Funeral

I watched the love of my life get married when she was nineteen years and a day old. I sat in the church and watched, watched her get married to another man. He won, I lost. She loved him more. Him and his stupid football playing arms. She said so, but not in those words. Anyway, that night I drank a whole six pack of beer and watched basic cable until it felt like my brain would explode. Or implode, as the case may be. The teletubbies will only hold one’s attention for so long before they make you want to kill yourself. Moving on, years later, though not that many, I’m sitting at home, same TV, when my mother calls. Her husband is dead, she says. I didn’t listen to how, because I was too busy picturing her there, on the other end of the line all small and wrinkled, on the old fashioned phone she refuses to replace. I say, Yes, I’m coming, I’ll go. I drain a can of Bud before I pack. She seemed to do that to me. Next day, I’m in my hometown, to find it hadn’t changed at all, none of those places ever do. So I go, dressed in black, to the funeral home, feeling dizzy from the jet lag and the incense and the crying of people around me. Then we all walk outside, a mournful herd dressed to the nines in black wool and silk, and watches the usual proceedings and there she is, all in black saying a few words over her deceased high school sweetheart. I guess once upon a time, I’d have missed him too, because he was friend, at least once. But now I can’t even conjure up a focused image of his face, and anyway I’m transfixed by how beautiful she still looks, and how even drenched in tears, she is a goddess. The coffin, small and brown, sinks into the ground and gets swallowed up by shovelful after shovelful of rich dark dirt. People leave. She and I stay. Then we walk, quiet, in silent agreement, until we come to this bench. A simple, wood and concrete thing. We sit down, her on my right. She still smells like peppermint and I think to myself, twenty-three is too young to be a widow. She says nothing, and I start to say something, but decide not to. Can’t remember what I as trying to say. Probably some bullshit like, I’m sorry for your loss. After a while, she asks what we’re doing, and I don’t answer. I look ahead and there’s this old guy by a grave. He looks at us and I think that we must look like a couple. I stay quiet, and I watch him leave, walking slowly, stooped with age and grief. After he’s gone, I ask her if maybe later she wants to grab a bite to eat. She closes her eyes and leans her head back and I notice there’s a freckle on her left eyelid. She’s considering what I’m asking, because we both know that I’m really asking to be let into her life, her heart, between her legs. The she sighs and opens her eyes, and asks if it bothers me. I ask what she means. She says, with the frantic pace of someone that needs to say it all, before the stage lights go off, the house going dim, the chance lost. Something she needs to get off her chest. “I mean does it bother you that you’re the second choice. Number two in the race. Winner by default, by forfeit.” Now it’s my turn to sigh and stew silently. I think about it, not or very long, and I tell no, because I’d rather win second place than not be in the race at all. She closes her eyes, and reaches out her hand. I meet her halfway, and put her soft pale hand in mine, and we sit there for a while. Fall is starting and some leaves have begun to turn orange. Sitting there, hunched together in shared sorrow and black clothes, a think that we must look like a real couple now. We sit there, watching the clouds, and when it’s darker we watch the stars. We feel much older than we are, and at the same time, lighter, younger. Then she opens her eyes and I see a girl in them again. She says she could go for some coffee now. She smiles, and I’m drunk on it, and life, and her peppermint smell. We leave the graveyard, still holding hands.

Red Cavalry, Day 3

I'mkind of conflicted bout the religious element in RC. On the one hand, he speaks almost respectfully of it, and of the poor ordinry worshipers, like the cook or the Jewish men that have popped up in a few stories, but on the other hand, he seems distrustful or mocking of it, like talking about the priest's betrayal, or about the drunk and messy Jews, amongst which there are "the possesed, the liars, the unhinged"(page 71). The USSR under Stalin tried very hrd to stamp out religion,which may influence the author, but I think he's trying to say that religion is like people, in a smll group of the same tye of people you find the good the bad and the ugly, as mixed up, like the unnamed Jewish journalist finds the rabbi and his congregation,which includes the apparently crazy,and the apparently good.

Red Cavalry, Day 2

I've seen that a the element of family is present in many stories, which is seen most strongly in "A Letter" where large part of the letter is dedicated to naming family members, and explores a soldier's relationship with his mother, father, and brother, as well as the relationship between soldiers. The soldier dictating the letter has no problem confiding this in the man he asks to write it, which means either he's close to the man, or doesn't care. What struck me most was he fact taht all the time he asks his mother to take care of what seems to be his dog, which I found incredibly endearing, as if the war might make him immune to human suffering and death,but he still loevs his momand his dog and wishes the best for them. He still cares, even in the most soul-killing conditions. I'm really liking this book,because while mocking, it still captures the elusive human element.

Red Cavalry, Day 1

I started Red Cavalry today, a little nervous, because I was warned about how bloody and gritty its contents is. What I noticed most when I read was the bizarre comparisons he makes like comparing the sun to a severed head. Though little wierd, this puts you into the correct mindset for the stories, all from the point of view of people living the war, and therefore seeing things in such a way. The book also somehow displays the horrific tragedy of war with a commonplace, lacksadaisical tone, which also serves to expose the psychological effect war has, shown by the solierin the first story to be rather unaffected by the fact that there was a dead body i the room, killed in front of his daughter, who as a civilian is greatly affected by this, showing the less jaded, more human loss that war brings.

Alfie

In forty seven years of good clean, obedient boy next door by the book living, I committed one single criminal offense, and this was aided by my cousin Alfie. You know the kind. That one relative that was always just no good. The bad apple, the one that woke up the family with ate night calls from the sheriff’s department. The one that would cause cop three counties over to say “I pulled over someone with this name before…” and you’d know instantly who he was talking about. Any way, the day my cousin Alfie called me, I was sound asleep in bed at four in the morning. I was twenty-two at the time, just starting up my law practice and just recently married. And you know how relatives just have to tank things like that. Early that week, I’d been invite o dinner at my Aunt Ida’s house, with Sue, my wife. Ida was Alfie’s mother. Sue and I went over, even though it was in the sticks. The house was on farmland that hadn’t been farmed in three generations. That particular branch of our family had always produced the Alfies of the clan. The house was old and rundown. The floor was muddy, and they kept a large hog in the front yard, called Walter, as a pet. Now, I have no problems with pigs, but it is a bit off putting to drive up to a white bleached sagging farmhouse, surrounded by wild growth, and find yourself staring at a large pink pig, splattered in mud, chewing something unrecognizable. My wife made a disapproving sound, but nothing else, because she also had a bad branch on her family tree, and that particular evening had included custody disputes and people pulling knives on each other. He evening itself as actually uneventful, Ida was still her robust homely self, Alfie his usual rambunctious self, and my uncle Bud was not present, as he was back in jail. All in all, it was quiet night; all we had was a small fire in the den and an altercation with a raccoon in the garbage bins. Quiet. A week later, the phone rings at four am, and when I pickup and when I pick up, my immediate response is to ask “Alfie?” because I knew he was in town. Not even my clients would wake me at such ungodly hours. But anyway, my cousin was on the phone, and needling me, and how he needed my company. Now even a boy like Alfie is also given his share of God’s gifts, and the boy could persuade the moon to come down from the heavens. Soon, I was agreeing with him, and then I was making arrangements for him to pick me up in ten minutes. He showed up soon, and he’s got this car, a little old and dented, but still running. I hop in the front seat and then we're riding towards the coastline, a good forty-five minutes away. I fiddle with the radio, then I go “So, Alf, man, why’d you need me to come?” he mumbles something about not liking to ride alone, but he’s too focused on the road and I start thinking something’s wrong. “Hey, man, this isn’t anything illegal is it?” “Naw, man. But who better to bring than a lawyer is it was, huh?” he chuckled, but I didn’t. “Aww c’mon, man. But seriously. We’re blood, we’re kin. We owe each other from first breath to last. I just didn’t want to be alone. Just got to run an errand.” I protested “Kin don’t owe each other. We just help each other when we feel like it, and it’s the truth. Relatives make you feel like helping more often, that’s all.” We sat in silence. At the half hour mark, we stopped for gas. Alfie went inside to the restroom and I stay with the car. I step outside, and I see something leaking from the trunk. I got to check it out, and there she is. A dead hooker in the trunk. Surprise, surprise from cousin Alfie. So I’m freaking out, and Alfie comes back. “Awww shit. Didn’t want you to see that.” “See what? The dead bitch in your goddamn fucking trunk?!” “Well, yeah. But it doesn’t matter. We’re fifteen minutes from the coast. Fifteen minutes in this goes away bro.” “What the fuck?! What I should do is call the police, then let you sink or swim, “bro”. But I’m already accessory. Therefore fucked. Now I don’t care who she is, or why she’s here, but what the fuck do we do?!” remember how I said Alfie could talk the stars from the sky? Well, four minutes of haggling later, he’s got me in the front seat, and we’re running for the coast. He dumps her in, and a few bubbles, and she’s gone, for good. The ride back is quiet. When I get home, I just stumble in. my wife is there, in her dressing gown, her eyes full of question. “My cousin just made me accessory to murder. Can I get something to drink?” wordlessly, she moved to the tap and drew me a cool glass of water than I drained in one gulp.

