Creative Musings 2018

An Anthology by the Stittsville Creative Writers Group

Copyright © 2018 Members of the Stittsville Creative Writing Group

CreateSpace – Independent Publishing
ISBN-10:1720698589
ISBN-13: 978-1720638586

Cover Art Copyright: https://www.123rf.com/profile_dmitr1ch'>dmitr1ch /
123RF Stock Photo

Table of Contents

Caithness, Mike Visit with Gram

Holloway, Lori The Concert

Jain, Monika Memories

McCarville, Allan A Plea from Beyond

McGee, Sylvia Melba Invisible Stories

McGee, Sylvia Melba Square Peg, Round Hole

McGee, Sylvia Melba She Came Undone

McGee, Sylvia Melba Undoing the Undone

Nash, John Gnomes

Nash, John Last Gospel

Neske, Carmen Lament to Lack of Coffee

Neske, Carmen Beasts of Rage

Neske, Carmen Blue Hotel

Neske, Carmen Give the World

Partington, John W Catz Defense

Partington, John W Pam’s Dowry

Partington, John W The Eternal Struggle

Partington, John W Point of View

Partridge, Michele An Unmarked Grave

Savoie, Joan Don’t Spill the Salt

Savoie, Joan The Volkswagen Bug

Taylor, Vivien Alternate universes

Taylor, Vivien Equilibrium

Taylor, Vivien The Dancer

Van Harten, Hero Chiquitita

Van Harten, Hero And Why I Write

Van Harten, Hero Tankas for the Liminal Woman

Van Harten, Hero Mother and Daughter: On Being Broke at the Grocery Store

Whalen, Thom Christmas Dinner

Preamble

The Stittsville Creative Writing Group is a program administered by the Ottawa Public Library.

We are a group of people who love to write, who come together each week to share what we have written, to listen to the offerings of each other, and to share links to experiential knowledge gained in the completion of our craft, word-smithing.

The group began in the fall of 2012, as John W Egan (author of Angel & Mercy - the Ceasefire War) took ownership of a time slot at Stittsville Branch. John had no idea what the group would become. The group grew to the allotted membership of twenty, with a wait list. In 2016, John W Egan stepped down as facilitator, leaving a strong and happily committed group of enthusiastic writers.

John W Partington (author of Destiny ...) and Melba McGee (author of 4/3 - a BabyBoomer Memoir) both offered to facilitate the group, with John as Lead. Our group is composed of both hobby and professional writers, those who write because their fingers itch to put story to paper, those who seek feedback from the experience of listeners who hear their work, those who write for the simple joy, those who are undertaking major projects for publication. We welcome every genre in a supportive and collaborative environment. Out cardinal rule is: no criticism. If solicited, members will offer supportive comments and constructive review, but outright criticism is not allowed. The reason is simple. When anybody puts a thought on a page, they are baring their soul to the world; criticism not only kills the piece, but any future piece which may have come from that soul. Other rules are decided within the group. We are not a networking organization, though we eagerly support each other with a variety of skills, and open hearts. We undertake special projects such as Gallery Nights, Writers Discussion Group, and this anthology.

Our group is comprised of poets, scholars, rogue scholars, authors, and audacious amateurs taking their first steps into group sharing and into the published world, those who mostly listen rather than write, those who write prolifically but only share with the group, published writers.

We were excited about the concept of doing the first group anthology, Creative Musings, and completed our first submissions to the printer in June 2017. So excited were we that we decided to do it again, this year, in 2018.

We write because we love to write; we simply are driven to write. These are our stories. We hope you enjoy them. Love to have you come join us.

Sylvia Melba McGee 2017 - 2018

Anthology Project Manager

SCWG Assistant Facilitator

A Visit With Gram

©Mike Caithness

They say, “You can’t take it with you.”

This, however, doesn’t stop most of us from trying to get as much of “it” as we possibly can, even at the expense of quality time with friends and family. I am certainly no exception to this… perhaps even the very model of it.

I was never the guy who always wanted to party with friends (the few I bothered to make), nor did I ever feel obligated to spend a whole lot of time with my family. When the opportunity to advance my career came along, with the requirement that I had to move away from my hometown to take advantage of it, I didn’t think twice.

My chosen profession kept me busy and I worked hard at it. As the money and recognition rolled in, I fed off of it - got addicted to it. I was good at what I did; people knew it and I was rewarded well for it. In short: I achieved the success I had pursued so intently.

Another thing they say is, “What goes up, must come down.”

While I revelled in the avarice allowed by my aforementioned career, I got a little too cocky about my positioning and eventually failed to watch my back. So, when the company stocks plummeted and the inevitable solution was layoffs - because damned if you cut management bonuses and the like - it gave the powers that be the perfect excuse to turf a huge salary and I found myself out of a job.

It seemed as if it all happened so very quickly, but many years had passed since I first left home to the time I hit this stumbling block. So much had come and gone while I was lost in my corporate efforts.

“You really should stop and smell the roses,” my grandma used to tell me. The older I got, though, the less I listened - despite her being the one person I could always go to for advice when growing up.

As I became corrupted by greed and a never-ending quest for success - I lost touch with my “Gram”… this fact angered my mother to no end. Despite the ever declining frequency over the years where I deigned to actually contact Gram, she, herself, never held it against me.

“You have to do what you have to do, my boy… don’t worry about your Gram. I’ll be fine. You go get ‘em!” she would inevitably say, when I would explain yet again that I wouldn’t make it home for another Christmas, or birthday, or whatever.

With my head now seemingly cleared of reckless ambition from this forced hiatus from work, and perhaps a little wisdom from age, I made plans to go visit my Gram. With nothing but free time on my hands, travel arrangements were straightforward and I was on my way in short order.

Upon arrival, it felt absolutely surreal to be back on those familiar streets and I couldn’t help but think: “Has it really been so long?”

I didn’t go directly to Gram’s, as I wanted to take in a bit of the old sights. I arranged to get dropped off at the waterfront that was just a little way down the road. I took it all in as I walked toward her house.

The first thing that really hit me was the smell of the neighbourhood bakery in the air, just as I’d remembered it! I smiled as I realized that I really, REALLY should have made more time for the simple pleasures of home. I continued up the road until I came to good ol’ Pinecone Street (it, too, looking exactly as I recalled) where Gram’s house stood.

As I approached the house itself, I could see Gram through the veranda window seated, as she often was, in her rocking chair. I climbed the steps and waved to her through said window. She smiled and waved back at me, then gestured that I should come in.

I opened the door, smiling like I hadn’t in a long while, and said hello.

“Well hello, young man! What can I do for you?” she asked, without seeming to know who I was.

My heart sank.

Then, I realized sadly that yes, it made perfect sense that she might not recognise me. Hoping my disappointment didn’t show, and trying to act like I was slightly teasing her in an effort to be seen as friendly, I replied, “Would you believe me if I told you I was your grandson, Calvin?”

“Oh, you big silly! My grandson is an 11 year old boy! No offence, but you certainly don’t look the part!” she said with a laugh.

I decided to play along; I mean the point was to visit, not confuse the hell out of her.

“Aww, you got me!” I exclaimed, delivering a ‘mea culpa’ gesture.

I went ahead and just made up an excuse as to what I wanted to talk to her about; it wouldn’t be like it was way back when, but just talking to my Gram again made me feel better.

We actually ended up chatting for a few hours when I noticed a familiar car pull up in front of the house. My heart sped up a little and I thought to myself, “Oh, this is not gonna go well…”

“Well, look-it here,” Gram said as she looked toward them, “it’s my daughter-in-law and grandson!” She then turned back to me and said with a wink, “My ACTUAL grandson.”

I watched as a woman and a young boy came up the steps. Her face took on a suspicious expression when she noticed the middle-aged man chatting with her mother-in-law.

The boy eagerly opened the door, paid no attention to me, and went directly to his grandmother to deliver a hug.

“That’s my boy!” she exclaimed.

The woman came in and turned to me, attempting to introduce herself.

“Uh, hello, I’m…” she began.

“Let me guess,” I interrupted, smiling, trying to keep things light, “you must be Mrs. Coleman’s daughter-in-law!”

She smiled, but I could tell (having known her as I did) that she was wary of this stranger.

“…and you,” I continued, pointing to the boy, “must be Calvin! Your grandma has told me a lot about you.”

The boy smiled, “Yeah, I’m Calvin! Who are you mister?”

“Oh, just someone who probably should leave you folks to your business - it seems I don’t quite belong here anymore,” I said, trying to be amicable, but I could tell the boy’s mother saw that there was something off about me… off, but still somehow familiar.

I attempted to give a cheery wave as I reached for the door. “Ok, folks,” I said trying hard to be light-hearted and friendly, “you all have yourselves a good evening!”

I opened the door and took a step, but then held up. I turned back and addressed the boy directly.

“Oh, but before I go, young man, let me give you a word of advice. Always be sure to make time for your Gram,” I began, trying to maintain my composure, “don’t ever let stuff like work get in the way – you be sure…” I trailed off, fighting back tears. I got hold of myself and continued, “You be sure to visit with and talk to her as often as you can, ok?”

The boy’s mother looked at me oddly. The boy himself, somewhat confused, humoured me, “Sure mister, of course I will!”

I knew the boy was lying, in a sense, but HE didn’t know it (yet) – so I let it drop by simply making my exit and heading down the stairs.

I breathed deeply as I reached the sidewalk, trying to calm myself now that it was over. A part of my brain again noticed the bakery scent still in the air. It hit me how it had always been such an integral part of my visits to Gram’s house… and, I suppose, the neighbourhood in general when it came right down to it.

I then wondered if the people who still lived around here will miss it when it closes up shop for good, just a few years after Gram passes away.

I made my way back down to the waterfront, specifically to where I had stashed the device that would take me back. I contemplated what to do from there, as I retrieved the device from its hiding place. The deal I made to make this little trip ensured I would have almost nothing left when I got back - time travel being ridiculously expensive - and I would need to pretty much start from scratch.

I was, of course, tempted to stay there and try to make the most of it - but they told me the device had certain “contingency options” built in if I dared try to go that route. I chose to believe them; they were not a group to be trifled with.

Well, I always said I enjoyed a challenge - and now I’d have to prove it.

A voice in my head seemed to ask, “Was it worth it, then, giving up everything for one last chance to talk to your Gram?”

A smile appeared on my face as I quietly answered aloud, “Absolutely.”

I held my breath, activated the device and went home.

Mike believes himself to be a writer trapped in a software engineer’s body – don’t tell him those aren’t necessarily mutually-exclusive things. Stricken with an acute aversion to commitments – he is not usually one to join “official” groups nor agree to work to a deadline. However, urged on by a friend to join the SCWG – he found himself at home as a member, with a new-found drive to (finally) complete some writing projects! Although you may not know it from talking to him – he IS quite psyched to have his work included in this anthology.

The Concert

©Lori Holloway

It all happened so suddenly, but I do remember every moment as it happened. I was excited to be going to the concert. I knew it would be nice; but never expected it to be positively fantastic.

Beverly phoned the week before my husband Rick and I were set to leave for our visit to Georgian Bay. Beverly and Mark were great hosts. Mark, her beloved, had bailed out from attending this concert which was in Toronto, when he heard our visit would coincide with our visit to their cottage. Not just any concert, but a Donny Osmond Concert. Donny and Marie, to be more specific. They were a popular teen duo when I was a teen. I still remember the closing song they used to sing.” May tomorrow be a perfect day, may you…”

I went into this knowing that Beverly could be intense at these events. She has been a mega-fan of Donny’s for as long as I can recall. I have always enjoyed the duo; but my fandom is nothing compared to that of my best friend. I still recall attending a Bee Gee’s concert in Thunder Bay, my growing-up-town, with Bev. The screaming and yelling like you usually only see on television, or in the movies. I read in a biograph of Frank Sinatra, that at his concerts, women would pee in their seats, rather than risk losing their seat to use a washroom, and the screaming and fainting well that was positively surreal. I am fairly certain that Bev is only guilty of the screaming, and almost fainting, not the peeing.

She cautioned me in advance, that she always gets intense at his concerts. Yes, that’s right, she has heard Donny perform more than once. We entered the concert hall and found our seats. The hall was filled mostly with women, and a smaller number of men; what my husband would call “token males”.

Dancers, skits, duets, and solo’s; all were magnificent. As the evening progressed, Bev was more and more stressed. Her favorite phrase, “OH MY GOD” was repeated over and over and over. You get the idea.

When He came forward on the stage, the OMG’s increased in loudness; then became a little quieter when he backed up or was off stage. During Marie’s fantastical opera solo Beverly’s excitement and stress level was calmer, more shall we say, dignified.

Then it began. Marie and Donny entered the audience. Marie would kiss the balding men on their shinny pates; after frequently reapplying her lipstick. Bright Red. She and Donny moved through the audience as Beverly’s “OH MY GODS” increased in intensity and speed. “OH, MY GOD, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD,” in triplets it seemed. “OH, MY GOD, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD,” Yep, triplets. Marie was one row ahead and about five seats over to the right of us. She had Beverly’s attention; with her generous applications of lipstick followed by head kisses. The men seemed to enjoy it, the audience loved it. I kept thinking, what will Bev do when she sees how close Donny is? The crowd was too loud for me to say anything to her. They were wildly cheering and shouting.

TWO ROWS AHEAD, and in front of me now; that’s where he was. At this time, Bev was still watching Marie, and rocking back and forth; hyper-ventilating with the knowledge that Donny was somewhere in the audience.

The song was ending, and the two stars were moving off. Marie right, and Donny left. It wasn’t until he was headed out of the row and up the aisle, that she spotted HIM. I don’t know if she could have handled Donny being any closer. Her eyes were like the proverbial saucers.

“Bev, you missed him. He was two rows ahead.” I told her. The crowd noise was at a dull roar and I felt she might hear me now. “OH, MY GOD, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD,” she mantra’d almost breathlessly, and shook her head. “I couldn’t take it. He would have been too close” she whispered.

