Notes on the Previous Six Stories

The latest batch of stories were mostly responses to prompts from Flash Fiction Friday:

“Opening Salvo” came from the cue: “Write a story of gripping suspense, with a ‘ticking bomb’ of some sort. Word limit: 1,500 words.”

“Moira” emerged from the cue: “Use this starter sentence to write your story: ‘We need to talk about Kevin.’ Word limit: 1,300 words.”

“A Valentine Trinket” was the exception: I came up with it cueless. It is, as the title says, just a little doo-dad about Valentine’s Day.

“Falling” arose from the cue: “Write a story that begins with this sentence: ‘Call me Maybe.’ Word limit: 1,000 words.” Went way over the word limit on this one.

“Translation” and “Spells” came from the cue: “Write a story that features a full moon and its effects on characters in the story. Word limit: 1,300 words.” I meant to make this a suite of three stories, but the third one just wouldn’t jell. The second of the stories, “Spells,” also went over the word limit.

All of these were fun to write!

Two Tales of Love and Loss under the Light of the Full Moon

Spells

They lay on lounge chairs on the rooftop of his apartment building. Cole had brought Dianne home from the party where they had met with the promise of an unrivalled view of the night sky. The clear, cloudless expanse above them – mantle of black dusted with stars and silvered by the insanely brilliant full moon – had made good on his word.

Cole let the silence grow, waiting for it to become just slightly uncomfortable. Then he said softly but clearly, “You know that the moon – more than any other object – is the container of all of our feelings, right? That it’s just bursting with them and is thus the most potent talisman for magic?”

Dianne looked at him. “What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s just that for hundreds of thousands of years, it’s hung up there, taking in all of mankind’s fears and dreams and wishes. Just like you and me right now, people have been looking up at it and sending it whatever they were thinking and feeling. Peasants offering up their gratitude that it was giving enough light to harvest by; hunters doing the same for the light with which to see their prey. That’s why the full moon is sometimes called, depending on the season, ‘Hunter’s Moon’ or ‘Harvest Moon.’ And think of all the travelers and sailors and wanderers who have blessed the moon for lighting their way. That’s a hell of a lot of emotions that it’s been absorbing.”

Dianne smiled. “I guess. That’s a nice way to think about it. So you think that an inanimate object like the moon can actually absorb all that?”

He gave her a look with just a shade of condescension – but softened it with a smile of his own. “All objects do. Otherwise seers and sensitives wouldn’t be able to walk into a house and sense strong emotions in the very walls and foundations. Someone died there lonely, perhaps, or terrified; or maybe it was a place where people had lived happily.

“No object is really inanimate; things resonate with the sentiments that we project into them. Haven’t you ever picked up something – a ball, or a pencil, or a… a sandwich – and gotten a tingle of the person who held it before you – an echo of what he or she felt? Or think about holy places – cathedrals, mountains, monasteries. The moment you come to them, you get a sense of their sacredness – because they’re reflecting back to you all the worshipful feelings people have been imbuing them with for years.”

He continued: “Now, most things don’t last very long, and most things don’t continually get bombarded with thoughts and feelings. Balls are lost, sandwiches are eaten“ – he smiled at her again – “houses and churches are torn down. Even mountains shift and crumble, in time. But the moon“ – he pointed up and watched her follow his finger to the incandescent orb – “that’s been there forever, for as long as people have walked the earth. Just imbibing everything.”

He smiled as a thoughtful look came over her face. “And of course, more than any emotion, what the moon’s been taking in are the feelings and wishes of lovers throughout the ages. You don’t even have to try very hard to sense the ardor and longing and heartbreak and love and, yes, the lust” – another smile – “of all the lovers who have gazed at the moon and shone the lights of their hearts on it.”

She turned to him, with a little look of uncertainty now. She said, “And you’re saying you can sense all that?”

He answered, deadpan. “Sure. But then I’m part warlock.”

A slow smile spread on her face. “Sure you are.”

He shrugged. “You know how all women are at least part witches? Well, only some men are part warlock. And of those few, even fewer know that they are part warlock.”

“And you’re one of those very few men.”

“I sure am,” he whispered confidently, in confidence. He made a gesture with his hand as if he was gathering in the light of the moon and then closing his hand around it in a fist. He sat up and opened his hand towards her as if releasing the light he had captured.

She sat up herself, her face a question. “What, did you just cast a spell on me?”

He grinned. “I sure did. I told you: the moon has all this mojo. I thought I’d lay some on you.”

She looked amused. “And what’s it supposed to make me do?”

He stared at her, a slight smile on his lips, not saying anything.

“Really?” She laughed. “Do you pull this routine on every woman you bring up here? All this moon magic stuff?”

He lowered his eyes, then looked up at her sadly. “Sure. Have it your way. I’ve just been bullshitting you.” He smiled and got up. “We’d best get down. I’m getting a little cold anyway.”

He turned and started walking to the stairwell. He heard her get up and follow him a few steps behind. He stopped and waited for her at the door to the stairs and opened it for her, still smiling. She looked a little confused. “You’ll give me a ride home, right? You said you would.”

He gave her a slightly surprised look. “Of course. I said I would.”

“Are you mad?”

He smiled, pleased at her anxiousness. “No, not at all. It was just – a moment that misfired.”

He started going down the stairs but got off at his floor and headed to his apartment. He said to her over his shoulder, “I just need to check on an email I’ve been waiting for before we go.” She followed him to his door. Again, he opened the door for her with a smile. Following her in, he went to his laptop and said, “Feel free to use the bathroom if you need to.” He turned on his laptop and pretended to look at his email account for a few minutes.

When he stood up, he saw that she was staring intently at the painting on his wall of a naked woman caressing the snout of reverent dragon in a moonlit grove. She cast her eyes down to read his signature in the lower right corner of the canvas. Her expression was a little stunned as she turned to him. “This is yours? It’s really good.”

He walked closer to her. “Thanks.” After a moment, he said, “Would you like to see something else that’s really cool? It’s in my bedroom, though, so say No if it makes you feel uncomfortable. We can just go if you want.”

