2061 by J A Williams
Preview:
The tide was low. The lowest it had been for as long as I could remember. I saw the railroad tracks with my ancient binoculars from my perch on the balcony of our house on top of the hill.
It brought back memories of childhood tales as the family huddled around in warm winter evenings. There were stories of snow, something I had never seen, and of course, the sandy beach, a pier, and restaurants snuggled along Marine Drive, a road I only knew from stories, for they were all now buried beneath the warm waters of the Pacific.
Dolores came out, fanning the baby. She was dusky skinned, a refugee from Latin America, when it became too hot to live there.
Mankind cannot survive in 55º temperatures. Most refugees had died en-route, the trek too harsh. I fell for her at first sight and took her for my partner.
She came over, leaned down and brushed my cheek with her lips. I smiled up and touched Chloe's cheek, for so we had named our daughter.
Soledad.
"Look," I said, handing her the binoculars, pointing to the shore.
She passed me our baby, took the binoculars, and stared in wonder at the sight.
"¡Dios mío!" She reverted to her native tongue in her wonder at the visage. We had never seen the tracks, only heard about them. Until today.
I bobbed Chole on my lap, she cooed and I kissed her forehead. She was a treasure, there were not many children born these days, some believed that it had something to do with a hole in the ozone layer. Science was limited now, though my grandparents told me of a time when there were universities and medical institutions filled with scientists and knowledge abounded.
Now we barely had a country, and anything left of civilization was in Montreal. I built our house myself, with logs I felled by hand. Mankind was dying off, we had killed ourselves and destroyed our world. What fools men are.
According to my grandparents, it was all for greed, for money.
"Were low on sugar and salt," Dolores reminded me.
I nodded and stood. She took Chole from me and I went back inside for the baby backpack she'd made. I took Chole and handed her the carrier, which she strapped on to hold our six-month-old in front. When she was ready, I went inside for my Winchester, pulled it off the rack, checked that there was a shell chambered, and clicked on the safety. We would walk the six miles to the store together. It wasn't safe to leave a woman alone these days, in particular, one who was fertile.
I picked up the empty knapsack we would use to carry our purchases and slung it over my shoulder. Dolores went ahead of me. She was looking forward to the trip I knew. We would pass three other homesteads on our trek and she hoped there would be an opportunity to socialize and catch up on the news.
Frank Winslow had a prehistoric, ham radio and was our main source of international news.
Such as it was.
Twenty-five minutes later, we came upon the homestead of the Edmonds. Four people lived here. There was Mr. and Mrs. Edmonds, their only son Steve and his partner Bev. Steve and Beverly had been together for over six years with no sign of children.
The girls hugged in delight and Bev pulled Chole out of the carrier cooing and cuddling her. I felt for them, I knew they wanted children. Steve and I shook hands, then embraced, pounding each other on the back.
"Just stoppin' by for a visit?" Steve asked.
"No," I shook my head. "Heading up to the store for some sugar, and salt. We'll see if they have any flour, an' maybe a half pound of coffee."
"Getting harder to get staples every day," Mr. Edmonds interjected. Steve and I nodded.
Mrs. Edmonds brewed tea in a decrepit aluminum pot. She always made good tea. I could taste the mint, but did not know what other ingredients she gathered and dried for it. We didn't stay long, we still had an hour walk before us, and then the return trip.
I didn't want to be out after dark with Dolores and Soledad, rifle or no. Dolores and I had both seen a Wilder, as had several of our neighbors, so we were certain, one was in our area.
Wilders were human but insane. They lived off roots, berries and had been known to eat raw rats and squirrels. And, they steal. I cannot blame them, for they wish what we all do... to survive. However, they have no sense of right or wrong. We don't know for sure, but we have heard rumors of a male Wilder raping a woman, then slicing open her belly and eating her liver.
fic·tion (fikSHen), Noun: Prose literature, esp. short stories and novels,
about imaginary events and people; Invention or fabrication as opposed to fact.
Preview:
The back room of the bar was mostly exposed brick wall. Eric sulked into it, sidling behind the door and closing it, taking in the small enclosed space and where, in front of him a black wrought iron staircase unfolded below. Eric had decided after the last three hours of attempting to drink his sadness away that he would rather just find a quiet place to deal with it. So he slid down behind the door and began quietly coming down from the adrenaline kick of being inside illegally, hanging out with all the cool kids. And alcohol was on his breath and he heard over the bah-booming of his heart a girl shriek.
It wasn't untamed and he realized as it echoed that the black spiral staircase at his feet was unwinding towards the girls screech, pounding through his blood with the bah-booming and the bass thumping from a track the bar was blasting. He decided to follow his yellow brick road.
His feet took him down, weighing at least fifty pounds each, popping down the wrought iron staircase like a kid down a mountain, just trying to hang onto the rail while his body brought him closer and closer to the girl at the end because he knew the girl at the end would be there and she would need some saving. He thought that maybe just maybe this beautiful feeling dancing through him could rub off, maybe through a hug or a kiss or an offer to buy a drink and drive her home.
"I didn't mean to hit her, I didn't mean to but she just got in the way or something, Joanie you gotta come get me. I don't care about your sick kid! Get that deadbeat dad a his to watch it I need a ride. Joanie! GodDAMNIT!" She had long curly dishwater blonde hair and was wearing all red, from her eyeliner to her lipstick to her dress, nails, shoes. Even the whites of her eyes were glowing like a Christmas tree. She held a phone in one hand and the stem of a broken beer bottle in the other. She was looking at the boy.
When I say boy I mean maybe 19, when I say girl I mean maybe 23. Courtney and Eric stood staring at one another about three stairs away. Eric took in the jagged edge of the bottle, the shards lying around her fancy red boots. Courtney took in the skinny dark haired boy unwilling to flinch or move because he'd caught her in her hour of complete desperation.
"What are you looking at?"
"Red."
"Yeah? Whatever."
"You're all red."
"And you're all black, who cares kid?"
"I'm not a kid."
"You're not? What are you fourteen or something? C'mon. Who even let you in?"
"The bouncers."
"You from Hawaii then?" His fake ID was indeed from the island state. He nodded his head. She snorted, sneering, her whole face making a beak. "Yeah right, they let whoever into this goddamn bar anymore. Like they need the money or something." Eric sat on the stairs, immediately overwhelmed with her loud presence. He felt the alcohol leaving him just a bit, his blood got a bit faster. His heart was wide.
"What happened to you?"
"What happened to me? What? What happened to you little boy? Why're you here without your mommy? What was she busy tonight? Where's your little girlfriend?" Eric had no girlfriend. But he did not feel the need to give Courtney more to go on.
"I'm alone."
"Whatever kid, kids like you ain't ever alone."
"Did you kill someone?" Eric noticed more red, a bit of blood on a piece of the glass on the ground. Courtney chuckled a bit.
"Not my finest hour I guess," she smiled, this time a little more kindly. Like she had a secret, a big soft inside secret she wanted him to pry into, to dive into so she wouldn't be alone like him. "No kid, I didn't kill no one. Just got into a fight is all."
"What was the fight about?"
"What're you the freaking FBI or something? God, kid. Stop asking questions." So Eric stopped asking questions and just stared at her for a second, noticing the layers of makeup, the smear of eyeliner down her left cheek ending in a long red scratch. Her lips were full and her lipstick cracking like old paint. He felt like she was at the end of all of her ropes.
"Stop staring kid, it's embarrassing."
"For you or me?" This time Eric felt a bit of his old charm well up and pop like a light bulb. She moved closer to him, swinging the broken head of the bottle gently, slowly so that it elapsed next to his knee. He shivered.
"For you. What do I got to be embarrassed by?"
“You hit someone with that didn’t you?”
“Why does it matter kid, it wasn’t you that’s all you gotta worry about.”
“You seem really angry.”
“I seem angry? Oh kid, you got no idea what I’m like when I’m angry. Why’re you prying so hard?
The Staircase by Gibson Culbreth
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Woodland Stalker by Kristopher Miller
Preview:
Ben Matthews inhaled the Boreal Forest's frigid air as he peered through the scope of his .300 Winchester rifle to pick a moose out of the frost-covered brush.
He swore he heard a moose's cry past a ridge he climbed up a few minutes ago. Matthews knew he was on the right track because he saw moose prints leading upward a few meters after a rotten log. So Matthews stopped in front of a fallen tree and sat down to use it as a prop for his rifle. But he could not help but feel anxious. It was probably the cold wind whispering to him as this has been the coldest winter Matthews hunted in during the past eight years he hunted moose in Canada during winter breaks when he was not teaching his World Literature class back in the United States.
