joyful!

JULY

Flowers That Dance

by

Amanda Bornfree

A newcomer to the states, Amarilis was unable to adjust to the cold weather of Chicago. She dreaded purchasing a heavy coat and cringed noting that certain fruit weren't in season. Amarilis left Puerto Rico for a new start. Though hopeful in her heart as she prayed for a beginning in her dancing career, a slight depression settled in. Frigid wind and dark afternoons in late February pushed Amarilis to create sunny days. She couldn't do it alone but a weekly ritual soon birthed the promise of sun.

Amarilis lived by herself in a tiny apartment. She kept it simple and clear from clutter with the exception of a sloppy pile of music discs in the corner of the sun room . The sun room was mere open space; one could easily predict that a dancer occupied the place. The room took the shape of a half circle, mirroring a watermelon slice since the walls were painted a bright pinkish coral.  Above hung a  clothesline that stretched from the first window, leaped over three others and was tied to the hook of the last window. Only Amarilis' dark stockings, slips and bras had the privilege of moving; experiencing the currents of the beats in the music. The articles of clothing were little specks in the air, resembling seeds of the watermelon.

The stereo with its two speakers rested alongside the scattered music collection. Amarilis often wore tank tops with matching jogging shorts and her favorite pair of open toed shoes, always open when she danced. Whenever Eve, a new student of Amarilis pressed Amarilis' buzzer and headed up the stairs, the door of her mentor was always half open. Thrilled and tired from her thirteen block walk from school, Eve would drop her book bag on the toss rug in the foyer.  A mirror stood parallel to her,  reflecting her hair full of tangled snarls, premature acne and perspiration. Eve hated her reflection then but would obsess over it once the practice was finished for the week. Then Eve's face glowed with sensation and her smile was enriched and enormous as the light bulb from the ceiling sent a ring above her head that was only visible to her. She'd become a dancing queen indeed and the sweat was merely a compliment.

An hour prior to this happening, Eve would walk through the gloomy living room that sent her awkward chills. Confronted with Amarilis' blues, the cry of her island sung as a large Puerto Rican flag enhanced the black couch where Eve never sat. There wasn’t a single picture in the room just a small television, the couch and a raggedy mahogany treasure trunk that was used as a coffee table. Vacancy, agony and a touch of spirit that the traveled from the sun room rested in the deserted living room. Eve always looked forward to turning Amarilis' blues into something more colorful. 

Amarilis’ back was usually the first sight of her. Knelt on the floor with her curls bundled in a dark purple scarf, Amarilis would be busy selecting the song. She never really spoke to the young girl, she thought Eve's parents were selfish and thick with ignorance to force their daughter to take private lessons at some unknown woman's home. Amarilis understood that being a mentor required her to lend a hand in Eve's self-discovery.

Upon Eve's arrival, Amarilis communicated with her by gestures only.  Some days her body read, “be patient”,  or “go get something to sip on”, then there were the “Straighten your posture” days. Finding the right song was routine. Amarilis paid musicians high respect for creating the pulse for their movements. Sometimes Eve had to serve herself a glass of water and sip in patience until Amarilis discovered the right song. Once found, Amarilis would kiss the disc and say a brief prayer, asking God to lead their bones.

“It’s in the pit,!” Amarilis would place her hand against Eve’s small waist. The rhythms would begin. Eve would swallow then take a tiny step back, signaling to Amarilis that she was ready. Amarilis' response would be that of a nod followed by a quick press of the play button. She'd stand beside Eve with her chin up and instantly her kewpie face would tighten in concentration. Static and their breaths is all Eve could hear as she worried about her posture, her poise, her young structure and if her body was willingly capable of releasing the nervousness caked up inside her.

Amarilis' would clear her throat before yelling, “Feel!” with her husky voice. The  percussion entered first through her thighs. Sound waves breathed out vibrations, vibrations produced echoes that bounced heavily to and fro on the three walls of the sun room and the echoes enhanced dreams.

Ecstatic by the magical deliverance her mentor shared, Eve would try to mimic Amarilis’ precise dance steps but struggled to shake the same shake. Once Eve obeyed Amarilis, “Feel within yourself, don't worry about me”, Eve too would encounter the presence of the drums. It tempted her to follow her own dreams.  “It’s in the pit!” Amarilis declared, “This is the place where the mind absolutely has no control...in the pit!”   

Thoughtless, Eve pranced and wiggled her arms like a wild spider lost in a flute. She'd move her body in a complex eversochanging circle that fed her minerals she needed in order to grow a bit faster, feel a bit deeper and see a bit clearer. The moving instruments would shake the windowsills, raise dust from the floor and lead themselves into the world of their dreams. In both worlds, sun was radiant, nearly blinding them. Their dreams would collide with each other. Amarilis took the form of a strong dancing hybrid lily. She'd sway with the breeze that tickled her petals as Eve watched on. A budding flower, slightly tuck beneath a bush Eve would be. Her species was still unknown to the dancing garden but by the ray of sun that warmed her brow, the flowers in the garden knew the young girl held promise.

Overwhelmed by their dreams, the dancers would gasp, move more fluidly and Amarilis would shed tears. After all, they could taste what their dreams transferred so their mouths were full, teeth were sharpened, jaws were heavy and their tongues held plenty. Eventually the well-fed dancers were surrounded by the static, their heartbeats and the silence. No more music. Coming out of her trance, Eve would grow nervous again.
   
Letting out a monstrous sigh, Amarilis would turn and give a curtsy to Eve. Eve would mock and when she lifted her head back up, she'd watch Amarilis pull that royal purple scarf from her bun. She'd wipe it across her glistening forehead, patter it on her lower neck and swipe it under each arm. Nonchalantly, Amarilis would wrap it twice around her bun and tie it with a tug. Eve’s eyes would wander up and down her mentor’s frame in admiration as she wondered what type of flower she’ll be.

Bio: Amanda Bornfree is a new mother and has been enjoying the joy of parenthood. A graduate of Columbia College Chicago, Amanda received her BA in fiction writing. Presently she works with youth at an after school program.

God Is In The Water

by

Fonda Fan

It was on Wednesday, September 5th, 2007 around 11AM when Brian Michaels met the angel. It was hard to avoid the encounter, the spiritual deity knocked on his door. When Brian answered, there was a short, skinny, dark-skinned teen with narrow eyes staring up at him, not exactly a handsome kid with his messy black hair and thin lips, but not ugly either. A neatly folded pair of wings stuck out of his red T-shirt while stick-like legs protruded from his blue shorts. 

“Hey Brian,” the kid said. “I’m Raphael. I’m your guardian angel.”

Brain blinked for a few seconds. Rubbed his eyes. Then blinked again. “I don’t think I’ve applied to adopt an Ethiopian kid. Definitely not with wings. You’re going to have to run along now, or use your feathers, whatever you want. This isn’t a homeless shelter. I live here and pay the mortgage, and I’m not much of a charity worker.”

“I’m not Ethiopian. I’m an angel.”

“You’re right. Ethiopians wouldn’t be starving if they could fly to where the food was. Indian?”

“Angel.”

“Malaysian?” The kid shook his head emphatically. “Burmese? You’ve got that dusky tan thing going.”

The boy smiled sweetly. “You heard me the first time, Brian.”

“Actually, I don’t think so. See, I don’t believe in God. And if I don’t believe in God, then I don’t believe in little harp-playing angels like you. And if I don’t believe in little harp-playing angels that look like starving Ethiopians then you can’t exist. And if you don’t exist, God doesn’t exist.”

“It’s not like he needs you to believe in him to be there.” Raphael said, unperturbed, and before Brian could stop him the brat had slipped around and behind his tall mass to waltz around in the living room. “Nice place,” the angel said while Brian crossed his arms and turned slowly. “May I have a glass of water?”

“You’re cheeky for a little kid. Why don’t you ask to come in?” Brian gestured at the door. “You can’t just walk into somebody’s house like that!”

“I’ve been here millions of times. In fact, I know about you pretty well, I’m your angel, but the Man Upstairs thought it was time to introduce myself.”

“Who are you?” Brian asked irritably.

“I told you, I’m Raphael.”

“Is this some kind of joke? Who sent you?”

“God.”

“I already said that can’t be possible.” Brain said. “This is a postmodern society in which we have determined that nothing can be determined, least of all some Supreme Being. There are individual truths but no overarching system of values can be applied across us all, religion in fact, has often been used as a tool of repression. There is no one God and perhaps there is no God at all, and looking at all the misery, suffering, and unhappiness in the world, it’s highly unlikely that a kind-hearted providence is truly in place. You need to get with the times here.”

“Dear Lord,” the angel said. “You humans have really made a mess of things.”
“You may as well leave me alone, I’m not interested in whatever spiel you have for me.”

“It’s not a spiel; it’s about your life.”

“Not interested.”

Raphael did not move. “It’s rather impolite to deny your guest of his one request for water.”

There was no choice for Brian to amble over to the sink and fill a semi-clean glass with tap water, scowling all the way. Anything to make the heavenly sprite take off, but once Raphael thirstily gulped it down, he glibly asked for more. Brian took the glass back and tried to grab the kid’s shirt collar in an attempt to drag him outside, but Raphael sidestepped all such maneuvers, leaping over the sofa, skipping across the carpet, and mounting the table to jump into the chandelier, avoiding Brian’s grasp by the slightest margin every time. His evasion was near effortless, easy, and he moved as though he was composed out of the thinnest air. Finally, Brian gave up and went over to wash his dishes from breakfast.

“I don’t know about a spiritual other world where your type hang out and all, it just can’t be proven. Sorry, but I believe in what my senses tell me, it’s how I know and relate to the world.”

