Contributor: Chris Sharp

- -
I am living in a senior housing community with many old timers. Apparently, they all remember Elvis Presley vividly. The truth is, I am not young myself, but at age 55 I am old enough to qualify for this season’s low-cost senior colonies. So after being here for over a half a year, I developed the idea that the only reason why these people are not dying off like old flies is because of the rejuvenating way they have redecorated their old histories.
My next door neighbor has told me she has recently been visited by Elvis himself. He has arrived in her dreams at night, and like a side-burned vampire he disappeared at sunrise. But then Elvis returned the next night. My neighbor wants to tell the world about this. She is not the most computer literate person in the world, so when I offered to release her story to the “World Wide Web,” she reacted as if I were performing a miracle... Now she is so grateful to me she has given me the use of her garage – since she owns no car herself – for the use of any of my friends who might come driving in to visit me.
So here she is – the woman who so loves the King so much she has given up her garage for his sake (and for my sake).

******

My name is Melanie, and no one had ever called me “Mellie” but Elvis Presley visited me and the first thing he did was call me “Mellie.”
He apologized that he had arrived in the form of a common dream. “You have to put up with so much useless junk in dreams. Mellie, I used to dream an awful lot in my life,” he explained to me softly. He had those big lips that animated themselves with each word he spoke, like lips had little lives of their own.
He was dressed the way I had seen him in magazines, in tight pants and silver all around him, from his ankles to his neck. All his sequins and womanly taffeta were sitting in the plain old chair I was thinking of taking out of my bedroom because no one ever sat in it. But at that point Elvis had given this chair a royal crown just by plopping on it.
“I want to want to thank you, Mellie, for being a fan of mine.”
“How could I not be a fan of yours?” I said, and then I smacked my mouth when I realized I had interrupted him.
“There are so many good fans, and now I know them all. You see, to understand my music, you have to be a good person.”
“Are you a ghost, Elvis?”
He smiled at me, with those sweet long teeth of his.
“I am in Heaven now,” he said, proud as a boy. “I was one messed up dude, so it surprised me that the Old Guy thought of me as Heavenly material. But he explained it to me.”
“Is the Old Guy ‘God?’”

He nodded and went right on.
“It turned out that my music changed the face of America, in a way that pleased the Old Guy. You see all my music came from African-American roots. What I did was put the black music in my white body and pass it out again.”
“And then there flowed the integration of all the races in America,” I pitched in. “Marvelous, Elvis.”
That Elvis was pleased I understood. Then he was delighted I knew what he was talking about by the old black rock’n rollers Chuck Berry and Little Richard and how they influenced his own early music. At last he stood and swayed a little, like the old concert energy was getting to him.
“May I ask a little favor, Mellie?”
He stepped toward me until those hound-dog eyes were inches from mine. “I want you to buy up the old Little Richard music, Mellie, and play it when you sleep.”
I repeated what he said, but even then it didn’t make sense to me.
He explained that by my fulfilling his wish, he would glean this music into his consciousness again. “Little Richard isn’t played much in Heaven, not like my music anyway. But my own music depends on how his inspires me.”
“You’re coming back?”

“Mellie, I need my man’s Little Richard sound again, if my own sound is going be fresh.”
So I started buying up Little Richard’s music wherever I could find it. Then I played it all day and night, until the music started the movements going in my dreams. In those dreams I kept seeing Elvis in that chair, clapping his hands, snapping his fingers, bobbing his head while his shaggy hair flew around.
This lasted about a month. About that time I got so tired of Little Richard that I listened to the Beatles to erase that other lingering sound.
Then the other day I was at a restaurant to treat myself to lunch. It was a habit of mine to splurge myself on the day I receive my monthly check. But this lunch was different. The cashier up front wouldn’t take my payment.
“A young man has paid for your lunch,” she told me.
I looked around everywhere. “Where is he?” I asked. “What does he look like?”
“Tell you the truth, he looked exactly Elvis Presley.”
Meanwhile, the cashier looked like she was just having another day.


- - -
Chris Sharp has many stories in Linguistic Erosion, Yesteryear Fiction and Weirdyear. His current stories most hit on the Internet by readers are under Google: “Short stories by Chris Sharp.”

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Chris Sharp

Contributor: Anneka Winder

- -
Two men sat at the edge of a particularly large and craggy cliff in the middle of a place where civilization had not yet encroached upon. It mattered not who they were in human society-- that their khakis dangling over the edge had been featured on a vast number of travel magazines and their rugged looks exploited in the feminine side of society. Here they were but a human intermingled with the wild.