Worms

When my father got out of prison, I was twelve years old. Growing up in a small sleepy town in Alabama, everyone’s father was either normal a drunk, or in the war. All other were dead, usually due to being the third kind of father. My father was gone by the time I was two, and I dint see him again until I was twelve. I didn’t think about it too much, because I never really had need for a father. My mom was great, not too strict, and a cook the gods would be envious of. I had two older brothers, and one married older sister, so I had plenty of guys to talk to or play football with or whatever. They did all the fatherly things. Beside, my father’s absence wasn’t too conspicuous, because growing up in the time of world war two meant most fathers were gone too. It was only later, when the war had been over for two years, making me ten, that I realized that everyone’s father was either back or dead. I asked my brothers, Louie, who was 13, and Joey, who was 16. They said not to ask. Finally, I cornered my mom in the kitchen one night, turned off the radio, and looked her straight in the eye. I asked one question. “Is my dad dead?” she sobbed, and I thought the worst of it, but she said “no, honey. He’s not dead”. She hugged me, tight, and kept crying. Then I asked again, “where’s is he then?” then she cried some more, and said she didn’t know how to tell me. Then she said to go to bed. I would’ve argued but she had that look in her eye, so off I went. He came back when I was twelve and we were worlds away. At first I didn’t know it, but I would find out later he’d just been in jail. Ten year sentence, for murder. The exact circumstance escapes me, but I know it involved the mob, which had some influence over us, though not much compared to its reach over our two sister towns, but enough to cause crime. When he came back, my mom said he was different. It made no difference to me, cause I didn’t remember him. For me, it was the same as meeting a stranger. I kept coming and going as I always did, and though at first my dad tried to discipline me, and tried to establish a new order, he soon gave up and took to the bottle. One morning, around eleven or so, I trotted up the front steps of my house, having dumped my bike on our lawn, to find my father drinking on our porch. I immediately stopped my fast, noisy pace, and tried to tip toe into the house. I had a fairly good chance, the porch was shadowed, n my dad probably in a stupor. I knew better than to just brush past. he would find offence in that and I’d catch a backhand, his preferred form of punishment, especially on me, as I got in trouble much more often than my brothers, and the fact that I didn’t care annoyed him all the more. Truth was I did care, but never showed it. He never used full fore, and the sting wore of quickly. Besides, I had come to term with my father existence and the fact that he as a felon by avoiding him as much a possible, and my existence continued much as it was before. That day, I nearly made it to the door when “Dean! C’mere.” I went, reluctantly. I sat net to him, the white wicker chair to big for me. We sat and he drank, and suddenly his head lolled and I thought he’d fallen asleep. I was about to go, when, “You know, I’m hard on you Dean. But you boys, you grew up lawless. We did too, my Pa did time too. You know, in jail, you get to thinking. Especially in solitary. Did most of my time in solitary Dean, did you know that?” I stayed quiet. This talk was giving me an uncomfortable feeling, that sort of flipping in your stomach, when something’s about to go wrong. We were finally acknowledging the elephant in the room, and I was scared. In fact, it was probably the longest conversation I’d ever had with my father. “You know how that happened? Probably my second year in, I got in fight Dean. With some bad guys. My being Italian, our being Italian, made it worse, ya know? I’ve always been proud of it though, so has your ma. Don’t you forget boy, you’re an Innocenzi. But, to keep me safe, keep my alive, I got sent to solitary. You think a lot there sons. The thought, their like maggots. Worms. In your brain. And they fall on your face, all wet and nasty and they suffocate. For those long, long years I tried to keep ’em at bay, but God, it was so hard and I was so tired. And I thought, when I got out, when I got back to my family they would go away. But they don’t. They fester, and burrow and consume.” We sat in silence, and I heard him breathe heavily. I was afraid he would die. The day turned to night before us. I never understood why he told me what he told me, but I think he needed to exorcise his demons. In the humidity of the early hours of the night, I heard my father whisper for the first and only time “I love you, son”. Then he passed out and I went inside to sit with my mother.

The Date

When they reach the restaurant, it is only eight, but the night life is going strong. It’s the way of the city, always on, all the time, lights flashing, girls dancing. They’re going to some fancy new French restaurant, because he really likes her, and he tries hard on second dates. First dates he think, are destined for failure. Both parties are like the Titanic’s captain, bravely staying at the helm even thought there’s no way the ship won't go down. There are silences, and awkwardness, and verbal blunders. But eventually, if things go well, something might click. Something worth exploring, which is why date number two happens. So he for this second date, though he’s nervous, because she isn’t talking much. But she’s got a nice laugh, and a pretty little body, all golden and Asian, and straight black hair and a nice red dress and diamond earrings. They get to the door and the annoying guy in a tux at the door informs hi they have no reservation in his name. “What?” he says. He’s sure he called. They wont be let in. he argues, and the girl shifts her weight from one foot to another. “Well…Mr. Wolf did call for a reservation, and he is late. Very late.” “Good. Well if he doesn’t come well…I mean stuff happens. Sometimes you can’t make it.” the doorman says he’d gladly take Wolf’s reservation, for a price. The man flushes deep red, but takes the deal. They sit, and order, and an uncomfortable silence soon descends on the table, like a buzzard on a cactus, an ominous sign in old Westerns. They eat, silent, and next to them, a flambé trick goes horribly wrong, and the dinners stare dully at the burning table cloth. Then comes dessert, and he think second dates might be worse than first one. In the kitchen, it seems a cockroach was discovered, and people run, shrieking and tripping, and the chef runs out, met cleaver n hand, wailing “Come back! Come BACK!” He stares down at his dish. He’s blown it. Her hand slides across the tabletop and lands on his. She smiles, and reveals perfect tiny white teeth. “Thank you, Paul. I’ve had a great time.” He smiles back. Next to them, the charred remains of a table are still smoking.

Untitled

The woman, a wife, the nurses think, because he’s got that nervous energy and a shiny cheap gold ring, rushes into the ward, frantic, panicked. She asks a nurse abut her husband. The nurse asks for his name, the woman answers. “What happened?” the nurse asks, and the woman sys “I don’t know, they just called to and said come. I don’t know” the nurses promises to get news and leaves. The woman stays, all nervous and shaking. The wanders around, too nervous to sit. Hospitals smell terrible she thinks. They smell of sickness and death and tears. She wanders down to Pediatrics, but soon finds the cries of babies and the pervading smell of soda pop-and-licorice candy laced vomit was too much, and she rides the elevator back up, in a daze, to the seventh floor. A nurse finds her, and says, “Your husband is still in surgery, Mrs. Chambers. We’ll let you know” she nods. What else could she do? Sadly she thought, all the seemed to be doing now was following the tug of the whirlwind current of circumstance. Hours earlier, she had been standing by the sink in the yellow lemon kitchen that had come that way when they bought the house, chopping potatoes. Then there came a ring or tow from the also yellow telephone, the old spinning dial ones, and life gave her a swift, steel toed boot kick to the gut. Accident. Her husband. Hospital. Come quick. She sits, red leather handbag strap sliding down from her shoulder to her elbow. The chair is smelly and uncomfortable, but her feet hurt. There is a lying on the bed in front of her, in jeans and a red jacket. He doesn’t look like a patient. “Hi” she says. She doesn’t know why. “Hey yourself” he says. He sits up a little, and she sees his right arm is missing. She stares, and he catches her eye, and she blushes, because she knows it’s rude. “I’m here for a checkup” he says “I lost in a bike crash. Hurt like hell. Spent weeks in the hospital. But the worst part? Aint the fact that I had to learn about how to do everything again. It’s the fact that every night, I go to bed, and I dream I got my arm again. The dreams aren’t special or nothing. Just me, living a normal day, with both my arms. Then I wake up, and I see it’s gone again. Every fucking day, like losing it again. Every day is like the day I woke up in the hospital, my momma crying. Every day I lose my arm again”. “I’m sorry she says. “So am I.” They sit quietly, but they know the conversation isn’t over. It isn’t the silence strangers, but the silence of fiends when words fail to come. “My husband had accident. A car, I think. I don’t know what happened. The police called me and told me to come. He might lose and eye, or leg, or his life. I don’t know. I’m waiting. What if I can’t do it? What if I can’t love him if he hasn’t got legs?” the man nods, and gets of the bed. He kneels next to her and puts his hand on hers. “You can, or you can’t. When the time comes, you’ll know. Then you live with it. It’s all we can do, really” then a nurse calls his name, and he goes with her. Mrs. Chambers sits where she is, and stays there for a while, legs crossed, eyes unfocused staring at the wall. At the two hour mark, she walks up the one armed man’s bed, and lies down. She goes to sleep, and wakes hours later when a nurse comes to tell her her husband’s out of surgery and asking for her.

The Spinster or The Escape

The night sky was split by thunder bolts the night Ryan Murphy made his escape. He stood in the muddy ground, gulping fresh air, because he was no longer a convict, rather a former convict, a man on the run. With one last breath of clean air, not tainted by the numerous odors produced by so many men craved into one living space, and took off running, while the noises of dogs and alarms and men’s voices rose up like fire behind him. After a day of running, and spending a night in the woods, he came across a house, on what must be the outskirts of a town. The house was white and small, and nondescript. Near the backdoor, he heard a woman’s voice, talking most likely to a dog. He walked up to her, all smiles and charm “‘Scuse me ma’am, but I’m kind of lost and I need a phone…” he had no concrete plan, but was sure he could get creative when he needed to. She eyed him warily, and he smiled harder and tried to look harmless, using his natural good look, which nothing, not even prison, had taken from him. “well come on then" she said, her voice rough and somewhat harsh, with the same accent as all her neighbors for miles around. Country girl he thought, looking closely at her figure as she walked in front of him. Not the most beautiful of women, but she would do, he guessed, if need be. He hadn’t seen woman in years, he wasn’t about to get choosy. Trying to get a better grasp on the situation, he tried sound innocent, saying “Ah-um, I sure hope your husband won’t mind… “Not married” she says, again abrupt, and somewhat lonely. Good, he thinks, because she’ll be easy to convince. They come to a kitchen, small and old, but need and obviously frequently used. “Sit” she says, speaking in commands the way mothers and nannies and school teachers do. “You want something to eat?” she asks, back turned to him as she fusses with something at the sink. He says yes, the first good meal he’s had in ages, he knows. As she washes, he takes in her figure again. She’s older than she looks he thinks. But still somewhat pretty. A widow maybe? He asks her, and she says “No, not really. Never married...thought about being a nun, too, but I don’t think I really believe in God.” he nods, but her back is still turned. He isn’t bored though, the surroundings so new after the same monotonous grey walls. Hi eyes skitter around, like a kid in a candy shop, until he sees it. Sitting, glinting on a side table cluttered with newspapers, is a revolver. His heart stars to hammer, and then she turns, looks him dead in the eye, and says, “You’re that boy, right? On all the news channels? The criminal?” his breath catches and he lunges for the gun and points it at her before he fully realizes what he’s doing. “For God’s sake! Put that thing down!” “I thought you didn’t believe in God.” “Doesn’t mean I can’t invoke his name. Now put that down, and I’ll get dinner ready.” Dazed, he lowers the gun, but doesn’t put it down. She gets a plate, sets it in front of him and waits. Slowly, he grabs a bite, then two, until he’s eating like the plate might be taken away. “Slow” she says, “slow”. He slows, though not completely, and finishes. Then they sit there, awkwardly, her arms folded, his right hand still holding the gun. “What’re you gonna do?” he says. She smiles, a shy schoolgirl smile, and says “I should be asking that. I’m just lonely, ok? Just need someone to talk to.” “I’m lonely too” he sys, and then thinks it stupid. She smiles again, more knowing, and her hand slides over the table like a stream of water, and lands on his. He smiles, and takes it, because he’s never understood women, so he doesn’t try.