The concert was a success. I had thoroughly enjoyed it. Marie had stood out in her own right with that opera solo. I was amazed to be reminded of her singing talent. Donny of course was great. Out in the hall I asked Bev. “Wouldn’t you want to meet him in real life and talk to him?” She thought for a moment and replied honestly, “I couldn’t take it! I would faint! I wouldn’t be able to talk.” She told me. “It would just be too much”.

I have never met a “star”. The closest I came may have been the original stage band of the Irish Rovers. I got their autographs but realized that I did not know what to say to them. What do we ask a Star? I think that there is a great deal of the quiet Canadian in me; not wanting to bother others. I do hope that if I meet someone famous I will at least have the presence of mind to say thank you to them for what they do or have done; then simply carry on a conversation that will stay only between us. And Beverly? I think for me, that her behavior was part of what made the evening interesting and fun. I once managed to get an autograph for Bev’s birthday, of Elvis Stojko, one of her favorite Canadian Figure Skaters. He was visiting a local Dojo in Stittsville. I will have to work on this one. I don’t expect to see Donny close up and personal, too soon. Cheerio

Joining the Stittsville Writer's group has given Lori an opportunity to write and listen to stories while enjoying the company of like-minded writers.

Memories

©Monika Jain

The softness of wool touched my finger and spread into my heart as I ran my fingers on the pattern which was intricately woven with love and care. An array of beautiful, bright colors lay in front of me as a reminder that every color was chosen in accord with seasons and our complexion.

Isn’t it funny how we end up finding treasure in our own homes sometimes? My heart and soul filled with warmth as I sat there admiring crochet vests my mom made for me and my sister. They were tucked away in one of the boxes in my basement and I happen to open the box during my spring cleaning regime. Among the crowd of vibrant colors, I picked up my favorite almond color vest. It was not exactly flattering for my complexion but seemed to work with every outfit I owned. Tattered threads were evidence of its overuse and I wished I could just ask my mother to make another one. Tears rolled down my cheeks and my heart ached with the longing to hear my mother’s voice.

My mind traveled back in time and I could see my mother sitting in her rocking chair with her glasses resting on her nose and her fingers intently moving to create magic with a piece of yarn. My sister and I waiting eagerly for her to finish it and arguing over who gets to wear it first. I could hear the echo of my mom’s voice, why don’t you two learn how to make it instead of fighting, I don’t want to take this skill with me. Every time my mom said those words, it cracked us up, “Mom you are not going anywhere, you will be making these for our children too, we don’t need to learn it.” Both of us felt that we would jinx it if we learn it, there was nothing more precious than our mother’s warm love knitted in a beautiful vest.

My finger felt bumps of all the knots and stitches which contained her love. Tears soaked my face as I came back to my world. My beautiful world, which revolved around my own family which I created as I branched away from my parents, the way circle of life expects us to do. Initially, memories were a regular visitor and slowly life got filled with agendas and schedules, there was no room for memories but they crept in any way just like gentle breeze finds nicks and cracks to let itself in. Those memories made beautiful stories for children and soothed my aching heart. Each story brought me close to home and became enticing invite to relive the past.

I wanted to just live a few moments of the life where I was a child myself. I wanted to lay on my mother’s lap as she gently stroked my hair. I wanted to run around without a worry. Go back to the life where no deadline needs to be met and no responsibility needs to be fulfilled. I wanted to frolic around with my friends and sibling only to come at my mother’s call. I wanted just for a moment if I could go back and not worry about the routine or mundane chores. I wanted to sit with my mother and actually learn the art that got lost with her and create those warm memories for my children.

Mamma, Where are you? What are you doing down here? My daughter’s voice interrupted my trip down the memory lane and brought me the world that was my new reality now. What are you holding in your hand?

“It’s a crochet vest,” I replied.

It is so pretty, where did you get it? How come I’ve never seen it before, why are you keeping it in the basement? My daughter showered me with a thousand questions as her eyes lit up with admiration and curiosity.

“It does not fit me anymore, Your nani ma made it come have a look I have so many.”

I couldn’t believe the joy in her voice, “when can I wear those? Let me try”.

I looked at her as she tried it on and ran her little fingers on the pattern. She still needed some growing up to do to be able to fit into it, but I couldn’t help smiling to see her beaming face as she turned around in front of the mirror.

I could almost see my mom looking over and smiling and I thought to myself, there is no reason to leave past in past and crave for its presence, I can bring it into my future and create more memories. My mother would want me to do that. She wanted to live in our hearts and this is my way of keeping her memories alive in our lives. I guess that’s why we call them memories, they were to be made to be passed on.

Monika Jain is a Stittsville Toastmaster club member and writes weekly synopsis and local newspaper articles for the club. During the course of writing and preparing for her speeches and synopsis, she discovered that she enjoyed the experience. She is an amateur writer. Monika is slowly finding her style. She likes happy endings and draws inspiration from people and incidents around her. She feels fortunate to have found a writer’s group at the library where she was welcomed with open hearts and has the supports she needs to continue with her writing.

Plea from Beyond

©Allan McCarville

I didn’t believe in ghosts until I met one.

Frankly, encountering this ghost was odd-is it possible for a ghostly encounter not to be odd? -because it didn’t happen the way I thought encounters with spirits were supposed to happen. If I believed in them, which I didn’t, I would have expected such an encounter would be in the form of a wispy figure floating around a cemetery or dilapidated old house, appearing at the stroke of midnight during a thunder and lightning storm.

Okay, too many Hollywood movies.

My encounter was much subtler and, in retrospect, almost pleasant.

It all started a year ago on a warm, lazy summer afternoon. I was sitting on the deck of my cottage overlooking Jasper Cove, P.E.I. – that’s Prince Edward Island for those who might be geographically challenged - enjoying a cold beer while reading a local history book. You know, one of those books written by members of the local Women’s Institute or the neighbourhood historical society.

As is the norm with those types of books, it was heavy on genealogical details regarding the prominent and not so prominent families in the community. Since I knew all the families, their backgrounds, including the skeletons hidden in closets, I had little interest in their ancestral lineage. However, intermingled with the genealogical data were some fascinating historical anecdotes; short paragraphs about parochial events that occurred over the past two hundred years.

It was one of those paragraphs that captured my attention. Two hundred and thirty pages in the book, and that paragraph stood out like a lighthouse beacon on a stormy night.

That brief passage described an unusually destructive gale that hammered the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Northumberland Strait in August 1873, devastating fishing fleets from PEI, Nova Scotia and the New England states. After the storm, a dismasted fishing schooner, the Lucky Lady, was found at the entrance to Jasper Cove.

I glanced up from the book and regarded the wavelets generated by the gentle breeze as they raced across the bar at the mouth of the cove. I shut my eyes, picturing the dismasted hulk wallowing in the channel, being driven further into the cove by wind and tide.

Local fishermen had boarded the wreck, discovered a hold full of cod but also, sadly, the body of a young boy, still in his bunk. The poor kid never even managed to escape the cabin. The remainder of the crew were gone, presumably washed overboard during the gale. The boy was buried here in Jasper Cove, unnamed and forgotten, in an old cemetery. The cemetery has long since fallen into disuse, the boy being the last person to be interred in a section of the graveyard where victims of previous shipwrecks had been laid to rest.

A sad story, but then the world if full of sad stories. Just watch the evening news.

I pushed the event from my mind and returned my thoughts to the present. That episode was in the past; I had more urgent things to deal with in the present – such as fetching another cold beer.

But the past would not leave me alone. Over the next few weeks, that single paragraph kept popping into my head. It wasn’t like I was dwelling on it, or brooding about the event, but whenever I was alone, enjoying some quiet time, bang! – there it was.

Each time I recalled the story, a sense of loneliness and sadness surrounded me. Not being prone to depression, I was troubled by this onset of melancholy, wondering if perchance I was starting to develop some form of mental illness, or if maybe some of my alcohol infused brain cells were gleefully morphing into a tumour.

So, I had a choice. Seek professional help and admit that I was losing my mind or try to figure out what was happening on my own. Admit I’m crazy? Yeah, right! Like a typical male, I opted to forge ahead on my own.

Eventually I came to understand those sensations weren’t mine; I was picking up those emotions from someone else. But who? How?

Like most male members of the human species, interpretation of emotional signals was something I was not adept at doing. Males experience emotions but I think we are genetically disposed to ignore them.

Obviously, whatever was happening had something to do with the events depicted in that brief paragraph. The only victim specifically mentioned was the boy who had drowned, so it was not rocket science to connect the dots and determine the “who” was the boy. (Remember, the alternative conclusion was to admit being mentally unbalanced and I’m not going there.)

Okay – but how? Why?

Apparently, the source of my involuntary obsession with this event wanted something from me. But what? Yes, it was sad that the boy had died before he had the opportunity to be whatever he was meant to be, but there was nothing I could do about that. I was not capable of raising the dead or changing history. What did the kid expect me to do?

Then I had a thought-possibly not my own-I just might be able to identify him. The emotion I sensed when I came to that conclusion was happiness. Okay kid, message received.

Naturally, the work entailed extensive online research. The internet can be a wonderful tool, but if you don’t have very specific information to plug into search parameters, it can be more time consuming than it’s worth. It is easy to be overwhelmed by the amount of useless information it can spew out. However, one enjoyable advantage of internet searches, is that you can take your time, and happily sip through a bottle of wine until you either find what you’re looking for or blissfully pass out.

Five days and three bottles of wine later, I was no further ahead. For some reason, the schooner was not listed in any online shipping registry I could access. It was as if it had never existed. I shook my head in frustration, shut down the computer and pushed my chair back from the desk. I was contemplating what to do next when again that familiar sense of melancholy started to invade the room. That presence was here again.

“Damn it, kid!” I snapped. “Give me a break. I’m doing the best I can!”

“Sorry, mister,” spoke a young voice behind my right shoulder.

I set a new world record for the high jump when I freaked out and launched myself over the desk, spinning around to face the voice. I saw no one, but even as I surveyed the room in a panic, that sense of melancholy quickly faded, the presence had left.

Fortunately, neither a defibrillator nor a change of underwear was required, but when I realized what I had just done, I felt guilty. I sensed I had hurt a young boy’s feelings.

After that incident, I gave up on the internet and decided to do some research the old-fashioned way. I headed for the public archives where I knew I could access more detailed records, as well as copies of newspapers that I was certain would have reported on the August 1873 storm.

I delved into the papers, and after three days located a short article about a schooner that had been found dismasted in Jasper Cove after the storm. That article collaborated the paragraph contained in the local history book, thus providing confirmation that the vessel did exist. It was a repeat of the story I had already read, however, this article contained one small additional piece of information. It listed the schooner’s home port: Le Havre, Nova Scotia.

One phone call and two days later, I was in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia sifting through documents in their local archives. It took a couple more days to locate what I was looking for; the crew list for the Lucky Lady on that fateful day when she had sailed for the cod fishing grounds in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. She carried a crew of twelve, and at the bottom of the list was one Davey McKean; position: Ship’s Boy.

That was a year ago. Today, I am standing with a small group of people in the abandoned cemetery. A secluded over-grown section of the graveyard contains twenty-two unmarked graves, the final resting place for unnamed victims of numerous shipwrecks that occurred near Jasper Cove.

It’s not possible to identify precisely which of the twenty-two graves is Davey’s, but it doesn’t matter. He’s no longer the “unnamed boy”. A small plaque with his name has been erected by the people standing with me. They are family - his family. It turns out Davey had a brother and sister who grew up, married and had children. When their descendants learned that one of their family members was buried in an unmarked grave, they got together and arranged for the plaque.

Not surprisingly, ever since I identified who the boy was, I haven’t thought about that little story until I was invited to attend today’s simple but sincere ceremony. As I watched the ceremony, I sensed a deep feeling of gratitude. I know that is the last communication I’ll receive from Davey. I don’t know why Davey chose me to carry out this quest, but I know it was him. He is now at peace; no longer unnamed, and no longer forgotten.

There are those who believe that I’m certifiable and should be committed to the nearest institution for the happy delusional. I can’t say as I blame them; at times, I feel the same way. Nevertheless ….

That’s the story of my ghostly encounter. I know now that ghosts exist, not as ethereal beings waiting to suddenly appear generating an involuntary defecation in one’s pants, but rather as spirits who communicate by making their emotions known. You only need to allow yourself to feel their message.

So, next time you get that odd feeling or thought, maybe you should listen.

Allan McCarville is a Stittsville based freelance food safety consultant who also conducts training on food standards and international food trade in developing countries. He has recently started to write teen/young adult fantasy books and stories as a change from the scientific technical material he usually writes. It’s much more fun and he continues to work hard at making people think he’s normal.

Invisible Stories

©Sylvia Melba McGee, 2018

Invisible stories

Flowing from my heart and soul

To enlighten all.

The wind began to pick up, sifting cold air and fine particles of light through the cracks that only become visible on this particular day each year. No matter that I lay a large fire, and pull the heavy drapes closed, and dress in layers with a lap rug and woolen shawl, and have hot tea on my Caribbean mahogany side table at my elbow, I still shiver as I did the first time ... shiver in anticipation.

Wise Womyn wisps into to my room, appearing from nowhere.

“So this is to be my allotment this time.” A statement, sliding from my lips, always the same words and tone, but surprising me nonetheless.

No verbal response, no response at all is given to me, ever. Simply a particular number of blank pages contained in a nondescript folder, held out by a boney hand from the skeletal arm of my annual visitor who is draped in hood, cloak, darkness.

“I don’t suppose you would accept a cup of hot tea on such a night?” I turned to find, as always, that my visitor had vanished as she had come.

This ritual had begun the year I had taken my vows in my chosen spiritual path, the year I moved from Infant to Maid, amidst much fire and candle-light, herbal smudging and essence of oils, colours and robes, crystals and sacred stones, alter and athame, chanting and dancing, food and drink, circling ‘round the fire. The last shouts of “Brava!” had dissipated into the air as had the gathered throng, and I found myself alone at the beginning of the long stone walk, the far end of which seemed lighted by some eerie yet inviting fingers of dancing colour. Gliding along that path, I found myself in a room containing a steaming cauldron, a cloaked figure who held out a folder, an ink-well of purple ink, and a nibbed half eagle - half raven feather pen.

