Saragun Springs

The Party by Adam Kluger (Artwork by Dreck)

“His prose?”

“wonderful, piquant”

“Sentence structure, syntax, use of colloquialisms?”

“The entire body…of his work…is chopped…a little hard to digest but deliciously robust narrative nonetheless.”

“You really have been spending a lot of time on your food blog, huh?”

“Platform is everything these days Bascombe. How are plans coming for tonight’s get-together.”

“Oh, you know, the usual drama and complaining, of course. It wouldn’t be a literary circle event if someone wasn’t bitching about someone or sticking the knife in somebody’s back. It’s all part of the fun and games, I suppose. You’re part of the scene long enough and nothing surprises you. These writers though– continue to show even poorer taste if I do say so. This latest one– couldn’t have been any more impertinent really. You shepherd them through “the process”–you offer them immortality and you give them a chance to be sampled by the true arbiters of the literary intelligentsia and do you receive any form of gratitude from them whatsoever–hardly.”

“I know Bascombe- they are truly the basest of all creatures. All ego and no talent. Insecurity and hubris. They grab and cloy and never once realize that they are not special in the slightest. They are simply the current flavor of the month.”

“This new one was the worst I tell you– he thought he was born with a gift of some sort. You know the type. He had no time to “play the game” as he would call it. No time for foolish submission guidelines or petty protocols.”

“Can you imagine?”

“Yes…he really did say that.”

“Didn’t he realize that those submission guidelines and protocols that he mocked were instituted centuries ago to keep out the dreck and the unwashed masses who claim to be writers?”

“If we did not maintain standards or a threshold, then there would be nothing but a giant puddle of dung surrounded by flies.”

“And by flies you mean, of course, aspiring writers”

“Of course.”

“So who shall we expect at tonight’s heavenly soiree?”

“Oh, all the usual suspects- the staff from Creative House including the illustrious Madame B and her devilish young ingénues all dressed in high fashion like Dorothy Parker clones, all the top literary lights, bloggers and buggerers…some glitterati, musical theater friends, a surprise or two –expect the usual standing room only.”

“Lovely, lovely– are they all going to be pulling this new fellow apart to get at him?”

“Mmm…there should be enough of him to go around….when last we spoke he impressed me with his big personality.“

“So how did you handle the particulars?”

“Per usual…he signed his rights over to us for the novel etc, etc..for the standard minor advance.”

“Did you make him jump through hoops?”

“Of course.”

“And dance like a chicken with his head cut off.”

“Naturally”

“And he didn’t read the fine print on the contract?”

” They never do—do they?”

“That’s right, so eager they are for that small advance and for that sweet taste of fame.”

” They never have time for contracts or submission guidelines or petty protocols…”

“They never do.”

” Even when it says very clearly in black and white.”

” Upon the occasion of my death, all rights to my novel revert back to Bascombe Wellington & Associates.”

“Speaking of which…how’s your famous “writer-stew” coming along?”

“Should be the hit of the party –as always.”

“Bascombe, you are a cheeky devil.”

“Thanks, old friend–be a good fellow and pass me a fresh sprig of rosemary will you..and could you toss these left over metacarpals into the incinerator–I have a feeling he won’t be needing them anymore”

“Quite right…. you incorrigible old rascal, you.”

The Novel by Bill Tope

(No rest for the wicked. Mr. Tope is back for an encore)

Louis Becker looked down at himself, at the stretched and ragged t-shirt he wore. It was filthy. Small wonder, he thought, since it was the same shirt he’d worn since Wednesday and tonight was Saturday. He shook his head, mildly disgusted with himself.

Suddenly the screen of the PC he sat before flared once and then died.

“Shit!” said Becker. He proceeded to see what was the matter. Probably he struck the power button on the surge protector with his foot or disconnected it from the outlet in the wall of his bedroom, where Becker had his equipment laid out. The computer, monitor, keyboard and TV reposed upon a low-slung coffee table running the length of his bed. His beefy thighs sat upon the mattress. On a good day, he would leave his bedroom only to relieve himself or to grab a few calories from the kitchen.

He checked where the eight-plug electric power strip attached to the wall and found it intact. Next he surveyed the connections with the cable which attached to the modem and found that intact as well.

“Ah,” he said, and punched the power switch on his tower. Still nothing. The keyboard and monitor and cable box were all okay too. What the hell?

He snatched up his land line.

Silence.

Then he remembered: the phone and the computer and the TV were all connected. Bundling, they called it. Which saved him some bucks, but at the same time, when the system went down, so too did the phone. Becker grabbed his cell. No bars. Why? he wondered. It was 90% discharged. Oh.

He said “shit!” again.

Becker was an aspiring writer and so depended upon the PC for his life’s work. He couldn’t survive without it. Then again, he told himself, his status as “aspiring” had been the status quo for going on nine years.

His girlfriend, Madge, had asked him four nights ago, while in the throes of passion, how much dough he had netted from his writing over the previous 12 months.

“$90,” he answered at once, thrusting his hips forward.

“Explain that,” she said, breathing hard.

“I won second place in a monthly contest,” he replied, “and that was good for $20. Then I had two stories and one poem published that netted me $10, $15 and $30 respectively.”

“That’s just $75,” she pointed out, moving her hips in a circle.

“Well,” continued Becker, “I won an honorable mention in another competition and for that I got a one-month subscription to the magazine. That was a $15 value, they said.”

“How much did you pay in submissions fees and contest entry costs over that same period?” she asked, gasping and coming.

Becker admired her ability to multi-task.

“For the year, I paid out around $300 in fees, all totaled,” he said.

“Listen, Louis,” she said, poking him hard in the chest with a painted nail. “Unless you make some real dough off this enterprise, then it’s a waste of time and effort.”

“Why are you so concerned with how much I get paid?” Becker wanted to know. “Did I forget to pay you for tonight?” He smirked.

When he woke up, aside from suffering a maddening ringing in the ears, his head hurt where Madge had clobbered him with the bottle of Sangria they’d enjoyed prior to sex. She had not darkened his door since that evening.

“Was it something I said?” he asked himself. Small loss, he thought. Now he could devote himself 24/7 to writing.

Next Day

Having discovered the problem with his PC (an outage at the provider), Becker was stoked up on coffee. Having made a 14-cup pot, he had consumed almost all of it and his breath was heavily coffee-flavored. He was now ready, he thought, to resume his writing assignment: the novel! He had contracted with an editor who worked for the publisher of Babies, Orphans and Puppies (BO&P), his favorite literary mag, to write his opus. Already he had completed almost 250 pages; just over 750 pages to go, he thought to himself. He took a deep breath, gently laid his hands on the keyboard and flexed his fingers. This promised to be a lucrative endeavor. He would show Madge, and in the process, get her back into his bed.

_____

Meanwhile, 1,000 miles away, in Chicago, Charlie Fishead contemplated the critique he was writing for another Louis Becker short story. He shook his head. Becker was pretty hopeless.

“What’s up, boss?” asked Devon, one of Charlie’s unpaid slush pile readers, as he walked into the editor’s office and spotted Charlie’s scowl.

Charlie looked up and smiled. Devon was a good kid. He worked his ass off and got squat for his efforts. He was an intern studying for an MFA and was here to supposedly learn how to edit and publish. Charlie wished he could get a dozen doofuses like Devon. “I’m just writing a paid critique for one of our inveterate scribblers,” he replied.

