Jack Frost Helps the Brownies Prepare for Christmas

Illustration by Declan Gatenby

 

Without a doubt, the whole catastrophe was Jack Frost’s fault.  The brownies were doing a perfectly fine job of cleaning up after the family’s night of Christmas decoration.  They were picking the tinsel out of the carpet, collecting the cookie crumbs, and setting the misplaced ornament hooks back in the storage boxes when Jack tapped on the window pane.

“Hey, friends!” he said in an exaggerated whisper.  The brownies stopped their chores and peered up at him anxiously.  The rules were clear on humans interrupting their work, but they weren’t certain if the rules applied to other fairies.  If humans interrupted their work, they had to leave the home and never return.

“Shhh!” said Big Tomkin as he dumped crumbs into his cookie sack. “You’ll wake up the little ones and they’ll see us!”  The other brownies nodded, relieved that Big Tomkin had taken control of the situation.  None of the brownies wanted to leave the Jenkins home, so his treatment of Jack as one of their own was met with nods and smiles.

“Okay.  I just thought you might want to know that there’s a big problem only someone on this side of the window can see,” Jack teased.

Big Tomkin turned a concerned face to the window. He knew that sometimes he and the other brownies missed things because it was hard for them to see everything in the room.  He also knew from the humans that Jack Frost was sometimes silly and annoying. However, he couldn’t recall any fellow fairies complaining about him, and humans did not have a good sense of humor.

“What problem?” he finally asked, deciding that he did have a duty to at least consider that there was a task that the brownies had not noticed.

Jack motioned Big Tomkin over to the window.

“Look at the tree from this side,” he called to the brownie.  Big Tomkin shimmied up the end table and slid onto the windowsill behind the tree.

“What’s wrong?” He asked after a moment of staring.

“Well, friend, the problem is that most people see the tree from this side, but all the nicest ornaments are on the other side.” Jack Frost pointed to the damaged and unattractive ornaments that hung on the window side of the tree.

“Not my job,” Big Tomkin huffed.  Jack frowned at him.

“Not your problem? Aren’t you supposed to make the house look nice?” Jack said in a shocked tone.

“No. We’re supposed to make the house clean.” Big Tomkin only had a brief moment to be proud of himself for outwitting Jack. Jack gave him a sad look and softly cleared his throat.

“Hmm. Isn’t the reason you make the house clean because you are making it look nice?” Jack urged. It was no secret that while brownies understood the difference between clean and dirty, they were not necessarily known for their wonderful fashion sense.  After all, they were still wearing the shabby knitted hats that went out of style not long after humans began watching television.

With Big Tomkin still staring at the tree, Jack smiled and said, “I’ll help you.  Just move things where I say, and you’ll save your humans the embarrassment of having the whole neighborhood see their messy, messy ornaments.” With a bold air of confidence, Jack patiently guided the rearrangement of the ornaments.  The brownies huffed and groaned as they moved the heaviest of the ugly ornaments to the side of the tree facing the room. Jack carefully directed them to bring only a few of the lighter, pretty ornaments to the window side of the tree.

“There!” he exclaimed. “See how much nicer it is with just a few of the lovely ornaments on this side, and all the other ornaments on the other side? The Jenkins family will love you for this, I guarantee it.” Jack giggled as the horizon began to grow rosy with coming sunrise. “Whoops! I have work to finish,” he called as he left the brownies to gaze at the results of the night’s labor.

Big Tomkin and the other brownies were still admiring their work when the morning alarm sounded to wake up the humans.  They were out of time and unprepared when the tree, weighted in the front from the shifted ornaments, suddenly fell forward with a loud crash.

Big Tomkin had a moment of paralyzed horror before he fixed the problem the best he could. Just as the light came on in the Jenkins’ bedroom, he pointed to the other brownies and hissed, “Go get the cat and shove it in the tree!” 

At the Museum

The night is quiet as I twirl and dance among the abandoned cars along the street.  I whirl past a dusty white station wagon with “In case of Rapture, this vehicle will be unmanned” on the bumper and a half-eaten corpse in the driver’s seat.  No Rapture, my dear sir.  This is 100% apocalypse and 0% salvation, all lingering whimpers and no mercifully decisive atomic bangs. I nod and wave at the decaying driver as I leap onto the hood of the car and pirouette onto the sidewalk. I’m almost to the museum now.

