Wherever It Pleases

New This Week!

2012-03-03T12:04:00.015-05:00

All Christian! All Fiction! All Genres!

Thank you for visiting Wherever it Pleases, a safe place for Christian readers. Click on any genre you like and browse through the stories. Please feel free to make comments on any story. The authors will appreciate it!

New this week:

General Fiction

Hospice by Walt Staples. An old man waits for a piece of home.

Historical Fiction
The Devil & Nathaniel Hawthorne by Skadi meic Beorh. Conscience or madness?

Western

Water Rift by Tom Sheehan. Water, they say, always seeks its own level. Justice has a way of leveling things out too.

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"Hospice" by Walt Staples

2012-03-03T11:51:00.000-05:00

The old man wheezed in, then out, as he fought for one last gasp, then another, and another…

The RN glanced at the name plate above the bed —“Mr. Richard Green.” A very English name, she thought. She didn’t bother to turn out the light as she left the room; Mr. Green was far beyond noticing. He was just about beyond noticing anything.

The night orderly came bustling in, shaking the last of the snow from his shoulders. “Sorry I’m late.”

She smiled at him. He was young yet, and he still tried. “You’re not all that late. It’s a quiet night.”

He nodded as he set the pasteboard tray, with its two Zip-Gone cups, and a Music Mart bag on the nurses’ station counter. “Anything I should know about?”

“Well,” she thought for a minute, “Sister comes on at six.”

He grinned. “The Flying Nun or Sister Mary Godzilla?”

She laughed. “The big, scaly one.” She turned serious. “Mr. Green is pretty close.”

His expression sobered. He asked, “Do we need to call Father?”

She shook her head. “No, Mr. Green’s Baptist. Morning shift will call 1^st Baptist if necessary. That, and admin will notify Social Security and the VA.”

“Is there no one else to call? No family or anything?”

She shook her head again, but more slowly, more sadly. “No, no one. When he was able to speak, he used to joke that that was what came of living a clean life — you out-live everyone you knew.” She smiled sadly. “He was a sweet old man. Told me he expected the meet up with his ‘better half’ – that’s what he called her – on the beach on Assateague.”

“Assateague?”

“Yes, Eastern Shore. Where 'Misty of Chincoteague' was from.”

“Who?”

She chuckled. “Way before your time. Besides, you were never a girl. Though boys liked the movie too,” she admitted.

“You know you’re using past tense speaking of him,” the orderly pointed out.

Her eyebrows rose. “Oh, am I? Occupational hazard, I suppose, when they get to this point.” She looked at the bag as she took the lid off her mocha. “You went into Tolz?”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m late.” He took a sip of his cappuccino. “Had to get something for Mr. Green.”

The RN, incredulous, looked at him. “What? He sent you into town for something? In his condition?”

He shook his head with a half-smile. “Nope. On my own hook.” He took a CD from the bag and handed it to her.

She read the cover of the jewel case and looked back up at him, head tilted and one eye squinted. “‘Ocean Waves: Calming Sounds of the Sea’?”

“Yep.” He nodded. “A while back, when I was bathing him before he got bad, he said the only thing he missed more than his wife and kids was the sea. You know he was a lifeguard when he met her. At Virginia Beach or Ocean City, I forget which. Said they moved here to the Valley after they married.” He grinned. “Told me never to take up with a Shenandoah girl. They’re worse than homing pigeons or shad.”

“Why didn’t he move back after she died?”

The orderly shrugged. “Never said. I don’t know; maybe he didn’t have the money, or just never got around to it.” He opened the bottom drawer and removed a boom-box, and carried it and the CD into Mr. Green’s room. Curious, the RN followed.

He set the boom-box on the bedside table, popped in the disc, and punched a button. The room filled with the ebb and flow of the sea. As they watched, the old man, eyes closed, smiled and seemed to relax. His breathing gentled.

As she reached over and turned off the alarm, the RN said quietly, “I guess that was all he was waiting for.”

- - -

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"Water Rift" by Tom Sheehan

2012-03-03T11:35:00.001-05:00

A variety of things in a bunch were suddenly bothering rancher Todd Margin, things that he could not directly put his finger on, nor a clear piece of his mind. He was afraid that he had been too comfortable for too long and life did not move that way…not for as long as it had for him. His herds were good and fat, the periodic rustlers had been tailed almost to extinction, the stream flowed as freely as ever, but the heaviness continued to inflict itself on his psyche. He thought it to be an alert, a warning of change. Age might have entered the equation; he was not sure, nor was he sure of Luke Purdom’s part in it, Purdom who had sworn in a drunken rage one night in Lucie’s Saloon that he’d “get Todd Margin someday, one way or another.”

A few months earlier, Margin had fired Purdom for playing games with cattle counts in dealing with two buyers. As information came forth from a number of ranchers, Purdom had tried to get other ranch hands into an elaborate scheme to steal by omission, by not counting all cattle delivered to buyers, money moving from pocket to pocket in the saloon after the dealings were completed. Nobody knew how long it had been going on, or how many people were involved.

The conglomeration of these thoughts had taken Margin into the hills, on a lonely ride, and it turned out to be the beginning of a terribly upsetting day. The whole feeling tore the mask off his incessant dream in which the stream dried up and left his land arid and nearly useless.

Against the halfway mark of a sheer cliff, wet all the way through his outer clothes, Todd Margin reined in his horse as lightning danced a jig overhead. Thunder, in cannonades as wild as battle sounds, tossed and bolted its way through canyons all around him, as if each canyon fattened the roar, added to the swelling sound. Firsthand he knew the fury of driven rain, and could feel in his rump and in his knees the horse’s fears, the gathered and held breath, the muscle torque, the quick exhalations to maintain life. Reins pulled against his hand, coupling their odd energies, his and the horse’s. With a free hand, he tried to gentle the side of the animal’s neck, speaking to him in a calm voice beneath the full-blown glory of the storm: “Whoa, Kris. Whoa, pal. It’s okay, boy. It’s okay. It’d take a straight shot to get us, have to come straight down the chute from above.”

Regarding the possibilities roaring overhead, he drew in the span of his shoulders to lessen the target. Still, he patted the horse; the horse had got him here, the horse’d get him home.

Thoughts of water centered his attention: The Canopic Homesteader’s Stream, slightly known outside its little valley, blue and silent much of the year, begins in the mysteries of the Rocky Mountains where Pacific water, less its salt content, is air-lifted by clouds to unknown receptacles and courses that wait on rain. Water, as it furthers itself, changes to become another form of liquidity, and does its own thing. Henceforth, it wears surfaces down, lifts particles from their ordinary, seeks its own level, makes its own way, and listens to nobody this side of dynamite or Mother Nature. Water insures greenery insuring oxygen insuring life. There is nothing like it, as all of us must attest to on this side of the grass. Elsewhere doesn’t make much difference. Water is, and we are because of it, in spite of it, in agreement with it.

Todd had a deep respect for water in whatever form it found itself, and how he found it. Realization told him that once in a while, this water he thought about so readily made moves nobody on this green earth expected, usually with outside help, like tidal waves on the ocean and hail stones banging down inland big as apples or oranges or grapefruit. Those moves always left marks that lingered on chosen landscapes like persistent sores or terminal scars, like water mark levels scored on surfaces or a landscape changed forever, but they blazed like live brands on the human target.

Such things were in Todd Margin’s view. And it must be said up-front that he was somewhat usual, decent looking in a ruggedly handsome side, committed to cattle raising, and a land-owner. He was loyal, lawful, a splendid rider and roper as were most of his working hands, and a keen shot with the rifle and the handgun on occasion. He was also stubborn, quick to form opinion, hated to let go, wanted children but hesitated at marriage, and continually watched the level of the river water like it was about to leave him high and dry on his corner of the Earth in Wyoming.

Margin, from the perch on his saddled paint on the high ridge of a Rockies foothill, the tree line well below him, held these thoughts as he looked out at the spread of the prairie below. He saw that marvelous spread in the flashes of lightning. Flowers were in riotous blood, like a quilt had been put in place by his grandmother who had come here in a wagon train more than forty years earlier. She had often told Todd when he was a boy that the flowers were an idea of her own innermost expression. Along with the flowers, a huge herd of cattle, off in a northern corner of the prairie, had settled down for the evening, but now would be at an early unrest. He imagined he could hear a cowpoke singing a near-lullaby as he rode on the outer edge of the herd, his voice soft, crooning, the easy round vowels looping like a girl’s breath under the cover of coming darkness.

A few people knew Margin best from their different angles or approach…social, business-curried, or casually on crossed trails where information moves back and forth, true or not, in the western lands. Those people included two neighbor ranchers, his foreman, and Sheriff Joe Boxler back in the town of Camp Silas. Others included one old cellmate when Margin was incarcerated for a spell of five months until the real culprit was found; the usual freighters and coach drivers with Camp Silas on their routes; and, ultimately, Lucie Dexter, the owner of Lucie’s Saloon in Camp Silas. Each of them thought the water rights from the Canopic Homesteader’s Stream were Margin’s due from Providence; that information moved as choice gossip or bar rail talk and centered on his unjust imprisonment for a crime he did not commit. Margin never talked about that part of his life. It was as though the transgression of his imprisonment had been erased, scorched from his life.

Something irrational, therefore compelling, had brought him out earlier to ride in the hills, surmount the land, view all within range. Then, with a lazy ride and nothing practical on his mind, a sudden storm had driven him in to a huge crevice and cave-like structure in the side of a mountain, from which he could see much of the land in the lightning flashes. He’d stay under cover with his horse, trying to keep him settled and quiet, patting him regularly.

At one moment, he felt the ground shake, but it was an odd shaking, not like a bolt of lightning had hit a rocky tor or slashed into a valley or canyon. It felt unnatural; thus it was man-made, like an explosion in the ground and not on it. It piqued and intrigued him to no end, but he dared not leave the safety of the fissured cave.

As suddenly as it had come, the storm was gone. Normal daylight staggered like an evening drunk back into the valleys and canyons as dark clouds were whisked away. The last crack of thunder seemed to be a thousand miles distant. Air came warmer on the back of his neck. The horse relaxed a bit as he rubbed its neck again, as the light overhead brightened, as violent sounds disappeared, his rider also relaxing his breath in tandem.

And yet that unnatural tremble under his feet returned, with the ominous sound bellowing from another canyon. He realized there was no lightning beforehand, no six-second delay to heavenly reverberations. A sense of foreboding returned to him. No mining interests or activities had been around for years. No construction of heavy-duty preparations was known in the vicinity. Nothing came to his mind of any plausible reason for the blast.

But it was water again that entered the argument; it stepped up the serious images capturing his mind. Though pushed by suspicions from odd sources, he thought of Purdom trying to change the course of Canopic Homesteader’s Stream, the stream being the major water source for his crops, for his herds. There had been talk, saying the only surprise that’d bother the usually stoic Todd Margin would be the sudden loss of his water supply. But that, he’d argue, could be true of any rancher, desperate without a normal supply of water.

The wait, seemingly at odds with an intrusion of some sort, the shaking commenced again under his seat, the Earth itself shook, and a roar emanated from out in front of him, in an area difficult to see clearly. But the sounds and the shuddering all said the same thing, that there was a significant shift in the Earth itself.

There was a sudden separation on the face of one mountain wall as a massive portion of a cliff let go its years of grasp, daylight joined the separation and the enormous slice of granite slid thunderously down, directly into the face of Canopic Homesteader’s Stream and shoved it aside. The resultant bubble burst of water went in a different direction and sent its flow into a small valley. It soon filled that valley to become a pond and the pond sent its water spilling onto a stretch of land that had for years been ranched by Todd Margin’s neighbor, Zeke Waldron, who owned the Cross Box spread.

A supply of dynamite, with meticulous planning, had caused the schism, and Margin assumed it was Purdom’s work, studied and performed with a precision Purdom did not normally evince. He must have had help.

In due time, Margin believed, all the underlying facts would be revealed. Purdom, he knew, could not and would not hold a secret or a surprise. “The due time” would be soon, and the surprises might be two-fold.

His visits to Lucie’s Saloon were, as most people knew, just charades to mask his visits to see Lucie. That they were sweet on each other had been a known fact for a few years, but were vaguely energized by Margin, who could “love long-distance,” as one porch-sitter said.

Lucie Boatwright had purchased the saloon for the sum of one dollar from her uncle, Charlie Boatwright, as he lay on his death bed, shot earlier in the day by a cornered escaped prisoner. He had named the place for Lucie the day it opened, and he loved her dearly.

The same night that the stream had been diverted by the dynamite blast, Margin walked into Lucie’s Saloon. As usual, Lucie was ravishing in Margin’s eyes, dressed to glory for a Saturday night. She’d sing a song or two and keep things moving as well as she could, always hoping the rough stuff stayed in the background of the evening.

She rushed over to see Margin when he walked in, her eyes saying that she had already heard about the water change on the land. “Oh, Todd,” she said, “I just heard that there was a problem out your way earlier today, that the water from the stream has been diverted. Is that true? What will you do now?” She was loaded with concern and Margin knew it was real.

“As sure as you’re asking, Lucie. As sure as you’re asking,” he replied, his voice extra calm, the soft smile for her spreading on his face. “Right now, its snaking its way into Albert’s Canyon and coming out the other side right onto Box Bar L’s lower meadows and looking like it’s going to make its way from there right to the Snake River. Truth is, it’s got some new scenery, sure enough.”

Lucie was surprised. “You don’t seem upset at all, Todd. That’d be a bad break for anybody else in here, losing their water supply like that. Do you know what happened?”

“Oh,” said a voice from the other end of the room, “some fool was probably getting even with Margin there for some old reason we might never really know. Least ways, we can guess that, not knowing nothing else. Looks as though he has to buy his water now. Tough luck, Pal.” The sneaky smile crossed his face like a chameleon at work.

“Well, things happen to a man that might have no reason at all,” Margin countered, his manner still subdued, casual as any normal day. “Not much we can do about what happens to us sometimes; the will of the Lord or the will of the devil. Whatever.” He took Lucie by the arm and led her to an empty table.

She was so beautiful that Margin was happy all over just to see her. A glow was in her eyes, her cheeks wearing a soft hue that made him warm through and through. But she said again, the wonder in her voice, “What will you do now, Todd? You need that water. Everybody in here knows that. I don’t know how you can be so calm. I’d be devastated, I know I would.” Her hand touched his hand.

“Ain’t that pretty, boys,” Purdom said from his corner of the room. “Man loses his water right out from under his nose and he don’t get a bit flustered, like everything with him is like play-acting, making believe what is, ain’t what it is. Just like his holding hands with Miss Lucie ain’t what it really looks like.” Purdom stood beside his compadres at the table. His actions were sly, secretive, mean, and getting louder and louder.

Margin stood also, his voice still calm, and said, “Do yourself a big favor, Purdom…keep Lucie’s name out of this. This, like most folks here may be aware of, is strictly between me and you. If you got any more to say about my situation, say so out loud, right now, or keep your mouth shut.”

Purdom came right back. “Things have changed for you, big rancher man. In a short while, you won’t be the big shot rancher you pretend to be. Losing that water is going to be the end of you. We can all see that.”

He spun around and yelled louder so that everybody in the room could hear him. “Man pretends nothing’s wrong, so here’s a man who can’t be believed, 'cause every one of us would be mad as everything about losing water.” He pointed at Margin and said, “You heard me. This man can’t be believed, no matter what he says.” He pointed at the stoic Todd Margin and said, “Tell us now, big rancher, what the real truth is. How you really going to handle this new change, this rotten luck of yours?”

Lucie was the first to note a flicker of a smile on Margin’s face, and she admired the tough spirit of the man who could handle these things so clearly. None of it was the end of life. And this man would somehow be her man before it was all over.

“Funny thing about that, Purdom. Zeke Waldron was saying the same thing last week when we sat down to discuss such things before he went off to see his daughter in Independence. She’s expecting her third child and all those little things have begun to bother Zeke these days.” He stopped his delivery as he looked around the room at a lot of friends. “Most of us know Zeke’s been hurting the last year or so and was worried about his daughter.”

Purdom was pushing the whole situation to some kind of a conclusion. He blurted out, “Some more of your pretty words, Margin. What’s that got to do with your water problem?”

“Just about everything, Purdom,” Margin replied. “I bought the Cross Box spread last week before Zeke went off to see his daughter. My water supply is working fine now.”

An honest laughter began in one corner of the room and ended up at Margin’s table as Lucie Boatwright threw her head back and joined in, her hand still in Margin’s hand.

- - -

Want to learn more about this author? Look Tom Sheehan up on the Contributors page, where you can see everything that each individual writer has contributed, visit their personal webpages, and more!

"The Devil & Nathaniel Hawthorne" by Skadi meic Beorh

2012-03-03T11:16:00.000-05:00

The manuscripts were piled on the escritoire, ready to be torched into oblivion. A foreshadowing of Fahrenheit 451? Probably, but no one could see that far. Instead, unchurched Nathaniel Hawthorne was let alone to do what he pleased. He was a reprobate. Maybe he should burn those damnable papers!

