A jolly man breezes his way to a sturdy lectern and starts to deliver the eulogy. It is Barry Rand, CEO of AARP, speaking: “Florence Green, who lived to be 110, was a waitress in the WRAF. She met and dated dozens of pilots but she never flew. She worked hard. She had a lot of friends and had a great deal of fun in her spare time.” Some applause, in the form of rustling tweed. “Florence Green was not only a veteran – she was a supercentenarian. How many of us here can say that about ourselves?” I note that none of us can say that about ourselves, but some of us come pretty close. “Florence always said that the Great War was the best time of her life, a splendid, lovely time. For her, Versailles signaled the end of the party. Florence never went to France. So here’s to a happy and healthy year. In the name of Ethel Percy Andrus, amen.”

I appreciate the inherent contrast of a brief eulogy with a life that bridged millenia. I appreciate contrast. We rustle amongst each other, exchange remarks, repair to the banquet hall and find our namecards (I assume the role of “Gary Filch,” who couldn’t be here today) and take our seats.

Preprandial repartee gets me going, they don’t know this but they speak playfully and compliment in code, getting me going. They insult each other’s shoes. They’re all agoraphiles. Not just once has anyone here absently removed a twig from their hair or tried to explain their grassy knees. A girl appears slowly ambling, absently removing a twig from her hair. She says, “I am at the height of existence.” She looks like a waitress on a cruise in a movie about the cruise titled Bankers Away. She might be. She walks around the hall saying things like, “Just think about all the things we won’t be, “ and “We found love in a hopeless place.” Under my table Barry Rand lies supine and has the look of a patient hiding a dose. I don’t ask what he’s doing there. When laughing, the girl throws back a hand lifting invisible plates. “I could just die,” she bursts. Rand rises from the floor and dusts his clothes. He catches the girl’s eye and she begins her come-hither slither, writhing to a number in her head.

“I am the opposite of all I have known.”

“I am Barry Rand.”

“It’s not that I find beauty in ugliness, but beauty in contrast. I can see the inviting luminance of beauty, but I look the other way, look for something yet shapeless in the dark. “

“My problem, haha, I’m usually groping for something shapely in the dark, for example.”

“In my mid-twenties I began to see what kind of person a person had to be. More helpfully, all the kinds of people she didn’t have to be.”

“I think I can offer you some money-saving discounts, if you catch my drift.”

“Get the fuck out of my sight,” he repeats.

I think I love this girl, this possible waitress, this deft beauty (Robert Payne on Chaplin: “The deft beauty of his clowning illuminates the space he dances in.”) who loves contrast as much as I do. Florence Green, who lived to be 110, most likely loved contrast. I imagine the meals she served to contrast with mortar fire, bubble and squeak and death. I imagine a squadron of DH10s dropping payloads of flour sacks. I imagine Florence at seventeen, getting nailed admirably by an officer in the larder. All of these fancies contrast beautifully with the fact that Florence Green lies cold in a coffin in the parlor next door.

We are served great bowls of Scotch broth, in honor of the early bird special at the Briar House which was Florence’s last perception before keeling over. I snap my fingers and tell a server, “Yes, another Scotch broth, hold the broth, single malt if you can. Florence Green, who lived to be 110, anecdotally loved Scotch.” I sit in silence, noting the airborne odor of hardware store peculiar to old age, until a bowl of Scotch slides under my nose.

The girl’s demeanor is soccer-maternal now, making sure everyone hydrates, making sure everyone gets a pamphlet titled How Sturdy Is Your Belief Structure? which concludes if you don’t pray or stand by your faith then your structure has already crumbled, is already as sad as a Kansas song. Believing in nothing but unintended consequence, I know that my structure is sound. Rand begins to talk, to sweat while thinking about talking, and hits the floor after thinking about a response to the question How are you? What he was thinking about saying is I can’t remember what I was thinking about this time yesterday. The memory problem. The incredulity problem. Florence Green, who lived to be 110, most likely experienced these problems.

I remember that I’ve seen the girl on TV, live local and lascivious, interviewed by a woman anchor who later suffered a nervous breakdown because she thought Sherlock Holmes was on her tail. The mere mention of a deerstalker would send her into hysterics. What does it mean to my society when beautiful anchorwomen go off their meds? This is an issue I wish the pamphlet would address.

“Excuse me, but I saw you on TV. I saw the dress they made you wear. The stately brick-colored dress. You were like an art teacher in an idiot town. It was a brilliant contrast.”

“Contrast?”

“Brilliant, if I may be so bold.”

“A bold contrast is all it takes to make me want to love,” she says.

“Gary. How do you do.” We shake hands, boldly.

“Connie. How do you do. You seem very sturdy. They tell us to say that. I’m just handing these out for cash. As a matter of fact, I used to teach pottery in Ponchatoula.”

“They?”

Rand bolts up from the floor and says, “Good – I remember. I was thinking about bringing cue cards to parties.” He rises, dusts his clothes, and strides to a table ensnarled with several Greens. A former poet laureate and current sundowner shouts to Rand, “With the language of the modern world a better world is woven.”

Rand is beaming. “Poetry is an activity many retired persons enjoy today. I’m sorry for your loss. Florence was a beautiful lady.”

“Florence?” shouts a Green.

“Is that you, Florence?” shouts another.

Connie and I fade out and then emerge in the neighboring room, a gallery of sorts, where young people are hurrying to identify each other’s personal brands, young people like us. What were we doing with people like the late great Florence Green? There are new brands to wield, to sear into the mind of a loved one. (Although I’m not sure how to sell the Gary Filch brand.) The show is called Death in Degas, it’s a popular success (“Vraiment Degas-lasse, in a good way,” writes Roberta Smith) and no one wants to take credit for its conception. Each frame contains a shocking and macabre sort of answer-portrait to The Dead Fox. The crowd talks to itself.

“I dunno, the fox, I just. Felt a connection.”

“Forced a connection. “

“’Forced a connection’.”

“It must’ve been something to force a certain idea to feel a certain way. “

“I felt great.”

“But what do you think of the re-context? Is death any deathlier today than it was a hundred plus years ago? Is there more heft to death repurposed, does it have a meatier role, am I boring you.”

“I feel great.”

“I just feel.”

“Connie,” I cry, “for god’s sake, let’s get out of here before they start to talk about Biz Stone’s rescue tortoise.”

“I love to see a man take charge. They tell us to say that, sorry.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m Connie.”

“Who are they?”

“Biz Stone’s rescue tortoise?”

We fade out and repair to the banquet hall, slowly, because Connie has decided to walk like a tortoise. Nobody notices, the hall is filled with variously mobile leafeaters, what’s one more groaning hunchback?

“Connie. Okay. Get up.” She hisses at me, slowly, then collapses like a marionette with its strings cut. Rand glides over. “What,” he says, “is this the meaning of?”

“Shh. She’s moving.”

Connie assumes the tortoise pose, which outside of any ashram just looks like the insolence of a child on strike.

“What is she protesting?” Rand asks.

“Old age, maybe?” I say to Rand.

“Get her the fuck out of my sight.”

“And burn that yoga mat,” he repeats.

Children, eagles, corpses, and chairs, all source objects for today’s yogis favorite poses, coincidentally all things found at Florence Green’s wake.

