Another summer, another issue. Here are the best and brightest of the summer class.
--------------------------------------------
Another Dip at Serendipity, Jacob Edwards
For Your Consideration, Beau Johnson
Tea and Semantics, Paula McGrath
Lost and Found, Melanie Rees
No Fury like a Lawyer Judged Less Beautiful, Robert Laughlin
What is the Existential Difference Between a Margarita and a Martini?, J. J. Steinfeld
We Learned to Love the River, James Sandham
Camera Obscura , Peycho Kanev
Landscape, Peycho Kanev
all aLune, Jess Rizkallah
Neurotransmitters, b. alexander
Wallflower, Meghan McCarthy
"Arrows", Meghan McCarthy
Contributors' Bios
Editrice Note
Cover Art
Showing posts with label Issue 17 July 2012. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Issue 17 July 2012. Show all posts
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Issue 17 Cover art by Joey Grossman
This month's amazing cover art was done by Joey Grossman. With the zoo ties to The Toucan, we're a bit surprised that we haven't featured more animal pairs!
Editrice Note: Ch-ch-ch-changes
So, it’s issue time again, and our beloved mascot has been sipping tropical drinks and laughing because it is well adapted to this obscene amount of heat we’ve been having. Cheeky thing! As I slaved over assembling my first-ever solo issue, the damn thing just kept chuckling about a literate artist. Does anyone know a good taxidermist? I kid! I’d never harm a feather on the beloved, though rude, bird.
Yes, for those who missed it, this issue is 100% my (Laura’s) doing. If it’s not quite up to snuff you know who to send angry emails to. Liz had a lot on her plate and just couldn’t keep up with everything. While this is very sad, let's focus on all the goodies in this issue. There are all kinds of fun things to do in the summer, like riding your bike in “We Learned to Love the River.” Checking out a beauty contest like “No Fury like a Lawyer Judged Less Beautiful” would certainly be a summer treat. Maybe for you working is more rewarding, or perhaps a class in “Tea and Semantics.” If staying home and writing is more your speed, perhaps “For Your Consideration” will make you feel right at home. And if you’d like to send some of that writing to The Toucan, all the better! But those pieces are just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many good things in here you may as well look at the table of contents for a list of recommended reading.
Though this issue marks the end of a wonderful partnership( we are still the best of friends, though!), it also marks new beginnings. I hope you continue to read and love The Toucan even though the next few issues will be a bit different from those we have already published. Unfortunately it’s the nature of the beast, but I plan to make the most of it! As always, I can’t do it without contributors so if you have a piece of writing or art that you think would fit in send it to thetoucanmag@gmail.com. With that, enjoy summer and the summer issue!
Your fearless leader,
Laura
Contributors' Bios
b. Alexander is an androgynous ghost witch residing in the Bay Area of California. They often wonder if they are themselves, or a talking tree. Obsessed with the cosmos as much as the cosmos is obsessed with them, adventuring into the void grasp of the apres-garde, they have appeared in screaming seahorse, Metazen, as well as co-editing the poetry magazine Red Skeleton.
Jacob Edwards studied at the University of Queensland, graduating with a BA (English) and an MA (Ancient History). He lives with his wife and son in Brisbane -- Australia's river city -- where he continues to foster an almost pathological dislike of four-wheel drives.
Beau Johnson lives in Canada with his wife and three boys. He has been published before, in the darker, seedier parts of town. Not that there is anything wrong with that. However, it is on Tuesdays that he and his family travel back through time in an attempt to correct that which once went wrong.
Peycho Kanev is the Editor-In-Chief of Kanev Books. His poems have appeared in more than 600 literary magazines, such as: Poetry Quarterly, Evergreen Review, Hawaii Review, The Monarch Review, The Coachella Review, DMQ Review, Black Market Review, The Cleveland Review, In Posse Review, Mascara Literary Review and many others. Peycho Kanev has won several European awards for his poetry and he is nominated for the Pushcart Award and Best of the Net. His poetry collection Bone Silence was released in September 2010 by Desperanto Publishing Group. A new collection of his poetry, titled Requiem for One Night, will be published by Desperanto Publishing Group in 2012.
Robert Laughlin lives in Chico, California. He has published 100 short stories, 200 poems and one novel, Vow of Silence. His website is at www.pw.org/content/robert_laughlin.
Meghan McCarthy graduated from California State University of San Bernardino with a BA in English Creative Writing. She believes writing poems is like writing bombs. She will be attending CSUSB in the fall of 2012 for her MFA in poetry.
Paula McGrath has a background in English Lit (BA, MA). She recently graduated from the Faber Academy novel writing course, and she has been accepted onto the MFA programme at University College Dublin where she will concentrate on her fourth novel, Michaelangelos. Her third, Peter Peter, is under submission; the first two are under the bed.
Melanie Rees is a previously unpublished Welsh writer who works in social housing and lives in Derby, England. She loves exploring cities and is inspired by chance sightings and overheard conversations.
Jessica Rizkallah: I'm an English major at Lesley University in Boston. I want to be a writer when I grow up. I like Kurt Vonnegut and looking at the sky. My work can be found at http://jessr.tumblr.com
James Sandham is a Toronto-based writer. His poems and short stories have appeared in various independent publications, and his novel, The Entropy of Aaron Rosclatt, was shortlisted for the Canadian Author Association's Emerging Writers Award. His sophomore novel, Bangtown Logic, comes out on September 18 through Spore Press.
J. J. Steinfeld: Canadian poet, fiction writer, and playwright J. J. Steinfeld lives on Prince Edward Island, where he is patiently waiting for Godot’s arrival and a phone call from Kafka. While waiting, he has published fourteen books — ten short story collections, two novels, two poetry collections — along with five chapbooks, the most recent ones being Misshapenness (Poetry, Ekstasis Editions, 2009), A Fanciful Geography (Poetry Chapbook, erbacce-press, 2010), and A Glass Shard and Memory (Stories, Recliner Books, 2010). His short stories and poems have appeared in numerous anthologies and periodicals internationally, and over forty of his one-act plays and a handful of full-length plays have been performed in Canada and the United States.
Another Dip at Serendipity, Jacob Edwards
I used to have just a savings account with the ANZ Bank. Then I started up a cheque account. After years of pitiful interest rates my lethargy and disillusionment gave way to some strangely muted form of pecuniary self-interest, whereupon I wandered into the UQ branch at St. Lucia and opened a V2 plus account.
The whole experience bore a striking similarity to Gandhi's going up to the nearest photographer, offering a shy, toothless and somewhat baffled smile and then asking where he might be able to find some tea and crumpets; or to a hippie purchasing a semi-automatic rifle. Woah, man. Heavy.
In any case, that was the origin of today's torturous checkout debacle. (The V2 plus account, that is, not Gandhi or the hippie.)
The V2 plus account is a wondrous concept. You receive an interest rate comparable to a term deposit, but have to maintain a minimum balance of $5,000. Which might suggest that your interest rate would revert to that of the standard savings account should your balance drop below $5,000, yes?
No.
Your balance physically cannot fall that low; indeed, it shows up as whatever amount you have in excess of $5,000. The actual $5,000 is untouchable, á la Speedy Gonzales on a liberal dose of pseudoephedrine; it simply isn't there.
Which is why I had to close down the V2 plus account.
No hard feelings. No regrets. I just like having access to my money.
So anyway, I'm standing at the Woolworths checkout, Sunnybank, confidently purchasing $26.27 worth of miscellanies: deodorant; muesli bars; tissues; milk; yoghurt; cheese; avocado; tinned fruit... There is nothing here to trouble the girl's eyebrows.
“Would you like any extra cash out?” she asks.
“Could I have $500?” I ask, soon to bitterly regret my lax grammar. May I have $500? Always say may.
#
DECLINED
#
says the hand-held EFTPOS machine with the impersonal aloofness one would usually associate with highly seasoned bureaucracy.
#
CONTACT BANK
#
Whereupon I frown with obligatory embarrassment and take responsibility for the error.
“Could I just try my other account? I'm always getting them confused.”
The girl offers some sympathetic platitudes and pushes the machine at me again. She's seen it all before.
#
DECLINED
CONTACT BANK
#
Where's my goddamn anger? This bastard number-cruncher won't recognize my financial solvency and all I can do is shrivel up and proclaim myself persona non grata. What's all that about?
“Sorry about this,” I murmur distractedly. “I know there's money in one of these accounts.”
I do know -- indeed, there was a good $2,000 sitting in either my cheque or my savings account yesterday -- and yet, primordial chaos ruled.
“Could we try $200?”
#
DECLINED
CONTACT BANK
#
“Ah,” I suggest, not very constructively, while unsuccessfully attempting to hide behind four cans of tinned fruit. “Same amount from the other account?”
The girl's fingers flick over the buttons again. She doesn't even have to look.
#
DECLINED
CONTACT BANK
#
Well, not totally unexpected.
“Let's try one more time,” I say, keeping things as positive as I can while grasping at straws and coming up with the card to Veronica's and my joint account.
“Do you still want the extra cash?” the girl inquires, without a trace of contempt for my impecunious fumbling.
“$50?”
But we both know it's a futile enterprise. Once bitten, twice shy, three times a lady and four times declined. I'm cringing well before the rejection comes through. It's like one of those days where you're driving around and every time you close the car door you receive a huge electric shock. Pretty soon you come to fear the static discharge.
“Look, um, could you just...”
#
DECLINED
(ZAP!)
CONTACT BANK
#
“...just put these aside, and I'll go and do some phone banking. See if I can work out what's going on?”
I mumble a few more poorly expressed half-thoughts, collect the reams of my epic shopper docket, and edge away from the checkout.
“You'll be back soon?” the girl asks.
“Shouldn't be more than a couple of minutes,” I grin weakly. “Oh, can you change this dollar for me. Twenty cent pieces, please.”