Matthews adjusted his scope to zoom in on something rustling in the brush up ahead. He saw a broad shape crack the ice and brambles apart. It was rushing in his direction but Matthews could not help but notice how whatever was trying to break out of the thorny brambles broke these brambles like they were twigs. Either it was a giant grizzly or this was his moose trying to escape from a grizzly in panic mode.
Matthews adjusted his trigger finger to fire. From the corner of his scope, he saw a pair of flat, long antlers burst from the brush followed by the narrow broad muzzle and a bulky muscular body. Matthews watched as the moose poked its head out, probably to make sure it was in safe territory. Then it pulled out of the brush but it shook its head erratically. Then it turned around like it was expecting something else to pop out. Could it sense a predator nearby? Matthews was a witness to strange animal behavior so he kept quiet and low.
After a few seconds, Matthews noticed through his scope that the moose seemed to have calmed down. The animal inched out of the brush and into Matthews' crosshairs close to a tree. At close range, a round from the Winchester would bore a clean hole into the moose's skull and knock it dead. Matthew tensed his trigger figure against the hard, curved metal object that made no distinction between what was a target and what was simply in the background. Matthew felt the adrenaline that warmed him up whenever he saw game ripe for the taking. He took a deep breath-
-then he saw two large arms with claws at the end explode out of the tree and grab the moose's hind legs as pieces of pine needles fell down into the snow. Matthews saw the moose be pulled into the tree kicking its foreheads in panic. He saw the animal's eyes widen in fear as it bleated against the dry air and kicked at its unseen attacker. Matthews heard a thick, wet crunch of bone cracking open. Matthews shook behind the tree as he watched the moose's blood rain down to paint the white ground with a deep crimson.
He tore his sight away from the rifle after hearing bones cracking apart. What was that? Matthews thought about sneaking away at whatever was making the tree shake with gore. He gripped his rifle with tight, quivering hands. Was this for real? No bear or wolf could ever climb up a tree and pull up a moose with that kind of strength.
After taking a few breaths, Matthews decided to prop up his gun again on the tree and peer through his scope to where he could see the pine needles shake. He squeezed the trigger and saw pine needles spread out at the blast. The gunfire was answered with an angry growl and a moose's head falling down to the ground with a pulpy splurch. Matthews cocked the gun again to let out a spent shell and fired again. After he fired the second shot, Matthews almost fell back from the deep roar erupting from the tree. He saw whatever creature he shot at rustle down the tree.
Matthews scrambled up from the broken tree and he ran as he heard a heavy crash behind him. He ran past icy trees and into a frosty thicket as whatever was after him pounded into the ground as hard as Matthews' heart was beating in his chest. He rushed to the right and Matthews sped down a slope as he huffed against the cold air. He almost slipped as Matthews gripped a tree. He looked behind him to see something crash into the brush with abominable strength. Up ahead, he saw a broken log surrounded by a thick, dried up field that he passed by earlier when hunting the moose. Matthews thought the cold would have dulled the creature's scent but so far, that scent was frighteningly sufficient as he watched a large hulking shape tearing his way.
Matthews sped off down the hill and he held his Winchester close as he did. It was coming too fast to get a shot off. As Matthews ran closer to the log, he realized his leather backpack-filled with additional ammunition, some jerky, and flares-was slowing him down and it may not have been able to fit into the log with him. As he ran, Matthews ripped the backpack away from him and he dove into the log with his gun.
Matthews breathed quietly as he hid inside the rotting log. He closed his eyes and clenched his hands around his Winchester as he heard something heavy pound into the stone and rock close to him. He listened to rawhide leather being shredded apart. Then he heard some smaller objects being crunched up and picked to fragments.
Was the thing destroying his supplies?
Matthews heard the thing tear into some snow. The sound raw wood being ripped apart made him shake. He held his breath to try to keep still. Matthews thought it was the log he hid in but the crack sounded too faint to be close like it was looking around one of the trees. Matthews guessed the creature sniffed around where Matthews dropped his pack and assumed he was hiding up in the trees. Soon, he believed it would come close to his hiding spot. Then he heard the beast howl like a monstrous wolf. It was challenging Matthews to come out of whatever hole he hid in. Matthews felt he was about to faint. Was this how prey felt when it was cornered?
Preview:
About two years ago, Sean Garrity got a call from his sister, Amanda. She was coming home. Well, she was returning to where they grew up in Pennsylvania, that is. She and her husband Phil had been living in San Francisco for the past four years. I guess she figured she wasn't getting any younger. If she was going to start a family, she might as well do it while she had the youth and energy to do the job right.
Understandably, Amanda raved ad nauseam about the city by the bay and friends on both coasts conceded she was crazy for leaving. But all that beauty and mild weather came with a price tag that could stop your heart. Square footage had been exceedingly tough to come by in any neighborhood worth living in, even with both of them working. There was just no room for them to breed in the city limits. And even if they could figure that part out, the notorious school district busing policies of the day might have sent their little ones right back to the crumbling slums they so desperately tried to avoid, all in the name of proper social engineering. Well, Amanda had no plans to sacrifice her children for the greater good of an enlightened society but the suburbs were no less attractive. Everywhere in the bay area it seemed her only options consisted of multi-million dollar estates amidst the gorgeous albeit foggy hillsides or seedy single units near industrial slag heaps that could reasonably be compared to a de-militarized zone.
After two months of futile searching, she convinced her husband that a happy, affordable life awaited them in her hometown of Elk's Head, just east of the Appalachian foothills. What they would give up in chic restaurants they would get back in snowy back yards and family game night. It took another two months but eventually Amanda speculated that she found a great house in the outskirts of Elk's Head, not far from the town's reservoir which filled to the brim every spring with icy-cold, clear-as-crystal snow runoff from the nearby Poconos. She immediately called her brother and asked him to meet her there to offer his opinion.
"As you can see -- four bedrooms, three bathrooms. Island kitchen. And, you just gotta see this-- a completely refurbished basement. Bet you don't get that out in earthquake-land, huh?" The realtor flashed a winning smile meant to invoke warmth and trustworthiness. Sean figured she had spent, oh, about twenty minutes practicing that look in front of the mirror prior to meeting a client.
Amanda turned to Sean.
"So what do you think?"
In all honesty, Sean knew it was a superb choice. Well-built and spacious. The only thing left to do would be to fill up all those rooms with kids.
"I think I'm gonna be Uncle Sean before I know it," he replied. "Fresh air. A few friendly neighbors. Nice little schoolhouse nearby."
Amanda and Phil looked at each other and grinned. Ms. Realtor of the Month started doing the math on her commission while standing in that super-duper island kitchen of hers.
"Sure is a wee bit close to Olde Camden Road though ain't it, sis?"
That little comment smacked the million-dollar smile right off the Ms. Twenty First Century lady's lips. She shot him a death stare that screamed, "Are you trying to ruin my quarterlies? You know I have student-loan and car payments, right?"
The Olde Camden Road was, quite simply, unlike any street you'd see anywhere in the county. Curvy and winding, there were very few houses. In fact, just about all the adjoining property consisted of undeveloped, publicly owned woodlands. Naturally, the narrow, two-lane strip ran north and south for a cosmically appropriate thirteen miles.
But none of that had caused Amanda's realtor to bite her bottom lip with so much tension. Her source of consternation stemmed from the fact that Olde Camden Road had obtained quite a bit of local notoriety as an area rife with many legends of supernatural activity. Ghosts, vanishings, strange gatherings and witchcraft all made their way into the local vernacular over the decades.
Even growing up on the other side of town, Sean and Amanda heard all the folklore. From the moment Sean hit high school, stories of upper classmen who ventured too far down the road burned through the corridors like wildfire.
"Dude, a phantom pick-up truck totally appeared out of nowhere and chased us back to the intersection! Then it just plain disappeared, man."
"God's honest truth. If you stop on the bridge halfway down the road and look over the side, the ghost of a boy pushes you off to save you from being run over as he was in real life."
"Seriously, though. Satan worshippers used to meet back in those woods for years to sacrifice animals and stuff."
