The first time I trespassed had been out of absolute necessity. When I miss the bus, I’d normally catch the one eighteen mins behind, but late a third time as Reduction-In-Force-Day approached was simply out of the question. So I swear it was out of absolute necessity that I slipped through the little wooden door in your garden wall, dashed across your lawn, and vaulted out the other side.
Having determined that this trick worked, I came to rely on it. From bed, deep in a daily duel against gravity and warmth, I had no conscious intention of going out to violate your privacy or indeed to break the law. But in back-room negotiations of my mind, a party with the slogans ’stay’ and ’doze’ won every debate with this trump card. So it became regular that I left later, went straight to press my ear against the garden door, and sprinted through. Every time was to be the last, of course.
Hasty to be out, I barely had time to appreciate your garden. But by glimpses, I came to love the trellised wisteria, korean pots, the sundial, the pear tree. Two months passed. I saw spring ripen to summer. And though I always took care to minimise the time spent invading your home, I soon found that my little dash had detoured across the pond bridge, under the rose arch.
I admit, I started setting my alarm earlier. And I admit, I once or twice pruned the rose arch as I nipped through. And yes, I switched the bench and sundial so the bench now catches the early light and looks toward the goldfinches on the telephone wire. But why do you think your artichokes are doing better than last year? Let me tell you. It’s not because of that clay-crap you plant them in. It’s because I spend every night crawling around in the dirt and de-weeding. Who do you think repainted the window frames to match the blue slate roof? Who do you think bought the lavender that now lines your patio? I was at B&Q collecting it on Reduction-In-Force-Day this July. So yes! - I was fired. And yes! weekdays I bring a book to the bench (I’d go as far as to call it my bench) as I did on the day your son saw me and screeched and wailed.
And there has to be more to this story. By the way, I live on a bus route, and my backyard has a bench and a rose trellis just begging for an intruder.
As a child I hated birds. They were small and tweety, quick to move, seemed all jumbled up to me; flighty, scared at my smallest motion.
I was an adult when I started visiting Horicon Marsh. Every autumn I drove hours from Chicago to Dodge County, WI. Slept in the car, ate peanut butter sandwiches and drank warm water. I found a water fowl that I loved. No, it is not an albatross. AND that's my name, a secret still. Yes I'm called XXXXX by people who know me from that time of my life.
The party was going to start in a few hours so Polly and Dorothy’s mother had sent them to light the lanterns in the flower garden. Their mother was enchanted by flowers, and their garden had captured this magic in the conception of her imagination. In their white night frocks and bare feet they giggled through the long grass, their feet skipping across the nighttime dew, allowing their hems to get heavier and dirtier. The absence of the sun could be felt but the thrill of a few more moments out of bed stopped the shivers. Whenever Polly went into the garden she felt as though there were hidden beings behind every corner, and if she was still enough they would start talking and singing together, as she was sure they did when she wasn’t looking. Polly took one of the long matches from the box and struck it fast, Dolly's hand automatically shielding it from the wind to avoid it going out. They weren’t allowed to play with fire. Unless, there was a party.
They knew what they were doing. This was their moment alone, away from the governess, away from their mother and father, a place where they could be alone outdoors only under watchful eyes from the windows and the beckoning stars. ‘I saw something earlier’ said Dolly. Polly looked up at her but Dolly was concentrating on not burning the paper of the taller lantern that she took charge of, because she was a few months older. ‘What was it?’ asked Polly.
‘I can’t tell you’, said Dolly. Polly looked up again. There wasn’t anything Dolly hadn’t told her before. ‘Careful! you are going to burn the side’ chided Dolly, as she noticed Polly’s match flame wandering away from observation. Polly looked down, she had made a little hole. She scolded herself in her head, she must concentrate. They finished the lanterns, and moved down to the next two. They were slightly further apart separated by lilies and a purple rose bushes. ‘You can’t tell anyone,’ said Dolly. ‘If I tell you,’ she quickly added. Polly didn’t look up this time, she kept her head down, concentrating on not letting the flame touch the sides. Her match had nearly burnt down, she would need another one. She hung the lantern back onto the hook and went over to Dolly’s lantern, just as the quick caught. ‘Can you help me light another match?’ asked Polly. Dolly came over to the other side of the rose bush and cupped her hand in preparation.
‘I saw Daddy kissing someone that wasn’t Mummy’ said Dolly.
It is a terrible thing, in fact a disaster, to forget a secret.
No, please, don't laugh. Don't say "Now you're stuck! You were the only one in the world who knew that secret, and now you've forgotten it! Ha Ha! Your secret has disappeared! Gone! You won't go around with that penetrated look, that superior air, that I-know-something-you-don't half-smile, that you used to annoy everyone with!"
If you want to try that line, you're shooting way off target. My secret wasn't just a silly little thing like how to make delicious strawberry mousse like no one has ever made. There'd still be other delicious strawberry mousses in the world. Or you could choose chocolate. That's good, chocolate mousse. Slick off the spoon, melting on your tongue... Mmmm.
What's that? Do I know how to make gooseberry mousse? Of course not. Just check it out on Internet. It's no secret.
(Cue in Elvis unctuously singing It Is No Secret.)
Turn that off!
(Silence.)
I was saying that my secret was a really big one. Important.
Like how to make an atom bomb?
(Turns, gives hard look.) How would I know that anyway?
You might. I don't know you all that well. You're a secretive kind of guy, really.
So would you be if you had my big secret.
So what is it?
(Cue in The Beatles singing "Listen Ooh wah Ooh Do you want to know a secret Ooh wah oowah ooh")
Oh god. Never heard Elvis sing that, but I have multiple off-key congregational renditions that I thought were safely erased from my brain. So—thanks for that. Nicely done, this.
It wasn’t until her last visit to my mother, when I drove my aunt back from the airport, that I was finally able to apologize. Forty years earlier, I had arrived in France to spend my senior year of high school in a Montpellier lycée, and a month or so into my stay, I unburdened myself of a secret that few 17-year olds shared with anyone in 1975, in the U.S. or in France or anywhere. I was gay. Not in any exploratory and unsure way, either. I’d been slipping into Manhattan gay bars during the entire previous year, a straight-A student during the week, and quite the barfly on the weekend. I’d obviously kept it a secret from my parents, but my aunt, I knew, would react differently. She was 11 years younger than my Mom, and culturally, that much hipper. Her reaction was as accepting as I’d hoped, and she was an invaluable confidante during the following months, until I was finally brave enough to come out to my mother when she visited that February.
But I didn’t know that in September, and what I was asking my aunt to do was keep this rather big secret from a sister who’d been more like a mother to her, as their actual mother had died of tuberculosis when my aunt was just eight. I don’t think Francoise had ever kept one secret from her big sister, ever, so what I asked of her was huge.
This apology took my aunt completely by surprise. Oddly, she didn’t remember keeping my secret as very stressful. She had 4 teenagers at the time, and a tenuous marriage, and my coming out to her was just one more thing squeezed onto a very full plate. With one Gallic shrug, she absolved me of my years of guilt.
A month later, though, she brought it up during one of our periodic phone calls. “You know, I thought a lot about our conversation, and it occurred to me that I left my marriage much sooner because you came out to me. I could see the weight of keeping that secret lifting from you immediately, and I began to realize that pretending my marriage was intact to my children was also telling a lie every day, and taking a great toll on me. So when I filed for divorce, a great weight lifted for me."
I was frustrated by my current workload not allowing me enough time for rewriting to manage to make it feel like a more coherent piece, (to my eyes). I wanted to convey more the notion of the fungibility of secrets. That once I released mine to her, she then had to keep it from my mother, and also from her husband) but that had a force of its own, because it was a catalyst for realizing that she was keeping other secrets -- from herself most of all, about the sustainability of her marriage.