She hesitated. Then said, “No, it’s okay. Show me.”

He led the way to his room and opened the light. She entered and looked around, a little warily. He went to his bed, sat on it, and said, “Okay, close the door and turn off the light.” He laughed at her look of suspicion and said, “Trust me.”

She shut the door behind her and turned off the switch – and gasped.

The wall behind the headboard was suffused with light in the shape of huge, full, gibbous moon. He had painted the moon on the wall with glow-in-the-dark paint, and the painting had absorbed the ceiling light when he turned it on and was now shining it out in a yellow glow. It was a remarkably accurate rendering: a luminous circle pockmarked with maria and craters and mountains. The ceiling and the other walls were sprinkled with stars.

He got up slowly, went to her, and stood before her, playing his gaze from her eyes to her lips, then back to her eyes again. He could see that her pupils were dilated and the sides of her mouth were upturned in a slight smile. “Spells,” he said, and pulled her to him and kissed her. After a moment, her body released all stiffness and yielded, and she started kissing him back.

* * *

She fell asleep afterwards, sweaty and spent. His muscles ached deliciously as well, but he could not fall asleep himself. The phosphorescence was fading away, but his waning moon was still giving off just enough light to allow him to watch the look of peacefulness and satiation on her face, the nimbus emanating dimly from her pale skin, and the soft down on her arms shining golden. Eventually, his eyes grew heavy, and he slid slowly into the dark, his arm lying across her breast, rising and falling softly with her breath.

* * *

The bright glow of the ceiling light woke him. She had nearly finished dressing and was bending down to the floor. He asked her, blinking, “What are you doing?”

She smiled apologetically. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you. But I had to turn on the light to look for my shoes. Here, I found them.” She sat down on his side chair and started putting them on. “Go back to sleep, I’ll be out of here in a minute.”

He was still groggy. “You’re leaving?”

“Yes. I’ll just call a cab. No need to bring me home. I don’t want to get you out of bed.”

He rubbed his face. “But – you can stay the night. I’ll take you home in the morning.”

“It’s okay. I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”

“But –“ He wasn’t quite sure what to say.

She sat down on the bed beside him. “That was nice. I had fun.” She leaned down and gave him a quick kiss and made to go.

He grabbed her arm. “Wait.” He sat up. “What’s your number? Can I call you?”

She bit her lower lip. “I don’t think so. I have a boyfriend.”

“But –“ He tried to think of the right words. “It’s okay. That shouldn’t stop us from seeing each other, if we really have a connection –“

She shrugged. She looked down at where he was holding her. He let her go.

She smiled again. “It really was nice. I liked your story about the moon.”

“It – wasn’t a story.”

Her smile widened. “What? You’re saying you meant it? You think you really can cast a spell with moon mojo?”

He didn’t answer.

“It’s nice to think. But the moon’s just a battered rock falling in space. And things are just things. Sometimes nice things – the moon thing you have on the wall is really pretty – but they don’t take in any feelings. There’s no such thing as magic or spells.”

Every sentence she spoke felt like a blow.

She kissed him again, and got up. She stopped at the door and said, “Go back to sleep. And thanks!” She turned off the ceiling light and the moon and stars on the walls started shining again.

He lay back down, shivering once in the cold light, feeling empty.

She was wrong. Before tonight, he would have secretly agreed with her, but he knew better now: there were such things as spells. She had just laid one on him. Or maybe he had been the one who woven it, spinning all those words into that fable about the moon. But if so, he had cast it on the wrong person.

(August 2012)

Two Tales of Love and Loss under the Light of the Full Moon

Translation

Chandrima had the ill-luck of passing away while still carrying her child within her, of taking her child with her when she was transposed. And she had the further misfortune of passing just as the full moon was climbing into the sky. She would have no time at all to linger with her Aditya, who was still desperately, convulsively clutching her body – the shell she had just shed. She watched him as he sobbed and cried out for the young wife he had barely begun to love and the child he would never even see – the family he had now lost forever.

Mrs. Chauhan stood by her as she stood heart-stricken over Aditya. Mrs. Chauhan had died during the new moon, a fortnight before Chandrima, in a hospital a few blocks away. She at least had the chance to see her family overcome the first shock and the most cutting grief, and to make her silent farewells to them and thus come into a measure of peace. When Chandrima had breathed her last and followed her breath out of her body, Mrs. Chauhan was in the room, waiting, having made it her duty to welcome her and try to ease her transition. Though strangers in life, they had each known who the other was the moment they met.

“Perhaps it is for the best you will be departing so quickly,” Mrs. Chauhan said. “The pain is sharpest now, but perhaps not so bad as when it starts to dull.” She was thinking on how her husband, children, grandchildren, and other loved ones, even in the depths of their bereavement and desolation these past two weeks, had begun picking up their lives again – going back to work, to school; going about their daily tasks; slowly filling the hole she had left behind – once they had withered her body into ashes.

“How can it be that I will never see him again?” Chandrima asked, her eyes still on Aditya. “I am still here. You are here. How can it be that he will not be when his time comes?”

Mrs. Chauhan let a moment pass before answering. “I do not know.”

“Why is it that men have no souls? How could that be?”

An even longer pause. “I do not know.”

Chandrima looked at her naked, swollen belly and quietly voiced her truest, deepest fear: “And what of my child? It is a son I bear inside me. Is he in there? What will happen to him when the moon is full in the sky?”

Mrs. Chauhan pursed her lips tightly. “I do not know.” She was sad; it didn’t seem as if she was of much help after all.

Chandrima had known the answers to her questions even without Mrs. Chauhan’s responses. Some things had been made clear to her the instant she had passed, but most things remained a mystery. She had asked in the forlorn hope that Mrs. Chauhan, who had been dead longer, might have some knowledge that she did not.

Mrs. Chauhan felt the first stirrings inside her. It was almost time. She said, holding out her hand, “Come, child. We’d best get outside.”

