When Every Day is Saturday

I retired at age sixty-two. I’m very fortunate to have achieved that goal a bit early, if at all. My parents never did.

Following a few recent conversations with younger, former coworkers, not much has changed, except, well, everything. On my side of life’s career equation I’m grateful for having made it to retirement before “Me Too” and the pandemic, except for the getting old part. Many people never get to enjoy “the golden years.” My folks paid off their mortgage and unceremoniously passed away while still in their fifties. As I like to point out, golden can sometimes be the color of urine or rust.

Not only did I retire into the path of the largest hurricane ever to come out of the Atlantic (Irma) and into the waiting arms of the most life-altering virus since the Russian Revolution, but I moved over thirteen hundred miles from the place I called home for over sixty years. That necessitated recruiting all new doctors, generally from online searches, in a place where the clientele needs golf carts to make the journey from parking lot to waiting room.

It’s no wonder so many medical office receptionists turn into unsmiling automatons in Florida. They face a slow, steady stream of achy, complaining patients from sun-up to sundowners. It’s a particularly cranky time of life in God’s Waiting Room. And although I managed to survive this gauntlet on my latest checkup, it offered my whippersnapper of an Osteopath, who thinks he’s a real doctor, a chance to comment that my lipid profile looks amazing but, “It would be irresponsible of me if I didn’t mention that…” Pause for effect. “…there are no FAT ninety-year-olds.”

I thought back to the waiting room. He’s right. Jerk.

But I digress, another symptom of life in which every day of the week is Saturday. Honestly, we just say that because it sounds like fun. Every day of the week is actually Tuesday, I think. And therein lies the singular value I can assign to having worked for almost forty years. The days had structure, and each sucked to varying degrees depending on its proximity to Friday.

I was dreaming about work again last night, much like the journeys I have taken for decades through the halls of my high school and college. In those dreamscapes I was generally naked and staring at a combination lock I couldn’t open, or arriving on the last day of the semester without a clue as to why I haven’t gone to class until the day of the final exam, which I am late for, in a room that’s written on a class schedule I can’t find. The question is, do I miss these places, or am I working through long held fears of failure and of being exposed as a complete fraud?

Flavor my new recurrent middle-of-the-night thrill ride a bit differently, and with a happier outcome. I am somewhere near my desk. I liked my desk. I kept a bowl of candy there. People visited, even ones who didn’t particularly care for me. Ah, the power of chocolate.

The dreams have evolved, coinciding with a news story about returning to work after the pandemic and how different it may be. Employers might insist upon sharing desks in open spaces that maintain distance and create a flexible timeshare sort of arrangement between workers who used to value their privacy. News flash: they still do! Workers will hate this setup if forced to return after months of Zooming with no pants, endless supplies of coffee made exactly the way they choose, and no one messing with the supplies or leaving things for the next guy to wash.

So, my real office was a fairly safe space, and I’m almost enjoying it in my dream when I realize I’ve been coerced into working on a large, multifaceted project with a deadline that’s utterly ridiculous and with almost no budget. Yeah, the kind of “opportunity” clients would predictably bring me on Friday after pushing it around their desk for perhaps three weeks.

These work dreams are becoming more layered, nuanced and real. In the most recent episode I approach my old office early in the morning. Someone is at my desk. In fact, a bold nameplate indicates that it is definitely no longer mine. A nicely dressed woman has been given my management job. Well, it’s about time! I’m impressed by her youth and intimidated by her sidelong glance. I back away, apologizing for the interruption.

Work is now structured like college, complete with long hallways, separate buildings, elevators that go all the wrong places and sneering, unfamiliar faces that scan my uncombed hair and outrageous attire. Oh my goodness, work and college nightmares are coalescing!

My attire! I’m wearing bright red-striped short-shorts, unusually white gym shoes and a tank top. I’m looking far too much like a Richard Simmons exercise video to be at work. I press the elevator call button and realize that I don’t know where my next hour of work or my next desk is located. I return to my first wrong desk and collect a small cardboard box of my colorful personal effects. By the way, if you dream in black and white, you were not human in your previous life.