(The written-completely-in-my-head novella about my year in France at 17-18 is called Furtive Mirage, centered around the tortured affair I had with a 29-year old man there. It WILL be written, I vow this.)
You've got a great start here. You're no longer looking at the blank page but now have something to work with. I'll be in line to buy Furtive Mirage when it comes out!
It will be a central component of the story of my year and 1/2 in France, to be sure. She was a fabulous person, as was my mother, as was their relationship.
The families had been at war for decades, some claimed a century. Every few years it flared up and a wife or a mother was bereft, children fatherless. They said it was just the way of it, could never change.
The Red Boss carried a real hatred, they'd killed his brother, long time since but the wound still raw. The Black Boss had lost a cousin, 'Those people don't deserve to live.'
Rosa saw it differently. Sure she was sad when she saw the photographs of her uncle, gone before he was twenty. But revenge wouldn't bring him back, better to honour him by valuing the hearts still beating.
Jet saw it differently too. Of all the people he knew Rosa was the one who deserved to live most.
He told Raven, 'There's not a mean bone in her body. She's an angel.'
Raven was dismissive, 'I know nothing about her bones but I know about her blood. Every drop of it Red and bad.'
Jet knew her from school, worshipped her from afar. Rosa read his poems in the magazine, each line brought him closer. She didn't have his gift but she allowed her pen to flow. And her truth carried a beauty they all recognised, none more than Jet who now saw beyond the gleaming locks, the glistening eyes, the golden smile, to the ethereal.
Of course they could never be seen together but in their verse–his clever sonnets, her tender haikus–their love grew, blossomed, the flowering both open, and secret.
The final message carried Jet's proposal, a scheme in rhythmic form. A scheme to flee and to flourish. Rosa's response – affirmitive, in 17 of the sweetest syllables.
The Red Boss cursed, the Black Boss was enraged but their children found sanctuary and the babies they made were cocooned in unalloyed kindest and never knew hatred. And when the Red and Black bosses were gone, their grandchildren and those that followed rejected war, found another way.
You told Marion that we went to walk in the Arboretum Park, but I said we should say Discovery Park. Remember? We’d agreed on that. Marion noticed something. It was raining yesterday, and she noticed my shoes weren’t muddy, and that I was dry as a bone. We should’ve thought of that. Her face— you should’ve seen her face. Matt, too, might’ve noticed how dry your shoes and clothes were. Anyway, remember we’d agreed to say the Arboretum? And I turn up with a different story? I don’t think we should do this anymore. Unless, I mean, unless we can really keep our stories straight. Text me on Signal from now on. I'm getting worried.
“I hate secrets.” His breath tickled my ear with the words. But his scent–sandalwood and vanilla–fogged my brain while his strong fingers stroked my neck and glided through my hair. I leaned closer to this blond god–and let my feelings bury his declaration. Past all rational thought, only this moment mattered. Later. I could think about that later. For now, this is what I wanted, what I had been missing–no–more than that: what I had been craving. God help me. Every time our eyes met across the room or every time I heard his voice. It was all still there, and I could sink into this sweet oblivion.
Ding!
I startled, reached for my bedside table blindly, and located my phone.
Huh?
Held the screen up to my eyes.
Ding!
It was Thomas, texting me.
Thomas: “Meet for breakfast?”
I blinked and shook my head. Couldn’t see to type, yet…
Me: “Fart Lime Slush.”--A fumbled result of several attempts.
Thomas: “WTF?
Me: (sitting up, still blinking) “Shit. What time is it?”
Thomas: “Look at your phone. 8 am”
Me: “Where?”
Thomas: “In your hand?”
Me: “No. Where are you?”
Thomas: “Brewed Awakenings.”
Me: “Give me 30 minutes.”
Showered and dressed, I entered the bistro 35 minutes later, and of course, he held up his wrist and tapped his watch, just like his dad always does. Yeah, yeah. I’m always late. Get over yourself. Stopped by his table before going up to give my order.
“Want anything?”
“Just you, Simon.” That cheeky grin pulling up one corner of his mouth.
I felt the flush climbing my neck and into my face. That dream.
Coffee and scone in hand, I sat across from him.
Sipped my coffee.
“I hate secrets.” The words dripped from his mouth.
Snatches of overheard, furtive phone conversations replayed in my head. Secrets Thomas was keeping. When had I called him a blond god?
“The FUCK you do, Thomas!” The words burst from my mouth, and I stood up.
Thomas blinked and drew back. We glared at one another across the table.
“What the hell, Simon?”
“Who are you extorting, Thomas?”
Thomas stood up his face red.
“Keep. Your. Voice. Down.”
“Please, Simon,” a voice from my left– “There are families..”
“Sorry, Tess.” I turned to her. “This is about to get ugly.”
A few years ago, Sarah had asked Michael to promise he would never be unfaithful again.
“There are no guarantees,” he said, after a brief pause. That is true, Sarah thought. Michael had lied to her for years. So, why be honest now?
Whenever she asked him whether he was having an affair with Caroline, he’d say, “You’re crazy.” Finally, Sarah decided to see a therapist. She had been seeing her ever since.
“Sarah, I need to tell you something. This is so difficult. I miss you. What I need to tell you is difficult. But I need to tell you…the truth is…Caroline had…an abortion. She went to California to get an abortion.”
Sarah was speechless. She put down the knife and slumped onto the bench in the kitchen nook. Tears poured in dark black streaks down her face. Caroline and her husband, Dave, are childless. “Oh…Michael…I don’t know what to say right now.”
Sarah had always wished Michael would open up to her, but not tonight. Not on Christmas Eve. And not over the telephone. Not after five years of painfully examining their marriage in therapy sessions and not after their marriage had evolved into difficult discussions of child support, schedules, and, yes, indiscretions.
“Let’s talk later,” she said. Sarah would never forget this Christmas Eve. She took the secret to bed with her that night and cried herself to sleep. She didn’t know what to do with it, but for some reason, the confession never came up again. No one would ever know about it except the three of them. No one. Not even her therapist.
I knew when we chose the plots that I could not go through with it, though I did not say anything. I smiled and I nodded and even touched her hand to reassure her, and she grasped mine in return and stroked my swollen knuckle with the shiny skin of her thumb, and then she squeezed my hand and smiled. We would be together even in death.
Leaving her to find my own way, leaving her alone in death; what greater betrayal could there be?
She would understand. I think she would forgive me even if she didn’t understand, that’s how she is. Was.
On my last visit I said sorry. It was cold and I had forgotten my gloves. There were notices either side of the gate, reading, ‘Kindly remove Christmas flowers no later than Jan 31st’. My knuckles were frozen and raw in the east wind and I buried my hands in my pockets, balled them up and I knelt down and rested my forehead on her stone. I whispered sorry to her, I told her people had been complaining about dead flowers here in the cemetery; these people could not accept the cracking bones of death in the brittle stems and browned leaves even here.
Would she understand? I shifted my glance left and right at the equally spaced graves. My woollen hat twisted against the stone of her. Could she forgive?
My knees grew stiff, and it took me some time to stand. My knees cracked like brittle dry stems, and I said goodbye to my wife.
I knew as I walked between the rows for the last time that I would not be buried there with her, amongst all those others, I would not be brought through the gate between the noticeboards, nor placed under a stone with words carved in it.
