A Thousand Words

Benediction

2007-10-05T00:24:00.001-05:00

All at once, we stopped what we were doing and turned our faces to the sky. On the appointed day, at the appointed hour, we raised our faces to the sun and our malediction rained down on us.
I thought about you and shrugged, knowing that nothing could change what was happening. And I thought of the hearts, so close to my own, and I wished them a silent wish, and dreamt one final thought.
When I was four, I stood boldly beckoning to my sister, to hurry up and take the picture. I was self-conscious, even then. The lens pinned me to the grass and I squirmed under its scrutiny. I resisted the impulse to knock it out of her hands and surrendered to the moment. I just wished it all away.
The sorrow that permeates the essence of this place is manmade. It’s our final flaw and it’s our dearest resource, coming at a cost unimaginable.
We stood there, our faces pointed skyward, knowing that the end was just a new beginning. On the appointed day, at the appointed hour, our benediction rained down on us.

One Eye Open

2006-10-04T09:04:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I see more than I should and I guess you could say that I've made quite a good living because of it. When I was a young man I used to say that I always had at least one eye open, which I thought was very humorous, at the time. Now I can safely say that I've seen enough for this lifetime and probably a few more.
The first time I saw the Walters sisters was in 1953. Well, I saw them onscreen, in Victor Desormeaux's "Conquest of Heaven", and I didn't realize at the time that they were twins. They were champion swimmers, both of them, and Victor used them in his 'Aqaurian dream sequence'. I'm still not sure whether Victor understood that phrase, entirely, but he knew what he wanted and he always got what he wanted.
The sisters tested for the scene without really knowing what they were getting into, I'm sure. They were small town girls living in a bad old city and they auditioned on a dare to each other. Victor told me later that he was smitten instantly but could never tell which one he was more in love with. The film did modestly and brought him some acclaim but Victor was to make only one more before the accident.
That's what this is about. I'm putting together a little book for the fiftieth anniversary of his death and when I tracked down Miriam I was saddened to discovered that Margaret had died. She had suffered complications while in hospital two years previously and Miriam, who had been devastated, had nearly followed a short while later.
They had disappeared after the trial, during which both women were found innocent of any involvement in Victor's death, but the trauma and the sorrow inflicted on them by the scrutiny of the press and society had driven them from their home and into obscurity. They shunned any publicity for years and begged for privacy and the world, myself included, obliged them.
I met Victor during the pre-production of what would be his last piece, called, predictably, Neptune's Revenge. His solicitous manufacturing of a career for Miriam and Margaret was anything but, as the whole town knew, but he had an innocence about him which allowed him to maintain the fantasy that what he was doing he was doing for the good of the sisters. He was a roaring and outrageous drunk by then and in the habit of throwing lavish parties that could last for days and, of course, the sisters were right in the middle of it all. In those days they were never far from Victor's side.
The nursing home that Miriam had lived in for the last two years was a frightening place, at least for me. I'm happy to say that I've managed to keep my health and if I'm lucky I'll go the way Victor did. Miriam, I was shocked to find, was a shadow of the woman she once was. Mostly deaf and lucid for only moments at a time, she didn't seem to understand where she was on the day that I arrived. She had forgotten that she had agreed to let me shoot her and claimed that she didn't remember me at all. I explained to her, again, what I was doing and she finally understood and even lit up when she heard Victor's name.
We chatted as I readied myself and I let her tell me stories in which I was actually a participant and a strange sadness came over me, as I began to take her picture, that came from reliving the events of my past from another's perspective. I shrugged it off and continued to shoot.
"I know who killed him." she said in an offhand way, after relating to me a story that predated Victor's murder by only a day or two.
"Really?" I answered, in a distracted way.
"Yes, I do. I was there, you see, hidden behind a curtain. I'd heard loud voices coming from the living room and I remember being frightened, but more from the thought of being discovered than anything else because Victor had forbidden my sister and I to be in the room while he had his meetings. I suppose I was a curious girl then, too much for my own good, as it turned out. I remember that a young man had come to see Victor because Victor had fired him as a result of some indiscretion. Something about a scandal which Victor felt might threaten his relations with the studio. Anyway, they fought, and this young man hit him quite hard and Victor fell over. Poor Victor hit his head on the coffee table as he fell and that was it for him."
I had stopped shooting but was still looking at her through the camera and that was when I saw it in her eyes. She knew exactly who I was. She hadn't forgotten me or anything about that night.
"But it was all so long ago now and my memory isn't what it used to be." she said dismissively. "You'll send me a copy won't you? When it's done? I do like to sit and think about the old days from time to time, although I'd prefer to just forget all that sordidness that Victor was so fond of and to remember him like he was in the beginning, so handsome and sure of himself. At my age there's no use in wallowing in past sorrows. Don't you agree?"
"Yes, I do." I said quietly.
As I packed up my equipment, an orderly wheeled her back down the hall to her room and she gave a slight wave in my direction before she disappeared. It wasn't until I was in the car that I felt I could relax. I don't like nursing homes and I was glad to be done with that place. Like I said, when I go I want to go like Victor.

