By early morning, his hands no longer shake.

The world smooths out, a canvas painted over with a base-coat of white; all the cracks filled in, waiting for the first splash of color. Right now he feels a little unsteady, but the sun hasn’t quite risen. He has time. He pours himself some coffee and makes it extra Irish, presses both hands against the warm mug as if it could spread its heat all the way to the ends of his toes before he even takes a sip.

By the time Josie and the kids stumble, bleary-eyed and yawning into the kitchen, he’s on his second cup and has enough eggs and sausage links for all four of them simmering on the stovetop. Maya, their youngest, smiles wide when she sees breakfast is almost ready.

“Good morning, Daddy!” she says, the last dregs of dreariness leaving her as the smell of toast reaches her nose. “You made breakfast!”

He grins and reaches down to pick her up, hands steady enough now to hold her tightly. He kisses her cheek, blowing raspberries until he elicits that perfect little giggle he loves. “I did, honey. Tell Willy what you want to drink and then you can grab us some napkins. How’s that sound?”

“Okay!” Maya agrees easily, allowing herself to be lowered back down. She runs to the pantry where she knows the napkins will be, grabs entirely too many and begins compiling little stacks of them around the dining table in the next room. Willy, with his wild hair and vivid freckles, pours the drinks without needing to be asked twice, and Josie watches the scene with a wistful look. Her husband leans in for a quick kiss, and she tastes more than coffee on his lips. The wistfulness remains, now laced with something else.

She waits until Will and Maya are gone, waves to them as they clamber onto the big, yellow school bus. Then she faces him in the cool, gray kitchen, watches him try to maintain the smile that doesn’t quite stretch as wide as it used to, doesn’t curl in all the same ways she remembers from back when she loved him most.

“Baby…” she starts, then stops. She’s said all of these things before. She doesn’t know any more words. The English language hasn’t invented the right ones for this: the conversation after the conversation.

“I know,” he says, the same way he’s said it so many times before. Like things will change. Like they’ll bypassed the ending, rewrite the story to say something different. But they won’t. They can’t. Josie knows that by now.

“I don’t think you do,” she says anyway. She holds her own mug of coffee now. Just coffee. Sighs long and deep and hollow, the way the air sounds as it whistles in the space between a forming wave and the rest of the ocean. “He’s different, you know.”

“Who, Willy?” her husband asks, his left eye shifting just a little off-center from her face. It’s how she knows he’s past his third drink. That and the steadiness of his hands. “Baby, Willy doesn’t understand…” he tries.

“Not Willy,” she interrupts. “You. Him. It’s two different people. It’s not…” she has to stop again, has to run a hand down her face and remind herself that this is what she has now, even if she used to have something else. “I miss him. I miss you.”

He sighs like he has the right to be impatient. “I’m right here.”

“You’re not.”

He doesn’t answer. He just moves himself a little closer so that he’s leaning across the counter from her, and then he looks her in the eye, trying to say something the way they always used to be able to. If she doesn’t stare back too closely, she thinks it might almost be the way it used to be. She tries. She searches, thinks maybe she can see a little of that glint he used to have in his gaze. But then that left eye twitches again and there’s nothing behind it and she blinks and turns toward the sink and the window where the school bus isn’t anymore, where the small breeze is rustling the newly-green leaves.

“You don’t want him back,” he says, finally. There is something past sadness in his voice, and Josie can’t look at him and his twitching left eye, because then she really might lose it. “You think you do, but you don’t,” he insists. “He’s different than he used to be. He’s….his hands shake and he can’t pick up his children and the air around him is too full of static. He’s afraid of everything. He’s angry at everything. He yells. Don’t you remember how he yells?”

She’s close to crying now. Just a few tears welling up behind her eyes, though they haven’t fallen yet. She turns back around to face him because it doesn’t matter if he sees. He’s seen it all before and he’s still in the same place he was a five months ago. “And you think this is better?” she asks, gesturing to the man who stands in front of her, his fingers steady and his face flexing and pulling like wax-paper, expression warped beneath a layer of something else, something that doesn’t belong on him.

“Yes,” he says, lowering his eyes to the countertop. He drums his fingers along it, a dull thumping.

“Prove it.”

He looks up at her, a question in his uneven gaze.

“Give me tomorrow,” she clarifies. Her eyes are steady, even with the tears still resting against her lashes. “Give me tomorrow, and then we’ll see which one you are. Which one you want to be.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

His hands are shaking.

The world is all rough edges, a canvas that’s been splattered over with a million different colors and patterns, messy and unfinished and terrifying. He feels more than a little unsteady, and the sun is already up. He doesn’t have time. Josie pours him a coffee and makes it with extra cream, helps him curl both of his shaking hands around it as if she could spread her warmth all the way to the ends of his toes before he even takes a sip.

Breakfast is just cereal today, and Maya smiles the same way she did yesterday, though she doesn’t understand why Daddy doesn’t pick her up and gobble at her cheek until she giggles in the way he loves.

“Good morning, Daddy!” she says, pushing her face against his knees instead. He pats the top of her soft head and smiles, and it seems to stretch further than it did yesterday, seems to curl his lips in all different ways. Josie watches, wistful as she was the day before.

Maya gets too many napkins and Willy gets the drinks, looks up at his Dad with a little bit of milk dribbling down his chin and a piece of cereal stuck to his lip. “You okay, Dad?” he asks, eyebrows scrunched together the same as when he’s trying to do his science homework.

