Prose

Laitu Haruna

A letter from yesterday, today, and a future that isn’t here

Mama,

I kissed a girl today. Please, don’t get a heart attack. Didn’t know what happened and I am glad it happened. You know her. Fatimah. Would it be too gross if I give you a little detail? These days, it is you and her I talk to. Everybody judges me. They say I can’t be this way or that way. There are too many restrictions everywhere. One can’t live without people, random people poking their nose into one’s affair. The other day I wore shorts to buy Akara from the woman opposite my place, and this woman who I didn’t even pay attention to started a morality lecture and it isn’t just her, every elderly person seems to have turned custodian of morality and modesty. But this isn’t about morality or modesty.

I am not sorry it happened. I should have paid attention to my emotions earlier than now and maybe I wouldn’t have gone through the ordeal of finding love and being loved. I should have paid attention to the attraction I had for Blessing in junior class, and that of Anne and every other girl I had a thing for. I didn’t know what it was until now or that night I waited for Fatimah under the Dogo Yaro tree. I had to wait for her boyfriend to leave. I didn’t know the slight pain I felt whenever she speaks of her boyfriend or see him with her was because I wanted the very spot he was standing. I wanted to be the one she calls when she gets suicidal, I wanted our fingers locking in shadows, I wanted to steal kisses, make her laugh as much as she made me. I wanted to give her more than what she gave me. I wanted her to walk in the clouds.

Mama, I have changed. These changes come with a lot of happiness and peace and I know you want that for me. The truth is I didn’t change. I have always been this way. This girl was hidden because I have to be what your religion wants me to be. You lived by the terms of your religion and traditions but I can’t do that. I am creating my own terms and living by my own rules. I am living like I should-daring and exploring. I don’t care what is after now or live in fear of the afterlife rejecting me or accepting me. I just want to be happy and leave this world with no regrets that I have to hide part of myself to a bunch of people who have hidden themselves in a tradition and religion they do not understand.

I want to understand myself. Understand what makes me happy and sad; I want to love and know my body, enjoy sex without restrictions, and love without reservations, live freely. I want my tradition and religion to be the smiles, laughter, and happiness I give to the people that cross my path and find me worthy to be part of their life. This daughter of yours can’t do what you do and did. There is a lot you took from dad in the name of religion that I might never do. It doesn’t make sense to me then and still doesn’t. If I am ever going to make sacrifices and endure pain, whatever it is giving me the pain should be worth it. But you held on to so much pain and sacrificed a good part of your life for an unreciprocated love. It wasn’t worth it.

I didn’t kiss Fatimah. I lied. We made love. It is an unimaginable experience. It was celestially artistic. The kind that takes you away from the present and makes everything float, everything light and beautiful. Loving a woman like me is less difficult. It is like loving me. There are no worries except, of course, instances when we get jealous or disagree on issues. The pain is light, tolerable, and heals quickly. We apologise. We say ‘I am sorry’ genuinely. We push each other to be better, stronger, and independent. She makes me write and she reads them all. She tells me ‘you are darn good’ and I doubt her sometimes. I think she tells me that because she doesn’t want me to feel bad and doubt myself but then she tells me when I am doing it badly too. I don’t doubt her anymore. Her eyes hold her intent.

I am happier Ma. We made love just once and I am not sure it will happen again. For each time we meet, our souls make love without our bodies touching.

I love you Mama.

Laitu Haruna is a Northern Nigerian pro-LGTBQ writer, a freelance writer, and not so sympathetic to anti-feminists. She is a teacher, a philanthropist leading and coordinating several humanitarian projects, a social worker, and a blockchain/cryptocurrency enthusiast. She tries to be an avid reader and a poet. Most of her works are hidden in her mails which she considers to be the only place that will not condemn her for what she believes in or for the life she chooses. Laitu can be reached via email at harunakristen@gmail.com or on Twitter @laitutulai.

Christine Alexander

Say You Have a Bloody Nose

The Newsstand was the perfect job for me because all I really had to do was sit there. It wasn’t an actual newsstand, just a regular store. Mostly magazines, baseball cards, stale candy, gum, that sort of thing. People came in to grab a newspaper or buy cigarettes or take a chance on a scratch ticket. They’d stand off to the side of the register with a quarter or a dime, frantically scratching away, leaving piles of silvery dust behind. Whenever someone hit it big, meaning ten dollars or more, I’d scan the back of the ticket to confirm it was a winner and hand over the cash. Those who chose to trade in their winnings for more tickets struck me as desperate and stupid. If they lost they seemed to blame me or maybe they were embarrassed, leaving the store in a huff. This one old lady lost all the time, but she was nice. She patted my hand and shrugged. “It’s a fool’s game,” she said. Her hand was veiny and soft, and I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had held my hand at all.

All those reams of scratch tickets with their shiny Vegas fonts, cartoon leprechauns and pots o’ gold. It seemed like such a scam. Red cherries and bloated number 7s, promises of instant riches. It occurred to me to start scanning the tickets no one had bought yet and if they were winners, subtract the cost and pay myself from the register. It only worked if the prize was fifty dollars or less, but still. I was nineteen years old and I needed things.

Kendra was always excited when I came home with extra money. These kinds of schemes were right up her alley. We were best friends even though she was still in high school. I lived with her and her stepmother who left us to our own devices. We slept in Kendra’s twin bed on pilly pink sheets with Nick At Nite blaring in the background. The one chore I had was to drive Kendra to school and I didn’t mind it. In the mornings, she and I were usually overtired and laughing hard at nothing. We turned the radio up obscenely loud and sang and screamed. The old Lincoln was huge and hard to maneuver, making us look like two kids who’d stolen a car.

After dropping Kendra off, I’d feel lonely and unmoored. Everyone my own age was away at college and it was disorienting to be driving aimlessly through Woodvale smoking cigarettes while my friends were in Algebra class. I’d cruise down the streets I’d known my whole life trying to feel like I was in a movie. Who’s she? I wanted everyone to think. But the streets were eerily empty at that time of day, the split-level houses looking to me now like set dressing, like no one could possibly live inside. Who were these people that owned these houses? What did they do all day?

The strange feeling stayed with me when I got back home to Kendra’s each day. It was a big house with dark paneling and wall to wall carpet, overcrowded with rented furniture and ashtrays conveniently located on every available surface. It was a lonely house to be alone in. When Kendra was home, we spent most of our time in the finished basement which featured a full bar and a jukebox with the most bizarre selection of records that no one ever bothered to swap out. “Tracy” by The Cuff Links, “Shaddap You Face” by Joe Dolce, “Erotica” by Madonna, “Rasputin” by Boney M. We would sit at the bar and drink Knob Creek in rocks glasses, swiveling on our stools and playing the alphabet game. It went slap slap, clap clap, snap snap, and then you’d say a person’s name that started with the letter A, and so on. If you couldn’t think of a name in time you were technically supposed to swig your drink, but we just played it like a regular game. We played rounds where every name had to be a guy one of us had slept with, or had a crush on, or hated. “No Name” counted for the letter N because Kendra had lost her virginity to a stranger in the mall parking lot when she was thirteen and very drunk. In a pinch we’d say our each other’s names, Kendra and Jenny. Ken and Jen, people called us. We really could have done anything we wanted, but this was how we chose to spend our time.

It was three o’clock and I’d already made a pile of money. Aside from the scratchers, I’d begun pocketing cash whenever someone bought a porno magazine. There were so many, and I realized there was no system in place to keep track of them all. Hustler, Penthouse, Barely Legal, Playboy, Club International, Oui, Juggs, Leg Show. There was something for everyone. There were also these little black and white books that promised “True Sex Confessions” and “Filthy Secret Fantasies!” Those ones smelled like ink and I wanted to press my nose between the pages but figured it would be a disturbing visual. I acted cool; I wanted these men, these strangers, to think I was chill. Whenever a red-faced man slid his girlie mag of choice across my counter, I’d tell him “Six dollars even” with a smile. As soon as they were out the door, their sweaty bills were in my purse.

I wasn’t judging them; I was fascinated by all that porn and swiped a few magazines for myself. I liked Barely Legal because the girls were around my age and I could imagine the boys I liked wanting to have sex with them. It seemed this shouldn’t have excited me, but it did. These girls were perfect, all smooth curves, full breasts, neat little slits. I thought of the word “nubile” but would never have said it out loud. I wondered if it applied to me. These girls had beautiful hair and I regretted cutting mine so short. I’d tried to copy Chloë Sevigny’s style in Kids but now it was growing out and I had to fuss with bobby pins and barrettes and headbands to tame it. I missed my long hair. I wanted to look like the Barely Legal girls and I also wanted to have sex with them. This attitude made me feel quite sophisticated and evolved.

