PATINES
She often walked along the waterfront in Venice. On a clear day she could see Belmont, high on its hill, mist-clad as usual like the fairy-tale it wasn’t. There were more stalls in the market these days – packed with bodies and sweat. One stall was selling monkeys, gibbering chain-clad creatures like the one she’d exchanged for the turquoise ring in the loving years. A horrible thing that gibbered and whimpered and chucked its wet faeces all over the place.
Sometimes she’d bring Leah to this rat-hole, but it was such trouble keeping an eye on the child and so near the water as well. ‘Leah’ – she’d never forget the row there’d been when she’d insisted on christening the baby with her own mother’s name. ‘A Jewish name,’ her husband said and spat. His cronies, all as drunk as skunks, backed him up of course. Their wives just gave her funny looks, drawing close. As they always did. Still, she got her way. She did, from time to time.
Faintly, from the Jewish quarter, came the dreaded, mournful sound. Sunset with its prayers for recent dead. ‘Who is dead now?’ she wondered, ‘Is it him?’ She wished it could be her. Runaway daughter, disgrace to her faith, thief − that was the bit that stuck in her throat – not the theft of the ducats but the ring, her mother’s ring. Sold for that perishing ape. She’d been told how her father had cursed her and wept. Well, all was a wilderness now.
She shoved her way along the water front. Soon be dark and a full moon. The floor of heaven, Lorenzo had called it, in the loving years Inlaid with patines of bright gold. She shrugged. ‘What heaven? What gold?’ There’d be none of that for her.
• A regular contributor to IS&T, Mandy Pannett runs an arts cafe, supports two local writing groups and
enjoys giving readings and running writing workshops. She has two
poetry collections from Oversteps Books – Bee Purple and Frost Hollow.
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Thursday, July 17
New prose by Mandy Pannett
by
Charles Christian
on Thu 17 Jul 2008 02:30 PM BST
Friday, July 11
New flash fiction by Mike Montreuil
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 11 Jul 2008 05:27 PM BST
MORNING RUN
Mary-Jane always believed that her morning run was the perfect way to start the day. Her husband, Malcolm, thought otherwise and soon began to resent those early morning intrusions into his sleep. This morning was no different. Mary-Jane heard the music from the radio alarm clock. 6 o'clock. Malcolm groaned from his side of the bed. A weak "Fucking clock" was heard. She ignored the comment and began dressing. Within minutes, Mary-Jane was out the door; her run underway. Now awake, Malcolm stirred under the blankets, scratching his balls and thinking about how to make his wife interested in a morning of sex instead of those fucking runs and work. Minutes later he was in the kitchen preparing coffee and his breakfast. Twenty minutes passed by and Malcolm began writing in his journal. But, the words would not come out and he decided to have another coffee instead. Forty minutes had elapsed and Malcolm began to wonder why Mary-Jane hadn't returned. He finished his now cold coffee and began his morning bathroom routine. Looking in the mirror, Malcolm saw that his gray hair had invaded his chest. Age was catching with him and he knew it. If only they had succeeded in having children. Then, he would have a son to play catch with or even a daughter to give away at her wedding. He sighed knowing it was not to be in this lifetime. Almost ready to dress for work, Malcolm noticed that the TV converter clock showed 7:25. Where was Mary-Jane? For no apparent reason, he decided, then, to have a look around the block. After putting on an old pair of work jeans, Malcolm began to tie his running shoes. As the clock on the fireplace mantel rang 7:30, Malcolm became part of an exploding two story house. Fire and rescue crews never found Mary-Jane. • Mike Montreuil lives in Ottawa (Canada) and although he is a regular IS&T contributor, he has only recently begun writing flash fiction. Thursday, June 19
Flash fiction by Abbie Clark
by
Charles Christian
on Thu 19 Jun 2008 07:22 PM BST
Ralf
