literary journal
Charred trees stand still
The baggage is too strong
With the smoke drifting over the paddock,
carbon tunes in to a beautiful song
A barren foothold:
the mud-covered carcass of a leaf
The shrine of a stem
Staying close to the life underneath
FIZZA ABBAS is a Freelance Content Writer based in Karachi, Pakistan. She is fond of poetry and music. Her works have been published at many platforms including Indiana Voice Journal and Poetry Pacific.
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this was
christmas – two years ago now.
and I had gotten a job
answering phones in a hospital
and had offered to work
for the overtime
but still been given
holidays. it was
strange,
being in a city
where I knew no-one
and didn’t have any chance
of meeting them
without an open bar. I had a bottle though,
picked up on the eve,
and spent an afternoon
getting pleasantly plastered
at home
and with lemons. ordered a pizza
for my turkey lunch
and around four
wandered out
carrying a glass
and the last slice.
it was very still
without the cars going
and kids playing
on new bikes;
the whole town
quiet
as a glove on the table.
something comfortable
and crumpled up small,
without even
the potential
of making sounds.
D S MAOLALAI has been nominated for Best of the Web and twice for the Pushcart Prize. His poetry has been released in two collections, “Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden” (Encircle Press, 2016) and “Sad Havoc Among the Birds” (Turas Press, 2019)
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it’s i don’t know what time
and my brain is on fire
the bourbon i knocked back
is doing nothing to douse the flames
smoke curls
wreathing me in a fine grey mist
a scornful tongue teasing me
with questions i cannot answer
do i understand english
or is everything in code?
is what i think i understand
merely a celluloid projection
of my own desires?
am i all that
or a wishful fool preening
before a funhouse mirror?
the kitten scratching at my heart
is desperate to escape
and mewling
scores my bravery
with sharpeneedled claws of doubt
there will be no answers tonight
i must be up and looking human at 9
to say goodbye to a friend
committed to the earth
my soul struggles
in a bloody agony of hope to be reborn
there may never be answers
RC deWINTER’s poetry is anthologized in New York City Haiku (NY Times, 2017), Uno: A Poetry Anthology (Verian Thomas, 2002), Cowboys & Cocktails: Poetry from the True Grit Saloon (Brick Street Poetry, April 2019), Havik (Las Positas College, May 2019), Castabout Literature (Dantoin/Hilgart, June 2019) The Flickering Light (Down in the Dirt, June 2019), in print in 2River View, Down in the Dirt, Genre Urban Arts, Meat For Tea: The Valley Review, Pilcrow & Dagger, Pink Panther Magazine, Scarlet Leaf Review, The New York Times and in numerous online literary journals.
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The moths
cursed at, by you
that gathered ‘round your
old
porch light
that I switched on so
You, would not
Stumble or tumble or
Look otherwise,
foolish
My already tattered hoodie,
now covered in
mud,
from the puddle I laid it
across so your new
Sneakers, could
stay
new and
— white.
And my body,
that I
threw in front of a train,
hoping it would slow down
So, you would be
on time
for
afternoon mass
All reminded me, that
as you dipped your
French fries in my blood, &
raised your Red Stripe to
my many shortcomings
I was
free
to join the dancing
moths in my soiled
hoodie and gather up my
blood by the
— light
of the moon.
CHRISTINE A. BROOKS is a graduate of Western New England University with her B.A. in Literature and her M.F.A. from Bay Path University in Creative Nonfiction. Most recently a series of poems, The Ugly Five, are in the 2018 summer issue of Door Is A Jar Magazine and her poem, The Writer, is in the June, 2018 issue of The Cabinet of Heed Literary Magazine. Three poems, Puff, Sister and Grapes are in the 5th issue of The Mystic Blue Review. Her vignette, Finding God, is in in the December 2018 issue of Riggwelter Press, and her series of vignettes, Small Packages, was named a semifinalist at Gazing Grain Press in August 2018. Her essay, What I Learned from Being Accidentally Celibate for Five Years was recently featured in HuffPost and on MSN. Her book of poems, The Cigar Box Poems, is due out in late 2019. https://www.facebook.com/ChrisBrooksauthor/ Twitter @OMG_its_CBrooks http://www.christinebrookswriter.com
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I belted out the entire Sound of Music
soundtrack to Denny the cow
while he chewed cud in sync with
Climb Every Mountain
Do-Re-Mi, Edelweiss.
I swear he listened,
even swaying his tail
to the daily tunes.
Then one evening on this dairy farm
in Upstate New York
I inquired about Denny’s
absence from the singalong.
Too late, the mother grinned
as she pointed to
the half-eaten meat on my plate.
Though the Von Trapps
had escaped death
by fleeing, this did not prove
to be poor Denny’s fate.
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Her name was Andromeda. She swam on satin water. Lapped up in the silk, her mind was restive. Her thoughts were agile, but discrete and non-linear. Absorbed her musings, her dreams were clear. She swam in them, out of her depths, just as well, they kept coming back. Braided in and out, oscil-lating, and edgy, they chased her almost, inconsequentially. In a way her swim impeded, these half-formed thoughts, writ on water’s hem.
In the aftermath of the war, random bodies floated. Down by the stream which eucalyptus skin coated. Covered by stringy barks, pale faces were spotted. The enemy gloated; bodies were quite bloated. Marked with agony, of the swollen bodies, some eyes shut, peculiarly, some were still open. Her focus turned in a moment.
She sat next to her mother. They chatted in an oval room, mother and daughter. Her mother looked fresh and young, way back, a maiden. Andromeda was born much later.
She asked.”Where have you been all this time?”
“I had been out to a conference,” her mother replied.
“How did it all go?”
Her mother answered, “Very good. All was good.”
“Ah, but I missed you. I really did.”
Her mother smiled. Father entered the room. His handsome face was radiant, the atmosphere lightened. Mother rose to offer him her chair. But father took a stool, sturdy and bare. Father died nearly a decade, Andromeda thought, in retrospect. The room darkened. Over the water, bold and low, fluttered a lorikeet, a flying rainbow. It seemed it was going to gouge her eyes. But the sprightly bird frolicked, passed her elbow.
The neighbour, who like a father, died indeed. She went to his funeral with a wreath. Then he dropped by to meet her that night, this reverie, held her cheat tight. When she asked him,“Have you seen God?”
“No,” he replied. This, a silent place.Where am I? This present moment. Vast, and void, this light space, offers no air. Did I die? Am I really dead?”
“No, God then?” she asked.
“Where is He? He hasn’t come to meet me, yet,” said the respondent.
“Do you miss us?” she had asked.
Tears in her dreams, she felt surreal.
“Yes, I miss your aunty,” he answered, then he vaporised like a collapsed star.
A fusion of elements, hydrogen and helium, led to the birth of a cosmic star. The helium ran out. Star collapsed. He collapsed. She saw the neighbour, driving his car; through the suburbs of his choice, with his wife, whom he referred to, as aunty. The chemicals conferred. An accident oc-curred. He died. Of her dreams. Finite lives made of infinite gasses. Of the cosmos, of the elements, life perished. Andromeda contemplated, the stuff of life. This precious breath, did it not live outside the orbit of death? Helium, and hydrogen, oxygen, iron and zinc.