I spent the next couple of months, wandering the lanes, looking for my resting place. I found it just as spring had warmed the earth enough for the primroses to show. One evening I walked down a forgotten lane as bars of sun came through the trees and lit the mossy banks. A tree had fallen in the gales, it lay uprooted with its two trunks entwined and resting upon the back, and from underneath its roots the smell of earth came upon me. I ducked under the hanging roots and peered inside. The darkness went deep, the earth was soft. Bees flew lazily in and out of tiny holes made in the banks of earth opened up to the air by the fallen tree.
I have made this my resting place. I spend each night in there. The earth is soft enough to cover me, and I rest warm and alone, save the bees and, in the last nights, a fox who has come to trust me. I reach out and she sniffs at my hand with her black snout, then curls up by me in the earth.
In my grandmother’s country, she told me, Death was a woman. We in our world imagine a hooded portentous male figure with a scythe. But, for my grandmother, Death was a woman and going to her was like a return. I have abandoned my wife for another woman, the other woman, after death, and I tremble with the betrayal until the fox gently licks my swollen knuckle.
I am in the UK, but I can feel your pain about what is going on even from over the ocean. Let me reassure you that there are places of safety and warmth and sympathy and kindness... in fact, you have created one very special such space right here on What Now, which is really a very wonderful act of love and generosity of spirit all of its own.
I held my secret for close to two decades, though it weighed heavily upon me. I resisted every temptation to speak about it. I kept friends and lovers at arm’s length. The effort shaped, even twisted, my life, preventing me from pursuing what I loved and forcing me to do what I loathed.
And then, somehow, Willis cracked the secret and, not content with having solved a riddle – a thing I could have understood and even forgiven – he let me know that he considered it his duty, his sacred obligation, to expose it to the world.
Unless – unless – unless I paid him the amount he demanded. That, apparently, would alter the moral equation for him. A payment of an exorbitant sum would erase the sacred obligation, just like that. Can you believe that?
I did try to raise the money. The sum was more than I had at my disposal, more than my family had available (not being able to tell them why I needed it didn’t help), more than my bank was willing to lend. I devised a scheme to attract money from investors to open a chain of coffee shops and then siphon off enough to pay Willis, but, at the last moment, the lead investor saw that the numbers did not add up.
Perhaps it was just as well. It finally struck me that I would be no better off after paying him. He still had the secret, and he would continue to demand money as long as we both were alive.
So I had only one recourse. I told Willis I would meet him on the Riverwalk at midnight to hand over the money – unmarked bills in a briefcase, as he required. My case, however, contained not money but a hammer. I opened it to show him the bills, and his mouth made a red O of surprise. In a matter of seconds, Willis was in the river, followed by the hammer and the briefcase.
The young woman, dressed only in a long-sleeved flannel shirt and a short skirt at thirty-five degrees in the wee hours of a March morning whirled and threw a thumb defiantly into the air, shape-shifting before Derek’s tired eyes as he sped past her. I don’t pick up hitchhikers anymore, he told himself, though he’d spent a number of years living and nearly dying on the side of various highways. But she seemed somewhat harmless, and was hardly wearing anything at all, on a near-freezing night, and there were doubtless more than a few people driving around in the middle of the night who might harm her, and it wasn’t like he had anyplace he had to be just then, so he pulled to the shoulder.
Thanks, she said, pulling the door closed. Are you going to town?
Why not.
Can you drop me near the Safeway?
Of course. How did you end up out here in the middle of nowhere, anyway?
I couldn’t sleep.
Oh. You live here, on the…
Yep, here, on the rez.
She didn’t look Native American. Then again she didn’t look Caucasian or Asian or Black or Semitic but maybe a combination of all of those, with a bit of everything else thrown in for good measure. She wasn’t attractive, but neither was she unattractive. He wasn’t even sure she was fully human. Something animal around the eyes, ancient, feral, that brought to mind coyote, civet, tiger.
This is a cute car.
I don’t know about that. But it’s amazing on gas.
He wanted to talk to her, but couldn’t think of a goddam thing to say, so he turned the radio up, and drove as fast as he dared. She seemed to have fallen asleep. The Stones were on, singing, “If I could stick a knife in my heart and suicide right on the stage, would it satisfy your teenage lust, would you think the boy’s insane? I know, it’s only rock-n-roll, but I like it, like it, yes I do!” He wanted this mysterious passenger, he realized, but he also wanted to protect her from people like himself, thus his paralysis. Was she okay? Only an addict or a death-defying, thrill-chasing, heat-seeking nutcase would hitchhike on these backcountry roads past sundown.
That house, right there, please.
So she wasn’t asleep.
Don’t forget your flashlight.
Thanks. What’s your name?
Derek.
Elaine. See you ‘round.
He drove the rest of the way home at high speed, radio up all the way, ears ringing, brain recriminating. What’s wrong with you, you give her a ride, but you don’t have the guts to speak three words to her? Maybe she needed silence. Right. You’re just a creep. But don’t worry, you’ve never seen her before, and you never will again.
But he was wrong about that. A week later, to the day, there she was, same time, same place, sane pose, same outfit.
Hi, Elaine. Going to town?
Not tonight. Take me to my place?
Are you serious?
As a heart attack. She laughed. What are you waiting for, handsome?
Well…I like you. But I’m married, and I have a child.
I’m not stupid. But I don’t care if you don’t.
Derek took a deep breath, then let it noisily out.
Ok.
It had been so long. The sight and sound and feel of her body, sunlight in the storm. He hated himself but was happier than he’d been in years. Free. And his perception that she was not really human had been spot on. He felt tethered to the earth. He would have to somehow conceal the bite marks.
Would you be willing to come every Tuesday night? she said, as he was looking around for articles of clothing.
Is that an offer I can’t refuse?
I was hoping.
He drove the rest of the way home toying with the idea of just going off the road and landing in the water, going down with the ship. There was no way he could tell Rebecca, but how in hell could he keep this to himself? Maybe she wouldn’t care. A surge of affection for her consumed him like fire, affection for what had been, and might be again, so sudden he almost did go off the road. He wanted to drown himself in something, no doubt about that. One thing for sure, he wasn’t going to be able to exist in a coma anymore.
Simone and Simon were twins. As close as twins could be other than identical. Simone was the older by 3 minutes and 47 seconds. Simon was OK with that. At a strapping 6 foot 7 inches he towered over his sister by five inches. The two of them made an imposing couple. They had been close for their entire lives while living independently.
Recently Simone had been doing some weird stuff. Simon had no idea of what she was doing, but as a twin, and as twin as the two of them were, he sensed this in his core. He seemed to know as much about her moods as she did and she him. So when Simone reached out with a request to talk after work one day, Simon quickly agreed.
There is a saying that “a secret is only a secret if it’s kept between two.” Simone and Simon had lots of secrets, but somehow this one that Simone was about to tell Simon might be the greatest and most potentially critical of them all.
Simon met Simone at Coffee Roaster, their favorite coffee shop. Written across its single window, “The best espresso and biscuits in a quiet atmosphere,” it was the espresso and almost private silence the two most treasured. The twins, private by nature — their size and public exposure as wildly successful professional athletes only added to this character — enjoyed Coffee Roaster mostly for this sense of privacy.
Spotting his sister in the darkest corner of the place, Simon nodded to Ned, indicating his regular coffee request, and sat down, a quizzical look on his face.
“Look, you won’t believe this, but I’ve got something to tell you that when it gets out it is going to change everything we thought we knew about the pros. It’s going to change Basketball for both women and men, and it’s going to affect Baseball, Tennis, Soccer and NFL football as well. So just listen to this.” Simone’s face was almost white with anguish.