So I'm standing at the public phone, working my way through the phone banking menu, discovering that...
Yep. Just over $2,000 in my cheque account.
I tap my foot, metaphorically, and hang up. It must be their machine after all. If I can just find an ATM then I should be able to withdraw the requisite cash to reclaim my small haul of groceries and avoid being terminally labeled a skint bastard, shuffling my scuffed old boot along the Monopoly board of life and trying to EFTPOS Mayfair, Park Lane and -- hell, why not? -- four houses and a hotel.
#
TRANSACTION
DECLINED
#
The ATM spits in my face, but it's all quite inconsequential, for I have the answer. Chilli withdrawal struck Gandhi down. Poor firearm safety consciousness accounted for the hippie. It's the bloody ANZ and their blasted V2 plus account. I've been humbugged.
For reasons unfathomable to me at the time, my V2 plus account was placed in the 'cheque' slot of my ATM card. Something about dominant strains. Who knows? The ANZ is making changes to help you. Anyway, I was told to access my V2 plus account -- well, whatever tip of the iceberg rose above the $5,000 waterline -- by selecting 'cheque' when prompted. But what about the money in my cheque account? You'll just have to write cheques, I suppose.
(At this stage, I begin stomping back towards the public phone.)
So wouldn't it make sense for my cheque account to have reverted to its natural slot upon closure of the V2 plus account? Apparently not. My cheque account is in limbo. Missing in action. Orbiting the planet at maximum velocity. Thank you very much, ANZ. There's enough customer satisfaction out there to fill a stadium.
The phone banking menu is as gratifying as always. Horrible jingle. Pointless self-promotion. Breathy and not-at-all seductive: Now...
Without further incident I am able to transfer money from cheque to savings account, whereupon I return to Woolworths. The checkout girl is gone. My shopping has been relocated to the front desk, where the woman in charge seems rather surprised to see me. I hide behind a facade of good humour, EFTPOS my groceries and my $500 and then leave, feeling rather like the seemingly dumfounded Sale of the Century contestant whose plastered smile and consolation board-game prize quite belie half an hour's maniacal jabbing at a buzzer that stopped working just after the first question.
I stalk down the nice wide ramp that leads to the carpark and it is here that I catch sight of the maladroitly named 'skill-tester'; namely, a three-fingered pincer that one maneuvers into position above a faceless sea of soft toys, none of which are remotely interested in being picked up by a do-it-yourself model-kit piss-take of the Terminator's left arm.
I catch sight of these words and I pause, for there is an opportunity here; a chance to test a long-held theory about games of chance.
Do you remember the advertisements for Instant Scratch-Its? The winner is always someone who's having a real shit of a day. His toast has burnt. His car's broken down in the rain. His spare tyre's flat. Suddenly, he catches sight of the news agency, he floats blissfully across the road, and -- ZAP! -- he's won $10,000.
The key is not to premeditate. The only way to win is through spur-of-the-moment action. Unfortunately, once you understand this it is virtually impossible to achieve. Little wonder that Schrödinger turned to quantum theory.
But this is my time. This is my shit of a day. (And I'd just like to thank my financial institution for the help they've given me over the years.) This is my one chance to beat the system
If nothing else, it's a golden opportunity to waste the final twenty cent piece from my original dollar. I put my shopping down and step up to the 'skill-tester'.
What a moment.
The twenty cent piece disappears into the gambling ether, never to return, spinning heads and tails in heaven. I gaze out over a colourful but totally flat sea of soft toys, nary a protuberance to be seen, save perhaps for a small lump about three-quarters of the way back...?
That's my target.
An Asian family walks down the ramp towards me and I feel the pressure of their collective gaze. I push the 'up' button and the metal arm shoots forward, way too fast, like Kramer on skates, overshooting the mark. Nevertheless, I stab at the 'right' button and send the metal arm jitterbugging off in that direction. I'm still aiming for the same spot, totally in denial, hoping against all expectation that my depth of vision might somehow be skewed.
The metal arm comes down, its three prongs move clumsily towards each other as per a Tyrannosaurus Rex trying to pick up fairy cakes, or the Grim Reaper attempting to collect an errantly lofted billiards ball using just his scythe and the jigger.
The imagery is resounding and it therefore comes as something of a shock when the ungainly appendage somehow latches on to a heretofore unnoticed part of the prize for which I'd been aiming. But it's OK. The grasp is tenuous at best, like Napoleon's occupation of Russia. The soft toy will never pull free of its fellows without coming loose and falling back into the mix.
And yet, it does. Up, up, up.
Surely it will be dislodged by the jolt of the metal arm moving left again? Or back towards me?
But no. The crippled tripod completes its tortured journey and drops a much-needed relief package into my stricken morning.
QED, baby.
The porcine money-box with which the ANZ recently presented me need not be alone anymore, for now I am also the proud owner of what can only be described as a girlie-pink, hairy pig.
It's a rich man's world.
The whole experience bore a striking similarity to Gandhi's going up to the nearest photographer, offering a shy, toothless and somewhat baffled smile and then asking where he might be able to find some tea and crumpets; or to a hippie purchasing a semi-automatic rifle. Woah, man. Heavy.
In any case, that was the origin of today's torturous checkout debacle. (The V2 plus account, that is, not Gandhi or the hippie.)
The V2 plus account is a wondrous concept. You receive an interest rate comparable to a term deposit, but have to maintain a minimum balance of $5,000. Which might suggest that your interest rate would revert to that of the standard savings account should your balance drop below $5,000, yes?
No.
Your balance physically cannot fall that low; indeed, it shows up as whatever amount you have in excess of $5,000. The actual $5,000 is untouchable, á la Speedy Gonzales on a liberal dose of pseudoephedrine; it simply isn't there.
Which is why I had to close down the V2 plus account.
No hard feelings. No regrets. I just like having access to my money.
So anyway, I'm standing at the Woolworths checkout, Sunnybank, confidently purchasing $26.27 worth of miscellanies: deodorant; muesli bars; tissues; milk; yoghurt; cheese; avocado; tinned fruit... There is nothing here to trouble the girl's eyebrows.
“Would you like any extra cash out?” she asks.
“Could I have $500?” I ask, soon to bitterly regret my lax grammar. May I have $500? Always say may.
#
DECLINED
#
says the hand-held EFTPOS machine with the impersonal aloofness one would usually associate with highly seasoned bureaucracy.
#
CONTACT BANK
#
Whereupon I frown with obligatory embarrassment and take responsibility for the error.
“Could I just try my other account? I'm always getting them confused.”
The girl offers some sympathetic platitudes and pushes the machine at me again. She's seen it all before.
#
DECLINED
CONTACT BANK
#
Where's my goddamn anger? This bastard number-cruncher won't recognize my financial solvency and all I can do is shrivel up and proclaim myself persona non grata. What's all that about?
“Sorry about this,” I murmur distractedly. “I know there's money in one of these accounts.”
I do know -- indeed, there was a good $2,000 sitting in either my cheque or my savings account yesterday -- and yet, primordial chaos ruled.
“Could we try $200?”
#
DECLINED
CONTACT BANK
#
“Ah,” I suggest, not very constructively, while unsuccessfully attempting to hide behind four cans of tinned fruit. “Same amount from the other account?”
The girl's fingers flick over the buttons again. She doesn't even have to look.
#
DECLINED
CONTACT BANK
#
Well, not totally unexpected.
“Let's try one more time,” I say, keeping things as positive as I can while grasping at straws and coming up with the card to Veronica's and my joint account.
“Do you still want the extra cash?” the girl inquires, without a trace of contempt for my impecunious fumbling.
“$50?”
But we both know it's a futile enterprise. Once bitten, twice shy, three times a lady and four times declined. I'm cringing well before the rejection comes through. It's like one of those days where you're driving around and every time you close the car door you receive a huge electric shock. Pretty soon you come to fear the static discharge.
“Look, um, could you just...”
#
DECLINED
(ZAP!)
CONTACT BANK
#
“...just put these aside, and I'll go and do some phone banking. See if I can work out what's going on?”
I mumble a few more poorly expressed half-thoughts, collect the reams of my epic shopper docket, and edge away from the checkout.
“You'll be back soon?” the girl asks.
“Shouldn't be more than a couple of minutes,” I grin weakly. “Oh, can you change this dollar for me. Twenty cent pieces, please.”
So I'm standing at the public phone, working my way through the phone banking menu, discovering that...
Yep. Just over $2,000 in my cheque account.
I tap my foot, metaphorically, and hang up. It must be their machine after all. If I can just find an ATM then I should be able to withdraw the requisite cash to reclaim my small haul of groceries and avoid being terminally labeled a skint bastard, shuffling my scuffed old boot along the Monopoly board of life and trying to EFTPOS Mayfair, Park Lane and -- hell, why not? -- four houses and a hotel.
#
TRANSACTION
DECLINED
#
The ATM spits in my face, but it's all quite inconsequential, for I have the answer. Chilli withdrawal struck Gandhi down. Poor firearm safety consciousness accounted for the hippie. It's the bloody ANZ and their blasted V2 plus account. I've been humbugged.
For reasons unfathomable to me at the time, my V2 plus account was placed in the 'cheque' slot of my ATM card. Something about dominant strains. Who knows? The ANZ is making changes to help you. Anyway, I was told to access my V2 plus account -- well, whatever tip of the iceberg rose above the $5,000 waterline -- by selecting 'cheque' when prompted. But what about the money in my cheque account? You'll just have to write cheques, I suppose.
(At this stage, I begin stomping back towards the public phone.)
So wouldn't it make sense for my cheque account to have reverted to its natural slot upon closure of the V2 plus account? Apparently not. My cheque account is in limbo. Missing in action. Orbiting the planet at maximum velocity. Thank you very much, ANZ. There's enough customer satisfaction out there to fill a stadium.
