Fried Baked Beans and Marmite                                                                

by David Morgan

                                                      
ried baked beans and Marmite sandwiches, Coronation Street in black and white and Dad reciting scintillating snatches of Dylan Thomas:  "Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs." The holly is flowering as hayfields are rolling, 
their gleaming long grasses like waves of the sea.

Next…

Muffin The Mule dancing string-bound on the posh lady’s piano hoping that the skies would open and rain down wooden carrots on his wooden head and me in a school hall attempting to persuade a plastic paratrooper to float and then me jumping in the back of Mum’s car and cutting my hand on a fish bone.
The hungry birds harry the last berries of rowan,
but white is her bark in the darkness of rain.

Next…

Dad loved painting trees in all shades of green (his favourite colour) light rippling in myth-ripe water, his childhood in Wales hitting his cortex over and over again like fire as green as grass.  "I speak through the oak," says the Green Man,
"I speak through the oak," says he.

Going to school in Flamstead with Dad taking me and 14 year old Rusty, a first cross Labrador/Alsatian (rejected by the police because his paws were too big). This old dog came to get me at home time as Dad was busy with green fingers in his chrysanthemum bright glasshouses.  Over the wall of the cottage next door jumped a fierce white Alsatian, bounding to bite me.  Rusty took him by the neck and half killed the bigger dog.  A typically selfless act from a wonderful friend.
"I rise with the sap," says the Green Man,
"I rise with the sap," says he.


Many years before in that old cottage that was soon to be demolished for a more modern bungalow, in the orchard that was to be cleared for a garden, the Green Man tamed by a neat water feature and Koi Carp, it was rumoured a hangman had lived with his beautiful daughter, who tried to run away with her lover whilst the hangman was plying his trade in St Albans.  The hangman barred up the lower rooms and made a prisoner of the girl, but at last, with her lover’s help, she slipped away.  So the hangman hanged himself in the kitchen and was not found for weeks, nearly all skeleton, except for his green and putrid skin providing a limp coating of horror.  His moans, at times, could still be heard whilst the flesh of the Sunday roast started to singe.  The hangman’s name was Derronda Thomas. 
 Like antlers, like veins of the brain the birches 
mark patterns of mind on the red winter sky.

"The holy word that walked among the ancient trees."  Dylan Thomas’s name Dylan was his father’s choice and it came from the "Mabinogian", that Old Testament of national myth.  In certain ways, that Victorian translation of Celtic legend by Lady Charlotte Guest, the young wife of the self-made master of the Dowlais Ironworks in South Wales, was the inspiration of modern Welsh poetry.  In the text, the son of a magician makes a maiden, who claims to be a virgin, step over a magic green wand.  Immediately she drops a fine male child with green hair.  Then the son of the magician says "I shall name this child, and the name I shall give him is Dylan."

Once named, the boy makes for the green sea and becomes part of it, swimming as fast as the swiftest fish… and for that reason he was called "Dylan Eil Ton, Son of the Waves."
In and out of the yellowing wands of the willow
the pollen-bright bees are plundering the catkins.
Curiously enough, Dylan Thomas’s wife Caitlin was to write that he had a definite connection with the fish family with his heavy hulk-shaped head and elongated, utterly useless hands which Caitlin used to call fins.

My Dad’s love of Dylan impregnated me, both myth and motivation, with my Mum’s family’s love of booze I could almost imagine being Dylan and I would spout words like flowing water, green and sparkling, like a virus infecting the air.

Dylan has been a symbol and a warning "Dying of Strangers."  At Dad’s funeral I read "Do Not Go Gentle."

"And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

"I burn with desire," says the Green Man,
"I burn with desire," says he.

And now Time holds me green and dying though I sing in my chains like the sea, as I spread the marmite thickly on the bread and ladle on the fried baked beans.  So my fourth ghost comes.  The other three are to be found in this text.

Time passes beyond patience.

How green is the valley of memory; to my left Mum, a little girl, dances to an unheard song and to my right, Dad, little boy face polished with carbolic soap, hop scotches pavement cracks and a thousand years bad luck.  A puddle yields Excalibur, shadowy clouds radiate rainbows, the sandwich solves my mouth’s loneliness and it is once upon a time at last.
"I am born in the dark," says the Green Man,
"I am born in the dark," says he.

Next…

Author's note:  The sentences in italic print are quotations from William Anderson's poem The Green Man.

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A Curious Demise                                                                  

by William Gladys

                                                                         

n the 1940’s, the encroaching London sprawl of the late 1930’s had re-defined large areas of rural Middlesex, and it was in this environment, that George Chislehurst the parish blacksmith, worked a village forge just twelve miles as the crow flies from Nelson’s Column, in Trafalgar Square, London.

Sunday for me was extra special; this was the day when the Chislehurst family invited me to tea.  It was a day when Mr. Goober and his echoing call of “fresh fish, Goober’s fresh fish”, accompanied by the gentle “clip clop, clip clop” of Nellie his piebald mare could be heard around the streets.  Blanche, George’s wife, a quiet but commanding person, was always kind to me.  “Come along Miss Alice help me with the tea things,” she would call.  And as she strode between the kitchen and the parlour, the homely sound of her bleached and ironed apron creaking like an unoiled gate was always reassuring.  On the table, slices of brown bread, topped with scrapings of mouth-watering beef dripping appeared to anticipate the return of Edith and her pint pots of winkles, cockles and shrimps.  Even the tops and tails of the latter were savoured with relish, while the hard winkle shells ground down later in the afternoon would supplement the diet of their Light Sussex hens; nothing was wasted.  “Improves the quality of the egg shells m‘dears”, George would say with conviction as he chomped on another mouthful of shrimp sandwich.  Although the medley of sea fare displayed in Mr. Goober’s canvas covered cart was limited, it satisfied all but the most hard to please of customers during those years of austerity.

Life for me was little different to that of Edith.  Our bay windowed yellow brick house was in a budding suburbia, whereas Ivy Forge a quarter of a mile to the East of the village remained as yet removed from the advancing hustle and bustle in an area known as the Highlands.  It was here that the Chislehurst family occupied a four bed roomed cottage, and attached barn, with stables and forge to one side.  At the back of the cottage, a ten acre meadow was set aside for Pearl their gentle shire horse to graze; a placid and loyal mare, who, like an old family retainer, had worked good-naturedly for the Chislehurst family for nearly twenty years.  A further five acres of mixed fruit; apples, pears and cherries supplemented the Chislehurst’s war time diet.

