Contributor: Eric White

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“You can’t do this,” said the wiry man across from me. He spoke in Russian. It was sloppy, and his accent was almost comical.
“Please, Mr. Oswald, let us speak in English. It is, after all, your native tongue,” I said, and poured myself a drink.
“I’ve already told you. I’m more than willing to denounce my American citizenship. I can help you,” he said in English.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Oswald. That is just not true.”
The man was taken aback, but he knew better than to raise his voice. All he did was squirm in his seat, and glance around the mahogany office.
“I’ve already proven that I could be one of your agents. I’m the perfect spy.”
I nearly choked on my drink.
“What’s so funny? I’ve taken all the tests. I’ve proven I’m more than capable.”
“Why do you want to be a spy for the Soviet Union, Mr. Oswald?”
“What?”
“Answer the question, Mr. Oswald,” I said.
“I want to help the Soviet Union. I want to take down tyrannical capitalist governments. I want to — “
“You want to be a celebrity. You want undying fame and glory. It’s really quite easy to see.”
“What? That’s not true. I don’t know what you’ve heard, but—“
“I’ve heard plenty, Mr. Oswald. I’ve had plenty of reports from the town. You claim to denounce your homeland, but you use your status as an American to gain local fame. A spy that wants to be famous is no use to me.”
“That’s not what I’ve been doing. I have just been trying to—“
“Yes, I’ve heard about how the girls love the American turned Soviet spy. You have even been heard comparing yourself to the likes of Vasily Zaytsev with a rifle.”
“It was harmless fun. The locals don’t know anything.”
“You insult my people, Mr.Oswald. Everything that has happened since you’ve arrived on our base has been part of an assesment. You have been in contact with no less than twelve of my agents in the last month. You have been assessed and determined to be of no use to the Soviet Union, or anyone else.”
“Please, Mr. Chardov. I can still help. Maybe not as a spy, but I could be a translator or monitor American news or I could—“
“Mr. Oswald, you can barely read or write your native language. Do you take us for fools?” I said, taking another sip of my beverage.
He was sweating profusely as he rubbed his hands together.
“No, sir. Never.”
“Then why do you think I have any use for a dropout with no special skills whatsoever? A dropout who can barely read his own language. “
“Well, what about my citizenship? If your government approves it, I can still make a living. I can be a Russian. I could stay in the town, off base, and never bother anyone.”
“That will not be happening either,” I said. “You will be leaving the Soviet Union tonight on a flight back to the United States.”
“What? No. Please, no. Why?”
“Mr. Oswald, you are a sniveling and pitiful creature. My country has no use for incapable cowards. And that’s what you are, Mr. Oswald. A coward.”
“I can’t go back. What if they find out? I could be thrown in prison. I can’t. I can’t risk it.”
“Don’t worry about any of that. We have fabricated a story for your last year and a half in the Soviet Union and your last month on this base. You will comply with our fabrication, or you will be killed. That’s how I know you will agree to our terms.”
“Why are you just letting me go? Aren’t I a liability or something?`”
“No, Mr. Oswald. You are not,” I drank down the last of my glass. “You are of no threat whatsoever.”


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Author: Eric White

Contributor: Meagan Lindsay

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It is the end of winter once again. I do not want to go back again. I have come to dread the months that I spend with my mother, Demeter, surrounded by the verdant greens of spring and summer. I pat Cerberus on the head as I pass him, heading through his gate and up the stairs back into the mortal world. It is a long and torturous climb, made to ensure that no mortals escape death's clutches.

I find myself thinking of my husband, almost wishing he could come with me. Even if he could just join me on this climb, it would make things more bearable. He may be arrogant, often cold, and some would say greedy (I say confident in his abilities to get what he wants), but when he is with me, he is also fiercely passionate and extravagant with his affections.

I remember the first time I saw him. It was at the birth celebration of one of the lesser deities, I cannot remember whose. I only remember seeing him there across the room, watching me. He was dark and brooding, certainly. That burning stare of his and the small symbol tattooed on his wrist were the only clues I needed as to his identity. This was Hades, god of the underworld, the one god everyone respected.

Hades' dark hair curled at the nape of his neck; it was charcoal colored but caught the light with hints of flame. It seemed alive and I could scarcely tear my eyes away from it to study the rest of his face. His lips were luscious red, framed by just a bit of scruffy beard, and accentuated by a piercing. His nose was pierced, as well as his ears. At last, I met his eyes. Those eyes! They were like burning steel kissed by morning dew, and piercing as he watched me unabashedly. I raised my brow in a challenge to his stare.

I knew he would not come forward to speak with me, no man (immortal or not) dared. My mother kept far too tight a reign on my life. Other, lesser, men had tried and quickly been put in their place. But I let myself hope that Hades would rescue me, somehow, with some half-baked, yet inescapable plan. It became my fantasy over the next few weeks.

And when it happened, I played my part well. I was truly startled, by his rising from the earth, and so I screamed and fought. I thought I must be in a dream, for how else would he have known to come and save me from my boring existence? It was only later that I realized how my struggle added to my performance.

Once we were in his kingdom, I realized that I could not be asleep. No place in my imagination could have possibly matched this dark haunted place. We travelled past a giant dog with three heads, across a river, and down many gray pathways until coming to a stop in front of a modest sized shining black palace. I stepped out of his chariot and into his arms, collapsing into sobs.