A young boy with strong, load-bearing arms walks out with a tall tiered cake. This is it. Everyone’s silenced at the sight of the cake. Meandering jowls now settle. The Green table holds its breath. Paramedics are called on account of the Greens’ respiratory history. The paramedics talk over the bodies.

“Looks like we got another one.”

“Another Green.”

“They just fall in our laps.”

“I’m very distressed by my Native American heritage.”

“Albert Green is part Cherokee. Was. He just checked out.”

“I just can’t stop crying when I come home from this.”

“This is what you signed up for. Death is part of it. Just don’t feel it.”

“I can’t feel.”

“Never feel,” says the paramedic bravely. They stack the Greens departed and hurry out.

The young boy with the cake is shooed away by Rand and what’s left of the Green table begins to breathe.

Connie and I fade into the kitchen, where the young boy is duly assaulted by crock-wielding Connie. She finds a knife and slices the cake. “I knew when I saw the cake, I would do anything for a taste.” Blood starts to sneak from the boy’s head. I nudge him with a foot.

“Connie, this boy is dead. I’ve checked his vitals, and he is dead.”

She moans. “Coconut.”

“Help me get him out of here. We can put him in the coffin with Florence. Get the legs.”

“I have a pamphlet on how to get the legs of a ballerina without taking a step.”

“I don’t believe you anymore.” I think of the anchorwoman, once a babe, now an eater of hair, and how Connie must be to blame.

“I never believed you, Gary.”

“Just help me here. I’m trying to cover up a murder.”

To our great delight, the Kossoy Sisters have begun one of their famous murder ballads in the banquet hall. They’re a little shrill, causing many of the wakegoers to tune down their hearing aids. We drag the boy’s corpse unnoticed. Is this contrast, or just utter madness? I wonder.

Florence Green got her wish. She’s now in a place where everything is different, where the postage is free and there are no wars, although Florence Green loved wars. As an appraiser of contrast, I am hugely tickled when we dump the boy on top of tiny Florence. There is some struggle slamming the lid shut. Connie and I take a seat in the front row, looking in each other’s eyes.

“My name isn’t Gary Filch.”

“That’s okay. I’m not Connie either.”

“Who are you?”

She kisses me and I taste coconut.

“I’m so glad to live in a world with multipurpose spaces.”

“Yes. Let’s go back to the gallery.”

Hand in hand we stride to the gallery, where everything is quiet. The crowd is horrified at the sight of a large tortoise.

————————

Derick Dupre lives in New Orleans.

Before, she used to make me drive her out of town to look at the sky. The stars here some nights look like that white, yellow, and blue photo from a beat old book about space, like NASA ghosted colors over the black night, no one having seen the work.

That’s when she got sick.

It happened when she looked up and said hey, the sky is shimmering. I said that some of the stars were binary, circling each other, and she said no you don’t understand take me to the hospital and so I did.

When she could see again she said everything was dusty, blurred; she said it was something with her brain, that she didn’t want to see stars anymore. I took her to the football field after that, safer: under the field lights I held her, AstroTurf striping soft under our bodies.

Bugs flickered in the lamps, their sodium buzzing like the sound moths hear when their lovers’ wingtips beat against one another. Her voice went, choked, and then her eyes. It was something with her brain I don’t understand–

but her fingers still talk to me,

they tell me about the emptiness in her stomach when she feels the burst of heat opening the door in summer, the half moons I find in my palms are language, our dry skin powder from all of our chatter, chalky pills on her tongue she begs me forests, caves.

————————

Jess Dutschmann is a writer. She originally grew up in Bergen County, NJ, only to move into a log cabin in her teen years. She attended Ramapo College and earned a BA in Literature and a concentration in Creative Writing. She has read poems and stories to audiences across the Mid-Atlantic. She is very thankful for MegaBus.

 ***

BRIAN: Hi, (.) can you hear me?

KYLE: (.) Hi! Yeah!

BRIAN: OK, cool. Oh, (.) I see you. Hi there!

KYLE: I don’t see you yet. (0.4) Oh! There you are. (0.2) Oh! Hey now.

BRIAN: ↑Yeah, I cut my hair.

KYLE: Oh, fantastic.↑ It looks really- (0.4) it’s short for summer. That’s good. >I bet it gets really hot in Michigan.<

BRIAN: Yeah, totally. (•hh Is it hot in Philadelphia?

KYLE: Oh, it’s just AWFUL. But I’ve got this fan. Can you see it? I don’t know how to work this camera. (Ext.)

BRIAN: Oh, I see it. (Hhh) Looks like a nice one.

KYLE: Yeah. (Hhh) It’s a big ass fan.

BRIAN: Ha. (0.8)

KYLE: No, really. °That’s the name of the company°.

BRIAN: ↑ Really? Geez. ↓

KYLE: So. (0.2) Is that a dark and stormy there, you naughty boy?

(SS laugh)

BRIAN: It’s Kombucha, actually. (S1 laughs) (Ext. sound of ice cubes clinking). Remember, I told you how my next door neighbor makes it? It’s so amazing, iced. (Ext. sound of ice cubes clinking).

((10 seconds not transcribed))

BRIAN: °So°. (0.4)

KYLE: Yeah, (.) So.

(SS laugh)

(0.2)

BRIAN: It looks like you’ve got tons of books behind you. >I didn’t know you like to read<. ↑

KYLE: You think I was illiterate? ↑

BRIAN: ~No~!

(SS laugh)

BRIAN: It’s just, you haven’t mentioned books. >We’ve talked about all these TV shows<, so I just thought- (0.2)

KYLE: That I’m illiterate.

BRIAN: °It’s just a lot of books°.

KYLE: Yeah, well, they’re mostly my ex’s. (.) He thinks of them like plants.

BRIAN: (0.2) (cough) Sorry? ↑

KYLE: Like plants. (.) Like, he thinks they’re healthy. Like they clean the space.

BRIAN: Oh, right. (cough) So he just left you all his books?

KYLE: <Can you hold on a sec>, (?) I need to get some lip balm. ↓

((30 seconds not transcribed.))

KYLE: Hey, sorry about that. (Ext) My lips were super nasty.

BRIAN: It’s cool, (.) I know the feeling. It’s the worst.

KYLE: I know, right? ↑

((10 seconds not transcribed))

KYLE: Anyway, ! >Tell me what you’ve been up to<. ↑ Did you end up having that conversation with your boss?

BRIAN: Oh. (Hhh). That. Ri(  : :  )ght. You know, I’m sort of re-thinking it. I’ve got clown camp coming up and it just feels like the wrong time.

KYLE: Wait, °so that’s happening°?

BRAIN: Yeah. I got in ↑.

(0.2)

KYLE: Really! (0.4) You must be so excited.

(.)

BRIAN: (S1 laughs) I am. (0.2) It’s going to be great. ↓

KYLE: So, >what’s it like being under a big top<? (s2 laughs)

(0.8)

BRIAN: °Yeah°. (.) I’m actually—it’s not all about gags and such, (0.2) you know? Like, I’m not always walking around in plastic shoes and whatnot. <It’s more about (.) a personal journey towards a state of playfulness>. °And vulnerability°.

KYLE: (.) I’m sorry, (.). I’ve hurt your feelings.

BRIAN: No, it’s fine. (.) It’s just that everyone thinks I run around in funny glasses, but there’s such a deeper layer to it. (0.2). <If everyone clowned around for a weekend, the world would be a better place>.