The phone banking menu is as gratifying as always. Horrible jingle. Pointless self-promotion. Breathy and not-at-all seductive: Now...
Without further incident I am able to transfer money from cheque to savings account, whereupon I return to Woolworths. The checkout girl is gone. My shopping has been relocated to the front desk, where the woman in charge seems rather surprised to see me. I hide behind a facade of good humour, EFTPOS my groceries and my $500 and then leave, feeling rather like the seemingly dumfounded Sale of the Century contestant whose plastered smile and consolation board-game prize quite belie half an hour's maniacal jabbing at a buzzer that stopped working just after the first question.
I stalk down the nice wide ramp that leads to the carpark and it is here that I catch sight of the maladroitly named 'skill-tester'; namely, a three-fingered pincer that one maneuvers into position above a faceless sea of soft toys, none of which are remotely interested in being picked up by a do-it-yourself model-kit piss-take of the Terminator's left arm.
#
SPECIAL!
ONLY 20 CENTS!
#
I catch sight of these words and I pause, for there is an opportunity here; a chance to test a long-held theory about games of chance.
Do you remember the advertisements for Instant Scratch-Its? The winner is always someone who's having a real shit of a day. His toast has burnt. His car's broken down in the rain. His spare tyre's flat. Suddenly, he catches sight of the news agency, he floats blissfully across the road, and -- ZAP! -- he's won $10,000.
The key is not to premeditate. The only way to win is through spur-of-the-moment action. Unfortunately, once you understand this it is virtually impossible to achieve. Little wonder that Schrödinger turned to quantum theory.
But this is my time. This is my shit of a day. (And I'd just like to thank my financial institution for the help they've given me over the years.) This is my one chance to beat the system
If nothing else, it's a golden opportunity to waste the final twenty cent piece from my original dollar. I put my shopping down and step up to the 'skill-tester'.
What a moment.
The twenty cent piece disappears into the gambling ether, never to return, spinning heads and tails in heaven. I gaze out over a colourful but totally flat sea of soft toys, nary a protuberance to be seen, save perhaps for a small lump about three-quarters of the way back...?
That's my target.
An Asian family walks down the ramp towards me and I feel the pressure of their collective gaze. I push the 'up' button and the metal arm shoots forward, way too fast, like Kramer on skates, overshooting the mark. Nevertheless, I stab at the 'right' button and send the metal arm jitterbugging off in that direction. I'm still aiming for the same spot, totally in denial, hoping against all expectation that my depth of vision might somehow be skewed.
The metal arm comes down, its three prongs move clumsily towards each other as per a Tyrannosaurus Rex trying to pick up fairy cakes, or the Grim Reaper attempting to collect an errantly lofted billiards ball using just his scythe and the jigger.
The imagery is resounding and it therefore comes as something of a shock when the ungainly appendage somehow latches on to a heretofore unnoticed part of the prize for which I'd been aiming. But it's OK. The grasp is tenuous at best, like Napoleon's occupation of Russia. The soft toy will never pull free of its fellows without coming loose and falling back into the mix.
And yet, it does. Up, up, up.
Surely it will be dislodged by the jolt of the metal arm moving left again? Or back towards me?
But no. The crippled tripod completes its tortured journey and drops a much-needed relief package into my stricken morning.
QED, baby.
The porcine money-box with which the ANZ recently presented me need not be alone anymore, for now I am also the proud owner of what can only be described as a girlie-pink, hairy pig.
It's a rich man's world.
For Your Consideration, Beau Johnson
Is this the one? I don’t know. I hope so, but hold no allusions either way. It would be nice, sure, especially after everything that’s been rejected. If not, no matter. I will always try, as this is who I am. So, to begin I will present to you what I will not do, or strive not to do. Both will be hard, as you have nailed me on many occasions. To recap:
1) I will not over-write.
2) I will not underwrite, which has led you to “scan” my previous works in an attempt to get to the “guts” of the piece.
3) I will not send you a story which feels more like an introduction opposed to the flash fiction I thought it to be.
4) There will be no erotica/romance.
5) Correlated or not, never will a child be harmed in a sick or twisted way.
6) As ever, I will strive to ensure you never again lose interest in work created by me.
With that said, I believe we should begin. I will start by placing us in the woods. The moon is full when we arrive and our protagonist, Ben, has just run out of fuel. His motivations will be pure, if not generic---how the majority of us want to be seen. The attributes I give are stand-up, affable, making him an all-around nice guy. He would not suffer fools, however, much like his creator. His girlfriend, Rachel, will prove something altogether different---at this very moment struggling to contain her fear. Same as the gas tank, her resolve has been slowly depleting as the miles wore on. From the backseat come wisecracks---these are from Jeff. Jeff is Ben’s best friend and resembles a young Tim Robbins. As the story goes on, Jeff will come to represent the humour I will try to interject from time to time. This does not always work in my favour, but sometimes I find that the character demands it. Last is Bethany, who, as the others, is in her twenties, and is sitting beside Jeff. She has long brown hair and is stronger than Rachel, but only in show. Inside she is freaking out and still can’t believe she had somehow let Jeff talk her into going to his Grandparent’s cottage for the weekend, especially now, after the curious thing with the gas. Who does that?, she thinks, but realizes the point is moot; that done is done.
The cottage is our setting, even though we never get there. Instead, as Ben and Jeff begin walking the x number of miles back to the gas station they should have stopped at, the girls are taken by the two antagonists I’ve invented. I was thinking cliché, and then playing off the cliché, but settled with placing them on top of one another. Is that too cliché? Anyway, there will be no archetype; no Jason or Freddy, no Michael or Pinhead. Our Big Bad will be brothers with names like Daryl and Steve. Daryl is bigger than Steve, but Steve is the crazy of the piece, his left eye askew. Both are dirty, scruffy, with gums that bleed whenever they start to speak.
Ben and Jeff return with the gas, surmise there was a struggle and for a moment I have the insane thought to have Jeff, my comedic relief, lift his head and wail to the night sky as he righteously shakes his fist. I think better of it a moment later and hope you think the same. Cheesy, right? Riding the line which could very well pull you from the story? I wipe imaginary sweat from my brow.
Trail found, I explain how Ben once had an Uncle who taught him to track; the reason he and Jeff find the girls as easily as they do. I try not to hit you over the head with this; try to show as opposed to tell. It never quite works, but I feel I am improving.
Naked and bloodied, the girls are a mess, strung up by the wrist in the oversized shack (a shack I come close to describing for far too long, obsessing about the smell and unmitigated squalor we find ourselves in---a point where I have to acknowledge I am my own worst enemy; that less will always, always be more) which has become their prison. Each is weeping, shivering---their slender wrists in protest of the weight they were never meant to bear. Save the weeping, all is quiet, too quiet, and as Ben is contemplating the giant oven taking up the far wall of the place, he is hit from behind. There are grunts, many, and then saliva. Waking, he understands that someone has spit in his face as he lay upon the ground and that something rancid is still in his mouth. He spits, spits again, and feels as though he must run---to just somehow rid himself of the taste.
Madness, he thinks, I am going fucking mad!
He can do nothing, of course, as he too is now chained. Beside him the girls whimper, blood running down their arms and necks and thighs. From my chair I wonder if now is the right time to introduce a flashback, to show you how much Ben truly cared for Rachel---this I feel I must attempt so near the end you come to feel much more inclined towards Ben as he over and over again strokes what is left of his lover’s head.
I begin to think, soon envisioning them in senior year, this becoming where they met. Together since, I tell you of Rachel’s cancer scare (breast, benign, allowing her to keep the flesh she coveted most) and how Ben had never left her side during it; that Ben’s father had beat him as a child and that he had never fully worked it through until Rachel became part of his life. They loved each other, I tell you, their love more special than any couple I have ever written about. Does this help you connect? My characterizations something you now feel? If not, okay, because I can always try again. If yes, good, but it doesn’t really matter, as there is still Jeff to consider. He is my clown, yes, but really he is at the heart of it all; a prince with a story to crack the most cynical of hearts. Unfortunately, we are never given access to the inner workings of this character, as the brothers Grimm get to him first and present his head sans his body to the girl’s and Ben’s unbelieving eyes.
Jeff’s head on a stick, Daryl and his “extra-crazy” brother Steve leave on an errand for some reason or another. In truth it is because I need them to, this when I manufacture/facilitate my protagonist’s escape. Remember the Uncle I had mentioned, the one who trained Ben to track? This is where he re-enters the picture; where I tell you how it’s possible to teach a boy to pick any lock the world might hold. My MacGyver free, he frees the girls. Dressing in what tatters remained, they slowly leave the over-sized shack, Ben ominously realizing something has become very wrong with Bethany; that a part of her mind has snapped and died away. This will come back to haunt them in the end, Ben especially.
Ben pulls the girls, ushers them along through bushes and thickets, through trees and upon the mud path. The path is now mud because it has begun to rain. Pelted, our three survivors strive to see through the big fat drops screaming from the sky. Too late, Ben hears laughter and is again hit from behind. Before losing consciousness he hears two more things. One is the women screaming as though they were on fire. The other is a chainsaw.
Later, (time passing because I need it to) Ben awakes to the sound of music. Old music, as in the stuff his Grandmother would have listened to. The rain has stopped---no more tap-tap-tapping upon the sheet metal roof. Lifting his head, Ben realizes he is now pinned beneath something, and then that the something is what remains of Jeff. He tries not to scream and does a pretty good job. However, a noise escapes him, and then he thinks that the noise is not new; that he has been doing it for quite some time.
Suddenly there is a scream, and the scream is not afraid. It is primal, animalistic. Ben looks up; sees Bethany with a machete which is very far from clean. She is swinging, chopping, shrieking and swearing. Slowly he sees ropes of blood arc into the air; more and more. Like paint it searches to inspire and dry. I think of cinematography here, in hopes that one day a story of mine could come to the screen. This does not always happen, but it is there within me nonetheless.