George, a tough and gritty but genial blacksmith, was highly esteemed in the community, and individuals from all walks of life would come for miles to socialise with him and benefit from his abundant craft skills.

Because of former tragedies at the Forge however, the earliest recorded one dating back to the beginning of the nineteenth century, his untimely death at the age of thirty-nine was treated not only with horror but misgiving by those who loved and respected him.

In 1840 Samuel Dean, blacksmith at Ivy Forge, had slipped and fallen from the hayloft and been impaled on a pitchfork:  verdict, accidental death.  Forty years later, in 1880, Ebenezer Shuffle, working to complete a pressing order in the early hours of the morning, had suffered multiple burns after falling on the hot coals of the forge fire: verdict, accidental death.

Sixty years on, a four wheeled wagon loaded with sacks of corn for the local flour mill, and driven by haulier Ben Watkins, had limped into the yard with a broken spring for an essential repair.  After a prolonged and animated discussion between George and Jack Reid his striker, it was decided, much against Jack’s better judgement, that the repair be completed with the sturdy cobs remaining in the shafts, and the load left on the wagon.  Within the hour, the heavy load had been raised and secured by a ratcheted tripod; blocks of wood placed underneath for added support, and the near side rear wheel removed for easy access.  Jack Reid, a large and immensely strong man, held the horses securely.  Minutes later, as George, with hammer and red hot metal to hand positioned himself underneath the wagon, the horses, frightened by a cluster of crows harassing a buzzard, reared up, dislodging the supports and catapulting Jack Reid to one side.  In less time than it takes to trim the horn from a hoof, George had been skewered through the left thigh by the loose end of the axle, and dragged across the yard.  The sudden movement swung his body at an odd angle, allowing a steel rimmed wheel to pass over his neck and throat, inflicting a large gaping wound.  The surge of blood from such a massive gash continued to soak the yard bricks at a frightening rate, and although Ben Watkins and Jack Reid did their utmost to staunch the flow it was not enough, George Chislehurst died soon after.  In later years, the red stain on the bricks remained as a gruesome testament to the tragedy that occurred on that fateful day.

George’s internment at St Cyril’s was attended by hundreds of mourners, and a few weeks later, Blanche and Edith left Ivy Forge to live in a small house within the escalating suburbia.  In no time at all, the abandoned Forge became derelict, the grounds overrun by brambles, weeds, and wildlife.  The contents of the cottage, forge and barn were sold at auction.  Pearl, their gentle shire, was gifted to a local landowner, who agreed to Blanche and Edith taking her for regular walks round the lanes until the day she died.

Now and again, “something curious” was seen in the grounds of the old forge.  “It was like a silent but watching shadow, at times still, sometimes not”, said one observer, and Mary Withed, a local school teacher remarked that she saw, “this darkness by the forge doors, and was aware of its presence whenever she walked past the entrance day or night.”  Over time, the forge, its surrounding buildings and fifteen acres of land, were transformed into an oasis amid an advancing sea of bricks and concrete; but for many it remained a casualty of its recurring tragedies; a fabled sanctuary, a place fatale, and best avoided.

On the death of her mother, Edith as sole beneficiary sold Ivy Forge and its land to a London property developer.  Mystified by the excessive interest shown, she failed to comprehend why anyone would be imprudent enough to part with a fortune for a dilapidated cottage and a few acres of wilderness.

High rise flats were quickly erected on the site, and overnight, or so it seemed to local people, Ivy Forge was magically transformed and grandly renamed Forge Court.  Edith Chislehurst, offered a life time rent free flat by the developers, declined, stating that “… she was happy and contented where she was”, and her lifelong friend  I, Alice Packer,  who lived next door said, “…we prefer to remain close to each other in the familiar and comfortable surroundings of our terrace homes.”

Tragically, a few months later, the first resident of Forge Court became the victim of yet another curious accident on the site where the old forge used to stand.  A brief description of her death appeared in the local newspaper at the time.

South West Middlesex Recorder

“Miss Caroline Wallis, returning from an evening spent with friends in New Street, slipped and fell down the stairs of Forge Court fracturing her skull.  She died the following day in Middlesex Hospital, Isleworth.”

Cynical old timers in the community hinted that “something curious” was responsible for her fall, but not many believed such a far fetched story.  And yet the sudden appearance of a red stain on the stairs where she fell was not easy to explain away, and aroused considerable disquiet and speculation within the community in the years that ensued.

                                                                                                        
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Devotion                                                                                                   

 by Robert Aquino Dollesin

he egg rests in your hand, its tips pinpricked, everything inside drained out.  Using light strokes and thin-hair brushes, you color the delicate shell, careful not to shatter that fragility which houses nothing..

Listless in her bed, her eyes remain open, focused on a point on the ceiling.  You’ve tried to reach her before, never successful.

You fill the tub with warm water and litter the surface with red leaves—poinsettias.  A small tribute to someone you still love.

Hefting her, one arm slid beneath the hollow of her knees, the other wrapped across the back of her shoulders, you bring her to the bath, set her in the water.

Soft sponge applied with a gentle touch.  She doesn’t react.  She never does.

The nurses, sometimes touched by your devotion, wait until the last possible moment, and then allow you a final kiss before asking you to leave.

Outside, in a rusting Rambler parked under an oak, your lover waits reading.  She doesn’t ask why anymore, only agrees to drive you every first Sunday of the month.  She understands, your lover does, what you share with your wife is much deeper than just devotion.

                                                                                                        
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Robot Mode                                                                                                   

 by Quentin Poulsen

our trolleys burst out of the aisles at the same time and made a run for the fast lane. The guy in the orange sweater got cut off by the middle-aged woman,who in turn collided with the thin, sour-faced woman, leaving the elderly lady to come through on the outside and nose her trolley in front. 

 They all of them had more than ten items in their trolleys, but since there was no one else waiting, I served the old woman.  She was not in a hurry any more, however.  Firstly, she paid by cheque, the most time-consuming method available and practically obsolete in the age of debit cards and eftpos and what have you.

Then, with a twinkle in her eye, she asked me to bag the groceries for her.

A decade or so back, earlier in my career as a checkout operator, we'd had assistants do the bagging for us.  But they had disappeared during the company's 'streamlining process,' which had been hyped as some revolutionary method of making the supermarket run more efficiently, when all it had done was double our workload so that it took twice as long to serve everybody.

Having done the bagging as requested, I turned next to the middle-aged woman, who had come in second and piled her items onto the conveyor belt.  Even as I served her, an overweight fellow of similar vintage rushed hastily up and added an armful of groceries to hers.