Diving from left to right and zig zagging across the floor sparks shot from his heels, Ralf had never felt so alive, as he flicked the prosthetic limbs that had neatly been attached by feather boa technology towards the centre of the dance floor everyone spread out. Eager to witness his slick new moves and be a part of the new scene (that would no doubt be talked about in every post office and abandoned telephone box for decades to come) the two legged trend setters set about making a circular spherical shape of neon lights and flashing shoes. Zip zap zoom ra, the lights spun and glistened like they were spinning just for him, the music rose like petrol prices and the chanting began. Ralf was king tonight, as he double flipped, back kicked and somersaulted he felt the floor move beneath his plastic toes so fast that he knew evidence would later need to be provided by the insecurity guards. Then just as he was about to break into his signature move the collar was strapped around his neck and his eyes drifted to the stick being thrown at a great angle into a sky of street lamps. They would have to wait until tomorrow for the next dance frenzy. • Abbie Clark is a purveyor of the bizarre, a radio presenting activist and a consumer of chai latte Friday, June 13
New short fiction by Janet Yung
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 13 Jun 2008 09:13 AM BST
Dining Out
“Do you want me to call an ambulance?” The chubby manager of the all you can eat restaurant is seated on the floor next to Peter, the elderly patron, who’s barely had time to settle at the table waiting with his wife, Clara, while their two nieces have gone to the food bar. “Yes,” Clara nods her head. Clara’s white hair sits in a bun on top of her head, tears welling up in her eyes. The manager and one of the girls who work the room at lunchtime, clearing tables and fetching drinks along with bread and butter, laid Peter gently on the ground when he bent over the table and uttered an “Oh, my,” Clara looking helpless. It’s the thing Clara has worried about most in her life. “What’ll I do without Peter?” Now, sitting on her chair while the manager and the wait staff try to make sure Peter doesn’t die on the premises, she thinks the worst is happening. Clara smiles when the manager, now arranging towels under Peter’s head looks up and says, “His eyes are open.” “How do you feel?” she asks and Peter‘s eye lids flutter, the first sign of movement since he‘s been on the floor. People at surrounding tables only stop eating for a second at the start of the commotion. Now, they resume eating and the trek from table to steam tables. No one wants to feel cheated. It isn’t the first time this has happened at the buffet. “Everyone in there is so old,” Peter complained when the girls suggested taking their aunt and uncle to the restaurant. “It’ll do you good to get out of the house.” Clara encouraged him, dressing in her favorite purple dress, something she only wears on special occasions. “We need to do more outside the house,” she said, putting the final touches on her hair. Peter says she looks nice, but he’s always said that no matter what she’s wearing. Clara stares at Peter’s black leather round toed shoes pointing towards the ceiling, white socks showing between the bottom of his cotton trousers and shoe tops. She should have insisted he wear dark socks, but they’d been running late and she didn’t want to keep the girls waiting. “I like these socks,” he told her when she spotted them. “Your slacks are too short,” she said, “that’s why I can see your socks.” “I like ‘em,” he said, ending the discussion. The girls arrive back at the table, unaware anything is wrong till they’re standing next to Clara and Peter, their plates filled with fried chicken, mashed potatoes and green beans. “The ambulance is on it’s way,” one of the cooks announces and the manager shows a visible sign of relief. “You’ll be okay,” the manager tells Peter and Clara pats Peter’s shoulder. The nieces huddle around the couple, their food forgotten on the table. When a diner spots the ambulance, the manager and the cook help Peter back onto the chair. Clara hovers close by while Peter’s vitals are checked and then he’s lifted onto the gurney. Clara is grateful not one of them referred to Peter as “old timer.” “We’ll follow you to the hospital,” one of the girls says. Clara, glad for the company, even though they’ll miss their lunch. “We’ll have to do this again soon,” Peter quips as he’s rolled out to the ambulance on his way to the emergency room. “Not exactly and not too soon,” Clara replies, adding “we need to get you some new clothes.” And then they are on their way without the sirens. • Janet Yung lives and writes in St. Louis. Her short fiction has appeared in Writers On The River and online in Foliate Oak, Terrain and Flashquake. Wednesday, June 11
Flash fiction by Tola Ositelu
by
Charles Christian
on Wed 11 Jun 2008 07:41 AM BST
This was the sixth Doctor’s surgery he was visiting that week. Harold had long ago resigned himself to the fact he had a problem. That he savoured the pleasure of sitting around, observing the infirm. Usually after a couple of hours of avoiding the receptionist’s gaze, they would approach him and the game was up. This surgery had a male receptionist. Harold stared at the TV watching a sexual health promo with disdain. Contrived, he thought, compared to the others he had seen.
