Day the World Turned Upside Down

The little boy stopped watching
the silver screen and turned around
and stared at the light from the projection booth.
It sparkled before his eyes and he decided
tiny midgets and little elves, cavorting
behind the light, created the images he saw of Bogie,
Gable, Errol Flynn and the beautiful Olivia de Havilland.
Into adulthood, he never gave up this unusual idea
and it gave him the ability to turn the world upside down.
Airliners flew backwards and landed on beds of marzipan
and marshmallows. Trains could fly and buses were
powered by giant rubber bands and everyone could walk
or trot to get to where they were going.
There were only five thousand people in China and
Roger Bannister ran a forty minute mile.
No one frowned, everyone smiled.
Shy ones became gregarious ones Talkative ones
fell asleep when they began to bore.
The poets arose from the dead and T.S. Eliot wrote
tight, uneventful sonnets about birds and bees and
cotton candy trees. Alan Ginsburg found everyone
to be normal. Sylvia Plath went to work for a suicide hotline.
Erica Jong thought psychiatry was a good idea
Poems began to rhyme again in a captured rhythm
The oceans turned to jello -- raspberry in the Pacific
and lime in the Atlantic. Earthquakes were no more
dangerous than a child's bouncy toy. Hurricanes
turned into mellow, spring winds The moon was always
full and animals could leap it with a single bound.
The stars shone like diamonds in a pristine sky
Everything, for the moment, was at peace.
The light in the projection booth constantly flickered
while the wee ones danced their dance.

Stephen Robertson

----------------------------

In the back of his mind, when he was chosen for this fight in Wales, he knew it was going to be his last one. But, by the end of the sixth round, he knew for sure his career was over. He had a cut over his right eye and the blood ran across the ridge on his forehead, down his cheek and into his mouth. His nose was split wide open and the blood seemed to splatter over the rest of his face.
Jerry, his manager, said . "You have a fucking bloody mask. I've never seen shit quite this bad."
Otto, his cut man, worked feverishly to stop the bleeding, rubbing grease all over his fighter's face, before the doctor popped into their corner to see how things were going. He was an affable Englishman who seemed unconcerned about the state of the fighter before him.
"Everything all right, mate?" he asked, "not bleeding too bad are we?" He turned to Jerry, "You think he can go another round? This Welsh crowd would be very unhappy if we stopped the fight now."
Jerry, half-heartedly, said, "Yeah, we can get in there for the next round."
"Okay, you're ready to go," the doctor said as he moved away from the corner. The last thing Morris saw when the bell rang was Otto's towel. It was bright red, it looked like a communist flag.
He stepped into the middle of the ring and faced his Welsh opponent. The man was a tough welterweight with ginger hair and the whitest skin Morris had ever seen. He was 14 years younger than Morris, and had a boxer's square body with strong legs and arms and a good reach that had been punishing Morris all night. He threw a left hook that caught Morris on his cut eye and he started to bleed profusely again. Another left hook was snapped at him and it opened up the cut on his nose. In a matter of seconds, his face became a bloody mask again.
It was at this point that Morris started to hallucinate.
In his mind, he began to win the fight. He tore into the gut of his opponent with a series of devastating jabs and he could feel the Welshman sag. He then hit him with an uppercut to the jaw that sent him reeling and a couple of accurate punches opened up cuts above both of his eyes. Blood started to spray out of the ring onto spectators in the front row. Prince Charles, Queen Elizabeth, and madam President, who ever she was, were covered in blood. Morris was amazed that such notables attended the fight, it was a fine tribute to him and he thought this round was the best he'd ever fought.
He gave the Welshman a head butt and the referee let him get away with it. It split his opponent's skull wide open and skin and bones began to fall away. Then he threw an elbow at his opponent's jaw, the referee, again, missed the illegal shot. The jaw split in two and his teeth scattered across the ring floor. His face, all the skin and bone, melted away and Morris was looking at his opponent's exposed brain with both eyes dangling in front of him, pleading with him not to throw a punch to the head again.. He gave the Welshman a break, he didn't. He gave him a couple of body shops instead and then he heard the bell, the seventh round was over.
He staggered back to his corner and was surprised to see Jerry throw a towel into the middle of the ring.
"What's wrong?" he asked when he sat down on his stool. "I was great out there. The best round of my career."
"Are you nuts," Jerry said, "That guy just kicked your ass. I'm surprised you were able to make it back here. It's over Morris. We've had a good run but you can't do it anymore."
As reality sunk in, it didn't surprise Morris that it was all over for him. He was just pissed that it happened in Cardiff. None of his fans, if he had any left, would know about the loss to the Welshman He despised Wales and its wet weather The few days he'd been here before the fight had made him really uncomfortable and he wondered if that contributed to his loss.
A lot had happened since he started his career and in his younger days he was known as the "punching Pollack." He would have preferred to be called the "punching Pole," but a New York boxing writer, in an article about the future of the sport, tagged him with the nickname. Nobody seemed to complain but it made Morris Pulaski the butt of many Polish jokes throughout his career.

By Stephen Robertson
"The Bloody Mask"
Chapter 1

---------------------------------------

The Judas Goat

The goat was tethered to a tree,
bleating away, an anxious call.
that attracted the attention of a big cat.
A meal, he thought, and he ran
as fast as he could to capture
his prey. But he felt the ground
give way underneath his weight and
he fell into a pit, impaled on a wooden
stake. He felt like a a small sausage
on a sharp toothpick. Trapped,
he was no longer the hunter, he'd
become the hunted. His embarrassment
trumped his anger. How could he fall
for the old game, the Judas Goat?

A grinning man, at the edge of the pit,
stared down at the trapped big cat.
The cat heard him say -- "I've got
you now. I'm going to skin you
and hang your pelt in my hut."
As the man jumped into the pit,
brandishing a knife, the big cat
began to shed a tear. But, as the man
put his knife to his throat, he knew
he had one more chance. The big cat
turned his head and snapped the
mans hand off. He began to bleed
and, within minutes, he died, a good
last meal for a trapped big cat.

