Contributor: Brian Coyle

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Victoria arrives at the train station late one evening as she always does: her hair tied tightly back into a bun as to stretch back any unsightly features that may hang from her face and dressed in sleek, thoroughly-Ironed business attire. She takes her phone out from her purse and begins a text, all the while reading aloud what she is typing. “Just got to train station. Be there in thirty.” Normally she would make this trip alone: no one in their right mind wants to take a train this late, but for Victoria it was her only means to get to her downtown job on time. However, this time was different. She could smell him before she had seen him: an elderly man dressed in rags sitting quietly in the corner. Her perfectly painted eyes meet his sad and tired eyes for an instant before she looks away in disgust. “Please don’t make him come over here.” Victoria repeatedly whispers to herself. Her pleas for solitude fall on deaf ears as the vagabond limps forward and slouches down into the seat beside her own.

The old man tries his hardest to make himself look presentable: combing back his greasy gray hair before stating, “Well hello, miss. What’s yours that’s mine is Jasper?”

Victoria gives Jasper a look in disgust. “Charmed.”

“Charmed? My that’s an odd sort of name. But city folk ‘round here been namin’ their kin all sorts a peculiar things as I always say. You know I met this one fella in this station the other day, goes by the name Patron. Now what respectable person would name their son after a bottle of…” Victoria cuts Jasper off.

“Sir, would you kindly stop talking. Patron is a common name and mine is not ‘Charmed’. It’s Victoria. Now will you please leave me alone?”

Jasper sits back in his chair deep in thought and Victoria changes seats in a different section of the station. Moments later Jasper follows and sits beside her once more. “I like you, Victoria. You have a prettier name than all the others that come by to visit ol’ Jasper.”

“I did not come here to visit you, old man, and I don’t think anyone ever has. I just want to sit here and wait for my train to get here.” Victoria rummages through her purse and retrieves a small cellphone. The phone turns on with a beep and states that Victoria has neither new calls nor new messages.

“Well isn’t this just a fine how do you do. All ol’ Jasper trying to do is strike up a conversation with someone who looks as lonely as he and you cast him out. Do you like being alone, miss?”

“I am not alone, Jasper. I have plenty of colleagues at work.” She states as she places the phone back into her purse.

“Aye, but are they here now? Why do you not go with them instead of sitting alone at a train station?”

“There is a good reason for that. It is because…” Victoria’s voice trails off at the sudden realization that she has no real explanation to his question.

“Figured as much. I think I hear your train coming. Since you are too good for ol’ Jasper, I will leave you to your business. Good day to you, ma’am.” Jasper limps back to his corner of the station as the train rolls into a halt.

As the metal doors of the train slide open, Victoria rises from her chair and starts towards the awaiting vehicle, hesitating momentarily to gaze upon the lonely vagabond. Once more she checks her phone to find that she has still not received any messages. “Hey Jasper.” Jasper raises his head from a pile of newspaper. “Would you like to ride with me? There are plenty of open seats.”

Jasper jumps up with excitement. “You know in all my years I’ve been sitting in this station, no one has ever offered me a ride. Sure I’ll go with you.”

Victoria and her newfound friend step into the brightly lit train car and take their seats as the train drives off into the night.


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I am from Buffalo, N.Y. and am currently living and attending Full Sail in Orlando. Mostly I write for action but I am branching out into more dramatic pieces.

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Author: Brian Coyle

Contributor: Jake Johnson

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So much time. So much time, so much time.

David sat in his study and pondered the universe. At some point it would go on forever, without him. He wanted to live forever, like so many men before him, but he couldn’t even fill a day with anything meaningful.

Eternity was the most frightening thing he could imagine.

Outside moved the ordinary people- farmers and workers. None of them would have to bear the cross of the philosopher, of the thinking man. This deep solitude, demonstrating hope, comfort and assurance as a trio of traitors against the mind. Those people out there were lucky: their deaths could sneak up on them, and take them quietly.

David thought of centuries beyond his own: a twentieth, a twenty-first, and a twenty-second. If technology improved, and the common man worked less and less, would the world enter a fugue of contemplation? Or would it divert itself, by any means necessary, trying to keep its sanity?

He pondered this question for a long time, and eventually noticed a group of men carrying timber for some project. Without hesitation, and in the hopes of losing himself, he put on a coat and went outside to help them.