“I’m good, kiddo,” he nods, hands still wrapped around his half-drunk coffee mug and eyes blinking a little more than usual and smile still stretched wide. “Why do you ask?”

Will shrugs, licks his lip so that the Cheerio resting there drops onto the table. “Seem different,” he says.

“Huh,” his dad shrugs back, biting his lip against a small wave of nausea.

He and Josie watch from the kitchen window as Willy helps his sister carry her lunchbox onto the bus, settles into the seat beside her and pushes back a little piece of her hair that’s fallen away from the rest of her ponytail.

As the bus pulls away, he and Josie face each other in the cool, gray kitchen. She takes his hand, feels it tremble in her own.

“Baby…” he starts, then stops. He’s said all of these things before. He doesn’t know any more words. The English language hasn’t invented the right ones for this: the atonement after the atonement.

“I know,” she answers, the same way she’s answered so many times before. Like things will change. Like they’ll manage to turn back the clock, rewire the machine to make something different. But they won’t. They can’t. They both know that by now.

He sighs, long and deep and hollow, the way an echo sounds when it travels the expanse of a gaping forest.

The next morning, his hands are steady.

His left eye twitches, and there is no glint behind it.

I want to smack her. Literally. She certainly deserves it--her words strike harder than my hands ever could. But physical assault will get you arrested while hateful words seldom do. My father is proof of that.

When I was seven, after my parents divorced, I had to go see my father. It was his way of getting out of child support. My visits were a nuisance more than anything.

About a year after the divorce I rode the school bus to his house on one of many miserable Fridays.

“Home, Dad.” I said after I fumbled through the screen door and dealt with his dogs, Thumper and Max. Dad was sitting at the kitchen table in his rumpled underwear and t-shirt. He leaned over his bowl of cereal like a bear. A dark shadow of stubble matched the smudges under his eyes. In the back, I could hear Nolene, his girlfriend doing some kind of housework.

He didn’t respond, so I headed toward my room.

“Don’t bring a bunch of shit in here,” he said to my back.

“I won’t, Dad.”

He was talking about my insect collections. Mostly moths and butterflies. A few beetles but those icked me out when the pins went through the plasticy shells.

“I’m serious, girl. Nolene don’t have the time or patience to be picking up after you.”

“Yes, Dad.”

I didn’t hate anyone then. When I was a kid. Now, I’m pretty full of it. I wonder if it’s contagious?

My father worked the second shift at the air conditioner plant. Looking back now I can see that drugs probably influenced his behavior. Nolene never did anything about it except fight. The result was usually him getting on to me.

I’m married now with two kids of my own. They are out of the house. Doug is in graduate school and Nancy married a nice accountant and does nothing with her own accounting degree. I guess counting is useful for keeping up with three kids. I’d like to see them more, but they live an hour and twenty minutes away. I’m still living in my hometown. I guess it’s good the kids moved on. Nobody beat them for their hobbies. Maybe that’s the reason.

At first, Nolene tried to befriend me. She’d been “rode hard and put up wet” as my dad’s brother told me one time and was emotionally detached and unpredictable. I think she wanted me to be her kid, a nice little family. When that didn’t work out she gave all her attention to getting what she could from my father in terms of attention, affection and fidelity. There wasn’t much of that to go around.

Maybe that’s why I married Bruce. He’s got the good looks of a Greek god sculpted from mashed potatoes, but he’s dependable. His non-verbal way of interacting doesn’t even bother me much anymore. Silence at my father’s house was dangerous.

One time, when I was about ten, my fourth grade teacher had encouraged me to do something with my insect collection for a science project. She figured that out when she saw me pick up a dead spider from the backpack room floor.

“What are you doing, Ellen?”

“What?” I tried to stall.

“Why did you pick up that dead bug?”

“What bug?” Why do we think we can lie and get away with it? Besides it technically wasn’t a bug.

“The dead bug I saw you pick up from the floor and that you are now holding loosely in your hand so that you don’t crush it.”

Ms. Thatcher had a way with details.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you collect them?”

“Sometimes,” I said. I could feel the crinkly little legs lightly touching my palm.

“That might make a good display for the science fair.”

It’s all I needed. I spent the next three nights at mom’s picking out my best specimens. My mom even got me a new piece of foam board. Friday morning is when I realized I had a problem.

I talked it out with Professor Peter my Praying Mantis. He was pinned to the bottom right of my poster. I had drawn a talk bubble like he was naming each of my bugs. I’d even made him a little mortar board hat. His spiny arm made a good pointer.

“I’ve got to turn this in Monday,” I said when I realized I would be at my father’s house all weekend.

You can’t take it to your dad’s. Nolene hates bugs.

“I know. But it’s not ready.”

Tell your mom.

“I can’t tell Mom because she won’t let me take it.”

Maybe she can say something to your dad. It’s a school project.

“She never says anything to him. And he won’t listen anyway.”

She’s gonna see it.

“I’ll just have to tell her it’s ready, and I’m taking it today to turn in early.”

I covered the panel up carefully with a plastic bag. Dried insects are fragile. At school and on the bus to Dad’s I guarded it from bumps and jolts. When I got off the bus I tucked it beside the door and made a trial run inside first. Dad had already gone to work. Nolene was on the phone. With as much stealth as I could muster, I snuck it into my room. After I closed the door, I listened to see if she would follow me. When my heart settled down I couldn’t help but unwrap and admire my work.