As age and reality sunk in, however, it became clear that the road was mainly a modern haven for isolated hiking in the daylight and teenaged sex and drinking come nightfall. Like many a kid, life got in the way as Sean grew up, got a job, and took on the normal responsibilities and everyday tribulations of adulthood. The Olde Camden Road was forgotten. Out of sight and out of mind unless some pathetically pony-tailed, wanna-be Soderbergh had been observed strolling into town pumped chock full of hope that he'd soon hit it big with his "groundbreakingly creepy" documentary nobody would eventually buy off his low-budget website. Or perhaps more foreboding, Sean would pick up the local newspaper and read about another car wreck along the road.
Olde Camden Road by Robert Welsh
Beyond The Eyes: Illustrations by Cyan Jenkins and poems by Ellen Eldridge
Synopsis: For me, poetry is about understanding the rules of grammar and literature and breaking them in the most creative, and often disturbing, ways. Though poetry is most often written and least often read, Beyond the Eyes brings a collection of poems I've been writing over the last decade to light. The addition of Cyan's illustration to my words captures the intense feelings and perspectives enclosed in semi colons and commas. Each word carefully crafts meaning, my meaning, and what may appear as a spelling error is often double entendre or word play, so read Beyond the Eyes and play along. Order direct by emailing ellen@targetaudiencemagazine.com; through Amazon.com; and Lulu.com
Homo-intellectus by James Anthony
Synopsis: It's 2029, an asteroid heads for an impact in the Sahara desert following a mysterious change in orbit. Far from being the catastrophic event that had been predicted, an ancient secret is exposed that will re-write the history of mankind. Was an undiscovered branch of our family tree the foundation for our present civilisation? Who did build the pyramids? What are the markings on the Nazca plain in South America? The Torah Cult, a secret organization, set up hundreds of years before, will stop at nothing to prevent the release of any information. Professor Simon Cartwright and Professor Mary Freeman are thrown together in a fast moving adventure where they travel from Timbuktu to Ayers Rock in Australia via Durham and Bangkok, while they battle to stay alive long enough to reveal the truth. The book can be ordered as a paperback or Kindle from Amazon.com; or in any other ebook format through smashwords.com
Shadowboxer by Paula Sophia
Synopsis: "Shadowboxer" addresses the plight of Willie Guyles, a rookie police officer with the Oklahoma City Police Department, as he struggles to fit in as a new recruit while dealing with a lifelong gender identity crisis. While working the streets with his field training officer, Guyles encounters a transgender prostitute who reignite's some old desires he thought he'd boxed away years before. Unable to trust anyone with his secret, Guyles decides to go to a transformation boutique in Dallas, Texas so he can satisfy a curiosity about what he would look like as a woman. During this process he realizes it's going to be harder than ever to box up his desires and move on with his plans to live the life of a hard-bitten law enforcement officer. Shadowboxer is currently available for download onto electronic reading devices from Amazon.com; Barnes & Noble, and All Romance Ebooks. It will be available in print in the near future.
Population One by David Bridge
Preview:
Andrew Finsbury looked across the vast desert plain. The bright orange sand stretched to the horizon. While the wind snatched at his overalls, sounds of industry came from behind--buzz saws, drills and hammers. The workers were putting the final touches to the factory. This place would make him a millionaire. No doubt about it.
Andrew mopped his brow with his handkerchief and adjusted his goggles. The workers didn't look up as he passed. All told, he had about two dozen of them. He loved these people. They worked without question or complaint as long as he paid them their food and drink coupons at six o'clock every day. Then they would reconvene to a nearby town--about twenty miles down the road--and drink themselves silly. His town didn't have any bars, and it never would.
In the distance, he spied an approaching jeep. The man from the ministry he was expecting--another bureaucratic fool to contend with. Andrew's stomach knotted, but he stood his ground--facing the car head on.
The car stopped and a heavy-set man, dressed in a black suit, emerged from the passenger side of the jeep. The man approached with his hand outstretched and said, in accented English, "Mr. Finsbury!"
Andrew wiped his hand on the front of his overalls then accepted the handshake. "Nice of you to visit. Step into my office."
Was this man as amateurish as he looked? Seriously--a suit in the middle of the desert?
****
His office was a large green tarp reinforced with concrete. It spread out over twenty square feet, just big enough to accommodate his bed, computers and a small stove. Andrew had placed his tent about a hundred yards from his workers.
Andrew indicated the camp table and chairs. "Take a seat. Water?"
The man took his place in one of the chairs and set his briefcase on the table. "Anything stronger?"
"Afraid not," Andrew said. "I don't drink alcohol out here. Dehydration can kill you."
"Mm," the man said. "In that case, a glass of water."
Having given the man his water, Andrew set his own glass--a pink mixture of vitamins and water--on the table then faced his adversary. "Down to business."
The man sipped at his glass and winced. ""Indeed, business." Sweat dripped down his forehead. He leant forward and snapped open the locks on his briefcase, producing a brown folder which overflowed with white paper. "What're you planning to manufacture here anyway?"
The question Andrew had dreaded. Why couldn't they just give him the deed to their land? They'd get their cut. Andrew cleared his throat. "Telephone handsets."
"Telephone handsets?"
"Yes, you know, the plastic handsets you plug into the wall."
The man furrowed his brow. "And there is a market for that?"
"Oh, yes."
"It is just." The man paused, resembling a policeman wondering how to break tragic news to a relative. "I did not think anyone used them. Static telephones, I mean."
Andrew smiled. "Well, that's true enough. But I have a plan."
The man took another sip of water then sank back in his camp chair. He didn't remove any papers from the folder.
Andrew's insides submerged in turmoil, but he tried to keep a calm exterior. He couldn't believe everything hinged on this blundering fool. Andrew stirred his vitamin water with a teaspoon. "Who're the people who buy phones?"
The man pouted and shook his head. "I do not know . . . old people? I am sorry I have never been to Europe, so I admit to knowing nothing about the marketing."
"Well, you're right." Andrew cursed him silently. "Old people do buy phones. Did you know that in the last year over six percent of Europeans bought a static telephone for their house?"
"No. I did not."
Andrew nodded. "Imagine that."
Creases appeared on the man's forehead. "And, so what is your idea?"
God damn it! Was this guy looking to invest? Andrew snatched the tea towel hanging off the table.
The man flinched.
"To take that emerging market." He wrung the tea towel, pretending it was the man's neck. "And strangle it for all it's worth."
"I see."
"No, you don't." Andrew smirked. "After years of research into this market, including psychiatric surveys and studies into buying habits of this group, I've discovered some potential dynamite."
"What?"
"These people all want one thing. Quality."
The man gestured with his hand, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Why, of course."
"But they also want a bargain. Who would pay top price for old technology?
"No-one."
"That's right. But they still want quality. Are you following me? They read the label and see the product comes from here, and they put it back on the shelf." Andrew took a sip from his glass, talking was thirsty work out here and this guy was wasting his time. "Maybe, they go for a pricier model from a more reputable country, or perhaps they just go home and forget about it."
The man nodded along.
Preview:
I don't know what clouds are any more than Jessie does. I want to go skydiving when I'm old, though, that way it won't matter if I die. I tell Jessie that the clouds would probably feel cold.
"I think it's like when you jump off a jungle gym, except, I mean, it's longer," I say. I take a heavy clump of leaves and fling it off the hill so that they all flutter down, right near the spot where my sister Jessie is standing. She looks up when the leaves fall on her thick hair, and picks out the pieces from the strands. She's not too far below me on the hill, but it's pretty steep. I can see Grandpa's house from where I am, and his garden, weeded out and raked over, ready for the fall.
"But I'd want to go skydiving before I'm about to die, Mark," she says. "I mean, what fun is it if you go and die while doing it?"
"That's the point." I roll my eyes. "Duh. Because skydiving is scary, but if you go when you're gonna die anyways, it's not scary anymore. I don't want to get old."
I'm only nine and Jessie is seven, so we have a while to get old but I know that it comes up quick, or at least that's what Grandpa told me. Jessie ignores me and climbs over a fallen tree. The hill is in Grandpa's backyard, but he can't climb it anymore because his doctor said it was bad for his arthritis. It goes up into the parking lot of the YMCA, but it's so overgrown and crowded with trees that it obstructs the parking lot of the Y from view when you're in the yard. His house is a split level, painted dark brown, and it's on the corner of the street so the driveway is in the cul de sac. From the top of the hill, you can look out onto the front yard or the backyard. Sometimes Jessie and I used to spy on our cousins while they played kickball in the street. After a while, though, the trees got too big to see down into the yard very well, so now we can mostly just make forts.