Mountain passes were rugged. She walked through the terrain. A storm picked up, she looked for a spot. She found a cave. In the dark shelter, she sat amidst litter. A lightening fell outside. That creepy light, opened her mind to shadows below. She was not alone; somebody there. In a flash, the shadow disappeared. She was out of her wits. She tried to sleep. Just when she saw some cave paintings. On the wall, they looked ancient. And they were, ancient. In a bit, she saw a little boy. A broken charcoal in his hand, he sketched stirring stories, like the fall of Troy. He lit a small fire.
Lights emanating from the fire helped, this sentient boy, to see better. He drew stick figures of many shapes and sizes: tall, short, men, women and children. It was almost dark, on the rugged wall, shape of the boy silhouetted in the moonlight. Floodlights in the dark cave, paintings of tall tales, some washed up partly in the rain. Segment of a story, like this painting of an alley, people walked through with missing hands or hair. Many even defaced, in the falling rain. Colours ran down the leaves of trees, and turned them into lighter shades of green. Pure paintings filled the dingy walls, and onto the floor, some scribbles crawled.
Gallows hung without much peruse. Kings devised a horrendous ruse. Spilled blood into the soil to infuse. Children sacrificed, for fertility of the soils, far better use. Heavy harvest at stake, people kept quiet, no one to refuse. Little boys to be taken, gods to be appeased. Telltale signs of ominous days. The King’s men marched, and dragged the boy away. Off to the gallows. Off with his head. The artist, little boy, broken into shreds. In white loincloth, wrapped around his waist, the boy’s gaping horror, clouded his face. His small hands trembled. She looked through a portal. Tears, and cries of the innocent sacrifice. No one took pity at the bloody altar. Wounds remained unaltered. Cosmic parameter, a stern factor.
Flashbacks played wistful memories, she lay on a beach a mere bystander. A silent witness to the many silken dreams, lovers entwined a beautiful beginning. Sunken sands, in waxed moonlight. Of the mandala, an ephemera, imperfect finale of the drama; done and redone until time had spoken, given up on the beach, a part of resurrection. In the hours all became sand, quintessentially minus-cule, and indestructible. In the heart of it, each wave flow, atom of H2O.
Over those swelling waves, she boarded a pirate ship. And saw a thousand vessels, a war imminent. On the horizon, a ship appeared like a phantom. A skeleton of a ship, spectacularly luminous, shone in the lantern. There was a gunshot fire. She was hit. Oh! It hurt! She was hurt. She felt the pain of the gunshot. But she lived. She saw ships pass by, while her own cruised towards the nearest beach; sea-gulls, scoured the skies. Sands, the most wondrous, where monks built palaces, and played Kings and Queens. Of a greater imagination, ruled by them, the three Moirae sisters. Monks made mandalas, painstakingly intricate, human history and destiny pleached. Giant pyramids erected with care, and the Taj-Mahal, The great Ozymandias. The King of Kings, his life sized statue pitched on the beach. Immortalised in the scroll, the statue awash, the mandala destroyed, flattened to the ground.
The hollow sand; into the sand, she buried her legs deep to the waist. A hybrid formed of part sand and part flesh. At its best, a mermaid tail; she lay half covered under the clay. High on her imagina-tion, her dreams displayed, decrepit old castles’, windows’ deep splays. Such was the beach, on the edge of which, the tireless seas creased. Where romantics rode unicorns, nomads wild horses, Homer, churned verses, now deplete.
Time’s most valued, gift offerings to gods, watched this once how their altars burnt? Stars burnt out. The sun burnt. This gleaming altar made out of gold; plush gold clouds, nestled the thrones. A toy boat marooned, on gold-plaited sheet, uncertain of directions, an aluminium plate; hot liquid gold, poured into the mould, this sea basin, replete to the brim. Gods’ own altar, never to erode, shimmering and sure, until pilgrims came home.
Andromeda swam, a big hand bagged a snake. There was a man though towards dawn. He told her this, expressed a wish that he wanted to leave, to be born again.
“Born again?” she asked.
“Yes, that is possible,” he said.
“Impossible. Because in order for you to remain what you’re, you need genes from both par-ents.”
“It is possible, though,” the man said.
“What about your wife?”
“What about her?”
“Does she have a say in any of this?” she asked.
“Probably not.”
The wife loomed. But she didn’t seem to mind. She heard his desire. So, she did not hinder.
On a fevered night, in one short month, the man left for a forest, of illuminated fireflies. The blue forest sparkled, a pathway was strewn, with sprinklings of fire ubiquitously flown. Around tall trees and slim short bushes, he walked alone through a lucid forest. A forest transformed into a conduit, this hermit of a man, roamed its bended unit. Reincarnation on his mind, soul in another body, stars in the sky, twinkled a smile.
Here she was, with this lady in white, appeared in her dream, that’s how it transpired. Some sy-ringes in her hand, wet lips in betel juices, glowing with health, she stood at her bed. Holding them out, those long syringes, she knocked into her some worldly senses.
“Your mother’s injections.”
“What?”
The lady vanished. Her mother had run out of insulin and was on the brink of a disaster. The lady had come to tell her this, to ask her if, she could get her some insulin. Andromeda’s grand-mother, this dear lady, kind and Godly, rests now sadly. The silken waters blanketed her skin. Her swimming undeterred, held her by a spell. This undying chemical, once produced within her organ, the failing pancreas, now injected for survival.
“I’ve come to say goodbye,” it seemed he taunted. She looked at her brother, then understood his intent. Upon waking, she found to be true, that this saintly priest had passed away too. This dream-land, not entirely unreal, of sense perceptions, a world parallel. Sights sounds and smell, shaped up to be real, pain compounded a curious blend.
Disjointed thoughts came to pass. Mesmerising chimera seeped. Tantalising glimpse, of enormous replica, as shaded entity. Who’s to know, what’s with the truth, this wakeful life of actuality? A dream within a dream; doll within a doll, within a doll, the picture awry, always off limit. That cave painting in the rain, defaced people walked up the streets, the greens washed off. Waters dribbled over, of a partial reality, conceived by this artist in utter antipathy.
Such fragmented cognisance, manifold layered dream, alluded to allegory of the cave theme. Half a dream, a broken thought, the unfinished story, manifested to Plato’s shadow reality. This palpable existence, transcended truth, hinged on puppeteers beyond familiar scope. Answered with certitude, flung within the stars, lay a larger image, the fate of the universe. The long and short of it, dismantle the stars, dismantle Leda, a sense of foreboding descended Andromeda. For, “It is the stars, The stars alone, that govern our condition,” Shakespeare foretold
MEHREEN AHMED is an internationally acclaimed author. Her books, The Pacifist, is “Drunken Druid The Editors’ Choice for June 2018″, andJacaranda Blues,”The Best of Novels for 2017 – Family Novels of the Year” by Novel Writing Festival. Her flash fiction, “The Portrait” chosen to be broadcast by Immortal Works, Flash Fiction Friday, 2018. Bats Downunder, one of her short stories, selected by Cafelit editors for “The Best of CafeLit 8, 2019”.