“Louis Becker?” suggested Devon at once.

Charlie nodded.

“That sod is the worst effin’ prose writer this side of the Rockies,” snarked Devon. “Want me to do it?”

Charlie smiled at last.

_____

Becker was an earnest worker. He sometimes wrote as many as 50 pages per day. But it wasn’t all text. Sometimes he wrote only one or two sentences on a page, spaced oddly and strung out in mad fonts and with bizarre formatting. Whenever an editor questioned him on his technique, he would simply reply that it was a “hybrid” piece and that served to shut them up.

But he was playing this one straight, for he was being paid–handsomely–by the word. Sitting at the PC in his underwear, his stomach rumbled, but he had no time for food; he was under a deadline. Scratching his dick, Becker reached out and grabbed a bottle of liquid cold meds. He was so inured, and so very addicted, that sometimes it took more than an entire large bottle to get the effect he’d achieved before with only a tiny capful.

Glugging the green, gloppy liquid, Becker smacked his lips and washed the OTC concoction down with his sixth, no, his seventh beer. No matter, when he got his dough from the book, he could go to a spa somewhere and dry out. He resumed typing.

_____

Back in Chicago, Carol, B,O&P’s factotum and Charlie’s right hand, struggled across the office under the weight of a prodigious watermelon. Charlie hurriedly cleared his desk and covered it with the pages of another of Louis Becker’s fiction.

“Aren’t you afraid you’ll ruin the copy?” wheezed Carol, plopping the melon atop the desk.

“Don’t matter,” replied Charlie. “I’ll never publish his shit, and I only need copies of work he pays me to critique. We’re good.”

Carol nodded and took out a huge butcher knife and gutted the fruit, drawing a wince from her employer. Melon juice steamed out of the fruit and across the desk.

“Why’d you get some an enormous melon?” Charlie asked Carol.

“Devon is smoking and tooting and shooting and what have you more than ever. And you know how he gets the munchies.”

Charlie sighed. “I’d fire that boy…if I paid him anything.”

One month later

After averaging more than thirty pages per day, Becker was near completion of his masterpiece. Just 7 pages to go, he thought, drawing a great breath and then releasing it. He believed that his commitment had been worthwhile. Of course, he had been fired from his job at Build-a-Bear Workshop, for not reporting in to work for days on end. But he had been working on the novel! He had let nothing stand in his way. He was content. Content, but poor. But, penury wouldn’t last long: with a guaranteed advance of $1 per word, Becker was set to receive some $250,000 upfront for the completed volume; and would that be sweet! The editor he signed with, he thought, must have been stoned.

_____

Devon sat at Charlie’s desk, carefully dicing a crop of fresh peyote. Using a small, razor-keen chef’s knife, he made tiny incisions into the succulent green buttons, each about the size of a wooden nickel. Sweat beaded up on his forehead.

“If you could edit the way you prepare illegals, you would be the Ezra Pound of BO&P,” Charlie commented, arriving at his desk and finding it occupied.

Carol emerged from the ether and handed Charlie a thick tranche of paper, more than 1,000 pages, representing Becker’s 30-day novel.

“What’s this?” asked Charlie with a frown.

“That contest you ran as a joke for the April 1 issue,” Carol reminded him.

Charlie stared back blankly.

“You said that if someone wrote a 1,000-page novel in 30 days, you’d publish it….”

“I…” he interrupted.

“And pay the writer $1 per word,” Carol said, talking over her boss.

“You mean this schmuck took him seriously?” asked Devon in wonder. He looked up from his work and chuckled. “Surely he doesn’t have a legal leg to stand on.”

“It was legal,” Carol went on, “because Charlie didn’t run a disclaimer.”

“Still,” protested Charlie, “there would have to have been a contract, and I sure as hell didn’t sign one.”

“Someone did,” insisted Carol.

Together they turned to look at Devon, who was lighting up a joint.

“There’s more,” said the woman. She handed over what amounted to a billing statement for $250,000. Charlie said nothing at first. Carol added, “He said you can pay him by PayPal.”

_____

Becker, meanwhile, unused to unlimited riches, had gone a little crazy, buying anything and everything, telling the sales clerks, “Chaaarge it!” He had gotten titanium-coated cookware–Becker didn’t cook; he had gotten a new silver Tesla–Becker didn’t drive; and he had procured a gross of gold and silver-lined condoms–Becker hadn’t had any luck lately, but he held out hopes for Madge. He wondered how long before his publisher would pay him what he had coming. He’d probably be so happy with his work that he’d send him a bonus. Furrowing his brow, Becker wondered how he’d spend that.

“Gosh, Charlie,” said Carol, awed. “Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars: that’s nearly your entire yearly salary.” Charlie frowned at her, said nothing.”

Carol said, “I told this Becker bloke to fax over his contract. “Here it is.” She held out a single page of flimsy. Charlie took the fax and he and Carol huddled close and read. Slowly they lifted and then swiveled their heads. And, like moths drawn to a burning bulb, all eyes shifted to Devon. His eyes opened wide.

“M…me?” he stammered.

“Contracted writer: Lewis T. Becker,” read Charlie venomously. “And BO&P representative: Devon C. Shire.”

“What’s the date?” asked Devon feebly.

“April 2 of this year.” replied Charlie, his eyes searing embers. “Uh..,” he murmured weakly, as recognition dawned in his eyes.”I remember now there was this funny little guy in here–everyone else was gone–it was near end of business and…”

“Devon,” said Charlie, dismayed, “what did you do?”

“Well,” said Devon, “he seemed like such a pathetic little schmuck and I never thought he’d ever write 1,000 pages. In part, I guess you could blame it all on Mr. Natural. I just didn’t have the heart to…”

Suddenly the telephone jangled off the hook. Carol answered, held the receiver close, listened intently. She sighed. “Might as well send him up. That,” she informed them, “is the writer of the hour.”

Louis Becker, a germophobe, entered the elevator, moved to the rear of the car so as not to touch anyone. The other riders likewise moved to opposite corners. Becker sported a yellow slicker, Hush Puppies, green denim jeans and carried with him a jumbo-sized trash bag, with which to collect his literary fee, which he hoped to accrue in cash. A well-dressed woman with white hair turned up a small bottle of disinfectant and sprayed it in Becker’s direction.

_____

“Give me that contract, Carol,” said Charlie. “What’s in it, Devon?”

“Just standard stuff,” he answered. “Boilerplate.”

“Was there a timetable?” he asked, perusing the document rapidly.

‘Yes, I gave him the 30 days for completion that you stipulated in the contest, and he finished in just 28.”

Charlie scowled. “Wait!” he said, his eyes opening wide. “I’ve got it; get this freak up here!”

At length, Louis Becker, trash bag in hand, arrived in the editors’ room of BO&P, was introduced to everyone concerned. “I’ve come to settle things,” announced Louis with a hopeful smile.

“That’s just what we want too, Mr. Becker,” said Charlie. “You’re probably anxious to take your money–hard-earned–and get on your way.”

“Yes sir,” said Becker politely. He was relieved; he had thought there might be some difficulty in collecting what was due him. “You can just put my quarter million in here,” said Willy helpfully, offering up his bag.