Hawthorne’s Hearth

When I received sad word that my dear American friend and literary companion Nathaniel, now of memorable Hawthorne fame (notwithstanding the publick infamy which his Puritan forefathers, and most especially William and John Hathorne, have brought upon their subsequent generations through their sinister errors with the Indigenous Tribes, and then with the inexcusable witchcraft trials wherein many of societal innocence were drowned and pricked; hanged, drawn and quartered; gibbeted and set afire), began burning his mss. by the dozens, I set in my mind that I would stop him. But wherewithal? Through a letter or series of personal broadsides aimed at shaking his apparently beleaguered soul? Though I loathe the circumstance, I cannot visit him forthwith, for I have been posted here in the wee Irish fishing village of Malinmor for two years near to date, and see no way of being relieved of my bishoprick duties, though they be scant, at any time in the very near future. And to the support of every known woe, Nathaniel has already begun his saddening conflagration. I am most likely too late as it is, misery to us all for the loss of such exhortations toward the Sublime.

Though the Spiritual Principle, by very ontologick essence, cannot suffer deficit for a self-willed misplacement ordered by one of Its infusers, this selfsame Principle, which we have been taught to call “Spirit”, cannot but help to feel sorrow at the loss of a fervent disciple gone awry in mission of sharing life with all nature, as does, and with great kind-heartedness, our dear friend Nathaniel in whom, like the beloved disciple for whom he stands namesake, there is no guile. May we all pray that Nat does not reduce to ashes something of such magnitude which it has been entrusted only to him; though I do admit to fearing the worst in this respect, so great stands my admiration for his spiritual talent and subsequent honed ability with the written word. I ask forgiveness for him if he acts in haste and in the spirit of fear, laying aside his power and authority over the malevolence of this world and succumbing to that which is easy, yet deadly in grasping. Forgive me if I misspeak, but to me it appears that Nat is behaving much like his character Young Goodman Brown, or his lesser known Alberon; utterly overcome by that iniquity which lies in his own breast while being besieged by the trickery of the Devil. Would that our dear frightened brother could find the strength in himself to rise in power like his precious character Mr. Hooper, minister behind the black veil, who, though assailed with all hellish presence in the form of Puritanick backbiting, gossip, and the most terrible situation of a virtuous wife only desiring a blameless and righteous husband, stood to the end at his lonely post to ensample that which was brought to us all at Golgotha; namely, the ability to be formed into magnanimous beings of authority and light.

It seems to us, his friends, then, that Nat is exceedingly frightened of something, and in a letter which I have received from a mutual companion of ours, a Mr. John H--, of Plymouth, New England, our beloved brother is described as being

“oft seen, when at his home, to be wholly terrified, having become nauseous & sparkling with a perspiration which valiantly assists in creating a sallow cast across his grimacing face (otherwise, as you know, rather pleasant to look upon) as he sits entranced, his gifted hands mechanickally grabbing up great bundles of precious mss. &, after fondling them lovingly yet only for the briefest of moments, tossing them, with nearly inaudible moans, into his hearth ablaze, his eyes a’glaze & bugging wildly, as if he sits in the presence of the most horrible apparition...& he does so, we think, for he claims he is haunted by his very Self found in his writings, which are considered by him, if his friends understand him rightly, to be diabolickally inspired & theretofore worthy of nothing but the fire...”

Further, I am informed (by another expedient colleague knowing him quite well, for I have not received an epistle from my brother Nathaniel in well nigh one year), that our comrade has been heard most recently to say that his sleeping has become very chequered of late; for it was one month and a fortnight ago (from the time the letter to me was dated) that our beloved friend awakened suddenly and quite alarmed from a nightmarish slumber, his bed wet with both tears and sweats, the tormenting thought racing to his mind, and in a hellish fury, that the soot from the embers of his burnt manuscripts had surely drifted into the atmosphere and had begun to damn all who had then enbreathed their fiendish essences not having been destroyed in the flames, but somehow refined and made the more deadly by the fires of his hearth.

You see, Nat feels (and most of us think wrongly) that the majority of that which he has penned has not been of the nature of edification, but of blasphemy, in that he has revealed through his sundry characters, in no uncertain terms, his lawless soul; and perhaps in doing so has disclosed the selfsame Soul of Mankind (or part of it), and being the pastoral humanitarian that he most certainly is, he has become tremendously mortified to imagine that any of the filth (his own terminology shared with Mr. H--) revealed in his essays and stories (and, I hear, quite a hoard of dark poetick works as well) may indeed not be destroyed at his hearth at all, but rather shall find themselves in their unfettered state transported upon demonick wings into the air which the populace must necessarily breathe, and so then shall live on in the hearts and minds of an unsuspecting publick who may one day orate, become published, or simply live out, indiscriminately and with seared conscience, the degradation he has writ down, as if the collective idea of evil being written (albeit turned to chemick ash and then unconsciously enbreathed) were somehow made socially acceptable... like the perverse pornographia slung out today, and in the imprudent cause of “healing the soul”, in certain so-called “news” papers, University “reviews,” pamphlets and tracts created, for the most part, in those so-called “coffee houses” aptly named ‘seminaries of sedition.’

We, and I refer to Nat’s closest comrades, have tried in vain to reach the eminent Herman Melville, a great admirer of our friend, that we might be renewed in vision concerning our dear departing companion; for a deportation of faculty has become truly what we feel may be occurring within his overly-excited mind, though we hope with all prayers and sincerity that we are mistaken in our hypothesis. I am, even as I pen these words, broken in heart to think that our pastor and theologian par excellence may be undergoing a dark mental imbalance akin to that which the most troubled and distraught of humanity eventually succumb.

[unsigned ms.; author unknown]

Epilogue

The piece here presented, entitled “Hawthorne’s Hearth,” which stands as an academic outré in light of today’s reduced standards, concerns a common story... a literary legend, if you will...among lovers of Hawthorne. This myth has told, and in a rather one-dimensional way to date, that the illustrious author burned his work for fear that someone would read and terribly misunderstand it, thinking that, for example, he might be glorifying the Black Mass as set up for us in the widely-read and exhilarating short story “Young Goodman Brown.” Then, as our man sat watching the ashes escaping from his chimney, he would become terrorized by the idea that this work, full of what he had convinced himself were damnable ideas, would permeate the hearts and lives of simple people, thus corrupting their souls. Herman Melville’s character Bartleby the Scrivener springs to mind here. Bartleby encounters an extremely dark inconsolability like that which Hawthorne may have experienced while in his fiery deliriums.

We are given brief yet highly enjoyable insight into Hawthorne’s own thoughts on the subject in his not-oft-reprinted “The Devil In Manuscript,” a tale in which, it is assumed, he writes himself into his somber yet comic character. Nevertheless, the legend does remain that Nathaniel did indeed do what his character in the story does; he torched a large stack of stories in his chimney, and perhaps on more than one occasion.

If anyone wonders, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and allegedly because of his embarrassment with his New English ancestors (as the ms. above speaks to), changed his family name Hathorne back to its original Middle English spelling Hawthorne, keeping the once-pronounced “e” at the end, which of course none has enunciated since ‘The Great Vowel Shift,’ a post-Chaucerian change in English elocution.

- - -

Want to learn more about this author? Look Skadi meic Beorh up on the Contributors page, where you can see everything that each individual writer has contributed, visit their personal webpages, and more!

New This Week!

2012-02-25T15:00:00.005-05:00

New this week:

General Fiction

The Murder by Skadi meic Beorh. One of us has to die. Us or Him.

The Red Shoes by Skadi meic Beorh. An old man's betrayal hurts more people than he thinks.

Speculative Fiction

What I Saw by Kim Bond. Two daughters want a double portion of their mother's spirit.

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"The Murder" by Skadi meic Beorh

2012-02-25T14:31:00.000-05:00

Cigarette smoke floated into the lofty ceiling of the old Queen Anne house like clouds into a clear Autumn sky. Two tricenarian men sat together, facing one another, one resting in an oxblood Chesterfield wingback and the other perched on a black wool ottoman, his grey-blue suit and staring eyes and thin build making him look like a blue heron out of its wet environ — uncomfortable and ready for flight. The other man was strong, and good-looking by any standard, his coal-black hair oiled and combed back from his handsome forehead. His curls fell in waves about his ears and blood-red Naru collar. “Tell me why you killed him,” he said as he lit his Calabash pipe. A rich apple aroma soon filled the room, overriding the harsh cigarette smell.

The skinny man did not shift his eyes away from those of the gentleman sitting with him, but a dread suddenly clouded them like the darkening of a body of water when something unknown appears below its surface. “He could see me,” he said as he lit another cigarette, the one he was smoking still between his shaking fingers. “He knew I wasn’t thankful. I had to be rid of him. I had to...He was in every dream I had, every nightmare, every face I saw, everywhere, all the time...”

“I see.”

“Please! My back hurts! Is there not another chair in this godforsaken place? This stool is for feet and children, and nothing else!”

“Please. Be my guest,” said the handsome man as he gestured with his left hand about the room, inviting his visitor to look for a more comfortable seat.

The thin man stood to weakened legs. Only his over-large feet and well-cobbled shoes kept him from pitching forward. He turned to his right, scanning the spacious yet sparsely furnished room. “Nothing,” he said, defeated. He sat back down on the ottoman. “This will have to do, I guess. For now, at least.” He gave his host a quick glance of blame. The man in front of him smiled.

“Derrida was a nihilist, wasn’t he?” asked the man on the ottoman. He fidgeted. He didn’t like people who smiled.

“Many say he was a nihilist, yes,” replied the man in the chair. “Why do you bring up Jacques Derrida?”

“You had better things to do than to spend time with me, Yohanan? Would you have begun writing another novel? Penned a poem? Would you have read some Hemingway? You still like Hemingway, don’t you?”

“What I would have done had you not come today should not be a question, dear Imago. You should know better than to ask me that. We have been friends for many years. You know my love of the moment, of freedom breaking the confines of time constraints. So, you killed him because he could see your lack of thankfulness?”

“Yes! Yes, yes! Is that what you want to hear?”

“And you couldn’t change? You would rather murder a man than change your own personality? Were you really so disturbed that he saw something unnatural in you? Something that mortified you? Were you so disturbed that you were driven to murder?”

“Are you ashamed to know me now, Yohanan?”

“Not ashamed, no. Saddened, yes. Yes, I am very sad to know that you have come to this frame of mind.”

“Don’t you think that as my host you should take this scratchy wool ottoman as your seat and give me the leather chair you sit in? The more comfortable chair in the room?”

“I think no such thing. You asked to come into my home so that I might hear your confession. Why do you seek to make me feel guilty in my own abode?”

“I think you know why. The answer is found in my sickness; a sickness so terrible that I would kill a man only because he could see right through me. I killed a man because in his presence, I had no secrets.”

“Then you confess to being cold? To being so self-centered that unless a person coddles you, they are worthless in your presence?”

“I confess. Yes. I am cold and in pain. My back hurts me, my head throbs, and this gnawing and clawing in my belly is like fire and ice somehow working together to eat my guts and my liver and my kidneys and my heart! I want to weep, yet I can’t weep. I want to scream and claw at the sky and vomit out all of my pain! Instead, I can only take my weaker friends and throw things at them. Empty wine bottles, rocks, offal... Sometimes with insane piratical shouts I lift and throw them across the room!”

Yohanan gazed into the fiery, shifting eyes of Imago. His face and body were calm.

“My word...you! Now you are looking at me like he did!” Imago jumped from the ottoman, the muscles of his chest and shoulders tightening in the abnormal way of any creature filled with disease and confusion. His suit, cut for a larger man, was slack on him and therefore of no use to his frail physique.

“Will you now murder me, old friend, understanding that I can also see you as you really are?”

Imago leapt at Yohanan, his long fingers grasping with boiling hatred the neck of his gentle host. He then squeezed with a strength far beyond his physical capability; with a potency like that of the wild man from Gadara.

As a sheep held by his shearer, Yohanan smiled, closed his eyes, and waited.

* * * *

“But he — had to die: he looked with eyes which beheld everything, — he beheld men's depths and dregs, all his hidden ignominy and ugliness.

His pity knew no modesty: he crept into my dirtiest corners. This most prying, over-intrusive, over-pitiful one had to die.

He ever beheld me: on such a witness I would have revenge — or not live myself.

The God who beheld everything, and also man: that God had to die! Man cannot endure it that such a witness should live.”

Thus spake the ugliest man.

~ Nietzsche, from Thus Spake Zarathustra

- - -

"The Red Shoes" by Skadi meic Beorh

2012-02-25T14:03:00.000-05:00

My grandpa changed forever that day. Before, he was overriding and hardly ever did anything nice for grandma, at least not to speak of. After, he was the sweetest, most kindest person you’d ever want to be around.

It was a lazy Saturday morning with dead leaves flying around everywhere and a cool Halloween breeze that made me want to go out and run around in circles. Cartoons were over for the day and so after I ran around outside for a little bit, I got myself interested in what my grandma was doing in the kitchen.

“You bakin’ pies for Halloween grandma?”

“Yes, darlin’. I’m makin’ pecan pies with the nuts you and your brother picked up yesterday.”

“Really? Yum! Can I help?”

“You sure can, sweetheart. You can take your cute curly-haired self right over to that sink and help me keep up with the dishes while we work.”

I was suddenly disinterested. Grandma chuckled. “That’s alright,” she said with a big smile, letting me know she really didn’t want me in the kitchen — probably because of the cookie dough incident that happened the week before. “Go on and play then,” she said. “Dinner’ll be ready here directly.”

Dinner in our family was always around noon. Most of my friends called it ‘lunch,’ and they called their supper ‘dinner.’ They thought I was crazy, but I was Southern in a place that had a lot of Northerners living there.

I passed my grandpa on the way out. He tussled my hair but didn’t say anything. He hardly ever said anything. When he was young, I think he was the strong, silent type. He was a retired plumber, so that made sense to me. You’d have to be strong and silent to go around with your butt crack showing and not care what anybody thought.

* * * *

After a dinner of fried chicken, collard greens, field peas, cornbread and butter, sweet tea, and pecan pie, grandma pulled a chair in the middle of the kitchen floor and told grandpa to sit down, that it was time for him to get a haircut. He didn’t say anything, but cut himself another piece of pecan pie and did like he was told. Then grandma shooed us all out of the kitchen, which was me, my mama, my daddy, and my little brother, Elisha. But I was curious about grandpa’s haircut. I had never seen this before, so I wanted to watch.

“If you’re goin’ to stay around, you can wash all the dirty dishes, Elsa Marie,” grandma said as she pointed to the pecan pies on the table.

“I’m gonna be a Rabbit-Eared Devil tonight for Halloween!” I said as I took her hint and got me another piece of pie and pretended to leave. But I wanted more than anything to watch grandpa get his hair cut, so I hid just outside the kitchen door and ate my pie. I figured I might be able to catch a few quick glances every now and again, but what interested me more was that maybe grandpa would talk now that nobody was around, and I didn’t need my eyes for that.

My grandparents stayed silent at first. Grandma got out her haircutting shears. She used to be a hairdresser when she was young. She threw a kitchen apron around grandpa. “Don’t forget to take a bath after,” she said.

“I can’t forget with them little stingin’ hairs all over me,” he said as he shut his eyes.

“Silas?”

“Yes, Anna?”

“Who is the woman wearing the red high heels?”

“Who is who?” Grandpa answered. His eyes popped wide open.

Grandma’s shears flashed in the bright kitchen light. “Who is she, Silas? Tell me.”

“Tell you what? Tell you what, woman?”

“Just tell me who the girl is that’s wearin’ the red shoes. I’ve seen her, Silas. I know all about it.”

Grandpa fidgeted in his chair and stomped his heels on the floor a few times. He loosened the apron from around his throat. “What are you after, woman?” he finally said.

“I want to hear you tell me is all. I want to hear you say you’ve been with her. I want…to forgive you. We all do things…we shouldn’t sometimes. Sometimes we’re weak and we don’t ask the Lord for His strength…”

“Now you know I ain’t religious and never have been, woman. Why are you preachin’ at me like that? I let you have your church. Why can’t you leave me be, Anna?”

“You’re tryin’ to change the subject, Silas, but I’m not goin’ to let you. This ain’t about my beliefs, it’s about our marriage. And I know you’ve always been faithful, even when you was a young, good-lookin’ man workin’ in them houses alone with all them housewives there by themselves. You might have thought a few things sometimes, but you never did anything…with any of them. And now… now that you done got old and grey-headed and fat, you go out and get yourself a college girl! One of them young ones that like old men! I see you, Silas! I see you and her, plain as day! For shame, Silas! For shame!”

I was horrified. I would remember this Halloween forever. I bit my lip until it bled. Then I had to cough. I ran down the hallway to the stairway leading upstairs. I tripped and banged my funny bone on the banister. By the time I got to the second floor, I was crying. What had I just heard? What had I just heard! Now I couldn’t be a Devil Rabbit for Halloween because all I could imagine was Playboy models wearing rabbit ears and dancing around in the licking flames of Hell! I didn’t know how to move my body or what to do, so I just swayed there outside the guest room that used to be my mama’s room when she was little, twisting this way and that and wringing my hands and crying until my little brother Elisha came running up with his new yellow clackers to show me. “Don’t break your wrist with them things,” I said through my tears. When he saw I was crying, he hugged me really tight and then took my hand and pulled me to the upstairs parlor and sat me down on the old-timey couch and started talking to me about my favorite cartoon, Scooby-Doo. I finally stopped shaking and sobbing.

“Whatcha gonna be for Halloween, sister?” Elisha asked me.

“An angel,” I said as I wiped my eyes on a Kleenex he handed me.