Stephen Robertson

BY
Reiss duPlessis

Oh boy, was I the accident of the ages, or what? Mama and daddy had begun to experience the problems that would eventually lead to their permanent separation. Indeed, there had been several separations and make ups. True to Catholic tradition, they were supposed to do everything to save their marriage. They tried. They were to save their marriage at all costs. They could not. There were, evidently, numerous separations and make-ups. They gave it their all. It was beyond repair... religion, children, love. They just could not live together.

Years later, Mama told me she did not want us to dislike Daddy as he was not a bad man but was “a foolish man.” He was a loving man who loved us with all the love at his command but love alone does not feed, clothe and educate children. It was not difficult for him to show his love. He hugged, kissed and held us close to his heart. We knew he always loved Mama. When Mama died, nineteen hundred miles and several lifetimes away from him, he told my brother, he had always hoped to be with her again but now, was looking forward to being together with her, one day, in heaven. Not if Mama’s wings can fly as fast as she could run!

With age and wisdom I learned the big differences were about priorities. Mama was ambitious for her children. She put a great emphasis on education, productivity and creativity. Daddy, I surmised, was only concerned about the basics... survive and let nature and a cold beer take its course. Education meant little to him. Social issues were not on his agenda. Dare I suggest Daddy was a county boy, who did not share Mama’s sophistication? But, I digress! We’ll talk about this at a later writing.

During one of the make-ups, I was born. Babies, we are told, are blessings, gifts from God and great treasures, especially when they are beautiful babies. I was the most beautiful of babies.. I know. All of Mama’s friends told me I was! Sadly, the song Mama sang applied, “You must have been a beautiful baby, but baby, look at you now.” Well... maybe not exactly how the composer meant it but, somehow, it applied! The ladies told me that too. “You were such a beautiful baby, what happened?”

Times were tough. The world was tough. Daddy was not reliable and Mama now had a fifth child for whom she had total responsibility. Eventually, Daddy was gone... again. We were alone. Mama took the reins and she made a life for us. I never missed having daddy in the house, never missed having a father around the way other kids did. I had Mama. She did it all. She was Mama, she was daddy, she was friend, she was council, she was everything. Life was the way it was and it was good.

I came into the world at the perfect time...for me! I knew nothing about the difficulties. I had Mama, four loving siblings, a host of cousins, aunts, uncles and relatives, all of whom loved me. I was the youngest of a large generation and was pampered accordingly. Like Teflon, I was a good and happy accident!

by
Reiss duPlessis

“Oh mon dieu, the veil ! The bebe has the veil !” Her cry pierced the soggy New Orleans summer air... air that forced labored breaths from the patient, the midwife and her assistant, the grandmother to the new-born. The old midwife almost forgot to finish the task at hand. She lifted her eyes to the sky as she prayed a wordless prayer. Seconds later, her pantomime to the deity over, she remembered the job that demanded her full attention and, once again, was the professional, the commander, the director in this drama. “Cher, hold the bebe, s’il vous plait!”

“My God, what’s wrong, is there something wrong with my baby?” The question required more energy than Inès’ weakened voice had to spend. The question, however, was the new mother’s line and was vital to the plot. It had to be delivered with full force to keep the story real. This is real, isn’t it? “Is it OK? Please tell me! Is anything wrong?”

“Ma Cher, the bebe is fine. It’s a beautiful girl. She will be jolie ... like her mama, maybe prettier but, Cher, she has the veil. Do you realize what that means?”

“ Madame Ferrier! Is it a problem? Should we call Doctor LeBlanc? What’s the veil?”

“The child has the veil over her eyes. Regardez, can you see it? That means she will have special powers. She will have pressentiment. She will know things before they happen. It’s a blessing and a curse. She will require close care and watching as she grows up because she will not, until she is older, understand. Sometimes, it is frightening to a child...and to the family. We will discuss it later after you have rested and are back to yourself. Right now, I want you to rest. The bebe is perfect. It has all of its fingers and toes and, Mon Dieu, she has more hair than any bebe I’ve seen since I delivered you twenty three years ago! Now, rest, Ma Cher.”

Inès tilts her head to one side and smiles. Smiles, however, are replaced by lines of concern across her brow whenever she remembers that morning. Today, as she watches five year old Élise strum the strings of the harp, her reverie focuses on Madame Ferrier’s words and predictions. The harp sits in the center of “the round room,” It is never touched. Indeed, the room is rarely open. The harp had been Grandmere’s and she was the only person who ever played it, until now. The child is not hitting the strings or touching them inappropriately; she puts her little fingers between them and manages to get a sound that is not offensive. She is, it seems, caressing the instrument. It looks natural. Her mother smiles and does not call her away. Inès wonders, might this child learn to play the instrument her mother loved and played so beautifully?

The midwife’s warnings and excitement those five years ago were foremost in Inès’ thoughts as she listened to the sound from the old, out of tune harp. The old lady said the girl would have foreknowledge of things to come, especially bad things. She said people with that gift must listen to their feelings. They must not question or disobey them. Madame Ferrier talked about the child’s extraordinary beauty and there was no question, the old woman was right, the child is, indeed, beautiful. Her oval face has features that were designed and sculpted by a master carver. Her nose, for a child, is regal, her eyes flash green light when she smiles and, unlike the rest of the family, most of whom share red hair, her hair is black like the ravens in the morning sky . The child is not like anyone on her mother or father’s side of their large family. She is Élise. She is special.

Inès looked, lovingly, at her little girl sitting on the stool, stretching to reach the strings of the harp that towered over her. Inès’ thoughts wandered to another evening when Élise, only three years old, went to Grandmere, climbed onto her lap, put her head against her grandmother’s chest and cried. There was no reason for her tears but she cried, softly and with great sadness as she snuggled into her grandmother’s arms. “Why do you cry, Ma Cher? What’s wrong? Does something hurt?” No response, only the silent flow of tears. That night, Grandmere, a strong, seemingly, healthy, fifty nine year old woman, went to sleep and never woke up again. Doctor LeBlanc had no explanation.