There was a feature in Barely Legal, a contest called Beaver Hunt. Amateurs could send in their photos and the prize was a five-page spread and a little write-up. “Luscious Lily-Anne is a small-town girl who likes cheerleading. Her favorite food is extra spicy BBQ sauce and she’s craving a big piece of meat.” On my smoke break I listened to my Walkman and daydreamed about winning Beaver Hunt, how all my ex-boyfriends would be eating their hearts out. “Juicy Jenny likes sucking on lollypops and older men.” I didn’t really like older men but there were a few customers that made me horny in my boredom. One was a UPS driver who was probably in his thirties. He was tan and always bought The Boston Globe and rolling papers. “You like to party?” I imagined myself asking him. I imagined being bold and taking him into the back room with yesterday’s newspapers, pressing myself against the bulge in his brown uniform pants. “What’s your name?” He’d ask me and I’d just say “Shhhhh…” Or maybe I’d giggle and say, “Call me Juicy Jenny” while guiding his hand down the front of my jeans. I was getting turned on and wasn’t above going into the back room by myself and masturbating quickly. But then I heard the bell ding meaning a customer had come in, so I stubbed my cigarette out on the sidewalk and tried to collect myself.

It was this guy Greg who used to be a substitute teacher when I was in high school. The last time he’d been in the store he’d called me by my name and reminded me we’d met before. I appreciated that he didn’t ask me about college or anything and I suppose that made me feel like he was somehow on my side. Greg seemed older than the UPS guy and he rode around on a motorcycle. I could see it parked out front. I must have been feeling saucy from my daydream because I said, “Nice hog.”

“What?”

“Your bike…”

“Oh! Well, thank you.”

He seemed charmed by me, so I kept talking.

“It’s really cool.”

“Have you ever ridden one before? It’s an amazing experience.”

“No, I never have.”

The boys I hung around with rode skateboards, skidding over the curb by the CVS parking lot, the roll-crack sound a thrill and a comfort to me. These boys were in bands with violent names, practicing in mildew-y garages, letting me and Kendra watch so they could ignore us, and we would sit with our knees pressed against each other, hands curled over our mouths, laughing at ourselves for liking them so much.

Greg said he’d pick me up at seven and I said okay because even though he wasn’t cute and in fact was kind of fat, I thought why not? Have an adventure, why don’t I? That’s what Juicy Jenny thought anyway.

When I got home from work, Kendra and our friend Michele were smoking a joint in the basement. Michele with her thick red hair wound into loose braids, ratty thrift store hippie skirt looking dainty draped across her barstool. Kendra had just taken a monster hit and was holding it in, her eyes comically wide. I made the same face at her and she laughed, choking on a cloud of milky smoke.

“Ken and Jen, back again,” Michele said with what I thought was a tinge of jealousy.

I tossed my purse onto the bar and hopped up on the stool next to her. “Tracy” was playing, and I sang along as I counted out all the money I’d stolen that day. “Ba ba, ba ba ba ba…”

It was only fifty bucks but there were a lot of singles, so it seemed like more. Kendra was impressed, dancing behind the bar, her skinny arms above her head in celebration, hips dipping in a way that was too lewd for “Tracy.” I was starting to feel nervous about going out with Greg and I didn’t want to leave our little playhouse at all. I leaned over and rested my forehead on the bar.

“I don’t know what to say to him,” I told the girls. I meant in general, but Kendra assumed I needed an excuse to get out of seeing him altogether.

She snapped her fingers and pointed at me. “Say you have a bloody nose.”

“What?”

“Say you have a bloody nose! Or say I have a bloody nose and you have to stay here.”

“Oh hi Greg,” I mimed talking into a telephone, “Sorry but my friend has a bloody nose so I can’t go out.”

“I’ll lie in the street and when he gets here tell him I passed out.”

“I’ll lie in the street and you can tell him I passed away.”

We went on like that, each excuse more ludicrous than the last and we were laughing like idiots. We were silly girls, probably not Beaver Hunt material. Maybe Michele, who mostly just sat there smoking and smiling and looking demure.

I walked back down to The Newsstand to meet Greg. His bike was a Harley and he talked to me at length about how superior it was to those flimsy Japanese models. I nodded as though I too had an extensive understanding of a motorcycle’s craftsmanship. Up close the Harley looked complicated and shiny, a giant toy. Greg had brought a helmet for me and I laughed at how big it was. I thought I looked so dumb, but he was staring at me intently.

“Your beauty comes from within, Jenny,” he said, like he was bestowing upon me some great piece of wisdom.

Greg wanted to go up to the Newbury Comics near the mall so I could “get the full experience” of riding on the highway. He asked me if I liked the Beastie Boys and I said yes, and he told me he wanted to buy me their new CD and I didn’t tell him I already owned it.

Once we were on the bike, I understood that this was how people die. Greg was too fat for me to be able to wrap my arms around his waist, so he told me to hold on to his belt loops instead. He was showing off, going much too fast and all that separated me from grim death were these two thin strips of denim. I imagined the belt loops ripping right off and me flying across Route 114, landing like a rag doll in the parking lot of Guitar Center. The hot guy who worked there would find my limbs scattered around when he arrived for his morning shift.

I suppose I could have embraced it, or let the night embrace me. The speed and the yellow lines shimmering. The neon lights of the Shell Station and Home Depot shooting by like on a carnival ride. My whole body was vibrating, and the wind was whipping around, and Greg was trying to talk to me over the din.

“What?”

“I said, you have beautiful eyes!” he yelled, and I thought about letting go of the belt loops on purpose.

When we pulled into the Newbury Comics parking lot, it was dark. The sky was starry, and I resented that. I felt windblown and cold and my hair was matted down from the helmet. Greg was walking too close to me and I was afraid he was going to try and put his arm around me or something. I briefly considered putting the helmet back on and walking around the store like that. I felt like I was with some uncle or stepfather character and it made me want to be obnoxious. I made a beeline for the B section and found “Hello Nasty,” waved it above my head triumphantly and forced a grin. I tugged on Greg’s arm, his stupid leather jacket. “Buy this for me,” I said, bratty.

He couldn’t take a hint and tried to kiss me before we got back on the bike. I recoiled and said, “Uh-uh, not on the first date,” wagging my finger like shame on you. I didn’t care if he thought that meant we’d be going out again. I decided he was a creep, a dirty old man who really thought he had a chance. I wanted to tell him to drop me off at Guitar Center so I could see if the hot guy was there. Slap slap, snap snap, clap clap—Jason was his name. Instead, he let me off in front of The Newsstand and I waved goodbye. He seemed annoyed and I didn’t care. I used my key and went inside and took a carton of Parliaments, a pack of EZ Widers, and a handful of mini Peppermint Patties, and then I walked home.

The screen door flapped open, but Kendra didn’t hear me come in. She was standing at the sink with her back to me, rinsing dishes before placing them in the dishwasher. She looked so grown up and I felt sure that she was going to end up just fine one day and would eventually leave me behind. This tall blonde with her hair pulled up into an efficient ponytail, doing the dishes because they needed to be done. She looked like a ballerina or a nurse or a young mother. I crept over and poked her in the ribs, making her jump.

“You scared the shit outta me!”

“Ha-ha”

“So how was it?”

I pretended to gag which made Kendra laugh. She kicked the dishwasher shut with her bare foot, punched a few buttons and we went upstairs to bed.

The Jeffersons was on and we got under the scratchy duvet and the threadbare sheets and I stuck the ashtray in between us. The theme song was over, but Kendra started singing it from the top, dragging out the notes as if it were a ballad. I lit my cigarette off hers and joined in. “Fish don’t fryyyyyy in the kitchen, beans don’t buuuuuurn on the grill.” Kendra’s stepmother knocked lightly on the door and said “Ahem,” but we kept on going, eyes closed, smoke swirling in the blue light, really belting it out.

We could have stayed up all night if we wanted but we chose to go to sleep. Kendra slept on her stomach with her face buried in a day-glo stuffed bear she’d won at Hampton Beach. She looked like a little girl now, like a little sister. I rolled onto my side and dreamt about Guitar Center Jason, him recognizing me from Beaver Hunt, me winking at him from my decapitated head.

Christine Alexander is an MFA candidate at Lesley University. Her work has appeared in The Penmen Review, Barren Magazine, High Shelf Press, and Back Patio Press. She lives in Gloucester, MA and can be reached via email at alexanderchristine78@gmail.com.

Rachel Johanna Darroch

At the End of Indigo

There are a lot of names for this place. 

An endless sea of compacted earth dehydrated into salt and dust, and as barren as a great many scalps and toothless grins in this irradiant epilogue of the Earth. It is an ocean or a desert, depending on the angle one looks at it. Whether it is the great band of yellow-tan lands faultless of any hill, mountain, or valley and devoid of all life, or the eye-wateringly contrasted sky above it, whose shade cannot decide if it wants to be purple or blue or otherwise some strange unknowable cousin of the two. 

This place is a plot of hell stretched horizon wide, with a solitary town strut up against the edge of a massive abyss. It is a remnant of an old world before everything gives way to that hazy midnight sky and the mirages of the desert. This place is called hell by some and purgatory by others, the great wastes of which no one has ever crossed and returned from. 

