Like Air

Writing Prompt Two: So this is what it means to drown.

Before our adventure begins, the beginning must be told. When I met him I was quiet, internal, mindfully collected in a strong, elegant sort of way. I had dedicated so much of my efforts to becoming a pillar of womanly independence that I had forgotten what it was like to feel loved, to know romance. When I was ready to search again, I did so with vigor. There were requirements of myself and of any future him that needed to be satisfied. There were playful requests, too... for the man I wanted him to be, but also the history which was attached to him.

When his hands wrapped around my neck and squeezed gently, slowly cinching my breath to a trickle, I knew I had found the one. His lips forcefully pushed into my own and with an open mouth his tongue massaged my tongue and just before the release his teeth bit into my lip. He could make me moan with involuntary pleasure. Noises escaping my captured throat that I made no effort to make. He knew he had me, body, spirit, and faith. I trusted him to destroy me in the most beautiful way; to torture me with his love. And he did, continues to do so, and forever will. His will be a taste that lingers in my mouth for all my years to come. A craving I will harbor until my end is reached. With this knowledge, I accept my fate, loving him like I love the air I breathe. And when he is away my lungs ache for him, my mind lamenting: so this is what it means to drown.

They say you should be careful for what you wish for because it just might come true.

I didn't realize happiness needed a warning.

It Begins

Writing Prompt One: When I dreamed of the desert I never imagined it with snow. Yet here we are; hot sand beneath our feet and crystal flakes falling from they sky...

I'm really starting to wonder if Colorado is such a very real place, after all. Sand dunes fill the horizon to the north of me, the sneaking white capped mountains breaking through the timberline border the east. It's a strange place, resting beneath dunes and mountains, feet dancing through the chilled waters of glacier runoff. Like being at a sandy beach with no ocean. The wind whips though my hair, biting my exposed ears. White flakes fell from over burdened clouds, balancing on the tip of my nose before melting from the heat of my body.

"Are you ready?"
My gaze filtered out the distraction of this mystical place and focused on his form. "Ready for what?"
"Our adventure!"

April 30, 1975

"Bao, wake up. Don't fuss. Hurry. We must go!"

The muffled restraint of my mother's voice woke me from a dream. A dream I had many times pondered over in the morning after. A dream of flight, of rush. A dream just like this moment.

Through foggy eyes I watched her dress my sisters without tenderness. I could see her panic. It became mine. The unfamiliar sound of silence assailed our ears as we ran, crouching low, my mother's hand on our heads pushing us down. I could just barely see the sun setting. The sky was red, stained with blood.

"We must not stop. We must not wait. It will be too late. Hurry, now!" She urged us on.

Ahead of us I could see it. I could hear the deafening whir of the grey metal beast. People were screaming out of anger, fear, confusion. Men pushed me aside, but my mother held onto my collar tightly. Her three children herded in front of her. Our heads were down, always down.

I can hear her pleading. The sickening pleas of a mother torn.

"Lady, there isn't time. You must choose now. There isn't enough room."
"Let them go, I'll stay." She promised, pushing us forward.
"Not possible." He shouted. I could not see his face, but his voice told me how little he cared.

She must choose. Two daughters, one son.

"Please. Please take them. I'll stay."

And there was a brief pause as she stood there thinking. The grip on my collar tightened, the arm around my sisters pulled closer. A man coughed; a woman sobbed. I could hear them shuffle as a stretcher was pushed off the loading bay.

My stomach felt the jolt of the beast as it moved upward. I tried not to look down. Down where those left behind would remain. The running patterns of my panicked neighbors who could not come. They waited too long. They who did not have a mother who loved them enough to push forward.

I close my eyes. Soon I will wake up. Soon the dream will be over.

Numb

Each dip of the paddle into the crystalline waters of this arctic river sends droplets of melting ice to my cheeks, the frost of frozen air crowding on my eye lashes. My feet rest against this bottom of the humble vessel of wood and metal, the grains within the boards highlighted with white, icy trails. It is silent, absolutely silent but for the trickle of the paddle against the current, the crackle of the prow through the stiffening glassy surface.

But even the silence seems to have a shimmer to it - a muted, matte buzz against the electrically charged air. So much anticipation lingers in the clouds, so much potential energy forced into static motion. My fingers bite into the wooden oars. The white of my frozen skin; numb to the biting breeze from my forward propulsion. It's too cold for my breath to linger as steam. Too cold for snow to fall. For the blood to pump through my chest.

This was my favorite time to play in the wilds. When all others were too attached to the warmth of their hearths. Out here, alone, gliding through slush filled waters, I could hear the earth moan under her white blanket and watch the slowing of time. Each overburdened tree limb would gently slide off it's white coat of powder and plop it into the ruins of coats at its roots. The river pulls so much harder away from where we used to spend our evenings admiring the trail of stars above us. It pulls so much harder without you here to tug against the pull with me.