I never told anyone this secret: my name isn’t Morris. Everyone thinks my name is Morris Greene. Morris was my dad’s middle name, and he hated it! Anybody mentioned it, he’d send us to get the belt he liked to hit us with. Using the name makes me feel powerful, like I’m teasing a demon.
It’s sneaky, having a first name that sounds like a man. Interviewers, landlords, blind dates – when I show up their puzzled faces make me chuckle. My LinkedIn photo is ambiguous. It’s either a man having a bad hair day, or a woman whose mustache needs waxing.
But lying about my name doesn’t mean I’m a thief. I’ll be gone before you read this, and you can close the case on the Alleluja Church Summer Camp fund.
Here’s what happened.
I show up in this little town a few years back. It’s nice - a few blocks of businesses, one church, one bar, pastures all around. I apply for the job as church treasurer. With a name like Morris Greene, people think I’m Jewish – like we changed the name from Greenberg. My people were Irish from Limerick, I tell Pastor Mitchell (call me Bob, he insists). He tells everyone he’s hiring a nice Jewish girl to do the books.
Thursday nights there’s a poker game in the bar’s backroom; Bob invites me. Bob is not a good card player. I entertain them with limericks. There once was a card shark named Greene, who always was part of the scene. She played her cards right, and then one stormy night, it turned out she’d kidnapped the Queen. Bob laughs.
What? You think that limerick means I stole the money? I mean jeez, what do you think, all Jews are greedy money-grubbers? All Irish are desperate for a few bucks to get drunk and pick fights? Let’s be clear – I did not steal the money.
One Thursday Bob, who’d lost badly again the prior week, asks for funds to put a downpayment on the campground for the next summer. I do not believe him, but he is my boss. Bob kills it that night, beating me and everyone else. The next day Bob is gone.
There once was a card shark named Bob, who pulled off a very smart job. He acted the fool, then swept off with the pool, and left me to deal with the mob.
Timeloop story #9.—Heading back to Infinity Bookstore you edge around a large group of men and women who’re attracted to a woman speaking on the sidewalk, “…it was established both constitutionally by the courts and Congress that the executive branch cannot get rid of a department that Congress established…”. Harping on the same things repeatedly, interrupted by others rejoinders, “…watching my country being destroyed….” “What’s happening is despicable…” “If money is speech and we give the richest man in the world the biggest loudspeaker…” “It's explicitly illegal…” “…you’ve got that a major attack on the courts and on the rule of law, a major attack on the government itself….”
You duck into the bookstore but still hear their strident voices yelling, “You are living on stolen land….” “They can’t do that…” “…we got some issues here with the economy.” “He’s gone full-on crazy.”
Lest you give in to your worst fears, you get as far from the window as you can without disappearing beyond the horizon, yet you cannot outrun what you have envisioned for years but feared putting words to paper. Did you believe that were you to write or speak the words aloud the horror of such a vision would come true? Now you can no longer outrun the words you never dared write or say aloud. The hints of the future you foresaw live on in the recesses of your mind like a barely legible paragraph typed with a worn typewriter ribbon. You poke at a word with a long thin finger. The word comes alive. When you poke it again it runs off on its seraph-like feet. When you poke at it a third time, the insectvore word flips onto its back, legs wiggle in the air, rolls back and forth until it rights itself and runs off. But you cannot poke the future you had envisioned into oblivion. You knew this was coming but hadn’t expected the breakdown to happen so fast. You walked into the future you foresaw. Fire and storm ravaged towns and cities leave people unable to rebuild without government help. Forced to walk away from their uninhabitable homes, they migrate north and set up homeless camps. Militias close off access roads. You stop in the children’s section, at the edge of a long ago, more innocent time, just before the horizon falls away, idly flip through a book of nursery rhymes, and read:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had had a great fall
All the President’s horses and all the President’s men
As usual, my online friends are arguing. I can't tear my eyes away.
Lettuceleaf convinced her adult stepdaughter who works in a "fashion-adjacent" field (no idea what that is, I'm just quoting her) to lend her co-worker's sixteen-year-old niece a valuable dress. Guess what state the dress came back in? Seams stretched to the breaking point, beads missing; perhaps not beyond repair, but fixing it is beyond the skillset of your average neighborhood dry cleaner. People on the forum circled like angry hornets to tell her that everyone involved had done things they shouldn't, including Lettuceleaf herself. She already knew that! Nothing those hornets said helped her figure out how best to proceed while sustaining relationships that were important to her.
Meanwhile there's GreatWhiteShark.. She's 24. She flew with some colleagues to a meeting in another city -- another country even, as I recall -- and, after a night of carousing, got blackout drunk and slept with one of the senior executives. If they were in the country where I live, that would be a classic #metoo situation. Some of the advice you'd give someone in my country still applies to her. But slightly different customs and expectations seem to apply where she is, and nobody answering the question could glean enough about her social and professional environment to offer practical advice.
That's just a preamble. Here's what I haven't told anyone. I'm addicted to reading these little typhoons of nastiness because I always, ALWAYS have ideas for the person. Reasonable, face-saving things I think they could try. And if that first-line thing fails, there's almost always something else they might consider.
My secret ambition is to be an advice columnist. People should write to me instead of to their self-righteous forum pals. I know I'd be brilliant at it. I'd even share the gig with someone else, maybe much older or younger or from a completely different cultural tradition. It would be great if we disagreed sometimes, and you (the reader, or the advice-seeker) could consider both of our advice.
There should be a catch here: I should, in making this confession, reveal myself to be utterly unqualified for the role. Maybe I am? I don't think so, except insofar as it feels immodest to propose one's self as potentially good at this. Like being the pope. If you actually want the job, surely that disqualifies you from doing it?
The first time I trespassed had been out of absolute necessity. When I miss the bus, I’d normally catch the one eighteen mins behind, but late a third time as Reduction-In-Force-Day approached was simply out of the question. So I swear it was out of absolute necessity that I slipped through the little wooden door in your garden wall, dashed across your lawn, and vaulted out the other side.
Having determined that this trick worked, I came to rely on it. From bed, deep in a daily duel against gravity and warmth, I had no conscious intention of going out to violate your privacy or indeed to break the law. But in back-room negotiations of my mind, a party with the slogans ’stay’ and ’doze’ won every debate with this trump card. So it became regular that I left later, went straight to press my ear against the garden door, and sprinted through. Every time was to be the last, of course.
Hasty to be out, I barely had time to appreciate your garden. But by glimpses, I came to love the trellised wisteria, korean pots, the sundial, the pear tree. Two months passed. I saw spring ripen to summer. And though I always took care to minimise the time spent invading your home, I soon found that my little dash had detoured across the pond bridge, under the rose arch.
I admit, I started setting my alarm earlier. And I admit, I once or twice pruned the rose arch as I nipped through. And yes, I switched the bench and sundial so the bench now catches the early light and looks toward the goldfinches on the telephone wire. But why do you think your artichokes are doing better than last year? Let me tell you. It’s not because of that clay-crap you plant them in. It’s because I spend every night crawling around in the dirt and de-weeding. Who do you think repainted the window frames to match the blue slate roof? Who do you think bought the lavender that now lines your patio? I was at B&Q collecting it on Reduction-In-Force-Day this July. So yes! - I was fired. And yes! weekdays I bring a book to the bench (I’d go as far as to call it my bench) as I did on the day your son saw me and screeched and wailed.
This is wonderful! Just a joy to read.
Agreed! (And thank you for the link to the story in The Atlantic, which I also loved!)
And there has to be more to this story. By the way, I live on a bus route, and my backyard has a bench and a rose trellis just begging for an intruder.
A, you are welcome to weed and sit in my garden any time! Well, if I had one I would welcome you and your doggie.