Chandrima was desperate to stay, to touch Aditya one last time, but she knew that if she tried, her hands would not rest on his skin or feel his warmth – nor would they ever again. And she, too, was beginning to feel in her body the first intimation of the rising moon; she could sense her growing lightness. After one last longing look at Aditya, she took Mrs. Chauhan’s hand. They left her house.

Outside in the street, they saw here and there others like themselves: women and girls, shorn of their clothes as they had been shorn of their bodies, standing and craning their heads towards the heavens. Some who saw them gave them smiles – knowing, welcoming, sisterly smiles, sweet with anticipation. All seemed to be glad that the waiting – short for some, nearly a month for others – was at an end.

Mrs. Chauhan released Chandrima’s hand and watched the moon with a sad, solemn look as it inched upwards. Chandrima had glanced at the circle of light, but had looked down at once to stare at her belly, in which all her love and anguish lay. When it came time to depart, would her unborn son pass from her, a soulless husk? Would she give birth to him right there in the street and leave him behind at once?

A breathless sigh arose from the waiting women and girls as the moon continued to rise. More and more Chandrima felt lighter on her feet as the moon exerted its pull. She closed her eyes and embraced herself, wrapping her arms around her belly.

The moon moved over them, came to its highest point, and cast its brightest glow. Chandrima felt her feet slowly lift from the ground, felt her toes kiss the earth one last time before pulling away. She opened her eyes in fear – then cried in exultation. Her arms still cradled her belly, which was still round and heavy. She could feel that, as the full moon drew her upwards, so it drew up the child within her. Her joy and relief could not be marred, not even by the sorrow of leaving Aditya behind.

She glanced about her and saw Mrs. Chauhan smiling at her as she rose upwards alongside her. The air that flowed around her and past her was soft and warm and caressing. Bangalore below them was a receding grid of twinkling lights, becoming smaller and smaller, until it was a glimmering smudge on the dark face of the earth.

Chandrima looked up and saw what she and Mrs. Chauhan and all the other women and girls – and the son within her – were flying towards: the shining disk, the round mirror, which for all its blemishes bathed them all in its clear, cool, borrowed light. The glow became brighter and brighter, as they ascended above the earth, rushed through the void, chased the moon as it flew through space, until the light became so radiant that it enveloped them, swallowed them, consumed them, and they disappeared, translated.

(August 2012)

Falling

“Call me, maybe?”

I stared at her – at Jeannette – as I turned the car engine off. Or more precisely, I stared at her even harder, since I had been staring at her all evening. I said, “Did you just pull a line from that Carly Rae Jepsen song?”

She blinked, then smiled, abashed. “Oh, God, you’re right. Sorry. Emma’s been singing and playing that song nonstop. It’s all I can hear in my head nowadays.” Emma was her daughter, whom she was raising by herself. Emma was thirteen, a budding fashion designer, eco-activist, writer, archer, hip-hop dancer, social entrepreneur – she hadn’t quite decided yet which of her interests to pursue and seemed to keep adding to her growing list of passions every week. She was headstrong, mercurial, and bit of a drama princess who was absolutely certain the world had been specifically designed to torment her. She and Jeannette had taken years to come to terms with Jeannette’s divorce and had finally managed to establish a quiet truce in their relationship – only to have Emma hit her teens and have everything blow up again. Amazing how much you can learn about someone in one conversation when she lowers her guard and just decides to tell you everything.

I was dropping Jeannette off after a night of volunteering at the local food pantry, where we had both been assigned with the other adults to the back warehouse putting food bags together, while the teenage volunteers were up front handing them out to low-income families. I had seen her there before, but for some reason this night we had fallen to talking as we worked – and couldn’t stop talking. After we were done, her car wouldn’t start and AAA had to tow it to the shop, so I offered her a ride home.

She looked at me from the passenger seat while we were parked in front of her house. Her eyes narrowed impishly – and I felt myself slipping one more inch down the hole. She said, “Of course, that begs the question: how did you know that? I can’t imagine that an English Lit professor would normally be listening to teen pop songs.”

“My nieces,” I reminded her. I had told her that between the families of my brother and two sisters and various cousins, my family had enough tweens and teenage girls to form a volleyball squad. I was the doting but fuddy-duddy uncle. I had also told her how it was so strange that once my nieces and nephews started reaching puberty, the comments and the subtle pressure from my family for me to get married began to wane. Either they had finally realized that our clan had added enough human beings to the world’s population without my having to make a contribution, or else my siblings and cousins, at least, had laid off me when they finally crossed the point of total exhaustion raising their own kids. Or perhaps everyone had just given up when I passed forty and there was still no one on the horizon.

Amazing how much you end up revealing about yourself when a beautiful, thoughtful, crazy-smart woman pays attention to your every word.

She said, “The tune’s catchy. Sometimes when I’m cleaning, I dance to it with the vacuum cleaner, since you can be sure it’s blasting from her room.”

I cast my eyes down and nodded slowly, pleased with the image. I said, “And the lyrics are not half bad. It’s actually quite serviceable as poetry.”

“Do tell.”

“Sure. The imagery is fairly precise, and the turns of phrase are clever. The line ‘Before you came into my life, I missed you so bad,’ evokes the Platonic notion of soulmates, in which we long for our long-lost other halves and recognize them immediately when we find them. And this stanza…” – and I sang:

You took your time with the call,

I took no time with the fall,

You gave me nothing at all,

But still you’re in my way.

I explained, “Perfect rhyme and scansion, nice juxtaposition – indicative of the asymmetry of desire – and psychologically accurate. The boy is either indifferent or feigning indifference, which makes her want him even more.”

I was suddenly anxious that I was coming across as simultaneously frivolous and pompous – paradoxical as that may sound – but the momentum of my thoughts and an impulsive need to keep talking made me continue. “And that recurring line ‘But now you’re in my way’” – and again I sang the line – “is an exact metaphor for how love can just suddenly loom before you and block everything else, so that… so that nothing else exists.”

