He waves at me with that sawtooth smile and halloumi complexion, and I swoon just like the last time (last guy). My bus leaving in ten, but I jump up and squeeze past the bulky woman seated next to me, her closed-loop reusable plastic bag bulging with a thick baton of Hungarian salami, fragrant spicy olives and pungent Bryndza, Limburger, and Epoisses cheeses—she mentions meeting her beau for a picnic by the lake, him bringing the libation and the worsted wool blanket—as I zoom to the front of the bus begging the driver to let me off, and I don’t even want a refund, I just need to get off. Hiram is perplexed but willing to indulge as I force his arms open for the hug of a century, I’m squeezing so hard he issues a little cough, but I don’t let go because I think I’ve found what I’ve always been looking for and realize that I can make the Carpathian Mountains my home after all. I’ll learn to sew pretty embroidered blouses and sell them at the market, cook on a cast-iron wood stove, and who needs a Dyson anyways when sorghum grasses can work just fine to rid an earthen floor of dust. And I’ve always loved animals of all kinds, loved visiting zoos in every major city I’ve travelled to, waited in line in the oppressive heat, my tortoise shell glasses slipping down my nose and my morning’s blow-out frizzing up, to tether a slip of lettuce to a giraffe, its long neck billowing, while its thick black tongue darts in and out reaching for the tasty morsel. Happy to share my salon with a few naked-neck Turken yielding enormous fresh dark brown eggs, and in colder weather transform my dwelling into a byre, pushing aside the sofa to accommodate a bearded goat or two. And I’m banking that I can finally let loose my zaftig pudge that I keep in check huffing and puffing on the dreadmill 5-days-a-week and that freeloading guys who are married to their gym regimen and their online gaming bros will become a thing of the past. … Hiram is gripping me firm by the shoulders looking stern, not delighted, or loving as I expected, his big mitts bracing me or him I’m not sure, but I am so full of effervescence I can see he sees the potential… and that this mail-order bride might just work out. *** "Sawtooth" was published at Worthing Flash April, 2024
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During the hailstorm, we were pelted by thick crystalline balls like when my favourite necklace broke, beads dancing on the kitchen floor, and I dared you to grab me like that again; one time too many. *** "Hailstorm" was published at, Midway Journal April 2024 Image: Jackson Pollock ‘Ocean Greyness’ 1953, Guggenheim My fingers grip and coil around slender shoots as I hoist myself up into the arboreal forest like a feral animal. Tackling the steep incline, I scramble to keep up with the older boys who sprint ahead like sound waves. The mountain air is fresh, and I am invigorated, powerful, and free. Cedar, musk, and bergamot sit on my tongue smooth like suede. No one tells me what to do, where to plant my sneaker, how to alternate between my left hand and right foot. Being a forest creature has become second nature. I am marmoset, racoon, and fox. I am one with the timberland, thick with evergreen. Above me, sparrows and robins flit through the trees. I echolocate the intermittent hammering of a pileated woodpecker, its red head excavating a rotting wood stump nearby. I do not need or want guidance or encouragement. I trust my physical intuition and prowess. I am in charge of myself. This is the only place where I am. A rush of adrenalin surges as I realize I no longer hear the clambering of feet, swish of shorts, or sense warm bodies in the brush ahead. I am well beyond the network of serpentine paths surrounding the lake far below, and high up on an alpine trail gone cold. I am alone on the mountain. From my vantage point, I can just make out the dock and kayaks through the trees. Mist hovers above the beach as the morning sun is slow to burn off the dew. A haze of bulrushes and pampas grass frame the water’s edge genuflecting lightly. It is so very quiet, yet I can hear the faint cries of children playing far away; the sound carrying long and wide across the lake. I turn back to my quest. The prize is the Boy Scouts’ hideaway, hidden between the sentries of pine and towering oak. I am determined to see what earned them their master craftsman badge. I would never have told my parents what I was off to discover. I would have been held back. I press on. Let my body lead. My intuition is finely tuned, and I move like the needle of a compass. I am not afraid that I will lose my way, or that I will not find my destination. I am a homing pigeon. After close to an hour I come upon