It is true, I was terrified. It is also true that I was mesmerized. I didn't understand what this imposing god could possibly want with me (plain, straight brown hair, average figure, boring brown eyes). I was partly afraid that he would send me back to my mother, and partly afraid that he would never let me see her again. I spent days wavering between these two extremes. Terrified, grateful, but most of all, curious.

I wanted to learn everything about my kidnapper, my new husband. He was gentle and kind with me, giving me anything I desired. I didn't ask for much. Each new thing I learned about him was enough. I learned the names of the river nymphs, and attempted to teach Cerberus to fetch (It was a failed endeavor, as all three of the heads would want to go after the stick, but only one could pick it up).

Eventually, though, Hermes came for me. My husband had a private conference with him, and then told me of my mother's sorrowful search for me. I did not want to return to the mortal world forever. And this is the part of my story that people often forget: I did not have to eat or drink. I chose to do so. I chose my new life, my new role as Queen of the Underworld, over my grieving mother and the human world.

Yes, it was selfish. But after tasting the passionate world that I had been offered... How could I go back? Hermes tried to stop me, but I would not listen. So, he went back to Zeus, certain he was going to get disintegrated. Instead, my father came up with a compromise. And so, every spring I return to my mother, to suffer her complaints and protest that my husband treats me wonderfully. It is the same, year after year.

Finally I have reached the gaping chasm in the earth where the Underworld meets the mortal world. I climb up to the surface, flopping onto my back on the ice-covered dead crust. As I lay there, my hair shielding my face from the sun, the ice melts away and soft green grass springs up beneath me. My mother knows I'm back, and I have awakened spring once again. Winter cannot come soon enough.


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Meagan Lindsay is a receptionist by day, but by night, she writes books about terrible things and kissing, but hopefully never terrible kissing. Meagan has had work featured in Every Day Other Things and Daily Love, and hopes to continue writing well on into the future. In fact, she doesn't know what she would do if she didn't write, though her mom has always said she was born to be a Disney Princess, so maybe that.

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Author: Meagan Lindsay

Contributor: Matthew Luhrman

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The wind chime above the front door didn’t work. If I’m honest, none of the furnishings I placed in the crooked craftsman on Eagle Street could chase the gloom away. I remember buying the chime. I’d seen them dangling above the neighborhood porches, decorating the homes of lifers with blooming families. Weren’t the soothing chords supposed to create a sonic seal around my home, a protection from ghouls, inner demons, or familiar ghosts? Meredith was one of those ghosts. Even the memory of that light pigeon laugh always humming behind her teeth still poked at me. She always made quick decisions, and although we had picked the house together, I didn’t get a good enough look. Sure I did the customary walk through, but I didn’t really look. If I had, I might have seen that the house was a stranger that would prove impossible to befriend. Shortly after Meredith left, the house tried to cast me out too. But if I am one thing it’s stubborn. Last night was cold. Tonight would be even colder. It was finally time.

I used a space heater, placed it near the living room curtains with a glossy magazine on top and set it to full blast. I sank into my cherry wood Eames lounger as the fire began to flicker and pour across the shag rug. Every contour of the lounger cradled me like a lover. You understand, don’t you? When you sit in exceptional furniture for the first time, there’s that brief moment of surprise, of genuine shock. Wow, I never knew. I wasn’t being held right before. I feel so much better now. And just like a classical instrument, a home can be tuned. Harmony engineered. Say you hate your job, or even just a co-worker. If that feeling follows you home then swap in a glass coffee table with a nickel-plated base, maybe keep the leather recliner but add an ultra-suede ottoman. You have to think of it as self-preservation. Because great furniture can actually heal you, and sometimes it can even care for you. This is what I told myself anyway.

I was sleeping when the fire started, that had to be my story: “an accident.” I’d wait for my neighbors to see the smoke and call. The fire department was only blocks away. I’d be rescued in time. And when the insurance payout came I could start again.

A shrill noise woke me, and I was surprised I had drifted off. The phone rang from somewhere in the smoldering house. I found some oven mitts in the kitchen, slipped them on to open the living room door. Tremendous heat.
Wood crackled and thick smoke stung my eyes. Where was everyone, anyone? Melting veneers and simmering varnishes. Sweet fumes filled me as I watched the Danish coffee table buckle and blister. I loved that table.
The importance of the furniture (and its placement) had grown steadily after the breakup. I had some success at first, mixing and matching woods and synthetics, heights and patterns, aligning all of the distances, perfecting my fortress. Until one day, my money was all gone, and the house was full, but somehow empty too. I needed a clean start, some traction.

The phone still rang. Where was it?

My head wobbled, vision distorting as hallways shrank. The springs in the couch shot across the room as the frame split free like a shattered ribcage. I finally found the phone half melted - plastic pooling onto the floor - an impossible ring somehow gurgling from it. I jabbed my padded finger at the speaker icon.
“Hello,” I yelled.
“Can we talk?”
It sounded exactly like Meredith.
“Sure,” I said, holding back a cough.
“I was just thinking about that one time we went camping, when we ran out of food.”
I knew which trip she meant, and I’ll admit, I hated sleeping outside. It always made me overeat.
“Do you remember when we finally saw that other family and we really needed food and water?”
“Why are we talking about this,” I asked.
“Because you laughed at me,” she said. “I was thirsty. So were you. So very thirsty. Why didn’t you just ask them for a drink?”
“You still don’t know,” I grumbled. “That would have been begging.”

