The Bounce                                                                

by David Cairns

ome on!  Quick, it’s starting!’

On a typical Tuesday night in the Barnes family home in Cedar Falls, Kylie leaned forward in her chair, snatched the remote control off the coffee table and hit the volume button a few times.  Sitting in a trance like state of anticipation were Kylie’s father, Bob, and her mother, Denise.  Kylie called to her older brother Ronnie.

‘Ronnie!  You’re going to miss the Bounce if you don’t get a wriggle on.’

From the kitchen, Ronnie replied flatly, ‘Yeah.’

If it were anything other than the Bounce of the blue ball, Kylie would have come to get him herself and ask him why he wasn’t joining his family for one of their rituals.  The Bounce was like sitting down to eat the evening meal together which Dad had insisted on since they were young.  He said it was important for family unity.

Bob Barnes stared at the television screen, leaning forward with his hands on his knees while Denise sat beside him on the lounge wringing her hands in her lap.  Kylie clapped her hands with delight.

‘I love the Bounce!’ she said.

Ronnie was watching the Bounce too, but he couldn’t bear to sit with his family.  He did not want to watch it but years of conditioning compelled him.  It was a hard habit to break; easier to give up cigarettes than stop watching Channel five at seven twenty each night.

The Barnes family was just one among millions of families who watched the Bounce making the thirty second advertising slot preceding the nightly event the most expensive one available, thereby guaranteeing channel five the top position in the ratings year after year.  There were other televised lottery draws but they were pretenders, cheap and cheesy imitations, manufactured by rival networks to cash in on the popularity of gambling.  The Bounce had pedigree, a thoroughbred born from the mating of Lotto and Powerball, and broadcast at the same time and on the same channel for thirty years.

Bob, Denise and Kylie held their breath as the forty nine selected balls were sucked back up into the bomber, while the remaining two thousand three hundred and fifty two balls were removed from the Bounce Box.  The forty nine ball collectors were filling fast, and each time a red ball landed safely its number was displayed on the bottom of the screen.

They were all thinking about the new cars they would buy if they won; a sporty little BMW for Kylie, a Statesman Grange for Bob and a M class Mercedes for Denise.  Then there were the holidays.  Kylie to the United States, Bob to Africa and Denise to Europe.  These dreams were all they had.  The only way out of the working class drudgery was to win some money and buy a ticket to the paradise of the upper classes.

Ronnie left the kitchen, walked into the living room and stood against the wall.  Unnoticed by his family, he watched their anxious mannerisms as they hung on every flash of color and whistle and bell, the dance music running continuously in the background acting like an opiate.  It had been bad enough when the Bounce was a weekly event but now, as the government had slowly switched people’s allegiance from poker machines to the Bounce, it occurred nightly and Ronnie was sick of it.

Twelve months ago, not just Kylie, but mum and dad, had called him in to watch the Bounce, now it was just Kylie and she no longer tried hard.  A few urgent calls of his name and that was it.  They could not have cared less if they watched it alone or with company because the point was not with whom you watched or where, but that you did watch.  If you did not watch you could not win.

Forty nine balls were dropped in the Bounce Box, and in this second round only seven collectors were available.  Once a collector received a ball, it closed itself and displayed the number on the screen.  These last seven balls were the ones that mattered most so Kylie and Bob stood up.

Ronnie did not believe he would ever win the Bounce although he was entered every day in the draw as were all adults.  He did not even want to win the Bounce and he almost wished no one in his family would win it either.  In fact, what he really wanted was for the Bounce to stop.  It saddened him to think of how many people placed all their hope in the unlikely event of their numbers, which they could no longer even choose for themselves, being selected.

The real winner was the government, who not only scored astronomical revenues from tax on the game, but also benefited indirectly as people chose to stay home each night, chose to stay off the roads and out of the clubs and pubs.  There were less accidents, less injuries, less crime, less alcohol related violence, less death.

The final ball was collected and the list of winners came up on the screen, starting with the minor prizes and then finally the big winner of the nightly draw.  Bob Barnes’s name appeared among the winners.

‘It’s me!,’ cried Bob.  ‘That’s me, I won! I won!’

‘You won your way to the weekly draw, Dad, that’s all,’ said Ronnie.

‘But I won.  I’m in the draw!  I’ve never been in the draw before.’

Kylie looked at her brother before saying, ‘Good on you Dad,’ and giving her father a hug.

Bob looked at his wife who was awfully quiet and noticed the color of her skin.

‘Denise?’ he said, leaning down to look her in the eyes.  ‘How about that honey?  I won!’

Ronnie noticed her mother’s hands were clasped tightly together, and her eyes were open but unblinking.

‘Mum?’ he said gently shaking her shoulder.  Her mouth was slightly open but as Ronnie came closer he could not feel any breath, nor could he see her chest moving.  ‘Mum?’

‘Mum,’ said Kylie, paralyzed with shock.

‘Turn the TV off, and call an ambulance,’ ordered Bob.

Ronnie stood and placed a hand on each of his father’s shoulders.  ‘It’s too late Dad,’ he said.  ‘She’s gone.’

‘She’s not!’ Bob roared in grief and put his foot through the television screen.  Kylie screamed as the picture tube exploded in a shower of sparks.  Ronnie grabbed his Dad and pulled him close for a tight hug, but Bob broke the embrace and fell too his knees in front of Denise.  Placing his head into her lap he began to moan while Kylie’s gentle sobbing turned into wails of grief.

‘The Bounce did this,’ said Ronnie.  ‘You spend years of your lives watching to see if you will win and wondering what you’ll do with the money if you do win.  Pinning all your hopes on the Bounce.  Poor mum was probably thinking how the family would be split up if any one of us won.  All the talk about wanting this and doing that worried her.’