((10 seconds untranscribed))

KYLE: I’m sorry, (.) I just can’t, (0.3) are you being serious↑

BRIAN: Yes. (.) Why?

(0.8)

KYLE: ~No~ (0.4). It sounds like a great time.

((10 seconds untranscribed))

KYLE: Wow. (•hhh? So I’m gonna have to skedattle ‘cause I have to walk my neighbor’s schnauzer. I told you about Moo Shu, right? ↑

BRIAN: ↓ You sent me a picture.

KYLE: Right, that’s right! With the eyebrows. He doesn’t even look like a dog. >It’s like, if you were here, you’d be like, is that Frida Kahlo, or is that Frida Kahlo<! ↑ (S2 laughs)

(0.4)

(Ext. sound of something dropping)

(S1 ~laughs~)

KYLE: So it’s been really cool to see each other, finally. (.) Technology, right? ↑

BRIAN: (Hhh) °Yeah°.

KYLE: We’ll have to do this again sometime.

(0.4)

BRIAN: °Yeah°. (0.4)

KYLE: >Oh, and hey, don’t be afraid to stand up to your boss! Go for it, Brian. Stick it to the man<. ↑

BRIAN: Mm:.hh (0.3) °Like I said, it’s not really the right timing°. (.) Plus, I need the health insurance, with clown camp, and all. ↓

KYLE: Or wait. Ri( :: )ght. (0.2) Health insurance, totally. (Ext. panting) OK so Frida here is about to go AWOL. (.) Do we just click off- I guess it’s this red button? (0.2)

(S1 swallows)

KYLE: If we get disconnected, I’ve had a great time! ↑

(Ext. Skype dial tone)

(S1 exhales)

(Ext. Sound of ice cubes clinking)

(End of transcript)

————————

Courtney Maum is a fiction writer based in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. A humor columnist for Electric Literature, her work has recently appeared online in Tin House, Blip, Bomb Magazine, The Rumpus, Vol.1, Anderbo and others. A frequent reader at NY-based series and a Literary Death Match champion, she’s currently working on a collection of comic fiction. Find her on Twitter at @cmaum

The unhappy third anniversary of his wife (and agent)’s departure, mind you, with tubby rival landlord. So here lies Woody, steaming in his mo[u]rning bed like a petrified phoenix. Out of socks. A cartilaginous string of beef jerky from last night’s snack. Something foul in Woody’s mouth.

***

But Debra dead?
Left or together still?
Have you a ring, Woody?
Woody, a ring?
Searched in dirty tub.
Woody, old octopus: do you?

***

Had something brewed, and then dwelled on Memphis a while from the safety of his studio apartment, he thinks.  Wrote my introduction today, he continues telling himself.  So and so billion years ago, Woody’s life began depending on how you look at it  beautiful, historic Midtown Memphis birthed him, at six pounds nine ounces, in the same woods, Evergreen, a herd of fifty plus triceratops roamed so and so billion plus years prior  Five miles from the Mississippi River, which flooded [spot the driftwood] November 6^th, 1937  it will not flood like that again predict engineers and meteorologists (river->swamp->woods->triceraproperty->wild oaks->placenta

***

Evenings, Woody pops Tylenol and twelve other pills. Nutrient uptake, waste elimination, gas exchange. That is all he has as far as introduction goes and the rest of his history. He landlords during the day and writes at night. Scribbling about triceratops, ancient tricepteri, always having fun with plural invention.

***

Whisks through his first name dismissively, short for Woodruff.  He pronounces his last name EI-zen-steen.  Prefers the long e to the long i of the final syllable because in Memphis pronunciation matters, as if a ‘steen’ could “get further” than a ‘stein’ and Woody thought perhaps that was true, (after all look at his accomplishments; call me Eisenstein) even though the Memphis Jews moved East fifty years ago and Woody stayed midtown.  Stop the driftwood.

***

Knock, knock.  Still in bed.

Woody, the door!, feels his head begin to migraine.

That tan booming flash comes curdling back in the midst of yet another massive popping of pills all at once, Mothership Memory—young girl from the college, Woody, wants to know if the house on McLean is still for rent.

Yeah, yeah. Still for rent. Eleven twenty-five. Who is it?

Some kid from the college. Thursday morning.

Christ, says Woody and three minutes later, bit of toothpaste clinging to his collar, door still screaming, he’s down the stairs, crossing arthritic fingers hair brown and flaxen like a lady?, looking through the peephole at his new client. Wild-eyed, cavalier Woody.

Examine the beauty of this girl. Powdery smooth and luscious as a lemon. Waste no time:  Rent you the west wing? introspective Woody wonders. Closer to the uncurtained window. Woody don’t snap old boy. Purple the thighs under Woody’s strong jaws.  Things bursting out of each and every seam and stitch in this girl’s blouse. Do not lie about your age, Woody, or produce a phony birth certificate.  The pantyhose performs particularly well in tightness. Don’t inject her with flunitrazepam, Woody, don’t you even think about it not for one second you pervert you uncontrollable dolt you unshaven teething scoundrel.

Are you Mr. Eiseinstein?

Hair brown and flaxen

Half-baked Woody:  I am.

Proud pink lips

My boyfriend and I would like to move as soon as possible. Before it gets rainy.

She knows!  She can sense it boiling up inside me! Lachrymose Woody, clutching cryogenic crotch, says to try downtown, that they always treat new couples well, that the market is down, but the energy is hot, there’s not a lot of renters, and if you act fast now . . .
We’d like to live in Midtown. This place is close to the school . . .

And Midtown really has so much character, Woody says. It is prag- and prismatic.

Too much chortle in there. Mucusy cough spills Advil chunk.

And you’re probably right about the rain, he desperately continues. You’ve got about, she didn’t notice, another week.

***

Dark forecasty clouds huddle above. Woody waits with bated breath. Bird squeaks, and then rings the cell phone. Bait your breath again, Woody, and take off that rosary who do you think you are. Proud pink puckering lips and my prick. Take it off, Woody. You’re a Jew. You don’t have to think, What Would Jesus Do?, but unwrap that thing from your dick you filthy man. Still, the Jews moved East fifty years ago right so fuck ‘em! You’re a new Jew, Woody, the kind who can say Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord and really mean it.

Didn’t that damn phone ring?

***

Too much wood for the morning. That girl living on McLean now, beefy beau in tow. Cross-eyed prick with a dick the size of a kid’s thumb. Flicks the thick, then reaches for the rosary. Dwell awhile on the backside. Next to Woody’s hand hisses some territorial roach. Ruins it.

***

I is not here, Woody types, staring at his inkblot. Debra says I is and that the project will fail but I, sweating less than this city, will not fail. I absorbs. And Woody will hitchhike downtown in the end if he has to.

***

How could he [male triceratops] have imagined that his seed—would grow three horns, yes, but not populate the globe because red sky and flat earth collide and destroy tricepteri and then amoeba crawl from Mississippi (dino-bone driftwood!), no longer afeared of greater beasts, and make Woody—would produce Woody, thematically, and because of chimerical fate.

***

Leaky pipe on McLean.  Bring string and a five gallon bucket should do it.

***

Became stagnant in his work. Woody “in shackles”:  no free will, no incentives! No chance for upward mobility. But shame on you for alluding, for even suggesting a metaphor. Fool me twice.

