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.


- - -
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

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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

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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.


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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

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

- -
Opal Ruff, at the age of 83, had been sitting in the same corner of the red vinyl couch in the tiny lobby of the New Morse Hotel almost every day for the last three years. Her eldest son, Herman, a bachelor in his sixties, had brought her to the hotel shortly after her husband, Noah, had died of a heart attack on Christmas Day, 1969.

"I don't want to go there," Mrs. Ruff protested at the time, but Herman had responsibilities of his own and insisted that she pack up and move into the hotel.

The New Morse was more of a warehouse for the aged than a hotel. It was not the kind of place Mrs. Ruff would have selected for herself had she been able to get around without a walker. Old folks signed in and many of them never signed out. Funeral home attendants would carry them out. Relatives of the deceased would come by and carry out their belongings in brown paper bags.

It's not that Mrs. Ruff thought she was too good for the New Morse Hotel. It took a couple of months but eventually she adjusted to her new environment. Now she lived with ash trays in the lobby rather than doilies in her living room. It took a while to get used to a major change like that.

The other residents, most of them elderly males, had gotten used to seeing her on the couch two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon. She would sit in her corner of the couch saying the rosary in silence, lips moving, her hair in a tidy bun, her long dress down to her ankles. She could easily have passed for the mother or grandmother of the woman in the famous painting, "American Gothic."

While Mrs. Ruff said her rosary, the male residents would take turns sitting in the uncomfortable easy chairs, reminiscing and trading tales about when they were young and randy and not limited to the lobby of the New Morse Hotel.

Considering the nature of the men's conversation, it was fortunate Mrs. Ruff was stone deaf and never wore her hearing aids in the lobby. She had worn them in her first few months but now she left them in her tiny room so she could pray and not have to hear the men discuss their lives in pursuit of women. Mrs. Ruff had nothing against sex. In fact, she had presented Mr. Ruff with eight children, four boys and four girls. All of them lived in other states now, except for Herman, who was busy rearing six children of his own without the help of his wife who, for some reason Mrs. Ruff didn't understand, had unexpectedly committed suicide.

"Noah and I had a good marriage," Mrs. Ruff would occasionally say if someone inquired politely about her life before moving into the New Morse Hotel. "He was very healthy for his age and no one expected him to have a heart attack. But he hit the floor with a thump and never moved. I knew he was gone when his water broke and it soaked the living room rug."

Poverty was the one thing most of the men who lived in the hotel had in common. But there were also a few retired gentlemen who had small pensions as well as Social Security checks they could count on. They chose to live in the New Morse because they appreciated the Ashkenaz Restaurant, which was located on the floor beneath the hotel and was known throughout Chicago for its Jewish cuisine. Most of the dishes were favorites of the Ashenazi and Sephardic Jews who lived in the neighborhood, some of them survivors of Auschwitz and Buchenwald as tattooed numbers on their forearms would always attest.

Harris Cohen didn't have a tattoo. He had been born eight decades ago in America. He liked the matzoh ball soup and the knishes and kishke that he could order at Ashkenaz. Every month, on the day he received his retirement check, he would celebrate with a pastrami sandwich on rye, loaded with mustard.

"I have never eaten better pastrami," Harris would often say, "not even in New York."

He had eaten these specialties all his life and that is why, after retiring from the railroad where he had worked 40 years as a conductor, he chose the New Morse Hotel as his residence. Every morning, unlike most of the other men, he would shave, put on his short-sleeved white shirt, a nice tie, and the navy blue pants he saved from his days on the Century Limited, where he had patrolled the aisles making certain the needs of the passengers were met in a timely fashion. He usually worked the trips from Chicago to New York and back again, which took 16 hours each way and involved sleeping berths for some and at least two meals per trip for everyone on the train. Passengers expected good service for their money and Harris provided it, not because of the occasional tip he would receive but because he liked to do a good job.

"No one ever had a complaint in one of my cars," Harris would announce in the lobby at least once a week. And no one ever bothered to argue with him.

Harris Cohen treated Mrs. Ruff with great respect. Although he was unfamiliar with the rosary, he knew from his own religion, Judaism, that prayer beads, as he called them, were important. That is why he would never interrupt Mrs. Ruff while she was praying. But as soon as he saw her make the final Sign of the Cross, he would ask after her well-being. She would always assure him that she was fine and then inquire about him. Harris and Mrs. Ruff had mastered the art of pleasantries and each was very polite in dealing with the other.

