the
parking lot and into a massive truck Mildred didn’t think anyone needed.
“It’s a pity no one ever taught you some manners,” was the comment she
aimed in his direction.
The topics of bad manners and massive vehicles had been fodder for discussion on
more than one occasion when the girls got together.
“What’s the world coming to?” was the way the ill manners conversation
usually ended.
Mildred stood at the edge of the driveway as the big truck peeled onto the
street, heading east. If she had a can in her bag, she might be tempted to hurl
it at him. She’d never had a very good throwing arm, but supposed if she were
motivated, might actually hit her target.
“That wouldn’t be very productive,” she said under her breath. Gratifying,
but not very productive.
“I bet he’d be seeing stars when the can hit the metal.” Metal was so thin
on cars nowadays, all you had to do was look at it funny and it caved in.
“What do people need those big trucks for?” Mildred asked her card playing
ladies at their last game. She’d been nearly run off the road, exiting the
highway on her way to Agnes’.
“To haul things,” Catherine said while she shuffled the cards.
“I don’t think they really haul things in them,” Agnes added, her glasses
poised on the end of her nose, studying her hand.
“My nephew has one,” Margie picked up the cards deftly pitched in her
direction. “He wouldn’t dream of putting anything dirty in it.”
She was
organizing what she’d been dealt. “I asked him to haul some manure for me
one day and you should’ve seen the expression on his face. ‘Aunt Margie, I
don’t haul manure.’”
The ladies laughed and Mildred smiled as she remembered the way Margie dropped
her voice, imitating her nephew, and wrinkling her nose.
Walking the two blocks home, Mildred replayed the scene at the market and what
she should’ve said. “At least, I didn’t back down.” She turned the key
in the lock and stepped inside.
The house had a tired, worn look, but it was comfortable. Rooms filled with a
lifetime of living and not just hers, but the families that had come before.
“You have a funny way of looking at things.” Ed used to say when she’d
remark about something that had happened during the day as they sat on the
patio, waiting for the stars to pop up in the sky.
Winter was best for stargazing. Ed watched the paper for exceptional happenings
in the sky. Usually, those things occurred on the most bitter nights.
He’d
wait outside while she bundled up. Once she’d join him, he’d say, “Maybe
we should go over to the park. The visibility is better.”
“This is fine,” she’d chattered. Sometimes, though, she’d cave in when
roofs blocked a clear view of the sky and trudge behind him to stand in the
middle of the park, biting wind sweeping through the depressed center, making it
colder than their patio.
“There, there it is.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulders while she
shivered and point upward. Heavenward, he’d say even though she wasn’t
certain he believed there was one.
She hung her coat in the front hall closet, brushing off the few raindrops.
She
supposed the house needed a little sprucing up. The girls offered suggestions
the last time they met here and she’d nodded in agreement as if she might
seriously consider them.
“You could paint,” Agnes suggested.
“It’s the cheapest change with the greatest impact,” Margie added.
She put the potato salad in the refrigerator, feeling suddenly worn out from her
experience. Not like when she was younger and the whole incident would’ve
charged her up. She’d been so pissed, she would’ve come home and painted the
whole first floor.
Ed would’ve laughed and told her to forget about. “Tonight we’ll do some
stargazing. That’ll take your mind off all your problems.”
In the kitchen, she opened the back door and looked out at the patio. The rain
was really coming down now, making the old brick appear shiny. Soon, there would
be weeds growing between the cracks. She should tear out the patio and have a
concrete slab poured. It would be safer when she entertained her friends.
“I wouldn’t need to worry about someone tripping.” She shivered.
It would
be a while till spring and she could make those decisions about the house then.
She locked the door, and in the living room, stretched out on the sofa for a
small nap before a late lunch. Her afternoon and evening were free today.
“I could move,” she said to the ceiling, “but what if the next place wasn’t
as good for star gazing?” She squinted her eyes, imagining stars stenciled on
the ceiling and smiled. What would the girls think about that? She closed her
eyes, “at least, I didn’t back down. Score one for old, invisible ladies
everywhere.” She’d have a funny story to tell the next card game.