I continue walking up higher on the hill than Jessie, because she's slower. I'm careful but I move faster than she does because I don't stop every two seconds to look at the flowers. Most of them are old because Grandpa hasn't been up here for a while, so all of his flowerbeds and vines and stuff like that are tangled together now. At least, I think it's not on purpose. He has a lot of little plants, and purple and pink mix together and I want to pull them apart; they aren't supposed to be mixed. They're supposed to be separate. Everything you plant is supposed to be separate. Sometimes going on the hill stresses me out, because everything is mixed together when it isn't supposed to be. Nothing is in order.
Jessie pulls more of the leaves out of her hair and glares at me. "You didn't need to throw those leaves at me," she says.
"I didn't throw them at you," I say. "They just fell on you. Do you think the Cousin Fort is still there?" I climb up further and walk to the edge of the hill that looks down on the house. I can see the roof and our parents, and Grandpa, sitting on the porch. It's screened in and almost as high as the house, on the top level. The sound of someone's radio is coming up from behind Grandpa's yard, or maybe from the side of the Y, and it's playing the Beatles. I recognize the song from when we listened to it in our mom's car. Something about Mother Mary, and I used to think that it was talking about my mom until she told me it was religious, about calming down or something.
I don't wait for Jessie but I know that she can catch up eventually. It's not like this is our first time climbing the hill. It's not even a hill, really; our cousin Paul thinks it's in between a hill and a mountain. I definitely know it's not a mountain, though. Anything you can climb in half an hour isn't a mountain. Grandpa planted the flowers when my dad was little, and a giant birch tree sits at the top, where the Cousin Fort is. It's October and the leaves are changing, but not on the hill. The hill is all pine trees and this one birch, still completely green. But if you look out to the fields where houses are being built, in between the houses are trees turning colors. I don't like it. I don't like the change of colors because it makes everything look different, and girls freak out about it. Things are better in the summer, before everything changes.
I get to the Cousin Fort, up against the birch tree, and I walk around, trying to decide if it's safe enough for me to go inside. There was a huge storm yesterday, and it knocked down lots of trees. We didn't have power at our house for seven hours and thirty-seven minutes. I timed it on Mom's iPod.
Jessie catches up to me and kneels down. I crouch down too and look inside the broken-down Fort, between the branches that are still leaning against the tree. I want to straighten them out and fix the Fort, but it will just get ruined again. I hate when things are out of order and all of the branches are tilted, but I know that Jessie will make fun of me if I fix them.
"They're just branches," she'd say, and pull at her hair to make it straight, even though it never becomes straight just from her tugging it. "Stop being so neat."
I climb inside, feeling the twigs rub against my scalp. The Fort is pretty big, big enough to fit the five of us, when we made it. Now it's shrunk because it caved in a bit, but it's still big enough for two. My jeans get wet and dirty from the moist earth that's underneath the branches, and I feel the knees of my jeans gather a circle of cool dirtiness. It bothers me. I should have stayed crouching so my pants didn't get dirty. I roll up the bottoms, messily, scrunch them up so that the dirt doesn't get the bottoms more disgusting.
"Gosh, Mark, go faster," Jessie says, shoving me deeper into the Fort. We can both fit, legs cramped up.
Most of what's left of the Fort isn't what we built. It's nature's buildup, fallen branches and leaves that got stuck, pine needles cramped together with sticky sap. But it's still really cool.
Jessie smells like onions and coconut and it's a weird combination that I've never noticed before, but now, she's sitting really close to me and it's gross. But she's my sister, so it's okay, I guess.
Sidestep by Alessandra Siraco
Three Women: A Poetic Triptych and Selected Poems by Emma Eden Ramos
Synopsis: The poems in this chapbook, a small book of verse, deal mostly with family tragedies that affect three women - Annette, a psychotherapist, and her daughter Julia, and a Croatian immigrant, Milena. The poems about them compose the Triptych of the chapbook's title. The poems are moving, each woman revealing herself and her history in her words, reflecting on the tragedy of their stories. The book is available on Lulu.com
Literary Licence by Kerry Ashwin
Synopsis: Imagine an author in her prime and she wants to retire. Easy it seems. Except writing is in her blood. Literary licence follows the fortunes of Ursula Drewsbury as she discovers retirement is more than gardening and cups of tea. She creates a pseudonym only to discover he is larger than life and her ego is piqued. So what to do? Killing him off would be easy for the best crime and fiction writer. Or is it? Ursula is beset by more than a passing problem as she tries to kill her pseudonym, Lloyd Langton, and escape the law and the paparazzi. All the links for the ebook, paperback on my blog; or on Amazon.com
Empath by Sabrina Sumsion
Preview:
I feel your pain.
To most people this is a figure of speech. A tired cliché or a hollow utterance meant to make the one who uttered it feel better. For me, it is reality. For as long as I can remember, I just knew things about what others were feeling. I knew exactly what they were feeling.
I remember one time when I was around six, I was walking with my mom through a mall. We passed a man. He was normal looking. He had a suit on and he was clean cut. He looked at me and smiled in manner that can only be called pleasant but chills ran down my spine. All I could think at the time was how dark his look made me feel. I tried to get my mom to carry me but she swatted away my outstretched hands told me to stop acting like a baby.
She never did understand my strange behaviors. I would come home from school and see her sitting on the couch and ask her what was wrong. She would tell me she had a cold. I could see her rubbed-raw red nose and tissues. I would see the tear marks on her face. I would hear the catch in her throat that could be attributed to a cold. Beyond all that, I could feel the sadness she was trying to hide.
She also misunderstood different events in my childhood like my friend Wendy's death. At the funeral, I was only five years old. In our religion, death was not a terrible event to grieve over. I knew that. She knew that I knew that so my mother couldn't understand why I was crying so hard. When she asked, I replied, "Because Wendy's mom is crying." I didn't come to understand until years later that I was tapping into Wendy's mother's grief.
As a teenager, I nearly drove my mother into the nut house. Hormones flaring along with everyone else's, I never knew which feelings were mine and which were the people's in the halls with me. My teenage years are even now a blur of swings between anger, depression, mania and sexual desire. The intensity of the swings drove me away from people. I still didn't know what really was going on so the emotions scared me. I became the butterfly. I floated from group to group but never let myself become really close to anyone. I was liked but I also had my share of enemies.
Actually, I'm not sure if I really did have enemies or if I just got hit with the vibes being directed at other people. It's not like anyone was going to say anything to my face. I had too many "friends".
I survived high school scene and tried college. I began to understand what was going on by interacting with my roommate. You can spend a lot of time with roommates and I had an extremely emotional unstable girl to room with. If she didn't have drama, she wasn't happy. Eventually I realized that every time she walked in the room, my emotions would match her flavor of the day. If she just got laid, I was feeling pretty good. If she was in a fight with her boyfriend, I was mad. If he dumped her, life as we knew it would cease.
I started testing myself. I would sit in public places and just feel. If you've ever floated in the ocean, you can relate to the sensation. People walking by were the different currents. The darling child holding ice cream in one hand and her mommy's hand in the other drenched me in happiness. The tall slender woman walking briskly, her heels clicking on the pavement in rapid staccato would sprinkle stress as she passed by. The overweight man would splash me with exhaustion. The teenager with spiked hair riding by on a skateboard would spray me with anger.
Usually, I would enjoy my voyages into other's emotions. Every once in a while, a person would walk by and scare me with the violent crashing waves of emotion. The crushing tides would cause me to lose my breath. I would feel like I was drowning and have to flee towards a happier group to regain my composure.
Eventually I learned to harness and focus my experiences. I have a desk job where I crunch numbers and avoid human contact. I still feel my boss's temper flare up but I don't get angry. I simply empathize.
****
Today, I am at home.
I love being home. It is a place of quiet and serenity. I love sitting on the couch, curling up in a cozy blanket and eating chocolate covered cherries. I bask in the silence and peace. It's my bastion of sanity and peace. At least, it was until the new neighbors moved in. Every once in a while, my neighbors get in a fight and I have to move to the other end of my apartment to avoid their emotions.
Today they are fighting.
I wish they would stop. They are really mad today. Their emotions are so strong that I can't ignore them. I am standing at the far end of my apartment in front of my window trying to get far enough away that I don't feel their feelings but still not leave my inner sanctum.