In fact, Harris often sat at one end of the couch and Mrs. Ruff at the other. After he had paid his respects to Mrs. Ruff, he was free to read his newspaper and strike up conversations with the other men who took a seat in the lobby while waiting for the clerk of the day to materialize behind the desk and give them their mail. Sometimes they had to wait until the ancient switchboard lit up with a call. If no clerk was available, Ralph Doogan, the manager, would come roaring out of his office behind the board to find out what had interrupted his day. Often he had the remains of a gigantic ham sandwich in his hand. Every once in awhile, Doogan would offer Harris Cohen a bite of his ham sandwich and Cohen would always decline. He was not a religious man, but he had been bar mitzvahed as a young man and he did not want to give Doogan the satisfaction of getting him to eat something forbidden to the Jewish people.

"Doogan can keep his ham, " Harris was known to say. "I like my pastrami."

The hotel had only one maid, Rozelle Johnson, who took care of 16 rooms on the second floor and another 16 on the third floor. Her rounds took all day. A good Baptist, and a lovely woman in her early forties, Rozelle had long ago put the lechers in the lobby firmly in their place. They knew she was not available at any price.

"Leave that woman alone," long-term residents would advise any new man who checked in, and they levied that warning with good reason. One of their own a few years back, big Bruno, had paid a great price for grabbing Rozelle's buttocks as she wheeled her cart down the narrow hall. She hit him with her dustpan on the top of his bald head and then whacked him across the face, breaking his nose. There was blood everywhere. None of the men of the New Morse Hotel tried to get next to Rozelle after that.

As a result of this incident, Rozelle talked regularly with only two residents among those she encountered on her daily rounds. She spoke with Mrs. Ruff when she was in her room and had her hearing aids in place. She admired the spirituality of Mrs. Ruff even if she wasn't a Baptist like Rozelle. She knew that Mrs. Ruff had accepted Jesus the way Catholics do and if that was good enough for Jesus, it was good enough for her.

She also liked to talk with Harris Cohen, not because he tipped her a dollar a week but because the man was always clean and well-shaven and wore a tie. In the lobby, Harris had the good sense to modify his language when Rozelle was passing through. When she wasn't there, however, he would advise the other men who sat down what it was like during the Depression. According to Harris, the going price for the company of a woman as fetching as Rozelle was $2.00, not a penny more.

"The ladies were happy to get the money," Harris would say, "and I was happy to help out. Times were tough."

Not knowing Harris and his attitude toward women, Rozelle always thought she might be able to fix him up with Mrs. Ruff despite their religious differences. She thought the two of them might be able to keep each other company. And if they eventually got married, the hotel did have a few apartment suites that Rozelle thought would suit them as a couple. Whenever one of these little suites, as the hotel called them, became available, Rozelle would amplify her praise of Harris while cleaning Mrs. Ruff's room. For months, Mrs. Ruff listened politely and agreed that Harris seemed to be a gentleman. After all, she had never heard his tales of feminine conquests in the lobby because she sat there without her hearing aids, quietly saying her rosary.

One day, however, Rozelle's lobbying in behalf of Harris got to be too much for Mrs. Ruff. After making the bed, her final duty in the room, Rozelle was preparing to leave when she decided to take a chance and tell Mrs. Ruff that she thought Harris might like to take her to lunch in the restaurant downstairs. Rozelle didn't know that Harris Cohen, despite being the same age as Mrs. Ruff, had always liked younger women and had savored enough of them over the years, especially when times were tough. Mrs. Ruff, on the other hand, had loved her husband throughout her marriage and had no interest in any other man. But Rozelle had a point to make.

"Mrs. Ruff," she said, "I wouldn't suggest your having lunch with Harris if I didn't think he was a gentleman. He might even ask you to marry him at some point."

Tired of Rozelle's efforts in behalf in Harris, Mrs. Ruff moved a little in her chair, put her rosary down, looked Rozelle in the eye, and said,

"And if I married him, what would I do--lift him on and lift him off?"

Rozelle never mentioned Harris Cohen to Mrs. Ruff again. Six months later, she had found another job in a much better hotel.


- - -
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: Bruce Costello

- -
Alice the writer, in green jeans, with wet and wild eyes, lurching,
bottle in hand, onto the footpath, into the night,
muttering, muttering...