Eight of my favorite bugs I had arranged in a ring and from the bottom corner Professor Peter called out their names. At the top was a sweet green Actias luna “Luna Moth.” Then a fuzzy black Xylocopa “Carpenter Bee” and a Periplaneta americana “American Cockroach” to creep people out. Most of my bugs I had found dead, window sills catch and dry them out perfectly, but the three little Fireflies Lampyridae had met their fate in a jar on my dresser.

A large space in the center I had intentionally left open in hopes of finding something spectacular before Monday. Gently, I placed the foam board between my bed and the wall and headed out to the yard to hunt.

“Be safe, Professor!” I said.

Good luck!

There was lots of luck that day.

Today has had its own bit of luck. When I arrived at the nursing home, the shift nurse Cindy said, “Miss Nolene had a pretty good evening. Not much in the way of trouble last night, and she’s up and cheerful this morning. The CNAs said morning cleanup was no trouble. She’ll be glad to see you.”

She’s never glad to see me.

The TV was on when I entered, but she wasn’t watching it. Dementia has eroded much of her attention span. She didn’t even look at me when I said hello. It’s her unintended kindness to me to be so out of it that she doesn’t recognize or interact with me. Her roommate is a pitiful stroke victim slowly contracting into a ball and completely oblivious to the world around her.

“Good morning, Nolene.” I say.

“What is it?” she says to the corner of the ceiling. I smell body fluids and disinfectant.

“Just thought I would drop by to check on you.”

This brings a glance, “And who are you?”

“I’m your step-daughter, Ellen.”

It’s hard to tell where the long pause is going. In my mind, I’m racing out of my dad’s house again, with my glass Ball jar. His house was situated on the edge of a field and there was stand of trees nearby. It was hard to find bugs in the forest, but the lawn and field usually proved fruitful. And there it was. Without even looking—a big, mean, red and black ant making its way across the lawn. It was really not an ant but a wingless wasp with a wicked black stinger. “Cow Killer,” I said under my breath. I couldn’t remember the scientific name, but I could look it up after I captured it.

It was such an awesome little creature and proud--like it didn’t know it was tiny. I had played with one before, penning it down with a stick to hear it hiss and aggressively fight with its stinger. This one was huge. We battled like a bull and matador, me trying to get it in the jar and it avoiding the glass death chamber. Finally, I was successful and tromped to the house triumphantly with the centerpiece for my exhibit.

Unaware of what had happened, I entered my room thinking of where I could hide my prize until it died, Nolene was standing opposite of me at the end of my bed. Her huffs and angry scowl revealed my fate before I even noticed my poster at her feet.

A few frizzy strands of hair clung to her sweating face and the rest shot from her head in all directions, “I told you not to bring bugs into this house!”

Dreadfully, my eyes took in what she had done. The foam board was mashed and creased with shoe prints, bits of dust and scattered legs were the only things left of my insects. Heartache and sorrow pull my heart down, then from some unknown place a spark of anger raced forward. I didn’t know what to do with it. Nolene continued to rant at me and justify her act of destruction, “You’re a stupid weird little girl! Why are you so weird? What’s wrong with you to bring shit like this into the house?” Like an exterior elevator I watched my own fury rise and threw the jar at her.

In my hot anger I hoped that the Cow Killer to spring out and sting her to death. Instead the jar smashed into the wall behind her. Momentarily, she was stunned into silence. We stood there glaring at each other. In the moment she backed down. When my dad came home that night she filled his ear full of her side of the story. He got me out of bed sometime after midnight to spank me. I never let him see me cry.

He died about fifteen years ago. I’m kind of glad my grandkids never met him. Even though he had mellowed, he never could say, “I’m sorry,” or “I love you.” It fell to me to look after Nolene. She has no children of her own. The dementia makes it both worse and better. Worse in terms of complications and meanness, but better in that at least I can blame it on the disease.

Perhaps it was the disease moments ago that made her respond to my greeting with, “You ain’t my daughter. I never had any children. At least none that survived.”

“I’m not your biological daughter, I’m Ellen. You married my dad, Carl. Remember?”

“What I remember is that you are a stupid and weird little girl.”

I’m holding a glass vase with three white daisies in it. I want to throw it at her. She wouldn’t be able to dodge it this time.

It occurs to me that there are bugs over on the window sill: the ubiquitous “Pill Bugs” known around here as Roly Pollies, Armadillidium. She hated those things. I could go around the building and gather a few more, certainly I can also find some Silverfish and spiders for a nice necklace to place on her when she dozes off. The image of her waking up in a panic, screaming and thrashing around trying to knock a few not quite dead bugs off on the floor is surprisingly appealing.

Instead, I place the flower vase on her nightstand and leave. I don’t tell her Roly Pollies aren’t even insects, they’re terrestrial crustaceans. She doesn’t care and couldn’t learn it anyway.

END

[12-3-18 Thanks for the challenge! It has become an exercise against perfectionism as this is a very rough draft. I wrote it today and forced myself to share without any more edits or polishing. Any feedback is welcome and will be appreciated.]

www.htroygreen.com

My pulse races as I hurriedly walk towards my destiny. I have waited my entire life for what is about to happen. Filled with the jubilation that comes with making a dream reality, I barely notice the spring breeze that rustles my long coat. My purpose guides me ever forward. I weave in and out of the throngs of people who have stepped outside to shake off the winter doldrums, frustrated that they are keeping me from reaching my personal nirvana.