My car keys are missing!

Back on the elevator, I exit, somehow in the corridor of a hospital, an intensive care unit where beeping and swooshing is background for hushed conversations. I look out the window at a brightly lit, snow-covered parking lot. I need to go home and get my clothes. Still no keys.

At this point stress is elevating my heart rate, the speed at which I take shallow breaths, and I realize that not only do I not know which building I should be in, I can’t remember what floor I’ve exited. I try to calm myself, duck into the nearest bathroom to wipe the sweat from my forehead and am immediately confronted with a tiled sub-nightmare, as if passing from one level of a role-playing video game to the next, having chosen to apply the wrong token.

It is a filthy apocalypse of dark, putrid fluids and unclean sinks. I can’t get out of there fast enough. I look down at my box of effects once more and consider the possibility that I am having another work nightmare, the off-ramp to lucid dreaming.

I shake myself; I shake the box. My keys jingle and rise to the surface of my collected things. Thank goodness, because this is no dream. It is real. But of course, it is not. I head to my car. Where did I leave my car?

But here’s the cool part. In my most recent dreams, the horror of the experience jolts me into a state of semi-lucidity. Not really a dream within a dream, but an awareness that I’m not unlike Howard Beale and “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.” And since I realize in the dream that I retired years earlier, I loudly and gleefully exclaim, “You know, I’m retired. I don’t have to be here!” 

And then I wake up, relieved, breathing hard. Perhaps my CPAP came loose on my face. Or maybe the power went out briefly. I’m gasping for air, heart racing and happy to be awake.

It was a dream after all. I never have to go to work again, until tomorrow night. For now, I’m ready for another Saturday, or Tuesday. It doesn’t matter.

😎

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The Delta Tau Delta Murder - A Chastity Delarue Story

Street lights flickered on outside the office building at the corner of Market and Main streets in Vermillion. The incandescent yellow glow of a second-floor office window reflected off the snow on the main drag in town like an after-hours beacon. Its sole occupant celebrated the end of another day with a drink and a cigar.

 

Chastity Delarue looked at the darkening sky outside her window, tilting as far back as she dared against the squeaking springs of her ancient leather office chair. The pace of recent business was a concern, but something always came along. For now, it was as slow as the arrival of a South Dakota Spring, when dirt-encrusted piles of snow crystals lingered like black mold near lamp posts and fire hydrants.

 

The pebbled glass in her office door and the odor of musty wood and cigar smoke in the foyer had a strangely calming effect on her more apprehensive clients. It was a soothing incense from a trip to another era, one populated by city-dwelling grandparents in old three flats. It also lent an appropriate air of mystery to her noirish setting. She drank from a cocktail glass filled with Southern Comfort over ice, dripping condensation on her desk each time she lifted it to her lips. She alternately sipped and launched a series of ethereal smoke rings after each drag on the cigar she held in her left hand. Confidence warmed her from head to toe, each in their own way. Smoke drifted across the office, creating a haze near the single word she viewed from her inverted perspective – “Office,” backward.

The door opened...

 

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😎

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The Yard

            Each of Leon Petrovsky’s days were ponderous replays of those that came before, like the endless parade of lumbering elephantine boxcars outside his dirty office window. One after another, a monochromatic freight yard tableau of corroding steel under a remorseless Illinois sky taunted him in the yard house at his painted metal desk. His eyes were gray. Even the untrimmed hairs protruding from his ears and nose seemed to be an outgrowth of the creeping arthritic tendrils in his graying bones.

            His time on the yard forced him here, the logical next step in a trainman’s career if engineer or brakeman wasn’t an option. His body could no longer take the punishment the young gandy dancers continued to tolerate. They were so much like his son, and were for him beneficiaries of the anger triggered by that painful reminder. Especially Noles, the twenty-four-year-old switch tender with aspirations like his own. He wants to be on the trains. Well, so did I, thought Leon. He’ll put in his time just like everyone else.

