Think You Remember

Whatever It Is That You Think You Remember

by

Think You Remember

Memory is fallible. You tend to treat it like it’s not, but you’re wrong. It’s pliable, suggestable, sometimes even amorphous. What really happens and what you remember happening – those are often completely separate things.

Here’s an example:

You wake up covered in blood and assume you got into a fight the night before, but your mind is blank, and when you turn the phone camera to see your face, there’s no sign of bruising. Even your knuckles are pain-free. But there’s blood flowing from your neck. Weird.

You close your eyes, try to think. Where were you last night? You swallow, and your saliva tastes like old blood and stale beer. Gross! But then you recall…

You were at a bar. You met a woman. She had blonde hair. She looked vaguely familiar, but you couldn’t place her, until…

“Paul? Oh my god, how are you?” Her enthusiastic greeting was met by your blank stare.

“Do I… know you?”

“I’m Sam’s sister,” she said. “Don’t you remember? I used to try to tag along whenever you and Sam went to the movies.”

Sam was a friend from childhood. Every Saturday, they’d ride their bikes to the dollar theatre to see second-run movies and gorge themselves on junk food. But he didn’t remember a sister, until…

“I had a pink bike with streamers.” The woman – Sam’s sister – was still talking. “With this really tinny bell and you guys hated it. You told me I could come to the movies if I kept up, but…”

“… but you never did.” The memory was there as if it had been implanted. “We’d kill ourselves trying to outrace you, and you almost caught up once.” You paused. “Your hair was darker then, wasn’t it.”

“So, you do remember me!”

“Sure,” you say. And you realize that an age gap of three years when she was nine and you were twelve was an unbridgeable chasm, but now that you’re thirty-one, a three-year difference is nothing. “Can I buy you a drink?” you offer.

“Do you buy drinks for a lot of women?”

“Hardly ever,” you say. “But you’re Sam’s sister.”

You spent the night drinking and telling stories about Sam. “I haven’t seen him in years,” you said, trying to recall the last time you even called him. “He moved around a lot. He’s somewhere back east, isn’t he? New York? Or…?”

“Pennsylvania,” she answered. And you nod. Because you’re suddenly quite certain there’s a postcard of Liberty Hall on your fridge with Sam’s newest address.

The evening flew by. The drinks flew faster. You aren’t typically the kind who drinks to get drunk, but somehow you’d stopped keeping track. You were surprised when the bartender announced the last call.

“I should go,” you told her, “Can I give you a lift somewhere?”

“I’m good,” she said. But when you stumble at the curb, she pulled the keys from your hand. “I guess I’m giving you a lift. Where do you live?”

You don’t recall the drive. You can’t remember how she got you up the stairs to your apartment. But you remember her voice in your ear. “Invite me in,” she’d said, a faint rasp coloring her tone. Had that been there before?

The hazy image of undressing comes back to you. Your skin was hot and hers was cool. You kept reaching for the light switches, and she kept preventing it. “Darkness is better,” she said.

You remember her pushing you backwards onto your bed, and you feel the echo of her weight on top of you. You reached for her face, to pull her closer for a kiss, but she dodged and got your neck.

(Your neck where the blood is coming from.)

“She bit me,” you remember with a start. “Holy fuck, she was a vampire.” You say the words out loud even though your apartment is empty. “Wait, that’s not even possible.”

You have a sudden urge to call your friend Sam and ask him if he knew his sister was a vampire.

Except… you’re pretty certain Sam never had a sister, that the girl with the pink bike was some other kid on your street, that there was no postcard from Pennsylvania stuck to your fridge with a Domino’s Pizza magnet.

Your phone chirps. An incoming text from an unknown number. A single word. “Forget.”

You move to the bathroom and start the shower. By the time your hot piss hits the cold water of the toilet, you only remember that you met a woman in a bar and had some drinks.

By the time you emerge from the shower, all traces of blood down the drain, you’ll be absolutely sure that you cut your neck shaving.

 

“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, or whatever it is that you think you remember?” –  Elizabeth Loftus

 

 

Photo credit: PkProect
Operation

Operation

by

Operation

She always arranged her tools before she began any operation. Just as in an any operating theater, it was important to be able to lay your hand on the correct instrument without looking, without thinking. Her young assistant was inexperienced and didn’t always make the right choice, so it was best to be able to direct her to the proper implement.

The operating table had been draped in protective material designed to collect any leaking fluids or stray bits of flesh, and the lighting had been adjusted to illuminate the field with no confusing shadows.

Her hands were already clean, so she drew one glove and then another over her fingers, and down around her wrists. The girl across the table had already done the same, and, she noted approvingly, her long hair had been tucked into a cotton cap. Good.

The patient was already in place, with glistening skin ready to be pierced by a blade. They had marked the surgical site to ensure no mistakes would be made.

“Wait,” she said. “Something’s missing.”

“I forgot to start the music!” Her assistant had the decency to look embarrassed. The girl gave an order to Alexa and the first notes of Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Danse Macabre” wafted from the speaker system, the opening monotone chime seeming very like a countdown clock.

“No, there’s something else.” She surveyed the scene, and then smiled as realization dawned. She left the area for a moment and returned with metal container. “The collection bowl was missed,” she explained, placing the thing in position. One more confirming look, and then, “Alright, now we’re ready.”