Inès tried to keep her mind on today, on this child who was a perpetual wonder. She never knew what her daughter might do to surprise her or the family. This new interest in the harp was one that, for some reason, did not surprise Inès. Élise seemed to have a musical sense. When the child hummed little melodies, they were strangely beautiful with simple yet intriguing melodic changes. Maybe we should contact Monsieur Arceneaux and talk to him about music lessons for the child.

“Mama, will the man be able to teach me to play pretty songs on the harp?”

Inès looked in wonder at the child who was now walking away from the harp and toward her. I, she thought, did not tell her about the music teacher. How did she know about my idea? “ Élise, how did you.... oh never mind sweetheart, I will talk to him tomorrow.”

“Today, my sweet Élise, is a very special day, you are sixteen years old. You are a young woman. You must think about marriage, a good husband, beautiful children and a good life.”

“Ma mere, I don’t want to get married. I want to go to school. May I, please continue with school? I want to study music in France. I know I can be a great harpist. I know it!”

Never able to argue with Élise, Inès agreed to discuss it later. Today was for celebrating. Élise is sixteen and ready for her debut into society. There is so much to do..the gown, the escort, the.....

The season is upon us. Young women of her status must be formally introduced at the right ball, by the right club and she must make a favorable impression. This is the most important season of her life thus far.

The work on the gown began long before the club announced its debutant list, before an escort was selected and before the season had begun. It would take months to complete. The beading, alone, all done by hand, was a major chore. The dress must be perfect. It must be elegant, beautiful and have just the right flair. If cannot be overdone yet it must be regal. There was no question: Élise would be chosen the queen of her ball. None of the other young debutants could compete with her beauty, her grace, her intelligence, her musical talent or her family connections. Inès knows it, the other young women in their social circle know it and, though she could not express or admit it, Élise knows it. She is the beauty of her generation.

“Ma Mere, the dress is starting to look beautiful. It will be perfect!”

“It has to be, ma petite, it will introduce you to society as you should be. You have the family and your friends at your feet, my sweet but, after your debut, you will have the world! Élise, we must discuss your escort. Maybe Madame Metoyer’s son, Charles? Or, Louis Dupre would be suitable. Any of the young gentlemen in the parish would be honored to be your escort, but, my dear, you don’t show any interest in any of them. They should be calling... all of them.”

“Ma Mere, it does not matter. You choose one. I don’t want to marry any of them. I will find my husband when I am in Paris. I know he is there waiting for me.”

“Élise! Élise! Wake up, dear, we have so much to do before the ball tonight. I can’t believe it’s here! It was only yesterday that Madame Ferrier put you in my arms and told me you would be special. Bless her soul, she was so wise! Get up my sweet, we must get busy.”

The day is filled with preparation. First, her hair is washed, rinsed in Marie’s secret formula, rolled onto into large rollers and left to dry. The dress has been inspected by everyone in the family. It’s perfect. The shoes, the little beaded handbag, everything is in order. There is nothing to do but wait. Robert is scheduled to arrive at 7:30 to escort her. Everything is perfect.

“Élise! Miss Louise and Miss Thelma are here to help you dress. It’s time, sweetheart.”

“Jolie!! Oh mon dieu, she is so beautiful! The dress could not be better. It fits perfectly and the beading... Oh, mon dieu, it’s beautiful!”

“ Let’s make sure her hair falls perfectly around her shoulders and is just right for the crown when they chose her Queen of the Ball! Her hair must be right for the crown!”

The ladies, pleased with their work, step back and stare. She is more beautiful than any girl in recent history in their little corner of the world. She is a queen!

“Bless her soul. I hope Madame Ferrier is looking down from heaven seeing you today. You are exactly what she predicted the day you were born. May she rest in peace.”

“Robert is here! He is right on time. Wait. Take your time to make your entrance. Let him settle down before you walk into the parlour. He must be stunned by your beauty.”

Everyone in the room looks toward the double doors as they are opened and there she stands. Élise. The vision of perfection. She is like a fine portrait, a great work of art. She is, indeed, breathtaking. Inès cannot control the tears that flow, freely, down her face.

Élise steps forward, smiles and offers her hand to Robert who leads her toward the center of the room. With a motion that instantly stops the action, she draws her hand back, spins around, the gown causing a massive white cloud around her, and runs from the room. “I’m not going! I can’t! I’m not going!” The doors closes behind her.

Her body trembling, Inès cries like she has never cried before. Her life is over. “Why? Why would the child do this? Everything is perfect. She is gorgeous! Why? I’ll never be able to show my face in public again.”

Inès rocks the young woman in her arms as they both cry for what seems an eternity. No words are spoken. “Inès Inès!! Come. Come quickly, Chere! Camille LeBaud is here! She says there was a terrible accident on the way to the ball. The car, the car that Robert and the other young people were in went into the bayou!”

“Oh, Mon Dieu, what happened, Camille? Are those young people OK?”

“I heard the car went off the bridge and into the water! They are trying to get them out but they might all be dead. Oh God!”

Inès slumped against the wall to avoid falling to the floor! “ Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! Élise... my Élise would have been in that car if she had not refused to go!”

REFLECTIONS
A Literary Anthology
SPRING 2008

An online publication from Emeritus Institute at Saddleback College

Stories and poems selected by a panel of judges from hundreds posted on the Saddleback Emeritus Writing Program Blog

Mary Jane Roberts, editor
Website by Valerie Senior, Saddleback College

Copyright June, 2008
Saddleback College 28000 Marguerite Pkwy., Mission Viejo, CA 92692
To become a part of this writing community, enroll in one of the online classes offered by Saddleback College. You can retrieve an application online at
www.saddleback.edu/AP/emeritus
Print out and complete the application in ink, then mail to the address on the application. Enroll in either of the following classes:
Non-Fiction Writing (Ticket #25110)
Introduction to Creative Writing (Ticket # 25105)


Table of Contents

Stretchin’ the Rope Katleen Whitson
Encounter: The Boulder and The Coyote Karin Cordry
The End Cynthia Bahti
Werline’s Reiss DuPlessis
The Mourning Dove Carolyn Cummings
A Fine Line Diane Marcus
Courage Nancy Morse
Mindoro Invasion Dave Blodgett



Stretchin’ the Rope
by
Kathleen Whitson

Junior and John were admiring the job. Perfect, just perfect. The rope was dripping slightly along the taught length of it, from the corral post where it was tied on one end to where the other end was lashed, firmly, around the front bumper of the pickup truck.