I consider going to the coffee shop across the street. Even with the people swirling around me, it would still be more peaceful than here. I look out the window and watch the snow swirl past. The weather man predicted a freezing night and he's right. I don't want to leave.
The neighbors are shouting louder. I can hear the muffled voices through the wall. I walk over to the wall dividing our apartments and rest my head on the wall. Maybe I should go next door and ask them to quiet down. Most likely, they don't want to be bothered and they'll direct the anger at me. I sure don't want antagonistic neighbors. I would have to move again and finding cheap apartments in this town is close to impossible.
What about calling the landlord or the cops? Same end result. If they found out it was me that had called, they would make my life hell.
Damn it! I wish they would shut up!
I sit on the couch and struggle to hold back tears.
Then I realize I am crying. We are crying. The woman from next door is sending out strong currents of sadness and I can't control my reaction. She is crying so I am crying and I am so sick and tired of living other people's emotions.
Preview:
Sheriff Bill Dobson had an uneasy feeling that something was going on in his town, Ross Corners, on a twist of Colorado's Blue River. The country around was scenic with great views in every direction, the folks were generally nice folks who said the sheriff kept his ear close to the ground, that sooner or later he'd hear everything on the trail. But he did not have the slightest clue about this new undercurrent.
Neither did Caleb Thornwell, Jr., 11-year old son of the livery owner, sitting on a rock in a cave he'd never been in before, the newest member of "The Raggedies," a name they adopted because all of them wore hand-me-downs or "worn to the nub" clothes. He kept shaking his head, amazed at what was going on, amazed at how kids, all of them near his age, had this grasp on things, on the whole town it appeared, and kept it all in "The Book." Caleb was smaller than the others, and probably less interested than his pals, but his father, more than just him realizing it, had a handle on much of everything that went on in town, like the comings and goings of people using his livery, at least for overnight stays. Young Thornwell, without knowing it, was a political pawn, but Billy Talmon, beyond his years, knew his way around and he'd be able to use this new boy who seemed to lack for tight friends.
Thornwell didn't have a hint at what The Book was, though the other kids, these new friends of his, spoke of it with admiration, love, whatever was coming at him that he couldn't figure out. They seemed to be on fire every time they talked about it, The Book.
Suddenly, at the other end of the cave, away from the canyon entrance, a raspy sound was heard. Andy Marston, another kid from town, crawled into the cave at the back entrance, whistled twice, both times lightly, listened for a few seconds, heard someone whistle back, and said, "Is that you in there, Billy? You got The Book with you?"
The cave was in the heart of the Rockies, not far from the town of Ross Corners, sitting on the picturesque high end of the Blue River.
"Yuh, it's me, Andy, me and Benjy," Billy Talmon said, "and we got a new deputy. Caleb Thornwell from the livery. He's here with us. Course he ain't got anything new for us right now, being so new, but we'll be able to count on him down the trail." Feeling like he was buttering the bread with a half-pound of butter and a load of jam, he said, "We'll sure count on Caleb helping us out here. That's one fine new recruit we got with us now. It's plain old good news in itself for The Book."
He paused with command presence, and then continued, "You got anything new, Andy? Anything to report for The Book?" He was able to stand up easily in that section of the cave. It caused him think of an Indian totem, which made him feel slightly exalted, especially for a kid almost a man in some things. The light from the flames threw his shadow on the wall and across the upper arch of the cave. He felt bigger than he actually was.
"Sure have, Billy. Wait'll I get up in there and get myself set."
He crawled almost all the way in until he saw the small fire and the silhouettes of his friends. The comfort zone grasped him; hanging loose with friends was one of his few joys. Much of his time was spent in his father's barn, mucking out, cleaning and maintaining the few possessions needing such work, and not having much time to spend with his new horse. He missed those opportunities and felt lucky with his "membership" in the gang.
Excitement ran all over him and the others could feel it even before he said, "I got something for The Book. I really got something this time." A deep breath seemed to swallow him for a few seconds. "You won't believe this."
"You said that last time, Andy," Talmon said. "You ain't got nothing yet. Wait'll you hear what Benjy saw. It could knock you right out of the saddle. It's great stuff for The Book." He was upbeat and excited, waiting to spill the goods, but knew Andy had to have his chance in the sun in the cave. He almost laughed all the way through that private interchange, but wouldn't say so to the others … let them find out for themselves, if they could.
"So what'd you see, Andy? It's got to be right up in front of you, seeing it. Knowing who's in the mix of it like he don't ever belong there. We're not interested in who's sneaking into whose bedroom when the old man's away, or who plays around out there under that tree that's off on the trail into town. Lots of folks play there coming or going. That don't count with us. Seems like a lot of folks tend to stuff like that."
"It's Sheriff Dobson," Andy said. "He carries a stick stuck down in the rifle sheath of his saddle and he tugs it onto his own small branding iron he carries in his saddle bag and marks a cow every once in a while and just waits for him, I bet, to show up in a count on someone else's place. When they tell him, he says it wandered off from his small herd and it's kinda come back to him."
"He do it only the once?
"Nope. Not on your life. I saw him a couple of times do it. Like he looked around and made sure nobody was seeing him, too. I wanted it to be good for The book."
"Where was you?"
"In the bushes. He didn't see me."
"Where was your horse?"
"I walked out there. I was gonna do a little fishing the first time it happened, and keep my eyes out for something to put in The Book. I was thinking about what you said before, about horses giving us away any time, them and their shoes of iron. That was because I saw him kind of sneaking around, going out of town them few times, and decided to walk out there, like I was really going fishing. What the heck, it didn't bother me none."
"Did he start a fire to heat the iron up?"
"Nope, like he did before when I found him," Andy said. "He found a fire still warm from branding being done before he got there. The Rickets' crew had left it and he had been watching them. He plain rode in and put on a few sticks and heated his iron and used the stick to handle it and stuck it on a dogie, then skedaddled out of there. The dogie just walked off."
The Raggedies by Tom Sheehan
Four Play: An Erotic Romance Sampler by C. Margery Kempe
Synopsis: An erotic romance sampler from C. Margery Kempe, author of CHASTITY FLAME, LOVE ME LIKE A REPTILE, TEXT PLAY and many more saucy tales of love. The four tales follow a variety of lovers including a pair who take an unexpected detour from the golf course, another couple who see each other for the first time in many months since their initial tryst, two old friends revealing secrets with a childhood game of truth or dare, and a first meeting in the library with unexpected sizzle. Sexual content: scorching hot! Buy from Amazon.com
Unikirja by K. A. Laity
Synopsis: The schemes of witches and sages and giants. Doomed marriages and supernatural bargains. The magic of music, of the sauna, of family. A fish who's a girl, a girl who's a wolf. The creation of the world. Author K. A. Laity weaves timeless magic in UNIKIRJA. Tales from the KALEVALA and KANTELETAR, the ancient myths and folktales of Finland, receive new life and meaning in these imaginative retellings. Mixing the realistic with the fantastic, the mythic with the modern, the dream-tales of UNIKIRJA reinterpret the beauty of the original, time-honored Finnish stories for contemporary readers. Laity's work on this collection won her the 2005 Eureka Short Story Fellowship and a grant from the Finlandia Foundation in 2006. Some of these stories have previously appeared in NEW WORLD FINN, MYTHIC PASSAGES, MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY'S SWORD AND SORCERESS XXI, THE BELTANE PAPERS, and KIPPIS! LITERARY JOURNAL. UNIKIRJA also includes four never-before published pieces, including "Lumottu," an innovative and deeply moving play. Buy on Amazon.com
Burgermen by Alan Zacher
Preview:
It's 5:42 a.m., and the police have finally left. I know it's actually Monday, but it still feels like its Sunday. I'm sitting at my old wooden desk, looking out of the tall, narrow window that faces east, in my bedroom on the second floor of my parent's big old house.
God, I'm drained-physically and mentally. What a night it was-the anxiety, the stabbing, the blood, the body, the screaming sirens, the throngs of police, the confusion, the questions. I don't think this old neighborhood has ever experienced anything like this ever happening before, or, at least, I can't remember one ever happening before like this one-and I've lived here all of my life, when I was born in 1952. This is a quiet old neighborhood, with quiet old people. Crimes like this one simply don't happen here. I mean, this is Lemay, an old suburb of St. Louis County: Lemay is adjacent to the beginning of the City of St. Louis. The line of demarcation being the Des Peres River, which snakes its way east to the Mississippi River, just a few miles north of here.