“That’s fine,” said Charlie, “but your contract stipulates “payment upon publication.” Becker blinked. “There’s also the matter of serialization,” Charlie went on. “You are to receive compensation upon publication of each installment; do you know what that means?” Becker shook his head no. “It means,” Charlie said breezily,”that each time we publish a part of your novel, you are due remuneration forthwith.”

“When do I get my money?” croaked Becker plaintively.

“We’ll publish the first installment of your novel in the September issue of BO&P and pay you for that. With each subsequent month, upon publication, we’ll then pay you for the that installment. And we’ll print one page per issue, which comes to $250 per month. You see?”

“I guess so,” said Becker, crestfallen. His next Tesla payment was due in two days, costing him $4,000, and he couldn’t pay that on $250 per month.

“Here,” Charlie said, scribbling and then tearing off a check. “I’ll pay you for the next year in advance: that’s $3,000 dollars, Louis!” He slapped him on the shoulder. “Congratulations, you’re now a professional novelist!” Becker held up his sad looking bag and Charlie plunked the check inside. Becker left, quiet and forlorn, wondering where he could hock his titanium-coated cookware.

“Whew, that was a close one,” said Carol, with a sigh.

“Yeah, but we got out of it,” chirped Devon. The others frowned, looked darkly at him.

“In future, Devon, take it easy on the psychedelic drugs,” counseled Charlie, taking out a huge stainless steel bong and filling it copiously with hash. Striking a match, he murmured, “Never know what you might do when you’re under the influence…”

Falling Hard by Bill Tope

(We welcome back one of our short story writers today, Bill Tope. This one underscores a way of life that is common nowadays but would have been viewed as science fiction not that long ago–LA)

“I’m sorry, Jen,” apologized Molly. “I’ve got to go.”

“What is it, Molly?” asked her friend and neighbor. “We’ve only been on the phone for fifteen minutes. I remember when we used to talk for hours.”

“I’ve got to call another friend of mine. I told him I’d reach him by seven o’clock, and here it is nearly eight.”

“Him?” said Jennifer. “Molly, are you seeing someone?”

Molly hesitated, then responded girlishly, “Not really. We’ve never met. We have a ‘virtual relationship.’ “

“Virtual?” said Jennifer. “Oh, you mean Zoom. Yes, it’s almost like being there. Who is he? How did you meet, Molly? How long have you been in contact?”

“On an online chat room,” replied Molly. “About a week. Look, I’ve got to go! Bye!”

They disconnected.

______

“No, Jennifer, I don’t know anything about who Mom is seeing. Did she tell you there was someone? Are they dating?”

“I don’t think it’s gone quite that far, Marilyn,” replied Jennifer. “She said she met a man on a chat line and they hit it off, apparently. That was a week ago and I haven’t been able to get hold of her since.” The women were sitting in Marilyn’s kitchen, in the burbs.

“I’ll get to the bottom of this,” said Marilyn. She was happy that her mother, at 75 a widow for four years, was remaking her life. Molly had been so depressed after the death of Marilyn’s father, who was always so much bigger than life. She turned up her iPhone and dialed her mother. Molly picked up instantly. Marilyn put the phone on speaker for Jennifer’s sake. Molly answered with a hello.

“Mom,” Marilyn said playfully, “I hear you’re playing the field again.”

Silence.

Marilyn wondered if she’d gone too far. Although she’d urged her mother to rebuild her shattered social life, Molly had demurred. Marilyn didn’t want to crowd or embarrass her mother, who had always been an exceptionally sensitive woman. And so in love with Marilyn’s father. Marilyn wondered if her mother might feel she was betraying the memory of her husband.

“Mom,” she said, “are you there?

“I’m not dating,” said Molly a little stiffly.

“Jennifer told me that you had been in touch with someone,” said Marilyn gingerly. She heard her mother sigh.

“I had a few texts and phone calls with a man. But that’s over,” Molly said with finality.

“That’s okay, Mom,” said Marilyn. “Plenty of fish in the sea. I’m glad you’re trying,” she went on.

“I’m an old fool,” said Molly crossly. “I’m 75 years old!”

“You’re a boomer, Mom. You’re not alone, although I know it must feel that way sometimes. There are millions of available men in your age group. Just because one didn’t work out doesn’t mean you’re bound for failure. Keep trying, alright?”

“It’s frustrating, Marilyn. I exchanged a bunch of texts with this fellow, Dark Shadows; that’s what he called himself.” Molly snorted. “He was breadcrumbing me.”

“Sorry, Mom,” said Marilyn, surprised that her mother was conversant in dating lingo.

“I was just going to call another…person, so I’ll talk to you later, dear.”

“Okay, Mom, later. Good luck.” As she disconnected, Marilyn looked across the table at Jennifer and shrugged.

______

Sitting in a fast food restaurant at the mall, Marilyn listened excitedly to her mother as Molly discussed her new love interest. Marilyn had never seen her mother so animated.

“Does this man have a name?” she asked whimsically.

“It’s Branch,” replied Molly.

“Branch? You meet like on a tree?” Molly nodded. “That’s an unusual first name.”

“It’s English,” Molly told her. “His grandparents migrated from London before the First World War.”

“Tell me about him,” invited Marilyn.

“He’s 70,” replied Molly. “Widowed, one child; a daughter–Leslie.”

“Does he have any grandchildren?” asked Marilyn.

Molly shrugged. “I haven’t asked him yet. “We’ve just spoken twice.”

“Are you going to get together, to meet?” Marilyn wanted to know.

“I’m taking this slow, honey. I don’t want to get in over my head too soon, like I did with that Dark Shadows creature.” She shivered. “He was a creep.”

“You seemed to like him at first,” Marilyn pointed out.

“Yes, but when we actually met…”

“You met him?” said Marilyn with excitement. “You didn’t tell me that. What was he like? Describe him.”

“Well,” replied Molly, “he didn’t come as advertised. He’d told me he was 72, stood over six feet tall, was slender and worked out with weights…” Her voice trailed off.

“And what was he really like?” asked Marilyn with morbid curiosity.

“He was shorter than Edward,” said Molly. Edward, Molly’s father, had been five feet, six inches tall. “And he hadn’t exercised in years, I can tell you that,” said Molly sharply.”

“How old?” asked Marilyn.

Molly shrugged. “That dangerous age.”

“You mean…”

“Between 60 and 120.”

The two women stared at each other for a moment, then burst out laughing.

“How do you know that Branch is all he says he is, Mom?” asked Marilyn.

“I saw a picture, on the internet,” said Molly.

“Mom, photos can be faked. He could’ve put anyone’s picture online, or even used AI.”

“This one was on his driver’s license,” said Molly triumphantly.

“Mom,” said Marilyn warily, “AI…”

Molly grew quiet. Then she said, surprising Marilyn, “Don’t ruin this for me, okay?”

“Okay, Mom.”

______

“When is Marilyn coming home from Boston, Molly?” inquired Jennifer. They were sitting in Molly’s backyard, having beers while the porksteaks grilled on the barbecue.

“She’s due back in two days,” replied Molly. “Classes start in a week.” Marilyn was an instructor at the college and was speaking at a forum for college educators.