The first man curled himself into a ball, pinning his legs above the sharp rocks; he did not appear distinctly different from the other (despite what news rags claimed), but for all storytelling purposes, he is separate in his name: Ricky. Said Ricky to the other with a shudder, "Can we go now? I don't like putting ourselves in harm's way like this-- without a harness or anything. I feel vulnerable... do you, Mattias?"

Mattias kept his legs draped over the incline without much thought. His face was grim as he stared ahead. After some time, he said, "No, Ricky... I'm afraid I haven't felt that in a long time. I thought that if I wrung my legs over the edge, maybe I'd indulge in a little fear for once, but I..." He inhaled sharply. "I don't."

The wind whipped-- not cold, but pressing. Ricky yelped, as when he wriggled against it, he felt unsteady. Unwieldy. Even as an explorer, he tended to stay away from breakneck situations like this... where the cameramen refused to follow... where Mattias fell into his daredevil moves as if he wished to die-- somehow, they'd been so lucky as to live and see this red rock cliff where again... they risked their life.

"Perhaps," said Ricky in a strained voice, "it is not our time."

A rock shifted below and kicked its way to the inevitable ground. Twenty seconds passed before it gave its last shout (with silence following). Twenty seconds the pressure built in Mattias's head.
Ricky pretended not to notice.

"Ricky, do you..." Mattias's eyes flashed as he peered over the edge. "Do you ever feel that we're immortal?"

"No, not in this occupation," said Ricky immediately-- but then he backtracked with a quick, "You?"

"We've... we've never died on any of our ordeals when another man very well should have. I find that strange, Ricky, and... maybe rightfully so. Here. Let me explain." Mattias stood up as straight as he could without Ricky chiding his imbalance. "We've been in dangerous spots across the world-- do you agree?"

Ricky nodded, for it was so.

"Cannibal's island, leper's quarantine, the Mariana Trench... everywhere our watchers wouldn't dare go, and for good reason. They're instant killers-- for heaven's sake, the title of our show is called 'Death Trap!' " His breathing quickened, but at Ricky's inquiry, he held up his hand. "We should have died long ago-- from the first episode. From the pilot." His eyes flickered. "It makes a man wonder if he's not able to-- to--" He grabbed his hands. "To hurt."

"You've been in the hospital," said Ricky, but even as he spoke it, he knew it a lie. He shuddered as Mattias studied him to the point that he he nearly jumped over the cliff himself. He said, "What do you suggest to test your theory?"

"That's simple." Ignoring Ricky's cries in protest, Mattias stood androcked back and forwards, unable to decide which way to fall. Gravel stunted his control and sprayed in Ricky's face. Mattias grinned. "We jump."

Ricky squealed and tried to pull Mattias down, but he could not without flinging both of them off the cliff. "Mattias!" he bellowed, voice hoarse against the wind-- which whispered about the same things, but much quieter. He tugged again, and stopped to support himself. "You're going to kill yourself!"

"But I won't. I'm much more important than that." Mattias bent his knees, preparing for a dive. "If fate wanted to have killed me, she'd done it on live television. I never..." He bit his lip. "I mean I can't..." He stopped, and smiled at the expanse of space below him. He spread out his hands. "If I jump right now, I won't even fall. I'll... I'll float."

"Mattias--"

"We won't have to tell-- anyone," he continued as if babbling would stay Ricky's cries. The wind wavered and had its way with his body. "We can walk away after and continue with the show. The cameramen won't capture it for the screen. It will be our secret."

"There is no secret, Mattias." Ricky's voice broke. "Come down, come down-- oh!"

Mattias flung himself off the cliff to tempt the wind itself (the very wind that had warned him, though he had not heard it). For a moment, he froze, aloft in the invisible waves. He grinned at Ricky, who shook his head in astonishment for it did look as if his companion had mastered the air, as if he were floating-- but then, suddenly, the man's grin disappeared into the dead man's gape.

He dropped. Like a rock. And without so much as a whisper of the wind, he departed from Ricky's view.

Twenty seconds later, there was a crash-- silence following.


- - -
Anneka Winder's greatest assets are her inconsistencies. Especially when making biographies. Don't listen to what you heard in her other ones--they're liars.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Anneka Winder

Contributor: Robert Bates

- -
Did that kid’s shoes just fly off?” I ask, looking up at the boy whirling around on the Space Noodle ride.