‘Ronnie,’ said Bob senior, ‘Calm down.  You’re upset.  The Bounce didn’t kill her.  She had a bad heart and just couldn’t stand the excitement.  Walking over to Kylie who was crying softly now, he put a comforting arm around her shoulders and said to his son,

‘The Bounce gave us all hope.  Can’t you see that?’

‘What hope?’  Bob junior was getting angry now because he seemed his father was more interested in defending the Bounce than grieving for his wife.  ‘The Bounce is a farce.  All players helping to making someone a multi-millionaire in the hope they might be that someone.  Mum’s dead!  What hope is there in that?’

When he sat down beside Denise he thought he saw her mouth had closed.  Looking again he was sure and now he noticed her chest rising and falling.  Shamed into it, Bob came closer, bringing Kylie who really believed she was imagining the signs of life her mother displayed.

‘She’s back!  She’s alive!’ cried Ronnie.  ‘I’ll call the ambulance.’

On the way to the hospital, Kylie said to Ronnie, who was driving, ‘I’m not going to play anymore, Ronnie.  Mum nearly died—well she did die I guess—then what could the Bounce have done for us?  Suppose Dad did win, could he have brought mum back to us?’

Ronnie kept his eyes on the road and shook his head quickly and quietly.  Bob had gone in the ambulance with Denise.  The paramedic at the scene said her vital signs were good, they had stabilized and she was no longer in any immediate danger.  The trip to hospital was a precaution.

‘What happened to us, Ronnie?’

‘We all bought the lie.  We were conned into believing that winning some money—’

‘A lot of money.’

‘Winning a lot of money could fix all our problems and make us happy.  That it would satisfy us.  Rescue us.  Remember the old Lotto ad with them singing freedom and all the people rejoicing like the Big Red Ball was a liberator, a savior.  Now it’s the Blue ball and most of us still aren’t free.  In fact we have become slaves to the Bounce.  We worship it and pay for the privilege, hoping one day we will be set free.  It’s a trick, a con job.’

Kylie nodded her agreement.  ‘I’m not going to play anymore.  Dad will take some convincing.’

Ronnie smiled and said, ‘I think the three of us will be able to persuade him the Bounce is a just a cruel hoax.  Money can’t buy anything that really matters.’

‘She is going to be all right isn’t she, Ronnie?’

‘Should be fine if there’s no complications.  They’ll probably keep her in hospital over night and let her come home in the morning.’

‘Ronnie, why did you stop watching the Bounce?’

Arriving at the hospital, Ronnie parked the car and switched off the engine before answering his sister.  ‘I had this feeling building up in me for sometime that the Bounce was...controlling me.  Do you know what I mean?’

Kylie nodded silently as they left the carpark and walked along the footpath to the main entrance of the hospital.

‘Do you remember,’ continued Ronnie, ‘when I quit smoking?  I felt like I wasn’t the boss of me.  Like I was a slave to cigarettes, and they were getting so expensive and I felt like surely I could use all the money I was wasting on smokes for something else.’

Making their way around to the emergency department, they stopped at the nurses station and asked where Denise Barnes was, then continued their conversation.

‘You think we’ve all become slaves to the Bounce?’

‘I can’t speak for everyone Kylie, but for me it was definitely out of control.  I mean I’m not going to put my whole life on hold while I wait to see if my numbers come up on the Bounce.’

They found Denise sitting up in bed with Bob sitting by her side holding her hand, and although she looked pale and tired, she greeted them with a warm smile.

Bob said, ‘So you finally made it, I see.’

‘We were talking about the Bounce,’ said Kylie.

‘Don’t talk to me about the Bounce,’ said her father throwing his hands up in the air.

Grabbing her husband’s hand and bringing it back down onto the bed, Denise said, ‘Doctor says I should give the Bounce a miss.  He says lots of people are coming in these days with heart attacks, strokes, anxiety attacks.  He says they suffer these attacks while watching the Bounce.  Says he’s quit the Bounce and is recommending all his patients do likewise, especially those with pre-existing medical conditions like bad hearts, like me.’

‘Give your mouth a rest, love,’ said Bob lovingly.

Kylie and Ronnie exchanged looks, appreciating the breathlessly delivered report was just like mum.

‘Good to hear your voice again mum,’ said Kylie. ‘We’re going to stop watching the Bounce as well, aren’t we?’  She looked first at her brother who agreed enthusiastically, then at her father who balked.

‘Dad?’ pressed Kylie and Ronnie in unison.

‘Yeah of course.  We nearly lost your mum.’

A week later on a typical Tuesday night in the Barnes household in Cedar Falls, Bob sat down in front of a small television.  Pointing the remote control at the blank screen, he clicked it to life and quickly bumped the volume down a few notches.  Instinctively he looked over his shoulder.  The door was closed.  Hopefully he would not be disturbed as Denise and Kylie were watching some home improvement show and Ronnie was on the phone to his new girlfriend.  Hopefully they would leave him alone for ten minutes, and maybe after that ten minutes he would rush out and tell them all the good news that his numbers had come up and he was the big winner.  The Bounce would change their lives forever.

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Vacation                                                                                           

by Martha Clarkson

heila and Bob never mailed any postcards from their Cancun vacation.  They were supposed to—she to her mother and he to his twelve-year-old daughter —but they never got around to it.  They were busy with baby oil and sun angles.

Sheila had bought a new bikini for this trip, even though she knew her thighs were too chunky now for a bikini, and Bob had bought an orange Speedo—an article of clothing he’d never before owned in his fifty-two years.  He wondered if he was too flabby around the waist to wear such a small piece of clothing, but he bought it anyway.  Each was trying to impress, to say, “I’m not any ol’ person from Match.com, I’m unique.”  Both knew they were taking a vacation too soon in the relationship—three weeks—but they’d toasted, “Caution be damned!” one night with cheap champagne Sheila’d had in her fridge for two years.