            Joe Noles complained that his job and boss were sapping his youth and vigor, the drone of a much older man, as if his days were numbered. When he headed to work at the yard, he left the care and comfort of his wife and a small apartment, steeling himself for another eight hours of repetitious exertion under the eyes of a tyrant. He hated second shift, the dimming light that consumed the train yard after a diesel-stained sunset, and the need to be extra alert to the dangers of performing maintenance on switches at night. Daylight turned to darkness with the speed and mechanical precision of all the other switches in the yard.

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😎

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An Open Letter to Mark Twain

Dear Mr. Clemens:

 

I waited fifty-six years to read your autobiography. The one-hundred-year publication delay you insisted upon after your demise went quickly and was somewhat eventful.

 

I have finished reading the third volume of your post-mortem treatise, and I relish your words greatly. At times, I feel you looking over my shoulder, appreciating the moments when you make me laugh or move me to tears. I only wish I could reach back and shake your hand.

 

A lot has happened since 1910. You missed two World Wars. Yes, the whole world. They were quite dramatic and conveniently numbered one and two. Tens of millions of souls perished but accomplished very little. In your time, King Leopold of Belgium slaughtered upwards of ten million in the Congo. It seems each generation lofts a murderous monster upon its shoulders lest we forget our history and fail to repeat it. As intrigued as you may have been by the German people in your time, in the 1940s, they focused their industrious natures and energy on the extermination of the Jews. A strange little man with a partial mustache and strangely combed hair fell short of Leopold’s mark but marched six million men, women, and children into carefully engineered extermination machines by the boxcar. The country has borne the burden of cultural shame ever since.

 

You’ll be surprised to know that Democrats are now Republicans, and Republicans are now Democrats. They traded hats, coats, and desires without sacrificing any of the animosity and corruption each had mastered. Our country now has not one but a thousand Jay Goulds, each of them sitting on financial empires larger than the GNP of moderate-sized countries. We are within spitting distance of crowning our first trillionaire. Several billionaires are launching rockets into space with their eyes on Mars. That red planet seems within reach and is ripe for ruination. H.G. Wells would be upset about the loss of his copyright.

 

As you suspected, the United States of America is finally on the brink of becoming a monarchy. A swindler and asshat of unparalleled dimwitery somehow brought half the population under his spell, married a showgirl, slept with and paid off several sex workers, and defrauded the general populace in a recent election. His insouciant density and tiny vocabulary appeal to a vast number of similarly deficient souls so obsessed with dethroning the imagined deep-state political establishment that they literally wear his clothing. (Recall the emperor’s clothes, of course.) 

 

Even with less than 50% of the popular vote, the damned Electoral College declared him king, thrusting the country into a bloodless UnCivil War. He was convicted of dozens of felonies but sits taking revenge in the Oval Office. These are interesting times. If you can imagine it, this grifter encouraged the murder of his vice-president by an angry mob. That hapless fool lived and briefly ran against his former boss in the recent election. People believe anything unless it is the truth.

 

You would have much to write about if you were still alive and would also be pleased to know that copyright now extends seventy years beyond an author’s life. Dictation no longer requires a human assistant. You would be mortified to know that the Paige Compositor became a reality, and then some, but not until the 1970s. An electric device called a computer captures your words and holds them in its memory until you are ready to print them on paper, also without human intervention or a printing press. These devices are as common as children’s toys.

 

Did I mention that men can fly? I’m sure you saw it coming, but imagine traveling abroad in hours, not weeks or months! You would struggle to even collect your thoughts before your trip’s end. “Innocents Abroad” would be obsolete before the ink dried.