“Where you gettin’ the wings from? How you gonna make your wings?”

“A ghost angel then,” I said. I closed my eyes and replayed in my mind the whole conversation between my grandma and grandpa, which made me start to cry again.

“You gonna wear just a sheet with eyeholes?” Elisha asked me.

“Yeah, just a stupid old sheet…” I said.

“Like Charlie Brown with eyeholes all over it?” he asked me. Then he started to laugh. “You gonna wear your red Wizard of Oz shoes, sister?”

“No!” I screamed. “I hate red shoes! I hate them!”

- - -

"What I Saw" by Kim Bond

2012-02-25T13:49:00.000-05:00

I am a plain man. I do not believe folks can read the future or your palm or your mind. Things too wonderful for me to understand, I don’t even ponder. Who can claim to know what happens when we die? Whether we go to Heaven or sleep until Jesus returns or something else? For Edna, I suppose it was something else altogether.

Since my wife passed, me and the girls only go to church once a week. Edna insisted on some church activity six or seven times a week. She was a noble woman, a woman of hard-earned character. When the townspeople called her a good woman, she did not accept the compliment. A humble ol’ girl, she was. I don’t know how in heavens the girls turned out the way they did.

When the girls were first born, Edna was delighted to have twins. Her face shined like she just won first prize in the pie contest. She even said how wonderful it would be for the girls to have each other as companions for all of their lives. They weren’t companions though, not even close.

From the time they were toddlers, they clawed and scratched at each other, fighting over toys and clothes and whatever else. Bonnie was the biter. They aren’t the kinda twins that look alike, mind you. Bonnie has wild and wiry blond hair; Serena has ivory skin and jet black hair, just like a china doll. Edna and I called her Doll, but Bonnie just called her Serena.

Doll and Bonnie kept on at that quarreling even when Edna was lying on her deathbed. She lay under the covers with her eyes closed in our bedroom. The girls stood on either side of her.

Doll grabbed her hand and said with more sadness than an eleven-year-old girl should ever know, “Mama, remember Elisha and Elijah from the Bible? Elisha asked for a double portion of Elijah’s spirit right before Elijah went up to Heaven in a whirlwind. I will be Elisha; you can be Elijah. Give me a double portion of your spirit when you go.”

Tears, the kind that fall when your heart has just been squeezed like a piece of fruit, fell from Bonnie’s eyes. “No, Mama. Don’t give it to Serena. Give me your spirit.” She laid her head on Edna’s lap. That’s when Edna died.

The men came to get Edna’s body from our home shortly after that. Some ladies from town brought us dinner that night. I told the girls an early night would do us all good and tucked them in their beds.

I could not bring myself to sleep in the bedroom. Just hours earlier, Edna was so there. And then, all of a sudden, she was so not there. It was like a black hole in our bed had swallowed the sun. And if I laid down where the black hole was, it might suck the moon up too.

So I tossed and turned on the couch. I thought about things the way Edna would want them. At the funeral, I mean. Since I couldn’t sleep, I decided to check on the girls.

As I quietly opened the door, I saw both Doll and Bonnie sleeping sound in their beds. But when I closed the door, something gold flashed fast like lightning. I only saw it out of the corner of my eye, so I opened the door again.

Standing at the foot of Bonnie’s bed was someone like an Amazon woman dressed up as a Solid Gold dancer. Auburn ringlets covered her head, but it looked as if a great light was shining on some parts of her hair and, in those places, it shone gold. She wore a leather and metal bodice with a frilly skirt. She held a bow with an arrow pointed at Doll. It was transparent in appearance and vaguely resembled Bonnie in some ways. I figured it was Bonnie’s spirit.

Just then, a ghostly figure rose right up out of Doll’s body — her spirit. Also exceptionally tall, this woman wore a long sapphire gown. She drew a sword and blocked the arrow shot at Doll’s sleeping body. I was frozen in fear and could not believe my own eyes as the two battled in the girls’ bedroom. The spirits paid no attention to me and just kept on battling until the woman in the blue dress stepped close enough to the Amazon woman to catch her bow with the tip of the sword’s blade. She flung it across the room.

Then the Amazon woman — er, Bonnie’s spirit — ran right through me into my bedroom. I spun around and pursued her. As I stood in the doorway, she snatched something from the bed like a folded robe. When the robe had unfurled, wafts of Edna’s rosewater perfume filled the air. Not only that, but the robe emitted Edna’s very presence. Doll’s spirit leapt right through me and took hold of the robe. They yanked and pulled. It was a regular tug-of-war over Edna’s spirit.

Finally, Bonnie’s inner apparition leaned forward and bit Doll’s spiritual arm. The lady in blue suddenly let go. Bonnie’s spirit quickly slipped the robe over her Amazon attire. While Doll’s spirit looked in awe at her empty hands, Bonnie’s spirit marched toward me. I stepped aside (so as to avoid her walking through me again).

I followed her back to the girls’ bedroom. The Amazon woman lay atop Bonnie and sunk into her body. Doll’s body sucked the woman in the sapphire dress right through the hallway and back into her body like a high quality vacuum sucks up a peanut.

The next morning, I thought it all was a dream. But when the two girls awoke, things were unusually peaceful. I thought it was the despair of their mother passing. However, Bonnie offered to make breakfast and when she whipped my eggs, she hummed a joyful song.

Then she called out, “Doll, how do you want your eggs?”

At that moment, I knew it could not have been a dream. Bonnie never called her Doll. She had most certainly inherited Edna’s spirit. From that time on, Doll and Bonnie became the companions Edna had hoped they would be.

As for me, I told you I am a plain man. Things too wonderful for me, I don’t even ponder. I just know what I saw.

- - -

Want to learn more about this author? Look Kim Bond up on the Contributors page, where you can see everything that each individual writer has contributed, visit their personal webpages, and more!

New This Week!

2012-02-18T12:36:00.002-05:00

New this week:

General Fiction

For Rent by Owner by Walt Staples. The wicked prosper while the good suffer?

Eagle Among the Doves. Life doesn't usually turn out the way we want.

Quiet Times with Daddy. A man looks forward.

Western

Heated words by Susan Estes. We all follow one or the other.

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"Quiet Times with Daddy" by Skadi meic Beorh

2012-02-18T12:17:00.000-05:00

My daddy was fond of taking me fishing on Stone Lake, where we’d fish for bluegill, bream, and catfish. I had to be real quiet, though. I couldn’t scuffle my feet in the boat. And I couldn’t talk either. A whisper every now and again was alright, but it had to be about fish. And not just any fish. I liked sharks, but those were off limits while freshwater pole fishing. I told everybody I wanted to be a chondrichthyologist when I grew up. They usually just smiled and looked over at whatever parent was present, usually my mama, who would smile back and roll her eyes and shrug her shoulders and bask in the bookworminess of her weird little boy.

Daddy was a hunter, even when he was fishing. The strong, silent type. (I take after my soft, chatty mother.) Once we had slipped out over the weedy green waters and were stalking our unseen prey, there was no horseplay or idle chit-chat allowed. We were there to fish – to master the elements, to bring home not one or two denizens of those murky waters, but a whole string, a freezer full, which we would clean and freeze in plastic milk cartons against the unforgiving Winter months when cold showers are preferred to fishing on cold, windy lakes .

One cool October morning, daddy and I went without a boat, so we ‘borrowed’ one from a fisherman who wasn’t there. I was really worried about that, but Daddy said it was okay, as long as we brought it back in the same condition we had found it in, or better. Or better? He taught me to scull that day, and said I did real good. I felt proud.

The next weekend, we took a long road-trip out to an old well which Daddy had drunk out of when he was a boy. I felt excited about that. The way he painted the good old days, I longed to go back and spend time with him when he was a boy – run through the woods with him, hop trains with him, work at the docks, heading shrimp with him. Anything. I didn’t care. Just as long as I could spend time with him.

When we got to the wooded area where the well was, we realized we hadn’t brought anything to drink out of. But on the rim of the well sat a tall wax paper cup somebody had left. Daddy said the sulfur in the water would kill the germs, if there were any to kill. That sounded right to me. When I think of those moments in the cool “fishing weather” breeze of that morning, I can still feel the icy water burbling down my throat. I can still smell the strong scent that was a little like rotten eggs, but not too much. That day we also found some wild scuppernongs. While we sucked the meat out, we checked to see how far we could spit the skins and the seeds. Daddy won, but he was a lot taller than me. His went soaring yards away. Mine only went a few feet.

Not long after my sculling adventure on Stone Lake, I learned how to drive in our brand-new ‘74 Impala. Daddy took me to part of the Old Spanish Trail. Daddy was long-suffering with me as we sped along haphazardly in that 400-horse power monster across big clumps of grass and uneven red bricks which I imagined were being quickly lain down in front of us by Spanish soldiers who hoped we would be patient enough for them to finish their job. Decades later, I was to read somewhere that the road was actually begun in 1915 to connect New Orleans to Florida. Sometimes it’s just better to never learn the truth.

A year earlier, to the day (it was my birthday), Daddy had taken me to a 19th-century farmhouse ruin in the backwoods of railroad and steamboat town of Pollard, Alabama. There, as we moved carefully through the old boards with nails in them, I found a hand-made brick. Daddy said I could take it with me as a souvenir. I proudly covered my birthday surprise in cellophane paper so it wouldn’t wear away. For years, I used this brick as a doorstop in my bedroom. The last time I ever saw it, sometime in the mid-Eighties, the paper had been taken off it, and it lay next to the house in the back yard.

A few months after my driving escapade along the Old Spanish Trail, we went to another part of the woods near Holt, Florida and stumbled across a briary pig-trail running through a tract of land filled with long-leaf pine and oak. That day, Daddy showed me the difference between water, white, red, live, scrub, and Spanish oaks, and taught me how to call like a bobwhite and a whippoorwill. We also found an old door laying over a pile of sticks and trash.

“Hey, hey! Will ya look at that! Wonder what’s under that!” Daddy cried out. He was always a little boy again when we went out on adventures in the woods. We had stopped bringing my little sister, Pat, after the very first time. She hated the woods and stood at the head of the trail and cried until Daddy got so disgusted with her that we got back in Daddy’s fishing truck and drove straight home... at least 60 miles.

“Careful about snakes, Daddy,” I warned him as I stood frozen, waiting for him on the very safe pig-trail. I just knew he was going to get bit. I wasn’t about to go out in that jungle! He kicked at the old rotten door, stomped on it a few times, and then stood up and waited.

“See. That’s what you do,” he said. “It’ll run any ol’ snake outta there, but you gotta make some noise.”

“What kinda noise, Daddy?”

I was imagining the biggest rattlesnake in the world. Fangs as big as the fingers Daddy playfully jabbed at all us kids, pretending his hand was a snake head, calling his fingers ‘fangers’.

“Noise like I just made. Weren’t ya watchin’ me?”

His voice was serene. Very kind.

“Now, them ol’ water moccasins,” he said, “they’re another story altogether. They won’t move when you make noise. No, sir. You have to get a ol’ stick or somethin’ to move ‘em with. A long one, though. They won’t just bite you once. They’ll bite you ‘til you’re dead.”

My Adam’s apple was stuck in my throat, and I didn’t even have a fully grown one yet. BITE YOU ‘TIL YOU’RE DEAD. BITE YOU ‘TIL YOU’RE DEAD.

“Hey-hey! Look-a’here! Look what we got here!”

I was half way back to the car.

“Where you goin’?” Daddy asked me. “Come on back here! Look what we found!”

What WE found? Hmmmmm...

I crept gingerly back down the shady path until I got just behind my daddy. I was still expecting a snake, a dead snake, a thousand baby snakes, a snapping turtle... something dangerous.

But no. Daddy had found us a 1920’s typewriter. Man, he was so proud of that thing! So while I watched out for rattlesnakes, Daddy moved all the debris and sticks and the door which had been used to cover the machine. We loaded it up in the trunk, took it home, and cleaned it up with some of Daddy’s brushes he had gotten from NASA when he had worked for them as an aerospace engineer.

The next day, we drove into Downtown Pensacola and ran down a ribbon at an out-of-the-way typewriter shop. This was one of those places where the friendly men talk about fishing and cars and the good ol’ days. I breathed in the clean, rustic scent of lubricating oil and leather. The store smelled like the barber shop and the shoe repair store in Flomaton, but nothing like my Uncle Paul’s bait shop in South Flomaton where we got earthworms and crickets and blood bait.

The men working at the repair shop were nice. One of them showed me the inside workings of a typewriter. The flywheel. The gadget flip. The jam-keys. The thumb-snap. The finger-pinch. The paper-rip. And, of course, the ribbon we had come to buy. Daddy laughed good-naturedly. The men all smiled and called me a fine young man.

As I would sit pecking away on that machine into the wee hours of the morning, typing up my poetry and stories, I knew that I would make my living as a writer one day.

Not only did my daddy give me a love for people, he also gave me a burning desire for exploration which has taken me around the world, and through many a forest. I hope he is proud of the woodsman I have become; that he always hoped I would be.

Not long ago, Daddy went fishing with some of his boyhood buddies. He’ll be back for me one day, though. He needs me to scull the boat.

- - -

"For Rent by Owner" by Walt Staples

2012-02-18T12:02:00.002-05:00

Sam Driver was just drawing another bead on the culprit. The fact that this was his fourth shot did not speak well for the Gull Dunes police chief’s marksmanship. At that moment, the screen door’s rusted spring made its sprong! as someone pulled it open. Sam quickly hid the evidence of his idleness among the other rubber bands on the station house desk as his target buzzed off to another part of the room. The Reverend Ron Quimby stopped in front of the desk. Sam looked up at the Methodist minister and smiled. “Hi, Reverend Ron. What can I do for you this fine morning?”

The clergyman set down his briefcase, produced a handkerchief and, tipping his hat to the side, ran it over his bald pate. “You know, Sam, it’s well you’re one of Father Mike’s. Were you one of my flock, after a whopper like that, I’d have to institute the rite of Confession.”

Sam grinned. “Well, that rules out an attempt at conversion. Like I said, what can I do for you?”

“Got a problem with Snake Levi,” he said as he ran the cloth around the sweatband of the hat.

Sam raised his eyebrows and leaned forward. “What has our errant native son done this time?” He pointed to the chair beside the desk with an open hand.

Reverend Ron settled into it with a grunt. “Actually, not him. One of his forebears.”

“Oh? What did the dinosaur do?”

The minister chuckled. “Not quite that far back, Sam. A few years later, 1587 to be exact.”

The police chief did a double take. “1587?”

The other settled himself like one preparing to tell a long story. “In the year of our Lord, 1587, a Spanish ship dropped anchor in the bay, having come through Opoccacho Inlet. The crew was apparently a mixed lot — Dutch Captain, Spanish, Italian, and French sailors, and one German of questionable religion — Snake’s ancestor. The short of it is the Europeans bought the land from the resident Indian tribe, the Opoccachos.”

“How much land and what did they pay for it?”

Reverend Ron grinned as he popped the punch line, “Only the entire Delmarva Peninsula. Seems they used their firearms to turn back some Susquehannock who were down for their annual summer massacre.”

Sam leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. “Yeah, right.”

The Methodist shook his head. “I kid you not. Apparently, the Opoccachos figured they didn’t have that much to lose. If the Susquehannocks weren’t beating up on them, the Assateagues and the Naticokes were. Heck, even the Powhatans came over from the mainland occasionally to lean on them. Anyway, the agreement allowed the Opoccachos to stay.

“Then the ship and its crew sailed to Havana where the agreement was registered and granted by the Royal Governor. They were sailing back to take possession when they tried to shoot the inlet during a storm. The captain apparently panicked and started giving orders in Dutch to the Spanish and Italian helmsmen and she ran aground on the point.”

Sam hooked a thumb to the right. “You mean…?”

“Yep. Six blocks down the street. About where Gunny’s got his shooting gallery.

“Snake’s ancestor and a Frenchman were the only ones to get ashore. Shortly after, the Frenchman died.”

The police chief nodded. “If Snake’s kinsman was anything like the present model, the Frenchman probably had help.”

Reverend Ron smiled sourly. “Would not surprise me greatly. Levi Schwartz, the ancestor, was the last surviving member so he inherited.”

Sam cocked his head and looked at the other. “How do you know all of this, Reverend?”

“Remember when the Opoccacho material was returned under the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act year before last?”

“What? The basket and the arrow heads?” Sam nodded. “Yeah, I remember that stink.”

The minister also nodded. “Three things weren’t returned. A skeleton, a 16^th century bottle, and a gold Magan David.”

“A who?”

“Star of David.” Reverend Ron scratched his ear. “Seems Levi Schwartz was a little less than dutiful about his Catholicism. But can you blame him, the way Jews were treated back then? And yes, the skeleton was his, which is why it didn’t have to be given back. His Opoccacho wife or their children, yes. But not old Levi. The Smithsonian got to keep him. They also got to keep the bottle, but not what was in it.” He opened his briefcase and drew out an aluminum tube. Unscrewing the cap on one end, he slid a rolled coffee-with-cream-colored parchment out and spread it on the desk. He smiled as he said, “This had to come back because it belongs to Levi’s Indian descendants.”

Sam looked at the ornate calligraphy and the numerous seals attached to the darkened sheet. While he could figure which was the top and bottom, the words meant nothing to him. “And this is?”