The customers behind said nothing, as if it were not happening; as though everyone were behaving in a perfectly civilised manner.  But when I scanned the items and hit a snag with the bar codes, they grew increasingly fidgety and took to tutting and huffing and rolling their eyes.

The sour-faced woman was up next, followed by the man in the orange sweater.  By this time the queue had lengthened considerably and I went into robot mode. I did not even look at the people's faces; just greeted them as 'Sir' or 'Madam,' scanned their items, accepted their payment and bid them good day.

A pack of cigarettes dropped onto the belt in front of me, as if from the ceiling.  Extending my focus I perceived the stiff, charcoal grey fibres of a business suit. 

"Hello, Sir. How are you today?"

"How do you think I am?!  I've spent half the morning waiting in this queue for a pack a bluddy fags!"

I had no reply to offer, just scanned the cigarettes and took the coins he tossed down.

"Aren't you going to put them in a bag for me?" the next customer exclaimed.

I ignored her, already serving the customer after, robot mode.

She snatched up a plastic bag and started filling it herself.  "Well I never!  You people ought to take some pride in your work."

Suzy, naturally, was late back from lunch.  She came out with the usual line about it being only a few minutes and why did I always get so worked up about a few minutes, and I told her it was almost ten minutes out of my break and that was a big deal to me.  She laughed and said my watch was fast, then began serving the next customer before I had chance to respond.

I went into the tea room to eat my sandwiches.  Dougal was standing behind Tom, sucking on a bottle of cola.  

"You gotta get with the times," he was saying.  "The Paleolithic age is over."

Tom paused as he brought a triangle of pizza to his mouth. 

"Know what you are, Dougal—A fuzzy-haired, four-eyed, bow-legged parrot."

"Well, thank you for that intellectual observation,"  Dougal giggled, beaming around at the girls. "It is easy to see how you have arisen to the lofty rank of floor supervisor."

"More'n you'll ever be," Tom scoffed over his shoulder, then wolfed down the pizza.

"Oh!"  Dougal feigned surprise.  "That's odd, Thomas, 'cause I'm going on the journalism course next year."

"Said that last year!  An' don't start thinking you're better than the rest of us either."

Dougal bounced along to the end of the table, the customary idiotic smile in place.  "Feeling a little inadequate, are we?"  He beamed at the girls again, as if expecting applause.

I finished my tea and went out to get a haircut.  It took about twenty minutes to find a place where you didn't need an appointment.  And then it was one of those trendy hair studios where the people were too cool to talk to you; just charged you about five times as much as you were expecting to pay then sent you out the door with one of their personalised business cards.

They gave me such an effeminate haircut I spent the rest of the lunch hour walking around in the rain trying to get rid of it.  A short, bearded guy in a queue at a Fast Cash machine saw me go by several times and laughed his stupid-looking head off at me.  I felt a sudden urge to go over and kick his teeth in for him.  See how he'd laugh then!  But I didn't, of course.

The staff had a field-day over my ridiculous hairdo, which the elements had only made more bizarre.  Even the manager emerged from his office to see what all the fuss was about, and practically laughed himself into tears when he saw, his pallid bald spot visible among the wreath of orange hair as he doubled over in mirth.  It seemed an eternity until six o'clock.

The gym was across the other side of town and I had to walk along the main streets, in the middle of rush hour, the gale blowing the rain directly into my face.

Walking those streets was an art-form, if you wanted to stay out of trouble.  First of all, it was vitally important not to stray onto the right-hand side of the footpath, or else people would slam right into you for being on the wrong side.  If you wanted to get in or out of a store you had to wait for a break and duck across the footpath as quickly as possible, apologising profusely to anyone who might have been forced to check their stride.  It paid to be careful about catching anyone's eye as well, because they might take it as a challenge and slam into you.  And there were guys who would get all snarly-faced and threaten to smash your face in for you.  It was not a good idea to avoid looking at people altogether, however, and especially not to look down into your bag or at a newspaper or anything, because then they might cross the footpath and slam into you just to show you how careless you were being.  It was also worth bearing in mind that a lot of people objected to being overtaken, and especially to anyone walking too quickly, so it was safest to stay at the same pace as the general flow.

Those were the basic rules, but when it rained you had little chance even if you'd mastered them, and on the way to the gym I was slammed into by several people and forced to apologise to one of the snarly-faces.  I had a mind to slam into one of them back, but I didn't want to end up in a fight or anything.

I got to the gym half an hour before my class and decided to kill time on the punching bag.  It was in a corner of the weights room near the cycling and rowing machines.  I wasn't much interested in boxing but I enjoyed slamming my fists into the big hard bag sometimes.  It gave me a sense of satisfaction or relief or something and made me feel good.

I'd been at it for a few minutes when there came a weird, high-pitched giggling from behind me.  Glancing around, I came face to face with an obese, heavily-tattooed fellow with bushy hair.  He elbowed the guy beside him, a similar specimen in appearance, who wasn't smiling.

"Ooh, wotta ya reckon, Koro?"

"Duzn't know what he's doing, bro," the other replied, and the high-pitched giggling startled me again.

So I gave up on the bag and headed for the aerobics studio.  As I passed through reception a stocky guy emerged from behind the counter and cut me off.  He had a shaved head, dense black moustache and copious tattoos.

"I's watching you on the punching bag, bro,'" he said, shaking his bald head gravely.  "You got no technique, eh."

With that he swung up onto the counter and sat there, probably to avoid neck-ache from looking up at me.  I figured him for a weights instructor or something, so smiled politely back.

"Well, I'm not planning to take on Tyson just yet."

He blinked seriously, looking slightly down at me now.

"Yeah, but your legs were all over the place, bro. I's watching you."

"Oh." I nodded, like I cared less.  "So, you're a boxing coach?"

He broke into a toothless chuckle, seemingly flattered by the idea.  "No, no.  Not me, cuz.  I just wanted to tell you dat.  You got no technique."

I kept the smile on and continued through to the aerobics studio, robot mode.

Timmy-Jay took the first class, blitz aerobics, involving a lot of sprinting on the spot, high kicks and suchlike.  He was attired in basic black this evening, his skin-tight leotard rolled up around the thighs.  His receding dark curls had been bleached ginger since Thursday's class, and there was now a stud in his right eyebrow to go with the ones in his nose and nether lip.

All the regulars had their spots and I had mine next to the wall just a few paces from the door.  It wouldn't have been appropriate for a beanpole like me to progress into the middle and block everyone else's view, and neither did I feel inclined to go down the back where it was always so crowded with cool people.