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Jake Johnson is a teenaged writer and editor with a promising future as a world-traveling starving artist. For the time being, he's doing his best to get a head start in the world of writing.

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Author: Jake Johnson

Contributor: Ray Daley

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Another lonely day in space. Just me and the crocodiles so far. Oh, and Buddy. Where ever the hell he is today.
Probably hiding because he knows it's his turn on waste disposal today.

It's not a hard job, cleaning out the crocs. They can still get a bit feisty but they've gotten used to the very low gravity on board and the water changes. We flush out the ponds, shovel the shit (almost certainly his least favourite part and definitely the reason he's avoiding the job yet again), hose everything off then recycle the water back for them—all nice and clean.

It's one of the very few jobs that Lucy can't handle.

We lovingly call "her" Lucy, our station computer system.
L.U.C.E. - Living Under Created Environments.

That's our little home, formerly known as Her Majesty’s Space Station Ark Royal. There have been many Ark Royals before us but we are a proper Ark, here to preserve the last two of each rare species. Just like the crocs that we jokingly rechristened Adam and Eve.

I personally like to think of myself as Zoo Keeper and Head Tour Guide. I always show the inspection tours around, they come up every few months to check on our progress, ask us questions and see if we need anything. Are we caring for the Habitats? Are we nurturing the precious seeds entrusted into our care?

Are we breeding yet?

And just like that I am shot back to reality, that I too am also a feature aboard this Ark, the very last of my kind.
Our conquerors were kind, the station is enormous, big enough to be visible from Earth in fact. And it has everything you could possibly ask for.

Except freedom.

Not for us, the last two remaining upstart Colonists. The Brits had always been sore about losing us so when The Fall came they swooped in and took us right back, wiping most of the remaining population out. No more USA. Well the land is still there at least, the Brits farm most of it by telepresence. Buddy and I are all that remains of the country, the last two American citizens. Quite literally, we, the people.

***

It's been a busy day. A delivery of Pandas, Giraffes, Dolphins and Scorpions. Buddy actually bothered to show up and helped me to get our ever growing menagerie into their appropriate Habitats. Afterwards, as always, came the question. "So Meg, Systems Test today?" asked Buddy.

"No Buddy, I'm not ready. Not quite." I replied. He was so cold and clinical about the whole thing.

Systems Test.

He just wants to see if he can screw me yet.
He's a virgin with no idea if his balls work or not, some throwback to a religious upbringing where he never masturbated.

I'm trying to hold off for at least another year. He'll be nineteen by then but hopefully working and living up here will have mentally matured him a lot more. He still acts like a little kid, goofing off and shucking his responsibilities as often as he thinks he can get away with it.

Lucy helps a lot there, cutting his rations until he does work. If she weren't actually pulling the strings on this giant puppet show I'd probably have spaced him by now, last American Male or not.

Last American Male he may be, last American Man—well he might become that, one day.


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Ray Daley was born in Coventry & still lives there. He served 6 yrs in the RAF as a clerk & spent most of his time in a Hobbit hole in High Wycombe. He is a published poet & has been writing stories since he was 10. His current dream is to eventually finish the Hitch Hikers fanfic novel he's been writing since 1986.

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Author: Ray Daley

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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The priest had been there earlier and the rosary was said and relatives and friends in single file were offering condolences. "Sorry for your troubles," one by one they said, bending over Maggie Murphy, the widow silent in her rocker, a foot or so from Paddy, resplendent in his casket, the two of them much closer now than they had ever been.

A silent guest of honor, Paddy now had nothing more to say, waked in aspic, if you will, in front of his gothic fireplace.

The moon was full this starless night and the hour was getting late and still the widow hadn't wept. Her eyes were swept Saharas and the mourners wanted tears. They had fields to plow come morning and they needed sleep, but the custom in County Kerry was that no one leaves a wake until the widow weeps.

Fair Maggie could have married any man in Kerry, according to her mother, who almost every day reminded her of that.

"Maggie," she would say, "you should have married Mickey. His limp was not that bad," but Maggie wouldn't listen. Instead, she married Paddy, "that pestilence out walking," as her mother often called him even on a Sunday but only after Mass.

