Tag Archives: fiction

A Lifetime of Milk

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Carl stood under the umbrella, looking out across the downtown square. In coveralls reeking of machine oils and sweat, made worse by the rain. On the farm, Carl remembered, nothing was ever made worse by rain.

The old man’s farm. Paved over. A lifetime of milk and red earth-tinged memories. Sprouting tall buildings now, where sweet corn and green pastures once flowered. Where an old cow giving birth kicked the daylights out of his five-year old head. He got to name that one, ol’ Milk Dud, on account of how much his head bled.

And now he was the old man. He couldn’t have told you how it happened, but it did, and the city came up all around them. Lost the farm, hired on at the factory. At least he and Barb had the kids.

A tiny spasm wracked his hand and the umbrella slid out. Carl winced. The arthritis was flaring up, more and more these days. He collapsed to his knees. Why the heck did he come back here? And in his coveralls! He stuck out like a sore thumb. And in fact his thumbs were sore, and the truth was that being here made him feel there wasn’t a thing left worth livin’ for.

-originally publ. on flashfriday.wordpress.com

Stella

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Stella lurched over the last hill, clutching at the front of her dress in agony. She reached the stone domicile just in time; she could feel the bairn being coaxed out by the cool fingers of mist riding low in the air. She ducked inside. Into the black heart of a home, dug into a green hill.

She left her body on the floor, momentarily, when the Tacksman’s bairn finally shuddered out with a single prolonged wail. His face was sweet and red, still slick with her oils. She studied its shape for traces of the Tacksman- she could find none. He was hers alone, at least in possibility; it was possible that the Tacksman’s imprint had stopped short of her son. Given time, the boy could grow to resemble the man that he would call his father. Or else, the scarring on her heart could heal… but over time, men only grow into their monsters.

– originally publ. on flashfriday.wordpress.com

Musical Chairs

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In fifth grade, our class chewed up and spit out a revolving door of music teachers. Our first victim was Mr. Alexander, a tall Asian man with ruthless expectations. He demanded “tone, tone, semi-tone” until we could hear it no more and locked him in the vault, which happened to be the music office. He got his revenge by leaving kids at the side of the road on a field trip, but by then it was too late- Mrs. Hyde had arrived.

Mrs. Hyde/Jekyll stamped her heels with such enthusiasm that eventually, one flew off and struck a student in the eye. Given our campaign (in progress) to record (in secret) her violence to use against her, the principal had no choice but to introduce Mr. Gilbert.

The old man disappeared on an alleged cross-country motorcycle trip. This, of course, when we had just begun to like him.

The Family Meeting

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“My vote is for coleslaw,” Greg announced to the table, sliding his green thumb along the edge of the placemat. Dad snorted, opening and closing his fist as if he held a great clump of fertilizer in his palm. Why we needed to have a family meeting for this was beyond me, but I sat in my chair anyway and twisted my ivy hair to make sure that Mom could see that I was bored out of my tree.

“Violet? Honey, we need your vote…” Mom gave me a kind of pleading look and I saw that her eyes were the colour of milk bottle beach glass. I rolled my eyes and got up to leaf.

“Violet! Sit down this instant. Finish your spinach.”

“F*ck you, Mom. You never cook what I want.”

“Well, what is it you want?” Mom groaned, pretending to hang herself with a green onion noose. Greg and Dad went hysterical. Dad laughed so hard that his big belly bumped up against the underside of the table. His brussels sprouts hopped up and down on the plate, rolling out in a dozen different directions.

“I want eggplant, tomorrow night. And you’re all going to eat it right along with me.”

“F*ck you, Violet. That’s far too exotic. Do you think money just grows on trees?”

I could just kill them.

Relocation

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Our city becomes another’s city and they don’t even live here.

Our city becomes another city that will one day glow, for miles underwater.

Our city has strategically-planned streets, and accidental cobblestones. The neighborhoods have their symbols, their light-pole banners, their car washes and coffee shops. Clogged drains and stray dogs and condos and bullfrogs. A little fence to keep the heart in. A garden. Ten Thai restaurants in a row. A bus stop and a newspaper on every homeless porch.

The neighborhoods remain separate, or they collide. Some are ramming into each other, smash-mixing, in the time it takes one body to fall from the observation deck.

The streets below the streets are daunting, gurgling with sewage. A black-gloved hand motions outside a window. People are coughing, steaming into each other’s faces on the subway. No one has a face unless it is cut out of a magazine.

I moved out of the city. Now, my neighbor is the one whose name I forget every other conversation. His neighbor is me, and a young family with closed blinds and a yard full of broken plastic. We circle each other like dogs, not saying anything. But the truth is that we live with our families and this is a nice neighborhood, close to schools and shopping.

I moved out of the city and now I don’t even live here.

My neighbor remembers how bright his city glowed too.
Our sons are jerks and we are embarrassed by what we thought we knew.

 

This poem of mine was just published on uutpoetry. so this is basically a cross-blogging platform #reblog.

Lizard Skin

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J. packs another bowl and we pass it around a few times, getting a decent buzz going, and then we all go upstairs to see Rusko. Our group is divided between those who have seen Rusko before and those who have no idea what to expect. K. shows us to his room, and everyone gathers around the dresser. On top of the dresser is a huge glass terrarium and inside it- a motionless yellow-brown banded gecko.

K. lifts the creature out of the terrarium and presents it to us, beaming, and the girls smile indulgently and quietly slide their phones from their back pockets. “Here,” M. whispers to me, “let me take a picture of you with the lizard.”

“He’s a Velvet Gecko,” K. announces proudly, looking down at his cupped hands.

I don’t want to touch it, thinking for some reason of the resin on my hands. I’m afraid that I’ll hurt the thing- who knows what’s going to poison something this fragile? I bend my torso around Rusko instead, positioning my head directly behind, and at eye-level. From the viewpoint of M.’s camera, the effect of my round, red-cheeked face is Rusko transformed; he acquires the majesty of his prehistoric ancestors, solemn and unblinking against the backdrop of a rising sun.   

We pack more bowls, and take lots of pictures of Rusko chilling out on top of everyone’s heads.

A Chili Reception

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He slammed the pot down on the stove, sending a spray of kidney beans and ground beef flying through the kitchen. The beef hit the fridge in clods. Her face, the dog, stunned and speckled with the grey-brown meat. The kidney beans slapped on the tile in quick succession, littering the floor like fallen crabapples.

Perhaps he would be allowed to attend the Superbowl party after all, she decided, using a thumb to swipe the grease from her nose. The empty pot still clenched in his fist, he looked her right in the eyes.

She thanked God that he hadn’t yet added the tomatoes.