 Being sort of a beanpole, I tended to resemble something like a giant stick insect when it came to high knees.  Timmy-Jay would be barking, "Getcha knees up! hup! hup! hup!" and mine would be practically hitting me in the chest.  I could see in the mirror how ridiculous I looked.  And Timmy-Jay liked to mimic me sometimes, with comical exaggeration.  It would make everyone grin, so he'd do it again.

He put us through about a million press-ups and by the end of it my arms were trembling violently with the effort.  I didn't realise what was going on until I heard the laughter, then looked up to see I was the only one still doing them

"Whoa!  He da man!"  Timmy-Jay announced, feigning an American accent.

I peered sheepishly around at the grinning faces.

Timmy-Jay rolled his eyes and licked his lips theatrically.  "Oh, yeah, folks! He da man!"

Tracy came in toward the end of the class and took her customary spot right in front of me.  Her hair was bleached sort of yellow and she was impossibly tanned for winter.  She began to prance about, a pear-shaped body in a g-string leotard, her buttocks so prominent I could make out the dimples.

Once or twice she glanced over her shoulder and caught my eye.  I decided it was time to send her a message and moved across to the other side, not caring that I totally incensed somebody by encroaching on their territory.  When Tracy looked over her shoulder again and saw nobody there, her eyes searched around until she found me, then her expression changed instantly to hatred.

Her class was next, low-impact aerobics.  I always stuck around for that because blitz got me so pumped up I wanted to keep going another hour, and I wasn't much for doing weights or riding the cycle machines or anything.

This particular evening Tracy threw a lot of changes into the routines, so that those of us who came regularly found ourselves cavorting off in all directions.  Some of the others looked fairly irritated about it too.

"So, ladies, how is everything?"  Tracy got chatting, addressing all but three of us in the class.  "Some racy outfits out there tonight!"

She glanced directly across at me from the stage, looking slightly downward now.  "Know what I hate?" she went on, like this would be upper-most in our thoughts at that very moment.  "The gawky beanpole type.  They look so ridiculous—especially in shorts!"

Everyone grinned, a few of the girls laughed out loud, and Tracy stood up there on the stage with a self-satisfied smirk, a pear-shaped instructor in a g-string leotard, sucking her Gatorade, as if expecting applause.

Neither Anne nor Bev were home that evening.  Probably they were staying over at their boyfriends' places.  They tended to do that when they weren't fighting with them.  Nonetheless, it gave me a very strange feeling when I woke up next morning to find I was still alone in the house, as though everyone had disappeared over the edge of the world and left me on my own.

The phone had been ringing incessantly, though I had not bothered to answer it because the phone was never for me.  But now I was beginning to think there might be some emergency, as it had been ringing non-stop since before dawn.

Next time it rang, about ten seconds after I'd had this thought, I picked up the receiver.

"I'm calling about the house."

"House?"

"The house for sale, in the paper."

"House for sale?"

He said the telephone number and it was ours.

It occurred to me that, if our house were being sold, they would use the owner's number, not ours, since we were only renting.

There was a pause, then the voice replied, "Sez to ask for Burt."

"Burt?  He doesn't live here.  Look, give me your number and I'll have him call you."

Before leaving for work I'd filled a page of the message pad with the contact details of people who had called about the house.

And the telephone was still ringing when I returned home that evening.  After filling another two pages of the pad, I decided the next call would be the last before I took it off the hook.

"Been any calls about the house?"  It was a metallic version of Burt's voice on the line.

"About five million."

"Yeah?  Choice!  Take any messages?''

"Three pages full.  Why didn't you use your own number?"

"Look, I don't have a residential line, okay, and not many people have a mobile.  If I advertise with a mobile number it might put people off calling."

I wondered what kind of people were in the market to buy a house but weren't prepared to call a mobile phone number.  "Are you going to be here this evening?  If not, I'm taking the phone off the hook.  I haven't had any peace since I got home."

I was startled by a metallic version of Anne's voice.  "Don't you dare take that phone off the hook.  The company will put a buzzer through it and charge us for it."

I doubted they would do that, and what would they charge anyway?  Fifty cents?

"Okay, I won't take it off the hook."

As soon as she hung up I took it off the hook.

I watched the evening movie on television.  It was a remake of an old classic but turned out to be a disappointment.  The actors were poorly casted, I thought.  They just went for pretty-boys these days, whereas those old film guys had had a lot more character.  They'd made more of an impression on me, those old film actors.

                                                                                                      
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Empty Bottles                                                          

by Jared Ward

hey say she broke him in the winter of the coyotes.  To this day my aunties will admit, only in private, and only to every niece or nephew who asks, that my mother broke his heart.  This is the story they told us when we asked.  I don’t know, perhaps they told us a lie, and now I’m telling you a lie.

My grandfather hopped the Texas border in 1937, scooped my grandmother off a Pueblo reservation outside El Paso, and moved to Southern California.  He went to work in the peach fields, and drank every night for sixteen years.  He told Auntie Nene he thought those fields had swallowed him.

No one really knew what made him quit.  Maybe it was living for twenty years under my grandmother’s pictures of Jesus.  Maybe one day he looked into the face of his youngest daughter and realized those peaches hadn’t devoured life, they sustained it.  Or maybe it was a drunken epiphany, a moment shared between him, his liver, and his god.  Whatever it was, he woke up one day, poured out every drop of liquor in the house, and became a born-again, AA-attending servant of God.

Old Crow had given way to the Old Testament.

It had been three months since his first meeting, and she hadn’t spoken to him.  He came in covered in dust, lips cracked from the sun.  On the kitchen table he set his hat, a line running across the middle of his forehead, separating brown from dark brown.  He walked into the living room, boots scuffing thin carpet, and slumped into his chair in the dark.  He closed his eyes, dust kicking up around him.

My mother was in the shadows.  She watched him as he moved through the dark.  She had seen this her entire life.  In the past she would have joined him, first as a child on his lap, then as the drink runner, then the drink maker.  In the past there would have been a bottle of whiskey in his left hand, a small tumbler in his right.  He would have sat for hours, smiling and nodding to the girls as they rushed by, kissing the top of his head or waving as they left.

But the house had grown quieter.  Her older sisters finished school and moved.  Married.  Now it was just Carol and herself, and the house seemed empty.  The others came over almost every night, but where there had been unending action there were now stretches of silence.

Carol was graduating in the spring.

Sitting in the darkness, there was only the clinking of bottles.

When he first quit, he had saved them, each one he emptied.  They filled the top shelf of a kitchen cabinet, chiming together at the close of the door, the slide of a chair, a heavy step.  They sang to him every time he came home, their tune light and gentle, hanging in the air even after the music stopped.

