Blue Shells: Translated Fiction and Interview with Toshiya Kamei

Blue Shells

by Naoko Awa (Translated by Toshiya Kamei)

I’m going to tell you the story of a mysterious flared skirt I used to own. Sadly, I no longer have it. When I became obsessed with the skirt, my family hid it from me. Shortly later, it was burned in the war.

But I have never forgotten the dazzling blue of the skirt. Even now, when I close my eyes, I can see the color.

The skirt was made of silk, with an amply wide hem, which was rare in those days. During the war, most women wore monpe pants. So you can imagine how I attracted attention, how people spoke ill of me.

I was never a stylish girl. As a child, I wore only my sister’s hand-me-downs. My looks were homely, and my intelligence was average. I was a quiet, ordinary girl, and there was nothing special about me. I’m going to tell you how I became smitten with the blue skirt.

When I was twelve or thirteen, I was friends with a very beautiful girl named Michiru. The daughter of a foreign father and a Japanese mother, she had eyes blue as an iris. She lived with her mother in an old Western-style residence near my house. No one had seen her father. Rumor had it he was an Italian trader, an American sailor, or a German officer.

“My father is on a ship. He’s in the middle of the Pacific Ocean,” said Michiru. “He came home late last night and gave me a present.” When she opened her palm, a necklace of shells spilled over.

I wanted to meet Michiru’s father, just once. But she never invited me to her house. No one had been inside the house surrounded by thick shrubs.

Even so, Michiru and I often played together. We went out and bought beautifully patterned chiyogami paper, showed each other boxes full of ribbons, and talked about books we read.

I was very fond of Michiru. When we walked together, she made passersby turn their heads. I was secretly proud of having such a beautiful friend.

One day – it was spring or early summer – Michiru came to my house. It was early afternoon, and the scent of thick green leaves wafted from the hedge.

“Michiru-san is in the back yard,” Mother said. I ran out the back door and found Michiru, whom I had last seen a few hours earlier. Wearing a new linen dress, she stood still.

“Yae-chan, can you keep a secret?” she whispered suddenly when she saw me. “I’ve come to say goodbye,” she said, lowering her voice.

I remained silent, stunned.

“We’re moving tonight,” she said.

“What? Where are you going?”

“A town by the sea. My mother’s home. But don’t tell anyone,” Michiri said and handed me a small package. “I give you this as a keepsake.”

“A keepsake? Is she going away for good?” I thought. Before I could say a word, Michiru left, as if fleeing. I still remember her white feet and her geta sandals echoing behind her. I unwrapped the package and found a blue flared skirt inside.

***

Blue Shells Original Manuscript

The next day I went to Michiru’s house. A crowd of people gathered around it. They looked at each other, whispered, and nodded: “Come to think of it, I heard a low clattering sound at night.”

“I see. He must have been using a typewriter.”

“That foreigner came out only at night, always hiding. No one had seen him by daylight.”

“I never imagined there was a spy in our neighborhood!”

A spy? My heart froze for a moment. Fear crept up my legs, then spread over my body. “It’s a lie! It’s not true!” I screamed inside my head, straining my ears to listen to the people in the crowd.

“The foreigner seems to have left early.”

“The wife and child followed him.”

It was the middle of war. Excited, the neighbors wondered about the whereabouts of the foreigner and his family.

“I hope they’ll get caught soon!” said the greengrocer’s wife, raising her fist into the air.

I screamed inside my head, “Run, Michiru! Run!” I prayed she and her parents would escape safely.

My knees buckling, I staggered away. I held a secret – Michiru’s destination. She had told me not to tell anyone.

As I walked, I kept telling myself not to reveal this secret. Even if the whole world turned against Michiru, I was still her friend.

The neighbors knew she and I were close friends. When they saw me in the street, they asked me all kinds of questions – whether I had met her father, or how her family lived. Every time they asked me a question, I told them I didn’t know. After a few days, I didn’t feel like going out.

I shut myself up in my room and thought about Michiru all day. I had a nightmare every night. I dreamed someone was pursuing me.

A town by the sea – these words weighed heavily on my mind, and my heart began to ache as if someone had died. For a twelve-year-old girl, it was a daunting task to keep a secret to herself.

***

One night I jolted awake by the same recurring nightmare. I slid a drawer of the chest open and took out the blue skirt Michiru had given me.

I put on the skirt. Since she was tall, it was too long for me. “I’ll have to raise the hem,” I whispered. I opened the workbox, found a blue thread, and passed it through the eye of a needle. I don’t know why I started needlework in the middle of night.

At any rate, I decided to raise the hem about five centimeters. But sewing the hem of the flared skirt was a lot of work. The hem was incredibly wide. Besides, the skirt was made of thin silk, and no matter how many times I stitched, I made little progress. The needle seemed to be motionless or moving backward.

As I kept moving the needle slowly, I thought about Michiru. I wondered where she was, how she was doing. After a while, the hem of the skirt began to look like the edge of the sea, like the long, arching shore.

Then I thought I heard Michiru’s footsteps from inside the cloth. She was running alone.

For some reason, she had no shoes on. She ran along the beach barefoot. I stood on the shore while the waves foamed, making white lace-like patterns on the sand.

“Michiru!” I cried in spite of myself, and broke into a run. The sand felt soft and wet under my feet. I, too, was barefooted. “Michiru, wait!” I kept calling her, but she didn’t look back. She ran faster and faster.

“Why, Michiru? I’m doing everything to keep your secret,” I thought. I watched her figure grow smaller and smaller in the distance.

On the verge of tears, I sat down. Then I saw her crouch down in the distance. She seemed to be picking up something. Or had she fallen down and wasn’t able to get up? Feeling sad, I stood up and plodded toward her.

I went up to her and called her from behind: “Michiru!”

Then she finally looked back. “It’s you, Yae-chan,” she said, flashing a friendly smile. “I’m gathering shells. Look, blue ones,” she said. She opened her palm, revealing a shell. It was small and thin as a cherry-blossom shell, but it was blue.

“Beautiful,” I mumbled. “I’ve never seen such a beautiful shell.”

Michiru gave a cheerful smile and said, “I’m gathering shells. I want to make a necklace.”

“A necklace?” I asked.

“Yes. We once made a necklace with camellias in the temple,” she said. “I want to make a long one with these shells. But I can’t focus on gathering shells. Every time I find one, someone comes after me.” She looked up and strained her ears. “Do you hear footsteps?” she said with an edge of fear in her voice. “It’s not just one person. There are three or five.”

“I don’t hear anything. That’s the sound of waves,” I said, laughing.

Then we went back to picking up shells. After gathering a few, however, Michiru looked up again and said, “I hear footsteps. Not just one person. It’s ten or twenty people.”

“I don’t hear anything except the sound of the wind,” I said and laughed again.

Looking worried, Michiru nodded and began to look for shells again. But soon she cried, “I hear footsteps. They’re after me!”

She got up and ran. The shells fell from her skirt, scattering over her feet. They had the same color as the sea. When I held a shell against the sun, it became tinted with purple, filtering the sunlight. Captivated by the beautiful shells, I didn’t go after Michiru. I stayed there for a long time.

When I realized it, she was only a dot in the distance.

“Michiru! Michiru!” I called her as a burst of wind scattered my voice. I kept calling her. “Michiru! Michiru!”

A voice called me from beyond the sea. “Yae-chan, Yae-chan.” Beyond the sound of the wind, a familiar voice kept calling me.