Maggie married Paddy the day he scored the only goal the year that Kerry took the trophy back from Galway. That goal was no small thing for Ireland, Paddy would remind us all in pubs, night after night, year after year, until one of us would gag and buy him another drink.

That goal, he'd shout, was something historians in Ireland would one day note, even if they hadn't yet, and every time he'd mention it, which was almost daily, Maggie's mother would remind her daughter once again that she should have married Mickey and had a better life.

The final time her mother praised poor Mickey, a screaming match ensued, so loud it woke the rooster the very day her mother, feverish in bed, gurgled like a frog and died.

This evening, though, as the wake wore on, the mourners grew more weary waiting for the tears the widow hadn't shed. Restless in his folding chair, Mickey put his bottle down and rose to give the eulogy he had needed days to memorize.

"Folks," he said, "if all of us would holler down to Paddy now, I'm sure he'd holler back. Despite the flames and all that smoke, he'd tell us all once more that Kerry winning over Galway is all that ever mattered. We'll always have cold Paddy over there to thank for that. Ireland never had a better man. St. Patrick himself, I know, would vouch for that."

The Widow Murphy hadn't moved all evening, but after hearing Mickey speak, she began to rock with fury as she raised a purple fist, shook it to the heavens and then began to hum her favorite dirge. The mourners all joined in and hummed along until midnight struck on the mantel clock and then, as if released by God Himself, the mourners rose, one by one, from folding chairs and paraded out beneath the moon, freed by a hurricane of the Widow Murphy's tears.


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Nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart prizes, Donal Mahoney has had work published in a variety of print and electronic publications in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Some of his work can be found at http://eyeonlifemag.com/the-poetry-locksmith/donal-mahoney-poet.html

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Author: Donal Mahoney

Contributor: Lindsey Barlow

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He was following her now; he had seen the gold in her pocket.
It was two o'clock in the morning, and the child was six, and the gold was shimmering like honey on a tongue that whispered, "You've never seen anything like this before."
And for a homeless man, that was sublime.
So he stumbled, following her ribbons and bows while they fluttered over the shimmering streets, and then the gravel, and dirt, and grass, like birds and butterflies and bees and bats in the night. Fear, for once, never occurred to him.
He knew she saw him. He had caught her emerald eye, and she giggled, this girl with gold in her pocket.
Just after an hour of walking, they had reached the woods, and he set his rum down - the bottle had grown so heavy as he walked. And when he stood again, the forest was transformed. The rocks were pearls, the apples were rubies, the moss was opal that climbed up bark of bronze and gold, and all about him was a twilight of misshapen gems and fortunes that glowed. All, that is, but where his rum sat.
In that little spot, the dirt was dirt, the grass was grass, and there was no sweetness etched into their being. This image stirred him.
"Sir," the girl with gold chimed, "are you sad?"
He felt his eyes well with warm tears, and when these tears fell, they cooled. Diamonds tumbled down his cheek. He caught two of them just as they plummeted from his chin, but one bounded askance, and this one he missed. It dropped onto the ground beside the bottle without a sound. In the grass, the diamond trickled back into a tear.
"No, I'm not sad. You are too young," he replied to her, "and this place is too beautiful to understand me." He looked round himself at the natural palace. "But I understand. Now, I do." He glanced back at his tears and marveled that the smallest drops of him could be so priceless. "It has taken me so long to see that worth was not where I placed it.
"My debts... they aren't so heavy now. My thirst is nearly gone. I suppose it does not matter, after all, how late one travels that path in the dark night. The end of the right road overflows all."


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Lindsey Barlow is a graduate student at the University of Texas at Arlington, and she is currently an Adjunct Professor of Writing and Grammar at Cedar Valley Community College. Her short story "The Trade" was previously published in Oak Bend Review, and her non-fiction article titled "Driven by the Spirit: The Alcoholism of Man in Boardwalk Empire" was published in Popular Culture Review. She currently lives in Dallas, Texas.

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Author: Lindsey Barlow

Contributor: Michael Plesset

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On a train, looking out the window. Wheat and people go by. Time to think,
and remember, what we wish the past was. Time to think, and wonder what to have for lunch, and what our great grandchildren will be like, and their great grandchildren. They’ll understand the universe, they’ll know what happens when we die. They’ll wonder how we got along knowing so little, and why we spent our time the way we did, sitting on trains with so much time to think.