***

Lispy fat sweaty Mexican gas station attendant!  Holding a cat and petting it with two massive paws of his own!

Give me forty cigarettes! Snarly Woody backs away from the counter, clawing open a pack and jabbing one into his beak.

You can’t smoke in here sir, attendant fat-rasping for breath.

Up yours, you bottomless pit!

***

Woody, too, is prismatic.

***

Ambles Woody upstairs taking two at a time. What wonders wait behind Door #1? Zippo tip still hot. Cigarette a-blazin’, catches quick a cuticle.  Doorbell buzz.

Woody: Ow!

Opens electrically fast, wet in a towel, she’s at the door.

Here about the leak—weak Woody.

Where’s the string and the five gallon bucket? How’d she hear about that.

***

History goes slowly, but Woody’s especially snails. Then, all at once, the lightning bulb attacks. Falls off his high-chair, re-rights himself. Woody stabs at the page with his good hand, pen pulsing like a jackrabbit.

Andrew Jackson came to town,
riding on a pony—
shoved a needle up his ass
and called it Berlusconi!
Andy, yank the needle out;
yank, you fucking pansy.
Stick it in Boss Crump’s IV
and pump him full of tansy!

The style, he knows, ebbs and flows. Could use a bolster, a citation or ten. Woody himself ebbs. No more timesheets, no more deadlines. Papers flowing down the drainpipe. And no word from Debra in seventy-eight fortnights.

***

Hello, Woody?  Hello?

So and so billion years ago

What? Yes. That’s me. I’m Woody. Who are you?

Mrs. Rumbelow, dumb shit. It’s 4:30.

Language, Rumby. Hold on.

Kicks back the sheets, witnesses the devastation of last night’s binge.

O! please let me go from the cocaine dynamo!

Do we have anymore of that fruitcake left over in the fridge, Rumby? I seem to have, uh, I mean, I don’t really know how to say this . . .

You dim motherfucker, croaks Rumbelow. I’ve got a house for you to look at downtown.

Downtown! Woody lights the apple core.

Now don’t go tinkling yourself just yet. There’s a reasonable asking price, but maintenance is going to be a bitch. The whole fucking roof caved in last week because of the rain.

Do you hear what I hear, bud?  Downtown, bud?  Did she say it?

Rain, schmain, Rumby, a pox upon it. I fuck rain for breakfast!

***

A million six packs later, Woody rots in his cellar. What is that on the old sack? A huge fucking nutria beneath a top hat, frowning like a young virgin devoured by Woody! Bends its way out of shadows. Salt-and-pepper gray. Shakes a bony fist at barfing Woody.

***

His penis has poet envy; his pen wags.

***

Rain

Woody: Fuck these particles. Pure acid; adept at mutilation.

Nutria:  The cloudburst.

Woody: I forgot you were here. You’re looking a little too cozy propped up on those haunches.

Nutria: Well.

Woody: Here it’s all pressure and no plummet.

Nutria: You need to hitchhike.

Woody: Who told you to talk?

Beat

Woody: Who gave you that brick? My mother carved her ancient name into that brick!

Beat

Woody: You’re making me sick the way you’re eating that cheese with one swollen cheek.

Nutria wags.

Woody: There’s a whole pack of dogs ahead, and one of them looks exactly like you. How’s that, you rat?

Beat.

You shapeshifter.

————————

Isaiah Swanson lives and writes in Memphis, Tennessee. Some of his work may be found in print and online at The Atticus Review, Digital Americana, 100 Word Story, and MudLuscious Press. He also serves on the chapbook commission for NAP Magazine and may be reached at swanson.isaiah@gmail.com.

His mother had driven him to school so it wouldn’t get scratched on the bus.

It was heavy, but he’d carried it all the way to the classroom by himself, and now he was carefully explaining everything.  The helmet rested on the desk beside him, freshly polished with the chamois he’d brought for that purpose, and gleaming.

But when he’d slipped the medieval cask over his head and closed the guard over the lower part of the face, they’d laughed.

“This is my beaver,” he announced.  It hinged like a trapdoor over his nose and mouth, vented like a grill.

Their laughter was incomprehensible, muffled by the helmet.

“Is it because of this?” he asked, lifting the doorway then letting it clank shut.  “Is my speech muffled by my beaver?”

The children roared.  The boy’s tears came hot, quick, and hidden.  He felt safe inside the helmet, but he was uncertain whether or not to be grateful for this protection, a protection owed exclusively to the oiled hinges of his beaver.

Careless and Lackadaisical

are two words I take as compliments
when they apply to the way I follow institutional rules
but not when they apply to any of my sincere attempts at lovemaking
based on methods I have mostly gleaned from reading certain periodicals.

You might well wonder why I would be inclined
to share the relationship I have with these two words
when it could possibly be construed as casting certain skills in an unflattering light

but I’m banking on the fact that you, too, have had moments
involving a length of garden hose and a remarkably slimming goatskin vest
and the repeated use of certain catch-phrases more commonly associated
with 19^th century maritime culture in the whaling holes of Nova Scotia.

Postcards of Gratitude, From Your Teenager

1. To my Mother, Who told me “Not to spill”

Thank you so much for that verbal reminder
to not fling this shallow saucer of bean n’ ham
abruptly toward the ceiling in a spastic gesture
because I am a teenager and I am bat-shit crazy
and spilling is exactly what I was contemplating
as I carried this bowl across the plush white shag
so that I could enjoy a warm repast while watching
Alex Trebek read cue cards and wrinkle his slightly
smug yet nonetheless compassionate brow at the folly
of someone a lot smarter than him who just named
Zolá instead of Balzac and lost eight hundred dollars.

2. To My Father, Who told me “Don’t be an idiot”

Is the word thanksreally a big enough box to hold all this
gratitude I feel when I realize how close I came to being
an idiot? Whenever I wrestle with the urge to douse my
hair with kerosene or run wind sprints in the summer heat
after putting on nine sweaters and coating myself in a thick
layer of Vaseline, I hear your words echoing inside my head
like a very loud voice echoing inside a tiny head-sized cave,
and I stop and wipe the drool from my mouth and say,
Easy there, Hoss! and I pull the laminated card from my
pocket that you made for me and I read your words aloud
in a John Wayne-imitation voice and I think, Whoa, pardner!

3. To My Teacher, Who urged me to “Consider the future”

I have to admit, until you uttered those words
I never considered what I am doing RIGHT NOW
will eventually exist in the past and when it does,
then I am in the FUTURE. Hello! That thought
blew my mind the way the wind blows a plastic bag
across a field using only the tips of its invisible paws.
Since then I have started wearing my home-made
space suit to school, including the jet pack I made
by spray painting a lawnmower engine metallic silver
and duct-taping it to my backpack just in case
I encounter someone else from the future who
is stranded and needs me to give them a ride home.

4. To Step-Daddy Paul, Who said “Think before you act”

There I was, running down the interstate, naked
except for this sort-of sling I’d fashioned from tinfoil,
and no idea how I’d gotten there, a side-ache coming on
because God knows how long I’d been sprinting along
that white line, chanting poetry in this obscure language
I made up and that I only use when I’m feeling stressed.
Suddenly I thought: Hey, did you think before doing this?
Well, you can probably guess what the answer was!
So I quit running right then and sidled to the median
where I sat among the dusty gravel and felt the waves
of roiled air rock me back and forth as the trucks passed.