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When the storm kills your cat,
or the cold kills your mother,
or the heat kills your father,
and we could go on to the end,
then it’s easy to see nature
coming alive. But most of the time
we scurry around each other,
leap from another’s shadow,
keep our ears twitched for any
crunch on the pine needles
because it’s people crashing
cars, burning tires, casting bullets,
razing sunflowers. We know
the real deal when we see it.
JARED PEARCE’s collection, The Annotated Murder of One, was released from Aubade last year (www.aubadepublishing.com/annotated-murder-of-one). His poems have recently been or will soon be shared in Xavier Review, Blue Mountain Review, THAT, Adelaide, and The Aurorean. Link and upcoming events are featured here: https://jaredpearcepoetry.weebly.com.
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I was a child of the ‘70’s. Growing up amongst bell bottoms and foot long collars, brown and orange wallpaper. It was a time of political change, and one very hot summer. Fleetwood Mac was on the record player and Stevie Nicks was pinned on the inside door of the garden shed.
On the days that dad went to see a man about a dog, I was allowed inside the warm small space. ‘To keep an eye on things,’ Dad said. Make sure Mum didn’t ‘tidy’ the place. When he eventually returned, stumbling and slurring words, we sat in a haze of Woodbine that mingled with the smell of fresh creosote. We were happy then. Me, Dad and Stevie, until mum started banging on about how she always did everything around the house while we had a life of Riley. Whoever he was, he must have been one lucky bugger, because I thought it was us who were the lucky ones.
Then one day Mum decided to get a job, as a Tupperware lady, and almost overnight everything changed. The fridge was full of plastic containers stuffed with carrot sticks and there was no dinner on the table when Dad got home from work. That was when the rumours started, from number 28, that Mum was carrying on with another man. Someone high up in Tupperware. So when she upped and left, one Sunday evening, dragging an oversized brown suitcase down the back lane, I guessed it must have something to do with the Riley bloke.
By the time she came back, six months later, the fridge was full of Vesta curries and Dad had finally brought the dog home. A deaf black and white mongrel with a dodgy back leg who we named Debbie. The shed had been dismantled one night when the coal bunker was empty and Stevie Nicks had been stripped and used to pick up Debbies shit. Dad was growing side burns and ironing his own shirts, and on the record player was Blondie. And all dad said to mum when she walked through the front door was; Pamela, things are going to be different around here now.
The next morning I opened the fridge and found a lone Tupperware container on the top shelf next to the cheese. A piece of paper had been stuck to the lid and read; ‘This is a reminder to never leave things for too long or else they will go off.’
It stayed there for a while until I saw dad remove it after breakfast one morning and replace it with a Vesta curry. He winked at me and I nodded as if I knew. Knew what the hell was happening in the cold space that no one talked about. His secret was safe with me. I’d not let on I’d seen the woman down the road from number 28 shopping in the corner shop, her basket full to the brim with Vesta Curries.
TINA M EDWARDS poetry and fiction has been published in the U.K. and America. She has a penchant for ducks and Cornwall and has been told since childhood she has a vivid imagination. Which is just as well, considering she loves to write. In another life she was probably a Chirologist. www.tinamedwardswriter.wordpress.com
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They say the banshee came the night my grandmother died, the night my mother was born. Through their screams and wails it was said another sound could be heard, a keening howl that tore about the hedgerows, raced upon the fields. The desperate cries of life and death dancing above the thatch as both bled into the floor beneath it.
I never really believed in all that shite. My Grandmother dying as she gave birth on the barren earth of a dingy cottage was horror enough without the need of a spectral element. I think Mam was always disappointed in me in that way, as if not believing in another piseog I was turning my back on her somehow. Just another disappointment to add to the pile.
“Could you make your bed this morning please, just once?”
“Yes, Ma.”
“And don’t go using the dryer so much. You know it eats up the electricity.”
“I’m sorry, Ma.”
“And you better not fail that maths test this morning. If I have to be called in to talk to Mrs Kennedy one more time…”
“I’ve been studying Mammy, don’t worry.”
If the banshee really did exist surely it was in the form of Mrs Kennedy, she heralded the death of all things. That pursed upper lip, those awful tanned stockings, the way she spoke Irish like she was squeezing it past a carrot squashed up the hole of her arse. Her classes were like one long drawn out scream in which we were all forced to remain silent, not knowing which one of us would drop next from shear boredom. And I was late, again.
“Ms Kavanagh, Dia dhuit.” The words slid out of her mouth like putrid yoghurt. “Delighted you could join us.”
I sat quickly in my seat, determined to ace this thing, to prove to Mam I was more than just a future burger flipper at Supermacs, pregnant at seventeen to the likes of Enda Costello. I looked up at him from my exam paper, broad shoulders hunched over his own, the bottom edges of his pants mucky with this morning’s dirt. Up early on his Dad’s farm most like, his large hands at work long before I managed to drag mine out of bed. His pen was dwarfed by them, and I could suddenly see myself in its place, albeit far less rigid…
“Ms Kavanagh! Eyes on your paper please!”
The banshee again, screaming at me from my future. I looked at my blank paper, then at the clock. I didn’t need the gift of foresight to know I was in deep shit.
When I arrived home Mam looked shook, as if she knew already of my imminent F.
“You alright, Ma?”
Her hands paused in the sink, “Yes. Yes, it’s nothing.”
My eyes narrowed, full sure she could somehow see into my mind, into all of its scraggly compartments, see clearly my morning equations that had nothing to do with numbers. I wavered like an unsure cat, not knowing if it was truly safe.
“Why don’t you go walk the dog or something?”
My brow creased in suspicion. “Sure, Ma.”
I grabbed the dog, hand sliding over the small box in my pocket as I headed out to the quiet of the back field. My parents hadn’t built far from the old cottage, its stony gable end the only thing visible now through the tangle of brambles. I turned from the kitchen window, lighting up a cigarette away from the ‘Great Eye of Mammy’ that was otherwise always watching, Molly rustling about the long grass as I drank in the quiet of the afternoon, certain at any moment Mrs Kennedy would appear with my fast food uniform at the ready, the stitched white shirt proclaiming my doom.
Molly started barking suddenly and I nearly tripped as, quickly turning, I saw her growling wasn’t at the house but the ruins, a dark movement catching my eye from between the bushes.
“Those little Halloran shits again.”
I don’t know what I was doing heading towards the cottage, as if my cigarette was some kind of lightsaber against local vandals, but I stopped abruptly, the dog trembling at my feet, a hooded figure looming out from the stone.
“What the…”
A shriek broke the air and, not waiting to find out if it hadn’t come from my own mouth, I ran through the paddock, my fingers fumbling on the kitchen door, before slipping inside and slamming it safely behind me.
Mam spoke suddenly from the middle of the kitchen, as I leaned heavily against the door, my chest heaving. “You saw her too, didn’t you?”
“I, no, um… maybe?”
Mam stood ashen, her gaze suddenly fearful and I barely made out her whisper, “But she only comes to warn of another’s passing. But that means…”
Our eyes locked. Perhaps now was a good time to tell her about the test.