Pure

2006-08-28T20:28:00.000-05:00

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

2006-08-23T06:50:00.000-05:00

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

2006-08-20T06:04:00.000-05:00

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.

Faithless

2006-05-30T08:48:00.000-05:00

We were all sitting together under the trees, quiet for the moment, relaxing and absorbed by our own thoughts and it surprised no one when you got up and began to shake off the aches and pains from leaning too long in one position. I thought of doing it too but I was mired in a dream about peace and comfort and was afraid to let it go. I guess we all had our private revelations that day but none of us wanted to share them. Yours was public and visible to our naked eyes. Maybe I've lost my faith in communion or maybe I'm just getting bogged down by my own myopia. All I do is read about epiphany and have yet to experience it for myself. You said goodbye and some of us, the ones stretched out on the grass, pretending to appreciate the good weather and our companionship, answered with lazy waves and a nod and fell back into our thoughts. That makes three this month alone, including you. We're not worried about that. It's a fact of life that sooner or later some or all of us will stand up and take stock of the situation and decide that the comfort of our dreams might not be enough to sustain us, but for now we're fine, here under these trees, tired and melancholy and alone despite our numbers. I reached out and picked up a pine cone that had fallen from the tree I sat under and imagined that it was a life just waiting to explode and then I wondered if I would be here to see it and then I wandered down into a reverie about the causes and the catalysts that provoke change and then I wished that one day I could see the world the way you do and will want to stand up and leave my spot, here under these trees, to find out if the world really is the way you say it is.

All Wickedness, All Desire

2006-03-24T22:05:00.000-05:00

It was just after the waiter leaned in to clear the plates and before she'd had time to finish the dessert menu, stuck somewhere in time between the crème brûlée and the chocolate truffles, as the coffee purred its hillside aroma into the space that separated them. It was then that he had broken her heart and, at the same time, freed her and sent her directionless into the wind as she pushed out of her mind the static hum of an unknown future and his grocery list of complaints. The steward remembered her crying quietly and told me that she had simply folded her napkin and set it down between them and stood downcast while he had helped her into her coat. When I asked the maître d'hôtel how she had looked he said that she was beautiful and sad and that when he had asked her if she needed a cab she had responded with a shake of her head and , "Non, merci." The air outside was thick with humidity and as the temperature dropped a thin gauze settled over the street and the cart vendor at the corner told me that she had given him a sharp laugh as he wished her a good night. Into that night I followed her and when I reached the footbridge I had to turn away from the gentleman walking his ghostly gray dog, his long coat over his arm and the strange pillbox hat on his head, because he couldn't stop repeating, "Her skin was translucent and I cried out to her. Translucent. So beautiful." As the lights from the village faded behind me I turned to look for her in the spheres of mist along the canal but the shapes that loomed up at me were, simply, a bench and a fountain. The young girls, tall and lean, jogging beside the water had stopped as she passed and they told me that she laughed at nothing and uttered a sad soliloquy as she passed, the final words of which were, "Long and tireless night, do not deceive me but shelter me and in this barren womb, and despite all wickedness, we shall overcome all desire.", and then they heard no more.

I stood there, on the path, still and listening but heard no footsteps nor voices on the wind and I reconciled my fears with my fancy and settled instead on the smooth hiss of the dampened streets and the restless wind while somewhere in the city she cried and ran, oblivious that she had disappeared from sight and would never be found.

Lunch Date

2006-02-28T11:02:00.000-05:00

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

2006-02-21T23:03:00.000-05:00

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

2006-02-13T09:06:00.000-05:00

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

2006-02-09T10:07:00.000-05:00

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

2006-02-06T23:31:00.001-05:00

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.