“Have you experienced everything?” Raphael asked from his lofty chandelier. The crystal and glass of it didn’t even sway under his weight, it must have been an awfully sturdy light fixture. 

“No! Of course not.”

“Then how would you know about the state of the world?”

“I see it around me, it’s in the news, and people talk about it.”

“Don’t you see me?”

Brain angrily dipped his plate into soapy water. “Yeah, but I don’t know if you’re really an angel. That’s just what you told me.” Raphael flexed his wings. “And those could be fake!”

The next couple of days went by uneventfully. Brian went to work and came home, making sure that the angel stayed in the living room. He’d had to chase it out of the kitchen a few times when the kid was getting water, and had even locked the refrigerator. “It’s not that I have anything against you starving Ethiopians,” he had explained, staring hard at the figure on top of the cabinets, “But if you’re hungry you’ll have to go somewhere else.” Raphael never complained about hunger though, and the fridge was never disturbed. The problem was that the angel would still be in his house, on his couch, or at his table. Once, Brian was in such a rush to work that he forgot to lock anything up, but Raphael hadn’t touched a thing.

It was an adjustment, and it took a while before Brian felt comfortable without locking his fridge, but the angel wasn’t too bad. Raphael was doing chores around the house, all without any prompting from his host: he vacuumed, swept, did laundry, and cleaned the toilets. All he really wanted to do otherwise was drink water and chat. It didn’t always have to be about God either, they talked about the weather, work, jokes, stock exchange, sports, Raphael even listened to Brian complain about his boss and croon over his girlfriend. There were still moments where Brian asked the angel to leave because he was trespassing and there was no Heavenly Sender anyway, but Raphael never paid attention. Even when Brian took to chasing him with a broom due to its longer reach, trying to displace the ill-mannered boy from the ceiling, Raphael remained placid, ethereally flitting from one high point to another, a glass of water eternally in his hands.

Brian started looking through the Bible to test if Raphael really was who he said he was. He’d flipped through that boring piece of work before when he was a kid, and to his recollection, there was no mention of angels drinking water all the time. “Matthew 16:1!” he called out at Raphael one evening when the kid was finishing up his tenth glass of water.

“‘The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven’” Without batting an eye. It was shouldn’t have been surprising, a kid who claimed he was an angel and took the trouble to paste mechanical wings on his back had to memorize a bit of the Bible to have any type of credibility, but it was. Brian expected more preaching, sermonizing, judgment, guilt trips, something cataclysmically annoying from what professed to be a messenger of God, but Raphael was amiable, he seemed too relaxed to be an angel.

A few more days passed though, and things were starting to get difficult. Raphael never got a verse wrong. And there was no way that Brian, a UC Berkeley Classics grad, proficiently educated, considered smart even, could really win an argument with the angel either. “If God’s so great and good, then why do people go to hell?”

“Think of it this way. There’s a path that forks. One side takes you home; the other takes you off the edge of a cliff. There’s a signpost that tells you exactly which will go where, but of course nobody really knows if what’s written there is proven beyond a doubt until they get to their destination.”

“Shouldn’t God be able to control people though? You know, keep them from jumping off a cliff? He’s supposed to love us, right?”

Raphael looked off to the side, out the window, where the sky was blue and wide, and the clouds scattered in soft whiteness across its expanse. “Love’s a choice, isn’t it? If you love God, you come home. If you don’t, you don’t want to be with God. Maybe to those people, hell is better.”

“There should be more options then.” Brian retorted grumpily. He didn’t get it. He didn’t like it. “And you know it’s not that black and white either. I’ve got a good life as it is. I’m in the U.S., among the wealthiest one percent of the world, my parents are great, I have lots of friends, I’m in good shape, I’ve never gone through any major physical or mental trauma, I’m making money. I’m doing fine. It’s not like I need personal salvation or redemption or anything. I’m not a bad guy, and my life is good!”

“And what about the next life?”

“I don’t know, is that even there?”

“What would you do if it is?”

It frustrated Brian, the serene, unconcerned way the angel replied to questions without giving a definite answer, but all with such dignified aplomb that he couldn’t feel justified about losing his temper. He’d already tried running the angel out with no luck, there wasn’t much more he could do. It wasn’t as though the police would believe him and if he confided to anyone else he’d still be seen as cracked. Brian wasn’t any closer to knowing what Raphael was, or who had sent him. He suspected his girlfriend, she was a Christian, but this seemed like a rather extreme joke on her part. It could have been some extremist religious group. It was possible this was some extended form of terrorism.

“Why did God make pimples?” Brian shot at Raphael one day. The angel was perched on the sofa, drinking water and looking out the window again. He smiled, but there was something sad in his narrow eyes.

“Look Brian, are you asking me questions because you honestly want to learn about God, or are you searching for technicalities? Anything to prove me wrong.”

Brian flushed. “What’s wrong with an inquiring mind?”

“Inquiring mind, or a mind that’s already made up?”

“Hey, hey, there’s something weird about you, okay? Angels don’t come into people’s rooms and start doing the dishes. And they’re supposed to have cool superpowers, you haven’t done anything. And you’re always drinking water, what’s up with that?”

“I like it.” Raphael said.

Brian seized on the opportunity. “I had to read the Bible because of you. Listen to this: ‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst, indeed the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’ If you’re an angel then you must have had some of this holy water, so why are you thirsty?”

“I’m not. I just like this.”

“What? Why?”

Raphael shrugged. “Reminds me of God.”

“God’s in the water?”

“Not quite it, but you’re onto something. Water just reminds me of how God works in this world. He’s essential, he’s everywhere, people need him, but a lot of them don’t know how much. They don’t know how vital he is, they think he’s irrelevant.” The kid hopped off of the sofa. “And I’m sorry, Brian, but this is all the time we have left.”

“What?”

“Our time’s up. I have to go back to what I was doing before. I’ll still be watching out for you, but you know, just not like this. It was really good talking to you.” And with that, his always neatly folded wings spread out, and he flew out the window. Shocked and dazed, Brian ran after Raphael’s retreating figure and stuck his head outside where the flutter of wings filled his ears and the whiteness of glowing silhouettes rushing past him burned his eyes.

For the next week, Brian didn’t know how exactly to proceed. He noticed at the newsstand that all the papers reported supposed encounters with angels throughout America, a wide range of stories that were being dismissed by leading scientists and theorists as either group hypnosis, group hysteria, or even an expensive hoax. Brian scratched his head.

When he got back from work, his neighbor was watering the lawn. “Hey Brian!”

Brian waved halfheartedly.

“Man, you wouldn’t believe it! You know all that hype recently about angel sightings? One of those imposters actually came over to my place. Said she was my guardian angel!”

“Did you believe her?” 

His neighbor quirked an eyebrow. “What? Of course not! Don’t you read the papers? It was a hoax, a terrorist threat even.”

Brian went back to his house and found himself automatically checking the chandelier for winged little brats. It felt emptier than it used to be, lonelier. He poured himself a glass of water. He sipped the cool, clear liquid slowly, watching the light spark and jump across its smooth then wrinkled surface. It was nice to imagine for a moment. Living water, coursing through him and around him, in the air, nourishing the plants and the trees, flowing silently underground, falling hard from the heavens. Loved, cherished, forgotten, ignored. Even as Brian drank, he thirsted.  

Bio: Fonda Fan is a first-year Johns Hopkins Creative Writing MA student and a US Army Reservist. She has been published while an undergraduate at UC Berkeley for poetry in the Other Voices writing magazine and in the SLC Writing Magazine, as well as for a non-fiction article on my experience in Iraq for the UC News Center.

Hawk Strike, With Feathers

by

Kirie Pedersen

As I talked on the phone with my former stepdaughter, Sahari, I stared up into the trees behind my cabin, and I shivered. It was six months since my husband died. One month before his death, he divorced me.  

Sahari was even more confused. Eighteen and half-orphaned, she asked, “What are you to me now?”
   
In the forest around the house, we often found small drifts of feathers. Hawks can strike a bird in midair and rip it in half. Once half a crow fell in front of me, the heart still beating.

On the phone that day, I was telling Sahari about aging, and how it felt to get ugly (“You’re not,” Sahari said), and how cruel people could be, and how they just didn’t get it (our continued relationship after her father’s death).You see, I stole another woman’s daughter. No, I didn’t snatch her from an incubator or from a stroller left carelessly on someone’s front lawn.

The stealing thing might be entirely untrue. Perhaps her parents, like some species that leave their young in another’s nest, left her for me.  

When she was younger, she would ask, “Are you sure you’re not my mother?” 

One tends to be fairly sure about pregnancy, I would reply, pedantically. As usual, I failed to hear the sub-text.    “Maybe you were pregnant in rehab,” Sahari said.


“Everyone around us gets to go crazy,” Sahari said. “You and I are doomed to sanity.”


A shadow loomed overhead. I looked up to see an accipiter. A cascade of light gray downy feathers fell one at a time,  expanding from bird-shape, to bird-shadow, to chaos. Pinfeathers, longer and heavier, a darker gray, plummeted straight down. Still listening to Sahari, I walked beneath the shower of feathers. 

Bio: Kirie Pedersen has an M.A. and B.A. in fiction writing and literature. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Wisconsin Review, Eclipse, RiverSedge, Utne Reader, SevenDays, Regeneration (Rodale Press), American Motorcyclist, Northwest People, Philadelphia Drummer, Gourmet Notebook, Teachers and Writers, and elsewhere. Textbooks include the Writing Handbook for Teachers and Tutors (published in Spanish and English) and Teaching Creative Writing Using Native American Songs and Myths. She divides her time between New York City and a rural village in Washington State. 

The Shape of Fire

by

Sheila Lamb

Energy flowed through Michael’s hand, through the torch, into the metal. He didn’t plan in advance what he formed.  There was no plan.  It was only the desire to begin.  Once he did, the forms took a shape of their own.  The metal twisted, burned, and bent.  Smoke rose, steam settled. 
   