Now it's hard to breath. I lost time, lost the phone, forgot if I had said goodbye. I imagine if I could escape the house what I would see. My neighbors stand on their lawns, wrapped in nightgowns, holding their children’s hands as they watch my house burn. Maybe they all assume that the fire department is on its way. Maybe they face their own homes, homes that burn too. That makes me smile.

With a groan, the floor gives way, and I sink into embers. Swarmed by heat and swirling ash I reach for the front lawn. The grass is cold and dewed, and I’d love to collapse onto it, but it is beyond me.

Then I can see something else outlined in the dark, emerging. The new house grows clearer. It’s smaller but has an improved floor plan. And I can see the furnishings, the layout. Oh yes, this one is much better. The smoke keeps clearing and colors reach my eyes. Now I see the roof, the walls, a clearer flow, much more durable materials. A new home. The one I chose myself. It waits to pleasure me.


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Matthew Luhrman is a way too busy editor of popular reality television, who somehow manages to write the occasional story while taking the train into New York City.

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Author: Matthew Luhrman

Contributor: Katherine J Parker

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Dead.

Dead, but perfect.

Amelia didn’t recognize the face inside the ice, that's how long it had been. She'd only been two or three when he had taken off, the red and white aircraft carrying him away. She remembered that, the aircraft. She had a wooden model that was identical until her brother had lost it. That's the only way she remembered it; as a toy.

The pieces of the real thing were still encased in the polar ice, she imagined, as perfectly preserved as her father. Everyone assumed that it had crashed, anyway. Why else would all communications have gone silent within 24 hours of the team's departure? Amelia imagined the brightly colored tail of the plane sticking out of the ice somewhere, a silent grave marker for as many as 20 men and women. A beacon in whitewashed desolation.

This body was alone, though. Blue beneath the layers of ice, his face was surrounded by white fluff and feathers. His parka was in perfect condition, from what she could see. It was the green of a perfectly manicured yard, the one he mowed every Sunday. She hadn't remembered that until now. The scent of fresh cut grass wafted through the room, a figment of her imagination.

"How long will it take to thaw?" It, not he. Just a body lost to time with the chance of answering questions that had only grown larger with the years.

"A few hours, a day at most," the doctor who would be performing the autopsy dried wet hands on a dark brown towel, the same color as the gloves that encased the corpse's hands. The boots matched. They also matched the old pine workbench where her father had carved and painted the model plane in the year leading up to the expedition. After that the workbench sat forgotten in the shed until her brother had taken up woodworking in high school. He'd taken it with him when he'd married and moved on, leaving the shed as empty as it felt.

"Not such a long time to wait after all of these years," Amelia looked up as the team's tech specialist toggled one heater on and another off.

"I guess not." Her hands rubbed against her violet snow pants, building up heat in her palms. He kept touching the ice. No one said anything, but now and then she caught the team lead watching her. I'm not doing anything, she thought.

He looked like he had fallen asleep clutching his flashlight, its body as blue as the clear sky outside the window. Such a sharp difference. She wondered if the light was as bright as the sun was, if it looked just as warm and felt just as cold. She felt cold, down into her bones. The room was hot, everyone else had peeled put of any unnecessary work clothes. The tech, standing just under the warming lights, was sleeveless. Even the team lead, who was in the furthest corner of the mobile had pulled on a sacred pair of jeans, and was only wearing a single pair of socks. The "on" light was still flashing on the coffee pot. It was growing stronger by the hour, but no one had touched it in hours.

Amelia pulled a cup from the cabinet and watched the pitch-black liquid fill it. He had always put sugar and cream in his, chocolate when he was feeling seasonal. For an instant she saw a candy cane sticking out of her cup, but then she blinked and it was gone. There hadn't been any candy canes in the last supply drop.

She wondered if he had taken any candy canes with him. If he had put them in his coffee the day he died, if he had coffee in the stainless steel thermos shining against his hip, or if it was empty.

More questions. Just a little longer.


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A passionate writer since the day she discovered pen and paper, Katherine spends most of her time exploring new avenues for the creative use of words.

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Author: Katherine J Parker

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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For 35 years, Mike Fitzgibbons had never missed a day driving off at 4 a.m. to buy the newspaper at his local convenience store. Snow, sleet, hail or rain couldn't stop him. There was only one paper being published in St. Louis at the time but Mike was addicted to newspapers. He had spent his early years reading four papers a day in Chicago--two in the morning and two in the evening. He worked for one of them and enjoyed every minute of it. However, an opportunity to earn more money as an editor for a defense contractor required his large family's relocation to St. Louis. Mike needed more money to feed a wife and seven children.

"Words are words," Mike said at the time. "Being paid more money to arrange words for someone else seems like the right thing to do."