When I looked back, I saw a naked light bulb flicker over my head. The shoji door slid open, and my older sister peeked in. “Yae-chan, what’s the matter? You were screaming,” she said.

Later, she told me I was shaking, looking pale. With my eyes hollow, I looked as if I had a fit.

***

A few days later, I heard a rumor about Michiru. In her mother’s hometown, she and her mother threw themselves into the sea. I wondered if she, a blue-eyed girl, met with a cold reception over there. Or the rumors about her father had already reached the town.

Then I became captivated by Michiru’s blue skirt. I wanted to see her again. As my longing to see her grew, I started acting boldly.

After school, I slipped into the skirt, went out shopping, and went to a friend’s house. “You shouldn’t wear a foreigner’s skirt,” my friends said. “She looks like one of them,” they said behind my back.

But it didn’t bother me. As I walked, the hem of the skirt swirled, making me feel cheerful. When I ran through the wind, I felt as if I were floating in the air. When I played jump rope with my friends, I was able to jump higher than before. When I jumped really high, I thought I caught a glimpse of the sea beyond the roofs of houses. Yes, beyond the sea, I saw an island carpeted with evening primroses.

“Yae-chan, you’re like a bird,” my friends said.

Oh, how I wished I were a bird! I wished I could fly to the beach where Michiru and I had gathered shells. Maybe it was a faraway island. Those beautiful shells weren’t found anywhere in Japan.

When I thought about the blue shells, my heart became tight with yearning, tears welling up. My family kept an eye on me from a distance. One day when I came home from an errand, I discovered the blue skirt was gone. Maybe my mother locked it up in a drawer. But no one ever mentioned it again. No matter how many times I asked, I received no answer.

A few years later, the skirt was lost in the fire.

_________________________________________________________

Naoko Awa, 1943-1993

Q&A with Translator Toshiya Kamei

Q: Tell me about yourself.

A: I’m the translator of The Curse of Eve and Other Stories (Host Publications, 2008) by Liliana Blum and The Fox’s Window and Other Stories (UNO Press, forthcoming) by Naoko Awa. My other translations have appeared in Straight to Darkness (Kurodahan Press, 2006), The Global Game (University of Nebraska Press, 2008), and Sudden Fiction Latino (W.W. Norton, 2010).

Q: Where are you from?

A: I was born in Saitama, Japan, and went college in New Mexico.

Q: Are you still a student at the University of Arkansas?

A: No, I graduated in May 2008.

Q: What is your degree in?

A: I hold an MFA in Literary Translation from the University of Arkansas, where I was the 2006-2007 Carolyn Walton Fellow in Translation. Excerpts from my thesis, a translation of Spanish writer Espido Freire’s novel Irlanda, have appeared in Fairy Tale Review, The Modern Review, and Words without Borders. At Arkansas, I also studied fiction with Molly Giles and poetry with Geoffrey Brock.

Q: What is your first language?

A: I spoke Japanese at home and learned English and Spanish at school.

Q: How many languages do you speak? What are they?

A: I have taken graduate courses in Spanish. I have traveled in Spanish-speaking countries, such as Mexico, Peru, and Spain.

Q: What are your goals?

A: I hope to get married and start a family.

Q: What are your hobbies?

A: Reading and traveling.

Q: How did you come across “Blue Shells” to translate?

A: The story will be included in The Fox’s Window and Other Stories, Naoko Awa’s first story collection in English. I have selected and translated 30 stories she wrote during her literary career, which spanned three decades.

Q: Did you know Naoko Awa?

A: No. I read her stories as a child. I still own a yellowed copy of her book, which my parents bought me just as I was beginning to read independently. Some of the stories I have translated for the collection appeared in textbooks in Japan.

Q: What do you know about her?

A: If she were alive today, she would be my mother’s age. In Japan, she is known for her lyrical prose, which explores the intersection between humans and nature. It’s my honor to introduce her works to English-speaking readers.

Q: Do you write original pieces?

A: Yes. Not enough time, though.

Q: If so, can you tell me about them?

A: Maybe next time.

Q: Is there anything else you’d like to share?

A: The Fox’s Window and Other Stories by Naoko Awa will be published in 2010.

Hulking Leviathan the Sun – Brit Naylor

 

We allowed ourselves to believe no one cared where we were. We played hockey in the street. We slashed each other’s shins until we were bleeding, but no one would go back home for a band-aid, or to Mike Wheeler’s house, even though it was right there. Not one of us would even rinse his legs with the hose at the side of the house. There would be no profession of pain. When we were done, we spread out across the neighborhood, and one of us would strive to understand the nature of our Diaspora or else become delirious and slow in his wandering, fearful of how we were going to make him out to be dimwitted. We would taunt him. We would seek him out first when it was his turn to hide. It was a jocular love, a brotherly love; he was one of us, did he understand this? When we got tired of it, when even Joey Grabel had been found out on the roof of someone’s garage or, once, in a dumpster, when Mike said for the fifth time, I hate this stupid game, then we quit our stupid game and ran with bloody shins down Switcher toward the park. We played with a wilted football that arced like a comet toward the earth, a comet because more often than not we caught it, knowledgeable as we were of the shift and wobble of the sad flying object, made out above the sun like a silhouetted spacecraft or 

Armageddon right up until we caught it in our arms. Then we ran. We ran until our lungs were burning. And that fire was everywhere. 

        This was the summer, the last summer, before middle school, before girls, before drugs and social politics. The last summer where one of us didn’t want to smoke a cigarette, just to see, the last summer, in fact, before we realized that that hoarseness in our lungs some days was caused by the same force that made our sunsets beautiful, that turned them into orange leviathans crashing and turning the world to shadows. It was the last summer, for that matter, where we didn’t know what beauty was, but only how it felt, the last summer where everything was still like that, right down to our bloody shins. The last summer to be ignorant, to never guess that ignorance was what we would miss. The sun was so hot and we never really noticed it, though it baked the skin off our bodies in flakes, flakes we peeled perpetually, and with great zest, because we loved the way the husks of ourselves felt between our fingers. That summer heat rose up out of everything, hot flat rocks and sticky tar and dead grass, and Ms. Spitzer’s cats slunk about in the shadows of houses, looking tired and somehow ashamed; how could we have been unaffected? 

        We were affected, but we were guided by faith, a faith, the faith, older than Christ and written in our genes, a latent swan song stirred up by the simple act of existence. By the heat without us, within us, for it came, too, from our bones as they struggled, sprouted, and our dicks, they wanted to grow up without us. It seemed unfair. It was a conspiracy.  Our faith, our ineffable and obdurate faith led us on 

with the evening, away from the flagship of the sun which burned always whether or not we cared. 

        Our faith led us toward a holy place, a reprieve from the heat, for the rest of life would hold no such caesura until death. We were to exist in no other form, not yet, not just yet, and so we ran back from 

the park down Switcher, it was a race now, all of us becoming quick shadows of ourselves in the growing night, and we felt that we were part of some group of soldiers like from the videogames that our older 

brothers played, we couldn’t play them, it was the last summer before some of us could. The violence was sleeping in our steps, in our hands, as we fanned out, ducking between houses and through alleys, 

losing sight of one another but knowing we were all there. We passed Joey’s house, and Mike’s house, then Chris’s though they all looked the same. We were feeling our way. Sweat dripped down from our temples and between our shoulder blades, a tickle there. 

        We heard the roar of cars off ahead, that’s how close we were. The lights shimmied up from everything – the cars, the houses, the streetlights, the office buildings – and spread out like a haze, so 

there were no stars overhead, only Venus and the moon. Even in darkness we were half-lit. We could feel the blood moving just beneath our skin, believed we might be able to see it glow, even, were it not

for our modern world. We believed this somewhere deep down, in that place without cognitive thoughts, only secrets. That’s where we were going, after all. 