I waited all year to get to the winter thinking it would resurrect your memory, but where I sought to find relief I found the freezing of my body. A chill you never let me feel. Without you here, winter simply became just another season. And I am left sitting still in frozen waters.

Jack London

Her eyes bounce along the lines of the menu. It's edges shielding her face, but for those magnificent brown eyes, soft, encompassing eye brows, and gently wrinkled forehead. She seems perplexed by something she's reading. My own eyes scan the menu, searching for an answer to the question which lingers on that tanned forehead.

Maybe it isn't so much a question of ingredients as a question of how those ingredients should go together to create something worth eating. I, too, have had my doubts about this place. A small cafe, new on the corner of a busy, thriving main street. Filled to the brim with people just like each other, just like me and her.

She turns the page. Entrees. Perhaps she will stay longer than I had imagined she would. Her fingers tap the edge of the menu, the guardian of her face. A glass of iced tea is set on her table by a passing waiter. She reaches for it blindly, sips, and returns it to the art deco coaster. The book she's brought with her sits idle on the table. It's frayed binding facing me, the brown and aged pages looking away. My own book rests in my hands, neglected as I read the back of her menu.

The waiter comes. She orders. She sips. Her fingers tap the table top to the tune of a familiar song. She scans the room and finds me. Alone in my corner, hands spread beneath the decaying novel. We look away. The walls are littered with art from a local; some abstract bit about a giraffe and sea glass. The floor is a black and white checkered tile. I'm sure she's noticed that, too. And the ceiling boasts exposed beams and air ducts. I finish my survey of the cafe before she does and it strikes me how beautiful her cheeks are. How perfect the rose hue.

I close my book. The burley men of the Alaskan Gold Rush clash together between the pages, the brawl separated by a slender bookmark. Something so slim separates us; something so powerfully resistant. A barrier of doubt surrounded by desire. Like those of the Yukon I harbor my courage and walk forward. Her table a claim I'd like to stake.

Those eyes look up at me; they bloom as she smiles.

"Hello."

Pearls

When you get to her age you discover life becomes more about the routine of birth and death. And while she's experienced the first she often sits alone in the dark of her living room waiting to experience the last.

A ringing telephone becomes the pistol in a game of Russian roulette; whether her heart feels joy or sorrow depends on the age of the caller. Youthful excitement tells her she's a great grandmother... again. Solemn maturity reminds her of the reservation she holds in a muddy bed on the outskirts of town.

"It's Georgie," they'll say when it's her turn and a shared cry will follow. Sometimes she worries they won't have any tears left when she goes; and she deserved their tears; she's paid her time and cried for all those before her. She has earned the living's grief.

My Georgie slips on her black dress, her modest nylons, and black walking shoes. Over swollen, aged fingers her rings find their home. From across the pink walled bedroom, resting on the bureau I watch her. Waiting to take my place among the procession of mourning. The only white among the black. My glossy shimmer reflecting like tears.

Me; who will be the last she will ever wear. Her funeral earrings.

New Seas

To say he had soulful eyes would be an injustice. Rather, they were a milky green. A clouded visage of perhaps an even more clouded history. They were deep, but murky; cold, but inviting. They tempted me into worlds I could not control, into a flight of passion I could not contain. But I was at a crossroads. I've always been afraid of waters so dark and stained that I could not see the bottom. So when looking past his perfectly shaped lids into the iris of unknown depths my feet grew unsteady. A heart can want to jump and explore, but the mind will always win for self preservation will also always win.

He could destroy me in an instant, grab my body and rip it apart, take whatever was remaining and sweep it away like dust. But I trusted him. I trusted the rough hands and the hair lined chest. I trusted the perfectly aligned teeth in his tight lipped mouth. I couldn't trust the eyes, though, for all the curiosity they sparked within me.

That's where faith steps in.

Uncharted waters are meant to be mapped.

Depths plumbed.

Storms played out.

Mysteries solved.

And I'm ready for an adventure.

Elastic by Tegon Maus

Inspired by Writing Prompt One Hundred and Seven: The elastic on his waistband was frayed, adding one more pleasantry to this awful business.

I love my job but sometimes… let’s just say… some days are harder than others.

A few years ago, in late October I had a major remodel to a house out in the middle of the desert located in the middle of nowhere.  It was a 3 ½ hour drive one way from the shop that called for us to spend the next 2 weeks, day and night on the job site. This project was so far out we no longer got radio waves let alone cell service. Why anyone would build a house forty minutes off the paved road in the foothills of the Mojave is beyond me.

For this project I took Barry… a large, 53-year-old man of questionable upbringing. After 12 years in prison he had… let’s say the residual effects of a pharmaceutical enhancement that called into question his ability to be alone. More interesting than this was his prevalent fear of the dark.  He had, on more than one occasion, refused to go under a house to work unless I went with him.  He lived in real fear of zombies, werewolves and vampires. 