Writing and editing were the two things in life Mike could do well enough to draw a salary. It broke his heart to retire many years later at the age of 68 but it seemed like the best thing to do. His doctor had told him he might have early Alzheimer's disease and that he should prepare for the future since the disease would only grow worse. Mike never told his wife or any of the children about the problem. His wife was the excitable type, and all of the children had grown up and moved away, many of them back to Chicago where all of them had been born. Each of them had acquired a college degree or two and had found a good job. Most of them were married. Mike and his wife now had 12 grandchildren and were looking forward to more.

"You can never have too many heirs," he told his wife one time. "Whatever we leave, it will give them something to argue about after we're gone. They won't forget us."

After the doctor had mentioned the strong possibility that he had Alzheimer's disease, Mike decided to have the daily paper delivered to the house instead of driving to the store every morning to buy one. And on most days that seemed like a good decision. But not on the infrequent days when the deliveryman soared by Mike's house without tossing a paper on the lawn.

The first time it happened Mike called the circulation department and received a credit on his bill. He did the same thing the second time, managing to keep his temper under control. But the third time occurred on the morning after the Super Bowl. For Mike this was the last straw. Three times he told the kind old lady in the circulation department to tell the driver Mike was from Chicago originally and in that fine city errors of this magnitude did not go unanswered. A credit on Mike's bill, while necessary, would not suffice.

When his wife Dolly got up, he asked her, "How the hell can I check the stats on the game without my newspaper?" She was only half awake. Mike was a very early riser and Dolly, according to Mike, was a "sack hound."

A kind woman, Dolly had always tried to be helpful throughout the many years of their marriage, so Mike understood why she eventually suggested he drive to the QuikTrip and buy a paper. Then he could read about the game and check the stats, she said.

"That's not the point, Dolly," Mike said. "I have a verbal contract with that paper for delivery and they are not keeping their side of the bargain. A credit on my bill is not adequate recompense." Mike loved the sound of that last sentence as it rolled off his tongue. He always loved the sound of words whether they were floating in the air alone or jailed in a sentence or paragraph.

What made matters worse, Mike told Dolly, is that without his newspaper he would have no way to check on the obituaries of the day. The obituaries were Mike's favorite part of the paper. Back in his old ethnic neighborhood in Chicago, the obituaries were known as the Irishman's Racing Form.

Back then, many retired Irish immigrants would spend the day reviewing the obituaries in the city's four different newspapers. Finding a good obituary primed them for conversation at the local tap after supper. The tap was run by the legendary Rosie McCarthy, a humongous widow who did not suffer any nonsense in her establishment. But she did offer free hard-boiled eggs to customers who ordered at least three foaming steins of Guinness. Eggs were cheap in those days. It was rumored that Rosie had to buy 10 dozen eggs a week just to keep her customers happy.

"Rosie knows how to hard boil an egg, Dolly," Mike had told his wife many times over the years. And his wife always wondered what secret Rosie could possibly have when it came to boiling eggs.

One reason the obituaries were of such great interest in Mike's old neighborhood involved the retirees wanting to see if any of their old bosses had finally died. Some of those bosses had been nasty men, so petulant and abrasive they'd have given even a good worker a rash. There was also the possibility that over in Ireland, the Irish Republican Army might finally blow up a bridge with the Queen of England on it. The IRA had been trying to do that for years. Many bridges had been blown to smithereens but not one of them had "Herself" on it.

"The IRA keeps blowing up bridges, Dolly," Mike would remind his wife. "You would think one of these times they'd get it right. They know what she looks like."

In addition to reading four newspapers a day as a young man, Mike had had other hobbies during his long and tumultuous life. He had bred rare Australian finches for decades and had won prizes with them at bird shows. However, after his last son had graduated from college and moved away, Mike sold more than 200 finches and 40 cages because he no longer had a son available to clean the cages. Five sons had earned allowances over the years cleaning the cages at least once a week. All of them ended up hating anything with wings. One son had even bought a BB gun and would sit out in the yard all day while Mike was at work. That boy was a pretty good shot. No one knows how many woodpeckers and chickadees he managed to pick off.

After Mike sold his birds, he took the considerable proceeds and plowed all of the money into rare coins. For the next ten years he collected many rare coins but when he retired he figured he may as well sell them because none of his children had any numismatic interest. Not only that, none of them would have known the value of the coins if Mike died. Some of them were very valuable--the 1943 Irish Florin, for example, in Extra Fine condition would have brought more than $15,000 at the right auction. Mike loved that coin and kept it, along with all the others, in a large safe in the basement. Guarding the safe was a large if somewhat addled and ancient bloodhound. Mike had bought the dog from a fellow bird breeder when it was a pup. The bloodhound wasn't toothless but he may as well have been. He wouldn't bite anyone no matter how menacing a robber might be.

"I love that dog, Dolly," Mike would tell his wife every time she suggested that euthanasia might be the best thing. "That dog, Dolly, is as Catholic as we are and Catholics don't abort or euthanize anything," Mike said.

When Mike finally sold all of his coins, he had a great deal of money that he viewed as disposable income. Dolly, however, viewed it as an insurance policy in case Mike died first. Mike had a couple of pensions but he had never made Dolly a co-beneficiary. In fact he convinced her to sign waivers so the payout to him would be larger. Dolly didn't want to do it but signing was easier than reasoning with Mike. His temper seldom surfaced but when it did, things weren't good for weeks around the house.

