Malia A. Perez is a poet and novelist. She is working on a second collection of poetry titled, If Tombstones Could Talk, and a fictional memoir, I Married A Mexican. She is a poet historian capturing poetry events through the lens since the early 2000s. She is the Co-Editor and Co-Founder of The House of the Fighting Chupacabras Press. She holds a Doctorate degree in Educational and Teacher Leadership (2013) and has taught for more than 20 years in public education wearing many hats. She has been a featured reader at Del Mar College and enjoys reading, writing, photography, and spending time with her family.
Her nails are like those
of a new-aged vampire
Stiletto-shaped, cotton-candy colored
Steep heels to match
Looking like she would
Eagerly lick the dagger
After the kill
She is on the prowl
Covered in dark lace
After anyone’s kind
She wants to stake
Her claim to whomever
Will have her
She will take your family
She will take your life
And not look back.
Mandy Ashcraft is a science fiction writer and a clinical psychologist. More about Mandy at the end of this section
Wendy had conducted her podcast out of the mop closet of a West Texas truck stop for ten months. She was not from Earth, and her name wasn’t really Wendy, but she did work in a mop closet. She slept there, as well. Most of what she knew about human life she’d learned from conversations that floated through rows of salted nuts and beef jerky. She’d picked up pieces of current events, repetitive chitchat about the weather, and details of the love-hate relationship between intestines and jalapeños. All things considered, she enjoyed her time there. The hotdogs that had been on the rollers were free so long as they’d been there for 12 hours, and the manager allowed her to do anything she wanted in the closet so long as she used the mops on the floors once a day. It was a fair trade, considering she was going to destroy their planet anyways.
The world leaders knew about the fate of Earth. They were all avid listeners of Wendy’s invitation-only subscription-based podcast, STRIPTEASE, which trickled vital information into their brains like a hemorrhage that bleeds in 60-minute intervals. The show was sexual in nature, vulgar, and always fantastically titillating. They knew she wasn’t human; STRIPTEASE was a show about her learning the wide-world-of-sex their beloved Earth had to offer. Her episodes were downloaded almost instantly. They were hooked.
She peppered it with details of the world’s impending demise between graphic anecdotes; a whispered secret from a voluptuous extraterrestrial desperate to learn the Kama Sutra— as she explained—“while there was still time.” What she wanted to determine was which humans were worth saving. The planet itself was not worth saving, but it seemed wasteful not to save a few of its assets. She had slipped details of her X-rated broadcast into the private inboxes of the political elite, and they took the bait; she did this partly for convenience, somewhat for entertainment, and a little bit because West Texas was hot and she’d rather stay inside and not have to contact them in person.
STRIPTEASE brought them like flies to the mysterious puddle of liquid in aisle three. After 96 episodes, her listener rate was at an all-time high, because the listeners themselves were at a frantic personal all-time low having knowledge of the end of the world and no way of publicly explaining how they’d learned of it.
She recorded episode #97 on a Tuesday. The fact that it was Tuesday was arbitrary, really, but it felt like the right time. With her microphone propped on a mop head, she leaned into it and in her most seductive voice, offered them salvation. She dangled her words in front of their auditory canals. She tried to make her breasts sound bigger when she said it. She wasn’t sure if that was a thing, but if it was a thing, she wanted to make sure she did it. There was a large ship, she told them, one single large and shiny ship, that could preserve only humanity’s best and brightest. They had 20 days to narrow it down, and to meet at the ship. Ending the show with a lengthy description of her first time with a pizza delivery guy and arguably too much detail involving garlic butter, Wendy cut the recording off.
The elite listeners decided immediately who humanity’s best and brightest were: themselves.
There wasn’t going to be any drawing of Nobel Laureates’ names out of a hat. They would wave goodbye to the actual best, the actual brightest, and to those with whom they were having an affair. They would board the rescue ship to New Earth, a lavishly terraformed planet of hope. Population: the original Earth’s best and brightest. Before the episode was over, they’d already fallen in love with the possibilities; this new world, not muddied by the kinds of people who didn’t know what hollandaise was and the people who couldn’t afford open-heart surgery from eating too much of it. They deserved this chance at survival, to sow humanity’s most powerful genetics into the Milky Way. They packed and counted the days quietly, brunching heavily, then lunching heavily, and then drinks-turned-into-dinnering heavily. There was something about leaving everyone else to their demise without warning that brought up a queasy sense of guilt. Beef Wellington absorbs guilt really well, probably because of the duxelles and maybe the pastry, so it was ultimately a non-issue. Life on original Earth continued as status quo. Wendy mopped the truck stop a handful of times, ate wrinkly tubes of meat from the rollers, and watched a woman give birth in the chip aisle (more mopping), but never once clicked the ON button of her microphone.
When the time came, Wendy left the mops and ventured out into the soft splashes of sun-lit bottle caps, candy wrappers, and condoms decorating the parking lot. The sticky sea glass of truck stops. The ship was where she said it would be, a mile up the road from where she stood. They were already there, her entire listener base, the leaders of the world. Everyone with an “I got an official email” in their grab bag of explanations, high atop a pedestal of squeaky-clean morality, should anyone ask. No one asked. New Earth awaited them; it deserved them, and they deserved it. Daylight slid its promiscuous fingers across the curves of the ship’s metal exterior. It was almost impossibly shiny, sweating bullets of liquid silver into the open air. Wendy had in her hands a pamphlet she had printed in the mop closet. It contained details of their new world for the passengers to peruse. Strapped into their seats, they ruffled the pages excitedly, nervously. The duxelles-to-pastry ratio must’ve been sufficiently absorbent, because no one seemed to ruffle pages with remorse. Wendy watched from the ground as her ship was auto-piloted from the rocky pathway on which it stood ever since she’d arrived in it herself. She blinked and it was gone.
“The best and brightest,” she said to herself and a small cactus. It was warm, and the breeze was far superior to the fan in the closet. She looked down at the New Earth information, fresh black ink smearing beneath her thumb. These passengers weren’t wrong per se; New Earth would have been a great place for them to coordinate diamonds with DNA, if it existed. It was alarming how little it took to convince them it did. Wendy had given them a photo of Earth from the vantage point of their one moon, just having rotated Australia. She erased Bermuda altogether since it seemed to be in an odd location to begin with. She typed “New Earth” at the bottom of the page, and there it was. They were going to be so disappointed when the ship drifted away indefinitely, irreversibly; a horrifying strangulation fueled by greed would reduce the ship to a frigid catacomb, albeit shiny. Very shiny.
The best and brightest would never step forward as such, but those standing in the way of them would. Wendy knew that. She also knew that sex was a powerful force throughout the universe, and Earth was no exception to the rule. She fed them information by way of that mop closet production carefully, and in a context that had their brains drunk on a cocktail of hormones and fear; it was like being spooned a nice winter squash bisque through a glory hole. It was satisfying and dangerous and had their inflated egos clenched in a barbed fist. Wendy went back to the truck stop and grabbed a 13th-hour hotdog off of the rollers, with a wink from the owner signifying that if she was brave enough to eat it, then by all means. The true best and brightest were the rest of the people, the ones that had been abandoned by leaders who couldn’t recognize their own world map if Australia was facing the wrong way. Wendy had decided that she wouldn’t detonate anything, around the same time she decided she wasn’t getting on that ship either. The button itself was drowned in electric purple Fabuloso, deactivated and lavender-scented. It was a Tuesday, and she remembered so because it really didn’t matter what day it was.
Charlie Mathis took satisfied sips of his morning coffee as he looked out over his cabbages, seeing cabbages and only cabbages which is ideal when you’re a cabbage farmer. His gaze stopped on a strange arrangement of concentric circles burned into his field; the kind you’d see in a tabloid story about UFOs. There was surely a less tabloid-worthy explanation for the symbols left in his field, his personal comfort zone insisted as he scrambled to connect a few logical dots. “Those damn teenagers!” he shouted, not referencing any particular ones as there were none living within 20 miles of his Texas property; just damn teenagers in general. Charlie was in his late thirties but his isolated cabbage-soup-rich lifestyle left him one creaky porch rocking chair short of being a crotchety old man. He didn’t like to be bothered, by anyone or anything.
The optic nerve spasmed in his left eye as it landed on something else. Movement. But it wasn’t teenagers. A small humanoid figure was casually shoving one of the cabbages into a --spacecraft. Why couldn’t it just be teenagers?
“Who are you? I’ll sic my dogs on you! Or shoot you!” he called as he grabbed his shotgun and ran towards it, stopping suddenly when the figure turned to face him. Rather than run, it dropped to its knees and began tugging at another cabbage in the dirt, which in its small hands was comparable to a large watermelon in the hands of a man. It seemed to disregard the farmer, not in a menacing way, more of a “kindly leave me to my task of stealing your crops” sort of way. Another leafy ball was lugged to the craft; shoved into it like the carry-on bag of the last passenger to board a regional plane. The creature wasn’t in a hurry. Charlie would’ve sicked his dogs on it if he had any dogs; the threat alone was usually sufficient, but it appeared that this time he would need actual dogs. He made a mental note to adopt a few beagles, or whatever breed would best respond to “get ‘em boys!” In the meantime, he would have to “get ‘em” himself. He couldn’t risk anyone finding out about such a bizarre encounter; media ridicule could add red ink to his struggling finances. If profits were any lower than they already were, he might have just climbed into that spacecraft and buckled up.
“I’ll shoot you!” he repeated, to no response. Not that he figured an otherworldly being would have taken English as a Second Language; Charlie wasn’t a brilliant man but he wasn’t exceedingly dense either. He just figured the large shotgun would pole vault over the language barrier. The figure stared at him, at the gun, and slid its slender arm into the ship to retrieve something. Charlie reacted quickly to the possibility that it was groping for a weapon, some kind of laser or anything that could send his house up in flames, and pulled his trigger. A nearby cabbage exploded. He shot a second time successfully, or unsuccessfully from the point of view of the one inhaling buckshot. It didn’t scream, or try to escape. It didn’t wield a weapon of its own after all. It didn’t pop or fizz or explode. Another alien didn’t erupt from its chest cavity. There were no lasers involved. It merely sighed, and rapidly withered to the ground, with nothing but a small notecard in its hand. A 4x6 white index card. Charlie pocketed it as he rolled the craft into his barn, and masked it with an available out-of-sight-out-of-mind shield from reality that could also be identified as a tractor cover. It wasn’t as if he could recycle it. He looked at the card, covered in symbols, one of them the exact symbol that had been burned into his field a year prior. He wondered if it might be a list of directions, and if it was, his seemed to be the last stop before it reached its destination. As he dug a shallow grave for the extraterrestrial sack of Earth bullets, he wondered if he might have eventually been able to communicate with it, or if he’d have been the one being buried if he’d ventured to try. It was too late to find out; at least he was on the winning side of the dirt. Padding back to the house, he decided that what had just happened had never actually happened at all. Maybe it was a dream? The coffee grounds expired six months ago, this could be a bad reaction. Or is there such thing as a hallucinogenic cabbage fungus? He attempted to overwrite his memory of it with the words “it never happened” on a loop. He would adopt some dogs, though, in case it ever happened a second time.
He nearly heaved his expired liquid breakfast onto the index card as he scanned the front page of the newspaper. “Crop Circle Leaves Local Corn Farmer A-Maize-d” was the headline his local paper had decided on, where he just knew they’d genuinely delighted in the idea that their maize joke was also corny, and an acquaintance of his smiled in black and white. In the photo he pointed toward a charred field. An overhead view showed a peculiar symbol Charlie recognized; it was also on the index card. He felt panicked, sweaty, like he’d eaten too many jalapeños after drinking too much caffeine and his organs weren’t sure what to make of the combination without resulting in something biologically volcanic. Charlie walked to the barn and pulled the tractor cover from the small craft. He pressed the door and it opened outward.
“Maybe there’s something else in here, something to explain what’s happening,” he said aloud. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if he found an answer; business aside, going public about alien contact would mean every cashier and waitress and damn teenager in Texas would ask him if he was probed for the rest of his life and it would probably even be whispered at his funeral. Here lies Charlie, who might have been probed by aliens. I wasn’t probed, I was robbed, he thought to himself. The metallic spacecraft was the size of an industrial washing machine, and could accommodate the small humanoid being and about 5 of his largest, most profitable cabbages comfortably. Of those there were two, and also what appeared to be several bunches of carrots. Regular earth carrots. There wasn’t a single useful piece of evidence in the craft; no maps, light sabers, or anything to probe anyone with. Unless the carrots…? No, he decided, that’s not what the carrots were for. It was odd. Cabbage, carrots, and now corn? Were they studying human sources of food? His nerve endings sipped a paranoid cocktail of images depicting humans in a zoo, being fed harvested plants from their native planet, zoologists working had to recreate the human diet to toss at abductees for entertainment. He’d buried one of them, whatever they were, but the newest crop circle meant it had friends. Or at least co-workers. For the first time in a long time, he felt afraid.