 

Books are in jeopardy, and in particular, one of your own. “Huckleberry Finn” now offends some people and has been banned in some libraries. Your use of the word “nigger” has gone out of fashion. We now substitute the “n-word” in its place. I don’t know about you, but when someone employs that substitution, I hear the offensive original in my mind and wish they would just avoid it.

 

Women were given the vote ten years after your passing. Men have long sought to understand their better halves and finally succeeded, though we dare not let them know. To perfect this equation, we understand our need to be murderous cowboys with hearts of gold, assassins who melt at their touch into sensitive poetry-spewing codswallops. This life is not for everyone.

 

I hope that wherever you found to be your final destination you can read this. Big hugs to your entire family. We miss you and need you now more than ever.

 

😎

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Walking the Green Mile

            I have officially run out of places I’m willing to walk our dog. The street we live on is a Boulevard, which means that it goes from one heavily traveled arterial road to another, thus being a favorite mile-long dragstrip for locals who should drive at the posted thirty miles per hour, but who are also chronically late or feel that speed limit signs are a violation of their right to be unsafe. Recall, this is Florida, where “turn signal” is a recent addition to the local lexicon.

            So Toby and I used to spend as little time as possible on that stretch of otherwise unremarkable asphalt. Unremarkable except for the skid marks and blood stain at the corner of Mockingbird, where Port the yellow lab was smeared by a speeding knucklehead. The driver felt so little remorse for what he’d done that he insisted to the police he wanted to sue Sammy Hagar for the damage to his car.

            At the time I originally wrote this, Sammy Hagar was the nickname I gave to the late Port’s owner. He’s a shaggy-headed older blonde man whose eyes look in two different directions. He really has no business owning dogs, but that’s probably not fair to say unless you factor in the irresponsible behavior that led to Port’s untimely death. He’s one of the Mockingbird Hillbillies, a nickname I gave to a disheveled assortment of men who sat just outside their tilted, broken garage door with one or both of their dogs. They often issued greetings to me in the dark by the light of their pulsing orange cigarettes, called me sir, and couldn’t seem to remember my name. I wasn’t sure by daylight who I had introduced myself to the night before, so I just said “Hey, how ya doin?” 

            There is a local leash law that most residents choose to ignore. Poor Port, he was the sweetest pup, a large, bounding, playful embodiment of happy fur and gladness at seeing another dog or human. We always stopped to play, even though Port made the much smaller Toby kind of nervous.

            Port’s “brother” Zack is another big guy, white and brown splotches of Spaniel anxiety, afraid of the much smaller Toby, but curious and also generally off-leash. He was sporadically tied by rope to a metal lawn chair that choked him at the last second when he ran out to visit. All of this running, choking, and bounding has resulted in Toby not wanting to even make the turn down Mockingbird Drive, but we always did anyway because Port and Zach were harmless. Their humans have since moved away with Zach and a mean dog they bought when Port died. As they left, they spraypainted the rental house they were evicted from with fluorescent orange warnings about the “deadly” black mold within. It was as if algae were to warn pond-dwelling relatives about their dangerous fungal neighbors.

            A bit further down the block was Trash McAllister’s house. This nicknamed residence had more occupants than is probably healthy or documented, an occasional see-ment mixer parked out front, with one or more young ladies hoisting a baby child on a hip and smoking a cigarette while they unloaded groceries. We met their dog Silvia, a beautiful gunmetal gray pit bull, late one night when she got out the screen door, no doubt unlatched for the safety of resident children. The sound of rapidly approaching, scratching paws on pavement alerted us to incoming trouble. 

            Silvia began to circle us, snarling because Toby provokes anything or anyone he feels threatened by, whether it’s an approaching turkey buzzard, motorcycle or pit bull. We scampered quickly up to the front door of the house across the street, ready to beg the owner for mercy when Trash appeared and called Silvia. I politely but firmly yelled, “Please call your dog!” and he did. I did not yell profanity and threats, since Trash is kind of a scary-looking dude who remains my neighbor in daylight. Plus, he has a see-ment mixer.