I know how that sounds… that a man who spent time in prison and appeared to have no problem being accepted as an equal among a Hell’s Angles’ reunion party would have trouble with the dark or being alone, but it was something he battled with every day.

At the end of the day we made our way to the new job that would start in the morning.  On the drive he was buoyant, talkative, and enjoying the ride. Then, just outside of Victorville in the growing dark, civilization began to drop away one or two houses at a time.  Within the next twenty minutes the landscape had changed into one of open, undulating, vast waste land.

“Where are all the houses?” he asked with a little panic in his voice.

“We’re in the desert… there are no houses,” I returned with little interest.

He turned in the seat and stared out the window.

“What do we do for lights?” he asked, turning to me again.

“Sorry pal, none of them out here either.”

He sat silent for the remainder of the ride.

At long last we bumped our way through the dark over a less than maintained dirt road coming

to a group of large weathered trees. The branches swayed heavily with the wind that blew wildly carrying with it giant clouds of dust thrown in the air by our arrival.

“Get the gate Barry.”

He sat there looking at me with wide eyes, glancing first to me and then outside.

“By myself?”

“Yeah, get out and open the gate.”

“Come with me,” he insisted.

“Stop dicking around and open the gate,” I admonished, pushing him lightly.

“Hell no. I ain’t going out there by myself. No telling what’s waiting to eat ya,” he returned locking the door. 

“God,” I huffed undoing my seat belt, opening the door.

“What are ya doing?”

“I’m opening the gate.”

“You can’t leave me here by myself… what if one of them comes for me?”

“One of them?”

He popped the door open on his side and ran to throw mine open as well.

“Open the gate,” I was tired, hungry, dirty and frustrated. I didn’t need this shit.

He stood upright, staring out into the dark. His head swiveled around franticly as if someone lay in wait. 

“Come with me,” he pressed.

“Christ,” I sighed and did as he asked.

He pressed close to me as we made our way to the gate doing everything he could to stay within the glow of the headlights.

I did the combo and it popped open on the spot.  I pushed it open and rolled a rock in front of it with my foot to prop it open.  At the instant I released it the sound of the truck door closing filled the air… followed closely by the lock engaging.

Barry was safely ensconced in the truck once more.

He rolled the window down a crack and shouted. “Get in before they come,” and then cranked the window close quickly.

I had to laugh to myself a little... a guy as big as Barry afraid of the dark was way too much fun. I had always assumed he was joking about his ‘condition’. He could be a scary looking guy in his own right… it never occurred to me he was on the level.

“Yeah, yeah.”

The house, still a five minute drive from the gate, was built sometime in the mid-fifties. The paint was chipped and blistered by sun and wind. Its board and batten exterior had seen better days. The truck’s headlights swept across its face and for the briefest of moments there appeared to be an animal or a person, something on the porch. Whatever it was, it disappeared before the truck came to rest. 

I turned the truck off and the lights died quickly as the darkness washed over us.

Suddenly the truck filled with a high pitch squeal that sent chills down my spine.

“What are you doing? Turn them on… what are you waiting for? Turn them on,” Barry shouted and then punched me had in the shoulder.

“What the hell?”

“Turn them on or so help me…”

I did as he asked but now I was mad.

“Happy?” I asked.

“Go turn the lights on in the house,” he ordered.

“And here I was thinking I was the boss,” I sniped, pushing the truck door open wide, stepping out.

I walked through the beams of lights and opened the door.

“Come on you lazy bastard,” I called waving him to the house.

He scampered wildly toward the house, darting between billows of dust, almost knocking me over in his attempt to get inside.

“You left the lights on in the truck,” I groused, pointing.

“What are you, crazy?  I’m not going back out there,” He said brushing himself off.

Now it was getting under my skin. I was the one who had to go back out into the wind and shut off the lights.

The rest of the evening went by without incident. The wind howled relentlessly beating against the house, thumping loudly. Then around eleven the unthinkable…

“I gotta go to the bathroom,” Barry said softly.

“Beg your pardon?”

“I have to go to the bathroom,” He repeated louder this time.

“Well pal, none of the plumbing is hooked up you’ll have to go outside.”

“I can’t.”

“You’ll have to… its outside or hold it until the morning.”

He looked to the door and back to me.

“Come with me.”

“I’m not going with you. If you have to go… go, you don’t need me.”

“You have to… I can’t go out there by myself.”

“Go outside or crap yourself… all the same to me.”

“Go with me.”

“No.”

He began to dance about… his eyes pleading with me.

“Okay… I’ll go this far with you,” I said opening the front door. “I’ll leave the door open for you.”

“Come with me.”

“Nope, if you’re afraid of the dark it’s on you. It has nothing to do with me.”

I sat down on the couch tickled pink to be in control again.

“I’m not afraid of the dark I just don’t like it,” He corrected.

“Well, prove it… come or go. Do what you want but leave me out of it.”

At last, reluctantly, he dove through the door and into the darkness outside.