the fort. I am beyond thrilled, proud of how my body knows the way when my brain does not. There is no one here. The boys have already moved on, to where, I don’t know. I feel like an intruder. I have come upon their secret enclave, and I tread carefully, knowing this is not my domain. They probably thought I would never find my way, never discover their hideaway. I do not sit inside the fort. I know I am not wanted. I leave the way I came. For the first time I am nervous about the way I must travel. Navigating back down is not as clear to me as the way up. I descend, my knees shaky, maybe from being tired and hungry, but likely more so because my confidence has been shaken. My animal spirits gone. I am back in my place of just being a girl. *** The Story Behind the Story: This piece came out of a 2019 Kathy Fish ‘Fast Flash’ Workshop, as many inspired pieces are won’t to do. The title “Marmoset Raccoon and Fox” was coaxed onto the page with Kathy’s creative touch. And I loved it, it took the piece in a spiritual direction. This was a memory I had carried around for decades, a memory from my youth, when I aspired to be a tomboy, when I loved exploring in the forest and mountainside in the Laurentians (Quebec), and when I had some freedom to so, while my parents were focused elsewhere with their busy social lives during the summer months at our cottage by the lake. There was a group of older boys (teenagers) actively pursuing hiking, camping, and water sports, who paid no attention to us younger kids, and I was fascinated by their independence, confidence, and prowess. My peers at the time were content with playing with trucks in the sandbox, but I wanted more, I wanted to explore. So off I went. I felt so accomplished on this adventure and came back changed. No matter how infantilized and held back I was by my family, inside I knew myself at my core. At eight years old I was clear about my capacity, and my competency. That core Self is still present all these many years later. Kathy has a way of pulling these gems out. "Marmoset, Raccoon, and Fox" was published in SugarSugarSalt Magazine March 2024
They ate us out of house and home. Martha and the children would arrive in the middle of the night, Frank left behind in a drunken stupor. We would hear the Volkswagen coasting up the driveway, the engine running on empty. And after a couple of weeks, we were too. *** Pelican Beach Resort – January 3 Matteo T. In the morning, we leave our hotel room early to go down to the beach for a pre-dawn dip. The air unusually salty and sticky-sweet. The surf shorn like a crew cut. As the thin shimmer of sun settles on top of the water, we see the bodies bobbing in the foam. Blood flowing like watercolour paint. Dark Jurassic shadows weaving figure eights just below the surface. ***** Belinda S. I arrive at the beach with umbrella and blanket, floppy sun hat, and spf 60, and plop the kids in the sand with their jetson-coloured beach buckets and shovels, and we settle in aways down the shoreline, me with my beach book and a glorious view of the Belize oceanfront. Darcey screams, ‘Mommy Mommy, I see a dolphin and there’s another one.’ I don’t want to get up, we just arrived, but her shrieks are insistent. The rogue wave tossing the bodies up onto the sandbank. I only wish I had seen them first; the kids won’t easily forget this horror… ***** Bruce R. The party lasted into the early morning, the drinking and drugs flowing. They ventured down onto the beach, we could hear them singing and laughing, wading knee-deep. Soon the screams. It’s unusual for Carcharodon carcharias to hunt in shoals at night, so close to the shore, they said. The hotel called it a tsunami. The island publicity said otherwise. We left a bad review, of course. *** His body lays still, skin flaky like paperbark. How long, she wonders, placing Myrtle across his chest —the white flowers pop against the atrament-black of the forest burial ground. Lips stained dark-blue like Haskap jelly are already fading; she has stood by long enough. She stamps out her Viceroy cigarette, the tip of her shoes a muddy cattle-brown. In the distance, a pileated woodpecker jackhammers into the void; petrichor filling her lungs. And through the trees, a tiny shard of light—the secret opening of the universe-—a wisp, the colour of smoke disappearing. He walks away from the Instabank and the list falls out of his pocket. Snoopy me, I pick it up, before inserting my bank card in the machine. It’s terrifying. I’m not sure who to contact. Will the police do. Should I call my solicitor first. Maybe pick up the baby from daycare, drive to the country, make our escape before all hell breaks loose. I turn around to the fellow behind