Lunch Date

The door was open, the light still on and across the desk was spread a pile of papers, carelessly arranged, imitating order. The yellow light made the room seem darker against the blue sky painted on the windows. The air return hummed, almost inaudible but other than that there was silence. There were two pairs of shoes, neatly aligned, side by side, on the floor, by the desk and an overcoat hung on the back of the door. A pungent smell hung in the air, of garlic and coriander while the remnants of a half eaten salad wilted in a container perched across the top of the trash can.

The line trailed around the corner but was moving quickly. Twenty backs bent against the sun and twenty hands mopped the sweat from twenty brows. Inside it was no cooler, except for the first counter on which everyone leaned as they approached the disheveled woman shouting orders at the back of a man hunched over the flat-top grill. The smell of onions hung over the line and noses wrinkled and inhaled, alternately. The conversations were loud and unconcerned; they all talked about work and promised to call and some of them made plans they knew they wouldn't keep. At the few tables, lined in a row down the wall, talking heads bounced in agreement and paused only to take a bite of their pesto salad, their teriyaki chicken and their pizzas, made to order. The noise dulled, for a moment and a few heads looked up and in the pause the only sound was the sizzling meat and the scrape of a spatula across steel. Then the voices started again and the rustle of shopping bags covered the quiet, blending into a uniform blanket covering them all.

She stared at the sky until her eyes could no longer discern the faint streaks of cloud across it. She shifted her weight, turning onto her left hip and lay her head on the side of the boat. He was looking over her at the shore and didn't notice the frown on her face. He didn't notice that her hands were hidden beneath her and he didn't notice that she looked away when he turned his head towards her.

His eyes watered but not from the breeze. The uneasiness spread from his stomach upwards until it gripped his chest, the muscles there flexing and relaxing with the rhythm of the waves. He wondered if he should fight but knew, at some level, that she would not change her mind. Instead he concentrated on the shore, on the buildings rising above the trees and the sun and he tried not to think about the strain in her voice and the crush of disappointment he felt when she said, simply, 'No'.

Waiting Out The Storm

When I was big enough my parents let me go with Rupilee to one of the collectives at the edge of the ocean. It would be fourteen days before we made it back when it was supposed to take only six. The storm we were caught in blew us off track and it took Rupilee longer than he thought it would to get us out. I was useless. I had never been so far away from home nor was I used to the physical exertion. For four days Rupilee hacked a trail through shoulder deep snow, over mangled forests and across sheets of ice that were as smooth as glass. He built us shelters to sleep in and found us enough food and more. I hadn't known that he knew how to move through the snow and that he carried ice picks in his sack. Suddenly he wasn't my brother anymore, who could pin me so effortlessly in wrestling or who could run faster than I could, he was an adult, he took care of me, he knew things I didn't know. He worked with the men and he ate with the men and now suddenly he was a man. I was still a boy. I bawled when my legs got tired and I refused to eat the dinner he made me. I had a temper tantrum when he wouldn't let me out of the shelter in the middle of the storm and I fell asleep sitting against the entrance. When I woke up I was on the mat that he carried and under a blanket that he carried. I would have been dead if I had been out there alone, but I made it a point to ignore him for awhile when we got home anyway. All of a sudden I was alone. I had to play by myself or go and find that fat Strubbe kid and play with him. I began to disagree with Rupilee about everything, simply out of principle. Those arguments turned into real disputes as I got older and I still can't be sure if I really did disagree with his ideas or that I just did it out of spite, to punish him for growing up faster than I did.

I think he would like this place now. He always dreamt of the future, and a way to improve things. He would appreciate this, these people who have carved out the earth to build factories and who leveled entire forests to build another forest out of steel and stone. I hate them and I hate what they've done to this place. As the years go by I become more convinced that I should have died and he should have lived. I wander from pole to pole using everything Rupilee taught me and I know that what he did out of necessity, I do out of guilt. He has trapped me here in a strange dream out of his imagination, unable to wake up because my own imagination has so long been stilled.