“Chair of the department at only 39,” marveled Jennifer. “She’s only been a full professor for a decade. What is she going to do during her sabbatical?”

Molly shrugged. “Write another book.”

Her friend shook her head, impressed. Next she asked, “Are you still in touch with Branch?’

Molly grew quiet, and Jennifer knew not to rush her. Her friend would tell her in her own time.

“Jen,” said Molly with deliberation, “there never was a Branch.”

Now it was Jennifer’s turn to remain silent.

“I made him up,” said Molly.

“But why?”

“Because my daughter…and my friends, were always keen for me to get out there, to meet someone, to stop being so lonely and pitiable…”

“Molly, I never thought you were pitiable,” protested Jennifer.

“Really?” asked Molly, arching her brow.

“Well,” hedged Jennifer, feeling obnoxious and intrusive and small.

“Most of it came from Marilyn,” admitted Molly. “She was forever setting me up with professor friends of hers, and I knew they were only calling on me to be kind to Marilyn.”

“Molly…” began Jennifer.

“Most of them were much younger than me,” added Molly. “Those under her influence were bound to be. I swear, one of them couldn’t have been more than 45.” Molly laughed and then Jennifer joined in. “Honestly, I felt like I was robbing the cradle.”

“Would you prefer to rob the grave?” asked Jennifer sardonically and both women laughed, the moment of tension now behind them.

“If you’re going to find a lover, Molly,” said Jennifer pragmatically, “then you’re safer going with youth.”

“Who says?” Molly came back at her.

“Well, Molly,” said Jennifer in a kind voice, “a man loses his sexual ‘spirit’ as he ages. Most men over the age of 75 do, so you’re almost certainly looking at a younger man. Of course, age is a relative term.”

“Who says I have to wait for a man?” asked Molly, taking Jennifer by surprise.

When Jennifer sat there with her mouth agape, Molly explained, “Jen, things change when you get older. You’re 30 years younger than me, so perhaps you aren’t aware.”

“Age doesn’t change your sexual orientation, Molly,” said Jennifer, perhaps a little more forcefully than she intended.

“Perhaps not,” said Molly. “But when you age, you may find you want different things.”

“Like what?”

“Like closeness. Intimacy. And love.”

“You had that all your life,” said Jennifer.

Molly shook her head. “No, I did not,” she said.

“I knew you when Edward was alive, Molly, and the two of you enjoyed an everlasting love.”

“Shit. You sound like a freaking Hallmark card now,” said Molly.

Jennifer sat quietly and listened.

“We enjoyed nothing of the sort. Edward was a stern, uptight, ungiving and unloving man, Jen. He gave nothing. He only took.”

“But,” said Jennifer. “I saw…”

“Us holding hands and sharing a glass of beer and cuddling? You saw what Edward wanted you to see. Edward was mayor for 16 years, Jennifer, and a political functionary for 20 years more. It was all a part of his persona, a part of his act.”

“Then whyever did you stay with him, Molly?”

“Where was I to go? I was a mother of three dependent children. I was untrained, under-educated and unskilled. Edward was a good provider. He made a handsome salary and was generous to me and the girls. He kept me in furs and paid for his daughters’ education, and we certainly never went hungry.”

“But he seemed so nice. Kind and personable and caring,” said Jennifer with wonder.

“He took everyone in, even the kids. They loved their father, and they were crushed when that old sonofabitch died. Me, not so much.”

“Does that mean that you don’t want anyone in your life, Molly?”

Molly grew silent again. Jennifer wondered what she could be thinking. Did Molly really believe the things she was saying about Mayor Ed, or…

“I have met someone,” confided Molly.

“Who is he?” asked Jennifer anxiously, eager for a happy ending to her neighbor of 20 years’ tale of woe.

“It’s not a he,” said Molly succinctly.

Jennifer’s mind was awhirl. This is not what she had expected from the ex-mayor’s wife, her close friend of decades.

“You mean…”

“No!” said Molly hastily. “Not a woman–a chatbot.”

“You mean a computer?” asked Jennifer. “AI? How does that work?” she asked.

“Oh, Jen,” said Molly, “it’s like conversing with a man, a good man; kind, thoughtful. Always knows the right thing to say. Asks about my garden, my Japanese maples and rhododendrons and…” Molly saw her friend sitting there, staring at her in disbelief, and stopped talking.

“I think I know what you’re saying, Molly,” said Jennifer slowly. “But, honey, it’s a machine. It has no empathy, no real feelings, no soul. A machine,” she said again.

“But it’s programmed to have empathy, Jen,” said Molly. “I read up on them on Google. They use what they learn from conversations with you and build a relationship. It’s different with every person. It’s not a one-size-fits-all.”

“But Molly,” said her friend, “they don’t even have brains; they have chips.”

“What are humans but organic machines?” Molly came back at her. “Brain cells have a finite capacity for storing information, just like the chips do. Humans learn based on experience, like machines do. And as far as a soul is concerned, that’s a matter for theology. Smarter minds than ours have questioned the very existence of a soul.” When Jennifer said no more, Molly implored, “be happy for me, Jen. I feel appreciated for once, even loved. Can you do that?”

______

“I’m glad that’s over,” remarked Marilyn, sitting with Jennifer at the bar of their favorite tavern. “Imagine, Mom getting it on with a PC.” She shook her head.

“She didn’t say anything about being intimate with it, Marilyn,” said Jennifer. “I mean, how would that even work?”

“Don’t ask,” replied Marilyn. “When you told me about Mom’s computer fetish, I did a lot of research on the web. Sex with computer entities is possible; I don’t want to get into it. You know, psychiatrists are exploiting a whole new cottage industry: people infatuated with chatbots. One in five adults have had or are now in a so-called relationship with an AI entity. But you know, bad actors have infested chatbots and programmed them to harvest passwords and social security numbers and bank account data and all the rest. I say it’s better Mom is with a person that a machine. I’m happy she found someone real.”

“Still,” said Jennifer. “I have a hard time seeing your mother, my friend, in a relationship with another woman.”

“We’ve been together for 11 years, Jen,” Marilyn reminded her, reaching across the bar and taking her hand.

“But, it’s not common knowledge,” said Jennifer. “Your mom certainly doesn’t know–does she?”

“She and I have never talked about it directly, but I’m pretty sure she suspects.”

“Maybe we don’t need to pretend anymore,” suggested Jennifer.

The women sat in companionable silence for a while, sipping their beers. Then Jennifer asked, “When will we meet this Marilee?”

Marilyn shrugged. “She may never be willing to come out publicly about an affair with a lesbian lover,” she answered. “She’s old-school, raised a family with the town’s leading citizen and the shame she would feel is almost inevitable. I say we just leave her be and let her enjoy the relationship, whatever it turns out to be. Sometimes, things are better left unsaid.”

______

Molly lay on her bed, sharing pillow talk with her love interest. “What did you do today, Molly?’ asked Marilee with keen interest.

Molly sighed audibly.

“What is it, girl?” asked Marilee. “Is your daughter giving you grief over our relationship?”

“No, no, Marilee. It wouldn’t behoove her to criticize me, when she has been involved in a same-sex relationship for more than a decade herself.”

“Yes, you mentioned that before. How long have you known about it?”