It was a visit he wasn’t looking forward to, relatives with no common bond, postponed many times, until excuses have run out.

Two more hours, to get to where he doesn’t want to go.

Why haven’t you called?
We missed you at the holidays.
What have you been doing?

A wedding of one of their children, one he really doesn’t know. They’ll be happy, their big day, and he must pretend to care.

Suddenly the train slowed to a stop, what’s wrong. It hit something that shouldn’t be there, emergency. So there they sit, for what might be hours, on that train with still more time to think.

A woman across the aisle said ”I hope no one’s hurt.”
“Yes” was all he could think of to say.
“I’m going to a wedding” she said, “it doesn’t look like I’ll make it.”
“I am too, but to be honest I don’t care, I don’t really know them.”
“I’m going to my husband’s daughter’s wedding, she hates me” she said.
“Maybe we’re better off here, on the train” he said, “and we have a perfect excuse for not showing up.”
She laughed. “You’re right, this is the best thing that could have happened today.” And after a pause, “But I do hope no one’s hurt.”

He thought “No one was hurt? Oh yes, we were. We’ve lost this day forever, and that can’t be healed. Life carries us along, consuming us in tiny bites each day. If only time could be like this, instead of taking us in meaningless little steps to the end, it could stop, like the train, and let us rest.”

The woman said “We’re trapped here, what if we just got off and had a picnic, out here in the middle of nowhere.”

“I’m in,” he said “we could buy some food at a little store I saw a short way back.”

They got off the train, walked back to the store, got some food, and sat eating in the shade of a large tree, then just watched the clouds slowly drift across the sky, losing track of time. After a while, she said “This is the nicest day I can remember, I guess I haven’t felt very happy, but didn’t realize it.”

They heard the train start up again. Since the trains didn’t have a stop near there, they had no idea how they would get to either where they were going, or back to where they came from, but they didn’t mind, it was a strange relief to hear it going away.

“I guess we’re sort of like school kids skipping school,” he said.

She said “I never did anything like that.”

He thought about it seriously for a long while, then said softly, “Neither have I.”


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Michael Plesset has published poetry, short fiction, non-fiction, and wrote material for a stand-up comedian. He did graduate work in mathematics and philosophy, worked in high technology and teaches English to Chinese students.

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Author: Michael Plesset

Contributor: Chris Sharp

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Reilly had not worked in any accounting capacity since his seizure last year. Over this period he kept going with temp bookkeeping jobs, though they paid less than a third of his usual professional cash-money. If his experience had been a stroke – what he’d first assumed – there was no clue to it in the CAT scan he’d taken.

The stroke theory had holes in it from the very beginning, even before Reilly went into a hospital. At 32, he felt much too young for retirement issues such as apoplexy. First and foremost, he enjoyed first-rate blood-pressure and cholesterol counts. If he had only experienced some unprecedented epileptic activity, his medical exam had found no source or remnant of it.

Reilly had finally settled on “exhaustion theory” to explain his blackout event. He concluded his exhaustion had started from being too competitive and relentlessly aggressive against his peers. Then the breakdown itself had spun him into a total reversal off his life. It led him to quit the accounts receivable department in the big national department store chain where he had stored his entire identity and energy. His choice was to then work for a small temp agency as an itinerant bookkeeper, allowing him to take a day off every other week or so.

The first year, Reilly needed some extra time off to deal with the madhouse effect of his seizure. He was glad he had no wife or children to handle on some kind of sideline.

The event had led Reilly to awaken in a mysterious wide-open field. He had never come close to seeing this rolling field before in his life. It looked like a place that at one time could have held a large fortune in cattle. Then the more he regained himself, he saw he was the only moving thing in the whole field.

The field ended at a brutalized log fence. Beyond that were utility poles made of more civilized logs. When Reilly saw a narrow highway, he noticed the sound of natural running water. It was his old Boy Scout survival training that led him to walk in the direction of the river current.

A large commercial truck stopped ahead of him and parked on the side. A driver wearing a red beret came out and asked Reilly if he needed help. Reilly nodded.

“Where are you going?” he asked the driver.

“Salem.”

“Salem where?”

“Salem, Massachusetts.”

“What?”

“Sir,” said the driver, jawing aggressively under his red beret. “What are you saying? Do you not know Oregon?”