I was filled with self-satisfaction.

Time seemed to slow as I waited. He was taking far too long… even for Barry.

After a moment or so I went to the door… I could see nothing, hear nothing beyond the wind.

I was about to call out for him when I thought I heard him call.

“Help.”

At first I wasn’t certain that I heard it and I stepped out onto the porch.

“Help!” Barry’s voice cut through the howl of wind, sending goosebumps rippling over every square inch of me.

“Barry,” I called.

“Help me!  They’ve got me,” He screamed.

My mind instantly swam with confusion as I searched the darkness for some sign as to direction I should go.

“Help!” He cried out again, his voice clearly filled with panic.

I ran in the direction I thought it came from… again I heard him call and I ran to his aid. Then much to my shock I found him…  there standing in the dark was Barry.  His clothing was tangled in the bramble he was now totally naked save for his under ware.

“I was stuck… I fell and I couldn’t get free,” he moaned. His backside was covered in cactus needles. 

“Help me.”

A part of me wanted to laugh… a part of me felt sorry for him.  To make things worse the elastic on his waist band was frayed, adding one more pleasantry to this awful business.  It was going to be a long night.

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Married forty-three years to a woman he calls Dearheart, Tegon Maus lives a contented life in a small town of 8,200 in Southern California. By day, Tegon is a successful home remodeling contractor, but his passion is storytelling.

Tegon's progatonists are frequently wedged between a rock and a hard place, but manage to work things out through the story. Like most when pushed into a corner, it only brings out the best in his characters and become the unstoppable force of a reluctant hero. Tegon's signature style is creating characters who are driven and believable, and who strive to find happiness.

Tegon is the author of The Chronicles Of Tucker Littlefield series.

Check out Tegon's other work on Amazon, including her latest novel, Service Before Self!

Contact Tegon on Facebook and Twitter!

Leapin' Lethargy by Andrew Call

Inspired by Writing Prompt One Hundred and Thirteen: The window stood open and all I had to do was jump.

Pickled between inevitable pain and ambiguous salvation, most people choose to fly. Faith in a foxhole for the avid atheist kind of stuff. In that brief limbo, the desperation to escape one’s burning building overcomes any dread of cannonballing out the open window. Those who don’t leap often regret stepping back from the edge as they burn, and those who take the plunge are afforded what luxury there is in imagining a colorful splat during freefall. Whenever my window cracked and gave me an opening, I was apt to jump.

“Jump, ya chick’n shit! She’s watching you.” Sid Madison got me to jump at age eight with a jab from the school pool.

“Jump or he’ll kill you!” An unnamed husband with fire in his soul got me to jump buck naked from a two-story balcony at nineteen.

“Jump and I’ll find you!” Nineteen. Same unnamed husband. Fire in the soul. You get the picture.
“How high, sir?!” as I jumped for freedom in Basic.

After two tours, I jumped into law enforcement to escape PTSD. Before I retired, I jumped into marriage, through divorce hoops, around a triple bypass, and over the bottle. Lord, did I jump. Vivid hope for a colorful splat smudged and now abstract.

Here I was again, standing on the edge.

From inside the car, the rain on the windshield made my bowels burn. Or maybe that was the IBS. Of all the days, of all places. I looked out and up through squinted eyes. Retiring hadn’t gotten me anywhere, and divorce hadn’t allowed me the peace of mind I’d expected. Didn’t move far enough away from those flames. Three years, half of what I owned, one younger asshole taking my place in my ex-wife’s bed, a move across town…by all means I’d gotten pretty far. In what direction, God only knew.  Paint-by-numbers with Dhali holding the brush.

And here I am, outside my old apartment building, looking up at my old window. Ex-detective Richard Pascal, back on the case. I opened the car door and stepped out into the rain.

~

“Rich, I know I shouldn’t have called, but I didn’t want to call the actual cops.”

My ex-wife Janine stood in the open doorway of our old apartment. Twenty-four floors up, three doors down, the framed entrance separating us.  I’d refused to go inside and a small puddle dripped to life around my feet.  I listened as Janine told me how the new guy had imploded after she dropped the pregnancy bomb. Really, Jan? Pregnant? How he’d trashed the apartment and stormed out.  He was on the roof.  Misery loves company, I thought. Here I come, buddy.

“I’ll talk to him, Jan. Stay here.”  She closed the door and I took the stairs. 

The door reading ROOF ACCESS whipped open with the wind. I stood inside and squinted through the sheets of rain as they danced, making out the timid-looking bastard against the edge of the roof. He was sitting with his back on the cement ledge. His eyes darted up at the noise, and the rain blasted me in the face as I stepped out. What was his name? Jim? Jan and Jim?

The rain was so thick it felt like I was standing under a hose, but I wasn’t thinking about the rain. In that moment, drenched and emotionally drained, I shut off. Or turned on. My little wind-up key finally breaking.