        We reached the rod iron gate in movements: the first of us scrambled over as the last of us emerged from between the houses, panting. We stripped down to our underwear, became fleshy apparitions in the fluorescent light from the Wal-Mart parking lot that filtered through the trees and got tangled in the pool, bounced against the blue tiles. And then we – 

        We jumped. We weren’t aware of our bodies, or each other, or the moon, or the beads of sweat that ran like strangled rivers. We weren’t aware, even, of the water, as it enveloped us. More, what it did: our condition was changed and, buoyant for a moment, we felt not what we were but what we weren’t, not anymore.

OHIO DRIVE

Geoffrey Spurgin

Inside the Dallas Police Department station, the day crew is hard at work trying to finger the guilty. 

“Hey, Wilson? You ever read the book Brave New World?” asks Peters. 

“Shoot! Been since high school.” 

“Well, what’d your teacher tell you you were suppose to get from it?” 

“You mean like, what’s the author trying to tell us? Well, I suppose it’s a cautionary tale of the potential evils when you mess with the Almighty’s work.” 

“Well, I’ll be. I didn’t get that at all. Sure, I was scared and all at first, but then I got to thinking. That Bernard fellow was a miserable son of a bitch. Everyone else round him was happy, so all he did was try to ruin the party. I kept thinkin’ Shut up man! Not everybody hates the world like you do.” 

“But Peters. Them were BRAINWASHED people. That’s the only reason they were happy.” 

“But still… they were happy.” 

Officer Jenkins jumps in. “Bernard was trying to free those people from their mental slavery. See, they was brainwashed in the beginning.” 

“Yeah, I know. But he was also freeing them from their happiness. Way I see, if you’re happy, you’re happy. No matter how you got there.  That’s the point. Happiness.” 

“But what about freedom?” asks Wilson. 

“Les ask the captain. Captain Cunningham? What’s more important, happiness or freedom?” shouts Jenkins. 

 

 

Power Lines - Geoffrey Spurgin

 

 

We allowed ourselves to believe no one cared where we were. We played hockey in the street. We slashed each other’s shins until we were bleeding, but no one would go back home for a band-aid, or to Mike Wheeler’s house, even though it was right there. Not one of us would even rinse his legs with the hose at the side of the house. There would be no profession of pain. When we were done, we spread out across the neighborhood, and one of us would strive to understand the nature of our Diaspora or else become delirious and slow in his wandering, fearful of how we were going to make him out to be dimwitted. We would taunt him. We would seek him out first when it was his turn to hide. It was a jocular love, a brotherly love; he was one of us, did he understand this? When we got tired of it, when even Joey Grabel had been found out on the roof of someone’s garage or, once, in a dumpster, when Mike said for the fifth time, I hate this stupid game, then we quit our stupid game and ran with bloody shins down Switcher toward the park. We played with a wilted football that arced like a comet toward the earth, a comet because more often than not we caught it, knowledgeable as we were of the shift and wobble of the sad flying object, made out above the sun like a silhouetted spacecraft or Armageddon right up until we caught it in our arms. Then we ran. We ran until our lungs were burning. And that fire was everywhere. 

        This was the summer, the last summer, before middle school, before girls, before drugs and social politics. The last summer where one of us didn’t want to smoke a cigarette, just to see, the last summer, in fact, before we realized that that hoarseness in our lungs some days was caused by the same force that made our sunsets beautiful, that turned them into orange leviathans crashing and turning the world to shadows. It was the last summer, for that matter, where we didn’t know what beauty was, but only how it felt, the last summer where everything was still like that, right down to our bloody shins. The last summer to be ignorant, to never guess that ignorance was what we would miss. The sun was so hot and we never really noticed it, though it baked the skin off our bodies in flakes, flakes we peeled perpetually, and with great zest, because we loved the way the husks of ourselves felt between our fingers. That summer heat rose up out of everything, hot flat rocks and sticky tar and dead grass, and Ms. Spitzer’s cats slunk about in the shadows of houses, looking tired and somehow ashamed; how could we have been unaffected? 

        We were affected, but we were guided by faith, a faith, the faith, older than Christ and written in our genes, a latent swan song stirred up by the simple act of existence. By the heat without us, within us, for it came, too, from our bones as they struggled, sprouted, and our dicks, they wanted to grow up without us. It seemed unfair. It was a conspiracy.  Our faith, our ineffable and obdurate faith led us on with the evening, away from the flagship of the sun which burned always whether or not we cared. 

        Our faith led us toward a holy place, a reprieve from the heat, for the rest of life would hold no such caesura until death. We were to exist in no other form, not yet, not just yet, and so we ran back from the park down Switcher, it was a race now, all of us becoming quick shadows of ourselves in the growing night, and we felt that we were part of some group of soldiers like from the videogames that our older brothers played, we couldn’t play them, it was the last summer before some of us could. The violence was sleeping in our steps, in our hands, as we fanned out, ducking between houses and through alleys, losing sight of one another but knowing we were all there. We passed Joey’s house, and Mike’s house, then Chris’s though they all looked the same. We were feeling our way. Sweat dripped down from our temples and between our shoulder blades, a tickle there. 

        We heard the roar of cars off ahead, that’s how close we were. The lights shimmied up from everything – the cars, the houses, the streetlights, the office buildings – and spread out like a haze, so there were no stars overhead, only Venus and the moon. Even in darkness we were half-lit. We could feel the blood moving just beneath our skin, believed we might be able to see it glow, even, were it not for our modern world. We believed this somewhere deep down, in that place without cognitive thoughts, only secrets. That’s where we were going, after all. 

        We reached the rod iron gate in movements: the first of us scrambled over as the last of us emerged from between the houses, panting. We stripped down to our underwear, became fleshy apparitions in the fluorescent light from the Wal-Mart parking lot that filtered through the trees and got tangled in the pool, bounced against the blue tiles. And then we – 

        We jumped. We weren’t aware of our bodies, or each other, or the moon, or the beads of sweat that ran like strangled rivers. We weren’t aware, even, of the water, as it enveloped us. More, what it did: our condition was changed and, buoyant for a moment, we felt not what we were but what we weren’t, not anymore.

Ohio Drive- Geoffrey Spurgin

 

Inside the Wylie Police Department station, the day crew is hard at work trying to finger the guilty. 

“Hey, Wilson? You ever read the book Brave New World?” asks Peters. 

“Shoot! Been since high school.” 

“Well, what’d your teacher tell you you were suppose to get from it?” 

“You mean like, what’s the author trying to tell us? Well, I suppose it’s a cautionary tale of the potential evils when you mess with the Almighty’s work.” 

“Well, I’ll be. I didn’t get that at all. Sure, I was scared and all at first, but then I got to thinking. That Bernard fellow was a miserable son of a bitch. Everyone else round him was happy, so all he did was try to ruin the party. I kept thinkin’ Shut up man! Not everybody hates the world like you do.” 

“But Peters. Them were BRAINWASHED people. That’s the only reason they were happy.” 

“But still… they were happy.” 

Officer Jenkins jumps in. “Bernard was trying to free those people from their mental slavery. See, they was brainwashed in the beginning.” 

“Yeah, I know. But he was also freeing them from their happiness. Way I see, if you’re happy, you’re happy. No matter how you got there.  That’s the point. Happiness.” 

“But what about freedom?” asks Wilson. 