5. To the Person who wrote: “Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear”

After the ninth time I somehow crumpled the hood
of that sedan parked at least forty meters behind me,
when I was pretending to parallel park in front of my
house, I was so mystified I thought to myself, Hey,
Dale Earnhardt, why don’t you check the rear-view
to see if it might have some sort of instructions
that could explain the weird discordance that occurs
whenever you put your go-cart into reverse. Shazam!
As soon as I discovered that useful phrase, I promptly
ripped the mirror from the car and ran to the mall
where I scoped out this really attractive older woman
and put my arm around her shoulder and held up
the mirror so that we were both reflected inside its
little frame and I read the words aloud and after a while
she quit struggling and laughed and now she is my wife.

————————

Michael Bazzett’s poems have appeared in West Branch, Beloit Poetry Journal, Best New Poets, Green Mountains Review, DIAGRAM, and Guernica, among others, and his work was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. New poems are forthcoming in Carolina Quarterly, Pleiades, Smartish Pace and The Literary Review. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife and two children.

Meanwhile I was balling up my rags and over-stuffing a dryer.  So it could definitely be argued that my system was no good either. I never had a mother to show me anything. But basically I’m a decent human being. I keep clean and all.

Another thing about this guy I knew is that he would always wash his white things first because his mom told him the bleach sanitized the machine. All I could think about that was that is so weak.

I suspected if I kept seeing that guy he would eventually want me to do things the neurotic way his mom told him to do them, so I stopped seeing him. AND I decided no matter what kind of relationship you have with a person you should do your own laundry, because you have your way and they have theirs.

Then one day I had a son of my own and because he was a helpless baby I started doing his laundry. One day he’ll do his own and he’ll probably have a style like mine. He might not always use dryer sheets. He definitely won’t shake his wet pants. He might wait too long before folding the dry stuff and have wrinkles, but basically he’ll be a good person. I think that’s all any mom really wants.

————————

Marie recieved her Master’s degree from Hollins University where she published her first collection of fiction. She currently teaches writing at the University of Delaware.

Cato scanned the bedroom, wondering if his good judgement had deserted him. Maybe Bobby was right. Outside, he’d said that it didn’t look like much—and now, inside, it looked like even less. In fact, it kind of looked like the place had already been robbed.

Some of the drawers in the tallboy were hanging part way out, revealing the edges of a tangled mass of grubby looking clothes. The bed was sloppily made, a faded maroon paisley bedspread yanked half-arsed over the pillows. And there was clutter and books—a ridiculous, insane number of books—everywhere: falling off the shelves, stacked against walls, jammed into corners between bits of furniture. Old books, with yellowed pages, their spines declaring the owner’s interest in arcane spirituality and obscure cultures. Life with the Ancestors. Embodied Spirits: Ritual Carvings of the Asmat. Among the Art-loving Cannibals of the South Seas.

Cato called out to Bobby, who was downstairs in the living area.

“How’s it going?”

“Slim pickings. What did I tell you? These people are like, pov-oh. I mean, they’ve got a plasma TV…and they live like pigs. There’s at least a half packet of crushed potato crisps under these cushions…”

Cato wondered why Bobby was looking under there and was about to ask him, but then thought better of it; he was an idiot after all. He turned back to his task.

His task: to make good on his promise. The three had been stationed in the soap-green minivan across the road, scoping out joints to case, when they saw them—the middle aged couple—leaving through the front door of the Edwardian cottage. A real estate agent might have described it as “charming,” meaning that it was actually small, drab and unassuming.

But a couple of years on the hammer had refined Cato’s instincts for easy prey, or so he thought. His laser beam orbs found their targets with ease, guided by lingering insatiability, by the now never ending lean-times, perpetual war and constant rationing.

He watched the man, scruffy-looking with tufts of chalky hair, fumbling in his man-bag as if he had already lost something, or was worried about doing so in the not too distant future. The woman—equally unprepossessing—said something to him and grabbed his arm, led him towards the car, as if to upbraid him for a characteristic of absentmindedness which one might reasonably infer to be a state of being, rather than an occasional lapse.

Cato narrowed his eyelids at the unbarred windows. The car rolled away and disappeared around the corner.

“That’s the one,” he said.

Bobby leaned over to get a better look through the window. He turned to Cato and scrunched up his nose. “Really?”

“I’ve got a feeling. Jewellery, for sure.”

Bobby was silent. Hanging in the quiet air was the fact, the awareness they shared, that this was their last chance for the day to get it right. After one job with hardly any takings, another thwarted by an unexpected alarm, this was the final opportunity to bring in enough to soothe the beast of craving that was stirring, inevitably, relentlessly, from its slumber. And the fact that Cato had zeroed in on this—this dumpy little cottage with the dumpy little owners—for the rescue operation spoke volumes of their desperation.

Bobby sighed, drumming his fingers on the dashboard. They were all uneasy—except Schooner, who was sitting in the back, eyes shut, earphones in, seemingly uninterested in the developments. Since last night he had been looking a little green.

Cato turned and locked eyes with Bobby, and his expression said what he could not say out loud, because the day’s events proved him a liar: have I ever been wrong before?

“You’re the boss,” said Bobby.

And Cato was, indeed, the boss. He gave the orders, because that was his job. Nobody quite knew why it had turned out that way, but nobody really questioned it either. Maybe it was because he was smarter than they were. They were born and bred losers—he had come over from the other side. He was worldly, knew the enemy. The most educated junky, the best-looking junky, the junky with an actual hairstyle, who sprinkled his conversation with the word “basically.” Because basically, he knew what he was talking about.

Cato designated the looting zones. Bobby to the downstairs combined living-dining room; himself to the master bedroom, as befitted his status in the pecking order; Schooner, the quiet one, in the downstairs study.

At first their confidence had been boosted by the fact that the window to the living room was not only unbarred, but unlocked. All they had to do was swing it open and climb right in.

They had the big canvas bag. They had their gloves—these days they liked to do things “professionally”. And Cato had his latest acquisition, a pistol with a silencer. They had never needed it yet; perhaps its mere presence was an incitation to unnecessary events. But there was something about the feel of it wedged in his back pocket, something that made life better, made life more like a movie. He was in the lead. You could bring a bit of that old time smacky glamor back, pretend things were like they’d been to start with.

But as Cato yanked out the top drawer of the tallboy and emptied its contents on the bed, his enthusiasm began to dwindle. Everything had been chucked in their unsorted: coins, half rolls of chewing gum, random pieces of paper scrawled with phone numbers and computer passwords, cough lollies, bags of dried fruit. He wondered how he would find anything in such a mess. His hands started rifling through in a frenzy of irritation.

He became aware of a weird feeling, a sense of being observed. He turned and started at the large green eyes that had been boring a hole in his back.

It was a cat. A huge cat—he had never seen a cat as big, except on television, and those weren’t domestic cats, they were wild cats, from deserts and forests. This was a housecat, just very large and fat; almost the size of a guard dog, but with an armor of lard in place of muscle. White, with a grey striped cape. It had a wide, boxy head with a strangely non-feline face. Most cats had small noses. This one’s nose was long and wide, like a baboon, and its eyes were too close together.