She wanted to smash them one by one.

Her mother and Carol were out that night as she sat in the dark, watching.  His left hand rested on the arm of the chair, loosely cupping the air, muscles assuming positions years ingrained.

She coughed.

He opened his eyes and saw her.  “Mija?  Hola, mija, no te vi.”

She stood, looking out the window.

God may have forgiven him, but she hadn’t.

He claimed to be changed, made clean in the blood of the lamb.  But she never asked him to change.  Never wanted him to sit quietly in his chair, needing nothing from her, before slipping off to bed on his own.  In the past she would have carried him to his room, shouldering his arm and his warm scent of whiskey, worked the shoes from his feet, and climbed into bed with her sisters while he snored them to sleep through the vent.

He watched her.  When she was younger, he would have called to her and she would have come.  He would have run his calloused fingers through her hair, told her how strong and beautiful she was, how someday she would have strong and beautiful children of her own.  When she was younger, she would have come to him.  She would have believed him.

“Ay, mija, te quiero... lo siento, mija, lo siento,” he whispered.

She turned on him with dark eyes.  “No, no ‘quiero’ anymore. I’m American, and we speak English.  You can keep your goddamn love, I don’t want it.”

She walked to the door, opened it, and stopped with her back to him.

“I hate you,” she said, then walked down the dirt driveway and up the street, making it to the shadows of the corner store before crying.

Inside the dark house, there was the echo of the door and trembling bottles .

By the end of the year she bought her first pair of bell bottoms, smoked her first joint, and dated her first white boy.  She told everyone she liked the white boys better, they were more sensitive, smarter.  She also kept her word, speaking Spanish to no one.

One day she was sitting with my grandmother, Granny Lupe, watching television while Granny crocheted.  She pulled a cigarette from her purse and lit it.  Granny Lupe paused for a moment, looking at her. My mother took a deep drag, looked right back, and blew a plume of smoke into the air.

Granny Lupe sighed and shook her head.  “Someday, mija, someday I hope you have a child just like you,” she said.

My mother sat up straight in her chair.  She dropped the cigarette in an empty Coke can and stood, fanning the air with her hand.

Granny Lupe looked at her needles, rocking in her chair under a picture of Jesus.

Three months after my mother’s eighteenth birthday, my grandfather went to her graduation party and sat in the corner while she ignored him.  The other fathers drank Budweisers while the children danced.

Maribel, the middle sister, came to her as she drank a beer with her latest white boyfriend.

“Can’t you sit with him a minute?” she asked.

My mother took a drink.  “With who?”

Maribel grabbed the beer and set it on a table.  “You know who.  I sat by him, and he cried when you walked across that stage.”

She shrugged and walked away.

Two days later he didn’t wake up.  Granny Lupe told the girls he had known it was coming for months.  The doctor said his body was beaten from drinking, but it was cancer that killed him.

After the funeral, family and friends gathered at the house with two bedrooms.  A table in the living room was heavy with dishes from the women.  Iced beer cooled on the back porch.  My mother wandered the kitchen, weaving between neighbors and old family friends who didn’t speak to her.  The men her father rode to work with everyday were huddled in a corner.  When she neared them, they raised bottles to their lips, drinking until she passed.  Rosalia, who lived next door for fifteen years, bowed her head at my mother’s approach and asked the woman next to her for the time.

It was the same in the living room.  There was an occasional sad smile, but it found a reason to turn away, disappear.  She didn’t care.  She wanted to be alone.

She went to her room, opened the door, and saw her sisters gathered on the bed holding hands.  They had been crying, but when she entered there were wiped eyes, sniffling noses, then silence.  Maribel rose from the bed and stood inches from her face.  The words in my mother’s head were mirrored in the eyes of her sister.

“You killed him,” Maribel said, then slapped her so hard everyone in the house could hear.

Her head snapped to the right and hung there on her neck.  Black strands of hair clumped together, covered her eyes and her cheek where blood rushed into the palmprint.  Seconds passed, a ringing in the air.

Some of my aunties will tell you that slap broke something inside of her, something that never fully mended.  Others say it was more like a gun at the start of a race.

She brushed the strands away, tucking them behind her ear, and stared at the floor.  Her lip quivered, then steadied, and when she looked at Maribel it was with jagged eyes, sharp as broken stone.

She smiled, looking at each of them until their eyes strayed to hands, walls, the window.  Then she went into the living room, grabbed two half-empty beers off the table, and stopped at the front door.  Staring into the sunlight, she downed one of the bottles and flipped it into the grass.  The door slammed and the trembling started in the kitchen.  She went down the driveway and up the street, finishing the second one before she rounded the corner.

My aunties like to say my grandfather died of a broken heart, but I think they know better.  He died of cancer.  What bothers them is that she was his favorite, even at the end.  I can imagine him sitting there, surrounded by silent mourners, just as he did that night with her bitter lie hanging in the air.  I can imagine him, clothes no longer dusty, lips no longer cracked, smiling as she strode into the darkness.

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Ruth Lesse                                                                                  

by Kendis Chase

er name was Ruth Lesse, and she could barely breathe.  Bobby Cruden was on top of her, crushing her chest, ribs, and back into the hard floor.  He held her arms fast above her head, pinning them with one grimy hand as he ran his other hand clumsily over her breasts.  He squeezed one, and she flinched.  It hurt.  She watched him grin at her pain.  She bared her teeth and snapped at his face, hoping to grab his flesh and tear it off.  He just giggled and whispered, “You’re ruthless, you’re ruthless.”

He tried to force her mouth open with his own.  She clenched her teeth against his wet tongue, trying not to smell his putrid breath.  She felt his slobber dripping down her face and along the side of her neck.

Suddenly she felt something strange down between her legs.  It was cold, wet and firm.  His penis.  She felt its tip sliding around beneath her ripped underwear, greedily seeking her warm, open place to dive inside her like an alien monster.  If it succeeded, she knew all would be lost, so she redoubled her efforts to drag herself out from under him and his probing thing.

Just then the doorbell rang.  They both froze, their eyes locked on the front door.  He turned his big greasy head back to look at her.  She stared at the blackheads covering his nose.  “Saved by the bell,” he said, smirking.

He rolled his fat, potato-sack body off her and she shot her hands down to cover herself back up with her skirt, then wildly flung herself to her feet, lunging for the front door as Bobby opened it.  It was the UPS man.  His eyes flew wide as she shoved passed him and began to run down the walkway.  She could hear Bobby’s oily, sneering voice as he lied to the delivery man:  “She’s late for her beauty salon appointment.”