“I hope this goes well,” her assistant said. “Last time we messed up the mouth, and it really wasn’t pretty.”

“We’ll be fine,” she said. “Hand me the first blade.” The girl’s small hand placed the serrated knife into her larger one. “Making the first incision now.”

The blade pierced the patient’s skin and fluid oozed out. Her assistant wiped it away with a paper towel and the two shared a look of glee.

“Shall we continue?” she asked, and when the girl nodded her approval, she made the second cut, announcing, “Alright, Jack! Time for your lobotomy!”

Mother and daughter giggled together. Pumpkin carving had never been more fun.

la_tlanchana_by_andro_san12_df23o87-414w-2x

Tlanchana

by

la_tlanchana_by_andro_san12_df23o87-414w-2xThe Mother of Water has many moods and many forms.

When she is sad or angry, her tears fill the basin of the lake near our home, and the power of her emotion fuels wicked storms. The fishermen and sailors beg her for mercy, but she is the snake mother then, and she whips her tail in agitation. The men know to remain ashore and use the time to sit near the fire repairing their nets or stitching new sails.

They tell stories of my mother’s worst tantrums, but their voices are full of respect in equal measures as the fear.

“I remember,” the oldest man says, “that when conquerors tried to cross the lake and take our village, the Water-Mother used her snake tail to whip their weapons from their hands and push their ships back with her well-placed waves.”

When my mother is feeling happy, the skies reflect the bright blue of her eyes, and the waters in the lake are calm. She takes a fish-tail then, swimming alongside the fishing boats and guiding them toward the best catch.

She likes to play with the children on these days, and while I was not the first or the last to wrap my young arms around her neck and let her carry me over and under the surface, coming up for air always at the exact right moment, I am the one who is never afraid.

“The Water-Mother is our protector,” the other mothers tell their children. “And it is an honor to be invited to swim with her.”

Sometimes, though, the Mother of Water must take human form, trading tail for legs, and walking on the land. She did this once to find a mate, and that’s how I was made, but she also comes to shore whenever one of the elders passes out of this life.

In those times her tears are salty, and she cries them over the graves of those who have left. She wraps her silky hair around herself like a cloak and keeps vigil over the bones of the dead.

The old grannies cook for her at those times and leave pots of food and jugs of water to sustain her while she sits in silence. She might sit for two nights or five, or even seven, but when she leaves, it always seems she takes our collective grief away with her.

“Death is part of life,” she reminds us, as she returns to the lake.

Unlike the other girls in our village, the Mother of Water is also my mother of blood. When I am older, she tells me in her voice that ripples like a stream, I will learn to shift my form, to take on the snake tail when I must be fierce and the fish tail when I am being playful, and legs when I am ready for love.

Sometimes she visits in her human form, just to spend time with us.

“Did you love my father?” I ask her.

“I did,” she says. “I do,” she adds.

And she walks on legs into the candlelit depths of our house and shares her joy with the man who raises me. When she departs after those times, her eyes are dry, but my father’s face is wet with tears, and so is mine.

The Mother of Water has many moods and many forms, but in every one, she protects those of us she calls her own.

Art credit: Andro-san12
1730 - Dreams

The Warehouse of Lost Dreams

by

1730 - Dreams

 

“So, it’s your first night at the warehouse, huh, kid?” The paunchy older man with the graying whiskers and faded denim overalls asked. His tone was conversational. His smile was sincere. “Lemme guess… you’re putting yourself through college?”

“I am,” I said. My own coveralls were new, the indigo still deep and dark, with creases from where they’d been folded in the package. With self-deprecating humor, I said, “I’m on the six-year plan.”

“Better six years than no years,” my mentor said. “I’m Maury; lemme show you around.”

“Sure,” I said.

“As a custodian you need to know the sorting policy. Here, on the first aisle are the Childhood Fantasies… things kids grow out of before they turn ten.”

“Like being an astronaut?”

“More like being a spaceship captain, although we still get a lot of firefighters, lion tamers, and superheroes.” Maury shakes his head. “Some of those are messy – the kids who tried flying before they gave up on the idea… their bodies usually didn’t suffer much, but those dreams literally went splat! That’s why we cover up.”

“I was wondering,” I said. “What’s next?”

“Well, this next section, it’s the dreams that are set aside when we’re coming of age.” He reaches into a bin and retrieves a handful of pointe shoes, dangling from faded pink ribbons. “Lots of ballerinas in this section, and tap dancers, but also baseball and soccer players. These are the sports and arts that kids give up when they head off to college.”

“Because their tastes change?” I ask.

“Some of them.” Maury returns the ballet shoes to the bin, picks up a soccer ball and bins it, and then moves a unicycle into a bike rack. “Others… they just didn’t have time, or they couldn’t afford to keep up after high school.” He stops, turns to face me, and stares for a long moment. “Your clarinet is three over, fourth shelf,” he says.

“How did you know about that?”

Maury favors me with a sympathetic smile. “You work here long enough, and you start to pick up on things.”

“How long have you been working here?” I ask.

“A long time,” he answers vaguely.

