Fast and furious, consumed by a fire intentionally set to burn out of control. For three weeks we ate, slept, and breathed each other, we couldn’t get enough. Leading us here, all hopped up on adrenaline and desire in a log cabin on the edge of nowhere.
It started with no expectations, just a chance meeting in that little coffee shop on West 92nd. She caught me staring at her as she flipped her head nonchalantly in my direction. Like a deer caught in the headlights, all I could do was shoot her a smile. It must have been something special because it pierced her heart with an accuracy that would have impressed Cupid. Before we could even process the tidal wave that engulfed us both, we were tangled in each other’s arms, like bramble left to grow wild.
It wasn’t just sex either, it was more. Visceral and at the same time intellectual. Intensely passionate yet soft and meandering. Physical yet vibrating on a higher plane.
But as fires burn they mellow. Without more fuel they fade and eventually the last embers blink out. I could have handled that, even anticipated sifting through the ashes but who could have foreseen its abrupt end? The ring of her phone sucking all traces of oxygen from the room. The flames extinguished in a suffocating instant.
I’m left to watch through the window as she sits like a ghost on the edge of the dock. I don’t know who called or what was spoken but as I watch her in the breeze, I can feel the moment slipping away. Dissolving into the landscape one grain at a time. By sunrise, she will be gone…
It had been weeks (or so it seemed) since his holiness led our congregation on a hike into the wilderness. An expedition to seek our salvation. Mostly it was a mix of exhaustion, meditation, hallucinogenic tea, and the promise of something better. The promise seemed emptier with every step along this journey.
“Stop with this doubt, you’ve come such a along way.” I screamed to myself in a whisper, the palm of my hand smacking against my forehead.
It was difficult to hold a train of thought with my gut screaming at me like a muthafu… We’d been subsisting on the tea and some lukewarm liquid prepared by the congregation’s women weeks ago. It couldn’t have been real food because it didn’t seem to spoil. I was told it was designed to ensure we were pure in mind and body for the coming cleanse.
I joined a hunting party a couple of nights ago after Carl had retired. We’d fashioned makeshift bows and arrows and set out to catch anything we could find. A couple of rabbits made the untimate sacrifice, but the skinny rodents could only coughed up scraps. We built a small fire to cook our kill, but some were so hungry they picked the meat raw from the bone.
As the sun rose across the mountains and crept into our camp, His holiness Carl emerged from his tent. He was a slight man, unassuming in almost every way. His gifts were not physical but he could hold conversation, draw you into whatever narrative he was preaching. If just one of us had opened our eyes for even a moment it would have become evident that while we starved Carl thrived. I sure his concubines were in the know but the rest of us were too blind to see.
Morning always started with pray and a sermon from Carl but today was different. The usual routines were replaced with a sense of forboding. Today was the day we would ascend into the heavens. Everything we had brought with us, everything we’d made was gathered into the center of camp. A colossal column of smoke rising into the morning air casting a dark shadow over the clearing, blotting out the morning sun. Some now realizing this was a one way trip.
The hike seems lighter and somehow heavier today as we moved through the trees. “Are you coming or not?” Carl demanded as he took a few steps further onto the small ledge. He raised his arms and began to chant something in tongues. The line behind him had stopped moving, gripped with a new fear. Many believing flying was only a metaphor.
“It is our time to soar on the wings of God. Who will offer themselves up first.” he said as the the ringing of gunfire at the back ripped through the thin mountain air.
The echo jolting me back to reality as I tried to run from the trail. At the front, the crush pushing the congregation over the edge. Some, true believer spreading their wings as they fell over the precipice, other pushing agaisnt the tide to get back from the cusp. Fifteen, maybe 20 paces from the trail searing pain rip through my abdomen. Falling next to my wife and onto my two young children. Imploring them to remain calm and quiet. The life draining from my eyes praying, like it was the first time, that the plume of smoke had drawn someones attention.
When Ida discovered that she could hear the voices of the dead speaking to her when she tuned into a certain radio station, she decided to change the station.
Well maybe not right away but as she sat in the courtroom listening to the Crown Attorney describe the trail of death and destruction she’d left in her wake it became evident.
“Forty-one injured and 17 dead in all Your Honour. Several were shot where they stood, and others were stabbed waiting for the bus or standing in line at the gas bar convenience. Three more were taken when the accused set that same gas bar alight. All blown to bits in the ensuing explosion including one poor soul whose legs were found sheared off just below the knees, still standing in front of the toilet where he’d been peacefully relieving himself.”
Was this ever going to end she thought but the anger in his voice kept rising as he continued, “Still more, run down in the street by the rust-coloured pickup truck she’d stolen from her ex, a.k.a. victim one. Mostly unaware of their fate as they went about their daily business and she’d have us all believe it was voices…” he paused momentarily before speaking again with greater emphasis. “VOICES OF THE DEAD – that made her do it.”
“Do you have anything to say to this court Ida?” the Judge asked.
Her own barrister counselled her to remain silent but how could she not say something. The families needed an explanation, closure.
“Well, your honour, maybe –” a quiver present in her voice. “Maybe I should have changed the station sooner.”
Spring, summer, winter, fall, rainy or dry, the seasons are born of a celestial love story.