What Comes of Sleep

2006-01-12T00:04:00.000-05:00

They left me here and there were times when I wished I'd left too. The long years I wandered across the ice, watching the trees wither and the animals migrating in herds thousands strong until hunger and predators took them, taught me the lessons my father never could. I watched as the ice receded and left in its wake the disgorged remains of beings swallowed whole by this harsh place and I realized how unsuited we were for this planet. This was a place where life was a gift, swift and shallow, and not meant to bear witness to its own fragility. My own kind, frightened and tormented by the vulgar severity of death, fled to find a home more suited to their temperament but I found I couldn't leave Rupilee behind.

When the water rose to cover the world I trod undersea and when the moon moved off and calmed the deluge I walked the deserts and when the ice came again I hunched my shoulders against the cold and climbed to the top of the world and there I slept away my grief.

When I awoke I could hear their laughter on the wind and they ran from me, these things, not unlike me but small and weak. Then they began to chase me everywhere and I had to hide from them simply because they were an irritant and they stank like death. They persisted, however, and multiplied beyond my imagination and I began to appreciate their stamina. Because they were so fragile and because I couldn't bear their pleas anymore I acquiesced and taught them how to till the soil and plant seeds. Now they're everywhere and its getting crowded. I like them, though. Rupilee would have come up with a theory about where they came from but he's gone and I guess it doesn't matter anyway.

Sometimes I climb up to high place and I try to imagine what the world was like when I first saw it, but so much has changed. And I've changed, too. That I can is a powerful lesson, another thing my father never taught me and something that might have made a difference. That was a long time ago, however.

Wings and Feathers

2005-12-28T11:33:00.000-05:00

He never understood how Doc could sit so quietly for so long, but he really didn't give it much thought. Doc was Doc. He crossed the square and along the way begged a dollar or two from the tourists just to keep in shape. The Sidings were full of them, lost and looking for famous landmarks and wondering where to eat lunch. He turned around and began to walk backwards across the square keeping a eye on Doc who was sitting so still that pigeons were starting to roost on his shoulders. He stopped, adjusted his hat and started to run. The pigeons that were strolling around the square were startled and began to run themselves, all of them, straight at Doc. There was flurry of wings and feathers when they finally took to the sky leaving Doc alone on the edge of the fountain.
"Cut it out."
"C'mon, Doc. Let's do something."
"You go ahead."
He took in Reed Avenue without seeing anything but when he got to Rivington he stopped dead in his tracks. She was sitting on an upended crate talking to Mauser and laughing her head off at one of his stupid jokes.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" He shouted at her from across the street.
She looked around and when she saw him she got up and took off up the middle of the street. He ran after her and caught her outside the Horse Opera House.
"Let go of me, you asshole."
"What are you doing down here? I don't want you here. I don't want you talking to Mauser, either. He's a fucking pervert and a creep."
"I don't have to listen to you. I can do what I want." She pulled her arm away and stood looking at him, defying him.
"Look, just go home. I'll be there soon, o.k.?"

Mauser saw him coming and ducked behind his vegetable stand, trying to hide from the barrage of potatoes coming over the canopy. One glanced off of his left temple and he staggered and went down.
"Leave my sister alone, you fucking pervert. If I see you talking to her again I'll bash your brains out with a fucking turnip." He left Mauser rubbing his head and went to collect Doc.
"Fucking kids." he said to himself.

The Shepherd

2005-12-27T09:28:00.000-05:00

I sat on the top step and watched as he finally let his shoulders grow slack and exhausted, he set down his tools staying like that for so long I thought he might have fallen asleep. I left him there, quietly going to the kitchen to make his tea.
I don't understand his passion, for I have never felt passionate about anything in this life. He is a good man, that I know, but closed and withdrawn, especially when he is working on a piece. I don't understand it but I accept it and I accept his need to unburden himself of the torment these images give him. I accept that it drives him to a remote place. I accept the crying in the middle of the night, and his feverish dreams which pull from him the most terrifying screams and I accept that he has no choice but to endure.
I put the steaming pot in the centre of the table as he comes in to sit in his chair and watch as he mechanically eats a piece of bread and stirs sugar into his cup. His hands are blackened and burnt and he will be sore for days. He doesn't, or can't, look at me or even acknowledge that I am here, lost in reworking and evaluating what he has done.
He will berate himself for the flaws he cannot remove, that no one else can see, and he will pray, asking for forgiveness from his God for the inexactitude of the rendering. This will seem to consume him and he wishes it would, but I know that in the back of his mind he is already forming an idea for the next one. He will create it unhindered by his hands and his eyes, somewhere in a remote corner of his mind. It will coalesce like oil on water, until fully formed it will cry to be released and he will acquiesce, simply a tool for its creation.
And he will return to the workshop, this one delivered, the next ready to be birthed, over and over again, until his hands are ruined and his mind grows quiet, and still I won't understand but I will sit on the top step and watch, reading his mood in the angle of his body, waiting until I see a sign that will tell me its time to go to the kitchen and put on the kettle.

