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.