“It’s the royal charter approved and signed by the Royal Governor of Havana, Garcia y Vega de Frumales in the name of Philip II.” He flipped it over, showing on the back faint writing in letters not even vaguely familiar to Sam. “And this is the side on which Levi wrote the story of the wreck.”

“What kind of writing is that?”

Reverend Ron grinned. “Hebrew. Like I said, Levi was a questionable Catholic. That’s how I became involved. A friend at the Smithsonian remembered I used to be pretty good at medieval and renaissance Hebrew and asked me to take a look. The fact that I’m from Watsitooya County was just so much gravy. Between the two of us, we managed to chase the genealogy down to the last living relative - Snake.”

Sam frowned. “So what? This is U.S. territory now.”

The minister raised an index finger. “Ah, but in the past, the government has respected royal charters and land grants from the Spanish crown. A number of large ranches in the U.S. Southwest got their start from Spanish land grants handed down through families. I had a couple of other friends at Georgetown look it over. They’re of the opinion that it will hold up in court.”

Sam squinted at him. “So you’re telling me that my house it sitting on Snake Levi’s land?”

“Not just your house, Sam.” Reverend Ron spread his hands. “Everything on the Delmarva Peninsula. We all owe him rent.”

- - -

Want to learn more about this author? Look Walt Staples up on the Contributors page, where you can see everything that each individual writer has contributed, visit their personal webpages, and more!

"Eagle Among the Dove" by Jenean McBrearty

2012-02-18T11:49:00.000-05:00

“Father Steve Halloran. Yet you’re traveling with Anita Mallard. Interesting.” General Uri Savage tucked their passports inside a manila envelope and turned his attention to the rye bread and pork slices on his lunch tray, as Steve, shivering and hungry after forty-eight hours in the Marj prison, nodded yes.

“We met on the plane.”

“Does Benedict know?”

“The Holy Father has better things to do than monitor traveling wine merchants.” The smell of roast pork and steaming potatoes made him salivate so he averted his eyes from the tray.

“Well, he tolerates child molesters, why not apostate priests? Filthy German.” Uri spat on the floor.

“Anita’s a reporter. You have her press credentials,” Steve said.

Uri chose an orange slice to inspect. Fresh fruit was as rare in Marj as gasoline. “Belarus is an odd place for a romantic tryst. Why leave Venice?”

“I had business in Minsk. Anita wanted to see the Red Church. We’re thinking of using it on St. Francis’ label. To differentiate our European wines from our California wines.”

“The Church is beautiful, no? Rebuilt after the war — dates back to the 1000’s.” Uri sucked the juice out of the orange and gnawed at the pith. “Why didn’t you stay in Minsk? Tatiana Volmanskya doesn’t make wine.”

“Poltava Limited does. And Marj could use a revenue stream from what I can see.”

Uri attacked the meat. “So you’re not interested in our latest war criminal?” Beside his tray was an Enquirer rag-mag. Dancing Her Way Into History read the headline announcing the story of Russia’s prima ballerina who was under suspicion of sedition against Eastern Europe’s newest dictator, Alexander Lukashenko.

“Don’t hurt Anita for something you think I’ve done,” Steve said.

“How noble,” Uri said, sinking back in his chair. “Save my mistress. Interesting.”

“Loving a priest isn’t a crime, it’s a sin,” Steve said. “My sin. She doesn’t know I’m a priest.”

“So, you’ve denied Christ for forbidden fruit?” Uri laughed, and returned to his meat.

“I’ve denied only my commitment to Him.” Uri pushed the plate towards him and handed him a fork. “Give it to Anita, please,” Steve said.

“She’s waiting at the hotel with your friend, Martin, in Warsaw,” Uri said, and Steve whispered a 'thank God'. He poured two glasses of wine and handed one to Steve. “You think Californians will like this?”

The wine warmed him a little. “Yes. They will. It’s light.” Knowing Anita was safe made whatever lay ahead less daunting — if it was true.

“You’re too old to play Superman, Martin,” Steve told the white-haired St. Francis accountant. Martin was packing a suitcase, throwing in socks and shoes with his toiletries. “You’ll never get through security with this stuff…Listen..” Steve tipped over the suitcase and started packing it neatly.

Martin sighed in agreement and brought plastic vials from the bathroom, and poured shampoo and mouthwash into smaller containers. “Priests and teenagers. They think love is only for God and the young,” he said. “I’ve waited sixty-six years, never took holy orders. Why? Because I had to stay free to marry her…my Tatiana.”

“You never took holy orders because you’re a Lutheran, Martin. And you could’ve become a minister."

“And leave the Brothers to take care of their own books? Are you nuts? Franciscans pray and bottle wine, not count their coins. Here, pack a few of these tee-shirts.”

“You don’t even know if it’s her, Martin. Don’t you think you ought to verify?”

“Shut up." Martin sat on the bed and pulled Steve beside him. “You ever seen a miracle? No. You’ve spent your life with addicts and drunks. I was one myself. War does that to people. But I saw a miracle.” Martin reached under his pillow and withdrew a Von's Market rag-mag and shoved it into Steve’s hand. "The Russians got to Berlin before the Americans did. But when we did get there, we had the biggest celebration with the Ruskies you can imagine — Tovarich! Tovarich! And the musicians played Benny Goodman and mazurkas and we all danced and drank till we were exhausted.”

He dug in his breast pocket and handed Steve a photograph of a skinny and pale blonde girl standing in a bombed-out doorway. “Tatiana stepped out on the stage followed by an old man with a violin and we all went silent. She wore a loose sack dress and her ballet slippers were ragged and held on by boot laces tied to frayed ribbon, but she was beautiful. That old man played a song from Swan Lake and she moved like an angel — so beautifully, men cried. This is what they had fought for — street by street, house by house, room by room — liberating starving children, and women who saw Hell in the Nazi brothels. Martin's eyes teared and his lips quivered as he spoke. “It was Tatiana's way of thanking the troops for her freedom.”

Steve’d read stories of the Nazi brothels that enslaved captured women. “Freedom is a miracle to those in bondage," he said.

“In the audience, was a soldier in a wheelchair, missing half his face," Martin continued. "His head was wrapped in blood-soaked bandages and he couldn’t be heard over the applause that rolled through the crowd. Then someone yelled, ‘Silence!’ And we heard him call her name — ‘Tatiana. Tatiana. It's me Mikail.’ What were the odds that her brother would live to see his sister dance again after so many years and so many tears? But God had left him one eye.”

“That is a miracle, Martin,” Steve said as the old man took the picture and caressed it with rough hands and gnarled fingers.

“A hundred million people were killed or displaced by the war. And after that, the Iron Curtain divided the world. Now, the curtain is rent and she’s in danger again. In another prison. God’s left me one last chance to save her.”

“You tried to get her out after the war?”
“She wouldn’t leave Mikail. Crippled as he was, he couldn’t have escaped, and no one was allowed to leave.” Martin held the picture close to his heart. “I love her, Steve. I have to go.”

Uri and Steve walked down a dimly-lit hallway lined with cell doors, Uri in his olive drab uniform with red and gold regalia, and Steve wearing a heavy green coat over his tourist clothes. Four days in a Marj prison was like forty years, but at least he’d been fed rye bread and boiled potatoes regularly, and had red wine to drink. Mostly, he sat alone in his cell staring up at the sky through a three-by-four-foot window ten feet above his cot. He’d had one cold shower and had to empty his own slop bucket in the latrine every afternoon. But there was hope. Martin would contact the Papal Legate in Rome, and the Vatican would make inquires about the missing priest from California’s Franciscan Monastery. No one knew what a bad priest he was – yet. Benedict wouldn't let the Belarusian government steal one of its personnel assets without objection, would he?

“I don't mind swapping a traitor for a spy. And Lukashenko won’t care. He needs enemies and he’d prefer a priest to an old woman. The Vatican is a more formidable, worthy foe,” Uri said as he and Steve walked down a dark corridor. Uri stopped in front of a door and knocked. “Madame Volmanskya. It’s General Savage.”

“Come in,” a woman’s voice said. Savage led him inside. No key, but then an old woman couldn't escape from a dungeon.

“Talk with Tatiana," Uri instructed. She sat at a small table covered by a white linen tablecloth; before her, was a steaming pot of tea and two red, flowered cups. She motioned Steve to sit, and Uri gave her a polite bow before he left.

“Uri tells me you’re a priest,” she said when he sat down. Her hair was loose about her shoulders, laying like white lace on her black silk dress. “It’s true?” she said in well-spoken English.

“Yes. Father Halloran.” She poured two cups of tea and offered one to him.

“I want to confess my sins, Father. Sorry, there’s no sugar.”

“I can’t hear your confession, Madame. Having no sugar isn't a sin.”

“Is it because of the woman?”

“She has nothing to do with the sugar situation.”

Tatiana smiled. “You play games with me, Father. You know you do not have to be in a state of grace to administer the sacraments, only to receive them. You can absolve me and you cannot deny me, if I’m contrite.”

“I’m an unworthy Catholic priest, not Russian Orthodox...”

“I’m not particular. I’m dying of brain cancer.” She brushed a wily wisp of hair from her eyes. “Don’t look so sad. I’m old and achy and," she glanced around the room,

"this place is ugly.”

Steve covered his eyes with his hand, and prayed silently for a few seconds. “What are your sins?” he said softly, looking away from her. He was there to listen, not to judge. Nor was he there to see a sixteen-year-old survivor of the Great Patriotic War, but an adult who must be called to account — as we all must, no matter what life held for us. Yet, his heart wrenched for Martin, who would never see the woman he loved.

“After the war, I danced for the Bolshoi. I and my son by Major Buchman, the commandant of a Berlin brothel. He was a devotee of the ballet and when he found out I had been classically trained, he kept me for himself — his private dancer. Eventually, I put on enough weight to conceive. A dear little boy. Klaus.”

“He was a child of rape. It's not your sin. And it was not a sin to love him, Madame.”

“To the KGB, it was a sin for me to love Major Buchman. They accused me of being a collaborator. During the trial, they brought the boy to me — so happy to see his mama — I knew they wanted proof I rejected Nazism. So I cut the child’s throat." Her words were full of a dull sadness of the past, as ugly as the gray stone walls.

Perhaps she believed death was better than life in a regime that was as bad as the one her country had vanquished. Perhaps she had a right to protect her life at the cost of the child’s. Perhaps the war had driven her insane and she was not in possession of her mind or her morality. Perhaps she despaired. Perhaps she knew her accusers were going to kill the child anyway, and thought it better he spend the last few minutes of his life in her arms.

Whatever the case, Halloran slowly made a sign of the cross above her bowed head. “I absolve you of all your sins,” he heard himself say as he contemplated what penance he could extract for one heinous crime springing from another. She recited the Act of Contrition, her hands clasped tightly in front of her. Through her hell, she had clung to her faith that there was no sin God could not forgive. She’d been robbed of everything — her body, herself, her womb. But mostly, she'd been robbed of love. “Go in peace, and sin no more,” he said though she had no need of the words except, perhaps, to hear them spoken by someone who cared.

“What is my penance, Father?’ she said.

“Go to Venice — to Martin. He’s waiting for you”

"Who?" He detected no feigned ignorance in the question. Did she really not remember? Had Martin come all this way for nothing?

"The American soldier from Nebraska. He's come back for you."

"My Martin? Has Savage agreed? Is he going to give me — freedom?" She whispered the word as though it was holy and now he knew it was.

"He will," Steve said, hoping that Savage was listening. "He knows prosperity is a worthier legacy than old, cruel regimes. When we're forgotten, he'll be remembered as the hero who rescued Marj from economic misery."

Bishop Eduardo Alvarez welcomed a visit to St. Francis. Prior Christopher Cole had summoned him, again, about Father Halloran, pleading for him to transfer the once-urban minister to a treatment center, and claiming, "I've had it. He's disobedient, worldly, and now run off to Belarus, of all places, to buy wine and help an eighty-five-year-old man meet up with his war-time lover. If any harm comes to Martin — God knows what Halloran's doing...."

"Since that's so, why not let God worry about him?" Alvarez told him, grabbing his car keys and driving north to Napa Valley. An hour later, he was walking through a St. Francis' vineyard to an umbrellaed oasis where Chris waited for him, the vineyard where he and his father had picked grapes, the vineyard where Christ had called him.

"There's another woman, Eduardo. Martin called me from Warsaw, begging me to help her and that rascal...."

"Martin told you Halloran's found a lover too, I take it?"

"Yes! She's not a Catholic, but we can excommunicate Halloran." Chris at sixty-eight, was still straight and tall, and wore his brown robes like he once wore his Air Force uniform — unwrinkled and spotless even after laboring hours in the fields or scouring pans in the kitchen. "I won't have him saying mass here," Chris said.

Alvarez finished his tea as moisture snaked down the glass like tears. Chris had a reputation for reforming the wayward religious through hard work and service to his aging monks. Martin sobered up after hearing Chris speak at an AA meeting, and Chris kept him sober by hiring him as St. Francis' accountant and dishwasher. Alvarez hoped Chris could do the same for Halloran though his skills were more nebulous: street smarts and gang savvy. Alvarez had bailed him out after he'd been arrested for removing a corpse; stumbling drunk, he'd taken a dead infant he found in a dumpster to the rectory, baptized it, bathed, and dressed it before calling the police. The judge ordered rehab or jail. Alvarez ordered him to St. Francis.

"He probably thought expanding the product line could save St. Francis, Chris. A contract with Eastern Europe...not a far-fetched idea in this day of globalization."

"Bull. He saw a chance to hang onto his addiction to excitement," Chris said.

Alvarez, patted his hand. "Women can be exciting, Chris." Alvarez stood up when they heard the screech above them, and shaded his eyes from the California sun. A huge bald eagle was dive-bombing a flock of doves in the rafters of the mission's chapel roof. The doves hunkered down. "Was celibacy difficult for you after being married, Chris?"

The older man poured another glass of tea from a blue-glass pitcher. "It got easier."

"How long were you and Yvonne married before the accident?"

"Three years."

"I wasn't a virgin either when I entered the seminary," Alvarez said. "I almost quit a hundred times." The doves were huddled together, making a united front against the attacks of the determined eagle. "I have to hand it to Halloran. After all the heartbreak he's seen on the streets, he's still willing to take a chance on human love."

"We stuck it out. If Halloran can't, he shouldn't be a priest," Chris said. "As for Martin, I doubt if his geriatric lady love is still exciting."

"You talk as if you've forgotten all about Yvonne. Or maybe you've found the perfect place to indulge an alcoholic's guilt — behind monastery walls." The screeching subsided as the battle ended and the eagle soared heavenward, its gold-brown feathers glowing in the setting sun. When it was out of sight, Alvarez returned to the shade and the cold tea. "There are worse things a man can do than pledge his love to a woman. Maybe Halloran will leave the priesthood for…what's her name?"

"Anita Mallard. Newspaper reporter. Martin and this Volmanskya woman have married. Halloran is still in prison. Martin wants the Holy Father to intervene. The Orthodox Prelate in Prague has already sent an envoy."

"Is that all?"

"Well...this General Savage who has him locked up is offering to make a deal... He's making a hero out of our jackal. As best as I can decipher, he wants a development partnership contract — whatever that is — that makes Halloran Marj's wine representative and Martin their accountant! It's...it's...."

"A good idea?"

"That's not the point, Eduardo. Orthodox priests can marry. What if Halloran thinks he can have his cake and eat it too?"

"You mean have God and his wife too?"

"The holy life demands sacrifice."

"But not the same sacrifice from everyone," Eduardo said.

Alvarez's response to General Savage was "willing to negotiate" sent via e-mail to Martin, along with congratulations on his marriage to Tatiana and reassurance he could return to St. Francis when "it was time". He would pray for guidance before making any decisions, he told Chris, but excommunication was off the table. "God understands spiritual struggle," he cautioned, "and knows it takes time. Perhaps a lifetime. You must try to understand."

Chris weighed Alvarez's words as he sat before his computer screen, feeling the silence of two thousand and twelve years of Christendom descend with the darkness. He did understand. He knew Halloran's pain because he had cradled a lifeless body in his arms too — Yvonne, six months pregnant with their first child, who had begged him to let her drive home from the party celebrating his selection for a historic mission after years of training, loyalty, and dedication. He did understand. Ambition. Desire. Agony. Loss. Again, as he often did, Major Christopher Cole viewed his own spiritual struggle played out in a YouTube video: a spaceship descending from the heavens onto a vast, empty landscape and Neil Armstrong's scratchy voice intoning, "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."

- - -

Want to learn more about this author? Look Jenean McBrearty up on the Contributors page, where you can see everything that each individual writer has contributed, visit their personal webpages, and more!

"Heated Words" by Susan Estes

2012-02-18T11:26:00.001-05:00

I left the church after the Sunday morning service and caught a glimpse of the enemy walking in the sun-seared street. Another scorcher in New Mexico and tensions ran as hot as the weather. Not many attended church, mostly the women, fearing for their men and families. I sighed and prayed, dressing in the armor of my God. I clutched my weapon in my hand, recalling the verses I had a few minutes ago concluded. I was tired and yet seeing him in the street, I knew I had to stay alert. The lion was seeking someone to devour.

In the hotel lobby, relaxing on the divan, I enjoyed the room’s semi-coolness. Closing my eyes for a moment, I dosed. Gunshots brought me awake and to my feet. I was first to the door.

