Pure

Like everything good in life, their happiness was accidental. They wasted no effort trying to unravel mysteries that didn't concern them. They were wanton and reckless in their desire for each other, often lying in bed late into the afternoon and laughing long into the evening. When they grew hungry they would glide into the kitchen where Eufemia would hiss at them and chase them back to their nest. But soon she would knock and, laughing, he would open the door and accept whatever she had made for them. "I can never know what you see in her." she would say to him, on the rare occasions that she found him alone. His moods frightened her but she refused to be cowed. "This is what I am." he would answer in a tone that made it clear he would listen to no argument. Eufemia made the sign of the cross behind her back and, of course, he smiled to see it. "You don't understand, Mama, and I don't expect you to."
When he was in a good mood the rooms they shared were alive with miracles and turbulent outbursts of pure joy, their spirits rising like the soap bubbles he made with his pipe, to burst as they touched the ceiling and fell to shower them with hope and anticipation for the future. But these days he seldom had time for her and his black moods served as a warning for the torrents of violent energy he could no longer control.
Eufemia explained her worries to Ennio but the old man simply shrugged off her concerns. "You treat him too gently, my dear." he would say to which she would answer, "I know what he has done and I am afraid."
Ennio had heard it all so many times before and he said the same thing that he always said, which was, "God's will is immutable." to which she had no answer.
Years later, long after she had lost him, she often wondered if it was true, that God's will is immutable or was it that she had simply given up?
And then, in answer to her question, she would hear the voice of Ennio, long dead now, and he would say, "Chi s'aiuta, Dio l'aiuta." and she would pray for the soul of her son.

The Detritus of Lost Time

The surface of the water was calm and reflective, except where my paddle would rouse tiny maelstroms of activity which were reflected and repelled by the cattails and the duckweed. Mired in the sediment of a thousand years they listened to whispered words and focused the lament of loss, directing my mind to the inescapable present they adorned. It was impossible to be anywhere else when here. I mistook their presence for the ascension of some sort primordial death ritual, confused, as I was, by the reek of decay and the detritus of lost time, always searching for an exit from the labyrinth.
The growling and gurgling exhaust of passion cut across those first impressions I had of this place and filled me with a fear of the depths, a fear of the collapse of the structures around me and the unconscious pull of death. And then we pushed past them and their grip on me faded into the back of my mind and I was free from the desire to join with them in their vigilance, escaping the brutal morality they disguised so cleverly with flowers and greenery.
"Hey, would you please pay attention."
"What?"
"You're going to tip this bloody canoe if you don't lean back. Have you never seen a weed before?"
"Sorry, man, I was just trying to see the bottom."
"Yeah, and if we were going to the bottom I'd be impressed, but we're not. We're supposed to be there for six and if you don't get paddling we'll be late. Fix your eyes on the horizon and paddle."
And I did.
The slow pull of the current, the sideways dreams of the ancient forest that longed for word from the time of creation, the low-slung sky that held its breath, waiting for the moment my attention wavered, all of these standards of war, adapting to my presence, accepted my challenge and now hung back, as if communicating their assault and I wished I could read the signs. The language of fear, committed to one purpose, spoken aloud and condensed into an in audible sigh, misunderstood and confused, could only result in chaos and I stood on a precipice, my balance nothing more than a question shouted into the heavens above me.
"Paddle, you idiot." he yelled at me.

Onion Shaped Head

The kid had a huge onion shaped head. His glasses were so thick that Lee could see three or four of himself reflected in them and he thought to himself, "This kid must take a beating every day at school." and considered telling him that he had no chance at the job.
And yet when Lee put him to the test, as he felt compelled to, the kid passed with flying colours and Lee gave him the job anyway.
The Head, as Lee began to call him when the kid wasn't around, waddled about the shop in an efficient manner and did a good job with a happy detachment, despite the pranks the other mechanics pulled on him.
It was four years later that Lee realized that the Head was one of his best and promoted him to assistant with a small ceremony and a party afterwards. The Head took it all in with the same aplomb he exhibited every day in the shop and soon Lee forgot about any concerns he had ever harboured about the kid's abilities. The Head was always on time, always efficient in his work, never complained about his wages and never took time off. Lee began to rely on the Head's unquestionable talent to the point where he felt that he could take a day off and not worry that the shop would be overwhelmed without him.
It was on one of those rare occasions that an explosion rocked the city and Lee got a call in the middle of the afternoon to inform him that his shop had been the epicentre of the blast. The investigation which ensued, into the deaths of three of his mechanics and the disappearance of the Head, was painful for Lee and in his heart he knew that the Head must have perished in the inferno as well.
There was never any question that it had been an accident, considering the dangerous nature of the chemicals used at the shop, and the authorities believed that it was a miracle it hadn't happened before.
When the cryptic notes began to appear in his mailbox, Lee wondered if he wasn't simply the butt of some crazy bastard's twisted sense of humour, until he opened the door one morning and found the Head standing there, the thick glasses identifying him and looking a little worse for wear. Lee asked him how he could be alive.
The Head said, simply, "I had no intention of committing suicide you dumb bastard, I just wanted to come by and tell you that I'm sorry I blew up the shop."
Lee was dumbfounded. The Head sat at the kitchen table and told him how he had calculated the exact quantities of explosives, how he had set it up and then walked out the back door.
"But why?", asked Lee, "What made you do it?" to which the Head unraveled a long list of grievances and detailed every practical joke to which he had been subjected to over his tenure in the shop.
"You killed three people, you crazy little prick." Lee yelled at him but the Head corrected him and said, "Four. I killed four people."
"But there were only three bodies found. Who was the forth?" cried Lee, beginning to think that the Head, always meticulous, had come by to finish the job.
"I killed the Head. I killed that stupid little kid with the ridiculous glasses, the kid who couldn't fit behind the desk in that shit hole of an office, the kid who wore his lunch on his apron every day, the kid who made every one laugh without even trying to. I killed the Head." and with that Lee realized that the nickname he had given the kid had never been a secret to him.
"And now you've come to kill me?" Lee squeaked, to which the kid roared and nearly doubled over in a fit of laughter.
"What are you talking about? You were the only one who was nice to me. You gave me the job in the first place. You taught me every thing I know." laughed the kid. "I just wanted to come by and say sorry about the shop, that's all. And to thank you for helping me out."
There was a silence as Lee digested all of this and then finally the kid got up, with some help from the table and the hand grip on the refrigerator.
"I gotta go, but listen. Don't tell anyone you saw me, o.k.?"
"O.k." said Lee, in a daze.
"I mean it." said the kid, "I know where you live." he laughed again. Lee thought he might be sick but held himself together until the Head waddled his way out of the house and climbed into the truck sitting at the curb. In the passenger seat was a girl, very nearly the size of the Head, who waved at him as he stood on the veranda. Lee had never seen her before. She yelled to him, "It's so very nice to meet you, Mr. Travern. I've heard a lot about you." and then they were gone.
Lee stood and stared at the road until long after dark, going over in his mind the details and minutiae of every encounter, of every practical joke he'd ever pulled on the Head and finally he whispered to himself, "I guess your not that smart after all, you fat bastard." and went back into the house.
As he passed through the kitchen, on his way to the bathroom, he saw something out of the corner of his eye and for a second he wondered what it might be, until he remembered that when the Head left he hadn't been carrying the valise he had arrived with. With a shout he ran for the door and he might have made it, too, except that someone had released the lock mechanism on the door and it had snapped into place when he came back into the house after thanking God that the Head had never discovered who had given him that nickname in the first place.