            We have subsequently met Silvia in the light of day and she’s actually quite sweet, but Toby refuses to walk down that street anymore even though they moved too.

            Ordinarily, we would continue around the block and turn left to begin the second half of our journey home. That leg of the trip has been generally uneventful, and for the longest time, we’d pass a beautiful black cat named Midnight who was brushed, fed, and watered for nine years by an uncommunicative older woman in dark glasses. Eventually, I assume something in the Floridian natural order of things killed the lady, the cat or both. No more cat. No more lady.

            A bit further we passed a home with three little white yappy dogs who never get to go outside. It sounds like they throw themselves against the picture window when we go by the house, and on rare occasion they are tethered for a brief breath of fresh air by a man I’ve come to call “Fraidy Krueger.” I’ve given up trying to be friendly to Fraidy, since he almost always makes a fearful retreat back into the house when he sees us. One day I heard his wife shout for him to stay out with the dogs a bit longer only to be told, “You’ve seen that movie, Dog Without a Leash!” by her paranoid husband. For the record, there is no such film, so I really do think he’s delusional. He must have had heart palpitations the day a bald eagle battled with a bunch of vultures over a dead opossum across the street. And by now you’re probably thinking, where the heck do you live, and why?

            A few more yards and we’re turning left again, home stretch. Other than the day Toby was attacked and bitten by a psychotic mongrel who escaped the backyard of some friends, this has always been the beginning of a safe zone. The owners were nice and offered to pay for the emergency veterinarian visit, after hours on a weekend of course. They immediately repaired the rusty gate through which the dog escaped. 

            There’s a long stretch of lawn that Toby realizes is his domain of last chance. Poop, Toby, poop for God’s sake! Unfortunately, this is exactly where the seemingly always-outside Bucky and Pepito the Burrito come unglued at seeing us pass by. They are nicknamed after characters in a Chicago children’s cartoon from my youth. Bucky is a raging black Lab mix, perhaps fifty pounds. Pepito is a Chihuahua who draws strength from his much larger brother. They are carefully chain-linked into their yard.

            I repeatedly ran into Bucky at night on the leash of a Slenderman impersonator, so tall and thin he was barely able to control the dog and reluctant to take a different route when we passed by. I wore a bright headlamp that illuminated Bucky’s demonic green eyes in the dark and rendered Slenderman even more ghoulish and silhouetted. I would yell down the street, “Which way are you going?” No response. “Are you going this way?” No response. Finally, frustrated I yelled, “Hey, you!” No response.

            The resident Grandma can be seen by day. A very pleasant lady who speaks little English, I would say, “How ya doin’?” They are part of a larger story that I’ll come back to.

            There are other less noteworthy dogs, some controlled by owners and some not. At last count there were twenty dogs in our immediate vicinity. At the end of our walk, we cross our Boulevard and head up the driveway, having survived another journey. Until recently.

            We long ago shortened the walk described above, at Toby’s request and out of my own desperation to reduce the stress of our twice-daily stroll. We began traveling up and down the nearest street to a strategically located yellow fire hydrant, and back. With each pass by the Slenderman family residence, Bucky would begin throwing himself at the chain link, barking fiercely and scratching at the ground with fortunately poor digging skills and setting Pepito off in a comical attempt to sound larger and more ferocious. For several years I considered our options should Bucky manage to escape.

            And escape he did. One of the unforeseen results of Hurricane Ian was the arrival of roofers at the Slenderman’s, replacing shingles and leaving the critical gate open at day’s end. The owners didn’t think to check before shagging the dogs into the backyard when they got home.

            Toby and I headed out for our 6:30 pm walk. It was 6:24 pm actually. I know this because we have a web camera pointed at our driveway. It views a distant stretch of street where we begin our walk. The video I captured over the next ten minutes is like watching a Zapruder film of my own murder.