His income wasn’t consistent, but at least there was income.  He might have said the same thing about women.  They came and went but he knew, at some point, they would be there.  His unspoken philosophy aggravated some of them.  He thought of one particular ex-girlfriend, flinched, then smiled.  Michael picked up his torch again, ready to shape the next fold of metal into place.

    He liked the moment of the curve.  The process of heating before it all solidified.  He didn’t like the ending.  The next day, he’d begin a new project or revise an old one.  Much like the women, he saw his work, from one project to the next, as a continuing stream.

    The torch snapped and sizzled.  The flame was dangerous, and he wore a special mask for protection.  One stray spark into his eye and his budding career as an artist would have ended.  He listened to the hiss of fire on metal.  It was a thrill, he realized, like a drug.  It was the act of beginning, of not knowing what would come next.

#
   
Melissa sat on a solitary barstool. She stirred hot chocolate fluffed with the barista’s magic.  A happy man, she thought when the bearded stranger breezed past her, a jaunt in his step. He wore jeans so faded they were almost white.  Very different from her boyfriend of three years, Jason, who walked as if in a military parade. 

Still, Charlene’s comment this morning on the bus bothered her. 
   
“Everyone at the bank thinks Jason is great,” her friend had said.  They all worked together in the loan division.

Really?  Jason?  It wasn’t jealousy that sparked her bad mood.  It was something else, undefined. 
   
Melissa glanced over her shoulder at the man in line, the one with the nice fitting Levi’s.   

She turned back to her chocolate and glanced at her silent BlackBerry.  Ten p.m. Jason hadn’t called to ask where she was. She wished she hadn’t dropped out of art school. It was a regret that occasionally took her over to the funky café on the south side of town. She soaked up the atmosphere, drank in the creativity. Her hands ached for the touch of clay upon the wheel, the cool formation of earth.
   
“I might sign up for a night class next semester,” she had mentioned to Jason the previous night.
   
“In what? Marketing?”
   
“No.” The thought of it made her skin crawl. “Why would you say that?”
   
“Because you’re the assistant manager of the customer service division? Generally, people go back to school to further their careers.”
   
“I was thinking of taking something fun. A pottery class. Maybe drawing.”
   
“Hmmm.” He had turned his gaze back to the television.
   
She was startled by a tap on the metal stool next to her
   
“This seat taken?”
#

Michael pushed through the café as if underwater. Visions of the sculpture dominated his mind; the next bend, the next shape. Light and dark played shadow games – the fluorescent above the cash register, the green glare of the digital numbers blurred against the darkness of a corner booth.  Voices mingled into a single song, pitches and timbres moved low and high through a scale of sound.
   
He meandered around tables and chairs, college students with laptops, art students with charcoal and sketchpads. The scent of warm chocolate and coffee enveloped him, pushed him to the depths, only to be jolted to the bright surface by a bitter stab of green tea. A gleam of silver attracted him; a lone metal barstool against the window.
   
“Can I sit here?”
   
The blonde woman who sat in the neighboring chair ignored him or didn’t hear him. He cleared his throat, conscious of not having spoken to another for days. “This seat taken?”
   
She drummed her fingers on the top of her cell phone sitting on the counter next to her before she glanced up. “No, go ahead.”
   
The stool scraped against the wood floor as he moved it. He cringed at the abrasive sound, a donkey braying through the low hum. He sipped at his espresso and tilted his cup toward the woman. “I’m taking a break from a project I’ve been working on.”
   
She lifted her cell phone, pressed buttons. The glow reflected in her eyes. She tapped at it again and then suddenly shoved the thing into her purse - a brush stroke of silver before him.
   
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Did you say something about a project?”
   
“I did. I’m a sculptor. Welding.”

Her multi-looped earrings glittered, caught in the headlight of a car passing outside their window seat. They sat in silence. The pattern of her earring put an idea in his head, elliptical, with a point. The contour of a dove.
   
“I used to be into pottery,” she said suddenly.
   
“Used to?”
   
“Well, I mess around with it sometimes.” She smiled and twisted the paper napkin she held. “Clay didn’t seem practical as a college major, though.”
   
He tapped his own fingers against his espresso cup, a ceramic impracticality. “I heard that a lot from my folks when I started school.”
   
“What made you stick with it?”
   
“I love what I do. I can’t imagine not doing it. It’s not easy, sometimes, but I’m starting to sell pieces.”
   
“That’s great.” She coiled the napkin into a spiral. “I guess I never felt like I could make a living with pottery.”
   
“Is that why you gave it up?”
   
“One of many reasons.”
   
“Or excuses.”
   
Her eyebrows shot up at the bluntness of his words. He returned her look, silently asking: which is it?
   
“You know what made me drop art classes? The professors always wanted to know my meaning, the message. Why did everything have to mean something?” Her voice rose with emotion. “Why couldn’t they let it be? Appreciate beauty for beauty’s sake?”  She stirred a spoon in her cup and shook her head. “I like the shape of things, a blend of color. There’s a certain moment in art where I want to leave it in that exact place.”

Michael pondered her words. He knew what she meant, about that moment – but for him, it never lasted. “I wish I could get to that point. I always want to redo whatever I’ve done. Maybe I listened to the professors too much. I’m never satisfied with it.” That wasn’t exactly it either. He couldn’t explain the feeling of purposelessness when he turned off his torch.

He noticed the purple scarf, the forest green of her sweater.  She did have a propensity for color.  “So now you live a …practical…life?”
   
“Sure do. Share an apartment with my boyfriend, steady paychecks, and health insurance.” Her tone was sarcastic.
   
“401k?”
   
“That too.”
   
He liked her smile. She balled up the paper napkin she’d been winding. He could see her hands moving around a mound of clay, forming, shaping.
   
“But you’d rather be an artist?”
   
The cell phone buzzed from inside her purse. 
   
“I’ve got to go,” she said. “See you.”
   
Michael realized he hadn’t asked her name.

#

Melissa slammed the alarm clock with the palm of her hand. Her blow sent the clock crashing off the nightstand, onto the floor.  She curled her throbbing hand back under her pillow.
   
“Jesus.” Jason left the bed and strode toward the shower. “Just turn off the switch.”   
   
She remained still, eyes closed.  Mornings weren’t her best time, although she didn’t know this about herself until she lived with someone who bounded out of bed as if his ass was spring-loaded. 
   
After a few minutes, she lurched to the kitchen where she fumbled desperately with the coffee pot.  She couldn’t think or speak until she had one cup of measurable caffeine in her system.  She dumped in a spoonful of sugar and wrapped her hands around the heat of the thick, earthenware coffee mug, one she had made.  She debated whether to shower before work.  Who cares, she thought.  It was time to find something new.

“Bye babe.” Jason brushed past, jostling her shoulder. Her coffee spilled on the counter.  Unlike Jason, Melissa took her time getting to the bank. She preferred to watch the sun rise over the mountains that loomed above town. Today, though…maybe she’d call in sick, stop by the university and pick up a catalog...maybe.

Dissatisfaction nagged at her. What was it that guy had said? He couldn’t imagine not doing art. That was the problem; she could envision her life without art.  It terrified her.    

#

Michael draped the metal sheet over its post, as a wing rests upon a bird.  The hot steel would soon set into the shape he wanted.  He flicked the switches off on his torch and stepped back to analyze the sculpture again. The silver fold curved as he had envisioned. 

His fingers drummed the top of his workbench. Inside his leather work gloves, his hands grew hot, needing either to work or be set free. He turned on oxygen and acetylene switches.  Thin blue flame jetted out from the cutting tip. He held the torch at an angle, ready to turn the metal back into lumps of steel. Each time, this happened. He wasn’t ready to be done. 

“There’s a certain moment in art where I want to leave it in that exact place.” He heard her voice, the girl from the café. The sculpture was there, in that place, if he didn’t ruin it first.

He switched off the torch again, set it down, tapped his restless hands on the workbench again. Abruptly, he pulled of his work gloves, kicked off his heavy boots. In a manic rush, he shoved on old tennis shoes, and grabbed his road bike. He had to get out before the impulse overtook him again. He walked out of his garage studio, and, with a backward glance, he saw a thing a beauty.  He paused, breathless in that glorious moment between heat and cool, before the artwork was stationed into its final performance.

The colors on the desert horizon reminded him of flames.  He rode past park signs to one of the pueblo remains that dotted the landscape. Pink hazed in quietly, softening the whole sky into a gentle cushion of light.  This isn’t the heat of fire, he thought to himself as he leaned against the side of a pueblo to watch.  This is something else.  Something magic.

The rising sun tinted the bricks a golden-pink, highlighting every shadow and crevice.  The roof had gone missing a century before, the pinewood and juniper carried off for some cowboy’s fire.  What remained was a rectangular adobe structure, deserted by its inhabitants a thousand years before. 

Small openings within the brick created windows that allowed beams of sunlight to slice across an empty room. Michael heard movement in the dry dust.  He peeked through a window and saw her in the doorway. Gold beams, as though sent from the gods, barred her entrance.  She touched the rough surface of the wall. Dust floated in the light as if the thousand-year-old clay breathed beneath her fingertips in communion.  She ducked under the sun beam, while her fingers traced the coarse bricks. She sank to the ground and grasped a handful of dust, clutching it.

He debated whether to leave her alone.  Of course, he was never one to leave a woman alone. 
   
“Hey, are you OK?” he whispered. 

She started. The dirt from her hands left orange streaks across her face.  “I’m fine.” 

“Hey, you’re the girl from the café.”
   
She blinked away tears. “Oh yeah.  Hey.”
   