I follow him up and down a few more aisles until we reach a bin of hard hats. “Put this on,” he says, handing me a yellow one. He places an orange one over his buzz-cut hair. “This section can be dangerous.”

We enter a warehouse aisle that has bits of things – dolls, china, musical instruments, paint brushes, running shoes… riding saddles and medical texts.

“Broken dreams?” I guess aloud.

“Yup,” Maury answers. “Next aisle isn’t dangerous, but it might make you a little sad…”

“Oh?”

But he doesn’t need to explain. One side of the aisle is bins full of college sweatshirts and corporate IDs. I gulp, knowing that if I’m not careful my own future could end up folded and graying here. The other side of the aisle, though, is different. Smaller bins. Engagement rings. Wedding bands. Baby shoes.

“Oh,” I manage to say, since Maury seems to expect a reaction of some kind. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” he answers, as if we’ve just had a profound conversation. And maybe we have. It just didn’t involve a ton of words. “C’mon.”

More rows, some are things I recognize, some are poorly lit, and the shapes are abstract and indistinct. But there’s a warm light emanating from the very furthest aisle, and here’s where we find rows of easels, fishing poles, knitting supplies, baking equipment.

“This stuff doesn’t seem like it’s lost or broken,” I say.

“No. This… this is where I come when the rest of it gets too much. This is the place where later-in-life dreams are protected until they’re ready to be used. Most of these dreamers are grandparents, and they’re either planning retirement activities or embracing hobbies to share with their grandchildren.

“Oh… wow.”

“It’s not good to linger too long,” Maury says quietly. “Maybe I’ve come here too many times.” He picks up one of the fishing poles. “Work hard, while you’re here, kid,” he says. I notice that his hard hat is now a canvas one with fishing lures attached to it. Like that guy from the TV show M*A*S*H.

“I don’t understand,” I say.

“Don’t let go of your dream,” he continues. “Six years, even seven, you finish college.”

“I won’t,” I say. “I mean, I will. I’ll finish.”

Maury turns away from me and walks down toward the brightest part of the light. I take two steps to follow him, but then there’s a loud alarm from somewhere above me, and a computer voice announces “Incoming shipment. Custodian, please report to the loading dock.”

I turn toward the place where I came in, which is suddenly only a few feet from me, instead of rows and rows away. It’s my first night at the Warehouse of Lost Dreams, but it won’t be my last.

Art credit: Max Steksov

 

 

Itchy by adiruch

Itchy

by

It was her face that had attracted him, her profile picture on the dating app. But it was her fingers that really caught his attention. They were long, perfect for the piano her bio said she played, and tipped with pink-painted nails that were slightly sharp. Those nails and the expression in her green eyes promised a host of wicked delights.

He swiped right, sent a note, started the kind of textual flirting that passes for courtship in the twenty-first century. They met for drinks. He ordered a beer, and she had a pink cocktail that lingered on her lips when they kissed. She tickled his palm with her nails and the shivery feeling left him wanting – no, needing – more.

Itchy by adiruch

He was charming. She was willing. He left her bed at three the next morning with the feeling of her nails on his skin and an empty promise dripping from his tongue. “I’ll call you.”

Three days later he hasn’t called. It’s not that he didn’t have fun, but that he knows he could do better.

On the fourth day, she texts him, but he doesn’t answer.

She texts him a few more times, but he doesn’t respond. She’s too clingy, he decides, even if her nails were exquisite.

Two weeks after their date, he’s in the same bar with another woman, one who sips bourbon, and he sees her across the room. She’s with a group of friends, but their eyes lock. She mouths a single word that he can’t understand. Bitchy, maybe? Whatever. The bourbon-sipping blonde squeezes his thigh with her hand.

“Let’s get out of here,” she says.

He’s too glad to agree.

But he can feel the other woman’s eyes follow him out, and the memory of her fingernails raking his naked back is suddenly fresh in his mind. “Ohhh.”

“Hmm?” asks his date.

“Nothing.”

His right shoulder blade is itchy, and he reaches backwards to scratch it, but the spot moves just out of his reach.

By the time they reach his apartment, he’s squirming in his clothes.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

“I’m fine. I’m just… itchy.”

“Want me to scratch your back?”

“God, yes.”

With him shirtless in his living room, she tries to alleviate his itch, but it seems that with every stroke of her short nails the feeling only gets worse. “Is there something there?” he asks. “On my back? A bite? A rash?”

“No, nothing.”

The itching is increasing. He can’t stop scratching long enough to kiss her again let alone get it up so they can do more. She leaves without promising to call.

He didn’t expect her to.

He tries rubbing his back against the rough stucco of the wall outside his bedroom, where the hallway forms a corner, then tries the door frame itself. But his skin demands more.

He tries a cold shower, uses his back scrubber with as much pressure as he can muster. But the water seems to spread the itch.

He swallows a couple of Benadryl and tries to sleep, but his skin is on fire, and he ends up wired and wooly, using object after object – a wire hanger, an old toothbrush, a vegetable brush, the closed blades of his kitchen shears – in vain attempts to alleviate the itching.

Morning finds him naked and shaking, trying to reach the spot between his rib and shoulder with the blade of a carving knife, passing the edge sideways across his burning skin while he waits on hold for the advice nurse his insurance provides.