And with that piece of insight I stopped dead in my tracks, and a silence fell between us, and it suddenly became impossible to keep looking at each other. We both turned away. Suddenly we were both shy, after having talked nonstop for four or five hours. But our eyes found each other again and locked, and I could feel the joy coursing up in me, vibrating, from all the way down in my toes. I had to stop myself from bending towards her by force of will. In the same moment I imagined I saw a small movement in her, an ever-so-slight lean towards me.

“Oh. My. God!”

The exclamation took us both by surprise and we turned to the back of the car. Emma was scowling fiercely at us, arms folded across her chest, her face a fascinating mix of shock, consternation, fury, and – I don’t know how else to put it – grossed-outedness. A kind of expression only a young teenage girl can make.

Emma gave me a dirty look, got out of my car, slammed the door, and stomped to the porch of their house and stood there, fuming. Jeannette looked at me, brow furrowed and lips tight with embarrassment. “Sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry.”

“Well, thanks for the ride,” she said, and got out of the car and started walking to her daughter, fishing for her keys from her bag. Just before she went up the porch steps, she turned around and smiled and waved her cell phone and mouthed the words: Call me.

I grinned and nodded. I waved at Emma and collected a glare in exchange. I started my car, and drove off.

* * *

When I got to my apartment building, I went past the entrance to the parking garage and kept on driving. There was no way my apartment was going to contain my energy, I would be bouncing off the walls if I went in now. I dialed the MP3 player in my car to the Jepsen song and played it over and over, singing along as loudly as I could (“I wasn't looking for this, but now you’re in my way”), feeling foolish and giddy and alive. The bounciness of the song fed my elation in a positive feedback loop, so that it took more than an hour of driving all across town before the charge began to subside and my brain started to function again and I finally decided it was time to head back home.

As I drove home, I thought to myself that if anything was to happen between Jeannette and me, I would have to win Emma over somehow – and make it up to her. Jeannette and I had virtually ignored her half the night, and that had been extremely rude and inconsiderate. I owed her an apology. But not an explanation. I would not explain to her that when you are falling, even when you’re far along in years, you’re always blind and thoughtless and stupid and embarrassing, and you always land back at thirteen. She would learn this herself soon enough.

* * *

Turning Emma around wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. A few rather expensive gifts (strategically chosen with Jeannette’s advice) helped. What helped more was my huge family taking to her instantly, and she taking to my nieces. She quickly found a place among them as a cousin in all but name. In fact, if there was any problem, it was Emma’s tendency to try to lord it over them. As Jeannette said, she could be a little domineering. But my nieces are all good-hearted girls, and they worked it out somehow and managed to keep her exuberance somewhat in check.

She couldn’t be stopped eight months later, though, from leading them dancing down the aisle in a procession of the wedding entourage at my and Jeannette’s wedding. Her expression was priceless: she was positively beaming from all the attention. The video of her dancing and leading the way was a minor YouTube viral hit: nearly 200,000 views last time I checked. They didn’t dance to Carly Rae Jepsen, though, but to Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature.” On this point, Jeannette and I put our foot down. It was our wedding, after all.

(July 2012)

 

A Valentine Trinket

My father loves telling this story of me when I was five:

It was Valentine’s Day morning on a Sunday. He woke me up early to help him bring breakfast to my mother in bed. He did the heavy lifting: fried ham, eggs over easy, toast, juice, and coffee on a breakfast tray. My help was nominal: I carried the rose. He basically just wanted to include me in the little celebration.

Nevertheless, I was really proud to be of assistance, he said. After he had carefully lowered the tray on my mother’s lap, I just as ceremoniously gave her the rose. But then he pulled out his Valentine’s present for my mom from the pocket of his robe: a small box wrapped in red foil. My mother opened it and was really happy to find the necklace inside. My father said I was smiling as I looked up at him and my mom from the side of the bed – in sympathetic joy, he thought, but the next words I said let him know that my happiness was, in fact, expectancy.

“What did you get me?” he said I asked.

My father and mother exchanged glances. My father said, “I’m sorry, Ray. It’s Valentine’s Day, so I only got a gift for your mother.”

My father said I was pouting as I said, “But you gave me gifts, too, last time.” “Last time” meaning Christmas, a couple of months before.

“Well… Valentine’s Day is different. Only certain people get gifts on Valentine’s.”

“Like who?”

“Oh, husbands and wives. Sweethearts. People who have boyfriends or girlfriends.”

My father said I looked unconvinced – and a little like I’d been betrayed. “Gina from school is my friend. She’s a girl.”

“Umm… okay?”

“So why didn’t you get me a gift?”

(July 2012)

Moira

We need to talk about Kevin.

He went there. The bastard went there, after he had sworn he never would. The fever of her outrage flushed Moira’s face, suffused her with warmth despite the chill of the deep, winter’s night as she strode on the sidewalk, further and further away from his house.

I got the bank statements today and noticed you made out a $2,000 check to him –

Don’t, she’d warned him. That had pulled him up short, if only for a moment.

I warned him from the start, she thought, pulling the coat she had thrown over her nightgown tighter about herself. I’m damaged goods, she had told him; I drag behind me a shitload of baggage. We can keep seeing each other the way we have; all you have to do is keep helping me out with my rent, my bills. But no; he needed more, he said. He needed to be with her. He wanted to take care of her; he loved her; there wasn’t a minute in his day that wasn’t interrupted by the thought of her.

I love you – the pause did not last very long – I love you, but I can’t let you keep giving him so much money.

He’s my brother.

Half-brother, he had tried to correct her.

Brother. Again, her tone had silenced him temporarily.

The flap-flap-flap of her plush slippers on the ice-cold concrete was the only sound in the crystalline silence of the empty street. With growing despair, she glanced through the frost-laced windows of the darkened houses as they glided by. They were black apertures into empty containers, she was convinced; no one was inside them – no families sleeping, no kids; no dogs, cats, hamsters – nothing that lived and breathed.

I know he’s your family, and I know that marrying you means I have some responsibility for him, too. And I want you to be able to help him. But –

Please. Stop.

– you’re just enabling him. You’re not helping him any if you keep bailing him out every time he gets into trouble. He needs to man up. He needs to stand on his own two feet.