            Those options I mentioned about what to do if Bucky got loose? Yeah, nothing worked. The dog got out, spotted us a half block away, and took off running to attack us. I picked up Toby to protect him, probably a mistake since I was now essentially between the two dogs, and he felt it was his job to defend himself, or maybe me. But I couldn’t stand to see my little guy shredded by the much larger, clearly vicious, and amped-up hairy monster. I tried kicking, punching, kicking more and more. Nothing phased Bucky. Toby became mayhem in my arms and slipped to the ground, somehow coming out of his harness. A second level of nightmare now unfolded. Toby is a runner. We take great precautions to keep him in the house or on his leash. In the midst of the ensuing dog fight, Toby was snarling at a pitch that sounded more like screaming. The other dog had a much deeper, more fearsome sound. Toby yelped as he was repeatedly bitten, and then my left hand lit up like fire and ice, which is what I guess teeth shredding your flesh feels like.

            Then Superman arrived. I’m kinda not kidding. A neighbor witnessed the whole event, ran out, grabbed Bucky by the fur on both sides, and pulled him off of us just long enough for Toby to take off running. Across a boulevard. I watched. He runs really fast for an old man of twelve years. Faster than I was able to catch up. A second stroke of luck, after Superman’s arrival, was the emptiness of the street Toby now blindly ran across. He could have wound up a smear of blood and fur like Port, a bit further down the road. Instead, I watched in utter disbelief as he tore to the bottom of our driveway a hundred yards away, turned, and streaked to our front door, where he stood panting and waiting for me to catch up. I was so proud! I would never have imagined him doing that.

            Fast forward. Calls to the police and animal control. Both useless. They lectured the Slendermans on leash law and confirmed (under pressure) that Bucky was up to date on rabies vaccines. We still don’t know their real name. There was some cleanup needed along the bloody trail I left walking through our living room to the kitchen sink, then four hours and six thousand dollars at a local emergency room to get stitched up and be given antibiotics and x-rays.

            I got lots of advice from listeners. What would have helped us? A gun, taser, pepper spray, a baseball bat, knife? I can’t honestly say. An enraged animal has superpowers, and most of what you can do, short of shooting a neighbor’s pet dead, will just piss it off, especially amidst the swirling chaos of two dogs fighting. Spraying bullets down a residential street would likely be taken much more seriously by the police than a “simple” dog attack.

            We had a talk with the Slendermans. We’re hoping that insurance will cover our costs. If not, there will be another awkward conversation. And now I try to walk Toby around our property or not far from it. I haven’t seen a bobcat, snake, or alligator in our yard for quite a while, but I’m watching.

😎

If you like fiction and you're in the mood for over 50 short stories, please consider buying "Natural Selections," at Amazon.com.

Or if you'd prefer seventy non-fiction stories inspired by a town in Illinois, please consider buying Park Ridge Memories also on Amazon. Click on the image below.

 

 

The Lerious

            Beatrice Loude tossed her apron into the laundry cart and unsnapped her crossover chef’s jacket. She pulled her undershirt from her waistband and encouraged sultry kitchen air into the space between the fabric and her skin. She was drenched with sweat. Simply soaked.

            The dining hall air conditioning was broken again. Without exhaust fans, the kitchen would have been intolerable. The stale influx of outside air brought little relief. As she stepped out of the building, the intense late afternoon sun was in retreat beyond the shadows of the camp’s tree-lined perimeter. The heat and humidity took her breath away, like a steaming towel around your face at a day spa. 

            “Be proud, Bea Loude!” shouted an approaching voice. It was Leah Strange, her only friend at the upscale adult camp.

            “Make way for Loude and Strange,” the camp counselors teased when the inseparable pair walked between buildings or along the short path to the seasonal employees’ cabins.

            “Job of a lifetime, my ass,” said Bea I’m half delirious by closing. Can you believe the air is broken again?”

            “Oh no, I’m sorry,” said Leah. She worked along the beach, helping pampered guests learn stand-up-paddle or kayaking, Baby Boomers mostly, trying to recapture childhood glories.