Oh how I’d welcome you in our garden with a bucket of tools! Your story made me want to unlock our backyard gates and wait…
Ditto what Mary said. Sheer joy and wild beauty. I love this!
Lovely!
I enjoy this... the delicious acceptance of the story's presence and then running with it and running some more.
A secret-secret-secret
As a child I hated birds. They were small and tweety, quick to move, seemed all jumbled up to me; flighty, scared at my smallest motion.
I was an adult when I started visiting Horicon Marsh. Every autumn I drove hours from Chicago to Dodge County, WI. Slept in the car, ate peanut butter sandwiches and drank warm water. I found a water fowl that I loved. No, it is not an albatross. AND that's my name, a secret still. Yes I'm called XXXXX by people who know me from that time of my life.
So very mysterious--at least to me. But I love the idea of traveling from home to a place where everyone knows you by another name. Another home.
A wonderful turn in this one and still a closely held secret!
Wow love this bird one! And the surprise change of heart.
i've been there in October
a lovely place
i've been there too
a lovely place in October
The start of hating birds is such a strong emotional idea that already has the story in motion.
The party was going to start in a few hours so Polly and Dorothy’s mother had sent them to light the lanterns in the flower garden. Their mother was enchanted by flowers, and their garden had captured this magic in the conception of her imagination. In their white night frocks and bare feet they giggled through the long grass, their feet skipping across the nighttime dew, allowing their hems to get heavier and dirtier. The absence of the sun could be felt but the thrill of a few more moments out of bed stopped the shivers. Whenever Polly went into the garden she felt as though there were hidden beings behind every corner, and if she was still enough they would start talking and singing together, as she was sure they did when she wasn’t looking. Polly took one of the long matches from the box and struck it fast, Dolly's hand automatically shielding it from the wind to avoid it going out. They weren’t allowed to play with fire. Unless, there was a party.
They knew what they were doing. This was their moment alone, away from the governess, away from their mother and father, a place where they could be alone outdoors only under watchful eyes from the windows and the beckoning stars. ‘I saw something earlier’ said Dolly. Polly looked up at her but Dolly was concentrating on not burning the paper of the taller lantern that she took charge of, because she was a few months older. ‘What was it?’ asked Polly.
‘I can’t tell you’, said Dolly. Polly looked up again. There wasn’t anything Dolly hadn’t told her before. ‘Careful! you are going to burn the side’ chided Dolly, as she noticed Polly’s match flame wandering away from observation. Polly looked down, she had made a little hole. She scolded herself in her head, she must concentrate. They finished the lanterns, and moved down to the next two. They were slightly further apart separated by lilies and a purple rose bushes. ‘You can’t tell anyone,’ said Dolly. ‘If I tell you,’ she quickly added. Polly didn’t look up this time, she kept her head down, concentrating on not letting the flame touch the sides. Her match had nearly burnt down, she would need another one. She hung the lantern back onto the hook and went over to Dolly’s lantern, just as the quick caught. ‘Can you help me light another match?’ asked Polly. Dolly came over to the other side of the rose bush and cupped her hand in preparation.
‘I saw Daddy kissing someone that wasn’t Mummy’ said Dolly.
This is really wonderful writing. i hope you'll keep going with this story.
(Cue in Jimmy Boyd singing I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus)
The 'bare feet' was the detail that brought this to life for me.
Lovely.
Oooooo!!! Yeah. So good.
Whoa! Well done—! I want to know more. The lanterns and your description—I can see this scene.
It is a terrible thing, in fact a disaster, to forget a secret.
No, please, don't laugh. Don't say "Now you're stuck! You were the only one in the world who knew that secret, and now you've forgotten it! Ha Ha! Your secret has disappeared! Gone! You won't go around with that penetrated look, that superior air, that I-know-something-you-don't half-smile, that you used to annoy everyone with!"
If you want to try that line, you're shooting way off target. My secret wasn't just a silly little thing like how to make delicious strawberry mousse like no one has ever made. There'd still be other delicious strawberry mousses in the world. Or you could choose chocolate. That's good, chocolate mousse. Slick off the spoon, melting on your tongue... Mmmm.
What's that? Do I know how to make gooseberry mousse? Of course not. Just check it out on Internet. It's no secret.
(Cue in Elvis unctuously singing It Is No Secret.)
Turn that off!
(Silence.)
I was saying that my secret was a really big one. Important.
Like how to make an atom bomb?
(Turns, gives hard look.) How would I know that anyway?
You might. I don't know you all that well. You're a secretive kind of guy, really.
So would you be if you had my big secret.
So what is it?
(Cue in The Beatles singing "Listen Ooh wah Ooh Do you want to know a secret Ooh wah oowah ooh")
I've forgotten. I told you.
I think you've got it back again.
Even if I have, I'm not telling you.
Because it's a secret?
Yeah. Because it's a secret.
Ha! Also: That Beatles song will now go through my head all day....
Better than the one going through my head, now.
Oh god. Never heard Elvis sing that, but I have multiple off-key congregational renditions that I thought were safely erased from my brain. So—thanks for that. Nicely done, this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-XnqC-kcQ4
That voice!
Elvis sings it like he's got a spoonful of chocolate mousse in his larynx.
Sorry about the memories. I know what you mean.
It is a terrible thing to forget a secret.
Fantastic. The story is up and away all at once.
THERE ARE DIFFERENT WAYS TO COME OUT
It wasn’t until her last visit to my mother, when I drove my aunt back from the airport, that I was finally able to apologize. Forty years earlier, I had arrived in France to spend my senior year of high school in a Montpellier lycée, and a month or so into my stay, I unburdened myself of a secret that few 17-year olds shared with anyone in 1975, in the U.S. or in France or anywhere. I was gay. Not in any exploratory and unsure way, either. I’d been slipping into Manhattan gay bars during the entire previous year, a straight-A student during the week, and quite the barfly on the weekend. I’d obviously kept it a secret from my parents, but my aunt, I knew, would react differently. She was 11 years younger than my Mom, and culturally, that much hipper. Her reaction was as accepting as I’d hoped, and she was an invaluable confidante during the following months, until I was finally brave enough to come out to my mother when she visited that February.
But I didn’t know that in September, and what I was asking my aunt to do was keep this rather big secret from a sister who’d been more like a mother to her, as their actual mother had died of tuberculosis when my aunt was just eight. I don’t think Francoise had ever kept one secret from her big sister, ever, so what I asked of her was huge.
This apology took my aunt completely by surprise. Oddly, she didn’t remember keeping my secret as very stressful. She had 4 teenagers at the time, and a tenuous marriage, and my coming out to her was just one more thing squeezed onto a very full plate. With one Gallic shrug, she absolved me of my years of guilt.
A month later, though, she brought it up during one of our periodic phone calls. “You know, I thought a lot about our conversation, and it occurred to me that I left my marriage much sooner because you came out to me. I could see the weight of keeping that secret lifting from you immediately, and I began to realize that pretending my marriage was intact to my children was also telling a lie every day, and taking a great toll on me. So when I filed for divorce, a great weight lifted for me."
Oh, this is beautiful. Living one's truth is the ultimate goal.
I was frustrated by my current workload not allowing me enough time for rewriting to manage to make it feel like a more coherent piece, (to my eyes). I wanted to convey more the notion of the fungibility of secrets. That once I released mine to her, she then had to keep it from my mother, and also from her husband) but that had a force of its own, because it was a catalyst for realizing that she was keeping other secrets -- from herself most of all, about the sustainability of her marriage.
(The written-completely-in-my-head novella about my year in France at 17-18 is called Furtive Mirage, centered around the tortured affair I had with a 29-year old man there. It WILL be written, I vow this.)