I had not been prepared by anyone for this part of my coming of age ritual. “What have we here? Am I to use this here and now, or to accept these gifts of writing for future use, or to kneel at your feet and serve you and learn from you?” My heart warmed with the welcoming beacon which shone from her heart into mine, into my third eye, filling me with pure light and all the colours. She opened the folder to the first page on which was written, “This is this first year’s annual allotment of stories. The stories are called invisible stories because they are yet to be written ... by you. Each blank page blesses you with inspiration, as well as the voice to express, to enlighten, to teach, to catch your listeners in the embrace of your story, no longer invisible. Choose your stories well, because this is your only allotment for this next Turning of the Wheel. There will be no more stories ‘til your next allotment arrives. But, beware. Should you neglect your lifelong talent for story-telling, for your thrall in narratives conjured from the misty fingers enticing you to catch those wisps while they are decipherable only by you, then your next year’s allotment will be reduced by the number of blank pages remaining in your year’s folder when your new year’s eve guest attends you, to collect and to deliver. This is a contract between you and me ... no others shall ever know.” I glanced down at the tools clutched in my hands, and noticed the itching in my writing-hand fingertips: an itch that was matched in my third eye and my voice. When again I looked up, she was gone, as though she had never been. And yet still my gift of tools and itch to start writing remained.

That first year, I had found myself rising from spiritual practices to find the itch starting again, my siren’s call to the invisible stories. Though I never counted pages, never had to go looking for more purple ink, nor for an athame to sharpen my quill, nor for more pages, my stories flowed from my third eye, my heart, my itching fingers, ceaselessly.

I have come to anticipate these new-year visits when my cup runneth over with the great joy of voicing my stories.

Gratitude and Joy have taken over my daily life. Now after 50 years, I still feel like that innocent and tender brave-heart who followed those fingers of dancing colour to my true self, I still fly through the writing so I can look at the page and see where the pen and purple ink have taken me this time.

Next year, as a 4thThird Crone, I shall become the One Who Delivers at the New Year. The stories told me so.

Square Peg, Round Hole

©Sylvia Melba McGee, 2017

“Knock knock,” said wee I.

“Who’s there?” said big highfalutin they.

“I want to fit in,”

“What shape are you?”

“I am I.”

“Still haven’t answered the question. Go away and don’t bother me until you know the answer. I am a very-busy, very-important person.”

When in the mirror I looked I saw many shapes: almond eyes, cleft chin, short height, thick muscles, winged brows, long nose, small mouth, dangly ears, wide hands and feet and fingers and toes.

“Knock knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“I know my shapes. Almond, cleft, short, thick, winged, long, small, dangly, wide.”

“Wrong! You need to be round to fit in here! Go away until you figure it out!”

“Mummy, what does it mean to be round to fit in?”

“They mean that you must be a round peg to fit into a round hole.”

“Knock knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“I am a square peg.”

“We only have round holes here. Go and change yourself until you are a round peg.

Meanwhile, stop bothering me!”

So I spent every moment of time taking off all my lovely angles and corners, gentle curves, undulating waves. It hurt, made me feel bad, feel lost, feel like something about me was missing and gone forever, but despite my grieving and pain I finally did it just to fit in.

“Knock knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“I, a round peg. Now I fit in. Please show me where my roundness fits into my assigned round hole.”

“No holes left. Never have been enough holes. There are just too many of you. Correct shape or not, there is no room for you. Now move away or there will be painful consequences!”

This is the BabyBoomer plight in every corner and aspect of their life. Only round pegs may join, but not even all round pegs will fit in.

She Came Undone

©Sylvia Melba McGee, 2018

I am

Then ...

Mmmph

arms akimbo

taking uncontrolled flight

loss of groundedness

of contact with stability

grasping at empty air

falling from Light into Dark

Then ...

splat!

now what

who am I now ...

where ...

when ...

why ...

how ...

Am I?

Undoing the Undone (first blush)

©Sylvia Melba McGee, 2018

She came undone.

Tendrils escaped the braided weave of her life

Single fibres broke loose

Singed ends fell to the floor.

She dropped the ball.

The fabric of her life is in disarray

Her heart now a thousand pieces scattered across time

Abandoning all hope of being whole ever again

Hard fearful tear-raindrops drummed the colours from her essence

Leaving her bright shining light snuffed out

Her soul hung in tatters having lost all understanding of who she was.

“Sparkle on command!” commanded former strong self.

“I can’t even find a ... candle ...” replied undone dissolved remnants.

“Pull yourself up with your bootstraps!”

“I am naked, shoeless ... unprotected ...”

“Set your sails!”

“I am adrift ... rudderless ...”

“Where is the womyn with hair down to here, heels up to here, skirt somewhere in between?”

“Lost and presumed ... dead ...”

“Write your way out of this!”

“I have no words; my purple pen is ...

inkless ...”

“Think your way through!”

“My brain is a ghost town, deserted by all ... thought ...”

“Research has always held the key!”

“My keyboard is ... frozen ...”

“You just fought your way back to middle earth from upper earth after your fourth cancer diagnosis!”

“The bridge between the worlds tipped me nearly to lower world but then back here to middle world to find ... nothing ...”

“Haven’t you come back to learn?”

“There is no solution to being ground under the heel of jealousy, hate, blame ... fear ...”

“Aha! I get it now ... the way home!”

They’ll begin with compassion. Then love. Then gratitude for finding a better path. Then sparkling together. Then finding a new way, independent yet supportive with each other.

Perhaps never soul mates. Yet inhabiting the Circle together, each in their own spot.

Sylvia Melba McGee

Since first holding pencil tip to paper, I’ve been awestruck by the majyk that spills out.

I am:

a child of the Universe

a free-spirit

a member of an amazing Family who tolerate my idiosyncrasies, grounding me whenever I spin off the earth

a retired grades 7 & 8 teacher

a 3rdThird dweller amidst nature

a messenger in service to others

a writer who writes from the soul, because a Story Told is a Journey Enlightened.

Also by McGee:

2017 4/3 - a BabyBoomer Memoir

Contributor to anthologies:

2017 Creative Musings - an Anthology by the Stittsville Creative Writing Group

2018 Anthology - a collection by Carp Creative Writing Group

Gnomes

© 2018 John C. Nash

Is there a cliché as difficult to understand as garden gnomes. I mean, somebody must go out and actually pay money for them. Unless, somehow, they're breeding in our gardens. Could be. There are estimated to be over 25 million of them in Germany, and surely the good burghers of that nation are too sensible to spend so many euros on the elfin statues.

At least in Canada, they're buried under the white stuff for a good part of the year. And I suspect a lot of condo regulations ban them. But in 2013 the Chelsea Flower Show had to cave to pressure to allow be-gnomed gardens to compete for prizes.

Their popularity has gone up and down. Blame Walt Disney and his Snow White for giving them a huge boost. Hi Ho, Hi Ho, off to the bank we go. Maybe there to meet the local variant of the gnomes of Zurich.

Jimmy and I don't like them. One day I said to him, “Maybe we could make a silver hammer. You know, ‘Bang Bang Maxwell's Silver Hammer’, and do some ritual gnome smashing.”

‘Take a lot of silver. Why not just use an ordinary hammer?’ Jimmy said. He doesn't understand the importance of liturgy and ceremony in exorcising one's demons. Or gnomes.

“Anyway,” he added, “Don't you want to get people to stop putting the ugly bits of painted pot in their gardens? You gotta persuade the people with gardens that they don't wanna have them.”

“That would take a big marketing plan. We don't have that kind of cash.” I said, since we'd just done some sofa archaeology to see if we could afford a pizza. Yep. We could if there was a pizzeria offering to deliver one for 7 dollars and 43 cents. Make that 7 dollars and 35 cents, since 8 of the coins we found in the sofa were pennies. Pity we didn't find a shinplaster -- they're worth a lot now and the sofa looked old enough. We'd been wondering if it were harbouring any wildlife. You know, bedbugs, silverfish, mice, lice. Hopefully no gnomes.

“Hey”, said Jimmy. “We bought that box of surplus mini audio recorders. They've a randomly timed playback to make your house seem occupied. Dog barking, Shouting at kids. Rock music followed by simulated smashing of radio. That kind of stuff.”

“So what're you suggesting?” I asked him.

“We record a bunch of crazy messages using synthesized voices on the laptop. The recorders are small enough to fit in gnomes. So we put them in various gnomes around the neighbourhood, then phone the radio talk show and ask if there's something spooky going on with gnomes in town. People are hearing voices, etc., etc.” Jimmy was getting excited.

Well, I figured it was a way to at least get rid of the recorders. We'd tried selling them, but people want to play back what they recorded just now, not a randomly regurgitated memo from last year to get more toilet paper. And they'd also record at random too, just when you didn't want them to, like when you were telling your baby sister to never say anything about how big Aunt Julia's rear end was. And of course, you can guess when it played back.

So we made some nice messages. You know

“The gnomes are coming!”

“Gnomes yes! People no!”

“Power to the gnomes!”

“Send us to Florida for the winter!”

Then after a few beers -- the last we had in the fridge -- we went out in the middle of the night and hid the recorders in gnomes around the neighbourhood. Then we fall asleep, Jimmy on the sofa because his bed's covered in boxes from the recorders.

We wake up late. Jimmy's pretty badly bitten. Seems like bedbugs. We lift the sofa out to the curb, even though garbage day was yesterday. Then I get my binoculars and set myself up to watch some of the gnomes.

Mrs. Jeffries is the first victim I observe. Nearly leaves her shoes in the flower bed while she unwillingly inspects the second storey soffit. Then picks up her shovel and smashes a gnome. The WRONG gnome. A second recorded message and she gets it right, then goes round turning them all into tiny pieces.

Three houses down, it's the family dog that, you might say, gets the message. But this dog is kind of crazy smart. It digs a hole and picks up the gnome and drops it in. Then does the same to the rest of his owners' gnomes.

Over the next few days the neighbourhood gnomes all take a beating. A tomcat sprayed them in about three different gardens. A group of crows gathered round a gnome and then did the collective-noun correct thing and murdered it by pecking it to pieces.

We didn't even have to call the radio station. The CBC van was out before we could find the charger for our phone. Then the haz-mat team showed up to pick up the pieces. The mayor made a pronouncement that there'd be a special pickup of any gnomes people wanted to dispose of.

Jimmy was on the laptop. I thought he was watching porn until he said “Hey, we can get gnomes for about a buck each on this liquidation site. We could print off some fancy Certificates of Exorcism and sell folks some fresh gnomes.”

“Go for it, man!” I said as I tiptoed out of the house with my loaded backpack and old suitcase. We'd got rid of a lot of gnomes, and the lease was in his name anyway.

The Last Gospel

© 2016 John C. Nash

Several decades ago I was the junior resident at a large general hospital, the only woman on a medical ward rotation. As such, I had to serve a number of “forty-eights”, shifts where we were on 12 hours, then on call for 12, twice in a row. We had a room with a cot. Generally I didn't get out of my clothes for the full time. My male colleagues had no idea of, nor likely any sympathy with, my discomfort at certain times of the month.

We used to get a number -- I won't say a lot, but enough to notice -- of patients from old-folks homes. That's what we called them then, pre-euphemism. The homes didn't like to have people die there. We joked that they paid the ambulances to park close by so they could pick up anyone who was close to the end and race them off to us with sirens blaring.

This meant we had patients arriving with a poor prognosis, often unconscious, whose background and history we didn't know, and with whom we had no personal connection. Their friends were often back at the home without easy transport or the mobility to use it, so they died essentially alone.

One winter night, not far from Christmas, I was near the end of a forty-eight when I checked on one such patient. We'll call her Betty Baker. She was in a coma, having suffered a stroke on top of some other serious ailments. As I recorded her vital signs on the chart, I knew she had no more than a half-hour of life remaining.

The ward was quiet, and the room of which she was currently the sole occupant was only dimly lit. I took a chair to the hallway and sat just outside the door where I could easily see her, then took out a book I carried in my white coat pocket. I had found reading a way to keep awake when I knew I'd have to do something shortly, and it helped me escape for a while the tension of the job.

I read for maybe 20 minutes, then got up to check on my patient. She'd gone. At least, that's how we view death. The soul or spirit departing at the last breath. Having worked with the elderly for many years, that isn't my view. Dementia lets the spirit drip away bit by bit, every droplet diminishing the life force of the person others love and cherish. I'm not religious, at most an agnostic, though in my youth, I'd gone to church quite regularly, and knew a lot of the liturgy. But in my line of work I see, feel, and know spirit when I encounter it in my patients. And, sadly, I know its absence. Still, I didn't begrudge Mrs. Baker my presence, albeit outside the door but still alert should she have stirred and needed comfort.

After I completed the chart, noting time of death, I turned off the oxygen and removed the tubes. Then I closed Mrs. Baker's mouth that was a little open, and pulled up the sheet. I took the chart to the nursing station where Jackie was sorting some medications.

“Mrs. Baker died,” I said.

“Yes. I saw you there reading. Wasn't that a bit angel of death-like? Or vulture-ish?”

I hadn't thought of it like that. It certainly wasn't my intention or understanding. Death generally doesn't frighten me, and a death like this not even in a minor way. But I find it uncomfortable to sit beside someone dying when I don't know them. On the other hand, I couldn't just leave Mrs. Baker and go and do some other things, leaving her unattended if she were to regain consciousness or otherwise be distressed.

Anything I said to Jackie would seem like an excuse. So I simply said “There was nothing more we could do for her except be nearby in case she became distressed. Think of my reading as the Last Gospel.”

John Nash is a retired university professor who has a mistaken impression that no longer being paid implies that one has to undertake a lot more activities, intellectual and other. Some of John’s writings can be found on archive.org, in particular the historical novel Thursday Afternoon,(https://archive.org/details/ThursdayAfternoon160507

Lament to Lack of Coffee

©Carmen Neske

Where have you gone that I no longer see?