“Yes, they did. We should go pick them up,” says James.

Like the gentlemen we are, we go and retrieve the kid’s shoes.

“Hey, losers! Give me back my shoes!” the kid shouts furiously.

“We went and got them for you,” I try to explain.

“Stop stealing my shoes! Thieves! Scoundrels! I’m going to punch you scallywags in the face!”

“This kid has quite the vocabulary. Let’s go hide his shoes,” I say deviously.

We throw the shoes under a tent and go on about our teenage business.

“Are you kidding me? That kid is on a golf cart with the chief of police!” says James, pointing out into the distance.

But before either of us can get away, the two drive up to us at the supersonic speed of five miles per hour.

“So, he tells me you two boys stole his shoes,” the bald police officer says with a thick southern accent.

“We picked them up to give them back to him but he started threatening us so we threw them under a tent over there. He hurt my feelings,” James says.

“Look guys, he is six, I’m pretty sure he can’t hurt you. Let’s just act like this never happened, no big deal.”

I go home shortly after that and speak to my father.

“Anything exciting happen at the fair?”

“Nope, just the usual stuff.”

“The police chief had an interesting night. Apparently two outlaws stole his grandson’s shoes.”


- - -

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Robert Bates

Contributor: Krysha Thayer

- -
The smell of booze and sex had settled on him long before he decided to call it a night and stumble next door and up the stairs to his second floor flat. Living next door to a bar had certainly changed his life for the better since moving to this small town and he enjoyed the nightly visits from women. The bar owner, only a few years older than he was, even allowed him the use of his office occasionally so he didn’t have to bring them upstairs and have them spend the night. Tonight had been a good one, as Ladies’ Nights always are, and he had stayed until the place closed.
He didn’t even bother with a shower, he just pushed the cat out of her favorite spot on the bed and cursed her when she hissed at him. He never liked her anyway. He had let someone stay with him and when they left, they left the cat behind. “You know, it’s been six months. I don’t think they’re coming back for your scrawny ass. I should sell you for booze money.” He laughed at his own joke but stopped when he realized that maybe she was so scrawny because he didn’t feed her enough and maybe he could go to jail for that. He fell into an alcohol-induced sleep almost as soon as he fell into the bed.
The smell of smoke woke him up as daylight was just starting to show through the curtains. He walked down the short hall but the flames were already coming up the stairwell so he ran back to his room and closed the door behind him to shut out the heat and smoke. He searched for his cell on the nightstand but it wasn’t there. “Shit!” He fumbled through his pants pockets and found it, quickly calling 911 as he got into an old pair of sneakers.
“911, where is your emergency?” Her voice was deep and throaty. She was a smoker.
“32 Second Street. I’m on the second floor.” He grabbed a jacket off the chair in the corner, then got dizzy so he sat down. “I must still be a little drunk,” he said, to no one in particular.
“Is that your emergency, Sir?” She sounded like she was smiling.
“No. My apartment building, it’s on fire. I can’t get down from here.” He was starting to get a little more nervous now. The alcohol was wearing off. He coughed as the room began to fill with thick smoke.
“Is there anyone in the building with you, Sir?”
He needed a minute to think. “No... No, I don’t think so. The apartment below me is empty.” At least it was the last time he talked to his landlord. When was that? Two weeks ago?
“Where is the room you’re in? Give me directions from the outside of the building.” Her voice was staying calm, focused on the objective. He needed that right now, he was starting to panic a little. What if he died in this tiny little town in the middle of nowhere?
“If you’re looking at the building from the outside, I’m in the room on the right. Light blue curtains in the window.” He got up from his chair and paced the room as his eyes started to water. He followed the operator’s instructions: test the door for heat, look for smoke underneath it, put a cloth in front of his face. It wasn’t long before there were flashing lights in front of his apartment.
Jets of water beat against the house, breaking through the windows that hadn’t already been broken by the heat of the flames. They extended the ladder on a fire truck toward his window and a firefighter climbed up it carefully.
Even though he was watching the firefighter, he was still startled by the knock on the window. He opened it and the firefighter climbed into the room. “You’re sure there’s no one here with you?”
“Yes, I’m sure.” The name on his gear said Owens. “Oh, wait! My cat! I can’t leave my cat!” He began his search under the bed, and then went to the closet, but couldn’t find her.
“Sir,” the firefighter took him by the shoulder, “I’ll find your cat. What’s its name?”
He had to think for a minute. The smoke was starting to get thicker in the room. He started coughing. “Jasmine. Her name’s Jasmine.” It came out more like a cough than actual words. The firefighter walked him to the window and helped him onto the ladder until he was walking down it himself. At the bottom, there was another firefighter to help him off of it. “Owens is going to find my cat, right?”
“He will, if it’s the last thing he does.” This firefighter’s name was Fullmer.
He didn’t even remember he had a cat until thirty seconds ago and here Owens was risking his life to save hers. He kicked the pavement hard with the toe of his sneaker. Then Owens emerged from the window, the calico cat curled in his arm. Another firefighter wrapped a blanket around his shoulders, but then the bar caught the flames of the apartment fire and the alcohol went up in a bright flash as Owens was descending the ladder and someone pushed him back behind a truck so he couldn’t see Owens or Jasmine.
He peeked around the corner and held his breath until Owens started descending the ladder again with his cat. He ran over to meet him at the ladder and took Jasmine. “Come with me. Let’s get you guys some oxygen.”
Back at the ambulance, they sat on the bumper with oxygen masks on and he held a small animal mask to Jasmine. The firefighter’s face was covered in soot while the top of his head was clean, accentuating his balding, graying head.
“Thank you for saving my cat.” His voice was shaky.
“Not a problem, kid.”