“So. What brings you here?”  Stupid question, he thought.  Save that one for the girls at the bars.  Michael walked around the pueblo to the doorway. 

She answered when he appeared on the other side. “Decided to take the day off, figure a few things out.”
   
He sat next to her in the sand and looked up to the sky, through the roofless building. He allowed his eyes to play with the orange brick on the background of blue. Piercingly blue.
   
“I finished that last sculpture; the one I told you about.”     

“Finished it? Like it’s complete? You’re not going back to rework it again?”
   
“No. Not this time.” He leaned back with her against the pueblo wall.  “This time, I decided to…let it be.” 

Michael pointed to the clash of colors he found so enticing. “Look.”

#

Melissa followed his gaze, and sighed.  The dried orange of the clay gave way to pink, then gold. 

“It’s beautiful.” She wanted to grab the vibrant, stark colors with her hands, and meld them together into something permanent. 
   
“You could do that...” His voice trailed off as light etched out a new corner in the shadows of the pueblo.  “My neighbor is moving, selling her wheel, kiln, what’s left of her clay. You should take it.”

“Maybe I will.” She pressed her fingertips together, and felt the mixture of damp dust and sand.  He knew.  Knew what her hands were desperate to take hold of. Knew what she was desperate to find.

Bio: Sheila Lamb's short fiction and essays have appeared in Silent Voices, Flagstaff Live and Bardsong. She also writes web content and educational curriculum.

Green Camaro

by

Michael Joshua

As soon as the car was warm, Amber bundled the blanket around her and turned off the ignition. She would do this a number of times before morning. Every thirty minutes or so - Amber turned on the car to run the heater. Once in a while, a police officer would come to the window and tell her she could not park this beat up car in the discount store parking lot. She didn’t know why they cared, they weren’t even open, but they did.

Just two weeks ago, Amber lived in an apartment. That was before Jeremy found the letter from her mom in her pocket. He told her that she couldn’t talk to her mom, why did she open the letter? Why didn’t she just mark “Return to Sender” on the envelope like he had told her to do? It doesn’t matter now. It’s too late, the only reason she had the car is because it was in her name. He would take it if he could. Amber tried to call her mom, but the number was unlisted and she didn’t have enough money to buy the gas to get there. She was shoplifting small items from the local 7-11 to eat, and standing on the corner during the day begging for the few dollars to buy gas just to keep the car warm.

She had no clothes, no friends, and she was running out of options as she parked her car on the bridge. While she contemplated what to do next, a green Camaro pulled up alongside her. The young man in the muscle car whistled at her, “Hey, whatcha doin’ out here?” She didn’t even look up, she knew it would only be worse if they made eye contact. The young man drove away, shaking his head. This happened over and over, each night as she thought about taking her life, the green Camaro would show up, as if on cue, “Hey, whatcha doin’ out here?” she would hear each time.

One night a strange thing happened. Instead of the “Hey, whatcha doin’ out here?” she heard a slight rap on the window, looked over her blanket and saw the green Camaro. She started to shake, first from the scare, then from the cold. Though she wouldn’t look at him, the rapping continued. Finally, because he would not go away, she turned toward him. He reached toward her with a bag from a fast food place – and said, “I thought you might be hungry.” As she burrowed into her blanket, he put the food down, got into his car and roared away. He was barely out of sight when she opened the door and grabbed the bag, the first meal she had eaten in three weeks – only a couple of burgers and fries, but a feast.

As Amber silently thanked God for her good fortune, she realized that today was the first day that she hadn’t stolen anything to eat. She might feel alone, but Amber knew that God was watching over her. When she awoke the next morning, to her surprise – there was a fast food breakfast in a bag outside her door. She ravenously ate it and then drove to the nearest gas station to use the facilities. She found herself humming a tune as she washed up in the restroom, feeling very blessed indeed. She didn’t have a place to live, but she ate two meals in a row. For four days, this continued.

She was again on the bridge when the green Camaro came around the corner. This time when he rapped on her window, she looked up and opened her window. The young man handed her a bag with food still warm, an address and five hundred dollars. When Amber asked him why, he said “I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!” Matthew 25:40 (NLT)

As she began to cry, the young man said, “I am a student at the Seminary down the road, and God impressed upon me to show you a place to go, and to provide the money for you to do it. This is what He has told me to do, I will trust Him to guide you.” With that, he was back in the green Camaro and out of sight. When she looked at the paper, she realized it was her mother’s address.

Bio: Michael Joshua is a part-time writer, full-time husband, father and grandfather. Blessed and redeemed. He maintains an active blog at http://myinspirationalsayings.blogspot.com

What the Moon Sees

 by

Wayne Scheer

Avery sat up in his hotel bed, squinting at the light streaming in from the open balcony.  Rose, naked except for a towel she held to her chest, stood at the open sliding door, her back to him, staring at the moon.

He reached for his glasses and felt a morning erection coming on.  What was once automatic, had now became a pleasant surprise. 

"What are you doing?  Someone will see you."

"No one can see from up here, except the moon."  She held out her arms.  "Come see how beautiful it looks."

"Yes, it's beautiful.  The moon in the sky, too."

"You need your glasses, old man."

"I'm wearing them.  I also need my sleep.  What is it?  Five-thirty?"

"I showered and made coffee with those horrible little packets the hotel provides.  You want some?"

"You bet I want some."  He patted her side of the bed. 

Rose laughed and climbed back into bed, letting the damp towel drop to the floor.  "You're really taking this second honeymoon seriously, aren't you?"

After making love, Rose rested her head on Avery's chest and ran her hand over his white chest hairs.  He reached under the covers to caress her hip.  Her flesh felt voluptuous, reminding him of a Rubens' nude.  He tried recalling what she felt like when they first married.

"You're thinking about something," she said.

"You can hear me think?"

"Loud and clear."

"Then why ask?"

"You're thinking about the young woman you married, the one with long hair and breasts that bounced when she walked."

"Actually, I was thinking how much more sensual you are now."

Avery knew she didn't believe him.  He propped himself up on his elbow.  "I love you more than ever.  Don't forget that."  He kissed her lips.  "I'd show you, but at my age twice in such a short period of time could be dangerous."

Now they both laughed.

A few kisses, and Avery sat up.  "I want to do something we haven't done in a long time."

"Uh-oh.  After what we just did, I'm worried.  I'm not as flexible as I used to be."

"Let's take a bath together."

"A bath?  This is what you want?  Maybe you are getting old."  She sighed.  "Remember the old pedestal tub in the apartment we had when we first married?  The one with the pipe that dripped a trickle of water so the landlord could call it a shower/tub?"

"We had no money, no car, but they were good times."

"We had each other," Rose turned towards him.  "This is sounding like a bad novel."

"Of course we had each other.  But we had more.  We had the tub.  Remember what we called it?  The Love Tub."

"Who could forget?"  Rose laughed.  "My back still aches."

It took some cajoling and a compromise, but Rose agreed to share a shower.  Getting in and out of a tub, they both agreed, was too much effort.

"I just washed my hair," Rose said.  "Try not to get it wet."

Avery arranged the showerhead so it would hit his wife on her chest.  Using a hand towel, he soaped her body from the neck down.  She started to cry.

He kissed her tears.  "What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry.  You put up a good front, but how could you love me the way I look?"

He washed some of the soapsuds from Rose's newly healed mastectomy scars and kissed them.  "This is your most beautiful part.  It means there's no cancer."  He looked up at her with tears in his own eyes.  "It means you're still with me."

In a torrent, it all came back to him: the lump in her breast, the doctor informing them it was malignant, the operation, the radiation treatments, her hair falling out in clumps.  Through it all, Rose kept her sense of humor, trying not to let him see what he knew she was feeling.  He hoped he was as strong for her.

When the doctor declared her in remission, they celebrated with a second honeymoon.

"This is what love is," Avery whispered as he patted her with a dry towel.  "But I need coffee."

Rose kissed the man she had known since college, slipped into a nightgown and poured two cups of leftover coffee, handing one to him.

Avery took a sip and made the kind of face usually reserved for changing smelly diapers.  "This is terrible."  He put down the cup and called room service for a fresh pot, orange juice and rolls.

Rose tried to wrestle the receiver from him.  "Do you know what that costs?  We could go downstairs and have a full breakfast for that."

"I don't want a full breakfast.  I want to sit with my wife in our hotel room, sip good coffee, and enjoy the view."

Rose returned to the balcony.  In the light, her nightgown became transparent. 

Staring at his wife, Avery recalled her fifty years earlier, standing before the moon in a peignoir her sister gave her for their honeymoon.  He remembered how he squinted then to see through her garment, excited by his new wife's body, while wondering if he were capable of loving her forever.    

Bio: Wayne Scheer, a past contributor to Shine Journal and Joyful!,  has been nominated for four Pushcart Prizes and a Best of the Web.  His work has appeared in a variety of print and online venues, including The Christian Science Monitor, Notre Dame Magazine, Pedestal Magazine and Camroc Press Review.  Revealing Moments, a collection of twenty-four flash stories, is available at http://www.pearnoir.com/thumbscrews.htm.  Wayne lives in Atlanta with his wife.

AN ACT OF LOVE

 by

 Elliot Richard Dorfman

True love will make people bind,
But it is very rare to find,
Only with the passage of time,
Will we know if it can truly shine.



"I wish I could get out of this rat race," Jonathan thought as he wistfully looked out of his spacious Madison Avenue office on a Friday afternoon in the Spring of 1983.

***
 
At forty-four, Jonathan Harold Randall had the type of success that most people envied. In charge of a prestigious New York advertising agency, he had a beautiful wife, two bright teenaged sons, and a sprawling redwood ranch house located in the affluent suburb of Scarsedale. The place came complete with an enclosed swimming pool and patio suitable for large gatherings.
 