“Gary,” he said into his cellphone; Gary was the smiling face who was, that very morning, a-maize-d. “Gary this is Charlie. Can you talk privately? It’s urgent.”
There was a small bar a few miles up the road that also sold terrible burgers. They agreed to meet for drinks and possibly a terrible burger, depending on how many drinks it took for that to sound like a wise decision, gastrointestinally speaking. That day it took both men exactly two beers before taking their wise decision with extra cheese.
“Charlie, why are we drinking at 10:30 in the morning?” Gary asked, pulling at something in his burger patty that looked to Charlie like a band aid. “Are you upset about that article in the paper? It’s not going to affect local business—”
“Gary, I had the same thing happen in my cabbage field. It was a different symbol, but I—” he took a swig of beer to loosen gristly meat bits wedged between his teeth, “—I saw the creature that made it. I shot it. And I took this card from it.” He unfolded the index card from his front pocket. Gary reacted all too calmly to the card and the shooting, even for their level of mid-morning intoxication. “Gary, what else do you know?”
It wasn’t a band aid, fortunately, in the meat patty. It was just a piece of plastic wrapping likely peeled from a cheese slice. Not exactly palatable, but certainly more hygienic, and Charlie called that a win. The old corn farmer plucked it from his burger and continued eating. “This has been happening to all of us ‘round here,” he said. “The Jeffreys grow those big fat radishes; their fields were covered in triangles a while back.” He looked at the index card. “These actually, fourth one down.” He pointed. “And those big round circles at the bottom were way out west of town in some tomatoes I think.”
“So this is…a list?”
“Seems to be.”
“Each crop circle or symbol was left with a different type of crop. So they were going down this list and taking some of each thing. Why?”
“Hell if I know,” said Gary. “I only let the paper know so I could get that girl JoAnn’s attention. You seen her around lately? Last I saw she was selling some kind of candles—”
“Don’t you care?” Charlie was not a patient man.
“‘Course I care, JoAnn got a boob job.”
Gary was a dead end. But he’d figured out one thing from their conversation; the creatures burning symbols in their fields were following a list, marking the items they needed, and then simply hauling them off later. He flashed back on his earlier idea of human exhibits. If they were taking things they needed to sustain human life elsewhere, the next logical action would be to take the humans themselves. Or had they begun that already? Come to think of it he hadn’t seen the town’s only attractive female JoAnn in a while; she was worthy of being beamed up for display purposes. This human comes with enhanced features!
Parting ways with Gary and his regrettable plate of crumbs, Charlie headed out to the Jeffreys’ property. The ones with the triangles and big fat radishes. They lived at the edge of town and everyone knew their name. A massive wrought iron gate with JEFFREY welded into it and solar-powered accent lighting ensured you weren’t accidentally unaware of them being the fanciest growers of radishes in all the land. It was unlike anything else in their humble hometown, and the locals had taken to pretentious whispering about their alleged pretentiousness. Turns out, the flavor of irony is masked well by beer. Charlie pulled up to the gate and found it open, so he continued up the dirt road that ended at the house that root vegetables built.
A middle-aged man in shorts and a bathrobe sat on the front step reading their local paper. Gary’s smiling face looked up at Charlie in black and white from the front page as he approached the man, presumably Mr. Jeffrey. He didn’t look especially fancy. Maybe his robe was cashmere? Charlie wasn’t sure he knew what cashmere would look like.
“Can you believe all that? About the crop circles?” Charlie asked. The man looked up at him. “Name’s Charlie Mathis, I live across town. I don’t mean to bother you.”
“Sure I can believe it. I had crop circles. Actually I had crop triangles,” he sighed. “Is that a thing? Crop triangles?”
“I suppose they could be any shape. The things making them left this card, and these symbols on it.” He extended the index card. “It seems to be a list. I came to see if you had any more information.”
Looking at the card, Mr. Jeffrey bit his lower lip, perplexed. “I wonder if they got all of these things yet, if it’s a list like you say? Maybe they’re not done?”
“You mean maybe they have other things to get on this list? Maybe some of the symbols mean— I dunno, weapons? Cows? People?”
“Could mean anything. Maybe weapons, cows, and people.” Mr. Jeffrey laughed. “Or maybe the last symbol means ‘you can only destroy the human race after you eat your vegetables’.”
“Doesn’t this worry you?” It was beginning to seem like the meeting with Gary all over again; a cholesterol-free version.
“Oh sure it terrifies me. But I’m not about to go to war with them, whatever they are. Let them have the crops. They grow back.” There are always options when faced with unusual circumstances, and Jeffery seemed to have taken the “horse blinders” approach to facing this one. Don’t look at them, don’t look into it, and water your big fat radishes; ostentatious gates don’t pay for themselves.
After about fifteen minutes of small-talk about radishes and cabbages and the weather, and also a brief mention of JoAnn 2.0, Charlie convinced Mr. Jeffrey—whose first name was Jeff which was unfortunate but easy to remember—to assist him with one thing. He asked that he simply help him make a list of what symbols locals had already quietly mentioned and strategically downplayed or, in one instance, had photographed for the front page of the local paper. They spent the afternoon calling around and drawing symbols based on verbal descriptions. The too-early beer and too-terrible burger Charlie had consumed that morning made his brain feel like it was marinating in lukewarm drippings from the meat patty.
“It looks like everything on this card matches up with something grown around here, except one. Four circles in a row. No one has seen that one, at least no one in this area that anyone’s talked to.”
“So there you go,” said Jeff, “the symbol that means blow up the cows or whatever you said earlier.” He smiled.
“You won’t be laughing if it means blow up the cows.”
“So long as it doesn’t mean blow up the radishes. Come on Charlie, what are you trying to do here? Stir things up? Leave it alone, maybe they’ll go away.”
“I want to know what’s happening in this town. They seem to have targeted us for a reason. What if we could warn people?” His previous concerns of negative press and/or having to watch his CPA keep the subtract button warm on her calculator had been dropped the moment he’d realized he wasn’t alone in his experience. The town in which he was born, and the one he hoped to die in but not too soon, could be under attack. It was hard to tell; what he did know was that their properties were in something’s scope. There was even a handwritten list. So what was their next move?
Jeff Jeffrey tied his potentially-cashmere bathrobe around himself as he walked quietly to the kitchen. Charlie could hear him slide a wooden drawer open. He returned with a long rectangle box labelled Aluminum Foil.
“Here’s your hat,” he said. He tossed it down in front of his visitor. “At least that’s what the rest of the country will say. You gotta let it go. We can’t be known for stuff like this.”
“They could be dangerous! And they know how to find us!”
The man in the bathrobe sat down. He sighed, heavily. With his right hand he picked at a label on a jar of pickled radishes. It took him several minutes to respond, in an uncomfortable silence for Charlie who was also desperately wading through a hangover.
“Do you really think we need to warn people?” he asked, finally.
“I think we do. So that maybe we can find out what it all means before it’s too late.”
“Warn people about what?” said a female voice as it entered the room, carried by a woman who promptly booted JoAnn off of her pedestal in Charlie’s mind. Mrs. Jeffrey sat down next to her husband at the table. “I’m Mila, by the way.”
“We were talking about the triangles. Charlie here has had some crop circles himself. He thinks it’s a list of things they’re taking. He thinks they might take people next.”
Mila looked ravishingly alarmed. Beautifully terrified. Exquisitely fearful. Charlie decided he shouldn’t think of her that way. She was Mrs. Jeffrey and should be merely alarmed, terrified, and fearful. “We’re going to be abducted!?”
“No. We’re just taking precautions. Letting people know it could happen, so they’re not caught off-guard,” Charlie tried to soothe her with something equally frightening but re-worded. Like putting a big orange safety cone in front of a toxic spill.
________
It didn’t take 24 hours to ignite their quaint farm town with worry. Worry of alien invasions. Worry of abductions. Worry of probing. People never forget to mention probes in regards to anything coming from anywhere that isn’t Earth, where a vast universe of possibilities seems to be whittled away to human colorectal exams. The local paper accepted Charlie’s compiled information and evidence in the same quiet and understated way that a famished lion accepts a zebra. Not only had their a-maize-d farmer had this experience, much of their town had similar ones. Their town was the target of something, or someone, from another planet. Fear was rolled neatly and bound with rubber bands, tossed at the front doors of the unsuspecting locals. The zebra was picked clean.
It had been a week since the breaking news and Charlie sat with Jeff Jeffrey at the same bar he’d first met with Gary, once again eating a terrible burger. Jeff didn’t have one, because he was pretentious. Or maybe because they were terrible. On an old television set, a local woman revealed to a journalist that her carrots had been dug up about eight days prior, with four circles burned into her land, and thus the last mysterious symbol on the card was identified.
“Mila wants to move,” Jeff said. “Doesn’t want to sit around and wait for them to come.”
“That’s a little extreme, I think.”
“Extreme?” Jeff looked at him. “We just told the entire town to be afraid for their lives. And now it’s ‘extreme’ if they’re afraid for their lives?”
“We don’t even know if they’re coming back. We just told people to watch for them.”
“Yeah, but you tell people to watch their backs and they panic,” said Jeff as he watched Charlie mop his wet plate with the last piece of hamburger bun. “We weren’t even sure we were in danger at all.”
“Isn’t it better to be safe than sorry?” Charlie felt a pang of guilt, scrambling for the comfort of a classic phrase generally held in high regard. Was it not always better to be safe than sorry?
“But what if we’re safe and sorry?”
________
Two thousand light-years away, a small humanoid creature shuffled through a box of index cards, pulling a few out and glancing over them, and every time replacing them in the box.
He sighed, annoyed. He rifled through cards again.
“I guess 86 the imported cabbage salad,” he said to his sous-chef in their native language, who took a dry-erase marker to a white board in their kitchen to notify the waitstaff that it would be unavailable. “We never received the cabbage of Earth.”
He pulled another index card from the recipe box.
She was on her way to the funeral of a family friend who had passed away peacefully in his sleep. He was 117. She drove the speed limit, as she always did. Everyone always did; it was considerate.
Her dress was long, form-fitting, and black, as if she were wearing her own shadow in hand-sewn lace. She smiled to herself. The funeral was not to be a somber event; he had lived a long life, free of complaints, free of regrets. She figured his body was merely exhausted from 117 years of laughter and champagne toasts.
In fact, in Marcy’s town, people rarely had a complaint about anything at all. She thought about her own life as she drove. Her workplace was a convenient distance from home, and her job pleasant. Her boss was kind, and she worked hours that tipped the work-life balance in perpetual favor of the latter. Her parents loved her, and each other, and the highlights of her childhood were often revisited in a glittering snow globe of memories. She had borne a healthy baby boy and girl to the man of her dreams, and prided herself in this decidedly balanced family structure. It warmed her to see her friends, co-workers, and acquaintances do the same. Residents of her town held the same political stance, same religious views, and the same socioeconomic status. They had no debates; there was nothing to debate. They had no fights; there was nothing to fight about. Everyone was respected and respectful. It was what they’d always fought for, in the old days, long before she’d been born. She had only heard rumors about the way it used to be, but the past seemed to be this haunting entity in the room you were forbidden to acknowledge. It had piqued her curiosity, and yet she’d never dared ask questions. The entity whispered softly only to those who cared to wonder, and so few ever did. The past was meant to be shameful.
What she had gathered was this: The people had felt tension between opposing views, a strain between widely varied lifestyles, and a reason to debate when jagged-edged political or religious views were coarsely mixed. It was in the past that they’d ever felt a reason to threaten or feel threatened, and had then agreed that any threat at all was inherently evil. They, as a society, went to war against such evil. There should be no winners, nor losers, they’d said. Control all variables and you eliminate any tension, they’d said. There should be no grades in school, there should be no scores in sports; these numbers were emotionally crippling. Fair meant fair, and they banded together to achieve it. And they had! It was utopia, they’d said. Finally, it was what they’d fought for. There was never a reason to feel anything but happy, joyful, grateful. That’s what they always said.