“Oregon?”

“Sir, where did you come from?”

“I thought I was in California,” said Reilly. He looked around at the total surrounding green landscape. “I’m totally mixed up. Can you give me a ride to Salem then?”

Reilly still had money and credit cards in the place he had left them, and in Salem -- Oregon -- he paid cash for a bus back to California.

On the ride home Reilly went over the dream he still remembered from when he was unconscious.

In the dream, Reilly was surrounded by a team of hostile-looking people whose heads looked like bulbs in an exotic tropical garden. They broke into his ears and tested them, then they looked into his mouth, and even into his nostrils, and then they even took out his eyes, leaving him blind for a while, until they gently screwed his eyes back below his eyebrows.

At the end of the examination Reilly was met by a sort of secretary with just a flower for a head, and she led him into a private room. This fully furnished room was much different from the examination site, which was like other places in dreams that are in perpetual motion. The private room was in contrast grounded into real-life, fully awakened reality.

An older gentleman in a black suit and tie stood before Reilly in the new room. “You will be asked,” said the old gentleman, ‘Were your molecules rearranged?” You will say ‘no.’”

It was at the point Reilly became someone lying in a green field in Oregon.

It took Reilly a year to understand that the earth’s complete circle around the sun can erode most of the abnormality out of any misadventure or mystery. After a year, waking up in a field so far away from home was becoming less of a misadventure. Finally Reilly began to miss the adventure and competition of real CPA-level accounting. He started applying for real accounting jobs again, and after a few weeks he was called in for an interview.

When he arrived at the CPA offices for the meeting, he was started by a secretary who said, “You must be Mr. Reilly.”

“Yes, I’m Mr. Reilly.”

“Mr. Barnes told me to tell you he will be with you in five minutes.”

“Thank you.”

It was the first time he’d been called “Mr. Reilly” since he had left the accounting offices of his old job. At his temporary bookkeeping jobs, he was called by his first name, as if he were a boy foot-foot tall.

“Mr. Barnes will see you now, Mr. Reilly,” said the secretary.

She led him to an enclosed office. At the opening of the door, Mr. Barnes was at his feet in front of his shining big desk. He wore a soft black suit that like his broad smile looked totally devoted to this very moment. Then the door was closed.

“Were your molecules rearranged?” asked Mr. Barnes.


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Chris Sharp has numbers of flash-fiction short stories in Linguistic Erosion, Yesteryear Fiction, Weirdyear, and Daily Love as well as longer fiction listed by Google under “Short stories by Chris Sharp.” His book “Dangerous Learning” is being distributed by Barnes & Noble.

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Author: Chris Sharp

Contributor: Samuel Pugh

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For a boy of 8, it wasn’t unusual be scared of the dark …
Mum and Dad always left the hallway light on, the comforting sound of their TV programs creeping up the stairs, somehow softening the darkness, making it less claustrophobic. But they didn’t understand; not really. Every night was the same. He’d stare fixedly into the light, concentrating on the sickly orange glow until sleep finally overtook him.
But one night, the light went out.
Panic gave way to hysteria; the dark seemed to be wrapping around him, consuming him. With a voice laced with anxiety, he called out for his Mother. Mummy didn’t come. He pulled the duvet up, over his mouth, his nose, and called again; louder this time. No reply. There was something there, in the darkness. He could hear things talking, chattering, whispering about him. He was safe under the covers, of course, his duvet was his protection against … against them; but for how long? With a strange certainty, he knew they were moving closer. He would have to be brave, leave the duvet, and switch the light on. He leapt out of bed, and ran across to the doorway. If he could reach the light-switch, they would run away, they would leave him alone, they would disappear, they would …

And then he woke up; safe in his bad, safe in the dark. A dream …
He let out a sigh. Stupid, stupid, stupid …
And then they started to talk again, to chatter, to whisper. They were coming for him, slithering their way through the darkness, reaching out. He threw the duvet to one side, raced across the room, feeling for the light switch in a blind panic. He found it, switched it on, and …
And he woke up, tears wet upon his cheeks, his breathing manic in its rapidity. Again, he called for his mother. Screamed …
Mummy didn’t come. Mummy never came. And they were still there, crouching in the dark, talking about him, whispering about him, laughing at him. With a sickening sense of déjà vu, he dragged the duvet from his body, ran across the room, and felt for the light switch.
He found it. He switched on the light, and turned around.
And he didn’t wake up.
And that’s when he finally saw them …