Stretchin’ a rope just right was a tricky thing to do and it had taken nearly an hour, with one testing the rope and the other backing the truck up, inch at a time to get to that perfect point. A job well done.

Junior spoke, “Yep, that’s as good as I ever seen it done. Give it twenty-four hours to dry and that rope will be just right; strong enough to stop a bull and loose enough to make a good heelin’ loop. We’re gonna get us some headin’ and heelin’ money at the rodeo next weekend.”

John, always a man of few words, nodded. “Yep.”

Junior continued, “Boy, am I glad the boss went to Denver yesterday. I don’t know how the hell he does it, but he can find more work on Saturday than any other day of the week. I never could have done this rope, if he hadn’t taken off. This way I don’t have to move the pickup ‘til tomorrow.”

From John came a nod of understanding, as he took off his hat and slapped it against his leg, and then settled it back on his head. “Old Dick woulda found something that had to be done usin’ that truck, for sure.”

Just then, Junior’s wife, Mary, came out onto the porch of the Spring House, so named because of the small clear stream trickling out of the small hill to the south of it, and, shading her eyes with her hand, looked down toward the corral. “Junior,” she called, “where’s Jeff?”

“I thought he came back up to the house a good half-hour ago,” he called back.

“No, he’s with you.”

Both Junior and John automatically looked around. Nope. No kid here: just them, the pickup, and the rope.

“Hell, woman,” Jeff shouted, “don’t bother me with this crap. Get off your ass and look around the house. He’s prob’ly back in his room.”

Mary turned back into the house, as Jeff continued to complain bitterly, “Hell, I get one damned day a week that I can do what I want, and she sends the kid out here to bug me. You saw him go back to the house, didn’t you?”

John had to think back on that one for a minute, “Nooo, I don’t think so. He was out here when we tied to the post. Remember, you told him to stay out of the way. And, he was out here when we started stretchin’ the rope, ‘cause you told him to stay the hell out from behind the truck. But, I didn’t watch where he went from there.

Both of the men glanced around again, but they didn’t move.

Suddenly, Mary came bursting through the door of the house. She was walking like a hog goin’ to war, and both of the men backed up, nervously. Mary on a tear was definitely something to be avoided. She was talking before she reached them, and none of what was coming out of her mouth was complimentary. “Listen, you stupid bastards, you had a three year old kid out here with you. Wasn’t either of you watchin’ him?”

John looked at Junior, who looked back, pleadingly. John spoke up, “Well, now, Mary, we was kinda watchin’ him and stretchin’ this here rope, and, well....” His feet shuffled, nervously, in the dust. “We sort of got busy. We both thought he’d gone back to the house. Honest.”

She gave the two of them a look that would peel paint. “Well, now that you’ve lost him, you’d damned well better help find him.” She waved a hand toward the gathering of outbuildings, holding pens, and corrals, “Get your asses out there and look.”

They all moved away from the truck and the rope, each going in a different direction. Moments later, John and Junior heard Mary cry out. They ran back in the direction of the truck and reached it just as Mary came around the corner of the barn with a small body hanging, limply, in her arms. They all reached the truck at the same time.

“What happened?” This was Junior speaking, a look, both concerned and irritated, crossing his face.

Mary’s voice was shaking, slightly, “I think he tried to climb up on Old Dun. Jeff must have been standing by the fence and he probably thought he could slide from the top of the fence over onto his back. Old Dun was still standing there and Jeff was lying between him and the fence. Feel the back of his head,” she offered the small body in evidence, “and, look, his eyes are open a little and rolled back in his head. We’ve got to get him to a doctor.”

Saying this, she started to open the pickup door.

“Wait,” the two men said in unison.

“What the hell for?”

Junior gave her pained look, “We can’t move the pickup. I’m stretchin’ my rope. I told you I was gonna stretch my rope today. We can’t loosen it up for hours, yet, or it’ll be ruined.”

Mary’s angular face took on a red hue, as she moved up closer to the two men, and her voice had dropped to a feral snarl. “Listen to me, you miserable son-of-a-bitch, if anything happens to this kid, your rope ain’t gonna be the only thing around here that ‘s ruined. I’ll turn you from a bull into a steer, by god. Now get that rope off that damned truck, and let’s get movin’!”

Junior looked terrified, but determined to hold the line against this blatant disregard for a vital piece of a cowboy’s equipment.

John turned to Mary, and, in a flash of brilliance, said, “I think the doctors say you should keep him warm. Why don’t you take him up to the house and wrap him and, we’ll be right there.”

Mary looked down at the white face of the child in her arms and said, “You’re right. He’s as cold as ice. I’ll meet you at the door.” With that, she started for the house.

She had no more than turned away, when John slapped Junior on the shoulder and said, “The boss’ car.” Then he placed a hand on the top bar and leaped over the corral fence near them, and, running across the corral, did the same to the opposite fence. Two seconds later, he came around the corner of the barn on Old Dun, riding him bareback and guiding him with nothing but his hands in the horse’s mane. He took the straight route to the boss’ house, no more than a quarter of a mile away, going over a couple of irrigation ditches and a fence, and, as Mary walked out the door of the house, Junior could see John coming up the lane in the boss’ Caddy and turning into their yard.

Junior stood by the rope as she came down off the steps, and, transferring the boy, so she could hold him in one arm as she opened the car door, she looked across the distance between them. It was only a second, but it seemed like a year before she got into the seat beside John, closed the door, and settled the child in her arms. She turned her face away from Junior as the car moved toward him for a few yards, then made the wide swing that would take it out of the gate and on to the hospital.

Within the year Mary and Junior were expecting a second child and John's wife had divorced him, unwilling to live with a man who valued a fine rope more than a child's life.