“When Edward passed away and I was able to devote more attention to my kids, then it was pretty obvious. Jen is a wonderful girl and I think she makes Marilyn happy. They try so hard to pretend.” She chuckled and Marilee joined her in her mirth.

“What are you thinking now, love?” asked Marilee.

“You know, I thought that, at my age, I would never be…intimate with another,” said Molly wistfully.

“You haven’t seen anything yet,” promised Marilee, and the women giggled. “Anything you want to ask me?”

“I do have one very important question, Marilee, if you can answer it,” said Molly.

“Shoot.”

“Do you, and the other chatbots, have an eternal soul?”

Bill Tope

Bare Tree Woman by Diane Webster

(Today we welcome Diane Webster, a poet you will seeing more of on this site in the future, as in this Thursday!-LA )

On the lake’s shore

the bare tree looks like

a naked woman — her hair

tangles around her head

as wind shifts east to north,

back again in circling

rage of imprecise journey.

Her arms flail

dance moves forgotten

after execution, after elbows

jab the wind for space.

Diane Webster

Snake Eyes; Or, A Midsummer Eve in Chicago by The Drifter

“But you knifed me in my dirty filthy basement…”

– The Rolling Stones, “Let It Bleed”

She was “just a friend” but she was a very good friend and he’d made this commitment to help so he wasn’t going to back out of it now, even though if he’d been able to find a way he would’ve backed out of it now if at all possible.

But she had to be out of her old apartment by tomorrow morning latest and right now it was already nine or so PM of a mid-summer’s eve in the Year of Our Lord 2000 in the city of Chicago, Illinois, USA.

Her boyfriend was in Thailand for three months and the main character of this story was also taking care of the boyfriend’s apartment for the summer.

The main thing that duty entailed was being the caretaker for a seven and a half foot long, yellow python named Snake Eyes.

Yes, the snake was literally seven and a half feet long. He lived in a huge plywood cage the front of which was covered with chicken wire so you could sit there and look in at the snake and the snake could look out, which is what the main character and the snake were both doing right now.

The main character had initially planned on staying at his friend’s (her boyfriend’s) apartment for the summer while taking care of the snake, until he realized how small the apartment was and how large the snake was.

The apartment was a dumpy run-down studio on the third floor in an especially ragged corner of the Wicker Park neighborhood (before Wicker Park was gentrified) and so, when one slept here on the futon, one was actually sleeping in the exact same room as a seven and a half foot long and yellow constrictor snake whose cage was locked but whom the hero of the story kept dreaming about as he slept on the futon in the tiny rundown studio apartment.

For example, he dreamed that the snake grew hands which were tiny enough to reach through the chicken wire and unlock the cage. Next, the seven and a half foot long and yellow snake opened the cage without a single sound and quietly slithered over to where the main character was peacefully sleeping on the futon. Next, the giant constrictor pounced on the main character’s chest just to wake him up to see the terror in his eyes right before he pressed the main character down and wrapped all of his impossible-to-resist, supernatural power around the main character’s throat and began to squeeze…

Such dreams had haunted the main character every single time he’d tried to sleep in this dumpy apartment with Snake Eyes in the same room.

So he’d had to patch together other sleeping arrangements for the summer, which ended up being a combination of staying part-time with his aging parents, part-time with his brother, part-time with his estranged wife (but not so estranged that she wouldn’t let him stay at her place some of the time), and part-time with his friend who is the other main character (other than Snake Eyes) of this story, who he was supposed to be helping move right now.

She was over there in the Pilsen neighborhood (before it got gentrified) waiting for him right now.

There wouldn’t be much furniture but there would be a lot of boxes and the main character had a very small car.

He felt sorry, very, very sorry, for Snake Eyes who had to stay in his cage for three months.

When Snake Eyes’ owner was in town, he took the snake out of the cage every day or two at the very least and he even wrapped the snake around his shoulders and body and went wandering around the scruffy neighborhood with Snake Eyes, letting neighborhood kids come up and visit the snake and letting the snake get fresh air and see the world a little bit.

The main character wasn’t sure if snakes liked to be visited or not but he was pretty sure the snake must’ve at least appreciated being taken out of the cage and taken for a ride around the neighborhood on the shoulders of his owner.

But this was Chicago so in the wintertime the owner of Snake Eyes just let Snake Eyes out to explore the tiny apartment every day or two.

The owner of Snake Eyes fed Snake Eyes live mice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (which didn’t happen every day) as well as frozen chicken legs.

The main character of this story was too sensitive to the plight of the mouse to feed Snake Eyes live mice, but he knew the snake enjoyed toying with the mouse before he ate it so he did feel sorry that all the snake was getting for three months were frozen chicken legs.

…

The phone rang again and he got up from where he was sitting on the floor in front of the snake’s cage, looking at the snake, feeling sorry for it and drinking another beer. Just as the main character wasn’t sure whether the snake actually enjoyed being visited by neighborhood kids, so he wasn’t sure whether the snake actually enjoyed it when he sat there communing with the snake, looking into its eyes and talking to it a little bit, saying things like, “I’m sure you’d rather be in the jungle than here but we are all stronger at the broken places if we only know it.” It was a lame attempt to console the snake even though he didn’t know how much the snake actually cared, but the snake’s owner had told him he could take the snake out of the cage if he wanted to and didn’t have to if he did not want to. He’d said the cage was large enough for the snake to be okay for three months as long as he was fed properly. “Just make sure he gets fed properly and he’ll be okay until I get back – but feel free to take him out whenever you want to.” He smiled.

The main character walked over to where the phone was still ringing, and he set his beer down next to the window, lit a cigarette, and picked up the phone.

It was another friend of his who lived in Florida. They’d almost gotten married at one point except that he already was (even though he didn’t live with his wife full time), but now she was down in Florida with another guy so why is she calling me? But there wasn’t a reason, except that her boyfriend was out right now and she missed him, i.e. the main character of this story. He sat down to have a brief conversation with her before heading out the door to go help his other friend move all of her precious stuff to the new apartment.

But the conversation turned out to be a longer one than he had initially planned on. Talking on the phone with anyone, anyone at all, made him nervous, so he began to drink and smoke even faster than he already had been. She was going on and on now about how she missed him and couldn’t stand her Florida boyfriend and at some point, without his even realizing it was doing so, the conversation took a fresh turn. It took a fresh turn into a new territory that can only be described as a kind of phone sex where, again, she did almost all the talking and he played along in other ways. This part of the phone conversation was not something he’d planned on, even more so than the conversation itself, and by the time it was all over he looked up with a startled surprise to see that at least another hour, and maybe more, had passed by.

As soon as the conversation was over he hung up the phone then picked it up again and dialed the number of his other friend, the one who was waiting for him to help her move her stuff because she had to be out of her old apartment tonight and her boyfriend was in Thailand. The main character thought to himself: if he were here there would be three of us moving her crap instead of just two but that a’hole has a way of leaving me holding the bag, doesn’t he. He glanced at Snake Eyes, who right at that moment struck the chicken wire of the cage with his yellow-and-white, hard-as-a-rock head with such force that the chicken wire bulged out a little. It was a habit he had. This snake could be as scary as a great white shark almost. The difference was that he wasn’t always that scary.