In preparation, Sheila ordered hyacinth-lime oil imported from Honduras, that supposedly still protected you from the sun’s cancerous rays, and with this eighty-dollar-an-ounce online item, she could portray both exotic sun-worship and health-consciousness.  She wasn’t sure where Bob stood on either issue.  For Bob, in addition to the Speedo, he’d bought some aloe-injected hair goo to keep the pieces of hair running across his mostly-bald head from standing up at odd angles.  He’d also ordered a Playmonica, advertised in the back pages of Maxim, for a romantic night on the beach.  The Playmonica looked like a harmonica, with a concealed button that played a version of the love ballad “Lady in Red.”  What woman could resist a man playing her a love song?  Bob imagined paying some shirtless Mexican boy to make them a bonfire.  Spreading a hotel bath towel out on the sand, wishing he’d brought two.  “Come ‘ere, baby,” he’d say, pulling her to him, Sheila’s face lit by bonfire flame.  He’d pull the Playmonica from his pants’ pocket without moving his shoulder.  “Let me serenade you,” he’d say, trying for a gravelly voice he thought women found sexy, though none had ever said that, and sometimes attempting it made him cough.

But Bob never got to use the Playmonica because, on the third night, Sheila stepped on a stingray while they were surf-bathing naked in the ocean after eleven o’clock at night.  They had a huge fight in the emergency room over the quality of Mexican healthcare, and Bob threw up the fish tacos he’d eaten at a beach shack grill.  The nurse on duty, or the woman posing as a nurse, was not happy with the throwing up part or the fighting.

After being released from the emergency room as the sun was coming up, Bob and Sheila returned to their overpriced suite by Volkswagen taxi.  Bob slept on the rattan sofa on the balcony.  Sheila’s foot was lotioned and bandaged and she kept it up on a pillow at the bottom of the big king bed.  She lay awake watching the sun push window frame patterns across the ceiling.  She concentrated on wishing a cockroach would crawl up Bob’s shorts while he slept on the sofa.  Her foot throbbed and she whispered swear words at the concept of online dating.  She wondered if a stingray’s poison could kill.  She couldn’t ask the cute Mexican “doctor,” because of the language barrier, even though she had tried by pointing a finger-gun to her head.  Maybe she’d go back for a check-up.  More Vicadin couldn’t hurt.  Certainly she could learn some Spanish.

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Vainglorious Potentilla Fruticosa                                                                  

by William Gladys

was raised, along with nearly five thousand other diverse varieties of Potentilla, at one of those immense poly tunnel conveyer belt type nurseries in the Netherlands.  I recall life in the nursery bed vividly as if it were yesterday.  Life was good for the majority of us, but sadly, the weakest and unlucky ones in our midst didn’t make it past the first year!  Even so, our needs were painstakingly catered for by a dedicated staff that provided life-sustaining water, warmth and nourishment and carefully selected sprays to inhibit disease and dangerous insect predators.  It was under these idyllic conditions that I grew rapidly, with my root system developing at a satisfying but at times worrisome rate.  Many of us were fretful about what the outcome might be if we were to out-grow the space provided for our development.  Fortunately, during this disquieting period, we were rescued by an army of young men and girls, who progressively transferred us from our nursery beds into capacious plastic pots.  The relocation came as a welcome relief; it was a marvellous feeling to be able to extend our roots without suffering any inhibiting discomfort and restrictiveness. Thankfully, the whole process was over quite quickly, and the remaining inimitable five hundred ‘Pink Beauty’ were soon positioned in a roomier poly tunnel on the warmer southern side of the nursery. 

Frustratingly, however, and to our collective disgust, we found ourselves next to thousands upon thousands of ‘Yells’, the deprecating name we had given to the common but outlandishly highly popular yellow variety ‘Sunglow’.  This was a variety which, in the overtly select Potentilla community, was considered quite ordinary and unremarkable, and certainly not worthy of its bizarre public esteem.  For years it had inhibited public enjoyment of the rare loveliness of the exquisite ‘Pink Beauty’. 

I don’t recall the exact date or month, or how long it was after our re-potting, that a sudden tumultuous activity occurred, but it was late on a Tuesday afternoon when we were told that some of us were being moved on—exported was the expression being used.  Along with one hundred Potentilla ‘Pink Beauties’, I was deposited on a high rack inside a huge lorry.  It was getting dark, but we could see and hear that at least five hundred highly strung common ‘Yells’, had rudely been put in the same lorry as us!  “We’re being sent to England, we’re going to England,” the “Yells” chattered excitedly, absolutely ignorant and unaware of the incessant rain and cold climate that would be their home for the rest of their lives.  “Pink Beauties,” on the other hand, being special and bred to withstand all hardships, knew intuitively what to expect, and remained stoically indifferent to the common excitability, and our shared destiny.  Our chief concern, however, was that we might end up in a well-established and beautiful garden with a ‘Yell’ as a permanent neighbour, an eventuality we deplored!

Nevertheless, such was fate, on reaching the shores of England, twenty, glorious and exquisite Potentilla ‘Pink Beauties’, were delivered with a mob of one hundred and fifty common ‘Yells’, to a garden centre in the beautiful county of Dorset.  Inexplicably, over the next two years, every one of the ‘Yells’ that had accompanied me on the original journey, and all my fellow ‘Pink Beauties’ were sold and given their freedom to put down roots in gardens throughout Dorset and its surrounding counties.  Towards the end of the second planting season, I confess I was acting out of character, getting introspective and paranoid, and seriously questioning my nature and appearance and the reasons why I had been passed over.  My roots felt restricted and confined, and my leaves limp and lifeless, while my beautiful blooms, I had convinced myself, were unworthy of our Canadian ancestry and a bit on the dowdy side!