“Les ask the captain. Captain Cunningham? What’s more important, happiness or freedom?” shouts Jenkins. 

“Hmmm . . . that’s a toughie. I gotta go with happiness. I mean, what’s  the point of freedom unless’n you’re happy? When you’re miserable, freedom don’t mean horseshit. If anything, you got nobody else to blame but yourself. That’d prolly tick me off even greater. No, I’d rather  have happiness.” 

“Well, I’ll be! Captain’s right! Happiness does sound much better than freedom,” says Wilson, slapping his knee. 

Just at that moment the radio on the wall speaks up. “Officers need  assistance at 2284 Ohio Drive.” 

“Wilson! Peters! You’re up!”

Another Day in the Dark: From the Chronicles of a 16th War – Eric Ladwig

 

Well, he could just lay there and wait to be killed.  He wasn’t sure what to do about this enclosing predicament.  It was either try something stupid or wait.  What there was to wait for was another intellectual dilemma.  He wasn’t angry.  He wasn’t annoyed.  He was just . . . there.  Felix Belazzio wasn’t sure if he should be bothered that he had no emotional response to his situation.  Probably a result of fighting so many fronts.  It was another ridiculous problem that should have never happened in the first place.  His predecessor obviously didn’t think this through.  And now it was his problem.

Surely, if he moved, the Vilentro would hear him.  He was sure they were gathering outside of the opening.  Unless they were taking a break.  He could hear their raspy voices gurgling in their tongues as quietly as they were able to talk.  Their concept of whispering always made their tones harsher rather than softer.  But that was not the problem Belazzio had to resolve today.  He had to continue with his mission or spawn back to base.   The Vilentro made both options harder than they seemed.

He poked around in his uniform one more time, pawing around for that disc that would make one of those options a better possibility.  He still could not find the marker.  He could have kicked it down or placed it in another pocket.  He supposed with the scramble to research his next mission and fumbling around for more magazines to reload, he could have slipped it anywhere.  And then he closed his eyes in shame for not carrying more than one in the first place.  But the confines of the box made it more unlikely a thorough search could be done without alerting his curious and raspy foes.

Belazzio wasn’t sure what to make of his cozy quarters.  Some equivalent of a ventilation shaft.  Or even more likely, some type of laundry or garbage chute.  It had a slight tilt to it.  He tried to look down to see what was below.  He saw a good portion of his crotch and the belt that seemed to be hanging by threads.  Other than that, his black uniform camouflaged him against the dark.  However, he did see the flashing red of the markers’ lights hanging on those threads.  They sat winking at him right next to the blinking green light of his shield generator like a row of Xmas lights.

He could slither down…like a Vilentro.  They looked more like bipedal salamanders to him.   If it wasn’t for the snake-like rhythm of their language, he supposed nobody would think of them as snake-like.  Domed heads, big black pool ball eyes, and a wide gaping mouth that opened like a trash lid was all that assembled their features.  He thought a child had drawn them; God lazily approved the design and sent it to the shop.

The crank of a door whistled down the shaft.  He hurriedly grabbed for his klank, but it was jammed between his thigh and the shaft wall.  The brushing noise he made seemed too loud, so he stopped.   There were no sounds, no voices, no rushing of feet; not even a humming of machinery.  There was just the pounding of his heart knocking against the metal wall.

And then came down some trash.  It looked like their version of a turnip slash potato and some meat that he allowed to pass along the side and continue its journey down.  The turnip he trapped with his chin and rolled towards a hand to slip it under his waist.  The meat he didn’t want to think about.  It made him think of his crippled uncle who had been enslaved by the Vilentro.  He didn’t want to know.  He didn’t need the anger.  He didn’t need an excuse to hate the Vilentro more; he needed a thought.

He managed to pull one arm free and felt around for the laser knife from his undercoat.  There it was, like a miniature light saber.  It made a hissing sound like crawfish boiling in water as it seared into the vent wall.  It was quiet enough that his cruel counterparts indicated no revelation to his whereabouts.  Such as “Do you hear something?  I think that other human is in the garbage chute.  Let’s drop some grenades on his head.  Heehee.”  He picked a spot under his eye and made a small hole.  The power shut down.  Something turned off.  Not like he could see anything except the shaft and the grate.  Now, he was in the shaft and the dark.

He removed the knife and peered into the hole.  Just as he suspected.  Complete blackness.  Next problem, how to pray fast enough that God would prevent the snakeheads from discovering he was the culprit.  Eventually have their way with him, grinding him up so he could be aside a couple of turnips.  Now, he was annoyed; maybe getting frustrated.  Felix was then reflecting on what fucking idiot dropped a marker down a shaft where he spawned.  Not only that, but not stick around and cover his drop! 

He knew it wasn’t worth this much grief.  As far as he knew, it was an accident.  And there were only three choices available to him.  One, crawl up, catch the Vilentro by surprise and continue with the mission.  He wasn’t even able to turn on his shield.  It would probably be suicide.  His armor would protect him only to a point.   Two, make a hole in the shaft, and then hope it leads to a safe avenue to return on course, or safe enough to spawn back home.  He might drop into a chasm or Vilentro’s arms or a legion’s gymnasium.  He could wave to them before they start shooting.  Be friendly, first.

Three, crawl down and pray it’s not a furnace at the end.  

He crawled down, slowly, stopping periodically to check on his peers above him. There were no changes in their behavior.  Perhaps content with their victory over his predecessor.  He moved quicker now, confident he was far enough along that they could not hear him.  Some luck, here came some more trash.  He moved faster, using the trash as a cover for his movements.  He kicked something.  It was metal.  It rolled, bounced and splashed.  The marker.  It must have been the marker.  The one the soldier before him had dropped into the shaft.

It wasn’t that far.  Maybe another twenty feet.  Belazzio was feeling no heat from below or around him.  It could be water.  It could be worse.  It could have fallen into the kitchen soup surrounded by hungry and angry Vilentro.  Belazzio’s imagination never helped him in the military life.  It seemed to hurt him as he dreamed up the worst scenarios.

An intense hiss echoed off the walls.  The Vilentro may have found him.  The grate opened.  He could see the silhouetted dome of one of the salamanders, hissing hysterically.  A beam of red light shimmered off the walls and caught him with his eyes squinting for breath.  The others hissed in agreement that they had truly discovered the human soldier and seemed to hiss in quite a long discussion about how to dispose of him.  

While they discussed, for what seemed like hours but was most likely seconds, Belazzio grabbed the laser knife and sliced a hole big enough to free his arm.  With his arm free, he plugged a few digits in the band which was wrapped around his opposite arm.  Felix furiously retyped as it clicked in error every time he hit the wrong keys.  Pellets burrowed into his armored shoulders, burning like welder coals.  He knew it was a lot worse, but the pain increased after each digit was pressed.  A pellet bounced off his helmet.  Keep your head down.    

At last, the final digit pressed and the sound of a flock of birds swallowed in a vacuum followed up the shaft.  He thrust down the shaft, hoping the portal was directly below him.  A grenade began to chase after him;  his hands slipping against the metal, goo and his gloves.  He pushed rapidly like a rushing salamander;  the grenade hopping happily towards him.  His legs dropped below his waist as he fell.  Instinctively, his finger was poised on the release button to collapse the portal so the grenade would not finish him off on the other end.  He saw a horizon of a lime-green pool of acid surround him as he was enveloped by the portal and landed on his back against the floor of the T’ip room.  The portal closed and he was alone again.  But not in the dark or in the shaft.