She takes her rapist’s head, chops until it rolls. Done, Bethany continues, does his arms and legs and then focuses her fury on the crazy fuck’s junk. She becomes silent as she does this, her eyes unblinking and wide. Suddenly Ben is aware he is unaware of Rachel’s whereabouts. With considerable effort he stands, now mindful he has been tethered to what remains of Jeff by rusted chicken wire. Calling Bethany to him, she frees him, but the woman does it with the blankest of eyes, the shallowest of breath. Where’s Rachel? He demands. But all Bethany can do is point the machete towards the open metal door. Outside, the night is dark, a beast, but the moon remains full. Twenty feet away he sees two bodies on the ground and instantly thinks the worst. She is gone, he knows, even before he lifts her broken head. Tears in his eyes, he cries, wails, and then looks to the cabin in search of Bethany. It was him and her now, both of them the only survivors to what he knew to be the stuff of nightmares. I pause here, wondering if I have done enough. Have I, I think? Or is something more inventive required? It is as this image comes to mind that I think of breaking the fourth wall; that I should have Ben address you himself and ask you how I’m doing. Once more I think better of it, recognizing my same old shit for what it is---my insecurities and the like; that I cannot help but second guess myself. The crisis over, I re-apply my armour, but secretly hope you come to like what’s left.
From his angle he sees her…sees she is struggling at hauling a propane tank across the very bloody floor. It is one of many which had littered the shack like baubles from a giant. Thinking barbeque, Ben begins to rise, suddenly realizing what that look in Bethany’s eyes has been all along. Stepping forward, she turns her head and looks at Ben and then the distance between them and the door. It is a chasm, he thinks, and he’ll be damned if he lets her fall---they are friends, after all, and all which remains of what had been before. He runs, runs hard, but she closes the door before he arrives. The latches lock, the bolts slide, and Ben is left to feel as though he is beside himself---can only pound and shout in vain.
He does this for a time and then moves to a window. Stunned, he watches her place another propane tank up and into the over-sized oven the brothers Grimm must have cooked their victims in. I never state this, not outright, and I may have to during a re-write. Full, Bethany gets in the oven herself and then closes the door. She is shaking, he sees, but her eyes remain blank, catatonic, but was there a smile? Ben wails on the barred window, wails into the night, and then he is blown back, shunted from oblivion, fire and wood upon him and game. The noise is awful, splitting the night like the word of God. Does Ben survive? Well then, that’s the question, no? Could there be a sequel---another brother to avenge the two? Does what I’ve done here merit as such? But that, I guess, has always been up to you.
1) I will not over-write.
2) I will not underwrite, which has led you to “scan” my previous works in an attempt to get to the “guts” of the piece.
3) I will not send you a story which feels more like an introduction opposed to the flash fiction I thought it to be.
4) There will be no erotica/romance.
5) Correlated or not, never will a child be harmed in a sick or twisted way.
6) As ever, I will strive to ensure you never again lose interest in work created by me.
With that said, I believe we should begin. I will start by placing us in the woods. The moon is full when we arrive and our protagonist, Ben, has just run out of fuel. His motivations will be pure, if not generic---how the majority of us want to be seen. The attributes I give are stand-up, affable, making him an all-around nice guy. He would not suffer fools, however, much like his creator. His girlfriend, Rachel, will prove something altogether different---at this very moment struggling to contain her fear. Same as the gas tank, her resolve has been slowly depleting as the miles wore on. From the backseat come wisecracks---these are from Jeff. Jeff is Ben’s best friend and resembles a young Tim Robbins. As the story goes on, Jeff will come to represent the humour I will try to interject from time to time. This does not always work in my favour, but sometimes I find that the character demands it. Last is Bethany, who, as the others, is in her twenties, and is sitting beside Jeff. She has long brown hair and is stronger than Rachel, but only in show. Inside she is freaking out and still can’t believe she had somehow let Jeff talk her into going to his Grandparent’s cottage for the weekend, especially now, after the curious thing with the gas. Who does that?, she thinks, but realizes the point is moot; that done is done.
The cottage is our setting, even though we never get there. Instead, as Ben and Jeff begin walking the x number of miles back to the gas station they should have stopped at, the girls are taken by the two antagonists I’ve invented. I was thinking cliché, and then playing off the cliché, but settled with placing them on top of one another. Is that too cliché? Anyway, there will be no archetype; no Jason or Freddy, no Michael or Pinhead. Our Big Bad will be brothers with names like Daryl and Steve. Daryl is bigger than Steve, but Steve is the crazy of the piece, his left eye askew. Both are dirty, scruffy, with gums that bleed whenever they start to speak.
Ben and Jeff return with the gas, surmise there was a struggle and for a moment I have the insane thought to have Jeff, my comedic relief, lift his head and wail to the night sky as he righteously shakes his fist. I think better of it a moment later and hope you think the same. Cheesy, right? Riding the line which could very well pull you from the story? I wipe imaginary sweat from my brow.
Trail found, I explain how Ben once had an Uncle who taught him to track; the reason he and Jeff find the girls as easily as they do. I try not to hit you over the head with this; try to show as opposed to tell. It never quite works, but I feel I am improving.
Naked and bloodied, the girls are a mess, strung up by the wrist in the oversized shack (a shack I come close to describing for far too long, obsessing about the smell and unmitigated squalor we find ourselves in---a point where I have to acknowledge I am my own worst enemy; that less will always, always be more) which has become their prison. Each is weeping, shivering---their slender wrists in protest of the weight they were never meant to bear. Save the weeping, all is quiet, too quiet, and as Ben is contemplating the giant oven taking up the far wall of the place, he is hit from behind. There are grunts, many, and then saliva. Waking, he understands that someone has spit in his face as he lay upon the ground and that something rancid is still in his mouth. He spits, spits again, and feels as though he must run---to just somehow rid himself of the taste.
Madness, he thinks, I am going fucking mad!
He can do nothing, of course, as he too is now chained. Beside him the girls whimper, blood running down their arms and necks and thighs. From my chair I wonder if now is the right time to introduce a flashback, to show you how much Ben truly cared for Rachel---this I feel I must attempt so near the end you come to feel much more inclined towards Ben as he over and over again strokes what is left of his lover’s head.
I begin to think, soon envisioning them in senior year, this becoming where they met. Together since, I tell you of Rachel’s cancer scare (breast, benign, allowing her to keep the flesh she coveted most) and how Ben had never left her side during it; that Ben’s father had beat him as a child and that he had never fully worked it through until Rachel became part of his life. They loved each other, I tell you, their love more special than any couple I have ever written about. Does this help you connect? My characterizations something you now feel? If not, okay, because I can always try again. If yes, good, but it doesn’t really matter, as there is still Jeff to consider. He is my clown, yes, but really he is at the heart of it all; a prince with a story to crack the most cynical of hearts. Unfortunately, we are never given access to the inner workings of this character, as the brothers Grimm get to him first and present his head sans his body to the girl’s and Ben’s unbelieving eyes.
Jeff’s head on a stick, Daryl and his “extra-crazy” brother Steve leave on an errand for some reason or another. In truth it is because I need them to, this when I manufacture/facilitate my protagonist’s escape. Remember the Uncle I had mentioned, the one who trained Ben to track? This is where he re-enters the picture; where I tell you how it’s possible to teach a boy to pick any lock the world might hold. My MacGyver free, he frees the girls. Dressing in what tatters remained, they slowly leave the over-sized shack, Ben ominously realizing something has become very wrong with Bethany; that a part of her mind has snapped and died away. This will come back to haunt them in the end, Ben especially.
Ben pulls the girls, ushers them along through bushes and thickets, through trees and upon the mud path. The path is now mud because it has begun to rain. Pelted, our three survivors strive to see through the big fat drops screaming from the sky. Too late, Ben hears laughter and is again hit from behind. Before losing consciousness he hears two more things. One is the women screaming as though they were on fire. The other is a chainsaw.
Later, (time passing because I need it to) Ben awakes to the sound of music. Old music, as in the stuff his Grandmother would have listened to. The rain has stopped---no more tap-tap-tapping upon the sheet metal roof. Lifting his head, Ben realizes he is now pinned beneath something, and then that the something is what remains of Jeff. He tries not to scream and does a pretty good job. However, a noise escapes him, and then he thinks that the noise is not new; that he has been doing it for quite some time.
Suddenly there is a scream, and the scream is not afraid. It is primal, animalistic. Ben looks up; sees Bethany with a machete which is very far from clean. She is swinging, chopping, shrieking and swearing. Slowly he sees ropes of blood arc into the air; more and more. Like paint it searches to inspire and dry. I think of cinematography here, in hopes that one day a story of mine could come to the screen. This does not always happen, but it is there within me nonetheless.
She takes her rapist’s head, chops until it rolls. Done, Bethany continues, does his arms and legs and then focuses her fury on the crazy fuck’s junk. She becomes silent as she does this, her eyes unblinking and wide. Suddenly Ben is aware he is unaware of Rachel’s whereabouts. With considerable effort he stands, now mindful he has been tethered to what remains of Jeff by rusted chicken wire. Calling Bethany to him, she frees him, but the woman does it with the blankest of eyes, the shallowest of breath. Where’s Rachel? He demands. But all Bethany can do is point the machete towards the open metal door. Outside, the night is dark, a beast, but the moon remains full. Twenty feet away he sees two bodies on the ground and instantly thinks the worst. She is gone, he knows, even before he lifts her broken head. Tears in his eyes, he cries, wails, and then looks to the cabin in search of Bethany. It was him and her now, both of them the only survivors to what he knew to be the stuff of nightmares. I pause here, wondering if I have done enough. Have I, I think? Or is something more inventive required? It is as this image comes to mind that I think of breaking the fourth wall; that I should have Ben address you himself and ask you how I’m doing. Once more I think better of it, recognizing my same old shit for what it is---my insecurities and the like; that I cannot help but second guess myself. The crisis over, I re-apply my armour, but secretly hope you come to like what’s left.