Now vanished from the path so often trod

The morning draws to close and life I need

I seek rejuvenation, but you’re gone

Accepted simply where you were, I now

Realize the privilege of what once was

Tired hours weigh burden upon my brow

Empty, return to desk, I take a pause

O, sorrow fills me with an empty hole

Where bitter fluid should yet take its place

O tragedy! I mourn for caffeine stole

Sat grieving filled with void and empty space

Two days more yet without breeds lethargy

Dare I resort to Starbucks? We shall see.

Beasts of Rage

©Carmen Neske

Sometimes, you are a serpent. You coil tighter and tighter, lying in wait in darkness, watching with eyes that glisten as your target, your prey, passes. If allowed, you would lurch forward in utter silence, wrap around your prey, squeezing tighter and tighter until their bones break, until their eyes pop, until all air leaves their lungs and you watch. With poison on your tongue and a bite to every word you sink your teeth in as they struggle and squirm, until their blood turns purple and black from the venom you release. You don’t kill them, though, that’s not the point. Instead you release them, slither back into your crevice, and let them live with themselves, if they ever regain the strength to stand.

Sometimes, you are a tiger. It is not with subtlety that you strike, nor is it a physical blow that you land first; you stand high above on a craggy precipice and unleash a war cry, your voice carrying down to the prey below. But when the sound reaches their ears, you have already begun to move. Adrenaline drives you down, down, your claws are freshly sharpened and it is with speed and precision that you dive, you pounce, your claws sinking into flank and dragging down as you topple your prey to the ground beneath a powerful body. Claws rend and tear - and even if your prey is stronger and greater, you are relentless in your task. It is with nine lives that you unleash your fury, more than enough to let rivers of blood spill into the chasm, soaking your paws and your maw.

Sometimes you are smaller, but subtler. It is not always about you, the predator, and they, the prey. Sometimes it is simpler than that. You fly high, unseen, wings beating as the wind carries you above. Your target is far below. You dive, but not so deeply as to be seen; still high, you leave your fellow avians, and you project a package delivery to your target - not to be seen or noticed for hours by them, but to be worn like a crown of shame for those around them to see. Sometimes that is all that is needed - you need not hear their cries or see red, it can be as simple as a social disaster, and that alone will crush them.

Sometimes you are a frog - deceptively harmless by appearance, your round body flops about as you go on your way. You bother no one, you are simply minding your own business - but others would love to rip into you, wouldn’t they? One dares. You feel the bite for a moment, but they are the ones to suffer, for your skin is thick and the venom of your retort is enough to fell them. Wounded, you continue, but you will heal, and they will not. To the water you go, for leisure, for quiet. Downward, you dive.

There are times that you lurk deep below, down, down beneath piles of crushing pressure, pressure that builds until few can handle it. Oh but you can, for this is where you thrive. You are a complex creature, one which does not merely lie in wait for your prey, but sheds light into the dark, a sweet honey that draws them in. You shower your prey in warmth and embrace them, your sweetness lulling them, and when they set aside their shields, it is only then that your teeth, sharp as needles, find purchase. You are messy, you rip and tear; they could never have known, never have seen, and now they will never understand as little more than tatters and shreds remain.

You are all of these at once, and more. You are what is needed, what is felt. You are the kingdom of beasts which lives inside the human shell, an army at their disposal, a monster to be unleashed. “Civil”, they say, they preach….only until that deep upset stirs the beasts. And you feel it, coursing through their blood, with the quickening of their heart. You read their body, read their mind, and you transform the human accordingly. What beast steps forward now?

Blue Hotel

©Carmen Neske

The hotel we got is nothing special. Cheap room, small, we didn’t have much time to be choosy. I just threw the cash, took the key, and hustled us upstairs. Room 302; that was us. Inside was bland - a little square TV set at the far end, a sofa to watch it on, a kitchen in behind. Beige furniture, blue-green floor; it doesn’t match at all, it’s something I’d be caught dead living in. But it’s just for the night. It was the first room he and I could afford, so I took it.

Harmon follows me inside and pulls the door shut as he lumbers in, awkwardly clutching his side. The red’s just starting to leak through his coat; the innkeeper probably saw some of it, I just hope he doesn’t call the police. We don’t need a scene right now. Soon as the door’s shut and locked, Harm lets himself go; he tumbles, and I’m barely there to catch him, hands under his armpits to keep him upright as I haul him toward the sofa. The bed would probably be better, but he just needs somewhere to rest. I’m about to lift him up, onto the fake leather, but I stop.

“Lose the coat. Arms out. Can you do that for me?”

He doesn’t speak, but he does as he’s told. His arms come back with some difficulty, and I help him shrug off the heavy dark brown coat. For a moment, I’m transfixed by it. I just stand there, looking at the damn thing. He used to wear it all the time, when we were together. He’d step out of his car, come to my door, and he’d be wearing that coat. He gave it to me once, when it was pouring and I looked bout as pretty as a drowned feral cat. It had his smell, made me feel a little better. I wonder if he’s been wearing it every day, when he’s out in the city. It’s battered and worn in places, there’s some patchwork I never noticed. I bet he’d have worn it till the damn thing tore in half. It’s ruined now, stained with his blood. Just another stain on the past.

He tears the buttons of his shirt open, and I set the ancient memory aside. He managed to crawl himself up onto the couch himself; now he’s just laying there, on the too-small sofa, feet resting on the armrest - his shoes still on - and one arm just lazily hanging over the edge. He pulled his hat down over his face, the matted mess of his hair strewn wild. And there it is, behind that baby blue shirt, behind the wrapped bandages, red stains painted across a tired canvas. I give him a slow look over, pulling out a cigarette as I circle around the sofa, one hand playing along the back of that fake leather.

“You ain’t look half bad. Really got that worn, rugged hero look going.”

There was a sound, a wheeze and a cough that was probably supposed to be a laugh. “Shut up. N’ stop with that, I’m a man on my deathbed here. Gimme some respect.” His tone is humoured, dry; it’s the only thing he can do now, throw shade and sarcasm till he falls asleep. I’ll let him have his fun. I ease over toward the window, cranking it open just a bit as I get myself a light. I look down at the wash of reds, blues, and yellows that pass by down below, under the pattering of rain that never seems to end in my world.

“You tellin me you’re gonna die?”

It wasn’t that bad, I know it wasn’t that bad. Doc had taken care of him as soon as possible, cleared him out of the danger zone; he was just being dramatic. But still, looking out over the hazy night, I can’t help but chuckle to myself. What a bitter sound I make. I can hear rustling, I know he’s turned toward me.

“You got ya thinkin’ face on, Dottie.”

I turn, glance back toward him as I breathe a shroud of smoke that joins the smog outside. “Do I.”

He gives me a look; the usual Harmon look with a creased brow and a slight scowl as he puts his hat back on his head. I click my tongue. “Feet up, head down. You lie back down, Harm.”

He listens, lies back down, but his eyes are still on me. No, in me. He’s looking inside, trying to read my mind. But he’s never been good at that. Not with me. I known him too long, I know how he thinks, know how to keep him out from where I don’t want him going. Not till I’m ready. I take another drag of my cigarette, eyes out toward the lights again, hair brushing my face just a bit where it’d fallen out of the band I’d tied it up on.

“Everyone I love seems to die. I must be cursed.”

It was supposed to be a sardonic little jest, but it comes out with a lonely sound.

“You ain’t love me, Dottie. So you got nothin’ to worry about.”

I put out my cigarette, drop it in the ashtray, my fingertips sliding along the window sill as I turn back toward him, chuckling. “You’re right. Me, love you.” I say it hollowly, swaying back toward the couch, until I’m stood beside him, hand resting over the back of the sofa. We share a glance, just one look between our eyes, and I laugh again, that low humourless sound. “I could never love a dog like you.”

My eyes close. It’s dark, it isn’t real if I don’t see it. The tickle of skin, faint scratch of his beard, a breathless moment and then it’s done. Eyes open again, peering down at the wounded, tired, oh so tired man. I say nothing, he says nothing. He just closes his eyes and relaxes on the couch, and I return to my perch by the window. Moments unseen and unspoken never happened, when time erased them so swiftly from the mind.

Give the World

©Carmen Neske

Lisette has only ever been kind to you.

You know that it’s kindness, a genuine feeling. You know it’s not a lie, a facade, a mask. You know, because she is honest. She doesn’t tell you that everything is fine, but she tells you that it will be, that it can be with time. She doesn’t look at you with a plastic smile, but with a guilt-filled sorrow. That sorrow is for you, not for herself; it’s her empathy, her empathy that makes her kind. You were drawn in by that kindness, in that place that was nothing more than a lesser hell, that place she freed you from.

You are a Demi-human. The world outside would hunt you and take you however it pleased, reaping the benefit of your immortal curse simply because you were made another creature. You look no differently, you feel, you hurt, you speak no differently...and yet, 'Demi-human’ is all it takes for men to turn on you. You are unable to die; your body restores, and so men transform you from a human at their level into an item, a monster, or both. You made yourself believe that the agency was a haven.

They hurt you there, but at least it isn't constant. They speak down to you, but certainly less than others would. You allowed yourself to accept this as bliss, as the closest to comfort you would have.

In that place, you no longer loved smiles, nor handshakes. Those hands that took yours would only be used for pain, and those smiles would seem to leer down at you through those masks. Perhaps they weren’t smiling, not really, but in your mind it was all you could see.

You were more appreciative of coldness. To be treated coldly felt like less of a twisted violation. With a smile, you felt that they were lying. But when they were cold to you, at least you knew they were being honest. You were a tool for them and nothing more. But being a tool for progress, progress that could save countless other lives, was better than any alternative. You let yourself continue to believe that, distancing yourself from friendliness, from warmth.

It was why you had, at first, been wary of Lisette. Why you wished you had never met her.

You knew, of course, that in the end, she would be standing at that table in that bright, bright room. That she would sacrifice you day to day for the benefit of others, strangers, and for science. Her smile had been the kindest, and she had seemed so eager, so glad to be on the project. And oh, how you had hated to hear that. Glad, she said! Speaking as though it was a friendly business operation. Would you bring the young doctor experience? A heftier resume, or paycheck? Glad! At the time, you had deemed her no different from the rest. Once again, you shut away that smile.

But it changed, when you saw her in that room, with those men holding clipboards. The men who watched, with those unfeeling eyes that were so empty, the men who scribbled notes and whispered to one another and laughed idly at something mundane as your blood was spilled, as your mind grew hazy and confused, your body resetting time and time and time again. She had looked at you with sorrow. And never did that change. That sorrow had felt relaxing, had felt relieving. She felt something, for you, and that was strange, was new, was unusual. But it made you feel safe beneath her gaze.

You didn’t fear the thought that she would be standing there in the operating room with you. You anticipated it. You looked forward to that day, to being able to see warmth that was genuine, to see a heart that shone kindly for you. It wouldn’t be so bad, you had thought, if she was the one. You could feel the sympathy pouring from her in waves, even from so far away. She cared, and that was all that mattered to you.

But she had given you more than mere kindness. She had given you hope, had given you a future. She gave you freedom, and friendship. And then she had given you something impossibly great, something you had only been given once, long ago; something you never thought you would receive again.

She gave you love.

She loves deeply, genuinely, attentively. She minds you, and your feelings. She is patient with you. She recognizes that when you tense at her touch, when you flinch, it’s a reflexive response built with time in that place. She speaks gently to you, whispers reassurances that she won’t hurt you, that it’s safe here. You know all of that, but the gesture is sweet nonetheless. It shows how much she cares. You tell her so.

When you wake from terrors, she grounds you, as she always did before. She tells you where you are with a slow, confident voice. It gives you somewhere to focus, and you take it. But sometimes, on worse nights, when the dreams are too real, when moments trigger memories, her voice isn’t enough. She won’t stop reaching for you, though. Even when you can’t hear her through the fog, she does her best to placate you. She takes your hand, she holds it tightly and she draws you near, to the warmth that is her. If her voice cannot reach you, then her touch does. You could never mistake that touch, tentative but reassuring.

Her hands are never used to harm you, her words are never used to threaten nor demean you. You trust her, you lower your guard, you allow yourself to open up to her. You learn that it tickles when she brushes your cheek with her thumb. You learn to appreciate the gently electric feeling it gives. You learn that waking to someone standing over you can be the result of a gentle kiss, and not a precursor to pain. The soft feel of her lips against your brow makes you smile without fail.

She asks you not to risk your life; tells you that as a doctor, she'll save you, that you don't need to let yourself suffer. She keeps her word; when you injure, she treats you. Never do you fear her touch; you trust her hands, her motives. She never betrays that trust.

You give all you can in return. You shield her, protect her. Your body will heal; you allow it to guard her. Still she insists that you mustn't sacrifice yourself for her; that she stays with you, helps you, loves you by her own choice, that you owe her nothing. But it's never been about that. You give your life to protect her because you choose to, because she is precious, someone you don't mind dying for. But still she sorrows, laments for you. You are the one to give comfort then, reminding her of the change she made in your life.

Back then, your sacrifice was decided for you; you were deemed an asset, a tool to use. But this...you choose this, freely choose to give your life for her. She feels unworthy of such a steep cost, but when this woman brought freedom to you...how could she deserve any less? "You owe her nothing." The reverse is also true, isn't it? She owed you nothing, but she gave you freedom, she gave you your life. She gave you the world.

You wish you could give her the world.

You give her yours.

Carmen is a 24 year old aspiring author whose interests in writing began early in childhood. Now a young adult, she writes for leisure within various genres, taking particular interest in crime noir, post-apocalypse and science fantasy genres.

Catz Defense

©John W Partington

“Listen up you pusses,” I growl, “The enemy has breached our defensive perimeter! We are vulnerable to attack at any moment. You three are our first, last, and only line of defense until reinforcements arrive. This is a war of genocide. You will take no prisoners; we will not exchange hostages!” My troops look at me, woefully bored as they slump to a semblance of attention.

