Grandpa's Party

 

It was Grandpa’s birthday party, and he was everywhere.

He made sure the boys mowed the lawn the way he liked it, and that they raked the leaves from the flower beds and weeded the vegetable garden.

The lawn furniture was washed and arranged, with the tables and chairs close to the house and the Adirondack chairs around the fire pit.

He was even in the kitchen as the gals made all his favorite dishes, sneaking tastes.

His granddaughter said, “I sure wish Gramps was here. I miss him so much.”

And he kissed her head with the softest breeze.

Cream

 

It made sense at the time.

She’d gotten the free sample and loved how it worked on her farm-worn hands, so she ordered the full-sized jar of foot and heel cream.

At first, she didn’t notice it, but within a few weeks it was unavoidably apparent.

Her fingers were shrinking.

It couldn’t be the cream, could it? No, that was ridiculous. Even though it was marketed for certain body parts, it was just cream.

One night, she sat straight up in bed, horrified.

She remembered what had happened to her Aunt Verna when she used eye cream on her elbows.

Community Service

 

It was the last spay pick up of the day, and he was tired.

Tired of his car smelling like cat pee, tired of old ladies, and tired of this goddamn community service he was forced to complete.

“Come in” she called, and he went inside. For the first time that day, it was a house that didn’t stink of urine and age. Nice.

“She’s right next to the carrier.”

He stared at the creature flopped by the carrier, lying on its side.

It was a giant, pulsating, hairy caterpillar.

He shrugged and used a broom to push it in.

Clock

 

The Grandmother Clock had stood silent as long as anyone could remember.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with it. It’s just never worked” said its owner, and she hid it out of the way in a hallway.

When she died, the clock went to her son, her quiet son who never asked for anything, because the other two sons didn’t want it.

Because it didn’t work.

He took it to the clock repair shop, a dusty little shop gloomy with obsolescence, and the shop owner examined it and laughed.

“There’s nothing wrong with it. It just needs a winding key.”

Happiness

 

He wanted to live off grid in the forest. She wanted to live by the lake.

They bought their land in the forest and built their little home.

They lived off grid, and she learned to use lanterns and pump water.

For half a century, they lived this way, and he was happy.

She was happy because he was happy.

Then, he died.

She called the electric company.

They had to remove a swath of trees to set the poles, and as she walked the open space, she couldn’t believe her eyes.

Their land had bordered the lake all along.

Rain

 

When it started to rain, people ran out and danced in the streets.

It had been so long since the last rain, and they were starting to worry that it would never come again.

Most of the crops had died, and those that were still hanging on were covered with dust- as good as dead.

After a few days of rain the world was an emerald jewel, and the air was redolent of petrichor.

After a few weeks of rain everything was muddy and everyone was waterlogged.

After a few months, the streets turned into rivers, washing the bodies downstream.

 

Growing Pains

 

She was from a lower-middle class family, and although nothing about their life was fancy, nothing was horrible, either.

Their house sat on a tiny lot, like all the others around it.

Once grown, she moved to a faraway state. With no employment, she ended up in a dismal trailer park.

Inside there were cockroaches, and outside were men selling drugs to kids.

Buying her weekly lotto ticket, the clerk asked what she would do if she won.

Her first thought was, “Buy a brand new doublewide.”

Her second thought was, “I need to get the fuck out of here.”

Young Love

 

Wild things were everywhere and nowhere simultaneously.

She could only see glimpses just out of her line of vision, but every time she saw them, they were nearer, and she was terrified.

He loved her intensely, getting as close to her as he could while she warned him away from the wild things.

She’d seen and loved the red dress, but they had no money, so he decided to steal it.

He reached for it, but it darted off the rack and out the window.

As he fell to his death, the dress climbed up the wall and disappeared.

First Date

 

They met at the bar where they were supposed to meet their dates; men they’d met online at the same dating website, which instantly bonded them.

Working through the small talk, checking their phones for the time every so often, the conversation got quieter as they started to realize they’d been ghosted.

Two hours after their missed dates, they were both silently staring into their glasses when one said, “You know what? Fuck those guys. I didn’t shave my legs to sit at a bar crying into my beer. You want to go dancing?”

And they had a wonderful evening.

Progress

 

For almost a century, they stood tall and grand on Main Street.

The Venetian and the Rialto.

The wall sconces had been electrified, and the seats had been re-covered, but they kept their souls.

Both had orchestra pits and elegant brocade curtains, and even though the pits were empty, the curtains glided open when every movie started.

Generations attended live theater, Vaudeville, silent movies, and then modern movies, and they smelled of popcorn and history.

She was waiting to transfer to her bus to work when the first wrecking ball smashed into them, and she wasn’t the only one crying.

Attack

 

The night was warm as blood, thick with the threat of summer.

Carefully, she opened her car door and took a deep, ragged breath.

She dashed blindly to the house, but she wasn’t quick enough.

With a sickening “thunk”, she felt it hit her right in the chest, and she froze for a split second before all hell broke loose.

Screaming through clenched teeth, her purse dropped to the ground, its contents rolling crazily in all directions.

In a final desperate move, she ripped open her blouse.

The june bug fell to the ground and skittered into her open purse.

People Skills

 

His patients loved him best, or they would, if they remembered who he was.

He’d been told that working the memory care unit would be a frustrating, soul-sucking grind, but he liked it.

So many family members, and even other staff members, would try to “orient” the patients- reminding them, even testing them, on what day it was, what year it was, to name the people in the room with them or in photographs.