"It seems I was not your destination.
I was words that heard...
I met a man who walked on paths untrodden before.
How did he get there? How did he find the way? How can it be... that he does not love me...anymore?
I was hands that healed...
Listen, can’t you hear me, silently, in every part of you that I have touched?
I was lips that loved...
Can’t you taste my open mouth, moist eyes, my love that soothed your long held fears?
I was a heart that cared...
How dear you were, a delight of joy, light and laughter, a feeling that overwhelmed me and was me, the I that was me with you, a warm bath on a cold day, a cool drink when the tongue is hot and dry.
I was eyes that saw...
See how they cry,
♫ See how they run, see how they run, they all runned after the farmer’s wife, she cut off their tailsssssss with a carving knife, did you ever see thuch a thing in your liiiifffe.......♫"

Alice empties the bottle, stumbles on, trips, and picks herself up with a howl of hurt and rage. A dog leaps from a gateway, snarling, ready to lunge. Alice whips out a knife, slashes the animal’s face, laughs hysterically and staggers on.

The bitch’s car is in his driveway.


- - -
New Zealander Bruce Costello semi-retired in 2010 and took up writing to avoid housework. Since then he's had over 30 short stories published, is seriously afflicted with Submission Addiction Syndrome and still does housework.

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Author: Bruce Costello

Contributor: Reese Scott

- -
There was an execution scheduled for today. The day when an execution took place was a joy for everyone. Not just for the execution. But for what it did for the day. Work was closed, food was free, alcohol was allowed to be drunk, everything was open. Laws no longer existed.

There was talk about why these executions took place. Some believed it was to make the people to forget their lives. Others believed it went deeper. That it was used to keep people from seeing the slow change from watching TV to being the TV.

But like Bruno said, “You feed a dog. The dog eats. What else is there to know?”

Bruno was executed last week. It wasn’t a good turn out. I still had a good time. I drank twice as much. Which is allowed if you are friends with the executed.

I walked around town to see where everyone was. Hoping to find someone to drag back so Bruno wouldn’t have to face the embarrassment of being executed alone.

I found his little sister throwing rocks at her dog.

“How you doing Suzy?”

“What it look like to you Brian?”

“Looks like you don’t like your dog.”

“No. He likes it.”

The dog did not look like it was having a good time. I thought of what Bruno said. About feeding the dog. I don’t know why. But something made me angry.

“What are you doing Brian?”

I threw rock after rock at Suzy. Until she was unconscious and I could drag her to her brother’s execution. Bruno wasn’t high maintenance. It didn’t make a difference if she was unconscious. “The effort. The effort man. That’s the secret,” Bruno said

I never paid any attention to what Bruno said. Until today.


- - -
Reese Scott was born in New York. He is currently living in California.

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Author: Reese Scott

Contributor: Jeanelle Nicole Driver

- -
The latches on the box gleamed dull in the light, brassy and stained. He undid the clasp, sucked in a breath, and lifted the lid. The faded paper stacked in the box was the key to so many painful memories, a love just beginning to bloom, and lost too soon. James hid it all away, but in his twilight years his soul longed for closure.

Footsteps crossed the dust-strewn floor, and a small hand touched his shoulder.

“Grandpa, are you all right?” Iris asked.

James tucked the box under his arm, got to his feet with a groan, and faced the concerned eyes of his granddaughter.

“I’m fine, Sweetie,” he said. “I just came up here to find something.”

He smiled when Iris slipped her hand in his and led him back down the narrow attic stairs.

“Daddy says you’re distant, so I told him I would get you,” she said. “The attic isn’t far away.”

James chuckled at such literal innocence. He squeezed Iris’s hand. Her coming to find him was the lift his spirit needed. He was distant, but it was difficult to fight, as he grew older. “Your dad’s just worried about his old man, Sweetie. You’ll be the same way when you get older,” James said smiling. He made sure it was loud enough for Jack to hear from the kitchen.

“Grandpa’s right, Iris,” Jack said coming around the corner and ruffling his daughter’s hair. “Go eat your lunch, and we’ll join you in a minute.”

Iris squeezed her grandpa’s hand one last time and skipped into the kitchen. James watched her go with delight.

“What were you two discussing?” Jack asked in a whisper so Iris wouldn’t overhear.

James laughed and moved closer to his son. “She heard you call me distant,” he said. “So I was trying to explain it so she’d understand. You’ve got a good kid there, Jack.”

“I know I do, Dad,” Jack said. “Speaking of distant, anything I can do to help?”