The lack of adequate cover for living humans has made Central Park sparse pickings, so most of dead don’t hunt here any longer. I don’t smell human anyway. I smell like petroleum and grease.  I’ve held out for as long as I could, and tonight I’m done.  I’m not even going to try to rage against the death of light anymore.

The moonlight reflects off the white façade of the building.  I am dancing in a spotlight, but I’m not worried.  The dead don’t sneak up on people.  They just stumble along until you have nowhere to run from them.  They’re the turgid ebb and flow of human misery that Matthew Arnold bewailed. I chuckle and tell myself I’m moving through Arnold’s land of dreams.  At least the museum still glistens like a lost paradise nestled in the shadows of the park.

Before the Plague, I would visit the museum and wish I could be there alone, without the mindless shuffle of tourists and the ridiculous groaning of school children who had no interest in Rembrandt’s use of shadow or Monet’s deconstruction of light. The living had no art to them, and I resented how they intruded on the art of the dead.  I suppose this is the world I wished for, but I don’t want to live in it.

I gaze up at the broad steps that lead to the museum’s entrance. Eventually I realize that I can’t bear to risk burning the art after all. I settle in the middle of the silent steps that once bustled with mischievous children and chattering adults.  The end of the world is not nearly the boon I thought it would be.  As I light my match, I console myself with Sylvia Plath’s manifesto:  Dying is an art. I’m going to do it so it feels like Hell.

 

This is my entry for the Zombie Apocalypse Flash Fiction Contest, a promotion to help support the publication of J. Whitworth Hazzard's excellent zombie collection, Dead Sea Games Series. 

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Tending the Trees

Tending the Trees
800 words
Beth Avery
Dieselpunk

 

Garrett came in and set the twig on the kitchen table, its photocells slowing fading from a bright yellow green to a dull yellow. He sat down with a heavy thump before he glumly gave me his report.

“The trees are getting ready to move from the south acre, and the east acre is only at eighty percent for its nitrogen levels.” He fiddled with the dying twig instead of meeting my gaze. I wrung out my dishrag and set my hand on his shoulder. The barren land that ringed our house was only 500 yards wide.  A full grown mechnaoak could cross it with ease if resources away from our home were too tempting. We would have to get the east acre to full fertility soon or lose our trees.

“Did you splice the break?” I asked.  A dead twig like the one on the table could disrupt the whole circuit of the tree.  Not only could we not afford to lose a tree, but a dead companion usually caused the whole herd to move to more welcoming regions.

Garrett stood up and grabbed the tool bag. “Could you do it, Amelia? You have more success with this than I do.  Last time I gave myself a shock that knocked me three yards back.  It’s Number Four.  I’ll go with you to show you the break.  We probably should get it done now.” He seemed to realize suddenly that he’d made a mistake by taking the time to come in and tell me instead of fixing the break immediately.  Leaving a gap in a mechnaoak’s circuitry was risky. I nodded and went to the entry to get my insulator gloves with the thick rubber fingers.

Garrett stood ready to resuscitate me if I made a mistake, but it was just a gesture.  I never made a mistake with the trees. Since biodiesel sap oozed from the break in the bark, this job was more than just repairing the circuitry. The flashpoint of the oily sap was too high to start a full fire, but the sap could heat up enough to make it too hot for me to work.  Donning my gloves, I carefully spliced the sap tubes and removed the sticky fluid before I turned my attention to the slender wires that powered the tree’s mechanical systems.  The wood around the wires was organic, but the sap that kept it alive was pumped using the power from its electrical system.  I needed to fix the wires before the wood began to die.  I examined my pliers to make sure there were no breaks in their rubber coating before I gently teased the wires away from the wound in the tree’s bark and directed them back into the river of electricity coursing through the tree’s trunk.  A few taps with the soldering wand, and the circuit was completed without further incident.