Many of our neighbors were milled on the old cracking sidewalk in front of our house tonight-some dressed in hurriedly-put-on street clothes, or robes over pajamas and slippers; all huddled together sharing sleepy-eyed-ness, and tempered speculations, and a dying curiosity to know. Mrs. Peterson, who is a widower,--the nosy, old biddy- buddy-and who lives to the right of our house, was there; and Mr. and Mrs. Meyers were there, who live to the left of us, and on and on. And, boy, you should have seen the look of pure shock on the faces of all of those old people when the ambulance people carted that dead body out of here.
It was touch-and-go there for a while, but I was sure relieved, and glad, when the police didn't arrest Dad or take him away for killing Fred. They did take his bayonet, though, which really upset him: My father had brought that bayonet home with him from the Army, World War II-my dad had even fought in The Battle of the Bulge…God, it's hard to believe that that now shriveled-up old man whose afraid of the dark actually fought in the Bulge, and had killed people, like he did Fred. I still can't believe it, that he killed Fred.
They, the police, had wanted to know why he was carrying that bayonet to begin with, and why does he keep saying: "I killed a burgerman." I told them-well, we both told them,--Mom and I-that he has Alzheimer's and that he's scared at night-has fears that the boogieman is going to get us-and straps on his old Army belt with its sheaf and bayonet at night over his pajamas and robe and checks to make sure that all of the doors and windows throughout the house are closed and locked: When Dad had first started strapping on his old Army belt with that sheaf and bayonet at night, Mom and I, from sheer fear, had tried to dissuade him from doing that, but it upset him so much, and the wearing of it seemed to have such a calming effect on him, that we gave up and let him continue doing it-and anyway, he never drew the bayonet, mostly.
They, the police, asked a whole lot of other questions, too, that were very difficult for me to answer:
Police: You say that you were upstairs in your bedroom, sleeping, when you were suddenly awakened by a noise coming from downstairs. You came downstairs to check out the noise. You stepped into the kitchen and heard a noise from behind, in the hallway. When you turned around, you were immediately confronted, and assaulted, by the victim, who you say, was holding a gun. Is this right?
Me: Yes, it is.
Police: But there aren't any signs of a forced entry. And a search of the victim's person has revealed a key that you have confirmed is a key to the front door. How do you account for that?
Me: Because of my father's Alzheimer's, rarely do we ever leave him here alone in the house. But last Saturday, I had a dentist appointment at 9 a.m. and my Mom had a prayer meeting at the same time at St. Andrew's Church, so we had to leave him alone-he usually sleeps during the day anyway. When I got home that day, he told me that the guy was here checking the locks on the doors. When I asked him: "What guy?" he didn't know. He just kept saying: "You know. The guy who checks the doors." I thought he had just dreamt it. I had asked Mrs. Peterson next door if she had seen some guy at our house that morning, but she has colon cancer and had diarrhea and was "on the pot" most of the morning. But with what has happened now, I think it was him, Fred. He must have taken the key to the front door from Dad.
Police: You say that you know the victim, but, then again, you don't know him. What exactly does that mean?
Me: He was the manager of Discount Foods, the one on Navaho Street, right across the river, in the city. I say "was" the manager because he walked off the job two weeks ago Friday after an elderly man, a customer, complained to him that he couldn't retrieve his quarter from the coin dispenser of the cart he was using and he, Fred, ripped the coin disperser from the handle of the cart and shoved it up one of the nostrils of the elderly man to the point of where even the quarter couldn't be seen anymore. This was all told to me by a young girl employee who works there and who I happened to meet one day by chance, about eight days ago. I worked there for a week three weeks ago. I was a stocker/cashier. But doing the freight was just too hard on my back. That's how, and all, that I know of the man. I didn't even know what his last name was until you told me.
Police: You say that you believe he was here tonight to rob you. What makes you say that?
Me: One day, while at work on a lunch break, in the small room in the back of the store that serves as a lunchroom, I had told some of the employees, who were also on a lunch break, how my parents are old, and about my Dad having Alzheimer's, and about how I was getting all of their finances in order-how what a difficult task this is; that just in the house alone my Dad has a coin collection that is worth, probably, 40 thousand dollars, and how my mother has lots of jewelry, diamonds and such. Fred was also in that room when I had said all of this, and that probably gave him the idea to rob us.
I don't believe they totally believed me, but at least they said Fred's killing appears to have been justifiable homicide, and they didn't take Dad away or anything.
It's all such a mess. Because, yes, much of what I told them was indeed lies-which reminds me, I have got to get rid of Fred's cell phone: I didn't want the police having it. But how could I have told them the truth? How could I have told them that for the past two weeks that guy had made my life-our lives, here at home-a living hell? How could I tell them that he had been terrorizing me-us-for the last two weeks because I quit that lousy job? Yeah. That's right. The reason that that jerk was terrorizing me and threatening to kill me was because I had quit that job. The guy was nuts.
You should have heard how ballistic he got when I called him and told him that I wasn't coming in anymore because doing that freight was just too hard on my back-two weeks ago, Friday, it was. He said: "You haven't even worked here a week and you're quittin'?!"
"I'm very sorry," I replied. "It's just too hard on my back."
"So you're not comin' in? You're leavin' me short-handed?"
"I'm very sorry," I repeated. "It's just too hard on my back."
"Ok," he said. "Here's the deal, see. I'm givin' you one chance-and one chance only-to make good. It's 5:40. You're scheduled to be in here at 6. You got 20 minutes to get in here, see. Are you goin' to be a man and do the right thing or not? Are you comin' in?"
Preview:
Roy liked to look the part. Blue shirt, pink tie, yellow braces, green corduroy suit and brown brogues. Even, on occasions, with the right shirt, those springy metal hold up thingymajigs you wear round your biceps. It was, he felt, what was expected. Sara said he looked like Gordon Gecko gone to seed. Funny, he was sure, but he couldn't quite call to mind, not immediately, who this Gecko chap was. The name was familiar, perhaps one of the blokes from the Guardian days? No matter, it would come to him on his way to the university he was certain. That was how these things had started to work.
Securing a Windsor knot and snapping that elastic reassuringly against his shoulders and causing a small wince of pain, Roy addressed himself in the wardrobe mirror. 'They call us 'hackademics' us journos who turn to teaching.' He enjoyed the gravelly authority in his voice, regretted that he couldn't pass off the clever word as coinage from his very own mint. Once upon a time, he sighed, but no longer. Lay claim to anything that wasn't your property these days and some pathetic interfering pedantic little sod will have it Googled and the lie exposed on Facebook before it has properly left your lips. Fucking internet, Roy muttered for what he knew would not be the last time that day, the scourge of the scribbling classes.
Satisfying how the briefcase sat on top of the little wheelie overnight bag thing, he thought, as he climbed into the cab to take him to the station. Probably folly to stay in town tonight, probably condemning myself to a lonely one in front of the TV and mini bar, but you never know. It was the first time he'd stayed over on a Monday for over two years, since the last time he had fallen, normally catching the train back from Victoria after a boozy lunch with some old crony, but today he felt an almost forgotten spark. The thrum of possibility beat in the old veins. He paid the cabbie through the partition, launched himself, creaking, from the seat and looked up at the station with fifteen minutes to spare. Time to buy the papers from that nice old boy outside.
'Morning, Mr. G.'
'Morning, young man. How are you today?'
'Thriving, Mr. G. Usual?'
'Please.'
'Glorious day for the shaping of young minds, sir.' This said with a small bow as he handed over the papers.
'Quite.'
Roy received the neat bundle containing The Guardian, Telegraph, Independent, Mirror and Sun and saluted briefly after forcing it into his briefcase and heading for his regular seat in the second carriage from the front of the 7.25 to London.
Sitting with his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose, the papers unopened on his lap, he returned again to the Gecko problem. An image of a cartoon desert filled his mind, spindly creature running and creating clouds of dust in its wake. Was that it? Not an old colleague but a Warner Bros character he'd watched with the kids? Then why the crack from Sara? The animal in his imaginings wore no necktie, wore no clothes at all in fact. Was it some kind of reference to his weather-beaten face, the red nose and cheeks, the mottled neck? If so, I don't get it, he thought. Not at all up to Sara's usual standard of aloof put down.