- - -
Krysha Thayer lives in Vermont with her husband, Quay, and their dog, Kasey. She will graduate from Southern New Hampshire University's English/Creative Writing program (with a concentration in Fiction) in May of 2015. Krysha enjoys writing short fiction as well as longer and is currently working on several projects of varying length.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Krysha Thayer

Contributor: Reese Scott

- -
When he was born he didn’t sleep. His mother went insane and slept under the neighbors cars and slept with the elderly, the dying and the children. After she died he began to sleep. And inside his sleep he had wonderful dreams where he flew, swam, rode big wheels and found friends just like him.

When he woke up all he wished was he could go back to sleep. In bed the clouds and bad dreams stayed away. But when awake there was nothing but earthquakes and horror. There was nothing he could control.

Eventually after his father passed away one night in front of the television he was free to sleep for as long as he wanted. He could stay in bed when he was awake and wait for himself to fall asleep again.

He painted the house the colors he saw inside his dreams. Bright blue, a shy white that removed all the leftover noise from the house. While asleep he ate hamburgers, hotdogs, pizza and milkshakes. Each channel on the TV played his favorite show and there was nothing loud, rough or ugly. In fact when he slept it was the only time he could feel the covers and blankets that covered him from the days that were too strong and alive.

As he grew older his body began to atrophy. His legs grew thin. His arms were now wrists and his face looked like it had been cut in half. But asleep all he saw was the beautiful young man whose body was filled muscles, intelligence, and friends.

When he began to read that is when things began to change.

The first book he read was Charlotte’s Web. The second book he read was The Lemming Condition. When he slept the streets were empty, there were no cars, only candy corn and chewing gum. The third book he read he could never remember the title. But he remembered everything else. This was the book that he said “made him like everyone else”

After he read this book he was no longer able to sleep. And now that he was always awake he understood what nightmares were. Late at night he would take walks back and forth along the dead end street he lived on. He would see bicycles without seats, cars without tires and dogs with tails. Then there was the noise. It came from everywhere. Even at the quietest time in the morning when everyone was sleeping. The sky would turn into colors that hurt his eyes and the animals in the trees made noises that made his ears bleed.

He would run home and lie underneath his sheets and try to remember what it was like when he slept. Until eventually he could no longer remember what it was like to sleep. Now he was left with nothing but shoes, socks, a shirt and a pair of jeans. More than he needed but not enough to let him go home.


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

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Reese Scott

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

- -
One of many problems Marjorie has had in life is poor banana management. She has always purchased too many bananas and half of them rot on her kitchen table before she can eat them. Only fruit flies in summer prompt her to throw the rotten ones out. But since she hates to throw anything away, there are bananas, in different places, all over the house.

This is not the kind of problem a renowned artist like Marjorie should have. Not only are her paintings on display at major modern art museums but she also holds a doctorate with high honors in philosophy from Yale. She is an accomplished woman, still attractive despite the passing years, the kind of woman a distinguished widower might turn to for companionship after a graceful mourning period had been observed.