CLAIRE LOADER was born in New Zealand & spent several years in China before moving to County Galway. A photographer & writer, she was a recent winner in the Women Speak poetry competition and blogs at http://www.allthefallingstones.com
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Some birds have heart attacks in mid-air,
the pulse suddenly fluttering at too rapid
a rate. We, as well, often travel that
accelerated. Our eyes, cameras, process
micro seconds, our limbs; long distance
runners, our energy; hormonal stimuli
thrown into overdrive…
Let up. Let up.
Tranquility spills into panic, sifts
like rain through tired joints, spreads,
steams invisibly.
Remember the bends?
They are resigned now, detached, clasping
stillness like wings that have flown
into the tower of a large glass marina…
As water things slide, fin-sprinting
here & there for the ebbing of concentric
ripples. The beauty of such motion,
observed & next, entered, is what holds us
to existence as we again dive, gut-gripped,
in flight.
A resident of NY, STEPHEN MEAD is an Outsider multi-media artist and writer. Since the 1990s he’s been grateful to many editors for publishing his work in print zines and eventually online. He is also grateful to have managed to keep various day jobs for the Health Insurance. In 2014 he began a webpage to gather various links to his published poetry in one place.
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Turning the corner into Vernon Street, Daisy tastes vermillion and her unease grows. It’s been a while since Rhoda had one of her turns but then she’s just finished a commission, always a trigger. Daisy sighs. She’s an Art student herself so it’s not that she minds having an unusual mum who’s a bit batty and dresses like someone from the 1920s, it’s just the unpredictability factor.
Daisy pauses at the front door and takes a deep breath. Beneath the grey blue paint, the grain shimmers. She admires its silky taffeta appearance, will one day replicate it on her own front door, ‘Not long now!’ she thinks giddily. Living with Rhoda is taking its toll.
‘Rhoda, I’m back! ’ Daisy calls from the hallway. She squeezes her jacket onto the overflowing hooks, pausing to rest her cheek against Rhoda’s favourite, a moss green maxi coat that looks incredible against her mother’s auburn hair. Daisy’s own hair is an ordinary brown, though thick and glossy, while Rhoda’s is beginning to thin.
She bends down to unlace her boots. They’re still pinching at the bridge, which is weird because surely ‘vintage’ Docs should be worn in by now? Her mother distrusts second hand shoes, says they bring a stranger’s energy into the house that’s hard to eradicate. Claims Daisy’s been ripped off anyway, says purple Doc Martens didn’t even exist back in the day.
Daisy hates it when Rhoda bursts her bubble but has learnt to keep quiet. The consequences of shaming her mother are worse than the initial pain. Take that time Rhoda killed Goldy in an ill thought out spell. To be fair, though Rhoda had found a substitute, Daisy had spotted the change. Tired of her daughter’s protest and growing impatient at her tears, Rhoda had turned herself into a hat.
A straw boater trimmed with green ribbon was completely useless to eleven year old Daisy, who for the rest of the week had to cook her own meals and walk the four miles to and from school because Rhoda hadn’t thought to leave bus fares. A week felt like forever in a quiet house and a hat wasn’t something she could easily chat to.
Daisy’s father Robert had left them by then. And little wonder, given her mother’s outbursts and eccentricities, though the suddenness of his departure and his continuing silence, still rankles.
Daisy’s tried hard to respect his choices but this Christmas, after one too many Snowballs, she found herself asking Rhoda whether she ever missed him? Annoyed, Rhoda declared that she certainly didn’t and nor should Daisy. She went on to list Robert’s faults, including his unimaginative dress sense, complete lack of skills and general neediness.
Despite her mother’s vehemence, Daisy detected a note of regret in this tirade but was deterred from further questioning by Rhoda’s final remark that Robert smelt strongly of seaweed. This last part was true at least and suddenly reminded of his metallic, salty scent, Daisy had mourned that too. So what if Robert had dressed conventionally, couldn’t’ summon smoke or turn cupcakes into mushrooms? As far as she knew, neither could anyone else’s father.
’Mum, I’m back!’ Daisy calls again but still there’s no reply. She wiggles her bruised feet and pads into in the front room.
Light splashes through the stained glass window, flooding the carpet with colour. As a little girl she’d loved bathing in the translucent strands and relished the way they’d clothed her skin. Purple was her favourite because it made her happy and she loved the underwater feeling of emerald green. The blue was deliciously calming and made her sleepy. Orange could be sickly if you got too much of it and red made her so itchy that she’d continued to avoid it.
‘Why are you standing there, Poppet?’ Robert would ask, but such things were hard to explain and though he ruffled her hair and nodded seriously, she could tell that he didn’t understand.
By contrast, Rhoda positively encouraged unusual behaviours and signs of exuberance. She understood that Monday, a red day, was spiky and uncomfortable. She knew instinctively which fabrics Daisy would enjoy and why her daughter rejected clothes that smelt wrong when loosely crumpled.
Early on in Secondary school there’d been an embarrassing Parents’ Evening when Miss Price had openly gawped at Daisy and Rhoda’s contrasting velour capes, before suggesting that Daisy might be on the Autistic Spectrum, what with her ‘heightened sensory reactions.’ Rhoda had responded by pinching Daisy’s cheek delightedly and laughing her wild laugh, before saying,
‘You might call it that but we know different, don’t we Daisy love?’
To all future events Daisy wore her school uniform. She became a model student and avoided further incident by saying that her single parent working mother, was unable to attend. Of course, things would have been simpler if Robert had still been around. Daisy fondly remembers her father’s ordinariness, the nubbly feel of his soft worn corduroys, his wooly cardigans.
Gradually, over time, Rhoda has become more stable and there are fewer surprises. Usually when Daisy returns from college, Rhoda’s absorbed in one of her spectacular paintings. Great splashes of colour on vast canvases, she works on them late into the night. Daisy herself can only glance briefly at them before she’s affected, but Rhoda’s London dealer has no such problem and they always sell well.
As a result, Daisy has rarely gone without, though it’s true to say that Rhoda, an ardent anti-consumerist, is increasingly a hoarder not a spender. Despite her love of textiles and original design, Rhoda’s wardrobes creak with faded garments that no longer fit her and are pocked with moth holes. Like elderly recalcitrant relatives, Rhoda declares that they have earned their space and must stay.
Standing in the sitting room Daisy takes stock of the overstuffed bookcase and ancient couch spewing its innards. The place is cluttered with useless objects, like these on the mantelpiece – a pile of irregular shaped green stones, a carved elephant with a broken trunk, the sooty stump of a candle and a creamy limpet shell that, if she’s not mistaken, has recently migrated here from Rhoda’s bedside table.
A delicate thing with a tinge of softest primrose yellow, it reminds Daisy of a summer dress she once had. She picks it up tenderly, blows dust from its slim flutes and feels an intense and immediate sorrow. A tear plops onto the shell. Rubbing it in gently she feels the hairs on the back of her neck rise to attention.
She turns round slowly. To all intents and purposes the room is empty but the air crackles with electricity and little puffs of wind ruffle the curtains,
‘Mum?’ she murmurs tentatively and then more impatiently, ‘Mum, I know you’re here somewhere, please make yourself known!’