Garrett followed me as I went from tree to tree, noting the slight decrease in the intensity of the  greenness of the photoleaves, a clear sign that meant the trees had nearly depleted this field’s nutrients.  The thick cables that siphoned electricity from the trees to the house would not work as a tether if the massive mechanoaks choose to leave us.  They would churn the earth with their iron pipe roots and plow across the barren of alkaline soil until they reached the rich fields of our more fortunate neighbors, leaving us exposed and helpless. If we couldn’t coax them into moving to the east field, we would lose our protection from the wind and the sun along with losing the house’s source of energy.  Even though our mechnaoaks didn’t produce food as well as shelter and energy, we could not survive without them.  The nitrogen that fed their organic system had to be found or we would die.  Heaving a sigh, I turned to Garrett.

“I can give a pint, and we’ll probably have to take some from the children too.  Three of the goats can be leeched for at least a pint.  We’ll get some bloodmeal out of that. We emptied the waste tanks last month, so there’s not much in them, but hopefully it will suffice if we put it through the rapid cycle composter.” I squeezed his hand.  With an air of confidence that I did not truly have, I said firmly, “We’ll be alright.  The trees will stay.” 

As the midday sun reached its full strength, a million photoleaves expanded above us, converting the sun’s rays into electricity and shielding us from the blinding light that filtered through our herd’s canopy.  The light was harmless by the time it reached us, and we were careful to stay under the blanket of dappled shade as we made our way back to the house. 

Dormant

In winter my mother would turn blue

Light blue half-moons of chill imbedded

Under her fingernails

Winter’s dry breath wicking the moisture

From her lips and leaving them

Cracked with painful canyons of rusty red

 

While I played outside

Burrrowing adventures through the snow

And peering under the pond’s skirt of ice

To catch glimpses of its secret world

Of dormant life.

 

I am cold now.  Winter has finally caught me.

I find a strange peace in knowing my mother’s

Winter waiting is reborn in me. Like her,

I will shed my cloak of ice and return

When the earth needs my tending.

Baldar's Betrayal

How did Baldar feel
To know that his loved ones
Were lining up to sling
Weapons of mass destruction at him?
The golden child, the best beloved,
the petted and protected one,
finally laid bare to
the gleaming jealousies
cleverly swaddled in the guise
of good fun and the necessary testing of
promises and reassurances.
With Baldar's tourmaline eyes
forever directed inward,
the gods were free to let
nasty secrets
pass in glances between them.
In the name of love,
Baldar allowed such blows to
whistle around unshielded ears.
For him to expose these petty betrayals
would be a treason of the heart.
So Baldar stood,
hands at his sides,
the guilty innocent who
has taken more than his share
of the praises and laughter.

He collapses from within before
the killing blow is even flung.

Another Sleepless Night

As soon as I sit up in bed and start to pull back the blankets, Philip grabs my arm and says, “No.”  I hiss, “The baby’s crying,” but he doesn’t let go.  He just says wearily, “Gina, go back to sleep.”  He tries to pull me down, but I resist. 

“The baby is crying!” I say angrily, but he won’t let go.  “No, Gina, no. Please just go back to sleep,” he whispers again, and he sounds like he’s about to cry.  I’m no longer tired.  I just feel an intense and unforgiving anger that he won’t let me go to the baby.  She needs me.  I hear her cry ratcheting up from a soft whimper to a hiccupping, desperate wail.  I yank my arm out of Philip’s grasp.  “You let me go to my baby!” I demand, and I slide out of the bed before he can grab me again.  The bed creaks behind me as Philip gets up to follow me down the hall.

I don’t turn on the light because it hurts. I fumble for the doorknob and ease myself into her room.  The moonlight is casting a shadow over her crib, but I can hear her sobbing frantically.  Even without seeing her, I know she is waving her arms, begging me to pick her up.  Philip tries once more as I step into the room.  He puts his hand gently on my shoulder and says, “Gina, please, please, come back to bed.”  I shrug him off and hurry to the side of the crib.

Philip gives up as I peer down into the impossible darkness.  She’s crying.  I can hear her.  But no matter how hard I reach, I can’t touch her.  “Amy, where are you?  Amy, come here.  Mama’s here, Amy.  Come here to me,” I call.  I try to keep my voice soft and calm, but I break as I’m speaking.  I wave my hand inside the empty space of the crib, feeling nothing but a freezing cold that crawls up my arm.  “Amy,” I sob, “Please, baby, come here.”

Philip leans against the doorway.  “Gina, I don’t think she can hear you.”