Mostly though, it is quaintly called the Great Indigo, by those left alive that is; aptly named for the hellish hue of the heavens, and the supposed enormousness of the hardpan. 

Ever since Catherine and her father had fetched up here over ten years ago, she has learned the local flavour is deeply spiced with superstition, with a dash of old country ignorance to hold them over until the next kingdom come. Most of the residents are over the age of sixty and are what everyone has come to refer to as old timers. They are all that is left of the old world and Catherine and those rare few born to women whose wombs have not rotted with radiation are the last gasp of humanity.

By Catherine’s estimation, there are less than thirty people left in town if one could call seven buildings and one tavern a town, and all of them are equally terrified of what lays out there in the indigo wastes. 

Demons, some whisper.

Muties and lunatics, others whisper; people who have either become mutated by the poison leaching into the earth, or those who have simply gone mad, drifting through the desert as phantoms with no homes and no names.

Even more foreboding, after darkness falls and the chill of night makes everyone huddle close together, the old timers will lean close over their trashcan fires and utter the most dreaded of sureties, their voices filled with phlegm, their vocal cords withered with cancer, and a grave, child-like fear quivering in each syllable. 

There ain’t nothing out there, Catherine, they will murmur to her, as though to utter the words any louder might summon the desert upon them and steal away what little they had left. There ain’t nothing but dust and indigo, from here until the edge of the world. Freestone is the last post before the world gives way to death. Your pa died believing other wise and we see in your eyes what you mean to do, but it will only mean a fate worse than the one your pa suffered.

 Catherine has never really believed in ghosts or folk tales, even though that is all that is left in this world. She decided a long time ago that those stories are not good enough. 

*

Ten years ago, Catherine and her father crashed landed their plane in what was once the state of Ohio, about three miles outside of a small town called Freestone.

Catherine’s sisters and mother had died years before their trek from Indiana. She can hardly recall their faces, now. Memories are fuzzed over. Drained and washed out of colour and warmth. The desert consumes everything in the end. That is what the old timers have been telling her for years now and she is finally starting to believe them, at least on that accord.

When she and father still resided in Indiana, he had a Cessna Skycatcher, a small two-person plane that was supposed to get them from Kokomo to New York City. There were rumours, even back then, that there was a pocket of civilization thriving on the Atlantic. Catherine’s father had certainly believed so, all those years ago, and when the people in their city began dying from mass poisoning of the water, her father packed up two bags and they began their flight.

They never made it to New York City, or the Atlantic Ocean. They barely made it past the old state line into Ohio. But they did stumble upon Freestone, right on the edge of the Great Indigo. Or at least, that was what the sign said at the time, though it was so faded one could barely make out the words on it anymore. 

No one in the town calls it Freestone anymore, but it is something Catherine has always remembered about she and father’s ill-fated flight from Kokomo; finding that sign buried in yellow sand as she and her father stared up at the preternatural sky in horror. Their plane was consumed by the desert and they were left to the mercy of the last outpost before the Great Indigo. 

That is the only border that matters anymore. The names of places hold no meaning anymore. A sign might say that it is only twenty more miles to Antarctica, and it would be just as telling than if it were to say no directions at all. Places do not exist anymore and the directions on a compass might as well say up, down, and sideways. Maps are meaningless. The world has lost its shape and it is anyone’s guess where anything is anymore. 

The war took care of that, many years ago. 

*

There are wells scattered all over town, a dozen or so, all told.

Catherine has stolen water from them every night for the last six days, filling up her giant blue jugs and stashing them away so that she is ready when the time comes. These jugs were once used for office water coolers and bright family kitchens, with wooden signs hanging from the wall that would say something like, “Home is where the heart is”. Catherine always hated such declarative decorations, when there were still things like homey kitchens and office spaces in which to use them.

None of that really matters anymore, though.

But water matters. Water is the only currency that exists anymore. So, she fills up her second jug under the cover of darkness. Over the endless plains of the east, the wind howls, all pitched and yawning, like some great beast is blasting its fatigue over the lands for all to hear. No one knows what lies in the Great Indigo, or beyond. All Catherine knows for certain is that she is going to attempt to cross it in a week or so when she has enough water and supplies stocked up.

She only has a bicycle, a tarp, some dehydrated food, her bottled water, and her wagon. If she is smart, she can stretch the water out for quite some time. She will travel at night and sleep during the day, under her tarp. 

Catherine has a plan, as hairbrained as it might be. The Skycatcher is gone and so is her father, but she will not give up until the desert kills her or she has made it to the other side. There is only the certainty, drilled into her heart, that she will go. 

Corking the second jug of dirty well water, Catherine carries the jugs to her wagon, her wiry arms straining from the weight. Even at night, it is unbearably hot. The ground gobbles up all sources of moisture. Sweat, blood, tears – the ground is indiscriminate when it comes to sustenance. The hardpan takes everything, in the end, and it may even take her. 

She does not want to die the way her father did, with a belly full of tumors and his voice hoarse with agony as he screamed night and day. Not while she can still beat the rot that is slowly taking all the inhabitants of this town. She will take the water and there will be guilt later that she might have shaved a few days off the survival of this little outpost with her little bit of thievery. 

Guilt, she can live with. 

As she has discovered over the last ten years of her life, she can live with a great deal of things if it means she will survive. 

*

There is one thing, though.

Tonight, Catherine lies in a flea ridden bed alone. She has all her water jugs ready to go and she knows tomorrow morning will be her last morning in this dying town. There is dread that comes with the certainty of commitment, but that is not what has her lying awake tonight.

She is not used to being alone in this bed anymore. She is used to the familiar warmth and sweet-spicy scent of cinnamon at her side. She is used to waking up to a pair of brown eyes already staring back at her before crinkling her nose and looking away with a shyness that has somehow managed to linger, even after seven years.

And tonight, that one thing remains like a sliver of glass under her fingernail, a nagging regret that continues to fester as the night goes on because she is alone in this bed, for the first time in seven years, and she will continue to be alone as she begins her uncertain journey tomorrow.

It should not matter, either way. Not with the chance of survival on that indigo horizon. Catherine does not know when it happened, only that it has. She has also realized that she must try again, even though she knows it will not do any good.

The first conversation went exactly as she had predicted, and she does not expect any different from another attempt. But she will try again. That much she knows, like the scar over her left eyebrow and those brown eyes she normally wakes up to that will no longer be there when the morning comes, or for any following mornings after too.

She does not like lying alone at night.

*

They stand near the garage of a house that was once yellow and is now a washed-out shade of beige. Within the shadowy garage, a black motorcycle is sitting on a lift. The tires have long since lost their treads and the rearview mirrors are gone, but the bike still runs well enough now that it has a new owner. This is not where the motorcycle is usually parked, however; its former home was in Catherine’s garage, across town. This house is occupied by an old woman named Mercy who likes to knit scarves for the lawn gnomes in her dilapidated garden.

Catherine glances at the gnomes and realizes that Mercy has each adorned with a scarf in every colour. She privately wonders if the pride look was intentional, or just for the hell of it, and then she decides that she does not really care. She has left her bicycle and wagon back at her house, and before she even made it to the town square, a few of the old timers told her where she needed to go. They all know she is leaving, and they recognize the tired dejection in her eyes as well. She is a mirror to them, only younger and more idiotic.

“Old Mercy has a new roommate, I hear,” one of old timers informed her with a crusty wink, and she had said nothing in reply. She merely walked across town, in a pair of hiking boots that are still surprisingly in good shape, and now she is staring at lawn gnomes as the words she knew she was going to hear wash over her in real time.

Catherine hates that she is crying, if only for the waste of it. All that moisture will be swallowed by the sand and her grief will not have changed anything. 

But she is crying, anyway. 

“Come with me.” She is pleading now, her voice choked into half syllables and although she promised herself she would not beg, she should have known better.

The first person she has always broken promises with is herself. 

Her father once called her selfish. He told her, months before his death, that when she got something in her head, she went through with it no matter what anyone else thought or said about it. That she had a steel resolve in her that was like running one’s fingers over a cheese grater. It had hurt her when he told her that. 

This hurts more. 

“It’s death, kid. You know it as well as I do.” 

Catherine almost snaps right then and there at the use of that pet name. It feels like a weapon now, and she finds the steel barb snapping into place, just like her father always told her. But those brown eyes steady the worst of her rage. They always have.

“It’s death to stay, Syeda.” Catherine prides herself that she can at least get the words out, even if she will not scream them as she so desperately wants to. Her tears clog her voice, making her sound flat and nasal, but Syeda hardly bats an eye. Catherine does not know why that surprises her. “I can’t stand waiting anymore. I can’t stand the fucking quiet when I know what it will mean for us. I have to go, and you should too. There is nothing here, anymore.”

Syeda’s hair is pulled back by a thick green band, otherwise she would be covered in sweat already. Her curls are wide and voluminous and the beautiful carob of her skin clashes against the blistering indigo sky above them. She is a fixture of calm, just like she always is, and Catherine suddenly she hates her for it. Just enough for the inevitable moment when she will leave her behind. 