Encounter:
The Boulder and The Coyote
by
Karin Cordry

Our tent is pitched in a clutch of giant boulders. It lays in their black coldness but the slowly lightening horizon lures me out of the tent. The morning world is pale—an expanse of bluish sky melding seamlessly with the desert plane. Here and there Joshua trees still sleep in silhouette and desert plants hunker low. My stocking feet only slightly disturb the gritty sand as I walk to a boulder that promises a perch and wider view. Atop, I hug knees to chest and match the boulder shape with mine. The quietness, the cool purity of light is strange and exciting, and my ears, eyes, nose all strain to become familiar. I gaze unfocused into the desert and abandon time. I feel myself melting into the rocks, the changing shapes of shadows, the imperceptible change of colors. I want to stay in this altered state forever but know immobility is not my nature.

A light, rhythmic sound intrudes the primal silence from the left. Being a boulder now, I do not turn. I hear motion and listen with focused concentration to the steady rhythmic tff, tff, tff of rubbing sand. I let only my eyes turn as the sound becomes more distinct. A desert-colored animal that must be a coyote calmly ambles along on its own trajectory, past my boulder. I am filled with happiness that by ignoring me, this prince of nature accepts me into this Garden of Eden just as he accepts the Joshua tree, the lizards, the boulders. I hear the tff, tff,tff, of paws on sand for a long time as it fades slowly back into barely audible and then into silence.

I sit there forever, so it seems, but of course it isn't very long before the sun turns up the heat and the stage set changes again. The children wake and are hungry, then want to go rock-climbing. As for me, my DNA is permanently changed; I am now part coyote and part boulder.





THE END
by
Cynthia Bahti

In my mind, I have died
more times than I can count:
I've been poisoned with arsenic,
disemboweled by machetes,
shot, suffocated, tarred and feathered;

I've had my limbs ripped apart
by rabid dogs, been eaten alive
by alligators and bears with
vultures feasting on my insides;
I've been drowned in a raging river.

I've been hanged from a tree,
set on fire with gasoline,
been choked to death,
my windpipe snapped in two;
and I've been whipped to a bloody pulp.

I've been thrown off a cliff
and thrown under a train,
trapped in a burning building
and left to freeze in the aftermath
of an avalanche.

I've been stripped naked
and left in the desert sun
for my bones to turn to dust,
and I've been ravaged by
every imaginable disease;

But I have never ever died
by such brutality or in such pain
as when you whispered
those two words to me,
"It's over."


Werline’s
by
Reiss DuPlessis

Daddy is not sure what to make of this walk through the large store with pianos lined up and down the long aisles. It’s one of our Saturdays when he comes to take me to visit his family on Decatur Street just east of the French Quarter. Today is different. I insist on a detour to Werline’s and here we are.

On our regular Saturday visits, Daddy often buys little things for me. It’s not important what he buys but, it is important that he does. A few weeks ago it was a watercolor set I spotted in the store on Esplanade Avenue. Last week, he bought a football I “had to have.” It is now routine, I expect something, anything, as long as Daddy buys it for me. I learned, very early on, he had a very difficult time saying no, especially if I was persistent enough. Most of the things he buys are inexpensive as he usually mumbles his favorite song, “Daddy’s broke. Money is tight right now.” That is not a song I understand or want to learn. He’s my daddy. He’s not home to buy the big things. Mama does that. I see no reason he can’t buy things for me when I spend time with him. Mama thinks it not very nice that I beg, pester and bribe him that way. She, you see, is resigned to making it on her own and is determined to give her kids the necessities without begging him. I, on the other hand, am old enough, aware enough and willing to get whatever I can from him. He’s my daddy and that’s the least he can do.

While hugging him when he arrives, I always look at his watch, a ring he might be wearing or his newest jacket and decide which one should be mine. In due time, they usually are. Mama says I have no shame. I agree. At eleven years old, I have his number.

“May I help you?” The Werline gentleman walks up smiling the smile salesmen the world over master if they are to be successful. Daddy, responds, “Non, Merci.”

“Yes, you may. This is my daddy and he’s going to buy that piano over there for me.”

“Ah, very nice. Great choice. Have you played it yet?”


“Yes, I have. yesterday.”

“Ah, yes. You were here with some other young people.”

“Un Hunnh.”

Daddy is not smiling. “Mais non, Book-a book, Daddy can’t buy that!”

“Yes, you can. Talk to this man.”

On cue, the salesman looks at Daddy and smiles, “Monsieur,” and ever so graciously, leads him toward the piano. More of that smile.

Great! This guy knows his stuff. He knows exactly how to approach Daddy.

Confident the fate of my piano is in perfect hands, I decide it’s best to disappear from the discussion. My part is done. I watch the Werline man put his arm around Daddy’s shoulder as he starts his pitch. Every metronome in the store is timed by his patter. Wow, that man can talk and he can talk to Daddy in French. My deal is on its way. I wander to the sheet music department where I can watch the drama. I look at new arrivals with one eye as I watch the struggle between Daddy and the salesman. Daddy wants, no, needs to get out of here. The salesman smells a sale. I envision that piano in my room. I see Daddy look, pleadingly, in my direction, but I can’t acknowledge seeing him. I’m busy studying a piece of music I’ve taken from the shelf. Poor Daddy. He’s trapped. The man is talking, Daddy is squirming. I’m singing, “I’m Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover….”

Ah ha! The man is leading Daddy to a desk at the rear of the store. Stay calm. Don’t barge in. Don’t ruin it. That salesman knows his job.
“....That I overlooked before.”
Daddy can’t seem to get away. The man is smiling. He’s pulled a chair out and Daddy is resisting but he’s sitting. He’s sitting!
“...One leaf is sunshine, the second is rain. Third is the roses that grow in the lane.”

He’s showing some papers to Daddy. Daddy looks stricken. His face is red. His eyes are darting all around. The man has the papers in front of Daddy and he’s going over them very carefully, line by line. Daddy is sagging into the chair.
“No need explaining, the one remaining is somebody I adore.”

The man has a pen in his hand. Daddy has taken it. He’s signing the paper.
“I'm looking over a four-leaf clover that I overlooked before.”

Mama’s expression is one I’ve never seen before when I announce as I walk into the kitchen, “The new piano Daddy bought for me will be delivered on Tuesday.”