Rats

2005-12-16T10:59:00.000-05:00

"Crap. We're right in the middle of the street."
"What? That's impossible. We should be in an alley. What do you see?"
"People. Lots of people. This isn't good. Can you even read a map?"
"I wouldn't call this a map. Its drawn on a paper placemat. I thought you'd done this before."
"I have. There's nothing wrong with the map. Its who's reading the map I have a problem with."
"Yeah? Come down here and say that."
"Oh, shut up. We have a bigger problem. If we can't find it Carl's gonna shoot the both of us. How much time do we have?"
"Uh, about fifteen minutes."
"Shit. Alright, down you go. We have to back track. If we can't find that alley in the next fifteen minutes we might just have to stay down here for the rest of our lives."
"That wouldn't be so bad. I kind of like it down here."
"I know you're joking so I won't punch you in the mouth but if you don't get moving you won't have a mouth for me to punch."
"Hey! You asshole. That was my hand."
"Move dammit! Why are you still standing there with your head in my ass?"
"I'm moving, I'm moving. Jeez."
"Alright. I thought we were here, but it looks like we're here. That's where the coffee shop is."
"We're at the coffee shop? That's only two blocks from where we started and we've been down here for two hours. "
"Hey! You were reading the map! Don't look at me. If you could tell your left from right we'd be there already."
"I can read a fucking map! Look at this. We shouldn't be anywhere near the coffeeshop. There must be more turns down here than you drew on the map. What? What is this written with? Pencil? You used a pencil? It's smudging all over the place."
"Don't rub it. Of, course I used a pencil. You can't erase pen."
"Oh my god. You really are stupid, y'know. You can erase pencil and that's my point. Look. Half the map's all fuzzy now. Oh man, we are in so much trouble."
"Here give me that. This way. We go this way. C'mon, we haven't got that much time. Are you coming?"

Kerioth

2005-12-15T10:47:00.000-05:00

Kerioth is not among us. A few of us have postulated that he was the will incarnate. I don't know. I remember his box, trusting him with our resources, but his eyes never left the fire. What did he look like? Few remember him or his appearance but we hear the name whispered in the shadows and there is recrimination on that tongue. And there is guilt. Ours or his? Was there doubt? I remember the will and I remember the temper and the tone. Kerioth had no doubt. The fire that warms us is lit by a hand we know not, and illuminates nothing except the confusion and the darkness we are engulfed in, but Kerioth is not among us and we wonder why. He is not punished. I remember a road, dry and cracked, and an argument and fear. There is recrimination on that tongue but Kerioth has no doubt. The flames reach up into the night, bound and forsaken as are we. The faces, covered in ash and dust, are sunken, eyes darting here and there when we hear his name. I don't remember his face or his appearance but I know that Kerioth is not among us.

Regret

2005-12-07T00:05:00.000-05:00

Rupilee killed the bear when he was fourteen. My father was proud, as any father would be, and when the neighbors came to look at it, he came out of the house pushing Rupilee in front of him. They were both surprised when our neighbors made it clear that they found it abhorrent that Rupilee had killed this magnificent animal and I will admit to feeling the same way. That was the first time I felt welling inside me a feeling of pure melancholy, a deep sadness for everything gone wrong in my world, for the day Rupilee and my father dragged the carcass out of the northern forest.

Shifting and still settling, our world was young and we were always finding things we had never seen before. Sometimes from the hills I could make out the massive forms of airborne things far out over the ice, circling, looking for food, although there's little for beasts this big, I thought. Trees grew to their full height, then, and the deep forests where the men never went were very dangerous and wild. There were things there that had never seen us before; even if in those days we were fierce, and frightening, we were alone. We knew so little about why we had been left here, or why this world should seem so inhospitable, but it was our home and all things lived together on this earth, sharing in it's misfortunes and it's glories.