James ignored the concern radiating from his son, shrugged, and held out the box.

“There is something you can do,” he said. “Take this, burn it, toss it, just do something with it.” James held up his hand when he saw Jack open his mouth to protest. “Just do it, Jack. I can’t keep clinging to the past. It is destroying my future. Your mother and I would still be together if I learned this lesson long ago.”

Jack nodded and took the box from his father. “Do you want to talk about it?”

James shook his head. “What’s done is done,” he said. “I told her not to go out in the rain, but she didn’t listen. I blamed myself for too long, and ruined so many good things in my life because of regret. Letting go is what I need, to end my days in peace.”

Jack hugged his father. “It’s good to have you back, Dad,” he said. “Go get some lunch, Iris wants to go fishing.”

James returned his son’s hug. “I know just the place. It was your special spot when you were little,” he said.

Jack nodded and headed for the garage.

“I was hoping you would want to go there. It’s perfect.”

James watched his son disappear with the wooden box and his regret vanished with him.

Iris patted the seat beside her at the table. “I made you a sandwich, Grandpa,” she said. “I hope you like it.”

James kissed the top of her head. “Of course I will, thank you,” he said.


- - -
Jeanelle Nicole Driver is a Creative Writing student. She writes whenever she can, and hopes to make a positive impact with her writing.

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Author: Jeanelle Nicole Driver

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

- -
"Damn the vernal equinox! Full speed ahead!" is all that Cootie Murphy would ever say when he sat on the last stool at the end of the bar in The Stag & Doe Inn. He wouldn’t say it very often, only when provoked by someone or stirred by thoughts known only to him. Mostly he would simply sit at the bar in silence, staring straight ahead, tapping his fingers now and then, and sipping his Guinness.

Cootie had held the rights to the last stool for more than 50 years, ever since he returned from Korea in 1953 after two years spent in conflict. Some people thought he suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome, although they didn’t call it that back then. Others thought he was nuts before he went to Korea and had simply come back a little nuttier. Both sides would find their opinions confirmed on nights when the moon was full and Cootie would throw his head back and howl like a wolf. Regular customers were used to it by now and they’d sometimes join in. The bartender would only say, “It’s best to leave Cootie alone.”

The bartender also said that if Cootie ever died, his stool should be buried with him. But the neighborhood mortician, Rory McCarthy, always a customer after a funeral, had said he had never seen a casket that would accommodate both a man Cootie’s size and his stool as well. He agreed, however, that he would see what could be done if Cootie ever required his services, provided the family didn't drive the body--as they did his mother’s--to O'Brien's, another mortuary a few blocks down the street.

McCarthy said that he knew of no law against burying Cootie upright—sitting on his stool, Guinness glass glued to his hand. That might be an option worth looking into. But it would require a customized casket of unorthodox configuration best ordered in advance. That would cost a little more, McCarthy said, but what's money in a time of grief.

There were no signs, however, that Cootie, despite his age, was a candidate for death. In fact, he took no medications. He was simply a strange and contrary fellow with many eccentricities.

For example, it didn't matter whether you were a regular customer who had known Cootie for decades or a first-time customer. He would respond in the same way. If someone asked him any question—did he have a match for a cigarette or did he know if the Cubs had won--his answer was always the same.

"Damn the vernal equinox! Full speed ahead!"

Regulars had no idea what he meant or why he said it. And strangers would walk away bewildered.

Sometimes, however, a stranger who had drunk too much himself would take offense at Cootie invoking the vernal equinox. Over the years, several of the strangers had threatened Cootie with a thrashing. Such a threat, of course, was like a call to prayer in Damascus for regular customers who, otherwise bored, would bow their heads and turn on their stools quietly toward the commotion. They knew that as soon as Cootie would hear a threat, he'd get off his stool and put his fists up, John L. Sullivan style, and start shadow-boxing around the stranger, flicking left jabs and then a right cross, all just inches from the stranger's chin.

With Cootie circling him, the stranger wouldn't know what to do. After all, Cootie might have been old but he stood 6'5," weighed at least 300 pounds and he had fists like bear paws. He didn't look his age and he moved and jabbed pretty well. Anyone could see that despite his years, Cootie looked capable of flattening anyone.

Even more discouraging, when Cootie was flicking jabs, was the spinning of his eyes. His face looked like a slot machine malfunctioning. And as he danced around, his tongue would emerge quickly from the corner of his mouth, much like the penis of a younger man on the first night of his honeymoon.