Lauren, his wife, was known for her lavish parties. At one time all the extravagance seemed enjoyable, but recently he was beginning to find it dull, just like the rest of his life. Perhaps this was the reason for his recent spouts of depression.
 
For the last couple of weeks he had begun thinking about his childhood. Jonathan had grown up in an old East Side walk-up tenement on Henry Street in Manhattan. His parents, Max and Shirley, were Jewish refugees who had immigrated to America after World War II. Both their immediate families had been annihilated by the Nazis.
 
Settling in Manhattan, they met while working in the garment district, fell in love and eventually got married. Shirley took a break long enough to have their only son, Jonathan - a bright and gentle child who loved music.
 
As a latch key child, he was left to his own devices until his parents got home. Luckily for him, there was a big old mahogany upright piano left in the apartment when his family first moved in. He quickly learned to play by ear, but desperately wanted to become a proficient pianist. Then at ten, Jonathan got a job as a delivery boy in a local pharmacy after school to pay for piano lessons. No matter how tired or busy he was, time was always found to practice. Within a few years he became quite a skilled musician. His parents were not impressed.
 
"Jonathan, it's not practical," his father (edged on by his mother) repeated over and over. "Only a few pianists become successful. There's too much competition. Believe me, there are others who are far better than you. Don't be such a dreamer. Look for a profession that is more practical."
 
When he entered high school, his parents moved to a nicer apartment in Queens. The piano was left behind because it was cumbersome and expensive to remove from the apartment. Without a piano to practice on, Jonathan reluctantly gave in to his parents wishes.
 
Obtaining a full scholarship to New York University, Jonathan majored in marketing and graduated summa cum laude. Almost immediately afterwards, this charismatic young man was hired by a prestigious advertising firm. Two years later, he met his future wife, Lauren, at a client'scocktail party. She was the daughter of a prominent lawyer and was presently taking graduate courses in literature at Columbia University.
 
Jonathan did well at the agency, and eventually became head of it. Since he was a workaholic, there was little time left for leisure. Despite his achievements, there was always some kind of inner anger eating away at him. Somehow, he was able to suppress that emotion until recently.
 
***

 
Jonathan got up from his desk. The meeting with a client had ended earlier than expected. With nothing else scheduled, Jonathan could have gone home, but he suddenly first got the urge to visit his childhood neighborhood which was only a few subway train stops from his office.
 
Getting off at the East Broadway station, Jonathan saw lots of changes in the area. It was now beginning to get trendy with expensive boutiques and shops. Turning the corner to Henry Street, there in the middle of the block stood his old brownstone apartment house. It was about to go through some extensive renovations and all the tenants had vacated. A man in blue overalls stepped out of the front entrance.
 
"I used to live here as a youngster," Jonathan told him. "I was wondering if I could see my old third floor apartment."
 
The man smiled. " You must have many nice memories of it, huh? Sure, I'll be glad to take you up there. I'm the superintendent of this building."
 
Jonathan handed him a ten-dollar bill.
 
"Thanks I really appreciate it."
 
They climbed three levels of stairs then turned to the first apartment that was on the left side. It was completely empty except for his old upright piano and a stool which was still standing between the two front windows in the living room. Excitedly, he went over to it and opened the lid. All the ivory keys were intact. He sat down and played a few passages from the "Prelude in C sharp Minor" by Rachmaninoff. The instrument needed tuning, but otherwise was in excellent shape for its age.
 
" It sounds good," the superintendent commented. "They use to make things much better in the old days."
 
Jonathan suddenly wanted that piano back. "I'll take it off your hands, Mister, just give me a couple of days to get some experienced movers."
 
The superintendent shook his head. "It's not for sale."
 
Jonathan became agitated. "If it's money . . . I'll make it worth your while. I'll . . . "
 
"It's not the money. If it were up to me, I'd give it you for nothing, but someone has beaten you to it. This piano was sold weeks ago by the former tenant. In fact, it's being picked up by the movers in a couple of hours."
 
Jonathan shoulders sagged. There was a lump in his throat when leaving. A block away, he knocked off the lid of a garbage can in frustration.
 
"It was a dumb idea anyway," the man rationalized.
 
The next couple of hours was spent in a small bar near the subway. He arrived home with a terrible migraine headache. His wife was in the kitchen making dinner as he entered. Jonathan looked around and sighed, then went directly into the den where he laid down on the sofa.
 
"Everything in this place is so perfectly matched. The entire home has the imprint of an interior decorator, "he mused. "I wondered why Lauren never hired a maid or cook once we could afford it. Oh, well, she would have gotten angry if I had been able to get that old piano, probably would have complained it was an eye sore."
 
Beginning to feel to drowsy, he fell asleep. A short time later, someone gently shook him. Lauren was looking down at him with a worried expression. "Are you all right? I didn't hear you come in. You look pale."
 
She was about to give him a kiss, but he brushed her away and walked to the other side of the room.
 
"Damn," Jonathan shouted, banging his fist against the wall.
 
From behind the top shelf in the book case, a pack of cigarettes and matches were pulled out. Although not smoking anymore, a pack had been put away incase there was a sudden urge to smoke again. Well, there certainly was one now! Lighting a cigarette and inhaling it deeply, Jonathan began sobbing.
 
"I know I'm acting like a baby," he said, trying to regain his composure, "but something occurred today that was very disappointing."

Lauren waited a few minutes then took away the cigarette from him and put it out.
 
"Why don't you tell me what happened? Maybe I can be of some help."
 
The two sat on the couch and Jonathan began to explain.
 
"This afternoon I had some free time. I started reminiscing about my youth and decided to visit my old apartment on Henry Street. The building is being renovated, but I was lucky to meet the superintendent who took me upstairs to see the place. My old piano was still there, and after playing a piece on it, found the instrument was in good shape. I thought it would be a cinch to buy it back, but no such luck. Someone else had gotten there before me. That was a big blow because I had my heart set on owning it again. Guess I was overly sentimental."
 
Lauren adamantly shook her head. "Not at all, Jonathan. You¡¯ve always mentioned how much you loved playing the piano when you were younger. Too bad your parents discouraged you. Who knows? You might have become a great pianist."
 
Jonathan gave her a surprised look. "Really? I thought you liked me as a successful advertising man. After all, it pays nicely."
 
Gently, she put her hands into his. "I married you, not the job. As for the piano, you should start playing again. You need to feel again the joy music once gave you. Perhaps you should also trim down the work at the office and turn it over to someone else. You've been overloading yourself for years. "
 
Jonathan had never realized that his wife could be so understanding. He tenderly took her in his arms. "Have I recently told you how much I love you?"
 
"Not recently, " she answered, blushing.
 
"Then I have been a fool," he replied, giving her a passionate kiss.
 
Since both sons were staying at their friends for the weekend, Ronald and Lauren were able to have a romantic dinner on the patio complete with candlelight. Afterward, she brought out a bottle of champagne and poured him a glass.
 
He happily took a sip. "I think this adds the perfect touch to the evening."
 
"Oh, there's one more thing, " Lauren said as she opened the living room doors and turned on the lights.
 
There standing against the center wall was his piano from Henry Street!

 

Elliot Richard Dorfman taught acting, broadcasting, music, and history in the New York City School System for more than three decades, as well as giving private vocal and piano lessons. He founded Suma Play Productions, Inc., and was artistic director of the American Youth Repertory Company, Off Broadway. Among his successful former students are American tenor Daniel Rodriguez, character actress  Kelly Wolf, and Broadway stage manager Ira Mont. Mr. Dorfman, a former member of the NY Dramatist Guild and Associated Music teachers League, has appeared and written for radio and television. His plays (dramas and musicals) have been presented on the professional stage, schools and centers. Since the Fall of 2007, over sixty-six short stories have been published in  Delivered, Twisted Dreams, Bewildering Stories, Golden Visions, Static Movement, NVH ,The Tiny Globule, Black Petals, Blood Moon Rising,  Perpetual, Paradigm Shift ,  and Demonic Tome and Short Story Library, StoriesThatLift.com, M-Brane SF Coffee Cramp eZine, Infinite Windows and House of Horror. Five poems have appeared in Falling Star, Orange Room Review, Debris, and Golden Visions.  He is Golden Visions Magazine’s Online vote winner for favorite author 2008. The author is a Full member of THE FICTIONEERS. For further details go to: elrite.web.com 

###

The Channel

by

Daniel W. Davis

Ed wakes up and feels the absence beside him.  He turns on his side, noting the impres-sion in the bed, the rumpled sheets.  The alarm clock on her side of the bed announces 1:15 a.m. ceremoniously, the minute changing in a slow flash of red as he watches.

There are sounds from the living room, and he steps out of bed, wriggles his feet into his slippers, and grabs his robe from its hook on the closet door.  The room has gotten cold, and before he leaves he adjusts the thermostat.

He finds Vivian on the couch, her hair tangled, her own robe slipping off one shoulder.  She is staring at the television.  He glances briefly at the screen, then sits down beside her, fixing her robe up and giving her shoulder a soft pat.

"Hey, Viv," he says.

She doesn't look at him.  "I had a dream.  Then I came in here and turned on the TV."

He glances at the screen.  A bar, the image somewhat jerky, amateurish.  It's been close to twenty years, but he could never forget that neon guitar, its neck spelling out "Lefty's" in blinking orange lights.  He hasn't been there since his college days, isn't even sure it's still around, and he smiles and laughs a little.

"I'll be damned," he says.  "I didn't know we had any footage of that place."