"Harold". He jumped as the receptionist called his name, ever so soft, maybe even a little sympathetic. "It’s time to go now". On the footpath outside Harold made up his mind, again, to stop this. After all, he couldn’t possibly track down all his former patients. Yet two years after being struck off he still hadn’t kicked the habit of trying. • Tola Ositelu was born in South-East London, 1981 to Nigerian and Ghanaian parents. She studied law at university and is currently a trainee solicitor within a local government organisation in North London. Away from the day job she can be found organising, hosting and singing at live music events, seeing as much of the world as her annual leave will allow her, trying to make her mark in the world of music and literary freelance journalism, watching plays and attending various musical and literary events across London. www.tolitasmusings.blogspot.com Thursday, May 29
Short fiction/haibun by Ken Head
by
Charles Christian
on Thu 29 May 2008 06:53 PM BST
Man With Bread
The face of labour on the street Some days, bread warm from the oven makes it easier to forget I’ve nothing else to eat. But not today. Not after being told to wait while the baker’s wife helped those women in expensive coats who were in a hurry to choose pastries for their tea, as if making a fuss is the same as working hard. I could feel them looking down their noses at my boots and overalls, noticing how dirty they were, which is true this close to the weekend. Probably reckoned I smell bad, too. I could tell from their faces they were asking themselves how someone like me has the brass neck to use the same bakery they do and wondering if they should haggle a discount or threaten to take their custom somewhere else. When I see myself the way people like them see me, grubby from work and needing the shave I can’t have before I go on shift because there’s no hot water till the fire’s alight and I leave home too early for that, it rubs in how hard it is for people who don’t have money to keep their self-respect. It’s every day and all of life This’ll sound ridiculous, it does to me really, but what hurt most wasn’t queue-jumpers making me wait – I know how hard the baker and his missus work, how they need their better-off customers more than the likes of me – it was seeing those women stare at the safety pin I use when it’s cold to keep my jacket closed where there isn’t a button. People like that, they can’t imagine not having the proper clothes for every kind of weather. How did I deal with it? The best way I could. I had enough money for a bread roll, so I jingled the coins as if I had a pocketful while they stood pointing like greedy kids at what they’d decided to buy and I looked straight through them. Not much else I could do, was there? No point mouthing off, it would’ve ended up turning nasty. Anyway, my break’s only half an hour and working outside all day, I needed a piss more than a row, so I let it go. You have to, don’t you? You just have to. People become what they become • Ken Head's poetry weblog is at www.listeningforlight.blogspot.com and he'll appreciate your dropping in to browse and maybe leave a comment if you're passing. Sunday, May 18
Greg Oguss tells the story of his story
by
Charles Christian
on Sun 18 May 2008 07:35 PM BST
This Is the Story of My Story
It’s 1936. And Teddy Rosen has a date with some girl named Jane Stein who spends her summers in Michiana, Michigan, which owes its rather picaresque name to the fact that it lies on the border of Michigan and Indiana. Teddy summers in Michigan City, Michigan, which isn’t exactly a hop, skip and a jump from Michiana. Teddy has decided he wants to break his date with Jane. Only Teddy doesn’t have the thirty-five cents to make the long-distance call and let her know he isn’t going to show. One of Teddy’s friends in Michigan City hears he’s planning to blow this girl off without so much as a phone call. Mostly because he’s flat broke. Also because he’s just not that into her. Jane is all of 13. Teddy and his friend, Lenny, are both 16. “Jesus, that’s terrible,” Lenny thinks. Like Teddy, Lenny also summers in Michigan City. Lenny doesn’t have much to do on that lazy afternoon in Michigan City. Also like Teddy, he doesn’t have the thirty-five cents required to call up this girl and move in on his pal. But he’s thinking, Jane Stein, huh, what the heck? So he rounds up a few of his friends who are in the mood for an adventure. Including one guy who owns a Model A Ford Roadster—which is a helluva lot more impressive than thirty-five cents in your pocket—and they take a ride out to Michiana. Sans Teddy Rosen. Cut to: “Hey, Jane?” Pause. “Jane Stein?” Lenny calls out, as the Model A pulls up in front of her parents’ summer home in Michiana. She comes out the front door and into the yard to see who’s calling her. Yeah, she’s cute. Worth the trip. “Yeah, who is it?” the 13 year-old future Miss Hillel of the University of Illinois asks the car full of 16 year-old boys. “We’re friends of Teddy Rosen’s,” Lenny explains. Adding, “He’s not coming tonight. But you want to go to a beach party with us instead?” “Okay,” Jane replies. Down for whatever. “Hold on, let me get my cap and my suit.” “No problem,” the driver of the car tells her, “We’ll wait.” Jane goes inside and comes back out a few minutes later, just like she promised she would. That’s the story of my grandparents’ first date. Cut to: 2008. They’ve been married 67 years. There’s a bit more to the story. But it doesn’t get any better. Sorry, Teddy. • Greg Oguss teaches media studies at USC. He's been published in Babble and Beat, Off Beat Pulp, Gloom Cupboard and on Green Panda Press, among other places. Friday, May 16
New flash fiction by Kyle Hemmings
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 16 May 2008 05:49 AM BST
Eat a Peach