Naturally I remember the day when my life changed unexpectedly for the better.  It was a misty, cold and damp afternoon, the planting season was approaching its end, visitors to the garden centre had dwindled to a trickle, and I was feeling withdrawn and low.  Out of the blue, two young women stooped down and one of them picked me up.  “Ah look at this one—a beautiful ‘Pink Beauty,’ said one of them.  “Yes my dear,” her companion replied.  “That elusive rare variety we have been hoping to find for ages.  It will look charming on the south side of the walled garden amongst our preferred colours of orange, blue and red.” And as I was carefully placed in a basket, I was overjoyed to hear one of them murmur, “definitely no yellows for us—too common by far—absolutely no yellows, ever.” Carried to their waiting car like a precious newborn babe in arms, I displayed a grateful, munificent and satisfied pink smile which was testimony to my newfound happiness.  At long last I had found peace within my Potentilla world and could look forward to a relaxed and bright, blooming future.

                                                                                                        
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Wordplay                                                                                             

by Maureen Griswold

  don’t believe this,” she said for perhaps the hundredth time since 4:15 PM.  The odds, the probability, how it had all come together, she in her duty whites, insignia and caduceus affixed to her collar, her schedule, date, time, hour, minute, exact seconds in that room with that patient.  The three of them brought together.

Now she could swear aloud.  She in her nurse’s uniform, alone in a bedroom closet while others in the apartment complex slept, blissful and unaware.  What other young military nurses plowed through closeted boxes in he middle of the night for a singular word of the English language?

“That son of a bitch,” she repeated, dragging a box into the bedroom.  She lit her bedside lamp and returned to the box containing her college years.  “C’mon, c’mon,” she ordered, rummaging through it.

There it was, her paperback dictionary.  She removed it and sat on her bed.  She opened the dictionary under the lamp light and turned to the “P” section.  Second letter, “o,” third letter, “s”.  There, she found it—a word that looked benign, but wasn’t.

She inhaled, her mind whirling her back to San Antonio, Fort Sam Houston.  She sat in a near empty classroom with two other young nurses from eastern towns, and he sat a table in front of them, blonde, boyish, trim, handsome and charismatic in pressed khakis.

The threesome giggled afterwards.  “He likes you,” one of them cooed.  Yes, it had been noticeable, his particular attention to her, the stealth glances, the body language.

He was Airborne, on temporary duty for classes in the same building as nurse recruits.  He had spotted them from the corridor and strolled in just to introduce himself, he explained.  The confident smile and mannerisms, the ease in hoisting himself to sit on the table, his dangling lower legs swinging light and slow back and forth had the three young nurses not mind the interruption at all.

He was from the Midwest, the Heartland, he said, telling them about himself with self-deprecatory wit and humor, his smiles directed at her.  She estimated he was in his early thirties, her hunch verified with his mentioning completing his first decade of a military career.  It was during his recounting where he had been stationed that it appeared, his pause, his special solemnity when he mentioned Vietnam.

Instantaneous, a word:  posturing.  It came from nothingness.  It hovered in front of her forehead as plain as any word she had ever read.  She cloaked her surprise and confusion.

“Posturing—he is posturing,” an emotionless voice said.  Posturing?  What an odd word.  She had never heard it, never spoken it.

Her camouflage succeeded.  Neither he or her two friends sensed what she experienced.  He jumped off the table.  He had a rental car and would pick them up at officers’ quarters in a couple of hours to take them out for dinner at San Antonio’s Riverwalk.

The foursome enjoyed themselves at Riverwalk.  Laughter ensued every time onlookers teased the lone warrant officer wining and dining three young women.  “How do you do it?” they ribbed.

He later accompanied her down the officer quarters’ hallway after her two friends returned to their rooms.  They stopped in front of her room.  He studied her as she found her key in her purse and unlocked her door.  She wished him goodnight, closed the door behind her, and rested her back against it to listen to his departing footsteps.  Another mental oddity appeared:  a stone fortress, drawbridge up, moat filled, a lone dark structure against a backdrop of clear sky, summer sun.  What a strange mind she had, she half-laughed at herself in the dark.

At last, solitude.  She stayed up for a while reading Catch-22.

During the rest of her time in San Antonio she wondered why the word happened, happened when it did.  Vietnam.  His raising it, playing it.  No one could see with eyes alone her connection with Vietnam through one of its inestimable losses:  her cousin’s suicide after his combat tour.  Afterwards, she learned the hard lesson of American amnesia.  A mention of his war-related death resulted in a changing of that subject as though to obliterate what she had said, obliterate her cousin, the war dead, the war itself.  Acknowledgment was the exception, the “Oh my God,” or “I’m so sorry.”

No, he could not have been wise to her difference, her ability to detect his ploy with Vietnam for a self-flattering maneuver.  The other two nurses were innocents and remained so, gushing and teasing her about him, puzzled by her indifference.

She met him in passing several times, chatted short and sweet before continuing on her way.  She declined his invitation to see John Wayne in The Green Berets playing on post.  She spoke nothing of the farce of John Wayne as Americana military icon.  The actor's real first name was “Marion” and neither he or any of his four strapping sons served a day of their lives in the military, or if you really observed John Wayne on the silver screen, you would see he walked like a woman.

After San Antonio, she was stationed in the West as staff nurse on the surgical ward of a small hospital.  She had come on duty this particular evening shift, pleased to see another RN assigned with her.  It was Labor Day eve and a light census.  No pre-ops to admit and counsel, no pre-op charts to assemble.  Dayshift reported no crises, fresh post-ops stable, no pending admissions, IVs infusing on schedule, no prima donna surgeons in sight or on call.