Roy glanced at the front page headlines of the broadsheets. Nothing juicy there. The collapse of the Eurozone, some low-level hospital scandal involving treatment of disabled visitors. The redtops featured some singer he'd never heard of who had been thrown out of some TV show he had no interest in and an old comic he did recall who had taken ill on yet another TV show. Christ, it's not enough that telly has taken over reporting all the news, it has to go and create it as well. Good that, he thought, half-heartedly contemplating writing it down and delivering it as part of the morning's intro.
He fell into a daydream, the time he used to spend in careful preparation now lost in idle contemplation of the, possible, evening after the day. Of Luz. Images of her cast aside the ephemera of the daily world that Roy had made his life's work. It was the same last week as he rehearsed the invitation to coffee for a full hour rather than poring over the economic problems of the Greeks and Italians or the fallout from the Defense Minister's resignation. Some would say he couldn't concentrate but that was far from the case. He could hold a picture of Luz in his head and analyze the features for half a day at a time. He could compose, line by line, the conversation they would have in the pub after that stupid talk he had agreed to attend with her. He could imagine in pornographic detail the seduction process: the interview, the assent, the copy written, proofs read and approved and then the whole thing, as it were, put to bed. What failed to get the old juices flowing into his under-subsidized, non-regenerated, poverty stricken, (choose one! Ed.) withered regions was what was happening in the world that flashed by his window. What was the point? As soon as you thought you had something pinned down it changed into another thousand things that you were meant to try to understand, work on. The news was a hydra, Roy decided, but could reach no decision on whether this was a suitable insight to pass on to his students.
****
The woman who woke him when the train pulled into Victoria was rather lovely, Roy thought. Something of the glamorous old world grande dame about her. A little Dorothy Tutin in that Viennese thingy on TV. A touch Helen Cherry in something or other he remembered seeing with Sara after the kids had been tucked safely away so it must have been a few years back. (Nothing safe about where they were sleeping now, either of them. Both with spouses Roy had no trouble imagining driving a steak knife through their hearts whilst they were in their beds.) But she had class this woman. Something you don't see every day. Well, I do, of course, he realized. Sara has it. But you know what I mean, he reasoned with the world in general. She had something that I'm not going to encounter today, not once I get inside the portals of the university. There will be sex on display, naturally, but none of that mystery that comes with true class. Roy sighed, wondered whether to cancel the hotel tonight and forget all about Luz. Would I have looked at her thirty years ago, he asked himself? Yes. I might have paid for her in one of those godforsaken places. Managua or Nizhny Novgorod, say. But would I have talked to her, nurtured her, seduced her? God! Who knows? I was capable of anything back then, but do I need it now? He watched the woman walk ahead of him down the station platform. She had that native confidence that was probably out of his reach these days. And she had just woken him from an old man's doze, seen a bit of drool dribbling down his chin, so it was unlikely that she was imagining how he would be in the throes of passion. She had not, let's face it, seen me at my best, Roy thought. Whereas Luz… Ah, sexy young Luz… so uncertain in this world where he was at home… Luz had seen him up on his hind legs propounding on her chosen profession, speaking with the assuredness that can only come from experience and from knowing that you have the respect of your peers. Luz had seen no drool. She would not describe him as a harmless old duffer who couldn't keep awake through the journey into work. For Luz he was a doyen, an aristocrat in the field. She could not see what he was now, nor could she see what he had been. The Dagenham boy, the baby boomer, the grammar school upstart: these were, thank the Lords Burke and Cobbett and Stead in their respective heavens, hidden from her.
Hackademic by Ian Boulton
Blackmore's Treasure by Derek G Rogers
Synopsis: The Legend of Blackmore's Treasure is part of the history of Prospect Farm. Tobias Allinson acquired the farm in 1645 and each generation since then has attempted to find the fabled treasure. None have succeeded... His descendant, a thirteen year old boy, suffers a serious accident whilst visiting the farm. During his time in hospital, he 'dreams' about events experienced by the original Tobias. In his 'dream' he takes part in the Battle of Naseby, meets Oliver Cromwell, Prince Rupert and other famous people he had read about in his history books... During his adventures a Sergeant Blackmore bequeaths his 'treasure' to him. The 'treasure' was never found; so the legend was born. Young Tobias determines to solve the mystery and find Blackmore's Treasure. Buy from Amazon.com
Monstrous Myths and Fabulous Fables by Derek G Rogers
Synopsis: In ancient times storytellers travelled from village to village and town to town holding audiences spellbound with their tales of magic and mystery. The stories they told have come down to us through the centuries and this book presents twelve of them from all over Britain and Ireland. The landmarks that form the basis for the stories also exist to this day and can be visited.....if you dare! Buy on Amazon.com
Coming of Age at Brighton Beach by Vivian Conejero
Preview:
It is the summer of 1971. Raquel Contreras Torres has recently turned eighteen years old. She emerges from the subway station, the F train's last stop in Brooklyn. She adjusts her blue denim hat and switches to her prescription sunglasses, carefully putting away her regular glasses into her blue denim bag.
She walks in the direction of the ocean. As she steps on the boardwalk, all the familiar Coney Island smells, sights, and sounds prompt her to smile inwardly. I made it! I traveled all the way here from home, by myself!
She inhales the sea breeze and takes her time to exhale it, while her dark brown eyes roam around. The water is calm, with only small waves rippling its surface. There are not many swimmers on sight nor too many pedestrians on the boardwalk either. The delicious aromas of sugar cotton, popcorn, and Nathan's hot dogs pervade the air. How nice and cool it feels at only ten in the morning, Raquel notes to herself.
Earlier, at their Prospect Park West apartment, Apolonia had sent her daughter Raquel off to Brighton Beach, commenting, "You better start going to the beach alone from now on, dear; your father has become a hopeless drunkard."
The young woman's face darkens as she recalls the previous summer at Brighton Beach with her parents. "Keep an eye on your father, Raquel," her mother would plead, explaining, "He may drink too much and fall asleep on the sand…. Someone could steal his wallet, while we are in the water." Raquel knew that her father had a habit of keeping all of their money in his wallet; it gave him a false sense of wealth.
The last time Raquel had been to the beach with her parents, her father had come close to blows with the locker room attendant, on account of some foolish misunderstanding. The incident had made it easier for her mother to encourage her independence. "Yes, dear--go to the beach by yourself; you are now an adult!" Apolonia had said this very morning, adding, "I know I can trust you."
An only child, who had grown up sheltered and over-protected from the outside world, Raquel had received this piece of news with mixed emotions.
"Gee, Mom-that's great! But, who will watch my things while I am in the water?"
"Why don't you try to make friends with some other young people and share watching duties with them?
"But Mom! You know! It has always been difficult for me to make friends!"
"Well, just lay down your beach towel close to the shoreline and splash near it."
"It is less than two years since we managed to escape from Communist Cuba and you are breaking all your rules, Mom. You don't sound like yourself!"
"I just don't want you to miss out on life, because of your father's emotional problems; he has already caused us both far too much anguish. Go have fun."
Raquel surveys the beach. Sky and sea are a stained-glass blue; an occasional white puff of a cloud wafts by. Solitary individuals and small family groups dot the creamy-colored sand. Tranquility reigns.
As she hunts for a place, Raquel becomes aware that her fellow mid-morning beach visitors are looking at her. It is mostly men who fix their eyes on her and smile; women squint at her sideways. She walks away from the small groups of people, searching for a less crowded area.
Raquel locates a relatively secluded spot across from the "Cyclone" rollercoaster, near the boardwalk's wooden pillars. Stretching out her grass-green beach towel, she feels stares on her and sits down, fully dressed. Her original plan had been to remove her pale-green Oxford long-sleeve shirt and blue denim jeans and sun and swim in the short-sleeved shirt and Bermuda shorts she is wearing underneath.
The minutes tick by. It is warming up and Raquel longs to strip down to her bathing attire and plunge into the beckoning blue ocean. But others' eyes are on her.
She remains sitting on her towel, hoping that they will forget about her, in due time.
A blond, bespectacled young man in a tan-colored bathing suit rises from his pale-blue towel and walks aimlessly across the beach. He stops ten feet in front of Raquel's place. He looks this way and that and stands motionless for an instant. With a sudden motion, the man bends over and peers intently into the sand. He does not pick anything up, but peruses the ground. Still bending over, the man looks down, first out of one eye, then out of the other, as chickens do. Letting out a sigh, he retreats to his place.