“Try a moisturizing lotion,” she suggests, “or an ice massage.”

Neither suggestion considers the fact that he can’t reach the infernal itch.

He calls out sick, fills his tub with ice, lies in it until his skin is blue and thinks relief has finally come. But when he’s warm again the itching returns.

He flips channels on the television to distract himself, landing on an ad for power tools. A belt sander would be perfect, he thinks, except there’s no way to make it reach the spot.

He takes more Benadryl and chases it with a healthy swig of vodka.

* * * * *

He spends three days in a near-coma induced by alcohol and antihistamines. He’s given up on the carving knife and tried a hand saw. He’s sure the teeth are drawing blood because he can feel fluid oozing down his back, and it’s definitely not sweat.

He wonders if he could use an x-acto knife to excise the spot. He calls his buddy from work to ask for help. The friend arrives with gauze, alcohol, a couple of knives, and – oddly – a role of sage and a Bic lighter.

“What’s that for?” he asks.

“In case a demon caused the itching. We can smoke it out.”

“Will that work?”

“No idea. It can’t hurt.”

But the smoke just sets off the fire alarm.

“Just cut it…” he begs. “Please. Just slice it away.”

“Here?” his buddy asks pressing under his shoulder blade.

“Lower.”

“Here?”

“More to the left. No – higher – no, down and to the right. No – FUCK!”

“Maybe,” his buddy said, “You should tell me exactly how this happened.”

And so, he explains about how he saw the girl he’d ghosted when he was out on a date with someone else, and she’d mouthed “bitchy” at him.

“Bitchy?”

“Well, I thought it was at the time. Now I’m thinking she said itchy.”

“She cursed you.”

“You think?”  His friend is silent. “Sorry,” he says.

“We’re cool,” his buddy answers. “I think…. I think maybe it’s not me you need to be apologizing to, anyway. I think you have to apologize to the woman who did this.”

“Seriously.”

“That or scratch yourself to death. Your back already looks a lot like hamburger.”

“Damn.”

“Sorry I couldn’t help.”

* * * * *

It’s another two days of torment before he can make himself contact her. He hasn’t slept but he’s figured out how to attach sandpaper to a broom handle to scratch more. It comes back bloodier every time, but he doesn’t care. Anything to stop the itching for a few seconds.

He’s taking enough antihistamine and alcohol that while he doesn’t sleep, he does enter a sort of altered state where he can see her face and feel her fingernails on other parts of his body. It’s when the itching moves to his balls that he caves and texts her.

“I think maybe I owe you an apology,” texts.

Her response comes, several hours later, in the form of a question. “You think or you know? You promised to call,” she adds. “Keep your promise.”

He almost throws his phone across the room, but the itching is getting worse again. Scratching his crotch with one hand, he keys in her number with the other.

“This is Cat.” Was her voice always that smooth?

“Hello, Cat. This is Dave, from… from the other night. I’m sorry I didn’t call. It was really rude of me.”

“Yes, it was. I wasn’t expecting a lifetime commitment, but a call telling me you didn’t think we were a match would have been the adult thing to do.”

“I guess it was just easier to blow you off and move on.”

“Easier for you, you mean.” Her tone was calm when she had every right to be mean or petty. “Not so easy to be the one waiting for a call that never comes.”

“I never thought of it that way,” he admitted.

“No, you just rely on your charm and lack of conscience. That’s what the itching is by the way. It’s your conscience trying to get your attention. It doesn’t usually take this long though.”

“I guess I’m particularly obtuse.”

“I guess you are.”

“Can you… make it stop… please.”

She laughs into his ear. “Haven’t you realized? It already has.”

He goes quiet, forcing himself to feel… and she’s right… there’s no more itching. There can’t be. Because he’s scratched away every last nerve on his body.

His phone falls to the floor, and his body follows soon after.

 

Photo credit: adiruch

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sleepless

Sleepless (a remix of the Endymion myth)

by

The first time she saw him, she knew. She needed him to pose for her. She’d put him on film. On canvas. Maybe even in stone, though sculpting wasn’t really her forte.

He was too beautiful not to enshrine that way – too handsome for words. Sitting on the library steps with his guitar, the case open at his feet he exuded the quintessence of youth, confidence, and sex appeal.

He’d already collected several handfuls of coins and a few bills, and it was barely ten-thirty in the morning. This did not surprise her.

Sleepless

If he were still there when her class was over, she thought, she would introduce herself. Gauge his interest in modeling. As she didn’t have time for even a ‘hello’ right then, she dropped a twenty in the guitar case, and mirrored his grateful smile as she moved beyond him.

The art room was on the third floor of the library building, overlooking the front steps. She could hear the faint notes from his guitar through the open window. They were doing abstracts that week.
“Here’s today’s challenge,” she told the group of first-year students. “Try to depict music through painting.”

After the expected questions about the kind of music and if she meant actual notes or just how music made them feel, questions she’d been fielding for centuries, it seemed, she took up her own notebook and sketched him from memory. It was a decent likeness, but it didn’t do enough justice to his real beauty. If nothing else, she had to see him again.

The steps were empty when she left the building at the end of her day.