From his angle he sees her…sees she is struggling at hauling a propane tank across the very bloody floor. It is one of many which had littered the shack like baubles from a giant. Thinking barbeque, Ben begins to rise, suddenly realizing what that look in Bethany’s eyes has been all along. Stepping forward, she turns her head and looks at Ben and then the distance between them and the door. It is a chasm, he thinks, and he’ll be damned if he lets her fall---they are friends, after all, and all which remains of what had been before. He runs, runs hard, but she closes the door before he arrives. The latches lock, the bolts slide, and Ben is left to feel as though he is beside himself---can only pound and shout in vain.
He does this for a time and then moves to a window. Stunned, he watches her place another propane tank up and into the over-sized oven the brothers Grimm must have cooked their victims in. I never state this, not outright, and I may have to during a re-write. Full, Bethany gets in the oven herself and then closes the door. She is shaking, he sees, but her eyes remain blank, catatonic, but was there a smile? Ben wails on the barred window, wails into the night, and then he is blown back, shunted from oblivion, fire and wood upon him and game. The noise is awful, splitting the night like the word of God. Does Ben survive? Well then, that’s the question, no? Could there be a sequel---another brother to avenge the two? Does what I’ve done here merit as such? But that, I guess, has always been up to you.
Tea and Semantics, Paula McGrath
Kirsten was late and somewhat disheveled. They were becoming careless. It could not happen again. Her Tea and Semantics sessions were not to be messed with. Though not strictly time-tabled by the Department, they were steadily gaining respect. Sometimes she imagined herself to be at the centre of an 18th century Salon, bringing together the best and the brightest for stimulating debate. On a more practical level, they attracted graduate students, and an army of graduate students was what she needed. At only twenty eight she was the youngest Junior Professor in her Department, and she planned to make full Professor by thirty.
To this end, she also frequented innumerable conferences, so often that Hans had begun to complain lately. But it would be worth it in the end, she would point out to him tonight. She knew how to work a room better than anyone else she knew, and it was a point of honour not to leave without an invitation to speak at some other university.
The conferences were also where she met up with Jonny, her lover of almost three years now. John Rex. It sounded so English to her, though Jonny was actually half Chinese. Today she was late because she had lain naked on top of him while he wrote Chinese characters on her back for her to guess. She cared more about getting the characters right than the erotic possibilities; Mandarin would be a worthy addition to her CV. She stood off him then and turned on the shower. She stepped in with some distaste, but then one got what one paid for and Jonny could be somewhat frugal. Hans would never expect her to make do with such modest accommodations. When she stayed in hotels with her husband he worked on what he called 'the tear system'. Less than four stars led to tears, hers. Still, she would put up with Jonny's shower because it was better than a lingering smell of condom rubber. As she lathered up the cheap soap she wondered whether Hans would be more upset that she was sleeping with another man or that she was using contraceptives against the Church's teaching. For her part, she had made a few full Confessions and she was reconciled to both.
She applied her make-up swiftly and professionally, air-kissed Johnny so he would not mess it up, and left.
Hans did not know that she religiously took the pill which she kept hidden in a secret pocket of her bag, so that when they copulated monotonously a few times each month in his bid to recreate, there was no chance. A pregnancy would set her back years. She didn't tell Jonny about the pill either; the condoms were a comfort to her from the point of view of safe sex. Jonny was quite a bit older and in his past he had taken advantage of many ready-to-be-impressed grad students.
As she rushed to the Arts Building she thought about Jonny, left alone with a cold bed and the used towel in a damp ball on the tiles, and the two flaccid prophylactics leaking into the waste basket. He would be packing by now, then taking the bus to the airport and back to London where, like her, he taught semantics, and lived his solitary bachelor existence. She felt sorry for him.
She swept into the seminar room where a cluster of students, and her friend and colleague Sabina, awaited. Breathlessly she introduced the topic for today and handed around photocopies of the suggested reading for that week. They had all read it of course, but as she explained, she found it useful to have a copy to hand. Someone made an opening comment. Kirsten nodded encouragingly. Gradually a couple of opposing viewpoints began to emerge. Then, just as it became interesting she raised a hand.
- Let us take some tea.
She moved to a side table she had carefully arranged earlier in the day: the small linen cloth, the tea bowls and caddy, the bamboo scoop, the new whisk. Now, she ritually wiped all the utensils again as the students were her guests and the ceremony demanded it. This was chado, or the way of the tea, as she had been taught during an exchange to Kyoto as an undergraduate.
Some of the new students shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Kirsten did not concern herself with their discomfort but moved systematically through the ordained movements of measuring and whisking. The words harmony, respect, purity and tranquility were written in careful calligraphy, by her own hand, on the white board behind her for her students to reflect on; what more could they want. She herself was transported somewhere closer to God as she gave the ceremony her complete attention. She confided to Sabina that it had the same effect on her as the transmutation at Mass, so much so that she ran it past her Priest who, a little impatiently, assured her she could make as much tea as she liked.
Once she had whisked the powdered green tea with hot water from a thermos to the right consistency she and Sabina served their guests. She had the greatest of respect for the revered tea ceremony master Sen no Rikyu but she was not above adapting elements of his philosophy to suit her circumstances, and since she had no wish to try and persuade the students to sip unhygienically from one bowl, they each received their own.
Nor did she attempt to elicit a bow from them as they received their tea. On one occasion a visiting student from Tokyo had bowed graciously, first to her, then to the student next to him, then he had raised his bowl in respect to her and towards the writing on the board. She had been extremely touched and gratified.
After they had drunk their tea Kirsten cleaned the utensils in a bowl of water and put them carefully away. By now the muttered discontent of the newer students was audible and rising. Kirsten cleared her throat.
- The following points were raised...
And she exposed clearly what had been ragged and fragmented before the break. She then asked the group to split and discuss. Now, discussion was quiet and focused. Kirsten sat back and watched, exchanging a discreet, knowing smile with Sabina. A few minutes before the end she brought them back into one group and they presented their findings cohesively.
When the last student had reluctantly left the seminar room she allowed herself to relax.
- Jonny? Sabina asked, referring to her near-tardiness.
Kirsten nodded.
- Well done us on that journal article, Sabina went on. - It was the talk of the Department this afternoon. Dieter particularly liked my angle on imperatives.
Dieter was the Head of Department, and Kirsten didn't like Sabina's news. Sabina was her friend, but she was also the competition.
Hans had attempted dinner when she got home. He was a better engineer than he was chef, but she was tired from her exertions of the afternoon and grateful for his efforts. She kissed him as he took the chicken breasts out of the oven. She always liked him much better after she had seen Jonny. It was comforting that she knew he would be there, familiar and dependable. Jonny was considerate in never putting pressure on her to leave Hans, but sometimes she wished he would at least pretend he was waiting for her to do so. She felt sure that he could manage to visit Berlin more than once a month, for example, but somehow she never managed to broach the idea. He was quite expert in deflecting the merest hint of any talk of commitment. Somehow she knew she shouldn't push him. At least not yet, because whether he was aware of it or not, Jonny was part of Kirsten's long term life and career plan.
- How was your T and S session, Dear? Hans interrupted her thoughts.
- Great. She yawned and stretched out on the sofa.
Hans put a glass of wine in her hand.
- Dinner in five minutes.
He began setting out plates and utensils.
- Kirs, I was thinking that we should try and get to the Youth Group. You have no conference on this weekend, and we haven't volunteered in ages.
He was right. When they were first married they had given a lot of their time to the Youth Group, the same group they had both belonged to, and where they had met. They had agreed that it was only right that they should give something back.
- I know, Hans, Kirsten was genuinely rueful. - We haven't been pulling our weight. So many conferences! But you're right, let's drop in on Sunday.
She felt instantly lighter for the decision - sometimes she sickened herself with guilt and ambition – as they settled down to dinner and some light TV. She took out her contacts and put on her glasses. Hans massaged her feet, so they wound up going to bed early to make love. Hans loved her in his clumsy way, and it was always nice not using those disgusting condoms. As attentive and skilful as Jonny was, they always made her feel as if he were at a remove from her.
Jonny phoned the next day at 3.30. She was insistent that they maintain a routine, that any chance they had of making their distance affair work depended on at least that much commitment. At first he laughed at her for being so German, and phoned whenever the mood took him, but he soon learned that this offended her disproportionally, so nowadays, mostly, he was punctual. They talked for twenty minutes every day. Today she complained about Sabina and implied that her friend was trying to take all the credit for their article. He laughed.
- Joint articles never work out.
Kirstin didn't find it funny.
- I wanted to use my part of the work at the London conference.
She was becoming quite anxious.
- Then teach together. Jonny had begun to sound bored.
Kirsten segued into some Chinese conversation to remind him how competent and versatile she was, and he indulged her for a few minutes. She always made a point of being the one to finish the phone call so he could not. Game-playing, Sabina had called it, laughing at her.
The conference in London did not run smoothly. Jonny was busy playing host to visitors from China, and Kirsten found herself spending much of her time with Sabina. They taught together and their course was deemed reasonably successful, but Sabina had, in Kirsten's opinion, hogged the entire Question and Answer session, making her look foolish, and she had said as much, so there was bad feeling between them. Kirsten pouted about it to Jonny until finally he sighed and said he would go and straighten things out. He left her in his rooms while he went to track Sabina down.
Kirsten waited there for several hours. She finally left a note before she had to leave to go to a talk. I took a lonely nap on your futon. I hope it went well with S.