Submissions

Places we can submit:

http://www.cezannescarrot.org/guidelines.html
http://www.applevalleyreview.com/

Prayer

In twenty years as a correction officer, no store ever stuck to me like Michael Wangler’s. at the time I met him, I was still young, I guess, only been n the job seven years or so, round about thirty, married, my kid, Katie, still in high school. Anyway, I wasn’t working gen pop, I was working death row. So it was late, getting close to lights out, I was on my last rounds. So I’m walking by Wangler’s cell. Wangler was a real animal. He was there because he’d been convicted of murdering a woman and her daughter in the first degree. Looks like he raped them before too, maybe slashed them up. I don’t know. To be honest, I don’t want to. If you looked in Wangler’s you’d see nothing. Nothing except the killer instinct. When I looked, I saw, though it took me a while to realize, addiction. In the joint, you see all types of addiction. Men addict to drugs, to sex, to TV, it doesn’t matter, you name it, they got it. But Wangler, Wangler took the cake; the guy was addicted to murder. That night marked five years to the day of Wangler’s waiting on death row. His third and final appeal had just been rejected. He was to be executed the next day. So that night I was just doing my job, hoping to get home soon, kiss my wife, see my kid. Just a guy, just a job. I’m walking by Wangler’s cell man, when the guy just calls out to me. So I ask him what he wants. He says he wants to talk. “Talk about what?”
“Me, man. What else? I’m about to die, I’m allowed a little selfishness.”
“That’s nice, kid. Tell why I should -”
“Na, man. Listen. Look, I’m a goner. Tomorrow night’s the night. Gotta tell, ya never thought I’d be marking my death date on a calendar. But that’s not the point. See the thing is, I gotta talk. Dead always gotta talk. When else we gonna do it? So anyway, you the only guy here. And here it is: I killed ‘em.”
“I know, Wangler. You were convicted by a jury of your peers, ‘member?”
“Again, you’ve missed the point completely homes. Not just them. I counted, I killed 27 women. Only caught me on those two. See I fucked ‘em, cut em, and killed em. I did it cause it made me happy man. I don’t care how fucked up it is. Cause, see, I never as been as happy as when I did that. I dunno why. Maybe God made me that way.”

“You saying God made you kill?”

“Not exactly. Cause I believe in the big man. But I don’t believe he’s listening, at least not to me. I think he put me on this earth, showed me woman, showed me his greatest creation, and let me pick. And see, his creation was so great that I loved it too much. I would fuck em, but it wasn’t good enough. They weren’t mine enough. I wasn’t getting all I needed from them. I killed em. I took what I needed. I took too much. Cause God, he puts women here, and they can gives us love, and sex, and cook for us, and smell good. And that should be enough. But I took advantage of the big man’s generosity. Its like he gave me, I dunno, a glass of wine, and I busted into his liquor cabinet and took the rest. So he put me here. I get it. I deserve it. Don’t bite the hand that feeds, they say.””So? Why you telling me this for? You’re gonna fry, it doesn’t matter now, if God can hear you or not.”

“I don’t know why I’m telling you. Absolution, maybe. But man, you believe in God?”

“Sometimes”

“Naw, man. That means you do. And means you know he ain’t always the most giving guy. Its okay, I forgive him for that, cause he gave me twenty-seven good women. But you know, not to fuck with I’m, cause he aint the most patient motherfucker. So I stopped asking, and let him do this. Man, you better clean your sins too, before you get here. But anyway maybe this is why I’m telling you. There one more thing I’d like to ask him, but he won’t give me. I’d like a thunderstorm, like when I was a kid. A real howler, biblical and shit, bucket after bucket of water, fearing for your life storm. But I pushed him see? And I won’t get it. Absolution homes. You gave me peace. You should look for it too.”

Last words he ever said to me. Or anyone. He left me shaken, somehow. I went home that night, ignored dinner, and prayed for the first time in two years. Absolution, he said. Still haven’t found it. Right after Wangler was executed, I mean like seconds later, the sky opened up, and it rained for twenty seven days straight. Maybe God was listening after all.


There was a prison movie on TV. I think my muse has developed ADD, and is highly influenced by outside sources. Also, it’s probably the first thing I’ve written that’s dialogue heavy, I tried to exclude profanity to the extent possible, but it is prison after all.

Dream A Little Dream of Me

Noise. That’s what comes first, weaving spearing, like mist crawling over the horizon. It’s dark, or dark in the matter of the blind. The noise is beeping. Beep beep beep. Above, t the side. Then voices? Are they called voices? Are they voices? I don’t know. I can’t know, because the consciousness is moving lie the tie. I know its movement is like the tide, but I can’t say what a tide is. My body won’t respond. Baby, baby wake up. The word love, many times, different people, if the voices really are voices. They say coma a lot. Am I in a coma? Can’t remember. Baby, please wake up. Amy. Who is Amy? Amy’s voice, a lot, more than the others. A good feeling comes with Amy. The thought of her. Yes, the feeling is love. My wife Amy. I remember now, who Amy is. I sleep too, but how do you sleep when your in a coma, how do you dream within a dream. It could be a dream, all of it. If you’re in a coma, you shouldn’t know you’re in one, right? But Amy, Amy is a clear image in the fog, her and the smell of…of…no, it vanishes, too fast, sand slipping through my fingers. Sand is not water, but sand makes me think of water. Ocean. My parents, voices together, always together, talking about me. Telling me to fight, be strong. Why fight I'm not in the war, not anymore I think. It is too quiet to be the war. No bombs. Wait. Bombs. Yes, a bomb. In….a car. Yes it was a car. Not my car. Last thing I remember. Why was there a bomb? Did it put me here? Maybe. Mark. He was with me. Is he dead. Sleep again, or the thing like sleep. Always sleep better when Amy’s with me. Amy crying, the same rhythm she always cried too. Hot tears on cold skin. My skin? The wakefulness lasts longer. My parents are in the room. Amy is telling a story. Things get clearer. Fog moves away. Yes, it was car bomb. Iraq was loud, and noisy and hellish. I’m probably in the states now, or not Iraq. No shots or yelling or soldiers’ voices. Wait, if Amy and my parents are here, it must be the Sates, they stayed there. I went. Why did I go? Oh yes, the war. President Bush. Saddam. Remembering is easier. Getting easier every…what is it? Minute? Hour? Day? The fog lifts some more. Trying to open my eyelids. Hard, but some light. Light? Is this good? Maybe. Light meaning my eyes are opening. Probably, maybe. Still trapped though, can’t move. Try, try very hard, but I can’t move. Strange. I’ve always had my body in control. Why can’t I move no? Oh, coma, no movement. But I’m awake, inside my skull, trapped. Is that normal? If I’m awake, why do the people outside keeping saying coma. Doctors come and go, the same clacky walk, the same tone in their voice. Detachment. Nurse singing, voice soft, close then far away. Something about testing pain reflexes. Then hot sharp spikes. Promising, the doctor says, responses good. If I were awake, I’d kill him. Amy tells me to wake up. Hold on baby, I’m coming.

This piece was written with the idea of showing the point of view of someone in a coma; it’s supposed to have a dreamlike, surreal feeling to it.

Perfect Night

“Can you zip me up?” she says, her voice all wine and honey, her skin smooth and his favorite tone, her body shapely. she is the vision of what a woman should be, all elegance and beauty in her diamond earrings and blue silk gown, but still quietly and perfectly sexy, showing off her back innocently, the zipper waiting at the bottom. The ring he gave her shines discreetly but gorgeously on her left ring finger. The setting is perfect, with the elegant hotel room around them, the moon full and fat right outside their window, looking close enough to touch, the stars winking around it. He loves her then, a sudden full passion, but for him it feels like a life long sentiment, or maybe since the moment he laid eyes on her. She is heavenly perhaps, even her name sounds oddly celestial to him. He smirks and leans closer, placing one hand on her left shoulder strategically, two fingers on the fabric of her dress, the other three on her smooth, slightly scented skin. His hands, large and brown and calloused from the work he managed to put in when he was younger draws up the zipper slowly, the thumb of his other hand rubbing slow circles onto her shoulder blade. She smiles. He kisses her neck and wishes she were his wife.

In the bathroom, minutes before, she applies perfume and cream and makeup with the concentration and precision of someone defusing a bomb. She smiles at herself in the mirror, to make sure the effect is right, and wishes, not for the first time, that her work could be more legitimate that being the arm candy of rich older men at events, then warm their beds afterwards. She slips on the blue silk dress, worth more than anything she’s ever owned, and put in the diamond earrings, and heaves a silent sigh. If only this really were her life. If only it weren’t charade, if only they were in love. The night is perfect, the moon round and fat and close, a night for love. It is not to be. He’s handsome yes, but all she knows of him is that he’s rich, and his name. She hasn’t even given him her real name. Then she locks away the melancholy firmly in some secret box in the recesses of her brain. She reminds herself firmly that he is married, chained to another woman and her bed, in love with her, that shadowy figure, either too prudish or plain to be worth showcasing and ravishing. The ring she slides on last, with a quiet fury, because it makes her become someone else, a not-her, and makes his little wife fantasy complete. She chastises herself for having that fantasy herself. Then she takes a breath and becomes the character he has drawn up for her. She’s ready. She’s got a pay check to earn. She opens the bathroom door, and walks toward him. “Can you zip me up?”

Kill Shot

As a soldier, a killer, I get asked “Is it hard to kill?” a lot. And the truth is, it isn’t. It’s not hard at all, the act of killing. Aim, breathe, squeeze the trigger. That’s it. You’ve killed. The bullet as found its mark. What comes after is what’s hard. The act of killing doesn’t vanish. It does not just end. It leaves a mark, a stain. Not only you and the air, but it leaves a real physical piece of evidence, a body, a shell of what you killed . In a war, you can’t really stop right then, in the middle of it all, to look at what you’ve done. You kept shooting, fighting, running, because its war and that just it. If you don’t fight you die. If you fight, you might die. You still feel it though, the weight of your kills, after. When it’s quiet, usually night time, when you're alone, you and you thoughts, it all comes back. The faces, especially. You think, in the running and the chaos and the noise and the dirt all flying up, that you wouldn’t see the, hat they’d barely register. But you can see them, later, frozen in your mind’s eye, facial nerves twitching, blinking, gasping, he body shutting down, but not without a fight. Men dying miles from home, lone but for their blood and the chaos around them. The weight is unlike anything in the world. It never leaves. it follows you homelike a shadow. Even at night, curled up in bed that seems soft as cloud after sleeping on the ground or cots, you wife breathing softly beside you, smelling like an angel after the scent of burning flesh, the voices and faces of those dead men, of those killed sits like an unwelcome visitor on the edge of the mattress. Their waiting, waiting for you to join them, because you are their brother, brother in arms and death and killing. War makes all men equal, equally empowered to kill and die when they aim and fire. They all ask about the war and the killing, all naive and faceless and similar. My wife doesn’t ask though. She knows better I think, or knows me better. She just smiles. Or maybe she feels the weight of those men on our bed, or feels the choppy waves of their breath. She says nothing, and curls closer when their chatter seems to draw too near. She is perhaps, the only brother-in-arms that I have truly loved, because her battle is that much more bitter, and though I think it is because she loves me, I cannot know why she fights. Whatever the reason, I love her more for it.