I whirl around and scream, “This is all your fault.  I told you the house was wrong.  I told you I could feel it.  YOU CAN’T FIX THIS, SO LEAVE ME ALONE.”  Philip nods.  “I can’t fix this,” he says tearfully.  Then he shakes his head and walks toward me. “I can’t fix this, and I can’t leave you alone,” he whispers as he clutches me to his chest and grips the side of the empty crib. Together we huddle against the wall of the nursery.  We spend another night listening to our child sob in a place we cannot see or reach.

Entry for Love Bites Blog Hop
 http://www.officemango.com/2014/02/love-bites-blog-hop-2014/
Word count: 462 words

Stoic

As soon as Gloria walks through the door, she is glad that she came. Marie gathers her into her too thin arms, and Gloria can feel the brittle twig fragility of Marie’s ribs as she presses against Gloria’s sleet-drenched coat. They rock together in a long embrace. When Gloria breaks away, her head is spinning, but Marie’s face is already less pinched and weary.

 

Gloria takes a deep breath, the sickly nausea billowing through her so suddenly that she has to drop into the seat that Marie now keeps by the front door. Uncle Maurice is coming down the hallway, his whisky glass half full and his famous holiday sweater tightly stretched across his ever-growing girth. He frowns when he sees Gloria slumping in the chair, her head hanging down as she struggles to deal with the terrible metallic aftertaste in her mouth and a cloying sense of fatigue that feels like it is sucking the marrow from her bones.

“Gloria, isn’t Marie looking good?” He says loudly, and he glares at Gloria’s audacious display of weakness.

Gloria squeezes her eyes shut and steels herself. She looks up and smiles gently at her sister. Marie is wearing a close-fitting cap of cloth roses. Aunt Chloe must have made it for her. Marie’s delicately embroidered dress is clearly the work of Great-Aunt Genevieve, and Marie’s expensive beautiful dancing slippers s surely came from Uncle Angus’s shoe store.  Mama’s carved smoky topaz beads are looped around Marie’s neck. Marie’s face is slowly becoming pinker, her eyes are brightening, and her posture is straightening as she stands with her hand on Gloria’s shoulder.

When Marie turns to confront Uncle Maurice’s inevitable unpleasantness, Gloria feels a thrill of joy to see Marie’s dark blond braid hanging down her back. She reaches out to stroke it, and Marie laughs.

“Mama cut it off for me before the treatments began. All my caps have a clip to hold it.” Marie flips up the edge of the cap to reveal a heavy barrette firmly clasping the rough-sheered end of the thick braid. Gloria shakes her head through the horrible sickly haze: she should have known that Marie’s elegantly pencilled eyebrows meant that Marie’s beloved hair was also gone.  

Marie steps forward and places her hand on Uncle Maurice’s chest.  

“Please, would you mind helping me to the kitchen?” she says sweetly. No one denies Marie anything these days. He gives up the scolding he has ready for Gloria and tenderly wraps his arm around Marie’s waist. With a pang, Gloria is reminded of the days when Uncle Maurice would grab each of the sisters by the waist and gallop down the steep hill behind Grandmother Anais’s house. Gloria digs her fingers into her palms to settle herself and repress the thought that such antics would probably crush Marie in her current state. 

The sickness is worse than Gloria had anticipated. It is taking all her will to keep from succumbing to it. She does not want her battle to become the focus of this holiday meal: she has come so that Marie could enjoy this Thanksgiving. The tongue clacking of the family members who abhor Gloria’s “dramatics” is sure to upset her doting, peacemaker sister. Gloria doesn’t know how Marie even made it to the door feeling this way, or how she can miraculously keep going day after day. 

 In every transatlantic phone call that Gloria has made to her family, Mama has remarked repeatedly on Marie’s gracious attitude and good humor throughout surgery after surgery and treatment after treatment. Gloria wishes she had come sooner. She wishes she could stay longer. Sitting in the tiny chair that Daddy set by the doorway to catch Marie if she has to collapse, Gloria now knows the truth without any doubt: Marie is dying. 

Mama slides up and sets her hand on Gloria’s shoulder.