The park is busy and the air is filled with the musical laughter of children, the barks of leashed dogs, and the smell of burgers sizzling away on barbeque grills. Unfazed by the distractions, I rush single mindedly towards the subject of my fevered dreams. In the distance, I see the breeze shaken banner that marks the end of my frenzied journey, the 10th Annual Golden Girls Look-A-Like Contest. Stepping through the roped off contest area, I am finally within reach of achieving my ultimate desire. I sigh in ecstasy feeling that my need is almost satiated. I am deliciously immersed in a sea of Sofias, surrounded by a bevy of Blanches, dazzled by dozens of Dorothys, and of course riled by a human bouquet of Roses. Still, my goal is only partially met.

The stage where the winners of the contest are being announced is surrounded, but I will not be denied. I weave my way through the audience and leap onto the stage. The judges and contestants on stage look baffled and I know that I have precious seconds to do what I was born to do.

Turning to face the onlookers and watching contestants, I open the trench coat, revealing my humble flesh cannoli to the Golden world and shout, "Thank you for being a friend!

i think fall hits the hardest … you could scroll the Pinterest feed everything is methodically about how autumn is life after death, but the truth is—sometimes we break gradually, sometimes the break is like glass, and we can never be put back together.

I hated how my sister smelled, wrapped around my neck and suffocated me in her scent, creating a thick opaque fog, hazy over my head, engulfing me in the faint presence of a shadow of her. As I grew farther and farther from her as each day passed as I didn’t engage in this childish game of make-believe making up memories with my sister, the hole in my chest growing bigger each day, I hadn’t been in my sister’s room since five years ago.

I missed the way I used to lay on her carpet waiting for her faint arms to wrap around me and whisper gently in my ear that she loved me, as much as I loved her even though I didn’t know, for I truly believe the not knowing wasn’t what was eating me inside; it was the fact that loving her was an allusion (someone I didn’t know), that is what hurts me more—I don’t even feel I deserve to even mourn her , this is why I sleep with my eyes open because those are the dreams that I can’t even control whereas nightmares occur when I close my eyes in the dark and I have dreams of my sister that feel so real only to wake up to the piercing reality my sister isn’t here.

My sister used to hum the song where it goes I am just a falling angel trying to find my way back home. Sometimes, we have to visit the dark places to heal. I opened the door to my sister’s room and opened the door to her closet and let myself grieve where no one could hear my tears, and the walls closed around me and the shut out the world. I reached my hand in the back of closet and trying to hold myself from the walls closing in on me and I felt a box scrape against my hand drawing a jagged line through my hand, it’s unsteadiness felt like plastic, it’s translucent fragility deemed it plastic. I dipped my hand inside to steady myself, my hand fidgeted around the tips of journals, my hand fidgeted against the bumpy covers, sparkly, flowery, pearly covers; my hand danced around each one. I choose the bright red one with the gold lettering chipped away by time—aged, and desired to be slit with ink to bleed such emotion in order to feel something, in order to contain the urge to rip into the veins of the soul pushed closer to the wall of the box shying away from touch, but gently catching my eye, but so innocently desiring to be noticed, but slowly sinking into the box, blushed and embarrassed at how human or vulnerable it felt.

It reminded me of my sisters wrist, small and slender; the red reminded me of her hair and the gold lettering on the front reminded me of the way she looked as if she was being eaten away by sleepless nights and racing thoughts and the secrets that devoured her, it was like she had gnawed on her soul, to feed the emptiness she felt in her chest, my sister was an artist and her canvas was her pain.

I trembled as I opened her and tried to feel just anything I needed—to be split in half down to the marrow, because a knife just isn’t enough.

10/28/10

__________

Gnawed at fat on my bones Slipped a pill down the pipe And watched it coil around my waist And watched the numbers fall Eyes sunken in my aspirations Of dreams of vogue Became addicted to the way the scale Brought me down the rabbits hole Spiraled out of control Tasted the vomit of my decisions Wrapped myself in disquieting thoughts Of being able to slip my arms around my waist I deep throated the truth I let it sink deeper in my veins and pushed my throat For daring me to vomit Every meal of last year thanksgiving I swallowed the pain because that was the only thing my stomach could handle Just not the truth just not yet

__________

Sometimes, we recede in the closet of our soul because we are scared to be seen as we are broken.

And I was broken, just like my sister.

I tried to heal my broken heart with poetic words of misery because I was tired of feeling. I didn’t want to feel this lump in my throat.

I hated the desire to miss her and allowed myself to miss her without feeling I’d forget her. If I let myself fall into the path of grief, but, I feared even more, I wouldn’t be able to pull myself out after grasping the truth about her, I believe it’s the feeling that kills us not the feeling itself.