The Golden Pebble

When she found it, the day was hot, the breezes lazy, and grass thick and green. The quintessential summer day in suburbia. She, Jade Andros, seemed at first the perfect cookie-cutout wife, the fourth figure in the perfect family, like all the other perfect little families in the perfect little house in the perfect little suburban community, Sunnyvale. But she was not, as her neighbors were not. Perfect lawns hide a multitude of secrets. And sins. Under the placid porch steps of the blue and white house, lay perhaps routine little horned monster, a sin, a sin called Adultery. Jade’s husband was ruled by the head in the underwear, not the one on his shoulders, and beside the little horny toad like being that was Adultery, grew another sin, green, slimmer. Envy. And that sort of emotion, all those emotions we classify as stressful or bad, ignoring how ridiculous it is to call an emotion bad, it kept easy company with alcohol. Copious quantities in fact, often swirling in Jade’s belly, in hopes of drowning the croaky voice of the monster under the shiny veneer she cast on her life. That afternoon, a Thursday, the kids at school, the man at work. Jade drank a margarita and two martinis, and stumbled out onto the Homes-and-Garden-esque back yard. Why she went is unclear, but what is clear, and central to this story, is what she found. She found, glinting beside a dandelion, was golden pebble. Small, utter smooth, and oddly round for an ordinary pebble. And she picked it up. Some would say this was mistake number one. Perhaps it was the booze, or the heartbreak, or the incredibly golden sheen the pebble had that made her wish on it, as if it were a the lamp of a genie. This, we could call mistake number two. She held it up, high, clenched in her fist, and proclaimed, “I wish she was gone. That little- I wish I was the only woman!” then she collapsed into hiccoughpy sobs. The pebble, unnoticed, slipped into her pockets. Now, she may have been too inebriated to remember her words, but they cannot be unsaid, and that makes all the difference. That day, the husband’s mistress, his secretary (will wonders never cease?), was involved in a gruesome car accident. So gruesome in fact that several seasoned EMTs and law enforcement officers lost their lunch. Anyway, the incident will be cut brief in this story, because it is not really that worth mentioning. The husband came home that day, all torn up, into the always benevolent and welcoming arms of Jade. And the wish was granted. A week or so passed, and the incident has been forgotten when Jade remembered the pebble, and decided to keep it, setting in on her vanity. “What a curious thing” she thought, and then thought no more of it. At least Scotty’s tantrum. Scotty, the younger son, and generally favored one, was a loud rude ugly little monkey. His parents however, saw him as angelic, and let him get away with horrible pranks and screeching fits and rewarded him for things that would get him a slap from most parents, even the most controlled ones. That day, Scotty decided to have a real screaming fight. For that reason, and that alone, so nothing anybody could say could calm him. He shouted, threw things, pounded on the floor, the walls, his nanny, and the dog. Normally his mother would have left it to the hired care takers, but that day she was having a truly awful headache, and one of the nannies had just quit, and the cook had called in sick. At first she let him carry on, hoping he would tire himself out. But little boys have far more energy than they are given credit for. Then she tried the usual bribery, offers of sweets or trips. But the boy would not stop. Then he tried to be authoritarian, yelling some herself, and threatening. The boy wailed louder. Then she gave up and locked herself in her room, which did nothing as the boy’s wailing cut straight through the walls. And there, on the vanity, the pebble sat glinting. Almost as if it were calling her attention. So she took in her hand, gritted her teeth and said “Stop him”. Nothing happened. She tried again, nothing. Then “I wish he would be quiet!” and the noise just stopped. Midscream. As if a flip had been switched, or the boy had died from lack of air. Frightened, she dropped the pebble and went to find her son. He was sitting on the rug, eyes wide, mouth shut. He would never speak again. The parents took him to ten doctors, twenty doctors. But no one gave them any explanation, or found anything wrong. The boy simply could not speak, or make any sound. They had a sleepless fortnight, and Jade began to drink again. Heavily. When drunk, she cried big fat tears and told anyone that would listen that it was all her fault. No one listens to drunks. After a month of this, her husband (now around a lot more and thus noticing her behavior) and confronted her, and she did stop drinking, thought the fact that he poured all the booze down the drain probably helped. After that, her head clear, she went and found the pebble. It wasn’t glinting, and she wished in a million different ways for her son to speak again. Nothing happened. Sorry, the pebble seemed to say, no refunds.

Fables and Fallen Angels in the Soviet Union

In the morning when I wake up, I feel cold, and sad. People cry outside for bread, for clothes, while workers hurry in to work, pulling double and triple shifts. Is this my country? Is this what it has become? Is my beloved Russia in shambles because of a liar preaching from a fiery pulpit? Be careful, because if you do not nod your head and agree, the penalty could be death. I feel like a beleaguered mother indulging a spoiled little child flinging pudgy, powerful fists. Likewise, he, like an old nurse maid, nourishes his people with tall tales rather than food. The angel of communism has fallen and been cast into a wintry barren hell. The famine rages and still our leaders deny its exits. This call us equal, but people starve and they sit at banquets. This nation is a lie. In the words of Henri Frederic Amiel “Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence”. I will not be silent; my brothers have been silence for too long.

Life under Stalin, as the man himself tells it, is easy effortless living. In the great party leaders words, our health care is modern and efficient, easily and equally available too all. Minorities are equal, and free, their culture accepted. The arts are common and enjoyable, uplifting our hero, the common worker, and our women are free to equally enjoy this life with us. Religion too, is said to be free and easy top practice, any faith be embraced, but that the soviet people have simply decided to worship the God of communism (and Stalin) instead. I wish only that this were true, and that I did not have to sit here at my typewriter, and close my eyes and don rose-colored glasses to see this world, as it so far from the truth. My truth.
Our health care is free, yes. And all can access it. However, the medical center concentrate near urban centers, thus the poor rural peasants must be content with substandard care. The hospitals are hectic, inefficient, undersupplied, and dangerous themselves to health. Yes, our way of practicing medicine is modern, but what good does that do if we have no way to implement it?

Our minorities are just as oppressed. Only Russian is accepted by the state, Russians are given privileges and the best possible everything. Bosses are free to abuse minority underlings. Men and women are sent to far away labor camps on the simply ground s that they are not pure Russian. I know this because friends of mine see their culture spit on and their families sent away. I am ethnic Russian, and at hostels they have moved ethnic minorities from their beds to give me one less flea ridden than the one they had left.

The arts have been encouraged, but to a point. Several artists
And poets and writers have left, because they do not want to have to put their work to the scrutiny of censors. They are also adverse to having to kowtow to the government’s demands about what to paint of cast or write. Ideas and artwork dissenting g from the brackish idol that is communism is prohibited, so poems and letters telling the horrors of our world, or the distaste they have for our leader can cause imprisonment or exile. And still, the people sing these unsung heroes secretly, retelling their works by word of mouth. And our women. Ah, our women. This revolution was supposed to free them from the bonds of house and home, and let them take their place as leaders in the movement. Instead, their bonds are still there, though unspoken, still binding them to a stove and the midwife’s hands. Most of those leaders are gone now, and women are back where they were, silent and weeping for the sorrows of their husbands or fathers.

My mother, god rest her soul, was the most opposed to this last, sad turn of events, or consequence of lies our government has told. Her whole life, form the moment she could walk, she dedicated herself to the church, to serving God. Her brother was priest, before the government came for him. I too miss the religious tradition that had been taught to me. Thousands of soviet citizens, of varied religions miss the ability to freely worship their god or gods. Comrade Reader, I have been lied to, my people have been lied to, the world has been lied to. These so called prophets and saints and saviors, the guiding of communism has been wool pulled over our eyes by the howling ravenous wolves of the former Bolshevik party. The world sees the USSR as a wonderland, full of bread and contentment and progress. The world believes comrade Stalin has led us through the looking glass to a better place. I say that this looking glass was cracked, these stories delusional fables told to a hungry tired people. My people groan in pain, downtrodden and wronged. You reader have the power to end our lonely suffering. Let my message be heard. Give out your own. Save Russia. Save us from ourselves, and the pig we have sat on the throne.