It had been decades since someone had committed a crime; there never seemed a reason to commit one. The prison had been turned into an art gallery, one Marcy often visited. She’d always been drawn to it, even as a child. It had been decades since someone had the desire to create anything new, because art is a manifestation of deep emotion, and often some degree of discontent. The paintings there were quite old and some were in need of restoration, but the gallery itself was pristine. It was nearly impossible to tell that it had ever been a prison, although she wasn’t at all sure what a prison would have looked like. The concept of incarceration in its entirety was a hushed subject of the old days; another relic buried by an idyllic victory.
The locals enjoyed a sip of wine on an occasional stroll through the displays, where vintage canvas pieces from the pre-utopian days were neatly arranged, and they always politely commented on the lovely color schemes. They were remarkable to look at, full of emotions the people there had never had a reason to feel, and so their brush-stroke language was foreign. It didn’t translate. The pieces hung on the walls, screaming a history that no one could understand. Something in Marcy could hear them, though; distinctly, in an otherwise deafened room. She’d discovered this at a young age. She returned to the gallery often, without explanation, to quietly share in a sensation otherwise confined to its own timeline. This way of living was better, they’d said, because everything is perfect when nothing is ever unbalanced. When nothing is ever wrong. When no one is ever cruel. There was no paint color that quite resonated with the innocence of having felt nothing. Virgin brains were carried by the people of Marcy’s town, with untouched neurological receptors. They knew how to love, they experienced passion, in the same way a greeting card expresses such things. Flat. Superficial.
Well-intended, of course, but lacking a beating heart. The paintings on the walls sobbed alone.
What was sadness, in Marcy’s town, anyways? It was utopia. They were not immortal; death stalks even the happiest man in the world, but in that town, no one’s obituary was ever embellished. A creative literary sanding and refinishing of a person’s life story was no longer required, because polish is wasted on what is already flawless.
Marcy arrived at her destination. The local cemetery plots were manicured daily, and the markers equal size and shape. The afternoon service began on time. Death was a greeting card just as life had been, and as Marcy stepped into the building to attend the funeral, she became acutely aware of the watered-down emotions of those around her. It seemed strange; full of people and yet somehow vacant. Sterile. She noticed there was nothing on the walls, with eggshell paint offering a lukewarm embrace of the casket. She stepped into another room of empty walls. Another. She paced slowly throughout the home, which smelled unwaveringly like vanilla and not a single wooden board creaked on the floor. She heard the silence, the cleansed sound of utopia. She’d been there before but this time she stared at the emptiness; this time it felt different. The walls were bare in the last building your body would ever belong to, and its tragic symbolism stung her eyes. Sadness crept into her as if it was provided intravenously. It overwhelmed her. It was the smashing of protective ice to reveal an entire ocean below, full of consciousness in its entirety. She had been conditioned to dance lightly on that ice, for her own protection. Utopia was fragile; you could never question it or it would cease to exist.
Marcy sped away from the funeral home above the speed limit. Her adrenal glands injected pure energy into her veins. The lace on her black dress tore as she pushed her way past a family into the current art gallery, former prison. Broken strings hung from the dress, exposing raw, delicate skin. She ran through the hallways. She ran until she found it, her favorite painting in the entire collection. It was not a portrait of anything in particular, but contained several colors, light and dark. Some of the strokes were violent, and others appeared sensually applied. It was the artist’s soul dried onto an old piece of canvas; it was an amalgamation of whatever they felt when they painted it and whatever you felt when you looked at it. She pulled it from the wall, and damaged lace clung to it as she carried it away from the gallery. There was no guard; there had never been a reason for one.
She returned to the funeral home and carried the painting down the center aisle in the middle of the funeral service. Faces turned, and eyes carefully followed her. She moved forward, the dress ripping at her side. The attendees were a silent cloud of dark fabrics. The speaker at the podium seemed unsure whether to continue. Marcy dragged an antique walnut table to the wall behind the casket, and hoisted the large painting onto it. It loomed above the body. It represented the totality of life, because it was itself a piece of human existence that could never die. Marcy lowered herself to the floor and said nothing. The strained fabric of her dress tickled and tugged at her skin, but she didn’t adjust it.
The guests appeared uncomfortable and confused. They stared at the vibrant window into eternity that she had provided that 117 year old soul from his box in the last room he'd ever enter.
Marcy stood. “Life is bittersweet, a flavor we’ve not tasted before,” she proclaimed. “We’ve been cocooned from the truth. The fight, the debate, the tension throw sparks at the dry leaves of evolution. Paint stirred with tears, with blood, with intoxicants meant to drown out the world if even for a moment, with anything that ever captured undiluted awareness of what it is to be human; that is a medium that preserves what matters.”
The stolen painting stared down at people who had never clung to another human being, not once, for the sense of safety and relief it provides.
“It is the claws of despair that rip depth into what it means to truly love. It is the corrosive way that grief carves itself into the human psyche that defines it, reshapes it, strengthens its bonds with the things around it. If you are numb to the negative, you are also numb to the positive.”
The people stared at her. And then, for the first time, they reacted as individuals. Some laughed, others cried. Some reached out and hugged the person next to them. Some ran to the casket, others to the painting. Some came up to Marcy. Others were angry. They stormed from the service. Marcy felt they’d not even realized the shallowness of their pool until given a glimpse into the ocean. She felt she hadn’t just shown them how, she’d shown them why.
Mandy Ashcraft reads from "Striptease Podcast" from Corpus Christi Writers 2020.
from Chapter 44:
A humming sound came from outside of the Department of the Afterlife, and continued to get louder; if you were to dissect the swarming sound, you’d find hundreds of individual Aleyan voices asking questions in various arrangements of “What’s really going on with the afterlife?” and “We demand answers!” and “Inkle owes us an explanation!” and a few “What is Cheerwine?”
It hadn’t taken long for the leaked document to ooze further into plain view, given that it was sent to both friends and rivals of Inkle, Inc. and threatened the souls of even those that might have stepped up in his defense. Those very allies had not thought to question the legitimacy of Inkle, Inc.’s bold proclamation, they’d simply witnessed it being proclaimed in all of it’s glory, and linked arms with it’s powerful figureheads. They were a paper chain of distinguished members of society, and when one caught fire, they either severed themselves or they all went up in smoke. Everyone wanted answers from a man who was suddenly very glad he was deceased.
Inkle’s fax machine coughed and wheezed as it worked harder than it ever had in it’s mechanical life, while his prestigious office in the afterlife was suddenly hit with an influx of question marks. Angry question marks. Bold, italicized, underlined sentences. Lots of capital letters. Even more question marks after that. Someone even appeared to have spit on theirs before faxing. Inkle stared at the pile, racking his vocabulary for a nice soothing, appeasing arrangement of words that might buffer himself from scrutiny. Once he settled them back into a lucrative state of compliance, he’d take care of the source, which he’d narrowed down to be either Suzan or Gilbert. He would sweep this mess under the rug, and he’d bury them with it. He wasn’t about to lose everything he’d worked for.
Janie entered his office looking concerned, and wasn’t unbuttoning her blouse which was further indication that something was awry. The fastened buttons seemed almost threatening; things were at risk of change. Inkle didn’t like change. He also didn’t like fastened blouses.
“Mister Inkle,” she said. “God’s secretary just called. He wants to speak to you in person.”
“Uh—tell him I’m in a meeting.”
“The gods are all-knowing, Mister Inkle. No disrespect, sir, but I think all-knowing means all-knowing of whether or not you’re actually in a meeting.”
He dismissed her and her rigid buttons.
Every term served by an Aleyan-elected god was, of course, out of the largest most godly of office suites in the afterlife. As it should be. However, it was an unwritten rule that you were never to visit that office. You weren’t really even supposed to look directly at it, only accidentally or in passing, out of respect. That part wasn’t unwritten; it was etched into marble in front of it. Presumably you were allowed to look at those rules and nothing around them. It took careful effort to comply.
Inkle approached the secretary’s desk outside of the office, none of which he was supposed to be looking directly at so he figured he’d just blink excessively and hope it balanced out at only 50% disrespectful.
From Chapter 21:
At the entrance of the Botanical Gardens, Gilbert smoothed his rented jacket and watched a steady flow of eco-conscious society elites pour through the event doors that swallowed them like glittery pills. Soft music leaked through to the passersby, and warm lights were woven through the gardens. It was undoubtedly a prestigious event, and he felt even more foolish for asking that beautiful girl if his denim-plus-corduroy ensemble was within dress code. He also began to feel foolish for considering that he might just walk on in, without a ticket or anyone to consider him their +1. His graphic design career, while currently on sabbatical, had afforded him many champagne-popping event invites, sometimes ironically having designed the invite himself before receiving it in the mail. If that experience had taught him anything, it’s that he probably wasn’t going to waltz in with his red pen, condom, mint, or any sort of MacGyver-ed combination of the three. He’d polished up his image for nothing.
“Ah! I see you’re a guest of the Department of the Afterlife,” said a much older man, as Gilbert’s badge caught his eye. He wore a tailor’s masterpiece of hand-sewn obsidian fabric so expensive that it would’ve been personally offended to have been referred to as a “black suit”. It was a reallynice black suit.
“Yes, sir. From Earth.”
The man’s eyes seemed to brighten to the point of near-luminescence.
“Earth! I’m a big fan.”
“Really?” Gilbert was genuinely surprised. “I’m just visiting for a few more hours. I was curious about this event; I think someone I know might be attending. Do you purchase tickets at the door?” He inquired with the confidence of anyone trying free samples at a grocery store and putting on an Oscar-worthy performance of a person that was going to come back and buy it all later.
“Nonsense, come in with me, I’ll get you a drink. Tell me about life on Earth.”
There were 25 hours left on his wrist watch, and it ticked away cufflink-adjacent as Gilbert was led into the most exquisitely beautiful event he’d ever seen. Elegant wooden furniture boasted native plant life and flowers that Earth knew to bloom only in science fiction. If James Cameron decided to host a black tie event that combined his vision of “Avatar” with “Titanic”, but with more string lights, he would’ve hired the same event stylist.
The two men approached a bar that held an array of liquor bottles and fresh fruits and garnishes. A bartender picked a small orange fruit out of a bowl, shaved a piece of it’s peel into a glass, and muddled it. He squeezed the fruit into the glass and added a splash of something bubbly. Pouring something darker over the concoction, he handed it to another party-goer.
“I’ll have that,” Gilbert said, as the small orange fruits, whatever they were, reminded him of clementines and his house on Clementine that no one seemed to be able to remember the name of.
The bartender peeled, muddled, squeezed, and splashed once more.
“Dawn, Dusk, or Dark?” he asked.
Gilbert had been asked many questions at many bars but that wasn’t one he was familiar with. “I’m sorry?”
The bartender looked at his badge, his get-out-of-condescension-free pass for the day, and explained to the planet’s unfamiliar visitor.
“This drink is an Elixandria. It’s named after our sun, that’s why it’s this nice orange color. The brown liquid on top is dark rum, and we pour it over to represent a setting sun. Little bit of rum? Dawn. Little more rum? Dusk. You looking to get drunk? Dark.” The bartender grinned. “It’s our official drink on Aleya. We voted on it.”
Mandy is a science fiction writer and author of Small Orange Fruit, available on Amazon. She lives in Corpus Christi with her husband Dustin. She is a Doctor of Psychology student with a focus on Clinical Psychology, and recently started a non-profit called The WATCHDOG Project to help raise awareness for PTSD.
Learn more at MandyAshcraft.com
Manuel Ruiz is a life-long Texan with a passion for reading, video games and music. He works in IT, plays in an 80's band, and owns way too many toys. He writes teen and adult fiction, usually with a supernatural twist, and loves to keep his readers on their toes. His novel The Sugar Skull is about 17-year-old Ricky Luna, who wants nothing more than to finish school, win the hand of his best girl, and get away from his troubling home life. Then there is a midnight visit from a strange young girl
What is it, Grandma Bea?"
"I went to see a few friends from the neighborhood. I covered almost ten houses across three different streets over seven blocks. Three different people saw or talked to that little girl last night. And those were just the ones that wanted to admit it."
"They saw her, too?"
"Yes, some did. Mrs. Blackmon down the street said that she also heard the little girl chasing after her cat, but it was Janie that had the best information."