Tom and Shirley were in love and in debt. He was an aspiring actor and she, a moon-eyed wannabe ballerina. They lived in a small apartment on Bleecker. He loved the way he could make her laugh or cry. They threw parties. They had plenty of friends. Sometimes at these parties, he wore a cape and mask from an off-off Broadway play he presently co-starred in, a surreal version of Shakespeare's A Midsummer's Night Dream. She served guests exotic parfaits with French names. She bought embroidered doilies from the discount community store in Noho. He did recreational drugs but never before a rehearsal. She was insanely jealous of women with slim hips and feet like feathers. She wanted to know who among the faces in the street could perform a perfect pirouette and not complain of heel spurs. At night, after they made love, their bellies hummed like two hungry cats. When will we ever strike it rich, she said, sitting up, her arms wrapped around her girlish knees. He lit a joint and said, someday, someday, we'll look back on ourselves and think, love was the greatest booty we hid under our bed. Too many people, he said, make detours and remain impotent savages with civilized smiles. She was now training for her role in The Flamethrowers, a dance by The Martha Graham Company. She was prone to fainting spells precipitated by periods of anxiety. If I land this role, she told him, the world will know me. And it was always late at night, when she woke and said she had a strange craving for a peach. A ripe juicy peach, like the kind they sold a few blocks down at the Korean deli. Groaning, he wiped his eyes and complied. He felt like an idiot paying the man behind the counter for a paper bag of peaches. Imagine what he thought. Who at this hour eats peaches? Some months later, she never returned home from a dance practice. He waited and fidgeted, glanced at his watch and paced the room. He called the dance studio; he called their friends. Then he found the note taped to the kitchenette refrigerator: I'm sorry, honey. This isn't working out. Good bye and I hope you find your dreams as mine have changed. He couldn't sleep at night. He lost interest in shaving and grooming. Weeks passed; he showed up late at rehearsals. He was fired from the off-off Broadway play. At night, he busied himself drawing pictures, pictures that he called her. They were his impressions of her, but not in the sense of Impressionism – Monet and the like. Tom did not use color. During the day, he wandered the side streets, approached strangers in bistros and cafes sipping on a cafe latte, showed them his drawings. Have you seen her, he asked. They studied the drawings, looked up at him in a long curious gaze. They shook their heads and returned to their mocha coffees with whipped cream. Years passed. He met her one night at a party given by a co-worker. He was now a successful broker, seducing men with junk bonds and women in the night classes he taught part time on personal finance. When she first spotted him, she feigned an air of surprise. In fact, for a moment or two, she pretended not to remember him. She told him that now she was married to an accountant, the one talking to a salesman in the corner, a rotund man with a nerdish smile. Sustaining a nervous smile, she kept looking back at him. She had given up dancing long ago, she said. He noticed she had developed a twitch that he never had seen before. So what ever happened he asked. That time you walked out on me. Couldn't you have least talked things over? A blush spread across her face, and she looked to the floor. Excuse me, she said, my husband wants to ask me something. He noticed her glittering evening gown, and the way her pyramid earrings shone in the light. My God, he thought, how things change for the better. He walked up to her, smiled at her husband, introduced himself as an old friend of her family's. Then, he slid his hand into his suit pocket, and handed her what he called a drawing he once made of her. Then, he left, not looking anyone in the face. She opened the folded piece of paper. It was a drawing, a pencil sketch, of a peach. Two round nubs for the big sad eyes, a curvy cut marking the lips. Underneath, it read: Shirley. • Kyle Hemmings holds an MFA in creative writing and loves to cook, bake, and often burns whatever he cooks or bakes. He also loves to listen to The Beach Boys sing of an endless summer. He lives and works in New Jersey. Friday, May 9
New flash fiction by Patricia Mullin
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 09 May 2008 07:57 AM BST
Soft Angular
It is a familiar journey, three hours there, if I’m lucky, the same back. The traffic is heavy, lorries throw up dirty spray. I pass the house. * Clink, clink. The fork taps the glass bowl. Egg whites gradually frothing to soft triangular peaks. Mummy has her pretty apron on; it has sprigs of flowers on it. Her arm is tired and I offer to take a turn, but I am too small and I have to be lifted onto the chair. Four years old and strong, my arm won’t get tired, or so I believe. Within minutes I am returned to the floor. Meringues. Someone special is coming for tea, I don’t ask who. * She is folding and refolding. The handkerchief is labeled with her name. They have spelt it wrong, added an S. ‘They lose everything here, you know’. She is lost. ‘Did you expect daddy to die?’ It was a year ago, I explain gently. ‘No?’ She says shocked. The hands work the small cotton square into an oblong. ‘Someone is living in our house, a woman.’ ‘Yes, they have a little boy. It’s a family home again, which is best.’ ‘But where will daddy go when he comes out of hospital’. ‘He isn’t with us anymore. We lost daddy a year ago. He was very ill’. The handkerchief is now the smallest square. ‘No? Oh yes, I remember, was it a year…no. Weeks, a month at most.’ The handkerchief is spread wide and the creases smoothed out. She pauses, sighs. ‘Did you expect daddy to die?’ It is the fourteenth such question. She folds the handkerchief in half and in half again. The rope-blue veins stand proud of her skin. The small cotton square becomes a soft angular peak. The traffic is lighter. I pass the house and turn up the music in the car, muffling the clink, clink. • Patricia Mullin lives in Norfolk is an artist and author of Gene Genie and a graduate of Norwich Art School's Writing the Visual MA. Thursday, April 24