And how’s he going to do that if the loan sharks break his legs, you fat son of a bitch? she yelled at him silently, lengthening her stride. Man up? What about you? I asked you to promise me one thing: to never bring him up, to never ask me about him, to let me keep that part of my life my own – with no accounting. How much of a man are you to break your word?

The money I’ve been putting in your bank account monthly – I wanted you to have money for the things you need and the things you want. She knew another “but” was coming. He kept doing that: saying one thing then pivoting on that word to take it all back. But I didn’t expect you’d be sending him almost everything I give you.

I don’t have to justify myself to you, she’d said through gritted teeth. It’s my money.

Of course, but to spend it all on him –

She started slowing down, the rage finally spending itself. Her face twisted in grief, though she knew no tears would come. She had not cried since her teens. What am I supposed to do? she continued arguing with him in her mind, since she in her fierce pride had not been able to bring herself to do so earlier that night. I know Kevin’s a drunk and a fuck-up, and someday he’s going to be found stiff and cold in an alley. I know that until you took me in I was on a slow road to the same place. But when my stepfather would slap me around when I was a kid, it was Kevin who would come into my room afterwards with ice for my bruises and a dishcloth to wipe away the blood. Do you think there isn’t anything I would do now – no matter how useless in the end – to make sure he stays alive and in one piece?

I need to make sure you act responsibly. So I’m afraid I’ll need to close down your account. You let me know when you want to buy something and I’ll either get it for you or give you enough money for it – but then I’ll need to see the receipts afterwards. Fair enough?

She had glared her hatred at him, and he could not meet her eyes. He was just another coward at heart after all – just one who used his money rather than the back of his hand. He shifted in discomfort on his side of the bed, then reached over to switch off his lamp and turned his back to her to go to sleep. She had remained frozen in place, still leaning against her pillow, the magazine she had been reading when he broached the forbidden subject out of nowhere still resting on her lap. The left side of her body was bathed in the glow of the lamp on her side table. When his breathing had become deeper and started coming out from his nose in soft whistles, she got out of bed, went down the stairs, and stamped off into the night.

Her headlong rush finally lost momentum and came to an end at a crosswalk. She stopped at the curb, stared across the street to the sidewalk that continued on the other side and went on into the distance, into the darkness. What was she doing? Where could she go? Back to a crappy waitressing job and a shoebox of an apartment? Tonight? In her nightgown? She hadn’t even had the presence of mind to stuff her purse into her coat pocket when she left his house like a shot.

She looked back the way she had come: twelve, maybe fifteen blocks she had covered in a straight line, swept along by her fury. She felt sick at the thought of going back, but her anger had dissipated now, and she became aware of how the breeze had numbed her face and legs and was seeping in through the openings in her collar and cuffs. She began the long trudge back, her soul shriveling with each heavy step she took through the icy air. And yet her resolve hardened as well. She thought of Kevin out there on a night like this; she hoped the radiator was finally working in that fleabag motel room he lived in.

When she got back in the house, she stood over a heat register to get warm through before going back upstairs and climbing quietly into bed. She switched off her lamp and lay down, staring at the shadows in the ceiling, tamping down the revulsion that rose like a wave with each sibilant breath the man beside her exhaled. She mapped out in her mind what she had to do.

When the window started letting in the cold, dawn light, just when she thought he was about to wake up, she would crawl under the covers, pull down his pajama bottom, and slowly blow him. He liked it when she took the initiative – it gave him the illusion that she desired him. Then she would ride him until his turgid body collapsed into itself in release. Afterwards, she would make him breakfast and apologize, with downcast eyes. Later in the evening when he came back home, after servicing him some more, she would plead with him – somehow convince him not to cut her off. She would have to remember to keep her voice plaintive and placating.

Nights were long in winter; dawn was still a long ways off – a blessed reprieve. She pulled up the comforter to her chin, and waited.

(July 2012)

Opening Salvo

Jamila smiled at Abigail as she set her tumbler of coffee on the desktop of dispatcher station two. Abigail looked up at her, a little more grim than usual, and said, “Sometimes this job just sinks to a whole new level of depressing.”

Jamila’s smile faded and she put her hand on Abigail’s shoulder commiseratingly. “Busy morning?”

“Not really, but I just got a call about a hit-and-run. A pickup truck ran a stop sign outside Claremont Middle School and hit a woman and two boys crossing the street. The driver just barreled over them and sped off. I’ve got units and ambulances on the way.” Abigail had two children of her own, aged eight and eleven.

“A mother and her kids?”

“Don’t know. Probably. The caller was pretty hysterical.”

Pedro at station three chimed in: “I just got a call on the same incident from another witness. Damn, these things come in bunches, don’t they? I got a report twenty minutes ago of a five-year-old girl who fell from her apartment balcony.”

Abigail looked grieved. “Five years old!” she muttered.

Jamila glanced at the station two display screen to scan the reports. Pedro’s caller knew the hit-and-run victims and had been able to give their names. She nodded at Abigail. “Okay, I got it. You’re relieved. Get out of here.” Abigail logged off the station, stood up, gathered her purse, jacket, and empty Redbull can, and left. Jamila slid into her seat, fitted the earphone into her ear, and logged in. Her station light blinked red at once: a call was being routed to her station.

“911. What is your emergency?” Jamila said, speaking into the mike of her earphone, noting the time automatically: 12:04 pm.

“Are you recording this?” It was a man’s baritone, oddly muffled.

“Yes, sir. It’s department policy to record all 911 calls. What is your emergency, please?”

“I just wanted to confirm that you’re recording this, so I don’t have to repeat myself,” the man said. “I have placed four C-4 explosive devices on timers at heavily trafficked locations throughout the city. The devices are set to detonate in about four hours – at exactly 4:00 pm. The first device is located inside the utility closet under the down escalator of the Trent Street subway station. I will call again at 1:00 pm. This will give you time to check the station and confirm that what I am saying is true. When I call, I will provide you with a list of demands, which I would appreciate you passing on to the Mayor.”