Boss Emery stood in the glaring sun, a shotgun in his hands. A wisp of smoke trickled from the barrel. Fifteen feet from him, a man crawled, leaving a dark trail. People watched from windows, doorways, and sidewalk, but no one moved. The very air felt tense and disturbingly soundless.

The cocking shotgun when Boss drew down the second hammer was a coffin closing. The saloon owner began walking toward the wounded man and I began running.

Boss didn’t notice me, intent on his victim. Beside him, I reached for the shotgun and yanked it from his hands. Once I had it, I swung it quickly and smashed Boss in the stomach. He doubled over the stock and went to his knees, coughing and cursing.

“Help,” I yelled. As men stepped into the street, I ran to his victim. Kneeling down, I gently touched him. He felt lifeless. Rolling him, I placed my ear next to his mouth where I neither felt nor heard breath. I didn’t know him. Beside me, someone handed me a small mirror. “Thanks.” Holding it to his mouth, I sought the telltale fog of breath, but there was nothing. No heart beat under my hand at his chest or neck.

Now I noticed the crowd around me, and among them, Boss Emery sneering with triumph, holding the shotgun.

From behind Boss, the enemy’s voice said, “Fair fight. We all witnessed it.” He pushed up to stand beside Boss and pointed at the dead man. “Healy had his chance. See, his gun is still in his hand.”

“What do you know about a fair fight?” I muttered as I stood. Raising my voice, I asked, “Where’s the sheriff?”

Boss answered, “His daughter’s having a baby. He’s out to his son-in-law’s ranch.”

“Great timing,” I said. “What did Healy do to you?”

“Said my Faro games was snake-crooked.”

“Really,” I said. I looked past Boss at my enemy. To him, I said, “And a man dies for speaking the truth?”

He laughed in his throat. “Been known.”

Boss looked between us, not understanding. To me, he said, “You saying I’m a liar?”

“Will you shoot me if I do?”

The shotgun lifted and the crowd became skittish, moving away. “I killed him for sayin’ it.”

“So you did,” I said. “Can I lay money on your board and get a fair deal?”

Boss laughed, the enemy joining him. “You gamble, Preacher? That’d be a sight.”

I walked toward the saloon. “Okay, Boss, let me inspect your bank.”

He blocked my way. “You ain’t lookin’ at my Faro. It’s Sunday. My place is closed.”

“Now I know you’re lying. Your Faro dealer is standing in the open door of your saloon.” I looked at the crowd. I recognized many faces, but knew few names. “I wonder how many of you bucked the odds and lost. Just how many of you knew the tally heading in. The Lord gave you brains and yet you continue to misuse or ignore the wisdom He created.” I opened my Bible, turning away from Boss and his shotgun. “Jesus spoke to some men who refused to see the truth in front of their faces. He said, “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.”

The enemy snarled.

I looked at the crowd. “A man drawing a handgun against a cocked shotgun at ten paces was a fair fight?” My eyes bored into the nearest man’s eyes. “Did Healy speak the truth about Boss’ games?”

The enemy faded back into the crowd as the men came forward to grab Boss. I walked with them to the jail and saw Boss locked in. The saloon owner swore threats at the men, cursing them and their families. Then someone came in and announced, “Boss’ place is on fire!” and it was just him and me.

We exchanged looks and I held up my Bible with a silent question.

He grabbed the bars and spat at me. “Get out, Preacher.

I left.

- - -

Contributors page, where you can see everything that each individual writer has contributed, visit their personal webpages, and more!

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New This Week!

2012-02-09T10:48:00.005-05:00

General Fiction

Monster-Hunters by Skadi meic Beorh. Kids can be so cruel...

Inspirational

Heaven in Their Eyes by Skadi meic Beorh. The Hope of the hopeless and the gift that they give.

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"Monster-Hunters" by Skadi meic Beorh

2012-02-09T10:19:00.002-05:00

Seven year old Ginger didn’t like it that the new itinerant farmhand, Peter McCrea, ate her and her three sisters' custard cups their daddy had bought them for their school lunches. And Ginger liked it even less that Peter had answered her angry complaint, and so haughtily, by stating that because he worked so hard on their farm, he could eat anything he liked whenever he liked. Ginger, who had once loved and would certainly have married the handsome farmhand, went from autumn-tress cherub to fiery-haired assassin in one cold moment. Now the monster would die.

Nights in Ireland lay black as doomsday when the moon has not yet arisen and the stars refuse to shine, or perhaps are suffering eclipse by magic or cloud. On such woesome eves, farmhands rely solely upon normalities when they retire to their jovially painted Gypsy caravans for the much-needed sleep necessary to stage the following day's pastoral pleasures, as it were. So, to fall headlong over a stone wall because the upturned steel bucket serving as merciful step has been demonically misplaced was not something Peter either anticipated or even desired, but happen it did, and a deeply bruised kneecap was the reward, but not the only one, for his devious custard-stealing.

As if a lit and guttering candle wasn't dangerous enough in the old wagon which harbored everything he owned on Earth, beneath it lay a note scrawled crazily in second grade print.

Devil-Man!

* * * *

The next night, as Peter sat alone, reading by the last rays of a dying sun (for it was well nigh High Summer), the large door of the family room creaked slowly open and, lo and behold, there stood Ginger. With a gun.

"I'm going to kill you, monster-man," she whispered, but her eyes screamed, I'm going to chop you up, Mr. Devil, an' you will die real slow an' painful ‘cause you eated our custard our daddy buyed for us.

Peter was both terrified and terribly entertained, as would any grownup be when faced with childhood judgment such as that being adroitly brought to bear by the unforgiving guardian of the house, who, incidentally, was a rather muscular little tyke.

***

"He's fallen again, Ginger!" ten year old Tammy Lynn announced the next night as Ginger knelt, tying five year old Molly's perfidious shoestrings. "Isn't it delightful?"

"Yes! So dewightful," Ginger intoned, a gruesome smile erupting across her freckled features.

"But... Oh! Peas don't hurt him muchly, Ginny," christlike Molly said as she pulled on Ginger's sleeve. "I wike him. I wike Petah!"

"But he eated your custard, Moll," Ginger replied, her cerulean eyes slimming and glazing over with hatred. "Don't ye fink he should die for it?"

"Well..."

Molly wasn't sure. She was not only just five, but, as suggested, she carried a much softer soul than either the death-dealing Ginger or the feral tomboy, Tammy Lynn.

The expertly-set rat trap did not feel comfortable to Peter's bare toes bright and early in the morning as he lumbered into the bathroom, nor did the jagged stones and pieces of broken bottle provide any comfort to his palms and shins as he fell yet again over the stone wall while he wandered drowsily into another Celtic midnight. It was at about this time that our farmhand thought it might be wise to have a little talk with the girls' parents. He did so during the following, and thankfully uneventful, breakfast. Calm before the storm, of course, he mused morosely. I'm getting out of here!

To add to Mr. Peter's shock, the parents were utterly dubious when they heard the obviously fantastic story, even after witnessing the damning evidence of slashed shins and severely wounded hands. And then, to make matters untenable, as Peter was seeking a second wind of defense so as to make certain of his case against the small murderesses, Ginger whispered a few choice words through a crack in the kitchen door.

"He eated our custard you boughted us, daddy."

"Then he said," said Tammy Lynn with a dreadful sordid glee tinged with just the right amount of tears in the voice. "Then he said, daddy, he could do anything he pleased anytime he wanted to, daddy!"

The air was a poisonous gas.

"Is this so, Peter?" the girls' gentle mother asked the itinerant worker as she turned modestly to him, a crushing hurt tinting her lilting Dubliner brogue. The kids' father, an upper class West-Ender, glared wordlessly at the traveler, showing himself to be the obvious progenitor of the two ring-leading imps. Just then, twelve year old Anne promenaded into the spacious room wearing a shimmering teal evening gown. "Look, daddy! High fashion!" And everything went bright as Christmas, angering Ginger so that she flung herself through the door and attached her relatively new incisors to Peter with such a degree of maniacal fervor that the poor man all but had a stroke.

"Ginger!" her mother exclaimed, and Ginger ceased and desisted, standing down and giving Mr. Peter the evilest eye possible under the childlike circumstances. He tried not to laugh. He failed. He coughed. The cover-up worked as he succeeded in swallowing his mirth.

Their father cleared his throat quite markedly and continued in his silent and rather righteous indignation, very certain that he did not, after all, like this referred and highly-spoken-of hand, and doubly certain the man's days were numbered at their abandoned-creamery-turned-happy-household.

Tammy Lynn stood in the kitchen threshold, eyeing the stranger more suspiciously than anyone ever has eyed.

"What, dear heart," Peter then asked the young executioner at his side, "would you have me do to make right this atrocious wrong I have done? Outside of dying for my sin, of course."

A creepy silence ensued. And then...

"We not sure," hissed Ginger, her mouth tightening as the wheels of her design began to turn ever the more furiously. But then she remembered hearing her mommy fall very hard once, just after yelling at Anne and making her cry. She had looked over at Tammy Lynn, nodding in agreement with her that their mommy had gotten what she deserved for being so bad. She had been very scared, though, only a few minutes later, when there was no sound from the room where their mommy had fallen. Was she dead? Then she had heard weeping, and she had rushed into the room to find mommy had fallen from a high ladder, and had fractured her hip. Ginger had been sorry she had been so quick to judge. Maybe she should be a little less hard on Peter too?

"If," offered Peter humbly as he lovingly moved a few stray ginger strands away from the little demon's deadly blue eyes. "If, let's say, I were to make everyone loads of custard, and I were to get to the places on my own to buy all the things needed for such a venture, and then I were to pay for everything out of my own money, would you forgive me then?"

He shot a glance over at grim-faced and tight-fisted Tammy Lynn. Molly stood next to her, tears welling up in her big black eyes as she nodded her head slowly up and down. Yes, yes! her little heart was crying. Oh my sisters hurted you bad, didn't they, my Mr. Petah! I so sorry!

"Okay," Ginger replied solemnly. "That is your punishment then. Make us loads of strawberry custard. And...you can’t eat any!"

The angst-ridden Tammy Lynn pumped her tiny fists like pistons. Good, that. Had she not manually primed the pump in those tense moments, her heart would have certainly stopped working for the pent-up rage she carried around in that prepubescent breast of hers. "With real live strawberries you go pick yourself!" she finally interjected through quivering, indigo lips.

"Or death," added Ginger with the first smile anyone had seen in days. "I hab a gun, you know." She reached over and placed a warm hand on one of Peter's wounded knees. She was sorry for hurting him.

And so it was settled, though under a good deal of strain. A three hour round-trip hitch to the market in town for the milk and sugar and corn starch, a one-way seven mile traipse out to the co-op strawberry fields and back, and the ingredients were brought together for a dire penance that Mr. Peter MacCree would not soon forget.

If ever.

***

~~Devil Man~~

a new note said. A bouquet of gorgeous wild flowers lay next to it, tied with a bright pink ribbon. A fresh candle had been fitted into the waxy brass holder. Peter lit it, thanking Christ for love.

- - -

"Heaven in Their Eyes" by Skadi meic Beorh

2012-02-09T10:12:00.000-05:00

Today... such a cold day.

As I gaze out my window over the snow and through the leafless trees into a bright blue sky, I look back on the children of our cities, freezing and comfortless. They were never able to give to us what more fortunate children were able to give.

No, we are not alive because of these children who died hungry and cold. What did they give to us that we can be thankful for? What gifts did they have for us that we still cherish, perhaps unknowingly?

They were not architects, and so there are no beautiful buildings by them that we can admire. They were not great thinkers, and so we have no books by them to read and love. They built no roads by which we travel, they created no foods that we have come to enjoy, they were not musicians bringing song to our lives. Most of us give them no thought.

We are here and alive because of more fortunate ones – ones who survived the cold and were able to grow up, find love, and have families of their own.

But what of the children who died there on the streets, stranded in the snow and cold? What did they give to us? Did they not give us anything at all that we enjoy in our lives today? Nothing?

Yes, yes. They did. You don’t remember their gift? Perhaps you remember after all. Just now I recollect, though only in snapshot fragments, a little girl, her dark eyes big with sorrow and glistening with fresh tears. She looks up at me and, ah! It is her smile. Her hopeful smile.

How is she so hopeful? Does her hope lie in the few ha’pennies the gentlemen on the street drop in her palm as they pass her by? No, her hope comes from the few times she has seen the sun in this dreary city--the way it makes the snow sparkle, and sometimes brightens the sky. And this hope makes her smile, and that smile is a gift which, like an arrow shot sure, embeds itself in the heart of anyone seeing it. They may forget her gift, or not even realize they have received it, but it has been given just the same, and it is as eternal as the sun that inspired it.

Yes, today we, the fortunate ones, live not only because our ancestors were able to brave the cold and provide for their families. We also live because little children whose hope had not yet died gave the only gift they could give to those who passed them by. They smiled, Heaven in their eyes.

- - -

"The Other Fall of Rome" by Kim Bond

2012-02-04T10:58:00.003-05:00

Tuning out the soldiers’ argument just outside of the Cadara library, Gaius reached for the papyrus covered in mulberry linen. With a tug of the corn silk string closure, he loosed a world of exotic lands and distant wars. Many of the other Romans, even other citizens, were illiterate, so Gaius could often enjoy these hours of peace until sunset somewhat in seclusion.

By a mandate of the governor, all Roman guards were given formal instruction in reading as well as their physical training due to disquieting rumors of unrest with surrounding areas. Guards briefly inspected the letters carried by messengers with a strict command to intercept anything suspicious. Gaius hadn’t discovered a letter of treachery breaching the city, but he treasured his literacy more than the coins he earned. There was something he treasured even more than the pleasure of reading, though: Cleo.

Standing at post one day at the city’s gates, Gaius spotted capers rustling in a large bush forty paces off. A closer examination revealed two unkempt women with olive complexions. One of the women looked fortyish, and the other woman seemed to be in her late teens. Hoping to retrieve a reward for runaway slaves, he stowed them in his mud-brick home. During the months he sought their owner, Gaius grew to appreciate the older woman’s skills and resolved to keep them as his own slaves.

Though Cleo, the younger of the women, possessed no particular aptitude, she cleaned and served Gaius wine-drenched bread adequately. Cleo was not even particularly attractive in comparison to the Roman women strolling through the marketplace. Those women wore vibrant-colored cloaks, smelled of cloves, and glittered with flamboyant jewelry. Cleo wore only her beguiling charisma and hypnotizing appeal, but Gaius’ attraction to her escalated. Even now, as he carefully turned the pages of the papyrus, his thoughts drifted to her silky hair.

In frustration, Gaius closed the book and deposited it back on the wooden shelf among the others. He opened the library door and proceeded down the long marble hallway past the disputing soldiers and various rooms devoted to preening his fellow Roman citizens.

This particular complex, the Baths of Cadara, was exclusive to Roman citizens and boasted a costly admittance fee. However, it offered the best collection of books and maps, so Gaius preferred it.

The modest changing room Gaius entered consisted of a wall of stone alcoves overflowing with robes and sandals. Gaius spotted a Roman soldier by the name of Filo who frequented the baths regularly. Since soldiers’ incomes loomed over the incomes of most Roman citizens, the Baths of Cadara complex pampered much of the Roman army.

Rather noisily, Filo complained about his missing robe and sandals before he turned and greeted Gaius. Chuckling, Gaius told him to use a feather to cover himself. Filo grunted, looked down both hallways, and snatched up the robe from a neighboring alcove. Laughing harder now, Gaius entered the bath area.

About forty men, some nude and some scantily clad, stood in the bath area and talked in small groups. The baths and social stimulation normally pleased Gaius, but today he rushed. He longed to be home with Cleo. Gaius emerged from the water and allowed the attending young man to pat Gaius’ feet and sinewy legs with the towel before strolling down the marble pathway alongside the bath. Gaius dressed in his robe and sandals and quickly walked home.

When Gaius entered, Cleo noted his early arrival and apologized for not having the meal prepared. She quickly sliced some cubes of cheese and placed them onto his bronze platter. After she served the platter, she giggled and sat on his lap.

“Take me to the baths,” Cleo said whimsically as though she were the master and Gaius the servant.

Gaius’ eyebrow furrowed as he replied, “You are free to go to the baths any time I am at my post, Cleo. You do not need me to take you to the baths.”

“No, take me to the Baths of Cadara with you, please. It is my only wish,” Cleo pleaded.

Gaius sighed, “It is just not that simple. You must be a Roman citizen, and you are not, my dear.” In fact, to make Cleo a Roman citizen was his intention. With all of his heart, Gaius wanted to free her and be wed to her. The monogamy between them drove him crazy, but he did not want her to sleep with him because he was her master. The only way he would know she loved him was to set her free. But what if she received her freedom and left him? This fear sealed his lips about the intention to free her even in this opportune moment.

Gaius finally spoke, “Tonight, late at night, I will sneak you in.”

Cleo clapped her hands and said, “Oh, I cannot wait. Maybe I will do a dance for you in the pool.” Gaius covered his face with his hands and walked to his bedroom hoping she would sleep all through the night and forget the whole thing.

Cleo did not forget the whole thing. When the moon was high in the sky, she sat next to Gaius on his bed and stirred him. The two ran through the streets of Rome and climbed the gate of the vacant Baths of Cadara. Cleo seemed breath-taken by the grand statues and large pillars on either side of the pool. The shimmering waters gleamed with moonlight, negating the need for candlelight, but Gaius went in search of candles anyway when Cleo began to disrobe.