Bibles

Back in my youth, in my straight out of college days, I took a job as a traveling bible salesman. It paid close to nothing, the hours were long and hard, the job thankless, and all of this traveling had to be done in the ancient bucket of bolts assigned to me. However, my young eager self quickly put me in an optimistic pair of glasses. Surely the trips would be nothing short of inspirational, and create a long list of stories to tell. I’d see the country, finish the book (ah! The book! The drafts go back as far a senior year f college, write in thousands of different inks and papers, an idea waiting to have a body years before its publication), and grow the rest of the way up. Of course, those glasses were basically shattered with the force of a sledgehammer wielded by an angry trucker after two hellish weeks on the hot summer road without air conditioning, no inspiration, and series of restless night on lumpy motel beds. Of course, I worked a route, and eventually developed the jaded off-duty attitude of a traveler. I was a regular on the roadside dinners, knew the waitresses by name, and favored a specific room in the motels I had decided would be mine. Like all the other regular travelers, I regarded the holiday-ers and college road trippers with contempt, and always silently nodded to my colleagues. We belonged to another world, our world, the world of the road. We acted like we were born from it, living it, dying from it. Drama queens, the load of us, but it gets mighty lonely in your head, and your brain plays a soap opera to keep you entertained. Those times also weighed heavily on my psyche, because on the one hand I was the jaded glaring old-young man sitting alone in the corner booth, and on the other I was the vibrant charismatic bible salesman. It takes trust from people, and willingness to spend money. Now, though I did cater to several suburban families and old ladies, me big clients were obviously churches and catholic schools and such. Now, priests are usually trusting, and pleasant, but you need to talk a ring round them before they do it to you. And nuns, well they’re a different story. And somewhat scary, especially to a half-Jewish, three-quarter atheist liberal college boy. However, the job did give me one thing. Inspiration. The words began to flow about month in. one minute I’m eating Avery’s world famous cherry pie, the next I’m cramming eight hundred words onto the world’s smallest napkin. The book, which when published became five books, was dissected into pages and sheets and toilet paper and napkins and the back of flyers and notebooks all stuffed into a long dark brown cardboard box that carried with me everywhere, sleeping with it under my motel bed and having it ride shotgun, with two bibles stacked on top of it just in case I got lucky and scored a quick, on the fly sale. Never did, an I think those to bibles are probably buried under a blanket of dust and ash somewhere I my garage, obscured by mount of dinosaurs from previous ages. The only reason I quit the job was because one night I met a publisher in the dinner. The guy was an alcoholic, and insomniac. He as a local, and that particular dinner was an all night place, and I rolled in late, coming in from Tucson, I think. So anyway, we get to talking some how, you know how it is. So anywho, somehow I end up telling him about the book, the mammoth book on the verge of an ending, sleeping in its cardboard box of a bed in the front seat of the car. The guy got interested, and I felt, for the first time in years, that the thing could actually be published. That night, I slept exceptionally well, even though that particular motel was the worst of the ones I stayed in, all water stained and cockroach ridden. I felt almost weightless, anchored only by the soft snores imagined coming from the box under the bed. It was almost a friend, by then, after all those hours in a hot car o a dusty road. That morning, I walked out to the car, packed the box in the front set got ready to go, and stopped. I’d left my watch on the rickety table by the hard-as-stone bed. I ran back for, and even that was going to change my life. Heading back to the car, the street deserted I looked back to the red rust bucket I would be spending the next two hours in. And then, bam. It came from nowhere. The silver Ford, slamming full speed into my torso, sending me flying. I later found out the driver was the stone drunk municipal court judge Andrew Thompson. Anyway, there I was bleeding onto the pavement. Lazily, my eyes followed the expansion on the pool around me, and I remember feeling vaguely ashamed to dirty such a nice clean slice of tar and concrete. People seemed to pour out from the nearby buildings, and I wondered where they all came from. My funeral wouldn’t even be half as full, I thought bitterly. And then darkness. It was quiet and still and I thought, this is it. You’re done buddy. Above me, came a light, which got wider and wider. And I didn’t want it to end. I didn’t ant to die, not then, not with the book unfinished, and all those miles of road untraveled. So many plates of pie to eat, sunsets to see. I didn’t want to die. Nor do I now. The light got bigger, and I thought, but what bout the words? Whose will speak them, if I won’t? All those words left to say. The light was nearly all around when I thought, all these years surrounded by bibles, and I didn’t take a read, not once. I almost laughed. It was just like the sinner to repent too late. And then I don’t remember. It was like I shut off, for a second. Then I woke up in the county hospital, the book in the chair by my bed side. On top of it was a note. “Took a read. Good stuff. Wake up soon, we’ll talk.” The drunken editor. I smiled. My luck had changed.

Hunter

It was cold, but not cold enough not yet. The sun was still slipping slowly below the horizon, and still managing to warm the earth below. The deer wouldn’t be out until a little past nightfall, when the cold urged them to move and seek food. Seek warmth. Bobby waited patiently under a tree, well hidden by the foliage, and his innate ability to be completely unperceived. He was fifteen, and shaping up to be one of the world’s best hunters. He had the talent, being able to blend in at will, and to see beyond what most people can see. A steady hand, an eye with perfect aim. Those abilities were his from birth, and honed by years in the woods of Tennessee or Montana, above the ranch his family lived and worked on. He also had discipline, and stuck to rules about the hunt, taught to him y his grandfather and uncles, and father, before he was killed. Tonight, the hunt was not about pride or a trophy, for the code forbid this, rather about practice, and food. He’d keep half the deer’s meat for his family, and sell the rest. Of course, he didn’t really need the practice. He’d been shooting his whole life. The first time he felled a buck, a real one, big proud and strong, he’d been ten. Before that his game had been small, rats or birds, but it was always well shot. He respected the guns, the prey. Hunting was his religion, like all the generations of Darko men, which could be traced back to the Civil war. He’d waited that day, covered by the forest and his skin, as he watched. And then there it was. Big, proud, strong. Beautiful. Bobby paused for a moment. He wasn’t sure he wanted to kill an animal as beautiful as that, a testament to the love that God had put into every creature on his green earth. Then the thought was gone. He lifted his rifle and shot, just once. And the buck fell. Little ten year old that he was, he moved toward it, noted the glassy, empty look in its eyes, and knelt to touch the blood. It was still warm. Then he stood, intending to call his grandfather, so he could see what Bobby’d done, when he stopped. Something was wrong. No, not wrong, different. He was different. Ten year old Robert, affectionately called Bobby was gone. In his place was Robert Lee Darko, a man. He was called Bobby by choice. His other kills could not compare to this, to the feeling it gave him, to the fact he took life. He said his family’s hunting prayer, the one he had said before the hunt, over the body and waited for his grandfather. Bobby, because he still liked to be called Bobby, shook himself lightly to clear himself of the memories and waited. A thought, one that was relatively new that had begun to appear more frequently in his head clouded his thoughts. What would it be like to kill a man? Would it be better than the buck? Would the blood be as warm? He’d toyed lazily with the idea of the army or navy. His ancestors were military men. His grandfather was. Two of his uncles. And his father, whose military career had ended in a spectacular explosion that had scattered his parts as far as five miles, splattering foreign soil as his wife waited for news half a world away. Bobby shifted, his neck wet, and gazed into the mist creeping across the forest floor before him. The unnatural patience of a hunter that he had learned kept his features calm and muscles still, even with his excitement, less and less with time, and his discomfort within. His skin was his barrier, his moat against the outside world. Unless he let the bridge down, no one could touch him. Then, with that special light-footed magic, deer began to slip in and out of the mist in front of him, dancing, playing, and if he wanted it, dying. Still Bobby Lee waited, because they were not wanted he wanted, not yet. And then there he was, the buck, the one, stepping out of the mist with a powerful, regal stride. Bobby lifted his rifle, no hesitation this time, and aimed. The deer fell dead. His body, ready for this for hours, moved quickly and purposefully. The same glassy dead look and brain matter on the ground. The blood still warm on a chilly night. Bobby Lee wondered how soon he could join the army.

This was supposed to be a one time story, but I liked the character of Bobby Lee Darko too much to let him go to waste. So in the future there are probably going to be several stories or snapshots of his life.

On the Front

September 15, 1915
France
To: Brighton Beach, England, UK


Dear Mamma:

You’ll notice this letter doesn’t say where I am posted. It is for the best, because it could be dangerous for me and the rest of the staff, and my patients. You and Papa, and Sophie (give her my love) will have to conform with knowing I am posted on the Western Front. At least this way, this letter won’t arrive all cut up by the censors. Coworker says her sister wrote back saying they could even see the edges of blue lines from the censor’s pencil. I have many patients here mother, the trenches seem to spout them endlessly. The wounds are frightening, and very new. The use of gas causes the most awful effects on the human body, mother. The injured, more than men they are boys really, are almost jaded to it. It’s a frightening new world mother. The other day, a boy woke up to find the gas had left him blind. I held his hand as he screamed, and then let him sob in my arms. He didn’t speak English, and my French was too broken to have a conversation. They are sending him home tomorrow. They say he called for me at night, (I work the day shift) calling me “mother”. He reminds me of Benjamin as child, remember how he’d fall and scrape his knees? He cried so hard, I remember, and I’d comfort him, and treat his wounds. Like Papa said, nursing is in my blood. Still, this war makes even me doubt my ways. The men come back muddy and dazed from the trenches. They say nonsensical things. Or they don’t speak t all. It is fearsome; they sit together in big groups, unused to solitude, but silent, with haunted eyes. They say they are “shell shocked”. This war scares me mother, and I wonder how you and father and my beloved little Sophie are doing at home. Does she miss me? A little girl should not be without her mother I know, but her father is in a trench somewhere, and I am needed her, my skills are indispensable. Tell her I miss her, every night and day, and that her Daddy does too, and that they miss her, but have duties to attend to. I love you mother. Give father my best too, I miss his stories. The truth is mother, I miss Britain. The familiar accent, the food (the rationing must be affecting this, I know), ice cream on Sundays. The walks I would take with Steven. Ah my Steven. I have not heard from him mother. I hope he is safe, maybe being treated by a fellow colleague. At least I am well liked here mother. They have elected me head nurse. I should be overjoyed mother. But my ward is filled with silent brooding men, missing limbs, filled with holes because of the “machine gun”, or blinding by gases. The floor I never without puddles of fresh blood. It is chaos, the stretchers bearers burst in, wide eyed and panting, men, no boys, dying on old canvas. I cannot believe this war, with all its deaths, its missing, its injured. It’s a whole new world mother. Give Papa, and my darlingest Sophie all my love.

Attentively, your daughter,

Jane.

Five Stages

To experiment with humanity and emotions and our range of reactions, so I decided to write short things on the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_stages_of_grief The stages are in thought form.

Situation one: A twenty two year old beautiful vibrant college sorority girl, Jayne, goes partying one night after her final biology exam. She hopes to be a pediarist. She is tall, blonde, beautiful, the belle of the ball. A little stuck up, which calls the attention of several men. On the way back, inebriated, she barely notices the direction the car is going, distractedly staring out a window while her (also inebriated and high) friend drives. They run a red and get struck by a truck. The friend dies on scene. Jayne awakes to find her legs missing, she’ll never walk again.

Denial: Wha-what?! No. there’s no way. It’s a mistake. Like a paperwork mix up or something. It happens. I’ll lift the blanket and my legs will be there. Those sorts of things don’t happen to girls like me. Or I’ll wake up and it’ll be a dream. A crazy dream. I’ll have aced Winthrop’s exam. It’s a dream, it has to be.

Anger: No way! There’s just! I’ll kill ‘em, kill ‘em all. There’s no way. I’d kill Jordyn, if she were still alive, and that f*cking trucker too. They killed my future. I hate ‘em all.

Bargaining: I’ll give anything to walk again. I’ll go back to church, be reborn, give God back my virginity. I’ll move back to Idaho, stop smoking and drinking, have eight kids that I take to church on Sundays. Just let me walk again.

Depression. I wish the accident would’ve killed me. I hate not wailing, seeing the same four walls, hearing my mom cry in the bathroom. I’ve got no future.