Jamila sat there blinking. The man’s precise way of speaking and matter-of-fact, almost amiable tone made it difficult to take him seriously. She fell back on the playbook. “Sir, making a bomb threat – even a false one – is a crime and subject to prosecution.”

“Go do what you have to do. I’ll call again in one hour.” The phone clicked off.

Jamila pushed herself away from the station, propelled by one long exhalation. Then she waved to Earl at the supervisor’s desk, pulled herself back to her desk, and leaned forward to her screen, tapping on her keyboard to retrieve the call details – the number and location of the caller.

Earl appeared by her side. “What’s up?”

Jamila responded, not looking up, “Bomb threat. Here. Listen to the playback.” She plugged in another earpiece and gave it to Earl, who listened intently to the recording while she dispatched units to both the address from where the call had originated and the subway station.

Earl looked at her. “Think it’s for real?”

“We’ll find out soon enough.”

Earl said, “All right. Block off all further emergency calls to this station. Pedro” – Pedro looked up – “you, too. We’ll use these two stations to coordinate our response. Pedro, call it in to the precinct captain. Tell her she may need to inform the Chief and the Mayor. Then call Metro Rail Transit and tell them to shut down and evacuate Trent Street Station. Tell them units are en route.” Then to Jamila: “Alert the bomb squad.”

Pedro and Jamila got to work. Jamila patched herself to the bomb squad hotline; the officer-on-duty answered, “Lieutenant Evans here.”

Jamila said, “Lieutenant, 911 Dispatch here. I’ll be sending you a recording regarding a multiple bomb threat. The caller claims he has placed explosive devices at four locations. We have one location: the subway station on Trent Street. Details are in the recording. Please be advised: the alleged bomber has said he will call again at 1:00 pm.”

“Whoa. Four bombs? Okay. We’ll gear up and head to the station. Keep us informed.”

Something was niggling at Jamila. “Lieutenant, what’s your full name?”

A pause on the other side of the line. “Lieutenant Curtis Evans. Why?”

The blood drained from Jamila’s face. Evans. She tried to keep her voice steady. “Nothing. We’ll keep you apprised.”

She started breathing deeply to calm herself. Earl looked at her alarmed. “What’s wrong?”

Jamila went back to the reports on the hit-and-run. The Lieutenant’s name should have rung bells at once, but Evans was a somewhat nondescript name.

Earl repeated, “Jamila, what’s wrong?” Jamila had brought up the personnel record of  Lieutenant Evans. She read aloud: “Spouse: Christine, age thirty-two. Child: Jack, age ten.” She crosschecked the information with the names of the hit-and-run victims: Christine Evans, Jack Evans, and Kyle Kurita. “Oh, my God.” She looked at Earl and pointed to the screen. “The wife and son of the bomb squad officer-on-duty just figured in a vehicular accident, less than fifteen minutes ago.”

Earl said, “But who’s Kyle Kurita?”

Jamila said, “I don’t know. A neighbor? Classmate? Some kid crossing the street? Hold on.” She brought up the list of emergency calls from the morning shift and began going through them. Then a hunch took hold of her chest in an icy grip, and she turned to Pedro. “That little girl who fell from the balcony. Anything new about her?”

Pedro answered, “Yeah, I’ve been monitoring the updates. The paramedics said she was DOA. And the officers who checked the apartment found a woman unconscious and bleeding on the floor – probably her mother. Looked like she had been beaten. They’re calling it a B&E now.”

“Names?”

“Hold on, I’m checking the hospital records.... The little girl was Megan Choi, the woman was Kerstin Choi. The woman is in the ER at Sandstone Hill Medical.” His eyes suddenly widened as it sunk in. “The bomb squad captain’s name is Harry Choi, isn’t it?”

Jamila, Earl, and Pedro looked at each other in shock. Earl pulled himself out of it and raised his voice to the entire room. “All right, everyone. I want updates and follow-ups on all emergency calls from the past twelve hours copied to stations two and three.” To Jamila, more quietly: “Check all recent victims against the bomb squad roster.”

A radio call came in to Pedro. He reported, “There was no one at the alleged bomber’s location. It was a vacated storefront, not even a phone hook-up. The officers on the scene are doing a search of the surrounding area.”

Another call. He said, “Metro Transit and the officers on the scene are evacuating the Trent Street station. The site commander says the utility closet is unlocked and ajar. They haven’t opened it, of course, but they can see blinking lights through the door crack. The bomb squad is still en route.”

Jamila looked up from her screen, her face a grimace. “Earl, in the past hour, we’ve received reports of an assault on one Jacob Korinsky, husband of Sergeant Stephanie Brand, and a fire at the domicile of Roberto and Maria Esteban, parents of Officer Renato Esteban. The fire is still being put out and they don’t have any information yet on casualties.”

Earl said, “Brand and Esteban are both in the bomb squad?”

“Yes. We should check with the other Regional Dispatch Centers and see if they’ve gotten any other reports of incidents involving members of the families of the bomb squad. My guess is there are more.”

“Have they been informed?”

“I can’t imagine that they haven’t. The site commanders must be calling them at this point, if they haven’t yet.” She continued reluctantly, dreading to put into words what was in all of their minds: “Someone is taking out the families of the bomb squad, just when they may have to take on the delicate work of defusing four ticking bombs. In about five minutes, all hell is going to break loose around here – because someone’s just declared war on this city.”

A silence fell on the three of them. Finally, Earl said, “Who the fuck are we dealing with?”

(June 2012)

Notes on the Previous Four Stories

“A Lakeside Tale” was a lark that came out of nowhere – always a gift. I just saw a pretty woman in my mind (although admittedly, I always see pretty women in my mind) and got to thinking about how that sight tends to make an idiot of most men, and how nice it would be if somehow a guy – even if only in fiction – somehow managed to keep his wits about him even after he has made a complete ass of himself. This story is what came out.