"I get mad once in awhile, Dolly, but I always apologize," Mike would remind her.

Mike finally decided to put the coin money into guns--big guns--although he had never shot a gun in his life. He refused to go hunting because he saw no sense in killing animals when meat was available at the butcher store. The kids used to joke that maybe deer and pheasant were Catholic, too.

Some of the guns Mike bought were the kind you would see in action movies. Mike always liked action movies. The more the gore, the happier Mike was. But he had to go to action movies alone because his wife hated gore but she liked musicals. No musicals for Mike, although he would always dig into his pocket to give her the money for admission, complaining occasionally that the cost of seeing musicals kept going up.

"I don't want to spend good money to see a bunch of people in costumes and wigs singing songs together when Frank Sinatra, all by himself, sings better than any of them." Sinatra had a good voice, the kids thought, and it probably didn't hurt that he was Catholic. One of them once suggested to Mike that it might be nice if they played a recording of Sinatra's "Moonlight in Vermont" at church. Mike didn't agree or disagree because he thought some sacrilege might be involved.

Mike remembered his gun collection on the day the deliveryman had failed to throw his newspaper on the lawn. He decided that the next morning he would sit out on his front porch at 3 a.m. with a big mug of coffee and the biggest rifle he owned. When the delivery van drove down his street, he planned to walk out to the curb, rifle in hand, to make sure he got his paper and to advise the driver of the inconvenience his mistake of the previous day had caused.

"There's no way this guy's a Catholic," Mike said to himself. "Three times now he has skipped my house with my paper."

The next morning things went exactly as planned--at the start. Mike was out on his porch with his rifle and coffee at 3 a.m. when the van came rolling down the street. Mike got up and strolled down the walk toward the van, his rifle resting like a child in his arms. Mike couldn't have known, however, that the van driver had been robbed several times over the years and that he carried a pistol in case someone decide to rob him again. When he saw Mike coming toward him down the middle of the street carrying a rifle, the driver decided to take no chances. He rolled down the window and put a bullet in Mike's forehead.

One shot, dead center, was all it took, and Mike, still a big strapping man, fell like a tree.

The next day the story about the death of Mike Fitzgibbons made the front page of his beloved paper and Mike himself was listed in the obituary section. The obit advised that friends of the family could come to the wake at Eagan's Funeral Home on Friday. It also pointed out that a Solemn High Funeral Mass would be said for Mike on Saturday at St. Aloysius Church, where Mike had been a faithful member and stalwart usher for decades.

Two days after the funeral, a neighbor was shoveling snow for Mike's widow. He happened to look up and saw the missing newspaper stuck in the branch of one of Mike's Weeping Willow trees. Mike had an interest in Weeping Willows and had planted a number of them over the years, too many some of the neighbors thought for the size of his property. This was the first time a newspaper had gotten stuck in one of the trees, his wife said. And it would be the last time because she had canceled the subscription to the paper the day Mike died. Like her husband, Dolly was a woman of principle and she thought canceling the paper was the least she could do in his memory. She had never read the damn thing anyway.


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Donal Mahoney has had work published in various print and electronic publications in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Some of his earliest work can be found at http://booksonblog12.blogspot.com/

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Author: Donal Mahoney

Contributor: H. C. Turk

- -
During all my time traveling by roadway, I've encountered or feared difficulty in controlling vehicles that never belong to me, for I am a person incapable of such ownership. This journey seems no different, but when last have I failed to arrive?

We have trouble coming in. The front brake, I think, begins dragging. I really have to struggle with the wheel to keep from driving off the road, right into the gutter. But we make it to the parking lot and the members register. Me, I'm just the driver.

Despite the off season, the swimming pool is crowded, because a cult has hired it. Not directly: they leased the auditorium for a day to go swimming. But swimming is never simple with cults. For them, a dunking includes existential cleansing or eternal revelation or drowning infidels. Here, the purpose includes healing of a medical sort, because G is present, and I'm sniffing after her. I could love G if I had to, but I don't. Being submerged does something for sniffing.

Immersion in the pool includes healing, because G is a nurse and she's performing therapy on a young woman by letting her soak. I don't know her problem, but I'm glad I don't have it. Not that I wouldn't like G to push me under then allow me to rise a new patient, but her patient's skin....

After the first soak, G directs her patient out of the pool to a lounge chair in order to check her breathing, pulse, and other internal balances with probes in her abdomen. While this verification proceeds, the young woman's father returns. Still in his trunks, though he's been out for some time and no longer drips, he sneaks back into the pool and reveals only the top half of his face while pretending not to enjoy himself though he is doing so by observing his daughter's healing or existential cleansing.

Consulting with her textbook, G decides that the young woman should return for more therapy. I can understand that, noticing her skin(s). I could never be a doctor.

I'm just the driver, but even I feel the spirit when the father and all the cult members quickly exit the water. It is rather swirly. Since this occurs to G's back, neither she nor her patient notices.

"I think she needs to go back in for a spell," G calls out over her shoulder.

Exasperation immediately strikes the father.

"Not now! Look what she's done to the water!"

After one glance, G changes her mind.

"She needs something."

The young woman doesn't look too bad (too bad) to me, but I'm just the driver. However, I'm aware enough to notice the ditch by the chain link fence along the highway. It's full of water.