“Honey, really, I know it’s upsetting to see Marie this way. The last time you saw her, she beat you at arm-wrestling,” Mama begins soothingly before the warning, hard tone creeps into her voice, “But I really must ask you to be brave for once. This holiday is very important to all of us. If your sister can keep a merry face, surely you can too. Please don’t turn this into the time that your cousin broke his arm.” 

Gloria stifles the surge of resentment. The pain was so horrible when her cousin Tommy broke his arm. He fractured it in three places when he tried to surf down the hill in Marie’s Radio Flyer wagon.  Gloria was brought to her knees screaming madly as soon as he struck the ground. Tommy sat looking a bit dazed, but he did not whimper or even grimace despite the blood coloring his jacket and the sharp edge of the bone spearing through his torn sleeve. Gloria bit her tongue repeatedly as she writhed on the ground. Uncle Maurice came rushing to her, panic and love distorting his usually cheerful face. He had to sit on her to get her to hold still so that he could check to see if she was hurt. While he was restraining her, Tommy wandered up holding his wounded arm. 

“Uncle Maurice, I think I want my mom,” he said calmly.  

“Good Lord, did the two of you collide or something?” Uncle Maurice blurted. 

Marie ran up to help. “I don’t think anything happened to Gloria,” Marie said in her gentle, understanding way. “Maybe she’s upset because Tommy’s arm looks so awful.” 

By then all the aunts and uncles, Mama, Daddy, Grandma and all the cousins had circled around the scene of the accident. Uncle Maurice relinquished Gloria in disgust and helped Uncle Angus carry Tommy to the station wagon.  Uncle Angus reported that the shock finally wore off and Tommy began screaming before they hit the interstate, but he was still impressed with Tommy’s original bravery. That was one bad break. Gloria’s hysterics continued for a short while after the uncles sped off with her cousin, but her screams abruptly ceased as the car disappeared down the road. 

Tommy’s accident happened fifteen years ago, but there hasn’t a single family gathering since then that someone hasn’t mentioned it. Although she was only seven at the time, Gloria’s cowardly response to Tommy’s injury juxtaposed with his quiet bravery forever branded her as a person who would do anything to keep the family’s attention focused on herself.  People couldn’t help but notice that Gloria always acted like she was the one who was suffering whenever anyone was sick or hurt. It was ridiculous, especially when the one who was truly suffering usually bravely acted like he or she felt no pain whatsoever.  When Aunt Chloe’s water broke at Christmas, she said Gloria’s fits were so distracting that she couldn’t even feel her contractions until Uncle Maurice had her halfway to the hospital. 

This Thanksgiving is the first holiday meal that Gloria has attended in five years. She decided when Uncle Angus nearly severed his thumb with the new electric turkey carver that she would leave them to feel their own damn pain in the future.  She merely turned pale and clutched her thumb under the tablecloth that time, but everyone looked sharply to her after Uncle Angus held up his spurting hand and looked at it with detached bewilderment.  

She wonders now if she shouldn’t have had a thicker skin: all that lost time with her sister is weighing heavily on her today. It is bad enough that Marie is dying: Gloria feels terrible that she has let her sister feel all the pain of this death up until today. After all , it is Marie who always comforted her, Marie who always brushed back her hair and rocked her while the family clucked at Gloria’s outrageous antics. Marie understood. Whenever Mama glared at Gloria with a disapproving frown and Aunt Geniveve carefully avoided looking at Gloria at all and Uncle Maurice muttered condemnations under his breath and the cousins took up the condemning attitude of the adults, Marie was there. She would take Gloria’s sharp longing for love and replace it with a mellow, golden sense of peace.  Marie was the one who loved Gloria for who she truly was. 

Hunched in the small, pretty chair like a wounded creature, Gloria shrugs off Mama’s hand.

“I will be fine. Go spend time with Marie. She’s having a really great day. Don’t waste it worrying about me making scenes. I may just go lie down out of sight in Grandma’s bed until my jet lag is under control,” Gloria gasps. 

“I’m going to do that, Gloria. I haven’t seen you in almost two years, but dammit, I haven’t heard Marie laugh like that in months. I really wish you would learn to tough it out.  If you had been here for the things your sister has suffered in the past year. . .it’s probably just as well that you weren’t. That sister of yours has more dignity than you’ll ever have.” Mama gags back a sob and pushes away from Gloria. Gloria watches her go into the bathroom and reemerge a few moments later with a becalmed, dry face. 