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Author: Samuel Pugh

Contributor: Tómas Jónsson

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James came from a lineage of infidelity. As he lusted after his colleague, he wondered if his feelings were a genetic trait equivalent to his predisposition for high cholesterol.
To further deny responsibility for his actions, James surmised environmental influences were as much to blame for his new desires. James knew of countless affairs among his colleagues, neighbors, and societal elites.
Unlike the politician cheating with a young lobbyist, James’ had no fear of his wife learning of his disloyalty through the tabloids. James worried that some form of electronic data would expose his subterfuge. And again, surrendering to his environment, and despite the near promise of enabling his own destruction, James could not deny his desire to create an electronic footprint. In the privacy of his office cubical he put his never realized artistic potential to use by storyboarding a video and the positions in which his accomplice would look her best.
James continued about his day expecting it and all that followed to continue unchanged until his demise. He stared at Anne’s chest as she twirled her hair. Anne’s recent weight gain had done little to detract from her figure. She carried the new weight well, mostly in her stomach, leaving her shapely ass still worthy of James’ admiration.
Anne was not attracted to James. However, since James was oblivious to this, he had already convinced himself of a future liaison. In James’ fantasy, Anne’s reputation for promiscuity led her into his bed. She would seek him out for a tawdry night in which they made love for the sake of sex. For a short time they might even mistake their sin of lust as love.
James’ delusion created another battle against the forces driving him to cheat. Why should he not be free to fall in and out of love when his wife was swinging in and out of his life?
It was this pendulum of love that tormented James. He had not fallen out of love with his wife, but she had. For the past 751 days James’ wife put her career and personal satisfaction ahead of all else. Had James been as brilliant and half as successful he would have acted the same. Her success was so great they lived a life they never imagined. Living expenses became inconsequential. As a result numbers in bank accounts were used in the interim to fill the emptiness in James’ as he ate another dinner alone in their perfectly decorated beach house. All it had cost him was the vacancy of his bed and the realization that he was a commodity to his partner. When she was no longer successful and the career that made her happy was gone, she would plug him back into the equation restoring her sense of contentment with life.
James pondered if his feelings were his own way of commoditizing love. There was fundability to sex. It could be tallied as easily as money was counted. In this calculation James attempt to deceive, never admitting that he wanted to find love, not just have orgasms. James wanted an intimacy that could replace the sense of abandonment that came from his wife and the stark emptiness of the modernity.
Time progressed. James could not decouple from his wife. He was too weak to leave her despite the unhappiness she had caused. James was resolved to suffer in silence endlessly thinking rather than move forward on either front.
Had James been less codependent he might have addressed his wife’s failures. But his love had put her in a position of perfection. He was convinced that any fault in their relationship must have been his. If he cheated, she could remain perfect and he the failure.
When his wife went on another business trip he called the ex-girlfriend. She was aware of his vulnerabilities and manipulated him to serve her needs. As a couple they had no future, but they had shared love in the past. It was a residual energy that still held enough emotion to ease both their troubled lives.
James, at the mercy of emotion, finally gave in to his fears. He broke his oath to his wife. To cope he detached and compartmentalized his feelings from his behavior. Then his erection failed. Mostly flaccid, he struggled to penetrate his former girlfriend. He rubbed her tits and licked her pussy to no avail. James did not cheat, or so he convinced himself because he had not come.
James’ wife never found out about his mistake. She would not have cared. She had been cheating on him for years and never once struggled with the decision. She knew that James would never force her to pay for the consequences of her actions.


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I split my time between Iceland and Wisconsin choosing to live in a climate of perpetual winter.