“It was like he wasn’t really there,” Jim would tell Channel 4 later. “He looked at me but didn’t see me.”

I was empty.  There was nothing left, and I knew it. I strode the distance to the roof’s waist-high cement guard and turned my empty gaze on Jim, his hair matted to his face and eyes puckered to fight back the rain.

“Hell of a day.” I zoned out into the middle distance, not looking at anything in particular.  Jim slumped into the gravel roof and started to sob. What a sad excuse of a man, I thought. A piss-poor replacement.  “If you came up here to jump, maybe you should.” 

I felt the rain like fire on my neck. Burning. Building. Unbearable.

My heels scraped back in a featherweight pendulum, the ledge pressed against my waist, and I rolled forward into one last lethargic leap. 

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You can follow and contact Andrew here:

Twitter: @ACallCreative

E-mail: acallcreative@gmail.com

Website: www.mrmovie-review.com

Worldly

I don't know where I'm going, but I assure you I am going.

You cannot stop me; hold fast my boots to this tainted, soiled ground. I was meant to conquer the stars and eat cheese. Flowers are to tickle my nose. Languages are to baffle my brain.

Yes, it is true. I may not know where I am going, but I am going nonetheless.

My spirit was meant to wonder the oceans and dance in the waves. My fingers to caress maple leaves and yew trees. My heart to jump to the motion of running bulls. My face to be stained red with tomato juice.

Behind me, my lessons form congress; building a future fraught with their brethren. Without them each experience loses meaning. With them I am born.

No. I do not know where I am going, but watch me go. Watch the path lay down before me. Watch my steps take longer strides. Watch my head held high.

You cannot stop me; hold fast my boots to this tainted, soiled ground.

I am going. 

I am conquering. 

I am dancing. 

I am growing.

Watch me go.

Caught In The Current

Islands of cascading mossy trees lined the gritty sand of ocean beaches. Waves trickled in from the calm gulf, a gentle breeze through the sound's leaves. The water was murky, stagnant, diseased.

He huffed out a sarcastic laugh. 

A sea to match his withering soul. 

He dug his toes into the stained brown sand and gripped tightly the rope in his hand. On waters such as this there would be a need for much rowing and he was far from the young boy he used to be. His back arched into a hump at the base of his neck, the dirty gray beard framed a face calloused by early mornings and blinding sunshine. Only his eyes remained untouched by the enemy of time. A putrid green iris tainted by bolts of golden lightning, pin point pupils focused across the shore, a sight the strength of ocean miles.

The man, a true man of this barren sea, wiped the crumbs from his beard and the sweat from his brow. Humid drops of sweat linger on his eye lashes. With each lapping of the waves he rocked to and fro from the balls to the heels of his feet. He danced with the rhythm of the water just as his dory, his home, his lover, his life, his curse, danced to the beat of his heart. It required only one more step forward, one more pull of the net, one more haul against his paddle, one more lunge against his lungs.

Then he would be free.

Then the work would stop.

Then the sun could bake his skin.

Then the ocean could swallow him whole.

It all started with a step and that is how it would end.

Flight by Susan Vittitow Mark

Response to Writing Prompt Ninety-Seven: A kayak, a tent, an endless horizon and yet...

Flight

A kayak, a tent, an endless horizon, and yet the tall towers of the city shimmered before Laura's eyes where there should have only been the endless waves of the Pacific. Whispering pines were drowned out by honking taxicabs and the shouts of street vendors. The sand under her feet grew hard and hot like the asphalt of summer. She spat out the taste of diesel fumes, sour garbage, and stale urine. The scent clung to her hair.

She blinked and it all vanished. The forest lay unbroken behind her. A cool breeze blew from the sea. Waves lapped gently over her feet where she'd stripped off her boots and dug her toes into the welcoming sand.

If she had to remember the city, better to remember it as it was when it was alive rather than how she left it. Better not to remember the screams of the dying, the stench of corpses. 

A seagull landed near her, cocked one eye. She laughed. “Got nothin' for you.” Her stores were little enough for the long days of paddling and not enough to share with a garbage eating bird.

Dinosaurs. Birds were damn dinosaurs, or what was left of them. Scientists had looked at the DNA or something and discovered T-Rex's great-grandbabies were in the fried chicken buckets at the company picnic. They ruled the world once. So did humans. Once. What will be left of us? she thought.

“You heading up north, too?” The seagull turned its head. “If you are, can you take a message to Chris for me? Tell him to stay safe, stay put. I'll get there somehow.”

The black eye stared at her as if some ancient intelligence lurked there. The bird flapped its wings twice, took off and soared straight north. Look for the cabin, she thought, as if her mind could reach the bird's. It's along the Oregon coast. He's there. Tell him to stay there. Tell him he shouldn't try to find me.