Acceptance: It doesn't matter. This won’t stop me. I aced that exam, and the college will take me back. I’ll get around in a wheelchair. I don’t care. I can still get married, have kids, do the whole thing. This won’t stop me.

Situation two: an eighty nine year old woman, Charlotte, is diagnosed with a serious, aggressive type of cancer, in her kidneys. The doctors say chances of survival are slim. She’s been married for 71 years, (since she was eighteen) and has three grown children, and seven grandchildren. She was a teacher for 46 years, and used to teach Sunday school. An avid and active member of the community, she is also well educated and traveled.

Denial: No, no. it must be something else. The doctor must be wrong; I’ll get a second opinion. I’ve gone this long; it can’t be cancer, not now.

Anger: But why?! I’ve been a good mother, good wife, good member of the community, devoted myself to the way of God and good values!! Why me, why now?! What have I done wrong?!

Bargaining: I’ll go back to teaching Sunday school. Please God, I’m not ready to go home yet. Just let me see my grandkids grow up, graduate. Please, just let me have one more year with my husband.

Depression: I guess nothing matters anymore. I don’t feel like cooking or walking or trying to enjoy the last few days. The shadow of death just makes it too hard.

Acceptance: It could kill me, it could not. I’ll just have to live with that fact. But meanwhile I’ll enjoy my husband, and the kids, and the grandkids, maybe even travel some more. It doesn’t matter, I have to die someday. If its not, well then it’ll be now.

Situation three: Jason, a thirty year old handsome stockbroker is living a charmed life. He is financially successful, well-liked, has a solid group of friends dating back to grade school. He has a beautiful, smart fiancée, Heidi, who he full heartedly loves. He has recently asked best friend Anthony to be his best man. He arrives from a meeting with his bosses that tell him he ha been promoted to find Heidi and Anthony having sex in his bed.

Denial: it can’t be. That’s probably not Heidi. Anthony’s a stud; it’s probably some chick he picked up at a bar. I’m being an idiot. Later Heidi’ll come home and we’ll laugh it off and he’ll still be my best man and she my wife to be.

Anger: how could they?! I trusted them, loved them, and they betrayed me!! How, why on earth would they do this to me! The world must hate me, something’s out to get me. I hope they all rot.

Bargaining: I’ll spend more time with Heidi. Be a better boyfriend. Hang out with Anthony more, go back to our Sunday basketball games. Just…there has to be a way to undo it. I’ll do anything, give up my job, my arm, anything. Just give me back my life like it was before.

Depression: Yeah, it’s my fifth beer, so? It’s not like it matters. Who am I going home to? And they’ve given me the next two months off, for the honeymoon. The f*cking honeymoon. Oh god. If I’m not here, drinking, I’m at home drinking, or stomaching my mom wailing about the breaking of the engagement. Thank god I sold that gun, or…who knows what I’d do. I’d rather be scraped of the floor by a bartender instead of the empty apartment, alone.

Acceptance: that’s it. Nothing to do now. I’ve got to move on. Maybe even be friends with them gain. They loved each other ore than they did me. I can’t undo it, or change their minds. I’m working again, moving on to dating in the near future. I still got my health, and my mom, and my friends. Most of them anyway. Who knows? Maybe I’ll find someone better suited for me. And Rachel, the cute ad exec that works for the company is pretty nice, and she flirted with me before the incident. She’s doing it more now. We’ve got more in common too. Life is looking…almost good.

Responding to Fiction in the New Yorker

I read a story titled The House Behind The Weeping Cherry.

I really liked, it, because it tells the story with a sort of "naked" perspective, like the human judgements the narrator makes are all the kind of judgement that we make. He feels helplessness, and disgust, and love, and passes judgement just like us, just like the side of our mind that we don't share. He also finds himself in a hard futile situation, with his ethics changing in front him, and oddly you feel for him, and kind of have the same thoughts he has, you go through the same steps. Like the first time he says prostitutes, you sort of recoil, but then, like Wanren you come to feel fondness for them.

The Zoo

This piece is supposed to be from the Pov of a mentally handicapped ten year old. It was inspired by the book, the curious incident of the dog in the night-time by Mark Haddon, which is a novel as told by a fifteen year old autistic boy, and takes place in England. Really great book, really recommended. The depictions of some of the mental disorders referenced are probably inaccurate, sorry, my bad.


I’m in class “C” at school. They call us the zoo animals. It’s because we’re the special needs kids, and we’re loud and rowdy and uncontrollable. So far, we’ve gone through three teachers this year, the latest just assigns reading, and leaves the room. No one does the reading. I guess she’s scared she’ll break her arm like Ms. Spilner. People think we held her down and broke her arm, but that’s not true. She was walking around the room, yelling at us for hitting things like each other and ourselves, when she stepped on a back pack and slipped. After that she got moved to the B class for second graders. My school is organized into three different classes per grade. It is a small school. A class is for the best and brightest, the kids who would take all AP’s in a regular school. They say they will change the world, be the leaders of tomorrow. I don’t see how reading dead English playwrights will help, but what do I know? Class B are the average kids, working class. Their future would be to play a sport or work for class A kids. Then there is class C. we are the smallest, after class A. We are called the special needs kids, or the Zoo. They aren’t teaching us really, they just want to get rid of us. Here you will find the stupid, the beefy, and the just plain weird. I am here because I have dyslexia, which means I can’t spell. Or that’s what I understand. There’s other stuff too, that’s wrong with me. My parents hate that, and me, a little, because my older brother and sister were in class A. I’m the family freak, my cousin says. I don’t like him. My best friends are Manny and Lila. Manny is big, and very stupid, and likes to fight, but he only fights with boys. He broke Earl McGraw’s jaw once. With me and Lila, who are girls, Manny is very sweet. He gives us hugs and brings us flowers. He likes us to play with his hair. I like him because he loves me, but not like in the movies, but like a baby brother or a Labrador puppy, like Kiko, who died when he got bitten by a rattlesnake. Lila, my other best friend, is a girl. We get along, which is good, because there is only one other girl in my class and I don’t like her. Lila is short, but pretty. She is her because she has Aspberger’s syndrome, which is kind of like Denny’s autism, but not really. Denny sits at the back of the class and hates to be touched, or anything green. I like Denny because he always shares his candy and knows all the capitals in the world. Lila is more girly than me, and used to have a class B boyfriend. But I am smarted than her and I can run faster, so it’s ok. I am smarted because I can do Chemistry, which my sister taught me with her old books. When I get bored, I do electron configuration, which nobody in class understands. This makes me feel good. Another person I like in my class is JR. his name is John Rutherford, but everyone calls him JR. His birthday is the day right after mine, which means he’ll turn eleven 24 hours after me. He has ADHD, he means he doesn’t pay attention and has a lot of energy, but I like him because he tells me jokes and we fight, but its not like real fighting, it is like joke fighting, because we only sort of scratch each other and do tackles and things. Besides if he hurt me I’d hit him because even though he’s my age he is small and I’m stronger. I also like Ms. Mayberry, who taught us in first grade, because she was not mean to us, and we were nice to her. I read a lot, and we used to talk about books, and she used to share lollypops if we did math right. She still lends me books and I like her a lot so I buy her a box of lollypops for Christmas. People I do not like are people like Coach Burns. He teaches P.E. and I do not like him because he yells and makes us play volleyball, so I hate P.E. even though I am a good runner. Also, he calls kids in my class “retardo” and “spaz” so he is mean, and also he smells. Other people I don’t like are Cindy, the other girl in my class, who is here because she is below the learning level you need for class B, but she feels smarter and better than my friends and other people in my class so she hates us. I don’t like Chuck either. Chuck has Down syndrome, like Beau, but he is not nice like Beau, because he is mean and bites people. He pees on people and laughs, and eats things and he shouldn’t like plastic toys and smells like old yogurt. My class is loud and messy. It smells, almost everything is broken and people fight. We don’t learn anything, and the teachers and other students are scared of us. They call class room 8E the Zoo, or the Freak Show. It is my favorite place in the whole world.

Mother

The invitation, the one that changed everything, was cream colored, with pink trim. The words were black, the ink expensive. It was befitting of the king, for of course the king had sent it. It was that like scrap of paper that immortalized my stepdaughter’s name, and made mine foggy and infamous. They know me only as the stepmother now. My story has not been told. I suppose hers merited more attention, and people prefer the idea of a pretty young girl, than the old woman I have become. I spend my days in my chambers now, dark bleak things, fitting for the mourning widow of two I am. It smells, of my perfume, my dog, the food they bring up, and I suppose of old woman. T is dark, all made up in black and grey, the windows shut. I live mainly on bred and chamomile tea. Strange that tea. Tastes wonderful, looks like piss. A little like me. I married Georg first. He was Austrian. Tall, eagle eyed, handsome. I loved him, very very much. Then the war came, and my Georg was gone. I had an estate, a fortune, two girls, and a broken heart. I guess you could say Heinrich and I found each other in the dark. Both of us in pain, and we found a solution in each other. A trained spouse, rich too. And Heinrich was a nice man, strong, and I was returned my social standing as wife and socialite. The future seemed bright. But my girls, my girls were my Achilles’ heel. They were not bright, or pretty, I’ll admit. They were not kind or polite, and this is my fault. I was so happily so blindly in love with Georg that I did not look at them twice before handing them off to the servants. They grew spoiled and rude, but after the death of my Georg they were all had of him. We are all blind and dumb when it comes to our children, and I defended them fiercely, and let them live how they wanted. I couldn’t bear to cause them sorrow, as shallow as I knew it was. And then there was Ella perfect, pretty little Ella. I both loved and hated her. She was the daughter I wanted, and I longed to love her, be a mother to her, but on the outside I was cold and cruel to her. I let her be called names, and moved to the attic. I let her suffer, and let my daughters run amok, and grew cold inside. I suppose I hated Ella too. I was scared of losing my husband, of facing my failure, of loving her. I as like a spider, trapping my perceived rival. Our lives, though, on the whole were good, and content. I was not the hostess I once was, having turned bitter, with age and heartbreak. Heinrich began to visit the manor less and less, getting involved in travels and his wine and his whores and his business. When he did come by, he had eyes for only Ella, and occasionally me. Then he’d be of again. My girls and he didn't even glance at each other and it was oddly pleasant not to have to mix those two worlds. The forerunning experiment was bad enough. Then came the invitation. I went to the ball, alone, with the girls, because Heinrich and I saw very little of each other. It was better that way. Everyone knows what happened then. In came a mysterious princess, with grace and elegance and poise and all the traits wanted for a princess, like many men, though none as worthy or noble, the prince could not tear his eyes from her. I remember her coming by to greet me, and the flash in her eyes. I knew it as Ella, my Ella. I nodded and she moved on. To this day I don’t know if she recognized me too. But only Ella could enchant a man that way, be it Heinrich, or the baker, or the stable boy, or the tailor when she picked up the new dresses. She should have been mine, by birth and blood. Instead I own the pig and the cow by the buffet table. To this day I pray to God to forgive me for my excess pride and arrogance, for it was that which must have caused the wreckage of an offspring afforded me. When we got to the house, Ella said nothing, and I almost went own to the kitchen to simultaneously shake her for her insult and hug her in pride. Instead I went to bed. Then the man with the slipper came. He was a servant really, and my girls ran to him, and tried to cram their beefy toes into the delicate heel. And then it was Ella’s turn. Her beauty made his eyes soft, her spell ensnaring all of the male sex, whether she wanted it or not. I could’ve have stopped her I suppose. Sent her away. Given orders. I was good at orders, and she was good at following them. But maybe it s away to finally be free. And lo and behold, the shoe fit. Ella was indeed the princess. Then it was a whirl of weddings and knightings and balls. Ella was good enough to find my girls husbands and it seemed they finally learned gratefulness and humility. A final gift from Ella, along with good, if unattractive husbands. Beautiful people always find each other, why should the same not be true for ugly people? Heinrich lived out his days, and here I am, vilified in my old age as the cruel stepmother of the beautiful girl now known as Cinderella, the gift my daughters gave her. And here I am, looking back, thinking I may have had more fun had I spoiled the girl, given us both joy and laughter. The memories are clear now, the road untaken more bitter in my winter years. My winter years, that seems, appropriate, as we all seem to turn gray and silver with age, with the time. I’m dying now, old, abandoned, drenched in black and pain. And the scent of chamomile tea.