Grief was something I wasn’t ready to accept

Chapter Two

I layed in my bed till two in the memory , shivering in the cold opaque air

This is story isn't for the faint of heart. It is what happened when I decided I deserved freedom. If you want to hear than I shall start from the beggining. He had done it right here so many times she could't count that high. Right under her favorite tree. This is where she got her first kiss. Her first kiss was Jonathan Nolan. He was going to be a rocket scientist one day and he had the braces for 7 years to prove it They were 9 years old. This was where she smoked her first joint when she was 12. She got it from a kid named Chris who was a sophomore, she didn't remember feeling anything, but she and her best friend sure acted like they did infront of Chris. When her mom died she was only 14. She passed of breast cancer and this is where she would come to be alone. And cry for what felt like days at a time. Right under this tree was where she lost her virginity. She was 17 and he was the love of her life.

They met when she got a job at music store. She couldn't play anything, but the owner was a good friend of her parents. Well, now he is just a good friend of her dads. So, let her work the register. He didn't sell much. He was far to kind and let everyone rent instruments, or put down a deposit and make payments. Payments he never saw. He could usually tell who wouldn't be paying, but he did it anyway. A grown man came in one day. He was physically everything a girl wanted. He was very fit, but a slim build. Hair was so lightly salted you could taste it. He looked all of 30. Too old for her, she thought. She shook his hand and introduced herself. She remembered feeling like she was shocked like when there is a buildup of static from the carpet and wearing socks, but he didn't react so she payed it no mind. How? How were his hands calloused and still soft at the touch. He wanted a Gibson, but settled for a Fender. If you would call it that. He walked out the door, and like that she developed a crush thinking he would never return.

He did return, however. With his bright green eyes, he practically barged in. Like he was conquering the doors. It had been days since she seen him, Was there something wrong with the guitar. She prepared herself to be reprimanded. He marched right up to her. looked her dead in the eyes, and with a slightly over zealous voice he demanded dinner. Yes, dinner. She was elated. Absolutely. Right now, even. The store didn't close for another hour, but she didn't care. They left, and that was the beggining.

He courted her like any gentleman would. In the beggining. He would bite his tongue and apologize, until he didn't. He would have one glass of whiskey, at a time. Until the bottle felt as empty as she did. Those apologies turned to fists. Until finally he got so mad he thought he had killed her. He threw her limp body in the basement and chained her up. She would either rot in those chains or wouldn't be able to leave him. She woke up. body stiff covered in blood. She didn't know where she was bleeding from, but that is when she knew she had to leave, but first she had to make him believe she wouldn't leave, and even more diffacult. She had to prove to him that she still loved him. Like the green leaves on her favorite tree promised they love the tree only to fall the first gust of wind that frees them. It took months to get her unchained, and even longer to finally go sit under her tree outside. With strict rules of course, right by his side. His calloused hands would grab hers, and she couldn't help but flinch. This angered him everytime. He would than place his hand over her mouth, and he would give her a reason to flinch. She stared at the leaves above her, as he body was violated. He could do whatever he wanted to her body, but her mind was hers and protected her. Made her numb when needed.

I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Kami Madison. I need to escape my boyfriend turned captor. It took me two years to realize he would never let me leave him alive. Took me another year to plan my escape. Yet, here I am. Sitting under the tree I have watched change colors as frequently as I have changed. I have grieved under this tree, been in love, lost my innocence, and been higher than I ever thought I could have, but for the first time I sit under this tree and I finally am as free as the leaves that catch fire in color and fall. People think of fall as the end. The end of summer, and the warmth. I see autumn as the beggining. The beggining of my plan to finally get away from the green eyed monster who raped my innocence, and my now feels foreign body. This is my story and I can finally tell it.

When I was about seven years old, my mother said, “Don’t get too close to the neighbors.” I looked at her like she was swiss cheese, because she was the one who dropped me off at Sunday school where I heard the exact opposite. It was the pasty white bald dude with the white tight starched collar that said to us with persuasive passion, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Was I to believe the woman who birthed me or this guy who seemed like he pretty much knew what he was talking about?

Actually, there are not too many words of wisdom I remember my mother teaching me, but “Don’t get too close to the neighbors” hung around in my brain bank, as money I didn’t want to spend, and I had a nagging feeling at some point I would wish I had made a withdrawal.

***

A fish should not be out of water, and people should need people. Barbara Streisand sang about it so it must be true. When I moved three states away from my roots, I thought, “So what that I don’t know a soul. If I want some friends, I’ll go pick some up at Wal-Mart.” It’s that easy, right? Maybe some people find what they need in isle nine, I found a lot of disinterested, “too busy to make new friends” personages and not just at Wal-Mart. Walking my dog around the neighborhood I was beginning to think he and I were the last life left on the planet. Newly retired, I refused to feel like Tom Hanks in Cast Away, except for the fact that most of what I had planned to do with my time began and ended with the word BEACH. What I neglect to mention is, I am married, and he’s retired too, so I am not alone, but I’m married to a guy that is more into the rectangular box that answers to a remote control then the woman that calls him for dinner. We are not the grey haired couple you see in the AARP commercial walking on the beach holding hands if you catch my drift.

My dog, not my alarm clock kept me on schedule. Before coffee I do not approve of long walks, much to my dog’s chagrin. On a Saturday morning, early June, the weather was a Farmer’s Almanac 10, causing my dog to get his frisky on, and I in my pajama pants, made an exception, venturing off my block caffeine free. And then I saw them coming towards me, the aurora borealis, with a cute little Bichon that spotted us first. Our dogs were initially responsible for the meet and greet, doing their leg lifts and sniffs like we humans say how do you do. Not embarrassed at all that I was meeting this couple in my pajama pants, we started talking and I did believe I couldn’t have selected better had I clicked all the boxes on FRIENDMATCH. They dropped down from somewhere, and landed one block over, mine for the taking.