Onscreen, he sees a young redhead, slender but well-rounded, pretty in a small-town sort of way.  She's wearing a white blouse and appears uncomfortable, glancing over her shoulder as if looking for a friend.  Her purse is slipping off her shoulder, she's unaware, and he watches as it descends to the ground, and he waits with baited breath for the young man to step from the crowd and grab it, a handsome fellow with a crew-cut and broad shoulders, a good old boy with a Miller Lite in his hand.  His other hand reaches nimbly for the girl's purse, and she starts and gives a squeal that's barely audible over the country music that's blaring from the jukebox, and the young man gives her a grin that makes him look five years younger than he is.

"Viv," Ed says.  "What is this?"

"You scared me," she says.  "I remember thinking you were going to rape me."

He's heard it before.  He usually laughs when she relates the story, he has ever since she told it to him a week after they met, but now he stares at the screen as the young couple begin an awkward conversation, the man's grin slowly wearing the girl down.  Another girl joins them, makes a show of introducing the two, then fades into the crowd.

"If it's hadn't been for Sandra," Vivian says, "I probably wouldn't have let you buy me that beer."

The young man leads the girl to the bar, where he orders a beer for her, and they head off towards the furthest booth from the jukebox.  Usually, that booth was taken, but that night it was empty, and Ed watches as the two sit down.  He can barely hear their conver-sation over the music, but it comes back to him in his head, and he mouths the words, both the man's and the girl's, and then he shakes his head and looks at his wife.

"Viv?  What is this?"

"I had a dream," she says.  "I came in here and turned on the TV."

Ed's breathing slows.  He picks up the remote from Vivian's lap, and though she makes no move to stop him, she tenses a little.  He glances at the remote, then at the DVD player and cable box.  There is no DVD playing; this is on the television.

"It can't be."

He presses the channel-change button.  Ted Danson and Shelley Long are fighting.  He presses the button to go back.  He and Vivian are sitting in a booth, thirty years ago, laughing and talking, not really flirting because there hadn't been a need¡ªthey'd been so comfortable with each other, it had felt like they'd already been together for years.  He remembers feeling uncomfortable about that, not having expected it, not knowing what to do with it.  It had been an exhilarating sensation, and the most frightening of his young life.

He presses the button again.  The television goes one channel back, and this time a junior senator from Wisconsin is pounding on a lectern.  Ed pauses, his hand shaking, then goes back to the previous channel.  He sets the remote on his thigh and leans back against the couch.

"I don't understand," he says.

"I don't either," Vivian murmurs, and leans into him.  They watch.

The scenes change, from the bar to a diner to a car ride to their first kiss outside her apartment.  They feel random to Ed, mere snippets of his and Vivian's early life together.  He watches with a smile; he feels Vivian shifting beside him, and eventually his shirt-sleeve becomes damp with her tears.  He puts his hand around her shoulder, but doesn't suggest they go back to bed; he says nothing, just holds her and watches the television.

At about three in the morning, the screen goes to static.  Vivian sits up abruptly, and even Ed is jerked to attention, the hissing an unwelcome intrusion into their night.  Vivian grabs the remote and begins to change between the channels, going back and forth; Ted and Shelley have given way to Erik Estrada and some woman, and instead of one senator, there's now an entire committee.  The channels shift flawlessly, with no hesitation; there are five channels missing in between, but they have never gotten those, and after a few seconds Ed carefully takes the controller from her and sets it beside him.

"It's gone, Viv." His voice is strained.  "It's gone."

She says nothing, but sobs against his shoulder.  They stay there until she falls asleep; then he carries her back to the bed¡ªsomething he hasn't done in two years¡ªand drifts to sleep beside her, his arm draped across her side.

In the morning, she is on the couch again.  She is flipping through the channels, one after the other, pausing just long enough to assess what is on the screen.  Ed walks up behind her, runs his hand through her matted hair.

"Eaten yet?" he asks.

"It's gotta be here," she says.  "Ed?  It's gotta be here somewhere."

He licks his lips and opens his mouth, but nothing comes out, and he goes into the other room and fixes them both omelets.  Then he comes back in and sets her meal on a tray in front of her.  She doesn't notice.

"Viv.  Eat.  It'll come back."

She eats and showers, then he does the same and heads off to work.  When he leaves, she's there in front of the television; she's still there when he comes back that evening.  "Vivian," he says.  "Vivian."

He makes them dinner, setting her food before her again.  She's at least moved during the day; she changed from her robe at some point, put on a Daffy Duck nightshirt he bought her a few years back.  He sits on the couch besides her and eats his dinner as she flips through the channels.  After about five minutes she cries out and throws the remote to the floor.  She gets up, ignoring her food, and walks into the other room; Ed picks up the re-mote, turns the television off, and leans back, arms crossed on his lap.

She's in bed by eight, and he joins her an hour or so later, after having watched a couple of sitcoms.  He searches for the channel, but only once; he doesn't expect to find it, but he looks for her sake.  At nine, he turns the TV off and goes to bed, falling quickly asleep as Vivian snores next to him.

He awakens in the middle of the night to an empty bed.  The clock says it's one a.m.; he puts on his slippers and robe and goes into the living room.  The channel is on again.

Vivian doesn't look up at him, but she says, "I had the dream again."

He sits down next to her and watches in silence.

It is like that the next night.  And the next.  Scenes from their early years¡ªtheir two-year-long courtship; their wedding; their honeymoon in Panama City.  Not all of the scenes are amicable¡ªthere are a few fights, the worst arguments they've gotten into.  There is intimacy, too¡ªnothing sexual, nothing voyeuristic, but soft touches and looks that make Ed feel uncomfortable, even though he can see the images in his head, feel her skin on his fingertips.  He is watching himself, but it is a man he once was, not the man he is now; it is as though he is watching the home movies of a brother or a close friend, someone he relates to in almost every way, but cannot completely sympathize with.

On the fourth night, when the channel shuts off at three, Vivian remains by his side, let-ting the static hiss in the background.  She turns to him, her face murky in the dancing shadows, and she says, "Do you think it will show her?"

Ed swallows.  He'd been thinking the same thing.  "I don't know."

They go to bed that night, and though Vivian drifts quickly off to sleep¡ªshe has no trou-ble sleeping since the channel came on¡ªEd stares at the ceiling, watching the fan blades cut through the darkness.  The room is chilly, he doesn't know why the fan is on, but he makes no move to turn it off.  He tries to count the blades, knowing that there are four but seeing five, six.  He tries to hypnotize himself, but he's never believed in hypnosis, and after a few minutes he gives up and turns his thoughts to what's been troubling him: what will happen, when the channel shows their daughter?

The next night, Ed tries to stay awake, even though Vivian falls confidently asleep.  He is jealous, he must admit it¡ªthe channel came to her, he is certain; the images seem ran-dom to him, but they don't to Vivian, he can tell by the way she has sat next to him, watching intently.  They are images that mean something to her, that mean more than everything else.  The channel belongs to her, is for her, and he feels guilty for being jeal-ous, but the jealousy is still there.  He gnaws at it, turns it over and over in his mind, not so much to stoke the fires as to keep himself awake, but it doesn't work, and he sleeps dreamlessly until shortly after one, when the sounds from the other room awaken him.
They are happily married onscreen, and have traveled around the country, follow-ing job after job.  He had to travel, back then; he didn't enjoy it, but there was money in it, and they agreed that they needed the money if they were to raise a family.  After fif-teen years on the job, he finally got a promotion high enough to settle him down in rural Illinois, and he took it readily.  Mattoon was about an hour from where he and Vivian had gone to college; it felt almost like home, enough for them to buy a house and have a child.

And there she was.  Erica.  A handful of scenes with a pregnant Vivian, smiling and cry-ing and shouting and laughing¡ªand then Erica, cradled in her mother's arms, the dutiful father trying not to cry as he gazes on his newborn daughter.  Ed remembers how happy the two of them looked together, remembers thinking how right it seemed, that he was destined for that exact moment.  He feels that again now, and its presence, long-absent, sends a warm shiver through his body.

Erica grows up before their eyes.  An infant in her crib, batting cheerfully at a mobile; a toddler, taking her first steps, saying her first words, singing her first song ("Come Fly With Me" by Frank Sinatra, the words garbled but the melody clear).  Erica in daycare, proudly displaying a macaroni drawing of her parents; in kindergarten, twitching nerv-ously during a school concert, awkwardly mouthing the words to "The Wabash Cannon-ball;" in a second-grade spelling bee, grinning maniacally as she holds up her bronze medal; a family vacation to Wisconsin Dells, Erica getting splashed on the flume ride, the water towering over her like a tsunami, her eyes wide with fright and enjoyment.

Ed watches, his hand clutching Vivian's.  Her grip is tight; her nails are digging into his palm, but the pain keeps him from giving in completely, from drifting off into his daughter's eyes.  Her laugher is enough: it surrounds him, flows through his hair and robe, tick-les his ears.  He can feel her kisses on his cheek, feel her tiny arms as she hugs his leg, the weight of her in his lap, his arms.  But most of all, he feels Vivian's nails in his palm, about to draw blood, and he is grateful, for if he lost himself in his memories, there is no telling when he would come back, if ever.

He closes his eyes.  He cannot look away, so he must close his eyes.  Even then, hearing her laughter, her voice, her "I love you, Mommy and Daddy," he does not know that the channel has cut out again until he opens his eyes.  She is gone; there is static dancing across the television screen, and his daughter is merely an after image superimposed over the emptiness.

He glances at the clock.  It is only two-fifteen.

"It's not time," he says.

"There's nothing else."  Vivian relaxes beside him; her body seems to crumple in on it-self, folding neatly into a vague impression of the woman he'd married.  "Nothing's hap-pened since¡­"

She leans into him, her body molding to his chest and arms.  She presses her face against his throat; he can feel her breath, warm and damp, as she whispers, "I miss her so much."