The dizziness and the growing need to vomit are so strong that Gloria is afraid she won’t make it out of sight in time. She drags herself up the stairs and curls up on the floor of Grandma’s master bathroom. Through the heating vent she can hear Marie chatting happily. The relatives are joking gently with her, using long-ago abandoned pet names, urging her to eat, eat, eat. They marvel at her strength. Their voices ring with renewed hope because her face seems healthier than it has in months.   

Gloria will not let them hear her vomit. That it is her holiday resolution. She cannot hold in Marie’s pain and enjoy Marie’s health at the same time. She cannot even stay and bear Marie’s burden for the next few months. It is too much, to hear them draw close to the vents and sneer about her infamous weakness and selfish need for attention. In the hallway and out of Marie’s earshot, their whispers drift up to Gloria. 

“Really, it probably would have been better if she hadn’t come,” comes Aunt Chloe’s soft voice, and Gloria tries to focus on the nausea instead of remembering how this aunt once sang lullabies to her about bears dancing on the moon. 

“I don’t know how that girl turned into such an abomination; it’s like she’s from another family,” Uncle Maurice responds.  The last time he spoke tenderly to Gloria was the day that Tommy broke his arm. 

Later, Mama and Grandma speak in angry murmurs. 

“I can’t believe that even now she’s doing this.” 

“The child has no goddamn shame in her at all.” 

“Jetlag my ass.” 

“I know.  At least she still has both her ovaries.” 

 “I’m so mad I don’t even want to set eyes on her.” 

Curled on the bathroom floor, Gloria tightens her resolve and whispers again and again, “I will be stoic. I will be stoic.”  

In the dining room below, the family gazes with loving eyes on Marie’s rosy face and shining eyes. They cheer with joy when Marie courageously summons the energy for a brief jig with Uncle Angus. They have decided they won’t let Gloria ruin this precious time.  Tonight they have one goal: to be stoic in the face of this heartbreaking loss that is ruthlessly creeping upon them. They aren’t going to let any sniveling brats take that away from them. 

They revel late into the night. When morning comes, Gloria drags herself into Marie’s room and plants a soft kiss on her sister’s peaceful brow before she goes out to meet her taxi.  As Gloria is carried away, Marie is awakened by the now familiar agony. Gloria is not relieved to feel her sister’s pain ebb from her body. She wishes she were braver, but she takes a small comfort that at least Marie will not have to suffer the sharp pain that follows Gloria wherever she goes: the pain of no longer being a beloved in a family that once treasured her.  If she could have back that love, Gloria would be willing to eat the pain of every last one of them for the rest of eternity.

Ashes

 

 

 

 

Sitting in the part of the couch that you wore bare before you died, I wonder what would happen if I ate your ashes. 
 

 “Really, Sarah! How that mind of yours thinks!”  

See, already, even without eating your ashes, even without pressing my lips to your once-was-flesh, I feel closer to you. Just thinking it brings you nearer. 

So tell me, if I am what I eat, as you used to say while you stirred the lemon and the honey into my tea, if I am what I eat, will I become you? The sweet and the tart, so mixed together that the tongue can’t help but love both at once. Will I become that if I eat your ashes? 

“Those ashes aren’t me.” 

Of course. Of course. That’s why it was good to burn your body. It was good to take your calluses that you gained from digging holes for the tulip bulbs, your hair that you damaged just to be a redhead, your teeth that sat so straight and true without the aid of dentistry, yes, it was good to take those last trace elements of you and toast them up just like the pot roast I scorched when I made the family dinner for the first time. 

“You ruined that baking pan. God himself couldn’t get it clean.” 

Do you believe in God now? 

“Dammit. I told you, I always believed in God. It’s his goodness that I had difficulty in having faith in.” 

Hmm. Faith. I had faith in you. That’s about it, you know. That was all that I had. You were my one woman religion.  And now, I can’t tell if I’m remembering you or remembering who I thought you were. Will you be totally disgusted if I turn you into a false idol? 

“I can’t follow the silliness you talk sometimes. Eating ashes and making idols. You read too many fairytales and baked your brain sitting up in that window seat.” 