I do have some hope, though. I just have to outlive these parasites. That shouldn't be a problem. I've managed to outlive everyone else, haven't I.

The Sin Eater

As the light modulated from a monochrome gray to subtle hues and limping colours he rose and dressed, putting on his boots, despite the holes, and wrapped himself in a coarse woolen blanket he reserved for these occasions.

When he could hear their boots on the lane he sat on the edge of the cot and waited. They didn't knock but simply kicked open the door and told him to come. They took him through the streets like a prisoner, surrounded and pushed along at a hurried pace. He stumbled once, but rather than a helping hand they cursed him and pushed him harder. The streets were filled with people watching, as he was hustled by, but there was no sympathy in their eyes nor did he expect any. He was a poor man and did what was necessary to eat.

He had never been in the house before, nor anywhere near it as far as he could remember, and so, as they climbed the hill, the familiar perspective was altered and he lost his bearing. They circled the wall, taking the servants walk to the gated opening at the side of the manor, and his last look at the sky delivered a flash of lightening from a rare morning storm that he accepted as a sign of evil. They left him sitting on the floor in a corner of the kitchen that was easily three or four times bigger than his own house. The servants treated him with the same disdain the people of the village did, but his own belief in the sanctity of his work protected him from all scorn; a crumb of hope he held fast to, even as he accepted that he was damned for all eternity.

The simple ceremony was always held before the general announcement of the death. Accepted and necessary, his role was considered vital but hated by nature. When they came for him again he said a quick and silent prayer that God would see him home. They took him into a small chapel built into the house, it's vaulted ceilings and high windows doing little to lift the gloom. Above the alter he could barely see the priest, cloaked against the darkness, standing over the corpse, waiting for his arrival before beginning. His escorts pushed him ahead while they remained behind and he shuffled down the aisle and stopped in front of the shrouded body, across from the priest. On the shroud which covered the corpse sat a small cake. As the incantation began and with a hand gesture from the priest he took it up and ate it. He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and looked up as a servant handed the priest a goblet, encircled with stones, and he reached out to take it. He gulped this down with another prayer and tried his best to prepare for what was to come. He turned and walked back down the aisle into the waiting hands of his escort.

He tried to run, he was supposed to, but twice he was felled by a punch and then kicked as he struggled to his feet. The servants hurled garbage at him and yelled obscenities into his face as he rushed by. He couldn't be sure he was going in the right direction and he hoped that they would herd him to the gate, as was their responsibility. From behind something big and hard pounded into the back of his skull and he collapsed onto his hands and knees, water pouring out of his eyes. He got to his feet and pushed for the alley that led to the outside. As he ran, blinded by tears, he prayed once more to God to protect him, to carry him out but he knew in his heart he was alone. A sin eater, a pawn broker of souls, had no recourse. His earthly form was damned by the sins of others that he had assumed for a cake, or a loaf, for a drink of wine, so that others might pass the gates of Heaven without pause. His only comfort as he collapsed onto his lice-infested cot to sleep away the bruises of the beating was that he had done what he could for the old woman's soul, knowing that she had been forsaken by her family as evidenced by the dryness of the cake and the fact that they had cut the wine with water seeking cheaper entrance for her into the kingdom of Heaven. He fell heavily into sleep but his dreams were dark and punctuated by the screams of the damned, his own included, and he perceived a new voice in the chorus. He smiled to himself, in his sleep, and then dreamt of nothing.

Caught in Traffic

Jesus loves me, this I know...Well, Nico can kiss my ass. I'm sorry she's mad at me but it's her fault, anyway. If she'd study she'd get better marks and I'm not going to get in trouble to save her. She can afford it. What can I afford?

For the Bible tells me so...And no one can find out. Nana would kill me if she ever found out I cheated and then I don't know what she'd do. Nico will be all right, she's tough. No one would ever trust anything I ever said again, but Nico doesn't care what anybody thinks about her.