Theia, travelling cold and alone through Sol’s domain. Oblivious to a fate inexorably tied to the maiden planet set within its path. Drawn towards the fiery sphere’s beauty, racing towards the edge of her influence not realizing he had moved beyond the point of no return. Her gravity pulling him deeper into her well, towards a climax that will devour him and knock her off kilter.
The impact tilted her axis and gave rise to Earth’s seasons. The debris from their joining spilled into the night sky. The seeds of a new life filled the space around her. Coalescing over millennia to birth a child from nothing more than a chance meeting. Their child, forever in lockstep with its mother, gentling shaping and reshaping her shorelines as it circles her.
Theia may no longer roam through Sol’s domain but his legacy lives on in the night sky. Its DNA is embedded in the Earth and the Moon, marking the months as Earth continues her journey around the Sun.
It had been a long night. The club manager demanded she stay, a plaything for some VIP clients who were looking for more than drinks and dances. Saying “No” was never an option, at least she’d earn some extra cash but it meant her boy would be alone. The sitter couldn’t stay any later, she had to get to her own job in the morning. Hopefully, he’d sleep in and not notice she was missing.
Tired, sore and feeling dirty and used she pushed on the small door that swung inwards revealing the tenement flat she called home. Exhausted, she stepped inside and as she approached him, fear flashed in his eyes. He dropped the gun on the sofa and told her he didn’t do it.
Strewn across the milk crate coffee table and old worn couch she’d salvaged from the dumpster out back lay her old photo albums. The pages were torn and set adrift in a sea of unwashed dishes, an overflowing ashtray, and other shit. Every picture had been removed and hot-glued to the furniture and walls of their one-room prison. Surreal, the scene played like a 3D movie around her. Their tiny life illuminated in the orange and yellow glow of sunrise streaming in bands through the bars of the apartments only window.
“I know,” she said. How could she be angry with him, it wasn’t his fault. Her knees buckled as a wave of guilt and shame crashed into her, taking her breath and making it difficult to draw another. She wrapped her arms around her seven-year-old miracle and began to sob.
He squeezed back and said, “It’s going to be okay Mommy. Please don’t cry.”
Thomas sat at the table with his head in his hands, years of hard work and dedication hung in the balance.
He was still the highest-grossing salesperson in the organization, his stature legendary after 35 years of service.
They called him Easter Sunday because no one could resurrect a lost deal like he could, bringing opportunity back from the dead as if it were Jesus on the third day.
Sure, he’d been handsomely compensated for his efforts, but he’d made more money for this Corporation than anyone could count; single-handedly lifting it from its Mom and Pop beginnings to a giant of the industry.
Defunct of any reason the Director of Human Resources stared at him with shame and disgust, they no longer saw him as a giant but an out-of-touch dinosaur.
He tried to explain that it was a simple misunderstanding, the word gay had once meant happy, but it was too late, the damage was done; guilty in the court of public opinion he watched as his life swirled about the room before being flushed down the elevator and out the back door – left holding nothing but a single box of his belonging.
Mary Two Rivers stood quietly in the place along the edge of the reservation she’d come to so often, the band Chief agreeing to one last visit even as the heavy machinery roared around her.
The pain had not softened in the years since her Emily, the dark-haired girl with a spirit set alight by a spark from the Creator’s fire, had been taken.
The worn and weathered doll she’d been gifted by the widow from the secondhand shop in town, herself long since dead, marked the last known location of the girl who’d vanished some 21 years earlier.
In a few short hours, the landmarks that provided Mary with the last links to her baby’s existence would be erased in the name of progress; another girl added to the list of the forgotten.
There is an epidemic across North America that has seen tens of thousands of Aboriginal women and girls murdered or go missing. In Canada that number is about 1200 since 1980 however it is believed to be much higher as many cases are never reported or reported incorrectly. Information on Canada’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls can be found at MMIWG.
“Looks like we are in the syrup this time, Alveolus.”
“Yep, it’s a real sticky situation,” Al replied.
“Stop buttering me on both sides,” Dimples shot back, “…and think us a way out of this gooey mess.”
But Alveolus couldn’t move. His edges had melted into the sugary maple and were stuck to the plate like glue. There was no escape this time. He and Dimples had managed to go undetected at the bottom of the icebox for so long that they had almost forgotten the monster existed.
The notorious monster known as Nathaniel the Devourer had returned. It had been chomping down grid-iron goodness in pairs with some regularity. In fact, the six companions they’d been travelling with, including Dimples sisters, Nooks and Cranny, had all met the same gruesome end at the paws of the beast. Alveolus and Dimples were the only survivors.
Nathaniel had grown tired of devouring the same prey for breakfast, day in and day out. It had turned to scrambling eggs, drowning cereal flakes, or attacking stacks of pancakes. Still, Dimples felt that twinge every time the freezer door popped open. Al could almost feel her discomfort when the hand of Mom began rummaging down through the icebox’s contents. Although he’d never let Dimples see, the truth is it made him feel a little bit uneasy too.
All they could do was hope freezer burn would spoil them enough that they’d be set free. Sent on a journey to municipal waste heaven before the monsters return. They both lived with the understanding and fear that the day could come when Nathaniel’s fancy turned to dreams of syrup-filled pockets again.
Alveolus and Dimples promised to stay strong for each other, but as they waited on the plate it was difficult not to waffle. The pair wore smiles as they melted into one final embrace. Alveolus kissed Dimples and whispered “I love you” one last time before the monster was on them.
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