“I can’t.” Syeda’s voice is deep and rich. It was the first thing Catherine fell in love with, all those years ago. 

You won’t, Catherine thinks but will not say. Her eyes say it for her, all splintered with tears and desperation. Her eyes always betray her. This is something Syeda told her on the night they first made love and it is something Catherine can see in her placid expression as clearly as if she had just screamed the words at her. 

Catherine cannot speak anymore. If she does, she will begin to sob, and she knows she will not stop for a long time. She cannot afford such a waste – of water, of energy, of herself – and so she turns on her heel and leaves Syeda standing by her garage with her boots buried in the yellow sand. 

She does not look back. 

*

Catherine walks her bike over an incline of sand. There is a long, seemingly endless line of tracks behind her and the village is not even a pinprick on the horizon. She is not thinking about her hunger or the cloying heat. She has been out here for four days now, and it is not survival plaguing her thoughts. Not anymore.

All she can think about is Syeda.

Syeda found them all those years ago, half dehydrated to death as the remains of the Skycatcher were nothing but a plume of black smoke in the sky. Her father loved her like a daughter, even right up to the moment of his death. Catherine knows this with a jealousy that often shames her. He had asked for Syeda, right at the end. Not Catherine, his only remaining daughter, but Syeda. She still has not told her what he said to her and although she stopped asking a long time ago, she still thinks of it often.

Now, though, Catherine is thinking about the impasse she knew would inevitably arrive, but that she naively hoped to avoid. She is thinking about the bottle of wine they shared together that night under the strange, dull stars. The night Syeda brushed her cool, dry hands over the planes of her face and pressed her lips to hers with an ardency that brought her back from the precipice left in the wake of her father’s death.

Catherine stumbles unseeingly over a dune, her limbs aching with fatigue and her skin hot with sunburn. Her tears are like silk, coursing down her cheeks to pinstripe between dirt and grime. She did not cry this much when her father died. There had only been relief, as horrible as that makes her feel to this day. Relief that his pain was over, but also relief that they did not have to look each other in the eyes any longer and pretend to love one another. 

This pain, this loss, feels greater. 

Catherine thought for a long time that she did not love Syeda. She is not sure she really likes her all that much but there has always been some nagging hook in the pit of her stomach, urging her to keep her company. 

One day, it was not enough anymore. 

It is all coming down, through the gales of the wind. All that poison from the old wars is finally catching up with them and so is the unbearable quiet of humanity’s slow death. She cannot endure it any longer and that more than anything else helps to quell her despair enough for her to keep going. 

*

Catherine only stops only for small sips of water at night and to sleep during the day. 

She has no idea how many days have passed now. They each blend together, a passage of time that is spent sleeping, eating, or walking her bike over dunes that each look the same as the last. The horizon goes unchanged. It is blue, it is purple, it is seething indigo, and after a while she grows apathetic to her journey’s success. 

She keeps going, though. 

Not long after awaking to dusk’s fading light and continuing her pilgrimage, Catherine begins to notice a steady roar. She wonders if she is already becoming delusional, if the lulling heat is sapping away her sanity, one bead of sweat at a time. She keeps fighting the impulse to look behind her, knowing that wishful thinking will not get her any closer to crossing the barren wasteland. This hellscape of indigo and yellow. 

Then, she comes to a reluctant stop when she realizes the sound is only growing louder, closer. She pulls in a rueful breath and turns back, watching the horizon for what she does not believe to be there. 

Her breath stills. 

A black speck appears to the south, warped into jagged lines by the mirages in the sand. The roaring grows louder, despite her misgivings, and the black speck becomes larger and more discernable.

Soon, Catherine makes out a figure astride what can only be a black motorcycle. The figure will have black hair, too. Curls that spring from her head in every direction. She knows this because she knows the motorcycle and the way the engine revs like it has emphysema.

The heat bakes into her skin, leaving her faint and sweaty, but still she waits and watches, until the motorcycle is right in front of her, and crawling to a stop. 

Catherine and Syeda regard each other under that aberrant sky, their skin cast in shades of purple and she tracks the impassive plains of Syeda’s face like she will have to watch the world burn if she stops. Although Syeda does not smile, her eyes are warm, and it is mere muscle memory when Catherine’s nose crinkles and she looks away to the sand at their feet. 

“You’re here.” It feels like such a non-sequitur, to say it like that. But she cannot think of a single thing to say that will not come out all wrong.

The motorcycle rumbles and she is already counting the miles that it may cross before they will have to abandon it to the wastes.

“It was too quiet,” Syeda tells her, as if this explains everything. Her eyes seem lighter under that purple sky, and for once Catherine does not mind those shades.

When Catherine climbs onto the back of her motorcycle, with her bike lying forgotten in the sand and the jugs of water strapped to the saddle bags, Syeda’s ribs are warm under her hands. Together, they gaze towards the unknowable horizon before the engine revs and they take off in a cloud of dust. There is no end in sight, but the lulling apathy has faded away, lost under the yellow hardpan. Where everything fetches up, in the end.

Hope is the last vestige against that daunting horizon, a resilient flower unfurling towards the endless indigo sky. 

Rachel Johanna Darroch is an emerging Canadian author from Kitchener, Ontario. She is the author of several published works, including The Paradox, Light Years, Minor Key, Nerves, and The Advent. She is working on her debut novel, The Aether. She can be reached at racheljohanna.darroch@gmail.com.

Julie R. Nelson

plotting

Braden Nettles bought his family a mausoleum and attendant burial plot as a surprise gift, in secret, telling them they’d never guess what he got them for Christmas this year.

Freya and the kids jammed into the station wagon without the slightest idea what was happening, which was how Braden wanted things to unfold. One-part whimsy, another part practicality, with of bit of entrepreneurship thrown in, Braden sat in the passenger seat giving driving directions with zeal, the same zeal Freya remembered on the night he proposed marriage to her. Braden had such a sense of occasion about him, one of his main attractions. Now this trip was taking over two hours back to Story County where Braden was born and raised, the whole car ride all of them guessing where they were going and what the surprise might be as towns streamed by on the highway. Freya hoped it would be a lush getaway at a luxury spa in Des Moines or maybe an eight-week old puppy waiting for them at a farm near Ames. She wouldn’t put anything past Braden.

“Next exit, Lance,” Braden said. Freya could hear the excitement in Braden’s voice.  “You’re doing fine, son.” 

Lance, the driver, recently turned 17 and had earned his driver’s license a few months ago. In a way, this ride to the cemetery to see the family mausoleum (though Lance did not know yet where they were headed) was an act of faith on Braden’s part as Lance seemed to drift dreamily down the highway unaware he was the driver. Braden chimed in every few minutes with tidbits: Not so fast now or Lane, lane, lane. All the while, Lance wore an expression of utter equanimity, lost in his own dreamworld, his head lolling with the dashboard Buddha he’d stuck there in celebration of passing the exam at DMV. Underneath his rag-wool watch cap Lance was bald; around his wrist he wore a wrist mala of beads made of river stones and Thai wood. He and his father had had words last night about the shaved head, especially in winter. Driving today was a bit of an olive branch between them to calm the holiday waters.

“Right here, Lance,” Braden said again, urgently and more loudly.

Lance jerked the car, as though he had just awoken from a deep sleep, turning a little too quickly on to the highway exit ramp, still trying to feel the rhythms of the open road.

“Timing is the thing,” Braden said. “You have to time a turn.” Then, softening, “You’ll get the hang of it, I know that.”  

Lance only nodded once, his lips pursed that way he had when you could tell he felt frustrated or when things got too chaotic as they usually did on these family excursions, and made his way to a service road which curved on to a soft gravel lane, eventually. They were in the country now. The whole family—all seven of them—were packed into an old International station wagon—a true relic—and Lance’s first car since he got his license. The sides were rusted out and bondo-ed. Paint jobs over the years were different shades of white. A big boat of a car, the station wagon was a hand-me-down from his Great Uncle Elliot—dad’s older uncle—who owned it in the late 1970s and had used it to haul crates of apples and maple syrup. Elliot bequeathed the old International to Lance the day Lance passed the road test. The body of the car was gone to pot, a patchwork of re-dos over the years, but Elliot The Great, as the kids called him, carefully kept the engine going all those years, so while the hulking frame was an eyesore, and you could not get parts anymore for this make of car, the inner workings hummed with life-everlasting. To Lance, it was like brand new treasure, a magic carpet ride. None of his friends had a car like this. Lance volunteered to drive when dad said he had a Christmas surprise. And Braden said yes because the whole family fit easily across three wide vinyl seats and also he and Freya agreed they wanted to help Lance build more self-confidence.

“Up this hill, to the left,” Braden said.

“Meadow Garden Cemetery,” Fran read from a stone tablet as Lance made the turn.  “What are we doing here?”

“Keep going, Lance, follow the curve and then keep going up the hill until you get to the top, where you see the mausoleum, see it, yeah, right there,” Braden said.

“Why are we here, dad?” Fran asked again.