 

Well, he could just lay there and wait to be killed.  He wasn’t sure what to do about this enclosing predicament.  It was either try something stupid or wait.  What there was to wait for was another intellectual dilemma.  He wasn’t angry.  He wasn’t annoyed.  He was just . . . there.  Felix Belazzio wasn’t sure if he should be bothered that he had no emotional response to his situation.  Probably a result of fighting so many fronts.  It was another ridiculous problem that should have never happened in the first place.  His predecessor obviously didn’t think this through.  And now it was his problem.

Surely, if he moved, the Vilentro would hear him.  He was sure they were gathering outside of the opening.  Unless they were taking a break.  He could hear their raspy voices gurgling in their tongues as quietly as they were able to talk.  Their concept of whispering always made their tones harsher rather than softer.  But that was not the problem Belazzio had to resolve today.  He had to continue with his mission or spawn back to base.   The Vilentro made both options harder than they seemed.

He poked around in his uniform one more time, pawing around for that disc that would make one of those options a better possibility.  He still could not find the marker.  He could have kicked it down or placed it in another pocket.  He supposed with the scramble to research his next mission and fumbling around for more magazines to reload, he could have slipped it anywhere.  And then he closed his eyes in shame for not carrying more than one in the first place.  But the confines of the box made it more unlikely a thorough search could be done without alerting his curious and raspy foes.

Belazzio wasn’t sure what to make of his cozy quarters.  Some equivalent of a ventilation shaft.  Or even more likely, some type of laundry or garbage chute.  It had a slight tilt to it.  He tried to look down to see what was below.  He saw a good portion of his crotch and the belt that seemed to be hanging by threads.  Other than that, his black uniform camouflaged him against the dark.  However, he did see the flashing red of the markers’ lights hanging on those threads.  They sat winking at him right next to the blinking green light of his shield generator like a row of Xmas lights.

He could slither down…like a Vilentro.  They looked more like bipedal salamanders to him.   If it wasn’t for the snake-like rhythm of their language, he supposed nobody would think of them as snake-like.  Domed heads, big black pool ball eyes, and a wide gaping mouth that opened like a trash lid was all that assembled their features.  He thought a child had drawn them; God lazily approved the design and sent it to the shop.

The crank of a door whistled down the shaft.  He hurriedly grabbed for his klank, but it was jammed between his thigh and the shaft wall.  The brushing noise he made seemed too loud, so he stopped.   There were no sounds, no voices, no rushing of feet; not even a humming of machinery.  There was just the pounding of his heart knocking against the metal wall.

 

Moon Landing - Geoffrey Spurgin

 

 

And then came down some trash.  It looked like their version of a turnip slash potato and some meat that he allowed to pass along the side and continue its journey down.  The turnip he trapped with his chin and rolled towards a hand to slip it under his waist.  The meat he didn’t want to think about.  It made him think of his crippled uncle who had been enslaved by the Vilentro.  He didn’t want to know.  He didn’t need the anger.  He didn’t need an excuse to hate the Vilentro more; he needed a thought.

He managed to pull one arm free and felt around for the laser knife from his undercoat.  There it was, like a miniature light saber.  It made a hissing sound like crawfish boiling in water as it seared into the vent wall.  It was quiet enough that his cruel counterparts indicated no revelation to his whereabouts.  Such as “Do you hear something?  I think that other human is in the garbage chute.  Let’s drop some grenades on his head.  Heehee.”  He picked a spot under his eye and made a small hole.  The power shut down.  Something turned off.  Not like he could see anything except the shaft and the grate.  Now, he was in the shaft and the dark.

He removed the knife and peered into the hole.  Just as he suspected.  Complete blackness.  Next problem, how to pray fast enough that God would prevent the snakeheads from discovering he was the culprit.  Eventually have their way with him, grinding him up so he could be aside a couple of turnips.  Now, he was annoyed; maybe getting frustrated.  Felix was then reflecting on what fucking idiot dropped a marker down a shaft where he spawned.  Not only that, but not stick around and cover his drop! 

He knew it wasn’t worth this much grief.  As far as he knew, it was an accident.  And there were only three choices available to him.  One, crawl up, catch the Vilentro by surprise and continue with the mission.  He wasn’t even able to turn on his shield.  It would probably be suicide.  His armor would protect him only to a point.   Two, make a hole in the shaft, and then hope it leads to a safe avenue to return on course, or safe enough to spawn back home.  He might drop into a chasm or Vilentro’s arms or a legion’s gymnasium.  He could wave to them before they start shooting.  Be friendly, first.

Three, crawl down and pray it’s not a furnace at the end.  

He crawled down, slowly, stopping periodically to check on his peers above him. There were no changes in their behavior.  Perhaps content with their victory over his predecessor.  He moved quicker now, confident he was far enough along that they could not hear him.  Some luck, here came some more trash.  He moved faster, using the trash as a cover for his movements.  He kicked something.  It was metal.  It rolled, bounced and splashed.  The marker.  It must have been the marker.  The one the soldier before him had dropped into the shaft.

It wasn’t that far.  Maybe another twenty feet.  Belazzio was feeling no heat from below or around him.  It could be water.  It could be worse.  It could have fallen into the kitchen soup surrounded by hungry and angry Vilentro.  Belazzio’s imagination never helped him in the military life.  It seemed to hurt him as he dreamed up the worst scenarios.

 

Boy Rides Lizard - Geoffrey Spurgin

 

 

An intense hiss echoed off the walls.  The Vilentro may have found him.  The grate opened.  He could see the silhouetted dome of one of the salamanders, hissing hysterically.  A beam of red light shimmered off the walls and caught him with his eyes squinting for breath.  The others hissed in agreement that they had truly discovered the human soldier and seemed to hiss in quite a long discussion about how to dispose of him.  

While they discussed, for what seemed like hours but was most likely seconds, Belazzio grabbed the laser knife and sliced a hole big enough to free his arm.  With his arm free, he plugged a few digits in the band which was wrapped around his opposite arm.  Felix furiously retyped as it clicked in error every time he hit the wrong keys.  Pellets burrowed into his armored shoulders, burning like welder coals.  He knew it was a lot worse, but the pain increased after each digit was pressed.  A pellet bounced off his helmet.  Keep your head down.    

At last, the final digit pressed and the sound of a flock of birds swallowed in a vacuum followed up the shaft.  He thrust down the shaft, hoping the portal was directly below him.  A grenade began to chase after him;  his hands slipping against the metal, goo and his gloves.  He pushed rapidly like a rushing salamander;  the grenade hopping happily towards him.  His legs dropped below his waist as he fell.  Instinctively, his finger was poised on the release button to collapse the portal so the grenade would not finish him off on the other end.  He saw a horizon of a lime-green pool of acid surround him as he was enveloped by the portal and landed on his back against the floor of the T’ip room.  The portal closed and he was alone again.  But not in the dark or in the shaft.

Lake Progress- Brittney Dillard

 

        In every love story written across time, there’s always been a sacred meeting place. It’s a cliché of the genre, but one we never get tired of because just as the characters grow inside of our hearts with the love that consumes them both, that place becomes a magic arena of spellbinding feelings that are all too human. When Romeo first declared his star-crossed love for Juliet, it was beneath a simple balcony that has lived on in our hearts for ages. When the prince kissed Snow White and awakened her from an eternity of slumber, it was in a bright forest haven that became the very center of all our childhood fantasies. 

Cicada - Kelly Jacobi

            When I shared my first truly heartfelt moment with Rebecca Tidwell, it was at Lake Progress. We were ten, uncertain of what the future held, and pushing on the boundaries of that beautiful thing they call childhood love. 