Cootie's odd behavior had begun 50 years earlier shortly after his return to Chicago from Korea. He came back bearing medals galore and a Korean wife who made her own kimchi, a spicy Korean condiment consisting of pickled cabbage and a variety of spices. One regular customer once said that nothing in Chicago smelled like Cootie’s kimchi. Not even the stockyards, which back then was still in operation.

Soo Loo Park, a good wife, would prepare the condiment with great care, pack it into clay pots, and bury the pots all over their small back yard. Wherever she buried a pot, she would stick a popsicle stick bearing the date the pot had been buried. How long a pot was allowed to ferment in the ground would determine the piquancy of the final product. Cootie liked his kimchi screaming hot, the cabbage leaves as gnarled as his hands, moist and glistening with red pepper.

Oddly, Cootie liked to share his kimchi. He always brought a jar of it with him to The Stag & Doe to eat along with the hard-boiled eggs and pickled sausages that sat on the bar in big glass barrel jars. Give him a few sausages and a couple of hard-boiled eggs, followed by a fork full of kimchi, and Cootie was a happy man. He'd wash it down with glasses of Guinness from the tap, managing to get the froth all over his considerable mustache.

Everyone was welcome to sample his kimchi. They didn't even have to ask. Regulars, of course, wouldn't go near the stuff but strangers occasionally did. On such occasions, the regulars would always have to suppress a laugh. Just a pinch of Cootie’s kimchi would make a Mexican weaned on jalapenos scream for a fire extinguisher.

One slow evening the bartender mentioned that watching Cootie arrange his glass of Guinness, sausages, eggs and kimchi on the bar was almost like watching a defrocked priest preparing to say an aberrant Latin Mass, especially since Cootie always made the Sign of the Cross and said Grace before he ate or drank.

He had been taught these and other spiritual practices by his brother, Paddy, a monk in a monastery located not too many miles away. Paddy was said to be a very holy man but maybe not a scholar.

Nevertheless, he had done well in the monastery, over the years, adding pecans to the tops of fruitcakes the monks would bake and sell by mail. He knew how many pecans a cake required and where to place them. He was the only monk trained for this job. He had no understudy. If Paddy had a sick day, some other monk would just plop the pecans on the cakes without any sense of order.

At communal prayers five times a day Paddy would pray for all the reprobates he had left behind in the old neighborhood. Cootie would give him a monthly update on their latest deeds when he'd visit him at the monastery. He would tell Paddy up front that none of the regulars had shown any improvement since his last visit. But, as Cootie would remind him, a lot of them had passed away and the future for the rest didn’t look too promising.

Each death, of course, would force Paddy to pray even harder because he felt that half the souls in Purgatory had probably come from his old neighborhood. Who knew if there'd be room in that Halfway House in the sky when it was time for Cootie and him to check in?

Cootie's sister, on the other hand, had been quite different than her brothers. She had been a nun and was said to have been very smart. But she had died, young and unexpectedly, while teaching a third-grade English class in the parish school. She fell backwards one day, like a tree falling, and was looking up to heaven from the floor just as the bell rang. She never moved.

The parish priest arrived in minutes to give her the Last Rites but she was already dead. No one had any doubts, however, that she was already in heaven, explaining to some saint weak in punctuation the difference between the usage of a semi-colon and a colon.

No autopsy was performed. And it seemed as if the whole neighborhood took a shower and put on their best clothes to attend her funeral Mass. Even a few Southern Baptists chose to enter a Catholic Church for the first time to pay their final respects. Some of them were surprised to return home spiritually intact.

Cootie never talked about the years he had spent in Korea, the battles he had survived, the number of enemy he had killed or the event that led to the plate inserted in his head. He never explained either what he had done to earn all those medals.

And Cootie’s lack of braggadocio was appreciated because when he first came home, one of the regulars in the bar, a fellow named Stanley, a veteran of World War II, had announced to all the other customers that unlike Cootie, he had been in the "real war," the one the United States had won.

Cootie didn’t say a word. But a half hour later, after a little small talk with Stanley, Cootie asked him to get off his stool so they could finally settle a bet made in high school as to which of them was taller. Standing face to face, Cootie indeed appeared to be taller. Then he hit Stanley with an uppercut launched from his knee. It took a bucket of water, a lot of encouragement and three sober men who had just walked in to get Stanley on his feet. Two of his teeth were never found.