You've got a great start here. You're no longer looking at the blank page but now have something to work with. I'll be in line to buy Furtive Mirage when it comes out!
The hip aunt is such a compelling dynamic... you'd want to read more because of how interesting this relationship between nephew and aunt can be.
It will be a central component of the story of my year and 1/2 in France, to be sure. She was a fabulous person, as was my mother, as was their relationship.
The Red and the Black
The families had been at war for decades, some claimed a century. Every few years it flared up and a wife or a mother was bereft, children fatherless. They said it was just the way of it, could never change.
The Red Boss carried a real hatred, they'd killed his brother, long time since but the wound still raw. The Black Boss had lost a cousin, 'Those people don't deserve to live.'
Rosa saw it differently. Sure she was sad when she saw the photographs of her uncle, gone before he was twenty. But revenge wouldn't bring him back, better to honour him by valuing the hearts still beating.
Jet saw it differently too. Of all the people he knew Rosa was the one who deserved to live most.
He told Raven, 'There's not a mean bone in her body. She's an angel.'
Raven was dismissive, 'I know nothing about her bones but I know about her blood. Every drop of it Red and bad.'
Jet knew her from school, worshipped her from afar. Rosa read his poems in the magazine, each line brought him closer. She didn't have his gift but she allowed her pen to flow. And her truth carried a beauty they all recognised, none more than Jet who now saw beyond the gleaming locks, the glistening eyes, the golden smile, to the ethereal.
Of course they could never be seen together but in their verse–his clever sonnets, her tender haikus–their love grew, blossomed, the flowering both open, and secret.
The final message carried Jet's proposal, a scheme in rhythmic form. A scheme to flee and to flourish. Rosa's response – affirmitive, in 17 of the sweetest syllables.
The Red Boss cursed, the Black Boss was enraged but their children found sanctuary and the babies they made were cocooned in unalloyed kindest and never knew hatred. And when the Red and Black bosses were gone, their grandchildren and those that followed rejected war, found another way.
oh, lovely story! A Romeo and Juliet with a happy ending.
Thanks, Mary :-)
I've always meant to read Stendahl... you have just given me the impetus I needed. Thanks. Very enjoyable
I loved reading this! So fun. So Romeo and Juliet and magical!
Great story, Terry! A Romeo and Juliet story with a happy ending!
Thanks, Angela
Thanks, Sea :-)
Prompt number 66 combined with number 65.
Lexy,
You told Marion that we went to walk in the Arboretum Park, but I said we should say Discovery Park. Remember? We’d agreed on that. Marion noticed something. It was raining yesterday, and she noticed my shoes weren’t muddy, and that I was dry as a bone. We should’ve thought of that. Her face— you should’ve seen her face. Matt, too, might’ve noticed how dry your shoes and clothes were. Anyway, remember we’d agreed to say the Arboretum? And I turn up with a different story? I don’t think we should do this anymore. Unless, I mean, unless we can really keep our stories straight. Text me on Signal from now on. I'm getting worried.
Hahaha! Oh, this is so good, and I love the combo-prompt!
Yay! I wrote it with someone rushing me out the door, so it was a blast.
I enjoyed the meta-frustration here... the frustration that the lie was not the correct lie. It's funny straight off the bat!
Thanks, Niall!
Oh the intrigue! So nicely done.
Thank you!
Girls, don't use Signal*. Believe me. You're better off without it.
* Not the toothpaste.
Teehee. Oy, that Signal story. We have to laugh or we’d run all the way to Canada.
Exactly. Or Greenland.
Yes! If they’ll have us.
Well, hey, I don't think they liked JD and his wife, so there's that.
We might be tainted
“I hate secrets.” His breath tickled my ear with the words. But his scent–sandalwood and vanilla–fogged my brain while his strong fingers stroked my neck and glided through my hair. I leaned closer to this blond god–and let my feelings bury his declaration. Past all rational thought, only this moment mattered. Later. I could think about that later. For now, this is what I wanted, what I had been missing–no–more than that: what I had been craving. God help me. Every time our eyes met across the room or every time I heard his voice. It was all still there, and I could sink into this sweet oblivion.
Ding!
I startled, reached for my bedside table blindly, and located my phone.
Huh?
Held the screen up to my eyes.
Ding!
It was Thomas, texting me.
Thomas: “Meet for breakfast?”
I blinked and shook my head. Couldn’t see to type, yet…
Me: “Fart Lime Slush.”--A fumbled result of several attempts.
Thomas: “WTF?
Me: (sitting up, still blinking) “Shit. What time is it?”
Thomas: “Look at your phone. 8 am”
Me: “Where?”
Thomas: “In your hand?”
Me: “No. Where are you?”
Thomas: “Brewed Awakenings.”
Me: “Give me 30 minutes.”
Showered and dressed, I entered the bistro 35 minutes later, and of course, he held up his wrist and tapped his watch, just like his dad always does. Yeah, yeah. I’m always late. Get over yourself. Stopped by his table before going up to give my order.
“Want anything?”
“Just you, Simon.” That cheeky grin pulling up one corner of his mouth.
I felt the flush climbing my neck and into my face. That dream.
Coffee and scone in hand, I sat across from him.
Sipped my coffee.
“I hate secrets.” The words dripped from his mouth.
Snatches of overheard, furtive phone conversations replayed in my head. Secrets Thomas was keeping. When had I called him a blond god?
“The FUCK you do, Thomas!” The words burst from my mouth, and I stood up.
Thomas blinked and drew back. We glared at one another across the table.
“What the hell, Simon?”
“Who are you extorting, Thomas?”
Thomas stood up his face red.
“Keep. Your. Voice. Down.”
“Please, Simon,” a voice from my left– “There are families..”
“Sorry, Tess.” I turned to her. “This is about to get ugly.”
I grabbed Thomas’s arm and steered him outside.
Yeah. Time to do this.
The plot thickens....!!!
Yeah. It’s getting dark for awhile.
Phones are frightening instruments. Best kept out of trouble in a goldfish bowl full of bleach and tea leaves.
Nice ambiguous ending, Angela!
Thank you.
A few years ago, Sarah had asked Michael to promise he would never be unfaithful again.
“There are no guarantees,” he said, after a brief pause. That is true, Sarah thought. Michael had lied to her for years. So, why be honest now?
Whenever she asked him whether he was having an affair with Caroline, he’d say, “You’re crazy.” Finally, Sarah decided to see a therapist. She had been seeing her ever since.
“Sarah, I need to tell you something. This is so difficult. I miss you. What I need to tell you is difficult. But I need to tell you…the truth is…Caroline had…an abortion. She went to California to get an abortion.”
Sarah was speechless. She put down the knife and slumped onto the bench in the kitchen nook. Tears poured in dark black streaks down her face. Caroline and her husband, Dave, are childless. “Oh…Michael…I don’t know what to say right now.”
Sarah had always wished Michael would open up to her, but not tonight. Not on Christmas Eve. And not over the telephone. Not after five years of painfully examining their marriage in therapy sessions and not after their marriage had evolved into difficult discussions of child support, schedules, and, yes, indiscretions.
“Let’s talk later,” she said. Sarah would never forget this Christmas Eve. She took the secret to bed with her that night and cried herself to sleep. She didn’t know what to do with it, but for some reason, the confession never came up again. No one would ever know about it except the three of them. No one. Not even her therapist.
Whoa. That's a lot packed into a tiny space. And what a tough secret for all involved...
Wow. A whole book here.