There’s no response and Daisy finds herself sighing again. Rhoda’s timing stinks as usual. Either she’s forgotten that Daisy’s having friends over from college tonight or this is a deliberate ploy because she doesn’t want others in the house.
Daisy stalks into the kitchen and makes herself a cup of tea. She fills Smokey’s empty saucer with milk and calls him. He doesn’t appear either and her irritation rises. How many times has Rhoda promised she’ll stick to inanimate objects? And what can possibly be learnt by turning a cat into a notebook or place mat anyway? Smokey will be cranky and off his food for days, no doubt emphasising his annoyance by crapping in the bath.
Daisy fishes out her teabag and throws it in the compost bin before clocking the acrid smell of singed paint from near the pantry. She scans the area for alien objects and spots a black enamel tea tray, blowsy with roses and rimmed with gold, the style of which can only be described as Flamenco Tat.
The tray shimmers. She picks it up carefully. It’s faintly warm and sticky, the enamel not quite set. Anger rises in her body. Surely Rhoda could have given Daisy a chance to talk her round? Or at least chosen colours more thoughtfully? God knows how long she’ll be in this form, leaving Daisy as usual, to field awkward questions.
‘Jesus Mum!’ she exclaims, ‘You’re an Artist! Why not choose a Faith Ringgold or a Tracey Emin? At least I’d have something decent to look at!’
Daisy slaps the tray back down and stomps back into the front room. To her relief Smokey slides in beside her. She picks him up and strokes his soft grey fur but he struggles uneasily from her arms.
Alerted, she looks around. Something in here is different but what? She turns to the mantelpiece, her skin tingling. The air around and above it is shimmering softly, creating light and shadow, a sense of movement.
The tingling continues and she finds herself picking up the limpet shell and inhaling its briny odour. Its pleated creamy surface is emitting heat and appears to be pulsing. Daisy stands stock still, blood pulsing in her head. Surely Rhoda couldn’t’t have? Wouldn’t’ have?
‘Robert,’ she whispers incredulously and the shell gives the smallest of shivers,
‘Dad? Is that you?’
Image via Pixabay
Cavaliers on the weekend tour
we keep our eyes peeled for well-heeled
men with wallets, and hair just groomed.
My hot lips squint from lurching cheers
in clouded rooms, guessing careers
comparing body parts to heights
though any one might test the means
come the end of the long long, night.
Sliding from cocktail to bar, whore
they call us; our skirts laugh at sneers.
We slant eyes across pints of Coors
nudge each other Had him last year
condommed to the armpits, no fear
and necks stretched against boisterous bites
walled up dark lanes with trembling knees
come the end of the long, long night.
Now bare-back riders buck no more
no sucking and jumping bones, dears –
safe sex penetrates. No encore.
My fingers don’t feel the same here…
turns the man into a gloved peen.
In these diseased years thighs are tight,
the months are passing, now eighteen
come the end of the long, long night.
So cancel my ticket to ride
blow sweet kisses, goodnight good knights,
sing softly of white wine and beer
come the end of the long, long night.
http://ireneintheworld.wixsite.com/writer
https://wolfatthewindowblog.wordpress.com
Image via Pixabay
I remember some good years.
The old pilings of
the Baltimore pier
that swayed under the crowd while
we watched our favorite band.
And when I told her
I didn’t love her
for the third time
she threw their record at me
and it hurt
but we laughed
until
I decided to break her heart again.
There was the year
I ate sixty oysters
at the Aqua Grill.
She’d paid attention
when I said
I only wanted to eat oysters
from states I hadn’t been to
so she had the maître d’
bring out a special menu
and I tried them all
and the Damariscottas
and Hog Islands were the best.
I woke up in the parking lot
of a Long Island casino
one time
and when I put
two chips
on red
I won $800.
I paid for everything
that weekend
and the four of us walked home
arm in arm
puking in the snow and laughing
like it was our last night
on earth.
We don’t call every year but
I still smile when I think about
that birthday
and the best friends
I never see.
Some years
I feel like I’m losing.
And there are others where the score
seems to be even.
I’ve lost cousins
and girlfriends
and a brown dog
with a white cross on her chest.
But there were the other years.
There were friends who
didn’t leave me in their wake.
Girls who left me believing I wouldn’t
always be let down.
And my mother,
using expensive ingredients
to cook me a birthday dinner
that fit with my new diet,
always making sure something was safe
in a world that started licking its teeth
as soon as you
walked out the door.
Tomorrow doesn’t always come with a nightmare.
Seeds grow.
Leaves fall.
I tell my friends to hold up their bottles
and look around.
“Remember our tribe,” I say.
“Nothing will ever be better than this.”
And I know I’m right
because I still haven’t found a place safer
than a backyard
in New Jersey.
And no matter how long I’ve been gone
there’s always a family waiting for me
when I come home.
SCOTT LAUDATI lives in Bushwick with his shnoodle, Dolly. His work has recently appeared in The Bitter Oleander and The Columbia Journal, among others. Visit him on instagram @scottlaudati
Image via Pixabay
If the power’s still on, make coffee.
If you prefer whiskey, sleep
on a futon by the nearest phone.
I have better ways to spend my time:
complaining about loud noises &
worrying over this coming storm
which brings with it fish &
frogs that fall from the sky.
In the past hundred years:
one tornado in this county,
that so small the horror-movie
flying cows ho-hummed.
Nobody asked for my opinion,
but I give it while the city sirens
hit their spine-chilling notes &
radio stations sing,
“Get down, get down,”
as if a disco boogie jam.
ACE BOGGESS is author of four books of poetry, most recently I Have Lost the Art of Dreaming It So (Unsolicited Press, 2018) and Ultra Deep Field (Brick Road, 2017). His writing appears in Notre Dame Review, Rhino, North Dakota Quarterly, Rattle, and many other journals. He received a fellowship from the West Virginia Commission on the Arts and spent five years in a West Virginia prison. He lives in Charleston, West Virginia.
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I, Gaia, third planet of the Local Interstellar Cloud, Orion-Cygnus arm, Milky Way, declare this to be my Last Will and Testament, hereby revoking any and all Wills and codicils previously made.
At four point five six eight billion years of age I am of legal age to declare this Will and, despite the best efforts of some of my lodgers these last fifty thousand years, I am still of sound mind. My wishes contained herein do not result from undue influence.
Having experienced no major collisions, I have remained single and without children excepting one satellite. However, this sole relation has remained distant throughout and I leave them nothing.
Whilst I realise, but do not care, that this may cause some consternation, I hereby nominate, constitute and appoint God and Richard Dawkins as my Joint Executors to act in my interest regarding my estate and other items. In the event that these Executors be unable or unwilling to serve jointly, I appoint Rihanna as sole Executor. This Will authorises these Executors to act in my interest regarding my estate, debts, funeral expenses (see accompanying document ‘Par-tay’) and other items.
The assets I am legally entitled, by which I mean, I have decided to bequeath are as follows:
1) The Atmosphere I give to the Penguins. This one is too important to everyone and honestly who doesn’t trust these little dudes. Plus the flightless element has always tickled me.