After the Stanley incident, none of the regulars ever bothered Cootie again. And the bartender always told new patrons, “It’s best to leave Cootie alone.”

But occasionally a stranger, clearly out of his element, would arrive in a suit and tie or in Bermuda shorts and white bucks. Given the circumstances, it wouldn’t be long before one regular or another would engage the stranger in conversation and tell him in glowing terms about Cootie's status as a hero of the Korean War. He had won so many medals, the stranger would be told, that he needed a suitcase to bring them home.

Often the stranger, after a sufficient amount of Guinness, would stroll down to the end of the bar and extend his hand to thank Cootie for his service. Like others before him, the stranger would learn that it was best to leave Cootie alone.

As every regular knew, Cootie had little to say about the war America hadn't won. But if pressed to comment on the matter, he'd bounce off his stool and shout, "Damn the vernal equinox! Full speed ahead!" Everything else he said with his fists. And it was always a brief conversation.


- - -
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

- -
We view my father's masterpiece hanging in the school museum. The medium is egg on canvas, not egg tempera. No one knows how he did it. He's retired, so he won't say. And I won't describe the imagery, which is only what you see. The same as any great art, the content consists of expressed ideas. Hmm, now we're thinking.

My closest friend, F1 (another educator), only has to look a moment before the condemnation.

"G did the same thing."

G could be my love, if the expression could be found in my lexicon.

"It can't be the same. This is unique."

"So 'same' means plagiarism."

Since this is an opening, G arrives. I haven't been seeing her. The three of us chat. I know exactly how I feel about G, but can't express the idea. If you could only see it.... She admires the painting. I admire her skin: it's so smooth, polished. G explains a bout of dermatitis. Surgeons had to literally scrape away the disease with straight razors. Her skin was left with a burnished yellow tinge.

I've seen the same technique in art school, but not on human substrates. Scrape away the superfluous until the super is revealed.

After G leaves, F1 checks on his allegations, studying her vicinity. There, in a space open to Dad's painting, F1 finds a straight razor dripping viscous yellow fluid. In the crowd, we are jostled, and someone removes the evidence. Though aware of the idea manifested, we didn't see it.

Leaving, F1 and I understand that we have to give bad grades to the audience. Innocent members will suffer, but that's the way of public education when graded on a curve.

Standing along the property's wild ditch where the students will soon gather, I tear off the bad parts of the report cards we made, but the water is too clear. I see them sink yet remain visible. The last one is the thief's. Down the path toward the railroad tracks I see the campus police arrive, seeking evidence. They are enthused at the negative grades floating at their feet. I wonder how long they'll need to understand that they are observing a response, not a cause. Looking down at the visible corners on the bottom, I know I have to go to G.

She's eating with a man I saw at the art opening. Soup. A phallus is floating in her bowl. In her artistry, G makes it appear to be a fat green bean, but here's an art that's only artifice. Perhaps concerned with his eating, the man scrapes his plate.

I wash my hands in ritual preparation for F1's arrival, when he brazenly opens a book directly before G to reveal photographs of her art: overspray tortoise shell combs and shells painted with ducks, the latter an addition to the background that—along with the combs—is a virtual parallel of father's earlier style.

"You can't copyright talent," the man fumes.

F1 wants to look in the fridge, if only because it's locked, but he wasn't invited to eat. He doesn't want to eat. Returning to G, who is effectively stabbing brussels sprouts with a spoon, he turns to the back of the book, revealing those illustrations with the highest grade. The photograph is of G's studio. In the back, not hidden though in black and white, the scene portrays no artist present, only some canvas stretchers and a table with painting knives, plus a straight razor and a yolk-like substance.

G can neither look away nor speak. As F1 slams the book closed and G regards her bean, the man empties his plate, then confronts me with his superficial ideas.

He is no person I could reify. When his concepts intrude, I scrape him, drawing the yellow fluid.


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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: John Laneri

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Dominique Episode - 4


Years ago, whenever I traveled to Italy on business, I generally found that coffee bars ranked high on my list of afternoon pleasures. It was an easy way to sit back, relax and watch the locals hurry past.

Thinking back, that's probably why I failed to notice her sitting at another table until the moment our eyes met.

Hers were brown with a hint of gold sparkling in the sunlight. Certain that I'd seen the eyes before, I looked again, my curiosity getting the best of me.