I knew when we chose the plots that I could not go through with it, though I did not say anything. I smiled and I nodded and even touched her hand to reassure her, and she grasped mine in return and stroked my swollen knuckle with the shiny skin of her thumb, and then she squeezed my hand and smiled. We would be together even in death.
Leaving her to find my own way, leaving her alone in death; what greater betrayal could there be?
She would understand. I think she would forgive me even if she didn’t understand, that’s how she is. Was.
On my last visit I said sorry. It was cold and I had forgotten my gloves. There were notices either side of the gate, reading, ‘Kindly remove Christmas flowers no later than Jan 31st’. My knuckles were frozen and raw in the east wind and I buried my hands in my pockets, balled them up and I knelt down and rested my forehead on her stone. I whispered sorry to her, I told her people had been complaining about dead flowers here in the cemetery; these people could not accept the cracking bones of death in the brittle stems and browned leaves even here.
Would she understand? I shifted my glance left and right at the equally spaced graves. My woollen hat twisted against the stone of her. Could she forgive?
My knees grew stiff, and it took me some time to stand. My knees cracked like brittle dry stems, and I said goodbye to my wife.
I knew as I walked between the rows for the last time that I would not be buried there with her, amongst all those others, I would not be brought through the gate between the noticeboards, nor placed under a stone with words carved in it.
I spent the next couple of months, wandering the lanes, looking for my resting place. I found it just as spring had warmed the earth enough for the primroses to show. One evening I walked down a forgotten lane as bars of sun came through the trees and lit the mossy banks. A tree had fallen in the gales, it lay uprooted with its two trunks entwined and resting upon the back, and from underneath its roots the smell of earth came upon me. I ducked under the hanging roots and peered inside. The darkness went deep, the earth was soft. Bees flew lazily in and out of tiny holes made in the banks of earth opened up to the air by the fallen tree.
I have made this my resting place. I spend each night in there. The earth is soft enough to cover me, and I rest warm and alone, save the bees and, in the last nights, a fox who has come to trust me. I reach out and she sniffs at my hand with her black snout, then curls up by me in the earth.
In my grandmother’s country, she told me, Death was a woman. We in our world imagine a hooded portentous male figure with a scythe. But, for my grandmother, Death was a woman and going to her was like a return. I have abandoned my wife for another woman, the other woman, after death, and I tremble with the betrayal until the fox gently licks my swollen knuckle.
This is beautiful writing.
Thanks... I was thinking about safe places.
I am in the UK, but I can feel your pain about what is going on even from over the ocean. Let me reassure you that there are places of safety and warmth and sympathy and kindness... in fact, you have created one very special such space right here on What Now, which is really a very wonderful act of love and generosity of spirit all of its own.
thank you so much, Niall. And thank you for seeing the pain beneath my words. Such tough times right now. xo
I held my secret for close to two decades, though it weighed heavily upon me. I resisted every temptation to speak about it. I kept friends and lovers at arm’s length. The effort shaped, even twisted, my life, preventing me from pursuing what I loved and forcing me to do what I loathed.
And then, somehow, Willis cracked the secret and, not content with having solved a riddle – a thing I could have understood and even forgiven – he let me know that he considered it his duty, his sacred obligation, to expose it to the world.
Unless – unless – unless I paid him the amount he demanded. That, apparently, would alter the moral equation for him. A payment of an exorbitant sum would erase the sacred obligation, just like that. Can you believe that?
I did try to raise the money. The sum was more than I had at my disposal, more than my family had available (not being able to tell them why I needed it didn’t help), more than my bank was willing to lend. I devised a scheme to attract money from investors to open a chain of coffee shops and then siphon off enough to pay Willis, but, at the last moment, the lead investor saw that the numbers did not add up.
Perhaps it was just as well. It finally struck me that I would be no better off after paying him. He still had the secret, and he would continue to demand money as long as we both were alive.
So I had only one recourse. I told Willis I would meet him on the Riverwalk at midnight to hand over the money – unmarked bills in a briefcase, as he required. My case, however, contained not money but a hammer. I opened it to show him the bills, and his mouth made a red O of surprise. In a matter of seconds, Willis was in the river, followed by the hammer and the briefcase.
Now I struggle under the weight of two secrets.
oh my god!!! What a brilliant little story!
One secret turns into two with such a well-delivered twist.
That was quite a thriller! And neatly closed.
The young woman, dressed only in a long-sleeved flannel shirt and a short skirt at thirty-five degrees in the wee hours of a March morning whirled and threw a thumb defiantly into the air, shape-shifting before Derek’s tired eyes as he sped past her. I don’t pick up hitchhikers anymore, he told himself, though he’d spent a number of years living and nearly dying on the side of various highways. But she seemed somewhat harmless, and was hardly wearing anything at all, on a near-freezing night, and there were doubtless more than a few people driving around in the middle of the night who might harm her, and it wasn’t like he had anyplace he had to be just then, so he pulled to the shoulder.
Thanks, she said, pulling the door closed. Are you going to town?
Why not.
Can you drop me near the Safeway?
Of course. How did you end up out here in the middle of nowhere, anyway?
I couldn’t sleep.
Oh. You live here, on the…
Yep, here, on the rez.
She didn’t look Native American. Then again she didn’t look Caucasian or Asian or Black or Semitic but maybe a combination of all of those, with a bit of everything else thrown in for good measure. She wasn’t attractive, but neither was she unattractive. He wasn’t even sure she was fully human. Something animal around the eyes, ancient, feral, that brought to mind coyote, civet, tiger.
This is a cute car.
I don’t know about that. But it’s amazing on gas.
He wanted to talk to her, but couldn’t think of a goddam thing to say, so he turned the radio up, and drove as fast as he dared. She seemed to have fallen asleep. The Stones were on, singing, “If I could stick a knife in my heart and suicide right on the stage, would it satisfy your teenage lust, would you think the boy’s insane? I know, it’s only rock-n-roll, but I like it, like it, yes I do!” He wanted this mysterious passenger, he realized, but he also wanted to protect her from people like himself, thus his paralysis. Was she okay? Only an addict or a death-defying, thrill-chasing, heat-seeking nutcase would hitchhike on these backcountry roads past sundown.
That house, right there, please.
So she wasn’t asleep.
Don’t forget your flashlight.
Thanks. What’s your name?
Derek.
Elaine. See you ‘round.
He drove the rest of the way home at high speed, radio up all the way, ears ringing, brain recriminating. What’s wrong with you, you give her a ride, but you don’t have the guts to speak three words to her? Maybe she needed silence. Right. You’re just a creep. But don’t worry, you’ve never seen her before, and you never will again.
But he was wrong about that. A week later, to the day, there she was, same time, same place, sane pose, same outfit.
Hi, Elaine. Going to town?
Not tonight. Take me to my place?
Are you serious?
As a heart attack. She laughed. What are you waiting for, handsome?
Well…I like you. But I’m married, and I have a child.
I’m not stupid. But I don’t care if you don’t.
Derek took a deep breath, then let it noisily out.
Ok.
It had been so long. The sight and sound and feel of her body, sunlight in the storm. He hated himself but was happier than he’d been in years. Free. And his perception that she was not really human had been spot on. He felt tethered to the earth. He would have to somehow conceal the bite marks.
Would you be willing to come every Tuesday night? she said, as he was looking around for articles of clothing.
Is that an offer I can’t refuse?
I was hoping.
He drove the rest of the way home toying with the idea of just going off the road and landing in the water, going down with the ship. There was no way he could tell Rebecca, but how in hell could he keep this to himself? Maybe she wouldn’t care. A surge of affection for her consumed him like fire, affection for what had been, and might be again, so sudden he almost did go off the road. He wanted to drown himself in something, no doubt about that. One thing for sure, he wasn’t going to be able to exist in a coma anymore.