Banana management, however, is not Marjorie's only problem in the real world, as she calls life outside her studio and classroom. Marjorie also has a problem putting gas in her car. Putting the hose in the tank evokes thoughts of rape, even though she herself has never come close to being raped.

After many years Marjorie knows certain things are too much for her. Banana management and filling gas tanks are but a few of the many things she fears. These things, however, continue to grow in number and threaten her mental and emotional balance in a serious way.

She knows she needs professional help but has yet to pick a therapist to consult. In a small university town, everyone knows everyone. Marjorie is a respected woman as indeed she deserves to be. No one, except for me, has any notion of her problem.

I know about the problem because she explained it to me at great length one day in the break room. We have been teaching at the same small but prestigious university for many years. Although in different disciplines, we know something about each other's work and often talk about our experiences, both good and bad.

As a zoologist, I work with hamsters, and for the last decade that work has been rewarding but at the same time very frustrating and I have shared my frustrations with Marjorie many times. She is a good listener.

She knows that hamsters do well on a treadmill but otherwise there's no predicting what they may do. And there's no shortage of them, either, in my laboratory. I have cages and cages of them. They reproduce almost as fast as the rabbits I worked with in preparing my dissertation.

I am no longer involved with rabbits, however, since losing my position at another university when an animal shelter came to my laboratory and took my rabbits away. Hamsters have been the focus of my research since finishing my doctorate. So far no one has called an animal shelter to check on my hamsters but the cost of food alone is killing me.

With regard to Marjorie, however, I suppose one reason she took me into her confidence is that decades ago we had courted and even talked of marriage. No wedding came to pass, however. Marjorie never married and I married someone else a few years later. Marjorie didn't seem to mind.

I listened carefully to everything Marjorie had to say that day in the break room. I knew about her banana management problem but her gas tank situation was new to me. After bringing her up to date on my hamster research, I thought it might help if I told Marjorie that Pablo Picasso once said "there is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality."

I suggested to Marjorie that Picasso's idea, properly applied, might help her adjust to things in the real world. I suggested that she reverse his approach and deal with things first in the abstract--as a philosopher to get to the essence of things that bother her. And then as an artist she might commit those same things to canvas in a way she would not find intimidating. The process might help her, I said, come to grips with things as they are and not as she now found them to be. Perhaps she could remove the terror involved in throwing out rotten bananas.

For example, she might start with green bananas, first in the abstract and then on canvas, and then graduate to bananas rotting on her kitchen table. I did not tell her, however, that decades ago when we were talking about marriage the reason I backed out was her ineptitude in banana management. Dinner at her house was intolerable immersed as I found myself in the stench of bananas in various stages of decay.

I did not tell her either that the woman I married has never once in 40 years let a banana rot in our home. I had told my wife-to-be before we got married that if she wanted to buy bananas, good for her, but not to expect me to provide any help in eating them. I also told her that if I ever saw a banana rotting anywhere in our house I would leave her for another woman, one with no history of eating bananas.

I have had a wonderful marriage. This underscores for me the importance of good banana management in any marriage. Of course, from my point of view, the best banana management is no bananas.

After our talk in the break room, I told Marjorie that if I could be of any help in the future in resolving her difficulties not to hesitate to call on me. After all, she once adopted several of my older hamsters and gave them a home even though I told her they had no history of eating bananas.

I simply wanted to return the favor and listen to whatever else Marjorie might want to say. After all we have been through together, I might have some insight, however serendipitous, into the problems she is living with on a daily basis. I was there at the start, I reminded her, when the bananas first became a problem.

Marjorie thanked me for my kindness in listening and then asked if I could give her a lift home. She had run out of gas. Her car would be fine in the faculty parking lot, she said, and she would call the auto club tomorrow to bring another can of gas.

In the meantime, she said it might be nice to make a big bowl of banana pudding. She admitted she always has a taste for banana pudding but usually forgets to make it in time. I said that might be a good idea but politely declined her kind offer to make an extra bowl for me.


- - -
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Donal Mahoney

Contributor: Kristina England

- -
Dotty leaned over and scribbled a word in her journal. Then she exhaled her last breath of life into the moonlit bedroom.

Her son, Andrew, found her the next morning. He wept for some time before calling in her death. After her body was taken away, he sat in the room watching the day pass into night. When it became dark, he leaned over and flipped on the lamp on her night table. He looked at the open journal and pulled it into his lap. He stared at the word and shook his head.