“You’ll see in a minute, that’s the surprise,” Braden said.

“This is where we visit grandpa and nana Nettles,” Sally said.  She remembered the cemetery from previous times they came here to lay wreaths of flowers over the years.

“Okay, we’re here,” Braden said.  “You can park over there, son, by that pine tree.”

Lance put it in park.

The whole family turned together to look out the car windows at the sight of a gigantic white granite mausoleum with their family name engraved at the top and two enormous stone lions, mouths in full roar, standing guard to the gates of heaven. The crypt was almost as big as their summer cabin at Lake Wapello, or so it appeared as they gaped at the solemn, awesome grandeur of it.

 “It’s just like the pyramids,” Arlene offered from the back. She had been learning about ancient Egypt in geography class.

Braden got out of the car first. He seemed like a tour guide the way he spread his arms wide open, waving each one out of the car one by one. Freya was the last one out as she crawled over the middle seat. She was cramped from sitting in the way-back part of the station wagon and stood upright a moment before bending over and loosening her shoulders in big circles, reaching down to touch her toes—sort of warming up—before joining them as they made their way up the small hill to stand before the spot they’d all be sequestered together, forever. She frowned as she stepped up to the stony crypt and pivoted to look Braden dead in the eye.

“Got a special rate,” Braden said, before Freya could say anything.

Freya said, “What in the world did you spend and where’d it come from? And don’t tell me about what you saved. Because no rate is that special.”

When Braden just stood there, beaming at her. Freya threw up her arms.

“Tell me you didn’t dip into your father’s inheritance money, again,” she said. Braden had had other “projects” like this before. But this topped everything.

When Braden did not answer, Freya said, sweeping her arms toward Lance and all the kids, “That money was for their college expenses. And our retirement!”

Then she said, “You never so much as said to me you were in the market for Caesar’s Palace! Never even asked me, was this,” and here Freya flicked both arms in the direction of the mausoleum, “a good idea.”

Braden said, “It was meant to be a surprise.”

“I’ll give you that,” Freya said. “I’m very surprised.”

Braden stood there, a funny smile frozen on his face. You could see he’d imagined the scene playing out another way.

“Well, two things I can say. One of which is, I got a good rate. And also—there is still money left over for college if the kids want to go,” Braden said, hopefully. 

Lance, who was college age, had shown no interest in going, now he had a car. This observation had swayed Braden to thinking maybe not all the inheritance money would be needed to pay for tuition. Braden went on, warming to his own reasoning, nodding his head in the direction of the crypt, “Besides, this legacy will last a lot longer.”

Than a college education, is what he implied.

Freya sat down on a wrought iron bench near the crypt, in spite of the 20-degree weather and chilly high winds buffeting them from all sides. She positioned herself on her parka just so to keep her bum from direct contact with the ice-cold bench.

“I can’t take it in,” she said as Braden and the kids made a semi-circle far beneath the Gothic pointed arch supporting the rib vault which was meant, Braden was telling them, his back to the mausoleum, to replicate Durham Cathedral in the heart of England, their long-ago ancient ancestral home. Although none of them had ever been to England. And, actually, Freya’s side were all Danish and Norwegian. 

“Just look at that detail. Look at the rosettes carved at the base there,” Brayden was saying to the children, pointing to a garden of stone flowers.

Sally, who at 16 was the most earnest and kind-hearted of their children, frowned as Freya had frowned but for a different reason. “But Pap, what if I get married some day? I mean, I might want to, you know, be buried with my husband instead of right here with you all. Like grandma and grandpa Nettles over there,” Sally said, pointing to her grandparent’s grave nearby.

“I thought of that!” Braden said. “There’s room for more! You can have two spaces, if you want, and there’s even a patch of land that’s ours—see, right back there?—for future generations.”

Sure enough, on the back side of the mausoleum, the kids saw a tidy graveyard complete with a wrought-iron fence, about three-feet high, and, like the bench where Freya sat shell-shocked, the gate was made of wrought-iron branches. Or roses? Hard to tell from where they stood.

Carson, the baby of the family at six years old, stood absolutely still in his brand-new puffy snow suit, warming himself in the sibling circle, and listening to Braden, when suddenly he burst free from them and ran over to poke the granite walls and crevices with his mittened hand.  In a flash, he leaned over and put his head inside the mouth of one of the stony lions.

The problem was his head got stuck. None of them noticed, at first, but the hood of his puffy coat hooked into the lion’s canine tooth and his bare neck ground into the cold statuary incisors as he twisted this way and that to pull his head out.

“I’m stuck!” Carson cried.

“Now look what you’ve done!” Freya cried. Looking at Braden.

“Hey, little man, looks like you bit off more than you can chew this time,” Braden said, trying to be funny but walking over to calm his son.

“Get me out!” Carson said.

Fran and Arlene, who were giggling and running around the base of the mausoleum by now, ran up to Carson, stood still a moment, a study in opposites. Arlene laughed even harder at the absurdity of Carson’s head swallowed up by the lion; Fran started to cry.

“I want to try it,” Arlene said, looking at the empty mouth of the other lion. She was nearest in age to Carson.

“Don’t you dare!” Freya said, clutching the back of Arlene’s jacket in her gloved hand.

Fran cried harder, sobbing, “Then you’d both be stuck and have to live here forever!”

Carson shrieked, his arms and hands waving wildly as he slapped the sides of the lion’s head while trying to extract his own. “I don’t want to live here forever!” he cried.

It was at this point Braden, who had been torn between the moment he’d been waiting for—christening the family mausoleum—and rescuing Carson from the stone lion—really sprang to action.

“Stand back, everybody, stand back. Now, Carson,” Braden said. 

But before he could say anything else, Carson wailed so long and so loud and so full-throated another family looked up from where they were laying flowers on a nearby grave. This other family stood in the dip of the hill, below Braden’s mausoleum, their faces frozen in bas-relief, which added to the overall sculptural motif. They wore the distinct expression of those who are not sure whether they want to get involved. The patriarch was the first to unfreeze himself and step toward Braden, grunting as he made his way up the hill. He was not a young man.  He had the labored gait of one with arthritic hips.

“Need a hand?” he said, out of breath, craning his neck to see what Carson was up to with his head lodged in the mouth of a lion. “Name is Thomas Holcum. Friends call me just Holcum.”

Holcum’s gaze moved from Carson’s backside to the top of the mausoleum.

“I gather you are the Nettle family?” he said, cautiously.

Braden, who was kneeling next to Carson trying to ease his head out of the lion, stood up and stepped forward to vigorously shake Holcum’s hand.

“We are the Nettles family, and this is our brand-new mausoleum,” Braden said, forgetting Carson for a moment.

Holcum glanced up again with a quizzical look on his face, so they all followed his gaze and gasped, in unison, noticing for the first time the S was missing from Nettles.

Freya, not missing a beat, said, “Well, that must be the part they discounted.”

Arlene got a fit of giggles. “They forgot the S, they forgot the S,” she shouted, running in circles around the base of the crypt, Fran not far behind her.

“Braden, you damn well better get a full refund,” Freya said over her shoulder. She was massaging Carson’s back. “You better get on the horn after the holidays and demand a refund.”

Holcum said, kind of joining the family drama, “But how would you get a refund on a mausoleum? How would you do that?”

Braden locked eyes with Freya, daring her to argue, “I don’t want a refund!”

Sally shouted, “Carson threw up!”

Sure enough, Carson threw up inside the head of the lion, which only made him scream all the louder. Hot vomit dripped off the lion’s lip.

“Oh, my god, Carson!” Freya said, glaring at Braden. She bent close to Carson’s ear, “Honey, try to just calm down and breathe a little. We will get you out!  I promise you that.”

Holcum and Braden walked over to assess the situation, each proposing a theory as to the best way to ease Carson’s head from the mouth of the lion. Braden crouched down, closing one eye, the same expression he wore when woodworking, one of his hobbies.

“How’d he get his little head in there, in the first place,” Holcum wanted to know.

Freya turned to Sally, “Sally, call 9-1-1. Do you have your cell phone?”

“Already called, mom. We learned about emergencies in lifestyles class,” Sally said.

“Thank God for you!” Freya said. To herself, Freya mused she was sure they never covered this kind of an emergency.

For Freya had had it lately. Braden. What kind of ass sprung a mausoleum and burial plot on an unsuspecting family during the holidays? Freya stopped just short of asking Sally if her teacher covered emergencies inside of marriages in lifestyles class. So many days, Freya felt trapped, as though her whole life were caught inside the mouth of a lion. Marriage made her tired.

Instead, what she said to Sally was, “I need you to come with me to the car to get blankets and a cloth to wipe off the sick. He’ll freeze to death.” 

To Braden and Holcum, Freya said, “Braden. Braden! Sally and I’ll be right back, you all stay with Carson! Did you hear me, Braden?”

Braden nodded. He was trying to measure the space of the lion’s mouth with the palm of his hand.