Luxury.  She could do rounds right after report and could even converse with patients versus rushing against the clock.

Her patients were stable, afebrile, dressings dry and intact, drains and IVs patent.  She entered the sunny corner room, its “B” bed by the door vacant, its “A” bed occupied by a young woman gazing out the window.  “You’ve got a private room,” she joked, introducing herself.  Moments before in the hallway, she had glanced at her notes and saw the patient had undergone dilatation and curettage two days earlier for incomplete early second trimester spontaneous abortion, a miscarriage.  With fever abated, IV discontinued, and her tolerating a regular diet and oral meds, the young woman would be discharged in the morning.

Instead of standard patient gown, the nurse beheld a cotton candy pink ensemble:  pink pajamas, pink socks, a small pink bow pinned to the side of short sandy blond hair.  Teenybopper, she thought although she and the patient were the same age.  They conversed while she assessed the patient’s color, demeanor, vital signs, checked for vaginal bleeding or discharge.  She noticed their physical resemblance, similar coloring, placid light-blue eyes, small noses and mouths, petite body builds.  We could be sisters, she thought, although she would be taken as older to this pink girl in the bed.

Someone entered the room as she pulled back the privacy curtain.  A blond trim man breezed in, his easy quick gait evidence of familiarity.  Shock widened her eyes, but she next remembered a caregiver’s discipline to control facial expressions in front of patients.  She glanced down and willed herself to appear as before.

The patient perceived nothing of this.  She beamed, smiling at her husband.  She did not perceive the momentary hesitation in her husband’s pace, the drop of his eyes to fiddle with his cap in his hands which placed his gold wedding band in full view.  When he lifted his eyes, he looked only at his wife before he stopped at the bedside and, as dutiful spouse, leaned over and kissed her.

The nurse said nothing and departed, a vision of efficient, white-uniform calm while the shock of the freakish coincidence reverberated from gut to mind, mind to gut.  She went to the nursing station and pulled the patient’s chart from the station’s tiered metal stand.  She located the admission sheet, saw name, age, address, diagnosis, status as “dependent,” “husband” as next of kin, and his name, the same as what he had in San Antonio.

Something made her look up. He walked fast, staring straight ahead, not acknowledging her as he trespassed through the station.  She stood still, deliberate, fixed her eyes on him as he sped by.  She knew he knew what she silently said:

She kept her eyes on him until he turned the corner to the opposite corridor and out of her sight.

Hours later in a night-dark world with a lone light upon a printed page, she read the word, ingested its meaning:  posture vb pos-tured; pos-turing vt (ca. 1645) 2: to assume an artificial or pretended attitude.

The mystery, wordplay.  It was much more than Vietnam.

A faraway place, a faraway time, the late summer afternoon in her tenth year.  They were in the strange new state, the small town, the four of them in the master bedroom of the large rental home.

Cartons being unpacked sprawled across the floor.  Her two older sisters across the room paused when their mystified mother reached into a carton and drew out a small, unfamiliar jewelry box.  Her sisters stood next to their mother, watched her open the box and remove a small handwritten note tucked inside.  Their mother read the note aloud, her voice odd and thin.  Afterwards, no one spoke.

She braved her ten-year-old self to walk across the room.  She wanted to see the jewelry box, the note, whatever else.

Inside the box, the detritus of deceit:  gold cufflinks, the note of few words and damning sentiment in a distinctive feminine script.  Neither she or her sisters gazed at or spoke to their silent, wounded mother.  Nothing could restore what had shattered.

Her eyes moved to a window half-opened to a defunct Vermont orchard at the back of the house.  Much died in those moments.  She felt, could almost see, her childhood flow in one long wave out the window into a fading daylight, into a barren expanse of gnarled trees and thin grass.

A few days later she returned to the dictionary she would keep out in the open.  She now sought another word:  1 trust n [ME, probably of Scand origin, 13c] 1 a: assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something.

She did not have the someone, she had the something:  words, wordplay, for her alone.  A dark gift of spontaneous protection, an invisible tool to navigate by.

In that she would trust, for now.

                                                                                                        
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Play-doh                                                                                                                            

 by Kyle Hemmings

t was ninety degrees in the shade of a Magnolia tree.  From upstairs, the mother called out for someone to get her a glass of iced water.  At least that’s what it sounded like to the boy playing with play-doh on the floor.  He lifted his head, thinking the request was meant for him.  The grandfather was in a bedroom playing chess with an imaginary woman.  On some nights, he would say to the boy things like, “There are no ghosts in this house. But down the road . . .”

Building a play-doh army without eyes or with missing limbs, the boy never said anything.  He imagined burning towns and victorious armies against sunsets.  In the kitchen, he climbed up a step chair and reached for a top cabinet.  He lost his balance, his one hand dropping the glass, then, clutching air.  The back of his head crashed against the hard linoleum.  He lay on the floor, motionless as his clay casualties, and some blood trickled from his mouth where the loose tooth was.  His fingers were spaced apart.  The glass rolled away from his hand, stopping a few inches from the automatic dishwasher, which hadn‘t worked properly for weeks.

At the sound of the fall, the grandfather jumped, almost knocking over several of his chess pieces.  The pieces were made from some imported wood, perhaps from somewhere in Southeast Asia.  Exotic was the word he used.  He grabbed a cane and proceeded to yell at the boy for ruining his concentration.  Or yell at someone.  He would have to apologize to the imaginary woman.  The cane made a thumping sound, a kind of slow steady rhythm.

In the bathroom upstairs, the mother applied a last touch of mascara, perhaps overdoing it.  She was meeting a blind date, but she didn’t want to give the wrong impression.