            “At least I can get into the water. I mean, it’s kinda gross but it helps. I shower a lot.”

            “The Lerious,” Bea muttered under her breath.

            “What’d you say?” asked Leah.

            “Oh nothing, just a story my mom told me when I was little. She told me I was being delirious and I thought she said The Lerious. It became kind of a running gag in our family. Any time we misbehaved she said The Lerious was gonna get us.”

            “So where did The Lerious come from?” asked Leah.

To read the rest of this story and more than fifty others, please consider buying "Natural Selections," at Amazon.com.

😎

If you like fiction and you're in the mood for over 50 short stories, please consider buying "Natural Selections," at Amazon.com.

Or if you'd prefer seventy non-fiction stories inspired by a town in Illinois, please consider buying Park Ridge Memories also on Amazon. Click on the image below.

 

 

Me Two

            First, we need to address the pachyderm on the premises, the issue being that my given surname is Gilligan. Troy Gilligan. Yeah, Sherwood Schwartz pretty much set me up for a lifetime of teasing back in the early sixties with his silly sitcom and its iconic, dimwitted leading man. So I changed my name to Gill, Troy Gill. No more ribbing about three-hour tours.

            Toughen up, you say? Easy for you with your normal brain and thick skin. You see, my challenge is that I remember everything. Not just a lot; everything. That brings painful past events, even minor teasing, into the realm of my present experience. It’s not like photographic memory, summoning up pages of text like a mental PDF. My old stuff feels like current stuff, whether being badgered mercilessly about Skipper and Ginger or recalling the time I sneezed and a gob of green mucus landed with a humiliating splat front and center on the blouse of the school’s homecoming queen. And then she threw up.

            But that never happened to me. It happened to the owner of one subset of my memories. Now, don’t go thinking I’m schizophrenic. I don’t hear voices or think I’m Jesus. I have full recall of conversations, printed images and sensations that cross traditionally defined eidetic and photographic memory boundaries. Plus, the duration is all wrong. Unlike traditional mental disorders with fading dreamlike thoughts, my memories endure forever, vivid and intense. And I don’t know who they belong to.

To read the rest of this story and more than fifty others, please consider buying "Natural Selections," at Amazon.com.

😎

If you like fiction and you're in the mood for over 50 short stories, please consider buying "Natural Selections," at Amazon.com.

Or if you'd prefer seventy non-fiction stories inspired by a town in Illinois, please consider buying Park Ridge Memories also on Amazon. Click on the image below.

 

The Guardian

            Clouds of steam atop the mountain hinted at a change. Esilda shivered when a gust of hot air from the volcanic peak rushed like a warm river, breaking the chill of the cloud forest and surprising her. She anticipated challenges ahead. Eruptions and earthquakes were not among them.

            Deep red and yellow leaves rustled as she trudged along the path into the darker reaches of the jungle. A canopy of green, a thousand shades, shielded her and provoked an ominous feeling in her gut as she hiked. The colorful vegetation seemed ready to consume her, but the map indicated otherwise. Legions of curious hummingbirds guided her into the dense mist and greenery.

 

            She was on course after a strange series of delays that were beyond coincidence. Was she being warned? Or summoned? Questions outnumbered answers, but she felt born to this quest as if it was her destiny.

To read the rest of this story and more than fifty others, please consider buying "Natural Selections," at Amazon.com.

😎

If you like fiction and you're in the mood for over 50 short stories, please consider buying "Natural Selections," at Amazon.com.

Or if you'd prefer seventy non-fiction stories inspired by a town in Illinois, please consider buying Park Ridge Memories also on Amazon. Click on the image below.

 

The View From Mars

            A cascading waterfall was a highlight of the campground that had been thoughtfully designed and meticulously constructed at the periphery of Base Five. The red soil was reminiscent of Georgia clay, and gurgling river water was in fact Martian, but circulated endlessly through a meandering stream by pumps powered by nuclear fusion. Camping rated high on the list of desired amenities for homesick colonists. Eileen sat with the kids around a simulated campfire eating s’mores, gazing skyward and searching the blackness for Greg’s incoming ship.