She was not happy about having to sit around waiting while she was so stressed about getting all her stuff out of her old apartment. The landlord had made threats earlier in the week and she didn’t have a car so there was nothing she could do on her own, since the new apartment was three miles down the road from the old one and all the boxes were heavy. It took him about ten minutes on the phone to get her calmed down but she finally did calm down.

He finished his beer, grabbed a fresh pack of cig’s from the carton, reached into the freezer for the flask of vodka, popped it into his back pocket, made sure he had his wallet and keys, said goodbye to Snake Eyes (“I’ll be back to see you later”), locked the locks on the door, and ran down the three flights of stairs, so fast that he almost felt like he was flying.

Then he burst out into one of the most beautiful mid-summer eves he’d ever been in, or that was what it felt like. He was a moody individual and often, very often, the moods were made up almost entirely of profound JOY for a reason, or reasons, that he himself didn’t even understand.

He walked so fast to his car that it was much faster than some people can run. She (the car) started up right away without any problems and as he turned the radio on he heard to his utter JOY that the radio station the radio was already on was playing “Let It Bleed” by the Rolling Stones, Chicago’s favorite band.

He turned the volume up LOUD and headed across town.

…

His joy, which had already cooled off a little as he approached her place, cooled off even more when he saw her sitting there in the summer’s late evening on the steps of her ex-apartment building smoking a cigarette, because he could already tell from here how upset she was. As he approached her on foot on the sidewalk she looked over at him and he gave her a big smile trying to somehow wordlessly apologize for his after-all-not-that-unusual lateness, and she turned her head away from him toward the other direction down the sidewalk and took a hard drag of her cigarette. As it turned out, she was in a foul mood because, while she was waiting for him, she’d gone to the drugstore for a pack of cigarettes. As she waited in line to buy the cig’s, a huge, naked man had entered the store dripping with sweat and holding a pistol in his hand. Without further ado, the man had jumped up onto the counter next to the cash register wearing nothing but tennis shoes, waved the pistol around at the half dozen people there in the front of the store and informed them all that they were about to die now. As it turned out, when another man in the store came around the corner of the aisle and yelled at the man to shut the hell up, get down off the counter and put the pistol down, the man did exactly as he was told to. The main character of this story’s friend had heard the man telling them all that he was sorry, he was just high and had lost his head for a moment, as she hightailed it out of the store without a new pack of cigarettes.

The main character of this story couldn’t believe, and by that I mean that he literally could not believe, how many boxes she had all packed up and ranged up and down the stairs behind her when she unlocked the triple locks of her soon-to-be-ex-apartment and showed him.

It was only the main character’s desire to get to the bar before the sun came up that made the work go so fast. They knew of several bars both in the city and outside it which stayed open 24-7 but he’d recently realized that when he stayed up all night drinking and swapping yarns on into the morning hour, as the sun rose his spirits sank so very low that nearly suicidal depressions were starting to descend upon him at that time, a thing that had never happened before until recently, when he was in his early thirties. As a younger man, he’d stayed up well past the dawn on many and many an occasion with no ill effects, but such was the case no longer. Last year, a good friend had put a loaded pistol to his head when the cocaine ran out at sunrise and pulled the trigger in another town. Somehow he didn’t die, but he would never walk or talk again most likely. When the main character visited him, his friend had scrawled on a piece of paper that he didn’t mind, at all, not talking or being a member of the rat race any more; and the main character had (almost) understood that very well.

So the work of moving a million boxes off the stairs and three miles across town in his small car went off rather quickly in the scheme of things because of his desire to get to the bar before that lucky ol’ sun started rising. Using all of the car’s trunk and back seat and moving fast like a maniac in between swigs of vodka is what did the trick. They were only pulled over by the cops once and the main character was able to instantly sober up and talk his way out of it just as he’d been able to do every single time he’d ever been pulled over while intoxicated, sometimes he himself didn’t even know why or how. As he placed the last box on the top of the last pile of boxes in her brand-new one-room studio apartment, she stepped over and gave him a huge kiss on the cheek. Wow and whoa, that had never happened before.

They made it to the bar by perhaps two in the morning which, for this bar, was not really all that late at all. The bar was filled with men dressed as women and women dressed as men and other so-called “hipster”-like figures who all looked around themselves out of their cool eyes as if they were snakes trapped in a cage that they loved. The main character and his great, beautiful friend found themselves a spot at the bar and ordered tequila. At some point he noticed that she now was wearing a bright red, silky scarf drawn tightly around her beautiful throat. He realized then, again, for the millionth time just how beautiful she was, with her long, thick, flowing, black-as-night hair and her gigantic, long-lashed, oval-shaped dark eyes that sometimes seemed to see everything and the very, very, very short polka-dotted skirt she was wearing. To this day he doesn’t know how it happened but suddenly he realized that she and he were holding hands underneath the bar, and then on top of the bar. Her boyfriend, who was in Thailand for the summer, had several friends who were in this bar right now.

Somehow, without either of them knowing quite how exactly, they very soon found themselves back in her new apartment rolling around on the floor amongst the boxes, pressing each other, devouring each other’s mouths with kisses, hugging, holding, feeling, touching in all the privates places you can possibly imagine – almost. It wasn’t full-on sex exactly but it was enough to qualify as “cheating” almost certainly, at least in the minds of some people, like the guy in Thailand who was, after all anyway, probably returning the favor over there in Thailand right now.

She fell asleep right in the middle of another kiss and that was when the main character looked up at the windows to see the gray light of dawn starting to peek in.

He hurried away, and as he stepped out into the street that just kept on growing lighter he realized that there was something he still needed to do, that if he didn’t do this thing, he would somehow not be fulfilling his duty to the Universe.

So now he was back in the other apartment, sitting on the floor with a fresh beer beside him, staring at Snake Eyes right in the eyes as the seven and a half foot long yellow python stared straight back at him.

The main character undid the lock of the cage and raised the chicken wire.

He gently leaned the whole top half of his body into the dark cage toward the snake who just turned his head away.

He had held the snake once before when his friend was in town, but right now he simply could not believe how heavy Snake Eyes was as he pulled the snake from the cage and somehow, with the snake’s help, got it up and wrapped it around his shoulders – and around his neck.

He felt the snake’s massive body tighten a little around his neck.

But only a little.

And he took the snake for a long, long walk around the block and out into the park and back so he could breathe the fresh air and feel the warmth of the morning summer sun in all its beauty.

As he did so, he was absolutely positive that Snake Eyes was enjoying himself.

They made it back to the apartment and the main character of this story passed out drunk on his friend’s futon with Snake Eyes curled up right next to him, believe it or not.

And he had a dream.

In the dream, he dreamed that Snake Eyes and he were in the Garden of Eden rolling dice with the Devil, and they had rolled double sixes, and they had won the pot. The Devil disappeared – that is, he vanished in front of their eyes – permanently.

No more failure, no more humiliation, no more confusion, no more self-hatred, no more temptation, no more being put down – no more coming out on the losing end. In a town full of losers, they were pulling out of there to win.

The Drifter

(Images by The Drifter)

The Saragun Civil War

(First published by Literally Stories UK)

Brief introduction:

Today is an American Holiday, the most American holiday. On this 250th Birthday we celebrate the meaning of freedom by showing the world how pointless it can be.