His mother had carried around the journal for the last three months as the cancer ate at her.

"Are you keeping a diary?"

"Oh goodness… No. I've decided to be reincarnated, but I don't know what I want to be yet. The journal is for brainstorming."

Chemo brain, Andrew thought. The treatments were making her wacky. Then again, she was also more open than she had ever been.

"Your father was a cheat."

"Yes, I know."

"I should have left him. I deserved more respect than that."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't ever apologize for someone else's faults, dear. You picked that up from me. Move past it. Let the fools be the fools. Appreciate yourself, you know?"

"Yes, yes, I know."

"No you don't. But you will someday."

Then the dizzy spells, the lack of appetite, the dwindling into the tiniest he had ever seen her. And, yet, she kept that journal by her side, even after her voice had become extinct.

Andrew ran his fingers along the pen’s imprints, then put the journal down.

The word "Me" sat there in the glow of the lamp as he rested his head on her pillow and slept.


- - -
Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her writing is forthcoming or published in Gargoyle, Haggard and Halloo, The Story Shack, Weirdyear, and other magazines.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Kristina England

Contributor: Matthew Konkel

- -
“You’d feel differently if it was your family, if it was your church.”

Louis stood stoically in the parking area staring out at the grey lake water, his back to her, hands in his pockets, listening to Sarah’s rusty metal voice. He was listening but her words were an alien language to him.

“Why did you even come with me if you were just going to stop? Why did you even pretend to care?” She was sitting in the rear of the parked car with the door open talking to his back. Her curly, storm-colored hair undulated in the wind. “You couldn’t even wear a clean suit. Or a nice jacket.”

Louis let his eyelids fall as he parted his lips and took in a breath of the cool lake air. It was much colder than it should be, thought Louis. It was June. Where was the sun? He would take his sunfish out on the water when the days finally warmed up. Sarah interjected his thoughts with more metallic corrosion.

“You’re not even a man. If you think you are. You’re not even a man. Was it too much to ask? Apparently it was too much to ask.”

Could he remember a time when he felt content, Louis inquired of himself. He felt happy for the better part of his sixty-two years, but contentment? That was something else. Sarah would continue to harangue. She usually dominated all conversations, inclined to talk about herself and her family. Her family, the certified Jesus ass-washers, as Louis referred to them.

“I could tell you something that would make you cry. I could tell you how you’ll never see light. You’re a bug. A real bug. One of those beetles that burrow into the dead carcasses of birds. They don’t hear anything beyond the dead flesh.” Sarah was leaning out of the car as far as she could now, her eyes like marbles. “You think you’re fed. You think you’ve got food to last ten lifetimes but you don’t. Because the flesh is rotting as you feed. And you don’t know it. Your home is rotting all around you. You’ll continue to eat after you’re dead. After you’re dead even. That’s how unaware you are. You’re a bug.”

Louis had heard this analogy from his wife before. It wasn’t her own. She had heard it from her brother. And he heard it from his friend Paul. Paul was dead. Sarah had never directed the analogy toward him before. He didn’t feel defensive about it. He didn’t agree, of course. He knew that it was just words Sarah was regurgitating. He knew she was angry.

Earlier, he and Sarah had picked up her friend and her friend’s sister and were on their way to Sarah’s church when it got to be too much for Louis. Their conversation about the whys and wherefores and ins and outs of their stupid beliefs within the Jesus ass-washing community was more than Louis could handle. After just five minutes in the car Louis wanted to yank the wheel into the direction of an oncoming semi-truck. Instead, he drove back to the friend’s house and made them get out. After a minute of straight railing from Sarah, Louis couldn’t stand it anymore and he pulled the car over to the curb.

Maybe it was true. Maybe he was burrowed so far into rotting flesh that he couldn’t see outside of it anymore. But if he was, then everyone else in the world was too. Sarah had broken her hip last December. She slipped on the ice. The stupid ice. Now she was reliant on Louis to get from place to place. She always went to her church alone. Louis was not about to get drawn into the Jesus cult that she called a legitimate religion.

The wind began to pick up and the lake started to get choppy. Water rolled toward the shore and toward Louis. He looked beyond the parking lot to the railing along the water where people usually fished. No one was fishing there now. It was the wrong time of day. In three hours the railing would be lined with fisher folk. Louis raised his eyes and cocked his head. Was that the sun breaking through?