We said our goodbyes, but not before I decided to invite them over for happy hour. Walking back to the house, I was so excited to share the news with my husband, when I entered the kitchen, I forgot to pop in my pod. “Do we have to, he said? It’s Survivor night.”

“Yeah. We have to,” I said. “I already invited them. And don’t worry, they already said they like to go to bed early, like us, so they’ll be long gone before somebody gets voted off at tribal council. Our similarities are uncanny. Don’t forget their names. Sal and Marie. It will be fun. I promise.”

And it was. After a couple of happy hours, our place and theirs, a dinner out and a foursie trip to the beach, I felt happy as a clam, especially since this budding friendship had taken my potato off the couch. What could go wrong? Even the pups were in love.

They had invited us over to their house for dinner. Turns out Sal’s father was an extra virgin imported Italiano, that had perfected tomatoe sauce and NY pizza, teaching none other than his first born son, our new bestie, to cook. Better yet, he made his own wine, from concentrated grapes imported from Italy. The gift just kept on giving.

Over appetizers, we chatted, and just like in my house 24/7, not by my design, the TV was on in the background. It would not have alarmed me if the food channel was on, but it wasn’t. FOX News. It suddenly occured to me I had forgotten to ask them if they were on the Blue or the Red team. Truly I am not a hard core leftists, I’m a moderate and I have relatives that are conservatives and independents. We all get along. But there is one thing I’m really turned off by. The lock her up chanters sporting the make America great again hats. Brother please. As a born and raised New Yorker, I know a con when I see one. A FOX News watcher doesn’t necessarily fall into that category, so I was curious about the politics of the man who was serving up New York Pizza with anchovies, paired with his homemade vintage. And then the bomb was dropped. A half a slice in, Sal glances up at the TV and vomits, “Hillary should be in prison and Obama is a thief.” I’m crushed. “Don’t tell me this honeymoon is over,” I’m thinking. Nah! His pizza reminds me of home and the wine is divine, so I reply, “You’re kidding me right?” He says, “NO”! “I am deadly serious.” And he repeats his drivel with pizza hanging off his fangs, and I could visualize him sitting in his car at a red light pumping a fist to Rush Limbaugh.

What do I do? I simply reply, “You know what Sal? Let’s make a deal. We are to never again mention anything about politics.” He looked at me sideways and I was wondering if he had falsely assumed that my husband and I were squarely on the Red team. I got over my disappointment and shock quickly and resumed eating the best pizza I had eaten since I left NY. Sometimes me myself and I can skip over principle for substinance without blink. And it was then that the subject matter took a darker turn, when he began talking about a salt spa place that they frequent in West Virginia. We listened intently as it sounded alluring when Sal blurted, “We bang in there.” “Come again,” I said, almost choking on the mozzerella, and I swear there was no pun intended. I’m polite, and perhaps I heard wrong. I did not. He took my “come again” out of context and used it as a ticket to ride, graphically describing their sexual escapades within the salt bath. I was so shocked the only thing I could think of to say was, “Do they clean it well after you leave?” And he says, “oh yeah,” all jizzie like in ohhhh yeah baby. I believe he assumed by my comment that I was interested and ready to jump in the pool with him. I most definitely was not. And then he says it. “We swing. Do you?” And I knew instantly he did not mean as in gymboree. My husband heard him, and did a big ole fake yawn, bless his heart. He was done eating pizza and we were both done with the conversation and with our soon to be former new besties. Good night Ron Jeremy.

So the words of my mother were resurrected long after her passing, ergo I couldn’t tell her that she in fact was right and that scripture can be flawed. Or perhaps she and the pastor were both right. Wasn’t she in her own way just trying to warn me about the pitfalls of knowing too much about what goes on behind the blinds next door or at the very least, to proceed with caution? Perhaps she had dealt with her own Ron Jeremy in the neighborhood. Going forward, can I bare (no pun intended) to walk past Sal and Marie, even while dressed in non nighty attire? Had I heeded my mother’s words, on that first meet and greet, I would have said how do you do and then kept on walking, but definitely not before letting my dog investigate their dog’s junk.

As far as my neighbors, I’ve decided to love them all. From afar. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve accepted, just like making NY pizza and friends, nothing good in life comes easy.

"Listen."

"I don't hear anything, Jamie; what do you hear?"

"I think they’re comin again."

Trepidation filled Terry as he strained to hear. There was nothing. Nothing save for the usual scraping from Dave’s room next door. He turned toward Jamie and saw the lean man standing by the padded door.

“I hear em comin for ye. Time for yer meds, Terry my lad. Gona take a trip down smooth alley, sailing on imaginary fantasies while they play hide n seek with yer arse.”

Jamie turned and giggled in his direction, knowing how it unnerved him.

“Shut it, Jamie, you’re always so mean to me!”

Jamie fell silent and walked back to his bunk. Then, there came the sound of several footsteps approaching. Terry’s guts twisted into knots, his hands slick with sweat. Perhaps they weren’t coming for him this time. He tried to swallow but his throat was dry. He heard the footsteps approach steadily, each step echoed through his being. They stopped, all of them, by his door. He heard the murmur of voices as his tormentors discussed something. Then keys clanking against one another. Try as he might, he could not keep them back. Warm tears streamed down his cheeks, and he whimpered uncontrollably. He heard Jamie laughing beside him, and turned to see him smirking at him. Anger filled him at that moment, why did they spare this vile bastard and enjoy torturing him. None of it made sense.