2) Whales and Cetaceans, you get the Oceans. You know your ass is too big for firths and rivers so just stay the hell out of them – you’ve got plenty of ocean to swim around in now.
3) The Freshwater Lakes I give to the Crocodiles. You always acted like you owned them: now you do.
4) Fish, you can have the Rivers. I know how much you love those currents whether you’re surfing to the sea or battling upstream (physics kinda passed you by, didn’t it?) so enjoy, they’re yours whichever direction you’re travelling.
5) The Hills I bequeath to the Horses. Hell, you just look so damn good galloping over their rolling horizons. Off you go and make me proud.
6) Mountains I am giving to the Goats. You’ve not done a damn thing to earn them, but it takes a bit of nous to understand gravity and frankly you guys are the only ones just too dumb to fall off.
7) The complete collection of Soils is to be the domain of the Invertebrates. We all know you have your job to do but, let’s be honest, you’re no fun to look at. So, do everyone a favour and stay indoors.
8) Plants, you are entrusted with the Valleys. Some of you like sunshine, some don’t. I have faith you can sort who gets which face between you. But no secession: there’s room for everyone.
9) The Volcanoes are made for Dragons, if only to prove you exist beyond Welsh kids’ cartoons. Be careful making s’mores, though – those things are sticky little fuckers and can totally ruin a good rug.
10) Cats, you get the Tectonic Plates. Plan is that way most of the time they’ll just sit at peace. But when you’re not sleeping, no batting them back and forth just for fun.
11) The Tundra I was going to leave to the Reindeer, but the melt’s made it a challenge for you big boys getting about now. Therefore, given the more favourable feet-width to body-weight ratio, Geese, it’s your ball now. Reindeer, you know who to take it up with.
12) Bit of a no-brainer now – Camels, you get the Deserts. It may not be the most exciting asset, but it’s far and away the fastest growing – you’re on course to be Kings of the World. But play nice and enough with the spitting.
13) Wide open Plains are for the Skunks. The others have been pestering me for years over this, so use your space thoughtfully.
14) Regarding the Polar Ice Caps, Penguins you got the atmosphere so the Southern one is going to the Polar Bears. Big guys, you would’ve got the Northern one too, but you do like you ice-Lilos and it’s just sea up there now.
15) Finally, all my Glittery Rocks I leave to the Humans. You’ve always been obsessed with these at the expense of everything of value, so good luck eating, drinking, and breathing your bling.
Despite claims that will undoubtedly be made to the contrary (by I think we all know who), there are no prior legal contracts into which I have entered in relation to these assets. Anything that suggests otherwise is a crock of shit.
Signature: Gaia
Name: ____Gaia_______
Date: 21st October 2018
Hybrid writer-scientist, SHEILA SCOTT most enjoys sitting with pen and paper turning idle thoughts into short narratives and illustrative doodles. Published in Causeway, Cabinet of Heed, Ellipsis Zine, Flashback Fiction, Bangor Literary Journal and Poetic Republic, she also helps lead New Writing Showcase Glasgow. Her intermittently hyperactive Twitter account is @MAHenry20
Image via Pixabay
They wheel me into the room after the surgery though I tell them it is unnecessary, I can walk. But there’s been a considerable blood loss and they’re concerned I might faint again. A stupid accident really. Avocado hand. Yes that’s right, I’m hospitalised for a pretty trendy affliction. I wish I could say 13-year-old me that I’m finally trendy. I wonder what that loser would think.
Anyway. After the knife blade lodged itself deep inside the fleshiest part of my palm, tearing through the skin before cutting through a small artery and quite a bit of ligament, I managed to call 999 between two bouts of wrenching and a mild fainting episode. I opened the front door wide, mucking it with blood before crouching against it, trying not to look at the little bids of fat oozing out of my skin and this is where the paramedics had plucked me from.
The pain wakes me early. The monitor attached to the lady next to me and going off everytime she gasps for oxygen doesn’t conduce me to fall back to sleep. Neither does the Christmas tree blinking just outside the ward. I re-live the previous day. The blade going in and the cracking sound of the skin as it tears. You should have kept the knife in, they told me in the ambulance. It would have helped reducing the blood loss and damage to my ligaments. No need to mourn those, the damage is done now. At least I can breathe unmonitored.
Janet from the office has popped over to say hi. She’s brought me a card signed by the team and an adult colouring book. I look at my heavily bandaged hand and thank her. She doesn’t stay too long. The day stretches. I wish I’d brought a book and my toothbrush. The doctor comes and says I should be able to get out tomorrow. The nurse changes my dressing.
I take an approximate shower and have an average dinner. The old lady bips and there’s a new arrival, a teenager with a broken leg.
The teenager has loads of friends, they bring him coke and Haribos and some magazines. His girlfriend gives him noisy snogs and access to her chest that he fumbles clumsily before they leave, the stench of sweat and Lynx and chocolate bars remaining until the leek-potato soup is served. The doctor comes and says I can go out tomorrow. The nurse changes my dressing. The old lady bips and the teenager types furiously on his phone. I miss my home and my bed and my tub and Socks purring on my lap.
The Xmas tree blinks to the rhythm of Staying Alive. That same rhythm you use when you do CPR. Blink, blink, blink, blink, blink blink blink, blink blink blink. And again. And again.
The teenager has left and has been replaced by a 3rd degree burn.
The doctor comes and says I can go out tomorrow. The nurse changes my dressing. The old lady bips and the burn victim weeps. I read a battered copy of Gone with the wind wondering if touching it might give me an acute case of e.coli. This is unbearable.
I don’t think I can take this anymore. I just spent the last 3 days plotting my escape as I’m desperate to go home.
Janet has come back saying that she feels for me, and also implying they might want to replace me if I don’t come back though, and reminding me I owe her £3.99 for the cat food.
I tell her I’ve just seen the doctor and that he’s said I should be able to leave tomorrow. The nurse changes my dressing. The old lady isn’t there anymore and the burn victim has just left, being replace by a pretty nasty case of anaphylaxis.
I didn’t sleep well. A young couple came with a baby around 2 am. I was hoping to see their baby this morning, I love babies, but when I woke up, they were gone.
Janet pops over with some paperwork for me to sign, I’ve been dismissed. She asks if she can return the colouring book since I haven’t used it yet and she could repurpose the £4.99. She doesn’t stay long but that’s fine by me.
I was meant to leave today but I told the doctor I didn’t feel too good and tomorrow might be better. It’s quiet as the old lady’s bed is still vacant and the anaphylaxis guy is pretty out of it.
I told the nurse it might better if I stayed overnight as it it’s icy and I’m worried driving with my injured hand in such conditions. Also it’s potato leek soup night.
I had a panic attack after watching the news and not being able to remember the prime minister’s name. There was that lady looking like a praying mantis addressing the nation, she was familiar but her name had disappeared from my memory.
They gave me Xanax and I had a good night’s sleep. I’m still a bit woozy so it’s safer for me to spend the night and leave tomorrow.
Terry, my favourite nurse, has written the name of the prime minister on a post-it note for me. I use as a bookmark for the copy of Catcher In The Rye she’s brought me. Apparently I’ve read 14 books since my arrival. I don’t remember much of them.