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Author: Tómas Jónsson

Contributor: Marco Scibelli

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The ice cream truck was plastered with stickers of the treats held inside, pasted over other stickers from the years gone by. On the hood, a mock metal ice cream cone was displayed, and it always bothered the driver; it looked sharp and scary. He didn’t want it flying through the windshield in a collision and killing him. The truck cruised steadily up the slight incline, with the plains of sage forming a downstage for the beautiful, jagged mountains that punctuated the background. If this was a play, the stage crew did a nice job on the set design.
The driver was an unimpressive man of ambiguous age, but he wore his white uniform well and he kept his hat neatly pressed to always have that paper-boat look in perfect form. He gripped the wheel lightly, just enough to make sure the van didn’t veer off course and crush all this beautiful scenery. Yes, he’d driven all over God’s Green Earth selling ice cream, and he’s had his favorites, (how beautiful the Everglades seemed from a freezing cold car), and his least favorites, (as far as he could tell, New Mexico was just a void with some road construction in the middle). This plain, however, took the cake with its stunning gorgeousness.
The cheery van slowly rolled over the pristine, natural landscape, and into the sightline of a seven year old girl. She was standing on the side of the road in a purple dress–oh, rather, a lilac dress because purple can be a boy’s color and she isn’t a boy, thank you very much–with little yellow polka dots. She was all alone as the van pulled up in front of her and came to a stop. The man threw it into park and approached his window.
“Why, hello there little girl.”
“Hello, mister.” The man smiled a grin at the little girl, exposing every one of his yellow teeth, crooked and ugly.
“Would you like a ride someplace?” the man asked the little girl. In her mind she knew her dad and her mom told her never to ever accept rides from strangers, (especially old ones because they’re very lonely, or so her mom said and her dad nodded gravely).
“I had ought to not, I’ll be fine without one. Thank you though.” The girl turned her gaze from his hollow, deep brown eyes and she fixated it on the ground. Crumbled rocks, encrusted with dirt at the edges.
“How about some ice cream, then? My treat!”
With this the girl looked up again and, after contemplating for a brief moment, nodded her head yes. The man retreated into his van, only to return seconds later with a nice cone of swirly vanilla ice cream. To the little girl it looked like the snow that crowned the mountains of the plains, and she was very excited as she took it. “Thanks, mister!”
“Oh, no problem little girl. No problem at all!”
She began to lick her ice cream happily, and not wanting to frighten her, (ice cream men know everyone thinks they’re pedophiles), he climbed back into the driver’s seat and threw the transmission into drive. The music, a little circus ditty, began to play from the rusting speakers atop the van. He pulled away and the little girl waved as he went.
He got home at half past six, and he smiled a little grin, not enough to show his teeth, though. Half past six was his favorite time to get home, he would have just enough time to do an inventory before Jeopardy! came on television, no extra time for idling and dilly-dallying. He counted, he watched, he went to bed.
The next day he found himself driving through the barren cold of the Canadian highways. No one else was on the roads, just him and the coniferous; occasionally a deer would hear his bittersweet jingle from inside its forest home and peer through the trees. He drove on like this for a couple hours, and found no one, nor nothing. Maybe it was a bad idea to try and hit Québec today, he thought to himself. He knew the French didn’t like his ice cream, were the French Canadians the same way?
His musings came to a shattering stop, and he found himself with a face full of air. Or was it a face full of bag? Shoving it back into the wheel, he noticed blood all over his now shattered windshield. He shivered through his whole body, but flung open the door with a start and peered out onto the road. He had hit a moose (at least if that’s what a moose looks like when a two ton ice cream truck hits it), and it was dead. Through what once was the moose’s neck was now the prop ice cream cone that once adorned his truck; where the ice cream cone once adorned his truck there was nothing but an eye. He hoped it was a moose’s.
At that moment a little boy, who had been watching from the side of the road, spoke up and startled the driver. “Hey, can I get an ice cream?” If it wasn’t in French the driver probably would have been appalled at the question, but something about the strangeness of tongue put the man in a daze. He gave the boy an ice cream.
That night he got home at nine. It had taken him a long time to find a shop to put his ice cream truck in, and it was pretty badly broken. He sat on his couch and turned on the television, but all that was on was Wheel of Fortune. He stared blankly at the television screen, ran his tongue over his teeth, and shivered again.
If this were another story or man, he’d probably kill himself. But this is this story and this man, and some day in a couple of weeks he would get his truck back and go back to the same old grind, and hope no one’s afraid of him that day or thinks he’s a pedophile. Yes, up until today he had never hurt a fly. No, he won’t kill himself. He’ll keep trying to live.
You! Tell me what’s sadder.


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Marco Scibelli's just some guy who tries to write sometimes.

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Author: Marco Scibelli