She watched as the seagull became a tiny dot and then vanished. I must be cracking up, talking to birds. She sighed, stretched her aching arms. At that moment she would have killed for an ibuprofen, a cup of coffee, and a roll of toilet paper. Those things would all be in the past now. Maybe she and Chris would tell their grandchildren how it once was. If she could find him. If he hadn't gotten it into his fool head to come find her in the burning city.

Laura sat and laced her boots. She broke down the tent, stashed it in the kayak with the last of the food and the water purifier. She pushed off from shore and willed tired arms to paddle. She turned north and followed the seagull.

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Contact Susan at:

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Susan Vittitow Mark co-blogs Writing Wyoming with Lynn G. Carlson.

Window Pains

Inspired by The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin, 1894.

“Darling, Mr. Crawford and his family will be coming to dinner tomorrow. Frank and I have much to discuss over the railroad so I will need you to entertain Mrs. Crawford and their children…” Brently whipped the newspaper he was holding in an attempt to straighten out the pages, making them stand at attention and hiding his face.

“Tomorrow? I have my women’s meeting tomorrow, Brently. It’s the same every week. I cannot miss it.” Louise stood beside the breakfast table, coffee pot in hand, her beige apron protecting her floral print dress.

“Skip it. Why you need to attend a women’s meeting each week is beyond me. What do you meet about? Stitching and floral arrangements? It can wait. I need you here. I need your support. Is not your family more important than some meeting? Besides, seeing Nancy with the children will be good practice for you.” He turned a page.

Frustration bubbled beneath the cage of Louise’s chest. A cage she felt tightening around her with every breath. “No, dear husband…” she nearly choked on the words. “Stitching and floral arrangements are not on the agenda. We have a very prominent woman of science coming to speak to us about her research into something called radium. She’s traveled a very long way to meet with us.”

“A woman of science? Your time is better spent focusing on a woman of the home and Mrs. Crawford can help you with that. There’s the end of it.” He peeked over the newspaper. “We’ll be dining at our usual time.”

That was the end of it. She swallowed hard, poured a warming up of his coffee, and turned on her heels to return the pot to the sideboard. Each hand gripped the lace doily as she leaned over the table and stared out the window. Outside a mother dressed in the season’s finest fashion walked down the cement sidewalk along ahead of her son, a bouncing young boy, and his caretaker. The mother’s posture was erect, almost leaning forward, as she propelled the group on toward the park just one more block away. The Mallards lived on a corner lot which afforded them a large view of the square on one side of the house and the beginning of their neighborhood on the other. Her gardens were well manicured and the roses just beginning to bloom in their fullest glory. The roses had been his idea, something to occupy her time while they waited for children to come and do the same. Her eyes followed the mother and the nanny. They lowered when they met the boy. She was not entirely sure she even wanted children, but it was what was expected of her and so she must try and embrace the idea.

When she married into the Mallard family she knew the contract she had signed. Wealth and comfort in exchange for a well-managed home and children. Always this obligation lingered in the back of her mind. It had not been a hard decision to marry the handsome and charming Brently Mallard, in fact, it was the most logical decision she had ever made in her life. She knew from where she came and the light stock of her family’s breeding so she doubly knew the good fortune she had when she was born with a pleasing face, calming demeanor, and well-shaped figure. It was why he married her, for her presentation. Not for her mind or her dreams, though he met her at University, but her ability to stand firmly at his side as his loyal and beautiful wife. A showpiece like any other figurine on their parlor mantel. It was a gift, then, that her husband had turned out to be as gentle as he was wealthy and though ignorantly resistant to her aspirations as a human being, he treated her more kindly than any of the other husbands treated their wives, her friends.

The women’s group was a godsend, a refuge for the babbling thoughts which raged within her mind daily. A place to knock around ideas about a woman’s role in the world, her ability to enact change, her eventual rights recognized by Congress through Suffrage. It was all too much for her in the beginning, but after her first meeting she was hooked completely and actively sought out the presence of such forward thinking, brave women. Women who were free in spirit, though chained to their homes. Together, in their small community of thirteen, they had fundraised scholarships for future women to attend colleges reserved for men. Together, they had made small ripples in their city to change the dialogue of a woman’s worth. Small changes, but changes nonetheless. It gave her power and courage.

Oh, to be a woman such as the inspirational Miss Curie! A woman not caged by the confines of marriage or restricted by her gender. To explore the inner depths of her interests which on the surface were manly, but which’s depths spoke out to all humanity. It took months of planning to curate her visit to Louise’s women’s group as Louise, the project’s spearhead, well knew. And she was going to miss it entirely. She held a duty to her husband first, herself second… and one day to children who would usurp her second place status to the bottom of the line.

Her eyes cleared of the misty fog which had unwittingly rolled in. The mother, her son, and his nanny had progressed down the tree lined pathway, leaving her gazing out over barren streets.

“Anything worth noting out there?” His remark came across sarcastic, but kind.

“Nothing, dear. Dinner tomorrow. We’ll be ready for you at six.”