But she couldn’t get him out of her mind. She remembered the soft, dark, chocolate of his curly hair, the startling blue of his eyes, and the way his lips formed a perfect, kissable bow. She recalled long, elegant fingers plucking the strings of his acoustic instrument and the definition of his chest beneath the tight T-shirt he’d been wearing.

Every night, she drew him, the details shifting as her memory faded.

Her obsession, however, did not fade. Several weeks after she first saw him on the steps, she caught his image – badly photographed – on a flyer for a local club. She ripped it off the bulletin board and went home to take her first real shower in weeks.

The club was dark and close. The neighborhood was typically seedy. The crowd was almost entirely students, but not, as she’d expected, almost entirely female. She got a glass of wine from the bar – slightly better than the two-buck chuck that had been her mainstay when she was an undergrad – and took a seat in the second row of tables.

The young folk around her sang with him on the choruses, but she was silent, watching him. Memorizing him. During his last song, their eyes met, and she made a gesture, which he answered with a nod. After the show, they met in the alley behind the bar.

“You’re the art lady right? I’ve seen your stuff in the university gallery. I liked it.” His words were casual, but the expression on his face was anything but.

She smiled a slow, seductive smile, and pitched her voice low. “I’m going to make you immortal,” she said, if you let me.”

He kissed her with his perfect mouth.

She took him home to do a lot more than kissing.

She woke before him and used the time to drink in all the details that had begun to seep from her mind. She ran her fingers over his bare skin, memorizing the textures. She leaned over him and inhaled his scent.

She never asked his name. Nor he hers. It didn’t seem to matter.

Heady from sex and the need to truly capture him – perfectly this time – she crept from the bed leaving him in deep sleep. She skipped the sketches, went directly to the canvas. He slept the clock around and she kept painting the whole time.

It became their routine. He played in different bars every night, and she went with him. They went back to her place after, and she painted while he slept.

His mornings came later and later, and her nights grew shorter and shorter.

She was with her nameless musician in her bed and still with him in front of her easel when she crawled out of the covers. She started a second painting, then a third. She stopped going to his gigs – he played for her when he came back every night.

She couldn’t get the paintings right. But she continued to try. She made cups of tea but set them aside to correct a line that was too dark or a strand of hair that wasn’t in the right place, only to pick them up later to find the liquid within cold and bitter. It can’t have been that long… she thought, padding to the kitchen to make another cup.

Her canvases piled up, and when she was out of stretched canvas she pulled the photographs off the wall and started painting him directly on the cracked plaster. She twisted her hair into a messy bun and didn’t even try to scrub the paint from her skin.

When she needed to remind herself of the precise curve of his lips or the exact position of the crease above his left eyebrow, he was there in her bed, a male sleeping beauty waiting for the princess’s kiss.

She forgot to eat until she fainted from hunger. When she pulled herself off the floor she found that the fruit in her bowl had gone rotten. She found a chocolate bar and devoured it then grew giddy from the sudden rush of sugar.

The university contacted her next-of-kin – a niece who was a second-year law student. “Your aunt has missed three classes,” they said. “She didn’t call to cancel. Just stopped showing up.”

“That doesn’t sound like Aunt Lena,” the young woman answered, worry creeping into her voice. “I’ll go to her apartment.” Her boyfriend insisted on going with her.

They found the artist, cold and breathless, on the floor in front of the wall where she’d put the musician’s image. A flyer announcing his gig in a city a thousand miles away was clutched in her stiff hand. Below his image, the name she hadn’t asked for: Endymion.

When the autopsy report came back it said that Professor Selene Perez had died of exhaustion.

Photo by stasia04.
Heat Lightning

Heat Lightning

by

The sky is tight like a drum and painted in shades of gray fading from a purplish charcoal to a soft dove with bits of white. To the west, where the sun is setting, pink and orange glow through the gray, the dying embers of a summer day. There isn’t any wind, and there isn’t any chance of rain, even though the air is thick with moisture.

Heat Lightning

It’s the kind of weather that provokes lassitude.

Sitting on the porch swing, sipping lemonade, the woman and the girl watch the sky.

There’s flickering light out to the east, swaths of clouded sky lighting up and fading out like semaphore lamps, but the code they’re using isn’t Morse. It isn’t human language at all.

“Mama, are the fairies talking about us?”

The woman reaches out to her daughter and smooths a flyaway piece of hair out of the child’s face. The flickers of light seem more urgent when she’s watching them. “They want me to come back,” she says softly. “They want me to come home.”

“But you’re not going, are you?”

“No, sweet. I’m not going. Home is here with you.” But the woman can’t help it; she turns her gaze back to the sky. The light flickering there is mirrored in her eyes, as if she’s talking back to the unseen fairies. A whisp of a breeze stirs the air, whispering through the long, loose hair of the woman, and the tight braids of the little girl.

The lights fade away, and the dark creeps in and settles around them.

When the last of the sun has drained away and the stars are visible there is a low rumble. A battered red Ford pickup truck trundles to a stop on the gravel driveway. A man hops out, sees the pair on the porch and lets his lips spread into a happy grin.

He bounds up the three stairs to the porch with more energy than anyone has a right to have in the heat of summer. “Sorry I’m late,” he says. “How are my fairy princesses today?”