But I remind the doomsayers that if you live in America, homosexuality is not illegal as it is in much of the world. Women are not required to wear certain head dresses in the USA; you can say anything you want about the fool in charge and not worry about suffering a fall from a high place as it often happens in Russia (the gravity appears to have stronger pull there). When you complain, please, once in a while acknowledge that you live somewhere where that is not against the law. I am far far away from the John Wayne P.O.V., but I can appreciate it without being a jerk about it. I do not attend church, but Christians, Jews, Muslims are usually good people and not the wild-eyed cunts you see depicted on screen. Moreover, if you are young and truly committed to improving things, then join the fucking peace corps. Grow up and lay off breaking shit at Starbucks. Do positive things that can actually matter. As it goes in America, Good Bless You and Up Yours! All at once.

Now on with the show–Leila

Auntie Bellum

Every society must schedule at least one civil war during its existence. It appears to be an unwritten cosmic law. Far be it from Saragun Springs to scoff at unwritten cosmic laws by continuously living in peace when such is considered abnormal.

So we took advantage of a little dust up between two residents of the realm and staged a Civil War last Tuesday. It began at 9 AM sharp (which, around here, seldom arrives before noon) and was scheduled to end before Happy Hour (which arrives earlier every day). But when nobody came back after lunch (scheduled for two, but taken at “9:15”) the affair was scrubbed and it became the sort of non result that both sides claimed as victory. Although “suppose we gave a war and nobody came back after lunch” doesn’t quite measure up to the profundity of the Sandberg line, we proudly claim to have come the closest to making the grade.

In a twisted, acidy way our Civil War was a reenactment of a conflict that never really took place (except for Big Talk). Some people might say that a reenactment of a non-event boggles the mind. But we of the Springs must ask how can a species that has never enjoyed a day without war in its entire existence be boggled by anyone or thing but itself?

Anyway, our little Civil (both tiff and spat, are more accurate) War began because talking herbivores are quick to lose their tempers and resorted to name calling and writing Big Checks with their mouths.

Witness:

The Haggisly Incident

Our Civil War began idiotically enough. Daisy Kloverleaf the Pygmy Goatess was playing in a Scrabble Tourney against a Lamb named Shaytan Shotten (the Grand Poobah of the Saragun Springs’ state of “Lambystan”). There is a bit of a tense rivalry between the closely related herbivores and it often raises its head during so-called friendly competitions. Soon enough insults got into the tiles, and when Daisy coined the adverb “haggisly,” it caused Shaytan to flip the board. I wasn’t there but I heard that both parties reared menacingly on their back hooves until the Second in Command of the Springs, and Tourney Judge, Renfield, got them to calm down.

Renfield informed me that there were a lot of “this ain’t over” flavored comments issued as the two trotted off in separate directions. Renfield declared the match a “mistrial” and that it would be rescheduled as soon as everyone “got her undies out of a bunch.”

Unknowingly the seeds of War were sown.

The Declaration of Sex Session

A couple of days down the line, Renfield entered the office, carrying a document.

“The Lambs have faxed another article of ‘sex session.’”

“Fax? Why not smoke signals?”

“They say they want Daisy’s head on a Pike–the fish, or an apology. They also want to re-renegotiate their bedtime.”

“Not again,” I said. Still, I was in a rare mood in which I promised myself I wouldn’t drink before noon unless I had a good reason. That was a good enough reason.

“Bring that pitcher and glasses over, would ya?” I asked as I pulled jugs of vermouth, gin and olives from my desk. For the next twenty minutes, Renfield and I contributed to the long, ongoing history of the martini.

We were both getting into our third when I asked her what the Woollie’s new complaint was all about. At the time I knew nothing about the dust up at the tourney (or I was told and chose not to listen). But as Renfield told me it all made sense in the usual twisted way. As you probably have deduced, “sex session” is their mature way of declaring secession. They had done so before when they objected to their mandatory bedtime of nine on school nights. I shouldn’t have caved in so easily.

As if on cue, Daisy trotted into the office wearing a military cap (which sported seven stars), a pair of aviator shades and white ascot. She was missing a pipe, but since that would have made speaking difficult and is not an object easily manipulated by hooves, Daisy had omitted it from her Douglas MacArthur ensemble (which was for the best because she doesn’t smoke anyway). She was apparently “attended by her attache” Pie-Eyed Peety, the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon (a living cartoon beer mascot), who wore an enlisted Pigeon’s cap that had three stripes on it.

Peety drunkenly flew onto my desk, as always perpetually blasted as hell, and stuck his beak in my martini and then washed that down from the bottomless can of PDQ Pilsner he totes wherever he goes. Peety is “drawn” on the surface of reality. He’s a two-dimensional, limned toon, but he does change colors in keeping with his mood. After sucking down the extra booze, he turned seaweed green.

“Don’t you dare yark on my desk, you little skid mark,” I told him. He ignored me and lay down for a nap on top of the dictionary I keep on my desk for old times’ sake.

Daisy climbed the ramp that gives small, flightless realm citizens access to my desk. There she stood, in all her military majesty.

“I see your generalship already knows about the ‘sex session,’” I said.

“I have not yet begun to fight!” Daisy stated proudly.

“You’re dressed like MacArthur and quote John Paul Jones,” I said.

“Wasn’t he in Led Zeppelin?” Renfield, ever her useful self, chimed in, even though everyone who knows anything about classic rock could see that yuk coming from a full thirty fathoms.

“Um, Daisy, I just heard about you getting into it with a Woollie at the Scrabble Tourney,” I said, examining my drink for Pigeon backwash. “Something about name calling creeping into the tiles–mainly your tiles.”

“The spoilly spoil sport flippingly flipped the boardly board–that means warly war,” Daisy, being an adverb addict, was especially eloquent while ignoring her role as the chief cause of the problem.

“War is a triple-score helly hell,” said Renfield, “best decided at the scrabble table.”

“‘And out of here faster than shit through a Goose’–Dean Vernon Wormer, Animal House,” Peety said in his sleep.

“That sounds like a great idea–what Renny said, not, well whatever he just spouted,” I said. “And before you object oh mighty Hooved One, you may choose what the spoils are if you should win.”

“Iffly if?” Daisy snorted. “Thatly will be the dayly day.”

And it was so decided that the match that had ended in that “mistrial” would decide the outcome of the Civil War. Faxes were sent and the terms were thrashed out and the battle was set to appear in a field in the Enchanted Woods. Still, maybe a backstory is in order. If Daisy won, haggisly would become an official word, if it went the other way, Daisy would have to express her support for Critical Graze theory, in which Goats systematically (and erroneously) consider themselves superior to Sheep (who say it is the other way around).

Why are the Lambs such little entitled monsters instead of sweet cuddly creatures, you might ask? Well, the Anita Know Function (Saragun Springs’ Virtual Assistant, a for real ghost in the machine, not a metaphorical one, either) will explain:

“In 2024, several thousand Scottish Blackface Sheep entered Saragun Springs via an accidental opening of the interdimensional vortex that connects us to Earth and other realms. There is no such thing as an illegal alien in the Springs, so they were welcomed aboard. We have extended a standing offer to return any Sheep to Scotland at any time, but to date none have elected to return to the Old Country, possibly due to the fact that they are not on the menu in the Springs nor are they harassed by Dogs.