Terry has come for a quiet chat about my mental health and to say goodbye as I’m being moved to a different unit. I give her a hug and tell her I’ll miss her, before I erase her from my memory.
I like it here. Apart from that young woman that occasionally rambles on a about rats and cats and talks to an invisible person called Libby, it really is very cosy. Doctor C says I can stay as long as I want.
Image via Pixabay
First time in Denver, a highrise hotel
Smooth sweep of the sliding door whispers class traitor
recessed lights nod in agreement
My companion’s asleep—
exhausted by the mesas of Utah
the hazy opulence of Vale
or maybe my sullen silence
Tiptoe through the lobby of the Grand Hyatt
dress too short
hair too disheveled
flannel too flannel
too many toos for this place
and a copy of Burroughs tucked under my arm
catches the camera eyes of the elevator woman
fluorescent glare from her black plastic shells
insect eyes bulge from her face
She adjusts her orange hibiscus print dress
smiles a false robot smile
and telepathically opens the doors.
Cross the stone corridor
step out into the steaming gray morning, stand under wet humid sky
my antennae drooping, two wilted celery stalks
Take refuge among leather and lamplight
Crack open gold coins, melting yellow streaks
Cell walls expand, jelly replenished
synapses of cellulose stronger with intake:
poison word hoard and rich burn of espresso
wine & sour oil
faint hints of charcoal at the back of the tongue
an imagined memory of withered grass, oolong reduced to ash
false dairy, shelf stable and sanitized
in another world, twin apricot suns below ground
in the lindworm’s tunnel under Munich streets
Shake off the memory
shake out my powdery wings
dodge the streetcars and blend in with gray concrete
Disguise myself as a steamed salmon
lemon slice to keep up with the fashion
and join in the stream
A fresh bucket of deep-sea dread from a long-past meet&greet
(too serious and literary for the ampersand)
Warst du schon mal in Wien?
that deceptively innocent questionmark a tiny tadpole sprouting tentacles
transforms
octopus whirlpool spirals down to the depths
until your friends fish you out
reel you in
admonish in hushed strained voices because Jesus Al you can’t say that
and the sting of the fishhook still slices into your cheek
But now in the diegetic present
face to face
you’re one of us, I’m almost sure
our panicked transaction of phrases a mutual trainwreck
jumbled words casualties that limp from the wreckage
and for a moment I belong.
ALEXA LOCKSEY is an escaped Midwesterner living in Las Vegas, where they teach English. Their poetry and short fiction has appeared in Ghost City Review, Peach Mag, Shot Glass Journal, Rose Quartz Magazine, and Bone & Ink Literary Magazine. They are on Twitter and Instagram @AlexaLocksley.
Image via Pixabay
The cloudstreet hums,
walls vibrate, tears drop from the metallic hardness of the distance between
us, with an alarming speed,
rooms filled with sea currents,
we are filled with sickly smile.
Every parts of life floating across everything capture beyond
unpredictable lurch,
everything cross the rough strip
and everything remains a trait of certain vibrations and insinuations, the
house falls into a special version of afterimage, we are
lost in its weight.
Shadows follow
the shape of things to come,
and your time has past thirty years,
we lie awake,
predicting
forthcoming changes,
everything through
the blur of the water, everything remains imported confession,
sea waves come in your way,
a ray of moonlight
without shedding itself is all the feeling of guilty,
everything is looking like a urine sample.
JACOB KOBINA AYIAH MENSAH is the author of the new hybrid works, The Sun of a Solid Torus, Conductor 5, Genus for L Loci and Handlebody. His individual poems are widely published and recently appearing in Rigorous, Beautiful Cadaver Project Pittsburgh, The Meadow, Juked, North Dakota Quarterly, Cathexis Northwest Press, The Sandy River Review, Strata Magazine, Atlas Poetica, Modern Haiku, etc. He is algebraist and artist and lives in the southern part of Ghana, Spain, and Turtle Mountains, North Dakota.
Image via Pixabay
The life of Mimo begins today. Everyone is very pleased. Such a pretty nose. Such a lovely mouth. The eyes and ears are completely flawless. In any case, the committee has deliberated long enough and final deadlines have now passed. No more tinkering. Mimo, you are terrific just as you are. You fulfil our brightest hopes and all of the client’s demands. More than that Mimo, you are beautiful and you have made us cry.
Is it important to catalogue all the misfortunes involved in your conception? No, probably not. But it may allow you, Mimo, some insight into your origin. If you understand the difficult creative pregnancy, it may give you some sense of what is expected of you, some sense of yourself as a delivery vehicle for the hopes and dreams of girls and boys all over the world. But enough with the burdensome jargon. Let’s stick to the basics.
The client wanted an illustrated figure representing the International Children’s Foundation (ICF). The icon was supposed to be non-gendered and racially ambiguous. The organisation wanted a symbol of innocence, but also one of dignity and independence, ready to inspire the world.
So we started with a head slightly tilted to one side, creating a sympathetic gesture of curiosity. We tilted it a tad more and suddenly the gesture became one of stupidity. So we tilted it back, but slightly too far back, and now the empty head seemed to speak only of jaded scepticism. We found the correct angle and composed a mental note: no more messing with the 7° head tilt.
Next, the mouth. We cheated a little here. We took the mouths of Tweety Pie, Pebbles, Snagglepuss and Squiddly Diddly and we put them all through a programme on our computer. We thought the composite might look a little ridiculous, but it was not ridiculous at all. It is the same mouth you have today Mimo. We added the tiny ears and pointy nose by way of polling. A simple, fuss-free method.
The hair was a bigger problem. We noticed, on our research trips to the toyshops and swing parks, that neat hair had become fashionable. But neat hair was harder to keep gender-free. Short neat meant boy, longer neat meant girl. In the end we went with medium-length messy hair, but it was a very organised, symmetrical kind of mess. So you see Mimo, we never gave up. We pushed on into the early hours, pulled you this way and that. Some things came gently, others came gently undone.
All this talk of pushing and pulling. It reminds us that perhaps your head is a little too wide, your cheeks a little plump. Can we say chubby? Can we say pudgy? We cannot, but the cynics have done. What will these horrible people do with you? Deface your precious features? Slim, shrink or stretch you out further to fill the required space on their baseball caps, promotional pencils or desktop wallpaper? So be it. What happens to you now, sadly, is no longer under our control.
Anyhow. We deliberated, again and again and again. We were under a lot of pressure. But remember Mimo, all of our anxieties and erratic behaviour made you what you are, and what you are is terrific. Think of it all as the adding up at the side of a tricky math problem. You Mimo, are the solved equation, standing alone as a solid truth. A truth that can be replicated as often as required.
But what about the feet? Did we get those lovely little feet wrong? Do tiny feet imply hesitancy? An unwillingness to move from here to over there, if over there is the place innocent, dignified and independent children should be? No, no – enough! Your feet are fine.