"The nosy one that's always asking about Mom?"
"Yes, that one. Well, her nosiness helped for once. She asked the little girl where she lived like I did, but after she pointed and told her, Janie kept pressing her. She asked her where exactly. She told her on Creek Street on the corner."
READ MORE IN CORPUS CHRISTI WRITERS 2022
Mariah Michelle Hinojosa lived in Taft, Texas for most of her life. Currently, she lives in the Austin area with her husband, Nathan, and daughter, Aurora. More about Mariah at the end of this section.
Isn’t it funny
That poetry
Is just words
We say
Every day
Put together
In a way
That makes us feel
Like the words
Transcend the emotion
And pierce us
In a way
The same words
Said everyday
Can’t
Isn’t it funny
Isn’t life
Funny
Read more like this in Corpus Christi Writers 2019
Mariah Michelle Hinojosa graduated with a Bachelors degree in Communication from Texas A&M University Corpus Christi and lived in the small town of Taft for most of her life. Currently, she lives in the Austin area with her husband, Nathan, and daughter, Aurora. Mariah loves to write and has written many pieces since she was a small child. She also enjoys reading, spending time with her family and learning about the world. Her dream is to be a published writer and a Communication Director for a non-profit organization.
Mariah Massengill is a coastal bend native, having spent most of her life in Aransas Pass. Currently, she lives in Hawaii. More on Mariah at the end of this section.
This decrepit monster house used to be
a suite of youth and dreams
until momma heard strangers shouting in the attic
and she drowned us in her screams
This soulless zombie used to be
a nurturing heart to all my woes
until she heard radios buzzing in the air
and even her family became foes
This humid hell-spa used to be
a bath of tranquility and vanilla spice
until momma heard Satan thrusting in the bubbles
and she gave birth to the platypus Antichrist
This Franken-family used to be
a system that dysfunctioned together
until her doctor missed cancer throbbing in the madness
and her neck fell limp with the peeling skin of old leather
This rattling whisper used to be
a belter of both endearing and dated tunes
until momma heard Death humming in the corner
and we walked her down his aisle with fanfare of bassoons
Porous, shiny skin
glides smooth over his palm
Pert fitted peel
yields with the giant’s pressure
Perfumed citrus fruit
splits bare before hungry eyes
Perky segmented flesh
judged by a wagging tongue
Ptui!
Not sweet enough.
READ MORE BY MARIAH IN CORPUS CHRISTI WRITERS 2022
An instructor once posed a question to one of my classes, “If you died tomorrow, what would your epitaph say?” How do you fit the body of a life on a headstone? I realized during this exercise that my epitaph if I died as an infant, at 16, 22, 40, or the ripe age of 100 would all be irreconcilably different. The poems wouldn’t seem to resemble the same life. So I’ve decided to chronicle my life through epitaphs. If I die tomorrow from the day I drafted this, remember me by this epitaph, 28.
28
They called the wind Mariah.
The smooth roundness of her face prepared her to take criticism,
rolling downhill, a wheel accelerating to reckless self-destruction.
She looked for kinship by flipping rocks—
grabbing more than she could carry
before they scurried away—
as they always did, by grip of death or some escape
more personal.
Lacking from the beginning, she tried to invent worth,
but like dirt, it slipped through her fingers—
Always out of her element.
Mariah Massengill is a coastal bend native, having spent most of her life in Aransas Pass. After a year exploring the big city life in Sydney, Australia, Mariah came back to the bend to continue her education, having most recently completed her Bachelor of Arts in theatre from TAMUCC in 2020. Currently, Mariah is a creative writing graduate student at the University of Houston-Victoria. She uses her love for prose and poetry in her field of theatre, where she enjoys writing, translating, and adapting plays. Currently, she lives in Hawaii.
Matthew Platz served in the United States Marines and worked in the petroleum industry and at Christus Spohn. He currently lives in San Antonio
Every night before i sleep, there, in my palm they gather.
Together they join little hands and dance their little dance and sing a merry tune.
A sinister nursery rhyme of sorts like children at recess passing the time.
"Do not worry..We're from the goverment..And we're here to help you..
So open wide and let us inside to do what it is we do.."
I hesitate with fear and doubt.
For i know all they do is lie.
But what choice do i have when all i feel, is what burns deep inside..
I dont want to feel this way anymore.
How long must i endure?
These memories, the nightmares, the pain..
Of this there is no cure..
i know i cant do this without you my little friends..
i hate you just as much as i need you.
When will this cruel joke end..
"Have you tried just not being sad."
"Maybe you should take something stronger."
I remember these words spoken to me by "friends"
Like leaves on a dying tree.
As they fall away and vanish on the winds of my troubled times..
if only i too could so carelessly flutter away..
But my thoughts drift back to my tiny friends, the pills still inside my palm..
i look into the mirror at somone i dont know anymore..
He is long since gone..
What has happened to the person i see in this mirror?..
are my tiny friends to blame?
Or is it something, more??..
I hear the tune again, they say.
"Do not worry..We're from the goverment..And we're here to help you..
So open wide and let us inside to do what it is we do.."
I do as they say.. one by one they hop down my throat..
I chase them with some water to speed their journey along.
Still thinking about and hearing their little song..
"Am i fixed yet?"...
I say as i look at my reflection once again.
I feel like its all a lie.
For when i sleep the nightmares still rage.
And in the day my hurt never seems to die it only grows.
Still.. I don this mask, and smile and pretend its all alright.
A long since acquired art..
And again just before i meet my little friends i realise a painful truth.
"All the drugs in the world. Can never fix a shattered heart."
Matthew Rosas was born in Corpus Christi, TX. He is the author of The Legend of
Mariquita and Other Short Stories, and of the recently released novella, Praying not to
Fall. More about Matthew at the end of this section.
In the 8th Century, Arabs invaded Spain, beginning a rapid conquest. Christians in the North remained strong, and for centuries, fought to reclaim territory. The Reconquista battles were fierce, culminating in 1492. An elite group of warriors were rumored to have been part of the Christian Royal Knights and a vital means to their ultimate victory. The men, although short in stature, fought ferociously. Their speed and strength on the battlefield were held to be beyond that of mere humans. The origin of this group is unknown. Some have claimed these soldiers were part of a clandestine experiment on humans involving the fusion of blood from the Gray Wolf and Lataste’s Viper. Whispers linger that this bloodline evolved and spread across continents.
AP Report
Chupacabra sightings have exploded since the early 1990s. The United States, ranging from Brownsville to Maine, has tripled in its amount of reported sightings. The creature, described by some as a wild dog and by others as lizard-like, is blamed for the deaths of small farm animals, particularly young goats. The Chupacabra is notorious for leaving its victim completely drained of blood. Animals resembling the creature’s description have been found dead, but scientists have been quick to label them as diseased coyotes. A live Chupacabra has never been caught nor seen in daylight.
Corpus Christi, TX—present
My eyes burst open. The phone is ringing. I look at the clock. 4:48 am. I answer and step into the living room. A co-worker, who opens the shop at 6, says he can’t make it in. As he explains his excuse, I stare, sleepily, into the backyard. A slight haze covers the grass. A creature trots from the left side across the yard. Not a dog, nor a cat. It seems hairless, has bulging eyes and a long snout. The end of its nose appears to curl up, almost horn-like. Sharp teeth jut out from its mouth. It moves with grace and effortlessly bounds over my 7-foot fence. I tell the co-worker that I’ll make it in to cover for him, hang up the phone, and step into the shower.
When I get home after 4 pm, I go into the backyard to rake some leaves. Near a tree, I find a decapitated squirrel. There is no sign of blood. I grab a shovel, drop it into a garbage bag, and take it to the front yard to drop in the trash can. I see my neighbor, Mr. Guzman, shirtless in his yard. Despite looking near 100 years old, his still-ripped chest muscles flex as he effortlessly carries a huge bag of leaves in each hand. He tosses them near the street. He scratches his grayed, stubbly chin, then looks upward and squints his eyes, which seem oddly elliptical. I wave. He smiles back. His thin lips remain in a grin as I walk away.
Guzmán
For now over 700 years, I’ve roamed a distance spanning nearly the entire planet. From my home province of Burgos, then to Portugal, Morocco, Porto Alegre, Cholula, and now, Corpus Christi. We’ve had to spread out to avoid notice, limit fear. I sometimes miss my homeland. The Cathedral, castles, mountains. I once commanded an Army in Córdoba. Now, I command a lonely household and the multitude of rodents and vermin in my territory. Ruling over only the unseen at night and drinking til dry to limit the bloody messes that would haunt my timid neighbors. I see one now. He caught a flashing glimpse this morning. For some of us, the elite warriors of centuries ago, transformation was a must to win. To strike terror into the enemy’s eyes. Speed, power, teeth that can crush bones. At present, there is little need for this power, though. Unless, there is another Reconquista. The pack patiently awaits.
On Saturday mornings, my brother and I would wake up early, before cartoons, while there was still static on TV. We’d sprint straight to our parent’s room, jump on their bed, bounce up and down, and yell out “Dad is it time yet?” His first answer was always a barely audible, “Five more minutes hijos. Just five more minutes.” We’d leave. The same scene would repeat four or five more times until he finally would say, “OK, go brush your teeth and get the rods ready.”
I hated getting the fishing rods. It was dark and sticky outside. Worse than that were the millions of roaches, June bugs, and moths flying around the spotlight just above the garage door. Even if I managed to avoid being hit by one, my big brother would catch a bug, put it down my shirt, and watch me scream for mercy. I hated roaches the most. Too bad they loved Corpus, and our garage. Once we got all the rods out, we’d tie the sinkers and hooks to them. Then, we’d grab the tackle box, net, and some mesh lawn chairs, and toss it all in the back of our cigarette-butt-colored station wagon. Dad would come out about then. His eyes still seemed shut. Once in the wagon, he would open the glove box, grab his black brush, and comb down the hair sticking up on the back of his head.
On the way to the fish pass, Dad would stop at Shipley and get half a dozen glazed doughnuts. They were still hot and mushy. It was always the same. Saturday breakfast was Shipley. Sunday was barbacoa tacos on corn tortilla. My mom put ketchup on hers. She’s from Falfurrias.
Our 30-minute drive seemed like hours. I would stare outside the window and let the rising sun heat up my face. As I watched the telephone poles pass, the song “Baker Street” would usually come on. Dad would whistle along with the sax. My brother would doze off with his mouth open.
The fish pass was a stretch of water between the Bay and the Gulf. Once there and parked, my brother and I would unpack the rods, gear, and chairs. My chair was the smallest. My Dad would check our rods to make sure the lines were tied right. We would search the ground for a dead fish or some bait that someone else left behind or dropped. My Dad would cut up what we found and bait our first hooks. We’d sit and wait for a nibble. The air would start to warm up and smell like salted sewer. Normally, we were lucky and caught a few. Mostly Croaker or Perch. Perch were good for cut bait too. Every now and then we’d get really lucky and catch a Redfish. They fought the hardest and tasted the best. If our lines got tangled, our Dad fixed them. If we caught a catfish, our Dad would take it off. Their fins had needles on them that could poison you to death, but he wasn’t scared.
After a couple of hours, it was time to go. My Dad and my brother would clean the fish we’d caught. I’d load the station wagon back up. The drive back seemed even longer. It was sizzling in the station wagon and damp sand would be stuck all over me. My fingers smelled like rotten fish.
Once at home, my mother would come outside to greet us and see what we caught. My brother and I would rinse the fishing rods with the water hose, and then put them back in the garage. There were no roaches in the afternoon, but there were plenty of cicadas. I hated cicadas cause they’re so loud and don’t seem to know how to fly. Usually, I’d get one of those down my shirt too. Why couldn’t they be quicker, like dragonflies?
After we all showered, my mother would make us bologna sandwiches served with chips, pickles, and strawberry soda. Dad would get bottled RC. Once done with lunch, the men would head to my parent’s bedroom. Dad would switch on the window air conditioner to freezing level. My brother and I would lie down on a giant orange pillow in the middle of the floor. Dad would change the TV dial to Spanish Wrestling, lie with us, and instantly start snoring. I’d stretch my bare feet, plant them on the cool wall and doze off, blanketed by pure happiness only a six-year-old can feel.