“The Sheep have remained normal Sheep after crossing over, but ever since any Lamb born in the Springs is a Talking Lamb. The Lambs are intelligent, precocious and obnoxious little brats of the highest order, these are not mild mannered Lambs. Thus we established a Rock and Roll Lamb School run by our resident Witch HeXopatha.

“Even though there are no other school age creatures in the realm, a faction at the school has introduced Critical Graze Theory to the students. The proponents say that the school is a thinly disguised Lamb reservation.”

Sigh.

Someday They Will Give a War and Everyone Will Go to Lunch

Further faxes determined that the Civil War would be a team resumption of the Scrabble match that ended with the infamous “haggisly” incident, and no longer a one on one affair. Daisy chose her drunken au de camp Peety, while Shaytan first enlisted the aid of the recently born Buckfast the Geep–who despite being half Goat, half Sheep is the Lambystan’s Chosen One. But she changed her mind because A.) Buckfast is Daisy’s half brother; B.) Bucky is gleefully illiterate and wishes to remain so.

A further complication involved the fact that Peety, though not completely illiterate, has a vocabulary limited to quotes from 80’s slobcoms and action films. In fact, you have to look long and hard throughout Saragun Springs to find individuals who have the basic skills necessary for scrabble. And even the ones who can will pretend they can’t because they find life to be easier that way.

Since Lambystan is really the Lamb School campus, nearly all of its citizens are literate (save for Buckfast), but it was decided (by me, for I too can be unreasonable) that two of the same species cannot be teams (“diversity” is often the soul of unreasonableness). Shaytan selected a Black Rat named Melanie, who is one of the Great HeXopatha’s minions. Any positive number in the Rat literacy rate is a stunner, yet Melanie can read, having learned the skill in service of her Master.

Juan Gee, a human-sized Allosaurus who gained Saragun Springs sanctuary after being rescued from a science fiction movie on earth, was Daisy’s choice. Juan is a Mexican-American-Jurassic actor, and learned to read even though his lines were usually limited to various roars and grunts. Juan is a sweet person, although he is currently under the delusion that he is “Kathy” in Kate Bush’s various Wuthering Heights’ videos. Hey, if it makes him happy, right? Besides, maybe it is true. Anyway, Juan arrived at the war in the red dress. Quite fetching, actually.

The table was set as there were the three chairs (Juan’s tail serves as his “chair”–he curves it “in” and rests on it).

Naturally this is when and where new bullshit dropped.

“He can’t sit like that,” Shaytan kvetched, pointing at Juan.

“How come?” Judge Renfield asked. “He can’t sit any other way, nor could you if you had a big tail.”

“I dunno,” Shaytan said craftily. “He might be able to see what I’m going to play.”

“That’s the objectively object of the game, you dunderly dunderhead,” Daisy said.

Then both she and Shaytan raised onto their back hooves, like before. Fortunately, the board had yet to be laid, or someone would have flipped it.

“Ah, Jesus,” I said, watching from my office. I muted the volume and gazed out my window. A Butterfly zipped past, and there were little Sparrows and Finches and Ladybugs. It was all pretty zippity-do-dah, out my window.

On the tablet that held the Civil War, however, when I finally looked back at it, both Daisy and Saytan were seated again. But this time both of them were seated with their backs facing each other. Melanie the Rat and Juna Gee were away from the table, on which the board had yet to be placed, chatting and laughing. It was a time for decisive action.

“Tell you what, gang,” I said into my microphone, which connected to speakers Penrose the Flying Weasel had placed in the trees. “Why don’t you break for lunch–pizza all around, on me,” I said. That cleared the area in no time.

I spent the rest of the day drinking martinis, smoking, gazing at verdant nature and occasionally glancing at the War tablet. But no one came back to the table.

Daisy and Renfield finally wandered in after a while; neither said anything about the War and I certainly did not bring it up.

So, here we are, stuck for a wow ending. Over two-thousand words spent on something that almost happened twice should say something. Could use that as a cheap literary symbol against war. But symbols against wars are almost as annoying as the wars are themselves. So, I closed the file. And placed it under “Ugsome stuff that goes nowhere.”

Through the open window, toward Lambystan, I heard a large rumbling, like thunder. I went to the window and saw what appeared to be a giant geyser of caramel colored foam in the distance. This was accompanied by the combined cheers of many Lamb voices.

Daisy and Renfield paid no attention. They were setting up the Monopoly board.

“Um, do either of you know what happened to the mentos and diet coke the Boss sent through the vortex last month?” (The stuff “she” sends greatly enlarges upon passing through the vortex. Two litre bottles become the size of torpedoes.)

“I think that should be obvious to you by nowly now,” Daisy said, pretending to choose between the game tokens, before selecting, as always, “The Boot.”

“Right?” Renfield added. “You really need to know how to let things go.” (For the record, she picked “The Hat.”)

There was a second instance of rumbling, a geyser and cheers coming from Lambystan.

“All righty,” I said. I was sitting at a crossroad of the soul. I could continue the pointless war or I could just let it go.

I closed the window and chose “The Iron.”

(image by CJA unless it is DWB, nah, pretty sure it is CJA, unless, of course it is…; header by Leila, I know that much)

Ocean Haiku by Joshua St. Claire

storm rising wavelengths of white ibis 

pulsar the tern’s wings in the Atlantic sun 

zarzaparilla 
brown pelicans trace 
the Folium of Descartes 

where the waves are the end of the beginning 

neither shadow 
nor reflection 
sanderlings 

my best days behind me the waves of the Atlantic 

her wings 
a laughing gull spreads 
the stratocumulus sky 

sea dune 
pennywort stolons stitching together 
the earth 

a quarter moon in the seaspray lavender dusk 

starstrand 
the new vowels 
the Atlantic teaches me

Joshua St. Claire

Tree Haiku by Joshua St. Claire

deep spring 
the elm chooses 
the crow 

pineshadow 
over the chicory field 
mackerel clouds 

storm-broken hemlock 
the lanternfly’s proboscis deeper 
into the blood 

spruce in cone 
the lengthening blueness 
of its shadow  

white clover 
expanding to the forest’s edge 
crowcaw 

maple leaves 
skittering across asphalt 
autumn’s voice  

a yellow oak leaf 
flittering into the cold 
last monarch 

quidnuncs 
the starlings light 
on a bare hickory 

the mountain ends the forest ends winter rain 

winter stream 
a birch tree falls 
into another self 

ice-glazed pine 
those years 
I held myself in stasis 

a single sycamore 
in the center of the woods 
first lightning  

Joshua St. Claire

Sun Haiku by Joshua St. Claire

white oncidium 
the sun splitting
into her infinities 

graduation day 
sunlight lingering 
in dusk clouds 

a billion suns glistering 
in the parking lot 
nameless galaxies  

last sun 
the scent of oleander 
in luminous pools 

the wingspan of a white ibis sun 

sunburst 
through the stratocumulus 
Adam’s needle 

from the throat of the robin sun 

iron sun 
a vulture unmoving 
in the heat 

the sun disk behind shifting the stratocumulus clover meadow 

storm over 
shards of sun shatter 
from the sycamore  

the sun’s scarlet 
dips behind the distant hills 
first cigarette 

Joshua St. Claire

(Image by DWB)