“Mama’s the only fairy princess,” the little girl answers. But she leaves the swing and lets the man scoop her up into his arms. “Did you have a good day, Daddy?”

“I did.” He kisses her on the nose then joins the woman on the swing, settling the girl on his lap. “And you?” he asks. “How was your day?”

The little girl understands that the question is really meant for her mother.

The woman leans toward the man, and kisses his cheek, tan from working outside, and rough with end-of-the-day beard stubble. “It was fine;” she says, but it’s not the usage of fine that women use when they really aren’t. She means it. “We’ve been watching the sky.”

Another round of flashing light illuminates the darkness in the distance. The woman seems to read the signals, to comprehend the conversation. She nods and smiles. “It won’t rain tonight,” she says. Softly. “But probably tomorrow.”

The man follows the woman’s gaze toward the eastern sky. “Heat lightning,” he says. “No rain with that. Not for us, anyway.”

“No,” the woman agrees. “It’s just the fairies talking.”

“And what’s the word from them?”

She smiles again, and this time when her eyes light up, they’re not flickering, but glowing steadily, like twin lanterns on a windowsill. “They say I can stay.”

She doesn’t add the words “for now,” but all three of them, their entire tiny family, are thinking it.

Photo by dendoktoor.
Alligator Eyes

Alligator Rain

by

Alligator Eyes

“You’ve heard of crocodile tears, right?” she asked him.

They were sitting in her truck, which was parked at the top of the lake’s grassy embankment. The headlights were on low, beaming across the water, where raindrops merged into the eye-shine of alligators.

“Yeah… why?”

“Because this is alligator rain.”

“Alligator… rain? Why? Because it’s thick and heavy?”

She grinned but shook her head. “Nope. It’s because the rolling thunder sounds like a gator bellow…” She gestured toward the water. “… and if you listen really carefully, the alligators will answer the thunder.”

“That’s beautiful… he said. “Beautiful and strange.”

Art by tanatpon13p via 123rf.com

La Vie En Rose

by

Art by tanatpon13p via 123rf.com

 

Quand il me prend dans ses bras
Qu’il me parle tout bas
Je vois la vie en rose

Another café, another ancient French song wafting out from speakers mounted above the door – why was my handler always asking me to meet in such places? And why did I always agree?

“I’m supposed to be retired,” I told him, by way of a greeting.

He nodded his head in tacit agreement, waving me into the chair opposite his. It was tall, made from faux bamboo, and featured a magenta velvet cushion. “You hate retirement,” he said, after a moment. “You miss the thrill of the chase.”

“You’re the hunter,” I reminded him. “I’m just the closer. And I have other obligations now.”

“Oh, yes. You’re the very picture of domestic bliss. How many teas have you hosted now?”

“One was actually a lunch,” I said. “And the other was a benefit for the Star Navy Office of Rescue and Extraction.”

“Ah, yes, SNORE.” He snorted the last word. “Only the Navy would come up with such an acronym for the operation that saves its citizens left on abandoned or failed colonies.”

“Renato created that unit.”

“Of course. And you’re the dutiful partner, supporting his endeavors.”

“There are worse things I could be doing,” I protested.

“There are also better things.”

A server arrived with two espresso cortados and presented one to each of us. The strong, bitter, slightly chocolaty aroma tickled my nose. I couldn’t resist tasting it, and when I did, my senses came alive. “This is real,” I said. “Not synthesized.”

“Only the best for the best,” he said.

I wanted to push the coffee away, but this man has always known me too well. I take another sip. “Flattery only gets you so far, Mart… what’s this really about?”

“Hatteras Six.”

“The prince?” One of my last gigs for Martigan’s organization had been ensuring that the prince’s marriage to a Betelgeusean princess took place.

“His father. He believes there’s a conspiracy to assassinate him and put his son on the throne, but under Syndicate control.”

“Mart – I can’t. I have a different life now. Besides, the last time I was involved in Hatteran politics, I nearly got killed.” I took another slow sip of the coffee. “Why me?”

“Because you’re the best.”

“So, you’ve said. Martigan…”

“Sasha…” He imitated my tone. Then he sighed. “Don’t you miss it? The adventure? The intrigue? Knowing that you’re changing the galaxy for good?” He paused for a second then added, “me?”

It was the final word that got me. Martigan and I had worked together for years – decades even – and you don’t have a relationship like ours without chemistry – good chemistry. But I’d fallen into the role of his protégé, and he had apparently relished being my mentor. I’d tried to seduce him once when I was much younger, and he’d been kind and gentle when he turned me down, convincing me it was just a workplace infatuation.

Over time, I’d learned to read him. I knew he’d desired me but needed my skills outside the bedroom more. I also knew he had a very particular code of honor… or decorum… that would never have let him act on his desires at the time.

“I didn’t know you felt that way,” I lied.

“Yes, you did.”

Damn him! “Yes, I did,” I agreed. “Why now?”

“Because you really are the best person for this job Sash. The prince knows you – trusts you. The princess won’t see you as a threat.”

“If I do this – ” I began.

“- I’ll give you all the support you need,” he finished my thought. “Backup, a ship, everything.”

I smiled. “If I do this, I want you.”

“As a partner? I’m a bit rusty – been behind the scenes too long.”