There were some who believed that this place was a gift to us and that what we found we could take. I suppose my father was one of those and Rupilee, too. I couldn't tell you why but that was the first time I sensed a difference in the way I saw the world. There were secrets here, hidden and that belief was enough to separate me from them.

Rupilee cried himself to sleep that night. I could hear him in the bed next to mine, whimpering into his coverings, lost and frightened by these things he couldn't understand. My father roared at my mother and she cautioned him, that in his anger he should not do anything rash.

When I woke, there was too much activity outside and I dressed as fast as I could and went outside. My father was in his nightclothes and he was ordering the other men to harness the horses. My mother stood near the door with a blanket wrapped around her and she stared into the eaves of the forest. "He's gone.", was all she would say when I asked her where Rupilee was.

They were gone for four days, into the forest, and the day-to-days weren't getting done. No one talked to us and some of them made a point of ignoring me altogether. Without anyone to tell me what to do I was bored and spent my afternoons in the hills watching the ice for anything out of the ordinary. When at last I could hear the horses coming I ran to the house and waited. My father stood on the platform strapped to the first horse and he stared at me without saying a word as it came to rest in front of the house. It wasn't until I heard my mother cry out that I realized the others were lifting something down from the last horse. Wrapped in layers of coarse cloth, Rupilee looked sick and I wondered if he had caught a fever in the forest. It wasn't until they covered his face that I realized he was dead. He was the first, and the last of us, who ever died.

Later, years later, when the whole world died, I used to sit and think about Rupilee and all the wonders he never got to see. And I cried, with a sadness wrought from the regret I felt at being angry with Rupilee and from the regret of not consoling him in his anguish and from the regret at feeling nothing, then, except sadness for a doomed bear. Everything dies. I know that now. Everything dies except for me and my regret.

A Matter of Fact

2005-12-02T09:40:00.000-05:00

The day ran away with him, and he dragged his heels, as always. He went to see Donald at the pharmacy, leaning on the counter until Donald kicked him out for scaring off customers with his foul mouth and his wheedling voice. He walked down to the park but when he found it empty he went up 3rd to see if Doc was at his post. Doc was there, sitting on the steps drinking a coffee and watching the afternoon traffic with listless concern. He sat down beside Doc and watched for awhile, too.
"You wanna go to a show, Doc?"
"Nope."
"O.K. I'm gonna go then."

As he crossed Main he checked the bins along the alley and found a hat someone had thrown out. There was nothing wrong with it except for a small grease stain on the band. He put it on his head. It was a pretty good fit and it was free so he decided to keep it. He watched himself as a reflection in the window of the Sears outlet and thought he looked good in a hat. He slowed down his stride and leaned back a little, put his hands into his pockets and let the hat do the walking. He chose to ignore the curious looks from the people he passed.

When he turned the corner at Watson's he saw the bikes, jammed into the stand all in a row and got an idea. With a glance over his shoulder he walked along pulling back on the seats until one, about half way down, came loose and he swung it around and hopped onto the seat. He pedalled furiously for about two blocks to make sure no one had seen him and then he settled back and began to enjoy the ride. It was a girl's bike but it was better than the feet. He rode back up 3rd and waved at Doc as passed, but Doc didn't wave back. He didn't care; he was free and easy now. The best thing about riding a bike, apart from not having to walk everywhere was finding a good hill and riding down it at full speed. It was a matter of fact. He took the bike up Rivington, but had to stop halfway and walk it up the rest.

From the top of Rivington you could see most of the Eastern Sidings and out over the lake. The markets that crowded the lower end were full of people shopping for dinner and talking in the street. The criss-crossing wires of the telephone and the electricity, made the Sidings look like a paint-by-number he did once at the home. He smoked a cigarette, leaning on the bike, his hat set back so the smoke didn't get his eyes. This was going to be dangerous. The traffic was light but some old bat could pop out of nowhere and smash him up pretty good. He looked up at the sky, as if he was consulting the heavens for a sign, then got on the bike, jammed his new hat down hard on his head and pointed the bike downhill. Yeah, this was going to be dangerous.

Sleeping Horses

2005-11-29T00:43:00.000-05:00

Rupilee told me once that inside every cucumber was a thousand more, identical to the first. I didn't believe him, of course, but when I asked my grandfather about it, the old man said it was true. I spent the rest of the afternoon smashing cucumbers and found out it wasn't true at all. We lived for a while with my grandfather, in the farm belt on the equator, not far from the irrigation canal. I'd never seen so much open water before and it was along time before I saw any again. My father never got to see it because one person from every family had to stay behind to watch the glaciers and keep the houses from sliding into the cracks in the ice. I wanted to stay with my father, but it was mostly because I didn't like doing field work. We worked the fields until dark everyday and had to sleep with the horses. Rupilee and I got separated after the first week and I spent the rest of the season sleeping with the sheep. I didn't know that horses slept standing up.