Weren’t you baking alongside me? Of course, you’re the one who’s really baked now. And all I have are ashes. 

“Ashes of roses. That was this purpley color that was popular when I was a girl.  I made a dress out of it. Sewed it all by hand just to prove to myself that I could.” 

Was that word association or just an attempt to get me to change the subject? 

“Both. Quit being such a smarty-pants.” 

Oh hush. We both know that you love it when I’m a smarty-pants. 

“That’s what you think.” 

You never encouraged me to think otherwise. Besides, I always could see right through you. 

“Not really. You never did figure out where I hid your Christmas presents.” 

Fourth shoebox. The one meant for boots. I’m really good at re-wrapping things.  

“See, you always had to ruin everything for yourself, now didn’t you?”

Yes, but I don’t see how that applies here. 

“You couldn’t just let yourself be surprised. You always had to poke and pry and mangle everything with your curiosity.” 

Did you just say that I mangled everything with my curiosity?  

“Yes.” 

And you aren’t going to explain that at all? 

“Don’t eat my ashes. That’s disrespectful.” 

I miss you. 

“That’s life. It’s not always roses and hummingbirds and tripping through the daisies.” 

Oh God, shut up! Do you really think I still need lessons on how fair life isn’t? 

“No, honey. I wish you did, but you don’t. So be a good girl. And find a decent place for my ashes before your imagination gets the best of you. Nothing is going to bring me back, sweetheart. I’m gone.” 

If you’re so gone, why the hell won’t you stop talking to me? 

“Because I always was cantankerous like that, don’t you remember?” 

I remember. Good God in heaven above with gravy on his plate and a side of pan-fried potatoes, I remember how cantankerous you were. 

“That’s my good girl.” 

Don’t eat your ashes? 

“Don’t eat my ashes.” 

Can I keep smelling your old perfume bottle? 

“Guess I still have to choose my battles with you, don’t I?” 

I won’t eat your ashes. Be happy about that. 

“You’ve got to be the only child in the world who makes her mother bargain for that.” 

Just because I love you so, Momma, just because I loved you so. Now let me go to sleep. 

“That figures. You won’t let me rest, but I’m supposed to let you sleep.” 

Guess I’m just selfish. You’re dead anyway, so what are you griping about? 

“I just like to gripe. I’ve earned the privilege.” 

Okay. Good night. 

“Leave my ashes alone.” 

I said that I would already. God, don’t ride me. 

“Just making sure that we’re clear on that.  I swear, I’ll rile your belly like a water moccasin caught in a sack if you do.” 

Thanks for that, Mom. Thanks a lot for that. 

“My pleasure.” 

I’m sure it is. You’re cackling right now, aren’t you? That’s just so damn funny to you. “Riling my belly like a water moccasin.” Did you make that up, or did that come straight off the Ozarks and through your lips? 

“Well, you can take a gal out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the gal.” 

Man, then maybe you could have gone a little easier on the whole “this is a salad fork” and “we don’t stir our tea with the sugar shell” thing. You know, since I was already doomed by genetics. 

“Couldn’t let you take the easy way out, now could I?” 

What!? There’s an easy way? You never told me there was an easy way. Where the hell is this “easy way” thing? You knew about an easy way and never told me? That’s not very motherly of you, I have to say. 

“Eh. Somedays you didn’t make me feel like being so motherly.” 

So what should I do with these ashes? You wouldn’t tell me when you were alive, and now I don’t know what to do. 

“And the most logical thing you could come up with was to eat them?” 

See, you do at least know how to mellow the country in the gal. Don’t talk college professory to me. You’re just sidestepping me again. Don’t you know what you want?

”I never got what I want, so how could I know it?” 

I gave you what I had to give, Momma. That’s all I could do. 

“Don’t be sensitive. I didn’t want you, but I loved you anyway.” 

So maybe all those things you wanted weren’t what you wanted after all. 

“That’s more of your fairytale talk. Figure out what to do with my ashes. I’m dead. I’m not going to complain.” 

That’s so funny, Momma. You not complaining. Oh, sorry, am I speaking disrespectfully to the dead?  

“What else is new? You are the most disrespectful child I’ve ever seen.” 

I respected you. 