Cato puzzled at the soundness of mind of a person who would choose such an ugly cat for a companion. It didn’t seem quite right. Something bubbled up to his memory, from his aesthetics class at university. The lecturer pointed to the feline as an illustration of neoteney or juvenilization: humans ascribed “cuteness” to cats for their small snouts and wide eyes, much as women with wide eyes and small noses are considered superior in beauty, as these are the facial characteristics of babies and children. People like cats because they are dainty and cute and innocent looking.

Perhaps, he mused, this cat had been cute as a kitten, and had only grown hideous later, and so the owners had been deceived.

It crouched in the doorway, batting its tail from side to side, and stared at Cato with the unblinking eyes. Cato shook his head, clearing his mind and refocussing. These strange, disorienting echoes of a former life would creep up on him at the weirdest times, like…well, like when he was doing a job. Briefly he would be reminded of unrecognisable priorities, and behind them, an unrecognisable self that had apparently once existed, and now only offered up random, floating slivers of memory.

He turned around and resumed sorting through the disappointing booty on the bed. In amongst that lot he found a metal canister. Inside there was a thick roll of notes in various foreign denominations. Excellent. He pocketed that and kept looking.

Impatient, he decided to try the next set of drawers down. Emptied all that on the bed and there it was sitting there right there on top, like a cherry crowning a sundae: a small velvet bag. He opened it up and emptied it into his palm: antique gold rings, one set with a ruby, another with an emerald, and another, a large pink diamond. He dumped them back in the bag and put it in his pocket and turned to head back downstairs.

But it was still there, still staring at him. In the same low crouch as before, its enormous tail whipping; but it seemed to have advanced towards him a couple of feet, and now, the black pupils of its strange beady eyes had dilated to the size of hubcaps.

“What the fuck do you want then?” said Cato. “Shoo!” He flung his hand towards it uselessly. The cat did not move.

“Piss off you ugly bastard!”  He grabbed a brown moccasin that was lying next to the bed and hurled it at the creature. It leapt and darted out of the room, down the stairs.

Cato gingerly followed behind.

In the living room, Bobby was examining the contents of a glass display case, scratching his head in confusion.

“Is any of this shit valuable?” he said.

Cato went over to see what he was looking at. Arrayed on the glass shelves were a series of wooden carved statues and masks. The statues were representations of pregnant women and what appeared to be men with extraordinarily large penises. The masks were exaggerated, theatrically expressive faces with hooked, flare-nostril noses and buttressed brows. More weird islander voodoo stuff.

“Hard to say. Might go down well on eBay. Better safe than sorry,” said Cato. “Get it in the bag.”

“Creepy looking things…” said Bobby, opening the glass case. He began systematically sweeping each shelf of ornaments into the canvas bag, seemingly glad to not have to look at them anymore.

Cato pulled the velvet bag from his pocket and waved it in Bobby’s face. “What did I tell you? Jewellery.”

“Nice,” said Bobby, nodding.

“Three gold rings with gems, all antique too.…let’s go see where Schooner is at.”

Cato led the way to the study, with Bobby following behind, clutching the bag. Schooner was there leaning over something, a hint of arse crack poking out over the top of his jeans.

“What’s going on?” said Cato.

Schooner spun around as if caught in some act.

“Well, it’s not what we came for, but…” he trailed off and pointed down into a trundle drawer that slid out from underneath the desk.

Cato and Bobby leaned over Schooner’s shoulder to get a better look.

“I see,” said Cato.

From the magazine on the top of the stack Bethany Bangles stared at them with vacant colorless eyes, and a much more compelling set of orbs arrayed below. Beside her was an extensive collection of DVDs, dating all the way back to the late nineties.

“I wouldn’t have picked it,” said Bobby. “With all the books and spooky statues…”

“Just because the guy reads books, doesn’t make him a fag,” said Cato—somewhat defensively, Bobby thought.

“Let’s just get out of here…” said Cato, scratching the back of his neck.

There was an outdated laptop on top of the desk. Bobby tucked it under one arm and they headed back to the living room. Cato paused, looking at the entryway to the kitchen, realising he hadn’t assigned a plunderer to that quarter. Normally, there wouldn’t be much to find there, but on impulse he walked through the passageway and there it was: an antique sideboard, with the “fine” china for dinner parties. Below the glass display with the nice floral plates were sets of drawers.

He went over and randomly pulled open a couple of drawers.

“Ah-ha!” he called out to the others. “Now this… this is the shit!”

Cato had uncovered a stash of antique silver: sets of cutlery, a candelabra, and a gravy dish, the elaborate engravings of which marked them either as highly sought treasures, or accomplished fakes.

“Doesn’t look like much,” said Bobby.

Bobby knew nothing about design. Bobby never watched Antiques Roadshow.

“This is regency silver you bozo” said Cato. “Come here and help me.”

Bobby and Schooner followed into the kitchen and they all started yanking out the drawers, carrying them into the living room and dumping the contents on the sofa.

Together they were sorting through a bonanza fit for a Christie’s auction when there was a piercing, baleful mewl. Cato twisted around and the cat had reappeared at the bottom of the stairs, its posture erect, standing at attention. It stared at them with its slitty green eyes, head cocked slightly to one side. The tail flicked, left to right.

“That bloody cat” said Cato. “He was upstairs, before…”

“That’s not a cat” said Bobby, letting out a little laugh. “That’s a beast!”

“Yeah,” said Schooner. “Wow. Look at him… he’s huge!”

“None too pretty either,” Bobby pitched in. “Look at that snout!”

“Face like a baboon,” said Cato. “Gives me the creeps. Come on, let’s get this lot bagged and get out of here…”

They started sweeping the good stuff into the sack.

The cat leapt onto the glass coffee table next to the sofa. It crouched and stared, its tail whipping to and fro, a crazed look in its eyes.

“Well, he isn’t scared of you, that’s for sure,” said Schooner.

Cato turned to the cat, got in his face. “What’s your problem, huh? Why can’t you just get lost like a good little kitty?”

The cat did not retreat, but moved closer, hissing. Now Cato could see the nametag dangling from its fat throat. “Jonathon” said the tag, with a mobile phone number scrawled underneath.

“Jonathon!” said Cato, standing up straight, addressing the others. “His name’s Jonathon.” He laughed.  “Fuck off Jonathon!”

Jonathon lunged, clipping Cato’s ear with a claw.

“Oh, you…” Cato put his hand to his ear, examined a small smear of blood that came away with it. “Got a mind to shoot you, you ugly motherfucker.”

“Well, why don’t you?” said Bobby.

“I will…” said Cato, laying his hand on the pistol in his back pocket.

“No, don’t,” said Schooner. “I like cats…”

“It’s not a cat,” said Bobby again. “It’s a beast.”

Jonathon emitted a deep growl.

“It’s an ugly bastard,” said Bobby. “Go on…”

Cato pulled the pistol from his back pocket and aimed it at Jonathon’s head. Jonathon was momentarily confused, pulling back and flattening his ears.

“Cato, don’t,” said Schooner. “We’re here to steal stuff, not kill innocent animals. We’re thieves, not murderers.”

Back in the days when he still cared, Schooner was a vegetarian.

“Pffft” said Cato. “You getting on your moral high horse, that’s a good one. Is there really any difference? You reckon you’re higher up the karmic tally board because you’re a thief? You ask the people we steal their precious antiques, their memories from, they’ll tell you we aren’t much better than murderers.”