“The White Book” was my and my niece Emily’s entry to Three-Minute Fiction's latest round. As I wrote, I had already written a couple of other pieces in response to this round’s challenge of writing a 600-word-max story whose first line reads: “She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally, decided to walk through the door.” But I wanted Emily to try her hand at writing, so we agreed to get together and each write a story, and whatever we wrote we would send in. Unfortunately, I discovered that the rules didn’t allow minors to enter the contest. To try to get around this, I suggested that we do a collaboration instead, and I would submit our story under my name.

I don't think I ever had as much fun (co)writing anything as this story, which Emily and I wrangled into shape over a couple of very pleasant days. I mostly steered and I did provide the twist ending (and put in some constraints: she wanted to include a bunch of adventures, and I had to tell her that we only had space for maybe one scene in a 600-word story), but the main idea and the great, weird imagery – the people with beaks, the medieval costumes, the skates made of animal bones – are hers, from her Social Studies lesson on the Black Plague. During a lunch break, I got to telling her about the Monty Python Black Knight scene, and when we went back to writing, we decided to add a black knight into the mix.

It turned out that we were probably disqualified anyway, since another rule of the contest was that a story should be the sole creation of the person submitting. But – what the heck. As I said, the experience of writing this story with Emily was priceless in itself.

The next couple of stories came from prompts from Flash Friday Fiction.

“Fear” came from the cue: “A story about fear using the words: dark, crunching, eerie, monster, and fear. Word limit: 1,313 words.” I had been wanting to write a story where a protagonist’s experience with a primal emotion shatters his self-conception. I had anger in mind, but when I saw the prompt on Flash Friday Fiction, I figured fear would do as well.

“By Mokelumne River” arose from the cue: “Write a Western short story using these words: rope, dust, whiskey, medicine, and ceremony. Word limit: 1,500 words.” I had thought that of all genres, the Western would be the most difficult for me to write, but it turned out to be very easy. All I had to do was think back on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, one of my favorite movies, and Firefly, one of my favorite shows, and try to emulate the tone and the penchant for twisty turnabouts of those two entertainments. I can only hope I succeeded somewhat.

By Mokelumne River

Frank Bosworth and Li Ping raised their heads from where they crouched by the shore when Medicine Mutt started barking. They peered up the slope and spied three figures on horses coming down the trail, kicking up dust behind them. Frank and Li Ping poured out the water and gravel from their tin pans back into the river, put the pans down, stood up, and watched as the three men drew nigh.

They were big, mangy fellows, with leathery faces and bristly beards and an ill-favored look about them. Pistols hung from their belts and rifle butts stuck out from their saddles. The one in the lead wore a tall, worn stove pipe hat, and he gave a gaptoothed grin as he drew his horse up half a dozen paces from Frank and Li Ping. Tall Hat’s two companions wore beat-up Stetson hats – one black, one white – and took their places behind him, one to each side.

“Well, now, what have we got here?” Tall Hat said to Frank. “How’s the lady river treating you, fella? She coughing up?”

Frank smiled amiably and shrugged. “She’ll favor us yet.”

Tall Hat looked down at Medicine Mutt and said evenly, “Will you get your dog to stop nipping and sniffin’ at my horse’s heels afore I plug him?”

Frank said, “Now, no need for that. He’s just doing his job.” Then to Mutt: “Down, boy, down. C’mere.” Mutt circled away and lay down at Frank’s feet, staring at the three strangers warily.

Tall Hat looked over Frank appraisingly. He nodded at the revolver that hung low on Frank’s right thigh. He said, “You carry that like you know your ways around a .45. You in the war?”

Frank responded, “I got me into a few scrapes in my time.”

Tall Hat eyed Li Ping, taking in his black pants and black robe, his shaved head with his queue – that long, rope-like braid of hair that Chinese men wore – hanging down his back. Tall Hat snorted and said, still addressing Frank, “Why you got a Chinaman with you? He your cook?”

Frank glanced at Li Ping. “Well,” he admitted slowly, “he’s actually sorta my boss. My prospecting partner, really, but this here stake we got is mostly on his coin.”

Tall Hat straightened up and leaned back in surprise. “Your boss? Well, don’t that beat all!” He turned back to his companions. “Don’t that beat all, fellas? You ever heard of such a thing?”

The one behind him to his right wearing the black Stetson said grimly, “Damned affront to the Almighty, if you ask me. A white man working for a John Chinaman.”

Tall Hat faced Frank again with a look of disapproval. “What’s the story behind that?”

Frank shrugged again. “Li Ping’s been wanting to bring in his girl from across the ocean; been mooning over her and planning his wedding ceremony and all. He’d saved up from his railroad work on the Union Pacific, but he needed a little more, so he thought prospecting might be the way to go. I worked on the Union Pacific myself and knew him from there. He asked me to join him, and so here we are.”

Tall Hat shook his head. “Now, that ain’t right, bringing in a China woman to breed more squinty-eyed pups. Unless’n of course he puts her up for some whoring, which might be okay. Them China women are sweet enough when you ain’t got coin for a proper white whore.” He guffawed when he saw that Li Ping had turned from staring narrow-eyed at Frank to glaring furiously at him. “Why, fellas,” he said, “I do believe this John Chinaman’s getting what I’m saying. So who says their heathen minds can’t fathom Christian talk?”

He sighed expansively and said to Frank, “Well, now, fella, seeing as how you ain’t exactly been living right, taking up with a swarthy Oriental and all, I gotta say that some righteous retribution is in order.” He looked around at the small encampment. “You got some nice prospecting gear here: nice tent, couple of good nags, probably got some good vittles and maybe even some whiskey inside your tent. Not to mention John Chinaman’s coin. And I got a feeling you weren’t exactly forthright about your luck and prolly got a few nice shiny nuggets squirreled away. Ain’t that so?”

Frank sighed.

Tall Hat continued, “So I think taking it all would be a good and proper fine for, you know, breaking all sorts of laws of God and man.”

Frank said placatingly, “Come on, fellas. If I read you right, you boys were in the big fight, same as me. We all seen enough plundering and shooting and killing to last a lifetime. Ain’t no need to go down this road.”

Tall Hat said, “You’re right, there ain’t no need to go down this road. All you gotta do is unhitch your gun belt and let it slide down to the ground and this’ll all turn out nice and peaceful.”