"Me, too, Viv," he says.  He watches the screen, willing the channel to come back; but she is right, it's over, gone forever.  Instead, there is static, and he stares into it until he falls asleep, and in his dream he sees his own channel, not of the past but of the future, a dream of dreams, and he clutches Vivian tighter and whispers to her all of the memories yet to be made.

I am a graduate student born and raised in Central Illinois.  My work has most recently appeared in Apollo's Lyre, Rivets, American Polymath, Crow's Nest Magazine, and elsewhere.

###

Days of Honey 

by

M.Wilkinson

Sunlight filtered between the leaves of the trees, making small pools of light on the forest floor. Reanne hurried along, her light-footed tread scarcely registering in the silence of the surrounding emptiness. The end of the forest was in sight and she stepped out into the sunlight. In the distance, acres of wheat shimmered in the midday heat, like golden cloth spread across the earth. Although Reanne, at seventeen, had seen wheat ripened every year since her birth, she still paused and drank in sight.

Happy and excited, she knew today would be special. Spencer had completed his University education and they would move forward. Something to remember when she was old, and her "days of honey", as her mother called them, was in the past, she would pull this out of her memory and examine it like an old photograph. Pore over it; conjure up smells, sounds, as well as sights. Today her life could change forever. Perhaps Spencer would ask her to marry him? A tingle shot through her body at the thought. She would of course say yes. There wasn't a moment when she didn't think about him. His straw blond hair and pale grey eyes were in contrast to her dark looks. She had often fantasised about their unborn children and saw in those visions the combination they might produce.

He said he loved her, but she always had to ask. She knew saying it embarrassed him, and she wondered how he would manage the words 'marry me'.

His voice on the phone that morning had been cheerful. 'Fancy a picnic by the river at lunch time?'

Reanne's heart leapt, but she managed to answer without her voice shaking. 'Sounds good to me, I'll bring the food, you can supply the beers.'

She arrived on time and to her surprise Spencer always a bad timekeeper, was already there. He stood up from his seat on a fallen tree trunk and kissed her lightly on the cheek. The blood coursed through her veins and mirrored the river as it tumbled in abandonment between its banks.

'What's for lunch?' he said.

Reanne smiled. She loved the fact he was always ravenous and ate whatever was given to him without comment.

She delved into her knapsack and retrieved a check cloth, which she spread on the grass. 'Chicken and mayo baps, crisps, chocolate muffins, and fruit.'

'Cool, let's get at it - Unless you fancy a swim first?' he said with a grin.

'Mmmm, that would be nice.' Although desperate to hear his plans for the future she thought it best to let him do it in his own time

Spencer leapt off the bank with a whoop, Reanne followed a little more cautiously. The icy water took her breath away, but she forgot the chill when a moment later her legs were pulled from under her and she sunk beneath the water.

When she resurfaced, Spencer was laughing.

'Oh, you want to play rough, do you?' Diving at him, she caught him off balance and they both disappeared in a tangle of thrashing arms and legs.

Still laughing, they pulled themselves out of the river and flopped on the bank. Reanne closed her eyes and felt her skin prickle as the sun dried the water on her naked limbs. She turned her head sideways and gazed at Spencer's arm lying so close to hers, the fine hair raised like a golden forest on his mottled flesh.

'Goodness, you're freezing,' she said, taking the opportunity to run her hands up and down his chest.

He levered his body onto one elbow and slipped his free arm across her. There was a faint snick as he unfastened the top of her bikini. There had been intimacy since they'd been together, at night, in the shadow of trees, or in the back seat of his old car. Once in her bedroom with the curtains closed tight, he'd kissed her neck. Later as they lay beneath the sheets, she'd heard his low groans of pleasure. Now in the bright light of a summer day and after their time apart, she was suddenly shy. She buried her face in his neck and closed her eyes.
***
Reanne sprawled on the blanket, bathed in a euphoric glow. He still loves me she thought, and turned to look at him. Spencer's chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm as he recovered from his exertions, and with a girlish giggle she leaned towards him and nibbled the lobe of his ear.

'Stop that. It tickles.' He moved away from her hand, reached into his rucksack and pulled out a bottle of white wine.

Her heart hammered. 'Whoo-hooo what's the occasion?'

Leaning away, he propped the bottle against the bank and avoided her eyes. 'I thought we¡¯d celebrate. I got offered a good job in London and I've accepted.'

Her breath stilled. 'London? That's miles away,' she said in a small voice.

'I know where London is, you dummy.'

'I don't understand. You didn't say you were looking for a job?'

'I wasn't, but a friend at Uni mentioned me to her father.'

'Her?'

'Yes, a girl called Sarah - I spent a weekend at her parent's house. He offered me a job when I graduated.'

Reanne's heart dropped to her stomach. She took a deep breath. 'You're leaving?'

'Yep, I'm off at the end of the month.'

'What about us?'

'Come on, Rea.  London isn't the other side of the world. I'll come back now and then, and I'll write.'

'But I thought...'

Spencer's face darkened and he rose to his feet. 'Thought what?'

'Well - that you and I  you know?'

With his back to her, Spencer retrieved the bottle of wine and pushed it back into his knapsack. 'I never promised you anything, Rea.'
'But you said you loved me.' Tight with anger, her voice ascended to a shrill shriek.
Spencer spun round. 'What did you expect me to say, when you kept asking? Look, let's not fight. We both had fun, leave it at that.'

Reanne, choked with anger and disappointment, couldn't bring herself to speak. She watched in silence as he dressed.

A lone cloud scudded across the sky and blotted out the sun. A tear seeped from the corner of her eye, and she turned her head so that he wouldn't see. The future stretched before her, a bleak highway to tread alone. She could never love again. Her mother's promised 'days of honey' had ended.

****

The cafe in the main street, buzzed with muted conversation. Reanne faced the window and looked over her friend Linda''s shoulder at the passing shoppers.

'He said what?' Linda said in a tone of astonishment.

Reanne pulled a long face. 'It's not so much what he said ¨C it's what he meant.'
'What did you think he meant?'

'That it was over.'
'Are you sure?'
'Yes of course I'm sure. He's seeing some girl at University.'
Linda examined her nails. 'Did you tell your mum?'

'Mmmm she said I'd soon find someone else. I won't though, I-'

Linda's head lifted as a voice broke into their conversation and. two young men grinned down at them. The tallest pointed towards the empty chairs at their table. 'Anyone sitting in those seats?'

Reanne turned her head and looked into a pair of dark-blue eyes. Her heart skipped a beat. 'No, you can sit there.'
The boys slid into the seats. Blue-eyes gave Leanne an appreciative look and grinned. 'Awww thanks, we came in because it looked like it was gonna rain.'
Leanne felt his arm brush against her and her heart did another loop. She gazed out at the widening patch of blue among the grey clouds. 'No - I think it might just turn into a wonderful day.' she said, nodding towards it.

'I knew it was going to turn into a wonderful day the moment I saw you ,' The blue-eyed boy said softly.

Maureen Wilkinson is a British Author. Her interests range from travel to antiques. It's when walking that her mind travels its own strange paths.

Some of her credits include short stories published in Flashme, Champagne Shivers, Gemini, Literal Translations, Susurrus, ect. Northern Ireland Arts council published four of her flashes in a newly released anthology. She has been nominated for 2010 Best of the Web, and also a Pushcart. 

###

The Sky Painter

by

Heidi Cook

Working for God is never easy. Especially when he changes his mind over the colour of things. I wouldn’t mind that so much if I wasn’t the one who was in charge of painting everything.

The painting itself doesn’t take as long as many would think, however what takes the time is mixing the shades. Then once the sky is in the correct shade, picked of course under the supervision of God (at this moment a very delicate eggshell blue), I have to make sure there are no streaks. Clouds are the next to be added, sometimes long wispy ones that can hardly be seen by the naked eye other times big fat plump white ones. If he decides there is a storm then I get to have fun adding more emotion then most days, creating a darker sky with sharp dark clouds and streaks of lightning. Those are the days I like the most.

The days I don’t like, are the ones when once all that is done and I get to stand back and look upon my creation God turns up and says he’s changed his mind about the colour. Once he’s picked another from the chart the whole process begins again and I have to go back to work, only nine times out of ten to have him then change his mind when I’m done the second time.

However it should get slightly easier soon, I’ve finally filled in the paperwork to get some trainees’ maybe someone on work experience that I can get to do the bulk of the painting. Letting me focus on the finer details and those lightning bolts. Even after all these years I’m still finding them hard to do, the right angles are needed and they have to end up in the right place which of course can change a number of times in the time it takes me to paint it.

There is nothing easy about working for God but I get to be creative and I wouldn’t ever ask for a change in job.

I have to go now and finish the sky once more; he’s changed his mind again ¨C this time it’s a deep indigo, I guess I should be thankful it’s not clover green again.

Heidi Cook lives in England but her heart resides in New Hampshire where her partner is. Writing in many different genres she loves to test the boundaries and challenge normality. She can be found at her fiction journal:  http://stainsonthepage.blogspot.com/

Beyond all the Blessings

by

Mary Cassidy

Ezra looks out the window at the grey January day and wonders what has become of the children. A sheet of newspaper, caught by the wind, dances across the street before being whipped into the air and blown helter-skelter out of his sight. As the dark afternoon moves on toward dusk, the streetlights come to life, but Ezra cannot tell what time it is. He is sure it has been hours since the other children left, and he worries he has missed their return.

“Papa?” Daphna’s voice breaks into his thoughts, and he turns from the street toward her.

“Papa, you need to come from the window now. Supper is here.”

He is reluctant to leave his outpost, concerned something serious has happened to cause their delay. He reaches a wizened hand toward his granddaughter, gnarled fingers extending to grab her wrist.