Gaius was gone only a few moments, but he thought the silence peculiar as he returned to the bath. Then he saw her. Cleo’s body lay next to the steps of the pool. The blood from her silky black hair mixed with the water on the gray marble walkway. Gaius grabbed her tiny body and held her to him sobbing like a child. Gaius reasoned she must’ve slipped.

Cleo was a woman, and a woman slave at that. There would be no trial. Gaius was not concerned for himself in the least, except that they were in the Baths of Cadara. He would be barred from ever entering again if they found his slave here. It would be difficult enough to live on without Cleo; the library could not be taken from him too. So Gaius scooped up her body and threw it over his shoulder. He struggled to climb the gate bearing the weight for both of them, but he managed.

Gaius took Cleo home and apologized to the older slave for her close friend’s death. The slave woman seemed fearful, as if Gaius had murdered her. While her master wept over Cleo’s body, she gathered a few belongings and fled through a window. If Gaius were not in this wretched state of mourning and loss, he might have noticed the older slave had left him, maybe even cared.

In spite of the pain, Gaius reported faithfully to his post every day. He intercepted the letters and read them rather stoically until he came across a letter from an Egyptian spy to the governor. Gaius read, “Prepare your armies to fight! Together with his allies, King Ptolemy of Egypt has mobilized many military divisions against Rome. He has resolved to avenge the death of his daughter, Cleopatra. Cleopatra was murdered at the hands of a Roman guard during an undercover mission to Rome. Your worthy informant, Akori.”

Cleopatra? Cleo? Gaius thought. It couldn’t be!

Gaius ran to deliver the letter to his general, only to find the officer’s throat had been slashed. King Ptolemy’s army moved in swiftly and Rome could not stand against the ruthless Egyptian army bent on avenging their beloved princess and the barbaric military skill of Egypt’s allies. And that’s how Rome fell and Egypt became the dominant ancient world power.

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Want to learn more about this author? Look Kim Bond up on the Contributors page, where you can see everything that each individual writer has contributed, visit their personal webpages, and more!

"Angel Dust" by Michael J. McDonald

2012-01-27T11:45:00.003-05:00

"Wake up."

Christine awoke with a start. It was a jolt in her mind that rushed straight down her spine and sent the bed-clothes thrashing. The black fog of a dreamless sleep clung about her, making it difficult for her to gain her bearings, but wherever she was, she was aware it was not home. The soul knows these things before the eyes.

She was not waking in her own bedroom. That much she could tell, and the creepers of panic began their cold climb up the flesh of her bare back. Why was it bare anyway, exactly?

Last night was either very good or very bad... Or both, if she listened to her mother.

The sheets felt unfamiliar and still cool; she can’t have lain here long. But she could not fathom where here could be. Today, or perhaps yesterday by now, was her sixteenth birthday. Her head drummed while she scoured frantically for this snatch of information. So, her conscience began to chastise, a birthday and a mother of a headache and awakening in an unfamiliar bed were the symptoms. Just what was the cause? Oh, whatever could it be?

But she had not been drinking, surely? Aside from the straightjacket her parents’ minds seemed locked in, Christine’s multiple medications required that she partake of no alcohol. Of course, medical advice being worth what it was to a teenager, she did imbibe every now and then. But she had a doctor’s appointment on her birthday, so she couldn’t even have a celebratory tipple with her breakfast.

The doctor! He’d wanted to take a blood sample, hence her reluctance to drink beforehand. It would surely show up. Try explaining why a sixteen year old has booze in their blood at eleven in the morning. She remembered the chill of the needle inside her arm, and then... this bed.

Great. She’d fainted. How embarrassing.

It was certainly a comfortable bed for a hospital. And the atmosphere felt homey, as if she were in a residence surrounded by more active spirits than the cool and cruel expanse of the hospital ward. She couldn’t even smell the disinfectant.

After starting awake, she realised her body had become still while her mind meandered. Where she was had been of primary importance, yet she had not even managed to open her eyes. So weary and heavy they felt that considering the dancing blackness inside her closed lids made her eyes sting. But Christine had to do something.

The sense of activity preyed on her mind. Someone was around, watching her. They wouldn’t leave her to wake in a strange place alone. They would want to know when she woke up, wouldn't they? Perhaps not; she was so peaceful now, on the outside, while her internal world was as bustling as an airport. Closed cases whistling around on squeaking wheels, the tang of static in the air, voices of such great difference mingling into a rushing of noise, and that crackling, omnipresent address system she knew was there but couldn’t quite understand.

Whoever was there on the outside would not know of the turbulence within. Christine had to make a signal, indicate she was indeed awake. And it was torment, a wracking of the will, to force her body over towards the source of the presence. Her eyelids turned a bloody-brown within, and she knew she was facing a source of thin light. Her eyes split open as slow as a chasm, and saw a door across the bare boards of the room. It crept to a close, silently shutting off the shaft of light. A bruise-shaded shadow swept a tiny silhouette off the floor.

“Hello?” Christine tried to say, only for a dry spike of air to lance from her throat. She felt her body snap into a rigid frame, arrested by fear and no longer by the lumbering lethargy she had on waking. Her mind swung open and, before she could think about any consequences of her exploration, her feet were flung from the bed to the shifting grit of bare floorboards. She ached and creaked, rubbing hair out of her eyes as she shambled a trail through the dust. Approaching the door, hands now poised unsteadily before her, a flare of light snatched her gaze.

She spun, dropped into a crouch and broke into a sweat by the time her eyes registered the mirror. A smooth oval set in a woodcut frame against the violet paper of the wall, it seemed a more appropriate place for a portrait than anything. But there it was, catching a dimmer replication of the light and all the worst parts of Christine’s face. With traditional teenage vanity, she scowled at it, the reflection’s brow furrowing in sympathy. Turning left and right and left again, she kept her eyes locked on herself, examining the figure she had awoken with and the shadows below her eyes. She was not amused, and with the usual hyperbole her kind apply to these situations, she turned away in disgust from her pale and pasty countenance. The reflection pirouetted on the spot, a full circle, and tilted her head curiously as she gazed at the girl’s back.

Now Christine began to take in the room. It certainly wasn’t like any hospital she remembered, but what did that mean? She had been born at home and her experiences with hospitals had been fleeting or televised. Certainly there were the Victorian hospitals with their arcane architecture, which this room put her in mind of. Drab and dusty furnishings, with the garish striped wallpaper resurrected from the 70s, a dated attempt at bringing the modern world to the decrepit building. It wasn’t quite square, either, with the bed resting against the flat wall while the door lay off centre on a shorter plane, tapering into the corners. Above it all, coated in drifts of dust, hung the hulking mass of an iron candelabrum. It was empty of candles, and affixed to the ceiling directly by nails rather than suspended from a rope, and with good reason. It would have been scratching across the floor otherwise, so massive was its bulk. Its position and warped shape gave it the impression of a hand reaching into the building from above.

No candles, and yet she still could see. Burning grimly, but with a solid red flame, a little lamp sat steadfast at her bedside. It was tiny, merely a dot of light in a cylinder of blackness, yet still it gave her sight of the whole room.

Christine turned, stumbling over her own ankles, towards the maw of the door. How and who, she did not want to bring to mind, but whoever had opened the door behind her must have seen she was up and about now. But they had not acknowledged her, not even made enough sound that Christine had been aware of their presence. Just her and the light. Perhaps, she soothed herself, they had gone quickly to summon the doctor.

But Christine still would have liked some answers, and sitting in her room hoping the person who wasn’t there might return would not do. Sitting in this room at all did not appeal to her, despite her mind already drawing conclusions on it being very resolutely her room. How long had she been asleep? If it was night again, she would never know; there were no windows.

Yes, yes, windows. Christine felt the search for windows or a clock to tell herself the time was a convincing reason for leaving her room. A practical excuse seemed warranted, since she did not want to give any credence to the apprehension she sensed in there. Christine gave herself a curt nod and turned toward the door. In a blink, it was pressed against the flesh of her nose. The slam jarred her, shaking her almost as much as the ringing in the room that came after. She crumbled back into the dust, her legs and gown fanning out from her body.

Christine rubbed her bare and pimpled arm. There must have been a draught, though she could not feel it. At this point, she noticed her watch was missing, and she would indeed need to leave the room to find the time. In fact, as she gazed at her toes and took in her body again, she found all of her jewellery was missing. Of course, that would be a practicality, as this hospital obviously couldn’t afford to keep an eye on the patients, so leaving them unconscious and laden with silver and gold would be rather reckless. They would be around somewhere. She’d have to ask. She’d have to leave the room.

She rose again, gown rustling over her legs. As her foot pressed softly in the dust, the door inched further across its frame. Christine frowned, suspicious. She drew her foot back. As if a taut string were between her toes and the door, it was pried open at her motion.

Another step forward, and the gap narrowed. A full step back and she could see into the hall through the gaping doorframe. Christine took a breath, then wondered what for, before striding towards the opening. The door clattered against her shins as she stepped beneath the frame, and no bracing with her forearms could hold against its closing. Christine stumbled back into the room and slapped against the door, cursing at the barrier.

Behind the door, she heard the piercing giggle of girls at play.

Christine drew back from the door, rising to her full height. Quickly, the laughter faded, as if moving away down the hall, and Christine reached for the handle again.

Hehe.

Christine whipped back around to face her room, twisting her gown and knees about herself and banging flat against the left bar of the doorframe. Her eyes moved far too fast to take in the details of the room, seeking to cover every inch at every moment, as she sought the source of the laughter she had felt on her own neck.

Nothing jumped out.

Christine rested against the beam for a moment, head lolling back and chest rolling with the search for air. Finally, she was composed enough to lower her arm, which had hammered against the wall and remained outright after swinging away from having her fingertips on the door handle. Rubbing her thumb across her fingers, she stepped forward from the wooden beam and turned back to the door.

“Jesus!” she squealed.

“Where?” the little girl in the gaping door-frame asked. She tilted her head and watched with deep interest set into her black eyes.

Christine slowly lowered her hands. Under her gown, her skin rippled and swelled like waves as she gulped in the chilled air of the room. She must be the doctor's daughter. She must. A few deep breaths, some positive internal dialogue, and she was able to clear her throat and address the girl, who was still waiting, patient and polite, mute and unblinking.

“I’m sorry, you startled me. Were you being a naughty girl and swinging on my door?”

“No,” she squeaked, shaking her head.

“Are you sure?” Christine probed gently.

“No.”

Christine crouched in front of the girl, creasing her brow with exaggerated furrows of confusion. “Is that a no you’re not sure, or a no you weren’t playing with the door?”

The girl remained silent, intently looking through Christine.

“What’s your name?” Christine asked, deciding on a less direct approach.

“Mai,” said the girl, offering a little curtsey in her purple dress.

“So you’re Mai?” Christine repeated, smiling in return.

“I am.”

Christine opened her mouth, suddenly curious, but found herself lost for words in the intent gaze of the girl. It was now sharply focused on her, and those huge eyes suggested a wisdom beyond her appearance of youth. She settled on trying to find a way out of this place, or at least some clue as to why she was here. “Do you know where the doctor is?”

“The doctor is in his study.”

His study? Hospitals don’t have studies. Christine realised she must be in a private residence. Perhaps he had taken her to his home to recover. Nothing creepy about that... Well, fainting was no emergency, and the hospitals were so quarrelsome with giving up their beds. Not entirely convinced, Christine smiled at Mai, who was still quietly observing the older girl. “Um, do you think you could show me?”

“Yes,” Mai said, and did not move.

Christine offered out her hand, but Mai kept her own behind her back. She bounced on the balls of her feet. Christine waited another moment, and gestured out of the room. “Shall we go?”

“After you,” Mai said. She stepped back into the corridor, allowing Christine out of the doorway. “I can only show you the way.”

Christine shivered in the hall. It must have been very draughty in the old house; she could feel a current of air pushing her from behind. Rubbing her arms again, she realised the strangeness of following someone behind her, and turned to Mai to try to point this out. All she found was a matted carpet.

“Mai?” she asked, veiling her frustration. “Come back. How can I follow you if I can’t see you?”

“Follow what you can’t see,” the corridor echoed with a giggle. “That’s the only way to find me.”

“Mai!” Christine growled, thumping her foot against the wood of the skirting board. Taking breaths to calm herself, Christine waited, closed her eyes, and spread her hands out at her side to relieve her tension. After a moment, she looked around again, but still there was no sign of Mai’s return. Shaking her head, Christine took a step to the right of the door, the hall running at right angles to it along the wall of the room. On feeling the thin carpet beneath her toes, she heard Mai again, at the back of her head.

“Beware of the dog.”

Christine rolled her eyes at the games of the girl, and kept moving right.

She passed several doors on the left, which, just by their imposing stature, simply looked locked. She ignored them. At the far end of the corridor, she came to a corner, heading right and up the other wall of her room, with another door facing that passage, on her left. The door looked old and rotten, with ghastly shapes picked out in the grain. The passageway looked wide and free. She took no thought to decide on heading right again, along the outer wall of the room she was already in.

“You’re going to the dogs.”

Christine halted, stumbling over her own heels. She looked back along the corridor, and found no one. She looked ahead again, to find her passage now stunted and ending in an open door. With no sign of the source of the voice, so eerily gentle in its delivery, she condemned herself for gazing up at the portraits lining the wall. All of them were handsome men, groomed and well dressed, of different periods yet sharing a familiarity in their features. Stepping forward, toes curled with caution, she crept closer to the open door.

A breath brushed past her, and Christine swung to her right. Another portrait, another man, sure and steadfast in his blood-red coat, a musket in one hand and a leash in the other. Crouched at his side was the thing which pulled in Christine's gaze; as hulking a brute as its master, a slack-jawed black dog. Its fangs looked truly wet.

Christine leaned closer, fingertips gripping the picture frame. Her eyes met the dog’s, and so tactile was the painting, she was certain the beast’s hairs rippled with the wind. Christine’s fingers crept onto the canvas, and she reached to stroke the dog.

The jaws clapped shut. Christine dove back, crashing against the bare left wall. She landed in a heap, and when her head was clear, drew back her legs against herself in alarm. Across the hall, stretching from the painting with a maw gaping in a yawn, the black dog set down on the floor. It padded, claws silent, back and forth along the length of the frame. Yet there it was, on the floor, turning side to side right in front of Christine.

Christine was shaking, a wind she could not feel rippling her simple gown. Some more breaths calmed her as she waited for the dog to pounce. Yet it would not. The eyes would not meet her and she could not see their colour, or if they were there at all. It sniffed. Could the fiend even see her? As her heart slowed and her mind’s frantic buzzing cleared, she set about rationalising its existence. Surely it did not exist at all. If she had fainted from the blood-test, perhaps she had hit her head. Perhaps she had been given something to help her sleep it off. The dog, perhaps the entire house, was an illusion as her mind tried to cope with the trauma.

An illusion. Christine rose straighter against the wall. She was pleased with her hypothesis. Her education had been put to good use, for once.

The dog barked, rattling the hall and sending Christine cowering behind her knees.

“Come to me,” the breath ran through her ears. Christine’s face ached with her cringe of fright. Slowly, she parted her legs, peering between her pimpled knees. The fiend peered back. Yet it was not a hulking brute, a mass of black slinking across the hall and slathering at the thought of devouring her. It was now a stunted little brown cloud of fluff, head tilted and a single ear cocked in curiosity. Christine wiped her eyes and giggled, girlish and bubbly. Whatever the doctor had given her, it was strong. So strong that this pet of his had ran through her mind as a hellhound. She smiled, fingertips reaching out to the furry pup, and without thinking, she was upright and striding towards it, hands prepared to clasp it up like an infant. Soon, she was on her knees, the dog’s head in her hands, rubbing its ears and strands of fur between her fingers.

“Hello, hello,” she cooed.

“Pleased to meet you,” said the dog in Mai's sweet tone. "Hope you guess my name."

The fingers froze. The dog’s mouth parted, a thick tongue worming its way around its chops. Christine withdrew, crumpling back onto her rump, wringing her hands. She turned to the wall and thumped it with an open palm.

“What is wrong with me?”

Silence met her cry. Except... not quite silence, but the ringing of noise suddenly departed. And now that buzzing, growing in her right ear. Christine whipped her head to view another painting. It seemed to seep into the wall, extending miles beyond where the doctor’s house could possibly go. In there, or perhaps out there, was a desert stretching on beyond the horizon, with a scorched sky overhead. Nothing but sand on the ground, with more sand in the air between. The grains deep within the picture seemed to writhe and roll. With a rush, a cloud of sand flapped out into the hall, showering Christine’s feet. She jerked back, mouth gaping and ducked down to wipe her feet.

The buzzing was louder now; no more could she satisfy herself that it was merely a road outside, a blender in the kitchen, or even a stressed imagining of her mind. Christine looked up and her mouth immediately closed. A great tumult of black roared out of the frame and spread a thick shadow through the hall. Christine threw herself to the floor hard enough to cry out, and then clamped her hands over her mouth and nose, elbows desperately thrown towards her ears, for fear of any of the storm of locusts getting in.