Raquel twitches. She wonders when she will be able to bathe in the sea. Would her belongings be safe this far away from the shore? She is pondering whether to move her towel there, when three teenage boys appear, obstreperously chasing an orange-and-green beach ball. They fight each other off for possession of the ball, laughing and shouting to one another, in Spanish, "¡Es mía! ¡Es mía!" ("It is mine! "It is mine!"). Raquel tenses up: the ball is speeding towards her, with the three boys close on its tracks. She freezes. When the ball is about to hit her, Raquel kicks it back as hard as she can. It races past the boys. Disconcerted for a moment, they turn around and run after the beach ball in silence. One of them looks briefly over his muscular shoulder at Raquel.
A Puerto-Rican man cups his hands to his mouth and bellows, "¡Muchacha! ¡No seas tan difícil!" ("Girl! Don't play so hard to get!"). His hearty, mocking laughter is echoed by other beach-goers.
Raquel swallows hard. She takes a paperback out of her bag and pretends to read; it is a book on Impressionism. She feels her cheeks growing warm. Why can't people leave her alone? she muses. All she wants is to enjoy a bit of swimming and splashing in the water.
How different things were when she and all her cousins were kids. On many a summer day, their mothers-her mother's sisters and one sister-in-law-used to get together at one or another of Havana's gorgeous beaches. Food, toys, and multi-colored lifesavers as well as other beach-related paraphernalia were packed by each loving Mom, for a day at the beach with the Torres clan, their husbands, and their children. For the most part, the adults chatted and sunbathed, while the kids played in the sand, screeching and splashing close to the shore. How innocent and wholesome those bygone days were! Raquel sighs.
A woman's voice jolts Raquel out of her reverie. "Oh! She is an intellectual! Look at her-reading a book on art at the beach! Ha, ha, ha!" Her companion quips, "She doesn't seem to be interested in boys at all," she says, raising her eyebrows and adds: "Maybe she is one of those 'Women's Libbers.'"
Two young men walk by. With a casual glance at Raquel, one of them concurs, "Yeah, that short-haired chick does have that 'Women's Libber' look about her." The other wisecracks, "She is probably some dyke too!" They explode in laughter and run.
That does it! Raquel says to herself and stands up. She returns the book to her blue denim bag and gathers her possessions. On her way back up to the boardwalk, she overhears peals of laughter and more gratuitous, unpleasant comments.
She clenches her teeth. I will stroll about a bit and then return home soon, she tells herself.
Preview:
Let the chaos commence, Alyn's pale green skin creased into a smile. Bending down from his perch on a high chandelier his long, dark green hair brushed his neck. Beneath, milled human courtiers draped in silken finery trimmed with the fur of murdered animals.
Alyn's smile darkened. Humans were a brutish race who thought themselves cultured, yet murdered animals for sport and embellishment. The evidence was everywhere, with the walls decorated by the heads of dead stags and the banquette table lined with dead wildlife cooked on fires fuelled by hacked-up trees. All life extinguished by human touch - it was enough to make a fairy sick. All life was sacred. Something they were about to learn.
Closing his eyes, Alyn reached deep into the natural energy pool just beneath the surface of conscious awareness. Rich, multi-hued strands of living essence met the edge of his perception, dancing through his body and spirit like ripples through a lake. It seemed tranquil from the surface, but the currents beneath carried the cries of severed souls for which he reached. Dragging them across the great divide, he smirked as chaos broke loose.
Ghastly wails rent the air as the stag heads started gnashing from their mountings. Cooked carcasses climbed from their burnished silver trays and, flailing blindly, sent nobles scattering from their paths, while the fur trimmings started squeezing and choking their wearers.
"We are bewitched!" a voice roared above the screams and cries of panic. "Kill the enchanter."
Alyn laughed, his hand clutching his thistle down vest. They wouldn't find him here. They never did.
Below, armed men searched the terrified crowd, but not once did their gazes rise above their heads. Humans were as blind to the world above as they were to that inside. Perhaps they saw the beauty of a flower, but they didn't sense the delicate network of energy underlying it.
For a moment, Alyn pitied them. To never experience the full complexity of the world's dancing energies. To never feel the sunrise in your soul, the blooming of a flower or the dazzling surge of a birth, seemed an empty existence.
An earthy roar broke Alyn's thoughts as the whole room shuddered, setting the chandelier beneath him swinging violently. Jerked from his perch, the air rushed past him as he fell. Hastily opening his wings, Alyn pulled up into a glide, but it was too late.
"There! A fairy demon. Kill it!"
A dozen bows creaked as they were drawn, their arrows trained on Alyn.
Demon? How dare they! Fairy kind harmed nothing, whereas humans killed everything. Yet they called him a demon. One day their murderous ways would catch up with them. It was as much Alyn's hope as his belief.
His wings buzzing frantically, Alyn made for the large, open window at the hall's end - the pursuing arrows leaving rippling currents in their wake. He could feel the trails shredding the air, and sensing the one arrow about to find its mark, he felt a flash of anger. Avoiding it without getting hit by the rest of the volley was impossible, causing his gaze on the window ahead to wilt with resignation.
So this is how it ends? Murdered by humans, like so many others. It was times like these he cursed the fairy way of protecting all life - even humans. They didn't deserve it. They carried death, not life. It was a bitter last thought as the pain of the arrow's impact took his breath, leaving him plummeting to the floor in a disorienting spin.
With the last of his fading energy, Alyn tensed ready for the bone-splintering impact against the pale, marble floor. But it never came. Something soft broke his fall, and dragging open his eyelids, he caught a glimpse of blond curls before a suffocating layer of fabric obstructed his vision, followed swiftly by unconsciousness.
****
Strange energies floated through Alyn's senses. Was he dead or still alive? He could feel the world shifting around him, but something was off. Beneath the mountains to the west, a surge of fiery energy was building. As it rose up through the mountain, a belch of air escaped, sending a horrific shudder through the earth. It was an ill omen.
As he floated, watching from a distance, the power built and built, then exploded with such force it sent Alyn's spirit reeling. His vision solidified into rivers of liquid fire tearing through human villages and finally the imperial palace itself. At last those humans would reap what they sowed. The thought was a satisfying one, but the visions of retribution faded all too quickly, replaced by a throbbing pain.
****
"He's so small. Like a child," a voice said above him, "and so beautiful. Look at his wings, Juien. The energy pulsing through them is so colorful and so beautiful. How could anyone shoot such a being?"
There was a pause. Alyn could sense the woman bending over him. Her spirit pressed against his, causing his energy to recoil sharply, as if touched by something dirty or corrosive.
"This isn't a wounded animal or a baby rabbit, mistress. This is a fairy. You should have left it to the guards."
Alyn stifled a shudder at the sense of barely-restrained bloodlust seeping from the second human's soul. He was weak, as was his ability to channel magic. If the humans decided to kill him, he wouldn't be able to put up much of a fight.
"Juien!" The woman's tone was shocked. "Fairy or human, he's injured and needs our help."
"This is a dangerous being, mistress. Fairies command powerful magic. You saw what it did in the main hall."
"Did I? I saw magic, but no proof it was done by him. Still, he was shot without question. We would never tolerate that kind of injustice among our own. You say fairies are dangerous. Yet the poor thing was the only one injured. How is that a fair accusation?" Lifting Alyn from the ground, the woman drew him into a tight, protective embrace.
Only able to shrink so far, Alyn's spirit was overwhelmed by the alien energy pressing in. Sentiments of guilt and concern felt jarring from a human, and yet, somehow, from this one, flowed naturally. Her energy was pure and mesmerizing in its unexpected beauty. By the strength and pulse of her spirit, he could tell the woman was barely fully grown. But that was still twice his size.
"I... You're right, mistress. I apologize." The voice was unnaturally calm, and carried a threatening quiver of false remorse.
Jerking in fear, Alyn wished himself as far away from the human as possible; but contrary to myth, wishes were not a fairy's specialty.
"Look! He's waking." A wave of delight pulsed from the woman holding him as she gently brushed his cheek.
Realizing the game was up, Alyn moved his head slightly. Immediately, the other human's energy flashed with fear then sharpened with aggression. But the energy of the woman holding him remained bright, making her spirit all the more enchanting.
"Fetch Healer Varind, quick. Tell him I have another wounded charge."
The Fairy and the Princess by Katie Alford