By now, Holcum’s relations had made their way up the hill and stood by, gawking, not sure what to say much less do. A young woman, probably Holcum’s daughter, was holding a small brown and white spaniel in her arms, a look of anxious displeasure on her face. Next to her was Holcum’s wife, her arms folded, standing furthest away and decidedly uncomfortable with the whole situation, as if at any moment she might just run off and away from them, fast as possible.

Braden and Holcum, meanwhile, pondered the chances of getting a refund on a mausoleum as they took turns trying to shift Carson’s head and angle it so he could back out of the lion’s mouth. They were trying to get Carson out of the lion’s mouth but all the time talking about what happens in the case you change your mind on so big a purchase as a mausoleum. On the one hand, who would take it? Would there be a Nettle family in the area who might buy it from Braden, a sort of permanent sub-lease, if you will. Braden actually considered this possibility for a moment. Surely, they would not need to find a Nettle family, though—right?  Surely, the engraver could just tack on an S. 

“Thank God they spelled it right otherwise,” Braden said.

Holcum stood up and stepped back from Braden and Carson a moment, eyeing the space at the top of mausoleum to estimate if a letter could be added there, on the end. There did appear to be some space for an S, Holcum informed Braden.

“I need a ladder to measure and know for sure,” Braden said to Holcum, over his shoulder.

“Hopefully, your deal was not set in stone,” Holcum said, trying to lighten things.  Holcum could not help smiling at his own pun.

Carson said, “My neck hurts!”

“Don’t you worry, be still a moment Carson,” Braden said.  Braden kept whispering reassurances to Carson all the while craning his neck to see if there was room to add the S.

“Just try to focus on breathing,” Lance said to Carson. He stood right by Carson. “Just try to breathe and be in this timeless moment.”

Braden frowned at Lance, “Don’t tease him.”

“I’m not teasing!” Lance said.

“Okay, okay, I know that, Lance. Come here, try to unzip Carson’s snow suit while I try to maneuver his head inside the lion’s mouth,” Braden said.

Braden stood over Carson and then circled around the whole head of the lion, taking its measure. Holcum joined Braden in estimating the circumference. Braden’s face seemed gnomish as he and Holcum—who was in it now for the long haul—maneuvered around the lion statue, Holcum on one side of the lion and Braden on the other while Lance laid on his back and unzipped Carson’s snow suit. Braden kneeled down again and slid his hand between Carson’s head and the roof of the lion’s mouth, to gauge what room there’d be to push Carson’s head out with his hand inside the lion. Braden smooshed the hood of the jacket inside the marble cavity, packing the goose down as tightly as possible, when his hand got wedged in with Carson’s head at an awkward angle. He could not work his hand free.

“Tight squeeze there, Carson, but don’t you worry, stay calm,” Braden said, trying to jiggle his hand which kept tearing on the lion’s bicuspid. Freya was not going to like it, his hand getting stuck with Carson’s head. The ride home might be stonier than this lion.

“We may need to call for help,” Holcum said, a bit panicked. “Kara, do you have your cell phone?”

Kara nodded. She was Holcum’s daughter and maybe only slightly older than Lance but more sophisticated, more put together. Kara had a slightly lopsided mouth, which gave her an alluring, if crooked, smile. She had long eyelashes, and her face was cast in shadows under a faux fur hood around the borders of her parka. She put down the little dog, to get her cell phone, delighting Fran who chased after it. The dog ran over and immediately peed on the side of the mausoleum.

Lance said, “Sally called 9-1-1 already, they should be here soon.”

Holcum said, “Never mind, Kara. It’s handled already.”

It was at this point Holcum’s wife, until now completely silent, stepped up and said almost in a whisper, “What about a stone mason? Maybe saw the tooth off so he could slide his head out.” As an afterthought, she said, “I am Barbara, by the way. Nice meeting you.”

It was the angle, that was the problem. Braden could see that Carson had a clear trajectory to get his head into space of the lion’s mouth, but the position of the marble cavity—especially on the one side—together with the uneven ridges and crevices inside the lion’s mouth—made it much more challenging to slide his head out. His chin was in the way. Braden loved solving this kind of problem. It was clear cut, so to speak. He hardly heard what Holcum’s wife said because his hand was getting numb wedged up on top of Carson’s head.

“See, right here,” Braden said to Holcum. “There’s this extra ridge inside the mouth of the lion.”

Holcum could see there was.

“Dad, you’re hurting me,” Carson said.

“You know, my Barbara may be on to something,” Holcum said. He leaned over to get a good look at the lion’s canine tooth on the side where Carson was not caught. “Seems to me a stone mason—a good one—could just saw off the tooth. Could probably just glue it back on good as new.”

“Now, wait a minute, I paid a lot of money for this memorial. This lion is meant to represent the pride of our family! Besides, what about me and Carson? They might cut us up into the bargain,” Braden said.

Carson cried, “No!”

“No worries, Carson! You’ll have a story to tell when teacher says, what did you do over break? Nobody will believe this!” Braden said.

Holcum gave a little cough.

Braden said, “Where’s Freya?”

Where she’d gone was to the boot of the International truck which turned out to be a trip back in time. Uncle Elliot apparently had stored things there from days gone by. Freya and Sally put aside stacks of old Farmer’s Almanacs and Field & Stream magazines. There were fishing hooks and fly rods—definitely not Lance’s, Freya said out loud—and a tackle box with a rusty latch. Uncle Elliot—or maybe Braden?—stashed what appeared to be an antique collection of woodworking tools—was that an awl and Jointer’s plane? A wooden mallet. A hand-crank drill, the fancy polished wood handle similar to an old-fashioned doorknob. Braden, thinking ahead because he knew Lance wouldn’t, told Freya he’d stored blankets, flares, and a first aid kit there in case of emergency—never mentioning Uncle Elliot’s heirlooms which maybe now were Braden’s tools stored here in Lance’s car. That was Braden, probably didn’t even mention it to Lance. But apparently Lance stored things in there as well, because when Freya lifted a hidden, carpeted panel she was surprised to find literature from Maharishi International University and a book, The Heart of Transcendental Meditation, cushioning the spare tire. What in the world? Freya wondered. The printed materials were recent, published in 2019, and told how the curriculum integrated transcendental meditation into all fields of study, even business. So, not Uncle Elliot’s brochures. Oh, lord, Freya thought, having a bad moment: hopefully not Braden’s!

But if these were Lance’s, if he had literature from Maharishi, it explained a lot of things. The dashboard Buddha he stuck on the dash the first day he got the car, which even now gleamed a rich tangerine color in the late afternoon sun. All those recent trips Lance made with his friend Peter to Fairfield, Iowa. Freya thought it was a fad during his senior year. Lance had never expressed interest in meditation let alone transcendental meditation, to her knowledge. But it didn’t matter: this made sense. She smiled in spite of herself. Maybe he would go to college, after all. Leave it to Lance to keep it secret. Bad as his father. She was not really excited to think of him at Maharishi, but at least then he’d continue his education and learn about something else besides this car which had been Lance’s only real interest the last few months. Freya’s heart softened toward Lance as it did toward Braden. She thought of the expectant look on Braden’s face when they got to the cemetery today. The bell in his voice. What she married him for. Freya got teary thinking of Braden early that morning, first one up at 5:00 am, building a fire and digging out the electric griddle they used at camp so he could make batches of pancakes for them, complete with linked sausages and maple syrup from the farmer’s market. What a mess they’d be returning to later this evening! They left a sink full of dishes. But that was Braden, her Braden.

And there was Braden now, kneeling on the ground, his free arm pushing against the flanks of the lion and his other hand caught in the marble mouth of the beast. Freya could see this as she and Sally made their way back to Carson. Carson still had wiggle room to breathe, she could see that as she and Sally approached them from behind, but now poor Carson was wedged in worse than when she’d gone to the car.

“For pity’s sake,” Freya said.  She dropped her armload of blankets, chamois clothes, first aid supplies, and box of Kleenex. “We were only gone a few minutes!”

“Not as bad as it looks,” Braden said to Freya as she and Sally approached. “We were just discussing if we should get a mason to come and cut out the tooth of the lion for Carson to slide out. But I think we should wait to see if we can get him out because I already spent a mint.”

“Exactly how much money is still unknown to us,” Freya said bitterly, to Holcum, who nodded vaguely and took a few steps back.

Holcum said, “A good stone mason would also know how to glue the tooth back into place. Probably.”

“Or you could get a replacement lion altogether,” Lance suggested.

Very helpful, Freya thought, sarcastically. But she didn’t say anything. Lance needed encouragement and could be so sensitive. Freya spent the whole last year encouraging Lance to make something of himself, to show more confidence. He finished high school six months ago and all year had been saying he’s looking for work but never seemed to find work or show initiative. Although now she saw he had a secret intention, however unconventional. Were there jobs in Transcendental Meditation? Wouldn’t you know Lance spoke up now to encourage his father to sink more money into this colossal monument to Braden’s extravagance.