She could feel the cloud growing heavy over her, the rushing and buzzing penetrating into her ears. Louder it became, her skin prickling with the carpet of the swarm. Her eyes streamed, they were so tightly shut. Her feet scrabbled at the floor as she tried to kick herself away from the frame, away from the noise. And then, just as her hands buffeted against something warm and soft and wet, the noise ceased.

Blindly she ran her hands up and down herself, over each other, gathering herself into a ball so she could feel her feet. Every inch of her was clean and clear. Controlling her breath, she cracked open one eye, then the other.

The dog was there, upright and shambling. Again, it was a huge black brute, eyes shielded in creases of dark muscle, sharp ears pinned back. Christine gasped, pushing with her legs back along the hall. After some skittering and faltering, she was finally upright, and dashed past the framed pictures, down the hall, around the corner, back the way she had come.

A door opened as she ran on, slapping out from the wall and slamming her to the floor. Christine groaned, hand over her face, blood trickling from between her lips. The impact clattered her jaws together and left her with the blazing agony of her tongue.

Christine rolled onto her side, tongue lolling to the sandy floor. She squeezed out a blink, eyes slowly opening to the light cast out of the door. She smiled, in spite of the pain. Pushing herself onto hands and knees, she crawled into the room, where a man with a horseshoe of white hair sat at his table. His left hand was at work, while his right stroked the unseeing dog Christine had ran away from.

At last, the Doctor. He would help.

Christine crumpled into a ball at his side and tugged hard on his sunlight yellow coat. The man turned from his work. A fine tinkering with tools was all Christine could make out in the glare. His face passed across the lamp, cutting out the light. Christine felt a burning cold as he touched her rippling skin. Her eyes, no matter how hard she sought, could not meet his.

“Help me,” she gagged. “Are you the Doctor?”

“I Am.” he answered, a voice wafting warmth across her cheek.

“Please,” she whispered, too frozen to wipe away a falling tear. “Doctor, I’m not well.”

“Then I can help you. I’m the only one who can.”

“But where is everyone?” Christine asked, bolstered by the soothing tone of the doctor. “My family? Other patients? Where am I?”

“You are alone. But you can leave any time you like.” He freed his coat from her hands, swung his chair around, and gestured to the far wall. There was a window there, and outside, Christine saw the pale light of day.

Her head was roiling with doubt, but already the flesh of her feet had carried her to the window sill. Already, her hands had gripped the latch, and prepared to spring it open.

“Alone, alone, leave her alone,” a voice rattled around the room. The doctor sighed, and kicked his chair around towards the door. Christine fought her heavy head, arms resting on the window frame, and turned back.

“Follow me,” Mai commanded, a tiny figure in the arcing doorframe. Her eyes were sunken, face creased; she looked like a doll left in the bottom of a toy-box.

“I want out,” Christine replied, still sounding thick through the damage of her tongue.

“That is no way out!” the child insisted, remaining in the door, flapping in agitation.

“It looks like one.” Christine shook her head, and showed another pained smile. “It’s easier this way.”

“Ignore my daughter, please,” the doctor insisted, rising and gesturing with open palms, a nudge through the air, towards the window. “She knows not what she says.”

Christine nodded. She opened the window, and quietly slipped away.

Mai counted. “One, two, three...” She frowned, disappointed. No splat.

The doctor regarded her with a knowing smile. “You can try again with the next soul.”

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Want to learn more about this author? Look Michael J. McDonald up on the Contributors page, where you can see everything that each individual writer has contributed, visit their personal webpages, and more!

"Hearts and Trains" by Jenean McBrearty

2012-01-07T13:37:00.007-05:00

Except for the spindly woman in the yellow pant suit dragging a wheeled suitcase draped with a purse, the Santa Fe station was deserted. Occasionally, a pre-dawn San Diego Bay breeze gusted through the open doors bringing with it the faint scent of sea salt and street steam.

Michael watched the stranger grimace, but he didn’t find the wait unpleasant. The pungent odors, the echo from the domed roof, and the red cement slab floors brought back a familiar excitement. He felt his pulse race. For a moment, it was as if he was here for the first time – December 7, 1941 – on his way home for the Christmas holiday. He was eighteen then, and eager, flirting with the daughter of a Southern family returning to Birmingham when the news of Pearl Harbor blared from the loudspeaker. Michael hadn’t even cashed in his ticket. He had run out of the train station and into the recruiting office, gaining the distinction of being the second man in the Santa Fe station to enlist in the Marines. Mark Hatch, who had been monitoring Michael’s flirtation with his sister, Lucy, was the first.

“Do you know what time the ticket office opens?” A worried voice said, interrupting his memory.

Michael’s glazed eyes looked up and focused on a pretty face framed by fawn-brown hair. “Five o’clock, I believe.”

She looked around nervously. “My boss said I could get a ticket before the train left, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone around.” She was hardly a child - thirty, maybe thirty-five - but something about her made her seem vulnerable

“Don’t worry, you can buy a ticket from the conductor… and pay by check if you’re going at least twenty-five dollars away.” He smiled at her. She must have felt the concern behind his lined face and tired eyes because her mouth relaxed into a sheepish grin.

“I guess I’m making a big deal out of this,” she said. “I always get so upset when my plans go haywire. You’d think I’d have learned to roll with the punches by now.”

“First train ride?”

“As a matter of fact, it is. I always fly. But with the terrorism thing, there’s no such thing as a last minute flight – and L.A. is fogged in – did you hear?”

“I thought it might roll over us this morning.” He knew he should stop talking, but he wanted to watch her. She smoothed her hair gracefully. “You going to L.A. on business?” he said. To his surprise, she sat down beside him.

Is she grateful to have someone to talk to? he wondered. Would she be nice to a man admiring her modern-woman polish? “You’ll like the train. Especially when it follows the coastline. Get some cocoa, and just look out at eternity,” he said.

“Business? Yes, business and it’s getting to be a crashing bore. I’m representing this medical equipment company in a negligence suit, and the home office is in L.A. Are you on business too?”

She didn’t assume he was retired. He was beginning to feel like a man again. “I’m going to a funeral.”

“I’m sorry. Someone close?”

Did she really want to know? he wondered. Or was this 21^st century sensitivity? Perhaps he could share a bit of Mark with her. There were so few left who remembered. “We fought together. I guess that makes us as close as any two men can be,” he said.

“An Army buddy?”

“Marines. Don’t ask me how we both managed to survive, but we did.” Michael hesitated, but her face was still turned toward him with expectation. She was so pretty. He felt a long forgotten tug in his groin, and smiled to himself. “We met in this station.” He saw her look up to the domed ceiling with its tiled vaulting, her upturned chin exposing a sleek neck encircled by a gold chain and tiny cross. Memories of Lucy flooded through him. “Mark was my brother-in-law.”

“Then she’s here too, in a way. Your wife, I mean.”

“Yes,” Michael said, pleased she understood. “You see that arched doorway? The one that says ‘Telephones’ above it? I left my Lucy there that December morning. She was seventeen, and I thought to myself that if she were the last pretty girl I‘d see in my life, she would be worth fighting for.” Michael laughed to himself, his face turning red from his own sentimentality. “The young think such romantic thoughts, but I fell in love with her on the spot. She must have felt the same. Anyway, I started for the door ahead of Mark, but I ran back, grabbed her hand and pulled her into that room, and begged her for a kiss. Just one small one to keep me safe. I told her that kiss would bring me home. Here I am.”

The pretty stranger averted her gaze when he looked at her now. Michael thought he saw a single tear hit the simple gold band she twisted about her ring finger. “You did see her again.”

“Yep. Only the next time, I had to wade through hundreds of soldiers and sailors to find her. This station was jammed. She’d come all the way from Birmingham to see me for three days. She was nineteen by then. I was two inches taller and weighed twenty pounds more, and she was even prettier than her pictures. It was impossible to get a room in Dago then, but the judge who married us had converted his garage into a bedroom like lots of folks who took in servicemen during the war. He let us stay all three nights.”

Michael dug in his pocket for a stick of Juicy Fruit gum, another holdover from yesterday. “This city was a serviceman’s town then. The sidewalks were a six-abreast stream of different uniforms and ranks – gunners, pilots, submariners – different accents – Texas, New Jersey – and different memories. But all the same desires – life and fun.”

“And peace?”
“That we wanted most of all, but were afraid to hope for. It was a tragic war. All of them are. But now that I look back on it – it had drama, romance, and you’ll think this is odd --”

“No, please go on.” The woman’s eyes were intense.

“It was a dignified war. Do people understand that word now, dignity?”

She sat pensively for a few moments. “In our own way. We’ve been deprived of many meaningful things, that’s for sure. But maybe that’s what the past has going for it. People forget how it really was. Dignity probably didn’t mean anything then either, especially to blacks in Birmingham.”

“Maybe you’re right.” Michael thought about her answer. Each generation has a battle to fight. The equality one lay ahead, and would be fought by other brave folks. We couldn’t do it all, he concluded.

“You’re a widower?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“I thought so.”

“What’s your name?” Michael asked, hoping it wasn’t too forward.

“Katherine. You?”

“Mike. You married, Katherine?”

“For the present.”

“You’re one of those liberated movers and shakers I read so much about,” he chided, then added honestly, “I’ll bet your parents are proud of you.”

“I’ve had a good life. Thanks to people like you.”

A good life. Yes, Michael thought. Katherine’s nails were buffed and her teeth straight and white. Lucy had a chipped front tooth she got playing softball with her brothers when she was nine, and never got it capped. Katherine was perfect. Lucy was real.

“I went to school when I came back from the war. I learned all about the political reasons I went. No one mentioned the real reason though.”

“What was that?” Katherine asked.

Mike felt like he was guarding a valuable secret. “Home of the free. No real man lets anyone destroy his home without a fight. In the first few seconds after I heard we’d been bombed, I imagined what the enemy might do to a pretty young girl and her family, and I knew these strangers were worth dying for because they weren’t strangers, they were Americans.”

The station was filling up. The ticket counter opened for business with the scratchy announcement that the train from L.A. would be delayed twenty minutes because of the fog. The message repeated in Spanish and then again in an Asian dialect Katherine didn’t recognize. A silver-haired lady in a white shirt and an Amtrack vest headed for the information booth, pulled open the shutters, and perched on a high chair so she could guard the entrances. “Tickets can now be purchased for the 5:25 train to Los Angeles,” the loudspeaker rasped. Katherine stood up, grabbed her briefcase with one hand and extended the other to Mike. It was a small, delicate hand, but the handshake was firm.

“It’s been a pleasure talking with you. I’d better get my ticket now. Maybe I’ll see you on board?” Her face now wore a business smile, confident and in-charge. Mike shook her hand and reluctantly let it go.

“I won’t be going on board.”

“But I thought--”

“I’m waiting for the L.A. train. My trip will be to Ft. Rosecrans Cemetery. I’m meeting Mark’s casket. I thought you had enough to deal with.”

“I’d better get in line.” She turned to go, then added, “I’m not as fragile as I look.”

“I know that now. Have a good trip.”

She walked quickly to the ticket counter and didn’t look back. He stared at her tall, straight bearing, her soft, brown curls. How much like a uniform her business suit seemed. A pang knifed his heart. Where did the time go? She was a beautiful woman. Her voice was strong, buoyant, as though she was repressing a laugh with every word so she would be taken seriously. If he was younger, he thought, he might have asked her to coffee. He sat down and wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead. How he wished he could see the first rush of wonder in a woman’s eyes, eyes that mirrored his own unabashed fondness. “I know we’re young, Lucy,” he heard himself say, “But I do love you – give me a kiss, and I’ll come home.”

Michael felt dizzy. He pounded his chest. Something was caught – air. He couldn’t get it in or out. He strained to see who was talking to his Lucy.

“You must come home,” a voice said as he stumbled through the arched doorway into the telephone room. If Lucy was there, he would find her. He struggled to walk, laying both hands on the coral stucco walls, bracing himself with each painful step. Just when he believed he could go no farther, in the dim first light of dawn, he saw her – Lucy in her polka-dot cotton dress, white open-toed shoes, a pure-white ribbon tying back her chestnut hair. She was smiling at him, blowing him that last kiss before he went to war.

“My God,” he thought, “If she’s the last pretty girl I see, she’s worth dying for.”

**********

Katherine saw him fall. “Call 911,” she screamed as she ran to Mike. “Heart attack,” she snapped to the ticket salesman, who ran to the counter and returned with a blanket. She wadded it up and put it behind Michael’s head. She loosened his clothing.

A tanned man in cut-off shorts and a t-shirt dropped to his knee. “You count,” he said as he straddled Mike’s chest.

“One, Two. Three,” she said rhythmically, and the man leaned forward, applying pressure to the heart. “One. Two. Three,” till three white- coated EMTs arrived and ordered everyone out to the lobby.

Katherine missed her train. She and the blonde man sat together, silent, in the station that was empty once again. The morning rush was over. Only the station employees, talking with two Marines in dress blue uniforms about the unloaded black lacquered coffin, broke the silence. In the side room, where the EMTs labored for life, there existed another world that she could only observe, like Dorothy Gale gazing into the witch’s crystal ball.

“Are you a relative?” a deep-voiced, uniformed man said.

Katherine understood the gravity that spilled into the air. “No, but I was just talking to him a few minutes before. He was waiting for the train. Lucy’s brother’s to be buried at Rosecrans.” She pointed to the casket, desperately trying not to cry.

“Looks like they’ll be traveling together.” Katherine looked up to the face underneath the white hat. “That explains this.” White gloved hands handed her a wrinkled sack.

She dipped into the bag and withdrew a tightly rolled triangle of red, white, and blue cloth. She held it to her face, letting it catch involuntary tears.

“I’m Sgt. Meyers,” the Marine said to the t-shirted stranger.

“I’m just someone who tried to help -- George Sandoval. Do you know who he was?”“Michael Strong. Staff Sergeant retired. You two did all you could, you know. Try not to take it so hard. We lose a thousand of our vets every day.”

“What about his children? And Mark’s funeral? Who’ll be there?” Katherine said.

Sgt. Meyers shook his head at her question. “No one but us.”

“What’s going to happen now?” Katherine said.

“They’ll take him to the county morgue, and then we’ll step in. Marines never leave a comrade behind.”

“Of course, but call me if there’s anything I can do.” Katherine handed Sgt. Meyers her business card.

“Yes, Ma’am.” Sgt. Meyers put the card in his wallet, and walked away.

“Wait!” Katherine said as the EMTs brought the sheet-covered body out of the telephone room. “Wait – we can’t just let him leave the station this way. A man like Sgt. Strong should leave this place with a little dignity.” She unfolded the flag and draped it over Mike’s body. “We owe him an honor guard. Please.”

Sgt Meyers stopped, and turned to the young woman who had placed her hand on the heart of the fallen soldier. Sandoval was by her side, holding her elbow as the bewildered EMTs looked on. Meyers called the other Marine to attention and the two marched back into the station, their measured footfalls beating the drum of the dirge.

Katherine Latham walked alongside the gurney – she and Sandoval, the EMTs, and the Marines as they accompanied Michael through the train station to the front door where the ambulance waited. It was a proud procession, moving with somber steps under the domed roof, past newly varnished wooden pews, past ghosts of forgotten loves and pains, past the ghosts of two innocent hearts for whom a momentous war was just the sideshow to a lifetime of love.

When they reached the ambulance, the two Marines folded the flag. Sgt. Meyers presented it to Katherine, saying “I am proud to give you, a citizen of these United States, this remembrance of the service of your friend, Michael Strong, to a grateful nation.”

She watched the two Marines return to Marks’s waiting casket. George waited with her till the ambulance drove off, and patted her arm before moving off into the fog.

She stood there, alone, wondering how it was that she had missed so many nice conversations, and how quickly lifetime friendships developed when the lifetime could possibly be cut short. She hit the speed dial on her cell phone and a familiar voice answered.

“Stephen? It’s me…I’m at the train station downtown. I want to talk with you. Here. I’m going to buy two tickets for a ride up the coast. Just us,” she said as she walked into the station. “I’ll be inside, sitting by the sign that says ‘Telephones’. I’ll wait for you. And Stephen? I love you.”

- - -

Weekly Digest

2012-01-03T19:57:00.011-05:00

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"Scoop" by Al Miller (chapter 7)

2012-01-03T19:30:00.000-05:00

2001

On the plane ride back, I kept going over and over the details of the story we had written. Then there was a little store where we used to buy all our paper. It was a little Mom and Pop store over by the grade school. Everybody went there from the grade school, but when we graduated to high school, the gathering got a lot smaller. Tommy and I, however, kept buying our supplies there because it was in the neighborhood. The store was probably not there anymore, but maybe I could still find the same paper somewhere else.

As to the school itself, the last I heard, it was closed, but they were thinking of re-opening it as a junior high. Mr. Sharpe was close to retirement when we graduated, so he was probably dead by this time. If he were living now, he would have to be at least a hundred and ten. Not likely, to say the least. If I met him, he would have to be a ghost, just as Tommy had said.

As soon as the plane landed and I made my way into the terminal, I found the nearest public telephone book. Much to my surprise, there was a listing for a Mr. Sharpe. I dialed the telephone and waited impatiently for an answer.

"Hello."

"Hello, Sir. My name is George Wilson. I'm looking for a Mr. Sharpe that used to be the Principal at Henry Clay High back in sixty-two."

"George Wilson. I seem to remember that name from somewhere. Did you graduate in sixty-two?"

“Yes, as a matter of fact. When I left, he was still principal.”