Communication

"You have a lot of nerve, kid." I couldn't be certain, but that puff of air half resembled a laugh.

He sat hunched over, a repugnant smirk on his face as I watched him from across the steel table watching the guard pacing in the corner. All the glory I knew in him was stripped down from fur collars and patent shoes to a white and black striped jump suit and a number for a name. He scanned the room before his glance returned to me. His hand rubbed his chest above his heart where the bullet that sent him to the soggy boards of the dock once held a temporary home.

"Should it surprise you very much?" I lit a cigarette and blew a wispy stream of smoke up and away from the table.

"You're your father's daughter, I tell you that much, kid. You wear your fox lined gloves and white woolen coat into this filthy place like the dirt can't touch ya. Nevermind the reason you're here and, for that matter, the reason I'm here." He chuckled, hands resting on the table top face down. The guards want to see his hands, they want to see mine. I can feel their eyes watching us, roving over my pin curled hair, my chiffon, my ankles. "You're a class act, you, wearing the clothes that were paid for by what put me in this place, my new gray palace."

"I have a conscience, papa, but that'll never trump a girl's sense of fashion." I smiled. "Why'd you bring me out here all this way? I've got stories to write, a mess to clean up, and a reputation to preserve. Plus, the damp isn't good for my complexion."

"I needed to see something beautiful. I'm surrounded by these ugly mugs," he gestured over his shoulder to the other men in the room, "and it's driving me insane. You tell your mother yet?"

"She reads the paper, pops. She knows. Who do you think's living in your house downtown? She moved in the day your trial closed. Says you owe it to her.."

He grumbled out a laugh and smacked the table top with the open palm of his hand. "Ha! That woman, she's probably right. The guts in that one. I never should have left her, you know that?"

"Yeah, papa, I know."

"Still, it don't sting as much as it would have. You don't strike me as the Temperance type. None of that holy roller, save the family stuff was ever in you."

"You're right, I'm not. Never was and won't be. The drink might be poison, but it's a man's right to kill himself with it if he wants to..."

"Then why the hell am I here, Frankie?" His eyes bulged out, his lips clasped tightly together.

"A man has the right, pops, but the law, albeit wrong, must always win otherwise we all go down. Give it time, the law will change. The people won't stand for it."

"Christ, Frankie. You're an optimist. My guys hassling ya?" He leaned back.

"A few broken windows to put on a good show, but nothing lately. Theo's taken over, so I hear. I can't finger him yet, but I'm working on it."

A bell rang above us and the other women let out a harmonious sigh. I stood to leave and with me he too rose. A tasteful hug, the loving embrace between a father and his traitorous daughter. "Don't worry about it, kid, we're square."

Outside the gates, in the freshest air Chicago can muster, a cab was waiting to take me back to my newly minted office at the Tribune. I lit a fresh cigarette, got into the car, and draped the fur blanket across my lap. Fall had broken into winter overnight and the drive uptown was long. The weight of the blanket pushed something sharp into my hip.

There, inside my coat pocket, a letter addressed to Theo in my father's scrawl.

Bastard.

Belts and Feathers

They named her Francis the day she entered into their home. A lost and wounded woman forgetful of her nature, name, and needs. They named her Francis for the way her face drooped to the side like the monks of Franciscan art, their heads tilted downward inspecting their inner depths as if their ears were bent to the calling of the Lord and so she too strove to hear it. This art littered their hallways - dark caverns of ancient stone floors and molding wood walls - and filled their minds like a daily bread loaded with reminders of sacrifice and perseverance. Solemn and quiet stirred throughout the still house. The shuffling of habits brushing slate tile under the murmurs of unconscious prayer.

Francis was not their first visitor to slip in through the black shall of night, her demon deliverance a quiet and common affair turned ritual as they traded her damp clothing for dry woolens and blessed her with holy waters. Her head would rest on down pillows that night and, like so many others, would stir no more.

Pigtails

On a backdrop of war and tyranny the laughter of a child slips through to the aging cracks of my consciousness. With brown eyes bulging out, head tilt back, and the tip of her tongue pressed up against her nose she burst forth with magical energy that sent shocks of life back into bones I not so long ago thought crushed.

There was a war raging, hadn't she heard?

In her blue dress and pigtails she danced on mortared soil. Her stage and curtains market by the yellow sheets of her mother's once fine house hanging from wires. And though I was not one of them, my desert tanned skin pale to their milk chocolate complexion, so careful were they to tend my wounds that every kiss that girl placed on my hand, my forehead made each scar worth the burden it carried when it was earned.

If ever, in my years to come, I wonder why I fought; if ever, in those years ahead, I miss my limbs too much, I will remember her song as she collected burnt flowers and the sweetness which followed when she would bow her head.