Braden was still weighing the options. Maybe chopping out a lion’s tooth was the best solution after all. He was thinking out loud again, saying just whatever thought popped into his head. He noted he was going to have a mason come out and tack on the S anyway to make Nettles; maybe he could get a two-fer.

“Do you know anybody, around here?  By the way, are you from around here,” Braden said to Holcum. “If you don’t mind saying.”

“Sally called 9-1-1 already!” Freya said, exasperated.  “Stop goofing off, Braden!”  She started to cry. She dabbed vomit off Carson’s face with the soft flannel cloths and let Carson blow his nose into the Kleenex best as she could. His cheeks were bright pink from the cold and from crying. Together, both Sally and Freya wrapped Carson’s body in a warm blanket to keep him from shivering.

As if on cue, wails of sirens ricocheted off tombstones as the whole group turned and watched red and blue sirens booking it up the hill to the family plot. By now a small crowd was gathering, other cemetery-goers and mourners scattered from around the corners of the graveyard approached furtively and then more boldly to see what was happening.

“What have we here?” one of the EMTs said getting out of the ambulance and quickly turning his attention to Carson and Braden. “Looks like you fellas messed with the wrong lion.”

He wore a name badge which read Jeremy Blanchard, and he was a very tall and broad-chested man, maybe 240 pounds and 6-foot-seven in his stocking feet. He had enormous hands which he gently placed on Carson’s back. “Hey, buddy. You’ll be out of there in no time.”

Behind him came two more paramedics. One of the EMTs, name of Lenora Katz, assessed the situation and said, after a moment, “We’ll cut him out.”

“The lion is made of marble,” Braden said, stating the obvious. Part of him still had not given up on keeping the lion intact.

“No, we’ll cut away his jacket and gently cut the hood here,” and Lenora pointed to places she’d cut the snowsuit, “enough to leave the top part of the fabric intact to protect his head and give him something to slide across but also enough to get unhooked from where the jacket is caught on the tooth. Right here. When he pulls out from under, right about here, you will be able to free your hand.”

The circle of mourners drew closer.

“Jeremy,” Lenora said to her colleague, “I need a pair of scissors.” Then Lenora got on her knees and positioned herself from the back of the lion to address Carson directly. When she could see his eye she said, “You must be a very brave boy to put your head in the mouth of a lion! Only Superman is that brave!”

Freya’s eyes filled with tears. Of a sudden she remembered Carson’s delivery. He was turned the wrong way inside her—what the doctor called a breech baby—and it took the Midwife a long time to turn him and position him in the birth canal. They both had almost died, their labor together over 24 hours. Braden had been so sweet to her, then. He was an ass and a goof and this mausoleum business was not over! She had plenty to say on this outlandish topic! But their marriage had survived many a season. Would survive this, too.

“Now, Carson, how does Superman stand when he needs to show strength?” Lenora said.  Her voice was calm and full of music. It was like she had nothing better to do in the world than get his head out from the mouth of the lion.

Carson said, “Superman stands still like a statue.”

“That’s right! And that’s what I need you to do right now: you be as still as Superman.  You can do that, right? Is it okay with you if I use scissors to cut your coat?”

Carson nodded, or tried to.

“Ouch, don’t do that, Carson, don’t nod your head,” Braden shouted. His hand, even in the glove, was numb with cold.

“That’s right, keep your head and body real still, still as this lion. I’m going to start cutting now,” Lenora said. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Carson said. And he did, he kept as still as he had been a half hour earlier before he got stuck.

Lenora cut the coat with careful precision. She snipped calmly and slowly using the seams to advantage she made enough extra space for Carson to slide his head out of the hood, his jacket in tatters. There! He was out. Carson almost toppled over from standing at least forty minutes in that awkward position. Lenora wiped his head with a warm and antiseptic cloth. A paramedic brought out more warm blankets and gave him his wool cap, which covered Carson’s whole sweaty head almost to his chin. Lenora had cut the jacket and hood such a way Carson wiggled out but scraped his cheek and chin. His face was streaked with blood and his neck was sore. But he was going to be okay. Nothing was broken. A paramedic brought out a big medic’s coat and wrapped little Carson into it so only his eyes showed. Onlookers cheered and clapped. Braden clapped, too, now his hand was free.

“Can I get a picture of everybody before we go,” Freya said. “Sally, get a shot of this with your camera phone. I want you all in it: Holcum and all the paramedics and Lenora—you all, all you onlookers, whoever wants to. Carson, you get in front. For your scrapbook, honey.”

Lenora said to Freya, gently, pulling her to the side, “Let’s get Carson to the clinic to clean him up, make sure he’s okay. Just a few miles from here.”

Jeremy gave Braden directions to Urgent Care. Braden, shaking his hand like a rag to get some feeling back, thought he knew where to go from the days his parents lived here.

Lenora paused before going back to the ambulance with Jeremy. She gave Braden a glance. “What happened here?”

It was the opening Braden had been waiting for. As crimson light glowed from the tombstones, the whole cemetery awash in winter light, Braden waved his uninjured arm toward the family crypt and said, loftily, “Families have legends.” 

Freya shook her head. She and Sally ushered Carson between them, back to the car, as Braden launched into the lore of the great Nettles line, telling a small crowd of mourners around him, who huddled close-in to stay warm, he’d designed this mausoleum in homage to his ancestral home. Freya came back for Braden, having settled Carson in the car wedged between her girls. Braden was going on about how his forebears dated back to 9th century England (which he learned from an ancestry kit he’d bought on the internet) and how Nettles ancestors chose the lion as their family crest after Richard, the Lionhearted. Braden, who had researched his ancestry as part of laying the groundwork for this burial site, told in eloquent, warm tones about the great long line of them forming an unbroken chain, blood and bone, now memorialized for all time right here in central Iowa for all the world to see.

“Not that we’re royalty,” Braden was careful to point out. “Not that Richard was our relative. But that far back.”

Members of the crowd nodded their heads, vaguely, started to disperse. The whole story sounded far-fetched.

Braden reached into his coat pockets. “I have here a family tree I’ve been working on,” he said, only to realize he’d left the papers on his desk back home.

“In the car, Braden,” Freya said, pulling Braden by his coat sleeve, the crowd following them to the International (and to gawk at Carson, making sure he was okay), the whole group waving goodbye as Lance pulled away from the pine tree and headed toward Urgent Care. Lance had memorized the paramedic’s directions, which now he repeated aloud to Braden to Freya, who were astonished Lance knew the way and was focused intently on following the ambulance just ahead of him.

“You okay back there, Carson,” Lance said as he drove down the highway. “Are you warm enough?”

Carson would be okay. Lance was going to be okay, too, Freya thought, smiling to herself. She thought, we all are okay. And I have a surprise for Braden: Lance is going to Maharishi University. Freya would see to that. She would wait to tell Braden; she would spring it on him like he sprang the mausoleum on her. She’d choose a moment with Lance, too, when the time was right, to praise him and give him encouragement. They’d sell the house if they had to. She’d leverage this mausoleum plot so Braden would have to come around to Maharishi University and see how right it was for Lance who all the time was thinking deep thoughts. Timing was all; if she’d learned anything, Freya learned timing was everything in this family.

She, too, was good at plotting.

Julie R. Nelson is a creative writer and educator living in Iowa City, IA. She often creates fictional characters from the tension between internal experience (or observations) and outward demands of relationships, situations, or realities. She begins with character or personality and dialogue to discover how a character will react from what they say. Plotting, on the other hand, evolved from a moment driving by a cemetery by the highway, an old graveyard with tombstones, sculptures, and mausoleums. The image led to a daydream about what would happen to a family where a mausoleum was given as a surprise gift which in turn led to the story. Julie is currently working on a collection of fictional short stories and a longer fiction still in progress.

Phil Robbins

Sassy

Sassy had her ninth birthday just after school let out for summer vacation, which meant we had plenty ‘a warm days comin’ to just go out back, spray each other with Papa Jack’s hose, dig for worms, and stay dirty long as we could, until Mama B said we had to come in and take a bath. Mama B got her a chocolate cake with a bright red Elmo on top. Sassy said Elmo was a little lame for someone as big as her but Mama B said that she had to take whatever they had at the store and that “money didn’t grow on trees,” which seemed like a pretty strange thing to say. Mama B stuck ten candles on it. It was the most candles I’d ever seen on a cake. Sassy even asked me to help her blow out all them candles, and that got Danny and Jen a’ yellin’ bout how it warn’t fair and leanin’ over their plates to get a good huff ‘n puff as well. Papa Jack gave ‘em each a whack on the head. “Her birthday,” he said, “and she can get anyone she wants to help her blow out the candles.” Mama B told Sassy to make a wish before she blew them out. I couldn’t remember blowin’ out any number of candles for my six cakes so I figured that I had reason to make a wish too. Not that I needed a reason. Sassy always told me that wishin’ was just part of being a kid, like cryin’, yellin’, and sassin’.  