”Ye ready there, Terry my lad? Ye better say those Hail Mary’s and Our Father’s.”

“What if they didn’t come for me Jamie? Maybe they’re here for you!”

Spittle flying from his mouth, he rose to his feet and bore down on Jamie. This time he didn’t care if they both got into trouble, he would beat the crap out of Jamie.

“Now, we both know they not comin for me, Jamie my boy. And if ye want to pull me in on yer trouble, fine… but I’ll hit ye so hard yer friends’ll feel it.”

The door opened as Terry lunged toward Jamie with balled fists. Jamie was bigger than he was, and taller. He avoided Terry’s loose punches and drove his large fist square into his midriff. The air flew out of him and before he could wince, Terry felt a second blow floor him. Four men entered the room, grasped Terry by his limbs, and dragged him from his cell.

“No I didn’t start it please let me go! It was Jamie he made me do it! Jamie, you bastard, I’ll get you for this!”

He was thrashing against his captors with all his might, but their grips were like iron. They said nothing only looked down at him with the contempt he was accustomed to. The light overhead in the passage was blinding in comparison to the twilight of his cell. He could hear Jamie laughing, and it increased his anger and frustration tenfold. He doubled his efforts and freed his right hand. Balling his fist, he struck out at the man who had been holding it, catching him below the crotch. The man howled with pain doubling over. He cursed severely, then removed a syringe from the folds of his white uniform. He yelled for the others to hold Terry down, as he plunged the needle of the syringe in his shoulder and injected its contents. Everything became a blur as Terry lost consciousness.

Terry awoke to an all familiar sight. He was restrained in an uncomfortable chair, with wiring along his bare chest and head. He did not try to struggle for he knew it was pointless. Turning his head as far to the right as his bonds allowed, he saw the man who called himself Dr. Green. He was adjusting nobs and dials on the apparatus connected to the wiring on Terry. He looked up and smiled as he met Terry’s gaze.

“You’re awake Terry, good. Now we may begin.”

”Why are you doing this to me Dr. Green? I’ve been good I swear I have!”

Fresh tears welled up in his eyes as he searched the doctor’s face for some sign of sympathy. There came none. The doctor merely smiled and adjusted a few more devices. Then he walked over to Terry with a clipboard and pen. He placed a chair directly across from Terry and crossed his legs.

“Tell me Terry, how’s Jamie doing?”

This was the drill. Every time they brought him here, the opening question was the same. How’s Jamie doing. If they really gave a damn about Jamie, he would be in the chair and not Terry!

“Jamie is still mean to me. He says the most awful things. Why don’t you ever take Jamie doctor? Why do you only take me and ask me questions about Jamie!”

Dr. Green sighed, and scribbled a few notes on his clipboard.

“Because Terry, Jamie does not exist. He is a delusion of imagination, and we are here to cure you of it. Now relax, this will only hurt for a bit.”

#OfPenAndPaper #Torment

“Sometimes, you have to be kind to be cruel.”—Anonymous

The palace is falling to pieces. The gardens are overgrown and wild. The servants are long gone. No one goes near the palace and no one knows why. No one alive today remembers a time before the palace walls began to crumble. Before the vines began to creep. Before the palace was abandoned by everyone who lived there. Everyone, that is, except the King himself. The King has always been there and will always be there. That was the Gift Of The Sorceress. The Gift that imprisoned the King and set his people free.

♦♦♦

Once upon a different time, the palace was resplendent. It was a thing of beauty, the pride of the kingdom. The King was a great ruler then. His is gardens were another Eden and was maintained day and night by the finest gardeners in the world. The King never had to lift a finger for himself, for his servants were loyal, obedient, even proud to serve so fine a King. Back then, people came to the King’s palace every day, seeking his counsel, which was given freely and gladly. The King loved his people and they loved him.

It was the visit from the Countess that set things in motion. Gorgeous beyond words and ardently admired by every young man in the kingdom. She spent a week in the King’s home and he was never the same again. At the time, many blamed the Countess for the change in the King, but that’s unjust. We all make our own decisions, and we are accountable for the consequences to which they lead us.

The King desired her, of course. All men desired her—as did many women—for her beauty was unmatched in all the world. But there is more to true beauty than just looking a certain way. And the Countess’ beauty was truly only skin deep if anyone’s was. She treated others as the dirt beneath her feet. Her own servants, the King’s servants, the peasantry who visited the King’s gardens and came to ask advice of the King, even the King himself was beneath the Countess.

“Why do you let these common people walk all over you?” she demanded of her host. “Look at them. Those filthy common people defiling your gardens, muddying up your home and addressing you as if you were their equal.”

“Well,” said the King, “it’s true I have wealth and power, but we’re all human, aren’t we? We are all God’s children.”

The Countess laughed. “You memorized that pathetic platitude at your mother’s knee and you recite it like a parrot to justify your own cowardice.”

“Cowardice?”

“If you were any kind of a man--any kind of a monarch--you would show these people who you are. You are a King! With a wave of your hand, you can send an army to destroy their village and take every scrap they own. It is high time your people remembered that.”