“Private Kass,” I order, “You will take the southern boundary, and attempt to flush the enemy out and then drive them north. Do you understand?” She looks at me with complete apathy, and then blinks in a way I take as conformation. Kass is the weak link. She’s about as smart as a gerbil and has the attention span to match. She stands to her feet, and then saunters in the general direction I want her to go. She chippers a happy tune as she leaves.

“Private Kedi,” I continue, “I want you to patrol along the eastern perimeter, loop north, and then down the west side to rendezvous with Kass. Do you understand?” She nods her head, and then gets up to leave. “That’s the west side you’re going toward,” I growl. She continues a few more steps out of spite, and then turns around to proceed east.

“Corporal Mačka,” I turn to my grizzled veteran. Mačka is the youngest of the three troopers, but also the most reliable. She has more confirmed kills than the rest of us combined. Unfortunately she bought a piece of a farm the last engagement, and is lame in her leg. She tries hard, and is still a viscous fighter, but her body lets her down when she least expects it. Still, she’s the best at what she does.

“I’m not going to lie Mačka, things don’t look good. It’s going to be up to you. Kass and Kedi are merely marking time. They don’t have that killer instinct that I need right now. You are not a broken toy! You are a lean, mean, killing machine. You have a job, just do it. I want you to drive down the middle, and if Kass pushes the enemy north I want you to pounce, rip off their head, and crap down their neck. Do you get me?” She stretches and yawns, being a veteran of many pep-talks, she pauses long enough to take some water, and then starts off heading south.

“Momma-Bear this is Playwright, I have a situation,” I shout into the communications guide.

“Can’t it wait until morning?” Momma-Bear asks.

“No,” I reply, “I have a section minus of enemy insurgents approaching my position. I’ve sent Charlie One, Two, and Three to intercept, but they may be outnumbered. I request a sweep!”

“On my way,” Momma-Bear answers.

Everything happens all at once. The mouse runs out from under the china cabinet by the back door. Katz and Kedi run after it, and slam straight into each other to bonk heads like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon. The felines sat dazed on the ground while the mouse runs between their legs. Mačka made a spectacular dive, rears up in front of the mouse with talons extended. The mouse cowers as it realized that this was a truly fearsome beast, and then Mačka’s back legs crumple under her and she tumbles to the ground. The mouse scuttles away to the far side of the kitchen.

My wife comes bursting out of the hall with a broom, and sees the mouse running at her. She shrieks, throws the broom at me, and then leaves back up the hall. I hadn’t informed her about the nature of the insurgent. The mouse runs to safety under the dishwasher while I am fumbling with the broom.

“All right,” I look at my three cats, “Let’s review where we went wrong with this mission. Does anybody have a suggestion?”

“Mewl,” one of them squeaks, as the other two prowl around the dishwasher.

Pam’s Dowry

© John W Partington

Pam was born in the summer of 1919. On her fifth birthday her mother gave her a chest made of cherry wood. It was brightly polished and smelt of sweat and love. It had been carved by Pam’s grandfather shortly after his return from the Great War. Pam’s mother explained that it was a hope chest, and would keep Pam’s dowry until she was ready to marry.

“A dowry,” Mother explained, “Is the gift you give a man when he is going to marry you. You put in all your dreams and desires, notes to your future husband, mementos of great events or your heart’s dearest beliefs. It’s a wonderful thing.” Pam feverishly scribbled pictures of her future groom, wrote him letters, and kept photographs cut from ladies periodicals of all the places they would visit together. She already knew at the age of five that she wanted to be married when she grew up.

By 1939, while the world was marching to the drums of war, Pam was sitting with her friend Jill in a small café. Jill had been married a year and was heavy with child; Pam had been the maid of honor.

“I don’t understand why I can’t attract a man?” Pam complained to her friend.

“Cheer up,” Jill, who had been hearing the complaint for four years, replied, “I have a feeling your prospects will change soon. Probably before Christmas, surely within the next six months.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Just a feeling,” Jill said, but she smiled like she knew some great secret.

Christmas came and went. Six months went by. By the time two years had eclipsed the horizon Jill had stopped dropping hints about some great windfall of a man for Pam. Jill’s second child was much more of a concern than her spinster friend.

Time rolled on, and in that time Pam continued to fill her hope chest. Only, it was no longer filling with dreams and happy remembrances, but accusations of betrayal that became more and more vehement as the years rolled by.

In 1970 Jill died, happy and content in the arms of her husband: surrounded by her family of children and grandchildren. Pam sat in the corner. Pam became withdrawn as her surrogate family found less and less time for her. Eventually she sat in her large, empty house by herself. Her hope chest was overflowing with disappointments, missed opportunities, shame, anger, and guilt.

On her birthday in 1979 she sat at the phone hoping one of Jill’s children would call, even though it had been years since they remembered her birthday. The doorbell rang. Pam ignored it. Next came a gentle, yet persistent knock.

“Yes?” Pam opened the door. A distinguished gentleman, perhaps in his late sixties, stood at the door wearing a suit that was twenty years out of fashion. He had a salt and pepper beard, which did more to emphasise his strong jaw than hide it.

“Pam?” he asked; he had a slight accent.

“Yes,” she answered, “Who are you?”

“Jill told me to give you this,” he said without answer. Pam took the note and read it to herself:

Dear Pammy:

The bearer of this note is Captain Arthur Hope. I met him leaving England right before the war. You and he have a lot in common. I do hope you will be civil to him, and find him worthy of your affections. Love, Jilly-bean.

“A long story short,” Arthur continued, “I got held up in France for forty years.”

“Excuse me a moment,” Pam said as she walked upstairs with as much dignity as she could muster. She took a large garbage bag from under the bathroom sink and then went to her bedroom. She emptied the entire contents of her dowry into the bag, and then threw it out the window. She placed the note from Jill in the chest, so the only thing left in the chest was hope.

“Let’s go to dinner,” she said as she came down the stairs, and linked arms with Arthur.

“I don’t like French food,” he replied as he held the door open.

“Then we won’t eat French.”

The Eternal Struggle

© John W Partington

It is three o’clock in the morning. I sit at my desk; the florescent bulb on its swing arm is poised over the monitor. It casts enough light so that I can see what I’m doing, but not enough to hurt my light sensitive eyes. I power up my laptop computer, and then rest my plug in keyboard on the notebook case. It is a reference tool at the moment.

I pull a thick binder toward the now vacant space where the keyboard rested a moment before. I open the binder; I flip through page after crimson marked page, until I get to one half way through where there is no marking. This is where I left off.

“Psst, John,” a soft voice from near my elbow calls in a slight accent, “It’s time to snuggle.” I look down to the side of my chair and see my cat. She is standing on her hind legs, with her front paws on the arm rest of my chair. She looks at me with soulful eyes, big and wide with pupils the size of a dime. Her whiskers twitch back and forth as she struggles with the alien words.

“Snuggle?” she repeats in her accented catish. I happen to be fluent in catish.

“No Lynx,” I sigh, as I know where this is going, “It’s editing time. I have a deadline to get this manuscript to the publisher.” She leaps from the floor into my lap in one graceful motion like liquid fur. She trots to the free corner of my desk not heaped with reference books, half-filled drinking vessels, or bits of paper. One of those bits of paper is a reference I need for the current piece of editing. She bats the post-it off the desk.

“Snuggle,” she says a little more forcefully.

“Lynx,” I warn in my best father-of-the-cat voice, “I don’t have the time to snuggle. Right now is edit time.”

“What if, I go like this?” Lynx asks as she lounges across the binder full of paper. She stretches out so that every inch of paper is covered. It is impossible to see any of the text.

“You’re dangerously close to losing desk privileges,” I hiss.

“I’m helping,” Lynx insists.

“How does this help?” I ask.

“It’s a cat-scan. This word is wrong,” she licks her paw and then slams it down on some fresh red ink so that it smears with her paw-pad.

“That’s it; you’re out of here!” I pick her up, and then deposit her on the floor. She immediately hops onto the open corner. Walks over the text I am reading to the crowded side of the desk. She sticks her head into a half drunk glass of water, and then starts to lap it up. She has to stick her head quite far in, and threatens getting stuck.

“Here,” I grab the glass and then fill it at the water cooler. I put it back in front of her after clearing a small space so she can sit comfortably.

“No thanks,” she mews, “I don’t want it anymore.” There is a pen cap loose on the desk. She bats it experimentally, and sends it skittering a few inches. She pounces and proceeds to cause a general ruckus on top of the desk, erratically scattering pens, papers, and threatens to knock over the now full glass of water, and then finally rolls onto the binder, and from there into my lap, juggling the pen cap between her outstretched paws.

“Lynx,” I whisper in exasperation as I pull the cap out of the danger situation. My fingers get clawed viciously as Lynx thinks I’ve started a game of keep-away. Finally I extricate the pen cap from her grasp.

“It was a mouse!” Lynx squeals.

“It’s a pen cap,” I say and toss it to the floor, “Play with it there.”

“No thanks,” she yawns, “I don’t want it anymore.” She moves to sit on the keyboard resting on the laptop computer. I don’t mind because she is being still and quiet. I move the red pen to the page, and then make a mark. She watches the end of a pen, hunched over like a furry gargoyle. I go to make another mark, and as I do so a tabby paw bats the end of the pen, sending a crimson river of ink helter-skelter over the page.

“Lynx!” a shout in a hushed tone.

“It was a mouse,” she explains.

“It’s a pen,” I’m near my breaking point, which the cat realizes because she steps onto the binder and then rubs her chin against mine.

“I love you,” Lynx bats her eyes and continues to rub her head against my chin.

“Take a nap, and we’ll snuggle later,” I suggest.

“No thanks,” she meows, “I don’t want to anymore.” She jumps off the desk and sashays over to the kibble bowl. From there she wanders to the catio entrance by my desk, and goes outside. I get in ten solid minutes of work before a hulking bulk of grey fur thrashes into my lap.

“Ricky,” I look at my second cat.

“Snuggle?” he asks.

Point of View

© John W Partington

“A bear just went by the window,” Christopher called out to Bess.

“What colour was it?” Bess asked.

“The same colour they always are,” Chris mumbled back, he was already lost in the sports pages on his tablet, “Cubs well placed to win series... hogwash.”

“Another bear,” Bess called from the kitchen.

“Is it the same bear?” Chris got up from his comfy chair, and meandered to the kitchen around a pile of broken toys and board games which were missing pieces.

“Well, I didn’t see your bear so I wouldn’t know,” Bess poured some tea, and placed a plate of sugar cookies on the table. A growl sounded from outside the house, followed by another one from the other side. Christopher ran around the house looking out each window.

“We’re surrounded by bears!” he announced.

“What do they want?” Bess asked, not exactly afraid but certainly concerned.

“I think they smelt your baking.” Bess looked at the stacked sheets of cookies, all separated by grates so that they could cool. There were close to twenty dozen cookies.

“I suppose I better package some up,” Bess sighed. She went to work placing cookie after cookie into a plain paper bag. There was a knock at the door. Chris went to answer.

“Trick or treat?” a pure white bear growled from the doorstep.

“It’s not October,” Christopher answered back.

“Happy Hanukkah?” the bear suggested.

“It’s the middle of July!”

“Here Dear,” Bess handed over a large bag of sugar cookies. The bear took the bag awkwardly, and then hooted to his compatriots. The pack of bears moved off toward some distant snow dunes.

“Just once I’d like to see something other than an all-southern exposure,” Chris sighed.

“I do believe, Mr. Cringle,” Bess laughed, “That your vacation is getting the better of you. You’re restless. Go take the reindeer for a spin. I have to bake more cookies anyway.”

John Partington is a Canadian writer living in Ottawa. He was a solider for 15 years with the Canadian Forces. Since then, he has had a few jobs and started a career with the Public Service. Writing, however, will always be his first love (his wife is his true love).

An Unmarked Grave

©Michele Partridge

Working at the mortuary wasn’t the best job, but it suited Agatha. She spent most of her time in the office, typing the obituaries, filing papers and answering the phones. She would often help Mr. Fergus, the undertaker, put the finishing touches on the body – hair, clothing and make-up, mostly, to get them ready for their final public appearance.

She supposed that some people might find the funeral business distasteful. But not Agatha. In fact, so far, she had found it to be very lucrative.

Folks were quirky about what their dead took with them to their final resting place, sometimes insisting that Uncle Jack wear his gold cufflinks, or Aunt Judy have her pearls. Agatha thought this a shameful waste of fine jewellery. If the opportunity arose, she would help herself to anything of value off a body, just before they were sealed in their coffins and transported grave-side. A victimless crime, in her view.

Their latest client, Mrs. McConnell, was at this moment nestled in her coffin, wearing a lovely Rolex watch and a gold necklace with a diamond butterfly pendant. But she wouldn’t be buried with them, if Agatha had any say in it. She knew a guy in Toronto who didn’t ask any questions and gave her a good price for her ill-gotten goods. Agatha had amassed a nice little nest-egg so far.

But today she’d stumbled onto something bigger and potentially much more profitable than anything she’d come across before.

She was sitting on a low stool in the mortuary’s damp basement, a single bare lightbulb shining down from the ceiling, illuminating the stacks of boxes scattered around her. Mr. Fergus had given her the unpleasant task of sorting through all the old, musty records stored in the basement and creating some form of digital file before it all rotted away.

The box she was sorting through belonged to the wealthy Montgomery family. They had a mausoleum in the south-east corner of the cemetery. According to what she’d read so far, every member of the Montgomery family over the last three hundred years was laid to rest in that mausoleum.

She tapped the cracked, yellowed page of the file in her lap, titled “Miss Marie Claire Montgomery”. This record in particular had caught her attention, as it noted that Miss Montgomery was the only one not buried in the tomb.

She was buried behind the tomb.