Matthew Rosas was born in Corpus Christi, TX. He is the author of The Legend of
Mariquita and Other Short Stories, and of the recently released novella, Praying not to
Fall. Matthew’s short fiction story, “The Angel” was featured in The Bilingual
Review of Arizona State University. He studied Short Fiction and Flash Fiction
with Inprint Inc. in Houston, TX. Currently, Matthew lives in Houston and serves
in education at Chavez High School.
Michael Quintana is a practicing writer who holds an MFA in Fiction and Screenwriting from San Jose State University. He currently works with writers and entrepreneurs through his company Script Journey for manuscript, speech, website, and brand and marketing development. To learn more about Script Journey, visit www.scriptjourney.com. Michael’s debut book of poetry The Silence Holds Us Together will be released in the Fall of 2023.
Years from now
I want you to tell me
how I got that scar,
and how it felt to be so close to infinity.
The first time we went to Palm Springs,
just so you can show me Warhols
in the desert.
Weekend getaways, poolside,
times when I wondered
if this weekend would be the weekend
you’d crack us open like Goliath’s skull
proving Didion right:
the center will not hold
and life does change in the ordinary instant.
Michelle Cobb Blair is a volunteer at PAWS Animal Rescue and a real estate broker in Michigan
It's kinda weird that
our favorite place changes every
time we come here.
The wind blows a little stronger
from the west,
the storm moves in
and the river shifts.
Again and again.
Over and over.
The first time we saw
a big change, it
shocked us.
Our precious " Sanctuary " had disappeared.
Then, it came back.
Just like that one day.
All of that fretting
and we realized that these changes were
inevitable.
We now find it
exciting to discover how
Platte river point
is going to surprise
us on our next visit.
Changes are beautiful, painful, scary
but inevitable.
Our ability to embrace
builds the quality of life that we live.
Not saying that I got it all down yet but I sure am enjoying the ride.
Ken agrees
Michelle Eccellente Stevenson is a mom, wife, abstract artist, writer, TEDx Speaker, and Founder of Cultivate Caring. The bulk of Michelle’s career was spent in the training and development sector, working for major corporations as an educator. She now spends her time trying to make sense of the world through art and writing. Color and mood define her visual art pieces and themes of humanity bind Michelle’s literary works. She invites you to join her on social media @CultivateCaring and @MESStudioArt.
There is no winner when we
Don't listen to each other
Hearing only our voice
Trapped
Unable to
See
Hear
Feel
Learn
Compromise
Too distant a target
A single blowing leaf
Hurled into the sky
A whirlwind of leaves
Whipped into a
Frenzied tornado of
Noise and chaos
The cacophony of noise coming from the back office printer was a mechanical beast, spitting out, collating, and stapling pages. It cut into the orderly hush of the library. She came here for the exquisite, sanctuary-like silence. Snatching up her weighty bag, she stormed towards the stairwell. Damnit, I thought the library would be quiet. What are they making copies for anyway? Isn’t everything digital now!?!?
Mike Linaweaver is a Marxist, worker, occasional writer, poet, woodworker and artist originally from the Smoky Hill River Valley region of central Kansas. MORE ABOUT MIKE AT THE END OF THIS SECTION
1.
Remember when you stung like a bee, leaving your ink all over the kitchen floor and the orchids in the kitchen window never seemed to notice how drab the sun had become over the years? It makes no sense. All languages die in the gap. So, don't speak. There's no reason to give voice
to our discontents. We are driving and the bridge is a snake crossing the snaking water ways. I became possessed with your hand on the back of my neck. I know you by the smell of lavender and tea. Don't blink. Never blink again. We have all the time there ever was.
5.
We go to the coast. There is nothing. Dead sea and dead trees and dead jellyfish and dead yelps of dead seagulls floating like ghosts in the salty wind. We throw crumbs to the birds, the crumbs of our pandemic colored lives. They swallow them the way I swallow you in.
It is hot, a southern heat, full of meanness even here. And somewhere the ozone is coming apart and the forest is burning and a child dies with it's mouth tied around it's mother's sagging and empty breast.
We hang our long shadows.
Mercy killings.
7.
Later, we go hunting for hotdogs and cheese. No one here can breathe. Our hands tremble with claustrophobia and sweat in the produce aisle. The mangos and onions still have blood on them. My dreams are the labels on mayonnaise jars.
3.
It's raining again. The city's sewers vomit into the streets. Mosquitoes like hell. A cockroach floats on a parking ticket. We could fuck in the rot. We could fuck on a bed of rifles. We could fuck until there is nothing left to eat or drink or fuck.
2.
We wander aimlessly. No one remembers where or what and the dead are only a generation away from being forgotten. And, everyone is dead, filling up every conceivable space with their dead already grins. The whole city is a corpse like a dead deer picked over by vultures and crows. Meat sweats in every window.
My mother calls. Smalltalk. She says I should talk to my sister.
I ask her who my sister is.
4.
It's July. There are armed fly-overs and armed police. They call it patriotism, blue lines and red lines. But, I don't see any lines at all. Fascism smells like funnel cake on days like these. The gun on my hip digs in, digs in deeper, digs like an ant. I don't mind. There's nothing down there, nowhere to hide. We hide in each other, like young squirrels. I have your hand to cover me. And your knife. That's how it is. The world is a knife wound. Yet, here we are, full of it, so full we could scream from the tips of our spines and crumble like Walls of Jericho, crumble like crabs in the bay. If we die tonight a cascade of tears from a handful of mourners getting caught in the milk.
6.
Summer is a time of zombies. Even the pigs beg the grackles. Some breeze brings the stench of it, black mess, cellophane and concrete. Death by department store. Death by convenience. Death by strip mall. Death by mesquite and drainage ditches. Death that goes on living clock tick by clock tick. Death by cop. Death by Black hole. Death measured in Facebook comments.
18.
This is me traveling like a meteor back to childhood. Hurtling like a madman. It's kindergarten. The 'strongman' in the class is a boy named BJ. He is strong because he can do six pullups on the jungle gym bars. The girls are already watching him. I am sick in another part of the playground. A girl has beaten me up while my friend Mathew watched. Her name is Rhonda. Her father and my father are in the same squadron. We both live in the same section of enlisted housing. It's a cinder block wasteland painted in strange pastels. Our dads are away in the Philippines, or the Indian Ocean, or circling off the coast of Beirut like hyenas. I don't know Mathew's father. He doesn't laugh. He is as afraid and ashamed as I am.
Later we play "jet fighters" on the swings, zooming past each other, trying to mimic the sounds of 20 millimeter canons. Mathew has fallen backward out of his jet fighter. He lies on the tarmac unable to breath. I land safely and go for help. In the principle's office they ask me what happened. I tell them we were on a routine combat mission against targets in the north. We took ground fire. He went down behind enemy lines. They send me back to Mrs. Ross' kindergarten classroom. No one notices me. No one knows I'm a hero.
My father called the conflict in Vietnam a Police Action. Years later I would realize there are no heroes. There never were.
8.
It's 1967. My dad works capping bottles in the coca-cola plant on First Street. He takes his break on the back loading dock, smokes two cigarettes, drinks a warm pepsi. His draft notice has arrived. His mother throws it in the kitchen trash. She won't send another son to war. Her eldest came back from Korea a hero with a Silver Star and the finger bones of a Chinese soldier in a matchbox. He would rattle the box in his ear and whisper the word "home". My dad finds the draft notice in the trash after his shift. The next day he enlists in the Navy. By 1968 he is afraid.
10.
The city is a black dime. I'm dying. As slow and still as ice. My heart ticks strangely, uneasily. I feel the dip in my respiration like a pulse of light somewhere at the back of my skull. The doctors say it's nothing. Eat less salt. I'm a pillar of salt stuck in the armpit of a continent. It's a black dime and I'm a black death. A shadow among reeds. And I haven't even hit my deductible yet.
9.
You went to Mexico with the Phantom of the Opera. You brought back a clutch of benzos and a baggie full of un-stepped-on opioids. At the border a pig snuck a clip at your porn tits and cut you loose with the reminder to bring a goddamn birth certificate next time. Being an American is being a joke without a punchline. No one laughs. They sharpen their knives. Other Americans carve crosses in their bullet heads. Nothing is real. I swallow an ativan and three quarters of a two mill zanzibar to burn out the edges. I forget how to not speak in tongues. I forget that my window is down. When I tell you I love you it sounds like a rusty lag squeaking loose in the steel girders of the last-legged Bay Bridge. We throw the keys to the savage parade into the dark gravity below. Shit and water and mercury catfish. One day we'll burn the banks and buy tomatoes and bread with goodwill.
But for now, the fog, booby trapped with potholes.
11.
God or Posadas, save us.
13.
Downtown. You pull a sour jar from between your legs. Make like you're pulling the pin on a grenade and lob it at a pig on a bicycle. The piss pig screams, thinks it's bleach, thinks he's blind. His partner is a photocopy. The photocopy draws his heat and sends two rounds hot. The rear window explodes and you take one in the throat. The other goes wild, clips a houseless in the knee cap. The photocopy lays it heavy on his pig piss partner and puts another under his
chin. Teeth pop out the top of his head. The photocopy sacks out on the spot. Obituaries to follow.
I ask if you're ok. You say you're all choked up.
Profit the dead with blood and lead, I say with a wink.
You wink back and whistle through the hole in your throat.
12.
We mingle at the courthouse, standing around a trash can fire. Janet "from another planet" has another baby in the chamber. Klaus, an old German that hears voices, said he's received a communique from the aliens. He says it's almost time. Richard asks what happened to your neck. You tell him a pig put one in you. He asks if it hurts. Nah, you tell him, nothing much hurts any more. Everyone nods in agreement at that. Profit the dead, someone says. You whistle a tune from your bullet hole. Someone joins in with a harmonica. Klaus listens closely. Janet starts to sing. She was an angel, many would say afterward. The Angel of Lipan Street, they called her. No one knows who lit the first fire that burned down the courthouse.
15.
It's stage 4 November and there is no cure. My father is in a hospital bed watching a basketball game in the living room. He is fed a slop every few hours through a tube in his abdomen and smokes cigarettes through the hole in his neck. Then he takes an IV dose of morphine and dies just a little bit - just enough. He wakes a couple hours later. I tell him he gets better smack than I ever did. He smiles, pops a fentanyl lollipop in his mouth and writes on his small screen, who's the junkie now? There is death on him. There is death on him and it looks like a hospital blanket. That night he cooked a pork loin dinner that he couldn't eat l. I couldn't look at him. I went to the low edges at the dark waters of the lake. I ate alone there next to the boathouse. When I came back to the house he was nodded out again and dinner had been replaced by the smell of shit. I lean into his ear. I tell him secret things. I tell him soon the pain will end. I tell him he is not alone. This lie is the last thing I ever told my father. A week later the flames turned his fragile body to dust.
14.
On the third day we attack the police station and burn it down. The Xerox paper pigs dump a few mags and run flaming for the bay. Four of us die that night, never to die again. All the knots are untied. Some hang jewelry from their wounds. We crack open the jail and hand out shotguns in the park. You look like a saint in the muzzle flashes. Every moment is holy now. Ain’t no death left. We’ve become haints haunting the alleys and barrios.
17.
The city is a black dime and we, with our red wounds, our too-late wounds, are a black death, a swarm of locusts choked by ash. Too late maybe, but not late enough to ever waste another moment dying.
19.
On the tenth day we burn the banks and make guillotines in our own image.
16.
I should've told my father forever doesn't last.
20.
Saints all. But, there are no prayers for us, no songs, no gods, no masters. The city is a black dime that goes on and on and on, stretching toward the next city, the next dime as black as this night, and haunted by haints like us, armed and mean, undead and undying and never going back. Never going back.
Only through.
Mike Linaweaver is a Marxist, worker, occasional writer, poet, woodworker and artist originally from the Smoky Hill River Valley region of central Kansas. He is a current member of the Socialist Rifle Association (Corpus Christi chapter) and the DSA. Mike is a founding member of Coastal Community Defense, a formation of activists committed to armed community self defense against fascism and racism. He is a member of the Locust Arts and Letters Collective He is the author of the serialized story Millard 19017, Fascist Hunter, the first episode of which was adapted as a "radio play" for the Locust Radio project Swarm Stories.
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A Texas farmer, Vietnam veteran, and “C” college graduate who cannot spell, Mike Mercer tells stories with a lot of heart. More about Mike at the end of this section.
I was thinking. Well, maybe not thinking because that would be another lie. So, let’s say it’s a dream and I’ll have to tell it before I forget. Before daylight, sitting a bar stool in the Plum Nelly, when Joe, down the way orders two bullbat eggs, and half order of no toast, with coffee.