Ruth sat hidden behind some crates in back of the market and tried to catch her breath.  She was still shaking from Bobby’s assault.  Every time he did this he got closer to getting inside her, she knew.  Yet it felt like he was biding his time, like a cat playing cruelly with a mouse before sinking his fangs into her neck, bloodily crushing her bones, ending her life.  She tried to tell her foster mother, but she refused to believe her.  After all, Bobby was her only begotten son; the son of her flesh and blood, and he was holy unto her.  Ruth suddenly vomited.

She retraced her steps in her mind to see where she had gone wrong today.  She had already been changing her path walking home every day after school.  She had tried to make sure someone else would be with her, too.  He left her alone when others were around.

None of her foster family was supposed to be home this afternoon, so her girlfriend said she’d walk home with her after school, but Debbie’s parents had picked her up instead; some family thing her friend had forgotten about.  Debbie just shrugged her apology, lamely smiling as she got in the car, apparently oblivious to Ruth’s pleading eyes.  Ruth realized it was up to her, and only her, to protect herself.

She had dreaded what might happen if she went into the house alone.  She approached home slowly, looking for signs of Bobby, listening for his mocking voice, but there had been nothing; only silence.  She unlocked the door and peered in, ready to bolt if she saw him.  Still nothing.  Her heart was beating loudly as she crept quietly inside.  It seemed no one was there.  She started to breathe again.

She moved into her bedroom and dropped her backpack onto the bed.  She couldn’t wait to get her school clothes off and into more comfortable clothes.  She took off her jacket and began unbuttoning her blouse, thinking of turning on good music.  Her foster mother would never let her listen to it when the family was at home; no, only her precious son Bobby got to do that.

At that moment she heard a muffled sound.  She whipped around to see where the noise had come from.  Just then, something locked itself hard around her ankle.  She looked down to see a hand there.  It was Bobby’s.  He’d been hiding under her bed.

“Bobby!  Don’t!” she shrieked.  She tried to jump back with her free foot but lost her balance.  She fell hard on her backside.  Bobby was struggling, red-faced, to get out from under her bed.  She kicked at his ugly head and he yelled.  He released his grip; it was enough for her to slash her leg away and get up to run.

She only made it to the living room when she felt his weight on her back, dropping her down on to the thin carpeting on the hard floor.  It felt like she’d landed on cement.  The behemoth had knocked the wind out of her.  He flipped her over easily and crawled up on top of her.  He stank more than usual.  He was seventeen and was already working up to a two-pack-a-day smoking habit.  As a Mormon, he wasn’t supposed to be smoking at all.  How could her foster mother be so deaf, dumb, blind and in such denial?  Couldn’t she smell him?

She had been fighting him with all of her strength, but it didn’t seem to faze him this time.  She thanked God that the doorbell had rung.  She had gotten away again.

“But what about next time?” she thought. She closed her mind to this. She just couldn’t think about it now.

Ruth was still only seventeen, but she had been biding her time too.  She’d been saving her baby-sitting money so she could legally move out of her foster home on her eighteenth birthday, which was only two days away.  She already had her new little place picked out.  If she could just avoid his ambushes until then, she would be free of him forever.  Or so she thought.

To her astonishment, moving day arrived and she’d managed to stay out of Bobby’s grip.  She wasn’t sorry to leave her foster home.  It had never felt like home anyway.  She had even given them a fake new address, and arranged the move on her own.  She knew they wouldn’t care enough to actually check.  Except for Bobby.  But he couldn’t molest her if he didn’t know where she was.  As she carried the last box into her new home, she felt joy at the best birthday gift she’d ever been given, and she’d given it to herself:  Freedom!

“It’s taken me nearly a year, but it was worth it,” she thought, surveying her colorful flower garden.  Her eyes rested on her well-used tools jutting out of their box. Perhaps now she could put her hammer and nails away for awhile.  It was a lot of work, but re- doing her small fixer-upper and creating her pretty little backyard made it her very own, and it filled her with a new-found sense of security.

She heard a strange sound.  Her sense of safe well-being dissolved as she immediately tensed like a prey animal, her eyes scanning all around for the cause.  The back gate creaked.  She whirled about, and there he was.  Bobby.  His hideous face was sneering at her.

“Hey, Ruthie!  Why did you lie about where your new place was?” he called out.  She had planned her escape from him so carefully.  She thought she’d really gotten away from him.  She felt her body flooding with white-hot rage as he sauntered toward her, feigning interest in her flowers.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” she said, staring at him, her teeth clenched.

“What?” he said, mock hurt coming over his face.  “Aren’t I your foster brother, Ruthie?”

“No!  Stop!” she yelled.  He was getting too close.  She involuntarily stepped back and hated herself for it.  Too late, he’d seen her.  Sensing her fear, he suddenly dropped his pretense at friendliness.  His eyes filled with that strange, monstrous light.

She bolted.  He brought her down to the ground in three steps. “Not again!” she screamed.

He just laughed.  He was grabbing at her breasts with his dirty hands, just like before.  She wrenched her body against him, trying to beat him off.  Just then, she glimpsed the hammer out of the corner of her eye.

She was struggling hard to get back on her feet, but even as she succeeded in regaining her footing, he merely stood up with her, holding her tightly to him in his arms and lifting her right up off the ground.  She flailed her legs, but he swung her easily about, laughing and teasing her in his ugly sing-song voice:  “You’re ruthless, you’re ruthless!”

She felt something implode inside herself.  She saw a white light.  That was all she knew for a time.

She brushed off her pants leg over and over, but the spattered stains of mud and blood were already set.  A little sparrow perched on the shovel handle nearby.  It cocked its small head as it watched her with one shining eye.  She glanced at the bird.  “He shouldn’t have done that,” she said.

She swatted again at the deep red splotches. She had warned that horny jerk Bobby to stop, but no, he’d tracked her down and tried it again, right there in her backyard. But he never did get inside her, and now he never would, the bastard.  Cursing at the stains, she snatched up the bloody hammer from the ground and went into the house, slamming the door behind her. The bird shot away in flight, twittering loudly.

Ruth walked to the laundry room sink and plugged it up.  She placed the hammer into the sink basin, grabbed the bottle of liquid detergent, and poured its thick white river onto the gory red tool.  Then she crouched and yanked open the lower cabinet and pulled out a scrub brush.  She eyed the stiff bristles.  It would do.