Piece about the final days or years of Cinderella’s step mom.

Lover

I could say a lot of things,

pretty flowered words,

about what you mean to me.

Things like

I am empty without you

or

I can't live a day without you

But that would be a lie,

because I've never felt empty

like a used old paper cup

and I've lived many days without

you

by my side.

I cannot say forever,

hearts are changing like the tide.

But if you left tomorrow

I'd

miss you and

your emerald eyes.

I'd miss the dent you give the mattress

and the curve of your skin

and the way you breathe

at night.

I'd miss you.

Does that,

that achy burning in my heart,

mean that

I love

you?

Highway

The road is thick

with brick red dust

and tears

and laughter

of girls,

of men,

of ruby red lips

and buffalo wings

and things discovered,

and lost.

The road is long and winding,

hot asphalt

and lead

and gunpowder black.

Get in your car and drive,

anywhere.

Untitled

Thick gray hair

knobby gnarled head

patchwork scars

on leathery skin.

Eyes sunken, old and black as

coal.

Made this way by a life

of hardship

and toil.

I look into his eyes and see,

a brother.

Sprout

As small as a seed is,

it shoots up,

green,

and grows.

Grows towards the sun,

everyday some more,

like me,

like you,

like all.

Hotel Story, Chapter Part One

You won’t believe the things you see as a hotel concierge. Granted, you probably see the same amount of crazy stuff, or even more if you have a job like being a taxi driver or a motel owner or diner waitress or 24 hour convenience store clerk. Any job where you have to see a lot of different people means you’re going to get exposed to the wacky and weird side of humanity. The creepy side too. I once had to greet a delegation of vampires at three in the morning. No joke. They arrived all in black, and pale and kept sniffing me and looking pointedly at my neck. Apparently they were there for a convention. I didn’t see them before sunset once, and they left at three am too. The kitchen staff tells me all the ordered was champagne and raw meat. To my credit, they kept coming tour hotel every time the convention was located here. Of course, to truly be exposed to the full spectrum of the incredible condition it is to be human you have to live-in a big city. The kind that gets tons of people moving through it on a daily basis. I’ve been at this business for fifteen years, and I feel I’ve become a connoisseur of sorts. A connoisseur of the magical thing it is to be human, Homo sapiens, to be us. The best place to really see people is the graveyard shift. Sure the day shift is good too, man I’ve seen things there, things like wedding proposals, an orangutan escape his cage and be chased by the magician employing it, heart attacks, breakups, makeups, I even helped a woman deliver her baby on the lobby floor. The baby, a boy called Paul Gilbert Ollivander, was born healthy and strong. He’s fifteen now by my count. His dad was so grateful he sent me an ice sculpture of my face. Life sized. Mine’s a weird town folks. The day shift is nice, but it’s too…normal. After years of that I really wanted to see the dark, grimy, hidden side of society. So I took the graveyard shift. A boy did find what I was looking for and more. I’ve seen strange. A transsexual prostitute who asked a fellow concierge for some lip gloss before heading out on the town searching for her next trick. Suburban housewives having a night on the town with the husband, getting stone drunk and telling me their life stories. An off duty cop smoking weed in the hotel lobby with college kids half his age. They were promptly joined by a young couple in their midtwenties and a seventy year old lounge singer. He worked for the hotel though his act had been over for awhile. He’d been at the bar, drinking, when he smelled the tell tale scent of weed. Chaz, a twenty seven year old valet with dreadlocks and a nose ring confided me that he had been their dealer. I’ve seen rich hotel heiresses, all tipsy and wobbly from a night of partying hit on a Catholic priest (also attending a convention) because they believed he was Robert Redford. Funny part is, he really did look like Robert Redford. His friends even called him Bobby. Another celebrity look-a-like story, which is particularly memorable, is this. It was a hot, November night, slow, and boring. The only people that night in the lobby were me, Mindy (another concierge), a young college girl crying into her drink in one of the armchairs near the door, and Chaz, the drug dealing valet. Weird? Hardly. Welcome to my world. So anyway, there we are, sweating, staring, a quiet all over the place. It was 2:45 am. The outside, coming out of nowhere, is this blue, 1950s Cadillac, a beautiful machine, rolling smooth, engine purring. It pulls in front of the hotel, like a dream. A guy steps out. The guy, all smooth, dressed all in black, guitar strap slung over one shoulder, cutting across his abdomen. Mr. Cool. Looked just like Johnny Cash, and if I’m lying, I’m dying. So anyway, the guy walks in, with that effortless way you always wanted, all of him the guy you always wanted to be, like he owned the room. He was smoking, I remember. So he walks in, stands in the middle of the lobby and pulls of his sunglasses. All of it was something worthy of a Tarantino movie, and it was about to get better. He walks over to the girl, the one sitting forlornly in the armchair in the corner, and tucked his hand under her chin and pulled it up. “Why you crying baby? Pretty girl like you got nothing to cry about.” She stared up at him for a moment, kind of shocked and embarrassed, her big blue eyes framed by black lashes all clumped together by tears. She let her head drop gain and mumbled “My boyfriend.” Mystery guy looked at my as if to say can you believe that, or typical, or puh-lease, or told you so. Something like that. It was weird, the sudden jolt of camaraderie. Little did I know what was coming. Weird didn't even begin to cover it. Our lives were about to change because of a smooth talking stranger in a 1950s caddy.

Sand

Who decides right and wrong? Who decides which actions are worth punishment? I do not know. All I know is that one moment I was at home, watching Mother bake and going to school and playing games in the back yard. The next I was on a bus headed to a camp, that’s the only word everyone said when they tried to explain, I heard relocation camp, interment camp, and even concentration camp. I was afraid. I was being forced to move away. I was just seven. What did I know of war, of hate? I’d never been to the desert and then there I was living in Gila River in Arizona. I’d only ever seen Arizona in maps before. My parents tried to take our situation lightly and keep the seriousness of it from me, but I could tell something was wrong. Especially because of my older brother Yoji. He was ten years older than me. He hated the camp and hated the fact that the government decided we weren’t American. As soon as he turned eighteen he enlisted and was taken to France. We never saw him again. My younger sister Ruth was three, thank God and she doesn’t remember the harsh reality we faced. She didn’t remember the sand in her hair or face, or the tension in the air, or the tears of mother’s who lost their sons in a world across the ocean. I couldn’t understand why we were there. why all around me there were people that looked like my siblings, like my father, like Mrs. Yamamoto down the block, who made cookies and lemonade and treated me like a granddaughter, were locked up, under the hot sun, necks craned towards the sky, as if wishing to be free like birds. Later I would hear that Gila River was the least oppressive of these types of camps, but the sadness in the air and the desire to be free was just as strong as anywhere else. There were too many of us too, and the infirmary was kept busy by rattlesnake bites and scorpion stings. There were still fences and men looking at us with suspicion in their eyes. Didn’t they know that father was just as patriotic as all the other men on our block? That Yoji didn’t even feel Japanese? That I was the only third grader in my school to know all the American presidents all the way back to George Washington? However, the fact that we were Americans prisoners in our country wasn’t what bothered me the most. What bothered me was the fact that those who imprisoned us looked like my neighbors and classmate and teachers too. They looked like my best friend Penny, who was my exact same dress size, so we would switch sometimes during recess. They looked like Tyler Mayhew, who I had a crush on, even though he said all girls were nasty and slimy. Boys. They looked like Mr. Penn who ran the corner grocery tore I’d walk to from my house. They looked like my teachers and people I passed in the street. They looked like some of Yoji’s friends, or Ruth’s. I remember the taste of that was much more bitter than sandy water.

This piece was supposed to show the point of view of a girl in the Gila River facility that housed Japanese American being interned during WW2. I picked Gila River because it was more humane but still a camp and in the desert, which therefore includes all the hazards of the land. It is located on Gila River Tribe land and is currently restricted by the Tribe.