Sally hits him upside the head with a heavy-duty pancake flipper, turns back to her griddle without a word.
Joe wipes a little blood of his ear, sits quiet, thinking on his next move. Farmers that fill the joint, take note, then go back to telling lies about the rain last night.
Can’t wait to see to the action, as I see from the side, Sally is grinning, so, she has a plan.
As Sally flips hotcakes, turns bacon, serves up her customers, I see couple of mini-Marshmallows appear on the grill edge basting in Louisiana Sauce. Slice of light bread toasting on the grill, turns brown, then black, smokes up the joint a bit.
Seconds before the burnt toast turned to flame, Sally adds the Marshmallows to the crisp toast and lets it simmer a while.
Sally pours up coffee, places it before Joe. Plates the half order of no toast, with bullbat eggs atop, and ceremoniously sets it next to the simmering coffee.
First light is coming outside, so, farmers pat Joe on the shoulder, wish him luck, as they file out to check their rain gauges. No need for me to splash mud lookin’ for our rain gauges as I already know it’s not enough rain, never is. I wait to see if Joe likes his breakfast.
Joe for some reason sips coffee, picks up the charcoal toast, eats the whole thing in a matter of seconds, not minutes. Tears run down his red face, while he cools the fire treated Marshmallows with hot coffee. I’m thinking, Joe’s thinking that Sally will feel sorry for him, and let him off the hook.
Sally scribbles on her order pad and stuffs it in front of overheated Joe.
Joe still feeling Louisiana Sauce, whispers through clenched teeth, to keep the heat inside his mouth, ‘three dollars and twenty-five cents for that?’
Sally replies, ‘special order special price.’
Joe pays up and heads out the door. I follow, just outside, I have to laugh, Joe turns with a right uppercut, and decks me.
After I get up outta the mud Joe says, "want to go check rain gauges?"
"Sure, and maybe we can find some bullbat eggs along the way. After all we’re Plum Nearly outta town now.”
“Amigos welcome to Tio Domingo,” Salvador said in near perfect English, as he held his arms wide, and motioned for us to take any table, as we were the lone set of customers at this the normal siesta hour of 2 O’clock. At first meeting, Salvador seemed a man possessed with inner peace and tranquility that I seldom encountered. His self-confidence rolled on the floor in front of him and put all in its path at ease.
Janet and I surveyed the Mexican café and ordered cervezas as we eyed the menu. “Something is coming down. I could feel something wonderful coming, and it wasn’t food,” I thought. “I’m here at this time for a reason not yet known. My wife invited me to a late lunch today, does she know something I do not.”
Salvador took our order; Janet selected a Mexican dish consisting of Chile relleno, tamale, and salad while I ordered the pork chop Hawaiian-style.
While the food was being prepared, we chatted with Salvador about land prices, as we were new to the area, and were considering buying a home in Ajijic. He explained as we already knew, prices of land and houses had gone up ten-fold in the last twenty years.
Just before the food arrived, we asked how he came to own this café. He said he had purchased the land on a Mexican high-interest loan of three thousand pesos and spent four years after his day-job salary building the surrounding establishment. I observed the substantial walls, high ceilings, with room for twelve tables and a large kitchen off to the side. Six more tables, in the garden, had met us before we entered the café.
He explained the end of the first two years of business found them without money to operate the business any longer. Two bottles of whisky, three dressed chickens, some flour and corn tortillas, beef and pork stock for soup were all they had left. Of course, plenty of salad fixings were available in the garden. Salvador and his wife knew the end of Tio Domingo was near and it was two days before Christmas.
Salvador said he asked his wife, “What should we do now?”
Her answer was swift. “The food we have left will do us no good, so we must invite all the village for a free meal and celebrate Christmas.”
Salvador told the story of going all over the Ajijic, inviting all to come to celebrate with them on Noche Buena Navidad (Christmas Eve). His wife and the children prepared all the food and made a lemon-lime punch, of which half was spiked with the whisky.
On the Eve of Christmas, the tables were set, and the plates polished. The smell of carefully-made soups and Mexican dishes had filled the air. Salvador and his wife hoped all would come and share their last day at Tio Domingo. It was not a sad day, but happy in celebrating the good old times and Navidad before they closed and found other employment.
Salvador had wondered if anyone would come, but just before the appointed hour, the local mariachi band showed up, explaining they wanted to play for their food. Salvador rejoiced to his wife, “at least there will be music to kiss Tio Domingo goodbye.”
The music began as the candles were lit. Slowly the tables filled, to Salvador’s surprise, to overflowing. Salvador’s family served their many guests as all told stories of pleasant times at Tio Domingo. Every tortilla, cup of soup, and whisky-flavored lemonade were served and downed by hungry guests. The music was loud and lasted until the musicians were exhausted.
As the villagers headed home, Salvador said all wished him and his family well and headed into the darkness singing songs of Navidad.
Salvador looked at Janet and me. “On that night, my family and I cleaned the café, washed every dish, and closed the business as we had every day for the preceding two years. I went to the front gate to lock up knowing it would be the last time as proprietor of Tio Domingo. Something was amiss. A bucket held each of the two gates open. Salvador lifted one of the buckets to the moonlight and found it was filled with pesos.
Our meal arrived and tasted somewhat like turkey and dressing and blessings unexpected.
Salvador later told us that since that day, the business has grown and commanded a clientele ranging from the very poor to the wealthy. Every year they will celebrate Christmas with the same meal and invite all to share their wealth.
No wonder Salvador has the gift of giving and receiving written on his soul for all to see. Come see Salvador at Tio Domingo.
M. Mercer
A true story.
So, it was late June 1957 in a half-harvested wheat field in the middle of God’s Texas Panhandle. I was just turning 14. The heat fell heavy from the sky and was there to stay. The Dachshund was digging a hole under the pickup.
Gleaner Model A Combine sat idle with “frozen” 12-inch variable speed drive sheaves. The bearing on the shaft was still smoking.
Dad’s 2-pound ball-peen hammer was driving a 12” coal chisel between the sheaves to loosen them on the shaft. Right side of the combine he was working on was in the bright almost-noon sunshine.
Stroke after stroke, the hammer pounded the chisel. After seeming hours of hammer on the steel, from behind the man, I misspoke, “Dad I don’t think we are going to get the sheaves loose.”
Dad missed two strokes with the ball-peen to say without anger, “these sheaves will come off,” and began again swinging at the chisel.
In a while, I heard a strange sound like a spring releasing as the chisel left its place between the sheaves and traveled to dad’s lower lip. Dad turned, took the red rag in my hand, and covered the cut just below his lip. He walked to the driver side mirror. Took a look, and I also saw the cut lip, and the roots of two lower front teeth looking back at us from the mirror. Dad stuck the rag in his mouth enough to slow the bleed.
Dad patted his leg twice, and Herb jumped to the floorboard then to the back of the seat as usual. Dad climbed aboard and we headed to the county road. Instead of turning toward town, we headed west. We drove in silence, but Herb leaned out past dad and barked at all passing vehicles.
In about an hour, we pulled up in front of Dr. Crawford dentist office Plainview Texas. With dog waiting under the truck, we entered the office. Receptionist wanted to know what’s wrong, so dad showed her. In about 2 minutes, Dr. Crawford summoned dad to this chair behind closed doors.
One hour later, dad came out with a bandage on his lower lip and a bottle of pills. Motioned me with a let’s go, and we headed to the truck. We and dog headed back the way we came. Looked like we were headed home. In about 45 minutes, we were about to pass the wheat field on our way home, but dad turned into the field. In five more minutes, dad was swinging the hammer striking the coal chisel. I readied the needed parts, fresh grease, a pan of gasoline to wash the sheaves and clean the parts we could re-use. I added a clean cloth to the assembled parts on the tailgate. I gave Herb a drink of water from the canvas water bag. Then I heard the outside sheave fall to the ground and the hammer was silent.
I saw a little blood on the bandage as dad cleaned, installed new bearings, and reassembled the sheaves on the combine. Lock washer and lock nut tightened; drive belts pried onto the sheaves. Dad smiled with his eyes and climbed the combine ladder and set the machine to harvesting wheat once again. It was almost dark but, I knew he would go till dew fell and stiffened the straw. Me and the dog rested, ready for the trip home. My dad had worn me out.
In a few weeks, the lip and the replanted teeth were looking pretty good. The man taught me another lesson about giving up, NEVER.
Sometimes I think he did all that just for me. Then I remember everything he did was just for me.
Woke up this morning and the world was dark. In fact, it was very dark and not a light anywhere. Our world was gone, and we were in fear for our lives.
We discussed the possibilities before us, giving us unsettled feelings. The wife thought it might be the end of our time. I did not have the answer. Maybe we should call the best man we know as he may know what has happened.
Surprisingly, the best man answered and asked us to look out the window and see if the world was there. It was not. “What are we going to do?” I asked the best man.
“When I get up in a while, I will look and see if the world is still here, and I will call you back.”
He hung up, and I began thinking if the world was here yesterday. I remembered it was here though it was not as bright in the world as usual. I asked the wife, “maybe we have passed away and would no longer see the world?” She said she didn’t think so, as when she blew on the windowpane, it fogged over.
In silence we enjoyed coffee, and toast, and waited, for the phone to ring, and looked for the world that was no longer here.
Wife said, “the coffee in not as bitter today, and this toast in tasty.” I agreed it was above par.
In a while or longer the phone rang. When I answered the man asked, “has the world returned?”
“No.”
“Well, the world is still here. Should I send Pete over to see you are still there, or the world is gone?”
After a long pause, while I considered if I wanted to know if I was gone, or the world had left us all alone I said, “Ok send Pete and tell him I want to know the truth of it and not to butter it up.”
We waited anxiously to see if Pete knew what had happened. We talked about the kids and wondered if their world had disappeared. Then I said to wife, “you look nice this morning in fact better than in a long time.”
She replied, “thank you, I see you actually combed your hair, was it for me or Pete?”
“No, while I was looking for the world, I saw myself and combed my matted hair.”
A knock on the door, I opened it to Pete. He looked around and saw the world was gone and began looking for reasons. He said, “I see you both are here, so the world has left, and may I look around to see if I can figure out what happened?”
“It is some comfort to know we are here but dismayed as to where the world has gone. Please see what you can find.”
Pete walked around looking for where the world might have gone. Suddenly the last few minutes of Fox News appeared as the world returned.
Wife and I were greatly relieved and thanked Pete for finding the world for us and I asked, “where was the world, Pete?”
“It was in the safety box on the wall. I see the world is dim, so next time the world disappears, you will need the best man to install a new world.”
We rejoiced and thanked Pete one more time as he left.
The world is here As the World Turns appears and the Wheel of Fortune will show up soon.
These are the days of remembrance.
Discounting the loss of memory
There is a lifetime of topics to embrace.
The older I become, the further back
in history my mind retrieves.
Sometimes I think my youth is returning.
Then I recognize the finality that is near.
Drawing on knowledge past is essential
To prevent future immature acts.
The scope of believability is challenged
When younger minds hear me protest.
When their minds are old and feeble
What then will be the score?
I may not win but then again
I bet they forgive themselves and me
For remembering more than we dreamed.
Afternoon Wednesday June 18, 2003
Ajajic Mexico
By M. Mercer
“Think the first time I entered The Blue Tequila Cantina was six years ago. Mexican natives call it Cantina Azul. They say a Gringo named Tom opened this bar in 1987 and still lives within even though he passed on in 1996. It must be true as sometimes I get messages from Tom relating to something is going to happen or when someone is coming. Sometimes I know the name of who is coming. Easy says, I spook her when I forecast someone, or something, is coming round the corner. Kinda surprises me too, but then I’ve not had a normal lifetime. Spent more time sitting at this end of the bar than any one place in my sixty- three years. Easy has been here three and a half and we have seen it all, fun, terror, blessing, and wonderful memories.
Some things you need to know: Easy is not the bartenders name, but she is quite easy on the eyes, not sure of her real name, or where she is from. My place at the end of the bar is my long-standing, pin in hand, writing comfort zone. Somedays, I go home and write sober and coherent. Leigh, yes Leigh, the one stable strong good woman in my life I do not deserve, watches over me as the angel she is.