G has to consider my suggestion. The father looks very closely. He has an opinion based on peer review, having reviewed his peer.

"I just got back from the hospital," he says, and jangles the keys to the instrument cabinet.

Looking down, G turns one gauge all the way up.

I ask him what he means. He did notice me before. I am the driver.

"The other father, you might have seen him. His son had this brain surgery. They finished and he's sitting with a plastic bag on his head and nothing else is covering his brain. That's to allow more swelling. I'm not a doctor, but I am a dad. That dad gave his son a hand so they could go running along the sidewalk. That movement is just what he needed, the doctors said, and I wouldn't argue with them. Except, except they came running by right here," and he nods to the adjacent hospital and the sidewalk just past the swimming pool (and the ditch). "They're doing swell, in a type of a race, and the kid—he's so strong—is smiling. At least until the father starts leaning toward the ditch and in he goes. He pops right up, but the kid is crying and his bag is leaking. I don't want that to happen to my daughter."

"Sir, no one wants her bag to leak. But why did the other father jump in the ditch?"

"He didn't jump in. He was pulled inside by spirits, so he says."

"For existential cleansing?"

"Maybe. Maybe temporary revelation, but I don't want my daughter in there."

During this explication, G has slipped the girl back into the swimming pool, then listened to the blah blah. But she listened too long, for her peers' mass inhalation informs her of a change in prognosis, though not a leaky bag. Looking to the young woman, all of us can see her skin(s). Obviously she has been in too long, but now she's stuck and G can't extract her. Following a new pull, I dive in and come up beside the young woman. Her father tries, but is leaning toward the ditch while trying to pull himself away and goes nowhere right now.

I pull her out while G reads her like a book. We're looking for the chapter to check her breathing, but her pages stick together. But isn't the binding sighing? That's a good sign. Concerned about acid and yellowing, G probes more deeply into the text.

"Can you believe it?" she says to me. "Her...is still strongest."

Since I'm not a doctor, I don't understand that, but I recognize success. Her father could relax now, but he can't pull himself away from spiritual longings.

For drowning infidels, utilize a cult. But for medicine, stick with science.


- - -
H. C. Turk is a self-taught writer, sound artist, and visual artist living in Florida. His novels have been published by Villard and Tor. His short fiction, sound pieces, and images have appeared on numerous web-sites.

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Author: H. C. Turk

Contributor: Karen Lindsey

- -
To begin with, her sister was older, and beautiful. It was natural that everyone loved her best, and that grandma had given her a golden charm bracelet when she turned 12. Natural too that grandma would give the younger girl in her turn a silver charm bracelet.

She never minded that. She loved the silver bracelet, and it was as uniquely hers, the charms tailored to her life and its events. They were, of course, less interesting events than those of her sister, but they were hers.

Her sister was a cheerleader, and dated the captain of the football team and other important boys at school. She herself dated less frequently, and of course only boys who, like herself, were pretty boring. Her mother had warned her about going all the way, because, mama said, boys will leave you as soon as they get what they want. Sometimes she obeyed mama’s injunction, but she enjoyed going all the way, and she figured it didn’t matter if the boy left her after, because the boys she dated weren’t all that great to begin with, and they usually left her pretty soon anyway. Her sister also sometimes went all the way, but there was always a new boy around if the old one left her, and anyway they didn’t often leave her, whatever she did. Her sister married at 23, to an up-and-coming business exec, and they had a beautiful house in a gated community. Their wedding made all the local newspapers and TV stations. She enjoyed being her sister’s bridesmaid and was grateful to have been asked.

She herself married several years later, when a widowed friend of her father’s came to dinner one night. His first marriage had been reputed perfect, and people said he would never get over the loss of his beautiful wife. Probably he didn’t. But he was raising a couple of kids on his own, and he was lonely. And she was very nice to him when he came to dinner, in a comfortable sort of way. She didn’t mind that he was older than she was, or that the kids had adored their mother. They liked her well enough for a stepmother. She made only one demand of her fiancé—that her wedding ring be silver and not gold. He didn’t understand why, but was happy to indulge her and save himself some money, after a few perfunctory ‘’are you sure honey’s’?’ She was quite sure. The ring was very pretty. And it matched her silver charm bracelet.


- - -
Author of DIVORCED, BEHEADED, SURVIVED. Coauthor of DOCTOR SUSAN LOVE'S BREAST BOOK. Adjunct at U.Mass./Boston and Emerson College. Tarot reader. Lives 3 months a year in the Netherlands.

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Author: Karen Lindsey

Contributor: J. Douglass

- -
“He’s not gonna come.”

“He is! Just be patient!” I point to the car. “You’re sure that’s his?”

Joanne nods. “It has his work stuff in the back.”

Her husband is a contractor, so he carries all sorts of maps and measuring tapes and stuff in the back seat. How many people kept a shovel in their car? There was no doubt this was Dario’s.

She looks at her lap and plays with her wedding band. They had only been married three years. They didn’t have much money, so they didn’t have a house or any kids. Their families were in foreign countries, so it was just the two of them. Trying to make it work. My family had them over for holidays when I was deployed. No one should have to spend Christmas or Easter alone.