Agatha found this very intriguing, and paused in her sorting and scanning to dig a little deeper into the file. She discovered that Marie Claire was a spinster who lived and died more than 200 years ago. Buried at the bottom of one of the files, she found a faded, hand written message from the mortician of the time:

“…family believes Marie Claire is a witch and cursed, and will therefore not allow her to be buried with the rest of the family. At the Montgomery’s insistence, Miss Montgomery and all her worldly possessions will be interred in a plot behind the mausoleum, marked only with a small white ground stone…”

Agatha felt a little flutter go through her, and her eyes kept returning to the phrase “…and all her worldly possessions”.

She spent the remainder of that afternoon scanning the rest of the Montgomery records, but there was no further mention of Marie Claire. Her imagination, frustrated by a lack of any concrete facts, had begun to create its own ideas of what might be sharing old MC’s coffin – if the grave site still existed after 200 years.

At long last, she made her way up from the depths of the damp basement, having sorted and scanned more than twenty boxes of files.

“I have to say, Agatha,” Mr. Fergus said after she dropped four full thumb drives on his desk. “I am very pleased by your progress so far. We’ll have that basement back in shape in no time!”

Mr. Fergus smiled charmingly. But to Agatha, it looked like the baring of teeth on a fleshless skull. She smiled wanly in return and tried not to shudder.

She gathered her coat and purse and hurried toward the exit, wanting nothing more than a hot shower and a cold glass of wine.

Agatha laid awake most of the night, her mind churning with images of graves and gold. She finally decided that she need to verify that the grave actually existed before she made herself crazy with plans for it. So she got out of bed early the next morning and made her way to the cemetery.

She was glad to see that no one else had arrived yet as she quickly weaved through the grounds toward the Montgomery mausoleum. Moving around to the back of the small building, she was confronted by a dauntingly large bed of overgrown weeds and choking vines. It took her more than half an hour to plow a path through the vegetation. Dirty and annoyed, she was starting to think this was a foolish venture, and was just about ready to walk away from it altogether, when a flash of white revealed itself under a prickly weed.

And there it was: the marker for Marie Claire’s grave – a plain white stone with a single cross in its centre.

Agatha smiled hugely and had to stifle an urge to yell “Yahtzee!” She was excited to know that the files were authentic, and that the grave still existed, but she now knew with certainty that it would take her all night to dig up the coffin. And she seriously doubted she’d have the physical strength to get the job done.

She pushed the undergrowth back over the grave stone until she was satisfied that it was once again hidden. As she walked slowly through the graveyard back to the mortuary, she imagined (and discarded) half a dozen ideas before finally settling on the obvious solution: George and his beloved Betsy.

Betsy was the mortuary’s only backhoe, and George was their chief groundskeeper and grave digger. That was exactly how he described his job whenever anyone asked what he did, as though they were meant to be impressed. But to Agatha, he was just another creepy fixture of the funeral home, like the embalming room. Or the undertaker.

By the time she’d made her way back to the mortuary and changed into her uniform (shoving her dirty clothes to the bottom of her shoulder bag), Mr. Fergus and George had arrived. She found George in the mortuary’s garage, poking around a push lawnmower.

“Hey, George,” she said brightly as she walked into the room.

“Hey yourself,” he leered, his eyes boldly looking her up and down. “You’re here early. What brings you to my workshop?”

Agatha hesitated, suddenly unsure if this was wise. The outcome of this conversation would strongly depend on George’s principles. What if he disapproved and decided to tell Mr. Fergus? Or the police? But her instinct told her that he would have a flexible moral compass. And besides, it was either trust him and ask for his help or forget the whole scheme entirely.

She cleared her throat and waited impatiently for him to look her in the eye. “So, there’s this grave behind the old Montgomery mausoleum. A woman was buried there a long time ago, along with her entire fortune. I want you to help me dig it up.”

George cocked his head to one side. “Dig...? What, dig the body up?!” he exclaimed, his eyes widening.

“No, shhh!” She flapped her hands to get him to keep his voice down. “I don’t want to dig the body up! I want to dig her jewellery up.”

George gave her a side-long glare, one eyebrow shooting up towards his hairline.

Agatha shrugged and smiled sheepishly. “Yes, well,” she admitted. “The jewels are most likely on the body...”

George pursed his lips and continued to watch her with narrowed eyes. But he didn’t walk away, which gave Agatha hope. She held her breath and waited him out.

After a moment, he nodded his head and said, “I’m in. Fifty-fifty.” He stuck his hand out toward her.

Agatha was stunned by his demand of half the proceeds. If it wasn’t for her, he wouldn’t even know such a treasure existed at all! But she couldn’t do this alone and so finally, she clasped his hand and gave it one quick, firm shake. “Agreed”, she sighed.

For the next half hour, in raspy whispers, they formed a simple plan, which was hastily put into action. That night, after the last of the mourners from Mrs. McConnell’s visitation had finally left, and after old Mr. Fergus had packed up his briefcase and driven away, Agatha and George took the backhoe to the south-east corner of the cemetery and set to digging up the Montgomery witch.

Betsy, as Agatha knew she would, made quick work of the majority of the requisite digging. Before reaching the coffin, however, George shut down the backhoe.

“Don’t want to go too far with Betsy and destroy the coffin,” he explained as he handed Agatha one of the two shovels stored in Betsy’s cab. “Now, we dig.”

Before long, their shovels clanged against wood. They cleared as much dirt as they could from around the coffin so they could get the crowbar wedged under the rotting pine lid. George put his weight on the crowbar, and with a soft cracking groan, the lid lifted away from the box, and they were suddenly face to face with Marie Claire.

Agatha had expected a smell of rotting flesh, a grotesque corpse full of worms and bugs. But Marie Claire Montgomery was nothing more than a dried out grey skeleton. The clothes she wore were dirty and a little ratty, but otherwise well-preserved – a simple long black skirt, a white blouse and black leather boots.

And, to Agatha’s great relief, lots of jewellery.

Every skeletal finger had a ring on it, the gems shining in the beam from the backhoe’s headlights. She wore at least three gold necklaces, each sporting a solid gold cross of varying sizes, and she had diamond-encrusted gold earrings in her ears. Agatha nearly swooned when she spotted a delicate diamond and sapphire tiara nestled on the satin pillow above the witch’s head, bits of crackling gray hair still clinging to its comb edges.

Multiple burlap-wrapped packages were clustered at the foot of the coffin, with several more packages of varying sizes wedged along each side. George untied one and a half-dozen silver and gem rings spilled out. In another, dozens of old gold coins were protected by silk handkerchiefs, tastefully monogrammed with “MCM” in one corner. Each little burlap package contained its own priceless treasure.

Agatha picked up the tiara, carefully removed all the bits of dead hair from it, and then placed it on her own head. She looked at George, who smiled a little sickly but nodded his approval. When Agatha looked away again, he quickly retrieved all the burlap packages and laid them outside the grave, before climbing out himself.

Agatha – busy divesting the corpse of all its riches, snapping the necklaces from around Marie Claire’s neck and roughly pulling the rings off each bony finger – didn’t see George swing the shovel toward her head. It connected with a wet crunch, opening a large wound and sending her sprawling across Marie Claire’s body. Struggling to push herself up, she mumbled, “What?” George struck her again.

He watched her slump over and waited to see if she would move. She had fallen sideways, her face nestled into Marie Claire’s bony neck, and George felt a moment of revulsion. He stood up quickly, his pulse racing as he surveyed the quiet, dark cemetery. But it was deserted, no one to witness his crimes, and his heart slowed.

He slid noiselessly back into the grave. He pushed Agatha aside, her head lolling too easily on her broken neck, and gathered up all the jewellery. Finally, he pulled the tiara from Agatha’s head and placed it on his own, allowing a small smile of victory to curve his lips.

He packed all the treasures into the duffle bag they’d brought with them, zipped it closed and carefully placed it in the cab of the backhoe. He started the backhoe up, and using Betsy’s giant claw shovel, he pushed the dirt back into Marie Claire and Agatha’s grave until there was nothing but a low mound of clean, dark earth. He jumped down from the backhoe and used one of the shovels to pat the earth smooth. Then he repositioned the ground stone over the middle of the freshly turned mound.

“X marks the spot,” he whispered gravely. And grinned.

He threw the shovel over his shoulder and turned back toward the backhoe. But he came to an abrupt stop at the sight of a man standing behind him.

“Mr. Fergus!” George stammered. “Wh-what are you–“

His words were cut short as the second shovel jammed into his neck, nearly severing his head and instantly ending his life.

Mr. Fergus wasted no time burying George. He carefully moved the ground stone and used the backhoe to lift the loosened dirt out of the fresh grave. He didn’t delve far enough to find Agatha – he didn’t really fancy having a look at her dead body – but enough to prevent some industrious wild beast from digging him up again.

As he worked he reflected on the idiocy of his two employees. Did they think he hadn’t noticed them sneaking around the place, having secret, whispered meetings? He knew they were up to no good, and so only pretended to leave after Mrs. McConnell’s viewing. He’d parked his car around the corner from the cemetery and walked back to the funeral home, arriving just in time to see George and Agatha driving the backhoe toward the Montgomery mausoleum.

From a short distance, he watched them dig up the grave. He was confused by what they were doing (having no idea anyone was buried behind the tomb), but when he glimpsed all the glittering jewellery they had unearthed, it no longer mattered.

He knew immediately how he was going to deal with them.

Mr. Fergus smiled his skeleton smile as he drove the backhoe toward the garage. He was imagining all the wonderful things he’d be able to do with his new-found wealth, and didn’t notice the open grave, freshly dug by good old George and Betsy, in preparation for Mrs. McConnell’s funeral the next day.

The backhoe’s left wheel broke through the tarp covering the opening, tilting sideways and launching Mr. Fergus into the hole. Luckily, the backhoe’s roll bar prevented it from following him into the grave, and thereby saving his life.

However, Betsy completely filled the opening of the grave, leaving him no room to climb out, and with no possible way of shifting the backhoe.

Mr. Fergus realized with a sinking feeling that he was now trapped in an empty grave, along with all of Marie Claire’s stolen wealth, and two shovels covered in fresh blood.

This writing thing has been a crazy journey through the wilderness! It began on a whim – a nervous, anxious, why-am-I-doing-this-to-myself step in the right direction that led from wanting to write, to writing on a deadline, to reading my own stories out loud (in front of people!), to finally sharing my baby in a book for all to see. I have invited my dream to ride shotgun while I attempt to make it come true. Step one accomplished. Thanks SCWG – you people rock!

Don’t Spill the Salt

©Joan Savoie

It was two weeks away – the notices were delivered and posted at all the local establishments - Kenny’s Variety, Jamison’s General Store, MacIntosh’s Save Easy and of course Davidson’s canteen.  The United Church hall in Nash Creek was booked and the line-up was taking shape.

Leeander Lapointe, Clayton Callaghan, Oreal Furlotte, James Landry, Jeannie Macmillan, Karen Lapointe and of course my dad and sister were going to perform and entertain to an audience that was expected to fill the hall to a standing room only capacity.

With my family fully involved in the planning of this annual event, I felt I would like to get involved. I thought about playing a piano piece on the old upright that was in the hall, but when I went to practice, I discovered –both middle C and G were out of tune. It seemed that every piece I knew, required C and/or G - playing the piano was out, singing was out - so what was left?

With the big night only two weeks away, there was not much time to come up with a performance plan. Thinking I would help back stage keeping things on time with the performers, as well as setting up the props and microphones, my mother suggested I produce a short play. She said that the entire evening comprised of singing and dancing and what a variety show needed, was a short play or a skit.

I thought that sounded like a great idea, but I was certainly not prepared to perform a monologue and if I was to produce a short play, where would I get the play and the actors on such short notice? Then it came to me, my sister Vivian and her very best friend Karen were performing a duet and maybe they would be interested in doing a play as well. Both were in the school drama club and they loved to be on stage, so I figured they would be perfect. I approached them with the idea and they were excited – they too felt the variety show needed a short play. The search was on to find something that would be appropriate. My mother has an old desk where she kept her papers and school books, so I figured that would be a good place to start my hunt for a book of plays or skits.

It did not take long for me to find something. Mom had a book that contained one-act plays with three or less characters and now I just needed to find a play that would be perfect for Vivian and Karen. There it was – two characters – husband and wife at the breakfast table. One act, two characters and not many props. A table, two chairs and a table set for breakfast. Vivian said she would be the wife and Karen said she was fine being the husband – I was all set. The name of the play was “Don’t Spill the Salt”.

What an interesting title, I was not sure what it meant, but as I read through the play I soon discovered that if you spilled the salt, you had to throw it over your left shoulder or you would end up in an argument – spilling the salt could also bring bad luck. The play was funny – the husband and wife argue over this superstition and there were lots of great one liners.

Each day after school Karen and Vivian practiced their lines – with only a few days to memorize their parts, they both worked very hard to get the lines straight, but often either a line was forgotten or said out of sequence. I was getting worried that they would not have their lines memorised before the Saturday show, but they assured me that all would be fine – they kept reminding me that they were in the drama club at school and they were professionals.

The big night – the hall was packed. Young and old came out to be entertained by local talent that many said should be on the Tommy Hunter show, if only Tommy Hunter would come to Nash Creek to record his show, he would see and hear what “the Creek” had to offer.

James Landry and Clayton Callaghan had everyone clapping their hands and stomping their feet to their fiddle music, dad had people hooting when he brought out his wooden dancing man and board. Woody, as we called him step danced, on the board, in tune to dad’s harmonic playing, Vivian and Karen got a standing ovation with their performance of “Sylvia’s Mother” and Jeannie MacNair got oohs and ahs from the audience when she performed her Scottish Sword Dance. The night was a hit - everyone was getting their money’s worth.

There was a planned intermission and during the break the stage was set for Vivian and Karen to perform “Don’t Spill the Salt”. I was nervous and excited all at the same time because I was still a little worried that Vivian and Karen did not know all their lines but they assured me they were fine and besides I would be standing behind the curtain with the script ready to help with any lines they may have forgotten.