Which is how Sassy got her name. She never would tell me what her real name was, and none of the other kids knew either. Papa Jack and Mama B said it warn’t none of our business and that if Sassy wanted to call herself that, well then “that was that.”  Sassy was awful proud of that name and said it suit her fine. She told me she’d been to “scores of houses” and that sassin’ sometimes got her stuff she wanted and sometimes got her a new mama and papa. I asked her what “scores of houses” meant and she just said that when you been to so many houses, they just stopped keeping score. Like a game, I guess. I knew I’d been to four, includin’ the one with Mommy, so I knew I wasn’t up to scores yet.

There were seven of us kids in the house. Me, Sassy, Danny and Jen were fosters, me being the newest, coming half a year back, and Danny the longest, for two years. Mama B and Papa Jack had two more real kids of their own and Jimmy was a “half ‘n half.” Sassy explained to me that Jimmy had been a foster and then Mama B and Papa Jack had ‘dopted him, which made him kind of their kid but kind of not.

“Can I be ‘dopted?” I asked Sassy one day while we built rock walls around the ant piles in the yard.

“Maybe,” Sassy explained, “but ya gotta be ‘specially good, like no whinin’ or sassin’, and ya real momma gotta say she don’t want ya no more.”

“Why she gotta say that?” I asked.

“Coz ya can’t have two mommas.”

“Well, then I ain’t never gonna be ‘dopted coz my momma never gonna say that.”

“All mommas say that after a while,” Sassy said. “It’s just how it is with families. Grown-ups get tired ‘a everyone. Kids just wear ‘em down till they pooped out ‘a bein’ moms and pops. Or they get tired ‘a bein’ at home and just leave.”

“My real dad left my momma ‘fore I even met him, my momma told me,” I said. “Said he was ‘chasin’ some skirts.’”

“See, that’s what I’m talkin’ about. Got tired ‘a ya momma and went to find another momma to be with.”

“So he got ‘dopted to some other momma?” I asked.

“Exactly, though with grown-ups they call it divorced, not ‘dopted.”

I was sure thankful for havin’ Sassy. She knew pretty much everythin’ fosters needed to know, like how to get more fries by not asking for ‘em, where to keep my special momma things so that they don’t get stole, and mostly, how to not get the switch. Sassy said she was an expert on gettin’ the switch. I believed her when I saw them red lines on her back, criss-crossin’ all over like some kind a’ puzzle. She said most ‘a them came from just one of her homes, but she warn’t sure coz she been switched so many times. Sassy explained that it warn’t enough to be good; you had to know when to be good and how good you had to be when you were bein’ good. I didn’t understand what she meant and warn’t sure I wanted to, seeing how it seemed ya’ got to be an expert by bein’ switched.

I did know that I was s’posed to be real good first Wednesday of every month, which was when lots of folks would come by lookin’ to ‘dopt some of us. Mama B made us wash extra hard those mornin’s, includin’ places I never would think to wash, like behind the ears and inside my belly button. Whoever heard ‘a cleanin’ out the inside of the belly button? Was not like anybody gonna see in there. I asked Sassy why we had to clean in there for the ‘dopt’n grown-ups and she just told me that ‘dopt’n moms and dads don’t want no kids “that are dirtied.” Mama B also told us that we had to say “please” if we wanted somethin’ on those days and “thank you” whether we got what we wanted or not. I didn’t get why we’d say “thank you” if we didn’t get what we wanted and said that one time to Mama B, and Papa Jack reached for the switch. But Mama B told him ‘twarn’t necessary. Sassy told me later that they probably didn’t want me lookin’ like I’d been cryin’ in front of the ‘dopters. I didn’t care what the reason was; I was just sure glad not to get the switch.  

Sassy washed up like the rest of us, but she said she warn’t gonna act any different on those ‘doptin’ days. She said that “ya get what ya get,” which made me think about popsicle night, when Mama B would get out a box ‘a them freeze pops and we all would be hopin’ for the red ones. I figured the ‘dopters probably wanted the red ones, or at least the orange, and didn’t wanna get stuck with no greens. But I never heard Mama B tell them that they only could “get what they get,” and mostly to me it looked like they always left without pickin’ from the box ‘t all.

Only other visitor we ever got was the state lady, who came to the house about as much as the ‘dopters. She spent most ‘a the time with Mama B and Papa Jack, askin’ ‘em all kinds of questions about whether we were good and if they needed anythin’. Her name was Mrs. Brian, which seemed kind ‘a weird to be a lady with a boy’s name. She had glasses which were hung on a chain around her neck, and she always looked tired. She carried one ‘a them big bags with lots of papers stuffed in it. I figured she was just worn out from carryin’ that thing all day but Sassy said she just got the same kind ‘a tired that moms and dads get, what with havin’ to deal with kids in all them houses. I asked Sassy how many houses were there and she just laughed, sayin’ that they needed lots of houses for all them kids moms and dads got tired ‘a. They also needed lots of other houses to send kids that the fosters got tired ‘a. I knew ‘bout that already, though Sassy knew a whole lot more than me ‘bout it.

Every now and again one of the fosters would go ‘a visitin’, seein’ one ‘a their real moms or dads or maybe an aunt or uncle. Danny did that the most, gettin’ all happy and tellin’ us that he warn’t gonna be comin’ back, but I guess his mom or dad was just real tired coz Danny always came back. He acted like it didn’t matter, but I usually could hear him cryin’ through the wall at night. Sassy told me there warn’t no sense in cryin’. She said that kids cried to get somethin’ and there warn’t nothin’ you could do ‘bout having tired moms and dads so there was no point fussin’ ‘bout it. I never expected to get anythin’ when I cried and figured expectin’ to get somethin’ and wantin’ somethin’ were different. But I warn’t gonna tell Sassy that.

Nighttime was always the hardest, no matter which house I was in. Papa Jack said that we were too big to have a light on at night and that it was a waste of money. I warn’t sure how a light was goin’ to waste anybody’s money, ‘specially since I never had to pay anybody to turn it on, but I had learned enough from Sassy not to say anythin’ about money to Papa Jack. But it sure got real dark most nights, ‘specially in the foster rooms coz we only had one small window and Mama B pulled the shade down tight. It got so dark I couldn’t even see my nose. Everythin’ seemed loud at night, even though it was quiet. Danny warn’t the only one to cry, and that was when I did most ‘a my cryin’ as well. I never heard Sassy cry, though I did hear her yellin’ a bunch in the middle of the night, screamin’ for her moms and dads to get out, and even usin’ some cuss words some nights. I tried to picture my momma at night, wonderin’ what she might look like after more than two years. I worried that maybe her hair might be getting’ gray, now that she was twenty-five. That scared me a mighty lot coz if her hair got gray, she would definitely be gettin’ tired fast. Sometimes I woke up when it was still real dark and I thought I could smell the sour I remember from my momma, ‘specially when she was sleeping on the floor.

The last time I saw Sassy was durin’ one of those dark nights. She came in my room real quiet, shushin’ me fast when I started to yell, and then standin’ real still until she was sure Papa Jack hadn’t heard me. She told me that Mama B and Papa Jack were tired ‘a her and that she was gonna be goin’ to another home in the mornin’.

“Am I goin’ too if they gettin’ tired?” I asked.

“No, it’s just me they’re tired ‘a,” Sassy explained. “They still got ‘nuff energy for you and the others.”

“I don’t want you to go, Sassy. I’ll help them so they won’t be so tired. Let’s wake ‘em and I’ll tell them that I’ll help them so they won’t be tired.”

I started out of bed but Sassy stopped me and shushed me again. “When you get bigger, you’ll understand better than I can explain,” she said. “They’re not tired all the time. They’re just tired ‘a me, and there’s nothin’ you can do that will make them get less tired ‘a me. Once a mom and dad get tired ‘a ya, there’s nothin’ you can do ‘bout it, except get a new mom and dad.”

I started to cry and Sassy put her arms around me, the way I seen ‘em do it on the t.v. I got her p.j.’s good and wet, but she didn’t seem to mind.

“I’m gonna tell you a secret before I go,” she said, “but you gotta promise that you won’t tell anyone.”

“I promise,” I said.

“Pinky promise?” she asked, holdin’ out her pinky to me.

“What’s a pinky promise?”

“It means that you swear you will never tell anyone no matter what.”

“Okay, pinky promise,” I said.

“You have to wrap your pinky with mine while you say that,” Sassy explained.

I wrapped my little finger around hers. “I pinky promise not to tell the secret.”

“If you ever see me again, or if we are ever grown up and meet, you can call me Lizzie. Lizzie Delaney.”

“Why would I do that?” I asked.

“Coz that’s my name.”

Next mornin’, she warn’t at breakfast. I asked Mama B and Papa Jack about her that day and a few times after that.

Phil Robbins has been a clinical psychologist for over thirty years. He began writing while forced to conduct his practice over the internet during the pandemic, writing his first (and only) novel and short stories. His work has been accepted by the Wilderness House Literary Review and, now, Passengers Journal.  When not working or writing, he spends time hiking (and backpacking), playing guitar, creating at the stove, and losing to his family in board games.