I hope he doesn't tell Rebecca. Love that last line.
💗
sunlight in the storm
Such a strong image!
Simone and Simon were twins. As close as twins could be other than identical. Simone was the older by 3 minutes and 47 seconds. Simon was OK with that. At a strapping 6 foot 7 inches he towered over his sister by five inches. The two of them made an imposing couple. They had been close for their entire lives while living independently.
Recently Simone had been doing some weird stuff. Simon had no idea of what she was doing, but as a twin, and as twin as the two of them were, he sensed this in his core. He seemed to know as much about her moods as she did and she him. So when Simone reached out with a request to talk after work one day, Simon quickly agreed.
There is a saying that “a secret is only a secret if it’s kept between two.” Simone and Simon had lots of secrets, but somehow this one that Simone was about to tell Simon might be the greatest and most potentially critical of them all.
Simon met Simone at Coffee Roaster, their favorite coffee shop. Written across its single window, “The best espresso and biscuits in a quiet atmosphere,” it was the espresso and almost private silence the two most treasured. The twins, private by nature — their size and public exposure as wildly successful professional athletes only added to this character — enjoyed Coffee Roaster mostly for this sense of privacy.
Spotting his sister in the darkest corner of the place, Simon nodded to Ned, indicating his regular coffee request, and sat down, a quizzical look on his face.
“Look, you won’t believe this, but I’ve got something to tell you that when it gets out it is going to change everything we thought we knew about the pros. It’s going to change Basketball for both women and men, and it’s going to affect Baseball, Tennis, Soccer and NFL football as well. So just listen to this.” Simone’s face was almost white with anguish.
Simon leaned in as his sister spoke into his ear.
What in the world could this secret be??? You've got me on edge with this one.
I found myself leaning in too.
I'd read this novel without a doubt. Keep going, please!
I never told anyone this secret: my name isn’t Morris. Everyone thinks my name is Morris Greene. Morris was my dad’s middle name, and he hated it! Anybody mentioned it, he’d send us to get the belt he liked to hit us with. Using the name makes me feel powerful, like I’m teasing a demon.
It’s sneaky, having a first name that sounds like a man. Interviewers, landlords, blind dates – when I show up their puzzled faces make me chuckle. My LinkedIn photo is ambiguous. It’s either a man having a bad hair day, or a woman whose mustache needs waxing.
But lying about my name doesn’t mean I’m a thief. I’ll be gone before you read this, and you can close the case on the Alleluja Church Summer Camp fund.
Here’s what happened.
I show up in this little town a few years back. It’s nice - a few blocks of businesses, one church, one bar, pastures all around. I apply for the job as church treasurer. With a name like Morris Greene, people think I’m Jewish – like we changed the name from Greenberg. My people were Irish from Limerick, I tell Pastor Mitchell (call me Bob, he insists). He tells everyone he’s hiring a nice Jewish girl to do the books.
Thursday nights there’s a poker game in the bar’s backroom; Bob invites me. Bob is not a good card player. I entertain them with limericks. There once was a card shark named Greene, who always was part of the scene. She played her cards right, and then one stormy night, it turned out she’d kidnapped the Queen. Bob laughs.
What? You think that limerick means I stole the money? I mean jeez, what do you think, all Jews are greedy money-grubbers? All Irish are desperate for a few bucks to get drunk and pick fights? Let’s be clear – I did not steal the money.
One Thursday Bob, who’d lost badly again the prior week, asks for funds to put a downpayment on the campground for the next summer. I do not believe him, but he is my boss. Bob kills it that night, beating me and everyone else. The next day Bob is gone.
There once was a card shark named Bob, who pulled off a very smart job. He acted the fool, then swept off with the pool, and left me to deal with the mob.
This is just great!
Thank you, Mary!
Timeloop story #9.—Heading back to Infinity Bookstore you edge around a large group of men and women who’re attracted to a woman speaking on the sidewalk, “…it was established both constitutionally by the courts and Congress that the executive branch cannot get rid of a department that Congress established…”. Harping on the same things repeatedly, interrupted by others rejoinders, “…watching my country being destroyed….” “What’s happening is despicable…” “If money is speech and we give the richest man in the world the biggest loudspeaker…” “It's explicitly illegal…” “…you’ve got that a major attack on the courts and on the rule of law, a major attack on the government itself….”
You duck into the bookstore but still hear their strident voices yelling, “You are living on stolen land….” “They can’t do that…” “…we got some issues here with the economy.” “He’s gone full-on crazy.”
Lest you give in to your worst fears, you get as far from the window as you can without disappearing beyond the horizon, yet you cannot outrun what you have envisioned for years but feared putting words to paper. Did you believe that were you to write or speak the words aloud the horror of such a vision would come true? Now you can no longer outrun the words you never dared write or say aloud. The hints of the future you foresaw live on in the recesses of your mind like a barely legible paragraph typed with a worn typewriter ribbon. You poke at a word with a long thin finger. The word comes alive. When you poke it again it runs off on its seraph-like feet. When you poke at it a third time, the insectvore word flips onto its back, legs wiggle in the air, rolls back and forth until it rights itself and runs off. But you cannot poke the future you had envisioned into oblivion. You knew this was coming but hadn’t expected the breakdown to happen so fast. You walked into the future you foresaw. Fire and storm ravaged towns and cities leave people unable to rebuild without government help. Forced to walk away from their uninhabitable homes, they migrate north and set up homeless camps. Militias close off access roads. You stop in the children’s section, at the edge of a long ago, more innocent time, just before the horizon falls away, idly flip through a book of nursery rhymes, and read:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had had a great fall
All the President’s horses and all the President’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again.
Just waiting for that fall to happen....
me too LOL
As usual, my online friends are arguing. I can't tear my eyes away.
Lettuceleaf convinced her adult stepdaughter who works in a "fashion-adjacent" field (no idea what that is, I'm just quoting her) to lend her co-worker's sixteen-year-old niece a valuable dress. Guess what state the dress came back in? Seams stretched to the breaking point, beads missing; perhaps not beyond repair, but fixing it is beyond the skillset of your average neighborhood dry cleaner. People on the forum circled like angry hornets to tell her that everyone involved had done things they shouldn't, including Lettuceleaf herself. She already knew that! Nothing those hornets said helped her figure out how best to proceed while sustaining relationships that were important to her.
Meanwhile there's GreatWhiteShark.. She's 24. She flew with some colleagues to a meeting in another city -- another country even, as I recall -- and, after a night of carousing, got blackout drunk and slept with one of the senior executives. If they were in the country where I live, that would be a classic #metoo situation. Some of the advice you'd give someone in my country still applies to her. But slightly different customs and expectations seem to apply where she is, and nobody answering the question could glean enough about her social and professional environment to offer practical advice.
That's just a preamble. Here's what I haven't told anyone. I'm addicted to reading these little typhoons of nastiness because I always, ALWAYS have ideas for the person. Reasonable, face-saving things I think they could try. And if that first-line thing fails, there's almost always something else they might consider.
My secret ambition is to be an advice columnist. People should write to me instead of to their self-righteous forum pals. I know I'd be brilliant at it. I'd even share the gig with someone else, maybe much older or younger or from a completely different cultural tradition. It would be great if we disagreed sometimes, and you (the reader, or the advice-seeker) could consider both of our advice.
There should be a catch here: I should, in making this confession, reveal myself to be utterly unqualified for the role. Maybe I am? I don't think so, except insofar as it feels immodest to propose one's self as potentially good at this. Like being the pope. If you actually want the job, surely that disqualifies you from doing it?