*
It had gone very well indeed, Jonny grinned to himself, but he supposed that was just semantics. He told Kirsten what had happened when he caught up with her the next day. Sabina had laughed when he told her why he was there, told him that was the problem with having such a ridiculously young affair, and that there was a lot to be said for the mature woman – that she herself was closer to Johnny's age than to Kirsten's - then she had steadily held his gaze and slipped off her clothes to stand tall and athletic and quite naked. They had fucked like wild animals, he told Kirsten, adding that he knew she wouldn't mind since – given Hans - there was no commitment between them. Predictably, she flew into a state. Mainly, she just couldn't understand why. In any case, she would not tolerate him sleeping with another woman. The affair was over.
*
Kirsten appreciated Hans and his steady reliability more than ever. She cancelled any conferences which would have been more about Jonny than work. She spent more time with the Youth Group, even volunteering to supervise one of their weekend camping trips, something she hated, but she was willing to put up with a little discomfort for the sake of building on her marriage.
Matters had even improved in the bedroom. Instead of waiting passively for Hans to fumble in her direction she took the initiative and actively seduced him. She supposed she had always steered clear of being a pro-active lover because she didn't want to seem loose. To her surprise Hans rose to the occasion magnificently. Instead of their usual awkward embrace there were moments of near-poetry. She used every trick she had learned from Jonny, but Hans still managed to surprise her. She hadn't known oral sex was even in his vocabulary. When they fell back afterwards in exhausted release she told herself she was well rid of Jonny, and that Sabina was welcome to him.
Now that she had more energy to pour into her Tea and Semantics it had become a mild sensation. Kirsten had to change venue to accommodate the crowds that came every week. She brought in undergraduate help for the Tea Ceremony. Her students had come to realise the worth of the tea break, so that she could stand, as she did now, and survey the hive of discussion which followed with pride. Usually they were too busy with the debate to remember she was there, but now one of the graduate students was looking at her strangely, and it took her a moment to realise why. To her horror she was scratching her genitals, in public.
She went straight to her doctor on the way home. It was probably some sort of allergy to perfume or something, she told herself, then the doctor, willing away the edge of fear which had arisen in her.
- No, the doctor said after an examination. - It is herpes. It can be managed. We'll just prescribe... He flicked through his drug reference catalogs. Kirsten wasn't listening. Managed? She could not have a sexually transmitted disease. She was always careful to use condoms. How could Jonny...? Did Sabina...? She couldn't ask since they barely spoke since the London conference. She was in a panic. What if she had given it to Hans! She had to tell him, though it was probably already too late.
- I have herpes, she said without preamble as they got ready for bed.
Silence followed. Kirsten folded her sweater and laid it on the chair, unable to look at her husband. There was no need. She knew what was coming. The end of her marriage. She would have to move out, start again. There would surely be an annulment. Her family would find out. Hans was saying something. Kirsten forced herself to pay attention.
- Me too. I'm sorry.
She blinked. - Sorry?
- I went to Friedrichstrasse. I paid a woman my mother's age, may God forgive me, to perform oral sex. She was bored and stoned but Kirsten, I was hooked. I went back every night for a week for the same thing, same woman. You were at a conference dear, with your John Rex. Then I wanted much more I'm afraid, but I just couldn't bring myself to use contraceptives. Not against the Pope's express orders.
He sounded so sincere, willing her to understand.
- So I found the type of prostitute in the back alleys who will do it without condoms for a little extra cash.
- The Pope does not advocate prostitution either, Kirsten said, sitting down hard on the chair.
Hans knelt in front of her and took her hands in his.
- My dear, Mary Magdalene appears in the Bible but condoms do not and on that ridiculous basis I made my decision. I have slept with dozens of Mary Magdalenes by now, my love, each with her own beauty, her own charms. I'm going to hell for it, of course, he added, an afterthought.
He fell silent.
- My affair is over, she told him.
- I'm sorry.
- Thank you.
They remained where they were for a long time, considering their situation, and from time to time absently scratching their genitals.
To this end, she also frequented innumerable conferences, so often that Hans had begun to complain lately. But it would be worth it in the end, she would point out to him tonight. She knew how to work a room better than anyone else she knew, and it was a point of honour not to leave without an invitation to speak at some other university.
The conferences were also where she met up with Jonny, her lover of almost three years now. John Rex. It sounded so English to her, though Jonny was actually half Chinese. Today she was late because she had lain naked on top of him while he wrote Chinese characters on her back for her to guess. She cared more about getting the characters right than the erotic possibilities; Mandarin would be a worthy addition to her CV. She stood off him then and turned on the shower. She stepped in with some distaste, but then one got what one paid for and Jonny could be somewhat frugal. Hans would never expect her to make do with such modest accommodations. When she stayed in hotels with her husband he worked on what he called 'the tear system'. Less than four stars led to tears, hers. Still, she would put up with Jonny's shower because it was better than a lingering smell of condom rubber. As she lathered up the cheap soap she wondered whether Hans would be more upset that she was sleeping with another man or that she was using contraceptives against the Church's teaching. For her part, she had made a few full Confessions and she was reconciled to both.
She applied her make-up swiftly and professionally, air-kissed Johnny so he would not mess it up, and left.
Hans did not know that she religiously took the pill which she kept hidden in a secret pocket of her bag, so that when they copulated monotonously a few times each month in his bid to recreate, there was no chance. A pregnancy would set her back years. She didn't tell Jonny about the pill either; the condoms were a comfort to her from the point of view of safe sex. Jonny was quite a bit older and in his past he had taken advantage of many ready-to-be-impressed grad students.
As she rushed to the Arts Building she thought about Jonny, left alone with a cold bed and the used towel in a damp ball on the tiles, and the two flaccid prophylactics leaking into the waste basket. He would be packing by now, then taking the bus to the airport and back to London where, like her, he taught semantics, and lived his solitary bachelor existence. She felt sorry for him.
She swept into the seminar room where a cluster of students, and her friend and colleague Sabina, awaited. Breathlessly she introduced the topic for today and handed around photocopies of the suggested reading for that week. They had all read it of course, but as she explained, she found it useful to have a copy to hand. Someone made an opening comment. Kirsten nodded encouragingly. Gradually a couple of opposing viewpoints began to emerge. Then, just as it became interesting she raised a hand.
- Let us take some tea.
She moved to a side table she had carefully arranged earlier in the day: the small linen cloth, the tea bowls and caddy, the bamboo scoop, the new whisk. Now, she ritually wiped all the utensils again as the students were her guests and the ceremony demanded it. This was chado, or the way of the tea, as she had been taught during an exchange to Kyoto as an undergraduate.
Some of the new students shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Kirsten did not concern herself with their discomfort but moved systematically through the ordained movements of measuring and whisking. The words harmony, respect, purity and tranquility were written in careful calligraphy, by her own hand, on the white board behind her for her students to reflect on; what more could they want. She herself was transported somewhere closer to God as she gave the ceremony her complete attention. She confided to Sabina that it had the same effect on her as the transmutation at Mass, so much so that she ran it past her Priest who, a little impatiently, assured her she could make as much tea as she liked.
Once she had whisked the powdered green tea with hot water from a thermos to the right consistency she and Sabina served their guests. She had the greatest of respect for the revered tea ceremony master Sen no Rikyu but she was not above adapting elements of his philosophy to suit her circumstances, and since she had no wish to try and persuade the students to sip unhygienically from one bowl, they each received their own.
Nor did she attempt to elicit a bow from them as they received their tea. On one occasion a visiting student from Tokyo had bowed graciously, first to her, then to the student next to him, then he had raised his bowl in respect to her and towards the writing on the board. She had been extremely touched and gratified.
After they had drunk their tea Kirsten cleaned the utensils in a bowl of water and put them carefully away. By now the muttered discontent of the newer students was audible and rising. Kirsten cleared her throat.
- The following points were raised...
And she exposed clearly what had been ragged and fragmented before the break. She then asked the group to split and discuss. Now, discussion was quiet and focused. Kirsten sat back and watched, exchanging a discreet, knowing smile with Sabina. A few minutes before the end she brought them back into one group and they presented their findings cohesively.
When the last student had reluctantly left the seminar room she allowed herself to relax.
- Jonny? Sabina asked, referring to her near-tardiness.
Kirsten nodded.
- Well done us on that journal article, Sabina went on. - It was the talk of the Department this afternoon. Dieter particularly liked my angle on imperatives.
Dieter was the Head of Department, and Kirsten didn't like Sabina's news. Sabina was her friend, but she was also the competition.
Hans had attempted dinner when she got home. He was a better engineer than he was chef, but she was tired from her exertions of the afternoon and grateful for his efforts. She kissed him as he took the chicken breasts out of the oven. She always liked him much better after she had seen Jonny. It was comforting that she knew he would be there, familiar and dependable. Jonny was considerate in never putting pressure on her to leave Hans, but sometimes she wished he would at least pretend he was waiting for her to do so. She felt sure that he could manage to visit Berlin more than once a month, for example, but somehow she never managed to broach the idea. He was quite expert in deflecting the merest hint of any talk of commitment. Somehow she knew she shouldn't push him. At least not yet, because whether he was aware of it or not, Jonny was part of Kirsten's long term life and career plan.
- How was your T and S session, Dear? Hans interrupted her thoughts.
- Great. She yawned and stretched out on the sofa.
Hans put a glass of wine in her hand.
- Dinner in five minutes.
He began setting out plates and utensils.
- Kirs, I was thinking that we should try and get to the Youth Group. You have no conference on this weekend, and we haven't volunteered in ages.
He was right. When they were first married they had given a lot of their time to the Youth Group, the same group they had both belonged to, and where they had met. They had agreed that it was only right that they should give something back.
- I know, Hans, Kirsten was genuinely rueful. - We haven't been pulling our weight. So many conferences! But you're right, let's drop in on Sunday.