New flash fiction by Sarah Black
by
Charles Christian
on Thu 24 Apr 2008 08:08 AM BST
45 Seconds and Gone
That teacher with her smiling face, she’s always, how was your weekend? My fist in her fucking mouth, that’s how it was. I ought to tell her, just to watch her eyes, all caring and shit, get real hard and cold. Those soft eyes, that would be too fucking funny. So this is what I’d tell her. D picked me up on Saturday night, and he was already wasted. We were gonna go up Lukachukai Mountain, just hang out. There were these guys with him. I’d seen them around school. They had the shit, I don’t know what it was, something clear like vodka mixed up in one of those two liter Dr. Pepper bottles. Whatever it was, it got all of us off quick. Me and D, we go off a little way in the woods, have some privacy. We’d talked before about how we’re gonna do it when we’ve been going together a year, we talked some shit about getting a hotel in town with a nice, soft bed and room service, cause I was a virgin, but it wasn’t like that. It was right there on the ground, those Aspen leaves brown and wet underneath me, stinking wet earth, and D pulling at me and then he’s inside. It was fast, forty-five seconds and gone, and it’s burning down there, and wet, I don’t know, blood or something. The sky was cold, man, so black, and the stars up there just staring down at me like all these eyes, like all these grandmothers’ eyes. They were looking down at me laying there in the dirt and the leaves with my pants off and I could hear what they was calling me. D rolled off and I was getting ready to heave so I crawled away next to a tree. I’m throwing up and somebody grabbed me by the waist and shoved inside me from behind. It wasn’t D because I could see him passed out and whoever it was, he had big hands, all rough, and I could feel something tearing, like I was on fire down there and I squeezed my eyes shut so I don’t have to see. Those big hands on me. When he was done I just stayed there with vomit and wet leaves all under my knees and hands until I don’t hear them no more, but they don’t go. They was just waiting for me. I put on my underwear and jeans and sat down next to D. He was still passed out, his face half in the muck. There were three of them. They tried to make a little fire, but it just kept smoking, so they sat there and drank out of the bottle and the one in the middle, he passed it over to me again. He had big hands. They just sat there and watched me with their yellow eyes, like wolves. I ought to tell that bitch, with her soft face and her eyes all caring like she really gives a shit. I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna watch her eyes turn cold like those stars. I’m gonna tell her, that would be so fucking funny. She asks me one more time, I’m gonna tell her… • Sarah Black has published short fiction at Word Riot, Flashquake, Slow Trains, The Angler, Rio Grande Review; novels with Loose ID, MLR Press; erotica at Clean Sheets and Ruthie's Club. Monday, April 7
New prose by J A Tyler
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 07 Apr 2008 02:11 PM BST
And These Are All Questions
I feel long. Much longer than I should. Why doesn’t anyone see it? If I let go of the handrail I get facial hair and my fingernails click on the keys or the countertop or the desk or the table or pierce into the bumps of mosquito bites when they should just rough them up a bit. So I’m growing. Long. Always. The hair keeps coming. Shave and it’s back. Cut the nails and they just refinish themselves. And the nose hair too. Grows out. Always. Extends from the back of my throat so that it is catching me on the verge of chucking when I pull its long black line and tear my eyes. Doesn’t anyone notice? And why doesn’t anyone notice? And things just keep on. Keep going. Keep growing. And the bills never stop. Even if you pay two at once they come back again. Boomerang. And the dishes always seem to be dirty and need running so I run them and then they’re clean and I have to unload them and put the dirty ones back in and then run it and so on. Like that. Infinitum. Why is that? And these are all questions. By the way. By the by. These are all things I’m wondering while my facial hair grows and the beard nears closing in on itself and the fingernails click clack like empty box cars across the tracks of this desk or table or countertop or these keys that I use to type. And the laundry too. It never stops. Always more. Always something dirty. Always. Why is that? Why can’t it be done for more than a day? Or a week? Or a month? Maybe I just need more clothes. More clothes for the laundry and more money for the bills and more paper plates in the kitchen cupboards so I’ll never have to ask these questions again and the landfill will just continue to rise. Why not? I don’t hear people talking about how the landfill just keeps filling up. Instead it’s all this about how their beards keep growing in and their toenails are always threatening to puncture the toes of their shoes. So maybe that’s the answer. More clothes more money more throwaway dishes. And a girl who doesn’t mind a beard. A big bushy long beard that shakes when I talk and maybe sometime would drag on the floor and trip me up in my sandals that I use instead of close-toed shoes that my long toenails will only punch open anyway. And fingernails that curve. Long and dangly like school-girl hoop earrings. Why doesn’t anyone notice that I think these things? Why should they? They shouldn’t. • Among other publications, J. A. Tyler has recent work in The Feathertale Review, Thieves Jargon, Underground Voices, & Word Riot. He is also founding editor of Mud Luscious. Read more at www.aboutjatyler.com Friday, April 4
Flash fiction by Ginnetta Correli