Jesus loves me, this I know...I have to try harder. If I get caught I'd get kicked out and then what would I do. I'm not smart enough to get a decent job and I don't have any money and Nana would hate me, for sure.

For the Bible tells me so...It wasn't even my idea so if she thinks I'm going to walk in there and tell them I gave her the answers she's crazy. She wouldn't do it for me either, I don't think. Maybe she would but she's kind of wierd that way, but I can't. She knows that; she knows I can't get even one more fail or I'm out. And what's the worst they can do to her?

Jesus loves me, this I know...I hope they don't kick her out. If they kick her out what am I going to do? She's my only friend there. She's so funny, too. I love that girl, but I can't change what happened. If I say anything then everybody will get in trouble and I don't want that to happen. They hate me enough as it is.

For the bible tells me so...She'll be all right. I hope she doesn't say anything about me. I don't think she would; she's not a tattle-tale. She was pretty mad at me, though. She can be a real bitch when she wants to be. I hope, I hope. She'd better not say anything or I'll tell them about the mid-terms and that was definately her fault. They'd kick her out for sure. I should try and tell her somehow. That might make her more mad, though. I won't unless I have to. If that bitch opens her mouth I'll make sure she gets kicked out for sure.

Jesus loves me...

Beverly Smells of Lilacs

Lionel Shelton stood at the door, put his keys into the right hand pocket, patted his left breast, checking his wallet and slipped his swollen feet into the size ten brown loafers before turning out the light. All he had to do was open the door and leave but he didn't. Instead he stood listening to the sounds in the hall, people talking, and the squeak of the linen cart approaching. He put a hand on the wall, beside the jamb and waited for the feeling of the cool surface to register in his mind. He waited for the vertigo to pass and when it didn't he whispered to himself, "What do you think you're doing, you stupid fool?" but he didn't slip out of his shoes nor did he take off his jacket; he stood there as his eyes grew accustomed to the dark and his mind wandered over to the last couple of days and a fresh assault began.

It was Tuesday or maybe Wednesday, what did it matter, when his weeping eyes cleared long enough for a glimpse at the loveliest creature he had seen in years. She sat, her thin legs daintily crossed, as she watched her fingers nimbly slip stiches and followed the gesticulating arms of a Barker's Beauty. He had found a little of his old manners when he sat next to her and, all rapid-fire delivery, began the delicate maneuvering that led to a promise of tea the following afternoon. She was wise to his efforts but didn't mind, a thought that confirmed for him that while he was old, he wasn't dead. He was in his comfort zone, surrounded by the cheap vases stuffed with plastic flowers, on assembly line end tables beside floral couches; his home for the last seven years. The dusty rose lamp shades cast a warmer hue than the sun ever had, in his memory, and the mood was elevated by the familiarity of the hand crocheted throws draped over the backs of the wing backed chairs, while the smell of perfume, too heavy, and the liniment, too musky, was barely recognized by noses deadened from years of effort and use.

Lionel Shelton hadn't been outside in more than two years. He preferred the dry air of the central heating to the chaotic humidity of the city around him. He preferred the muted light to the erratic behavior of the sun; the moon. He preferred the quiet of the T.V. lounge to the roar and crash of the streets below. His world was muted and carefully arranged, in direct opposition to his memories of his life before The Shepherd Estate Towers and its soothing sameness. He stood with his hand on the wall and rested his head on the door, listening to the squeaking wheels of the linen cart recede and he cursed himself again.

Her name was Beverly. She was two floors down. She liked to sit in the garden. She was three years younger than him and, like him, had outlived her family. She collected chop sticks, a remnant of the years she had spent in Japan. She knit to keep her hands busy and she read to keep her mind active. She thought he looked like Burt Lancaster. She smelled of lilacs.

She asked him to tea.

He lifted his head from the door, checked his pockets once more, opened the door and stood looking into the hallway, smiling to spite himself. "I may be old" he thought, "but I'm not dead yet.", and he pulled the door shut behind him and ran a hand through his hair the way that Burt Lancaster used to.