When the intermission was over, and the curtain rose, Vivian and Karen were seated at a kitchen table ready to eat their breakfast – they looked the part, their make-up was amazing.  Karen looked very much the gentleman with hair slicked back, mustache in place and dressed in a shirt, tie and dark suit jacket. Vivian had rollers in her hair, held in place with a tightly wrapped kerchief knotted above her forehead and wearing a terrycloth pink flowered house coat with fluffy pink slippers on her feet – they were the perfect couple.

I stood, book in hand behind the curtain waiting for the play to begin – Vivian was first to speak when she asked Karen to pass her the syrup, but when Karen went to pass the syrup, she/he accidently knocked over the salt shaker – Vivian let out a squeal and proclaimed that Karen has to quickly throw the salt over his left shoulder, of course the male character did not believe in such superstitions and questioned this action – Vivian’s character then started to explain the superstition and this was when I became lost – Vivian went on about Judas spilling the salt at the last supper and I could not find where she was in the play. For the next twenty minutes, Vivian and Karen ad libbed when the right lines did not come - I listened to them argue politics, local affairs, labour disputes, fishing stories and tall tales – they had the audience in stitches. I was mortified for I had no idea where they were going with the play. Every once and awhile a familiar line would be spoken and I thought they were back on track, but it did not last. Through the entire performance they had the audience howling with laughter.

The play finally came to an end when Karen, as the male character, picked up the salt shaker while Vivian was in mid-sentence and took the entire shaker and threw it over her left shoulder and said, “there, are you happy?”, and stormed off the stage. The audience clapped and cheered and from what I could see peeking through a hole in the curtain, the audience had no idea that the play they just saw performed was nowhere near the play that was written.

I ran backstage to find Karen and Vivian hugging and congratulating each other – I was speechless – the play was a hit, but I knew at that moment - my career as a producer of plays or skits had come to an abrupt end.

The Volkswagen Bug

©Joan Savoie

It sat in the yard – shiny and new, and all she could do was stare at it, and shake her head from side to side. Most times when father bought a new car, she was excited but today she was not excited. Father brought home a pink Volkswagen Beetle. What was father thinking when he drove that hideous looking automobile (if you could call it that) off the lot. Surely he was not thinking how it would embarrass his girls. Imagine driving around town in a pink Volkswagen Beetle. How could she ever go places in that thing? Everyone would know where she was and what she was doing – no – her father was not thinking at all when he bought that ridiculous looking vehicle.

Her father always had a Volkswagen Beetle, but they were either red or blue. The last one was red and she loved going to town with that little car. It was easy to parallel park, it would sail over any terrain and best of all she could fit all her friends into it, even though it was only suited to accommodate four comfortably, she would take six friends and sometimes seven to town for a movie, pizza and the occasionally school dance. Beetles were common, most of her friends had them, but no one had a pink one, she knew she was going to stand out and of course all those folks who like to keep an eye on teenagers would certainly know she was Allie Blake’s daughter and they would be quick to let him know they saw his car in town, at the liquor store, or across the bridge (where you could go if you were under 19), yes, she thought – her teenage life was over. This was a total disaster.

“What do you think,” – she heard her father say as he came up behind her.

Startled, she jumped and turned to see her father smiling.

“What do I think?” she said

“Yes, what do you think of my new car?”

“Humm, well dad, it certainly is bright, and shiny. It looks really interesting but why did you get a pink Beetle?” She tried not sound disappointed but there was no hiding her feelings about the colour

“You don’t like it?” her father queried her.

“Well,” she paused trying to think of something that would not sound hurtful, “It is an interesting colour but really dad is it a colour that a man would have for a car that he would drive? Don’t you think more a colour for a woman?”

Her father looked at her, and was quiet. She waited a long time before he answered, at least it seemed like a long time, but it was probably only a few seconds. Her parents were never much for gender colours – her mother loved flowers and crazy outfits, actually her mother was a hippy and always said that she would wear what she felt comfortable in and not worry about norms or even what others thought. Her father never worried about such things. She loved the dump truck and Esso garage she got for Christmas when she was about five as well as the tools and workbench along with the dolls and outfits that came from Santa. She and her sister always worked on the farm just as her male cousins and brother did – there were never rules on what girls did and boys did and no one ever really talked about colours being specific for boys and girls, but she just felt that pink was not a car her father should have – actually it was not a car she wanted to be seen driving.

“Really?” her father said “Pink is not for men you say - where did you get that idea? “

She could feel his voice cutting through her.

“Well I hate to disappoint you young lady, but a colour is a colour and to tell you the truth – that was the only car on the lot and because the other Volkswagen, was totaled when your mother ran it into the back of a transport that was parked on the side of the road, I had no choice but to buy this one or wait two months for a red or blue one.”

She could feel her cheeks getting hot, she was now embarrassed for questioning her father’s choice of colour.

Her father continued his rant – “You know I need this car for work and it is actually the best little vehicle for getting through the woods. Much better than the GMC, half ton truck the government issued. It can drive over and through anything. Pink was what they had and so pink was what I bought. A car is a car no matter what the colour and if you don’t like the colour, then maybe you won’t drive it and that will suit me just fine.”

Her father sounded like a teenager when he said that last line. She had never heard her father speak that way before - she knew she was wrong to say what she said, but it was said.

She looked at her father – he tone was sharp but also there was disappointment in his voice. She knew, she had hurt his feelings – she realized at that point that it was not about her, it was about her father and what he needed, to get to and from work.

Lessons were hard to learn as a teenager and when pride and vanity seemed to rule your life, sometimes the school of common sense gets lost in the teenage mind. Pink was the colour of the car and pink it would be for a few years, she knew she would have to get used to it.

As the months went by, she started to feel more comfortable with the pink Volkswagen Beetle. People would wave as she passed them on the highway, some folks commented that she would never lose the car in a parking lot and the RCMP were always on the lookout for a speeding pink Volkswagen (since the police were all friends of her father) but the part that she never got used to, was how folks always knew when she was out and about and they never missed the opportunity to tell her father, they saw his car in town, or across the bridge. Yes, in a small community everyone knows what you are doing, especially if you drive a pink Volkswagen Beetle.

Joan Savoie lives in Stittsville. Growing up in Northern New Brunswick she heard stories from grandparents and parents and felt the stories she heard had to be written down for her own children to enjoy. Joan enjoys writing stories that bring regular events and characters to life. Her first and only published book to date is “The Backyard Rink; A Daughter’s Memory”, but she promises that more stories will be published as she continues to get encouragement from her fellow writers at the SCWG

Alternate universes

©Vivien Masseau Taylor

Elon Musk conceives

that we live in a virtual world

of computer-generated video

mathematical as physics

Consider for a time

the sublime hypothesis

that we are beings, digital

within a game, a simulation

like fish, oblivious

of the watery environment, our air

as we too approach the capability

of cloning ourselves, robots with AI

Of all this we're well aware

Einstein postulated years ago

Reality is mere illusion, just

another thought-experiment we share

Everything originates

within our consciousness and then,

we pull-in all the stuff out there.

Terence McKenna opined once

Give us one free miracle

and we'll explain all else.

And so, Big Bang sufficed … awhile

Questions remain

The God of Genesis and science thus agree

Let there be light!

Equilibrium

© Vivien Masseau Taylor

Born, animals

sixth sense enhanced

we dance

within the year of birth

Exercising fully half

of all our brain cells

we begin to move in rhythm

alternately teetering

side to side, side to side

continually self-correcting

connecting to our Earth

In balance, we can

walk bipedal

signifying, human

freeing hands

to fully function

finger tips to sensitize

as the inner ear

maintains us level-

headed

This Libra gift embedded

so becomes even

more valuable with age

you could say

critical

in all our walks of life

The Dancer

© Vivien Masseau Taylor

Can I make my poem dance

as you do on the stage?

your step so light, so springing, so jeté

vaulting with such grace

Can syllables be made to hop

hip hop across the lines and play

in rhythm smooth or jagged

with the music so aligned

they seem to instigate the tunes

instead of follow?

Can a poet strain to stretch the pain

as you do

or, joyous, leap to sudden glee?

Can I sing my dancing ode

so wide, so tall, so full

with arms that welcome in?

Can I make you feel

the tapping of each heel and toe

as resonance within?

Can my verse rise, reeling to crescendo

pacing frenzied higher, higher, round and round

then, ebbing primly, dropping back

in dramatic pause en pointe

to take a bow

as the moment fades to black?

O, to be a dancer now!

and not worry words that lack

Vivien Masseau Taylor: Poet, Librarian (retired Music, Art and Special Collections, Queen's University), choral singer (Goulbourn Jubilee Singers), and doting grandmother of seven grandchildren. She loves poems that capture a microcosm in the moment and enjoys the oral aspects of poetry, the mood and musicality of language, its rhythm and rhyme.

Chapbooks: Widow’s walk; Mauve you rise and other poems; Wellington Beach and other poems. Contributor to anthologies including, "And left a place to stand" honouring Al Purdy. Former coordinator of Picton Open Floor readings, a member of the Cobourg Poetry Workshop and a group in Prince Edward County practicing poetic forms.

Chiquitita

©Hero Van Harten

I can always tell when my mom is high because she gets so friendly. She comes into my room, trying to act nonchalant and asks me to turn my music up so she can dance. My room is usually a mess but she’ll jump around finding places to land in the piles of clothes and books and laughing whenever she falls down. I wish she would get high more often. Most of the time she just seems to rearrange the things on our bookshelves, our counters, our mantel, the small shelf beside the stairs. Did we notice the new seahorse shaped paperweight that she added to the nautical grouping in the downstairs bathroom?

Actually, come to think of it, that's a pretty weird thing to do when you're sober. Maybe she's always high. I don't take drugs. I tried it once but I didn't like the way it felt in my chest: ba boom ba boom, like the first time you try something harder than the bunny hill. You're flying too fast and you don't know how to stop. I went skiing once, on a grade 8 field trip, a few years ago. I didn't like that either.

There's a picture of my mom at my age in one of the albums in the basement. She has scraggly white girl dreads and combat boots. She's laughing, sitting on an afghan covered couch with a some skinny, greasy haired guy holding a bass guitar. I wonder about that girl sometimes when I watch my mom doing dishes and banging on the kitchen window because our stupid dog is out there in the snow eating his own poop again. I wonder if it's always so hard to reconcile the stages of yourself. I wonder if she knew. Did she know when she laced up those combat boots, or held the greasy haired boy's hand, that she would spend an hour a week pouring over flyers at the kitchen table. Trying to get the best deal on crackers shaped like fish and cookies masquerading as animal tracks as though it mattered. As though meaning could be found in all those endless choices of cereal.

She sings to herself, under her breath, silhouetted at the table in the cool light of a lamp. She always has. She used to sing lullabies to me when I was little and I couldn't sleep. Slow, sad songs by Tori Amos and Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave. Her mother used to sing to her too. Chiquitita and Yesterday and Janis Ian’s At Seventeen. What songs will I sing? Does it just keep going like a track we can't get off? Around and around, sad song after sad song, are we never supposed to stop?

They hit you sometimes, those thoughts, like a punch to the chest: ba boom ba boom and time goes by whizzing past your face, too fast. I am seventeen years old. I have a boyfriend. His hair gets greasy sometimes. I wear pretty clothes made by people whose lives I never imagine. I like music. I like to dance. I twirl in my room. In these places carved out by my mother's feet, I whirl like a dervish until the smoke gets so thick I can't tell where it's coming from. Which tree, which holy fire, which factory burning somewhere across the world. I close my eyes to the acrid sting and twirl and twirl until I fall.

And why I write:

©Hero Van Harten

I write because my daughter’s hair curls sweaty on her cheek just as it always has her breath moves in and out

and because the sound of her laugh

I will forget perhaps the way my father’s hands buckling the white strap of my sandal bent and tickled my foot when I was small

or where the words he must have spoken went

but they are called up here, a breath the shape of a face in profile

the slap of sandals running through a parade of days they pile

up like papers on the counter each one a task I take and hold in my hand to only then discard and suddenly I find that he is old

because my daughter barely pauses to brush aside the curls from her eyes but on each page

there are words the ones that flicker

they tickle at the back of my eyes before they fade they fade

I write because I am afraid.

Tankas for the Liminal Woman

©Hero Van Harten

Well, you’re older now

she says and then you feel it

A breeze blowing cold

up the back of your green gown

Your flesh like low ripened fruit

Not yet you implore

No one ever in Paris

called me mademoiselle

Your reflection droops somehow

hunched in the glass windowpane

Now Madame, she says

with her Quebecois accent

Her breath like cherries

Your hands pluck at the cold air

she sighs, moves to cover you

Mother and Daughter: On being broke at the grocery store

©Hero Van Harten

That feeling in your throat

Tightly clenched around your fear

What will you take from her

The rice, the milk, the soap?

Tightly clenched around your fear

Your hand out, tooth ground hope

The rice, the milk, the soap

She watches it disappear

Your hand out, tooth ground hope

You lift her up and clear

She watches it disappear

Empty cart carry the load

You lift her up and clear

Empty cart carry the load

What will you take from her

That feeling in your throat

Hero Van Harten lives in Stittsville with her partner, four children and dog. She is learning to love the area, thanks in great part to the Stittsville Writing Group who make her feel like she belongs here. 

Christmas Dinner

Thom Whalen

Did I ever tell you about the time Kenny and I made Christmas dinner? No? Well, I better tell you now, so you know what not to do. No sense you making the same mistakes that we did; you should make brand new mistakes of your own.

The first thing you’re going to ask is what could go wrong when two young guys are going to make a turkey dinner.

You wouldn’t ask that question if you knew Kenny. Nothing ever went right for Kenny and me. Not ever.

See back in the sixties, we were a couple of young guys, right out of high school, looking for a summer job to earn a few bucks before we went to college. We didn’t know which way was up. All we knew was that we wanted to get as far away from our parents as we could, as quick as we could. Kenny heard about a company up in Alberta that was hiring for the summer and that provided accommodations as well as paying two bucks above minimum wage, which would come in handy when tuition came due in the fall.