            She’d taken my hand at recess that day and told me to meet her there at evening, when the sun had just floated beyond the horizon. I’d told her yes right in front of my friends, of course, not caring about the speculative looks or sing-song teases. Only thinking about the way her brown eyes looked in her wind-chapped face when she’d turned it to me, streaking gentle tears from the harsh winter winds. Only looking at that pair of perfect pink lips, and thinking about how many times I’d tried to work up the nerve to kiss them. How many times had it been at Lake Progress? More times than not, that was for sure. There was always too much going on around us, anywhere else. Too many parents at either of our houses. Too many kids at school. 

            But Lake Progress was our romantic haven– the place we could go where nobody could get to us. It was Juliet’s balcony. Snow White’s forest haven. The place where, no matter how many times we tried to cuddle but lost our nerve, there was nobody around to notice but her and me. 

            I was nervous the whole way coming. I shuffled along the deserted streets of Progress, Washington with a billion things going on at once inside my gut, tying my intestines into solid knots and giving me yet another unwanted promise that I’d do something foolish to ruin the evening. What would it be this time? There were lots of ways you could ruin a perfect evening. Missing the girl’s lips, for one thing.  Accidentally kissing her in the wrong place, ending up with your kiss on her chin or nose instead of lips. 

            Everything about love is complicated. It’s like unwritten law. Anyone who believes otherwise should just look at Romeo and Juliet. They both died in the end, didn’t they? 

            I never would have known that I had made it all the way to Lake Progress if Rebecca hadn’t have called out to me. I’d been looking at the ground, watching my feet as they trudged through the melting snow, trying to steady that hard feeling in the bottom of my stomach. It felt like I’d swallowed lots of milk. Lots and lots of bad, out-dated, curdled milk. All the while trying to gather together a nice, sweep-you-off-your-feet romantic monologue that I was certain to forget. 

            When she said my name, that about did it. Every romantic word tumbled down into the snow. 

            “Daniel!” She called from a place next to me but fairly distant. Her voice echoed among the trees, filling the air with the sweet, familiar tone. “Daniel, where are you going? I’m over here!” 

 

Fallen - Layla Blackshear

 

 

            My head snapped up to regard her. And there she was, the way I’d always known her and would probably remember her for the rest of my life perching contentedly on that fallen log on the bank of the lake, an expression on her face that said she could remain there forever. The breeze had combed her hair back from her brow. Her cheeks were stung and mildly red, no doubt courtesy of the wind that had spilled her eyes at recess. 

            My cheeks were red, too. And hot. But it had nothing to do with the wind. 

            I raised my hand in a wave, trying to hide the uncontrolled blush that had crept to my cheeks. But it was a little too late now, wasn’t it? Dang it. Two minutes into the thing, and I was already screwing up. 

*          *         *

            “Oh. Hey, Rebecca,” I croaked miserably, managing to meet her eyes. Managing to smile, too, though it must have looked like I was trying not to cry. “Uhh . . . What’s up?” 

            She promptly returned the smile, making my heart pitter-patter like a caught plastic bag in the wind. She moved one of her hands next to her and patted the empty space on the log . . . A spot that was maybe a foot and a half in length. Just big enough for the both of us, but not big enough to allow a lot of space. My heart thumped again, this time so dramatically I saw black spots in my vision. Would her shoulder be touching mine? Would the breeze be just enough to waft her sweet fragrance to my nose, the wind just enough to let her hair tickle my face? 

            “Come and sit down, Daniel. You look lost.” 

            I smiled. Lost. That was a good word for it. Lost, and hoping to be found again. If I could only do this right. If I could only do this one moment right. 

            I circled around the lake and made my way toward our au naturale little loveseat. Sometimes she’d joke and say it was made for us. She’d say that God, the Holy Spirit or whoever looked over us all had made that log fall in that very spot, and made it exactly the right size for the both of us. Who says love can’t be written in the stars? “I think this is proof right here,” She’d said, laughing in a way that marked an obvious amusement. Laughing in a way that, no matter how badly we called it a joke, would always hold something just a little bit serious. 

            We were both really young, but I think we both knew that she did mean it. In a frivolous way, of course; but in a way that would mark Lake Progress for us for a lifetime. Looking at her now, remembering her saying those words, I couldn’t help but feel it too. We did belong together, didn’t we? If not forever, than for the moment. Just for this sweet, isolated little moment. 

             When I finally sat down next to her on the log, my nervousness caused me to do it a little too hard. I bit my tongue, let out a small curse beneath my breath and instantly came to the conclusion that I’d ruined the entire evening, no matter how hard I’d tried to play it smooth. But when I looked up at her, sure I’d see an expression that showed she was embarrassed or uncomfortable or just slightly unsure, I saw nothing but the side of her face. Her profile. Looking out at the surface of Lake Progress, the way she always did when we came out here on our romantic little adventures. 

            Looking out with that admiring look in her eyes, as if everything beautiful in life had unfolded right out in front of her. 

            A small smile touched the corners of my mouth. I wasn’t sure why it was there, but there was something I loved about seeing her do that. It just seemed so . . . Rebecca. Just a mere component to the complicated girl of my childhood dreams. 

            “See anything interesting?” I asked, trying to play it cool, looking at the ground beneath my feet. For probably the first time, I noticed it was full dark. Just how long had I been walking? Long enough to create and forget two romantic monologues, but there was no telling how much daylight that had taken. 

            After a second’s worth of hesitation, just long enough to make me feel as if she’d completely ignored me, she turned back to me. She pointed at the lake as she did it, acting as if she didn’t want to divert a single moment of her attention. Look, Daniel, Her posture seemed to say. Look, so I don’t have to tell you. 

            “The lake. It looks really pretty tonight,” She commented, turning back to look at it as soon as she got the chance. I followed the direction of her gaze, unable to help letting loose a gusty sigh. Not because I didn’t want to look at the lake, but because I’d sort of been hoping she’d lean in, kiss me and get it all over with. I could say she’s never been cruel to me, but I don’t think that’s entirely true. Anticipation is intolerable cruelty. 

            The moon was a pale yellow globe sitting right in the center of the water, wavering with each ripple the surface traveled in the wind. The water looked pitch-black like tar, ominous, if you really wanted to be honest about it, but that didn’t seem to matter when the moon was hanging out above. There was something about it that made me feel strangely safe; weirdly at home. Something in the shallow craters that reflected neatly off the surface of the water, watching us like guardian eyes. 

            Rebecca giggled at the moment I thought this. It cut deep into my soul, jolting me out of a daydream that seemed all too willing to suck me in . . . but, perhaps a little more than that, it warmed me. The butterflies took immediate flight in my stomach. 

 

Reflected Leaves - Elena Harding

 

 

            “It looks just like it did that one night. Don’t you remember?” She asked, turning toward me again. Now she was grinning brightly, her deep brown eyes highlighted with the reflection of the guardian moon above us. I could see it everywhere on her face, I thought. Even on her lips . . . which looked so darned tempting. 

            I managed to snap myself out of it long enough to answer her question. “On what night? Remember what?” 

            She laughed, again. This time there was no giggle involved; just laughter, the tinkling little peals that always turned my heart into a melting pot. It made me smile again. Save for Rebecca and the spare little adventures with my four best friends, nothing in the world could ever make me smile this much. 

            “The song, silly! Don’t you remember the song?” She asked, still smiling widely. She grabbed both my hands in hers, something that normally would have turned my stomach over . . . But that didn’t happen, tonight. Tonight, it just felt right. 