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 04 Apr 2008 08:26 PM BST
THE BABY POOL
I want to fly like a snail. Yes, snails fly in their minds, so does the brain of the ocean. Does a man want to drown in the ersatz desire? You must understand me. I know you and I swam together. They call it escape velocity. You, were the expatriate, calling yourself "Moondoggie." All the Roxie girls on the beach desired you. Me, a strange expatriate. No, not a blonde girl named Gidget. The sea was black that day and the sky a mass of condensed vapor. Yet, somehow I pulled a boy to a deep, forming swell and spoke to him: "Hold your breath and go under the wave." "I don't swim with black fish." The boy lied, smiling to his friends, waving with one wrist like a windshield wiper moves in the rain. He kept trying to move back to the drunk dots on the sand. The boy was afraid. I could tell. I kept a firm grip on his foot. The next dark envelope started to fold. "Watch me." I told him. I pushed my head under the ocean disguise, pulling him close. Deep we went. I could feel a man trust me below a vigorous excavating waterspout… our bodies together as one in our minds. Grabbing his middle with my lips, I blew as best I could with what short time I had. I knew the man craved nourishment and liked my milk. I could tell by the way he closed his eyes. Thrusting under my warm blanket until a kernel popped. A wet push for us to a cream foam, surface release. The boys watching from the shore jealous of our wave. Tossing together as plugs on a solarium, hydrated platform for all to see. No, I was not ashamed. The man belonged to me. The sea. Yet, phlebitis is inevitable for the weak of heart. The boy pretended to choke and came too soon, spitting water from his teeth. He grabbed his slip-and-slide and ran to his buddies on the dirt. Moondoggie-babe, you still have not learned how to fool Mother Nature. Thank God you're still alive... ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ EMERGENCY STABLE I don't see you. Is it you Daddy? Say yes. My hand reaches for him. The orange hot prong licks me from behind. Dad? Daddy? The barn is burning! The smoke is thick near the pen. A doe cries and rams the old wood gate. Her fawn already dead with the mother's love. I am too burned to open the gate. Come here, child, you seem tired. I can ease your pain… let you rest. Sit with me, relax a bit. "Where is my Dad? Why can't I hear him? I want my father." I hear you and understand your dilemma. Girl, listen to me instead "No, I cannot exhale anymore. Daddy, why won't you help me?" Fire burns my red ass. Father does not speak to me. I still cannot see him. "Come, child, breathe" I feel a needle prick my arm. A thin, plastic cord on my vein. Pump...pump... I know what to do—stuff a large handful of hay in my mouth. Good girl. Hold it. Close your eyes. Do not exhale. Good vain girl. Keep holding. "Shit... She's coding." Nurse Lucy watches lines falling on a screen. No, they will never catch me. "Come on, breathe!" Doctor Zhivago screams in my ear. Father stares from behind the glass. No, they cannot catch me. "She's drowning..." Nurse Lucy watches the doctor beat my chest. I run through the amber. "Let her go," Father finally yells. Of course, they do not let go. "1, 2, 3...clear!" Doctor Zhivago starts to defibrillate my sternum. "1, 2, 3...breathe!" Chest thump. Burn...burn. "Doctor, she's still drowning." "Lucy...what do you want me to do? Choke her?" "Come on girl breathe! Come on, breathe!" More burns. I race through the amber. No, they cannot catch me. "Let her go," Father whispers from behind the glass. My cheeks puffed. A resin dust behind me. I stare at myself when I know it is safe. The girl's face a charred turtle shell. Her spirit removed. A smile relieved. No, they never catch me. • Ginnetta Correli is the author of a soon to be released novel called the Lost Episodes of Beatie Scareli. You can find out what it's about at http://beatiescareli.com Some of Ginnetta's writing will appear soon in print at Diet Soap. She lives near Las Vegas and works at some of the hotels on the Strip. Monday, October 29
New prose poem by Andrea Porter
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 29 Oct 2007 09:32 AM GMT
Group of Three Magic Stones by Barbara Hepworth 1973 (Kettles Yard Cambridge)
The retired nurse finally found one at seventy on the beach at Wells. It has the silver tongue and flatness of the Aussie pilot’s vowels. He had accepted her virginity in the war without a fuss and had sent her long letters on thin paper. She listens to the stone whisper at midnight as she lies in bed with tea and digestives. He re–tells the correspondence, recounts the end of days. She notes that he wrote a great deal about the Mess. An old Carmelite nun in Wales uses hers as the surface of all things. A smooth textural stone she found near an estuary as a child. Her father walked with her there, naming the seagulls, the formation of clouds. It is a map that traces her way through memory and back to God. In her hand she travels what was before and what will be again. She knows about the journey, the nature of angles and shadow. During early Mass it warms her body in the chapel. Others recognise a certain change in her. The florist with grey eyes hides a stone in a kitchen drawer. She thought of wearing it around her neck as a heavy talisman, against the ills that befell her but stones are all history and have no sense of time. She cannot recall where she found it, having stared at her feet for so long in the sure and certain hope of her resurrection as a woman who possesses such a stone. Held up, it reflects her lost child in flight like a photo-booth snap. She raises it to the evening light as she waits for the pasta to cook. As for me, there may be a fourth. I am searching for the stone that allows itself to be seen as a whole. It will have a pulse so that it would almost throb, like desire. I would place it at the back in case it judders off. Each face and plane that gives it strength but completeness could be suffocating to others and myself, given the type of woman I am. It is wise that the fourth keeps to itself and does not search me out. Three is a powerful number, it is stronger than the corners of a room, seasons, horsemen of the Apocalypse. • Andrea Porter is a member of the poetry performance group Joy of Six that has performed in Britain and New York. She has been published in a number of poetry magazines (both paper and online) in the UK , Canada , Australia and USA . Her narrative sequence of poems Bubble was adapted for Radio 4 as a drama by the RSC playwrite Fraser Grace. She received an Escalator Award from the British Arts Council (East) and The New Writing Partnership in 2006 to complete a novel. She sleeps either too little or too much. www.joyofsix.co.uk Wednesday, October 3