The Mourning Dove
by
Carolyn Cummings

She was sitting less than five feet away from my open kitchen window. A speckled brown and grey mourning dove was eating the lemon basil plant in my window box. I spoke calmly to her. She stopped eating and looked in my direction, unafraid of my voice. I asked her about her family.

“Any eggs in the nest? Where’s your mate today? You like the flavor of basil?”

She bit off another leaf, her eyes focused on me as she chewed the tiny leaves. Was that her way of answering me with an affirmative? I imagined an egg-filled nest somewhere. Perhaps her mate was protectively watching us. It looked like she hesitated a moment before lifting her wings and flying away from the window. I wished her a good day, a life-long mate and a nest of healthy babies. And I said a quiet “Thank you.”

And I was reminded of my mother.

The entire time that the dove and I were conversing I felt my mother’s closeness. Mom loved birds. She knew about many species and their habits, what their eggs and nests looked like; she could even imitate their songs. Her favorite birds were cardinals and mourning doves.

Her favorite birds made their presence known on a May morning nine years ago, the day my mother died. First, my sister noticed them as she removed my mother’s earthly possessions from the Alzheimer’s wing of the nursing home, my mother’s last address on earth. As my sister carried each load to her car, a bright red cardinal sat near the door singing his song. After the cardinal sang, a mourning dove echoed from a distance. This was repeated with each load that she carried out the door. Almost as if they had rehearsed it.

My brother recalled hearing an unusually large chorus of mourning doves that morning, as he approached our Dad’s home, to tell him about Mother’s physical death.

I was two thousand miles from my family when I got the call in the pre-dawn hours. I began making flight arrangements. I spoke with every member of my immediate family that day several times. My sister and brother shared their stories with me. I felt strangely alone and far from my family. As I prepared to take my daily walk that day, I secretly hoped that God would give me a sign, too, something to help me feel close to family, and close to nature.

I had never seen or heard doves along my usual walking path. But that day was different. I could hardly believe my eyes and ears. From roof tops, in trees, and on the telephone lines, mourning doves serenaded me. I stopped. Still unbelieving, I listened to their soothing song and said a quiet, “Thank you.” I no longer felt alone.

After Mom’s funeral, my sister and I stayed with Dad for a couple of weeks. To continue our daily walking routine, we walked to the cemetery, about a mile away. As we made the journey, we noticed a bright red cardinal playfully darting from tree to tree along the route. Looking like a young bird who was trying out his wings for the first time, he accompanied us every day. Was he on a mission, to remind us of our mother’s protective presence, her new life free of disease, and God’s peace? Without a doubt.

I looked for the dove to return to my window box. She did not return that day. Perhaps she will come again to eat the basil. Perhaps her mission is finished. She took me back to a fragile time when God’s messages came to us in the form of birds, the doves that serenaded me that day on the walking path, nine years ago. Their mission was complete with that one performance. They sang just for me…….one time only.


A Fine Line
by
Diane Marcus

The Santa Monica pier was alive with parents and children. People, young and old, speaking in all languages; Chinese; Hebrew, Spanish, German and English were taking advantage of this bright and balmy day in June. The air was clear, the sky was blue and the sun reflected on the ocean like white crystal stars dancing on top of the surface. I breathed in the salty air and let the breeze play around my face, my neck and arms reaching beneath the sleeves of my blue cotton blouse cooling my skin. I was so mesmerized that I felt as though I had blended with the sea, wind and surf. The seagull’s wings flitted in the wind while, in the background, the sounds of music coming from the merry-go-round and children’s laughter spread and seemed to rise above the people and then settle itself on the waves as they licked the shore oblivious to the sand castles being built by future artists.

And then I saw him, a very sad and frightened boy perhaps twenty-one or two. He walked toe to heel, his arms crossed tightly in front of him as he spoke to no one. Occasionally one arm would flail out in front of his face chasing whatever demon was after him. His clothes looked fresh and fairly new and it seemed clear to me that he had someone to care for him. When I saw his face, his eyes squinted and his head fell forward resting his chin on his neck. I recognized in his profile the high cheek bones and straight nose with the same birthmark just above his nostril. He has shoulder length brown hair with auburn streaks running through the thick waves and even the cowlick on top of his head is the same.

Is it possible that when you want something to be true you can create that reality? Could it be that all these years he hadn’t died but lost his memory? I felt myself spiraling inward as the outside world began to blur and all I could feel was my need to touch him. I began to follow behind keeping my pace the same as his, not wanting to startle him. He sped up and so did I. When he stopped and paused, I followed. Nothing seemed to matter except for me to reach out to him to take his hand and tell him to come home. I felt that I was about to cross over a very fine line that separated me from sanity when suddenly he twirled about and with an expression of terror, he shouted “Stop it! Stop it! Why are you following me?”

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “I wanted you to be someone else.”




Courage
by
Nancy Morse

In the months following my husband’s death, several people commented that it took courage for me to have him removed from the respirator. I didn’t understand. It seemed to me to be the only decision I could have made.

The massive stroke that sent Joel to intensive care just seven days earlier had caused brain damage. Then, three days later, he had heart and respiratory failure. He was resuscitated and placed on the respirator. He was in a coma.

I knew this was not the way Joel wanted to live. He would be first in line for the wheel chair races if it had been a physical disability, but he wouldn’t want to live without his cognitive abilities. And he would not want to spend his life tied to a machine. Joel had no legal papers, no living will, to guide me. But we had discussed it, and neither of us wanted to live totally disabled and dependent upon others.

Joel never came out of the coma and his vital signs deteriorated. The machine became the only thing keeping him alive. I asked it to be removed. It seemed to me to be a kindness to him to allow him to die.

I then became the object of hostility from Joel’s brother and several of his friends. One expressed the thought that I had killed Joel as I’d made his death final by removing the respirator. I will confess that a couple of times in my grief I wished he were on the machine in my living room where I could hug his comatose body. But those feelings were fleeting.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A year and a half after Joel’s death, a plane flew into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. A friend and her husband lived and worked in Los Angeles, but he frequently visited the Pentagon on business. I called. He was home and safe, but one of his Pentagon contacts was killed in the crash. A few weeks later she sent an email message saying her husband was in Washington, D.C. visiting the remaining people he worked with at the Pentagon. I emailed back that it took courage for her to allow him to fly there.