“All I asked was for you to come inside this once. As a kindness to me. To the church. And you couldn’t do it.” Sarah turned her head to face the inside of the car. She talked to the green-grey seatback in front of her. “You couldn’t even do that. I never would have asked you to come if I’d known you were just gonna stop here. Do that and then stop here.”

Louis’ suit was old. The last time he wore it was for his son’s wedding seventeen years ago. It was tight under the arms and he had long outgrown the waistline. Louis had gotten older too. Had he gotten wiser as well, as the saying goes? He had definitely gotten larger, but weight had no correlation with wisdom. He removed his outer jacket. Would today finally be the day when the unseasonably cold weather finally stopped?

“You never would have treated me like this twenty years ago. I went to so many things for you and you couldn’t do this one thing for me. You couldn’t do it.” Sarah snapped her body toward Louis, a new rage building, “I’m not staying here anymore. I can’t stay here anymore—”

Her voice had suddenly stopped. Louis swiveled his head around. Sarah was now half out of the car, her shoulder on the curb, twisted in an unnatural position. Her hands flailing, groping about for something to lift herself back into the car. Louis looked at her struggling. Why wouldn’t he go over and help her? Yesterday they had both laughed because Sarah blamed the dog for her flatulence, now she was fighting to lift herself up off the ground back into the car.


- - -
Matthew is a writer and teaching-artist who resides in Milwaukee. You may have seen his fiction and poetry in the Newer York, Four and Twenty Poetry, Paragraph Planet, Postcard Shorts or The Eunoia Review. His play Walk, Don’t Walk was recently produced by Pink Banana Theater (June, 2013). Matthew is also a screenwriter and independent filmmaker. His latest film is a coming-of-age feature titled Neptune produced by Last House Productions and scheduled for release in June, 2014.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

1 comment

Author: Matthew Konkel

Contributor: Jheri Brown

- -
The chill of the night was evident with each breath. Her dark eyes shifted back and forth, nervously -- frantically, even. She sat watching, waiting. The bile in her throat felt like it was burning a hole through her esophagus. Her stomach churned and knotted under the pressure of her nerves.
Jacob slid out of his vehicle and, as most people do, shoved his keys and phone into his pockets. There was no real reason for him to leave his phone out anyway. He was exactly where he intended on being. He’d made a ritual of it. Every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evening, he would call Elyssa and tell her of the busyness at the office and tell her not to worry about fixing him a dinner plate. And every time he did, her heart would almost curl in on itself with each beat and her breath would catch, seized right in her throat.
Elyssa shifted in the seat of the car as Jacob neared the door of the hotel. Her hand shot out for the mini trashcan sitting next to her when the door was opened. The man on the other side was tall like her husband -- handsome, too. His hair was blond, a stark contrast to Jacob’s black, but very similar to her own. The bile that seemed to be resting, waiting as she was, pooled on her tongue the second her husband’s lips met the other man’s.
She tucked the garbage can to her chest, trying carefully to neither look any longer nor set off the horn. Not to mention the fact that she had to be extremely careful not to knock the gun laying on her lap around.
Elyssa knew precious little about handguns, much less how to shoot them. But after several months of the constant lies dripping from Jacob’s lips, she did as any woman would.
She bought one.
The clock ticked. Minutes turned to hours and her anxious wakefulness quickly turned to tiredness. She checked her phone for the umpteenth time and replied to yet another message from Jacob. The first one he sent was asking if she’d need anything before he came home. Of course, she replied with a simple ‘no.’ The next message, twenty or so minutes later, was him expressing his love for her. She replied almost mechanically. His words no longer made her feel like she was precious. She knew better.
The crack in her window allowed her to faintly hear the hotel door crack open again. She steadied the gun in her hand, easing the window down even further. Elyssa didn’t care if she missed, if she simply maimed Jacob, she just wanted to get her point across.
As she lifted her shaky hands and rested them against the car door’s ledge, something scratched against the vehicle. She jumped, completely startled. Her heart raced and she wondered if she’d been caught.
But it didn’t take long for her to figure it out. Just when she quickly put the gun down, attempting to hide it from anyone’s sight, she felt the cool metal of another gun. The barrel pressed hard against her temple. She gasped, but it was too late to say anything.
“You shouldn’t have meddled,” he said. The man’s voice was deep, much like Jacob’s. “You just shouldn’t have meddled.” The words fell from his lips like poison from a snake’s fangs just as the parking lot echoed with the sound of a gunshot.