She felt instantly lighter for the decision - sometimes she sickened herself with guilt and ambition – as they settled down to dinner and some light TV. She took out her contacts and put on her glasses. Hans massaged her feet, so they wound up going to bed early to make love. Hans loved her in his clumsy way, and it was always nice not using those disgusting condoms. As attentive and skilful as Jonny was, they always made her feel as if he were at a remove from her.
Jonny phoned the next day at 3.30. She was insistent that they maintain a routine, that any chance they had of making their distance affair work depended on at least that much commitment. At first he laughed at her for being so German, and phoned whenever the mood took him, but he soon learned that this offended her disproportionally, so nowadays, mostly, he was punctual. They talked for twenty minutes every day. Today she complained about Sabina and implied that her friend was trying to take all the credit for their article. He laughed.
- Joint articles never work out.
Kirstin didn't find it funny.
- I wanted to use my part of the work at the London conference.
She was becoming quite anxious.
- Then teach together. Jonny had begun to sound bored.
Kirsten segued into some Chinese conversation to remind him how competent and versatile she was, and he indulged her for a few minutes. She always made a point of being the one to finish the phone call so he could not. Game-playing, Sabina had called it, laughing at her.
The conference in London did not run smoothly. Jonny was busy playing host to visitors from China, and Kirsten found herself spending much of her time with Sabina. They taught together and their course was deemed reasonably successful, but Sabina had, in Kirsten's opinion, hogged the entire Question and Answer session, making her look foolish, and she had said as much, so there was bad feeling between them. Kirsten pouted about it to Jonny until finally he sighed and said he would go and straighten things out. He left her in his rooms while he went to track Sabina down.
Kirsten waited there for several hours. She finally left a note before she had to leave to go to a talk. I took a lonely nap on your futon. I hope it went well with S.
*
It had gone very well indeed, Jonny grinned to himself, but he supposed that was just semantics. He told Kirsten what had happened when he caught up with her the next day. Sabina had laughed when he told her why he was there, told him that was the problem with having such a ridiculously young affair, and that there was a lot to be said for the mature woman – that she herself was closer to Johnny's age than to Kirsten's - then she had steadily held his gaze and slipped off her clothes to stand tall and athletic and quite naked. They had fucked like wild animals, he told Kirsten, adding that he knew she wouldn't mind since – given Hans - there was no commitment between them. Predictably, she flew into a state. Mainly, she just couldn't understand why. In any case, she would not tolerate him sleeping with another woman. The affair was over.
*
Kirsten appreciated Hans and his steady reliability more than ever. She cancelled any conferences which would have been more about Jonny than work. She spent more time with the Youth Group, even volunteering to supervise one of their weekend camping trips, something she hated, but she was willing to put up with a little discomfort for the sake of building on her marriage.
Matters had even improved in the bedroom. Instead of waiting passively for Hans to fumble in her direction she took the initiative and actively seduced him. She supposed she had always steered clear of being a pro-active lover because she didn't want to seem loose. To her surprise Hans rose to the occasion magnificently. Instead of their usual awkward embrace there were moments of near-poetry. She used every trick she had learned from Jonny, but Hans still managed to surprise her. She hadn't known oral sex was even in his vocabulary. When they fell back afterwards in exhausted release she told herself she was well rid of Jonny, and that Sabina was welcome to him.
Now that she had more energy to pour into her Tea and Semantics it had become a mild sensation. Kirsten had to change venue to accommodate the crowds that came every week. She brought in undergraduate help for the Tea Ceremony. Her students had come to realise the worth of the tea break, so that she could stand, as she did now, and survey the hive of discussion which followed with pride. Usually they were too busy with the debate to remember she was there, but now one of the graduate students was looking at her strangely, and it took her a moment to realise why. To her horror she was scratching her genitals, in public.
She went straight to her doctor on the way home. It was probably some sort of allergy to perfume or something, she told herself, then the doctor, willing away the edge of fear which had arisen in her.
- No, the doctor said after an examination. - It is herpes. It can be managed. We'll just prescribe... He flicked through his drug reference catalogs. Kirsten wasn't listening. Managed? She could not have a sexually transmitted disease. She was always careful to use condoms. How could Jonny...? Did Sabina...? She couldn't ask since they barely spoke since the London conference. She was in a panic. What if she had given it to Hans! She had to tell him, though it was probably already too late.
- I have herpes, she said without preamble as they got ready for bed.
Silence followed. Kirsten folded her sweater and laid it on the chair, unable to look at her husband. There was no need. She knew what was coming. The end of her marriage. She would have to move out, start again. There would surely be an annulment. Her family would find out. Hans was saying something. Kirsten forced herself to pay attention.
- Me too. I'm sorry.
She blinked. - Sorry?
- I went to Friedrichstrasse. I paid a woman my mother's age, may God forgive me, to perform oral sex. She was bored and stoned but Kirsten, I was hooked. I went back every night for a week for the same thing, same woman. You were at a conference dear, with your John Rex. Then I wanted much more I'm afraid, but I just couldn't bring myself to use contraceptives. Not against the Pope's express orders.
He sounded so sincere, willing her to understand.
- So I found the type of prostitute in the back alleys who will do it without condoms for a little extra cash.
- The Pope does not advocate prostitution either, Kirsten said, sitting down hard on the chair.
Hans knelt in front of her and took her hands in his.
- My dear, Mary Magdalene appears in the Bible but condoms do not and on that ridiculous basis I made my decision. I have slept with dozens of Mary Magdalenes by now, my love, each with her own beauty, her own charms. I'm going to hell for it, of course, he added, an afterthought.
He fell silent.
- My affair is over, she told him.
- I'm sorry.
- Thank you.
They remained where they were for a long time, considering their situation, and from time to time absently scratching their genitals.
Lost and Found, Melanie Rees
“Lost: Joanie, little ginger cat aged 8 months”.
I noticed the poster taped to a lamp-post on my way home from work. It included a small photo of Joanie and a brief message from Jim, her obviously distraught owner. Joanie, loving but shy around other animals, had been let out by accident. Jim ended with “I am lost without her. She means the world to me”. I felt a pang as I imagined his sadness, his loneliness.
For it is loneliness that leads single, city dwellers to keep cats and dogs in apartments, even though good sense says they shouldn’t. I understood this well. I had moved to the city a year and a half ago. I lived alone in a tiny studio. I had office colleagues I would sometimes go for a drink with after work, if invited, but no friends. I was exhausted from making my way to and from work each day, from learning and trying to impress in a new job, and from fighting a rising tide of homesickness. Homesickness which made no sense to me as I had been quick to leave my home, my family, and my small, narrow-minded town as soon as I was given the chance.
I called into the supermarket near home, still thinking about Joanie and Jim. The contents of my basket screamed ‘lonely saddo’. A pasta meal for one, as I was far too tired to cook from scratch, milk, a cheap but pleasingly large bottle of wine, a tin of tuna, and a huge bag of fancy potato chips I couldn’t really afford.
I toiled up far too many stairs to my apartment and let myself in. I closed the door quickly as a ginger blur rushed towards me. As my heart filled with joy, I knelt down to kiss and stroke the little cat, saying out loud: “I’ve missed my special girl today”.
I guess Jim’s lost was my found.
No Fury like a Lawyer Judged Less Beautiful, Robert Laughlin
Miss New Jersey was crowned the winner of the first Miss American Lawyer Beauty Pageant. The competition was on a Sunday night, and by Monday afternoon, every one of the losers had filed litigation in the jurisdiction of the pageant.
Miss New York alleged regional bias because three of the five judges lived in New Jersey. Miss Minnesota, a still somewhat mannish-looking recipient of sex change surgery, contested the absence of transgendered persons from the pool of judges. Miss Oklahoma maintained that the winner’s hairdo so resembled that of a current porn queen that it violated the pageant’s morals clause. Miss South Carolina also maintained that the hairdo violated the morals clause, but on the grounds that it was an illegal reproduction of the porn queen’s likeness. Miss Oregon, disqualified for marrying shortly before the competition, claimed that the entire pageant was a manifestation of illegal bias toward marital status. Miss Alaska and Miss Hawaii filed a joint action claiming that the East Coast venue of the competition unfairly disadvantaged them; they supposedly were drawn and haggard from jet lag. The remaining contestants joined in any of three class action suits: respectively, (1) by minority contestants claiming racial bias, (2) by redheaded contestants who wanted the winner’s crown held in escrow until the judges were all tested for color blindness, and (3) by contestants who couldn’t dance or sing very well, and wanted the talent competition stricken as a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
All of the litigation failed. A clause in the pageant rules, similar to one found in many wills, stated that any contestant who brought legal action against the pageant would be considered as having predeceased it. Thus, Miss New Jersey was still the winner, by default, because no other contestant was alive at the time of the competition. The pageant’s sponsors agreed that the eliminated semifinalist who wrote the rules had earned her hefty fee.
What Is the Existential Difference Between a Margarita and a Martini?, J. J. Steinfeld
Sitting at a crowded bar, feeling lonely and unloved, you have a sudden awareness, not that you wanted one, not after three drinks, margaritas or martinis. You are drunk with imprecision yet this sudden awareness that something you believed all your life is a lie or worse, and hot on the heels of this bursting awareness comes a second sudden awareness that something you disbelieved all your life is a truth or more—more than a truth, worse than a lie. You have a fourth drink and admit you don’t know the difference between a margarita and a martini to the supernaturally beautiful stranger sitting next to you at the bar, and when she smiles in bewilderment, you reveal that you had a dream less than a week ago that you were on Jeopardy!, the clamorous, stressful Final Jeopardy! clue “MARGARITAS AND MARTINIS” and you’re paralyzed with silence, silence as embarrassing as omniscience, awaking to the morning news and you were the first item, a report of your arrest in the middle of the night for the theft of a hundred-thousand items from a thousand museums and galleries during a hundred nights of thievery, ten lifetimes of criminality, one condemnation by the ineffable, that can’t be, that simply can’t be, you screamed at the clock radio, a gift from a thief who stole it from a saint or maybe it is the other way around, you don’t know, not after four margaritas or martinis, in a dream or otherwise, but the night is young and you feel your luck about to change. The supernally beautiful stranger has stolen your heart and you don’t want it back.