            Tonight, everything felt right. 

            “It was stuck in your head all day, and you couldn’t stop singing it. Remember?” She asked again, this time pulling on me. I just caught myself from falling off the log, right into her lap. 

            Another loud, tinkling laugh. “I told you that if we danced to it, it wouldn’t be stuck in your head anymore! And you said it worked.” 

            I thought on this, briefly. And then, suddenly, it did hit me. I felt a brief stab of anger at myself for not remembering it quicker, but Rebecca didn’t appear offended. Simply amused. If there were such things as miracles working in the air that night, I believe that was one of them; because that moment in our relationship had been the most important one of all. The moment. The moment to best them all; because nothing had ever felt better than the cattails whickering against our legs as we danced to my clumsy, broken hum. Nothing had ever felt as good as to hold her in my arms that tightly and say it was justified, no matter how many times we stepped on each other’s toes and laughed until we got cramps. 

            By the smile that must have come to my face —and probably the blush, most likely highlighted by the betraying moonlight—Rebecca instantly knew that I remembered. She clutched my hands even tighter, and scooted ever closer next to me on our loveseat from the Gods. It almost knocked me off, but that wouldn’t have mattered. I don’t think I would have even noticed. 

            “Do you remember now?” She asked eagerly, flapping my hands a little. “Do you remember the song?” 

            I nodded. Here it was, right on the tip of my tongue again. We might even have to dance the thing back out of my head, if I kept on thinking about it. Pity. 

            “Yeah,” I said, looking at her face once again. My stomach seemed to have settled, now, and an optimistic part of me thought it was for good. “Yeah, I remember. I don’t remember the name of it . . . But I think it was sung by—” 

            “Tim McGraw,” Rebecca finished, giving me a lingering, affectionate look before stealing another at the shimmering lake. 

            It lasted a while. Surprisingly, I no longer cared. Before, I thought it would have meant everything to get to kiss her for the first time in a relationship that felt like it’d gone on forever, but now it didn’t seem to matter as much. The memory had taken it all away. The memory, and that sweet look of combined understanding that had passed between us as we’d both recollected. A short relationship makes kisses—but a long one makes memories. 

            I was just about to pull loose of her hands when she turned back to me. Once again, the moon shimmered like a silver Goddess in her eyes, but this time her glance was not one of amusement. This time it was serious. Serious, but not hard . . . More as if she were looking inside a crystal ball, and evaluating her distant future. 

            I normally didn’t mind if she looked at me, but that particular gaze made me uncomfortable. I shifted my eyes. 

            “What’s the matter?” I asked tentatively. 

            At my discomfort, the serious look dissolved and she smiled. Her hands tightened on mine, and I was helpless to do anything but look back into her eyes . . . Something that I would never grow to regret, no matter how many years I lived. There’s something about a first crush that’s just . . . powerful. Something about knowing that life could possibly exist just to make us feel this way. This whole. 

            “Nothing. Nothing’s the matter, really,” She replied, not looking away. Still looking stunned, and oddly reverent. “It’s just your eyes. They’re so . . . Blue. They’re beautiful.” 

            My heart dropped into my stomach, as relentlessly as a sky diver falling without a parachute. My cheeks bloomed a hot and powerful red, and I was preparing to aim my eyes to the side and mumble some semblance of a well-meant but under-said ‘thank you’ . . . but her next action made it obsolete. 

            With one last spare smile, she scooted a bit closer to me on the log and leaned her head against my shoulder. Eventually it slipped to my chest, where I at first believed her to be asleep . . . But after a while of listening to her breathing, watching the form of the girl I’d admired since pre-school reclining on my very own body, I realized she wasn’t sleeping at all. Her eyes were positioned upward, studying something above us that could have been the moon . . . maybe even the rustling leaves of cold, ice-buried trees. 

            But some part of me deep down inside doubted that. 

            I thought she was looking up at the night sky. 

            Perhaps looking to see if, as she’d mentioned earlier, true love could really be written in the stars. 

 

Beehive - Layla Blackshear

Under the Desert Moon – Geoffrey Spurgin

The desert horizon swallows the sun, darkening its stony, shattered teeth into a uniform black set against the blood red sky. It won’t be long before the upper pallet chomps down this dry earth, leaving us in the dark to fear mysteries. 

“I god damn that moon! Be not fer it, I’d imagine them stars not like its arid surface. Those stars sparkle like water. . . huh . . . bet they as dry as this here land. Bet I’d prayed on all those sons of bitches one time or another… they was just too far away to know better.”

“You ain’t god damned nothin but yer mother at birth. Now shut it!”

They wouldn’t sleep well, but they’d sleep enough. Enough to live but not live well. They may have been sworn enemies or soul mates; neither could quite tell. One may blame the other for their hurtin’ but it’s no fault of man. Would scare them to death to be apart. No, there was just never enough good to feed two. So both shared and had little and suffered, but they suffered together. If ignorance is bliss, then surely there is a heaven, but these two atheists would never be admitted. 

One Year Later - Eli Brown

 

A Few Moments More – Julie Cox

    Death came for me early.  Like any lady, I made him wait.

    ”I’m not ready,” I told him as I let him in the front door.

    He pushed back his hood, wiped his feet on the mat and hung his scythe on the hat rack.  He looked like a man in his forties, with a receding hairline and a big Adam’s apple.  There was an unexpected gentleness about him, a patience.  He smiled, almost kind.  ”You don’t know how many times a day I hear that.”

    ”I’m sure.  Now just you wait there, I’ll be with you momentarily.  Would you like a cup of coffee?”  I asked.

    ”Yes, please,” Death answered.  He sat down on my leather sofa, next to the embroidered pillow that said ‘Bless This Mess.’  He admired my afghan, which lay across the back of the sofa.  ”Did you make this?”

    ”Yes I did, but that was years ago, before the arthritis set in.”  I went into the kitchen, where I had made a pot of coffee a half hour before.  There wasn’t much left; I hadn’t been expecting company.  I poured him a cup in one of my good coffee cups, the Desert Rose pattern.  While I was in there I turned the gas stove on.  There was a gas leak; I hadn’t used the stove in a week.  Lucky that I hadn’t managed to get it fixed yet.  When I came back into the living room, Death was flipping through an old issue of Redbook, chuckling at the anti-aging tips.  

    ”Thank you for your patience,” I said.  ”Do you need any cream or sugar?”

    ”No thank you, I prefer it black,” he said with a friendly wink.  ”Just don’t be too long, alright?”

    ”Of course.”  I handed Death his coffee, and he sipped it politely while I went around the house.  I brought my step stool over to the hall closet and got my wedding album down, along with the picture of my grandparents, faded to a dull red, the color of the dirt road outside.  Next to the bedroom, where I fished my will and Social Security card out of the back of my nightstand.  I had a roll of cash in my front left bedpost; I got that too.  I picked up the few pieces of good jewelry I had – the real stuff. Most importantly, I got my house insurance papers together.

    I went out to the storm cellar, where I had a fireproof box.  I put my treasures in the box.  I walked back to the house the long way, through the side garden, taking a last look around.  The moonvine was flowering, ghostly white in the glow from the back porch, mixed up with the morning glories and the four o’clocks, which were all tightly closed up.  It was good work, that garden.  I would miss it more than most other things.  