We wouldn’t be working in the oil fields, as such, but our jobs were nearby, building temporary housing for oil field workers.

The lure of adventure was too strong to resist, so Kenny and I signed up for a three-month stint that would get us back to Kingston just in time for our first classes. We got our fake IDs claiming that we had attained legal drinking age—they were easy to obtain in Ontario and important to have in Alberta if you were only eighteen and wanted to have a good time.

Now, you might have noticed a certain discrepancy in my story right off. I said that we were making a Christmas dinner, but we were up in Alberta for the summer. You heard right and I’m telling you exactly how it was. We’d decided to make a Christmas dinner in the middle of July, complete with turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, gravy and a vegetable side. Not Brussels sprouts like your grandmother would make—we had more sense than to cook food that we both hated—but peas. Peas are green, like Brussels sprouts, so they’ll look right on the plate, but unlike Brussels sprouts, peas taste good. The colour is important, you see. You got the white potatoes, the green peas and the red cranberry sauce, all making the plate look like Christmas.

Now, to be exactly correct, Kenny and I didn’t actually decide to make Christmas dinner in July; a couple of girls made that decision. We’d met them in a bar and they got to telling us how much they loved Christmas, and especially the Christmas feast, so what would a couple of eighteen-year-old boys do, but tell them how badly we wanted to make a Christmas dinner for them? They looked doubtful, but we swore up and down, with all the sincerity bestowed upon us by a few pints of beer, that we knew exactly what we were doing. We claimed that we’d been giving our mothers a break for years by making Christmas dinner for our families back home. It would be no problem.

So, these two girls, I can’t even remember their names any more, agreed to come over to our house at three o’clock Sunday and join us for Christmas dinner in July. I’m pretty sure that they came only to see if we could deliver on our beer-fueled braggadocio.

We figured that we were made in the shade. All we had to do was cook a turkey with all the fixings and a couple of sides. How hard could that be? Just about every mother we knew made Christmas dinner and they weren’t all rocket scientists like Kenny and me.

So, on Saturday, Kenny and I had to walk the three miles to the nearest Safeway. The company accommodations weren’t located in the middle of town, and we didn’t have a car, which made dating a problem. The girls from the bar did, though, so that made us extra keen to get into their good graces.

It was a hot day and the mosquitoes were biting fierce, but we slapped them down as best we could. When you’re working outdoors in northern Alberta, like we’d been, you expect to be swarmed by mosquitoes, and you learn to live with them.

I never expected that it would be so hard to find a turkey. They’re plentiful around Thanksgiving and Christmas, and even at Easter, but there wasn’t so much demand for them in northern Alberta in July, so Safeway, which wasn’t such a big store up there, didn’t bother with them in the summer. Nor did they stock cranberries.

We got the peas and potatoes, though, and that was a good start. And I picked up a loaf of bread because bread stuffing requires bread.

The manager in the Safeway meat department suggested that we try Woodward's for the turkey. They were mostly a department store, but they had a food floor and so he thought they might have what Safeway lacked.

Woodward's was another two miles over on the other side of town, but Kenny and I were young and determined to impress the girls, so we gritted our teeth and set out.

Forty-five minutes later, we had a frozen twenty-pound turkey in hand. There were smaller birds in the store, but we were going to have four people at the table and we didn’t want to run out of food.

And we got a bonus; the manager at Woodward’s took pity on our sad story and dug around in the back until he found a dusty can of cranberry jelly on a shelf somewhere.

We had a five-mile hike back to the house and that turkey got heavier with every step. Heavier and colder. Back in those days, we got our groceries in brown paper bags—plastic shopping bags hadn’t come to northern Alberta yet—so, carrying this turkey meant holding it against my chest. I carried it until I feared frostbite—which took only a couple of blocks—and then traded with Kenny who carried it another couple of blocks, until he demanded that I take it back.

We traded the frozen bird back and forth so quickly that our chests didn’t have time to get fully warm before we had to hold it against ourselves again.

When it was my turn to carry the bird, I’d pack it in my right arm against the right side of my chest until my arm was about to give out, maybe fifty paces, then switch it to my left arm for another fifty paces, then hold it in the center for another fifty, and so forth.

Kenny did the same when it was his turn.

I’m serious about frostbite. It was a real danger that day in Alberta, despite the warm weather, which by the time we were nearing home, was fast fading toward sunset.

By the time we made it back, we were aching from head to toe, except for our chests which were numb, but it was worth it because we were going to have Christmas dinner in July and impress the heck out of two lovely, beer-guzzling girls.

It was a pity that we forgot to buy beer, and that the liquor store was closed by the time we got back, and that liquor stores weren’t open on Sundays in Alberta back then.

We were going to have a dry dinner, which boded poorly for our fiendish plot to have our evil way with the girls, but we carried on regardless.

It was an even greater pity that we didn’t own a recipe book between us. In fact, it never even occurred to me that I should have used a recipe, if for no other reason than to make a list of necessary ingredients.

Pressing that bird against our chests for five miles didn’t thaw it to any noticeable degree, but when we got it home, I put it in the refrigerator because I feared that it might go bad if I left it on the counter. It had cost us too much pain and suffering to risk losing it now.

The next morning, I woke at eleven, ready to get on with the cooking, eager to impress the ladies who would be coming over in four hours.

Kenny was already up and sitting in the kitchen, staring at the turkey. He poked it and pointed out that it was still frozen, solid as a rock.

I said that was no problem. It would thaw quick enough in the oven. It’s hot in there, right? That bird will thaw like an ice cube in Hell.

He asked what we were going to cook it in.

That was a stumper. We owned exactly one cast iron frying pan and one aluminum pot. The turkey was too big for either. Besides, we were going to need those to cook the potatoes and peas.

I opined that we could just put it on the rack in the oven. The rack was solid, and the turkey wouldn’t fall through the wires.

He thought that was a good idea but said maybe we should fold some aluminum foil underneath it to act like a pan.

He was a genius, Kenny was. We had a whole roll of aluminum foil, so he set to folding an origami roasting pan while I tried to figure out how to stuff the bird.

Like I said, I didn’t know about recipes back then. All I knew about stuffing was that it was made of bread, so I thought you could just put the bread inside the bird and it would turn into stuffing. You know, the juices inside the bird would soak into the bread as it was cooking and that was what would make it turn brown and taste like stuffing.

I remembered that the bread in Mom’s stuffing was cut into little cubes, so I cut a bunch of slices of bread into cubes. It took a bit of looking to find the hole in the back of the bird where I could put the stuffing, but it was there, right between the legs. It wasn’t very big, and the bird was frozen solid, so I couldn’t pull it open any further, but I could drop the bread cubes into it a couple pieces at a time, so that’s what I did. It took a while, but I was in no hurry. The girls wouldn’t be arriving for more than three hours.

When the bird was full of bread and Kenny had fashioned a nice-looking aluminum foil tray, we put the tray on the rack in the oven, put the bird on the tray, closed the door, and turned the oven on high. I didn’t fret about the exact temperature, the bird was frozen, so the higher the better. I could always turn it down after a bit when the bird was thawed.

That done, all that remained was to cook mashed potatoes and peas.

Mashing the potatoes was a chore. They were hard as rocks. I had to cut them into tiny pieces and then Kenny had to put all his weight on the masher to squash the pieces.

Too bad I never noticed that Mom boiled her potatoes before she mashed them. I know how it’s done now, but back then, I gave them to Kenny as raw bits and cheered him on as he struggled to mash them. I did wonder how Mom managed to mash hers so easily.

After a while, he got it done, and I piled the raw potato mash into the frying pan and put the heat to it.

Next, we shelled the peas. I bought fresh peas because I thought they’d taste better than canned peas. When I’d looked in the produce department at Safeway, I’d seen two kinds of fresh peas. I’d bought the snow pea kind because I thought that sounded more like Christmas food than garden peas, which sounded summery.

When we set to shelling them, I had my doubts about the wisdom of that logic. The peas inside the shells were just babies. Instead of being the size of regular peas, the snow peas were a quarter as big as they should have been and were more flat than round.

Once they were shelled, the whole bag of snow peas barely covered the bottom of the pot. Kenny and I agreed that it was a real rip off. We’d tell the Safeway manager what we thought about his peas the next time we were in there.

But we had to make do with what we had, because the stores weren’t open on Sundays back then, and we didn’t have time to walk three miles into town and back anyway. The girls would be arriving for their Christmas dinner in two hours.

I put water in the pot and set the peas to boiling.

All was well in hand. The turkey was stuffed and cooking in the oven, the mashed potatoes were frying in the pan, and the peas were boiling.

We had two hours to relax in front of the TV and dream about how impressed the girls were going to be.

I was so content, that I drifted off to sleep. Kenny, too. We had both been awake before noon, so we had to catch up on our zees.

The doorbell woke me up. The girls had arrived promptly at three o’clock.

It was hard to see the door, though, for all the smoke.

I shook Kenny awake and told him to answer the door while I checked on dinner.

The smoke was worse in the kitchen than in the living room.

The mashed potatoes were nought but a black crust lining the bottom of the frying pan, as were the peas in the pot, the water having boiled off an hour earlier.

The real problem was the oven. When I opened the door, I was greeted, not only with smoke, but with flames. The old saw that, “where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” was literally true in this case.

The inrush of air when I opened the oven door was followed by an outrush of flame that scorched the hair off my arms.

The turkey had dripped enough fat to overflow the ersatz tray that Kenny had folded out of aluminum foil. Like I said, Kenny never did anything right. The liquid fat flowed down to reach the flames in the gas burners under the oven and had flared high enough to ignite the turkey itself.

We had a charbroiled bird on our hands.

I was serenaded with a chorus of shrieks and screams.

Kenny had escorted the girls into the kitchen so that I could impress them with my culinary skills. They were impressed, all right, though not in the way I’d intended.

I slammed the oven door shut to confine the flames and then turned the gas off, both to the oven and underneath the pot and frying pan. I shouted at the girls that they were not to worry. The turkey was cooked and would be served as soon as I figured out how to extinguish it.

One of the girls screamed over the other’s shrieks that I should use baking soda.

I yelled back that the bird was already baking and didn’t need any soda.

She told me that I could extinguish a grease fire with baking soda.

I didn’t know what baking soda was, but I was certain that we had none.

Kenny jerked the oven open again, admitting oxygen to give new life to the fire, and then tried to beat it out with a dish towel. He succeeded only in fanning the flames and setting the dish towel on fire. He tossed the burning towel into the oven to join the burning turkey and slammed the door shut again. The safest place for anything that was aflame was inside the oven.

I saw the error of his ways. I grabbed another dish towel, the only other one that we had, and held it under running water until it was sopping wet. Then, when I opened the oven and smothered the flames, the towel didn’t burn. I did—my arms got a few small burns that took a week to heal—but the towel didn’t.

So, I was the hero that saved the day and kept the house from burning down.

It wasn’t fair that the girls laughed so long and so loud at my quick and fearless action. I thought women looked up to firefighters.

Once the flames were extinguished, I pulled the bird from the oven and set it on the counter to cool.

The girls wouldn’t stop laughing.

I have to admit that the bird was a bit of a sight, being black as a giant lump of coal on the outside, and on the inside, too. The bread stuffing, having soaked up grease like a sponge, had caught fire and burned away, charring the bird’s inside as thoroughly as its outside.

Later, I found, deep in there, the sooty remains of the gizzard, heart and neck. I hadn’t known to remove those before stuffing the bird.

Having come this far, though, I was not to be deterred. I warned the girls not to judge a book by its cover. I assured them that this was exactly the way my mother cooked her turkey every holiday. It was our secret family recipe. Underneath the grilled exterior, the meat would be roasted to juicy perfection.

The girls couldn’t stop laughing—they looked near to dropping to the floor and rolling around—but I grabbed the carving knife, determined to show them. The peas and mashed potatoes were history, as was the bread stuffing, and I had no idea how to make gravy, but come hell or high water, they were going to have turkey meat. That was the living heart of a Christmas dinner.

When I cut into the breast—or at least the part of the bird that I thought should be breast; it was little hard to tell which part was which—the charred skin flaked away, raising black puffs of soot, and then the knife jammed as though it had hit a rock.

Underneath the cinders, the meat was still frozen solid. There was at best an eighth of an inch of cooked meat in the thin boundary between the charred skin and the frozen flesh.

I was defeated at last. I had no more boasting, blustering, or bravado left. All hope was spent.

And the girls were still shrieking with laughter.

In between their chortles, they informed us that there was a diner on the south side of town that served turkey burgers. They would be kind enough to drive us there and treat us to one if we still wanted turkey for dinner.

Fast food turkey burgers was the final humiliation, but I bore it with as much dignity as I could muster. It helped that I was starving and there was not a morsel of real food in our house.

All was not lost, though. The girls had brought a bottle of wine with them, and after we’d eaten our fill of turkey burgers, we came back to the house and split it four ways. A quarter bottle of wine was hardly as effective as a quarter of a two-four of beer. We ended the evening almost as sober as we’d begun it. The girls were in no danger of getting busted for drunk driving when they left.

Kenny and I went out with those girls a couple more times after that, but they never got tired of telling turkey jokes, and I did get tired of hearing them, so for the remainder of the summer, we took up with other girls who were blessedly unaware of our turkey adventure.

I never did open the can of cranberry jelly. I threw it away when we moved back to Ontario at the end of August. It was probably too old to be any good, anyway.

The bottom line, Jason, is that as soon as I got to university, I bought a cookbook and learned to cook a perfect turkey, and after I married your grandmother, I insisted on cooking all of our holiday meals. And that’s why, now that you’re moving out on your own, I’m giving you a cookbook. Learn to cook, my boy. That’s the secret of domestic bliss.

Thom Whalen was born in British Columbia and grew up on Vancouver Island and in San Diego, California. He studied experimental psychology in San Diego, Vancouver, and Halifax. After completing his doctorate, he came to Ottawa and spent thirty years as a scientist with the federal government conducting research on how people use computer networks. He retired in 2009 to write fiction full time.