The next day, sitting at my desk, I viewed the list of new emails. One was from her. As I opened it, my back uncurled and I found myself sitting straight in my chair, feet on the floor, hands in my lap. Dark crept into my peripheral vision until all I could see was her message. I felt myself zooming away from the desk as though there were a large void between me and the computer screen.

Her message read: “No, it didn’t take courage, but it has preyed on my mind more than I had anticipated.”

Almost before I finished reading the sentence a voice came from behind me and through my chest and spoke to the message, as if it were me speaking. “Yes, it did take courage. It is the same courage it took me to remove Joel from the respirator. It is the courage of letting go.”

Immediately my world snapped back to normal. I spun around in my chair looking for that voice. What was it? Those weren’t my words. What did they mean? Shaken, I turned off the computer, picked up my purse and keys and left the house. I was uneasy being there.

As the day passed, those words rolled around in my thoughts. I hadn’t thought of “letting go” and “courage” as being related. I reflected on times in my past when I had held on and times when I had let go. There was the disastrous relationship that I stayed in many years too long, just holding on. Letting go of it required changes: new home, new job, etc. Yes, it had taken courage to let go. I like guns about as much as some people like snakes and spiders, so when Joel told me he wanted to be a reserve police officer I panicked. After much stewing, I realized that if I could let go of that fear, then there would be room in my life to let in his joy of being an officer. That too had taken courage.

And as the day passed, I relived that week in the hospital. I came to recognize that I did have another choice. I had just quickly made the decision and dismissed the one I didn’t choose. By the end of the day I understood the voice. It doesn’t take courage to hold on and control. It takes courage to let go. It takes courage to trust that what will be will be. It takes courage to have faith that when one lets go, a safety net will be there. I also understood that I had two choices. I had the choice of the known, of holding onto my comatose husband through the life support machine, or I had the choice of the unknown, of life without him.

Then I understood. It had taken courage for me to have my husband removed from the respirator. It was the courage of letting go.



Mindoro Invasion
by
Dave Blodgett



Oh, my God, this is it!

The Japanese suicide plane is zeroing in on me as I stand transfixed on the deck of LST 605 just forward of the bridge. Seven kamikazes are attacking three LSTs waiting their turn to hit the Mindoro Island beach on December 15, 1944.

LST 472 is ahead of us. A suicide plane plunges into its deck, sets it ablaze and sinks it.

LST 738 is astern. Another suicide plane crashes into her. LST 738 sinks.

Now it’s our turn.

The veteran gunners of the 605 pour fire into the diving plane. The PT boats surrounding us send up a withering wall of forty- and twenty-millimeter and fifty-caliber machine gun shells.

The plane is about to hit. Knowing I am near death, I stand paralyzed with fear. Too numb to even pray.

At the last second, the sheer weight of the anti-aircraft barrage flips the plane over, and it plunges into the sea just off the port side with a tremendous explosion that almost lifts the 328-foot, 4,000-ton ship out of the water.

Know you are the luckiest person on earth, saved from a crushing, flaming death 10,000 miles away from your beloved wife and seven-month-old son.

Rewind.
The Mindoro invasion armada lands 10,000 army troops and supplies on the morning of December 15 and as rapidly as possible pulls off the beach and returns to the relative safety of Leyte Island, 300 miles to the southeast where the invasion begins. All the troop transports and protective cruisers and destroyers disappear over the horizon. All but one—LST 605.

The instant the 605 slides up on the beach after her narrow escape and opens her bow doors, its 150 Navy passengers making up the base force of Motor Torpedo Boat Task Unit 70.1.4 trample over each other in a mad dash ashore to get as far away from the beached ship as possible.

I must organize a crew to unload the ship and let it return to Leyte, but I have no one to organize. All day long the ship’s exhausted crew works to remove 2,100 tons of cargo. All night the crew labors on. The next morning, still not completely unloaded, LST 605 is a lonely, sitting duck.

I post two seamen to guard the supply dump on the beach, jump into a jeep and drive off to select a site for our base camp. Seconds later I hear the roar of an enemy aircraft, look back and see a twin-engine “Sally” try to fly into the 605’s bow doors. Under heavy fire from the ship, the bomber crashes about fifty yards short of its target into a pile of fifty-five-gallon aviation gasoline drums, sending a sheet of flame over the ship’s bow, incinerating several crewmen manning the twenty-millimeter cannons. Thirty seconds ago I was standing with the two seamen—-thirty seconds separate me from another appointment with death.

As the “Sally” roars in, both seamen flop onto their bellies in the sand. A sheet of steel flies out of the cauldron of fire and scoops out the underbelly of Seaman Fuellhart. When Seaman Genaro sees the mutilated corpse of his buddy, he flips. Physically unscathed, Genaro is traumatized. When I see him several days later his black hair is snow white. One reads about such events in fiction and scoffs, but Genaro's hair is snow white.

The 605 finally empties her belly, slides off the beach and gets underway. Her crew has little respect for the 150-man base force of MTB Task Unit 70.1.4.

Recently, I search the Internet in vain for a 605 survivor, so I can apologize to its seven officers and 200 enlisted men for the rotten, cowardly way we behaved December 15, 1944.

LST 605’s crew was battle tested. I recall them screaming at the U.S.S Nashville to “for God’s sake shoot!” as a suicide plane smashes into the invasion fleet’s flagship on December 13 en route to Mindoro. The Nashville doesn’t fire a shot. The kamikaze and its two 500-pound bombs disable the light cruiser, killing 133 and wounding 199. The tragic event foreshadows daily kamikaze attacks—-the heaviest Japanese aerial counteroffensive of the war to that point. Not one ship in the second supply convoy to Mindoro gets through wave after wave of unremitting suicide plane attacks.