Those days were golden but we knew they couldn't last because the ice was moving again. My mother told me to soak up as much sun as I could and Rupilee laughed so hard when I asked him what to use that he threw up and my mother put him to bed for the rest of the day.

Everybody had to help load the sleds. They were big, really big. Probably a mile wide, and we packed them forty feet high. They left for the caves,each as it was filled; the horses straining against the chains. All that food was supposed to feed us through the next cold snap, although it didn't look like enough to me. I heard my father say that this one would be a lot longer than the last one, maybe twice as long. When the last of the sleds were gone and the fields were empty we headed for home. I felt bad, though, because there weren't going to be enough cucumbers to last until it got warm again, and my father really liked cucumbers.

Soliloquy

2005-11-26T10:08:00.000-05:00

When they came down out of the mountains, the first thing they did was build a lodge. It took them three weeks to finish it and when is was finished they began to plow. A thousand years later the city fell to disease. Crowded and dirty, they lived like rats, on top of each other, the streets awash with filth and it was inevitable. Another thousand years passed before it was dust again and lost, no histories to remember that they'd ever been there at all. In a way, though, they infected the soil, not with their disease but with their desires and on the shore, where the river bends to the south I felt a resonance in the rocks, a reverberation in the ground that they walked on and the valley could recall their descent and, equally, their ascent. I never intended that. It was an experiment, nothing more, but I won't try again. I like it quiet, like this. I like the solitude and I like to be alone with my thoughts.

In a Dream

2005-11-24T20:04:00.000-05:00

In those days the earth was a lot smaller. I tried to walk all the way home, once, by going in the opposite direction, but when I didn't make it home for dinner my dad tracked me down and I got a beating right there in front of Mr. Strubbe and his cock-eyed kid. We knew everybody on the planet, in those days, which made it really difficult to hide things from my dad. You had to hide things from him, though, because he was such a crab back then. When he caught me and my brother, Rupilee, pissing on one of the glaciers he nearly had a fit. I couldn't sit down for two days. The world was a dangerous place, I suppose, but I grew up dodging hail stones as big as my head and could jump over a fifteen foot crevice in the ice. And then it got cold. Really cold. I didn't really get time, back then, but I swear it must have been cold for about a million years. I just kept my mouth shut, though, because my mother would invariably tell me to put on a sweater if I complained about it.

My favorite place to go when the world was bugging me, which it seemed to do just about every day, was the Naarq Keil, which was a huge basin carved out by a meteor along time ago. Now it looks like a dump, which it is, but when I was a kid it looked like a porcelain soup bowl with broccoli floating in it. I would sit on the edge and dangle my feet and imagine that I was a giant just home for lunch from the factory. Now that I think of it, though, I don't really like broccoli, so I probably would have just spit it out. If I had some time I'd find an old piece of scrap and slide all the way to the bottom. It took forever to get back up but it was worth it. The hill was so steep I probably got up to about a hundred miles an hour on the way down.

Since Rupilee died I don't get to go to the Keil too much. I have to help my dad with the day-to-days, and besides, he never lets me out of his sight. Sometimes I dream about lying under the trees, looking up at the veins in the sky and I wake up crying and I don't know why.

Apostle

2005-11-19T12:59:00.000-05:00

I can feel the texture of his cloak on my fingertips. I can smell his sweat mixed with oil. I can feel him looking at me from across the fire but when I look up he’s not there. All of us feel it. None of us can remember who he is, or was, but then we don’t know who we are either. The fire burns but never goes out as we try to remember what it is we’ve lost along the way. For a while, we had long talks, trying to fit together the clues, for each of us has a fragment of a memory that we can’t fathom but we haven’t talked for a very long time. Each of us is alone in our exile and we wait. We wait for someone to tell us who we are, we wait for an end to this confusion, we wait for the return of the humanity that has been stripped away from us, we wait to face our accuser, we wait to earn his trust, we wait for an end and a beginning, we wait for all eternity, bound by our failure to never know how we failed, or who, but I can feel the texture of his cloak on my fingertips and I can feel him looking at me from across the fire.