Sometimes she thought clothes were such useless ornaments, all this trouble to make the body desirable and mysterious and elusive, when underneath all the tight skirts or strapless taffeta dresses, everybody was not so dissimilar.  After all, what was the body?  A joker's composition of fluid, flesh and bone. With a pump and brain, prone to errors, you had something resembling a spirit.  Or the perception of one.  But she had little tolerance for ghosts in the machine.  Her viewpoint was entirely pragmatic, mechanistic..

She now thought how hot it would be stuck at red lights in a car with all this heat.  It would make her fidget, or tempt her to call her friend from work on the cell phone.  The friend was always sugar-coated, reassuring.  Then she descended the stairs, steadying herself against a thin beam of plywood that passed for a rail.  She never got used to stepping in those high-altitude pumps.  Either up or down.

                                                                                                      
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In Transit                                                           

by J. D. Riso

s my stepfather unloads my bags onto the curb, a jet roars down the runway for a takeoff.  I embrace my crying mother goodbye, looking over her shoulder to see a black cloud of smoke in the jet’s wake.  I look to the sky where the jet climbs in altitude.  It’s a DC-9, the same kind of jet that I’m taking.  They’re frighteningly old, those jets.  Thirty years, at least.  I looked into what kind of plane I would be taking, as I always do before a flight.  Sometimes I even pay extra to fly a newer plane or an airline that has a better safety record.  But this time I didn’t have a choice.  All the other flights were booked.

I pull away from my mother at last, managing a feeble smile.  “See you next time,” I say as I turn away and head for the terminal.  I turn and wave a few more times, savoring the look of love on my parents’ faces.  Who knows when I’ll be back to see them again.  If ever.

I wrestle with these morbid thoughts, casting an anxious glance up at the sky again.  The jet has disappeared.  It’s on its way, as I soon will be.  There’s nothing to be concerned about.

At the check-in counter a friendly agent whizzes through the procedures.  I hope that the maintenance department is this competent and efficient. “Have a pleasant flight,” the agent says as she hands me my boarding pass.

“Thank you,” I say, taking in her words like a good luck charm.

After passing through the security checkpoints, I make my way to the gate.  I settle into a seat and look out the window.  The plane is already there.  My apprehension resurfaces:  one doesn’t drive a car that’s thirty years old.  These types of jets were phased out in Europe over a decade ago.  Some obscure thing, like the electrical system, could start a fire.  Look at the peeling paint and the scorch marks on the tail behind the engines.  The airline is obviously cutting corners.

Hold it.  Get a grip.  Look at how many planes takeoff and land at this airport in just one hour.  Thousands of flights take place throughout the world every day.  The chances for an accident are so slim.  I try to count all of the flights I’ve taken over the years.  Possibly hundreds of flights.  There have been a few scary incidents:  aborted landings and severe turbulence.  Then there was the rickety prop plane I took in New Guinea.  The locals joked about the airline being nicknamed Killair.  We landed on a grass runway, coming to a halt just a few feet from the crocodile-infested Sepik River.  Everything turned out okay then and it will today as well.

The dispute continues to rage in my mind.  All the while, I keep my facial expression passive.  I don’t want to appear hysterical.  Why do I put myself through the anxiety?  It’s so ironic: having both wanderlust and aviophobia.  I have spent so much time in transit, melodramatic thoughts churning up panic.  It wasn’t this way at first.  When I was younger, I loved both the journey and the destination.  Why did it all change? 

I glance up at the clock.  They should begin the boarding process soon.  Then it will really be too late to turn back.  It would be a hassle now to change my flight, but it can be done.  But what if I changed from a successful flight to a doomed one?  One never knows what is going to happen.  No one is ever in control.

I straighten up in my seat as this realization hits.  It’s about giving up control, about trusting people enough to put my life in their hands.  I haven’t been able to trust many people in my life and it’s carried over to the thing I love most:  travel.  I shake my head at this revelation.  I’m not so complicated after all.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we would like to begin boarding for flight 5478 to Boston.”

However, my body doesn’t want to cooperate with my mind.  My heart pounds; my hands shake.  Trying to keep a grip on my dignity, I reach into my purse for the Lorazepam that my grandmother gave me from her stash of pharmaceuticals.  The thought of Grandma as my drug dealer brings a smile to my face.  I pop one pill and dry swallow it.  It’s a long journey home.  Twenty more hours and three more flights.  Though it usually gets easier with each flight, it’s better to ration the pills.

I file onto the plane with the other passengers, envious of their confidence.  It’s not easy admitting that I’m weak.  But at least I got on the plane. It’s a small victory.

I sink into my seat as the pill begins to take effect.  The tension, along with my pessimistic thoughts, melts from my limbs.  The plane seems almost cozy, even with the tattered in-flight magazines, the cheerless upholstery, and the dour flight attendants.  Tomorrow at this time I will be home.

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A Normal Life                                                              

by Wayne Scheer

ill Squires sat at his desk trying to write a story about a modern day cowboy threatened more by computers than cattle rustlers.  Instead, he kept hearing Carol's voice.

"Rick, wake up!  Don't leave me!  Wake up!  Rick!  Rick!"

Will and Bonnie had spent the morning at the hospital visiting a friend dying of cancer.  As they entered Rick's room, they heard his wife's cries.  Standing at the door, they watched Carol cradling her husband's face in her hands and screaming,  "Wake up!"  Backing away out of Carol's sight, they ran to the nurse's station for help.

A nurse calmly put her hand over the telephone receiver she was holding,  "We know.  An emergency team is on its way.  Please wait in the visitor's lounge."  She pointed to a small, open area with snack machines, a water fountain and an overstuffed couch and chair.