The eyes. Your eyes happened upon us as if by magic, on a late-night cigarette break. We wandered along the river where the answer was waiting. The water was a depthless blue film, the moon a light shining on the surface. It was hard to tell which was more real. We threw stones to break the spell. Then we realised – as the river swallowed the stones, as light and water shimmered in slow motion – we realised that if we reversed the typical order, turning the white of the eye blue and the pupil pure white, then we had something strange and wonderful. Mimo, we whispered, and you were all but done.
After thickening outlines, we filled your shoes, sweater and dungarees with red, green and blue. You were about to become digital, a one-zero whole. Here we faltered once more, hummed and hawed and lingered. We argued over meaningless details, like how thick the lower lip should be. Dungaree buttons: yes or no? That kind of thing. But we took a deep breath, looked at the bigger picture, and saw beauty on a flat screen.
Now that you are a fully copyrighted entity, Mimo, now that you actually exist out here in the world as we do, we seem to find ourselves quivering shamefully yet again. The eyes. Those haunting eyes. Will those big, beguiling saucers need further explanation in the ICF’s target countries? Perhaps we could now produce a short book illustrating Mimo at play? But have we then failed you Mimo, if you cannot stand alone without further puppetry and exposition?
We only hope all expectations will be met. We wonder if you will be happy. We want you to be happy just the way you are, just the way we finished you. We hope, we wonder, we want. And for you Mimo, life begins today.
Please feel free to create your own Mimo in the space provided below. This may help you better understand the difficulties undergone during the creation of the real Mimo.
ADAM FORREST is a journalist also writing flash fiction and short stories. He lives and works in London.
Image via Pixabay
She was startled when a wide woman yanked open the red door. “You’re late!” she accused. “Never mind. Come in, I’ll get you up to speed.”
Sunlight beamed through clerestories as Calliope followed the woman. “Dinner is in the fridge. Warmed it up at 5:00,” she instructed. “He doesn’t like breakfast but he’ll eat dry toast if you leave it in front of him long enough. Medications here. I’ve written it down for you, see? I’m Ms. Godfrey.”
“Oh. Ms. Jones…but I think….”
“I trust the agency told you about his TIA.”
“TI…?”
“Mini-strokes,” she said, on the move again. “They didn’t tell you? Worthless! Not you, dear. I left a pamphlet on the table that explains it. Watch for the signs and call 911 if you suspect something.
“Well, I guess that does it. I’m awfully late so I only have time to introduce you and get out the door. Well. Come on then.”
The living room was aglow from the wood stove. The furniture was more modern than she would have imagined for Dulie, except for a worn club chair by the picture window that looked out on a hemlock stand. Across the room, a small man sat covered by an afghan, his head bowed.
This man was once Dulie Hud.
“You have a visitor,” Ms. Godfrey said as she shook his shoulder. Dulie lifted his head, looking all of his seventy-eight years. He glanced toward Calliope, his eyes working to focus.
Oh, but those eyes – green, at once probing and tender – they were Dulie’s.
“This is Ms. Jones. She’s here for the weekend. Be a gentleman and say, ‘how do you do, Ms. Jones.’” Dulie licked his lips but said nothing.
Ms. Godfrey, coat and purse in hand, all but flew to the front door.
“Behave yourself, Mr. Hud!” she called. “Good luck, Ms. Jones.” And before Calliope could correct her, she was gone.
There was only the ticking of the wall clock as they stared. Breaking his gaze, her eyes moved, as if by design, to an oil portrait of a woman in a red dress and a single strand of pearls.
Adira.
Her eyes shifted again to across the room where boxes looked waiting to be filled.
“Are you moving, Mr. Hud?” Immediately, she regretted keeping up the charade. Why didn’t she simply declare: “I’m not the weekend woman. It’s me. It’s Calliope.” Instead, she bit at a cuticle. “I’ll look at what’s for dinner,” she said, leaving Dulie alone.
She sat at the kitchen table and glided her hand across the smoothness. There was no question that Dulie had made it himself. When they were falling in love at Stanford, when Dulie was finishing his engineering degree and she was beginning hers in American Literature, he had built her a small cedar chest, the kind brides of old might have kept their trousseau. She still had it. Only hers didn’t contain linens or preserved gowns, but stories started and forgotten; poems abandoned and then grieved; her dissertation on Hawthorne, of which she had once been so proud. With this, anger muscled into her gut and she returned with conviction to the living room, only to again find his frail head bowed, and her anger dissipated, and she wondered: why had she come?
“Mr. Hud?” He raised his head. “I have a favor to ask. May I call you Dulie? I’m not very formal, you see, and I’d like it very much if you called me Calliope.” Dulie’s green eyes held her gaze, and he nodded.
Calliope sat in the club chair; it felt comfortable and familiar as she fingered its buttery arms, trying to harken its history. In her reverie, she hadn’t notice Dulie’s stare.
“Married?”
Calliope was startled by his voice – dry but strong – and by the question. “Once. I married late and divorced early,” she said, forcing a laugh.
“Children?”
“No.” Dulie went silent. And although she knew the answer, she asked anyway: “How about you? Do you have children, Dulie?” he shook his head.
Once, the two of them had spoken differently about children, bundled under a blanket at Golden Gate Park. “Three,” Dulie had said suddenly.
“Three what?”
“Children. That’s how many we’ll have.” Calliope laughed at the notion.
“We’ll see.”
Then, Korea. He wrote and she wrote. And then only she wrote. Finally, he returned, a Korean woman in tow. Adira. Adira Hud, who would lose that baby in the fifth month, but by then, the dye was set.
Dulie looked to be sleeping so Calliope slipped out to have the daily cigarette she allowed herself. It was going to be a cold night, she thought. She’d best bring in more firewood. She blew a final stream of smoke into the fading sun and stubbed her cigarette on the head of a garden gnome.
She adjusted the afghan on Dulie’s lap.
She put another log on the waning fire.
She set a TV tray next to Dulie, and another next to the club chair.
She put that evening’s bounty of medications into a souvenir shot glass.
She placed the meatloaf in the oven and set the timer.
She set their plates, and Dulie stirred. He looked at her, startled.
“Adira?”
Calliope drew a quick breath. “No, Dulie,” she said. “It’s Calliope.”
Dulie turned to his wife’s portrait: “Oh, how you grieved.” He closed his eyes and went silent, but his head did not bow.
Calliope sat in the club chair and wondered, wished: to whom did Dulie speak?
They were at dusk, and it was clear to Calliope that the weekend woman was not coming. They sat quietly together, as they might have for many years had circumstances been different. Calliope watched the last arc of the sun over the hemlocks, then she too closed her eyes and slept, to be awakened by the kitchen timer.
“Well then,” she said, rising from the club chair, stirring Dulie.
Off she went to the kitchen to fetch their supper.
J. EDWARD KRUFT received his MFA in fiction writing from Brooklyn College. He is a Best Short Fictions nominee, and his stories have appeared in several journals, including Soft Cartel and Typehouse Literary Magazine. He loves fried zucchini blossoms and wishes they were available year-round. He lives with his husband, Mike, and their adopted Siberian Husky, Sasha, in Queens, NY and Sullivan County, NY. His recent fiction can be found on his Web site: http://www.jedwardkruft.com and he can be followed on twitter: @jedwardkruft.
Image via Pixabay
The Cabinet of Heed 