“Yes, Papa?” She covers his hand with her own, warm against his coldness. “You are freezing, Papa. Come to the table, there is soup to warm you.” Her smile is wide and her tone the sing-song she adopts when speaking to him. He cannot remember when she came by this falseness, and it furthers the unease stirring within him. Before he can discuss this with her, he needs to clear his mind of the nagging worry.

“Die Kinder?” he asks; his voice raspy from disuse.

Daphna’s step hesitates. Ezra sees a familiar look come into her eyes. She looks frightened, and his heart catches. He has done it again. He has no idea why asking after the others causes her to look so distressed.  She drops his hand and picks her way toward the table, glancing back at him once, her brow creased and lips pressed tight together. Ezra turns the wheels on his chair and arrives at the table as she ladles soup into bowls.

“Die Kinder? Daphna, wo sind sie?”

The soup ladle slips from Daphna’s hand, sending a small shower splashing onto the tablecloth, the broth staining it red.

“Papa, bitte,” she says, mopping the stain with a napkin.  “The children are fine.”  The singsong speech is again evident, and her smile appears false and tight.

Around the table, the family busies themselves with sliding glances and furtive looks. The youngest lets loose a stifled giggle and struggles to recover. Daphna sends a glowering look in his direction. “Eli!” Her tone is enough to return composure to the boy.

The nagging worry in the pit of Ezra’s stomach increases. Despite Daphna’s assurance, he knows something is amiss. He leans forward in his chair and attempts to stop her movements, needing her to stay her task a moment and answer his questions. Brisk and business-like, she moves away from him, and continues her mission to serve dinner. He catches her glance, a brief one that sneaks from the corner of her eye and is subdued as quickly as it came.  She smoothes her skirt and lights the candles, moving her arms in the calming ritual.

Ezra echoes her prayer, her peaceful resolve drawing him in and quieting his fear. He mumbles the words; familiar as breathing.

When finished, Daphna smiles at him, this time genuine and sweet. She takes the braided bread, breaks it and passes a section to him and one to her husband. Ezra knows from experience she will not begin eating before them.

After dinner, Marc and the boys clear the table and Daphna helps Ezra transfer to bed, settling him for the night. As she turns from the room, it comes back to him, all in a rush; the others are dust lying heavy and thick on the stone altars of death in a land distant and dreamlike.

On nights such as this, his tattooed arm itches, and his heart hammers empty and small in his chest.

He lays in bed, listening to the sounds of the family. His family: his granddaughter Daphna, and her children – Ezra’s great grandchildren. He smiles into the dark; his line will continue.

Ezra says the Kaddish and remembers the children, the ones left behind: Moshe, Max, Rachel, Lazar and Raisel. Raisel who was to be his wife, she of the black snapping eyes and bright laughing smile. At twelve, he stole her kiss and made a promise to cherish her. Always. Even after these many years, he remembers her breath warm on his face and her lips red from the wind and his kisses.

The words of the Kaddish, the prayer of remembrance, turn to a groggy whisper, and as he conjures Raisel’s face, first love of his life – sleep overtakes him.

###

Bio: Mary Cassidy lives in Vermont with her husband and two children. Her work has been published online in The Verb and at Six Sentences. Like everyone else, she is working on a novel.

Missing U

by

Joel Shulkin

As the congregation awaited Reverend Mitchell's entrance, Frank Powell leaned over to his wife and whispered, "Should I tell him before or after the sermon?"

"About what?"

"The missing letter on the sign. I think before." He glanced across the room. "If you ask me, it was that Simmons kid. He's trouble. Maybe I should wait until after the sermon."

Martha responded by shaking her head.

"What's that mean?" Frank studied his wife's face. "You think I should grab him before he starts?"

With a sigh, Martha said, "This is the sort of thing that drove away our son."

"Oh, don't you start."

"Beason may be a small town but there are more important things than a missing letter on a sign. Can't you realize how stifled he must've felt?"

Frank looked away. "Do you have to drag up the past every Sunday?"

"Just admit you were wrong. You encouraged him to become a writer. What did you think would happen once he discovered there's a world out there?"

Pursing his lips, Frank said, "It wasn't just me. When he wrote that downright nasty story about Beason, there wasn't a soul in this congregation who cared when he left."

Martha sniffled. Frank's heart melted when he saw her quivering upper lip. Bless her soul; she was holding back the tears. "There was one soul," she whispered.

"Aw, honey." Her body trembled as he held her tight. The wall around Frank's heart crumbled as he remembered their son's departure. "Okay, I should've listened to him. I wouldn't agree with him, but I should've listened."

Her eyes moist, Martha looked up at him. "Thank you."

The corner of Frank's lip twisted in thought as he scanned the congregation. "I've been talking to some of the others and I think most of them feel the same way. Remember how Jess used to bring cookies to Mrs. Richardson when her arthritis acted up? Or how he'd help Bob Orwell at the garage on Saturdays when Bob was studying for his GED?"

A smile crept across Martha's face. "Everyone loved him."

"Heck, if he walked through that door right now, I'd welcome him back with no questions asked."

Revered Mitchell stepped up to the dais and nodded at the choir, who led the congregation in singing "I Greet My Sure Redeemer."

Martha whispered in Frank's ear, "You say that because you know it'll never happen. He's been gone over a year."

"No, I mean it. If the Lord guides him back here, I'll welcome him with open arms. What's more, I'll make sure everyone else does, too."

Martha stared into his eyes before whispering, "Pay attention to the sermon."

The choir finished as Reverend Mitchell spread his arms before the congregation. "It's good to see you all today," he began. "The good Lord shines upon us. Let us bow our heads and say, Amen."

As the congregation bowed their heads in silent prayer, the creaking of the front door echoed throughout the chamber. All heads turned at once.

Frank squinted against the sunlight to see the robust young man standing in the doorway, dressed in a tailored suit. The shock of red hair caught Frank's eye, and before he could make out the face, he knew who it was.

"Jess."

The name spread in murmurs like a spark through dry brush in the woods. As the young man passed through the aisle, he looked right and left, meeting each stare. He clenched his teeth as if he feared the crowd would rush him like wild dogs.

All held their collective breath as the young man stopped before Frank and Martha Powell. He nodded in recognition of his mother and then locked his gaze with Frank's.

Frank couldn't move. He could only stare into eyes as blue as his own and wonder if he was in a dream, and if so, what would he do when he awoke?

Martha elbowed him in the ribs.

Remembering his promise, Frank stood up and stepped into the aisle. The young man stepped back, his arms drifting upward in a defensive posture.

Shaking his head, Frank spread his arms wide. "Come here, son."

A moment later, the congregation was on its feet, embracing the Powell family. Reverend Mitchell approached Frank and Jess with a broad smile.

"It's good to see you again, Jess. What brought you back here after all this time?"

"Well, I was driving back to Chicago from business in St. Louis when I had to stop for gas. Bob always had good deals, so I stopped there but the place was empty." Jess waved at a red-bearded man who nodded in return. "I realized he was probably at services and next thing you know, I'm driving past the church. I would've kept driving if it weren't for the sign out front."

"The sign?" Reverend Mitchell furrowed his brow.

"Yeah." A tear welled at the corner of Jess's eye and a grin spread across his face. "How'd you know I'd be here today to see it?"

Realization hit Frank and Martha at the same instant.

Reverend Mitchell shook his head in confusion. "But that sign--"

"That sign has been up for months," Frank said. He caught the pastor's eye and first touched his lips, then pointed at the sky. "We hoped one day the Lord would bring you here to see it, and He has."

Reverend Mitchell's eyebrows rose. "Uh, yes, that's right. The Lord works in mysterious ways."

"That He does," Frank said under his breath. As he led his family home for a reunion dinner, he glanced at the sign in front of the church, the one that read, "Welcome Jes s back into your lives on his return." He smiled to himself as he decided Martha had been wrong about one thing--that missing letter was important after all.

###

Bio: I am a Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrician by day, writer by night. My children’s fiction has appeared in Storyteller Tymes and a short story is scheduled to appear in the February 2010 edition of Daikaijuzine. I also won First Prize in the 2008 National Medical Fiction Writing contest.

This Old Tree

by

Autumn Humphrey

After retirement the Delaneys would sit beneath their backyard tree, pondering the many memories of their children and family under the fluttering leaves. As a sapling they had planted it, when their children were young, to shade their adventures in the hot summer months. Balloons and lights had been tied to its many branches, errant kites and kittens caught in its arms, a white wedding had its spring green as a blooming back drop.

The tree aged along with its owners, its limbs twisted in strange arthritic curls, and it began to lean at an uneasy angle.  Ripe for wasp nests and beehives in the warmer weather, its hollow trunk was also a resting place for weary possums. Each year the tree’s creaks and groans grew louder in the winter wind and a heavy snow was always cause for concern.

Words of warning were often spoke by visitors, the tree was done, its life was spent, one can’t escape the inevitable, change with the times!  Unreceptive to these prophecies, the Delaneys kept their treasured tree, its limbs still full of lush green leaves shading the yard on summer days, its crazy branches leaning protectively across the yard.

After the Delaneys passed on, a young couple purchased and moved into the house. When the first snowy day arrived, they discussed what was to be done with the tree, its naked snarled branches leaning ominously. The husband said it was old and probably dead, but the wife liked the way the limbs twisted and turned at odd angles. The following spring when their child was born, fresh sprigs of green appeared on the tree, and in the years that followed it would continue to provide shade in the summer, its curling branches catching errant kites and kittens. 

###

Bio:Autumn Humphrey has flash fiction pieces appearing, or scheduled to appear, in Blink/Ink, FlashShot, All Things Girl, Golden Visions, Still Crazy, and the Stray Branch.  In her spare time she plays the horses, or as someone once said, the horses play her.