Frank sighed again. “Well, fellas, no one could ever claim I ain’t a peaceable man. Why, I remember a time in Kansas, when I came across a couple of fine gentlemen like yourselves and I – “

“Oh, for crying out loud,” Li Ping said and pulled a gun from his robe and shot Tall Hat in the chest.

Tall Hat’s horse reared, dumping him on the ground. Li Ping shifted his aim to the right of the horse pawing air and plugged White Stetson as he was drawing his rifle from its saddle holster. Frank got Black Stetson on the left. None of the three men got off a shot.

Li Ping strode to the men lying on the ground with Mutt padding by his side, barking excitedly. He kicked the bodies one by one. One of them stirred and moaned; Li Ping aimed at his face and fired.

He walked back to Frank, tucking his gun back in his robe, shaking his head in exasperation.

“What?” Frank said. “I was working my way to it.”

“How? By talking ’em to death?”

“I was, you know, trying to lull them so I could make my play.”

“Yeah, that’ll work. And what was that about telling them about me and my girl back home?”

“What? They was going to be dead anyway. Where’s the harm in shooting the breeze sometimes? You’re always so damn silent.”

Li Ping frowned. “I’m paying good coin for this here business venture. The least you can do is hold up your end and take care of these varmints when they show up, like you’re supposed to. Do I gotta do everything myself?”

“Ahhh, you always take things so damn serious.”

(June 2011)

Fear

It’s easier when you’re young, when fear can still be delicious. Think about the ancient, sacred rite of campfire tales. You and your friends sit around a flaring, crackling fire, conjuring ghosts and ghouls and monsters; you tell each other in hushed tones about noises in the woods – the crunching of leaves, eerie wails, words whispered just beyond understanding – and the darkness around you enters within, pounding, threatening to burst through your chest and eardrums. Then the story is done and the throbbing darkness recedes, leaving you terrified, exhilarated, replete with satisfaction. You can think of yourself as brave then for not trembling or jumping at every little sound as the tales were told, or begging that the stories end. When you are a child, you have the luxury of playing at fear, particularly when your childhood was more or less uneventful and you were raised by parents who kept you safe and free from harm. 

But then you grow up, and one bright day, you are walking down the street with your own son Matt, only half listening to his six-year-old chatter, your mind on the list of grocery items your wife has just texted you to pick up on the way home. You hear him call to you, “Hey, Dad! Dad!”, and you realize he has fallen behind you. You turn and see him pausing before a store window, pointing at some video games displayed within. Your eye is caught by an old woman shuffling up the street towards you, looking down at Matt, and the instant you notice her smile the side of her head leaps off in a gush of crimson, chasing the shattered fragments of the store window as they fly inwards in a thunderous crash. You hear a loud pop! pop! pop! from the street and the sound of more glass bursting, and you find yourself lying face down at the bottom of a stairwell to a basement door, eyes shutting away the light, burrowing your head into your arms. You hear screams and yells and more pops and dull booms, and then the slamming of car doors and the screeching of tires, and then the keening of sirens in the distance, coming closer, becoming shrill and maddening. The screams continue, from several quarters, and after an eternity in the darkness, a flicker of a memory rouses you: you have a son; he was with you.

By sheer dint of will, you open your eyes, unlock your frozen limbs, and drag yourself up the four steps to peer into the street. You see Matt still standing where he had been, on a slick of blood, the old woman lying prone at his feet. His tiny body is enlarging, sucking in air like a bellows, then blasting it out in a piercing, wrenching howl. His cheek is spotted red, his face contorted in complete and utter terror. You try to stand up but fail, and so can only start crawling towards him. A flash of dark blue rushes past him and jumps through the open, broken window – and Matt is gone. A gargling, guttural moan escapes you, and another dark blue shape suddenly appears, looking down at you. You see his face mouthing words, but though you hear the sounds, their meaning will not settle in your churning mind. He lowers himself on one knee, puts a hand on your back, stays beside you as he scans the street, his drawn pistol pointing to the ground.

More sirens, and other figures in a lighter blue come running up, and they crouch around you in a circle, and more hands are touching you, prodding you. They bring you to your feet and guide you towards red trucks with flashing lights. You can barely feel your legs beneath you as you stagger forward. In time, Matt is brought to you, wrapped in a blanket, smudges of blood still smearing his face, and you find yourselves clinging to each other desperately, wailing into each other’s ears, the two of you a single creature convulsing with fear and grief.

Speech and wit return to you, in fits and starts, and the putting together of the story begins. Words begin registering again; you hear them from the police, the emergency personnel: bank robbery, automatic rifles, shootout, multiple fatalities. And you start speaking your words, telling your story, what you can piece of it; first to the police, then to the doctor at the hospital, then to your tear-stricken wife, who cannot let go of her tight embrace of Matt. And then you tell it to Dr. Johansen, in weekly sessions in a cozy room with dark, paneled walls, with sunlight streaming in through the slits of green, Venetian blinds.

* * *

Dr. Johansen has reassured me over and over that my reactions on that bright day were perfectly normal, and I have come to believe it, for the most part – though I am still apt to start at sudden noises, my throat still constricts whenever I walk past store windows, and I sometimes still imagine I see flashes of contempt in people’s faces – in my wife’s, most painfully. Matt is doing fine; the currents and eddies of childhood and a blessed forgetfulness have long swept him away from that street, so that the memory of it has no more hold on him than a story of ghosts and goblins. I in my adult circumspection am denied this solace.

It’s a little death, isn’t it?, fear: a touch of oblivion that foreshadows the void awaiting us in the end. Before the fear you are yourself; but while it has its grip, you are gone. You disappear. And you tell the stories afterwards to try to come back to yourself, to find yourself again. Sometimes it is not so easy. Before that day, I was sure of who I was: a devoted husband, a good and decent man – and most of all a loving father who would give his life for his son in a heartbeat. Since that day, I have lived with fear's bitter aftertaste in my tongue, knowing this is not true.

(May 2012)