me, pass him the list without a word, maybe he’ll know what to do. This is not something I want to handle alone, a burden I don’t want to carry, or take to my grave… The fellow shudders, his face blanches, parboiled-white, his lips quivering… It’s almost noon, people will be pouring out of their offices in droves, no time to waste. We clutch one another and look for someone who can help. Not a word uttered, not a one. "ATM" was published in SWITCH January, 2024 It is mid-week in the quartier in front of the museum’s commanding staircase and the cellist is playing a Sarabande. His tangle of curly Moroccan hair jumbles like Hokkien noodles with each rhythmic nod of his head. He is concentrating, eyes shuttered. The mournful melody is played slow, spare, lonely. Lean sinewy fingers shimmy up and down the instrument’s neck. Notes yawn and camber. The sound is resonant, arcane, haunting. He has performed this piece umpteen times before. Fingers and bow arm animate with independent muscle memory. The rest of his body idling. The cellist busies himself with the audience. Scanning. He glimpses a woman in the crowd perched like a tropical bird. Tall, elongated sinuous neck curved in an S-shape, rainbow-coloured hair, spikey and barbed. He’s seen her before at open-air concerts. By the second movement, her eyes are glistening like sea salt, her chin trembling like an open flame. Once upon a time he too felt something. Could feel the notes burrowing, stirring desires and furies, obsessions, and slings. Each note igniting an involuntary sound-to-colour burst of tourmaline blue, ballet slipper pink, antelope brown, disco purple, and hullabaloo red. …. But that was then. Before he lost touch. Before he played by rote. His eyes scrutinize the bird-woman over the black-horsehair bow as it zigzags across the fingerboard. Keeping the notes light and thin, like the whisper of a secret affaire. Then abruptly nosedives down the instrument’s neck plunging to a dark cavernous C two octaves below middle C. Her avian limbs respond with a sudden flutter. He wants to know her story. He imagines she comes to feel. The dark sonorous C impaling deep within, excavating buried emotions, memories, and experiences. She is overcome by the cello’s vibrations. The bow lurching, snapping, and shuddering, and for a moment, she is made whole. When it pauses, in a semibreve rest, she holds her breath. Folds up. It is only when the cello throbs, that she can let herself go. He plays for her. The cellist leans in. The notes undulating, enveloping; serpentine. His lips pucker and purse, his mouth bursting with delicate tiny prickles. Something marvelous percolating. Something sudden, something altogether new. With each note he tastes a distinct flavour. Soon, a medley of sumptuous Maraschino cherry, black Mission fig, Malabar pepper, Saskatoon berry, Madagascar dark chocolate, and Kentucky bourbon, tickle his mushroom-shaped papillae. His head is swimming, saliva swirling. He is back. His performance astounding. The concert, over. He packs up his instrument lasering through the crowd for a chance to meet her. But she has already flown away. A migratory bird. "Bird" was published in NUNUM December, 2023 He’s a player they say, debonaire, zoot suit, melon-colored upholstery, and uber pointy shoes to push up in the crannies. When he enters a room, he waits until he sees everyone looking in his direction. Except her, what’s wrong with her… he voices loud enough for those clamouring around to hear, his chin cocked in her direction. Heads swivel – the madame is disinterested, clearly. Her arms folded in a vice grip, engrossed in conversation with no one as important as he. Her loss, he mutters with a flick of his wrist. But he can’t stop looking… she’s got pointy shoes too, embossed with rigour. They flick like the second hand on a grandfather clock. The rhythm has him hooked. "Tick Tock" was published in Scapegoat Review December, 2023 Jerzy counts the steps to the summit – 88 flagstones, solid, rooted, arcane. Breathing heavy. The mid-autumn wind whips his rust-coloured hair into stiff peaks, a will of its own. He can’t bear to look over the craggy edge, cantilevered. What if he sees something, what if the remains are picked over by birds, ravaged by scavengers, even worse, what if there’s nothing there. His third eye refreshes, recalling the spat that made his arms lunge, made his body inflate like the incredible hulk, made his will gust like the wind… made Arturo topple over the edge like humpty dumpty. "Blame It On The Wind" was published in Friday Flash Fiction December 2023 |
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April 2024
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