“That would have been my Grandfather,” said the voice. “He’s been dead now for close to twenty years. But I do remember him mentioning your name. Something about an exploding apartment house. Are you that George Wilson?”

“I’m afraid that would be me. I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but . . .”

“Don’t think a thing about it. We had a good laugh about it. You’re somewhat of a legend around there. It seems what’s left of that apartment house is still an exhibit in one of the display cases in the hall. My father was a freshman at the time.”

“Speaking of the old school,” I said, rapidly changing the subject, “is there any possibility of getting in? I have an important research project I’m working on and I need to get some information on the place.”

“Well,” answered the voice, “I don’t see why not. My father has the keys to the building. By the way, I forgot to introduce myself. My name’s Jeremy.”

“I’m looking forward to meeting you, Jeremy.”

“How soon do you need to get in, George? How about tomorrow morning?”

“I’m afraid my needs are rather more urgent than that. Would it be possible to get in today? The sooner the better. I don’t mean to be pushy, but would it be possible to meet there right away?”

“Well, I guess so. I don’t have to be at work until second shift. Say in an hour?”

“That would be great. I’ll see you in an hour, then. Let’s meet at the main entrance on the north side of the building?”

“I’ll be there.”

There's an old saying. "You can't go back." If by that you mean you can't become what you were, it's absolutely true. Those high school days were the days of comparative innocence. They were also the days when most of us lost our innocence.

The door to the old high school seemed pretty much the same as always except that it was in need of paint. But when it came time to open the door, it was evident that the years had taken their toll. The floor had begun to buckle and the door required an extra shove just to open it enough to enter. The floor tiles had been shedding for quite some time and were beginning to scatter. Most of the lockers were standing open and the locker doors showed a covering of rust. If this building were to be used as a junior high, it would require a great deal of renovation before the students arrived.

I looked in the old chemistry lab as we passed. One of the teachers had done a demonstration, dropping a sodium pellet into water. The mixture proved a little too unstable. The spot on the ceiling was still there. There were the remains of some old experiments sitting around the lab. A beaker with the white film of long dried up water resting in the bottom. An old Bunsen burner sat on one table, still attached to the petcock where it had once received its gas supply. Everything appeared as though the class had just gotten up and walked out, leaving the equipment just as it was. A coating of dust had settled on everything and there was ample evidence of mouse droppings everywhere.

We continued down the hall. The typing lab was at the far end. I spent many happy hours there, learning how to type from Gloria Aaronson.

1957

"No, George. I said don't look at the keyboard. That'll only confuse you. You have to look at the paper. Teach your fingers to know what key to push without looking at 'em. It's a lot like playing the piano."

"Yeah, but I don't know how to play the piano, either. How'm I supposed to teach my fingers where the keys are when I don't know myself?"

"George Wilson, you're hopeless. Sometimes I think you don't want to learn. Just look at the paper. Besides, there aren't any letters on the keys. It doesn't help to look at the keys."

"That doesn't help either. I just don't think I'll ever get it."

"Just settle down George, or Lance, or whatever pen name you're using this week. Now, concentrate. Just think about where your fingers are. Close your eyes and visualize your fingers on the keyboard. That's right now push the 'A' key. No. That's the 'Q.' Down one row."

"I'll never get this. I'm just too dumb to learn." I was genuinely crying.

"No, you're not, Georgie." Gloria pulled up a chair and sat down beside me. I could feel her warmth next to me and I leaned over against her. She could only reach out and hug me. I have never before or since received a warmer, more sincere hug than that one. For the space of probably five minutes, I balled and Gloria comforted. When it was all over and I headed for home, I wanted to kick myself for not returning the affection that had been so generously poured out to me that day. But boys being boys and unwilling to admit any perceived weakness, I passed it by. I would never have another chance to retrieve that moment.

2001

“I miss you, Gloria,” I said out loud.

“What did you say?” asked Jeremy. He had not shared my thoughts, of course. I started to tell him about Gloria, but I stopped in mid sentence. There was no reason for him to understand such a private moment.

“Just remembering someone out of my past,” I answered finally. “A very dear friend. But what ever happened to the typewriters that used to be in here?”

“The typewriters? Oh, those are long gone. Back in the eighties, they started using computers in the class. They haven’t used typewriters in here since, gee, I don’t know, it must have been around ‘88.”

“Do you happen to know what they did with the typewriters after they took ‘em out of here? I really need one of ‘em. . . It’s for my research project, you know.”

Jeremy gave me that “Whatsamattawityou” look. Finally he shrugged. “Well, if they’re still here, I suppose they would be in the basement storage area. We could look down there if you like, but I wouldn’t expect to find much.”

Jeremy searched through the set of keys he had brought with him. “I think this may be the one. C’mon, lets find that typewriter.”

I’m certain that Jeremy must have thought me crazy by this time, but he led on. About half way down the hall, I looked toward the stairs. I caught just a glimpse of someone crossing the hall and going down the stairs. Of course the power was off in the building, so we could only see a dim silhouette. “Who could be in here at this time of day?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” answered Jeremy. “I don’t think they’re doing any rehab yet. Probably someone looking for souvenirs.”

When we reached the stairs, we looked down. There seemed to be someone at the bottom, looking up. Then again, maybe it was just the light playing tricks on us. It was much darker in the basement, but Jeremy had brought along a flashlight. “Watch your step down here. There’re still some old desks down here in the hall.”

As we stumbled down the hall, I brushed up against something soft. I recoiled just a bit. “Let me use the flashlight a second,” I requested. As I played the light along the wall, I caught a glimpse of something. But when I retraced the path, it was gone. “Must have been a trick of the light,” I concluded.

We went on toward the storage room, picking our way among the debris. “Here it is. Room twenty-six.” Jeremy tried his key in the lock. It turned after some effort, and the door creaked open. As we passed through the door, the light reflected off something bright onto a wall. I caught the image this time. There was no mistake.

1957

It's difficult to lay your hands on a bottle of whiskey when you’re only fifteen. Difficult, but not impossible. Sneaking it into school was more difficult. I had obtained the whiskey. Tommy smuggled it in.

"I've got the key to room twenty-six," I whispered. "We'll go in there during lunch."

"Did you ever drink whiskey before, George?"

"Yeah, man. Lotsa times. Have you?"

"Oh sure. It's great, really smooth."

It was unthinkable that either one of us could admit that we had never tasted anything like it, but such is the male ego.

Just then, the bell rang, ending the period. Tommy and I went to the lunch room, but as soon as the teacher sat down at his table, we sneaked out the side door into the hall. I looked both ways in the hall.

"Nobody coming. Let's go."

We walked down the hall a little too fast in anticipation of that bottle in room twenty-six. Just as we turned the corner, Miss Minor was coming up the stairs. In somewhat of a panic, we ducked into the men's room.

"Man, that was close," panted Tommy. "You think she knew where we were headed?"

"Don't be silly. As far as she's concerned, we're just walking the halls. I'll look out and see if it's clear." I looked both ways again. "Okay, let's go."

We raced down the stairs and along the basement hall. When we reached room twenty-six, Tommy fumbled with the key until the door finally opened. We found a spot to sit back in the corner and began to share the bottle. The brown liquid burned our throats as it went down, but in spite of the tears it brought to our eyes, we were determined not to admit defeat. Within ten minutes we were both too unstable to stand up, much less walk. First Tommy, then I, finally surrendered to nausea and we both regurgitated what little there was in our stomachs.

Suddenly the door flew open and in walked Mr. Sharpe. I'll never forget the look on his face. He said nothing, but only pointed toward the hall. We stumbled to our feet and promptly fell back down. Calmly, and still not saying a word, he walked over to where we had fallen. He picked up the bottle and sniffed at its contents, though I'm sure it was enough merely to smell the air, for the alcohol was obvious. He took the bottle with him and headed for the door. At the door, he paused and looked back at the two pitiful lumps on the floor. "You two stay here while I get help." The instruction was totally unnecessary since neither of us could have moved far enough to negotiate the door.

Five minutes later, Mr. Sharpe returned with two teachers in tow. Another ten minutes and we found ourselves being transported to the hospital.

2001

The image I perceived was that of Mr. Sharpe just as I had seen him that day when Tommy and I got drunk in that very room. Again he was pointing, but this time his direction was toward the back of the room.

"Did you see that?" I nearly shouted.

"See what?" returned Jeremy.

"Give me the flashlight!" I ordered.

"Yes, Sir!" answered Jeremy in mock military fashion.

I ignored the remark and shined the flashlight in the direction Mr. Sharpe had been pointing. Against the far wall, where Tommy and I had consumed our first whiskey, there were about twenty typewriters. Jeremy had been absolutely correct. He went to pick up one of the machines. "This one looks like it works. Will it do for what you want?"

I inspected the one he had chosen. "No, that's not the one."

"How can you tell? They all look alike to me."

"For the most part they are, but this one is special. It has the letters scratched onto the keys." Gloria had given in to my weakness and marked all the keys so that I could type the way I wanted to. It was her way of saying, "I love you," though I didn't recognize it at the time.

We began to search frantically. First one, then another was inspected, then eliminated as the incorrect one. Finally, with only three machines left, we found the proper one. "Here it is!" I shouted.

Jeremy looked at me as though I was crazy, a position which I was beginning to adopt myself. "You sound like a kid in a candy store. What is it that's so special about this particular typewriter? I'd be surprised if any of 'em work. They've been down here practically forever.”

I paused momentarily. "It's too complicated to explain right now. I'll tell you after the crisis is past." I picked up the typewriter and started for the door.

"Hey look!" interrupted Jeremy. "What's this? Looks like a manuscript."

I stopped dead in my tracks. I had forgotten all about the last story we had written. After a few seconds, I turned to Jeremy. "Bring it along. I may need it later."

We stumbled back down the hall, picking our way past the old desks. Then it was back to the old typing lab. I hesitated going in. This was where I had created this little piece of hell. It was also where I had encountered a little piece of heaven. I whispered a short prayer, asking God to forgive me for being such a complete moron and for making such a mess out of my life. But now there were more urgent tasks, so I went to work.

In the back of the room, some of the old desks were still there, waiting as it were, for someone to sit down and begin typing. I searched among them, looking for a particular clue. "This is the one," I said excitedly.

Jeremy looked at me as though to ask a question. "Yeah. I know,” I said. “Don't ask."

I simply pointed to the desk top. Many years before, someone – I never found out who – had carved a heart into the wood. Inside, they had carved "G. W. + G. A." I must have felt some attachment to it because I always sat at that desk to do my typing.

"I guess I know who G. W. is," said Jeremy, "but who is G. A.? Never mind. Tell me later. I can wait."

I sat at the typewriter and, after making sure it would still do the job, I put in a sheet of the paper I had bought and began to type. I stopped in mid-sentence and turned to Jeremy. "Do you happen to know where you could get a battery-powered radio?" He gave me that funny look again so before he could ask, I replied, "Don't ask. You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

I continued to re-write the story. When I finished, I took it from the typewriter and began to read it over to myself. It was at least a half hour later that Jeremy returned with a small transistor radio. "Have you heard the news lately? There's been some kind of a break through in that mine explosion story they've been running on the news the last couple of days." I continued to read. "Here. I'll turn it up so you can hear."

“ . . . Bob Orr at the scene of the mine explosion in West Virginia. In searching through the archives of the mine records, mine officials have discovered the long forgotten original entrance. It is located some distance from the present entrance. Workers are now on the scene trying to reopen the entrance. Hope is now running high that they will be able to reach the miners in time. Barry Serafin is with the workers. Barry, is there anything new from the old mine shaft?”

“Bob, I’m standing just outside the original entrance to the mine. Some of the older workers tell me their fathers told them about this entrance, but until today, they had never seen it. I walked a little way into the mine a few minutes ago. There is a considerable amount of debris in the entrance. Some is the result of an old cave-in. Some of it appears to have been left behind by some transients who were using it as a home at one time. It will take probably another two to three hours before the debris can be cleared enough to gain access to the mine shaft itself, but rescue workers assure me that within the hour, they will be able to insert some air circulating equipment. This should give at least some relief to the men trapped inside. . . .”

I reached over and turned down the radio. I knew what was going to happen next. I had just written it. “Jeremy,” I said, “I’ve got to go now. The reporter that’s been trapped down there with those miners…”

“You mean this Tom what’s-his-name?”

“Sutherland. He’s a very close friend of mine. Tommy, I always called him. But with the years gone by, I suppose I’d better start calling him Tom. Anyway, I’ve got to get down there where he is. His mother is very sick in the hospital. I’m sure you’ll understand if I rush off.”

“Yes, by all means. You’d better get down there and tend to your friend.”

I left the room on a dead run. I was out the door and into the parking lot before Jeremy could think about what had just happened. He picked up the manuscript I had just written and began to read. “Oh. My. Word!” said Jeremy after reading through it. “What is going on here?” Then he picked up the old manuscript we had retrieved from room twenty-six and began to read it. “George!” he called. “George Wilson. You forgot your other . . .” But I was long gone on my way to the airport.

Go to Next Section (Scoop: chapter 8)

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"The Sinner's Prayer" by Kim Bond

2012-01-01T16:18:00.001-05:00

Abi, Mrs. Walker, and Reverend Walker finished the Sinner's Prayer with a simultaneous "Amen." Uncomfortable silence followed the solemn moment. Mrs. Walker, as hostess, felt obligated to fill this silence with the clatter of gold-trimmed teacups.

Rev. Walker smiled widely at his new protégé. He exclaimed in his southern accent, "Wot a pleasure it will be to baptize ma neighba b'fore th' congregation on Sunday!"

Abi asked, "Isn't baptism for children? I don't think it’s right for me. I do appreciate the tea and your time, Reverend."

Abi wanted to get acclimated to her new status as a Christian before she practiced rites and rituals. She’d simply accepted a casual invitation for tea, but the reverend proved to be rather persuasive about the religion.

“I’ll think about it,” Abi conceded. They bid their goodbyes, and Abi walked home.

The art deco Pepé Le Pew print greeted Abi with his usual bouquet as she entered her foyer and dropped her keys on a desk that overflowed with a collection of skunks, stuffed and sculpted. She climbed the stairs and readied herself for bed. Painted in lotions and adorned in her pink chenille bathrobe, she crawled onto her wicker bed and curled up with a romance paperback.

She barely read a word when an evil voice shouted, "You are..."

Abi clasped her ears, but the voice continued, "...not allowed to..."

She closed her eyes tightly, froze her thoughts, and wished the voice away. It was silent. Abi opened her eyes once more.

Two yellow eyes framed in green-black scales glared right back into Abi’s. The figure stood upright. The female form appeared to be naked except for the scales which served as her skin.

The voice seemed deceptively sweet, "I don't think you know what trouble you started, sweetheart. Why don't you just recant the little prayer? If you do, we promise to leave you alone with your kissy book." The lizard-like creature snatched the book and analyzed the cover. Abi said nothing, but simply stared.

Perturbed by her silence, the creature fanned out her neck, opened her mouth, and hissed in Abi's face. Abi's shrill scream distressed the creature. It climbed the wall and onto the ceiling where it looked down on Abi before it scurried out the bedroom door.

When the scampering sound grew distant, Abi forced herself to breathe again. She realized that she’d curled into a fetal position and rolled onto her back to regain composure. She then noticed that her back never touched the covers.

She looked down and saw her bed six inches below her. As her fear increased, Abi hovered higher and higher. She grabbed the wicker headboard in an attempt to cease the levitation. Abi was not strong enough to pull her body down. She needed to find a calm state of mind.

Contrived images of beloved objects flooded her mind’s eye. Quilts and skunks pacified her terrified mind. Abi fell to the bed like a concrete block dropped into a muddy river. She felt so alone. For a brief second, she wished the lizard would return.

Abi was wrong though; she was not alone. The corner of her eye caught a flash of light. She twisted her head and saw an evil silhouette. This figure appeared to have been dead sometime. Streams of light outlined rotting features. It lulled Abi into a feeling of powerlessness. The demon of light beckoned, "Come." Abi complied.

Hand in hand, the demon led Abi to the kitchen where she suggested, "Take some medicine for your head." Abi's head began to ache so horribly, it felt as though it had been struck with an ax.

Abi took one pill. The pain subsided. Moments later, the pain returned worse than before. She took more and more pills until vomit spewed from her mouth. She vomited time and again, until the thrust caused fluids to ooze from her other bodily orifices. Abi’s body was at its weakest when her mind defiantly concluded she would not allow herself to die like this.

Abi pulled her body to the door. She propped herself up on the doorknob and managed to leave the house. Abi struggled to her neighbor's doorstep. The weakness overcame her and she passed out.

The couch seemed unfamiliar to Abi, but the southern accent was unmistakably familiar.

"Call th' hospital. I’ll git a quilt," the Reverend directed Mrs. Walker. The Reverend fussed with the contents of an overstuffed hall closet while Abi dragged herself to the bathroom unnoticed. She sat fully clothed in the running bath when Rev. Walker rushed in.

"Baptize me now!"

The Reverend knelt. "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I baptize you." He dunked her head in the bath water.

The Reverend's wife cleaned the vomit from her mouth and hair. A fresh set of clothes were handed through a crack in the bathroom door. Abi reassured the couple of her health as she stepped out the door.

"Now don' miss church this Sunday," the Reverend called after Abi. "We'll be takin’ Communion."

Abi groaned.

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