“Now where is the bleach?” she said aloud.  Standing up and stepping back, she heard a muffled splashing sound.  She turned and looked down to see the bleach bottle.  In an easy swoop, she seized it up from the floor and grinned.  Instead of feeling exhausted, she felt energized.  She turned on the faucet, and poured the bleach into the burbling water pool as it started to rise.  His leering face flooded her mind, but only for a moment.  She shoved the image away from her.  She was free, truly free, at last.

She pressed her toe tip up against the heel of her right foot and pulled off her running shoe, then did the same to her other foot.  She bent and picked up the dirt-covered shoes to examine them.  There was something odd on the top of her left shoe.  It looked like a bit of bloody chicken fat.  She peered more closely at it.  Was it a small chunk of Bobby?  Yes, that’s it, all right.  She smiled.  He always was trying to get on her.

She decided she would wash her shoes when she showered.  Any remnants of him would go down the drain.  She wriggled out of her socks and jeans and stuffed them into the sink.  Then she pulled off her torn, bloodied t-shirt and turned it to look at the filthy handprints.  He was always putting his hands on her and here was the proof.  She didn’t need proof anymore.  She crammed her top into the sink with her other clothes, then turned off the faucet to let everything soak awhile.  After that would come the scrubbing, she thought.

She gazed at the red, soapy, bleach-smelling pile of wet clothes that covered the hammer beneath.  She was glad she watched lots of shows about forensics and CSI’s.  She moved over to the backdoor window in her lacy white bra and undies, and gazed out at the freshly dug up flowerbed.

She felt a growing sense of elation as she glided down the hallway, hitting the stereo system’s on-switch as she went by.  Radio music filled the air as she stepped into the shower.  She instantly recognized the song:  “Goodbye Earl,” by the Dixie Chicks.

She laughed and began to sing.

                                                                                                        
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The Jetlag of My Life

by Iolanda Scripca

wo weeks ago I had to put on wings of courage and fly from San Diego to Bucharest, Romania.

A stage of my life had ended abruptly, not once but twice within a very short period of time:  my parents.  The entire innocence of the snowdrop flowers from my childhood Cismigiu Park was crushed under the feet of a woman with dark hair, so dark that the sunrise dies at the beginning of each day for all the beautiful souls.

I went back to Cismigiu Park after twenty years and looked up and down the alleys to see my Dad walking back home from work at the National Radio Station.  He caressed my hair and I started giggling.  I turned quickly so I could hug him but my Dad had hands of winter storm.  In a shocking pirouette I turned toward the building of my high school so I could ask my Mom why Dad had hands of wind.  I ran between the students who were leaving for the day and wanted to ask them if they'd seen the teacher and Principal Viorica Scripca.  They passed through me like an echo of a totally new generation barely born in the 1980's.

I entered the teachers' lounge of my childhood and adolescence, a room mostly occupied by a long and imposing table of solid oak, so long that hundreds of lives and careers of all the teachers of this high school could be stretched open and immortalized in the scroll of this "modest" profession.  I sat down on my mom's chair at the meeting table with the unrealistic hope of hearing her voice again, at least for a moment.  A moment cut short by the paradox of a carefree blond little girl hiding under the oak table at the end of Mom's work day and the black of the mourning depth of the cruel reality.

Time had slapped me repeatedly and mercilessly so I could stand on my own two feet once again.  I whispered "Farewell" to the new generation of teachers of my high school "Gheorghe Lazar," the high school of the intellectuals and professionals from Romania, USA, Canada and the entire world.

I exited the building so I could meet with my parents, on their payday, and go to the restaurant so we could celebrate the joy of simply being together.  Dad was messing up my hair with the mild breeze of the fatherly love while Mom was covering my face with kisses unusually warm for that cold season.  I was back but I was not at home, I was the daughter of my parents but I did not have parents any longer.

It was my turn to go back to my Christopher and make each moment of his childhood an unforgettable memory for when I, his mother, would become a wave of the Pacific Ocean pushing him back to shore to safety.

I flew together with my parents above the clouds, above Germany, Northern Sea, Iceland, Canada, and America.  I told them that I had to land and to get ready to meet again in the flames of the two candles lit forever back in my place.

"Welcome back, Ms. Scripca!"

"Thank you. Glad to be back!"

My ocean is calm, with its eternal waves that come and go, go and come, rhythmically, more often and faster, with the unexpressed tears of hail, with the potential of a Tsunami of my soul

"Mom, I'm so happy you came back home. What did you bring me from Romania?"

My ocean is finally Pacific and I smiled.

                                                                                                     
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Falling Discourse                                                                          

by Saro Bedian

  finally worked up the guts and the money to do it.  I got the reservation, I took the time off from work, and I spent the week before dreaming about it.  When the day came, I couldn’t sit still for more than five minutes.  Even with a few beers to help, my mind was leaving me with frantic intensity.  Not to mention terror.

At fifteen thousand feet with nothing but the wind in your face and the ground rushing towards you, a little terror is acceptable.  But nothing was worse than waiting.  Waiting is ruled by anxiety, stomach aches, uncontrollable thoughts, and poor bladder control.  I was a wreck.

I managed to go the whole car ride to the airport without getting sick, but once we got up in the air, I needed some quality time with the shiny metal toilet at the back of the plane.  Looking down into that unnaturally blue water, I could only think of one thing.  As aching seconds ticked slowly by, the colorful water enveloped me and took away all my senses.  Peace flooded my mind, and after a moment to feel grateful, I got back with my steel nerved benefactors.  I was ready.

I went alone; I had to go alone because none of my friends were stupid enough to go with me.  I guess I have to do a lot of things like this alone; at least then the damage is done only to myself.  I don’t have that added burden of guilt to make things worse.

Not knowing anyone else in the plane made me feel a little better.  There was no need for small talk, no need to consider one another’s feelings.  I was wrapped in the professional blanket that comes with situations like this.  Doctor’s, psychiatrists, and those guys that run roller coasters all produce the same feeling.  Impersonal, trusting, and completely helpless to affect one’s immediate future.  Totally in the hands of a stranger with the expert skills to take care of your needs.  Regardless if they give a shit about you or not.  Just doing their jobs.

We strapped ourselves in the gear, and I was fine.  My jumping partner gave me some last minute instructions, and I was fine.  He strapped himself to my body, and I nearly had a nervous breakdown.  Then I shook my head, gave a cheesy thumbs up sign, and fully relaxed for the first time all day.  Now I was ready.