When she noticed me watching, she smiled pleasantly then looked away and reach for her coffee.

Intrigued, I continued to watch her, noting that like many women in Florence, she was dressed to perfection, wearing stylish heels and a fashionable outfit highlighted by a simple gold necklace.

Moments later, I caught her looking my way before quickly glancing to the side just as a hint of red colored her neck.

Certain that she had been watching me, I continued to wait, wondering if I'd get that second look. When she failed to confirm her interest, my thoughts drifted to an earlier relationship with a Parisian named Dominique, a love whose memory had haunted me for years.

When we initially met, our attraction had been immediate and so intense that we soon reached a level of passion that I thought impossible for two people to achieve. Much to my sorrow though, our relationship ended when she abruptly became engaged to another man for reasons I failed to understand.

Returning from my thoughts, I realized that the woman had moved away from her table. Searching around, wondering if I had missed her departure, I felt someone touch my shoulder.

“I hope you were looking for me.”

Turning about, I recognized the eyes, waiting for me to say something.

“I thought you had left,” I replied cautiously.

“May I join you?”

I indicated yes and watched her slide smoothly onto the chair beside me.

“You don't know who I am, do you?” she asked with a pleasant smile.

I had to look closely before suddenly saying, “Dominique!”

“The one and only.”

“You look different. Your hair is longer. Even the color is dark. I can't believe I didn't recognize you.”

“I've always wanted to be an Italian with shoulder length hair,” she said, as her fingers moved to brush the tips.

“I was just thinking of you, and I must say, you're more beautiful than I remembered, but why didn't you say something earlier? I was wondering how to approach you.”

“Do you still approach every woman you see?”

Laughing, I replied, “Actually no, but you did look familiar. I'm bashful when it comes to approaching women.”

“I know you better than that,” she remarked with a sly grin.

Changing the subject, I asked, “Why Italy? I thought you were planning to get married.”

“I did get married to Jacques but only for the sake of the family and at the insistence of my uncle. We lived together for a month before getting an annulment. We were both manipulated into a family business arrangement. It was horrid. Afterward, I moved to Italy, changed my looks and decided to make a new life for myself here in Florence.”

“I take it you succeeded.”

She smiled. “I have new friends, a steady job and a nice apartment.”

“But, you had a great life in Paris. The world was yours to take.”

She studied me for a moment. “You only saw the surface. As far as my uncle was concerned, I was merely a step-child repeatedly forced to do things that I knew were wrong. I should have left sooner.”

“I see that you are still wearing that gold necklace I gave you.”

She touched it, saying, “I'm never without it. I've thought of you so many times over the past five years. But, I was afraid to contact you. I didn't want to be hurt again.”

Later, we spent the evening together at a quiet restaurant where we continued to talk until the place closed.

Afterward, we strolled about the city savoring the flavor of history, but once our attraction began to experience its own reawakening, we retreated to her apartment where our desires ignited more explosively than either of us had remembered. It was as if we had rediscovered happiness and could not get enough to satisfy the joy we shared together.

For the next two weeks, we were seldom apart.

Three months later, after a back and forth romance between Europe and the States, we were married in Sienna where we remained for our honeymoon exploring the countryside and each other. Afterward, we returned to the states to begin a life together.

Now... some forty years later, I find myself on vacation, sitting at that same sidewalk cafe in Florence, recalling those earlier events and again admiring the woman beside me, who incidentally appears to be studying me with those same brown eyes while quietly trying to measure my thoughts.

She asks, “What were you just thinking?”

“I was thinking about how we met.”

“Like what specifically?”

“I was remembering the thrill I experienced when given another chance to reunite with the woman I fell in love with the moment we met.”

“I hope you were not disappointed.”

“By now, you already know the answer to that question.”

For a moment, I see that sparkle of gold reignite and light her features. It's one of the many ways she reminds me that our life together is filled with a sweetness that truly extends beyond words.


- - -
John is a native born Texan living near Houston. His writing focuses on short stories and flash. Publications to his credit have appeared in several professional journals as well as a number of internet sites and short story periodicals.

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Dominique Episode - 3


Whenever I travel overseas on business, I try to avoid Paris. While I thoroughly enjoy the city, being there always reminds me of Dominique.

We met initially at a party in New York and quickly began an intense relationship, or better said, a series of relationships that always ended just as our hearts were beginning to unite.