“No, Mart. I want you.”

“And Renato?”

“I’m sure he’ll find someone else to host his teas.”

“So, he is too normal for you!”

“No. Yes. It’s… complicated. Let’s just say, there’s more than one reason we’ve never married.”  I rose, preparing to leave. “You know my terms. You know where I’m staying or can easily find out. Let me know by twenty-two hundred hours tonight.”

He looked up at me and nodded once.

I drained the last of the coffee from my cup, and set it down on the table, then walked out of the café without looking back.

Martigan caught me at the door. I turned to face him, but he didn’t speak. He tilted my chin upward with a single finger and then kissed me. Coffee and pipe tobacco from him, coffee and lipstick from me – a match made in some cheesy dime novel from the back of beyond.

“Is that goodbye?” I asked.

“No. It’s a down payment.”

“I’ll collect the rest tonight,” I said, and continued out of the café though I tossed a final comment back at him. “I’ll still need the backup and the ship.”

The music from the speakers, a woman’s voice thick with emotion, followed me down the street.

C’est lui pour moi, moi pour lui dans la vie
Il me l’a dit, l’a juré pour la vie

* * *

Quand il me prend dans ses bras
Qu’il me parle tout bas
Je vois la vie en rose

Notes: This fic is a sequel to Allez-vous En (Go Away), and is a gift for Tek of NuttyBites.  “La Vie En Rose” was written by Édith Piaf.
File Jun 11, 10 27 00 PM

Joy in All Things (A Basil and Zoe Story)

by

Joy In All ThingsStarhaven Transit Station
02:00 hours, local time.

Two in the morning isn’t typically a busy period on a starbase, especially if that starbase is little more than an interstellar transit station in a sector populated mostly by recently admitted members of the Coalition of Aligned Worlds – members whose planets are still dealing with the kind of wars and strife that the Founding Worlds resolved centuries before.

My wrist-comm vibrates against my pulse-point and I flip up the protective cover. As expected, it’s my fiancé, Basil, calling from the C.S.S. Cousteau, his billet, and the closest thing to a permanent home either of us has at the moment.

“Zoe, I am gratified to be speaking with you in real time,” he opens. “Time delayed messages are inefficient and lack feeling.” It’s a two-d image, flat on the tiny display panel.

“No disagreement here,” I respond. “But you were the one who said I should take this gig. ‘Using theatre skills to help flood-displaced children process their trauma would be a useful way to spend your semester break,’ you said. I could be spending the next five weeks doing Shakespeare in the Park on Hunter’s Moon, where there are cafes and restaurants and cushy hotels.”

“You could,” he says, “but you enjoy helping others. And, as I believe you pointed out, the time you spend on Repostus will look good on a resume.”

“There is that,” I agree, my tone slightly rueful. “But at least on Hunter’s Moon you could visit.”

“I miss you also,” Basil says, comprehending the words that were unsaid as well as those that were, and cutting off any further whining from me in the process. “However, assuming that there are no unforeseen events while you are away, your return shuttle will rendezvous with the Cousteau in forty-one days, seven hours, and seventeen minutes.” He leaves off seconds and fractions thereof, but I refrain from commenting on that.

“See you soon,” I say with no little bit of sarcasm in my tone. But the last word becomes a yawn. “I have three more hours to kill. I’m going to find the replimat and a rest pod. I’ll send a message as soon as I’m checked in at the hostel.”

“Very good,” he says. “I love you, Zoe.”

“Love you too,” I answer, flashing him a tired smile. “Harris out.” I cut the channel and snap the copper-colored cover back down.

Two and a half hours later, I’ve napped, washed up, and obtained a café mocha from a kiosk that claims to ‘proudly serve Red Sands Coffee.’ It’s not awful, but it’s not as good as the real thing. Better than the replicator though. My luggage has been checked through, so I only have my daypack and the coffee to deal with as I make my way to the boarding lounge.

Four-thirty in the morning is busier than two o’clock was, and most of the rows of chairs are at least partly occupied. I choose a seat in the front row, next to a conservatively dressed woman who appears to be human, and about the same age as my mother.

She bids me good morning and asks if I’m waiting for the shuttle to New Zaatari, the capital city. Then she says, “You look familiar. Should I recognize you?”

I get that a lot, partly because I’m the daughter of a celebrity composer who’s a bit of a playboy, and partly because I’m engaged to the Star Navy’s only officer who is also a sentient AI, and partly because even though this gig is an unpaid externship I’m doing during the winter intersession of my senior year of university, I’ve had several paid jobs, including a tour with the Idyllwild Theater of the Stars. Translation: for someone who’s not quite twenty-two years old, I’ve been in the press a lot.

Still, I hedge. “Not necessarily.”

“You must be an aid worker then, coming to help with the survivors from the fires?”

The smaller continent on Repostus recently suffered a debilitating drought followed by terrible wildfires, and complicated by floods. It was all comparable than what had happened in California, on Earth, in the first half of the twenty-first century, but on a much wider scale.

“Sort of,” I say. “I’m here with Beyond Theater. We’re going to be working with the kids from Safirah, using theater skills to help them process.”