- - -
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.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Jheri Brown

Contributor: Dave Riese

- -
A man in the gay fathers’ group is obsessed with Sully.
“What man?” I ask.
“Harold. You don’t know him.”
Apparently Harold joined the group after I stopped going. I don’t recognize the name. He’s in his fifties and came out when he divorced his wife. Sully, in his late twenties, thinks fifty is old. At least I have three years to go.
“He sits next to me at every meeting. Touches me whenever he has the chance. He’s not obnoxious about it. Barely brushes against me, little pats on my knee. And everything I say is the most interesting thing he’s ever heard.”
Sounds like my ex-lover Karl at his smarmiest, I think.
“And he kept asking me to come for dinner—”
Obviously Harold recognizes a weakness when he sees one. Sully enjoys eating more than anything else. Even sex, I sometimes think. Just ask his waistline. Not that Sully’s fat really, but he has a chubby, cherubic look about the face.
“You didn’t go, did you?” My futile hope to change history.
He shrugs his shoulders as if he’d had no choice. “Last Friday.”
“Sully, you have to learn to say no. Dinner was only a pretext.”
“I had an excuse to leave right after dinner. Instead the kitchen caught fire.”
“My God, what happened?”
“Not the whole kitchen. Just the curtains over the sink and some wallpaper but it was scary all the same. It wasn’t really my fault.”
As Sully tells it, Harold did all the cooking when he was married and loves to prepare elaborate meals. After his divorce, he hated going to all that trouble just for himself. “He said, if I came for dinner, he’d make a fantastic meal.” Sully planned to tell Harold the moment he arrived that he had to pick up his son at a neighbor’s house right after dinner.
“Kids are a great excuse,” I say, “until they get their license.”
“He met me at the door wearing a cravat and smoking jacket for God’s sake.”
“And you in your jeans.” Sully wore jeans, ripped in all the right places, everywhere.
“I wasn’t even in the door before he gave me a big hug, pushing his pelvis against my crotch.”
“I hate that.”
“And he was hard, let me tell you. Said how good it felt to hold me. And he smelled like he’d taken a bath in Old Spice.”
“Sounds like sexual assault to me,” I said. Harold could be Karl’s doppelgänger. Does something snap in a man’s brain when he turns fifty?
“Harold said dinner would be ready in half an hour. ‘In the meantime let me give you a tour of my apartment,’ he says. Like it’s a forty-room mansion for fuck’s sake! I could see most of it from the entry hall.”
“I’ll bet everything was immaculate. Like he licked every corner.”
“When we got to the boudoir, as he called it, Harold said he wanted to tell me his fantasy about what will happen after dinner. I must have turned beet red because he quickly said his description could wait until dessert.”
“Yah. You were dessert! When did the fire start?” Sully can never tell a short story.
“That was later. The main dish was coq au vin. Fabulously mouthwatering. Meanwhile all through dinner I prayed one of us would choke on a bone and be rushed to the hospital.”
“You could have pretended.”
“Yah, right. The last place I wanted Harold was behind me doing that Heimlich thing. After dinner, I offered to do the dishes before dessert, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He’d gone to a lot of trouble with dessert and couldn’t wait to unveil his pièce de résistance.” Sully took French in college so he can trill these phrases off his tongue.
“He’d made Bananas Foster. Something like that. I was in charge of the matches while he poured rum over it. I don’t know what went wrong but when I struck the match the dessert went off like a blow torch. What a stink those curtains made! Every smoke detector started honking.”
“Jeez. Now that’s a flaming queen.” Sully ignores my joke. Okay it wasn’t that funny. “He never interfered with you?”
“Oh, no. Not even close.”
“And you made your escape.” A dramatic end to the story.
“I did. He was happy to see me go actually.”
I lean across the sofa and put my arms around Sully. I’m happy Harold didn’t have his way with him. “You learned a valuable lesson, young man.”
“Yah?”
“When on a date: always carry a Molotov cocktail for emergencies.”
Sully laughs, already putting the mishap out of his mind. But I can’t dismiss it so quickly. Oh God, I pray, don’t let me become a Harold or a Karl.


- - -
While enjoying retirement, I am writing a novel which I hope to finish this year. Travelling, reading, gardening and visiting grandchildren are much more fun than working.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Dave Riese