I rest a hand on her shoulder. “Joanne, it’s gonna be okay. Maybe he’s not cheating. Maybe he’s working on a project or something.”

She looks at me and frowns. “He would have told me, Kevin.”

“Are you sure?”

“He’s been real distant recently. We used to talk over dinner or go out on the weekends. Now he’s just stone cold. He’s lost weight recently, too.”

Wait, she never said that before. “Has he been irritable lately?”

She nods.

“And has he been private about his stuff?”

She nods.

My heart freezes. “Has he ever used drugs before?”

She looks like I punched her in the gut. Then she starts to cry.

“Hey, now.” I hand her some tissues. “It’s okay.”

Was that better or worse than cheating? If I found out that my Darla started using, what would I do? It wasn’t impossible. We were on the outskirts of Cleveland, after all. There was a decent supply of drugs, and an even bigger of poor, downtrodden souls looking for relief.

“He hasn’t had much work recently,” she says. “He’s been too embarrassed to tell me, but he doesn’t go in as often as he used to.”

“Has he applied for another job?”

She shakes her head. “I think he’s too embarrassed. You know, with English as a second language. We’ve talked about taking classes, but. . .we don’t have the money.”

If he was abusing, I thought, then he was going to hurt. Most people I know of don’t recover from drugs; they just use it until it kills them.

Maybe cheating is better.

It’s been twenty minutes and Joanne’s still weeping. I don’t have any more tissues, and she’s using her sleeves.

“Joanne, maybe I’m wrong.” I shrug. “My wife says I am all the time.”

“I don’t want to lose him. Mi buey.” Buey. That was ox in Spanish. He had worked in construction all his life, and was tan and buff to show it.

“I know.”

“We should go,” she frets. “We’re not safe here.”

I grip the steering wheel. “No, we’ll be fine. Remember, I’m a marine. You’re safe.”

She brushes her hair back with her hands, and she looks, for just an instant, like she did her wedding day. He had cried when he saw her dress, and ran down the aisle to pick her up. They had the ceremony in Spanish, but he had tried to translate his vows into English. See, in Spanish, the phrase “I love you” is expressed as “you [whom I] love.” The ‘I’ is implied, and he didn’t use it in the entire list. There were a few chuckles in the audience, but she wasn’t embarrassed. She was never embarrassed by him.

“Come on, help me keep watch.”

She dries her eyes. Then she bends over and digs in her purse.

“I have cigarettes if you want one.”

She returns with a chocolate bar. “No, thanks.”

I laugh. Whatever floats her boat.

She is intent on the candy, but I see something move out of the corner of my eyes. “Joanne!”

“Hmm?”

I pointed it out, but it was hard to see until they were under a streetlight. A man was dragging a huge, black garbage bag. I have never seen a bag that big. It looks like he was concerned about tearing it, because he had tried to prop it up on a skateboard. It flowed over the sides like a cake baked out of its pan. The man himself was skinny and dressed in black, baggy clothing.

“What the hell is that? Should we call the police?”

“It doesn’t look like he’s moving his laundry.”

They wouldn’t arrest us if it was his laundry, would they? I open my phone and press 911.

“Kevin!” She shrieks.

The man is opening the trunk of Dario’s car. He has the keys.

Joanne reaches for my car door. I lock it. “Joanne! We can’t!”

She looks at me with the terror of a wild animal. Then she unlocks the door and runs into the street.

“Joanne!” I kick my door open and tear after her.

The man in black pulls out a gun. Two shots. That’s all it takes. Joanne is dead on the pavement. Then he is pointing his gun at me. “Come here. Hold up your hands.”

I expose my hands and walk over.

“Load these two into the trunk.”

I nod and charge at him. He fires and misses. I grab his arms and aim his pistol into the air. He tries to kick me, but I have better reach. We wrestle a moment until I break his wrist. He drops the gun with a yelp and doubles over, holding his arm and crying out. I kick him into the trunk and slam the door shut.

I find my phone on my car seat, asking, “Hello? Hello? What happened?”