“Ah, so you’re on a mission! That’s worthy. I, too, am a missionary of sorts.” I open my mouth to tell her that I’m not a missionary, just an actor, and a student, but she goes on. “I travel to planets in strife and bring them the word of The One.”

I can’t help shivering. The last time I encountered someone following ‘the One,’ it was Basil’s twin leading a coalition of artificial intelligences that wanted nothing more than to eradicate all organic life from the cosmos. Never mind that organic life created them and kept the power on.

But this woman isn’t referring to Castor. Instead she was referring to the focus of a relatively recent religious movement. The old religions – Judaism, Islam, Christianity, the Cruastean Practice from the planet Chelea, and many, many more – all still exist, but religious practice has become largely personal. People no longer proselytize, and I don’t remember ever encountering an itinerant evangelist before.

“I didn’t think people still did that,” I tell her.

“I don’t know about ‘people,'” she says. “I only know about myself. Bringing news of The One’s loving kindness to the unenlightened is a personal quest. I used all my personal savings, moving from planet to planet, and when that ran out, I started working odd jobs in exchange for food and transit.”

“That seems like a lot…”

“It is, but my cause is true. If more people truly embodied The One’s teachings, the universe would be a better place.”

I notice, now, that she has a satchel full of data-flimsies, presumably holding religious tracts. She is staring at me, her face open, expectant. “The universe could use more kindness,” I say.

But what I’m thinking is that on one level I agree with her – more loving kindness is never a bad thing, as long as it comes with equal measures of acceptance and understanding. I’m also thinking that I don’t want to tell her I agree with her because she’ll assume that I’m also a follower of The One, and conventional, human, religious practices have proven challenging to mesh into my life with Basil. Not that I’m particularly devout or anything, but I grew up in a family that actually went to church on occasion, and part of me misses the community and the rituals involved.

But this inner dialogue is  actually an improvement over former versions of myself, because two or three years ago what I would have been thinking – and possibly saying aloud – is that this woman is a freaking nutcase with no life.

To her credit, she doesn’t offer me any of her data flimsies. Instead, she says that she’s also going to Safirah, to offer spiritual succor to those who need it. “So many parentless children there, now,” she says, real grief in her voice. “And so many childless parents.”

An announcement for our shuttle – it’s delayed forty-seven minutes – makes her last few words unintelligible.

Curious, and with more time to fill, I ask her, “What motivated you to do this?”

“My husband,” she shares, her voice soft, “and my son. They were both in the Navy and served during the Oligite Invasion. Both their ships were lost.”

I’d been living with my mother on the Cousteau during that war but had been with my father on Centaurus celebrating the winter holidays, and his wedding to my stepfather, at the time. I’d returned home to find my mother injured, and it had been Basil’s support that helped me through it. But I don’t tell her that. I just say, “I’m so sorry.”

“The NFS sent a counselor and a priest, and after spending time with both of them, I reconnected with the teachings of The One,” she explains. “My family was fairly religious when I was young, but I’d lost my way, as so many do.”

I’m distracted by the sight of a family with three children and a luggage pile you could build a fortress from attempting to navigate through the increasingly crowded lounge. The adults in the group are both wearing the uniform of the Coalition Medical Service. They were probably reassigned to Repostus because of the extreme need for doctors. I think about the two bags that are being routed to the shuttle for me – a privilege accorded to me because of my Navy fiancé – one of which is stuffed full of packaged chocolates and hard candies from Earth and Centaurus. My cheeks flush with embarrassment and guilt. Sure, the snacks are meant to share, but I could easily manage with far less than I brought.

My new friend follows my gaze. “Packing light is a skill taught by necessity. They should be grateful they have so much to carry.”

“I’d never thought of it that way.”

“I learned it the hard way.”

We chat for a few more minutes, and then the shuttle finally opens for boarding.

“Thank you for the conversation,” she tells me. “You will be doing a good thing, a worthy thing. It will be hard at times, but there will be moments of joy. Remember that The One teaches that it’s right to embrace joy wherever we encounter it.” And I can tell that she really means the words she’s spoken. Then she glances down at my left hand, where my engagement ring gleams against my vacation-tanned skin. “Your partner must be proud of you. Lean on that when you miss him.”

I realize that I hadn’t mentioned Basil or having a partner, and I suddenly wonder if I should be checking to see if she filched my identi-chit while we were talking. Shaking my head, I stand up, sling my pack over one shoulder and step toward the open hatchway that leads to the shuttle. It strikes me that we’d never exchanged names, and I turn back to ask for hers and offer mine, maybe see if our seats are close together, but the chair she had occupied is empty, and I don’t see her walking away.

Shrugging, I let the gate attendant scan my chit and I take my seat on the shuttle, but I can’t shake the woman from my mind, and when they close the hatch for launch, I ask the onboard attendant if anyone is missing.

“Nope, everyone’s checked in,” she says.

Basil often reminds me that the universe is full of strange things, and not all of them are massive events. I resolve to think of the evangelist as one of them. I further resolve to take her advice during these five weeks of separation from my partner: find joy in all things.

Notes: New Zaatari is named after a city in Jordan, where Clowns Without Borders spent time with Syrian refugees. Safirah is named after a city in Syria. This piece was partly inspired by their work. Thanks to Fran for naming Repostus and CJ for naming Starhaven.