Several weeks ago, I had to be in Paris on business, so I stayed at the Ritz. At the time, I wondered if I'd ever see her again. It's not often that two people fall in love and feel as if they had known each other since the beginning of time.

Shortly after arrival that first day, while waiting for a taxi at the hotel, someone hurrying along the sidewalk accidentally bumped me. “Excusez-moi, m'sieur.”

Turning about and much to my surprise, I again came face to face with Dominique.

“Why Dominique.. Is that really you?”

“Mon Dieu, Eric... I never expected to see you again!” she said, as she embraced me warmly.

We must have remained together for several minutes, feeling old memories once again begin to surface.

Stepping back to look her over, I noticed that she was wearing the simple gold necklace I had given her the last time we were together; otherwise, she looked just as beautiful as I remembered.

“I like your necklace.”

“I'm never without it,” she replied softly.

“Do you have time for coffee?”

Taking my hand, she replied, “I would love to, but I was due at an important conference an hour ago. Can we meet later... perhaps at your hotel bar at ten o'clock?”

We again briefly embraced, and then she hurried away, leaving me with that same sense of pleasure I always experienced when we were together.

Later, after dinner, I headed to the bar where I ordered wine and waited until well past midnight. Finally, I signed my tab and went to bed unsure of why the she had failed to keep our rendezvous.

Around two am though, I heard a knock on the door.

It was Dominique.

“Can I come in?” she asked softly.

“Of course you can.”

She came to me and pressed her body warmly against mine. “I've missed you so very much. I still think of you every day.”

“And, I've missed you too. But, why so late? I thought you'd forgotten me.”

“Another business meeting,” she replied, as she kicked off her shoes and padded toward the bed where our passions ignited just as ravenously as in the past.

The following morning, we awoke in each other's arms thoroughly exhausted.

She whispered softly. “I've never been so aroused.”

“You continue to have a remarkable way of bringing out the best in me.”

Later, we showered together then ordered breakfast, and eventually, headed in separate directions. My agenda called for a sales meeting with a client. Her day focused on visiting several properties owned by her uncle.

That evening, we met for dinner.

“You selected an interesting place,” I said, looking about. “The oil paintings on the walls look old school.”

“They're part of my Uncle's collection. I try to come here often just to enjoy the beauty and quiet ambiance.” She smiled pleasantly. “It's also a perfect place for two lovers.”

While our dinner was a culinary masterpiece of French cuisine, it was overshadowed only by our attraction to one another.

Eventually, she touched my hand, letting her fingers intertwine mine. “Can we discuss something important?”

I indicated yes and ordered another bottle of wine then settled back, wondering what seemed to be so pressing. By then, I was again in love and mellow enough not to ask questions. When she had finished, I learned, much to my surprise, that she had recently become engaged to a business acquaintance, a man she had known for several months.

Surprised, I said, “I thought we had something special together, but I guess I was mistaken.”

She again touched my hand. “We do have something very special together. And, you have every right to be upset, but you do need to know that I love you with all my heart. I always will. Jacques is someone my uncle incests that I marry. I don't love him, but he's rich and well connected. You did, after all, turn me away the last time we were together.”

“You've made your point,” I replied, as I motioned to a waiter. “It's obvious that I need to bow out of your life. It's been fun while it lasted.”

“But, we have something together that few people ever experience. I don't want to lose you.”

“I can't be your silent lover – the person hidden away in another part of your life.”

“I don't want you to be merely my lover. I want more of you. Please say you want me forever.”

When the waiter came, I paid the check and indicated to Dominique that we needed to leave. Reluctantly, she followed. Once at the curb, I hailed a taxi. By then, my thoughts were spinning in multiple directions.

She took my arm, her green eyes directed to mine. “Don't you want me tonight? It's still early. I need to know that our hearts are still one.”

“Not tonight,” I replied as I waved at another taxi. “We'd be cheating Jacques.”

“Don't leave me like this,” she said pleading. “I only love you. Pleases don't be that way. We need to talk.”

Within seconds, I had bundled her into a taxi, handed the driver several Euro and turned away.

The following day, I returned to the States, unable to come to terms with with the flood of emotions drowning my senses. At the time, I hoped that Dominique would eventually become a distant memory, but knowing myself, I feared that she would always remain in my heart and torment me forever.


- - -
John is a native born Texan living near Houston. His writing focuses on short stories and flash. Publications to his credit have appeared in several professional journals as well as a number of internet sites and short story periodicals.

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Author: John Laneri