We Learned to Love the River, James Sandham
Out on our bikes again –
We rode along the Humber River;
And tracing her gently gliding curves we quickly learned to love her.
There are fishes in the stream again –
Minnows glinting silver –
And here beneath the overpass the cars are just a whisper.
I feel we know each other now –
This river’s like a sister –
And on her banks my brothers sit, skipping stones across her.
The land beneath their resting flanks
Is our great primal mother –
We’ve come to spend some time with her, to say goodbye to summer.
The poplar grove is shedding leaves;
We take the trail back through it.
Our bike chains whir and peddles spin; we spread our love into it.
These idyll days will fade to grey – but what we’ve learned burns through it.
Camera Obscura, Peycho Kanev
Light, please initiate me into your
occult philosophy. Tell me where
you come from when you penetrate
the dusty window in the morning and
find me thus – staring into the nothingness.
Sometimes you show me very beautiful
things that I am still trying to comprehend.
Like a pair of beautiful female legs
semi-concealed into the twilight of
your brightly absence. How many stories
do we need so this moment could be
remembered forever?
The others have old photo albums.
The others have skies to cry beneath them.
But you can find me thus – thoughtful
and staring into the darkness of this page.
Landscape, Peycho Kanev
All around me the summer slowly grows.
What can I expect from tomorrow besides
the day after today? Now at the track in
Arlington Heights the horses run sweaty
towards the curve where the sun sinks down.
The night is coming very slowly, dragged
by the clouds on their backs. In the garden
behind the house the silence ensconced under
each blade of grass is different. The morning
brings only darkness. The future brings only
darkness. So keep quiet. Smile as you slowly
go.
all aLune, Jess Rizkallah
You know how people are always kind of in awe over being in the same place that some famous person once was?
Someone’s lips touched this napkin, loafers hit this carpet, knees bent to touch the handprints on this now hardened cement,
he went manic in this graveyard, she sat at this desk with this typewriter, he passed out in this pub, there was a beat he heard as his bottom graced the top of this painfully ordinary park bench that helpless souls lay their heads down on at night to duck away from the chill and the waking world as long as their eyelids allow it.
It’s weird. but it’s even weirder to look up at the moon at night and resolve some couplet in your head, pull a melody out of the light, close your eyes to see a vision you want to release into the world, doused in the residual moonlight that has rubbed onto your retinas,
and to come to some conclusion of your own from some place inside of you that the moonlight can’t always reach, but has lit the way enough to help you try to reach it yourself.
Napkins, red carpets, park benches, typewriters, and graveyards with tarnished plaques will never last as long as the same moon that all these artists you look up to looked up at themselves at one point before delving back within to pull out the art that drove you to stare up at the night sky yourself.
And it’s not even just that staring at the same rock in the sky as these people is what makes life so surreal— it’s staring at the same rock as all of the people. When you’re outside and you feel like it’s just you, the night sky, and the desire to spill yourself into it
just know that you’re Finding Yourself on the same canvas as the rest of humanity.
Sometimes I wish that poetry could be more tangible— that I could take a couplet and play with it in my hands, watching the colors turn in the sunlight; that I could twirl a sonnet out and double-dutch with it until I my legs get caught in the ropes and I trip up and fall into a river of Plath to an ocean of Eliot, prose caught in my lungs so I could cough out more than the cavities they left in my mouth.
But then I think about how we can be so eerily alone but all together at the same time and how that’s so Poetic it hurts,
and sometimes it’s okay to hurt. It keeps you human.
Someone’s lips touched this napkin, loafers hit this carpet, knees bent to touch the handprints on this now hardened cement,
he went manic in this graveyard, she sat at this desk with this typewriter, he passed out in this pub, there was a beat he heard as his bottom graced the top of this painfully ordinary park bench that helpless souls lay their heads down on at night to duck away from the chill and the waking world as long as their eyelids allow it.
It’s weird. but it’s even weirder to look up at the moon at night and resolve some couplet in your head, pull a melody out of the light, close your eyes to see a vision you want to release into the world, doused in the residual moonlight that has rubbed onto your retinas,
and to come to some conclusion of your own from some place inside of you that the moonlight can’t always reach, but has lit the way enough to help you try to reach it yourself.
Napkins, red carpets, park benches, typewriters, and graveyards with tarnished plaques will never last as long as the same moon that all these artists you look up to looked up at themselves at one point before delving back within to pull out the art that drove you to stare up at the night sky yourself.
And it’s not even just that staring at the same rock in the sky as these people is what makes life so surreal— it’s staring at the same rock as all of the people. When you’re outside and you feel like it’s just you, the night sky, and the desire to spill yourself into it
just know that you’re Finding Yourself on the same canvas as the rest of humanity.
Sometimes I wish that poetry could be more tangible— that I could take a couplet and play with it in my hands, watching the colors turn in the sunlight; that I could twirl a sonnet out and double-dutch with it until I my legs get caught in the ropes and I trip up and fall into a river of Plath to an ocean of Eliot, prose caught in my lungs so I could cough out more than the cavities they left in my mouth.
But then I think about how we can be so eerily alone but all together at the same time and how that’s so Poetic it hurts,
and sometimes it’s okay to hurt. It keeps you human.
Neurotransmitters, b. alexander
Why stop there? Everything actually
does not matter.
Two neurons meet in a synaptic gap. One babbles
endlessly of a beautiful atom, the other responds
by firing back
“Shut it, deluded brother”.
I recall two mismatched socks
intertwined under your desk. I wished
to tell you, to marvel together at inanimate love,
but instead of where they should stay clasped
they would drift away —
O delusion! What delight you
take in a little “je ne sais pas”
sprinkled over that art-child that
calls himself an orphan only to find himself
the centre of beauty later. Imagine
there was once a certain young Mr. Z there,
now stands a self-proclaimed rogue-knight templar.
“Fountain overflowing!” A drought in Seattle
is reported on the Phoenix ten o'clock news.
Wallflower, Meghan McCarthy
I watched my sister marry her high school sweetheart
Over the internet in a Vegas chapel.
She could not stop giggling like a child as her hubby
Popped his gum and smirked.
I watched them disappear across the country,
Bury their new lives together in snow.
They built ties to his family in Minnesota
Hoping that they would become Indian rich.
I watched my sister push through the breezeway
Beaming brightly with a present in hand.
She handed it to our father and my mother.
Tissue paper hid a bib: I love my grandparents.
I watched as she bought maternity dresses
Loud and pink, for her plane ride home
To the ice and cold.
Holding her unborn belly like a rock.
I watched as my mother paced about the kitchen
Closing her eyes and holding the bridge of her nose
Coaxing her across the phone lines to be strong.
Everyone gets afraid at first…
I watched as they doted over baby #1
Praising him for his blue eyes
That jumped out of his pale skin.
Holding his hand like a purse.
I watched as she dragged her luggage
Behind her back to California.
Hubby quietly cursing her for making Indians angry,
His feet twitching with regret.
I watched as she became heavy with a ticket.
Buying pink bows and Disney dolls
For a nameless child.
Her womb a bed chamber in a treasure chest.
I watched as she let the babies crawl
On defile floors as she watched TV
Vexed when I picked them up to hold them.
Instincts only a mother should have.
I watched as she stood with her shoulder
Digging in the doorway
A witness to her own life condensed to
Cardboard boxes sent back to home.
I watched as she held baby #2
Who squirms in frustration
Doe-eyed squints chronicling cluttered floors
Tiny fresh eyes seeing the spectacle I’ve seen before and before.
I watched her take seconds as the first plate decayed.
She spit fire to those who loved
And listened.
Forced to eat from Mom and Dad’s pantry.
I watched little eyes of innocence
Scan the house for da-da
Who found more warmth
In the ice and cold.
I watch it unravel like a spool of red ribbon.
Swiftly it rides in the wind she cannot control.
Pouring over itself
With each tooth that creeps through the gums.
Entangling sore silk
In a picture you cannot hang on the wall.
"Arrows", Meghan McCarthy
Earlier tonight I watched God take
down all the signs on earth.
Eradicated the billboards lining overpasses
with stoic Denzel faces.
Lotions and lace hotline numbers,
Pit Bull holding Bud light bottles.
I no longer see your eyes
In their unmoving stare.
Call boxes removed
from archaic telephone poles.
Warnings of construction stripped,
fifteen feet by one inch—
Semi drivers guess clearances.
Duck their heads,
clench steering wheels when
car metals grind concrete above.
No one knows when to exit,
tree towers used as reference points.
No telling when cars yield,
when two lanes become one.
How many miles from shore,
where the mountain passes are.
Stray bums with their dog companions
stand in silence on corner roads.
Calendars fall off walls and die.
Lighthouses snuff beacons,
ships toss about like crumpled paper.
Even the summits took a nap,
retire from grandeur.
Sweep up their pebbles to a pillow
and point down to untouched soil.
Girls flip pages of magazines
searching for horoscopes,
meaning in the constellations—
to find wordless, glossy paper.
Fortune cookies lift
from Chinese restaurants.
Left to rummage take out
bags for wisdom hiding
in the shells of cookies.
Birthday banners from kid-parties
leave dismayed mothers to speculate—
where have all of the signs gone?
Your cryptic name etched
in move credits filed away.
No Bible chapters to pray for
then flip to
Daniel
the tear blurred chapter
seen over stalactites on bottom eyelashes,
dripped from spineless lovers.
Even God pointed his mighty finger at you.
Manifested arrows
prescribing a conclusion
are made invisible.
I don’t walk through doorways
beaten breast to find you
standing there
to feel you
a sign that it has always
been
you.
Just roads and tires
no distractions.
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