“Not really, but you can tell yourself that if it makes you feel better.” 

Nice, Momma. Didn’t you teach me something about not hitting below the belt? 

“That was so your brothers had some hopes for the future.” 

Your ashes! God, you  are still talking circles upon circles upon circles. I can’t eat them, so what do I do with them? 

“Is it such a burden to hold onto them?” 

Uh oh.  Are you about to launch into the “these frail old bones” speech about how no one should be burdened with you? I mean, didn’t we settle that one? I did the best that I could.

“Then hold onto my ashes. Be patient. Someday the right thing will come to you.” 

Please don’t quote The Good Earth now. Please don’t do it. 

“What? No, that quoting thing is what you do, not me. But what’s wrong with The Good Earth? I swear, that college just about ruined everything simple and decent for you.” 

You’re right. You’re always right. 

“Now you’re just placating me to get the old lady to shut up. I can see through that.” 

Yup. I am. 

“Fine. I can think of some others who might actually appreciate the wisdom of their elders.” 

They won’t for long. Man, you still can talk a blue streak, can’t you? 

Can’t you? 

Okay. I won’t eat your ashes. I do miss you though. I really, really do.

Muse

 

 

I take my brush and dip it in the clear water, and the color bleeds from the bristles like a storm cloud dangling a dozen tornado fingers. I watch the water change color and try not to think about that damn song. You’re going from bar to bar playing it. I’m sure it seeps sympathy for you into your audience like the indigo seeps from my brush. “He’s so sensitive,” your chords whisper to them.

When the storm clouds push down on the landscape, what the land is becomes irrelevant. There is nothing but all-consuming tornado then. When the paint gives color to the water, the water becomes the color. The color does not become the water.

Sometimes your friends will stop me in the store or on the street. “You really hurt him,” they’ll scold. “Have you heard that song he wrote about you? You didn’t even explain why you left him. You just disappeared.”

When I loved you, I was always the land swept away by the storms of your creativity. You were never the water, bleeding out the colors I loaded on my brush. It took me years to realize I was nothing but muse to you.

Next to my garbage basket but never in it is my box of evidence. Only I can read the contents. There is the apology card that is ripped up and taped back together for the night you threw my easel through the window. You got a whole album out of your manufactured regret for that. The now desiccated daisies you picked on your way back from the tantrum produced by my demand for time alone to paint transformed into the sweetest, most lilting melody I’ve ever heard. My half-finished sketch of you playing your guitar uncrumpled in your imagination and became your most requested ballad.

I win when I don’t need the box, when I feel my own pain louder than I can feel yours. For you, a muse cannot also be a creator. Your muse is an echo chamber that amplifies your passion. She is a pocket of air that is siphoned up to move the notes into place. She is the water, not the color.

Does it matter that I left you? I am still your muse. You and your fans are still demanding that I hear your pain. You are still insisting on coloring me with your emotions. You didn’t have enough sympathy to notice when I left myself. It does not surprise me that you are bewildered that I left you.

Garage Sale of the Gods

The yard sign read, “Garage Sale of the Gods”.  Gordon leapt from the car and grabbed an orb which was clearly the sad remnant of taxidermy experimentation.

“Look at this eyeball!” he said.  “Maybe it’s Odin’s left eye or the eye of Sauron!”  I tried to deflate his excitement by saying, “Maybe it’s Thor’s favorite marble encased in the finest Spanish cordovan,” but Gordon kept blathering ridiculous possibilities. “It could be the grey sisters’ eye! It’s definitely an eye!”

Gordon’s shouting wouldn’t stop until I got the price of Gordon’s potential treasure, so I asked the crocodile-headed man in the garage, “What is this and what are you asking for it?”  He answered, “That’s Cerebus’s testicle.” Gordon dropped his find and made a fatuous and ill-mannered display of using his hand sanitizer.

“But it looks like an eye,” I said.  “It is,” crocodile-man answered. “Hellhounds need to see what is behind them and what is in front of them. It was a bad idea to neuter Cerebus, although anything you cut off him grows back.  After Heracles snuck up on him, Hades decided against vitiating Cerebus’ abilities in the future, so that item is a one of a kind treasure.”

Prompt: http://www.jeffreyhollar.com/p/monday-mixer.html

200 words