“So,” said Bobby “If there’s no difference, do it then,”

Schooner stared at Cato with his rheumy, pallid eyes. It wasn’t something Cato talked about, but Schooner made him uneasy. He wasn’t sure what it was. Sometimes there was a strange look in his eyes, an impression simultaneously of vacancy and intensity. Perhaps he had just been on the hammer so long that the curious state that characterized the sunnier moments of addiction, that sense of being apart and above from everything, had come to permeate his soul: and yet that was the opposite of how it was supposed to go, and there was something off, something slightly fishy about that.

Schooner crossed his arms.  “Your ego creates a lot of problems for you doesn’t it,” he said, a slight smirk dragging up one corner of his mouth.

Cato squinted at him, pissed at his impertinence, and now more determined than ever to do the opposite of what he wanted. “Whatever!”

He put his finger on the trigger and was about to pull back when they heard the sound of chattering voices and the key turning in the front door lock.

“Shit!” he said. “They’re back already?”

The three took what loot they had already siphoned into the bag, and disappeared out the back door and over a fence.

***

George and Aileen came fussing and bickering through their front door.

“I knew I’d forgotten something” said George, as they came down the hall. “And I stopped to get my bearings, but you wouldn’t let me.”

“I asked you if you had the tickets earlier, inside, and you said yes!” She sighed. “If we stopped every time you thought you’d forgotten something, we’d never go anywhere.”

They had arrived at the concert hall ten minutes early, as planned—but without the tickets. George concluded that he had left them in one of three possible locations in the house—and they had agreed, in spite of Aileen’s better judgement, to go back and look.

Entering the living room they were confronted with the scene: the contents of the sideboard and its drawers scattered all over the sofa and living room floor.

Aileen gasped. The house keys fell from her hands.

Next, they saw the glass display case, now empty of George’s Oceanic fertility figures and masks.

“Oh, god no…” George balled his fists at his temples. “No, no, no…”

He turned back to Aileen. Their eyes met, exchanging the same shock, the same unfurling horror and outrage. Aileen raised her hand to her mouth.

“The bastards,” said George.

He looked back at the glass case, not quite able to get his head around it, not quite able to comprehend its emptiness—or their absence. He had collected them over a period of twenty years, during his anthropological fieldwork in Melanesia. Each was associated with a time and place, faces, smells, landscapes; smoke and rotting fruit and pandanas trees, the squish of deep wet grass underfoot. The memories had been rent apart from their symbolic vessels. History was trashed, meaning violated.

He felt himself tremble, sweat forming on his brow. “The bastards” he said again.

He kneeled down, picking scattered items off the floor and sofa one by one. “They’ve taken grandmother’s regency silver. The fucking bastards.”

He began stalking about the house, assessing the damage, the heaps of scattered possessions, the upended drawers, the preliminary evidence of where they had been and what they had taken.  “The bastards” he repeated at intervals, moving from room to room. “The fucking bastards.”

Aileen had collapsed in a chair at the dining room table, the air rushing out of her like a crumpled paper bag. George returned to find her in some kind of trance state, staring at the open living room window.

“This is my fault,” she said quietly, her eyes diverted from his. “They came through there. It wasn’t locked.”

“What!?” said George. “What do you mean it wasn’t locked? That window is always locked!”

Aileen twisted her fingers together and bit her lip. “Yes but…I unlocked it when I cleaned all the windows the other day. And I thought I locked everything again, but now that I think about it, I don’t actually remember locking the window afterwards…”

She put her face in her hands and began to cry.

George rubbed his forehead, fighting an impulse to give expression to his exasperation.

“I’m so sorry dear,” said Aileen, her throat closing around the words. “All those years…all that work…”

She looked up and met his eyes and he realized that she thought he was angry with her, that she was full of fear and shame. But this was no time for that.

“No, no, I’m sorry” he said, taking her hand, giving it a squeeze. It felt cold and limp.

She seemed to be staring inwards at some world of utter desolation.

“I didn’t mean to shout,” he said, lowering his voice, emphasizing each word.

Jonathan emerged from under the sofa, and loudly said: “Meow.”

Aileen was roused from her stupor. “Oh, Jonathon!” she cried, and bent over and picked up the cat, hefting his toddler’s weight with visible effort. “You poor baby! He must have seen the whole thing…” she said glancing at George.

“That must have been very distressing.” George rubbed Jonathon’s crown as the cat nestled in Aileen’s arms. “Poor Jonathon, are you okay? Did the big, bad men scare you? So glad he seems alright…”

Poor Jonathon. Yes, it must have been frightening. Cats like order and quiet. He would have been completely bewildered, all these strangers banging around in the house, throwing everything all over the place. He had been with them for more than a decade, and they loved him to bits, but just at that moment, George found himself having the uncharitable thought that he wished they had got a dog instead.

Jonathon wasn’t in the mood for Aileen’s attentions. He meowed again and wriggled and craned his head over, his signal to let him down on the ground.

She released him and looked at her husband, her eyes widening. “Mother’s rings” she said. “In the drawer in the upstairs bedroom. Maybe they didn’t take them…”

Together they went upstairs to find the room’s contents tossed on top of the bedspread. With everything strewn all over the place, it was hard to tell what was actually missing, and what could simply not yet be found. But soon enough, they established that the thieves had taken her mother’s rings.

This time she did not cry. She was blank faced and frozen. George led her back down the stairs, sat her down at the dining table, and put the kettle on for some tea to calm their nerves.

“I think I need something stronger…” Aileen said as the kettle started whistling.

He had to agree. He took the brandy from the pantry and poured them both a small glass.

“We won’t be able to get the money back on the insurance,” Aileen said, laying her palms flat on the table before her. “Because it was my fault. I left the window unlocked…”

George sat opposite her at the table, pushed the glass of brandy across.

“Don’t worry about that now,” he said, vainly grasping at reassurance. “Could have happened to anybody. What were you saying, just before, about my forgetfulness…” he tried a light hearted chuckle, but it filled the space between them awkwardly, its artificiality too apparent.

“Take some of your brandy,” he said, choosing a more pragmatic angle.

She raised the glass to her lips and took a gulp. Felt the fire hitting her chest, and her hands grow a little steadier.

“They just don’t get it,” she said. “All these things mean nothing to them. It’s just money. As soon as they turn it into cash it’s forgotten. No idea, no respect for the…” she trailed off. “They call it sentimental value. That doesn’t really capture it does it?” Aileen began choking back tears again. “My mother…my mother would turn in her grave to know I had been so careless with her rings!”

“It’s not your fault,” said George. “We all make mistakes. It’s them—they’re just bastards, through and through, and they don’t give a toss about anyone, probably not even themselves…just bastard junkies…”

George felt the familiar rub of fur on his ankles under the table. Jonathon had been under there, listening. He came out and stood up on his haunches next to them at the table.

“Meow” he said.

“What is it, Jonathon?” said Aileen.

“Meow”

“It must be terribly frustrating for them,” said Aileen. “To not be able to tell us what’s wrong.”

Jonathon swiftly leapt on top the dining table.

“Jonathon!” said Aileen. “Naughty boy! You know you’re not allowed up here.”

“Meow!” said Jonathon.

“What’s the matter buddy?” said George.

Jonathon shifted back and forth on his hind legs. “Mrrreow?”

George brought his forefinger to his lips. “Wait a minute!” he said, evidently pleased with his powers of divination. “I know what it is! It’s his dinner time! Just before seven. Right on time. He wants his dinner!”