Just then, a team of nurses, pulling a cart filled with medical equipment, and a young doctor, white coat and stethoscope flying, rushed past them and into Rick's room.  A few minutes later, the team left.  Carol walked into the hallway, her face red, her hands shaking.  Although she was an attractive woman not yet forty, the lines under her eyes made her look much older.

When she saw Bonnie, she collapsed into her arms.

"We almost lost him," Carol sobbed.  "I thought he was gone."  Gasping for air, she explained it was a reaction to the increased morphine the doctor had given him.  "His eyes rolled back and I couldn't wake him."  After a long pause, she continued.  "They put something into his IV drip and he came to.  He opened his eyes and fell back to sleep.  His vital signs are normal again."

Just a dress rehearsal, Will thought, daring not to speak aloud.  He wanted to say something consoling, but he felt he had nothing but clichés to offer.  He brought Carol a cup of water as Bonnie guided her to the couch.  She cried again, this time on Will's shoulder.

Will hadn't seen Carol like this since before she had met Rick.  A large, strong man, he had an almost feminine tenderness about him.  Will remembered Carol once talking about her son and her first husband who had died years earlier in an automobile accident.  Tears streamed down her face.  Rick had just begun dating Carol, but he wrapped his big arms around her and let her cry on his shoulder, tears falling from his own eyes.

Will wished he could cry like that for his friend.  Carol and Bonnie wept while he awkwardly patted Carol's shoulder.

Her sobs subsided and she seemed to relax.  Speaking in careful, over-articulated phrases and clutching each word like they were life preservers, she said, "Rick and I had the strangest exchange last night.  You know Rick isn't religious, but he told me he was praying.  When I told him I was, too, he asked if I was praying he'd live or die."

She took another swallow of water, this time with painstaking deliberateness.

"He didn't let me answer.  He just reached out for my hand."

Will looked at Bonnie.  Her face was wet with tears.

***

Later that afternoon Will tried returning to his comic novel about an aging cowboy named Lonnie Cisco.  He was working on the section where Lonnie had to learn how to use a computer to keep track of the herd for which he was responsible.

But Will was haunted by the skeletal image of Rick in his hospital bed attached by tubes to blinking machines, looking more like a Halloween marionette than a hiker and mountain climber who listened to both opera and hard rock on his headphones.

Before moving to Atlanta, Rick had been a lawyer in New York.  That was before his divorce and supposed nervous breakdown.  He said he always liked getting his hands dirty, so he apprenticed with a contractor friend in Atlanta until he learned the job.  Will and Bonnie met him as part of a crew building an addition onto their home.

One day, when the workers had left for lunch, Rick asked if he could stick around and look at their books.  "Books say a lot about people.  Not just what they read, but what they choose to keep.  Each book has a story beyond the one on the pages."  Will walked with Rick as he read book titles, not sure if he should leave him alone.  "Like this one, 'The Letters and Poetry of Charles Lamb.'  When are you ever going to reread this, but yet you keep it."

"That's Bonnie's," Will told him.  "It's from a course she took back in college.  She was going to drop it, but got an 'A' instead."

"See?  That tells me a lot about her and both of you for not trading it at a used book store long ago."

"To tell you the truth," Will said, a smile on his face, "We tried.  No bookstore would take it."

Will and Rick became friends, spending a good deal of time in local pubs.  As a writer, Rick fascinated Will, especially when he learned that Rick had season tickets to both the Atlanta Ballet and the Braves.  "I like watching people live their fantasies," he explained.

Rick spoke openly about his "previous life," as he called it.  "My father was a lawyer and my grandfather a judge.  But I was miserable.  And I became more miserable with every case I won.  I poisoned my marriage by cheating on my wife.  I even tried sabotaging my career by doing a closing argument dead drunk.  I kept referring to my client by the wrong name."

Will laughed, but Rick interrupted.  "It's not funny.  The man was a jerk, but he was worth a fortune to the firm.  Closing drunk is one thing, but losing a rich client is unforgivable."  He emptied his glass.  "You want to hear the worst part?  I won the case."

Laughing aloud, they ordered another round.  When the drinks came, Rick continued.  "During the divorce, I committed another unforgivable sin.  I told my wife's attorney exactly how much money I had, including my share of investments in my father's name.  I told my wife to take what she thought was fair.  I just asked for enough to start a new life."  He held up his glass.  "My dad tried declaring me mentally incompetent."

Will hadn't had a close male friend since college and at first he felt awkward hanging out with Rick.  He had gotten used to being part of a couple, and he relied on Bonnie to start conversation.  Will also feared he was using Rick to gain material for his stories.  But he eventually relaxed and spoke freely about himself and his life.  He never spoke so openly with anyone other than Bonnie.  One day, he told Rick about his dream to reduce his teaching load at the college so he could concentrate more on his fiction writing.

"Do it, man.  Do it now.  But don't reduce your teaching load.  Quit altogether."

"I can't," Will said.  "I have a family.  What example would that be for the kids, if I just up and quit?"

"You'd be teaching them to follow their dream."

When Will spoke with Bonnie, she reminded him that with her public relations firm doing so well they needed a full-time nanny.  "So you working at home would be a blessing."

Will decided on a compromise: a one-year sabbatical.  That was three years ago, and Will had never felt so happy.  He had a number of stories published and was working on a novel.

Meanwhile, had Bonnie introduced Rick to her best friend, Carol.  Carol and Bonnie were partners in their public relations firm.  When Rick and Carol married, Will jokingly proposed expanding the company into matchmaking.

They met for dinner once a week and often went to plays or jazz clubs together.  Then Rick was diagnosed with colon cancer.  Though his colon was removed, the cancer had spread to his liver and the decision was made to forgo chemotherapy and enjoy the time he had left.  The doctors told them Rick had one good year before the cancer would ravish his body and make even walking from his bed to the toilet a task.