He never did that, choosing to meet them where and when they were, and accepting that.

That was really the best way to relate to anyone.

The Old Man in the Creek

 

He lived in a little cave carved into the creek bed.

He’d been there a long time- since right after he’d hatched, when he scooted in there to avoid being eaten by a heron.

He was now a majestic 75-pound alligator snapping turtle.

There was a steady and reliable diet of little fishes and frogs in the creek, and every once in a while, an exceptionally stupid small mammal.

Once, a human had ogled at him from the bridge, but he didn’t care.

He’d been born a decade before she was born and would be there after she was dead.

Cleaning

 

“Sonofabitch!” she whispered.

The vacuum was clogged, and all she had was the handle of a flyswatter to work with.

She tried not to think about the bug guts that were on the end she was holding.

The clog was almost to the end of the rigid wand, and she gave it a good smack on the floor, which worked even though she hit her toe instead.

She felt sharp pain, but she got the clog out and kept vacuuming.

When she retraced her steps to put the vacuum away, she saw the bloody toeprints she’d left through the house.

Wedding

 The old woman had gone to the public garden to have a walk around on this glorious day.

It was a beautiful day for a wedding, and one was starting up now.

The old woman watched as everyone was seated and hushed. The music started playing and the officiant stood somberly in the front. Next to him was the groom, looking elated and terrified.

Groomsmen and bridesmaids marched up the aisle and took their places. Adorable flower girls tossed pink rose petals in front of the bride.

The old woman whispered her thoughts.

“Run! You still have time to run!”

Delores

 

“You just never know, do you?”

“Excuse me?”

Marian nodded towards the house they were standing in front of and repeated herself. “You just never know, do you?”

“I guess not.”

Marian and Gail were there with other women from the book club to help clean out the house of their recently deceased friend.

“She always seemed so quiet. So normal.”

Yes, quiet little Delores had fooled them all, with her shy smile and ingratiating demeanor- attending book club, going to church, volunteering at the library to read stories to the children.

But now they knew.

You just never know.

 

Demons

 Everyone said the house was haunted, so he and some friends decided to check it out.

Having had a long history of seances, surely they would see or hear the demons that were said to be there.

Eventually, they dozed off, only to be awakened by loud banging and wailing, and their blood ran as cold as the wind whipping around them. They ran for their lives as the screams of the demons followed them.

The spirits looked at each other. “Demons? Some idiots yanked us through a portal years ago, and now we are stranded. We’re pissed, not demons…”

Candles

 

She stared into the candle’s flame, mesmerized and thoughtful.

Birthday candles, so many hundreds of them between herself, her children, her relatives and friends, traipsing through the decades like an endless vigil.

There were candles on the advent wreath her mother put out every Christmas, as well, and she remembered blowing them out when she was six years old. Her long hair had caught on fire, and she could still smell the acridness of burning hair, and the awful “pixie haircut” she’d had to get.

Candles at weddings.

Candles at funerals.

She lit this one every night.

Just for company.

Directions

 

He knew her place was off the beaten path, but not by how much.

His navigation app was good, but he was skeptical without more detailed directions, so he called his hostess to have her ‘talk him in’ the last few miles.

He’d turned off the four-lane highway to the two-lane blacktop.

He said, “OK. I just passed CR 3605 so it should be the next turn, right?”

“No. Next is 3603, then 3606.”

“What?”

“And the address number is covered with honeysuckle right now.”

“What?”

“Keep to the right when you see the dead armadillo.”

“Wha…oh. There it is.”

Weather Gods

 

He knew of rain gods- poor bastards who carried never-ending precipitation wherever they went.

They didn’t know they were gods. They just thought they had extraordinarily bad luck when it came to planning picnics, or vacations, or when to mow the lawn.

So, naturally, he wondered if he were a sun god.

Because it never rained on him.

It could be black-sky-gale-force-winds-storming, but the minute he poked his nose out the door, it would stop and not start again until he was under cover.

Every time.

And even though it was mostly very convenient, he’d love to feel a raindrop.

The King

 

He was King of all he surveyed.

The morning sun felt good on his smooth skin. It was a good sun, and it was his.

The bark of the tree was rough, but solid. It was his tree, and it was good.

He feared nothing, not even the bird that had bitten off his tail. He’d cursed it, and it would die. All things died…if he wanted them to.

He glared at the human who took his photo, wondering “what kind of lizard” he was. Lizard? He was the King.

He might curse her, too. If he felt like it.

 

Hair

 

She sat and brushed her hair as part of her morning routine.

Her hair was long and glorious, the burnished copper hue of autumn leaves, and it relaxed her to brush it and gaze out of the window at the forest.

One particularly still morning, she noticed the tallest tree swayed as though there was a wind blowing, but there wasn’t.

It swayed in time to her brushing and stopped when she stopped.

When she shook her head to fluff her locks, the tree shuddered hard enough that squirrels fell out of it.

She shaved her head that very day.

The Bridge

 

They loved the restaurant because it was cozy, the staff was friendly, the food was exquisite. It was walking distance from home, so they treated themselves to a weekly treat- a block to the bridge, with the restaurant right on the other side.

The bridge was always there, but never the same. Sometimes a suspension bridge, or a covered bridge, once it was a railway trestle.

Under the bridge, too, was unpredictable, sometimes rivers or highways. The day it was a rope bridge with alligators snapping in a moat below was memorable.

They liked how it kept their routine fresh.