    I went in the side door to my bedroom, where I’d been sorting old sweaters to keep or to take to the Salvation Army earlier that evening.  My body lay sprawled across the clothes on the floor at a very uncomfortable angle.  I rubbed my chest; it still tingled.  Who knew the dead could feel pain?  Having your heart stop is far more painful than most people know.  I knelt by my body and pried the pack of Salem Lights out from under what was once my knee.  I lit one crooked cigarette and drew in a deep lungful of smoke.  I’d been trying to quit.  If I’d known I would die of a heart attack instead of lung cancer, I’d have smoked with more gusto.  I reluctantly put the cigarette down on a nearby ashtray, tilted a bit so it would smolder awhile.  I hesitated, then reached over and straightened the dress on my body.  It had gotten hiked up a little high.

    I walked back out into the living room and smiled at Death, who had just finished his coffee.  ”Alright,” I said, “I’m ready.”

    He held out a hand and I took it.  His hand was warm and dry, and it was strangely nice to hold a man’s hand again after so many years.  On the way out I grabbed my granddaughter’s newest portrait off the table by the door.  I hadn’t even had a chance to get it framed.

    ”You know you’re technically not supposed to take it with you,” he chided me with a gentle smile.

    ”I know,” I said.  ”I thought I’d push your indulgence a little further.  Thank you for your patience.  Frankly I was a little surprised.”

    He shrugged.  ”I have time.”

    We walked out the front door, across the porch and down the steps to the red dirt road.  Instead of running out into the bois d’arcs and across the creek, however, the road now turned and went upwards, over the trees to the stars, silver in the moonlight.  I gazed up at it and smiled.

    ”What’s it like up there?”

    ”Different for everyone.  You’ll just have to see for yourself.”  

    I hesitated.  I looked down at the picture of my granddaughter. Death put an arm around me and looked over my shoulder at the picture.  ”Don’t worry about her.  You’ll see her again, and hundreds like her, stretching on into eternity.  If you come with me, I’ll show you what I mean.”

    I went with him, holding his hand up the winding silver path.  Behind me, I felt the heat of the explosion, and the sky was illuminated with fire.  I paid it no mind.  I took my last walk, up and above to the beyond. 

Ties- Kelly Jacobi

 

    Death came for me early.  Like any lady, I made him wait.

    ”I’m not ready,” I told him as I let him in the front door.

    He pushed back his hood, wiped his feet on the mat and hung his scythe on the hat rack.  He looked like a man in his forties, with a receding hairline and a big Adam’s apple.  There was an unexpected gentleness about him, a patience.  He smiled, almost kind.  ”You don’t know how many times a day I hear that.”

    ”I’m sure.  Now just you wait there, I’ll be with you momentarily.  Would you like a cup of coffee?”  I asked.

    ”Yes, please,” Death answered.  He sat down on my leather sofa, next to the embroidered pillow that said ‘Bless This Mess.’  He admired my afghan, which lay across the back of the sofa.  ”Did you make this?”

    ”Yes I did, but that was years ago, before the arthritis set in.”  I went into the kitchen, where I had made a pot of coffee a half hour before.  There wasn’t much left; I hadn’t been expecting company.  I poured him a cup in one of my good coffee cups, the Desert Rose pattern.  While I was in there I turned the gas stove on.  There was a gas leak; I hadn’t used the stove in a week.  Lucky that I hadn’t managed to get it fixed yet.  When I came back into the living room, Death was flipping through an old issue of Redbook, chuckling at the anti-aging tips.  

    ”Thank you for your patience,” I said.  ”Do you need any cream or sugar?”

    ”No thank you, I prefer it black,” he said with a friendly wink.  ”Just don’t be too long, alright?”

    ”Of course.”  I handed Death his coffee, and he sipped it politely while I went around the house.  I brought my step stool over to the hall closet and got my wedding album down, along with the picture of my grandparents, faded to a dull red, the color of the dirt road outside.  Next to the bedroom, where I fished my will and Social Security card out of the back of my nightstand.  I had a roll of cash in my front left bedpost; I got that too.  I picked up the few pieces of good jewelry I had – the real stuff. Most importantly, I got my house insurance papers together.

    I went out to the storm cellar, where I had a fireproof box.  I put my treasures in the box.  I walked back to the house the long way, through the side garden, taking a last look around.  The moonvine was flowering, ghostly white in the glow from the back porch, mixed up with the morning glories and the four o’clocks, which were all tightly closed up.  It was good work, that garden.  I would miss it more than most other things.  

    I went in the side door to my bedroom, where I’d been sorting old sweaters to keep or to take to the Salvation Army earlier that evening.  My body lay sprawled across the clothes on the floor at a very uncomfortable angle.  I rubbed my chest; it still tingled.  Who knew the dead could feel pain?  Having your heart stop is far more painful than most people know.  I knelt by my body and pried the pack of Salem Lights out from under what was once my knee.  I lit one crooked cigarette and drew in a deep lungful of smoke.  I’d been trying to quit.  If I’d known I would die of a heart attack instead of lung cancer, I’d have smoked with more gusto.  I reluctantly put the cigarette down on a nearby ashtray, tilted a bit so it would smolder awhile.  I hesitated, then reached over and straightened the dress on my body.  It had gotten hiked up a little high.

    I walked back out into the living room and smiled at Death, who had just finished his coffee.  ”Alright,” I said, “I’m ready.”

    He held out a hand and I took it.  His hand was warm and dry, and it was strangely nice to hold a man’s hand again after so many years.  On the way out I grabbed my granddaughter’s newest portrait off the table by the door.  I hadn’t even had a chance to get it framed.

    ”You know you’re technically not supposed to take it with you,” he chided me with a gentle smile.

    ”I know,” I said.  ”I thought I’d push your indulgence a little further.  Thank you for your patience.  Frankly I was a little surprised.”

    He shrugged.  ”I have time.”

    We walked out the front door, across the porch and down the steps to the red dirt road.  Instead of running out into the bois d’arcs and across the creek, however, the road now turned and went upwards, over the trees to the stars, silver in the moonlight.  I gazed up at it and smiled.

    ”What’s it like up there?”

    ”Different for everyone.  You’ll just have to see for yourself.”  

    I hesitated.  I looked down at the picture of my granddaughter. Death put an arm around me and looked over my shoulder at the picture.  ”Don’t worry about her.  You’ll see her again, and hundreds like her, stretching on into eternity.  If you come with me, I’ll show you what I mean.”

    I went with him, holding his hand up the winding silver path.  Behind me, I felt the heat of the explosion, and the sky was illuminated with fire.  I paid it no mind.  I took my last walk, up and above to the beyond. 

AS YET UNTITLED

Geoffrey Spurgin

The desert horizon swallows the sun, darkening its stony, shattered teeth into a uniform black set against the blood red sky. It won’t be long before the upper pallet chomps down this dry earth, leaving us in the dark to fear mysteries. 

“I god damn that moon! Be not fer it, I’d imagine them stars not like its arid surface. Those stars sparkle like water. . . huh . . . bet they as dry as this here land. Bet I’d prayed on all those sons of bitches one time or another… they was just too far away to know better.”

“You ain’t god damned nothin but yer mother at birth. Now shut it!”

They wouldn’t sleep well, but they’d sleep enough. Enough to live but not live well. They may have been sworn enemies or soul mates; neither could quite tell. One may blame the other for their hurtin’ but it’s no fault of man. Would scare them to death to be apart. No, there was just never enough good to feed two. So both shared and had little and suffered, but they suffered together. If ignorance is bliss, then surely there is a heaven, but these two atheists would never be admitted. 

CREATIVE NONFICTION

RELIGIOUS DISAGREEMENT

Elena Harding