The moment you step out of the plane is like that moment when an elevator starts on its way, only a hundred times worse.  My stomach didn’t just drop out on me; I thought it was racing me to the ground.  But it passed quickly, and I then learned why they call it a free-fall.  I was falling, that much was undeniable.  But it was the free part that really surprised me.  I could remember the first time I drove a car by myself, the first time I cashed a paycheck, the first time I left home for college.  I could remember the first time I had sex with a stranger, the first time I took acid, and the first time I was let out of a holding cell.  But all of that was nothing compared to this.

Freedom was always something tangible to me.  It was like money, or power, or movement.  It was something I could see with my eyes and control and use to my advantage.  But this was completely different.  This kind of freedom was more a feeling than anything else.  It enveloped me, it blew through me, and it took away everything.  I was freedom.  I had nothing, I knew nothing, I thought nothing.  All I felt was this complete lucidity; it was like I had been looking at the world through dirty glasses for so long that I forgot what it really looked like.

“This is great, huh!?” my tandem jumping expert yelled as we fell.  I just nodded my head, not caring if he could see me, not caring if I just completely ignored his question, not caring about anything at all.  It occurred to me that the sense of freedom was an absence of concern.  I thought about all the things that I normally worried about.  My job, my car, my girlfriend, my looks, my health.  All the little annoyances of life that I lived with that seemed so important and so necessary.  All the details that mattered so much.  All of it, shattered in the face of the earth rushing up at me at 120 miles an hour, like the physical personification of death, like God.  I was filled to the brim with ecstasy, and time ceased to have meaning.

At some point I became aware of myself again.  I realized why as I heard the jumping instructor yell.  “What!?” I shouted back.  I was so annoyed at having been taken out of my reverie that I didn’t notice the panic in his voice.

“There’s something wrong with the chute!”  He yelled back.  I must have heard him wrong.  He must have said, I’m gonna pull the chute!, or, I like to play the flute!

“What!?”  I shouted again, trying to fight off the inevitable.  But the instructor simply tugged at the string, the string that should save our life, the string that just dangled there as useless as a limp dick with an empty bladder.  This could not be happening.  I was just in heaven, but I had no intention of staying there permanently.  Or did I?  I did just get annoyed at having my attention brought back.  Sick anxiety flooded me, a thousand times worse than what I felt this morning, and now I could feel true terror creeping up my spine.

“Isn’t there a backup!?” I shouted, desperately hoping that he would say yes, that I’d land the big job after the interview, that I’d score with the babe, that my mom would tuck me in at night and chase away the boogy-man.  But he just shook his head.  Wild thoughts ran through my mind.  I was staring right into his face, and what I saw told me more than anything else that this was really happening.  If a playwright had seen my jumping instructor at this moment, they would have been inspired for a lifetime of tragedies.  Fear, frustration, desperation, and shame all played across my poor companion’s features like the tide rushing up on the beach.  I was suddenly overcome by pity; I truly felt sorry for him.

It was this pity that cleared my mind again.  I knew what was going to happen, but I was not alone.  I took some breaths and decided that if these were the last moments of my life, I was going to make the best of them.  “How long do we have?” I managed to ask without screaming at the top of my lungs.

“Two, maybe three minutes,” was his shaky reply.  Taking that in, I realized that this man would be the last man I would ever speak to, and I only had a few minutes to talk.  “There are some cases of people surviving a fall like this, but it’s very rare,” he finished with a grim look.

For a short time my mind went blank, and then I began doing what someone would normally do in an emergency situation.  I went over all the possible ways to fix the problem or get out of the situation, all the while knowing that it was useless.  Old habits die hard.  Not like someone dropping out of the sky.

Looking back at the man strapped to me, I saw that his face was set in hard lines.  I was again overcome by a strange feeling, but this time it was pride.  Pride in my companion for being so strong, pride to have such a man as company in my last moments.  As I saw his grim but determined expression, I felt new strength grow in me.  I decided to speak up.

“What did you want to do in your life?” I asked him.  He looked at me for a moment, then looked up again.

“I wanted to be an astronaut,” he said, then laughed.  “I liked this job so much because I felt closer to space, and free-falling is as weightless as I’ll feel without actually getting up there in a shuttle.”  Then his face clouded over.  “But I guess this will be the last time for me.”

“Shit, it’s the first time for me.  Bad luck, huh?”  But he didn’t answer, just kept looking out at everything with a frown.  I couldn’t blame him.  It’s no easy thing to joke about plummeting to your own death.  At least, not while falling from ten thousand feet without a parachute.  “You might think this is weird, but I always dreamed about studying under a medicine man.”  He shot me a quick look, and I saw the ghost of a smile pass over his face.  I decided to press on.  “You know, like a witch doctor.  Spiritual medicine, magic, astral projection, all that stuff.”  I began to feel sheepish, but he looked away again.  Ridiculously, I felt the strange pressure of conformity.  Does he think I’m weird?  Did I put him off?

All of a sudden, he laughed out loud.  If I had been on the ground, I would have jumped at the clear, crisp sound of his laughter.  It was like a fresh spring bursting forth at the snowy top of some high peak, untouched by pollution, not yet tasted by any living thing.  He laughed again, and I joined him.  I couldn’t help it, it was contagious.  “What’s so funny!?” I yelled.

“We’re a couple of space cadets!”  He shouted, and we both laughed together.  I felt like a warrior going to battle, ready to face his death with vigor and joy, not a coward shaking and crying.  We probably had only thirty seconds to live, but I felt more alive than I ever had.  My laughter turned to tears, and as I wept, he said, “I only ever loved two women in my life.  My mom, and the girl I’m with right now.  She’s great,” he added as though we were sitting at a bar together and not twenty seconds away from being turned into a couple of human pancakes.  His choked back a sob and managed to say, “I hope she’ll be ok with me gone.”

Fifteen seconds, and I could see the ground flying towards us like some predator out of the depth of time springing on its prey.  Maybe I’ll be an antelope in my next life, I thought crazily, and laughed again while I cried.  Ten seconds, and a funny feeling shot through me.  Total awareness of everything I was, everything I had done in my life, and all of it charging through my consciousness like a prize bull.  I saw it all, and all of a sudden another feeling took over.  It was a peace like I’d never felt before.  Like the most comfortable bed with the love of your life waiting for you after the longest, hardest day of work you’ve ever had.  Like swimming in the ocean on a day so hot you can hardly breath.  Like being the ocean.

Five seconds, and my companion was quiet as well.  He looked like he was having his own little transcendental experience.  I wouldn’t have even disturbed him,  but something inside me took control.  Two seconds left before slamming into the ground at about one hundred and twenty miles an hour, and I felt my mouth open.  I thought I would scream, but all I heard were three words from a voice that I couldn’t even recognize as my own.

“I’m not afraid.”