Inspired by: Photo

Uncharted Woman

She wrapped the columns of her dreadlocks, silvered brown and black, around her neck casting them over her shoulder like a shall meant to keep out the cold. Her hand a pin locking them in place against her breast. Through the buzz of summer's heat, over the stillness of a barren desert she hummed to life the story woven between the wrinkles on her hands, along her lips, around her eyes. She was a wanderer. A mystic. A woman without a home, but home in all the world's shade, a queen at table when met with an oasis.

Her eyes remained closed. The white and red striped paint dried and cracked when her dark, bushy eyebrows rose and the creases of her face shifted from tension to elation. A laughter from deep in her belly rumbled out across the distance between us and into my own soul where a pensive coldness used to reside. She was a wanderer. A mystic. A woman whose voice rocked the heavens into streaming tears of rain. Where her feet touched, beneath her very soles, grew a life lush and green. It was the magic of her people, the earthliness of her spirit which urged into action the alien plains of sand and wind. Within her sphere, though surrounded by chaos and perpetual change, she stood unmoved. Her feet deeply rooted in the fine sand, her body solid as a mountain.

In a single breath she unlocked the secrets of the world and when she inhaled the light of the sun flooded her body leaving only the night's sky above and the flickering brilliance of a painted black canvas. I stood before her lost, but found. Eager, but at ease. Locked in a communion with nature.

She was a wanderer. A mystic. She was my mother. My guide. She was everything, everywhere, and when I focused too closely on the lines of her face, the color of her lips, the strands of hair which danced in the breeze her image would float away and disappear.

She was a wanderer. A mystic.

Click HERE to see the image which inspired this piece.

Spotlight: Last Bus To The Cemetery Gates by T.K. Geering

Julianne was waiting in the queue for the last bus at Strangling Road. It was late and would probably be full, but if you were lucky you could strap hang, until the bus terminated by the Cemetery gates.

The locals had renamed the road when a young girl had been held at knifepoint, and fatally stabbed. Several weeks later it happened again but this time there had been other marks, which had been unaccounted for.

She began to pass the time with a young fella in front of her.

“Late again as usual and it’s started to rain!”

The man didn’t seem to want to talk, and pulled up the collar of his bomber jacket to stop the fine drizzle cascading down his neck. His dark hooded eyes were hidden under his black baseball cap. Pushing his hands into the jacket pockets he looked gloomily into the distance for the bus. Julianne was a bit slighted. She was quite a looker and dressed the part. Albeit on the pale side rarely did she have to force men to talk to her. She tried again …

“Any idea what time the bus is due sweetie?”

“Nope!”

“Got a light for my smoke?” She asked removing one from the squashed packet she fished out of her coat.

Silently he took out his lighter and flicked it into action.

She bent down to light up inhaling deeply. Looking straight into his eyes she said,

“Talkative ain’tcha.”

He didn’t want to talk; his latest had just given him the elbow in favour of his best mate. Aggression crept over him. He hated women who pissed him off, but he could talk the talk no problem. He would scare her shitless. He’d seen her several times before waiting for the bus. Flaunting it and putting herself on offer to any takers…

“So, you go all the way then?” He asked suggestively.

Woah that’s a turn around!

“As far as it takes us” she smiled up at him.

Leaning in closer he put his arm loosely around her shoulders to gauge her reaction. She responded by putting her arm around his waist and looking up into his dark eyes she closed the gap between them.

“How about we walk to the cemetery gates instead of catching the bus? It’s bound to be full and it should only take us about ten minutes if we take a short cut I know down the back of Strangling Road.” He suggested.

Julianne thought about it for a moment. It had stopped drizzling now but the bus still wasn’t in sight.

“Ok, why not? What’s your name by the way?”

“Raymond, but most of my friends at work call me Ray.”

“I’m Julianne. What d’ya do for work then Ray?” she asked making conversation.

“I’m a trainee butcher and this last few weeks I’ve been learning how to cut meat. Some of those knives are that sharp I sliced through a side of beef in one cut,” he said looking for respect.

She gave it to him.

“Wow that’s awesome Ray” and for an extra incentive she squeezed his waist, which pleased him.

“This is the shortcut I was telling you about. It’s just past these bushes here.”

As they walked along the path shielded by the trees they approached a rough bit of scrubland. He stopped and roughly kissed her with his eyes open enabling him to take a quick look around. He then pushed her to the ground at the same time palming his knife.

Quick as a flash she was on top of him. Drawing back her lips, Julianne exposed a pair of fangs and sank her teeth into his neck. As she drank greedily he let out screams of horror and passed into oblivion. Taking the dropped knife she stabbed him viciously.

“Lets see how you like being stabbed through the heart.” she added venomously through her bloody fangs.  

As Julianne stood up, her black wings slowly materialised. Taking flight into the midnight sky she slowly glided towards the cemetery gates. Julianne needed to rest up and where better than here. Satiated for the moment she would be ready to take the return bus back to Strangling Road tomorrow night.

~o0o~

© T K Geering 2012

You can find more of Geering's work on her website, Tirgearr Publishing, Twitter, and Facebook! 

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