- - -

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Author: J. Douglass

Contributor: Jheri Brown

- -
Tick… tick…
My jaw clenches, the clock counting the seconds since I’ve seen him… or counting down to the holidays; whichever way you choose to look at it. I used to love clocks, now I despise their existence.
I hate time all together. I hate what it’s done to me, what it’s taken from me and how it’s destroyed me.
Another beat forces its way into my bones, shaking me to the very core. The music’s too loud and I’m starting to hate that, too. Everyone around me is dancing, drinking, relaxing and having a good time, but I can’t.
I refuse.
All I can do is stare at the car sitting in the drive. It’s a 60-ish something-or-other and while I used to enjoy watching him labor over it, I hate the fucker now. Plain and simple.
“Nina?” It’s Daniel, a mutual friend of ours. He’s tall, ruggedly handsome and annoying. Sadly.
“What?” I say. I don’t want to be bothered, everyone should know that by now, but I just can’t catch a freakin’ break.
He drops down to the cement steps next to me and holds out a beer. Daniel was his best friend -- but is faring far better than I. “I’m sorry,” he says. His voice is soft, an unusual thing for him and it almost hurts me.
“You’re not the first to bother me, Dani.” I’ve never been so cold with him -- with anyone. It gets quiet enough between us to allow me to hear another tick of my watch. “I’ll be fine,” I say. I just need to fill the silence even though I don’t want the company.
“I miss Rick, I hope you know. I mean,” he says, pausing to take a gulp of his beer. I think it’s more to force the lump that choked his words down than anything. “I didn’t expect it. I mean it was so fast.”
I feel his eyes burning a hole through me -- it’s one of the most irritating feelings ever, to be honest.
“What?”
He shakes his head.
“No, you freakin’ tell me!” I’m angry, but don’t know why. The tears are burning my cried out eyes. I didn’t even think I could cry anymore, but here they come. They only piss me off even further and it takes all that’s within me not to hit Daniel for making me cry.
“You don’t talk, Nina. You hardly say ten words, let alone come in and just hang. It’s sad.”
“Sad? Of course it’s sad, asshole! Rick was my life, my heart, and he left me here...in this hell hole.” My hands are shaking and I’ve moved from my spot on the stairs so I can start my nervous habit of pacing.
Daniel’s got his hands up, his beer a memory. “Look, I’m sorry. I just hate seeing you like this.”
My heart shatters and the cracks fill with a brutal mix of anger and sadness. Angry that Daniel is right and sad that I’ve allowed myself to fall into this darkness. The beer bottle falls from my hold and I do all that there is to do.
I scream.
I scream with such strength, determination and anger that it only takes seconds for my throat to go numb. The muscles of my chest tighten, making my breathing even more difficult, but I don’t stop. Each second that ticks by, each rattle of my straining vocal chords only makes me feel that much better.
Daniel moves to his feet and tries to comfort me, but I don’t let him. My heart is pounding, each beat making me want death. The cracks are almost breathing with my hurt and I hate it.
The car is still sitting there, Rick’s pride and joy -- second to me, he’d said -- and I hate it more than anything, now. I hate it because it’s the stupid fucking car’s fault he’s not here and I hate it because Rick isn’t here.
Reaching for the closest thing I can find, a broom becomes my weapon of choice. All the anger, the hate, the tears -- the car gets all of it.
“Guys!” Daniel screams for someone, but he’s so far away it seems.
There’s nothing but this damn car and me. I swing for headlights, the mirrors, windshield, anything and everything I can, screaming all the while.
Seconds turn to minutes and my arms into Jell-O. My breaths are rapid, chest rising and falling with each one, and all I can do is collapse. I’m a bloody, teary pile of mess and I’ve gathered a crowd.
A small laugh sounds, breaking the quiet “ooh’s” and “aah’s.” It’s my laugh -- a very unexpected one at that. My feet start moving before I’ve realized and the crowd pushes back, opening into a larger circle.
“Sorry,” I say. I’m still laughing and, frankly, I sound insane. “I...I just hate that fucking thing.”


- - -
Jheri Brown is currently a full-time student and spends her down time filling sticky notes with the non-stop film reel that's called her mind.

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Author: Jheri Brown

Contributor: H. C. Turk

- -
"Working down below is a pain in the wreck," my father complains. "Even though I watch my favorite show there."

We go there to see. His place of employment is a valley, where we arrive in time to eat lunch. Deep but not long, the valley runs north and south; I like the direction: we arrive from the east. Brown grass, crisp but not cutting, snaps beneath our shoes. I did not plan to walk barefoot regardless.

The furnishings for lunch are long picnic tables of good, thick wood, grey from age, a likable maturity. Dad is in fine spirits, despite his initial complaints, even after we seat ourselves at a table that proves so rickety I get seasick. This is not the pain he mentioned. Dad bends to point out the loose nail holes. Let me guess who's been hired to repair them. That acute bending does hurt a person below the skull.

Several other people are also present at this table. It's not the only one. Wind flicks the edge of the tablecloth up until someone weights it down with an ashtray. Dad chats cordially with the other folks, not strangers. Squeezed to my left is a man with straight blond hair below his ears who keeps looking suspiciously toward me because our coifs do not match, I surmise, though my critique of his criticism might not pertain to appearance.

The cut of my jib.

When the food arrives, so does the telly, brought by a woman so dull I can barely focus on her. The small TV seems to be full of water from a well-used swimming pool, green with floating debris. The latter might not be a commercial for flood insurance.

"Why are you here when you're not working?" the male lead of the TV show demands of the brownette. "Wharring again?"

"My buttles don't involve $," she insists. "You have the wrong idea."

After the break, the next scene transpires on the tablecloth.

"Are you preg again?" the male lead demands.

"I am pregnot," she insists.

Regardless of her reply, the male lead sets her on the table and spreads her legs and attains a broken baseball bat that he covers with a feminine napkin and aims at the brownette's cant, her posse.

Even before the climax of the show, the nearby blond man proves his suspiciousness with a formal review, interrupting the drama.

"You ever have a soup with just too many pieces in it? Well, there are just too many rapid changes of event and mise-en-scène whizzing by."

All the while I had been jealous of their style because the action kept coming, tensely. Now I don't know how the commercial ends.


- - -
H. C. Turk is a self-taught writer, sound artist, and visual artist living in Florida. His novels have been published by Villard and Tor. His short fiction, sound pieces, and images have appeared on numerous web-sites.

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Author: H. C. Turk