My beefy neighbour Axl who I both avoid like the plague and watch obsessively through my dining room curtains has a new ditzy blond waltzing up the front steps with him into his dingy puce-green linoleum foyer. That’s where the spectacle ends. It stops for Bruno too, the massive Cane Corso who is once again left behind in the cargo bed of his jacked-up 4×4 black-scratch pickup truck, the one with monster off-road tires that only gets driven around town and makes that god-awful racket. He is to wait. A paragon of patience. And forgiveness. And loyalty. Loyalty undeserved. OH! how I feel for that dog. The brute left standing on all fours, rooted to the corrugated metal bed steaming in the hot hot Louisiana sun, his paws near blistering; no water, no food, no indication of when the lout will return, will even remember what he left behind. The dog, although not tethered to the flatbed, never jumps ship. He just waits. In stay position. For that bastard to return. I have been on the verge of calling animal rescue many times. But self-preservation stops me cold. He would know it was me. The sun beats down hard. Long slobbery strands of coagulated saliva hang like stalactites, formed over centuries, centuries of waiting; the dog never moving. Scumble-edged clouds painted Naples yellow do not offer sufficient shade. It is sweltering out there. I fumble in the kitchen filling a wide plastic tub with cold water and ice cubes, refreshment that I fail to deliver, and go back to watching for movement from behind thick brocade curtains in my darkened empty dining room, kept dusty and ghosty like a tomb, never any dinner guests allowed not even a ditzy blond. The dog and I have a lot in common. The cruel irony; me not leaving my house, me frozen in place. Not given permission to leave. Never knowing when it will come. If it will come. — I’m rooting for Bruno. One of us should be free. *** Cane Corso was published in Halfway Down The Stairs Literary Magazine June 2023
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My childhood best friend Gloria always had the inside track. One day she told me a secret that I had to promise never to tell anyone. This is the first time I have shared this privileged information. When watching My Favorite Martian, just as the program was coming to an end, but not quite when the last few commercials came on—the timing had to be perfect—you could pull the plug out from the back of the TV set, and the program would rewind and be available to play again. This was not possible with any other program, just My Favorite Martian, something to do with the celestial outer space radio waves, Gloria said. I tried several times, my parents becoming overly perturbed, but I never managed to capture that elusive recording for a repeat viewing. It never occurred to me that Gloria was mistaken, or teasing. She was always cool as a cucumber. Being six years young, what neither she nor I realized was that her instructions had been ineffective because of the inversion. The planetary inversion, I would later find out. But Gloria persisted, kept trying different combinations, until one day, in-between Brylcream’s a little dab’ll do you and Topo Gigio’s Eddie, Keesa me goo'night!, she found the right frequency and poof!, disappeared. My mother tried to convince me that Gloria’s family had unexpectedly moved across the country to Milwaukee. But I knew better. I knew exactly what had happened. And thereafter, every Sunday night when I turned on the black and white to watch My Favorite Martian, I’d wait for Uncle Martin to raise those two retractable antennae from the back of his head and become invisible. This was my cue to close my eyes wide shut and send a message telepathically to Gloria, knowing she was sure to receive it right then and there. My mother frowned, even whimpered. But some things were just beyond an adult’s capacity to understand. So I didn’t mention it again; until My Favorite Martian went off the air, and the hospital began playing reruns. It just didn’t seem right. So now, with a whirly motion of my index finger, I freeze the nurses in their spot and levitate pharmaceuticals from their rolling carts to speed myself up, landing on just the right frequency. Gloria and me forever in sync. My eyes wide shut. *** "My Favourite Martian" was published in Granfalloon: Speculative Fiction & Poetry Zine April 2023 We did not reach the water’s edge before Billy slipped beneath the surly waves. We did not watch instead of wading, stand quiet instead of yelling. There was no final tiny bob poking up through the watery veneer that we rushed to retrieve. Our hearts did not pound in our chests, did not explode with panic, regret, shame. We did not drink the elixir together, did not lose perspective, see things that did not exist. We didn’t board the plane the following day leaving our childhood friend floating up a tributary of the mighty Amazon River. Ayahuasca adventure behind us. "Dream Vacation" was published in Impspired April 2023
In the morning the window has been thrown open, last night’s storm upending the terracotta pots and herbs on the ledge. Rain has soaked the flowered banquette cushions inside. I pull the latch closed and wrap a pashmina tight around my shoulders, light the fire in the pot belly, assembling bits of kindling like Jenga. My head swimming like vichyssoise after a night of drinking—I never learn. I fill the cast iron pot and take down the steel-cut oats for a hearty warming breakfast. Lots of debris to clean up outside. I hear the crunch before I see them. A blur of mottled brown shells scuttles across the floor. My feet recoil but where to step next. More snap crackle pop underfoot. I don’t dare move. My toes crimp in their slippers. I call out to Geoffrey, but my voice is raspy, thin, hardly audible. The horde already advancing like a parade, a marching band, hissing, chirping, trilling, two-by-two around the legs of the gabled table, a constant tempo over the transom and with precision on toward the pantry door. I look for the leader, intent on extermination, follow hundreds of tiny sets of legs tippy-toeing up onto the countertop. The thick viscous trail marking the territory through a wide thoroughfare, boulevard, streets, and backroads; changing lanes and traffic patterns like Google mapping. I reach for the broom, crushing exoskeletons as I lurch. I hear Geoffrey thumping up the staircase, watch his terry bathrobe billowing, he’s running, he heard me. I gesture to the swarming infestation, Wait, Watch it. He's seen this before, he says, reminds me I should stick to a two-glass limit. **** "Horde" was published at DarkWinter Literary Magazine April, 2023 |
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