Two prose poems by Mike Estabrook
by
Charles Christian
on Wed 03 Oct 2007 10:29 AM BST
Hot Air Balloons
Fall has begun, crisp out there and even though it is warm as a robin’s nest it feels like the beginning of fall that impending feeling hanging poised in the air like a fleet of hot air balloons motionless in the sky. I took in the hoses and the wheelbarrow and mowed the lawn and cut a couple logs for firewood, and wondered how much longer the flowers would linger before giving up their colors to the long dark winter. Interior of the Living Room of the Rookwood Inn In the rustic Victorian living room of the Rookwood Inn, among the antique bookshelves stuffed with musty crumbling books, lacy curtains, dusty plants, and French-patterned furniture, my wife is explaining to Amy, another of the guests (a pretty mother of four with frizzy hair and long legs), about our sightseeing yesterday in nearby Amherst, when Amy responds, “Oh, I know Emily Dickinson, she’s the one who wrote all those novels about little women and the such,” and I’m so astounded I almost fall off my chair. • Mike Estabrook lives in New England and says of himself "I'm the marketing communications manager for a tiny division of a gigantic company, and man, going into an office every day can be excruciating. I should’ve stayed on Northfield Avenue instead where I belong and learned to fix cars like my Daddy did." Tuesday, September 25
Souls that Passed in Spite by Clare Phillips-Barton
by
Charles Christian
on Tue 25 Sep 2007 09:16 PM BST
 • Clare Phillips-Barton is amongst other things a mother of two, living, writing and bumping into unusual types in the Northamptonshire countryside. Monday, August 13
Sunflower Seeds – a new vignette/prose poem by Juliet England
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 13 Aug 2007 02:07 PM BST
Sunflower Seeds
Everyone in Lorca knows Jose Joaquim. He stands in the bar, happy among his laughing posse. This place, this ancient Spanish town of golden stone, where he was born and where he will die, is his world. He knows and wants no other. He has taught half the people here, the other half know him anyway. He wears the clothes of a man ten years older: a battered brown suede jacket sagging over bony shoulders and a thin blue V-necked sweater, with the shabby grey flannel trousers he wore for that morning’s lessons. His fingers curl around his drink. The floor is sticky with its carpet of tissues, toothpicks and the shells of hundreds of tossed away sunflower seeds and cigarette ends. The detritus of a hard evening of what the locals call marcha. How to translate? It's the craic, the fun, but it is more than that. No English word comes close. It is 3am, and in a couple of hours tonight will be thrown away like a sunflower seed shell. For June evenings like this one are as plentiful as sunflower seeds in Lorca. Outside, it is dark, a thick, Spanish night, its intense claustrophobia mirroring life in Lorca, where your evening’s sneeze is discussed at length next morning by old men wheezing over their first coffees of the day. Jose Joaquin’s once luxuriant dark hair has begun its backward march from his forehead. One hand wipes it briefly, mid-gesture. His eyes, dark as coffee, blaze with animation, the eyebrows above working his forehead. He throws back his head at a joke. That summer’s hits, to be forgotten by the fist tremble of autumn, rage from the jukebox. In one corner, a couple has started to dance. The air groans with its raft of mingling scents –perspiring bodies and an alcoholic sweetness jostle with aromas from the bakery across the road and its hot bread slippery with pulped tomatoes. Some drinkers have spilled onto the street, where the glow of streetlights is more forgiving than the harshly striplit Bar Alambique. Suddenly I realise that all this is over. These friends, this bar, the endless milky coffees, the flat, the students I have tried to teach. This is the fag-end of my year in small-town Spain, just as these final two hours before dawn are the fag-end of the long night. For the others, there will be other evenings, but not for me. I am unwilling to let it slip away, savouring every sight and sound, every scent. I think of Jose Joaquin, who met me when I arrived, bewildered and sitting on my suitcase at the station, adrift on the sun-swept morning. His memory will not be thrown away so easily. I will remember him in England, in a city that will seem empty and strange. I go up to him and kiss him on both cheeks. He touches my shoulder lightly, and we say goodbye. We both know we will not see each other again. • Juliet England was bitten by a monkey belonging to the writer Arthur C Clarke in Sri Lanka when she was a child but has since recovered from the experience. Monday, July 23
Conker Season - new prose by Kris Humphrey
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 23 Jul 2007 11:02 AM BST
Conker Season