“But why would I want to send an army to destroy their village? Why would I want to take every scrap they own? They have so little and I have so much.”

“That is not the point! These people should be cowering in fear of you, not coming to you with their petty problems.”

The King wasn’t sure he could follow the Countess’ advice. After all, there had been peace in his domain for many years. Things seemed to be going well. Was it wise to make so bold a change?

That night, as the King slept uneasily, his mind troubled by the words of the Countess, she came to his bedchamber. She entered silently until she desired the King to awaken, then she allowed herself to be heard. Before his startled and awestruck eyes, she disrobed and straddled him without a word.

“I need a real man,” she said as she rose and fell over his strong, eager body. “One who knows his own strength. One who puts those beneath him in their place. One who isn’t afraid to use the power he wields. Are you that man?”

“Yes!” the King moaned, almost growled, the word.

“Swear to me!”

“I swear!”

It began in little ways. The following morning, the King informed his staff that he would no longer be hearing petitions from the villagers and that they were no longer permitted to enter his gardens without paying a fee. Furthermore, anyone who appeared before the King for any reason would have to bring a gift. The servants were confused, and more than a little alarmed, but they obeyed.

Gradually, he stopped saying “please” or “thank you” to his servants when he ordered them around. He began barking at them, demeaning them, insulting them as he worked them harder than they had ever worked before. They were not permitted to touch him, or to look directly at him.

The Countess was long gone, but her wickedness had remained. It was as if the Countess had put him under a spell. But it was no spell. In a moment of weakness he had agreed to dominate, developed a taste for it, and had let it get out of hand. You can hand a man a drink of wine and he might drink it and stop right there, or he might drink another and another. It is not the fault of the person who offered the man a drink if the man chose to become a drunkard.

And drunk is exactly what the King had become. He was drunk on his newly discovered power. The peace of his domain was shattered and he gave himself over entirely to pleasure. His own ease and comfort were the only things he cared about. His people, who had once been as welcome as glad tidings in his home, grew weak and hungry as the King raised their taxes and increased their quotas. And he didn’t care.

The people of the village were desperate. They had no one to come to their aid. The King had once been their friend, and now he was a cruel and wicked tyrant. What could they do? If they angered him, he would raise his army and destroy them at a stroke.

In the end, it was the courage of one small boy that led to their salvation. Seeing the dreadful state of his home and the suffering of his friends and family, this boy set out one night to find someone to help his people. He wandered through the night until he came to a broken down shack in the middle of the forest. A place that no one came to unless they had nowhere else to go. The home of the Sorceress.

The Sorceress took pity on the boy and the plight of his village and she made a sacred vow to use all her skills of magic and mysticism to end the suffering of his people.

Two days later, a visitor from another land came to see the King. She had, of course, been warned about the custom of bringing a gift in exchange for the honor of being seen by the King, and she was certain her gift would not disappoint.

“What do you want?” grumbled the King at the woman who stood before him. She was older than he by twenty years or more, but fancily dressed and clearly a woman of wealth and importance.

“I want nothing,” said the Sorceress. “I heard of the greatness of the King who lived in this palace, and I wanted only to come and pay my respects. And to give you a gift, of course.”

“I see no gift,” said the King. And, indeed, it looked to all the world as though the Sorceress had come empty-handed.

“Many people cannot see that which is right in front of them.” So saying, the Sorceress drew up the hem of her cloak and swept it around herself. In an instant, she was gone, and in her place…stood the clock.

The most magnificent clock ever made. It was enormous, bigger than the King himself and every piece of it hand-carved from the sturdiest, finest wood in the land. It was wound so tightly and constructed so elegantly that it would never run down, and kept perfect time down to the smallest fraction of a second. And every hour on the hour, there would be a display. A seemingly infinite variation of wooden figures acted out scenes from classic stories, tales from scripture and epic poems. The performances were spell-binding and accompanied by impossibly beautiful music and the action was—naturally—in perfect synchronization with the ticking of the clock. Each hour brought a different display which was seen once and then never repeated.

Seated in his throne, the King stared, transfixed, at the clock. Even when the wooden figures were not doing their hourly pantomime, there was something to look at. All along the sides of the clock were shapes and figures ticking in perfect harmony, moving, spinning, or simply rocking back and forth. It never stopped moving, no matter what the time of day.

Forgotten were the daily duties of running his estate, forgotten were his demands on his soldiers, servants and subjects. From then on, all the King wanted to do was watch his magnificent clock. He dared not look away, for fear of missing something which he might never see again.

Days turned into weeks. Weeks into months. Months into years. Decades. And all the King did was to sit in his chair and watch the clock. His beard and hair grew long and unruly. His palace fell into disrepair. His servants abandoned him. He didn’t care. He didn’t even notice. All he saw, all he knew, was the clock. It was his entire world.

♦♦♦

Nobody goes to the palace anymore. No one remembers why that is. But if anyone did go inside the palace, assuming they got past the thorny brambles from the overgrown garden and avoided being hit on the head by a falling rock from the toppling towers, they would see nothing but empty halls, long since overrun by spiders, rats and decay.

And in the throne room they would find a man. An impossibly old man. His hair and beard overgrown, wrapping around the throne, binding him to it permanently, staring as if hypontized at a clock. The most magnificent clock ever made. A clock which will never run down, never stop, never set the old man free.

To think, this pathetic old man was once the greatest king who ever lived.