Revision

Anatomy
Though I was once a man, now all that remains of me is dust, and a stray rib bone. I am, as you can surmise, dead, and buried. Several years ago, in fact. I don't know exactly how many, but I know they’ve been plenty. It takes time to turn into dust. My death was a rather stupid one, looking back. I worked on ships, you see, and I was going to jump unto a row boat, from the ship, to row back into the city. The ship I was working on was big, and needed deep waters. It had to anchor further out that port and to get there I had to take a row boat. I went that far out, just enough. Just enough that there were no others around, nobody to help, enough water to drown. I stuck my leg out, trying to reach the small boat and I fell. The world kind of spun on me. I fell into the water, which was looking rather black that day. I remember it was cold. I must’ve hit my head. Next thing I know, I’m laying in some room. I was warm, because there was canvas sheet on top of me. I drearily realized I was dead, and the shock wasn't really there in the way you'd expect. Maybe it was the fact my heart was no longer pumping, so no adrenaline or whatever. Anyway, I lay there, awake but not, there but not, and noticed I maintained some feeling in my body, in the nerves somehow, like a sort of tingly sensation. As if I was straining to feel, and, well, losing the struggle. Then someone came in, maybe two someones. I think I heard two voices, came, and I was moved, I'm not sure how, into an adjoining room. I was laid on a cold wooden table, and men crowded around me. One man began to speak to the audience, and I realized he must be the oft commented Dr. Tulp. And I, an honorary, and unnoticed, member of his mostly captive audience. Unfortunately my mind tuned the beginning conference out and it thought of rotting meat instead, like they kind I’d see tossed out of butcher’s stand in the market, black and stinking, covered in worms and wondered if the maggots and bugs were coming for my soon to be rotting corpse too. Sounds morbid, yes, but I knew then, somehow, that I was just part of a grand design, drawn by a master’s hand. My death would feed the worms, they would in turn make the soil fertile, the soil would bear grass, grass feed cows, cows would feed humans, and the circle would start again. It was beautiful, and I had to die to fully understand. Funny, really, if you think about it. Then Tulp and his spectators moved closer and I saw, or felt I saw, like out of the corner of my eye, Tulp move towards my side, and felt air in or on my hand, but softly, like breath. I don’t know what he did; only the tinglyness was fading. I know I seem dreadfully aware for a dead man, but memory is all I have. I seem to have gotten it back in full force after I died, perhaps because my mind was no longer preoccupied with issues of the present, or fearing the hypothetical future. I was no more, so memory was the only place I could live. There is knowledge, wisdom that comes with death. Wisdom of all things, of what grand design we are working towards, and the simply intelligence to objectively look back on our lives and judge them for meaning. I remember things I’d forgotten, like the way my daughter first lock of hair smelt, or the exact color of the sky on my wedding day. To be honest, I lost all track of Tulp’s lesson, and my burial. I was there, but not. I existed, and did not. Then I was in a cold coffin. The last ghost of feeling I had was a coldness on my face that may have been a worm, but I’m not certain. With the remnants of consciousness that I do, did, will, have I wondered whether there was a heaven or hell. Was I being punished by this sort of here-and-not state, or were we all? Or is this what heaven looks like? Now I wonder, if this I the end for all, are we all sinners? Or are we simply more magical than we believe? I do not know. But I do know that my final time of rest is coming and I will finally be no more than bone dust. Hopefully.



Meat
The day I lost my hand started like any other. Waking up in the old bed, in the same old town, with the same old morning rain turning everything outside my window gray. I swung my foot over the edge of the bed, onto the frayed old woven rug on the cool wood floorboards, stared at the same point on the wall. Behind me, like any morning, my wife Louise was still asleep, curled up in the little concave dent in the center of the mattress, looking tired even then. Then, like any morning, I got up, got in the shower, washing away the sweet scent of dreams and replacing it with the acrid stench of reality. No way up and no way out, just the same old road, heading nowhere fast in the same old rundown miserable town. Like any kid I’d had dreams, but not anymore. No college came my way, no great job offers, or bombshell women. Just my plain old neighbor Louise with her less than average looks and her secretarial position at an accountants’ office and my own job at the meat packing plant like every other guy in town. Men you used to be dreamers now spend their days elbow deep in the flesh of animals. A five to ten job, that’s am to pm. With that I managed to scrape enough together for a house and kids and a decent enough wedding. Like everyone else. Anyway, that morning, it was a Saturday I remember, though it’s not like it matters, I went downstairs, grabbed some coffee and a lunch pail, and headed out, into the usual morning downpour. My truck was cold, as always, and the radio off. I put both my hands on the wheel, turned the key, and started out. I turned on the radio and the let the dial spin on its own, like a little top, trying to find a station, not really caring where it ended up landing. I thought of kids in the momentary silence, still asleep, tiny bodies in tiny beds. They must be dreaming, I thought. That morning, it’s amazing what you remember, the song playing was a sad old song, sung in a woman’s voice, talking about love. It was probably older than my father was, but it was a good song. Slow, steady, had good backing musicians. I heard a piano, and a flute, maybe a trumpet or an oboe. Memory can surprise you. I can remember those little things, but I can’t remember what went wrong that day. Something must’ve gone wrong; I remember the feeling in my gut. Anyway, I pulled up, parked and walked in. went to the lockers, pulled off my flannel coat, and put on the white smock thing that counts as the uniform, and my one blue glove. See at the plant I worked a small lonely station in the assembly line. I couldn’t see anyone, as there was a white chute on my right and a white machine on my left. I knew there was a guy beside that machine, on the other side, but I couldn’t see him because of the machinery’s sheer size, so it made no difference. My job was to make sure the meat got cut properly. A big square of meat came down the chute every few minutes, landed on the belt. I pushed a blue button and the meat moved to the center of the belt, in front of me, and stopped. A big shiny bade came down and cut the meat in half. Then I stuck out my blue glove and moved the meat. Waited awhile, the blade came down again, and you get four pieces of meat. Four neat little squares. No fuss, no sound, no bleeding. Just a big square, a blade, and four small squares. The conveyor belt came to life then and moved the meat into the machine on my left. Repeat. It goes on forever, from five to ten, meat comes in, meat goes out. Slice, slice in the middle. Supposed to be safe. Anyway, that must have been piece one hundred that day, right before noon, when it happened. Slice, meat in two pieces. Then a blank. All I remember is my vision going shaky and red and white. I look down, and my glove is gone with my hand still inside. The meat was still in two pieces, I hadn’t moved it. Remember puzzling as to why I hadn’t done that, as my vision grew increasingly hazy and taking to time to stare and then meat, then watching my stump. Someone screamed. Then I remember only blackness and silence. I woke up at four pm the next day, in the county hospital, my hand gone, Louise by my side. There were a couple of officials from the plant, babbling about freak accidents and employee safety and whatnot. I wasn’t interested. Then they gave me a check, a check for a bunch of money, for my “disability settlement requirement” or some such thing. Hush money. Still I took it and ran. Ran, chasing after the sun, chased it all the way to California. I drove, not caring about the fact that I only had one hand, one was good enough. It was like waking up from a long slumber to realize you were living in a dream, roaring down dusty roads, a beautiful woman in the front seat, money in your pocket, kids in the back. That trip was a good, fun thing that still warms my chest when I think of it. We drove like there was no world, no responsibilities. The windows down, radio up, kids strapped up in the back, Louise in front next to me. I had one hand on the wheel, one eye on the horizon, the other on Louise, all four of us singing the songs on the radio. The moon and stars winking up above, the kids asleep, Louise’s head on my shoulder, the sun coming up in a pink mist, the engine purring. All the possible colors in sunrises and sunsets painting the sky, white fluffy clouds making shapes above. Louise looking beautiful in the evening sun, the world looking like a play ground. Looking back, and thinking, I see now that driving like that, you could drive forever and never stop, never look back. Forever. I like the sound of that.

Untitled

In need of Rescue,
I called out,
for
a champion,
a warrior,
a knight.

Down he came,
like roling thunder,
on icy hills,
Blood of slayed dragons,
staning
his horse's white
heels

Two wings,
on his back
pillars of strength
trimmed like those of eagles,
or angels,
or kings.

He stood before me,
stoic and elegant,
my foes defeated
and still
at his feet.

In that moment,
I was unafraid.

Anatomy

Though I was once a man, now all that remains of me is dust, and a stray rib bone. I am, as you can surmise, dead, and buried. Several years ago, in fact. I don't know exactly how many, but I know they’ve been plenty. It takes time to turn into dust. My death was a rather stupid one, looking back. I worked on ships, you see, and I was going to jump unto a dingy, to get back to land. I want that far out, just enough. I stuck my leg out, and I fell. The world kind of spun on me. I fell into the water, which was looking rather black that day. I remember it was cold. I must’ve hit my head. Next thing I know, I’m laying in some room. I was warm, because there was canvas sheet on top of me. I drearily realized I was dead, and the shock wasn't really there in the way you'd expect. Maybe it was the fact my heart was no longer pumping, so no adrenaline or whatever. Anyway, I lay there, awake but not, there but not, and noticed I maintained some feeling in my body, in the nerves somehow, like a sort of tingly sensation. As if I was straining to feel, and, well, losing the struggle. Then somehow came, and I was moved, I'm not sure how, into an adjoining room. I was laid on a cold wooden table, and men crowded around me. One man began to speak to the audience, and I realized he must be the oft commented Dr. Tulp. And I, an honorary, and unnoticed, member of his mostly captive audience. Unfortunately my mind tuned the beginning conference out and it thought of rotting meat instead and wondered if the maggots and bugs were coming for my soon to be rotting corpse. Sounds morbid, yes, but I knew then, somehow, that I was just part of a grand design, drawn by a mater’s hand. My death would feed the worms, they would in turn make the soil fertile, the soil would bear grass, grass feed cows, cows would feed humans, and the circle would start again. It was beautiful, and I had to die to fully understand. Funny, really, if you think about it. Then Tulp and his spectators moved closer and I saw, or felt I saw, like out of the corner of my eye, Tulp move towards my side, and felt air in or on my hand, but softly, like breath. I don’t know what he did; only the tingly ness was fading. I know I seem dreadfully aware for a dead man, but memory is all I have. I seem to have gotten it back in full force after I died, perhaps because my mind was no longer preoccupied with issues of the present, or fearing the hypothetical future. I was no more, so memory was the only place I could live. I remember things no I’d forgotten, like the ay my daughter first lock of hair smelt, or the exact color of the sky on my wedding day. To be honest, I lost all track of Tulp’s lesson, and my burial. I was there, but not. I existed, and did not. Then I as in a cold coffin. the last ghost of feeling I had was a coldness on my face that may have been a worm, but I’m not certain. With the remnants of consciousness that I do, did, will, have, I wondered whether there was a heaven or hell. Was I being punished by this sor tof here-and-not state, or were we all? Or is this what heaven looks like? Now I wonder, if this I the end for all, are we all sinners? Or are we simply more magical than we believe? I do not know. But I do know, that my final time of rest is coming and I will finally be no more than bone dust. Hopefully.

This is supposed to be the corpse’s P.O.V in the Rembrandt painting The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp. I’ve changed a bunch of the facts and I’ve operated outside many of the constraints, but still, I think I’ve rendered a likable dead body. Here is the wikipedia entry; which includes an image of the painting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatomy_Lesson_of_Dr._Nicolaes_Tulp