            There were other reminders of home. The base was named Cook County, a tribute to the first Martian governor, a Chicagoan. It sounded less sterile than “Base Five.” Other bases had followed suit: Los Angeles, Maricopa, Queens and Milwaukee. Pathways between structures had been given street names, and unnecessary mailboxes adorned living quarters, brightly painted and decorated. This explained the manatee that stood watch over Tamiami Trail.

            “I wouldn’t want that commute on a regular basis,” Greg stated as he cleared the Cook County airlock.

            “It once took seven months Captain,” reported the AI gate attendant. “Welcome to your new home.”

            “Yeah, new home. Old home may not…” he choked back emotion at the thought.

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Father's Way

     

            Chest-deep snow and ice cling to Ricky’s coat, making movement difficult and penetrating him with a most unwelcome chill.

“You keep watch. I’ll be back soon,” his father orders, anticipating a repeat of some previous lapse in judgment Ricky can’t recall. It is his father’s way. 

            Earlier they cleared one path down the driveway for the car and another for foot traffic leading to the backyard. Beyond that, mounded snow prevents access to the garage, the woodpile, and the corridors of pine trees at the rear of their property. Dusk lends the forested area a sinister demeanor, identical aisles of frosted limbs that lead into a blackened understory. Ricky thinks it’s a scary place.

“Keep an eye on Momma and Sissy,” says Father, then pulls the front door hard. Ice on the jamb prevents tight closure and necessitates a second, harder slam. Pictures on the wall rattle from the force of his departure.

            Ricky is saddened at his leaving. Father forgot it’s his birthday. Smoky bacon grease and a scented candle tinge the air with pungent odors that cause his nose to run and eyes to burn a bit as if they had been bathed in the bitter winter air.

            He collapses on the couch, melting and dripping, and knows what Momma will say, but comforts himself briefly in a quilt, wiping his runny nose on the filthy fabric.

            “How many times have I told you not to do that Ricky?” asks Momma. “Why don’t you make yourself useful and go get a log for the fire. Go on, git!”

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Table for Two

Kenny Savory waited tables when business was slow. He paid special attention to the town constables, never allowing their coffee to cool, especially on the coldest of winter nights. Officer Margaret Stenfield nursed her second steaming cup. Too much caffeine made her jittery, but ordering decaf sounded lame for someone paid to serve and protect.

            “Nothing like a jittery cop,” she laughed, waving Kenny off his latest attempt to refill.

The Savory Café was a favorite local spot. It sat at the intersection of two roads that converged in Le Sueur’s small downtown shopping district. One road entered from nearby farmland, then went uphill, across the river and on toward Henderson. The more heavily trafficked cross street was the primary access road up to Route 169 and onward to Minneapolis. Residents joked that the only way into town was downhill. That was a problem in an ice storm.

            “How many so far, Marge?” asked Kenny, looking out the window of the café.

            “Four,” she said, then looked up with a start past a glittering string of white Christmas lights, wind-whipped almost to the point of breaking against the café window. The sickening thud and crunch of bumper on sheet metal had become far too familiar. She nervously fondled the badge under her coat, as if to engage her police persona in time of need.

            “Make that five,” Marge sighed. She stacked her pile of documents and slid out of the booth. The bell on the café door jangled as she stepped out into the bitter January wind and lowered the ear flaps on her hat.

To read the rest of this story and more than fifty others, please consider buying "Natural Selections," at Amazon.com.

😎

If you like fiction and you're in the mood for over 50 short stories, please consider buying "Natural Selections," at Amazon.com.

Or if you'd prefer seventy non-fiction stories inspired by a town in Illinois, please consider buying Park Ridge Memories also on Amazon. Click on the image below.