Rick lived not like a man trying to cram a lifetime into one year, but like a man appreciating each moment he had.  He couldn't work construction anymore, so he worked at home instead.  He built an elaborate brick flowerbed along the front of their house and added a fireplace to the living room.  He cooked and shopped.  He'd call Will in the middle of the day to tell him about a shipment of peaches the Farmer's Market just got from South Georgia.

"They're so sweet, man.  You can't imagine.  I have a recipe for a peach glaze over duck I'm going to try tonight."

Rick and Carol didn't travel as Will thought they might.  For Rick, there was no need for a vacation.  "My everyday life," he said, "is too precious to put it aside for a couple of weeks.  I'm not interested in a vacation.  I want to live as normal a life as I can."

***

Will wiped the tears from his eyes to focus on his story.  He was describing Lonnie's tough-as-cowhide right index finger poking at the computer keyboard, making each letter appearing on the monitor seem to cry out in pain.  Will usually enjoyed writing this kind of description, often shouting "yes!" when he strung together words that he felt captured what he was imagining.

This time he lost interest.

He knew what he should do:  put the novel aside and write about Rick and Carol.  After all, write about what you know was the standard advice.  But he had been avoiding writing a story about a dying friend and his traumatized wife.  He felt like a vulture even contemplating picking at his friends' tragedy.  Although he had known Carol for a long time, he felt proud never having exploited her pain in one of his stories.  And Rick, he understood, was a fiction writer's dream character.  But they were friends.

Will stared at his computer.  He knew an agent who wanted to read the Lonnie Cisco novel, but for the first time since he started writing full-time, it seemed trivial and meaningless to make up silly little stories.  What good was writing a novel when he couldn't even help his friend?

Bonnie called from the kitchen.  "Honey, you want to eat something?  I'm making lunch for the kids."

Perfect excuse, Will thought, turning off his computer.

***

In the kitchen, Bonnie arranged turkey, ham and Swiss cheese on a platter along with lettuce and tomato while Amanda and Phillip plopped mayonnaise and mustard into small glass bowls.  The silverware was already arranged at each setting.

"We're eating fancy today, Daddy," Amanda, the nine year-old, said.  "Mommy says we need to be normal."

"For a change," Phillip said with a straight face.  At twelve, he had already mastered the art of the sarcastic quip.  Bonnie held Will responsible.  Will felt proud.

As they ate, Phillip talked about how the Braves needed to trade for a pitcher while Amanda, mayonnaise dripping from her lip, pretended she was a queen and they were her loyal subjects.  Will smiled at Bonnie as he reflected on how much he loved his normal life.

He knew instantly that after lunch he'd return to the Lonnie Cisco novel, not because it was an important work of art, but because creating it made him feel alive.

He also wanted to finish the book so he could dedicate it to his friend.  He had already written the inscription:

"To Rick Kommer,

For teaching me to be brave enough

To live."

                                                                                                      
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The Man Who Put Labels On Bricks                                                                 

by John Vespasian

had not seen the man on my way up to the mountain.  Otherwise I would have remembered.

He had set up a wooden table next to the path that led to the Inca ruins, offering his merchandise to the tourists.

I stood still in front of the table and inspected the man's products with curiosity.  The table was covered with red bricks.  Old bricks, as far as I could tell.

I bent over and looked closer at the bricks, wondering what was so special about them.  To me, they appeared to be normal red bricks, such as those that you would find on any construction site.  I contemplated the man behind the table for a moment, trying to assess his age.

The brick salesman was in his late thirties or early forties and had an intelligent look about him.  Nevertheless, it was obvious that the poor man had lost his mind.  As I walked away, I shook my head, feeling sorry for him.

What could possibly have happened to him?  How come that he had he lost his capacity for reasoning? After walking a few steps, I decided to inquire about the cause of the man's lunacy.  I returned to his table, only to see that the man was putting labels on the bricks.

He would pick up a brick, examine it carefully, remove a sticker from a plastic sheet that he had laid on the table, and then he would set the sticker on the brick.  Each sticker had a hand-written name on it.

While the man continued to place labels on the bricks, I picked one of them and read the word on its label.  "Kon" read the word.  What on earth was Kon?  I asked myself.  I put the brick back on the table and picked up another one.  This time, I found the word "Apu" written on it.  Apu?  What was that supposed to mean?

The man applied calmly the labels on the last bricks and turned to me.  "Which one do you like best?" he asked.  I hesitated before replying, since I did not want to hurt his feelings.  Most likely, it was not his fault if he had lost his mind.  "Kon is a good choice," he went on, "but if you allow me, I think that Apu would be the most suitable for you."

My reaction came almost instantly, as I was suspecting him of a hidden attack against my honour.  "Why do you say so?  What is an Apu anyway?"  The man smiled at my incomprehension.  "Kon is the Inca God of the Wind, the God who brings good weather," he explained.  "And Apu is the God of the Mountains, the God who exercises his power through kindness and understanding."

I could not help feeling flattered by the man's words.  I have always liked to portray myself as a kind person and I believe that once I even heard someone actually called me so.  "But what's the point of setting labels on red bricks?" I countered, puzzled.  I did my best to formulate my question in a way that did not sound insulting.

The man seemed not to remark the absurdity of the situation and replied in a matter-of-fact tone.  ''The brick it's just a symbol," he indicated patiently.  "Like bricks, human beings are essentially all the same, but like Gods, each individual is different.  A man's difference lies in his calling."

I won't tell you how much I paid for the brick, but I think that the price was worth the story.  Even years later, I still keep the red brick on my living room table.  Every visitor that has come to my home has picked up the brick, read the label, and asked me what Apu means.  "Apu," I always begin, "let me tell you about Apu."