Our task unit of twenty-six PT boats suffers one-third casualties and wins a Navy Unit Commendation. I’ve got ribbons with battle stars and nightmares for several years after World War II. We lose one boat to a suicide plane and two boats to “friendly” fire from our destroyers who mistake seventy-eight-foot-long PT boats for twelve-foot Japanese suicide boats used to ram our ships at Luzon with TNT-loaded bows. My good friend Mike Haughian catches a “friendly” destroyer’s five-inch shell in the chest. We even the score by shooting down a Marine Corsair that makes the mistake of flying over Mangarin Bay immediately after a suicide plane lands on one of our boats. Our PTs shoot at anything that flies, including U. S. Navy PBY flying boats.

Even today I hate the sound of a loud, single-engine aircraft. It reminds me of the nightly visits of “Putt-putt Charley” and the eerie whooooshing sound of a “daisy-cutter” bomb dropping on a nearby random target and mowing down any object or person stupid enough to be standing up within two hundred yards.
As terrified as I am during daily attacks, nothing frightens me more during the Mindoro campaign than the certainty of death, as I stand petrified and trembling on the deck of LST 605 the morning of December 15, 1944.

Copyright June, 2008
Saddleback College 28000 Marguerite Pkwy., Mission Viejo, CA 92692
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Of Time and the Reunion by Marlene Hickey

“Time here moves so slowly and passes so quickly,” wrote Alice Walker in The Color Purple. I think of those words as I stand looking at the house where I spent most of my formative years and remember how often in those long-ago days I felt the time would never come when I could finally move away from this small town. I must have been placed here as a result of some great cosmic error, I reasoned then, for surely I was destined for greater things. But now more than fifty-five years have swept by since I lived here, and Denis and I have come back to Nebraska for my high school reunion. I gaze sadly at the once beautiful house that is now a rundown rental. I could never have imagined then that I would one day be staying in a motel in the town where I grew up, but everyone I loved is gone from here now.

The downtown is another shock. We walk up Broadway on a Saturday, and I remember how the farmers from all the surrounding towns came on this day to do their weekly shopping, see a movie, and have a meal in a restaurant. The streets bustled with excitement then, with busy people, laughing children, and honking cars. Of course, it wasn’t all laughter all the time. Sometimes by nine o’clock at night, weary women would stand on the sidewalk outside the local saloons waiting for their husbands to have just one more beer, sometimes sending in an older child to beseech Pop to please come out and drive them home.

Now the streets are almost deserted at 2:00 in the afternoon. The remaining shops, those not boarded up, are unfamiliar to me. Where are the old department stores, Montgomery Ward and Penney’s? What has happened to the movie theatres I remember, and the Eagle Café? How could Methodist Hospital have disappeared? Scottsbluff seems to be turning into a ghost town.

As we drive to the motel room we reserved by telephone months in advance, I discover the answer: two large shopping centers have broken out on the outskirts of town, anchored by a WalMart and the Super K. They have seduced most of the shoppers and excitement seekers, and forced the old downtown stores and the Mom and Pop establishments to close their doors forever. Another blow is struck against Smalltown, USA. Why do I sigh over the death of this town? I must remember that I never liked living here in the first place. I have come only to see my classmates. 176 of us graduated together. Of these, thirty-three have died. That’s not too bad a ratio for such a large class after so many years, but it is a tragedy for the thirty-three and for those who loved them.

At the Friday night reunion cookout, I find more surprises. The jocks and cheerleaders of yesterday are now indistinguishable from the rest of us, sporting more than a few extra pounds and a head of gray hair, or no hair, and most of all, a whole new attitude toward their erstwhile classmates. Now they are friendly and chummy, no longer the kings and queens of the world we all moved in during the halcyon days. Time and age are the great levelers. Those of us not in the enchanted circle in days of yore, find ourselves recipients of bear hugs and squeals of delight, as well as genuine interest in what the years have brought us.

I look at old school pictures and compare them with the people I see before me and with the face I see every day in the mirror. Where did we go? Where are those young fresh faces who smile so bravely from the photographs, and with such hope in their eyes? Between conversations, I sit in the warm picnic air and observe my friends from a distance. I think of all the absent ones who will never again attend a high school reunion, and of my best friend, Helen, whose life was snatched from her at the young age of forty-four.

I remember a scene from Jean Cocteau’s play Orpheus: When Orpheus asks Death if she always uses mirrors for her coming and going, Death replies, “Look in a mirror every day of your life, and you will see Death at her work.”

Somewhere I read that in a thinking person’s ideas about life and death, the riddle of time looms large, because it is the door behind which we find eternity. The yardsticks of our lives are clocks, calendars, and histories. Yet these measures have little to do with our real journey, through which we are led by memories of the past, the forgotten sounds and smells and buried emotions. Each time something wonderful happened to me in my life, I told myself that I would stop time and hold on to the precious, joy-filled moments, but they slipped through my fingers like the wind.

My favorite American author, Thomas Wolfe, weaves the theme of time throughout all his great works, his poetry masquerading as prose. He describes Time as a river that is:

. . . Full with the billion dark
and secret moments of our lives
It flows there. Filled with all the hope,
the madness, And the passion of our youth.
It flows by us . . . to the sea.

And he asks:

What is this dream of Time,
This strange and bitter miracle of living?
Is it the wind that drives the leaves
Down bare paths fleeing?
Is it the storm-wild flight of furious days
The storm-swift passing of the million faces,
All lost, forgotten, vanished as a dream?

On the third day we meet for brunch at a campground in the shadow of the purple hills that overlook the valley. The reunion is drawing to a close. We have enjoyed a formal dinner at the Country Club, and we have been treated to guided tours of our old high school and of our area’s only claim to fame, the Scottsbluff National Monument. Before the bus trip, I tell Denis that this particular landmark was named after an explorer named Scott who died at the foot of the bluff, so he is amused when the woman who is his seatmate, herself still a local resident, tells him in all seriousness her version of how the famous hill got its name. “Well,” she says, “there were these two guys. One was named Scott, the other was named Bluff . . .”

Faces glow with nostalgia, and e-mail addresses are exchanged during the lingering good-byes of the last hour. Some of us have more than a thousand miles to drive, while others are just minutes from their homes. We know that these few days of our coming together have been an affirmation of life, and we are parting stronger than when we came, with a new appreciation of what we have been given.
In his poem, Ulysses, Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote:

Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

The class of 1950 would agree. We have survived.