Jonathon was like a clock: as regular in his habits as an infantryman. If you happened to forget what time it was, he would let you know before too long.

“Oh, of course he does!” Aileen reached across and scratched Jonathon under the chin. “Yes, Jonathon, we understand now, you’re hungry aren’t you?”

“Meow!” said Jonathon.

“Would you mind…?” Aileen said to George.

“Of course not.” George rose from the table.

“Mrrreow” said Jonathon, jumping off the table and following George into the kitchen.

“Better give him two hearts today,” said Aileen. “After everything he’s been through. He deserves it.”

George pulled a baggie with chicken hearts from on top of the fridge, where they had been defrosting. Jonathon flitted around the kitchen, rubbing against his legs, mewling excitedly.

George dropped the hearts in Jonathon’s feeding bowl and Jonathon lunged at his meal with no further remarks.

He returned to his seat at the table. “Well,” he said. “I guess we better notify the police…”

Aileen was resting her chin on her hands, staring absently at the window. “Yes, I guess so.”

Suddenly her eyes sharpened. “George…” she said.” Why don’t you go over to the linen cupboard, get a towel for your hand…and break that window. Maybe we could at least get the money back.”

“Aileen!” said George. “That’s insurance fraud. I’m not sure what I think about that…”

“Upstanding to a fault you are, George,” Aileen said, and drained her glass. “Always have been.”

“It’s not a matter of being especially upstanding. It’s just…normal! If we did that, we wouldn’t be much better than the guys who robbed us.”

“You and I know, it’s not the same thing…”

***

Jonathon appeared to be completely engrossed in the task of feeding, but what the humans did not always appreciate about feline nature—its very evolved, very sophisticated quality—prevented them realising that he was a true multi-tasker, all his senses permanently on the alert, tuned into unfathomable frequencies.

So while George and Aileen thought that he was just gorging himself on offal, Jonathon was in fact missing nothing of his surroundings, from the world-weary crow calls beyond the windows, to the stirring of a distant storm, to the scents of a barbecue down the street, and all the way back to his owner’s complex deliberations about the ethical status of burglary versus insurance fraud.

His lidded eyes watched them, his human companions, over the top of his feeding bowl.

It was true after all, what she said: yes, it was incredibly frustrating to not be able to tell them what was wrong, or even what was right. The constant struggle to communicate via such inept phrases as “meow,” “mrrreow” and “prrrrr,” and the wholly inadequate apparatus of non-verbal signalling encompassed in such constant and tiring activities as leaping on and off of tables, rubbing at ankles and wriggling out of arm locks, left him feeling exhausted and defeated.

Oh, that self-adoring bastard junky with the gun had known what he meant all right, by one swipe of his strong, sharp talons. He had almost paid with his life.

But it was worth it, deep inside, he felt it was worth it. Or was it?

After all, they didn’t know. How could they know? How could they ever know how much they truly meant to him, how he had risen to their defence, how he was full to bursting with love?

The channels were so limited: incomprehensible expletives, tactile overtures and withdrawals. In the end, it always came back to this, the red plastic food bowl. The great mediator. It did an imperfect job, just like everything else, but at least in the end, there was meat. Chewy, gristly and delicious. Meat talks.

Sometimes, there’s nothing else for it but to present in the spirit of reception, of gratitude: to accept their offerings, to tear lovingly at their hearts.

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Obelia Modjeska is primarily an author of short fiction. Her work has appeared in Why Vandalism, Cantaraville and Torpedo. She lives and writes in Sydney, Australia.

My daughter waves the giant longneck clams she’s found, and her new boyfriend and I applaud, laughing. We then gather our pails and return to the beach house, where my husband’s stoking the barbecue. As usual, Harleys crowd the driveway next-door and marijuana smoke and rock music blast across the fence.

“Talk to them,” I urge my husband.

“But it’s Friday night.”

“This has been going on all summer,” my daughter says.

We turn to her boyfriend. Head down, his voice aquiver, he says, “OK, I’ll go.”

Gripping the clams in a sack like grapeshot, he marches across the yard.

Demolition 

In a large hotel scheduled for demolition antique fixtures of crystal and stained glass twirl beneath tall tin ceilings while below, along scaffolding and ladders, a disposal crew scrambles, wielding pliers like giant pincers. Wires snap like frayed nerve endings and lamps topple, shattering on the distant parquet floor. The job done, the workers leave.

Years pass, the hotel forgotten, the demolition incomplete. Eventually herds of rhino and wildebeest take residence there: they relish the crackly light, the shards that don’t pierce so much as scour their raw scabrous skin, the itch of centuries slowly discharged like spent lightning bolts.

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Joseph E. Lerner’s stories and poems have appeared or are forthcoming in such journals as 100 Word Story, Apocrypha and Abstractions, Eunoia Review, Feathered Flounder, Gargoyle, Pif, PoetsWest, and Rage Machine. He currently lives near Washington, D.C., where he’s working on a novel as well as poems and short stories. He blogs at FURIOUS FICTIONS:A MAGAZINE OF SHORT-SHORT STORIES.

Yesterday there was a sudden summer thunderstorm that brought the washing lines down and scattered dust and twigs everywhere in a mighty fury. We huddled indoors waiting for the storm to pass but Ratan, he stayed by the tree guarding the mangoes.

Aunty Sharu doesn’t like children – she tells us this whenever she spots us. She lives alone and only has Ratan to talk to. She doesn’t go anywhere or invite people over. She isn’t nice to Ratan either but he doesn’t mind.

She is going to harvest every single mango from her tree this year and sell them to this person in Bombay who will then export them to far-off countries. She is going to make so much money from this, that next year she will have not one but two guards for her tree. She will go on a vacation too, leaving Ratan in charge.  She tells us this every time we loiter around the bungalow. At the mention of the words “in charge”, Ratan puffs up with pride and twirls his mustache.

There is another huge storm predicted for today. The raindrops are coming in plump and thick, the sky is sooty black. Aunty Sharu watches the storm from her window and Ratan from the garden. A bolt of lightning makes me jump and I run to shut the window. Ratan is dashing around in their yard with a basket, picking up the mangoes that have fallen to the ground. Aunty Sharu is admonishing him that he is never vigilant enough, surely he was supposed to have planned for the storm. Her voice is screechy now and she is yelling above the rolling thunder.

As I watch from the window with mounting horror, a massive branch snaps and lands on to the ground with a huge thud, engulfing Ratan and his bounty of bruised fruit. A muffled scream fills the air. Aunty Sharu opens the door and races to the spot even as Ratan’s shrieks from underneath the branches get more painful, more urgent.

The rain is coming down in giant sheets now. The neighbors gather around as someone calls for an ambulance. Aunty Sharu stands drenched to the bone, calling out for Ratan with a shrill urgency to her voice.

“He is going to be fine, the ambulance is on its way,” someone tells her.

“The mangoes,” Aunty Sharu screams, “Oh the mangoes. Get this man out of here, I need to save the mangoes before the ambulance people steal them off me.”

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Vaiju Joshi’s fiction has appeared/is forthcoming in Bartleby Snopes, Global Short Story competition, Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Six Sentences and the Five Stop Story Project amongst others. Her fiction also was short-listed for the Best Australian Short Stories 2010 and 2011 anthologies.She is an engineer by profession and is currently working on her first novel. She lives in Adelaide, Australia.