It was about seven years ago, before the drifting apart had even started, and Filby and me were over at Harewood House looking for conkers. The season was pretty much over but we weren’t ready to give up. We’d talked about it on the way over; there was still time to find a good one, a big bastard to rival the ones people were bringing down from the woods up on Stickheath. So there we were, either side of the path, wading through leaves in search of the telltale shine. The pickings were slim. Kids had been combing the place for weeks and all we were turning up was flat or mouldy ones. About half way up the path we stopped to compare. That’s when the old man showed up. It was impossible to tell if he was in the process of moving or just standing there doing nothing; that’s how slow he looked. Probably shuffling home after a coffee morning at the House. Filby was showing me this conker he thought might be all right and we barely even noticed the man until he spoke. He asked if we were collecting conkers. I looked at Filby; a question like that was asking for sarcasm. But the man was so old he could hardly move, so we just told him yes. He smiled, or at least the lines on his face shifted round. His black dot eyes didn’t register a thing. It made me wonder if all old people ended up with stone cold eyes like that. Then he started telling us where we should look for conkers. He had a stick and he waved it in the direction of the tennis courts. He said they would all have rolled down the banks into the ditch around the courts. Filby and me shared a glance. The man was right. We said thanks and headed off towards the slope. As we reached the top I peered back the way we had come and saw the old man hobbling off down the path. His progress was tortuous and he leaned heavily on his stick at each step. He really was pitifully frail but as I watched him shuffle away the lustreless black of his eyes hung strangely in my mind and somehow I was relieved to see him go. We slid into the ditch and kicked through a foot or so of dead leaves, skirting round the edge of the dilapidated courts to the patch we thought would give the highest yield. No one played tennis in winter and the place was empty. The clubhouse was locked up too, and along with the tall row of conker trees it shielded us from view from almost every angle. The strategy paid off instantly with even the briefest rummage through the leaves turning up a handful of bright, fat conkers. We filled our pockets and laughed greedily at the fact that nobody else had been clever enough to look there. Then, after a minute or two of gathering I paused to rest my back and, for no good reason, I glanced through the mesh and across the courts to the one small section of pathway that was still visible between the trees. The old man was there. A jolt leaped through my chest. I’d thought he was gone. But he was there gripping tightly to his stick and looking back in our direction. I stared at him, for what seemed like ages, and he stared back. I couldn’t tell if he was smiling or not but I knew those eyes of his were pointed at us; like little glass beads. I carried on staring, and from the quiet behind me I could tell that Filby had stopped his searching too. We stood there, up to our shins in fallen leaves, unmoving until the man was gone from view. Walking home we took a different path, past the clubhouse and across the field to the main road. Neither of us mentioned the old man, just delved our hands into the pocketfuls we’d come away with, wondering what it was we weren’t talking about. • Kris Humprey lives in the South-West England and work as a cinema projectionist. Saturday, July 14
Some foreign field by Phuoc-Tan Diep
by
Charles Christian
on Sat 14 Jul 2007 10:07 AM BST
Some foreign field
A can of Canada Dry ginger ale lies exposed, torn in half. A tramp sniffs it for booze. It smells of fruit fermenting in wet packs. His boots are rotten, toecaps lifting off dirt-encrusted feet. He looks like he has marched a long way, from a far off bunker in some foreign field to this hidden place under a leafy bush in St. James Park. The green map of Canada expands, reflected in sodium streetlights, mixing with leaves and covering him with lines of longitude and latitude, like a thin wire cage. Now the soldiers lack stealth as they march, feet tapping on thin aluminium. He can almost hear their communiqués, the Morse code of tiny feet. The tramp shuffles deeper under the bush, allowing shadows to hide him from enemy eyes. Police sirens keep him on the edge of sleep. Soft grass sighs as it is crushed under the running feet of a young boy, too young for cigarettes. He coughs up smoke in great mustard swirls. He looks around, eyes hidden under his cap with U2’s Achtung Baby emblazoned on it. He flicks the glowing tip, sparks flaring bright, and lobs it like a grenade, into the ginger ale can. He flees. Soldier ants rush out over No Man’s Land and flattened poppies into their trenches. There is two minutes silence. The boom-boom of nightclubs shudder leaves, raining them down like shrapnel on the tramp. He flinches, retreating further into the ambush of sleep. • P-T is a regular contributor to IS&T Friday, July 6
New work - from a new contributor
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 06 Jul 2007 09:21 AM BST
The Conjuror’s Assistant
The conjuror’s assistant who woke up in bed with the conjuror, or thought she did. The conjuror’s assistant who opened her eyes at the wrong moment. The conjuror’s assistant who survived the knife-throwing act and was killed by a maniac on the way home from the theatre. The conjuror’s assistant who was only half there. The conjuror’s assistant who forgot the number she first thought of. The conjuror’s assistant who played Russian roulette and won a large, fluffy, bunny-rabbit. • Michael Sayers (Satyadaka) – the author lives in Norwich Monday, June 11
Waiting by Phuoc-Tan Diep
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 11 Jun 2007 03:17 PM BST
Waiting 12pm I hate waiting - always have. 1pm Memories are littered with queues springing up ambushing me whilst I rushed for trains and zoo visits in torrential rain marred by people with umbrellas leaping out from under trees. | |||