The Blue Tequila Cantina serves as a meeting place for expats from over the world. Some seeking, love, some seeking companionship, some enjoying a cheap lifestyle, oh and some escaping their past. All toll, a good bunch of people, using up the end of life as we know it. Brave people, taking a chance on something different. The locals carry us high, we appreciate all the services they provide. Many frequent the bar and most local closing on property sales are finalized in the Cantina Azul. Oh yes, this is the local NASCAR TV headquarters. All Mexicans drive to fast, when you ask them why, they say we are in training for NASCAR.
And just like that, it happened again today. Normally, folks frequenting the bar don’t ask questions of each other as we all have something we don’t want to talk about. So, we find out about each other by what they say, not by prying.”
Extending his hand, he says, “My name is Sid, may I sit the bar with you?”
“Sure Sid, my name is Jerry, we’ve been expecting you.” I replied.
“How do you know me. I have never been here before?” A surprised, Sid remarks.
“A few days ago, a gust of wind blew a crumpled piece of paper in the door. I knew it was for me, when I spread the paper out it had Sid printed on it.”
“Ah, I don’t believe it for a minute!” Sid said.
“Easy, come, aqui,” I call.
Easy approaches and says, “yo is Sid esta so?”
Not believing what he is experiencing Sid says, “I need a beer!”
“Easy bring Sid a Tecate, make that dos since Sid is buying.
Sid in here ‘yo’ means, hi, you, me, a cheer, an explanation point, and always say ‘yo’ when you answer the phone. Just how it is,” I advised. “What you need Sid maybe we can help?” As Easy fishes deep in the cooler for the Tecate.
“I been walking this streets a couple of months checking out the area. Kinda thinking I might move to Ajajic. I’m too young to retire and though I might try buying this bar.”
“I laughed out loud, Easy chimed in with a beautiful smile. In fact, I laughed so hard and long I broke into a violent coughing spell, ending with sweat and wheezing.”
Meanwhile Sid sipped his beer and waits for things to settle down, “you OK Jerry?”
“Think so, but I think Tom is tellin’ me to warn you off.”
“Who is Tom, and why should I be concerned with Tom?”
“Tom owns the bar Sid, what makes it concerning is he has been dead since 1996. Easy runs the place, opens, and closes the Cantina, and sometime in the night the till is collected, money and directions left to pay various vendors. More than 3 years ago, before Easy, the guy running the bar tried to sell it to a newcomer. Both ended up missing and the police closed the bar.
It was hard on me as this was, as this is, my away from home, home. Couple of months later I dropped by, behold Easy had the door open for business. I ask her what happened she put finger to lips and then waved it at me. I knew to just drop it, and be happy. So be careful about trying to buy the Cantina.”
Sid sips Tecate and orders dos mas for him and the new acquaintance at the bar. Sid worries this guy is a con and decides to play along to see if he can swing a deal. Jerry seems a nice guy, but this is Mexico where tomorrow may mean the next day or even next month. All is not known much less guaranteed.
“Well Jerry if I can’t buy the bar maybe you can direct me to someone selling houses as I am in the market?”
“That I can help with. You want a mansion or a shack? You want to pay cash or easy terms? You plan to look at a lot of houses are a few, Sid?”
“You tellin’ me I have all those choices.”
“Yes, but they narrow quickly, Charley the gringo has been here for years and knows all the locations and has handled many closings here in the Cantina. Ramon digs deep and finds casas that need a quick sale. Anita can find homes with the best kitchens, house keepers, and gardeners. So, there is a lot to choose from and you need to think about it. I am still not privy to just why I knew you were coming, but I will figure it out?”
“Jerry, tell you what, if one of them drops by send them over to the Posada and have them ask for Sid.”
“Sure, thing Sid, one of them will fix you up.”
“So, you think Ajajic is a good place to live and retire? Give me the inside as you evidently have been around a while.”
“Lots of great food, fine music if you like local gringo and Mexican entertainers. You won’t find many unfriendly folks and some maybe too friendly. Friends come easy here and are not pushy. Most of us party often and in the daytime. Nights are not lit well, and trouble is easier to find. Good times in the Mexican sun is a good way to spend your days.”
While listening to the gong calling nurses to patients nearby I drift back an eon to childhood.
The wind shifted twice at first light. I heard the gong of the windmill obeying the shift in direction from the quilted bed in my grandmother’s home on the panhandle’s flat land.
The quail made their morning calls between coveys a few minutes before as I was thinking how uncle Sim had arrived in the late evening yesterday.
I wanted to get out of bed yet resisted as I knew I would have to make a run in the cold to the outhouse.
Uncle Sim stuck his long nose and eagle feathered top hat close to the bed and said, “time to fish son.”
Fastest time to the house out back I’d ever made. Sitting in the smelly house I remembered how Sim use to scare me when he came from Oklahoma. Top hat, long braids, white long John’s, spats, and a black split tailed coat to match.
On my way back I saw he was loading our salt cedar fishing poles. He pitched me a paper bag and said, “load up, breakfast is in the bag.”
We enjoyed biscuits filled with churned butter and molasses while making the short drive to the playa lake. His 48 Chevy had no seats and Sim sat on a number 10 washtub to drive. I remembered grandad telling me Sim used the car to move his hogs to market.
Enough hand size catfish and carp accompanied us back to the tank under the windmill to prepare for feeding the family.
Coal stove and grandma fried fish and taters. Cousin Sue prayed for the old cow that died few days ago. Then we feasted.
I love the gong of windmills and miss them in the modern world.
A Texas farmer, Vietnam veteran, and “C” college graduate who cannot spell, Mike Mercer tells stories with a lot of heart. He relies heavily on the computer age to put his voice to page. Hundreds of stories, poems, and unfinished books have given him peace and become the centerpiece of his retirement. He has two novels available on Amazon
Most mornings, Mike watches the sun rise on the Texas Gulf Coast. See Mike's books
I sit the folding chair, cold as it is, waiting for the light. A school bus passes heading Northeast tells me it is six o’clock. The lie is forming as sure as the waves come to shore. I Wait for events as technically and spiritually time is a progression of events. Memories are the leftovers from time, something after time in my mind. Yet I cannot explain either one. Cannot see, touch, or hear either. Proof of time is the passing of the school bus going Southwest telling me it is six -twenty.
Best scientists and clergy cannot explain to us what time is or what memories are or why they happen. So, with the events marking the progression of time, change is taking place. The older I become the less I like change. Maybe it is in my mindset, to resist, the inevitable progress of time.
However, electricity, running water, and indoor bath facilities are something much better than the time whence I came.
We are the product of time and the beginning of our future as events occur. I think it best to be a part of the events instead of watching them go by.
A pelican just folded his wings and split the water in the gulf looking for breakfast. Guess I better go see who is cooking down at the Shack.
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Molly Beckman Birkett lives in Texas
OMG - Outlaw snorkeling! Not sure if that's a real thing, but that's what we did. (We only had to trespass a little bit). We drove for well over an hour, in our golf cart. Most of it was on unpaved roads that became increasingly smaller, and narrower. Paths, really. The last four miles were on an old, unkempt path right along the beach that threatened to tip us over, or get us stuck. There were coconuts, palm fronds, rocks, and tree limbs in the road. The beach was dirty and often very smelly. We passed several resorts accessed only by boat, because let's face it, no resort is gonna bring guests in on these "roads." Anyway, it's the off season, so no one stopped us as we passed through their property in our search for a quiet spot to snorkel near Mexico Rocks - where the reef gets close to land. Anyway, we found a secluded spot that was perfect. Although we had no complaints, we all agreed that it would be nice if we had lawn chairs to put in the water.
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Mona Schroeder is a writer and former librarian who lives in Corpus Christi, Texas. Several excerpts from her novel have been published in the Corpus Christi Writers series. Learn more about Mona at the end of this section.
Random Acts
(Novel excerpt)
Cecilia Kendall watched the mid-morning El Paso sun slip through the closed blinds in her breakfast room. It was determined, always trying to sneak in where it wasn’t wanted. She poured herself another cup of coffee—black. She took it that way now – strong, black Colombian coffee, unpolluted by milk or cream or sugar or by international cream substitutes that were supposed to spice up one’s life by drinking them.
She sat at the table and thumbed through the mail without interest. Richard had brought it in for her one last time before packing his bags and leaving. She supposed she would have to retrieve it from the mailbox herself from now on which would mean changing out of her bathrobe, something she was reluctant to do. She wondered if she could persuade the mailman to shove it through a slot in the door if she had one put in. Or would she have to put in a whole new door?
Cecilia made a mental note and resolved to check into it later. Groceries, too. She could have them delivered – not that she needed many. Coffee and some frozen dinners perhaps. There was a certain morose appeal to the thought of her self-imposed solitary confinement – at the idea of mail being silently thrust through the door, of hermetically sealed frozen dinners forced through the mail slot one at a time. The coffee might present a problem, but that could be worked out, she was sure. Maybe Juan Valdez could schlep it over on that donkey of his.
Schlep. Where had that word come from, she wondered? She wasn’t Jewish, wasn’t anything really. She hadn’t been to church in years. “Schlep,” she repeated aloud, rolling it off her tongue slowly. It was not a word she would normally use, but today was not a normal day, not the morning after her husband of seventeen years had left her.
Yet the knowledge that Richard would not be coming home to her today or perhaps ever again did not move her, not in the way she would have thought a year ago. A year ago everything in her life had changed with one single act. Another drive-by shooting. Only this time the victim hadn’t been a stranger who died. This time a gun had claimed the life of someone she loved, her fifteen-year-old son Josh.
It should be a law of the universe that no parents be forced to survive their children, Cecilia thought. Without Josh, she felt as if a part of her were missing – the best part. What was she now? She wasn’t a mother, no longer a wife either. She had quit her job, her friends, and her husband had quit her. She had no close living relatives. She wasn’t someone’s daughter or sister or aunt or niece. What did that make her? She was 37 years old and had no label, an unsettling thought.
Cecilia reflected on all the ways she had tried to fill the hole that Josh’s absence had left in her life. Alcohol. Xanax. Valium. Even, unbelievably for her, an affair. Although “affair” was a rather grandiose term for the experience. Would 30 minutes in a cheap motel count as an affair? Nothing had transpired that night worth a scarlet letter. She’d had more interest in the brightly wrapped condoms the man had produced – and certainly more contact. Latex lust in the 21st century. Safe sex. Was sex ever really safe? Was any contact with another human being completely safe?
She hadn’t thought of the affair as an act of betrayal or even of revenge, more as an unsatisfactory attempt to hold the memories and the awful emptiness at bay for a few moments. An act of survival. The knowledge that Richard had been having an affair for some time had not failed to penetrate her otherwise dulled consciousness, but it hadn’t been a motivating factor for her. Cecilia couldn’t blame Richard, not really. Their own love-making had become almost nonexistent in the past year, and so when she had detected all the signs of an unfaithful husband – traces of lipstick, a hint of unfamiliar perfume on his shirts, his socks worn inside out as if hastily put back on – she hadn’t been shocked. Disappointed maybe, in a philosophical way. But was it disappointment in Richard or the fact that he didn’t bother to hide his indiscretions any better than he had? She could accept infidelity but not carelessness?
After Richard left, Cecilia hadn’t cried or asked “Why me?” She knew that long before he left her, she had left him. She hadn’t made it a physical separation, but it had been there nonetheless. As the door closed behind Richard, she had felt sadness, tinged with a certain relief. She felt free, but from what she wasn’t exactly sure – free from obligations perhaps, from unspoken demands, free from the guilt she felt every time she looked at him, wishing that she could love him again but knowing that she couldn’t.
Richard would probably ask her for a divorce soon. One thing generally followed another like that, like a child’s game of dominoes careening wildly across the floor. Impossible to stop once started. Cecilia wasn’t afraid of divorce, but she didn’t like the sound of it, the finality of it. The “ever after” without the “lived happily” part in front. Now it was simply “lived.”
Looking down, Cecilia realized that she had sorted the mail by habit – bills in one pile, personal letters or cards in another, and junk mail set aside for recycling. She shuffled through the bill pile again – gas, electric, two phone bills. Two? She examined them more closely. One was hers, but the other was to a Meryl Stephenson at 224 Flynn, instead of 244. The mailman had made a mistake. Wondering if there were more, she thumbed through the mail again. Sure enough, more envelopes addressed to Ms. Meryl Stephenson or Charles Stephenson, same address – a card, an application for a credit card, and an envelope from a doctor’s office. She wondered how long she had been getting this Meryl person’s mail. Should she return it? Would Meryl or Charles be worried, waiting for their phone bill, wondering what could have happened to it?
Cecilia sighed. She supposed she would have to return it. It would mean changing from her bathrobe into street clothes, putting on shoes, running a comb through her hair, but she would have to do it. All that trouble because of a simple mistake. A nagging sense of decorum forbade her from taking the mail down the street in her bathrobe and slippers. It would give new meaning to the word “schlep.”
copyright Mona Schroeder
Read more great fiction like this in Corpus Christi Writers 2018
Random Acts (excerpt)
Meryl tried not to look, but the moon peeped over the horizon of the plumber’s Wrangler jeans in a captivating peek-a-boo fashion. The wrenches hung from his tool belt like exotic metal fringe.
Think of something else, she told herself sternly, even as “Bad Moon Rising” began playing in her mind. Her hair. The color was not quite right. It had come out redder than she had expected. Maybe she had left the dye on too long. She considered asking the plumber for his opinion but decided that would sound too pathetic. She would rather ask another woman anyway. Yet, since moving, she didn’t know anyone to ask.
Meryl tore her gaze away and tried to focus on the Whirlpool range kitty-corner from the sink, but the stove’s bulky whiteness recalled the plumber’s four-inch strip of alabaster flesh above the striped elastic band of his white cotton briefs.
The plumber (George, she thought his name was) hiked up his pants and for a moment the tantalizing, forbidden cleavage disappeared. Within moments, however, the jeans inched downward once more, and Meryl leaned one elbow on the kitchen counter to watch. She should not be enjoying this display so much, she thought, and probably wouldn’t have if she were not so abominably lonely. She could kill Charles for dragging her to the desert and then dumping her! She felt alien here—no more comfortable than Charles’s poor, potted trees in the front yard, which even she could see didn’t belong in this arid climate. Charles hadn’t even bothered to plant them before taking off with his Silicone Sweetie.
Candy was her name, although Meryl still found that hard to believe. It seemed made up like the rest of her. From the top of her bleached-blond plasticized hair to her tiny geisha-like feet, Candy looked unreal, otherworldly. The effect was heightened further by skin so tight and poreless that Meryl wondered what it felt like. Surely it did not feel like regular human skin. Perhaps Candy was from outer space.
Meryl risked a surreptitious sniff under her armpit. There had been no time to shower that morning before George’s arrival. But then who could smell anything over that swampy odor coming from the disposal?
Without turning around, the plumber asked, “What did you say went down the disposal, ma’am?” On the floor near his knees lay the dismantled disposal and sink trap from which the fetid odor arose. She could almost see green, steamy tendrils of stench.
“Potato peels,” Meryl said, while thinking ‘went down’ an interesting choice of words. It wasn’t as if the peels had gone down willingly. She had jammed them down with a big wooden spoon. “I was making Vichyssoise. Would you like some? There’s plenty.” Why couldn’t she stop staring at his posterior?
“Fishy what?”
“Potato soup.” She could see the tiny, curling hairs like dark peach fuzz on his lower back.
“And you put fish in it?”
“No, no. It’s French. Never mind. Did you say you wanted some?” Perhaps if Charles hadn’t left her, she wouldn’t be reduced to staring at a stranger’s ass for kicks.
“No thanks.”
He was delightfully taciturn, this plumber, Meryl decided, though she couldn’t remember now what his face looked like. The present vision had sandblasted it from her mind. She wondered if she could draw him out a little. “Have you lived in El Paso long?” she asked.
“Uh huh.”
“Really.” She waited for him to ask her the same question, but he didn’t. “I just moved here. My husband and I actually. Well, but now it’s just me.” Again, she waited for a response although none came. But that was okay. She liked the strong, silent type.
She began to reconstruct a vision of George from her memory. He had dark sultry brown eyes, she remembered, like Javier Bardem’s in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” (but not in “No Country for Old Men” in which the real crime was that hair. Anthony Perkins wearing his mother’s pageboy wig.)
In fact, now that Meryl thought of it, didn’t George resemble Javier a little? Didn’t he have the faintest trace of an accent? She had a flash of a sun-splashed Spanish courtyard with a profusion of gorgeous red geraniums all around. Abruptly, the soundtrack in her head switched to the rich, plaintive notes of Spanish guitar music.
Meryl stared into space, no longer looking at George as she lapsed into her fantasy. “You are a very beautiful lady,” Javier said to her, taking her hand across the wrought iron table. Two glasses of wine and a single red rose lay between them. Meryl breathed in the rose’s sweet scent, felt the warm sun kiss her bare skin…
“Ma’am?”
The Spanish guitar music ground to an abrupt halt. “Yes?”
“I have to go out to my truck for my snake.”
When George stood up, she could see that he really didn’t look like Javier Bardem at all. More like Norm Peterson from “Cheers.”
At Walgreen’s
Cecilia pulled one of the Lilliputian shopping carts from the cart corral and felt more relaxed. Walgreen’s was unintimidating and manageable, and it had everything. It was a microcosm of necessities. There were books, magazines, greeting cards, candy, office supplies, make-up, toiletries, shampoos, soaps, cleaning supplies, detergents, paper goods, pet supplies, toys, and even groceries. Not to mention the drugs. She had discovered that she could come here, and while waiting for a prescription, browse the aisles and buy movies, toothpaste, a new nail clipper, batteries, T-shirts, and almost anything else she might need. She could even, if she wanted to, get a passport photo, although it was hard to imagine ever wanting to travel again.
The only thing Walgreen’s didn’t have was a coffee shop. Why hadn’t Starbucks jumped on that? Cecilia wondered. Coffee and food and pharmaceuticals all under one roof. Perhaps they were afraid that no one would ever leave. Hordes of people would wander the store aisles in their Homer Simpson pjs and slippers, looking for whatever was missing from their lives. (For surely, she wasn’t the only lost soul out there.) Then the store would have to put in beds, television sets, Wi-fi connections, and extra bathrooms. The whole thing would just get way too complicated.
Now Cecilia pushed the diminutive cart toward the grocery aisles. There were only two –- four sides of shelves filled with grocery items, which included the dairy case and frozen food section. Very smart and efficient, Cecilia felt. Much better than a chain grocery store with its overbearing consumerism, huge carts, and overwhelming choices. Here among the teetering, dented cans of soup and tuna fish Cecilia felt almost at home.
After loading up the bottom of the cart with survivalist foods (canned soup, meats, vegetables, and coffee), Cecilia completed her list with bread, a half gallon of milk, a dozen eggs, and some frozen dinners. Then, rounding the corner, she caught sight of a woman with hair not unlike the color of Lucille Ball’s. Meryl. There couldn’t be two women with hair that shade in the neighborhood. Cecilia quickly ducked down the next aisle. She made herself wait a few minutes until she thought it was safe to continue. Then she left the cart and peered around the corner to see if Meryl had moved out of sight yet.
A voice from behind her caused her to jump guiltily. “Hey, there! Cecilia, right? Remember me? Meryl Stephenson, your new neighbor. Fancy meeting you here.”
“Yes, hello,” Cecilia said. Must the woman always speak in cliched greetings? Cecilia thought in irritation. “Nice to see you.” She tried to maneuver her cart down the aisle, but Meryl’s cart blocked hers.
Meryl wore turquoise-colored cropped pants and a gaudy top with flashing sequins and fringe (fringe! Cecilia thought), which made her look like a country and western singer. She lacked only a matching cowboy hat to look as if she’d just stepped off the Grand Ole Opry stage.
“Do you have a dog?” Meryl asked.
“No. Why?” Then Cecilia looked around and realized that she had turned down the dog food aisle by mistake. “I mean, not yet,” she amended, although she hadn’t really been considering the idea.
Meryl peered nosily into Cecilia’s cart. “I see you’re grocery shopping. Banquet dinners, huh?” She indicated her own cart, which was filled with boxes of hair dye in various shades, both Loreal and Lady Clairol, as if Meryl had swept an entire shelf into her purse at random. “I had to get a prescription refilled so I thought I’d stock up on a few things. There was something I was going to tell you.”
She tapped a finger on her lips thoughtfully, and Cecilia noticed that Meryl’s fingernails had miraculously grown. Lee press-on nails, Cecilia deduced. She wondered what sort of prescription Meryl was having refilled, probably a mood-altering one.
Meryl snapped her fingers. “Speculum!”
“I beg your pardon?” Embarrassed, Cecilia looked around to see if anyone was close enough to hear their conversation. At the end of the aisle a little old lady in a pink track suit and matching sneakers gave them a funny look and hurried past.
“That’s what they call those instruments they use in pelvic exams. Remember we were talking about that the other day? It drives me crazy when I can’t think of a word, doesn’t it you?”
Perhaps Meryl’s problem was more of a Tourette’s thing, Cecilia thought. “Yes, absolutely,” she agreed, already backing up her cart. “Well, I really have to run now. My frozen dinners are thawing.”
“See you later!” Meryl called cheerfully.
“Not if I can help it,” Cecilia thought as she made a beeline for the cash register.
When Cecilia returned home and put away her purchases, she felt pleased at the newfound bounty. The pantry items gave new fullness to the shelves; the frozen dinners were stacked neatly in the freezer.
She regretted that she had not remembered to ask for a pack of cigarettes. She felt like doing something forbidden, something that would cause Richard to shake his head in disapproval. It was all that Meryl person’s fault. Why did she have to turn up everywhere? Why did she wear those ridiculous outfits and cake on her makeup with a garden trowel? And why did Meryl think that they had somehow become friends?
The Tree Doctor
The tree is hemorrhaging sap, black against the gray bark, the leaves still green but washed out, lackluster. I know nothing about trees. A city girl, born and raised, I’ve always viewed trees as curiosities, like zoo animals. This is the first tree I’ve ever owned. It came with the house, also a first. I have property now, a mortgage, and a sickly tree.
Should I put a bucket beneath? A bandage? A yellow ribbon? I’m lost.
My next-door neighbor, Earl, ambles over, a beer in his hand. Earl is retired. In the afternoons he likes to enthrone himself in the lawn chair that he keeps in his garage. He leaves the garage door up, so he can watch the world go by while slugging back a beer or two – or three. Occasionally Earl favors a neighbor with sage advice, as he does now to me.
“You know what you otter do?” Earl says, swigging.
Otter do? Oh, ought to do, I realize. Sometimes Earl requires translation. “What’s that, Earl?” I ask, warily. I’m protective of the tree all of a sudden, worried that he’ll say have it removed, a bad omen, and something I’ve been worried about.
“Call one of those tree people to take a look-see.” Swig.
“Tree people?”
“Yeah, you know, tree people.” Swig, swig.
Later, I look up tree care online, skipping over the ones for tree removal, and find a name that strikes my fancy. The Tree Doctor. Must I call him Doctor Tree? Maybe I’ll ask to see his arborist credentials first. Or perhaps I’ll ask him about that tree falling in a forest thing. I’ve always wondered about that.
When Dr. Tree arrives, he’s wearing ordinary clothes – khakis and a blue polo shirt. No white coat, which is slightly disappointing. He’s about my age, mid-thirties, with an earnest look – or perhaps it’s the clipboard which lends him an official air. Together we examine the ailing tree.
“It came with the house,” I explain, so that he doesn’t blame me for the tree’s condition. Irresponsible tree owner, committing a crime against nature. I will not be labeled a tree murderer unjustly!
He launches into a diagnosis of the tree’s condition, which frankly I only half listen to – something about it’s the wrong type of tree for this area (again, not my fault), recommends a series of treatments to help revive the tree, although there’s no guarantee, etc., etc. Then he hands me his business card, which seems wrong somehow. He’s giving me a card made from his own patients? Who’s the tree murderer now?
“Well, thanks for coming by,” I say. “I’ll give you a call when I’ve decided.”
“Sure thing,” Dr. Tree says. “Just don’t wait too long. She’s in distress right now. I can give her a treatment before I leave. That’ll help some. Of course, she won’t be out of the woods yet,” he drawls, straight-faced.
She? Not out of the woods? I like his tree-side manner. “You’re hired,” I say.
Mona Schroeder is a writer and former librarian who lives in Corpus Christi, Texas. This excerpt is from a novel called Random Acts about Cecilia Kendall, a woman struggling to put her life back together after a great loss. Determined never to be hurt again, her solution is to shut out the world until a chance encounter forces her to reconsider her choices and to wonder if one random act might begin to be healed by another.
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